Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I’ve read a lot on this forum about builds, skills, weapons to bring etc… for dungeons, but nothing about stuff :o
So, I was wondering what would you advice me to bring ?

First of all, here’s my build :
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgEQNAW8dlwzipXVTqGa9IxZGKf5oUcdvXmBu5NA
Staff for condition and Sworf/focus … well, it’s just so great.
I think I don’t need to explain phantasmal haste, bleed on illusion crit etc …
I take feedback bubble because it’s very good, you can even have some free reflect using F on dead useless NPC and run away (the aim is not to rez them but to activate the bubble :P)
I love to reflect with focus skills as well.

However, I’ve tried a bit yesterday to play GS & Sword/Focus and it did not seem so bad as I had thought … So I might change it for later.

Anyway, the aim of the topic : what stats should I chose ? Currently, I was going for Rampager stuff (Strength/Prec/Cond Dmg). Having 17500 HP, I thought it was enough.
However, recently, I’ve been wondering if Cond. Dmg was that reliable for a mesmer ? I mean, we don’t inflict as much conditions as Necros or other professions and I’m not sure it makes such a big difference in the total damage. Especially if, in the end, I trade my staff for a GS.
What do you think of it ? Should I drop ravager for stuff with Strength/Prec/Health (can’t remember the name)? (provided I have 25 points in inspiration) or maybe Knight Stuff (Strength/Prec/Toughness) provided I got 0 in toughness but a light armor (is it really reliable ?).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Also, feel free to discuss my build. I’m wondering if the “3 sec confusion on illusion death” and “+33% condition duration” are so helpful for example.

And Finally, I forgot to ask for it. Which sigils would you advice on my armor, as well on as weapons ?

i run a similar build to you, focusing on cond damage and tankyness. traited 20/0/30/0/20. Current armour stats use: power, vitality and condition damage, think its called Carrion gear.

Using staff is very reliable source of condition damage, as clones you put up will also apply conditions to target you will get alot of burns/bleeds/vulnerability stacks. i sually take 20 in illusions for the elasticity trait so winds of chaos will hit the enemy twice each time, doubling its effectiveness.

having 30 in chaos provides alot of toughness and if you’re able to keep chaos armour up whilst being aggroed u can tank a fair amount whilst applying even more conditions for your iwarlock to feed on.

I’ve heard that, regarding life, having at least 14-17K is enough. Provided I have 17k5, I guess I have enough health. Or anybody else have a different opinion ?
So, now the question is about toughness : worth it or not for a light armor ?

Bump this, sorry for this but I really NEED to have some answers, advices because it’s not discussed on other topics, as opposed to builds, and I think that’s important …

You are really asking about a few different things.

1. I’d recommend going 10/15/X/X/X over 0/25/X/X/X. The 15% phantasm damage trait in domination is likely better than the last two traits your getting from dueling.
2. You mentioned a staff build, but didn’t pick up 20 in chaos for the staff trait. You also didn’t take illusory elasticity, which effectively doubles your staff auto dps by letting it hit one enemy twice per shot. You may want to try it.
3. Condition damage is fine on a mesmer. It synergizes with staff builds as well as anything that uses sharper images (bleeding on clone crit).

If you follow #2, I’d say the ‘Rabid’ set is what you want (prec/tough/cond). It’s a pain in the kitten to get, however (karma, dungeon, or 10g+ per piece). It also syngergizes with chaos 25 (5% toughness -> condition) if you were to swap your inspiration traits to chaos. Similarly, the runes of the undead (condition, toughness, 5% toughness -> condition) complements that build. The 66% bleeding on crit sigil is a good weapon item for that one.

As the other guy said above, Carrion is a cheap alternative until you get that. Personally, I find toughness to be more valuable since we are already in the highest base health tier. However, power scales poorly with iWarlock (20%) if that is your main phantasm.

Based on your build – I’m not sure that the staff is the best choice for you. None of your traits take advantage of what it offers. If you keep staff, power definitely isn’t the best primary stat. Swapping to greatsword and grabbing the stats you’re thinking about seems more useful if that’s your play style.

