Guild Wars 2

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7fnsICVohdoBGoBMrhlXDycFzYEnANA58IA-TByCABA8AAAU3AyXBgl3fwT1fSUJYWK/k4gAEA4AY3dT36GM+4jP+4j3u7u7u7ubpAgYZF-e

I melted through mobs in Silverwastes faster than I’ve ever done with the above build. Had a lot of fun as well. Might make a guide after I try a dungeon with it.

the build you linked doesn’t have any traits put in the inspiration line. and prismatic understanding’s been selected. something’s wrong with the link i guess or it’s just me?

Telekinesis.8312:

the build you linked doesn’t have any traits put in the inspiration line. and prismatic understanding’s been selected. something’s wrong with the link i guess or it’s just me?

Nope it’s not just you.

Are we being trolled?

Assuming not, some PVE suggestions:
You can pick up a fair chunk of extra damage by switching over to full Rabid, and the Dueling traitline instead of Inspiration (honestly not sure why you didn’t already?).

Krait runes will probably outperform Perplexity, as bleeds outperform confusion in PVE, and it’s easier to stack bleeds than confusion.
Undead runes will lose condition duration, but will get you a lot of condition damage. More testing is needed to decide which will outperform on a mesmer.

Torch is weaker than pistol, as the iDuelist unloads significant conditions while the iMage can only keep up a single stack of burning. Math says at this level of condi damage, 1 stack of burning is worth about 2.5-2.6 stacks of bleed, and the iDuelist averages 5 stacks per unload with Rabid gear. The AoE burn from the Prestige just doesn’t make up the difference, but Torch is really nice to have around in dungeons (just pop in the torch and switch to The Pledge when you’re gonna be skipping content, and go back to Compounding Power when you put the pistol back in).

What manipulation skills do you use that benefit from Master of Manipulation? All I see are slotted signets.

Chaotic Transference > Chaotic Dampening, especially since the nerf, and with dire or rabid gear.

You’ll get more mileage out of Mass Invisibility than Signet of Humility on most content, especially with Prismatic Understanding. The cc reduction is more niche, and the moa won’t benefit you much at all against mobs that you’re just going to kill in a few seconds anyway. MI might give you a reason to keep Master of Manipulation, but in practice the combo is a bit annoying, as the reflection from MM can pull you out of stealth.

Malicious Sorcery is broken, so all you get out of it right now is 20% cooldown reduction on scepter. Until that gets fixed, Ineptitude will probably outperform it, giving you confusion stacks on successful dodges, and on successful scepter2 blocks (or the blind for that matter, which gives you another source of aoe confusion).

If you do pick up Dueling (and you should), keep in mind that Duelist’s Discipline is currently broken, with the iDuelist not applying the extra bleed stacks. That makes Phantasmal Fury stronger in general. If you have Ineptitude, Blinding Dissipation will give you an extra confusion stack on shatter, which is probably better than Mirrored Evasion for most content. Jury’s out on whether Harmonious Mantras adds to condition damage, but it’s not like you have any mantras anyway. Between Mistrust and Deceptive Evasion, the build as presented will probably get more out of Deceptive Evasion.

Agony will probably outperform Malice in PVE because of how many more bleeds you can stack up, but that’s a personal thing imo, as confusion and torment are still a thing.

I prefer Sigil of Earth to Sigil of Doom for PVE, but that’s just a judgment call, and if you stay with Dire you probably would get more out of Doom.

As regards PVP:

Sigil of Malice is the correct choice over Agony.

Sigil of Doom makes more sense, as it gives you some more condition depth to deal with cleanses.

Unless you’re running with the zerg, I’ll be surprised if you can stack up enough Corruption to make it better than Bursting.

Dire gains a lot of mileage in PVP, but you do still lose a lot of dps vs Rabid.

Runes of Perplexity will indeed outperform Krait for PVP. You’d probably need to do some testing to see if that extends to Undead runes as well.

Lastly:
It looks a lot like you took a pvp build into pve. Is that what this is?

Telekinesis.8312:

the build you linked doesn’t have any traits put in the inspiration line. and prismatic understanding’s been selected. something’s wrong with the link i guess or it’s just me?

No, the link definitely did break, at least on Google Chrome. It was actually using Domination in the Center Slot with Confounding Suggestions, Blurred Inscriptions, and Mental Anguish

AlphatheWhite.9351:

-Snip-

This was a really popular PvP Build a year or so ago, I think it was called Clone Factory. Focused on Stacking up as much confusion and having enough illusions to take full advantage of each shatter when ever needed, depended a lot on misdirecting the foe and letting Illusions tank damage from foes. Works surprisingly well in PvE after the Conditions buff I’ve found.
The link was a copy of my build when I last played it, which was Sunday night. I noticed though, that it wasn’t Confusion, burning, bleeding, or poison doing the majority of the damage — it was Torment.

I went through your suggestions and posted my thoughts in Italics. It’ll be in the next post.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Are we being trolled?
Assuming not, some PVE suggestions:
You can pick up a fair chunk of extra damage by switching over to full Rabid, and the Dueling traitline instead of Inspiration (honestly not sure why you didn’t already?).

There’s no condition stacking that deals damage, and is triggered by a Critical hit in the build, so Precision is not needed and detracts from the Sustainability. Also, the Build Link was wrong sadly, it was Domination rather than Inspiration, which would make Sinister a better choice, which is not an option for me currently (I really hate Silverwastes and those kitten Crests).

