Guild Wars 2

To which of the dark gods do I have to sell my soul to play like you?

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

While what you say is true my main problem with the mesmer as is in wvw is the eternal risk vs reward that is stupidly out of wack. Yes there are some pretty simple and efficient build to run out there but most of them are, IMHO, more balanced in WvW when we tackle the question from a risk/reward angle. If your professions has it super easy to escape any bad situations you inherently don’t risk much mounting any attacks.

Yes, the risk/reward scales differently but not in a way that you think: powerful zerker builds are indeed high risk/high reward: jump in kill or be killed. Condi mesmer’s risk is lower, indeed because he can run away, but so is the reward: he can be EASILY countered by condi clense or the opponent can simply run away – hence lower reward.

Fact that ~80% of the population haven’t accepted that conditions are more powerful than before hence they don’ invest into real condi cleanse makes the PU condi such an efficient build.

Saying all that, I’d like to see more counters to the invisibility

Oh well, wonderful proof countering the “PU condi is OP”

I had witnessed yesterday quite interesting fight between power and condi mesmer. The former knowing the latter’s build armed himself with Mantra of Resolve, Signet of The Ether, and Null Field, which gave him quite serious edge: he could now negate all the conditions while generating quick shattering burst.

What could the condi mesmer do to increase his chances? My guess would be invest in power block and maybe pistol, but I’m not sure would it give him enough edge…

Ok, now back to the original post:

Every noob and his dad is playing them now in wvw especially cause dire pu mesmers are the easiest thing to play and get easy kills.

That dear sir is a scrub thinking – http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub . Yes, the condi mesmer is efficient build, but mainly because so many players run full zerker without condi cleanse. Is it easy? That depends what you mean – the only thing that is really easy in this build is to run away from bad fight – getting a kill is not, because it has SO MUCH LOWER burst than normal power builds (not mentioning that condi cleanse like MoR completely wrecks it). Power necro’s 90% of damage comes from #1 button – slash with dagger till full bar, then Death Shroud and again #1 (yes, I’m oversimplifying here but not by much) yet I don’t see people calling them “faceroll noob easy builds”.

Adapt to the game dear sir and stop complaining.

Oh god…
Yesterday I had a close encounter with an engi. He was good and we were fighting for about 5 minutes – with his elixir HGH build he had quote good condi cleanse and decent tankiness that was really hard for me to counter. When finally he made mistake and I’ve manage to down him, I was about to compliment his skills when I received a quite vitriolic message about “being a noob playing a noob faceroll build that requires no skills”. He then changed toon to one with even better condi cleanse, found me killed me. I guess his ego was satisfied. While I don’t fully recall his name, it was rhyming with “Zero”… Now I see this post

/facepalm.

Condi in sPvP is doing just fine. No, you don’t need PU and yo can change it to something else. Yes, you do lack burstiness but you gain tankiness.

No one forces you to play meta.

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

There are a few good guides stickied at the top of the page including Chaos Archangel’s overall guide on how to Mesmer and Maxinion’s guide on how to Mesmer in dungeons.

.

Please note that the guides are bit outdated – while general information is right (what skills are most important, what you should do in general) they refer to old builds using old skill system. Also rune of the Ranger doesn’t work with clones/phantasm.

This guide seems to be more up to date: http://dulfy.net/2014/07/21/gw2-mesmer-pve-class-guide-by-sanderinoa/

Does anyone have first hand example how condition builds behave in dungeons? While I do expect them to be below power builds, exactly how much worse are there? The main condi pressure mesmer deals comes form torment and confusion and well, NPCs usually don’t move much to tick the latter and I am not sure how their auto attacks affect the former.
So, if anyone has successfully ran condie in dunegon and if so, with what build?

Is the Chronomancer better suited for power or condition based builds?

Markus.9084:

+1
I play this build and it works very well

I prefer playing with a knight armor and Fire+air sigil. More crits, but you’re weaker against condi. If I see a condi mesmer, I just run :P

But you have so many condi cleanse! I run with knight as well and usually at least I have fair fight with condi players.

