Guild Wars 2

Basically, I’m curious if a good build can be made using only the three weapons I mentioned; Scepter/Torch and Staff. I know it’s silly, but I have a preference based on what weapons suit my character. I don’t see her wielding a pistol, or swords, or even a greatsword. I also am picky in that I dislike the phantasm that Focus uses, as it uses axes. So yeah, I’m weird and picky.

I don’t know what type of build I’m looking for, since I’m new to Mesmer. A friend said I could make a condition build, something giving buffs to allies and conditions to foes. So yeah, I guess my questions are if I can even have good build options sticking to only those 3 weapons and if so, what are my options.

Anywho, thank you for reading and any helpful info you can give

Most builds using that weaponry set-up are not wholly viable in pve instances. When I was first introduce to Prismatic Understanding, I leveled up a second Mesmer using ONLY those weapons, just to develop a playstyle for them. That said, PU is “only” good in pvp situations (PvP play and WvW player vs player combat). In almost all pve situations it is only a handicap.

I know there is another Staff build that a few people like, it is the Chaos Maestro build by Chaos Archangel. I have never used it, but I know a few who like it. I think it does use sword/focus as the off-hand set.

If you’re just starting out as a Mesmer, it is understandable you’ll want to pick a weapon set to focus on learning to play with, but don’t limit yourself to them. I’ve mentioned before in other threads, Mesmer relies on flexibility of player in its class. You will need to play with all the weapons and learn them. I love to play with scepter, but it’s a sacrifice on damage. I love to play with greatsword, but it’s a sacrifice on mobility and defense. I hate playing with staff, but it is one of our strongest defensive and mobile weapons. I leveled my first Mesmer with sword/pistol + GS up until L40 when someone said I was making a big mistake not using focus and readapted my playstyle for focus. (Tbh it was a bigger mistake listening to them, but, well, hindsight.) I have all of the weapons on both of my mesmers for all weapon combinations and I switch builds/armor based on situational need.

I’m not merely talking about starting out really, I mean post level 80. I don’t mind using anything I have to get to level 80 but after that, I want to only use Scepter/Torch and Staff. Will I be able to have a decent PvE build using only those 3 weapons after I hit 80?

Zyxith.9328:

Will I be able to have a decent PvE build using only those 3 weapons after I hit 80?

No, you won’t. It’s pretty cut and dried unfortunately.

No, you will be a horrible player to have on a team. You will have a low damage output, conditions you apply will be over-written by another class, and you will bring very little to the table that will be helpful. Post level 80 you will only be useful in WvW in player combat, and even then you won’t bring much to a team except the ability to provide cover to ress under and longer stealth periods.

If these are the only weapons you want to use in pve for Mesmer, then just don’t play Mesmer. You will need other weapons. You will need more than one set of armor. You will need variety.

I guess I got confused then, because I had a friend say I would be fine. Is Mesmer that difficult to play with a simple set of weapons? I had a level 80 Ele and I only really used Staff and Scepter/Focus and I only had one set of armour and seemed to have done fine, so are Mesmers really that different from like.. Ele?

Zyxith.9328:

I guess I got confused then, because I had a friend say I would be fine. Is Mesmer that difficult to play with a simple set of weapons? I had a level 80 Ele and I only really used Staff and Scepter/Focus and I only had one set of armour and seemed to have done fine, so are Mesmers really that different from like.. Ele?

Well, it is very hard to compare mesmers and eles. Since for ANY of ele’s weapon can be played in either a condi damage or power damage due to be able to swap to different attunements, any weapon could do quite decently. Mesmers however, many weapons are exclusively power or condi, such as staff and scepter .

Hmm, using it in PvE won’t be that bad except for the torch. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather use direct damage in PvE so I can kill faster, but it isn’t impossible. The problem with torch is that its most only good for killing players, not mobs or the like. Prestige is a stealth with burn, not bad but not as good as other non-phantasm off-hand skills of lesser cool down, like Magic Bullet. And the phantasm of torch, iMage, doesn’t do a lot of direct damage and the condition it applies is confusion, which is a bursting condition meant to punish spamming and hitting a lot of skills at once. In PvE, mobs and the like don’t spam, so confusion is even less effective than most other damaging conditions.

Thus, you can take scepter and staff which are actually hybrid power+condi weapons, but torch which is practically made for PvP is not exactly the ideal weapon in PvE.

What if I went with Staff for PvE and Scepter for PvP? Peeked in the game and some guildmates said I should be fine teaming, I just won’t be all about DPS. Surely there are other roles one can play besides DPSing stuff.

Zyxith.9328:

What if I went with Staff for PvE and Scepter for PvP? Peeked in the game and some guildmates said I should be fine teaming, I just won’t be all about DPS. Surely there are other roles one can play besides DPSing stuff.

There are no roles one can play other than DPSing stuff. All roles in a dungeon party are DPS first, and then utility along with and secondary to dps. Mesmer is great because you bring great utility WHILE dpsing, but not in a condition build and not with scepter, torch, or staff.

Zyxith.9328:

What if I went with Staff for PvE and Scepter for PvP? Peeked in the game and some guildmates said I should be fine teaming, I just won’t be all about DPS. Surely there are other roles one can play besides DPSing stuff.

