It’s been awhile since I’ve seen someone post a mesmer condition
build, so I decided to write up a guide. I’m obviously not the first to
come up with such a build, and thank you to the many other posts that
allowed me to hone this build. This guide is not meant to start an
argument of what is better – a DPS or condition build – as I think both
are strong given the right play style. Instead, it’s to summarize how to
build and play a condition mesmer.
This build focuses on applying burns, bleeds, and confusion to your
enemy by mostly using your staff, staff clones, shatters, and ability to
get out a constant stream of clones. It is sometimes argued that
condition damage is inferior to direct damage, which may be the case
with some classes, but the mesmer tool belt allows for a condition build
that is very strong and survivable.
Condition Damage: 1780 (773 dps burns, 132 dps bleeds, 397 dmg per stack of confusion and 2,382 dmg with 6)
In a nutshell, your strategy should revolve around keeping up staff
clones and well-timed shatters to apply confusion. It’s important to
realize that your clones inherit the condition damage you have (minus
runes, but plus stacks for sigils.) This means that with an inheritable
condition damage around 1700, your clones can do burns around 750 dps
and bleeds around 130 dps with two-thirds of their winds of chaos casts
(the other 1/3 applies vulnerability). In addition, all winds of chaos
hits bounce back to allies, including those from your clones, giving
might or fury to you and your allies.
Laying out your clones is similar to most shatter builds that use the
staff. Because staff clones generally stay in one spot, it’s best to
lay them near the target in case you have an immediately good
opportunity to shatter.
When approaching a target, I like to generally
do the following – cast chaos storm on target, roll into the chaos storm
(pick up a few boons + create 1st clone), phase retreat out after a few
seconds (get chaos armor from ethereal field combo + create distance +
create 2nd clone), then potentially roll to the left or right to create a
“triangle” of clones around the target. If the target remains in that
“triangle”, I will use a shatter (remember that Cry of Frustration can
apply up to 6 stacks, while the others apply up to 3 stacks), putting
confusion on him/her. If not, I will likely leave them up and let them
work their burns/bleeds, only shattering once I’ve lured the target into
a vicinity surrounded by my clones. Of course, it’s not always as cut
and dry as this because you’re clones will die, move, etc., but it’s
important to realize that one should not just spam shatters with this
build. Sending clones to chase the target will stop them from casting
winds of chaos and your shatters will hit less frequently if not done
when your target is “cornered” by clones.
EDIT: While fighting more than one opponent, I have a tendency to
shatter A LOT more for a few reasons. First, the added chaos makes it
harder for opponents to recognize clones running at them. Second, the
shatter AOE effect is more likely to apply confusion to someone, even if
it’s not my intended target. Third, in this situation, clones are more
likely to be killed by crossfire, so it’s better to try and apply
confusion rather than have them die. Overall, applying AOE confusion to
an enemy group is much more detrimental than focusing on a target with
your clone’s winds of chaos. If an enemy group is huddled together, I’ll
charge in with an approach similar to above and drop 3 clones + cast a
no-hesitation Cry of Frustration. More often than not, they will melt
themselves, regardless of their toughness or health pool, as they try to
attack you +/- the rest of your group. For the remainder of the fight,
I’ll generally stay somewhat close and continually spam clones + apply
shatter AOE confusion (this is doable because of your survivability
discussed more in depth below.) But, if things start to get rough – I’ll
blink, decoy, or distort to create some distance and heal up. Wash,
rinse, repeat.
TRAITS:
0 / 20 / 25 / 0 / 25
The above point allocation is debatable, and I personally move 5 points
here and there depending on how I feel. Nevertheless, I always keep
these 3 trait lines because of their great synergy in this build.
Basically, the Dueling lines allows clones to inflict bleeds (condition
damage) on critical and allows for higher staff clone output (deceptive
evasion). The Chaos line gives you significant survivability via added
toughness, its passive traits, reduced cooldown on staff (more clones
plus increased chaos armor uptime), and increased boon duration
(specifically for protection and aegis). Further, 25 points in the chaos
line adds 5% of your toughness to condition damage. Finally, the
Illusion line – just look at what it gives you – it’s a no brainer and I
don’t need to explain it here. However, I will mention why I don’t put
30 points into it below.
