Guild Wars 2

Iavra.8510:

Mind, that is only 1 skill. If it was the only i ever had to dodge against a warrior, it probably would be ok,

Well it really should be the only skill you’d need to dodge together with maybe pindown, because as a shatter mesmer you should not stand in melee range and take a beating like a training dummy.

I’ve seen some concerns here about shatter builds without IP lacking damage and that may well have been the case pre-april 15th, but with the introduction of fire+air sigils and buffed to madness strength runes I’ve come to the conclusion that you can definitely run PU in a shatter setup and still be very very bursty.

Here is the link to the build I’ve been using: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8flknpMtNqxGNcrNCrxY6VKJFSOQAlMkrB-TpBFwACeAAOOIAl2fYxRAoaZAAXAAA

Basically you have 75% might duration, which means the 3 might stacks from battle sigil last 35 seconds and the 6 stacks from mirror blade last 17,5s. If you manage to interrupt with diversion, iWave or MoD you can easily upkeep 15+ might stacks in combat. By the way, this is for soloq obviously, in teamq where you get protection from your team the extra damage and portal are definitely more useful.

Try this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7fl0npRtdqxINcrNyqBdqlg6sUlgW6MktAA-T1RHAB6u/gRK/K4CAwo6PAcQAE4JAElSQA-w

It’s a torment shatter build which uses the weapons you like and the trait spread that you were thinking. It’s mainly for WvW though (condis arent really viable in pve). Very good condi removal and survivability. You could perhaps go for a more hybrid gear to increase power based damage skills like mind wrack and iWarlock. Also you could try balthazar runes for burning on heal (only 10s cd) instead of torment duration.

Greatsword has been my favorite since the betas when I saw the sick AA animation. I really like the sniping power and burst potential that the greatsword offers and I always feel severely handicapped in terms of flanking and pressuring capabilities when I’m not running it. For those reasons GS will in most builds be my main weapon set, off-set being something that offers more utility and defense (staff or sword/x).

Jurica.1742:

• Manipulation – Illusionary Swap – Swap places with your enemy, creates a clone and immobilizes the enemy.
  Immobilize duration – 2 seconds
  CD-40s

Wow, that would create a sick decap mesmer.. Focus 4 → iswap → pull

Here’s couple i’ve been thinking about

Heal Skill: Phantasmal Cleric

Summon a phantasm that heals all nearby allies on regular intervals. Creates a water field for 5 seconds when it is shattered.
Healing: 450 hps AoE (base) for max. 10 seconds (4500hp healing party heal)
time between heal channels: 10 seconds
Cooldown: 30 seconds
1s cast time

Utility: Hypnotic Hands

Manipulation. Daze (1/4s) foes around (180 radius, frm traited -> 240) you and instantly recharge your weapon swap.
Cast time: 1/4 s
Cooldown: 30 seconds

Bumping this, because Helseth said so. :p

I dont know much about builds, but staff and scepter scale well with hybrid builds so you could try something like staff + scepter/torch. i believe those are the weapons PU condi mesmers use. But you’ll need some tougness too or else you are too glassy. And precision would also be usefull with all that power and if you opt for sharper images (3 in dueling). So that is basically rabid gear. :P

PU Shatter: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8flknpRtlpxUNcrNSrxY6XS5ESGQBlciqB-TZRBwAE3fQzTAgcZAAHEgHXAAA

DE over IP, because then you can put more points into domination and take SC or torch trait.

3) Temporal curtain
Great for many things: condi removal, pulling, interrupting, shattering with warden, swiftness and general tool to let enemy waste dodges and stun breakers.

2) Blurred frenzy
Again, skill with many uses: defensively used to prevent burst etc. or offensively when, for instance, shattering. It has been changed to evading so you can hold points with it now aswell for a bit.

1) Decoy
Simply the best utility mesmer has IMO: stealth that can be used when revealed, extra clone and stun break in one skill, ridiculous. It is good even on its own, not to mention all the builds and traits that take the most use out of it.

