Guild Wars 2

I run mesmer and thief depending on my mood, and I alternate between running with my guildies and solo-roaming with both. I got kinda bored of roaming with the thief, and standard d/p builds, so I’ve been trying tanky-acrobatics based builds. Not as great at solo-fights, but great in groups, and still solid dps. In larger group/zerg fights, I find myself doing like 2-3k pbaoe repeatedly, spamming them as I stay on the commander. In my guild trainings (where we try to take on bigger groups just to hone our skills), I stick to our group commander like glue, drop pbaoes around him, and keep the group healed. I use steal to hand out free aoe fury/swiftness and I do like 1-6 k per hit with those cluster-bombs in aoe every 1-2 seconds, all while healing myself with signet of malice. I daggerstorm at some point, which is a nice bonus, and I stay alive till the end. Those are really all the things a good zergling needs to do.

I’m not the star of the show…but really in a zerg, only the commander is. I think my dps is very solid considering my survivability (and I rarely stealth).

The one thing that thieves don’t do well is lots of CC…but really, I’m fine with that. Other classes can take care of the CC, I’ll do dps.

The thing I don’t get about your argument is you seem to want thieves to be useful in a group, and complain about the “selfish” survival tools (as opposed to shouts, banners, etc.), yet when I point out the importance of blast finishers, you maintain that no one wants to play a support role. I’m telling you I can do both well. I get my loot bags, and I enjoy myself.

I can even sneak up on a zerg v zerg battle between the two enemy teams, drop a few cluster-bombs and retreat…then collect the loot bags! There are really so many ways to have fun as a thief.

If you really want to be selfless, you can play scout with perma-stealth. That is a vital role for a zerg…even if there are no lootbags in it.

Archon.6481:

IMO it’s more of a case of other classes being able to do everything a thief can do but better in a Zerg fight.

who throws down blast finishers on a fire/water/lightning field better than a thief? With an organized group, that uses staff eles appropriately (and doesn’t have members randomly dropping light/dark fields when no-one wants them), thieves contribute a lot to group damage output through might buffs, and to group aoe heals. This can be done by other classes…but not as well.

Thieves have very solid answers to CC – the bane of zerglings, and spammable aoe. Both of these together are strong as a part of a zerg. They also have access to more dodges and teleports than anyone, which is very strong when running through aoe…which is half of what a zerg does. By being a part of the stack, you are taking up some of the damage that might be spread around to allies…and by dodging it, it gets done to no-one.

Also shortbows are great on the first pass, but when fighting against scattered opponents, pistol/pistol can be very strong (not as many lootbags). You can single out people with lower health and down them, or unload on downed opponents so they stay down, which helps your team a lot.

kahzee.6042:

I never understood what people mean when builds very by wvw pve and PvP I use the same build in all three

PvP builds need to be able to move between and contest points…there are a few specific roles that they need to fill, and the ability to effectively fight in and against small groups is important. Ending fights quickly is good here, so glass cannon builds can really excel, as can very tanky builds, aimed at holding off 2-3 players alone.

WvW has massive groups of players – zergs show up and try to ruin your day, also distances are greater, so running back from spawn is a problem. Therefore survivability is more important. A glass cannon build might do well in certain fights, but it will die often, which in a zerg v zerg fight means free rallies for the enemy, and can hurt your team. Builds tend to be more balanced, and geared toward survivability. As a mesmer, there may also be things expected of you…if attacking a tower, you may be asked to use focus pulls to yank people off the tower, or use staff to do aoe to people on the tower. Other times, you may be expected to carry skills like veil, which is nearly useless in PvE and mediocre in PvP, but very strong in WvW.

PvE is predictable, with tough mobs that deal lots of damage, but in predictable ways. That means the damage is easily avoided, which makes glass-cannon builds the norm. In certain CoF groups, you’ll get kicked if you’re not wearing all berzerker gear.

It’s certainly possible to play the same build in all settings, but the roles are different, and it is hard for one build to be optimal for all settings.

Zindrix.1750:

It seems really silly that our only practical access to swiftness functions this way. Especially because all kinds of shouts and warhorn skills all stack up huge amounts of swiftness…why wouldn’t they just reduce the number of people it affects?

Also, this kind of leads me into a side-rant about mesmer. I really didn’t enjoy my mesmer in pve because it seems like so much of the class is wasted on NPCs, however I LOVE playing it in WvW. The issue is that every(literally every one) other class has better options for swiftness or signets/traits that increase speed. We have blink, and I like that skill, but I feel so chained to Temp Curtain that I can’t equip other offhand weapons that I would like to try out in WvW. Even then, a lot of mesmers are using Centaur runes just to get around better. I’d like to have more mobility options.

The issue with temp curtain isn’t the number of people it affects, it’s that it lasts for a certain duration, and grants swiftness as people pass through it. In the past, people could run in circles through one curtain, to get tons of swiftness. That was deemed OP. A zerg still can achieve perma-swiftness with some teamwork, but the idea of one skill from one player granting permaswiftness to a group was too powerful. The appropriate fix would be for each curtain to only grant swiftness once to each player. A quick and dirty version of this would be to put an internal (per player) cooldown on how often you can be affected by temporal curtain (maybe 1x/5 seconds).

