Guild Wars 2

So this has been a long time in the making. The Holy Hell build started out of a frustration of Mesmer shortcomings. Post confusion nerf, and the shifting of the meta, I found that, while I could create a Mesmer who excelled in some situations, and against various classes/builds, I felt left open or weak in other areas. Thus, The Holy Hell build was born. A Hybrid build, as far as the distinctions go, which comes with a highly aggressive play-style. It’ll leave your opponents feeling overwhelmed with nothing they can do about it, and little chance of escape.

What’s important to the build for me is that the stat allotment allows me to swap instantly from solo-roaming, to havok, to zerg builds with the swap of a gear set, and/or a few trait flips, but not a re-trait.

The traits are nothing new. I’ve been using the 20/20/30 PU since before “PU” was a thing. Where my gameplay and build/play variety came from post confusion nerf was the dropping of staff, and the stat selection of gear.

So what’s the gear?
2x Rabid sets of armor.
-One with 2x monk, 2 water, 2x traveller
-The other with 6x superior rune of guardian
(You can buy rabid with badges in WvW)

1x rabid amulet
1x cavalier rings, earrings + backpiece
1x rabid rings, earrings + backpiece
(If getting gear is a problem for you, just stick with rabid amulet and cavalier everything else)

Weapons are all givers. Sigils are corruption, doom, hydromancy, and smouldering. (See individual build links)

Food is +40% condi duration, +precision maintenance oil, or +condi crystals for zerg burning.

The Holy Hell Build comprises of four variations.

The Holy Hell Advanced Scout (original build, solo-roaming, zerg sapping, and zerg scout)
http://tinyurl.com/advancedscout

The Holy Hell Freezes Over (Havok) This builds main feature is a heap of 6s aoe chill. 10s On heal, 10s on weapon swap, chance on interrupt.
http://tinyurl.com/holyhellfreezesover

The Holy Hell Burn The Zerg (Zerg) Utilizes guardian runes and 100% burn duration for 2s burns per block/proc (easy 1200 damage). Also a great gear setup to use when on a mortar. Dire is the best statistical option for the thick of melee, so until/unless you get your hands on this, you just have to play smart (it aint so hard). I still enjoy bleeds on crit from iWarden.
http://tinyurl.com/burnthezerg

The Holy Hell Commander (Commander. New, still in testing) Soldier armor is more easily accessible to get this setup going, and allows for solid sword hits etc. However a full set of dire is a long term goal to fully flesh this one out.
http://tinyurl.com/holyhellcommander

Space to post vids of variations

Advanced Scout
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8td7XyA1JU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPtiMQTo6YM&feature=youtu.be (perfect mimic opener)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ziexi3-fbZA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GTnTnbQYYw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmfdj4KucfE

Freezes Over
HH Chill (Roaming tweaked)
vs P/D Condispam Perplexity Thief
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9BceGSMbEQ&feature=youtu.be
Trolling bunkers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PrPVEPFlEA
1vX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS9GRHUMnRQ

Burn The Zerg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVF3JkKX4fY&feature=youtu.be (compilation, apologies for the fps drops)

(early play with mimic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImUsgOGw5dI&feature=player_detailpage#t=60 (mortar fire followed by perfect glamor/confusion drop on zerging train)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6ahCrGCWFo (on a mortar)

Holy Hell Commander
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hggCXYcv0QQ&feature=youtu.be

Nice builds and videos Ross.

I like the fact that you don’t have to go and fully re-trait/spec. It makes it really versatile in wvw, being able to go from zerg to solo and back again on the battlefield.
Nice builds and vids

2.9k of armor seems really excessive for a roaming build especially with the low power and condi damage, have you considered swapping out a couple of trinkets for zerk stats?

Chabo.7498:

2.9k of armor seems really excessive for a roaming build especially with the low power and condi damage, have you considered swapping out a couple of trinkets for zerk stats?

It’s simply a matter of personal preference. I like to stay at or above that 2800 threshold. It just covers you from any surprises, from a zerg turning on you while you’re tailing them, to an elite havok squad, to nasty thieves or hammer stun warrior duo’s. It also protects me from latency which, being from NZ, has forced me to build around from day one.

That said, I gave the build to a guildy of mine over a month ago. She didnt have cavalier so just got rabid armor, and used her zerk trinkets. Given, she was less experienced with the build, and her reduction in armor had her downed more often in those surprise situations, but she was super happy/excited about the build. Namely because she had the speed/travel prowess coupled with that stealth.

So yes, drop a couple cavalier trinkets and take zerker. You won’t be disappointed. It’ll chip away at your damaging condi’s, but your cc’s will still be solid as ever, and the extra zerk dps will play its role.

