Guild Wars 2

I started playing again after months of absence, whereas I’ve decided to level up a Mesmer. This leaves me with questions for PvP, and I’d be grateful if someone insightful could answer.

The “shatter cat” (thread) way with dual swords looks interesting, while I’ve been running with a 20/0/30/0/20 for leveling aka condition, which has proven quite well for pulling mobs and spreading out conditions such as cripple (a spec that would seem viable in PvP). Perhaps there area “better” condition specs out there. Obviously each way has it’s pros and cons, you can’t beat all the classes just as easily.

Basically how does burst/spike fare vs condition damage? Are condition builds as viable? Feel free to share your build and opinions. This would also make it easier for me to decide wether I should craft the beserker or rampage tailor set.

Thank you

mesmer are sub par at conditions! atleast in pve..
mesmer cant apply bleed by themself, and have to relies on illusions.
and illusion dont inherit condition duration stats!. so.. cant maintain bleed for long,
as for confusions.. they’re horrible at pve. you can stack upto 20 stacks for 6 seconds or so, and the mob just runs around not hitting anything,.. while it may be good at pvp and wvw due to skill spam, i think confusion arent worth the trouble for pve.
other conditions are randomly generated by staff skill.. which isn’t exactly dependable.
so if youre ever gonna go condition route.. dont do it on a mesmer… other profesion’s are much more reliable!

I’m just going to paste what i wrote for another thread but the short answer is that condition mesmers are not that good.

Condition application – The condition application for this class is possibly one of the worst in the game when looking at the core weapon skills. The staff is our best condition weapon yet it’s auto attack comes with a one in three chance of failing (apply vulnerability), with a full set of staff clones and a target that never dodges or removes conditions it takes forever to see more than 6 bleed stacks.

Ever since confusion was removed from the scepter auto attack in beta, the clones generated from this weapon would over write the more useful staff clones that apply conditions and the sword clones that stack vulnerability and remove boons. At times it feels like the scepter is working against the player.

Phantoms – The only phantom that applies conditions by default is the phantasmal mage and its damage and condition application falls behind that of every other weapon based phantom regardless of the build.

Build diversity – There is only one way to get semi reliable condition application and that is for the mesmer players to limit their build options to just using the rabid amulet and taking the trait sharper images. With the current weapon skills and traits, builds that use shaman, carrion and rampager’s suffer from a lack of condition application and damage.

Traits – The trait deceptive evasion is good for most mesmer builds but because of its tendency to summon clones on the nearest target both shatter and condition builds have problems with it. For condition mesmers our condition application comes from our illusions with clones summed from this trait attacking random AI it cuts out a large portion of our damage. As for shatter mesmers its not as bad since mind wrack is aoe but it still hurts to have illusions shatter away from the intended target. Another trait that’s causing problems is illusionary elasticity the bounce from this trait is still not working for illusions and if it worked would solve most of the problems with condition application by helping staff clones and the phantasmal mage.

Hiki.9310:

Edited for brevity.

Sorry, I am going to have to disagree with just about everything you said.

At level 80, my condition mesmer is pretty difficult to kill and I can solo some really ridiculous pulls. Even when I screw up and Im surrounded by 4 regular risen mobs and a veteran in Orr, I can take them down no problem. Even two veteran mobs and one or two regulars, no problem. You kind of need to know what all of your abilities do.

I agree that winds of chaos applying Vulnerability is kind of lame, but if you utilize that debuff you just applied (sorry, condition!), you can still turn it into a positive. I am always running around Orr with sword/focus for map completion. When I stop, and Im surrounded by a ton of mobs, I pop an iWarden, quickly switch to staff and drop Chaos Storm on top of him which provides him with protection everytime (as well as myself). So now I either phase retreat out of that ethereal combo field for a Chaos Armor application, or use mirror images to begin the Wind of Chaos spam from me and my ILLUSIONS. I stand up close and personal, getting all of the little buffs back…with the elasticity trait, WoC is bouncing around everywhere. The conditions wrack up with a few stacks of vulnerability, several bleeds, the ocassional burn and confusion (from when I dropped Chaos Storm). At this point I just kite around the mobs in a small area, phase retreating when an illusion is killed(which by the way applies another random condition when it dies). When my iWarden dies, I bring out iWarlock. Which by the way, these guys are granting me regeneration when I bring them out, plus they have never ending fury too.

