Guild Wars 2

I wanted to break this conversation out into its own thread:

tobascodagama.2961:

Silverkey.2078:

I think conditions are underestimated in PvE while they are really effective.

Eh, maybe, but not by much. We can’t really apply that many stacks of anything worth applying to PvE enemies.

Silverkey.2078:

I think parts of the discussion deviate from the original intent, but no, conditions are perfectly viable thanks to bleeds. The theoretical DPS is near-identical to the meta assassin build, and the build-up is decent. And if you manage to get additional burning by iDuelist through fire fields, or put an ethereal field yourself, your DPS is actually higher than assassin.

I’m still skeptical that we can actually stack up Bleeds or any other condition fast enough or high enough to matter, but I’m open to being convinced otherwise. Does anybody have a PvE-oriented condi build they’ve been using with any success?

I played around for a bit and wound up with this: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8flknhG1YZawGNwtGLnGE6Y6+3JDwCWeZGae4A-TZBFABCcFAEvMwCHEgW2fAgHAAA

It sort of goes all-in on Condition Damage and ends up sacrificing a lot of the projectile destruction we’re usually responsible for bringing. Frankly, I’m not sure it’s worth it, but it should be pretty close to the maximum condition DPS we can bring in PvE.

Torch is there so we can open with Prestige -> pMage to lay on some Confusion and Burning at the start of the fight as well as having a personal source of Fury before Master Fencer kicks in. You immediately switch to Pistol and summon a pDuelist, of course, to start Bleed stacking.

I don’t have the gear or dungeon skills to give this build a fair PvE shot, but there it is as a starting point for a discussion on whether condition Mesmers have any viability in PvE.

The PvE build I was suggesting is quite different. It is essentially this one
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Dungeon_Hybrid

The torch is just terrible in terms of damage. There are better sources of fury, and while burning is nice in theory, the torch just does not apply enough of it. They key to the build above is the bleedings from iDuelist with sharper images + (when it is fixed) phantasmal duelist. The focus can be nice for decent AOE phantasm damage. Then on the build there are 2 signets, but the condition duration signet can be removed at will since foods + rune can already boost bleeding duration to 100%.

It is in principle possible to use the scepter instead of the sword, the main limit is the clone generation preventing optimal phantasm DPS. If enemies would attack more often, it would help too…

A little while ago, I showed my calculations in a 30s fight, assuming 25 might, banners, no food, etc… The rotation is pop up iWarden and then the 2 main phantasms (sword or pistol for assassin resp. rampager build). As you can see, the rampager is close to the assassin DPS. If you can summon your third duelist, it even beats the assassin.
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/195298/Ass_vs_zerk.png

I run a standard staff/scepter+pistol rabid bleed build.
With 3 iduelists I attack between 30 and 42 bleeds consistently.
With 3 staff clones I stack 30ish bleeds consistently.

Both builds mix in some burns, confusion and torment.

In practice, I have compared the damage against my condi engi and guardian.
While the latter have higher upfront damage sure to the burst capacity of burns, sustained damage for both is actually lower than the bleed build.
And the Mesmer is far and away more durable than either of those two.
If I went sinister I’m sure I could do even better.

There was a shatter condi build someone posted that could put up comparable numbers.

My build does less damage in the short run than my d/d thief in SW, but more in the long run, and with much higher durability.

Just to make the thread more clear, could you specify if you run solo or in (organized) team? The build I mentioned was meant for an organized team, while the build of alpha sounds a bit more like a solo run, isn’kitten

I run more solo, pugs and guild runs.
I don’t do speed runs, though. 11s Lupi groups can bite me, that’s not why I play this game.
Edit: I’ll post a build tomorrow.

Yeah, I don’t think Rabid is worth it over Rampager/Sinister in a group build, but the equations obviously change when you talk about solo.

