Guild Wars 2

First some context:
I’ve been running dungeons with my guild for awhile, they’ve all admitted that I carry them, this is true for the 2 separate builds I’ve ran..Whether it’s a tanky build with long wind-up damage with the staff, or more of a power/dps build with the greatsword and it’s exceptional kiting abilities…

I die the least out of my party, but still, I can’t help but feel I could offer more in terms of support and damage mitigation..

I’ve been running a Greatsword – Sword/Focus – Damage/Crit/Crit Dmg build of late -

The damage is actually very good, the support is better than it may first seem, for example: Stacking Might, vulnerability, cripple, aoe knock backs and damage mitigation with clone production etc

It may be safe to assume however, my outright damage may never be on par with another profession such as a warrior, although this is up for debate as when my team commented on their auto attack dmg against a particular champion in Arah, mine was far superior, by 500-1000..

Not sure how others view this next point, but my guild and myself are under the impression a strict glass cannon build is pointless and a detriment to the team when running dungeons given the mob damage, we’d rather sacrifice a little power for staying power and not having to rez all the time – I feel a new build could help even further with this theory..

For Reference i’ll post my Greatsword/Sword – Focus build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAR8dlwzSqXVTqGaNJyZGMXzhWAJFtWqVSBudhA

I haven’t added runes or accessories – but it’s full berserker and rata sum runes for the armor -

Despite being outfitted for damage, I still have a whopping 25 points in inspiration – This goes with the theory that a strict glass cannon is utter pointless in dungeons -

I’m looking to play a staff build, with Sword/an offhand of some kind -

So I guess I took a long time getting to this point, but what does a staff dungeon mesmer look like – How do you spec it for support but with an acceptable damage output – Is a condition build worth it? What utilities to role with?

Carrion, Rampager’s etc?

I want to be able to survive and deal good dmg over time even if that damage isn’t immediate.

Has anyone tried Torch in dungeons? – Focus and Warden is probably where it’s at -

Torch offers Aoe Blind, Aoe Burn and has a blast finisher, give your entire team chaos armor, seems pretty good -

A condition Mesmer is also a support by default for a simple reason: the staff.
It gives random boons to allies with 1 and 5, 5 also provides an ethereal field for Chaos armor.

The minimum traits for a Cond Mesmer, from my personnal experience would be:
15 Dueling
20 Illusions (Additional Bounce)

Recommended:
20 Chaos (Staff cds)

My actual build is:
10 Dom
15 Duel
25 Chaos
20 Illusions

And my gear is a mix of Carion and Rampager (1-3)

Dmg is pretty good on fights where your illusions survive, here’s a video I recorded with a similar build: http://youtu.be/J9gFSOuD6V8

That, and 25 toughness + regeneration & protection when under 75% health give ton of survivability.

As for the utility skills, I use the conditon dmg signet along with whatever I need depending on the fight.

Another question that’s worth considering is. Are you offering more support as a dps build as you do more dmg, thus the fights end quicker, or are you offering more support with actual support utility where the fights will last longer??

Your staff builds looks similar to what I had envisioned. Many mesmer player’s seem to be of the opinion that condition dmg sucks for a variety of reasons and is rather pointless to focus a build around, it’s good to have as a product of other skills, such as bleeds on crit from your phatasms, but not something necessarily to completely spec in to..

Something that I forgot to ask, was about rune set up -

What runes to people recommend for various play styles-

For power/precision, I’ve seen:
Rata Sum
Eagle
Ranger
Mesmer
Scholar

Is there a consensus best option??

Regardless of build intent I strongly suggest getting 20 Dueling for the clone on dodge trait. The additional clone generation is extremely useful. To point that I personally would call it the single most useful trait for Mesmers, no contest.

Also I stand with the previous poster on the importance of 20 Illusions for the additional bounce when you are using staff. The trait effectively increases the power of the staff by 50%.

On torch. I love the idea of the torch abilities. I don’t like the implementation. The Prestige would be a much better ability if the flame attack portion triggered even if we cancel the stealth manually.
The mage phantasm is also unfortunately weak compared to the phantasms it competes with. The pistol phantasm does very good damage, triggers ranged combo fields and does multiple hits to trigger the bleed trait. The warden phantasm is also multi hit, also high damage, triggers whirl combos and creates a bubble that blocks enemy projectiles while it is attacking. The single stack of confusion, low damage and retaliation that is not directly controlled by you and requires you to be within bounce range of the target the mage is attacking are just simply not enough to compete.

