Guild Wars 2

Your phantasms function as sustained DPS, and since PvE bosses have anything between 600,000 and 1,500,000HP at level 80, you’re better off keeping them up rather than shattering for a very small burst of damage.

You’d probably be better off using something like sword/sword + sword/focus in dungeons too since greatsword is more of a PvP/WvW weapon.

gs is frowned at in dungeons most mesmers run sw/sw sw/p or switch one for focus and keep the phantasms out for max damage dont shatter unless running a shatter build.

Keep your phants, only shatter them to interrupt an important attack (F3) or make yourself invulnerable (F4). You also may use it for finish burst (F1). However when engaging the enemy, for examle trash mobs, you can just summon 1-2 clones and shatter them right away with F1. Even one clone is enough since the damage per clone decreses if you shatter multiple clones:
1 clone 100%
2 clones 150%
3 clones 200% → 66.7% per clone

Shatter is decent on trash but terrible on anything that you can sustain even one phantasm on, DPS wise.

GSword isn’t as kittenome say. Its our strongest ranged option and with the right build isn’t too far off the top DPS wise, don’t be afraid to use it but try not to sit in it too long. For pulls with 3+ mobs I start off the fight with GSword’s iZerker and switch to Sword/Focus for the rest of the pull. Gives you good AoE damage. Do what you can not to sit in GSword longer then you have to and you’ll be fine. As you get more familiar with all the content drop GSword for /Sword n /Focus. I won’t fault a Mesmer for using GSword unless thats all he uses.

The GS actually IS a good weapon, as long as you penetrate and won’t use ¹ in close combat. It is a good aoe weapon, thx to the iZerker. Single target dps however isn’t as strong as you may think. The scepter hits more in closer combat, aswell the staff thx to iWarlock (requires 4+ permacondis).

GS = ranged aoe
Scepter + Pistol = close range single target dps +block
Staff = any range single target dps +survivability

Bloodgruve.6038:

Shatter is decent on trash but terrible on anything that you can sustain even one phantasm on, DPS wise.

GSword isn’t as kittenome say. Its our strongest ranged option and with the right build isn’t too far off the top DPS wise, don’t be afraid to use it but try not to sit in it too long. For pulls with 3+ mobs I start off the fight with GSword’s iZerker and switch to Sword/Focus for the rest of the pull. Gives you good AoE damage. Do what you can not to sit in GSword longer then you have to and you’ll be fine. As you get more familiar with all the content drop GSword for /Sword n /Focus. I won’t fault a Mesmer for using GSword unless thats all he uses.

Scepter is our best ranged weapon actually, and doesn’t have the crappy range limitation. GS is primarily for WvW, etc. since it has fast clone generation and the auto-attack hits multiple times and thus can proc multiple bleeds. It’s not a direct damage set by any means even though the skills sort of make it look like one.

In a 25/30/0/0/15 Mantra/Phantasm build GS at mid range(2x dodges from target) tested the same as Scepter/Sword. Both using 2x Phantasms. Illusionary Counter crit and average Torment damage on cooldown factored in.

In this build they are pretty even DPS wise. In any situation where 3x phantasms could be maintained or AOE is available or GS max range, GS would win out.

Blood~

^^^
Agreed, everyone always says scepter is the better ranged choice for damage, but my personal tests always showed that in 600 boon share/acquisition range, GS and scepter damage were about even, a very negligible difference. The advantage at that point becomes the phantasm issue in that I think the consensus is the fact that the iBerserker is an inferior phantasm when compared to the iSwordsman you get when running sc/sw, even with the annoying phantasm overwrite.

skcamow.3527:

^^^
Agreed, everyone always says scepter is the better ranged choice for damage, but my personal tests always showed that in 600 boon share/acquisition range, GS and scepter damage were about even, a very negligible difference. The advantage at that point becomes the phantasm issue in that I think the consensus is the fact that the iBerserker is an inferior phantasm when compared to the iSwordsman you get when running sc/sw, even with the annoying phantasm overwrite.

It’s always been about the phantasms, the damage difference is pretty large between two Swordsmen and three Berserkers. Not to mention Sc/Sw + Sc/X has two phantasm cooldowns versus GS which only has one.

Alternately you could run Sc/Sw and GS and only use the GS to put up a third phantasm when necessary, but that’s sort of a pain and a third GS phantasm doesn’t add that much to overall DPS.

I tested with 2x iSwordsmen vs 2x iZerker to keep things fair in weapon to weapon comparison as scepter will eat one Phantasm.

Even with this they are even DPS wise.

You guys know that the scepter attacks faster if you are closer? Also you can allways prevent the scepter aa from overwriting phants by using 3 and offhandskills aswell utilities instead of aa 3. There is NO reason to stay at a weapon as a mesmer, since you wanna swap as much as you can to keep up 2-3 phants.

And you should not compare GS with Scepter in specific situations. The scepter will allways be better against single targets, since those are often dangeriously → block. Scepter + Pistol / Sword + Sword for those. And if you need AoE ofc the scepter will be the wrong choice. Sword + Focus / GS it is then.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Not to mention Sc/Sw + Sc/X has two phantasm cooldowns versus GS which only has one.

… so … if you use GS you use no other weapons? seems legit :P