Krait runes will probably outperform Perplexity, as bleeds outperform confusion in PVE, and it’s easier to stack bleeds than confusion.
Undead runes will lose condition duration, but will get you a lot of condition damage. More testing is needed to decide which will outperform on a mesmer.

Undead Runes were what I had originally in PvE before I went and threw myself into WvW. Krait would out perform perplexity if the build had any substantial source of Bleed in it. Winds of Chaos isn’t exactly spammed, and its simply a chance to get bleeding out of it. Confusion is far more wide spread so its duration length is far more valuable than Bleeding as it still ticks for damage at a few points of damage south of Bleeding in this build If I were to depend upon Winds of Chaos, I would be far better off going with Burning and Balthezar Runes than Krait Runes as there’s more sources for it..

Torch is weaker than pistol, as the iDuelist unloads significant conditions while the iMage can only keep up a single stack of burning. Math says at this level of condi damage, 1 stack of burning is worth about 2.5-2.6 stacks of bleed, and the iDuelist averages 5 stacks per unload with Rabid gear. The AoE burn from the Prestige just doesn’t make up the difference, but Torch is really nice to have around in dungeons (just pop in the torch and switch to The Pledge when you’re gonna be skipping content, and go back to Compounding Power when you put the pistol back in).

Torch is, but Torch doesn’t require a Field to unload conditions like the Pistol does. Unlike the Duelist, the Mage is fodder for Shatters, where if you’re going Pistol, once you drop the Duelist, you’re losing damage by shattering. I’m not sure if you noticed but there’s a Conditions sitting in the F1-F4 bar. Not to mention the Torch gives us
What manipulation skills do you use that benefit from Master of Manipulation? All I see are slotted signets.

Another instance of the Link being borked. The slotted Trait was Illusionary Defense. Domination is why we have Signets.

Chaotic Transference > Chaotic Dampening, especially since the nerf, and with dire or rabid gear.

That one was up in the air and I didn’t notice it working while testing it. Really just needs to be a 20% stock reduction.

You’ll get more mileage out of Mass Invisibility than Signet of Humility on most content, especially with Prismatic Understanding. The cc reduction is more niche, and the moa won’t benefit you much at all against mobs that you’re just going to kill in a few seconds anyway. MI might give you a reason to keep Master of Manipulation, but in practice the combo is a bit annoying, as the reflection from MM can pull you out of stealth.

Like any good Mesmer in group content, your Elite is a Group Utility, not a personal one, which means you’ll take MI or kitten their pleasure. SoH is for solo roaming at the moment, which is useful for shutting down Elites and Vets while you wipe up the Adds.

Malicious Sorcery is broken, so all you get out of it right now is 20% cooldown reduction on scepter. Until that gets fixed, Ineptitude will probably outperform it, giving you confusion stacks on successful dodges, and on successful scepter2 blocks (or the blind for that matter, which gives you another source of aoe confusion).

I agree, wasn’t aware the Attack Speed wasn’t working.

Dueling Section. (Snipped for Character limit)

The Build did used to go into Dueling for Deceptive Evasion, DE is especially nice now that it doesn’t have an Internal CD, but I think I’ll get more mileage out of Domination, aside from Blink, Mass Invis and Mirror, the other options for Manipulations are entirely situational. Desperate Decory is actually the Pick for me here, since literally every Illusion made is fodder for attacks or for Shatters, and the Stealth with give us Boons, and if we had our S/T out, CDR, I’d agree on Pistols and Duelist’s Disc if we have more than 2 Interrupts available, which makes the second half of that skill a little lack luster. I agree about Blinding Dissipation, it just adds more confusion to our Shatters.

There are a lot of problems with this build.

Firstly, your trait choices in domination add absolutely nothing to a condition build. There aren’t a lot of good choices, but you’ve picked some of the worst ones.

Additionally, you’ve completely disregarded what the original build did. The original clone spamming build relied on clone-death traits to spread aoe conditions. It didn’t rely on shatters or even confusion much at all. Since clone-death traits were removed from the game, the basic premise of that build has completely vanished.

Now, specifically:

This build applies torment from the scepter block (5 stacks, single target, required you to be hit), scepter/scepter clone autos (4ish stacks single target if you do nothing but spam autos), and maim (1 stack per clone shattered, aoe. Since you don’t have DE, you have roughly zero potential of doing more than 2 full shatters in a row, and even that will be quite difficult. The absolute maximum torment stacks you’ll have aoe is 8, and single target you could potentially spike up to 17 or so for a short period of time.

You can apply a little poison from chaos storm and doom sigils. It’s honestly not enough dps to even worry about, single-stack poison application is mostly a PvP thing.

You can apply confusion from shatters, scepter 3, and ineptitude. Mesmer confusion is brutally low duration though, so you’ll rarely have more than 3-5 stacks on a target, with maybe up to 15-16 for a second or two after a burst.

You can apply a tiny bit of burning from torch skills, but it’s only one stack and has a long cooldown. You can apply some burning/bleeding from staff autos, but doing so will lower your torment application.

So overall, on a single target you’ll be able to maintain maybe 12 torment average (that’s super generous), 6 confusion, and a stack of burning. This is undeniably awful. A zerker build can do dps that would blow this out of the water, but lets just stick to conditions for now.

A staff bleed build in rabid gear with krait runes will stack 30+ bleeds, a significant amount of vuln, and average about 3 stacks of burning. This is monstrously higher than what your build is capable of even in absolutely perfect conditions.

