Guild Wars 2

A quick question: After April’s feature pack, what do you think about perplexity runes?…Will they be still viable or the good old undead runes will be a better choice?

Galadan.4562:

A quick question: After April’s feature pack, what do you think about perplexity runes?…Will they be still viable or the good old undead runes will be a better choice?

Hard to say. On the one hand, the lovely confusion application on hit is being neutered into confusion application on being hit. On the other hand, the confusion duration modifiers are (presumably) going to be fixed, as they currently don’t work at all.

Ultimately, I’ll withhold a decision until the patch is released. If you’re gearing up for this build, my recommendation is to use undead runes until the patch, simply because they’re dirt cheap. Since the patch is going to be introducing large changes to many rune sets, it’s entirely possible that a different rune set altogether will be appropriate for use.

You are right Pyro. I’ll keep anyway my undead runes until patch and then we’ll see what’s better.

I really have to say that you should not be making an ascended condition set. period. the increase is not noticeable, and remember, ascended should only be for 1) High level fractals for the AR, then get a berserker set. or 2) you have thousands of gold and nothing to spend it on so you might as well just make a set, I would still say go berserker.

I don’t know what will happen on the 15th. I look forward to finding out myself, so at the very least, you should hold back until then then have a look at what new options are available.

Is there a PvE version of this build so i can get familiar with it outside of WvW which gets a bit hectic.

GROMIT.7829:

Is there a PvE version of this build so i can get familiar with it outside of WvW which gets a bit hectic.

Dont use conditions in pve

I’m still using the Perplexity Runes, and I’m still feeling like the 1×1 god. Any thoughs on the news runes already?

Natsu, now that harmonious is in dueling, can I shift over 2 to run 2,6,6? This means you lose the traited torch and the vuln on daze but you have confusion on clone death and harmonious mantras. Plus the increased precision makes for better bleedstacking.

I’m using this build from a couple of days now, and i kinda like it, but I have a problem:
How do you chase escaping enemies?
If i find some player willing to 1vs is fine and is really fun, but sometimes (mostly warriors) they start to flee and is impossible to catch up. The same is for people running away without trying to fight.
Unlike other weapons like sword that have an immobilize, focus with pull or gs that cripple this set doesn’t have much to avoid enemy to flee and blink is not enought to catch an escaping enemy.
So how do you guys manage to kill fleeing enemies?

P.s Which is better? Toxic focusing crystal or master focusing crystal?
With my actuall equipment i get roughtly 150 form master, but the extra 10% condition duration is sweet.

Just use whatever food you like more, I use crystals because they are pretty cheep.

You don’t. You will have basically no chase ability lol, I just count it as a win and go find someone else to kill.

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

Just use whatever food you like more, I use crystals because they are pretty cheep.

You don’t. You will have basically no chase ability lol, I just count it as a win and go find someone else to kill.

Hi Natsu ^^
I posted a variation of your build in the mesmer forum, the link is in my signature.
Can you take a watch and tell me what you think about it?

Hey Natsu, Will you be updating your build soon? Are there any major that may have effected the build. Thanks

I don’t see any need to update or change anything, its pretty much as viable as it was 8 months ago, perplexity runs were nerfed but even that didn’t change anything, I suppose you could use whatever runes you wanted to, lol, osi has another vid with balth and burning which is pretty good =o

Great thread. mesmer noob here!

I have been running a PU build like this in sPvP and I LOVE IT.

I hit 80 and have been looking for a WvW/PvE build (and maybe those are separate…)
Looking at Pyro’s Zergmower build, I bought a bunch of Dire gear for that, and figured that would suffice for PvE for now as well. but I found myself reverting back to using a Scepter and playing a bit more like a PU Mesmer again.

My question is why Rabid for this build? How does Precision help a condition build? Could Dire be used here for WvW?

Also, with a lot of damage coming from the Scepter block, could the same Guardian Runes be used here for the Burning condi?

Ilusions inherit your main stats so precition means that your ilusions will crit often and they`ll aply bleeds thx to Sharper Images.

Runes of the guardian aply only 1s burn so it wont add much dmg to the scepter block. Scepter block deals great dmg cos its 5 stacks of torment for 8s(plus condi duration).

