Guild Wars 2

@Jedge, that was my experience as well. I fully intend to post a bug thread but wanted to try to get some validation first. Thanks for doing that.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@Skcamow: Wow that looks interesting, but if bunker why Phantasmal Strength over iPersona?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@skcamow: Keep us updated on the progress, I’d try the build out but with the Mantra build I’m working on when the patch comes out, school coming up, and me jotting down a list of builds I wanna try, idk when I’d get around to it.

At your suggestion, I tested the build in a couple matches using IP (0/0/20/20/30) and I have to say it might be a build changer. I definitely underestimated it. The access to a quick recharging diversion/distortion is absolutely invaluable in this build, especially when there are no clones to spend. It seems I can hold 3 off longer now than I used to. Will be playing more to see if it holds up.

I sometimes roam with my paladin solo spec (see my signature). I typically go 0/10/30/30/0 but modified the traits slightly to match your 10/10/30/20 requirement.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW8dlwzKqHVzhGaNJhpH923I/kikvcSFUdpC4G-jQDBYMCykIBiIAO5BKLSZMNKoFhFRjVXDTdKyaVJV5CwbIp+DRWEAzEA-e

You could go dueling: blade training/phantasmal fury and domination: halting strike/empowered illusions/signet mastery. Note the signet of illusions vs inspiration due to the solo aspect, great for keeping your phantasms (and that regen) up and get out of jail by activating it to immediately recharge diversion/distortion.

If you know you’ll be grouping up, swap to inspiration and the build works good.

It can be difficult to take down with the >200/sec regeneration you (for the most part) run permanently with. You could always go for a little less armor if you want more damage but more armor seems to work well in WvW, especially in 1vMany scenarios.

EDIT: For Inspiration adept you could go vigorious revelation (not as much needed solo roaming), mender’s purity or persisting images (again helps keep phants up).

I’m hoping someone can validate the findings I posted in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Phantasmal-Mage-again/first#post2967729

TL;DR

• Clones casting WoC do not inherit the mesmer’s condition duration (tested bleeding). On the other hand, duelist and clone sharper images procs/projectile finishers through ethereal fields do inherit it.
• Mesmer confusion duration bonuses (Illusions V; perplexity runes) do not apply to iMage, but condition duration does. This may have always been this way, even after the condition duration fix, but I’m not sure.

I thought at least condition duration for all illusions was fixed a few patches ago but it appears to be broke, at least for staff clones. I tested both in PvE open world and HOTM. Has anyone else experienced this?

supcutie: http://www.twitch.tv/hansawesome/

I played PvE almost exclusively for the first 6 months, through BWE’s, stress tests and launch, then found these forums and really got into the other formats. I know PvE really well, and dungeons (the ones I’ve played – actually haven’t played them all yet). I can speak intelligently about playing mesmer in WvW and more recently, PvP. So I’m a jack of all trades, master of none (except maybe PvE).

Also I love to theory-craft for all formats. I pretty much do it all the time and like it almost as much as playing the game. So if you ever want to get feedback on a build idea or theory-craft something new with me, I’m always game. Feel free to hit me up in game. IGN: Kortham Raysplitter, Yak’s Bend.

I have some interesting information to report.

I just tested and as it turns out, your personal condition duration (from domination line/food) transfers to the iMage’s confusion duration, but it appears any specific confusion duration, such as Illusions V +33% and from perplexity runes do not transfer. I also tested stacking confusion with the traited duelist through an ethereal field and found confusion and condition duration sources applied. In that test, I checked Illusions V and perplexity separately and both worked.

In other news, I’m sad to report that WoC clones do not appear to inherit the mesmer’s condition duration, at least for bleeding (which I’m almost positive was “fixed” awhile ago). I then tested duelist bleeds via sharper images and thankfully our condition duration transfers there.

So, I believe we may have a mess on our hands again, though not as bad as it used to be. If someone could please validate these findings I would very much appreciate it.

blutstein.2468:

I haven’t used CI since a while and thought that it has an internal cd.
If you do an AoE interrupt, its only one foe who is immobilized? it might be that i’m wrong….

