Guild Wars 2

Curunen is right, you have to be hyper vigilant because if you eat the Mesmer’s opener you are pretty much screwed. The meta zerker build for Mesmer takes a trait (MA) that gives a shatter damage bonus vs opponents who are not using an ability, so never be idle. This also means that you will see a lot of Mesmers using a stun as a lead out to the burst from stealth, the most common form of this is the mantra which has a very distinct auditory queue. If you become stunned and hear something that sounds like a high pitched space laser firing, get ready to mitigate a lot of burst.

The good news is that once mind wrack is on CD, the Mesmer is not going to be able to do a ton since the only damaging phantasm that this build brings is iZerker and engi has very decent AE cleave. If the Mesmer has spent his F1 shatter and his opponent is still sitting at decent HP and not on the defensive, then he is pretty much left hanging with his pants down. Try to keep pressure on the mesmer as much as possible, after all he is glass, while using AE to kill his clones and phantasms. At the very least you should be able to force him to retreat off point.

I feel for you since my guildies almost made me rage with their inability to neutralize this type of mesmer last night. But with some practice, it is a winnable fight. I guess the major weakness of engi in this matchis that they tend to carry very few stun breaks.

tobascodagama.2961:

The problem is, what ANet doesn’t like about condi Mesmer is the burst from high stacks of Confusion and/or Torment. So, this suggestion is moving in exactly the opposite direction from where ANet is trying to go.

That is all fine and well, but then how do we buff sustained condition damage for mesmer? Duelists discipline was nerfed before it even hit the ground in its proper form and phantasms are supposed to be our source of sustained damage. I really don’t think that ANet knows what it wants at all. Either that or the devs have a very shallow understanding of the professions that they created. But I guess this is not news to most mesmers.

p.s. I think it would be better for the game if Anet allowed condi burst in mesmer since our sustained condi sources are incredibly passive i.e. spamming staff clones and duelists.

Now that PU has been brought under control, it is time to revisit MTD damage. This trait was nerfed during the trait revamp patch from 2 stacks of torment for 6s to 1 stack of Torment for 6s, I would propose that the devs consider buffing this trait so that it provides 3 stacks of Torment for 3s.

-This would buff the potential damage of MTD to lie at 75% of its pre nerf value leaving room for future adjustment while recognizing that condition mesmers received dps buffs in other areas (confusion).

-Higher stacks and shorter duration fit more with the burst theme of shatter skills. Landing a full condition shatter should force a cleanse.

-Increasing the burst potential of condition mesmers will make more active, less stealth reliant condition builds more viable.

Anyways, I would be interested in the feedback of the mesmer community at large since I used to enjoy playing a non PU 2-2-0-0-6 condi shatter build in pvp and wvw but feel that non PU condi really got killed post trait revamp.

Honestly revealed is a pretty silly mechanic and I can’t think of a great way to fix it. GW2 should have done what almost every other game does and make maintaining stealth dependent on not using skills/proximity to foes. Coupling stealth to direct damage makes absolutely no sense to me. Of course going down this path now would require a major re-balance of the Thief and Mesmer so I guess we are stuck with Revealed.

Yes, I refuse to use this trait as well because it really messes with the flow of combat. I don’t know if it is bugged or not, but it could use a fix.

Yes the mesmer QQ is ridiculous. The hate exists because pre-patch many professions had large advantages going into a fight v.s. a power mesmer. Post patch, condi mesmers actually got worse, but now the playing field has been leveled for many professions v.s. power mesmer and it is going to take some time for players to adjust.

Having put in many hours as a mesmer, I find it very easy to absolutely destroy other mesmers on my DD ele. Any other matchup with AE spam is also going to be a tough one for the mes especially after the removal of on death traits because you can simply remove the mesmer’s main source of burst. In pvp I find that most players simply do not react to our extremely predictable burst. The QQ over PU is laughable seeing as this is one of the worst traits you can possibly take in sPvP, lock down is strong but not OP, and power shatter received some much needed buffs.

