Guild Wars 2

That’s pretty much the trait setup that I was thinking of. For the reflect build I’d maybe include Illusianory Inspiration. It can be useful for some situations imo

So what are we looking at guys?

Sinister weps/trinks/armor
Bursting + earth on staff
Bursting + Force (?) on sword/pistol

I think scepter for pve isnt worth it now that im looking at this again. Sword is def the way to go

Still going Berserker even with a reflect build for dungeons/fotm 50. I don’t see how sinister hybrid would be better than Berserker/Assassin but it’ll be interesting to see how things actually play out tomorrow.

I’m guessing confusing images on scepter hits everyone in a line? so, with 50% cast time reduction and +1 tick, it’s not bad, not as good as a sword by any means for trash. % damage increase doesn’t affect conditions, so force sigil aint great

Been using Greatsword instead of Staff in Sinister gear pre patch and I found it working much better. Been trying out because the Domination line looks a lot more appealing to me then Chaos.

The minors are all great especially Fragility. Basically improves Vulnerability by 50%. Most world bosses will have perma 25 stacks and organized groups often have something similar. Thats an extra 12.5% damage to BOTH direct damage and condition with the new vulnerability. Also gives some condition removal and distortion if you are running signets (many builds are).

The domination GMs actually have a very good selection as well.

Now I have to decide between Scepter and Sword to go with pistol. They both have their benefits. The buffed Confusing images will be extremely strong.

greatsword and domination are really bad for conditions imo. 12.5% to condition damage, sure but how are you applying conditions with a greatsword in the first place, and u’d rather be berserker to get the full use of 12.5% physical damage boost.

Telekinesis.8312:

greatsword and domination are really bad for conditions imo. 12.5% to condition damage, sure but how are you applying conditions with a greatsword in the first place, and u’d rather be berserker to get the full use of 12.5% physical damage boost.

this.

The entire reason we are using staff for condi is for the AOE on chaos storm and the extra bounce from the AA. We can burn/bleed extremely easily not to mention a strong phantasm which now has a bounce.

Dont see any reason to use GS in PVE really to be honest, except occasional spots in frac

The warlock doesn’t have a bounce, why on earth would you think that?

Azure.8670:

So what are we looking at guys?

Sinister weps/trinks/armor
Bursting + earth on staff

I pulled off the most DPS with Malice (10% condi duration) & Agony (20% bleed duration). Other notable boosts were Bursting and Strength, but they weren’t as good as those two above. I haven’t ran any math with Sigil of Earth so no idea how it compares to others.

Jeremlloyd.6837:

That’s pretty much the trait setup that I was thinking of. For the reflect build I’d maybe include Illusianory Inspiration. It can be useful for some situations imo

I can see it becoming meta in pugs if your party can’t stack 25 might at the start, or doesn’t have phalanx war. Technically, with that trait you need to blast fire up to 13 stacks and once you cast your phantasm at the start you will double it to 25. I do wonder however, will the trait proc at the start or at the end of the phantasm cast. I’m betting on the end and this will result in a small delay for might doubling – first 1 sec or so where your icebows will be working off only 13 might stacks.

Probably should wait until Tuesday to decide hybrid/power/condi DPS now that confusing combatant is changed to fury on 50% instead of confusion. I wonder how much they said today will go off tomorrow.

Fay.2357:

The warlock doesn’t have a bounce, why on earth would you think that?

whaaaat? didnt they add that? im high

With the bleeding duration we have, Sigil of Earth would be an additional 4-5 bleeding stacks right? It may add a bunch to our personal damage with the sword AA…
Malice and agony probably are the best in theory, but it extends our damage over time and not on burst. I’d rather have more condi/direct damage than more duration. Mesmer was already slow at building damage (3s just to get our phantasms up), I’d rather we don’t wait for the 10th tick of a 10s bleed stack…

frifox.5283:

I pulled off the most DPS with Malice (10% condi duration) & Agony (20% bleed duration). Other notable boosts were Bursting and Strength, but they weren’t as good as those two above. I haven’t ran any math with Sigil of Earth so no idea how it compares to others.

How is condition duration calculated if the duration bonus is different between your weapon sets and you switch weapons in combat? For instance, will condition duration on conditions I’ve casted dynamically get adjusted if I switch from a weapon set without Malice to a weaponset with Malice? Or is the condition duration calculated upon cast?

