Guild Wars 2

really legit question from someone who played condi builds as a forever

even before the expansion ppl said condi shatter in pvp is bad. their condi pressure is low . may be good in 1v1 but failed in group fight cause all of the condi cleanse

so what has changed?

i know no more high vitality amulet in used. but only bunker used it
we basically got condi nerfed so condi shatter should have gone worst
ele ds go buff/nerf depend who you ask
ranger got more condi cleanse
all other classes have the same condi cleanse as before?

so why only now its a thing?
why when i posted so much builds around mtd and confusion ppl said its bad?

is it only power mesmer not viable anymore? if so it doesnt make condi mesmer bad just there was other build which was better…

to be honest…. mesmer is very underpowered atm. Well… not really under powered, just not defendable… ive literally tried a dozen mesmer/chrono builds since tuesday, ranging from meta builds to custom builds. It seems like no matter what happens, you always get your kitten kicked by reapers, scrappers, or dragon hunters. <— those are the meta classes this time around. Best thing you can do as a mesmer is run a tanky build with portals and use the portals to get out of sticky situations.
That being said, Torment&confusion buils are good for melting HP, even if they have condi cleanse you can still so a decent amount of damage before they walk itoff.
another good build i found was a radiance build running staff + runes of radiance + inspiration, chaos, chronomancer, + Portal entry, mimic, feedback. — you use the 4x feedback and staff #2 to give chaos armor and reflect projectiles. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW8ancfC1qh9pBuqBEgiFijqOT70Q1MASgF6sBugJA-TZRBQBNsMAAOIAob/BMcBAqwTAAA

messiah.1908:

is it only power mesmer not viable anymore? if so it doesnt make condi mesmer bad just there was other build which was better…

Yes and yes. Power build are more fragile then condi and it’s easier to survive on them. Also almost all of the time when I use my burst I need to run away to stay alive, and with condi I’m still damaging my oponent.
Dunno but I have better results in figths when I play condi, and it’s not only on memser.

pico.6402:

messiah.1908:

is it only power mesmer not viable anymore? if so it doesnt make condi mesmer bad just there was other build which was better…

Yes and yes. Power build are more fragile then condi and it’s easier to survive on them. Also almost all of the time when I use my burst I need to run away to stay alive, and with condi I’m still damaging my oponent.
Dunno but I have better results in figths when I play condi, and it’s not only on memser.

so what has changed the last 1-2 months? why was condi never a thing? and now yes

messiah.1908:

pico.6402:

messiah.1908:

is it only power mesmer not viable anymore? if so it doesnt make condi mesmer bad just there was other build which was better…

Yes and yes. Power build are more fragile then condi and it’s easier to survive on them. Also almost all of the time when I use my burst I need to run away to stay alive, and with condi I’m still damaging my oponent.
Dunno but I have better results in figths when I play condi, and it’s not only on memser.

so what has changed the last 1-2 months? why was condi never a thing? and now yes

Maybe it was that supposedly buff in last patch to scepter which made ppl start to look at condition again for Mesmer/Chrono?

At the same was Alacrity being reduced and other changes that might have made those meta builder to look for something else? Mesmer and Chrono is still a profession with utilities like portals, Wells, MI, TW and Moa (read somewhere Scrapper now also can do that, but didn’t see anything on wiki about that).

From Inspiration we can also share Distortion and help to keep healing, condition removal on a team in range. Alacrity is still there to reduce recharge rate and CS make it possible to do unexpected things in the right hands. All in all there things other profession might do better, but there also things that are special for only our profession and condition do give some time in between to use portals or other utility without to have to target/use weapon skills in continue to damage.

Going full Berserker means that you have almost no survivability against builds with high toughness or vitality and with low impact from our direct damage (after patch) we have a very steep hill to get to the top to be able to burst them into oblivion. With all blocks around and AoE our shatter isn’t a very reliable way to burst down anything and higher DPS from other professions make it even harder.

With Condition you don’t need high precision or ferocity and can invest your minor stats into soomething else like toughness and/or vitality to mitigate some damage. Even on a Berserker build with Domination/Inspiration/Chronomancer you will notice a large difference when you are playing in EB between having Inspiration and not that you can keep yourself alive for a bit more time and also your allies during a pirate ship zergs attack outside your keep. Dueling with only Blind is not enough in those situation with how Dardevils can move in and out during an attack to blind them and its range is too short to keep Druids and other with long ranged weapons skills from doing damage so it is natural that Chronobunker with even more vitality, toughness and some duration on condition for stacking and high impact on condition damage would become meta. The new quadruple stats might also have something to do with it as it is now easier to get some duration from expertise or concentration from your gear.

