Guild Wars 2

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.

Pyro can you make the announcement about raising funds for the custom arena in the MoTD? Seems that’s probably the best place for that information at this point.

On paper that comp looks pretty good but yeah we should talk about it. Just another FYI for all that I’ve set up a teamspeak server (see MoTD for details) and we can use that for this. It’s available 24/7 if anyone wishes to hop on to discuss anything.

I’m good generally evenings 7pm-ish – 10pm server time.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’m starting to see now exactly how much shutdown Mesmer have at their disposal. We can screw up enemy movement (cripple), cooldowns, lock out skills (daze, interrupts, chill), reflect projectiles, punish for attacking (confusion), stack Vuln like a madman (Dazzling), boon removal among other things.. Hell, in taking a second look at the Domination line I see that there are some really excellent options there. I know this is all common knowledge, but I’m really seeing how Lockdown is so much more than dazes/interrupts. Interrupts are actually a minimal aspect when you consider all the possibilities we have to make control-heavy builds.

Right now I’m looking at Crippling Dissipation, Debilitating Dissipation, a traited staff and focus, some hydromancy sigils, and a way to remove conditions/boons (Null field and Shattered Concentration) in a sort of 20/20/10/20/0 Lockdown build with Decoy, Nullfield, and Feedback. (Inspired in part by Chillruption)

The disruption we can create is significant. I believe Anet knew exactly what they were doing when they designed mesmer and that we just haven’t fully explored all the possibilities yet (even after a year and without too drastic trait changes).

So would you consider this a variant of Mind Crush? I personally like the change taking bountiful interruption out (gasp!). The nature of the build is passively altruistic so gaining all those boons on interrupt, while very nice for yourself, doesn’t help the team. Now if you’re going about playing solo que and such, yeah. But I personally wouldn’t take the trait in a team comp unless there was a way to share the goods.

Going 20 into inspiration gives the build a utility spice which is nice. Obviously if null field helps with the condi-removal then yeah. Assume you’re taking mender’s purity in adept and glamour CD’s in master?

I’m unclear on exactly what you’re asking but will give it a shot. Assuming you’re wondering how best to maximize your condition and might duration, what kind of numbers are you going for? Your current 76% condition duration in a build like this is high IMO. Honestly you don’t probably need much more than 50%. I run a power build using chaotic interruption from time to time and I found that while initially I want to try to maximize condition duration to keep immobilize/chill/cripple/blind on my opponent as long as possible, I was sacrificing too much power in order to do so. So I lowered it quite a bit to compromise.

Another thing you might look into is using boon duration runes (2x water, 2x monk, 2x traveler) to get 45% duration for ALL boons across the board, versus your current 60% duration which only affects might.

@keenlam, I would like to remove my build from the contest. Reason being is while it’s a fun build to roam and skirmish with, it’s inferior to the now official chillruption condition build my tester and I finally settled upon after much playing around with and some eventual valuable feedback from Pyro. Understanding I can’t use that build, I would rather not spend the time in stage 2 with the original one I submitted.

That said, I think the process here worked excellent. My tester and I worked on my original idea and both came to the conclusion the build had it’s merits; it was a fun and different play style for a condition build. But in that testing we found some deficiencies, most of which were resolved by adding staff, which really unlocked it’s full potential. The problem is I wasn’t able to coordinate with my tester in time to update my build link for the ORB deadline that I honestly wasn’t aware of until it was too late.

This isn’t a plea to use the new build – I want to honor the process. Maybe this can help refine our process further and also remind future build creators of it. So I will cheer on the remaining participants and look forward to October. Good luck to everyone and thanks to those who voted for my build!

p.s. back up to the top

@Chaos, yeah 1,600 gems is quite a bit but it translates to about 80 gold, which isn’t too bad. I would be willing to invest in this and coordinate the purchase. If we get 16 people from the guild to donate 5g we’ll have it. The arena can be used for tPvP strats and also any training the OMFG coordinates.

Would we need an arena for both EU and NA?
Also I’m free on most evenings (especially if I know ahead of time).

Amaterasu.6280:

Question – why do you have 2 sigils of paralyzation with s/s when they don’t stack?

They stack.

themenaceofseventhdimension.2075:

Again, the purpose of this build is to counter these builds:

PU Condition
PU/DPS/Tank/High Condition removal

Why are you making a build to counter one specific build spec (PU) of one specific class (Mesmer)? Unless I’m missing something here, I would say that’s rather short sighted.

