Guild Wars 2

Which condi armor set is the best all around set for PVE? I’m leaning towards making a Rabid armor set since you can’t really go wrong with the stat combo it provides but Sinister is a strong contender as well.

With HoT/Chronomancer/Raids in mind, which armor would you recommend crafting?

Sinister, but I wouldn’t go Condi Mesmer in PvE in the first place. It’s crap, and trying it in Verdant Brink and the raid that hasn’t changed.

Sinister is the better condition damage set for damage. But the best set for mesmer in pve is to not go condi at all. I don’t want another “viable or not” thread. But fact is, assassin or berserker aka power mesmer is better than condi mesmer in pve. Taking wells into consideration, power mesmer will be even better.

Embolism might be right…or he might be wrong…about condi viability.

I do just fine in PvE in the Silverwastes, and it seemed to work out decently in Verdant Brink. If they add more high-toughness NPCs like Husks, condi will actually be decently useful.

That said, if condi can bring the chops in the end, Sinister will almost certainly be the meta set.

I’ll stick to my Rabid for now.

And remember, you can always just convert your set later.

Xyonon.3987:

Sinister is the better condition damage set for damage. But the best set for mesmer in pve is to not go condi at all. I don’t want another “viable or not” thread. But fact is, assassin or berserker aka power mesmer is better than condi mesmer in pve. Taking wells into consideration, power mesmer will be even better.

Show me the math.

Well of Calamity, reflection, Tides of Time against anything but husks. Chronomancer will be needed for it’s quickness, alacrity, interrupts and boonstrips via sword, shield and wells, basicly the opposite ofcondition oriented stuff. If a condition damage is required, an engineer will do better.

Sad I have to repeat my self: “I don’t want another “viable or not” thread.”
Condi mes viable? Yes. Better than power? No.

Assuming you want to do raids, where conditions are needed… you would probably not take mesmer.
It’s not that mesmer condi DPS is particularly lower than power DPS “in principle”, but more the fact that confusion is not ideal in PvE, even with the new enemies. At least as far as we can see right now.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Show me the math.

Math can tell only so much. Granted, the more variables your math accounts for the clearer picture you will get but almost always it’s still just not enough. There are enough serious flaws with going condi that Power build is the only realistic option left…. for now.

With HoT, my bet it on ascended power gear. Your condi gear can be left exotic simply because power benefits from ascended better than condi would – asc weapon strength (5% more dmg) applies only to direct dmg and has no effect on condi dmg. By leaving your condi gear exotic, you now can easily craft both Rabid and Sinister and keep them in your inv and use depending on your mood.

As far as ascended, I’d craft Berserkers. With the ranger coming closer and closer to the meta there will be a much higher chance you’ll run with one which means you will be getting Spotter buff much more often, and Spotter as we know more or less nullifies Assassins gear purpose by kicking you past 100% crit, as well as the 30% crit bonus vs. slowed targets which also will screw your assassins gear.

frifox.5283:

With HoT, my bet it on ascended power gear. Your condi gear can be left exotic simply because power benefits from ascended better than condi would – asc weapon strength (5% more dmg) applies only to direct dmg and has no effect on condi dmg. By leaving your condi gear exotic, you now can easily craft both Rabid and Sinister and keep them in your inv and use depending on your mood.

That’s some good advice right there, if you’re not rich enough to craft multiple ascended sets for every character.

Embolism.8106:

frifox.5283:

With HoT, my bet it on ascended power gear. Your condi gear can be left exotic simply because power benefits from ascended better than condi would – asc weapon strength (5% more dmg) applies only to direct dmg and has no effect on condi dmg. By leaving your condi gear exotic, you now can easily craft both Rabid and Sinister and keep them in your inv and use depending on your mood.

That’s some good advice right there, if you’re not rich enough to craft multiple ascended sets for every character.

You only need two sets of ascended armor.
One set of zerker light for your mesmer
One set of zerker heavy for your killshot warrior
and you’re done :D

Ross Biddle.2367:

You only need two sets of ascended armor.
One set of zerker light for your mesmer
One set of zerker heavy for your killshot warrior mesmer
and you’re done

FTFY

frifox.5283:

Math can tell only so much. Granted, the more variables your math accounts for the clearer picture you will get but almost always it’s still just not enough. There are enough serious flaws with going condi that Power build is the only realistic option left…. for now.

Except my point is that I seem to be the only one who has done any math on condi mes at all since the June patch, and what I did do was surprisingly suggestive. And yet, everyone and their dog jumps on the power train every kitten time, when I guarantee almost none of them could point you to any math or practical testing to show that they are right.
Worse, Chronomancer changes everything, and there’s no way anyone has done all the math or testing required to count condi out on this.

Embolism.8106:

frifox.5283:

With HoT, my bet it on ascended power gear. Your condi gear can be left exotic simply because power benefits from ascended better than condi would – asc weapon strength (5% more dmg) applies only to direct dmg and has no effect on condi dmg. By leaving your condi gear exotic, you now can easily craft both Rabid and Sinister and keep them in your inv and use depending on your mood.

That’s some good advice right there, if you’re not rich enough to craft multiple ascended sets for every character.

Forgot about how little condi benefited from Ascended gear. Good advice and I’ll go with Berserker. Thanks guys.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

frifox.5283:

Math can tell only so much. Granted, the more variables your math accounts for the clearer picture you will get but almost always it’s still just not enough. There are enough serious flaws with going condi that Power build is the only realistic option left…. for now.

Except my point is that I seem to be the only one who has done any math on condi mes at all since the June patch, and what I did do was surprisingly suggestive. And yet, everyone and their dog jumps on the power train every kitten time, when I guarantee almost none of them could point you to any math or practical testing to show that they are right.
Worse, Chronomancer changes everything, and there’s no way anyone has done all the math or testing required to count condi out on this.

I’m not counting condi out but I think what Fri is saying, is that Ascended gear makes very little difference when it comes to condi damage; to the point where its practically negligible.

Leodon.1564:

I’m not counting condi out but I think what Fri is saying, is that Ascended gear makes very little difference when it comes to condi damage; to the point where its practically negligible.

I disagree in part, that is, condi ascended armor is as good as power ascended armor, in value.
That said, his advice is not bad. Frankly, berserker being the standard to beat, and ascended gear being account bound, you’re more likely to find a use for the zerker gear regardless of how condi mes shakes out, even if it’s just moving it to one of your other characters.

Silverkey.2078:

Assuming you want to do raids, where conditions are needed… you would probably not take mesmer.
It’s not that mesmer condi DPS is particularly lower than power DPS “in principle”, but more the fact that confusion is not ideal in PvE, even with the new enemies. At least as far as we can see right now.

For Vale Guardian, at least, you’d definitely want your Mes on the boonstrip boss instead of either damage boss…

AlphatheWhite.9351:

frifox.5283:

Math can tell only so much. Granted, the more variables your math accounts for the clearer picture you will get but almost always it’s still just not enough. There are enough serious flaws with going condi that Power build is the only realistic option left…. for now.

