Guild Wars 2

That’s a good point on Chaos. My mistake!

Even as a puglet in a militia zerg, you can pump out fantastic heals and support your frontline with glamours. Boonshare/distortion is effective up to a certain engagement size, but gets outclassed against groups that are not complete kitten. Works great for small-medium scale groups though, especially after the SoI changes.

Whatever you do, don’t swap your build around to appease some pugmander’s dream of double veiling into an enemy zerg. Have some self-respect for your class.

Assuming WvW…

Spam Mantra of Pain with Restorative Mantras and healing gear. Grab Bountiful Disillusionment to cover your cast times. Run double SoI if you are mechanically able to do so, otherwise go with Temporal Enchanter and glamours.

Since SoI boons are now created instead of duplicated, the boon duration you need is now is most likely less than you needed before due to the outgoing boon modifier of Chaotic Persistence.

After some pretty exhaustive dueling, here are some builds and strategies that achieved parity against D/P+S/D Interrupt Daredevil and S/S+LB Meditrapper DH, two hard counters to power shatter Mesmer in the current roaming meta.

Here’s the default build I used going into these duels: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseRlknhy0YhawRNwtGL4GFautb9WZA0a/SdsWr5KA-TVCBQBN4BAAgjAgGVGoP9BKU9Hso07MKBrx+Db4UAQKgAXAA-w

The matchups:

Against daredevil – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAoa8Yn8lClOhFOBGmC8PhFYCTLBEAyAzhwTYL0LNcGaDA-w
The thief’s goal is to force you to burn cooldowns early and then punish it with pulmonary impact. Early fight headshots are a huge pain due to lack of stab access. Most of your skills are channeled and the thief has plenty of dodges to cover his initiative spam. Unless you are godly at landing a shatter burst (with CS?) the biggest mistake you can make is overcommitting early on.

The build – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAsfRl0nhy0YJawRNwtGLrG05RSyzL3QxDg5Mm2KA-TVCBQBHc/Bso0bDnCgzoEEAHBANqMQf6DawDAQhq/QKgBWAA-w
I found the most success playing this PU Mantra base Mesmer build. You’ve got fantastic stealth access and instant cast damage through Mantra of Pain. Turn off autoattacking and save your shatters for when the thief tries to melee you. If the thief decides to stealth up using black powder and heartseeker, use your Mass Invis a few seconds in to regain the opener. Little things like using stealth to cover your heal and mantra preparation, or leaving your illusionary leap clone up to teleport to will pay off.

Against Dragonhunter – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAseTn8cClDhVdCWDB8DhlGiKL+uv8Te4T+o/aYXgAA-w
The guardian’s build is tricky. He’s got access to many blocks to negate bursts, and the ability to fully reset his HP every 25 econds. The early fight is usually a JI/word burst coupled with shield knockback before True Shot. The bread and butter combo will be to pull you with Virtue of Justice through Test of Faith, then knock you back out, inflicting massive damage.

The build – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAsaRlknhy0YxawRNwtGL4GlZGkLRQdsWr5aZA0a/CA-TVCBQBaUZAAOCAHc/BFq+zZUCqP9BYRpXDeAAb4UAQKgBWAA-w
This is another fight where patience pays off. Back to Chrono, but we double down on PU from the earlier build. Much of the guardian’s damage depends on his ability to port to you, so we’ll open with stealth to get both DPS phantasms out (you absolutely need both phantasms to overcome the DH’s healing). Try to stay at range and in greatsword, so that when the DH does port to you, you have Blurred Frenzy ready to go. It’s worth blowing distortion for the pull alone, but you can usually dodge it if you pay attention to the buff bar when Justice comes back.

The takeaway:

I was having a discussion with a guildie about new meta vs old meta and one thing that came out of it was the idea that smart players have always catered to what works for their profession. Back when critical damage was king, or the shift to power builds, condi, etc. Much of the WvW meta has been exploiting what is “broken” to gain an advantage and win the fight. What mechanics, traits, and skills are still “broken” in our favor? I came away from these duels with a greater appreciation of Restorative Mantras, Prismatic Understanding, and off-hand pistol.

A few words on pistol. For me at least, there’s always been this tension between setups with double DPS phantasm or single DPS with a defensive set (usually sword). I used stealth to cover the defensive gaps of S/P this time, but I’ll be testing it more with group comps where shield has been so useful in high cleave engagements.

