It’s an Easter Egg. ANet is really giving us shortbow as a new weapon, totally themed for the Dreamer.
Ability one: Shoot your enemy and heal them for a small amount.
Ability two: Immobilize your entire team while granting them distortion because logic.
Ability three: Shoot two healing arrows that also take you back in time after you’ve been healed, back to when you needed healing.
Ability four: Drop your shortbow.
Ability five: Transform into a butterfly-winged unicorn granting every buff to your enemy and porting you to your home instance.
I have a question re: the intents of Duelist’s Discipline.
The Duelist his eight times I believe? Does that mean that each of those eight hits has a 33 percent chance of applying two bleeds? Or is that a 33 percent chance for just one unload?
Edit: Meaning for when they fix this.
@ Work but will watch and hate later. That being said, PvP videos with commentary have always been the best ones.
I actually didn’t play with a pistol at all yesterday, well not in a lockdown build. Just in a cele/attrition build.
GS/ST “Backstab thief” Mesmer build for the win.
Hey! I was running this trait last night, and combined with Staff + Chaotic Dampening it’s a lot of fun and tanky.
Ignore the word “near.” The effect happens if someone is INSIDE the glamour when it appears. That is, you need to cast Nullfield on top of you/your allies. You will not get the effect if they walk into it. For feedback, it’s the same. I’m also pretty sure it will affect the same amount of allies the glamour would normally affect.
^The change to confusing images is great. It’s so fast now. Scepter is probably is kingly weapon in WvW hybrid roaming now.
ME duh.
@Stickers: Remember though, I was fighting you without CI yesterday, so I had no immob on you.
But all the other one-shotting was totally there. Power block is far better than Mental Anguish (or whatever it’s called) for burst. At least in PvP.
Basically, as long as someone is running with traits in Domination and a Berserker Amulet, CONGRATS, you’re now a lockdown mesmer haha.
The 6/6/6/0/0 spread gives us a lot to work with. Power block is insane damage. Personally, I run it with PU over CI. With Decoy, Mass Invis and Torch stealth, it’s very easy to one-shot a enemy (or two) that are rezzing or stomping without them seeing it coming.
I have yet to play with the pistol, but I’m curious to try it out. Also, with the amount of blinds we can put out, couple with distortions and interrupts, we can safely stomp just about anything.
I foresee a nerf to power-based mesmers. The only class that I was worried about facing yesterday was other mesmers.
@Don, oh I’ve been dreaming of a Bruiser/Support mesmer. Inspiration will now allow us to heal/protect allies and give some great on-point buffs. I’m already thinking of a Dueling/Chaos/Inspiration build that will mix glamours and shatters to blind/damage enemies, and offer boons to allies. Even without traiting Illusions, support shatter is a thing. It won’t have Shattered Concentration, but a beefy Nullfield with Temporal Enchanter will be nice.
I’m thinking Staff/Sword-Pistol with Celestial Amulet. Not sure about the runes yet.
Does anyone know quite how Resistance will work with conditions like Immobilize. Say you’re immobilized for 5 seconds, but have 2 seconds of Resistance, can you move freely for 2 out of those 5 seconds? If so, Temporal Enchanter + Nullfield is a pretty godly cleanse.
I agree with you regarding raw stats. But I think there are some changes in our traits/profession that really compensate. Having IP baseline is going to be huge, and I think people don’t realize how much of a buff it is.
I think we’ve also been given a lot of soft control that will help keep damage off of us. Blind on shatters, etc.
@ Chaos, but you’re forgetting the reliable Protection that we’ll be getting from Chaos Armor now, if you’re running with a staff.
Inspiration looks like an amazing team-build-tree now. I really can’t wait to play around with some of those traits, especially Temporal Enchanter (and to see how much healing for allies it offers).
Interesting. I’m still eyeing that Celestial Amulet. The Crusader Amulet looks interesting, however I always feel like ferocity is useless without precision (which we won’t be getting from traits anymore).
Edit: Thanks for this Skcam.
I was imagining Chaos Archangel and Warlord of Chaos [since I just closely relate the two as players] fanfics when I saw the title~
They were just mezzing out dude.
Chaos, if you need help writing up any of this stuff, I’m sure I and some others would be happy to help. You can probably make outlines of what you’d like written.
Nice! This looks a lot like Vash’s TLS build from his most recent video. I also adapted one of those builds to prep for having IP in a lockdown build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsdRlknpGtNqxMNcrNiphY6exyh631nTqAA-TpBFwACOEA12fYxJAIxDAoaZAAHBAA
And you’re right about DE. It helps to set up the shatters, but isn’t always reliable. And to be honest, I think playing without it makes you a more careful/strategic player, and trains you to time your dodges better.