Ok, thanks a lot for your answer. I will do the 10 points in domination as you suggested. Concerning inspiration, I need those traits for the improved which is definitely a must have in dungeons, that’s why I don’t have, unfortunately, the 20 points in chaos. That also explains why I don’t have the illusory elasticity : to boost the Idefender (phantasm from focus) so that it deals more damage and reflects more often (though, I admit, it often dies fast lol).
So, basically, provided I can’t get neither staff trait, nor the one more bounce, I should stick with GS ?
And thus, I guess that condition damage would not be much valuable, as it would only influence bleeding from my phantasms ?
I also thought about the 66% bleeding on crit sigil for the sword, I guess it would be fine on the GS as well (provided the high crit).
I’m not sure it would be that reliable without a condition build but could be useful anyway.
In that case, I guess I should stick with the knight stuff (power/prec/toughness) ?

I would say you should certainly use the GS if you want to keep your traits the same. In that case, condition damage is way less useful than power/precision/crit damage. I like the knight stuff for that build, but I currently am enjoying a staff condition build more – so I’m not an expert.

Extra condition damage for the bleeds doesn’t hurt, but it isn’t really necessary. It gets somewhat limited use in that regard. The runes I suggested wouldn’t be useful at all. The sigil might be, but there are probably better ones. I’m not sure what people tend to use in that build, as I haven’t completed an exotic set for it yet.

Ok, thank for the information.
I quite like playing with staff, and thus your build should be great, but having the reflect on focus’ skills is really a huge advantage for the whole party, especially in some dungeons. I’d love to be able to conciliate both, but it’s impossible

If you want to try it, I’ve never had a problem relying just on feedback + warden’s innate deflection. It’s certainly not as good for some encounters, but it’s still useful enough. One thing to keep in mind is that warden + phantasmal haste seems bugged. Right now it’s getting something like 50%, where most other things only gain 15%. I’m not sure if it will stay as great as it is now.

Oh, the best power/precision sigil is probably Might on crit, by the way.

Ok, I may give it a try once. Other problem : you mention the +15% damage for phantasms in 10 points domination. But this trait states +15% for illusions, and I’m not sure it works for both phantasms and clones ? I guess it would only be for clones …
I don’t know for phantasmal haste on Iwarden but it seems that it just does not work on the other phantasms (at least warlock and duellist and berserker ..) so I dunno if all are bugged or only the non working ones.
I think that if Iwarden gets nerfed with phantasmal haste, it might not be so useful anymore I agree, and reflect on focus skills would also be a bit less useful (though the curtain is very great for that)

Illusions: Phantasms and Clones
Phantasms: Just phantasms
Clones: Just clones

From the wiki, regarding phantasmal haste:

Actual recharge speed increase varies per phantasm: Phantasmal Defender, Phantasmal Disenchanter, Phantasmal Swordsman, Phantasmal Mage and Illusionary Mariner phantasms have no recharge speed increase. Phantasmal Warlock, Phantasmal Berserker, Phantasmal Duelist and Illusionary Whaler phantasms recharge 15% faster. Phantasmal Warden phantasm recharges 50% faster.

Oh yes you’re right, I took a look at it. I also checked the trait and it does work on phantasms and, even better, it does stack with the +15% dmg for phantasms in inspiration, which now makes my phantasms even more powerful
Provided the information on the wiki, I guess the Iwarden will get “nerfed” someday (that is, actually, fixed). What a shame as it’s one very difficult to keep alive

So I decided to give it a try, in sPVP against the dummies, just to see what it looks like.
I Ran a build with 20 in illusion, 25 toughness for the 5% to cond damage and 6x rune of the undead of course.

With a Carion Set (that is, amulet in that case) :
1433 condition damage, 11% crit, 2771 attack —> bleeding ticks at about 118, burn ticks at about 686

With a Rabid Set :
1497 condition damage, 42% crit, 2127 attack —> bleeding ticks at about 123, burn ticks at about 702.

