Best build for fractals

[Stavros.8249]

HelloI main mesmer and I would like your opinion on what to use on fractals t4.For chrono are support, power, condi and for Mirage condi, power. In dt site doesn't have a single mesmer class

[Leonidrex.5649]

I dont know what DT site is but you can pull your weight with power chrono -> hard or condi mirage -> easy, support sucks, fractal monkeys leave the aoe

[Stavros.8249]

Dt site is a good site for fractals builds. https://discretize.eu/buildsU mean power chrono is for hard contend or is hard to use him in fractal?

[Leonidrex.5649]

@"Stavros.8249" said:Dt site is a good site for fractals builds. https://discretize.eu/buildsU mean power chrono is for hard contend or is hard to use him in fractal?

hard to use properly, its like any other power build but with hard mode turned on, more effort same reward.condi mirage is rather easy to do good dps with, lots of evasion, tbh you can just do pve rotation and close your eyes and 90% of the time you will dodge everything that needs to be dodged just by using ambushes for damage.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

1) youre already pulling a weird by bringing mesmer to fracs2) power chrono and condi mirage are only ‘really good’ when your group is bad/pug. In that case they both perform almost the same, cuz power chrono has a condi-like dmg layout and reliance on sad slow uptime, while fortunately for mirage, some things in fracs atk faster than your avg raid boss3) power core also exists (and power mirage, ask armen about that) but is only relevant when your group is not so bad/pug4) as leo said ppl tend ignore everything about you when you play support

conclusion: no matter what you do, you will still pull a weird cuz youre a mesmer in frac

mesmer used to exist on the dT website but it got deleted cuz it was ‘that bad’

so what should you use?

whatever you feel most comfortable strutting your mesmer-ness around in

[Infusion.7149]

I think the fundamental problem with mesmer in fractals right now is you rely on clones for damage in some fashion. That's fine if something doesn't die in less than 3 seconds . It is not that useful for trash mobs. On top of that chronomancer can't even shatter unless you have clones up : it would be much better if at least F1 damage (Mind Wrack shatter) was intact in PVE when clones aren't up and then Split Second was active when clones are up (it does more damage to slowed foes).

Secondly, because asking people to stand in wells is almost like herding cats you're better off with Seize the Moment (party quickness on shatter). Leave alacrity for renegades which have a large radius and essentially zero downtime.

Your best bet is to play sword focus (for the pull + reflect) and double sword or Greatsword as the weaponswap. It isn't realistic to expect it to top damage charts because in a 5 man group your slow uptime will be horrific.

One place condi mirage shines is Mai trin however, since she never stops attacking and clones don't have to vanish to random mobs every few seconds.

Until Danger time is removed from the game, I don't think people will consider chrono underpowered in PvE unless they actually play it as the only chrono (not the 10 chrono Time Warp comps and such). From what I've seen, people have benched power banner berserker at 33K DPS under optimal conditions , alacrity renegade with mostly boon duration gear around 24K, power quickbrand at ~23K (condi quickbrand closer to 28-33K) while most benches for boon chrono have been typically below 20K due to running inspiration magic for Inspiring Distortion.

[Armen.1483]

@"Infusion.7149" said it all. I will just add one thing. In reality some pugs ask for support chronos, reason for that is that they are stocked up on dps + their healer is not a hfb. They need someone to give them quickness and alac at the same time as they all want to play dps. In my experience those kinds of groups surprisingly play well around wells (especially healers). Sometimes friendly reminding people that "wells exist" won't hurt anyone, while raging on people for dodging wells is the bad option.. in the end in my honest opinion hitting those wells in a good moment is also a skill to learn, you can't always blame it on others.. It is better waiting a couple of secs rather than hitting 2 wells in different places hoping your team will stand on the cross where the 2 wells meet with social awkwardness instability haha.. So playing chrono support requires a lot of skill and effort to play successfully while running firebrigade is much more effective and easy. Having said that, I myself play support chrono a lot in casual fractals and even in CMs with a good success. If it is not meta it doesn't mean it is beyond bad, it is quite ok imo. Take Seize the Moment for quickness, alac well and protection well... Well do like all of us chronos do, change your build million times during 1 fractal, maining chrono means that, you need to adapt to every situation.What about power chrono. All has already been said, I'll just confirm that slow damage (even with slow lol) and lack of aoe make it not optimal. But In bad groups it doesn't matter, that's true. So if you are pugging just t4s and you wanna be dps, you can go pchrono (still better than cmirage in my experience) and be very useful. But if you go reaper instead you will be so much more useful with so less effort. Anyway if you go pchrono use snowcrows build (or something like that) and try abusing time warp where you can with Mistlock Singularities ( I sometimes use it before a fight take mistlock use once again with cont slpit and once again after the cont split so it will hopefully provide slow uptime for the whole fight).

