Guild Wars 2

I was really surprised when they made power lock AoE. With that precedent it makes perfect sense to either make Imbued Diversion easier to acquire trait-wise or provide it by default. In the latter case, it’d be nice to have it replaced with another viable GM (not holding breath).

jportell.2197:

Levetty.1279:

As I constantly point out, anytime somebody tries to start a conversation about the weaknesses of the Mesmer class and the poor way in which the balance team have handled the class somebody always comes in to tell us stories about how they can take on entire enemy zergs or 1v1 thiefs with no traits.

Very tiring.

This right here, people keep saying how they have these amazing builds that are gonna be the meta, completely ignoring why mesmers are taken in the first place. People completely ignore that the only viable build mesmers have, is hard countered by well any thief build. They then point out how they have an amazing build that completely wrecks thieves. Well what does it do besides that? Does it match necros/engis condi pressure? Does it have the sustain of any of the other classes? How is it mobility wise? Does it even have portal? What about boon removal?

Then it’s clear that this amazing gonna be meta build is good for one thing, countering thieves, and nothing else.

Would absolutely love hearing about a build with zero traits that works vs thieves and takes on entire zergs.

And would also love to hear about amazing builds claiming to be the next meta! The only builds I’ve seen talked about in this thread are those that perform pretty decent vs thieves. And those same builds weren’t touted to be the end all build for every situation.

The message is to simply adapt when you see a potential hard counter on the other team. When I see a thief, I’ll play one of those effective aforementioned builds and I’ll generally perform rather well. Conversely, if I see an engineer I’ll likely go shatter because the power damage is better vs the turret spam.

In the end you play to win after all. Adapting is the way to play to win.

Vieux P.1238:

StickerHappy.8052:

Vieux P.1238:

alanis.6094:

StickerHappy.8052:

4.) I still don’t understand behind the idealogy of meta, its not as if 95% of the mesmer population will play top tier pvp.

This x100. Crying about thieves when there are many Mesmer builds that handle them just fine, is a problem with individuals not the profession.

Ok alanis, gimme 1?

Condi Mesmer.

Ah yes, the famous Condi mesmer.. Aka (PU Condi). Yes that was the great thief equalizer. I use to play one. But guess what, PU got nerfed among the other things & is no longer the great equalizer. So try again… ps: If you get downed by a condi mesmer, maybe you might want to considder spamming on button number 2 instead of just the usual button mashing number 1 to kill the mesmer. That might help..

Most maim builds wreck thieves.
PU, played well, wrecks thieves.
Countless’ clone on death build obliterates thieves.
Certain celestial specs wreck thieves, though you won’t see them actively advertised here cause haters.

I could go on with various power builds but don’t see the point. Build diversity isn’t perfect but certainly not the problem in this case. There are plenty of viable builds that can be used when you see a thief on the other team. It just takes more experimentation to play these other builds so that when you’re up against a thief you have options, as opposed to the inflection in this thread that mesmers are rendered helpless against them.

MailMail.6534:

Mogar.9216:

From a post in the pvp section looks like Anet is nerfing this in the HOT expansion, at least for thieves .

link please?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/HoT-Demo-Possible-bad-news-for-thieves

I understand the frustration, but have to disagree. This isn’t a class issue, it’s more of a meta issue.

The only case where thief hard counters mesmer is when mesmer plays a standard shatter build. Literally any other mesmer build has a solid chance at beating a thief 1 on 1 in PvP and winning more than 1 in 3. Even good shatter mesmers have a decent chance at beating good d/p thieves depending on how the first steal goes. s/d is the real problem with shatter mesmers. To fix that, Consume Plasma could maybe be toned down a tad.

Shatter mesmers are played at the highest levels in the current meta. In every other scenario (99%), many, many viable builds can be used, most of which perform decent vs most thieves out there.

Just a correction, Sticker was playing the bruiser variant of Utility Wizard.

