Guild Wars 2

This is pretty close to the PvE build I use most of the time, and I have tried it a bit in sPvP too. It’s quite strong in teamfights; I find it most useful in 3v3ish mid-fight situations, and I love portal to be able to run over to support home or far if necessary while being able to instantly get back to mid when needed. The buff to Shattered Conditions will also be awesome for this; 600 range is plenty to keep your whole team condition free when fighting on points.

However, I find it really hard to be effective roaming / dueling with it. With only decoy for stealth, and no staff, I find myself too vulnerable 1v1 to be able to fend off other roamers effectively; I go down pretty fast to a good backstab thief (or a few others). After decoy, blink, and F4 are blown I’m basically a sitting duck; I tend to find dual-sword + staff works a lot better for staying alive.

Xenn – I can’t wait for the Chaotic Transference buff myself. I actually — oddly enough — play close to this same build, with more condition traits (Crippling / Debilitating Dissipation instead of Empowered and MoManip) yet less condition gear (mostly knight/berserk/cavalier mix). I’ve been meaning to stick some more condition damage in there, and 10% more from Transference will definitely help with that.

I’m also thinking of trying 0/20/30/0/20 after the patch, grabbing Comp. Power and pHaste for damage, and iCelerity of course for all the cooldown boosts (faster iDuelists, iZerkers, Decoy, etc.) which handily gets me +200 condi damage as well; I’d lose the buffed Mender’s Purity though which kinda hurts on the condition removal front.

Perplex would be ok, but I agree with BD – you’d have absolutely zero mobility. No Focus, and no other source of swiftness, means you’d never be able to run away or catch anyone at all. Not great. I run something similar to this build with Traveler runes (don’t want to mess with Cold Potion etc. stuff); but you definitely want some form of speed in there.

Don’t need a special circle or anything, just an “out of range” bar on the Portal Exeunt skill. (And a buff timer for when it’ll run out!)

I’m still playing with stat swaps, but here’s a setup with +161vit, +95tough, +200heal, -30power, all other stats practically identical to yours: link

Reflects are a huge part of our DPS, specially in fractals.

Me Games Ma.8426:

Hey,
since the trait Vengeful Images got nerfed to only apply 5s of retaliation I though of another way how this trait could be effective.
(…)
~Me Games Ma

OR : just make it 10-15 seconds instead of 5 and leave it where it is.

Nice combo there, MGM Only thing bad about it is that the signet distortions are really hard to time due to cast delay. Also, this will be hell to pull off with any amount of skill lag. And you want to have stability during the “fall below 50%” phase, because if you get CC’d during that time it’s GG.

To answer the original question: condition damage will still be ticking, but nothing else should affect you during distortion.

The Dec. 10th patch will likely cause a fairly major rewrite, you may want to just hold off until then.

edit: also, wb! haven’t seen you post here in a while.

I was thinking of trying something like this, but with dual-sword + staff and Confounding Suggestions instead of 15 in Illusions. Possibly use toughness-while-charging instead of DE, add in the stability mantra, use those charges to have stability while charging the other two (Stability + 600 bonus toughness + 2.5k heal on charge == sweetness). If you’re 1v1, just use one of your many available dazes to lock out your opponent while you charge up instead of wasting a stability.

Yep, that’s pretty much the best setup for PvE; possibly excepting Blade Training instead of Duelist’s Discipline depending on your choice of offhand.

The other viable setup is switching 5 points from Dueling to Illusions for Phantasmal Haste, for maximum Warden uptime; or to Inspiration for your choice of third trait — there are so many good ones.

I’ve been playing something kind of similar to this in WvW recently, and it’s been pretty effective imo. Differences being I have no condition gear at all (knight/zerk/cavalier mix), and I’m running dual-swords with Blade Training instead of Scepter/Torch. Also moved 10 points from Dom to Inspiration for glamor cooldowns (veil/feedback/null/portal all useful in wvw).

In general, I’m fairly happy with it, although I’ve also been thinking about swapping in some condition gear to add more pressure. I will say it’s very durable and generally capable of handling 1vX fights given all the stealth and boons from PU.

Meta for what? There are many viable builds for every game type. Maybe tell us what you want to play / focus on…

Woohoo stickied finally! Congratz, Chaos, this was well-deserved.

@Wraith: Totally agreed about Time Warp. It used to be super powerful when Quickness was double-speed instead of just 150%, but now it’s just a little bit lackluster. However, I think there’s one really easy fix that makes it wonderful again: make it a Glamour.

We could trait it then, for any or all of the following:

• CD reduction from 210s to 168s
• Duration increase from 10s to 12s
• Blind-on-cast
• Confusion on entry/exit

It’s already a ground-targeted shiny purple Ethereal field, there’s no reason for it not to be.

