Guild Wars 2

If you’re pugging a casual run (no zerk/no speed clear), you could use a boon share build or any build you want for that matter (see build sticky for The Chaos Maestro).

If you’re in a speed clear group with a staff, maxinion’s advice is good. You might get some weird looks or comments – possibly even a kick (so don’t be surprised by that). But if you participate in this type of run, basically throw down iWarlock, auto attack as closely as possible to the target (though try to stay in sword mostly) and never throw down your chaos storm over the fire fields. Basically, I’d say never use chaos storm at all in this type of group.

Just bear in mind that sword is going to generally do about 20% more damage than staff overall (in my testing), and that’s assuming you’re taking illusionary elasticity.

The build is good, very viable for team PvP. With a ranged build like that you need to ensure you’re not in the thick of the fight often – only for needed bursts for damage or boon stripping. Keep on the outside of the points. Along with that, re-positioning is vital.

Sensotix just released a new video explaining (and demonstrating) those things in detail and a lot more. This one is a winner for getting an understanding of how to play ranged shatter mesmer in PvP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwfnFs175BI&list=UUhKcXTocz7_QAnpbCCeOtfw

Nazer mentioned it, but pretty much the biggest one we have to deal with in the evade vs invulnerable issue is retaliation. Before the change to evade, you could blurred frenzy to your hearts content and not take a lick of damage from an opponent with retal. Now you can come close to insta-killing yourself if you’re not paying attention.

Pyroathiest.4168:

King.6745:

Distortion shatter is currently bugged, unless this was it’s actual effect. It currently only evades attacks rather than granting invulnerability on shatter. Meaning, you cannot walk through Line of Warding, Static Fields and similar abilities like these. I assume Distortion is suppose to give you invulnerability rather than evasion and I do not see anything in the patch notes regarding a change like this.

Uhoh. Brb testing this.

Tested, this is a large problem. I’ll be sending a PM to Grouch about this. I encourage everyone to do the same.

PM’d him. Grouch helps us out pls!

Pyroathiest.4168:

skcamow.3527:

Hey! They fixed iDisenchanter’s fifth attack! Parade in the streets commences. Think illusionary elasticity extends it? Think it works with staff clone winds of chaos attacks?

No.

Yeah I know, I had tested it too.
/sarcasmofffornow

Hey! They fixed iDisenchanter’s fifth attack! Parade in the streets commences. Think illusionary elasticity extends it? Think it works with staff clone winds of chaos attacks?

@Jebro and the folks playing around with this build, I wanted to call further attention to the original Mind Crush build posted by ChaosArchangel many months ago. It’s very close to the same build as the stunner here, with very few exceptions, but most notably Mind Crush uses Staff/Sw-Sw.

The Mind Crush thread has a lot of good information about how to play this build, from tactics to combos, playstyle breakdown and a game play video illustrating the playstyle.

One other thing I want to note is that Confounding Suggestions received a ninja buff to daze duration, or else it’s bugged. Don’t know which yet but yeah, it extends daze duration when taken alone by 50% (not the advertised 25%). I did extensive testing on this to come to that conclusion. It stacks only with Runes of the Mesmer (no para sigil) which net a total of about 1.75s on every daze you inflict.

This is incorrect. See my testing of daze duration with all sources capable of doing so:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Daze-duration-results

Runes of the mesmer correctly extend duration to approximately 1.3s. The game does not, in my experience, round like that for daze duration.

I’m of the opinion that blasted water heals are far from useless. On many all zerk dungeon runs with my ranger I’ve blasted that warhorn on healing spring to give the party one last bit of health we need to take the boss down. Should I have to in a run like that? No, but it’s extremely handy when needed.

frifox.5283:

Another bug I just found that probably was there for ages – my clone is missing his weapon!

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5zwd_zey4w

Didn’t notice, was too distracted by your bolt awesomeness.

Sensotix.4106:

Zero.6592:

Sensotix.4106:

I am currently working on a video series covering roations for all the different classes and roles hope it will get online soon

Nice, sounds like a big project. It’s good to hear you are still making video’s

i will start tomorrow again with a build guide

Hopefully on your main class, not that other one
#purpleforever

But yes in all seriousness I’m sure those guides will be very helpful for old and newcomers alike.

frifox.5283:

Fay.2735:

I like using greatsword and I have no trouble killing things but then I don’t care about doing something 5 seconds faster.