@Silverkey: In terms of trait choices, I don’t think that build is too far off from the dungeon meta, which is nice. Same spec lines, just different choices at a couple of points. Gear obviously differs by a lot. I wonder whether the DPS numbers would diverge if you accounted for reflect damage in the Assassin build, though. Does the extra Condition Damage still make up for the lost Ferocity at that point? (IIRC, reflected attacks will benefit from your own Precision and Ferocity)

Here’s what’s on my mesmer right this moment.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhEQNAW7ansICVohNoBOqBcrhFcDycBxOCoB5k7oMAr+XA-ThSAABYoEUhDCgQq/QxTAow9HEw03M6GA4CAImygoU6FA4AgrDCCQRA-e
(not what I run in higher fractals, as you might notice. Also, I realize that carrion jewels will still provide more condi damage than the rabid crests, crests were just a cheap option)

Situational Substitutions (for dungeons, etc.):
Decoy → feedback, null field, etc.
MI → Time warp
Blinding Dissipation → Evasive Mirror
PU → Bountiful Disillusionment
MtD → Phantasmal Haste

If I could be kittented to spend everything I need to redo the build right now, with an eye toward maximizing the bleed approach:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhEQNAW7ansICVohNoBOqBcrhFcDycBxOCoBpJ7oMAr+XA-TRSAABKcQAi+CAI9RAQMlfA8AACV9ne2fgQdDtpEMAwBwu7mu1NY8xHf8xHvrHf8xHf8CBoYBA-e

I’d look carefully at replacing the Krait runes with Undead runes. The damage gain is serious, but losing the condition duration decreases stacks…I just haven’t done the testing to compare them, yet :P

If I were rebuilding it the way I think would be optimal:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhEQNAW7ansICVohNoBmpBcrhFcDyMDxekoB5k7oMAr+XA-TByCABAcQAO+CAQ1+DI/EAwS53lq/onuhxUCGA4AY3dT36GM+4jP+4j31jP+4jPehAUsAA-e

This last is a mix between the full bleed build, and a build oriented around confusion/torment shatters that was posted in another thread. I compared the expected dps for both builds, and they came pretty dang close. After a while looking at the numbers though, I began to feel that you might effectively mix them together for superior results. This build should be able to produce much better burst than the bleed build alone, better sustained damage than the shatter build, and be able to better target your opponent type (confusion/torment outperforms on fast-attacking and highly mobile targets, bleed outperforms on everything else).
81% condi duration before Chaotic Persistence isn’t all that far behind Krait+Agony for bleed duration, and it dramatically outperforms the 53% (63% on scepter) we were getting before on torment. Both builds are essentially capped on confusion duration (thank you, MoM!). The side benefit to non-damaging conditions is icing.
All three builds provide superior durability, which is very useful in open-world, guild and pug (non-speed) dungeons, and pretty much any solo content you might run.
In wvw, Sinister without PU is just too risky.
Rabid builds are getting a lot of complaints because zerkers just can’t win those matchups…and it feels like everyone is in zerkers sometimes :P

The experience I related above is obviously using the first build, but the other two builds should both be a raw dps improvement for more reasons than just the ascended upgrade.

What about Sinister?
Sinister gains power, but loses toughness and condition damage.

Use case loss: anywhere being survivable is important (most solo play), anywhere you expect conditions to outperform the extra power (high toughness foes, enemies that don’t let you get a lot of attack uptime)

Use case gain: anywhere being survivable is not important (high-skilled dungeon groups, PU trololol roaming), anywhere conditions are weak (high-cleanse situations like wvw zerg, high-resistance enemies if they come up in HoT, structure killing)

It’s pretty obvious that in a simple sit-and-fire situation, Sinister will always outperform Rabid, as the extra condi damage from 16%-23% toughness-to-condi just doesn’t make up for the power. That said, I love-love-love the durability I get from the toughness, enough that I’ve put off assembling a sinister set for now.

Lastly, one more advantage the Rabid set has over the Sinister set is on clones. Using staff clones, I can keep up around 25-30 bleeds persistently. iDuelist outperforms that in the long run, but the long cooldown on iDuelists makes it hard to keep them up in many fights. When the target really just wants my phantasms to die, clones make a strong backup option. In that case, Rabid’s extra condition damage can outperform Sinister. This is also true at the start of a fight, when I can have at most 2 iDuelists, and usually only 1 until the cds cycle.

