Guild Wars 2

**Are you tired of the same ol’ shatter/phantasm/lockdown builds?

**Are Mantras too Gimmicky for you?

**Then lets do SIGNETS !!!

(Actually this is a little gimmicky too and I will admit now is not as good as meta shatter/phantasm builds… BUT ITS FUN!!!… AND I think you might find it surprisingly viable.)

(Also, this build is probably not very innovative in the sense that every build in GW2 has probably been done by now…somewhere in the world… But I never ever see signet mesmer threads on this forum so I thought I would bring signet mesmer into the light!!! YEAH !!)
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Build Name: Medicus Mesmer

Build Link: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7MnsISBaWhGOoZEXjx0nMTNkKgSnxGTD-TpxCwAAuAA73fQzDAgyBBQyRAAcZAA

(You will notice elite skill is empty I left that for personal preference. Also, You may consider Rabid vs. Dire Amulet. You may also consider removing sigil of purity/doom in favor of sigils which better suit your style.)

Build Goals in Brief:
1. Condition Damage via Staff/Sceptor/Clone Spam/iswordsman
2. Multifaceted Damage mitigation via clone sustain, massive boon uptime, signet distortion and cleanse, weapon blocks with retaliation.
3. HAVE FUN because you actually need to think in order to be most effective. HAVE FUN because this play style may be different than what you are used too doing over and over and over and over and therefore not boring. HAVE FUN because this is pseudoviable !! YEAH!!

Talking Points:

1. Staff – Veteran players will know what to do here (probably don’t even need to read this ). Use of this weapon is also very similar to Blackwater. This is your main “damage” weapon. Dodge clone spam lets you stack conditions nicely and provide buffs to your allies.
*This synergies with signet of ether because you will have clones out applying conditions and you also get max sustain healing in addition to your buffs.
* Don’t be afraid to use your shatter skills as you can easily replace your clones. Do not mindlessly shatter your clones this is not a shatter build.
* Diversion or Cry of Frustration for when opponent is healing or if you need to interrupt a key skill and avoid serious DAMAGE
*Clone Death applies even more conditions.
*Be sure to combo with yourself for dat 8-10 second chaos armor uptime !! REALLY NICE !!!

2. Sceptor/Sword – Again, veteran players will know what to do here. You will notice that you have a double block which is super useful for avoiding key skill attacks. A successful block will grant you retaliation from retaliatory shield. Good timing of blocks will give you really nice retaliation uptime.
*Confusing Images followed by a cycle of blocks is really nice to use just before a thief-like player is coming in to spike you. Or you can use Confusing Images while someone is attempting to heal. Or you can just use confusing images whenever because it is awesome.
* With my suggested sigil of doom/energy this weapon set will help you increase poison uptime, will also help increase survival with dodge uptime.
*You also get iSwordsman which will help your damage nicely especially in 1v1 or smaller skirmishes

Talking Points

3. Signets – The fun part of the build! The passives on all of these signets really synergize well with your condition focus and will increase your damage by serious amounts. Spreading mass boons to your team at the right time can also really change a fight. You will also notice that you get a stun break and can also stun an opponent at a key time.
*You can cleanse 4 conditions here which isn’t very much against certain match ups. This is why I suggested Purity on your staff because you will have lots of on-hits and this will help you keep conditions off. Additionally, I would recommend that you pay careful attention to opponents builds when using signets. Idiot, you should pay careful attention to an opponent’s build no matter what build you are playing.
*If you time it correctly you can give yourself distortion right when they will apply most of there conditions and you can avoid way more conditions than you can signet-cleanse. FUN!!! (Necros, Thiefs, Eles)
*Also, careful use of your signets to cleanse specific conditions, if possible, such as poison will usually allow your regen from boons/signet of ether to carry you through other conditions such as bleed. Bonus points if you cleanse a specific condition during a serious AoE blast or spike damage !!! That’s what I call double duty !! Basically be smart when using your signets. Don’t spam them.
*Careful timing of Distortion-Shatter with Signet use can grant you 7 seconds of immunity if you desire. Follow that 7 seconds of immunity up with a dodge then a weapon swap to double blocks followed by another 2 dodges if you want too.

4. You may notice when you look at the traits that I didn’t use any grandmaster traits… :O . Not trying to be a rebel here. For instance, I’ll admit it right now Prismatic understanding is really really good…. but that’s not what we are doing here.

We are doing a pseudo-viable signet build which relies on clutch play !! Amazing reflexes !! Original thought !! Reading your opponent !! Condi Spamming your opponents and buffing your teammates !! So use my suggested traits instead gorramit !!!

