Guild Wars 2

MailMail.6534:

Stormbolt.7293:

I’m more worried about other classes whining and moaning until we get nerfed. Chrono interrupt will be painful and annoying to play against, even if it isn’t actually that overpowered in practice

So your suggestion is a watered down version that’s ineffective? While this is a legit worry, we should criticize them for unnecessary nerfs and keep the focus on that.

He’s worried about other classes will QQ and get us nerfed so he just preemptively asks for nerfs first? Logic?

Necrotize.2974:

Only issue I saw is that without a target, the block can’t be activated due to the phantasm component.

Well, my friend, this you don’t have to worry. This is quoting from Dulfy’s website

“It is a shield bubble that will block attack and create a phantasm on the enemy you blocked or on the enemy you targeted when it ends.”

So when u block, it works similar any other mesmer block skills, spawn a phantasm that targets the attacker. When you don’t block and the skill duration runs out, the phantasm is still summoned on whoever you’re targeting.

Menaka.5092:

Necrotize.2974:

It only blocks 1 attack(2 if you count Deja Vu) and you can move while holding the shield up even though the screenshots show you kneeling down and holding it up. While I do wish it blocked all attacks for a duration, the phantasm it summons seems really good, especially since I think you can potentially summon two of them with one skill use and their alacrity buff can bounce between other phantasms. So multiple phantasms giving you and other phantasms alacrity.

Seems good on paper, I hope it won’t be another iMage, failing to hit even a slowly walking dolyak.

I share this concern, since this skill is clearly inspired by Captain America, hopefully the travelling speed of the shield will be just as fast.

Aw, well skills don’t have any condition removal baseline?
I really want to spec Dueling/Chaos/Chrono as a Condi spec.
Hopefully Chrono trait provide some options to cleanse conditions (that as good as Inspiration line).

Me Games Ma.8426:

keenlam.4753:

Me Games Ma.8426:

rchu.8945:

thieves probably will able to steal alacrity, then we are back to where we were again, dead to even faster thief attacks.

you mean quickness right?

Alacrity might end up being a boon. Lets hope its not the case.

“a new effect called alacrity”
They’d write “a new boon” if it’d be a boon.

Sry, I kinda skipped over that. Hopefully it stays that way =P

Me Games Ma.8426:

rchu.8945:

thieves probably will able to steal alacrity, then we are back to where we were again, dead to even faster thief attacks.

you mean quickness right?

Alacrity might end up being a boon. Lets hope its not the case.

Apparently this is the direction they want us to go forward. All mesmers (regardless of builds that focus on shattering or not) must use their shatters, or in Robert Gee’s original words “maintain a good shattering cadence”.
This means lazy shatterers like myself will have to adapt.

This is awesome, thanks for bringing the news nice and early to us Overlord

Me Games Ma.8426:

keenlam.4753:

But I can’t be wrong.

Lol, you mean “But I can be wrong.”?

Sry bad typo. Fixed lol.

Hi guys
Lots of good discussion here.

@DanteZero: Clone placement is handled with DE and Mirror Images skill if you can afford to include it in your build.

@Toeofdoom: Oh my, iWave with 7s CD, thats insane. Although I would expect in reality (going with the 2% figure), sloppy fighting considered, you might end up with something like 15s CD. But still, able to use iWave every 15s is very awesome.

iWave has always been a strong CC skill with great interrupt potential, it combines the reliability of Magic Bullet and AoE effectiveness of Chaos Storm. Still second to Daze Mantra though, imo because of its short range.

I can imagine the playstyle of this build would involve lots of kiting to spread your gs clones all over the place. You move in to melee range to do face dmg with Mirror Blade, gain might stacks from this skill and/or interrupt with iWave or Diversion. Mobility is the key, so Traveler Runes would be the great fit for this. And the stats support the hybrid approach too.

When all your gs skills are on CD, you can either range with GS to keep up the dmg pressure while speeding up CDs with your AA or switch to Staff for more cover condition pressure. GS is more offensive, Staff is more defensive as always.

A condi burst (your win scenario) could go like this: iWave to immobilize, drop Chaos Storm for more interrupt/stun (Confounding Suggestions trait), then iWarlock for the burst dmg.