Giants.9362:

Since thieves hard counter Mesmers and there is a whole lot of them out there, would it be a bad idea to play a Mesmer if you want to roam solo? Thanks.

Thieves really only hard counter shatter builds. Any condition build or even lockdown to some degree is going to give you a good matchup or even advantage versus most thieves out there.

First person wouldn’t be useful, but the longer throw field of view we’re getting may prove to be useful.

Hey Slim, just a couple suggestions. I’m a bit late to the party.

On your first video – when fighting necromancers pay attention to when they use spectral armor. Whenever they take damage from you while that’s up, you renew their life force. I noticed a couple fights (temple/khylo) where this happened. You won both fights, but it’s typically best to wait out spectral armor unless you know you can down them before death shroud comes back.

For the elementalist fight on forest, I noticed you attacked through arcane shield which is never a good idea. Just look for the big yellow-ish bubble or the icon on their bar. Sometimes it’s difficult to notice or cancel attacks when they pop it in the middle of a combo, but eating that damage can really hurt.

On the second video, valiant effort on the fight with the 2 necromancers, you (accidentally?) targeted the new one when you almost had the original down. You may have been able to pull that one out if you stuck on the original. Good recovery duel after that.

Oh, the time warp plays in both vids! Very nice.

In this build, I think halting strike is a much better choice than mental torment. The difficult decision on whether to take mental torment vs halting strike is more for when you run a typical shatter build. When you don’t shatter nearly as often (like in yours), halting strike is definitely going to win out.

Regarding the gear, I don’t think centaur is the best choice. I do think a power based rune is what you need, but something like hoelbrak or pack as cho suggested might be a better fit for the build. If mobility is ultimately that important, your options are unfortunately limited.

OP, just a couple notes. Retaliation doesn’t crit, and master of misdirection isn’t a 33% damage increase on confusion (amazing if it was). It’s 33% longer duration for your confusion applications.

The only team that came consistently close was the Absurd. Those few weeks of watching Absurd/Abjured duke it out were amazing. I have to imagine that age restrictions limit some potential juggernaut teams from really going after it because even though they may do well in weeklies and go 4 monthlies, they’ll never get a crack at the big events. I wish I was wrong but have a feeling that’s the case.

So I guess I’m asking, what did absurd do well to compete on abjured’s level?

From a PvP perspective, as much as it’s awesome to have a bunch of mesmers fighting each other in our arena, being able to bring in good players of other professions to duel/train against would be really nice. I’ve just never had ideas to make that happen or protocol to keep things in check. If we could figure this out I think it would be great for the guild.

Shatter mesmers are infamous for being thief food. I’m not sure if that’s what the OP is running, but if you have such a hard time playing vs thieves, I would suggest a different approach (aka build). In anything other than the top tier (which is the majority of us), there are many viable mesmer builds that can be played in ranked/unranked and handle thieves well.

Yes each current skill that grants stability will get re-worked (per the revenant stream) to assign the appropriate amount of stacks per skill. So, like balanced stance – I could see that granting like 3 stacks that need removed. I imagine power break (via MoC) would get 1, etc.

The change won’t necessarily diminish the boon removal role we currently have; remember stability is only one important boon that needs stripped. Botton line is there will be one additional way to remove stability than just boon removal skills/traits which I think is a good change. For mesmers specifically, it will make us think about whether to spend our cc to strip or wait it out. I’m guessing that waiting out stab is still going to be the norm. Team play with AoE cc from all classes is really where we’ll see some dynamic changes in big fights (yay MoD/Imbued Diversion, GS push, focus pull, etc).

