Guild Wars 2

so, what are good builds for a mesmer for dungeons and wvw?

I thought about going full berzerker with greatsword, ruby orbs and all, with a phantasm build

I recently got it to 80 with invasions

any advice?

I wrote a PM to someone yesterday explaining my build for PvE/dungeons, I’ll copypaste it:

—

What I originally used is 10/30/0/30/0. In domination, use 15%+ illusion damage, in dueling take phantasmal fury, -20% cd on sword skils, -20% cd on pistol skills (hidden bonus – physical projectiles go from 20% chance of proc on combo fields to 100% w/pistol traiting). In inspiration, you could take -20% cd on glamours, -20% cd on focus skills + focus skills reflect and then either 20%+ HP for phantasms or glamours last longer (feedback, the most imporatnt one goes from 6s duration to 8s duartion, I think veil gets an extra second, null field gets 2s+ as well I think).

Gear-wise, run full berserker everything, and then I used ruby orbs as upgrades in my armour. There is an argument for scholar runes, but % damage modifiers don’t increase phantasm damage, plus you lose the precision from ruby orbs, and mesmers are generally lacking precision. My choice of sigils is bloodlust on my main hand sword and then sigil of battle for my off-hands, again because while might stacks increase phantasm damage, damage % modifiers don’t, they only affect the mesmer themselves, and our weapons have quite weak DPS.

The main reason for using the inspiration tree is so that you can trait your focus, reflects are used to heavily in dungeons (do a run of uncategorised fractal or caudecus’ manor explore and you’ll see what I mean) since it’s so effective at mitigating damage and allowing your team to burst uninterrupted, and since projectiles hit so hard you’re throwing a ton of damage right back at your opponent. So in a fight where you need reflects, sword+focus and sword+pistol will be your ideal set of weapons, in a fight where pure DPS is required you’re better off going sword/sword and sword/pistol since they hit hard and the phantasms have a faster recharge than phantasmal warden which has a channeled attack too (and recharge doesn’t start until the attack finishes).

In a situation where raw DPS is required, I open up with phantasmal duelist, and then when I enter combat I swap to my off-hand sword (giving me 3 stacks of might from sigil), use phantasmal swordsman and then it’s basically autoattack, use blurred frenzy if they’re about to hit you and if they’re about to hit you again then you have illusionary riposte. Immediately when your swap goes on cooldown, use it (now you have 6 stacks of might) and two seconds later cast your second duelist. If your clone from riposte is still alive, it shatters but it’s not a big deal. If the fight is still going on, swap to sword if you want 3 might stacks and a block again, but if not, hold on to pistol, cast a third duelist and then let it override your swordsman. At that point you can just swap weapons for the might stacks and not cast anymore phantasms.

The alternate build I’ve been using is 0/20/0/25/25. You give up on traiting your sword in dueling but you gain phantasmal haste and illusionist’s celerity. Compounding power also makes your reflects hit harder. The advantage of this build is that while 10/30/0/30/0 increases the damage your phantasms deal theoretically, it ignores situations where they are killed. Going 25 in illusions allows you to replace phantasms quicker at the expense of losing 100+ precision, 10%+ crit damage, 100 power and the 15%+ illusion damage from domination and phantasmal haste enables them to recharge faster. An example where this would be relevant is that with the old 10/30/0/30/0, my duelist in CoF p1 would get a burst off, and then just as the slave driver died it would fire off again. Phantasmal haste would have meant it could have got another volley off.

awesome, thx dude

By the way if you time it correctly you can combine phantasmal duelist with confusing images. Activate phantasmal duelist first first then quickly activate confusing images and the attacks will be combined. You can also combine confusing images and the prestige and prestige with choas storm, but this is best for a condition damage build.

Avoid condition builds for pve, though.

Sorry for the limited response, but Colesy summed up Phantasm builds quite well.

Are you interested only in damage, or also in more boon support?

Alissah.9281:

Avoid condition builds for pve, though.

Are you for real? I’m having a blast with condition damage.

They’re bad.

They’re not “bad”, they’re just not as quick as power builds. Power builds are better if you want to be the most efficient for sure. If Thrudrheim likes playing condition mesmer in PvE, I say have fun with it since that’s what playing the game is about anyway.

No, they’re bad.

PvE consists of taking down giant HP pools, and power builds do it better and don’t have to deal with a condition cap.

On my mesmer I can cast a phantasmal warden on a mob in the open world and watch it die. In a condition build, you have to do more just for the same goal.

Whether you have fun with it is irrelevant, for the sake of PvE, condition builds are bad.

