Guild Wars 2

FLIMP.8172:

I’d go with carrion. If you’re gonna put 20 into dueling, best choice would be to get carrion.

You mean Rabid, of course.

I think people generally call condition Mesmers “tanky” because they are significantly more survivable than the dominant Berserker Shatter build, which incorporates no defensive stats at all.

The only Mantra people regularly use is Mantra of Resolve, because it is actually our best and most reliable condition cleanser. Mantra of Distraction is also extremely useful in sPvP: an instant ranged interrupt on a 5s CD? Yes please.

Every other Mantra is crap without traits, and even with traits they are questionable.

The passive is almost completely useless because it does not apply to your Illusions immediately, I believe it is applied in 10s intervals that is global and independent of when an Illusion is conjured. The majority of your Illusions will never get the buff.

ButterOfDeath.2873:

IMO it’d be very helpful to change the cast time to 2 seconds: mantra of stability can be used to cast other mantras safely,while the trait that heals when you ready a mantra will be much,much more reliable and helpful.

Many normal skills have cast times close to 2s anyway, if you do that Mantras lose part of their uniqueness (and drawback).

Ostricheggs.3742:

With time warp the way it is why would you EVER use mass invis? Even if the duration was 3 minutes for the stealth.

This is the last thing I thought I’d see.

I much prefer MI over TW simply because it has a much shorter CD. I prefer to be able to use my skills often over a powerful skill I can only use rarely.

Plus I like stealth builds. Anyways, halve its CD to 45s and I’d say it’s worthy of an Elite slot.

Confusion is stupidly powerful in WvW and will down unsuspecting Thieves in an instant. Stealthing after the Thief stealths is also useful: roll out a few Clones with Deceptive Evasion while stealthed to lure the Thief into wasting their initiative. Chaos Storm on self or Chaos Armour are good for dampening a Thief’s burst if you cannot avoid it.

I’d like Harmonious Mantras to be removed so that Mantras (mainly MoRec, MoP and MoC) don’t need to be sub-par when untraited. I’d like MoRec’s healing un-nerfed (~2600 back to 3250), MoP be changed to inflict 3x Confusion for 3s, and MoC’s Stability extended to 4s.

Preferably I’d like Mantras be returned to a single charge, as I liked the idea of a powerful spell that must be prepared in advance. If not, then at least make Mantras regenerate charges outside of combat if they aren’t fully discharged.

In WvW and PvE you can eat Rare Veggie Pizza to increase your condition duration by 40%. Together with Master of Misdirection this allows Confusion to deal a lot of damage (especially in WvW), allowing Mind Wrack to work well with a full condition build.

While it may seem as though Carrion is still superior due to extra direct damage, consider this. With Rabid you get Precision to proc Critical Infusion, giving you near-permanent 2x Endurance recharge for Deceptive Evasion. Taking Rabid therefore would allow you to Shatter more often.

Also consider Cry of Frustration, which is very powerful in a full condition build but doesn’t really benefit from Power.

My preference is for Mass Invisibility to have a shorter CD rather than longer duration or whatever. The main power of stealth is target dropping, duration past 3s is just icing. More frequent use = more target dropping = good. Same goes for Veil.

Aleph Naught.9034:

Yeah, just go to the mists and attack a golem with and without the sigil. Condition damage is the same.

About your ‘direct damage’ assumption, actually, it the other way around: most (probably all) of the time something just says ‘Damage’ they mean direct damage. When something affects condition damage as well, it is specified explicitly (e.g. Might)

Vulnerability, for example, does not affect condition damage either (which I think it should btw).

If it did it would be a nice boost to condition Mesmers. We won’t have to facepalm when our WoC and Clones insist on stacking useless Vulnerability.

This is my stealth build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW7flwzCrXUTkGb9IipHBHyBcoUcdZXJFz2FC;T0AAzCpoay0koJbTumkNtqYUxpidIvKA

It is a condition build, so the Staff is the primary weapon. IMO a condition build synergises well with stealth because you rely on easily spammed Staff Clones for about 33% of your damage, and you can roll out extra Clones without breaking stealth. Plus any conditions you inflict on your target will continue ticking while you’re stealthed.

