PvP build

[Senqu.8054]

I personally really really like your build. I mostly enjoy it in wvw and I think it does very well there if you don’t go full grieving. Even if staff is by far not the best weapon, shatter with staff 2 is always great to get free instant dmg. For me the most fun build to play at the moment.

[st elmos fire.2987]

The build is still doing good. I got rank 10 after the first 15 matches in this 2v2 season while solo q. Here is a vid of some highlights.

[Battlebrew.1708]

Good stuff! Thanks for sharing!

[Zawn.9647]

i’m a new mesmer but i tend to struggle using staff (i like the weapon but cant seem to use it well)i usually try to chaos armor or even chaos storm+phaseretreat to keep the chaos armor active - but it seems that you don’t value those enough on your videos... is Staff used only as a filler and then go back to Scepter ASAP?

what about Sword+Torch or Sword+Sword for secondary weapons? ever tried those? pros/cons?

sorry for lots of questions... :P

@"st elmos fire.2987" said:Hello.

I see a lot of mesmers struggling to find good builds to play in PvP. I wanted to share what I have had the most fun and success with. Its pretty good vs condi thieves too.

The build is fairly easy to get in to. If you are a beginner you can use wizard or sage amulet. I recommend Grieving for most people for much higher carry potential. I think it has a high skill cap too so its fun and effective for experienced players.I see a ton of things I could do 10 times better mechanically and a million things I could do better in rotations but I am still having great success casually solo queing in plat 2. I believe this build has very good potential and it should only get better as the most OP current meta builds get toned down.

Build link: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PiwAYtrlVwuYJMFGKWuT5rWA-zZR8MiUKkpKwxDABuild video link:

[st elmos fire.2987]

@"Zawn.9647" said:i’m a new mesmer but i tend to struggle using staff (i like the weapon but cant seem to use it well)i usually try to chaos armor or even chaos storm+phase retreat to keep the chaos armor active - but it seems that you don’t value those enough on your videos... is Staff used only as a filler and then go back to Scepter ASAP?

what about Sword+Torch or Sword+Sword for secondary weapons? ever tried those? pros/cons?

sorry for lots of questions... :P

Hey no problem. I love to help. :)

Staff is a bit tricky weapon. It seems bad on paper but when you know everything you can do with it its really really good.Chaos armor is not the best skill on staff because as a mesmer you are so squishy that you dont really want to be hit at all. Chaos armor only does stuff if you get hit. It is still useful in situations where you cant avoid every attack.Phase retreat and chaos storm are both very good defensively and offensively and they really make the weapon great.It is very hard for opponents to pressure you or your allies inside your chaos storm. It also has a short cast time daze so you can use it offensively to interrupt key skills like heals, elites, revives or stomps.Phase retreat is probably the best weapon skill mesmer has. You can use it for mobility, kiteing, teleporting on ledges or through places where even some targetable teleport skills cant teleport, avoiding attacks while being stunned, do instant shatter combos, safestomp, use it as a gap closer, teleport forward to melee range to interrupt heals with shatter 3, use it on friendly combo fields for stealth or other effects. All this and more on a short cooldown.Staff is the best weapon to use for landing big shatters on this build. On high level people dodge all your abilities that have long cast times. Thats why Greatsword mesmer is not very good If you cant hide the animation of mirror blade in stealth. It will never land because it is so easy to evade. On staff you can get instant 3 clone shatters that cant be evaded by reacting to some skill animation. If you press shatter and phase retreat at the same time while in close range to your target you apply the shatter effect from your body and from the clone that was summoned with phase retreat. You can dodge towards your opponent a millisecond before pressing phase retreat and shatter to summon another clone from your deceptive evasion trait so now you have 2 clones and your own body to apply the 3 shatters right on top of the opponent. You see me do this all the time. It is one of the most important things to know about staff I think.You can see some of those tricks at the start of this video:

I have tried those weapons too but I think they were not as good and I really dont want to replace staff with anything. You might see now why. :D I always felt that I dont need any more survivability on this build but I want as much damage as I can possibly get. Main hand sword does not have much damage and the damage it does is purely power. It is good at kiteing, landing shatters, and surviving. I have my staff to do all those better already.Torch is a really good option too but I personally like pistol more. If you want torch I feel like you need to change shatter storm trait for the pledge trait and without pistol you dont have any good trait options to replace the trait duelists discipline and I really love both of those traits. The interrupt is a million times faster and more reliable on pistol compared to torch phantasm. The damage is similar on both weapons. The stealth is really good on torch but I dont really need it and I get decapped easier in duels if I use stealth.Offhand sword is allso purely power damage, the phantasm is not super reliable and on high level people know how to not hit your sword block. It is not an awful choice but pistol is much better in my opinion.

