Guild Wars 2

Here’s the build: http://goo.gl/pBgg0.

Exclusively for small group or solo roaming in WvW, this build suffers pretty bad in sPvP – no condition duration food bonus – and does very little damage in PvE – still has strong support, so it’s far from the worst choice, but you should probably bring something else.

Quick run-down for those too lazy, busy, or what-have-you to look through the link…

Staff (Battle) and Scepter (Battle)/Torch (Smoldering).
Apothecary armor and trinkets, 2x Mad King/2x Water/2x Lyssa for runes.
0/0/20/30/20 with IV/X in Chaos, IV/X/XII in Inspiration, and V/VII in Illusions.
Rare Veggie Pizza and Master Tuning Crystal for buffs.

Utilities change based on what you’re doing. Mantra of Recovery is always your heal spell, MI nearly always your Elite, and I hardly – if ever – take Mantra of Pain off my bar.

Good Overall Utilities: Mantra of Pain, Blink, Decoy, Mirror Images, Feedback.
Good Solo Roaming Utilities: Signet of Domination, Phantasmal Defender, Mantra of Resolve, Arcane Thievery.
Good Group Roaming Utilities: Veil, Portal, Null Field, Phantasmal Disenchanter.

If roaming by myself I’m usually taking MoP, Phantasmal Defender, and Signet of Domination. Group stuff is more complicated and depends a lot on the group, but again I usually have MoP.

Pros of this build…
1) Very difficult to kill. 1800 toughness, 18,000 health, 1300 healing power. Reduced overall damage. Permanent regeneration. Constant large heals from charging Mantras and shattering.
2) Lots and lots of DoT. High condition duration with several steady methods of applying conditions. High up-time on retaliation and chaos armor. Even confusion is good here because your opponent simply cannot afford to give you a lengthy time to heal back up.
3) Excellent small group support. Constant AoE regeneration and healing. Lots of boons with staff clones, Chaos Storm, and boon duration. And, of course, general Mesmer utility with Veil/Portal/reflection.

Cons of the build…
1) Incapable of chasing. You may not lose any fights, but plenty of people will just run away from you.
2) No burst. You can spike confusion but only bad players will proc it needlessly with lots of stacks on them, so the point is kind of moot.
3) No direct damage. Your power and precision are pitiful and you’re running Staff/Scepter. Don’t expect to see big numbers on your auto-attacks.
4) Not amazing at cleansing. You shouldn’t go down to condition builds because you have a fairly consistent cleanse on MoR and a huge array of healing methods, but it is still worth mentioning.

Anyways. Discuss if you wish, hopefully this can become even more refined in the future.

And saved for possible future additions and whatnot.

1), why earth sigils?u have pure crit chance even with rampager trinkets.
imo on staff better energy sigil, on sceptr coruption
why battle sigil if u still dont do normal burst dmg? better lockdown enemy with freeze for 3 sec with chill
lyssa save my kitten many time with mass invis when i try away with stability and aegis
and rampager? srsly? strong deff util and traits and use this glass cannon piece of … isnt
rly good i guess
2) dueling is offense trait tree. nothing good for this build
3) well its depend on ur playstyle. if u wanna use focus u must trait this wep for more bonus, epic gun in alot of situation, chase enemy or block ranged atack. pistol dont rly good in this build becouse u need dueling trait tree for bliding on phatasmal crit. and it only vs 1
4)well here we can have alot of discusion, if ur group biger than 5 ppl. mass invis is uselles. time warp is good ofc but for me its to long cd, i found moa epic skill now in 1vs1 and small group <5 ppl. u just lockdown for 10 sec most danger enemy, like thief or warrior or some bunker.

p.s its only IMO
p.s.s. sry bad eng

@drongas: No worries on the English, mate. If I can understand you it’s more than good enough.

Anyways.

Sigil of Earth is better than it first appears. You have base 28% critical chance, and have essentially 100% Fury in a dueling situation to put it at 48%. If you auto-attack with Staff once every two seconds and factor in nothing else, you still have a fairly high chance of having it proc on CD with Staff.

