Guild Wars 2

This is something I’m trying. You can see all the pertinent information on the merged screenshot. One game was great, the other two we had a leaver and got stomped.

My general idea is a close combat team fighter, Phantasm style. The heal from the phantasms works a treat some of the time. The boonshare is also valuable. I saw another player testing this and decided to try it.

The retaliation from the phantasms is pretty nasty if they are conjured shortly before a burst.

I’m casting about for something I can play well. Mesmer is my preferred class by a long shot. Still, I switched back to auramancer ele ( which I haven’t touched since s4 ) and was immediately competitive.

What say you about the build/idea?

It seems your build lacks focus.

It just looks to me you are trying to do too much in one build. You are going for illusionary inspiration and inspiration signet for support. At same time you want to do good damage with phantasms. The domination traitline seems really out of place as few traits benefit rest of your build.

You need to focus on either support or damage not both of them.

Do you have an alternate suggestion? The main “gimmick” that seems to work on this build is the retaliation on the phantasms, followed by the heal when in close proximity to the phants.

If the enemy bursts within 6 seconds of the phantasms coming online, they get a big retaliation hit.

It’s kind of Me/Mo style. If I can keep phantasms up, any aoe and /or aoe cleave is going to damage the attacker. I just have to be able to survive.

The Illusionary Inspiritation is mainly to help me survive. Suggestions solicited and most welcome.

A long time ago there was a build coined the “immortal mesmer” that summoned a phantasmal defender and 2 other illusions with retaliation. With that setup, every hit would hit 7 times with retaliation. It was nerfed heavily since phantasms don’t have perma retaliation anymore and retal was nerfed. I haven’t thought of it in a while but does persisting illusions proc when CP creates a new phantasm? This would somewhat revert the nerf to retaliation uptime on phantasms.

If the retal is working for you and you want to focus it, I would recommend Domination, Inspiration, Chrono. Functionally it plays similar to condi shatter but has the ability to strip boons on shatter with bonus retaliation. Tough choice between SoI proc or pDefender proc from the inspiration GM traits but I would pick the defender for this build.

Blasting light fields is only 3 seconds of retal but they updated leaps to give the light aura which stacks retal better if enemies keep hitting you. Sword/Focus for a leap and light field. Staff 2 for another leap. Well heal is another light field. Sword 3 and 5 is a leap for the mesmer and illusion. Shield is great for 2 phantasms and a block but I think this actually goes against your retal. You want enemies to attack fast before they know what hit them (slow is bad) and you want them to hit you, not block. Granted, they can still hit the illusions while you block.

Rune of radiance gives you some much needed vitality and light aura/retal on heal. Signet of illusions is just like the condi shatter but the bonus health to illusions matters more here since you want them to get hit and proc retal a bit. Possibly drop portal for another defender in solo q. Undecided on amulet and sigils but it needs power, sustain and/or boon duration.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAsdWncfClph1qBeoBEgiFVjiMAKgd68JWioruZj2qF-TpQ7gAA7PYWGAA

I’m a huge fan of the radiance rune, I ran it in most of season 3 in a modified meta condition build.

The way I look at it, you’re after more of a bunker type build, allowing the damage to not come from you as much as the phantasms. Of course, retaliation alone isn’t going to kill anything but the focus here should be keeping yourself alive as you said.

To that end, I think a throwback to the season 1 bunker build might be best (chaos/insp/chrono) run with Knight amulet and radiance rune mentioned. Since illusions (phantasms and clones) gain your armor, it will keep them alive longer to hopefully proc more retaliation.

Chaos is chosen for the extra defense from illusionary defense (or blink CD if desired), chaotic dampening which has great synergy with radiance rune in chaos armor duration. Boutiful disillusionment for the stability on shatters. Understanding you won’t be doing much shattering but you need to gauge the health of your illusions and try to at least get something out of them by shattering them before they die.

In Inspiration, the only reason to take illusionary inspiration is for the passive retal share for your clones (persisting images is only for phantasms). IMO it’s not really worth it but since you’d run BI in chaos, you could maybe get a small boon share thing going. Honestly though I think mental defense is better.

At the end of the day, all I’m really suggesting is playing the original bunker build with radiance rune and knight amulet. I think that’ll be your best bet for what you’re trying to achieve.

I’m not understanding the reasoning of the radiance rune. It seems primarily for auras. What’s the benefit here? Chaos Armor?

-Edit- After reading better I understand the radiance rune.

I’m trying out Rune of Leadership, hoping it will work in conjunction with Illusionary Inspiration.

Here is the build I am currently using successfully in PvP. It’s unexpectedly tanky and enemy players don’t seem to expect or notice the retaliation.

In the hands of a better player. This might be deadly.

You need to keep refreshing the phantasms as often as possible. Stay close to them and any teammates. That way the passive boon share and regeneration will affect your allies.