Guild Wars 2

Agree with the confusion duration needing to adhere to the casters condi duration.

blutstein.2468:

i like my rampagers set. in terms of dungeon-runs and the condition cap it really kinda suck (switch to phantasm/berserk) but i love it in wvw or solo.

I run a interrupt clonespammer build using rampagers. 2nd & 3rd utility are situational. I like the reactive counter playstyle.

with 25 might i sit at nearly 1600 condition dmg, and it adds up quickly.

That actually looks pretty cool!

Xyonon.3987:

I just mean if I have traited it, does it mean it cleanses everyone or jsut me :P

On cast it only cleanses you, also with #4. However, the image bolt that bounces can cleanse others if the bolt hits them.

Xyonon.3987:

does it also work for allies?

It should yes. The bounce prioritize player characters before clones/npc’s.

Gizuko.5734:

Helios.3598:

I dueled a mesmer who focused pretty much his whole build on the duelist, glam combo. He dumped 25 in illusions, grabbed glam mastery, phantasmal fury, sharper images, duelist’s disicpline, and phantasmal haste. His weapons were Scepter/Pistol + Staff. This allowed him to setup two or more hasted duelists constantly with three fields to play in which resulted in a crazy amount of conditions. My build had duelists out as well… it sounded like a machine gun battle. The end result, he was able to more consistently push single target conditions which worked well for dueling.

I am currently running a wvw build that is much like that mentioned, and if you are going to get 25 points in illusion, do it only after reading this:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionists_Celerity

You might want the extra Cdmg, or shatter cdr (you shouldn’t want it, though, but shorter distortions are always good), but unless this has been fixed, those 5 extra points could go elsewhere

Celerity and duelist should stack though, from what I’ve seen the CD does go down to about 12 or w/e it is. It’s a bug in the skill tooltip CD. If you have the two none of the phantasm tooltips show double reduced CD’s. But you should indeed see the reduced CD when casting.

ahh yeah, hadn’t thought of that. I only solo roam in wvw, so I’m always looking for 1v1 fights.. maybe 1v2, but I see what you’re getting at.

Pyroatheist.9031:

KazNaka.4718:

but that’s also the point: they can’t attack you.

That doesn’t matter if you can’t kill them. They can just casually stroll away and you’re helpless to do anything to prevent it. Confusion ONLY works if you have additional pressure that forces them to take actions.

As much as I would love for this to be wrong, Pyro is completely correct.
I engaged a necro today in wvw and he just ran away from me. Condi builds pretty much rely on the enemy going into the fight with you, killing your clones and whatnot. So if they don’t wanna fight, they can just run… and you really can’t put all that much pressure on them.
You can get lucky and catch them with a pistol stun and immobilize from sword and hope the duelist will take his toll on the enemy. But for the most part, they can just run and the phantasms will be out of range.

Xyonon.3987:

Dom IX is “torch skills remove cons” ?? If yes does the summon or the attack of the phantasm remove one condition?

Traited torch removes a condition on both #4 and #5 when used. Also, the image bounce will also remove a condition on you, if it hits you ofc. (This is what I’ve heard at least, so don’t lynch me if it isn’t correct )

Helios.3598:

I dueled a mesmer who focused pretty much his whole build on the duelist, glam combo. He dumped 25 in illusions, grabbed glam mastery, phantasmal fury, sharper images, duelist’s disicpline, and phantasmal haste. His weapons were Scepter/Pistol + Staff. This allowed him to setup two or more hasted duelists constantly with three fields to play in which resulted in a crazy amount of conditions. My build had duelists out as well… it sounded like a machine gun battle. The end result, he was able to more consistently push single target conditions which worked well for dueling.