Probably not quite as good on Scepter, though, which is a good point. Should consider something different there.

Rampager trinkets are essentially only for reaching the necessary precision to proc Sigil of Earth on CD as you rotate through everything. If I could cut them I would, but they’re the only set that gives precision as the major bonus.

So, any discussion about removing Sigil of Earth needs to include the possible positive side-effect of being able to switch Rampager to something else. This is one of the biggest areas where change might work its way into the build, but it requires more testing than anything else.

Dueling is actually pretty amazing here in some respects. Sharper Images means more Bleeding but requires a heavier investment into precision. Deceptive Evasion means more shatters which means both more heals and more confusion, and more illusions in general means more conditions.

I’ll agree that Focus would probably require traiting to receive the nod over Torch. Unfortunately, taking out any of the other traits in Inspiration robs the build of one of its key elements. Pistol I would only consider if respeccing into at least 15 Dueling and more precision, as its only really good if you can get 4-5 bleeds with iDuelist.

I really just wish iMage was anything other than a one-shot Confusion and shatter fodder.

I’ll agree with you almost entirely on the Elite skills. I would probably dump MI if I were running anything other than Lyssa runes, but as is I’m probably going to keep it as the default.

EDIT: Completely forgot to mention the Sigil of Battle. This is actually the thing I’m least sold on in the entire build outside of the Sigil of Earth on Scepter. It’s great because the build really enjoys the extra damage, but you’re not constantly swapping to take the most advantage of it. Might be better to switch to something with higher immediate impact on swap, a la Sigil of Hydromancy.

then i offer u remove 15 points from iliusion (ofc u loose 15% shater recharge on heal and 150 cond dmg) and put in dueling, then u have 43% base crit. and take protected mantras. use pistol ofc
leave 5 points in illusion tree for phantasmals and decoy with mirror images

edit: but still i think we not necromancers, we must choise or we condmasters or direct dmg

I’ll give my opinion that using apothecary trinkets, unless you go fully ascended, is not worth it. They currently cost over 50 gold each. No one will ever utilize your build fully if you recommend apothecary trinkets in their current state.

@drongas: This is one of the only other trait distributions I’ve actually tested. Biggest problem with it is that you lose out on a lot of healing and confusion in long fights because you’re missing extra shatters, extra confusion, and a bunch of extra confusion duration.

Oh, and Illusionary Elasticity, which means you’d have to go deeper into precision to make Sigil of Earth useful to begin with.

So, yeah, it doesn’t really work out all that well.

@Pyroatheist: One of several reasons that I suggest going for Rampager’s trinkets with Apothecary jewels in them.

To be fair, it is still 9 gold for each jewel at that point, but it’s a hell of a lot better than paying 50 for each trinket.

If you want basically the same setup you can switch the jewels around, as well. You’ll end up with either slightly less healing or slightly less condition damage, but the build still runs the same way. You can even manage more precision, but at that point you’re really starting to give up a bit too much of the rest of the build to support the bleeding from Sigil of Earth, which is probably not a good idea. (To be fair, haven’t tested that, so I can’t say for certain. Rather difficult to test every possible workable stat distribution, though.)

I’m personally running a mix of Ascended trinkets that give roughly the same distribution with more stats and some random unnecessary bonuses, but none of them significantly impact how the build feels.

Apothecary trinkets are expensive but if you happen to have a set of apothecary I can see this working.

This is what i have been running its tanky with good condition duration, boon duration, and healing.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.0|6.1b.h1h|b.1f.hf.f.1m.h1h|1f.7g.1f.7g.1f.71h.1f.71h.1f.7i.1f.7i|1f.66.21m.0.1f.66.1f.66.1f.66.1b.62|0.0.k4a.k4a.u57b|30.d|32.36.3l.3d.0|e

The best way I can describe it is a condition damage version of the Immortal mesmer build.

