Guild Wars 2

^ Love all of those ideas Pyr…err Fay!

Might have to move MoMisdirection up a notch to a Master trait though.

^ Erm PU is a GM trait, so is this, it’s going to be hard making a decent build like that. (Depending on which line it’s in of course.)

Also, as someone else said, the problem is Perplexity, not Mesmer’s amount of Confusion. It’s already OPd on those classes whom are vastly superior in both Confusion and Conditions in general, so it would be more OPd on a Mesmer? Hardly. If you don’t clear 12 stacks of Confusion and spam skills you’re going to die just the same as if you had a few more stacks lasting another second. Big whoop!

The weakness in running Perplexity on a Confusion-focused Mesmer would be the fact that you’re putting too many eggs in one basket, and there is way too much condie clearing in the game for that to work. Especially with Confusion this is the case, as it’s the only condition whose damage you can avoid 100% without doing anything, regardless of how many stacks you have on you.

In Illusions it would probably have very little hope of competing with either IP or the new Maim the Disillusioned GM trait. Considering that Domination is the Confusion Duration line, it would seem to make sense there. (And the existing GMs there are pretty Meh, and certainly not useful for a Condie-build, so the whole line becomes very Condie unfriendly. This of course exacerbates the Mesmers lacking Confusion/Condition duration issue…a bit at least.)

Yeah it would be strange there, but the point of it would be to open up completely new builds, and a Condition focus with a Domination build is certainly highly unusual.

Would it work in a viable build? I think playing paper GW2 in such cases is pretty useless. This is not about creating a new meta, but rather to provide more options for more interesting builds and play-styles.

Mesmers were clearly intended to be the best at dishing out the Confusion condition, hence the 33% duration trait, but it’s obvious that the current Confusion options for Mesmers are inadequate and outdated, otherwise people would build around it.

Now we can hope for ANet fixing basically ALL our forms of applying Confusion, because each and every one of them is sub-par in some fashion, but personally I won’t hold my breath on that. This GM trait would be a balanced means to address the issue in one fell swoop, while at the same time forcing players to make tough decisions in their builds.

^ Always a wise guy!

If our existing 33% duration buff were enough, I wouldn’t have put the 1s added duration into this suggestion. Adding 33% to crap duration, still leaves you with crap duration. Adding 1s to the base duration will bump our durations up to “slightly less then totally useless crap” duration, and then add the 33% trait, you start to actually see a meaningful duration.

For example, Egineers get 5s base on their AE Confusion bomb (5 stacks), which they can drop every 18 seconds (14.5 w/trait). It also has a big AE when traited. Adding 30% duration gear to the 5 second base duration, ends up with a 6.5s duration.

Now in comparison our F2 CoF shatter has a 23s CD, smaller AE, and only a 3s duration. Adding our beloved 33% trait AND 30% duration from gear, you’re left with a whopping 4.89s duration! WHAT!? Master of Confusion? Hardly.

An even worse comparison would be using Engineers Prybar, and comparing it to our Scepter #3. (And Engineers aren’t the only other example of this duration & stacks disparity! Thieves traited Steal, Warrior’s Distracting Strikes trait, Runes of Perplexity, etc. )

We can not be the masters of confusion when our base confusion duration is so short that even when drastically augmenting it with +duration gear & traits, we still can’t get reach the BASE duration of other professions!

That’s the idea behind the 1s added to all base durations. Now CoF would have a 4s base duration, add 63% and you end up with 6.52s duration.

Although still not amazingly better, we have to remember of course that we can stack a little more AoE Confusion then Engies, but what good are 8-12 stacks of Confusion when the duration is so short that you can literally just ignore them with virtually no drawbacks?! With very few exceptions, most professions/builds can do exactly that…simply wait it out, and lose almost nothing. Another second or two makes a HUGE difference here, both in the potential damage Confusion can deliver, and the “denial” effect on an opponent who chooses to wait out the Confusion.

In short, our Confusion simply doesn’t last long enough to punish our foes adequately, especially since we can’t re-apply this condition nearly frequently enough as compared to AE bleeds, burns, and poisons of other classes.

This is just one way to solve that issue. There are many other ways, perhaps better ones, but I’d just like to see Confusion made a little more viable for Mesmers.

Neat, what’s the build?

The purpose would be to restore Confusion as the Mesmer condition, and thus provide viable builds with a heavy focus around the Confusion condition.

Master of Confusion
- Adds 1s base duration to all inflicted Confusion
- Increases Confusion damage by 20%/25% (This would still be a 40%/35% damage reduction from the pre-nerf levels!)

I don’t really care which line this is put in, but these seem to make the most sense:

- Domination, because that’s what it is, a form of dominating your foe. (and the Condie Duration ofc)
- Chaos would fit thematically too but it pretty overloaded with decent GM traits.
- Dueling would also synergize well IMO, due to the GM Minor and the fact that Condie builds for Mesmers generally need Sharper Images and thus crit chance to work.

This GM trait addresses the (IMO) main issues with Confusion from the PoV of a Mesmer:

1) Our Confusion durations are simply out of date. After the big Confusion damage nerf, the duration of pretty much all of our Confusion applications is simply too short to make it an effective condition to focus your build & play-style around. Adding a flat 1 second would IMO be best, rather then a percentage duration. This better addresses our generally short Confusion durations across the board.

2) The overly heavy nerf of Confusion damage in PvP will be somewhat mitigated for those who chose to trait up to GM level to focus on Confusion. This has precedents in other professions who can significantly increase their Burn damage (Guardian by 33%), Poison Damage (Ranger by 50%), etc. for speccing into a GM trait.

Confusion was always meant to be The Mesmer Condition, and we were meant to be the Masters of Confusion! Most people agree that the Confusion damage nerf was over the top, and most also agree that Mesmers are not currently the best at applying/maintaining Confusion damage. It’s time to change that!

To the OP, I would have laughed at the Necro and pointed out to him the profession/build that he’s playing is far cheesier then the gimpy -nerfed to oblivion- Moa Elite. Nice to see there is some use for it, but it fails too often for the long CD.

In an Xv1 situation against a very tanky class it is indeed a powerful ability, but otherwise it’s pretty useless. (And even at that it fails far too often for it’s ludicrous CD.)

MoR + HM + MP is 6x instant Condie clear every ~13s.

I haven’t run a build without MP pretty much since the boost that allows it to remove 2 Conditions per heal…which, not coincidentally, is about how long I haven’t used up a Utility slot for Condie Removal. (Since they’re all pretty bad/unreliable tbh.)

