Guild Wars 2

Get asked a a lot what I am running, and why I die so often in OS. Two parts, 1.) I am bad. 2.) I don’t like running meta, I like trying new stuff, and building my own builds.

After tweaking around with it for quite some time now, I have finished my “Mesmamentalist” D/D ele build. So here it is, fully built by myself, tested long and hard. I am actually happy were the build is at currently, just looking to improve my own personal skill, and I think it can compete with a lot of other classes out there.

Small things can be tweaked, I.E fighting mace shield warrior, go rock solid in earth. But for the most part this is what I run exactly.

I am sharing it because I would love to see more condi eles out there, and I would like to share the feeling of when someone invites you to party and says “I wasn’t expecting that”.

Enjoy and good luck

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEQQJAoYlcMoytlNwvB0RMAQK0y4hIfQS5ROzYDA-zEDBYiBkqAk6AI/ENHaRjZSAl1FRjVJLyaGYaXIqYB1jALAACAz8nz8nzMpAWUaE-w

I gotta say, pretty impressive in that vid. It’s nice to see that there are still people out there experimenting with new things and not just using cookie cutter builds.

Very nice to see something new. I’m the same way on not liking meta builds. It shows lack of creativity and skills to play with a build that the majority uses such as the 0/0/0/30/30 variant builds for the ele. Condition build ele is a lot of fun to play too. I prefer direct burst damage but when I experimented with 3 different condition builds it was a lot of fun to stack those confusions, immobilize and seeing my burning/bleed do very nice DOT.

Nice job. I play around with a condi build at times. I prefer S/D because the bleed is better and from Range. Dagger main hand sure has a nice fire DOT though with #2

HIGGINS.

Human Ele master race. Reaper of Granth get wrekt.

You should try my build doe.

I like your idea of building some kind of Mesmer-Elementalist.

Thought about something else with Reaper as a Human.

Would you mind describing your playstyle / goal with this build a bit more? Would love to see your aim for this in a more detailed way.

Thank you

Yea Nyel,

Goals:
-Ability to kill tanks in OS and in WvW
-Ability to have a fair chance against full zerk classes in WvW and OS

First things first, this is a very wacky playstyle compared to meta, you will find yourself lighting whipping all the time because thats what you used to do, not anymore.

This build is made up to throw on a different amount of condis that mask the hard hitting ones (burn and confusion). So the important thing about dueling is that you land your important skills to the fullest extent.
-Interrupts to proc confusion~every ten seconds, this means using your updraft, earthquake, and sometimes the shock aura every 10 seconds to maximize this.
-Fire~ basically same as meta~ burning speed, ring of fire, dragons breath, fire grab.
-Earth~magnetic graps (huge for imob, to keep them off you while your hard hitting skills recycle. Ring of earth (bleed and weakness)
-Water~frost aura and Frozen burst for the chill
-Air~Ride the lighting for closing gaps, and shocking touch for weakness

I would say most of my time is in about 35% fire, 25% earth, 20% water, 15% air

It is also important to keep the pace in the fight fast, and to always be in the persons face to keep the condi pressure up (and to distract them while they have 4-7 condis on their bar.

Generalized play style
-against glassy players, use the confusion to your full advantage, and allow them to kill themselves. (works more often then it should. I don’t know if people just don’t see it coming or what)
-Tanky-Immob, burn, chill… rinse and repeat. As long as your rotation is good, the sigil of doom should handicap their healing a decent amount. save your confusion for when they try the hard hitting skill.

I have a similar condi-build 10/0/30/0/30 with Fire V, or 20/0/30/0/20 with fire V,III and yes its fun, no one excepts a condi ele why 10 water? to cover your other conditions?

Two things may be useful for you:

- going with earthshield conjure needs practice, but once you get into it, the fun begins.
- going full carrion with a few dires would add much more to your build, since most of your attacks profit from power, and you’ve no conditions on crit traits. have you tried that?

yeap, 10 in water for the extra vul condi on signet use

Two reasons why I have the rabid and cav gear.

