Guild Wars 2

Skamow has posed 2 questions to the devs concerning our new GM traits and got answers:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Dev-livestream-Ready-Up-March-28-12pm-PvP-Rewards-Next-phase/first

To me, that proofs the +1000 healing power trait will be hard to make use of.

4s of 1 stack of torment/shattered clone, on the other hand, with mailm (?) looks like what I expected. Considering my 9,5s torment from scepter block (5 stacks) does around (max., when moving) 6,5k dmg in pvp (around 1200 condi dmg); every shattered clone should do around 600 torment dmg max. This is not including the +300 condi dmg. youll get from the shatter trait line. Sounds like condi shatter is in the game again, at least in pvp.
Am I way off with this calculation?

Not to Mention that Condi Shatter will also profit from illusionary retribution.
Hitting with 3 clones will apply (independet of which shatter skill used) 3s of 3 stack Confusion and 4s of 3 stacks torment.
I suppose Sceper /X Condi Shatter Build will become a realreal pain in the kitten to fight against.

Well, so much for that Inspiration trait. =[

Also, a condi 0/20/20/0/30 Scepter/Pistol – Staff is gonna be liiive.

Add to that illusionary elasticity as a master trait and you wont have to constantly shatter for sustaining dps, your staff clones will do the work between F2 and F3…

My thought’s exactly. Combined with scepter’s torment, pistol bleeds (or even torch burns) and confusion per shatter? and sigils of doom (poison on swap)!? Me gusta! Totally going to be messing around with some condi builds

What gear set would be optimal for such a build? I know only of Condi Prec Toughness. But Prec isn’t requiered as we don’t have any major on crit procs… Unfamiliar with Wvw.

In a 0/20/20/0/30 build you would have sharper images for proccing bleed on crit for your illusions. Because of this trait alone rabid gear, in my opinion, will always be better than other +condi gear.
Does anyone have a more accurate calculation of the expected torment dmg/clone? Im at work and cant check my gw2 toon.

Wouldn’t think illusion bleeds are a significant source of damage. But guess you’re right.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Wouldn’t think illusion bleeds are a significant source of damage. But guess you’re right.

Some of our illusions have multiple hits per attack, such as the iDuelist and iWarden (to a lesser extent, also the iZerker and GS clones). That’s where the bleed stacks can really help out.

Hm, Pyro brought up a really good point in another thread.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Ok, let me try and explain why I’m really disappointed with the trait.

It runs into the exact same problem as the IE change of simply enhancing the mesmer’s effectiveness at a niche we’re already highly effective at, and doing nothing else. Will the trait create new builds (condie shatter)? Yes. Will those builds be strong? The question has to be asked ‘strong at what?’.

The condie shatter builds will be very strong in 1v1s, just like clone death builds are now. They’ll be able to kill people defending a point probably a bit faster than a clone-death build currently. They’ll still be completely useless against a decap engie, and actually potentially be worse against a guardian since you can block shatters, but you can’t block clone-deaths.

So, why was a shatter mesmer taken in teams? Shatter mesmer was taken because it had access to IoL, Portal, aoe boonstripping, and large aoe burst damage. The reason it isn’t taken now is because thieves eat it alive.

So what does condie shatter bring? Condie shatter can potentially bring IoL, Portal, and aoe boonstripping. It will, however, do literally almost no damage in fights. The torment will get cleansed off by the guardian or warriors. Additionally, in order to effectively get shatters on the point, it has to be on top of the point. Power shatters can take a greatsword to provide on-target illusion generation. All staff skills are point blank illusion generation. Even though condie shatter can go tanky, this still puts the mesmer into a worse location.

Ultimately, the question becomes ‘is it worth it to bring someone that does absolutely no damage in a team fight, but also brings portal, IoL, and aoe boon stripping?’. The answer to that question so far has been a big no, as you don’t see any super tanky mesmers providing that utility to teams anywhere.

This trait will provide a bit more variety to mesmer condition builds, but it won’t change anything. That’s why I’m extremely disappointed in the implementation.

The question will come down to what will the build excel at? We’ll have to wait and see.

i’m using a build design site for damage estimation so I may not be completely accurate. also these stat are for pvp so expect wvw/pve to be higher.
so feel free to point out errors or anything else I forgot.

and now the math assuming that i have 1557 condition stat and +30% condition duration we get that scepter block does a base of 4513 dmg over 10.5 sec
now to break it down (we are assuming full duration occurs.)
4513/5=902.6 <- damage from one stack
902.6/10.5=86 <- damage from one stack per second
4 × 1.3=5.2 <- actual time of torment from shatter would last
5.2 × 86=451 <-damage per shatter torment stack
451 × 3= 1354 <- base damage caused by all shatter clones hitting
1354 × 2= 2709 <- max damage caused by torment

I don’t think high level tpvp will work but it certainly could be fine in other PvP areas.

One thing that is kind of confusing with the description of the trait is that it states “your target”, but they compare it to rending shatter which is AoE. I think they just meant to explain the amount of torment applied by drawing that comparison, but I do wonder a little. If the torment application was AoE, obviously that’d be much, much stronger.