Also, ever since HM was moved to (arguably) our best traitline, it’s been even harder to pass on MP+MoR as my main source of Condie removal. (Very low CD, no target required, semi-passive since in >95% instances where I need to remove Condies, I could also stand to heal up a bit.)

So yeah, I would like to see an option for passive speed on a sigil!

The beauty about horizontal changes is that they give choices, and I believe quite a few people would like to be able to exchange a current utility for passive speed, and give up Centaur/Travelers Runes for something else.

I think it kinda kittens being entirely dependent on Runes for anything that can remotely be called adequate mobility, especially since neither of them have much synergy with Condie builds.

Of course they could fix Focus too, both TC and the Warden really need some fixes/loving anyway. That would at least provide another reasonable alternative for on-demand Swiftness, which the current TC implementation simply is not.

I have to agree with the OP, the option would be nice. No one will force you to use up a utility slot for speed, but it sure would be a nice option to have.

An often made suggestion would be to make the Sigil of Inspiration always proc Swiftness when OOC. Or make the very underused and gimpy Sigil of Midnight have the usual passive 25% speed boost. (Remove the boon duration if you want, no one will miss it!)

That has to be the worst sigil in the game, right? 10% Boon duration passive? Really?

Don’t mean to fanboi or defend that he got banned for it, but I can see how posting the guys email and inciting others to “spam” him, could get you in trouble.

Pyro meant well, no doubt, but he could have at least waited on a personal response for a day or two before riling up a angry mob to spam a dev. ;-)

I could see how Devs have better things to do with their time then read dozens of emails with the same content.

It sure did work though, so thanks Pyro! ;-)

Gotta second that. Like woah!

Now how about that IE fix we were promised, can we get that kinda fast response on finally fixing that? ;-)

Very true.

I don’t think we need to change Confusion damage as much as we need to improve the Mesmer-specific applications of Confusion. Obviously the Glamour nerfs were way overboard and could be vastly improved. Secondly, why is it that so many other professions seem to apply 5 stacks of 5s base duration Confusion all at once (even AoE for Engie bombkit), and most of our Confusion is either 1 stack and/or very short duration. (3s base)

For example the Grandmaster Minor, illusion on-death trait….hello? 1 stack with 3s duration? Useless. Needs to be at least 5s base duration.

Same goes for F2 Shatter CoF, traited it’s nice that you can stack 8 stacks of Confusion in an AE, but the 3s base duration is just trash. Basically you might hit a button once, see the relatively big Confusion damage number float over your head, and then you simply wait it out. It doesn’t punish you nearly enough.

Considering that Confusion is/was supposed to be the main Mesmer condition, I think we’re pretty terrible at maintaining a meaningful amount of it on a target. The Scepter #3 has a that 5s base duration, but the channel is so slow that by the time it ends the first stack only has 2s left. Pathetic!

Same for the iMages Confusion attack. Pathetic! Low duration and only 3 stacks, on a Phantasm with a long CD. Slow moving projectile with only 2 bounces that also applies a relatively crappy boon rather then attacking another person. Adding insult to injury, condi-duration still doesn’t pass on to it either.

In short, I don’t feel that Confusion damage is the real problem, it’s that Mesmer’s ability to inflict it is plain broken in various ways.

Confusion is pretty fun & effective on Condie Engies, so there is no reason that it couldn’t be the same or better on Mesmers if the skills, traits, and phantasm were fixed to make it a bit more viable.

Edit: Lastly, why is there no Confusion duration sigil? Does anyone use the 33% duration increase trait? Seems like that trait was intended to be a Mesmer exclusive, so if so few are using it, how about boosting it to 50%?

Look at the CD difference. Although unblockable, AT fails quite a bit, which really hurts with a long CD.

PD hits up to 5 targets, and can attack multiple times.

AT is fun to use offensively, but isn’t really a very reliable condie-clear IMO.

I felt a lot like the OP the last couple of weeks leading up to the big patch, and for a week after. I felt very pigeonholed into PU, because almost any build I tried, simply worked better if I modified it to incorporate PU.

It isn’t so much that I feel bad when I play PU, I simply got bored with the play-style it kinda forces on you. It’s silly not to play a good spec, just because others deem it cheesy. Those people who proclaim builds as “cheese” really just want you do be the idiot that plays a sub-par spec on a rather average profession, so they can get on their FOTY Thief/Warrior and slap you around like a little girl. Most of the time they’re wrong anyway, just following a herd mentality, rather then thinking & experiencing for themselves. (Which is why almost none of the supposedly OPd/cheese builds ever seem to end up at the very highest level of play. )

Anyway, I wanted to play my Mesmer differently again after many months of enjoying PU builds of various types. I used to love shatter in sPvP, but the reason I ended up playing PU builds was because it was too frustrating to play GC Shatter. I’m an old fart and I think my reaction times (or latency?) are just not up to par to play GC Shatter…not around Thieves or any semi-competent tanky condie class.

After another short stint with GC shatter I was about to give up and either take a break from GW2, or play a FOTM profession/build instead. As I was testing some of the new things in the last patch I ran across the build I still play now.

I can only recommend you give this build a try if you like the concept of the Shatter Mesmer, but are having difficulty making it work for whatever reason. It is a great mix of significant spike damage via MW, solid Phantasm & personal damage, and enough survivability/sustain to actually enjoy playing against just about any class.

This is the thread where I presented the core build & philosophy. It focuses on VERY high spike/burst from MWs, also very high Phantasm damage, but is also a good bit more glassy then what I play now, and also lacks speed. (Which eventually lead me to tweak it a bit.)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/sPvP-Build-The-Intelligent-Mind-Wrecker/first#post3998351

There are many things you can do to this build to tweak for more damage, or more mobility, or more versatility. The basic concept and play-style stays the same though, you end up with high spike damage from MW+SoI and strong Phantasm damage, while retaining almost 1600 Toughness and a tripple instant heal that totals over 8k healed while removing 6 conditions.

Try it out! I’m still playing it weeks later, and enjoying it a lot in sPvP.

Would be very OP in PvP for sure, and I’m guessing PvE as well.

Mantras are instant and not interuptable, and we can load up what 12 charges? That means it becomes a 2600+ AoE heal every 5s for an entire minute, no way to interrupt or stop it, not even when stunned, KBed, etc.