[Armen.1483]

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

3) power core also exists (and power mirage, ask armen about that)Ah yes true, I actually do that. If you run power chrono and you got some spare build templates for power mirage, it is very fun to use at some places. Problem is it is a very niche pick and not everyone got build templates. In places where you need to move a lot and everyting is chaotic (solid ocean, 1st part of snowblind, etc..) and when there are many little mobs that you can oneshot while running, can't write just all down it comes with experience, I just like changing the build templates every second but it's just my preference, in most cases same result can be achieved by condi mirage, but in my experience power mirage is more effective in those situations.. And even if you don't know how to effectively use it and where, 1 thing to remember: Ambush skill on sword is very strong for skips, ambush skill on gs is not a projectile so can't be reflected. There are many skips that people don't even know are possible on mesmer that mirage (not necessairly power) can do it.

[lare.5129]

1) don't use discretize.eu biulds. That a fail and valid only if other 4 members have that biuld and do proper strong skill rotation. In other 99% thats totaly fail.

so on mesmer you can choose support and dpssafe support: crhnomanser if can be ministrel set, seme part ofc you can take harrier, depend ho you want sacrifice suitability and increase some small dps. Other 4 can be dps scourges. This is good and valid setup for chill and exp party. You shoudl apply boons by wells. This is probably best solution.also you can take seraps and/or plaguedoctor set, and make condi support biulds if for some reasons what that

condi dps - take viper set, few items can be sinistrer stats and mirage spec weapons sc/t, pistol/tdps take zerk and chrno spec (weapons sw/sw, sw/focus or gs)

[Infusion.7149]

The only time you want minstrel chrono is if you're commanding in WVW. There's no reason to run minstrel chrono anymore as firebrand tanks better and the original post was asking about T4 fractals so higher damage is usually more important than tanking things. That's especially true since you can't shatter without clones up and there is no healing weapon so you're relegated to heals on shatter/mantra use. Also the block on firebrand's aegis from mantra is a base 2 seconds which is longer than the 1s distortion on mesmer signets so it's more forgiving with respect to timing.For example, reactor's ooze is not something you can tank to win , Solid Ocean (people instadown), Aetherblade (laser walls), Volcanic's shaman (it heals if it eats the villagers), Deepstone's Torin (especially if people get dropped from the pads), Twilight Oasis' Amala, Chaos' Brazen Gladiator , and neither is Siren's Reef Arabella Crowe.

[Toku.5972]

@Armen.1483 said:

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

3) power core also exists (and power mirage, ask armen about that)Ah yes true, I actually do that. If you run power chrono and you got some spare build templates for power mirage, it is very fun to use at some places. Problem is it is a very niche pick and not everyone got build templates. In places where you need to move a lot and everyting is chaotic (solid ocean, 1st part of snowblind, etc..) and when there are many little mobs that you can oneshot while running, can't write just all down it comes with experience, I just like changing the build templates every second but it's just my preference, in most cases same result can be achieved by condi mirage, but in my experience power mirage is more effective in those situations.. And even if you don't know how to effectively use it and where, 1 thing to remember: Ambush skill on sword is very strong for skips, ambush skill on gs is not a projectile so can't be reflected. There are many skips that people don't even know are possible on mesmer that mirage (not necessairly power) can do it.

