Needing help building my condi Mirage build.

[Cheshire Rabbid.7430]

I have finally deiced to go down the condi with the Mesmer so I did a rework on my Mesmer. I have a bit of a snag with building it as I in a bit decide on witch four spcs I would use in my two spec slots. The four spcs are Duling, Chaos, Domination, and Illusions. I have two links with two of the four specs in each fo them witch as what traits I'm thinking of using. The first one had Duling and Chaos witch with Chaos trait, chaotic transfer my gear to have toughness in it. The second one is with Domination and Illusions witch I switch the ruins as I can get heals from placing lots of tournament. Now what I set is not set as I'm opened to mix and match any of the four specs. This is for opened word mostly and I do like the thought of having a tiny army of me that can do damages then I can just shatter them for big damages. So tell me what two specs I should go with.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@"sdt.1697" said:I have finally deiced to go down the condi with the Mesmer so I did a rework on my Mesmer. I have a bit of a snag with building it as I in a bit decide on witch four spcs I would use in my two spec slots. The four spcs are Duling, Chaos, Domination, and Illusions. I have two links with two of the four specs in each fo them witch as what traits I'm thinking of using. The first one had Duling and Chaos witch with Chaos trait, chaotic transfer my gear to have toughness in it. The second one is with Domination and Illusions witch I switch the ruins as I can get heals from placing lots of tournament. Now what I set is not set as I'm opened to mix and match any of the four specs. This is for opened word mostly and I do like the thought of having a tiny army of me that can do damages then I can just shatter them for big damages. So tell me what two specs I should go with.

Option 1 is very similar to my build, so I can confirm that it will work well in open world. A few things to consider:

You've taken the Self-Deception trait without slotting any Deception skills. I agree with the choice to take Self-Deception in this build, but I recommend you at least take False Oasis for your heal and Jaunt for your elite. False Oasis is an excellent heal that gives you a free dodge/ambush as well as granting you vigor and generating a clone and jaunt gives you instant clone generation plus area condi damage with 3 ammo.

You are not going to deal big damage with shatters in this build. However, your clone generation with Deceptive Evasion and Self-Deception is so effortless you will shatter just for the boons from Bountiful Disillusionment. That's stability on demand plus using False Oasis and Cry of Frustration will grant full uptime vigor as well. This is all very good offensive/defensive synergy. I like it!

A lot of people like scepter, and there's nothing really wrong with it paired with staff as you can use staff as an area damage weapon when enemies are closely packed together. However, you might think about using axe/torch paired with staff. It should deal more damage and be much better for an area where condi builds generally lag behind: bursting down groups of enemies. If you take axe in place of scepter, take Mirrored Axes instead of Desert Distortion.

You might consider a different choice of rune. If you take axe, I like Tormenting runes. Torment is your primary damaging condition with axe and you can stack a lot of it, which translates into a significant amount of healing. Goes great with that offense/defensive synergy we have going! Undead runes are another good choice. It doubles that toughness-to-condi benefit from Chaotic Transference, which grants a huge amount of condi damage. On sigils, Energy is pure gold. I love that choice! Malice is good, but with all that trash handy, Corruption sigil is an easy +250 condi damage that's hard to pass up!

On utilities, I like Signet of Domination. That 3s stun is solid on breakbars and the rest of the time it's a nice boost to condi damage. Signet of Midnight is also good, but I like Arcane Thievery for bursting, for CC, and sometimes that boon strip comes in really handy, too! Illusionary Ambush is a good one, too.

Here's what I use: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiwAYd/lRwQYSMMmJWsP6vOA-zRJYkR9fhkTJkZmGSQ59sUl0G-e

[Cheshire Rabbid.7430]

Thanks for the feedback but I would like to use my shatter so I think I will use this build. Tell me what you think

[AliamRationem.5172]

@"sdt.1697" said:Thanks for the feedback but I would like to use my shatter so I think I will use this build. Tell me what you think

The Infinite Horizon trait (along with Mirage Cloak) is the engine that drives condi mirage. Your clones deal significant amounts of condi damage through this trait. Shatters destroy the clones that deal your damage. The build is working against itself in a sense.

On to specific thoughts and criticisms:

You've taken shatter storm, which makes mind wrack a 2 ammo skill. Mind wrack is a power damage skill and you're using full Trailblazer stats which have no additional power. So, your mind wrack will likely deal <1k damage (with only a 5% crit rate and base 150% crit damage) plus 12s of torment. For comparison, a single ambush attack from 3 clones inflicts 24s of torment (3x8s). Given that, you want to be careful about using mind wrack with this build and you probably won't need to use it twice as often!

On the other hand, you're using torch. Why not take The Pledge instead of Shatter Storm? Torch is already a really great offhand and reducing its cooldowns by 20% and adding more burning to it makes it even better!

You're also using scepter. I'd drop Master of Fragmentation for Malicious Sorcery.

I generally disagree with condi mirage not taking dueling. Generating a clone on dodge has very strong synergy with mirage, which dodges constantly and gets a ton out of both dodging and clones (adding more vigor and bleeds doesn't hurt either)! In my opinion, it's better to take illusions or chaos, not both, and then dueling and mirage. To illustrate the point, now you have a build that stacks boons and applies conditions on shatter, but needs to generate clones quickly in order to avoid a situation where shatters result in a DPS loss.

I don't usually use scepter, but I think if I were going to do that build I would do it something like this instead:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiABc+trlRwkYJMEmJWuX/vOA-zRJYkxfZkTVlZq69sUl0G-e

[Jimbru.6014]

My Mesmer is a condi staff Mirage using a slightly modified version of the build in this video. The build is fully described in the video description. Cheap to gear and works great for open world, story, small group PVE. I've even used it in WvW in a limited fashion.

[otto.5684]

Condi mirage uses mirage/dueling and with chaos or illusions. You would not run domination at all. Axe is recommended mh. Rest is user preference. Illusions provide faster damage and more shattering, but less overall damage. Chaos has slower damage but becomes stronger and stacks various boons, including vigor.

Raid setup uses viper Gear and chaos. I run that. I also run another setup with illusions and sinister with tormenting rune.

[Cheshire Rabbid.7430]

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiABc+trlRwkYJMEmJWuX/vOA-zRJYkxfZkTVlZq69sUl0G-e

I just have one question, why do you still have the Trailblazed on if you don't have the chaotic transfer. Anywho I think I finally lock donw what I wanted. http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PiABc+trlRwkYJMEmJWuP6vOA-zRIYc8XG5UVZmqePA-e

[AliamRationem.5172]

@"sdt.1697" said:

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiABc+trlRwkYJMEmJWuX/vOA-zRJYkxfZkTVlZq69sUl0G-e

I just have one question, why do you still have the Trailblazed on if you don't have the chaotic transfer. Anywho I think I finally lock donw what I wanted.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PiABc+trlRwkYJMEmJWuP6vOA-zRIYc8XG5UVZmqePA-e

Well, if you're going to pick a condi set, your best options are generally going to have expertise on them (i.e. viper or trailblazer). You increase the duration of all conditions by more than 40% with these sets. Still, like I said before, anything condi will work.

I like the latest build, though. I think it will work out great!