Guild Wars 2

Returning after almost 3 years.

I use staff 90% of the time, using dodge rolls to make illusions while stacking precision so clones applied bleeding with Sharper Images (the stats I had on my gear were precision, condition damage and toughness).
Shattering without Power was always weak and illusions used to inflict conditions upon death, but I would Shatter for a little bit of damage and confusion stacks if Staff3 was up or I had vigor etc.
I never felt like I had a lot of burst as a condi mesmer, but that was fine with me due to high survivability and great sustained damage. However, it seems like nowadays I don’t deal any damage and just survive.

Is there are newer way to build condition mesmers? Also, I would usually use Sword/Focus as 2nd weapon set, but it was more for mobility between mobs in dungeons, whereas I kept to staff in battle.

So much has changed and I feel a little overwhelmed with how different everything is (like burning stacks now?!?!) so any advice on a good condition mesmer with weapon/stat/trait recommendations would be much appreciated. Thank you!

Short answer: condition Mesmer is not even remotely viable in pvp. It may become viable once the expansion hits though, so keep an eye on that.

There are newer ways to build it (you use maim the dissilusioned, in illusions for torment on shatter), but no condie Mesmer build is viable right now.

Fay.2357:

Short answer: condition Mesmer is not even remotely viable in pvp. It may become viable once the expansion hits though, so keep an eye on that.

There are newer ways to build it (you use maim the dissilusioned, in illusions for torment on shatter), but no condie Mesmer build is viable right now.

I know you don’t like hearing this, but that really depends on what you mean by “viable”. If you’re not in high tier PvP where very few condi builds work (basically only burn guard), condi mesmer can be strong. I would even argue that if you’re not in high tier, condi mesmer can be better. It is definitely better for me when I play on the european servers (while I currently live in the US) because it is more forgiving of high lags.

And even Helseth used it in semi-serious matches. Sure, he stopped, probably because he felt it was not as strong as the power build. But it is still a decent alternative (I believe he used it because the “illusion” line brings condi clear to the torch but otherwise favors conditions heavily, so he used a hybrid setup).

I actually feel it’s less viable in low tier play than high tier. At least at the top level you can coordinate with your team for some lockdown and pressure. At low level, everyone and their mother just spams cele ele and/or shout guards etc that hardcounter the build in most situations, and rotating well will just end up with you in side point 1v1s against those semi-bunkers.

I play in very low tier and only play a couple matches per day (think I’m rank 25 or so). So feel free to ignore all the rest of this

This is the condi build I’m playing right now. In matches that my team wins, it’s pretty frequent that I see “highest condition damage” noted for me. There could be lots of causes like bad opponents.

I find that I’m too slow killing one on one with this build in most fights, but it feels like I can help turn the tide in bigger fights.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNArfWlknhy0YFawQNwtGLAH05I+QpNTQoDAaqv4KA-TJRHwAQLDIc/hAnCAAPBAA

Fay.2357:

I actually feel it’s less viable in low tier play than high tier. At least at the top level you can coordinate with your team for some lockdown and pressure. At low level, everyone and their mother just spams cele ele and/or shout guards etc that hardcounter the build in most situations, and rotating well will just end up with you in side point 1v1s against those semi-bunkers.

Naw, I have great success at lower-mid level on condi mes.

The rabid build is pretty forgiving, the cele eles aren’t at upper tiers in their skill cap, and without the organization of higher play, you don’t get as many whole-team deciding fights to cut into your condi applications (you know the ones, where the guardian just keeps shouting away your stacks and making you feel useless).

I even ran it over BWE3 without chrono, and still managed to do great against most elite specs I came across.

And I’ve only found two builds that were tanky enough to stand up to my condi at these levels mono-a-mono (on side points). Not to say there weren’t guys who had my number in duels, but there was only one guard and one diamond skin ele that beat me because I couldn’t kill them. Every other 1v1 I lost on side points was because they outplayed me on damage/cc.