For those who have run the numbers, halting strike ends up winning out only if you get frequent AND successful interrupts. It also largely depends on the weapons you use and interrupt sources. I’ll just quote from supcutie’s guide:

“Do I pick Halting Strike or Mental Torment?
The math turns out to be something like you need 2.5 interrupts per 11 seconds for Halting Strike to break even with Mental Torment based on average-ish Shatter damage. This is actually very hard to do, so it seems like Mental Torment would be better?
Mental Torment is more consistent damage and has more downed body cleave.
Halting Strike however means you’re not “putting all your eggs in one basket” so to speak, and you have other sources of damage. I strongly prefer Halting Strike. If you miss your Mind Wrack or the clones end up not dealing the damage you want, Halting Strike gives you another opportunity.
Halting Strike also makes it so your Chaos Storm is a force to be reckoned with, and actually zones people a lot more effectively.”

Link to entire guide: http://bit.ly/SupcutieGuide

I’ll just take a quick moment to plug that guide. It has many little nuggets even for the most polished and veteran mesmers. It’s a really great read especially if you primarily play shatter, plus there are quite a few tips when playing CI lockdown and tips on fighting all other professions.

KngGilgamesh.3481:

It still has timers, at least it looked that way in POI.

It does: http://www.twitch.tv/m/788034

The way I looked at it is like how you can strip defiant from PvE world bosses currently. One CC = one stack of stability stripped. Watching the revenant play on the stream, it also looked like it had a timer (meaning it’s not permanent until it’s stripped). Will need to read stream notes to confirm for sure.

Duck touched on it above, but with the addition of slow, it stands to reason that we’ll see
some love for quickness across the board to combat it. Chronomancer will be certain to have some new capabilities, but I could see some spices of quickness added to other classes. Wouldn’t be surprised to see enhancements to pre-existing skills/traits as well.

My take on this one, OP – you could certainly go all ham as others have suggested; this trait spread certainly lends to that. However, if you want to be more tanky/survivable as you’ve said, keeping soldiers amulet isn’t a bad idea.

I would experiment with using pack runes vs hoelbrak. You’ll have a few things with that minor change that you don’t have now: 1) access to fury, 2) access to swiftness and 3) more base precision. More fury and precision now mean the somewhat mediocre damage you were doing before is now a little bit better. Tack onto that a small change of swapping mantra mastery for maybe phantasmal fury and now your phantams do that much more potential damage.

You can keep mender’s purity but I think switching that to compounding power is better for your damage. A couple more thoughts – as this seems to be more of a tanky phantasm build, maybe DE isn’t needed. Since you’ll be charging mantras so much, you could experiment with protected mantras. Lending to that suggestion, swap mantra of distraction for mantra of concentration. This gives you even more stun breaks and access to stability while charging your mantras. My final advice would be to swap the ice sigil for hydromancy on the staff. Since you’ll be fighting on point with this build, I think you’ll get a lot more mileage out of that. Also if you end up ditching DE, you could go with sigils other than energy.

I also disagree with the proposed changes and honestly don’t understand the hate on focus. It’s by far our best off hand weapon. Of course it’s my opinion, but it offers so much in all game modes. In PvP I definitely feel this way.

My past experience with other players dictate that people who seem to think focus is lackluster haven’t really taken the time to truly master it. By mastering it, I mean understanding all the combos and nuances of the curtain with your main hand weapon and utilities, where to properly cast the warden and how to properly utilize the warden spin. Once you master it, you become a master manipulator in both 1v1 and team fights. This is heightened even more when focus is traited.

I had a friend who shunned the focus but recently decided to try. It’s now a month later and he’s owning with it and can’t imagine playing without it. OP – I’m not saying you don’t have experience with focus, but clearly there is a disconnect between the players who use it to it’s potential and those that think it’s lackluster.

With many of their attacks they have to be close to you to do significant damage. You can bait this out and almost wait for it, but it takes patience and a bit of kiting as others have said. When they get in close, dodge their attack and unleash a quick shatter combo, even if just one clone.

Holl.3109:

Hello pplz,
I quite enjoy mesmer and staff. IMO one of the best weapons ingame.
So I was just wondering, are there any power builds (for PvP/WvW) that have phase retreat on a 6/5 (forgot) second CD?