If people would stop trying to be nice about things I wouldn’t have to be so hostile to people spreading misinformation.

Feel free to run your condition build, just know that it’s bad. If you have fun with it, that’s great, just don’t take it in to an instance where you’re expected to carry your weight.

In PvE (not talking dungeons) you don’t have to carry any weight but your own 99% of the time. So, play what you want but know power builds are the best in that format.

Well condition builds are probably our best and hardiest roaming/small group set up for WvW, but yeah in pve you’d hurt more than help with a condition set up.

I don’t know what you guys are talking about I’m generally doing better with a condition build, survivability could be better but dmg is good.

@colesy
I’m a beginner Mesmer and I thought that the GS would see some action in dungeons due to iZerker. Could you shed a light on that weapon choice?

skcamow.3527:

They’re not “bad”, they’re just not as quick as power builds. Power builds are better if you want to be the most efficient for sure. If Thrudrheim likes playing condition mesmer in PvE, I say have fun with it since that’s what playing the game is about anyway.

No really, in PVE condition mesmer is pitiful. Mesmers have limited access to damaging conditions. The most commons ones they have is bleeding (limited) and confusion (Pls don’t use confusion in pve and think you are effective -.- ).

I don’t know what you guys are talking about I’m generally doing better with a condition build, survivability could be better but dmg is good.

If I could upload some footage of my own gameplay I would, but a power build will out damage a condition one, I assure you.

@colesy
I’m a beginner Mesmer and I thought that the GS would see some action in dungeons due to iZerker. Could you shed a light on that weapon choice?

The greatsword does see use, but to be honest I’m not really sure why. I think it’s just that people got in to the habit of using it and never really grew beyond it (a lot like how dungeons normally only accept warriors, guardians and mesmers even though every single class is good besides necros).

The problem with using greatsword for the iZerker is that off-hand pistol and off-hand sword have equally as strong phantasms, the sword’s autoattack is better than the greatsword, and blurred frenzy is incredibly good to keep you doing a damage while a boss does some one-shot of doom since you go invulnerable.

As a point of comparison, greatsword offers you a weak autoattack, a useless second ability, a barely useful third ability and if you use the fifth ability, groups will hate you. Main hand sword offers you a stronger autoattack, a great second ability anda fairly useless third ability. It does however allow you to use off-hands like pistol which has a nice stun, off-hand sword which alows you to block some big heavy attack, and the focus which allows you to position mobs or bosses, and the warden if traited can reflect projectiles.

You’ll probably be told by other people here “greatsword is great” or "ignore colesy, just use it, or “I use it and it’s amazing”, but ignore them, if you use main hand sword and off hand sword, pistol and focus (swap out off-hand sword for focus if you need to pull mobs or reflect, otherwise just run sword/sword and sword/pistol) then you actually maximise your own survivability and usefulness to a group because the skills on those weapons are much more useful. Always carry a greatsword in your inventory for situations that force you to range (or if you’re in a bad pug and can’t sustain yourself in melee as the only one), but you should be in melee as long as the game physically allows you to.

Scizzor.8137:

skcamow.3527:

They’re not “bad”, they’re just not as quick as power builds. Power builds are better if you want to be the most efficient for sure. If Thrudrheim likes playing condition mesmer in PvE, I say have fun with it since that’s what playing the game is about anyway.

No really, in PVE condition mesmer is pitiful. Mesmers have limited access to damaging conditions. The most commons ones they have is bleeding (limited) and confusion (Pls don’t use confusion in pve and think you are effective -.- ).

We have access to all the damaging conditions in the game except poison. You can stack bleeds nicely with a berserker and a duelist, even the warden. Or use staff w/IE and burn/bleed them down. Throw 6+ stacks of confusion in and with high condition damage and duration, this all works fine in PvE. I’m not going to argue that a condition damage build is better at doing this than power, because it isn’t. Power builds are better, but condition damage builds are certainly not pitiful, in my opinion.

@colesy

Thanks a lot! Those are very strong points.

colesy.8490:

If I could upload some footage of my own gameplay I would, but a power build will out damage a condition one, I assure you.

Well I got a lvl 80 mesmer with 30 points in Precision and Power 10 for toughness and I consider him to be………alright and just that. My condition damage mesmer is 25 now when he reaches lvl 80 he weill be devastating.

I dunno maybe you should show some footage or break it down to us because I’m not really feeling my lvl 80 power+prec mesmer. He uses greatsword and scepter and one handed sword….maybe thats the problem. My condition dmg mesmer uses scepter and torch and staff. I throw up some illusions, activate prestige then choas storm and then shatter illusions, lots of people die. Maybe this would work better with power.

