Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 Mesmer Condition Tank Guide

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Due to Military Deployment this guide will not be maintained as well as I would like until late September 2013 but I will do my best to keep checking and answering questions.

Condition Tank Mesmer Game play Footage

Mesmer Outnumbered fighting

Condition Tank Mesmer Burst Potential
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT9HxcoBE4M]Basic Walkthrough of Condition Tank Mesmer Fighting

Condition Tank Mesmer Soloing a WvW Tower that has Defenders

Condition Tank Mesmer Intro and Traits
Video Guide Part 1

The Condition Tank is a Guild Wars 2 Mesmer build based around solo roaming in WvW using Conditions to kill enemies. It utilises high mobility, high survivability and moderate to high damage. The build also keeps Chaos Armor up as much as possible and with the perfect chain allows for Chaos Armour to be up for over 1 minute 30 Seconds!

The high mobility comes from both Blink and Phase Retreat, Blink gives you a Stun breaker and gives you a targetable teleport that can be utilised to get up or around line of sight objects making it hard for your prey to cause you damage, Phase Retreat gives a basic teleport in the opposite direction to your target that is on a 5 second cool down due to the traits Illusionists Celerity and Chaotic Dampening. In addition to these, Null Field gives you the ability to rip slowing conditions from yourself as well as swiftness from enemies. Chaos Armour also helps with your mobility by slowing attackers down helping you get a little breathing space.

The high survivability comes from stacking toughness from Rabid stat gear, Ether Feast Healing for higher amounts due to having 3 Illusions out most of the time, Illusionary Defense reducing damage by up to 9% due to having 3 illusions out most of the time, Chaos Armor granted from the Staff number 4 skill giving Protection, Chaos Armor Blinding foes and granting regeneration, Feedback reflecting projectiles, Null Field stripping conditions from you, and finally stacking Confusion so your target has to decide if attacking you is worth taking damage.

The medium damage comes from your Bleeds caused by Winds of Chaos, Sharper Images and Sigil of Earth. Burns caused by Winds of Chaos. Your staff clones also cast Winds of Chaos by default further increasing your burns and bleeds.

Your high damage comes from stacking confusion from Cry of Frustration, Chaos Armour and Blinding Befuddlement and Confusin Images.
Burst Damage Video

Weapons
Video Guide Part 2

For a FULL break down of each weapon please watch the Video Guide Part 2, for the text based guild I will only go through what I currently recommend.

For the main weapon you have to go with the staff. Winds of Chaos (staff 1) gives you steady condition damage, nice boons and powerful clones. Phase Retreat (staff 2) gives you a clone and nice mobility and your leap combo finisher, Phantasmal Warlock (staff 3) Does not offer very high damage but it is an easy to cast illusion for shatters and to help keep your illusions at 3 if your foes keep killing them, Chaos Storm (staff 4) the life blood of the build in so many ways gives great conditions and great boons, Chaos Storm (staff 5) gives good conditions and boons but most importantly a Combo FIeld.

For weapon Swap I used to recommend the Sword and the Focus to try and help with people running from you but now I recommend the Scepter and Focus for help with Burst from Confusing Images off the Scepter and the ability to pull Theifs out of Shadow Refuge with Temporal Curtain.

A Tip when fighting Theifs….their Steal ability against a Mesmer gives them the skill Plasma that will grant most boons in the game, it gives them Stability and Aegis. A bad theif will pop this as soon as they can a good Theif will save it until they need to Shadow Refuge, the Stability will prevent Temporal Curtain pulls for the first few seconds and the Aegis will stop it for the rest of the duration, when fighting try to remember if you see alot of boons flash up on their target icon, if you havent noticed them pop it then it might be a plan to keep your staff equipped for the added survivability when they come out of stealth instead of weapon swapping, failing a temporal curtain pull and taking a full damage backstab.

For underwater combat I recommend using the Trident, it synergises so well with this build that I have been able to fight and win 1v6 while underwater!
1 v 6 Underwater combat Video

Skills
Video Guide Part 3

Heal Skill = Ether Feast
As you will have 3 illusions out most of the time I suggest Ether Feast as it heals for more with the more Illusions you have out. The reflection ability of Mirror is useful but too situational for me so rather get the extra raw health.

Utility Slot 1 = Blink
A Stun Breaker and a teleport, helps with mobility and can help confuse your enemy by blinking behind them and quickly spawning clones then auto attacking letting them guess what are clones and what is the player.

Utility Slot 2 = Null Field
Rips Conditions from Allies and Boons from Foes, gives an extra combo field and can act as area denial but forcing the enemy to move as noone likes standing in Purple circles unless they know they are friendly.