This would need at least 3 points in the last trait line and 4 in chaos.
Any known builds that have this? IK condi could achieve it, but what about powa builds?

Thanks

I won’t post it here because it’s not fully fleshed out, but I have a good hybrid build using celestial with 6s phase retreat. Feel free to contact me in game if you’re interested.

This bug makes these runes unplayable currently which is a shame since scavenger is a decent choice for condition/hybrid builds.

If you don’t want to block and get the feeling there’s no getting through those people, the sarcasm/irony advice is the best. Just agree with everything they say or just say the same thing every time, ala “woo hoo”, or “Thanks!”, or some other random thing. The key is really to get them to rage harder so they get tired of it. Note this only for those with thick skin, but quite fun.

I wasn’t able to pull up the video.

A couple more notes on this trait as I tested it fairly recently as well – range is 600, condition is cleansed as the illusion begins shatter animation. If you have IP, the cleanse is instantaneous (like how distortion works). Why one would want to run these traits together though is beyond me.

The trait is unreliable due to the requirement of the illusion needing to stay alive amidst AoE’s to reach it’s target to shatter. If it dies on the way, no cleanse.

Overall yeah, still pretty sub-par for a GM trait even after the small attempts at buffing it over the past couple years.

EDIT: To pyro’s comment, if the wiki is up to date I have more testing to do. In my last experience the condition wasn’t cleansed until the shatter animation (not when a shatter skill used, unless you have IP).

OP, mesmer is actually pretty strong in the current meta, especially playing shatter. IMO shatter can be effectively played with any weapons (maybe except scepter). Sword/Focus is a great weapon set to play shatter with. There are so many things you can do, much of which is mentioned in the thread here, but there are also some cool shatter combos you can use with the iWarden/pull.

As for portal, if you don’t feel you can personally take advantage of using it’s utility, it’s usually best to just not take it. I’ve seen solo que mesmers take portal and make great use of it (Countless is a great example). Even with portal and his best efforts, I’ve seen him carry a team only so far and still come up very short many times. So it’s a toss up to me and typically just doesn’t get taken unless there is coordination between at least 2 players.

Supreme.3164:

This is the build I use for PvP on staff if you like the style, a celestial staff variant, very viable in my opinion.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhcMacW4wyBd0AGAC5oDbGMRgir3C-TJRGwAAeAAJuAAt2fYZZAA

Thanks for sharing the build – so basically a cantrip cele build. Looks good on paper. I’m wondering how much damage it puts out though. You have might from the cantrips, but how much do you typically maintain in fights? I also like the sustain from the high healing power/regen, though I wonder how much better the build could be by taking 2 from water and taking EA. You then rely primarily on cleansing fire and water attunement for condition management. I presume you’ve probably tried this; what is the reasoning?

Snakebyte.2804:

Skcamow (or anyone), do you think Condi CI or Condi shatter is more viable for WvW roaming right now?

I don’t know about maim as I haven’t played that in WvW, but condi CI does very well.

Curunen.8729:

Yeah, Condi CI version of 0/4/6/4/0 is definitely the most fun.

But to the OP – I’m surprised you’re not taking mirror heal for the extra reflect – especially considering you will be getting a lot of regen through phantasms and boon duration through chaos line.

Pretty sure we’re in the minority when it comes to using mirror. xD

Hi all, I’m a mesmer main looking to branch out into the wonderful world of ele in PvP, but only staff at this point (I realize the meta is d/d).

I’d like to find a workable build for staff. I found Azilyi’s guide as well as the metabattle build (which seems akin to the d/d build). Azilyi’s build seems more enticing but honestly I really want to run zerker. I’m sure this subject has probably been broached many times and I seem to recall a staff ele (on Apex?) who I think ran zerker before the bird on the pirate rune was nerfed.

