Guild Wars 2

Fake it till you make it baby!

Or not…

Or something…

..err whut?

Very nice. I loved the guy whining and threatening to make a Mesmer! HAHA!

He’s going to have so much fun doing that!

With his temper, it would really be funny to be the “fly on the wall” and watch him attempt to exact his revenge by playing a P-Shatter Mesmer himself and finding out first hand that what looks easy, isn’t necessarily so. ;-)

Well done!

Yeah Undead is always nice for the high amount of Condie damage you can achieve with it in a Rabid build, especially a PU build. The fact is though it’s not that noticeably different IMO, and aside from the pretty number it really isn’t a very useful rune.

From a WvW or PvP perspective I would say you need mobility, but you say 1v1 so maybe you mean organized dueling and then this is probably not as important. The PU build would have some in combat mobility at least.

The Fear on Nightmare runes got nerfed but is still a pretty nice Rune for Condie builds that are not able to use Tormenting/Perplexity or the like, and don’t need the speed from Travelers. The Condition duration is helpful and the Fear is still nice for an extra free tick of damage, and damage avoidance.

serenke.4806:

Sorry for this but i’m a mesmer main and thus a duelist by nature and i am sure in the post above you meant “touché” (a word originated from fencing).

Yes you’re right of course! blush :-}

Very nice and concise way to sum the whole argument skcamow.

+1 to that

witcher.3197:

This is the prime example that facts never changed the outcome of an arguement on this forum.

If messiah would get destroyed by every spec in the game including spirit weapon guard he’d still say MTD is great.

Tout chez.

The more likely scenario however is that as a P-Shatter you will get destroyed by every profession and spec in the game, and you’re still going to tell us all that P-Shatter is great, right?

Very bad example, as MtD is far superior in the role implied in your statement, that being 1v1. ;-)

The only single category where P-Shatter is superior, is in very highly organized team play, with a team that can help you make up for the vast deficiencies of the build, in order to get the one thing that the build does better then any other Mesmer build; AoE spike damage. (Which is of utmost importance no doubt, but it’s not exactly easy to apply against a competent team or enemy. )

Above it is argued that due to cleanses there is more counter play vs. MtD, but there is also plenty of that for P-Shatter, which relies entirely on a single shatter. Again MtD is more flexible in dealing with that counter play, by allowing you to bring 3 or even all 4 shatters into the mix in a purely offensive manner.

There is no doubt that coordinated spikes are dangerous, and thus are also usually pretty well telegraphed. You will often see good teams react to such a telegraph instantly by providing healing/interrupting/CCing to save their team-mate from being insta gibbed. So aside from personal counter play to coordinated spikes, of which there are plenty too (blocks, telports, invulns), you certainly do have team counter play as well. (Like team-cleansing condies.)

I would venture to say that the majority of people participating in PvP are in the middle tier, they’re competent and experienced players, but in the game as a whole they are simply average. (I venture to say most people here belong to this group, some drifting towards the bottom, others towards the top. )

There are a ton of reasons for why a solid middle-tier player doesn’t move on to top-tier, even if they probably had at least a chance of being competitive there as well if they took the time and applied themselves: lack of time, lack of a team, no interest in making “play time” into more “work time” (I have a high paying job, thank you), etc.

People on gaming forums always act as if being a top-tier gamer is something to aspire to, but the fact is the vast majority don’t earn much more then minimum wage.

I guarantee that over the long run most people with a college education will out-earn just about all professional gamers, probably by a huge margin. And you can still play GW2 in the evening, in the middle-tier, and kick butt with MtD and various other fun Mesmer builds that don’t leave you fully dependent on your team to be viable.

That is the plain truth with Power Shatter! Even the pros agree with that AFAIK. Without a good team to peel/heal/cleanse for you, you’re toast and can often be VERY ineffective for your team as a result! So it’s completely disingenuous to claim MtD Shatter is bad for your team, and P-Shatter is the way to go, when many people are playing mostly in unorganized PuGs.

If you learn to play MtD well —which is much easier then learning to play Power Shatter well-- you get the best of both worlds! You are very flexible and largely independent of the make-up, coordination, or skill of your team.

It’s really very silly to assume “pro-level” play to discuss the general viability of a build. That’s the only level at which the Power Shatter faction wants to compare their build at, and with that they want to stick their heads in the sand to the reality that the vast majority of players will actually very likely perform better in an MtD Shatter build then a P-Shatter build.

It’s really very simple:

1) If you have aspirations to play a Mesmer at the tournament level, for whatever reason in contrast to the reality that you’d be better off playing another profession

AND

2) You have a competent team that also has aspirations to play at the top-tier of tournament PvP

AND

3) Your team is willing to accept your choosing a Mesmer over a more viable profession

THEN

play Power Shatter and hone your reflexes, positioning, and team-play skills to make the vast burst potential of this build come to reality

ELSE

play MtD Shatter, Phant/Rupt, pure Phants, or even PU (Or P-Shatter of course! If you’re good, fast, and have a high tolerance for pain. ;-) )

Power Shatter is a great and very viable, but it’s far from optimal for everyone.

