Guild Wars 2

I’m currently running zerk gear with a few pieces of cavalier for wvw, but feel like I’m giving up a lot by not having any condition dmg for confusion.

I was thinking of getting the celestial roll trinkets with a mix of po/v/co + pr/t/co gear and making a ‘mixed’ power+condition build (sword+x and staff), but feel like either:
a) the loss of 30% critdmg (didn’t actually count exact %) would easily be offset by the condition dmg
or
b) i would be gimping myself in both aspects

I would be running a 0/20/20/0/30 shatter build

Has anyone tried this, and/or are there any guides anywhere? In theory I feel like I would be able to get almost full use out of a confusion build while not actually giving up much burst dmg by doing this.

Lucky for you, I just wrote this up in another thread. COPY PASTA!

I run a hybrid Phantasm build:

Staff / Scepter+Pistol / Trident

Ether Feast/Mirror Images/Phantasmal Defender/Radiation Field/Time Warp

10(III)/15(II)/0/25(IV,V)/20(III,X)

Weapons: Rampager; Sigils of Fire / Perception+Accuracy
Armor: Rampager; Runes of the Undead
Trinkets: Berserker Amulet, Cavalier Accessories, Rings, and Back; Exquisite Ruby Jewel

See here:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.1|6.1o.h17|b.1o.h8.a.1o.h1|1o.719.1o.719.1o.719.1o.719.1o.719.1o.719|1g.67.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1i.67|a3.f2.0.p40.k3a|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

The main point with confusion hitting hard is making it last long. 33% confusion duration and rare veggie pizza are absolute musts imho.

If you take the above build, with the stats there you will get around 250-300 more condition damage than a pure shatter build. This equals to ~45 more damage per stack of confusion on the enemy. Which in and of itself isnt bad, with usually 4 stacks thats around 180 more damage per skill activation. However, if you make it last long enough for say, two or even three skill activations instead of one, thats potentially double or triple damage.

Above build has around the same toughness as a heavy shatter build (well, a bit less) 80% of the power and 50% less crit damage. Normalized with crit chance and whatnot, that equals to around 30% less oomph on normal hits, while his confusion deals 20% more damage and his bleeds deal 25% more damage. (not to bash the build, but to use it as an example). If your shatters usually hit for around 6-7k to make up for the loss of damage with going that route, the aditional condition damage has to hit for some 2,1k damage to make up for the loss. That might be possible with veggie pizza if you get another aditional confusion off and certainly is possible if you pick the 33% longer confusion trait as well (plus the condition damage from that traitline). This doesnt figure in eventual bleeds from crits of phantasms and clones, but the damage is pretty marginal in real combat situations in wvwv imho.

As for a clear cut answer, i dont think there is any. At least for wvwvw. Condition damage in PvE is utter trash. Also, keep in mind that condition duration does not apply to bleeds from clones.

Cataca.3867:

The main point with confusion hitting hard is making it last long. 33% confusion duration and rare veggie pizza are absolute musts imho.

If you take the above build, with the stats there you will get around 250-300 more condition damage than a pure shatter build. This equals to ~45 more damage per stack of confusion on the enemy. Which in and of itself isnt bad, with usually 4 stacks thats around 180 more damage per skill activation. However, if you make it last long enough for say, two or even three skill activations instead of one, thats potentially double or triple damage.

Above build has around the same toughness as a heavy shatter build (well, a bit less) 80% of the power and 50% less crit damage. Normalized with crit chance and whatnot, that equals to around 30% less oomph on normal hits, while his confusion deals 20% more damage and his bleeds deal 25% more damage. (not to bash the build, but to use it as an example). If your shatters usually hit for around 6-7k to make up for the loss of damage with going that route, the aditional condition damage has to hit for some 2,1k damage to make up for the loss. That might be possible with veggie pizza if you get another aditional confusion off and certainly is possible if you pick the 33% longer confusion trait as well (plus the condition damage from that traitline). This doesnt figure in eventual bleeds from crits of phantasms and clones, but the damage is pretty marginal in real combat situations in wvwv imho.