1.) increased precision-I did some testing and inorder to really keep the superior sigil of earth close to the cooldown, as well as to make sure I am using the 25 tree in arcana I needed about at 25 base crit chance, 50 with fury.. But once the sigil patch comes, and I can have two on swap sigils with separate cooldown procs I will definitely be going hydromancey or battle with doom, at which point I can drop my total the rabid, and I will go with a mix of Tough Condi Vitality or Tough Condi Healing

2.) I just geared up my engie, and I am all out of laurels :/.

Mercenary Higgins.1807:

yeap, 10 in water for the extra vul condi on signet use

Two reasons why I have the rabid and cav gear.

1.) increased precision-I did some testing and inorder to really keep the superior sigil of geomancy close to the cooldown, as well as to make sure I am using the 25 tree in arcana I needed about at 25 base crit chance, 50 with fury.. But once the sigil patch comes, and I can have two on swap sigils with separate cooldown procs I will definitely be going hydromancey or battle with doom, at which point I can drop my total the rabid, and I will go with a mix of Tough Condi Vitality or Tough Condi Healing

2.) I just geared up my engie, and I am all out of laurels :/.

geomancy doesnt need crit, and 25 arcana is one of the worst, if not the worst gm minors in the game. with 50% crit you got a whooping 5% chance to applie a short dot. its laughable. one firegrab crit with 10k instead of 5k makes a difference

My bad, I meant superior sigil of earth, which I may have made a mistake. whoops.

Notice the Legendary weapons….
They are a HUGE leap in damage for Ele over Exo weapons. I have seen Ele trash people with them and then lose when they switch to Exo trying to prove that its not the weapon.

Funny though that the traits are exactly what mine were. Though in the end i moved 10 points out of Earth into Air for that added damage and taking Bolt to the heart trait. Also use the same Rune set, but i take Geomancy and Torment sigils.

As for trait specifics – The Earth traits exactly the same, Water trait exactly the same. I take Windborne Dagger instead of renewing Stamina and Elemental Surge instead of Evasive Arcana. Other than the traits are the same, when i had 30 into Earth i would switch between Diamond Skin and Earth’s Embrace.

Though being Human in my opinion offers the better skill – Reaper of Grenth.

Hey Higgins,

Thanks for showing off your condi build, this is the first time I actually see someone utilizing “Written in Stone”. Never thought it can be used in a condi build.

I have a question, I see no stun breakers in your build. How do you survive without at least 1 stun break, for when you are ambushed by a thief or anyone who uses stun as an opener?

Gabriell.4856:

Hey Higgins,

Thanks for showing off your condi build, this is the first time I actually see someone utilizing “Written in Stone”. Never thought it can be used in a condi build.

I have a question, I see no stun breakers in your build. How do you survive without at least 1 stun break, for when you are ambushed by a thief or anyone who uses stun as an opener?

Shocking Aura works great. They will normally use Bask to start the fight and then you just use Shocking Aura and when they go in for the Backstab it stuns them. It really should mean no damage is dealt but i am not 100% sure if that is the case or not.

When roaming ai pretty much stay in Air just in case i get ambushed. From then on its okay. I also run with Arcane Shield myself and Arcane Power the blinds (with Elemental Surge) is great defence.

Gabriell,
As Ash said, Shocking Aura Works great, As it will also double as an interrupt.
Ordinarily you cannot say this. but with this build having 3020 base toughness with 3150 when attuned to earth, combined with the retaliation that pain invertor provides and confusion stacks, you can actually afford to take a hit, and with when facing glass cannon builds, I can actually rely on people to do this in order to win the fight.

Whenever you take a big hit, swap to water, double dodge to get the evasive water, then pop another cleansing wave which will get you almost 2/3 of your health back.

But yea, It is difficult to venture out of your comfort zone when you are no longer using cantrips. But for sure, stability can be an issue with this build. If you are really having problems transitioning to this build, you can give yourself rock solid and earth’s embrace to help give you some more stability, granted you will lose some condi damage from the 10% conversion trait.

Glad you found a unique build that works for you. However I just have to say those are some of the worst guardians I have ever seen haha

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEEQJAoYnMISPDWzAGOA/aIAIFaZoQkPEFso8gmZqB-zEDBIOg4OA0CAkHgZSFRjtsuIasKZoKIYKTRW7CRFDwdQamUARMNC-w

This is my build. I made tweaks to it to increase Critical Damage and Power to try and counter the classes that have great condition removal or immunity.

