Mesmer took a pretty big hit in the recent patch wth the removal of Mercs Amulet and the nerfs of some important traits including the phantasm recharge and shield block recharge which reulted in a slower, squishier clone factory, but the class is still very viable. Although these nerfs did hinder the chronophantasm build by a good amount, the build’s traits and skills will likely remain the same. What will change is the role of Mesmer on a team. With the re-emergence of engineer and warrior as very strong 1v1 classes along with the still extremely strong Druid (which Mesmer had a tough time against even before patch without Moa), Mesmer is no longer the top dog when it comes to 1v1s. But mesmers can be extremely superior in terms of rotations with portal and in 2v2s and 3v3s because of Moa and the constant conditon pressure that is still present. So let’s take a look at the new build variants:
Amulet- We have sages, carrion, and wanderers as options. Personally, I believe wanderers is a terrible option as you lose about 10k health compared to carrion and about 1k power which is half of Mesmer damage so let’s rule that out. Sages amulet seems decent but the healing power doesn’t scale well with the heal on shatters which kind of defeats the purpose and it has overall less pressure than carrion.
Carrion amulet will most likely be meta. You gain around 4K health from mercs to carrion which helps make up for the lost toughness. You also have more condition damage which still applies lots of pressure but because of the way Mesmers apply conditions (less quantity but more volume), 1v1s will be more difficult because cleanses are abundant in other classes.
Rune Set- There are many options for the runes at this point. The seemingly best options include nightmare (the previous meta runs along with tormenting), undead, and scavenging.
(From here on out, we are assuming the Carrion amulet is the one that will be used)
Nightmare runes are nice because along with the main boost of condition damage, they also stack on 15% condition duration to all conditions. While this may seem really strong, the duration increase really isn’t that significant when you look at the raw numbers. It’s about a 1s increase in torment duration and a half second increase to confusion. I believe nightmare is outclassed by the next two options because essentially all this does is REDUCE pressure because the duration is small, it does not make up for the loss of damage from undead or scavenging. Less condi damage over more time = less pressure.
That brings me to undead and scavenging runes. Both have the main 1,3,5 boost to condition damage but the difference is undead runes give about 100 points to toughness (putting you at 1988 armor) and results in a 1452 condition damage. The scavenging runes keep you at 1888 armor and a 1508 condition damage stat. Additionally, scavenging runes give you life steal on a 25s CD and life steal on heal which acts as additional damage and a self heal, although small it does matter.
What we must determine is whether or not the 100 toughness from undead really matters. Overall there will be a little less pressure due to the 56 point loss of condition damage and the loss of life steal but is it worth the 100 toughness? I personally think that the toughness will help slightly but I like the additional pressure and healing from scavenger over the 100 toughness. The heal scales well with carrion because you have such a high health pool and the extra condition damage and life steal damage will help you dish out more overall pressure throughout a game in any matchup.
Another random option I have considered is replacing the doom sigil on staff with an energy sigil for the extra dodge potential.
P.S. All of the background for this is based on high level play where meta builds are the ones being used and the players actually know what they’re doing. Hotjoin logic does not apply.
