Guild Wars 2

Thief is fun. You can do a lot of stealth to skip stuff. Guardian and Elementalist are also worth recommending. They can offer some healing and condi cleanse for some story stuff, dynamic group events and the like.

I absolutely want a spear on land. I don’t even mind if the abilities are the same.

Another plug for Arrogance here. Even the name fits into the “Mesmer persona.” Or is it Illusionary persona? Call it what you will.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/guild-wars-2-are-thieves-and-mesmers-cause-meta#.VLUoBeUxwO0.reddit

I thought this was a great read. The author is theorizing that thieves/mesmers — the burst variety in particular — are the reason the current meta game exists.

However, about halfway through, he mentions that thief in particular is a bit stronger because of the on-demand stealth and because there’s no real way to pull them OUT of stealth.

I will say that I used to play World of Warcraft several years ago, and the Rogue class provided a similar stealth problem. There was a series of infamous videos called world of Roguecraft, continual re-stealthing means that the Rogue, and essentially, Thieves, are the ones who really control the battle.

I think this would take months if not a solid year to tweak and balance. Upping pet diversity, as well as how well-controlled they could be, is a good enough tweak.

However, if you were able to make pets that much more controlled, PLUS strengthen them through a tree, you’re effectively running two toons in one. I’m sure someone would come up with some kitten RtW/Pet build.

I’d say yes to adding control, but no to adding so much specialization.

I refuse to watch since I am not in any of these clips.

Rangers have a ton of CC! Mine runs with a 20-second cool down immobilize, Entangle every 48 seconds, a knock back on a really short cool down, spider immobilizes randomly AND when I want it too, wolf has a random knockdown and on-demand fear.

I think the amount of long-lasting immobilizes a Ranger can bring is a perfect counter to Classes with stability that give Mesmers trouble. That includes other rangers. I feel like if I know a ranger is going to peel for me, I feel way safer than I would with a thief.

What’s a profession that you love teaming up with in SPvP or WvW?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a lot of really good synergy with Lockdown Mesmer, particularly CI, and a RtW Ranger. Both classes can provide a lot of control and breathing room for each other, and allow Phantasms + Rapid Fire to do their work.

You can see this at work a good deal in Chaos Archangel’s video here. He’s playing CI Mesmer, and I’m running Read the Wind/Survival of the Fittest on my ranger. In the first big fight at Quarry, thanks to a smart portal play, we were about to kill an Engi that had a Necro +1 the fight for him, followed by a +1 from a Mesmer.

Irxallis on Youtube is another Mesmer that I watch. He posted this video when the Rapid Fire changes were implemented. Mostly it’s how to deal with LB Rangers. Aside from showing how the two classes may be on even footing (probably more in the Mesmer’s favor if he was using MoD), he had a great WvW clip about their synergy and the LB Role.

Trapper rangers are also worth noting. I’ve been in 2v3s with Stickerhappy playing his Ranger, while I was on my mesmer, versus a coordinated team and the constant movement and immobilizes was enough to throw them for a loop.

So, as whichever your preferred build is, what’s your favorite profession to run alongside?

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

It depends on who/what I’m fighting. I don’t do that vs you. =P

On our duels last night you burned both of your charges before I even used one of mine lol. I always had 1 more charge then you did the entire fight since you are so easy to mantra bait

I heard a dirty rumor that I just started that Rylock mantrabaits on his computer all day long…

Haha, they are.

@Trooper, I think seeing that from Chaos’s perspective, it’s hard to consider how glassy HE was. Swordsmen were hitting him regularly for over 5,000. I count him going down more than 2-3 times, too, I believe.

I think the big difference was that Chaos was running Shatterlock. He has CS and IP. So, while 6 points in dueling, in Ross’s build, add a ton of ferocity, IP in Chaos’s build add an extra CC with f3, on-demand defense with f4, and another source of damage with f1.