I was all here ready to call your bluff and went ahead and solo’d Champing Icebrood Wolf using only the greatsword, just for fun. What do you know, my kill time compared to the sword/sword/focus attempt came out to be… only 3.7 seconds slower.

Guess I’ll let you have your way this time XD

I bet it was a lot easier too =P

It’s somewhat reminiscent of my chillruption build, using Imbued Diversion to AoE lock down opponents. I initially didn’t design the build to be used for boon share but after swapping chaotic dampening for bountiful interruption one match some months ago, I instantly realized there is probably no better way (or at least one of the best ways) for a mesmer to stack might than a GS/Staff ID interrupt mesmer.

Something that has plagued me personally though is the weak nature of ID itself. You have to wait for a fairly long CD to use the trait again. Mind you I don’t think it negates the usefulness of it completely and I’m personally in the process of updating chillruption for the recent patch changes.

But to use ID, I think the build needs to be designed to work around ID to complement it, so in my case CI, potentially BI, AND halting strike in a power build. In your build I question your traits a bit, but I admit with Imbued Diversion it’s an interesting exercise in determining what goes best with it. In soldier’s ammy halting strike is going to do nothing for you. Halting strike shines really only when it crits and you’re not going to be doing much of that. Shattered concentration is decent support but you’re not going to be shattering enough to warrant it.

You could play a shatter focused spec with DE, a more tanky support spec, or potentially even a condition spec. I don’t think a lot of those areas have been explored much. Understand ultimately the reason for that is that Imbued Diversion just doesn’t hold a candle to Illusionary Persona. But that’s not why we’re here, is it? xD.

So if you’re intent on going the more tanky route (as evidenced by soldier’s amulet), I personally would try to look into other ways to support your team – create more of a support focused build. You already have might taken care of, but what else can you provide? There are a few specs that could be explored.

In my experience with zergs is that by far our best AoE attacks are glamours, Chaos Storm, reflects and (to a much lesser extent) the iBerserker. As you’ve seen, problem is the berserker dies so quickly it doesn’t always work. Glamours (although they suck) remain by far the easiest way to deal AoE damage. You can get some decent damage from reflects in some cases, but many higher level organized zergs don’t use projectiles as much anymore.

One thing I’ve done in the past is use an Imbued Diversion clone bomb (see Chillruption in my signature). The issue with this is always opposing zerg stability but if it’s ripped or even a couple don’t have it, it’s highly satisfying with halting strike traited. The viability of running something like that though again highly depends on how sophisticated your foes are (which typically correspond to the server tier you’re playing in).

There is always picking off the back line, ganking, or other troll-ish activities to take part in with shatter specs. I’ve seen a few heavily tanked builds doing that type of thing. Mesmer has some very unique capabilities as well with invulns/evades (BF/F4/Blurred Inscriptions) to be able to blink in and out of zergs to get some AE damage off. These aren’t the easiest to pull off but I’ve seen builds that specialize in that sort of thing (see build sticky).

That’s the problem though, you really have to work at it to inflict nice AE damage. This touches on something that’s frustrated many a mesmer for awhile in zerg vs zerg play, which is our immense lack of AoE capability when compared to other classes.

I’m sure many others who WvW a lot more than I can weigh in on this one. I’ve definitely played my fair share but not nearly as much as some others who post here.

Would it be ridiculously annoying to just kick everyone out of a match without penalty if it’s anything other than 5v5 30 seconds into the live match? I’ve seen many times people showing up even up to a minute after the match begins so 30s is a decent buffer. The individuals who didn’t show would of course still get dishonorable.

At least the way things are currently with PvP numbers so high, queue pops aren’t that bad. I know it would be aggravating but better than having to endure a 4v5? I think in the end I personally would rather have that. Nothing’s worse than playing a lopsided match.

That, along with maybe decreasing dishonorable to two stacks. DC’d once, yeah it happens. Play other content until you know your connection is stable.

Yeah pretty sure this is Mind Crush (build sticky). It’s proven around here for sure, but lost a little luster after the Confounding Suggestions “fix”. Still strong though.

I’ll start by saying the stability mantra is good, but amazing with three charges

Thanks everyone for the feedback, I tried some of the suggestions.