Ahh!! So you can make it work

Ahh that’s sad though, I was kinda hoping there’d be a good confusion bomb build

Just wondering, which spec dishes out the most confusion?
Is it pistol trait + ethereal fields? Or? I’m just curious, because I would really like to try out a high condi confusion build

Hey Natsu, just wondering, have you tried to run the build with 30/20/20 instead, with 3 charge mantras and for utilities decoy/mantra of concentration/mantra of resolve?
Seems to work quite well actually, though no blink makes it a bit more slow which is always a baaad thing

… thanks for sharing…

ahh yeah, ofc, that’s the difference since I solo roam in wvw, so when I get jumped after having killed someone, it can be tricky since I have to recharge so many mantras. But will be cool to see what you come up with

One thing I’m also wondering, if it isn’t better to do 30/30/0/10/0 for condi cleanse on heal. I mean it’s 3 condi’s you can cleanse within 3 seconds, on only a 10 second Cd.. that’s pretty much tbh. Either combine this with resolve mantra or perhaps you could forgo that one and rely solely on heal for condi clearing.

where did Anet mention they would alter perplexity runes?

condition builds are highly viable. The blackwater build is a true stable and a nice place to start.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-The-Blackwater-Mesmer-Condition-WvW/first

awesome, good to hear

Did you have time to try out the signet build?

I’ve begun to dabble with mantras, since I’ve got a solid condi build and a solid power build already.
And the hard thing for me was to not just spam the mantras, still is but I do feel the sting of them, when I have to re-charge, it just makes me a living target. It does massive dmg though, so in that respec it’s awesome

themenaceofseventhdimension.2075:

Is it too annoying for you guys? I understand if that is the case. When I see my vid, the moving skill slots is actually pretty disrorienting. I’m not sure how I can be good with keyboards now. I feel that I am more of a skill-clicking player.

How’s the build? I need to know you guys’ feedbacks. I hope I succeeded in creating a viable hybrid build. If you need more proof, seat back and relax. More proof is on the way in the form of massive One vs One dueling footage.

To be honest, I don’t give a rats kitten if you click or not. If it works for you, go for it. Will you be faster if you assign buttons? Yes you will, but if you make it work, who are we to decide that for ya. I found it annoying that you use your keyboard to turn for example, but again, if that’s how you play, that’s how you play.

UnknownFreak.2805:

Was it after a major fight? or was there no fight at all?

He mentioned the following “i was Scouting on Hills in our border – not even in combat with anything – and all of a sudden i’m just defeated ….”

Just wondering, could you update the op build to what you’ve come up with as I am not quite sure which build you’re ending up with

Krispera.5087:

skcamow.3527:

According to the current build link, you don’t have much mobility (I don’t see blink in the build unless you were referring to phase retreat). Would you consider this a weakness?

It’s true that mobility is lacking, but it’s the mesmer weakness. Osicat is pretty good with Phase Retreat/Camera Turning if you look at his videos. If you master the mechanism, it can be used like a normal front blink.

I used to play with focus for mobility in pvp, but iWarden is immobile, so it’s hard to land damage. If you follow Dietzen build, you can always change decoy for blink if you really need the mobility. Always put your own spice in your build.

I would love to claim that I can zip around like a thief, but yeah I do have some mobility issues. I don’t necessarily feel it is an issue, now that I have travelers runes though.
If my target tries to run, I usually use signet of domination (which I save for just such an occasion) and follow up with sword 3 chain and sword 2. If the target is close I just sword 2 and try to blow em up. I always also try to switch to staff after this, while right on top of em, to ensure they get the hydromancy chill proc. But admittedly, warriors especially can just bounce away with little effort, same with thieves.

A note regarding phase retreat, if your target is behind you, and you use the ability, you will blink forwards away from your target. As the ability is always designed to move you away out of harms way. Needless to say, if you have no target you will still move back, not forward But you can use this on a critter or something for example to get some momentum, and if you are far enough away, you won’t spawn a clone on said npc.

