Guild Wars 2

Pyroatheist.9031:

@ArmageddonAsh: Taking 20 points into inspiration unfortunately provides this build with nearly nothing. The 200 condition damage while in scepter pales in comparison to sharper images and deceptive evasion. By not taking these two traits you are cutting out both your clone generation AND a significant source of damage. Your only reliably rapid clone generation is now your scepter autoattack, which isn’t reliable at all. Therefor it also makes your clone-on-death traits pretty much useless.

I agree, although you also get a slight increase on the scepter block recharge – not worth it for what you lose. Perhaps it would be worth it for the other inspiration traits, but this build isn’t really lacking for regen…This build also relies more heavily on staff anyway. So you really lose out this way, since it really won’t significantly boost your dps, as you don’t sit in scepter.

I think if you really wanted that +200 condi-damage, it would make more sense to get it from illusions anyhow, as at least you could be getting a bit more confusion out of the build (from traits), and the 200 condi-damage would apply to all weapons. I’d recommend looking at another thread (the clone spammer build) for this sort of arrangement.

The clone-spammer build is a solid build, mind you. In comparison to the blackwater build, it trades a lot of survivability for slightly more dps and more frequent aoe confusion.
The blackwater build focuses on a combination of super-tanky/evasive survivability and solid condition damage. It needs 4-5 of the 7 major traits in the build left as they are to achieve this, which doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room with the trait distributions.
You really can’t move them around without giving up boons on stealth/lots of clones+damage/ready access to stealth, which are all central to the build.

The sad thing about this all, is this build shows a way to make the torch strong…and because of the locations of the traits, it’s probably the only way to really accomplish that.

I seen this build in action today (got to party with Blackwater, huzzah) looks to be very fun & does great damage too! I run a 0/20/30/0/20 build myself, so I’m familiar with the territory. I will give this build a shot sometime today, for sure.

Pyroatheist.9031:

@ArmageddonAsh: Taking 20 points into inspiration unfortunately provides this build with nearly nothing. The 200 condition damage while in scepter pales in comparison to sharper images and deceptive evasion. By not taking these two traits you are cutting out both your clone generation AND a significant source of damage. Your only reliably rapid clone generation is now your scepter autoattack, which isn’t reliable at all. Therefor it also makes your clone-on-death traits pretty much useless.

That may be the case but without going into Illusions and not taking Malicious Scorcery Losing out on quite a bit of Condition damage and though the clone on dodge is nice, imo its not required a and i would take the defensive/movement boosts from Inspiration over Sharper Images and DE due to the fact we are slow enough in combat as it is (run speed)

My build is more of a Tankish-Condition build rather then a full out Condition build

Arale.4207:

I seen this build in action today (got to party with Blackwater, huzzah) looks to be very fun & does great damage too! I run a 0/20/30/0/20 build myself, so I’m familiar with the territory. I will give this build a shot sometime today, for sure.

It seems that I forgot to send you a contact request, I was probably too distracted trying to find a kitten top that I actually like to go with my pants.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Pyroatheist.9031:

@ArmageddonAsh: Taking 20 points into inspiration unfortunately provides this build with nearly nothing. The 200 condition damage while in scepter pales in comparison to sharper images and deceptive evasion. By not taking these two traits you are cutting out both your clone generation AND a significant source of damage. Your only reliably rapid clone generation is now your scepter autoattack, which isn’t reliable at all. Therefor it also makes your clone-on-death traits pretty much useless.

That may be the case but without going into Illusions and not taking Malicious Scorcery Losing out on quite a bit of Condition damage and though the clone on dodge is nice, imo its not required a and i would take the defensive/movement boosts from Inspiration over Sharper Images and DE due to the fact we are slow enough in combat as it is (run speed)

My build is more of a Tankish-Condition build rather then a full out Condition build

All personal preference XD

I agree, although you also get a slight increase on the scepter block recharge – not worth it for what you lose. Perhaps it would be worth it for the other inspiration traits, but this build isn’t really lacking for regen…This build also relies more heavily on staff anyway. So you really lose out this way, since it really won’t significantly boost your dps, as you don’t sit in scepter.

