Guild Wars 2

For those weaponsets, viper is absolutely the best choice of stats, although sinister would also be functional.

There are very limited defensive options for sigils. Pretty much the only one that provides functional defense is energy, dodge on weapon swap. There are some other gimmicky things like water sigils for tiny heals now and then, but it’s so small that you won’t even notice it happening. I’d recommend a sigil of strength or battle for your second choice.

Runes have some decent defensive options available. I’d recommend either durability or melandru for general defense. That being said, a full vipers build with defensive runes is still pretty squishy. Since you’re only interested in PvE, I’d recommend just going full offense and surviving through the use of the excellent active defense Mesmer has.

Viper is golden so stick with it. For tough stuff (like T4 fractals I go trailblazer which is obscenely expensive to make).

Well it’s just for story instance and open world pve lol
So you say keep viper stats , what about runes and sigils?

Like I said I enjoy the scepter/ torch and focus or staff second hand haha

Honestly if it is only open world and story, I don’t know if viper is such a great stat then because you won’t benefit much from an increased condi duration if the mobs die before you complete one round of your rotation… In that case I would prefer sinister to have better condi ticks.
If you want more a condi/power hybrid I would have a look at pistol off-hand where the phantasm does quite a bunch of damage and when traited (sharper images+ duelist’s discipline) can also apply some bleed stacks.
Also about being tanky and doing condi damage, have a look at trailblazer stats (tough condi vit expertise) which gives you exactly this. Of course you are nto forced to take everything with the same stats in your case of hybrid. I would recommend you to use a tool like gw2skills.net to simulate your gear and find the combination that suits you.

Trailblazer is utter garbage for condie Mesmer, you should never use that. PvE condie Mesmer relies so heavily on crits proccing sharper images that any non-crit set is worthless.

Basically the options are vipers and sinister for hybrid or rabid for pure condie. Since we’re talking PvE, there’s really no reason to get tanky gear like rabid (or trailblazer’s for that matter). The issue of viper duration not mattering vs small mobs is definitely relevant, but I feel that it’s better to optimize your gear for harder fights (bigger mobs that take longer to kill) since weaker mobs will die fairly quickly regardless of using sinister or viper.

For runes I’d recommend probably berserker runes. They’re generally the best hybrid damage set available. For sigils you can take the sigil of earth for bleed on crit.

Fay.2357:

Trailblazer is utter garbage for condie Mesmer, you should never use that. PvE condie Mesmer relies so heavily on crits proccing sharper images that any non-crit set is worthless.

Basically the options are vipers and sinister for hybrid or rabid for pure condie. Since we’re talking PvE, there’s really no reason to get tanky gear like rabid (or trailblazer’s for that matter). The issue of viper duration not mattering vs small mobs is definitely relevant, but I feel that it’s better to optimize your gear for harder fights (bigger mobs that take longer to kill) since weaker mobs will die fairly quickly regardless of using sinister or viper.

My thoughts exactly. You need precision to proc your bleed on crit traits. I would also focus on champions more than trash. Makes you shine more in soloing stuff like Hero Points or Champs in general. Condi has a lack of aoe anyway, so it’s nothing wrong with setting up a phantasm per mob you fight where the duration already comes in handy again. However there’s not much viper gear required if you use the right runes.

Fay.2357:

For runes I’d recommend probably berserker runes. They’re generally the best hybrid damage set available. For sigils you can take the sigil of earth for bleed on crit.

While I know the +5% damage do not work with phantasms, I’m not sure if the +5% condition damage do either. It’s a modifier and they normally don’t work with phants.

If you use pistol and focus, I’d totally stick to Krait Runes, otherwise 4 Nightmare + 2 Trapper or 5 Nightmare + 1 Black Diamond / Coral Orb.

Sigils I’d use in open world ofc Corruption. Geomancy has the highest condi dps of all damaging sigils, earth and bursting are approximately equal. If you don’t cap condi duration yet, Malice is also an excellent choice.

So berserker runes are a modifier on condition damage. All power damage modifiers are applied multiplicatively to outgoing damage, which means phantasms do not benefit. However, other % modifiers to condition damage (namely sigil of bursting) directly modify the stat itself, which is inherited by our illusions. If berserker runes also work that way, then the illusions will benefit from them.

Grace of the Land and Superior Rune of the Berserker are modifiers, not stat increases. Imo ANet were very sloppy with their english:

Normally “Increases condition damage by 6%” aka Bursting is fine.
But GotL and Zerker Rune should be “Increases outgoing condition damage by X%”.

Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXhYp4xIjiY&list=PL4QnNhTXYiNICr4tXaR5rajA-xVNByXMG&index=4

So I would have to test if it works or not, I doubt it tough.

Ok tested it today, and the Berserker Rune indeed works with the phantasms condition damage. So I was wondering and yes – GotL does aswell.

So there must be an anomaly that phantasms copy condition modifiers, but not power ones, since the power modifier of gotl didn’t work for example.

So the 6th bonus of the Berserker rune does work … half of it at least >_>

Its simple. Conditions that phantasms apply counts as mesmer conditions (and so inherit mesmer buffs/status/etc).
Only phantasm power damage is counted as phantasm attack.

Same behavior as engi turrets then :o Still a bit weird – but I’m not complaining!