Guild Wars 2

I pretty much play staff, and only staff, and trident in the water. I totally rely on condition damage, if I must destroy an object I summon phantasms. I just don’t like switching weapons. Oddly I don’t mind switching elements on my elementalist.

Just a very simple, basic, play style:
My build is currently 0, 10, 30, 0, 30.
Desperate decoy
Debilitating dissipation, Chaotic Dampening, mirror of anguish
Master of misdirection, Illusionary elasticity, Illusionary persona
a full set of runes of the undead; because they stack with chaotic transference.

I am tempted to change to 25, 0, 25, 20 just for the condition duration. I could even add two superior runes of lyssia for that extra 10%. Longer confusion, burning, bleeding, weakness, and vulnerability on several opponents just from my staff #1 wile my clones add stacks. Or just a bleed duration rune set. Again, I just want to use staff, it is an odd kind of mid range aoe weapon, I quite like it.

I used to ignore condition duration, and focus on condition damage, noting that people could just cleanse it instantly. However, after getting confused by reef drakes and just running around and using illusions to kill them, I am not so sure increased condition duration would be a bad thing.
I don’t pvp at all, but that could change.
Thoughts?

I’m far from an expert on condition damage and especially staff, but I remember seeing a post last month about condition duration bonuses now also affect clones. Someone in the post mentioned that condition duration is better than having more condition damage. You should go to hearts of the mists and try out your build for free on those 2 big mobs before making any big changes in pve that might cost you a lot of gold. But I think it’s a good idea to stack condition duration instead of damage. But then again, with longer durations you’ll be able to increase the amount of stacks of bleeds you put on a target, which may not receive full effect because others will also be putting bleeds up. And it caps at 25. Either way, you can’t go wrong have many different armor sets, so make one for every build you’re interested in.

Here’s my suggestion.
1) confusion caps at 10 seconds duration, so taking more condition duration for confusion beyond a certain point is wasted.

2) Using staff, take whatever you need in order to keep your burns up 100% of the time. That’s what’ll really get people.

3) One option, if you’re not already using it, is to get Giver weapons. If using a main/off setup that’s +20% condition duration. Sadly a two handed will only give you +10%. No doubt you’re already running superior veggie pizza.

Now is not a great time to be looking at a staff condi build, given recent changes in how bounces from staff (and greatsword) function:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Major-bug-with-Bouncing-skills-mechanic/

It makes it difficult to reliably build stacks on yourself or your opponent and in some instances bounces can aggro other enemy mobs or neutrals.

What armor are you using? If you’re using rabid, you really should run a build more like 0/20/25/0/25. It gives you more clones to work with (meaning you always have 3 illusions up), and more importantly, gives your illusions the ability to cause bleeds on crit. Significantly more bleeds = better than slightly more condition damage. The extra crit damage will also slightly help our your iWarlock hit harder, especially vs objects.

In fact, I doubt you produce enough conditions to begin with for the duration to be worthwhile. Staff 1 is fairly slow to cast and travel, and you don’t have access to many clone-creation skills, so it seems like you can only have 1 or 2 clones out at a time. That won’t generate enough conditions…

Think of it like this- assuming you can get about 50% more duration, that makes each bleed count as about 1.5 bleeds. But Sharper Images, the trait you would pick up with my suggestion above, allows each clone/phantasm crit (you get about 60% crit rate iirc) gives you an extra 1.0 bleed, even when it procs vulnerability. iWarlock can proc it too! So with 20 in Dueling, you’ll be getting more illusions, and thus, way more condition stacks, nearly double. So you should be getting almost 2x damage done, rather than the duration’s 1.5x damage. Quantity wins (provided you don’t hit the condition cap, of course!)

Plus, having more clones lets you use your shatters more often and with less “penalty” since you want to stay on staff only. I highly recommend you go this route.

I spent about 1,000 hours of game time playing condition builds on mesmer. The first 300 or so were without Deceptive Evasion and Sharper Images, and the rest were with. The difference is huge, and the gameplay is so much more flexible. Rabid armor can be tough to come across, but if you want to play condition on mesmer, its the way to go.

I am greatly surprised, Richard, I really didn’t expect a trait line that emphasized precision to be any good for a condition build…
I tried your build, and it works marvelously! I am getting more than twice the bleed stacks I used to get! I added 5 more points in dueling so now my illusions cause confusion on death… I noticed that confusion on death works even if the illusion dies from you summoning clones with three already out. I am running 0, 25, 25, 0, 20. I don’t have rabid gear, i have order of whispers gear, same stat combination though.

Ironically, I used to run that exact stat combo back when I ran condition builds. It’s a really good setup, and you can port it directly over to WvW without trait changes. Granted, it isn’t as effective anymore due to the confusion nerf, but you can still make it work if you really want :P