WvW - help/tips dealing with a spellbreaker warrior.

[Elvirais.5472]

I often play a mesmer in WvW - currently a chronomancer greatsword/staff - and I faced a spellbreaker several times, and lost almost every time. So I wondered if anyone had some advice regarding this. My main issue was that it felt like 3/4ths of my attacks were blocked or did 0 damage. I looked up some stuff on metabattle, it might have been a build similar to Magebane Roamer https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Spellbreaker_-_Magebane_Roamer

I had a hard time doing any damage at all, almost every time I cast Phantasmal Berserker or Mind Stab I saw "Blocked" appearing multiple times. Illusionary wave to keep him at a distance also didn't work - Immune. Basically I could escape, but that was it.

Maybe I should switch from staff to e.g. sword but in WvW we're often outnumbered and the staff is just really good at survival / escape options. Something else I want to try next time is to start attacking from invisibility, maybe that way I can get an attack through before/between the blocks.

I'm a slightly older player and it takes me a long time to learn new things. I mostly played hundreds of hours before path of fire so any specializations from Pof or EoD are still very new to me.

[Delrago.2098]

There’s kinda a lot of things in the air but this sounds like you were dueling a defense breaker and I’m not really sure what build you have. 
 Warrior only has shield block with that build and the f2 full counter. Your clones will proc this full counter with auto attacks, giving the warrior some stacks of adrenal health, condition removal, and a stack of stability making them immune to a single cc (f3 staff 5 gs 5) I find it best to use great sword 2 when ever you see them use shield block because it is unblock able, then try to shatter or cc them. 
     If you use the interrupt mantra in your build you can work on interrupting a warriors heal skill to make the fight go a lot better. 
   Your damage probably feels low because defense warrior has a high health regeneration rate, warrior can easily kill your clones with out trying, lowering your power damage and the amount of conditions you apply on shatter ,so it’s best to shatter them rather quickly, and yes staff is not really gonna help in the situation.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

11 hours ago, Elvirais.5472 said:

Something else I want to try next time is to start attacking from invisibility, maybe that way I can get an attack through before/between the blocks.

I wouldn't bother. I have a build that capitalizes on invisibility and for me at least I find it worthless. It's got good meme value, but that's about it, and it's not going to help you in a fight. Let's be real, stealth really has no role in Guild Wars 2. It's an option, technically, but all stealth options are too short to actually infiltrate anywhere, and there's really nowhere to infiltrate anyway. And in combat, forget about it. At least thieves get stealth attacks, we just get invisibility for the lulz.

[Teknomancer.4895]

Signet of Humility maybe?

[Elvirais.5472]

3 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Signet of Humility maybe?

Yes good idea, I'll try that 🙂

[ShadowKatt.6740]

8 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Signet of Humility maybe?

Does that work on players? I just assumed it wouldn't.

[Teknomancer.4895]

It's split with the cooldown being shorter for PvE, but yes.

You haven't ever seen any posts from players salty about having been Moa'd during a fight? 😆

[ShadowKatt.6740]

2 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

It's split with the cooldown being shorter for PvE, but yes.

You haven't ever seen any posts from players salty about having been Moa'd during a fight? 😆

I don't PvP, and even in WvW I mostly carry it for the passive condition reduction. Never actually tried it, but I mean, that's brilliant. I have to remember that.

[Teknomancer.4895]

On 1/24/2024 at 10:37 PM, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

I don't PvP, and even in WvW I mostly carry it for the passive condition reduction.

I meant reading it here in the forums, I've seen more than a few saltposts here and there about that happening. Always good for a laugh. 😆

Edited January 26 by Teknomancer.4895
link

[Strider.7849]

If it's the defense spellbreaker build you came across, it's a bit of a difficult fight for mesmer, it's best to just avoid it if possible. Reason being is your clones will always proc full counter even if you actively don't. Giving them adrenal health + condi cleanse. At 3 stacks they can just outsustain your burst. On other classes you can stow weapon, dodge/block/blind the burst skills to deny the benefits of the defense line, but the main reason you're losing to that is your clones.

[ascii.1369]

@op would you mind posting your build? It's easier to give some tips when actually knowing what you're currently playing.

In general Greatsword/Staff is probably not a combination I would recommend. Greatsword really only shines with full Berserker gear or at least Marauder. Both requires you to be really quick and synergizes better with sword/torch. But in WvW it's just much easier to play a condition build with Staff + some other condi weapon set. Go Celestial or Trailblazer gear and you'll do just fine in most fights.

If long term you would be interessted in learning Mirage, i would recommend doing that. Dagger Mirage is probably the most busted build Mesmer currently has in WvW roaming. There's really nothing it just loses to by default.

