Guild Wars 2

The only reason mesmer stays in the meta is because of portal tbh. If you’re really lucky, the other team won’t have any mobility (DH, War, Engi, Ele, necro, etc) to decap or +1 fights. Maybe switch out one of your wells for portal, and your build would be that much better. If it doesn’t work, then ok, you’re right, portal is worse than the rest of your utility skills

I ran a similar more tank-oriented and no-stealth build for a long time and I’m glad to see more of it happening. Maybe not as hard a tank as you got there, as I use greatsword instead of staff but yeah.

On that note, may i ask why you use well of eternity instead of signet of the ether? The 1k hp regen every 3 sec is really good and I can’t tell how much good the instant shield 4 recharge has done for me.

I see. The alacrity wasn’t really important to me, as i have it in abundance just through shattering and avengers. But you got a point with the group condi cleanse and group heal.

Thanks for sharing Abelisk! I noticed today that you were doing pretty well on the ladders this season. I am getting really frustrated with the condi build this season, so I may give this a try.

Just curious, have you tried running Mender’s Amulet instead of Paladin?

Abelisk.4527:

I’ve tried Mender’s, but I feel like it sacrifices too much damage for a bump in Well of Eternity’s healing. Plus the healing doesn’t scale that well with the heals we have.

Interesting, I thought it scaled fairly well with Restorative Illusions and Healing Prism. I tried the build out in unranked and to me, it was a lot more fun than condi for sure. YMMV.

Abelisk.4527:

Hmm, Mender’s isn’t that bad actually. I must have used the wrong build with it!! It is pretty good, you’re right.

It really buffs the regen, too!

If there is an ele in the party, or if I decide to take portal over disenchanter (which was a great tip btw), I’ve switched to Paladins, otherwise I’ve run Menders. However my experience with this build is still very limited. Really enjoying it so far though.

EDIT: not saying you should switch between the two amulets in those scenarios every time, it’s just the criteria I as using for testing.

Interesting! I’ve been playing what turns out to be a bit more offensive/selfish variant of this for a while. I only solo and personally I feel that in pugs Portal is rarely very effective. You just never know what kinda team you’re going to get, and the long CD makes the trade off painful. Certainly, in any organized duo/team I would replace Calamity with Portal. (I like Calamity though for this build! Short CD Etheral field that provides both offense and defense.)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAscWnsnB1fitfCmpBEgiFij6cDugOzMASgFquS/0QF-TJhIABfv/AAnCg4LD4/TAAA

The gist of it is to be relatively tanky while maintaining near perma Protection and high Might stacks. So while you’re running Paladin’s Amulet, you still end up doing solid damage especially in 1v1 thanks to high Might stacking and strong Phantasm damage.

Gives you half a chance against scrub to medium skill Thieves too, and you can draw out most 1v1s (and some 2v1s) almost indefinitely. (I love that ~4.2k Mirror heal on 12s CD.)

I don’t really miss the Shield either! It’s never seemed like a Mesmerish thing to have anyway, and if it’s more than 2v1 then it’s time to skidaddle anyway…that’s the Mesmer way! ;-) Sure the defense of the Shield is amazing no doubt, but it comes entirely at the cost of offense, a poor Phantasm, overly long CD on ToT now, etc.

The OH Sword is really pretty nice now. It synergizes very well with Etheral fields and the Chaotic Dampening trait for lots of CA/Protection, the new 8x Might synergizes with the core concept of this build, and in 1v1 it’s got both a nice spike damage and sustained DPS if ignored. (And IR is also very nice in 1v1.)

Certainly this is a good bit less defensive than OP, but also a good bit more damage output. You could easily make it a boon share build too by swapping WoC with SoI and/or the Illusionary Inspiration trait.

And I have to agree with OP on another thing…it’s —so far at least-- loads more fun than the meta Condie! It just feels more interactive and skillful…more Mesmerish if you will!
Or maybe it’s just a breath of fresh air. ;-)