WvW or sPvP roaming? In either case grab the most offensive stats that you feel comfortable with in your armor/amulet since this build is all about burst. If we are talking wvw, drop the Illusions line for Chaos and pick up Prismatic Understanding, this is going to give you way more utility and survive-ability than anything in Illusions even in a power shatter build. For sPvP I would consider either sticking with Illusions or picking up the shatter traits in Inspiration, both work very well.

For what game mode? Right now condi mesmer is worse off in sPvP than it was pre patch especially compared to the condition output that can be achieved by other classes. If the MtD nerf is ever reverted then that variation seems solid.

The removal of clone death traits has also made setting up shatters in a condi spec much more difficult as players learn that there is little or no penalty for AE spam. I understand why this happened as the PU/clone spam build was hugely unpopular; however, it seems that the synergy of these traits with other condi specs was largely overlooked when the balance team was passing out additional nerfs.

I have been experimenting with an off bunker/support build along these lines: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-RZ-3l;0ZUk4197BWV71;9;4TVW;0038147256;4hwW6U;1hoHAhoHA2B . However, with the bizarre MtD nerf I do not think that its really viable for serious play. I am going to keep experimenting and see if once Mesmer reaches its baseline balance state I can come up with something decent.

Daishi.6027:

This also means with certain weapons you can get better vision in dark rooms such as torch room in OS.

This single line made me remember how much I miss the days when the OS jumping puzzle was a hotly contested pvp gauntlet.

This is a pretty standard PU Phantasm build, and yes it still works. PU took a slight nerf in the form of adding Might and Swiftness as possible boons that can be granted in stealth, but overall this is far from crippling. The weakness of any phantasm build in a pvp/wvw roaming setting is that you will have a very hard time in match ups verses opponents with a lot of cleave and AE abilities.

The original portal had no range limit so long as you stayed on the same map. The problem was mesmers were hiding in keeps, dropping portal then way pointing to spawn and teleporting whole armies in from spawn… oh yeah it also had no limit on the number of players that could use it while it was up.

This was requested immediately after the portal range nerf and has been ignored by the Anet team ever since. But yes, it would be a very nice qol change.

I had the exact same thought as the OP when I heard that. 3 duelists unloading at once would be super easy to dodge. Not to mention that if you have managed to get 3 duelists out in a fight, you are either winning already or have blown Signet of Ether. I honestly don’t think that I have ever lost a 1v1 or 1v2 where I had managed to have 2 duelists and a zerker out at once.

If your opponent has wasted all his dodges and invulns then its pretty much a guaranteed kill, but I still think that in this situation the trait is just expediting the inevitable since if he has no invulns and dodges left and the mesmer has 3 phantasms out he is dead. We also can’t forget that there is other counter play like aoeing yourself when you see the incoming shatter thus destroying the phantasms before they shatter and preventing them from respawning at all. There is also no information available as of yet on whether going into stealth to avoid a shatter and causing the phantasms to destruct with no target will trigger the trait.

Toxsa.2701:

Also if you know alacrity so well, why not elaborate your theory? Do you think it’d just instantly make all your skills recharges 66% directly as oppose to just increases the recharge rate from 1 sec to 1.66 secs per second?

Actually what you say there is correct, but this is what you said before:

“I think people misunderstand what alacrity can do. It doesn’t instantly reduced the whole cd of the skill, it just acts like chill, reducing CD when you stand in the pulse, and revert back to original CD when it ends.”

which makes absolutely no sense…

BlackTruth.6813:

That reset is just too strong. I don’t see why no one will want to take that when you get too many options with it.

If you are trying to fill a pure DPS role, it seems like Dom/Deuling/Illusions will still be strongest. Chrono seems like it will put you into more of a support/cc role. We will have to see how much pure shatter DPS gets amped (+50% MR damage anyone?) vs the potential for disruption/team support that the Chronomancer provides before we make any judgments. Best case scenario is that mesmer will have 2 viable roles in PvP.

