Guild Wars 2

I see a lot of builds that use staff or condition damage in PvP/WvW, does anyone use it in dungeons or fractals?

I really like the feel of staff, so I am trying to make it work and I’d like some information from people that are really experienced as I near 80 with my mesmer. Most PvE stuff involves Greatsword/shattering, and I’m just not a fan of GS at all.

Thanks

Biggest problem with any condition based build is that it’s going to be sharing condition slots with other classes. For example my Mesmer can maintain around 10-15 bleeds with little to no effort because clones crit plus I crit and we’re all doing conditions. However any condition ranger, thief or necro will also be sharing the same 25 bleed slots that a mob has.

So if you can get into a group without lot of conditions, then it works and works extremely well. 15 stacks of bleeds all ticking for 120 a pop is a lot of damage. However if you’re paired up with someone else or enough passive bleeds that you’re hitting the bleed cap then you’ll be wasting damage potential.

Staff in a dungeon is a great defensive option. Phase Retreat teleports you to safety even when stunned or immobilized. Run any weapon set when safe, and weapon swap + phase retreat when in danger. I solo’d the Mossman from 40% to dead on Fractal 12 the other night with my staff after the rest of my group died. I didn’t take a single hit. Phase Retreat is incredibly powerful in dungeons.

I also run Berserker gear with staff. Your warlock can crit for 9-10k in a group setting. Condition damage with a staff is pretty mediocre because you won’t proc Sharper Images very often. Intermittent burning and 5-6 stacks of bleeding is not worth stacking condition damage for.

and all my questions were really just answered. any advice on where to put the traits?

kandolo.2574:

Staff in a dungeon is a great defensive option. Phase Retreat teleports you to safety even when stunned or immobilized. Run any weapon set when safe, and weapon swap + phase retreat when in danger. I solo’d the Mossman from 40% to dead on Fractal 12 the other night with my staff after the rest of my group died. I didn’t take a single hit. Phase Retreat is incredibly powerful in dungeons.

I also run Berserker gear with staff. Your warlock can crit for 9-10k in a group setting. Condition damage with a staff is pretty mediocre because you won’t proc Sharper Images very often. Intermittent burning and 5-6 stacks of bleeding is not worth stacking condition damage for.

Honestly when I stack up to around 60ish crit rating my Sharper Images proc all the time. Grab a Rampager’s amulet in Mists, equip sword, and do Decoy/Mirror Images on a golem and watch the bleed stacks fly. That’s just sword which is vuln and bleed, when you take into account Winds of Chaos now you’re stacking bleed on crits + bleed or burn or vuln. Couple in spare bounces (since someone is usually close enough to have bolts bounce back) and it’s extremely easy to stack more than 5-6 bleeds on a target.

Again the main problem is when you run with some Condition Ranger/Thief/Engineer/Necro who’s already stacking 10-15 bleeds of their own plus misc bleeds from others then you try to add yours and you will hit that cap pretty darned quick. However if you’re running with a group and no one is stacking more than a few bleeds that’s ripe territory to go all out with Rabid or Rampager gear.

Teknoflow.4618:

and all my questions were really just answered. any advice on where to put the traits?

Usually some variation of a 0/20/20/0/20 (+10 user choice) build works.

Sharper Images and Deceptive Evasion are “must haves” for condition damage builds. You want to generate clones as much as possible and you want to crit as much as possible so they’ll start stacking bleeding.

Interesting thing to note. It’s possible to stack more than 12 bleeds. The one centaur boss at the end of CM path 3 never moves. If you time your phantasms right, you can have 3 wardens on him which will constantly reflect all his shots and have a consistent 25 stacks of bleed. I just stood on the roof, without attacking, and watched him bleed to death. It’s possible that I was doing more damage than the rest of my team combined. I think you can do the same with the bomber in the first path but I haven’t tried it enough times to verify.

There is one thing you should aware off. If you don’t stack any power, you will have a hard time taking out objects. They don’t receive conditions. I hope Anet will fix that one day.

what about runes? thanks so much for the help, everyone.

I haven’t quite figured out the runes yet. The important thing to note is that +Condition duration or +Bleed duration ONLY affects stuff you generate. This means the bleeds from Sharper Images and bleeds from Clones’ Winds of Chaos ability won’t ever be greater than their initial amount.

