Guild Wars 2

Windwalker.7421:

Nicely put RedCobra, and I agree it’s disingenuous to call something cheese that was basically the whole intent of the changes that led to the PU build becoming popular. They buffed the bajeebus out of both Scepter and PU across 2 patches, and then wonder why everyone is flocking to it? Very odd.

I know, I know, their focus is on the clone-death traits now, but we’ve had those verbatim for a LONG time, and only now they discovered they’re “cheese” and OPd?

Please! Everyone considered them quite under-powered until PU/Condie builds came along, which again was hardly a coincidence based on the buffs it received.

I will say though that you’re wrong about whiny kids not complaining if you beat them with a different build. I’ve been playing a tanky mantra/shatter build that I posted in another thread, and I’ve gotten plenty of kids complaining about losing. Usually thieves of course. /boggle

People just hate Mesmers in general and most of all they hate to lose, and are always quick to assume it’s not a skill issue, but a balance issue! ;-)

yeah i think youre right about the whining point, as i mentioned before i changed my wep sets to be a more visual melee in your face mesmer (the complete opposite to PU) and i still got OP complaints, i think the main issue is that its too complicated compared to warriors so they think that if they cant do it it must be some OP build

Ross Biddle.2367:

Jaydos.4751:

I have been running a shatter Mesmer for sometime now. Don’t get me wrong I really Enjoy the build it would be one of my favorite Mesmer builds. However I do have some complaints about it. Especially about the Skill Illusionary Leap. A shatter Mesmer Relies On this skill in order for Their Shatter to hit, but the skill is way to buggy and will miss 70% on a moving target, and if you are lucky enough to hit. There is a short window of time when the player is immobilized they are able to still dodge roll being immobilized just out of range. I find it really annoying that the only non Cheese/OP mesmer build is severely Unreliable. Making it even more difficult to run.

You know, for a while there everyone was calling shatter cheese, for it’s raw high burst dps one button auto win.

People who talk about things as ‘cheese’ reflect a degree of ignorance, and make themselves appear silly and childish (ala the Devs in the livestream), no offense intended. Your argument would be stronger without it.

exactly its just the whatever the latest build to insult is or blame their own lack of skill, its a little unfair against the Power PU mesmers that have been running it since start, recently ive been receiving that much grief that ive pulled more into defence in zergs as opposed to PU just to show that all those (You beat me because your using an OP build) people can be beaten with a different build, people who are used to Power PU id recommend trying out your exact same build but replace your GS with Sceptre/offhand sword, the defence allows for more face to face combat and your guaranteed not to get whiny kids complaining, apart from one i got last night explaining that i was hacking by getting too many blocks from sceptre/sword +mimic xD

Ran in Spvp with a few friends last night against all types of thieves, i have to say that this build is absolutely delicious xD it feels so safe against them with the counters, and i took your advice hihey with taking the GS it works like a charm just to switch for that one knockback skill, i tested this build against some other classes and the one that it was terrible against was another mesmer, the fact that the enemies clones proc your blocks is bad but something is worse with the counters, if a clone procs your counter from your off-hand sword the dps will hit the clone, NOT your target, this severly reduces dps against classes and in group situations (after testing in WvW) it works like a charm it can be quite frustrating trying to focus dps onto a single target, so i think im just going to keep this build specifically for killing thieves :P

Godmoney.2048:

Shatter builds are great VS thieves in particular glass cannon thieves.

Honestly the best thing you can do to learn vs thieves is level one up and try to play one. I suck at my thief but i’ve played him enough to know what it is a thief is thinking to be able to counter it.

The fact that a thief has to touch you and you can self shatter for massive damage makes the thieves job very difficult. I used to spend evenings solo roaming looking for skilled thieves to fight. The number one rule fighting a thief is to always be at max range. When they stealth you need to juke the opposite direction so that a CND is hard to use or they can’t get in range of a backstab in 4 seconds. Blink the opposite way, use staff 2 at the 2 second mark, use blurred frenzy at 2 seconds. Anything that can be done to evade about 1.5 seconds after the thief stealths.

Fighting thieves is still my favorite thing to do roaming.

Some people come onto the forums just to argue. Ignore them.

Just keep experimenting.

ive got to be careful not to blow all my CD’s though as a duel between zerk usually ends up being a rotation battle, mainly the reason why its easier for thieves with no CD’s

@pyro, i understand the point your trying to say but i believe winning a duel takes an equal combination of a good build (variable), skill, and knowledge (tactic diversity). its whats got me as far as it does, any player can have skill as soon as they pick up the game, but a player with skill who’s just picked up the game without any prior research wont have a good build or tactic diversity and will lose each time.

