Guild Wars 2

hotcarl.8621:

And how would a bunker mesmer not be superior to condi for holding a point? What you said literally doesn’t make any sense.

Condi Bunker goes into Illusions, which reduces the CD of all Shatter and Illusion skills. This means you can Shatter-heal/cleanse more often and with more illusions at a time (bigger heals).

More importantly it gives you access to Persistence of Memory, reducing the CD of all Phantasms (including the shield’s Block) by 2s per Phantasm Shattered. Coupled with Chronophantasma and you have a recipe for extremely low Phantasm (and therefore Block) CD.

As an example, assuming you don’t lose Avengers before they get Shattered, Echo of Memory’s CD is effectively 16s. This doesn’t take into account Alacrity (perma-Alacrity brings the CD down to a whooping 6.4s) or any CD reduction from other Shattered Phantasms.

Overall a Condi Bunker can Block overwhelmingly more often and heal a lot more than a non-Illusion-specced Bunker. The tradeoff is you don’t have Stability or permanent Protection. The result is you’re almost invincible against professions without unblockable attacks, but more vulnerable to those that do (DH, Necro, and to some extent Rev).

The “meta” Support Bunker places emphasis on support. Its survivability is actually worse than dedicated Chronobunkers. Without good teammates to support you’re far better off running a different Chronobunker build than the meta one.

Fixing the bug that Anet can’t fix.

All this arguing over “I created this build first!” “NO I DID” is infantile. Can we just stop?

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@Silverkey:

I think Chaotic Dampening’s Protection is over the top with the Chronomancer. All CDs are reduced by ~40%, Chaotic Dampening itself reduces Phase Retreat’s CD, you get a lot of boon duration bonus from Durability and Chaos (and maybe that amulet-with-the-name-I-can’t-remember) and Chaos Armour naturally has a 33% chance to proc Protection on hit. Combined you can definitely maintain permanent Protection AND share it with allies.

Like I said I’d be okay with nerfing or even removing (provided the trait gets something else) guaranteed Protection IF Swiftness is removed from the possible procs (returning Chaos Armour to 50% chance to proc Protection as it used to, long long ago before idiots ruined it with their misguided whining).

This is turning into a “my weiner is longer and floppier than yours” contest. Cue people digging through post histories to prove who did what first.

Just stop it.

Can we stop it with the circlejerking and indignant sputtering and actually discuss this like sensible people?

1. – I’d be okay with reducing Chaotic Dampening’s Protection provided Swiftness is removed from Chaos Armour’s procs. The CD reduction should probably get a buff however, the only reason it’s acceptable as it is is because the other effect is good.

2. – I agree with reducing AWTEW’s Alacrity to 1s but not for your reasons. I think Alacrity-sharing is too dependent on Wells and we need another Alacrity-sharing trait to even it out, possibly replacing Improved Alacrity (which, let’s be honest, is overkill). AWTEW will also need a second effect, say a bit of AoE healing on Well end.

3. – Well of Recall is fine. Don’t fix what ain’t broke. It’s meant to be an Alacrity-sharing Well and it has a substantial CD. Your suggestion will make Well of Recall barely better than Calamity for Alacrity-sharing.

4. – I’d like to see Improved Alacrity turned into a second Alacrity-sharing trait as I mentioned. Something like a percentage of Flow of Time is shared with allies.

5. – No opinion on preventing buff and orb capturing. Temple is one of the lesser ranked maps and Spirit Watch isn’t ranked at all. I personally don’t think it’s a huge deal (IIRC there are far worse problems with Spirit Watch) but whatever.

Cole.3824:

Do you guys actually like this “bunker” gameplay? Sounds like the pro players can’t stand it, but do it because they have no choice. Really hoping they gut some of these builds. The bunker/condi match ups were ridiculously boring to watch.

I like bunker gameplay, but not dedicated Support Bunker. Hence why I play Condi Bunker, which neuters team support for offensive pressure.