Leodon.1564:

For instance, will condition duration on conditions I’ve casted dynamically get adjusted if I switch from a weapon set without Malice to a weaponset with Malice? Or is the condition duration calculated upon cast?

Your condition duration will get adjusted when you weaponswap. The applied bleed duration will use the condi duration you had at the time of the cast.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-R;4VPF-1S7oVV71;9;4SUV;0146258057;4Yo0-S;1UytbUytbm-FQ3-VJ;3EbE6FbF6GbGb-o-Gs1k;9;9;9;9;9;9;2V8p

Food is either fried golden dumplings if you group lacks reliable might stacking from blasting firefields or whichever DPS food you want.

The adept and master talents in Inspiration are all pretty bad, so pick whichever one you want.

The idea behind this build is to run with a Guardian (or two) that runs their new elite shout that gives quickness and fury.

Start fights with Mimic > Time Warp > Guardian shout > Signet of Inspiration > Signet of Inspiration > GS4. Congratulations, your group has up to 30 seconds of Quickness. Using Platinum Doubloons in the armor and weapon slots instead of Sigils of Battle might be a group wide DPS increase, but I’m not well enough versed in GW2 theorycrafting to know.

Edit: Staff can be whatever you want instead. It just fits well with the 3% boon duration per boon minor.

You do realize TW quickness pulses 1s every 1s and using signet of inspiration will duplicate… 1s of quickness?

And that Quickness becomes a boon which will be affected by boon duration and that you need to have a Guardian running the new elite shout to make this work. Yes I realize it perfectly well. The real question here is whether or not it’s worth sacrificing anything for platinum doubloons or not.

Azure.8670:

Telekinesis.8312:

greatsword and domination are really bad for conditions imo. 12.5% to condition damage, sure but how are you applying conditions with a greatsword in the first place, and u’d rather be berserker to get the full use of 12.5% physical damage boost.

this.

The entire reason we are using staff for condi is for the AOE on chaos storm and the extra bounce from the AA. We can burn/bleed extremely easily not to mention a strong phantasm which now has a bounce.

Dont see any reason to use GS in PVE really to be honest, except occasional spots in frac

Thats the thing I am not playing it has a condition build but as a hybrid.

Duelist works with condition because it multi hits. So does Berzerker except its more AoE focused.

Running Sinister now I find that the only decent Staff skill is Chaos Storm. Warlock is weak with pure Condition damage. The Staff AA is really no different to Scepter AA.

To me there is just no rotation with Staff, Scepter/Pistol with pure condition. You cast Duelist, Confusing Image and Chaos Storm then just AA?

Sinister Greatsword with Sword/Pistol I find has way better AoE and Single target damage. It also help stacks might, vulnerability(which it takes full advantage of and a 50% bonus) plus cripple spam for control and has 2 interrupts so it can bring up its pistol skills faster.

A hybrid i’m guessing means physical + condition damage.

In that case u need ways to apply condition damage. duelist works with condition not just because of multihits and on crit trait, but also the trait which bleeds 33% of the time on any pistol attacks. Berserker only applies conditions if it crits.

There’s no reason to run sinister, if u dont want a staff as a weapon for the above given reasons, u cant inflict conditions with a greatsword. Warlock is the most powerful phantasm that we have considering the target has as many conditions as possible, it gets a 10% damage increase for each condition on a target. The power and precision from sinister help in warlock’s dps.

The release notes do not match exactly the ones previously given. In particular, the minor confusing combatant has been changed to an almost perma-fury. I actually like that, I though the confusion from this trait was really lackluster and we definitely need a boost to our crits.

About the GS vs staff. If Maxzero wants GS, it is probably because he wants/need to stay at range sometimes. In that case, the staff is not amazing. I really don’t see the staff as a ranged weapon: the chaos storm is very nice to apply on yourself as well as the enemy + this allows to get chaos armor by staff 2 which is the best way to get CD reduction and thus to use chaos storm more often. So at range, the staff loses so much of its benefits.

true, at long range staff loses out, but if your long range, u’d rather be berserker or assassins. i’m trying hard to notice how sinister armor with greatsword and domination would work well

Silverkey.2078:

The release notes do not match exactly the ones previously given. In particular, the minor confusing combatant has been changed to an almost perma-fury. I actually like that, I though the confusion from this trait was really lackluster and we definitely need a boost to our crits.