Edited January 25 by ascii.1369

[Elvirais.5472]

10 hours ago, ascii.1369 said:

@op would you mind posting your build? It's easier to give some tips when actually knowing what you're currently playing.

In general Greatsword/Staff is probably not a combination I would recommend. Greatsword really only shines with full Berserker gear or at least Marauder. Both requires you to be really quick and synergizes better with sword/torch. But in WvW it's just much easier to play a condition build with Staff + some other condi weapon set. Go Celestial or Trailblazer gear and you'll do just fine in most fights.

If long term you would be interessted in learning Mirage, i would recommend doing that. Dagger Mirage is probably the most busted build Mesmer currently has in WvW roaming. There's really nothing it just loses to by default.

Right, I tried pasting my build into

Gw2 skills site link

the weapons and armor didn't come up, only the traits, I tried to fix it and it seems reasonable close. Don't laugh too much at the traits 🫠

So that's a power Chronomancer (edit: with mostly Marauders). I swapped staff for sword pistol. Wait torch, why, for the invisibility? And is shield any good?

I also have a condi core mesmer, it's been a while since I played that. When i played that it was awesome, pretty slow but unkillable. That was the first time I could take on champions by myself.

Mirage: I do have a mirage, I really liked it, then went to WvW and suddenly had only one dodge. I know there's a lot of other ways to evade, use vigor traits, food, sigils etc, but I was just so disheartened that I gave up. Too bad because I liked the theme a lot. Edit: I don't have Soto expansion, so I don't think I can equip dagger main hand?

Edited January 26 by Elvirais.5472

[ascii.1369]

11 hours ago, Elvirais.5472 said:

I swapped staff for sword pistol. Wait torch, why, for the invisibility? And is shield any good?

Yes, both torch and shield is fine. Shield is probably a bit easier to play and has great survivability. Torch is a good alternative to shield for the invisibility, but shield is more commonly played. For the traits I would switch Dueling for Illusions, since you rely a lot on your shatters for burst damage. The "standard" traits are Domination 1,1,2; Illusion 1,2,2; Chrono 2,3,2. It's worth mentioning that there is a signet version using Inspiration instead of Illusion for distortion spam, but I'm not sure I would recommend that build. I think if you want to go with power chrono it's better to just learn it properly.

But let me stress again that power chrono is very difficult to play. While I don't want to discourage you, I think it's best to be realistic. As power chrono your skill as a player does all the heavy lifting, no tanky gear or forgiving mechanics to fall back on.

11 hours ago, Elvirais.5472 said:

Mirage: I do have a mirage, I really liked it, then went to WvW and suddenly had only one dodge.

Thankfully, that has been fixed, Mirage has two dodges now in PvP and WvW. If you can't use dagger you might still have an easier time on Mirage with axe/pistol + staff (or even scepter/x + staff). In WvW the gear does so much that if you haven't played on a tanky condi build for a while you will feel immortal. Now again, if you like your power chrono, go for it. However, in my oppinion there is no need to make your life unnecessarily difficult. Yes, some people will say that Trailblazer or Celestial is for noobs, but I don't think there is any point in having too much of an ego over this stuff. Personally, I would much rather 1v2 a Willbender + Harbinger on my Celestial Mirage than struggle against either of them 1v1 on my power Chrono.

Edited January 26 by ascii.1369

[Elvirais.5472]

13 hours ago, ascii.1369 said:

Thankfully, that has been fixed, Mirage has two dodges now in PvP and WvW. If you can't use dagger you might still have an easier time on Mirage with axe/pistol + staff (or even scepter/x + staff). In WvW the gear does so much that if you haven't played on a tanky condi build for a while you will feel immortal. Now again, if you like your power chrono, go for it. However, in my oppinion there is no need to make your life unnecessarily difficult. Yes, some people will say that Trailblazer or Celestial is for noobs, but I don't think there is any point in having too much of an ego over this stuff. Personally, I would much rather 1v2 a Willbender + Harbinger on my Celestial Mirage than struggle against either of them 1v1 on my power Chrono.

Ok waw that is incredible news! It's been fixed pretty recently I see. Almost can't believe it, Anet undoing a terrible nerf 🙂 Played a bit with my Mirage this evening, the fun is back 🙂

Thanks for all the Chronomancer advice! I'll just play that one when i feel like learning more / working hard. I switch fairly often anyway, depending on what I want that day.

[Mell.4873]

From my experience although I don't really play it, A daze Mesmer is the most potent in WvW. 

You essentially just run in Tag them with Conditions and daze them so they can't react or cleanse them. 

Mirage dagger is probably the best since ambushes daze but Virtuoso works aswell.