Ross needs to micromanage his defenses, but Chaos needs to manage his clone production (he’s not running DE). Both builds are really high risk, high reward. Probably the highest out of any of the lockdown builds.

A few of you here on the forums know me. I like to think I’m a decent Mesmer in PvP, I can hold my own pretty well (except against other lockdown Mesmers). Normally I play some variation of Lockdown, either CI or lately CS just to see what it’s about. I’m pretty capable of playing a shatter build, too.

I wanted to gauge the community’s opinion on “hard counters.” As a power Mesmer, do you ever come across a certain profession/build that you absolutely know you’re going to defeat? For me, I’d say it would be a power necro, if I’m playing a lockdown build.

And what, specifically, is it about thieves that hard counter us so much? Can you think of a similarly balanced matchup? I’m more than aware that pvp is not all about 1v1 fights. But lately I’ve been feeling like even in a 2v2 or a 3v3, if there’s a thief present, I will more than likely be killed.

I’ve been dabbling with a few other classes in pvp: Ranger, Elementalist and even a Thief. On each of those professions, I never get the same feeling about a class that I do about a Mesmer when I see a thief approaching.

I actually think the build is really good at shutting down a cele ele after they pop their stability. If you hide/kite well enough in a team fight like a 3v3, it’s really possible to lock those suckers down. Running without a boonstrip is a pain, but waiting out the stab is easy enough. Plus, you have a blind and an immobilize to harass through stability anyway. I posted this before, but with 66020 you get more longevity out of Mantra of Recovery and MoD. And with Runes of the Mesmer and Paralyzation sigils, that’s a lot of daze/stun duration.

I feel like CS is more like a dance, and CI is more like a throwdown. Both are really different. So, far, CS can turn the tide of a fight against a thief much quicker. I’ve heard you can interrupt the sword-2 chain, but if you miss, there goes the immobilize you landed from CI. It’s pretty fun watching a thief blow up: halting strike → swordsman leap → sword 3 swap into blurred — all with a duelist in the background. It’s a thing of beauty.

@Ross: Two small things from the vid you posted. Be more patient with guards like that. It seemed like you were trying to get off as much burst as possible right at the beginning. And when you were after the necro, you can sword swap up to him, instead of blinking to the higher terrain. It’d save the CD and immobilize him (so he could eat it from the duelist).

Took me a while to find a color scheme that could meld the purple with the teal nicely. Mahogany did the trick. I actually don’t have an affinity for the color Teal, my character name is a play of sorts from my IRL name. And, normally, I don’t run sword-sword. But I’ve been fooling around with CS lately and the Nightmare Swords are the only ones I like.

I think FI is a great way to learn how to capitalize on interrupts for any lockdown spec.

@Chaos, this morning I tried 66020. I took harmonious mantras for the extra daze, and I picked up the healing mantra for mender’s purity. I think that adds some staying power in a fight and dance around a bit longer, but bursting people down isn’t as quick as it is with FI. I agree that the damage is very single target. However, the dazes/stuns are not. The pistol bounces (and I know blind isn’t the best, but sometimes, it’s the best), and the sword daze pierces. With those two abilities alone, plus MoD, there’s room to daze/stun a group on a point — especially if you go with the sigil of paralyzation and Mesmer runes.

This is is very beastly 1v1, and I think it can shine in some team fights. Though I think Ross is right in playing it more like a thief. What’s interesting is that I have an easier time dealing with bunkers with this CS build than I do running typical CI. Oh well, more practice. We should do an all CI/CS mesmer team some night. Anyone… anyone?

Hey Ross. I finally gave this build a try after our little dueling session. The Assassin’s amulet makes it a little too glassy for me (though very rewarding when things go right). I switched it to Zerker with Runes of the Ranger to maintain high critical hit chances and ferocity. Air/Fire was still on Scepter/Pistol, but I kept Hydromancy/Energy on Sword-Sword. Take a look here:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQRAsc7alknpGtNqxMNcrNipRYqeSHkMU6yzOA-TpAVQAg9HqlBAA

The idea of stun locking is really a lot of fun, and once the phantasm CDs start to come to, an F3 Shatter can really work some wonders with a stun and a hard-hitting halting strike. You’ll see in the link that I changed something… I actually took Furious Interruption.