However, I feel like the Tornado from elixir X is very, very weak… Juggernaut is awesome, but when I have Tornado I immediately cancel my Elixir X. One pulse every 3 second is not enough…

Tornado is weak 1v1 but amazing in group fights even just for the interrupts it provides to the enemy tossing them everywhere.

On the side note, I’ve tried this build in pve and unfortunately wasn;t doing too well – on boss fights it was decent, but lack of aoe made trash fights difficult.

I really think you misunderstand how PU boon creation works: it gives a random boon (Aegis, protection, regeneration, might, swiftness) every second LASTING 3s (except might which lasts 5 seconds). So it is absolutely possible to have PU proc 6x swiftness.

In a best possible scenario after 6 seconds mesmer would end with 4 boons (might +3x 3s ones) two of each would have 2s duration left, one 1s and one 3s left, but chances for that are VERY low.

Check the “kitless engineer” build – it is very beginner-friendly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9Euww0hfb8&feature=youtu.be

unfortunately while playing it you won’t obviously learn the power and versatility of kits

I’ve just tried yesterday your build – its Fantastic! Very easy to learn and surprisingly powerful. Yes, it does lack AOE but if I REALLY have to aoe something I switch to mortar.

Anyway, thumbs up for this fantastic, newb-friendly build!

^^ This. I simply couldn’t agree more.
The whole “PU is OP” comes from people that can’t addapt to the fact that conditions are much better that they used to and get stuck in their all-offensive zerker builds without condi clean/transfer and just keep spamming their abilities at clones and keep dying from confusion procs.

I can’t count how many people managed to:
- AOE me to death
- Hide and then ambush me when I was attacking something else
- Focus me instead of my clones
- Simply run away – as typical PU build has no cripple and most damage comes from confusion on use damage, after a while all I could do is /wave
- Cleanse/convert to boons/transfer my conditions back to me and watch me melt

PU isn’t OP, but the game indeed has changed a bit. Adapt or perish.

Esplen.3940:

The general concensus is that PU is not OP.

Unless you are a thief that used to treat mesmer as a free kill and still hasn’t learned to use condi clean.

Uh, I didn’t mean that conditions are useless in general in pve, just that running with pledge and PU is not really efficient, just like you said. But overall mesmer condi in pve is less efficient than i.e. engineer or necro condi because big percent of our conditions comes from confusion and torment, which is usually not as good in pve (i.e. bosses don’t move too much to fully utilize torment)

http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki – a good place to start.
Yes, zerker is still good and universal but recent buff to conditions made a lot people running the (in)famous PU Condi build http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_PU_Condi_Roamer. Please note while its great build for solo roaming and quite decent in pvp its not as useful in wvw zerg and might require bit tweaking (taking off pledge/PU) to be efficient in PVE

Arantheal.7396:

Congratz, keep improving yourself & try out other utilities. Read the wiki & ask here if you need advice. As long as you keep trying, you’ll become better. And once you’re starting to tailor builds to your own “needs”, you’ll dominate most other classes in WvW. You just need to learn what your “needs” are, kinda a personal quest we all had to accomplish at some point.^^

Well, currently I’m trying to reconcile my love to the Juggernaut Flamethrower (perma swiftness FTW!) with my love for mortar – honestly, I LOVE this kit in wvw – If I’m lobbing my mortar shells at people behind the walls 1500 yrds away they don’t die from conditions or dd but from my love!
I will probably spend that kitten 60+ gold and buy runes of strength if they are indeed best things engie can have. I’m just curious – why not runes of scholar or Flame Legion?

Just FYI: indeed it was THAT easy: no changes to the build, just swapped one of the elixirs for the bomb kit and pulled with mortar behind the building. Then it was just smoke bomb and spamming AOE from bombs, tool belt bomb and mortar 4.
I think it was the fastest camp flip I’ve ever made! It took me about 15-20s to kill all guards (except the guild claiming one, which took another 5), on other professions it takes me easily over a minute.

SlyDevil.3952:

Drop smoke bomb then the mortar 4 for double blind fields, you can also use the immobilize on bomb kit to kite the guards around corners while they are stuck inside your fire fields. The chill from mortar/grenade kit is also powerful while kiting guards around structures.