What are your thoughts about this rune set on mesmer?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Warrior

It essentially allows mesmer to swap weapon sets every 8 seconds. Taking into account the fact that many clone creating skills have very short cooldowns (Mirror blade, phase retreat, scepter and Oh sw block etc…) I think there could really be some potential here. Especially if we assume that we have traited for celerity and atleast one of our weapons.

On the other hand I could see it hurting dual energy sigil users as using them would become unreliable as you wouldnt always get the bonus endurance… Imo one energy sigil is enough, considering you get it now every 16s, not every 20. In theory, using this runeset would increase damage as well combat tactics/mobility/survivability.

My joke character, norn mesmer called “Warped Whiskers” turned out to look pretty badazz. ^^

Ringmaster’kitten
Cabalist Shoulders
Trickster top and bottom
Vigil Honor Gloves
Whisper’s Secret Footwear

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNBjYDbkpjKP78wvDORDkEUXDgKQ3WkeGOijH-TpBBwAVOCAAOIAeeAA12fI0FAAcZAA

You can easily keep 20-25 stacks of might on yourself and allies. Signet of Fury can be swapped for Signet of Stamina if your opponent is heavy on conditions.

MailMail.6534:

I’m not sure. This may be an unpopular opinion here, but I think Mesmer is one of the most balanced classes in the game next to Guardian/Engi. waits for my fellow Mesmer-users to flame me There are ALOT of issues with most classes, and I honestly feel like others are either severely OP or UP.

That being said, I played with some people recently that didn’t know how to stomp the right Mesmer. -____- I think that says enough.

Incendiary Powder Engi with balthazar runes is definitely not balanced.

I’ve been running this shatter and phantasm hybrid spec http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQNAR8dlknpRtlpxDNcrNic6B0tcTHJFqGrVSBudhA-TsAg0CnISSlkLJTSyksJN+YVw+DA it has great condi removal with both mender’s purity and shattered conditions as well as strong sustained damage with phantasms. iZerker hits for like 8k+ on light armor classes.

Sword 3 → Mass Invis → Swap combo is still working, just tested: it will allow you to use the (6) bonus every 30s and as swap will teleport you near your foe, you will almost always hit your foes with the condis.

I know the invulnerabilities are strong, I did my own power variant from Countless’s build while ago, but it was shooted down by Pyro, here is the link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/The-ultimate-noob-friendly-mesmer-PvP-build

My build utilises GS and sword/focus too, check it out here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Smirgel-s-Shantasms-sPvP

Update:
Bad news: Warden even more buggy now Also less vigor uptime…
Good news: Pack runes got a nice buff: now procs almost always the (4) effect during combat (10 seconds of fury! yay!), 125 precision up from 100 and 30% swiftness duration up from 20%.
I switched from berserker’s to knights as it seemed pointless to have such a high health with little toughness so now i’m rocking with 2700+ armor and still have 18k health and same crit chance and only slight nerf to damage. Here is some gameplay footage i took after patch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m74h5MInNMw

Build: 6/2/0/0/6
Weapon: Rifle
Traits: Forceful Explosives, Explosive Powder, Synaptic Overload
Sitting Duck
Static Discharge, Speedy Gadgets, Gadgeteer
Berserker Amulet
Traveller Runes
Utilities: Healing Turret, Toolkit, Personal Battering Ram, Throw Mine

The driving theme of this build is the Mine gadget, which normally is meh, but with synaptic overload becomes good, as you can unload your toolbelt burst 50% faster all the while having aegis every 15 seconds and fury (from Battering Ram)without the need to use utility goggles and allowing you to focus more on defense and all around utility (Toolkit). The idea is to use a combo like Pull -> Pry Bar -> Battering Ram -> Toolbelt burst -> Net Shot Jump Shot -> Blunderbuss for sick damage. Any ideas how to improve this core idea (Throw Mine, SD and Synaptic Overload)? I’ve been toying between these utilities and Utility Goggles and Rifle Turret for even bigger burst but with that setup it is almost always a downed fight as you just die way too quickly without any sort of defense.