There are many setups in PvP where you can use scepter/torch Staff. PvE, as already stated, is no place for these setups.

Just to break it down to details a bit. Scepter/torch is very much a torment/confusion set. Trouble with PvE mobs is they usually don’t attack AND move at the same time. It is likely that your confusion doesn’t tick at all (mobs just walking, not attacking) or torment is ticking half the damage all the time (mob’s standing still to attack).

Staff can stack a pretty decent single target bleed/burn if you have illusionary elasticity and 3 clones up, provided that you are alone and there isn’t a blob of PvE mobs. Even so you’ll probably have less dps than direct damage with phantasms, particularly when the numbers of mobs increase or you have teammates around. If you run power build then 3 phantasmal warlock can deal significant single target damage to boss, but you may have to rely on teammate to stack various kinds of conditions to achieve that.

Zyxith.9328:

What if I went with Staff for PvE and Scepter for PvP? Peeked in the game and some guildmates said I should be fine teaming, I just won’t be all about DPS. Surely there are other roles one can play besides DPSing stuff.

As Fay said, you should be providong utility while DPSing, and not just utility. However, a staff sc/t build not only has little damage, it also gives very little utility(or you can say selfish) other than chaos storm.

Yes, with the new Sinister stat combo, it is possible to be effective in PvE.

Zerker will always be a bit better, but this is the next best thing for you. Carrion would work too. I mean, when it comes to PvE, it’s not that hard to play whatever you like unless you’re playing with some elitist kittens… Besides, “elitist people in PvE” is an oxymoron…

frifox.5283:

Assuming everything is ascended, zerk has 342 more power than sinister. How much % that would be will depend on your might stacks and your build.

Anyways, did some calc for a condi build (0/4/6/0/4, staff, 3 clones up):

• 4,612 dps – Berserker
• 5,380 dps – Rampager
• 5,752 dps – Rabid
• 6,070 dps – Sinister

And for a power build (6/4/0/0/4, sword aa, 2x Swordsmans + 1x Duelist)

• 5,869 dps – Berserker
• 5,843 dps – Assassins
• 4,756 dps – Sinister

All calc assume solo situations. Looks like Sinister is the “zerk” of the condi build – glassy as ****** but delivers awesome dps output.

Might be interesting, but it relies alot on clones to do damage, and do reach that dps there must only be you, one single enemy and 3 clones, or else the staff attacks might bounce to other allies.

MailMail.6534:

Yes, with the new Sinister stat combo, it is possible to be effective in PvE.

Zerker will always be a bit better, but this is the next best thing for you. Carrion would work too.

This is just completely false. If you run a condition build in PvE (sinister is condition), you are completely useless. I’m not talking ‘oh, you’ll do a bit lower dps than usual’. You’re completely useless. Your conditions will get pushed out and you will do close to 0 dps. Additionally, condition mesmer doesn’t have the potential to provide high damaging reflects, which is a massive source of damage in some fights. Lastly, without focus (which you won’t have), you don’t have good reflect uptime.

Again, it’s not just the stat combo. It’s the build itself, the weapons you’re using, AND the stat combo you use. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I would rather 4man a dungeon than have a condition mesmer in the party. The only thing they’ll do is potentially screw up aggro and provide nothing to the party otherwise.

I hope I’m not the first to tell you this pyro, but I can’t point out many times where I thought you were helpful to any discussion you have partaken in. The language you use in your posts is quite counter-productive to open-dialogue. It doesn’t bother me, but I know it bothers others, so it’s worth noting here.

Hopefully it’s obvious to the original poster that DPS is leaps and bounds more effective than condition builds in PvE!! The weapon set you want is specifically condition-based, but NiceNikeShoe gives a good suggestion. That being said, there are ways to overcompensate for such by adding lots of utility and proper traiting. I’ll reiterate, if you’re playing with someone who would rather 4-man a dungeon instead of playing with your condition build, then you probably don’t wanna play with that person in the first place either.

MailMail.6534:

I hope I’m not the first to tell you this pyro, but I can’t point out many times where I thought you were helpful to any discussion you have partaken in. The language you use in your posts is quite counter-productive to open-dialogue. It doesn’t bother me, but I know it bothers others, so it’s worth noting here.

Hopefully it’s obvious to the original poster that DPS is leaps and bounds more effective than condition builds in PvE!! The weapon set you want is specifically condition-based, but NiceNikeShoe gives a good suggestion. That being said, there are ways to overcompensate for such by adding lots of utility and proper traiting. I’ll reiterate, if you’re playing with someone who would rather 4-man a dungeon instead of playing with your condition build, then you probably don’t wanna play with that person in the first place either.

If you actually read NiceNikeShoe’s post, you’d notice that they specifically said it only works for solo damage, never with a party. You’re literally the only person here that seems to think that condition damage is even remotely viable in a party composition for PvE.

I don’t try to be nice and coddly with my posts. I speak accurately and bluntly, and in this case accuracy means that I note how completely useless condition damage builds are in parties. If you’re going for a dungeon solo build, condition damage can be great, knock yourself out. Just don’t bring it to parties and expect to be welcomed.

