Guild Wars 2

I have been using this since the latest update and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for improvement. I know power is Meta but I enjoy condi better even though it isn’t optimal. Thanks in advance for any help.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhMQNAr9ensICtfiNoBWoBEgilejyMAOtMq+UX1XF9GitZD-TxRBQBhU5XMVC2Q1fMkeBAcSAa2DAYf7PkZYAYIQAmZmZaEREhQALWDA-e

Firstly I would separate PvE from WvW. The two vary vastly in play style and objectives.

PvE, your build seems completely haphazard and all over the place. You seem to be trying to do a little bit of everything but end up not doing anything.

Your chrono line is set up for shattering but you don’t have Maim the Disillusioned, one of the main condi shatter traits.

You are using a focus without having it traited. This adds nothing (minus the projectile denial) to your build. I would suggest swapping to a pistol instead, and instead of chaos, run dueling. You can thus get the Sharper Images minor trait, letting your iDuelist stack on some bleeds. With chronophantasma you can let your iDuelists unload, shatter and let them unload again.

That build would be miserable in WvW and even worse in PvE.

For WvW, you have literally zero condition removal. 90% of roamers in WvW could walk up to you, sneeze, go afk for 10 seconds, and stomp you. You also have zero mobility, so if you tried to retaliate after said sneeze, they’d just leave and watch you struggle to keep up. You also have close to zero active condition application. Offhand focus and shield have nothing, and mainhand scepter has a weak auto, a block, and a good skill that isn’t nearly enough to do anything on its own. Your utilities are also weird, randomly taking well of calamity for no apparent reason.

In order to make this even remotely functional in WvW you need mobility, condition removal, and active pressure. You need to take torment on shatter in illusions. You need blink. Lastly, you need condition removal either from traiting inspiration, taking some in your utilities, or both.

In PvE you’re even worse off if anything. You have no way to apply any relevant conditions in PvE (non-torment/confusion), so you’ll take ages just to kill any random singular piece of trash. While you’re actually fairly tanky, you’ll probably end up dying a lot in HoT maps due to your utter inability to actually kill anything. A lot of HoT mobs apply conditions too, so you’d just keel over and die when facing any of those.

In order to make this even remotely functional in PvE you need…actually no. You just need to scrap whatever concept led you here and start over. Start with the concept that you need to kill things in PvE. Consider that the best way to do that is with bleeding/burning/poison, and make your build focus on those appropriately.

I have no clue about WvW but for PvE, there are currently 2 Condi Mesmer builds viable for raid content. Condi Chrono is my favourite for open world though, since Chaos won’t contribute much in solos.

Crit Build

Duration Build

They are approximately equal to each other, however there are some essential differences:

• The Crit Build deals more power damage than the Duration Build und thus gets more dps from Glyph of Empowerment, but kills condition weak enemies slightly slower.
• The Crit Build deals more damage via your phantasms while the Duration Build deals more damage by the Mesmer himself.

Condi Mesmer is the highest dps profession for Matthias, a strong green field runner at Vale Guardian and an okish ranged dps for Sabetha. Everywhere else in raids I wouldn’t recommend it to be used. So it’s rather a niche build.

Greez!

Xyonon.3987:

Condi Mesmer is the highest dps profession for Matthias, a strong green field runner at Vale Guardian and an okish ranged dps for Sabetha. Everywhere else in raids I wouldn’t recommend it to be used. So it’s rather a niche build.

---

Greez!

But…but… no one will take you in as such. “They” only want buff bots or tank. Currently working on levelling Mesmer to try out as support now that 2 seem to be the flavour. But Condi? Do tell!!

I think since qT added the condi Mes to the list of “viable options”, it’s not too hard to bring it to pugs.

Yesterday I helped out a friend who was on holydays and had nothing done this week. At Matthias we had 2 Chronos and 2 condi Mes.

In our guild we now completly got rid of Necros (pre patch only used at Matthias) since their damage is nothing special anymore and condi cleanse was never really their strength to begin with (90% of the ppl don’t know what plague signet does u.u). So instead of the Necros we just use condi Mes instead, 2-3.

Xyonon.3987:

I think since qT added the condi Mes to the list of “viable options”, it’s not too hard to bring it to pugs.

Yesterday I helped out a friend who was on holydays and had nothing done this week. At Matthias we had 2 Chronos and 2 condi Mes.