So in addition to lack of burst, the lack of AoE torment application with shatters is what I think hurts it the most (as Pyro pointed out the one on one advantage). If they just made the torment AoE like confusion … but oh well. Even still, I’m not going to write it off until I see it isn’t viable in PvP.

I believe WvW is going to have the real potential with this however, with the ability to buff yourself much more significantly than in PvP.

The lack of any real burst is, yeah, unfortunate but sustain will be all there. It’s going to make condition damage builds that already work to some degree that much stronger, or open up new condition build possibilities that I believe can work.

Of course this is all speculation until we can get our hands dirty with it to see how it plays in practice.

Just watched the ready up. Perplexity runes are in for spvp, with confusion on interrupt as 6-piece bonus. Now what about a 0/20/20/0/30 sc/focus – staff build? With bountiful interruption instead off the staff trait? Mm….

I’m thinking the extra confusion duration (assuming it works) is going to be as potent as the confusion procs itself. Currently we can spike some decent confusion in PvP with condi-shatter but it doesn’t last very long. With perplexity, not only will it last longer, we’ll be able to stack more. I honestly don’t think it’s going to fly.

We’ll have to see what other changes are coming and how everything else fits into the new meta with the sigil changes, but I’m thinking perplexity will get nerfed.

derbaer.1284:

Just watched the ready up. Perplexity runes are in for spvp, with confusion on interrupt as 6-piece bonus. Now what about a 0/20/20/0/30 sc/focus – staff build? With bountiful interruption instead off the staff trait? Mm….

I’m also considering same setup, pity that we have to go 20 in dueling for DE(IMO must have for shatter), it strongly limit our builds:/

Chaos Archangel.5071:

My thought’s exactly. Combined with scepter’s torment, pistol bleeds (or even torch burns) and confusion per shatter? and sigils of doom (poison on swap)!? Me gusta! Totally going to be messing around with some condi builds

Yeah, I’m going to dig that.
Scepter/Pistol, Staff, with Runes of Tormenting and maybe even the sigils too, on rabid/dire gear.
You’d be getting about 85% torment duration with vegie pizza, so your shatter torment is more like 7 seconds then 4, which should net you around 670 per stack if they are not moving.

So 2-4k damage damage over 7 seconds per full shatter, not including might and confusion, ain’t nothing to sneeze at.
And with the fixes to Illusionary Elasticity, it would double your staff clone damage.

Yeah, it’s going to hit pretty hard.

Phent.9350:

derbaer.1284:

Just watched the ready up. Perplexity runes are in for spvp, with confusion on interrupt as 6-piece bonus. Now what about a 0/20/20/0/30 sc/focus – staff build? With bountiful interruption instead off the staff trait? Mm….

I’m also considering same setup, pity that we have to go 20 in dueling for DE(IMO must have for shatter), it strongly limit our builds:/

I wouldn’t say it’s that limiting for a condition build since sharper images is a rather important trait for most of our condition builds.

Yoh.8469:

So 2-4k damage damage over 7 seconds per full shatter, not including might and confusion, ain’t nothing to sneeze at.
And with the fixes to Illusionary Elasticity, it would double your staff clone damage.

Yeah, it’s going to hit pretty hard.

Just keep in mind that a power shatter will do 2-3.5k damage per clone and instantly, not subject to condition removals or -duration gear/food.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Yoh.8469:

So 2-4k damage damage over 7 seconds per full shatter, not including might and confusion, ain’t nothing to sneeze at.
And with the fixes to Illusionary Elasticity, it would double your staff clone damage.

Yeah, it’s going to hit pretty hard.

Just keep in mind that a power shatter will do 2-3.5k damage per clone and instantly, not subject to condition removals or -duration gear/food.

True, but for that you have to forgo almost all tank to do so, making you dependent on blink, decoy, evasion, etc to survive. A build like this would have considerable more tank.
I also haven’t factored in the raw damage from your shatters either, but they certainly won’t be very high, but it would be several hundred more at the very least.

And sure, you can remove the shatter conditions without too much problem, but good bloody luck trying to remove the conditions staff clones are doing to you.
If you don’t get rid of them they are going to eat you alive.

I think at the end of the day it just comes down to play style and preference.
Do you want to do you damage now, or over time.

In a spvp enviroment, I wont do enough power shatter dmg. Aside from the fact, that you have small room for making mistakes, often you simply wont get your clones on your target because of aoe spam in teamfight. Additionally, you have close to no defense against thieves. A genius like supcutie may make a power shatter build work in tpvp, I for sure can not (having only climbed the EU teamQ ladder to around 250 with a condi-non-PU-build).

So, only from reading and imagining, condi shatter looks promising to me. And I totally agree with Pyro; this wouldnt put us anywhere else in the meta. But for me, a shatter build is much more satisfying to play, than a clone death build. And from what we know now, it will even be more effective.

Yoh.8469:

I think at the end of the day it just comes down to play style and preference.
Do you want to do you damage now, or over time.

Actualy at the end of the day it comes down to did you/your team win, or not. How quickly you dealt damage becomes irrelevant.