About the GS vs staff. If Maxzero wants GS, it is probably because he wants/need to stay at range sometimes. In that case, the staff is not amazing. I really don’t see the staff as a ranged weapon: the chaos storm is very nice to apply on yourself as well as the enemy + this allows to get chaos armor by staff 2 which is the best way to get CD reduction and thus to use chaos storm more often. So at range, the staff loses so much of its benefits.

Thats part of it. Also the superior Aoe.

While Staff does have better Condition application thats basically all it does.

With a Staff and Scepter/Pistol you basically only has real three attack skills. Chaos Storm, Confusing Images and Duelist. While Warlock benefits from conditions on the target it basically generates none itself. It’s also single target with a average attack speed.

Once you cast Duelist and Confusing Images what do you for the next 16 seconds while waiting for Duelist to come up again? Warlock and Chaos Storm? Both have long CDs as well.

If you take the CD reduction talent then you lose the 10% toughness to condition damage (which is just about the only damage trait in the Chaos line).

You spend so much of your time just auto attacking, hoping you Phantasms don’t die (because you can’t bring them back fast) with no sustainable AoE.

With the loss of Confusing Combatants and perma fury replacing it leans that way even more.

For me Staff just takes too long to get to max DPS and recovers too slowly from setbacks.

A Greatsword build with Domination can do:
Duelist

Magic bullet
2 x Mantra of Distraction

2nd Duelist

If the interrupts are there that’s 2 duelists out in 4 seconds with 24 stacks of vuln on the target (+36% direct and condition damage).

Can Staff/Chaos build get off to an explosive start like that?

On the other hand, I agree with telekinesis, GS would be better on a full berserker. The phantasm hits only 4 times basically (depends on hit box I think) so at most 4 bleed stacks, well below the duelist possible 12 stacks which was the reason we went into hybrid in a first place. Now if you only run a GS as a plan B, keeping sword-pistol as main, then you probably want to stay on rampager/sinister.

I’m a bit confused with Maxzero’s suggestion. The opening you mention does not have anything to do with GS. Sure, without the staff, you may not go for chaos and keep domination instead and thus get the vuln from the daze/interrupts, but except for that, there is no mention of any GS skill in your rotation.

So do you think that for dungeons may be better to run GS/scepter+pistol than staff as condi with sinister gear + perplex? I must agree that Staff takes too long time to setup and provides just one damaging skill. Other than 3 staff clones which is impossible with scepter.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-R;4k2l5107wUV71;9;4TSW;0237136058;45oW0S;1bUytbUytX0kX5-DOG5;1293949596979451Wk791s
For dungeons we cant drop feedback – we already dropped focus reflect so it limits us with one skill. Also running DE would be prob nice but in dungeons it may just cause random pulls.

As a PVE Mesmer I’m completely lost right now on how to build for max DPS in dungeons and fracs. It’s almost scary to think my s/s s/f might not be the go to thing anymore.

This was done with a single guardian not using any boon duration. A guardian can easily get 50% boon duration with the staff trait, food and bountiful stones. Also, I kittened up taking the screenshot, it was a little over 20 seconds of quickness but the icon kept moving around.

Based on my calculations (and if anyone has done other calculations, please tell me), the best DPS is sword-pistol/focus on a mixed sinister + just enough rampager to get close to 100% crits (assuming fury + banners or spotter), with both condi signet, rune krait.
Doing this, the DPS is WAY above our pre-patch DPS.
We have enough damage to use the sword efficiently + massive bleed damage over 8s or so.

Thanks for the fast tests – I’m at work until later this evening and won’t be able to start crunching numbers until then.

If you’re traited into dueling, you’ll have permanent fury, but that’s not particularly helpful for our phantasms. Since you can’t take the pistol trait with phantasmal fury, more rampagers might be necessary.

Silverkey.2078:

On the other hand, I agree with telekinesis, GS would be better on a full berserker. The phantasm hits only 4 times basically (depends on hit box I think) so at most 4 bleed stacks, well below the duelist possible 12 stacks which was the reason we went into hybrid in a first place. Now if you only run a GS as a plan B, keeping sword-pistol as main, then you probably want to stay on rampager/sinister.

