Guild Wars 2

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

If consume plasma was nerfed, thieves would be a fair fight. Enough said.

I know right. As if it isnt enough that they have more stealth uptime, blinds coming out of their wazoo and a mechanic that allows them to spam their skills if they make a mistake but they get allllll boons for 10seconds… it should be RNG based like almost all mesmer boon traits or alternatively give use the same skill.

Theives are a natural counter to ip shatter builds especially double ranged but you can even the playing field more with lockdown traits. Heartseeker is easy to interrupt with mantra of distraction and interrupring their smokefield stealth really buggers up their rotations. It also puts their skill on cd for a few seconds so they cant spam another one strait away.

At least you guys can choose to use your minions. Think about poor mesmers when you speak about the lame minion ai. Sometimes my phantasms run off and have a picnic in a nearby flower field instead of attacking the mob.

Its not worth taking. There are much more useful skills that the mesmer can use to survive. In my random hit join experiments I once ran a tanky point defender inspiration mantra mesmer. It did no damage but it was very hard for the other puggies to take down. Defender in that build would just take up a useful slot for another mantra like the stability mantra which was key for getting off my 3k heals off on mantra charge.

If I had to choose defender or disenchanter to be removed in place of a new skill I would choose defender. At least disenchanter has decent condi/boon removal. But the cast time should be brought in line with other phantasm skills.

unlucky.9285:

it was definitely a pu build as they always seem to have a bunch of boons after they stealth not to mention the constant use of stealth………….. sometimes they take torch

The amount of times ive been accused of being a PU mesmers by other players. The only place you really see PU is wvw SOMETIMES.…PU is not good in spvp unless you want to troll. If you died to a power PU mesmer then for shame haha. But i honestly think youre confused about the build your opponent was using there are multiple minor and major traits, not to mention skills that give boons to mesmers. Just because they had boons when they came out of stealth doesnt mean much.

Based on your limited description it seems like a double ranged shatter mesmer or lockdown mesmer. But you can never be sure because there is scope for a lot of experimentation with mesmer. You always meet the odd signet shatter mesmer with distortion/invulnerabilities/reflexts coming out of their kitten .

My previous advice still stands though. Even a power necro can out dps a shatter mesmer. Just dont blow your …( ^-^)????.:*:?’°?? tooo soon. Hehe.

As someone who mains a mesmer and necro I would like to give you some advice. First of all, just because a mesmer has boons doesnt make them pu. They are most likely lockdown. Bountiful interruption is a master trait that gives mesmers 5 stacks of might on interrupt plus a random boon. This trait has no cool down. Halting strike does damage to foes on interrupt. This coupled with all that might can be violent. There is another skill called chaotic interruption that immobolizes plus applies blind, chill, or cripple to an interrupted taget. These skills are the most common skills for a lockdown mesmer to take.

The best way to deal with them is stability which you dont have great access to as a necro. Another strategy could be to bait out the interrupts/stuns because they often have long cooldowns. You can count them. Theres Mantra of distraction which only has 2 charges (3 when traited), has a long cd period and takes almost 2 seconds of cast time to recharge if they blow it. Pistol has one daze, sword offhand has one daze, staff has an aoe daze effect, greatsword has a knockback and focus has a pull. It is possible to dodge most of these interrupts, but you need to be paying attention to what theyre using and be ready.

Another piece of useful information. Conditions like chill, blind and immobolize wreck mesmers just as much as they do necros and a lockdown mesmers wont have a lot of condition clear. Furthermore, like necro, mesmer is vulnerable to knockdowns, knockbacks, fears, and pulls. Mesmers have LESS access to stability than necros but we have more escapes.

A lockdown mesmers power relied on you reacting first. Watch them, theyll try and bait out a skill with a long cast time then bam you panic and get chain stunned, immobied, chilled, blinded while they get 20 odd stacks of might.

Dont be aggressive at th start, just kite and wait for them to make a false move or blow one too many interrupts then be aggressive. Power necro has amazing dps and you can out dps a lock down mesmer any day but if youre not cautious theyll shut you down.

But a fight between a good lockdown mesmer and a good power necro?i would put my money on the mesmer everytime. Its a tough matchup.

The other thing is lockdown builds come in a wide variety from condi lockdown to phantom interrupt builds to power block builds to just normal shatter builds that run lots of interrupts. Just know that there is a large variety of builds out there. I like messing around with glamour confusion lockdownbuild in hotjoin just for fun. I got upto 17 stacks of confusion on a targer one time but too bad the duration sucks haha.

Any build that you can walk away from at a leisurely pace without taking damage is not op, ie. PU.

In saying that sometimes when I beat someone on my mesmer I get whispered about being dirty pu scum irrespective of the build Im using. I dont use any PU builds but get accused of being PU scum. Lol.

Those people who whisper me sound like some of the people in here.

Let me teach you an important lesson about most games. If you die…its usually your own fault, not the game’s, not cheese builds, not your opponent’s. When you recognize your mistakes you can improve as a player and defeat your opponents. Running into fights with the same strategy everytime is silly.

Strategy Up. And yes running is an acceptable strategy. In fact i do more running from gank squads these days than actual fighting. :p

Nice assessment. I just want to add what i always say about condi shatter. It is a roaming ganking spec. This is where it sings. If you use it in a zerg gank their backline but at the end of the day its best in small group fights.

Most awesome mesmer condi traits are locked away in the grand master traits section for most of your levelling experience. For this reason I think levelling a mesmer on condition spec would be a hard slog.