All I want to try is F5 → Gravity Well → I-leap + mirror images → F1 → end F5 → Gravity Well → I-leap + mirror images → F1 and see what happens in the middle of a nice group fight. But going Chrono is definitely going to cut down on potential shatter dps in favor of support and cc so it might end up being underwhelming… who knows.

Wait, so Toxsa, you are saying that I can now kill all my dps in pve by shattering 3 phantasms so I can use my powerful Moa Morph more often on the boss? Well you called it first, new Moa Morph PvE speed clear meta! If anything it might help to bring TW back to being a bit closer to the shadow of its former self. I am also pretty sure from your comments that in fact you, as opposed to the entire Mesmer forums, have no idea what alacrity does.

Sebrent.3625:

Possibly this with my Fractal Sword:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/9/9e/Fractal_Shield_wielded.jpg/714px-Fractal_Shield_wielded.jpg

I am Fractal lvl 50 and this and the rifle are the only skins that have ever dropped for me… now I might finally be able to equip it at long last.

I just wonder if alacrity and its corresponding slow will have any effect on thief initiative. It worries me that they compare the Chronomancer mechanic to chill, last thing mesmer needs is another potentially interesting mechanic that can be ignored with little ill effect by our hardest match up (Power Block).

The original MMR equation still seems to be the best. The main complaints against it were 1) New players could get to the top with a lucky win streak and 2) the way decay was handled caused some irregularities.

1 could be fixed by modifying the equation so that score=(MMR)(G/(G+15) where G=total games played and MMR is the origional MMR equation. This would keep MMR low for players with very few games under their belts while approaching a null value as a statistically significant number of games were accrued.

2 simply make decay permanent. If I am number 1 and take a 3 month break, there is no reason why I need to immediately be number 1 again if I happen to win my first two games. Make MMR decay slowly over time starting after 2 weeks of no games played and make it so that once you loose rating you have to earn it back.

The primary issue is that at very top level play the meta mesmer build (IP Shatter) is neutralized by thieves. This has translated into the erroneous perception by the masses that Mesmer is a poor choice at all levels of play and that all mesmer builds are hard countered by thieves.

Because an IP shatter mesmer wears the zerker amulet, he will also have a hard time carrying uncoordinated and clueless teams. Optimally he will rotate with another team mate and provide spike damage and boon rip, however you often find your team zerging to far and are left alone defending outnumbered in a squishy build. A guard or warrior could run in circles and maintain until his team mates got a clue, but a mesmer has a much smaller margin for error. Uncoordinated teams in ranked also negate a lot of the utility we bring through portal.

Add to this the consideration that mesmer has a fairly high skill ceiling and you are simply going to end up on pvp teams with a lot of pretty bad mesmers.

So long as you are always striving to improve, ignore the hate and play what you enjoy the best you can.

Toeofdoom.6152:

I’m not sure if this is a good place but I’ve come up with a “Currently OP” traits list, I would expect some changes to…

The thing is that we will have no way of knowing what if anything will be OP as every profession in the game is getting significant trait reworks. It can be fun to theory craft builds that seem optimal given the changes, but we have very little context for judging whether a given build will be OP or UP once HoT goes live.

StormHawk.9862:

I’m going to be commanding in WvW and although, I do know it’s not optimal to go DPS, I just want to know which does more damage for my build ; GS or sword + whatever offhand.

Thanks

For single target DPS in a power build, sw/sw will have higher potential than great sword. However, if you are commanding you will rarely be in a situation where high single target DPS matters as you will be at the spear tip of your group mixing it up with the melee train of the opposing group. Gs would probably be better all around in situations like this as it has more AE potential.