Would you be willing to share your power mirage build? I've got the slots for one, and would love the assistance.

[Armen.1483]

@"Toku.5972" said:

Would you be willing to share your power mirage build? I've got the slots for one, and would love the assistance.

Here you go: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiwAEd3lVw8YSsJmJOSXpvKA-zxQYhomqKcHSNvyopUIzKw2phCzAA-e

I repeat again this is a very situational build, I use it mostly when I play support chrono and fights are too chaotic for my wells to be useful. It is not the strongest build out there, but it is definitely fun and adds some diversity on playing mesmer.

Some notes about the build:The whole build idea comes from abusing the energy and bloodlust sigils. I haven't tried with standart sigils of force/impact but it should be a lot weaker I suppose. Having legendary weapons helps much here as making ascended for just those sigils for this offmeta situational build is a lil bit of waste.

Axe is just personal preference, you can go with sword with nearly the same effect.

Mirror images is a bizzare choice I know. I put it here because I use it with greatsword to generate some fast might with ambush skills when my supports are far away. It is my might on demand if you will. But you could swap it for crystal sands or maybe blink if you don't like it.

Lastly you could swap to domi 1 1 1 when No pain No gain instability is active, your team will love you.

[Kuroshini.9482]

@Armen.1483 said:

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

3) power core also exists (and power mirage, ask armen about that)Ah yes true, I actually do that. If you run power chrono and you got some spare build templates for power mirage, it is very fun to use at some places. Problem is it is a very niche pick and not everyone got build templates. In places where you need to move a lot and everyting is chaotic (solid ocean, 1st part of snowblind, etc..) and when there are many little mobs that you can oneshot while running, can't write just all down it comes with experience, I just like changing the build templates every second but it's just my preference, in most cases same result can be achieved by condi mirage, but in my experience power mirage is more effective in those situations.. And even if you don't know how to effectively use it and where, 1 thing to remember: Ambush skill on sword is very strong for skips, ambush skill on gs is not a projectile so can't be reflected. There are many skips that people don't even know are possible on mesmer that mirage (not necessairly power) can do it.

could condi boon chrono work in fractals ? since bosses tend to attack faster so confusion might have some use ?

[Armen.1483]

@Kuroshini.9482 said:

@Armen.1483 said:

@"Noodle Ant.1605" said:

3) power core also exists (and power mirage, ask armen about that)Ah yes true, I actually do that. If you run power chrono and you got some spare build templates for power mirage, it is very fun to use at some places. Problem is it is a very niche pick and not everyone got build templates. In places where you need to move a lot and everyting is chaotic (solid ocean, 1st part of snowblind, etc..) and when there are many little mobs that you can oneshot while running, can't write just all down it comes with experience, I just like changing the build templates every second but it's just my preference, in most cases same result can be achieved by condi mirage, but in my experience power mirage is more effective in those situations.. And even if you don't know how to effectively use it and where, 1 thing to remember: Ambush skill on sword is very strong for skips, ambush skill on gs is not a projectile so can't be reflected. There are many skips that people don't even know are possible on mesmer that mirage (not necessairly power) can do it.

could condi boon chrono work in fractals ? since bosses tend to attack faster so confusion might have some use ?

No. I haven't tested in CM100, but other than that, bosses don't attack fast at all.Already boon chrono in fractals is bad, condi boon will be even worse imo, especially after the nerfs. Condi chrono is a VERY niche pick in some raids only. Don't do it.If you want to play chrono in fractals go power focus. In CM100 play condi mirage. Those are the best options.Edit: will just add here that instead of "boon chrono" you could go full power chrono with Seize the Moment trait to replace a quickbrand. But bear in mind you still have no source of might, alac, stab or any other boons with this build which makes support chrono so bad there. So you are basically a dps, that can give quickness.The other "boon" build that gets some diviner gear and give boons with wells... forget about it, it is straight up bad at fractals and still no might.