For aoe, a rabid build can use an offhand focus to stack 10+ bleeds from a single warden in aoe. Staff autos will further supplement that for significant more bleeding and burning pressure. Your aoe presence is limited to 8 stacks of torment, a stack of burning (every 30s), and a bit of confusion at best, and a single warden will out-dps that easily.

Condition builds are worse than zerker builds atm, but some condition builds are far better than others. This is not a good build.

Look at what kicking the Hornet’s Nest got me. Actual constructive advice sprinkled in among the insults and aggressiveness.

Its just like every where you go on the internet, show a little stupidity and people can’t post fast enough to tell you how wrong you are and what the real way to do things are.

Feeling good about it? It took the prospect of flexing your kitten to even motivate you to post.

Here, I’ll show you what I had before I sprinkled the dumb on.

I knew that I preferred using the Staff and Scepter over what many of the builds were calling for in the way of Sword and Focus and Greatsword. I used Staff and Scepter to level up, and those two weapons got me through things Sword and GS couldn’t.

I knew that with the 23rd Patch Release, that Conditions were going to be viable in some degree.

I knew from previous play with Conditions that Duration was equally as important as Damage when it came to Intensity Stacking like Bleeding, Torment, and Confusion.

I scoured the forums looking for discussions on this and got squat. Posts asking for help get ignored, posts that posit something incorrect get vehemently assaulted for the mistake before being given the correct information.

You can see above what got you on the hook. ‘Dude things are dying so fast in Silverwastes its gotta be this build and not at all the Zerg.’ That claim should have told you it was a trap.

Alpha you were right, it was a troll — a very sad one indeed.

So, here’s what I’ve learned:

Malicious Sorcery is broken, which makes Scepter only useful for Clone spam.

Chaotic Dampening was at one time a superior choice, a hot-fix nerfed it.

Prismatic Understanding is near worthless without Torch unless a thief is present.

Torment and confuse did perform exceptionally well. On enemies in Silverwastes, who move a great deal, and use skills far more often than the current content. The Dire Gear allowed me and a friend to take down Champions in under a minute without getting downed, and we were able to clear every Veteren on the map with little trouble.

My friend was using a Rampager’s Set on a Scepter/Dagger Necro.

And now my build looks more like this.

Myxam.2790:

Look at what kicking the Hornet’s Nest got me. Actual constructive advice sprinkled in among the insults and aggressiveness.

Its just like every where you go on the internet, show a little stupidity and people can’t post fast enough to tell you how wrong you are and what the real way to do things are.

Feeling good about it? It took the prospect of flexing your kitten to even motivate you to post.

Here, I’ll show you what I had before I sprinkled the dumb on.

I knew that I preferred using the Staff and Scepter over what many of the builds were calling for in the way of Sword and Focus and Greatsword. I used Staff and Scepter to level up, and those two weapons got me through things Sword and GS couldn’t.

I knew that with the 23rd Patch Release, that Conditions were going to be viable in some degree.

I knew from previous play with Conditions that Duration was equally as important as Damage when it came to Intensity Stacking like Bleeding, Torment, and Confusion.

I scoured the forums looking for discussions on this and got squat. Posts asking for help get ignored, posts that posit something incorrect get vehemently assaulted for the mistake before being given the correct information.

You can see above what got you on the hook. ‘Dude things are dying so fast in Silverwastes its gotta be this build and not at all the Zerg.’ That claim should have told you it was a trap.

Alpha you were right, it was a troll — a very sad one indeed.

So, here’s what I’ve learned:

Malicious Sorcery is broken, which makes Scepter only useful for Clone spam.

Chaotic Dampening was at one time a superior choice, a hot-fix nerfed it.

Prismatic Understanding is near worthless without Torch unless a thief is present.

Torment and confuse did perform exceptionally well. On enemies in Silverwastes, who move a great deal, and use skills far more often than the current content. The Dire Gear allowed me and a friend to take down Champions in under a minute without getting downed, and we were able to clear every Veteren on the map with little trouble.

My friend was using a Rampager’s Set on a Scepter/Dagger Necro.

And now my build looks more like this.

You’ll want to use compounding power instead of persistence of memory. You’re really not going to be shattering much. Even on silverwastes mobs, bleeding is going to do far more damage than torment, especially since maim has been so heavily nerfed.

You’ll want to use a normal tuning crystal instead of the duration one. Between krait runes, 40% food, and the signet, you’re at 105% bleed duration (overcapped), so more isn’t efficient.

I’d take CI over BD, particularly for silverwastes. Menders are highly interruptable, and one type of teragriff is also interruptable with cripple, and that’ll get you a lot of might stacks for more damage.

Fay.2357:

You’ll want to use compounding power instead of persistence of memory. You’re really not going to be shattering much. Even on silverwastes mobs, bleeding is going to do far more damage than torment, especially since maim has been so heavily nerfed.

You’ll want to use a normal tuning crystal instead of the duration one. Between krait runes, 40% food, and the signet, you’re at 105% bleed duration (overcapped), so more isn’t efficient.

I’d take CI over BD, particularly for silverwastes. Menders are highly interruptable, and one type of teragriff is also interruptable with cripple, and that’ll get you a lot of might stacks for more damage.

The Signet is completely unnecessary if you carry a Sigil of Agony though, which opens its slot up for Blink.

However,

If Signet is carried, you can take Undead Runes rather than Krait. That’ll leave you at 80% Duration for bleeds, 60% for everything else, and 2000 Condi Damage before Stacking Might or Corruption.