Swamurabi.7890:

Funny, TC players complaining of facing blobs that are 2x-4x greater but when they do the same to T2 it’s all good.

Give the build a shot Fay. When you factor in Seaweed, Scholars, Force, and Mantra Strength the localized AoE damage is pretty good. I said at the beginning that it wasn’t going to be optimal compared to a backline necro (or ele), but it’s the closest imitation of those traditional roles I can get to.

Hehe, it’s similar to Fresh Air scepter ele. It can work solo as well, but isn’t as versatile. Swap feedback for decoy, pick up Mental Defense and Chronophantasma and you’re good to go. Use Mantra of Pain for your initial pressure and really capitalize on your Confusing Images burst. The actual confusion and torment you apply is just a distraction

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAreWn0nBlohtfCuqBEgilVjqOZj2r98ISiioMCOuAA-TFCBABA8AAa4IAsxhAIgTAQlq/kn+gzUCi1+jyPSBMwCA-w

Spam Confusing Images and Mantra of Pain for ridiculous damage. Once you have full stacks, camp scepter/shield and only switch to staff if you’re pushed or need poison on downs. Mantra of Pain is really versatile instant cast damage and can synergizes with Restorative Mantras. Drop wells on the enemy midline or when your driver calls for it. Use feedback’s resistance as an instant cast defensive utility against gank and condi pressure. Phase retreat is your friend! Learn how to deselect targets for directional teleports and you’ll be golden.

Since you mentioned staff Elementalist, I’m assuming you’re asking about some sort of backline DPS role for Mesmer. I’m happy to tell you that it is indeed viable, but not necessarily optimal. You’ve got to ask yourself at what point are you trying to be a better well necro? Check out scepter/shield & staff with harmonious mantras and let me know how you feel! Sorry, but it’d be too easy if I just gave you a free build with no effort

Since yesterday’s patch devastated Signet of Inspiration, I figured I’d open up and share the support build that [GFC] Mesmers have been using for the better part of the last year. We run an organized 3-5 man roaming team currently located on Gate of Madness!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseWl0nhy0YBawENQtGLEHlZAkAL0ZFcBfW9l+plKA-T1xHQB+Y/BAq8Dc6Dgn6PPUJ4AeCAA4UAQKgAnZB-w
Optional swap-ins are Sigils of Concentration for battle if you don’t need as much might, and Signet of Illusions for Blink if you’re skilled enough with Phase Retreat.

This build focused on boon support and healing, both passive and active. Since we all play the class, I’m not going to explain the synergy between the GM traits and SoI, but I’ll point out some things that worked really well.

Restorative Mantras & Mantra of Pain —> Active Healing
- benefits greatly from Bountiful Disillusionment and Seize the Moment
Mantra of Recovery & Water Runes --> Active Healing
- CDs line up nicely with each other, massive effective range.
Illusionary Inspiration & Minstrel’s stats gear —> Passive Healing
- regeneration output is A+, any regen that you share via SoI uses YOUR healing power

The job of the Mesmer is to grab agro from enemies and bunker while they burn their high-cost offensive cooldowns. Continuum split is used offensively to front-load boons. Afterwards, your job is to take care of healing, general boon uptime, and securing stomps on downs.

The largest group we’ve engaged and won with a double support/triple damage comp is around 5v20 at NWT switchback. Biggest challenge with this build is not doing ENOUGH. It’s counter-intuitive but because you’ve have all the vit and armor, you need to be absorbing damage for your DPS dealers. Support guardians simply don’t have access to the same mobility.

Post-patch the build will probably look something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseWl0nhS0YpawVNQtGL9GlZAcBZ05IUChQdp2qzKA-T1xDQBQU5H8OCg+Ans/AAeAAQ4UAAQ1f+oSQSBE4ML-w
More suited for large-scale combat but we’ll see as the week rolls on. CS/CI Power Mesmer is pretty strong right now so I’m looking to see if I can outsource things to other builds.

Thanks for reading.

Interesting thread, thanks for doing this.

