Guild Wars 2

Jorvych.3064:

I can’t seem to get past phase 1 on my mesmer. I’ve tried a zerker build, a PU build, and some build this person told me their used.
It’s really bumming me out. It seems like I’m waaaay too squishy to survive all of the stuff she throws at me. I’ve never fought her or anything, but I’ve read guides and seen videos and it just doesn’t add up for me.

#Tips for Phase 1#
There are couple of things you can make use of:
- stealth will buy you time against the shades, they need to target u to explode. if u in stealth, the shades simply just stand around doing nothing.
- aoe blind (Torch #4, signet of midnight) works on the shades, if they explode on you while blinded, they will miss.
- keep moving sideway a bit (left right, dont stand still) to easily avoid Liadri’s auto attack.
- use a proper heal (i see lots of people use signet heal, if u can’t manage, maybe its time to use a better heal, signet heal is very ineffective, since most of the time, you dont have even 1 illusion out to make use of the bonus passive heal).
- most importantly, learn how the fight works and stick to a certain dome so you can familiarize yourself with her attack patterns.

#Tips for Phase 2#
- tips from Phase 1 still apply here
- GS is great for this
- have decent condition removal (mantra is recommended)
- remember u dont need LoS to cast phantasm
- cripple/cc Liadri and/or the shades to give yourself some space to maneuever around.

Best of luck.

ungascarlo.7459:

Wyrden.4713:

i tried a heavy phantasm build on it, killed it within about 10 sec after i had it out of its shardbuffs

may i know what build you are using? im having trouble killing liadri using my mesmer…

Standard phantasm build is something like 2/3/0/5/4 (taking Dom III, Dueling II, Illusions X), and especially for Liadri, greatsword is most effective in her Phase 2. Phase 1 u can stick with sword+any oh, you can use Blurred Frenzy defensively against the aoe and clone bomb attacks.

Hi OP,
you can give this build a try: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/WvW-build-PU-Power-Marksman-of-Pain/first#post4017423
I’ve been having a blast with it in WvW

I like the idea of having a trait that grants speed but please dont jam it into dueling line.

Shameless self-bump, I know. Just kinda feel obliged to do it

I have had really good feedback about this build over a couple of last weeks. With the help of my good friend Warlord of Chaos, the build has gone through certain adjustments and optimizations, I post his version of the build here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsfRl0npMtFrxENcrNyqxY6ZOZFSVQpzI7AA-TVDBABmqChg7PAxhAINlg3oDAgTAgXKRwR1lsUeli2AGeAAbcEA0RNgAAIAczbuzhuzbWKAmEGB-w and in the OP as well.

Now, based on my experience and possibly my skill level too, this build is not good for dueling. My reasons for it include:
- its lack of CC to pin down opponents at range, on greatsword u only have cripple, against classes with amazing gap closers (thief, warrior, guardian) u will be forced to swap into sword/torch eventually and thus you end up playing the build just like a shatter build (without the traiting to buff your shatter).
- its lack of boonstripping, this really hurts the damage output against classes with plenty access to defensive boons.

Having said all that, the build is not designed for dueling, so I’m okay with those weaknesses. The build designed to “gank” unwary foes (especially the squishy ones) from range and it excels at just that. The bigger your group/zerg is, the better this build shines; this comes from the fact that you burst from range and have plenty access to stealth which in turns makes you a super-sneaky sniper

So just a quick summary about whats this build is good and bad at_
Pros:
- Insane burst damage from RANGE
- Nice balance between offense/defense due to trait and gear choices
- Easy to engage/disengage enemies at will
- Decent condition removal (not that you plan to get hit by conditions though)
Cons:
- Lack of CCs (not a big issue in small group fight, and definitely a non-existent issue in zerg)
- Lack of boonstripping (this can be solved by having a shatter mes, a mes running null field, or thief in your gank party)
- Lack of reliable AoE dmg (not optimal to solo camps)
- Not weakness, but this build definitely requires good positioning and awareness of enemies and the surroundings, need to choose your target wisely.

