Guild Wars 2

I think it means the target is under a control efffect (dazed, stunned, knocked down, etc…) but i could be wrong.

If you trait for either Debilitating Dissipation or Crippling Dissipation (Domination V), the clones will explode instead of just fade away when killed or replaced.
I agree that the animation and the sound effect can get annoying, especially when the clones automatically expire after combat, when their target is killed.

I hope all these changes will make us open up to more hybrid builds that strike a good balance between direct dmg and condition dmg and trump over simplistic single-minded builds that based around only one source of damage.
Come on, we are agents of chaos. We should be unpredictable on the battlefield.

@eldenbri: what weapon you using? I find that pistol is best for interrupting in solo roaming since it’s instant cast and has good range.

I’d like the scepter autoattack rate similar to guardian’s hammer: 2 fast hits deal solid dmg followed by the third hit slowly charging up to create a clone to make a visual impact in the animation chain. After all, making a clone is no easy feat. Every clone-generation skill has a cooldown, even dodge cannot happen that often.

To OP, you’ll get used to the increased CDs eventually like me since I never use IC in my build.

Krispera.5087:

Put Torment on Counterspell. Put AoE Blind on iCounter.

Fixed Torment and Scepter for you Anet.

+1 QFT. It makes complete sense. Someone attacks you, you defend by block and blind. Someone runs away from you, you throw Torment.

Hi Xephiare, I am by no means a mesmer veteran, but as i understand if you want to increase Retaliation uptime, you might want to look into the trait combo Prismatic Understanding (Chaos XII) + Retaliatory Shield (Dueling III), among which PU recently got a significant buff. This ofc drives the build towards a stealth-heavy playstyle though. Obviously the torch is the best weapon of choice in this case.

So glad to find this build. This is by far the best build for me because it aligns so well with what I’m currently using.
Thanks 100 times to OP.

I run a power-based build thus full zerker gear, but now I’m thinking to shift a bit of my DPS towards conditions since this build looks very interesting and I am a big fan of this burst/stealth heavy playstyle. It is fun and rewarding for skilled play.

@Entropy and other folks as well: can you please have a look at my build and give some tips tohelp me choosing gear to shift towards condition damage thanks.
Link: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgEQNAsfWlwzKqHVTmGb9IipH9GyBckUYavWJF82FC-jgDBYLERjUggEFYkFQkIIEJAJPFRjtmpIasaHYqSRWZKpKXAeDSzuDJFA-e
Also, i try to incorporate the interrupt buff to my build as well. It should play well if timed right.

Thanks a lot.

I like the concept of interrupt. It is fun and rewarding for skilled play. It feels good when you successfully time the interrupt and pull it off. I’ve only tried against PvE champs, but i can see a lot of its uses in WvW.

While at the moment I still have doubt whether a viable build can center on this mechanic, the recent patch has at least shown that it is something that can be easily incorporated into well-established builds. At the moment, i use it to compliment my main DPS.

Suddenly I need to practice using Diversion, press F3 more often than F1. I also start to consider using Mantra of Distraction for the first time ever (never used Mantra in my mesmer life).

My current traits are 20/20/30/0/0 (Dom II-IX, Duel IV-X, Chaos IV-X-XII).

Any good tips? Cheers.

Carighan.6758:

Paifas.3196:

• Interrupting – this will never be viable, the interrupts dont reset the CD and its near to impossible to interrupt a race like asura because of the low visibility.

It seems very viable from the brief evaluation, but I’ll agree this needs more investigation.

Has anyone tried to develop from Halting Strike significant damage buff? I tried it out briefly and the damage was huge. It can be really good in chaotic zerg clash fighting when you drop a chaos storm in the middle of the crowd. Just a thought.