I tend to run 10/30/0/30/0 and have reflect downtime covered by a guardian, but having pHaste and IC is definitely useful. Assuming they move celerity down in December, 10/20/0/25/15 will become the new standard, I think. Gets you all the damage and all the cooldown traits except pHaste – which is of varying usefulness anyway, depending on which phantasms you run.

I generally run Signet of Inspiration for boon-doubling, Feedback, and Blink for survival/mobility/stun-break. Rely on teammates for condition clear; in a pinch the focus can provide some by putting the Temporal Curtain under your Warden. Swap as needed depending on situation.

If more condition removal is needed, swap something out for Mantra of Resolve or Null Field or iDisenchanter; for trash running, put on Veil and Mass Invisibility; for stability add Mantra of Concentration; etc.

Overall, great stuff!
Mesmer:

• Looks like 10/20/0/25/15 will be the new dungeon phantasm build.
• Shattered Conditions change is great; it’s still a little tricky to proc it, but at least it’ll help the team more consistently when it does. I’d still like to see this work with Illusionary Persona.
• Agreed w/ Chaos Archangel about Confounding, a little more daze duration is kinda useless for a GM trait.
• Mirror of Anguish – 60s is still too high for anyone to take this; in team situations you have many CC sources incoming. Mirroring a single one isn’t so overpowered that it needs a whole minute cd, specially when it doesn’t even stop you from getting hit in the first place.

Overall, great stuff!
Mesmer:

• Looks like 10/20/0/25/15 will be the new dungeon phantasm build.
• Shattered Conditions change is great; it’s still a little tricky to proc it, but at least it’ll help the team more consistently when it does. I’d still like to see this work with Illusionary Persona.
• Agreed w/ Chaos Archangel about Confounding, pure daze duration is kinda useless for a GM trait.
• Mirror of Anguish – 60s is still too high for anyone to take this; in team situations you have many CC sources incoming. Mirroring a single one isn’t so overpowered that it needs a whole minute cd, specially when it doesn’t even stop you from getting hit in the first place.

I’ll crosspost this to the feedback thread.

Look into the Blackwater build, it runs full Rabid usually. Very strong for solo / small group roaming.

Dietzen.6127:

In the video, Ali mentions a blink burst, what is it? And how do you pull it off?

I’m assuming she means the classic shatter burst – blink, dodge, mirror images, mind wrack – or something similar. Drop a 4xWrack on your enemy from Blink range away, almost instantly.

Great video, btw, Alissah!

Yeah, CI is amazing. The best part is that they’re all control conditions, not damage – so you don’t need any condition damage to take advantage. Jumping onto a point and using Illusionary Wave to knock everyone away AND immobilize them off-point is amazing.

It also works well with so many of our weapons – staff, focus, GS, pistol, and offhand sword all have their own interrupts on them. The hard part is deciding which ones to use…

A full BI+CI interrupt build with Hoelbrak runes and Battle sigils can do a serious amount of damage along with control, I just need to play more so I can actually get good with it.

I’ve also been thinking about a 30/10/30 build with GS+Sw/Sw — trait both weapons, MoM+BI+CI, Confounding Suggestions. Probably Daze Mantra, Thievery, Blink for utils. Still not decided about the Dom adept trait, I could make a case for Empowered, Halting, or even Debilitating Dissipation to enhance the control aspect. Will have to play and see, as usual. Only problem is with no stealth and no DE it’ll be very vulnerable to getting focused.

PvE/Dungeons/Fractals/WvW(usually) – Phantasm DPS; usually 10/30/0/30/0 with weapon, gear and trait choices changing depending on what I’m doing. I have a set of Berserker/Ruby Orb armor for dungeons and fractals, and a Knight/Traveler’s for open world and WvW (run speed <3).

tPvP – mostly Solo Queue, I like to experiment; some phantasm DPS, some Interrupt/Lockdown-ish 10/30/30, and most recently been playing Sensotix’ Stealth Shatter variant.

The only thing I haven’t played with much yet is condition builds, but that’s next on the list.

GS is great in PvP, WvW, and open-world events. In dungeons and fractals you generally want to stay melee, but there are several situations where it’s still good.

Xhean.3452:

I am currently using Sword/Sword (or focus) and greatsword, having a hard time deciding what to use I somehow feel like I started sucking at dodging when playing mesmer, I die way too much when wielding swords. On my zerker warrior and guardian it’s no problem but for some reason I’m just not as good on the mesmer :S

Sw/Sw is a very defensive set, you shouldn’t have any trouble surviving, with Blade Training, and maybe a little bit of Player Training.

The main thing to remember is – stick to autoattacks for damage, and think of Blurred Frenzy as a third dodge, instead of burning it for a bit more DPS every time it’s ready. That, combined with the block on #4, should save you from almost everything once you learn to recognize and anticipate enemy attack animations.

