Guild Wars 2

I am trying to focus on condition – bleed build using sword-focus / Staff. But I am afraid I am not using my spec to the fullest.

I am level 50 and so far I have the +20% mind wrack trait, illusionary elasticity and Sharper Images.

Since mesmer is the only class I have played so far, I have no idea if I am killing stuff fast enough. I can imagine a phantasm build being slower because you are reliant on phantasm cooldowns to actually do damage wheras a condition staff build you are ALWAYs doing decent damage.

I guess my real question is.. is sharper images ESSENTIAL for a condition mesmer? I saw the prometheus mesmer guides but he totally skipped those traits.

I think condition mesmers use Sharper Images because there isn’t much else.

The staff is a great weapon that can create a variety of conditions. Scepter and shatter can cause confusion. That’s about it in terms of condition creating skills.

I just go 20 Dom, 20 chaos, and 30 illusion. works great for me as cond. spec.

phantasm build cds aren’t prohibitive in practice. Offhands can get down to like 9 second recharges with 2h at around 12. So the cds are less of a problem than they are for mirror images and decoy. GS and pistol can also mantain 10 bleed stacks well with sharper images with either weapon.

Not sure why you mentioned the mind wrack trait while trying to go condition. You are already level 50 so I wont bother suggesting you go necro which really is a condtion damage class. Honestly if you want to level as condition damage you need a staff with a scepter/pistol swap. Dont worry about using focus for leveling. The I.duelist with fury will stack 6-8 bleeds in 1 volley of shots. Not to mention you get magic bullet which can CC 3 targets. Drop an I.Duelist and scepter #3 and watch as your foe has 8 stacks of bleed and 5 stacks of confusion in seconds. Then go ahead and swap to staff and stack on more conditions.

My condition build is:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAW7dlwzipHUTqGa9IhZGBH5nZw8ljSx1zOA;TsAgyCuoay0koJbTumkNtKYUwuAA

I like this build a lot and it’s easily reconfigured for dungeons, WvW, solo PvE, etc. without paying to reset the trait points.

The fastest build vs regular mobs is sword+pistol+focus, going max power/crit in everything but 20 points of traits for phantasmal haste.

Umm, the fastest grinding is power stacking + shatters.

Condition damage = damage over time = slower killing and overkill / wasted damage.

???

How so?
Two of the best youtube videos of mesmers fighting multiple mobs have been condition builds, and in fact, one of them was a counter-video to prove that condition builds kills multiple mobs faster than a power/greatsword build

Heres one of them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDpEbcBoWkA&feature=player_detailpage#t=41s
heres another
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-B3mkM7dqM&feature=player_detailpage#t=1083s

I have no doubt that if you have a power crit phantasm burst spec will kill a single target faster if you blow all your cooldowns, but after that if you jump to the next monster your damage will be weak as you wait for all your cooldowns again. I am looking for a build that can jump from mobs to mobs with minimal downtime

sword+focus is all about massive close range AoE; staff is nowhere near

Zid.4196:

The fastest build vs regular mobs is sword+pistol+focus, going max power/crit in everything but 20 points of traits for phantasmal haste.

if you actually played a mesmer you would not have recommended this, because phantasmal haste does not work on any phantasm right now.

LOL

If you only knew.

Zid.4196:

LOL

If you only knew.

i do know, kid. try reading the stickied bugs thread and then testing yourself in the mists before you post again

the trait does not work on any of our phantasm recharges. it’s not a matter of stacking – it simply does not work at all right now.

i spent a good hour today trying out different builds. when i tried a weapon cooldown/phantasmal haste build and noticed that the cooldown did not change from just having weapon cooldown/5 in illusion i tried every iteration and variation with all of the weapons. my conclusion – 5 in illusion and weapon skills both stack and work independently. phantasmal haste does not work at all, either independently or stacked with the above.

you’re welcome, son.

Err phantasmal haste doesn’t effect our phantasms cooldowns on spawns. It effects the phantasm’s time between attacks. Trait phantasmal haste with the warden and then watch the time between whirls without it. Some get more benefit than other phantasms but the trait seems to be functioning.

Dixa.6017:

Zid.4196:

LOL

If you only knew.

i do know, kid.

you’re welcome, son.

Look out, we got a kitten over here.

Internet tough guys rollseyes

Honestly, this is one of the least grindy games I’ve ever seen. I don’t know, maybe the late 70’s will slow down or something, but up through 70 I’m hitting a little more than 1 level per hour, and I am a 100% completionist. Definitely NOT optimizing for xp gain.