This is one reason I feel iffy asking stuff on forums, because it’s tough to sort out who actually knows for a fact what something can or can’t do, and those that are the elite sorts that are “Zerker only!” but it sounds like Mesmer might not work for me. Although, makes me wonder how the forum would view my past Ele’s build which I had for DPS and the option to help heal when needed. Which was basically Celestial trinkets, Berzerker Scepter/Focus, Zealot/Keepers armour which was power/precision/healing and used Staff with either Zealot or Magi stats depending on my mood. My traits being Speel Slinger, Infernal Fire, soothing winds, bolt to the heart, soothing wave, cantrip mastery and Aquatic Benevolence. With my utilities being arcane shield, lightning flash, mist form and either giant flame sword or ice bow.

@zyxith, everyone in this thread is actually correct, but in different ways. You didn’t once mention using mesmer in a dungeon, but you did mention a team (which may indicate that). Either way, assumptions completely aside, here are your PvE options:

1. Open world PvE: Use what you want. Condition, power, hybrid work fine. On big boss fights your conditions will cap, making your damage largely absent, but who really cares in most of PvE. It’s so faceroll easy it just doesn’t matter. If you enjoy Staff/Sc-T, play it to your heart’s content here.
2. Casual dungeon runs: These groups don’t typically care about dps as much as enjoying the dungeon content, doing minimal skips and just chilling. Very cool for those that like this approach, and your condition build will be more than welcome here. That is, no one will ask you what you’re running or kick you for something you’re running or not running.
3. Speed dungeon runs: These groups will kick you on sight if you’re running a condition build or have more condition focused weapons equipped (like Sc-T). Note that these runs can also often be defined as “80’s exp”. A lot of those groups expect the meta builds, too.

The ones you want to target are the “All welcome” “Casual”, or if they don’t specify a level requirement, need for experienced or speed.

For any other questions, feel free to ping me in game and I’d be more than happy to help explain anything further.

Scepter torch+staff works great in www roaming. It’s a cheesy low risk build, and you can’t die in anything less than 1v3 or 4. Litteraly.

Zyxith.9328:

and those that are the elite sorts that are “Zerker only!” but it sounds like Mesmer might not work for me.

Note:
No class can work a condition build or even hybrid build in party/zerg setups in PvE. The condition limits make 1~2 players using such builds possible depending on specific setups (1 Bleed Thief + 1 MtD Mesmer is good, 2 Bleed Necros is bad), but anything above 2 and you cannot utilize your main source of damage.

It’s not a Mesmer issue, it’s a PvE issue.

Forgive me for assuming this, but maybe you are just talking about non-dungeon pve? Like LS and personal story and other solo stuff? I think for solo PVE condi with IE staff clones is really good, you melt through groups and it’s pretty ez-mode.

Now maybe you weren’t talking about that, but myself when I do personal story (still haven’t finished mine…) or LS or whatever, I just grab a staff and IE and kinda enjoy the show, very simple.

As soon as you have more than 2 other people with you this kind of build becomes pretty dumb, as everyone else said. And ya it’s not mesmer, go into any other profession sub forum and ask about condi builds in pve. Better yet give it a shot yourself, pay attention to what is happening and you will see why everyone says this.

Fay.2357:

MailMail.6534:

I hope I’m not the first to tell you this pyro, but I can’t point out many times where I thought you were helpful to any discussion you have partaken in. The language you use in your posts is quite counter-productive to open-dialogue. It doesn’t bother me, but I know it bothers others, so it’s worth noting here.

Hopefully it’s obvious to the original poster that DPS is leaps and bounds more effective than condition builds in PvE!! The weapon set you want is specifically condition-based, but NiceNikeShoe gives a good suggestion. That being said, there are ways to overcompensate for such by adding lots of utility and proper traiting. I’ll reiterate, if you’re playing with someone who would rather 4-man a dungeon instead of playing with your condition build, then you probably don’t wanna play with that person in the first place either.

If you actually read NiceNikeShoe’s post, you’d notice that they specifically said it only works for solo damage, never with a party. You’re literally the only person here that seems to think that condition damage is even remotely viable in a party composition for PvE.

I don’t try to be nice and coddly with my posts. I speak accurately and bluntly, and in this case accuracy means that I note how completely useless condition damage builds are in parties. If you’re going for a dungeon solo build, condition damage can be great, knock yourself out. Just don’t bring it to parties and expect to be welcomed.

To be perfectly honest, your posts are unnecessarily kittenish. Sure, in a vacuum, where the human condition doesn’t exist, tone and tact do not exist, but this is reality, and in order to be persuasive you need tact; which means your tone is more damaging to getting across good information than beneficial. Then there’s this whole “viable” nonsense. I hate to break it to you, but due to the combat system in this game, and the dungeon mechanics themselves, unless you are specifically playing with people who want the fastest runs, then viable is an utterly meaningless term.

I’ve personally done dungeons and fractals with almost an entire group of people running builds that aren’t “viable” and the content still gets done. The content ends, everyone says thank you all, or something along those lines, and they are on their way. This is important because since viable in gw2 does not mean what it does in any other game, it needs a clear distinction. This means the word viable only applies to organized speed runs or pug speed runs led by people who should really specify that it’s meta builds only; primarily for practical purposes. “Why should I?” is not practical, and specifying meta is, because it’ll decrease the chances of people running non-viable builds.