So basically your opponent is faced with two options:
Either
1) Ignore the clones completely and go for you. They might regret this as long as you’re good at kiting to deny their dmg pressure and last long enough for your conditions to build up and overwhelm your opponent.
Or
2) Go for the clones and kill them as soon as they pop into existence. Because your opponent busy dealing with your clones, this means less pressure on you.

Either way, you have huge advantages. Having said that, I can see clearly see that some builds can counter this playstyle, like builds using ranged attacks that bounce between multiple targets, meaning they can just keep attacking you knowing that the bounces can kill off your clones. But as far as I know, all bouncing attacks are projectiles, thus reflect will be your solution to this.

Anyway, keep the discussion going . Would love to hear more from you guys.

Totally agree with OP here as I’m very concerned about MI being a manip. skill.
When paired with that trait, at best, the trait becomes useless, at worst, u get revealed and waste your elite instead.

Hopefully Anet will look into this.
Mikkel’s idea is nice and could be an easy fix. Also my take on this issue would be changing MI to another skill type as Moa Morph seems to fit the manipulation title better.
For example, lets call “Ether” a new skill type then Ether Feast and MI can both belong to this type.
@Me Games Ma: reading from the trait description, it looks like only the mesmer gets the reflection effect. But I can be wrong. After all, nothing is set in stone yet.

This thread should be closed. It is disrespectful on so many levels and I have trouble understanding what OP is complaining about.

Krispera.5087:

keenlam.4753:

Phantasmal Fury has always been in Dueling traitline and almost every PvE mesmers grab it. I dont get why people just suddenly complain about its placement now. Has anyone been complaining about it for, you know, the last two years since launch?

Because in HoT, if you choose a line, you need to go all the way in. They changed lots of traits around too, so why not Phantasmal Fury ?

I’m alright with Phantasmal Fury being there, even if I complained. Just wish it was somewhere else.

Your counter point is fair and has logic in it, this is what I expect from people.
But from my point of view, now that we have to go all the way in when spec into a line, the real problem is that there are few to none gm traits dedicated to phantasm builds.

One could argue Illusionary Inspiration is a phantasm trait, but usually boons will get shared to your team, not your phantasms unless you solo or in a less than 5 group. Likewise, Harmonious Mantras could be used to boost phant dmg but not everyone of us like to run a full mantra build and I respect that too.

So suddenly u have these amazing phant traits at adept and master tiers but its not enough to justify going all the way to gm traits where u have to settle with traits that you know you wont be able to squeeze all the benefits out of them.

But still it remains to be seen the direction the devs are going forward.

Phantasmal Fury has always been in Dueling traitline and almost every PvE mesmers grab it. I dont get why people just suddenly complain about its placement now. Has anyone been complaining about it for, you know, the last two years since launch?

Anet has reworked this trait and bumped it up to grandmaster level.

Increased power while wielding a greatsword. Reduces recharge on greatsword skills whenever you or an illusion hits with Spatial Surge.
Recharge reduction per hit 2%
Power +100

At first glance, my impression about this trait is that while interesting, its a bit underwhelming.
Why?
1) It only works for 1 specific type of weapon.
2) GS and the bonus stat suggests it’s for power builds.
3) It promotes you and your clones spamming autoattacks. So clearly not optimal for either shatter or phantasm builds.

So like its a REALLY oddball trait.

Furthermore, compared to other clones we have, gs clones are near to useless when left alive. (Sword clones inflict vulnerability and rip boons, scepter and staff clones inflict dmg conditions.)

So is this gm trait useless in the end?
Its a bit silly to judge the trait on its own without considering its synergy to other traits we have, especially the new ones.

As it turns out, gs clones are actually very good at stacking bleeds (with Sharper Images minor trait) as few of us experimented in the past. What a crazy experiment it was indeed.

So suddenly, u have this interesting synergy between the new Greatsword Training + Sharper Images + the new Confusing Combatants.
Your gs clones can now stack both bleeds and confusion when they spam aa, which in turn speed up cds on your gs skills. And being 1200 range and having fastest attack rate, these clones are super annoying to kill if you can spread them around, far from one another and from your opponent.