@Hihey, im not 100% sure but i think he’s running lyssa runes for his duel build, would that make using a Condi mesmer difficult?

Pyroatheist.9031:

RedCobra.7693:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I mean, you could just run PU conditions or any of a few phantasm builds to easily counter thieves in a duel.

you see, he’s gonna see that coming, im a PU mesmer as it is and were both very famous duelists on out server, he has lost next to no duels and the same can be said for him, but since he transferred all hell has broken loose for us to fight, i dont think that is gonna be enough to beat him, he’s never lost to a mesmer before o.0

It doesn’t really matter whether he ‘sees that coming’.

A duel between skilled players has a different dynamic than a duel between unskilled players. In unskilled players duels end up being build vs build. However, with skilled players the only requirement for the builds is simply that they work. Past that point, it becomes a question of skill.

Either a PU condition build or a shatter build or a phantasm build will serve to beat any thief build. The only question that remains is whether you have the skill to see it through.

oh cmon lol i rarely take and offensive stature in my comments but thats a bit of a mean thing to say, so youre telling me that if i dont beat him with the obvious and easy to counter phantasm build then im unskilled, this guy is good, phantasm isnt going to work, no matter how good the player is, i need somehting that he is unfamiliar with, duels tend to come down to precision of CD rotation compared to the other player, especially in power fights like a mesmer/thief

hihey.1075:

You need a GS to throw him away from the Shadow Refuge. Staff is not “that” good when fighting a thief.
Also, I prefer the Pistol over the off hand Sword, because the Phantasm Bullets will follow the thief when he stealths.

that didnt even occur to me tbh xD, the extremley short cooldowns on my counters had set me on a one track mind, that may have to change in the build ty

Pyroatheist.9031:

I mean, you could just run PU conditions or any of a few phantasm builds to easily counter thieves in a duel.

you see, he’s gonna see that coming, im a PU mesmer as it is and were both very famous duelists on our server, he has lost next to no duels and the same can be said for me, but since he transferred all hell has broken loose for us to fight, i dont think that is gonna be enough to beat him, he’s never lost to a mesmer before o.0

Curunen.8729:

Yeah, Sc/Sw + IP will frustrate many a thief.

I question 20 in insp though – might be better off 10 in dom for mental torment, or chaos for blink cooldown.

even though its only 2 secs difference, the scepter reduction really gives you breathing space knowing that you have a fast spammable counter, 2 secs can feel like an eternity with thieves :P, its the defensive counter but yeah youre right, i could change that tbh, ive got a friend im gonna be training on tonight (poor guy :C) so ill try that ty

the build may also remain viable after the DE nerf as a semi decent roaming build :P i dont know, ive got my work cut out for me tonight xD

Hi guys,

Sorry for pestering so much recently :P
Ive got a big duel coming up against a thief and i was thinking up of a few builds to counter anything he could try and throw at me, now this guy is a D/D thief and well known for it, i cant imagine him rolling conditions but i put a bit of condition removal in there for safety incase he has immobs up his sleeve,

in the past ive had a lot of success against thieves using Offhand sword with the counter, it seems to be defensive and VERY offensive at the same time, and i used to (way before they added torment) run a Scepter offhand sword counter build, so i was thinking if it would be viable to try and run this again to counter his attacks, i reduced both counters as much as i could and thought it could be possible to combine with a shatter to make a new shatter build that he would never expect.

The idea is that when he comes in for the attack i put up my counter, he hits it and takes damage (offhandsword) then i immediatly shatter for a dual shatter from the clone that is summoned, then i would have the other counter to fall back on.

here is the build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArcWlwzipHSzoGb9IyJFQn0h6B2BefXJF82FC-jkCBYfDZEdEisAg+AiKAMzsIasFTFRjVbDT5iIq2cuIa1CBEaCA-w

RedC

thank you

i like the idea of running the signet of illusions however i may be a bit scared to drop my safety nets/terrible habbits that are blink and decoy, i think i may have used them too much, do you reckon it would be safe to drop some condi removal? ive never tried the GS reduction so i thought it might be cool stacking 12secs of 3 might every 4 3/4 secs or having a reduced knockback for easier aoe CC, but i completely see where you are coming from, im going to have to try both.