Is that the closest we got to a viable zerker staff build? Have any of you experimented or found anything to be viable in the months since then? I’ve been looking around for awhile now but haven’t been able to fully commit to something because I haven’t found a build I’m totally sold on. I could still be swayed to play celestial if I can’t find a good zerker build. So with that said, zerker staff eles, show me your stuff! Thanks in advance …

In my experience extensively testing my own bunker-ish type build (Utility Wizard), my conclusion is that if you’re after a pure tank – immovable from a point – as your first and foremost goal, sword is the correct choice leaving little doubt. That’s what I started with on mine.

However, I wanted to play my build and actually do some damage. Back then I changed three small things. A trait swap, scepter vs sword and settlers vs clerics. All of the sudden I had a resemblance of a build that could keep the sustain of clerics but actually damage people with conditions while staying alive.

Then came the buffs to celestial amulet, torment on scepter and confusing images. After the cele buff, I changed the amulet from settler’s to cele and haven’t looked back. It’s a very effective build, good sustain and damage (once might stacks build, which they always do).

And so to OP and anyone wanting to play a tanky, hard to bring down build I would say – choose your primary role. For bunker I would swap that cele ammy for settler’s and really get rid of any stealth you have in there. If you want to do a little damage and become more of a hard to bring down bruiser, cele would work fine in that build, though I would probably make some tweaks either way based on the decision you make there.

Snakebyte.2804:

Just wanted to point out that the condi version of this can be totally nasty too.

Yep, 0/4/6/4/0 is a very versatile trait spread that allows for both power and condition damage options. I believe Chaos’ most current version of his maestro support build also uses this spread, but I believe uses staff vs GS: Chaos Maestro PvP. Here’s the condition version I’ve posted previously: Chaotic Perdition

As for your version here, I like the more interrupt focused spice. Have you tried playing it with Staff?

Fury can also be applied to illusions via rune effects (altruism/pack) and can be shared with them via signet of inspiration.

Something else I’ve noticed is that illusions can acquire might via the same mentioned mechanisms, though I presume is ignored since illusions naturally inherit the power and condition damage increases you personally receive via might.

Yeah there have been random condition duration bugs related to all illusions that have kinda plagued our class since the beginning. I think along the way some have been fixed but the last time I verified any of it was quite a few patches ago and who knows what else may have been broken since then.

Calliope.8675:

I am pretty sure that is taken care of already.

Yep, took care of it the other night. You should be good flea, let me know if not.

TyPin.9860:

Yep, and that’s what I did in the end… as I have said^^

And you did the absolute best thing to express your opinion on that style of fighting. Speaking purely devil’s advocate, the more people do that, the less fights these other roamers can engage in, which may lead to thought on changing their style.

I have to agree that not many people I know enjoy fighting someone like this. A PU condition mesmer is a great example. Most just ignore them and guess what, the PU mesmer or hit/run type player probably won’t get the benefit of fighting other players as much as if they used a different build or play style.

I’m not dissing any of these builds or styles, but given the way you feel about this, employing that tactic will be much more of a weapon than engaging them to fight.

Ross Biddle.2367:

trooper.2650:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Added a pure vs thief montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz3vb8fBIoY

Somebody may think you have something against thieves Do you?

Actually my beef is with Mesmers atm. To much QQ over them being hard countered by thieves. All the while trying to run a build not viable against them -_-u

In high tier play, running a build other than shatter just isn’t as effective as any other mesmer build currently available. Double ranged seems to be the most popular, but you’re seeing many more Sw/T-GS or Staff shatter mesmers to help with the thief issue (and it indeed does).

When you get down below high level play, I 100% agree with your statement.

Even so, it could justifiably be said that the aspiring few top tier players learning the most effective build and getting wrecked over and over by the hard counter gets old. The QQ is understandable. For the more casual players, yeah stop whining when there are plenty of builds you can play.