Still, some issues remain:
1) You need some control on your clone placement to achieve the tactic i just mentioned.
2) GS skills are pure power in nature. So you dont use GS to its full potential if you want to run a full condi build.
3) Cover conditions, as in most condi builds, you would want some sort of cover conditions so that your main dmg conditions stick stubbornly on your opponent.

1) 1st issue can be easily solved by Deceptive Evasion and Mirror Images skill.

2) 2nd issue suggests maybe u can try a hybrid approach. But this means u need a reliable way to stack mights.
So lets have a look at our options to stack might:
- GS#2 (Mirror Blade) at melee range, u can easily get a constant 12 might stacks. Even better, you can use this skill more often (less than 8s cd).
- Might on Interrupt with Chaotic Interruption

3) For cover conditions, using Staff as 2nd weaponset would help with this. Also, Chaotic Interruption is yet another great synergy for this build concept. And don’t forget, with iElasticity made baseline, Staff on its own is already a potent condi weapon.

So in the end, this gm trait MIGHT play an interesting role to give birth to a new build type completely, GS/Staff condi hybrid.
Traitwise, it could be Dom/Duel/Chaos with Greatsword Training (duh!), Deceptive Evasion and Chaotic Interruption.

It would be very funny to use our best ranged dmg weapon as a melee weapon. Why melee? Because u need those might stacks from Mirror Blade and opportunities to interupt your opponent at point blank with Diversion and iWave for even more Might.

So what u guys think of this new strange concept of a build? Is it total madness?
Please give your thoughts.
Cheers.

ODB.6891:

In fact, I would love a direct damage build option that does not involve phantasms or illusions at all.

This I fear would never happen as clearly the idea of the class is to rely on our illusions for dmg. And in PvE, phantasm builds have always been the go-to builds. Although we might see shatter builds become a bit more popular in PvE environments.

ODB.6891:

I have no problems at all with PvE moving away from “passive play”.

Then let me explain to you how you would rejoice as PvE mes got buffed with this change.

A phantasm build usually specs into Domination, Dueling and Inspiration. With the new system, one could still spec in same traitlines and get more out of it as I explain below.

1) Change to Empowering Mantras and Harmonious Mantras gm traits:
the new HM is a combination of both but the dmg bonus got reworked to now provide Ferocity bonus stacks, from what I know it would mean not only the mesmer gets the dmg boost but also our phantasms. (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong)
The trade-off ofc is this dmg boost uptime is reduced compared to the old EM where u slot and camp with your mantra charges and I believe you would agree with me this is not a healthy playstyle.

2) Change to Mender’s Purity:
This trait now activates Mantra Cleanse, which in turn will proc HM give u 1 additional ferocity stack. So basically whenever u use mantra heal, u get 2 stacks.
Great synergy here. And more healing to keep your teammates and/or phantasms alive.

3) More access to reflect:
No one can deny mesmers excel in reflect role in a group and we just get even better now. Reflect dmg is scaled with Ferocity so again this synergizes with HM trait.

4) More ways to share boons including the new Quickness boon without the need to sacrifice any dmg potential of your own.
So if a warrior can gain 25 stacks of might and share it to the group, a mesmer can gain Quickness and share it too. Both classes act as dmg amplifier without overlapping their roles (so they dont make each other redundant). 2 PS warriors would be less optimal then 1 PS warrior and 1 boonshare mesmer. How about that?

And lastly,

5) No more fear of stat loss when speccing into a traitline
Thanks Anet for this decoupling of traitline and stats.

Right now a mantra PvE build would spec 6/6/x because u can grab all the offensive stats. Meanwhile, the x/6/0/5/x phant PvE build while being more versatile clearly has less offensive stats.
With the new system, u can spec whatever traitline to optimize your dmg thru traits. I know its crazy right?

I can see one of the new PvE mantra/phantasm meta builds would be like Dom/Dueling/Inspiration (6/6/0/6/0 in our current notion).

Domination: Empowered Illusions, Furious Interruption (to gain Quickness so you can share), Power Block (more ways to deal dmg on your own).
Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, Blade Training or Evasive Mirror, Harmonious Mantras
Inspiration: Mender’s Purity, Warden’s Feedback, Illusionary Inspiration.

Mesmers would have new role in group (dmg amplifier thru quickness boonshare) while strengthing their old role (reflect).