Except my point is that I seem to be the only one who has done any math on condi mes at all since the June patch, and what I did do was surprisingly suggestive. And yet, everyone and their dog jumps on the power train every kitten time, when I guarantee almost none of them could point you to any math or practical testing to show that they are right.
Worse, Chronomancer changes everything, and there’s no way anyone has done all the math or testing required to count condi out on this.

Your math was also done before DD got nerfed into the ground, gotta remember that.

Fay.2357:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

frifox.5283:

Math can tell only so much. Granted, the more variables your math accounts for the clearer picture you will get but almost always it’s still just not enough. There are enough serious flaws with going condi that Power build is the only realistic option left…. for now.

Except my point is that I seem to be the only one who has done any math on condi mes at all since the June patch, and what I did do was surprisingly suggestive. And yet, everyone and their dog jumps on the power train every kitten time, when I guarantee almost none of them could point you to any math or practical testing to show that they are right.
Worse, Chronomancer changes everything, and there’s no way anyone has done all the math or testing required to count condi out on this.

Your math was also done before DD got nerfed into the ground, gotta remember that.

My math was done when DD wasn’t even working at all :P

If DD hadn’t been nerfed, the math said condi mesmer could have had better dps than Eles :P

Edit: I also did that math for rabid, not Sinister.

Okay, for Sinister gear, with this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAraWnsICVohNoBeoBUrhlcDyMBvOklBI19C9HLJHA-TRiCABLcECeW5HyPIgq2PI5Tpov5YTQKrEsZ1fAwCiAAHA7W36ub6u7u7e8xHf8xHvd3d3d3NhAWsGA-e

Chaos/Illusions/Dueling

Under all the usual assumptions (banners, 25 vuln, 25 might, no quickness), except that I ignored the effect of the 170 power from the banner of strength, because calculating the dps impact of 170 power sounded exhausting.

Build-specific assumptions:
1. 3 iDuelists out, and they don’t die.
2. Using no skills other than Auto-attacks (and iDuelist summoning, obv)
3. You have at least 5 boons on you at a given moment.
4. You can keep the Sigil of Earth on icd. That’s not easy to prove, but the loss from waiting to get a crit shouldn’t be too bad in this build, from some math I did on the subject a while ago. I figure I’ll just call that a wash with excluding the 170 power. I didn’t account for Empower Allies either, so eh.
5. You can get the double bounce from Winds of Chaos most of the time. I really just don’t know on this one, so we’ll call that meh too.

Total dps: 16,077

I was able to improve that dps by about 800 by switching Chaos to Dom and Master Tuning Crystal to Toxic Tuning Crystal.

That comes with a ramp-up time, which is obviously the mesmer’s biggest weakness in fights that can be as short as 15s. On the other hand, short fights might be better served with a shatter approach anyway, so those will have to wait until I can get that math worked out.

None of this accounts for the impact chronomancers will have on the field, obviously. Chrono might theoretically improve the dps of the build, or they might tank it. I’ll have to do that math later, too. It’ll be even harder, as I’ll have to figure out an optimal Chronophantasma+Persistence of Memory rotation, probably, and what the average effective attack rate of the phantasms will be in those circumstances. Ugh, chrono makes things so kitten messy.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Okay, for Sinister gear, with this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAraWnsICVohNoBeoBUrhlcDyMBvOklBI19C9HLJHA-TRiCABLcECeW5HyPIgq2PI5Tpov5YTQKrEsZ1fAwCiAAHA7W36ub6u7u7e8xHf8xHvd3d3d3NhAWsGA-e

Chaos/Illusions/Dueling

Under all the usual assumptions (banners, 25 vuln, 25 might, no quickness), except that I ignored the effect of the 170 power from the banner of strength, because calculating the dps impact of 170 power sounded exhausting.

Build-specific assumptions:
1. 3 iDuelists out, and they don’t die.
2. Using no skills other than Auto-attacks (and iDuelist summoning, obv)
3. You have at least 5 boons on you at a given moment.
4. You can keep the Sigil of Earth on icd. That’s not easy to prove, but the loss from waiting to get a crit shouldn’t be too bad in this build, from some math I did on the subject a while ago. I figure I’ll just call that a wash with excluding the 170 power. I didn’t account for Empower Allies either, so eh.
5. You can get the double bounce from Winds of Chaos most of the time. I really just don’t know on this one, so we’ll call that meh too.

Total dps: 16,077

I was able to improve that dps by about 800 by switching Chaos to Dom and Master Tuning Crystal to Toxic Tuning Crystal.

That comes with a ramp-up time, which is obviously the mesmer’s biggest weakness in fights that can be as short as 15s. On the other hand, short fights might be better served with a shatter approach anyway, so those will have to wait until I can get that math worked out.

None of this accounts for the impact chronomancers will have on the field, obviously. Chrono might theoretically improve the dps of the build, or they might tank it. I’ll have to do that math later, too. It’ll be even harder, as I’ll have to figure out an optimal Chronophantasma+Persistence of Memory rotation, probably, and what the average effective attack rate of the phantasms will be in those circumstances. Ugh, chrono makes things so kitten messy.

Dom should definitely offer more damage than chaos for that build. Chaotic Persistence is basically the only reason you would take the chaos line and you can push yourself to 95% condi duration if you just popped a toxic oil (like you said).

Phantasmal Fury should be more damage also, especially if you’re taking DOM and getting phantasmal strength. Additionally, any situation where a single target it going to live long enough for you to actually benefit from the recharge reduction on ‘interrupt’ to get 3 duelists up, that target will be immune to interrupts. Then for faster engagements (trash) you’re going to want to use Phantasmal Warlocks in your rotation because things wont be living long enough to only rely on Duelists and staff clones. PF = win in every situation I can think of… They really butchered DD.

I’d also use a coral orb over a chrys, but that change is super negligible.

Of course, none of the above matters once Chrono is here…

Embolism.8106:

Ross Biddle.2367:

You only need two sets of ascended armor.
One set of zerker light for your mesmer
One set of zerker heavy for your killshot warrior mesmer
and you’re done :D

FTFY

I will die in the knowledge that I touched both hearts and minds on this earth :) /sniffle

Embolism.8106:

Sinister, but I wouldn’t go Condi Mesmer in PvE in the first place. It’s crap, and trying it in Verdant Brink and the raid that hasn’t changed.

Dungeons/raids will have niche uses.. but in silverwastes and verdant brink for what we’ve played, if you think power fares better than condition, you’re playing it wrong :P

Mikkel.8427:

Dom should definitely offer more damage than chaos for that build. Chaotic Persistence is basically the only reason you would take the chaos line and you can push yourself to 95% condi duration if you just popped a toxic oil (like you said).