Support Bunker is more effective if you have a good team but otherwise I prefer Condi Bunker for self-sufficiency. Not only can you bunker but you can also pressure people away.

DisplayName.7802:

Do not use your shatter skills for damage but for heal/boons.

As an addon to this, a lot of the benefits you get from Shattering (boons, condition cleansing, healing) either don’t scale or scale poorly with Illusions Shattered, so don’t feel as if you have to get three Illusions out. In fact the typical Chronobunker will have a very hard time getting three out for more than one Shatter.

I should point out that the traditional Bunker Guard will in fact lose 1vs1s against most competent damage specs. Its power lies in the fact that it can survive long enough for +1 to arrive (thereby wasting the attacker’s time) and it’s incredible team support potential.

The Chronobunker is similar in the sense the best place for it is in the middle of team fights, but the HoT power creep means it also now no longer loses 1vs1s. But that’s what it is: power creep: and really, IMO, shouldn’t be the case.

Actually HoT is just a massive power creep on all fronts compared to before.

For DH, don’t forget that Heavy Light with Deflecting Shot is an unblockable CC too, on a much lower CD than Hunter’s Verdict or Test of Faith.

Toughness is superior to Vitality by an enormous margin when you factor in Restorative Illusions. Healing Power widens the gap even more. Toss in permanent Alacrity and Master of Misdirection to minimise Shatter CDs and suddenly that Healing Power really adds up.

Vitality prevents you from being bursted down, but with so much Toughness it’s almost impossible to be bursted down with direct damage anyway and conditions melt in the face of Restorative Illusions. Once a fight goes on for more than a few seconds, Toughness + Healing Power + constant, very frequent healing >>>>> Vitality.

What I’m trying to get at is, your health pool is almost irrelevant (so long as you cannot be bursted) when a big part of your survivability is healing, and damage reduction makes healing a lot more effective. So no, compared to Settler? Carrion is an absolutely terrible bunker amulet.

Again I should point out I’m talking about Condi Bunkers. In some ways Condi Bunker actually soft-counters Diamond Skin because while neither of you can kill each other in a 1vs1, DS Eles are actually quite vulnerable to conditions without DS so the moment +1 arrives for you the DS Ele is doomed. The opposite however is not true.

It’s true that Settler isn’t a lot of damage, but that’s why I say it’s a supplement to bunkering. Settler is a pretty good bunker amulet, and despite the meagre offensive output it still outstrips pure bunkers by a lot.

For solo queuing, I have more success playing Condi Bunker than pure Support Bunker. It’s a lot more survivable (referring to Support Bunker, not Power Bunker) and damaging, and the loss of team support can almost be considered a plus as you are spared facepalm moments when your “allies” seem to want to do everything except accepting your support.

Dire equipment, and uh that’s about it. Condi Mes roamer is extremely easy to play.

I should point out that while Condi Mes roamers can win almost any fight, they have few ways of keeping people in fights; and they kill very slowly. That means almost at any point your opponents can decide they don’t want to play your boring little game and saunter off, and there’s very little you can do to stop them.

And since you’re roaming, you’re not doing anything important anyway so there’s little reason for people to fight you once people realise what you are.

In short it’s a build for people who like cheap wins against newbies, nothing more.

Amineo.8951:

Defending Bunker Chrono is litterally lying to yourselves, you all know it’s too strong in this meta…

Seeing as you obviously didn’t read a word in this thread, I’ll point out (to your embarassment, I’m sure) that no one here is defending Bunker Chrono (granted mainly because no one was arguing against it to begin with), but the general air of the thread seems to point towards most Mesmers not being entirely happy about it.

So unfortunately you’re kind of preaching to the choir, rather than cunningly sowing the seeds of dissent as you imagined yourself to be doing.

Yeeaaaaah. This whole “You have no idea who you’re talking to”, “Do you know who he is???” drivel comes across as really… I can’t find the right word to describe it. Blinded, perhaps, in the sense that you’re not looking at each post by its own merits but instead… um… jerking each other off?