If you are going to be commanding, staff is also worth considering as simply choosing the highest DPS weapon set is not going to translate into providing the most utility for your zerg. Remember that as a commander your job is not to secure kills, but to be able to stay alive long enough to direct your melee train and provide a target for the focus fire of your ranged support.

Portal is primarily a way to reallocate man power quickly so you can use it to hedge your bets i.e. drop a portal at home, and go mid to secure the cap. If the home bunker is getting overwhelmed, you can activate portal and quickly come to his aid. It is also useful for Lord rushes in Foefire, Treb repair and destruction in Kylo, and nailing key channels in TSS. If your F4 shatter is on CD and you really need to secure a stomp, you can use portal to stomp. You can also use portal creatively to get out of bad situations and juke the enemy.

If you like the feel of shatter, but want something tankier try MtD shatter like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7flknpMtNqxINcrNSpBh6ykmmSyA8gSOiyB-TlxYwAAU+9TdlR7PgS3jRVKWoEkUAwssC-w

It definitely plays differently than power shatter but preserves the AOE boon strip of the meta power shatter build. Staff and torch will also make you much more slippery than GS+sw/pistol.

If you really like zerker gear and want to try a phantasm build for wvw, you can always do something like 24620 power/pu.

Ross Biddle.2367:

I don’t disagree with the exception of a fully traited blink and terrain use. Being able to control high/low ground makes PU unnecessary. Swiftness access allowing you to outpace your enemies also adds to this.

Yep, that’s true, fully traited blink does make PU unnecessary but PU also makes fully traited blink unnecessary… so it really comes down to preferences in play style. Do you sacrifice 2 trait slots to get 1 utility skill up to par or do you take PU instead of CI, leaving yourself with the option of choosing traits like Blade Training, Phantasmal Fury, and Debilitating Dissipation? There really is no right answer, it comes down to personal preference and play style.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Regarding any build with PU in it my question is always “Can I achieve the same (or better) results without PU?”

With this trait layout CI + BI with MoD is more effective 1v1, but for WvW roaming PU is great for those times when a group of 6 decides that the best use of their time is to hunt you from one end of the map to the other and in 1vX situations.

Thanks for sharing the videos. As someone who has experimented extensively with a similar build (0/3/3/1/0 sw/sw – sc/p) I have to say that it counters thieves’ offensive abilities quite nicely and works very well against many other professions. However, I have moved away from this weapon set for wvw roaming because you have no way to deal with Shadow Refuge so the thief has to pretty much kill himself through hubris.

I named mine Antoine Mesmer in homage to the original Mesmer, Franz Anton Mesmer.

If you like the Chaos line, try BI + CI with Mantra of Distraction instead of PU for sPvP. Interrupt builds can be pretty hilarious, but yeah shatter is meta for team queue. However, the PU trait has its place in WvW roaming where you often need to evade 10+ angry people.

So a while ago I was reading through the “Things I Hate Seeing Other Mesmers Do” thread and came across a bit of a tiff regarding the use of our F1-F4 shatter skills. The problem with our class mechanic is that unless you are speced into a fairly narrow set of traits making use of it can be quite deleterious to both DPS and survival, so I started thinking about a way to make our F skills more useful for more Mesmer builds without changing a ton of coding or existing shatter builds.

This idea is half-baked and needs some fleshing out, but this is what I came up with. Remove the CDs on F1 and F2 shatters and greatly reduce the CDs and F3 and F4 shatters. Instead of making the F keys kill all cones and phantasms, make 1 press of an F key kill 1 clone. If you want to a 3 clone Mind Wrack, you just mash the F1 key 3 times. F skills would prioritize clones and then phantasms based on distance from the target.

This change would mess with damage scaling based on number of illusions shattered and the shatter skill CD reduction bonus from the Illusions trait line. However, the damage scaling could be overcome by giving the Mesmer a buff that increases shatter damage and condition duration whenever a shatter skill successfully lands. Going into the Illusions trait line could increase the duration of this buff allowing the Mesmer to maintain more stacks. This buff mechanic would also insure that Mesmers could only achieve really big burst by going all in as is currently necessary; however, it would allow other builds to make more intelligent use of their F skills without completely loosing momentum.