I TRY to put myself in really difficult situations where I just get rofl stomped and die. I cant.

As for condition capping— this is really the only problem I have with being condition spec for any class. However, there are often times that hardly anyone in the group is running a condition build, and not all conditions are capped(bleeds, etc). So being condition specced is not bad in this case.

Plus, even though you’re stacking condition, youre really not ONLY relying on conditions to dps down everything. Your phantasms do a lot of damage, and provide other “nice to have” bonuses.

So, I really disagree with anyone that says a condition mesmer is weak. I run TA exp, and watch everyone else die and run back on the first boss. Im sitting there with my pimp hand solo’ing the kitten thing, not dying. Sure, situational awareness and skill come into play. But the mesmer is a hard to kill class.

Burst is better in pretty much any case where you not run into 4+ mobs on your own. So pretty much all of PvE and PvP ( players in PvP won’t let you kit them like Mobs do)
The main issu is that traits and weapon contradict each other.
You want to have stuff like Illusionary Elasticity in Illussions but pretty much nothing else there dumping 20 points into there for that .
You want Deceptive Evasion and Sharper Images in duelling forceing you to take percison on gear to get the most out of Sharper Images ( and have at least a some what reliable source of bleeds)
But as the stuff is you main weapon and you clones will die pretty fast in AoE you also want the traits in chaos and the free rune of undead effect looks also really nice….

Now you have to get percsion thoughness and condtion dmg and probably still do no dmg becaus you can’t tell when you get dmg condtions and when you just gone support your team with vulnerability…. at cost of your dmg thank you A-net. Oh and you Aoe? It is you 1 attack have fun telling how you gone hit. Also you only support skill on the staff is you only AoE dmg skill at the same time crippling you dmg support power what ever you do. Yes I am kind of bitter atm becaus I can’t play the class the way I want. It really sucks to have a class you like and the only build that is good is the shatter build.

LaronX.8079:

Burst is better in pretty much any case where you not run into 4+ mobs on your own. So pretty much all of PvE and PvP ( players in PvP won’t let you kit them like Mobs do)
The main issu is that traits and weapon contradict each other.
You want to have stuff like Illusionary Elasticity in Illussions but pretty much nothing else there dumping 20 points into there for that .
You want Deceptive Evasion and Sharper Images in duelling forceing you to take percison on gear to get the most out of Sharper Images ( and have at least a some what reliable source of bleeds)
But as the stuff is you main weapon and you clones will die pretty fast in AoE

Hi,
Again, to completely contradict your thinking…

1. You want elasticity in Illusions, yes. Definate. But the other one you would take is Compounding Illusions. As a condition mesmer, you never want to shatter your clones unless you are certain it will end the fight. So as long as you keep a healthy supply of illusions, which is not hard, you will get 3-6-9% more damage I believe. In dungeons, when the boss/mobs are not focused on your illusions, which is often enough I find, I dont need to phase retreat to create another for quite some time…sometimes upward of a minute.

2. Yes, you want sharper images(but you can go another route, for more of a Glamour build). So if you go for sharper images, you want precision on your gear. Whats wrong with a rampager’s set? Doesn’t that set even have toughness on it?

3. Clones die often enough, yes. But there are many methods to keep up 2-3 at all times. Phased retreat is on a 4 second cooldown(or something with the staff trait), mirror images = 2 at once, if you are able to(which I dont) you can trait into creating an illusion when you dodge. Then you have your phantasm abilities. I never have problems keeping a healthy stock of clones up. Ever. This is the LEAST of my problems. Sometimes I’ll phase retreat just for kicks, even when I dont need another illusion.

Burst is a great single target DPS build, sure. And if you can get multiple mobs packed together, yeah burst shattering/blurred frenzy/iWarden can take down a nice pack of mobs easily. Conditions will do it a smidge slower, but will also continue to kill the mob at a decent pace, whereas all of your burst abilities would be on CD if they did not kill the entire pack of mobs. Also, there are more multi-mob pulls, packs, and whatnot in the game than there arent. Not even considering story quests, just dungeons and DEs, there are a ton of multi-mob pulls.