Just to clear this one up, CI has no internal cool down and applies to anyone you interrupt at any time.

Dietzen.6127:

Agree with the confusion duration needing to adhere to the casters condi duration.

This used to be broken but was fixed a few months ago. Any conditions your illusions inflict (including the iMage) should inherit the mesmers’s condition duration (unless that’s broke again and I wasn’t aware).

Me Games Ma.8426:

skcamow.3527:

OP, if there was someone who made torch an even remotely viable damage weapon, vash is it. Check out the video below. There’s also an advanced gameplay video showing the traits, etc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyuxqt511Oc

Fairly high skill cap here but impressive for a torch damage reference.

I play torch in WvW/PvP myself so I know how good this works. But I asked about PvE where you do not face other human players but computer controlled monsters^^

Yep, sorry about that – in open world PvE it’s fine enough – though your iMage is useless. In dungeons it wouldn’t work well (as others have said). I’m sure you’d get a nice initial burst from the prestige but you’d be suffering a great DPS loss in between CD’s and would be much better off with a damaging phantasm.

You can keep pressure steady in 1v1, but the problem (among others) with this type of build is that getting out of dueling, 1v1 situations you start to have real difficulty bringing multiple opponents down.

Yes I had some ISP issues for the past couple hours, sorry about that.
And keep trying, you never know when someone will hop on.

Great idea Chaos. If we went with the gameshow idea, it might be challenging to coordinate, but I think it would be a lot of fun if we could schedule a day/time for it and get all the participants/moderators on our teamspeak channel and record it for posterity (maybe for the final round at least, maybe more?). I’m sure that would be fun to listen back to.

As far as the tPvP thing, yeah I think the best way to be engaged there is – if you’re interested in training/dueling/theory-crafting/strats, just rep the guild for a bit and query out to everyone and see what comes back. If nothing, maybe try later. The other night I think we ended up with 5-6 different folks in the arena by doing this (someone wanted to duel and that generated some guild interest).

Another way to see if something is going on in our custom arena is to see if there are any people in it -duh- (by searching in the game browser anytime). You can pop in and out of our arena anytime you want, for any reason. Personally it reminds me a bit of the old GW1 guild halls. Kinda nice roaming around the maps not having to worry about getting ambushed. Those who like GW2’s graphics/art, I’ve seen a lot by doing this that I’d never be able to notice in a match. Some of those maps are quite serene.

I’ll also add that it’s been great talking to a few of you on our teamspeak channel. I encourage you to log in as you can. I see more and more people are and that’s great. Of course, like repping, this is never required.

@Pyro, if you see this, how are we doing on our guild influence for guild missions?

Good stuff. Another idea would be to make a vid of pushing/pulling opponents off cliffs/ledges in skyhammer. Good times.

OP, if there was someone who made torch an even remotely viable damage weapon, vash is it. Check out the video below. There’s also an advanced gameplay video showing the traits, etc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyuxqt511Oc

Fairly high skill cap here but impressive for a torch damage reference.

@Chaos, I suppose you could go either IP or phantasmal strength – I could switch depending on what I’m doing. I personally went with the latter due to the simple fact that I need all the help I can get to kill things. I find shatter skills come off CD very quickly and I’m rarely in a situation where I don’t have multiple illusions up intentionally (to keep regen stacking). So I’m not sure IP would help me too much, but I should play around with it to see.

Yep, blind spamming builds such as these make decent bunkers (not amazing). Been going for a few weeks and it’s honestly taken that long playing around with it to say the power build seems to be the best (though I started out on the condition build). Here is that one for reference:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArdWlwzSoXVTqGb9IhJFBH5nUw8lj6B4zu1B-TsAg2CuI8S1lrLjXyjsHN+Y9xsBA

You are traited out a bit differently than my condition variant and you use torch. I thought about torch due to the extra blind on the prestige, but I didn’t for 2 reasons:

1. I really wanted an all around utility build for (hopefully someday) a tPvP team, which is why I went the focus/reflects route.
2. The prestige stealths you and I wanted to do my best to create a build with as much protection uptime as possible without having to rely on stealth due to the negative impact when capping points. I suppose this could be somewhat mitigated by revealing instantly for the burn.