Mantra Mastery – I noticed I wasn’t as effective overall, bringing people down slower. The very small gains in cooldown reduction seems less useful than the 70-ish % crit chance for my phantasm attacks, which is huge for my damage.

Being a shatter focused build, it’s vitally important for me to keep damage as high as possible due to the fact I don’t have illusionary persona or shatter cooldowns. Phantasmal Fury and Halting Strike are my ways to do that.

Daze Mantra – Suggested a few times, but at this point I think I’m stuck on signet of domination. It’s an incredibly powerful skill even on a long CD. Daze doesn’t immobilize and I need the stuns in this build to help land 3 clone MW’s and maximize my damage. If an opponent sees those shatters coming and dodges, I’ve lost a costly source of damage and have to wait the full untraited cooldown for it again. Between magic bullet, signet of dom and iLeap/Swap, I’m doing well landing my shatters for the most part.

Staff – Also suggested a few times and the only thing I’ve yet to try. Thing is, GS seems to fit this build perfectly, and I’m a bit concerned of the lessened damage output with staff. iWarlock is a bright spot, but his attack can be sketchy. I’ll definitely give it a shot though.

Runes/Sigils – Still experimenting here. I’ve now run Pack and Air. Air has to be my favorite due to the mobility, ferocity bonuses and lightning strike on #6 (moar damage). It’s great charging that heal mantra out of the gate to get a quick speed burst and getting swiftness in battle. Still, not 100% sold. For sigils, I tried blood and it’s decent. Will try some of the others.

I’m having a lot of fun with the build and it does the job, but I think there’s still untapped potential – need to flesh it out a bit more. Thanks for the ideas thus far – very helpful!

maxinion – THANKS, much appreciated and I’m looking forward to referencing and recommending this guide in the future.

maxinion.8396:

virq.4605:

Something like this? http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhEQRAsc8dnsISRaWiGWpB1aGR1QQZ30kOQiIlsTJA-TBCBwAGV+hd/Bcq/A4kAkS/wDzfZUCG4JAQGg8tA-e

Ofc switch to 6/4/0/4/0 when needed (no idea when and where but still :P). Sigils are just example, iam still not sure what to choose. Also iam not sure about 3 mantras (12% dmg from trait, as far as i can read its not buffing illusions).

More or less this, yes. I’m almost done with my Long Post About Everything, which will go into detail on why (and where) you want Mantras.

@maxinion – do you want to create an official build thread? I believe colesy had one but doesn’t reflect the latest patch changes. It would be nice to have a dungeon meta build thread to point folks to when these types of questions are asked (which has been a lot lately).

It sounds like you’re going into a bit more detail than just the build as well, and that might be great information for the mesmer guide (as well as your dungeon build thread).

As a companion to such thread, gw2dungeons.net appears to have the latest mesmer builds linked (to Brazil’s overviews post-4/15).

While the EM switch certainly hurt PvE, it opened up some interesting build opportunities for PvP/WvW.

Interestingly enough, these are the exact same traits (except MP vs. vigorous revelation) as the chaotic perdition build I posted awhile back, using staff and sw/f but mine is a condition build, not shatter focused and doesn’t take the signet (though probably could).

I’ve found it works rather well both in solo and team queue matches but stopped using it for now since iWarden got worse after the latest patch. CI is a beast in that build along with a heavy chill focus, and makes a noticeable difference in group combat.

So yeah I can see you kinda looking at CI being more support based.

Other thing about this discussion that’s important to consider is the build/traits being used. For example, sword off-hand is better to use IMO than pistol in a 4/4/6 lockdown build using CI and BI due to the pistol stun overwriting the effects of CI. Sword #4 daze orb is excellent for that type of build.

Tooltip is definitely wrong. Here are the daze results I tested a couple weeks ago. Runes of the mesmer and confounding suggestions are in fact the only two daze extension sources that work together.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Daze-duration-results

Neurophen.9738:

To be fair this thread probably should be locked.

Before it reached the second page. Nothing fruitful here.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Just a quite note. Rage sigils are a horrific choice. You can’t control when the quickness procs, and so the vast majority of the time you won’t be able to utilize it to actually charge a mantra. On top of that, your’e sacrificing any number of useful effects from sigils by taking those.

Good options include battle sigils for extra damage, doom sigils for extra pressure, ice sigils for some nice chill on crit, or really anything other than rage sigils.