Again I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but it leaves a weird taste and isn’t healthy for any community.

Yes it’s true the OP isn’t doing himself any favours but no need to sink to his level.

I think the current meta is upside down. Before Guardians were the ultimate bunkers and Mesmers the ultimate burst, now it’s exactly the other way around.

Confusion + Interrupt + PvE?

My… heart…

Drop Illusions. All’s Well that Ends Well, Improved Alacrity and Chronophantasma are the way to go. For utilities use all Wells (Eternity, Calamity, Action, Recall, Gravity).

Personally I think Mesmer Condi is best played as a supplement to Bunker. You can easily build a Condi Bunker that is just as if not more survivable than the classic Support Bunker thanks to Illusions traits, while boasting a lot more offensive pressure.

A glassy Condi Mesmer (and I consider anything without Toughness to be glassy, Vitality prevents you from being bursted but doesn’t make you much more survivable in the long run) doesn’t do anything other professions can’t. The main thing going for Mesmer Condi is it can be a lot more survivable than other Condi specs without sacrificing much offense (meagre as it may be), and that should be your focus; otherwise you’re better off playing Malyx Rev or something.

It does seem as though a Resistance-sharing Mesmer may become a thing, especially if people continue to moan about the alleged “condi meta”. Split is 8s and Temporal is 4s, and you can further share you own Resistance with SoI, and pair up with a Herald…

With regards to condition diversity, I like to use things like Sigil of Earth, Frailty and Doom to eat up cleanses. Doesn’t matter they don’t do much damage, if a cleanse eats up a stack of Vulnerability instead of your Confusion and Torment then that’s a win for you.

It also helps to bait your enemies into cleansing prematurely. instead of instantly putting down 20+ stacks and alerting them to what you could do, start by poking them with conditions, note their cleanses and once you think they’re empty, lay down the hurt.

Staff isn’t all that key. Sword-Shield is more important defense-wise due to Blocks and Evades, not to mention superior group support with Alacrity, Quickness and reliable AoE CC.

If you think Staff is key because of Chaotic Dampening, you can get Chaos Armour by Illusionary Leaping through Wells. That’s not to say Staff is useless, it’s great; but not “key” in the way you seem to think it is.

Alacrity support is pretty simple, it’s just Wells and Well of Recall in particular. Stack Wells, yell at allies to stand in Wells, use Continuum Split to double up, etc. Quickness support is the part that’s more involved, and also IMO more important.

Your survival comes from perma-Protection thanks to Chaotic Dampening and Stability from BD, plus Blocks and Evades fuelled by personal Alacrity. It’s a support bunker build (although as Fay said I don’t think you’re looking at the right build), it’s naturally survivable.

No no, I think there’s definitely a place for it, but it’s a pretty narrow place. I wouldn’t use it in PvE nor in proper WvW (a.k.a. not roaming), but I would use it in sPvP (and still do).

I dismissed Taltevus because when he mentioned Perplexity runes it’s obvious his POV has nothing to do with sPvP, not because Condi Mes is completely useless in it.

Staff on the other hand is pretty useless for condi pressure, which is what you were talking about in the OP. Regardless of build Staff is a defensive weapon.

Kevin.4209:

SteepledHat.1345:

In SPvP, I’ve been solo queueing my way up the ranks. I’ve been learning the new specialization’s build types as I go. Mostly, I run a bunker chrono with insp/chaos/chron lines. Sword and board and staff as weapons. Utilities tend to be portal, blink, precognition, and gravity. I can easily bunker multiple enemies and most professions. However, I’m having a heck of a time with dragonhunter. Now a scrubby fotm hunter isn’t the issue. As I’ve been playing my mmr has shot up. I’m seeing these beastly career guards. I can sustain for a bit, but their cd on the unblockable trap is so low they seem to always outpace my defenses. Any advice on how to prevent a well played DH from decapping?

When I play chronobunker, I find dh to be completely countered by me. Illusions proc traps, and when you see traps procced just throw a precog on them and walk in. Alternatively, you can use distortion. New builds run blink so you have a stun break for dragons maw. I think this is probably the biggest counter to trap dh.

