Guild Wars 2

Hey guys!. This week i finally got my 2nd character to 80, a mesmer , after a looooong time maining a ranger. Having alot of fun making builds, the traits and skills can synergize really well.
I called this [build refinement] as iv only been level 80 a week and lack the skill to fully test it. I also dont really do sPvP, despite loving small scale fights/1v1 or 1vx(X being as many as i can kill). So i would like some opinion or test from the more experienced mesmers out there.

So. The Build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArcWlwzipXTznGb9IiJFEHydSB0Jdleob82FC-jECBIMCi0CAUJg5QFRjtuuIasqUAKWLq2rgIqWKAYmGB-w

The Idea of the build is to punish offensive play with illusionary counter and illusionary riposte. Tormenting runes buff the torment inflicted and gaining torment AoE on heal. Mimic gives 4 1/2 seconds of range block , absorbing the 1st hit as a 1200 range attack to use later. Retaliatory Shield trait grants 3 seconds of retaliation on block.
Also im not sure if its because i played ranger so long but i think all the traits synergize awsome.
Should also note Ive played this build and similar variants over the last few days purely in WvW.
I think with the defensive ability of the Sep/Sword is good enough to swap the staff out for something else more offensive. As it is now it seems strong Vs most melee. Would like to know what more experienced players think/ideas

EDIT: To include Build changes and user suggestions

blutstein trait setup: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAraWlwzipXTznGb9IiJFEXwdSB0JdlegbXYuB-jkBB0CA5QFRjtuuIasqUAKWLq2rgIqWKAYmGB-w

Punish the Brave V2: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRArc8alwzipnRzgGb9IyJFQn0RShp5alewb52FC-jUBBIMDiO/pIasl1FRjVpjIq2lgIqWKAYmGB-w

the build itself seems well rounded, i think it would work.

Some points i would look at:
- Retaliation scales with power. It isn’t worth a major trait with a rabid setup.
- if you want to keep the staff, I would change the offhand Sw to pistol. Sw skills are entirely power based (the block hits like a truck and the phantasm too). You get a crazy combo with traited pistol and chaos storm (100% projectile finisher = 8 stacks bleeding & confusion).
Otherwise if keeping the sw, i would change your gear towards rampagers (i fell in love with it recently)
- Don’t know if you can pressure enough to down anyone with a condition remove.
- Don’t know if i would take the torment runeset, not sure if its worth with torment on block.

i would trait like this, if you want to keep your distribution

Ocelot.4278:

Hey guys!. This week i finally got my 2nd character to 80, a mesmer , after a looooong time maining a ranger. Having alot of fun making builds, the traits and skills can synergize really well.
I called this [build refinement] as iv only been level 80 a week and lack the skill to fully test it. I also dont really do sPvP, despite loving small scale fights/1v1 or 1vx(X being as many as i can kill). So i would like some opinion or test from the more experienced mesmers out there.

So. The Build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArcWlwzipXTznGb9IiJFEHydSB0Jdleob82FC-jECBIMCi0CAUJg5QFRjtuuIasqUAKWLq2rgIqWKAYmGB-w

The Idea of the build is to punish offensive play with illusionary counter and illusionary riposte. Tormenting runes buff the torment inflicted and gaining torment AoE on heal. Mimic gives 4 1/2 seconds of range block , absorbing the 1st hit as a 1200 range attack to use later. Retaliatory Shield trait grants 3 seconds of retaliation on block.
Also im not sure if its because i played ranger so long but i think all the traits synergize awsome.
Should also note Ive played this build and similar variants over the last few days purely in WvW.
I think with the defensive ability of the Sep/Sword is good enough to swap the staff out for something else more offensive. As it is now it seems strong Vs most melee. Would like to know what more experienced players think/ideas

Aside from the fact I don’t really see this as a shutdown type of build, this is a really cool concept for a condition build and well put together. I really like the torment focus (assuming the torment runes work as advertised). You have some nice pressure from different sources in the torment first and foremost, but also the conditions applied from staff/clones with sharper images. I look at the trait line and am dying to add debilitating dissipation to get most of the traits for clone on death. I know swapping out manipulation CD’s would be tough though due to the high dependency on them. I’m a huge proponent of chaotic dampening and I personally wouldn’t do away with that for DD.

I would bump condition damage a bit more. I think you could sacrifice a bit of precision or healing power. Maybe swap the passion flowers for chrysocola jewels. Also if you go rabid weapons, you still have 40% crit chance (decent enough for your staff clones to crit).