TL,DR: For people think that your dmg get nerfed in PvE, may I suggest in the new trait system:
- Grab Harmonious Mantras, Mender’s Purity traits
- Equip Mantra of Recovery and Mantra of Pain
- Put Mantra of Pain on auto-attack
So now you can deal more dmg on your own, stacking ferocity for even more dmg while healing 2k every 5s. Meanwhile your phantasms do their own thing as they have always been doing.

The skills would benefit from quickness (right after your successful interrupt) probably be mantra recharge and phantasm summoning. It looks to be very good synergy and its WAY TOO EARLY to judge if its OP or not, so please stop calling for nerfs.

Clone death traits fit well with the whole punishing enemies for attacking wrong targets and take away our resources… but there is 1 big implementation flaw that ruins the whole concept in the end: the mesmer themselves can just kill off the clones by replacing them in a seemingly spamming fashion.

This means clones are expendable to mesmer and it goes against the main class mechanic where illusions are valuable resource and should be used wisely (every illusion counts to add to the shatter dmg).

But lets be honest, if the mesmer cannot actively kill off clones to activate clone-death traits. The builds based off these traits are not anywhere viable.

So its clearly a dilemma for the devs, either
1- they rework the clone-death traits to make them punishing but only activate when clones are killed by enemies not the mesmer.
or
2- simply get rid of the entire concept because of its conflicting nature with our shatter mechanic.

Looks like they chose the latter and easier path.

As much as I’d miss these traits, I gladly accept Anet’s decision and would take up the new stuff we got instead, for example, bleed and confusion stacking with iDuelist as Pistol OH getting buffed considerably.

Edit: Although i wouldn’t mind having it baseline for mesmer that when a clone is killed it inflicts a short (2-3s) 3-4 confusion stacks. That just seems to fit nicely the “Oh, its the wrong target, now I’m confused” concept. No other condition since it would be too much.

Mistrust with Chaos Storm proc or Diversion AoE proc will be glorious.

First of all, thank you so much for including my in the beta stress test.
So in return, I’d like to some little feedback.

Overall, I have no performance issues when playing. The game was smooth and I really enjoyed the new instance/maps. The visual and sound effects are breathtaking.

As many might have said already in similar terms, I just had a few issues (in my opinion) during my gameplay that I’d like to see them improved once the expansion is released.

1. Revenant:
I spent most of my time going through this new class’s available skills and traits in this beta version.
Revenant skills are visually beautiful and showcasing new technologies and I’m very excited I’d love to see these technologies to be featured in vanilla classes as well (both base class as well as specialisation).
However, I have the impression that revenant skills and traits are very omnipotent functionally and can get easily overpowered, compared to vanilla classes’ current kitten nal in GW2.

2. Mastery UI:
The mastery UI looks a bit clunky and hard to figure out (this is clearly subjective opinion). It also takes up too much space and can’t be easily closed with Esc button.
A more streamlined and more intuitive version similar to WvW ability window would be a nice improvement.

3. Gliding:
Needless to say, gliding is really cool feature. But like many others already suggested, gliders are deployed too slow after falling but I hope this is intended and if I invest more points in this mastery I can deploy gliders faster or even better, deploy before running off cliffs. Also another minor issue I have is that the character screaming (as they do when they fall from great heights), this really breaks immersion.

Thats all I have for now.
Again, thanks for inviting me to the beta test and I hope my feedback is useful.

I’m glad that the build idea is so well-received.

@StickerHappy: I’m fully aware that the runes are not available in PvP and that makes me a sad kitten. I honestly dont see how u can replace the runes with something else without gimping it. Defender runes just add too much to the build defense. Having said that, while we’re waiting for Anet to add the runes to sPvP, you can try it with Rune of the Flock i guess, its the closest thing I can think of that has some synergy with the build, but again, you can’t really control the blind, unlike the aegis in Defender runes.

@Pyro: Noted your advice regarding to 1st trait slot in Domination, I guess I play around with the other 2 as well (Mental Torment and Halting Strike) and see which one suits me best.

I do have a question regarding the survivability of illusions with high toughness stats. To what extent would it help to secure the shatters? I mean, in zerker shatter builds, clones can be 1shot killed; with high toughness, they would get 2-shot killed instead?

