Guild Wars 2

@KaptainKa, Semms solid, you should consider have a backup set op weps for the 2 precision stackers. In pve you will wery fast gain 25 stacks and after that they give nothing extra. Battle, Fire, force are al good pve alternatives

/Osicat

@mginn, impressive. This is exactly how I want my guides to be used, not a copy and paste but a fundarion and inspiration for own experementing.

@kaptainka. Phantasm hybrid with sword focus or pistol and greatsword seems omptimal for pve.

/osicat

@Bovinity, Dw for ask. Its easy to look at the most recently added of my build and miss the fact the shatter cat guide have 5 different builds. Of this builds:

2 use Mental and focus on burs shatter dmg, Shatter cat original and S C Phantasm Hybrid

2 is more mobility and cooldown focused, S C Mist 2.0 and S C Heavy 2.0

1 is a pure group build for ranged combat S C Dmg&support

So infact I do use this trait, just kot for al my builds depending on what they created for. If al buids looked the same it would be hard to be flexible and fill al areas we operate in.

/Osicat

@Sutcliffe, Its basicly due to the fact I swap alot between builds, for this I often feel out a stats hole with the knight earring. As they do kitten expensive I cant atm have a backup set earrings, so what I do from most builds I use 4/5 accended accesorys with crit dmg. Could in theory win some stat points in swap the Gorilla for a zerker + 18hp and do a total swap of glowes, legs and boots. This would in the end thu drop my hp, buff my toughness and drop some crit dmg, I tryed some times but not fully happy with the stats. Also dont feel its worth the mess for change 1 gearpart.

Alot of this is due to the simple fact there is no pure valkyre accended gear, if you keep % dmg on al your accesorys you cant avoid see your hp drop as the best you can get is 18 from zerker/valk.

Personaly I hope accended armour get intruduced to make the mix a bit easier.

Ty for point it out thu

/Osicat

@NerdyMike, The dmg output between HEavy 2.0 and Mist 2.o is about same. Difference is not in dmg, its in mobility and incombat survival. Il explain:

Mist 20.0

Have 100% swiftness uptime, perfect for raoming.
Extreme incombat mobility.
A mesmer rogue build.
Base defense on high controll and incombat mobility, have ok passive defense.
Deal dmg in bursts, no real ramp up time.

Heavy 2.0

Have ~60% swiftness uptime, same incombat mobility as Mist thu.
Perfect for frontline combat, group combat or raidleading.
A mesmer warrior build
Wery good passive defense combined with the acctive defense from Mist
Deal dmg both in condition and burst, deal more dmg the longer the fight is due to might stacking.

So you do same dmg, just thakittens not Smal-smal-smal-HUGE-smal-medium-Huge, its more like Smal-smal-medium-big-medium-medium-big-medium.

So question is not:

Do I want to trade my dmg for survival?

Its more:

Do I want to trade some out of combat mobility for survival?

/Osicat

@Zumi, I generaly simply try to hug my target, also often I fight several enemys and feel the IE keep hit two enemys. Seems like the IE dont target shattered clones aswell (those sent as torpedos) so by constantly shatter you not only keep might high but also avoid unwanted buffs on clones. This is bad for pure condition spec, but for hybrid spec like S C Heavy 2.0 its not a worry in my opionon.

Important is that when you are in sword setup and swap to staff, before start generate clones in staff you hit shatter, as al reward effects and might its ok to send a serie of daze,s clones at him. Also you confusion do ok dmg in this setup.

/Osicat

Mean mean Pyro :P I would never kill ppl like that.

To op, What killing you here is not beeds, its the fact you get used as a chewing toy by a player who not only use a better build than you, he also play hes build better. I not often critizise ppls gameplay but you have room for improvment.

Thing is that perfectly played a phantasm mesmer is close to impossible to beat with anything else than phantasm mesmer, that is in 1 vs 1 duels NOTE THIS, for bigger fights there is not unbalanced thu. So for pve and bigger fights they need the bleeds, for 1 vs 1… well this is a sandbox element that we player created and its not realy relevant for game in big, neater to balance around.

If arena net have to chose between have 1 vs 1 sandbox sPvP balanced or TPvP 5 vs 5 I dont think they prioritice the 1 vs 1 duels.

/Osicat

Its ofc viable, but the defensive factor for toughness – viatlity when you already have 1600 tougness make vitality better. Also I noticed when testing this build out (I tested 8 different gearmixes and spent around 30g to get this build balanced) that fury seem to be up alot of the time, so crit chance seem to be solid.