Yeah, strength runes are OP atm. There are decent alternatives though: pack runes for fury and swiftness + swiftness duration, something that mesmers normally lack ; traveller runes are also nice for +boon duration and movement speed bonus.

Mystogan.4157:

Blind i can see but 1 sec of chill doesnt do much plus halve of our interupts Re already stuns and hard cc:

Interupt with hard cc( stun knock pull):
Sig of domination – stun
Focus pull-pull
Iwave- push
Pistol 5 -stun- daze(unrelieBle)

Interupt no hard cc:
Shatter 3
Pistol 5 – unrelieable
Chaos storm unreliable
Mantra

So we have 4 hard interupts and 2 relieable soft interupts ans 2 unreliable.

Hard interupts with CI do not function well. Pistl 5 is a 2 sec stun, so CI + pistol you can only get a blind and a small chill out of it. For get CI + sig of dom. Iwave or pull is about 1 sec so its meh with CI. Most interrupt builds have 1-2 hard interupts rendering CI basically useless. It would be cool if chaotic interruption was poison/ torment or add duration to the current CI or something like deals x damage dependent on the amt of condis on the target or maybe skills that interupt affect 3 other enemies in a 500 radius. I understand why they thought. CI was a good idea but i think its only good with soft interrupts which we dont have to many.
If im missing any interrupts jst add them.

You forgot daze from off-hand sword which is on a 15 sec CD (12 if traited) and can hit multiple foes.

Well on the combat log it shows how much each one of your shattered illusion did damage to the target and iirc the intelligence sigil counts on strikes that are shown there. So I’d say a three illusion shatter counts as three attacks.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Smirgel.9460:

Bumping this. I will record some gameplay after tuesday’s patch has landed, but so far I’m loving it! I did change the force sigil to accuracy as force doesnt affect phantasm damage and shattering is less frequent than in the standard shatter build. More crit chance for everything is thus better imo.

Accuracy also does not affect phantasms.

Ok, well maybe I’ll switch it to perception then.

In a sword/s or f + GS or staff phantasm build with MoD it may be worth it. It all depends on if it is +5 sec per interrupt (5 target focus pull interrupt=25 sec) or if it can only last max 5 sec. In the latter case it wold be pretty bad.

Bumping this. I will record some gameplay after tuesday’s patch has landed, but so far I’m loving it! I did change the force sigil to accuracy as force doesnt affect phantasm damage and shattering is less frequent than in the standard shatter build. More crit chance for everything is thus better imo.

Neurophen.9738:

I’m sure that would work ok, but personally I dislike DE in a phantasm build.

If you don’t mind loosing the boon stripping this build makes the phantasm’kitten like a mac truck. You defiantly can kill thieves with it too (traited dualists are lovely)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQNAR8alknpRtlpxDNcrRScmB0jO6DYnUBVXSBuzNA-ToAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNiY1B

Next patch, I wonder if going 20 in illusions for phantasmal haste over empowered illusions would be a good idea. In theory a 20% lower recyle timer on phantasm attack skills should out damage a raw 15% boost, assuming they live long enough.

I took DE, because the idea is to first shatter with clones to strip boons and any condis your opponent may inflict on you. Sure phantasmal haste may be better in theory, but we need to take into account that the enemy may have boons like aegis, stability and protection that reduce your damage output be it from phantasms or shatters.

Link to the build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQNAR8dlknpRtlpxDNcrNic6B0tcTHJFqGrVSBudhA-TsAg0CnISSlkLJTSyksJN+YVw+DA

The reason I made this build is because I’m a scrub who can’t run pure shatter spec, although I like the hectic playstyle. I also felt that full phantasm build is way too limited in its utility, so I created this build that is an attempt of combining these two.