Also, in large group (zerg), with this build, you can join frontline and fight in melee range. This should help secure shatters better than, say, stay at backline like other builds right? But again, this is just me theorycrafting. I need to test it out in WvW first

Gear:
Statswise, I go for a mix of Knight/Cavalier/Zerker to have a good balance between defense, which is more important in this build, and offense.

In terms of defense, there are 3 key things to note:
1) Relatively high toughness stat.
2) Very high sustained healing through traits and high healing power stat.
3) Frequent access to Aegis boon thanks to the great synergy of Rune of the Defender and Mantra of Recovery.

In terms of offense, our dmg can be considered decent and more about sustained dps rather than bursty. High uptime of Retaliation also compliments our dmg nicely and discourages enemies to attack you.

Sigils: the choice of sigils is almost by personal preference. But I explain why I choose mine: Fire/Air to optimize damage on the offensive weaponset while Energy/Poison helps with your sustain and hampers enemy sustain.

Runes: Up to this point, needless to say, the Rune of Defender is key to make this build work. It provides huge sustain to the class that would otherwise lacking in sustain to really stay in the midst of a group fight (without relying on stealth and PU trait).

Build Pros and Cons:
Pros:
- Very good access to boonrip and condition removal to support your team
- High sustained healing and good access to block for defense
- Very tanky and thus more forgiving to play
- Lots of offer in terms of group support
Cons:
- Low mobility, especially outside of combat
- No access to stealth, might need some time to get used to the playstyle
- DPS not as high and bursty like power shatter builds.

Ok guys,
Let me know what you guys think about this build idea. I’ve just come up with it and will be testing it myself but like usual I’d love to see others to try this one out and help me testing it in real combat. If you enjoy playing a support build or simply want to experiment something new, then please give it a go and give me some constructive feedback.

Thank you all. Have a good day.

Traits:
The core traits that make the build are: Shattered Concentration (Domination VII) & Shattered Conditions (Inspiration XI) (and of course no mesmer build that uses shatters would be complete without DE).

So it’s a 4/4/0/6/0 build.
So every time you shatter your illusions, you will remove 1 boon (from the enemy) and 1 condition (from yourself and ally) per illusion shattered successfully.

Shatters are still part of your main damage but you won’t use as aggressively and frequently as you would like in the typical 44006 Burst Shatter builds. In fact, you might find yourself rely on phantasms to deal sustained dmg over the course of battle and only use shatters when necessary in the presence of enemy boons and conditions.

Other traits that I choose either to add to the dps to keep it at a decent level, or survivability, mostly in the form of sustained healing.

Weapon and utility skills:
Sword mainhand is perfect for this build because of its boonrip ability on AA.

I prefer Pistol as offhand since I find iDuelist is most reliable when it comes to deal sustained dmg and maintain pressure to enemies. It also provides a powerful stun.
However, I can still see other offhands like Sword and Focus work in this build as well. It could be personal preference.

This build is tanky by nature and that’s because you really need to stay in the heat of the fight (most often in melee range) long enough to matter and perform your role. That’s why I pick Staff as 2nd weaponset because it’s the best defensive weapon we have.

Mantra of Recovery is used as our heal because its great synergy with Runes of Defender. The aegis boon granted from using MoR can also be used to protect your charging of Mantra of Concentration whenever it runs out of charges.

Mantra of Concentration is used to protect our long-cast time skills like the heal mantra and phantasm-summoning skills. The build doesn’t use Blink or Decoy, so MoC will act as your double-stunbreak skill to take on the role normally performed by both Blink and Decoy in other mes builds.

Null Field and iDisenchanter are used to fortify the core concept of the build: ripping boons and removing conditions at same time. Null Field for me is a must because it’s more reliable and AoE, whereas iDisenchater can be switched out for other utilities (like Portal or Veil in WvW).

Moa Morph is used as Elite because this is our answer to enemy Transform Elites, and it’s very powerful when used right. As Transform Elites got buffed recently, we can expect our Moa Morph is indirectly buffed and gets more value in play as well. Moa Morph goes well with the theme of this build, equalizing the enemy that just goes supercharged with their transformation, bringing them right back down to our level.