Feel free to experement mate, I only pst what I feel for the moment (and after 3 weeks testing) is what i personaly beleve is best. I sure what work for me not have to be optimal for any other.

/Osicat

Enjoy the shatter cat heavy 2.0

new build added today after 3 weeks testing. Al info in my guide.

/Osicat

Big Update: 2013-06-03

- Updated intruduction and index
- Updated movies, deleted old
- Added the Raidleader and frontline combat spec Shatter Cat 2.0
- Added new video Shatter Cat Heavy 2.0 intruduction video

Enjoy.

PS, I do spend alot of time on this guide and keep it updated, would not be able to do this if it was not for al tips, mails, pm,s and wiseprs I get you you ppl. Ty alot for al feedback, keep it comming

Ty Zumi for help with spelling for shatter cat heavy 2.0

/Yours Osicat

Lol TDA you even find ways to do “HI Judge” In my guides, sneeky ppl sneek in

/Osicat

Will add a full update for Shatter Cat Heavy 2.0 tomorow evening, after 3 weeks of testing its ready.

/Osicat

Judge duo troll team say hi to Far Shiverpeaks ppl in top camp, y for a fantastic dance, the more the merrier idd <3

/Osicat

PS HI TDA!

PPS, any arbonstone ppl who want to do some sandbox pvp instead of point chase, organice some duels. I sure alot of Judge and other ppl up for it.

Hi

Want to send a little mesmer love to the wvwvw thiefs around. You make the small team roaming wery fun no matter if you in enemy team or friendly. The small team wvwvw would only be half as fun without you.

Adding my latest video wher I duo team with a guild thief.

/Osicat from the mesmer forums

@Rasterranger, In big groups I eather run Mist 2.0 with different utilitys or latley more and more the new shatter cat Heavy that I showed first look at in latest vid. Both is good in the way they help they team, you stay alive and can focus on stomps and take vounded targets down fast. A good stomp in mid raid give a rally to downed guildmates etc.

/Osicat

New spec, still experement

/Osicat

Hi

Been trying out different roaming duo setups, after test Guardian, engi, mesmer, ranger, thief and necro I think Thief and tanky mesmer might be the strongest possible setup.

What duo teams do you ppl use?

Lately been trying out a new build, wont give any more info about it than its a developed Shatter cat heavy build. Its wery experemental and have not encountered anyone with this setup before. Big direct and condition dmg, extreme survival and good mobility.

Enjoy

/Osicat

So make the swiftness 5 sec, 10 sec cd out of battle, Its not perma swifntess who is the main issue, its the fact mesmer are keyholed into 2 rune setups (Air and Centaur) to have reliable swiftness. We need to have another option aswell, this to make more different builds viable. A more open field of runes would make other builds pop up and this is what develop a class.

/Osicat

Overall decoys biggest part is the target drop so even if you get popped back a little premature you still got of target list.

Update

New guild movie. Some fun moments in there I running my zerg fighting build, as you see I dont take any dmg realy and with 60% less condition uptime I can ignore em most so the time. In first crach my main focus is to get null field time warp, chaos stomr and a temporal curtan down so not alot of numbers but as you se its wery effective as it give alot of combofields and keep your team alive.

/Osicat

Well my suggestion for signet of inspiration is a buff to the mobility for the skill, but atm the randomness of the skill make it wery lackluster in terms of passive. Any randomness in a skill open for the devil of fate to kitten you over. You in a open world chase situation, I bet my pants on the fact I will be guven regeneration with 100% hp.

Thing is for a swiftness skill to be effective it cant be random, this is why we atm have Rune of air or Centaur for wvwvw. To give us a option for effective swiftness out of runes would open for new builds and mindcrafting. And we would need to give something up, decoy blink and portal is my core setup atm for roaming, witch one would be worth swiftnes?

Random boons to mabye get swiftness is like if our dodge was random, Sometimes a dodge would roll forward, backwards and sometimes it would give regeneration or do a hard attack. It would be horrible.

/Osicat

Posted originaly in mesmer forums.

OK I wont do a long post with facts lined up. Instead I drop a suggestion that I think might be a solution for our swiftness situation for mesmers.

Atm Mesmers use Rune of Air or Centaur in wvwvw most of the time, this due to the lack of reliable swiftness, our other way is focus. This lock us down to a rather narrow gear setup.

My suggestion for how to open the mesmer class to a more experemental and interesting gear setup up without any big changes.