Oh and one last thing, ofc you can switch around what you feel is best, I did this from Kaamaus build, he runs 3 signets I only run 2
The blink vs decoy thing, I’ve found I’d rather have a target drop, rather than a blink, since they will still have you targeted if you blink away, they won’t if you stealth. So that’s my personal reasoning for chosing decoy over blink.

Sensotix.4106:

i will test dietzens signet build and do a video review on it

Best post all day ! hehe

skcamow.3527:

@Dietzen, just curious, do you spend the majority of your time in sw/sw? Reason I ask is the lack of chaotic dampening. I’ve always found staff cumbersome to run without it. I know it’s possible and people obviously do it but I always like to ask feedback when I see it.

According to the current build link, you don’t have much mobility (I don’t see blink in the build unless you were referring to phase retreat). Would you consider this a weakness?

Yes, I always start off in s/s burn everything, and after my blurred frenzy I’ll switch to staff which procs hydromancy, and then blink away… and yeah I did refer to phase retreat when saying blink and yeah I did think of taking chaotic dampening, however, I wanted to remove condi on signet use, and that has worked out like a charm.
To be honest, I’ve played with the trait and without, and I don’t miss it.. ofc #4 and #5 are on really long CD’s, but again I spend most of my time in s/s anyways, and with the reduced cd on sword, I find my abilities are constantly up…
I think it depends on the build if you need the trait, and I can honestly say that in this build you don’t need it…

Deathcon.5903:

Yeah he could honestly be doing a lot more damage if he went the normal condition route rather than focusing on Confusion. Personally I have a lot more trouble with Engies who constantly throw out grenades that apply conditions than I do with Confusion Engies.

Boy do I know what you’re talking bout here… those engy’s are terrifying! So in some respects it might be a good thing when they devote themselves into the perplexity runes… hadn’t thought of that really. And I’ve even got 3 condi clears on a short CD.

Deathcon.5903:

I’m saying because they picked such a specific rune set that they have to pick skills revolving around it. A Confusion Engie build is different then a Condition Engi build because of the mechanics they focus on.

Ahh that way, now I get it and that’s actually quite true, I met a war (from same server) in wvw and asked what he used, and he was all about interrupt abilities, to get more out of perplexity, the stomp thingy, bull’s rush and using shield ofc. So I see what you’re talking bout, since he could’ve taken other things to help him out instead

Jhughes.8341:

Also. I leveled an ele to around 24ish I think, seemed like it was taking me a while to kill things

d/d or s/d boom boom things go dead really fast

Deathcon.5903:

I will have to say as someone who does a lot of Roaming I have encountered 3 classes that try to abuse the Perplexity runes as much as they can and they are Thief(P/P), Engineer, and Warrior. However I find that all 3 are rather easy to kill with very minimal problems if any at all simple because of these runes they don’t have access to nearly as many conditions and therefore the confusion can be cleared almost immediately. This assumes you have proper condition clearing but if you do I don’t see a problem with these runes.

Just curious, which other runes would grant access to more conditions?

K U T M.4539:

Dietzen.6127:

Except necromancer, due to fear not counting as an interrupt. Which means they can only interrupt with warhorn and spectral grasp.

The 4th effect of the rune set gives a necro, essentially, the damage of another Dhuumfire. Increases duration of confusion applied by Corrupt Boon.

The point was more in the line that necromancera can’t take full advantage of the runes. I did, however, enjoy being able to dish out every single condition in the game

Except necromancer, due to fear not counting as an interrupt. Which means they can only interrupt with warhorn and spectral grasp.

Nuka Cola.8520:

I was for over a month. Was tired of seeing so many ppl use it in wvw so i bought a set three days ago and pretty much any other condi runes are completely irrelevant for mez. They’re so OP that the person who thought this is a good idea must’ve been —-— Were they even thinking for half a sec when creating these?