You’d be better served learning a variety of class mechanics on your way to 80 so that you can participate in sPvP or WvWvW more effectively, IMO. But to each his own…

I love how Dixa “thinks” he knows whats going on, but has no clue. Guess what stupid, it reduces the interval between the phantasms attacks, not the cooldown…

i may have gotten how the trait actually works wrong, but i’m not wrong about it not working.

if either of you had read the bugged sticky you would have seen…..

Not sure if anyone wrote that already but Phantasmal Haste does not work also on the Berserker and the Duelist.

and

Illusions:

“Phantasmal Haste” does not effect some phantasms. Current List: Mage, Swordsman, Disenchanter.

you still suggested a non-working trait.

new mesmers – read the stickied bug thread before anything else.

Trying to get back on topic here. To the OP, I thought the question was how to level as a condition spec and if sharper images was necessary in doing so. Had I known you just wanted to know the fastest way to jump from mob to mob with minimal cooldowns I would have suggested other skills. To answer your original question, yes sharper images really does make or break a Mesmer who uses condition damage. Outside of confusion what else do we have for condition damage? I played around with the prestige before it was fixed and even broken the burn wasn’t even keeping up with sharper image bleeds.

Also sharper images makes it so your clones contribute in dps (especially sword clones) I run a burst spec in Orr that focuses more in power/crit and crit damage, but even I take sharper images and phantasm fury. Because even on a burst spec where my swordsman can crit for 6k, I like to switch targets knowing that the old ones will bleed their last 10% HP. This allows you to summon new illusions on another target instead of that long wait between swordsman or duelist attacks.

Dixa-Please do more research before being so hostile.
Phantasmal Haste doesn’t work on two relatively useless phantasms (Mage and DE), one that’s not used for a
condition build (Swordsman), and underwater phantasm (Mariner), and a phantasm not used for its attack
(Defender).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Haste
It gives a 15% attack speed increase to everything else, and a 50% attack speed increase to Warden. With Phantasmal Haste and Sharper Images, one Warden can stack up to 12 bleeds every 6.6 seconds, plus considerable direct damage to all nearby enemies PLUS absorb or reflect projectiles if traited. The Warden has its own drawbacks, such as its almost non-existent mobility.

To the OP-
I found that I wasn’t able to efficiently level using a condition damage build until I was around 65. Around then I had access to a large amount of AoE conditions by using clone generation traits with staff + phantasm bleeds, taking advantage of clone overwriting counting as death for the AoE “Clones apply a condition on death”, and the “All shatters cause confusion” trait comes in handy when your main target is close to dead and you still have more to go. Having so many different ways to apply conditions makes you quite versatile.

And yes, I believe Sharper Images is crucial to a condition build for mesmers, and as Anxiety stated it is very useful for any farming build. It’s also only 15 points in the Precision + Crit Dmg line, which is a very nice stat combo either way you go.

ekn.6572:

Dixa-Please do more research before being so hostile.
Phantasmal Haste doesn’t work on two relatively useless phantasms (Mage and DE), one that’s not used for a
condition build (Swordsman), and underwater phantasm (Mariner), and a phantasm not used for its attack
(Defender).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Haste
It gives a 15% attack speed increase to everything else, and a 50% attack speed increase to Warden. With Phantasmal Haste and Sharper Images, one Warden can stack up to 12 bleeds every 6.6 seconds, plus considerable direct damage to all nearby enemies PLUS absorb or reflect projectiles if traited. The Warden has its own drawbacks, such as its almost non-existent mobility.

To the OP-
I found that I wasn’t able to efficiently level using a condition damage build until I was around 65. Around then I had access to a large amount of AoE conditions by using clone generation traits with staff + phantasm bleeds, taking advantage of clone overwriting counting as death for the AoE “Clones apply a condition on death”, and the “All shatters cause confusion” trait comes in handy when your main target is close to dead and you still have more to go. Having so many different ways to apply conditions makes you quite versatile.

And yes, I believe Sharper Images is crucial to a condition build for mesmers, and as Anxiety stated it is very useful for any farming build. It’s also only 15 points in the Precision + Crit Dmg line, which is a very nice stat combo either way you go.

again incorrect. just read the stickied bug thread

i did further testing using the stopwatch feature on my watch. it’s not decreasing the time between attacks on any of the phantasms right now. tested with iduelist/iwarlock/iswordsman/iberserker

but since this was already outlined in the bug thread i’m not entirely sure why i wasted my time. no, the OP does not list all of the phantasms effected because the OP can’t edit that post anymore. however in later posts it’s pointed out.

relying on clone death to apply anything becomes problematic in orr, when the mobs are mostly chasing you around and ignoring your clones entirely. once i got to orr, i dropped both traits.

