Guild Wars 2

Chaos Archangel.5071:

skcamow.3527:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Domination: Confounding / Shattered concentration / Power Block or Anguish
Dueling: Phant Fury / Blinding Dissipate / Deceptive
Chaos: SlowInterrupt / CloneShatter / PhantasmShatter

I’m 99% positive that’ll be the meta shatter spec for Chrono, and I’m allergic to cookie-cutter. =[

You meant chrono instead of chaos there …

I think chrono will likely be IllusionSuperSpeed / LongerAlacrity / SlowOnThirdCrit. Supcutie was running this with GS/Sw-Sh

Either is good but especially for GS builds (which will always be meta), using Lost Time is much more worth it due to the frequent crits due to high AA frequency. With that much accessibility to slow, illusion super speed is much more enticing in adept. This increases dps by a fair amount in guaranteeing shatters that before would have been destroyed by AoE cleave.

If you don’t use GS though, Lost Time is much less valuable, making the adept choice much more difficult between SlowInterrupt / IllusionSuperSpeed.

The master choice is very much up in the air depending on what is chosen in adept/GM, and again further depending on which weapons are used.

Interesting. I didn’t consider the effect Lost Time would have on GS. I assumed it was the next target hit. So if you have the buff ready and hit MindSpike or iWave, would that hit all targets with Slow?

Just saying that using GS means you have the most efficient method to proc Lost Time because the AA is so much quicker than the other weapons (esp if cancel casting), and due to the nature of how GS is used (kiting, piercing beam etc). Mind Stab helps build stacks as well.

Now when you have your five stacks charged, if the “next attack” is an AoE, I’m unsure if slow would apply to all.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Domination: Confounding / Shattered concentration / Power Block or Anguish
Dueling: Phant Fury / Blinding Dissipate / Deceptive
Chaos: SlowInterrupt / CloneShatter / PhantasmShatter

I’m 99% positive that’ll be the meta shatter spec for Chrono, and I’m allergic to cookie-cutter. =[

You meant chrono instead of chaos there …

I think chrono will likely be IllusionSuperSpeed / LongerAlacrity / SlowOnThirdCrit. Supcutie was running this with GS/Sw-Sh

Either is good but especially for GS builds (which will always be meta), using Lost Time is much more worth it due to the frequent crits due to high AA frequency. With that much accessibility to slow, illusion super speed is much more enticing in adept. This increases dps by a fair amount in guaranteeing shatters that before would have been destroyed by AoE cleave.

If you don’t use GS though, Lost Time is much less valuable, making the adept choice much more difficult between SlowInterrupt / IllusionSuperSpeed.

The master choice is very much up in the air depending on what is chosen in adept/GM, and again further depending on which weapons are used.

This thread needs to die, immediately. We haven’t had even remotely close to one second of live play with chrono yet and this is one of the last things the devs should be looking at adjusting in favor of alacrity, slow and maybe a slight CD increase on F5.

Really love how you can use iLeap/Swap to get ahead of ToT for the recharge …

It’s so easy to chalk up the Abjured win to a reason that places no responsibility on oneself or a team. Why is this?

It’s so convenient to completely dismiss the fact the Abjured were in the losers bracket. Hm, really? Why is that? They still had 2 d/d ele’s for those matches. What happened? oRNG played better. As a team, they countered just about everything the Abjured were doing.

Then come the finals. I’m sure most people expected oRNG to run away with it, but something interesting happened. The Abjured exhibited a better ability to adapt to what oRNG was doing, create a tactical advantage and out rotate them, over and over. Is this tactical advantage attributed only to the fact they had 2 d/d ele’s? No!

2 d/d eles are obviously strong, but waaay too much weight is being put on that fact alone as a reason for the Abjured win and less on team tactics and misplays.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Do we have any testers besides Tobasco, NICENIKESHOE, Jurica, Skcamow and Messiah?

I won’t be able to test unfortunately, don’t have the game pre-ordered yet. Have fun peeps!

nearlight.3064:

The best celestial build right now is probably the countless aids build. Its a signet staff sw/p build with illusions/dom/dueling, and basically finds away to burst people nearly as fast as power GS in a cele setup.