**I know sPVP isn’t the same as WvW, but even then you can get a feeling how much a difference Inspiration actually does and with that in mind that is not a very big surprise that condition damage is the next step as you can replace some of Inspirations strength with vitality and/or toughness and replace Inspiration with something to help you out with condition damage like bleed (Dueling) or confusion (Illusions).

messiah.1908:

so what has changed the last 1-2 months? why was condi never a thing? and now yes

It happened what always happens when dev release a balance patch.

The value of a build is never something absolute.

The value of a build is always related to the enviroment you are going to use that particular build (basically the “meta” in which you are going to play that build and the other options in terms of builds your class is offering in that particular “meta”).

So before last balance patch we had a bunkering meta where, in relation to the classes and builds people were playing, condie mesmer was kinda useless while chronobunker was shining.

Now the 23th january bringed away that bunkering meta, the chronobunker has been nerfed, some amulet changed and other classes started to use new meta builds that are less tankish and more suscetible to condition dmg.

So in the new enviroment condie mesmer is a thing

In fact the classes that actually bring us more troubles to kill (scrapper, ele) are the ones who are more similar to what was played in previous meta.

Luckly they are just “similar” and not the “same” otw condie mesmer would still be out.

It’s like having an umbrella with you, where the wheater is the meta, sun= useless, rainy=usefull :-)

I tried condi mesmer builds when Maim the Disillusioned and Perplexity Runes came out. It didn’t work for because it was slow (I was mostly roaming in WvW) and I couldn’t really chase anyone down (both my slow movement speed and the slow running illusions).

When chronomancer came along, that solved the slow base movement speed and gave superspeed to illusions. I also solved the illusion-generation problem without needing Deceptive Evasion. And that opened up taking Inspiration as a defensive/support option (but it also gives you more phantasm generation which gives more shatters and faster phantasm cooldowns).

Now with Mercenary amulet, there’s a set of stats that gives enough condition damage plus survivability. And the extra power can be useful as well.

So, for me, everything basically just fell into place. I never really played much power shatter (my roamer was a phantasm build), so I didn’t have to “give up” that play style.

I guess one other point from my perspective. I never played the bunker mesmer build, so I didn’t have to give that up either. It just didn’t seem that fun to me. So I was playing condi shatter builds all last season.

The downside of that decision is that a lot of players expected the bunker build last season, so there needed to be a little chat before each match (and I stopped playing at ruby tier because that chat was just not that much fun)

I agree that it likely has to do a lot with changes in the environment, aka. The Meta.

Part of that is definitely the amulets. Before the most recent Amulet changes, the choice of Amulets for Condie Mesmer were plain terrible. Although we received a bunch of new ones, all of them were either total Glass or only provided Toughness. Without enough HPs, Toughness is pretty useless, especially since the burst of the previous meta was also a tad higher then it is now, and much higher then pre-HoT as we all know.

I also agree that it’s “a thing” because the other builds have simply become ineffective in this current meta. Either it’s clear that another profession can do the same job, only much better (Power Shatter), or it got plain nerfed into oblivion (Bunker).

There are many factors that come together to form a meta.

One thing that might help the Mesmer (this is my favorite class) would be to add additional stamina. For example leave the strength but when we dodge roll instead of getting 2 then waiting for the recharge give 3 or 4 (kinda like the Rev) so you can still survive even without adding more power or such… This helps when you leave a clone when you dodge. Just a thought..

There’s always a small-but-vocal group of players who take great pride in doing weird, suboptimal stuff. I think some people gravitate to playstyles that involve doing light-but-consistent damage, and that’s condi for you. (Why those people don’t play a class that’s actually good at doing condi, I couldn’t tell you.)

Simple, because high ranked spvp players tried condi mesmer and people followed. They could pull a real weird build, make it work and people would follow.

messiah.1908:

so what has changed the last 1-2 months? why was condi never a thing? and now yes

Mostly mercenary amulet – if not this one a would not even try condi mes, before I played only power shatter with marauder amulet.

Mistrust is also a big contributor to why it’s being played so much now. Even though it’s spammy, random interrupts there ares such a plethora of sources (shield being the highlight).

I know not everyone is running mistrust but it’s honestly looking like it might become viable for top tier. I have my own doubts, have asked pro league players if they’ve actually tested in scrims and thus far no but I’m sure will be heavily tested over the next few weeks.

skcamow.3527:

Mistrust is also a big contributor to why it’s being played so much now. Even though it’s spammy, random interrupts there ares such a plethora of sources (shield being the highlight).