I’d rather see Mantra Mastery changed to reduce the channel time by 20%, rather then lowering the CDs. Or maybe make all Mantras 3x charged by default, and change HM to a 25% channel-time reduction or something. (Which actually kinda helps balance MoPain + RM with reduced channel time, since you’re forced to dump 3 spikes + CD before AE healing again.)

The only thing it really needs is a larger radius IMO.

I’d say make it 180 with 2 boons removed if you don’t want a large radius on it, or simply make it 240 radius without any other changes.

Getting 5 targets into a 120 radius is silly, so it might as well not be a 5 target AE if you’re not going to give it a radius that can catch more then 2-3 people at once anyway.

I’d be happy as a clam with just a 240 radius, but if it’s any smaller it needs more to make it appealing IMO.

And yes, I agree that Staff needs loving as well, but Scepter is still really bad too!

Staff would probably be “OK” if we got the fix to Ill. Elast. that we were promised, and lower the CD on #4 to 20-25s and give it the old Protection back but only 3s instead of 5s. (See what I’m doing there ANet? BABY STEPS! Not 100% removal, but ~40% nerf. Hardly a baby step really, but you end up not destroying abilities by flat out removing the most powerful aspect!)

Shameless self plug, but one thing I enjoy most about my Intelligent Mind Wrecker build is fighting pesky Thieves and Warriors 1v1.

Not to say that I don’t still lose to some really good ones every now and then, or when I mess up, but overall my success rate against them is much higher then with any PU build I played before, including Hidden Cat. (Which is an excellent build for sure!)

Hidden Cat has significantly more defense from PU of course, but the spike damage from my build is very similar to a GC Shatter, only less often, but in turn you have a lot more survivability and get great damage output from both the Phantasms and MoPain in between MWs.

It simply overwhelms them with spike damage that they can’t out-heal so easily.

Currently I’m playing a variant with Sw/Torch & GS, as well as Travelers for perma-speed, which trades a bit of the spike damage for more survivability. I played PU builds for months, but I am only now finding that PU is actually a bit overrated. The Prestige is awesome all on it’s own, and so is Decoy, so although PU is undoubtedly a great GM trait, I’m also finding that it invariably means your damage output has to suffer.

What I love about my build is it’s diversity. You’re almost a hybrid Phantasm/Shatter with a little Mantras thrown in, and each brings great synergies to the build.

All that said, you should also consider your interrupt options. Halting Strike can really do a number on Warriors, as they’re exceptionally easy to interrupt. They telegraph just about everything they do, and you can frustrate the crap out of them if you shut them down. (Watch for stability of course, put sword clones on him to strip that.)

Wrong guy to ask, but I imagine if you changed to Travelers you could make this work in roaming WvW as well.

derbaer.1284:

Halting strike seems like a great idea for this high-power-low-critchance-build, since (from what I know) the trait was changed, so that it cant crit anymore, right?

Im reluctant to try this, because I got so used to dealing aa dmg while evaluating the fight and making decisions. Im afraid to loose dmg by not spamming aa-buttons enough, esp. with the sword. Do you have this problem?

I haven’t played with HS since before the big patch, but AFAIK it crits. It would be a really hard nerf if it didn’t. Maybe someone else can say that more definitively?

Yes, you will miss some AAs and that does lower your sustained damage output a bit, but IMHO what kills people is spike/burst damage. Especially in 1v1, sustained damage output lets your opponent judge when to use his/her defensive counters, while spike damage either kills them before they react, or sends them in a frantic panic of trying to heal/stealth/etc. This makes them very predictable, and puts you in control of the fight. (Another good reason for MoDistraction + HS, because after you land a big MW spike, you can pretty much rest assured they’re reaching for their heal button. BAM heal denied, and 1.5-2.5k damage. OUCH!)

You’ll definitely want a good key-bind for your AA though, so that you can get in the habit of using it more and more, as you grow comfortable with the build. It’s generally more important that you use your AA at the right moments, rather then just mindlessly letting it blast away. The latter rarely gets you kills anyway since our AAs are not very strong, but certainly you will often get kills from especially the GS AA as someone runs away and you have nothing else to hit them with.

I’ve tried exactly that variant while coming up with the one in the OP, but —to me at least-- the added damage didn’t make up for the loss in utility & survivability.

It is a bit more group friendly of course, but also requires more active button pushing just to cleanse. Also at double the CD, you end up with a lot less personal cleansing.

The extra damage is nice and noticeable, but the confuse on shatter is fairly meaningless ofc. ;-)

You do lose that one extra escape that Blink provides, leaving you with pretty much only Decoy to get a breather to load Mantras. (Excluding the Elite, because it’s pretty easy to interrupt.)

I am going to try out a GS/Staff variant again, changing Blink for MoDistraction, and Mental Torment for Halting Strike. With 2x AE Interrupts and 3x single target, I think Halting Strike could be really nasty for this build too.

With Staff being pretty defensive, I think I might be able to live without Blink. (And the iWarlock can really pack a punch sometimes.) You can also charge mantras inside Chaos Storm, while teleporting, or by insta-Dazing your foe in 1v1.

I don’t really agree with any of this. Phantasms are the epitome of a Glass Cannon, being generally able to be killed in 1 hit by most professions/builds. Mesmers lacking weapon damage is an indicator of the intrinsic balance ANet intended here; devoting a moment to clear the most dangerous illusions is rewarded. (and should be)

(In turn mindlessly killing all illusions with AE damage is also punished, if the Mesmer traits for it!)

If you nerfed the Phantasms and boosted our own damage, you would imbalance this idea. We would be able to more heavily punish a player for focusing on killing illusions, which means they become passive damage boosts that people should ignore or suffer.

This is when “pet classes” really stink IMO, when you inevitably end up being forced to completely ignore the pets and focus on killing the owner (pets become passive damage adds or passive utility-bots). This is basically how it works for Rangers, Necros, and Elementalist pets (with some exceptions) and it makes for lame PvP if you ask me. It’s also hard to strike a good balance between owner & pet damage output. (see Rangers)

I don’t think the current system promotes passive play at all, and in fact your ideas would lead us in the direction of Phantasms becoming nothing more then a passive damage add to be ignored. No tactics or skill involved.

If you actually do play passively with Phantasms now, and your opponents don’t exploit your laziness and kill off your Phantasms to leave you nekkid, then they get what they deserve!