It all depends how you play, i spend more time in Scepter then i do staff, at the end of the day it all comes down to playstyle

I think if you really wanted that +200 condi-damage, it would make more sense to get it from illusions anyhow, as at least you could be getting a bit more confusion out of the build (from traits), and the 200 condi-damage would apply to all weapons. I’d recommend looking at another thread (the clone spammer build) for this sort of arrangement.

I rather use Confusion, being from the Scepter Skill and the odd iMage as such i dont rely on it, it is a nice bonus but nothing that i deem required.

The clone-spammer build is a solid build, mind you. In comparison to the blackwater build, it trades a lot of survivability for slightly more dps and more frequent aoe confusion.

I hate shatter builds and i rarely shatter my clones. Thats more of a playstyle rather then build issue though.

The blackwater build focuses on a combination of super-tanky/evasive survivability and solid condition damage. It needs 4-5 of the 7 major traits in the build left as they are to achieve this, which doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room with the trait distributions.
You really can’t move them around without giving up boons on stealth/lots of clones+damage/ready access to stealth, which are all central to the build.

This is more of a gameplay and combatstyle issue rather then it requiring them, they are nice if thats how you play but are not required if you dont play the way that would benefit them most. I agree Sharper Images would be nice, Is it worth losing 200condition? in my opinion No The same goes for DE.

That being said, doesnt mean that i couldnt try it out at some point, the Retal on block if it works with Scepter #2 would be a nice little addition. The bonus to speed movement as well as the condition damage when using Scepter is very nice and i just dont see the need for a little extra bleed damage and DE which i think would do more harm then good in my build (other then when in stealth)

The sad thing about this all, is this build shows a way to make the torch strong…and because of the locations of the traits, it’s probably the only way to really accomplish that.

I use Torch in more of a defensive role, the iMage is to weak (imo) for it to be considered that worthwhile but the stealth is excellent when you need to hide for a few seconds and can turn the tide of battle some times

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

All personal preference XD

Exactly, its nice to have Condition builds that arent all the same a bit of varity that will help all Mesmers as our targets will not quite know exactly how we are going about it

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I hate shatter builds and i rarely shatter my clones. Thats more of a playstyle rather then build issue though.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/condition-build-The-Clone-Spammer/page/2#post2370617

that’s the clone-spammer build – it’s actually not a shatter build, it uses the same too many clones to live mechanic, but makes it so that you get confusion stacks in there too from blinding beffudlement and confusing combatants. Just a suggestion, because I thought it might suit your playstyle.

Oddly enough, I’ve been running a similar 20/20/30 build for the past couple of weeks when I wvw w/my mesmer. Only, I’ve been running it with zerker/knights gear and using gs-sword/x. I also instead take phantasm traits, and the might on interupt trait. Last night I ran with GS/Staff to test out the chaos armor changes. I was very hard to kill even in zerg pushes, and I ran signet of inspiration to share all the boons (at one point I had 6+ boons and was maintaining 15+ might stacks). I’m interested in trying the condition version of this, but I don’t have all the gear I’d need and I’m in the process of finishing my engineer atm.

Dasboba.1652:

Oddly enough, I’ve been running a similar 20/20/30 build for the past couple of weeks when I wvw w/my mesmer. Only, I’ve been running it with zerker/knights gear and using gs-sword/x. I also instead take phantasm traits, and the might on interupt trait. Last night I ran with GS/Staff to test out the chaos armor changes. I was very hard to kill even in zerg pushes, and I ran signet of inspiration to share all the boons (at one point I had 6+ boons and was maintaining 15+ might stacks). I’m interested in trying the condition version of this, but I don’t have all the gear I’d need and I’m in the process of finishing my engineer atm.

Yeh, going 20/20/30/0/0 can also work easily for a power build, as apposed to a condition build, all you need to do is change a few traits/gear,

Best of luck gearing out that engineer!