Edit: on condition damage. It is absolutely useful. Roll with extra bounce on staff and give it a try. It seriously works. What a lot of people assume is that the extra bounce won’t go back to targets already hit. That is an incorrect assumption. One on one with staff you lay down some serious damage with the extra bounce trait.

For that sort of staff build I would go:

0/0/20/30/20
Staff, Scepter/Focus

Pick up Warden’s Feedback, Staff Trait, Elasticity. I think there’s something useful in 30 Inspiration (heal on Shatter?) and get vigor on Shatter (10 point Inspiration).

Alternate: 25 inspiration, 25 illusion. This will get you Might on Shatter, and you still get the 15% phantasm damage out of inspiration.

Primary mode Staff pew pew clone shatter pew pew, swap for Warden / Curtain trolling; hit a blind and confusion beam until you can swap back to Staff pew pew.

Depending on how fast you can play, you can have perma Vigor up with a decent spread of Protection, Regen, Might. You can even throw in Retaliation if that 10pt Illusion trait is working properly.

Gear wise, Carrion. Rune-wise, try to get extended condition duration because you have 0 Dom, which kind of sucks but ohwell.

0-20-0-30-20
staff + sword/focus

phantasm dps/utility build. buff the phantasms (iWarden/pWarlocks) enough that you can redirect your attention to your team without feeling like youre not contributing enough dps. DEFINITELY want Focus as the OH for the amazing utility of iWarden and Temporal Curtain. traited correctly they both reflect projectiles (SE fire golem easy mode, anyone?) and drop one on the other and you have condition removal.

runes of the mesmer sound good to me but that requires either luck in dungeons or grinding out tokens, so something comparable thats not BoA would do almost as good.

rampager’s gear. don’t worry about not adding to survivability with stats, the mesmer has enough survivability on his own. use your skills to survive and your stats to make sure they don’t.

Ignore everyone telling you to pick 1 weapon set and never change. It’s bad gameplay.

You need at-least a pistol and focus, and I’d recommend both a sword and scepter, and a GS and staff.

The best DPS split is 10-30-0-0-30, and another good split is 0-25-0-25-20 with a little wiggleroom with 5 of those points.

You want condition damage on both builds. Builds that hard 30-30 GS builds are going to lack serious DPS without bleed.

Having access to both iDuelist and iWarden is absolutely critical to being useful through an entire dungeons, anyone not carrying both a pistol and a focus is kittening themselves.

I tend to like
10-20-0-10-30 when doing Dungeons myself currently, using the Staff + Sword/Scepter&Focus/Pistol. The last two change depending on whether or not the enemy I’m facing has extremely dangerous anti-melee or not, and whether I’m facing a lot of ranged or not.

Cripple on Clone death helps buy allies time, as at least one monster likes to swing at my clones, causing AoE cripple around it. Combine that with Dodge Clones, and its golden. Further combo with my current habit of using 6x Centaur runes, and my allies get a decent benefit of outpacing or getting away from enemies. (Usually leaving it to be Ranged mobs causing problems … Hence Feedback, Feedback bubble on reviving allies, and I.Warden.)
For Inspiration, Feedback Bubble when reviving an ally is always good. To the point, I may even interrupt myself after 10 seconds to begin reviving once more. Not only does it protect you, but your ally as well.
For Illusions, Illusionary Persona is usually slotted so that I can at least get 1 second of Distortion, even if all my clones and phantasms are dead. And Illusionary Elasticity just works with the Staff so well…

10 dom, 15 duelling, 25 inspiration, 20 illusions will give insane phantasm DPS and DPS in general however it’s presently bugged and you’re better off dumping the 25 from inspiration elsewhere until they fix it. Or going with it and knowing it’ll work as intended later. It only has moderate amounts of support though.

I’m not sure on a definitive dungeon mesmer but I suspect in strong groups we’ll be a 4th or 5th man, someone you take when you’ve already got a smoke or dark field spammer and appropriate finishers. We can deliver damage, or we can focus on support but regardless of that we’ll always have quite a bit of support. Even as a damage dealer our allies will be buffed and our enemies debuffed and we’ll usually have a little control even if it’s limited.

HecatesLover.3617:

Regardless of build intent I strongly suggest getting 20 Dueling for the clone on dodge trait. The additional clone generation is extremely useful. To point that I personally would call it the single most useful trait for Mesmers, no contest.