The quick and dirty fix for the guardian symbol, was that with each pulse it would only give 1 second of swiftness, if you already had swiftness…that may have worked ok for temporal curtain too…sure you could buy a few extra seconds of swiftness by running in circles, but you’d be wasting time that you could be moving forward, and the amount you gained would be minimal.

Instead of those, they did the quickest and dirtiest fix – temporal curtain doesn’t work if you’ve already got swiftness – and they stuck with that.

How about this:
Feign Death – enter a downed state, when you use the self-heal skill, you immediately rally with the health you had when you cast this plus a small heal. Note this lets you get illusionary assassin…but you can get stomped if you don’t do it right. Also friendlies need some indicator that you’re not really downed, or it’d be a bit annoying to your allies.

SlimChance.6593:

“Misdirection” – Glamour skill: For X seconds, a dome appears around the Mesmer, any projectiles fired at the Mesmer are re-directed to the Mesmer’s Target.

Also, I think there should be a trait that causes Null Field to reveal stealth targets. Null field can be come a thief sweeper. Heck, maybe make all Glamor skills reveal stealth.

Interesting idea, but way OP’d. In a zerg, you’d down someone instantly with each cast. Since people don’t notice themselves taking damage-as in feedback (as it’s redirected to just one helpless person)…you’d basically spend your whole time looking for the commander, then cast this and kill him.

Make scepter auto-attack for the first two a tiny bit faster. That would make it feel less clumsy.

The block seems to have a casting time (or maybe the auto-attack has an aftercast?) before it’s actually active…get rid of that. It needs to be a reaction skill, but with a casting time, I get attacked, I see it coming, I hit block, I get hit anyway, and now I stand there looking dumb for 2 seconds…this happens too often. I’ve also been interrupted by short bow rangers while blocking…their interrupt skill is an attack, that is not unblockable…so why is it interrupting the block? It shouldn’t require a pro to use the scepter adequately. The difference between pros and noobs with the scepter shouldn’t be whether they can land the block, but whether they use it to block an important attack.

Make the three skill a bit more forgiving for people kiting to the side mid-cast, and if people dodge have it continue to damage afterwards, like other channeled skills. Somehow it seems to miss a lot. At the very least, make it so that if it’s channeling, and you are not facing the right direction/obstructed at first, you can move to fix it, and get partial damage…just like a thief’s unload. That would make it feel like a normal skill. Again, the difference between a pro and noob would be whether the skill hits multiple targets, and whether they take the full confusion stacks…not whether the skill is wasted entirely.

Each of the scepter skills are actually pretty good, but as others mentioned, it takes a pro to use them adequately. Fixing it so that it’s accessible to noobs doesn’t have to make it OP’d for pros. It will just make the weapon more fun to use, and less clumsy.

I like that build where your clones make clones, who also make clones…really makes me question reality…maybe not the meta you were going for.

You have hybrid armor, but it seems like you’re trying to run two builds at once (power shatter / condition shatter) rather than one hybrid build.

Mesmers have the ability to make good hybrid damage builds with the trait, “sharper images” – which makes illusions cause bleeds on crits. This is why precision is a good stat for a mesmer condition/hybrid build. Phantasms take good advantage of power, and with good crit-chance, they will cause a lot of bleeds, as will your clones.

I would recommend looking at some of the condition builds on here that could work as hybrid.

20/20/30/0/0 is one nice set of stats especially since you’re already running torch – though I’d recommend sword mainhand over scepter for a hybrid build. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/BUILD-The-Blackwater-Mesmer-WvW-Condition/page/2#post2409191

There are also some hybrid builds in this thread that can also work well with rampager’s armor, especially when using pistol offhand, focus or greatsword: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-ChillRuption/first#post2444310 )

One other thing to note: if you are playing a hybrid or condition build in PVE you need to be careful partnering with other condition/hybrid builds because you will interfere with one-another’s damage (since there can only be 25 stacks of bleed on a guy).

I’m a dead mesmer, because I got killed by a mesmer…since they’re so OP.

yup…or just get a thief friend. Bring signet of inspiration, so he doesn’t feel left out.

MI here was referring to mirror images.

skcamow.3527:

@bobross, right – wondering if DE plus one utility provides enough benefit for the clone on death traits to free up a utility slot for condition management.

Fair enough, so if we consider the effects of MI (assuming it lands) in terms of damage- we have between 0-6k damage in bleeding, and 2 stacks of confusion for 6 seconds (in a 100% duration build). Lets assume 3 skill uses in this time, so add another 600 damage or so. So for one utility slot, you get between 600 and 6k damage and 6 seconds of cripple. Also weakness or vulnerability if we’re unlucky with it. Lets ignore the extra damage that iWarlock might do, since there’s so many conditions flying around anyhow. I think I agree with you here skcamow – Though it has the potential to be spectacular, it is too uncertain to be worth losing condition removal especially on its long cooldown.