Normal burst skill rotation (including GS autoattacks in-between): iZerker —> Mirror Blade --> Mind Wrack (2 illusions) —> Power Spike x3

So again, any feedback from someone else who has good fun and success with this build is more than welcome.

Tried it, whatever form it is, the clone is just as squishy as our normal clone. However, tornado or lich form hurts a lot.

Princess wand

I think sigil of earth suits the build better than fire sigil. At least you can stack lots of bleed with gs auto attack to improve your condition pressure.

Why rage sigil?
Maybe u can try sigil of nullification for more boon-ripping or that’s overkill?

Edited: nvm, you explained quite clearly why u used rage sigils, please excuse me for not reading thoroughly

I definitely would go Norn if not for the slow motion animation, and god knows mesmer is among the slowest classes around.

Collapsible shield that normally looks like a scarf?

@Pyro: didn’t expect u got so caught up with my poor choice of word, anyway, i guess i should have made it more clear. Don’t you see this is a big issue in terms of limiting build diversity?

@Pyro, Osicat: sarcasm?

StickerHappy.8052:

30/0/30/10 lockdown.

Interesting! I’m theorycrafting one atm, I suppose u grab both CS in Dom and CI in Chaos?

I’m getting a bit concerned seeing (as far as I know) there is no viable mesmer build that “boldly” forego Dueling entirely.

So let’s bust this myth.
Is there any viable build out there that doesn’t spec into Dueling?

Please discuss.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Ok, this’ll be real quick because I don’t have a lot of time atm.

Domination Line

• Empowering Mantras is now the Grandmaster Minor trait
• Wastrel’s Punishment is now a Grandmaster Major trait
• Wastrel’s Punishment: On interrupt, refresh the cooldown of the skill that caused the interrupt.

This will heavily promote both lockdown and skilled play in the same trait, and is one of the only possible ways I can see an interrupt build ever really becoming a lockdown build instead of a ‘spam interrupts on downed players’ build.

Brilliant idea on Wastrel’s Punishment. Do u think it needs an icd?
Anyway, my Sig of Dom and Magic Bullet would totally love this trait.

@StickerHappy, BlackDevil:
In case I haven’t made myself clear earlier, Wastrel’s Punishment can be changed to proc confusion on interrupt. It’s a minor GM trait, so it should be somewhat powerful.

Hi
Your build has solid stats, 1300+ condi dmg without food buffs is nothing to scoff at.
Can’t help you with skill rotations or how you play the build in practice. Just some common advice:

- If u aim to improve condition pressure by stacking bleed with greatsword, i highly recommend go for Krait runes. They’re quite pricey though.
- If u want to have a reliable “burst” condi dmg at melee range when u swap to Sword/Pistol, grab Balthazar runes and move 2 pts from Dom to Insp and grab the heal mantra together with mender’s purity trait. The burn is really nasty.

That’s all from me. Hope it helps.

StickerHappy.8052:

skcamow.3527:

Confusing Combatants: I was thinking to have 2 stacks of confusion applied per illusion. I like your idea of the confusion proc on interrupt, but it doesn’t really match the trait title.

Just the change of the trait name then
But seriously, the interrupt trait should be for mesmers alone. I don’t like the idea that a class that is supposed to specialize in a condition get outclassed by other classes.

I don’t see any class apply fear better than necros, they also have the damage trait,.
I don’t see any class apply blind better than thieves without building a build around it.

Hey StickerHappy,
Not sure if u’r aware, warriors have a trait called Distracting Strikes that proc 4 stacks of confusion on interrupt. What the hell? Right? It makes no sense.

Maybe I’m greedy but not only I want Confusing Combatants inflict 2 stacks of confusion to bring it up to par with shatter-version CoF, but I also want your take of inflicting confusion on interrupt as well, just put it somewhere else. Maybe it can replace Wastrel’s Punishment?

As for perp rune #6 effect, that can stay as long as we have our own version in the traits.

StickerHappy.8052:

Ramiel.4931:

Only thing I would absolutely love to see is traits that have to do with clone death be switched to shatter.

So Confusing Combatants and DD and the likes, make them proc on shatter.