As a condition mesmer on an AOE pull, the ideal way to deal with it I find is run up to the pack of mobs, pull out iWarden, switch to staff, drop chaos storm right on top of you, the warden, the mobs(doing some DPS and poison DPS), phase retreat/iWarlock/Mirror Images so all of these guys get the protection buff as well(and you get chaos armor). Wind of Chaos away, watch the world burn.

The above situation is pretty standard for me, watching iWarden tear it up for a good 10+ seconds, my illusions throwing WoC around stacking more conditions in addition to myself…if they die, they are near the mobs and apply another random condition.

Its fantastic.

My point is, while you can quickly generate 3 clones, fire off some abilities and shatter, probably destroying one mob…WAY faster than you can with a condition build, in most other scenarios condition builds are just as viable. I really wonder why people hate on condition mesmers/staff mesmers. I simply love it. I largely feel unkillable, and the mobs die almost as quickly. True, one of the huge drawbacks is the vulnerability application. But like I said previously, use that to your advantage. Drop an iWarden in there with a chaos storm on top of him(and likely on the mobs DPSing them). That iWarden will stay alive for at least two rotations of his ability. The iWarden takes full advantage of the vulnerability applications your WoC applies.

Think positive my friends, condition mesmers are not as bad as you think.

cesmode.4257:

At level 80, my condition mesmer is pretty difficult to kill and I can solo some really ridiculous pulls.

Look, all professions have suboptimal specs that can muscle through sticky pve and pvp situations.

That does not change the fact that mesmers suck at condition dps when compared to all other professions, and there is no disputing that.

cesmode.4257:

Think positive my friends, condition mesmers are not as bad as you think.

No they are not, in fact I enjoy playing my condition builds (especially bunker builds which always are condition heavy to help limit DPS). It’s just that regular damage/burst builds are more easily useable in both PvE and PvP. Condition damage is by its very nature slow and steady, which is not what you want in PvP. It allows for reaction to damage.

And like the poster above me says, Mesmer conditions are even more slow than most other classes. My trap based Ranger can lay down huge stacks of bleeds, burns and poisons in a matter of seconds.

cesmode.4257:

My point is, while you can quickly generate 3 clones, fire off some abilities and shatter, probably destroying one mob…WAY faster than you can with a condition build, in most other scenarios condition builds are just as viable. I really wonder why people hate on condition mesmers/staff mesmers. I simply love it. I largely feel unkillable, and the mobs die almost as quickly. True, one of the huge drawbacks is the vulnerability application. But like I said previously, use that to your advantage. Drop an iWarden in there with a chaos storm on top of him(and likely on the mobs DPSing them). That iWarden will stay alive for at least two rotations of his ability. The iWarden takes full advantage of the vulnerability applications your WoC applies.

ouuh yeah, you play like me… i am usually the longest to live on the battle field in any situation… wvw, dungeons, or pve. I even use the scepter/focus… unless i reallly need more aoe. but i do not know if that is technically a condition mesmer.

I guess you guys just dnt know how to play ot then. I kill things as fast as my condi thief, when he was specced for conditions.

Great idea…lets all have the same burst build and be uniform. Even if condi builds are behind burst, its not that far behind where you should never play it.

cesmode.4257:

I guess you guys just dnt know how to play ot then. I kill things as fast as my condi thief, when he was specced for conditions.

Great idea…lets all have the same burst build and be uniform. Even if condi builds are behind burst, its not that far behind where you should never play it.

then have you ever play a condition mesmer?
were not thiefs.. we cant apply 25 stack of bleed through a short period of bursts and half of our weapon skills are summons. and our attack dont apply conditions except for the random everslowly staff, the lousy scepter, and the torch.
illusion dont inherit condition duration and can only apply a handfull of short durationed bleed through sharpen images.! and if you’re counting on confusions… just read most of the above.
i personally think mesmer are the no.2 worst condition applyer ingame besides guardians.

which other class can apply a constant confusion 1-10 stacks for an entire battle?

cesmode.4257:

Hiki.9310:

Edited for brevity.

Sorry, I am going to have to disagree with just about everything you said.

At level 80, my condition mesmer is pretty difficult to kill and I can solo some really ridiculous pulls. Even when I screw up and Im surrounded by 4 regular risen mobs and a veteran in Orr, I can take them down no problem. Even two veteran mobs and one or two regulars, no problem. You kind of need to know what all of your abilities do.

