Guild Wars 2

I am yet to reach level 80, but when I do, hopefully this will be my build.
Please give your opinions.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgEQNAW7alwzCpXQTgGaNJiJFBHyhSx1VdkKUalUgbXIA

I would change Blinding Befuddlement to Illusionary Elasticity. It allows your Winds of Chaos to hit your target twice if there are no other enemies nearby. It will also allow Magic Bullet to bounce one more time inflicting Confusion, though that isn’t particularly significant.

I would also change Signet of Inspiration to something more reliable.

Embolism.8106:

I would change Blinding Befuddlement to Illusionary Elasticity. It allows your Winds of Chaos to hit your target twice if there are no other enemies nearby. It will also allow Magic Bullet to bounce one more time inflicting Confusion, though that isn’t particularly significant.

I would also change Signet of Inspiration to something more reliable.

Ah thanks. Even I was unsure about one of my signets. And since I switched from GS to Scepter+Pistol, I disregarded Illusionary Elasticity for just my staff, I didn’t know it modifies Magic Bullet too. Hullo Feedback

Nice! I used a very similar one for a while. Here are some of the things I noticed:

Crippling Dissipation is something I was ok sacrificing. I found my Condition build played best with enemies being tanked rather than kited. A walking enemy doesn’t swing to cause Confusion. In PvP or WvW though, Crippling Dissipation is great. Any opportunity to slow down an enemy can be a life saver.

I also swapped out Blinding Befuddlement for the Elasticity one, though even that felt like a weak choice. I just didn’t blind enough to make it useful. Even dropping the 5 points and putting them in Dueling or Domination for the extra minor traits (Confusion on Dueling and Toughness→Condition Damage in Chaos are both great).

Another option could be Compounding Power, though in my testing it didn’t seem to affect my Condition damage very much. That could be something to re-check though.

Are you aiming for PvP, WvW, or PvE? I found the types of combat weirdly ill suited to a generalized build. In WvW, I was rarely close enough to have my clone death skills matter at all. In WvW, aiming for confusion stacks made my damage skyrocket but in PvE, it’s the opposite.

Yeah, I used this build when I first hit 80 :P traited differently. At first I would spec into 30 of something, but the 10 Domination for Crippling Dissipation is worth having, since you kill your clones often with AoE & overwriting with your other Illusions.

The only thing that honestly needs changing are the traits in Illusion – Illusionary Elasticity is worth having; you can drop a confusion buff for that to get more out of your build. As for the 10 trait point personally I have Compounding power but I understand Confusion is much more effective in PvP. I’m all PvE atm, you see

(I’m assuming this is a build for pve since you don’t specify.)

I’ve used a similar build for the majority of my mesmer’s life. If you plan on using this for pve, I’d recommend you drop the 10 points in Domination for 10 points in Inspiration to pick up Mender’s Purity. This lets you drop the mantra (which you should stay away from unless running mantra traits) for something far more useful like mirror images or decoy…. or even mantra of pain if you really want, though again, I’d recommend against that.

You won’t see a huge decrease in damage from 100 power missing and 10% duration (on a 5s bleed, you lose out on .5 seconds). And while it sounds counter-intuitive, you don’t want crippling dissipation for pve. You can kite melee fine with 0 speed boosts, and you can’t kite range anyways. Keeping crippling dissipation only excuses bad play- you should learn proper kiting mechanics and put the points elsewhere.

You could use it for wvw, but you’re not going to have a fun time. You need to go full bunker if you want to do condition damage because (a) you’re going to do almost nothing to siege and doors anyways and (b) you’re pretty much un-killable in even fights (assuming you know your class well). And you’ll want different utilities- Decoy is almost mandatory due to backstab thieves, and Sig of Inspiration is just bad, for starters.

If you give more info, we can give you more advice

Swap out Signet of Inspiration, you’re Chaos Storm is better. You might wanna think about swapping out Mantra of Resolve too, that’s better used in a full Mantra build, Null Field is great for taking off conditions as well.

Would also consider taking out Blinding Befuddlement in your Illusions trait for Illusionary Elasticity, but everything else seemed fine to me.

