Guild Wars 2

Been out of the loop for a while, but it seems as if there’s not a lot of love for phantasm builds these days. Is there a reason no one generally talks about them much? Have they dropped out of the meta? Or were they never really vaible in PvP and WvW to begin with? What gives?

Bunda.2691:

Been out of the loop for a while, but it seems as if there’s not a lot of love for phantasm builds these days. Is there are reason no one generally talks about them much? Have they dropped out of the meta? Or were they never really vaible in PvP and WvW to begin with? What gives?

Phantasm builds are inherently flawed because of phant AI and mass amounts of enemy aoe spam (including raw cleave aa). (Metabattle is testing a full DPS phant build atm)

At best I came up with Phantrupt (see sig) which alleviate the issue (utilizing iDuelist range, and high respawn uptime through traited pistol and OH sword). Couple this with blocks, rupts, daze/stuns, CS, and it can work in a DPS role. It’s not meta though (tornament meta) and only works in a general play level.

It’s widely held that Mes only has IP shatter (with portal) in the meta. Though there’s strong arguments that mes is completely out of the meta.

Currently, as of right now, Mesmers are calling for universal buffs to Mesmer in almost every aspect (with, perhaps, the exception of IP shatter, except in a vs thief scenario).

Phantasm centric builds have never been meta outside duels. That didn’t stop arenanet from caving in to whines and nerfing phantasm cd’s and traits associated with them anyways, making them not summon on blind, and making them not work out of LOS

Zenith.7301:

and making them not work out of LOS

Let’s be honest though, being able to destroy any seige placed within 1200 range of anywhere a mesmer could reach was sorta broken.

Fun….but really broken.

They’re the same as they ever were. Vastly superior for everything PvE related, not worth considering for most PvP/WvW scenarios.

As a player who played tpvp with phantasm builds since release, i must say there are 3 Problems with them in this game mode.

The first problem is, that your Phantasms will be destroyed really quick, because of aoe damage.
The second problem is, that most people just can´t play phantasm builds.
And the third problem is, that most people love shatter builds because you can burst your enemy faster down or its just more fun for others, because there are many ways to shatter your enemy.

In WvW, most of Mesmers are playing Condi or Shatter, but for roaming the phantasm builds are fine.

But yea, phantasm wasn´t meta. Shatter is more useful for every sPvP scenario.

It was never meta in PvP, it’s only viable in very low tiers but what isn’t viable there?

Ross Biddle.2367:

(Metabattle is testing a full DPS phant build atm)

And it’s just as bad as any other phantasm build if not worse. The fact that it’s sitting at 4.0 not 1.0 out of 5 shows that the current rating system can be easily exploited, that’s why we’re not going to let it pass testing before the new system is in place.

Phantasm is inherently disadvantaged in conquest due to AOEs destroying your phantasms too often and the fact that it’s largely single-target in its focus with little team utility.

If I’m playing phantasm, I prefer the signet condition variety due to the fact that your clones dying ties into your overall dmg output. Click the link in my signature for a thorough discussion of the varieties it available. It’s a super fun build that I’ve helped to popularize, and I get a lot of positive feedback from it!! Still, even that build has some glaring flaws that can make it really hard to be viable in several situations.

As with universally all Mesmer builds, you will find it harder to be successful the higher you climb in tier based on skill level.

MailMail.6534:

Phantasm is inherently disadvantaged in conquest due to AOEs destroying your phantasms too often and the fact that it’s largely single-target in its focus with little team utility.

If I’m playing phantasm, I prefer the signet condition variety due to the fact that your clones dying ties into your overall dmg output. Click the link in my signature for a thorough discussion of the varieties it available. It’s a super fun build that I’ve helped to popularize, and I get a lot of positive feedback from it!! Still, even that build has some glaring flaws that can make it really hard to be viable in several situations.

As with universally all Mesmer builds, you will find it harder to be successful the higher you climb in tier based on skill level.

Countless’ build is a bit of a different case. Phantasm builds rely on, well, phantasms to do 90% of the work, and if you kill those then the mesmer becomes useless, thus it’s bad in every situation bigger than 1v1 and often even in 1v1s too (a thief with shortbow can entirely shut down phantasm builds just by autoattacking, or a warrior can use the longbow field to burn away all of them, etc).

The clone death build on the other hand is the opposite, it benefits from your enemies killing your clones/phantasms, while still having a decent phantasm/personal dmg with great sustain. It’s one of those situations where someone hit gold in a junkyard.