On the other hand, when I play thief….. It’s painful

Proccing traps with illusions is another way of saying “I’m not contesting the point and oh it’s now lost, defeating the whole point of playing bunker”. Same goes for Distortion and to a small extent Blink.

Making Ether Clone unblockable might not be the worst idea. Before HoT it would’ve been unthinkable but everyone seems to be farting out unblockable attacks (even CCs) these days.

2s base sounds good. iWarlock could increase the duration of all conditions on the target when it hits. Also wouldn’t hurt if it bounces.

Chaos Armour needs to be reverted to its pre-Swiftness state. It used to only give Prot or Regen, Swiftness was added when people idiotically whined about Chaos Armour not giving Prot reliably so they made it only available when casting the skill (thereby neutering all Chaos Armour from combos). When this was finally reverted they kept the Swiftness proc as a kitten-you to Mesmers.

Chaos Storm… whatever. People want Chaos Storm for the Daze and Aegis mainly, everything else is just to keep it from being OP by eating up procs.

Taltevus.3289:

I have to disagree I main a Mesmer and I main a condition build.

Runes of Tormenting or Perplexity

Stopped reading right there as it’s irrelevant to sPvP.

In any case I think the OP is talking about Staff, not Condi Mes in general. It is true that the Staff is pretty bad as an offensive condi weapon. Whether Condi Mes as a whole is viable is a different story.

Settler. Toughness, Healing, Condition Damage. There you go.

Good and evil is never black and white, although Anet’s subpar writing does tend to make everything out that way (see: Inquest, Sons of Svanir, Nightmare Court, Flame Legion, etc.).

One of the problems with Staff 1 is they didn’t double its Burning when they halved Burning’s damage during the trait update. Allowing Clone attacks to bounce twice does cover for that somewhat but not entirely.

Fay.2357:

So this build is not really a bunker. This is a support build. Maybe a fine distinction, but it’s rather important in terms of how to rank the build on arguably the most important metric: ‘how bad of a team you can carry’. Being a support build, you require a team to support. If you don’t have something worth supporting, you’re out of luck.

The reason my bunker build is so effective is that I can reliably maintain a 2v1 or 3v1 for a substantial amount of time. If half of my team are picking their noses in a corner, I can survive until they finish, wipe off their hands, and remember that they’re supposed to be pvping. This build can’t.

This is why I prefer the considerably more selfish Condi Bunker for solo queuing, as even if your teammates have no concept of cooperation you can semi-carry your team by just locking down a point. Condi Bunker also exerts decent condition pressure so you can actually kill enemies even if +1 never comes.

I don’t think the Elder Dragons are corrupted from their original purpose. Consuming magic IS their original purpose, they keep magic in check. In fact it is implied that without EDs to draw magic into themselves, an excess of magic could mean the end of Tyria.

In other words they keep the balance. From the POV of mortal races they’re “evil” because a side effect of what they do is an extinction-level event, but stopping the EDs from doing their jobs could very well be an end-of-the-world-level event.

Presumably part of Glint’s plan is to replace the current EDs with a new system that maintains the balance of magic without killing off the mortal races.

Vague Memory.2817:

Where is all this stability coming from. Personally I can’t stand the mantra mechanics, and that only gives 2 secs stab a pop. Other than that you have to roll with Bountiful Disillusionment for 5sec stability on shatter. But is there anyone who is not using staff rolling with chaos these days, the line doesn’t offer much except PU but that is a GM in competition with BD.

This is about Chronobunker, which typically goes Chaos-Insp-Chrono. Bountiful Disillusionment is absolutely amazing with the Stability and group boons (notably you can dispense long-duration group Resistance with Continuum Split) and Chaotic Dampening is almost permanent Protection.

PU is ancient history at this point. Chronobunker provides so much defence you don’t need stealth at all, in fact it’s detrimental as you can’t contest points in stealth.