I like the idea of being rewarded for interrupting someone, and for such a high-powered build, FI (when was the last time anyone spoke about this talent?) certainly did that. Especially for one’s initial burst, casting a MoD or a Magic bullet that interrupts, chain into a duelist/confusing images is some really quick spell work, and burst that people don’t see coming. It was particularly fun to pull this prank on some thieves who popped Basilisk Venom and stunned me. Decoy->Magic Bullet->Duelist->Confusing Images->MoD makes very quick work of them.

FI isn’t the greatest, but I think this build can capitalize on it. Plus, if you’re mindful of its internal cool down, getting an interrupt while a player is down leads to a quicker stomp.

I never thought that I’d have fun with a CS build, but it was really creative of you to make one like this.

One other little variant that I want to try is to take Harmonious Mantras for another source of daze. I’d then go for the healing mantra as well, and take 2 points in Inspiration to help with condition clearing. And since mantra heals proc set bonuses, I’d hunt for something to help out with that (or I would stick with the air runes for swiftness during battle). Since the build uses decoy and blink with MI, we have plenty of ways to safely recharge a mantra. Not to mention that enemies won’t want to get too close to us, trying to mend those brutal wounds the phantasms inflict.

Phew. I thought you were showing me playing on my mesmer — in those matches where I kept stepping away from the computer. This makes it almost seem like I know what I’m doing in pvp.

It’s weird watching a toon of mine play. But fun watching you. You have gotten way more aggressive with Staff/Sword-Focus and that’s probably not what people expect from a mesmer without a GS. And it’s obviously working.

Really nice portal plays (but you should have recorded the match in Forest! We barely won that one from you stealing far with portal and me sniping creatures!) I think we kept doing the right thing at quarry. Even if I died, I was holding the point in contention for as long as possible. I went down the first time trying to head to you when you were in trouble. For a 2v2 that became a 2v3 with a turret engi, we didn’t do bad.

You can also see some things that people do wrong, like when the enemy mesmer walked back into your iWarden at the Quarry. Or just when I sometimes display my “map unawareness.” But who know LB Survival of the Fittest + Lockdown was such a good/fun team!

@Ross: Which fights? In the beginning, I don’t think the mesmer was a real threat — especially considering he was on point and using GS, so Chaos would interrupt him even if he didn’t mean to (probably). Since the enemy team was just letting a LB ranger nuke from up top, it probably didn’t matter who we killed first there, I’d just rather not risk the Lich. Another strategy could have been to just down the mesmer and not worry about the stomp. For CS interrupts, maybe necro wouldn’t be priority, since the stun comes from dazing and not interrupting. But with CI, Necros have such long casts and no stun breaks, like Chaos said in the video, that it’d be dumb not to focus them. Resources, however, will be burned in a 3v1

@Stormbolt I use Focus with travelers, despite not getting into WvW all that often. Being able to pull an enemy into the warden and trap them there with CI is so good. But I also tend to run 04640 in WvW and trait the focus. Reflects definitely have a place in the lockdown world. Also, wardens spinning on the temporal curtain = condi cleanse. You should be standing near the warden anyway for some area denial/protection.

Strengths

-My temper
-Rage quitting daily
-Observing that when another team has an engineer, they will likely win
-Rage quitting daily after fighting engineers, I’m really good at that
-Not getting stomps
-Getting on teams that can’t land stomps
-Being focused
-Getting Moa Morphed versus two mesmers and a thief

Weaknesses
-Engineers
-Elementalists
-Thieves
-Warriors
-Guardians
-Rangers
-Necromancers (JK)
-Sometimes other mesmers

The pistol is really underrated, and very strong when traited. You’re sacrificing a lot though.

skcamow.3527:

StickerHappy.8052:

Yes, i know a lot of these stuff already,. I’m asking like what if the competition is now with really skilled players, how can I pull of shatters really well?