Casually lurking the forums waiting for someone to post so I can reply and talk to someone,

IN the meantime I have pretty much finished my look and gear and have been frapsing stuff all day, might have a decent quality video by the end of the week, if I can find people who wont run away :’(

Just wanted to say that being a bit of a schizophrenic when it comes to builds, I’ve been meaning to try a condition build for a long time. I finally got my last piece of rabid last night, so I gave this build a whirl (with a few tweaks) and I love it.

The playstyle is completely different from the phantasm builds I’ve ran lately, but it’s a ton of fun! Thanks for sharing, I’ll be sure to post some videos of it in action once I finish a vid or two from my own build :P

Zumi.6384:

Just wanted to say that being a bit of a schizophrenic when it comes to builds, I’ve been meaning to try a condition build for a long time. I finally got my last piece of rabid last night, so I gave this build a whirl (with a few tweaks) and I love it.

The playstyle is completely different from the phantasm builds I’ve ran lately, but it’s a ton of fun! Thanks for sharing, I’ll be sure to post some videos of it in action once I finish a vid or two from my own build :P

Glad you are enjoying it! and yeh the play style is somewhat different, but once you get used to it, its great.

I have been looking at my build again and was wondering what you think about the Sigil of Battle? The problem with my build is that it does VERY little initial damage most of the skills hit for a few hundred damage.

So been thinking of ways icould improve this, I was thinking maybe getting the Sigil of Battle (3 stacks of Might on weapon swap) Using it on both sets of weapons have meant i have managed to get it to like 9stacks during fighting the dummies in the Mists with the use of 2 of them as well as Staff clones with it never dropping anything lower then 3-4stacks.

Of course this isnt going to be suddenly the thing that can save me, thats why i have been looking at my traits and gear as well. Though despite my toughness of more then 1800 i can still get torn a new one by thieves -

Who ever thought that a class should have Perma-Stealth, silly amount of Boons, silly combat movement speed and obscene damage should be shot out of a cannon into a spiked cliff!

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I have been looking at my build again and was wondering what you think about the Sigil of Battle? The problem with my build is that it does VERY little initial damage most of the skills hit for a few hundred damage.

So been thinking of ways icould improve this, I was thinking maybe getting the Sigil of Battle (3 stacks of Might on weapon swap) Using it on both sets of weapons have meant i have managed to get it to like 9stacks during fighting the dummies in the Mists with the use of 2 of them as well as Staff clones with it never dropping anything lower then 3-4stacks.

Of course this isnt going to be suddenly the thing that can save me, thats why i have been looking at my traits and gear as well. Though despite my toughness of more then 1800 i can still get torn a new one by thieves -

Who ever thought that a class should have Perma-Stealth, silly amount of Boons, silly combat movement speed and obscene damage should be shot out of a cannon into a spiked cliff!

I am currently thinking about a Scepter/Torch + Greatsword with the Cripple and random condition on death as well as Bleeding on Crits, combined with iZerker i can normally get 3-4stacks of bleeding on the target on 1 attack

Though points would be needed to be moved into Illusions possibly, though could take them outta Inspiration and get the buffs to the illusions as well as the condition damage, only thing would be the added cool down on Scepter ’#2

Like many others, I’ve been using a very similar build lately because the IC move and the Chaos Armor change made me feel a bit too exposed. Here’s what I’ve been using: http://tinyurl.com/perte3x

I chose sword instead of scepter for a few reasons. First, I loathe the scepter and will do just about anything to avoid using it. Second, I feel that the uselessness of scepter clones is too great and the block is too hard to land consistently for the torment. Finally, I find that Blurred Frenzy gives great defenses whilst iLeap (with condition duration) provides an immobilize that a condition build otherwise lacks.

Since I use Lyssa runes, I decided to try Giver’s weapons to boost my condition duration to the 80% benchmark. While I was hesitant of lowering my condition damage that low, I found that the extra duration makes up for it. At 80% condition duration, you get 9s bleeds from your clones and 12s bleeds from the staff. Also, due to the way burning rounds, a single application of burning will tick twice at 80% duration. If you are fighting an opponent where you can’t keep burning up permanently, those extra ticks prove to be a large amount of damage in the course of a fight. Additionally, the added duration goes great with both Crippling and Debilitating Dissipation; oftentimes, opponents will just cleave through my clones and wind up with 10+ seconds of weakness and cripple.