Couple Chaos with Illusionary Inspiration/Signet of Inspiration, toss in Sieze the Moment and Chronomancer/Durability runes and you’ll be farting out Protection, Quickness and a smattering of BD boons to your allies, not to mention Alacrity. If you’re playing with a coordinated team going anything other than Chaos-Insp-Chrono is suboptimal.

Really, claiming “this or that build is mine” basically boils down to a weiner waving contest. It reflects badly for all involved.

I personally don’t play Chaos-Insp-Chrono support so I use Mantra of Recovery instead of Well of Eternity, which does give me pretty good group cleansing on points. I also use iDisenchanter so that’s another source of group cleansing, and with Chronophantasma and Persistence of Memory it’s up more often than not.

Yeah it’s not the typical Chronobunker and doesn’t provide a lot of boon and alacrity support, but one thing it does do better than the typical build is group condition cleansing.

Re: condis. A lot of people seem to be complaining about a “condi meta” (which IMO is unfounded), but playing Chronobunker and its variations I don’t feel threatened by condis at all unless more than one enemy is condi bursting me (which would be threatening whether it’s condi or power).

I definitely agree that Chronobunkers are very effective at dealing with condis, and now that it’s considered “meta” (and better yet, the definitive bunker build) it may indeed push away the alleged “condi meta”.

Re: fighting at range: remember the build is Chronobunker, so fighting at range or using Distortion isn’t always an option if you don’t want to lose a point. Should also point out that DHs do considerably more damage at range (although given their burst is melee that probably doesn’t matter too much).

Overall though while DHs do counter Chrono defence, they’re pretty vulnerable to conditions themselves (assuming the meta DH build); so Condi Bunker can kill them before they kill you without losing a point.

Oh, and you likely know this but DH Wards ignore Blur, so when Blurring it’s best to not move so you don’t get knocked around by Hunter’s Ward and/or Dragon’s Maw.

I play Condi Bunker which packs a considerable condition punch without sacrificing personal defence (although it does skimp a LOT on team support compared to Chaos-Insp-Chrono), allowing me to somewhat reliably beat DHs (but generally not enough to finish them before +1 arrives).

Very low CD on Echo of Memory (thanks to Chronophantasma, Illusionist’s Celerity and Persistence of Memory) means an interrupted Block isn’t a huge deal as long as Déjà Vu is procced. That said I certainly try to save Blocks until after they use Test of Faith and Deflecting Shot (and possibly Hunter’s Verdict).

As I said my build is quite selfish compared to the typical Chronobunker, but if you’re solo queuing then I think it’s better to play a more selfish build anyway… I find team support really hit or miss in solo queue.

You can try Shattering up a Stability while blocking to stop them from interrupting it (I’m not actually sure if this works since I don’t currently run Chaos, but it sounds like it should). Other than that you’ll have to rely more on Blurs and sheer durability through Protection and Shattered healing… but that’s not news to you.

IGN: Tripp
Play: PvE, PvP
Server: Sea of Sorrows
Role: Scholar, Tester
Time: GMT +10

There are indeed more Unblockable CCs now, but a beauty of Echo of Memory is 1. its CD can get very low, and you can proc Déjà Vu easily if you use it reactively; and 2. it’s divided into two 2.25s sections, so if the first one if interrupted the next one isn’t far behind. In practice I find that DHs are the only ones that give me real trouble, but I also feel they’re a bit overtuned at the moment.

Alacrity increases CD recharge speed by 66%. That means for every second, 1.66 seconds of CD is reduced. Divide the normal CD by the Alacrity-time to get how many Alacrity-time units needs to pass for the CD to finish. Each Alacrity-time unit corresponds to 1s, so that’s also how much real time passes.
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76.5 / 1.66 = 46
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You can count on Alacrity from Avenger pretty well actually. The first hit shouldn’t be difficult to get, Déjà vu gets you a second Avenger with a second hit, Chronophantasma resets them for a third and fourth hit, and by the time they’re gone the next round of Echo of Memory is almost ready. Since you want to be close for Shatters anyway you wouldn’t be out of range often, especially when standing on points.