Let signet of inspiration apply the random boons in combat, out of combat it instead simply only give swiftness 10s. It already have this as a random option but random speed is not reliable and not usefull as a utility.

In combat = random boon like now http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Inspiration

Out of combat = swiftness 10 s prioriticed every 10 sec.

/Osicat

OK I wont do a long post with facts lined up. Instead I drop a suggestion that I think might be a solution for our swiftness situation for mesmers.

Atm we use rune of air or centaur in wvwvw most of the time, this for swiftness, our other way is focus. This lock us down to a rather narrow gear setup. Several good suggestions been up last weeks but I have one of my own who not would need alot of changing to the game.

Let signet of inspiration apply the random boons in combat, out of combat it instead simply only give swiftness 10s.

In combat = random boon like now http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Inspiration

Out of combat = swiftness 10 s prioriticed every 10 sec.

/Osicat

Traits, gear build al included in the shattercat guide, just click my sign link or go to top sticky thread in this forum. Shatter cat guide.

The build I use in linked vid as a suggestion is called * shatter cat mist*. For tPvP I recomend to change runes to condition upptime lovering runes. Melaru someting they called.

/Osicat

Enjoy.

Build in my guide.

/Osicat

@Its usualy good to start with tanky gear while learning, still the weps can and should be zerker as you later will want to have zerker weps and its expensive things. If your focus will be pve start to love the greatsword, if you will do more wvwvw start to love the staff.

/Osicat

Enjoy

/Osicat

K, for the sake of it, been testing a condition dmg hybrid aswell some latley for wvwvw. This is my version of condition pvp condition hybrid.

/Osicat

**Update**

Ok sharing what I been working on sens last patch, its a hybrid condition spec and version of Mist. Dmg gear is focused on direct dmg and the burst is heavy, survival is wery good.

Al condition dmg is based on synergy that benefit direct dmg. Sigils that are used stack might and I often have around 12 might, also bounce on staff are used.

Enjoy:

/Osicat

Tricare.2946:

That would be nice!

However, I’d see them messing something up and portal would only be half the distance it is now. Oh and only the mesmer can use it.

Same time mabye it would magicly fix iZerker

On serious note, yes a range and time indicator shuld be a obious add, cant understand why its not added yet.

/Osicat

Just add that I think this build is interesting and better balanced than alot of the new builds ppl posted in the forum last weeks. Glad to see somone who use synergices between traits and have a plan why he take x as it benfit y etc. Finaly somone who use dubble sword accualy trait it, same go for staff, fantastic trait aswell.

Is it pve or wvwvw btw? As previous poster said the fury is fantastic if You pve dmg set. If not and its wvwvw there are several viable options, a shatter setup would make 10 points in illusions interesting as it would let you reset shatters if you drop to 50% hp.

this would give you 5 points to spare who could be invested in chaos for 50 more toughness + 5% or your already wery high toughness as power. With high crit chance alreay and sharpening stones this would give rather good dps with wery good survival.

/Osicat

I Think your problem is that you value healing as you do. Mesmers can heal, especialy aoe in pve. BUT we far better set to simply avoid the dmg in first place.

By go for skill like “9% less dmg” “Illusionary persona + reset shtter @50% hp” “blink” “Decoy” “Veil” “Massinvis” “Sword cd 20% – (for more block and disorsion)”“staff cd 20%” “Portal” "Idefender (if you into phantasms) etc etc you be surviving beter + can invest in dmg.

When bursted and you suddenly go from 100%-50% in 1,5 sec it dont matter if you theoreticly heal more over 20 sec with 4 chased smal heals, you need hp instantly, you hit a immunity to not take more dmg, blink out and heal up and ready to fight and dont have to think about recharche a mantra in 8 sec, the heal cd itself.

/Osicat

PS ,Blink is far the strongest pve utility we have on the side of portal. It let you not only close gap, brake stun, avoid aoe dmg. It also can climb terrain. Chased by a zerg? blink up on a high ground that other need to run around to get.

This might sound strange but I find Sword Focus + staff to be a extrelmy good counter to GS. The knockdown + 6 sec cripple let me stay on target and staff let me use hes clones to phase retreat towards enemy. Tbh any pet class has a disadvantage vs staff as you with a little practice can blink towards him by mark a pet and then remark enemy.

/Osicat

@Rasterranger, I use Mist (taking on that numbers focus gets extremly effective to set stomps or interupt resses) or Phantasm hybrid for that setup. The hybrid if group need the dmg (vuln stacks is a tank killer). Heavy I mainly use when I solo versus a healer ranger or tanky d/d, i get range and drop combat, change wep and a trait and go in.