WitchKing.5317:

I like the fact that you don’t have to go and fully re-trait/spec. It makes it really versatile in wvw, being able to go from zerg to solo and back again on the battlefield.
Nice builds and vids

And the switch out becomes really fluid. Once you set your inventory up, and know the positions of all the traits, the swaps can be done in a matter of seconds while running from point to point. Takes a few tries at first, but once you’ve got it down you’re away.

Cares Less.9631:

Nice builds and videos Ross.

Cheers

Awesome and thorough builds. Question regarding the 1s burning from the Guardian runes – with the staff burn, the 2-tick burn comes at 76% (I recall someone else doing the math ages ago on the forums, and I tested on the dummies – I do indeed get two ticks of staff burning at 76% condi duration).

Would it work the same with the Guardian runes? If so, you should be free to put different weapon sigils (your 80% base duration increase should do the trick).

Been running advanced scout for ~2 months now I believe. Haven’t looked back to any other condition setup except for one more suited to zerging (triforce/mantra heal) since.

Dhampyr.2104:

Awesome and thorough builds. Question regarding the 1s burning from the Guardian runes – with the staff burn, the 2-tick burn comes at 76% (I recall someone else doing the math ages ago on the forums, and I tested on the dummies – I do indeed get two ticks of staff burning at 76% condi duration).

Would it work the same with the Guardian runes? If so, you should be free to put different weapon sigils (your 80% base duration increase should do the trick).

I recall reading a thing about how condi duration works when stacking etc. if it doesnt make up a full extra second, it drops the proc. However, I think if you have incoming burns from multiple sources, which apply at the same time, their numbers add and create the extra proc? So in the case of a staff, a couple winds of chaos can combine to create a bonus second/tick.

If it wasn’t that then it was a random chance it rounded up than down, but that doesn’t sound quite right.

If you want to go staff, and be sure, you can take the toxic crystals. 10% more duration and only need 1x smouldering sigil. However they’re incredibly expensive. Another alternative if you cant give up your staff, just learn to use your mimic while in duel weapons if and when you can. Then you can put something completely different on your staff, like hydromancy, endurance, etc.

My god that first burn the zerg vid has like 3 fps or something.

OK, just went out and re-tested (should have done that before posting probably lol).

So, with no other conditions and 76% condi duration, the staff burn procs once, every single time apparently. With other conditions on the target (vuln/bleed from staff for example), I got two ticks every single time (limited testing, 50 burn iterations each, with and without other conditions on the target).

From that limited testing, I’d guess that you wouldn’t be able to rely on two ticks from Guardian runes at 76% burn (unless you had some other way to get AOE conditions).

Bottom line, I’ll just shuddup and color – nice builds, Ross. ;-)

(separate note – wow, the acronym STF-yoo gets “kittened”. Silly.)

Just a Note on what I’ve been running

One point I should mention. For the solo, Advanced Scout, I found that running Doom sigils on each weapon set gave me the edge over all those ultra bunker heal warriors out there. But after playing with the Hell Freezes Over variant, I kept Doom on the Sword, and took Hydromancy on the Scepter. I’ve ummed and ahh’d about which was better on which, but eventually It came to memory to stick to the target like glue at the end of a sword/torch burst, and try to get that weapon swap in at point blank range for the 5s chill. Just knowing it’s there means I can combo it in vs runners if the setups good. But where chill really shines is against other casters, and that’s why I’ve kept it over double, lock down poison.

When you say a full set of Dire is recommended, is that including trinkets? And is Dire recommended for just the Commander and Zerg variants? This looks like a ton of fun, can’t wait to try it out.

Goaticus.2409:

When you say a full set of Dire is recommended, is that including trinkets? And is Dire recommended for just the Commander and Zerg variants? This looks like a ton of fun, can’t wait to try it out.

Full Dire, either just armor, or armor and trinkets, will give you the most amount of survive for your condition dealing buck. I know people wanted it, but Dire is a ridiculous set that should never have been introduced to the game imo, especially not with the condition meta the way it is.

Having said that, as of late I was trying out my soldiers armor with my cav trinkets. Still using the same setup. It’s more than enough survive, you can hit decently, and the condition damage is solid. So long as you’re in a good group (and every commander should be), you’ll have your might stacks to boost all sources of damage. It’s also so easy to get a soldiers set.

I am loving running with my guild again atm.

Would it be ok to run this build with full traveler or speed runes, or will it make a huge difference, because Mesmer really lack a lot of mobility and the 25% move speed does help.