Utility Slot 3 = Feedback
Reflects projectiles back at the enemy and can cause confusion from the projectile combo finisher in an ethereal combo field, acts and a combo field and gives additional area denial.

Elite Skill Choice 1 = Time Warp
Gives Quickness and gives you a combo field that you can Phase Retreat in twice! Good for helping with Stomps in a 1vX situation.

Elite Skill Choice 2 = Mass Invisibility
Grants Stealth giving you a target reset if fighting organised parties and can help stealth you and get stomps off.

Runes and Sigils
Video Guide Part 4

For a full overview of Runes and Sigils please watch Video Guide Part 4 for the text based guide I will only cover my main recomendations.

Main Weapon = Sigil of Earth

GIves a chance to cause Bleed on crit, has an internal cooldown of 2 seconds but due to Illusionary Elasticity will almost ALWAYS been on its internal cooldown!

Armour Choice 1 = Rune of the Undead

This is my current and recommended rune set as the added damage and survivability is more useful in combat then what you get from Rune of the Centaur, once you learn your hunting spots 100% swiftness can be lived without.

Armour Choice 2 = Rune of the Centaur

Swiftness when casting your 5 ability is nice, cast temporal curtain and upon gaining the swiftness boon cast your heal and you will have swiftness 100% of the time, nice to get around the map quickly, added power to help with your staff 1 skill white damage, increased bleed duration but it only works with Bleeds inflicted with YOUR Winds of Chaos NOT the Bleeds caused by your Clones!

Consumables
Video Guide Part 5

For a better break down of Consumables please watch Video Guide Part 5
For the text based guide I will only cover the ones I use.

Food = Super Veggie Pizza

Increased Condition Damage and longer Condition Duration for your Conditions, alot more cost effective that Rare Veggie Pizza

Crystal = Quality Tuning Crystal

Increased Condition Damage and more cost effective than Master Tuning Crystals

Chaos Armour Chain
Video Guide Part 6

As said earlier you are able to keep Chaos Armor up for over 1:30 with this chain.
Chaos Armor -> Chaos Storm -> Null Field -> Feedback -> Chaos Armour -> Chaos Storm -> Timewarp 1 -> Timewarp 2 -> Chaos Armour -> Chaos Storm -> Null Field -> Feedback -> Chaos Armour -> Chaos Storm.

Video Guides for the following…

Weapon Skill Bugs

Utility and Trait Bugs

Dealing with Runners and Escaping

Wow very informative Samski, thanks! Adding the text to your video definately makes it much easier for us to understand.

Gonna try this out now

@Samski
what do you think of the Befuddlement changes in the recent patch? Maintaining Chaos armor still worth while?

kirito.4138:

@Samski
what do you think of the Befuddlement changes in the recent patch? Maintaining Chaos armor still worth while?

With this and the confusion change the build has defiantly taken a hit, i’m unable to play the game for the next 4 month so cant do any testing

Thank you very much for this guide. Sorry, I would like to make some remarks.

I see that you take staff (sigil of earth) / sword (sigil of ice) + focus (sigil of leeching). The description states that sigil of earth has a cooldown of 2 seconds and sigil of ice a cooldown of 10 seconds. According to the wiki (sigil > sigils with cooldown) “all sigils that have a cooldown share the same cooldown.”

The trait skill Masterful Reflection (Illusions IV) grants reflection when you use F4 distortion. According to the wiki, this means reflecting projectiles and not relfecting a percentage of the incoming damage (retaliation). The wiki also states that it doesn’t affect the 2 seconds evade on Blurred Frenzy (sword 2).

(Perhaps it should also be noted that the sigil of earth is not applied to the mesmer’s clones according to the wiki (sigil > on-critical sigils).)

I would also like to ask you for advice, about swapping out Blinding Befuddlement (Illusions IX). I do not think it’s useful anymore since you can only apply 1 confusion for each chaos armor. I also don’t think Masterful Reflection (Illusions IV) would be needed. So would it be wise to take Illusionary Person (Illusions XI, shattering illusions creates the shatter effect on you as well) or Imbued Diversion (Illusions XII, Diversion hits multiple targets)? The first choice because of an extra second Distortion, the latter choice because of an area wide daze from Diversion. (About the daze from Diversion, perhaps it should also be noted that according to the wiki, the duration doesn’t stack and therefore it is good to create different distances to your target so that the illusions have a higher probability to chain a daze.)

msyu.3689:

I see that you take staff (sigil of earth) / sword (sigil of ice) + focus (sigil of leeching). The description states that sigil of earth has a cooldown of 2 seconds and sigil of ice a cooldown of 10 seconds. According to the wiki (sigil > sigils with cooldown) “all sigils that have a cooldown share the same cooldown.”

