Guild Wars 2

Okay, before you troll/flame me, just hear me out.

I used to play WoW a long time ago. I had a TON of fun with the warlock. This class basically plays by using CC abilities (like fear and lockdown spells) to keep enemies off you while you load up DoTs. Another major mechanic was that some of the DoTs and direct damage would give you life, which you could use as an extra mana source.

Now, the main thing I miss about the warlock that I’m looking for was being able to roll up into a crowd of 4 enemies (PvE open-world mobs) around your level and be able to kite/cc them while loading up DoTs. It was a fun dance and very challenging, and it’s even better in GW because the combat is so much more active (evade).

I know there is no class like the warlock in GW2. I know GW2 professions are different, no holy trilogy, and all classes and do pretty much anything if specced right. That’s why I’m here. For those of you who know the mesmer well, and know a bit about the WoW warlock, is there a mesmer build that functions like this? I hadn’t even really thought of this until I was playing last night and I was fighting 4 mobs and was evading all over the place, throwing up illusions and stealthing to avoid and it was just so much fun. It reminded me of the warlock.

My best guess so far is a build like Maniac Magician. One that focuses on conditions (dot) and stealth/evasion to give your DoTs enough time to work while keeping you alive.

What do you guys think? Am I barking up the wrong tree? Am I in the wrong profession? Is my build guess correct? Educate me!

PS – I’m level 48 mesmer, playing PvE open world and dungeon. I play casually, so the best build and/or max DPS build is not so important to me. I’m more interested in the playstyle. For instance, I’ve already read many times that “condi is terrible for PvE”. That’s okay with me, as long as the playstyle is what I’m looking for. It’s all about fun and that differs from person to person!

Thanks for reading, you guys are great.

If you wanted something similar to the WoW warlock, i’d suggest to try out a necromancer. Necromancer can have some following pets with some CC’s and some you can also fear mobs. Basically necromancer is a heavy condition (Aka dots).

Mesmer is more of a mixture of a mage/thief playstyle.
Hope this help’s you.

There’s always one of my Condition/Interrupt setups. What you’d want by level 80:

Full Rabid EQ (Runes of Perplexity on armour), 0/20/30/0/20 for Traits.
Major Traits to pick: Bountiful/Chaotic Interruption, Master of Misdirection, Illusionary Elasticity, Deceptive Evasion.
Weapons: Staff (Superior Torment), Scepter(Superior Earth)/Focus(Superior Hydromancy).
Heal: Mirror.
Utilities: Decoy, Mantra of Distraction, Arcane Thievery.
Elite: Mass Invis.

• The Immobilize from CI will keep fools locked down in general, you have multiple ways to proc it (Focus 4 (AoE), Staff 5 (AoE and random), Diversion Shatter, MoD.)
• Bountiful Interruption’s there mainly for more Might to boost your damage, but other Boons are always good to have.
• The Chill from Hydromancy will slow opponents down (and mess with their skill C/Ds if you’re fighting human opponents).
• You’ve got Torment access via Scepter 2 and the Sigil on Staff, to further control enemy movement.
• Confusion from Scepter 3 or all Shatters (mainly against humans, or fast-hitting mobs; you’ll also proc some via #4 and #6 of Perplexity).
• Random Bleed/Burn from Staff autoattacks. Random condis from Chaos Armor and Storm.
• More Bleed from illusions critting, or from 60% of Scepter crits.
• Mirror serves two purposes: Heal with a decent C/D, and on-demand Reflection.
• Decoy is for stunbreak/stealth, MI for stealth, and Arc. Thievery for the trollish fun of
  stealing enemy boons, while planting a few of your unwanted condis on them.

@shady: Yeah when I started my mesmer I almost did necro instead, but the way mesmer worked just seemed so cool. I have limited time for GW (girlfriend and work), so can’t start over. Plus, with illusions I feel like mesmer can do this play style. I appreciate the comments!

@advent: cool! I’ll try it out when I get there. I expect it’s going to be a long time b/c i have to get to 80 and THEN get level 80 gear/runs/sigils/accessories etc. I assume getting that stuff is a trophy/gold grind to buy or make? Right now I’m desperately trying to get to 60 before the patch so i have access to grandmaster at 60 instead of 80.

Are you excited about the “fix” to Illusionary Elasticity? I know I am. Think it’ll make condi more viable in PvE?

Condi is only “bad” for PvE if you’re talking dungeons and only because the meta is pretty much locked into melee power builds due to over-simplistic boss mechanics.

Some dungeons are more condi-friendly than others, AC in particular is not very condi-friendly because there is a lot of timed fights where burst is pretty much the only way to win.