If you want to get the most out of conditions like torment and confusion you should use at least 1 scepter. The 5 torment stacks on block and 5 confusion stacks on channel are very good. The torch off hand also applies 3 stacks of confusion and blinds and burns. When you combine this with shatters your confusion stacks are high enough without perplexity runes.

If all you want to do is increase your condition duration you can acheive this by combining trapper runes and nightnare runes and food.

If you want more condition damage and survivability then replace your gear with ctp or ctv gear.

When I roam with condition shatter (because thats what it excels at and not much else) I use mainly c/t/p gear and mix in some settlers gear t/h/c for extra toughness. Because its a roaming spec and you need to rely more on yourself. You need swiftness unless you have no problem with running like a snail and getting chased down by havoc groups. So I use runes of the traveler for the 25 percent run speed increase.

In a 1v1 in wvw condition shatter is almost a guaranteed win. Not a lot of classes can deal with how fast you can throw out conditions. They clear them but they just keep getting reapplied. This is without gimmicky torment runes or perplexity runes.

Edit: I say gimmicky because torment and perplexity runes are very. Torment runes would increase your torment duration but with food and 4 points into domination your torment stacks should last for more than 10 secs and you can stack a lot of them.

Torment runes are overkill and perplexity are overpriced. Just go with runes of the traveler for greater mobility or stay with nightmare runes.

This combo:

Lay down temporal curtain so as to pull them all together and before detonating cast focus phantasm then detonate illusionary leap blurred frenzy and spam mantra of pain.

Mobs dead. Easy peazy.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Sword/pistol on a Rabid build is… cute.

Dondagora has a much most cohesive MtD build here in my opinion, although I prefer Rabid amulet to Carrion as well.

Wanna know what I think is cute. 1800 armor. No crits on phantasms = no use for sharper images and no damage. Very low chance of crit on mind wrack. Desperate decoy with such little armor.

Most of his damage would come frim torment yet hes trying to squeeze in power but all that power is useless without precision.

So tell me again why you think sword/pistol is cute. Your damage in a maim build comes from confusion and torment. Scepter is a must but other than that its up to the user. I like sword for its defence immobolize bleed stacking and stun. Its personal preference.

…You tried.

It works with shatter distortion and signet distortion trait but not triumphant distortion or blurred frenzy.

It’s just an mtd build with carrion gear (patent rejected). Its looks like it would be annoying to fight against in a 1v1 but you’d drop fast to hard hitting aoes, medi guards and good thieves. It has good condi damage and duration which is important in a maim build though. But yoy probabky wont be able to take too many hits.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Nero-The-Emperor-of-Torment/first#post450105

This is one version of a well rounded mtd build.

With your build, have you tried 0/4/4/0/6 taking bountiful interruption. You have interrupts but they dont really do much for you. With might stacks you increase your condi AND direct damage. You also get extra conditions from on death clone traits…but you should be shatterring those clones as much as possible because torment is your main damage dealer so…

Im curious. I tried hybridizing mtd briefly. It worked well in pve but was soooo squishy like a bug in wvw. I had to be careful of those rabbit npcs let alone other players. :p

I get joy from crafting and testing builds by myself. Other people get joy from being the best they can be by using meta builds.

But im sick of only seeing shatter mesmer videos and shatter mesmer guides. Youd be forgiven for thinking that the only viable build for mesmer is shatter. This is not the case.

Shatter is very powerful and most top teir pvp teams run shatter in tournaments. Does this make shatter viable? Yes, but just because its the most popular build doesnt make it the only viable build out there.

Ive been absolutely destroyed in wvw and pvp by players running unique builds. This is because they are good players and they have adapted their builds and playstyles to the current pvp wvw environment and not on what is in fashion.

Take this point. A lot of classes are running heavy boon stacking/might stacking builds. There are also a lot more condition and hybrid spec builds in response to this.

A shatter mesmer is a ganker. That is what it excels at. But it becomes increasingly difficult for a player to gank something that is balls deep in boons, throwing out cc and aoes everywhere.

Some of the veteran mesmers on here that have saturated the forums with their opinions might say, “I can eeal with that, shatter is amazing”. I would argue on the contrary. Shatter is not amazing, you are and I think you would have just as much success playing a different build because you are a good mesmer.

So basically all I want to say is shatter gank montage videos are boring. Youtube mesmer and most of what you see are shatter vids. Im not impressed anymore and its becoming so predictable. What i want to see is a video of mantra mes killin fools or a confuse bomber in spite of the nerf, not because shatter is bad but because youre an awesome hipster mesmer and i want to have your babies.

Love.

Thank you and nice dad joke. :p

Quick question about Halting Stike guys. I did a quick google search and couldnt find any up to date information.

In Supercuties guide he makes mention of the usefulness of the extra damage this trait provides but i was under the impression that this trait doesnt crit. Was it buffed in a patch and if so what kind of damage have you done with this trait.

Thank you.

If youre still learning positioning and other classes movements and playstyles a power pu build, 4/4/6/0/0, with knights then changing to zerker when you feel more confident gives you a tonne of survivability. You wont be able to take down tanky targets but if you aim for the squishy ones you should be fine.

Its a good build to learn on because it allows you to make many mistakes because of your extra stealth time and aegis/protection.

Once you feel confident enough, take a more power oriented build because your damage in a power pu build isnt as good.

4/4/0/0/6

This trait setup is perfect for a build that maximises condition duration, stacks vulnerability, does medium damage and bleeds with pistol phantasm. You also have the option to be a boon removalist or remove more conditions with torch depending on what your team needs at the time.

In my opinion, rabid or rampager are ideal for this setup. Ive been playing around with a hybrid using these traits but im having trouble getting the balance right.