Runes of the Adventurer x6 is nice for a Condition Mesmer Build. Its main stat granted is Condition Damage (183) with a little Power (50), and its x6 bonus is that when you use a Healing Skill, you regain 50% endurance (10s CD). So you hit your Heal Skill, you can dodge and spawn another Clone.

Otherwise, its Runes of the Undead (If you are going a massive Toughness Route) x6 or x6 Crest of the Rabid or x6 Coral Orbs depending on whether you want Toughness or Power. Still debating if Runes of the Thief x6 actually works like I think it may.

superior sigil of stamina, offhand sigil of energy – with the dodges and phase retreat =:)
( but then phase retreat is my favourite skill in the whole game – so unpredictable)
runes of water/monk/sanctuary increase boon duration with the boons we get from cstorm and carmour . Not the most damage dealing but increases surviveability a lot.

MLieBennett.9031:

Runes of the Adventurer x6 is nice for a Condition Mesmer Build. Its main stat granted is Condition Damage (183) with a little Power (50), and its x6 bonus is that when you use a Healing Skill, you regain 50% endurance (10s CD). So you hit your Heal Skill, you can dodge and spawn another Clone.

Otherwise, its Runes of the Undead (If you are going a massive Toughness Route) x6 or x6 Crest of the Rabid or x6 Coral Orbs depending on whether you want Toughness or Power. Still debating if Runes of the Thief x6 actually works like I think it may.

Actually, 2x Centaur, 2x Undead 2x Krait stack for condtition duration, just throwing that out there.

Also, I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but personally I feel that condition mesmers in dungeons are playing below their potential. Other classes (thief, engi, probably ele as well) can rack up ~20 stacks of bleed faster and more reliably. If you party with one of those you are pretty much dead weight, damage wise.

Condition Duration on a non-Confusion focused build? Bleh. Condition Duration STILL doesn’t apply to conditions from our illusions, thus useless for Sharper Images, Staff Clones, Trident Clones, Phantasmal Mage, and Phantasmal Berserker. Thus its usually better to beef up Condition Damage, and ignore Condition Duration if you are focusing on Sharper Images + Illusions.
Even on the Staff, Condition Duration isn’t really that useful. In Winds of Chaos, it would need +100% Condition Duration to get a second tick of damage from Burning when WE and not our Illusions launch it. Bleeding and Vulnerability needs +20% Condition Duration to increase theirs by 1 second, again when it comes from you and not your illusions. Further the Bleed specific boosts are a horrid choice. The only Bleeds a Mesmer deals out that would benefit are Winds of Chaos (Mesmer only, not Clones) 1/3rd of the time and Debilitating Dissipation 1/3rd of the time.
Funny thing? It takes 200 Condition damage to boost Bleeding by the same 20% roughly, BUT it also boosts the damage of conditions made by your Illusions. Considering an I.Duelist can rack up a decent stack of Bleeds itself, along with Staff Clones and G.Sword Clones … well thats actually a decent boost.

If the whole goal was Confusion, then the 2x Mad King (10% Condition Duration), 2x Lyssa (10% Condition Duration), and 2x Altruism (3x Might Stack on Heal Skill with 10s CD) would be my choice along with a Rare Veggie Pizza and at least 20 in Domination along with Master of Misdirection from Illusion. That gives you a nice 113% longer Confusion duration and a 3x Stack of Might on using a Heal Skill to boost your Condition Dmg by 105. (Its also probable to drop 2x Mad King for 2x more Altruism/Pirate for the +15% Boon duration/20% Might duration bonus, to get might to last a bit longer.) Condition Duration is worth it here, as most sources of Confusion are generated by you and not your illusions. Exceptions being Phantasmal Mage and Phantasmal Whaler. Further, as parts of a second still can sneak in an extra trigger of damage, its not needed try to have the Condition Duration focused on full seconds.
6.39 Seconds of Confusion (originally 3 sec) is quite a bit of time to hit someone in WvWvW and lesser extent PvP with, making it worth while in this form.

Edit: What was 2x Undead Runes in that Rune Setup for? That doesn’t give any condition duration increase, or even the Bleed Specific condition duration like Centaur and Krait.

Kodiak.3281:

Grab a Rampager’s amulet in Mists, equip sword, and do Decoy/Mirror Images on a golem and watch the bleed stacks fly. .

Sword clones stack bleeds more effectively than staff clones because of the faster attack rate. That sort of makes my point that staff isn’t a great condition weapon in PVE….