Overall, the Blackwater build is very strong and has many fun ways that it can be tweaked (as I and others have shown above). I look forward to seeing some videos of the build in action!

I wish the Mesmer had a more reliable way of getting burning going with have 2 ways from the weapons one a cool down that is either 24seconds or 30seconds the other a RNG chance.

I think the Condition on clone death can trigger it, again though its RNG. It would be nice to have a solid more reliable way of getting burning onto targets.

I am going to try a bit more with my new idea today, expect it not to be as solid due to the gear i will be using for it as it requires all new weapons, armor, sigils and possibly runes

^
If you go with + condition duration gear (giver’s weapons, lyssa runes, mad king runes, burning duration runes, pizza) you can get condition duration up to 100% (or at least burning duration up to it, while in staff). This is important because burning only ticks every second. If you can manage that, then you’ll find that while in staff, with two clones out, your opponents will have nearly constant burning (in addition to increasing stacks of vulnerability/bleeds.

Yeah i think i am thinking about dropping off Condition a bit to bring up the duration. Currently sitting at 20% but i do have Condition duration food as well. Thinking about getting the 2 lyssa runes for another 10%

Rather then just concentrating on Burning i would rather prefer to lower burning duration and increase it across the board.

Thinking about getting a Greatsword so that i can swap out the Staff and Greatsword for when i just need a bit more damage at the expensive of utility

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Yeah i think i am thinking about dropping off Condition a bit to bring up the duration. Currently sitting at 20% but i do have Condition duration food as well. Thinking about getting the 2 lyssa runes for another 10%

Rather then just concentrating on Burning i would rather prefer to lower burning duration and increase it across the board.

Thinking about getting a Greatsword so that i can swap out the Staff and Greatsword for when i just need a bit more damage at the expensive of utility

I did 2 sup lyssa, 2 sup mad king (20%) on top of the already +20%, a giver staff (10%), putting me at 50%, then I got the smoldering sigil on the staff (+10% burning duration), and the food takes me to 100% burning, 90% conditions in general.

When I’m in scepter/torch, they’re both giver’s, so I get 100%

If you want to go cheap with food, you can make the last 2 runes, major lyssa or mad king, then you can get cheaper condi-duration foods (shhh don’t tell anyone).

If you’re trying to get more out of burning, you need it to be 100%, 90% is the same as 0% for burning on staff, since the burning ticks every second, and only lasts 1 second by default. So 2 seconds means 2 ticks.

bobross.5034:

^
If you go with + condition duration gear (giver’s weapons, lyssa runes, mad king runes, burning duration runes, pizza) you can get condition duration up to 100% (or at least burning duration up to it, while in staff). This is important because burning only ticks every second. If you can manage that, then you’ll find that while in staff, with two clones out, your opponents will have nearly constant burning (in addition to increasing stacks of vulnerability/bleeds.

Do keep in mind that you don’t need 100% duration to get an additional tick from WoC. As a tester on on the wiki wrote,

“I’ve tested with my mesmer. Winds of Chaos applies 1 second of burning (without duration modification). So I went ahead and bought a Rare Veggie Pizza (40%), 2 Superior Rune of the Mad King (10%), 2 Superior Rune of Lyssa (10%) and increased Domination step by step. At exactly 15 Domination (equals total of 75% condition duration) burning duration of 1.75s ticked 2 times. So I can confirm, that condition duration is rounded up to the next quarter. But keep in mind, if you accidentally inflict 2 burnings in a row, your full condition time will be 3.5s which will in this case internally be rounded up to 3.75 (assumed) and therefore it wil not tick 4 times, only 3 times. That means too, if you’re exact at a quarter, the calculation is rounded up to the next quarter. —213.196.136.71 01:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)”

I tested this myself the other day because I was skeptical about the results. However, they are accurate. With 80% condition duration I was getting two ticks of burn. In my experience in WvW, targets often dodge about and it can be difficult to apply consecutive stacks of burning so getting two ticks from one stack is a large DPS increase that (in my opinion) helps offset the loss of condition damage needed to acquire condition duration.