Dixa, you need a new watch

I find my greatsword can chain a single regular mob every 15 seconds with zero downtime, effectively zero risk and minimal effort once you get used to the play style. If you supplement this with a duelist, swordsman, warlock or warden on your weapon swap your kill time can lesson significantly; but, I find that this really only gives the illusion(heh) of going faster because your next pull/kill is effectively delayed 15 seconds until your next phantasm or shatter anyway.
Vets and Champions very regularly fall right into the same rotation with little effort. With single pulls, the only time you slow down is when you get adds.

In my experience the Melee sword kills can be faster due to the obvious dps advantage, but that this eats through my health quickly unless i’m built like a tank to a degree that my kill time goes down anyway. Some happy medium of stats or better gear and traits might allow better farming (particularly in lower zones where it seems to annihilate my stats and make it tougher then it was when i actually was level 20).

Once you learn how to play with a 1h sword you will see why its superior!

Dixa- Sorry to hear Phantasmal Haste isn’t working for you. I, like the others in this thread, don’t seem to have that problem. I hope they fix the bug for you soon!

@OP: For me- using my stopwatch, I pretty regularly got ~5.6-5.8 seconds between attacks on my duelist without Phantasmal Haste, and 4.6-4.8 seconds between on my duelist with Phantasmal Haste. 1 second doesn’t sound like much, but it can add some nice damage to a fight.

re: phantasmal haste
The stickied thread is mostly pretty terrible. The wiki is substantially more accurate.

re: levelling
I levelled with a couple of different builds
*Inspiration heavy reflection build, using warden as a big dps move. This works pretty well; focus with reflection is very strong in general pve. Remember that the Warden can only hit 3 mobs at a time though!
*A clone-on-death build, using scepter/sword for high clone generation. Having a bunch of blocks makes this build really pretty good against single mobs. It can handle champs and +9 normal mobs fine… so long as they are single. Also doesn’t rely on kiting or much movement so it’s good for close quarters.
*High-power shatter build using GS and Sword/focus. Trait dueling for clone on dodge. I feel like the shatter build is probably the most efficient for general PVE, but you need a lot of traits (for 20 dueling and then a bunch in illusions for faster shatters) to make it work.

Playing with a tanky condition Staff build also works pretty well, but does better when you are grinding down groups of 3-6 mobs all by yourself.

the stickied thread is for bugs and is quite accurate for the most part

i already bugged the phantasmal haste issue, along with the signet of illusions not consistently applying the health bonuses to phanstams or clones. have not tested the trait

as for levelling, my experience recently is 1-40…honestly whatever floats your boat. 5 in illusions at least then the rest wherever. the class’s better traits are at 40 points. i levelled entirely with greatsword and staff. i tried 1h+offhand (this will be my third 80) and found not only did i not miss the speed buff from offhand focus, i also found that both iduelist and iwarlock – although useable at 900 and 1200 – run in to less than 900 range (looks to be about 600) to actually cast/fire. lets just say that on Kol in harathi, all phantasms were 100% useless. he stomps faster than any of them cooldown.

you will see a spike in your damage output IF you are properly focusing on power/precision at 40 and can get 20 into the crit line. this power peters off between 55 and 60, then picks up again at 60. at 60 i tried rampagers and berserkers gear – full sets of each. although rampagers gives you higher crit and condition damage, and 3 greatsword clones will nearly instantly stack 10+ bleeds (mirror blade+mirror images = you don’t need a phantasm for a normal mob), on objects or events that you can’t crit on (yellow named event mobs you can’t crit on, making sharper images useless) and the unreliability of staff conditions i found bersekers sets to be the fastest, most efficient way to get through the 60’s and 70’s, using greatsword and staff. staff is only there for when you get jumped and need chaos storm/chaos armor, or on event mobs with a lot of players where they aren’t going to be aoe stomped every 2 seconds warlock just is amazing (as is dropping chaos storm on the melee, keeps ’em going a bit longer).

i only shatter to kill, and never before. im actually having an easier time with risen than my ranger did, especially multiple packs, and tend to kill about as fast as my warrior did while being far, far more mobile. this of course is subject to rng.

so 20 in the crit line (dueling?), 5 in illusions at a minimum. after that i would suggest 20 in dom and then you have a choice if you continue to like gs+staff – put another 15 into illusions for bouncy-bounce (nice for staff and trident), or only 10 in illusion and pick up staff cooldown trait that’s 20 in the…toughness/boon duration line. sorry too lazy to go look it up.

pve once you get to the volcano zone is highly, highly mobile. the warden loses it’s effectiveness almost entirely EXCEPT in events, but in events i have 11s cd berserkers which like to cut a nice swath in a line – tagging enough for credit and loot rights and i’ll pop him with a shatter if he starts to take damage.

i also rolled asura, and will use radiation field on large events.