Guild Wars 2

I can’t see running grenth runes in a power build in PvP, but grenth runes have the best chill applying capabilities of them all, so if that’s what you’re really after then go for it. I personally run grenth runes in a PvP condition build I use and they do nicely (great for dueling as well).

For WvW, the 100% condition duration we built into your build would work well, but I have to admit I don’t think grenth trumps traveler’s in that build.

I’ve read over the notes numerous times and there is no other obvious reason for the DE change than the devs wanting to nerf clone on death builds. I believe the “cheesing it” is referring to these types of builds and a mechanic they never intended. Even though I don’t understand what is so bad about this, fine. I can live with it. Their fix is terrible though.

This would solve that problem nicely:

Sorrow.7384:

If you want to nerf clone death spam, then nerf that trait itself (Debilitating Dissipation) or make it so the 3rd clone still replaces the last clone but doesn’t make it explode if there are already 3 up.

And this further shows why a change like this would be disastrous:

Sorrow.7384:

I made this to clearly explain issues with not being able to replace illusions:

http://imgur.com/a/kryzw

These need to see dev eyes before this abomination of a change goes in.

Pyroatheist.9031:

skcamow.3527:

I think he also said that if any clones are out, no additional clones will be created on dodge. Meaning, DE only procs when you have 0 clones out. Can someone confirm this one?

That’s what he first said, but later clarified it.

Here’s to hoping, cause that would be monstrous.

I think he also said that if any clones are out, no additional clones will be created on dodge. Meaning, DE only procs when you have 0 clones out. Can someone confirm this one?

More than likely the mesmer was running a bunker spec, something in the realm of x/x/30/30/x. Perma-protection isn’t really possible on mesmer (can get close though) – closest thing to it would be a prismatic understanding type build, which means they’d be in stealth a fair amount.

Also have to ask, are you sure you aren’t mistaking the zero damage as coming from one of the mesmer’s clones?

Alright folks, tomorrow is the last day of the contest. Let’s get a final push of votes in! Remember you can vote for more than one build if it’s too difficult to choose.

Ah, so you are. I’m not used to seeing DD in the master slot. Not much interrupting in that build so it makes sense.

Nice work. I always love seeing condition builds played well that use sword. I’m a little surprised at your choice of illusionary defense in that build (versus debilitating dissipation), but you seem to do alright. xD

Gingelyr.3648:

You mention that Bountiful Interruption is great with a focus, but there are very few lockdown builds with a focus. What should I be looking at if I want a focus-focused (:P) lockdown build?

I assume:
Not CS, because I’m not dazing
Yes Focus reflect
Yes BI
??? Imbued Diversion?

Checkout chillruption in my signature – there is a GS-Sw/F variant with a guide. No CS, rather chaotic interruption. Yes on focus reflects and BI. Imbued Diversion is used in the original chillruption build but not the GS-Sw/F variant.

Thanks for the votes everyone, there’s a few days left in the contest. Vote if you haven’t!

Interesting choice on the sigil, would at least somewhat bridge the gap for not taking shattered concentration which is important in most team specs. I think I like sigil of energy a little better, though I’ve played it with hydromancy to good success. At the very least, could maybe go hydromancy on Sw-Sw (due to melee range) and energy on GS.

You going to post the updated WvW build?

Oh, and I almost spewed my coffee this morning when I read the new build name

Greyalis.2309:

One of the issues I am having is transferring the larger amounts of might to my allies which is caused I believe because the might duration you get from your runes doesn’t transfer, perhaps only the might you would have normally—i’m not positive on this yet though.

If your role is mainly to stack might and share it, I would recommend increasing your boon duration as much as possible. You currently have 60% boon/80% might which is good, but can be better by using chocolate omnomberry cream. That will get you 100% might duration and there’s obviously nothing beyond that you can do. I think the extra 20% boon duration will go further than the might you gain on dodge from the stew.

SoI shares your boons with their current durations at the time you pop it. If you have boons you/your party have obtained from other players, popping the signet will refresh (in essence, double) the duration of them for your party.