That way you fix the OH MA GAWD PU OP!!!11! problem and you make condi shatter really viable.

Wow that would be OP haha.

No, that wouldn’t solve a thing. People just switch to OH MA GAWD SHATTER OP!!!
Whiners will eventually find something to whine about mesmers, no matter what.

MailMail.6534:

I don’t think the answer is buffing iMage. I think the better balance move would be to nerf Yaks mobility and evasion tactics.

Thats right, Yaks should be scared to stone and wet themselves whenever iMage is summoned.
Maybe an AoE Stun for 2s within 1200 radius whenever u use iMage.

Eucalyptus.9784:

Question, since I’ve been looking into trying to form one but…

Would a Power Clone-Spam build work for WvW/PvE still, effectively?

Thought: http://tinyurl.com/pu6v3md

It’s got pretty good survival stats still, on top of pretty decent Power, and an extra 3% damage per clone out. So while spamming, you still retain that extra damage up until the point they all die/you shatter. I even considered Signet of (Clone Health +50%) to have better control.

Viable?

Hate to be nitpicking but…
A clone-spam build, by definition, relies on pumping clones and trigger clone-death traits to deal condition damage. Clone death traits don’t deal direct dmg (although I wish some day they will) thus there is no such thing as power clone-spam build.

Having said that, with your build, you can freely spam clones to stack vulnerability but your main damage output will come from something else.

@OP: you can check my signature to travel back time with some good discussions about clone-spam builds xD.

Fox.3562:

Pack Runes are definitely my favorite rune post-patch. I’ve tried Strength, but since your phantasms don’t benefit from your might stacks, it really doesn’t increase your DPS much IMO.

Pack runes give you fury, which you can’t easily get otherwise, better raw stats (same power and 6% more crit chance than strength runes) and really high swiftness uptime with staff from chaos armor and chaos storm. Running around with a friend who has the runes too is a big threat since you can easily maintain perma fury and swiftness as long as you’re bulky enough to sponge 4 hits every 20 seconds.

EDIT: and Citadel runes are basically just a worse version of pack runes. No swiftness, no might, and 6% less critical chance from the raw stats. The bomb can hit like 1.5k on a crit, but it tends to reveal you while you’re stealthed more than it does useful damage. And trust me, I wanted runes of the Citadel to be good, I had 1.3k of them before the patch came out.

Just want to point out a few things
Might boon increases your main stats (power & condition damage) and since illusions borrow mesmer main stats —> your phantasms do benefit from your might stacks.
Fury boon, on the other hand, doesn’t affect phantasms crit chance.

GM Hermit.8629:

keenlam.4753:

A bird pet lands on my ranger shoulder or arm would be nice.

you know that was the first thing that came to my mind when i saw the ranger class, it would be a dream come true

Ikr, instead we have a bird pet standing on the ground that the ranger might accidentally step on it. o_O

A bird pet lands on my ranger shoulder or arm would be nice.

Hi there,
I recently posted a build similar to yours in terms of weapon and skill set.
However, i trait for defense and use offense gear.
Yours is like the opposite, u trait for offense and gear for defense.

Here’s the thread of my build: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/WvW-build-PU-Power-Marksman-of-Pain/first#post3974135, just for your reference.

Personally, I think with 3 stealths and not traiting for PU is kinda a waste, but ofc the trade-off is less power, less damage.

Having said that, I believe both builds excel as long-range assault, but at melee range, using a greatsword puts us at a huge disadvantage.

With my build, i dont shatter a lot but rather use the clones to buy me time while i kite and bring opponent’s health down with GS aa to kill-zone, then I can burst with 3 MoP charge and/or Mind Wrack. Other burst combos I use, mostly to finish off runners include: Prestige (blink to drop a fire blast right onto them) followed up with the standard iLeap/Swap/Blurred Frenzy.

About rotation: I always start with iZerker, the cripple helps a bit with kiting.

Cheers,

+1, although blast finisher seems a bit too strong, guaranteed projectile finisher is good enough for me.

