Guild Wars 2

I mean, I’m far from a theory crafter myself.
I like doing builds, yet I lack general foresight to properly synergize my things and create something viable, so it may just be my lack of talent and expertise in the field that prevent me from understanding but:
Why do I start seeing theory craft when:
- We don’t even know the extent of the changes;
- The patch hasn’t even rolled in, so we can’t truly test anything?

I know that we can assume certain things, such as bunker mesmer going to kitten and Anet pushing scepter through, but that doesn’t mean that condi will be viable either?
A 5% increase on scepter speed as a preview hardly gives me faith in condi build becoming something… We have no true way of sustaining condis decently, our scepter would need a MASSIVE rework and our traits are just meh, especially with the incoming nerf to Chaos Armor. MtD is still as trash as it was and we have even less access to blind than before.
And as it is, we saw nothing in the direction of Shatter buff either, our clones dies just as fast.
So, genuinely asking, how can you people start theory crafting things? Is it because you saw something I missed or you just can’t help doing something to calm your nerves and mind before balance roll since you don’t know what to expect and we just have our clearly awesome history with Anet to think about?

For me it is a simple motivation – wtf am I going to do without double Energy sigils (which also means DE isn’t as useful).

So I need to start testing now and getting used to not using Energy sigils.

The thing with condi is that the condi cleanse are adjusting to condi necro/condi rev level. Condi mesmer has no way to keep up to that level. And honestly, I’d rather not, because this is insane. Had a few games yesterday vs condi teams. I had bunker mesmer, which means:

• condi clear on shatter
• 5 AOE condi clear on heal
• AOE condi clear on null field
• resistance on glamour (null field + time warp + feedback on rez)
• F5 resistance

with me a soldier rune DS tempest. And yet, absolutely no way to survive the condi bombs…. and this chill….

The whole condi concept has to be redone.

Ah yeah seen like that! But I removed DE a long time ago so I feel like it will be easier to adjust on that part.
Have you tried with chrono line with Ireversion and CPhantasma
You really get more clones then you actually need if you manage well, but playing without energy sigil on at least one weapon will need adjustment, that’s for sure

Silverkey.2078:

The thing with condi is that the condi cleanse are adjusting to condi necro/condi rev level. Condi mesmer has no way to keep up to that level. And honestly, I’d rather not, because this is insane. Had a few games yesterday vs condi teams. I had bunker mesmer, which means:

• condi clear on shatter
• 5 AOE condi clear on heal
• AOE condi clear on null field
• resistance on glamour (null field + time warp + feedback on rez)
• F5 resistance

with me a soldier rune DS tempest. And yet, absolutely no way to survive the condi bombs…. and this chill….

The whole condi concept has to be redone.

Exactly my thought! Not in those terms, but we just can’t compare with other condi builds, which makes us sub par on that term

Pepsi.8907:

Ah yeah seen like that! But I removed DE a long time ago so I feel like it will be easier to adjust on that part.
Have you tried with chrono line with Ireversion and CPhantasma
You really get more clones then you actually need if you manage well, but playing without energy sigil on at least one weapon will need adjustment, that’s for sure

I use IReversions and Cp pretty much all the time for condi shatter, although I also used this with DE and double Energy sigils for high illusion generation. I enjoyed playing this fast paced burst style – for example could summon say an iwarlock, blink dodge shatter for 2 illusion shatter, immediately have an IR clone back and another iWarlock so could phase retreat and forward dodge into full shatter, swap weapon to sword/torch and have that extra endurance which was just spent in generating the clones.

Without DE/Energy, it is much slower paced which is less fun for me, although I am thoroughly enjoying Mirror Images to replace that instant burst, and it works better with F5 setup too.

Curunen.8729:

Pepsi.8907:

Ah yeah seen like that! But I removed DE a long time ago so I feel like it will be easier to adjust on that part.
Have you tried with chrono line with Ireversion and CPhantasma
You really get more clones then you actually need if you manage well, but playing without energy sigil on at least one weapon will need adjustment, that’s for sure

I use IReversions and Cp pretty much all the time for condi shatter, although I also used this with DE and double Energy sigils for high illusion generation. I enjoyed playing this fast paced burst style – for example could summon say an iwarlock, blink dodge shatter for 2 illusion shatter, immediately have an IR clone back and another iWarlock so could phase retreat and forward dodge into full shatter, swap weapon to sword/torch and have that extra endurance which was just spent in generating the clones.

