Guild Wars 2

Every time I play as a condition Mesmer it feels like a struggle to stay viable because of the things listed below.

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.

TL;DR ???
Shatter burst should not be the only build option.

Ummm wut? Bouncing attacks with Staff = 2x conditions applied per 1 attack, each staff clone applies conditions, chaos storm applies aoe conditions, chaos armor applies aoe conditions, field combos with light and staff(2) give you retaliation, traits give illusions retaliation, traits cause clones to apply aoe conditions when killed/replaced, traits give illusions fury/bleed on crits, shatters trait cause confusion with all shatters, traits to turn glamour skills into blinds and blinds into confusion, sigil weapon swap aoe conditions, rune aoe conditions, arcane thievery, and quite a few others I’ve not bothered to go over.

Loving my condition Mesmer… I think you iz crazy!

sinican.9250:

Ummm wut? Bouncing attacks with Staff = 2x conditions applied per 1 attack, each staff clone applies conditions, chaos storm applies aoe conditions, chaos armor applies aoe conditions, field combos with light and staff(2) give you retaliation, traits give illusions retaliation, traits cause clones to apply aoe conditions when killed/replaced, traits give illusions fury/bleed on crits, shatters trait cause confusion with all shatters, traits to turn glamour skills into blinds and blinds into confusion, sigil weapon swap aoe conditions, rune aoe conditions, arcane thievery, and quite a few others I’ve not bothered to go over.

Loving my condition Mesmer… I think you iz crazy!

The bounce trait is bugged since the only illusion its working for are trident clones and retaliation scales with power.

As for the staffs aoe conditions it takes a full set of illusions and more time to do a portion of what other classes can do some examples would be trap rangers, staff elementalist, grenade engineers, staff/well necromancers and death blossom/short bow thieves. Those listed classes can apply aoe conditions far more reliably with less trait investment than a mesmer could ever match.

Also chaos armor and chaos storm cant be considered offensive since chaos armor only has a one in 3 chance of applying confusion on hit and the only damaging condition from chaos storm is a two second poison that might not proc.

Confusion from shatters and glamour skills is not as viable as you make it sound. In pvp confusion cant be considered a main source of damage since its so easily avoided and the traits to apply confusion with glamour’s only give one stack. Glamour skills are more for their utility than offense applications not to mention their long cool down as well.

This post was about the poor condition options that come with the mesmer class not the sigils and runes that can be used by other classes in addition to their skills.

I’m with Hiki on this. Applying conditions, relying on conditions in any sort of way on a mesmer is a sure fire way to get disappointed. Let’s not forget one GIGANTIC problem with being a Mesmer condition applier.

If your clone/phantasmal dies, which applied a bleeding/burning/confusion condition through it’s own attacks or via Sharper Images. It no longer does any damage. Thus an enemy in PvP can completely nullify your damage by just killing your illusions, and in PvE during boss fights, it’ll indirectly stop them by sneezing on them. (AoE)

If you don’t believe me. Test it yourself, Go to Heart of the Mists, Trait for Sharper Images, Summon Duelest against a target, let it build up it’s bleeds, then distortion to immediately get rid of it. Watch the bleed stacks do absolutely nothing, yet still waste potential bleed stacks.

I find that my viability doesn’t come from conditions themselves, but from the utility I get by forgoing traditional damage.

Chaos armor, while not great for applying conditions, also buffs yourself with life-saving boons. Chaos storm does the same, but is gtaoe, and also can daze and confuse foes. My staff bounce attack gives melee allies (or ranged, if your target is near you) damage enhancing boons. And finally, I can use my skills to nearly always stop people from running away from me. Sword #3, Temportal Curtain, Sig of Domination, Blink, Chaos Storm’s cripple/chill… and then MI/Decoy for invisible stomps while my teammates deal actual damage.

I run tons of CC that make the difference between getting kills and letting the enemy slip away. My damage output is pretty poor, but I almost never die and I have a say in whether my teammates live or get their deserved kills. When I run with friends or guildies, they are always happy to have me run with them. That’s viable in my book.