Wow, OP asks for a small QoL improvement which will have no effect on game mechanics and everyone jumps on him…

Have we gotten a fix on the issue where we can not use ‘F’ to finish a downed opponent or are we still supposed to play with our mouse buttons until a dialogue appears in the middle of combat?

As a general topic that’s kind of like asking if apricots are a better fruit than oranges, it really depends on personal taste and mood. In sPvP you are right, traditional shatter is a better option because of its team support and the limitations of stealth in capturing points. In WvW where battles can become chaotic fairly quickly, PU starts to show its strength.
A sword/pistol scepter/torch build with PU would definitely be viable as a roamer and small group skirmisher in WvW. However, it will not be a terribly good spec for larger battles where it will become more difficult to stick to a single target. I would probably go hybrid condi/power to get the most out of scepter, sword and pistol.

DaShi.1368:

Does it at least stack with other stealth now?

Yes it does.

At least stealth from Decoy now stacks with other sources of stealth.

I have tested it, the best you can get is 33% swiftness up time due to the ICD. When I first read about this I had high hopes too, but it looks like its Travler’s, Pack, Air and Centaur depending on weapons and build.

Debuti.6017:

My opinion on PU as a trait is that its OP when using a condition build combined with clone death traits which allows you to play passive and add constant pressure with clones and death clones, and at the same time you gain all that defensive boons.

For a power build i think it is good trait, but not OP, IMO the only reliable defensive trait available for power builds. Furthermore, in a power build while u stealth u cannot add pressure to enemys, which is a big difference with condition PU build.

Your opinion based on what evidence? That you personally do well with the build, consistently die to it or simply do not like the play style does not make it OP. So what exactly is condi PU too good at that leads you to form this opinion? Zerging? sPvP? Dungeons? It seems like the new definition of OP is “OMG I can’t kill this right away, and occasionally I blow all my CD’s and die to it OP!”

The current “blob” is actually a battle formation. While it does not look like the nice neat Napoleonic lines or pike squares from late medieval combat, like those formations the “blob” evolved because it represents the simplest means of gaining the greatest effect from the mechanics and weapons systems available. A few reasons people blob are because of the prevalence of PBAOE support skills, offensive AE cap, the importance of blasting combo fields, and the difficulty of focusing a target while he is in among his allies. Given the mechanics of GW2 combat, a line, echelon or square would actually be less efficient in combat than the “blob.” Big picture tactical maneuvers such as flanking, portal bombs, and holding a choke point already happen when multiple organized guild groups coordinate on TS.

Arahain.7425:

Feaduin.7603:

1. The 4-4-6 Condi/PU build was never OP in the fist place.

Sorry, but I should have stopped reading there…

What Coulter said: “Undodgable things are not good for the game”.

And btw: it is not like every class had an evade on autoattack. There are a few skills like blurred frenzy or Warrior GS3 which will allow players to destroy the clones without getting hit by the condis. But really, if they use these skills to destroy your clones, the trait is working as intended.

Please stop defending your lame build.

I am sorry for posting a controversial thesis, from now on I will only post tautologies so that you will not have to read or respond to supporting arguments.

As for the argument that skills which can not be dodged are bad for the game, I can see where this sentiment is coming from. Dodging is a means of giving the player agency in avoiding damage. I can not, for example, choose when a Mesmer shatters, a Warrior uses 100 Blades, or an Elementalist uses Burning Speed, but I can choose to save a dodge for when these skills are used. This is good for the game and promotes active combat. However, when it comes to things like clone death procs or Retaliation I already have agency in choosing whether to take the damage or not; therefore, I do not need a dodge to avoid this damage. If I don’t want to take clone death damage I can employ strategies which limit AE and Cleave usage. Adding a dodge/block to this simply throws the need to significantly vary tactics depending on the engagement out the window. As a supporting example, it would be pretty silly if while I was playing my Elementalist I could cast Meteor Shower on a zerg that just stacked Retaliation then pop Arcane Shield and dodge roll around to avoid all that damage.