I agree that from our PoV it would suffice to simply improve a few of our abilities in order to make Confusion a more potent condition for Mesmers again:

Confusing Combatants – raised from 1 to 2 stacks, 4s base duration

Confusing Enchantments – 2x Confusion, 4s base duration

Blinding Befuddlement – No doubt about it, this is plain junk. It was a vile insult to have nerfed it into oblivion like they did. Anet always claimed they wouldn’t nerf things into uselessness, but on this one they clearly did and with callous disregard to the Mesmer communities pleas for a sane adjustment. They were out to wreck an entire build, a playstyle, and with that our most viable WvW zerg build. They were very successful in this endeavor to remove Glamour builds from WvW! Very poor judgement on Anets part, and it’s high time to undo this ridiculous nerf. The CD should simply be removed again, now that Confusion damage is PALE in comparison post nerf. At the very least make BB useful in 1v1s and make it add 3x Confusion on blind with the current 5s CD.

Scepter #3 – Remove wind-up time, not channel. What I mean is, make it instantly start channeling, and maybe reduce overall channel time to 2.0s. So the beam AND first hit is instant, and each additional tick takes .5 seconds. This leaves the ability to bait dodges, while greatly improving the usability and effectiveness of this skill. Quite frankly, the wind-up time is the most annoying part IMO…not the fact that it is channeled. It just takes forever to get going…

My 2 cents, and no I’m not holding my breath.

Yeah basic Diversion should be ~150 AoE with 3 targets, and the trait should add about 150-200 radius, +2 targets, and cut the CD by 25%.

Would be a step in the right direction at least, although I still don’t see it replacing IP…would make some more niche builds semi-viable perhaps, but that’s about the last thing we need currently. ;-)

phokus.8934:

witcher.3197:

It’s not only about you, it’s about most of the profession forum people in general. The profession forum section is full of people who live in their own bubble, don’t acknowledge optimal builds because they can’t play them (or simply because they are too hipster to use popular builds) and then theorycraft their horrible builds and have an orgasm even from watching a hotjoin killshot video. These people will never get good at the game with their current mentality and most good players left this place a long long time ago because they realized they can’t do reasoning with people who are blinded by their devotion to some specs.

Listen to this guy right here.

Yeah, I thought the description fit himself perfectly. Go figure the irony!

Forum arguing in hyperbole and fictional situations…nothing else to see here, move along!

OP made his point and did a good job backing it up. It’s a free game so you’re free to disagree and continue to underestimate MtD Shatter.

All I know is that I’m seeing a ton less Condie clearing in WvW then I did in ranked arenas, and it’s a barrel of fun solo roaming there in an MtD build. It’s loads more survivable then P-Shatter vs. bad-to-medium skilled Thieves, while I agree against good ones it often only delays the inevitable (but usually significantly!). The problem with P-Shatter and Thieves is that even mediocre ones can crap all over you and win 75% of the time or more.

I have fought good Thieves for upwards of 2-3 minutes at times, and I no longer get nearly insta-gibbed like I often do with P-Shatter. It’s definitely an uphill battle that I’m often going to lose, but as someone else said above it’s about 60% vs. 90% loss rate. I can also disengage much more easily because I can put some Torment on the Thief and stop him from chasing me down while I make my escape.

Advent.6193:

After saying that, I’d fully support any means of making changes like those internal to Mesmers; for instance, via Trait alteration.

This!

+1

Very nice work!

Thanks!

Yeah I’ve been thinking about this very same issue since the DE post as well, it’s of course been a recurring debate over this so it’s not exactly new, but it is certainly as valid a point as it’s always been.

Personally, I thought of this the other day. Really we have a trait already that was originally intended to be a Clone production trait (MI), but it falls woefully short of being a viable clone production tool due to the simple fact that the CD is way way too long.

It’s IMO mainly the kitten CD on Mirror Images that absolutely kills it as a viable form of Clone production. The solution would be to fix up MI to be the go-to tool for Shatter builds that it was (IMO) always intended to be.

My suggestions would be to simply cut the base CD of Mirror Images roughly in half to about 25s (20s with IC). This would simply make MI a more competitive utility skill overall. It would probably be enough to allow non-DE Shatter builds to be significantly more viable then they are now.

I also think the impact to Clone death or the usual Power Shatter builds would be quite minimal. Neither of these builds use MI now, they might choose to with this drastic CD reduction, but they would have to give up a strong/competitive utility they’re using now.

Maybe the “breaks stun” part of the skill would need to be removed, which wouldn’t be a big deal to me…especially if they fix that darn “distortion-like” effect that causes so many other bugs/issues.

And while I’m on a roll, the secondary effect of Triumphant Distortion absolutely MUST be a basic part of the class.

It’s just plain ridiculous to solve a fundamental design flaw of a professions primary combat mechanic by requiring a GM skill to make it function viably! This is worse then requiring DE for shatter by far IMO. If you acknowledge that illusions simply can not survive large-scale battles long enough to perform even one attack cycle, then for christs sake make the 1s Distortion on summon a normal part of the profession for ALL illusions!

It’s lazy —almost disdainful-- implementations like that, which make customers angry and distrustful of a company. “Oh the new GM trait TD kinda stinks? Guess what, we’ll just add that fix we have to make Phantasms actually remotely viable in WvW to it, then it’ll be a cool GM right!? Wow! We’re so smart! HUHUHUH!”

This is a big change and will take a few days or even weeks to sort itself out. I think it’s actually quite hard to gauge on paper if this is a nerf or buff to Mesmers in general.

In some cases it is definitely a buff to be able to chain CC someone with low stacks of Stab, and have your 3rd or 4th CC actually hit. Sure you won’t be able to do that to the “major” Stab professions and Elite traits, but that’s kinda the point and seems balanced to me.

Hmm…just thought of this, what if the people who get only a 1h weapon can equip it in either hand? That would be fair in that you get the same 5 new abilities that a 2h provides. Of course 2 shields would look pretty stupid I guess. ;-)

Maybe with a rule you can have only one shield equipped at a time, either as MH or OH. This would at least give us some flexibility and another MH.