Definitely, actually after my initial testing in the mists the rage sigils never even made it into a match:

skcamow.3527:

• Sigils: I’m currently going with energy and have tested rage due to the quickness on a fairly low 30s CD. I figured this could help with mantra charging and it does when it procs. That’s the issue, it doesn’t feel like I get quickness that often and seems a bit wasted. So I’m looking for something else.

So as of yesterday I was on with generosity sigils but don’t think they were doing much for me. I’ll probably try hydromancy or some of the others suggested.

On this topic, does anyone have experience using sigils of blood (or even leeching)? Thought maybe it would help provide yet more sustain with a decent chance of 500 healing every crit (5s CD), while dealing a small amount of damage. idk, battle or something is still probably better.

Also if anyone is interested in testing this out with me you’re more than welcome (hit me up in-game or whatever). It seems to be working out fairly well so far.

So I’m on a high horse for giving you my 2 cents on a build I’ve played? When I post a build I fully expect and appreciate both kinds of reinforcement. Maybe you just want positive feedback? I don’t know.

It’s not what you posted, but I also tried a support build with BD and it’s probably worse than the power spec here. That’s just my experience. Maybe you had better experience and that’s fine.

My two cents on my experience with this build …

I tried this exact build the week following the 4/15 patch, trying to get Bountiful Disillusionment (BD) to work. With strength runes and sigils, you can really stack some might and the build feels somewhat powerful, but there are some significant flaws which deem it too weak to play IMO:

• Shatters. BD relies on shatters to gain benefit from. You’re going to have mind wrack the most prevalent available to you on a 15s CD. The problem is, you get retaliation for a very short duration for this. Cry of Frustration and Diversion contain the best boons here and you have them on the default 30s/45s CD, respectively. This is way too long to get any good use out of these boons for a grandmaster trait.
• Identity crisis. Using BD in a power build means that you’re spamming cry of frustration, and for what? 3 stacks of might every 30s? It’s too clunky. The shatters work generally for MW, Diversion and Distortion, but Cry of Frustration just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
• What you give up. By taking BD you’re giving up the coveted Chaotic Interruption, which blows BD away in power specs, especially when taking GS/Sw-F. Imagine just switching out BD with CI, keeping everything else equal, you still get decent might and what are you missing from the lack of BD? Really not very much.

In my testing I’ve found taking BD only really works by 1) going deep into illusions for shatter CD’s and 2) best in a condition spec (even then questionably viable). It works decently with celestial amulet.

Tried running daze mantra tonight and man I just can’t do it. Two mantras is the sweet spot with this build and it does pretty well. I took sigil of generosity and I think it’s decent but also falls prey to the proc when you don’t have any conditions and then you wait 10s for CD. It’s really quite unreliable but does it’s job for what it is I guess.

I thought to take sigil of nullification originally but yeah with the many boon ripping sources I decided not to. I was seriously considering frailty to increase my damage even more by stacking all the more vulnerability but in my testing I couldn’t ever keep up more than 3 stacks at a time with constant AA’s, so nope.

I’m testing runes of air and they work decently, providing swiftness and a really nice lightning strike on #6. Will keep experimenting with on-heal runes, but any other advice is welcome.

And yeah GS is used due primarily to mind stab (more boon ripping). Haven’t tried staff yet, having too much fun with GS.

Yeah in PvE condition builds pale considerably to power builds. Doesn’t mean you can’t run them, but just keep it in open world and if you’re thinking dungeons, only join casual runs (not speed clears/zerker only).

As for good condition roaming specs, blackwater, clone spammer and for larger fights, pyro’s zergmower might suit you well. All of those (and many more) can be found in the build sticky at the top of this forum. Most of the builds in the list still work fine even though the list hasn’t been updated for some time.

OP – the build isn’t terrible, the traits are actually pretty good but understand that your condition output is not very strong overall using GS. All you got there is bleeds. What’s left is staff and while it is a strong condition damage weapon, alone it just doesn’t cut it. You’re still going to kill things – by all means run it with your Sunrise but understand it’s not nearly as strong as some of the other condition damage builds out there.

Confusing Enchantments is still fine – confusion nerf hit that one but at least they didn’t nerf anything about the trait.

Blinding Befuddlement was nerfed hard and collects dust for the majority of mesmers out there (or it should if it doesn’t).