But that aside, yeah I can see it working. I know you’re pretty attached to shattered concentration, but I would swap that with torch CD’s, as I don’t see the build being shatter focused (of course you may play differently). You also get some nice AoE iMage utility with retaliation and condition cleanses on all those bounces (enhanced further by IE).

I’ve been waiting to post this until I’ve fully tested it, but what the heck, it’s very close. This is a bunker build I’ve been rolling with for 3 weeks in PvP. I’ve tried a condition and power variant (this is the power one) and seems to work a little better. It’s a blind spamming concept based off a brilliant keenlam idea from the old bunker thread you posted Chaos. Here’s the build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsdWlwzSoXVTqGb9IhJF9G5nZw8ljmB2tOA-TsAgzCtIAS5lzLDQyusdN+Y9xECA

It works marvelously. Damage is generally better in the power build going clerics/soldier. When I run the condition variant, it’s 20/20/30, the exact Illusion traits you have and shammy amulet. On both builds I switch out SoM for the disenchanter, just depending on the team comp and if I need to handle boon stripping or condition management more. The massive blind spam negates a great deal of damage so there is a lot of built in defense there. That, with regen ticking at 275 consistently for all party members on a point provides a great passive condition defense.

With all the etheral fields, you maintain a large chaos armor uptime (more blinds/regen/swiftness/protection!) using iLeap/Swap and phase retreat. The boon duration runes work well to keep regen and protection up as long as possible. On the condition variant I use the boon duration setup or runes of the forge which rock for protection and provide nice burning synergy with a condition setup.

My build’s inspiration was to make a “utility wizard” to help bunker a point or roam. So, I took the blind spam idea and paired it with massive reflects. You can hold points for awhile.

Pyro and I were theory-crafting a new idea the other night for his immortal build then got dueling to try it out, against this build. He can probably state the build’s effectiveness. I think we went 2 duels lasting 15 minutes apiece, none able to bring the other down (dat dang retaliation! would bring disenchanter next time).

I thought you had probably run the numbers and I’d be interesting in seeing them (or link me to another thread where you’ve likely posted them).

I don’t think you’ve quite answered me on the scepter. At the moment I still don’t get why you’d range with scepter over GS given the points I made.

Just the fact that one could run a build like this is all parts of wrong.

@guanglai, I was talking about 2 different things, so I’ll clarify:

• Wondering how much damage you’re missing out on by running sw/f and GS together, versus sw/f and sw/sw. This assuming when you’re on GS, you are AA’ing at 600 range, able to receive buffs, etc. Again, sw/f will be the predominant weapon set at least half the time.
• Using Scepter vs. GS – I did multiple tests in the mists with soldier’s amulet/jewel (4% base crit chance), spec’d into 30/0/0/0/0. I AA’d a medium golem down with GS and scepter AA (both at 600 range) and there was never more than a 2 second variance. Scepter mired the results a little due to the small dps the 3 clones deal. For fun, I threw on berserker amulet/jewel and achieved a similar result in variance. So from what I can tell, GS and scepter at 600 range appear to deal the same amount of direct damage over time unless someone can prove that wrong. I suppose if you go 15 into dueling with your build you also have to take into account the izerker bleeds you don’t get with iswordsman (when running sc/sw).

Prototype golems in sorrow’s embrace p1 can be decimated by reflects very quickly.

Is the 30% difference assuming that one stays with GS at 1200 range the entire time? Most situations wouldn’t be like that. They’re likely going to be 50/50 or best case 75(sword)/25(GS). This is what I mean by splitting hairs. You’re going to be in sword AA at least half the time, and the other – it’s not like you aren’t doing any damage.