0/4/4/0/6

Works well with staff and on death condition traits. Bountiful Interruption is an essential part of this build because without those might stacks you lose some damage due to the lack of condi duration. If you get enough interrupts your condi damage can skyrocket. This might work well with perplexity runes. The ultimate troll build. But you get no swiftness and perplexity be expensive.

These setups are the best in my opinion.

So I tested the original build with full celestial just before and it feels really clunky in pvp. The amount of might stacks you usually hover around with all these traits is an average of 15, fluctuating between 25 and 9 but its all highly dependent on timing your interrupts just right.

Verdict, exactly what fay said. It did do sustained damage over a period of time but there just wasn’t enough conditions to go around.

Fay.2357:

I understand this is just a theory post, but there’s a reason that nobody has done something like this before, and I’m generally pretty good at figuring out what a build is going to do before it does it. Bountiful Dissilusionment, on top of all of the other problems in this build, is just a horrible trait that simply has no use. I literally haven’t seen a single build even remotely viable that’s using it yet.

I know, I know, but a part of me wants to believe that they don’t just add these traits randomly. I want to believe that they input them in their specific places for a reason. I just think that this trait was designed to work in a highly durable might stacking build with high sustain. I’ve tried to make builds around it in the past with a more support focus, but the inspiration trait line has all the good support skills. .

I guess you guys don’t want to play theory games. Here, let me show you how it’s done.

“I think in order to use this set up more effectively you need more power and to use runes of the hoelbrak to increase might duration and decrease condition duration applied to you”

or

“I think you shouldn’t focus on boosting protection up time because mesmer’s don’t have very good access to protection anyway”

or

“I think you should take some points out of illusions and put them in inspiration to play more of a support role”

Its all just a game guys, see. No need to take it so seriously.

Here’s a picture of serious cat <3

!https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/t31.0-8/c0.15.851.315/p851x315/411008_10150587538534599_1309291440_o.jpg!

(I edited the post to reflect my original idea of using runes of the earth; the numbers are better.)

You’re right! It’s kind of a weird build! I understand your reaction and I hope I didn’t make you drop your biscuits and tea all over your keyboard in disgust. Its a theory build none the less, so lets chat.

About the no damage nay saying: I’m not sure because I haven’t tried it but essentially you’re right, without might stacks this build does no damage.

About maintaining might: With so many readily available sources of might I don’t understand why it wouldn’t be maintainable. Shattered Strength = 1×15secs per shattered clone, cry of frustration = 3×22secs, bountiful interruption 5×15secs per interrupt, plus winds of chaos and battle sigil. These aren’t one-use-only skills, these will be used multiple times. Maybe you know something I don’t?

About lack of clones: every now and again while changing between zerg and roaming builds I forget to trait DE. :o!!!!!!!!!!! Oh noooooeeezzz111. I still manage to kill plenty of people before I realize my noob mistake, hehe. DE = 1 clone on dodge. Great for damage fodder but not the end of the world if you don’t trait it. Mesmer kitten clones, you will never be starved for clones.

But essentially doing damage in this build relies entirely on your might stacks, like most celestial builds. I completely disagree with your hyperbole about lack of damage reduction. 2700 armor plus protection isn’t to be laughed at. And lack of damage potential. You’re really going to sit there and tell me that based on these traits this build will not be able to maintain at least 10 stacks of might at all times?

I appreciate your input but I think some of it is a little over exaggerated. Remember its only a theory post ladies and gentleman, none of its been tested.

Thanks for the reply anyway :P

I guess based on these weapons, staff would only be used defensively and to proc chaos armor, while scepter would be used offensively, its scaleablity with power and its native torment and confusion damage could be effective.

Edit:

If you want more upfront damage, you can mix and match more zerker soldier gear like this:
http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7cl0npTtlpxNNcrNivBZ6GEgLeuSg2dUEA-T1CBAB4p+zdKNsSZwVKxuZ/BAuIAe8AASR3grKBfw8XGHBASB41yI-w

But then you kind of lose the idea of being a celestial mesmer, lol.

Good morning all! While I had trouble sleeping last night I was thinking about my sexy mesmer and some of it’s more underutilized traits. The main trait I was thinking about was “Bountiful Disillusionment”. Its a skill that gives the mesmer retaliation, might, fury and regeneration on demand.

Thinking about this gave me the idea to make a mesmer in the same vein as a celestial d/d elementalist, i.e. a giant boon hoarder. Through selective traits, gear and runes its entirely possible to have even better might stacking capabilities than a d/d ele plus every other boon in the game.

This is just a theory-crafting thread so please comment with your input/changes/opinion. If you’re extra awesome, give it a whirl in the open world. I’m poor and don’t pve very often so crafting celestial gear will take me forever so I can only test it in pvp.

The Build (wvw/pve):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7cl0npTtlpxNNcrNivBZ6GEgLeuSg2dUEA-T1CBAB4p+zdKNsSZwVKxuZ/BAuIAe8AASR3grKBfw8XGHBASB41yI-w

In Brief
In an ideal world where butterflies fly with rainbows and sparkles trailing behind you have here a mesmer with the potential to have 2,500 power (with 25 might stacks), 2700 armor +33% damage reduction with lots of nasties like torment/confusion/retaliation, decent sources of heals and multiple sources of condi cleanses.

The Theory
0/0/6/3/5

“:o a build that doesn’t use deceptive evasion? Blasphemy!”

The idea behind this build was to choose traits that supported boons. While this build utilizes shatters to get boons, the number of clones you shatter isn’t as consequential since bountiful disillusionment doesn’t stack per illusions shattered. Shattered Strength gives you 16sec of might per illusion shattered yes, but staff is a good clone spawn factory so we won’t have to worry too much about never having clones up.