That said, any build can do well with a stealth build.

MI and Veil have long CDs because they are group stealths. The problem is, as you stated, allies often break stealth immediately, making it of limited use in combat.

AoEs generally only affect 5 allies. I get the feeling MI actually affects more (although I may be mistaken), but that’s how it is.

In this sense Veil is superior because there is no limit to how many allies could be stealthed, although people rarely know they have to run through the Veil.

The only reason I use MI more than Veil is because Veil takes up an important Utility slot.

We are speaking of PvP here, not PvE.

Mufa.1326:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Illusions

When is the bug giving illusions 200% health bonus instead of 50% bonus supposed to be fixed?

When the bug that causes it to have no effect until 10 seconds after the Illusion is conjured is fixed.

Disagree, not because of Portal but because of Mass Invisibility. Making MI a non-Elite would force me not to use it, and I much prefer it over our other Elites (personal preference).

wads.5730:

comparing it to shadow refuge is bad, since it requires you to stay in the circle to get the stealth, and lose it if you leave. its countered extremely easily with knockbacks and aoe in the circle.

Regardless, I’d much rather have Shadow Refuge than say Veil on my bar.

Mantra of Recovery is on a 10s CD, not 20s; and Mender’s Purity is triggered on channel as well.

We have a very powerful condition cleansing trait in Shattered Conditions, which removes one condition per Clone Shattered. Unfortunately no one ever takes it as it’s too high up the Inspiration line.

I disagree with the Mesmer lacking boons: the Staff is quite good at maintaining boons. I generally have lots of Might and permanent Fury and Vigour, and can get almost all boons on me on a frequent basis (including Aegis). The only boon we have trouble getting is Stability, as it is only on the weak Mantra of Concentration.

While it is true the Mesmer isn’t as good as inflicting conditions as other professions, it isn’t as bad as you think. Three Staff Clones and a Staff Mesmer with Illusionary Elasticity can easily maintain 10+ Bleeding and frequent Burning on the target, and we almost always have Confusion on demand (although it’s not always helpful).

I expect Skritt do have to be within earshot of each other (which probably isn’t very far) to form their “collective”, but a number of Skritt could probably transmit information from one end of an area to another by relaying between Skritt. In Skrittsburg for example, the King could likely send his orders (and receive information) from every Skritt in the city.

He does appear to be the most intelligent Skritt, which would make sense if he’s the “nexus” of the Skritt collective.

I’d like to see Mass Invisibility have a 45s CD and Veil have a 60s CD. As it is their CDs are both too long for their meager effects.

As I thought, you were taking consumables and sigils into account. Since those can be gained by any build, they are irrelevant. My numbers take into account only equipment, nothing else.

Rabid equipment has exactly the same amount of CondDmg as Carrion, and is in fact superior to Carrion for condition Mesmers because it provides Precision instead of Power; allowing you to proc Sigil of Earth and Sharper Images.

I also notice that you don’t use Deceptive Evasion (although that is obvious from the fact you don’t have Sharper Images). IMO that’s a huge disadvantage especially if you plan to run Shatter-heavy, simply because constant Shattering is not possible without the incredible Clone generation DE gives. I daresay a condition Mesmer using Sharper Images would Shatter far more than you do simply because you cannot keep up with their Clone generation.

I suggest you run something like 0/20/20/0/30 and use Rabid instead of Carrion where possible. You’ll find it is a significant improvement DPS-wise over your current build.

I agree that certain Clone skills don’t make a lot of sense when they don’t break targeting, specifically the Blocking skills. Decoy already breaks targeting as it is a stealth skill.

Clones actually can deal damage through conditions. Staff and Trident Clones naturally inflict damaging conditions, and all Clones can benefit from Sharper Images allowing them to inflict Bleeding on crit.

grimmson.9154:

I guessed so but was interested in his reply

225/t for Bleeding is not inconceivable (although I have never achieved that myself, I imagine it will require a lot of Might, Corruption stacks and +CondDmg consumables), it is possible he simply misremembered his Poison/Burning ticks as they tend to be less common. Regardless, it certainly is not a DPS you can sustain.