Note that this goes only for explorable paths. Pretty much anyone can faceroll through story dungeons as long as they are lv 60-80 with decent gear (masterwork or better).

For open world events and random mobs, condi mesmer is also perfectly viable.

And yes, necro is a lot more like WoW’s warlock. Minions, lots of DoTs, good soft CC etc. Mesmer tends to be either super evasive ranged DoT or glassy melee burst. Illusions are not really pets, you have no control over them once they are summoned and they are tied to a single target.
Think of them as either charges that fuel your burst (F1-F4) or passive damage effects that can be countered (by destroying the illusion).
Balancing these two uses of illusions, knowing when to shatter and when to leave them to do their own thing is key to playing mesmer.

Well, sirrealist:

Exotic Weapons/Armor can be snagged from dungeon trinkets. TA’s got Rabid, iirc. Trinkets are bought with Karma from the Temple of Dwayna.
As for Elasticity … (begins drooling). Now, if we could just get ANet’s guys to fix the Condition stacking in PvE, things would get plenty bleeding fun. (C’mon, Dev-folks … IIRC, at least some of your original core folks came from kittening Blizzard. And those guys, as much as some of their game design is not-so-stellar, they were capable of handling DoT attacks. I expect nothing less from your guys, even if it would take time to fold, spindle, and outright mutilate the code for such a thing to happen. )

@OP: I totally know what you mean regarding old school lock in WoW, was very awesome back in the day.

I’ve got to say, in terms of stacking conditions the mesmer (imo) pales compared to a necro. Necros also have lots of nice aoe, including aoe fears, and if you want you can buff up fear duration etc.

Another thing, in terms of health regen like Siphon life/Soul link build back in TBC, necro beats mesmer hands down. They literally have aoe drain life, as well as a buff coming next week to where they can trait death shroud to regen health. Seriously in terms of kiting/doting large groups and regaining health to stay alive, necro rules on mesmer.

Someone above said it, and they are right: If you are looking for analogies the mesmer is totally the mage of this game, the necro is the lock when it comes to gameplay. However, the one way in which mesmer could be considered the lock of this game is that they are probably the most poorly understood and hated class 1v1, which reminds me of all the crying over locks being unkillable cc kittens that everyone cried about back in the day.

But really, you seriously should just roll necro. They have plenty of CC, including some CC from minions, tons more dot application than mesmer, and plenty of lock like health regen abilities that work while kiting around.

Not saying Necros are better than mesmers (for instance in small scale pvp they are def not), just in terms of the old school lock dot/kite play style, necro has it and mesmer doesn’t.

@advent: "Now, if we could just get ANet’s guys to fix the Condition stacking in PvE, things would get plenty bleeding fun. "
Can you please expand on your quote above? I started an entire thread asking about this, and even though over 150 people have viewed, no one has commented.

@everyone: I keep reading everywhere how necro is bad, no one wants a necro in their group, etc etc.. it is really all that bad? In many threads I have seen how people want warriors and guardians most, and then mesmers eles and thieves, and then no one wants hunter, engi or necro. I’ve literally seen so many times how people think necro is just so bad. I really only have time for one profession, and i don’t want to spend all my time on one that will turn out to be useless to others (it is a group game after all). I know any prof can be awesome in the right hands, but I’m never going to be a top-tier player.

The “top” classes in PvE are ones that have: high damage, aoe/cleave, and group support through buffing (usually might, aegis, fury, etc.)

Necro’s weapons (staff aside) do not really have any form of cleave. Staff itself doesn’t really cut it in PvE since its CDs are kind of long + low-ish damage on the autoattack. The other issue is that your utilities can be set up for damage (wells, power signet, Blood is Power for damage inc.) but most of those buffing utilities are selfish and only affect yourself.

In the end, something like a power-based dagger necro can pull off some great single-target DPS if built for it, but can’t increase the group’s overall DPS like a might-stacking elementalist or a meta warrior build could, nor could it cleave/aoe as well

Edit: reason why those classes you listed are good:
Warrior: good dmg and group buffs thru banners and traits, has good base health and cleave
Mesmer: decent dmg via phantasms, reflects and condi removal, time warp, stealth for skipping trash in dungeons
Ele: Fiery Greatsword and Ice Bow conjures can trivialize a lot of boss fights, good might stacking and aoe
Guard: reflects, aegis to block hard-hitting attacks, can stack might
Thief: high dmg on cleave, can switch to high dmg on single target, can restore entire party’s dodge meter instantly, projectile destroying screen, stealth for skipping, group might/fury

Well, sirrealist … the “problem” with Condition stacking is:
Conditions stack to a max of 25 stacks. Unfortunately, those stacks are overwritten by any other application of that Condition from another user. For example, all those Bleeds you just popped on someone? Some schlub sword-warrior just wrecked your whole stack, as soon as they proc even a single Bleed.
This is pure, unadulterated SUCK in its most base form.