To be continued…

Hi guys,

So recently we have seen the change to stability boon, and to me, this is a change on a very huge scale of the game, something we haven’t seen for a while. This hopefully will shake up the meta a little bit as we see more play of CC skills to remove stacks of stability (before, people have to wait out the stability or use any boon removal skills) and more frequent use of buffed up transform elite skills.

So in the light of this huge change, I’d like to redefine a role of mesmer in terms of group support by utilizing what we do best: BOONRIP.

So introducing THE EQUALIZER build.

Build concept: This is a group support build that is based entirely on the fun concept of “deny enemies of their boon advantage and ensure our allies free from condition disadvantage”, in other words, keep us allies and them enemies somewhat on even ground, hence the name “Equalizer”.

Build link

To be continued…

Shriketalon.1937:

If specializations do change the main class mechanic, their best bet would not to use the standard “one clone and one phantasm” method. Phantasm mesmers and shatter mesmers are already opposed to one another, and it doesn’t make sense to try to cram in a third ability while still forcing everyone to use their traits to supply the former. They’ve been trying over and over to make the interrupt mesmer viable, so it makes sense that they would create a specialization that discards some of the current baggage and lets them flourish as hard control casters.

If they are allowing main mechanic customization, it would be better to go like so…

Shattercaster: default shatter mesmer, make and break clones. Streamline clone creation across the board and allow shatters to vary based on your weapon (ie condition/direct damage).
Dreamspinner: weaves phantasms out of their target’s nightmares. Skills allow manipulation of phantasms after casting, so they aren’t fire-and-forget.
Chronomancer: absolute lockdown. No illusions on the weapons, no shatters. Instead, six utility slots, and utilities use a shared mana pool like thieves instead of cooldowns, thus creating the perfect mastermind mesmer.

I think a reasonable number of specializations for each professions would be 2.
I would be very disappointed if there is only 1. Of course, more than 2 is even better.

As for our mesmer class. I share same ideas with you:

Specialization towards more area control with reliable AoE spells and effects: Chronomancer (shifting the focus on more space and time theme)

Or
More control power over a single target enemy: Dreamweaver (keeping the original mind control theme)

F5 Visions of Life (75s CD)

Shatter your illusions to apply Lifehack debuff to foes.

Number of Targets: 5
Radius: 240
Range: 1,200
Duration: 2s per illusion

50% damage dealt to enemies inflicted with Lifehack debuff will heal the mesmer (source of debuff).

Its a good trait, but where it stands atm, like Swish said, it competes against BI and CD which are much better.

If only… MoA is at adept tier…

Blood and Air Sigils are both cheap and useful to boost dmg.

To be honest, if the new Mimic is on 15s CD and instant cast, then it wouldn’t be too bad. But still, the new function is so lackluster comparing to Arcane Thievery.

Sw/T + GS Shatter spec.
Torch is just as good as pistol or focus for shatter builds.

Haha, til this day I still haven’t unlocked Disruptor’s Sustainment.

Lol can we just agree at least PU build won’t be played as aggressively as sh@tter build?

Define ‘aggressive’ in its absolute term won’t make sense since it depends how each person thinks of it.

Pyro, do u use iDis with PU build in WvW or Is it always The cleanse mantra?

mugen.4763:

As title suggests merge the Manipulation traits. These traits are in two different lines with much more useful traits. Merging them would make it worth while dropping another trait for it.

I second this, Chaos III is so lackluster and weak that merging it with Dueling I will not make Dueling I too good for 1st tier major.

Vieux P.1238:

No mistake, the shatter condi build is top notch but like the only true viable bursty build that mesmers have.

This is so far from the truth. Did u mean power shatter build?

Condi shatter build 0-6-0-2-6 grabbing HM and MtD

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWl0npMtdqxRNcrNyqBdqlg6s0lgW6NktAA-TFSHABVs/gb6DMS5Rhq/ckSMAOFARpEM4nAApAgYZF-w

LunarNacht.8913:

I like it the way it is.

A bit shorter CD would be nice.
But god no dramatic shift towards pure dmg or channeling time PLEASE.
Are you guys trying to turn mesmers into a weaker version of staff elementalist or something?

Thanks Swish for testing and confirming my observation.
Now if it is intended then it does seem a bit unfair for us as mesmers.

Sebbl.2806:

Cannot confirm. Got the Chaos armor buff when using Swap in my own Null Field.
And sorry for the screenshot quality.

