(edited by selan.8354)
Thank you for the explanations Pyroatheist, that helped a lot.
Regarding Carrion and Rabid. It is true that with Glamour builds it doesn’t make too much of a difference which one you go for, but bear in mind that Rabid is much better than Carrion in conventional Condition builds; so going for Rabid will allow you to switch between a Glamour build and a conventional Condition build with ease.
Would you mind explaining why Rabid stats are so much better for conventional condition builds? Because of the tuning crystals?
Rabid outdoes Carrion in regards to the condition damage, and in retrospect your confusion will hit harder, the great thing about confusion is that your stacks multiply the damage (instead of increasing duration) and due to the fact that confusion has a high Condition to damage conversion, every point of condition is worth alot more than say someone running bleed or posion.
Back to conventional condition builds, your dealing more damage over time, up until (numbers from my head atm) until about 1500 toughness, its always better to go toughness over Vitality with the Mesmer, as the damage mitigation outweights the equivilant amount of vitality. (I might make one of my famous charts if needed)
Since I’m replying, I might as well aslo address the Undead Vs Nightmare, I made a doc not too long ago assisting with a new build:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkXSlFKEkur9dDMtQ3NqUldMMWZiM0lRSHNSc05DckE&usp=sharing
That shows the tradeoff of Condition damage Vs Condition duration (theorycrafting) now undead will win out of you have enough base toughness to make it worth mroe than the duration. Of course this does not factor in any enemy duration cleanses, confusion mititgation (including lessened time) or other factors like multiple targets effected (I think I might play around with some more numbers tonight)
Hope that helps and doesn’t confuse you more
I wasn’t aware that Rabid gear has higher condition damage on it, because at least in PvP both sets have the exact same numbers for that stat.
That is confusing indeed, but thanks very much for the explanations.
Also good to know about the toughness/vitality thing, I guess I’ll be aiming for 1500 toughness then and fill the rest with vita for better retaliation-zerg-survival.
(edited by Velkyn.5168)
This is not as big a problem with Glamour builds, but consider this: Confusion only deals damage when your opponent procs it, so increasing its duration does not guarantee it will actually deal more damage.
With Runes of the Nightmare you get +10% condition duration, which translates to 0.3s to 0.5s extra Confusion duration. The question you must ask is: will that result in an extra Confusion proc? Most skills have longer cast times than that, so I doubt it.
Actually, the average base attack speed across all classes and all weapons is 0.71 seconds. (Taken off all 1 attack of all weapons across all classes) With the fastest being at 0.25. Also do remember that you can get mre than one confusion hit on a single ability use, as confusion does activate on skill ativation even if then the global cooldown activates. (pray for an opponent that spams the 1 key
Hence the only thing working against a confusion mesmer is the global cooldown.
If we are dealing with a static computer program then damage will always be better tham duration, but since we are dealing with humans who are random, sporatic and highly unpredictable, thats where your big hits come from. (12345666111)
0.33 of a second is roughly equal to (depending on your total condition damage) 150 condition damage, if you base the damage over a period of 3 vs 3.33 seconds.
So if you can’t pull 1-200 condition damage but can increase your duration by .33 your getting a fair tradeoff.
That said there is the whole condition removal so you have potetial loss overtime, as well as other factors (like daze, stun etc) arn’t calculated into the above, but since you are awaiting the enemy to activate skills to damage yourself, the longer the duration, the more likely the enemy will activate.
Then of course there is the final benefit of increased duration, more versed players will see a high confusion stack and stop attacking (a free daze effect :P ) so the longer the duration, the mroe damage you are mitigating, the more control you have over your opponent
I would’ve thought that factoring in human unpredictability would make condition damage seem even better than condition duration.
In theory, the best case scenario would be your opponent spamming a low CT attack, which with +10% condition duration is realistically going to give you one extra proc, if that. Factoring in human unpredictability means they might do things other than spamming their low CT attack, so the results can only be worse.
Remember that some attacks cause confusion to trigger multiple times, also include things such as on weapon swap, or on dodge roll abilities and people who mash buttons, your going to get lots of confusion ticks in a short period of time, one of my fav videos of this is – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMI_MzO52lw&feature=youtube_gdata_player
around the 53 second mark against the poor fighter, 4 hits within the second
At the end of the day it comes to personal feel and opinion on what you want to run, but on paper extra condition duration wins over damage at the following rates:
At 3 seconds duration, 10% duration = 200 condition damage
If you apply it at a 5 second duration, 10% mor duration = 100 condition damage.
Of course if we start looking into multi stacks, extra duration plays a big key in maintaining a large enough pool of confusion stacks for long enough to get the big hits off. (One of the main reasons I run veggie pizza instead of any +100 condition foods)
I would’ve thought that factoring in human unpredictability would make condition damage seem even better than condition duration.
In theory, the best case scenario would be your opponent spamming a low CT attack, which with +10% condition duration is realistically going to give you one extra proc, if that. Factoring in human unpredictability means they might do things other than spamming their low CT attack, so the results can only be worse.
You forget that a glamour build is a generally a zerg busting tool. Ikittenerg, people are doing nothing but spamming attacks and aoes as quickly as they can. That makes the condition duration more potent. Additionally, in non zerg situations, the longer confusion acts as a shutdown tool, which can be very helpful.
Except not all players use autoattacks that have lower CTs than 0.5s, and ikittenerg spam AoEs and other skills that are likely to be used have even longer CTs than most autoattacks. The fact is getting an extra Confusion proc with 0.5s is remote even under ideal situations. You’re better off getting extra condition damage to ensure the Confusion that does proc hit harder.
As for shutdown… it’s 0.3 – 0.5s. I already have 5s – 8.5s of Confusion, what difference is an extra 0.3 – 0.5s going to make? Also consider the -40% condition duration food, which I think a player smart enough to not attack through Confusion is likely to have: that reduces the duration bonus of +10% to negligible levels.
Remember that some attacks cause confusion to trigger multiple times, also include things such as on weapon swap, or on dodge roll abilities and people who mash buttons, your going to get lots of confusion ticks in a short period of time, one of my fav videos of this is – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMI_MzO52lw&feature=youtube_gdata_player
around the 53 second mark against the poor fighter, 4 hits within the second
As for people who mash buttons without actually activating anything, that’s basing your theorycrafting on the lowest of the low denominator: “it works better when your opponent is even more stupid than usual!” Is not really valid theorycrafting.
Also, your numbers might make sense for consistent conditions like Burning and Bleeding, but not for an unpredictable one like Confusion.
(edited by Embolism.8106)
If we start taking about competent players we will have to factor in lowered durations as well as cleanses.
But at the end of the day, go with what suits you