In the end, deceptive evasion, and chaotic dampening are way more useful here and, imo, worth the loss of other grandmaster traits.

Lastly, (probably doesn’t need to be said but I’ll say it anyway) the sub-traits in dueling and chaos really help BOTH your survival (critical infusion, metaphysical rejuvenation, illusionary membrane, chaotic transference) AND condition damage (sharper images, confusing combatants) at the same time.
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Wut about PvE?!?!

YES PLZ !!!

Rabid Armor, Sigil of Malice, Sigil of Corruption, Toxic Maintenance Oil — Everything else pretty much the same.
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Wut about WvW ?!?!!?!?!

… I guess you could try roaming with this… o.O …. Goodluck without any stealth or teleports
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Thank you for you careful attention,

Cpt Gibbilo Medicus

This build isn’t good.

It will work, but poorly compared to a blackwater/PU condition build. Basically what you did here is took a standard blackwater/PU build which works wonderfully and destroyed it by removing all the stealth and PU, putting in some random signets that really aren’t that good, taking out some really nice traits..

You don’t have cripple on clone death which is a bigger deal than you may think,
No staff toughness/CD
No PU,
No BLINK
Poor condi cleansing (4 signets will remove 4 conditions on a big CD, torch alone will remove 4, + either mantra, null or phantasmal disenchanter that you would get in a PU condi build)

Another thing that is a big issue – Retaliation scales with power, and you’re in a condition build.. You either have to:
sacrifice toughness to get that power, meaning you can’t get hit, retaliation is useless
sacrifice condition damage to get that power, meaning your condition damage sucks
sacrifice precision to get that power, meaning you don’t have crit chance for sharper images to proc, lowering your damage/pressure a lot.

Give me one thing this build does that a PU condi build doesn’t do better.
Survive? -> PU condi
Mobility? -> PU condi
Damage? -> PU condi
Condi Removal? -> PU condi

It may be more fun, even though I don’t see how it can be more fun than a PU condi build. They’re somewhat similar in the playstyle, only PU condi is night and day difference in terms of pretty much everything.

Oh, also, lets not forget that anywhere out of PvE, the healing signet kind of sucks, the reasons have been said over and over and over again on this forum by Pyro.

I know I’m kind of being Pyro here, but I’m just honest with you. It’s better that I flat out tell you the fact instead of lying to you telling you this is good when it is not.

Much love, hope I didn’t offend you mate!

~Monns

A few other things..
Traveler in condition build?
For WvW it could barely slip through, but why be lazy and not take something like undead or perplexity
It will give you more condition damage
Condi spam build without dual energy?
Dual energy is just too good to miss out on in ANY build, especially a condi spam one..

~Monns

having fun with in death match mode as 8v8 pvp or trolling for competitive guilds for distrupting them.. scrubing however still cool.. maybe something as this build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW8fnsISFa2pGeoB3aGx1YQ9XlNGpCo0dM9GA-TpREwAFeAA13fIbZAHHEAAHBgBXAAA example first fight until 1.04 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U2E6mTsL7E or from 4:55 to 5:16 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNFSfhjZ2bY or as in last scene from 19:20 as well can be modified with more signes as midnight..

Monns,

Thanks for your feedback. A few comments:

I am not even gunna argue with you about your main point —> That overall PU does it better. I agree with you 100%. You could probably add: )verall ____ does it better. --- Where _ is Shatter or Phantasms as well.

My response: That is a valid point, but it also isn’t, given the context.

Every mesmer worth their salt in PVP (and also their mothers and maybe grandparents) know the tPvP optimal builds. If I really really want to win my tPvP build am I going to take this signet build? No.

But, we also know that these top builds are not going to change until 10 months from now when Anet decides to make some serious changes to skills or traits again.

The new frontier isn’t making some PU variant by changing 1 or 2 skills or a rune somewhere, nor is it trying to make the next best top build. There are limited optimal combos and I think the community is smart enough to know what they are and coalesce them into our current top builds.

So where does that leave us?

For people who are bored seeing/doing the same “optimal” build over and over and over and over. For those of us who care more about build diversity than other players might. The new frontier is endeavoring to create a build 1. different enough in playstyle but also 2. as close as possible in terms of effectiveness to those optimal builds the community has vetted as the current best.

I would argue that this build is not some blackwater/PU slant. Just because any build has a staff and uses clones doesn’t automatically make it blackwater. As you very nicely pointed out I don’t use any of the same utilities and use signets instead. Also, as you have nicely pointed out — I don’t have PU. So that is criteria 1.