BWE3 was a different matter. I came across an engi who was able to just ignore me and kill the Lord on Foefire no matter what I threw at him -_-.
And I also ran into a Rev that was like faceplanting into a brick wall. That was a bad game generally, with an afk teammate and 2 teammates who thought they were Japanese Kamikaze pilots, but even when I caught him alone I just ended up with my face in the dirt.
If I’d been on chrono, that might have been different, but I don’t have the skill to make good use of chrono yet, so probably not.

I should add that, (due to playing from Australia), my ping always hovers around 300ms. As a result… I focus on PvE

This being said, to come back to OP’s question. I do feel like condi mesmer only works properly if you shatter. I usually engage with a F1 burst, which builds some might (bountiful disillusionment), does decent damage and inflicts enough conditions to force the enemy using his cleanse. Then I swap weapons and prepare and execute my F2 burst. I usually use scepter/pistol for my second weapon set, so the scepter 3 + iDuelist gives very strong damage and condi pressure and I can interrupt the enemy’s attempt to recover.

This ends up being fairly bursty and it is not rare to kill the bad enemies with just this rotation.

Eberouge.1693:

I should add that, (due to playing from Australia), my ping always hovers around 300ms. As a result… I focus on PvE

That is my average ping when playing from US to EU. It was very very frustrating and I ended up moving my main account to US a few weeks ago and making an alt in EU just to play with friends. So I can understand that. I still enjoy playing PvP in EU though, but I use different (more forgiving) specs:

• bunker guard (insanely forgiving)
• condi mesmer
• cele necro although this one is still very tough (in particular, I cannot count the number of times I pop in and out of death shroud because I thought the game didn’t process my F1)

Ah…well then. That makes this easier xD.

Don’t. Condition Mesmer in dungeons is not good (there’s a recent thread where this was discuses extensively). It’s ok in open world, but not actually good unless you’re focusing on husks in the silverwastes.

I prefer condi for world map completion but play power almost exclusively for PVP. Every time I try out condi for PVP, I run into the same two problems:

1) My play style is to roam/plus 1 fights and condi just does not bring the burst to quickly turn the tide of battle that a power build is capable of. Condi is more of an attrition based style which doesn’t suit my play style.

2) Condi varies in effectiveness much more than a power build. As a condi, your DPS varies greatly depending on how much condi cleanse your opponents are running. As a power build, you can expect to bring the hurt regardless of what your opponent brings to the table.

Eberouge.1693:

I should add that, (due to playing from Australia), my ping always hovers around 300ms. As a result… I focus on PvE

You Aussies and your third world country.

I’ve been using this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNArfWlknhG1YtawMNwsGLvGk5KWWNLnQvjGaAyZTA-TZRHwAC3fIwhAAZZABnBAAPAAA

I absolutely love it. It goes against popular convention, and doesn’t even use PU, so I don’t even feel cheap using this condition build!

Eh, I play from Australia too and I really don’t feel that hindered by ping. The only time I really notice it is when I’m downed (which I guess is the point, hah), as there tends to be a slight delay between the final blow and actually downing.

Obviously I won’t be playing at tourney level with that latency, but it’s not as debilitating as it seems.

I run a condi shatter Mesmer with limited success. I run doom and fire sigils. The main attack mode is to use confusing images while closing the enemy. When on top of them, hit torch 3 ( for the blind ) and torch 5, then shatter, f3 and f2. Swap to staff.

It goes without saying I’m traited for blind on shatter and confusion on blind. I’ve seen as many as 14 stacks of confusion for a short time.

Temporal Enchanter or Warden’s feedback will work with this setup. AoE condi cleanse or a reflect that will work some of the time.

ANET nerfed the heal on shatter to near uselesness and the blinds. It kinda works. This is a stop gap for me, hoping for better with HoT.