Sorry for lots of answers... xPI hope I could help and that I did not make too many typos and stuff. I am not a native english speaker.

(Edit: Those other weapons might work well in lower tiers or maybe just dueling. Stuff depends on the situation.I allso edited/adjusted some of my answers about weapons. Just tried to make them clearer.)

[Zawn.9647]

@st elmos fire.2987 said:

@"Zawn.9647" said:i’m a new mesmer but i tend to struggle using staff (i like the weapon but cant seem to use it well)i usually try to chaos armor or even chaos storm+phase retreat to keep the chaos armor active - but it seems that you don’t value those enough on your videos... is Staff used only as a filler and then go back to Scepter ASAP?

what about Sword+Torch or Sword+Sword for secondary weapons? ever tried those? pros/cons?

sorry for lots of questions... :P

Hey no problem. I love to help. :)

Staff is a bit tricky weapon. It seems bad on paper but when you know everything you can do with it its really really good.Chaos armor is not the best skill on staff because as a mesmer you are so squishy that you dont really want to be hit at all. Chaos armor only does stuff if you get hit. It is still useful in situations where you cant avoid every attack.Phase retreat and chaos storm are both very good defensively and offensively and they really make the weapon great.It is very hard for opponents to pressure you or your allies inside your chaos storm. It also has a short cast time daze so you can use it offensively to interrupt key skills like heals, elites, revives or stomps.Phase retreat is probably the best weapon skill mesmer has. You can use it for mobility, kiteing, teleporting on ledges or through places where even some targetable teleport skills cant teleport, avoiding attacks while being stunned, do instant shatter combos, safestomp, use it as a gap closer, teleport forward to melee range to interrupt heals with shatter 3, use it on friendly combo fields for stealth or other effects. All this and more on a short cooldown.Staff is the best weapon to use for landing big shatters on this build. On high level people dodge all your abilities that have long cast times. Thats why Greatsword mesmer is not very good If you cant hide the animation of mirror blade in stealth. It will never land because it is so easy to evade. On staff you can get instant 3 clone shatters that cant be evaded by reacting to some skill animation. If you press shatter and phase retreat at the same time while in close range to your target you apply the shatter effect from your body and from the clone that was summoned with phase retreat. You can dodge towards your opponent a millisecond before pressing phase retreat and shatter to summon another clone from your deceptive evasion trait so now you have 2 clones and your own body to apply the 3 shatters right on top of the opponent. You see me do this all the time. It is one of the most important things to know about staff I think.You can see some of those tricks at the start of this video:

I have tried those weapons too but I think they were not as good and I really dont want to replace staff with anything. You might see now why. :D I always felt that I dont need any more survivability on this build but I want as much damage as I can possibly get. Main hand sword does not have much damage and the damage it does is purely power. It is good at kiteing, landing shatters, and surviving. I have my staff to do all those better already.Torch is a really good option too but I personally like pistol more. If you want torch I feel like you need to change shatter storm trait for the pledge trait and without pistol you dont have any good trait options to replace the trait duelists discipline and I really love both of those traits. The interrupt is a million times faster and more reliable on pistol compared to torch phantasm. The damage is similar on both weapons. The stealth is really good on torch but I dont really need it and I get decapped easier in duels if I use stealth.Offhand sword is allso purely power damage, the phantasm is not super reliable and on high level people know how to not hit your sword block. It is not an awful choice but pistol is much better in my opinion.

Sorry for lots of answers... xPI hope I could help and that I did not make too many typos and stuff. I am not a native english speaker.

(Edit: Those other weapons might work well in lower tiers or maybe just dueling. Stuff depends on the situation.I allso edited/adjusted some of my answers about weapons. Just tried to make them clearer.)

wow i didn't expect such a long answer! thanks a lot I appreciate it! :)i will try to practice the instant shatter as well as using phaseretreat to move forward (i do it turning my camera atm which is fine for PVE but trash for pvp haha)

you should make a video guide/text guide on your build it would be awesome you seem to have great "teaching" skills haha

im yet to learn the ins and outs of mesmer... i always forget about my F1 and F4... never remember to refresh shatters with my signetnever know if I should go for a 0 or 3 clone shatter (I basically try to do 0 shatters for interrupts and full clone shatters for F2 confusion)

anyway, thanks a lot! that sure helped me - will watch the video you linked as well :)have a great day

[st elmos fire.2987]

Thanks! :D Glad I could help.I do like to make guides and tutorials. Thats why I add some small tips in some of my videos. Full tutorial videos are very difficult and time consuming to make because I like to make them very in depth. If this build does not get changed and I have a lot of free time at some point I might make a guide but not right now.Good luck with your mesmering. Feel free to ask me for tips in game too if you feel like it. :)