Guild Wars 2

Geared out in full zerker, which would give you bigger shatter assuming every clone hit?

And to take it a bit further

20/20/30/0/0 vs 0/20/20/0/30

Which would hit harder assuming all shats hit?

I would say the 20% damage to Shatter, iirc IP gives you the shatter effect as well? if so, pointless if out of melee range of the target(s) What weapons are you running?

as for “20/20/30/0/0 vs 0/20/20/0/30” i think this would depend on the traits you are taking as well

On-demand invulnerability is never pointless.

Winds.3087:

On-demand invulnerability is never pointless.

You dont need IP for that. It would be worth it if combining Distortion and IP would grant allies in range Distortion as well, but i dont think it does.

You can take the reflection trait and stack on allies. Also you need IP for that if you dont have illusions out.

20/20/30 and 0/20/20/0/30 are different playstyles. I think 200 power and mental torment do more damage than iPersona but im not even sure.
Im wondering why you want 20 points in chaos if damage is your problem, you can go for 10/30/0/0/30 or 20/20/0/0/30

Illusionary persona will do much more damage than any other trait modification possible.

With 0 clones: Infinite % increase.

With 1 Clone: 100% increase

With 2 Clones: 50% increase

With 3 clones: 33% increase

Mental torment is simply a 20% increase at all levels of the skill.

Full zerker with 0 Domination has 2201 power. This is without food/sigil buffs.
20 Domination gives you ~9% increase in total damage for a total of 31% increase to all Mind Wracks. Furthermore, 15 domination lets you spike 15-18 vulnerability for a 15-18% damage increase when you use F3 prior to F1. It also comes with some nice utility with shattered concentration to potentially remove protection (33% less damage) and other boons.

As Pryo mentioned, IP is a huge increase to damage when you don’t have max clones out. Furthermore, F2 does about 800 burst damage (+confusion) with zero clones for a nice bonus spike right after F1. Also, for going 30 illusions you get might on shatters and some bonus confusion on all shatters. F3 and F4 don’t require any clones for an instant interrupt or distortion. I cannot count the number of times F4 has saved my life when a huge AOE wrecks all of my clones. IP or 30 illusions means you get to shatter more often too. Edit: Also 20% more mirror images/decoy/all illusions.

Both of them are extremely useful. When comparing damage, they are relatively similar with the standard 3 clone shatter but depending on circumstances, both have their moments.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Winds.3087:

On-demand invulnerability is never pointless.

You dont need IP for that.

Wut?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Winds.3087:

On-demand invulnerability is never pointless.

You dont need IP for that.

Wut?

Well, technically, Blurred Inscriptions gives it, but that’d be a silly argument to make, since they’re not mutually exclusive.

So lets do the maths, say your base mindwrack from a single clone is 1000.

IP, the damage will look something like

1000

1000

500

330
——————-
Total: 2830

With 20% bonus and the 9% dmg from the extra power. ~30% more dmg for easy of math

1300

750

~400
———————
total: ~2450 dmg

2450 vs 2830 = ~14% more dmg with ip
That look right? or can someone correct my maths

edit: looking at it my maths are off, someone correct in a similar format lol.

Rinzler.8072:

So lets do the maths, say your base mindwrack from a single clone is 1000.

IP, the damage will look something like

1000

1000

500

330
——————-
Total: 2830

With 20% bonus and the 9% dmg from the extra power. ~30% more dmg for easy of math

1300

750

~400
———————
total: ~2450 dmg

That look right? or can someone correct my maths

I’m not solid on this, but I don’t think the extra “clone” from IP hits with the full brunt of a single clone wrack. Unless the wiki isn’t up to date. If the wiki is up to date, then it’s 33% extra damage from a full IP wrack. Which is negligibly better than the +20% wrack.

So, it really does come down to how you intend to use it, and the utility you can get from and build into your other shatters.

Well, im trying to get out of the illusions tree and still have a build that shatters close to a 0/20/20/0/30 build.

Im not too worried about the utility lost on losing IP, as im going to pick up other utility elsewhere (20/20/30/0/0), such as the buffs on invisibility and wut not.

Rinzler.8072:

Well, im trying to get out of the illusions tree and still have a build that shatters close to a 0/20/20/0/30 build.

Im not too worried about the utility lost on losing IP, as im going to pick up other utility elsewhere (20/20/30/0/0), such as the buffs on invisibility and wut not.