The Boons

You have multiple sources of might stacking, your best coming from bountiful interruption (5 stacks with no icd…op). Its very possible to make it to 25 stacks by yourself. In theory of course.

Illusionary Membrane grants 5.5 sec of protection when you have regeneration. It has an icd of 15 sec which means due to your ample access to regeneration you should have protection 36% of the time. This number can further increase due to random traits, like chaos armor and bountiful interruption and earth runes. In reality the figure would probably be more like 50% but its random.

You also have high up time on retaliation and regeneration. Regen heals for 2.3K on distortion, 3K on metaphysical rejuvenation, and 700 from phantasms.

All the other boons are bonuses.

The Rest

-You have a decent spread of cover conditions like torment, confusion and bleeding you should also have decent damage reduction and decent damage output with all your boons.

-This build has no stability, but unlike the elementalist it has stealth and two blinks.

-There is a lack of swiftness so maybe focus would be a better offhand for the scepter.

-Scepter does good condition damage, scales well with power and like the staff produces a lot of clones.

So here’s the theory folks. What are your ideas? What do you think? I will probably test it tonight in pvp, see how it goes even though it’s not optimal for pvp…maybe.

Spectral walk is op. Its the only redeeming thing for me about necro. I never run without it and i always spec for spectral skills. If there were no spectral walk i would throw my necro in the trash can, :p

In wvw when the weather is rainy and its cold outside I put my fabulous mesmer back in the closet and turn to the dark side.

I took a balanced approach to power necro, taking a mixture of zerker and cavalier gear. Its ultra survivable, with high toughness and vitality with decent power and super 220% crit with a 100% chance to crit in death shroud.

If you want to dance around the battle field and confuse your foes/escape you cant beat spectral skills and wurm. Plus spectral walk/wurm stomp makes you look like a boss.

Spectral walk/wurm has saved me while roaming countless times from smelly roaming groups and smelly zergs.

Pro tip: if being chased by a zerg run to the nearest cliff, no matter how high, and jump off. Tap spectral walk twice before you hit the ground and you land without any fall damage. Laugh as your aggressors fall to their deaths if they were stupid enough to jump.

Runes of the mad king are good for hybrid builds plus summoning flocks of ravens to attack the people arround you while stacking more bleeds and doing good damage when you enter plague form is hilarious. Completely throws your enemies off guard.

I tested out hybrid builds for pvp
d wvw but i gave up because theres hardly any escape and youre so squishy. You cant down someone fast enough unless youre up against scrubs or with a team that can protect you if focused.

jenzie.4083:

fluxit.8247:

I for one am still learning and ive played mesmer for a year now.

I’ve played since launch and still feel I’m learning mesmer. For me shatter is the most difficult, but most rewarding next to interrupt.

fluxit.8247:

I note the video on youtube of that streamer who teaches his grandmother to play warrior in hotjoin in like half an hour.

My google skills failed me, you got a link for this?

Enjoy the grandma playing warrior. :P

Ive played all classes at some point and theres something that attracts me to the mesmer. Its the mechanics.

Mesmers employ trickery and the best mesmers will employ tactics to confuse their oponents, even if for a brief moment. The only way i ever get beaten by a mesmer, as a mesmer, is when they out trick me. Those sneaky kittens. The same could be said for thiefies but they get a lot of upfront burst and mobility and stealth and due to their initiative mechanic the smoke fieldabuse is real. :p yes we got stealth but our stealth can only be improved through a niche grand master trait. Oh, oh if only the devs loved us as much as thieves. Along with necro, were like the adopted child they keep under the staircase. Were Harry Potter!!!! ((o(^?^)o))

Other classes, depending on builds tend to be very spammy. I note the video on youtube of that streamer who teaches his grandmother to play warrior in hotjoin in like half an hour.

Im not saying spammy classes are bad just that surviving and winning as a mesmer requires a bit more finesse than what you can teach your granny in half an hour. It can be a challenge which is why i like it.

Also screw the meta, use your imagination. Its not the build that makes the player its the player who makes the build. If you want to be a good mesmer you gotta learn your oponents tactics, work on your positioning and employ rotation to counter, confuse, or interrupt your oponents.

I for one am still learning and ive played mesmer for a year now.

So if mesmer is not for you, go roll a warrior and 111111 your way through the battle field and lol all day long.

messiah.1908:

against ele mtd is so easy
usually they need to spam skills to heal themselves which proc confusion, they must move then proc torment doubled dmg. i dont care about their boons (regen yes) as condi ignore armor and i dont deal direct dmg.
the staff bunker ele can hold a point nice but will die eventually if no one will help him

and i agree more to the said above that shatter power with boon removal is very different style than mtd shatter (constant aoe condi pressure versus i combo hit and run)

I agree with you messiah, but here’s my reasoning behind it. I run 4/4/0/0/6 because I find the extra condition duration is enough to give you an extra tick. With rabid gear and nightmare runes this can tick from the base damage of 677/s to 1000-2000 plus damage depending on a lot of variables (might, whether your target is moving or not, the number of stacks on the target, the gear you’re using).

The master domination trait gives you two real options to take. You can choose Cleansing Conflagration to remove 1 condition per torch skill use and reduce the cool down on torch skills or you can take Shattered Concentration. Both are viable.

