Guild Wars 2

I built my mes basically to blackwater spec (swapped to perception/agony sigils though), and it seems like Osicat’s condition build is also similar (perplexity instead of centaur).

I haven’t had a chance to try it extensively yet, but so far I’ve had pretty poor luck so I assume I’m doing something wrong. Mainly I’m having trouble figuring out how to do damage. My initial theory was basically perma stealth and let the clones bleed them out, but it seems like the enemy’s hp bar barely dips, and then they just heal or run away.

Based on 1 or 2 videos of Osi playing his not-quite-blackwater build, it kind of looks to me like most of the damage comes from perfectly timing a torch re-appearance, torment block and shatter, which seems the opposite of the slow-attrition I was expecting from a toughness-condi build.

Also, staff seems less damaging than I’d expected for a ‘condi’ weapon – only 2/3 of the staff auto condis actually damage, and fury doesn’t really help with no direct damage. Similarly only 1/4 (!) of chaos storm’s conditions are damaging, with the rest of its DPS seeming to come from direct damage. So it almost seems to me like staff is stronger for a power build, which blows my mind. Am I missing something here as well?

If they run away, I would say you are doing something right.

Personally I find the Blackwater spec’s lacking too much dps.

I prefer a condi shatter build of 20/20/0/0/30 or 0/20/20/0/30 or 0/20/0/20/30

Lately I’ve been rolling scepter/focus Staff with full Carrion Runes of perplex armor & full Rabid Ascended Jewelry. This gives me a better mix of health and armor while still keeping my crit around 38%.

About the only thing I fear in this spec is a C&D thief with the condi removal trait who can still BS me for 7k. Not much you can do against that if they’re patient and understand how that tactic works. 1 condi removed at the start of stealth and 1 after 3 seconds. A patient thief can just wait out your dot’s.

That being said 0-20-20-0-30 with a mix of carrion and rabid is pretty solid spec. You get your burst condi from scepter and shatters. Interupts to proc perplexity runes with Focus and Chaos storm. You can keep a constant 4-12 stacks pretty easily.

You should have around 1800 condi with food and nourishment Those runes of perplexity and scepter go really well together. The channel will almost always proc the runes.

Just a quick question? Do you use clone-death traits to deal dmg?

Here’s how the build works: (quoted from Pyroatheist)

So, I’ll just put down a quick analysis of how the blackwater build functions, and how to beat it.

The build applies conditions from several sources, but the most potent of these sources are clone deaths and the scepter torment block. However, both of these work much better if your enemy actually attacks you. Clones can be force-exploded, but there’s no guarantee that they will be in range, and so a careful opponent can avoid the on-deaths if they avoid damaging the clones.

However, with the exception of phantasm mesmers (for the most part) in order to kill you, they will have to attack you. This means they can get hit with your conditions. If a super bursty thief jumps on you, you can hit them with the block, a couple clones, and stealth out. Same deal with a warrior or engie or w/e. If they are actually attacking you, you counter with conditions.

A phantasm mesmer beats the build because they never have to attack. They can simply summon phantasms and let those beat the crap out of you, and most of your offense is disabled due to their lack of direct offense.

Hybrid builds are weak against this build simply because they offer nothing in abundance. This build has strong condition cleansing, and that means the partial conditions applied by a hybrid build will not be too powerful, and this build also has extremely high armor/good protection uptime, and so the partially strong damage that the hybrid build applies will simply not cut it to kill this build.

That being said, well played (non-phantasm) mesmers can be a royal pita to take down with this build because it’s so incredibly hard to actually get the block torment onto the right target. You have to use the block with specific skills to get it to work. Good candidates are chaos storm, confusing images, obvious shatters, and greatsword autoattacks. Once you land the torment, fights generally get finished rapidly.

You mention how it takes a long time to ramp up damage. This is not necessarily the case. The damage ramps up however quickly you are able to start applying counters. Often I’ll dismantle people within the first 10 seconds of a fight because of how offensive they go. Torment block + several clone explosions + confusing images + chaos storm can often kill lower hp classes outright (I have 2000 condition damage when roaming).

So in more explanatory terms, the rapid damage ramp-up is achieved by chaining together multiple quick condition applications. Drop a phantasm, get burning from the prestige, proc the block on an attack, a couple of dodges + chaos storm + confusing images can all be accomplished within 3-4 seconds, and that applies a massive condition load.

The key about this damage is you can’t always launch it right away. Direct damage specs will be able to jump right into combat, but this build needs to counter. If you face a person that just jumps right onto you, then you can counter immediately, but against someone that goes a little slower, you have to match their pace. You get a little more setup, a little more posturing, but once they go in, your counter burst is what kills.

Blackwater can’t chase, so you’re going to run into the problem of people running away using that build.

I run a PU utilizing build, very different from Blackwater, no staff, but applies conditions in the same typical manner (clone death, scepter, torch). Have a watch for some ideas.

if u are going for condi in a zerg and wanna tag a lot. try glamour or triforce.

glamour(use perplexity and trait for focus reflect)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N736Yg57RcQ

triforce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPPotO067lo

Thanks for the tips guys!

Ross, is that full rabid gear? I’ve been experimenting with sword/torch myself to improve burstiness/chasing ability, and trying to figure out a balance between direct damage and conditions. I might try out scepter/focus instead of staff since that means I can probably swap out centaur runes for something more condition’y (+ gives a pulling tool).

Emissary.3792:

Thanks for the tips guys!

Ross, is that full rabid gear? I’ve been experimenting with sword/torch myself to improve burstiness/chasing ability, and trying to figure out a balance between direct damage and conditions. I might try out scepter/focus instead of staff since that means I can probably swap out centaur runes for something more condition’y (+ gives a pulling tool).

No its not full rabid.