No they weren’t. And I can’t quite understand why the tormenting runes got an ICD within, was it 1 day? Or 2 days? But they completely ignored perplexity.
It goes without saying that ofc tormenting should have an ICD because classes with spammable heal #6 could stack 25 torment stack quickly, which does kittentons of dmg. Confusion is after all, only damaging if you use an ability. However this doesn’t explain why perplexity shouldn’t have an ICD since having 21 stacks of confusion on you renders you completely useless or dead.

I can actually understand the “you need X or Y to be in this group” mentality. Some classes simply need to have a certain setup before they are viable.
Before coming to the mesmer I mained a necro, and to be effective I had to use one particular spec, at least as condition. I believe the same applies as power. Anyways, there’s very little diversity with necromancer specs and if this is true with other classes as well, I can understand why some also view the mesmer this way.
BUT, I’ve found the mesmer to be the most versatile class in terms of trait and weapon selection, you can literally make anything work. (There’s ofc some limitations) But there are so many different choices, and this is one thing that actually has made me more happy with my choice to switch classes.

I’d have to say endure. Endure until you can get deceptive evasion, once I got that trait, it all worked out much better. Having a higher clone production just means more dmg.

Yunalesca.9850:

Think about how to deal with certain builds and how to counter them instead of complaining about OP-ness.

But they are OP. Nothing short of OP at all. They are crazy OP. A warrior can inflict like 21 stacks of confusion in a very short while. Isn’t that OP? Ofc you can avoid some of the dmg and so on, but let’s not kid ourselves, they are OP as F! Seriously, if you try to cleanse that 21 stack of confusion you take what, like 1500-2k dmg.. and then you have to cleanse that one condition, if you don’t that’s another 1500-2k dmg…

Xyonon.3987:

I gues OT meant “weapon” not “weapon*s*”. :P

For me it’s the Staff. I like the way he works, also he’s got the most kitten AoE in the whole game, that sound, that feeling, that “goodforme-badforyou” effect. If I could choose just one weapon for eternity? STAFF IT IS!

He did say weapon combo but mentioning 4 weapons on my part, may have been too much haha

Altering my post to only have 1 weapon combo :P
Sword/Sword
Good AA, distortion + really good dmg, cripple/immobilize, block with good dmg AND a clone/or a daze if the situation calls for it, and a very good dmg phantasm. What’s not to like. Oh and with one trait, you can have all of these tools at a 20% CD reduction.

Updated which runes I use, also expanded the How much is set in stone? section, touching upon weapons.
Fighting in wvw with this build is just crazy good. I’ve been up against multiple opponents, and they simply couldn’t get me down with all the distortion and blinking around.
This build is exceptionally tanky but still does really good dmg… I’m quite amazed at the capabilities, and having switched to travelers runes, I can actually catch people!
You gotta try it out people!
Note: I’ve been solo roaming in WvW today from around 8 am to 12 pm, so about 4 hours of game time. During that time, the only time I’ve been downed/killed was to a very skilled d/p thief, the pressure he kept up was too much in the end, and he could port away every time I was close to having him downed, was a cool fight though he even backed off when another thief interrupted (who I killed with no effort lol)
So 1 defeat in 4 hours, not quite shabby I’d say

I’m with Cares Less here, I don’t give a crap about the OP’ness of the runes, we all know they are. Everyone knows they are. But Like Cares Less mentioned, engy’s and wars are running them like mad men and can pump out insane dmg… so might as well fight fire with fire tbh

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

@Care, heh, I don’t think I have any idea at all who you are responding to there. Anyway, yeh we can get some pretty good condition removal, I just happen to like the torch trait because it reduces the cool down on 4 so you get your stealth faster, the condition clearing was just a little bonus XD

Aaaand, from the wiki it seems as if the image actually clears condis too, both on cast but also with his bolt. So in reality image can clear quite a few condis, if allowed to live.