Definitely see the iDuelist angle with more bleed pressure. It’s just the CI part … if we had more viable CI weapon procs in that spec, sure. But there’s only 2 surefire in F3 and illusionary wave with magic bullet 2nd bounce situational. Taking daze mantra makes it passable, giving you 3 (like in stickerhappy’s phantasmic interruption, but even then I personally think GS-Sw/Sw is stronger after playing both ways).

I do appreciate the different perspective on magic bullet (stun is a stun), but the fact remains you’re totally wasting CI there (if you interrupt), which bothers the butterflies out of me. I just know I’ve tried it (a lot) with my chaotic conditions build (Staff-Sc/P) and eventually abandoned CI there because it’s just too underwhelming. I didn’t feel like I was getting enough out of it. My experience may not be others’ though.

I will throw a positive in for PvP play where you’re freqently in battle with multiple opponents and increase chance of getting that 2nd bounce, but I think I’d rather go with the sword #4 AoE counter blade orb (in this particular build).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Also -and this is moreso random theorycrafting- swapping sword/sword with sword/pistol , as well as checking out BlackDevil’s gear for his hybrid build, may work out better in your favor. Greatsword + Pistol + Debilitating Dissipation can wrack up a lot of bleed damage in addition to the power damage you do. Since you can also stack vulnerability pretty well I could definitely see this build working as a hybrid power/condition build.

I’ve done a lot of testing with pistol and chaotic interruption and have come to the conclusion that it isn’t worth it because the magic bullet stun overrides the chaotic interruption effects. A case can be made for a 1vMany scenario where you get daze on the 2nd bounce, but it’s too situational. You’re spending a lot to get 30 in chaos and it needs to be justified.

With Sw-Sw and GS you get immense gain from the trait due to the two AoE interrupt sources (plus daze mantra). So I’d stick with that, IMO.

awge.3852:

Just make sure that in trying Glass, don’t sacrifice too much in toughness or you will forever regret going full Glass. It’s just too hard to survive as a ranger in WvW without high toughness.

I posted this build above in the thread:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJATRjIVV2NW+Vs2Bi1j8Eo+0UwJLxUwfGdyrO0K-j0yA4rARfCUyrIas1zwWdjW5NIKGM9ZSVuCyujs6PQEBwMBA-w

Couple questions on it. First, to your point, is there enough toughness there in your experience and second, is it smart to build in boon duration or better to go with ranger runes (or other option)?

First, yeah get all the aegis you can in the build to maximize retaliatory shield. So, Staff would be a strong consideration. Even w/out that, scepter and sword blocks are going to get you good mileage from the trait, assuming you have decent boon duration (choco omnomberry cream).

Couple things you could try using the blocking concept. First, take a look at pyroatheist’s zergmower build. If you take runes of the guardian you can proc a 1s burn on each block with no internal cool down. Even in a power build burning hurts, but I’m thinking this could also be run in a power/condition hybrid. The idea is you’re not only doing damage with retaliation, but also a decent amount with burning.

Something else I suggested to pyro awhile back in an attempt to resurrect his immortal build is to get retaliation and try to share it with your phantasms/clones using signet of inspiration (an attempt to offset the vengeful images nerf). I believe he found it quite clunky, but it’s something to experiment with nonetheless. I’m thinking if you could slot the iDefender and at least ensure it gets the retal, you’d be in decent shape. In addition to the retal you’d get on block, you’d need as many sources of on-demand retaliation as possible for that share, for which Sw-F seems almost a necessity (leap/light combo). This approach also assumes a more tanky spec – not sure what you had in mind.

Food for thought if nothing else

Good build, and very similar to the Sensotix bountiful interruption build which to my knowledge many have adapted to WvW use. I believe Sensotix uses GS-Sw/Sw which is a difference, but concept is the same. More information on that here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-Bountiful-Interruption-TPvP/first

@Suddo: IMO yes a boon/might stacking build can be beneficial in pugs, but really only in pugs. Reason being, you don’t know what you’re going to get in that scenario for a party comp so any support (really, might) you can offer will help, as long as you’re spec’d for maximum damage in that role (very important).

If you’re in an organized party, or one that is looking for experience, I would recommend against using the boon sharing build because there are better pure damage builds to utilize since most of the time you’re going to have ample boon support from a guardian or warrior. These boons you can then double share using SoI. Also be wary of using GS in these groups since most of the time melee is more efficient and the group will likely be doing that.