I’m a bit confused with Maxzero’s suggestion. The opening you mention does not have anything to do with GS. Sure, without the staff, you may not go for chaos and keep domination instead and thus get the vuln from the daze/interrupts, but except for that, there is no mention of any GS skill in your rotation.

Okay think of it this way.

You have full sinister gear and have the Domination/Dueling/Illusion lines.

You start the fight and cast Duelist and Confusing Images (or Duelist/Flurry if Sword).

Now what? Wait 16 seconds (if there is nothing to interrupt)? Or Switch weapons?

Switch to Staff and you cast Chaos Storm (once every 35 seconds), Warlock (which I generally find inferior to the Berzerker and has a longer CD because no trait) and then what auto attack? Minimal stack of might and vulnerability (basically get lucky on staff and Chaos storm procs) and no perma cripple. And you just end up waiting for Duelist to come back.

Switch to GS and you are casting Berzerker (who will put on more bleeds then Warlock), Mirror Blade and AAing. You will get 9 stacks of vulnerability (13.5% extra damage), 6 stacks of might plus your auto attacks (easily another 6).

When you switch back to x/Pistol you have 12 stacks of Might, 9 vuln stacks on the target and more Bleeds.

If you go Sword/Pistol then GS works far better with that as well (benefits from the Ferocity stacks).

Dont forget that you dont really want to throw Chaos on bosses to not random stun-defiance remove

Silverkey.2078:

Based on my calculations (and if anyone has done other calculations, please tell me), the best DPS is sword-pistol/focus on a mixed sinister + just enough rampager to get close to 100% crits (assuming fury + banners or spotter), with both condi signet, rune krait.
Doing this, the DPS is WAY above our pre-patch DPS.
We have enough damage to use the sword efficiently + massive bleed damage over 8s or so.

Yeah I got the feeling Sword/Pistol will take over from Scepter/Pistol eventually.

The bonus 150 Ferocity is just too good. Add to that Scepter overwriting Phantasms is a real problem.

Kirito.9207:

As a PVE Mesmer I’m completely lost right now on how to build for max DPS in dungeons and fracs. It’s almost scary to think my s/s s/f might not be the go to thing anymore.

im with you there Dax

So, after some dungeons run in exotic rampager, the 30+ bleed were definitely there. I was even on a PUG with a necromancer stacking his own bleed, so the enemies had close to 50 all the time
I haven’t managed to check how much they actually hit though.

But fun in any case to play a bit differently and to see other people’s new builds. Until the new meta settles, there will be quite some variety around, hopefully even the meta will include some different viable playstyles.
I was surprised to see the very same lfg messages “zerk only”… People don’t like change :p

It would be fun and instructive to run a full mesmer dungeon, and try to see what works best. I actually think we have top tier DPS now (although I don’t know how other professions have evolved)

Ran through a level 50 fractal today with another mesmer in the party…two time warps was amazing. Slow is awesome and being able to spread all those boons by summoning a phantasm was so much fun.

Looking forward to see what the new meta/metas will be for us…hoping the Zerk meta will finally be put to rest. Rampager’s looks like fun!

I just realized that they actually reduced the bleeding, confusion and torment compared to what was announced last week… The 3 conditions mesmer rely on
Because of that, the sinister/rampager build is less stellar. Still a notch over the berserker, but since it also implies slightly slower damage building, I would say that both are competitive.

In a sense, that is better, that means we have an actual choice. But disappointed over the big nerf (an easy 30% less!) of what first seemed like a strong buff :p

I tested out condition hybrid vs a power phantasm build (my usual playstyle) and while I still prefer the phantasm build over all the condition hybrid is much more viable post patch. I was running rampager as well (I don’t have sinister yet) and was able to stack a hefty amount of bleeds rather quickly. Staff seemed to give better results compared to greatsword (standing close and autoattacking with 3 clones put up a ton of burn and bleed) and the pistol was a beast, as expected.

However, I’ll also add that conditions are not my normal playstyle so I’m sure the damage could be upped a good amount with a better trait/utility setup and rotation.

I’ve been trying out power builds and I would like to hear your guys’ opinions.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-R;4ZUF41C73VV71;9;4TVS;0046048137;45sY0y;9;0kMy_Q7z

There’s been an undocumented change on mantras in which the recharge starts ticking down as soon as the mantra is channeled.