I agree that winds of chaos applying Vulnerability is kind of lame, but if you utilize that debuff you just applied (sorry, condition!), you can still turn it into a positive. I am always running around Orr with sword/focus for map completion. When I stop, and Im surrounded by a ton of mobs, I pop an iWarden, quickly switch to staff and drop Chaos Storm on top of him which provides him with protection everytime (as well as myself). So now I either phase retreat out of that ethereal combo field for a Chaos Armor application, or use mirror images to begin the Wind of Chaos spam from me and my ILLUSIONS. I stand up close and personal, getting all of the little buffs back…with the elasticity trait, WoC is bouncing around everywhere. The conditions wrack up with a few stacks of vulnerability, several bleeds, the ocassional burn and confusion (from when I dropped Chaos Storm). At this point I just kite around the mobs in a small area, phase retreating when an illusion is killed(which by the way applies another random condition when it dies). When my iWarden dies, I bring out iWarlock. Which by the way, these guys are granting me regeneration when I bring them out, plus they have never ending fury too.

I TRY to put myself in really difficult situations where I just get rofl stomped and die. I cant.

As for condition capping— this is really the only problem I have with being condition spec for any class. However, there are often times that hardly anyone in the group is running a condition build, and not all conditions are capped(bleeds, etc). So being condition specced is not bad in this case.

Plus, even though you’re stacking condition, youre really not ONLY relying on conditions to dps down everything. Your phantasms do a lot of damage, and provide other “nice to have” bonuses.

So, I really disagree with anyone that says a condition mesmer is weak. I run TA exp, and watch everyone else die and run back on the first boss. Im sitting there with my pimp hand solo’ing the kitten thing, not dying. Sure, situational awareness and skill come into play. But the mesmer is a hard to kill class.

I am going to have to clarify a few things I forgot to add in my first post. When I made this post it was in regards to how conditions mesmers are not as viable as other classes in tpvp.

When saying that you disagreed with all I said you proved my point about build diversity. In your post you mentioned the use of phantasmal warden and in a condition mesmer that points to stacked precision and sharper images .

I am not a pve player so I may be wrong in some aspects but in pve you don’t have to deal with enemy condition removal like in pvp and being able to handle multiple mobs is a matter of AI intelligence, gear, kiting and how conditions scale differently in pve.

The skill winds of chaos applying vulnerability is not bad in my opinion and I see it as a means of balancing the skill under the assumption that the trait illusionary elasticity would of worked for our staff clones (which it should). With the current condition mesmer in pvp we are only good in 1v1 in team fights we cant keep up decent condition damage and a functional illusionary elasticity seems to be the only remedy.

As to phantoms I agree and disagree with you. We have two phantoms that we can rely on for condition builds them being the duelist and warden but that’s just a matter of being pigeon holed into sharper images and crit chance. Also the torch phantom still lags behind without its extra bounce from illusionary elasticity.

the fact is. confusions arent bleed or even burn!
you could have a mob aiming and chasing you, and what?
you gonna stand there getting hit so that your confusion can tick the so called tiny little damage? as tough as a mesmer is, its still a light clothed mid healthed scholar!
and as mentioned above.. the clone death gives “random condition” means that you can give a vulnarability, cripple, freeze and weakness. and the 3-5 second confusions that will have a chance to do zero dmg!
now cripple actually goes against a confusion mesmer, cause the slower it moves, the lower your chances of your confusion ticks! and most of other short durationed random conditions are just a zero at dmg department.
condition mesmer are subpar!

Alex.9268:

cesmode.4257:

At level 80, my condition mesmer is pretty difficult to kill and I can solo some really ridiculous pulls.

Look, all professions have suboptimal specs that can muscle through sticky pve and pvp situations.

That does not change the fact that mesmers suck at condition dps when compared to all other professions, and there is no disputing that.

From my observations of condition builds in pvp mesmers are the best of the bottom three condition classes with warrior being second and guardian being dead last.

Two things come to mind when I think of this the first being its better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven and the second being that the developers mentioned diverse build choices when the game was being hyped.

I’m surprised when ppl talk about DD vs CD around here nobody considers the confusion shatter builds. Yeah confusion isn’t as good in PVE, but in wvw it’s an absolute beast. Huge chunks of damage and armor means nothing. Follow it up with a MI + MW/BF and they have few options but to eat the CoF bomb or the burst (I find the average player usually ends up eating both).