Actually he’s been torn between cele and carrion recently, seems to be favoring carrion.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Some technical questions I’d like answered:

• Does alacrity grant 2s recharge per 3s duration, or 1s recharge per 3s duration?
• Does Lost Time gain a charge for each enemy hit by an aoe crit?
• Does Lost Time apply slow to each enemy hit if the proc attack is AoE?
• Can phantasms apply Lost Time? (unlikely)
• Does Chronophantasma resummon when the original phantasm actually shatters, or when you cast the shatter?
• What is iCap’s attack timing?
• Does iCap’s Alacrity stack?
• What duration quickness does boonshare give from full Seize the Moment procs?
• All the usual questions about Continuum Shift

Some of these we know already from the game play we’ve seen, but would still be good to confirm at this stage of development.

• Does alacrity grant 2s recharge per 3s duration, or 1s recharge per 3s duration?
  I would say the former. 66% global recharge rate on skills and utilities – inverse of chill, “for every 3 seconds chilled, only 1 second of cooldown will have expired.” So for every 3s of alacrity, you have 2s recharge to bring it back even.

• Does Chronophantasma resummon when the original phantasm actually shatters, or when you cast the shatter?
  When they actually shatter.

• Does iCap’s Alacrity stack?
  It should since other alacrity sources do (such as from shatters or Well of Recall). iCap attack bounces can also hit other iCap’s, increasing their rate of attack (spreading even more alacrity around).

Embolism.8106:

it shouldn’t be something you can just step out of.

This is what irks me the most about it. The pull would greatly increase the chance opponent(s) are dealt the damage. The skill advertises “enemies caught in it” but without any kind of soft or hard cc to keep them there, it’s not very enticing.

I think it’s also fair to say this may not be the final product and we can reserve judgement until we see it, but it’s not promising their balance iterations on this skill up to this point have led them here.

Silverkey.2078:

The CC was obviously OP (people have rarely that much stability on them) but isn’t the point of an elite to be OP for a little while? I mean this lasted only 3s on 120s, it’s a very short game-changer…

Three would have likely been a wreck (maybe), but I think they could have at least kept an initial pull in there with the float to follow at the end.

Yeah losing the pull cc on gravity well is rough, but on the other hand they drastically decreased the recharge to 90s (from initial 120s) and increased the damage a bit.

All invites current.

I’ve tested this and yes both the boon and condition duration appear to function as advertised. Best way to validate for yourself (as Mak stated) is to use bountiful disillusionment + chaos storm to load yourself up with boons, hit F4 for the regen and observe the duration.

Pine.6298:

Loony.3714:

Thank you for putting the first half of this post into words. The minute I have time in game and a incomplete mantra charge I burn what I have left and recharge it. The post 6/23 patch really eliminated this problem for me or at least made it more bearable so I wouldn’t spend as long sitting around. As of now mantras are at the point where I don’t even feel like they are worth taking at all in PvE. Despite using no mantras I am forced into taking Harmonious Mantras in dueling because the other two GMs are useless (for PvE) but Dueling is a great line.

I am sure this is a bug, but it is kinda cool that you get the Mantra Strength Buff when using Signet of the Ether and you are traited that Signets remove conditions. I guess the condi cleanse casts Mantra of Resolve? Only Signet of the Ether does this, none of the other signets.

It would be coming from Inspiration. Mender’s Purity procs power cleanse any time you use a heal skill, hence the mantra strength stack.

Kicker.8203:

It was very much a needed nerf. They had waay too much burst for a single combo.

Maybe, but now with the Air/Fire sigil nerf (assuming it’s intended), the mirror blade nerf needs reverted.

denis.9487:

I am confused. The sigils have been nerfed awhile ago. Did they ninja the sigils this last patch or recently?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Sigils-of-Air-and-Fire-stealth-nerfed/first#post5334689

If this was an intended nerf, air/fire will be required even more than before. Mesmer burst has been extremely neutered, especially considering the mirror blade nerf.

