Guild Wars 2

StickerHappy.8052:

Sebrent.3625:

Where’s the confusion come from?

• Clone crits (Dueling minor)
• Mesmer crits (Dueling minor)
• Interrupts (Dueling GM major)
• All Shatters (Illusions minor)
• Blinds (Illusions GM major)
• Chaos Armor (Staff and Ethereal combo leaps/blasts)
• Confusing Images (Scepter)
• Cry of Frustration (Shatter)

Just looking at this … if you wanted to be the confusion guy … Chrono/Dueling/Illusions with Staff / Scepter+X

thanks for confirming, so the chronomancer does not have any innate confusion sources, This is going to be interesting!

We honestly don’t know that for sure. Only a couple traits were revealed (of the 12 that exist). I’d say more than likely though the confusion came from other trait lines as Sebrent said.

It appeared to be instant cast like the other shatters.

Knighthonor.4061:

what does gravity well does? I missed it

Pulls all opponents in it’s radius (not sure if five cap) to the center of the well. I think it also inflicts damage but need to see VoD to be sure of that.

Chance.2365:

Yo, for PvE boys : one GM of the Chronomancer line will actually let you shatter phantasm and they’ll be summoned again immediatly.
This. Is. Cool.

And there’s one for clones, too (on shatter spawn one clone on you). Another clone generation option outside of DE, finally.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Why? If you’re gonna run a build loaded up with chrono well goodies, the defensive qualities of the staff are what’s going to hold the whole thing up.

A staff in Ross Biddle’s hands? Now I know he’s trolling.

Invites up to date

BlackTruth.6813:

Elite specs might enforce the meta it looks like. Old builds will get buffed but ANET might make Elite specs way too crazy.

They’ll need to be careful with it for sure.

For most professions, the trait improvements announced last week were surprisingly really good. If the precedent is being set with mesmer, the elites appear to be very strong and the legacy traits needed to be brought up to compete with them.

With the new F5, wells, alacrity and very skill based mechanics, I’m very impressed. I can’t imagine any serious mesmer not being excited about these changes.

Sandrox.9524:

Your build seems nice,however,the video you given,is not doing any favors for it.

Your fights seems to be awfully longish,especially vs necros which you should steamroll especially with “inturrpt build” .

You saying CI is killer for thieves,as a thief main,I never ever got downed on first CI and never ever got downed cause of getting caught with first CI.Im using s/d and always have shadow return when needed.(sword skill)

Thanks for the input. The video was purely meant to showcase the play style, of which I think it does rather well even if not perfect. I realize some of those opponents weren’t especially skilled and I noted that in my OP.

Not every thief runs s/d or withdraw. If a thief can be immobilized and can’t readily cleanse, they’re in big trouble. That kinda goes without saying with any class, but for thieves in particular if they’re stuck in a spot for an measure of time it’s usually worse for them than most other classes.

The necro fight should not have gone on as long. Unfortunately I missed dodging signet of spite when I re-engaged. Also in this version of the build I wasn’t running mantra of distraction, which I do now and it’s much more effective.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

My only question.. Will the new Inspiration GM (cast signet of inspiration on phant summon) activate the signet trait. O.o

Distortion/cleans on phant summon ftw … Every 36 seconds.

Yes, they specifically stated that on stream.

Neptune.2570:

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Honestly, that mind wrack trait needs to be GM at its current state, as it gives 50% damage increase to anyone that isn’t using a skill. So if you take confounding suggestions, you can mirror blade, blink, diversion or mantra, mind wrack and your target will probably have died. If my mind wracks do about 2.5k to the average person without mind wrack trait, with fragility and that trait, they will now do 4.1k (not including extra vuln from dazes and mirror blade), and combined with a 3 bounce mirror blade, that target is going to explode.

Yep, I’m amazed even for a second that people have cried nerf. What we have coming is huge. Massive buff to cc, dps and survivability all in one.

Don’t get too attached to the 25/50 numbers yet. On the stream Friday the devs stated they were literally exploding golems with this trait and the numbers would likely be lowered.

Curunen.8729:

So… with the lovely CI buff, defauly IP, ability to go 0/6/6/6/0, default iElasticity, mirror traits and so on – this looks like it will get a kitten good buff.

