TLDR: I’m bumhurt because my Condition Hell Mesmer Build often leaves me feeling inadequate in most party encounters, because of the burst damage of my party-mates. So make a condition based specialization please.
Guild Wars 2 is populated by strong warriors, master engineers, powerful elementalists, and so the list goes on. And while a great, bulking, metal-clad Guardian and the nimble, stealthy, kleptomaniac Thief are easy to define, the Mesmer has been and is something unique to the Guild Wars series.
However, it feels to me that the Mesmer has… evolved since the original Guild Wars. This is not necessarily a bad thing though, and I’m sure many are quite pleased with the Mesmer of GW2.
But I, at the risk of being called nostalgic, miss the old Mesmer. I miss the Mesmer I used to play, not a duelist with twin swords, but rather the tactician on the back lines. My Mesmer, heavily invested in Illusion and Inspiration magic, was dual classed with the Monk and watched the battle like a general. A Villain in Glasses.
However in Guild Wars 2, if you are running an efficient Mesmer in PvP, you are, more likely than not, using a Shatter Build. Sure you might break away with some Glamours and Manipulations in one or two of your possible three exchangeable skills, but the Shatter Build Mesmer simply is, irrefutably, the highest damaging Mesmer. Alas, under the Shatter Build, the Mesmer becomes less of an Illusionist and more of a Bomber.
In PvE, Glamours and Manipulations become a little more practical, and allows for different builds such as the Condition Hell build (using staff clones to constantly apply conditions to large enemies and buff to allies), however this Damage-over-Time build becomes somewhat ineffective when used towards weaker enemies, as there is often insufficient amounts of time to accumulate an adequate amount of conditions and when the enemy dies, your clones disappear.
So what can a Condition Hell Mesmer do? Or rather, How can a Condition Hell Mesmer be more practical? My Proposal is this: make a specialization for the Mesmer, specifically following the Chaos trait line. The weapon? A rifle with skills like this:
1: Fires of Chaos
3/4 second casting time (standard auto-attack speed)
"Fires a magically infused shot that manifests a small Chaos Storm (see staff Mesmer’s 5 skill, named Chaos Storm) on the enemies position. "
(This Chaos Storm should only last for an instant, long enough to apply the conditions/buffs but not enough for anyone/anything to run into it)
2: Ether Rain
1/2 Casting time
15 Second recharge
“The Mesmer fires bird shot straight up, letting the magically infused pellets rain of the area around the Mesmer, granting healing to allies and bleeding to enemies along with one random boon and one random condition.”
3: Overcharge
3/4 second Casting Time
20 second recharge
“The Mesmer shoots a magical charge at an ally, causing that allies next attack have greater effect.”
(Because a skill like this is not in GW2, I don’t know how they would balance it in terms of magnitude)
4: Chaos Frenzy
1/2 second Casting Time
20 second Recharge
“The Mesmer does a back flip (in the style of the Thief’s Twisting Fangs, though going away from the enemy) and unloads a series of shots into the enemy, applying conditions with each shot.”
5: Mesmer’s Roulette
7/4 second Casting time
30 second recharge
“The Mesmer creates two clones (thus surrounding the enemy) and may or may not switch locations with one of the clones (entirely random).”
But that’s me being an optimist, what do you think?