“When pink butterflies fly!” Oh wait…we already have that.

That and that these days passive condie clearing seems so prevalent that I doubt you will notice any difference in damage output.

Playing a full condie Mesmer you will quickly find out that most professions are far less susceptible to condies then we are, and many times they area clearing them passively.

It’s insane how much Torment we can stack up with Torch 2 and MtD, and yet in so many cases you see 1 or 2 ticks in the log and it’s gone. Over and over again against classes like Warriors, Guardians, and Elementalists. (And Engies & Rangers are no slouches either if built right.)

I don’t think Travelers is a must. I run dire w/travelers, but only because Perplexity was too expensive. ;-) I would run it and swap in focus for OOC mobility. Between MI and Blink you can usually get away from bads, and Travelers usually doesn’t allow you to get away from good players anyway. Good Thieves, Rangers, Eles, Warriors and even Guards are often able to run me down eventually despite Travs, 3x stealth, etc.

Besides, it’s usually not 1v1s you’re trying to run from, so chances are you will have 2+ people chasing you, and one of them is bound to be a Thief/Ele/War. Without proper use of geography you won’t get away from them often anyway, and for that you don’t absolutely need Travs. (but sure it increases the odds of getting away by a bit)

I don’t mind the idea of a shield for Mesmers, but I do mind a lot if we don’t get some kinda compensation elsewhere to make up for the fact that other professions get a new MH or 2H weapon, and associated skills. It will probably make for a new play-style for Mesmers, and that part I welcome, especially if it turns out —you know-- to be actually viable and all.

As someone said, the OH skills are only 2 and tend to be on long CDs, but that could be exactly how you balance it…make the 2 Mesmer shield abilities both powerful/useful and put’em on a significantly shorter CD.

It really all depends on what else changes along with this. I’m skeptical to say the least, and on the surface it certainly seems lackluster to get an OH Shield, when every one else who generally already is doing better then us, is getting MH and 2H weapons.

Again though, there is no reason why it can’t work out to be balanced overall depending on what else the patch brings.

Thanks everyone, I’m finally up and running in WvW. The above advice really helped me avoid costly mistakes.

Thanks guys! That’s exactly the info that I needed to get started and not waste gold or laurels on the wrong things!

OK since we’re on this topic, could someone explain the fastest way to get a sPvP-twinked level 80 Mesmer with basically no actual PvE gear, up and running in WvW? I’ve played the game since beta, but I have no clue where to even begin to get him ready for WvW. I have like 200g, several hundred laurels, etc. all the stuff you get to hit rank 80 in the Mists.

I realize it depends on build exactly what to get, but I’m not sure what’s the most efficient and economical way to get ready for solo-roaming WvW. Is it realistic given the above resources to get a decent build?

What is best to get off the trading post, and what’s better to spend Laurels on?

Thanks for helping a WvW newb! ;-)

Actually, Nicenikeshoe, I think it sounds quite reasonable what they’re doing.

“Dolyak Signet (whose primary function is self-stability) will gain 10 stacks of stability for 8 seconds, while Toss Elixir B (which is an area of effect ability for the engineer) will grant 3 stacks to 5 allies for 5 seconds.”

So yeah, brute-force stripping Stab off a Warrior is not looking very effective, and shouldn’t be easy as it’s a core design of the Warrior class to be Stable, but in turn stripping it off the Engies Tossed Elixir B looks very viable and does a lot to better balance this and (probably) many other similar instances of Stab in the game.

Sounds like they may get it right, and it’ll be a minor but not insignificant boost to control-focused Mesmers.

This speculation is rather meaningless, but I don’t think they’ll be able to spam their legendary skills due to energy costs. I don’t know if Mesmers will be a hard counter or not, because first of all I don’t really agree that there is such a thing from a professions vs. profession point of view anyway, but “from the looks of it” we’ll certainly be in a better position to fight them using Power/Interrupt focused builds then most other profession/build combos.

Remember that the changes to Stability will be a pretty big indirect boost to Mesmers in general, and a huge boon to control-oriented Mesmer builds. Overall, control will become a more important aspect again, but very few classes have the ability to rapidly spam multiple control measures back-to-back to basically “brute force” strip Stability like we can.

Of course prior to release Anet will make the Revenant look really hot and interesting to get people excited to play them and buy the XPac, but even if they turn out as OPd as many people are already crying about before knowing even close to all details, that only means a painful road of nerfs for those who invest too deeply into them. We all know that story, don’t we? ;-)

Agree 100%. It’s not about fooling everyone all of the time, that would be clearly OPd. However, even the most seasoned pro will take a split second longer to identify a well-played Mesmer over a poor/spaz Mesmer.

I do think people often want to dismiss this way too easily, and in a sort of “self-fulfilling prophecy” they simple don’t even try to play “pretend”, which in turn reinforces their belief that it doesn’t work. (Since people don’t have a hard time spotting them when they’re spazzing about.)

I especially like doing this with condie builds, to get some ticks in while they’re trying to find me, or to let Staff + IE Clones build up some pressure before MtD shattering on them.

Yeah I like the added survivability that 04406 gives, and the staff CD reduction is of course also really nice. Thanks

Nice video and well played!

I too prefer to MW first though to draw the early cleanses, and then CoF on them right after. I think the mix of damage sources between Scepter, Staff clones, and shatters makes for a lot of possible rotations & combinations, which makes MtD harder to play successfully then people think.