To the OP: If you want to run those weapons, then by all means do so; just be aware that for the most part, you might come across a few unsavory characters who will act as if your utilization of sup-optimal/useless builds is an act of murder. That’s not hyperbole; I’ve literally seen people get far more upset over stuff like this than people actually dying. That means, that if you want to run dungeons, it is simply psychologically safer to run the meta. For Mesmers, it’s sword/sword sword/focus, and pistol offhand at times; while maximizing your crit chance using the precision stat instead of percentages (meaning take Assassin’s gear).

However! Given that some of the Mordrem in open world take far less damage from direct damage than conditions, using Scepter/Torch and Staff can arguably be beneficial in places like the Silverwastes, especially with Mesmers having an unparalleled access to Torment.

Fay.2357:

MailMail.6534:

I hope I’m not the first to tell you this pyro, but I can’t point out many times where I thought you were helpful to any discussion you have partaken in. The language you use in your posts is quite counter-productive to open-dialogue. It doesn’t bother me, but I know it bothers others, so it’s worth noting here.

Hopefully it’s obvious to the original poster that DPS is leaps and bounds more effective than condition builds in PvE!! The weapon set you want is specifically condition-based, but NiceNikeShoe gives a good suggestion. That being said, there are ways to overcompensate for such by adding lots of utility and proper traiting. I’ll reiterate, if you’re playing with someone who would rather 4-man a dungeon instead of playing with your condition build, then you probably don’t wanna play with that person in the first place either.

I don’t try to be nice and coddly with my posts. I speak accurately and bluntly

Well this is an issue when your “bluntness” isn’t exactly 100% accurate to begin with. As the above poster alluded, you have 0 tact. Again, I have tough skin; I’m not bothered by such, but the problem is that some of your posts where you unilaterally declare something to be “fact” or “untrue” have little merit. lol

There are times where a condition build in PvE isn’t completely useless. There may not be many of them, and of course there are always better alternatives, but I’m assuming the OP would like to make scepter/torch+Staff work in PvE. Instead of shutting down discussion, we should help him figure out different ways to make it semi-workable in different PvE situations.

@OP What types of PvE content will you be using your Mesmer for? Casual dungeon runs with guildies? PUGs? Speed dungeon runs? Living Story updates? Fractals? Some of these sub-formats would seriously be a hindrance to the group with your weapon set, but some of them you can make work. As Alasteir says, you could make it work with the new content.

Also, it wouldn’t be so far-fetched to use a shatter/phantasm hybrid build with this weapon set but have it be zerker. Shatter on scepter/torch and let your iWarlock destroy with his attack. Maybe trait for some glamours for utility. Just brainstorming here.

Alasteir.7031:

Fay.2357:

MailMail.6534:

I hope I’m not the first to tell you this pyro, but I can’t point out many times where I thought you were helpful to any discussion you have partaken in. The language you use in your posts is quite counter-productive to open-dialogue. It doesn’t bother me, but I know it bothers others, so it’s worth noting here.

Hopefully it’s obvious to the original poster that DPS is leaps and bounds more effective than condition builds in PvE!! The weapon set you want is specifically condition-based, but NiceNikeShoe gives a good suggestion. That being said, there are ways to overcompensate for such by adding lots of utility and proper traiting. I’ll reiterate, if you’re playing with someone who would rather 4-man a dungeon instead of playing with your condition build, then you probably don’t wanna play with that person in the first place either.

If you actually read NiceNikeShoe’s post, you’d notice that they specifically said it only works for solo damage, never with a party. You’re literally the only person here that seems to think that condition damage is even remotely viable in a party composition for PvE.

I don’t try to be nice and coddly with my posts. I speak accurately and bluntly, and in this case accuracy means that I note how completely useless condition damage builds are in parties. If you’re going for a dungeon solo build, condition damage can be great, knock yourself out. Just don’t bring it to parties and expect to be welcomed.

To be perfectly honest, your posts are unnecessarily kittenish. Sure, in a vacuum, where the human condition doesn’t exist, tone and tact do not exist, but this is reality, and in order to be persuasive you need tact; which means your tone is more damaging to getting across good information than beneficial. Then there’s this whole “viable” nonsense. I hate to break it to you, but due to the combat system in this game, and the dungeon mechanics themselves, unless you are specifically playing with people who want the fastest runs, then viable is an utterly meaningless term.

I’ve played both dungeons and fractals in which due to both builds and/or classes in the group, the runs came to a stop and we couldn’t proceed because the group wasn’t viable. These weren’t just difficult encounters but impossible.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Alasteir.7031:

Fay.2357:

MailMail.6534:

I hope I’m not the first to tell you this pyro, but I can’t point out many times where I thought you were helpful to any discussion you have partaken in. The language you use in your posts is quite counter-productive to open-dialogue. It doesn’t bother me, but I know it bothers others, so it’s worth noting here.

Hopefully it’s obvious to the original poster that DPS is leaps and bounds more effective than condition builds in PvE!! The weapon set you want is specifically condition-based, but NiceNikeShoe gives a good suggestion. That being said, there are ways to overcompensate for such by adding lots of utility and proper traiting. I’ll reiterate, if you’re playing with someone who would rather 4-man a dungeon instead of playing with your condition build, then you probably don’t wanna play with that person in the first place either.

