Guild Wars 2

Back in the day, pre-scarlet, I was a Condtion Staff / Sword-Focus mesmer with full nightmare set. I was beastly, and I loved playing her. I don’t really wanna rebuild her as power…. is there any hope for her in PvE dungeons remaining conditions?

I played a confusion stacking, condition/boon stripping, Glamour support survival build.

Is this still viable or am I banished to WvW and stuck with my guardian in pve.

I was reading about chronomancer and would love to stick with that lol.

P.S. I worked REALLY REALLY hard for the anomaly offhand haha.

Whatever you did, conditions were never really viable in group content. The thing about conditions is that almost all classes spam out their conditions only by attacking a foe eventhough they actually play a power based build with low condition damage. These players will literaly overwrite your high damage condition stacks.

Nevertheless in HoT your build may not be needed to be saved! ANet is on their way to make conditions a possible playstyle in PvE by increasing the number of conditionstacks a boss monster can have. This would prevent other players to overwrite your damage and could make your build viable.
This is only a possibility! It does not mean that you will be strong when HoT ships. Nothing is nailed down yet!
But i guess that your build specs into Dueling/Inspiration/Illusions (Crit/Support/Conditions) With specing into Dueling in HoT with the traits we know ATM your build could be even stronger than ever before. Instead of just stacking bleed from crit, your illusions can now also stack confusion on crit. This is a huge buff to this kind of build.
For a PvE version I would suggest you to run with Rampager/Sininster gear because in you want the highest dps possible (which means no defensive stats). I would run your spec like this in the future:

Weapons: Sword/Focus & Sword/Pistol OR Sword/Focus & Staff
Heal: Mantra of Recovery
Utilities: Feedback, Mantra of Concentration, Well of Calamity
Elite: Time Warp

>>>I stronlgy suggest you to run at least 60% critical strike chance<<<

The traits
Dueling:

• Critical Infusion: More dodges!
• Phantasmal Fury: More crit for phantasms → more damage; simple.
• Sharper Images: Bleed on your illusions crits! \o/
• Sword Training: More Precision → more crits; less cooldown on Blurred Frenzy.
• Confusing Combatants: Confusion on your and your illusions crits \o/
• Harmonious Mantra: One more stack for each mantra → more heal/stability

Inspiration

• Persisting Images: well… 20% hp for phants… woow…
• Menders Purity: Heal on charging your mantras and a LOT of condition removal when used with Mantra of
• Protected Phantasms: nothing I would trait for…
• Wardens Feedback: reflect → cool
• Phantasmal Healing: Permaregeneration… why not?
• Illusionary Inspiration: Boonshare of doom (well maybe.. we don’t know the ICD yet)

Chronomancy

• Time Splitter: unlocks F5 and wells
• all not good in this spot
• Flow of Time: Alactrity on shatter… why not?
• Danger Time: More crit on slow → more confusion → more damage
• Time Marches On: MOOOVEMENTMESMER!!! HUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
• Lost Time: Slow on crit + more crit on slow → more crit → more slow → more crit → more slow… \o/

What is good:

• crit → raw damage & conditions (bleed/confusion)
• feedback → reflect + etherfield for your warden → confusion
• warden → reflection (support+damage) & combo finisher whirl
• Mantra of Recovery → good self heal + massive aoe cleanse
• Staffclones are a good way to apply conditions. Now that Illusionary Elasticity becomes baseline it would be even stronger.
• Well of Calamity is also an etherfield which would cause dmg/crits(conditions)/combos.

What do you lose to a power build:

• Crit damage on reflections!
• dps from the first second → mesmer has to build up its damage and conditions also have to be build up!

Consensus is:

Solo dungeons = conditions great.

For the proper hardcore dungeon run team meta = full power.

Build wrong at your own risk.

Oh and as for weapon skins, once you have a weapon skin you can skin any weapon of that type with said skin. So keep your anomaly.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Consensus is:

Solo dungeons = conditions great.

For the proper hardcore dungeon run team meta = full power.

Build wrong at your own risk.

We know that for the base game but we don’t know how HoT will affect the meta. You saw that Dragonhunter hitting with 2.5k burning right?

I say: It is not something one should hope for to come into the meta but I hope it does…

Me Games Ma.8426:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Consensus is:

Solo dungeons = conditions great.

For the proper hardcore dungeon run team meta = full power.

Build wrong at your own risk.

We know that for the base game but we don’t know how HoT will affect the meta. You saw that Dragonhunter hitting with 2.5k burning right?

I say: It is not something one should hope for to come into the meta but I hope it does…

Oh right, the future.

Thanks for the feedback!