The problem is you’ve traited wrong and equipped yourself wrong.

Read my guide.

colesy.8490:

I don’t know what you guys are talking about I’m generally doing better with a condition build, survivability could be better but dmg is good.

If I could upload some footage of my own gameplay I would, but a power build will out damage a condition one, I assure you.

@colesy
I’m a beginner Mesmer and I thought that the GS would see some action in dungeons due to iZerker. Could you shed a light on that weapon choice?

The greatsword does see use, but to be honest I’m not really sure why. I think it’s just that people got in to the habit of using it and never really grew beyond it (a lot like how dungeons normally only accept warriors, guardians and mesmers even though every single class is good besides necros).

The problem with using greatsword for the iZerker is that off-hand pistol and off-hand sword have equally as strong phantasms, the sword’s autoattack is better than the greatsword, and blurred frenzy is incredibly good to keep you doing a damage while a boss does some one-shot of doom since you go invulnerable.

As a point of comparison, greatsword offers you a weak autoattack, a useless second ability, a barely useful third ability and if you use the fifth ability, groups will hate you. Main hand sword offers you a stronger autoattack, a great second ability anda fairly useless third ability. It does however allow you to use off-hands like pistol which has a nice stun, off-hand sword which alows you to block some big heavy attack, and the focus which allows you to position mobs or bosses, and the warden if traited can reflect projectiles.

You’ll probably be told by other people here “greatsword is great” or "ignore colesy, just use it, or “I use it and it’s amazing”, but ignore them, if you use main hand sword and off hand sword, pistol and focus (swap out off-hand sword for focus if you need to pull mobs or reflect, otherwise just run sword/sword and sword/pistol) then you actually maximise your own survivability and usefulness to a group because the skills on those weapons are much more useful. Always carry a greatsword in your inventory for situations that force you to range (or if you’re in a bad pug and can’t sustain yourself in melee as the only one), but you should be in melee as long as the game physically allows you to.

Hahaha I think most mesmers use GS purely for Aesthetic reasons over functional reasons, especially in pvp/wvw where GS mesmers can get eaten for lunch. Kind of like thief P/P or D/D which are their worst sets in pvp.

Why do you think necros are so bad in PvE? I understand the lack of cleave from dagger/axe but piercing Deathshroud attacks in say a 30/x/x/x/30 build is pretty good pve damage, although I did kinda disown my necro for many reasons, so I can see how they wouldn’t be optimal.

Their DPS is fine but they lack group utility. No reflects, no fury and no might stacking (besides on themselves). I don’t think they have much vulnerability stacking either.

colesy.8490:

The problem is you’ve traited wrong and equipped yourself wrong.

Read my guide.

I just remembered I’m planning to combine power with condition dmg, so with that mesmer the argument seems redundent, but I’m planning to put 20 in power and 30 in condition damage, 20 in vitality and pick a trait were I get +200 condition damage with scepter.

That sound any good?

I read every single post now and I want to say many things in a short text, I don’t like all these Wall’O’s >.<

1. The first response is pretty much it. Go for 10/30/0/30/0 or something similar (I go 20/20/0/30/0 for ex). Reflection is everything, you need it, Mesmers best kit.

2. Sword is the best weapon, but I disagree using it twice since it shares CD’s. GS or Staff, even Scepter bring you more, lemme explain:
If your Sword 2 is on CD you will be casting 4/5 of Pistol and Focus. But while not casting 2 you don’t wanna be melee. So you need 3 for cap closer.
You could go Sword Focus for 3 5 combo (no escape, 3 is AoE too) and Scepter Pistol, if you wanna keep the pistol. Scepter 3 does the same damage than Sword 2, and the confusion WILL hit a bit. Overall not much, but damage is damage, source is irellevant! Scepter 3 can hit up to 5 enemies in a line, USE IT. Also it’s block deals tons of damge (more DpS (! not burst !) than Sword 2) or has a nice blind.

3. GS isn’t bad, but players are using it bad often. You can hit up to 3 targets with 1 in a good position. In general players are just too lazy. W deals good damage (bounce) and stacks might. And 3 is very underestimated. It removes a boon, with such a low CD and if you manage to remove a long lasting regeneration, protection, retaliation, you can deal much passive damage or heal passive. It feels weak, because you actually DONT see the numbers. And 4 is just amazing, no other phantasm deals that amount of damage. Its a AoE wich hits up to 5 targets per hit, wich can be 40k without might or bloodlust (5 enemies).