I am currently running a build like that looks like this

Dueling – Phantasmal Fury, Blinding Dissipation, Deceptive Evasion
Chaos – Illusionary Defense, Chaotic Transference, Bountiful Disillusionment
Illusions – Compounding Power, Shattered Strength, Malicious Sorcery.

For my extra skills, I have Blink, Signet of Domination, Signet of Midnight, and Time Warp.

My gear is Prec/ConditionDmg/Toughness with Rune of the Undead, giving me just under 2,000 Condition Damage and Just under 50% Crit without any buffs.

I’m just trying to increase my sustained DPS (against say, a training dummy). Not sure if Shattered Strength or Maim the Disillusioned should be taken right now. Also, I think Scepter 15% faster attack speed seems too good to pass up over Ineptitude especially since Confusion/Shattering kinda sucks now, but seems like people to combine the blind and confusion still? Criticize this build please

I’m running this in PvP

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7alsnhi0YtawMNwsGL5Gk5FedILDQq7F6PK5MA-TZRHwADuAAw2fIZZAAHEABPBAA

Probably the highest condi damage you can get as a mesmer. It is still fairly bursty to my taste. Often I drop portal for signet of inspiration and get shattered strength for some more might.

edit: fairly similar to Eberouge

Silverkey.2078:

I’m running this in PvP

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7alsnhi0YtawMNwsGL5Gk5FedILDQq7F6PK5MA-TZRHwADuAAw2fIZZAAHEABPBAA

Probably the highest condi damage you can get as a mesmer. It is still fairly bursty to my taste. Often I drop portal for signet of inspiration and get shattered strength for some more might.

edit: fairly similar to Eberouge

Hi. How much success do you have with this build? Maybe I will try PvP again, though I remember having some frustrating rubberbanding issues a while ago =/

Ithilwen.1529:

ANET nerfed the heal on shatter to near uselesness and the blinds. It kinda works. This is a stop gap for me, hoping for better with HoT.

You meant to say bug fixed the blinds, right?

nearlight.3064:

Ithilwen.1529:

ANET nerfed the heal on shatter to near uselesness and the blinds. It kinda works. This is a stop gap for me, hoping for better with HoT.

You meant to say bug fixed the blinds, right?

Also, how on earth did they nerf the heal on shatter? It was unusable before due to how IP functioned with it.

Fay.2357:

nearlight.3064:

Ithilwen.1529:

ANET nerfed the heal on shatter to near uselesness and the blinds. It kinda works. This is a stop gap for me, hoping for better with HoT.

You meant to say bug fixed the blinds, right?

Also, how on earth did they nerf the heal on shatter? It was unusable before due to how IP functioned with it.

They didn’t nerf it, but there was a bug that made healing nearly twice as it should be. It is true that the trait was awkward since to make it good you needed IP, but that doesn’t mean that the combo was not strong, and now is worse than before.
I tried a Staff-S/S build with that in mind, before the crit nerf with the introduction of ferocity, and it was better than I expected. The sustain was impressive and the damage still quite high.

My experience is:
PvE:

• OpenWorld: Conditions are actually okayish, though the dps from a phantasm power build is better.
• Dungeons: Conditions on Mesmer suck.

WvW:

• Zerg: Conditions suck, due to high condi cleanse on enemy zergs.
• Roaming: Conditions are very strong. Mostly due to a lack of understanding. People believe condition damage is a passive thing and if they have cleanses, they pop them too early and cleanse only the initial application, making themselves vulnerable to the actual burst. Also, most Condi Mesmer builds have it easier to survive.

