Guild Wars 2

I’m playing a condi build. As Messiah posted in another thread, warriors can now have very long periods of resistance to condi damage. So I decided to try out using phantasmal disenchanter for the boon removal (and bonus extra condi removal).

The downsides:
- Cast time is painfully long (1.5 seconds base – I’m playing mainhand scepter only with malicious sorcery, so it’s closer to 1.25 seconds – still it’s very slow)
- It dies like other phantasms to AoE (I do have Persisting Images that gives 20% more health)
- If the initial target blocks, dodges, etc, the bolt seems to stop – so no bounces. In fact, if a warrior blocks, it gets reflected to hit me.
- It takes a utility slot which is darn valuable on a mesmer
- It doesn’t appear to record it’s results in the pvp statistics, so it’s hard to know how effective it is without recording video and watching each shot. (The boons removed and conditions removed stats don’t seem to show what disenchanter does)

The upsides:
- It shoots about once every 3 seconds.
- Each shot can bounce 4 times and remove 2 boons or 2 condi’s
- It does a little damage (around 230 per hit, and another 230 or so from retaliation with Persisting Images)
- It’s a phantasm, so it benefits from inspiration recharge reduction (20 seconds to 16), persistence of memory and chronophantasma.

Anyone trying to use this utility? I’m testing it with a couple of pvp matches per day, but there’s such varieties of skills in matches, it’s a bit tricky to kitten.

I have tried it as a condi cleansing and it has so many issues it is not worth to take. But the biggest ones are:

• The cast time is utterly long. 1,5s plus 0,75s of phantasm cast time plus the time of the projectile animation makes it worse than a mantra. By the time it hits a lot of things have happened.
  A 0.25s skill cast time plus a reduction to 0,5s of phantasm attack cast time (which is needed across all phantasms) would solve the problem.
• The projectile mechanic is annoying as hell. The condi cleansing is hided behind the boon ripping, so if it doesn’t hit in the enemy the whole phantasm is useless.
  It needs an AoE pulse effect to end with the misery we have with bouncing projectile based phantasms.

If these 2 are fixed it would be a valid option for more condi cleansing and also boon ripping, which is entirely tided to Domination and with the boon fest it’s less profiting.

In PvE yes. Especially in fractals.

I tried in PvP – the cast time is just far too long… it’s a great phantasm but I feel like it’s an eternity by the time it comes out.

In the past it was troublesome enough. Now with Hot, projectiles have a hundred more blocks to deal with, a thousand more reflects, and a million more invuln frames to overcome.

How.. the… kitten XD

In 1v1 you can put it far and it will do OK
Just don’t shatter often this is the big problem
In team fight useless

Thx for the feedback. It feels like it should be such great synergy with build, but it’s a real challenge to use.

After trying it for a few fights, I feel like I can only use it in a couple of situations:
- Entering a fight as a +1 when I’m not the target (e.g. coming to mid after capping home)
- Later in a 1v1 fight if I force the opponent to disengage or I create some space

The problem with the first case is that I always want to shatter shortly after entering the fight, so I need to create enough time for at least the first cast or it really does nothing.

Taking just 0.25 off the cast time would probably be all I need. An alternative is to keep the painful cast time and make the projectile unblockable.

If I record some decent video of using it well, I’ll share it. (I have a lot of video of using it poorly… lol)

the problem is in the concept
anet wants us to use shatter as a main core but put our defenses in the phantasm
if they would create phantasm build than i guess it could work as you rarely shatter with phantasm build

No, due to it’s bad implementation.

It’s solid in PvE if you actually need that kind of boon stripping output (rarely necessary).

It used to be great in PvP, but as ross mentioned there’s so much more random aoe pressure and defenses flying around that it’s largely become useless.

Ansau.7326:

It needs an AoE pulse effect to end with the misery we have with bouncing projectile based phantasms.

Next post: “But ANet, I have to hump that phantasm to get any condi cleanses and it always runs off! ;_;”

(Chain-Projectiles do have some upsides :P )

Only in fractals, especially with the good old “boons on crit” instability. Those were the days.

It’s a very good pick in pve in some situations. Mainly in fotm, when you need the constant boonstrip, even better on bosses. Nullfield can’t keep up. I love this phant. It’s best used in the Volcanic fractal to remove both burn and boons.

But outside of fotm and some condi heavy pve situations, I don’t think it’s too good. It should be implemented into a trait, maybe together with Mistrust or something, just like they did with the iDefender..

No, as said the cast is too long, the projectile is too unreliable, the condi/boon rip too transient due to shatters and the phantasm not good in a moving or large fights (ie not around a conquest point).

I think both utility skills (and every phantasm weapon skill) should have an immediate active effect like Shield 4, which I know has been suggested by several people in here before.

So if the utility skill stripped 2 boons and removed 2 conditions while casting the pDisenchanter it might be more useful. Similarly the pDefender utility could also grant aoe protection on cast.