Coulter.2315:

Just to check but you spent the first half explaining why PU and DD have been weakened and end with saying that more people will use it now?

Undodgable things are not good for the game. <- This is all I need to write.

Actually yes, I do just this in my post. If you apply your reading comprehension skills to this post, you will realize that I argue that the reason why more people will run PU is due to the collateral nerfing of non PU based builds that take clone death traits. This is the real travesty in the proposed changes. Now that I have spelled it out for you, I will conclude by stating that if you want to actually take part in a real discussion you should probably also support your views with evidence.

Trait nerfs are justified when they attempt to shave an OP spec to be more inline with the norm of game play. However, what is happening here is not an attempt to accomplish this but an attempt to appease the GW2 community QQ. I am OK with the changes to Prismatic Understanding, although only adding Swiftness instead of Swiftness + Might to the potential boons gained might be a more reasonable approach to adjusting this trait and also stay true to its defensive flavor. However, the clone death changes are completely unjustified and will be very bad for Mesmer build diversity going forward. Below I will attempt to enumerate reasons why this is the case and invite those who think this is OK to refute these arguments.

1. The 4-4-6 Condi/PU build was never OP in the fist place.
a) This build has no viability in sPvP/tPvP.
b) As a WvW roamer this build is terrible at preventing small objective caps while waiting on reinforcements because of its reliance on stealth. Bunker Guardians and Warriors fulfill this role much more efficaciously.
c) In WvW small group play this build brings little to no group support and is usually a disadvantage to its team in even fights vs other group comps. I have had to shun players from our guild’s havoc team because they insisted on running this build. If you have teammates to watch your back, Shatter is a much stronger choice for the same reasons it is the dominant Mesmer build in sPvP/tPvP.
d) If wrecking new and or clueless players or simply being hard to pin down and kill constituted OPness then the whole of the Thief profession should probably just be wiped from the face of Tyria.

2. This is not only a nerf to Mesmer condition damage output, but a nerf to the Mesmer’s available defensive options which is unwarranted and will hinder build diversity.
a) Regardless of build, a Mesmer is reliant on clone/phantasm generation for both defense and damage. Having access to a suite of traits that punish AE spam and wanton killing of clones makes it more likely that we will actually be able to do damage by making our clones punishing to attack or be able to buy time to regenerate our damage base by covering ourselves with defensive conditions (cripple, weakness, lower attack spam through confusion.) I also play Ele and can tell you right now that Burning Speed is going to trivialize a number of fights that required some use of tactics before. Thieves, an already difficult match for Mesmer, will also be able to CnD and destroy clones with little to no punishment.
b) This reduction in defensive potential will push more players into Prismatic Understanding. I think this is pretty self explanatory, but there are non condition/PU builds out there that can pick up these traits for a bit of extra defense, making these traits so that they can be dodged, blocked and blinded will greatly reduce their effectiveness and this loss will have to be made up somewhere. Our only remaining strong defensive trait is PU. This is a whack-a-mole nerf that will actually increase the prevalence of 4-4-6 Condi/PU as other builds are made less viable.

Conclusions: Overall this is an extremely bad trade off for Mesmer game play. Post patch we will be stuck with a bad scepter auto attack and less build diversity than before. 4-4-6 Condition/PU will still play largely like it has played before, but other potential builds will be hit hard. The IE fix will not effect most clone death builds because they do not have the available trait points to pick up both IE and all the clone death traits; thus, if a condition build wants IE+clone death it will have to give up PU already greatly lowering its defense.