I’m just a little skeptical of the parameters you outlined above. By taking a mix-and-match runeset, you’re depriving yourself of the benefits of a six-piece set. For instance, if I take 6x Lyssa runes I gain 165 precision, a 13-second boon whenever I heal, and an emergency condition cleanse that also grants me all boons for 7.5 seconds. By doing 2x Lyssa, 2x Mad Kind, and 2x Forge/Balthazar/Flame Legion/Baelfire you’re losing 140 precision and the numerous defensive benefits of Lyssa runes. Since this only gets you up to 90% duration, you’re not getting an extra tick on the vast majority of your bleeds, nor are you getting an extra tick on burning, with the exception of scenarios where you can apply multiple stacks of burning in a row but cannot maintain the stacks indefinitely.

In my opinion, the losses far outweigh the benefits of switching to a mix-n-match runeset to go above 80% duration, but again, that’s just my opinion and your mileage may vary. I just wanted to provide a more detailed look into how duration affects burning, since I think there’s some misinformation floating around out there.

Palu.3405:

bobross.5034:

^
If you go with + condition duration gear (giver’s weapons, lyssa runes, mad king runes, burning duration runes, pizza) you can get condition duration up to 100% (or at least burning duration up to it, while in staff). This is important because burning only ticks every second. If you can manage that, then you’ll find that while in staff, with two clones out, your opponents will have nearly constant burning (in addition to increasing stacks of vulnerability/bleeds.

Do keep in mind that you don’t need 100% duration to get an additional tick from WoC. As a tester on on the wiki wrote,

“I’ve tested with my mesmer. Winds of Chaos applies 1 second of burning (without duration modification). So I went ahead and bought a Rare Veggie Pizza (40%), 2 Superior Rune of the Mad King (10%), 2 Superior Rune of Lyssa (10%) and increased Domination step by step. At exactly 15 Domination (equals total of 75% condition duration) burning duration of 1.75s ticked 2 times. So I can confirm, that condition duration is rounded up to the next quarter. But keep in mind, if you accidentally inflict 2 burnings in a row, your full condition time will be 3.5s which will in this case internally be rounded up to 3.75 (assumed) and therefore it wil not tick 4 times, only 3 times. That means too, if you’re exact at a quarter, the calculation is rounded up to the next quarter. —213.196.136.71 01:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)”

I tested this myself the other day because I was skeptical about the results. However, they are accurate. With 80% condition duration I was getting two ticks of burn. In my experience in WvW, targets often dodge about and it can be difficult to apply consecutive stacks of burning so getting two ticks from one stack is a large DPS increase that (in my opinion) helps offset the loss of condition damage needed to acquire condition duration.

I’m just a little skeptical of the parameters you outlined above. By taking a mix-and-match runeset, you’re depriving yourself of the benefits of a six-piece set. For instance, if I take 6x Lyssa runes I gain 165 precision, a 13-second boon whenever I heal, and an emergency condition cleanse that also grants me all boons for 7.5 seconds. By doing 2x Lyssa, 2x Mad Kind, and 2x Forge/Balthazar/Flame Legion/Baelfire you’re losing 140 precision and the numerous defensive benefits of Lyssa runes. Since this only gets you up to 90% duration, you’re not getting an extra tick on the vast majority of your bleeds, nor are you getting an extra tick on burning, with the exception of scenarios where you can apply multiple stacks of burning in a row but cannot maintain the stacks indefinitely.

In my opinion, the losses far outweigh the benefits of switching to a mix-n-match runeset to go above 80% duration, but again, that’s just my opinion and your mileage may vary. I just wanted to provide a more detailed look into how duration affects burning, since I think there’s some misinformation floating around out there.

thanks for the tips. Good to know about the rounding. You’re right of course about the lack of extra utility/stats…for me, I would like one of the runesets that grants swiftness, if I weren’t running the mix/match. It’s hard to know whether the condi-duration balances out. Then again, the other issue in a condition build is that food/melandru runes can completely negate your damage. With +condi-duration you actually continue to have dps (although greatly reduced), and because the opponents rely on food/runes, they may not have other solid condition cleanses.