And comparing to scepter, GS damage in 600 range damage is still well more than half of what it is at 1200 range, is about the same as scepter’s strongest 3rd attack, provides higher weapon strength (doesn’t affect AA, but increases weapon skill damage. Per wiki, “damage for weapon skills is based on the product of weapon strength and power”), you keep your 3rd phantasm and you still get boons/buffs from your party. Have you done comparisons based on this scenario?

colesy.8490:

I’m just highlighting the mentality of most players in this subforum, who know they’re running trash weapons, trash trinkets, trash armour, bad sigils, bad runes and a leech build and yet still insist on running it.

So you insult the majority of the posters in the mesmer forum for not only running with GS, but now they’re running trash everything else? And you wonder why people have a hard time taking you seriously …

That aside, I know you’re just frustrated and let that slip.

I tried running sw/sw and sw/f the other night in a primarly zerker setup. I did great and it was more fluid than I remember previously doing it a few months ago. I hated (and still do) waiting for the sword CD’s but they aren’t that bad. You learn the tells and you dodge, BF or F4 as necessary. It really worked well. See, you got your point across. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to stop using GS in dungeons or tell others to do so. It does mean that I have a keen awareness of my range when using GS and to never stray too far from a warrior, guardian or mesmer in PUGs who might be sharing some boons. Awareness is key. Use your GS if you like but use it smart. The overall DPS loss I have to believe is so minute, I can’t believe there is so much hair splitting on it.

Oh and scepter – I still don’t understand why some recommend that over GS. You’re always going to overwrite one of your precious DPS dealing phantasms if you AA, no way around it.

Personally I avoid the runes but completely understand why others use them.
Anet’s view on this is pretty simple (from what I’ve heard devs say in the past). Mesmers have the best in combat mobility in the game. Last thing I’d want is for them to buff one of our signets to give us some OOC mobility options and then add some in combat options to other classes to compensate – they’re all about balance, you know.

Whether optimal or not, it seems many have made traveler runes work with their builds.

Alissah.9281:

Oh… I thought these were coming in the 1 october patch :’(

I was so sure the releases page was incomplete >__<

Yeah the next balance patch was originally supposed to be 10/1 but they moved it to 10/15 a couple weeks back.

EDIT: As for the OP question, I have never liked the RnG nature of the trait but it’s good.

Psych.6527:

Its only expensive to buy the Custom Arena at 1600 gems. From there maintaining them is not bad as long as you buy the bulk purchase which is 450 gems for 20 days, roughly 30 gold.
That rounds out to be more or less 40-45 gold a month

Thanks for pointing that out. Yeah the single tokens are way overpriced and it’s much better to buy them in bulk. We’ll have to figure out the logistics of that as we near our expire time.

Incidentally, I’m still accepting donations for the initial cost of the arena

Less than 2 days left, please vote if you haven’t!

Quaygal.5327:

Baa.4582:

Quaygal.5327:

and reflects all incoming projectiles for that 1 second.

Masterful reflection works only for F4. Blurred frenzy and Blurred inscriptions do not trigger it.

Good to know. Sounds like a bug. I’ll fix the original post.

The bug would be for blurred inscriptions, not blurred frenzy since Anet changed the invulnerability to an evade a few patches back.

It was great hanging with a few of you in the new arena last night. There was some great conversation, dueling and theory-crafting. I can already see the immense benefit.

A couple people who were with us didn’t know about the arena. If you’d like to access it, do a search in the PvP game browser for [OMFG] and it should show up. Only members of the OMFG guild can access it. The password is listed in the message of the day for our guild (same password as our teamspeak channel).

Looking for invite, ty

Pyroatheist.9031:

skcamow.3527:

Each single token will extend the time by one day

Woah, I thought hte tokens were monthly.

Unfortunately not, yeah it’s pretty steep.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Custom_Arena_Time_Token

I figure that hey, we have fun for a month with it and if the idea fizzles for whatever reason, hopefully we had a good time with it. If we find we want to continue extending it for the cost, it’s going to be for a good reason (things going well, people getting value from it, etc).

So it’s all good.

Ok folks, we now have our very own custom arena to do whatever we want with (training, sparring, practicing, scrimmaging, dancing, partying, ok ok).