All of this depends heavily on what role Anet would make MH pistol. Would you want a MH pistol if they went with more of a cc/lockdown/interrupt focus, which is clearly a Mesmer forte? While that would be intriguing, I’m thinking we should be specific about what we want in this weapon. From what I’ve personally read over the past year, most people want an option for a more viable MH power weapon instead of being locked into scepter when taking a MH/OH in each set.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Ill be in for this of course. I specialize in bunker builds, as most of you are aware.

Hm, do you have one you’re currently using (thought the Immortal build wasn’t working well)?

modz, please, please sticky this thread …

Hey man, I mailed you on this one, heck ya I’d be in. I’m currently testing a bunker (yeah, bunker). Going to be posting a build link soon and asking for help to continue refinement if it keeps performing as well as it has.

I couldn’t agree more.

Fay.2735:

skcamow.3527:

Our AoE condition cleansing is going to be obscene as it is, but throw null field in there for blink, trait glamour reduction instead of mender’s purity (because you will be “passively” cleansing yourself constantly anyway) and it starts getting a bit ludicrous. No class can come even close to this without blast finishers. Plus that AoE boon strip = amazing on points.

That’s the idea and the way we can be useful again as we’d be the hard counter against the condition meta. I wouldn’t go full on condition removal as you already have the shatter and mantra condition removal + the healing to counter condition damage. Adding nullfield to it is unnecessary for condition removal but the boon removal would be a plus. I think there are a lot of variations and options you can go for depending on your teams requirement.

Yep, just throwing out ideas. Can certainly get to overkill at some point

Chaos Archangel.5071:

iLeap is an AoE immobilize.

Really? I never realized that.
EDIT: Helps to read the tooltip. /facepalm

Fay.2735:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Im still torn between MoPain for heals and MoDistraction for control/safer mantra charges.

Hey Fay how did you change font size?

The forum uses Textile Formatting I use that to format my posts.

Because the build I devised is heavily focused on healing/condition removal to combat conditions MoP is preferable as you can get more healing output when required. You can of course swap it out for MoD or MoC whatever your team requires more but I like the extra bit of damage you can do with MoP to make up for some of the loss of damage due to stats as well as do damage while casting other mantras.

Our AoE condition cleansing is going to be obscene as it is, but throw null field in there for blink, trait glamour reduction instead of mender’s purity (because you will be “passively” cleansing yourself constantly anyway) and it starts getting a bit ludicrous. No class can come even close to this without blast finishers. Plus that AoE boon strip = amazing on points.

SlimChance.6593:

I run a 30-0-30-10-0 build, so I’m able to run both if I want.

Confounding Suggestions can be really fun. I’ve run sword/focus with Confounding Suggestions and Mantra of Distraction. Pick your target, cast iWarden, hit Power Lock during cast (if lucky get a stun), enemy stunned while iWarden spins up on them, quickly to an iLeap (another immobilize) into a blurred frenzy. Nice burst there.

That’s a sweet combo there. There are some great combos available to us with these interrupt traits, some probably not even discovered yet. One thing I like to do using chaotic interruption is a 5 second immobilize burst (from my build thread):

“You can pull off a chain immobilize that lasts 5 seconds if not cleansed. Cast iLeap, then iWarden. During the iWarden channel, F3 shatter. That will likely interrupt, inflicting immobilize from CI. iWarden should deal about half of his damage. Now, just before Swap goes to CD, use it. This will further immobilize and you can burst with BF while the iWarden finishes his attack. That rotation will do a decent amount of burst damage from a full iWarden attack spin, his bleeds and your BF. Also not swapping immediately after an iLeap will confuse some who are used to that typical mesmer combo. Whatever they do in an attempt to counter that burst will get interrupted by F3.”

ofc assumes they don’t cleanse but it’s awesome when you land it.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Distraction [F3]

Mantras mixed with shatters … good combo huh?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

With Mind Crush in that small rotation, you just AoE immobilized, dazed (w/5x vuln), removed a boon, AoE chilled, Chaos Storm’d (all kinds of debilitating shiz), and dazed again.