I gotta agree with Windwalker, you really do have great playing skills… I’ve got a lot to learn
Can you try out a signet build perhaps? :P would love to see how you’d play that :P

Dasboba.1652:

Curse you Dietzen, now I want them on my necro too, hahaha.

hahaha good to know I did something, I’m not quite sure if it’s good or bad :P

I’ve gotten these babies for my necro when they first came out, I haven’t looked back. It freed up a utility slot for her so that’s awesome.
I was hesitant to buy them on my mesmer, however I’ve caved in to get em. I lost 135 power or somewhere close to that, but the speed bonus is simply worth it. The straw that broke the camels back, was when I was chasing a necro around. He was MM specced and could simply run around in circles while spamming me with condis. That was when I decided it was time to upgrade, in spite of me having lower power

Lahel.6381:

As soon as you exit combat you can charge 3 up again tho

Though this would mean, you’d have to blow your remaining mantras, wait for them to go off of CD, then change traits, charge all mantras and change back the trait.
It is a lot of work but doable

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@Lahel: That’s destined to get patched one day (and I have a personal-thing against exploiting bugs.) , but for now its pretty good to know. Ty!

@Keenlam: Yeah, I’m starting to think that Crippling Dissipation is the better Dom Minor choice for Condition Builds while Halting Strike is preferabel for power..

At the same time, Crippling Dissipation helps me keep enemies from running away (Cripple cuts movement skills like Warrior’s Bull Charge by 50% too) and makes life much harder for melee characters (and since this build performs much better in melee range, easier for me).

Having clones explode to cause 2 conditions at a time also has an interesting psychological effect: It makes enemies less inclined to attack when I’m/they’re surrounded by clones as well as more likely to blow condition removal thinking I’m a condition build.

TBH the mantra thing isn’t a bug, nor is it an exploit. Ofc it’s not how Anet viewed it to be used, however it’s perfectly viable imo. And once in battle, you’ll have to recharge your mantra’s anyways, and then you only get the 2 charges.

Cares Less.9631:

After playing your build for so long and enjoying it I have changed it up slightly, using Sceptre/Torch & Sword/Pistol, 0/30/30/0/10

Traited Far Reaching Manipulation, Duelists Disciple & DE, Debilitating Dissipation, Bountiful Interruption & PU, and by putting the last 10 in Illusion I pick up all shatter skills cause Confusion & Master of Misdirection to extend Confusion by 33%.

Have enjoyed the changes and moving away from Staff for a change.

I thought about this too, the only thing I’ve been considering is the effect you get from those 33%, since you get condi duration just by going into Domination. In this case though, you will get 23% more confusion duration instead of 10% condition duration, and afaik the 33% is multiplied AFTER other multipliers, making it quite good.

Aye, especially thieves I’ve found. You can negate a very large portion of their dmg by all the distortion you can put out. It’s awesome!

How much is set in stone?
Based on your abilities, you can always switch out some of the cavaliers or knights pieces for more berserkers gear. I have found a somewhat middleway where I feel comfortable between the amount of toughness, crit chance and crit dmg.
Regarding gear, I can’t run this build without MH Sword and a Staff, OH you can decide which suits you best, I’ve picked OH sword due to the reduced CD trait and the viability of the weapon. You can block or daze which is awesome depending on the situation and the swordsman does insane dmg.

Trait Choices
Signet CD reduce, distortion on use, and condition clear on use.
Blade Training – Dual swords means more CD reduced.
Mender’s Purity clear a condi on heal, mirror has a 15 sec CD, so it’s quite often you can use it.
And Debilitating Dissipation, I love this trait, and this build can pump out lots n’ lots of clones, weakness, bleed or vulnerability on clone death is nice!
Also gives minor trait, retal on phantasms, regeneration on 75% HP and protection on regeneration.

Rune and Sigils
I’ve changed from Hoelbrak to Travelers, I need the speed boost so people can’t just kite me. Also, traveler’s rune give more crit dmg, vitality, toughness and precision, also healing and condi dmg (negligible), but it’s also very good to have the +15% boon duration and 10% condi duration actually also helps. So all in all, these runes are quite good for this build.