If you actually read NiceNikeShoe’s post, you’d notice that they specifically said it only works for solo damage, never with a party. You’re literally the only person here that seems to think that condition damage is even remotely viable in a party composition for PvE.

I don’t try to be nice and coddly with my posts. I speak accurately and bluntly, and in this case accuracy means that I note how completely useless condition damage builds are in parties. If you’re going for a dungeon solo build, condition damage can be great, knock yourself out. Just don’t bring it to parties and expect to be welcomed.

To be perfectly honest, your posts are unnecessarily kittenish. Sure, in a vacuum, where the human condition doesn’t exist, tone and tact do not exist, but this is reality, and in order to be persuasive you need tact; which means your tone is more damaging to getting across good information than beneficial. Then there’s this whole “viable” nonsense. I hate to break it to you, but due to the combat system in this game, and the dungeon mechanics themselves, unless you are specifically playing with people who want the fastest runs, then viable is an utterly meaningless term.

I’ve played both dungeons and fractals in which due to both builds and/or classes in the group, the runs came to a stop and we couldn’t proceed because the group wasn’t viable. These weren’t just difficult encounters but impossible.

Agreed! I’ve had encounters like this. I’ve had to flip entire parties more than once in a few situations in order to finish (I am far too stubborn).

You can do everything with suboptimal builds, not suboptimal players.

oxtred.7658:

You can do everything with suboptimal builds, not suboptimal players.

In other words: you’re being carried. As a mesmer, there is no forgiveness for failure. You are not allowed to be “suboptimal,” as oxtred put it.

You must be willing to bend and use other weapons/armors, even after level 80. It took me a long time to learn that I would need more than one set of armor. I couldn’t get by with just sw/focus+gs, not well. I grabbed a second sword, a pistol, a staff, a scepter, everything I would need for every weapon combination.

And despite what others have said, the players who are willing to except a hobbled build into a dungeon are very few and very far between. Most players who know anything about other classes and see you with those weapons will curl a lip at you. They will see you as subpar, but essentially as deadweight.

Nah. Even I join “anyone welcome” groups sometimes, and there’s plenty of them. The problem lies when you get mad because someone tells you the build will be terrible. It will be awful. But since you don’t care about efficiency, it’s just a friendly reminder. Grab a scepter/torch staff build ( probably sinister stats and givers weapons), and play with it. Just don’t expect anyone to come and tell you how awesome it is for group pve.

@OP, If you could tell me about the importance you place on weapon cooldowns I’d love to help you figure out a build for this weapon set. Personally, I run Staff and Scepter/Sword with Sinister stats and it works out pretty well, even in dungeons.

EpicTurtle.8571:

@OP, If you could tell me about the importance you place on weapon cooldowns I’d love to help you figure out a build for this weapon set. Personally, I run Staff and Scepter/Sword with Sinister stats and it works out pretty well, even in dungeons.

Well, from what others are saying, it seems like the 3 weapons I’d want will make me troublesome to team with. Perhaps I should just go back to Elementalist.

Zyxith.9328:

EpicTurtle.8571:

@OP, If you could tell me about the importance you place on weapon cooldowns I’d love to help you figure out a build for this weapon set. Personally, I run Staff and Scepter/Sword with Sinister stats and it works out pretty well, even in dungeons.

Well, from what others are saying, it seems like the 3 weapons I’d want will make me troublesome to team with. Perhaps I should just go back to Elementalist.

Or, you know, play a decent game mode.

Whether ele, mesmer, engie, or warrior, PvE is purely about dropping as much DPS on a small single area as you possibly can. So sure, go ele, it makes zero difference (except the amount of DPS you can muster).

I’m going to ask you to disregard what they have said, very little of it has been constructive.

That’s why I curiously posted about my Ele build on the Ele section https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/My-Ele-build-Pew-pew-and-healing/first#post4551850 Because that build seemed to work and teams/dungeon peoples had me so I thought I’d toss it up and see if the forum viewed it as a decent or bad build idea. To see if these Mesmer questions are true that I’ll be bad in PvE or if it’s just not been constructive replies

Zyxith.9328:

That’s why I curiously posted about my Ele build on the Ele section https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/My-Ele-build-Pew-pew-and-healing/first#post4551850 Because that build seemed to work and teams/dungeon peoples had me so I thought I’d toss it up and see if the forum viewed it as a decent or bad build idea. To see if these Mesmer questions are true that I’ll be bad in PvE or if it’s just not been constructive replies

Your ele build sounds like it’s a non-optimal build that’s still very capable of blasting might and providing strong damage to a group. It’s not as good as a standard build would be, but it still fulfills the main functions of ele: damage and might stacking.

Contrast that with the scepter/torch + staff on a mesmer. You fulfill none of the roles that mesmer needs to fulfill. You won’t do good damage, you can’t provide reflects, and you don’t bring good mob control. Alternative builds are not equally viable on all classes.