So which condition removal? I’m thinking I might try arcane thievery or null-field. Both are solid choices, though null-field certainly scales better for small-large groups. For duels, I think arcane thievery might be really nice, as an extra boon stripper (aside from sword attacks/clones) when conditions are not a problem, and as extra condition pressure when they are an issue. Phantasmal disenchanter is great too, but I think it works against this build too much to have lots of phantasms out all the time.

skcamow.3527:

Also, I’m unsure why you took decoy and MI, as I don’t see that much shattering in your build and even more since you don’t have IC to lower those cool downs.

It’s because of debilitating dissipation / crippling dissipation / confusing combattants. This sort of build doesn’t shatter much, but it does take advantage of clone death to dish out conditions. Each clone killed (by damage or overwriting) = cripple, confusion, and (3)bleeding/(3)vulnerability/weakness. in a build like this, dodging and then hitting decoy+MI is a condition burst with some control thrown in. Sword is nice since the clones will chase the target (which is why I like sword over scepter despite the fact that it’s a condition build). I think the reason he left out hydromancy is because with all the cripples, you don’t need the chill for slowing as much…still I find it useful. Alternately, you could use sigils of energy, to get extra dodges/clones. Which I think works well in this sort of setup as well.

One minor difference between playing this build as a hybrid vs a pure condition build comes from those clone deaths. In a pure condition build you want the clones to die as a main source of damage/control. So you put the phantasms out, but you don’t really want them to stay. So once you get to 2 or 3 phantasms, you usually shatter. In a hybrid build, the phantasms are still applying lots of pressure (beyond bleeds), so there’s not as much of a need to shatter them, though it’s probably still a good idea to max out at 2 phantasms.

and I agree…I’d like to see more about the power builds…sorry we sort of hijacked the thread.

Nice Keenlam – I like the centaur runes in there, the combo of bleed durtion and swiftness on demand (which you need when you drop focus) are great. A few comments:
I’m assuming prismatic understanding is a typo, and you meant to put in chaotic interruption.

I think, as you mentioned, furious interruption isn’t as amazing as we’d all like, so you may be better off using duelist’s discipline for extra range on that awesome phantasm, as well as your interrupts, and better cooldowns.

I’m torn on this myself, but I think bountiful interruption may go with this build as well or better than chaotic dampening…I’ve been using dampening myself, but again, I’m torn. I think if you find yourself in sword/pistol more than staff, it may be worth exploring.

I think the whole point of this thread was marveling over the amazingness of sigils of hydromancy. But I saw you don’t go with them. I get that this build lacks condi-removal, so having it on crits makes some sense. then again, you only get poor condition removal for it (1 condi every 10 seconds, and you have to keep attacking). And you lose some utility. I’d rather just accept that I can’t handle too many conditions, and try to retreat/keep up stuns/cc if I know they’re coming) – or alternately carry around -condi duration food and eat it mid-fight if needed.

I’m not a fan of on-crit sigils as a whole (personal preference), especially when they’re on longer (10s) cooldowns. I think the issue here is you know you’ll get the proc some time in 10-15 seconds, but not necessarily when you want/need it. So I really think the hydromancy sigils offer more to a build like this, as you can get the chill on demand. It also gives you access to some great combos like – while in sword, iLeap/swap – immobilize, blurred frenzy, Magic Bullet – stun, Duelist, swap weapons (chill), chaos storm. That combo leaves the opponent immobilized/stunned for a long time during a burst and then drops a chill on them so they can hobble out of the chaos storm (assuming they don’t get dazed). Meanwhile, your sword clone is chasing them ready to dissipate, as you phase retreat/dodge, leaving them crippled, just in time to start taking bleeding/burning damage. If you’re playing against a good player, they will blow a cooldown or two and be far away/out of dodges by the end of it. If it’s a poor player, gg.

That combo is also why I like using all the + condi-duration stuff, including giver’s weapons and runes (Lyssa/Mad King)..but you give up something for that, and I think the centaur runes also make sense.

I think the choice of rabid trinkets is fine, as this build is flexible in terms of emphasis on condition/power damage. My WvW build uses rabid armor, currently with celestial trinkets, so it’s basically the same thing as far as stats. I find it survivable and dangerous in small-group fights. The stuns and immobilizes are great to finish off runners.

As far as utilities, I find I can’t live without blink, personally, so I usually swap between signet of dom/mirror images. And I leave decoy and blink up all the time. Unless I’m in a zerg, then I’ll run null-field/veil/portal as needed in that spot.

So in summary – I like the build! It’s very similar to what I’ve been playing around with, with a few choices (like the centaur runes) that are a bit different from mine, but choices that I have been torn about.

True Seeker.3682:

An AoE zone that adds a stack of confusion each time you attack while in it. Maybe centered on a Phantasm.