This is kinda big in Mantra of Pain’s case, as it removes the one second CD it had. With the Harmonious Mantra change (where you actively have to cast mantras to retain the % Damage bonus), Spamming Mantra of Pain instead of using your weapon skills nets you more DPS than sword auto.

In addition, after every cast of MoP, you heal your allies for ~2600, which scales up to ~3k over time.

With Temp Enchanter, Mimic, Feedback, and Time Warp, you have 10seconds of AoE resistance and ~12s of reflection/Quickness. (You can spec into reflections for warden if you need more sustained reflection).

Thoughts?

How well did the mantra rotation work? Is it easy to keep high “harmonious mantra” up-time? I guess for long boss fight it may be difficult…

Is this change undocumented because… it is a bug?
I don’t imagine this being the developer’s wishes.

Silverkey.2078:

How well did the mantra rotation work? Is it easy to keep high “harmonious mantra” up-time? I guess for long boss fight it may be difficult…

Healing mantra gives 2 stacks each, so blow 2 heals (1s cd) and any 1 other, and there you go you now have 5 stacks.

Uptime, not so much. I don’t think they want us to keep high uptime on the modifiers…

Silverkey.2078:

How well did the mantra rotation work? Is it easy to keep high “harmonious mantra” up-time? I guess for long boss fight it may be difficult…

If you use continuously cast MoP, you can keep up 4 stacks consistently (You can use the time when activating the charges to use Glamours, phantasms, etc.)

I almost never used my Auto-Attack unless I needed something to fill the gap when I was activating MoP.

To give you an idea on the damage, in CoF with Ascended Berserkers +25 Might (No scholars, force, banners, or food) I was doing 4.8k crits.

I generally used MoR to clean up dangerous stacks of condis (SE for instance) when I didn’t have resistance on the party.

Hiemdal.4367:

I tested out condition hybrid vs a power phantasm build (my usual playstyle) and while I still prefer the phantasm build over all the condition hybrid is much more viable post patch. I was running rampager as well (I don’t have sinister yet) and was able to stack a hefty amount of bleeds rather quickly. Staff seemed to give better results compared to greatsword (standing close and autoattacking with 3 clones put up a ton of burn and bleed) and the pistol was a beast, as expected.

However, I’ll also add that conditions are not my normal playstyle so I’m sure the damage could be upped a good amount with a better trait/utility setup and rotation.

Keep in mind there are some bugs. The duelist trait does not stack with Shaper Images (annoying).

I strongly recommend sinister. The damage is just brutal.

We discussed mostly the DPS build right now, what about reflect build? Do we just leave the job to guardians or did we come up with a reflect build that also gives some damage?

I tried my BBB build and it hitting for a lot. It still need twicking but right am able to stack by myself close to 30 bleed.

On another note,

has anyone tried confusion build. I think confusion might need toning down. Although not fully geared for it, I tested it with my condi gear on my test mob. It cut through it so fast.

I will post build gear and trait later.

It’s sad to say but we don’t have many very good sources of confusion….
The scepter 3 is basically the only one (a strong one I admit) except for shatter (or weird blind-confusion combos). Since we rarely play shatter in PvE…
Also the efficiency would depend strongly on the enemy (usually slow) attack rate (the base tick is not very high)….
I think confusion will remain a good PvP condition but sub-optimal PvE condition even after those changes.

Silverkey.2078:

It’s sad to say but we don’t have many very good sources of confusion….
The scepter 3 is basically the only one (a strong one I admit) except for shatter (or weird blind-confusion combos). Since we rarely play shatter in PvE…
Also the efficiency would depend strongly on the enemy (usually slow) attack rate (the base tick is not very high)….
I think confusion will remain a good PvP condition but sub-optimal PvE condition even after those changes.

This is in pve.
You have to trait for it plus signet and mimic or signet and mantra. Stun dazz blind put confusion. Am stacking up to 15 last I remember.
If you have your stack on while mob is attacking just watch as their HP drop. I ran it also in cof another dungeon can’t remember the name now.

One thing is it not so good with mobs that cannot be stunned.

I dont think the mantra cd is a bug. As good as the change is, it barely effects mantra of pain. I’ve been using the same set up forever, changes it by 1 second. Its not op or anything I assume it’s working as intended