Pros:
-Phantasms hit like a truck
-Good Condi removal (also from team mates!)
-Boon stripping
-Pretty good survival for a berserker ammy mes with traited focus, recharged distortions with -Signet of Illusions, higher than normal health and regen from phantasms
-Good burst, better sustained damage than full shatter
- Reflections
- Swiftness

Cons:
- Thieves will still kill you if they play smartly
- Lower burst than full shatter
- no on-demand distortion or other shatters (ie no IP)
- a little longer cooldown on illusion spawning skills (not really a problem)

I chose pack runes, because I have enough condi removal even without Lyssa’s and this rune set synergizes well with focus. After the 15th patch they will probably increase the proc chance of (4) so that will make this even better. Please rate, comment and give any suggestions how to improve the general idea.

Branden Gee.2150:

Thanks for bringing this up. This is definitely a bug. Now that we know about this we will try and get it fixed soon™.

lol @ that trademark.

Jackums.3496:

The Mesmer does nothing that makes it worth taking over a Thief in the current meta.

Not over a thief but you could take mesmer besides thief (see 55 hp monks or TCG).

Kobeathris.3645:

What is the 20/20/30 build/gear? Is that mainly a team build or good for solo queue as well? I’m new to pvp and have been doing solo queue exclusively, primarily as 10/30/20/10/0 clone death.

Berserker gear usually, otherwise you just are not doing enough damage. The important trait is the chaos grandmaster Chaotic Interruption which will immoblize your foe for like 2,5s if you interrupt a skill. Rest of the traits are basic stuff: DE, Shattered Concentration, Halting Strike… You can try with a couple different weapon sets like staff & GS or Staff and Sword/Sword or GS & Sword/Focus or a mixture of these. The point is that you need a weapon that has skill with which you can interrupt skills.

Zellqt is my mesmer idol, my knight who fights against virgin zoo neckbeards and condi AIDS. XD

How about changing Diamond Skin to:
Remove all conditions on you when attuning to earth. And if that is too weak, make it also reduce cond duration by, lets say, 33%.

We lack poison application (and lol RNG Chaos Storm doesn’t count) so I’d suggest adding that. That way It could also be used in a tactical way in PvP like if you don’t have any interrupt skills left, atleast you can poison the enemy before his heal goes through.

Name: Clara Dawnbloom
Server: Seafarer’s Rest (EU)
Playstyle: Mostly tPvP
Role: Tester
Playtime: after 4 pm GMT

Oh My God.8423:

I am indeed looking forward to a x/30/x/x/30 build with the new Dueling GM. BUT I am not sure where else to put the rest of the 10 points.

I am debating whether it is good to get Vigorous Revelation from the Inspiration line, which could give me more Endurance to dodge around. On the other hand, using Illusion of Vulnerability and Rending Shatter to cause vulnerability are too useful to overlook. Debilitating Dissipation from the Chaos line is also decent but somehow harder to make the most of.

In terms of balancing between burst and sustained damage, I suppose if I can burst frequent enough, it becomes sustained some how. So what sort of set up gives the most illusions constantly for shattering? I am using Septer/nothing specific and Staff for the time being, with Decoy and Mirror Image most of the time.

Any suggestion?

And what stat/gear should I equip myself with?

Many thanks once again.

The 10 in domi is almost a must for Mind Wrack dmg boost (Mental Torment). You have enough endurance if you run double energy sigils.

This is pretty much the same spec that I run, except that I run 25 dueling instead of chaos for confusion on clone death and master of misdirection in illusions. Have you done the math that the extra cond dmg (from chaotic transference) actually helps more/does more dmg overall?

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Let’s talk about how Thieves are toxic for the game, when you Sensotix play an AI class whose best strenght is the most annoying one: cluttering teamfights with effects and AI units.

