Build:Mesmer - Core Shatter

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on June 25, 2023 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A glass cannon core Mesmer burst build for PvP, meant to roam from teamfight to teamfight and +1 them by bursting down targets.

Usable by F2P players as well, but be warned that power shatter builds are generally unforgiving to play - although they are rewarding and satisfying to pull off.

Skill Bar

Greatsword

Sword/Torch

Utility

Slot Changes

Utility

Signet of Midnight can be replaced by either the following skills:

• Decoy - longer stealth duration but also on a longer cooldown. Generates a clone so it could even be used offensively on rare occasions. Unlike the signet, this skill does interrupt your skill casting which is a major downside.

• Mantra of Pain - higher burst potential which can be critical to reach a kill in a +1 situation

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Specializations

Variants

• Mental Anguish is also a viable option.

Variants

• Blinding Dissipation is also a viable option.

Specialization Variants

Replacing Chaos with Illusions provides a way more important damage output, but this reduces survival and roaming capabilities by a lot which will make your life harder against other roamers (such as thief, rev, mes, ranger).

Equipment

Greatsword

Sigil

Sigil

Sword

Torch

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Equipment Variants

Rune

• Rune of Eagle or Rune of Scholar or Rune of Infiltration - if you're willing to give up mobility for more damage.

Usage

General

• Playstyle: roam the map looking for a fight to +1, don't try to 1v1 unless absolutely necessary. Leave fights as soon as your cds are going down and you become a target.

• Mass Invisibility is a very long duration AoE stealth, get creative! Couple of applications include stealthing yourself or the entire team in order to get to open on the enemy team, or cloaking downed allies to prevent a stomp.

• Your manipulation skills Mirror, Blink and Mass Invisibility have shorter cooldown and they give Superspeed.

• Your condition cleanses are Sigil of Cleansing, Distortion and The Prestige.

• Poke with Spatial Surge and Phantasmal Berserker in teamfights if you don't see an opening.

• Mirror reflects projectiles while the skills is being channeled. To an extent, this can be abused. If you stow your weapon before the channeling finishes, you get to reflect projectiles while only sending your healing skill on a 4 second CD. Of course if you do this, you won't be healed. It's a niche use but might be worth knowing.

• The build is all about pulling off a major burst combo and getting a kill with it. There's a downtime between bursts where you should primarily just focus on personal survival and rotations.

• Cry of Frustration's true value lies in trait synergy. Blinding Dissipation blinds targets it strikes, so in melee this could be used preemptively to avoid getting hit by something dangerous. It also removes boons via Shattered Concentration which is great at softening up targets shortly before a burst or just stripping Stability and opening up the target for interrupts.

• Mantra of Distraction or Diversion are a great synergy with Power Block. They allow to mess with the opponent skill cd while disrupting his playstyle on one hand. But on another hand, it also applies weakness which gets life saving against zerker opponents who usually are roamers trying to counter your play. Being able to weaken them will give you the opportunity to survive those countering classes.

Bursting

• What the build lacks in sustained damage, it makes up for in bursts.

• There are two important damage modifiers to note, Mental Anguish (when not using Power Block) and Superiority Complex. In a way both are tied to your opponent being inactive. The best way to ensure that both of these traits are going to take effect is to CC the target with Mantra of Distraction or Diversion right before bursting them. Diversion itself may proc various traits on Domination for Vulnerability which translates to even more damage modifiers, but it does consume your clones so Mind Wrack loses some damage.

• The burst combo is best done in melee range for various reasons. One, to get the most out of the Mirror Blade bounces and two, to make yourself act as an extra clone for shatters.

Basic combo:

1. Mirror Blade in melee range.
2. Mantra of Pain or Mantra of Distraction before the blade connects to the target.
3. Mind Wrack once the clone appears from Mirror Blade.
4. Mind Stab as soon as you can.

Extended burst combo:

1. Optional - start from stealth to make the burst less predictable. If you're using The Prestige you could time your burst in a way that the stealth runs out in the middle of the combo as The Prestige does AoE damage after it runs out. Breaking the stealth doesn't cause the damage to go off any sooner.
2. Optional - if you start from Sword/Torch you could try rooting the target with Swap.
3. Optional - Diversion right before the combo, boosting your damage through various Grandmaster traits. It's a rather short window however, the best scenario would be bursting a target that's already CC'd by one of your teammates and saving Diversion for later.
4. Optional - if you can afford to discard a strong defensive CD, using Decoy right before the burst spawns another clone that can be shattered by Mind Wrack for extra damage. Just keep in mind that Decoy interrupts skill casting so don't try to squeeze it in in the middle of casting Mirror Blade.
5. Mirror Blade in melee range.
6. Mantra of Pain or Mantra of Distraction before the first bounce of Mirror Blade.
7. Mind Wrack as the clone from Mirror Blade appears.
8. Mind Stab as soon as you can.
9. If the opponent is still alive, you can use Cry of Frustration / Blurred Frenzy / Phantasmal Berserker, whatever extra damage is available. If they try to heal follow up with Diversion or Illusionary Wave.

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Related Builds

• Core Shatter Roamer - the WvW Roaming version of the build.