Hm, how did you AoE immobilize? Just making sure I’m not missing something …

@Divinity, I suggest checking out Osicat’s sPvP build, it might give you some ideas. I believe it’s a variant of the blackwater build:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Shatter-Cat-sPvP-section/first#post2562449

Have you seen this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Lockdown-The-Underexplored-Playstyle/first#post2865573

A list of known interrupt/lockdown builds is posted. I personally haven’t played it yet, but I’ve heard some great things about the Mind Crush build which uses confounding suggestions (30/20/20). My chillruption build takes both chaotic interruption and imbued diversion (10/0/30/0/30). I’ve had fun with it in PvP. There are a lot of other great builds there to check out and get some ideas.

nyaonyao.8402:

skcamow.3527:

Ugh, you guys are right, daze isn’t a condition, it’s a control effect like stun and can only be cleared via a stun break or waiting. These are the effects which fall under that category:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

Man, too early. I believe everything else I said is correct though.

Hmm, then does daze have any advantage over stun? When the player also has torment maybe? You know when they panic and don’t use a stun breaker and run away instead? XD

Yeah really the difference between the two is that dazed opponents can move – they just can’t use any skills (except stun breakers). Stunned opponents can’t move (complete lockdown). For NPC’s, a daze is pretty much identical to a stun since a daze will prevent them from moving.

Ugh, you guys are right, daze isn’t a condition, it’s a control effect like stun and can only be cleared via a stun break or waiting. These are the effects which fall under that category:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

Man, too early. I believe everything else I said is correct though.

Yeah, as Alissah mentioned, daze/immobilize are conditions and the only way to get rid of it is to wait it out or cleanse. Those and other cc conditions such as chill/cripple/blind also are affected by condition duration, to a 1/4 second (I’ve personally tested). So even small amounts of condition duration are useful in extending these.

The other day I was on the pvptv stream and they were talking about this subject at length, but focused on burning. They were saying the likelihood of an addition burning tick is dependent on when the first tick occurs. Some skills apply conditions instantly upon cast (such as fear), but most do not (skill execution > successful hit > actual burning occurrence). This may factor into the equation but I was unable to figure out exactly how. The discussion did not include anything regarding other damaging conditions, purely burning and it’s duration.

Also, awhile back a mesmer posted a non-confusion based condition build with a heavy focus on extending burn duration (I believe the person’s name was Palu). They did some heavy testing on this subject and there is some great information in those threads if you want to dig for them.

Pyroatheist.9031:

skcamow.3527:

@Pyro, cool thanks for the elaboration. I will keep these things in mind. Aside from your proven knowledge of the mesmer, knowing you played around with build gives huge credibility to your comments, since you obviously experienced it. Thanks for taking the time to do that.

Outside of the contest, we will probably continue testing a staff variant as that seems to be stronger – more survivable for sure.

A staff variant would probably be stronger. Among other things, it gives you burning pressure, bleed pressure not tied to the duelist, and the potential for more confusion stacking from the duelist combo with chaos storm.

Edit: I should mention that a majority of my stress testing of builds was done against a very good p/d d/p thief. Very difficult to interrupt, very good at applying conditions.

Funny you say that, thieves seemed to be one of the hardest to fight. My tester said the exact same thing about having trouble interrupting them. Once we switched to staff, they were much more manageable.

@Pyro, cool thanks for the elaboration. I will keep these things in mind. Aside from your proven knowledge of the mesmer, knowing you played around with build gives huge credibility to your comments, since you obviously experienced it. Thanks for taking the time to do that.

Outside of the contest, we will probably continue testing a staff variant as that seems to be stronger – more survivable for sure.

Pyroatheist.9031:

@skcamow

• Conditions: Immobilize is only from leap/swap or interrupts. Chill is only a % chance from interrupts so doesn’t count. Blind is only from the activation on scepter block aka no torment, so shouldn’t count. Poison is only applied in 5 second chunks on weapon swap and is easily avoidable. Torment can not be applied actively. Confusion is worthless on its own. Bleeding is only applied through the duelist.

I land torment just about every time I swap to sc-p. I personally would consider that actively applied, though obviously not constant. Not as common as the iDuelist, iWarden does apply bleeds and I provide a couple examples in the build thread on how to maximize that. Every interrupt procs immobilize AND either blind (not just scepter block), cripple or chill. Poison is rarely avoided in my experience.

• Duelist: The duelist is fine as a source of bleeds, but as your only source of bleeds it falls very short. It will die incredibly quickly if someone attacks it, as you lack the signet or traiting to make it durable. Additionally, you have no cooldown traits for it, and so you will on average get 1 unload from it every 20 seconds.