Mender’s Purity is great, but you have to sacrifice 10 points for it from a pure shatter spec. Have you played around with mantra of resolve? It’s mesmer’s most powerful on demand condition removal skill (and AoE to boot) on a low recharge.

The iDisenchanter is another solid option – it removes the most conditions and strips the most opponent boons than any other skill mesmer has. Problem is it’s not on demand, but with practice you can get accustomed to it. Due to the 16s CD you can feel free to shatter it as well, knowing you can pop another back up. It may not be the best option for a shatter build but something to play with.

Qaelyn.7612:

Ah interesting. Okay I can do that, my weapons are cheap junk anyway. Thanks.

So then maybe bursting on the other one? Wonder if that would stack with the corruption stack.

They do

I could talk for a long time about Imbued Diversion. Honestly it is underutilized, but I understand why. First, why to take it …

• The pure ability to AoE daze is awesome, even if you don’t get an interrupt. This is highly disruptive for an enemy team. I think this point right here is what many folks overlook with the trait. Traited with mesmer runes and confounding suggestions may make some sense to get that daze duration as high as possible.

• Ok, take interrupts into account now. Much luck is involved in being able to land these AoE. When you do, however, and have interrupt proc’ing traits, you have a very good situation. Gotta remember the type of game this is – people using skills left and right – you’re gonna proc AoE interrupts more often than not when you throw an imbued diversion bomb into a group. If stability is ripped AoE before the bomb, you get that much more benefit.

Imbued Diversion is powerful, powerful enough to be in a GM slot, but the main reason it’s underutilized is it’s perception of being inherently weak, and to a lesser extent, the lack of synergy with other traits. To me it’s probably not worth taking in it’s current form if you’re not getting something else besides just the AoE daze out of it. Meaning, you go halting strike/bountiful interruption/chaotic interruption, etc to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth.

To that end, I think it could use a little buff to warrant taking it over illusionary persona. That, plus the fact you only have one single skill that can proc it. I’ve long had an idea to change the behavior so that for every opponent you interrupt, the recharge on diversion decreases by a percentage, say 5%, capped ofc @ 25% due to the five opponent limit. Best case there is you get close to a 9s additional decreased recharge, taking the full recharge reduction from 30 spent into Illusions into account. This brings it to about 27s. Still not great, but certainly not OP and would be a decent buff.

This rewards the interrupt independent of having to take some of the other interrupt proc’ing traits and makes taking the trait that much more enticing in a 20/20/0/0/30 build. Granted also, it isn’t necessarily rewarding skillful play which is the only downside I see to it.

@trooper, assuming you want to keep your 20/20/30 build, you can keep DE – here’s an example of getting the high condition duration. You can use the stone or oil, but try to use the toxic one to get the extra 10% condition duration.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8clwzCpnRTmGb9IipHBnvJckU0apWJF82FC-jkCBohCy0ACyZmFRjtMsIasabYKXAaXRWDDVFDxOuIa1SBAzuK-w

With DE, this is a shatter play style with this build and hence why I also take mental torment.

@Nubu/Trooper – I’ll just say those are strong builds from my experience, at least in PvP. StickerHappy entered a similar build using sc/p-sw/sw for the december botm contest and in testing I suggested a move to essentially this spec you have with gs-sw/sw. For WvW we were able to build it with close to 100% condition duration to make the soft cc effects stronger, while keeping decent toughness and power/prec/crit dmg.

Kirk Williford.2653:

Hey folks,

Thank you for the reports — I will have the team look into this!

Any confirmation from the devs that this is going to be fixed soon?

ipan.4356:

See, I’d actually consider using those Runes and Sigil on a Sword/Sword Warrior, but not on a Mesmer.

Why?

Because you are choosing to not play a Warrior.

Ok sarcasm aside, mesmer has as good a chance at applying torment as a warrior. Mesmers can apply 5 stacks immediately, every 10 seconds base. Warrior can every 15 seconds. That’s quite a difference right there. Torment also isn’t applied immediately as I understand it. Opponent gets 2 stacks immediately then up to the full five stacks once the rip skill becomes available.