I know not everyone is running mistrust but it’s honestly looking like it might become viable for top tier. I have my own doubts, have asked pro league players if they’ve actually tested in scrims and thus far no but I’m sure will be heavily tested over the next few weeks.

i used mistrust a lot with sword and compare the sword to scepter i manage to proc with scepter the same or even higher confusion stack without mistrust while have condi cleanse from insp line. also necro with stability, engi, rev, druid, ele almost every one got stability so the interrupt per seconds is pretty low compare to scepter #3.

top players:
helseth using mercenary with mistrust
phantarm using viper with insp line
frostball using mercenary with insp line

so basically you saying that mercenary (used to be carrion) and the remove of high toughness/vitality amulets brought mini comeback to condi shatter

Well, condi became a thing again because power shatter fell off. Power shatter fell off because with the constantly rising power creep in the game Marauders now doesn’t give us enough survivability and Paladins gives us the survivability but doesn’t give us enough damage. Berserker amulet is pretty much irrelevant at this point for us. The power creep just got so high that if you don’t have any tanky stats at all you will get 1 shot by pretty much everything. Especially Thieves, whose jobs are to specifically follow us around and counter us the entire game and now do tons of damage with their recent AA buffs.

Hence why condi became a thing again. Since we can’t successfully play power in the current meta, the top players tried condi. Mercenary amulet turned out to be literally the best amulet in the game. It lets us to keep pressure enough through hybrid damage while giving us the tankiness of Paladins.

Buell.3701:

Well, condi became a thing again because power shatter fell off. Power shatter fell off because with the constantly rising power creep in the game Marauders now doesn’t give us enough survivability and Paladins gives us the survivability but doesn’t give us enough damage. Berserker amulet is pretty much irrelevant at this point for us. The power creep just got so high that if you don’t have any tanky stats at all you will get 1 shot by pretty much everything. Especially Thieves, whose jobs are to specifically follow us around and counter us the entire game and now do tons of damage with their recent AA buffs.

Hence why condi became a thing again. Since we can’t successfully play power in the current meta, the top players tried condi. Mercenary amulet turned out to be literally the best amulet in the game. It lets us to keep pressure enough through hybrid damage while giving us the tankiness of Paladins.

100% this is the case.

Condi is the only remaining thing for mesmer…be prepared for the QQ and the nerf…

Another thing to consider is this: Persistence of memory and the illusions line cooldown traits were overkill last season, because alacrity reduced things enough anyway. Using them now is similar to having alacrity back.

^ Good point. Being without Illusions, which a Chrono Power Shatter kinda is forced to, means giving up a lot of CD goodness. Longer Shatter CDs, and longer Phantasm CDs, which of course synergizes with Chrono Phants.

That synergy between PoM and CP is a large part of what makes the Condie Shatter decently effective. It’s provides a constant stream of multi-illusion shatters to feed MtD.

Novamatrix.2569:

It seems like no matter what happens, you always get your kitten kicked by reapers, scrappers, or dragon hunters. <— those are the meta classes this time around.

So long as a meta is accepted, this is bound to happen to class X, always. It’s because they have mechanic Y, which suffers from structural issue Z given that A brings B, and hence it cannot work out.
(Generalized, mind you meta-based is a very acceptable form of PvP balance)

Ofc, we could try to have “even” balance, all 8 classes are equally viable given that they spec a specific build, that build might change. This is doable, but won’t work below a teamsize of 8, conceptually. Unless classes are so similar that effectively there aren’t 8 classes but less than that (due to the ignorable differences).

Or, we could argue that each class should have X setups which are all viable. That is completely utopian, more so in smallscale PvP, but pretty much in WvW and PvE, too.

Ultimately, it comes down to that smallscale PvP only lends itself to Flavor of the Month type of balance.

Carighan.6758:

Ofc, we could try to have “even” balance, all 8 classes are equally viable given that they spec a specific build, that build might change. This is doable, but won’t work below a teamsize of 8, conceptually. Unless classes are so similar that effectively there aren’t 8 classes but less than that (due to the ignorable differences).

All 9*.
And this game suffers from a pretty serious lack of variety in roles and goals.
For a game “Without the generic roles of tank, dps, and healer”, it sure fell into that tank, dps, healer meta pretty kitten quickly.
Which should’ve been expected, and handled accordingly. Instead of some class being able to fill 2 of those roles better than another class that dedicates entirely to 1 of those roles.

At any rate, if we had a variety of possible goals in this game, it would be a tiny bit easier to balance (in PvP).
Some maps X class would be viable, others it wouldn’t. And everyone would have just gotten used to playing multiple characters.