So the build is good? No need to change anything just umm.. drop bombs and mortar?

I have to say, I really enjoy playing engineer in pve and in zerg bu when I’m trying to have some fun roaming solo – I struggle. I use the wolfineer’s Juggernaut build (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlcThatY1Vw+KQ7FL3F14I2EJBYDWABg4B9D5AA-T1BFABIp8zhLIQJ7PkmOiEV/BgHEwVKBJEggxA-w)
but with runes of fire instead of strength (much cheaper…) and Elixir U instead of S for most of the times. I have REAL problems taking down camp – more often than not I simply die overwhelmed by guards’ DPS.
When I solo a camp as a power necro I have tons of health (including death shroud) and huge nukes in Lich form (so I can take scouts in matter of second and then simply kite the rest); as a med guardian I have up to 6 heals on my bar; as a mesmer… well I can flip the camp singing “trolololo!” while guards attack my clones. But as an Enge I have nothing, except hope that I’ll kill them before they’ll kill me. One mistake and I’m down.

Is it normal experience or am I doing something wrong? I know it is a difficult profession to learn, so few hints would be appreciated!

It seems you have a problem with a word “scrub” rather with the meaning behind it: well, lets look at the dictionary:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scrub?s=t
it seems that the offending meaning would be “a small or insignificant person.” or “Sports. a player not belonging to the varsity or regular team; a player who is not first-string.” The origin comes from “low trees or shrubs collectively.”

So you are offended because someone has been called “a low tree”. Well, Sirlin who seems to coin this meaning to certain type of game players decided to use it and collective picked it up, same way calling someone “kitten”, “other word for donkey” or “pig” became offensive even if I don’t believe most people have anything against dogs, donkeys or pork. Would you feel better if Sirlin would call such players “banana”? Well, go ahead, start a petition a meme or something and propagate this change.

Beside me at least other 2 people already proven that such behavior matches the patter that Sirlin called “scrub”. Same as your behaviour matches pattern generally called “trolling”, even if it doesn’t have much to do with Scandinavian mythical forrest dwellers.

Fay.2357:

Hits to death is one metric of survivability, but it’s ultimately not a very useful one because it ignores the existence of sustain. A much more useful metric is ‘sustainable damage taken’. If you can heal 6.5k hp every 20 seconds, then sustainable damage taken is 6.5k damage every 20 seconds. More than that and you’ll eventually die, less than that and you’ll stay alive.

In this scenario, you can see that toughness gear is significantly better, because it means that taking the same hits as in a vitality setup will result in a lower amount of damage taken, making it more sustainable. Ultimately if you just get whaled on you’ll die in any build, but mitigating damage to a sustainable level is how you survive in fights.

Lets see by taking those numbers and assume that I get damaged every 2s.
After 20s rabid takes 6024 damage, carrion 7896. When both heal for the same amount, indeed rabid is fully healed while carrion lost 1396 health – rabid can sustain it indefinitely while carrion will die.
BUT if I’d be taking twice this damage (every second not two) then rabid looses:
in 20s rabid has taken 12048 damage, carrion 15792. That after heal leaves rabid with 10734 health and carrion with 15150 – as you can see both version will die in next 20s but carrion has t dodge just ONCE (to avoid 789 damage leaving with 15150-(15792-789)=147 health) while rabid would have to be lucky 2.18 times.

Fay.2357:

Regardless, what he said about vitality being better than armor is pure bunk. Armor value increases your effective hp vs power damage, but doesn’t affect conditions. Vitality makes you tankier against conditions, but doesn’t have as significant an effect on power damage. Ultimately, you’re looking to have condition defense be cleanses, and rely on armor for power damage mitigation. Particularly in this meta of burn stacking and such, a bit more vit just means you’ll squish slightly slower. Without condition removals, anything else is meaningless.