Continuing awesome stuff, Sensotix! Been subbed since several videos ago.

I’d love some more thief gameplay with slowmo. I’ve tried thief a little bit (your build, and a more stealth-oriented one) but I always find myself melting way too fast as soon as someone looks at me funny, at least with a Berserker amulet. Shamefully enough, I even got downed by the trainer NPCs a couple times when I first tried it…

How do you manage to avoid damage / stay alive so well?

/signed. Portal Entre needs a buff icon, and Portal Exeunt needs a range indicator.

I’ve played 10/30/0/30/0 for a long time and it works great; I personally like having a third trait option in Inspiration (so many good ones to choose from!) but if you like the vulnerability so much, then switching those five into dom for it should work well for you. I do agree, bursting up some Dazzling stacks can be very useful, specially on bosses where you can easily open with a multi-clone F3 shatter + sword 4 or mantra daze for 15-20 right away. +50 more power never hurts either.

My only problem with Dazzling against bosses is after the initial burst there’s no way of reliably maintaining it. You’d need to proc dazes again every 8 seconds to have sustained vuln uptime, and we just have no way to do that. Sword 4 is the only low-cd option, and that’s on a 12-sec cd so it averages out to ~4 constant stacks over the course of the fight.

Yes, but it’s still not surprising since Power Return works like that with every “on heal” effect. From our own Mender’s Purity trait to all the other rune effects that work on heal.

RM is a mantra-specific special case.

If that’s how you want to play it I’d go 30/30/0/0/10 with Halting Strike, GS training, Empowering Mantras and Compounding Power. I’ve run a super squishy backline zerg sniper like that, 3k GS autos with double mantra spam (daze hurts too with Halting) and the occasional Mirror Blade + iZerker spin + Mind Wrack really wrecks people. Of course, if the battle turns you’re dead meat.

Are we doing this? If so, when and where? I’d love to participate. Can probably bring along a few more mesmers from my main guild.

• Glamor traits can go into the “stealth traits” list as well as “teleport” (for Veil).
• Master of Manipulations – “reduce cooldown by 20%” (it just says 2)

Also, for newbies it might be worthwhile to explain the target-breaking nature of stealth, since that’s one of the most useful things about it defensively. Particularly for mesmers since each time we stealth we can “pretend-blend” with clones for at least a second or two, making it harder to re-acquire locks.

Yeah, there’s nothing surprising or ‘buggy’ here. OTOH, dual energy sigils, constant vigor, and Adventurer runes could make for a thief-like level of evade bunkering. Paired with deceptive evasion and some clone-death traits I can see this being very very annoying.

Some neat ideas. I feel like the “Mantra of Pain Train” could be more fun as a riff on Pyro’s “overpowered phantasm dueling” build, with the added flavor of constant bonus armor, healing, and damage from MoP spam — just swap out one each of the Dueling and Inspiration traits for Protected + Restorative Mantras, and take MoP for one of the utility skills.

I still use GS on maw for pulling / damaging colossi; they reflect projectiles so none of our other range options even work. Sw/F when they get close. Then again, maw is trivial with anything.
Here’s what I usually use for the rest:

• Svanir = Sw/Sw + P for boss, Focus at ice elemental.
• Grawl = Sw/F + GS (GS cripple and push are great in first phase, cleave vs adds rocks for final. Fast clone attacks also help break the bubble.)
• Cliffside = Sw/F + P for boss (Focus vs devourers and acos, Duelists on boss, Magic Bullet for some extra control), generally Sw/F + Staff for seals (Chaos Storm can be nice extra protection for stacking against acolytes). Sw/Sw + P for the first Archdiviner.
• Ascalon = Sw/P + GS at boss, Focus for pulls en-route.
• Swamp = Sw/Sw + F (either boss) – curtain cripples Mossman too, and hiding inside Wardens when he’s invisible is useful. Sword block for when wardens aren’t spinning. Meleeing Bloomy is pretty easy, even when the rest of the party ranges.
• Asura = Sw/Sw + P for champs, Focus for harpies, untraited focus for Tom, Sw/F + P (or GS depending on group) for cat golems.
• Dredge = Sw/F + GS before door, Pistol for rabs (or just sword cleave depending on where we stack). GS again for final (I’ve never been in a group that melees the bucket boss…)

Oh, and I run 10/30/0/30/0 – it feels like better damage than anything with 25 in Illusions, specially when phants stay up. I usually have Blink range as the third Dueling trait when I’m not running Pistol (not much use to the team maybe, but I love blink), unless I’m running a couple mantras for bonus damage. Inspiration has so many good traits the third slot is never useless.

I do miss the reflect uptime from Haste+Celerity, particularly in Uncategorized, but usually someone else in the group can cover the gap.

Loving these vids, keep ’em coming! Maybe show some different mesmer builds too – interrupt/lockdown build, phantasm build, condi build?