Dueling (20):
- Summary: Gives you and your clones greater precision, giving more
chance to apply bleeds (clones via sharper images and you via sigil of
earth)
- Critical Infusion (Passive): Gives you vigor and keeps your endurance up to create more clones on dodge (see below)
- Sharper Images (Passive): Illusions inflict bleeds on critical hits – no brainer with condition build
- Blade Training (Adept): I’ll explain why I use the sword in this relatively low power build later
- Deceptive Evasion (Master): Create clones on dodge – no brainer in a
shatter or condition build – more clones = more condition damage and
more confusion with shatters.
Chaos (25):
- Summary: Gives you AND YOUR CLONES more toughness, making everything about you harder to kill.
- Metaphysical Rejuvenation (Passive): Really not all that helpful considering this build has close to 0 healing power.
- Illusionary Membrane (Passive): Excellent passive trait that allows you to survive almost any unforeseen attack (thieves.)
- Chaotic Transference (Passive): One of the reasons I don’t go 30 into
Illusions. With around 1800 toughness in this build, this trait gives
you 90 additional condition damage, as opposed to 50 more with an
additional 5 points in Illusions. Hence, putting 25 points in Chaos
instead of 30 in Illusions gives you an additional 50 toughness and 40
more condition damage.
- ???? (Adept): Pretty much all of these traits are good. Personally, I
mostly run with Illusionary Defense, as I keep my clones up often enough
to notice its benefits.
- Chaotic Dampening (Master): Core to the build. Having phase retreat
roughly every 5 secs allows for increased clone output, attack evasion,
and ability to get combo-armors from etheral fields. The reduced
cooldown on chaos storm allows you to place this seriously debilitating
AOE more often, while giving you and your allies some amazing defensive
boons (it’s one of the strongest mesmer skills in my opinion.)
Illusions (25):
- Summary: Your best friend – more condition damage, increased shatter
recharge rate, increased confusion duration, confusion and might upon
shatters, and added staff bounces.
- Illusionists Celerity (Passive): Useful if you use mirror images
- Illusionary Retribution (Passive): Core of build – shattering clones applies confusion.
- Shattered Strength (Passive): Additional condition damage and temporarily makes up for low power via might stacks.
- Master of Misdirection (Adept): Gives a very noticeable 33% increased duration to confusion you apply.
- Illusionary Elasticity (Master): Your staff (not clones) winds of
chaos gets an additional bounce. I believe clones are “supposed” to
inherit this trait, which would be very nice.
Now to address what most people are thinking – why not 30 points in
Illusions for “added condition damage” and Illusionary Persona. Well, I
addressed the fallacy of added condition damage above. In regards to
Illusionary Persona, I’ve tried it many times and don’t find it all that
useful in this build because shattering is situational and 2 more
stacks of confusion is not really needed with the amount of damage that
just a few confusion stacks can do. In a DPS heavy shatter build, it
would be essential, but in a condition build, I’d rather have the added
40 points of condition damage and additional toughness, as chaos would
be the only line you could remove 5 points from.
UTILITIES/ELITE:
These take advantage of the mesmer’s core design of deception and
evasion. They are useful for both getting away and deceiving the
opponent during a fight.
- Blink: Not only good for creating or closing distance, but
extremely sneaky if used to blink behind the opponent when they are
facing/charging you
- Decoy: Excellent tool during a fight as any stealth causes the
opponent to drop you as a target. Further, if you dodge during stealth,
clones will spawn, leaving the enemy to think you came out of stealth.
When the stealth wears off, stand still and pretend you’re a clone while
you and you’re clones apply burns/bleeds.
- Null Field / Signet of Domination / Portal: This slot depends on the
situation. Null field is nice for condition removal and a chaos armor
combo with phase retreat. Signet of Domination is useful for added
condition damage and stun. Portal is nice for various situations in WvW
or when players fall somewhere debilitating in PvE.