And, just for fun, with a Ravager Set :
1149 condition damage, 55% crit, 2308 attack

Did not test the dots’ ticks for this last set for obvious reasons (condition damage really low)

However, what we can see between Carrion and Rabid.
Condition damage is not so different and does not make a big difference for bleeding, but is quite important as for the burn.
More Attack with a Carrion, which gives still a good power on alternative set of weapons, but very low crit.

More crit with Rabid, which is good, especially for the phantasm’s bleeding, but less attack.

Consequently, the wonder is : with that fully condition damage oriented build/stuff, is it still reliable to use a second set of weapons ?
I mean, in my case, Sword/Focus would have a pretty low attack, which means quite low damage. Problem is : in GW2, you should not stay whole fights with only one set of weapons to be very efficient in battles. Furthermore, I don’t see a second set which could synergise well with that build, that is another condition based set. At best, scepter+torch, but it would not be that great as those weapons are both weak in PVE (and scepter’s auto attack just is a pain to destroy phantasms …).

Last question : You said that rabid set was a pain to get (karmah, dungeon or very expensive). I guess you meant 42k+ karma for 1 piece or 300 dungeon tokens or the 10+ gold ? Absolutely no other way to get any ?
And, more important, can you get that on jewels too, as you cannot craft any ?

From playing around with first Carrion and then a dungeon Rabid set, I found the sword DPS to be fairly similar.

What I lost in regular damage seemed to be made up for by more crits. I put bleed on the sigil to be able to still get condition damage from the sword. I also did might on switch for the offhand, which bumped up both power and condition for a little while. Note that sharper images is both clones and phantasms, not just phantasms, so that scales too.

A scepter does synergize better, but that seems to be one of our worst weapons. I don’t like the way it plays (and its so slow).

There are no other ways to get the rabid set. The fastest (in my opinion) is the dungeon route, as there are 2 or 3 sets that offer it. HotM and TA definitely do. I think there are others, but I don’t know what they are. The cheapest pieces (x3) are 180 tokens. The most expensive is 330. So if you are planning on reskinning the set to something not dungeon bought, you can grab a bunch of pieces in parallel.

You cannot get any exotic rabid jewels. There might be rares, but I’m not sure. There definitely are greens. I haven’t settled on jewels to use for the set – right now I have a set of carrion, a set of rampager’s, and a set of traveler’s.

I see, it’s pretty cool that it does not impact much damage on the sword set. Yeah I knew for the bleeding on illusion crit, which is very great since precision scales (and they have fury).
I don’t know if this is a bug or if this is intended but clones don’t get double bounce with I elasticity sadly (3 clones = 8 conditions at the same time yeah ! lol).

What a shame there are no rabid exotic sets for jewels ! That means less efficiency in that build … Let’s hope there will be in the near future.
I guess either stick with Carion, or with rabid rare set if that does exist … :/

I’m currently farming especially Honour of the Waves, and trying to get a few from TA and Caudecus too (no way for Arah lol). Already grabbed the chest piece, now in farm mode to get everything I need !

And yeah I defintely agree that scepter is very bad, it defintely needs some love lol. Either removing the clone factory on auto attack to replace with buffs/conditions, or make it faster but … do something geez !

Bump this. Thanks a lot for your help on this. I finished farming my armor a few days and respecced. I’m quite happy with that build, it’s funny to play, provides much survivability and support, while steal dealing a decent amount of damage, especially over the other classes when it comes to a very mobile fight (thanks to the conditions). It’s a shame there aren’t rabid jewels though …

Bump this. Thanks a lot for your help on this. I finished farming my armor a few days and respecced. I’m quite happy with that build, it’s funny to play, provides much survivability and support, while steal dealing a decent amount of damage, especially over the other classes when it comes to a very mobile fight (thanks to the conditions). It’s a shame there aren’t rabid jewels though …

What armor did your farm? Rabid dungeon gear? I play Staff + Sword / Focus myself and am running into the same problem you are. Stacked Condition Damage can become a hindrance once you switch away from the Staff.