Still, I too am interested in his equipment, build and whatever consumables he uses.

Wise.8025:

Richard Nixon.6573:

Sarcasmic.6741:

Skribbl.7684:

so I can chaperone others around and promote terrible habits? Awesome.

Don’t forget about Time Warp. You can make the rest of your party do more damage too!

That means that you’ll be useful for the group approximately 0.048% longer than if you were only using portal! Hot kitten now we’re cooking!

I heard they reduced the recharge time on Mantra’s by a full second down to 3.25 seconds! Things are looking up for mesmer.

You see they ARE thinking of our well being when they patch

Mantras used to require 3s to charge. They increased that to 4s without giving a reason. This change is merely a rollback of Anet’s mistake, not a “buff”.

grimmson.9154:

could you please elaborate on this?
I know in wvw crazy numbers are possible, but I’m running full cond build with rabid exotics and max cond damage I can achieve is about 3k but that with 25 sigil stack and 20 might stacks, I don’t really need to say that this is not the “normal” condition damage number.
and even with 3k cond damage I can’t reach those numbers.
If you could help me there it would be awesome

The numbers he gave cannot be from the same amount of CondDmg. Bleeding 225/t requires 3650 CondDmg, Poison 1000/t requires 9160 CondDmg, and Burning 2000/t requires 6688 CondDmg.

As you can see they’re wildly different and generally require an impossibly high amount of CondDmg.

sinican.9250:

There are many issues you are failing to consider here with the mesmer mechanics, and that poison/burning/confusion scales more wiht condition damage than does bleeding as well as it only takes 1 stack of burning/poison and confusion stacks easy and is easy to keep up by staggering.

Bleeding does less damage per tick in general because 1. it can stack and 2. it usually lasts longer (at least where Burning and Confusion are concerned). The total damage of one stack of Bleeding is similar (often higher, as is the case with Winds of Chaos) to Burning and Poison. Besides, it’s not like using Sharper Images makes Burning, Poison and Confusion unavailable to you; it’s free Bleeding with no cost.

sinican.9250:

As far as leap, stomp, projectile, and whirl finishers, there are plenty of skills (skills/traited) that enable the Mesmer to synergize extremely well without another play… when other players are present the fields are way more impactful for the party.

Fields are certainly useful, but Pain Inverter requires little setup to inflict a powerful effect. It is a reliable Confusion skill, and gives Retaliation to boot. In any case no one says you cannot use Fields as well, I personally use Feedback and Null Field quite often; not to mention Temporal Curtain and Chaos Storm. In solo play or sPvP however I much prefer more reliable (and important) skills.

sinican.9250:

GS bleed stack is super weak, sorry, it isn’t better by a long shot, a single condition remove screws your entire build. I have no less than 5 conditions rolling on my targets not including the other debuffs (weakness, crippled, imobilized, daze, chilled, etc.)

I’m not sure why you’re so fixated on GS, the only place I mentioned GS was when talking about Sharper Images (which works well with GS, Staff and Sword, but not Scepter Clones). Given how much I speak of Staff Clones (and the fact I posted my WvW build) it should be obvious my primary condition damage weapon is the Staff.

sinican.9250:

Additionally, really only 120 damage bleeding tics with a condition build… umm i guess you lost about half your condition damage in crit/precision. Bleeds tix at 225+ a tic, poison at nearly 1k a tic, and burning upwards of 2k a tic. Sounds like you aren’t much conditions for a condition build :/

You don’t sacrifice any CondDmg by taking Rabid, as CondDmg is Rabid’s highest stat (same as Carrion). It is impossible to get any more in equipment.

Also, Bleeding ~225/t, Poison ~1000/t and Burning ~2000/t cannot be true. If your Bleeding does 225/t then your Poison will do 450/t, and your Burning 1240/t.

They did confirm it.

sinican.9250:

Embolism.8106:

sinican.9250:

Embolism.8106:

sinican.9250:

For condition build I run carrion all the way… no need for crit because conditions aren’t able to crit, only direct damage can. So i avoid prec/crit gear all together… I am also using the undead runes.

Sharper Images.