PvP:

• mid/low tier: Condi Mesmer are generally strong, cuz rarely do players build to defend against conditions (or over build and have no dps on their own). If the enemy team has a condi Mesmer, I urge them to leave him alone, because I have seen it often, that 2 or even 3 guy fight that one Mesmer for ages and we lose all other contest points due to being outnumbered. I will then but focus on that condi Mesmer and make him regret being there (hurray for inspiration^^)
• high tier: (not actually my experience). Players tend to build better and understand game mechanics better, which makes it easier for them to deal with condition Mesmer (like not attacking into scepter block and such things)

eldenbri.1059:

I play in very low tier and only play a couple matches per day (think I’m rank 25 or so). So feel free to ignore all the rest of this

This is the condi build I’m playing right now. In matches that my team wins, it’s pretty frequent that I see “highest condition damage” noted for me. There could be lots of causes like bad opponents.

I find that I’m too slow killing one on one with this build in most fights, but it feels like I can help turn the tide in bigger fights.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNArfWlknhy0YFawQNwtGLAH05I+QpNTQoDAaqv4KA-TJRHwAQLDIc/hAnCAAPBAA

We have similar builds, my friend! I just take The Pledge over PoM since it reduces the phantasm recharge anyways and also makes the beautiful prestige come up quicker. I also take the Signet of Inspiration on phantasm summon over the IDefender to cast in stealth and share the sweet PU boons. Ineptitude is nice, but I’ve always had a bit of internal conflict about picking it over the scepter trait. I mean… what applies more condi damage, faster torment stacking from auto and a lower recharge on block and Confuse Ray, or 2 more stacks of confusion?

Eberouge.1693:

Silverkey.2078:

I’m running this in PvP

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7alsnhi0YtawMNwsGL5Gk5FedILDQq7F6PK5MA-TZRHwADuAAw2fIZZAAHEABPBAA

Probably the highest condi damage you can get as a mesmer. It is still fairly bursty to my taste. Often I drop portal for signet of inspiration and get shattered strength for some more might.

edit: fairly similar to Eberouge

Hi. How much success do you have with this build? Maybe I will try PvP again, though I remember having some frustrating rubberbanding issues a while ago =/

This is the build I play the most often because I like the playstyle and I am fairly successful with it. It works ok even with high ping, though as I mentioned I still ended up paying 500 gems to transfer my account to reduce the ping.

The build you gave does not have any condition cleanse which is dangerous in lower tier. Blink is good. For the third utility, you can keep one of your signets for the passive condition buff. You can also use decoy for extra survivability.

My build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7flsnhK0YZawRNwtGLvGkZHG+IKnQvjGaAyZTA-TZRFABAcFA69gAo0+DRVGQhHAAA

Stealth because I’m weak. Before the PU nerf I ran Moa, but since the nerf I’ve found it’s sometimes not enough stealth without MI.

It’s not as raw-bursty as Silverkey’s build, but the pressure to cleanse from shatter condis is higher from the condi duration, as they don’t go away as quickly on their own.
That means I can more easily drop a 2-3 illusion f1 and force the cleanse before laying down my full burst, or even open up with Confusing Images to force the cleanse before dropping a full shatter bomb.

It also enhances the pressure coming from staff in larger fights, which has actually made a big difference. Even with all that toughness, it’s often too hard to fight on point in more than a 3v3, which neuters my shatter condi application. But rather than just running away to backcap, I can sit back, drop some staff clones, and bomb a target for heavy bleeds pretty quick. In practice, unless they’re coordinating their cleanses really well, the pressure it applies has been surprisingly effective.

Nope

If you think it is viable in any mode then ask yourself how long that will last till the next nerf. We get nerfed and the other classes QQ some more for additional nerfs because they want to kitten every class but there own. So instead of gittin gud and learning they just want to smash us with the ban hammer,

Its not just other classes that asks for nerfs. Quite a few mesmers constantly ask for nerfs. To these people, the mesmer is never nerfed enough. I don’t understand that, but that is the way it is.

Mesmer players generally ask for reasonable nerfs to pre-empt an Anet oblivion-nerf, which is what tends to happen when the Mesmer is in the spotlight.

One problem with that scenario. Mesmers asking for a “reasonable” nerf has never stopped the oblivion nerfs. About a month after the Anet nerf, which the mesmers rightfully complain about, these same mesmers will go right back to asking for more nerfs. It is a constant refrain no matter how badly Anet hit the mesmer.