S/S – Battle for might, X (you can chose whichever you like, I took corruption just for fun and to try it.)
Staff – Hydromancy because, leap in with sword, do your burst, switch to staff to chill and blink out, awesome combo! (Thank you Osicat! I think it’s him that does this trick )

Food and Utility
Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup – -40% additional condi duration on self
Superior Sharpening Stone – More power, you can take oil instead if you want more crit chance.

(You can also run a + crit dmg (either precision or power) food, if you’re not too worried about conditions, I’ve tried both and they both work)

To be or not to be
Or, to shatter or not to shatter? I don’t shatter, unless I need some burst, daze or distortion. I only ever shatter on need, I don’t shatter on CD. It’s best to have clones out to pew pew and to have them die and proc Debilitating Dissipation.

Cons

• You have very little mobility
• No blink
• No swiftness
• Can be difficult to catch targets, Sword3 cripple and immobilize, Chaos Storm lucky chill proc, and Signet of Domination are the only tools to catch people. Oh and hydromancy on staff proc.

Pros

• High dmg
• Phantasms do very high dmg
• Many tools to avoid dmg
• High clone production, many Debilitating Dissipation procs

Conclusion
It’s a fun build, it differs slightly to Kaamau’s build but and it works. It does great dmg and you can really punish people for engaging you! Try it out

Hello folks!

I thought I’d share a nice and tanky build for you all that I have been running lately to a great deal of success. I used to run the Confusing Shatter Damage build that I posted some time ago, however it began to bother me greatly that some of my traits were rendered useless if my opponent had stability. Another thing that also started to drag me down, is the heavy usage of conditions, and while I defend my previous build’s lack of condi remove, since I could often stun and daze a target long enough for me to kill them, when facing several opponents you just can’t keep up the dazes to avoid being killed by conditions. So, I started yet again to shop around for inspiration and surprisingly enough the build that I found to be defensive enough, and able to clear conditions fast enough was actually Kaamau’s Evasive Signets. There were, however, some aspects of his build that I didn’t agree with and thus have changed trait allocation, trait selection and weaponry, enough that I feel it warrants a new post

My build
So here’s the Dietzen’s Signets.

Like Kaamau said in his post, I want to be able to clear conditions regularly and I want to be able to withstand damage. Having distortion is a nice and quite nifty tool at your disposal and with added sources other than F4 and Sword2, you can often avoid big chunks of dmg.

Which tools do you have in this build?
I’m glad you asked, let me summarize:

Distortion

• F4 1-3 Seconds
• Sword2 2 Seconds
• Signet of Midnight 1 Second
• Signet of Domination 1 Second

Block/Daze

• Sword4
• F3 1-3 Dazes

Condition Clearing

• Mirror 1 Condition
• Signet of Midnight 1 Condition
• Signet of Domination 1 Condition

Stun Breaks

• Decoy
• Signet of Midnight
• Staff2 (Semi, it removes you from harm’s way)

Others

• Staff2 Blink
• Staff4 Chaos Armor
• Staff5 Chaos Storm (Swiftness, Retaliation, Aegis)
• Signet of Midnight Blind
• Signet of Domination 3 Second Stun
• Mirror 2 Second Reflect

Hey wait a second! You listed some of those tricks a lot of times! Is this some kind of Tom Foolery?
This is one aspect I like about the viability of this build, your skills do multiple things at any given time!

For example, Signet of Midnight is a stunbreak, it puts out blind in a 360 radius, it gives 1 second of distortion, and it clears a condition.
Signet of Distortion puts out a 3 second stun, 1 second of distortion and clears 1 condition.
So some of the abilities have various purposes and this is awesome, even if you use something for 1 purpose, you might help yourself in another. You might have stunned someone with Domination and at the same time avoided a warrior stun in the 1 second distortion duration.