They had this…nerfed the hell out of it. The old glamour builds were combinations of a few traits that made people take aoe blinds/confusions when in glam fields…if they attacked they’d get another blind/confusion.

Pyroatheist.9031:

@castlemanic: Pretty much every single one of your ideas is a necromancer skill, not a Mesmer skill. Mesmers play with, apply, and manipulate confusion alone, not conditions across the board.

I think you’re right about castle’s proposals, but I think you’re a little wrong about how mesmers work. Currently mesmers have access to all of the conditions except fear in at least small doses. Furthermore, most mesmer condi-builds do most of their damage through bleeds/torment and burns, not confusion. I think direct control of conditions is a necro’s domain, for sure. But mesmers are also specialists, so there should be ways for them to do necro-ish things, provided they require clones and phantasms to get it done…and that they require a specialized build to accomplish (hence my trait suggestions).

Double dare – stunbreak, stealth for 1/4 second and charge a spell that swaps places with a clone (in order-first one cast).
-I think this is balanced vs blink, because your location is limited, and vs decoy because you don’t get a free clone, and the stealth only lasts long enough to break target lock. This skill would excel in builds designed to get clones attacked, while pretending to be a clone. One important balance issue – this can’t let you get into towers/keeps by swapping with scepter clones on walls.

The clone cure – Grandmaster trait in dueling: if you have a condition; when you create a clone, you lose 1 condition, and the clone gains the condition.

Shattering illness – Grandmaster trait in Illusions: Your clones transfer all their conditions to opponents when shattered.

Fix for wastrel’s worry – attacks against inactive foes apply 5 seconds of torment.

keenlam.4753:

The way i see it: Chill synergizes well with Condition build (Grenth runes, Condi food), whereas Interrupt goes well with Power like Halting Strike.
As for a hybrid build, I have no idea how to make one. My previous attempts always made my mesmer a jack of all trades = useless.
Anyone have any suggestion for me to make a hybrid build? Like minimum stat requirements (2700 power, 50% crit chance, etc. for example) so I can balance them out. Thanks in advance.

Another way to look at damage is consistent pressure vs burst. Conditions tend to be a combination of pressure and utility, so they work in a pressure build, but they tend to have difficulty with bursts. Power builds can also be pressure (i.e. phantasms), but they usually also have some burst (like iLeap combos). A good hybrid build just uses a combination of pressure from power in addition to pressure from conditions. So it winds up having diverse pressure, while neither alone is particularly impressive, the combination is difficult to deal with. It also has some burst, which gives it a slight edge over pure condition builds. Condition cleanses can reduce the effectiveness of a pure condition build, but if that build is also doing direct damage, then that is not enough. Armor can reduce the effectiveness of power damage, but with solid condition pressure, that is not enough. So the defensive counter to a hybrid build needs to be a defensively balanced build that includes condition cleanses and solid amounts of toughness. The other advantage of hybrids is that the conditions can serve as a distraction from the power damage. The player probably sees a ton of conditions and sees health ticking down, but may not be doing the math. As a result they may focus their mental energy on avoiding/removing conditions, while they ignore the power damage that is coming in.

We now have access to a new armor-set (celestial) that gives more stat points total than other sets. Unfortunately they’re scattered all around. So it is possible to get a superior balance of offensive/defensive stats with celestial gear. The problem is that you need to be able to use all the stats for it to actually feel superior. Mesmers actually have a lot of damage coming from both condition and power sources, so they are in a prime position to create hybrid builds (simply add sharper images to any phantasm build, and it’s a hybrid). These builds will wind up with more total stat points, which means a superior combination of pressure/survivability than achievable with other gear…though it won’t be more impressive in any specific area.

Chill is purely a utility condition, so it doesn’t need to go with a build that emphasizes condition damage. If you want to maximize chill, though, then you can go with improving its duration, and if you do that in a generic (all condition duration gear) way, rather than a specific way (chill duration gear), then it potentially synergizes well with other conditions, making it more impressive in a condition build. That doesn’t mean it’s useless in a power build though.

I was inspired, so I decided to try the 10/30/30 build in WvW with my rabid/condi-duration/celestial trinket gear and bought a giver’s pistol and some hydromancer sigils. Soloed a few camps no problem, and went up against a phantasm sword/pistol mesmer while doing a camp. I managed to bring him down to 20% while remaining at full/near full health several times, but he ran back into the camp…despite the immobilizes, us mesmers can be slippery with all those teleports! I got bored of chasing him and started working on the veteran scouts…so he wp’d out. Still, feeling good about the build.

sorry, been a few days…I believe I was using just the pistol/sword/clone generating traits in dueling. Didn’t seem like furious interruption would be worth it, since the dazes are on sort of long cooldowns, but I didn’t actually try it…so someone up for the challenge? Feels a bit too conditional/short to be worth it IMO.

