Guild Wars 2

I really, really, really can’t stress enough how much I don’t want to be a support spec. I don’t want to farm leadership runes and grab an expensive set of alternate gear useless for solo content just so I can do fractals higher than 50.

Is there any condition build that can be any sort of useful without having to be pigeonholed into Boon sharing quickness? I hate the support build but at the same time don’t enjoy any other class quite like mesmer.

Evrir.9618:

Is there any condition build that can be any sort of useful without having to be pigeonholed into Boon sharing quickness?.

Yes, but ONLY USEFUL FOR SPECIFIC RAID BOSSES.

Condie mesmer is awful in all fractals other than maybe t4 boss fractals. It’s awful in open world. It’s awful in dungeons. Additionally, condie mesmer is awful on a good number of raid bosses.

The following bosses are reasonably decent and/or great for condie mesmer:

• Vale Guardian: Decent
• Sabetha: Decent
• Matthias: Excellent
• Cairn: Excellent
• Mursaat Overseer: Decent
• Samarog: Decent
• Deimos: Usable-Decent

That’s about it.

This is mostly used for only the raid bosses Matthias and Cairn right now, but it can have its use in other parts of pve as well. However, the main problem with this build are
1. It takes some time to build up condis
2. It severely lacks AoE damage, therefore is really only useful for a single target boss.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Condition_DPS_

There is also classes like the Tempest or the Daredevil.

Carighan.6758:

There is also classes like the Tempest or the Daredevil.

Yes, I’m aware there are other classes. I don’t like those other classes, which is why I posted in the Mesmer forum.

well, we know what u dont want to do, but what do u want to do. which content?
besides the specifics bosses where u can perform well as listed above ( if u actually do raids) where do u wanna roll? sPvP? fractals? open world pve?

-suggestions: play with familiar fellas, they will provide u shelter as long as they can stand ur desires of “i don’t want to boonshare” and maybe they can work it out..
on pugs you will be discriminated
-in open world pve u can play whatever u like the way u want and don’t care. usually i play my mesmer in open world with all egocentric stuffs trying to do my dps and some quickness. i see some people that try to aproach but they don’t know that i don’t share things like supose to. i don’t have the leadershare runes neither care to it. so when i pop some boons to ppl it just happend not that i wanted to..
- at low tiers fractals it’s like..whatever. try to dps something. eventually u will share something and don’t die; play with familiar fellas also it’s a way better.
- sPvP? ranked ou unranked? unranked u also do whatever u wan’t man. no one cares. try to do ur best; ranked? same. no one cares, try to do ur best n play for the others.

on gears: go full zerker exotic karma gear, get some ascended trinkets like whatever and have fun man.
if u don’t want to follow the leadershare runes rules and want to go along condition do it! as long as u having fun i believe that those next to u will have also have some benefits, because having fun i the way to improve yourself to best performance. if one day u realize u need those runes..them maaaybe..

- i’m telling all these, because i had the same thoughts u having now, and i said to me: “just embrace the purple and mesmerize it”

- post script: all this suggestions is for (playing with familiar mates, casual play, low tiers); on high end content ppl are way more strategic and want the best what your class can give to ALL. So, no egocentric, “all my way”. Youfit the pattern or u don’t.

Have a nice purple play, although

No (with the exception of condi mes, though it’s a situational build) unless mesmer gets buffed

feelsbadman

For fractals u basically do 2 things. Clear mobs fast/Burst bosses fast. A non support power mesmer or condi mesmer sucks at both.

There u have it.

There are a couple ways you can approach this “problem”. Depending on what you want and how far you"re (not) willing to go, you might find that sweet spot. So what do i meanby this?

Lets get a few things straight first. In solo content you can use whatever you feel like. No one is judging you on that one. So thats fine. Which brings you to group content. Well you already said that you dont whant to go in that supportive direction. So we can straight up say that you will be practically useless. A leecher if you will.

BUT because this is gw2, there isn’t really a right or wrong. That being said, you could just play group instances in full berserker mode and auto attack the keks out of everything or or play condition build. Whatever you want. But be warned that you may get kicked for doing so. Again, there is a chance. Not saying its 100% guaranteed.