Mesmers are a class designed to make the enemy think, and to punish mindless play against them. Your enemy is supposed to waste some powerful attacks to clear your Phantasms! This provides a form of defense for the Mesmer, and rewards strategic play over purely aggressive play, for those facing Mesmers. We need more of this in GW2, not less!

If you can just safely ignore the Phantasm, or get punished too harshly for killing them off by the Mesmers own attacks, then you end up with much less skillful play then what we have now.

Anton.1769:

But with another weapons (never use tourch at power build!), skills and correct gameplay it has chance.

I agree with both of the above posters, and have to take issue with the blanket statement about Torch. Many power builds also use Torch, and IMHO basically all PU builds should.

While the iMage certainly is among the weakest Phantasms, and we all hope it will see some love at some point, The Prestige almost entirely makes up for it even in a power build. The ability to chain an AE DD & Burn into a “from stealth” attack, makes for a powerful ability both offensive and defensively even without PU.

I’ve seen a lot of GC Shatter videos use Torch to devastating effect. It certainly doesn’t fit every power build, but to say it should never be used is not correct either IMO.

cardsharp.7218:

This is the first new build I’ve tried since coming back to the game as of the April 15th update. I’ve totally fallen in love with it! I made a few changes overall to create a suit my play style, however.

I switched out the greatsword for a staff. Staff is so much easier to excel with in 1v1 confrontations and has added benefit of being able to use a second blink to charge your mantras. I also switched out the offhand sword for a pistol, the ranged phantasms are sweet and do loads of damage by themselves. I also dropped the valkyrie amulet for a cavalier set. Overall made the build more durable at the cost of quite some power. That’s just my 2c; I prefer the more defensive nature of my choices because I’m still new to pvp in general.

Glad to hear you’re enjoying the build. What I enjoy most about this build, aside from the occasional huge MW or PS (hit a Necro for a 3k PS last night! ;-) ) is that you really confuse your opponents, by taking them “out of book”. Even good players assume you’re a GC Shatter, and then wonder why you’re not melting when burst upon.

I’ve been experimenting a lot with it too. Initially I did the same as you did, replacing Valk with Cavalier amulet for more Toughness but almost 300 less Power. This works very nicely to trade more survivability, but you do notice that loss of Power.

I will have to try the Staff out some more! I tried it in combo with the GS before, which was also pretty cool since the iWarlock can crit really hard with this build too, but there is something I just love about BF. ;-) It’s such a satisfying cleaver. (And I just can’t give up GC for the control, and the Mirror Blades, IMO another staple of this build. Stacking Might is one part, and the double-hit often jives nicely with SoI too, delivering a solid 2.5k average damage.

In my current variant I really wanted speed back, so I’m now running Travelers instead of STR runes, and thus I went back to Valk Amulet to avoid losing too much Power. You do notice the difference in damage for sure, but having the perma-speed is just so nice for both offensive and defensive play, and sPvP in general.

Apples & Oranges!

Did you even give it a try?

That’s like saying “PU is better then Shatter!” because given the same level of skill, you’re unlikely to beat a PU Mesmer as a Shatter Mesmer. So what? That doesn’t mean PU is universally better. It’s all situational, and the two are just a totally different builds and associated play-styles.

In hot-join sPvP you don’t see many pure shatter Mesmers left, and that’s a combination of the style of play that is forced on you (point fighting), and the extreme squishieness of the build. Playing a Shatter Mesmer in sPvP feels very much like a “One Trick Pony” with glaring weaknesses to being locked down, focused, or simply outlasted on a point.

A very skilled player can make the GC Shatter build work, even in sPvP, but the vast majority of Mesmers opt out of it due to the above issues. It sounds like you’re one of those highly skilled Shatter Mesmers, and that’s awesome! Respect!

I can make GC/Shatter work “OK” in sPvP, and occasionally it’s really fun due to the high AE damage, but it’s overall difficult and frustrating to play. Often the damage seems lackluster against tanky professions/builds who turn right around and damage-spike you down with ease despite having better defense, mobility, condie-clears, etc.

This build makes you much tougher to kill with both DD and Condie damage, but you can still do massive MW spikes on single targets that rival and often even surpass those of a pure Shatter Mesmer.

1. is irrelevant because you’re not primarily concerned with Shatters in this build .
2. is very debatable but also irrelevant here, because with IP you’re absolutely pigeonholed into a pure Shatter role. IP is an amazing GM trait, no doubt, but only for one style of play -one build basically- and that is pure GC Shatter.
3. Is no argument for or against this build. I can use the same trick(s) to land my MWs too.

Power Spike is another totally underrated aspect of this build. With the ability to chain 3 PSs and have them all crit 100% of the time, it just totally changes the game for this otherwise weak attack. (I average ~2k a pop on PSs.) A significant portion of my overall damage output comes from PS! (Whenever MW is down but that SoI buff is up, I’m popping PS.)

Thanks Kachowcow for the nice feedback, it’s good to see someone else is enjoying the build/concept.

No arguments on what BD said, but this isn’t a shatter build. It’s really a MW + Phantasm build, both of which have high damage, and your own damage is also pretty solid. It’s far more survivable then a GC Shatter build, but sure that comes at a cost of slower bursts and far less AE damage.

This kinda build just wasn’t really viable until the latest changes to the SoI. This is no tournament meta or holy grail of Mesmer builds, but it’s a very solid single-target burst damage build that is fun to play.

It’s a bit of a selfish fun build, so great for hot join sPvP…but any way you slice it, getting 5-9k MWs on people every 15s never gets old and is devastating to opponents.

There are some fun combos you can do, such as MB=>Swap=>IR=>MW. That’s combo can easily deal 10k damage on a glassy opponent.

Sure, there are lots of trade-offs you can make, but the results will surprise you on how quickly the spike damage drops when you exclude say Emp Mantras for something else, or using something aside STR runes dropping that 7% bonus, etc.

I made the build with a bit of balance between damage and surivivability, and it works out real well in sPvP. It’s not godly by any means, but the single target damage is second to none IMHO.

Landing the shatters is no issue at all, as I can hold off until I feel it’s a good moment to MW, then swap-weapon and BANG! With DE I have plenty of clones if any get killed, as you don’t need them quite as much as in a regular shatter build. (This is really more of a MW/Phantasm hybrid build then a Shatter build.)

Phantasms do not use up SoI charges with their attacks, but I believe the iLeap combo did, that’s why I stopped using it.