This leaves us with the scepter changes to consider. If the devs feel that the scepter changes will push current condition/PU builds into the realm of OPness, the responsible course of action would be to delay the implementation of scepter changes in lieu of prenerfing a whole suite of Mesmer traits. Scepter needs QoL and auto attack improvements, but the current design decisions are bad an unimaginative all around. It would be much better to wait for well designed scepter changes than to have the current proposal shoved down our throats.

When I watched the Ready Up, I pretended to have hopes that scepter would be reworked in an interesting and useful manner… but really my heart sank and Anet did not fail to deliver. This is terrible for build diversity, the only two damaging conditions resulting from clone death were Bleeding and Confusion and the trait that caused confusion was not taken by the infamous 4-4-6 build. Any theoretical build which relies on clone death for the defensive value of these traits in lieu of PU is going to be dead in the water.

I could accept this if other traits and mechanics were reworked to buff varied play styles, but this is not going to happen. When the 4-4-6 schadenfreude dissipates the Mesmer community is going to realize that other more interesting builds are going to be hit harder by this change with absolutely no compensation and that we will be stuck with an underwhelming scepter buff which never deserved the QQ it generated in the first place.

I don’t want to derail the thread too much but since we are talking about it, traditional X-6-6 d/d ele’s usually bring Signet of Renewal as a heal because Water Magic and Cantrip synergies take care of most condition removal needs. Any smart ele who is 6 deep in Earth is going to pick up Rock Solid (grants stability on swap to Earth) as a master trait and use that to cover Ether Renewal (clears 8 conditions every 18.5s). Focus is also gaining momentum as an off hand weapon for small fights and dueling, the Earth 4 skill, Magnetic Wave, clears 3 conditions on a 25s CD. So an ele running Diamond skin is not lacking in condition removal options.

If you like it, play it If you are serious about going to lock down route you will do yourself a great service by reading over this thread by Chaos: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/The-Lockdown-Mesmer-Thread/first#post2938726

Funky, I have run this as full Zerker and Rabid/Zerker. I have not done any math, but my impression is having some condition damage helps cut through the very high armor that some opponents will have. Condition damage also has nice synergy with scepter 2 and 3 and Sharper Images. Having a long range Blink is very nice, but fury on phantasms will make the duelist stack more bleeds through SI and do more power damage as well, so that’s why I chose Phantasmal Fury. Others may have differing opinions, but I feel like an untraited torch is possibly the most useless weapon a Mesmer could bring to a fight especially in a power build.

With the news of the patch I threw this build together and have been testing it solo roaming, I only bring it up because its very similar to yours:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhEQRArc8al0npMtNqxGNcrNCuxY6JaIiTGTLlMgfB-T1xHAB9o8bgnUwgq/c2+Dep/BgTqATKBDAgAEgO35O3ZkCAmhVA-w

I don’t stream so I have never really felt compelled to record any game play but it seems to perform fairly well in 1v1s vs some decent roamers I have met and can 1v2 Pugs that get culled from the zerg. A lot of the damage comes from the Mesmer himself and there are some dirty tricks you can play with scepter and sword blocks to punish AE spammers quite harshly. Depending on my mood, I have been waffling between CI and PU, CI is ridiculous fun in 1v1s but PU definitely makes you more durable when kitten hits the fan. Magic Bullet and iLeap (when it works) also help you reel in runners.

PU gives you enough defense that I have not felt the need to trait Mantra or Manipulation cool downs. Phantasmal Fury just gives you too much damage from iDuelist to give up and the weakness and vulnerability from DD are quite nice. Regarding armor, I feel like rabid with zerker trinkets helps you get the most out of conditions from scepter and Sharper Images while giving you enough toughness to not fold if you get into a bad spot.

Edited because I posted the totally wrong link.

Yep the math shows that a staff traited with IE will apply over 100% extra condition damage versus the scepter buff but that didn’t seem to bother Helseth.

The maths are here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Illusionary-Elasticity/first#post4337288