In dungeons though, I think I’ll still take BD for its Stability and Boon Spread.

I’m still hung up on Manipulations though, unless you’re planning to be the last man standing, Blink is the only universally useful one with the current setup.

I think Signets are going to be the better approach. Midnight’s short CD makes it compete with Blink, and its passive is too valuable to a Condition build. Illusions is just wonderful and Inspiration give us movement speed which is just a nice quality to have.

Humility I think does have a place in PVE, especially in boss fights with adds that have to be killed, it’d be extremely useful if its passive included Immobilizes but what can you do.

Myxam.2790:

Fay.2357:

You’ll want to use compounding power instead of persistence of memory. You’re really not going to be shattering much. Even on silverwastes mobs, bleeding is going to do far more damage than torment, especially since maim has been so heavily nerfed.

You’ll want to use a normal tuning crystal instead of the duration one. Between krait runes, 40% food, and the signet, you’re at 105% bleed duration (overcapped), so more isn’t efficient.

I’d take CI over BD, particularly for silverwastes. Menders are highly interruptable, and one type of teragriff is also interruptable with cripple, and that’ll get you a lot of might stacks for more damage.

The Signet is completely unnecessary if you carry a Sigil of Agony though, which opens its slot up for Blink.

However,

If Signet is carried, you can take Undead Runes rather than Krait. That’ll leave you at 80% Duration for bleeds, 60% for everything else, and 2000 Condi Damage before Stacking Might or Corruption.

In dungeons though, I think I’ll still take BD for its Stability and Boon Spread.

I’m still hung up on Manipulations though, unless you’re planning to be the last man standing, Blink is the only universally useful one with the current setup.

I think Signets are going to be the better approach. Midnight’s short CD makes it compete with Blink, and its passive is too valuable to a Condition build. Illusions is just wonderful and Inspiration give us movement speed which is just a nice quality to have.

Humility I think does have a place in PVE, especially in boss fights with adds that have to be killed, it’d be extremely useful if its passive included Immobilizes but what can you do.

You’re doing PvE, you don’t need blink, and you don’t need to worry about traiting your signets or manipulations really. Just take the duration signet and the condie damage signet, and then swap your third util based on the situation. If silverwastes, probably cleanse mantra. If dungeons, maybe feedback or cleanse mantra or decoy or w/e.

Sigil of agony means you won’t be using either bursting (% condition damage) or earth (bleed on crit), and that’ll lower your damage as well. It’s best to try and hit max duration without removing possible ways of applying conditions.

I thought it might be a troll because the build looked so much like a pvp build, and pvp players are too serious to be that sloppy :P

As far as giving help, I’ve found that there’s just wayy to much blind following that goes on. If it’s not meta, it gets denigrated, as though it’s impossible to have fun on a build that’s adequate, but not optimal. But they’re in for a shock there, because the patch just made all sorts of things adequate, and optimal is currently overkill. The zerk meta with Time Warp and a good group got you a 15 second Lupi kill before the patch. 15 seconds.
I realize that some people are just so goal-focused that they won’t allow you to think about playing builds that you actually have to think about Lupi’s stages, or actually enjoy the scenery in dungeons, but let’s all be honest here: it’s not necessary. I’ve done a number of 20 minute arah runs since the patch, all with non-meta builds, and I’m perfectly happy with that speed.
The fact is that condie mesmer is fun and viable in pve at present, in spite of the naysayers who just want everyone playing meta, and will insult and denigrate as much as they can to convince peeps to fall in line.

Regarding your previous build, and the points you made about it:
It actually looks a lot like my version that super-confusion build that got thrown up, that was one-shotting mender groups.
I tested it for a round in the Silverwastes (with some changes to try to smooth out the performance), and found it incredibly uneven because of the dependency on interrupts. Nevertheless, the damage was occasionally competitive. In the end, Fay’s assessment of the damage potential is exactly right. Even against Silverwastes mobs, with higher movement and skill usage, I just wasn’t getting enough stacks of confusion/torment to outweigh 25+ stacks of bleeds (though Fay discounted the fact that you can also maintain some confusion and torment alongside those bleeds, with the right timing).
It was really fun to one-shot menders, though. And spotting a 15k confusion tick in my combat log just had me in stitches laughing.

A note about my build
Here’s what I have on the character at this moment, so you can see the direction I’m coming from on my suggestions.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhEQNAW7ansICVohNoBOqBcrhFcDycBxOCoBpJ7oMAr+XA-TxSAABYoEUhDCgQq/QxTAAblCFu/gAm8mR3AAXAAxUGElSuAAHAcdgQAKWDA-e
I plan to swap those traveler’s runes out for Undead or Krait at some point, haven’t gotten to it. He’s next on my docket for Ascended gear, so I might wait until I do that to clean things up and pick up the new runes. I’m not hard-committed to the Sigils of Earth, but in practice the bleed stacks they give are noticeable. I might swap the one on the scepter to Malice, as the torment/confusion is more important than stacking more bleeds while I’m on scepter.
Even as it is though, I solo any of the surface Silverwastes champs handily (especially the champ husk, since no one else ever bothers to kill him after Vinewrath), and I hunt veterans for larks (and crests).
I’ve never had the opportunity to try soloing a breach champ, I suspect I’d run out of time.

Regarding your updated build
Duelist’s Discipline is bugged too, I’m afraid. It doesn’t apply bleeds on the iDuelist’s attacks. So unless you’re really good with interrupts, I don’t think you’ll get enough mileage out of it to outweigh Phantasmal Fury.

