Guild Wars 2

What the topic says. I’m running a 0/25/25/0/20 build, and I really miss using a GS.

Yes viable.

20/20/0/0/30. Put Sigil of Earth on GS. The big difference is you don’t need to facetank like the Staff. The damage you lose from Staff random burn come from your auto attacks, Mirror Blades and iZerker. It’s a little more hybrid, but you can still pump over 1.6k CD damage. You can kite better than staff (IMO). You won’t feel useless in a group fight when the boss is condition saturated. It can even work with 0/25/25/0/20, just try it with Sigil of Earth.

For solo/wandering PvE open world, traits :
20 : +15 % damage phantasm, gs trait
20 : Fury phantasm, Clones on dodge trait
30 : (as you wish, probably Master of Misdirection), Bounce trait, Recharge phantasm trait

You can use it for an another build… If you feel you want to do more support, you don’t need to respect, just change to glamour traits.

20 : (as you wish), Confusing Enchantement
20 : Fury phantasm, Clones on dodge
30 : Master of Misdirection, Dazzling Glamour, Blinding Befuddlement.

Sigil of earth has a 2 second cooldown shared by all active effect sigils. It does not make it useless, but something to keep in mind.

i run 20/0/20/0/30
and i have confusion lasts for 33% longer and phantoms somman 25%faster in traits so mostly run a shatter build i can pump out a clone at 4seconds once i hit F2. well the rest is confusing lol. but im running a supirior rune of nightmare for condition damage and durtarion. just mostly play aound with mixing and matching builds and find one you like.

Use Carrion Gear And GS hit fairly well with enough Condi dmg to confuse hell out of players.

sigil of earth doesnt work on GS, its bugged. atleast in spvp

Tried it on a GS in PVE and the sigil of earth does work but, as LiuliRenai said it has an ICD of 2s. The basic bleed duration from the sigil is 5s and with +65% bleed duration I couldn’t get more than 2-3 stacks of bleed from autoatacks – I think it’s not the best option. I’ve tried Sigil of Frailty (30% vuln on crit, vuln duration 10s, ICD 1s) – as I thought it would go well with the Vulnerability from Mirror Blades, but I only ever got to 10 stacks (6 from Mirror Blades, so I guess 4 from the sigil) – overall underwhelming.

I think the GS based condi build should focus on bleeds from the Sharper Images trait. Keep in mind that clones/phantasms don’t get your condi duration bonus but they do get your condi dmg score – focus your build on condi dmg.

Edit: I had around 45% crit chance when I tried those sigils.

Staff is a better choice, or even sword… sceptre.

Definitely viable but there are better options.

If you’re just playing PvE, anything is viable. But the staff is always going to be better, as it will stack up conditions from both the attack itself, and any trait of sigil you add on top. While the greatsword will only apply conditions you get from traits and sigil.

Yea what he said but gs attack is very fast so you crit a lot. Extra bounce synergizes well granting extra might. Berserker applies a good amount of bleeds when traited and gives a nice control condition. Boon removal is useful as well as knock back. Plus staff has long range but is more a mid range weapon so if you want more range gs is good.

I assume this is for your swap and wouldn’t replace staff.

It’s not so much that GS isn’t viable in a condi build— it’s more the fact that you NEED to run a staff. Also— if you’re doing any mesmer build without a 1h sword/offhand—- you’re doing it wrong.

Thus— no. Don’t use a GS if you’re attempting to use a condi build.

At 50% crit, you can expect to average 1 bleed a second per clone, overlapping up to 5 bleeds. This means if you keep up three clones, you can expect around 15 stacks of bleeding. Berserker only hits 4x every 7 seconds, so in a condition build, your clones are a better source than your Berserker.

Sword/Pistol or Sword/Focus would be a better option for this approach. Sword clones attack just as fast as the Greatsword (1x every 0.5 seconds, vs 3x every 1.5) but stay in Melee range (even when created by dodging), making Debilitating Dissipation and Confusing Combatants a useful addition (Overriding a clone = Killing a clone). Pistol, when traited, is a 100% combo finisher, allowing you to self-combo 8x stacks of Confusion. Warden has 12 chances to trigger bleeding in an AoE and can also self-combo Confusion via its Whirl finisher.

All other replies in here seem to focus on single targets. But in WvW it is better to spread love that is confusion as fast as you can. GS/Staff is actually best choice IMO. Agianst a Zerg GS for getting confusion on the opposite zerg nothing is as good as GS. Due to 1200 range of 2 clone/phat abilities you can get 2 clones(right next to your target) into the zerg fast and shatter them. Most of time unless right in mix getting damaged the other clone options take too long for clone to run in and it usually dies.

So moral of story is it depends what aspect you are playing PvE/PvP or WvW (and solo roaming vs group roaming or zerging it up)

For a shatter condi build is what i prefer with a staff. Illusions are spammable on these two and Mirror blade on chaos storm is more confusion. Spatial Surge is the best auto for you clones to stack bleeds and izerker is great for cripple+ multiple stacks of bleed.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/WvW-Build-True-All-Terrain-Glam-Build/page/2#post1433429

Chek my build you might love it

Nuka Cola.8520:

For a shatter condi build is what i prefer with a staff. Illusions are spammable on these two and Mirror blade on chaos storm is more confusion. Spatial Surge is the best auto for you clones to stack bleeds and izerker is great for cripple+ multiple stacks of bleed.

Don;t Forget iZerker also is whirl so throws around Confounding Bolts .

Nero.8623:

It’s not so much that GS isn’t viable in a condi build— it’s more the fact that you NEED to run a staff. Also— if you’re doing any mesmer build without a 1h sword/offhand—- you’re doing it wrong.

Thus— no. Don’t use a GS if you’re attempting to use a condi build.

Uhm. No.

You don’t need to use S/X. I personally run Gs/Staff, and it lets me do wonderful damage while supporting my party with Chaos Storm as well as giving myself more slipperiness. Not to mention, in a group setting where a boss has tons of conditions stacked on, Warlock will do as much, if not more then Swordsman. I’d rather give everyone Aegis for 5 seconds then anything offhands can offer. Those frontline classes? I think they’d agree.

My point is: no, you don’t need to have S/X. It’s nice for people who like it, but it doesn’t offer as much to a team as a staff does in my opinion.