The blink shatter works for unsuspecting foes, without them seeing you first, if they manage did see you first they can count, and dodge or block the incoming shatter.

Any new tips on surprising foes or landing shatters really well?

I like using my Gs5 blink push, I think not all people are expecting that.

The issue is that we need more ways to root opponents to land shatters. Since iLeap/Swap isn’t always reliable and very predictable, you could try playing a stun/shatter build. So you run the typical 4/4/0/0/6 but with sw/p and signet of domination. Now you have iLeap/Swap and two stuns at your disposal with which to more frequently land shatter combos. I understand pistol #5 and signet of dom are rather slow, but with two stuns, you’ll be able to overcome most builds which typically take one stun break.

I tried a build like this awhile back, but it was too support focused. Having both of those stuns at my disposal really helped land the shatters when I needed them though, helping me control the fight in that sense. I just needed more damage. I might try something like this again with that different perspective.

Sticker heard me say this in FB chat, but I’ll write it here too. I’ve been running Staff/Sword-Pistol in spvp and having some fun with it. It’s 26006. Reduced cooldown on pistol gives a lot of utility with the stun on only 20 seconds — and the phantasm on 12. Pretty much when I’m ready to burst, the pistol summon is ready. The tradeoff is that I’m playing without shattered concentration, in which case DD eles and other really boon-reliant classes will just walk all over me.

But that one stun allows for a lot of mind games. Like pistol 5 into sword 2 and they panic/stunbreak/dodge and you’re free to lock them down. Also, if you’re patient, just wait a bit before casting swap after you’ve summoned the leap clone.

The LAST thing. Just shatter! If people are waiting for the immob. Let them wait and mindwrack all over their face. in that case you have the immob for when they actually try to get away.

I agree another hard CC would be nice. Following the psychic/mental magic that mesmers deal with, I’m kind of borrowing the priest skill from WoW, but what about a psychic scream type deal?

Illusionary Horror? Give it a minute-long CD. “Shatter your clones on the enemy, each clone sends the target away in fear for 1 second.”

I don’t think it should be AoE. It’s whomever each clone is targeting. That way it wouldn’t be too overpowered. Plus, clones can be dodged.

Adding to what Chaos just posted about seeing a mesmer go into stealth: the spike can be predicted. Count to two or three (depending on how fast you count :P) and do a dodge roll. Or start channeling your GS-4 block on your ranger after two seconds.

You can avoid a lot of pressure if you know you can predict it.

Yeah, the utilities and traits depend on how you want to play.

I’ve been running 2/6/0/0/6 lately. I sacrificed Shattered Concentration in order to pick up Duelist’s Discipline. The two in domination is for Mental Torment. I’ve also traited for blade training so that I have minimum recharge on sword and pistol.

In duels, the style is to carefully use your defenses (in groups, just do your damage), while a 12-second pistol summon means your damage spike is ready every time Mind Wrack is recharged. (I know MW is a 10-sec CD playing shatter, but you need a second or two to set it up.)

Utilities are decoy, null and blink. If I can land a sword2 swap I can trap the enemy, or keep them in, a null field to rip stability. And with Illusionary Invigoration, shatter skills reset when I dip below 50 percent health, so distortion and diversion will reset allowing for more defense and crowd control.

It’s kind of unorthodox for shatter to run without 4 in Domination. But I just want to toy around with the pistol, so I went for it. It’s all about style and what you want to do.

I’ve never actually used a focus with a shatter build. Wardens do a lot of damage, but not at the pace I like. But the swiftness, yes, it’s great for that.

I think Calliope may have been writing from a PvE standpoint, yes(?). For leveling shatter, torch is kind of moot, and the choice between focus, pistol and sword off-hand is completely up to the player there. Do, however, keep a torch in your inventory if you’re trying to stealth past mobs. Focus grants swiftness and a high-damaging (though over a long period of time) phantasm. The pistol offers a rapid-fire ranged phantasm and a stun. And the sword off-hand offers the phantasm with the fastest recharge, and a high-damage counter.