Like you said, condition damage ignores toughness, and protection but think about this: you can either choose to fight a warrior with 12 stacks of might, fury, and stability…or you can choose to fight a warrior with no boons. Removing boons doesn’t increase your damage but at least it’ll reduce their’s. :P

Surely taking away all those warrior might stacks, stability protection, etc isnt bad for holding a point. And whats an eli without its boon. Or a turret engi for that matter. I understand what youre saying though, butvi dont think its on the bottom of the so called list. Your ability to strip boons, be it with power or condi shatter can be vital at the right moment. This is of course in a team fight

Triumphant distortion with greatsword is great for tagging clumped up groups in a zerg while in a damage spec. I usually run a bountiful interruption build with signet distortion and boon share to up my survivability in a zerg and still pump out big numbers with illusionary berserker. Ever wondered what its like to run through a melee train as a zerker mesmer and come out the other side untouched? :p

Ive beat a couple of people in 1v1s in this spec although its not ideal, but your access to invulnerability is a little annoying for them. Thieves will hate you for a while until you run out of distortion. But its more built towards group fighting.

4/4/0/0/6 is still my favorite option. The boon removal is great against elis, warriors, guards, engis and thieves who use plasma. Works great with carrion gear and sword for the extra damage but i still prefer rabid. The extra toughness allows you to take a few hits/make a few mistakes.

Also since you posted about condition cleanse while i was typing my previous post, you dont want to waste your more bursty condi skills while they have condi cleanse. You want to shatter shatter shatter afyer they cleanse. The scepter is the best weapon to open with if you want to bait condition cleanses. Every skill applies confusion or torment.

Also your shatter cds arent that long so dont be afraid to use them.

Edit: cool vid messiah. I think an important trick that evertone can learn from your vid is using your torment blocks on aoes is like a guaranteed hit. For example, using it on necro locust swarm, ele fire fields, engi bombs.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

I have never played PU condi so forgive me if the way I play shatter condi is similar, so the point is to brainlessly spamm shatters without waiting on a coordinated spike after the target is wore down? I play it as a power shatter. Scepter blocks are missing due to random dodges or evades, and that nobody can control or predict.
I’d be happy to see your footage then.

Sorry i hope you werent offended i was just trying to give some advice about combos of skills that could be effective. All i meant to say was try playing more aggressively with your shatters. You have 4, each with the potential to apply 6 stacks of torment, 3 stacks of confusion, 3 stacks of might, plus their other intrinsic effects. Even just 1 clone shatter puts pressure on your opponent to do something about all those nasty debuffs. And once you get to 10 stacks, thats when they start panicking and making mistakes.

Power shatter only really has 1 shatter that does big spike damage. You have 4 that do big dot.

The other thing i want to restate and its not aimed at you specifically, but shattering while your clones are spread out away from your target gives them time to dodge them. Because once they see all your clones running towards them, a good player knows they have to dodge or eat a bunch of damage. So your goal is to not give them this chance.

Picture this scenario, a hammer warrior comes within melee range and stuns you. You hit mirror images to break the stun then staff blink back leaving 3 clones ontop of the target, then you shatter. This combination is too fast for most players to react.

Now after that shatter, dont back away, go in with scepter torch, stealth up, blind, get close, torch illusion, 3 stacks of confusion and retaliation, double dodge shatter again while also applying burn from your torch.

After that get ready for the counter attack, scpeter block decoy and shatter, remembering too that f4 also applies nasty conditions so if you use f4 distortion shatter while close you can mass invis away and reset/ wait for cooldowns.

This is what i mean by play more aggressively.

A PU playstyle relies on wearing your oponent down with on clone death traits and staff clone auto attacks, but if you play with mtd, and aggresively, you should be shattering as much as possible when the target is vulnerable, not giving them time to kill your clones.

Also, id like to make a vid if my laptop can handle a decent framerate while rexording. :p

Also dont take what i say the wrong way. Im only trying to help. Ive been talking with fellow mesmers about mtd since august and playing mtd since august and have endured criticism from all the ITS NOT META twerps. Im happy to see those people have been silenced by the recent buff and glad non meta builds are recieving more attention. It was kind of boring seeing only interrupt and shatter mesmers on the battle field. So im here to share my ideas in the hopes that more people will.

Keep up the good work!

Youre playstyle is too much like pu condi. Be more aggressive with your shatter, stay closer to your opponents pop three clones around them then shatter. For example a good shatter combo with staff while your enemy is close and vulnerable would be mirror images, staff blink, shatter. If youre close they wont have time to react and they should eat 6 stacks of torment.

I noticed that you were mainly guessing when the opponent was going to attack when you used scepter block. You need to bait them into it and have good timing. One thing i like to do is open up with confusion scepter channel. Your opponent will usually try to attack with projectiles during your channel in which case be quick and hit scepter block during the channel. Rangers especially are guilty of this. Standing there with your scepter raised horizontally in the air inviting them to hit you is too obvious.

The build is fine (although you could do with more condition duration and less boon duration) but you just gotta practiceyour techniques a bit more and use skillcombos to your advantage.

Standing from afar and tickling with the staff isnt effective. Get in there shatter, get out, get in, shatter, get out, get in, shatter, get out.

May the maim be with you fellow disillusioner!

Loving the new mtd buffs. My build is 4/4/0/0/6 which ive run with in wvw since August.

Initially, before the most recent maim buff, I had a lot of trouble with support guardians and small roaming groups running with one. There just wasnt enough confusion/torment applicatiin to beat their heals and condi clear.

After the recent mtd buffs, its so fun. If you can sneak up on your target theyre usually dead in no time.

My build, which i posted in the forums a month ago, uses sword/pistol scepter/torch. I previously had traited cleansing conflagration for the condition clear but have since changed to boon rip on shatter. Ive found boon removal is more beneficial.

I use rabid gear but it also works well with carrion. With carrion however youre trading toughness for power so of course you need to be more cautious.