70% condition duration with scepter/torch 80% burn duration with scepter torch I havent found anything else except smoldering to put on the torch tbh. 70% and 80% will both yield 5 seconds of burning from prestige so its not really worth it.

93% duration on confusion with scepter/torch

60% duration with staff

35% boon duration

You basically play it similar to immortal mesmer except you use mage to keep retal up since he gets boon duration now. I run this with phantasmal haste so he casts 4.8 secs to keep it up. If you move 30pts to chaos or slot signet of midnight or use the boon duration food then you can get 5 secs of retal from mage.

So ideal openers 1vX is prestige pop mage, pop defender go to work with staff while they take double retal damage everytime they hit you. Then you have condition duration on top of it with decent condition damage even with low power the retal damage is pretty good I believe it procs for 281 with this build. So thats 281*2 on top of whatever else you putting on them. 5 secs of confusion from mage and 9 secs of confusion from scepter.

You cant chase anyone down but you wont die and anyone greedy you can kill. Really the only thing that gives me problems 1v1 is a phantasm mesmer running duelist or sword/sword and they are power based.

From what I can tell there are only a handful of differences between my setup and yours…

1) Sigil of Battle over Sigil of Earth. Probably the right call, as not having to invest into more precision gives you more ability to take what you want.

2) You go for a bunch of (2) duration bonuses, while I’m running all six runes of Lyssa. Are you finding that works out well? I personally love the added cleanse on Mass Invisbility, as it basically gives you the time to summon a phantasm and channel an entire Mantra to put yourself more or less back to full.

A shame that the precision would be going to waste without Sigil of Earth, so that alone might change my mind, but I’ll have to see how it plays out.

3) 30 points in Illusions over 30 points in Inspiration. I personally wouldn’t ever run this build without the full 30 in Inspiration, as the continuous shattering is easily half of the build’s healing.

Illusionary Persona also doesn’t seem exceptional here – you do get the free one second on Distortion and some extra confusion, but you don’t particularly care about getting the fourth illusion hit on things like Mind Wrack.

Have you tried 30 points in Inspiration?

4) Some utility differences. For instance, I would never run without Mantra of Pain and have zero interest in Signet of Illusions since I shatter so much.

Have you tried running MoP for the chain healing when necessary?

But, yeah, outside of that we’re basically spot on the same build. Completely agree with you on how it plays, as well, although there are problems outside of phantasm Mesmers, a la BM Ranger or a good S/D or D/P Thief.

Yea I like the duration runes better reason I go for more duration is you can keep uptime on them higher. I did the math before and the +20% from Mad King and Lyssa is good enough for duration while still getting the extra boon duration from water. anything more would be wasted unless I wanted to go bleed duration but since I don’t have 15 pts in dueling for bleeds from crits I dont feel like the extra bleed duration is worth it. The main damage is the staff and clone conditions and Retal damage.

The reason I don’t go 30 points in inspiration though I tried it is the scaling on the heal on shatter isn’t awesome if you have more than 1 clone out. So I like IP for the distortion basically and extra stun break/get out of jail card. I do use confusing cry sometimes for extra retal uptime and the might from shatter is good for extra power and condition damge. More power=more retal damage. I also feel like regen keeps me up enough and I can cast from prestige, or I cast MOR in chaos storm or when I have protection up.

I was thinking about mantra of pain to see how it works but everytime I come into a fight against more than 1 person I feel like defender would have held me up if I die he makes a big difference 1vX.

Protection is -33% damage + idefender -50% + illusionary defense -9% with 3 illusions out. The only thing better than that much defense is a ability that makes you invulnerable.

I do like the duration bonuses, and if I do end up going without Sigil of Earth the precision from Lyssa does seem like a huge waste.

Restorative Illusions is better, I think, than you give it credit for. 1000 healing power puts you at healing 880 with a single Illusion, and you only need one to get above 1000 healing with a single shatter.