Xyonon.3987:

Sometimes I ask myself -> how <-
You have like 6+ legendaries. wtf…

credit card o no jutsu

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

Problem is they’re too easy to get, it requires zero skill and a lot of time. It needs to require you doing something more meaningful and skill based than what is required now… Legendary is hardly the word for them when so many less than legendary people have them.

thats because they need a lengthy endgame horizontal proggression to keep players in game, as much as i hate the idea im working on my 3rd and plan on getting a 4th, i need a goal in game to keep me playing

people generalise with PU too much, 9/10 times they will be complaining about a Condi-PU build, the power PU builds still tend to have to come out of stealth to burst enemies

Would be handy if i actually posted the build :P

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQJARWlwzipHUzoGb9IhJFEH5oes9szdSKMdqB-jUCBYfCZojQUIBK1EJ7kQjtYqIasabYKXER1mzFRrWGAzJA-w

Hi guys,

Ive recently come up with a build called area of interruption, the idea behind it is to be able to choose when to interrupt 5 enemies at once in a small group while remaining both damaging and survivable as to not cause an issue with your party, also i need to be able to make sure that when roaming (as this is a roaming group build) i can both keep up with teammates and ensure i dont die to zergs chasing xD

would you kindly pick away at the build and see if i can improve on anything?

RedC

its the perplexity thats the issue not the stealth, perplexity is so ridiculously broken i had to take a month break from the game to chill out

if you had suggested this about 6 months back i would of called you crazy but considering now that around 60% of my guild have legendaries including myself it would be good to apply skins to a large area of the playerbase, i mean, most people in my guild at least have either sunrise or twilight, one with eternity.

Psylem.1529:

I like moa best – such a long cc! It’s especially fun to cast on necros right after they use one of their forms or underwater to make people a fish lol

Time warp is probably decent for zergs in wvw but it would need to be timely and the situation is rare.

MI is nice for getaways in wvw but not too useful in spvp in my opinion.

P.S. Your English is good!

as for MI in spvp, grab some lyssa runes, now its viable :P

Aeonblade.8709:

Mochann.5298:

Elder Scolls Online is third person only. Which is why I am skipping it.

Seriously why must MMORPG makers always opt for third person? It’s kittened.

Um, where did you get such inaccurate information?

lmao tell me about it, elderscrolls’ foundational aspect is based on first person, its what set is apart back when arena was released oh the memories

“New” minion master builds lol, the other class being mesmer isnt it >:D burst your condi then get your distance as fast as you can that’s a pet peeve of mine

casso joke or not :P its about choice, choice is good, always good, it gives freedom

yeah that sounds pretty good, it would have to be skin tight though otherwise it would cause clipping on a few things, we dont want any more of that xD

heck id even accept another on demand leap, all we have is phase retreat, if they made illusionary leap fire the clone whether youd targeted or not that would be perfect

hihey.1075:

Adding a blast finisher on GS #3 would be a nice start. Maybe increase its cooldown a little (2 more seconds maybe), but I think they need it.

that sounds like a pretty decent idea, mesmers are in desperate need of an on demand blast fin

Curunen.8729:

Zoe.8310:

PU build??

The flavour of the last 6 months or so – chaos XII – enjoy effortless survival.

yes PU build, to build up regen, just an example im not saying id use it xD
and PU is great as to give mesmers stealth, its always been there its just more accessable now from the speed and traveller runes

Ansau.7326:

Do whatever you want, but it was you who started attacking and despise others with nonsense sentences like:
- im not impressed with builds that are designed to play in groups that are either the same size or lower its possible to get better stats. Yeah, cause tanking a melee train is so much rewarding…
- i have 3.2k armor (3.8k when channelling mantra) 23k HP 3.1k power 42% crit chance and 55% crit damage. What a kitten with such stats…
- i dont understand how someone could lose so much stats. You may mean tank stats…

All I’ve been saying is your build does nothing out of your team, nothing else…

im not, and thats the truth, im also not impressed by someone doing a flip or someone who just learnt a new word, theres many things im not impressed about, it doesnt mean im attacking them, the stats werent to show off, it was to point out that its possible to maximise the stats better by using different gear, and i dont need you to tell me my build does nothing for the team, i know what my build does pretty well.

Ansau.7326:

lool, where also did I say you only heal with the mesmer?? You still don’t understand anything.