This is my advice, if you would like to form a build mainly around those 3 weapons, go ahead, but keep in mind, it is very very important to carry around other weapons and sometimes other sets of gear in order to make adjustments for any possible outcome. Like I said above, I main Staff and Scepter/Sword, but I always have GS, another sword, and a focus in my inventory for troublesome occurences, such as the Uncategorized Fractal. Viability and versatility are incredibly similar in this game, which is why I frown on the several people suggesting only DPS is important. The most important thing is this game is the ability to adapt to the situations you find yourself in, that is what will determine your usefulness in PvE, sPvP, and WvW.

Addendum: I can show you how to make a build that overwhelms your foe by constantly keeping up 4 conditions, 3 of which will be ticking every second for at least 750 or so damage and the then confusion which will be bursting for a decent amount of 3-5k

This is probably the first time I’ve ever said this but I agree with Pyro. In Pve setting conditions only hinders the overall dps your party will be dealing, especially when talking about condition mesmer.

Look at it this way, mesmer’s primarty/spammable conditions are torment and confusion. We’re going to ignore the random poison and burns (and in your builds case bleeding, ‘cause without pistol even those aren’t guaranteed) because they are just that, random.
Confusion only procs when a target attacks, which pve mobs have abysmal attack speed and will maybe proc once before the duration ends. Torment is only hard hitting when the target is moving, and in dungeons stacking the enemies makes this mechanic null and void. So you’re left with your bleeds, and your random poisons and burns.

Basically, you’re not offering anything of value to the party. Now people are going to say “Play how you want” and that’s fine, but the question was if the build was viable in pve and the answer..as Pyro stated..is no.

Now the reason your ele build is “okay” for dungeons is because you’re offering enough to the party to just barely pass as a viable addition to the group. Your ele is still dealing more damage and offering more group utility to the party than scepter/torch mesmer ever can dream to do. It’s not even close to a comparison.

Edit: And everyone that keeps complaining about Pyro’s “attitude” need to get a grip. It doesn’t change that he’s correct just because you don’t like the ‘tone’ of his typing.

Yeah, but he’s not correct.

Addendum: I don’t mean to cause a controversy and I’m certainly not going to argue the point with anyone. My only problem with anything Pyro has stated is that power DPS is the “only” viable option. If you would like to discuss it with me you may PM me, but that discussion does not belong on this particular thread.

I guess all I have left to ask about all this is, so my Ele was being played decently? Because maybe I should just remake as an Ele again

EpicTurtle.8571:

Yeah, but he’s not correct.

Addendum: I don’t mean to cause a controversy and I’m certainly not going to argue the point with anyone. My only problem with anything Pyro has stated is that power DPS is the “only” viable option. If you would like to discuss it with me you may PM me, but that discussion does not belong on this particular thread.

All of the reasons as to why condition damage doesn’t work at all in dungeon parties have been noted multiple times in this thread. Of course you can ‘play how you want’, even if that playstyle happens to be useless. Nobody is going to stop you. Our job is simply to provide the information necessary to make an informed decision on how to play.

In this situation, the information is very non-ambiguous. Condition damage is objectively horrible in dungeon groups on any class, not just mesmer. Condition damage on mesmer is even worse than on most classes for a variety of reasons. Power phantasm builds are far more effective both in dealing damage and in providing utility to the party.

Fay.2357:

EpicTurtle.8571:

Yeah, but he’s not correct.

Addendum: I don’t mean to cause a controversy and I’m certainly not going to argue the point with anyone. My only problem with anything Pyro has stated is that power DPS is the “only” viable option. If you would like to discuss it with me you may PM me, but that discussion does not belong on this particular thread.

All of the reasons as to why condition damage doesn’t work at all in dungeon parties have been noted multiple times in this thread. Of course you can ‘play how you want’, even if that playstyle happens to be useless. Nobody is going to stop you. Our job is simply to provide the information necessary to make an informed decision on how to play.

In this situation, the information is very non-ambiguous. Condition damage is objectively horrible in dungeon groups on any class, not just mesmer. Condition damage on mesmer is even worse than on most classes for a variety of reasons. Power phantasm builds are far more effective both in dealing damage and in providing utility to the party.

There is no information, there has only been assertions, not concrete facts, believe it or not your personal experiences do not set the line for the entire game.

Zyxith.9328:

I guess all I have left to ask about all this is, so my Ele was being played decently? Because maybe I should just remake as an Ele again

Well, that’s not honestly something I can just say from looking at the build. It depends greatly on how you actually played it.

Did you focus on blasting your fire fields as much as possible to maintain might stacks, dpsing, and then healing when necessary to keep people alive? If so, then yes you were playing decently.

Did you neglect to blast your fire fields and sacrifice dps in favor of keeping everyones hp topped off at all times? If so, then no you were not playing decently at all.

4k hours on mez, pyro is right, get over it. Keep in mind I’m also not a huge fan of pyro however he is right more often than not. When a group of the most amazing mesmers are all saying the same thing you might want to listen.

Edit: btw turtle I see you just join OMFG, maybe ask your guild leader cause there both amazing teachers, btw one is pyro…

EpicTurtle.8571:

Fay.2357:

EpicTurtle.8571:

Yeah, but he’s not correct.

Addendum: I don’t mean to cause a controversy and I’m certainly not going to argue the point with anyone. My only problem with anything Pyro has stated is that power DPS is the “only” viable option. If you would like to discuss it with me you may PM me, but that discussion does not belong on this particular thread.