regarding the bleed durations, I’m not as concerned about it as the burning, since burning is only 1s by default. Still, knowing that it’ll round up to the nearest quarter is nice.

bobross.5034:

thanks for the tips. Good to know about the rounding. You’re right of course about the lack of extra utility/stats…for me, I would like one of the runesets that grants swiftness, if I weren’t running the mix/match. It’s hard to know whether the condi-duration balances out. Then again, the other issue in a condition build is that food/melandru runes can completely negate your damage. With +condi-duration you actually continue to have dps (although greatly reduced), and because the opponents rely on food/runes, they may not have other solid condition cleanses.

regarding the bleed durations, I’m not as concerned about it as the burning, since burning is only 1s by default. Still, knowing that it’ll round up to the nearest quarter is nice.

You could do 2x Lyssa runes and 4x Air runes. That way you’d still be at the 80% condition duration threshold for burning assuming 20 pts in Domination, 40% from Veggie Pizza, and 10% from a Giver’s weapon. That way you’d get 20% swiftness duration plus 5s of swiftness on heal. Obviously it’s not as good as 6x Centaur, but with Mirror and 30% Boon Duration, you’d have about 50% uptime on swiftness. Also, you wouldn’t need the Sigil of Smoldering on your weapon, so you could put on the much more condition-friend Sigil of Earth.

I spent a really long time a couple days ago try to mathematically model the DPS of various condition setups. While I won’t delve into specific numbers here to save space, I found that the greatest dps came from having 20 pts in Illusions for Illusionary Elasticity plus 60% condition duration from food/runes/weapons.

In a very close second place was 20 pts in Domination with 80% condition duration. While the bleeds were doing less damage per second in this setup, the extra ticks of burning more-or-less made up for it, plus the 200 power, while not super useful, certainly helped compensate for the damage gap as well. I favor this setup because the 80% duration was also helpful for all non-damaging conditions. I found it very easy to stack lots of weakness and cripple. Vulnerability was also very easy to stack due to the minor interrupt/daze traits. While not very useful to a condition mesmer, that vulnerability is great for team/group play. Finally, having more access to stealth and more condition cleansing significantly increased my survivability.

Compare all of that to 20 pts in Illusions. Is a minor dps increase plus a a bit of confusion duration or reflect on distortion worth losing all of the utility that Domination provides?

Finally, just for the sake of completeness, I would like to make the disclaimer that I only tested the condition duration threshold for burns. I didn’t test bleeds to see if they’d round up to the next 0.25 seconds. While you said you’re not too concerned with bleeds, bobross, I figured I’d add it in for anyone else who is.

Edit: Realized I didn’t state above that the above damage tests were done using 45% crit. The first scenario was at around 1650 condition damage and the second was around 1450 condition damage.

Ahh, iv been unable to get on much and reply to many of these posts here, sorry about that guys, been a bit sick and never got around to logging in.

that’s some interesting math, looking at the durations and ticks, honestly though its above and beyond me at the moment without giving me another head ach, but I personally prefer to have the added bonus from the 6 undead runes, they give a total of around 250 or so condition damage, with the high toughness of rabid gear, and at most times im not too worried about the swiftness or lack there of.

@Natsu. I changed some things in my latest version of the 20-20-30 setup. Tweeking around with some stuff still and now got al accended sorted (I tested 3 different accended backpacks). Changing around and testing runes now, accesorys and sigils.

Latets version of the build:

/Osicat

Ha! iMage beauty at about 2:00. Actually makes it look a little useful …
:-)

just a short video of me fighting a shatter Mesmer (I presumed shatter, could be a phantasm build)

been a while since I last used after effects and cant remember how to use most of it, however, sooner or later ill start remembering and make some better videos, if I start playing much more

Two suggestions, I did not read the whole thread so forgive me if someone already pointed them out.

Id swap portal/veil for arcane thievery and take master of manipulation instead of traited staff. If you ask me, a faster blink and arcane thievery is better than a faster phase retreat and chaos armor/storm.