In our guild we now completly got rid of Necros (pre patch only used at Matthias) since their damage is nothing special anymore and condi cleanse was never really their strength to begin with (90% of the ppl don’t know what plague signet does u.u). So instead of the Necros we just use condi Mes instead, 2-3.

In my experience, 1 necro at Matthias usually results in a dead necro when they pull 30 stacks of poison from everyone…

Xyonon.3987:

I think since qT added the condi Mes to the list of “viable options”, it’s not too hard to bring it to pugs.

Yesterday I helped out a friend who was on holydays and had nothing done this week. At Matthias we had 2 Chronos and 2 condi Mes.

In our guild we now completly got rid of Necros (pre patch only used at Matthias) since their damage is nothing special anymore and condi cleanse was never really their strength to begin with (90% of the ppl don’t know what plague signet does u.u). So instead of the Necros we just use condi Mes instead, 2-3.

OK! that’s good to hear as I am really getting tired of having a class that no one wants..i.e. Engi, so with the changes I thought I would give Mesmer a go again and this gives me hope. Something to get good at while I wait for Engi to see some love again. Ya know, instead of ANET its the GW2 community ( you meta folks) that could help everyone. If they just listed a class as being viable then folks would be keen to give us a go!
But I digress….that Engi woes, not Mesmer. Thanks for that info and I will go check out qTs site for the build! Cheers.

Fay.2357:

Xyonon.3987:

-snip-

In my experience, 1 necro at Matthias usually results in a dead necro when they pull 30 stacks of poison from everyone…

Haha, yea – but if a solo Necro pre-patch was playing without Death Magic, that sorta was his own fault.

The thing is, the Plague Signet pulls 3 unique conditions every 3s from one lousy person. That’s not nearly enough to help everyone anymore. Combined with the now so low dps of the Necro, you better just take something else, like Condi Mes, now.

For condi cleanse we use one iDisenchanter for the whole team now. Chrono take that one, since Mes wants 3 iDuellists and can use Feedback now that SoI got nerfed into the ground. Anyway – iDisenchanter is really amazing when it comes to attack frequency, holy!

Joxer.6024:

Xyonon.3987:

-snip-

OK! that’s good to hear as I am really getting tired of having a class that no one wants..i.e. Engi, so with the changes I thought I would give Mesmer a go again and this gives me hope. Something to get good at while I wait for Engi to see some love again. Ya know, instead of ANET its the GW2 community ( you meta folks) that could help everyone. If they just listed a class as being viable then folks would be keen to give us a go!
But I digress….that Engi woes, not Mesmer. Thanks for that info and I will go check out qTs site for the build! Cheers.

Talking about raids, Engi has never seen better times.

Perma Alacrity helped him to become king of small hitbox dps as condi and even power rose to almost Thief levels. If there are adds, power is even equal to a thief, just with better utililty and cc.

Thing is – I wouldn’t trust most pug Engis myself either. But if you have a raid team, there is no fight where Engi is just bad – except for maybe Sloth, where you simply are inferior to an Ele in nearly every way. But everywhere else you can be of great value. You just need both – a condi and a power setup.

Richard Marcinko.5132:

I have been using this since the latest update and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for improvement. I know power is Meta but I enjoy condi better even though it isn’t optimal. Thanks in advance for any help.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhMQNAr9ensICtfiNoBWoBEgilejyMAOtMq+UX1XF9GitZD-TxRBQBhU5XMVC2Q1fMkeBAcSAa2DAYf7PkZYAYIQAmZmZaEREhQALWDA-e

Hey Mister Marcinco, glad to see you have managed to get away from your hectic book writing, to get online and play some GW2, great endorsement, how’s things with Seal Team 6? Good job on Osama.

I play a ton of WvW. One thing I learned long ago, you will NEVER run into a fair fight. Wont happen. Either your gonna get Ganked, or you will Gank others with another toon or two.

To survive in WvW, you need to give your self a out. Thats why I run a Condition PU mesmer. I get in trouble, I stealth out, and get out of dodge.

I use torch for the condition removal, and stealth, I also run staff so I can keep my distance for the hard hitters, and while in stealth, if I need more, I pop mass invisibility and or Blink to keep from getting Ganked.

