Guild Wars 2

I you look at the Mesmer’s staff weapon skills and the traits affecting the staff, it is clear staff is meant to be a condi-focussed weapon. Yet in my opinion the staff’s phantasmal warlock doesn’t fit in a condi rotation at all, to the point I avoid summoning him at all in my skill rotation.

When playing staff condi mesmer in Pve, I try to stack up a lot of bleeds using illusions using the trait sharper images (bleed on illusion crits). So staff clones with bouncing attacks that also inflict condi’s are great for multiple hits.
Yet the illusionary warlock only shoots out ONE projectile, that hits once and inflicts no other condi’s at all.

This means that basically ANY OTHER phantasm does a better job at applying condi’s, since their attacks hit multiple times or they just attack faster or inflict condi’s themselves. He also doesn’t even do more damage. (also he misses a lot).

On top of that, since phantasms don’t get overwritten by clones, you are pretty much stuck with him until he shatters.

Necromancer used to have something similar with scepter attack skills, but now Anet has changed Feast of corruption to inflict Torment for each other condi on a foe instead of the dmg increase. Yet the memser staff skills reamain unchanged.

Does anyone else also think this skill has pretty bad synergy in a condition-focussed build? (btw, I’m talking about Pve here)

iWarlock does more damage when the target has more conditions on it. I’d say it goes extremely well with Staff.

Well, it does 10% extra damage per condition on your target and attacks every 4 secs or so. Its not the worst to add a little burst pressure to your attacks, but i agree, It should apply a stack of torment or confusion for 5 seconds on hit, would suit it alot more.

Burst pressure is ofcourse usefull in addition to conditions, but the phantasmal duelist (from pistol) for example will deal about the same damage as the warlock (unless your party has a huge condi output), but also inflict quite a few stacks of bleed since it hits 8 times. Warlock can only inflict 1 bleed stack max.

PvE condi mesmer has far worse problems…

Staff isn’t so much a condi weapon anyway, more of a defensive/utility weapon that doesn’t deal top damage regardless of your build. Staff condi would be great if the MtD+CD nerfs were reverted for PvE, you get tons of hybrid damage and most of it is AoE.

The real problems for any condi mesmer spec are that Anet “balances” us around being “a bit too strong” in 1v1 PvP, and all our condi mechanics are much more effective against players than dumb mobs: Confusion/Torment WRECKS players, but still deals less dps than a zerk ele even under ideal conditions (and said ele would die instantly in PvP, hence “balanced”), spammable bouncing projectiles are a nightmare in 1v1+pets, because you will get hit at some point, but have no cleave or AoE. Illusions die when the target dies, which is good for PvP to reduce clutter and give the next opponent a fair start, but facing a bunch of mobs minions, traps and AoEs don’t just randomly despawn when one of them dies.

Essentially, to fix almost any mesmer problems, just split the numbers between PvP and PvE. We already have different stat caps, enemy health pools and large differences in enemy intelligence/behavior, so why not adjust the condi stacks accordingly?

Regarding the iWarlock itself, one nice suggestion was making it lengthen durations for all other condis on the target with each attack. Actually I would like it to lengthen condi and boon durations with some form of AoE if that could ever be balanced, mainly to fit the dual nature of all other staff/“chaos” skills. Right now it’s just “summon on world boss, make forum post on record crits”.

iWarlock should be great now in full zerkes vs bosses since they’d live at range and never get single focused.

I would rather they fix the Scepter AA so I don’t have to equip a staff at all….

It’s a weird one – great damage in power builds, kind of passable in hybrid builds, but pretty pathetic in condition builds.

I think it should deal some sort of AoE condition or boon application, keeping to the theme of the Chaos traitline around boons and conditions.

The only thing staff is not really a condi weapon, but more a jack of all trades master of none.
It has a bit of everything, but each one is pretty meh by its own.

Ansau.7326:

The only thing staff is not really a condi weapon, but more a jack of all trades master of none.
It has a bit of everything, but each one is pretty meh by its own.

Thats the problem though… we dont have a dedicated condition weapon.

Staff- Primarily defensive, hybrid damage

Scepter- Hybrid damage, AA ruins phantasm builds

Pistol- Hybrid (but only if traited)

Torch- Defensive (Stealth), condi pressure sucks

Our traits dont synergize well for PvE condi damage (things like DE and Mistrust competing, DD and PF, etc)

We dont have any Utilities that apply damaging conditions.

You need to choose between shattering (confusion and torment, which don’t work well in PvE ) or Phantasm bleed build (which our weapons do a poor job of supporting)

Due to our mechanics, we have HUGE ramp-up time to get to max condition damage, which isn’t even impressive.

Mesmer already has poor AoE capabilities, and condi mesmer is even MORE single target focused than our power builds.

Many of our condi traits (like clone death) were removed, and things were nerfed like MtD

I’m stubborn though, I still try to make it work.

Scepter would be a decent condi weapon, and the AA wouldn’t hurt all condi builds since you’d want to spam shatters for confusion+torment unless running pistol bleeds.

Unless I missed something Mistrust can be deleted entirely now due to breakbars, the other traits are all right for build choices, if a bit undertuned for PvE condi.

We do have condi utilities if we work for it, just not very interesting ones: Signets of Domination/Midnight (don’t use active unless you’re about to die, -yawn-), Feedback/Nullfield+multi-hit phantasms (+leap finishers for staff cdr, chaos armor itself is useless though); and of course any illusion-summoning utility can be used as “why kitten filter here? worthless junk, same as forty-five-seconds…” shatter fodder.

The tools are all there, it’s just that the numbers are far too low for a PvE environment: torment and confusion are designed as “control” conditions, giving you a tactical advantage by forcing the enemy to behave in a certain, predicatable way or else put their life in immediate danger. Which mobs simply don’t do, and if I had the healthbar of a random champ mob in a PvP match I wouldn’t mind 25confusion+torment very much either…

Since AI is a lot of work, just up the damage and/or duration on these “damaging control” conditions such that the sustained dps is on par with bleed/burn. Mobs don’t post “OP condi meta” whine threads :P

Photoloss.4817:

Since AI is a lot of work, just up the damage and/or duration on these “damaging control” conditions such that the sustained dps is on par with bleed/burn. Mobs don’t post “OP condi meta” whine threads :P

^
So very much this.
It’s a simple split.

Photoloss.4817:

Scepter would be a decent condi weapon, and the AA wouldn’t hurt all condi builds since you’d want to spam shatters for confusion+torment unless running pistol bleeds.

Even for Bleed spam you want to shatter just need to be aware of the 1.5 second daze of Chronophantasma. Do it right and they still fire faster then just leaving them up normally.