Guild Wars 2

I would guess that this build is a lot like many other phantasm builds. Also, it should work with any race that has a good elite summon skill.

This is not a great WvW build for many reasons (the only swiftness comes from swapping in focus when I’m not in combat), there’s almost nothing for mobility in combat (except sword#3 which is a bit unreliable for me), and it’s pretty slow to develop in a fight. If you play WvW on a serious level server, I imagine you could get ridiculed for even trying it.

But it’s fun for me, so I wanted to share. What it does well for me is taking supply camps solo and letting me bring down some players quickly. It doesn’t require the skill and reflexes of some builds. Maybe someday I’ll be able to bounce around like Osicat, but for now, this build lets me enjoy WvW within my current skill level.

Here’s the build:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.1|1.1g.h1h|c.1g.h19.a.1g.h1h|1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j|4s.d1g.21k.e14.3t.e17.21k.e14.1c.61.1c.61|k3a.u249.0.0.k3a|39.7|31.3l.36.39.4|e

Basically, I’m trying to get to high toughness and vitality while keeping crit chance and crit damage high enough. It ends up being around 19,000 health before WvW buffs and about 1400 toughness. I’m actually using three pieces of Sentinels gear, but the build calculator won’t show it. The phantams end up around 80% crit chance and 80% crit damage.

The fun part of the build is the Series-7 Golem racial elite skill. This thing is ridiculously slow to cast (2 seconds immobile). It falls out of the sky and buries itself in the ground. Then it gets up and thinks about whether it wants a mocha or a latte and then it might get down to business. It has a pretty low health pool too. Why is this fun? Well, it unloads with some nice ranged shots and it sticks around for 40 seconds. And it benefits from both phantasmal defender and signet of illusions, so it actually tends to be up and running for the full 40 seconds. And it looks cool and nobody else uses it (so there might be a tiny bit of shock value).

To take a camp with this build, you pop the golem out of combat then enter the fray with all three phantasms on a guard or scout. It will go down pretty quickly, and you should be able to move to a second one before the golem goes away.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful or at least humorous for you. Someday, I think it would be riot to see an army of Asuran mesmers come running across the battlefield with their legions of golems and phantasms. Have fun!

I love the attack golem in pve, although have never considered using it in wvw because of the horrible cast time and as you said, making it’s mind up about what to drink before it starts attacking. :p

But I didn’t know it works with SoI and the defender! So I take it half of the damage the golem receives is routed to the defender similar to the player?

I guess if one can cope with mantras (which I’m horrible with) then the golem should be manageable too.

You’re using Runes of Divinity, which are typically overrated. Why not swap to Runes of the Golemancer? For even more Golem Madness. It has a knockback attack and will pressure the enemy. I mean, it IS a for-fun build.

Also, try using Signet of Illusions as it will apply to both the Defender and the Golem(s).

EDIT: Didn’t notice you already wrote about SoI, in your build you’re using Null Field.

@curunen – yes – the golem gets the increased health from SOI (assuming he gets the affect on him before he dies – sometimes it takes several seconds before the effect applies). And the golem gets the effect from the Defender as long as he is within 600 of the defender (so usually this effect will go away because the first target dies and then the golem picks a new target and it’s questionable whether I’ll get the new Defender cast and close enough to the golem)

@esplen hopefully the link is fixed now – it should show SOI, Defender and Null Field. I agree the Golemancer runes would be even more fun – great suggestion. I don’t run COE that often, so I think it will take a very long time for me to get all the runes. I’d love to see a video with both golems in play – that would be hilarious – and I’d be curious if SOI applied to the golem from the runes. Thx for the suggestions!

I’m quite sure it will apply to the Golems, I’ve just had some odd experiences with summons and SoI recently involving Embers from Fire Elemental Powder, where my SoI applied, then never re-applied. I can check with the Elite Golem as we speak.

EDIT: I forgot, I think that the SoI only applies in Combat (?) so my testing was not very helpful.

As an aside, will Phantasmal Defender and SoI work for every racial summon? For instance, my Sylvari hound?

I couldn’t test Silvari exactly, but I think it worked with the ghostfire wolf. The wiki says SOI works with any mobile summon.