Even in PVE I can usually get 2-3 procs with baiting against any mob that matters unless I fubar my timing. It’s certainly enough to make an impression since armor doesn’t count and I always have ways to get more clones up instantly so its not like I’m losing any dps; its just good to great bonus damage.

cesmode.4257:

LaronX.8079:

Burst is better in pretty much any case where you not run into 4+ mobs on your own. So pretty much all of PvE and PvP ( players in PvP won’t let you kit them like Mobs do)
The main issu is that traits and weapon contradict each other.
You want to have stuff like Illusionary Elasticity in Illussions but pretty much nothing else there dumping 20 points into there for that .
You want Deceptive Evasion and Sharper Images in duelling forceing you to take percison on gear to get the most out of Sharper Images ( and have at least a some what reliable source of bleeds)
But as the stuff is you main weapon and you clones will die pretty fast in AoE

Hi,
Again, to completely contradict your thinking…

1. You want elasticity in Illusions, yes. Definate. But the other one you would take is Compounding Illusions. As a condition mesmer, you never want to shatter your clones unless you are certain it will end the fight. So as long as you keep a healthy supply of illusions, which is not hard, you will get 3-6-9% more damage I believe. In dungeons, when the boss/mobs are not focused on your illusions, which is often enough I find, I dont need to phase retreat to create another for quite some time…sometimes upward of a minute.

2. Yes, you want sharper images(but you can go another route, for more of a Glamour build). So if you go for sharper images, you want precision on your gear. Whats wrong with a rampager’s set? Doesn’t that set even have toughness on it?

3. Clones die often enough, yes. But there are many methods to keep up 2-3 at all times. Phased retreat is on a 4 second cooldown(or something with the staff trait), mirror images = 2 at once, if you are able to(which I dont) you can trait into creating an illusion when you dodge. Then you have your phantasm abilities. I never have problems keeping a healthy stock of clones up. Ever. This is the LEAST of my problems. Sometimes I’ll phase retreat just for kicks, even when I dont need another illusion.

Burst is a great single target DPS build, sure. And if you can get multiple mobs packed together, yeah burst shattering/blurred frenzy/iWarden can take down a nice pack of mobs easily. Conditions will do it a smidge slower, but will also continue to kill the mob at a decent pace, whereas all of your burst abilities would be on CD if they did not kill the entire pack of mobs. Also, there are more multi-mob pulls, packs, and whatnot in the game than there arent. Not even considering story quests, just dungeons and DEs, there are a ton of multi-mob pulls.

As a condition mesmer on an AOE pull, the ideal way to deal with it I find is run up to the pack of mobs, pull out iWarden, switch to staff, drop chaos storm right on top of you, the warden, the mobs(doing some DPS and poison DPS), phase retreat/iWarlock/Mirror Images so all of these guys get the protection buff as well(and you get chaos armor). Wind of Chaos away, watch the world burn.

The above situation is pretty standard for me, watching iWarden tear it up for a good 10+ seconds, my illusions throwing WoC around stacking more conditions in addition to myself…if they die, they are near the mobs and apply another random condition.

Its fantastic.

Dude you did not countre dicte me you just filled the stuff that is not negativ. I listed the main issus the build has sure you can go cond. dmg thougness, perc and be fine but if you get hit you have problems as you HP pool will be around 13k that can be to low in some cases.

And yes while some bosses are so nice to let you clones life in a lot of ocassions they die pretty much afterthey spawn due the genral AoE. The trait tha mackes them give the enemy a random condtion is really strong becaus of that.

Also you 3 point is pretty much what I said O.o you need the traits else you gone have a hard time to keep stuff up.

Staff Mesmer is great for Open world PvE but in dungones it really sucks compared to other classes. We can go a bit more glamour but the fact that two glamours are pretty usless in dungones most of the time( veil and portal) leaves null field and feedback which are awesome.

Also Mirror Images is nice and all but I don’t think it has a spot in a build if you run in a dungone you need to provide a bit more then a Chaos strom once in a while. To bring up 2 clones at will helps you but thats about it.

edit: @Gaiawolf: If you want confusion in WvW you go witha a glamour build. The weapone you use is pretty much unimportent then. You can go staff for the extra AoE or what ever.

Hi

In my oppinion both are viable for wvwvw and depending on playstyle for dungeons. Its just up to your playstyle.