The name of our arena is “[OMFG] Official PvP Arena”. Our OMFG guild has been added as a member. The arena is password protected. As such, PvP progression cannot be gained. The password can be found in our guild MoTD – it is the same password used to access our Teamspeak channel.

By default we have 30 days of time to use. Time can be added by purchasing a custom arena time token from the gem store (current going rate is 7g each). Each single token will extend the time by one day. You can extend time with tokens anytime you wish by clicking “Add Time” at the bottom of our arena page. This becomes very much a group effort to sustain our arena ongoing. If we do not extend after 30 days, there is a small grace period after which if time is not extended, the arena is automatically deleted.

Current team size is set to 8 and can be increased to 10 which I can see a possibility depending on what we’re doing. Everything else is default.

Thanks for those who have already donated, I appreciate it!

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’m glad you grabbed Dazzling too, it makes Diversion and MoDistraction stack a large amount of Vuln, which in turn makes all your conditions that much more deadly.

How does vuln stacking affect condition damage dealt? The official definition is that it increases damage taken by 1% for each stack, so is it simply a percentage of the condition damage you’re dealing? Personally I’ve never looked at vuln that way – I’ve always thought that applied to just direct damage and the wiki damage page does not indicate vuln when factoring in condition damage. If it applies to condition damage too, I guess I’ve learned something new today …

I could probably play sometime this weekend. What time are you thinking? Evening generally works better, likely Sat night.

Also, I think I’m going to go ahead and just buy the custom arena for the guild. Those who wish to help with that can send donations to me directly. If I end up getting the full amount back minus 5 gold for my take, I’ll post here noting that and return any donations over that.

Now, any specific guidance or requests on how to set up this arena? I’ve never done this before and I know there are a lot of options to choose. I will do some reading but if anyone has anything to offer I’m all ears.

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

hmm, the play style really isn’t for me, I feel naked without DE and I have never been much good at getting off the interrupts.

It works, but its just not for me ^^

Coming from Blackwater it’s going to be a bit of a jolt for sure.
Playstyle is totally different and I can see how you would feel that way. On the other hand, for those who don’t currently play stealth heavy builds, this one will likely come easier.

Tip: Aside from the common magic bullet stun/duelist combo, don’t focus too much on the interrupts; just be aware when they occur and what can proc them so you can react. It takes some getting used to for sure.

Thanks for trying it out – good to know that it works!

Reserved for future

THE BUILD (Updated for 12/10/2013 patch)
Staff-Sc/P: http://tinyurl.com/kkjdoln
Video: coming soon

Traits/Skills/Gear
Trait selection is 0/30/20/0/20. See build link for details. If you’re comfortable playing without chaotic dampening, take bountiful interruption for large might stacking potential. If taking BI, run with doom sigils. If not taking BI, take battle sigils to maintain a minimum of 3 stacks permanently. I typically find myself maintaining around 5 with the constant WoC procs.

Runes: Perplexity is back! Since Anet finally introduced some cool downs, I think the runes are more balanced and a viable option. Other options include: undead for the most condition damage, grenth for more control, tormenting for AoE pressure on heal, nightmare for another potential interrupt source + condition duration.

General Info
You will frequently be applying the following damaging conditions: burning, confusion, bleeding, torment, and poison from various sources.

• Burning: WoC
• Confusion: confusing images, chaos armor, confusing combatants, perplexity runes, duelist+chaos storm combo field and F2.
• Bleeding: WoC, duelist, debilitating dissipation
• Poison: Chaos Storm (and doom sigil if taken)
• Torment: scepter block

The build used to use chaotic interruption, but with the pistol #5 stun taking one solid CI proc source away, I thought there wasn’t enough to effectively utilize the trait. So, I’m taking illusionary elasticity instead. This works great for the extra WoC and magic bullet bounce, both adding more condition pressure. Going 30 into dueling allows me to take both deceptive evasion and duelist’s discipline. The DE add alone has made a huge difference with the build, but the ability to pop iDuelists 12 seconds apart is very nice.