Does different = better ? NO. That brings us to criteria 2.

I would argue that if you gave this build a try and some strong practice you would find that it is, in fact, pretty good. (As opposed to your “this build isn’t good” statement) By virtue of what I stated above and not trying to create some PU/Shatter/Phantasm slant build —it won’t ever be quite as good as a mesmer could be; I think it still comes pretty close.

To answer some of your specific points:

“Give me one thing this build does that a PU condi build doesn’t do better.
Survive? -> PU condi
Mobility? -> PU condi
Damage? -> PU condi
Condi Removal? -> PU condi”

I can give you a few:

1. You have more blocks available to counter class specific specific openers. 2. You also have distortion on hand with much more flexibility granting you complete damage immunity with careful and cognent use. (Compared to stealth where you can still be struck — especially if caught in an AoE inferno). 3. I also think you are wrong about PU damage being superior. You actually have more condition damage than a PUcondi thanks to the signet bonuses and Iswordsman. (i.e Blink doesn’t give you a condition bonus, you also need to bring torch instead of sword for optimal PU in addition to your staff) 4. You can support your party way better with clutch use of boon share and AoE blindness.

imo very valid points you are correct about: less mobility, retaliation scaling, no stealth, condi cleansing is subpar if you aren’t good a predicting condition openers, cripple (not sure if i agree with you about this being a big deal)

Also, I have traited staff toughness/CD even though you said I didn’t.

Good discussion all. Good stuff.

tl:dr — Its still a good build, but you are right it cannot be optimal unless it becomes a PU/Shatter/Phantasm clone which is not the point of the build. It will take some practice but there are some unique things this build may bring to the team which the current meta’s might not.

Azo.5860:

having fun with in death match mode as 8v8 pvp or trolling for competitive guilds for distrupting them.. scrubing however still cool.. maybe something as this build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW8fnsISFa2pGeoB3aGx1YQ9XlNGpCo0dM9GA-TpREwAFeAA13fIbZAHHEAAHBgBXAAA example first fight until 1.04 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U2E6mTsL7E or from 4:55 to 5:16 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNFSfhjZ2bY or as in last scene from 19:20 as well can be modified with more signes as midnight..

I really like this. ! Thought about this variant as well. Strong work !

I’ll edit this with a response in a few hours, kinda bumping the thread for myself here so I don’t forget to respond.

~Monns

Just like Jurica, my first thought about this build was: "omgosh, it’s basically a ripped-off PU condi “blackwater” build but much, much weaker". Since this point is already settled, I’ll skip the rant and just ask some detail question.

Why offhand-sword? Why even bother to cast iSwordsman in a condi-build?

In a pure condi-build this phantasm is worthless. In your build – since you use rampager equip – it will hit for mediocre damage only.

The iDuelist from pistol on the other hand really shines with rampager stats. In your build it will create a ton of bleeds, while doing direct damage comparable to your iSwordsman.

I assume you took offhand sword because of the #4 block to gain more retaliation via the Retaliatory Shield trait. Honestly, that’s not worth it. Especially in a build like yours, where you try not to get hit at all (many dodges, blocks, and all those distortions from signet activation), retaliation is weak. And you don’t have enough toughness to deliberately let them hit you for a while when retaliation is up.

A rampager iDuelist on the other hand will wreck your enemies, especially thieves. They might outmaneuver a iSwordsman, but they can’t outmaneuver a iDuelist. The iDuelist keeps firing even when the thief is already stealthed, and the bleed stacking (while they are already stealthed) gives them additional trouble. Combined with #5 pistol stun this is really deadly for thieves.

With the – otherwise awful – Healing Signet you might even cast double iDuelists in an instant. This would be a very risky gamble but has a huge damage potential.

Jurica.1742:

Traveler in condition build???

Actually, Traveler runes are viable in a condition build (WvW player/roamer here). It gives both boon duration and condition duration, which is both very nice, along with some stats and the really really needed 25% speed.

And remember, his build is not pure condition. He runs with rampager stats, using power too. The “+x to all stats” from traveler is very welcome here.

@Snoxx -> That’s a good point, but however, it’s much better to try to maximize condition damage in a condition build, rather than get the 25% speed boost. You can use staff to teleport forward, and I’d rather be a little bit slower in exchange for more damage, but that is personal preference, both will work, just my opinion.