Instead, we’ve received a single new PvP game mode (And lost another), with a single map, that can be enabled/disabled in the queue. Effectively removing the need to adjust yourself to the game mode.

On top of that, there isn’t any build saving/loading mechanic. Effectively meaning new players won’t adjust themselves to their team/the opposing team. Not until they’ve gotten more experience and have memorized what to swap to.

Carighan.6758:

Or, we could argue that each class should have X setups which are all viable. That is completely utopian, more so in smallscale PvP, but pretty much in WvW and PvE, too.

Ultimately, it comes down to that smallscale PvP only lends itself to Flavor of the Month type of balance

That completely Utopian concept is what this launched advertising.

messiah.1908:

so what has changed?

- Shatterlock (anguish+halting) nerfed
- Anguish itself nerfed
- Mantras nerfed (fixed)
- Stability trends (affects daze)
- Stealth-management nerfed

- Bunkers (although only in sPvP) nerfed
- Alacrity nerfed (HoT unique)
- Wells nerfed (HoT unique)

Alright, I’ll confess, I’m just putting it like that to be a tad cheeky but there is some speck of truth to it as well. The (hybrid-) condi shatter builds have been around since corespecs and they largely replaced shatterlock builds then (after the initial figures on anguish had been adjusted) and pure power builds saw an overall damage decrease in trade-off with more stealth and utility skills (which later got toned down too). The new-old hybrid build is essentially played just like shatterlock but includes blind-condition conversion instead of daze-damage conversion (and domi for illu ofc).

Overall that also says quite alot about the class since almost every change since has been adjusted in some way, leaving the class both weaker and more streamlined than before corespecs hit (ie., worse than about five balance passes ago when we still placed points).

We have started to see some builds come up that utilize the chrono tree, but they usually don’t really utilize the chrono tree – they mainly just use it for either the runspeed minor so they can have proper runes or for illusion-generation as an option to evasion.

In many ways those builds are not necessarily better than the corespec-hybrid (illu-duel-chaos) as that build still has alot of synergy, but since that build is very dependent on traveler runes many players see the option to trade chaos for chrono+condi runes and optionally trade duel for inspi (going chrono+inspi for clone generation and getting some cleanses/heals). While the builds differ alot in terms of traits they are still geared and played the same ways. So while there are some trait options the defining difference remains corespec+traveler or chrono+perplex/torment/nightmare for hybrid-shatter.

There have been people playing shatter and the chrono tree does flirt with ways to play double-range shatter with alacrity cycling for sPvP big-plays (portals etc.) ontop of phantasm-retention traits (making better use of phantasms in your illusion-generation).

However, like bunkering that is mostly just an organized sPvP thing and those builds took a hit with the alacrity nerfs. Furthermore, as far as I’m concerned they were already less interesting than old power-shatter builds. There have been people putting out nice shatter videos since (Jazz had a nice clip out a few weeks ago for example) but it is also very evident when looking at those that it is the player carrying the build rather than any form of opposite or synergy – they do alright in spite of the build, not because of the build and as much as the videos highlight the ability of the player they also highlight the shortcomming of the build and disparity in player choices (ie., I’m not saying the author only does well because the opponents are bad, I’m saying that the author generally does better than the opponents and the nerve comes from the build holding the author back).

With all that covered, yes, I believe you answered your own question already in the first post. Condi-shatter (or hybrid-shatter) exist because pure power-shatter has taken much larger hits from a variety of recent changes – both direct, indirect, combinatory & relative.

With all that lengthy jabbering said: I’ve noted before and I’ll say it again – that the biggest issue the Mesmer has as a class is that they have lost a vision. The class launched with the idea of combining transportation utility with a rip-counter-burst role. The Mesmer was in many regards similar to the Necromancer. Since then larger vision- and mechanical changes have sort of stepped onto and obscured the Mesmer’s role. Ripping has been replaced by control-spam (and the Necromancer have seen quite drastic improvement to its corruption counterparts) and other classes have been given more stealth/transportation, control and burst. The Mesmer had some potential appeal in more group-utility and control/counter-control with the Chronomancer but it sort of came pre-nerfed or got axed very quickly because of bunkering. The old roles (and the variety between them) is gone and the new potential roles got smothered in their infancy. That sort of leaves us with portals and some burst, a meager and not undisputable role.

Looking briefly at the years since launch (ignoring condi) you would have shatter and lockdown builds evolve into double-range shatter and shatter-rip, then into shatter-CI and shatter-lock until corespecs brought the condi-shatter and hybrid-shatter builds.