Those rotations and knowing your enemies cleanse & heal options are what make the difference between being average and being good, and only the latter can compete in competitive group play using MtD Shatter…and thus so many people it is not viable.

What is your build, 4/4/0/0/6 with boon strip?

shimmerless.4560:

Quite the opposite is the case honey, mantra heals has possibly the best condition removal in the game (since the change to the triple charge trait). It demolishes PU condi handily.

@StickerHappy, there are a wide number of variations, this is the basic template : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAscWl0npMtNqxINcrRiqxYqXOZTJRqAKdJbPAA-TpQSgAA7PAWGAA

If you’re in WvW you can mix parts celestial in to your usual zerks.

No need to get defensive, I completely misunderstood what kinda build you were talking about. I love MoR+RM+MP+HM, it has very nice synergy and have used it in many builds, and always kinda miss it when not using it. (but w/o HM, MoR is pretty hard to justify)

I thought you were suggesting using RM to heal your phantasms, and keep them alive via iDef + Sigil of Illusions. Against test mobs you’re basically invulnerable 1v1, and your phantasms near unkillable, but against players it just doesn’t work.

shimmerless.4560:

If you are talking strictly about ‘organized’ duels, phantasm mantra heals is probably the strongest 1 v. 1 spec in the game.

It can seem pretty ridiculous in testing on mobs, but against real players I think it would only be a matter of time before people realize how to beat this. Kill the Phants and the Mesmer is just a lame duck. Now if you don’t have the DPS or AoE to do this, you will certainly have issues, but the build is so one-dimensional it’s actually very easy to beat. You require so many utilities that you won’t have any (or much) Condie removal, so a heavy Condi build should also trash this build concept pretty hard. (The iDefender won’t help you vs. Condies, and Phants in general will get eaten up by Condies.)

I’m surprised no one has mentioned Condi PU, that’s still one of the single best dueling builds in the game IMHO. Using Staff + Sc/To and dual Doom sigs, it’s really hard to beat this build in duels. Yes it requires your opponent to be very aggressive, which is why it’s great for dueling…and not much else.

Get good at landing Sc #2 and you will wreck just about anyone with this. That is your primary burst, so the key to success for this build is to land that off-block Torment over and over. Let the burns, bleeds and poison cover and keep up the pressure until the next 5x Torment arrives.

As mentioned already, Ross’ CS/interrupt/phants build is also a fairly strong 1v1 build, especially against thieves. This is one of my favorite builds at the moment, because it’s quite good in 1v1s, but is also a very team friendly build…a rare combination for us.

I think it’s safe to say that ANet will ensure that every professions gains a viable new weapon & build combo with this, otherwise they would shoot themselves in the foot financially.

I think the fact that these new things appear to come at the cost of other existing things, is a clear indicator that they were trying to reduce the impact on the games current balance. This is a good thing for the fact that new weapons/abilities/builds will live in a much smaller balancing ecosystem, which will most likely also mean that each of them will be worthwhile without destroying existing builds in the process.

In short, you can rest assured they will make darn sure that the new stuff will lure you into buying the expansion, so it’s bound to be worthwhile, but ANet is smart to branch off this stuff so that they don’t just add more variables to an already hugely complex balancing equation!

Nice write up as always Chaos, but I have to take issue with the Torch remarks! ;-)

Perhaps in a CI lock-down build it’s clearly subpar, but I’m using it in a “Ross-inspired” CS lockdown build and wouldn’t trade it for anything else. Now I play unranked only pretty much, and that might be the main reason why I always feel I need more defense, especially from Thieves, since I don’t rely or expect my team to be of any value in saving my own hide. If they do, lovely, but I don’t expect or rely on that.

So as much as I’ve tried other OHs in various builds, I often end up with the Torch again in order to have 2x near instant stealth (w/decoy). The target drop alone from those just seems essential to me, especially in a glassy build, without it I just get focused down too fast too often…gets frustrating and I end up back with the Torch. No doubt the Phantasm is horrid, especially in a Power build, but my Sw/T set is more for my personal defense. I generally try to avoid using the Sw/T in this build, and only swap to it to defend myself in CQ. (Hydromancy to help with damage & CC to get away.)

I have found I really like GS in combination with SoEther, in order to pop 2x iBerzerker. It’s just plain lovely in group play as I can contribute both by nearly insta-gibbing enemy squishies or the focus-target, or send them into a group fight and contribute considerable AoE burst from long range. So I’m an edge fighter, always trying to position myself similarly to a LB Ranger and with similar play-style in general, but with a stronger AoE focus then a Ranger. I like to position myself between near and mid, and roam between them to add on fights as needed. Of course that makes me a target for Thieves, and that’s why I need to be able to take care of them myself in 1v1. (Or at least be able to get away from them and run them into my team guarding/fighting at a point.)

I use the 6/4/4/0/0 build variant to get the Toughness & Protection, as well as the Might from BI. Despite being in Zerker gear, I’m able to take a few hits, and along with the dual-stealth from Torch I can really give anyone a run for their money in 1v1.

The biggest weakness is vs. Condies, but recently that’s only very rarely a problem and generally I just either fight them from range/kite, or I just leave if I can’t out-damage their healing in 1v1 (Engies).

Anyway, it’s a really fun build, but I guess it’s more of a hybrid lockdown, as I’m not primarily worried about locking enemies down, but rather being a strong ranged damage dealer who uses lock-downs for added damage & CC. The GS really shines in this build doing heavy single-target and quite nice AE damage bursts too.