I will grant the mesmer nerf beggars are all pvp type people. Unfortunately, it negatively impacts the pve mesmer. In pve, the mesmer is substandard compared to the other classes due to pvp balancing. As bad as the ranger is, as low damaged as the necromancer is, the mesmer is worse.

PvP is where balance primarily matters, so of course most balance changes will be aimed at that. Feel free to correct me but I think most balance suggestions on these forums don’t really affect PvE much at all, Mesmer PvE was borked from the get-go, not because of things this forum suggested.

E.g. Suggestion that Mirror Blade be nerfed from 4 bounces to 3. GS wasn’t (and still isn’t) used in any PvE content that matters so it really doesn’t change anything for PvE.

There’s plenty of suggestions floating around to buff Mesmer PvE too, including mine here (shameless plug).

redcomyn.4651:

Its not just other classes that asks for nerfs. Quite a few mesmers constantly ask for nerfs. To these people, the mesmer is never nerfed enough. I don’t understand that, but that is the way it is.

Surprisingly, good players of any class want a balanced game.

That includes nerf to their own class, if warranted.

Trying to balance pvp between the classes is a losing game. No one will ever be happy about the balance, no matter how hard or how often Anet tries. So why bother? Constantly changing the rules just makes everybody angry.

redcomyn.4651:

Trying to balance pvp between the classes is a losing game. No one will ever be happy about the balance, no matter how hard or how often Anet tries. So why bother? Constantly changing the rules just makes everybody angry.

That is something I can, in theory, agree on.

I’ve realized this back when going from DAoC to WoW: I prefer imbalanced classes.

Intentionally imbalanced classes which are designed around that imbalance. As an example, in a typical stand-off battle the albion Sorcerer was a much better source of area CC than its counterparts from the other two realms due to superior range and AE radius.

This came with other upsides for the other two realms, sure. But ultimately, considering ranged AE CC, Albion was flat out better off.

And honestly… that’s ok. That’s a cool perk to have. Likewise I don’t mind classes being flat out better or worse at some things. I don’t want a fair fight, if I would always have that, classes would lose all value and might as well just be a skin + graphics effects I buy from the gem store (please don’t take this serious, devs…).
Now why would I still ask for nerfs for my own class? Because while I like imbalanced class design, I need some effects weaker for that to work.

As an example, here’s how I’d rework clones:

• Output massively reduced. Clones are not something you can just pop out. Losing one is a blow on a significant level.
• Clones are ~perfect. They use all abilities, only none of them ever do anything. They dodge, they move, they switch weapons.
• Clones don’t do anything. No conditions, no boons, no damage, no traits making them proc any of those. Nothing.
• As long as any clone is alive, the Mesmer cannot be damaged. On death of any individual target of the “Clones + Mesmer”-group, the Mesmer is at worst swapped with a clone to show how the killed target was, well, just a clone.
• All other defenses removed, or virtually all.
• Different types of clone production introduced. Some are nearly impervious to AE effects but have very very low health in comparison so that targeted attacks will basically one-shot them. Others are immune to conditions flat out. And so on.
• Defense then rebalanced entirely based on clones.
• Note: Damage dealt to the real mesmer – if found – is still dealt. Only at 1 HP the mesmer is kept at 1HP and swapped with a clone which immediately dissolves instead of the Mesmer being downed. But, if triggered via this, there is a CD until this auto-swap can happen again, and while it’d be short (~5s), if found out again it’d be lethal.

In essence, this means if someone cannot find the real mesmer, they can bash their heads against a wall trying to kill them. They’ll only ever see shards of dissolving illusions fly off and mesmers escaping in the distance.
Finding the real one is the catch, and in turn would make the Mesmer pretty vulnerable.