I swap out Corruption for Sigil of Torment as well, even with Geomancy it procs quite alot which is nice, another condition that hides my damaging ones – Burning, Bleeding, Confusion

Over the OPs build it has:

+ 298 Power, + 249 Attack Power
- 282 Precision, – 13% Critical Chance
- 419 Toughness, 426 Armor
+ 245 Vitality, + 2,450Health
- 202Condition Damage, -40% Condition Duration
- 119 Healing Power
+ 23% Critical Damage

stats wise, Precision loss isnt that big a deal, i have ONE trait and even that is a minor trait that has anything to do with on crit hits so its no that big a a deal. Plus you get 2+ seconds of Fury when attunement switching which bring it up quite a bit as well.

The Toughness loss isnt that big either, even when i had 1700+ i was still getting hit for like 12-16k Backstabs so it doesnt bother me, plus the health increase is a nice little bit of help as well.

I think the condition damage and duration loss (not using condi food) is dented by the fact i have quite high (for a condi build) Crit damage and the power i have helps to counter the minor loss in condition damage.

Traits wise:

+ Bolt to The Heart
- Written In stone
+ Windborne Dagger
+ Elemental Surge
- Evasive Arcana

Written in stone is a decent trait, but other than the Signet heal, it is wasted as most of them have rather weak actives and the Passives are rather meh anyway. I do some times miss Evasive Arcana but Elemental Surge works really well seeing as the skills i take.

I swap Armor of Earth out some times for something else. I mostly rely on Arcane Shield which when in Air procs a nice Blind on the target as well.

Ash,

Its a solid build, but some aspects I have just gotten used to now, as well as losing some condi pressure wouldn’t be ideal for the play style I’ve developed .

Is the Asura skill necessary? As I wrote I thought about the Reaper as a Human. And it fits very well with the D/D playstyle as both are short range skills.

Nyel.1843:

Is the Asura skill necessary? As I wrote I thought about the Reaper as a Human. And it fits very well with the D/D playstyle as both are short range skills.

Personally, i would go with Reaper of Grenth. The Chill is VERY useful and the Poison is another condition that without Sigil of Doom we would have no access to. You can get Perplexity Runes for Confusion and both the 4/6 and the 6/6 proc plenty.

When you have 40%+ food it means that they will get like 4 and 1/2 seconds for each proc which happens every 3 seconds. So if you can stay melee on them they will have constant chill and Poison for 15seconds.

I use this in group fights, very effective when you are in big fights. Using it and then going right into the heart of there group, get some AoE burning going, and it can be deadly.

While Pain inverter is decent, i don’t think it offers enough to make it more useful than an Elite seeing as the class elite are all rather meh – Tornado has its uses from time to time but FGS is used more for mobility and that should really say it all.

Hounds of Balthazar is an interesting one, been giving it a try but yet to try it 1 Vs 1, against Veterans it dies FAST in like 5-10seconds which is just pathetic really. Though never going to happen, if it was given a buff (most racial elites need them!) then it could be a great option for 1 Vs 1 fights

11 confusion stacks for over 10 seconds… from an ele? Well, if they weren’t gonna nerf perplexity in the upcoming balance patch, they sure are now. XD

Yamsandjams.3267:

11 confusion stacks for over 10 seconds… from an ele? Well, if they weren’t gonna nerf perplexity in the upcoming balance patch, they sure are now. XD

They won’t Perplexity has already been nerfed with its ICD on both 4/6 and 6/6. Despite doing that they didnt bother actually FIXING the bugged confusion duration that the rune is meant to give but doesnt.

Plus, i have seen MUCH higher stacking. I have seen Warrior and Engineer hitting the stack limit with them…

Yamsandjams.3267:

11 confusion stacks for over 10 seconds… from an ele? Well, if they weren’t gonna nerf perplexity in the upcoming balance patch, they sure are now. XD

It’s 1 condition and eles don’t have lots of conditions to dish out so it should be pretty easy to cleanse. Not a lot of hard CC skills to interrupt the enemy either.