You’re preaching to the choir director here. Obviously, I think Malignant Inscriptions is the superior hybrid phantasm build! #hairflip

Power based versions could ideally take advantage of clone death traits as well, but where they lack is the sustain which is given by traited signets. There was some discussion of using power based versions in my thread. I’ve tested it out, and it didn’t feel great. It is a bit different, but I group them under the same category of phantasms considering your main dmg source in signets is your pDuelist.

witcher.3197:

MailMail.6534:

Phantasm is inherently disadvantaged in conquest due to AOEs destroying your phantasms too often and the fact that it’s largely single-target in its focus with little team utility.

If I’m playing phantasm, I prefer the signet condition variety due to the fact that your clones dying ties into your overall dmg output. Click the link in my signature for a thorough discussion of the varieties it available. It’s a super fun build that I’ve helped to popularize, and I get a lot of positive feedback from it!! Still, even that build has some glaring flaws that can make it really hard to be viable in several situations.

As with universally all Mesmer builds, you will find it harder to be successful the higher you climb in tier based on skill level.

Countless’ build is a bit of a different case. Phantasm builds rely on, well, phantasms to do 90% of the work, and if you kill those then the mesmer becomes useless, thus it’s bad in every situation bigger than 1v1 and often even in 1v1s too (a thief with shortbow can entirely shut down phantasm builds just by autoattacking, or a warrior can use the longbow field to burn away all of them, etc).

The clone death build on the other hand is the opposite, it benefits from your enemies killing your clones/phantasms, while still having a decent phantasm/personal dmg with great sustain. It’s one of those situations where someone hit gold in a junkyard.

90% of work do the phantasm? That is just wrong. If a player summon some illusions, goes into stealth, kite and is like: wheeey just catch me , then you will probably be beaten by your enemy. The trick there is to find a way between kiting and still be offensive.

You need to do some damage, you can shatter, you can do some autoattacks, you can make some weapon skills. But most Player Ive seen are just like:
“Yep, thats my phantasm. Go and kill my enemy. Oh wtf why are you dead? ……..What can i do know? I will swap to my shatterbuild.”

I agree, when you must stay on point, no way. But a mobile phantasm mesmer can be a really hard enemy in an organized group when it comes to WvW Small Scale.

^ I wasn’t talking about WvW. You certainly do not have to care about capture points there and don’t always fight a team, also phantasm HP is higher just like offensive stats. It might work there.

But for PvP phantasm builds are just bad.

Celeras.4980:

They’re the same as they ever were. Vastly superior for everything PvE related, not worth considering for most PvP/WvW scenarios.

I’d substitute “vastly superior” to “not as utter garbage” in that sentence. Phantasm builds aren’t good in pve, they’re just all mesmers have as an option for pve.

Anet just phailed at Phantoms… they meant to be “3D Curses” that stick on targets ad pop dps over long time. But its totaly other hand.

they should be counterpart to Conditions, but
Conditions: are supperior, huge dmg over time, easy to aply, clean dont hurt them
OP 3D Hexs: Have huge spike dmg ever 5/8s, Huge coldowns (most is 15/30s) for some reason long casting time, easy to ride of by any cleave/AoE

I rly think Anet need to make Phantoms More like a Real Curses and make Phantoms totaly immunite to AoE (even Cleave) so only Direct dmg can kill them, and change the way they attack/do dmg to fell like an actual curse and foce players to focus on them as they should.

What if phantasms can’t be crit or conditions can’t be applied to them? That’d add some extra survivability, may even let them live to deliver 2nd/3rd round of attacks. Also lore friendly since they’re illusions created out of opponent’s mind and thus shouldn’t be susceptible to conditions. Still trying to think of a reason for crit though

We can only dream lol.

because buffing low risk builds and passive gameplay would be fun

Terekhov.3670:

because buffing low risk builds and passive gameplay would be fun

You’re playing an AI based class, you better get used to that evil “passive gameplay”.

You want active gameplay, go play ele or guardian or thief or warrior. It doesn’t even make sense you would call it passive gameplay, you virtually have to press a button and not be blinded, with a 1 second cast time on a long cd unlike virtually all the other short cast spike skills “active” classes have.

Pets have always been a handicap anyways.

Tell me why a bersercer Phantasm mesmer (which has less stealth then shatter) is a low risk build

MandJ.8965:

Tell me why a bersercer Phantasm mesmer (which has less stealth then shatter) is a low risk build

Yeah I don’t know. On phantrupt I have no DE, no IP, no staff, no OH torch, not even the bonus hp’s from a zerk ammy having opted for assassins.

Gotta be on your game with that setup.

I would really want to know it. I played shatter since release and found it much more easier then a Phantasm Build. Maybe because you can burst the enemy down before he can do something, just be more offensive?

You won’t get an answer. It’s a spvp whinebaby gimmick, hating pet builds is an easy posturing game.