@Groon<, trick is to not use the ability purly for condi removal. Use it as a bonus, see a downed enemy in heat of battle, drop a iWarden on him, then a pull field and start the stomp, now you get new and old conditions cleared, ranged cant mess with the stomp and mele who attack you or try res (even if its a stealty thief) take heavy warden dmg. Same if 1 vs 1, drop a iwarden, move to him and drop a field, now you rather safe, when enemy close pull him to the warden + cripple and burst.

/Osicat

@Vinceftw, Its Crystal Castles – Affection Glad you like it.

@Artcules, No real nerfs exept confusion have hit us, its tbh stronger now than it was before december patch. Still the climate in wvwvw changed some and I have a feeling more mele fast moving buolds with high passive defense and direct dmg bursts is alot more effective now. I experementing with a alternative mix of Shatter Cat Heavy and Mist 2.0 atm with new sigils. EXTREMLY effective in group combat, might post a vid of it later on, wery high burst and bleeds tick for 78-80+ at same time.

/Osicat

D R U C K W E L L E, you got some good duelists in your guild, remeber fight a Guardian who made me work hard last time we matched up.

Ok. I try be as civil as possible. And I know in previous posts it said “dont judge a whole server after a few persons”. But @£$€ AM you are using exploting hackers. IN AM last 20 mins you have a team of ppl under floor in the bay. A zerg of 50+ mabye 70+ mixed guilds zerg to bay and start exploit in. Everyone stand nice and wait, NO SIEGE go down as you al know its not needed. Then you start hack in with exploit portals.

Im shamed to fight you in AM this evening, feel dirty to hold your badges and will try spend em on things i dont need and throw em away.

/Osicat of judge

PS Edited as I used unnesnesery strong words. I still thu stand for the exploit accusasions and the fact I dont feel the badged I won have any value.

In many ways correct xavi exept I dont thin the thief realy are fooled that it not is my clone but me who run around chasing a rabbit npc

/Osicat

At work now mate so cant see the whole vid, neather can I give a good oppinion without go deeper. I can thu give two smal insights.

First, the stats with mix of condition and direct dmg, interesting se new approach, worth a try for wvwvw especialy with might stacking sigils and trait.

Second, by go 25 points in dueling and invest 25 points in illusion and not take illusionary persona you give up the single best trait there is in game for a minor rather worthless trait and a few stats. My oppion here is thakittens a major misstake for a shatter build and only run it on half power.

Illusionary persona for shatter spec is not only a major dmg increase, its alos a instant interupt/controll on demand, its a free pass from death in many situation and our best defensive trait.

This is the “dude is this a bugg or did you realy want 25 in dueling and25 in illusion and not 20 dueling and 30 illusion” part

/Osicat

I seccond pyro her. Still, take into consideration the fact:

1 vs 1 duels is the one place they have a benefit of this strength. In 1 vs 1 random situations in wvwvw a shatter mesmer or other mobile class just move the fight around loooong distances neglecting the phantasm strength os simply avoid combat.

In spvp unless ist spoken duel any fight soon turn into x vs x and here phantasm again not have a op status.

1vs1 spvp duel maps dont fill any purpose other than fun social enviorment and entertaning, its player created and game not balanced around this setup.

/Osicat

@The Demonic Spirit, Not sure why you go for more hp on phantasms and phantasm dmg if you plan to shatter them, its not even a effective hybrid setup.

Healing. You invest both gearstats and traits in healing for a Pve build? You will never be in a situation where your dmg avoidance could not solve it and your normal healing would been enought.

PVT, Why you like to build power toughness and vitatlity for pve? This is not a good stat setup you can have. There is no real tanks in this game and if there was mesmers not the best ones. I see no reason to not use full berzerker stats after 1100 toughness and 16500~health, Ppl can even do fractals at higher lvl with magic find gear, and grinding aswell. Personaly I rather kill stuff fast than have magic find but tank gear I see no reason to go with pover toughnes healing vitality setup for grinding or dungeons.

/Osicat

Ty alot for good fights from Judge Roaming team.

/Osicat

@Kovah, Not sure If I would call the Mist 2.0 lacking of defensive stats. I run with 1600 toughness and 2 blinks, close to perma chaos storm/armour in combat 2 stealths and with some valkyre gear around 16000+ helath. Add illusionary persona 4 second immunity that aslo reset at 50% hp for another 4 sec immunity, + sword 2 sec immunity on shorter cd. Its also close to IMPOSSIBLE to lockdown due to the big amount of stnbrakers and blinks.