I disagree a bit on PU, but that’s mostly just a preference. I find that the extra stealth duration is enormously useful in dungeons, even without a torch. The boons are a nice side benefit.
I agree with you that there’s use for the Signet of Humility, but my experience has generally been that outside specific content, the passive just doesn’t make enough of a change.

I agree with Fay about Compounding Power over Persistence of Memory, and his point about utilities. For generic pve content, even most dungeons, I’ve found that the passives from the Signets of Midnight and Domination just outweigh, since I don’t need blink or reflects much, and I generally know when I will. If I’m facing projectile-heavy content though, I do make some hotswaps, like Blinding Dissipation to Mirrored Evasion, and sometimes Master of Manipulation, and obviously slotting Feedback when relevant. Hardly unusual for Mesmers obviously, even with condi I’ll still sometimes swap Illusions for Inspiration for focus reflects.

Other than that, I think your updated build looks very good.
A lot of people have expressed disbelief when I tell them that I do strong damage on this character in all the PVE content I’ve played, but I do.
No, it’s not the optimum, but again, optimal builds are kind of overkill right now anyway. Unless you’re really serious about your speed runs.

poor guy, i’m pretty sure he linked the wrong url. but since he mentioned silverwastes and dungeons, pretty sure he’s expecting a pve, though a pvp perspective doesn’t hurt either :-)

Was testing around in Dungeons tonight and I was able to hit 45 Stacks of bleed on a boss in Honor of the Waves, along with 18 stacks of Burning, 10 Stacks of Confusion, 16 stacks of Vulnerability, and 15 stacks of Might.

I go upto 15+ torment stacks and 20-25 confusion stacks quickly with a few bleed and poison and burning. but i cant maintain it, that’s where the damage falls in condition builds atm.
Also how did u get upto 18 stacks of burning? at the sametime as 45 stacks of bleed? and 16 stacks of vulnerability on your own? those stacks of burning aren’t your stacks for sure nor are the vulnerability stacks

Myxam.2790:

along with 18 stacks of Burning

No you didn’t.

If I had to guess, you were in a party, and those were the total stacks on the boss. You didn’t apply all those conditions.

Fay.2357:

Myxam.2790:

along with 18 stacks of Burning

No you didn’t.

If I had to guess, you were in a party, and those were the total stacks on the boss. You didn’t apply all those conditions.

I was in a party with 3 Sword Pistol Thieves and a Triple Chop Warrior. Pretty sure I’m the only one who was carrying burning in the party. I don’t know where all burning came from.

It was a little ludicrous but I’m gonna test the clones tonight, see if their Winds of Chaos are applying Conditions as well.

I’d love to see a screenshot of said “18 stacks of burning”.

frifox.5283:

I’d love to see a screenshot of said “18 stacks of burning”.

I’ll see if I can get it to happen again. I know I had 1 iDuelist up, and 2 Staff Clones all in Time Warp on Fimbal, and he was leaving me alone so I could just sit and spam at range at.

Staff clones apply an expected .33 stacks of burning per hit. At best, with each staff attack bouncing out to an ally and back to the boss every time, they’ll give .66 stacks of burning per hit.
With you and 2 clones on target, that’s 3*.66=2 stacks of burning on target every attack.
At 1.32 attack speed, that’s 1.52 stacks of burning applied each second.
The base duration of said stacks is 1s. With no condition duration, you can only keep up an expected 1.52 stacks of burning. If you have condition duration, you will keep up a little more, but not much, and it is technically impossible to get more than double that (since condition duration caps at 100%) on average.

Since that’s just playing probabilities, what if you magically hit burning every single time a clone attacked?
You would get 6 stacks of burning every 1.32 seconds, or kitten stacks every second (okay, kitten = Four point Five Five. Wth, Anet?).
At 1s duration, that’s the most stacks you could have at a time.
Suppose then, that you have 100% condition duration.
That’s 2s duration. At most, that would get you 12 stacks of burning at a time. That is the theoretical maximum from 2 staff clones and yourself. You’ll never hit that, of course, because the chance of proccing burning on hit is only 33%, not 100%.

In short, there has to be another source of burning, and Mesmer just doesn’t have it.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Staff clones apply an expected .33 stacks of burning per hit. At best, with each staff attack bouncing out to an ally and back to the boss every time, they’ll give .66 stacks of burning per hit.
With you and 2 clones on target, that’s 3*.66=2 stacks of burning on target every attack.
At 1.32 attack speed, that’s 1.52 stacks of burning applied each second.
The base duration of said stacks is 1s. With no condition duration, you can only keep up an expected 1.52 stacks of burning. If you have condition duration, you will keep up a little more, but not much, and it is technically impossible to get more than double that (since condition duration caps at 100%) on average.

Since that’s just playing probabilities, what if you magically hit burning every single time a clone attacked?
You would get 6 stacks of burning every 1.32 seconds, or kitten stacks every second (okay, kitten = Four point Five Five. Wth, Anet?).
At 1s duration, that’s the most stacks you could have at a time.
Suppose then, that you have 100% condition duration.
That’s 2s duration. At most, that would get you 12 stacks of burning at a time. That is the theoretical maximum from 2 staff clones and yourself. You’ll never hit that, of course, because the chance of proccing burning on hit is only 33%, not 100%.

In short, there has to be another source of burning, and Mesmer just doesn’t have it.