This is great stuff, Sensotix, thanks! I’ve been playing 20/20/30 interrupt build for several days now but I’m definitely fond of the classic shatter mesmer, and adding the stealth tricks to it that you do go a long way towards making it viable (instead of being predicted and dodged/blocked all the time). Will try it out for sure!

A few questions:
1. What are your damage combos? The shatter sequence is too fast to track in the videos.. Is it just dodge/Mirror/wrack, or do you throw in an IP daze first for some vuln?
2. I love Blink and can’t really live without it on my bar; replacing Null Field seems the logical option but then I have no condition defense. Thoughts on taking torch trait + blink instead of boon-strip and Null? I give up all boon stripping entirely that way though … argh. Null is great for point support, too. I don’t want to lose Mind Wrack though, as it’s the primary burst tool. I could replace Decoy but that halves my available stealth. Maybe I’ll just have to learn to play Blink-less..
3. What was your build for offensive guard?
edit – 4. The build you linked for stealth/shatter uses Divinity runes, but it looked like you switched to Lyssa in the video?

Good to know it’s being worked on at least! Thanks, Justin.

The Good:

• Fast-cast with target is a godsend.
• New condition floaters rock!
• Sigil of Para fix was really needed.
• Trait tooltips are awesome.
• Mesmer mantras being AoE at least tries to add some value to unused skills.

The Bad:

• Immobilize needs to be stun-breakable too (like Fear) now that it stacks duration.
• Mesmer mantra AoE is too small – they’re just shouts with a gimmicky recharge mechanic and terrible range now.

The Ugly:

• Healing Signet still passive heals for way too much.
• [WvW] Perplexity runes are still broken as kitten.

Yep, this is an old bug.

The reason this happens is because illusion-generating weapon skills are affected by two different cooldown-reduction traits: the weapon-specific one and the Illusionist’s Celerity 25-pt minor. If you use both together, they do stack to 40% reduction, but it doesn’t get reflected in the tooltip (which stays at 20% reduced).

Let us all ignore the troll.

Caligare.7946:

Is our survivability that good that we can use it for everything?

Yes, easily. Mesmers have many different sources of leaps, blocks, evades, and flat-out invulnerability available from weapons, traits and utilities, as well as perma-vigor for easy dodging. It’s all “active” damage-avoidance, but once you learn to play well there’s nothing you can’t survive.

Yep, the GS is great for spiking assassins from across the room.

Xyonon.3987:

I am actually missing:

• focus reflection (a bit)
• glamour cdr (for feedback and portal)
• feedback on revive

That’s the part which makes me iffy about this. Sure, 30/30/0/0/10 with both the mantra- and clone-based damage boosts always did the best direct damage (and it’s plenty fun trolling around in WvW with a greatsword nuking people from 1200 range autoattacks) – but the groups I play with tend to value my utility a lot more, and a ton of that comes from the Inspiration line.

I basically feel like if I’m going to play an auto-attack bot with a few mantras for aoe stability and condition removal, I’d just be better off bringing my zerker guard.

You missed out a huge category: phantasm builds. Optimal in dungeons, great in wvw and pvp.
This should cover the basics (and more!):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Lyssa-s-Grimoire-The-Mesmer-Handbook/first

Good lord, this isn’t even on the front page anymore.
STICKY ALREADY!

The other difference between toughness and vitality that matters only to mesmers is that illusions inherit your toughness, but NOT your vitality. So adding toughness makes all your images last longer as well.

Carrion may make sense on other classes with a better mix of personal power damage, plenty of crit from traits/etc. (or easier access to fury), and/or non-crit-dependent methods of applying conditions. For mesmers, I don’t really see it; we don’t have regular fury or ‘natural’ crit traits, and condition application without Sharper Images is pretty woeful. The best I can imagine is a Staff/scepter/torch clone-death hybrid build, maybe 10/10/30/20/0 or something.

Pyroatheist.9031:

I sorta want a bolt…but…purple………

Henceforth, I dub thee: Purpleatheist.

Alissah.9281:

I prefer the look of my super sword :/.

Why the long face!? It’s a rockin’ combo .. I’ve been a die-hard Super-Sword + Anomaly user ever since I got my hands on them.

http://imgur.com/xPi29xx

Granted, I would still like to get my hands on a Bolt at some point, but there ain’t nothin’ wrong with the sword you have!

Nope, anything that crosses the bubble zone gets reflected, whether it originated inside our out doesn’t matter.

Hands down one of my favorite traits. Blinking to allies the instant they go down and rezzing in the relative safety of a Feedback bubble has saved my fractal groups from wipes countless times, and this just makes it even more awesome.

And yeah, in dungeons the NPC is down most of the time anyway, just tapping revive for a split second gets you a free Feedback at no cost.