To effectivly use guardian runes you need a lot more blocks like in pyro zergmonger build with Mimic. Tbh im not sure how many burns you could proc with guardian runs+mimic on a 1v1 but i doubt more than 3/4 secs.

jnzombie.2905:

Great thread. mesmer noob here!

I have been running a PU build like this in sPvP and I LOVE IT.

I hit 80 and have been looking for a WvW/PvE build (and maybe those are separate…)
Looking at Pyro’s Zergmower build, I bought a bunch of Dire gear for that, and figured that would suffice for PvE for now as well. but I found myself reverting back to using a Scepter and playing a bit more like a PU Mesmer again.

My question is why Rabid for this build? How does Precision help a condition build? Could Dire be used here for WvW?

Also, with a lot of damage coming from the Scepter block, could the same Guardian Runes be used here for the Burning condi?

So I’m gonna just paste a response with regards to the rabid gear that I’ve made elsewhere. It’s specifically dealing with rabid vs carrion, but the same applies for dire.

So let’s start with the easy one: Precision.

A massive amount of mesmer condition pressure and sustain is obtained through crits. Your dueling 15 point minor trait causes all of your illusions to bleed on crit. That’s massive. Since illusions take your precision, having high precision is a must for good bleed pressure.

A slightly less direct reason is the interaction with the 5 point minor in dueling, 5 seconds of vigor on crit. Vigor = 100% faster endurance regeneration = twice as many dodges = twice as many dodge clones, which leads to more damage and more damage avoidance.

Next up is toughness.

Toughness actually has a direct benefit too. Your 25 point minor in chaos adds 5% of your toughness to your condition damage. That’s at least 100 more condition damage right there.

Now, both vitality and toughness are defensive stats, but they defend against different things.
•Power damage will eat right through vitality with no toughness, but conditions take much longer with more health, so vitality is condition defense
•Conditions don’t care about toughness, but power damage does. You get strong reductions in power damage with more toughness, so toughness is power damage defense.

In the blackwater build, you have strong condition defense already due to your traited torch, and so more condition defense is a lower priority. Additionally, mesmers already have medium base hp, so you’ve got a good amount of hp. When I run the build, I generally have 20k hp, which is fine, and so every bit of toughness you can get does much more for you.

Additionally, toughness indirectly increases the strength of your heals, while vitality decreases it. The same strength heal heals for a lower % of your hp with a lot of vit, making it indirectly weaker.

Lastly, we can talk about power.

This one really is quite obvious for anyone that’s ever played mesmer, but less obvious for a necromancer, which is why I’m thinking your friend is a necro. Mesmer condition skills don’t use power, generally. Your entire build is designed to do high condition damage, and not power. You have a couple skills that scale well on power, but the thing is that power does not matter at all without crit power. Pure power damage sucks, in order to do any appreciable damage, you absolutely have to have crit power.

Therefor, taking carrion gear would be lowering your condition damage because of vit instead of toughness, vastly decreasing your endurance regeneration, vastly decreasing your bleed pressure, making your heals less effective, and reducing your power damage defense, while providing you with a tiny bit of power.

Now, with regards to PvE….none of these work even in the slightest if you want to be effective for PvE play. You’ll want to get yourself a set of berserker’s gear and run a phantasm build for PvE.

As far as the scepter block + guardian runes go…I wouldn’t recommend it. They work really well with mimic because you get the massive numbers of blocks. It would work, but I just don’t think it would be worth sacrificing the other bonuses you can get from runes.

Thanks for the GREAT info Pyro and Dess. A couple more…

Could you point me towards a starter PvE Phantasm build? Browsing the build list thread, nothing jumped out at me.
Also, would your ‘Overpowered’ Phantasm build still apply today? Was thinking of trying that out for sPvP.

jnzombie.2905:

Thanks for the GREAT info Pyro and Dess. A couple more…

Could you point me towards a starter PvE Phantasm build? Browsing the build list thread, nothing jumped out at me.
Also, would your ‘Overpowered’ Phantasm build still apply today? Was thinking of trying that out for sPvP.

For PvE phantasm, check the new guide that was just posted.

My overpowered build still does what it does. It’s great in a 1v1 fight, but loses strength past that.