I have to hand it to Anet, they’ve really managed to surprise me with some of the changes in the last patch. Out of playing around with my recent Condie Shatter build, I’ve kinda stumbled over this power shatter build. This is unlike any shatter build I’ve ever seen or played, but it’s quite possibly the most powerful build I’ve played in sPvP. (Certainly in terms of DPS output on a single target.)

I derived the name of this build from one simple little change in the last patch; The Sigil of Intelligence. (And this build doesn’t just wrack minds, it wrecks them!) Thanks to this Sigil, you now get 3 attacks with 100% chance to crit, every time you swap weapons in combat. This is actually quite amazing! It opens up many new build possibilities by allowing a reduced focus on Precision in your build without sacrificing spike damage potential, and perhaps no build or even profession stands to gain more then Mesmers!

You might also say the title has a double meaning to it, because this is an “Intelligent Shatter” build. That is, you can’t just mindlessly MW whenever the CD is up and illusions are out, but you have to time your spikes with your weapon swaps and use those crits wisely. This allows you a guaranteed 3x max damage shatter, without running full zerker GC and praying for a tripple crit!

It’s downright harkitten

he rest of this build is centered around getting max power & damage boni, so that when you MW it hits like a Mac truck. (And so do your Phantasms btw!) People will think you’re a GC shatter Mesmer, but you have 1550 Toughness, 3×2790 heal with 6 Condie removals, and still retain both Blink and Decoy if you want. (Or make it hit even harder with another 1-2 Mantras up to get 4/8% more damage bonus, but at the cost of survival skills.)

Sure you’re no tank, but you’re also not nearly as squishy as a typical GC shatter Mesmer and you can often even out-spike them!

Oh and you think Power Spike sucks, do you? With those 3x guaranteed crits, in this build, it averages ~2k a pop and often hits Thieves for 2.5k. That’s 6-7.5k damage in ~2 seconds after a weapon swap. (Or for real fun, set up a 3x Diversion shatter, swap weapons, and Pew-Pew-Pew! )

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8cl0npEtNqxMNcrNiqxcqmI9BBERp7Y7BA-TJBHwAMLDA4iAY4JA0Z/BA

There are lots of possibilities for tailoring this to your likes, and you can even get significantly more damage at the cost of survivability, such as the aforementioned added Mantras, or swapping the Inspiration points for Compounding Power for another 9%. I chose to make a viable all-rounder instead, with condie removal and escape options.

There are definitely some hard counter profession/build combos to this build (Bunker Condie Engy is tough to beat), and it’s much more single-target oriented then a classic Shatter build, so I wouldn’t really call it OPd…but I do feel kinda like a Thief. ;-)

Finally! A power shatter build that has both enough spike and enough sustain to be fun to play in sPvP. I bet someone can make a real nice WvW version out of this concept too.

I’ve been playing this for a couple of days and it’s a lot of fun, and I hope you’ll enjoy it too. Play around with it a little to get a feel for the best combos, and turn off auto-attack to prevent wasting SoI crits!

Kort, I have some numbers I ran today on the heavy practice golem. A 3x MW with 9 stacks of Might up averaged about 800 Crit damage per clone (~2400 max) using the STR Runes. Using the same build with Nightmare Runes and no Might averaged about 440 Crit damage per clone (max ~1320). I didn’t use a big sample size, but about 5-6 runs each consistently using the same method and averaging the results.

The other component is of course the Phantasm DD, which is considerably higher in this build also. (Both better DD Phants with the iZerker over the iMage, and the Might stacks effect on them.)

Oh and nice variation Eucalyptus! I’m glad you enjoy it too.

Raunchy: Couldn’t agree more on on-death traits, and the one nice thing for the GM Minor in Dueling is that it procs off both types of illusions, not just clones. It’s just a nice added bonus for when they kill off your Phantasms after shattering away your clones and waiting for CDs.

“Also I was under the impression that the damage modifier affects condis is that wrong?”

I don’t think so. I think percentage damage modifiers only apply to direct damage unfortunately.

The whole purpose of the build is the Might stacking focus in combination with decent Condie damage, and thus that 7% also synergizes nicely at 1600+ power. At that point you will average over 2k direct damage on a 3 clone MW shatter when you have Fury up, plus 3x Confusion & Torment. Not too shabby!

That should be about double the MW direct damage of a pure Condie Shatter build. No doubt this is not an entirely fair comparison, but again the point of this build is the flexibility due to the mix of damage types. This means you can’t easily negate my damage output with either condie removal or high toughness/protection.

I’m definitely noticing this against “problem classes” that are tough to beat with either DD or Condie Damage alone. (Also works great in big point fights to pile on both meaningful Direct and Condie damage.)

All that in a package with 1550 Toughness and 3×2660 insta heal & 6x Condie removal, makes for a much more enjoyable Shatter-build experience in my opinon.

Kortham, it’s impossible to give you exact numbers as it varies greatly depending on how much Might you’ve stacked up, but at 25 stacks you have like 1966 Power, 170% Crit Damage, 49/69(Fury)% chance to crit. This will about double the DD of your shatters over the standard “pure” Condie Shatter spec w/o much Might up.

Even better are the Phantasms, both of which frequently hit for 3k+ in sPvP. I cycle through 2 sets of shatters (first MW, then CoF), and then get my Phants out and switch to playing defensively until shatters are up again.

It’s the mix of Condie & Direct damage that makes this build so effective.

I’m still really digging this build, and people should try it before dismissing it too quickly. Sure in WvW roaming you need speed, but in hotjoin sPvP I’m not missing it that much.

Yeah I commented on that removed reply as well! ;-) (In case someone is confused by my second post.)

Advent, the lack of speed is definitely a draw-back. In sPvP I can usually at least swap in Focus for traveling between points when OOC, but it’s hardly ideal.

Raunchy, yeah with HM in Dueling now, it just begs to be run in combination with Menders Purity, almost for free in any Shatter or PU/Clone-Death build really.

I agree that the GM Minor is just icing on top. It’s actually a bit weak for a GM Minor in my opinion, should be 5s base duration at least! It still synergizes well in this build though as confusion is definitely a major aspect of the build, which is why I trait the 33% duration.

Thanks, I’ve read that thread, but this is a quite different concept then the “pure” Condie Shatter. This is almost a hybrid shatter build, though leaning heavier towards Condies.

With a decent bit of Might, which is easy to stack up with this build, both MW and Phantasms put out significantly more direct damage then a pure Condie Shatter build. (Which along with the Might stacking focus, is the key reason for going with GS & Staff over other weapons.) Naturally, the Might also works well in enhancing Condie damage.