I don’t know what else to say to this but that it has been the complete opposite of my experience with the build. I typically get 2 unloads at a minimum because of phantasmal haste.

• Confusion: This only procs constantly against unskilled opponents. Confusion bomb builds have always been trash for this reason. Combining confusion with other pressure makes it effective, but the lack of other pressure makes the confusion ineffective.

Perplexity runes are ensuring (for now) that decent confusion numbers are back. Now I certainly haven’t been winning every fight, but maybe the ones I have were against unskilled opponents (which I admit is entirely possible).

• Interrupts: I did forget diversion, but your build happens to have very low clone generation and very long cooldowns on your phantasms. Using any shatter is an action that has a massive drawback for that reason.

You don’t need massive clone generation to use diversion. Use only one if you can unless you want/need to go for a spread out 3 illusion chain. I have plentiful amounts of illusions to use for this that aren’t phantasms (iLeap, illusionary counter, scepter AA and decoy – isn’t that enough?). You don’t need DE (as an example) to make diversion effectively useful.

• Defense against conditions: Your only active condition removal is arcane thievery which can only remove 3 conditions every 45 seconds. Your only other condition removal is the iWarden whirl combo, which can be difficult and/or impossible to set up at times. Condition pressure from most opponents will get through your defenses (which consist of scepter block and iWarden spin) and once you use arcane thievery, they can just go to town.

In this condition heavy meta, your concern about condition management is well received. If you look at the build, you’ll see I have master of manipulations traited. Even then, I know that’s not quite enough which is why the iWarden whirl is nice and actually very easy to pull off (in my experience) when I need to. I also utilize a traited Decoy heavily (and mass invisibility) which provides natural condition mitigation. With these, I haven’t had much of a problem with condition management. I have used iDisenchanter instead of Arcane Thievery with success as well.

I’ve personally found that there’s a big difference between analyzing a build on paper and playing one. A build which looks nonviable can sometimes prove to be decent. I hear and appreciate everything you’re saying but it’s hard to come to terms with it when I’m not seeing many of these things as issues in practice. I’m not trying to insult your intelligence here since you have obviously posted some good and well received builds, but the irony is that a few people (who have been playing it the past few days) have told me the build seems effective. Again I fully admit I (and maybe they, I don’t know) might not be fighting skilled enough opponents so on that premise will accept what you have said.

I knew about the build deadline but I honestly wasn’t aware of the ORB decision deadline (until it was too late) as my tester and I were in the midst of playing with a Staff/Sc-P variant which was working a little better than the original spec. We probably would have went with that but that’s neither here nor there at this point. Again I appreciate your feedback and willingness to help others craft solid builds.

Though I disagree with much of what you said, I sincerely appreciate the feedback. I’m honestly scratching my head at some of the comments though. I’ll list out a few counters.

• Purpose: noted. I received similar feedback from others and should probably change the build name to “Chaotic Conditions” or something else.
• Condition application: I’m spreading active conditions all over the place (immobilize, chill, blind, daze etc). I assume you meant “damaging” conditions. In that case, I have 4 uniquely and often applied conditions (bleeding, confusion, posion and torment), which are more than adequate.
• The duelist: I see your point in how that can be a disadvantage but honestly in my experience, it does most of the damage in the build, especially because of phantasmal haste. I don’t see him dying that often due to reflects or retaliation though I’m sure it does happen. Besides, it’s definitely not uncommon for a condition build to use the duelist as the primary means to proc sharper images.
• Confusion procs constantly and for big damage. I’m not the best PvP player by a long shot, but did you see the video?
• One disadvantage is certainly the 4 untraited weapons, I’ll give you that. I don’t seem to have much trouble with that though.
• Interrupts: You forgot the most important one which can and does proc interrupts often in diversion.
• Defense against conditions is decent if played as described in the build thread. Did you read through that?

If the build doesn’t make stage 2 that’s totally fine and I honor the ORB’s decision. I just want to ensure the facts are straight on it.

Dirame.8521:

Divinity.8041:

have you tried confounding suggestions

50% chance on daze for a 1 sec stun

Chaotic Interruption is pretty much the same thing. A daze and an immobilize simulate the same effect as a stun and it is more guaranteed.

Using BI and CI in this build is really nice – they have great synergy with each other. I use the same setup in my chillruption condition build.

To clarify, CI procs on interrupt, not daze. Daze is obviously one of our best ways to proc an interrupt but it’s important to make that distinction.

