Guild Wars 2

Unfortunately Osicat and his guild Judge are no longer playing GW2 and have moved over the Final Fantasy for now. Hopefully he will be back.

Also his thread is in the stickies with a link to his website.

I used to play his Shatter Heavy 3.0 build in WvW for a long time with decent results but I have since switched over the Blackwater build (except mine is a variation with Traveler runes) and have been enjoying it more.

The Greatsword hate is a dungeon thing, not PvP.

Shatter builds are not as strong as they used to be for various reasons including the nerf to Blurry Frenzy, more players wearing high toughness, the condition meta and basically opponents knowing how to avoid shatter damage.

That said, probably the only viable shatter builds right now are Osicat’s Shatter Heavy 3.0 and the Shatter hybrid that uses sword/torch. I would suggest Osicat’s though if you really want to try Shatter.

The reason I go 0/30/0/30/10 is for maximum reflect damage in Arah.

30 in Dueling to maximize your Crit %, which iirc, reflect damage is modified by your Crit and not your power.
30 in Invigoration because you get to choose 3 out of 4 great reflect traits (Glamour Mastery, Warden’s Feedback, Temporal Enchanter and Medic’s Feedback.
And like you said, 10 in Illusions for Compounding Power although I sometimes drop this in favour of 10 on Domination for Empowered Illusions.

themenaceofseventhdimension.2075:

Yes, it is true. Just that the damage distribution is upsetted and that DPS build dishes out more damage in the long run. Blackwater will lose to mostly builds with:

GS
PU
Torch
Good Armor
Good Health
Good Power DPS
Good Condition

So basically a hybrid would be able to beat it.

If you doubt me, go and take all these pointers out and try it.

Anyhow, Blackwater is a very good build, and it’s creator is even more respected. Never forget Natsu’s contribution to the community even if his build ever decides to slip under its postion.

What you just posted is crap.

azizul.8469:

scepter/pistol and sword/sword.. keep gs as spare weapon…

trait 0/20/0/25/25

use full zerker set..

eat food for toughness….

sword/sword + sword/focus (keep pistol & greatsword on-hand if you really need to go ranged.)

trait: 0/20/0/25/25 for dungeons and 10/30/0/30/0 or 0/30/0/30/10 for Arah.

I only see the changes being effective for tpvp/spvp.

Not all dungeons require you to go ‘all-in’ for reflects.

I would suggest 0/20/0/25/25 for most dungeons and 10/30/0/30/0 or 0/30/0/30/10 where you want to utmost reflect damage that you can have which I suggest for all paths of Arah.

So Anet, when and what are the changes? It would be nice if these were changed before leagues start.

I record using MSI Afterburner
I edit in MS Movie Maker
I upload to Youtube using MS Movie Maker

el oh el

The DPS/Reflect variant is the best one for Arah where reflects are so important.

There is no reason why it should not work with IP. You should re-post in the bug forums.

Yes

Mesmers were holding off zergs from taking towers. It’s already been fixed. Let’s move on.

Exactly my point. My main is a Mesmer.

Server Population /= WvW Participation. As well, server population fluctuates depending how many people are logged into that server at that time.

There should be two Outmanned Buffs for the second and third servers and some type of Bloodlust mechanic should be tied in with these Outmanned buffs. This way it is tied to population.

declan.3968:

Permaban might actually balance T1 gold league

Yeah cause everyone in WvW is playing Mesmers and not Guardians and Warriors, right?

“- the attack speed is affected by the projectile travel time, which means using it at melee range, it is just as fast as sword autoattack.”

What keenlam pointed out is what makes the Scepter decent if you know how to use it. This is what makes the Blackwater (or variants of) very viable in WvW.

The key is to stay in melee range using scepter to get your clones up faster and having your opponent hit you while you have Scepter #2 block up. Opponents will quickly down themselves (especially thieves).

I use 0/20/0/25/25 for every dungeon except Arah.