DPS went up by exactly 544 for the Dom build. That’s surprisingly little. The last 5% is probably part of that (since they round down fractionally, you’re losing more than just 5% on a given condition’s duration). The other loss is about 100 condition damage from Chaotic Transference. Seems odd, still, that it’s not higher.

Mikkel.8427:

Phantasmal Fury should be more damage also, especially if you’re taking DOM and getting phantasmal strength.

The chaos build loses over 1000 dps by switching to PF from DD. The Dom build loses 1139 dps by switching to PF over DD. That’s not surprising for Dom, as the extra damage on vulnerability applies to the bleeds from iDuelist, but not the direct damage from iDuelist.

Mikkel.8427:

Additionally, any situation where a single target it going to live long enough for you to actually benefit from the recharge reduction on ‘interrupt’ to get 3 duelists up, that target will be immune to interrupts. Then for faster engagements (trash) you’re going to want to use Phantasmal Warlocks in your rotation because things wont be living long enough to only rely on Duelists and staff clones.

This is very, very worthy of consideration. I have no idea what the dps of iWarlock will look like in those circumstances. I’m inclined to think it’ll be unfortunately weak, given we have no ferocity and no major in precision or power, but I can’t verify that atm. That said, it’s absolutely true that you’ll lose value from DD any time you can’t keep your iDuelists up.
Though, I think the default is not iWarlock, but staff clones. I’ll have to do the math on iWarlock to be sure, but my original dps on staff clones said you can keep up abt 13.5k dps with just staff clones/staff AA.

Mikkel.8427:

PF = win in every situation I can think of… They really butchered DD.

As I noted above, don’t count it out. That extra bleed, by the numbers, is worth about 1k dps, and the opportunity to recharge is something you don’t get out of PF.

Mikkel.8427:

I’d also use a coral orb over a chrys, but that change is super negligible.

I debated this one a lot, even though as you say it’s negligible.
But then…doing a swap, it looks like it’s about an 88 dps gain.

Mikkel.8427:

Of course, none of the above matters once Chrono is here…

Fair point. Since my original purpose was to prove that the numbers are a lot more suggestive than the naysayers are allowing for, though, I think I’ve served a good purpose here.

For my next trick, I’ll figure out whether condi can provide more dps to a chrono support than power can :p

Okay, since the phantasm math was driving me crazy, I instead calculated the potential sustained dps of a condi chrono support build that uses staff clones instead of phantasms.

Build like so:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAraWncfClfitfC+fCUrhlcjqMASteB9HKpcoeVn1dF-TRSCABMcECgW5XyPIAr2PAALIU+UK6bQ2E0yKBdW9nAAHA7W36ub6u7u7e8xHf8xHvd3d3d3NpAWUZF-e

Assumptions:
1. The usual (might, vuln, banners, etc), ignoring quickness/alacrity
3. Herald for boon duration, and assuming that’s good enough.
4. Ability to keep full clones on every CoF and MW, while still spamming those two off cooldown. No phantasms at all.

total DPS: 12,942

When you add in quickness/alacrity, dps jumps up to 15,997. Since you’re adding that quickness/alacrity to everyone though, it’s not really needed for the comparison.

Of course, then we have to compare to power, and that’s where this all falls apart.

Under the same assumptions as the duelist condi build, in a nighttime dungeon, the following power support build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsc8ancfClfitfC+fCUrhFVjiMAKgiDtLSjsrOZn2qF-ThRBABXt/o8DP9D5dSAA4JAQp6PmpEMAwBwv9tv9N48zP/8zPvf/93f/93SBonUL-e

Turns out 23,540 dps without alacrity or quickness.
Add that in, and you’re up to 32,808 dps.

Of that dps, the iSwordsman is only adding about 5,800, the sword AA itself is adding 16k/25k dps. Well of Calamity is adding 1412 dps, the others are negligible (dps-wise).

So I actually have a final question: what kind of theoretical dps does an elementalist do in an optimal party under these conditions?

How the hell did you get 16k DPS from sword AA??? When I compute it (including the recent 10% increase) I get around 7k DPS, and this is using dueling for the extra ferocity and mantras (old build).

16k sounds more like the value of one AA chain, which takes way more than 1s!

Silverkey.2078:

How the hell did you get 16k DPS from sword AA??? When I compute it (including the recent 10% increase) I get around 7k DPS, and this is using dueling for the extra ferocity and mantras (old build).

16k sounds more like the value of one AA chain, which takes way more than 1s!

Oh thank goodness, there was indeed an error. I was searching my spreadsheet for the issue, and I just couldn’t find it, and I was all “huh?”. There was a misplaced symbol in one of the formulas.

Total dps before alacrity/quickness drops to 12,278 dps, 15,615 with alacrity/quickness.
That’s for a build relying on phantasms, choosing the highest-dps phantasms we have.

So, unless a chronophantasma build can improve the phantasm attack rates dramatically, it looks like condi support would actually outperform on dps??

Chronophantasma barely improves the power build since iSwordsman already attack very often. It may help condi build with iDuelist since there, the attack rate is slower.

Can you explain your rotation with the condi build?

Silverkey.2078:

Chronophantasma barely improves the power build since iSwordsman already attack very often. It may help condi build with iDuelist since there, the attack rate is slower.

Can you explain your rotation with the condi build?

Summon 3 clones, shatter, summon 3 clones, wait, shatter, summon 3 clones, wait, shatter.
Clone sources: Deceptive Evasion, Phase Retreat, Illusionary Reversion.
Shatters used: Mind Wrack, Cry of Frustration (only)

This is to determine sustained dps, so obviously as a speed-support, you’ll start fights with a CS-alacrity burst rotation a la Pyro, then settle into a dps rotation afterward. But since both power and condi builds are interrupted by the rotation, I don’t think that’ll be an issue.

I imagine that there has to be a way to leverage chronophantasma to improve condi build dps as well, but a good rotation is proving hard to come up with, in particular because we don’t have a good backup phantasm to rely on (iMage has such a long cooldown that you don’t get anything out of swapping to torch).

I am a bit surprised you do not include the shield in there… Isn’t the shield essential for the quickness?

The good thing is that if you maintain 100% quickness and alacrity uptime, you can easily estimate the DPS increase on the other party members:

• alacrity reduces cooldown by about 40%
• quickness reduces skill time by about 40% (reduces cast by 50% but not after cast, so approximately 40% sounds reasonable)

therefore, you simply execute all DPS rotations 40% faster and thus you increase the DPS of everyone by 40%. This is very gross approximation but still fairly illustrative.

Silverkey.2078:

I am a bit surprised you do not include the shield in there… Isn’t the shield essential for the quickness?

The good thing is that if you maintain 100% quickness and alacrity uptime, you can easily estimate the DPS increase on the other party members:

• alacrity reduces cooldown by about 40%
• quickness reduces skill time by about 40% (reduces cast by 50% but not after cast, so approximately 40% sounds reasonable)

therefore, you simply execute all DPS rotations 40% faster and thus you increase the DPS of everyone by 40%. This is very gross approximation but still fairly illustrative.