So I guess in that regard you’re right, if you’re mainly focused on lock-downs, then I guess Torch is by default a no-no since it provides no interrupts, but that doesn’t meant there isn’t a reason to ever use the Torch in CS/CI builds. ;-)

It’s just a trade-off as everything else.

Anyway, nice post and good points!

^ I think he’s more talking about a P-Shatter using IP, where you have to be close to get the extra damage from IP and possibly Sw #2, although these days most are double-ranged.

I played around with it for a bit, and had done so before, using Restorative Mantras to keep myself and Phants healed. In 1v1 vs. a test mob or two it’s pretty ridiculous, and for a moment you think it could be really OPd. Then you head to PvP with it, and you will find out why it doesn’t work at all.

In order to get this “amazing” tanking power, you need MoP to proc RM as much as possible, Sigil of Illusions naturally, and of course PD itself. Uh yeah. No escapes, no stun breaks, no condie clears. You will get torn to shreds, and so will the Phantasms for all the reasons listed above. Between the long channeling times on Mantras and the PD, your opponent would have to be pretty ridiculously stupid to let you get both of those off with consistency, and when he gets the PD down fast the whole house of cards comes crashing down hard.

Yeah Pyro’s Immortal build was the only time the PD had a short moment of viability, and it was a hella fun build. RiP

I don’t see how a ~17% reduction in CD on a basically completely unused skill will suddenly make that skill used more often. The change was sadly a waste of development effort.

The issues with PD are:

1) As you stated, an abysmal casting time. Same for the iDE
2) It has far too low HPs to be meaningful in anything but a 1v1, and even in a 1v1 it’s still not worth the utility slot over many other better utilities.
3) It’s attack damage & speed are pathetic, it moves too slow, and the nerf to the Illusions minor trait has killed off the only use this phantasm has ever seen.
4) It takes one of our 3 slots for Illusions, and that means you’re innately trading off damage for survivability. This is something Mesmers can ill afford.

This so called “defensive” Phantasm doesn’t even allow us to hold a point, or tank a foe in melee for even just a few seconds. It gets roughly 2-3 shot against any close quarters opponent. The long casting time just adds insult to injury.

Also don’t forget about PU builds, which are great dueling builds in pretty much all their variants. Especially PU Condie with Doom Sigils on weapons can beat pretty much any profession/build combo out there. (Disclaimer: Add “eventually” to the end of that last sentence, lol!)

Standard there is 4/4/6 with Staff & Sc/Torch. Your main burst is Scepter #2 so you have to get good at landing it, which isn’t too hard to learn because this build is very very forgiving thanks to all the stealth, buffs from PU and high Toughness.

Note: If Ross’ build is too squishy for you, you can easily make a much tougher variant with Knights Amulet. Naturally, you give up a noticeable amount of damage too, but it’s worth trying out if Thieves are still making your life hard. You still hit rather hard, but you have a lot more reaction-time for front-loaded bursts like Thieves or LB Rangers who get the jump on you.

Anet, while you’re working on Confusion for Mesmers, please don’t forget:

1) CoF Shatter – Add 1s to base duration here as well
2) Illusionary Retribution – Again, add 1s base duration
3) Confusing Combatants – GM Minor? Really? Make it 5s base duration and 2 stacks of Confusion. (Or replace it if you’re worried about Clone Death builds. It’s useless as it is now, and really is worse then all of our Adept Minors even!)
4) Blinding Befuddlement – Fix this somehow please! At the very least make it useful vs. single targets by making it apply 3 stacks, but better yet would be to remove the CD on it and simply cut it’s base duration to 2s if you’re worried about a return of the Glamor AoE Confusion junk in WvW.

I have to say I understood it the same as Warshade, I believe it was meant as a buff and not a nerf to attack rate. Obviously they’re trying to boost this Phantasm, and I have a hard time believing that they think the extra stack and 1s duration warrants a nerf in attack speed to compensate. That would be pretty silly and self-defeating.

It makes more sense that they mean the rate of fire increases.

Just my 2 cents, but that’s the way it sounds to me and makes more sense. Otherwise it would be a really small boost to damage, with a caveat of even slower attack rate? That was plain suck.

Overall the changes sound “OK” but I agree that Scepter #3 would be better off simply having it’s channel time reduced to 2s, and having Confusion damage as a whole buffed in PvP by 20-25%. (And at least 50% in PvE if you ask me!)

Looking at all of the changes though it seems that they clearly didn’t want to rock the boat on anything, aside from nerfing Might quite a bit…which we all know is a good thing to tone down the Celestial meta. That alone will help Mesmers more then anything else if you ask me, since we can’t really make Celestial work nearly as well as some other professions.

If you’re playing Power Shatter, as it sounds like you probably are, then you may want to start out with a more tanky version of a P-Shatter build, or a completely different build that is more survivable. Ross’ CS build is definitely a step in the right direction, but is still fairly glassy, so if you’re still having trouble, then try going with a Power PU, or for even more tankiness a Condie PU build.

They’re not optimal builds at the highest levels of play, but they are all viable builds that give you increasingly more survivability at the cost of direct/spike damage. Especially in 1v1s with most Thieves and Rangers a Condie PU build can really wreck them, and as you get better at playing a Mesmer in PvP you can re-roll to a more glassy but higher damage and thus more team-friendly build.

With Rangers you just need to dodge or interrupt some of the RF damage, and learn ways to close on them or avoid damage via LoS. You can teleport into them and/or use your GS iZerker to both damage and Cripple them, then open a can on them. The vast majority of LB Rangers are easy to beat for a Mesmer, almost regardless of build. The key is to not get caught with your pants down by that RF, the rest is pretty intuitive to deal with. Interrupt based build like Ross’, really do a number on them.