For Arah (all paths),

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgEQRAsc8dl4zSpHSzqGa9IxpHMf5NnUBVX6Bu5tsB-jwxAYrioRTiCEVI0Jviox2GKiGruGT5SEVDA-e

However depending on group make-up, I sometimes switch out off-hand sword for pistol. This is pretty beast on Lupicus.

cmud.5689:

What would be the best build option for an Mesmer now. Let’s assume I play Dungeons, WvW and I do not care about a prefered playstyle. What would be “hardcore” complementing the current kit.

I use this build for Arah,

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgEQRAsc8dl4zSpHSzqGa9IxpHMf5NnUBVX6Bu5tsB-jwxAYrioRTiCEVI0Jviox2GKiGruGT5SEVDA-e

However depending on group make-up, I sometimes switch out off-hand sword for pistol. This is pretty beast on Lupicus.

I wonder if that is a tooltip error. Have you tried it to see if the cd is actually reduced?

Mirror Blade is a bouncing projectile, not a channel.

Yes.

Energy Sigil will give you 50% of your Endurance when you weapon swap. Meanwhile you will get gain Vigor on crit every 5 sec.

This thread is funny.

The only real difference between T1 servers and lower tiers is around-the-clock WvW population.

It’s using DX9 (meaning old). It should have been DX11.

Would have been nice if they made changes BEFORE WvW League starts.

/le sigh

10 sec +50% dmg

x5

C’mon Ninja Style!

Ross Biddle.2367:

YellowFrighten.1208:

Yeah the reason they have so much health and armor though is because for some reason all condition armor is all about defence. I do run a condtion build which I do run in Spvp so I know they are strong but, I just dont want to gear up for pve right now with a possible nerf on the ONE rune that makes the build lol. So is the only option to play condition or suck vs warriors and theif?

I abandoned shatter builds post confusion nerf. I attempted to retain them but the condition meta made them weak. It might be worth looking into an alternate build for ideas.

Same.

Bumbler.7581:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Scepter is actually the ideal ranged weapon of choice but people are afraid of it for some reason, probably because it has shorter range than the GS. That said, you definitely don’t want to have a scepter in your other weapon set all the time if you’re trying to melee, especially when summoning phantasms quickly is the name of the game for mesmers and scepter auto always eats up one phantasm.

With the new Scepter cooldown reductions, this might further draw people to use it in PvE as the range weapon of choice in the fights where you need to switch to a range weapon.

A zerker scepter in PvE might arguably be better than a greatsword. You just have to either go with 2 phantasms and a clone or go with 3 phantasms by managing your auto attack so you never overwrite your third phantasm with a clone.

A general Phantasm build with points in the Invigoration tree will allow your phantasms to aoe heal.

Runes of the Traveler. I use them on my Mesmer and Necro.

/thread

Yes, it was announced on yesterday’s live stream about the CD reduction to Scepter #2 and #3. Awesome.

Agony so you can use your zerker gear in Fractals

I believe the ‘Poisoned Apples’ build uses Sword/Torch + Scepter/Pistol.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

The topic of multiplicative multipliers got me thinking about 2 things.
1) Would a phantasm build rival a warriors damage if phantasms were affected by more than just the two traits and base stats?
2) Utility aside, how comparable is the damage for shatter and phantasm builds when the shatter build is capable of stacking multipliers?

Oh lawd if phantasms also got the +16% from mantras and +9% from Compounding, plus the 5% from Force, 10% from potion, 7% from Frost Spirit, etc., there’d be some serious nerfs incoming.

Phantasms don’t even get better with ascended (offhand) gear

Pyroatheist.9031:

colesy.8490:

Zerker warriors will be doing a reliable 10k-ish DPS

Wut. I find that hard to believe. That’s massive.

There’s a reason why speed runs include 3 warriors, a guardian and a mesmer.

I only use Mantras in my Arah build. The new AoE will be nice but that’s not the main reason you use Mantras in Arah.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Is it use an eternal potion and then press 6 to heal back into normal form? That was a “feature” that they removed then put back into the game awhile ago. This can be spammed after the 10 sec icd and doesn’t waste your heal.