While it is true that Mesmer condition builds are sub-par offensively to most other professions, I think we need to consider the defensive aspect as well. Mesmer condition builds are tough, and because of Clones you continue to inflict a significant portion of your DPS even when you are playing defensively (e.g. stealth). While I can’t kill anyone particularly fast as a condition Mesmer (Confusion vs Thieves being a notable exception), it is almost always possible to outlast them even in 2 vs 1 situations.

Unfortunately it seems like tPvP is all about either burst or tank: you kill quickly so you can take the point before more enemies show up, or you hold the point until allies show up. Builds like condition Mesmers, which despite having survivability cannot hold points due to their defense being based on evasion instead of tanking, don’t do well.

Personally I’m hoping for a move away from Conquest so we can see something different from the burst vs tank meta we have now.

You can’t really compared mesmer condition to say…. necro condition or something, where their primary build is condition build.

Necro could just as easily complain how they have no good power build compared to a mesmer.

There will always be one build that is at least slightly stronger than the rest. The problem is there is alot less versatility in builds compared to other games because there’s a much smaller pool of skills you can put on your skill bar, so it feels less diverse.

Mesmer condition build isn’t the best, but it isn’t horrible; at least it can apply a variety if different condition types which is better than some classes than can only apply say…. bleed + 1 cover condition.

Honestly, I recently went from a high Dueling shatter/confusion build, to a Chaos-heavy condition setup, and I don’t feel left out. Sure, the shatter bit had more direct damage, but there are some hellishly fun applications of 0/0/30/10/30 spread, with staff + sword/torch.

The part where it is more troublesome – I admit – is getting used to not packing Deceptive Evasion. Past that, it is very arguable that some of our less-used weaponry
(scepter/torch, mainly) does need a bit more parity. As is, it works … but it’s the road less travelled.

Trade vaulnerbility for poison on winds of chaos! Condi mes /gg

I’m playing a particular condition mesmer right now in WvW and i have to say i like it…. now… that i could find some more use to it, but actually if i had to stick with just conditions i have to agree that there isnt a consisten way for a mesmer to apply conditions.
With “consistent” i mean the possibility to stack up a given condition on a target so to produce a dps with it.
If we look at any weapons in mesmers arsenal there isnt any weapon that can provide a skill to consistently apply a DoT. (ye mesmer got confusion which is cool but it isnt a DoT as if the target dont attack it wont suffer confusion damage).

As said before Staff is the only condition oriented weapon, but it doesnt have consistent conditions as all are applied randomly.
So i see 2 possible solutions:
1) reduce scepter direct damage and let skill 1 stack confusion
2) reduce randomnes on staff skill 1, swapping vulnerability for poison or just removing the vulnerability.

Make Vulnerability increase condition damage too. It will still be a sub-par condition for WoC to inflict but at least it won’t be completely useless, and besides if Might was changed to affect both direct and condition damage why shouldn’t Vulnerability.

Recently.1043:

You can’t really compared mesmer condition to say…. necro condition or something, where their *primary build is condition build.

Necro could just as easily complain how they have no good power build compared to a mesmer.

There will always be one build that is at least slightly stronger than the rest. The problem is there is alot less versatility in builds compared to other games because there’s a much smaller pool of skills you can put on your skill bar, so it feels less diverse.

Mesmer condition build isn’t the best, but it isn’t horrible; at least it can apply a variety if different condition types which is better than some classes than can only apply say…. bleed + 1 cover condition.

When I made comparisons to other classes it was to show how there are guaranteed effects from their weapon skills in condition builds while the mesmer has unreliable to nonexistent condition application on their skill usage.

As to conditions being the primary build for necromancers that’s just one of the core build options that should be viable for all classes. Any class should be able to spec into dps, conditions or support without facing frustrating build issues.

This might be just my opinion, but I would disagree with removing vulnerability and adding poison to the staff attack.

Vulnerability makes my target take more damage… from all sources (and by sources, I mean people beating on your target). This means everyone in my party is essentially dealing more damage. This is a bad thing…. how, exactly? The four other people in your party are probably doing considerably more DPS than a stack of poison would, yeah?