Just reverting the ridiculous blinding befuddlement ICD nerf would be a huge start. A lot more people would start playing glamour again.

All damage modifiers do not transfer to phantasms (including eagle and ranger runes).
Ranger and Eagle runes offer identical stats in both precision and ferocity, but you get an extra 1% personal damage modifier from ranger. The trade off is that you don’t get it at all though if you don’t have an illusion up.

Pack runes are decent to keep your fury up, which is really important for reflects. If you don’t think you’re going to get party buffs for fury, this isn’t a bad choice and the fury you get transfers to your allies. Equally important for reflects though are the damage modifiers. The downside of pack is 1) you lose that very important #6 damage modifier that ranger/eagle provide and 2) it decreases your ferocity by about 7%. You do gain a bit of power though.

Personally I would always opt for the rune set providing a damage modifier versus otherwise for DPS maxing builds. In this case I think ranger is probably the best choice.

BlackDevil.9268:

Gonna list the pulses and their effects now, Boon + Condition:
1. Swiftness 3 seconds & Chill 1 second
2. Aegis 3 seconds & Daze 1 second
3. Retaliation 3 seconds & Weakness 2 seconds
4. Swiftness 3 seconds & Daze 1 second
5. Aegis 3 seconds & Poison 2 seconds

I’ll just say that chaos storm is definitely not weak on the interrupt part – daze seems to always proc at least once every time I use it. Not saying they couldn’t improve it to remove a lot of the RnG, but in it’s current state I would say chaos storm is decent. If nothing else was done I think a slight CD reduction would be in order.

That said, I like the suggestion to remove the RnG, though I do wonder if what you have there would be viewed as more powerful. It kinda feels that way just looking at it. And more powerful means longer CD, etc. If we’re removing RnG and keeping the same CD, I almost think you have to strip it down even more to not make it OP. Two AE dazes guaranteed in the span of 2 seconds? I mean, that’s more powerful almost than Imbued Diversion. Juicy yeah but not sure it would fly. I think the boon part is fine though.

Raunchy.6891:

Do ranger runes actually activate on clones/phantasms now? I thought they didn’t.

Also Neurophen did some number crunching and found that pack runes are a good choice for us, with consistent damage output.

Yeah you get the extra damage bonus for our illusions now (assuming at least one is out).

Yeah I’m going to go with null field for now. The chaos armor combo is nice indeed for a squishier build.

I’ll give daze mantra a shot and see how irked I get trying to manage 3 mantras. But no doubt there, going with that potentially increases my build DPS nicely due to halting strike and brings my interrupt sources up to six with the three mantra charges.

The reason I went with signet of domination is due to the stun to help me land shatters. Being I don’t have IP I want to ensure I can land them for a good burst. Between magic bullet, iLeap/swap and the signet, I can do that almost every time.

Staff is an interesting suggestion, may have to play around with that too.

Also for now I’ve decided for now to go with fire or air sigil along with energy for more spike damage. I’m not sold on it though, any other suggestions?

Thanks for the feedback!

Raunchy.6891:

I actually really want something similar done to Imbued Diversion like skcamow suggested. Actually it’s like he read my mind lol. My only thing is that it could conflict with Illusionary Invigoration, but I guess that could be a weakness of picking it.

Assuming you mean it will potentially be redundant by having two recharge reducing traits – whether imbued diversion is a full 35s recharge or 28s, I’ll take the refresh from illusionary invigoration =)

I’ve also thought maybe it should be a flat 20% diversion recharge reduction versus requiring the interrupt proc, but wouldn’t mind either.

BlackDevil.9268:

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.

I drop chaos storm in a zerg, what will happen? Exactly, this will not really work, sorry pyro.
This trait would only be balanced with single target cc’s.

Agreed I stated the same a couple posts up, but I think maybe if it decreased CD’s by 20% that would be really nice. Then you have these powerful interrupt proc’ing skills (temporal curtain, illusionary wave, chaos storm, magic bullet, etc) not refreshed but on lower CD, AND that could stack with weapon specific traits. I could really get excited about something like that and don’t think it’d be OP.

This is very much in line with what I’ve been saying Anet should do with Imbued Diversion – if you successfully land an interrupt with Diversion, decrease the Diversion cooldown by an additional 20%.