In my experiences at least, this is more well rounded then a “pure” Condie-Shatter focus, performing well against a greater variety of professions/builds.

Like most of you, I’ve been tirelessly screwing around with different builds, and since I found the Condie Shatter both neat and fairly viable, I tried a few variants. A really nice one is the Balthazaar w/ Geomancy combo someone mentioned here recently. It really stacks a nice AoE condie burst on people and it’s definitely fun.

I started to wonder how STR Runes and Might stacking would affect the Condie Shatter philosophy, and actually I really enjoy the result. With this build it’s easy to keep 10-15 Might stacks up, and you often reach over 20 in a prolonged fight. It plays like a typical shatter build, but you have a ton more survivability. (3×2660 heal + 6 codie removals w/ 1550 Toughness)

It kinda hit me that a nice side effect of 6 in Dueling is the Crit Damage & Crit Chance that kinda gets wasted in a full condie-oriented build, and that given good might stackage my MWs could be more then just a means to apply a couple of Torment stacks. (And make the Phantasms hit harder too.)

You don’t have the spike damage of a GC Shatter naturally, but you have a great mix of DD & Condie/Confusion Damage that ends up in rather solid sustained AE damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJARWl0npTtNqxMNcrNyqBdqlg6s0lgW6NktAA-TJxHwADeCAa2f4YZAAXCAA

The only real weakness is lack of speed…WTB 25% Speed Sigil.

Let me know what you think!

I know people usually hate “The Twins” as I call them (MI), but I like to run them in this build because generally my condie-removal is plenty, and all other utilities are kinda underwhelming from a “selfish/PUG sPvP” point of view at least.

When you first posted the Power version I tried it, but quickly decided to work it over with a Condie P/S focus, and also found it works really really well! The Fortified Turrets just didn’t work out that well in sPvP, for me at least, so I made a few changes:

I dropped Fortified Turrets for Exlir Bombs, and obviously kept the Bombs over FT as you did above. Also, I took Backpack Regenerator, and changed Autotool to Powershoes for perma speed.

I’m using Thumper & Flame turrets, but mostly for the boons. Thanks to 600 unit range you can place them off the points in sPvP and still get the boons while defending the point. (And the FT will often get some damage in too ofc since it has 500 range.) The Protection uptime from Thumper is quite enough utility to make that strategy worthwhile, and I rarely lose my Thumper to enemy damage. (And I fear this won’t last. /cry)

Lastly I’m using Strength Runes plus Battle & Corruption sigils to get my Might stacks up. This ends up almost as a hybrid build, due to the Might stacks effect on bombs. (And again the STR Runes probably also won’t last. /sniffle)

This package makes for a sick point assaulter/defender, but also holds up well in 1v1 & 1v2 and makes solid team contributions to boot. It’s just an extremely solid sPvP build with speed, strong survivability, decent DPS output, nice control, etc.

It’s only real weaknesses are the lack of longer range damage, and that (as usual) the Condie removal is only mediocre. (Which really is only an issue for this build against heavy condie bursts, because of the strong healing between BPR, Elixir Bombs, AMR for 2xHT, and lots of Blast Finishers for your Water fields.)

Well 2 of the 3 condie’s from Deb Dis. don’t care about condition damage, and I figured that AE weakness might often be more beneficial to survival then Ill Def, but the latter is certainly more reliable.

Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for the feedback and I have to second Mystogan. I’d venture to say that the vast majority of builds on this board are not “meta” builds, not designed to be a replacement for the very best builds, but rather a refreshment from them.

I play a lot of shatter and sometimes PU builds, but they both bore or frustrate me at times. I often envy the sheer survivability that other professions have, and I was pretty impressed with how this build worked out.

I’m still playing it and having a blast, because I’m different and I can tell my opponents are “taken out of book” by a build like this. I often see Thieves especially drop their current target to focus on me, because they seem to think “Mesmer is squishy!” and then they bite their teeth out wondering where all my healing is coming from. :-)

Thedenofsin.7340:

It’s so reliant on stealth that I cannot see this as a good side-bunker build. For mid fights, it lacks group utility. It’s definitely not a roaming build.

If Illusionary Membrane had an 8 second cooldown instead of 15, I’d see this build being a decent side-bunker with staff, rabid amulet, Null Field and forge/undead runes.

It’s not reliant on Stealth to stay in the fight, especially not in 1v1. Stealth just provides a nice “reset” when things aren’t going your way or you’re facing too many people at once. With 600+ HPs per second healed, lots of control/CC, and Debil Disp + Dodge Clones, you’re able to stay on a point for a long time with even the strong classes. I just defended a point from a Hambow Warrior for about a minute in a total stale-mate, barely ever dropping below 75% health, and not using stealth at all. (Until a thief joined him, and I still fought them for ~30s more 2v1, but using stealth to re-position & heal/boon up in between.)

It’s just that it gets really really sick with Protection up, and the best source of that is sadly PU.

For this fight I changed Wardens Feedback for Restorative Mantras + MoP, which works very nicely to stay topped up, as long as you’re not facing heavy Conditions. (2800 heals on charging the mantra) Yeah I wasn’t killing the Warrior either, but I was holding the point and giving him a very frustrating experience. ;-)

Same goes for decap Engies, who you can give at least a bit of a taste of their own medicine. (And Engies really hate Retaliation.)

It’s a fun build for sPvP and will remind you of the old Immortal Mesmer build.

Thanks for the feedback Kortham. I guess you could say it’s “bunkerish” but in the end you can’t defend a point quite as well as the best bunker class/build combos.

Damage output is not as bad as one might expect from a bunker-like Mesmer build, and yes much like Immortal Mesmer, a significant portion can come from Retal damage. With 45% Crit chance and 25% Crit Damage, the iZerker hits pretty hard.

Also, although this is a PU build, you have significantly more staying power without being forced to Stealth then the usual PU Mesmer builds. It’s just when you finally do stealth, you end up coming out of it with 3-4K more health then you had before you stealthed (plus the PU boons). It’s very frustrating in 1v1s and many 1v2s, depending on profession & skill level of course. Thieves are just kinda funny, they get some of their own medicine back.

Compounding Celerity is actually just left from before I used Focus with the Retaliation concept, I usually use Mender Purity there, but it makes little sense with the Signet of Ether naturally. I will try the Glamours one, that could be a nice little change!

Very good feedback, thanks!