Shatter Cat guide is under construct. So far I sorted the first section and original guide but will now add hybrid spec, Tank S C and a Shatter Cat condition spec. Al of them is in my oppinion after hard testing viable in WvWvW, pve and dungeons, the tank spec is weak thu for Instances in pve.

Il add condition shatter spec tomorow or Tuesday, Tank S C and Hybrid S C will be added tomorow. Its al under work but feel free to drop in.

/Osicat

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-WvWvW-Shatter-Cat-reworking/first

Too much amateurs posting here, stating that condition mesmer doesn’t work, i have been condi mesmer for a very long time now, and it does a lot of dmg with sharper images and precision gear/condition.

Debilitation dissipation is very good trait as well for condition mesmer, because when clones dies it will create random conditions/stacks on enemies. I love it. Specially when all clones are getting aoed/killed quickly, because my clones recast is almost nothing. its very good for pve. Also i can take any profession on pvp very easy because the amount of bleeding inflicted/random condis, even eles are no match.

There have been some wrong information about mesmer traits on these forums about
Illusionists celerity and chaotic dampening (reduces the recharge of staff skills), these traits do stacks. lowering “phase retreat” skill to just 5 secs.

Condition mesmers just needs the right traits to do a nice dmg on pvp and pve, people just lack of understanding this profession because it’s a lot of information to research/test

I play full confusion, sceptre/torch blind- and ive been switching it up between staff and sword/pistol as a second lately.

I run confusion in WvW, sPvP, and PvE, factuals, dungeons etc. A mesmer is never going to replace a warrior or guardian in, say, a dungeon for DPS, so if that’s what you want roll a warrior. As far as CD goes I find I not only bring great utility to any party, but I’m also amazing for averting deaths or even whole wipes (blinds, stuns, dazes). But back to the damage, sceptre plays slow compared to a sword burst of CD’s, but if you’re used to it, and know what you’re doing, it’s certainly not weak. My confusion stacking adds massive damage to any boss/elite mob fight. If you know what you’re doing (it’s all ive done since release), it’s nothing to shake a stick at. Recently I’ve also been experimenting with getting 3 iMage’s up and just letting them go to town. It takes a while to stack them due to the long CD but the confusion ticks go wild. It made me understand why the CD was what it was.

There’s plenty of cynical, small minded, bandwagon players about who can tell you CD sucks, burst sucks, developers and their diversity sucks, but from what I’ve seen, played, and experienced there’s far more out there than a lot of people can give credit for.

Ross Biddle.2367:

I play full confusion, sceptre/torch blind- and ive been switching it up between staff and sword/pistol as a second lately.

I run confusion in WvW, sPvP, and PvE, factuals, dungeons etc. A mesmer is never going to replace a warrior or guardian in, say, a dungeon for DPS, so if that’s what you want roll a warrior. As far as CD goes I find I not only bring great utility to any party, but I’m also amazing for averting deaths or even whole wipes (blinds, stuns, dazes). But back to the damage, sceptre plays slow compared to a sword burst of CD’s, but if you’re used to it, and know what you’re doing, it’s certainly not weak. My confusion stacking adds massive damage to any boss/elite mob fight. If you know what you’re doing (it’s all ive done since release), it’s nothing to shake a stick at. Recently I’ve also been experimenting with getting 3 iMage’s up and just letting them go to town. It takes a while to stack them due to the long CD but the confusion ticks go wild. It made me understand why the CD was what it was.

There’s plenty of cynical, small minded, bandwagon players about who can tell you CD sucks, burst sucks, developers and their diversity sucks, but from what I’ve seen, played, and experienced there’s far more out there than a lot of people can give credit for.

Great to hear! Which kind of a spec are you running?

I tried a few condition-focused builds and found them surprisingly strong but, damage-wise, still not up to the same level as a berserker build. The added utility, control, and support were great but not enough to sway my teammates that I was a good choice over a ‘traditional’ power/precision build.

I’d love to take a look at your build!

I love the condition builds xD

^me too. pvp is pure bliss with my mesmer (seperate build for pve/dungeons that i also enjoy in wvw.)