That should have never happened if this was planned; at least before they could observe how such a huge damage nerf would affect damage from all classes.

Trigr.6481:

Also with compounding power It doesn’t seem to affect the condition damage based off the illusions you have on the field. Someone please double check this for me.

I’ve tested this one as I noticed the same about not showing a condition damage buff with illusions out.

I was able to observe bleeds increase/decrease by small amounts with one/two/three illusions (ofc same amount of bleed stacks each test). Pretty sure it’s working, just not reflecting in the stats.

Dondagora.9645:

We give them freakin’ lists of things to nerf and they nerf mantras? WTF?

HM nerf aside, the background mantra recharge thing really hurts. In Anet’s eyes it was a bug from the inception of the 6/23 patch. They don’t look at how it improved the QoL of mantras, they just saw it as a bug on their big list needing fixed so they fixed it.

I’m sure the “Mesmer OP” rants of late made sure it got prioritized higher. It’s unfortunate.

MarkPhilips.5169:

They nerfed Mesmer damage, Anet removed one bounce from Mirror Blade.

Mesmer damage lessened much more than just a reduced Mirror Blade bounce. They removed the background mantra recharge which will result in a couple things:

1. Can’t use power lock nearly as often. After the final one is used, Mantra of Distraction starts recharging. Before, it was generally available to charge after the final power lock use. This could be viewed as essentially a 20s CD being inserted on power lock compared to before, which is substantial. In essence, this bug was probably one of the biggest perceived issues with mesmer because it has a trickle down effect on Confounding Suggestions. Of course the resulting fix means less overall AoE dazes, stuns, and less overall damage being done via power block.
2. Harmonious Mantras damage modifier nerf means less overall damage for mesmers taking the mantra build.

Coupled with the Mirror Blade nerf, those two significant mantra changes will affect mesmer damage by a fair amount.

Then you take into account mesmer sustain was hit, which has an indirect affect on their damage (by them dying more often):

1. Can’t use power return nearly as often. Again, due to the explanation above, Mantra of Recovery will recharge after the last power return is used. This means less overall sustain for mesmers using inspiration/Restorative Mantras (which many have been doing). This also affects Harmonious Mantras damage modifier stacking.
2. Blinding Dissipation can be blocked and dodged. That speaks for itself.

Yeah I gotta admit while this might help (a little?) balance out the enormous burst/damage mesmer does in PvP, this was a major dump on PvE mesmers. It’s not like mesmers are dps kings there. Totally unnecessary.

A better change for all game modes would have been to reduce the number of stacks but increase the duration of them by a reasonable amount so you can actually hold them for a decent amount of time.

@Kay, this is a very old build I haven’t updated in a couple years. There were huge updates in the June patch. As a result, you can’t really look at the build as it currently is and create it in game.

The most viable PvE builds ended up being mostly full damage specs, leaving this build no place.

When Heart of Thorns is released, there may be more viability for support specs in PvE as Anet revealed plans for much more difficult encounters.

In the meantime, I would suggest you check out this leveling guide (I think Kai is regularly updating it):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Kai-s-Complete-PvE-Compendium

When you get to level 80, there are PvE builds on metabattle that are decent for most content you’ll face (dungeons and the like). They will all be max damage focused, again due to the current state of the game those are the most viable.

If your interest is in PvP, there are some intriguing support options for mesmer currently.

How can you have an EchoRupt build without mimic in there somehow now?? =P

Looking forward to the vid

The long and short of it is that it’s become very easy for new mesmers to be very effective. In essence, this patch lowered the skill floor for mesmer in general, which is unfortunate.

Now what veteran mesmers need to do is learn to adapt to this new influx and find ways to counter. It’s only been a month after all and already I’m seeing people learn to counter it. I know this can be easier said than done, but it isn’t just in play style; it’s analyzing different tactics and most of all, choosing a build that helps you perform the best.