Condie Shatter Mesmer is pretty decent, and basically trades improved survivability then Power Shatter for less spike damage. The damage output overall can theoretically rival or even surpass that of Power Shatter, but it’s heavy reliance on mostly 1 Condition (Torment) means the full damage potential is rarely realized in group battles where AE heals & condie-clears are often plentiful and frustrating.

I have had some amazing fights where clearly I was devastating the enemy team with my continual AoE Torments & Confusion, but other times it felt like I was barely contributing at all. Although, I have to say as a power Shatter Mesmer I often felt the same way, probably even more often, simply due to being targeted and nearly instantly executed by the enemy team. That happens a lot less as a Condie Shatter, because you have a little more time to react.

Power damage is also often negated, no doubt, but in the end it tends to be focused direct damage that wins group battles. So if you’re on a team focusing on high direct damage output, often your Condie Shatters will seem lackluster. A major weakness of Condie Shatter is the fact that the F2 shatter simply has too long of a CD, and is your bread & butter shatter. (In turn though, you have every 3x shatter applying 6 stacks of Torment AoE so you don’t rely quite as heavily on CoF as P-Shatter does on MW.) Also, as alluded to above, we lack solid AoE cover conditions to really make those Torment stacks reach their full potential.

It is definitely a more well rounded build option then Power Shatter IMO, because you can learn to beat or stalemate any profession out there in 1v1, and still have potentially deadly AE damage for team fights. Although you certainly have some professions that give you more trouble then others, I never felt like I was hard-countered by anyone.

Most Thieves, Eles, Warriors, Rangers, and Engineers were fairly easy to beat if they stuck around. Guardians were often a stalemate, as I just couldn’t out-damage their heals and clears.

Have fun! It’s a pretty good build for the unranked arena. It is far more forgiving then P-Shatter and thus takes less skill to play successfully IMO, but also —especially at the highest skill levels of play-- has less impact then a well-played P-Shatter.

Yeah Deathly Claws is pretty OPd and makes me feel a bit inadequate at times as well, but it is on a 3m RuT and can be avoided or countered with Moa. Still it’s pretty ridiculous and needs a nerf, or it would simply be nice if we could have an Elite that has as much impact and general usefulness as many popular Elites of other professions do. (less situational I mean)

None the less, as far as damage goes, we can definitely put up some comparable numbers with the iMage, iZerger, or a nice MW. We can also chain quite a few decent wallops together, and produce similar damage in AoE rather then single target; for us it’s just not a 1 button spam fest like in those SSs. /cry

As stated repeatedly here and elsewhere, Mesmer just tends to be harder to succeed with, and much easier to fail with then most other professions w/meta builds.

Thanks for the feedback Slim, but my personal experience doesn’t really confirm your opinions about MoR in sPvP, and especially MoR + MP. First of all, as often is the case in comparisons like this, you are not mentioning the benefits of MoR being instant, uninterruptible, and usable in many situations where EF is not. In my opinion this is a huge huge boon.

Having such a powerful instant heal also cleanse 2 conditions per use, is borderline OPd if you ask me. Remember that currently one of the most deadly forms of CC in the game is a Condition, Immobilize, and being able to instantly clear that is usually worth FAR more then a heal…and I’d venture to guess that in 4 out of 5 cases when I use MoR to clear conditions, I’m also healing for usually the full amount.

Mantra of Resolve is a very nice group utility skill, no doubt, but I find it hard to put into a solid build. It’s also yet another button to push only to remove something like Immob, when in the vast majority of cases when I’m Immob, I also need a heal…probably badly. (Same goes if I’m condition dumped, so again it’s rarely a waste to heal/remove at the same time IMO.)

Getting the re-charge off is not all that hard, between teleports, stealth, and F4. Sure it is a risk, and it’s a lot more “all-or-none” then EF at that one moment, but you have a similar risk every time you try to EF, being prone to interrupts.

Thanks for the input though!

Excellent post Chaos, it mirrors my own feelings on the matter, but does so more concisely and eloquent!

One thing that is frequently completely left out of all of this is the fact that various factors completely beyond the players control may be impacting their success at playing a meta build. What gookitteno my team as a GC Shatter Mesmer, when I have a poor latency-prone connection, and/or am latency prone in the head? ;-) All I will be doing is running from the spawn back to the action, only to be insta-gibbed again…and again. Been there, done that, and it simply ain’t working for me.

As you said, I might not be able to compete at the highest levels with those issues, but maybe I’m not trying? Some will say you should play another profession, but I personally love the Mesmer profession and I still consistently do much better on non-meta builds on a Mesmer, then meta builds on non-Mesmer professions. I hate FoTM professions/builds anyway.

Lastly, there is also something to be said for taking your enemy “out of book”, perhaps less in high level organized play, but certainly in the PUG environment of the unranked arena. Thieves especially love to jump on Mesmers as pretty much their favorite target, so it’s not just hilarious & satisfying to watch them bite their teeth out on you, but it keeps all enemies on their toes about Mesmers and their capabilities. If we all only ever play 1 or 2 meta builds, then we are making it easier on our enemies to know how to hard counter us.

If you hadn’t guessed by the title, this build was inspired by Ross Biddles’ Phatasm/CS-Interrupt build. I started out putting this into his thread as a variant, but the more I was explaining the different choices I made, the more I began to think it is different enough to warrant it’s own thread instead of spamming a wall of text into his. ;-)

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJARWl0npGtNqxMNMrNipxcqqIdANMQpLZ8FA-TZBEABS8EACZ/hqLDAwFA4hDBAA

“Necessity is the mother of all invention!”