Pretty cool ideas here.
Here’s my 2cents
I once used sigil of rage on scepter as a bandaid solution to its slowness issue. This makes me think, how about giving us access to quickness in the form of buffing malicious sorcery trait in inspiration. Something like remove the cooldown reduction since scepter skills already on fairly short CDs, then replace with scepter skills have 15% chance to grant u 2s quickness on hit, 10s icd. Keep the +300 condi dmg boost ofc.
How about that?

EverythingEnds.4261:

I also don’t get, why ranger pets seem to have a faster speed than my Character, so kiting them isn’t that easy, but on the other hand, we have this awfull phantasm design.

Just fyi, ranger pets can be traited for a 30% speed boost, although i doubt many rangers use that trait, its quite underwhelming.

Instead of make it a blast finisher, how about make the skill a combo field so that we can self combo like we do on staff?

Heres something i come up with:

Thrust your greatsword into the ground and stab foes at a target area. Also leave a lingering field of pulsating dark energy that converts boons on foes to vulnerability.

Initial damage: -same as current-
Radius: 240
Duration: 5s
Combo field: Dark
Interval: 1s
Each pulse converts a boon into 2 stacks of vulnerability per target
Max target: 5
Range: 1200
Cooldown: 15s
Cast time: 1/4s

I’m voting for #2-4 as well.

Xaylin.1860:

• Increased number of targets

Wouldn’t it break the golden rule AoE 5 target cap?

Xaylin.1860:

• Increased radius

Yes please, 240 or even 360 radius.

Xaylin.1860:

• Increased number of boons ripped
• Conditional bonus like Sw#1.3

How about rips 2 boons if targets have condition(s) on them? —> Good synergy with skills Mirror Blade and iZerker.

Yup, dont forget the block, Pyroatheist has an entire build based in mimic block.

Since when PU deals damage?

Thats not a bug, thats exactly how mimic works.
Agree with you the description is pretty vague though.

Atherakhia.4086:

The last class you’d expect to fill the sprinter role is Warrior :/

Gotta agree with you here.
When we think about warriors, they’re frontline soldiers who would march into battle with an unshaken resolve. From this perspective, Anet totally nailed the class. But then, things got a bit too much out of hand. With so much speed burst from weapon skills (sword #2 leap, gs #3 and #5), we now have roflcopter roaming warriors trolling people around and these make the class look bad (thinking of someone who quit the army and has drinking issues)

Meanwhile, ranger… so much more can be done about the class to make it more iconic.

Doesn’t reflect completely shut down a p/d condi thief? We mesmers have plenty of it.

With stealthy thief, u’r gonna have a hard time pumping out clones to deal conditions to him with clone-death traits.

Also, have u tried using pDisenchanter by yourself? The phantasm is super sneaky and on fairly short CD.

Your choice of Mimic is nice though. Maybe use Mirror heal as well?

In addition to other points people already made above, clonespam condi builds (with or without PU) rely on opponent being aggressive to you to counter and prevail by outlasting the opponent. Condi builds are made stronger than ever in the current meta because people really hate mesmers and will try to focus fire on mesmers at first sight, this i know from my personal experience in WvW.
I disagree with the statement condi build deals less damage then power build. You are comparing sustained damage over time vs burst damage in a short timeframe.

I think its just lazy programming, everything feels lazy about this class design… sigh.

@trooper: good to know that you tested my idea, it seems like without any investment in condition duration (no points in Domination traitline), its not going to work. Ah well, we just keep trying other things xD.

Updated the link with the refined version of the build.
Anyone else has tried this build? Please let me know what you think.

Seeing how people rage when they lose to mesmer because they
a) don’t know the class well,
b) can’t stay calm, and
c) lose their wit and can’t wrap their head around what’s going on
I think Anet did a good job creating a class based on the core nature of messing with the minds.
Please stop nerfing us. xD

Some cool ideas to make ranger the fastest class:

Agility Training (Skirmish VI): the effect now applies to ranger as well.
~ a permanent 30% movement speed increase.

Master’s Bond (Beastmastery II): For each stack the pet has, ranger gains 2% in movement speed, this effect will remove when u swap pet.
~ a potential of 25 stacks equivalent to 50% movement speed increase.

