Guild Wars 2

Hello there~

Let’s fire off with an introduction;
Lexxy Shadowveil, a mesmer since about the beta period of the game.
I’ve been away for a long time in between, but I am fully back, up, & running now!
I’ve picked up where I left around february, and since, have been focussing primarily
on PvE content (fractals, dungeons, current ongoing events, exploring for world completion, advancing through personal storyline).
All along while doing this, I’ve been playing around with a couple builds,
but never really laid hands on a final build.

I’ve been running with mostly berzerker gear (my backpiece an exception as I am still working on getting an upgrade, simply because it’s usually mandatory in random parties.
Recently, I’ve come up with my own idea of a build, and I would like to receive constructive criticism towards it. I’d like to know, what you do think is good, or could be better, and, maybe even more importantly, why so.
I myself am not much of a math person, it’s pretty much trial and error for me.

Link to the build: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcmmzz9cRnhxmRnhxmafaGfcmVoRc08kir7khT7kir7070M7kuH70V7ofD70m

Now I know, this build is likely not optimal.
For instance, I tried going for a bit of main critbuild / secondary some improved conditions, yet my gear, currently, is full zerker. I haven’t really made up my mind about this yet, input involving gear setup (armor, trinkets, weapons, and sigils on weapons) are very welcome.

I hope you guys will be able to help me out!

Love, Lexxy.

Hi Lexxy,

The link in my sig (which maha also provided) has a set of builds which are power/precision/crit damage based which you may find helpful. I would suggest 2/4/0/4/4 for you (which is labeled as non-mantra builds).

If you want the condition damage to be a large source of your damage, consider sword + pistol and sword + focus as your weapons. Each of those phantasms hits many times per attack, and with Sharper Images, will proc many hits of bleeding. If you open up with Pistol 4, Signet of Ether, Pistol 4, swap, Focus 5, you’ll get a lot of bleeds going. Even without condition damage gear (still full zerker), the bleeds will be a non-negligible part of your damage. And, you won’t be losing direct damage either— both of these phantasms do strong direct damage as well. There’s a nice synergy here: you’re getting a decent amount of condition damage for free, basically.

Bleeding is the only condition you can apply reliably, because of sharper images. Torment/confusion aren’t too useful in PvE, because bosses don’t move much and don’t use very many abilities. Poison you can apply sporadically with Chaos Storm or Sigils, but it won’t be enough to make a difference.

Hope this helps~

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-How-To-Mesmer-in-Dungeons/first

Ok, so. I would recommend reading the link maha provided~

Conditions are not worth going for with Mesmer in PvE. To be somewhat effective with conditions, you need to be reliably getting full stacks of bleeding. The best way of getting bleeding is Sharper Images + Phantasmal Duelist + Phantasmal Fury, which you don’t even have— but even this can’t get 25 stacks of bleeding easily. Moreover, in a party, your high damage stacks are going to get overwritten by your teammates stacks, removing your main source of damage. This is why conditions work somewhat well in solo settings for classes that can easily cap bleeding— this class is not one of them.

You have Signet of Illusions to boost clone health, which works directly against the V in Chaos, where you want your clones to die. The 5 in Chaos is only ever really good if you have a lot of ways of pumping out clones quickly— with Deceptive Evasion for example. This can be useful to apply condition pressure in PvP, but in dungeons, the few random conditions you get from clone death are not going to hurt anything.

Finally, the Greatsword is not a condition weapon at all— but it’s also not a good power weapon for dungeons. Offhand pistol is better suited for both sorts of builds, and offhand sword is best for power.

In summary: conditions are bad in PvE, and you shouldn’t use them. But this build is not a particularly good example of a condition build either, because of the lack of weapons/traits to actually apply high amounts of conditions.

maxinion.8396:

Ok, so. I would recommend reading the link maha provided~

Conditions are not worth going for with Mesmer in PvE. To be somewhat effective with conditions, you need to be reliably getting full stacks of bleeding. The best way of getting bleeding is Sharper Images + Phantasmal Duelist + Phantasmal Fury, which you don’t even have— but even this can’t get 25 stacks of bleeding easily. Moreover, in a party, your high damage stacks are going to get overwritten by your teammates stacks, removing your main source of damage. This is why conditions work somewhat well in solo settings for classes that can easily cap bleeding— this class is not one of them.

You have Signet of Illusions to boost clone health, which works directly against the V in Chaos, where you want your clones to die. The 5 in Chaos is only ever really good if you have a lot of ways of pumping out clones quickly— with Deceptive Evasion for example. This can be useful to apply condition pressure in PvP, but in dungeons, the few random conditions you get from clone death are not going to hurt anything.