I know there’s a lot of emotions and bitter memories that the wider WvW community has about Dragonbrand. That’s perfectly okay to have and I’m not going to shoot you down for it. I think one thing we can agree on is that servers have their own distinct culture. Sometimes server culture changes over time and sometimes it doesn’t. If we look at DB during Q2 2015 after the previous collapse—forget about who’s better at duels or zerg fighting for a moment—the only thing Dragonbrand had going for it were a few SEA guilds and one of the friendliest communities around. You would never understand the latter and realize why so many PvX and WvW guilds made the move based off external narratives alone.

When the server was rebooted, there was a mindset that it was to be a community first. This wasn’t easy to do after the previous collapse. NA, EU, and OCX were completely empty aside for a few roaming guilds, and the SEA community was pretty much isolated on their own. We catered to guilds that were trying to rebuild during a time when servers left and right were collapsing from glicko walls, Yaks Bend’s rise to T1/T2 and general burnout from a game mode that the developers paid no attention to. The crazy thing was that people responded to this.

Dragonbrand became a melting pot of players from each server. I personally met with guilds from BP, BG, DH, FA, IoJ, JQ, Mag, SoR, SoS, and TC who were interested in coming over. It wasn’t perfect. At times there was tension between the DB “natives” and newer guilds. Some guilds that came over had bad blood between each other! We also disagreed internally on whether or not we should go up in tiers- that was a big one. I remember at one point even trying to convince folks to transfer to other servers like NSP or SBI in order to balance out the tiers.

This post is getting a bit long and I’ll try to quickly summarize why I think things broke down and to help any other server leaders out there as well. If there’s interest I can cover more details later.

1. Burn out. We kept rising through each tier fighting bitterly to hang on. Rising to T1 and T2 was never part of the plan- it just sort of happened. For folks that had already been running at 100% for months? Pressure builds up. People have real lives, and priorities change.
2. Change in engagement sizes and tactics from havoc-size to zerg-size. Nobody likes to die. There’s a natural escalation in group sizes as you go up the tiers to the point where “it’s all blobs”. Not all guilds are comfortable or able to adapt to that.
3. Guild/militia divide. Remember what I said about recruitment? We sought out guilds, not militia. Late-stage bandwagoners, fairweather players that happen to already be on the server, and few pugmanders don’t make for very good zergs. Lackluster zergs leads to poor morale.
4. Stagnation of game mode. Self-explanatory.
5. Politics. Lack of effective mediation between old guard DB guilds and newer guilds led to disagreements, first guilds to leave the server.

Anyways, my time on Dragonbrand was a blast. Met a lot of very interesting folks and I’ll never forget how welcoming and kind the community is. o7 to my former teammates that actually made the journey and saw things from the inside, and kudos to all the folks on the opposing servers that I (and GFC) had the pleasure of fighting.

Bump. 15 Characters.

Echoing what Asami and Josh have mentioned. Draining is highly underrated, though Absorption isn’t bad either.

Bump. 15 Characters.

Is anyone else’s OCD kicking in seeing Mantra of Concentration’s charging CD at 25s compared to Distraction and Resolve’s 20?

<awkward silence>

Did you read the last sentence of the OP? Traiting for torch isn’t worth it imo. Going for the phantasm trait improves your illusion uptime, which also improves the healing output of Ether Feast.

I figured I’d share the post-patch build I’ve been toying with.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRArf8enknBlphtfCOqBEgilZjqMAqtkpeX/1hFd4KufA-TVCBQBnRJIDOCAYRpnGVGAgHAg+0PshTCgCV/5g7PAA-w

The burst from the build comes from Confusing Images- the highest I’ve seen from a channel was ~12.5k. Bait enemy escapes with your shatters before unloading. You can swap Dueling for Inspiration if you need the cleanse. Runes/Sigils are up to personal preference.

Hmm, SBI you say?

http://www.gw2wvw.net/sites/default/files/sbifight.jpg

Bump. 15 Characters.

It’s amusing that people still think Dragonbrand wants to be up in tier one. Love or hate the server, if you know anything about the current makeup of guilds and players that makes absolutely no sense. As far as transfers are concerned, I think you’re reading way too much into the situation. T1 has been complaining about Yaks Bend for a long time (JQ drivers and guilds even boycotting WvW) and it’s completely logical that the guilds and players that are frustrated and upset would move to a different tier. Injecting a conspiracy theory in there to prove something that nobody gives a flying kitten about just makes you look stupid. Come to tier two for the fights and try to have fun. We’re all in this dying game mode together. Try to act like it.