In most of those steps it was very easy to see what you would use a Mesmer for. Today it is becomming increasingly difficult to see what you would use a Mesmer for (and it is not because “the class is bad at everything” but rather because the class lacks some sort of defining vision). The answer quickly just boils down to portals and while portals are fun and often underutilized that does not say very much about the class as a whole.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

That completely Utopian concept is what this launched advertising.

Yes, but every MMO does that, pretty much. And anyone who ever played any MMO before knows that it is nothing but marketing bullkitten.

Carighan.6758:

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

That completely Utopian concept is what this launched advertising.

Yes, but every MMO does that, pretty much. And anyone who ever played any MMO before knows that it is nothing but marketing bullkitten.

Actually, GW2 is somewhat unique, in that it advertised that any class would be able to fill any role.
When I go back and remember my experience in other games, classes were pretty much entirely dedicated to 1 thing.

I actually can’t think of another MMO I’ve played that was advertised the same way as GW2.
Now, all of them are advertised as the next “wow killer”, but that is because people are stupid.
You can’t kill WoW, it’s already dead. There are no souls in that game, only zombies.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Carighan.6758:

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

That completely Utopian concept is what this launched advertising.

Yes, but every MMO does that, pretty much. And anyone who ever played any MMO before knows that it is nothing but marketing bullkitten.

Actually, GW2 is somewhat unique, in that it advertised that any class would be able to fill any role.
When I go back and remember my experience in other games, classes were pretty much entirely dedicated to 1 thing.

I actually can’t think of another MMO I’ve played that was advertised the same way as GW2.
Now, all of them are advertised as the next “wow killer”, but that is because people are stupid.
You can’t kill WoW, it’s already dead. There are no souls in that game, only zombies.

thief has always been dmg dealer and +1 – even anet said so
engi – most of the time sustain/bruiser
guard – bunker and bruiser
ele – support most of the time
necro – condi and aoe power dmg
mesmer – dmg dealer and for short time support/bunker
warrior – bruiser
rev – dmg dealer
ranger – still try to find its spot.
so we got 3 dmg dealer, 2 support bunker, 3 sustain/bruiser

messiah.1908:

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Carighan.6758:

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

That completely Utopian concept is what this launched advertising.

Yes, but every MMO does that, pretty much. And anyone who ever played any MMO before knows that it is nothing but marketing bullkitten.

Actually, GW2 is somewhat unique, in that it advertised that any class would be able to fill any role.
When I go back and remember my experience in other games, classes were pretty much entirely dedicated to 1 thing.

I actually can’t think of another MMO I’ve played that was advertised the same way as GW2.
Now, all of them are advertised as the next “wow killer”, but that is because people are stupid.
You can’t kill WoW, it’s already dead. There are no souls in that game, only zombies.

thief has always been dmg dealer and +1 – even anet said so
engi – most of the time sustain/bruiser
guard – bunker and bruiser
ele – support most of the time
necro – condi and aoe power dmg
mesmer – dmg dealer and for short time support/bunker
warrior – bruiser
rev – dmg dealer
ranger – still try to find its spot.
so we got 3 dmg dealer, 2 support bunker, 3 sustain/bruiser

“thief has always been dmg dealer and +1 – even anet said so”
Venom share. Which happens to be a support tanky class. I actually have people on my server that command on a venomshare thief.

“engi – most of the time sustain/bruiser”
Some of the time it’s a full damage dealer. And some of the times it’s a condi user.

“guard – bunker and bruiser”
Has everything it needs to go DPS and Support.

“ele – support most of the time”
Support + tank, and a damage spec.
Oh, and it can do all of those at once in some game modes. (Looks at WvW)

I’m not going to go down the whole list.

The point I want to make, is that the elements for each role is there, in the classes already.
But what we’ve seen from ANet, has been gutting those 1 at a time.
Mostly because the lack of variety ends up giving them unbeatable cheese roles.

I’m shocked venom share thief hasn’t been gutted, considering how powerful it is with a necro party.
Then again, very few things related to WvW have been changed.

When is the last time you’ve seen a static discharge engineer?
How about a core build, period?
S/W warrior? It has aoe condi cleanse for its team.
EXCEPT THE FACT THAT ELE ALREADY COVERS THAT FAR BETTER

This is what annoys the crap out of me.
Instead of inventing new mechanics, ANet just took their already existing mechanics and gave them to other classes.
Making the classes and builds whose viability was based entirely on those mechanics, obsolete.

And then when ANet DOES create a new mechanic.
They gut the whole kitten thing by cutting it in half, and don’t compensate the cooldowns at all. Because they’re geniuses.

The idea that every class could fill most/all of the roles isn’t utopian.
The mechanics are already there.