Guild Wars 2

I posted this in the Mesmer forums. Got 100 views and not 1 reply. Anyone care to give some advice please? (BTW please don’t suggest ascended or crafted gear, as this is not an option for me. Thanks.)

I’m running Rampager’s gear for high crit rate + power + condition damage. I just got Chrono and I am doing Dueling, Illusions, Chrono with Scepter/Torch and Sword/Shield. Utilities are mainly wells, but I can mix those up as needed. I have a Runes of Perlexity set (and as an Asura, “Pain Inverter” can be fun sometimes). I am almost exclusively open world PVE. I have Sigils of Force on the Shield and Torch, for extra damage.

I’ve noticed that with Sigils of Earth my clones still put more bleeding on enemies than I do, and I don’t like the 2 second cooldown. I could spend a ton of gold on Sigils of Tormenting, but those have a FIVE second cooldown (and only 50% proc rate if I recall), so I can stack a LOT of tormenting already with Scepter and Shatter.
Should I just go with Air on the main hand weapons for some extra damage every 3 seconds? I thought of Strength also, but I don’t have boon duration increase, so I’d never get a lot of might stacks. Are Bursting, Malice, Bloodlust, Corruption better options too?

Please advise. Thanks.

I’ll be the first to admit I am not a Mesmer expert, but hopefully I can give some insight into why you weren’t getting many replies.

What exactly are you trying to do with your character? That’s the big question to ask. Scepter/Torch is a condition damage weapon set, so if you want to focus on condition damage, then the logical next step is to upgrade to Viper’s gear. Viper’s gear is mostly obtained via crafting, which you say isn’t an option, but there are other ways to get some. You’ll get an exotic piece of your choice for going through the Heart of Thorns story, so you can do that repeatedly. Ascended Viper’s trinkets can be obtained from the Living World Season Three zones, Bloodstone Fen, Ember Bay and Bitterfrost Frontier. You say not to suggest Ascended gear, but those trinkets can all be obtained solely via open world PvE, and they’ll help you out.

Sigils like Air and Force are geared for direct damage builds, which if you’re focusing on inflicting conditions, you are not. Just bear in mind as a condition Mesmer that Confusion and Torment aren’t super-strong conditions in PvE, as most NPC enemies don’t attack very often and usually won’t move a lot either once in battle. They’re very strong conditions in PvP, and in raids Condi Mesmer definitely has a place in fights like Matthias, but these are game modes that you admittedly don’t play…

For builds, have a look at metabattle.com. They probably won’t be 100% suitable for you, but I use those as a base and modify it according to my needs.

It looks like you are going with a hybrid build since you are using rampager (even balance between power and condi) and you are using a condi weapon set (scepter/torch) and a power weapon set (sword/shield). Which is FINE, since you are only doing OW PVE. My suggestion then is this: use the Sigil of Force and Air on your sword and shield, and use sigils of Malice and either Earth or Geomancy on the Scepter and torch.

You didn’t mention armor runes. May I suggest Berserker runes?

You can get ascended trinkets with laurels, fractal relics (not OW PVE but still pve), guild commendations, and apparently Season 3 stuff (thanks Xiahou Mao).

I did mention runes in my wall of text (sorry). I am using Perplexity Runes to put out more condition damage and confusion.

I’ll look into Malice and Berserker Runes. Thanks for the replies.

fourhim.3584:

I did mention runes in my wall of text (sorry). I am using Perplexity Runes to put out more condition damage and confusion.

I’ll look into Malice and Berserker Runes. Thanks for the replies.

You’re right. My mistake. Perplexity is great if you are doing a heavy shatter build with scepter 3. Not so good for hybrid builds like you have. You’re gonna be a jack of all trades, master of none, which is possible to do, but perplexity runes aren’t the best choice for that.