On Signet of Ether vs. Ether Feast, I understand your math and have seen you make that point in the past, but I don’t think this purely mathematical comparison is fair to the Signet.

First of all, the passive nature of the healing is a sizable advantage, being uninterruptible and less “win or lose” then Ether Feast in regards to being Poisoned. If you EF while poisoned, you cut your healing in half. Period. You’d have to be permanently poisoned for the Signets passive heal to be cut in half. You also continue to heal during stuns, dazes, and KDs…all of which are a bane of our existence since we don’t have much access to Stability.

Secondly, there is the active effect to consider. Although mathematically speaking it would be foolish to use it, especially with the un-traited CD as in this build, reality will dictate that in some situations you will use it, and it’s essentially equal to an EF w/o Illusions up. (Not too uncommon in a dire situation!) If you manage to survive or make a clean getaway by using the Active, the much longer CD timer becomes mostly irrelevant.

Last but not least, there is the utility of the Active to consider. In some situations it’s well worth the long CD on the passive heal, in order to summon a second iBezerker to get that kill-shot in and end a fight that otherwise might have drug on because your opponent managed to get a burst heal off.

Your second point on Lyssa runes makes a lot of sense, although the nerf doesn’t really look that bad to me on paper. I will definitely try out Hoelbrak, that would be a nice trade off for more Power, and the Might Duration would jive well with the Might stacking philosophy of the build.

With kitten-envy of the tankiness that Guardians, Warriors, and several other classes are able to achieve, I set out to create a high survivability Mesmer build that would still pack enough punch to enjoy 1v1s and have good sustain in 1v2s or more, especially (of course) against lower skilled opponents.

I used to enjoy Pyro’s Immortal build immensely, and this build turned out to become -essentially- an updated version, at least as far as the basic idea goes.

sigh
“Why yet another PU build?”

I tried this same build without it, in many variants and some had good synergies, but in order to make the high amount of regen that this build is focused around really work well vs. multiple attackers, requires a good amount of Protection. (and the stealth-breaks don’t hurt either!) Once I decided to work this concept into a PU build, it turned out to be a monster for survivability.

That’s just the state of the Mesmer class currently. It’s hard to ignore PU and not feel disadvantaged when facing numerous popular class/build combos out there.

Here is the build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQNAsdRnsISRaWsGOqB3aGRM9I48Ng7kCqb5KpA3uQA-TsAgzCnIKSVkrITRyisFNiYJyUEA

The main focus is on getting “Warrior-like” health regen through near permanent Regeneration coupled with the Signet of Ether, both enhanced by a Cleric Amulet. Together these will give you over 600 HPs healed per second with 3 illusions up. (combined with 1785 Toughness, 17.5k HPs, and the benefits of stealth/PU)

Your damage output from Phantasms and yourself is moderate; not terribly good, but not terribly bad either. This is what led me to remember Pyro’s Immortal build! And thus the icing on top comes from Retaliation, which you can keep up almost permanently thanks to 2x Light Fields that each provide 18s of Retaliation with an iLeap combo! (And traited Temporal Curtain is on a 20s RuT.)

Another big plus for this build is Control. Lots of it, and mostly AE! Sword brings the AE Immobilize, Focus the AE Pull, GSword #5 the AE Knockback, and the iZerker the AE Cripple. Fun stuff.

Cons:

The biggest downside of the build is Condition-focused enemies whom also often have high sustain. You have Lyssa and a condie-removal utility of your choice, but it’s not enough vs. the most extreme Condie classes. (Especially those with access to lots of Poison to hinder your regens!)

Although you have low Power to start with, as the fight drags on you get more Might from Interrupts & the Battle Sigils so overall your damage output is not bad.

It should be noted that, much like the original Immortal Mesmer build, this is a quite unusual way to play a Mesmer. With Protection and Regen up, you can take a lot of damage and dish out some nice Retaliation damage in return. (And with stealth/PU you can reset fights and come back with a vengeance!)

Feel free to give me some constructive criticism on improving this! (Preferably based on experience playing this or a similar build.) It is different and not everyone’s cup of tea. It does not play like a typical PU build either!

Although perhaps not ideal in many ways, I feel that MoP performs well enough in Power builds. I recently ran a Mantra Power/Zerker shatter build in sPvP and was very satisfied with PS performance. (2.5k crits on Thieves were pretty common, that on top of a big shatter adds quite a bang for your buck. Also it got me a lot of kills on runners, due to the instant ranged nature of it!)

Obviously it also performs decently in a support role due to it’s low RuT, and the only improvement there would be what all Mantras in general need; a means to reduce the focus time just a tad. (i.e. have Harmonious Mantras reduce the focus time by 10-20%!)

So MoP really just needs something small to make it more viable for Condie builds. Staying conservative for the sake of balance, I suggest a simple 3s Confusion or Bleed, but still perfectly reasonable would also be 2s Poison or Torment IMHO.

Doesn’t sound like much, but we can’t forget the utility aspects of MoP, and it would be enough to make it viable in a condie build.

Most anyone would agree that Mantra of Pain is a pretty weak ability, and it’s plain inconsistent and wrong that it’s the only offensive Mantra and only caters to Power-based builds.

With a seeming interest by Anet in giving Mesmers more Condition build options, I think this could use a small improvement to make it at least plausible to use in Condie builds.

Even a single stack of ~3s Confusion or Bleed would allow this ability to be at least somewhat useful in Condition builds, without causing any balance issues what so ever.

Granted, Torment or Poison would be even better! ;-)

Agree with the OP, this looks utterly useless. Creating new GM traits that are this utterly useless is a waste of ANets valuable time/resources, and only serves to anger/alienate players.

It’s obvious this is just “filler” in order to claim we created new GM traits for every line for every profession. If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all.

Nicely put RedCobra, and I agree it’s disingenuous to call something cheese that was basically the whole intent of the changes that led to the PU build becoming popular. They buffed the bajeebus out of both Scepter and PU across 2 patches, and then wonder why everyone is flocking to it? Very odd.

I know, I know, their focus is on the clone-death traits now, but we’ve had those verbatim for a LONG time, and only now they discovered they’re “cheese” and OPd?

Please! Everyone considered them quite under-powered until PU/Condie builds came along, which again was hardly a coincidence based on the buffs it received.

