Guild Wars 2

I usually run a reaper/necro or ele in the zerg in WvW, but lately have been running a condi/hybrid mesmer build for roaming and generally having a lot of success with it (for me) considering that I am basically a scrub. It is something close to this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNArfWlsnhG1YbawMNwtGLvGUZC6d0QDQOPi5KG+IA-TF0CQBbUJBCOBAGRJGK0E8P1fyjGins/AFOEA3THgBMx4AlgA4BBIATQtTLgzUO4tjAQAgDA2d5fDhAmsGA-w

Yes, it is pretty cheesy and probably suboptimal too, but it was cheap to put together and at least it isn’t full dire with perplexity runes, eh? Aside from a sustain druid I’ve been able to kill at least some of most classes of enemies and even won a couple of 1 vs 2 battles. But yesterday in SoS borderlands I encountered a couple that I simply could not kill. One was a Tempest that I assume was running diamond skin and fresh air. I could not stay engaged because he kept closing on me and channeling air overload and forcing me to blink away or F4 or stealth to briefly disengage. We fought for maybe five minutes neither could kill the other and he just moved on. I had stacks up and was running at about 2K power and 2K condi damage, but he was clearing all the conditions and even 2K power just wasn’t enough with all the running I was having to do. Is diamond skin a hard counter for any mesmer condi build or was I just playing it wrong?

The other build was a scrapper. The difficulty may have been mainly because the guy was really good (or at least a lot better than me.) A lot of enemies just eat a whole confusing images, but he never let me get a full one on him even when I did it from stealth. He also used reflects to keep me from spamming scepter 1 at him and stealthed himself at really appropriate times. He also did like the tempest and tried to stay closely engaged and forced me to run a lot. I never got him below half and he almost killed me several times before I ran away. I encountered him twice more and he chased me so he could tell he had an advantage. One of the times was while I was taking a camp with another 3-man guild roaming group. The scrapper engaged us all and couldn’t get a kill, but was able to get away from the group and we all had to give up and move on. Any idea what he might have been running? He was running a hammer and a couple of kits. No flamethrower. In spite of his being a good player, I wondered if there was a scrapper build that was a counter to condi builds in general and even hybrids like this or if he was good and it didn’t matter.

Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated. Especially any suggestions for dealing with enemies that stay close? I am not a very good player so even simple stuff would probably be helpful.

So your build is hilariously glassy, but I’m sure you’re aware of that. It’s also very hybrid, so you’re going to have a quite respectable damage output on it.

Diamond skin is a hard counter for dire or rabid condie Mesmer. However, it is not at all a hard counter for a hybrid build like what you’re running. The only way they could stay above 75% consistently is if they also brought a lot of other healing and condition removal. This would necessarily mean they don’t do a lot of damage, but with your build it wouldn’t take a lot of damage to take you down. The Mesmer analogue would be running a full tank build with knights and cavs or something. Nothing will kill you, but you’ll be limited to dealing low damage that’s only a threat to someone that’s super squishy.

Similar deal with that scrapper. Scrappers don’t do tons of burst when specced for defense, but they do have decent sustained damage. You’ll often find yourself suddenly dangerously low because they initially didn’t do a lot of damage and so you assumed they weren’t super dangerous, and didn’t pay enough attention to the sustained damage they do while you’re trying to chase them down.

My recommendation vs scrappers is to take a poke at them and see how they fight. If you feel like you can drop them, then do so. If it feels like you’re not getting anywhere, just leave them be and move on.

Obligatory disclaimer: You should probably run chrono. It’s better.

Thanks, Fay. Sounds like I can anticipate just bypassing good scrappers but should be able to beat diamond skin tempests by playing better unless they are tanky. What about druids? Ignore them too?

When you suggest trying chrono, you mean dropping dueling for chrono and going pure condi with full dire gear and perplexity runes like on metabattle? I have not tried that build but I generally suck at chrono, maybe just because I am not used to it. I don’t have very good timing for the continuum split. Also, not that I necessarily care about the salt, but don’t people consider dire gear with perplexity runes as cheesy?