Mostly, unless I get steam rolled, I can pretty much get out myself out of a Jam when needed.

tym.3791:

I play a ton of WvW. One thing I learned long ago, you will NEVER run into a fair fight. Wont happen. Either your gonna get Ganked, or you will Gank others with another toon or two.

To survive in WvW, you need to give your self a out. Thats why I run a Condition PU mesmer. I get in trouble, I stealth out, and get out of dodge.

I use torch for the condition removal, and stealth, I also run staff so I can keep my distance for the hard hitters, and while in stealth, if I need more, I pop mass invisibility and or Blink to keep from getting Ganked.

Mostly, unless I get steam rolled, I can pretty much get out myself out of a Jam when needed.

This is such a toxic mentality.

“I better run kitten build in case I run into someone else running kitten build”

All it does is vastly increase the amount of cancer builds out there, and its also based on false assumptions. There are several mesmer roaming videos on here and the WvW subforums of GS power shatter chronos winning 1v3s because they are just better than other players. You don’t need to play kitten build to win fights in WvW, you just need to be good at your class

OriOri.8724:

tym.3791:

I play a ton of WvW. One thing I learned long ago, you will NEVER run into a fair fight. Wont happen. Either your gonna get Ganked, or you will Gank others with another toon or two.

To survive in WvW, you need to give your self a out. Thats why I run a Condition PU mesmer. I get in trouble, I stealth out, and get out of dodge.

I use torch for the condition removal, and stealth, I also run staff so I can keep my distance for the hard hitters, and while in stealth, if I need more, I pop mass invisibility and or Blink to keep from getting Ganked.

Mostly, unless I get steam rolled, I can pretty much get out myself out of a Jam when needed.

This is such a toxic mentality.

“I better run kitten build in case I run into someone else running kitten build”

All it does is vastly increase the amount of cancer builds out there, and its also based on false assumptions. There are several mesmer roaming videos on here and the WvW subforums of GS power shatter chronos winning 1v3s because they are just better than other players. You don’t need to play kitten build to win fights in WvW, you just need to be good at your class

No, that guy is basically right. You’re just experiencing a wicked case of sampling bias.

Yeah, there’s lots of videos of people demolishing enemies in a 1v3…but this is primarily possible because the 3 are garbage players. What you don’t see are the 20 times between the fancy highlight reel spots where they encountered a roaming group that weren’t idiots, because nobody wants to watch some poor Mesmer get pounded into the ground by multiple people. You’ve been deluded by these montages into thinking that every encounter is potentially winnable by the plucky shatter Mesmer with a good heart and fast reactions.

Ever wonder why you never see these same 1v3 montages in PvP? It’s because they don’t happen. In WvW, there’s situations where you can encounter people that are drastically weaker than normal. You’ve got uplevels, you’ve got noobs that just wandered in for a look-see, and you’ve got people running group builds that either got picked from a tail or are separated for some reason. Any of these situations will produce a drastic power imbalance that you can use to create the lovely 1v3 montages…but that doesn’t make those a realistic display of WvW roaming.

Here’s the way WvW roaming actually works: most roaming groups are out there to kill you. You’ll see a lot of duo thieves coordinating burst. If you’re not able to absorb some heavy damage then disengage and reset, you’ll die. You’ll see a lot of trios or 4 man groups. If you’re not able to control the pacing of the fight through mobility, cc, and stealth, you’ll get run down and killed. You’ll see a lot of heavy condie roamers, ghost thieves, condie Druids, even condie revs from time to time. If you don’t have heavy sustain and condition removal, you’ll get absolutely melted.

Ultimately, Condie PU is one viable way to deal with this. You can also go for a non-PU build with shield (which I prefer) if you’re worried about stealth denial from reveal.

Alternatively, you can run glass burst Mesmer and sort through hours of eating dirt to find those 3 sweet 1v3s where you stomp a couple uplevels.

OriOri.8724:

This is such a toxic mentality.

“I better run kitten build in case I run into someone else running kitten build”

All it does is vastly increase the amount of cancer builds out there

And this, in turn, is such a toxic mentality.

Waa waa, your build is totally cheese / toxic / cancer / whatever-is-the-kitten-word-of-this-generation.

No true scotsman would use such a build! Duh!

(edit)
Because really, there is no “cheese”. It might be exploiting, in which case it requires GM action. Otherwise ,it’s a designed and implemented piece of game logic, and not using it in a situation where it would provide an advantage for your given context would be, sorry, kitten stupid.

