Guild Wars 2

I’m not a big fan of condition damage, but there has been a build I’ve been curious about that I’d like to see someone more experienced with condis try:

10/20/10/0/30

Dom: V / Dueling: II, X / Chaos: V / Illusions: II, VII, XI

Scepter(or Sword)+Torch (or Pistol) / Staff

It’s pretty much a condition-shatter build and a revival of an old build I used to run with. With the rise of hybrid builds and condition Mesmer in general, I figure now was as good a time as any to test this out. I’m thinking either Rabid or Rampagers or something similar to BlackDevil’s setup (Though perhaps Greatsword could be better there).

Playstyle is your standard shatter affair but with higher emphasis on staff play than scepter. In my brain it seems solid, but curious to see it in practice and right now I’m still running experiments with Mind Crush & Shatterlock (and an awesome PvP staff Ele) so I don’t think I’d get around to this anytime soon.

Shame on you Chaos!

You should have posted this in the [OMFG] testing thread!

Pyroatheist.9031:

Shame on you Chaos!

You should have posted this in the [OMFG] testing thread!

Hes a naughty, naughty mesmer!

i love condition spec but why shatter on condition spec?

I can give it a shot.
What do you want to use it for? (wvw roaming, wvw raid, spvp, etc?)
And you want hybrid setup I suppose?
Any specific runes?
Why illusions II, VII instead of V and VIII? (II seems rather useless without a lot power)
Why V domination instead of I?
Have you thought of any utility’s so far? Or just decoy-blink-arcane thievery?

What is the idea behind the build? Shatter or die … you still suffer?

Hm the problem is that once you shatter you take away the part where clones die to give conditions and where clones cause bleedings on crit. That’s why my build works so well with those traits cause you don’t have to shatter them.
You either have them alive and stack bleedings or they get killed and most likely will apply bleeding. (I switched the manipulations trait to the ’’V’’ trait btw)

This looks extremely similar to what i used to play prior to the patch, which was 10/25/10/0/25 to get the celerity. And pretty much exactly what black devil metioned, not too sure why you’re interested in shattering in condi spec.

With regards to weapon choice, it really depends. The sword is nice in that the clones it generates are close combat and much more likely to get killed and proc DD. Blurred frenzy is nice too for the block, but it doesnt really hit too hard i don’t find. Scepter 2 & 3 are great but the auto is garbage. I personally play this out with scepter/pistol + staff, and a slightly different build and really like it.

Yikes, I really should’ve thrown this into the tester thread. x_X Completely slipped my mind.

In regards to the reasons why, I guess I’d better explain a bit further..

When I look at a condition build utilizing Prismatic Understanding, I see a condition build that’s sacrificing damage potential for the obscene defenses of PU. When you divide the build into it’s parts, the 10/20/10/0/0 along with Scepter/Staff is what makes up the damage of the build, while the remaining points and utilities are geared towards defense.

I’m looking to take that offensive half and see where else we can take it besides PU. The reason I chose shatter is because the only condition build I used to run was a condi-shatter build, and those do exist. I believe this playstyle, when specced properly, can still be viable as a proper condition-focused shatter should drop atleast 10 stacks of confusion on an opponent.

Clone deaths and bleeds are only one aspect of a condition build, another major part is the application of Torment. Scepter’s counter used to hit as hard as Sword’s counter (About as hard as a single hit from iSwordsman) before it got buffed with torment and damage cut in half. This is why I think a hybrid version of the spec would work… Even cut in half that’s still a pretty significant amount of power damage in addition to the fact that Confuse Ray hits even harder than Blurred Frenzy.

As for the playstyle… That’s where things get a little tricky. This would be more offensive than a PU build for sure, as you’d definitely have to shatter, but I don’t think that you’ll be shattering so often that clone deaths would be ineffective. In Mind Crush, one of the lockdown builds I run, I both shatter and allow my clones to be killed depending on the opponent, for this build the concept would be similar. Some opponents (Thieves, Eles, Mesmer.. classes that have to rapidly use their skills) you’re better off hitting with a confusion burst while others (Soldiers come to mind) would require more of an attrition-based fighting style.

Like I said.. this is all mostly conceptual, but I’m fairly certain that the same way the PU style can work for both power and condition builds, the Shatter style can work for both too.