I think there needs to be some understanding, here: Mesmers are not Warriors. This is not a powerhouse DPS class. I loved my Mesmer in GW1, and I’m having a blast with one in GW2. It’s hilarious watching heavy armor classes around me in events get ROFLStomp’d, as I teleport and dodge and stealth and drop a bajillion clones… essentially, I have a crazy amount of survivability that other classes lack.

I think Mesmers might be lacking in damage, but they make up for it with a host of other abilities.

Again, just my two coppers worth.

what’s TC is saying is so true and i’m surprised so many don’t care/say its false… probably because most of those people spam copy/pasted power builds with sword/pistol…. Not only what TC’s said is true but also, clones spamming winds of chaos apply bleeding for 5 sec instead of 7. But not point of even talking about this hoping anet gives us a boost cuz all you’ll receive is a nerf after nerf and nerf some more.

thetarot.8246:

I’m with Hiki on this. Applying conditions, relying on conditions in any sort of way on a mesmer is a sure fire way to get disappointed. Let’s not forget one GIGANTIC problem with being a Mesmer condition applier.

If your clone/phantasmal dies, which applied a bleeding/burning/confusion condition through it’s own attacks or via Sharper Images. It no longer does any damage. Thus an enemy in PvP can completely nullify your damage by just killing your illusions, and in PvE during boss fights, it’ll indirectly stop them by sneezing on them. (AoE)

If you don’t believe me. Test it yourself, Go to Heart of the Mists, Trait for Sharper Images, Summon Duelest against a target, let it build up it’s bleeds, then distortion to immediately get rid of it. Watch the bleed stacks do absolutely nothing, yet still waste potential bleed stacks.

Condition from illusions still deal damage after their death but you don’t see the numbers which sucks and shouldn’t take 4+ months to be fixed. Sup anet? its a know issue since first week the game came out and still not fixed, gg.

Cond. mesmers good for PvP and 1 on 1 but it lacks aoe power.

Sure there’s +bounce trait, but it only affects your staff. Not your clones however.

Compared with my Necro that can quickly stack 20+ stacks of bleed and use epidemic to spread it in a large radius, mesmer condition damagers are lacking.

And compared to my crit. mesmer, I can do 10k+ aoe damage in less than 3 seconds which I am currently using.

Currently, I’m In fotm level 37 and condition mesmer is extremely weak in being helpful to a dungeon group. I guess it could work if you are super tanky and just use condition because there’s nothing else to do.

Regardless of how pretty and stylish condition build may seem, not only specific to mesmer, if you want an effective build, go for direct DPS. Because, obviously, hitting one key and bam! 10k is more effective than trying to waste 5 seconds stacking condition and wait for the number to tick.

DavyMcB.1603:

Regardless of how pretty and stylish condition build may seem, not only specific to mesmer, if you want an effective build, go for direct DPS. Because, obviously, hitting one key and bam! 10k is more effective than trying to waste 5 seconds stacking condition and wait for the number to tick.

Only works on glassy builds… any decent player and anyone with decent effective health/ defense will withstand or bust your burst, then what…

Conditions ignore armor/toughness leaving only large health pools the only remaining viable defense against condition builds… Let people kill themselves with my illusions/conditions while I play stay away from the dude with the big stick in his hands.

Ultimately, I feel like Mesmer suffers from identity crisis, and this is just a result of that. The conditions we can stack are good, although vulnerability really has more of a grouping application, but we buff with the same skill. The great thing about mesmers is they add a little “something extra” when they join a fight, in addition to their primary build’s function. The BAD thing about mesmers is… well, see above.
In the end, we can’t be good at both with the same skill. If we were able to auto-attack and be both great boon-ers and condition-ers with the same auto-attack that’d be a little overpowered. Unfortunately, it now kinda feels like we do neither very well, even when speced for it.
I almost wish they would add a weapon to Mesmer, maybe rifle, that ONLY did conditions, and then had staff prefer player targets and let that be our boon spreader.