Finally, the Greatsword is not a condition weapon at all— but it’s also not a good power weapon for dungeons. Offhand pistol is better suited for both sorts of builds, and offhand sword is best for power.

In summary: conditions are bad in PvE, and you shouldn’t use them. But this build is not a particularly good example of a condition build either, because of the lack of weapons/traits to actually apply high amounts of conditions.

Alright, I see your point.
I could swap around Dueling’s IV for Phantasmal fury, which I had been thinking about.
I understand your points, and the purpose of this build is not to create an optimal build, just a viable or at the very least decently working build.
It’s not supposed to rely on conditions, it’s supposed to rely primarily on high crit phantasms, backed up by a minor condition source.
I’ve always wanted to kind of try to work something out like this.
Do you think, it’s not possible at all to create a hybrid like this?

From what I see, Anet’s “play the game the way you want” philosophy really does not work out very well; there’s, at least for the mesmer class, a pre-set path, and everything else is generally not recommended, at least for PvE.

Back to my build; You say, bleeds (moreso, a stack of 25) is the most reliable way of getting condition damage. Are any other sources of conditions, not worth getting at all? Torment, confusion, poison, fire.
The current signet advice, involving signet of illusions, is a helpful pointer.
I definitely hadn’t thought of that myself. So thanks for that.
I’ll see if I can work something out for myself in the future involving a hybrid build (I’m aware the GS in PvE content, where you stack up with other people for buffs, condition removal, etc. is not ideal, mostly due to it’s distance req. I’ve thought of switching to an all different weaponset, involving a staff primarily. But this would probably ask for an all different build.)

Last, but not least; are you able to recommend some primarily high power crit builds for me? I’d prefer to see a couple different ones, just to see which one I may like the most.

Thanks again for all your information!

~ Love, Lexxy

Your build is viable, literally any build is viable in PvE – it just isn’t optimal. If you’re in a decent group you’ll have 25 stacks of might too which is 875 condition damage which allows your phantasms to do nice direct damage with some decent condition on the side,

This is indeed very helpful, thank you for your thorough explanation.
I’ve indeed read that guide before, but will definitely look into it again.
I’m going to give that build a try tomorrow, when I get home (at work now, nightshift).
I may also look into one of the mantra builds, as I often find myself resorting to these anyway (thanks to dailies which sort of forced me to use them in order to achieve these goals fast; They sort of forced me to teach myself how to use them more efficiently.)

It kind of saddens me that they strayed so far away from the way classes used to play in gw1. I also still miss it’s skills system, the current system feels very restricting to me.
And whoever played prophecies does not remember the glorious feeling after skillcapping a tough elite? But times change, I get that.
The way people (want to) play games changes, and developers attempt to follow up on that.
Currently it seems everyone is forced to stick with berzerker builds. Condition in pve
Seems to not only not deal enough damage to keep up with critbuilds, but also in its open world tagfest meta it often just is far less rewarding.
I currently only actively play my mesmer, but I may resort to other classes in the end if I feel this really won’t make me happy in the end. Sad, but true.
I hope some of the mesmer’s glory will be restored one way or another.

~ Love, Lexxy

I typed out a long post but it got lost somehow qq

If you want to play a “hybrid” which is mostly power based, but has good condition pressure as well, go sword + pistol and sword + focus. Start fights with pistol 4, signet of ether, pistol 4, swap, focus 5. The wardens + duelists hit many times per attack, and can proc Shaper Images many many times. This gets you a considerable amount of bleed damage— I think frifox calculated that about 30% of the warden’s damage comes just from the bleeds, for example.

One thing that will help with this is using Assassin’s gear on weapon + armor instead of berserker, to get your precision (and your phantasms’s precision) higher. Phantasmal Fury is also a must because of this. The 2/4/0/4/4 build is what you want probably— the X in Illusions is very helpful because it means your phantasms attack more often (proc’ing even more bleeds).

Anyway, I think you’ll find that if your goal is to mostly play phantasm based, but with good condition damage as well, this will give you exactly what you want. People often don’t notice the bleeds, but they add up a fair amount.

I’ll definitely look into that. I think I even had a build somewhat similar before.
So, assassin’s on armor/weapons.
What about sigils? Recommendations?
And, I noticed the warden still sometimes seems to get stuck, how do you get around this? I guess all we can do for now is “shut up and deal with it”.

Also, offtopic; I am aware shatter builds in PvE do now push out as much solid, stable dps.
By how much ish would it underperform compared to phantasm builds?