I would just like to add that 48-80 will take you around 16 hours if you semi-push it in PvE exploring, doing events and killing things.

At level 80, different stat sets/sigils/runes vary a little due to popularity/usefulness however you can get a cheep “rare” set of gear for level 80, then spend the next 10-30 hours with the grind and you should have enough for a completely full set of gear including runes, sigils, trinkets, weapons, armour. (If you do your farming in dungeons then you should get plenty of tokens to buy gear pieces and save some time/money)

@Advent: Okay, so if I get 10 stacks of bleed on an enemy, and there is a warrior who is in my party (ally), and he hits the same enemy with a skill that applies 1 stack of bleed, then his bleed stack will overwrite mine? So the enemy will then have only 1 stack of whatever his bleed is? So if you have 2 or more allies who apply the same condition, they do NOT stack together? That’s in direct conflict with what’s said here (I think).

@all: I still don’t understand exactly how group stacking of boons/conditions works, and what this “huge flaw” is. If any of you can clearly explain it, could you hop over to my other thread and explain in detail? Pretty please?

@Natsu Dragneel: So I would buy the cheap rare set on the trade post, and then grind whatever dungeon gives the tokens to buy whatever set I want? Since I want to try and make a condi/chaos mesmer, I’ve been reading that rabid is the way to go. Guess I’ll be grinding Twilight Arbor. I haven’t done a dungeon in explore mode yet. For my very first dungeon experience, I did AC explore by accident and couldn’t get past the traps in the beginning.

Also, what is the quickest way to get from 48-80? I play with my gf so sometimes I’m just exploring and doing rando events, but if I wanted to grind it, what’s the most efficient way (with respect to time)? Dungeons? Any one in particular? Or these champion trains I keep hearing about?

Well, the fastest way to level would be to use tomes if you have them (1-80 in like less then a minute) and crafting (56 levels in roughly 5-7 hours, but 100-200g costly) so I couldn’t really recommend them =p

Really though, throughout levelling 7ish alts, I find that I can get around 2 levels an hour just doing whatever events I find, killing whatever I come across, and completing maps 100%, as for the champ trains.. while the one in queensdale can be 2-3 levels an hour, it just ends up promoting bad play and you don’t really lean anything from it, then again, if you train your way to 80, and save all of the champ bags they drop and open them all at 80, you might just have enough money to buy a full set of gear anyway.

But yes, pretty much that with the rare gear, and once you replace them with exotic pieces, just salvage the rare stuff with master/mystic kits and get your ecto’s and sell them for your money back. Most dungeons are pretty easy and a lot of groups are friendly and pretty much let anyone in, however just stay clear of any speed run/zerker groups if you want to run conditions, it wont end well for you there ^^

You can start TA with story mode at level 50, and explorable opens at 55, there are also many groups that run with lower-level characters, so you could do several paths of explore each day once you hit level 55, gain extra tokens and some extra money/levels. (Only do each path once per day, as you will only get the bonus rewards once per day)

For your current gear, just buy same-level ‘masterwork’ or green stuff with the stats you want, don’t worry too much about runes/sigils and get whatever minor/majors you want as they are dirt cheep until you hit 80.

Talking about conditions and boons, lets see..

There is a limit to how many of each condition that can be applied, and a limit to each boon as well. Conditions limit at 25, boons are usually around 5 applications.

To put it simply, if you put 25 bleeding stacks on something, with max condition damage, for 20 seconds and another person comes along with one attack and that puts on bleeding on for 5 seconds with no condition damage, your 25 bleeding stacks with more damage/duration will be overwritten by the ones with zero damage/duration, this happens 100% of the time and makes condition builds completely un-viable for any serious PvE content.

>25 bleeding 20 seconds
>someone applies 5 bleeding 5 seconds
>you now have 20 bleeding for 20 seconds, as some scrub took away 5 of your stacks
>same scrub applies another 10 for 5 seconds
>you now have 10 bleeding for 20 seconds, scrub has 15 for 5 seconds
>and so on, vice-versa as well, your stacks can/will overwrite other peoples ^^

The same thing happens with boons, lets say your group blasted might, you now have 25 stacks of might for 30+ seconds (which is very nice)

Then some kitten guardian with a staff uses empower (don’t use staff on guardian in dungeons/fractals, I will cry)

half of your stacks will now be for 10 seconds instead of 30, resulting in less might for less duration.

It doesn’t matter what your condition damage/duration/boonduration is, they will always be over-written by a new application.