Ramiah.5648:

I almost wish they would add a weapon to Mesmer, maybe rifle, that ONLY did conditions, and then had staff prefer player targets and let that be our boon spreader.

Join the club… most of us would like to see dual pistols… we already have pistol as a off hand option, really weird we can’t use it as a main hand weapon as well.

Still, I chose Mesmer because they are not a single condition dependent build/class. I like the fact that we don’t specialize in one con or one boon. Having more sources of damage on the target and multiple boons is really what stomps them, not high stacks of a single condition that can be easily stripped. Confusion also happens to be one the most powerful conditions in the game.

Context: PVE.

Condition damage is just bad compared to power/prec/crit. Don’t try it, it is a dead end at the moment. If you want to be useful go berserk and use your utility-slots ( feedback, nullfield, portal, veil, thiefery ).

sinican.9250:

DavyMcB.1603:

Regardless of how pretty and stylish condition build may seem, not only specific to mesmer, if you want an effective build, go for direct DPS. Because, obviously, hitting one key and bam! 10k is more effective than trying to waste 5 seconds stacking condition and wait for the number to tick.

Only works on glassy builds… any decent player and anyone with decent effective health/ defense will withstand or bust your burst, then what…

Conditions ignore armor/toughness leaving only large health pools the only remaining viable defense against condition builds… Let people kill themselves with my illusions/conditions while I play stay away from the dude with the big stick in his hands.

Large health pools are not the main counter to condition builds, the amount of condition cleanses is this game that work for single players and groups is immense. A single torch guardian or phantasmal disenchanter can nullify most of the condition application in the game.

Also when you say people are dying to your illusions while you play keep away the image of a condition mesmer running in circles as he tries to match his opponents damage output by praying for random crits and lucky dices rolls with the staffs auto attack comes to mind.

However, even if the viability of the staffs auto attack is debatable what is certain is that our scepter still needs to be given a damaging condition on its auto attack to bring it up t par with our other weapon options.

Hawkmoon.5849:

This might be just my opinion, but I would disagree with removing vulnerability and adding poison to the staff attack.

Vulnerability makes my target take more damage… from all sources (and by sources, I mean people beating on your target). This means everyone in my party is essentially dealing more damage. This is a bad thing…. how, exactly? The four other people in your party are probably doing considerably more DPS than a stack of poison would, yeah?

I think there needs to be some understanding, here: Mesmers are not Warriors. This is not a powerhouse DPS class. I loved my Mesmer in GW1, and I’m having a blast with one in GW2. It’s hilarious watching heavy armor classes around me in events get ROFLStomp’d, as I teleport and dodge and stealth and drop a bajillion clones… essentially, I have a crazy amount of survivability that other classes lack.

I think Mesmers might be lacking in damage, but they make up for it with a host of other abilities.

Again, just my two coppers worth.

I agree with this. I feel as though the system that governs Honor Badge drops might need to take more of this into account though, because I’ve had evenings on WvW where I’ve known my Mesmer conditions have done a lot for our group, but my friends end up with loads and I end up with hardly any.

Maybe the extra damage my allies cause by vulnerability should instead be regarded as my damage? And so on with other conditions.

Hiki.9310:

Recently.1043:

You can’t really compared mesmer condition to say…. necro condition or something, where their *primary build is condition build.

Necro could just as easily complain how they have no good power build compared to a mesmer.

There will always be one build that is at least slightly stronger than the rest. The problem is there is alot less versatility in builds compared to other games because there’s a much smaller pool of skills you can put on your skill bar, so it feels less diverse.

Mesmer condition build isn’t the best, but it isn’t horrible; at least it can apply a variety if different condition types which is better than some classes than can only apply say…. bleed + 1 cover condition.

When I made comparisons to other classes it was to show how there are guaranteed effects from their weapon skills in condition builds while the mesmer has unreliable to nonexistent condition application on their skill usage.

As to conditions being the primary build for necromancers that’s just one of the core build options that should be viable for all classes. Any class should be able to spec into dps, conditions or support without facing frustrating build issues.