The trait skill Masterful Reflection (Illusions IV) grants reflection when you use F4 distortion. According to the wiki, this means reflecting projectiles and not relfecting a percentage of the incoming damage (retaliation). The wiki also states that it doesn’t affect the 2 seconds evade on Blurred Frenzy (sword 2).

(Perhaps it should also be noted that the sigil of earth is not applied to the mesmer’s clones according to the wiki (sigil > on-critical sigils).)

I would also like to ask you for advice, about swapping out Blinding Befuddlement (Illusions IX). I do not think it’s useful anymore since you can only apply 1 confusion for each chaos armor. I also don’t think Masterful Reflection (Illusions IV) would be needed. So would it be wise to take Illusionary Person (Illusions XI, shattering illusions creates the shatter effect on you as well) or Imbued Diversion (Illusions XII, Diversion hits multiple targets)? The first choice because of an extra second Distortion, the latter choice because of an area wide daze from Diversion. (About the daze from Diversion, perhaps it should also be noted that according to the wiki, the duration doesn’t stack and therefore it is good to create different distances to your target so that the illusions have a higher probability to chain a daze.)

Hey

Regarding the cooldown for sigils, I completed a little testing and i’m not 100% sure but it seemed that sigils with a 2 second CD all share the 2 second CD and sigils with a 10 second CD all share the 10 second CD. When testing running around in the mists you are able to get sigil of earth procs weapon swap and get a proc from your sword 2. This maybe from sigil of earth kicking in a 2 second cool down then coming off cool down in time for your sword sigil to activate though.

Yea the sigil does not work with your clones unfortunately but Sharper images and Winds of Chaos gets you a fair few bleeds.

Regarding Masterful Reflection it was probably a slip of the tongue when commenting I explain my meanings in the comments of the YouTube video when someone picks me up on it

I have been theory crafting a little bit due to the recent changes but I am unable to play the game until September now so cant put anything into practice You logic seems sound so maybe you could try it and let us know your findings ?

Hello

Thank you very much for explaining.

I tried some sigils for the cooldowns:

• sword (ice, 10s cd) / sword (battle, 10s cd): if you activate the chill and then swap weapons, sigil of battle will not activate.
• sword (ice, 10s cd) / sword (earth, 2s cd): if you activate the chill and then swap weapons, sigil of earth will not activate.
• sword (ice, 10s cd) / sword (leeching, no cd): if you activate the chill and then swap weapons, sigil of leeching will not activate.
  Mind that the cooldowns for sigil of battle and sigil of earth aren’t mentioned in the weapon description, i took them from the wiki.

As for Blinding Befuddlement (Illusion IX), since it’s confusion application has a 5 seconds cooldown, I still think it’s worth considering another trait skill. But as for which one is better, I cannot tell. I gave up on the Illusionary Persona (Illusions XI) because I am running around and away. [As a side note, I heard that when not taking Illusionary Persona (Illusions XI), you can have a fourth clone shatter on your target if you dodge over the target when you shatter because you create a clone on dodge using Deceptive Evasion (Dueling X), but I am not able to succeed in doing this.] I am now considering and trying out: Confusing Cry (Illusions II, Cry of Frustration grants retaliation: 18s for 3 clones because of +20% boon duration), Masterful Reflection (Illusions IV, Distortion grants reflection) and Imbued Diversion (Illusions XII, Diversion hits multiple targets). I prefer Confusing Cry, but retaliation scales with power, dealing 287 damage a tick using your build.

Just wanted to point out that although the most recent confusion/blinding beffudlement nerfs hurt this build, there was also a Buff. Clones now share condition duration, so it may be worth reconsidering condition duration boosting gear. I realize Samski’s not as available to play with that stuff, but others may want to look into it.

Any specific jewellery that you use on this build? I’m currently using the rabid karma set.

What jewels do you use? Exquisite Ruby Jewels for their crit damage? Or Exquisite Chrysocola Jewels for Condition?

It is a great build (or was), and you do an amazing job on the battlefield. I watched a couple of your vids, and found it funny how you kept saying that A) the build is OP and in need of a nerf, and that on your server you could never find anyone to fight you unless it was 1vX.