- Mass Invisibility: Great in both 1v1 and group situations. In a 1v1
situation, it can either deceive the opponent or give you time to
regroup if needed. In group situations, every enemy looses a target that
goes stealth and everyone in stealth essentially gets a “free attack”.
Use this only when you think you can pull it off as it is easily
interrupted and takes a good second to cast. On another note, I only use
time warp in PvE and on golems (WvW) as I find mass invisibility every
90 seconds much more debilitating to the enemy rather than a quickness
AOE field which enemies can retreat from. Plus, it has a long cooldown..
HEAL:
Ether feast, ether feast, ether feast. Even with close to no healing
power, this heal is a beast if you have a few clones out. And, even if
you are shattering a lot, your ability to get clones out quickly means
that you should never really have to do a heal with less than two active
clones. A quick tip for this – you have a short window to heal with the
added bonus from clones even after you cast a shatter. This means that
if you shatter and then realize your health is low, don’t be afraid to
cast ether feast, as the animation +/- gap closing of the clones gives
you a second or two to still enjoy the added heal bonus of active
illusions.
GEAR:
The chosen gear provides a lot of additional condition damage, while
making up for some of the weaker stats of the build via trinkets. I’ve
tried countless combinations and this is what I’ve found to work best.
Specifically, I have found that going all precision/toughness/condition
damage is less effective because sometimes you need that little bit of
extra power (breaking siege, small DD burst via sword and mind wrack,
etc.) Essentially, every piece of gear should give you condition damage,
and it’s up to you what other combinations you would like.
- Armor: Exotic 6 pieces of Khilbron (condition main, toughness/precision minor)
- Rings: Ascended (condition main, toughness/precision minor)
- Earrings: Exotic (condition main, power/vitality minor)
- Amulet: Exotic (condition main, power/vitality minor)
- Back: Ascended (condition main, toughness/precision minor)
- Weapons: Exotic (condition main, toughness/precision minor)
- Runes: Divinity (one could go with the Runes of Undead, which I’ve
tried, but I like the 60 points added to all traits for more balance.
Specifically, the added 12 points to crit damage provides a nice “umph”
to your critical hits and makes up some for the low direct damage).
As an aside, the reason why Divinity runes are superior to other gear
that spreads out stats (rings, amulets, earrings) is because it
actually adds significantly more points to your raw total stat pool,
whereas trinkets and the such simply spread out the numbers compared to
their counterparts. A set of most runes will give you somewhere around a
total of 240 points added to you stats + a special effect. 6 Divinity
runes gives you 60 points in 6 areas (360 total points) + 12% more
critical damage. That is a pretty significant difference IMO, and well
worth it.
WEAPONS:
As I’ve touched upon the staff so much already, I won’t mention it again
here. Instead, I’ll discuss what secondary weapons I’ve found useful –
which are sword/scepter and focus/torch.
- Sword: Despite this build’s lower power, blurred frenzy still does
decent AOE direct damage, makes you invulnerable upon using it, and can
proc bleeds or fire depending on the sigil you choose. Further, the
sword #3 ability spawns another clone, allows you to catch and finish
enemies who’ve decided to run away at lower health, and is a stun
breaker. Your investment into the Dueling line allows you to easily pick
up the Blade Training trait, increasing your precision with the sword
and reducing its cooldowns so that you can get off sword #3 and #2 twice
before switching back to the staff. Overall, this weapon gives the
build added balance via the ability to do decent direct damage and I
generally run with this instead of the scepter.
- Scepter: I use this sometimes, but the problem with it is that only
the #3 ability is of real benefit with its confusion stacks and decent
damage, but even this is slow, easily interrupted, and can only be cast
once before switching back to the staff. Opening with #3 on an
unexpecting opponent is devastating, but that doesn’t happen too often.