I like the idea of making wastrel’s punishment a trait you can choose and I like the effect pyro mentioned as well. It creates another interesting build focus around interrupts. Not sure how it would work in practice – it might be OP for some skills such as chaos storm for example and might need an ICD. You can imagine chaos storm constantly refreshing xD.

I don’t really like putting EM in grandmaster minor – it’s too specific of a trait that affects a small number of builds.

Also some food for thought, the spirit of wastrel’s punishment is about punishing the foe for being idle (whether they are or you put them there). I know this isn’t GW1 but there was a skill called wastrel’s worry which punished your target and nearby foes with significant AE damage if they didn’t use a skill within 3 seconds after getting hexed with it. So I would guess the devs want to keep that type of flavor to this skill.

Of course the trait can be whatever they want it to be too, but a suggestion more along the lines of the original intent might ultimately be more well received.

I wanted to see if a viable build could be created around the mesmer’s biggest strengths, boon ripping while still maintaining nice damage and support. Tall task to be sure. In my experimentation thus far, I came up with this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8al0npBtlqxKNcrNipxcyjiikB0QpLZ8FA-TJxHwAEeCAq2fAwFBQZZAA

The Harmonious Mantras trait swap has done some pretty cool things for mesmer PvP builds. As I was putting the build together, the benefits began to really shine:

• Massive boon ripping (Shattered Concentration, Null Field/Disenchanter, sword clones, GS#3)
• Decent support (Vigorous Revelation, Restorative Mantras) with AE stability on mantra of concentration
• Moderate interrupt/lockdown spice (GS#5, Magic Bullet, Signet of Domination, F3 Daze)

The idea is to play a shatter focused style, ripping boons like a normal shatter mesmer would, but you have halting strike for decent damage potential with the AE interrupts. Like many of you, I have a love/hate relationship with this trait, but in my testing I’ve turned more positively towards it. If you have higher crit chance (~50%), you’ll often crit HS and in this build for around 2k per interrupt. You also have a deceptive bleed damage source with sharper images and two bleed stacking phantasms which provide decent auxiliary damage.

For mantras, I really don’t want to go more than 2 because I don’t want to have to maintain more than that. I feel at least two are needed to make full use of harmonious mantras. I love the idea of 3 charges on mantra of concentration (stun break AND AE stability).

WHAT, no BI with all those interrupts?? I didn’t take bountiful interruption just to see what could be done here and that opens up the ability to spec into the inspiration line for all kinds of great support options. This is partly where I’m currently struggling with choices.

The areas I need some help with (if you feel so inclined) are the following:

• Inspiration adept trait: Depending on what direction I go for condition management, this could be Vigorous Revelation, glamour CD’s or mender’s purity. This is somewhat of a strength of the build, as before matches you can get the lay of the other team’s comp and switch this one out real quick. Bottom line is I’d really, really like to stick with vigorous revelation as it’s central to the shatter/support play style.

• Restorative Mantras: This gets decent usage from heal mantra and to a lesser extent, stability mantra, but I wonder if I’m getting enough out of it.

• Pack vs Lyssa: In this build you’re down right slow. I really want to take pack runes to help allies with the boon share proc and swiftness, but I lose out on extra condition management with lyssa. Lyssa provides cool synergy with harmonious mantras as well in the 3x heal for that random boon every 10s.

• Disenchanter vs Null Field. Given this is a shatter build, disenchanter seems not very well utilized. Null field seems like a much better choice to me. Both provide the same thing, condition management and boon share (albeit one with a significantly lower CD).

• Replacing dom signet with daze mantra. Oh soooo tempting, 3 more interrupts/HS damage but it’s another mantra (ugh)!

• Sigils: I’m currently going with energy and have tested rage due to the quickness on a fairly low 30s CD. I figured this could help with mantra charging and it does when it procs. That’s the issue, it doesn’t feel like I get quickness that often and seems a bit wasted. So I’m looking for something else.

I’d love any feedback on those items and anything else regarding the build. I think it has some potential but need some help!

Wastrel’s Punishment: This is certainly an odd one, but I think it should remain a damage modifier trait like so many other classes have. To that end, maybe make the 5% modifier global, and 10% if foe has vulnerability (synergy with domination line).

Confusing Enchantments: I think 3 stacks is too high, maybe 2.