Also confounding suggestions is good, but IMO a bit overrated. It’s very effective for 1v1 lockdown builds, but you have to daze your opponent for the potential stun proc (chaos storm goodness). Even then, to counter this, aware opponents can choose to wait out the typical short daze duration. To interrupt, we have daze and pushes/pulls on top of that. If they changed CS so it works like CI (stun on interrupt), it would be killer and much more worth taking. With the 50% proc chance, I don’t think it would be OP either.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

That doesnt make sense though. Should be 3 secs with 50% boon. (I know my math cant be THAT bad.)

And 2 secs Stability on a 2 sec cooldown is spammable.. Maybe Stability doesnt stack duration? (Forgive typos. exiled to my phone)

I did the test again and you’re right. Sorry not sure what happened there. It does stack duration. With 75% boon duration, you get 10.85s of stability. 50% gives you 9.25s. You’ll get a small 1/10 +/- variance due to the ability to hit it just as it comes off CD but that’s very close.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I see a lot of possibility with these new Mantra changes.

• MoConcentration - What people underestimate is that this ability can be chained together.

Just FYI, power break has a 2 second CD.
EDIT: So you lose a couple seconds there with 50% boon duration. Just tested with 75% boon duration and a stopwatch – if you chain them one after another you get 9 seconds continuous stability.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• Many Engineers seemed to be just as surprised at their support capabilities as they were at Mesmer’s. That particular thread was awesome, and so are Engineers.

It was because of this thread that I started leveling an engineer to use for support

Regarding 130911-000317: posting for my brother (jwbaggins.3640). He was unaware extended periods of inactivity would result in a permanent ban. He is a long time GW1 player, has played GW2 since launch and would very much like to get back to playing again. Please provide a status asap, thank you!

@keenlam, has a deadline been set for the ORB to approve/disapprove build viability? I’m wondering how much time a build team has to post the final tested/refined build between the submission deadline and ORB decision.

@OP, as stated, support is a viable role mesmers can play in zergs. Many support builds (including the Chaos Maestro) are listed at this link:

SUPPORT Mesmer Spotlight

Alternatively, you could run a clone spam condition build. The on-death nature of inflicting conditions makes your clones like bombs as you send them into their death.

The Clone Spammer

Here is a unique build which provides a lot of utility:

The Zerg Soldier

Or for a completely different playstyle which is very disruptive, try chillruption (check my signature). You could run either the power or condition build but the power build is better vs zergs and provides decent group utility with all the cc. Hint: something I don’t have in the power build link is perplexity runes, which are way fun with that build due to the AoE interrupts.

There are more options than this even. We currently have plenty of fun, diverse and viable builds to play with in WvW. In a lot of cases, you can just run what build you want and if you are in a zerg, understand you will be asked at times to throw up a veil or portal. No problem! Do the duty and move on. It’s not going to occupy 100% of your time in a zerg.

Menaka.5092:

skcamow.3527:

While all these are good points, I think it’s important to remember the various ways to “counter” interrupting our mantra charges.

Also, consider range (blink) and line of sight or more situational things like standing inside the iWarden bubble against ranged opponents.

Yep, more good points.

It gains you valuable knowledge on how best to get your mantras charged, and the one spectacular thing they absolutely do is AoE heal in a support role. The new AoE condi-clear will be obviously much better as you stated. Will it be spectacular? Likely not but we’re getting somewhere. If they lowered the charge time by another 1/2 second we could maybe really start seeing more use.

I’m not going to argue mantras need a buff, I’m in agreement all the way there. Just offering a reminder on some of the ways it can make using them easier.

While all these are good points, I think it’s important to remember the various ways to “counter” interrupting our mantra charges.

• Stability mantra. Ok, kinda lame – doesn’t 100% protect you and you have to take that extra mantra.
• Daze. Daze mantra, F3, Magic Bullet, Counter Blade, etc. Use your dazes to buy you time to charge mantras.
• Blind. Counterspell, Signet of Midnight, glamours (if traited), on interrupt via chaotic interruption (though random).
• During a Chaos Storm. The storm is so chaotic (huh, huh) that it’s hard to see what the mesmer is doing if standing in it. Great time to charge a mantra.
• Stealth. Probably the most spoken of way to pretty much guarantee a mantra charge.
• Distortion. Probably the best way to charge a mantra, though I never hear talk about this one. Even one clone/second can buy you enough time.