Without DE/Energy, it is much slower paced which is less fun for me, although I am thoroughly enjoying Mirror Images to replace that instant burst, and it works better with F5 setup too.

Yeah you,re right, DE/Energy on top of everything else does provide a faster pace which is vital for mesmer to survive because of his lack of sustained damage.

Pepsi.8907:

I mean, I’m far from a theory crafter myself.
I like doing builds, yet I lack general foresight to properly synergize my things and create something viable, so it may just be my lack of talent and expertise in the field that prevent me from understanding but:
Why do I start seeing theory craft when:
- We don’t even know the extent of the changes;
- The patch hasn’t even rolled in, so we can’t truly test anything?

I know that we can assume certain things, such as bunker mesmer going to kitten and Anet pushing scepter through, but that doesn’t mean that condi will be viable either?
A 5% increase on scepter speed as a preview hardly gives me faith in condi build becoming something… We have no true way of sustaining condis decently, our scepter would need a MASSIVE rework and our traits are just meh, especially with the incoming nerf to Chaos Armor. MtD is still as trash as it was and we have even less access to blind than before.
And as it is, we saw nothing in the direction of Shatter buff either, our clones dies just as fast.
So, genuinely asking, how can you people start theory crafting things? Is it because you saw something I missed or you just can’t help doing something to calm your nerves and mind before balance roll since you don’t know what to expect and we just have our clearly awesome history with Anet to think about?

Condi is already kinda viable! People are just so into the meta that they dont notice this! I suggest go play condi spec and see for yourself.

Here, you can try my build! http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7fnknBdqhNoBOqBEgilnjCdCynDoeQP0F9sACgDD-TpBBABgVGwiHAwEXAgKOCATv/AAHEAA

And this is with cele amulet and it will be removed! Then we get a better trade, in that 1050power/1050condi/though/vit amulet!

So then you can switch that condi signet for either the other condi signet that give increased duration, or blink!

And then switch sigil of strenght on the scepter, to sigil of fraility! Or do somthing simular… But you will still have more condition, while keeping that thoughness and vitality!

Its great! Lets just hope Anet not destroying our scepter, like removing the scepter skill 3 or something!

Scepter with 2 skills, because OP, LOL, I could see that.
I see your build potential, but I have a few questions:
Why mirror image instead of, say, blink?
[Scratch that, just realized you had rune of torment, which must make torment a bit more impactful x)]
That’s my only questions without having tested the build, which I’ll give a try. You could also have gone with ineptitude, makes a fairly decent pump of confusion with chaos armor.

I’ll have to try.

However, even if it’s kinda viable, even right now, mesmer will never be as proficient as a reaper when dealing with conditions. It’s just that much more specialized in applying them and shutting down boons. So even if condi shatter makes an appearance, reaper may very well still be more profitable to a team and mesmer only be a subpar version of the class itself. Hence > not meta and not desirable compared to other class who can do the same thing but better or faster.

There’s:

Theorycrafting- Taking the info we have and drawing reasonable conclusions based on that

and then there’s

-Theorycrafting- Creating entire builds and publishing them based on the information we have.

I’ve seen the first, and absolutely none of the second.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

i start theorythinking and not crafting with ideas
i do some duels with necro and rev and 2v2 to test back again the condi concept
i can say 2v2 the necro die fast with my condi rupter build and he couldnt do kitten
but in team fight my burst dmg become very low due to illusions die too fast in 4v4 and team enemy manage to out heal my dmg

so as for now it seems condi shatter still in the same spot dueler mainly
hope to see power shatter back with less bunkery amulets and celestial.
dont know what scepter will bring to the table
lets w8 and theorythinking

Pepsi.8907:

Scepter with 2 skills, because OP, LOL, I could see that.
I see your build potential, but I have a few questions:
Why mirror image instead of, say, blink?
[Scratch that, just realized you had rune of torment, which must make torment a bit more impactful x)]
That’s my only questions without having tested the build, which I’ll give a try. You could also have gone with ineptitude, makes a fairly decent pump of confusion with chaos armor.