Yea i get that mesmer condition application is random but thats just an aspect of the class; its a unique mechanic. Every class is gonna have a optimal build that puts them into one of the 3 main roles (power dps, condition dps, bunker), and the other builds aside from the optimal one will seem worse (obviously).

As i said before, when it comes to condition builds, mesmer isn’t that bad; other classes have it much worse when it comes to condition builds (like warrior and guardian for example), whereas other classes don’t even have optimal power builds.

Yes they could buff mesmer condition builds. But you can say the same thing for every other non-optimal build for every class. It will be a long, long time before every class can spec all 3 roles with equal efficiency and probably never be equal for condition builds as long as certain classes are restricted to 1 or 2 condition damage types.

Sorry, I don’t consider any of my conditions from the staff any more important than the others, sure burn does the most damage/sec, poison next, and then bleeds, invulnerable increases all damage against the foe. As a condition spec I want ALL the conditions on my target not just one or 2 stacked really high so they can be stripped easily. My damage comes from 5 sources other than direct damage, those sources cannot be mitigated by anything other than high health pools. Having more than 1 stack of burning and poison doesn’t increase damage, only duration, who needs poison to last a minute and burning to last 10 seconds when your target will be dead in 2-3. With 1 tic of poison/burning/bleeding I am pumping off upwards of 1800 damage a second from conditions, then on top of that I have confusion, retaliation, illusions, direct damage, etc.

First thing to recognize is staff. It is not a “condition” weapon, it is a “group condition” weapon. This weapon is optimized for group encounter situations. that is why you apply vulnerability. that is why you produce a field. It is why your warlocks damage is optimized in a group setting (i.e. more conditions on a target).

Condition application – The class is reliant on clone crits for bleed stacks. No you will not apply the same amount of bleeds as some other classes but you will shatter your clones to produce confusion and swiftly replace them. You class mechanic replaces ‘OMG condition damage’ with versatiliy.

Confusion is what drives a mesmer’s condition damage and it function either as steady damage that additional to your bleeds + retaliation, or it funtions as ‘condition-burst’ where you stack large amounts of confusion to do large amounts of damage “now”.

Phantoms – The condition phantasms are the mage and the duelist (to a smaller extent the warden). Phantasms do not exist in a vacuum and therefore must be created with duelings 15 train in mind.

I do not agree with the phantasmal mage’s implementation however. the duration should be longer (at the least as long as the recharge timer on the phantasm’s attack). I also question whether it should be single target as the prestige is an aoe.

Build diversity – this presumption is only correct when your goal is simply ‘max number of damaging conditions’. Yes rabid is the only way to achieve the max. Other viable ‘condition’ specs exist within the other amulets but they sacrifice max condition application for some other tools or power-damage. It would be cool to have another ‘max’ alternative but then ‘max’ is ‘max’ after all.

Traits – The trait deceptive evasion: I actually am not thrilled that our primary resource mechanic is tied up in the precision line. Why should a carrion or shaman’s amulet wearer have to care about precision? I’m not a fan here.

I have not experienced any real issue with clone AI.

Shatter burst should not be the only build option – I’m not sure how to answer this. There is basically bleeds, poison, burns, and confusion. Most classes have bleed stacks. A couple make burns their primary source of cond damage. One or two can do significant poison damage. Only one class can really focus on confusion damage….us. I feel that if you want to do massive bleed stacks you’ve come to the wrong place.

Warden hits 12 times, and it is not uncommon for it to have a 85% chance to crit (if you use ravage set, different for pvp but can still get crit high). That means you get 9-10 bleeds per target in it’s aoe under optimal circumstances, which you can force on people with focus 4. Assuming your bleed even deals 100/sec 10 bleeds for 4 seconds is 4k damage right there.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that warden is to a lesser extent our source of condition damage.

I really have a hard time too see existence rights for Staff Mesmers. Personaly I prefer Staff over GS and I go for Bitfrost as a legendary. But Staff currently is imo too weak. And what’s more it does not correspond to any of the other weapons wich makes switching weapons equal to lose power. This is very against Mesmer-playstile because until now no matter what build you play as a Mesmer switching weapons is what makes you strong. But not for the condition Staff Mesmer.