When planning builds with heavy mantra use, using these methods will help prevent being interrupted, at least some of the time.

I like the ideas here. Incidentally, I posted a lockdown/support mantra build yesterday:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Lockdown-The-Underexplored-Playstyle/first#post2827202

This was before I knew about the upcoming changes. That AoE condition cleanse is going to be powerful and won’t require mesmers to go 30 into inspiration for shattered conditions anymore. I may even think about swapping the daze mantra for stability, but would take more away from the lockdown focus.

phokus.8934:

jportell.2197:

phokus.8934:

More importantly, are Confusion and Bleed stacks going to be capped at 5? From the leaked notes, they’re not listed but from what j.sharp wrote, it sounded as if all boons/conditions were being capped at 5.

Duration stacking… So say you got an engi a necro and a guard on a team. They all have skills/traits that apply burn… You can only get the duration stacked 5 times. Intensity stacking will still be capped at 25. There is only one boon that is intensity stacking (might) all others are duration stacking. This is more than likely an intentional nerf to classes/team comps that amp up on boons.

Ah OK. With that, it has me thinking that Lemongrass and Hoelbrak will be even better against conditions.

Yeah, to some degree it may calm down or at least try to better control the current condition meta, which is probably one of the intended side effects of the change.

Speaking WvW here, why do you use DE? Not really a shatter or clone on death build. You could pick up IC instead and get a global CD decrease on your illusion skills.

If you’re counting on the bleeds applied from the warden via sharper images, you would be better to go with the duelist who will apply bleeds much faster and more reliably.

The rest looks pretty good. You didn’t have sigils on the sw/f weaponset, but I suggest using geomancy or doom on one and a condition duration, permanent bonus or on kill sigil on the other. This will ensure the sigils don’t conflict with each other.

@Xaylin, guess I could have changed the name, but I think CI is strong enough it still warrants it. ID is wasted in 1v1, and I needed the bleeds to provide enough condition pressure. I have no problem proc’ing plenty of confusion (see video). Same reason I took doom sigil vs hydromancy, more condition pressure.

Also agreed, magic bullet stun is one thing that counters CI, though the CI proc’d conditions do last beyond the stun. BUT, in 1vMany don’t forget the 2nd bounce is daze, which CI works good with.

We will likely be playing around with a staff/sc-p variant which will introduce more chill back in (via CS). We’ll see, and thanks for the feedback and for voting!

I think protection, regeneration and vigor would take the biggest hit there. It’s easy for a support mesmer to rack up to a minute of each of those in longer fights. Say, from PU, you get 3s base protection. With 100% boon duration you’ll only be able to maintain 30s at any one time (if I’m reading that right). Still not bad, but I’m not sure how that will work with boons/durations gained from different sources, like chaos armor, etc.

Another biggie there is the AoE spells change. That would be a fairly big nerf for us (think iZerker attacks, Imbued Diversion, GS push, focus pull, etc).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

For a group fight, I’d grab the focus/staff. Focus’s pull can interrupt multiple people at once, and of course the Warden shuts down projectiles while the curtain gives AoE swiftness. Staff’s Chaos Storm procs dazes, does decent AoE damage (2k-3k if all 6 hits proc) and drops all the other debilitating conditions while buffing allies. It’s perfect for a Control/Support build, and I’ll definitely look into that concept more. And yeah, grabbing Deceptive Evasion is practically crucial. I’d also throw in Vigorous Revelation/Medic’s Feedback over Mender’s Purity for more team support. MoResolve should be enough condi removal.. Also, I think Decoy would be a better bet over Blink for the extra clone and the free mantra charge while stealth’d. Ugh, it feels like Bountiful Interruption would be pretty crucial in a support/lockdown build but then you’d sacrifice a slot for Signet of Inspiration.

As most of of the lockdown builds I’ve seen have been, well, focused on locking down opponents (awesome), I added some AoE healing into the mix. The AoE lockdown wouldn’t be too bad with the big counter blade orb, magic bullet and the scepter “AoE in a line” blind. Maybe lockdown/healer would be a better category.

To your suggestion, if you want staff CD’s and bountiful interruption, we have to do a major point shift. If not, you could keep the same trait setup, go Staff/Sw(or Sc)-F, taking the focus purely for the pull every 25s. To get reflects, drop mantra heals for warden’s feedback, and it’s really different at that point. Lockdown builds have a very focused role as you stated in the OP and it seems to me if you try to do too much, it’s not as much of a “lockdown” build. That said, your mind crush build has some of the elements you referred to. This (just threw together) may reflect your support ideas a little more: http://tinyurl.com/nxusowf.

