Guild Wars 2

So let’s discuss the new Dire gear’s usefulness in a full condition tank build, useful most likely for roaming and small group play in WvW. Reminder, Dire = Cond/Vit/Tough

A quick back-of-the-envelope build runs scepter-torch / staff, and using runes of scavenging, undead, perplexity, or traveler, combined with Prismatic Understanding for boons and defense. The remaining 40 trait points are flexible.

The build shines with around 1700+ condition damage, and that is without might and stacks. But add 250 from the sigil and constant might from staff clones and sigil of battle, and condition damage can easily reach ~2100 or higher. And this is with over 21000 HP and 2700 armor.

Here is one of many possible build ideas. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArfWl4zKqXQTmGb9IhpHBH5A/8Bojmx1zOA-jECB4iQ0CgkIBKTqIas1gFRjV3ATxiIq2roIa1SBAzaA-w

Anyway, let’s find some way to make Dire gear work for us.

I’m working on obtaining a full set to work into my immoral build. I’ve got a few ideas on traits, but ultimately I’ll need to just muck with it a bit once I get all the gear…which will take a while considering it only comes from CoE.

On that note, any idea where to get the trinkets? Especially the accessories. I can’t seem to find them anywhere.

Uhhh, I think you can craft exotic versions, and I’m pretty sure ascended versions are available.

I may just use the half rabid/half dire ascended trinkets I already use for other condition builds.

Pyroatheist.9031:

I’m working on obtaining a full set to work into my immoral build. I’ve got a few ideas on traits, but ultimately I’ll need to just muck with it a bit once I get all the gear…which will take a while considering it only comes from CoE.

An immoral condition tank build? That sounds quite… unique. =P

^^^ I’m intrigued too

I’m considering a dire build, however I feel like always having 20 points in dueling in every single build has lead me to become reliant on vigor when playing mesmer, and deceptive evasion to a lesser extent. In this build would you shatter your clones often?

If so, maybe take vigorous revelation over mender’s purity, but if not the condition removal is probably best.

I tested a 20/0/30/20/0 build in spvp with a carrion amulet to simulate dire gear kinda, and even without the extra toughness, I was still incredibly hard to kill. My only issue was I lacked the extra dodges and bleeds dueling would provide, but I still think this build is very viable, but just takes more patience than 20/20/30, since you really need to land the scepter/torch’s conditions to kill things.

SO I finally got a full set of this and here are my traits. 0-25-20-0-25, Weird I know but it focuses around applying not only a lot of confusion but also other conditions. As many will notice this build is actually a Condition Shatter build. Weapon wise I run Staff and Scepter/Pistol, and my biggest problem I would say is dealing with conditions but I am working on solving that problem.

I keep changing the trait a lot, especially the second Dueling trait. I cant decide if I want DD or DE, both work very well and I honestly don’t think I need DE with all the clone creating skills available to me along with there short cooldowns. However once I have had a solid week to play around with this I should have a set trait line. My current one is just one I theory crafted.

you know, condition build is good, especially a build with 2000 condition damage, however, you have no precision, this results in the opponent getting bored of you and just running away, assuming he/she was tank. Now, a distracted opponent will probably try to kill you till he/she dies, but that might not become the case for many people you fight, to get a full fight, you must have descent amount of damage that just pop at your opponents eyes. Well, that is just my opinion.

Hmmmm thought about putting points into dueling… Your clone out put from skills is going to go down but overall the clone out put is going to go up. So maybe look something like 0/20/30/0/20 you have 50 points less condition damage but your condition output goes through the roof.
The theory I have on mesmer condition builds is our condition output 20-25% us and 75-80% from our illusions (sharper images for one). And then if you have three clones up its 5 winds of chaos (your iElasticity comes into effect) plus the traits from clone on death.

Add to it when you put some points into dueling you can also get far reaching manipulations to get that faster blink out of situations.

Just food for though on your condi tank build. The dire stats look sweet. Add to it the rune of scavenging and it’s just like O.o

Hey jportell thanks for the feedback. I haven’t actually had a chance to test my build a lot yet (IRL test) but I like your suggestions. I just want to avoid going 30 in Chaos because I don’t think any of those traits would add a huge amount to my build. However I am still debating going 30 in Dueling just to pick up DE and dropping the 5 in Illusions ,that way I still have massive clone generation.

Also currently using Runes of Perplexity for max confusion output. 163% Confusion duration total with 50% increase to all other conditions.

@Deathcon, condition duration caps at 100% I believe, so if you have anything in your build buffing confusion specifically (such as master of misdirection), better to choose another trait.

So I played around roaming a little with a full set of Dire in WvW, using a variety of different builds. My initial reaction, unfortunately: not that impressed, though I’ve yet to find a build that synergizes perfectly so far.

I think the main reason is our lack of passive health generation. The extra 6k hp that Dire gives you over, say, Rabid is nice at first, but after a few hits the benefits become wasted. I did find that I had to be more aggressive with my healing, and though my conditions did hit like a truck against those without good condi clears, I didn’t notice anything that beneficial against more competent players.

The one thing I did notice is that Deceptive Evasion is still kind of a necessity. I tried running without it in several builds, but given that our condi pressure is so clone dependent (either through staff clones, shatters, etc.), I found that I just couldn’t keep up enough without DE. And this of course brings us back to Rabid, because if you’re going 20 in Dueling and thus getting the illusion bleed on crit, you might as well bump up your precision.

Anyway, still needs to be worked on, but just some initial thoughts.

It looks intriguing…

I’m hesitant to build this, though. Mostly because of how reliant I’ve found condition builds to be on Sharper Images.

So uh….how on earth did you guys lay your hands on full sets of dire already?

Pyroatheist.9031:

So uh….how on earth did you guys lay your hands on full sets of dire already?

Hahaha well I run CoE almost daily. I didn’t buy the armor though since I want the thingy for meteorlogicus. But I could buy most of a set if I wanted one.

Pyroatheist.9031:

So uh….how on earth did you guys lay your hands on full sets of dire already?

I had the luck to pick up some sets of Jatoro’s armor and wayfarer weapons/trinkets before the recent update. Since they removed magic find, they let you pick whatever stats you wanted, dire included. A little embarrassed to say it, but I ended up with a complete set for about 6g.

That said, I still think the extra vitality is wasted on the mesmer … but I’d really love a good build that proves this wrong.

Bunda.2691:

Pyroatheist.9031:

So uh….how on earth did you guys lay your hands on full sets of dire already?

I had the luck to pick up some sets of Jatoro’s armor and wayfarer weapons/trinkets before the recent update. Since they removed magic find, they let you pick whatever stats you wanted, dire included. A little embarrassed to say it, but I ended up with a complete set for about 6g.

That said, I still think the extra vitality is wasted on the mesmer … but I’d really love a good build that proves this wrong.

My immortal build functioned completely on Pvt armor, until they released sentinels where I swapped to a full set of that.

Jatoro’s was the old “Traveler’s” spread, which is now “Dire” so it is in the TP and you can outright buy a full set. A little pricey, but it gets it done.

For trinkets, there is a Traveler’s Amulet and Ring, and the corresponding accessory you would want is called “Vallog’s Demise”.

Calpurnia.9267:

Jatoro’s was the old “Traveler’s” spread, which is now “Dire” so it is in the TP and you can outright buy a full set. A little pricey, but it gets it done.

For trinkets, there is a Traveler’s Amulet and Ring, and the corresponding accessory you would want is called “Vallog’s Demise”.

There’s also dire-ish ascended, which is what i’ll use.

@skcamow
I didn’t know it capped out there. That sucks. I will have to check some other traits out then