Did u stand outside Null Field when u pressed Swap?

adelaide.6213:

Only the “swap” part is a combo finisher now. This was intentionally changed in the Sept. feature pack when iLeap was changed to have the clone summon next to the target.

You should still be able to combo with your own fields. However, your field would need to be at the destination of your clone/swap. (I believe the swap part always functioned like this.)

I am aware of all this but if u test it out you will see it doesn’t work.

Ok, not sure if its always been this way or something Anet broke again on mesmers recently, but I have tested extensively with my friend in HotM and this is my observation:

Our two unique teleport skills that also count as leap finishers, namely, Sword #3 Swap and Staff #2 Phase Retreat. At right now, they simply do not work in a similar fashion with any other leap finisher skill in the game.

Normal leap finisher skill: if u leap thru a combo field, the combo will proc regardless whether u leap into from outside, leap out from inside, or simply leap within the combo field.

Our teleport skills, however, do not proc leap finisher combo if u leap from outside the field into it.

I have tried putting down Null Field behind me then Phase Retreat into it, no Chaos Armor. Also tried putting down Feedback/Null Field in front and iLeap/Swap into it but only the clone gets Chaos Armor. And i swear it worked for me before… so I dont know.

Can someone confirm this? If its the case, we should totally report this bug in a thread in the bug sub-forum.

SlimChance.6593:

Lets do a comparison shall we?

When a thief steals, the “Steal” gets converted to:

(From other thieves) Blinding Tuft – “Throw a handful of hair, vanishing in stealth and blinding nearby foes.”
Blind: 3 s
Stealth: 3 s
Number of Targets: 5
Range: 120

(from Guardians) Mace Head Crack -“Daze your foe.”
Damage: 24
Daze: 4 s
Range: 170

(from Necromancer) Skull Fear - “Strike fear into nearby foes.”
0 to 200 Distance: 3 s
200 to 400 Distance: 2 s
400 to 600 Distance: 1 s
Range: 600

(from Engineer) Throw Gunk - “Throw gunk at target area to inflict a random condition.”
Damage: 147
Combo Field: Ethereal
Range: 900
-Pulses 5 times, conditions includes:
11s Bleeding
7s Poison
2s Burning
2s Chilled
4s Vulnerabilty
4s Weakness
4s Crippled
1s Immobilized
4s Blind

(from Warrior) Whirling Axe - “Spin and attack nearby foes. You can move while spinning.”
Damage: 8
Number of Attacks: 15
Combo Finisher: Whirl
Range: 1,200

(from Ranger) Healing Seed - “Grants regeneration and removes conditions from yourself and nearby allies.”
Healing: 435
Radius: 240
Combo Field: Water

(From Elementalists) Ice Shard Stab - “Stab and chill your foe.”
Damage: 72
Chilled: 10 s
Range: 170

(from Mesmers) Consume Plasma - “Gain all boons.”
Protection: 10 s
Regeneration: 10 s (1300 health)
Vigor: 10 s
Might: 10 s
Fury: 10 s
Swiftness: 10 s
Aegis: 10 s
Stability: 3 s
Retaliation: 5 s

One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong.
Can you tell which thing is not like the others, by the time I finish my song?

Not only thieves are hard counter to mesmers, they get to enjoy doing it as well.
Thieves will always focus down mesmers because, u know, those plasmas that we hand out for free.

The issue is Deceptive Evasion IS the only way to create clones fast enough to keep up with shattering or clone-death explosions to make any build viable.
Lets have a look at other options we have:
- Scepter AA: way too slow.
- Clone-summoning weapon skills: too powerful to waste CDs just to make 1 clone, meaning they are situational.
- Decoy & Mirror Images: a stunbreakers, long CDs, also too valuable to waste just to make clones, again, situational skills.

So better is to give us more ways to create clones that we rely on without DE crutch.

I have suggested in an old thread that Bountiful Disillusionment trait can have 10% chance to proc Mirror Images (without stunbreaker effect) upon shattering (45s icd or 36s icd with iCelerity traited).

Also, another idea would be a trait that makes clone upon interrupt, maybe considering icd or a good placement to prevent it from becoming OP.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Basically, the title. The build is going to be used for WvW roaming but the catch is it has to use a focus.