Ineptitude is a very good trait. It’s a bit random (especially in a team fight), but in those larger encounters you know you’re evading attacks from multiple people so the blind is dished out fairly regularly on that 10s per target ICD.

Inspiration is a mainstay now in the PvP meta for mesmer at ESL levels, evidenced by most mesmers taking dom/duel/insp in most builds. Sure you see some taking dom/duel/chaos but recently inspiration is winning the day due to it’s stellar team support and individual sustain it offers on a zerker amulet.

One question, I’m unsure what build you’re running but have you tried playing with master of fragmentation? Cripple on F2 is nice.

I do like the suggestion to move the cripple part of imagined burden to sword. While I thought adding cripple to GS was nice, iBerserker already does that. If this were to happen, I’d just add the cripple to fencer’s finesse. This would spread access to cripple around a bit more and not pigeon hole one to GS or master of fragmentation.

I’m unsure about torment on sword. Vulnerability has always seemed weak but you also have that boon rip. Maybe change vulnerability to very small duration weakness on sword AA. Might be to strong especially in light of the cripple suggestion. Without that though it might be OK.

As for your other suggestions, they’ve been debated much in the past and no change is likely going to happen.

You know, it’s really not that much different than the first six months of the game when people were fighting thieves complaining about damage coming from nowhere. Learn the class mechanic, learn to count and then learn to counter. So many people don’t want to put in the work and as such you get the QQ we’re seeing.

Mind you I’m not saying things are perfect but for sure the people who have put in the time certainly aren’t the ones qq’ing as much. Those people are actually adapting.

Great thread – I know a lot of mesmers are running the same FOTM builds, but there is definitely a lot of experimentation going on though you may not hear about it.

I personally run a chaos/inspiration/illusions build in celestial, updated from the pre-patch build I ran. It’s an on point bruiser/support build that performs well.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/PvP-Vid-Utility-Wizard-build-testing

Before it was nerfed, maim was mandatory but since then I’ve played around with slight variants using bountiful dissipation/shattered strength, illusionary defense/manipulation and persistence of memory/compounding power. I’m currently working on more match footage.

Incidentally, the build chaos was talking about is the build I mostly duel in my video (duels were pre-nerfs).

EDIT: There are many combos I’ve detailed (and some old ToL3 footage) in the original pre-patch thread here (Utility Wizard combos) if you want to reference play style. Even with the new patch, all combos are still valid and the play hasn’t changed much except for more shattering.

There are some good tips here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Offhand-Sword-is-Better-Than-Ever/first

Solori.6025:

StickerHappy.8052:

One thing I would change is make Blinding Dissipation A GM then DE a Master. So BD competes with HM, so you can trait for defense and offense at the same time.

Just my 2 cents.

ooooohh I like this.

What’d be worse, DE with BD as today or DE with HM and even more carnage? Probably evens out honestly, but I agree BD doesn’t have much to compete with in it’s current slot (pvp wise).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Tealots.6095:

Nicely produced (and played!). I’m definitely going to give this boonshare build a try. Was there ever a time when the build considered foregoing the Dueling line and heading into Domination and Imagined Burden for even more might stacks?

Yeah, originally the build was Dom/Chaos/Inspiration, grabbing either phantasm traits or or confounding/signet or furious rupt (though shattconcentration works fine) / and Power Block. The only thing is that its pretty hard to pass up perma fury and blinding dissipation. I hadn’t actually tested Imagined Burden but once, but I shatter and attack too rapidly to make much use of it. I rarely use the auto attack for more than a few moments.

… Then again, GS and I don’t get along, and I only tested it for a few matches.

Good thought tea, I remember suggesting this as well, but that was before I found out the might is given at the end of the AA chain.

Given the AA is the best way to stack might (I found the clone AA stacking not so great), it’s not good because it completely negates the ability to cancel cast AA. Sure, the cripple is nice as are the GS CD’s, but the dps loss is significant enough that the trait isn’t worth it IMO.

Adding to what I said already in this thread …

I really appreciate and admire anyone who doesn’t take the meta being thrust down their throat, refusing to be just another “flavor of the month” (FOTM) mesmer and truly takes the time to invent something new.