Utility aside, the main thing I feel you’re losing from dropping the Illusion is Illusionist’s Celerity and the shatter cooldown reduction. I personally feel that 20/20/30/0/0 is perfectly capable, and there’s even a few guides for it in the stickies. I wobble between 20/20/30/0/0 and 20/0/20/0/30. I’d say shattering without Illusion isn’t worse, it’s just different.

IP is the most potent trait Mesmers have. If the choice is the two then you’d be foolish to choose Mental Torment, maybe if you’re somehow a power build that never gets in melee, but even then it would be hard to argue against IP’s benefits.

-IP allows you to shatter without clones. That gives you an on demand daze and distortion.
-IP mimics the ‘per Illusion’ effect of each Shatter. You have to consider how this effects the scaling. Suddenly a single Illusion Shatter is equitable to a 2 illusion shatter (100% boost), a 2 Illusion Shatter is equal to 3 (50% boost), and a 3 Illusion Shatter is equal to 4 (33% boost). So at IP’s weakest bonus you’re still getting over 50% more of a boost than from Mental Torment, and you’re getting it for ALL of your Shatters in addition to the ability to shatter without clones.

But wait, there’s more. Let’s just compare Mind Wrack’s boost. Mind Wrack does not scale linearly, it deals less damage per clone the more clones you have, but the total damage goes up. This is meant to make single Illusion Shatters more viable, but because IP mimics the per-illusion effect it has a very powerful effect.

The approximate scaling is that a single Illusion Shatter does ~49% of the max damage (max dmg being the total damage of a 3 Illusion Shatter), 2 Illusions do ~74% (37% each), and 3 Illusions do, of course, 100% (33.33% each).

So an easy example is:

Without IP
1x Illusion: 490 damage
2x Illusion: 740 damage (370 x2)
3x Illusion: 999 damage (333×3)

IP doesn’t just upgrade it to a 2x Shatter, it just adds another instance of the damage that shatter does. So:

With IP
0x Illusion: 490 (IP damage only)
1x Illusion: 980 damage (490×2)
2x Illusion: 1,110 damage (370 x3)
3x Illusion: 1,332 damage (333×4)

So with IP and a single Illusion out, your Mind Wrack does nearly as much damage as a 3 Illusion Shatter would do without, and with less chance if an Illusion dying before it reaches the target.

Meanwhile, Mental Torment is a straight 20% boost across the board to one Shatter.

TLDR: IP is a Grandmaster that affects all Shatters and Mental Torment is an Adept that affects one. Get IP.

Dastion.3106:

stuff

Extremely good analysis here.

To maximize shattering damage i would take on:

Domination – 20 (Mental Torment and Rendering shatter)
Dueling – 20 (Desperate Decoy and Deceptive evasion)
Chaos – 0
Inspiration – 0
Illusions – 30 (Precise Wrack, Compounding Power and Illusionary Persona)

As a shatter Mesmer i can’t really exclude the Rendering shatter. It gives a 8m% daage increase per shatter (you can max to 25% with no problem). With IP you can burst F1 to increase your damage in close combat even without illusions, gaining Might also!

Runes of Strength works very well also!

Cool, some good info guys

He doesn’t have IP for invuln, but he does get much more aegis than normal also counting protection. 20% mind wrack damage i think would be fine, and sets up for a ranged shatter option without wasting IP.

Even if he’s shattering from range his Shatter damage will be less because he isn’t able to Shatter as often without the 30% shatter CD reduction.

30 Illusions is very difficult to top because it helps just about every build, unless you’re going for a build that revolves around the Grandmaster in another tree (Primatic Understanding).

Illusion CDR, Might, Extra Confusion, the amazing bonuses from IP – I wish our other trees were half so juicy.

Dastion.3106:

Even if he’s shattering from range his Shatter damage will be less because he isn’t able to Shatter as often without the 30% shatter CD reduction.

30 Illusions is very difficult to top because it helps just about every build, unless you’re going for a build that revolves around the Grandmaster in another tree (Primatic Understanding).

Illusion CDR, Might, Extra Confusion, the amazing bonuses from IP – I wish our other trees were half so juicy.

“20/20/30/0/0 vs 0/20/20/0/30” Did no one read the OP? Of course a grandmaster illusion trait will be better than an adept trait (at least that is how it should work) but he wants to compare the damage of two different builds.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Dastion.3106:

Even if he’s shattering from range his Shatter damage will be less because he isn’t able to Shatter as often without the 30% shatter CD reduction.

30 Illusions is very difficult to top because it helps just about every build, unless you’re going for a build that revolves around the Grandmaster in another tree (Primatic Understanding).