Pre confusion nerf I was running the same build on SoR, Tier 1. Set out to make it, and played it for the first 8 months of the game. When our server got to tier 1 I found the average level of players/groups were better than that of the early months. Post confusion nerf, these same players were to smart/aware of confusion to take down anymore. Your average Tier 1 player of moderate skill had dealt with enough confusion to know not to attack, even with the nerf, and would simply duke out and let his buddies without those high stacks, or any stacks of confusion step in to dish out the damage. Suddenly I needed a new source of damage apart from confusion/conditions in order to maintain prowess in fights using the same build.

It made me wonder how you’d do in 1v1/1vX in Tier 1 NA vs your average player. The bleeds and chaos armor will still be rough on your enemies, but I doubt you’d see the same success with confusion.

(Though that said, with confusion being ignored by players for a while, there’ll come a time it’ll catch people unaware again.))

Oxylus.7985:

Any specific jewellery that you use on this build? I’m currently using the rabid karma set.

What jewels do you use? Exquisite Ruby Jewels for their crit damage? Or Exquisite Chrysocola Jewels for Condition?

Looking at the numbers that’s full rabid.

Im curious if it still works cause i noted problems with condition duration runes, which seem to not work at all..any advice?

The link to the video for chaining chaos armor sends me to

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Master_Tuning_Crystal

Could you fix that? I wanted to see the chain because it looks confusing as you describe it. For example you put timewarp1 → timewarp2? What does that mean? Use 2 leap finishers inside 1 timewarp?

Xenon.4537:

The link to the video for chaining chaos armor sends me to

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Master_Tuning_Crystal

Could you fix that? I wanted to see the chain because it looks confusing as you describe it. For example you put timewarp1 -> timewarp2? What does that mean? Use 2 leap finishers inside 1 timewarp?

I’m assuming he means you do a leap (phase retreat primarily) through each of the ethereal fields he describes in order. So since timewarp is a 10 second field you can do a phase retreat through it, then 5 seconds later do another phase retreat though it when the first chaos armour ends.

When he says “chaos armour” in that list he means hitting staff 4.

This looks like all the videos were taken well before the confusion nerf and the Curtain delay nerf. How is this build running now?

Unfortunately this build was totally gutted with the confusion damage nerf patch. The patch did two things, the obvious reduction in confusion damage but also the “Blinding Beffudlement” trait was changed so that it would only proc confusion once every 5 seconds per target. This change not only destroyed this build but was as uncalled for as most of the Anet’s mesmer trait changes and is the primary reason why Chaos Armour is totally pointless. In the good old days attacking into Chaos Armour had a 2/3 chance of proc’ing a 400 damage confusion tick on you. These days if you are a really really unlucky ranger your next attack will cause you 150 confusion damage and the mesmer will get 3 secs of protection.

Incidentally this build was as borderline OP as Samski makes out in his videos but my god it was fun. It certainly dealt with all those glass cannon rangers who thought they could get away with spamming rapid attacking at 1200 range, but as you know in the good old days Anet were concerned about skill caps…

In short, don’t use this, the build is designed around maintaing a low level (1-3 stacks) of confusion from people attacking into your Chaos Armour and a subsequent confusion spike from CoF and scepter 3. This is no longer possible so the build is essentially a staff condi spec with a lot of chaos armour uptime, which is no longer desirable as the 2/3 chance of high damage confusion proc doesn’t exist.

Pre all the nerfs this build had only one hard counter that I was aware of and that was a D/P thief running condi cleanse in stealth and even then a duel between evenly matched players would take more time than you would care for, open field you would run way.

Fav qoute when running this build was when facing a very good P/P Condi Engi running tool kit and all the elixirs saying : “I just can’t attack you”. OP, but fun, basically a build for fighting the majority of German servers in the EU bracket who’s idea of a fair fight is 5vs1 in their favour with arrow cart support.

Hey guys,

Sorry for the lack of updates I have had no internet access for the past 3 month.

Unfortunately it looks like the build has been nerfed heavily, I will test it out when I am able to play again but with the changes to the build since I have been gone via various patches I think its safe to say in its current format the build is gone.

samski.5194:

Hey guys,

Sorry for the lack of updates I have had no internet access for the past 3 month.

Unfortunately it looks like the build has been nerfed heavily, I will test it out when I am able to play again but with the changes to the build since I have been gone via various patches I think its safe to say in its current format the build is gone.

Play about with the new runes of Perplexity, they’ve actually made confusion fairly valid again because of the huge amount you can now stack on people as a Mesmer. Using might stacking on interrupts, weapon swap and staff clones you can engineer a situation where you have 10-20 might and your opponent has 10-20 stacks of confusion, the outcome of that is some rather large purple numbers.