Guild Wars 2

Like most of you, I’ve been tirelessly screwing around with different builds, and since I found the Condie Shatter both neat and fairly viable, I tried a few variants. A really nice one is the Balthazaar w/ Geomancy combo someone mentioned here recently. It really stacks a nice AoE condie burst on people and it’s definitely fun.

I started to wonder how STR Runes and Might stacking would affect the Condie Shatter philosophy, and actually I really enjoy the result. With this build it’s easy to keep 10-15 Might stacks up, and you often reach over 20 in a prolonged fight. It plays like a typical shatter build, but you have a ton more survivability. (3×2660 heal + 6 codie removals w/ 1550 Toughness)

It kinda hit me that a nice side effect of 6 in Dueling is the Crit Damage & Crit Chance that kinda gets wasted in a full condie-oriented build, and that given good might stackage my MWs could be more then just a means to apply a couple of Torment stacks. (And make the Phantasms hit harder too.)

You don’t have the spike damage of a GC Shatter naturally, but you have a great mix of DD & Condie/Confusion Damage that ends up in rather solid sustained AE damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJARWl0npTtNqxMNcrNyqBdqlg6s0lgW6NktAA-TJxHwADeCAa2f4YZAAXCAA

The only real weakness is lack of speed…WTB 25% Speed Sigil.

Let me know what you think!

I know people usually hate “The Twins” as I call them (MI), but I like to run them in this build because generally my condie-removal is plenty, and all other utilities are kinda underwhelming from a “selfish/PUG sPvP” point of view at least.

Thanks, I’ve read that thread, but this is a quite different concept then the “pure” Condie Shatter. This is almost a hybrid shatter build, though leaning heavier towards Condies.

With a decent bit of Might, which is easy to stack up with this build, both MW and Phantasms put out significantly more direct damage then a pure Condie Shatter build. (Which along with the Might stacking focus, is the key reason for going with GS & Staff over other weapons.) Naturally, the Might also works well in enhancing Condie damage.

In my experiences at least, this is more well rounded then a “pure” Condie-Shatter focus, performing well against a greater variety of professions/builds.

Eh, condi-shatter itself is not new. It’s seeing a definite revival, however, due to Maim the Disillusioned.

EDIT: (Go figure … I would comment on a since-removed post.)

@ Windwalker
In general, I can see why you went with that runeset/sigils. I, myself, ended up going Traveler for my own setup. As good for Mesmers as Perplex can be, I got rather sick of being outrun all the kitten time.

This build is actually pretty interesting. Also this is one of the rare instances where mirror images is a fine choice. Imo the dueling gm minor is one of our best traits for condi builds so I like that you went that far into dueling since most people don’t.

Yeah I commented on that removed reply as well! ;-) (In case someone is confused by my second post.)

Advent, the lack of speed is definitely a draw-back. In sPvP I can usually at least swap in Focus for traveling between points when OOC, but it’s hardly ideal.

Raunchy, yeah with HM in Dueling now, it just begs to be run in combination with Menders Purity, almost for free in any Shatter or PU/Clone-Death build really.

I agree that the GM Minor is just icing on top. It’s actually a bit weak for a GM Minor in my opinion, should be 5s base duration at least! It still synergizes well in this build though as confusion is definitely a major aspect of the build, which is why I trait the 33% duration.

Raunchy.6891:

This build is actually pretty interesting. Also this is one of the rare instances where mirror images is a fine choice. Imo the dueling gm minor is one of our best traits for condi builds so I like that you went that far into dueling since most people don’t.

On-death and shatter styles can create somewhat of an identity crisis though.

OP – honestly not sure what that 7% damage modifier is going to do with such low base power. I wonder if an on-heal set would be better due to the 3 power returns. That said, you seem aware of this. With the might stacking, how hard are your mind wracks hitting for?

I have pretty much the same trait set myself for torment shatter. But with couple of changes that you may find useful:
I use rune of undead for direct condition damage, double sigil of speed for long duration swiftness in PvP. I swap IE with illusionary invigoration so I can pop diversion and distortion early if situation gone unexpected.

The rune of strength is certainly interesting, I’m going to try that out next time I enter PvP.

skcamow.3527:

Raunchy.6891:

This build is actually pretty interesting. Also this is one of the rare instances where mirror images is a fine choice. Imo the dueling gm minor is one of our best traits for condi builds so I like that you went that far into dueling since most people don’t.

On-death and shatter styles can create somewhat of an identity crisis though.

OP – honestly not sure what that 7% damage modifier is going to do with such low base power. I wonder if an on-heal set would be better due to the 3 power returns. That said, you seem aware of this. With the might stacking, how hard are your mind wracks hitting for?

People keep saying this, but it’s not quite true. There is no perfect world where you get 3 clones up every time to shatter without the enemy destroying them. So having clone death traits isn’t bad at all, especially in a condi build where you don’t need that many specific traits so you have room to experiment.

Also I was under the impression that the damage modifier affects condis is that wrong?

I’m actually REALLY digging this build right now. Just tested it out a bit.