Ok, big loss is debilitating dissipation, and chaotic transference if you want staff cooldown – but I’m sure it should be easy to adapt.

Or even potentially 0/0/6/6/0/6 with “elite spec” line – depending if there is a lot of slow application available for even more crowd control.

I’m really excited to be able to test out new possibilities for this build.

Yeah this condirupt build just got a lot more interesting, at least with what we’ve heard. For sure it’s now shatter based.

I can see going 0/6/6/0/6 for some decent options (confusion on shatter, malicious sorcery). I’ll be messing with that for sure.

In the spirit of the original build though, 0/6/6/6/0:

• Dueling: phantasmal fury, evasive mirror or blinding dissipation and DE. I’d at least consider mistrust if I felt I had enough clone generation. Duelist’s Discipline is awesome but I hate pistol in a CI build.
• Chaos: manipulations, chaotic dampening and ofc, CI.
• Inspiration: mender’s, warden’s feedback and shattered conditions now that we have IP (oh, drool).

Would take MoD, blink and decoy. No need for condi removal on the bar now. For heal, with the many reflects we already have I would probably go mantra of recovery. That would work better with rune heal ICD’s (especially grenth) and validate mender’s purity. Will be fun to play around with.

Dat hype! Love the graphic.

If it doesn’t go baseline, I think this trait could easily be added to the new fragmentation trait since it affects all shatters and it’s a shatter enhancing trait.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Me Games Ma.8426:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

[/snip]

• Master of Frags does nothing?
  [/snip]

As far as I know it just combines the traits “Precise Wrack” “Confusing Cry” “Imbued Diversion” and “Masterful Reflection”

Oh, nice.

But still we’re missing 5% of shatter recharge ! è_é

More than enough price to pay for the baseline addition of IP.

Honestly with the removal of Empowered Mantras, I think this quickness enhancement is the only thing preventing the forums from blowing up PvE wise.

You really think it’s that strong? Added with the mantra ferocity change, I think it’s a decent way to offset the removal of the raw damage modifiers, but time will tell.

Xaylin.1860:

StickerHappy.8052:

Fay.2357:

Dazzling glamours is gone, yes. That being said…how on earth can that be a large part of your defenses. A blind every 35 seconds?

I’m sure they didn’t quite remove it yet because they never mentioned it.

For one thing it could Baseline since they wanted glamours to be defensive.

I’d take it but I wouldn’t hold my breath. It is more likely that Chronomancers will get the CC and offensive area effects.

Yeah something like what dazzling was may end up in the new specialization trait line.

I was sad to see it go unmentioned as it’s an important piece of my primary PvP build. The AoE blinds coupled with other defenses can be very effective. Cool to see another person using this actually.

OP – curious as to your build if you want to share. If not, feel free to PM me.

They said they’re thinking about doing this. It definitely didn’t sound like a sure thing, we’ll see.

Sorel.4870:

Dondagora.9645:

Sorel.4870:

Levetty.1279:

Still an Illusions GM, just got bundled together with a lot of other shatter traits in the new Master of Fragmentation trait.

I see! Would someone mind telling me exactly what’s in this MoF trait? I can only read the Mind Wrack page.

Assumingly, there’s the Extra Crit-Chance on Mind Wrack trait, the Retal on Cry of Frustration trait[pending, because devs said they thought retal wasn’t very fitting for mesmers], then Imbued Diversions[AoE Daze], and Masterful Distortion[Reflect on Distortion].

That’s not a bad trait if that’s the case. With the blinding on shatter and maybe the inspiration line for the condi removal, you could make a really solid shatter spec. The question is: will it be enough with all these new OP specs running around?

Yeah I’ll definitely be giving chillruption another solid look with this trait now that IP is baseline. Man, so refreshing to say that.

It was added to master of fragmentation.

One other question, can we get dazzling glamours included somewhere, maybe glamour mastery? With the new blind applicators, having this trait retained would synergize well and also justify blinding befuddlement more in the grandmaster slot as it still feels weak.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

skcamow.3527:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

With the IP change.. Lockdown Mesmer will overcome shatter in pvp meta. Calling it now.