Here’s my version of the build, I have great fun in wvw with it. Have no trouble downing people from afar, and run away if got focused.

Link: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEqUwaJLusw1agAha9AEAbdrbw9+mDh9B/q9A-TFzDwAMOCAsVa04QA8b/RJWhLAgaTBAM5wVJYTlBHeAAtU/xjuAA-w

@mistsim: thanks for sharing this build with us.

Jocksy.3415:

I guess it’s because on use of skills like LR, it might cleanse immob as an alteration, instead of doing it from the skill (eg, if I have immob, weakness and chill on, and use LR, it gets rid of the immob, then cleanse other alterations, while a cleanse at the beginning would possibily cleanse two of them, without leaving immob to be taken off by LR).

Plus, it seems consistent with most other cleanses (not all, but most cleanse at the end of the animation, instead of at the start)

^
This. For LR, it means immobilize will get cleansed first, then 2 more conditions, so that’s 3 conditions removed.

Hi Chaos,
Just stumbled upon this piece of work of yours. Awesome story, Chaos. Keep up the good work.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@Lemuux: Ty!

@Ptolemy: Rangers can’t be that bad! Besides, fortunately for me I’m not stuck worrying about game balance when I’m writing. (Gasmic lightning flashed like 4 times in that story)

---

Also, does anyone here have a ranger alt I could interview/use for the story? Screenshots or anything? I’d rather use one of the people here in our forum before I galavant off to the rangers’ section.

@Chaos: To write story about fight between ranger vs thief from a 3rd perspective, you gonna need high-speed motion capture camera and stealth-detection goggles, naked eyes will miss most of the action.
Kidding aside, I would love to see such a story of their fight that really reflect the very nature of both classes: speed. =)

Comment about Intelligence Sigil: if u pair it up with Air or Fire sigil the air/fire proc will consume 1 charge as Lightning Strike/Fire Blast is treated as a separate attack.
Silly me using those sigils with my Mantra of Pain 3-charge combo.

chaotic affliction.5038:

keenlam.4753:

you can try a phantasm build with sword/focus + staff. Its a fun build that I used back then, u aggro mobs with staff aa, let mobs swarm on you then u drop a chaos storm, switch to sword/focus, summon iwarden then hack away until they all die.

Maybe something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsdWEeoNiqhcynDJVgS2pEA-e

This seems very close to what I was thinking of doing…

- What stats do I want on my armor?
- What about runes and sigils?
- Is there an effective greatsword variant to this build?
- Would you pretty much always avoid shattering unless it will finish the fight?
- Could you suggest some skills to go along with Signet of Illusions?
- For the sake of skill text, does the word “illusions” include phantasms? (I am guessing yes, or Signet of Illusions wouldn’t make sense)

What does everyone else think about this build?

Hi,
1) As you are leveling, you want to stack as much power as possible, then precision, and then if you feel squishy, maybe invest in a bit of toughness. Anything else is kinda irrelevant until u hit lvl80.
2) Again any runes and sigils that boost your dmg to kill things faster are recommended.
3) This is just personal preference but I haven’t been much of a fan of greatsword until recently with my sniper build, so can’t help u on this.
4) Yes, its a phantasm build so the point is to not shatter, however, F3 F4 can be used situationally to get you out of bad situations.
5) Most mesmers (including myself) swear by Decoy and Blink, and for good reasons, they’re among the best utilities we have. As for heal, you can use the signet and forget about pressing heal skill (this applies in PvE only). Elite is Mass Invi, or Time Warp if u doing group events or dungeons.
6) Illusions refer collectively to both clones and phantasms.

Hope that helps.

Ok 1 more thing before I go bed:
maybe try Scepter/Sword for 2nd set, you lose the stealth and immobilize, but you have 1 more way to apply torment, much better clone generation rate for shatter or trigger DD, and while Scepter is popular in condi builds, all of its skills actually scale nicely with power. Scepter #3 can even be used to bait out 1 dodge to up the chance they cannot dodge iWarlock.

Cheers,