With traits like Debilitating Dissipation, Bountiful Interruption, Decent Into Madness, and Chaotic Revival (Please don’t ever take that last one) the Chaos line has plenty of RNG (Random Number Generator- Things with unpredictable effects such as loot drops or Chaos Storm) traits. I think of all of these none are more divisive than Chaotic Interruption (CI).
Chaotic Interruption is an interesting trait. It’s the soft CC version of Confounding Suggestions (25% daze duration & 50% chance daze = stun) It guarantees an immobilize if you interrupt along with a Blind, Cripple, or Chill. Like most of our RNG effects, these secondary conditions range from great, to good, to “why the hell?”
Chill- Though it initially seems odd to add two-second chill to a two-second immobilize since the slow effect is entirely nullified, this is an awesome condition to tag onto an interrupt for one reason: Interrupts put skills on kitten cooldown and chill makes those cooldowns take even LONGER to recharge (66%, can someone math me up exactly how much CD time is added when you add a 2s chill to someones 5s cooldown?)
Blind- Interrupt a skill, and then make them fail on a second skill. Win/win assuming the blind doesn’t get autoattacked away.
Cripple – 2s Immobilize paired with a 3s cripple.. Why? My only thought on the reasoning for this is that with about 50% condition duration that becomes a 3s Immobilize and 4.5 second cripple which is sliightly more reasonable. Barely.
Soft CC is an often highly-underestimated form of Control that Mesmer excel at. We can apply Weakness, Vulnerability, and Cripple easily from clone deaths, and Chaotic Interruption can supply Immobilize, Chill, and Blind. With Sigils of Doom we also have access to a constant source of poison and Runes of Grenth/Sigils of Hydromancy are fantastic for spreading AoE Chill.
When forging a lockdown build using the Chaos line I often go V, VIII, XI as seen in StickerHappy’s Phantasmic Interruptions. This gives me substantial rewards for interrupts and allows me to be a threat on any battlefield even without them.
While CI can work easily in a either a power or condition build, the three best weapons for CI, IMO, are:
In that order. I rank Sword over the Greatsword because of how frequently you can send out a piercing daze with the offhand and because the mainhand sword’s immobilize stacks beautifully with CI’s immobilize interrupt. Focus’s Temporal Curtain is on a lower cooldown than GS’s iWave and you have better control over it. Despite the fact that the focus pull takes longer than the GS’s push, the pull still edges out as more effective.
I feel like CI is a highly under-utilized trait that’s often overlooked because not only does it compete with the ever-popular Prismatic Understanding but also because 20/20/30/0/0 is a fantastic setup for a lockdown build. I wanted to start a discussion on CI to see if we could discover some more builds that make great use of CI beyond Chillruption and Phantasmic Interruptions.
I’ve been particularly considering an 0/20/30/0/20 condition build using CI. Been too long since I ran a condition build I enjoyed.
CI is my favorite trait and has been since I devised chillruption. At any one time I’m theory-crafting 2-3 builds and can’t seem to get away from it. I had a build called chaotic conditions using CI but ended up abandoned using CI there because I couldn’t make it effective enough to warrant the 30 point cost. The build still works well without it.
So in the past 6 weeks or so (with a 3 week game break) I’ve been playing a 0/20/30/20/0 condition build which I’ve been gathering footage for. There is moderate lockdown and fully exploits using CI in a condition build. I’m planning to post it sometime in the next week.
Other than that I agree with everything you said. I wish Anet would massage the trait a bit to stagger the condition application, but on the whole I’ve enjoyed playing with this trait for a long time in various builds.
I honestly have liked using this trait more and more recently. People don’t expect lockdown mesmers roaming and thieves get murdered so quickly by it. It does need a slight buff by removing the cripple entirely and then its a much better trait imo.
I’m still a fan of revisiting the idea that got (arguably) OP with Perplexity 6/6. Namely, fold some level of Confusion stacking into CI. Could replace the Cripple, for instance.
Also, Chaos … one could argue that you forgot to mention Pistol as an Interrupt source.