The ultimate issue in my opinion is a lack of build diversity in the top tier.

P.S. nice montage

Bunda.2691:

Great write-up.

I’m having success with a condition lockdown, which I think has a lower skill cap (and thus better suited to my less-than-stellar skill level) and higher cheese factor. Wondering if anyone else has been trying something like this as well?

Using staff, scepter/pistol with -/4/6/-/4 and rabid trinket w/ undead runes. It’s a little cheesy, in that I’m just interrupting to death while conditions overwhelm them. Throw in signet of domination for condi damage and another interrupt (for a total of 5 plus f3), and you can easily keep might stacks high for major condi damage. Weakness of course is no condi removal, but I’ll sometimes swap the offensiveness of signet of dom for null field if I see a necro approaching.

Anyone else tried condi lockdown?

Yep, but with a different approach than yours. I use Staff/Sc-F: Chaotic Perdition

Works well in both WvW and PvP, especially after the torment buff we got.

I’m probably in the minority here, but think it’d be pretty OK if the new offhand didn’t contain a phantasm. Rather, we’d get two new awesome skills to play with. After all, our “shield” phantasm already exists. Not to say the new phantasm has to be or would be defensive in nature, just that we have one that could easily have been a shield phantasm had the shield been available at launch.

This is what I run when WvW roaming with shatter, 0/4/4/0/6. It provides some decent survivability over standard shatter not only in the small amount of extra toughness, but the protection/regen proc from the chaos line. I use cry of frustration to get some retaliation via confusing cry which helps a little against spammy auto attackers. Can be switched with compounding power or masterful reflection for ranger defense.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJAWRlknpGtFpxMNcrNitxYyOiA1Ld0UlMghB-TFCFAByt/AAHCgCV/5KlgIp8zhnAQa6CW4CAQGAmtA-w

Ross Biddle.2367:

adelaide.6213:

Let’s talk about the 2nd build I linked, where I sacrificed the 2 points in dueling and kept CS.

I’ll run your variant and take some vids and post it up as a review.

This is my favorite version of the build posted. I think having CS + IC + PH really makes the build stand out that much more. At that point dueling master is a toss up, though you’ll probably go for blade training. Curious to see your thoughts Ross when you get to testing it out.

Zento.7401:

But that detail will not fix the problems of mesmer

Of course not, but certainly having more capabilities to blast available water fields would be a very nice option to have.

If Anet decides to keep things going on the path they’ve set with the celestial meta, one thing they could do for mesmer is increase their sustain capabilities (mainly speaking of healing). Increasing sustain could be accomplished by many varying things. It could be as simple as adding a blast finisher to a couple existing weapon skills, introduce some other trait or utility, or even maybe tweak the ether signet to outperform ether feast in raw healing output. I think this is the direction Anet was trying to go with the signet in the first place – giving mesmers more options in this area, and it wouldn’t take a whole lot of fidgeting to provide a bit more.

I’m not suggesting this should happen, as I’m not sold myself on the current meta. But if we are stuck with this current sustain driven meta, something like this could potentially be a solution.

Dixo.3876:

Is it possible to get a list of daze immunity by class (other than stability). For example, I randomly get immune from engineers and haven’t found out why.

ie Berserker’s Stance can’t daze but I pretty sure you can during Endure Pain.

Here you go – you’re probably running into aegis, gear shield or elixir S.

• Invulnerability skills (under profession skills):
  http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Invulnerability

Yes, daze goes through endure pain and should work through berserker stance as well. The latter makes them impervious only to conditions, not control effects.

• Block skills from each profession will deny a daze from mesmers: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Block. Note though, there are some unblockable skills on other professions that cause control effects.
• Evade skills:
  http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evade
• Opponent dodges
• The aegis boon

I think that’s it.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Well he did play Invigoration when I was watching his stream this month.

I believe he traits illusionary invigoration when he runs sw/t, which he seems to be doing more on specific maps. When he runs double ranged, he takes illusionary elasticity.