But in the end. The qeustion will always remain: Would you appreciate it? I personally would feel bad for not doing what i am sepose to do. Nor do appreciate it if someone else in my party/squad wouldnt give any keks. I didnt kick them out (yet). But yeah, one should contribute to the group support one way or the other. If the player cant deliver that, then he/she may as well stay away in my opinion

Evrir.9618:

Carighan.6758:

There is also classes like the Tempest or the Daredevil.

Yes, I’m aware there are other classes. I don’t like those other classes, which is why I posted in the Mesmer forum.

You’re out of luck. Perhaps the Mirage ES will bring us a sustained damage role. Perhaps not.

I’m afraid your choices are to either adapt to support, choose another profession, or simply wait for news from the expansion.

No, you can also use the mesmer in pvp to make the portal. Quiet, then Arena net will do something, the situation is not so long … just a year.

Malice.8439:

Evrir.9618:

Carighan.6758:

There is also classes like the Tempest or the Daredevil.

Yes, I’m aware there are other classes. I don’t like those other classes, which is why I posted in the Mesmer forum.

You’re out of luck. Perhaps the Mirage ES will bring us a sustained damage role. Perhaps not.

I’m afraid your choices are to either adapt to support, choose another profession, or simply wait for news from the expansion.

If you believe some speculations it will be tied to phantasms in which case there will be a nope train departing the mesmer forums, our conductor for the evening will be Pyro and light entertainment will be available from Buttonfly.

*implying there are Mesmers left who haven’t already noped out

Was confused then realized this is about PvE.

Sorry not a big PvE’r but you can do a lot with many specs. Is it “meta”? No, but then again meta doesn’t matter much in PvE.

I can’t comment on Raids or Fractals b/c IMHO go with a group of friends rather than pugging.

Evrir.9618:

I really, really, really can’t stress enough how much I don’t want to be a support spec. I don’t want to farm leadership runes and grab an expensive set of alternate gear useless for solo content just so I can do fractals higher than 50.

I don’t agree on the last statement. The meta Beserker/Commander setup is pretty universal in all PvE, open world included. Just switch some utilities and/or weapons for your liking and you can clear mobs and champions well enough. With Sword/x you do as much damage as a mesmer is able to do.

I get the Leadershiprunes issue, but why not slot cheaper runes that give you more damage or toughness (…whatever)?

I’m doing platinum doubloons, personally. I won’t farm DS mindlessly for ores, but I don’t mind letting them build up over time.

100% boon duration is achievable without leadership runes.

GWMO.4785:

But in the end. The qeustion will always remain: Would you appreciate it? I personally would feel bad for not doing what i am sepose to do. Nor do appreciate it if someone else in my party/squad wouldnt give any keks. I didnt kick them out (yet). But yeah, one should contribute to the group support one way or the other. If the player cant deliver that, then he/she may as well stay away in my opinion

I don’t feel like I’m ‘Supposed’ to do anything. I picked mesmer because I liked the fantasy of creating illusions and being hard to pin down, and instead what Anet has done is make me a pseudo support with no value aside from one buff.
kitten it, I quit then.

Evrir.9618:

I don’t feel like I’m ‘Supposed’ to do anything. I picked mesmer because I liked the fantasy of creating illusions and being hard to pin down, and instead what Anet has done is make me a pseudo support with no value aside from one buff.
kitten it, I quit then.

I did not say that you are sepose to do it. It is just what everyone expects you to do so duo to how great the class is at it. Im just saying that i personally don’t like it if i or someone else in my party is basically just leecher. We where talking about high(er) tier fractals after all. Some group coordination/support is needed and appreciated.

You still get to create your illusion. Heck these are even needed in order to be effective. You can still shatter. People just expect you to do in in such a way where you can upkeep quickness duo to how great the class is at it.

I dont think you understand the beauty of the class tho. You’re talking about the class having no value aside from an one buff, but mesmer can do so much more aside quickness. It just so happens that the sustained damage is low compared to other classes. So that is not a thing.