That Magic Bullet’s made my enemies’ day suck more than once.
I have dusted my Mesmer off and started playing it more lately it use to be my main but Ele is my main now.
Looking at this thread and build
I think crippling dissipation is very very strong if not the strongest on death trait. I’m going to try this build later with staff I don’t like GS anymore I use to use it alot but prefer staff with S/S.
I like the idea of this though it makes the condis duration longer but doesn’t have alot of condi damage. Anyone have a video running this?
Yup, great trait. Use it in the Holy Hell Chill Build, and think its best as part of a havok with focus. It looses its luster in zergs as all that stability ruins things. Not to mention the general chaos onto of rng element doesn’t help things. I love all these cc’s with as much duration as possible. It really forces the enemy to act or die. That said, i’m more than happy just with long duration chills on hydro weapon swaps. Its a harsh mistress.
It’s a great talent, one of the best. I have been using it in my 30/10/30/0/0 Mantra/lockdown build with GS and Staff for over a month and I love it. As Ross says it looses its luster in zergs, however it helps a lot vs thieves and necros and it’s one of the reasons I find myself in love with.
Right now I am trying to take the most out of it by picking all “interrupt” traits plus a might stacking concept (Bountifull Interruption and double sigil of battle). However, this setup relies heavily on food for extra long buffs (I use Chocolate omomberry cream 20% boons and traveler runes) but I do not like it much because the food 2nd buff (magic find) feels like a waste. So, I am tempted to go for 100% condi duration with veggi pizza & giver weapons for a 4sec immobilize/chill. That is jummy :P but it doesn’t solve the problem when running with zergs or vs stability.
Overall a great and fun talent for roaming or small scale fights
CI works great on staff.
Chaos storm may be just random daze and may or may not interrupt.
But in wvw, people are rarely in a hurry to dodge or run out of chaos storm because it hits like a wet noodle. Placing chaos on a bunch of enemies in wvw pretty much guarantees a few interrupts. The strength of chaos storm there gets multiplied by the immobilize which places the enemy in the aoe even longer.
It’s a great talent, one of the best. I have been using it in my 30/10/30/0/0 Mantra/lockdown build with GS and Staff for over a month and I love it. As Ross says it looses its luster in zergs, however it helps a lot vs thieves and necros and it’s one of the reasons I find myself in love with.
Right now I am trying to take the most out of it by picking all “interrupt” traits plus a might stacking concept (Bountifull Interruption and double sigil of battle). However, this setup relies heavily on food for extra long buffs (I use Chocolate omomberry cream 20% boons and traveler runes) but I do not like it much because the food 2nd buff (magic find) feels like a waste. So, I am tempted to go for 100% condi duration with veggi pizza & giver weapons for a 4sec immobilize/chill. That is jummy :P but it doesn’t solve the problem when running with zergs or vs stability.
Overall a great and fun talent for roaming or small scale fights
I use a similar build (slightly modified version of MindCrush) but rather than GS and Staff I run Sword/Sword and Staff. Both are equally viable I feel, I just personally prefer Sword/Sword.
Rather than Sigils of Battle I run Ice and Hydromancy, so with CI I get a constant stream of Chills which together with other soft and hard CC makes life rather difficult for the opponent.
I don’t run with zergs though, so can’t comment on largescale viability.
I didn’t include Pistol in the top 3 for a couple reasons.. For one, the 2s stun kind of nullifies the 2s Immobilize (though the potential daze-bounce could make things interesting), also I find the Pistol’s interrupt slightly less reliable than the other three since it takes a slight moment to get to the opponent and can’t hit multiple targets like the others. However, I rarely use the pistol so it could be more my own inexperience with the weapon than faults with Magic Bullet.
As for staff, Chaos Storm can actually hit pretty hard. It procs 6 times and each hit can strike from 500-700 damage. I’ve nailed interrupts with Chaos Storm, and leaving opponents immobilized in that debilitation field is awesome and sets up some glorious shatters.
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