I went with this, for a bit of variance and catering to personal preference (Swiftness spam):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJARWl0npRtlpxBNcrNyqBdqlg6s0lgW6NktAA-TZxCwAYuAAAOEAXeCAbLDga/BA

I’m using the 180 Cond. Damage Signet to boost my condi dmg a bit, since I’m using Dawn and it doesn’t have the Rabid stats. With a 6.5 second CD on Mirror Blade and Deceptive Evasion, I don’t see clone spamming being a problem. At all. I also took Runes of Centaur, because perma-swiftness is kitten. (I WvW a lot).

I also can’t afford Runes of Strength as of right now, but I have a feeling I’m going to love Swiftness spam too much to give it up anyways. Sorry Min/Maxers.

I plan to use this build for small group WvW, and might even try my luck at some PvE with it. I’m a Completionist so… almost got that Sunrise!

Any more discussion on this core build would be great.

Kortham, it’s impossible to give you exact numbers as it varies greatly depending on how much Might you’ve stacked up, but at 25 stacks you have like 1966 Power, 170% Crit Damage, 49/69(Fury)% chance to crit. This will about double the DD of your shatters over the standard “pure” Condie Shatter spec w/o much Might up.

Even better are the Phantasms, both of which frequently hit for 3k+ in sPvP. I cycle through 2 sets of shatters (first MW, then CoF), and then get my Phants out and switch to playing defensively until shatters are up again.

It’s the mix of Condie & Direct damage that makes this build so effective.

I’m still really digging this build, and people should try it before dismissing it too quickly. Sure in WvW roaming you need speed, but in hotjoin sPvP I’m not missing it that much.

Oh and nice variation Eucalyptus! I’m glad you enjoy it too.

Raunchy: Couldn’t agree more on on-death traits, and the one nice thing for the GM Minor in Dueling is that it procs off both types of illusions, not just clones. It’s just a nice added bonus for when they kill off your Phantasms after shattering away your clones and waiting for CDs.

“Also I was under the impression that the damage modifier affects condis is that wrong?”

I don’t think so. I think percentage damage modifiers only apply to direct damage unfortunately.

The whole purpose of the build is the Might stacking focus in combination with decent Condie damage, and thus that 7% also synergizes nicely at 1600+ power. At that point you will average over 2k direct damage on a 3 clone MW shatter when you have Fury up, plus 3x Confusion & Torment. Not too shabby!

That should be about double the MW direct damage of a pure Condie Shatter build. No doubt this is not an entirely fair comparison, but again the point of this build is the flexibility due to the mix of damage types. This means you can’t easily negate my damage output with either condie removal or high toughness/protection.

I’m definitely noticing this against “problem classes” that are tough to beat with either DD or Condie Damage alone. (Also works great in big point fights to pile on both meaningful Direct and Condie damage.)

All that in a package with 1550 Toughness and 3×2660 insta heal & 6x Condie removal, makes for a much more enjoyable Shatter-build experience in my opinon.

The point I was trying to make was more along the lines of trying to build on-death AND shatter at the same time. It just seems like a house divided unto itself. This build isn’t really doing that – seems you were intent on going 30 into dueling anyway.

(Incidentally, someone has approached me to test an on-death/shatter build recently and I’ll see for myself if it works or not.)

The power damage you’re getting appears quite deceiving at first glance when I see rabid amulet. The question about the mind wracks was assuming 10-15 might stacks, which you said you commonly maintain. Just check the damage log to see what you’re averaging.

Couple more thoughts. If you’re seeing good results from your MW’s, you could consider to swap master of misdirection with precise wrack. Not sure how much increased confusion duration is helping anyway. Also as Nike said I would consider swapping IE for Ill Inv. I can’t see IE being that useful for a more condi focused build for mirror blade. Obviously for Staff it’s good.

@Raunchy, yeah windwalker is correct, damage modifiers only apply to power.

Kort, I have some numbers I ran today on the heavy practice golem. A 3x MW with 9 stacks of Might up averaged about 800 Crit damage per clone (~2400 max) using the STR Runes. Using the same build with Nightmare Runes and no Might averaged about 440 Crit damage per clone (max ~1320). I didn’t use a big sample size, but about 5-6 runs each consistently using the same method and averaging the results.

The other component is of course the Phantasm DD, which is considerably higher in this build also. (Both better DD Phants with the iZerker over the iMage, and the Might stacks effect on them.)

Windwalker – I was trying out this build tonight, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I cannot get used to having no movement speed what-so-ever, so I am next going to try swapping out the Strength runes for Centaur. Initial target dummy tests showed that I can offset the loss of might by replacing the Energy sigils with Strength sigils, but I am a bit concerned about the loss of dodges.

Any thoughts on other ways to get some speed worked into the build?

Also, have you tried the build with either Celestial or Rampager amulets? I was thinking one of these may help emphasize the hybrid nature of the damage, and reduce the ramp up before power damage really kicks in.

Edit: Talking PvP btw. Mostly solo or team queue