The rest I have a list I personally maintain – some that go with your ideas, some a bit different:

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.

Protected Mantras: I honestly think the mantra channel reduction time shouldn’t go in this trait – should go in Mantra Mastery. Regarding this trait though, I think we should get 1s of stability each mantra charge in addition to maybe a lesser amount of toughness. Then for Mantra Mastery, I think .75 or 1s is too OP; I would go something like 2s as a shave (currently 2.75s). You would definitely notice that difference. With those changes, I’d swap Protected Mantras and Mantra Mastery in their trait locations.

Furious Interruption: I like your #2 suggestion (except the BI one, I think that stays). This was my thought – Gain 3 seconds of quickness and fury when you interrupt a foe, 12 second recharge. The current effect is just meh.

Chaotic Interruption: I like the fact this trait is focused primarily on impairing movement, so I wouldn’t want to add poison. To that end, your #2 sounds good but I often wonder if that would be too OP. My thought would be to always immobilize 2s and chill 3s. You still get the benefit of skill cooldowns increased by 66% while they’re immobilized. This would be immensely better than current – if they get crippled while immob’d (useless) or blinded (better, but not nearly as good as chilled).

Blinding Befuddlement: Completely agree with your #1. I say they start with that and see where we go from there. You also missed a couple important blind proc’ing sources in 1) chaos armor, and 2) if you take dazzling glamours that adds up to 3 more. All put together that’s a lot of potential blind applicators one could spam, so you’d have to be careful with this trait.

VengefulShoe.5761:

Xavi.6591:

Don’t forget Runes of the Ranger.

Runes of the Ranger’s passive doesn’t count illusions as companions afaik.

Didn’t used to, but post-patch apparently does now.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

TEMPORAL CURTAIN
This is the same reason I use CI with Focus. Temporal Curtain is an excellent CC ability, not only does it cripple but after being cast, the magic rupture lingers for about five seconds. This is very dangerous for the opponent! Many people like to cast curtain and pull instantly, but this is predictable and easy to avoid. Temporal Curtain is one of the best “mindgame” skills we have: letting it linger usually forces an opponent to waste one or both of their dodges and makes them extremely uncomfortable with using any skills with longer cast times. It’s almost always better to summon the curtain and not immediately pull. This also gives you access to a cripple field and a LIGHT combo field.

iWARDEN
But you can do all that without CI. Dealing damage iWarden is the real reason you want to use CI with Focus. A proper (summon curtain > summon warden > pull curtain before warden is fully summoned) combo can land a couple of iWarden’s 12 hits, but landing an interrupt before summoning -combined with swords Illusionary Leap- can immobilize an opponent long enough for nearly all of Warden’s attacks to hit, while at the same time giving you an opening for a blurred frenzy or full sword autoattack from inside the Phantasm (and thus safe from projectiles)

These are just a couple examples of why I enjoy using CI even when I’m not running Mantra of Distraction or Halting Strike. Saving people from Stomps/Preventing rezzes and random immobilizes are all well and good in teamfights too, has anyone else come up with other creative ways of using this excellent trait?

I use pretty much all the focus specific tips you give in my chaotic perdition build here (with video), especially the waiting to pull trick: Chaotic Perdition

It’s a decent soloq/WvW roaming build, but I’ve temporarily shelved it due to iWarden still being so buggy, with even more reflect bugs post-patch.

For serious lockdown builds that take staff, I just can’t see not using CD for chaos storm cooldown reduction, but it’s so tempting. I’ve also been theory-crafting interrupt builds lately, purposefully not taking BI just to see what opens up, and there is quite a bit. More to come on that xD.

oZii.2864:

People seem to be so harsh at judging a mere 10days since a huge patch that made a lot of impact on both gameplay such as theorycraft.

I can tell you already that I didnt see anybody using the most “OP” things yet on ToL NA. We The Civilized Gentlemen didnt find our complete perfected line-up with builds yet. We already noticed a lot of other things that we didnt even use in the EU ToL just a few days after.

I’m simply stating, stop being so drastic in judgement and basing all of your ideas off of this ToL in NA. Some talk about buffs and nerfs like thats the answer to your issues. Its fun how people just cant stand maybe not being as superior as you they think they are. Simply train with mates and become better instead of shoving the NERF-towel into the winners face.