But yes, I agree. I think it needs a nerf OR buff mesmer confusion. I’ve always thought Confusion is one of the trademark conditions of a mesmer but seeing how a rune is better than the class itself is weird.

Looks interesting and quite effective, also did some testing with condi D/D builds myself some time ago and found it really fun to play.

Just one question, how do you fair against heavy condition classes? Of course switching healing signet to Etheral Renewal can help a bit, but with that low vitality and somewhat limited cleanses I could imagine some trouble?

Kyon.9735:

Yamsandjams.3267:

11 confusion stacks for over 10 seconds… from an ele? Well, if they weren’t gonna nerf perplexity in the upcoming balance patch, they sure are now. XD

It’s 1 condition and eles don’t have lots of conditions to dish out so it should be pretty easy to cleanse. Not a lot of hard CC skills to interrupt the enemy either.

But yes, I agree. I think it needs a nerf OR buff mesmer confusion. I’ve always thought Confusion is one of the trademark conditions of a mesmer but seeing how a rune is better than the class itself is weird.

My Ele has access to: Burning, bleeding, Torment, Confusion, Cripple, Chill
Not a huge amount of access but decent and the damaging ones are Burning (about 850 per a tick) Bleeding (can hit over 1k ticks) and Confusion (can hit up to 2k ticks)

However that requires a specific Rune set and a Sigil to get access to them, without them my build would be no where near as strong.

Erm, Mesmer has insane access to Confusion. My old build was a Confusion build Sahhters = Confusion, Clone death = confusion, weapon = confusion

when built right Mesmer is GREAT at confusion. It is really only out done by Engineer and Warrior when it comes to confusion.

It will NOT be nerfed as they recently nerfed it, to the point a lot of people don’t use it any more. They have reasonable cool downs on the 4/6 and 6/6 that makes it MUCH more balanced – unless used on either Warrior, Mesmer or Engineer seeing as they already have insane access to confusion.

So if you’re Ele has got every damaging condition except poison, what “uptime” can you generate with your build / Sigil setup?

Maybe you can make an overview of your character using this and explain it a bit more detailed?

Nyel.1843:

Is the Asura skill necessary? As I wrote I thought about the Reaper as a Human. And it fits very well with the D/D playstyle as both are short range skills.

Honestly, yes. So far it is proving to be a nice incognito skill that few people avoid, more confusion, retail, and a short CD, its a nice skill to have with this build. I am not a human, so I haven’t been able to try grenth out, but honestly, I rather have the Pain Inverter, just my style.

Goodi.7931:

Looks interesting and quite effective, also did some testing with condi D/D builds myself some time ago and found it really fun to play.

Just one question, how do you fair against heavy condition classes? Of course switching healing signet to Etheral Renewal can help a bit, but with that low vitality and somewhat limited cleanses I could imagine some trouble?

Hey Goodi,

Right now, I don’t have a problem with any condi classes (thief, warrior, ranger, engineer) except necros. If you see a person rolling around with +40% condi duration food, just make sure you don’t get hit by their opening burst, this can be done by interrupting them first and getting the upper hand. Necro’s ability to put out the condis as well as their high pool health have really been giving me a challenge.

Potential Condi prevention tweaks that can be easily made: Ether Renewal, Cleansing fire, to swap out over signet of earth. <-good thing is that cleansing fire still ticks decent on a condi build, so you don’t lose to much. Obviously, you would want to take written in stone out because you just lost two signets, that trait would be up to you. Maybe try diamond skin? Not a fan but it has a few applicable situations.

Nyel.1843:

So if you’re Ele has got every damaging condition except poison, what “uptime” can you generate with your build / Sigil setup?

Maybe you can make an overview of your character using this and explain it a bit more detailed?

Nyel,

It my ele does not have tournament, but as ash said, It can be added through weapon sigils. Uptime really depends on the persons ability to cleanse.

As for the guide, I am holding off till I get some more laurels and hopefully the sigil patch comes. So I can rock some more chill.