~ Love, Lexxy

If you want a more standard phantasm play, Force + Night is probably best (highest DPS). If you want to emphasize your conditions more, you could do Battle + Accuracy. This is probably better for PUGs as well (since you probably won’t have 25 might in PuGs). Ranger Runes will help a lot in any scenario (even more precision!)

I don’t have a good feeling how much worse shatter is. It’ll depend on the length of the fight, of course. Maybe someone else can comment on this.

Alright. Ranger runes?
I am currently utilizing traveler, mostly for it’s solid passive speed boost.
What are your thoughts on traveler compared to other runes?
(Also, I’ve sent you a pm.)

~ Love, Lexxy

With shatter, you have little sustained damage. You have to build up to your burst and every 10 seconds you can unleash. The problem is it takes 10 seconds to do that. Phantasm builds have incredible amounts of sustain and on many bosses can go through an attack cycle more than once. It easily out damages shatter over time, but I don’t have the numbers for you (maybe frifox does).

Alright. Ranger runes?
I am currently utilizing traveler, mostly for it’s solid passive speed boost.
What are your thoughts on traveler compared to other runes?
(Also, I’ve sent you a pm.)

~ Love, Lexxy

BlackStarVegas.3258:

Alright. Ranger runes?
I am currently utilizing traveler, mostly for it’s solid passive speed boost.
What are your thoughts on traveler compared to other runes?
(Also, I’ve sent you a pm.)

~ Love, Lexxy

Traveler runes are bad at everything except for providing a 25% passive speed boost that doesn’t require tapping the heal mantra to keep up. That’s about it.

Fay.2357:

BlackStarVegas.3258:

Alright. Ranger runes?
I am currently utilizing traveler, mostly for it’s solid passive speed boost.
What are your thoughts on traveler compared to other runes?
(Also, I’ve sent you a pm.)

~ Love, Lexxy

Traveler runes are bad at everything except for providing a 25% passive speed boost that doesn’t require tapping the heal mantra to keep up. That’s about it.

Last time I did a rough estimate, it was something like a 10-15% DPS loss to go Traveller’s, and the only gain is the… 25% speed boost. If you really need the speed, consider running a backup set of armor with Runes of the Centaur— combined with Mantra of Recovery spam, you can get perma-swiftness, which is even better than what Traveller’s offers. And then after the run is over, you can swap back to your DPS set of armor.

Ranger runes give precision, ferocity, and 7% personal damage bonus as long as you have a mini-pet out. They’re the best rune that uses precision as a primary, which is why they’re helpful for mesmers in general, and any build that uses Sharper Images in particular.

Alright, thanks to the both of you. Will keep in mind.
Going to move out of comfort zone then, losing all and any vit + toughness.

BlackStarVegas.3258:

Alright, thanks to the both of you. Will keep in mind.
Going to move out of comfort zone then, losing all and any vit + toughness.

It’s tough, but worth it Remember to dodge, and use Blurred Frenzy (sword 2) only defensively. If you need more defense, consider using off hand sword, because the block on sword 4 can be quite useful (though this takes you away from your hybrid goal).

Good luck!

Guess I’ll chip in with my 2c here

Hybrid in PvE can mean different things depending who you talk to. The most popular “definitions” are,
1. A build using traits that balances dps between you and your phantasms
2. A build using gear that balances dps between power and condi damage

For PvE the meta is to focus on personal dps as much as possible because if your phantasms are killed or just fail to work then you still will hit somewhat decent. This means getting as many damage modifiers as you can, especially the Mantra one. Those builds are 6/4/0/0/4, 6/4/0/4/0, and in some cases 6/6/0/0/2.

The “hybrid” trait builds focus on balancing offensive traits between you and your phantasms, which usually means sacrificing the expensive Mantra trait for the other traits. Those builds are 2/4/0/4/4, 2/4/0/5/3, and in some cases 2/3/0/5/4 or even 5/4/0/5/0. Which one is better will depend on how much you value your personal dps compared to phantasm dps, and how easily you prefer to keep up and how fast to resummon your phantasms.

The “hybrid” gear builds usually mean running gear that splits damage between power and conditions. Your only reliable way to apply condition damage is with Sharper Images trait, which depends heavily on your phantasms crit chance. All other traits and condition sources are either unreliable or simply not worth investing in without focusing 100% on condition damage with both traits and gear.

As a simple comparison between hybrid “gear” builds in solo situations. It’s worth noting that while the damage numbers will be different under buffed party situations, the proportional comparison will still be more or less the same. Let’s assume you are running 2/3/0/5/4 build, ranger runes, 5%/10% sigils, and keep on average of about 2 duelists alive.