I’ll have to try.

However, even if it’s kinda viable, even right now, mesmer will never be as proficient as a reaper when dealing with conditions. It’s just that much more specialized in applying them and shutting down boons. So even if condi shatter makes an appearance, reaper may very well still be more profitable to a team and mesmer only be a subpar version of the class itself. Hence > not meta and not desirable compared to other class who can do the same thing but better or faster.

Well, mirror is there because you want more clones to shatter! Usually I can open on someone from stealth, summon the torch clone, then use mirror and use diversion! After that, you manage to be able to get confusing images off, before ur out of stealth. Then you just summon more clones and keep shattering etc. For me this build work very well, even against necro reapers! While you fight them, you kinda have to time it like a thief, be patient and keep range!

In this spec ur torment duration is about 8 sec from shatter, you got 915 condi as standard, but with might + compounding power, you get it up considerable higher!

Ineptitude I would only go with if I use dueling traits, since u blind on shatter and can blind more often! In this build it doesnt give you that much, it has a cd and you dont want to rely on chaos armor to do dmg aswell.

I rather have confusing images cd reduced from 12 sec to 8 sec, and use it more often for confusion stacks and dmg, then going with the other trait.

In a perfect world, you could play it with dueling traits instead of inspiration, but you just wont survive good without it! There are so much dmg flying around out there, that you need it to be able to counter most of the specs out there!

Also, inspiration with condi removal and heal, is very nice to have in such a build like this!

I agree that reaper and some others have better condi then mesmers, but with that new amulet, this would work even better then now!

But in this spec, you can atleast make thieves and revs hurt alot, and then rofl when they die to your shatters, torment and confusion while ur in stealth! xD

Thinking about builds and testing them is actually the most fun part of the game for me.

So I’m always theorycrafting. Right now, I’m just experimenting based on the information we do have (and thus my post about what I’m currently planning on for pvp when the Jan 26 update comes). It’s possible there will be other updates, and I’ll need to change my ideas. But that’s the fun part for me.

@Ross: I actually started seeing one or two posts with people posting builds and such they thought would work

@Eldenbri: I agree it is fun, but I sadly lack the expertise to do anything viable. I lack the capability of seeing the big picture too . :/

@Pepsi I wouldn’t worry about lack of experience. Or even worry that much about making something viable – at least to start. I don’t think about this as making builds for other people – make something that you like.

I played a power-focused phantasm WvW roamer build for many months. It wasn’t a common build and certainly not the “best”, but it was fun.

The build editor lets you explore a lot of ideas, and you can test them in pvp unranked pretty easily.

You can start from almost any place. The easiest thing to do is start from an existing build like you find on metabattle or maybe one you see posted on the forums here and then see how you might change it. But you can definitely build one up from scratch.

When I’m making builds for myself, I have a list of things I try to check. Sometimes that list forces the build into certain directions.

So for example, I tend to get myself into a little too much trouble sometimes. My roaming time in WvW has trained me into thinking I can take a 1v2. So until I get that out of my head, I need my build to have decent defense. Decent defense for me means I have to have some toughness, I need good condition clearing, and I have to have a couple stunbreaks. So that tells me a lot right there.

You might find that it just isn’t that enjoyable to play without the ability to produce a big damage spike. In that case, you need a way to get power, precision and ferocity up.

Anyway, here’s my checklist for stuff I can’t live without in a build:
- Reasonable toughness
- Reasonable health pool (but can live with low health with good healing and high toughness)
- Minimum one stunbreak, ideally 2 (one of these is always Blink)
- Lots of condition clearing ability
- Out of combat movement speed (this means taking the Chrono specialization or else certain runes or signet of inspiration)
- Some way to create offensive pressure in a short period (so in power builds, this means a way to burst the attacks – in the condi builds I’m trying right now, it’s a combination of ability to stack condis plus some lockdown pressure)

For me, this set of constraints is leading me to builds that use Chronomancer and Inspiration specializations (Inspiration gives a lot of condition clears and extra healing). So if you get a build defined that far, you can start looking for synergies and experimenting with little tweaks where you swap in a different utility or weapon or sigil for a while and see how it goes.