Incidentally, I think a build like the one I outlined would work really well with 100% condi-duration food/gear in wvw, in small battles, with maybe some modifications (staff/gsword) for zergs.

edit: @Keenlam – I think that was more or less the build, but I believe I used blade training or duelist’s discipline rather than furious interruption. Not sure if I took phantasmal fury or the other weapon trait, but it’s a good call in any case.
Because of the chills and stuns/immobilizes/cripples, crippling dissipation is less important, and can be swapped out for halting strikes in a hybrid build.

As I mentioned, that build does good power and condition damage simultaneously, so it is in a great position to benefit from celestial gear, which has me excited for the possibilities in wvw.

Swagg.9236:

Deathcon.5903:

Don’t touch my blocks man.

Time its usage, then use its remaining duration to close the gap and interrupt your target. Furthermore, you’re a Mesmer; you already have enough “Get out of jail free” cards.

shimmerless.4560:

are these PvE related? (the stuff about defiant implies so).

i like the arcane thievery idea, maybe lose the vigor though

protection on mimic is good

They’re meant to be general changes. I’m just upset that Interruption Mesmer will never be a thing in general PvE because ANet is bad at designing high-level PvE encounters/didn’t anticipate their player-base playing their game as it was meant to be played: hence the existence of Unshakable and Defiant. A PvE-focused (but overall general) change to one of the Interruption Mesmer’s core traits would maybe help bring control back into the limelight in PvE.

The blocks are fine where they are because the blocks themselves are so good. As it stands now, the block chain skills are pretty garbage compared to just using the block. Changing the functionality of “lazily wave your wand and send a slow-moving puff towards your enemy” to something faster and with more combat impact would give Mesmers using scepter or off-hand sword more openers and mid-combat transitions.

but wouldnt the solution be pve content that allows each build to shine, rather than just blanket buffs to skills that are already pretty solid? Personally, I’m really not feeling a lack of power on my mesmer in any setting. I think it’s really in a nice spot balance-wise, and I’m biased, since I play it.

not very helpful there guys. There is always the standard zerker backstabby builds. Then again, it seems like you’re a fan of non-standard builds. Maybe try s/d acrobatics /evasion builds. For Pve just use S/P instead.

Either way, you’ll need to get some new gear (not condition). Probably a mix of zerker’s and soldier’s or some other comprimise between damage and survivability.

Another thing to try is venom share builds…not the most optimal, but fun and useful in groups.

If those don’t do it for you, there’s always necromancers!

Hey, lets relax a bit, no one was really being rude here. I think because celestial was the main new thing about the build, it wound up being a thread about celestial vs other armors. I know that wasn’t your intent.

Honestly, I think any phantasm build with sharper images will take as much advantage of celestial as possible, especially if it uses staff.

That’s really all there is to say at the theory crafting stage. The next thing is posting videos. Also, I have a feeling that celestial armor builds won’t perform in any way that is obviously exceptional. Zerker armor will still probably wind up making flashier videos…of course doing that sort of stuff with any sort of sustainability requires lots of skill/luck. I think the people who will really appreciate celestial will be those who play with it themselves, and notice a difference in feel…which will probably be subtle.

yup works fine with most phantasm/condition/shatter builds. the main thing to know is just when to get out…

Lately I’ve been using the Blackwater build (check the forums for the build), which is a condition/invis build. I use sword/torch and staff rather then scepter, but either works.

Basically I start with staff and take out the archers first. Then I run in and drop clones/aoe till the meleers fall. If things get bad, I stealth and run out.

I try not to blow too many cooldowns at once, because people like to interrupt camp soloing to get easy kills. I kind of enjoy this, and try to solo the camp with one or two opponents hanging out as well. In that situation, it is even more important to know when to get farther back, and avoid taking everyone on at once.

Ryuujin.8236:

If 5% crit at 50-60% crit chances hold parity with 72 stats in condition, then 6% crit at 33% is equivalent to ~40-45 stats in offence. Adding in power/condi/precision we could then say celestial has “equivalent” to ~175 points in offence.

I get what you’re going for here, but by that logic – Valkyrie’s is less than all the other sets?

Anyway, I’m sure a full zerker set would do more dps than this, but it doesn’t lose a lot of offense to gain a lot of defense.

So I’ll just agree with your 172 number, but then consider that it also gets
45 toughness
45 vit
45 healing.

thats 135 in defense, which is far superior to the lack of defense in zerkers, superior to the defense offered by knights and just shy of the defense offered by soldiers (144 – between tough/vit) and worse than clerics (173 between healing/toughness).

Considering that a mesmer can take advantage of all of these and make them work, Celestial makes a lot of sense for a mesmer with a balanced play-style and a moderate level of skill (i.e. not avoiding all damage, like Osicat or somesuch).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW8clwzKqXTTmGbdJiJFBHydqA0hqA2RqgqVSBvdhA-jkCBYLCyUgQEHwkIAJPFRjtqpIasabYKXER1mcZ14bIyyAwsAA-w
There’s the build with zerker.

winds of chaos does 256, and the bleeds do 354, burns do 368.
Crit chance is 55%, and dmg is 101%.

In the original build winds of chaos does slightly less damage, has slightly lower crit chance/dmg, but does about 100 more bleed/burn per application. It also has about 350 more armor and health, not to mention respectable levels of healing power.