Illusion CDR, Might, Extra Confusion, the amazing bonuses from IP – I wish our other trees were half so juicy.

“20/20/30/0/0 vs 0/20/20/0/30” Did no one read the OP? Of course a grandmaster illusion trait will be better than an adept trait (at least that is how it should work) but he wants to compare the damage of two different builds.

No, I didn’t read it. That’s why I just so happened to give him a detailed comparison of Mind Wrack vs Mental Torment on his Shatter damage and then further tell him what he would be missing across his entire build by going zero into Illusions.

/Sarcasm

And he doesn’t want to compare the damage of two builds, he wants to compare Shatter damage ‘assuming all shatters hit’. Perhaps you should read more closely, as you obviously missed the OP’s intent as well as the intent in my post which, based on his last response, seems to be what he was looking for.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Full zerker with 0 Domination has 2201 power. This is without food/sigil buffs.
20 Domination gives you ~9% increase in total damage for a total of 31% increase to all Mind Wracks. Furthermore, 15 domination lets you spike 15-18 vulnerability for a 15-18% damage increase when you use F3 prior to F1. It also comes with some nice utility with shattered concentration to potentially remove protection (33% less damage) and other boons.
…
Both of them are extremely useful. When comparing damage, they are relatively similar with the standard 3 clone shatter but depending on circumstances, both have their moments.

Both lines offer some really good utility/damage boosts. If you want to talk about might/cooldowns then you are going to need talk about the base damage increase, the ability to spike 18% more damage and the boon stripping for not doing 33% less.

I know IP is good. That’s why I’ve had it ever since my mesmer hit lvl 60. 20/20/0/0/30 is even better if you can pull it off. But he wants to spend at least 20 in chaos. You are ignoring the utility that 20 domination (and the extra 10 in chaos) can bring though while talking about the entire illusions trait line.

Dastion.3106:

TLDR: IP is a Grandmaster that affects all Shatters and Mental Torment is an Adept that affects one. Get IP.

If he had a 0/20/20/0/20 and was asking for where to put the last 10 points, yeah it’s that simple. That isn’t what he is asking though.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Snip.

You did read the thread title, right? He made no indication of interest in utility so I stuck simply to the direct comparison asked under the circumstances given.

The OP specifically asked in reference to Shatter which trait will give more damage assuming all shatters hit. The slightly larger bit above my TLDR goes into that in depth. The TLDR was just saying exactly what you said earlier, IP is a GM trait so of course it is better than an Adept (which you seemed to think I didn’t know since you told me that, despite having just quoted my TLDR).

However, in a later post the OP indicated not being worried about the loss of utility from IP because he was interested in the utility gained from the Chaos tree, going so far as to indicate an interest in ‘buffs on Invisibility’. So my response was to say that IP was hard to pass up unless your build hinged on a specific other GM trait, I specifically used Prismatic Understanding as an example since the OP has shown an interest, but I still went over the non-IP benefits if the rest of the Illusion tree since its not just IP you give up if you go zero Illusions.

So, considering I answered the OP’s original question exactly as asked and then further discussed the benefits of 30 Illusions vs 0 zero Illusions and further made specific allowance for the build the OP had shown an interest in (Prismatic Understanding) I fail to see what in the world your problem is

Rinzler.8072:

20/20/30/0/0 vs 0/20/20/0/30
Which would hit harder assuming all shats hit?

Dastion.3106:

IP is the most potent trait Mesmers have. If the choice is the two then you’d be foolish to choose Mental Torment, maybe if you’re somehow a power build that never gets in melee, but even then it would be hard to argue against IP’s benefits.

Perhaps I read too much into your intro post but I think calling Mental torment a foolish choice is an unfair comparison when comparing the two listed builds. At this point though, I think we agree on facts. RL issues may be bleeding into my posts though. Sorry if I offended. Just wanted to give a fair comparison.

I would say if anything the +20% would hit harder due to you having 200 extra power from trait stats. when I run shatter in wvw I generally go for the 0/20/20/0/30 because the damage difference is minimal as far kittenter strength, but I feel like I still get better damage from the one with 30 in illusions because I can shatter more often due to the shredding recharge rate tied to illusions. also illusionary persona gives you an extra ability apart from damage which is using diversion and distortion without any clones, can really be a saver.

-Priest of Lyssa

Is it worth having both like 10/20/10/0/30?.

Id rather prefer dazzling and boon strip on shatter or something in the dueling line.