Anyway, I hope you give it a try. Have fun!

Pepsi.8907:

@Ross: I actually started seeing one or two posts with people posting builds and such they thought would work

@Eldenbri: I agree it is fun, but I sadly lack the expertise to do anything viable. I lack the capability of seeing the big picture too . :/

I know the trait lines, traits, weapons, utilities all by heart, so I can create a build while riding my bike delivering mail.

Theory is theory.

Pepsi.8907:

Why do I start seeing theory craft when:
- We don’t even know the extent of the changes;
- The patch hasn’t even rolled in, so we can’t truly test anything?

Sorry, I have to correct this.

- We don’t even know the extent of the changes
ANet hasn’t given any mesmer balance thread on this forum a single response. Their balance team itself, is focused on buffing scepter PER THEIR OWN STATEMENTS. Not any of the other weapons that have needed buffs for a very long time.

- The patch hasn’t even rolled in, so we can’t truly test anything?
Irrelevant. Everyone is going to do their back of the envelope calculations to figure things out.

There are things ANet clearly didn’t consider with their changes across the game modes.
1. Commander sniping in WvW is pathetically easy.
Why? Because boon corrupt and pulls are extremely powerful. You don’t even have to corrupt a commander’s boons at first. 3 pulls and a commander is in the middle of your zerg. Corrupt boon on his stab 2, and he’s dead UNLESS I drop a well of precog on him.
Invuln on the commander is THE ONLY THING that can prevent wells from killing him.

Why? Because Necro wells are unblockable.

It’s potentially even worse, actually. You see, there’s an ultimate strategy that very few guild groups do in WvW.

Venomshare wells are OP as hell in WvW.
They’ve had a slight nerf before, but they’re still extremely powerful.

They also make the 2nd (out of the 3) jobs mesmer does irrelevant.

2. Gravity well is almost irrelevant in WvW, and it’s one of the 2 things we’ll bring.
The entire point of gravity well in WvW, is to keep enemies in the wells.

But that means I have to not “over extend” to get a down, so that I can be ready to drop a GW wherever the necros drop their wells.

Why bother?
Bassi venom is an immob, and wells also boon strip. It’s far better than gravity well. And is also up more often than gravity well.

Again, most guild groups don’t run venomshare out of courtesy, not because it’s weak.

GW is really only useful there because everyone nerfs themselves.

3. Condi mesmer is useless in GvG or ZergvZerg
Condi builds don’t usually work on group content. Outside of maybe 1 condi necro just to kitten everyone off.

And that’s just WvW…
The glaring problems with PvE, where scepter is absolute crap, and alacrity is a very large part of our support.
The nerfs to the already weak staff.

I’m not convinced ANet has anything meaningful planned for us.

Does anyone have a link to a reddit discussion between devs to counter this?

Is there a CDI I’ve missed on this?

Ross Biddle.2367:

I know the trait lines, traits, weapons, utilities all by heart, so I can create a build while riding my bike delivering mail.

Theory is theory.

Fun fact, I was in my kitchen the other day, theory crafting mesmer stuff. And I was like “there is a skill category I am missing, but can’t figure out which”…

It was signets!! There are so good and useful that I forgot we had them…

But yes, like theory crafting would be like predicting the rise of bunker mesmer before BWE1

Silverkey.2078:

Ross Biddle.2367:

I know the trait lines, traits, weapons, utilities all by heart, so I can create a build while riding my bike delivering mail.

Theory is theory.

Fun fact, I was in my kitchen the other day, theory crafting mesmer stuff. And I was like “there is a skill category I am missing, but can’t figure out which”…

It was signets!! There are so good and useful that I forgot we had them…

But yes, like theory crafting would be like predicting the rise of bunker mesmer before BWE1 ;)

While working on the 5 Mesmer OMFG comps before HoT, we knew we had to make sustainable bunkers and support in there somewhere. It wasn’t to far of a jump to the bunker chrono, especially when you had a pyro on board trying desperately to relive his glory days.

I should add, my favorite moment of this season was when Countless tried to take claim for “introducing chrono bunker to the world”. Then pyro linked a thread in which he’d put up his chrono bunker build with additional vid from me from the BWE weekends XD

Good times.