All of the reasons as to why condition damage doesn’t work at all in dungeon parties have been noted multiple times in this thread. Of course you can ‘play how you want’, even if that playstyle happens to be useless. Nobody is going to stop you. Our job is simply to provide the information necessary to make an informed decision on how to play.

In this situation, the information is very non-ambiguous. Condition damage is objectively horrible in dungeon groups on any class, not just mesmer. Condition damage on mesmer is even worse than on most classes for a variety of reasons. Power phantasm builds are far more effective both in dealing damage and in providing utility to the party.

There is no information, there has only been assertions, not concrete facts, believe it or not your personal experiences do not set the line for the entire game.

There have been plenty of concrete facts laid out. I’ll go through and state them very clearly for you.

Assertion: Condition damage is drastically inferior to power damage in parties
Facts

• Conditions have stacking limits. In the case of bleed/torment/confusion this is 25. For burning and poison it’s different as it stacks duration. This means that the incidentally poison and burning applied in any party (from guardians, grenades, other various skills) will overwrite the conditions from anyone that actually specced for them, lowering their damage. A similar situation happens with bleeds where once the cap is hit, conditions start getting pushed out, lowering the damage further.
• Torment and confusion are highly ineffective on mobs due to their functionality. Mobs attack slowly, causing confusion to deal little to no damage. Mobs also tend not to move much, causing torment to deal only 50% of the potential damage.
• Lastly, conditions deal damage over time and have a significant amount of build-up time. This means that normal mobs and often even bosses will be dead before the peak condition output is reached. Power builds have little to no build-up and reach maximum damage potential rapidly.

Assertion: Condition damage on mesmer is inferior to that produced by other classes
Facts

• Mesmer focuses greatly on torment and confusion and has much less reliable access to bleed and burn. This reliance on torment and confusion makes the condition damage worse as those are the two worst damage conditions for PvE.
• The mesmer bleed and burn production relies greatly on bounces hitting the mobs multiple times. In a solo situation this works. In a party environment, the bounces bounce to friendly targets instead, lowering the damage further.
• Most mesmer condition damage applications are either non-aoe or bouncing, causing great difficulties with applying conditions to packs of mobs.

Assertion: Condition damage builds on mesmer force them to forgo a large amount of necessary utility
Facts

• Mesmer condition damage is extremely reliant on staff and staff clones or scepter and scepter clones. However, mesmer utility is heavily weighted towards the reflects that come from a traited focus. Not only is it awkward to trait focus in a condition damage build, it also causes a significant dps sacrifice to use the iWarden over a staff clone. Additionally, not taking focus removes the best source of mob control in the game: temporal curtain.
• Building for condition damage means that reflects won’t hit very hard. In encounters with reflects, those reflectable attacks will often dwarf the rest of your dps because of how they use the power value from the boss. Using a condition damage build completely minimizes this damage.

I think that’s most of it. Any questions?

I do in fact use my combos to keep up might stacks and I swap between elements to keep my own as I have Bloodlust and Battle sigils on my weapons. I use water actively if I see people are getting hurt a lot but I get back into the earth and fire for the DPS portion.

Thank you all for the replies and such, although please don’t bring arguements to this thread. I don’t know Pyro, I don’t know any of you so I have no opinion but rather people not go back and forth saying rude things.

A1: I’ve never had that problem.
A2: Reapplication, build mechanisms, rune choice.
A3: I’ve maxed bleed stacks in about 4 seconds.

B1: I can understand that. I don’t agree with it, since I’ve had a singularly opposite experience to what you’re describing.
B2: Yes and when they hit allies, your allies hit harder or have 20% increased critical chance, not every class has easy access to fury, and I believe most builds don’t use Runes of Rage. While in my opinion said team should already have fury in mind in respective builds. I will admit, the vulnerability proc makes me wince a little since 1% increased party damage isn’t a massive contribution. (Suggestions need to be made to Devs)
B3: One point I will concede over, since aoe confusion and torment is heavily build dependent, the only mass burn skill is in torch, and aoe bleed application would have to be from phantasm sources, IZerker and IWarden most notably, neither of which fit in to condition builds very well.

C1: While it is very uncomfortable as you say, it is doable. Personally, if I need a reflection heavy spec, I will put my staff down a bit, and switch to Sword/Focus and Sword/Pistol. In all of my builds, feedback is a recurring event, it’s too useful. Although I will assert that not every situation requires reflection, it does provide heaps of dps, but (and this may just be due to bad luck) mobs tend to move out of my reflections as fast as they can.
C2: I’ve also taken this into account, especially in the olden days, I liked to collect boss projectiles with mimic and fling them right back, mostly for kittens and giggles. Unfortunately not every boss has a projectile, lamentable, I know and then feedback sits there dusty in the corner, wanting to get used, but ends up being the last kid picked for the basketball game. As for minimizing that damage, precision is important in my builds, every time there isn’t a little bloodspatter decal behind those white numbers a little part of me dies inside.

Additionally, I don’t run pure condition damage, I go hybrid with Sinister stats.
Also thank you for going through and stating the facts, it was very considerate.

