Guild Wars 2

Osicat if you are seeing this post I am sorry to bother you. I know you are working nearly everyday with your main job and getting back home to make more vids and to test them out. you probably will not see this post with much regards and might just skip it. But I have always wanted to duel you so badly. Even just once. If you can ever come to the Heart of The Mists and go to The 1 vs 1 Dueling Servers located near the top of the arena search box at around noon like tomorrow or any other day in the summer, I would be majorly appreciative of your generosity and kindness. I live in California so my noon will probably be in a different time than yours. I’m sorry to bother you but it will mean alot if you can battle me even just once. My in game name is Garfield Shattercat

@Argos, Think this is the setup I used for just that vid. The build was still under heavy testing thu so some traits might been different but nothing major.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArfWlwzKqHTTsGb9IipHBHyBckUUavWJF42FC-j0CBINCiUFgkIBKHqIasVTFRjVJL1qbY6YCRmbo2cDRzMGWKAIWDA-w

Latest update of the build will be ready on friday (I just work to much to fix it before)

@themenaceofseventhdimensiom, first, jeeees that a long name. Second, firends add me and we sort something out mate. npnp, I have a guild raid 2 night thu and on friday. mabye something midday friday alternative saturday. we sort something.

My ingame name is…. “Osicat”:)

/Osicat

@All.

Build updated.

Condition cat 2.0 now have been poliched and updated for better dmg and flexibility. New vid will be out in time but I work ALOT atm and started work on a new ambulance station so not alot of free time. Ressult: might take a day or 2.

/Osicat

Condition cat : D
Cant wait for the vid :P

Meow

Osicat.4139:

@All.

Build updated.

Condition cat 2.0 now have been poliched and updated for better dmg and flexibility. New vid will be out in time but I work ALOT atm and started work on a new ambulance station so not alot of free time. Ressult: might take a day or 2.

/Osicat

Can you just list the Weapons and Sigils used? Currently working on another Condition build but i am finding it hard to pick Sigils. I use the Staff and Scepter/Pistol – i would use the Torch but i find iMage to be awful.

I was thinking of having Poison on Staff and Scepter and maybe +10 Power/Precision on the Pistol i would have prefered Earth but as Anet decided to make all Sigils to share a cool down when one is procc-ed i cant

@ArmageddonAsh. The weps ans sigils are listed. Just click the build/gear link.

/Osicat

Greetings all,

Many thanks everyone for all the contributions to this thread. I have gone from necro to mesmer in my time on GW2 and mesmer is just a blast. And the Shatter Cat builds have given me endless enjoyment in part from my wife glancing over and asking me if “i must cartwheel over everything we fight”. Now to the questions.

I feel i need to start with I’ve never been good at getting money. Every dime has gone into crafting exotics for me and the wife, so for the most part, I don’t get to use those “Superior” runes and sigils and instead have to make due with the “Major” ones instead (in some cases, that’s quite disheartening).

Anyway, I swap between the SC Heavy and the SC Hybrid when the wife and I play. We play mostly PvE farming the Queens Jubilee currently. I was wondering, I love the survivability of the SC Heavy but I really cant stack might to save my life. I really can’t, unless having 8 stacks in a fight is ok. Is this a PvE thing? Perhaps the major vs superior runes are too much of a gap for me?

Anyway, thanks all for the insight through these 26 pages and counting. And another thanks to Osicat for all you’ve done for the class. Hope I haven’t been too confusing.

-Sark

@Sarkonic, I answer you later.

@All.

Update. New build video.

Condition Cat 2.0

/Osicat

Isnt Battle and Earth sigils going to counter each other?

Sure you might get the Battle proc when switching from Staff to Scepter/Torch but that alone will put a cool down on Earth meaning it wont proc for 9seconds i think and then if it procs right before you weapon swap to Staff then it will put the Battle on cool down wasting it.

@Armagedon Ash. Dont have Earth listed in my guide links what I can see and if so it is a mistake. What i use ingame is “Battle” + “condition dmg stack” + Battle. And for Pistol setup its “Battle+ Condition dmg” + " Battle + 5% crit chance".

/Osicat

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArfWlwzKqHTTsGb9IipHBHyBckUUavWJF42FC-j0CBINCiUFgkIBKHqIasVTFRjVJL1qbY6YCRmbo2cDRzMGWKAIWDA-w

That one it says Earth and Battle for the Scepter and Torch. So you have Battle and Corruption?