This means any slow attacker is seriously hampered against Mesmers as even if they find the real one, post-swap they cannot easily catch back up. Plus in some situations (Mesmer jumped from wall, ranged clone still on top of the wall) the Mesmer can be nigh unkillable.

In turn, teams attacking in mixed damage modes, some AE, some condi, some single-target targeted direct damage will quickly dispatch a mesmer as they cannot find a fitting clone type to have significant defenses in place. Also very agile characters can easily hunt after the swap, kill the real mesmer.

Balanced? Not at all.
Very mesmery in concept and implementation? Yeah. And I kinda like that. I want my defense to be based on this “That wasn’t actually me”-element of the class.

I think we may disagree on what balance means. Balance does not mean a mesmer 1v1 necromancer should have a 50% win. There is nothing wrong with a rock-paper-scisors system with counters. But that is not unbalanced. Unbalance is when whichever enemy comp a class/build is better than the others. For example, when 5 D/D ele can beat any enemy team.

Because all classes are unique and have counters, “perfect balance” is not needed to ensure that all classes are viable choices even in top tier. Anything close to balanced will be good because even a class that is overall a bit less good can be valuable because it counters another or fill a specific role. For example, thief is agreed to be weak since the specialization patch, but they are still almost mandatory in high tier PvP because of the unique thing they bring (stealth support + high mobility).

redcomyn.4651:

Trying to balance pvp between the classes is a losing game. No one will ever be happy about the balance, no matter how hard or how often Anet tries. So why bother?

As explained above, I disagree. If you look at the complains currently, you see they are focused on rather few classes (essentially D/D elementalist too strong, rangers a bit too low). The others are “on average” understood as balanced. There are always a visible but small group complaining about the rest, but I believe the community is reasonably happy about the rest of the balance. So balance is possible. Now the next step hopefully is increased build diversity. The elite specs will bring that, though they will also probably destroy the whole balance for a while.

Constantly changing the rules just makes everybody angry.

Quite the opposite I believe. Let’s be honest, a big shift in the meta like the specialization update or the one coming with the elite specs stimulate the community a lot. This is extremely exciting. If a game settles without changes, even PvP becomes boring (PvE is necessarily more predictable hence needs more update to keep it alive). Balance changes and new profession/specs means fights will look very different next week and I am very much looking forward to that.

Whether changing the rules makes people angry or not depends on why it is done, I think. If it is done merely for the mythical balance, then many people will be unhappy. If it is done occasionally for the sake of keeping things fresh and exciting, I think most people would see it as a generally positive thing. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of times they make changes, is for the first reason.

I just play pve. I see all these balance changes done for pvp, and it almost always has a weakening effect in pve. Maybe not by much, but they accumulate over time. The difference between the mesmer today and the mesmer of 3 years ago is immense. Today’s mesmer would just be a small speed bump for the mesmer of 3 years ago. As a pve player, this is frustrating for me.

Eberouge.1693:

When Will Condition Mesmers Be Viable?

fixed

redcomyn.4651:

Whether changing the rules makes people angry or not depends on why it is done, I think. If it is done merely for the mythical balance, then many people will be unhappy. If it is done occasionally for the sake of keeping things fresh and exciting, I think most people would see it as a generally positive thing. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of times they make changes, is for the first reason.

People are unhappy if they feel a class is unbalanced. A change made to fix that makes people happy. But if they see a change “just for keeping things fresh” and it ruins their build, they will hate it.

I just play pve. I see all these balance changes done for pvp, and it almost always has a weakening effect in pve. Maybe not by much, but they accumulate over time. The difference between the mesmer today and the mesmer of 3 years ago is immense. Today’s mesmer would just be a small speed bump for the mesmer of 3 years ago. As a pve player, this is frustrating for me.

While they don’t really say it, I think the devs have stopped supporting the current PvE. They are focusing on raids and new fractals, and the meta may be very different. But the important part is that they promised they will take this PvE balance into account. So in the future, balance will be PvP AND PvE balance.