Shield is important, but not essential, since as Pyro notes, 100% quickness uptime tends not to be necessary. That said, the only reason I did not include shield in the power build is because I wanted to squeeze the absolute best dps I could out of it, which meant staying in sword until you can get all your swordsmen out. Still, you can always just swap over once you’ve got them out. Shield doesn’t change the dps at all, though.

As far as the condi build, success really depends on keeping those clones up amongst your shatters, as well as staff AA. Swapping over to shield cuts into your AA dps for the next 10s, and makes it harder to make sure you can keep staff clones up, so you’d have to account for that in the final dps numbers. It may be worth it, but I didn’t feel like making things any more complicated than I already was.

And quickness cuts attack times by 33%, so multiply your channel time by .667 and you’ll be about right.

@Alpha

I thought condi single target DPS with clones was rather abysmally low (6k+ish) based on a FriFox video I saw recently on it.

I’m a bit confused though since you mentioned 12kish DPS and was wondering if you or FriFox could explain where the difference was coming from.

Leodon.1564:

@Alpha

I thought condi single target DPS with clones was rather abysmally low (6k+ish) based on a FriFox video I saw recently on it.

I’m a bit confused though since you mentioned 12kish DPS and was wondering if you or FriFox could explain where the difference was coming from.

My numbers are making a set of standard assumptions in calculating maximum dungeon dps, that were not present in frifox’s test:

1. 25 stacks of might. You’ll notice he rarely had more than 6, and usually less.
2. Warrior’s Banner of Discipline and Banner of Strength (170 precision, ferocity, condi dmg and power —though I didn’t use the power in my calculations).
3. 25 stacks of vulnerability on target. frifox rarely had more than 7, usually less.

In addition to the dungeon-standard assumptions, there are some differences that could be contributing:
1. I’m calculating based on Chronomancer, and including shatter damage (f1 and f2). Frifox does no shattering.
2. I have a Sigil of Earth, and I don’t know if he does. When I did the math, I found that until you get to some really high stacks of condis, Earth should outperform bursting for sustained dps.
3. I’m using Toxic crystals, he’s using Master crystals. In rabid gear that would be a net loss of condi damage but a gain of condi duration. In Sinister gear, the condi damage is the same, but is a condi duration gain anyway.
4. I’m using Sinister gear. If I were a betting man, I’d wager he’s using Rabid gear.
5. I don’t know what else he’s using. I’m running Runes of the Nightmare and Sigils of Malice for condi duration, it’s possible he’s using something else that would make a difference. My numbers also assume ascended gear.
6. I’m counting Well of Calamity.

@AlphatheWhite
Have you done any in-game test to verify your calculations? If so, how?

After Jungling with both builds, Sinsiter fells much better. And is okeish in Dungs, an rly good in Fractals. And over that its very flexy.

Illusion+Chrono is must, but other options are open: buffer with Chaos and Bountifull trait, or Inspiration with healing or Reflects, or Even mantra healer with quickness on Shatter. Dueling for even more shatter power, or Domination for more dmg, plenty ways of playing.

Overal i think Sinsiter is very viable option to run. Especialy with Alcarity and quicknes, that help stack Confusion rly high in PvE, and Torment is great duo to every boss mostly run (I just fall in love in Mai…. perma 4k dmg every 1s is op op as she move all time! not to mention chrono with shield can tank her all day long <3)

When I did the calculations with rampager without shatters (iDuelist+iWarden+sword AA), I got similar results. I am surprised a shatter build works that well though…

frifox.5283:

@AlphatheWhite
Have you done any in-game test to verify your calculations? If so, how?

I have not. Nor am I likely to find myself in a position to. The kind of dungeon run that works to keep up 25 might and 25 vuln with a banner warrior is not the kind of run I tend to do, especially not when HoT actually drops.
These are theoretical numbers, meant only as a means to project value relative to other builds whose theoretical numbers we also know, but whose practical value we also know.

But as a mild validation check, I ran the numbers for the build I believe you were running (or as close as I could get without knowing your gearset):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhEQFAWlknhK0YDawTNwvGLYHkp4qEoBAA-TBSEABIoEUG1fI4CA40+DAY+T4HAwI6ACS5HhAWsGA-e

My projections put the theoretical dps of the build at 6896, given the amount of might and vulnerability you were stacking.

That’s about 600 dps short of what you were getting in practice, some of which is likely due to the dodging you were doing, some due to timing loss on the sigil of earth (assuming you were using one), and some because theoretical numbers always gloss over practical considerations like movement and skill timing.

Edit: yeah, if I adjust Sigil of Earth’s period up to 3s to account for the time it takes to actually proc it, and assume you dodge on cooldown (with vigor), that takes the projected dps down to 6378, well within the expected range.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

So I actually have a final question: what kind of theoretical dps does an elementalist do in an optimal party under these conditions?

I don’t know about Ele but people are claiming condie Sinister Engie are the best damage dealers for Vale Guardian and are doing around 17k DPS theoretical damage. (Ele fell out of the top spot since they require mobs to stand still for them to reach their max potential and mobs move too much in Raids.)

13k theoretical DPS for condie mesmer is not bad and is more than I expected actually.

Power ele is about 18k dps, engi 17k, condi engi 20k. Those are the tops. Frostbow against big targets still rise your dps to 30k.

Sigh … ok listen Alphathe – there are TONS of reasons, why power mesmer (or chronomancer in future) is superior to condi mes:

Reflection

• Reflected damage scales with precision and ferocity. Sinister has no ferocity (and compared to assassin gear lower precision aswell) and therefore you’ll lack a huge chunk of damage each time you reflect something. As simple as that.
• Focus offhand phantasm scales better with power than with bleed on crit. Also again, reflected damage is better with phantasmal fury + ferocity.
• Curtain may proc aoe power block, a power based trait with good damage. It also may proc personal quickness for more dps.
• Shield skill 5, tides of time scales with power and may proc power block up to two times per target. Also interrupt = quickness = personal dps boost.

Quickness / Alacrity

• The quickness well deals power damage.
• Wells in general deal power damage, one of the best of them to grant alacrity is calamity, wich has such a HUGE power damage spike that makes you want to “face to desk” when you have it in your skill bar as a condi mes. This one is really a huge deal…
• Tides of time again, scales with power, procs power block and grants quickness on interrupt for personal dps too.

Damage

• iSwordsman and iWarlock will outdamage every other phantasm / clone on a condition build (unless you fight a husk).
• Sword auto attack and mantra of pain will outdamage every skill you have on a condi mesmer.
• Condition damage against trash mobs is terrible.

Unless you finally upload a vid, clearly showing the dps of a condi mes aswell the diversity it has to prove it to be better or at least on pair to a power mes for anything BUT to beat up husks in your beloved silverwastes, I won’t beleve, nor agree that condi mesmer is powerful enough to be considered strong or better than power. The only reason to play condi mes in pve is because you are bored of the meta that exists for a reason and when you have no eager to be utmost efficient for your allies. Or you just want to beat up husks in silverwastes (wich an engi would do 3 times faster).

