Guild Wars 2

In the future I’ll be using this post to track all of my videos, but I’ll also update the Phantasmal Boons build whenever I change something

Videos of the build in action:
Bad Company (This is more of a Guild video than anything, but I’m using the build in it).
The Good and the Bad (Not the best fights, but you can watch me lose and learn from it!)
Out Of My League – A relatively long 1vX fight using the solo version of my build.
Build Discussion – Coming soon!

I was tired of being forced into shatter in order to feel like I was bringing any real benefit with my group, so after being inspired by various other posts and some experimentation I came up with a Phantasm build that brings a lot to a group, while is able to easily switch a few things and be extremely effective solo.

Here’s the build for groups: http://tinyurl.com/phantasmal-boon-v2
And here’s the build solo: http://tinyurl.com/phantasmal-boon-solo-v2

It works by summoning phantasms, stacking boons, and sharing them with your party. I often found myself getting Regen, Protection, Aegis, Vigor, Retal, Fury, 9-25 stacks of Might (depending on if my interrupts proc) and 2 random boons (obviously doubles since just about every boon is covered) with rather long duration and sharing them with the whole party.

Gear/Food

My armor and weapons are a mix of Valk/Knights/Zerker/Cavalier. You can mix and match as you see fit, but I’ve found this gives me a very nice balance of high damage and good survivability. The runes are 2x Hoelbrak/2x Water/2x Monk. This gives me 60% boon duration and 80% might duration, which means the massive stacks of might I share will last even longer (I explain how to stack these later).

For food I use usually Might on Dodge, but sometimes I use -%Condition Duration if I’m solo. Having conditions duration almost halved is great when I’m solo because I don’t always have Null Field, but in a group the extra dodges and might to share are invaluable. I’m using Sharpening Stones for extra Power.

How it works

My goal is to do lots of damage and spread lots of boons. Upon engaging a group, I’d usually do something like this:

1) Pop Chaos armor (Prot/Regen/Swiftness if hit)
2) Drop a Chaos Storm on the group and stand in it (Aegis/Retal/Swiftness and 5 stacks of might per interrupt)
3) Auto attack for a few seconds for Might/Fury
4) Right before Chaos Storm ends, Phase Retreat for extra Chaos Armor
5) Pop Decoy (Prot/Regen/Aegis) and swap to Greatsword**
6) Summon iZerker (Vigor on crits)
7) While running towards enemy (to ensure you get the bounces), use Mirror Blade for 3 stacks of might.
8) Use Illusionary Wave for another 5 stacks of might per interrupt.

At this point you should have Protection, Regeneration, Swiftness, Aegis, Fury, Vigor, Retaliation and, of course, tons of might. The amount of stacks and duration can vary quite a bit because of the inherent randomness, but rest assured it’s quite a bit.

9) Pop signet to share every boon in the game, and continue to DPS/destroy your opponents.

**It’s important that you decoy BEFORE swapping to Greatsword, because you want a staff clone for the extra boons on either you or your party members. Also, make sure you’ve stopped auto attacking so that those staff bounces don’t break your stealth.

With this build I bring a lot to the group between the buffs, null field, and mass invis, and I still do lots of damage (and collect lots of bags!) thanks to the iZerker.

Solo Play
I also solo roam quite a bit, so I planned the build around it’s ability to easily swap things out for solo play. Here are the changes I make when I’m roaming.

Null Field – This becomes Arcane Thievery, since it melds well with the traits I switch for solo play. This is also the skill I swap out if I need a situational utility.

Signet of Inspiration – This becomes Blink. It’s just too good solo not to have.

Traits:

Domination VI —-> Domination III – Pretty self explanatory. 15% damage is better solo, 9 more seconds of group buffs is better in a party.

Dueling III —--> Dueling I – The extra range on Blink and Arcane Thievery is great survivability solo.

Chaos IV —--> Chaos III – Also works well with both Blink and Arcane Thievery.

Chaos VIII —--> Chaos X – Bountiful Interruption is great in groups, but the reduced cooldown on Staff seems much stronger when running solo.

Enjoy!

Just as an fyi, bountiful interruption now occupies the master slot, and chaotic interruption now occupies the grandmaster slot.