This ismy latest guide update.

4 – The Non shatter Condition Cat.

First, My build run some rather similar setups to Natsus Dragneel (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/BUILD-The-Blackwater-Mesmer-WvW-Condition) and Seven mirrors early torch build. This is natural as many traits are rather needed. I have some differences thu and will explain why I run this version in the way I do.

A condition heavy spec capable of survive close to big numbers of enemy and infiltrate their controlled areas.Its also a EXTREMELY trolly spec and the frustration of your enemy’s reach new lvls the better you become.It’s effective in small groups and solo play but also in bigger teams of 10-15 man. As your clones don’t need to survive to do dmg Or help your team with cc you can go rather deep into the fight.

High pressure with sudden spikes of torment and burn make this spec capable of down most enemy’s. You will run into a few classes you can’t take down on your own,
condition clearing thief’s with good skill and some necros. But they can’t really kill you either.

2 versions is listed here. both for wvwv. Reason is that I use both on my runs. A simple weapon swap trade mobilitya nd defense for high dmg spikes and more cc. When teh enemy team is big I use the staff, if I only see smal groups around on my runs I trade for higher dmg.

New runes in the 2.0 version of the build and new sigils:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_Perplexity

To balance the dmg I now use might swap + condition stacking. This give high dmg output even after dropped undead runes high overall dmg.

Characteristics:

Use scepter in MH .
Use OH torch with trait for condition clearing and short cd.
Staff for defensive and offensive purposes.
Use Rune of Perplexity

Geared for passive defense but still with high dmg output

Gear and Build:
*
Roaming and group combat: http://tinyurl.com/Condition-Cat-2-0-Romaing

Low populated roaming (Aka early mornings) and dueling: http://tinyurl.com/Condition-cat-2-0-duel
*
Videos:

How do you find Perplexity? seeing as the 30% confusion duration doesnt work still does that have any affect on its usefulness?

Perplexy seem as a extremly strong burst and controll rune. It add a spoon of control and burst to the condition preasure. When I attack I get the 3 stack up earaly ofc. If i scan get by a pistol stun, chaos storm, daze etc can get the 5 stack up I know the enemy HAVE to clense or live with the stack for a looong time.

My base dmg is normal conditions, the confusion is juts to mess with ppl and make em play defensive.

For group fights its lovey, did GvG with em and still ahve pink colours in the corner of my eyes due to al fun with my focus.

/Osicat

Hey Osicat,
I was watching nearly every single video of yours and I just wasn´t able to stop laughing cause even after the Mesmer nerf, you just destroy entire groups in the battle ground.

I played Mesmer a lot in PVE, but it was not the path I wanted to go in GW2.
On grounds that I don´t like the focus on my 2th hand, I rather chose a 2th sword, but here is my question :P

As I was able to get enough information, shattering and illusions and so on got nerfed and I just lost my view over the possibilitys as a shatter mesmer.

Is your Shatter Cat Phantasm Hybrid build still well working in WvW vs3 or even 4 enemy players, or is it only effective against a solo enemy, like, 1vs1 you win and 1vs3 the mesmer nerf kills you? :P

On the other hand, I also rly like the portal, but the hybrid build of yours suggests mirror images instead of the portal.
Would it be very critical to chose portal instead of mirror images or is it some kind of core in the build to burst down enemies instantly?

I would be very glad if you can answer my questions
Sry if I´ve done some grammar mistakes, my german school english sucks

Greetings from germany ^^

what the gears status u use please and give me link of ur set and tarits and runes

@Sarconis, to get realy high might stacks in heavy you need to get some interupt landed, prefered with aoe. This is easier the more tarhet you fight. Also make sure you shatter regulary for more moght stacks. On top of this. as soon you start se high numbers, swap to staff, get 3 clones up and try stick close to a target. This will give more might and fury for a nice condi preasure ended with a fury + mulit might 4 source mindwrack.

@Santeria, As the meta transform so do the builds. This natural transformation have lead to condition and condition countering builds atm do better in solo /sma team situations. Phantasm hybdrid still a extremly strong build but I mostly use it in team or pve as it lack good defense versus conditions.

