Guild Wars 2

With the Chrono advent, we have seen less and less mesmers going dueling for DE. Nowadays, who takes the dueling route is probably for the Mantra trait, mainly.

This, has had the consequence of losing the minor trait “sharper images” from the radars, which was so popular back then.

While it is certainly possible to have both bleeds and torment in your build, you either have to give up Chrono or Inspiration line, which have become almost mandatory given the current meta situation.

I was wondering which of the two, you guys prefer. From the current tooltips:

• Sharper images: 1 bleed, 5sec, 398dmg = 79.6dps
• MtD: 1 torment, 6 sec, 355dmg/710dmg if moving = 59.2/118.3dps

All the above reflects on the fact that pistol has somehow disappeared from the game and build diversity is probably going down the plug hole.

Thoughts?

You basically must have shield to survive this meta. It’s silly, but what are you going to trade for dueling? Can’t trade inspiration you need the condi/heal/defender combo. Can’t trade chrono, you need the phant generation and clone generation. Can’t trade illusions, you need the phant cd reductions and torment. (Mainly the cd reduction so you can turtle more.)

All that weighs a lot more than the bleed stacks and mantra to me. I miss the good old double ranged shatter days.

I still use duelling with pistol in my condi build for WvW as it’s far more fun to have some interrupt effects and Magic Bullet is just such a classy skill to use. But I certainly would not be using it for sPvP when shield is so important for everything and inspiration is mandatory.

Using pistol for sPvP and not missing the shield at all. We already have continuum split, distortion, blink, decoy, blurred frenzy. I felt like shield was overkill.

@steepled
I do not agree on Illusions to be mandatory. Also, the nerf to persistance of memory makes the tree less attractive, unless your are going condi for torment. For power builds, domination is so much better, while dueling synergize very well because of the mantra trait and inspiration

@simonoly
why not taking shield AND pistol? This is what I am running sw/ps, sc/sh full berserker. Crazy damage, really

@crowley
see above. I take both. You are right, shield could be overkill, but I prefer to run with one more tool to help me survive than one tool less, at least nowadays with all the power creep.

There is no direct comparison you can really make between MtD and sharper images by simply looking at the single condition they apply. They’re entirely different traits and function in different ways, so you need to actually look at the mechanics. When you do so, it becomes abundantly clear that MtD is far more effective than sharper images in every conceivable PvP situation.

Sharper images relies on your illusions remaining alive to perform attacks. You cannot burst with it, and its effectiveness is directly linked to how fast your illusions attack. It also has no inherent aoe; only applying aoe conditions if the illusion attack itself happens to be aoe. The trait is decidedly underwhelming unless you’re playing a pistol build…and it’s still underwhelming at that point because pistol is a purely single target phantasm and reflects are extremely common in PvP.

MtD is a shatter modification, applying one stack of torment per illusion shattered. This means it is aoe, you can control when it gets applied, you can burst with it, and it comes preloaded with confusion as an added bonus. It is by far the better of the two traits, for many reasons.

trooper.2650:

@steepled
I do not agree on Illusions to be mandatory. Also, the nerf to persistance of memory makes the tree less attractive, unless your are going condi for torment. For power builds, domination is so much better, while dueling synergize very well because of the mantra trait and inspiration

Mandatory no, but for a condi build it is really difficult not to go down this line with its confusion, condi buffs, torment, shatter time reductions and AoE Diversion.

Certainly, Pyro’s post is very accurate, but does a streak of 10 peeps in a row make a build a “good build”?
No, of course not. Especially because I am not yet ruby, for what it matters. But it is a start.

My debate on which condition is better, ended. And I decided to take them both
FYI the build, which is a true hybrid, runs Viper + runes of nightmare for a nice 85% confusion duration (ingame tooltip), and I can literally cover the target with all the damaging conditions at once. Burn, confusion, bleeds, torment and eventually poison or chill when swapping.

Here is the link:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW8Klknhi0YZagbNWWNK0pLouu6l9Zn2yOo4CAA-TpBCABVcBAmvMAAHBgr2fwiHAwFHEAA

Running with no Inspiration is something not everyone wants to do, especially now with all the conditions flying around. However, 3 charges of MoR is the second best choice and you should feel relatively safe with it. Also, playing aggressively is your best bet; the amount of pressure you can dish out is astonishing. I remember when I tried viper in the early days and discarded it as “too squishy/it won’t work”.

If you play smart and try to go “unnoticed”, you should have enough time to unload your rotation. Although conditions are 50% of your damage, I have seen warriors with resistance backing off and most of the other professions going on the defensive side, because the row damage cannot be ignored, especially when you swap for the pistol, let him unload the first time, full shatter burst and second unload.

It is certainly a squishy build, however only once I had the feeling of being defenseless.

All in all a very fun build.

Hey, at least thieves can spam aoe people for 6-7k 3 times on top of the 3 dodges that either make them immune to snares or do another ton of damage, on top of their staff autoattack that is more or less 40-50% stronger than ours.

Meanwhile we get to decide among two mediocre traits to still come out the weakest condition build in the game compared to necromancers/engineers.

There is good synergy between
illusion and inspiration
illusion and dueling.

But I don’t see any synergy between dueling and inspiration.

Exciton.8942:

There is good synergy between
illusion and inspiration
illusion and dueling.

But I don’t see any synergy between dueling and inspiration.

Have you ever heard of mantras? Right… by taking the mantra trait in dueling and going inspiration will let you clear 2 conditions with each heal charge, for a total of 6 conditions cleared. This will save you an utility slot.