You did leave out Quickness, which I did have at the time. At 50% Attack Speed for myself and my clones — that would give a theoretical maximum of 18 stacks of burning. But that would neuter my stacks from bleed and vuln.

The warrior however, if she was using the Axe-Mace meta build, would have Bleeding and Vuln as well when she Critically hit. I don’t know what build the Thieves were running but they have gotten staves from stealing which could have contributed to the stacks.

I also said I hit not that I maintained that 18 stacks, 45 bleeding, and vuln.

Thieves bleed. Everything bleeds, really :P

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Thieves bleed. Everything bleeds, really :P

Sword Pistol Thieves don’t do so much bleeding

AlphatheWhite.9351:

At 1.32 attack speed, that’s 1.52 stacks of burning applied each second.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

what if you magically hit burning every single time a clone attacked?
You would get 6 stacks of burning every 1.32 seconds, or kitten stacks every second

That’s the attack rate for mesmer. Clones attack much slower.

Also — we left out Chaotic Persistance, which gives me 3% Condition and Boon Duration for every Boon I have. With Might, Fury, Swiftness, A random Boon from Sig of Inspire, and Vigor from Crits, which I can give myself at all times, I have an additional 15% Cond duration at all times. With that, I could trade out Krait Runes, for Lich Runes, and take the Toxic Crystal — giving up 50 points of Cond damage for 100% Cond Duration across the board. Or, take Nightmare Runes and the Toxic Crystal for the same results with a few points of Cond Damage lost.

Just to do a reality check on the ‘all hits apply burn’ situation.

18 stacks of burn would be from 100% duration on burning and 100% of attacks for 18 hits apply burning.

The chance of any given hit applying burning is .33. This means that the chance of applying all burning on x hits is .33^X.

18 hits. .33^18 = 2.1540258843927e-9

You have a 2.154 × 10^-7% chance of applying 18 stacks of burning.

I hereby call shenanigans.

Fay.2357:

Just to do a reality check on the ‘all hits apply burn’ situation.

18 stacks of burn would be from 100% duration on burning and 100% of attacks for 18 hits apply burning.

The chance of any given hit applying burning is .33. This means that the chance of applying all burning on x hits is .33^X.

18 hits. .33^18 = 2.1540258843927e-9

You have a 2.154 × 10^-7% chance of applying 18 stacks of burning.

I hereby call shenanigans.

Isn’t that the likelihood of winning the lottery?

All joking aside — I’m just reporting what I saw. My iDuelist might have faded out and been replaced with another clone, I’m not certain.

Its just what I saw, and I’ll try and recreate it. Tonight, when I get home in 7 hours.

My guess as to what happened is you actually had either 3, 6, or 8 stacks of burning, play on potato resolution, and misread it as 18.

Fay.2357:

My guess as to what happened is you actually had either 3, 6, or 8 stacks of burning, play on potato resolution, and misread it as 18.

I play at Max Settings and 1080p Resolution thank you very much.

20% (signet of midnight), 15% (chaotic persistance considering you have 5 boons active), 40% food, 10% utility gets you to 85% burning duration.
considering 100% burning duration, winds of chaos applies 2 seconds of burning.
supposing you have 3 staff clones active in timewarp, it’s 0.93 seconds per attack with quickness. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat
lemme know if i’m wrong on this calculation of timewarp attack speed and ignore everything below if i am.
Your attack speed under timewarp is once every 0.99 seconds.

4 guys using winds of chaos 10 times in 9.9 seconds, lets say all your winds of chaos hits apply burning where each stack of burning lasts for 2 seconds. In a 2 seconds window, you and your illusions hit 3 times at 0, 0.99, 1.98 which gets up to 12 stacks of burning
now lets take the bounces into equation, lets assume the bounces aren’t bouncing between your teammates, but rather bouncing off to the target every single time and applying burning 100% of the time again gets you to 24 stacks of burning in a 2 second window under timewarp.

I’v taken every favourable option that a mesmer has to get the highest stacks of burning possible considering the attack speed calculation under timewarp is right.

Now, burning has a 33% chance on proc both the times, lets make it a 66% chance which gets us to 16 stacks of burning.

Myxam.2790:

Fay.2357:

My guess as to what happened is you actually had either 3, 6, or 8 stacks of burning, play on potato resolution, and misread it as 18.

I play at Max Settings and 1080p Resolution thank you very much.

Let me rephrase then. You had 3, 6, or 8 stacks of burning, weren’t paying close enough attention, and misread it as 18.

Fay.2357:

Myxam.2790:

Fay.2357:

My guess as to what happened is you actually had either 3, 6, or 8 stacks of burning, play on potato resolution, and misread it as 18.

I play at Max Settings and 1080p Resolution thank you very much.

Let me rephrase then. You had 3, 6, or 8 stacks of burning, weren’t paying close enough attention, and misread it as 18.

Let me phrase it in a way you can understand.

I had 18 stacks of Burning, for a split second. If you keep insulting me, my property, and my ability to pay attention to things I’m staring directly at, I’m going to send a message to the Community Manager just for you.

Myxam.2790:

Fay.2357:

Myxam.2790:

Fay.2357:

My guess as to what happened is you actually had either 3, 6, or 8 stacks of burning, play on potato resolution, and misread it as 18.

I play at Max Settings and 1080p Resolution thank you very much.

Let me rephrase then. You had 3, 6, or 8 stacks of burning, weren’t paying close enough attention, and misread it as 18.

Let me phrase it in a way you can understand.