Preferrably nothing glassy, or relies too heavily on clones.

Let me know what you got, forums!

Hi Azilyi, nice to see you drop in mes forum.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Preferrably nothing … relies too heavily on clones.

This pretty much narrows down to phantasm-builds. Phant builds are great in dueling (1v1), but becomes much less effective in 1vX in wvw roaming or group fights.

Also to make effective use of iWarden (phantasm summoned by Focus skill #5), you need to lock down your target in order for the iWarden to deal any dmg with its lengthy axe spin. So either u can run the CI lockdown interrupt build like Ross Biddle has posted above or an easier way is to go for CS stunlock build (check this build link for an example)

As for gearing, you need to play around to find your sweet spot between damage and survivability, again like Ross’ suggestion.

Hope this helps.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Guys! Mirror of Anguish is the thing, I seen nobody talking about it yet !

Mirror of Anguish is good, no doubt, but it competes against BI and I always grab BI instead because of the boons. If only MoA is in Adept tier.
Imagine Lockdown builds with MoA, BI and CI traits

Nice vid, Miku.
Also nice to see our mesmer community come together and give tips for OP to improve his skills.

Here are my 2 cents:

Scepter block:
4. Use Scepter #3 to bait dodge then break the channel and use the block. (very effective against enemies with on-dodge attacks).
5. Use Scepter #3 with chaos armor/ or any aura active to make enemies harder to see your block animation.

MtD defensive shatter combos: (most effective at melee range)
1. Scepter block —> Mirror Images --> CoF shatter (3 clones)
2. While stunned, Mirror Images —> Staff #2 retreat out of melee range --> CoF shatter (3 clones)
3. Chaos Armor —> Mirror Images --> Staff #2 retreat —> CoF shatter --> Staff #3 iWarlock. (3 clones + 1 phantasm)

I think that MtD shatter should be played a very different way to Power shatter to really make it effective. Power Shatter is all about pressure and very aggressive playstyle, while MtD condi shatter can be played at a slower pace, and favors a more counter-play approach to turn the tide of the fight with your condi burst.

This made me laugh so hard. xD

You sir won the internet.

jenzie.4083:

I played a bit with 0/6/0/2/6, 3x mantra, Menders Purity and Dire gear. Staff/sc+torch with sigil of corruption. I didn’t have problems with anyone, except a necro at start but then i got hang of it, it was a bit empty though but it works really nice. 22 stacks is my record so far. I fought a warrior and an ele easily. Not much to stop with though, except SoD, so they ran.

I think your take on MtD (06026) is probably more well-rounded than the more popular 04046 variation. 3x Heal Mantra with Menders Purity for condi cleanse, it frees up 1 utility slot for Mirror Images, which I have been experimenting a lot lately.
MI can be key to make MtD build work as condi burst shatter.
My usual combo is: Scepter Block + MI + CoF Shatter.

Quoted from this thread

Bountiful Disillusionment:

Concept: compared to its older cousins (PU and CI) in the Chaos traitline, BD, while has a nice concept, lacks the random flavour well-defined in this Chaos traitline: all the boons are guaranteed and assigned specifically to the shatter skills. Therefore, this trait feels like an odd one out of the bunch.

Implementation: BD current performance falls short for a variety of reasons:

(1) it’s a shatter-based trait placed in a position that excludes either DE or IP, therefore its hard to make a shatter build using this trait;

(2) the boons gained are of little weight and short duration, making it hard to utilize them right after shatters to boost up your own dmg and/or your phantasm. Also, it leads to a gimmicky playstyle where u have to constantly sacrifice your current phantasms to boost the dmg for next summoned phantasms?

My proposed change: Keep the current implementation as the guaranteed component of this trait, but add the random part for it as described below:

10% chance to cast Mirror Images skill upon shattering. This version of Mirror Images doesn’t have the stunbreak component. Internal cooldown 45 (36s traited with iCelerity).

My reasons behind this addition: it boosts the effective illusion regeneration rate. When it procs, you can instantly make use of the boons from previous shatter to fuel your next offensive shatter or defend yourself better with extra 2s of Distortion. Also, it can help increase build diversity by providing an alternative (better or worse, im not sure) to our only option DE for clone production at the moment.