• weapons- staff(leeching)/scepter(corruption)+torch(energy)
• skills- mirror, feedback, arcane thievery, timewarp
• traits- 0/0/20 V, X/20 IV, VII/30 V, VIII, IX
• Armor-Runes of nightmare x 5 and .. rune with +25 vit..

the idea is pure evasion(atleast how i play it).. let the confusion take them.. it may be a slow kill on some people.. but you can evade forever..

cesmode.4257:

My point is, while you can quickly generate 3 clones, fire off some abilities and shatter, probably destroying one mob…WAY faster than you can with a condition build, in most other scenarios condition builds are just as viable. I really wonder why people hate on condition mesmers/staff mesmers. I simply love it. I largely feel unkillable, and the mobs die almost as quickly. True, one of the huge drawbacks is the vulnerability application. But like I said previously, use that to your advantage. Drop an iWarden in there with a chaos storm on top of him(and likely on the mobs DPSing them). That iWarden will stay alive for at least two rotations of his ability. The iWarden takes full advantage of the vulnerability applications your WoC applies.

Think positive my friends, condition mesmers are not as bad as you think.

I have to agree with you here… Soloing I run around as a shatter heavy burst type.. (Have no condition specific things at all except izerker) and I do pretty well for myself… but when it comes to groups and dungeons nothing screams I love you like a staff condition mesmer… Mainly because chaos storm helps your allies out ALOT… I almost never use it on the bosses I just use it on my team… its amazing… And also since all professions have a variety of conditions they can bring to the table your Iwarlocks do GREAT for DPS and or burst… Its awesome to watch an Iwarlock crit on a boss for 4k and then when your two other iwarlocks do the same… It is just AMAZING. Staff is by far an amazing group weapon… Not my preferred set up as I run GS and the Sword Pistol but staff most belongs with condition mesmers and we are amazing when we build for conditions.

I think we just have to accept the horrible fact we have serveral viable option to play The more we work together to develop new ones the more fun we have in the end.

/Osicat

cesmode.4257:

I guess you guys just dnt know how to play ot then. I kill things as fast as my condi thief, when he was specced for conditions.

Great idea…lets all have the same burst build and be uniform. Even if condi builds are behind burst, its not that far behind where you should never play it.

Care to share your build?

Hi there,

I have run a rampager shatter build with sword/focus + staff since the first week and I have always found it as strong as berserkers gear, if not more because it seems more versatile (you still do a lot of damage when you are doing “nothing”). And it works fine in both PvE and PvP. And for soloing at 80, its really good (the best proff ive tried for this).

In fact, without noing for sure, I also seem to do as much burst as a berserker gear mesmer.

My traits are 10/20/0/10/30.

The pure damage output from power and crit is still high, and then i get the burst from cry of frustration (always one tick of minimum 2200 depending on your gear) + confusion from other shatters and at least 10 stacks of bleed after only 3 seconds of fighting and consistent burning from autos from me and clones when i shift to staff.

And i really dont understand why people say that confusion is bad in PvE. I find it as good as in PvP. Remember the damage is MUCH higher in PvE and you always get at least 1 tick.

For some reason i never hear about people going rampager, but maybe its because on paper the damage numbers dont seem as big?

My judgment on this doesn’t come from doing the math, but simply from how encounters play out. I could be wrong of cause…

I don’t run conditions in PVE because I usually have a necro or ranger that bleeds better than I do and can spread it better (read, Epidemic). It’s not dependent on my clones staying alive. (Staff sucks balls to me as the time it takes for the staff projectile to travel and hit the boss, I could have already almost gotten 3 ticks off GS if I was max range. This is referring to the staff 1 skill only, not iWarlock. iWarlock is awesome.)

It’s kind of disappointing that our main “condition” confusion, can never be stacked to 25 reliably on our own unlike some of the other condition dmg classes (nec/ranger) (hell, I’ve never even seen above 15 being spread by myself) and that it’s so worthless in PVE.

This is my build, may not be the highest dmg output, but great survivability and nice support, with still a good dmg output.
Most times keeping 3 staff clones up though can do a nice spike confusion by using cry of confusion, swapping to scepter and do confusing images, and if you got a couple ppl with good prjectile finsiher drop a chaos storn, feed back or null field on the enemy right as you begin the shatter and you should get at least 10+ even without other ppls finsihers, with other ppl’s finsiher you mgiht even got to 14-15 or something stack of confusion. The offhand i usually run with focus but sometimes swap it out for other ones too (though always focus in wvw, but pve can sometimes get use of other offhands too)