If you feel you need more passive survival the Shatter cat heavy lastes setup I use have 1700 toughness and same defensive build.

Of my 5 builds 3 are dps/berzerker the remaning 2 is close to dps tanks.

This is the build I have in mind, Add a 2nd chavalier ring to is and you at 1600+ toughness and still 96% crit dmg.

/Osicat

@Bretk, Hi. To play mesmer good you bet know not only our strength but also our weaknesses. One of our weaker sides is that our heavy use of active survival make us extremly exposed when ressing ppl. This force you if setting up a roamer team of mesmers to plan 2 things, if somon go down how will you res him? I usualy roam with a team of 1 thief, 1 engi 1 guardian and me, this let guardian res, engi provide groupd aoe and thief stealth if a res is needed.

4 mesmers you need to make sure you not go down easy, use staffs and s+ x alternative scepter/s + s/x (I prefere staff + s/x). Use tanky gear with burst capabilitys. chavalier, valkyre and knight + some berzerker. Also atleas 1 of you should use illusion of life. With 4 mesmers you dont need 4 mass invis, Stick with 2-3 and les 1 use Time warp, also… tbh its not bad idea to let 1 of you have a MOA, its cheesy but in a 4 vs 4 al 4 focus 1 target, moa him and nuke hes kitten off. This leav you in a advatage.

/Osicat

@Wrath, Its down to trating, gameplay and gear but mesmer correct setup is the one of the fastest classes in and out of combat in game, and in my opinion the absolute hardest to chase down. Still ofc, offered a free speedbost I would accept it, I think it would be op thu to add even more speed to mesmers.

I do thu think we a bit stuck with eather centaur or air runes. If they added passive speed to give other rune option it would have to be on the cost of something else.

Sword/sword staff insane mobility vid:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=plcp&v=H4Iz8XI_Jg4

Mist 2.0, Maximum speed and mobility spec

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a9wISv7079c&feature=plcp

/Osicat

@Lanny & Velimere, Yes I doing both portal, staff blink + blink stomp, tbh think I even succseded with a sword leap stomp after (!) clone wkittentered. A realy cool but only show off move is to open a stomp, portal out, se a thief teleport to side of portal then blink in on hes new position to stomp. Mesmers are fatastic

Reality thi is that in alot of those situations when If ight several oponents I save my cd,s and rather juts take the puchback and stomp after. This to have a stunbraker/teleport if I get thiefed.

/Osicat

@Kovah, before I start I want to note this*is my opinions*. Others might have other thoughts and i can only talk out of my experience.

If you want to do smal group/ even solo roaming with the build you wont find anything better than a staff as a core for the build. Also as you will move the battle and be flexible a shatter spec is the best. Latley I more and more used Shatter Cat Mist 2.0 both in smal group/solo and big fights, for big team vs zerg/big team is easy to swap decoy for a feedback and possible portal for a nullfield. Focus will always be a fantastic group tool and you can specialice in take softer targets down in the crowd and stomp for friendly rally,s.

Latets video I made is group combat but you find solo and build vids in my sticky thread.

/Osicat

Might be of interest, for wvwvw not always pure berzerker gear is the bets way to go. I nowdays use 1600+ toughness and feel my burst is realy strong. Chavalier gear help alot to get good defensive stats and good burst at same time.

Enjoy my latets video of group play, in tanky Mist spec:

/Osicat

@Raiz, Looked thru your build and it seem solid, personlay I prefere Shatter Cat heavy for frontline zerg combat with nullfield and feedback. This as I feel i buff and help the mele team around me.

Would be great if you could get a video of you runinng the build tbh.

@PandaBear, Ty alot. Good with ppl who like to spend their time help new players out. 2 thubs up.

/Osicat

Just saw that video.

I understand your frustration, but this is alot due to the fact you run a phantasm spec in wvwvw. This kind of builds demands your opponent to stay and fight, if they stay they die and this is prime reason its close to op in Duels, especialy spvp? duels. In wvwvw shatters have a big advantage as its a lot more mobile spec.

A phantasm spec to be fully effective need to have phantasm spawned and on emey, if enemy move to a distance or even terrain kite the phantasms the spec get less effective.

Notive in this fight 1:35 how the ranger try to kite but fial due to the fact the mesmer have superior mobility.

/Osicat