Also, the scepter block is as equally dodge-able as the impale projectile. Both have counter play.

Remember when torment runes were first introduced, they were bugged and had no internal CD? 2 stacks on every heal, AoE. That was powerful, no matter what class you ran, and it was too powerful, for a good reason. Mesmer was gifted the ability by Anet to have excellent access to this amazing condition, and we have some nice sigils and runes to play with to augment it.

Like I said I have a build that works really well in WvW using torment runes and a sigil (poison on other weapon set). I’ll eventually post it but I’m not ready yet. In a balanced condition build they work really well. The build you posted there is not a balanced condition build.

If anything, torment is more of a thief condition due to 2 inherent abilities to proc it, versus only 1 for Warrior, Necromancer and Mesmer.

Our torment application is very strong, and supplemented with the sigil and rune can make for a decent condition build (I’m currently working on one myself).

Also, keep in mind the key to putting together a good condition build is to not focus on one condition too heavily due to the ease of that condition being cleansed.

trooper.2650:

A quick question. Would Chaotic Interruption be redundant if used with CS in a, for example, 30/x/30/x/x ?

You would still get the benefit of the interrupts resulting from pushes/pulls, but any chaotic interruption procs from daze interrupts (of which we have many) are going to potentially be nullified by confounding suggestions.

If you don’t have much dazing going on in your build then yeah, but on the other hand, one primary strength of taking confounding suggestions is to increase daze duration, so it’s in large part a waste in a build like that.

tl;dr: Don’t take CS and CI together.

First, are you talking PvE open world or dungeons? Nothing wrong with running a staff in a power build in open PvE. I have a damage/support build called the Paladin Mesmer that works well in this capacity. It’s great for open world and decent for dungeons if you want to jump into a PUG here and there. For serious dungeon running there are better options for maxed DPS.

Here is the paladin build: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Mesmer-Paladin/

EDIT: My guide hadn’t been updated for a long time but I just did to account for the 12/10/2013 patch.

Hi Natsu, cheers from mesmer land.
Hope you don’t mind my hijacking your thread as I have the exact same (and other) questions. Maybe this will spark more discussion and more ideas.

I’m also working on leveling a ranger to play in WvW. I’d like to also use longbow and greatsword (LOVE GS). I’ve theory-crafted this build with the purpose of being able to zerg and solo roam with a couple trait tweaks:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJATRjIVV2NW+Vs2Bi1j8Eo+0UwJLxUwfGdyrO0K-j0yA4rARfCUyrIas1zwWdjW5NIKGM9ZSVuCyujs6PQEBwMBA-w

I’ve not seen many ranger zerg builds as of yet. I know they’re out there but still researching so I’m sure this is nothing new. 30/20/20/0/0 seems like it fits well to me.

For example, for zergs I’m thinking predator’s instinct and then I can trait signets when roaming, etc. I’d probably switch out wilderness knowledge for something else when roaming (vigorous renewal maybe)? I was thinking owl for chill and swiftness when roaming and bear to help condition cleansing. Looks like spiders are most common for zerging. I’ve seen some options in the thread I really like as well. Oh, and decent protection/fury uptime with the build due to the boon duration I built in. Is that recommended?

I have another random question. I love idea of a ranger support. I know there are great healing options available, though I’m interested in a shout build, taking nature’s voice trait to share regen/swiftness, and maybe soldier’s runes. Is this a common choice in WvW? If this is too off-topic I can open another thread.

Indeed, it’s a mighty investment and you have to be sure about what you want. Because of that, I personally will probably never craft ascended armor. I’ll craft weapons (have one so far) which I don’t intend to get a legendary for, but armor is just too steep of an investment for the diverse amount of builds I play.

Saying you want experienced members is one thing. I, being aware of the meta, would not take a GS in that case. That’s just me though. Not sure how you can’t see the elitism when you kick someone who may even be a better mesmer than you (you asked for experienced, right) but is carrying a GS. If they’re experienced, just ask them. If they give you a bad answer, politely state that by experienced you meant “not GS”. Seriously you’re doing players no good by just kicking them outright once you hear the purple beam.

Of course that is your prerogative and this is my opinion.