For truth, yeah. It was obvious watching NA ToL that people are still discovering the new meta and best builds to use, simply by virtue of the diverse amount of builds being run.

Anet likes to talk about how it takes time for new changes to burn in and the new meta to emerge following a balance patch. Their changes up to this point have never been drastic enough to fully warrant that stance IMO, but in this case it makes sense. I don’t believe the most powerful specs post 4/15 have been found yet and it’s going to take time.

SlimChance.6593:

It goes back to the original Guild Wars, and lore behind the Mesmer there. I’ll do my best to present what I remember/interpret from there.

In the original Prophecies campaign, the human gods were deeply tied to the profession’s. Lyssa is the twin Goddess of Beauty and Illusion, individually known as Lyss and Ilya. She is the patron Goddess of Mesmers and Assassins.

And it was, that a stranger came to the village of Wren seeking shelter and employment. Though young in years, her body was stooped and twisted, her flesh eaten by disease. “Ye have the mark of plague upon ye,” said the citizen named Gallrick. “Leave this place lest you sicken our people.”

“I’ve lost my family and my home,” cried the desperate woman. “Have you no heart?”

Yet each person, in turn, did look away.

Then from the crowd came a young woman, Sara. She looked upon the woman with pity. “If you need help,” said Sara, “I will give it.” And Sara did approach the gnarled, bent woman and did offer her a helping hand.

Then the sickened woman pulled from her body the robes of plague, revealing Herself to be the goddess Lyssa.

The people of Wren fell to their knees, begging Lyssa’s mercy. But lifting Sara gently, saith She, “True beauty is measured not by appearance but by actions and deeds. Many have eyes, but few have seen. Of all here, you saw the beauty behind the illusion. And you alone shall be blessed with My gifts.”

So Lyssa is twin gods, and as a follower of Lyssa, you would never know which twin would answer your prayers. So part of the reason a Mesmer wears a mask, is to keep the true identity of the Mesmer hidden, so that the enemy would never know what to expect.

Also, in the original, the Mesmer’s where presented as very “theatrical”. And in the theater, actor’s are constantly “wearing masks” to portray something other than themselves. Again, to keep the audience enthralled with the illusion/presentation, and not the actor’s real identity.

Nicely done man, took me back a bit. Ah the glory days of GW1

PH was fixed for all phantasms in the 4/15 patch.

KevlarZero.6849:

They have a new trait that grants regen, aegis, and protection for every second while stealthed. Will probably need to be balanced in the future.

The trait (Prismatic Understanding) has been in place for a long time now, but yes it’s perceived as very strong.

It sounds like that’s the type of build the OP is referring to, more than likely a power PU build. They are one of the mesmer’s strongest WvW roaming builds atm and difficult, though far from impossible, to beat.

Healing power scaling for both regeneration (the boon) and signet of the ether (with 3 illusions) is the same .125, which is decent IMO. At that point it’s just that, opinion. I think most folks I’ve seen think that’s decent.

No argument on ether feast scaling though, it’s amazing and would work great with the trait. In a power build, a 9k heal with full illusion spread is tasty for sure.

I’ll throw this in here – one thing I’d add to the scepter AA is 1200 range, like Guardian’s scepter AA. Small change, but any buff would be good.

BlackDevil.9268:

The passive effect of the signet scales really bad with healing power. You’d be better off with ether feast as that’s the only healing skill that scales well with healing power on mesmer.

As said before, regeneration also scales kitten with healing power. Phantasmal healing gives regeneration. I guess you can figure out the rest yourself.

Nah this build lacks clone generation to the max. You will be able to spawn 2 phantasm, but that’s about it for the next 20 seconds.

Actually most would agree that regeneration in general scales decently with healing power. The ether signet scales identically as well – which means decent, if you have 3 illusions out. So it’s not bad by any stretch, but you must have a means to keep 3 up consistently for it be worth it. The less illusions you have, the worse the scaling gets.

And yeah in this particular build I’m not sure clone generation would be enough to warrant it. I would at least take 3 in Illusions for global illusion CD’s. Also halting strike might provide more overall damage than empowered illusions given the many interrupt sources.

Even then, I question the “sustain” this trait is going to provide in this scenario given interrupts aren’t on demand and the trait doesn’t stack. I said this before but if the trait at least stacked and nothing else, I would give it a closer look.