~Happy gaming

Yeah, I’m sorry I forgot to mention, this is a primarily PvE build.
So the recommendations are
- Switch out the Mantra and Signet of Inspiration for something better.
- Illusionary Elasticity instead of Blinding Befuddlement.
- Drop Crippling Dissipation altogether, since it’s a PvE build.
Also liked the suggestion about putting 10 points in Inspiration. Thanks guys!

IMO Mantra of Resolve (without traits) is perfectly fine, it’s an excellent frequently-available (and instant) condition cleanser: although its benefits are more evident in PvP where conditions are thrown left and right at you.

i love the weapon sets, but i have a question about the traits

so, what do you guys think if I give extra 10 points to Domination and 5 points to Illusions, and take away the 20 points of Chaos, and change the skills to Mental Torment and Rending Shatter?? (a little bit too PVE-ish build, but what do you think, anyway?)

btw, what is the main benefit of using a greatsword?? along with sword, it does not create many illusions. i think staff and scepter+something is the best for mesmer

@RJ Zephyroth: Let us know how you like it! I ran a similar build for a while but found my napkin math just wasn’t encouraging me to gear up a condition build over a phantasm or shatter build. I’d love to hear if you think it’s worthwhile in PvE!

@Ushiromiya Xyrius: What spec are you thinking? Could you toss one up and link it? In my experience, the 20 points in chaos are pretty important. Condition on clone death and staff cooldown can be huge sources of conditions/damage. Greatsword can be a wonderful weapon for stacking Might on yourself, Vulnerability on your enemy, and producing high Bleed numbers as, if I remember correctly, each clone auto-attack hits 3 times for 3 chances at crit+bleed.

A few questions I had about overall mechanics:
- Does vulnerability affect condition damage?
- What’s the average swing time on enemies in PvE? Would be great to know so we can compare Confusion’s damage in PvE with similar conditions like Bleeds (right now it seems balanced around a 3s swing time).
- Does Compounding Power affect condition damage?

Kelthien.8593:

A few questions I had about overall mechanics:
- Does vulnerability affect condition damage?
- What’s the average swing time on enemies in PvE? Would be great to know so we can compare Confusion’s damage in PvE with similar conditions like Bleeds (right now it seems balanced around a 3s swing time).
- Does Compounding Power affect condition damage?

- Vulnerablity does not affect condition damage.
- I dunno the exact swing time of mobs, but it’s way too slow for Confusion being worth it. That’s why Scepter is pretty worthless in PvE, it’s a PvP weapon (and even there it’s a weak weapon).
- I don’t know if Compounding Power affect condition damage, but I doubt it.
(edit: a quick test on dummy golems says no, it doesn’t affect it)

Snoxx.7943:

- Vulnerablity does not affect condition damage.
- I dunno the exact swing time of mobs, but it’s way too slow for Confusion being worth it. That’s why Scepter is pretty worthless in PvE, it’s a PvP weapon (and even there it’s a weak weapon).
- I don’t know if Compounding Power affect condition damage, but I doubt it.
(edit: a quick test on dummy golems says no, it doesn’t affect it)

Thanks for the answers!
Bummer about all those, man. I want to love confusion so much as it’s a rarely-capped condition mesmers are just filthy with, but the lack of PvE reliability is disappointing. I’d love to see it tweaked a bit for PvE. Even a small DoT component would really sell it.

What’s rough about Vulnerability is how often we stack it and how little it helps with a condition build. Winds of Chaos and the Chaos “condition on clone death” trait provide it in swarms under normal use, yet it fails to compensate for losing a potential bleed or burn stack.

Snoxx.7943:

Kelthien.8593:

A few questions I had about overall mechanics:
- Does vulnerability affect condition damage?
- What’s the average swing time on enemies in PvE? Would be great to know so we can compare Confusion’s damage in PvE with similar conditions like Bleeds (right now it seems balanced around a 3s swing time).
- Does Compounding Power affect condition damage?