Would have to determine what’s more “supportive”, shattered concentration or vigorous revelation. Could use iDisenchanter to boon strip, though SC is better.

I actually have another bunker PvP build I’m testing (inspired from an idea Keenlam had) which I believe handles all the “utility” things you’re referring to, but not interrupt/lockdown focused.

glenndevis.8327:

Ah might be better to go for Imbued diversions then anyway. Gotta try it out.

Just FYI, this thread may interest you:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-Imbued-Diversion-in-WvW-Updated

Under the secondary playstyle section, you have power/lockdown and condition/lockdown. How about support/lockdown? I came up with a build awhile back and put it on the back burner to eventually get in PvP and test. I haven’t yet but hey I’ll post it here to see what ya’ll think. Mantras I know have a terrible reputation in PvP but if there is a build where mantras might work, it might be something like this where your opponents are stunned/dazed so often and long.

Just trying to imagine a heavily contested point with two teams going at each other – restorative mantras could be a lifesaver. The theory w/mantras in this build is (depending on the one you’re charging) you can fire off 3 dazes, condi clears or heals while charging another. Constant stream of lockdown (and thus, healing). Condition removal is probably overkill but it’s the meta we live in. One stun breaker – blink or decoy.

The build would be macro intensive and again, only theory at this point. Thoughts on a support/lockdown idea?
http://tinyurl.com/n6d9ynd

EDIT: An interesting and maybe better alternative would be to swap duelist’s discipline with DE and mender’s purity with vigorous revelation (or maybe just the DE change). Lots of shatter support then and you only lose out on pistol range/CD’s and extra condi-removal. Could play either way.

@Chaos (as usual) great thread
Is this idea more PvP focused? I ask because I think that’s where most of these builds originated.

Pyroatheist.9031:

The phantasmal haste page is 100% accurate…and 100% useless.

For purposes of dps, you need to know the time from attack beginning to attack beginning, and that chart shows you the time from attack end to attack beginning.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but is it as useless for one shot attacks like iSwordsman/iWarlock and to some degree the iZerker (since their attack is so quick)? I can see what you’re saying concerning the iDuelist and iWarden.

I see you used chaotic interruption there and I can say from experience it’s very strong in WvW. Lately I’ve been testing a condition build (see chillruption in my signature) using that trait, mainly roaming but occasionally will roll with the zerg if I run into it. The focus pull is awesome if you can land it (use perplexity runes for the full interrupt effect). The power build is a lot of fun too if you can become adept at shattering your mirror blade clone for AoE interrupts via imbued diversion, or get in close enough for the GS #5 push (also chaos storm!). I’ve heard of many others adapt their own style from this idea and you look like you have a good start to a build there (though unsure of dazzling glamours since you only have veil, which you commonly won’t be tossing into the middle of a zerg).

Yeah I pretty much said what I needed to say in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/So-many-GS-mesmers-in-dungeons/first#post2814391

But I will elaborate here

That post sums up pretty much what you were saying. A major stickler in this whole thing has been the approach. It’s always black and white which as we all know, it just isn’t. You can’t just universally say “GS is trash in dungeons” when obviously we all know that isn’t true.

So much of these arguments are matters of opinion but that’s not how they are presented. If I have to play sw/sw, sw/f or pistol according to someone’s definition of “optimal”, I’ll gladly do that on occasion and have fun doing it but you betcha I’ll play other weapon sets and styles as well, likely more. You want to clear dungeons 2, 3, 4 minutes faster than a “non-optimal” group? Go right ahead. I’ll often take the longer route and see you at the finish line 3 minutes later. It’s your prerogative to play that way, it’s mine to play how I want and by no means does it make either of us bad players. We just enjoy the game differently.

It started with an initiative to convince everyone that GS is not a good weapon for dungeons. I admit at first I was incredulous but after the points made, I learned a lot. It gave me a perspective I didn’t have before. But now it’s being taken way to far, to this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/So-many-GS-mesmers-in-dungeons/first#post2814140

Ok I get the point and can even agree on some things. But now we are leeches and awful for playing how we want? Gimme a break. That kind of comment is elitist, in my opinion.