Condition build uses shatters non stop to keep conditions stacked… our illusions rarely go through 2 attack cycles before they go boom and again crit is useless for unless your damage is mostly direct damage (physical melee/ranged).

additionally, ignoring precision/crit allows the focus of vit/toughness… way more viable for a condition spreader.

The only condition Shatters can stack is Confusion, which cannot be relied upon as your sole source of condition damage. With Sharper Images you can maintain 10+ stacks of Bleeding with 3 GS/Sword/Staff Clones out, and it’s extremely easy to maintain 3 at all times with Deceptive Evasion and your low CD Clone skills.

Staff Clones in particular also inflict Burning and give you Might and Fury, and boons on you also affect Clones; so they pretty much fuel their own damage.

Besides, you can Shatter as well as maintain 3+ Clones without hassle if you time your Shatters to when you’re ready to conjure 3 Clones in a second.

Also, there is no prefix that gives both Toughness and Vitality with CondDmg. Rabid (CondDmg-Precision-Toughness) is as good as Carrion (CondDmg-Power-Vitality) defensively and does not have a sub-optimal stat (Power).

Ilussionary Retribution DURP!

ALL Shatters also cause confusion (per illusion detonated)… umm yeah, GS is stupid for a condition build, bleed is one of the weakest conditions until it get upwards of 15+ stacks, easier to maintain all conditions with a proper shattering condition build.

Are you kidding about clone damage… lol 1-5 damage a hit from clones rofl.

I said “the only condition Shatters can stack is Confusion”. Illusionary Retribution inflicts Confusion. Not sure what you’re saying here.

Bleeding is the most reliable damaging condition. With 10 stacks that’s ~1200 damage every second without Might, and you can easily achieve higher stacks. Staff Clones and your own WoC can also inflict regular Burning, dealing ~700 damage for each application.

Might increases condition damage, and with Sharper Images Fury increases the chances of inflicting extra Bleeding. So yes, Staff Clones do fuel their own Burning/Bleeding damage by giving you Might and Fury.

Overall, a condition build that utilises Sharper Images can do everything a non-SI condition build can, except better. Rabid is the strongest stat distribution for condition Mesmers, Carrion should only be used if Rabid is not available.

sinican.9250:

It’s only single target and it has a 30 sec CD…. it’s more beneficial to just use another chaos field with projectile finishers to apply confusion (from you and everyone else firing through it) and use light fields for using jump finishers through to apply retaliation (to whomever uses finisher through it).

It’s a pbAoE. Projectile finishers generally only have a 20% chance of proccing, plus the Mesmer itself does not have an autoattack projectile finisher.

The asura in general seem leery of history, preferring to look forwards instead of backwards. It would not surprise me if any history that they’re not constantly reminded of is quickly lost.

Because the only playable race in GW1 was humanity, so naturally everything would be from the perspective of humans. The lore of other races came from humans who were in contact with said races.

Different classes are different. Mesmers might not be meant to have the burst of Thieves and Warriors, but we compensate in other areas. The new Shattered Strength is simply too powerful for what is essentially a “free” trait for Shatter builds.

This is mine. Don’t click on the link (it won’t work), copy it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQNAW7dlwzSuXUTkGb9IiJFDHyh6x1ldfXJFz2FC;TEBAzypESJlSNlSKqmMNJay2krJZTrKGVcqYvwrCA

Some of my jewelery is Carrion instead of Rabid due to lack of Exotic Rabid jewelery. Slot in Portal and/or Feedback as the situation requires.

Aleph Naught.9034:

Embolism.8106:

The star can be seen by allies but is invisible to enemies.

Did you actually check that or just repeated what one of the devs said? Because I haven’t seen a single first-hand confirmation of the star being no longer visible to enemies in WvW. And we all know that the way Anet fix their bugs is somewhat fickle.

It’s easy to check, just go to sPvP and play two or three matches (or switch teams during the game if you could). Allies that have the star lose it when they become the enemy.

Restorative Mantras also heals yourself. Taking the trait with MoRec and MoP can give you significant survivability.

Condition builds are definitely a problem for me, which is somewhat ironic as I also run a condition build (which, incidentally, seems to give me an advantage over most Mesmers I encounter).