For portal its absolutly the most common used utility in wvwvw on my bar. Every group run I use it and always a viable skill. Switch utilitys for any build after playstyle and situation for best ressult.

For the “optimal” roaming build atm in wvwvw you need something who not only good in 1 vs 1 but also can as you say handle 1 vs 3 or escape 1 vs x. For this I recomend S C Heavy 3 . 0 with ist close to imunity to conditions, or the condition spec who … melt faces.

@Reaper, as this is a guide its ofc contain traits gear etc. To make it simple, instead of post them to everyone who ask I started the thread with a " guide" section. In this you find links to al my builds, including gear, traits etc. gl

/Osicat

Not strictly on topic but I was wondering if you would recommend Gandara as a server to transfer to. I’ve been looking to transfer back to an EU server and I’m really unsure of which one to go to from a WvW perspective.

@Raghken, Depend on what you after in wvwv. If you looking for big 60 man guilds, organiced zerging and climb for nr1 rank in eu etc Gandara is not the place for you.

If you after a wery open and friendly community with a big number of 10-20 man roaming and gvg guilds Gandara is somethingf or you. We have a big number of guilds who al communicate with eachother and have in general fun. Often you see this guilds do “HIA *” in /s to eachother whne passing. Azuraball is frequently played in our spvp servers . We aof have 2 bigger 25+ guilds but we are a typical mid rank server whith more fouc on fun than on points.

/Osicat

@Osicat At the moment I’m on Sanctum of Rall but I’m looking to really do roaming and maybe get into some WvW focused guilds to possibly do GvG. That seems pretty good but would it be pretty active after say midnight GMT? I would be on occasionally after that and I wouldn’t really want the server to be dead then.

thanks a lot Osicat, I gonna try out both builds and decide which one makes most fun

Hey Osicat, quick question.. how does the Condicat 2.0 build fare against solo glassy thieves in 1v1? I’m using a 10/30/0/0/30 shatter staff/sword+torch build atm and it works great but looking to switch more into condi’s for a bit of variety and to follow the meta.

Great video’s btw! Thanks.

kitten well Markus, kitten well!

@MarkusParkus, It pull their pants down and give them a spank if they stay you use s/p + Septer/torch. If you use staff + Septer/torch will most likely ressult in a draw versus a good one as its less bursty and they will panic stealth as soon they can.

A good thief thu will identefy the build you use and leg it as soon he se the 140 d bleed ticks, confusion stacks etc.

Interesting the build also melts p/p condition thiefs in my experience. Trick is same, get duelists up and image for retaliation and keep in stealth as mutch as posible. As soon he pop up hit septer beem as it folows him into stealth, if he hits use block for torment.

/Osicat

@Osicat, thanks for the tip. Like I said, I cannot afford to get all superior runes yet so i went 4 Hoelbrek (spelling?), and 2 Wyrm for a little bit of crit. A couple of times last night I managed to get up to 23 might stacks with just two opponents so I am getting the hang of the build. I used to hate the focus, but now that I see it’s use, it’s pretty awesome. So thanks for the advice. I will start saving for the big boy runes.

On another note, how do you guys fund all these habits of changing specs all the time? I got crafting up in most areas I use and end up making each piece, but it’s still a slow process. Do you dragon farm, farm T6 mats, have helpful guilds, what? Be safe.

-Sark

@ Sarkonis

Crafting is too expansive !

Best methods ( in my opinion ) to get stuff :
1 – Armor
Dungeon ( look stat of armor you want, )
Berzerker : Citadel iof Flame ( best choice ), or Arah
For Knight/Valkyrie piece, just craft/Buy or look if you can buy it with the new seller in WvWvW
Rabid : WvWvW-Karma seller in last map-Dungeon ( Twilight Arbor or Arah ), easy stuff.

The Weapons !
I don’t like farm dungeon so with your farm for armor you will be able to bought them ( the cost depend )
I made an exeption for Rabid scepter, craft myself in mystic forge.
If you don’t have money, just keep farm dungeon..