Right now I have enough gold farmed to buy an Exotic set of gear + trinkets + weapons. And I can’t bring myself to spend the gold since there is no Rabid gear on the TP. I was thinking about going Carrion armor, Superior Undead Runes, and then Rampager for the weapons and trinkets. This would eat up ~75% of my gold supply.

I’ve also contemplated going full Knights gear to load up on Toughness and then use the Undead Runes (and the 6/6 bonus) and 25 point Chaos trait to raise Condition Damage above the baseline.

Yup I farmed the rabid gear. You can get it with Arah, TA, HotW or Caudecus. I strongly recommend you these 2 last ones. I personally grabbed the armor pieces from HotW (skin) except for gloves (preferred Caudecus ones) and the staff (also picked Caudecus one as I don’t like Kodan staff skin).

Power
Precision
Toughness/Crit Damage in that order.

My gear is split between those two, I use Rune of the Pack (hoping for it to be fixed) and GS+Staff or S/F

So after days and weeks using that build (10/15/0/25/20) I’ve been wondering if the 10 points in domination were worth it. I mean, most of the time, I got the impression that enemies go down faster with 3 clones stacking conditions than with phantasms hitting reaaaaaly slow and me having not that much attack …
Then I wonder if it was not worth putting those 10 points elsewhere ? For instance, 10 more in duelling, adding clone on dodge and confusion on clone death ?
Or, maybe, 10 in inspiration just to grab more utilty : 20% faster recharge on glamour or feedback bubble when rezzing …

Yeah, I also got rid of the 10 on domination. I found that putting it elsewhere was more useful with the full Rabid set (Carrion makes use of it nicely, however). Right now I put those 10 points back in Dueling for clone generation + confusion of clone death.

Yeah I guessed so … The more attack is not very useful (especially with staff) and the longer condition duration was already very weak so does not make a big change. The only real change comes when you switch on S/F with I Warden and your sword that make less damage (especially the I Warden) and also the I Warlock (but usually, only in DE bosses, so who cares ?).
But I think it can be overcome by your more crit and thus more bleeding on crit I guess (if the sigil has no internal CD).
I tried a bit with more points in duelling, was not totally satisfied : clone on dodge often fails, and it quite leads you to useless dodges, thus being unable to dodge when necessary. I see it’s a very good trait but not for me I guess. The confusion on clone death was good though.
I think puttint them in duelling, inspiration or illusion is just a matter of gameplay : with duelling, even more clone and conditions, with inspiration : feedback bubble on rez or glamour faster recharge, with illusion : Illusionay Persona (almost only useful in DE though, not so much in dungeons …)

I mostly use Power / Malice / Vitality.
Seems to go well, I hate pure glass cannon setups because it’s so easy to lose large amounts of DPS uptime.

Tried difference between 20 illusion and 30 illusion in the mists.
With only 20 illusion, bleeding = 117, burn = 702
With 30 Illusion, bleeding = 122, burn = 727

I wanted to give it a try as it would provide 100 more in condition damage, which is quite nice, though traits aren’t that useful.
However, we can see that the difference on bleeding is really small. Still, the difference on burn is a bit higher.
I guess it’s an option, but I think it’s not as worth as having more crits (though it’s only 5% difference) to apply more bleeding thanks to sigil of earth and confusion on clone deaths (even if confusion is short duration) as you did.
The other option to have even more support with 10 in inspiration also makes sense : feedback bubble to safely revive allies, 20% faster CD on glamour for more feedback bubble (crazily effective skill) and Null Field (I also love it) and more ways for the party to inflict confusion (thanks to ethereal combofield).
When necessary, it’s also possible to switch this point with remove condition on healing.
Thus, I hesitate so much, the 2 options seem so valuable lol …
Duelling makes more sense to an even deeper condition based build, inspiration helps the party.