@Ryoh: As for what you’ll be doing at level 80, it depends. Are you focusing on open world PvE, WvW, or SPvP. Shatter is really versatile among weapons sets. For example, the common shatter setup in SPvP right now is GS/Staff, or GS/Sword-Torch. However, I’ve been playing the past few days with Staff/Sword-Pistol and it’s a ton of fun, though that may be in part because it’s not a weapon set that people have seen there in a while — at least, I haven’t. But you are correct in focusing on power and ferocity/precision.

I think you’ll find out whatever style you want to focus on once you unlock more traits at level 60, or if you jump into the Heart of the Mists and toy around with the NPCs there.

Wow! This was a ton of fun to watch. Also, you move really creatively with your weapon set. For some reason, the swap→curtain pull combo has never occurred to me. Swapping to staff immediately after (and throwing in a dodge roll) would give you more distance and clones. That could make for a nice chain diversion. THEN, you pull out the Warlock, cackle cackle cackle!

Really good vid. Can’t wait for some more.

Yeah, base (meaning the physical base, not the adjective meaning ‘not good’) tactics won’t.

I do think we should have one or two people running Time Warp though. Stomping/Rezzing seems to be the hardest thing in a mesmer team. The long CD is killer considering what the skill does, and our elites are kind of ‘meh’ to begin with. But that haste will help, no full-clone distortions needed, quick blinds.

Something like two run with TW, two with MI, and someone with MoA, when boon strips seem to fail on Liches, etc.

StickerHappy.8052:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Tealots I’m coming to test your Mesmer gangsta at 10pm EST!

… Estimated.

You’ll be surprised how good tealot is now! mwahahaha.!

…and how short his temper has become. I’m nervous.

StickerHappy.8052:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Calliope pulled me from Xbox One. =P I’ll be on tonight and this weekend.

Woohoo. Can’t wait to see you. I just hopped back on my mes and playing shatter. I missed it. Having a duel with you and the other OMFG guys will certainly revitalize my love for my mesmer.

Oh. My. Effing. Gee.

Agreed. ANET would really need to weigh what they were doing. Merging the glamour traits and the manipulation traits together is one thing.

If they merged things like the spirit traits, I could see that being GM.

I can understand merging a CD reduction with another trait skill like range increase. So the two glamour traits in Inspiration make sense.

But Trap Potency already lowers cool down AND increases condi duration. Trapper’s expertise makes them ground targeted AND a larger range. I think those are separated nicely.

As I remember, those were tough fights. I do a lot of my open world/LS as a staff/gs shatter build because it’s fun and you have distance. I always kill the assassins first. I’m sure other people here use a different build, and maybe even reflects.

As more me, I just prioritize targets and move around a lot. Save dodges for the grenadier barrages and the golem projectiles.

What weapons are you using?

Bumping for the lockdown goodness. I’ve been alternating between GS/Staff shatter and GS/Staff 4/4/6 lockdown. Shatter is fun, and a bit easier to handle. But I honestly love the monstrous hits from the iWarlock with CI/BI.

10k mage strike into a 4.2k halting strike? Always and forever. That’s happening while he’s immobilized, and just sitting inside a chaos storm. It’s just rude. Mindwrack for the finish.

I’m also not saying one is better than the other. But I hear a lot about Lockdown really lacking shatter’s burst. I think it just takes more finesse. I almost exclusively pull out the warlock after a chain diversion, and they’re not as hard to set up as you think. It’s become pretty key to my rotation that I might switch far-reaching manipulations out for Phantasmal Fury to ensure the crit. I’m intrigued by the Superior Sigil of Intelligence, but I don’t believe in diversion with the GS then switching to staff.