As for the playtime, check my stream, I usually stream from 4pm pst -6pm pst before HOPE raid

http://www.twitch.tv/acquire_fort_aspenwood

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Kyon.9735:

Yamsandjams.3267:

11 confusion stacks for over 10 seconds… from an ele? Well, if they weren’t gonna nerf perplexity in the upcoming balance patch, they sure are now. XD

It’s 1 condition and eles don’t have lots of conditions to dish out so it should be pretty easy to cleanse. Not a lot of hard CC skills to interrupt the enemy either.

But yes, I agree. I think it needs a nerf OR buff mesmer confusion. I’ve always thought Confusion is one of the trademark conditions of a mesmer but seeing how a rune is better than the class itself is weird.

My Ele has access to: Burning, bleeding, Torment, Confusion, Cripple, Chill
Not a huge amount of access but decent and the damaging ones are Burning (about 850 per a tick) Bleeding (can hit over 1k ticks) and Confusion (can hit up to 2k ticks)

However that requires a specific Rune set and a Sigil to get access to them, without them my build would be no where near as strong.

Erm, Mesmer has insane access to Confusion. My old build was a Confusion build Sahhters = Confusion, Clone death = confusion, weapon = confusion

when built right Mesmer is GREAT at confusion. It is really only out done by Engineer and Warrior when it comes to confusion.

It will NOT be nerfed as they recently nerfed it, to the point a lot of people don’t use it any more. They have reasonable cool downs on the 4/6 and 6/6 that makes it MUCH more balanced – unless used on either Warrior, Mesmer or Engineer seeing as they already have insane access to confusion.

Yeah, I should have pointed out “Natural Access” to conditions. Also, it’s funny how mesmers need to trait and stuff for Confusion while Engineers has more access just through weapon kits. And Warriors getting better access to Confusion with just 1 trait doesn’t really sound right.

Nyel.1843:

So if you’re Ele has got every damaging condition except poison, what “uptime” can you generate with your build / Sigil setup?

Maybe you can make an overview of your character using this and explain it a bit more detailed?

For me.

Burning is pretty much either Perma or until they cleanse in which case it can be back on them in seconds. Bleeding, 8 stacks (Churning Earth) can last for like 13 seconds of course it has to be timed right to get the best of it, using Earth #2 and then swapping Attunement gives another 4stacks of bleeding for like 10-13seconds

Confusion and Torment are harder to control due to them being from runes and Sigil but they both proc a very nice amount of times and have had Confusion stack to like 12 or something before which is great and deals like 1.6k – 2k damage per an action which is pretty solid

Nice to see more people trying condi ele!!
As someone already said, your 10 points trait in water isn’t really doing anything for your build (except for the health of course), I’d change it for a more useful water trait or 10 points on fire and get embers might, that would give you 10% condi duration, 25% burning duration and a little bit of power (your hard hitting skills still do decent damage even in a condi build, that should not be overlooked).

I’m not a big fan of signets, have you ever tried the glyph of elemental power? Besides the burn and chilling which are very nice, it also can perma cripple/weakeness a foe, definitely worth a try!

For me the trait works well but i use it in conjunction with Arcane skills. Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Shield and Arcane Power so in that sort of situation i think it works well, in a pure Signet build, i just dont think it is worth while.

Elemental Power is great and it can be used to gain condition outside of the attunement as well. Using it in Air will still proc the same condition in Fire and so on which is VERY helpful for adding more conditions

Awesome build, video made me realize that Condition damage is needed to maximize dmg, so I made my own adjustment to your build :P
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vEQQJAoYhcM6cW2wvBdEBA9QLjHd8BJyDWUKkDA-zkCB4fAYLgUHAUBgJfDRM7Jrl1FRjVVDSXDT5aI1BAQA4m38m3MSBAx0I-w

Thank you for taking the time to put this together and share it with the community Mercenary Higgins. This is a huge help to those of us not as skilled as exceptional players such as yourself. Cheers!

Dolores.5471:

Nice to see more people trying condi ele!!
As someone already said, your 10 points trait in water isn’t really doing anything for your build (except for the health of course), I’d change it for a more useful water trait or 10 points on fire and get embers might, that would give you 10% condi duration, 25% burning duration and a little bit of power (your hard hitting skills still do decent damage even in a condi build, that should not be overlooked).