Hmm, I’ve tried to do a bit of math:
In build listed in OP I have 15922 health and 3320 armor. In full carrion (with dire+rabid trinkets) I have 2533 armor and 24442 health
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7flsnhG1YBawMNQtGLvGk5KG+IKTQvjGaAyZTA-TFSHABEq+TtXAAY2f4MdD3pE8IlfC8QAA4IAAA-w

Power damage is calculated as (weapon damage) x Power x coefficient/armor
so with sword and typical zerker you can assume to deal (1k*2k*1) =2000k raw damage.
Now in rabid gear that gives 602.4 health damage, for carrion its 789.6 damage.
Dividing total health by the damage per attack will give you number of attacks till death: 26.4 for rabid and 30.9 for carrion.

So in the end he might be right and carrion is more defensive than rabid. Still, I like that 8% toughness to condi damage

bhagwad.4281:

So if one calling another a “scrub”, they need to follow it up with why they think it’s a bad thing, and how their argument is a better one. Otherwise it’s just lazy thinking, hoping that the other person will feel ashamed merely on the basis of the stigma of the name itself. Which is irrational.

Lets look at the post for which someone been called a scrub

baylock.1703:

stop being so cheap and stop playing pu condi and get urself a ZERKER gear….

i never stomp other mesmers in wvw unless they play pu condi no respect

Can you see that this is indeed a bad case of trolling? Elitist “if you don’t play like I do, you are doing it wrong”? I simply hate such approach from other players above the age of 12.
Now, lets look at PU condi: it is not the build to end all builds, it is not abusing a bug. Is it powerful? Yes, but only when roaming in 1v1 duels, especially AGAINST GLASS CANNON ZERKERS. Get me against condi player and I’ll melt in seconds. Get my into zerg and I’m (almost) useless. So why is it so efficient then? Because so many people blindly follow cookie cuter zerker builds.
There is a rage on the forums – “your build is cheap because you kill my uber pwoer build111one!”. I say – learn to live with it, my paper kills your rock but dies to a scissors.

Tongku.5326:

…cut…

I appreciate your post but I’ll stay with my build: switching dueling for inspiration is not worth in my opinion. Yes, you gain some heals but you loose far too much: 1500 heal from shatter is worth LESS than avoiding the damage completely thanks to blinding dissipation. Sharper images and deceptive evasion from dueling GREATLY increase total damage I can deal (and gives as well a free decoy, especially if you blink/invis).

From other points: I don’t understand how temporal enchanter can block rangers/warriors? If I get rooted I blink/decoy or use torch to remove condition, to reflect damage I use master of protection.
Also you mention “armor” – I guess you mean toughness? We have the same armor – light, I don’t believe that there are same level light pieces with different amount of armor (but hey, I might be wrong) and by general rule toughness is more useful than vitality, especially if you take Chaotic transference in count (7% tough to condi). Yes, I’m bit weak against condition damage but I often replace signet with cleaning mantra (and even without it I have two 1 condi cleanse on torch).
Thank you for your input anyway.

frifox.5283:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Is-condi-Mesmer-viable-for-dungeons/

Thanks for that link. I guess the answer is “yes, its possible but not worth it”.
OK, back to WvWvW/sPvP then.

I have to admit to something: I hate MH sword with passion. Don’t know why, call it Freudian fixation or fear of sharp objects – I simply don’t like it. But hey, if you play in the dungeon you are (according to meta) play as power with sword/sword sword/focus.

Then there are conditions: mesmer is great at stacking confusion and torment (I won’t count bleeds on shatter crit) but the former works only on skill usage and the latter on movement, so in the end is the condi mesm viable in dungeons/fractals?

Chorazin.4107:

Seems like it would be slow to kill on point compared to the shatter burst builds out there atm?

I guess if its just for fun you can really run whatever you want.

Maybe a bit slower but not by much, I can still kill all camp guards in about one minute but I admit I’ve failed (but survived) to flip the fully upgraded camp – while I was killing the guild claiming guard 4 more repsawned on top of me. Oh well, next time.

baylock.1703:

stop being so cheap and stop playing pu condi and get urself a ZERKER gear….

i never stomp other mesmers in wvw unless they play pu condi no respect

People like you made me choose this build: when everyone with sheep instinct takes cookie cutter build because is “Da best in depees”, I prefer to take one that is made SPECIALLY to kill such glass cannon zerkers.

Honestly, I hate the “Cool kids only club” attitude people have with “you are zerker or you are not playing right”.