Typing the same word in all caps over and over again won’t help you get a faster dev response.

bettadenu.5483:

This thread is hilarious.

Kazo is TC native and to my knowledge not a single guild was bought.

Ironically DB stacked up for that t1 dream crushing other servers in the attempt to do so and now they are losing (I will enjoy watching another DB implosion).

DB and FA have a confirmed alliance versus TC and even then they still cannot bring it down (all this talk about TC having bad players and bad commanders just goes to show how low the skill level is on DB and FA because you guys are losing lel).

TC is not stacking up to go to t1, if somehow it does go to t1 it will have a hard time because people are not ready for t1 yet.

This comment is hilarious.

People are upset that Tarnished Coast has received an influx of guilds and players from Jade Quarry. It’s at a point now that during EU and SEA, TC has more players online than DB and FA combined.

Boonshare Mesmer builds are meta for mid-large scale group compositions. Dom/Inspiration/Chrono variants synergize well with Mallyx revs whereas Chaos/Inspiration/Chrono builds are a more “bursty” approach. Both paths have their advantages, but it’ll most likely boil down to how organized the rest of your guild is at executing the rotation.

Bump. 15 Characters.

Bump. 15 Characters.

The purpose of this thread is to make the case that the movement speed modifiers on Chilled and Crippled should be changed to 33% and 66%, respectively.

For reference:

• Chilled – Movement speed decreased by 66%; skill cooldown increased by 66%; stacks duration.
• Crippled – Movement speed decreased by 50%; stacks duration.
• Immobile – Unable to move; stacks duration.

With the introduction of Heart of Thorns there has been a vast increase in the number of ways to apply Chilled and traits that improve or benefit from a target having Chilled, making a once rare condition nearly ubiquitous to both PvP and WvW environments. For many classes, there is little counter-play to the duration-stacking Chilled spam other than a full disengage or rapid and constant cleanses. These methods and traits disproportionately affect the Reaper elite specialization, which makes any balance suggestions particularly volatile for the positioning of Reaper in the game. Necromancers are notorious for having fewer gap closers and being able to be “range-kited” by astute foes is a fine line that can make a viable class unviable. For that reason I am hesitant to suggest a complete removal of the movement speed modifier. I urge the developers to center the design goal of Chilled to its focus on increasing skill cooldowns, as a counterpart to Alacrity (ref: Well of Recall)

The only elite specialization introduced with HoT that works with Crippled in a significant manner is Dragonhunter. Aside from the damage modifier on Zealot’s Aggression, which itself is almost never taken over the other two grandmasters, I cannot think of a single situation in the game, across all game modes, where Crippled could be applied and Chilled not be more advantageous. Not only does Chilled debilitate your opponent’s moving speed more than Crippled, it will also increase his skill cooldowns and potentially damage him. This is a serious design flaw. Changing Crippled’s movement speed modifier to 66% alongside the change to Chilled would emphasize its role as a crowd control skill, increase build diversity, and increase tactical depth.

Comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Bump. 15 Characters.

I have to thank the developers for coming out into the open like this. These sort of forum posts are exactly the type of steps Arenanet needs to take in order to gain the trust and heart of the WvW community.

As a guild leader of a small havoc guild on Dragonbrand, the top five priorities for me would be:

1. Stability Overhaul – explore incremental duration stacking, with hard CCs trimming one stack/duration
2. Tactivator Balance – knockback from SMC airship, cloaking waters stealth duration, channeled casts to use levers, cooldowns on tier 3 tactivators
3. Siege Equipment Balance – knockback from shield generator auto-attack, arrow cart AoE size and damage overhaul, supply requirements for arrow carts and ballistae (increase and decrease, respectively)
4. Bugfixes – marked debuff on keeps not appearing for correct team, range limit on dragon banner skill #3, presence of the keep not appearing when passing through certain portals, druid exploit bypassing air keep walls, sentry marked debuff being applied despite stealth
5. Matchup Variety – direct means: rework glicko system; indirect means: transfer costs, RI duration, scoring interval, PPK interaction with outmanned

I believe issues such as population balance (gold vs bronze server pop) and “nightcapping” (primarily directed at eu/ocx/sea players) will resolve themselves if an effective and engaging framework for WvW is reintroduced. A quick, albeit disruptive, option for these two topics would be to reduce the number of matchup tiers to five ala PvP divisions (amber through diamond) in order to condense the player base.