This is how I ended up with this build. I liked the concept of Ross’ new build, but in practice it was just far too squishy for me. Call it a bad connection or old age, or maybe a little of both with a dash of “scrub” on top, but I get eaten alive in glassy builds. Thieves especially just eat my lunch and make me want to pull my hair out when playing glassy Mesmer builds.

So I fiddled around with his build to think of ways to boost my defenses, and it struck me that the Knights Amulet has the weakness of no Ferocity in combination with only medium Power, but that this can be largely alleviated with a 6/6/x/x/x build and (drumroll) Air Runes! I ended up changing Ross build quite a bit, but the basic concept of Phants supported with CS-Interrupts is similarly IMO. It also has surprisingly good damage for how tanky it is. It is IMHO also more team-friendly then Ross’ build.

Explanations:
- I chose to get HM for 3x on the Mantras, including very solid Condie removal (MP)
- I chose GS + Staff for the same reasons mentioned by someone in Ross’ thread, it makes for more AoE goodness and Staff provides a lot of defense. The iWarlock also hits really hard, and works more reliably thanks to the Stuns from CS.
- I chose boon stripping on Shatters, as well as DE to synergize with that
- I chose MoA over MI as despite all it’s negatives, as it tends to have a greater impact on team play when it does land

Although having only 6.5s of Swiftness available when healing is not exactly optimal, it is far better then none…and I really love that Air Runes proc on Thieves! I had one Thief attacking me when I was at below 50% health, and he was dead in under 5 seconds flat, and cursing me out because the iWarlock crit him for 5k, the iZerker for over 4k, and the Air Rune procced for almost 2.5k.

This has turned out to be my favorite build for unranked sPvP. It is really well rounded and a fun play-style. (Shatter, Phants, interrupts, boon stripping, good mobility, and very survivable) I am not reliant on my team to keep me alive, I can do good AE damage from range, as well as boon strip & peel for my team-mates.

A short anecdote from last night:
I had a Thief on my team berating me in chat prior to our match, telling me to re-roll as Mesmers were useless in unranked arena without a reliable team to keep them alive. He threatened to immediately go AFK if I wiped early on in the match. Well we won, I didn’t die at all, and I was top scorer to boot by a large margin. Only then did I give him my “somewhat less then kind” retort, the others laughed, and he did admit I played it well.

Still playing and loving 04046 with Settlers and Restorative Mantras and St/Sw+T. Extremely survivable and can still dish out nice AE Torment/Confusion, and heal your team mates while fighting. Works great for AoE mayhem like Courtyard, but also works really well 1v1 and 1v2 holding or assaulting points.

At this point I wouldn’t suggest PU anymore as a build to start with for a new Mesmer. The play style is too far removed from what you will usually play in grouped PvP, and overall PU just isn’t that strong anymore IMO. It’s a 1v1 build and is forgiving, but so is a Condie Shatter build and it teaches you a lot of the same moves, combos (in general), and skills as you will need for a Power Shatter build.

A good Staff/Sc+X MtD Condie Shatter build is more forgiving both in terms of reaction time (survivability), and learning to land your shatters properly. You’re also useful to groups, and can hold your own in 1v1 as well, without needing a good connection, perfect timing, and countless hours of practice to properly land your 1 damaging shatter.

Then as you grow comfortable with Condie Shatter, you can experiment with Power Shatter and you will begin to understand the advantages and trade offs you make between the two builds.

Very nice vid, thanks for sharing!

The only thing the two have in common is the fact that you shatter your clones as your primary means of delivering damage, but other then that it’s a completely different way to play. Similarities are there, sure, but your tactics overall are quite different. You’re likely shattering a lot more then a Power Shatter Mesmer, but in turn you can also opt not to shatter and use your clones for sustained pressure and then shatter to stack MtD on top of the fire/bleeds/torment from the clones. Naturally, you can also stay in the thick of things much longer, so it’s really quite a different way to play even if the underlying base mechanic is the same.

On the topic of support builds, here is the latest edition of my MtD/Support build I posted a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it will give you or others some ideas or a completely new inspiration for a “supportive and fun” Mesmer.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7fl0npEtNqxTNcrNytBdyZ8CUHkikySGggB-TJhHwAPLDge/BAPBgAXEAA

Contrary to your build, this one isn’t about boon control, but is more a combination of RM healing plus AoE condition damage build. So this build is much more offensive, with the possibility to throw down some major AoE mayhem in team fights that —in some instances at least-- can rival the damage output of a GC shatter Mesmer. (It’s not rare at all for me to get top kills. )

I’ve been playing this for a while in hot joins prior to the patch, and having a blast with it in the arenas since the patch too. It is an extremely versatile build that allows you to assault points against 1-3 opponents, defend points from 1-3 opponents, and gives every profession and build combo in the game a run for their money in 1v1.

The reason I post it here is because I think your build has some significant weaknesses that I think will make it frustrating to play in the longer run. You lack stun clears, condition cleanses, and you require a lot of Might stacking to get decent damage output. (And even then, you lack Ferocity to make it really sting.) Power damage just relies on so many factors that make hybrid or tough/tanky builds almost impossible…by design.