When I was teenager me and my friend dug out old rusty truck in my uncle’s shed and took it for a ride. It was doing about 20 km/h, you had to push it to start and it had bad habit of stalling on every hill. Then imagine switching to smooth, new Volvo with automatic transmission. Similar difference I found when I’ve switched from Undead to Traveler – it is just so smooth experience!
If there is DPS loss, I’ve hardly noticed but… at least 3 times I’ve managed to run away from being jumped by big blob (yes, PU and blink helps but its all about speed baby!) and twice I’ve nicely managed to catch up with stragglers and take them down.
Are travelers runes necessary? No, but they do work just fine and make roaming much nicer experience.

No, I definitively won’t go for celestial, if chrono spec will require me to switch into it I’ll do it then, until now I’ll stick to my rabid (maybe with a hint of dire).
But runes… To be honest I was tempted to get the perplexity runes but they are so bloody expensive (11g per rune last time I’ve checked) and I am not sure will it pay out in total damage.
So should I stay with my undead, switch to traveler or suck it up and buy perplexity? But then again in this build there are not too many ways to actually disrupt the oponent

Thank you for your input! I’m planning to stick in exotic armor, like Fay mentioned I don’t believe its worth the cost. And I am mostly focusing on roaming either solo or in small group, for bigger zergs I usually swap to bunker guardian.
I’ll stick then with rabid for now.

For a long time I was treating my mesmer as an alt and didn’t want to spend much money onto him… untill I’ve found ow much fun it is! Yes, PU condi might not be the best build but it is simply fun to play, so its time to upgrade it.

ATM this is (more or less) what I am running with):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7flsnhG1YBawMNQtGLvGk5KG+IQDQObSZC6d0A-TFSHAB1eBAMS5HM7PUo6PC8QAQT3AAHBgoUCCA-w

But its time to spent a bit on it: first obvious change is putting on travellers runes. Second, not so obvious is armor: stick to rabid or try dire/carrion? Also how to replace redundant signet of inspiration? SoMidnight for 20% duration or SoDom for 180 condi and stun on active?

After digging a bit on the metabattle and checking few videos I’m starting to have feeling that I need to grow a third hand, put second keyboard for my feet and maybe even find some tongue following controller to successfully follow engie rotations!

Example (from metabattle)
Thief: 3 steps
Ele rotation: 5 steps.
Warrior/Guardian: about 15 but its mostly just following 1-5 with weapon swap
Condi engie: 48! Yes, Forty kitten eight!
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Engineer_-_Condition_Grenadier

Now I understand why they say its pro-only profession….

UntimelyM.7860:

“This page was last modified on 18 May 2013”

Back in the day when we could sit on a point with Settler amulet, bombs/FT for the whole match

Oh yes, the good old day, when girls were prettier, men were manlier and you could get legendary weapon precursor for 2 silver. And we were respecting our elders, not like those kids today!
So get off my lawn!

Welcom to the GW2!
Just a side note: contrary to WoW or other MMOs there is no holy trinity (DPS/Healer/Tank) in this game, everyone can play as a pure damage or more team-support character (and especially in dungeons you’ll notice that people often want only pure DPS specs), but of course some professions are better at one thing than other. Engie is famous for its flexibility so its arguably easier to switch between those two roles.

Phineas Poe.3018:

We have little to be upset over since Chaith just won the WTS with his engineer and Brazil posted the updated dungeon build with engineers outdamaging thieves and elementalists.

Could you link it pretty please?

If you go to any profession forum you will notice that about 50%-60% (in case of necro 80%-90%) of posts will say “we are broken, we keep loosing to [insert another class here] and we used to be better, because 2 patches ago we could one shot Tequatl, fix us Arena!”
Except here. I’ve created new engie, came here to get few tips and instead of typical QQ I’ve found actually quite a lot of positive information – “yes, engineer is not most powerful class but we are certainly good”.
How can you guys stay so positive? Is it something in the elixirs?