Just goes to show: mesmers are in a great place to take advantage of celestial armor.

One thing to point out, once you start using celestial armor and a hybrid condi/power build. You need to act like you’re a condition class. You are now competing for bleed stacks with necros, rangers, etc. So, in PvE, you need to make sure that you don’t party with too many condi-classes, or you risk hurting the group dps.

Ryuujin – I would agree with you, except look at the stats on celestial – it gives MORE total points than other sets (excluding magic find). So you get more survivability (tough/vit/healing). It also gives you very close to the same total crit dmg as zerkers. On top of that you get mediocre power/crit chance/condi-damage. Take all that together, and my guess (someone do the math, pls:), is that it will do more total damage in a hybrid build than other sets.

new weapons isn’t really what mesmer needs…fixing scepter so it feels less clunky and torch so iMage isn’t worthless would do wonders for build/weapon diversity…which frankly aren’t aweful for mesmer compared to other classes.

damage first, then boon. it’’s still great vs zergs…all that aoe, you’re bound to throw around a few conditions and get some boons.

bobross.5034:

how does regen scale between builds? seems like that would affect survivability a good amount in most builds…also health steal from foods, signet of malice, etc.

one other consideration… things like bloodlust and might will affect dps differently depending on crit dmg/crit chance. If I was reading correctly, the issue with celestial is lower power. However if power gets higher in both sets due to those extra effects, each point of power should affect dps more in the celestial set. At a certain level of bloodlust/might/food/trait based power (in both sets) the celestial set should surpass the other set in terms of dps.

how does regen scale between builds? seems like that would affect survivability a good amount in most builds…also health steal from foods, signet of malice, etc.

I think celestial for thieves is probably not a great idea except for hybrid builds, like p/d or d/d that use death blossom. Other professions, like mesmer, really use all stats, and so it makes sense for them.

so the issue with thieves getting into keeps via shadow trap is that they can then res a dead mesmer and facilitate a portal. currently for this to work, the thief has to stay perma-stealthed inside the keep…which is fair, as there is viable counterplay.

A friend and I tried to pull this off the other day after one portal-breech that failed. I was playing a stealthy mesmer, and he was thief. Unfortunately, we both got caught the second time around and killed…again, because there are viable counterstrategies. If shadow trap were an option it would make it very easy for the thief to avoid getting caught by leaving the keep, waiting, then stealthing and porting back in. No way to counter that aside from camping my corpse…which is not fun counterplay.

Sword gets higher damage single strikes…dagger hits faster. not sure how the final math works out on dps…sword is aoe though. Also dagger auto-attack chain has poison. Sword causes weakness, which is nice defensively, but doesn’t damage.

Don’t despair, you are sooooo close!
Ok, so basically you need to get gear that allows you to survive long enough to get enough silver together to buy a manual.
You also happen to be just high enough level to start doing ascalonian catacombs.

What I would suggest is first, do some map completion. Go through lower level areas and make sure you completely finish them. Maybe do some jumping puzzles, while you’re at it. There is nothing wrong with doing stuff that is 10 lvls lower than you at this stage in the game. When you have appropriately leveled gear from trading post, then you can start working on that manual.

One other thing you may try, to make ok money without killing stuff, if you have the portal skill, is to finish one of the jumping puzzles in lion’s arch, then tell people in map chat that you’re porting people up. Don’t ask for money, but most people will tip you anyway.

You can find a group for ascalonian catacombs on gw2lfg.com (just make sure they know that you’re lvl 42…there are lots of lvl 80 groups running that dungeons too, and some of them may be picky). Also, make sure to tell people you are new to the dungeon so they explain stuff. Ascalonian catacombs can earn you that gold in a few runs, just stick to paths 1 and 3.

As far as build advice…I like staff and sword/focus. Not tons you can do with your traits without that manual…but once you get it you can get dueling up to 20 and get that trait that creates clones on dodge…then you’ll be in business!

Kratos.6293:

1.Does anyone know a good build that does direct damage as well as condition damage ?
2.Is it viable to go hybrid ?
3.Direct damage vs Condition damage which is better for a thief ?
4.Which one can deal the most amount of damage in a set amount of time?
5.I’ve seen condition builds that can solo champions(Madnek’s). Can Direct damage builds also do this ?
Thank you

there was a similar post on the mesmer forums, asking about rampager vs zerker gear. With mesmer, there are lots of ways to throw in condition damage on top of power damage. With thieves you’re a bit more limited.

More importantly though, once you start throwing on bleeds in PvE, you have to be concerned about other condition players out there. If two players are relying on bleeds for a significant portion of their damage, and they consistently exceed the 25 stack bleed cap, then damage is being unused. Playing any condition class in PvE requires you to ensure that you are working well with your team and coordinating with other condition players. Otherwise, you risk gimping the teams damage output ability. 1 condition player + 1 condition player = 1.5 players worth of dps. As a hybrid build, you still have to have these concerns, because even if you are able to still do good power damage, your bleed stacks will be interfering with/overwriting a necro’s (more powerful) bleed stacks, and team dps will be lost.