EDIT: @Revlin, sorry about this little rabbit hole here, I don’t want to detract anything from your thread.

colesy (mahariel) has proven to me that running a phantasm sw/sw (or sw/p) and sw/f build is the best a mesmer can run for a dungeon spec. This would be maxing, if you will. It really is the best if you can learn the boss attacks and properly dodge.

That said, unlike others, I would never, ever kick someone if they took a GS into a dungeon. No, not everyone is aware of the meta and I shouldn’t expect them to be. I would politely try to coach them maybe, but they can do as they wish if it’s a PUG and I didn’t say “no GS mesmers please”.

Now, if I decided (for whatever reason) to bring a GS into a dungeon and got kicked for no apparent reason (meaning it was because of the GS), I would promptly report whomever did it. I’ve never been kicked for this reason and I’ve never reported anyone for anything, but I would in a heartbeat for that. It’s just elitist garbage IMO.

No, that only applies to you. Chaos Archangel has this documented in the mesmer guide:
Lyssa’s Grimoire The Mesmer Handbook

Fay – there have been quite a few new builds pop up over the past month. I listed many of them in this December build of the month post, if you want to take some from there.

A few others not in that list:

Shatterlock by Chaos Archangel (Sword/Sword & Staff – 30/10/0/0/30 – PvP, WvW)
Holy Hell by Ross Biddle (Sword/Torch & Scepter/Focus – 20/20/30/0/0 – WvW)
The Zerg Mower by Pyroatheist (Staff & Scepter/Focus – 20/20/30/0/0 – WvW)

Sesundar.3501:

You can try to build around chaotic interruption (immobilize on interrupt) and null field. Focus 4 (cripple) can carry game if used right.

@Panteri, I have a couple builds along these lines in chillruption (see my signature). I wouldn’t call it the best WvW build, but it’s a lot of fun and can play an important role in zergs and smaller team fights.

There are quite a few other good WvW builds in the build list: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/List-Find-your-Mesmer-Builds-Guides

Preacher.4836:

I agree that the Lock-down build can be classified/played as a support. However in my particular case I am looking for something that is more suited for outnumbered fights.

Preacher

There are a couple specs I’ve put together that may (or not) interest you. One is chillruption, see my signature. I’ve recently added a support variant to it.

The other is called The Utility Wizard.

Both builds have a great deal of lockdown involved.

SlimChance.6593:

Just to apply even more logic to this conversation: Both Superior Runes of the Centaur and Superior Runes of Air state something to the affect of “when you use a healing skill, you gain swiftness”.

Guess what, the swiftness triggers on both the charge of Mantra of Recovery and the Power Resolve casts. (Provided you meet the 10sec cooldown.)

So Mantra of Recovery is and is not a healing skill at the same time.

There are other situations where this is true, for example runes of tormenting proc on both the MoR charge and each power return heal. It’s very inconsistent.

Actually lately I’ve been spending those 10 in inspiration for mender’s purity. Really hard to pass that one up, especially in PvP. There are certainly some solid choices. When I run the build Sw-Sw/Staff (which is a lot of fun), I’ll take blade training, etc.

bladeofky.3067:

Why is Confounding so good with staff? Is because of Chaos Storm’s chance for daze?

I feel like if I lose Confounding Suggestions, I’ll lose most of my reason to explode dazes into the middle of a zerg. 1-2 seconds of daze into a chaotic zerg doesn’t seem like all that big a deal compared to a possible 1-2 seconds of stun.

I’m liking the greatsword/staff option. I can utilize both weapons at range, and null field also gives me another Ethereal field my allies can burst finish.

I’m gonna try it out. Thanks for your expertise! =)

Just dying to throw in chillruption to this mix (see my sig). Sounds like something that might be up your alley (or close). 0/0/30/0/30 required, with other 10 optional. GS/Staff and basically you use chaotic interruption instead of confounding suggestions. This way you can get traited staff or bountiful interruption for insane might stacking.

Apologies in advance for hijacking the thread …

EDIT: There is good discussion on confounding suggestions vs chaotic interruption being used with imbued diversion in this thread

Bunda.2691:

I’ve yet to see a good PU shatter build. Anyone have one by chance?

By definition a shatter build with PU just isn’t a good consideration since you give up so many of the important shatter traits to do it.