I think one thing that could really open up some fun builds and diversity would be either a) making Deceptive Evasion a 2-point trait or b) implement a class mechanic where when a mesmer is in combat and has 100 endurance, dodging creates a clone.

A lot of builds that are power based, whether shatter, lockdown, something else fun that you’ve made, are SUPER reliant on DE. I think moving that trait down, or making it a class mechanic (so that people at least don’t need to wait until level 60 for it), would open up build diversity, and allow people to use many different utilities.

@Rylock: Thanks! Regarding sword, I still use it a ton. I alternate a lot between GS/Staff/Sw-Focus setups. Maybe I just haven’t noticed any of the swap bugs. Focus is lovely. And I’ve actually never played with the pistol in a CI build before.

Staff/GS CI is probably easier to learn since to get the most damage out of the focus takes a lot of practice (though it is one of the best phantasms to place on a downed enemy, right along with an iZerker).

Lockdown 4 lyfe!

I’ve been running something similar to what Rylock has going on. Using Staff/GS to maintain the distance. The GS provides some pretty phenomenal burst, and if you think someone sees it coming, then switch to staff where the iWarlock’s damage is completely unexpected right after an interrupt or two. I keep a Doom Sigil on my staff as well, in the case that I miss interrupting a heal.

When you get the hang of the interrupts, the CI build is way more punishing to an enemy, and way more rewarding for you. I can’t land them as handily as Chaos or Rylock, but I’ll average about 15 might stacks against someone, which means 24 stacks of vuln on the enemy, plus they are immobilized, which means more phantasm and shatter damage on them. Oh and halting strike. Chain interrupts are burst.

Regarding condi classes: I’d say keeping your distance and doing damage with the GS is a lot of control on its own. Force them to use their heals and defensive abilities. I usually run with blink on a 24 sec cd and with 1200 range because it helps keep the distance. Runes of Lyssa + Distortion if you really have trouble with condis.

Stability is the only boon you need to look out for, and 4/4/6 still has plenty of clone creation, and boon stripping potential. Also GS3.

I think that a lot of people who run double ranged shatter would like Staff/GS CI. I have been using strength/hoelbrak runes, but sometime I’ll switch to pack runes when I’m using the Sword/Focus.

Last observation: when you’re more focused with on-point fighting as CI Lockdown, staff/sword focus provides you with the most manipulative movement, especially if you’re running with blink.

I like the idea with the 2x boonshare with 3x shatter. I forget if you use CI in your boonshare build. I’d suggest a full-on CI-Lockdown to keep enemies pinned down for the shatter people to land their combos, plus it helps more with landing stomps.

I also have a troll-like theory that a PU phantasm build would be stellar in defending a trebuchet…

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Uh.. would you happen to be on US or EU? I think this is gonna take a more-personal touch. (which is what she said. nyuk nyukk)

+1’d for that.

It’s a neat concept to make it so that it’s not just another stealth skill, but I can see that becoming pretty game-changing in a player versus player setting.

@ Chaos: I’m sorry to hear about the RL stuff man.

I wish I could weigh in on WvW theory, but I’m terrified of that area of play. I’m working on some ascended items to maybe stand a chance.

Double ranged lockdown is interesting in sPvP. I went with Hoelbrak runes and that helped. Air/Fire on the GS is nice too. This was running 4/4/6/0/0. I know IE’s value. I just love the reset on shatter skills in a tough situation. I think it’s in my nature to be defensive and prepared for a situation instead of being aggressive.

I should play more with Mantra of Resolve to clear conditions. I feel like double range LD has potential. There are just a lot of fine lines. In my idea world, DE would be baseline and I could try CI with Imbued Diversion for team fight shenanigans.