I disagree. Dodging is important and for a lot of fights you need to dodge merely to avoid damage. However there is a second problem, if you’re running a phantasm build (which seems to be the best DPS) then this is especially bad as you will keep over writing your phantasm when you dodge, costing you damage. However for clone spamming builds or ones where clones die like flies it’s not a bad trait at all.

This is to Rhyno and MlieBennet, I feel you both are thinking on the lines I’m looking for here…

All of the stat set ups seem where I want to be, so in light of this clarity I have a few more questions..

I’ve never ran the Illusion spec all the way up to 30, I take it this is for the on self shatter, is it really that useful? Never tried it, I imagine the extra bit of distortion almost at will is pretty good…?

What is the 30 points in dueling for rhyno, is this necessary?

The only thing that slightly worries me is the lack of survivability with so few points in chaos or inspiration – I’ve never really had trouble surviving as a mesmer with all the tricks we have, but dungeon like crucible of eternity where all the mobs seem focused on ranged chars and the insane aoe, it’s almost impossible to rely on our tricks to survive as opposed to actually specking for it..

Do you compensate with rune choice, trait set ups gear stats etc? Or I may just need more practice..

10-20-0-10-30, this split I really like, but i’ll probably swap between all 3 depending on what the situation determines..

What gear do you recommend for this set? Rampager’s, Berserker? Carrion?

What jewellery and what runes are best suited for such a set up?

Thx for the help

30 in Illusion is a personal taste for myself, and one I’ve been toying in dropping to just 20 at times.

The main reason why I like Illusionary Persona, is that Distortion is always a good panic-button. Giving you at minimum 1-second of Distortion that can be used even when CCed and all your clones/phantasms are dead. If all your clones are up, 4 seconds of Distortion is a rather Long time to be invulnerable. Especially if you are trying to revive an ally.
Another reason is for an easy 8 Stack then 4 Stack of Confusion with the F1 and F2 shatters. This is more for AoE damage that deals a nice amount of dmg (On top of what the Shatters already do), and may even get a 2nd hit on the normal monsters when you slot the 33% longer Confusions.

Lastly, is just to help rip through some stacks of CC Immunity. Using Chaos Storm to remove a chunk of the CC Immunity stack, followed up by Distraction removing up to 4 per use just helps evaporate it for Moa Morph or the Pistol’s Stun to come into play. Further beneficial, as you can easily setup for 1-4 CC Immunity removals with just spawning the right number of clones and being close yourself.

And yes, I’ve been trying different Jewelery combinations to try to make up for the lack of Vitality/Toughness. Chrysocola Jewelery is rather nice, even if it does lack the Precision I hope for in place of Power.
Currently using Rampager’s myself, though I’m honestly looking at Order of Whispers set and trying to find an Exotic Equivalent (As I’m still saving up for full Exotic in one go, giving me time to try to hunt one down).
Runes? Currently using Superior Runes of the Centaur, as mentioned. But giving it a hard thought about Superior Runes of Dwayna, for the extra healing vs. Power, or for Superior Runes of Lyssa for the Buffs and Precision. I’m still up in the air about that one, and only sticking to Centaur at the moment for Exploring reasons.

10 20 0 20 20 here
Sword pistol GS
If the fight goes right I have 3 duelists out and I’m just sitting around using 1 and 2 sword. Don’t need leap until I get a combo field, can bring out more duelists but it’s just replacing em, daze shot is situational, and the bigger GS moves also will break illusions.

So now did they fixed phantasms granting regeneration for all phantasms yet?

Dueling gives the best stat combination of all 5 trees so every point is valuable. On top of that it has good major traits. Phantasmal Fury and Deceptive Evasion are awesome and you’d have to be running scepter/focus to not benefit from the weapon traits.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAR8dlwzSqXVTqGaNJyZGMXzhWAJFtWqVSBudhA

That is my build 5/15/20/0/30
I use staff and sword/focus. And Blink or SoD, Feedback, null field as utility

I use this to do good damage and the extra bounce on the staff either will deal damage and appl a condition a second time or give 2 players boons with each auto attack. Combined with Chaos Storm for Aegis that will be applied mulitiple times to everyone inside it. You really can’t beat the staff for sustained DPS and Support. Iwarden provides great offense and Defense and temperial curtain zone control. build for condition damage and crit rate. I also through in Vitality in the gear here and there because toughness alone wont cut it.

In all i find it to be a durable, sustained damage dealing build with supperb support rivaling a guardians. I think choas storm/feedback/Null field makes it better for buffs, condition removal, and combo fields which are huge in this build.

Im curious does Chaos add boon duration to those you give allies?