I for one have been maining mesmer since release chronomancer with HoT. And will all honestly, i can tell you that mesmer is by far the most diversive class in the game. Im adjusting my build, rather that is traits, gear, skill or weapons depending on the encounter as well group setup. So please.. dont say the class has no value outside that one buff. Again mesmer is well capable of doing so much more than then. I’d encourage you to (re)discover the class. And understand the true beauty of it

As a mesmer if you don’t support, what you do is simple, you just do that :

https://youtu.be/KTr9HMnAWNE?t=1m6s

Evrir.9618:

I picked mesmer because I liked the fantasy of creating illusions and being hard to pin down

…

make me a pseudo support with no value aside from one buff.
kitten it, I quit then.

The two things you mention are not mutually exclusive. Not to mention that the Chronomancer is arguably one of the best support and tank in the game right now, so it’d be difficult to argue that it’s pseudo-anything. The profession excels at everything it’s designed to be doing.

Evrir.9618:

kitten it, I quit then.

Bye Felicia.

This is the same problem I’m having. Back before I left, quickness sharing was easy and fun, and I could do it while still having some semblance of personal damage. Playing power chrono was the best thing in the world. A few updates to the signet and quickness stacking later, now playing power chrono is the worst thing in the world. I went ahead and bought the leadership runes and the sigil and the boon duration food, tried it out, and found it to be utterly pathetic:

Before I had a “chrono burst” where I could summon a bunch of phantasms, drop a few wells, maybe illusion spam and shatter for AoE damage. The sustained DPS was low, but in the short term I could explode. Short term was all I needed. With the new build, I found it nearly impossible to navigate tangled depths, because all of my equipment was dedicated to helping out other people.

In groups, it was still pretty bad. The reason is simple: I don’t have a premade set of friends who are good at the game to adventure with. I get random pugs most of the time, and even if I dedicate myself to spreading alacrity and quickness, all I get is more point-blank shot spam. If even that, since they’re somehow extremely frail yet extremely feeble, I’ll be rezzing and dealing with players out of range.

The boon sharing chrono build is good… if you’re surrounded by max spec’d competent players. Otherwise, any advantage gain from alacrity and quickness to a group is less than swapping to Ele or Thief and simply doing higher personal damage. The rotation is a complicated mess where I have to keep track of several hidden cooldowns to maximize boon duration and signet usage, and if I mess up once performance drops off a cliff. The build is not fun to play and is generally terrible.

The worst part about all this is, this is the mandatory way to play mesmer. There are no other “viable” specs. Even in full personal DPS builds, the damage is laughable compared to other classes. We wouldn’t have such a problem if a personal DPS build had damage on par, but we don’t even get that option. It’s either quickness spam or go home, so I took the latter option and don’t play mesmer anymore.

Seriously, Anet, would it really be so bad if the sword and greatsword auto attacks did meaningful damage?

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Back before I left, quickness sharing was easy and fun, and I could do it while still having some semblance of personal damage. Playing power chrono was the best thing in the world. A few updates to the signet and quickness stacking later, now playing power chrono is the worst thing in the world. I went ahead and bought the leadership runes and the sigil and the boon duration food, tried it out, and found it to be utterly pathetic

I dont get what you mean. Chronomancer playstyle is basically still the same. Your rotation is just slightly changed after SoI rework. Rather then stacking up all the quickness and share that out, you now have to apply it bit by bit over a longer period of time. Which in general has a basic fundamental rotation: Tides of time > Echo of memory > Well of action > SoI

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Before I had a “chrono burst” where I could summon a bunch of phantasms, drop a few wells, maybe illusion spam and shatter for AoE damage. The sustained DPS was low, but in the short term I could explode. Short term was all I needed. With the new build, I found it nearly impossible to navigate tangled depths, because all of my equipment was dedicated to helping out other people.

Considering you have been playing mesmer in open world, i assume you have quite some time spend in the class and have multiple gear sets for the class. Of which one would be a berserker set. Using a build like this works just fine in open world. Just spam your shatters and well of recall to get alacrity for faster recharge. Dunno i never had trouble getting my way around mobs and all. Sure less damage compared to other classes but still alright.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

In groups, it was still pretty bad. The reason is simple: I don’t have a premade set of friends who are good at the game to adventure with. I get random pugs most of the time, and even if I dedicate myself to spreading alacrity and quickness, all I get is more point-blank shot spam. If even that, since they’re somehow extremely frail yet extremely feeble, I’ll be rezzing and dealing with players out of range.