I wanted to raise the question about the iswordsman, you beat me to it.
Retaliation thing we both mentioned, about the iDuelist, I’ll write it while responding to the OP

To the OP:
Regarding more block -> You get aegis from PU, you get protection from PU and you get regeneration from PU which will give you even more protection due to the minor trait. I think we would all prefer that to an extra block.
Regarding distortion -> No matter if you have stealth or not, you can still use it, but only to save your kitten, otherwise it’s best to leave your clones out there and spam them for condition application, so that’s kind of an invalid argument.
About the condi damage from iSwordsman -> This is a topic we could discuss a lot.
I’m guessing you’re referring to bleeds that it will stack (?). G
Generally phantasms can stack a lot of bleeds with sharper images, iSwordsman isn’t one of them. (The following part also answers to Snoxxes iDuelist part)
Another issue with sharper images is it is just one single condition.
25 stacks of bleeds will do a lot of damage, but a single condi cleanse will remove it.
If you have 5 stacks of torment, 10 stacks of bleeds, poison, weakness, vulnerability ect. An enemy can cleanse it as well, but he will have to use a lot more cooldowns to remove it than just a single one, you stack them again and he doesn’t have as much condi removal anymore.

To extend this to give my view on a bit more on what Snoxx mentioned -> While I agree pistol will put pressure on thieves, it’s only there for the bleeds as no matter if you are in rampager or rabid (rabid being a MUCH better choice for a condition build, this is sort of a bad hybrid with rampager) it will not do a lot of damage, as you said.
I’d rather have torch which will give me stealth (basically negating their ability to reposition themselves while in stealth).
Pistol will apply pressure, but all you really need to kill a thief is rabid gear and a scepter.
The scepter block, if you land it and the thief doesn’t manage to remove the torment (which he, in most cases, shouldn’t if you stacked up a lot of conditions) he will drop like a fly in seconds.
I respect the fact that you are properly debating, argument to argument and not just insulting/ignoring like a lot of people do.
Much love,

~Monns

Jurica.1742:

I respect the fact that you are properly debating, argument to argument and not just insulting/ignoring like a lot of people do.

u refering to this one i guess:p

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Xontoss-mantra-build/page/3#post4079811

@Jurica:

regarding Traveler runes:
Without the 25% speed boost you can’t flee from situations where you are outnumbered (again, WvW roamer here). Sure, you can fool many players by doing some stealth + blink tricks, or outrun some slower classes with clever use of phase retreat. But against a competent group or a zerg, you’ll die, as simple as that. I’ve tried roaming without Traveler runes, it takes longer to reach your destinations, but also I often have to respawn and run all the way again. Whereas with Traveler runes I manage to escape from anything except maybe a nuclear bomb dropped onto my head.

regarding PU/stealth:
Indeed using PU + stealth is a better way to generate retaliation from blocks. Aegis will do that and you don’t even have to think.
You can split the combat time into two phases: stealthed and non-stealthed.
- Stealthed: they can’t see you, thus can’t hit you, you gain Aegis/Protection/Regeneration
- Non-stealthed: you came back with Aegis, you block, you gain Retalitation while you still have Protection+Regeneration up. Yeah, hit me baby!

Much, much better than that single block from #4 sword.

regarding iDuelist:
About iDuelist and bleed stacking, it’s true that a single stack of bleed is very easy to remove. On paper the iDuelist might do most damage with rampager gear, but in reality you better use berserker. This thread however is about a condition or hybrid build, not about a pure power build. And this build does produce enough different conditions to give enemies trouble keeping up with cleansing. He might cleanse the bleeds, but then maybe doesn’t have cleansing ready when he stumbles into that scepter block torment …

Wyrden
A good example, but I believe it’s a troll, some people really act like that and are serious.

Snoxx
Traveler -> Stealth is a very good way to escape fights. You have a lot of stealth at your disposal, and you can stay in stealth for a good period of time. more than enough to go somewhere LOS or just reverse directions, if I go into a 1vX or XvX, I always swap my condi removal for portal as an escape measure. The 25% shouldn’t matter that much. A warrior can catch up with you, stealth and go the opposite direction or line of sight. A zerg is attacking you -> Quick stealth into mass invis -> Run out of their path/LOS or simply to use as little cooldowns as possible use blink somewhere where they cant follow you in a direct path and so on.
I solo roam as well in a PU set (shatter for team, sometimes solo) and I tried both traveler and perplexity runes. I never really use them. I don’t have any trouble with mobility or escaping.
It does take a bit longer to get to places but there are ways to reduce the time difference as much as possible. Learning some shortcuts, using staff (PR + CS) ect.