Id also take retaliatory shield instead of far reaching manipulation. You have a lot of ways to proc it (aegis stealth, chaos storm, illusionary counter) and it lasts really long during a fight. Fully traited blink and arcane thievery are strong but if you proc torment and some bleeding stacks/burning you dont have to worry about runners, and you can steal swiftness anyway.

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

just a short video of me fighting a shatter Mesmer (I presumed shatter, could be a phantasm build)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz2vdwnza0Y

been a while since I last used after effects and cant remember how to use most of it, however, sooner or later ill start remembering and make some better videos, if I start playing much more

Not sure what that other mes was. It looked like it might have been a GS condition, power, or hybrid build of sorts.

@Lev, I swap out veil/portal/thievery/defender/etc. all the time, I just happened to have it equipped at this time, as for the traits, I like the shorter cool down on chaos storm and the small amount of toughness I get from it, and most of the time I don’t have any issues with blink on a longer cool down, as for the retal on blocking, I use it sometimes, but I just take preference in being able to blink further each time.

@Nord, yeh I don’t really have any idea either, didn’t look like he had too much into conditions, the bleeds that were applied barley ticked around 40, and he went for the bursts like a shatter so go figure I guess.

Anyway, I’m going to bed, so enjoy the rest of your evenings guys!

The amount of toughness – condition damage from that trait is not so relevant. its more about a shorter phase retreat/chaos storm and a shorter blink/arcane thievery.
I find the last one superior when you are facing condition builds or bunkers.
Again i would not trade all those retaliatation seconds for 300 more range on blink (would be better if you also run arcane thievery but id still prefer master of manipulation instead of far reaching).

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

just a short video of me fighting a shatter Mesmer (I presumed shatter, could be a phantasm build)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz2vdwnza0Y

been a while since I last used after effects and cant remember how to use most of it, however, sooner or later ill start remembering and make some better videos, if I start playing much more

He was pretty bad.

Terrible spec as well. If he was a condition spec – taking the sword isnt the best of ideas, no traits for conditions or cripple on death either. Allowing you to get out of LoS his attacks as well was poor by him.

Getting downed by Moa as well. He was VERY bad.

Im using a similar spec .
I think boon duration runes , make this build much stronger.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQRArf8alwzaqXUzgGb9IipHBnvBckUUavWJF42FC-jkyAItBRTVApPBiQAnDLiGbtLsV3gUejmSmIqWdjJFAErBA-w

@Nubu, yeh I thought about getting another 30% boon duration, however I decided id rather get the almost free undead runes for that large boost in condition damage, as apposed to spending several gold getting the boon duration lot.

http://gw2.hazno.net/

its not so a large boost of damage , i think .

Vinh.4196:

Hey man thanks for being a nice person and putting this guide up… I was gonna quit my mesmer but now im having so much fun with it. Thanks alot you saved me so much time and not to mention made the game alot more fun thanks alot again!

Glad you are enjoying the build!

Natsu – just watched the video, I like how you just stood behind that post for a while…all classy and casual. I also like the attack moa at the end. Can moas stomp?

bobross.5034:

Natsu – just watched the video, I like how you just stood behind that post for a while…all classy and casual. I also like the attack moa at the end. Can moas stomp?

I’m really not sure if you can stomp when you are a moa, but at least you can just moa them down

This is the build I was roaming with back in the day and I’ve now gone back to it. It’s amazing fun, you can troll players indefinitely almost and whilst you don’t have meaningful burst, you just whittle them down until they get bored or give up. Kept three thieves busy with it four over 10 minutes just now and eventually got them one by one.

Nothing more satisfying than doing a stealth stomp on an easy-mode thief who got arrogant. :-)

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

bobross.5034:

Natsu – just watched the video, I like how you just stood behind that post for a while…all classy and casual. I also like the attack moa at the end. Can moas stomp?

I’m really not sure if you can stomp when you are a moa, but at least you can just moa them down

It was smart, only I kept thinking “Why dont you fire your phase retreat? The clones would go out and get him, forcing him to act.” Never the less, he tagged you and dodge roll/created clones to put pressure on you.