I might swap your purity sigil for doom or geomancy. It will add that much more condition pressure. You have two solid condition removal sources in mender’s purity and arcane thievery already.

As bluestein pointed out, I’m not quite getting the sword OH. The swordsman and riposte aren’t going to be doing that much damage, and resulting retaliation on block isn’t going to net a whole lot of damage either due to your low power. I think the build could be improved even more by going with OH pistol (40% crit for bleed isn’t terrible, but not great either). So with retaliatory shield and blade training out of the picture, it would free you up to trait phantasmal fury, far reaching manipulations or duelist’s discipline.

If you really want to keep the retaliation concept, I would maybe look into playing with some carrion gear.

Sort of echoing what people have already said, sword offhand isn’t great for condi builds, nor is retal. And torment is a little weak imo, specially just two stacks. I would swap to Perplexity runes and offhand pistol, and Duelist’s Discipline instead of Retal. Shield – that gives you TONS of confusion for more punishment of offensive play (chaos storm, magic bullet, and traited duelist shooting through the chaos storm). Also a lot more bleeds from the duelist.

Also, Sigil of Generosity is a straight upgrade from Purity. Or you could consider the poison-on-swap ones for more condition pressure as skcamow said.

Thanks for the constructive feedback. Despite me writing this late at night and forgetting to ask a few things, the main ones have already been answered.. One being what armor would you recommend?… iv come from playing only a ranger and i played him mostly bunker/cond and didn’t want to waste what little gold i have on zerker type gear. Not wanting to be one of those glass mesmers..
But i do have 2 sets of armor, the other being Rampagers.. and the bling(rings amulet trinkets) are a cheap mix of toughness/vit/healing power, i got them to balance out with my original rampages set (not wanting to be to glass)

Anyway..i dont quite have all the gear for it but after some of your suggestions i have tweeked the build to take the staff out like i and a few others suggested. i was thinking replacing it with S/F as one major weakness is the lack of haste/movespeed

But after reading your comments i decided to go Sep/Sword- Sword/Pistol.
Here is the build, would like your opinions on this one as well especially gear wise

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRArc8alwzipnRzgGb9IyJFQn0RShp5alewb52FC-jUBBIMDiO/pIasl1FRjVpjIq2lgIqWKAYmGB-w

The idea now is to lock down your foe offence with your blocks and stun/daze/interrupt(you have 4 stun/daze+ your shatter and two blocks). and punishing them with your sword/pistol

Also in regards to having retaliatory shield and my 1st build.. while retaliation is not the best boon. its something that punishes players for being offensive, changing peoples normal playstyle(same with torment and the blocks) well that was idea..and as much fun as it is to watch some wars just rage and burst themself to death. Condition removal and being less aggressive hurts the build. and the lack or straight damage means you cant punish them.

And if you cast all your blocks(Sword then scepter and finish with Mimic) it looks like your taking up a sweet defensive stance

I will post back here once i try both builds with my rampage’s/perplexity armor, with a random selection of bling and weapons

ALSO..theres a few questions i forgot to ask in the OP ill number them and try and keep em short
1) what are the popular meta game armor for mes?

2)Dose retaliatory shield stack retaliation for each hit on mimic? Eg if 2 rangers shoot me with rapid fire and i block them all(besides the 1st shot that gets absorbed). will i get 57 seconds of retaliation?.

3) Also in regards to mimic.. the wiki says this “After a projectile has been absorbed, the remaining duration will reflect all projectiles and block all other attacks”..It dose reflect projectiles back but block all other attacks?

4)The Torment rune give AoE torment on heal..iv had inconstant results with mantra of recovery and will try healing seed later tonight. Anyone else tested this?

@Ocelot
Perplexity with a Rampager/Sentinel spread? That’s one I haven’t tried yet. You’re also using different Traits than I would expect from a Condition/Interrupt build, not that that’s necessarily “bad.”
By comparison, I tend to run Rampager weapons/Rabid armor/Celestial trinkets/Perplexity Runes. 10/20/30/0/10 for Halting Strike/Master of Confusion/Bountiful and Chaotic Interruption. Without Halting Strike,
0/20/30/0/20’s also pretty solid, and amps your Condition Damage in general.
(Can’t say I’m a fan of Malicious Sorcery, since Scepter -while workable in a Condition build- is still one of our worst weapons.)
For more overall Reflection ability (if you’re sticking with Inspiration), I’d drop MS for Warden’s Feedback. Projectile Reflect from any Focus skill, and your Temporal Curtain’s an AoE pull/interrupt. Mirror as heal, it’s another Reflector.