As for a clear cut answer, i dont think there is any. At least for wvwvw. Condition damage in PvE is utter trash. Also, keep in mind that condition duration does not apply to bleeds from clones.

Thanks for the reply, now I’m going to do some math on exactly how many stats it is. Not sure if I should include weapons as to be honest not sure what is best (thinking Rabid staff, and would need +power on the sword)

Current gear: Knight chest, remaining armor zerker. Cavalier rings/amu/back, 1 zerk ring and 1 valk ring.

Total stat bonus from current gear (will calculate with full ascended as I’ll have that after reset today):

660 power, 289 precision, 481 toughness, 60 vit, 55% crit

Theory gear: Carrion armor, Celestial jewelry (ignoring +healing and MF), Rabid backpiece

Total stat bonus: 440 power, 251 precision, 251 toughness, 587 cond, 440 vit, 29% crit

Difference: -220 power, -38 precision, -230 toughness, -26% crit, +380 vit, , +587 cond

To me (very rough math here) that looks like I’d be losing around 200 dmg per shatter on crits to gain around 90-100 confusion dmg per stack per tick, meaning it would even out after 8 single stack confusion ticks, and increase further in favor of condition dmg if you get more.

Am I way off here?

I would instantly switch to power/cond dmg build IF there was power/cond dmg/toughness gear.
running in 100% rabid currently and love it. but sometimes I miss the direct damage :\
unfortunately vitality is garbage imo, I tried carrion set and I felt like having that extra vitality adds almost nothing to your survival. that direct damage combined with nice conditions and confusion was very nice tough.
perhaps a mix of knight and rabid would do the trick?

or is there a cond dmg>power/toughness set and I missed it?

nah, there’s no combo like that, I wish

unfortunately you lose out on condition dmg if you go knight, which I think would kinda defeat the purpose, and also don’t want to give up too much critdmg which is why I was thinking of the celestial rolls

maybe i’m just beating a dead horse and it’s impossible to get the best of both worlds, but i’m buying the gear now to test it out

worst case scenario i wasted 50g and some pristine tokens :p

imho, i’d buy condition damage food first and see how i’d like the damage.

but i guess im a bit late for that

If you haven’t seen it already, this website is amazing for tinkering with builds. It does all the math for you.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/

I’ve been running a build similar to what you describe. 0/20/20/0/30, Knight’s armor, and Carrion jewelry slotted with Berserker jewels. After food and stacks this setup gives enough condition damage for ~100 damage bleeds and ~300 damage confusions. The tradeoff is abysmally low crit damage (something like 44%).

@Cataca
I think your comparison is fundamentally flawed. In a Phantasm build, your stats only matter in that they transfer to the Phantasm. Unlike in a shatter build, it is the Phantasm, not the player, that does the damage.

Phantasms have Fury and many more trait steroids (two 15% damage and 20% haste) than you get in a shatter build (20% damage). The effective drop in damage is not so severe as 30%. I will show you the numbers to prove this.

For reference, I will be using the “Heavy Shattercat” build, which I will post for the OP’s benefit:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.1|6.1g.h1h|c.1g.h17.a.1n.h1|1g.71a.1g.71a.1n.71a.1g.71a.1p.71a.1g.71a|1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1g.67.1g.67.1i.67|a1.u49a.0.0.u36b|0.0|31.3d.35.3a.3q|e

As you can see, the Power difference is 90%, not 80%, and you sacrifice 3000 eHP for the Shatter build. Maybe you are thinking about Ascendent-geared builds?