I probably just sounded like a total kitten , but sorry this is just how it is.

Xyonon.3987:

Power ele is about 18k dps, engi 17k, condi engi 20k. Those are the tops. Frostbow against big targets still rise your dps to 30k.

Is that pre- or post- nerf frostbow? Who’s done that dps calculation since the nerf? Who’s done the testing, since you’re so determined not to believe until you see?

Xyonon.3987:

Sigh

lulz

Xyonon.3987:

Reflection

• Reflected damage scales with precision and ferocity. Sinister has no ferocity (and compared to assassin gear lower precision aswell) and therefore you’ll lack a huge chunk of damage each time you reflect something. As simple as that.
• Focus offhand phantasm scales better with power than with bleed on crit. Also again, reflected damage is better with phantasmal fury + ferocity.

Yes, it is true that condi builds lose out on all the ferocity for reflects. This is probably the biggest caveat to condi builds.

Xyonon.3987:

• Curtain may proc aoe power block, a power based trait with good damage. It also may proc personal quickness for more dps.
• Shield skill 5, tides of time scales with power and may proc power block up to two times per target. Also interrupt = quickness = personal dps boost.

Since all the important targets have breakbars/defiance, I’m not sure why you thought this was a good point.
Additionally, the well support build already provides all the quickness you should need, so I don’t see where your point is on the quickness?

Xyonon.3987:

Quickness / Alacrity

• The quickness well deals power damage.
• Wells in general deal power damage, one of the best of them to grant alacrity is calamity, wich has such a HUGE power damage spike that makes you want to “face to desk” when you have it in your skill bar as a condi mes. This one is really a huge deal…

That’s why I use Sinister gear. While it does fall off relative to power builds in raw damage, it still deals significant physical damage. Indeed, Well of Calamity in particular was already included in my damage calculations on both builds.

Xyonon.3987:

• Tides of time again, scales with power, procs power block and grants quickness on interrupt for personal dps too.

Repeating the same point does not actually increase the number of “tons of points” you’ve got, especially when it’s not a good point

Xyonon.3987:

• iSwordsman and iWarlock will outdamage every other phantasm / clone on a condition build (unless you fight a husk).

This is a matter of numbers, and the math says you’re wrong. It helps that phantasms die just as fast as clones in PvE content, but clones are dramatically easier to generate.

Xyonon.3987:

• Sword auto attack and mantra of pain will outdamage every skill you have on a condi mesmer.

This is a matter of numbers, and the math says you’re wrong. MoP is dramatically outpowered by sword auto anyway, not sure why you’d bother to bring it in here.

Xyonon.3987:

• Condition damage against trash mobs is terrible.

Finally, a second valid point. It does take time to stack up bleeds, and condi mesmer aoe is even weaker than power mesmer aoe. On the other hand, I’ve experimentally been able to determine that shatter condis have enough burst (even being confusion and torment) that in short fights, condi mes has a recourse. I’ll have to do the math behind that sometime, but I’ve tested it a number of times in Silverwastes on forts that have been overrun (so lots of mobs in one place). I suspect that even so, condi will indeed fall off a bit in efficacy.

Xyonon.3987:

Unless you finally upload a vid, clearly showing the dps of a condi mes aswell the diversity it has to prove it to be better or at least on pair to a power mes for anything BUT to beat up husks in your beloved silverwastes, I won’t beleve, nor agree that condi mesmer is powerful enough to be considered strong or better than power.

Okay? Good thing my objective wasn’t to convince closed-minded fools, or to provide conclusive proof, but to convince people who don’t mindlessly insist that metas don’t change when mechanics change that outright dismissing the value of condi damage is a bad idea until we have some practical numbers.
Math precedes testing, it always has. If no one provides the math, or that math is not suggestive, it’s unlikely anyone in a position to do serious testing will actually do that testing. But now I’ve provided the math, and the math is suggestive.
And all these people who’ve been counting condi out immediately should reconsider until we have a chance to actually test it.

Xyonon.3987:

The only reason to play condi mes in pve is because you are bored of the meta that exists for a reason

There is no meta post-HoT, because HoT changes things, and there won’t be a meta until the top tiers of players have tested everything and settled on the optimal setups.
Again, you reveal your mindless devotion to the meta, but the meta’s not a god, ascendant over the system. The meta is a consequence of the system, and when the system changes, all bets are off. Your inability to see that possibility is simply weakness and foolishness.

When HoT drops, and the testing is actually done, even if power comes out to be conclusive, you still won’t be right, because you are arguing from the grounds of a mechanical environment that will no longer exist. If power is better than condi in well support builds in HoT, it will be because the changes to condi builds did not outweigh the changes to power builds.

Xyonon.3987:

I probably just sounded like a total kitten , but sorry this is just how it is.

Of course you did. Thankfully, that just means I get to be a kitten back to you, especially since that’s not “just how it is”.

Xyonon.3987:

• iSwordsman and iWarlock will outdamage every other phantasm / clone on a condition build (unless you fight a husk).

According to my calculations (may not be super accurate but I’m currently rewriting my code) :
iSwordsman: DPS = 3237 in ass/zerk
iDuelist: DPS = 3797 in rampager

I do agree with the rest of your statements though. But at least we should make it clear that condi is not worthless on mesmer, just somewhat below power.

Also, as soon as you will go away from the usual rotation (using chronomancer) it is again not clear what will win.

AC

• Burrows are objects, immune to condis.

CM

• Whole dungeon is reflect heavy, a condi build has no place here.

SE

• Barricades and the dredge cart are both object, immune to condis.

CoE

• Alpha clears condis every time he summons tooth, ie every ~7 seconds.

Arah

• Champ Entities are immune to condis.
• Jotun is 100% reflectable encounter, a condi build is the wrong tool for the job.
• Belka reflects, your projectile condi’s will apply to your allies and not the boss.
• Alphard has ~ 90% condi duration reduction.
• Brie, first 50% scale up power dmg only, you wont kill her with condis.

In all of the above cases, a power build has no issues as it doesn’t rely on condis, which is why I stopped playing a condi build in dungeons – got tired of constantly swapping gear/food/traits to power to avoid being a dead weight.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Xyonon.3987:

Power ele is about 18k dps, engi 17k, condi engi 20k. Those are the tops. Frostbow against big targets still rise your dps to 30k.

Is that pre- or post- nerf frostbow? Who’s done that dps calculation since the nerf? Who’s done the testing, since you’re so determined not to believe until you see?

To not believe until I see what?? o.O whut??
Anyway – pre patch frostbow went up to 60k dps against big targets where every shard hit, like Bloomhunger, Twins, Lupi. Since there were no mechanic changes about this skill, 50% damage reduction simply results into 50% dps = 30k dps.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Xyonon.3987:

• Curtain may proc aoe power block, a power based trait with good damage. It also may proc personal quickness for more dps.
• Shield skill 5, tides of time scales with power and may proc power block up to two times per target. Also interrupt = quickness = personal dps boost.