While we actually do have a trait that is awesome at cleansing conditions (Shattered Conditions), it is rarely taken as it’s a GM trait in a generally out-of-the-way line. Most Mesmers can only cleanse conditions once or twice, so a constant application of damaging conditions can quickly overwhelm a Mesmer’s meager defenses.

AoEs are also effective against all Mesmers for obvious reasons. Every Mesmer build relies on Illusions in one way or another, the ability to wipe all of them at once can put a temporary dent in the Mesmer’s plans. They are also useful for Mesmers who really like their stealth. Having said that, most Mesmers can conjure a full set of Illusions very quickly, so unless you can keep those AoEs going a single wipe won’t hinder a Mesmer for long.

The star can be seen by allies but is invisible to enemies.

Arekai.5698:

Isn’t shatter and condition build nearly the same?
Every shatter builds conditions, bleeds, confusion and all that stuff.
So you can’t make anything wrong with the nightmare runes from TA and a cond/tough set right?

Shatter builds typically rely on Mind Wrack as their primary source of (burst) damage, which scales much better off Power than CondDmg. Condition builds typically rely on Winds of Chaos + Illusionary Elasticity and Staff Clones for their damage, and when Shattering prefers to use Cry of Frustration for better scaling off CondDmg instead of Power.

In terms of mechanics and playstyle, a Shatter build and a condition build are quite different. The former is about overwhelming your opponent with high (burst) damage, the latter lacks burst damage capability and is pretty much about outlasting your opponent while your conditions bring them down.

This is from the perspective of sPvP of course: in WvW Confusion is overpowered, and a condition build can play similar to a Shatter build in the sense it is about high burst damage (from Confusion) and liberal use of Shattering.

Confusion at the right time could give you some much-needed extra burst.

sinican.9250:

Embolism.8106:

sinican.9250:

For condition build I run carrion all the way… no need for crit because conditions aren’t able to crit, only direct damage can. So i avoid prec/crit gear all together… I am also using the undead runes.

Sharper Images.

Condition build uses shatters non stop to keep conditions stacked… our illusions rarely go through 2 attack cycles before they go boom and again crit is useless for unless your damage is mostly direct damage (physical melee/ranged).

additionally, ignoring precision/crit allows the focus of vit/toughness… way more viable for a condition spreader.

The only condition Shatters can stack is Confusion, which cannot be relied upon as your sole source of condition damage. With Sharper Images you can maintain 10+ stacks of Bleeding with 3 GS/Sword/Staff Clones out, and it’s extremely easy to maintain 3 at all times with Deceptive Evasion and your low CD Clone skills.

Staff Clones in particular also inflict Burning and give you Might and Fury, and boons on you also affect Clones; so they pretty much fuel their own damage.

Besides, you can Shatter as well as maintain 3+ Clones without hassle if you time your Shatters to when you’re ready to conjure 3 Clones in a second.

Also, there is no prefix that gives both Toughness and Vitality with CondDmg. Rabid (CondDmg-Precision-Toughness) is as good as Carrion (CondDmg-Power-Vitality) defensively and does not have a sub-optimal stat (Power).

Sabyne.6329:

maragikat.3210:

I really like mantras I find this build works very well in dungeons (I have ~1000 healing power so I heal my party quite a bit per mantra activation & I can heal, condition cure, and such while disabled because mantras are instant.) Mantras require a bit more of an “active” or alert playstyle b/c you have to remember to keep them activated for use, but I enjoy them.

I may be mistaken but I thought the party heal was when you were charging the mantra, not activating it?

That is so.

sinican.9250:

For condition build I run carrion all the way… no need for crit because conditions aren’t able to crit, only direct damage can. So i avoid prec/crit gear all together… I am also using the undead runes.

Sharper Images.

EasymodeX.4062:

First, Mantras in general are heavily reliant on traits. Untraited Mantras are often inferior to their non-Mantra counterparts (MoRec), or simply aren’t strong enough to warrant a Utility slot (MoP, MoC).