I had 18 stacks of Burning, for a split second. If you keep insulting me, my property, and my ability to pay attention to things I’m staring directly at, I’m going to send a message to the Community Manager just for you.

Lol.

Hardly an insult. I’m providing a rather reasonable explanation for how you came up with 18 stacks of burning. It should be abundantly clear from all the math floating around at this point that you didn’t actually get 18 stacks. The most favorable explanations are resulting in barely 18 stacks, with a probability of that happening so low that in order to have a 90% chance of success, you’d have to attempt that feat 1 trillion times.

Obviously, you didn’t actually get 18 stacks. The simplest alternative explanation is that you just misread the number. Condition stacks fluctuate rapidly and are denoted by small white numbers in the corner of a box. They’re easy to misread if you’re not paying close attention.

You’re welcome to propose alternative explanations for your reported 18 stacks of burning if you’d like, I simply stated the one I felt was most likely.

Telekinesis.8312:

20% (signet of midnight), 15% (chaotic persistance considering you have 5 boons active), 40% food, 10% utility gets you to 85% burning duration.
considering 100% burning duration, winds of chaos applies 2 seconds of burning.
supposing you have 3 staff clones active in timewarp, it’s 0.93 seconds per attack with quickness. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat
lemme know if i’m wrong on this calculation of timewarp attack speed and ignore everything below if i am.
Your attack speed under timewarp is once every 0.99 seconds.

4 guys using winds of chaos 10 times in 9.9 seconds, lets say all your winds of chaos hits apply burning where each stack of burning lasts for 2 seconds. In a 2 seconds window, you and your illusions hit 3 times at 0, 0.99, 1.98 which gets up to 12 stacks of burning
now lets take the bounces into equation, lets assume the bounces aren’t bouncing between your teammates, but rather bouncing off to the target every single time and applying burning 100% of the time again gets you to 24 stacks of burning in a 2 second window under timewarp.

I’v taken every favourable option that a mesmer has to get the highest stacks of burning possible considering the attack speed calculation under timewarp is right.

Now, burning has a 33% chance on proc both the times, lets make it a 66% chance which gets us to 16 stacks of burning.

Above, someone stated the Staff attack time for the Player is 1.32 without Quickness, wouldn’t that make the attack speed under quickness .76 seconds?

I think winds of chaos attackspeed has been improved? anyone’s noticed? i dont think it seems to be 1.32 seconds anymore

Myxam.2790:

Telekinesis.8312:

20% (signet of midnight), 15% (chaotic persistance considering you have 5 boons active), 40% food, 10% utility gets you to 85% burning duration.
considering 100% burning duration, winds of chaos applies 2 seconds of burning.
supposing you have 3 staff clones active in timewarp, it’s 0.93 seconds per attack with quickness. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat
lemme know if i’m wrong on this calculation of timewarp attack speed and ignore everything below if i am.
Your attack speed under timewarp is once every 0.99 seconds.

4 guys using winds of chaos 10 times in 9.9 seconds, lets say all your winds of chaos hits apply burning where each stack of burning lasts for 2 seconds. In a 2 seconds window, you and your illusions hit 3 times at 0, 0.99, 1.98 which gets up to 12 stacks of burning
now lets take the bounces into equation, lets assume the bounces aren’t bouncing between your teammates, but rather bouncing off to the target every single time and applying burning 100% of the time again gets you to 24 stacks of burning in a 2 second window under timewarp.

I’v taken every favourable option that a mesmer has to get the highest stacks of burning possible considering the attack speed calculation under timewarp is right.

Now, burning has a 33% chance on proc both the times, lets make it a 66% chance which gets us to 16 stacks of burning.

Above, someone stated the Staff attack time for the Player is 1.32 without Quickness, wouldn’t that make the attack speed under quickness .76 seconds?

0.66 you mean? i think 0.66 is the old quickness buff with 100% speed, it’s only 50% now.. if by that means.. with the old quickness we’d have no attackspeed on winds of chaos and it would become instant which wasn’t the case :-)

but one thing is for sure, i just noticed on my staff auto attacks, it’s doesn’t seem to be 1.32 seconds anymore, it’s faster, while the clone remains the same. but even if that’s the case, your character might give in 4 attacks in 2 seconds.. gets the number to 26 from 24 which is still not consequential. so imo those burn stacks have been probably applied by someone else.. even if it’s only around 3 stacks of burning considering your heavily favoured in the math, you probably would get to 15-17

Telekinesis.8312:

Myxam.2790:

Telekinesis.8312:

20% (signet of midnight), 15% (chaotic persistance considering you have 5 boons active), 40% food, 10% utility gets you to 85% burning duration.
considering 100% burning duration, winds of chaos applies 2 seconds of burning.
supposing you have 3 staff clones active in timewarp, it’s 0.93 seconds per attack with quickness. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat
lemme know if i’m wrong on this calculation of timewarp attack speed and ignore everything below if i am.
Your attack speed under timewarp is once every 0.99 seconds.

4 guys using winds of chaos 10 times in 9.9 seconds, lets say all your winds of chaos hits apply burning where each stack of burning lasts for 2 seconds. In a 2 seconds window, you and your illusions hit 3 times at 0, 0.99, 1.98 which gets up to 12 stacks of burning
now lets take the bounces into equation, lets assume the bounces aren’t bouncing between your teammates, but rather bouncing off to the target every single time and applying burning 100% of the time again gets you to 24 stacks of burning in a 2 second window under timewarp.

I’v taken every favourable option that a mesmer has to get the highest stacks of burning possible considering the attack speed calculation under timewarp is right.