In truth, stacking, cycling and maintaining conditions can get pretty complicated, and really comparing dps across different content is gonna require some firsthand testing. I don’t really see a good way around that.

Also worth noting that Sinister/Rabid have the same reflect performance as Berserker’s, so Assassin’s only gains as much dps over them via reflects as does over zerk anyway.

Here’s how I’d adjust my build for Sinister:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhEQNAW7ansICVohNoBOqBcrhFcDycBxekoBpJ7oMAr+XA-TxxCABAcQAYW9HnV+d8FAgq9HQ+JA6GGTJYAgDgd3Ndrbw4jP+4jPeXv7u7u7uFCQxCA-e

I forgot to mention, I actually think Sinister on the shatter-confusion/torment build I mentioned above makes more sense, in many ways. Sinister brings raw damage back into the shatters, and makes sitting in Scepter/Pistol more viable vs Staff, so it could do very well.

A third addendum?? WHYYY??

Because I actually did do some testing a week or so ago on an iMage/staff burning-focused build.
With Runes of Balthazar, sigil of smoldering, etc., I was only able to stack up 7 stacks of burning on average, with occasional spikes up to 9 or 10 stacks. That’s not so far off what you might get on an engineer…except that the engineer does it within .5 seconds of engage, while this requires essentially perfect conditions, 3 iMages up, sitting in staff, and running a Rune of Smoldering instead of a Rune of Malice.

Doing the math, at 1900 condition damage 1 stack of burn is about equal to 3 stacks of bleed, so our 7 stacks of burn was equivalent to 21 stacks of bleed. Alongside the burn stacks, I was sitting at around 8-9 stacks of bleed, so the iMage setup was essentially equivalent to 29-30 stacks of bleed. That’s better on average than staff-clones only (ignoring the might you get from the clones), but worse than iDuelists.

It gets more difficult when you realize that iMage has a 50% longer cooldown than iDuelist, and the heavy investment in burn duration makes the conditions from our clones weaker, so you’re doing less damage in the time before you get 3 iMages than you would in the time before 3 iDuelists on the bleed/mixed build.

The build is more vulnerable to phantasm death than the others due to the iMage cooldown, Magic bullet is decent for for damage and cc while The Prestige is largely a defensive skill with some minor trash kill (one stack of aoe burning for a paltry 3s every 20 seconds or so is just not very good).

All that said, I was surprised to find the iMage wasn’t further behind than it was. Adding one stack of burning would probably make the build competitive with other condi builds, maybe even after they fix Duelist’s Discipline.

Also, it should go without saying that Duelist’s Discipline and Malicious Sorcery will be immediately competitive traits once they get fixed. There’s already occasional situations where they’re worth having, but once fixed they’ll definitely be viable.

Re: iMage, I was thinking the same thing. Only 1 stack of Burning seems a bit lacklustre for a phantasm that attacks so infrequently. 2 would feel better. But I wonder if the better way to buff it would be to decrease its skill cooldown instead.

tobascodagama.2961:

Re: iMage, I was thinking the same thing. Only 1 stack of Burning seems a bit lacklustre for a phantasm that attacks so infrequently. 2 would feel better. But I wonder if the better way to buff it would be to decrease its skill cooldown instead.

It would certainly be easier to tune, but the burst on it would still fall far short of the duelist, in all likelihood.

if 1 stack of burning = 3 stacks of bleeding, and the iDuelist with Sharper Images gets 5 stacks on average in Rabid gear (that’s what I usually get, at least), then your first few ticks after summoning the phantasm are about 40% less damage.
Fixing Duelist’s Discipline drives that even higher, as the iDuelist will pick up 2.67 stacks of bleed, putting it at around 7.67 stacks on a volley, or 2.56 stacks of burning.
The already-slow ramp-up time of conditions via phantasms is made worse, then, by increasing max burning stacks through a shorter cooldown than by increasing stacks.

Add that to the fact that in a lot of content, phantasms don’t survive long enough to get subsequent volleys (one of the major issues with phantasms being discussed in other threads). iMage adding only one stack of burning at that point is only dealing 40% of the condition damage that the iDuelist is, at best.