This isn’t about your build in your team. Is about recommending your build to anybody else but you in your team…

“I find a group is not optimized if it relies on the mesmer to heal.”

right there, implying that my team uses a mesmer as the focus heal when in actuality we have a shout warrior, AH guard, an ele with water field and a warrior with banner regen,

and yes i understand perfectly what youre saying but a raid group build of 5man teams is more effective so if you dont mind, i think its perfectly relevant considering its a mesmer forum so pls go somewhere else with your unwanted “roll a guardian/engi” attitude.

oh man im sorry but if youve got ascended clerics its not sooooo bad, tkae a pu build with signet of inspiraiton and spread that tasty regen round, its not the best but that would be better than zerk, i dont allow any of my allies to roam with zerk, if they die others will die trying to res and they will just res the enemies through the broken downed mechanic

Pyroatheist.9031:

RedCobra.7693:

yeah i meant attack, same with armour and health and crit chance and what not, i meant the stat that more or less everyone talks about, the “effective stat” and its perfectly viable, what build are you rolling on your mesmer? id honestly like to see

Just a note. Attack is a non-stat. It has absolutely zero significance in any way for any part of any calculation for anything in the game. It’s still a mystery why it even shows up on the character pane.

im aware, i just was a bit confused how someone could ignore my entire post to nitpick but hey it is the forums afterall

Mogar.9216:

RedCobra.7693:

Mek.2947:

Nothing says you’re a scrub mesmer like using moa. It’s a one trick pony on a long cooldown, and like others have said there’s really no dignity in using it. Yes it effective when it’s off its long cooldown, but it also says, “I was about to get my kitten kicked by you so here’s my desperate ‘I win’ button.”

i came across a guild that had three mesmers in it that moa’d me 3 times, however they were so terribly nooby they still didnt end up killing me xD, but this is the problem i have with it, i can accept one time yeah i get utilities and what not to evade attacks but if you get moa’d again theyre on freaking cooldown and you have no endurance,

the game needs a debuff so you cant be moa’d twice in the space of say 30secs

lol you are making me feel bad, as we run 3 mesmers on lock down build. People get 3 stuns at the start of a fight , dead before they can do anything. If they manage to live through that we shot 3 magic bullet at them :P

awww man it might of possibly been you xD, but with 3 mesmers you could split them into different parties and all use mass invis, insta 5 sec stealth for 15 guys boom,

its things like this that make moa more for the giggles, i cant really complain abou tthe skill alone considering i pull it out to fight those annoying thieves that just stay alive in your tower by perma stealthing, you know the ones :P they have 3 utilities full toughness and just keep stealthing over and over

umm, where did i say that we only used the mesmer heals xD youre mad

Curunen.8729:

RedCobra.7693:

with the build im currently using, (power PU mantra) i can beat perplexity mesmers in duels thanks to the menders purity and high health per second heals through restorative mantras :P

But that means 20 in inspiration!

Ah, too many traits, not enough points!

tell me about it, i want 15 in illusions aswell :C
but i used to run 30 for the heal shatters o.0 then i started realising that mantra heal is better, ive ran it until its meta and now im getting laughed at xD get away from my mantras >:C

Me Games Ma.8426:

I said that iLeap wasn’t buggy… -_-

welcome to the wonderful world of internet forums

@emile, it already hits players through the beams path so it kinda does aoe if you select enemies at the back of the zerg rather than tabbing

@ansau, that would make mantras incredibly OP, i can already easily out heal zerk thieves with mantras the only way they could kill me is if they savvi up and start using interups

o.0 oh man youre serious, i thought maybe you were joking aswell but each to there own it is your message after all

with the build im currently using, (power PU mantra) i can beat perplexity mesmers in duels thanks to the menders purity and high health per second heals through restorative mantras :P

ahh then i might be able to help you

but first im okay with losing echo i only take it for the 4 second block

try getting menders purity for 2 condi removal on heal then use the mantra of restoration for a condition removal of 4 every 12 secs, it allows yo uto drop your condi removal utility

oh and reduced manipulation is invaluable if using either blink or mimic, it sounds like you run inside a large group around 15+ so id reccomend 10 in chaos at least for this to give a 20sec CD 4sec invulnerability

Ansau.7326:

In my first post I was just discussing. Then, some funny sentences and your awesome tanky build made my day.

The stats difference doesn’t come from gear, but from traits. You’re running a PU build, and I don’t see any valuable trait for my raid in Caos. And your attack is very low, mine base is +3100.

Anyway, you play 5 people team and I play 20-25 people zergs. No way our builds have to be similar. But even if you play 5 people team, I see no reason to take 3200 armor. There’s no offensive pressure neither burst (so important in small scale fights) and we have a lot of active defense, with skill there’s no need to reach such big numbers in both armor and health.