Im interested to see how it synergises with the new sinister stats.

Forget about your staff and give it a try people. :p

Heavy condition cleanse classes are a problem for all condition builds. If you want to run a maim build, it is a rock to your scissors.

For example, last night as i was getting a feel for my extra torment stacks and cackling like an evil genius at my routine 12 stacks of torment on my opponents. I came across a couple of organised groups of guardians. There were a few panic face moments for them but with their group condi cleanses and heals i was no problem for them. My only option was to give up and walk away.

I said this in my build post but a maim build, specifically one like mine that uses a sword and pistol for cc, bleeds and vuln, should be played like a p,d thief. That is, go in shatter, get away and kite, then rinse and repeat until they are dead.

Im not sure if shattering from range will be as successful. I find its not, which is why i take more cc oriented weapons to ensure when i do shatter it has a greater chance of hitting.

I think it will be exciting to see what build people come up with now mtd is recieving so much attention. You might be able to come up with some interesting hybrid biilds, especially with the new sinister armor stat combations.

Benjamin.8237:

I’ve looked at it and played around with it a bit, and it’s still not great. The good? Well more Torment = more damage, and you can get some good cry of frustration spikes on people with sceptre 2. The problem I find is that it’s tied to the shatter skills, and going into those trait lines limits your capabilities as a condition user. If we look at a 04406 build the damage it outputs by itself is a bit similar to a wet noodle, but it does have a very capable burst.

I’m interested to see what people make out of it tbh, but I don’t think it’s game changing for that build.

I think if we look at the composition of the mesmer trait tree I would argue that it was the creator’s original intention to have condition builds use the Illusions trait line. Investing 6 points into Illusions grants 300 condition damage and decreases the recharge and utility of shatter skills. Minor traits grant confusion on shatter, reduced recharge on illusion summoning skills and might on shatter. While various major traits in the illusions tree interact with conditions and shatters in various ways.

Now, if you look at the composition of the Chaos traitline, it:s focuses are boons, boon duration and toughness. While the extra 100-200 toughness helps your overall beefines i think the boon duration is a little wasted. Unless you take bountiful interruption in that tree, the only real boons you’ll have while a shatter mesmer are vigor (from dueling) and might/retaliation (illusions traitline). Furthermore, debilitating dissipation is not effective in a shatter build because you rely on your enemies killing your clones, but in reality, you’ll be shattering them before your enemies can kill them.

Finally, your main damage in a condition shatter build comes from torment and confusion. These conditions rely heavily on condition damage and duration to properly outlay their full damage potential. Bleeds and what not are secondary because we don’t have access to as much bleeds as say a necro or ranger. So, the most effective use of your trait points would be into traitlines that improve your condition damage and condition duration

Which means Illusions and Domination.

This is my theory behind MtD builds.

I’ve played a condition shatter mesmer for a couple of months now, ever since the previous updates to MtD. You can see my build here; https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Nero-The-Emperor-of-Torment/first#post4501056

What I’ve found is that condition shatter mesmers work best in wvw for solo roaming and small group roaming. It also has incredible success as a dueling build in spvp (albeit with nerfs to condition duration and damage)

With condition shatter, like many people have said, its best to bait out the condition cleanses first. Although on the odd occasion when I can sneak up on a thief or ele in wvw and throw most of my shatters out in a burst they drop like flies. Like you would be surprised.

I main a mesmer and necromancer. I used to have a ranger but i deleted it. I never enjoyed ranged weapons on the ranger. I always enjoyed greatsword because i thought it required better timing and more action.

From the perspective of a non ranger, i have no problem with the lb rangers because in a 1v1 scenario they always lose to my mesmer unless theyre good players. The frustrating thing is the abundance of them.

When you soloq and end up in a game against 2-3 rangers who run around together and pew pew kitten to death from across the map, that is when people qq.

Its a weapon that provides high reward and damage at a very low skill cap. I like the changes they made to gs and im thinking about rerolling another ranger. But the lb, such a frustratingly annoying weapon. The range…the damage…the cooldowns and the not to mention the channeled ability rapid shot that follows me into stealth and requires 2 dodges to fully avoid all that damage leaving me open to another knock back fear or immobolize from the pets lol. Its just annoying which is why i think people get angry and qq.

I dont think they needed to buff th lb that much. I wish they gave more love to less used weapons like the sword and offhand axe to encourage more variety amongst rangers.

As for the root problem, i run with sword pistol in my build that i posted. Sword for the root and pistol for bleed stacks- with illusionary duelist and sigil of the earth pkus other clones stacking bleed i got up to 14 stacks of bleed on a target last night while wvw roaming. Torment is our main source of damage but we need other tjings like bleed damage and confusion to help kill our target fastrr.

Oh and technically its 4 shatter damage sources since triggerring distortion also applies torment and confus to nearby targets.

Im afraid weve reached a crossroads then because that is a matter of opinion. I respect it though.

messiah.1908:

i guess some of you never fight a d/p thief – you put condi they go stealth and cleanse – hard match if the thief play patiently and take you bite after bite
warrior – if they smart the use shout so you cant put condition for 10 seconds of them while they can harm you so you must back away
ranger condi/power – if using survival of the fittest can cleanse conditions almost constantly
ele d/d/staff – almost immune and have cc and best cleansing abilities – hardly you put 12 stacks on them
mesmet power shatter – if he catch you . you are in trouble my friend

the most easy to hit and put high stacking are – necro/some ranger build/ thief (not d/p spamming ) , dps warrior and all dps build out there

so even with the new update i dont think you will be able to put higher stacking against good player with cleanse

you can watch my channel and see me doing 12-15 stacks but only after i lure them to use cleanse with blocks and AA with staff . so it is not fast shatter build

D/P thiefy, no probs. Shout warrior, just kite until shout is up this is like asking a dagger daggrr thief what theyre gonna do when the shout warrior is immune to damage, haha. Condi ranger, is definately a tough matchup but so what? Good players are good players. It doesnt matter what build they run.