I’m not a big fan of signets, have you ever tried the glyph of elemental power? Besides the burn and chilling which are very nice, it also can perma cripple/weakeness a foe, definitely worth a try!

Signet on use causes 11 1/2 vuln, great for masking other condis, that alone is enough for me to go 10 into water

Its a shame that The trait doesnt proc for each hit of Arcane Power, seems bugged or something it stacks 5. Changed my build a bit gone back to 0/0/20/20/30 swapped the Vul trait out for Soothing Wave and then grabbedAquamancer’s Alacrity for bit of added survival with cool down reductions on Cone of Cold (8seconds), Frost Aura (32seconds) and Cleansing Wave (32seconds) and got the 5point trait for heal when entering Water. This has increased my Healing Power and Vitality a bit as well which is always nice.

In WvW when i have Corruption stats i am sitting at 1,665 Condition Damage (without Food or oil) and have 22,287 Health (Guard Buff) 1,673 Toughness as well. I should hit about 1,800-1900Condition damage when i finish upgrading my accessories to ascended. My toughness will also be increased to around 1850ish and i could hit about 22,500 health as well

Mercenary Higgins.1807:

Dolores.5471:

Nice to see more people trying condi ele!!
As someone already said, your 10 points trait in water isn’t really doing anything for your build (except for the health of course), I’d change it for a more useful water trait or 10 points on fire and get embers might, that would give you 10% condi duration, 25% burning duration and a little bit of power (your hard hitting skills still do decent damage even in a condi build, that should not be overlooked).

I’m not a big fan of signets, have you ever tried the glyph of elemental power? Besides the burn and chilling which are very nice, it also can perma cripple/weakeness a foe, definitely worth a try!

Signet on use causes 11 1/2 vuln, great for masking other condis, that alone is enough for me to go 10 into water

You’re D/D, your water 1 has close to 10 secs vulnerability to cover condition, this trait isn’t really worth it.

Yeah i am finding Water auto attack just fine for getting a few stacks of Vul on them. Lasts like 8+ seconds per a hit anyway so that is plenty of time.

The trait procs for every of the 5 Arcane Power stacks. At least with Fire & Burning, tried it few times and it worked well. I mostly use it with Meteor Shower… lol.

Nyel.1843:

The trait procs for every of the 5 Arcane Power stacks. At least with Fire & Burning, tried it few times and it worked well. I mostly use it with Meteor Shower… lol.

Not that trait. I was talking about “Shard of Ice” Arcane and Signet skills cause Vul when activated. For some reason Using that with Arcane Power gives 5stacks. Which is either 2 too many or 10 less than it should.

My mistake, sorry.

Is this viable in spvp?

MightyMicah.7451:

Is this viable in spvp?

In my opinion – No
it lacks the condition damage/vitality/toughness stats and we need these more than the rest. You either have high health and low toughness or low health and high toughness.

sure you might win some but you will lose more. Though this also depends on your team as well.

No perplex runes in spvp, so no.

Mercenary Higgins.1807:

No perplex runes in spvp, so no.

Perplexity isn’t the issue for S/TPvP. Its how weak we are with Health and Toughness/amour. Even if they added a Condition Damage/Toughness/Vitality combo amulet all the condition builds would run it and still be ahead of ele anyway.

I am actually considering dropping some of my Condition Damage/Toughness/Vitality gear in order to gain Condition Damage/Toughness/Healing Power gear. Want to try and see if i can hit around 8-900 Healing Power.

Currently, i am sitting at 444Healing Power, Thinking of getting the Condition Damage/Toughness/Healing Power Ascended rings – that is another 202 Healing Power. Taking the Chest item would be another 101 Healing Power so i think it could be done. Would mean a slight drop in condition Damage. Minor reduction really Health after buffs i would hope to still be around 19-20k

We need more condi eles to make the warriors run away, wait a second…

I like this build but 10 in water scares me Soon when I have all my trinkets and stuff I’ll make a thread about my hybrid build.

Keep up the good work!

I don’t think there were any clips of duels with me there =(