That said, I’ve seen plenty of crazy ideas turn into decent builds, so I’ll look forward to see what you come up with xD

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Sure!

…Whats a p/w? x.x

Edit: password? Cuz if so I totally agree. How do you expect me to spell that when Im inebriated at 4am?!

Also.. How do I buy time for the arena? I can finally make some pesos from tourneys!

I’ll let Pyro or Chaos know the new password in-game and coordinate so they can post it in the Message of the Day when (or soon after) I change it.

@Chaos, instructions to add time to a custom arena are detailed well here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Custom-Arenas-FAQ/first#post3108961

As a reminder for everyone, the voting period for the contest is underway! Voting is a bit different than the last contest. Instead of up-voting, just post a “+1” here in this thread, the build name and why you are up-voting it (if you wish to comment). Official voting instructions here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/OMFG-Build-of-the-Month-Contest-December/first#post3330333

Chaos Archangel.5071:

What’d’ya say we meet up this weekend and work on our teleports? From target-dropping Blinks to Phase Retreat tactics (including teleporting forward) to practicing all the Blink spots and learning how to find your own blink spots in the open world. As a lover of all things teleports, I’m definitely more than willing to show a thing or two.

Gonna need help from Skcamow changing the custom arena locations, can we swap it to Battle of Kyho?

Sure, I can do that at anytime.

I would never call condi specs in PvE not viable, but they definitely are not optimal. The biggest problem with condition specs for mesmers is that in bigger champion fights you encroach on the condition caps and you have to share your condition damage with other classes which are more adept at it. There is no cap on power damage, so power specs for a mesmer will always be the best way to PvE and there’s really no debating that.

If you’re roaming PvE, it honestly doesn’t matter what you play IMO if it’s fun, even if you’re killing things really slowly. In dungeons it’s a different story, just generally don’t run condition specs there unless you’re with other friends and it’s a stroll.

My 2 cents (and this is with WvW in mind):

• Use boon stacking runes versus just might stacking. This ensures all your boons are long lasting (including might of course), instead of just might.
• Go with chocolate omnomberry cream for food. It seems you’re not having an issue stacking might anyway and you get that much more boon duration. With the food change you’re at 95% boon duration.
• Torch seems to be the best fit for this build, versus pistol. Reason is for the extra PU ammo and your primary source of retaliation, which this build begs for (ala Immortal Build). 95% boon duration will help keep moderate retal uptime from the iMage.
• Going with Torch opens up a couple things. 1) You can swap Torch/GS cool down traits as necessary. 2) You can potentially swap decoy for the iDefender which will improve your tankiness even more. 3) You can try your best to utilize the light field blast finisher with prestige/veil (and ofc combo finisher with iLeap/Veil). These are two other decent retaliation sources, albeit on a long CD.
• Going with Torch means you have one major source remaining to proc bountiful interruption in illusionary wave (not counting diversion). Given that fact, maybe you think about going Staff instead of GS as it seems you’ve already considered. This would secure your torch CD trait. Then, I’d consider swapping bountiful interruption with chaotic dampening. You get more access to retal sources there, plus that much more defense. Just something to think about, but adding staff would make you harder to kill than having a GS equipped. Plus it would at least give you some mobility.

Not including the staff idea, this is my suggestion taking the boon duration runes into account:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8fl4zSpXUTsGb9IhpHB33A/UBoT6hqT9qB-jUCBofCykIQpmFRjtMMsVXRr8KIKbYqXER1WzFRrWKATUGB-w

Again, my 2 cents, have fun with it and if you have a way to capture video of this, I’d love to see it.

Yeah there’s definitely some things I would change about CI if given my druthers. One of the things I’ve said before in other threads would be to have the 2nd random condition come after the first has ended, or some form of that. I have some ideas for Imbued Diversion as well – it’s indeed powerful as a GM trait, but understand why it gets attention as somewhat of a weak GM.