A Cold Potion?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

We are pretty slow in Combat as well. We have Blink which even after using you can still be hit by some people with the right traits, other classes can just chase you down with all the access to swiftness anyway.

You have Portal, Though on a very long cool down and you have Focus but that isnt the best of weapons in my opinion.

Compare that to other classes that get swiftness, movement skills and 25% increase signets. In a race getting from A to B The mesmer would lose against most classes, unless its up ledges and you use Blink at just the right area to get up it.

Engineer – Rocket Boots, Jump Shot and Perma swiftness
Thief – swiftness, 25% signet and increase movement in stealth along with BS spam
Warrior – SO much mobility

Guardian i think is the only class that comes close.

The problem with making a 95% boon duration set is the fact you would be FORCED into taking Focus…

WUT? Mesmers are fine in combat.

Scepter is great, this just makes it more awesome.

Don’t you have to go 20 points into Invigoration to get the traited scepter cooldowns though? I may be wrong here.

ET, you need to sweep Bay more!

TheBoss.8479:

I’m not raging mad here or anything but I got this Norn Mesmer I love playing and to me he looks kitten and then he creates a clown or illusion or teleports and thers always these really weak pink hearts that are the particle effect … my question is WHY? and can this be changed in an update Please… it REALLY REALLY breaks immersion very badly i feel like i running around with a legendary princess thats 8 ft tall holding a 6ft sword who spawns pink hearts…..like what in the kitten batman??

Who says 8 foot tall Norns can’t look the Mesmer part – princess wand and all.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Show-us-your-Mesmer/page/18#post2513351

I don’t see the point of this thread. You just can’t compare specific abilities.

So is this just bad design?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Tests-for-phantasms-and-weapon-grades/first#post3002415

It looks like other than the slight increase on Ascended weapon stats (power, precision), the increased damage range of Ascended Weapons does not increase Mesmer Phantasm damage at all. My understanding is that Engie Kits and Ele conjured weapons are in the same boat.

Will this be looked at before Mesmer Phantasm builds start to fall behind on the increasing damage curve?

LiebnirGWAccount.5698:

colesy.8490:

You don’t generally want to shatter in dungeons/fractals since it’ll hit your DPS pretty hard.

I looked at the inspiration build and I’d swap out the domination trait for empowered illusions, swap deceptive evasion for phantasmal fury and swap medic’s feedback for glamour mastery.

Fire sigils are bad so use either force, slaying, night, perception or bloodlust. Off-hand energy is fine if you find you need the extra dodge (once you become familiar with an encounter you probably won’t), but otherwse just use a battle sigil or some other sort of damage modifier (e.g. on my warrior’s axe/mace I’ll have sigil of force mainhand and then sigil of justice off-hand in CM … but I’m an efficiency fanatic).

Scholar runes over traveler runes as well, unless you do more open world so as opposed to dungeons.

I wasn’t sure as to use Force runes cause it said they didn’t affect Illusions so I left them off, also, is this a fractal focused build? To be honest I should’a been specific, it’s more of a uh… 1. PvE 2. WvW 3. Fractal, type deal. =o

Generally, you should have different gear and a slightly different spec for each of PvE, WvW, Fractals, sPvP, tPvP. Hell I have a totally different spec for Arah which is different than my dungeon spec.

PU Mesmer against a S/D D/P thief = an equal fight that goes on forever (or until someone makes a huge mistake). They are basically counters to each other. As a Mesmer, the most important thing is to manage your cooldowns.

The last thief that attacked me, we fought for 15 minutes before he invited me to party and complained about the build I was using (Blackwater+Traveler’s build) and that I had constant Protection up.

Tips – when a thief stealths, wait 2 seconds then stealth yourself. Or pop your scepter block at about 2 seconds as the thief will usually come out of stealth at 3 seconds and attack you.

Shatter Mesmers generally have a harder time unless you can time two Shatters on him in quick succession when he is already at lower health.