Revelations.3154:

Strategy: Your enemy is not supposed to realize they are taking dmg
Strangely Mesmer-esqe isn’t it? The mind games continue. Hahaha

This.
Absolutely agree with this philosophy. Most people like big damage numbers, thats why they specced for single-source damage build. But when we think of our class is a really versatile class that plays tricks on enemies, it makes total sense that our damage should be from various sources and add up if played right.

I use iMage for the retal boon since i run a power build (pow >2.2k). If you time it well against enemy multi-hit burst, you can deal decent (not great) damage + a bit of confusion damage. Of course, if you run condition build, it is easily overshadowed by staff clones. Before patch though, iMage was too squishy to live long enough for greater benefit. But with this new health buff, I hope he gets better.

@Revelations: please share your knowledge, I’d love to hear it too.

What about Decoy and the Prestige?

How do we inflict Torment with Scepter #2 skill? Do we have to successfully block an attack in order to do so?

Hi all,

Seeing as my build is fortunately enough to be not dramatically affected by this latest patch, I just want to throw it out here so any mesmer veteran can have a look and help me develop on it. I’m having an easy time with this build in PvE but not sure how it would fare in WvW. And i do feel it might be sub-optimal in such PvP environment.

Playstyle: burst DPS, stealth heavy, don’t shatter illusions a lot but rather use them for utility. In fact, i don’t need to micro-manage my summons since whatever happens to them, i still benefit from it. This build encourages swapping weapon a lot, and keep moving in and out of combat (this literally confuses PvE mob, i really hope this tactic plays well against human players)
Slot skills: pretty standard, ether feast, decoy, null field, blink, and mass invi.

Weapon: Staff / Sword + Torch
I use Torch for skill #4, i pretty much run with 4 skills on this weapon set since iMage … well, we all know about it, but hopefully with this phantasm health buff, he might stick around longer and actually do something to help out.

Gear:
Armor: Full zerker, Centaur Runes (because i cant keep up with my friends nec and ranger without them)
Trinket: Zerker + a bit of Valkyrie for increased health (against conditions)
Still working hard towards getting ascended trinkets

Stats: I stack power, get enough precision to get 40-ish% crit chance so that my on-crit sigils shine. I have enough toughness from trait so no need to gear for it, also the idea is to not get hit in the first place. 16k health is my sweet spot, but conditions can still hurt bad so I use sigil of generosity on my torch in addition to null field to deal with conditions.

Traits: 20/20/30/0/0
Domination V, IX
Dueling IV, X
Chaos V, X, XII

As you can see, i trait for reduced CDs on all my weapons (Dueling IV is severely weakened by the Blurred Frenzy nerf though). Thus my build is skill-based which means you can rotate through the skills more frequently in combat, but at the cost of having less damage-oriented traits.

Dom V and Chaos V punish enemies for killing my clones. The clone health nerf is, ironically, in my favor. Alternatively, i can purposely replace the clones to get the effects. Also, i can still choose to shatter it, i just need to make sure it’s necessary to do so. My burst DPS usually comes from the combo: stealth/iLeap Swap to get close + Blurred Frenzy + Mind Wrack. On the staff, it’s Chaos Storm and Winds of Chaos to stack conditions, then iWarlock can hit hard.
As for PU, it gets a significant buff, so I am quite happy about that.

Here’s the link to my build (i dont think the calc has updated the changes from this latest patch):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgEQNAsfWlwzKqHVTmGb9IipHBHyBckUUavWJF82FC-jgDBYLERjUggEFYkFQkIIEJAJPFRjtmpIasaHYqSRWZKpKXAeDSzuDJFA-e

Sidenote on underwater combat: I think we mesmers are still lethal underwater even with the Siren’s Call nerf. As with the Feigned Surge huge damage boost, i can think of the possible combo of Vortex + Feigned Surge, an Aoe burst for power-stacking build.

Please discuss my build.

I main a mesmer but have been spending most time in PvE. I am in the minority of mesmers not using Illusionist Celerity (I trait 20/20/30/0/0) but i do feel the pain of all fellow mesmers here with this trait nerf.

