Is power mesmer still a thing ?
Its still a thing in WvW small group roaming, where you can trait yourself to maximise your damage and leave condi cleansing etc to your allies (eg. druid).
In PvE, power is still the way to go since npc mechanics is working against our unique conditions (specifically torment and confusion), and any other condition becomes obsolete in group situations. That being said, even with full zerk mesmers tend to focus on group oriented traits/skills because we can’t really expect to do big damage personally.
I play it in pvp as well. At least people doesn’t expect it. I play greatsword, staff or greatsword S/Shield.
It’s still a thing as in people run it but it’s not anywhere near as effective as condition mesmer.
Condition mesmer bypasses endure pain, elixir S, signet of stone etc and can usually at least stalemate or force another person to run. Power on the other hand you need to be paying attention and don’t have any auto procs to save your bacon unless you pick up chaos for mirror of anguish but I’d hardly say it does much with short cool down CCs.
A lot of the best power builds have a lot of stealth and/or excessive regen and/or high block uptime.
It’s still a thing as in people run it but it’s not anywhere near as effective as condition mesmer.
Condition mesmer bypasses endure pain, elixir S, signet of stone etc and can usually at least stalemate or force another person to run. Power on the other hand you need to be paying attention and don’t have any auto procs to save your bacon unless you pick up chaos for mirror of anguish but I’d hardly say it does much with short cool down CCs.
A lot of the best power builds have a lot of stealth and/or excessive regen and/or high block uptime.
This. There’s so much sustain in the game now that conditions are the only way to deal consistent, hard-to-heal damage. Power builds do more damage overall, but it’s far too easy to nullify their effects with perma protection and constant blocks, evades, and immunities. Though sustain can stop a condi attack from applying conditions in the first place, which is good, but if you’re struck with conditions, good luck surviving. If you’re hit with power attacks, you can block the next attacks, but if you’re hit with condi attacks, you can’t block the conditions from ticking. You either cleanse, or get resistance.
I like power because I personally just can’t stand staff anymore. The skill ceiling is far beyond GS and my computer is too slow for staff lol.
I only do pvp these days. I run a power melee build: sword/sword and sword/shield. No stealth and no regen boons. But I get decent blocks from shield and offhand sword. It’s very hard to stay competitive with my build and I wouldn’t recommend it. For me, it’s just the only way I enjoy mesmer. I do fairly well against most except dragonhunters and druids for obvious reasons. So it’s doable, but imo you will have to put in more work for less results. If you go the power route, i suggest using greatsword over sword. I don’t use it because I don’t like ranged, but greatsword is a stronger weapon to use in pvp especially if you can pair it with stealth utilities. it has high burst, lots of stealth, and amazing at kiting.
You can still play power mesmer to be effective to a certain degree. There are actually quite a few different ways to build a power mesmer these days but none of them is as strong as the condition variant.
The strongest power mesmer build when roaming in a group is probably chaos/inspirtaion/chrono boon spamming build. It is a support build, nothing like the bursty shatter we played for years before HoT came.
If you want to go for the old Bursty style, you probably want to take dom/chrono/X. X can be inspiration for sustain, can be chaos for PU, can be illusion for more burst, can also be dueling for dodge clone or mantra spam. They all somewhat work. It really comes down to your preference.
I recently started playing power again after seeing FeinFates videos and used his/hers build which is really good (not sure if he’s the creator though) . It’s really fun and it’s very playable at least in WvW. Haven’t tried it in PVP yet.
I play with torch instead of shield though, but it’s a skill issue, I’m just not that good managing my rotaitons…
Nuking people never gets boring.
Vids:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn8VS_NxWP3UPifU5LJ70OA
The build I found good:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8enknBlphdqBOqBEgilnj6sACgDreQP0FFdxasHD-TVCFABXpEkhDCQJ7PQwDAQf1fST3wCHBAkU+BwFAgUAZu1C-w
(edited by jenzie.4083)