With Unblockable attacks the main ones you worry about are the ones that also CC, and fortunately there’s not too many of those. Notable ones include traited Test of Faith (which I fully expect to be nerfed at some point), Reaper’s Mark and Wail of Doom.

Alacrity isn’t considered a boon, and so is not affected by Concentration/Boon Duration. It can’t be stripped, corrupted or stolen either.

Sombrero.9204:

Despite the respect for the time you put into it I do’nt think you are offering any “build” as such. I mean you recommend more than half of the spells of the game, almost every weapon possible and every trait. So … is that just your way of seeing every mesmer related stuff or a real build at last ?
Plus I don’t really like the lack of uniqueness of the build. It’s very simple, it’s a spam your shatters build without any addition to it.

As for the shield it blocks damage but not conditions in a lot of scenarios and it is not as potent as it seems in many situations. Plus it’s so obvious and people are already used to it. It’s almost a breathing space for any opponent when a chrono uses his 4’s shield spell.
I start to think that the Chrono is in a crap spot in PvP at least. It’s a veeeery obvious specialization with a lot of massive flashy effects and obvious aoe which are for most (except gravity well) super easy to dodge in a second. Compared to the lovely op Dragon Hunter who can stun locks the whole planet in a matter of seconds the Chrono wells and shield are quite … sad.
But it’s just my bitter opinion on the matter.

I go through every weapon and skill to give my thoughts on them. If it seems like a lot are “recommended” it’s because there’s a lot of leeway without taking away from the core build. The point of this guide is not to dictate “this is how you MUST build it” (except in cases where something is so bad it should never be taken), it’s to give (hopefully sound) advice on making your own build.
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The shield blocks conditions just fine: you’re falling into the same trap people who complain about “condi cancer” fall into, they think the only counter to condi is cleansing when in fact the exact same defences against direct damage also apply to condi application. The difference is if direct damage goes through your defences you take the full consequences immediately (which can very well be death), whereas with condis you have a second chance with cleanses.
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As activating Block is pretty much instant it’s not at all difficult to put it up just before an opponent’s attack lands. Even if that’s the only hit that’s all you need to use it again, conjure a second Phantasm, Shatter them and get it all back within seconds. As I mentioned before, under ideal conditions you can use Echo of Memory every 6.4s, which means you’re blocking 70% of the time. That’s 70% of the time they can’t attack you (not quite true of course), whereas you can still attack them with Shatters.
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This, by the way, is what makes the ChronoWard unique. Lots of Mesmers use the shield, many use Chronophantasma, but very very few use Persistence of Memory. There’s a very good reason it’s core.

While the offensive portion of Condi Chrono is pretty straight forward, the main point of this is actually PoM + CP; which I think a lot of people are overlooking. Under ideal situations this means 6.4s CD for Echo of Memory, not taking into account PoM from any other Shattered Phantasm.

My main goal with this guide then is to highlight the incredible defensive power of the Mesmer possible with the Chronomancer, which most people are not aware of due to being stuck in the mindset of “Mesmer = glass burst”.

So yes, offensive-wise the ChronoWard doesn’t outshine Power builds, but even a glassy ChronoWard can sit on points (note that neither sample I posted uses stealth) for a long time.

It’s also meant to be a rather general guide for sPvP. A lot of the stuff I went through (Mesmer in general, basically) can apply to any Mesmer, not just these builds specifically.

It’s not a buff on the Mesmer, it’s a buff on the Phantasm. Every Phantasm that is conjured.

There’s no ICD, every Phantasm you conjure get the buff. When a Phantasm with the buff is Shattered it loses the buff so the next time it’s Shattered it’s gone for good, like usual. It’s individual for every Phantasm.

Technically it’s now Mental Anguish.

Basically instead of fizzling on the first Shatter, every Phantasm fizzles on the second Shatter.

It’s slightly more involved than that but that’s about the gist of it.