EpicTurtle.8571:

A1: I’ve never had that problem.
A2: Reapplication, build mechanisms, rune choice.
A3: I’ve maxed bleed stacks in about 4 seconds.

Conditions being pushed is absolutely a problem. Whenever a guardian hits Virtue of Justice, every single person in the party instantly applies 4 seconds of burning. That will instantly push out all burning stacks currently on a target and replace them with mostly low damage burning. Eles also apply loads and loads of burning from so many attacks. Similarly, if an engineer uses poison grenades…that’s it for poison. Mesmer doesn’t really have any access to poison anyway though, so that’s less of an issue.

Not sure what you meant by that.

Maxing bleed stacks in 4 seconds is theoretically possible I guess. You’d need uhm, lets see. Duelist 100% crits is 8 stacks, if you dropped 2 with signet you’d have 16 stacks. Then if you spawned a clone, dodge rolled twice and hit mirror images and every single one of those debilitating dissipations procced bleeds…you’d cap. That’s a singularly unlikely case though, I think you need to look at that claim with a bit more of a reasonable eye.

EpicTurtle.8571:

B1: I can understand that. I don’t agree with it, since I’ve had a singularly opposite experience to what you’re describing.

I’m really curious as to what you mean by this. Do you mean to say that mobs run around nonstop and attack rapidly for you? They just…don’t do that.

EpicTurtle.8571:

B2: Yes and when they hit allies, your allies hit harder or have 20% increased critical chance, not every class has easy access to fury, and I believe most builds don’t use Runes of Rage. While in my opinion said team should already have fury in mind in respective builds. I will admit, the vulnerability proc makes me wince a little since 1% increased party damage isn’t a massive contribution. (Suggestions need to be made to Devs)

2 seconds of fury, 5 seconds of might…alright. Yes, they technically add damage, but lets be realistic. Those are incredibly inconsequential boosts, especially when you average it out across a party, take into account that some people could already have fury, etc. I didn’t even note the vuln in my original post, but that is also a problem.

EpicTurtle.8571:

C1: While it is very uncomfortable as you say, it is doable. Personally, if I need a reflection heavy spec, I will put my staff down a bit, and switch to Sword/Focus and Sword/Pistol. In all of my builds, feedback is a recurring event, it’s too useful. Although I will assert that not every situation requires reflection, it does provide heaps of dps, but (and this may just be due to bad luck) mobs tend to move out of my reflections as fast as they can.

C2: I’ve also taken this into account, especially in the olden days, I liked to collect boss projectiles with mimic and fling them right back, mostly for kittens and giggles. Unfortunately not every boss has a projectile, lamentable, I know and then feedback sits there dusty in the corner, wanting to get used, but ends up being the last kid picked for the basketball game. As for minimizing that damage, precision is important in my builds, every time there isn’t a little bloodspatter decal behind those white numbers a little part of me dies inside.

The utility considerations are definitely less hard and fast. You can modify and bend builds to accept more utility even if they’re not designed for it. The key is that it’s awkward and/or difficult to force condition builds to obtain the normal utility of a power phantasm build, and that ends up being just the icing on the cake of all the other issues.

EpicTurtle.8571:

Additionally, I don’t run pure condition damage, I go hybrid with Sinister stats.
Also thank you for going through and stating the facts, it was very considerate.

While sinister isn’t good…it’s better I suppose. Carrion would be probably the worst damage, followed by dire, rabid, sinister, and then zerker and assassins far away at the top. If you’re in need of more specific numbers than that, Frifoxy has a habit of making wonderfully helpful posts with the use of his DPS parser to determine more specific dps numbers, though they’re always for solo situations. I’d actually love to see the dps of a condition build in a party just for that concrete difference.

Well where I’ve never had the problem, I have a consistent team for when I run fractals or dungeons, none of them are condi, I can’t provide specifics on what stat combos they do use, but generally condition pushing isn’t a huge problem, I see the lack of condi use as a window to add additional DPS that is somewhat unutilized. When I do PUG I’ll re-spec somewhat based on the other party members, as I said earlier Versatility is key. (Praying for customizable trait pages).

I don’t rely on poison, it’s a beyond subpar condition for PvE as there’s not many enemies that heal and the damage on poison is negligible unless a boss has ridiculously high armor and conditions are suddenly slightly more important.

For my second point, torment and confusion are variable conditions, as you pointed out. Torment isn’t generally going to always be at its maximum output except in some special cases. By reapplication, I meant that whatever condi build you’re playing if you’re not continually making the effort to reapply your conditions, you’re doing it wrong. Horribly horribly wrong.
Yeah I was definitely exaggerating the 4 seconds, but the time for me to reach high bleed stacks is negligible

Probably a statistical anomaly.

As for the might and fury, the only realistic way to make that better would be to increase the velocity of WoC from it’s rather dismal state and lengthen each of the buffs at least by 2 seconds. Keep in mind the boons are also rapidly being applied in waves by the clones. All in all WoC needs a major rework of it’s mechanics, removing vulnerability and adding something more useful perhaps. But generally I’ve had the pleasurable experience of always having at least 6 conditions or so with which to power up IWarlock.

It’d still be very helpful if you gave us some idea of what types of content you’d be playing. Us assuming your playing habits is probably the cause for contention and confusion in the first place.