As far as some of your other questions:

• (question 1)A lot of that decision depends on which game mode you’re in. Rabid for Toughness-heavy Condition builds, usually. Rampager’s good for more of a hybrid Power and Condition setup, but glassy. Both of those would work much better in WvW than PvE, since Condition builds are rather shafted there.
  Although, supposedlly the guys at ANet’re looking into Conditions in PvE. I’m guardedly optimistic.
• (questions 2 and 3) I’ll admit I’ve done minimal work with RS or Mimic. I would think that in that situation, Mimic might take priority. You’re tempting me to try that combo and find out
• (question 4) The issue there is most likely the ICD on Tormenting’s 6/6 ability. ANet plopped the ICD in, because multi-heal abilities used to proc Torment per each sub-heal. Between Mesmer and -worse- Med Kit Engineers, that was a harsh ability.

I’d also keep an eye out on the Perplexity Runes, as I recently saw a Dev post in an anti-Perplexity thread that they’re “looking into” those Runes. I simply hope they fine-tune, as opposed to obliterate them.

Advent.6193:

@Ocelot
Perplexity with a Rampager/Sentinel spread? That’s one I haven’t tried yet. You’re also using different Traits than I would expect from a Condition/Interrupt build, not that that’s necessarily “bad.”
By comparison, I tend to run Rampager weapons/Rabid armor/Celestial trinkets/Perplexity Runes. 10/20/30/0/10 for Halting Strike/Master of Confusion/Bountiful and Chaotic Interruption. Without Halting Strike,
0/20/30/0/20’s also pretty solid, and amps your Condition Damage in general.
(Can’t say I’m a fan of Malicious Sorcery, since Scepter -while workable in a Condition build- is still one of our worst weapons.)
For more overall Reflection ability (if you’re sticking with Inspiration), I’d drop MS for Warden’s Feedback. Projectile Reflect from any Focus skill, and your Temporal Curtain’s an AoE pull/interrupt. Mirror as heal, it’s another Reflector.

As far as some of your other questions:

• (question 1)A lot of that decision depends on which game mode you’re in. Rabid for Toughness-heavy Condition builds, usually. Rampager’s good for more of a hybrid Power and Condition setup, but glassy. Both of those would work much better in WvW than PvE, since Condition builds are rather shafted there.
  Although, supposedlly the guys at ANet’re looking into Conditions in PvE. I’m guardedly optimistic.
• (questions 2 and 3) I’ll admit I’ve done minimal work with RS or Mimic. I would think that in that situation, Mimic might take priority. You’re tempting me to try that combo and find out
• (question 4) The issue there is most likely the ICD on Tormenting’s 6/6 ability. ANet plopped the ICD in, because multi-heal abilities used to proc Torment per each sub-heal. Between Mesmer and -worse- Med Kit Engineers, that was a harsh ability.

I’d also keep an eye out on the Perplexity Runes, as I recently saw a Dev post in an anti-Perplexity thread that they’re “looking into” those Runes. I simply hope they fine-tune, as opposed to obliterate them.

This is helpful, reinforcing what others have said and what i learnt in the last few hours of play..Most impotently i gotta leave the mesmer play style from GW1 in GW1. I know there diffrent games(you can jump in this one) but i still gotta shake the dominance/shutdown play style of the old mesmer.

Had much more success playing like a condition class using blutstein suggestion. Still need to try with focus but i do like the daze/stun and confusion spike

And for the questions i asked.
1 is self explanatory
2 i did not test
3 most times it only reflected projectiles and take melee damage but while taking a keep and on a few gates i “blocked” a few hits(do not know what)
4 The torment AoE seems to trigger on completing a healing cast. so only the normal 2 stacks on charging healing mantra and 2 stacks at location of healing seed. so not per charge with mantra and not per pulse with healseed

And as much as it will suck to replace the Perplexity Runes(it vales over 3 times my current gold). What runes or build are popular with with rampages armor? keeping in mind that the only time im not in WvW is when i log in(aka builds for WvW)and im poor(no traveler runes)

FWIW, I really liked the original torment flavor and condition focus of the build. Looks like you’re going more for a hybrid feel now which is fine but not sure how effective it will be.

I will also say you don’t find many mesmers 1) running rampagers gear and 2) running hybrids (which are where you typically see a rampager gear focus). You’re heading down a path where many mesmers have tried and not found much success. I think the biggest issue with hybrids is that typically you can do the job better with full power or condition on a mesmer. That said, I know of a select few who are successfully running hybrid builds, so who knows, you may become one of them.