PD: Just a note, you heal easier and much more with a guard/ele/engi than a mantra mesmer.

while you might be okay just switching to a guardian im not, you see no reason because you’re in a zerg, im not talking about 5v5, we’re talking about 5vX, mass invis is very important to this group so im not going to switch to a guard since we already have one, and in a small 5 man group you can only get better healing than the mesmer if you run the meditation heal which only helps yourself, but alas we’re discussing mesmers not guardians, i very highly doubt that if you were to be placed in a 5 man team against more enemies with the toughness that youre at you would survive very long, the only difference between my stats and yours is the 200 attack that you have more and i have 700 more armour, you do the maths who would survive in a duel or in any situation where both placed in, dont attack someones build with “Waste of time” everything has an application and youd be very silly to think otherwise

we need a mesmer in the 5 man group, so lets say we run your build and the group leader asks to stack for stability and heal burst, then we get hit from the front aoe burst, your build would die, simple as no argument, or you could blink away and leave your team to take the damage instead i move in start channeling my mantras giving me an effective 3.8k armour for the duration of the stack while healing my “5” man team for 5200hp

all while doing decent damage to burst enemies, while the guardian has impressive healing the mesmer has better Burst heals for the team and brings unique utilities to the team so another guardian wouldnt help

no thats perfect, im okay with mimic im just shocked that i didnt think of using my own projectiles to proc the blocks earlier o.0 we need to publicise this more, maybe it could bring some well deserved love for one of my favourite utilities i doubt that many people know how to do this.

Pyroatheist.9031:

@Immobilizing downed eles: Vapor form makes them invulnerable, just like distortion, but it doesn’t cleanse conditions. If you stack up a lot of immobilize on an ele before they use vapor form, they’ll stay immobilized during it.

exactly :P its great and very rarely used tbh

Me Games Ma.8426:

RedCobra.7693:

i use it for the stunbreak waaay better for outnumbered fights, youll be suprised how many mesmers waste it for the immob, oh you forgot to mention that its great for immobilising downed eles to stop them mist forming into towers (my favourite use) xD

I didn’t know this thank you! How do you do it? Immobilize before or after they activate mist form?

Dawdler.8521:

Me Games Ma.8426:

• Clone travel
  The clone won’t reach its target when the target is standing below or above or in front or behind or anywhere around you. This is a thing many mesmers are complaining about and I hope they’ll fix this some day.

Fixed.

You also forgot the severly limited immobilize range – if the enemy is doing the slighest movement away from your clone, it wont trigger.

You shouldn’t quote my text wrong! Please use it as a quote and write your correction out of the quotation. Some people may get a wrong impression.

Also it does not bug everytime so your text is obviously wrong.

not sure if trolling or serious o_o

you do realise that he was just sarcastically joking? its called a fix joke and is quite common on the forums i doubt any person would get the wrong idea but its okay :P

as for your question, just dont activate the second skill to illusionary leap (swap) so just press 3 once and leave the clone alive, even if the clone dies youll still have the teleport there for 5secs

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Yes it procs off Aegis. No cooldown. Yes works with staff Winds of Chaos.

thank you thank you how about the projectiles for mimic? do they count as block and reflect or just reflect?

tyvm soul it sounds like a reliable way to get the proc then for newer users of the skill without asking them to jump in front of rangers xD, i wonder, does this also work for say staff mesmers and the staffs clones projectiles? GS does sound better though im going to add it into the build

oh i think id forgot one as well, its for the mimic skill, im aware that projectiles are reflected but do they also count as a block like the warriors shield reflect trait? it would be pretty good as it would more or less guarantee a 15sec retaliation stack

Mek.2947:

Nothing says you’re a scrub mesmer like using moa. It’s a one trick pony on a long cooldown, and like others have said there’s really no dignity in using it. Yes it effective when it’s off its long cooldown, but it also says, “I was about to get my kitten kicked by you so here’s my desperate ‘I win’ button.”

i came across a guild that had three mesmers in it that moa’d me 3 times, however they were so terribly nooby they still didnt end up killing me xD, but this is the problem i have with it, i can accept one time yeah i get utilities and what not to evade attacks but if you get moa’d again theyre on freaking cooldown and you have no endurance,

the game needs a debuff so you cant be moa’d twice in the space of say 30secs

Dawdler.8521:

Me Games Ma.8426:

• Clone travel
  The clone won’t reach its target when the target is standing below or above or in front or behind or anywhere around you. This is a thing many mesmers are complaining about and I hope they’ll fix this some day.

Fixed.

You also forgot the severly limited immobilize range – if the enemy is doing the slighest movement away from your clone, it wont trigger.

xD beat me to it, yeah its buggy, hence why i dont even bother with the immob unless on an ele, the stun break is 1million times more useful to a mesmer by keep and extra stunbreak available 40% of the time

man i sounds like such a hypocrite there xD