conditions on a mesmer

[RabidCoqui]

This hasn't been the case the case the past couple of days I've been playing my Mesmer. Sure, sometimes my illusions are ignored, but the majority of the time they've been attracting the enemy's attention.

I never see the AI go for my illusions anymore... or it's possible that when they do they get one-shotted and I don't see it...

It's really only a problem if fighting many foes or against ranged. I can kite melee all day long but ranged will tear me up.

[Raye]

I can confirm that they do go after them. Most of the time I'm able to stay alive because the veteran is busy beating on my illusions.

Sent from my Little Robot

[The Pointless]

I never see the AI go for my illusions anymore... or it's possible that when they do they get one-shotted and I don't see it...

Possible. I've lost count of the times I've spawned an illusion, only to realise there's an AoE about to hit where they are, and as soon as it does, BOOM, back to square one.
Making illusions to fool the enemy... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND THEY'RE GONE.

[EnoughAlready]

Fluff, then I'm sorry for biting :-\

I'm getting to used to the bashing while fighting the trolls.

The AI seeing through clones may have been tweeked, I certainly hope so because my experience is very much like Rapids.

[Alaris]

I haven't gotten further than the Anger stage of the grieving process.

Let us know when you're past than and can start enjoying the GW2 mesmer for what it is, until then there's not much point arguing.

Sure, sometimes my illusions are ignored, but the majority of the time they've been attracting the enemy's attention.

I think this is a problem of statistical ineptitude of the human brain. Let me explain.

Whenever there's a task of judging the probability of X, some people will over-estimate it, some will under-estimate it. In part, this is because some people (like me) tend to see positive outcomes, while others (you know who you are) tend to see negative outcomes. That we have people arguing on either side suggests that the probability is likely somewhere in-between these two extremes: that clones work sometimes.

Mechanically, assuming the foes pick a target not knowing which is which (as would be easiest to implement) each time you make a new clone (which seems to break aggro), then the likelihood of them picking you depends on how many clones are out there when you cast a new one. The more there are, the easier it is for them to lose aggro on you. If you cast your first clone, you have 50% chance of de-aggro. 2nd clone is 33% chance, 3rd clone is 25%.

However, if they catch aggro on you, don't expect them to get distracted. Once they focus on you, casting more clones is imo the only way to lose aggro, they will not just like that choose to go for an existing clone for no particular reason.

Against tougher foes, my strategy is to keep some clone skills recharged, and use them when I am targeted. That seems to work really well.

I would settle for as a degen build

I get a good degen vibe from the staff. The conditions stacking plus the buffs on my plus the clones and phantasms doing damage, it's slow damage at first but it ramps up very quickly, with the damage actually being pretty gradual. It might not be what you are looking for, but it works pretty well as a replacement.

[Xycury]

Staff and scepter deal the most conditions for a mesmer and are the most for party support.

with condition damaged stacked to extreme, you'll get 123 bleed dmg, 245 Poison 731 Burning and 372 Confusion.

I name poison because that's what my Prayer to Lyssa (Human) does almost 80% of the time since you can't do poison damage as a mesmer.

iWarlocks will do roughly 18k-20K on single enemies. Mesmers for conditions are boss killers since the whole party will help in bringing alot of conditions. You will see the health drop every time your iWarlocks (3 of them) strike.

Staff is also alot safer, staying at 1200 feet. I don't get any agro unless I decided to just stand next to the boss. More than likely it'll target one of my clones or illusions, and I can put one up right away.

I would not use staff / scepter for regular play though. Power scales nicely with the great sword, and you can strike pretty hard with main hand sword too.

Traits is where you shine and will pigeon hole you into a certain build. If conditions, you want confusion on kill, and bleed on crits. Most likely want that 3rd bounce on the staff to to stack more conditions.... or buffs.

I've played scepter/staff till I hit 80, it's doable, and fine, but slow. I moved to swords/gsword because I could deal enough damage to hold my own.

Pistol is great for a quick bleed stack. You could do scepter pistol. I've done scepter sword since I like the iSwordsmen. Focus is fun if you can plant guy next to your illusion, otherwise it's our only speed boost.

I've been torn on the Mesmer because I can't split my weapon sets up over my traits. Either I focus on damage and go great sword or focus on conditions and staff. I can't do both.

[Xunlai Agent]

Why would you run conditions? I don't get it.

[Alaris]

Wow Xunlai. Either your build is so much better than anything else out there, or you just blinded yourself from other viable gameplay styles.

Either way, please post your full build.

[Xycury]

Why would you run conditions? I don't get it.

the only other way to run a mesmer is for a power build with shattering.

this means you're sticking with sword/X and Greatsword, which is fine, but doesn't do the DPS of a condition mesmer with 3 iWarlocks.

with Staff #1, you proc fire almost 1/4 of the time, and it's short and damages fast when your condition damage is this high.

You'll run into using Rabid and Carrion gear.

The only other downfall to Sw/GSw is that you'll want to get close to do the extra vulnerably stacks or at least close enough to let your clones do it. They jut get eaten up by boss mobs a lot.

Sword offhand is good with the iSwordsman, crits for ok amount, around 2-4k, but that can't compare to 18k-20k that iWarlocks are putting out.

I'll be interested in your build too.

Again, I'm complaining here, but the traits on a mesmer are set up where if you want to excel in one direction... you kinda gimp on all else... if I go Condition staff mesmer.... then I can't switch to sword and g.sword since I didn't trait that way.

There is a 20/20/20/10/0 build I'm working on that would even it out...but even then you lose on your recharge shatter rate.

Honestly I don't shatter nearly enough, because either things die too quick or my timing is off because things die too quick. I shatter alot when I can when a Vet/Champ/Boss comes around though.

[Doyle]

Late to this party, but I always find myself going back to my staff mesmer in PvE. Although I rarely shatter, and never worry about confusion (since it works so poorly vs mobs, IME). I typically grab a few mobs run into melee, spam out a couple of clones, and drop a chaos storm. Conditions pile up in a hurry... For anyone that's not dead, it's more clones, chaos armor, and kite until things come off cd.