Runes & Sigil
Bought them ( btw, I bought all exept the runes of perplexity, I craft them )

Accessories
Since there is ascended now, don’t lose your money in exotic
Buy the gold you wanted, and use a jewel on it ( only if you will not be able to have ascended quickly )

Ascended :
Laurel for the amulet & infusions ( Buy amulet in McM, you will save 5 laurels )
Fractals for the ring ( or Laurel if you have tons of them )
Guilds Challenges for Earrings ( For me, this is my only problem, too long if you have rerolls… )

Again, sorry for my english, I do my best to be understood…

@Kotan

I understand just fine. Thanks for the advice. No matter which way you look at it, it just going to take some time. I totally forgot about Karma… been away for a few months and trying to get back into it again. Thanks for the advice again.

Thanks for the guides Osicat, I’ve watched through all of them but have never actually gone the way of the shattercat. I do however really enjoy condition mesmers and have been playing something based off of Natsu’s build. So, it’s been great getting to see your take on playing a condition mesmer.

A quick question though, what do you (and everyone else) think about cutting back on the rabid gear a bit and throwing on some power gear (Valk, Rampagers, Berserkers)? Would it kitten the condition cat 2.0 build too much?

To be honest, what I’d love is a great hybrid build and I’ve tried to build one but due to time/gold/creativity constraints, I just haven’t been able to come up with an effective one. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen very many hybrid guides either and I’m suspecting that with the nature of mesmers, going hybrid may very well be unattainable because of the unique playstyle Either way, would love to know what you all think!

Cheers

Hey Osicat, have you experimented with traiting Pistol instead of Deceptive evasion? And tossing Feedback on instead of Veil?

Feedback (Or nullfield) + Duelist + magic bullet combo is pretty devasting with Perplexity runes. 16 stacks of confusion.

@Woopwop, to be honest if you turly want hubrid setup the most effective is to go Shatter Cat Mist or Heavy, get a set of celestial armour and stack might. When stacks get high swap to staff and use bounce mecanic for fury.

Also if you look into Heavy 3.0 its played as a hybrid thru might stacks. regulary havd 100+ bleed ticks when might get to 20~ stacks.

Have a vid of one of my early hybrid tests, it was before celestial armour thu.

@Rinzler, I dont do it cause I dont like to invest into one trick to much. Its a AWSOME way to max dmg form duelist but it also put your mian dmg into one card. The current setup give a big number of equaly strong “tricks”.

/Osicat

@Everyone at this game that’s better than me, how does the Rabid setup work for PvE? As much as I love spinning cartwheels over everything, I’d love to try this build out too. I understand that you can get the armor from karma vendors, but where can you get the weapons? Anywhere other than TP?

-Sark

@Osicat: how are you fairing against other condition heavy opponents with your condi builds above?

If I read them right, the only condi removal you have is torch (which is pretty good but might cause you to hold back on some of the skills in order to save for condition removal).

@Sarkonis, to be honest confusion condition on mobs is only so so since they aren’t auto attacking as much as a player would, so most of the time you only get a tick or maybe 2 before your confusion is off of the mob.

@Osicat – Thanks for the reply. I’ll have to take a look at that. Been messing around with another build at the moment but will definitely have a look at the Shattercat mist/heavy when I have time. Only trouble is celestial is so darn expensive haha. I’ve been eyeing that gear since it’s come out though lol

@osicat – Hey a fellow condition mesmer here. I use a very similar build to yours(exact same traits) and have been for awhile. However a long time ago I switched all my Rabid weapons for Givers. Doing this gets you to that beautiful 100% Condition Duration, and really makes your conditions hit much hard than extra Condition Damage, and with the new runes confusion hits like a truck.

Wasn’t sure if you had thought of this before or tried it. It works like a charm with my condition build and allows me to maintain Confusion, Bleed, and Poison up 100% of the time.

@Deathcon: How you getting poison in that mix?

@Deathcon, yes, before runes you have 2 hard dmg ways, bleeds and the cloud of others. Now you have 3 hard hitters. COnfusion, blleds and the cloud of others. I love it.

@Juno, tbh for spvp and wvwvw I dont find other condi player as hard oponents. Mainly cause its even for a condi EXTREMLY hard to focus you in al target drops, blocks and blinds. You blokc conditions juts as you block dd. Exeption is AOE condis, this is why you need to pay atention and range other players. If you have porblems stealth blink and bail.

For duels its another situation, here you cant bail, u exected to fights. for this I instead use mantra of condi clear in replacement of weil. Work wonders.

Only oponent I see as a big threat in the spec is good enginers. This players I just stealth and put phantasms on. Keep loong range al time and dodge the grab. In wvwvw I hit em when they fight other things, cheesy but it wor. They HATE confusion on them self so arcane thevery is good vs em.