I will say though that you’re wrong about whiny kids not complaining if you beat them with a different build. I’ve been playing a tanky mantra/shatter build that I posted in another thread, and I’ve gotten plenty of kids complaining about losing. Usually thieves of course. /boggle

People just hate Mesmers in general and most of all they hate to lose, and are always quick to assume it’s not a skill issue, but a balance issue! ;-)

Certainly you could do that for added defense, but as you said it leaves a few things to be desired:

1) Ranged DPS is overall weaker (slow), but you gain more defense for sure. Nice thing is you can gain Fury to make up for the somewhat low Crit Chance.
2) Lacking ranged CC options to catch runners (remember you have no speed )
3) Not as good a synergy for shattering as GS has. (Mirror Blade is a lovely way to add a big spike on your target, along with a MW + Power Spike from MoP. )

A nice shatter combo with GC is MB as you run in=>Change to Sword=>iLeap=>Dodge into enemy first=>then Swap=>MW+PS+BF.

~6 – 11k damage depending on crits and if you manage to hit all of them.

Although the iWarlock isn’t bad and would often spike for bigger damage then the iZerker in this build, overall I like the iZerker much more. It’s almost instant, AE cripple, good AE damage, and together with the excellent iSwordsman they really pack a punch in between shatters.

This is really almost a hybrid shatter/phantasm build, as you’re a bit more reliant on phantasms then a GC shatter build to hold you over till the next MW burst, but you have much better surivivability with the medium Toughness, 3x Mantra heals (almost 8k instant heals total!), and 6x condie removal baked into those heals.

I’m not sure if this sort of build has been posted before, but I’ve been having a lot of fun with this. It’s a lot more interactive and “in your face” then Condie-PU builds, which like many, I’ve grown a bit tired of.

It seems a bit odd at first with 30/30/0/10/0, but has surprising synergies.

http://tinyurl.com/mmxlfxs

Through Harmonious Mantras you’ve got both Heals & Condie Removal covered, as well as getting an additional spike from Mantra of Pain. The Power and the boost to both Phantasm and MW damage is just icing on top.

Since you’re running Soldiers Amulet, we also pump 30 into Dueling for both the Precision and the Crit Damage, and again we get a really nice synergy from pumping up 1) Phantasm damage with Fury, 2) Shatters (clone generation) and 3) our Sword DPS and CD reductions.

Naturally the 10 in Inspiration for the obligatory “cleanse on heal” that really makes both HM and MoRecovery shine.

So you end up with a fairly tanky package with medium Toughness & HPs on top of BF and a block, which has made a world of difference when facing Thieves in 1v1 as compared to a plain GC shatter build. However, you also get good DPS out of your Phants, and a little CC from the iZerker & Ill. Wave. You also get pretty high damage from your own weapons, as well as decent spikes from MW.

The only real downside is the lack of speed, but at least out of combat I compensate by swapping in focus to race between points.

It’s a quite happy medium between DPS and survivability, and is very fun to play.

If someone has posted this in the past, then more power to ya for finding a fun build. I’m really enjoying the mix between Phatasm, MW, and my own Sword and Ranged damage, and really it all comes with little to no blatant weaknesses IMO. (Aside from the lack of Swiftness.)

Ahh that is indeed a solid hybrid PU build Atra Culpa, I didn’t realize it was BD’s despite seeing that I’ve looked at it before.

I’ve been playing the same build in sPvP, and there you can easily swap between full on power or hybrid mode by simply swapping the amulet out. If I go hybrid mode though, I usually prefer Scepter over Sword for the Torment.

The single-target damage of those 2 phants in a hybrid build is really nice. Stacking a ton of bleeds on top of moderate DD, and then stacking on a Torment is fun stuff. (And of course some Confusion just to add insult to injury.)

Nice to hear it works out well in WvW too for different roles. I’ve used the new Signet heal as well, but overall can’t say I like it very much. Sure, you can burst nicely with getting 3 Phants up in seconds, but then you’re left without healing for a long time. Just too frustrating when most enemy classes are able to just kill off your Phants even in 1v1, without taking much punishment for doing so.

I feel the OPs points though, at times I get down too about my Mesmer, but then I play my Engineer and after a day or two I run back to the Mesmer! (Not saying the class sucks, it’s more a L2P issue I’m sure, but I just don’t get that class.)

Been playing around with this “new to me” build and it’s pretty silly. Massive DPS from both phants and yourself, and yet pretty decent survivability for being GC/Zerker build.

- 3x Heal & DD Mantras w/ traited heal & Condie removal (x6!)
- 30% Phant damage + Fury
- Nice control with iLeap, Pistol #5, and GS #3
- Halting strike for Ill Wave & Pistol #5 & F3 (I’m really loving this. Turning otherwise pure utility skills into potent damage attacks is very nice.)

http://tinyurl.com/q7c263s

Just in case some people were not aware of it yet, everyone now has the ability to get 25% passive movement speed due to the upgraded Rune of Speed. Not saying it’s a perfect solution, but the option is there.

I think most people are missing the point that these new heals are not supposed to replace the old ones, but rather live along side them as an option. Most of the suggestions made would turn this into the only heal anyone would ever use. You’re completely underestimating the automatic nature of this, and how utterly annoying and frustrating it will be to face an engineer who makes good use of this ability.

It’s a skill thing on both sides of a fight. If the engineer uses the skill well, it will give you a pretty major reward for doing so, while at the same time punishing mindless overly aggressive play when facing an engineer in especially smaller-scale fights. Basically, people will have to learn to hold off on downing the engineer, riding out the 4s AED activation period and forcing a small heal on a big RUT.

It’s definitely not for everyone, and most people may not like it for their build and playstyle, but I’m absolutely sure we’re going to see some people do amazing things with this. It’s going to be like a cat with 9 lives, as an opponent you’re going to get frustrated having to kill the engineer over and over again.

I think it’s neat and the RUT was obviously the cause of the fact that Speedy Gadgets is a mere Adept level trait, so you can hardly ignore that fact. For all intents and purposes the RUT is 32s for a potential 13-16k instant heal (and cheat death!) if used correctly.

I also think less experienced players may also try this, because using heal turret to the effect that most people here are assuming is a sure thing, is not exactly highly intuitive and very prone to failure resulting in less healing and little/no condie removal.

The long RUT on AED is what keeps Elixir H as competitive plain-vanilla heal, but makes AED a situationally more powerful alternative with a higher risk:reward ratio. (And in contrast to all other heals, provides an offensive alternative on the Toolbelt skill that will be especially nice for SD builds.)

In short, I think it’s a good idea and a nice addition to the Engineer that fits the class’ style of play.