Now, burning has a 33% chance on proc both the times, lets make it a 66% chance which gets us to 16 stacks of burning.

Above, someone stated the Staff attack time for the Player is 1.32 without Quickness, wouldn’t that make the attack speed under quickness .76 seconds?

0.66 you mean? i think 0.66 is the old quickness buff with 100% speed, it’s only 50% now.. if by that means.. with the old quickness we’d have no attackspeed on winds of chaos which wasn’t the case.

I’m not sure if the 1.32 AS is correct if that’s the case, I’ll head to the HoM and do a time test on Staff and Stave Clone.

I’ve also got to see if people are measuring it as Attacks per Second or Attack Delay…

If its the former, then Quickness would give 1.98 attacks per second, which equates to essentially 2 attacks.

I haven’t found any recent AS for Stave Clones, but we could assume its .9 Attacks per second for theoretical maffs. Which makes under quickness, Clones attack 1.35 times a second.

33% chance per bounce gives a 43% chance per cast if it bounces to a teammate -once-.

2 Attacks per second can give at most 4 stacks of burning per second, which means 8 with in the window.

For Clones, 1.3 attacks per second equates to at most 6 stacks of burning in the window.

If I have two clones that equates to 20 Stacks maximum within the window (if my math is correct, which its likely not).

Burning Duration is 1.85 seconds from Winds of Chaos.

I think realistically, I could have 14 stacks of Burning with 2 Clones.

Unless, Phantasmal Haste is bugged in what all it effects. If we go with that hypothetical… I’ll have to do that after lunch.

Myxam.2790:

I’m not sure if the 1.32 AS is correct if that’s the case, I’ll head to the HoM and do a time test on Staff and Stave Clone.

I’ve also got to see if people are measuring it as Attacks per Second or Attack Delay…

If its the former, then Quickness would give 1.98 attacks per second, which equates to essentially 2 attacks.

I haven’t found any recent AS for Stave Clones, but we could assume its .9 Attacks per second for theoretical maffs. Which makes under quickness, Clones attack 1.35 times a second.

33% chance per bounce gives a 43% chance per cast if it bounces to a teammate -once-.

2 Attacks per second can give at most 4 stacks of burning per second, which means 8 with in the window.

For Clones, 1.3 attacks per second equates to at most 6 stacks of burning in the window.

If I have two clones that equates to 20 Stacks maximum within the window (if my math is correct, which its likely not).

Burning Duration is 1.85 seconds from Winds of Chaos.

I think realistically, I could have 14 stacks of Burning with 2 Clones.

Unless, Phantasmal Haste is bugged in what all it effects. If we go with that hypothetical… I’ll have to do that after lunch.

It’s measured in attack delay, time between each attack. staff clones attack once every 1.25 seconds without timewarp. atleast phase retreat clone attack interval is 1.25 seconds which seems to be right. i just tested it, looks like it attacks after 1 second has passed.

33% chance to apply burning but bounce is basically a 50% chance cause after the bounce to a friendly target, it either bounces to a friendly target again or the enemy target.

So.

The Human player attacks once every <1 second without quickness? The number would a good thing to have. Go and auto attack something for 10 seconds, and count the number for me :x

That will give us the attack delay for Player Staff.

You guys are killing me…

Staff Mesmer

• 1.320 sec per 1 attack
• 0.880 sec per 1 attack with TW

Staff Clone

• 2.440 sec per 1 attack
• 1.700 sec per 1 attack with TW

If projectile bounces, just 2x the above.

frifox.5283:

You guys are killing me…

Staff Mesmer

• 1.320 sec per 1 attack (1 attack per 0.758 sec)
• 0.880 sec per 1 attack (1 attack per 1.136 sec) with TW

Staff Clone

• 2.440 sec per 1 attack (1 attack per 0.410 sec)
• 1.700 sec per 1 attack (1 attack per 0.589 sec) with TW

If projectile bounces, just 2x the above.

You know the Clone isn’t on your spreadsheet right?

These numbers also don’t make any sense… the delay is smaller without Quickness

No Q > .758
Q > 1.136

Could you explain that for the Mathematically challenged?

It is now

Myxam.2790:

No Q > .758
Q > 1.136

Could you explain that for the Mathematically challenged?

Ignore that, I forgot how to math there for a sec… The #’s in paranthesis are Seconds / 1 Attack, not the other way around XD

frifox.5283:

Myxam.2790:

No Q > .758
Q > 1.136

Could you explain that for the Mathematically challenged?

Ignore that, I forgot how to math there for a sec… The #’s in paranthesis are Seconds / 1 Attack, not the other way around XD

That still doesn’t explain why Quick Number is bigger ; _ ; I’m so confuzzled.

Also — Quickness comes after the base attack speed, so .88 wouldn’t be right because it has to assume that the Quickness Attack Speed is the base in order to get 1.32. Would it not? (Has to sound pretenious because the Filter can’t distinquish It from mammeries.)

I removed the numbers in paranthesis, while valid it seems to be driving you more into confusion… XD

I’m now confused as to how .880 is the Quickness attack delay xD

0.880 is how many seconds between the times WoC actually hits your enemey, which is referred to as Attack Rate.

5k per WoC

• 5k / 0.880 sec
• 5.68k dps or 11.36k dps with 2 bounces

1 bleed stack per WoC

• 1 stacks / 0.880 sec
• 1.14 stacks / second or 2.28 stacks/sec with 2 bounces