/Osicat

Greetings all,

Well I was on the way to completing my rabid set and some clockwork patch happened and derailed that for a few hours. Anyway, I did end the night with completing a rabid set with a few exceptions. The helm and shoulders are rares, the rest are karma bought exotics from ORR.

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t have a ton of money, but I sold some mats and was able to purchase exotic Carrion S/T and Staff. I don’t have the WvWvW tokens yet for the actual Rabid weapons. Anyway, I can’t wait to give this a try in the Borderlands tonight.

On a side note… crafted exotic weapons might actually be the ugliest thing I have ever seen. I think it’s done on purpose… it’s just bad. Never in a game have I crafted something so powerful and immediately wanted to hide it from the world before I bought a skin. Be safe all.

-Sark

great!
btw,can ur build use in pvp?

@Juno – With 100% condition duration I decided to put Sigils of Doom on my weapons making the poison last a full 10 seconds, with weapon swaps that is almost 100% poison uptime. Although I will say that I would never have noticed that without reading another one of the Condition Mesmer guides on here.

@Moaning Marv, yeah you’re right. I just took the condi build for a whirl yesterday and got sucked in to a clockwork event. I felt like I was gonna cry. Before I completely flipped out though, I took it to WvW and roamed a bit with a couple people and it really shined out there.

So I think I will put the Rabid set in the bank until I WvW more often and go back to the Heavy 3.0 for running events with the wife. That warden is a beast in PvE… the mobs just sit there while he pounds the T-Total crap out of them. Good times.

Edit: Also was looking for some advice if any to rune choices and sigil selection to better enhance the the Heavy 3.0 in a PvE environment. Might stacking NPCs is quite a chore and at times doesn’t seem worth the effort. Any advice welcomed.

Be safe,

-Sark

@Sarkonis, in pve, tests a GS with Sigil of strength for Heavy 3.0 in pve + battle on your 1 h sword.

@All

New Video incomming. Been working al week on roaming and find a good dual team setup. me and another Judge have left piles of dead in our tracks and now I think I got the perfect synergi for play with a 2 man stealth team in wvwvwv roaming. Its alot of vuln stacking going on, cc and controll and Insane dmg.

I sure you al love it.

/Osicat

uhu – I can’t wait to see it ^^

And here it comes.

I asked the best thief I know to help me on the mission. Ty alot to Judge Idlescholar for the help and fantastic fun.

After several testing runs this was the ressult. Enjoy some nice Thief and Mesmer teamplay.

/Osicat

Heey Osi, remember me? We dueled a couple of times in Forest of Niflhel, with shatter spec (me as my mesmer called Kryotux). I really learned a lot from that and since I’m liking the condi spec more and more I’m wondering if you want to duel sometime soon again but then in condi mode, seems like fun.

Great vids by the way, keep them up! I remember you talking about making some spvp movies soon, would like to see that. Love the condi spec, I changed it a but for personal preferences but still can’t figure out if I like staff or s/p more..

Thanks Osicat, I will give the GS a try. Time to purchase another ugly Pearl Berserker weapon…. man those default skins are ugly.

-Sark

I want so badly to try to throw 5 points into Ilusions for the non-shatter condition build to stack tons of Confusion (and a little extra condition damage) but then I guess that’d start to turn it into a shatter build. ><

In your stealth-condi build, how do you handle classes with strong condition clears? I kick invaders in the balls with confusion, torment and burn and they are 80-100% health for most of the fight. Eventually all my stealths are on cooldown and I die/bail.

-Moca Chocolate

@Moca Cocu, I have a “how to”video about this mate. Have not posted as I would like to let enougth ppl first see the team vid. Can you wait 1 day and you will have the answer in videoform?

/Osicat

Hi osi,

What do you think is the best build for roaming and duels?, condition cat or heavy 3.0 (shatter one)?. I find your condition cat build very strong for duels , however how do u deal with the lack of swiftness when roaming? Are all the stealths enough to scape in critical situations?, when using sword/pistol ( instead of staff) wouldn´t be better to use sigil of earth (along with sigil of battle) to produce more bleeds with BF?
I have been using a shatter build quite similar to yours, and I wanted to try a condition build.
I am looking forward to your tips.

many thanks!