I guess the build I am running is glassy but I had not really thought of it that way. I actually don’t seem to take as much damage as with some other builds I have tried. Maybe because the master of manipulation really helps prevent a lot of ranged damage? Between that and the stealth and blindness and the block on scepter (and other scrubs like me getting confused by the clones) I seem to get by okay. Or at least I don’t die nearly as much or as easily as I would expect. The goofy rune of speed usually tend to result in a minute or more of swiftness so I can move around better than some enemies seem to expect from mesmer. At least i can usually run away and not lose my corruption stacks. When folks get close it does hurt quite a bit though. That tempest’s air overload hit me very hard. Without blink or the F4 invuln, I would have been toast after a few pulses. A couple of sword heralds have gotten all over me before as well and were really hard to shake. Condi reapers are also tough without arcane thievery charged or when I time it wrong.

Chrono has nothing to do with full dire and perplexity runes. Taking chrono gives you a 25% move speed passive, access to alacrity through shatters, a higher shatter cadence from illusionary reversion and chronophantasma that doesn’t force you to burn increasingly scarce dodges, and access to slow on interrupt.

You can also choose to take shield over torch. Obviously torch works will PU better, but shield is a powerful offhand with strong defense (block), offensive utility (slow, quickness), and hard cc (infinite target stun wall). A potential option, especially since you’re so hybrid, is sc/torch + sw/sh. You’ll make good use of sword power coefficients, so it’s not a huge waste like it would be on a rabid/dire build. You’ll also get access to the leap/swap, which is really nice offensive utility.

I’d also recommend getting rid of arcane thievery. It’s just really bad, even when traited. Long cooldown, easy to miss, underwhelming effect. If you can’t live without that condie cleanse, take the cleanse mantra instead.

Air overload hurts, but the main painful part is the persistent aoe it lays down. It’s easy to interrupt overloads so that’s the best option, but if they finish the overload…just walk out of the aoe. You’re playing WvW not PvP, so there’s no obligation for you to stand there and take it.

Sword revenants do a lot of damage. You counter them with hard burst, preferably followed by a quick escape into stealth.

Condie reapers should not be beatable by your build unless they’re bad. That being said, the majority of people in WvW are awful, so you can probably kill most reapers. Just keep in mind that a good one will rip you apart without a lot more condition removal than what you’re running.

Fay.2357:

Chrono has nothing to do with full dire and perplexity runes. Taking chrono gives you a 25% move speed passive, access to alacrity through shatters, a higher shatter cadence from illusionary reversion and chronophantasma that doesn’t force you to burn increasingly scarce dodges, and access to slow on interrupt.

You can also choose to take shield over torch. Obviously torch works will PU better, but shield is a powerful offhand with strong defense (block), offensive utility (slow, quickness), and hard cc (infinite target stun wall). A potential option, especially since you’re so hybrid, is sc/torch + sw/sh. You’ll make good use of sword power coefficients, so it’s not a huge waste like it would be on a rabid/dire build. You’ll also get access to the leap/swap, which is really nice offensive utility.

I’d also recommend getting rid of arcane thievery. It’s just really bad, even when traited. Long cooldown, easy to miss, underwhelming effect. If you can’t live without that condie cleanse, take the cleanse mantra instead.

Air overload hurts, but the main painful part is the persistent aoe it lays down. It’s easy to interrupt overloads so that’s the best option, but if they finish the overload…just walk out of the aoe. You’re playing WvW not PvP, so there’s no obligation for you to stand there and take it.

Sword revenants do a lot of damage. You counter them with hard burst, preferably followed by a quick escape into stealth.

Condie reapers should not be beatable by your build unless they’re bad. That being said, the majority of people in WvW are awful, so you can probably kill most reapers. Just keep in mind that a good one will rip you apart without a lot more condition removal than what you’re running.

Thanks, Fay. This is helpful. I have definitely noticed what you say about players in WvW being bad. Anybody I am killing is not good and I have killed quite a few reapers. I will give chrono a try. Switching from staff to sw/sh is something I would like to try as well because I don’t use the staff often or well anyway. I hadn’t really thought about sword as an option. Blurred frenzy could help with folks popping me in melee and add some damage as well. Thanks.