Lets get this power shatter stuff over with now because i feel like so far we will just go on and on and on. So far for power shatter ive heard spike, burst, dps.

Power Shatter Mesmers have a high burst, but so do scepter, dagger eles, and eviscerate warriors, and glass gs guardians. You can compare them to other respective builds within their classes but ultimately, if you criticize a condition build for not having as good a dps as a glass cannon build youre missing the point. If you want to burst your target down with condition damage in a short period of time…isnt that op and missing the point of what a condition damage class is supposed to be.

Remember the purpose of this build is for wvw solo roaming and small group roaming.

Now, PU condition isnt good enough in my opinion because any build that is nerfed by your target just walking away is not that great.

This condition build minimizes your targets chance of escape and maximises your chances of griefing thiefies who try to surprise you and eat a face full of condis messaging you calling you a troll and pu noob.

Also Fay, what do you think would be a respectable amount of toughness? I guess youre a tough man to please if 2700 damage isnt enough haha. Might test some different trinkets out. But i understand what youre saying, but pu is too much of a bunker.

Maybe more points in the toughness line? But at the cost of what? Precision and deceptive evasion?

And as far as them just standing there and not dying if they do nothing. I guarantee you they will die very fast if they stand there and eat not only the condition but direct damage. Cross my heart hope to die. Heavy heart of the mists training golem usually dies within 10 seconds to use one example, eventhough i know its not a great one.

But anyway if you want damage spikes obviously this build is not for you. So lets stop talking about that now. It is called the Emperor of Torment and not the Emperor of crazy spike damage for a reason. :p

messiah.1908:

+1
condi shatter as for now and i think for the coming buff wont get close to power shatter
dont think you can burst someone to 10% hp with condi shatter

first you have to lure them to use cleanse – but they wont till 50% hp
then use heal but they wont till 25% hp
so you basically play as condi spec while shatter enemies below 25% hp which can go down even without shatter
so even if using f2+f3 which will be 12 stacks of torment and 9 stacks on confusion
so if the enemy moves and use skills the dps will be
100*12*2=2400 dps +190*9=1710 dmg per skill/dodge
so to do 15k dmg (lets say as power shatter) he needs to move for 5 sec and use 3 skills
so u must use it after all his cleanse are on cd or else you burn your clones and leave you alone without any defense but torch stealth

It doesn’t matter if they cleanse their conditions, you can just reapply them. The style of play of a condition mesmer is completely different to a power shatter mesmer, as I explained in length in my previous posts.

As far as defense options are concerned, you have scepter block, which has a short cool down and applies more nasty stacks of torment, decoy, mass invisibility, distortion, blurred frenzy, the prestige, and perma vigor and sigil of energy to increase the amount of time you can dodge. Plus 2698 toughness.

About DAMAGE PER SECOND.

Based on the figures in the build link, per stack of torment the damage per second (dps) should be a minimum of 86_dps_ (928/10.7sec) and a maximum of 173_dps_ (1856/10.7). With every step they take, with 6 torment stacks, they recieve 1038 damage per second. If they are standing they receive 516 damage per second.

This plus the scepter rotation, I can get over 12 stacks of torment on the target in a real fight with potential for more, but scepter torment stacks have all different stats and I hate math, but you can imagine 12 stacks of torment has a large DPS potential.

Most builds in guild wars 2 are both bursty in nature and require movement. But when your target is presented with the dilemma of ever increasing torment/confusion stacks and a decreasing health bar, it throws them off. Which is what you want. Confusion and torment are your control mechanisms as a condition Mesmer. The more they try to burst you or run around, the more damage they receive. If they do nothing, or try to ignore you, then the torment will kill them anyway.

As far as the torment and confusion damage is concerned you forget 1 thing about power shatter mesmers. They only have 1 source of burst damage shatter…mind wrack. Cry of frustration applies confusion, which a power shatter spec is not traited for. Diversion and Distortion act as utility skills.

In a condi spec, each shatter applies 1 (10.7sec) stack of torment [928-1856 dmg] per shattered clone, 1 (7.2sec) stack of confusion [187 dmg] per shattered clone, 1 (14sec) stack of vulnerability per shattered clone, 1 (11sec) stack of might per shattered clone. In addition, each shatter applies their normal characteristics, for example, diversion applies a further five stacks of vulnerbility and cry of frustration applies a further 1-3 stacks of confusion.

If we are still in theory-craft land, if you shatter f3 then f2 in quick succession and land every clone, the target has, 6 stacks of torment and 9 stacks of confusion. Therefore, over 10-15 seconds, your torment stacks will do from 5568 to 11136 damage and confusion will hit the target for 1-1.6k every time they use a skill. Plus the negligible damage from bleeds.

This is only with 2 shatters, and you haven’t even swapped to scepter/torch yet which has even more condition damage application. Furthermore, the more you shatter, the more might you get, which further increases your condition damage.

In a real fight however, even if you deal 50-70% of your maximum damage potential, your target is really hurting and needs to somehow get rid of these condi stacks which you will inevitably keep applying.

To conclude, yes Power shatter does more upfront burst damage, but you gain next to no survivability and it’s not a very forgiving spec if you make a mistake or your opponent dodges your mind wrack shatter. Is power shatter viable? Yes, in a spike damage scenario.