Not to get too off track, I believe the topic was about Confounding Suggestions

Oh, and the para sigils used to stack, but following the 10/15 patch when Anet fixed the bloated duration bug, they ceased to do so.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Confounding offers a lot of possibilities for Diversion, since the shatter can be traited to hit in an AoE. I think that CS may be the only trait worth paring with Imbued Diversion besides Deceptive Evasion, but even then I’ve NEVER seen anyone utilize Imbued Diversion effectively enough to make it worth taking over iPersona, which also synergizes well with CS since Persona makes you become an instant interrupt vuln-stacking potential stun. (Yes, that’s a challenge.)

The notion that Confounding Suggestions (CS) is the only trait worth pairing with Imbued Diversion is definitely debatable. To me Chaotic Interruption (CI) + Imbued Diversion (ID) gives you more for your costly 30 trait points, if you are taking the right weapons. Take the original chillruption build (x/x/30/x/30 required) for example, which is very effective with Staff/GS but can also be run with Staff/Sw-Sw, where weapons can be fully traited with IC cool downs to boot. With CI here, all you have to do is interrupt, but with CS you have to daze to proc that RnG stun. Granted we have ample daze sources, only a couple are AoE. Our interrupt sources include those that inflict daze, plus our AoE pushes and pulls. So, it goes without saying that there are more opportunities to interrupt as a whole, making CI a viable option to take using weapons that do or don’t inflict daze, hence more build diversity available.

I’m not discounting the power of all those dazes potentially turning into stuns with CS. Stuns are typically harder to break than conditions, and with the right gear, you can spec for longer condition duration to extend that immob/chill/blind/cripple, or spec for longer daze/stun duration (para sigil/mesmer runes/CS). So I believe there is a great case for both, don’t get me wrong. How about running one of each in a team comp? Wouldn’t that be a fun experiment.

Being the statement was made with Imbued Diversion specifically in mind, let’s talk about that. This is very close.

• The CS Diversion is going to AoE daze (albeit longer) and RnG stun. CI is going to AoE daze (albeit shorter) and immob – chill/blind/cripple if it interrupts.
• In both cases, if the F3 doesn’t result in an interrupt and CS doesn’t land the RnG stun, they both aren’t any better (ok except that slightly longer daze with CS).
• Now, CS has the stun potential and that gives it an advantage, but we’re ultimately going for interrupts here, right or … ? If F3 interrupts with CS, it just interrupts and nothing else happens. If F3 interrupts with CI, it’s going to be more powerful with Imbued Diversion due to the Chaos that ensues there.

The brass tacks here are, if you can land the RnG stun, I think CS is better with Imbued Diversion. It’s that RnG that IMO makes chaotic interruption the better trait to take with Imbued Diversion due to the immense payoff you get with it if you interrupt.

Might be a good mesmerized podcast debate at some point.

I posted this on the bug forum awhile back with detailed info, but not sure if it is being addressed (feel free to bump or make a new thread).
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Mesmer-Illusionary-Counter-recharge/first#post3069548.

Granted this was before the 12/10 patch, so if malicious sorcery by itself is currently not reducing the recharge of illusionary counter, that’s new because as you can see pre 12/10, MS was properly reducing the recharge when slotted without illusionist’s celerity.

EDIT: Just tested and in this case, when taking malicious sorcery without IC, the tool tip correctly reflects an 8 second recharge, but on use the recharge is the default 10s. So yeah, definitely a bug specific to malicious sorcery.

keenlam, for builds currently going through testing/refinement, what is the lock date? I was thinking it was the end of stage 1 but wanted to validate. Also you can put me down for tester on StickerHappy’s build.

It works perfectly for me, the #6 torment application and the duration increase. I’ve been using them for a few weeks now (using ether feast, mirror or mantra of resolve).

ozmaniandevil.6805:

No one?

This is basically the build I’m using now. Can anyone comment on how to work a staff in there? What is staff best at? Offense? Defense? Zerg? Roam?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fintothemists.com%2Fguides%2F1793-phantasm_hybrid_20

Staff is generally regarded as a defensive weapon but it depends on how you’re using it. In condition damage builds it can be a primary source of damage. You could swap the Sw/P for staff to see how that works. You’re going to lose bleed pressure in removing the iDuelist, but you’ll be getting a lot of that back with Staff auto attack (winds of chaos) from you and your clones. You also might consider swapping bountiful interruption for chaotic dampening if you need quicker staff cool downs.