Anyway, here is the calculation for the critical damage coefficient:

Shattercat: 1 + (1.2)(.5 + .96)(.4086) = 1.7158672
Phantasm: 1 + [1.2][1+.15+.15][(.5 + .51)(.62)] = 1.976872

I will concede that this is a naive comparison. A Shatter build definitely deals a lot more upfront damage, and it has different base values based on the number of illusions (and if you have Illusionary Persona). Furthermore, phantasms have different attack speeds and are affected by haste differently. It also doesn’t take into account the problems in setting up or maintaining the illusions (like a pseudo-pet class). But the numbers seem heavily stacked in their favor, especially since phantasms shoot faster than shatters cool down.

In conclusion, I think it’s clear that Shatter definitely is more flexible in WvW and PvP, where burst damage dominates. But in PvE, where you’re just wailing on a boss and trying not to get killed by <BIG FIREBALL>, I really think Phantasms are the way to go. Seeing a Warlock crit on a fully-conditioned boss makes you blink a couple of times. Plus, you can always swap out Mender’s Purity for Restorative Mantras and heal your entire team for 2-3k every few seconds.

@mattenator
In my experience, Bleeding and Poison are where the damage is at. If you want to do confusion, you might want to pursue a pure Condition build rather than the hybrid I posted above.

@grimmson
A combination of Rampager and Cavalier works fine for me. =\

I just plugged the gear/build I was thinking about into the website; question is really if it’s too “all over the place”

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.0|c.1h.0.c.1h.0|6.1b.0|1b.71a.1h.71a.1h.71a.1h.71a.1h.71a.1h.71a|211.0.211.0.311.0.211.0.311.0.2w.0|0.k4a.k4a.0.u56b|39.d|33.34.3d.3b.0|e

Suzut.4905:

@Cataca
I think your comparison is fundamentally flawed. In a Phantasm build, your stats only matter in that they transfer to the Phantasm. Unlike in a shatter build, it is the Phantasm, not the player, that does the damage.

Phantasms have Fury and many more trait steroids (two 15% damage and 20% haste) than you get in a shatter build (20% damage). The effective drop in damage is not so severe as 30%. I will show you the numbers to prove this.

For reference, I will be using the “Heavy Shattercat” build, which I will post for the OP’s benefit:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.1|6.1g.h1h|c.1g.h17.a.1n.h1|1g.71a.1g.71a.1n.71a.1g.71a.1p.71a.1g.71a|1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1g.67.1g.67.1i.67|a1.u49a.0.0.u36b|0.0|31.3d.35.3a.3q|e

As you can see, the Power difference is 90%, not 80%, and you sacrifice 3000 eHP for the Shatter build. Maybe you are thinking about Ascendent-geared builds?

Anyway, here is the calculation for the critical damage coefficient:

Shattercat: 1 + (1.2)(.5 + .96)(.4086) = 1.7158672
Phantasm: 1 + [1.2][1+.15+.15][(.5 + .51)(.62)] = 1.976872

I will concede that this is a naive comparison. A Shatter build definitely deals a lot more upfront damage, and it has different base values based on the number of illusions (and if you have Illusionary Persona). Furthermore, phantasms have different attack speeds and are affected by haste differently. It also doesn’t take into account the problems in setting up or maintaining the illusions (like a pseudo-pet class). But the numbers seem heavily stacked in their favor, especially since phantasms shoot faster than shatters cool down.

In conclusion, I think it’s clear that Shatter definitely is more flexible in WvW and PvP, where burst damage dominates. But in PvE, where you’re just wailing on a boss and trying not to get killed by <BIG FIREBALL>, I really think Phantasms are the way to go. Seeing a Warlock crit on a fully-conditioned boss makes you blink a couple of times. Plus, you can always swap out Mender’s Purity for Restorative Mantras and heal your entire team for 2-3k every few seconds.

@mattenator
In my experience, Bleeding and Poison are where the damage is at. If you want to do confusion, you might want to pursue a pure Condition build rather than the hybrid I posted above.