I for one have been maining mesmer since chrono. Im mostly pugging fractals. Using a “slight” different boonshare build compared to meta. Most importantly swapped illusion out for domination for blurred inscriptions. A well timed SoI can save the party, cause pugs. you never know how good or bad they are.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The boon sharing chrono build is good… if you’re surrounded by max spec’d competent players. Otherwise, any advantage gain from alacrity and quickness to a group is less than swapping to Ele or Thief and simply doing higher personal damage. The rotation is a complicated mess where I have to keep track of several hidden cooldowns to maximize boon duration and signet usage, and if I mess up once performance drops off a cliff. The build is not fun to play and is generally terrible.

False, Chrono can do more then quickness and alacrity, so in that sense it depends on how you equip it. Im swapping my setup depending on encounter and group to get the maximum out of it (no i dont have to give up on quickness, alacrity and boonshare). also:

basic fundamental rotation: Tides of time > Echo of memory > Well of action > SoI

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The worst part about all this is, this is the mandatory way to play mesmer. There are no other “viable” specs. Even in full personal DPS builds, the damage is laughable compared to other classes. We wouldn’t have such a problem if a personal DPS build had damage on par, but we don’t even get that option. It’s either quickness spam or go home, so I took the latter option and don’t play mesmer anymore.

Well there is the condi build that seems to be dealing great damage on a few raid bosses. But i mean what is viable? The class shines greatly in being supportive and outside raids or fractals you can pretty much run anything you like. As such i can combine dozens of builds depending on what and how i want to roll. Dont ask me how or what cause i wont post it. That’d be a whole list of builds…

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Seriously, Anet, would it really be so bad if the sword and greatsword auto attacks did meaningful damage?

Stay tuned for next expansion :P That seems to be looking into the dps of mesmer. All tough that is nothing more then speculation. And we’re looking at axe instead of buffing gs or sword as well aperantly

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This is the same problem I’m having. Back before I left, quickness sharing was easy and fun, and I could do it while still having some semblance of personal damage.

Before I had a “chrono burst” where I could summon a bunch of phantasms, drop a few wells, maybe illusion spam and shatter for AoE damage. The sustained DPS was low, but in the short term I could explode. Short term was all I needed.

Well that’s some serious revisionist history. The changes to how the chrono rotation work haven’t affected our damage in the slightest. Back then it was awful just like now. We didn’t have some fantastic burst damage like you’re erroneously claiming, it’s always been awful both in burst and sustained.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

In groups, it was still pretty bad. The reason is simple: I don’t have a premade set of friends who are good at the game to adventure with. I get random pugs most of the time, and even if I dedicate myself to spreading alacrity and quickness, all I get is more point-blank shot spam. If even that, since they’re somehow extremely frail yet extremely feeble, I’ll be rezzing and dealing with players out of range.

Maybe you’re just playing it wrong? A well played chrono is one of the best classes to carry with, both in fractals and raids. In raids you can do an excellent job of tanking, provide the boon/buff support to your party to make everything more effective, and completely nullify many mechanics with skilled use of invulnerability sharing. In fractals you perform many of the same functions and can carry in the same ways. If you’re unable to do that, the problem is likely you, not your groups.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The rotation is a complicated mess where I have to keep track of several hidden cooldowns to maximize boon duration and signet usage, and if I mess up once performance drops off a cliff. The build is not fun to play and is generally terrible.

Not really. The new rotation is substantially easier to perform effectively than the old rotation, being far more forgiving to screwups. In the old rotation, you stacked up quickness to high durations and then shared it all with a couple uses of the signet. If you missed the signet cast or used it out of turn, you’d completely ruin the sharing. With the new rotation, quickness buffing is fairly evenly spread between all the different skills that provide it. No single skill is the linchpin of the technique, so messing up has a much more mild effect. It sounds to me like you just don’t want to learn the new rotation and so are complaining about it.

It’s a shame that there is a lack of choice, it doesn’t really matter which class we’re talking about – it’s not an ideal situation. I don’t think you can blame OP for being sad; if the class flavour didn’t matter (and ‘just reroll’ was a valid argument) then all we’d need would be a “DPS”, “Healer”, “Tank” or “Utility” class with no name and generic spells.