Although people will again critique the Stealth I still favor, the fact is that Stealth is a huge part of our defense that should not be ignored. You can do quite well w/o it in 1v1 to defend a point, thanks to ca. 1900 Toughness, 17.5k HPs, Staff, and a ton of healing and condie removal. In team fights on a point, however, Stealth is still so extremely valuable to keep you alive; dropping targets, and recharging mantras to provide AoE Heals to your team whilst your conditions are ticking away. However, if you don’t like it then you can always change Decoy to something else, such as iDisenchanter or NF. (I’d keep Torch personally for offense and since no other Phantasm works for this build due to the low crit chance.)

This is definitely less supportive then your build, no doubt, but it is IMO more fun and well-rounded due to the fact that you have perma speed, adequate condie removal and stun-removal, great survivability from tough/hp/staff/heals/regen, and still puts out very strong AoE condie pressure. All that, and you’re healing your teammates while keeping yourself alive and your conditions ticking!

Especially for pickup team games, this build allows you to do well in all roles, on all maps, and nearly all facets of PvP.

NOTE: In organized teams, where your role is well defined and heavily incorporated in the entire teams strategy, this is a completely different world! You need to be specialized towards that role, and you can rely on others to make up for your weaknesses in regards to lacking survivability! In pickup arena games you do NOT have that luxury, because you can bet on the fact that your team will not properly support you most of the time. Here this build works extremely well because it is so versatile.

More myopic remarks that have no place in this thread except for to derail it. If you don’t enjoy builds for the sake of the different play-styles they enable, then just don’t play it. The fact is, the MtD boost has opened new possibilities for builds, and I’m exploring them and sharing my results.

I happen to play primarily hot-join sPvP, which I’ve mentioned countless times in the builds I post. The fact that you think this makes me, this build, and all people who play hot-joins irrelevant and unworthy of discussion on this board, speaks volumes about your character, you own insecurities, and your level of maturity.

I hold enough of the intelligence of the community here to understand what this build is for, and that it was not meant to be a meta holy grail build for high-level organized group PvP. I do not belong to that group of people, and I venture to say very few people here do, but I still enjoy the game, the Mesmer profession, and yes hot-join sPvP too! Is that OK with you?

I don’t know how much more clear I could have made it that this, and most builds I post, are not meant for tPvP or other highly organized group PvP where each profession has a well defined role and usually a meta build to go with it. Redefining a professions role in GvG is going to take far more then a new build.

So you can go ahead and bash every single build people post here for the past year or so, and probably the next year two, and feel great about yourself in pointing out the oh so very obvious fact that they are not metas and will not replace any metas, or you can pull your head out and realize that perhaps we all aren’t as dumb as you think, but rather are playing a different game for different reasons/enjoyments then perhaps you are.

You sir, are missing the forrest for the trees.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind critique of a build, in fact I tend to agree with you on limitations when applied to one very specific form of high level group PvP, but it has to apply to the framework in which I presented the build or the critique is meaningless as it’s just reaffirming what I’ve already said myself!

We could all just repeatedly re-post the same 2-3 meta builds that meet your incredibly narrow definition of builds “worth bothering with”, but I think it’s pretty clear that many of us do enjoy sharing different builds for different play-styles.

Quite frankly it’s getting tiring to have to slap multiple “disclaimers” on every build post just for the elitists who want to prove their own greatness by re-stating the obvious ad nauseam. Maybe you can provide me with a pre-defined disclaimer text that makes you and any other “ueber Mesmers” ignore the thread, or at least feel dumb about -yet again- pointing out the obvious flaws when viewed through the narrow blinders of pseudo-professional gaming.

I don’t really waddle anywhere, you can swap in focus to move from point to point. This is a fundamental weakness of the Mesmer, we all know this. This weakness severely limits your build options, so you either learn to put up with swapping in Focus for OOC mobility, or you play the usual meta builds, none of which can face tank like this build can.

You do lack in combat mobility outside of PR, but that’s a price you pay for being able to stand up on point w/o relying on stealth. You can also leave Focus equipped if you wish, it’s not going to make a huge difference in damage output as you mostly rely on shatters anyway.

As I said, the Torch and many other minor choices in the build, are simply a preference thing. If you end up needing more Condie Removal, which so far has very rarely been the case for me, then you swap MoP for MoResolve. (Or AT, NF)

• The point of the build is to show how MtD can be used along with a heavily armored, high heal, high regen, Settlers Amulet build that still has significant AoE killing power.

Maybe it’s not as effective as the current metas in TPvP, and it doesn’t provide a new role for the Mesmer in TPvP either (lol), and I never claimed that this was the aim of the build. It is what it is, an extremely tough build to face 1v1 and 2v1, and quite impressive even 3v1 against lesser opponents. This does allow you to hold or contest points better then most other Mesmer builds.

At 2v1 or worse odds, it doesn’t even matter if you lose the point because you finally had to stealth to re-charge Mantras & heal up, by your own statement you’re keeping multiple enemies occupied. This is why I chose the Torch & Decoy, to keep those 2-3 enemies tied up for as long as possible, and quite often it involves downing 1 or even 2 of them, because the Torment just keeps on coming.

Lacking stability is also a fundamental weakness of the Mesmer class, not much point in lamenting that you don’t have it. This is a Mesmer bunker(ish) build, not a “OMG Mesmer replaces Guardian as bunker in TPvP!” build.

It’s simply a fun build to play, because it is quite effective and very contrary to what people expect of a Mesmer. (Especially Thieves & LB Rangers)

Ross Biddle.2367:

So I decided to dive into WvW with maim. Here’s a “first fight” vid. Loving goign back to my old, first, condi shatter build/playstyle

Cool, that looks a lot like what I experience in sPvP with C-Shatter.