Guild Wars 2

I’m a bit worried about the illusions line on the new specialization calculator.

From what I understand, condition damage for power builds is going away. This is our shatter tree and shatter has always drawn its strengths from bursts based on power.

Going into the new core specializations, I don’t think this will change.

What perturbs me about this is that in the Master/Mid Tier level, there is no power option for shatter builds.

All three choices are terrible.

1.) Sum of All Fears: Condition ho-hum
2.) Phantasmal Haste: If your running DE and a shatter build are your phantasms really going to be up for any more than one attack cycle? Useless.
3.) Malicious Sorcery: Lol, really?

This really has to be looked at. All three of these belong in different places.

Well when HoT comes out most shatter power builds will probably go dom/duel/chrono uses alacrity to manage shatter cooldowns since the shatter improving GM trait in illusions won’t be needed since mental torment is in dom.

Still, you must know that the point of these specializations is to specialize in an area. Now illusions will truly be what it is, a specialize for condition damage, that uses shatter to condi bomb. Since the 15% illusion recharge, IP, and Ielast, will be baseline (they were the old reasons to even go into illusion at all for shatter) you’d only want to go into illusions for a condition build.

My power-based shatter build will likely be going domination/dueling/chaos because I use a full set of manipulation skills with it. The chaos line allows me to improve those a lot, and it still has useful things for a power setup (i.e. mirror of anguish, stab on shatter).

However, I forget what the master of fragmentation trait is supposed to do. I might actually look at dropping domination for illusions, but it would be a tough trade to make.

Master of fragmentation merges all the old shatter traits, like imbued diversión and precise wracking into one. Still I don’t think it’s working going into when you can get chaotic interruption from chaos or seize the moment or lost time from chrono.

While I like how Anet trying to make Illusions optional and Chronomancy line shaping up to be an appealing line for shatter builds, I agree with OP that this traitline (with the new traits revealed so far) could use some tweaks to offer power builds more. Right now, the master slot is almost just catering for condi builds.

My suggestion is to merge Phantasmal Haste with Persistence of Memory in the Adept slot, this will open up an empty slot in Master tier to truly cater for power builds. What to fill in this slot?

Option 1: Bring back Illusionary Invigoration(recharge shatter skills when health drops below 50%, 60s icd) —> this will make Illusions line compete nicely with Chrono

Option 2: Design a new trait that is power-based. I offer an idea below.
New major trait in Illusions line:
Depowering Strike
- Ripping boons will now deal dmg to enemies.
- Dmg per boon = 1/3 of Halting Strike dmg (same stat scaling) and can still crit.
- No ICD.

Btw, might as well buff Sum of All Fears while we’re at it.

The whole illusion trait line is not well-designed at the moment.
Traits of similar utility kinda compete for same spots and will simply be judged by their raw power. Phantasmal Haste definitely needs improvment.

I agree that MoF is most appealing for power builds because any condition build going into illusions would naturally take MtD at the moment, and add to that the master major traits serve no purpose for a power shatter build it seems silly.

Phantasmal haste needs to be moved/merged and introduce something like “shattering a phantasm has additional effects over shattering a clone”:
1. MW – more damage?
2. CoF – an extra confusion stack?
3. Div – 2s daze per phantasm?
4. Dis – 2s distort per phantasm?

Ok distortion could be overpowered as you could get 7s if shattering 3 phantasms, but it might be ok because most of the time in a shatter build you would be shattering one or maximum two phantasms.

I like the idea of stacking this with MoF which should give a solid reason to pick the illusion line in a power shatter build. Otherwise as it stands, chrono or chaos (or even inspiration for sustain and condi cleanse) are clearly better choices for power.

All to be fair though, I know with the necromancer line they took most of the power traits out of curses because they wanted it to feel like a more condition focused line. Again, the developer’s want specialization in a particular area to occur. The only reason that master of fragmentation is even there is most likely because they couldn’t think of anything else.

I do agree that the line should be looked at, since right now if you go into at all, you’re going to only take the pledge, malicious sorcery, and maim the disillusioned, for a condition build the other choices really aren’t even a contest. For a power build though you’re wasting your time there. The thing is that Chaos and Chronomancy offer way more potential for a power shatter build at the moment, meaning that you really don’t have a reason to go into illusions for a power shatter build. That may be difficult for some of you to grasp, that we no longer need illusions in every single shatter build, but I think its a good thing.

I do agree that phantasmal haste, and maybe compounding power, should be moved to be a some trait in GM, purely for PvE builds (as long as it doesn’t compete with glamour or focus traits). If they’rre going to make illusions a condition based specialization, then they need to go all the way while making each choice benefit a dinstict and different playstyle from one another. The necromancer cureses GM example is having terror, parasitic contagion, and lingering curses share a slot. All of them offer fundamentally different ways to create a condition build that aren’t comparable in just raw power alone because they provide condition damage in vastly different ways.

So therefor master of fragmentation needs to be buffed enough to provide a different sort of condition mesmer build, and blinding befuddlement needs to not suck.

It all depends on the numbers in the end. Yes, the Master trait choices are a bit weak for power, but if MoF is done right this will not greatly impact Illusions competitiveness to other choices. Not to say this means the Master traits shouldn’t get tweaked to better cater to Power builds, but I think we’re probably underestimating Illusions a bit in this thread.

- You will get an additional 15% CD reduction plus Might from Shattered Strength
- Illusionists Celerity is also a very powerful trait that lowers many CDs for Mesmers and shouldn’t be overlooked.
- The Adept trait choices are solid for power builds as many still take Torch, and the damage bonus from Compounding Power is never a bad thing. ;-)
- MoF may feature another damage bonus based on the screen shots, possibly a +20% crit chance (another damage bonus really), and some nice utility for F3 & F4 shatters. (Speaking of, shouldn’t F5 also get an effect for MoF? :-) )

I think that Sum of All Fears should simply be tweaked to be useful to both Power and Condie builds. Since it is based on Confusion application, it should simply be a “take X damage when 5 or more stacks of Confusion are applied.” Then you can keep the new “once per target every 5s” limitation as well. You could make X a flat damage value regardless of Power/Condie, or you could make it Power based with ability to Crit (similar to Halting Strike) and then keep the Torment. (It’s too weak on it’s own anyway being just 1 stack per target!)

What if they kept the spread as is, but changed phantasmal haste so it gave phantasm permanent quickness. The cd on attacks are longer but the attacks themselves are quicker.