So if the person you quoted wants to avoid getting ganked, and can do so most effectively with a stealth build, then… what? You want them to let people gank them more often or what? Why not just do something about the main problem, as in, use a build which is difficult to gank?

It’s like not using a DPS build as a DPSer in a raid because “Man that’s such kitten build, is like everyone has it!”. Ever hear that from raid leaders? Complaining about those cancer DPS-only builds on their Eles?

F*** I hate the term “cancer”…

The dire condi chrono build when played by a competent player is indeed kittenous build, and the game would not be worse off if it was nerfed. Its almost unkillable when played by a competent player, while at the same time it provides constant and heavy pressure of the two most dangerous condis in a PvP environment, while also allowing for heavy condi bursts fairly often, while it also have the ability to disengage almost at will if the fight is going poorly for it. There is absolutely no downside to playing it, none, and yet it is also one of the more dangerous builds in WvW roaming. I don’t know how you consider that ok, that we have a build with no downsides to it, absolutely amazing sustain, and also has the highest access to confusion/torment while still being able to disengage if they screw up and can’t win. No downsides, all of the upsides. How can you defend that as being balanced? And how can you encourage people to run builds like that?

@Fay I didn’t mean to imply that you would win a majority, or even a lot, of matchups if you were playing power shatter. I was trying to show him that you don’t have to play kittenous build to be able to win fights. I’m well aware that if you run a build like that you will lose most of the fights you come across in WvW.

OriOri.8724:

@Fay I didn’t mean to imply that you would win a majority, or even a lot, of matchups if you were playing power shatter. I was trying to show him that you don’t have to play kittenous build to be able to win fights. I’m well aware that if you run a build like that you will lose most of the fights you come across in WvW.

Seems to me like you’re trying to pull some revisionist history here. Let’s assume that you’re telling the truth and you actually were aware of the reality before I explained. Now your original post reads more like this:

You don’t need to play kitten builds to win fights in WvW. Granted, you’ll still lose almost all the time and will have a miserable experience, but I’m just saying it’s possible to win fights on a burst build.

Well golly gee what a ringing endorsement of power builds. “Maybe you won’t lose 100% of the time.” Fun fun fun right? Yeah, I don’t believe you for an instant. Nobody gives “advice” like that.

OriOri.8724:

The dire condi chrono build when played by a competent player is indeed kittenous build, and the game would not be worse off if it was nerfed. Its almost unkillable when played by a competent player, while at the same time it provides constant and heavy pressure of the two most dangerous condis in a PvP environment, while also allowing for heavy condi bursts fairly often, while it also have the ability to disengage almost at will if the fight is going poorly for it. There is absolutely no downside to playing it, none, and yet it is also one of the more dangerous builds in WvW roaming. I don’t know how you consider that ok, that we have a build with no downsides to it, absolutely amazing sustain, and also has the highest access to confusion/torment while still being able to disengage if they screw up and can’t win. No downsides, all of the upsides. How can you defend that as being balanced? And how can you encourage people to run builds like that?

Well, let’s see. First of all, the build has extremely poor access to boon strip. Anything with decent access to resistance is more or less a hardcounter, so that’s mallyx revs and resistance warriors.

Additionally, the build has some substantial weaknesses depending on how you’ve traited. All it takes is just a quick look at the traits and a good player can easily see counters.

If you go chaos/insp/Ill, you don’t have chrono. This means you’ll be hilariously slow and the hardcounter is anyone that decides to walk away from you.

If you go chaos/ill/chrono, you have awful condition removal and will be hammered by other condie builds.

If you go insp/ill/chrono, you’ll have poor access to stealth and no access to stability, so heavy cc is a good choice for combat, and you’ll be steamrolled by competent roaming parties.

So yeah, contrary to your paragraph of hyperbole, the build actually has substantial weaknesses, obvious counters, and most definitely doesn’t have the list of capabilities that you attributed to it. Perhaps you’re confusing it with the mythical 30/30/30/30/30/30 build that has boonstrip, cc, clone on dodge, PU, shatter cleansing, MtD, and chrono all in one build?