@grimmson
A combination of Rampager and Cavalier works fine for me. =\

As said, im not bashing your build. The main point was, that most of our condition damage comes from confusion, the easiest way to apply it is shatters and scepter 2 (or 3, never use the thing). I purely compared shatter damage as its rather easy to do.

Even then, as said, the answer isn’t clear cut. I will say however, that if you are not using confusion as your main means to get that condition damage going, however you do that, you are basically wasting stat points. (i duelist and ethereal fields for instance)

And again, not bashing your build in any way. I can see how it’d work and that its probably effective.

edit: however, i dont agree on the pve aspect. Condition damage there is definitely a waste. Going full phantasm damage with zerker gear will net you more mileage for your stats.

mattenator.4328:

I just plugged the gear/build I was thinking about into the website; question is really if it’s too “all over the place”

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.0|c.1h.0.c.1h.0|6.1b.0|1b.71a.1h.71a.1h.71a.1h.71a.1h.71a.1h.71a|211.0.211.0.311.0.211.0.311.0.2w.0|0.k4a.k4a.0.u56b|39.d|33.34.3d.3b.0|e

For a hybrid this is heavily lopsided on condition damage. Might as well go full condition.

You sacrifice 1k atk compared to a heavy shatter build, 1.2-1.3 with ascended gear, which comes down to a loss of 1/3rd+ the damage on direct attacks, this means that every point in crit damage and crit chance is 1/3rd as effective as well.

I’d try to mix and match specialized gear instead. Just to try it out for instance, you could get cavalier trinkets with rabid jewels or something. (if you have the karma to spare, balthazar temple merchant) And if you like it, mix and match ascended gear to get the stats you want. I’d also put way more priority on toughness than vitality. Vitality is important for condition damage mitigation but since the mesmer has multiple ways to evade hits, its more important to reduce the hits that do get through to a minimum.

@Cataca
Right. Just wanted to clear up how the build works. It doesn’t do to compare stats when it’s the traits buffing the Phantasms that make it work.

I think that there are two types of Condition builds. The first is the hybrid Phantasm build, which focuses on Bleeding. You stack Condition, Precision, and Power to have high Duelist and Warlock damage. The other is the shatter/glamour build, which is bulkier and relies on Confusion.

I ran Pyroatheist’s Berserker-based build for awhile, and I think that Rampager is different in that it is a more DPS-oriented approach. You see, the problem with pure Berserker gear is that you have only one real phantasm to work with, the Warlock. (Wardens die instantly in a fight, Berserker and Duelist are really inconsistent, and Duelists sort of suck without Sharper Images.) Pyroatheist was a genius and solved the problem by speccing 30 into Inspiration for durability and Restorative Mantras, so you could afford to drop Warlock and Staff Clones, then do nothing but heal your teammates in the downtime. My build does not have that, but it’s because I am constantly switching between Pistol and Staff to summon high damage phantasms and lack the time to heal people.

@mattenator
Yeah. Your build probably wants to go all the way and do shatter/glamours for Confusion. That or go hybrid Phantasms like me.

Also… unless you have the Ascended gear, I would use exotics as a baseline for comparison.

I run a shatter/confusion hybrid build.

Armor: Rabid with Undead runes
Weapon: Rampager
Trinkets: Berzerker with Exquisit Ruby thingies
everything is exotic (so no rares and no ascended gear)
Traits are 20/20/0/0/30

With this combination I get 1750 power, 50% crit chance, >1000 con damage and a little toughness for defence. Confusion ticks for about 350 per skill and with rare veggie pizzas and the trait for 33% longer confusion it works very well. And the bleeding isn’t too bad.

What’s the ‘breaking point’ for condition dmg to make your confusion tick for serious dmg?

How much do you need to make it more than just a nice side-effect?

ANet did a great job with stats balancing (the only stat that feels underpowered is Healing Power), so just pick some key metrics, like 40% crit damage, 40% crit chance, 17k HP, etc. and see how much power and condition damage you can get. DPS is not the end-all of GW2; durability and utility matter.