- Vulnerablity does not affect condition damage.
- I dunno the exact swing time of mobs, but it’s way too slow for Confusion being worth it. That’s why Scepter is pretty worthless in PvE, it’s a PvP weapon (and even there it’s a weak weapon).
- I don’t know if Compounding Power affect condition damage, but I doubt it.
(edit: a quick test on dummy golems says no, it doesn’t affect it)

Sucks about the Scepter

No way I can pick the GS over the conditions laid on the opponent by the Phantasmal Duelist (Confusion+Bleed), and so I might have to consider using a sword…. which sucks, because I’m not speccing much into toughness or vitality, gear bonuses apart. Unless Exotic Armor bonuses compensate for that?

@Kelthien.8593 here’s what I mean
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW7MGRQ9Q7yOsjkiWD2KpA3uQA

maybe its a little too PvE minded and I don’t really name the build, I just love mind wrack and I like using the weapon set
how’s that?

@RJ Zephyroth.6473 scepter is not that bad in PvE, although the enemies still know where the real Mesmer is, Scepter’s speed of reproducing clone is unmatched by other weapons. 3 attacks give birth to one condition bomb. Quite convenient, I think

Ushiromiya Xyrius.1470:

@Kelthien.8593 here’s what I mean
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW7MGRQ9Q7yOsjkiWD2KpA3uQA

maybe its a little too PvE minded and I don’t really name the build, I just love mind wrack and I like using the weapon set
how’s that?

It’s a good build, but I wouldn’t really say it’s a condition build, which was the focus of the topic.

When you’re picking up Mind Wrack traits and Vulnerability, you’re probably more helped by a gearing focus on power/precision than you are on Conditions and Condition damage. The bulk of your damage in that build would come from phantasms and shatters boosted by Vulnerability stacks rather than bleeds, burns, poisons, or confusion.

Again… still an awesome build! I just probably wouldn’t call it a “condition build”.

well, thank you for your suggestion

and you’re right…it has been a dilemma for me (and it still is), because staff gives off many conditions but mind wrack mains on power rather than condition damage

okay then, i guess the best way is to try it out
:D

@Ushiromiya Xyrius.1470 : Yeah I know, tried getting into the sword playstyle, it’s just not for me. And it’s not like Scepter is ridiculously underpowered, I actually find it easier to fight most PvE mobs with Scepter, given the proper setup. If I manage to kite correctly and produce clones effectively, my clones do all the tanking for the first half of the battle, and the conditions take care of the second half :P
The only problem is, well, I wouldn’t mind a bit of AOE control…. Staff provides that, somewhat….. but that’s it. I switched out my Pistol for a Focus, with the reasoning that the Warden provides some decent AOE damage. Thankfully I have quite some experience with a Focus, so my Warden doesn’t die often

AoE damage is definitely a tricky one for the condition mesmer. Berserker is ok, though I hear its damage is a bit nerfed. In addition to the swirling damage, it applies a few stacks of bleed per pass. Chaos Storm is always handy.

My two main go-tos are Cry of Frustration and normal clone death.

Cry of Frustration in my 1100 condition dmg gear is pretty healthy. I think it’s about 270-300 damage a stack and I usually get 4-6 stacks on every enemy in the explosion. If they all hit once during the duration, that’s about 1200-1800 damage for a relatively small investment.

With the Chaos and Dueling traits that cause conditions on clone death, every time a clone dies my enemies get a stack of confusion as well as a stack of weakness, 3 of vulnerability, or 3 of bleeding. That 3s of bleeding is about 1500 damage in my current gear (100 dmg bleed ticks 5 seconds times 3 stacks). Plus the 300 damage or so they take from a stack of confusion.

I’m still not convinced it’s competitive with a power/precision build, but the damage isn’t notably terrible or anything. I can still do pretty much all the PvE content without much trouble. I’m definitely interested in trying it out a bit in the Fractals dungeon.

@RJ Zephyroth.6473 yes, sword is so nice but getting into melee range and attacking while the enemies are running around is quite hard. Right now I’m also trying my best to play 1H Sword.

I love i-Warden, it flurries awesomely. The bad thing is, it can’t move.