Heh, I find it surprising: engie forum while admitting that this class is not as good as it used to be stays quite positive and supports engineers. If you go to necro forum all you’ll get is doom-and-gloom “necro is to weak, fixplznow!”.
Also, necro is bit… boring. Best power build focuses around dagger auto attack that you use to fill your bar just to… auto attack with life blast…

Following the text on the forum from 2013 (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Let-s-talk-Interrupts) Is it really worth to take Power block instead of Mental Anguish (because I doubt many people take IB)

Yes, Mesmer has probably most available interrupts (typical build will have at least 2-3 from weapons F3 and MoD) but well… to use it you have to interrupt first. Most abilities have casting time below 1s which making purposeful interruption quite difficult (especially if you don’t live in USA and have to play on 200ms+ latency… kitten you geography!). On the other hand adding 10s cooldown to interrupted ability is BIG…

So in short words: Is it worth to take and hope that you will interrupt something or take something else?

Take Power Block

• I don’t think Mental Anguish effects condition dmg unless I’m just a ignorant noob.
• This trait is too good not to take if you’re running 4 interrupts. You will understand this when your heal goes on CD for 15s.

Forgive the noob question, but how do you get 4 interrupts?

Good movie, cool tips for newbs like me
I’ve notced few times you’ve shattered without clones – small mistake or I am missing something?

EKAN.4051:

I run with this build http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Meditation_Celestial
but with staff instead of greatsword and have 4 items carrion but rest celestial. Ends up around 1.7k Pw, 1.5k Th, 1.7k Vi, 1.5k Pr, 500 ferocity, 850 condi (1k with food and potions) and 450 healing. Alomst always 60% perma crit, 20k hp and got burn ticks over 10k sometimes. Lots of ppl say you either go full def or full zerk, bs imo. Love this build, works everywhere aswell, (play mostly PVE, WvW and dungeons, less PvP but sometimes). Only concern I have atm is s burn nerf.

I’m really tempted to try it but… why staff? For the might?

Every camp npc have max “allowed to travel” distance that calculated from their initial spawn position. If npc should exceed this max distance in order to hit nearest target – it starts regenerate and goes back to initial position. Advice for you – don’t fight 1-2 gurds (mb only while learning), but aggro them all and pack them by kiting at narrow places and start burst (condi or/and direct dps) hard. Just stps back from blinding fields.

Its not the “allowed to travel” reset that you can achieve by simply running out – it is genuine slow walk towards the camp (without even resetting the health) after killing a clone.

Look at the NE camp: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Foghaven_map.jpg
I’ve manage to achieve that while fighting on the east side of the camp between the building and the lumber mill (somewhere close to the letter “a” on the picture), while it is possible to kite the guards much further.

Now, I am just like you starting my adventure with PU Condi Mesmer, but I can share one advice that I haven’t noticed above:
If you have problems with flipping the camp, instead of rushing in and doing huge aoe try pulling bit away from the camp. Yes, all guards will rush at you but… I’ve noticed a weird thing: quite a few of them will reset after killing your clones and slowly walk back to their normal spots! I’m not sure is it a bug or a feature but it definitely helps your survivability to fight with 1-2 guards at the time instead with whole camp.
On the downside this of course will make capturing the camp last longer so you are more at risk of being jumped by other players but it will help you in learning your moves.
And whatever they say about PU Condi build – it is fun to play.

So you’re asking whether an on-interrupt proc will work if you don’t interrupt anything?

Interrupts require a thing to interrupt. If you just randomly hit someone with a daze, you’re not interrupting them.

Butbutbut… I’ve just interrupted their rest (how rude of me!)!!

Anyway, thanks for explaining this

Newb question:
Mistrust tooltip states that “Whenever you interrupt a foe, inflict 2 stacks of confusion in an area around them.” Similarly rune of perplexity "when you interrupt a foe, cause 5 stacks of confusion for 8 seconds. "

So when the cast is treated as an interruption? Does your opponent has to be in the middle of casting animation ? Will it work as an opener of the combat when technically you are not interrupting anything?

I’ve recently managed to level my mesmer to 80 and after few days as typical wvw power build I’ve decided to give conditions a go. Currently, this toon is still an alt, so I’m not very keen to spend 60+ gold on perplexity runes just to find that condi mesmer is not my cup of tea. So could you please suggest me cheaper alternative?