So it would be awesome if some choices could be added to the current path. However, even in this it would be cool if you could tailor to what degree as a tradeoff. Mesmers are good at manipulation and so typically lends itself well to being a team’s utility even on a conceptual level, but if i want to go lighter on utility at the cost of more personal power I think that should be a healthy choice one can make within the class. You could argue that Mesmers ARE designed to only be a support class, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that design intent suggested to quite the extent we’re seeing now.

GWMO I know how to play the chronomancer. I’ve taken it to fractal 100 many times in the past. That’s not the problem. The issue is, the dedicated boonsharing build feels terrible to play and it is the only way to play the chrono now without, as you put it, “leeching”.

Prior to these updates there was no rotation. Off cooldown you would just use time warp + continuum split, and follow that up by pressing 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 on the keyboard in that order, with 9 being SoI. Continuum split ends, then you press those exact numbers again in a line. Suddenly everyone in the team has permanent quickness and alacrity, and you can go off using skills as you see fit. I could open with a series of phantasms of my choice, save tides of time for bar breaking if I wanted to, and the whole thing had a lot of leeway. If I missed using timewarp at the same time as casting continuum split, nobody lost out; I would just use it a second later. If I happened to be stunned in the middle of the burst, I would come right back. I could run damage based runes + sigils with damage based traits and damage based phantasms, and everything would work out just fine. Sure it was just doing 17k damage or so, but relatively that is far more than the 11k that the boon build does. That number really shows when you’re by yourself or your teammates are special snowflakes wafting in the breeze. It was also excellent for adds, because mind wrack and phantasmal berserker hit in an AoE and did enough damage to down basic enemies in a single burst.

Now, you must open with shield 5 into shield 4 into WoA into SoI, and if at any point something goes wrong, the entire setup fails and you might as well /gg. The build is now wholly reliant on having SoI go off precisely when you have quickness after weapon swap, because it itself is the primary source of quickness but it only works if you already have quickness. Previously, if a well or a skill was missed, everything else would continue to fire off with no problems. But now? If something happens to tides of time or WoA, the build loses momentum. I’m stuck waiting for 20-30 seconds for everything to come off cooldown before I can try again. If I forgot to weapon swap in the middle of combat, I don’t have enough boon duration and SoI fizzles because of it. Of course, in the midst of battle I lose track of the hidden Illusory Inspiration cooldown and I keep finding myself on the wrong weapon, so I have to swap out and then swap back, wasting another 10 seconds.

I could buy an entire commander’s set to ease up on the strictness of the skill usage, but there’s no way I’m spending 700+ gold on another armor set for a build that I fundamentally hate playing.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I could buy an entire commander’s set to ease up on the strictness of the skill usage, but there’s no way I’m spending 700+ gold on another armor set for a build that I fundamentally hate playing.

Utility food: 10%
Leadership runes: 30%
Concentration sigil: 33%
Boon food: 20%
Platinum doubloon in backpiece and 1 accessory: 8%

Congratulations, you’ve hit 98% duration while wearing full zerker gear.

See, the problem all your complaints is that you’re factually wrong about every single one. You’re trying to make a point with false data, so you’re just ending up off the mark from the very start. I could go through and point out all the bits that are wrong, but I’ll just leave it at this one because I doubt you’ll listen anyway.

Fay.2357:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I could buy an entire commander’s set to ease up on the strictness of the skill usage, but there’s no way I’m spending 700+ gold on another armor set for a build that I fundamentally hate playing.

Utility food: 10%
Leadership runes: 30%
Concentration sigil: 33%
Boon food: 20%
Platinum doubloon in backpiece and 1 accessory: 8%

Congratulations, you’ve hit 98% duration while wearing full zerker gear.

See, the problem all your complaints is that you’re factually wrong about every single one. You’re trying to make a point with false data, so you’re just ending up off the mark from the very start.

Basically this. Additionally fractals has also the potion which gives you another 15% duration. So you could ditch out the platinum doubloon, accessory as well as the (expensive) bountyfull sharpeningstone there. Or perhaps another combo. As long as your duration is above 90%. Cause that is what it takes to upkeep quickness. Given you dont use CS with Timewarp combo. If so you even need less. (~50%).