Stealth -> I didn’t mean the PU as a way to get blocks to generate retaliation, retaliation sucks here.
You have to sacrifice toughness to be able to get power for your retaliation to do even a tiny bit of damage vs. having toughness and 1,2k range blink.
iDuelist-> In this build, since there is no PU, it is better, but otherwise, you have to take torch.. It’s just too good. Gives you condi cleansing (if you trait it), quite a bit of stealth, burn, blind, confusion, retaliation (just an extra boon, doesn’t really do that much).
Have a wonderful rest of the day!

~Monns

Which server are you on Snoxx?

I made some changes to your build and went on a mess around in pvp

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7ansISBaWhGOoB3aGx1YM9JzkCpCo0Vsx0A-TpxCwAAuAAKeAAU3fYbZAKHEAJHBAA

it was suprisingly good, but ive played mesmer for pretty much 2k hours so id like someone to try out my varient and see how they handle it ^^

Ahh, this troll build. I remember making a build like this.

OP, if you can manage switch out an signet and use mimic instead. I would clap. Mimic is a hard skill to use correctly but it procs with retal with a low cd

LOVE that signet Mesmers are picking up steam little by little. I’ve been running my Malignant Inscriptions build since feature patch, and I’ve been doing exceedingly well. I really don’t care about the criticism I’ve gotten for using such a build…

Quite frankly, I’m rank 75; I’ve been facing tough organized teams; and it’s not often that I lose team fights with this build. Keep on pushing on Signet Mesmers!

I’ll check out this thread when I have more time. I’m loving the variants I’m finding on these build types.

I’ve been using a very similar build in sPvP. It’s rather poor, although it can frustrate a lot of people.

However, you aren’t using the most important thing! Masterful reflection means all that distortion you’re giving yourself also reflects stuff. If you fight a lich form burst necro, they will kill themselves and then spend the rest of the match complaining in the map chat. More to the point, it makes this really annoying sound that you can keep spamming for quite some time, further distracting and frustrating the people you’re fighting.

The particular build I’m using is: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8dnsISDaWhGeoBzaIx1YM5HzgqvIVAlujNmG-TJhFwAAuIAw3fIxTAYaZAA

However, I think I will try yours out. I don’t feel I’ve yet harnessed the full potential of the signets, and some changes in the weapons might work out better.

Yamsandjams.3267:

However, you aren’t using the most important thing! Masterful reflection means all that distortion you’re giving yourself also reflects stuff.

Fighting rangers, thieves and warriors is pretty funny with this trait. I love when warriors charges kill shot and I just wait they finish the animation to see them die. Thieves that end up dazing and interrupting themselves. Messing up rotations.

Excellent work everyone. I plan to update some suggestions into the build and respond to a few debating points in the near future.

Everyone Keep us up to date with the newest innovations to sigmez!

Made this for you
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW8cnsISBaWhGeoB3aGh1gM9MyxOJZBCQJ7w1A-TpRGwAAOCAJOIAt3fgxDAIwFAAaZAA

its the power side of sigs. if you are truly wanting full sigs the keep the last one but if your willing to change id change it.

a lot of the sigs shine with boons… one gives duration the other gives random boons.
So i made a build to make sig shine.

Why domination? well it gives power and condi duration. why condi duration in a power build? it keeps soft condis on the enemy longer, (vuln soft cc) very good for staff.

Duelling gives you more crit and crit chance and acts as a clone generator.

I maxed chaos for boon duration, the rest just came with the build. bountiful disillusion gives a lot of boons.

boons:
-staff can give 7 secs of might on bounce.
-chaos storm gives 4 1/2 secs of boons per tick.
-cry of frustration gives 23 1/2 secs of 3 stacks of might
-3 stacks from sigil of battle, 20 secs
… just check out all the skills that give boons you have a lot with this build.
on top of that you can give allies around you all your boons.
you can give 9 stacks of might easily by weapon swap for sigil proc, cry of frustration- pop sig of illusions and cry of frustration again.

also this build can stack vuln like a boss.
start in staff. cast chaos storm to get 5 off the bat. switch to s/s and double cast 4 to get 5 more. use diversion followed by sig of illusion and diversion again for 25 stacks=p thats not including the ones you get from interrupting from domination 5.

edit: if you want wvw stats i can make that happen. i jst put zerker for a place holder basically

So I tried out the condi spec with staff + sc/sw

I think I liked it better overall than my power based spec. The damage was still a bit low, but I think that could be corrected somewhat with different runes. However, this would drastically limit mobility, so it might not be worth it. If the signet of inspiration gave more swiftness then it would maybe be more viable to use different runes.

Mind you if you’re playing defense on a node, the mobility might not be as necessary.