This is why PvE thieves are usually better off focusing on power over condition damage.

In WvW/PvE, those types of builds are viable.

d/d may also be viable, but you’d want to focus your efforts on spamming that death blossom.

For a hybrid build, it is important to act as if it is a pure condition build, and emphasize the attacks that also drop conditions if you want to maximize your dps.

I just tried doing this with 10/30/30/0/0, chill sigils and grenth runes, with a celestial amulet in pvp with my guildies. Sort of a hybrid condition/power build using staff and sword/pistol. Seemed to work well. One of the guildies, a d/d ele was complaining a lot about it…so I think it was pretty solid. All the immobilizes make the iDuelist much stronger, and I think the fact that this version stacks on lots of moderate damage conditions, while still hitting fairly hard is confusing to opponents.

Physical Chess.6145:

bobross.5034:

I (briefly) tried a similar build. Like you mentioned, the difficulty lies in getting to the zerg and then staying in it. I really never got a chance to test it in a big ZvZ battle, but I imagine it would really shine there.

I usually don’t have issues getting to/staying in a zerg. When you say you have trouble staying in a zerg do you mean keeping up with it or just not dying?

I think more – getting to it. Staying in it isn’t tough in general…free swiftness + blinks is all it takes. Not dying isn’t just up to me…if the zerg whipes, I’m out of luck. But can’t really comment on the build that much, like I said, I didn’t extensively test it (and what I did test was my own half-baked version of it).

Palu.3405:

bobross.5034:

^
If you go with + condition duration gear (giver’s weapons, lyssa runes, mad king runes, burning duration runes, pizza) you can get condition duration up to 100% (or at least burning duration up to it, while in staff). This is important because burning only ticks every second. If you can manage that, then you’ll find that while in staff, with two clones out, your opponents will have nearly constant burning (in addition to increasing stacks of vulnerability/bleeds.

Do keep in mind that you don’t need 100% duration to get an additional tick from WoC. As a tester on on the wiki wrote,

“I’ve tested with my mesmer. Winds of Chaos applies 1 second of burning (without duration modification). So I went ahead and bought a Rare Veggie Pizza (40%), 2 Superior Rune of the Mad King (10%), 2 Superior Rune of Lyssa (10%) and increased Domination step by step. At exactly 15 Domination (equals total of 75% condition duration) burning duration of 1.75s ticked 2 times. So I can confirm, that condition duration is rounded up to the next quarter. But keep in mind, if you accidentally inflict 2 burnings in a row, your full condition time will be 3.5s which will in this case internally be rounded up to 3.75 (assumed) and therefore it wil not tick 4 times, only 3 times. That means too, if you’re exact at a quarter, the calculation is rounded up to the next quarter. —213.196.136.71 01:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)”

I tested this myself the other day because I was skeptical about the results. However, they are accurate. With 80% condition duration I was getting two ticks of burn. In my experience in WvW, targets often dodge about and it can be difficult to apply consecutive stacks of burning so getting two ticks from one stack is a large DPS increase that (in my opinion) helps offset the loss of condition damage needed to acquire condition duration.

I’m just a little skeptical of the parameters you outlined above. By taking a mix-and-match runeset, you’re depriving yourself of the benefits of a six-piece set. For instance, if I take 6x Lyssa runes I gain 165 precision, a 13-second boon whenever I heal, and an emergency condition cleanse that also grants me all boons for 7.5 seconds. By doing 2x Lyssa, 2x Mad Kind, and 2x Forge/Balthazar/Flame Legion/Baelfire you’re losing 140 precision and the numerous defensive benefits of Lyssa runes. Since this only gets you up to 90% duration, you’re not getting an extra tick on the vast majority of your bleeds, nor are you getting an extra tick on burning, with the exception of scenarios where you can apply multiple stacks of burning in a row but cannot maintain the stacks indefinitely.

In my opinion, the losses far outweigh the benefits of switching to a mix-n-match runeset to go above 80% duration, but again, that’s just my opinion and your mileage may vary. I just wanted to provide a more detailed look into how duration affects burning, since I think there’s some misinformation floating around out there.

thanks for the tips. Good to know about the rounding. You’re right of course about the lack of extra utility/stats…for me, I would like one of the runesets that grants swiftness, if I weren’t running the mix/match. It’s hard to know whether the condi-duration balances out. Then again, the other issue in a condition build is that food/melandru runes can completely negate your damage. With +condi-duration you actually continue to have dps (although greatly reduced), and because the opponents rely on food/runes, they may not have other solid condition cleanses.

regarding the bleed durations, I’m not as concerned about it as the burning, since burning is only 1s by default. Still, knowing that it’ll round up to the nearest quarter is nice.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Yeah i think i am thinking about dropping off Condition a bit to bring up the duration. Currently sitting at 20% but i do have Condition duration food as well. Thinking about getting the 2 lyssa runes for another 10%

Rather then just concentrating on Burning i would rather prefer to lower burning duration and increase it across the board.