Since all the important targets have breakbars/defiance, I’m not sure why you thought this was a good point.
Additionally, the well support build already provides all the quickness you should need, so I don’t see where your point is on the quickness?

I don’t know. Do you? ;D Jokes aside – breakbar still needs to be broken, defiance still needs to be removed. Regardless if the target has or has no breakbar / defiance, you wear a shield and focus at encounters, where you have to protect allies from projectiles, like mossman, mai thrin, uncathegorized fractal or bloomhunger.
Last one for instance you can use your curtain + power block to oneshot the spirits and get a dps boost from quickness. For this example the power damage scaling agrument is very solid.
Like the legendary imbued shaman who spawns minions who get dangerous if not taken care of, the very same thing may occur more often in the jungle. Minion summoning bosses (like in the chronomancer trailer) or simply elite mobs with imporant skills you want to interrupt – they do exist and you know that. Event tough, since you’re playing condi mes only I guess the daze mantra is rarely in your skillbar, so I do not expect you to interrupt specific skills at specific encounters, like arah p1 green slime or warbanners from aetherblade kitties etc.
Aslong as you don’t have 100% personal quickness uptime, you will get a dps boost from quickness on interrupt.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Xyonon.3987:

Quickness / Alacrity

• The quickness well deals power damage.
• Wells in general deal power damage, one of the best of them to grant alacrity is calamity, wich has such a HUGE power damage spike that makes you want to “face to desk” when you have it in your skill bar as a condi mes. This one is really a huge deal…

That’s why I use Sinister gear. While it does fall off relative to power builds in raw damage, it still deals significant physical damage. Indeed, Well of Calamity in particular was already included in my damage calculations on both builds.

Where is the point in playing condi if – lets assume weapon damage of condi and power are of similiar strength – all your utility skills have 0 condition supporting capabilities? The overall kit is what lacks and that’s what I hate about condi mesmer. Playing power would be better if you’re using wells, reflects, mantras, phantasms, … Eventually only clones are better with conditions and scpeter / staff, yet in my opinion still won’t make up for the downs I just mentioned.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Xyonon.3987:

• Tides of time again, scales with power, procs power block and grants quickness on interrupt for personal dps too.

Repeating the same point does not actually increase the number of “tons of points” you’ve got, especially when it’s not a good point

Ignoring the fact that it is a good point, wich I’ve explained by now, I’m just a friend of a complete list. I used the word “again”, so don’t try to milk every tiny flaw you see.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Xyonon.3987:

• iSwordsman and iWarlock will outdamage every other phantasm / clone on a condition build (unless you fight a husk).

This is a matter of numbers, and the math says you’re wrong. It helps that phantasms die just as fast as clones in PvE content, but clones are dramatically easier to generate.

Ugh, agreed! Here I was depending on old calculations I’ve made for the duellist. Now that vulnerability affects conditions too, I beleve you and Silverkey are correct with duellist being a superior phantasm on sinister. Only power-warlock can outdamage him at 8+ conditions on the target. Sinister-duellist is ~15% stronger than the power-swordsman and even ~50% stronger than the power-duellist. My bad I’m sorry I’ve doubted you on this one.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Xyonon.3987:

• Sword auto attack and mantra of pain will outdamage every skill you have on a condi mesmer.

This is a matter of numbers, and the math says you’re wrong. MoP is dramatically outpowered by sword auto anyway, not sure why you’d bother to bring it in here.

You’re greatly mistaken. Sword auto attack with mantra of pain deals ~18% more damage than sword auto attack alone. This includes mantra of pain recharge during combat every 2nd auto attack chain. Just make sure to not interrupt the 3rd hit with sword since this one will deal most of the damage.
I’ve tested this multiple times against dummies in sw by attacking both ways over 2 minutes each and adding all the damage numbers. So I’m certain the numbers are correct. This calculation is against 1-3 targets, 4-5 targets, mantra of pain increases your dps even more.
Mantra of pain is just underestimated. It became good when it became aoe, but since the new harmonious mantra trait, it simply became awesome in terms of damage.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Xyonon.3987:

Unless you finally upload a vid, clearly showing the dps of a condi mes aswell the diversity it has to prove it to be better or at least on pair to a power mes for anything BUT to beat up husks in your beloved silverwastes, I won’t beleve, nor agree that condi mesmer is powerful enough to be considered strong or better than power.

Okay? Good thing my objective wasn’t to convince closed-minded fools, or to provide conclusive proof, but to convince people who don’t mindlessly insist that metas don’t change when mechanics change that outright dismissing the value of condi damage is a bad idea until we have some practical numbers.
Math precedes testing, it always has. If no one provides the math, or that math is not suggestive, it’s unlikely anyone in a position to do serious testing will actually do that testing. But now I’ve provided the math, and the math is suggestive.
And all these people who’ve been counting condi out immediately should reconsider until we have a chance to actually test it.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Xyonon.3987:

The only reason to play condi mes in pve is because you are bored of the meta that exists for a reason

There is no meta post-HoT, because HoT changes things, and there won’t be a meta until the top tiers of players have tested everything and settled on the optimal setups.
Again, you reveal your mindless devotion to the meta, but the meta’s not a god, ascendant over the system. The meta is a consequence of the system, and when the system changes, all bets are off. Your inability to see that possibility is simply weakness and foolishness.

You don’t have to become rude now… I’m not a meta admirer myself, I do rather think outside the box myself , but neither am I a person who desperately tries to backup a playstyle with so many flaws, wich has the only CURRENT reason to be played to be strong against high toughness enemies compared to the same profession in power version.
Yes, it would be a completly different story if condi mes damage would be on pair with the one of other condi professions. If you need an anti-high-toughness profession in your pt, you’ll simply pick an engi. It will be viable for sure if there is a whole raid wing with only high toughness enemies where you need a mesmer. But currently there is just no good reason to play condi mes over power mes.
All the argumentations I’ve had with you so far, not only this thread, you try to tell me why condi mes is not bad, but not why it is better, expect for the “husk in silverwastes” thing. And now “raid, jungle, future content”.
Altough, I have to be fair, I cannot say for sure that condi mes will be bad forever, the future in the jungle indeed may give us the reason to play condi. Even tough I doubt it, it’s still quite possible.

Summarizing why condi will never be a thing unless some core designs from the mesmer are touched and the class stops being balanced around 1V1 pvp QQ:

1- Highest ramp up of all condi specs.

2- Condi specs rely on illusion uptime even more than power specs do.

3- Illusion weapons and clones/phantasms have no cleave/aoe whatsoever. It is essentially a single target spec in a game all about cleaving and aoe.