4. So I prefer Sword + Focus with Greatsword. Just switch your weapons every 10-12 sec to ensure maximum damage. Pistol however is better against single target enemies, aswell the Stakitten .

Condition damage isn’t bad aslong you play hybrid. But Condition damage alone – hell IT SUCKS! Confusion will deal low DpS (over time) and Bleeding goes just for 25 stacks. Everyone causes bleeding. There will be 25 stacks on the enemies often. If you deal 100 per bleed and your allies 45 (base dmg) and you will cause bleeding, you override your allies wich means you deal +100 and -45 damage = 55 actual damage = CRAPPY
Hybrid however is viable, you get up to 50% crit chace, 60% crit damage and 800 con damage. Reflection however is missing, making you less effective in dungeons.

Well … kitten I made a Wall’O’Text anyway T_T

greez Madame Le Blanc

I just remembered I’m planning to combine power with condition dmg, so with that mesmer the argument seems redundent, but I’m planning to put 20 in power and 30 in condition damage, 20 in vitality and pick a trait were I get +200 condition damage with scepter.

That sound any good?

I don’t really have any experience with hybrid PvE builds, but considering conditions are worse than power, I’d say it wouldn’t be ideal. Plus you’re sticking 20 points in Inspiration for scepter traiting when the main reason to do it in the first place is focus traiting. You also don’t have 10 points in dueling so you miss out on phantasmal fury, and since our best phantasm fires 8 projectiles, that’s a lot of crits you could miss out on.

2. Sword is the best weapon, but I disagree using it twice since it shares CD’s. GS or Staff, even Scepter bring you more, lemme explain:
If your Sword 2 is on CD you will be casting 4/5 of Pistol and Focus. But while not casting 2 you don’t wanna be melee. So you need 3 for cap closer.

Except … you will be in melee.

Scepter 3 does the same damage than Sword 2, and the confusion WILL hit a bit. Overall not much, but damage is damage, source is irellevant! Scepter 3 can hit up to 5 enemies in a line, USE IT. Also it’s block deals tons of damge (more DpS (! not burst !) than Sword 2) or has a nice blind.

Sword 4 has a hard hitting block, sword autoattack doesn’t override our third phantasm and the autoattack is stronger than scepter.

W deals good damage (bounce) and stacks might.

You don’t need to stack might off your greatsword.

And 3 is very underestimated. It removes a boon, with such a low CD and if you manage to remove a long lasting regeneration, protection, retaliation, you can deal much passive damage or heal passive. It feels weak, because you actually DONT see the numbers.

Or you can use the sword autoattack chain which removes a boon in the final attack. So that’s what, 4 boons removed in the time it takes GS 3 to recharge?

And 4 is just amazing, no other phantasm deals that amount of damage. Its a AoE wich hits up to 5 targets per hit, wich can be 40k without might or bloodlust (5 enemies).

iZerker is nice but requies you to use a weak weapon. If I want AoE I just use a warden and then cleave with my 1h sword.

Hybrid however is viable, you get up to 50% crit chace, 60% crit damage and 800 con damage.

I haven’t logged in in a few days but last time I checked my stats were around 50-ish crit chance, 100% crit damage and I can get 1,125 condition damage in a dungeon quite easy.

Reflection however is missing, making you less effective in dungeons.

…and which is one of the major reasons you take a mesmer.

Xyonon.3987:

But Condition damage alone – hell IT SUCKS!

You’re using the wrong powers. Prestige, Chaos Storm and Confusing Images are beastly. As well as using a shatter on images with confusion.

colesy.8490:

I don’t really have any experience with hybrid PvE builds, but considering conditions are worse than power, I’d say it wouldn’t be ideal. Plus you’re sticking 20 points in Inspiration for scepter traiting when the main reason to do it in the first place is focus traiting. You also don’t have 10 points in dueling so you miss out on phantasmal fury, and since our best phantasm fires 8 projectiles, that’s a lot of crits you could miss out on.

Good point, so what about survivability? I could put 30 in power and condition damage. that leaves me with 10 points. I would rather put 10 in toughness, than in precision and I wouldn’t want to split it either. I know Precision can give you vigor but sometimes you just can’t dodge

I will have a greatsword in situations where aoe is required or it is advantageous to have range or a knockback. For example:

The boss fight with the 3 champs in harpy fractal. Having the ability to move around at large range and still do damage is really important here.

Any situations with a lot of trash mobs. I summon the iZerker then switch to sword. The mobs should be dead by the time the weapon swap is up again.

When fighting the knights in TA. Having the knockback to get those mobs away from you and/or your teammates can be very important.