P.S just look for groups that allow any levels/friendly and don’t really care what you use, sure your runs will take twice as long and you will die a lot, but at least you wont be kicked ^^

Cool, thanks for all the advice!

For the stacks, doesn’t it kinda wash out, since you’ll also be re-applying your own stacks? So their lesser ones will get overwritten by yours and vice versa? I know that’s way less optimal, but i don’t see why it makes condi un-viable for serious PvE. And if you’re doing serious PvE, wouldn’t it imply that your party-mates are knowledgeable and you could work out who’s doing what, and/or their stacks will also be strong, like yours?

I usually start a LFG and put right in the desc “beginner, all welcome”. That way, no one can be upset if I’m not min/maxed. I also put “first time” or “first run” if I plan on watching the cutscenes, so people know that might happen. That’s all good right? I want to play and have fun, but I also want to respect the fact that some people want to min/max or speed run. I figure if I’m upfront with what to expect, no one should get upset.

Its because direct damage > condition damage by a large margin,

Most classes already have secondary condition application with their meta power builds which will overwrite any condibuilds conditions, which limits their damage even more, and if you have even more then 1 condition build they loose something like 50% (speculation, I don’t have the math for this) of their damage over again, as most condition builds can hit caps themselves anymore and your damage jut disappears.

But yeah, something like “all welcome” generally means anybody using anything can come so just keep going with that, eventually down the line you may decide to change your playstyle to the meta builds, and if you do you will notice the difference, for example, 4 meta build players will generally end up carrying the last player if they are anything but meta, its just how this game is and how it was designed, it heavily favours direct damage and more damage, “Kill it before it kills you” is the rule of thumb for pretty much all encounters right now, the 15th patch should be interesting but I doubt It will change much.

sirrealist.1360:

Cool, thanks for all the advice!

For the stacks, doesn’t it kinda wash out, since you’ll also be re-applying your own stacks? So their lesser ones will get overwritten by yours and vice versa? I know that’s way less optimal, but i don’t see why it makes condi un-viable for serious PvE. And if you’re doing serious PvE, wouldn’t it imply that your party-mates are knowledgeable and you could work out who’s doing what, and/or their stacks will also be strong, like yours?

The root of the problem is that almost everyone applies damage conditions, whether they want to or not. It’s simply core to the game that there are very very few power build options that don’t slip in some condi damage here and there.
Minor traits are one of the biggest “sinners” because you can’t change them like majors.

A player focused on condi usually has the option to stack bleed as high as 15-25 over time. If this player is playing alone, that’s great. If he is playing with 4 other players, all of them power builds, their random condi applications will mess with his DPS and make it impossible for him to condi-burst.

To put it bluntly, condi builds are ruined by teaming up with people.

If you are looking for that kind of gameplay (disclaimer: probably not optimal, just trying to get warlock-like):
Weapons: Staff for its dots and kiting. Secondary would be scepter (wand), and focus (spellstone)/torch (torch fits condition/dots but is more popular as a PvP weapon though).
Trait: Staff-related (Chaos line) and maybe phantasm tankiness
Equipment: Carrion provides a large health pool and is more warlock-like than Rabid. Gives you decent sustained dps with staff as the power you get from Carrion makes your Phantasmal Warlocks (…) hit like trucks.

Wow, that really sucks. I assume Anet has made no announcement or in no way hinted that they’re going to somehow fix this problem… is that correct? At least they’re making re-traiting easier with the patch, so I guess I’ll just play condi when I’m playing open world by myself or casually in dungeons, and do power/shatter for more competitive/serious play. I assume power/shatter is what you “should” be running for serious PvE? I’m not really much for WvW or PvP (not yet anyway). I know there are a million builds out there, and many treads devoted to them. I’ve read so many that I sort of forget what’s what at this point. Can some of you suggest some builds for:

PvE serious dungeons
PvP
WvW zerg (that’s just running around with a random group right?)
WvW solo

Or maybe there’s a build that’s just good at all of these?

@Darnacus: I’ll most likely be playing the “Maniac Magician” build that’s described here

Something else just occurred to me: If condition-based builds are so “bad”, why is the Blackwater build so popular?

One (meta) is PvE and other (blackwater) is 1v1 PvP/WvW. Apples and oranges.

frifox.5283:

One (meta) is PvE and other (blackwater) is 1v1 PvP/WvW. Apples and oranges.

Right, I see. Thank you!

Because it is a stupid pain in the kitten to fight against in WvW, sometimes makes me wish I never posted the kitten thing, ahahahaha.

mesmer is more near frost mage (untouchable and unaproachable)
necro is very simmilar to warlock