I think they’ve done something with Moa/Timewarp that make them attractive options even for Solo Q. MI will always have its obvious use. The other elites were always made for team fights, but Mesmers didn’t really have a way to capitalize on TW unless they were running with a great sword. And Moa in a 1v1 and the enemy can just run away. Now that it’s a signet, it adds some beefiness to the profession for when there’s no “opportune moment” to polymorph someone.
However, I do think that the new TW will be the go-to for coordinated teams. Especially with Temporal Echanter.
Forgot to mention this: I actually think this will be VERY powerful with Null Field. Specifically against classes like condi rangers. The one utility will remove and mitigate conditions and allow you to quickly close a gap without having to waste blink or a sword swap. Maybe it’s not GM-worthy, but there’s still hope. After all, they did bring MtD down to a Master trait.
I agree that it seems like some weird effects in tandem with what the skills provide. Yeah it sounds good on paper, but paper is all we have right now. We may come up with some brilliant uses for it on Tuesday.
I’m actually excited about the changes to inspiration. When I played WoW, I did a lot of pvp as a Discipline Priest, which was all about damage control and not so much healing. I feel like there’s a ton of utility to be had here. I’m more curious as to what the healing output will be for the minor trait. Will it depend on how big our own heal is (Ether Feast) or will it be a flat amount and benefit more from the mantra heal.
Regardless, I see some options opening for celestial, cleric and settler’s amulets (maybe Valk, but I think ferocity is useless without precision).
^That. Sure, IP being baseline is awesome, but Master of Fragmentation adds some killer utility to our f1-f4. The cripple on Cry of Frustration is a really nice kiting addition to maim/shatter builds. Also, MAIM is a master trait now!? Yes…
My question is is Master of Fragmentation will interact with Continuum Shift/Split in any way.
Wow. These were pretty jaw-dropping. I love the change to Torch, as we can now “reliably” apply burning without the need for the staff.
And the changes to Inspiration are just great. I can’t decide if I want to continue with a power lockdown build, a condition build, or go full support.
I know that Cele stats are going to get nerfed, but does anyone here think that a Chrono/Inspiration/X build can make an absolutely phenomenal bunker/bruiser?
The implementation of that skill baffles me. If they introduce an AoE Polymorph, then I expect the balance to be a way that breaks you out of it. That will certainly screw with our own elite.
As someone who plays mostly lockdown or shatter, I will echo everyone else here. Medi guards and thieves are pretty ridiculous to fight. I’m not going to judge my own skill level, I’ll leave it to the opponent to determine if I’m good or not.
But the amount teleports and blinds that those two classes have access to make the fight very difficult. Any good thief gets a free kill versus me. What I think is most annoying that phantasms aren’t summoned if you’re blinded. Can we at least summon the illusion and make it miss its first attack? That really goes more for thieves. Ready access to blind can make them kind of untouchable. And the mechanic is weird. I don’t understand how it can make you miss AoE effects like focus pull.
@MSFone, I’m repeating myself a bit here, but don’t knock the s-t/sc-p combo. It takes some getting used to as a mid-range harasser/skirmisher, but I’ve had a lot of fun with it. Especially when you get get a duelist or two out, and just bait some defensive skills.
Very nice! Echoing Menaka, I run a mix of Rampager/Berserker/Sinister/Knight in WvW when I use maim. It’s Rampager armor, and I’m often torn between Traveler Runes and Perplexity runes, so I usually switch back and forth :P
Double ranged condi shatter is really strong. Moreso than people realize I think. In WvW I normally do sword-torch/scepter-pistol, but I’ve dabbled in the other weapons too. GS/Staff with a Rampager amulet and Nightmare runes isn’t a bad setup to try in SPvP if you want to get used to the build.
Are we sure that it does the extra damage on a “tick?” From what I understood, it had a small DoT component, and then extra damage on an ability being used. Functioning sort of like retaliation.
Maybe I was making that up…
Do not derail this positivity!
And if I’m already on a point, (and in Yolo-Q) I’m very reluctant to leave it to kill an enemy in a one-on-one situation. I’ve just had a lot of close games where, if the fight was going to be long, I’m going to hold the point as long as possible so my team can still get some points for a minute or so, even if said team is sucking.
@MSFone, agreed. WvW is a bit better for Mesmers because there’s no need to fight on a point, at least not in roaming. And even in a case like a ruin, you can do whatever you need to to kill the enemy. They don’t have a 15-second respawn.
Keep the good vibes coming!
Don’t worry. Aeoldyn and I have already infiltrated…
…about playing Mesmer. These forums often get negative and people tend to feel touchy. I figured we could share stories about what makes us happy about why we play Mesmer. Mine happened yesterday:
I was on my really slow climb to Rank 80, where all of my teams were losing ’cause of people fighting off point, 4 people defending lord against 1 engineer, etc. It felt like a hollow climb and like I thought I was a bad player because I was losing all of these matches.