I’m only prefering to PVE though, as I don’t play PVP.

Mephisto Loire.8207:

I really have a hard time too see existence rights for Staff Mesmers. Personaly I prefer Staff over GS and I go for Bitfrost as a legendary. But Staff currently is imo too weak. And what’s more it does not correspond to any of the other weapons wich makes switching weapons equal to lose power. This is very against Mesmer-playstile because until now no matter what build you play as a Mesmer switching weapons is what makes you strong. But not for the condition Staff Mesmer.

I’m only prefering to PVE though, as I don’t play PVP.

I would not say that the staff is weak it gets by in its current state but it just needs to have the trait illusionary elasticity work for our illusions to make it a great weapon.

I couldn’t agree more about the loss of power when switching away from the staff. The mesmer lacks a reliable condition applying weapon to use when swapping away from the staff and a channeled five stacks of confusion every fifteen seconds does not cut it.

We need confusion on the scepter auto attack from beta to come back. The confusion was removed when the condition did more damage with fewer stacks than it does now. Then they nerfed the damage of confusion and never brought it back to the scepter. After these changes a dev stated that the scepter needed improvements but all that came was a projectile increase.

Sure, fix scepters… and give us pistol mainhand with conditions too please. I’d like to see poison or burning and confusion support…

If they made the clone death traits also trigger from shattering, then a shatter/condition hybrid build using rampagers would be insanely good.

plasmacutter.2709:

If they made the clone death traits also trigger from shattering, then a shatter/condition hybrid build using rampagers would be insanely good.

Not really: you’d be far better off with a pure Shatter build without CondDmg, as the only damaging conditions you can get from death traits is 33% chance of 3xBleeding from Debilitating Dissipation and a 3s Confusion that cannot be extended by +CondDuration from Confusing Combatants.

I’ve personally tried several different condition build layouts and I’ve also played a lot of straight burst shatter and I have to say that I personally prefer being able to just blow people up to having to wittle people down with burns and bleeds and then hoping they go gung-ho once the confusion is stacked.

It’s not that I don’t like condition mesmer. I do. I just like burst shatter more. But I have all the condition gear sitting in my warehouse. Maybe if the developers decide to make condition mesmer stronger I’ll play that spec more often.

Someone brought up warden and I wanted to let them know one of (if not the) best method of using the warden in pvp is:

Sword 3
Focus 5
Sword 3

Just want to help you get the most out of your warden.

so this month they’re releasing a patch as big as an expansion, ya? Do expansions include new weapons/skill for every class to use? yes. if they don’t let us use at least one new weapon, that so called huge patch is a joke.

Nuka Cola.8520:

so this month they’re releasing a patch as big as an expansion, ya? Do expansions include new weapons/skill for every class to use? yes. if they don’t let us use at least one new weapon, that so called huge patch is a joke.

The chance that new weapons will come seem slim when we look at all the underused/underpowered weapons some of the classes have (warrior war horn, necromancer axe, mesmer torch and scepter). Whenever I see new weapon suggestions for mesmer its always a main hand pistol that does condition damage. This shows how the scepter is lacking as a condition weapon since some believe it needs to be replaced altogether with a new weapon for the same roll it should of filled.

Is this thread about PvE or something? My condition damage WvW build is dangerously overpowered to the point that it probably needs a nerf.

zastari.1730:

Is this thread about PvE or something? My condition damage WvW build is dangerously overpowered to the point that it probably needs a nerf.

I should have been more specific with the original post but this was about spvp and tpvp. If people mentioned pve or wvw that would be their views on the problems with condition mesmers. Also if you are using a confusion build in wvw the damage is way more than that of spvp.

Here is the damage ratio for confusion from the wiki

PvE and WvW: 10 + (1.5 * Level) + (0.15 * Condition Damage) per stack
sPvP: 65 + (0.075 * Condition Damage) per stack