Personal DPS + Phantasm DPS = Total DPS (Personal/Phantasms DPS Split) [Gear]

• 1,673 + 1,859 = 3,532 (47/53) [Berserker]
• 1,633 + 1,869 = 3,502 (47/53) [Assassins]
• 1,259 + 2,056 = 3,315 (38/62) [Rampagers]
• 1,167 + 1,421 = 2,587 (45/55) [Knights]
• 0,673 + 1,591 = 2,264 (30/70) [Rabid]

If we take Berserker gear as point of reference,

• [100%] Berserker
• [ 99%] Assassins
• [ 94%] Rampagers
• [ 73%] Knights
• [ 64%] Rabid

So, if you want to run a hybrid build with some defensive stats, specifically high toughness, then your best choice will be Knights where you’ll be sacrificing about 27% of your dps to gain 1,087 more toughness. Otherwise if you still want to run a hybrid build I would recommend gaining the “hybrid” status through traits only and still running with full offensive gear.

To give a good comparison between running builds that use hybrid traits versus the meta traits with same gear (zerk/scholars), same conditions (1 swordsman, 1 warden), and same party setup (meta):

Meta Traits

• [100%] 9,030 dps (6/6/0/0/2)
• [ 99%] 8,984 dps (6/4/0/0/4)
• [ 91%] 8,193 dps (6/4/0/4/0)

Hybrid Traits

• [ 87%] 7,875 dps (5/4/0/5/0)
• [ 86%] 7,777 dps (2/3/0/5/4)
• [ 85%] 7,728 dps (2/4/0/4/4)
• [ 85%] 7,681 dps (2/4/0/5/3)

My suggestions? Run the 6/4/0/0/4 build with all Berserker or Assassins gear (Assassins preferred since it will greatly improve your reflect damage) and get comfortable with relying on active defenses to survive. This means dodging, using Blurred Frenzy’s evade, sword 4 block, and general positioning of your character to avoid the hits. If you still want hybrid, then any of the ones listed above will work since comparing them is like splitting hairs.

I should mention that all of the above comparisons do not account for damage gained through reflects, may that be through Feedback/Temporal Curtain or through iWarden. If we want to compare damage under those situations, then I will have to type up another post detailing everything that would result in a post about twice as long as this one, so… maybe next time, lol

I’d say that was more than the proverbial 2c frifox, great post.

Like you Lexxy I also wanted a lot more focus on condi than I currently do in PvE, but I have kind of succumbed to shifting my hybrid-ism from that to the balance between me and phantasms/sharper images. I can recommend the hybrid trait setup listed above heartily, especially if you also want to use reflects since it conveniently lets you pick up that trait for the focus in Inspiration.

A final point is that it is also much easier to swap around traits now given the reset anytime feature. Definitely helps with trying quirkier stuff when you do your own thing solo or whatever. I have a rampager/celestial set I sometimes use for that, just for feels. Here’s hoping it’ll be a more permanent set to be worn sometime in the future.

Thanks alot for taking the time to explain this all to me so in-depthly Mr. Frifox,
It explains alot to me.
I’ve been using these very critbuilds for a while now.
I seem to fare better with berzerker than with assassin’s gear for now, possibly not least because of the traveler runes on berzerker set.
I understand I turn in some raw ramage this way, but I find my survivability just becomes so much better with the 25% passive speed boost. I could try to run the assasins with traveler later see what that does. Either way – while I’ve been using dodgerolling and active defenses such as sword #2 to survive, I still find I often still down more often than I’d like, and sometimes, my illusions just die to quick during encounters.y
I have yet to find out how I can improve this.

~ Lexxy

Amethyst Lure.5624:

I’d say that was more than the proverbial 2c frifox, great post.

Like you Lexxy I also wanted a lot more focus on condi than I currently do in PvE, but I have kind of succumbed to shifting my hybrid-ism from that to the balance between me and phantasms/sharper images. I can recommend the hybrid trait setup listed above heartily, especially if you also want to use reflects since it conveniently lets you pick up that trait for the focus in Inspiration.

A final point is that it is also much easier to swap around traits now given the reset anytime feature. Definitely helps with trying quirkier stuff when you do your own thing solo or whatever. I have a rampager/celestial set I sometimes use for that, just for feels. Here’s hoping it’ll be a more permanent set to be worn sometime in the future.

I’m hoping for the same – unfortunately I guess that, untill then, we’ll have to deal with the game’s current strict rules in accordance to the way mesmers play in PvE.
I hope they’ll also give us a tool to save our trait & gear setups.