But in one of them, I’m fighting solo at Graveyard in Foefire. I just finish stomping a thief when a necro and ranger appear. All I can do is stall and hope that my team shows up to help me. I’m locking down the necro and avoiding as much of the rangers damage as I can. I’m able to get some nice LoS action in until the necro pops his plague form. I’d been conserving my Moa, and figured now, in this 1v2, would be a good time to use it. When the necro runs away in Moa form, I manage a really sneaky lockdown burst on the ranger and a thief comes and helps me finish them off.
Here is the build that I was playing: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsdRlknpGtNqxMNMrNiphY6exyh631nTqAA-TpBBwAAOCAF3fYzJAIzDAocZgAHCAA
(I’m running this build mainly as “prep” for having IP with lockdown builds come HoT.)
Now, I know that sounds like a run-of-the-mill PvP story. But in map chat, a member of the enemy team said: “Your Mesmer is pretty kitten.” And a warrior on my team concurred.
It’s always nice when people recognize what you’re trying to do. Those comments felt great and made me really happy that I’m playing this profession. What are your stories?
The power from sinsiter isn’t bad, especially combined with other gear like Zerk or Cav. The point is to hit hard, load conditions and have a ton of pressure on the opponent. I want to say that Sinister was practically made for Scepter-Pistol runners.
Check out IrxAllis on YouTube. He posts great WvW build/strategy/philosophy videos.
His past few videos have been using a sinister shut-down build. He’s also really nice to talk to in-game. Very enthusiastic, insightful and friendly.
Mesmer, Warrior, Ranger and Necro are great steals. Guard and Thief aren’t bad. I think a lot of thieves overlook the Ranger steal as a reset/healing tool. LoS and blast your HP up to save your withdraw for an entangle or something.
I think this change mostly just lets thieves see the CD of steal.
When I play on my ranger (RTW/SotF), my counter to Lich Form is popping Signet of Stone and Rapid Firing their face off. The killer isn’t the stability, it’s the damage.
This is a really great video. I really like your shatter style. I learned a lot by watching and it’s improved my gameplay just over these past few days. I’ve been playing a variation of your “AIDS” build (ugh, the name tho!). I swapped the staff for Sword/Focus and run Pack runes (for SPvP). Mixing that with your kiting/sword tips has allowed me to escape medi guard/dp thief duos chasing me down and annoy the hell out of engineers and rangers.
Everyone should try playing around with IP a bit more. Running it with a lockdown-style build is going to help us get ready for HoT.
That second match where I played my Mesmer could have gone a lot better. I logged in too late and couldn’t change from a condi build I was trying out. I think all I ended up doing was using Moa morph and forcing the enemy to waste cleanses.
Agreed. Let’s go nuts these coming weeks.
The thing people will need to watch out for are those who know what the Moa skills do. I’ve downed many a Mesmer who thought I was just going to spam the 5 skill and run away.
You don’t think you’d be in that U.S. “Big 5”, Chaos? I’d say you and Icy would be there. But I haven’t dueled a ton of mesmers in a while. However, if I have a special talent for moa-morphing, maybe I’ll start my hunt…
@ Sevetar, that’s actually my preferred way to play glass power shatter. You can use the standard traits if you’d like. Things I’d suggest changing is taking Illusionary Invigoration over Illusionary Elasticity. I find that masterful reflection is a pretty key trait no matter what. The choice of Mental Torment over Halting Strike is also a personal choice for this setup. I prefer halting cause I approach a bit more cautiously and kite a lot, mainly going in for the three-clone mindwrack when the enemy is completely pinned or shut down.
Final word of advice is to only summon the iWarlock after you burst someone. There will be residual conditions allowing him to hit like a truck. Both the warlock and the duelist benefit from Phantasmal Fury greatly, but if you’re running sword, it’s a toss up between damage and survivability through blade training.
Oh and the other thing is that, while its nice to consider what we could do differently, the fact is the next torny will probably be post trait changes, and once that happens it’s going to be a far different ball game. For one a whole team of mesmer isnt going to be quite so ridiculous because of what a variety of build comps can accomplish. As well as the individual mesmer in general being far more potent in what he can do.
100 percent this. IP being baseline is a huge buff to our survivability for one thing. And removing stats from the trait lines will open up a lot of variety, too. I’ve been toying around with a build somewhat like what Vashury has in his latest, with CI and IP. It allows me to practice without DE and get used to IP on a lockdown build at the same time. Do I notice the missing crit, ferocity from dueling? Yes. But it’s still capable of blowing up other glass players (the might stacks are huge!).
I think that one change alone opens a lot of doors for any tank or condi builds, too. Regardless of builds and whenever the next ToL would be, there are a lot of Mesmer utilities we can probably fine-tune our use of.
Also, everyone say congrats to Stickerhappy and Skcamow who made it quite far into the tournament!