What’s broken about Thief isn’t any of those stuff. It’s the fact that bad thieves can get away with spamming because there’s not enough punishment for playing poorly in this game.

That is not a problem exclusive to Thief, it’s an issue seen throughout the classes. It just seems aggravated on Thief because of the initiative system: it allows bad players to do those kind of mistakes more frequently and the low/lack of punishment that it comes with it.

Other classes are locked by cooldowns, so the mistake -> no punishment becomes less apparent.

But it’s there, in every single one of the classes. The game is designed to be fail-friendly for new players/casuals. I don’t think that’s ever gonna change and it’s a kitten shame.

Nice way to derail from topic, gg.

I agree. Especially the first point about blocks and invulnerabilities preventing from revealing the thief is so stupid. It adds no counterplay.

EverythingEnds.4261:

Befor ppl start complaining about how OP this is, my I remind players that a Mesmer has a very poor acces to chill?
Yes, the trait is strong, however, if I would play Lockdown and had to choose between 30/20/20/0/0 and 20/20/30, I probably would still play the second one.

Interrupting a Heal and putting it on 10s CD seems nice,
however, as Lockdown builds have a huge variety of interrupts, I’d prefer Interrupting the Heal once and again after 5s, so I can get twice as much out of Halting Strike and Bountifull Interuption.

Not to mention, it is almost wothless against thieves.

The fact, that they probably only add GM traits means, that Mesmers won’t get a better way to deal with condis, as even if they would make a “anti condi GM trait” it will be placed unreachable for most builds.

Well, you should try 30/10/30/0/0 like Misha.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Well, this is basically just a hybrid phantasm-signet build. This has been tried before with somewhat less than average results.

Basically, you run into multiple problems. The biggest problem with this build is that you have neither signet of illusions nor the phantasm hp trait. This means that your phantasms will be incredibly fragile. Anyone you face will be able to destroy them with just a couple of hits. Your offense will therefor be incredibly fragile and transient. Unfortunately, your offense is also a good part of your defense, since if your opponent doesn’t have to deal with your phantasms, they can easily chase you down and kill you.

This build has other problems as well. I don’t recommend usage of the signet heal in any PvP build, and the choice of that signet instantly makes this build worse. The signet has very substandard healing, and if you burn it in the first seconds of the fight for an initial burst, you’ll be absolutely destroyed by anyone that manages to kill your phantasms (not hard, as discussed).

Lastly, your utilities make no sense. This is caused by the fact that you’re trying to shoehorn a bunch of signets with differing uses into the same build simply because they’re signets. Lets actually look at them. You’ve got 1 breakstun that also happens to be a small aoe blind and is passive boon duration, one stun that passively provides condition damage, and one signet that passively gives you a boon per 10 seconds and copies boons to allies on use.

These have no coherent qualities between the three of them. They don’t work well with each other, they don’t work well in a phantasm build, and they definitely don’t work well in this build.

Overall, this build really isn’t good. Your offense is extremely limited, and your defense is almost non-existent (1 second of situational distortion doesn’t count). Any competent player will destroy you.

Yeah, you are right about the stun break issue. I should have clarified that I usually run this build with decoy instead of insp sig when my team doesnt need me that much in team fights or if I do soloq. Though, what you said about the limited offense and coherence, I have to disagree. Signet of midnight is awesome not only as a stun break, but the passive boon duration is very good with gs 2 and lyssa runes. Domination signet is another one that fits perfectly within the build. Not only makes it your bleeds and confusions stronger with its passive, but it is also very good at securing that your phantasms hit your opponent.

What comes to the signet heal, I actually find it the best option by a long shot. Imagine this scenario ( which has happened to me a lot of times): a pistol whip thief teleports to you and starts pistol whipping. You first cast midnight signet to stun break (+1s invul/cond cleanse) and cast phantasm (secured). If you time it right it will hit right after the evade ends on PW. Then switch to sw/p, usually at this point the thief uses withdraw to heal so you have time to cast a duelist, but if not, you can decoy and cast it or use blurred frenzy to avoid the thief’s burst. Now use the heal: there are so many times where I’ve been like 10% hp, but managed to pull the heal off, giving me chance to cast another duelist (secured). Then after that you can cast domi sig for a long stun, allowing you to Mass invis to recover and do a stealth iZerker. Dead thief.