Regarding to the Blurred Frenzy nerf, I am heavily affected, the increase in CD pretty much negates the Blade Training trait I’m using

I’m trying to get into WvW but seeing this patch, we mesmers are now less effective in WvW. Not sure if this is Anet’s intention (too many mesmers in WvW before the patch?)
One thing we really need in WvW is a reliable out-of-combat speed boost since when I play mesmer and roam around, most of the times, I can’t respond timely enough when situations arise (too slow to run to a certain place in time when someone shouts on map chat). That means i either have to roam with a group or run with the zerg to leech from their speed buffs. I think the buff in Compouning Celerity is unnecessary since in-combat we can move around quite elegantly as if we’re all over the place, at the same time. We should have got an ooc speed boost instead.

I might try out the condition build with Torment, but to be honest, the scepter (which i forsaken long time ago) still doesn’t look appealing to me enough.

Jester.1236:

Prismatic Understanding was buffed.

Sorry for my noobness but how PU was buffed. How is it different now?
I’m using it and can’t understand which it means in the patch notes. Thanks

Hi everyone,
Regarding to the issue with hologram farming (node camping, speedkilling, etc.) I just want to make a post to express a suggestion on how to improve the situation.

I saw someone on the forum suggested this before but I really want to reiterate to get Anet and the community‘s attention.
The suggestion is simple in concept (but I’m not sure how hard in terms of coding for Anet team to implement):

Make the drop rate from the hologram mob scale with the number of people are present in the vicinity of the hologram.

This can be done in two ways:
- a hidden buff in drop rate at the time the mob goes down and scales with the number of people at that time.
- an explicit +magic find buff for everyone when it is activated and scales with the number of people at that time.

I think this is an elegant solution for a number of reasons (and I praise the people who first came up with it):
- it obviously encourages cooperative play, people will tend to wait for latecomers to get the extra bonus
- it goes well with the festival spirit “the more the merrier”
- even if a player still considers speedkilling contents (in order to get achievement or something), he/she has to weigh between quantity (speedkilling means more hologram per hours) vs quality (less hologram but better chance at good loot)
- player still needs to tag the mob to get the loot (so no leeching) but simply being there he/she already indirectly helps others with the extra bonus.
- it allows flexibility in approach regarding to population: if the map is crowded with hologram farmers, then it’s best to wait around to get the extra bonus, if the map is much less populated, you can speedkill to bring down more holograms on your own, or even better move to a more populated map and join the crowd.
- even better, the people who go for quality drop and thus tend to wait around will eventually end up on same maps while the people who aim to get many kill counts will be in different areas and enjoy less competition in general.

There is one exploit issue with this that I at least thought about, say: an ill-behaved person just pitches in the waiting crowd, suddenly 1-hit kill everything and gets the extra bonus before anyone else can react. <— this is a really extreme scenario though. Fortunately, people can just stay away and leave him/her to farm alone as a solution.

Please discuss.

Thanks everyone for your replies. Looks like things have changed quite a lot (and for the better) from what I’ve read. I’m new to WvW so there is a lot to learn.
@Wolfstrike: I like your strategy, really mesmerizing way of thinking.

Hi guys,
My first post on the forum
I have been playing a mesmer for a month though I spent most the time PvE. I’m giving WvW a go and I’ve been reading on how mesmers fair in this PvP environment.
Apparently, there is a lot of hate towards mesmers due to our key ability Portal combined with stacking (or turtling).
So I have a couple of questions and suggestions regarding to this balancing issue:
- Can enemies move through my portals? I think they should be able to do it to make it fair and square.
- I think Mass Invisibility and Portal should be switched positions (utility and elite) with some minor tweaks given Mass Invisibility is underwhelmed by the usefulness of Portal.
- Do any other profession have mass transport skills? I think they should have so that the team is not reliant on mesmers (again balance around all the professions in the game).
Please share your opinions on this.
Cheers