4- Stuck with the worst condition lodout of all condi specs. Bleed/torment/confusion. Condi strength ranking goes Burning>>>>>Poison> Bleeding>Torment>=Confusion. Bleeding is pitifully weak, which is why necromancer sucks as well, and torment and confusion are even worse. Essentially, any spec without heavy burning focus is an inferior spekittenil conditions are rebalanced.

5- Condi weapons don’t synergize with most of our utilities or phantasms. They don’t synergize with reflects.

6- Illusion count for shattering matters, and this is hamstringed by illusion survivability.

7- Shatters kind of suck in PvE, and in the case of conditions even more as you even need heavy trait support and investment to even make shatters matter at all in burst situations.

8- frifox nicely summarized where some of WhiteAlpha’s idealized scenarios just don’t mesh with the reality of how the game is played. Much like how I was not believed when I said revenants would be top DPS, and lo and behold raids are bringing 2-3 revenant DPS.

The practicality of applying damage MATTERS, not just doing math. There’s a reason why engineers are more valued over pure mathematicians and their paygrades reflect that reality.

Let’s take the ranger as an example. A power ranger would be ranked above mesmer and necromancer in DPS and even maybe over a guardian. But that’s when it’s measured in a vaccum where a 1h sword ranger can afford to autoattack without interruption.

Due to the nature of the ranger’s 1h sword, which locks down their animation and delays their dodges, a ranger can’t really safely melee mossman or archdiviner without a guardian babying him with aegis spam. The ranger takes so much damage from being unable to dodge in time due to the weapon’s animation lock, that he needs to back off and lose DPS in the process of recovering. Or, he can delay his autoattack sequence preemptively to dodge so as to not be locked in animation, but deliberately delaying your autoattack to be able to dodge is also a DPS loss.

It’s all these little things that add up. Guardian unscathed contender is another example of a potential that is rarely met in serious content.

The mesmer works in PvE only because of the unique utility it brings, be it portal bot or now alacrity/quickness bot. In every other way it’s a deeply flawed class with mechanics that undermine the player.

Look at phantasms and shatter. Players are now forced to go into chronomancy not only because alacrity is the only thing keeping them relevant over a guardian in PvE, but because Chronophantasma is a band aid to the issue of phantasms and shatter that you need to pay a grandmaster slot for to not have your own class mechanic screw you over.

Zenith has got it: The mesmer works in PvE only because of the utility it brings.
You can crunch numbers all day, but at the end out DPS will still be crap compared to… well anything really.
We bring condi clear, reflect, other goodies. The damage we output is a marginal gain for the party.

What frifox mentions is absolutely right and is the reason why condition is not used for the present content except silverwastes.

Nitpicking about Xyonon’s post -

Xyonon.3987:

Sigh … ok listen Alphathe – there are TONS of reasons, why power mesmer (or chronomancer in future) is superior to condi mes:

Please dont add chronomancer and the new areas into consideration.. we have no idea about the content incoming.

• Focus offhand phantasm scales better with power than with bleed on crit. Also again, reflected damage is better with phantasmal fury + ferocity.

While i agree with the reflect damage, pistol is used in condition damage builds, so.. ehm..

• Curtain may proc aoe power block, a power based trait with good damage. It also may proc personal quickness for more dps.
• Shield skill 5, tides of time scales with power and may proc power block up to two times per target. Also interrupt = quickness = personal dps boost.

Interrupts – chaosstorm(random), magic bullet(reduces pistol skill cd by 25% per interrupt), diversion(yes your shatters deal damage in condition spec), signet of domination if your using it. not to forget mistrust procs and chaotic interruption on interrupts atm.. chaotic interruption will be neglected once chrono comes out though.

Quickness / Alacrity

• The quickness well deals power damage.
• Wells in general deal power damage, one of the best of them to grant alacrity is calamity, wich has such a HUGE power damage spike that makes you want to “face to desk” when you have it in your skill bar as a condi mes. This one is really a huge deal…
• Tides of time again, scales with power, procs power block and grants quickness on interrupt for personal dps too.

Assassins/Sinister has same “power” output.. again with the interrupt on tides of time.. u do know that condition mesmers dont use shields? or dont you know condition mesmers at all? and yes, condition mesmers aren’t good at high party alacrity uptime and quickness.

Damage

• iSwordsman and iWarlock will outdamage every other phantasm / clone on a condition build (unless you fight a husk).

i dont know how to reply to this statement.. :-(

• Sword auto attack and mantra of pain will outdamage every skill you have on a condi mesmer.

Try sword auto attacking everything in silverwastes and lets see how good your dps will be :-) that said.. the incoming new maps will be like silverwastes or as far as we’v played verdant brink.. condition just fares better, bwe 3 verdant brink seemed easy for some reason.. but i’m talking about bwe 1/2 difficulty.

• Condition damage against trash mobs is terrible.

Untrue, phase retreat while walking towards them, mirror image, cry of frustration, chaos storm, magic bullet and if u still have time you can channel confusing images making sure they’r in a line.

Unless you finally upload a vid, clearly showing the dps of a condi mes aswell the diversity it has to prove it to be better or at least on pair to a power mes for anything BUT to beat up husks in your beloved silverwastes, I won’t beleve, nor agree that condi mesmer is powerful enough to be considered strong or better than power. The only reason to play condi mes in pve is because you are bored of the meta that exists for a reason and when you have no eager to be utmost efficient for your allies. Or you just want to beat up husks in silverwastes (wich an engi would do 3 times faster).

We are playing a mesmer, aint we? why would we need to reroll an engineer to beat up husks? your wordings were like “you just wanna beat up husks (which power mesmer would do 3 times slower?)”

I probably just sounded like a total kitten , but sorry this is just how it is.

There are some known points you’ve mentioned which is exactly why power is better than condition damage for the present content available.

@Telekenisis
How does assassins and sinister have the same power output?
Same power doesn’t mean same crit chance nor same ferocity which both affect power damage and reflects. The condi builds are lacking in damage multipliers which further weakens their reflect damage (traits, runes, sigils and food all apply here)

Instead of phase retreating mirror image etc, just drop a bunch of wells, phantasms, MoP when you run at them. Worked fine for me in the beta. Then I just sword autod…

Why change your gear for just husks is the better question. That 20k sinister engi condi dps is going UP a lot. They have 4 main heavy hitters with burning. Reduce that CD with alacrity and their DPS goes insane. Quickness and alacrity on them in general… I’m guessing they could easily get to 30 maybe 40k DPS once a mesmer buffs them.

So minor DPS quibbles aside for a moment, at the end of the day, I just use power on mesmer because it’s less reliant on a specific trait setup that gets screwed if I want to bring inspiration instead of illusions or chrono for specific fights. It doesn’t get shafted as much in a lot of encounters. Other classes do condi so much better. Even something as simple as boon removal in the raids is going to be easier in zerker gear.

frifox.5283:

AC

• Burrows are objects, immune to condis.