Playstyle
Try to roll with one duelist and two staff clones. As clones get destroyed by you/opponents, the enemy will get and bleeding, vuln or weakness (debilitating dissipation). All illusions will cause confusion when destroyed via confusing combatants. Try to get two duelists up for maximum bleed pressure, especially in 1vMany – assign different targets per duelist.

Nice work man.

@Dietzen, just curious, do you spend the majority of your time in sw/sw? Reason I ask is the lack of chaotic dampening. I’ve always found staff cumbersome to run without it. I know it’s possible and people obviously do it but I always like to ask feedback when I see it.

According to the current build link, you don’t have much mobility (I don’t see blink in the build unless you were referring to phase retreat). Would you consider this a weakness?

The toning down suggestions are good. That aside, I think perplexity runes were Anet’s way of re-introducing OP confusion into the game again to get everyone used playing with it so they can in turn nerf the runes to a more realistic level and then buff confusion damage overall.

We can dream right.

One of the best mesmer quotes I’ve seen is from Anet’s mesmer marketing (if you haven’t seen it):
“When I’m done with you, you won’t trust your own mind”.
Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mesmer

Alissah.9281:

There also should be someone who can boonstrip at mid at all times. It would be very effective to revive in a chaos storm while stripping stability :o. Still RNG, but effective :P.

Can bunkers strip boons?

Also, I will record the full match and post it here for people that want to see ^__^.

Yeah I think the team will need to build in some boon stripping capabilities on every player. Between the disenchanter, null field, shattered concentration and to some degree sword clones and mind stab, we have decent AoE options.

Speaking of stability, a pretty glaring weakness is our inability to provide/maintain stability. This could absolutely kill us while trying to cap or defend points (hey you can’t interrupt/prevent everything right), which is why the balance change coming to mantra of concentration is going to be so huge for mesmers. That build Chaos posted maintaining > 9s AoE stability is sounding pretty tasty (I believe that was WvW numbers, would be prob half that in PvP which is still solid).

This might help:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Traveller-Runes/first#post2906995

Pyroatheist.9031:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Raising the cash here will get us infracted, so we’ll have to talk about it more in-game. What’s everyones times and can anyone coordinate the EU side? I’d like to start practices this week and building team composition. How does

2 DPS/Roamers
2 Support (1 off-bunker)
1 Bunker

Sound? I’m thinking atleast 2 of us should run Portals.

I’m thinking we’re gonna want 1 boon stripping shatter, 1 phantasm damage build, and one offensive interrupt build.

On top of that will be 1 tanky boon support, potentially running PU with shattered conditions, and then lastly one full tank build.

The phantasm and the shatter builds should probably be taking portals for mobility.

The strategy would probably be a 2 point focus to maximize the effectiveness of the portals. The main bunker would start mid with the shatter, interrupt, and boon support mesmers, while the phantasm would cap back point. After that, you’d probably want the phantasm to drop a portal and come mid for full defense. If they pushed home, you’d have the main bunker and phantasm portal back to defend it, followed by a cycling of the shatter to home point in order to place a new portal.

Another potential team comp is replacing either the interrupt build or the phantasm build with a clone-death condition spreading build, but the overall strategy would be the same.

This is where the fun begins … putting this all together. So you think 3 damage builds and 2 tanky builds – sounds pretty good. Honestly with our AoE condition cleansing capabilities, managing them would be almost laughable when taking points if we build our comp properly. I think the biggest concern I had with an all mesmer comp is the holistic damage output while balancing the other roles. I think we’re fine there but honestly I can’t think of anything else that would be a major concern.

Another question I had, how many would take illusion of life? At least the 2 tanks and maybe one of the damage builds? All (can you imagine that) – I’m chuckling at this.

EDIT: Oh and even with the major portal usage I’m thinking at least one good runner would be good to have – maybe that’s the boon support or tank.

