Troubadour - Power Spear Troubadour

Part of the current tournament metagame

Our curator decided this build is in the current tournament metagame regardless of rating. The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Control, Strike damage and Utility

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on January 21, 2026 and is up to date for the January 13, 2025 patch.

Overview

A Power damage focused PvP build utilizing Mesmer's newest elite specialization, the Troubadour.

Skill Bar

Axe/Shield

Spear

Utility

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Specializations

Specialization Variants

Dueling can be swapped out for Chaos if you need more sustain:

Equipment

Axe

Shield

Sigil

Sigil

Spear

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Sigils

• Sigil of Cleansing and Sigil of Savagery could work on both sets, just don't replace Sigil of Energy.

Relics

• Relic of the Wayfinder - the build has good Swiftness uptime when playing with Dueling, but you need to be in combat to properly stack this boon. Wayfinder is still a more consistent option especially when roaming between capture points or when you're on the Chaos version.

Usage

Troubadour basics

• Troubadours replace their Shatters with Instruments. Instruments function similarly but linger to provide bonuses to Crescendo.

• F1 is still strike damage focused, F2 is condi and Dazed, F3 is CC as usual, and F4 heals and grants Distortion.

• We're still going to refer to these skills as shatters, for the sake of simplicity.

• These new shatters all have cast times and consume notes instead of clones. You build notes the same way you'd build clones.

General

• You can use Phantasmal Lancer for Swiftness when roaming the map.
  • Deafening Drum can also be used for this, although the movement speed is a bit lower.

• Both weapon sets offer good damage and a bit of sustain, but Axe/Shield is your more defensive set.

Damage

• Lively Lute is your best shatter skill when it comes to damage, and it's one that you should use early because it also provides a lingering damage boost for your other abilities.
  • It's also one of your few ranged attacks.

• Both Axe skills do solid damage while also acting as gapclosers, bringing you in range for Spear's Mind the Gap.

• Deafening Drum, Tides of Time and Mental Collapse can be used to set up bursts with CC.
  • Deafening Drum needs to be used in melee range and Mental Collapse itself requires some setup (Clarity proc from Mind the Gap).

Spear

• Mind the Gap (MTG) is the bread and butter of Spear, it's both the main burst skill and its central mechanic.

• Whenever you score a hit with MTG you gain Clarity, which empowers your next skill. Therefore MTG should almost always be the first skill you use on Spear.

• MTG does more damage and has a higher crit chance if the target is near the outer edge of the skill. Try to use it from just outside melee range!

• Phantasmal Lancer isn't just a Phantasm skill. If you can hit an enemy with the leap itself, you'll remove some boons too.
  • Clarity: summon 2 Phantasms.

• The main purpose of Mental Collapse is to reset the CD of MTG and serve as a gap closer for it.
  • Clarity: stuns the target.

• While Imaginary Inversion is mainly a defensive skill on this set, it does quite high damage in melee and can be used to safely counterpressure enemies.

Spear burst rotation

1. Mind the Gap while trying to hit enemies with the outer ring.
2. Mental Collapse which is now empowered and stuns targets.
3. Mind the Gap again. Try to walk away from the stunned target while casting it in order to put them inside the outer ring of MTG.
4. Phantasmal Lancer which should now summon 2 Phantasms due to having Clarity.

Sustain

• Cleansing in the build is rather low, but you're not completely helpless either:
  • Evading an attack cleanses 1 non-damaging condition via Wandering Mind. This is good at getting rid of less important conditions before you'd use your better condi removals. Another use for this is to keep Weakness off of you so you can keep doing damage.
  • Swapping to Spear cleanses 1 condition thanks to Sigil of Cleansing. If you're having trouble dealing with conditions, put it on both sets.
  • Imaginary Inversion on Spear is your best cleanse, removing 2 conditions when cast.
  • Distortion from Harmonious Harp and Tale of the August Queen can give you a time-out, as you take no condition damage while it's active. Harmonious harp also cleanses 2 conditions when used via trait synergy.

• Shield's Echo of Memory is a strong blocking skill that you get to use a second time if an attack is blocked (Deja Vu).
  • Make sure that it always blocks an attack - briefly move into hostile AoE, cast it when an enemy is doing a leap, or facetank Ranger pets and Mesmer clones if necessary.
  • If Echo of Memory isn't ready but you need to block, you can cut down on its recharge substantially by using Signet of the Ether.

• Axes of Symmetry can buy you a bit of time when focused by the enemy team as it breaks targeting and repositions you while evading attacks.
  • Sometimes you can get creative with this and use it as an escape tool, like targeting the Trebuchet on Kyhlo or a Necromancer's Summon Flesh Wurm on the highground.
  • One of the most important uses for this skill is evading attacks while Immobilized.

• Every CC skill can be used defensively, and you have no shortage of those.

• Signet of Midnight adds Stealth access to the build. The duration is short but it's just enough to reposition yourself.

• Distortion from Tale of the August Queen and barrier from Crescendo are both powerful tools, but these skills ahve rather lengthy cast times which makes them less ideal when you're already being focused. These work best when used preemtively or from a safe distance.
  • Crescendo's barrier scales with the number of lingering bonuses you have from using shatter skills.

• Blink is your panic button. Breaks stuns and immediately repositons you far away from the fight.
  • It's generally not recommended that you use 2 defensive utilities at the same time, letalone 2 stunbreaks, but sometimes you may want to consider using this together with Signet of Midnight for the Stealth. Stealth prevents enemies with targeted teleports from following you, like Thieves with Steal, Guardians with Judge's Intervention or Revenants with Phase Traversal.