In 1v1, it’s great, but when managing multiple opponents, I find it
lackluster. For example, in 1v2 situations, you will often get
interrupted or hit for serious damage while you are trying to stay
within 900 range of your target. You are then stuck with it for 10
seconds, doing feeble damage with scepter #1. I will say that the block
can be nice and can do decent damage if you land one. It can also be
useful for harassing towers in WvW as scepter #1 will create clones on
every 3rd shot if you have line of sight, which you can then shatter.
Further, it will do more ranged direct damage to oil pots/cannons than
your staff, but if an enemy is manning one of those, you want to use the
staff because its bounces can hit the enemy and apply conditions.
- Focus: Probably the most underrated weapon IMHO. The swiftness boon
is an obvious nice to have given the mesmer’s notorious lack of ability
to get it. However, its ability to control fights is often overlooked.
From pulling enemies off walls/bridges/higher ground/away from you in
WvW, to giving you 2x retalliation when you sword #3 twice through it,
it’s invaluable. As for the iWarden, I think it gets a bad wrap because
people tend to focus on its lack of movement and and don’t know about
its other abilities. Firstly, it is another control mechanism as most
players in WvW know by now to stay far away from that thing and you can
push people back by casting it. Secondly, it negates projectiles if you
are close to it while it’s attacking (and reflects them if traited for
it in Inspiration.) Thirdly, it’s a great finisher when facing more than
one opponent – cast it on a downed guy, move on to the next target, and
it will usually finish the downed guy while you continue fighting.
Finally, it’s a whirl combo finisher. This last point means that if you
cast it and then immediately switch to your staff and drop chaos storm
on it, it shoots out AOE confusion bolts, which is a very powerful tool
with this build. Do this combo on an enemy oil pot and watch the
defenders on the wall scatter.
- Torch: I use this sometimes and it can be an extremely useful
weapon in a condition build, giving you added stealth and a phantasm
that stacks on confusion. However, I find the overall utility of the
focus better and have that equipped 99% of the time.
SIGILS:
- Sigil of Corruption (Staff): Because condition damage transfers to your clones from sigil stacks, it is a must.
- Sigil of Earth (Staff alternate): Once you’ve got your 25 stacks, switch to this for a chance to apply more bleeds.
- Sigil of Fire (Sword): This AOE does very nice damage. Keep in mind
that it’s not a burn so it isn’t increased by your condition damage. The
reason why I don’t choose Sigil of Earth here is because you use the
sword primarily for it’s blurred frenzy, which lasts about a second. The
Sigil of Earth has a 2 second internal cooldown, so you’ll at most get 1
bleed. Hence, the Sigil of Fire is better for overall increased damage.
- Sigil of ? (Focus): It’s really up to you here, but keep in mind not
to pick a sigil that has a cooldown (all “on weapon swap” ones do),
because all sigils share the same cooldown. For example, sigil of energy
would be nice for the added endurance, but its 5 second cooldown will
likely negate your ability to proc AOE fire from your sword.
FOOD:
- Superior Sharpening Stone: To give the build a little bit more power,
which IS noticeable. However, I sometimes play with the Superior
Crystals to take me up to 1900 condition damage.
- -40% condition duration, +70 vitality(forget name): Essentially
cutting down condition damage by 40%, which can be very nice during an
encounter with another condition build, as mesmers are notorious for
having terrible condition removal. Also, it decreases the time of
effects/conditions like chills, weakness, vulnerability, etc.
That’s pretty much it. I’ve played all of the mesmer builds and like
them all for various reasons, but my playstyle makes this one the most
powerful and forgivable for me. I honestly don’t know the last time I
lost a 1v1 to any class with this build. I will say, however, that the
one class – I repeat one class – that I sometimes have trouble with is a
DPS heavy mesmer. I think this stems from the fact that staff clones
often get distracted by the closest target (enemy clones/phantasms
included), disrupting their ability to apply focused shatters and
conditions.
If anyone has any questions/comments/additions, feel free to post em.
If you want to get into the argument about its effectiveness and
viability, please try to refrain, as this guide is meant to help those
looking to try a mesmer condition build, not state that it’s better than
others.
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