It takes experimentation (and lots of it) to arrive at many builds that end up being crap to ultimately find something that plays so fun and works so well.

It’s not only the satisfaction of arriving at the end result that’s so gratifying; it’s the experimentation itself that really keeps me in the game and playing regularly.

To that end, I’ll shout out to a few I’ve observed. Their ideas and genuine excitement to create new specs have inspired me (past and present) to create even more: Chaos, Sticker, keenlam, Ross, Cho, Tea, Windwalker, Xaylin, WitchKing, messiah, pyro and many others.

To those and all other mesmers – keep brainstorming, creating and refusing to accept that FOTM is the only good way to mesmer!

StickerHappy.8052:

Skcamow. The most underrated forum expert and The only one I think who does actual extensive build testing.

Ooof – I’m flattered and thanks. I do a lot of testing myself yes, but there are many others that do as well. That’s one of the things that make the mesmer forums so much fun for me to keep up with.

Current defiant prevents interrupt of a skill unless defiance is depleted. This is being completely overhauled in HoT though, into a new “breakbar”. That is actually what I was referring to regarding the issues I’ve heard.

I wouldn’t focus too much at this point on trying to make a PvE interrupt build work with the current state of things. Who knows, when HoT is released maybe the breakbar will introduce more of a viable interrupt play style against world bosses and the like.

Under the new trait system, you can go a full six points into three trait lines (18 total traits vs 14 in the previous system).

Using an interrupt build in PvE isn’t a good idea, especially vs world bosses and in dungeons. I believe the interrupt traits proc but don’t actually interrupt anything unless defiant is gone. That said, there have been prior reports of experiences with the new defiant bar that haven’t been promising, but I’m unsure the current status of that.

Ross Biddle.2367:

You can also proc the 4th clone off decoy, or the Defender from the Inspiration line on evade or block

Fixed that for ya

Yeah with IP baseline, so many mesmer builds open up that don’t require DE to be effective. Shatter is pretty much the playstyle now no matter what you’re playing (in PvP anyway). Any destroyed illusion is pretty much a wasted one now, especially phantasms – assuming you let them perform their first attack.

I’d recommend playing around with different specs that don’t have DE to get a feel for it.

Yeah for sure you get the 33% chance for 2 bleed stacks from magic bullet but it doesn’t appear to work with iDuelist attacks.

onevsone.2098:

No Mesmer bug fix in the patch

No nerfs either

Just be glad we didn’t get more nerfs because they’re more than likely coming.

Dueling with Chaos Archangel on his boon share and standard lockdown builds. Some are long but showing them all in case anyone wants to see. I’m working on some tpvp play.

Vid (dueling): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5knSmAnTDKU
Build: The Utility Wizard

I ran a build of the same name prior to the patch and primary priority post patch was to see if it could be improved. I’m happy to say it appears that way, at least so far. My goal was to find a way to use all illusion and weapon affecting recharge traits to find a medium cadence shatter build. Jury is still out …

I’ve been running this since the patch hit Tuesday. Raw game play with all my grunts, groans, outbursts and ofc bevy of mistakes (them cancel casts!)

Build has promise, retaining much of the utility of the original, adding damage mitigation in the form of iDefender and AoE healing now with healing prism and restorative mantras. Add to that reflect support, near permanent protection, mantra toughness baseline and mantra background recharge make it a good on point support bruiser. Might generation remains more random in 1v1 duels but much more prevalent in team fights and guaranteed in my coordinated PvP team comp.

EDIT: Since the recording the malicious sorcery bug has me choosing ineptitude and it’s proven to be a far better choice, providing some blind utility which also hearkens back to the original build. In the duels I’m using malicious sorcery, however. The CD and healing prism nerf hurt but I continue to test; current choice I’m trying to make is shattered strength vs maim.

I welcome any feedback on how you might improve it.