If you factor in charging Mantra of Pain during The Prestige, you can go in, become invisible, cast iMage, charge Mantra, shatter iMage after its first cast and have healed for ~3700 during your three seconds of invisibility. Including the regeneration from iMage and/or other sources and you’re looking at very nearly 5000 healing while invisible. It’s a little silly.

(To be fair, you will be visible for .5 seconds after the charging is complete, but I’ve never had a real problem with this.)

Agreed on iDefender. If I’m running solo and expect to have to deal with multiple other roamers, I’m usually running iDefender, Signet of Domination, and Mantra of Pain.

Like with confusion, iDefender creates a lose-lose situation for your opponent. You cast it when you’re at half health, and they can either hit you and do nothing for a while because iDefender takes half of the already very reduced damage, or they can take out iDefender, in which case you most likely have enough time to charge up MoP again and can/will shatter iDefender right before it dies for more healing.

If they try to kill you, they essentially can’t because of iDefender. If they try to kill iDefender, you heal an immense amount while they do. And in either case, they’re taking damage from Retaliation – not much because of our low power – and from all the conditions that should be applied more or less constantly.

The only reason I don’t always take both of them is that other utility slots start becoming better and better as you have more people with you. Portal, Veil, and Null Field all come to mind immediately.

And an update…

Superior Sigil of Earth is gone. Testing showed full Apothecary was better than taking Rampager trinkets and trying to support it.

Going with runes to grab duration, rather than 6 runes of Lyssa for the cleanse on MI. Has been working out much better, although I sometimes miss the (6) bonus.

Also updated suggested utilities.

Outside of that, everything has seemed spot on. Tried going with Dueling/Rampager’s before dropping it entirely, but it did not do the job. 0/0/20/20/30 worked, but did not have the lengthy staying power you get with 30 points in Inspiration.

(I had also been working on a ‘budget’ build that used less Apothecary gear, took Cleric instead, and relied more on retaliation than condition damage, but assuming prices continue to drop because of living story stuff, this should no longer be necessary. Hopefully more people will be able to try this out now that the it doesn’t take ~250 gold to get the trinkets for everything…)

And a quick update, for anyone who is interested…

1) Settler’s trinkets are incredibly cheap in the TP now, and work just as well as the normal Apothecary ones.

2) Normal Apothecary trinkets are also much cheaper.

Build itself is still the same and is still working about as well (bounce logic changes are a pain in some ways, but it doesn’t hurt as hard as I thought it would), but hopefully some of you will be more interested in trying it out now that you don’t have to dump a bunch of cash on the trinkets and/or grind for Ascended gear to run it.

Looks really fun, how good is the healing from Restorative Illusions?

and what utilities do you find yourself using most often?

Healing from Restorative Illusions is quite good. Not as good as (have to add something here to dodge the filter…) Shattered Conditions in all cases, but it tends to do its job quite well. Some maths…

Mind Wrack’s Maximum Health per Second (MHPS) is usually about (680 + 192 * 3 + 1300 * .2) / (15 * .8) = 1516 / 12 = 126 HPS.

Cry of Frustration’s MHPS is at 1516 / 24 = 63 HPS.

Assuming the more likely scenario of shattering at two each time, you’re still looking at around 150 HPS in addition to the possibility of more with extra Illusions and even more when adding in your other Shatters.

Not as good as Regeneration, but you have more control over when you gain the health and gain it in much larger chunks, so it often evens out.

As to utilities, if I’m solo roaming I now take pretty much only Mantra of Recovery, Signet of Domination, Phantasmal Defender, Mantra of Pain, and Mass Invisibility. Defender and Signet are both too good to pass up, and I usually end up with MoP as my last slot because it lets you keep Illusions out longer and still heal up.

If I’m in a group I usually drop Signet of Domination and Phantasmal Defender in favor of Blink, Feedback, Portal, Null Field, or Veil – in about that order for how likely I am to slot them in. Blink is often non-negotiable, as it both allows you to keep up with the group and drop some focus when combined with Phase Retreat/The Prestige/Mass Invisibility.