Yes I find that while the build is not using any of the phantasm hp traits the rate at which you are pumping out them is so high that you don’t really need them. I can do a video with some gameplay with this build soon. Yes I know that shatter mesmer build can do higher burst at times and provides the superior boon removal, but every time I play it it feels like I’m doing ten times the work at keeping myself alive for the same results. That is why I think noob mesmers should really start playing with a build like this first. Btw, Countless, one of the top mesmers, runs a similar build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsaWnUEVQbCNa1wWjExkig74OVA6IVw1K9A3uwdD-T0AgyCqIKSVkrITRyisFN+Y9x5j5CvPA

This is sort of a full power version of that with a few minor changes (20 in domination instead of 10 and 10 in inpiration). So I think it is in fact a very viable build.

Hey, I’ve been playing with this phantasm PvP build I made quite awhile ago and played with it even on team arenas and with great success. It is incredibly easy to play and very very strong once you get all your phantasms up. Go check it out here:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQNAR8ansISFa2gGGoB3aGRMpI4OOSKUNXr0Dcb3uQA-TsAg0CsIKSVkrITRyisFN+YVw+DA

Basically the idea behind is to cast iZerker and two iDuelists while kiting and avoiding damage by activating your signets. Also every time you dodge, confusing combatants and debilitating dissipation ticks so you’re inflicting heavy pressure with condis too. Fun little bonus is that lyssa runes have incredible synergy with inspiration signet as you can give everyone stealth and then every boon, for instance, before engaging in a mid fight. Please rate and comment and test it out yourself if you like it. Also, if someone QQs for the build, just say you gotta fight cheese with cheese. ^^

I’ve played mesmer since lauch and I seriously haven’t really touched at all at the off-hand sword. in PvP the swordsman is so easy to evade as it hits only once. The block/daze is pretty good but it is very easy to miss your targets with it. Also the after-cast is pretty long. Pistol 5 is easier to land IMO especially at long range, staff 5 or focus pull is AoE. Are there any builds that utilize this weapon to its fullest potential?

The relevant question imo is does mf improve the quality of drops or the quantity. Also, I do get it that if Dusk had 1% chance of dropping without any mf, with +100% it would be 2%, but what then happens to the chances of white items? Will they decrease (and by how much? Half of normal with +100%?) or will there just be more higher rarity loot. This is what I mean about the quantity – quality confusion.

Souldestructor.9576:

Sorry to act so nub but what is FGS? i know it’s a skill and everything but i’m just having it go past my head like a flying pig.

Fiery Greatsword, elementalist’s elite conjure weapon.

To avoid cheese like decap engi. Thx.

I used to be slow mesmer like you, but then I took 6 runes of speed to my gear.

You gain wxp and loot bags from enemies just like in normal WvW. Once the second season starts you will be able finish your meta achievement in EotM, which is huge improvement as you won’t be sitting in queues and taking spots of those who wanna do the hardcore PPT server pride WvWing. Other than that it is a great testing ground for Anet as they can do and try out creative new mechanics without interfering normal WvW and if players like them, eventually bring them over to those maps aswell.

Flamethrower is good for proccing sigil effects, knockback, blinding and can do pretty good dmg with flameblast. With elixir gun you can keep enemy in perma weakness, remove like 5 condis from allies in a cone, has a blast finisher and a great heal skill (+ long AoE regen from toolbelt skill). It is a defensive weapon. I think they are fine.

Use hammer instead of gs (or hammer and gs…) Judge’s → ward them. You get better heals out of litany anyways with hammer mighty blow…