I should have moa’d the thief instead of keeping necro/engi in mind.
Yeah. The first team we fought was pretty much a beastly thief who had 4 people to keep him alive will he drank the joos all day.
Ross, I only played shatter the first round, then switched to CI because that handles DP thieves a bit better. Given that fact, for our first time all “practicing” I think we all did well. Obviously, the shenanigans afterward were more fun. I was gs/sf CI the whole time. Mainly there for control, Moa, and feedback.
Lol @ Aeoldyn’s portal on the stairs. And in vid 2, @ 18:00 is when I was fighting the engineer/warrior at mid, nearly downing one of them after like a 90 second fight, and then they started cursing me out.
I want to say MVPs were Pyro and Vinesta. Our dear “tanks.” Why? Vinesta only played this build for about a week and she also plays on a tablet better than most play on a PC. And Pyro cause 1) team leader and 2) he was playing a strange Knight’s Amulet tank build but still killing people effortlessly.
In sum, Mesmer teams are fun. We should do these more often. And yes to OP, anyone in OMFG who wants to pvp, just ask. We’re usually down.
I can’t say that I play condi for the survivability. But that’s because I most often do it with a Rampager Amulet (though I mix Rampager/Sinister/Berserker in open world PvE sometimes — condis are great versus the husks in the Silverwastes.)
I think that maim applies a lot of pressure. And since f1 and f2 are on pretty short cooldowns, in a duel, or a 1v2, cleansing one shatter isn’t all that bad ’cause I just have another lined up. Also, with staff, GS and scepter clones, you have some reliable bleed stackers (and the pistol phant, duh).
Now that I think of it, no build I have ever played has ever been made for outright “toughness.” When I play condi, it’s to spike some pressure. I’ve done MtD with Sword-Torch/Sc-P and I’ve done it with GS/Staff. The first is a great assaulter, the second can wreak absolute havok at a mid-point. I realize GS is a weird choice, but the zerker applies cripple and a knockback, so even as a “fragile” condi, I can sit at 1,200 range and do damage.
The first set, I will say, does way better against thieves (and way back, Aeo, you dueled me while I used that set). It’s pretty slippery. And it’s what I use in WvW roaming as a hybrid.
I just wanna say, awesome initiative here guys.
.. And I actually didn’t mean for the pun o_O
IGN: Azir of Elona (or Aeoldyn)
Playstyle: PvP
Server: Anvil Rock (soon to be Fort Aspenwood)
Experience: 90% Mesmer – 8% Ele – 1.5% Ranger – .5% Teef.Looking to raise that teef ratio!
Well well well..
Fixing forum bug(?)
@Sebrent: Agreed, to a point. Sword-Dagger thieves are way harder to pin down. I think I’ve heard Rylock say that you can interrupt CnD and the chain skill for Infiltrator’s Strike. But that’s a little difficult for me just yet :P. Dagger-Pistol thieves, on the other had, as long as you can clear the blind, feel free to interrupt those Heartseekers. You know that it’s coming the second they fire the blinding shot. My problem with DP thieves is never the initial burst, it’s the complete reset after Shadow Refuge. If they can avoid the push/pull from the GS/Sword-Focus set, they have 15 seconds of making us play a guessing game. With Basilisk Venom and a backstab/steal combo, it’s a risky gamble if we want to time our dodge.
I’d say shatter does a little bit better than lockdown even in the thief matchup, but some people will prove me wrong.
But as I’ve stated elsewhere on these forums. The thief should just stick to shortbowing mesmers down. That weapon was F@#$ing designed for PVP.
Nice writeup OP. Everyone should explore alternative builds, especially because they can help you understand the “meta” and why it works the way it does.
For tournament play (something I’ve never done, but I read and have an understanding) Shatter with GS/Sword-Torch or Staff, works because its damage and defenses are reliable. With IP, the Mesmer can count on his or herself. With lockdown, you rely on your enemy.
That being said, certain builds will shine versus certain teams, with certain teams. In solo Q ranked, I’ve run a number of builds that have been really effective. Definitely lockdown, and sometimes even with Maim.
I think that people need to stop equating “good build” with a “meta build.” Everyone should theorycraft, experiment, and find out what role they are trying to fill.
That being said, come the HoT pre-patch, shatter and lockdown will be practically combined. It almost doesn’t seem like there will be a “pure” lockdown or a “pure” shatter as far as those terms apply right now. These forums just need a little xanax.
IGN: Acanthya
Playstyle: PvP, some WvW and PvE (mostly open world or achieves).
Server: Fort Aspenwood
Experience: Minimal at best. I’ve mained a Mesmer almost entirely, I’m an active member of OMFG, the Mesmer forum guild. I also have a ranger alt in WIND. I like trying different builds on toons, I experiment with my mesmer a lot and would like to learn more about the thief profession.
My question is whether it will proc from clone crits.