@DeathReign, for mesmer generally it’s best to stick with power builds for PvE if you can. The fact you’ve gotten used to being squishy is great and will continue to serve you well as you venture into WvW or dungeons. I would recommend you stick with that as long as you are comfortable doing so. So, berserker set for PvE and rabid set for WvW sounds ideal in your case. For your berserker armor upgrades, the often debated best (but by far most affordable) route is 6x ruby orbs. 6x Ogre is a decent choice and won’t break the bank too bad.

For trinkets (including the ascended piece), I recommend berserker for the power build and rabid or dire for the condition build. If you want a little more armor, you could add some cavalier trinkets.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Thanks Alissah, I had no idea about that! (Chill only procs at night though =/ )

@skcamow: You raise a good point about stacking too much duration, and I’ll definitely be experimenting (6x Ice runes also tempting me) to see how much works best. The two procs -three with Chaos Storm- are exactly why I wanna try to stack as much duration as possible if I can’t get more chill frequency. If I’m swapping constantly, then at 90% chill duration my chills should last for nearly 5 seconds. An almost 50% chill up time in addition to the constant cripple.

The goal is to make their melee skills take longer to recharge, hinder movement, and nullify boons & projectiles in group fights. I plan on having Chaos Armor on nearly all the time(Hoping for Blinds/Cripple) and should provide enough team support with the heavy control, 3 Ethereal Combo fields + 1 Light field, and AoE condition removal.

Going Zerker in Sword/Sword should also give me a decent amount of damage and a daze every 10 secs while Staff will provide my defense.

(Goal is for the build to be viable in PvE, PvP, AND WvW)

I tried 6x runes of Ice for awhile because of the great chill utility on #4, really CHEAP cost, and I needed a vitality boost. I run 4x currently plus 2x lyssa runes to still retain 4 chill procs. The 6th slot is excellent for power builds as well. 5% extra damage versus chilled foes is tasty.

Your build in principle sounds eerily similar to one I’ve been testing in PvP the past couple weeks, but a semi-bunker spec. Will have to compare notes when I get the thread up.

Bandicam (10 minute max recording time for free version).
MSI Afterburner (no limitations).

You’ll likely need a separate hard drive to record to (not the same one GW2 is installed on) in order to minimize FPS performance/lag and get the best quality video. If you don’t have that, you’re going to have a difficult time with this. Not that it can’t be done, but it’s definitely more frustrating and you’re going to end up with much lower quality videos due to the need to tone game settings down and record at lower resolutions.

Depending on your rig, you will likely have to play around with a lot configurations and recording qualities to come to something that works. This will require some reading/research and experimentation.

For some ideas, I posted this build in the lockdown thread – 30/20/0/20/0 mantra shutdown. I haven’t had a chance to test it yet though. Note you’d want to go with DE vs pistol trait and likely decoy vs blink to help with mantra charging.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Lockdown-The-Underexplored-Playstyle/first#post2827202

Chaos Archangel.5071:

skcamow.3527:

Hah, you did say traited focus didn’t you.
For sigils, you mentioned hydromancy which sounds like a good choice or energy for perma-clones since you’re going for some clone on death traits.
Runes … could go with some passive condition management ones like hoelbrak or melandru.

Was thinking of using Orrian Truffle & Meat Stew for my dodging concerns so I can stick with the Hydromancy sigils. I’m leaning towards 2x Ice /2x Sanctuary /2x Svanir and a chill sigil… I really wanna push that chill.

Gotcha, sorry I was thinking more PvP. Yeah that looks good – I see the chillruption inspiration now. I would say, just be careful stacking that chill duration. When I tried that I found I started really lacking power to bring things down. I ended up with 30% condition duration with an extra 20% chill. It extends chill via hydromancy by a full second, by 1/2 second from chaos storm and a full second from CI procs. 50% seemed like the sweet spot for me, your mileage may vary and maybe that would work better in a team comp. I will also say those hydromancy sigils do a decent amount of damage in power builds.

There’s a lot of chill focus for 2 procs – I can’t say a whole lot there compared with my build, but chaotic interruption proc’d it often enough, I thought it was worthy of the chill build title/focus.