The gs isn’t a perfect weapon, but it does have the abilitys of high range, a great phantasm, and a knockback that does see use (you can also use it to group up mobs is the terrain is helpful and/or you can position correctly).

As far as condition damage, the reasons for it being bad have 2 main parts.

Condition Damage in General

Stack Cap

All condition damage is affected by stack caps, in which no more condition damage can be applied without having to overwrite old damage. This wouldn’t be a problem by itself except that most classes and builds tend to spam conditions without actually trying. Example: sharper images. This means that most conditions will be capped by non-condition classes, and so any condition classes won’t have room to fit their actual damaging conditions in.

Kill Speed

In PvE, mobs die fast. Conditions take some time to build up to full strength, and by that time the mobs are already dead. This means that the condition classes will be doing far less damage. This doesn’t apply on bosses of course, but that’s where the original problem comes into play.

Mesmer Condition Damage

Application

Mesmers have 3 ways of applying conditions: staff clones, phantasm bleeds, and debilitating dissipation. All 3 of these are subject to RNG. Staff clones can apply vuln instead of a damaging condition. Phantasms have to crit. Lastly, debilitating dissipation only applies bleed 1/3 of the time. This makes the condition pressure unreliable.

Condition Type

A large amount of the Mesmer toolkit can apply confusion, and the scepter block also applies torment. Unfortunately, both of these conditions are worthless in PvE. Many mobs rarely move, so the torment is extremely weak, and mobs (with a couple notable exceptions) attack very slowly, so confusion is worthless. This means a large amount of the condition Mesmer toolkit is worthless in PvE.

Conclusion

Conditions are bad in PvE for every class for multiple reasons, and conditions are even worse on Mesmer than most condition built classes. Don’t use them.

Agreed on all points there except application – sharper images, if using phantasmal fury giving them >=60% crit chance can pretty reliably stack large amounts of bleed (AoE with the warden and and berserker).

Alas, my points are more geared toward an open world/roaming scenario. Anytime you’re in a group scenario, ya’ll are right on, conditions are going to be bad. So, I guess depending on what you’re doing in PvE these things should be kept in mind. Personally I play power, because, well – it’s better.

colesy.8490:

I don’t really have any experience with hybrid PvE builds, but considering conditions are worse than power, I’d say it wouldn’t be ideal. Plus you’re sticking 20 points in Inspiration for scepter traiting when the main reason to do it in the first place is focus traiting. You also don’t have 10 points in dueling so you miss out on phantasmal fury, and since our best phantasm fires 8 projectiles, that’s a lot of crits you could miss out on.

Sorry I was just thinking how much better is power over condition dmg? So if I get +200 CD from inspiration what you’re saying is that +10 power is better than +200 CD, not to mention that there is a signet that increases CD as well. That doesn’t make sense to me.

Good point, so what about survivability? I could put 30 in power and condition damage. that leaves me with 10 points. I would rather put 10 in toughness, than in precision and I wouldn’t want to split it either. I know Precision can give you vigor but sometimes you just can’t dodge

You don’t need to trait or gear for survivability when the class has enough built in survivability through its weapons and utilities.

I’m not seeing why you’re putting in 30 points in to the top and bottom trait lines either.

The general rule for traiting in this game, is take traits because of the traits themselves, not the stats the trait lines give. For example, by sticking in 25 in illusions in 0/20/0/25/25 you lose out on 100+ power, 100+ precision, 10%+ crit damage, 50 vitality and 50 healing power. At the expense of that I gain … 250 condition damage. But that’s not the reason I take points in illusions, it’s for the traits.

If you were going 30/x/x/x/30 and wanted some sort of condi/power hybrid though, I’d stick 10 in dueling simply for phantasmal fury. Ideally you’d want 15 in dueling for sharper images though.

The boss fight with the 3 champs in harpy fractal. Having the ability to move around at large range and still do damage is really important here.

I haven’t done fractals in a while. I feel like next time I do uncategorised I should just melee the 3-champ room just to prove my point on melee being perfectly safe, I can’t actually remember if I did the last time.

When fighting the knights in TA. Having the knockback to get those mobs away from you and/or your teammates can be very important.

Magic bullet? That way you don’t ungroup them as well, so your party can carry on cleaving.

I just wanna add that the staff’s iWarlock is GREAT for open world zergs because usually the boss has soo many conditions that it boosts the iWarlock’s attack by a huuge amount.

But yeah, condition builds can’t do this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cBxlKtxHD0

p.s. greatsword is very good if you need range because a) it can actually go further than 1200 range and b) it’s not a projectile so mobs can’t reflect it.

Greatsword is very good if you need range because it’s practically the only bloody option.