SMC will now be known as SMH. Get rid of the supply depots, walls, gates, and everything else until it has been distilled down to a glorified camp. Sprinkle a few cliffs in to create natural choke points and voila!

Hello all. I wanted to hold a discussion on Arcane Thievery to gather some thoughts on the current state of this ability, and make the case that it should be redesigned.

“Send three conditions you have to your foe and steal three of their boons.”

I wasn’t playing the game when it first launched, so my perspective is going to be limited to early 2014 around the end of the 2nd WvW tournament. Back then, boon generation was relatively limited. Certain builds like D/D elementalist and frontline guardian benefited greatly from their trait-based 30% boon duration modifiers. Boons were harder to come by, but that scarcity forced players to make meaningful decisions on when to engage, how to engage, and whether or not they should change their builds.

Today, it is very much the opposite. Many classes have access to low cooldown stability, might-stacking potential, and plentiful defensive boons. It has reached a point where amongst my guild members, I even use the term “cover boons” (in reference to “cover conditions”) for the smatterings of swiftness/regen/fury/retaliation that get pumped out in a 5-man party that diversify the corruptible pool of boons we use to preserve our resistance and stability.

It is apparent to me that Arcane Thievery in its current execution is under-utilized across the game modes. I think the reason for this is because the number of boons and conditions transferred are too few to make a meaningful difference against the meta builds in PvP and WvW, and that there are few encounters in PvE that actively challenge the player on the boon level. Too often are Mesmers shoehorned into taking the Inspiration trait line just to survive the onslaught of conditions. I’m proposing a couple different changes to Arcane Thievery and am looking for feedback.

1. Increase the number of boons/conditions transferred to a value of five.
2. Reduce the cooldown of Arcane Thievery to a value of 30 seconds.
3. Change the function of the skill into a PBAoE cast (600 radius, 5 target limit) that transfers one condition and one boon per target.
4. Change the function of the skill to apply a five second debuff upon a target (and corresponding buff upon the player) that pulses boon and condition swapping while within 1200 range.

What do you guys think? Do you agree that Arcane Thievery needs to be updated? Let me know in the replies.

Bump. 15 Characters.

Bump. Welcome BGA, DD, Inc, TF, WvW, and any other guilds that I forgot to mention to Dragonbrand.

1. Fix latency issues related to the oasis event and large numbers of players.
2. Force players to drop cores if they are affected by CC skills.
3. Reduce the duration of the oasis event from 60 minutes to 30.

Are you talking about [Goon] and [SFD]?

Bump. Still looking for guilds that run during EU to scout us out.

Constraints are freedom.

Bump. We’ll soon overtake Sea of Sorrow’s 6th place rating.

I can confirm that it does affect trait-based skill activations like Illusionary Inspiration.

At the very least, you shouldn’t be able to use profession skills (see warrior banners). If you really want to emphasize risk-reward, take it a step further and prevent heal/utility/elite skill usage.

Agreed, though players and guilds should come up with agreements about banner/airship usage in their own tiers before expecting the developers to address the issue any time soon.

Welcome Wyld Stallyns [WS] to Dragonbrand. I’ve had so much fun in the past week. Thanks to CD and SBI for coming out to play.

I was talking with a couple of friends yesterday about how interesting it would be if only the green team had its home map changed to the Alpine borderlands. Players would have a second map besides EBG to populate and we might see closer matchups as well.

She’s right. You don’t even need to know the driver’s name, a squad member’s name alone will suffice. Easy way to prevent this is to select the Closed Squad or Invite Only options in the squad drop-down menu.

Since you specifically mentioned solo-roaming, I’d recommend checking out the lower-silver through mid-silver servers. Anything higher than and it starts getting crowded fast (on EBG). If you’re hoping to find action on the borderlands, it’kitten or miss no matter where you go.

Happy new year. Dragonbrand is firmly rooted in T3 now. Seeking EU-prime & Late-NA guilds to bolster our coverage.

Welcome [IV] and [ZERG] to the server. Looks like we may be heading to Tier 2.

To the top. We’re still looking to help out our EU and late-NA time slots.