Hi rainbow, welcome to the game. Taking the Sharper Images trait means that all your illusion attacks will cause bleeding on a critical hit. Illusions can be phantasms or clones. When you’re in staff and have a couple clones out, their auto attacks can really stack up the bleeds if you have decent precision. Precision and critical chance are two different stats. Though precision directly affects how high critical chance can go, it’s not the only thing that can boost it. This is where phantasmal fury comes in.

All illusions use your base precision, so the higher that is, the more often sharper images will proc on their attacks. Taking phantasmal fury gives your phantasms an additional 20% more critical chance, so if your base critical chance is 50%, your phantasm’s base crit chance is 70%. As you mentioned, this works great with the duelist to stack bleeds.

As for sigils, they work a bit differently. They do not work on your illusions and are rather based on your personal attacks that land a critical hit. If that occurs, the sigil has a chance to proc. Using superior sigil of earth as an example, if your personal winds of chaos attack crits, there is a 60% chance to inflict one bleed on the opponent (with a 2 second internal cooldown).

Is there a good zerker staff ele guide someone could recommend?

Looking forward to more SEVEN MIRROR vids inc!

Welcome back, whenever that is …

Zietlogik.6208:

I had a bug where I canceled a queue, traveled to lion’s arch, and was about to log to go do something else, and a queue popped!? I wasn’t too pleased

I had the exact same thing happen to me earlier, about 3 hours ago where I was queued for unranked, left the queue (was in a custom arena) and about a minute later was asked to ready up for the match.

StickerHappy.8052:

skcamow.3527:

StickerHappy.8052:

Yes, i know a lot of these stuff already,. I’m asking like what if the competition is now with really skilled players, how can I pull of shatters really well?

The blink shatter works for unsuspecting foes, without them seeing you first, if they manage did see you first they can count, and dodge or block the incoming shatter.

Any new tips on surprising foes or landing shatters really well?

I like using my Gs5 blink push, I think not all people are expecting that.

The issue is that we need more ways to root opponents to land shatters. Since iLeap/Swap isn’t always reliable and very predictable, you could try playing a stun/shatter build. So you run the typical 4/4/0/0/6 but with sw/p and signet of domination. Now you have iLeap/Swap and two stuns at your disposal with which to more frequently land shatter combos. I understand pistol #5 and signet of dom are rather slow, but with two stuns, you’ll be able to overcome most builds which typically take one stun break.

I tried a build like this awhile back, but it was too support focused. Having both of those stuns at my disposal really helped land the shatters when I needed them though, helping me control the fight in that sense. I just needed more damage. I might try something like this again with that different perspective.

Hmm interesting, but what do you replace over Signet of Domination then?

Depends on how married you are to condition removal. I would personally run SoD, cleanse mantra and blink.

StickerHappy.8052:

Yes, i know a lot of these stuff already,. I’m asking like what if the competition is now with really skilled players, how can I pull of shatters really well?

The blink shatter works for unsuspecting foes, without them seeing you first, if they manage did see you first they can count, and dodge or block the incoming shatter.

Any new tips on surprising foes or landing shatters really well?

I like using my Gs5 blink push, I think not all people are expecting that.

The issue is that we need more ways to root opponents to land shatters. Since iLeap/Swap isn’t always reliable and very predictable, you could try playing a stun/shatter build. So you run the typical 4/4/0/0/6 but with sw/p and signet of domination. Now you have iLeap/Swap and two stuns at your disposal with which to more frequently land shatter combos. I understand pistol #5 and signet of dom are rather slow, but with two stuns, you’ll be able to overcome most builds which typically take one stun break.

I tried a build like this awhile back, but it was too support focused. Having both of those stuns at my disposal really helped land the shatters when I needed them though, helping me control the fight in that sense. I just needed more damage. I might try something like this again with that different perspective.