It might, but there is soooo much more viability now for sustain-y support shatter builds it’s crazy. You can take restorative illusions and shattered conditions in the same build while still dishing massive dmg.

oh snap. Alright I’ll take it back now until we see all the changes. Maybe making IP baseline was the “something just as good”

Yeah this was the argument I was trying to make in my other thread. There are just so many possibilities with IP baseline, much like DE of course. Either way we obviously have a huge win here.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Trait : You get Mirror (2 sec) on manipulation use

Does this mean you get the heal on manip use, plus the reflect?

Yes
4 seconds of reflects with one Mirror usage.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

With the IP change.. Lockdown Mesmer will overcome shatter in pvp meta. Calling it now.

It might, but there is soooo much more viability now for sustain-y support shatter builds it’s crazy. You can take restorative illusions and shattered conditions in the same build while still dishing massive dmg.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Skcamow change the title right the eff now.

IP is confirmed baseline! Tia a glorious day!

Well, they’re not set in stone though. I’m not ready to give up if DE is the better choice!

jportell.2197:

So. DE is now a grandmaster. If you wanted to run a mantra build good luck. Because you still need DE.

But we have IP, for now

Sebrent.3625:

Chaos, if you can make Disruptor’s Sustain “not suck”, you will receive the title “Grand Pooba”.

Sadly this is impossible but I like the name so much I might just start calling him that anyway.

Sebrent.3625:

I think the “more trait points” points is moot moving to the Specialization system. I don’t believe that is the case any more with it. At most, I believe it becomes “freed up Master versus Grandmaster”

Yes that’s true at that point. Getting IP means essentially freeing up more grandmaster choices, or choosing to not going into Illusions at all.

It’s been very interesting reading the responses.

We as a community have been historically on the DE train. We’ve had a lot of discussion on how DE could be made default. When you enter IP into the mix though, it becomes much more complicated. I don’t think we’ve really ever thought this way.

Having IP default means you have more raw trait points in general comparison with what you gain when DE is default. With DE, lots of builds open up. Here’s the thing though. If you get DE “free”, you are generally only given one, maybe two extra trait points to work with. This said because most of the time you’re going to find 2 in dueling for long range manipulations (blink) in many builds.

With IP default, it’s interesting what happens. Of course you still need to take DE but now you potentially have 6 trait points to spend (shatter builds ofc). Immediately you have builds that go 6 into inspiration to take shattered conditions or restorative illusions while still inflicting some amazing shatter damage. Or, you keep 6 in illusions and MtD becomes much stronger. Imbued Diversion is able to be added to the standard shatter build, despite the fact it should be default.

I understand getting IP as default more affects shatter builds but I’d like to provide a couple examples where this argument becomes quite compelling.

Take the standard CI lockdown build, 4/4/6. Receiving DE as default opens up arguably 2 points. You could put those in domination for Confounding Suggestions or Power Block, decent choices. Contrast that with having IP default. I genuinely would like to know, would a default IP be more beneficial or desired than being able to grab CS or PB? It’s definitely not an easy choice.

Take standard PU, again 4/4/6. Receiving DE as default you get, again two points to spend elsewhere. Where is there a compelling place to put them, especially with the three trait lines we’re locked into with specializations? Not only that, wouldn’t IP be more useful?

How about Mind Crush (6/4/4) or Shatterlock (6/2/0/0/6)? With IP default you have some amazing options in front of you. With DE default you simply don’t have as many.

I can’t say for certain how many builds would open up in either case but I do think the decision isn’t cut and dried.

Sweeps.3059:

Well looks like we may be getting a F5 on our shatter skills.

Confirmed here

New Mechanics
But wait, there’s more! We’re also making some core changes to each profession that are dependent on the elite specialization equipped. Have you ever wanted a different way to take advantage of all that life force? How about a new way to shatter illusions? These are some of the changes you can expect to see for your favorite profession.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-two-reward-tracks-and-elite-specializations/

Curunen.8729:

I just read through the whole thing – very confusing, but it seems like they are putting in a lot of work.

One line which got me is “More power! You now get to select nine major traits instead of seven, including three grandmaster traits.”

Seriously?!? 9 major traits => 18 total trait points.

Will we be able to do things like 0/4/6/4/4 and so on?!?

kitten now I’m hyped.

An easier way to look at it is that you’ll have nine total traits to choose from between three trait lines.