Both solutions, of course, only solve the problem for condition builds. Power builds taking torch get a lot less benefit. Though I suppose, burning is a decent condition even for non-power builds.

Bumping this for posterity! And because I finally get to see Alpha’s build!

I’m curious to know what your rotation is to achieve 30+ stacks of Bleeding. Although I’m just now gearing up following your second-linked build (therefore I haven’t tested it properly), I’d just like to know what your basic rotations is between Phantasm creation.

I assume it’s Staff AA, 4 & 5, and such.

The bleedings come from iDuelist mostly, the staff is a (small) bonus.

Yeah, iDuelist is the best Phantasm for stacking condi damage just because its Unload attack has so many chances to proc Sharper Images.

I’d be inclined to use Sc/Pi with Sw/F. Pop two iDuelists and Sc 3, then swap to the standard dungeon set for your Warden and Blurred Frenzy until Sc 3 comes off CD again. Rinse and repeat.

Faction.4013:

I’m curious to know what your rotation is to achieve 30+ stacks of Bleeding. .

30 bleeds isn’t all that difficult to reach. Even with a simple 3 staff clone + your AA rotation you’ll be hitting 30’s quite often:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJKHS8DjLJU

frifox.5283:

Faction.4013:

I’m curious to know what your rotation is to achieve 30+ stacks of Bleeding. .

30 bleeds isn’t all that difficult to reach. Even with a simple 3 staff clone + your AA rotation you’ll be hitting 30’s quite often:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJKHS8DjLJU

Yessir! Ran a few FotM today AFTER I posted here. It’s pretty easy actually. Most I hit was 39. However, the more I play this build, the more angry I get at DD being bugged. I can only imagine how many stacks we can get then.

The “filler” attacks I use between Phantasm generation & such is the Scepter Laser, the Scepter Block (because firing it off early blinds, and blinds confuse). Once my Phantasms are up and running, the staff AA, as well as Chaos Storm & Armor are the common attacks.

On trash mobs it’s mostly the same, just using Clones rather than Phantasms, and Shattering as much as possible. THAT’S where DE and the Scepter AA clone come in handy. You craft more clones than you can shatter, so you always have an F-skill to blow.

EDIT: After watching that video, it’s much more clear and clean to see how it’s done. I’ve never known Staff to be more than a support to your other weapons…

couple questions… (primarily for Alpha but anyone can answer):

1. What’s broken on the Malicious Sorcery trait?

2. Why not go with Domination over Chaos, and pick up Empowered Illusions and Mental Anguish? Or do those not work the way I think they do?

bearshaman.3421:

couple questions… (primarily for Alpha but anyone can answer):

1. What’s broken on the Malicious Sorcery trait?

2. Why not go with Domination over Chaos, and pick up Empowered Illusions and Mental Anguish? Or do those not work the way I think they do?

1. They fixed it. Previously, the attack speed part of the trait wasn’t happening.
2. Empowered Illusions and Mental Anguish have no effect on condition damage. Chaos, meanwhile, adds 10% of toughness to condition damage, which in rabid gear is decent. Chaos also contributes some condition duration, and some decent defensive traits, neither of which are available from dom.

I should note that I’ve moved away from Prismatic Understanding in PvE, and am using Bountiful Disillusionment in most situations.
PU is still essential for WvW, and is still part of my pvp build.

All the above said, it is perfectly feasible to run Domination instead of Chaos, and benefit. Since they fixed vulnerability to benefit condition damage, the amount of vuln you can get from Dom can be a strong dps boost.
In that case, I’d go Rending Shatter, and then either Furious Interruption+Power Block (for interrupt builds) or Shattered Concentration/Mental Anguish (for shatter builds).

The real issue is that success with Dom over Chaos depends on interrupts/dazes and shatters, but in pve shatters are the inferior source of conditions, so in general the tree is outperformed by Chaos.

So what is the verdict on PvE condi? I’ve tried some builds with full ascended sinister. The damage is technically there, but it is very impractical because clones get randomly cleaved too much. In my experience I can either choose to auto attack for bleeds, or shatter for confusion/torment. The tradeoff doesn’t seem worth it, but the clones just won’t stay alive… I tried condi chronomancer in the BWE and it seemed pretty strong, but only because IR and F5 made it possible to stack tons of torment. But they are nerfing that so who knows.