In regards to the cheese builds argument/discussion above it’s a matter of “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”. I mean every game has their cheese builds, but they all have a brightly painted red target marked Achilles’s heel (and explained by Fay above as well). So, yeah getting ganked/sniped happens a lot for whatever reason: noob not knowing what to do, awesome player knowing his stuff, element of surprise, terrain advantage, hardcountering, etc. If you die to a gank the first time around? Time to tip the hat and say “Jolly good show there, mate”. If you get ganked by the same guy….using the same tactic….and you’re reacting the same way? Well, that’s on you. Either you’re not familiar with the build to know how to avoid being ganked, or you’re being stubborn and not acknowledging that the player may actually be better skilled or have a build that’s just naturally better than you. E.G. Condi mesmer against Mallyx Rev where the mesmer brought no boon strip.

Ultimately, the important note here is that every player needs to be familiar with pro and cons of each build. More importantly for competitive players to know builds of classes they are good against (for easy kills) as well as builds they are bad against (to know to play it safe or disengage).

OriOri.8724:

The dire condi chrono build when played by a competent player is indeed kittenous build, and the game would not be worse off if it was nerfed. Its almost unkillable when played by a competent player, while at the same time it provides constant and heavy pressure of the two most dangerous condis in a PvP environment, while also allowing for heavy condi bursts fairly often, while it also have the ability to disengage almost at will if the fight is going poorly for it. There is absolutely no downside to playing it, none, and yet it is also one of the more dangerous builds in WvW roaming.

I never said I consider it “ok”, I just dislike the terms people used to describe it.

So far you have told me that the build is:

• Overpowered.
• Extremely effective.

In other words, people ought to run it in the context where it makes sense, yes? Because not doing so is willingly jeopardizing victory chance.

I find it fascinating that “the strongest” build is called everything from cheese on the tame end to cancer+ on the more gross one, but in PvE for example using “the raid build” is commonly accepted as the way to go. What’s the difference, why not use the best tools available to you?

Does the spec need a nerf? Maybe, but we players can’t really do that ourselves, that’s upon the devs to fix.

Other than that, a player would be stupid not to use the spec in a situation where it could give an advantage. So actually, maybe the best term to describe this spec would be “effective”? :P

I myself cant stand not having travelers on. With out it, and your running solo, feels like your running in glue. I forgot to mention, I am right now in T1, and Have been in T2, If you have no choice but to run solo to the tag, I just don’t see any other viable builds besides my PU Condition Mesmer.

Cause in T1 and T2 like others said, there are small havoc groups running around ganking toons trying to get to the tag, or back in the fight. What is really fun, and I just pulled this last night, got someone to chase me, they chased me to long, and I ran them right to the tag, needless to say, they got stomped.

Some may call it a “cheese build” or whatever, but in the end, I am having fun with it, I survive just fine, and have fought to a draw many a time. I just found my build works best for me, and my play style.

Now I am NOT blasting the chrono build, I have faced a few “chrono” builds, and Even ran across a duo of them a few times, was not impressed at all, now they could be new, or just trying a new build, or they could even be lagging, but the few times I have faced them, I have had no problems with them. The two on one I was able to fight to a draw, but again, could be countless reasons that happens. Until I personally run across a chrono build that not only impresses me, but can stomp my build, then its something I may consider, until then, let the cheese flow, and the kitten begin, cause I may not kill you, but again, you wont kill me either.

Since I spend almost all my GW2 time solo roaming in WvW, I’ll share a couple thoughts.

As mentioned by some people, wvw is very different depending on your tier. Being on NSP, I’ve gotten the chance to see a bunch of different levels in the last few weeks. When you get up higher in tiers, it’s very rare to see solo roamers. So if you’re roaming solo in a world where everyone else is in a group, you need a build that’s going to work for you or basically you’re going to have no fun at all.

No doubt a dire (or trailblazers) condi mesmer is very strong 1v1. If I do find someone running by themselves, I often ignore them unless they engage me or don’t stomp them once they are down. And, I almost never run from a 1 v 2 fight (even though I’m gonna lose that fight more than half the time). So I find my own ways to make it more “fair” because it’s more fun to me that way.

I will always die to a group of 3 to 5 who are focusing me and pouring on the cc. I always run with phantasmal disenchanter because there’s no way I can beat the resistance-heavy builds without it. So there are tradeoffs in a build like this.

But I always find it interesting when people choose to message that this is a “cancer” build. If you see a solo mesmer in your north camp, what build were you expecting?