Sebrent.3625:

It looks like it reduces the number of possible permutations for a build since you:

• Can only pick 3 Specializations
• Can’t Use Major Adept traits in Major Master and Major Grandmaster slots
• Can’t Use Major Master traits in Major Grandmaster slots

While I could see this cutting into some build flexibility as there are several builds out there that currently put points into more than 3 traitlines, most invest in primarily 3 traitlines.

Additionally, as new specializations are added, we’ll eventually see more possible combinations.

A very nice bonus for this is that it reduces the number of possible permutations of trait points that can be paired together. This could help ArenaNet with handling class balance.

Yes this is going to be very interesting. At first I feel a bit trait locked but locking us into only 3 lines while giving us two more traits seems very, very intriguing. 9 trait points to spend in 3 lines with 3 grand masters available!

This very much feels like the original GW1 concept where you spend your points into specific attributes which more or less specialized you in that.

With the news of the new specializations, it appears certain existing traits will become default for each profession. For mesmers, the biggest considerations we woud care about would certainly be deceptive evasion or illusionary persona.

On recent higher tier player twitch streams there has been quite a bit of discussion on adding default profession mechanics, such as DE, Evasive Arcana (ele) and Cleansing Ire (warrior), among others. These players don’t think changes like these would be harmfully impactful to the game and that’s a good sign because yes, we all know the devs listen to them.

It’s somewhat hard to have this discussion not understanding fully how the new specialization system will work, but if given a choice, which trait would you choose to be default?

These are some bold design changes. On paper I like the ideas. While I have concern for existing builds, I’m excited for the new ones that will be created. I’m really hoping for some default profession mechanics to be included (such as DE or IP).

Note there is a 4 hour ready-up episode scheduled for tomorrow where each profession will get a block of discussion time. Anet will also be fielding many questions. You can post them here.

I had the same question on schedule, got an answer not too long ago:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Tournament-of-Legends-3-DPS-Official-Thread/first#post4991894

Starts noon EST. That thread also explains the rules of the tournament.

xantosnightwish.5438:

skcamow.3527:

What time does the tournament begin on 5/23 and 5/30 and how long is it expected to last?

Should last about 6-8 hours total from start to finish. Steam wont be that long obviously. Tournament should start at 12pm CEST for EU, 12pm EST for NA.

Thank you!

Ross Biddle.2367:

MailMail.6534:

CS is so underrated.

Shhh, the IP Shatter Mesmer Purist Association™ might come slap a lawsuit on you.

They’re not the only ones.

Don’t want other mesmers out there to play this spec, can be maddening. =P

Chaos Archangel.5071:

And dat Blink at 3:10 makes me shake my head in shame. I still can’t pull that off reliably.

Since the pathing update, it’s really easy to pull off now, as well as phase retreats. iLeaps/Swaps to opponents up there work wonderfully too.

What time does the tournament begin on 5/23 and 5/30 and how long is it expected to last?

Sebrent.3625:

Anyone played around with a 0/4/6/4/0 ? I didn’t see any when I looked at the list.

Yeah, I have a condirupt build below (Chaotic Perdition). I think Chaos Archangel was playing a 0/4/6/4/0 support build at one time as well. The trait spread is very versatile.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-Vid-Chaotic-Perdition-WvW-PvP/first

Fay can you add?

Korusef.3714:

Welcome back … where are our videos from the fights?

I was intent to record some of them but unfortunately had some technical difficulty. Hopefully someone else did but if not, we’ll get some footage next time.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Good news and bad news.

Bad news: Maaay not be able to make Saturday depending on schedule

Good news: Got a EU account now! o_O Thanks to good friends and an incredibly cheap GW2 sale

If people are interested and repping Saturday night and you’re unavailable, I’ll try to organize some queues. Getting some dueling going doesn’t seem to be too difficult at any point in time xD. I can try to get some other professions involved to mix it up a bit.

I also have an EU account, can help out on that side here and there.

Going further with triumphant distortion, a support shatter build might work, something like 2/6/0/6/0:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW8dlknpVtlqxMNcrNCsBd6ZcjjQqAU6M8sYC-TlhRwAPVCeR5Bg9H2oEbnuBxq/AA-w

I threw that together quick, not fully optimized gear wise but you have a high health pool, decent armor and damage.