We have a consolidated bug thread opened here, please go and post the bugs you find:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Mesmer-bugs-6-23/first

Toeofdoom.6152:

Caelus.7139:

Toeofdoom.6152:

Uh, it was up to 64% cool down reductions and permanent protection. There was definitely a reason.

But I’m sure 2% doesn’t do it justice.

With a little more effort it’s still >60% protection uptime and 30-40% cool down off chaos armor/storm – that also means it work fine with weapon swap which it kinda didn’t before. 2% is further than I would’ve dropped it, but it’s still good!

Yeah playing with it, it’s still good. Stinks we lost that much recharge but I’m not concerned anymore about it.

Read through all Peters’ comments.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Things-we-know/first

If a month goes by and we don’t have our obvious bugs caused by the patch fixed, it’ll be likely they’ll get lost in a priority list. Gotta give them a little time and hope for the best.

At this point I’m aware of the duelist’s discipline, iLeap and mender’s purity issues. Are there any others? I haven’t honestly looked at the bug thread in awhile but if we can list all our bugs here I’ll make sure to take a look and see if a thread is already opened.

He asked for our help in alerting them of bugs, so let’s also be sure to keep them in the forefront of their minds.

Belladonna Shylock.6187:

I was testing out Illusionary Counter and riposte with mental defense and noticed sometimes I would get 2 illusions (one defender and one clone), or 1 illusion (sometimes defender, sometimes clone), or none. I might have gotten 3 with one block also (might have been from scepter, but as weird as this skill is working, who knows!)

Has anyone else noticed this?

I’ve run this trait almost exclusively since the patch hit and every time I block with illusionary counter I get the one clone and an iDefender (if off recharge). On that point, you have to keep the internal iDefender recharge in mind. It’s affected both by persistence of memory and illusionist’s celerity. Also you should never see three illusions on block but always at least one.

At least we still have on demand protection with CD. Sigh.

Also – may want to re-think the confounding suggestions fix as a result of this news. I want a balanced game as much as the next person but don’t want to give the devs any more ideas.

These changes just went in.

Let’s all face it, we knew it was high (I sure noticed fighting against other PB mesmers). Not too happy about the CD change.

Mesmer

• Chaotic Dampening: Reduced the recharge reduction percent of staff skills per pulse of chaos armor from 5% to 2%.
• Power Block: Reduced the damage on interrupt by 17%.

Fun dueling last night against this.

From a pure support perspective I would change a couple things up to generate more boons. I think you’re too heavily focused in the lockdown traits when your focus is more support. And yes I say that knowing you could technically call lockdown passive support.

• Try Imagined burden to generate more might. I know you don’t like GS though …
• Try furious interruption over blurred inscriptions.

Thought behind that is either go all in with signets or none with respect to this trait. The trait is tricky to begin with when you’re talking conquest and capping/holding points. A single 1s distort can lose a cap in the middle of a fight. Being a support build I tend to think “point holder” and you may stay alive a little longer in zerker but may lose the point due to the distorts.

• Try CI to see how it goes.

The boons are pretty good with BD but in the build you have here it doesn’t feel like enough. I’m unsure if CI can bridge that gap though with the randomness. BD gives you on demand boons and near perma stability which will lock you on that point. The stability was close to a hard counter to my build you were dueling last night. If you wanted to go with a more passive sharing build you could build more lockdown and function more as a roamer and +1 to fights. That might work with CI in mind.

• Finally, I would experiment with a few other amulets to give you a bit more staying power. This especially if you’re using BD.

I think you want to be a bit more tanky to be able to hold those points. The perma stability and zerker amulet kind of work against each other IMO.

I’ll qualify all those thoughts to say that in order to make this kind of build work you need a coordinated team as opposed to randomly sharing here and there. To that end, I watched supcutie’s stream for awhile last night and zeromis was rocking a boon share build but was augmented heavily with a staff guardian to provide might to refresh. It seemed to work very well; the build’s presence was noticeable and effective, but they were in lock step with each other.

I was so enamored with the confusing images change, the new scepter AA chain adjustment had me fooled this was working. Thanks for those who tested. I can’t justify taking the trait merely for the CD reductions.