I can’t afford a set of perplexity runes at the moment, and I haven’t tried undead or tormenting runes. So I’ve been running krait, though I’m skeptical that perplexity or tormenting are viable in pve… I wonder is rabid + undead better than sinister + krait?

Xenon.4537:

So what is the verdict on PvE condi? I’ve tried some builds with full ascended sinister. The damage is technically there, but it is very impractical because clones get randomly cleaved too much. In my experience I can either choose to auto attack for bleeds, or shatter for confusion/torment. The tradeoff doesn’t seem worth it, but the clones just won’t stay alive… I tried condi chronomancer in the BWE and it seemed pretty strong, but only because IR and F5 made it possible to stack tons of torment. But they are nerfing that so who knows.

I can’t afford a set of perplexity runes at the moment, and I haven’t tried undead or tormenting runes. So I’ve been running krait, though I’m skeptical that perplexity or tormenting are viable in pve… I wonder is rabid + undead better than sinister + krait?

I’m trending toward Runes of the Nightmare over Krait, myself. You can pretty easily get close to cap condition duration without Krait, which makes your confusion/torment bursts stronger.

If what you want is raw dps, I’d stick with Sinister.
The raw power from Sinister dramatically outweighs the extra damage you’ll get from the toughness→condi via Rabid.
That said, toughness is really nice to have, and I have a feeling we’ll be happy to have it in the Verdant Brink. The toughness→condi is just a nice compensation for losing the dps.

2. Empowered Illusions and Mental Anguish have no effect on condition damage. Chaos, meanwhile, adds 10% of toughness to condition damage, which in rabid gear is decent. Chaos also contributes some condition duration, and some decent defensive traits, neither of which are available from dom.

So just so I’m clear on this, anything that gives a static % boost to damage is specifically talking about direct damage, not condition damage, and only boosts to specific conditions or to the condition damage stat influence damaging conditions.

bearshaman.3421:

2. Empowered Illusions and Mental Anguish have no effect on condition damage. Chaos, meanwhile, adds 10% of toughness to condition damage, which in rabid gear is decent. Chaos also contributes some condition duration, and some decent defensive traits, neither of which are available from dom.

So just so I’m clear on this, anything that gives a static % boost to damage is specifically talking about direct damage, not condition damage, and only boosts to specific conditions or to the condition damage stat influence damaging conditions.

Yes, except for vulnerability. Vulnerability was changed to affect condition damage at the June 23rd patch. That includes the extra .5% damage per stack from Domination, I believe.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Also worth noting that Sinister/Rabid have the same reflect performance as Berserker’s, so Assassin’s only gains as much dps over them via reflects as does over zerk anyway.

Here’s how I’d adjust my build for Sinister:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhEQNAW7ansICVohNoBOqBcrhFcDycBxekoBpJ7oMAr+XA-TxxCABAcQAYW9HnV+d8FAgq9HQ+JA6GGTJYAgDgd3Ndrbw4jP+4jPeXv7u7u7uFCQxCA-e

Also worth noting that this is wrong. Just in case the big patch changed something, I even went to do a quick test on karka spit barrages and it hasn’t.
Zerker/sin with Scholar: ~1.3k non crit, ~2.8k crit
Sinister w/ krait: ~1.4k non crit,~2.1k crit.
Only did 1 test of each but the barrages always do the same dmg within each barrage.

220% vs 150% bonus crits and 10% dmg modifiers are the only differences there. Then there are more bonuses that your build is missing besides also not having reflects >_>
Fencers finesse: 150 ferocity
HM: Potential 15% dmg
Domination: 15% reflect dmg from p.warden and 12.5% more from vulnerability
Sigil of force/night/slaying for 15.5% to 21% more.
Food: Seaweed salad or cheap food for 10% more or just more ferocity and precision.
Potions: 10% more.

That’s like 2 to 3 x the damage that your linked build with do compared to a meta zerker build. Each one of those you try to add to your build reduces the condi dmg by a lot.