Thinking about getting a Greatsword so that i can swap out the Staff and Greatsword for when i just need a bit more damage at the expensive of utility

I did 2 sup lyssa, 2 sup mad king (20%) on top of the already +20%, a giver staff (10%), putting me at 50%, then I got the smoldering sigil on the staff (+10% burning duration), and the food takes me to 100% burning, 90% conditions in general.

When I’m in scepter/torch, they’re both giver’s, so I get 100%

If you want to go cheap with food, you can make the last 2 runes, major lyssa or mad king, then you can get cheaper condi-duration foods (shhh don’t tell anyone).

If you’re trying to get more out of burning, you need it to be 100%, 90% is the same as 0% for burning on staff, since the burning ticks every second, and only lasts 1 second by default. So 2 seconds means 2 ticks.

I (briefly) tried a similar build. Like you mentioned, the difficulty lies in getting to the zerg and then staying in it. I really never got a chance to test it in a big ZvZ battle, but I imagine it would really shine there.

^
If you go with + condition duration gear (giver’s weapons, lyssa runes, mad king runes, burning duration runes, pizza) you can get condition duration up to 100% (or at least burning duration up to it, while in staff). This is important because burning only ticks every second. If you can manage that, then you’ll find that while in staff, with two clones out, your opponents will have nearly constant burning (in addition to increasing stacks of vulnerability/bleeds.

nice build and concept. There’s some nice synergy between the chills and interrupts…interrupts may prevent condition cleanses, while chills lower cooldowns on skills in general. All in all seems like a fun playstyle.

Illusionary counter (scepter 2) – can be interrupted by cuncussion shot. This is a projectile attack, correct? So it should be blocked by counter…yet I was interrupted when using it against a ranger. Either it is failing to block certain attacks, that are not listed as unblockable, or it has a casting time before the block takes effect (that is interruptible). If it’s a casting time thing, then that should be represented in the tooltip.

The trait: confusing enchantments does not work as described with the skill, Portal (a glamour according to its description). After the blinding beffudlement/confusion nerf, this trait is nearly useless. Aside from distributing a negligible amount of confusion to a large number of opponents in an extremely inefficient manner, this trait does virtually nothing. One potential way to make the trait viable in a build is to fight while kiting around a portal entre…but it does not work as described.

Thieves are fine, especially in WvW. In PvE, they’re good, but hard to play right. In PvP they’re extremely difficult to play well (because you can’t cap a point while stealthed). It really comes down to knowing what is going on around you, and using that information to avoid damage and react when you need to react (not 2 seconds later). This basic skill is necessary for all classes, but more for thieves because the margin for error is so much lower.

Also, some of the things you are citing are really L2P issues. Warriors, for example give me no trouble as a mesmer, and relatively little trouble as a thief. The general consensus on warriors is that they are great in PvE, solid in WvW and nearly useless in PvP. The reason is that although they do damage, their moves are incredibly obvious. By knowing their moves and paying attention, you can avoid ever taking any major damage. They are also much more vulnerable to snares and kiting than most classes. Also most warrior builds have mediocre condition removal.

Regarding things thieves do well/better than other classes, it is really all about stealth/evasions. Their dps is good, their burst is great, but their ability to avoid damage, escape combat and reset fights is unsurpassed (eles and mesmers come closest)…since those things only help a bit in PvP…thieves have a harder time there. In WvW those things are very useful, and thieves do great.

iMage: buff its survivability/utility by giving it a small radius shield that knocks back opponents trying to run through it (sort of a counterpart to iWarden reflect/blocking projectiles). This would give torch added utility as a weaker form of cc than focus.

Blinding Beffudlement: remove the 5 second cooldown that nerfed it into uselessness. Instead, fix glamours so that they only affect 5 or 10 targets at once. The blinding/beffudlement in these glamours can then pulse every second, punishing small groups for continuing to attack while in glamours, while distributing a small amount of confusion/blindness on a large group. This is basically making mesmer glamours and glamour based builds consistent with other forms of aoe, and gets rid of the thing that made them overpowered (the ability to affect a whole zerg).

I think the issue people seem to have with it is that it seems to work ok for some things (like a short range interrupt) but not the obvious one (a reverse gap closer).

Dahkeus.8243:

Yea, I ran into a thief once that started throwing bears at me. It wouldn’t have been so bad except for the lazerbeam eyes.

I think he was hacking.

no, that’s working as intended…it was the new buff to skale venom. They just forgot to update the tooltip.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I hate shatter builds and i rarely shatter my clones. Thats more of a playstyle rather then build issue though.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/condition-build-The-Clone-Spammer/page/2#post2370617

that’s the clone-spammer build – it’s actually not a shatter build, it uses the same too many clones to live mechanic, but makes it so that you get confusion stacks in there too from blinding beffudlement and confusing combatants. Just a suggestion, because I thought it might suit your playstyle.