But when all else fails I just use the Staff/Sw-Focus.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Tealots.6095:

Any tips on how to really make GS really meld with a CI build? I tried playing around with the build below for a little bit. Thinking maybe I’ll try double-ranged shatter “style” with CI for control. It was fun, but I’m sure I could be doing something else with that. I found that this one could handle engineers pretty well.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJAWRlknpGtFqxMNcrNytxY6Ne4CU20UlMggB-TZxFwAJeAAo2fAwRAAxlAQaZAA

The traits/utilities look good (though I’d recommend Phantasmal Fury) but I’m not certain about the sigils. I feel double-ranged really meshes well with a Fire/Air combo -even at the expense of energy- and would probably go Fire/Air on GS and Hydro/Energy on staff. Other than that I was tempted to try something very similar to this last night, unfortunately I didn’t have the chance to hop on. =/

I actually haven’t seen you on in weeks.

I was surprised at myself for not taking far-reaching manipulations, which may actually mesh nicely with a 1,200-range Arcane Thievery. I think my idea was to reduce the recharge on MoD because 30 seconds is ridiculous and I’d have more opportunity to recharge it being a range-based fighter.

My main problem with that build that I linked is that the damage isn’t that great. I considered going 4/0/6/0/4. Sacrifice DE and take Halting Strike and Shattered Concentration. Utility-wise I would then definitely use iDisenchanter and either Mirror Images or Decoy for the extra clones. I need to pick a different rune set. And it’s hard creating any kind of damage spike out of an interrupt without Halting Strike. I could switch to a rampager amulet/Grenth rune combo and try a little hybrid I suppose, but that just doesn’t feel clean.

What were you going to try the other night?

Hah! I was using Aeoldyn’s 4/4/6 build. But, like you, was using GS/Staff this time around. I think the might from GS-2 is really noticeable. Having an iWarlock and an iZerker is great for burst. And GS-3 helps with some boon removal.

I’m going to bump this for the staff lulz. Mage Strike crit for over 9,000 today. It also happened right after a 2.7k halting strike crit. Long live lockdown.

Don’t have it from sPvP, but it’s one of my favorite sword skins. Very Mesmer-y.

Any tips on how to really make GS really meld with a CI build? I tried playing around with the build below for a little bit. Thinking maybe I’ll try double-ranged shatter “style” with CI for control. It was fun, but I’m sure I could be doing something else with that. I found that this one could handle engineers pretty well.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJAWRlknpGtFqxMNcrNytxY6Ne4CU20UlMggB-TZxFwAJeAAo2fAwRAAxlAQaZAA

Engineers and Elementalists are my bane, but that may be singular for me. I’d say rangers, but the power rangers are actually really easy to kill — even without landing interrupts using 4/4/6. So, spirit rangers can be troublesome.

I’ll also mention Mesmers, but you know my trouble with that. Lately I’ve been experimenting with the classic CI build in sPvP, but choosing Rampager’s over Berserker’s. I don’t land interrupts perfectly, so I like the moderate condition damage I deal while I bait people out with the staff.

BooDuh.2841:

Tealots.6095:

I’d love to be in on this. Just came back to the game.

IGN: Tealot
Server: Fort Aspenwood
Gameplay: Mostly SPvP, PvE for leveling toons and looking to dabble in W3
Role: Scholar Mostly, but Tester too.
Time: US Eastern Time, usually late nights and weekends.

---

ohh, love the name

Why thank you!

I’d love to be in on this. Just came back to the game.

IGN: Tealot
Server: Fort Aspenwood
Gameplay: Mostly SPvP, PvE for leveling toons and looking to dabble in W3
Role: Scholar Mostly, but Tester too.
Time: US Eastern Time, usually late nights and weekends.

As far as WvWvW goes, has anyone toyed with using Rampager’s gear with a lockdown spec? Does it make sense to have some burns/bleeds or even torment ticking away on an enemy while you do some direct damage? Not complete Rampagers. But weapons/trinkets, and a mix of other armor.

I have a quick question as well. I understand the usefulness of Mass Invisibility. But going for a “lockdown” elite, why is it that Moa isn’t chosen as often? One would think it buys a chunk of time to keep the enemy out of commission while weapon skills/dazes are recharging?

Just theory crafting here (also, first post ever!)