Guild Wars 2

So everyone except me might have already know this, but after recently discovering on my own how powerful this food is, I felt I had to draw some attention to it amongst us mesmers, particularly given our lack of speed and swiftness w/o the focus.

Bowl of Seaweed Salad (or, for those cheap like me, Bowl of Asparagus and Sage Salad. currently around 20c on the trading post)

Now, here’s the thing: the swiftness stacks! So, in WvW, where non-focus mesmers have a huge problem roaming or soloing (zerg of course being a different story), what you do is round up a small pack of mobs, kill them all quickly, and all of a sudden you find yourself with one, two minutes of swiftness (particularly if traited into chaos or with boon duration runes). In open world PvE, you basically have permanent swiftness as well, so long as you are killing things with some frequency.

Add to that the secondary effect of the food — 10% increase in damage while moving (and when are you not moving in combat, really?), which is actually a significant damage boost — and the food is incredibly useful.

Anyway, I’ve been reluctant to use non-focus in builds in WvW because it’s really hard to live without the swiftness. These relatively underused foods seem a potential solution.

Sadly, this is about the same level of usefulness as using focus or air/centaur runes as it limits the number of buildoptions you have.

As mesmers are extremely weak vs conditions and those got heavily buffed in the last patch, non-condi- mesmers more or less have to take -condition-duration-food and condi-mesmers most likely want to take +condition-duration-food since our condi-duration is ridiculously low compared to other classes.

I only brought it up b/c it could expand the number of build options. Not sure how this food in any way limits them.

Also, if you’re able to tag a lot of enemies while in zerg, it’s easily possible to get 3+ minutes of swiftness. Not too shabby.

I think most people knew about this food but the -condition duration is just too good to pass up :P

Iavra.8510:

Sadly, this is about the same level of usefulness as using focus or air/centaur runes as it limits the number of buildoptions you have.

As mesmers are extremely weak vs conditions and those got heavily buffed in the last patch, non-condi- mesmers more or less have to take -condition-duration-food and condi-mesmers most likely want to take +condition-duration-food since our condi-duration is ridiculously low compared to other classes.

Mesmers weak against conditions?
condi-duration ridiculously low compared to other classes?

wth are you talking about? we get the same 30% condi duration through traits like every other class too.

Good food, unfortunately the 10% because of the way our skill sets and damage sources are setup on a Mesmer is in fact a lot lower than 10%

Is this food no longer bugged and gives the +10% damage bonus? I haven’t checked into it in a month…

Everyone keeps saying it’s not good because other foods are better. Why not eat this food, stack swiftness, then eat the food you’re using for your build?

You’re not married to one food for the full 30 minutes.

Because there are absolutely no ways to remove/steal boons, right?

Mesmers weak against conditions?

Yes, we are. Besides the mantra, our cleanses got absurdly high cooldowns and some of them are even unreliable (disenchanter) or need a target to work (disenchanter, arcane thievery, iWarden + temporal curtain combo).

condi-duration ridiculously low compared to other classes?

I’m gonna rewrite that statement: We have to put a lot more work into applying conditions than other classes have. A simple fix to Illusionary Elasticity and the removal of Vulnerability from Winds of Chaos would be enough. Torment was a first step in the right direction, though.

I have used it out in the open world after reading this post. I like it. Thanks for the tip!

Does this proc on killing ambients?

Does not see to work on ambients.

This also works with sigils of speed. Here are some options:

• You can have a MH or OH equipped with a sigil of speed and get 10s base swiftness per kill (100% chance versus 60%). When you have the swiftness you want you can switch to your main weapon. This way you can use the food you want, and the sigil of speed (superior variant) is a one time, currently 3 silver purchase.
• You can stack double swiftness per kill by using the food and a sigil of speed (assuming the 60% from the food procs).

I’ve tried using sigils of speed on both MH/OH and they do not stack.
None of these are ideal of course, but options to consider for swiftness when WvW roaming.