Idea is to build a bit more tanky so you can get shatters off successfully to cleanse conditions from allies around you, while also spreading AoE vigor and vulnerability to foes around you. If vigor isn’t as important, you could go with glamour mastery.

I know rending shatter isn’t very strong but I’ve always wanted to try it.

You could go GS instead of staff for more tagging but staff will keep you alive longer. With three ethereal fields, you/your team can keep up decent chaos armor uptime for hopeful protection procs with leaps/blasts.

I don’t WvW often, much less zerg so this might not be viable at all, but it looks fun.

It might make archers a bit more useful if two of them spawned per channel instead of just one. That, or increase their damage or durability as others have said.

Snakebyte.2804:

a Condi CI build with traited focus

OP, this is one of the builds I use for good mobility. It’s effective against most of what you’ll see out there roaming (great for flipping camps, too): Chaotic Perdition

Since this thread has turned into another MtD vs Power Shatter comparison and Supcutie was mentioned, here are a couple quotes he made about MtD a couple months ago in a different thread.

Note the tier of game play is a big consideration and has been mentioned numerous times of late in recent threads.

Supcutie.2538:

About condi shatter and team fights – because of the celestial high sustain meta right now, there is enough condi cleanse in fights to make condi shatter simply not enough damage. If you are playing Mesmer, you need the burst in order to make progress. Otherwise you need to play another class that has a better sustain (damage mitigation/avoidance and healing per damage output basically) which will allow you more room for error and more opportunities to outplay your opponents.

Supcutie.2538:

taking that much time to get your damage off in higher end games will result in your team being dead. Not to mention, generosity sigil transfers torment first every time. Sure you have more survivability with the condi spec but the ratio of sustain to effective damage output is less than shatter, especially when you consider clone pathing from positioning that you need to have and clones being killed by aoe.

Chaos and I were just talking about how there are good builds and great builds. Condi may be a good build, but it’s not good enough for high end play. Of course, having fun builds for all level of play is important

TL;DR, MtD isn’t viable at the top tier level. MtD has nice potential to wreck in soloq. In teamq it can be played with varying success depending on how coordinated teams are at various MMR levels.

Sebrent.3625:

Elementalist — Renewing Stamina: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Renewing_Stamina

• 5s Vigor on-crit (really 5.5 since it requires 2 traits points that gives +10% boon duration)
• 5s ICD

Assuming logic is in play by the devs, there are two things I think might warrant the difference.

1. The fact that renewing stamina is a major adept (2 pt cost) in contrast to the mesmer’s minor adept (1 pt cost). You have to choose renewing stamina over many other good adept traits, where if you go into dueling at all you get critical infusion for “free”.
2. Deceptive evasion (4 pts) and evasive arcana (6 pts) need to be taken into account. To take DE you spend less trait points and thus have less uptime on the benefit of that trait. Vice versa, you spend more trait points on EA and thus are awarded more potential uptime on the benefit of that trait.

Believe me, as a mesmer main I’d love the vigor uptime we used to have but I get the variance in this case.

SlimChance.6593:

To be clear:
Runes of Dwayna specifically state that the 6th trait will trigger “when you use a heal skill”. So it will process on the MoRecovery’s charge AND Power Return.

If it said “when you heal”, then it would ONLY process on Power Return and NOT MoRecovery’s charge. Even if you have RM traited, it would not process on MoRecovery’s charge.

Maybe it used to work that way, can’t remember, but the “when you heal” wording isn’t in play anymore.

When Anet did the rune/sigil overhaul, they fixed all the ambiguous wording such that all runes either now say “when you use a heal skill” or “when you use a healing skill” (at least for PvP). Net effect is, all the runes that state that will proc the effect with MoR’s channel.

Yes, using RM or not, all runes that have an “on heal” effect currently proc when channeling mantra of recovery as well as the resulting power return heals.

StickerHappy.8052:

Fay.2357:

You’ll be using staff as your main damage weapon. To get maximum damage, you’ll want something that looks like…

04604 or 04505 taking DE, chaotic dampening, and IE. You’ll want to use full rabid gear for this; sinister is technically higher dps, but then you’re as squishy as zerker, and that’s sorta the reason why you’d use condie instead of power in the first place.

Is this a change of heart? haha., I usually see you say THE GREAT BIG NO on condition builds on pve.

Only when considering soloing dungeons.