Did some more solo roaming with this build and the troll-potential is insane. :-)

Fought a very good thief for 12 minutes and he couldn’t kill me, whilst I nearly got him down a few times. We ended up with a fair few spectators on either side over the course of our fight. Eventually he gave up, did a /bow and left.

Then with another Mesmer we roamed and fought groups of twice or size, and eventually ran into a six-men guild group that we took down with just the two of us. Zerg showed up, and we kited them around for nearly a good few minutes until they finally got us.

The build clearly lacks the burst of other builds, but it makes up survivability and the fact that you can totally screw with someone’s mind with all the clones, phantasms and stealths that you got. Confusion really needs a bit of a buff as it got nerfed too hard recently, but it’s a very very fun spec for solo or small scale roaming.

Looking at WvW builds right now. I have yet to play a condition mesmer, and have the large number of wvw tokens from achievements just sitting around. I’m also the kind of guy to defend points over running with a zerg, which leaves me alone most of the time. So staring at your build and wondering if I should spend my laurals on those bits.

@Ast, you could always try the build with a set of rare gear, it would yield similar results, and if you decided you don’t like it/like it you can just salvage the rares and get most of your money back from the ectos.

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

@Ast, you could always try the build with a set of rare gear, it would yield similar results, and if you decided you don’t like it/like it you can just salvage the rares and get most of your money back from the ectos.

Point. I have some con gear sorta lying around I picked up for something else, and I have bunch of extra fractal rings as well. Since I only main one character really I have no problem dumping cash into her, since I got not much else to do.

I’m guessing precision is a point for sharper images, and toughness for defense. I think most of my stuff is carrion base though. I’ll see what I can do.

Hi Natsu,

Cool build. Not sure how i missed out on this gem until now.
Looks like most condi builds run with 20/20/30/0/0 setup these days. It’s such a flexible setup, you can switch traits on the fly.

Anyway, I’m interested in the retaliation part of your build since you have Retaliatory Shield trait and with PU, iMage, Scepter #2 block., i suppose you don’t have a hard time keep retal up all the time. However, the build is condition-based with only ~2.3k power. So how is retal hitting?

I’m trying to come up with a good build based on Retaliation (check my signature for the power build I’ve come up with so far) but seeing your build I’m truly inspired to make a hybrid build mixing between the 2 power and condition dmg sources. Here’s something I compile so far. Please have a look and give me your thoughts. Thank you.

Link to build: http://tinyurl.com/of4oyaq

Cheers

Really loving this build I’m just having a hard time getting a full rabid set of gear. Any advice from you guys?

You can buy Rabid in wvw for badges + some gold.

There’s also some rabid armour and trinkets available from the temple karma vendors. Not a full set alas.

Just got my hands on some of the new perplexity runes,

Adjusted traits to 10/30/30/0/0 to test the runes (will also test with 20/20/30 but I wanted to see how the confusion stacked with the on death trait)

loosing the torch cd reduction and condition removal and vulnerable on daze 100 power and 10% condition duration.

gained 100 precision, 10% crit damage, illusions causing confusion when they die and an extra trait from the tree (I went with mantra cs reduction and took the interrupt mantra as a utility (now I have decoy, mantra of disruption and null field equipped))

ill let you guys know how it works out

Edit 1 after some brief testing with 10/30/30 focusing on confusion and interrupts, I find that it just isn’t my playstyle, its a reasonable 8-13 confusion stacks on average but its harder to maintain, also, I find survivability is less then before and generally not as strong of a build, unless you happen to stack 20 confusion on a d/d ele and they just melt themselves, which is always funny. Will be testing my normal build/playstyle, with the perplex runes, not focusing on confusion/interrupts but seeing how it synergises and if it procs much confusion at all

Edit 2 running my 20/20/30 build like I would normally, I find that i’m getting an extra 3-5 confusion stacks up continually for rather long durations with basically no loss in anything besides 50 toughness and maybe a small amount of condition damage, overall, I find that these runes are a lot better then the un dead runes

Interesting. I’ve also read the same in a few other places. I guess I’ll cough up the gold for the new runes, and give it a go.
Thanks for the build, by the way; it’s something I’ve had a lot of fun with for the past few weeks.