Untraited Mantras are superior to their counterparts. MoRec has higher heal per second throughput than any of the other heals, with the additional benefit of uninterruptable heals, at the cost of having to charge it (note: by a small margin; this margin becomes large when you trait the Mantra). The recent buff has helped, but I still wouldn’t use it over Ether Feast without traits.

MoC is pretty solid, but gets outshined by Blink and Decoy because those two utilities are that good. Edit: On the flip side, MoC can be used 2x (or 3x) as often during the similar-ish cooldowns of the 3 abilities.

MoP is more or less the only utility that simply does damage, and it can add a pretty good edge of burst. Generally speaking, it has no counterpart, although Mirror Image comes close in some situations.

they have a plethora of traits that seem to encourage slotting all Mantras.

The only trait that encourages mass use is EM.

Even with a full 30/30 build, it’s easy enough to drop the third utility Mantra for Blink when appropriate.

If we’re talking about MoRec before its nerf I would agree with you. As it is the theoretical HPS advantage is too small to warrant the additional hassle required to use it over Ether Feast.

MoC gives Stability. The problem with Stability is that it must be used before a knockdown (one of the most dangerous CCs, which Blink can reliably deal with) hits you. The short duration given by MoC almost nullifies its multicast advantage.

Notice that MoP comes under the “too weak to be worth using” rather than “weaker than counterpart” aspect.

Harmonious, Mastery, Armoured (despite it being useless) all encourage mass use, not because of their inherent mechanics but because you may need to invest a significant amount of trait points in them (especially when they’re competing with more important traits). The only reason Restorative doesn’t is because of MoP.

Rabid is the best set for condition Mesmers if you want to maximise your DPS while maintaining good survivability. Carrion is similar but has lower DPS due to lack of Precision to proc Sharper Images: if you cannot find Rabid (it can be difficult to acquire) it is a decent substitute. Rampager’s is not worth considering.

There are a few problems with Mantra builds.

First, Mantras in general are heavily reliant on traits. Untraited Mantras are often inferior to their non-Mantra counterparts (MoRec), or simply aren’t strong enough to warrant a Utility slot (MoP, MoC).

Second, Mantra traits are all over the place and are generally Master or Grandmaster tier. A significant trait point investment is required to get Mantra traits, especially if you want more than one; and it is impossible to get them all.

The first and second problem coupled together means that any significant use of Mantras will require a hefty trait point investment that leaves very little for anything else. Since Mantras are ultimately support skills, they cannot hold up a build on their own: a Mantra-heavy build will therefore sacrifice the general performance of the build, which is counterproductive.

The third problem is that Mantras are simply a pain to use. Keeping multiple Mantras channelled is a nightmare, especially when in-combat. Plus if you don’t use up all charges of a Mantra it won’t regenerate, forcing you to discharge them, wait for their CDs and then channel them again.

While the returning of channel time to 3s helps, Mantras are still stuck in a weird position where their mechanic discourages mass use, yet they have a plethora of traits that seem to encourage slotting all Mantras.

This occurs most often with bouncing attacks, especially if you also take Illusionary Elasticity. I ensure I don’t have WoC in transit before I cast Decoy.

Throwing daggers is another reasonably popular suggestion, but MH Pistol is the most regular one.

IMO they should fix the Scepter so its autoattack and Clones are not failsauce before they think about adding another MH weapon, which I doubt they are at this stage anyway.

Mularc Templare.5063:

I don’t know how it hasn’t moved across to these forums, but Dessa also reacts very weirdly to seeing a Sylvari character; she doesn’t recognize the species at all.

Not sure myself what this means, as I didn’t know about it until I watched a video by WoodenPotatos over on Youtube, but interesting none the less.

If this is true, I think Dessa might actually be from the past; since she refers to Lion’s Arch as a pirate haven when that’s actually no longer (strictly) true.

Keeping in melee range of the Shatter Mesmer, as said, is very useful. It reduces Spatial Surge damage, ensures double hits from Illusionary Elasticity, and ensures your Deceptive Evasion Clones target the real Mesmer.

Crit damage is indeed quite useless for condition builds (not completely though, as you do deal a bit of direct damage still). Crit chance however is quite important for proccing Sharper Images and maybe Sigil of Earth.