I argue, that saying that because a condition shatter mesmer can’t layout spike damage like power shatter mesmer is counter intuitive. They aren’t supposed to. If you want spike then you take power. If you want control and sustain and damage over time, then you take condi. The condition damage that this build provides is more than enough to kill any class or any build you need only to check the tooltips provided in the build link.

I play this build because I believe it IS viable. I don:t think it is fundamentally flawed, or torment is bad, like some people suggest. It just needs a bit more love from the mesmer community, that’s all.

I wish I could show you a video of some fights but I only came up with the idea to share the build yesterday. :p

Fay.2357:

Ultimately, the current situation is that it plays like a shatter build with none of the oomph that shatter builds have, while remaining close to as squishy as a glassy shatter build. Where in standard shatter landing a shatter combo can literally instakill someone, landing a full combo in torment shatter makes them stop moving for a few seconds…and pop a condition removal. You say each clone deals 1.8k damage…over 10 seconds…if the target is moving. Standard shatter will deal twice that instantly with no if’s attached.

Looking at that discrepancy makes it obvious why torment shatter is so bad right now. You don’t gain significant defense from the condition build and your shatter suddenly become incredibly wimpy by comparison. It means you’re spending the same resources for an attack that does only a fraction of the damage possible from the other build. It’s really quite a shame, and I hope the incoming buff makes it more worthwhile. Sorry bout the wet blanket post though.

I agree with the sentiment of the post but I think that comparing a glass cannon build to a condition build is like comparing a Char to an Asura. Although a condition shatter mesmer and a power shatter mesmer both share the shatter utility skills their stats and objectives in battle couldn’t be more different.

Glass cannon builds rely on power, precision, and critical damage. Therefore, a power shatter mesmer is very fragile but capable of doing some crazy burst damage. They rely entirely on stealth and movement to keep themselves alive. Their objective in a fight is to try to blow up their target as fast as they can. If something goes wrong, they need to run away because they’ve blown all their cooldowns and they need to reset the fight back in their favor.

Condition builds rely on conditition damage, condition duration and an extra couple stats of their choosing. In my builds case, this is toughness and precision. A condition build relies on sustain and control more than burst damage. Their main goal is to control the fight and outlast your opponent.

You said that ‘You don’t gain significant defense from the condition build’ but if you take into consideration, the average toughness of a glass cannon spec shatter build is about 1800 and the toughness listed in the build-link says 2698 that’s an increase of 800-900 toughness. There’s probably scope for messing around with trinkets to increase this figure but I think this build has waaaay more toughness than a glass build and waaaay more survivability.

In order to understand how this build plays and the objectives of this build in a fight, first we need to talk about your opponents options when they notice they initially have 5+ stacks of torment, confusion, bleeding, and vulnerability. Not to mention being interrupted multiple times with magic bullet and diversion. These are their options:

1. Run away!!!
2. Try to heal and condi cleanse.
3. Stand in one spot and do nothing while the mesmer wails on them with an increase to direct damage (through vulnerability and might stacks) and continues applying further stacks of torment and confusion.
4. Run away, then heal and condi cleanse.
5. Try to burst the mesmer down before the condition damage kills them.
6. Kite a little and try to last until some friends come to their aid.

Torment damage is increase more by an even mix of condition duration and condition damage. It looks like you are only focusing on condition damage, which means, you’re capped at 8 stacks of torment, because the duration is too short to apply anymore.

Also, each stack of torment’s damage is applied incrementally every few seconds of the duration listed in the tooltip of the skill.

Suggestion noted but there’s a part of me that feels like staff is more suited for condition/support and tickling your opponent to death with short duration condis while you kite around.

Have you found much success with the condition duration/damage of the condition applied by the staff?

I feel like sword is one of the few Mesmer weapons that truly locks them down ready for a proper shatter. Of course they can always stun break out of it which is okay, because scepter torch rotation does more damage anyway which you show in the video that you posted in the other thread.

Counters to this Build

I find that blind spamming and blocking guardians and thieves give this build a lot of grief, especially with guardian’s multiple condi cleanse. They are the classes or builds that have presented some challenges to this build. But I’m not THAT great at 1v1s, maybe someone with more skill would have better luck.

Nuggets of Wisdom

-While testing out this build, I found that condition damage is not the most important trait if you want hardcore confusion, torment damage. I’ve noticed some condi/shatter builds traiting into the inspiration skill line purely for the “Malicious Sorcery” trait, but I think that’s a waste since the scepter block is already on a low cooldown. I tend towards the Domination traitline, for more condition duration, super 25 stacks of vulnerability, and reduced cooldowns for torch and its condition removal.
-The 25 stacks of vulnerability don’t increase your condition damage, yes, but you’ll still be doing direct damage with blurred frenzy, shatters and auto attacks, the more damage the better right.
-I have not yet tested this build with torment or perplexity runes, but I really think based on the current damage that would just be too much. I’m much more in favor of Runes of the Traveler for the increase in movement speed, and boon duration.
-I am not sure if the Sigil of Agony increases the “Sharper Images” trait’s duration. I don’t think it does, so maybe that Sigil could be swapped for another.
-Also, the Sigil of Accuracy, I’m not sure if precision really benefits this build all that much. Perhaps this could be swapped for something else, since confusion and torment are doing the main damage.

Conclusion

This has been a great build for solo and small group roaming in WvW as well as good for solo queue PvP. I will be working on improving it and maxing it out with full ascended gear in the future.

If you have any suggestions for improvement, if you’ve also played a condition/shatter mesmer before, or if you have advice for any other mesmer wondering about shatter/condi, please post your comments here.

-Yoroshiku