Near as I can tell, most objects are also uncrittable (strangely enough, I couldn’t remember, so I ran out and found as many objects as I could and tried critting them…and couldn’t). So Sinister isn’t doing any less damage to burrows than Assassin’s would.

frifox.5283:

CM

• Whole dungeon is reflect heavy, a condi build has no place here.

An interesting point. The reflects are certainly weaker, but they are still reflects. Furthermore, a chronomancer support build doesn’t usually go heavy on the reflects, anyway. It might be worth just bringing a guardian along for serious reflects (this has already been suggested in discussions on chrono support).

frifox.5283:

SE

• Barricades and the dredge cart are both object, immune to condis.

See above about critting.

frifox.5283:

CoE

• Alpha clears condis every time he summons tooth, ie every ~7 seconds.

A fair point. Since the build is a chronomancer support, poor personal damage on one boss doesn’t break his presence, the real question is whether the loss in going from bleed damage to shatter burst condis (which run out every 6s anyway) is worth the dps gain in the rest of the dungeon.

frifox.5283:

Arah

• Champ Entities are immune to condis.
• Jotun is 100% reflectable encounter, a condi build is the wrong tool for the job.
• Belka reflects, your projectile condi’s will apply to your allies and not the boss.
• Alphard has ~ 90% condi duration reduction.
• Brie, first 50% scale up power dmg only, you wont kill her with condis.

The most serious hit that you’ve mentioned, each of these encounters means big trouble for condis. Those paths are definitely not condi-friendly, I guess.

frifox.5283:

In all of the above cases, a power build has no issues as it doesn’t rely on condis, which is why I stopped playing a condi build in dungeons – got tired of constantly swapping gear/food/traits to power to avoid being a dead weight.

I actually have 3 mesmers to avoid that XD. I mean, swapping for a single boss is still annoying, but at least if there’s a particular path that’s too condi-hostile, I can still do the path on a mes.

To everyone else:
Since it appears many of you have forgotten, I’d like to point out that the later numbers I’ve presented are in the context of a chrono support build. That is the primary focus of the build, and the damage type is secondary. The question arose, whether it would be more beneficial overall for the chrono support to focus on power or condi.
My math showed that the potential damage of a power phantasm build (the highest dps build) using iSwordsmen (the highest dps phantasm) is roughly equivalent to a condi build using clones/shatters instead of phantasms.
If you allow the condi build the same leeway to use phantasms, the condi damage rockets ahead of the power build. By the same token, if you take reliable phantasms away from the power build as we do the condi build, the dps of the power build takes a serious dive.

In short, the expected value of condi secondary over power is in a raw dps gain and advantage vs high-toughness targets (hello HoT), while the value of power is an advantage in reflects and anti-condi bosses (hello Arah).
Tbh, that still doesn’t sound all that unbalanced, to me.

All this keeping in mind, again, that this is the secondary purpose of the build in question. With loads of alacrity and quickness available, it’s possible many of the scenarios in which condi has trouble would already be trivialized.

Edit: noticed someone mentioned build-up time. Using shatters intelligently, a chrono condi can provide decent burst, even in PvE. That said, the power build isn’t immune to build-up time either, as phantasms still need to be summoned. This is a perennial mesmer problem, not a condi-only one.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

@Telekenisis
How does assassins and sinister have the same power output?
Same power doesn’t mean same crit chance nor same ferocity which both affect power damage and reflects. The condi builds are lacking in damage multipliers which further weakens their reflect damage (traits, runes, sigils and food all apply here)

Instead of phase retreating mirror image etc, just drop a bunch of wells, phantasms, MoP when you run at them. Worked fine for me in the beta. Then I just sword autod…

Why change your gear for just husks is the better question. That 20k sinister engi condi dps is going UP a lot. They have 4 main heavy hitters with burning. Reduce that CD with alacrity and their DPS goes insane. Quickness and alacrity on them in general… I’m guessing they could easily get to 30 maybe 40k DPS once a mesmer buffs them.

So minor DPS quibbles aside for a moment, at the end of the day, I just use power on mesmer because it’s less reliant on a specific trait setup that gets screwed if I want to bring inspiration instead of illusions or chrono for specific fights. It doesn’t get shafted as much in a lot of encounters. Other classes do condi so much better. Even something as simple as boon removal in the raids is going to be easier in zerker gear.

Even with a little higher crit chance and more ferocity, i dont think wells damage is noticable.. as i’v mentioned in the post above.. i completely agree with reflect damage in condition specs to be really low, hence power’s used for everything atm.

dropping a bunch of wells, phantasms, and pain is a power rotation.. there’s nothing wrong in it.. and using a mirror image and phase retreat is a condition rotation.. and condition damage isn’t a joke on trash mobs.

By no means am i suggesting go condition damage for husks and silverwastes, though it is better.. i was trying to conflict what xyonon mentioned “Or you just want to beat up husks in silverwastes (wich an engi would do 3 times faster)”

i’m not suggesting that people go condition mesmer.. rather i was conflicting with the points xyonon made regarding condition spec.

There are mobs in silverwastes (husks, the veteran ones that rotates with a torment afflicting path behind them, veteran ones that keep throwing bees around, veteran mordrem wolf that charges around) and verdant brink where using power mesmer isn’t as good as a condition mesmer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qtxJ_HtB1A

The above video has a veteran mob that kept taking 0 physical damage from the front (bwe1) in verdant brink.

Let’s see what HoT maps and mobs bring to the table.

The last posts from you two Alphathe and Telekinesis were much more satisfying and informative to read than everything else ‘til now. I’m amazed in a good way!

So lets drop the current topic about power vs condi for a moment, I’d like to talk about something new: I believe there will be new stat choices in HoT, maybe even all of them. So if you could choose 3 stats, 1 major and 2 minor, wich one would you choose?

Just an example: you could play condi and be strong with reflects with a combination of condition damage, ferocit and precision. Yet the direct damage will be extremly low then, wich would support condi shatter + clones.

What do you think? Maybe there will be even 4 stats, yet with no major? What stats could be even better than the current mesmer? Maybe even something like "precision, condition damage and boon duration? Who knows :P I’d like to share some toughts.

Xyonon.3987:

The last posts from you two Alphathe and Telekinesis were much more satisfying and informative to read than everything else ‘til now. I’m amazed in a good way!

So lets drop the current topic about power vs condi for a moment, I’d like to talk about something new: I believe there will be new stat choices in HoT, maybe even all of them. So if you could choose 3 stats, 1 major and 2 minor, wich one would you choose?

Just an example: you could play condi and be strong with reflects with a combination of condition damage, ferocit and precision. Yet the direct damage will be extremly low then, wich would support condi shatter + clones.

What do you think? Maybe there will be even 4 stats, yet with no major? What stats could be even better than the current mesmer? Maybe even something like "precision, condition damage and boon duration? Who knows :P I’d like to share some toughts.

Condi damage, Precision, Condi Duration :P
Full condition glass!