Guild Wars 2

So I know this was a thing before the trait update patch, to have a rabid build that focuses on having clones crit to deliver conditions, but now it seems like all the condition traits are based on shatters.

Is there a non-shatter condition build still? or is that not a thing anymore. Does anyone have any post-specialization builds they’d like to recommend?

A Scepter+Pistol/Staff interrupt build will probably be the best way to apply condition pressure when/if a few of our broken traits actually get fixed. For instance, Pistol skills should be applying bleeds through Duelist’s Discipline, but that isn’t actually happening. (Though iDuelist will still proc Sharper Images pretty often.)

Honestly, the condi traits seem pretty well-balanced between shatter and everything else. It’s just that shattering is the best way (apart from Scepter 3) to apply a ton of conditions at once and get burst damage. Burst damage is the name of the game for everything except WvW roaming, so all the meta builds for Mesmer are based on either shattering or lockdown.

Pretty sure most of tobasco’s points apply largely to pvp.

I had a clone condition build before the patch (staff/scepter+pistol as tobasco said), and its damage was reasonable in open-world pve/living story, passable in dungeons, and worthless in world bosses.

After the patch, my kill times improved noticeably, and I can actually get credit on world bosses now. I’ve run a few dungeons with much higher success than previously, and while Fear My Wrath’s superiority to Time Warp makes a lot of people pick guardians over mesmers, I found that the new Prismatic Understanding made my skipping utility easily on par with or better than thieves, and thus left me valuable.

My duelist applies roughly the same amount of bleeds as he did before the patch (abt 5-6 on a volley). Once they fix the pistol trait, I expect to get about 2-3 more out of him on average.

Once they fix the scepter trait, I expect I’ll get a little more utility there too.

So in general, I’ve found my build mostly competitive in PvE in terms of damage, with an increased scope of content that I can play him in than before.

I’m not even running an optimal build, as I have Traveler’s Runes instead of Undead (yeah movement speed on mesmer!). I may change that soon, but I’m undecided. I might just wait until I craft my ascended armor for that character.

And for reference, given the broken state of those two traits, I’m running the following replacements:
Duelist’s Discipline -> Phantasmal Haste
Malicious Sorcery -> Ineptitude
Evasive Mirror -> Blinding Dissipation

I expect I’ll switch back to Duelist’s Discipline when they fix it, but I’m not certain about the other two. The extra confusion from Ineptitude and BD are pretty nice, and trading them for improved scepter performance still might not be worth it to me.
I’ll test it out for sure.

The shatter traits are actually outrageously good. I use the “blind causes confusion, block and evade causes blind” and the “shatters blind” and the “shatters cause torment” and “shatters cause confusion” traits, and holy moly is it effective! With four shatters and scepter to work with, you can drop 15 confusion and 8 torment super fast and your opponents quickly melt.

go https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mtd-second-try-in-tpvp/first#post5234252

i made nice combo layout which can do in pve 21 cpnfusion and 6 torment and with staff more bleeding poison burning

in pvp works the same but with more cleanse so you have to bait them out with staff a bit
in wvw the combo killing ppl fast if they spam skills like hs thieves