Yeah sorry, I forgot that the site was out of date. I just picked VIII because I knew that’s where Bountiful Interruption was. I’ll put a note about that in the description. Thanks for the reminder.

I like the idea, more offensive focused support as there isn’t much in the way of healing support in the build, which I think can potentially be viable but haven’t tested myself. Bountiful interruption is great – I use that in the build in my signature which has more of a healing/regen focus. With your GS #5 and Chaos Storm, it makes taking that trait more than worth it. My only concern would be the lack of chaotic dampening but I understand why you would want to take PU now.

I like the 2 minor traits in domination you get which goes well with the interrupts, applying vulnerability often which lends more to the offensive support you’re doing. And lastly I like the damage the build will be doing – I’ve actually theory-crafted an offensive support build here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Chaos-Maestro-Boon-Support-Tank/page/2#post2294774.

I like the concept and glad to hear you have something here working well for you so far.

Thanks skcamow, that’s exactly what I’m going for. We already have 1-2 guys who provide a lot of healing, and I prefer offensive support anyway. Chaotic Dampening is tough to let go, but I find it far more bearable in a group than when I’m solo.

Also, I just took a look at the build you posted, and I like the concept a lot. I love how many different builds are coming out since the patch, and they all work in their own way. I give you extra kudos because I’d get bored playing a full support Mesmer, just not my playstyle But if you enjoy it, it certainly does bring a lot to the table.

I can imagine it would work really well in a balanced group with existing healing support. I would love to see video of your build in action when you have it (with the group if possible).

One other comment on the build – since you have access to the domination tree, you have the ability to swap the adept trait for signet mastery which can be very helpful to spread the boon love more often. It just depends on how support focused you want to be. Considering you are getting 50% might duration, that might be a good option as I can see the continuous supply of might for your team via SoI will likely out damage the 15% modifier on your phantasms. Something to think about anyway.

As for mine – it is support focused but there is enough damage built-in which makes the build work pretty good solo as well. With ample might stacks (which I have endless access to), my warden has done up to 6k damage which is pretty good for a support build with over 900 healing power :-)

I like the idea behind this build, but I mostly PvE and I’d like to do something other than the traditional phantasm zerker build. Any recommendations translating this to PvE?

phtotrope.3761:

I like the idea behind this build, but I mostly PvE and I’d like to do something other than the traditional phantasm zerker build. Any recommendations translating this to PvE?

I’ve been thinking about this since reading your comment an hour or two ago. I have to say that I don’t really have much experience in PvE, so I might not be the best person to ask, but I think it should translate pretty well.

The main thing I could see changing would be Dueling III, since I’m not sure you’ll be blocking as many attacks in PvE. When I’m running a dungeon I try not to hold aggro at all, so the aegis might not come in handy as often, but I could be wrong.

Other than that my only other thought is that Mass Invis isn’t very good in PvE, and you’d generally want to run TW. The problem there is you no longer get the buffs from PU as often. Maybe just the Decoy is enough to justify it since the Signet is on a 45 second cooldown anyway, but you also might want to consider dropping 10 points from Chaos and putting them somewhere else.

Maybe Inspiration for group vigor or glam cooldowns? (maybe swapping Decoy for Feedback in that case?)

That’s what I have off the top of my head, but maybe someone with more PvE experience would be able to give you a more detailed answer. I hope that helps!

@Zumi – I love that you are running GS + Staff here. This is very similar to a build I solo roam with in WvW. It’s really fun to roam into a group of allies that are lightly outnumbered and then turn the tide of the entire battle with the boon sharing. Signet of Inspiration really shines in that regard.

One trick, although it’s a bit of a novelty, is stacking 6 Runes of Lyssa in my armor, popping Mass Invisibility + Signet of Inspiration. When my allies reappear they immediately have all boons for 5 or more seconds (depending on what boons I already had before the Lyssa runes triggered).

Zumi.6384:

phtotrope.3761:

I like the idea behind this build, but I mostly PvE and I’d like to do something other than the traditional phantasm zerker build. Any recommendations translating this to PvE?

That’s what I have off the top of my head, but maybe someone with more PvE experience would be able to give you a more detailed answer. I hope that helps!

Thinking about it now, maybe PU wouldn’t be ideal for PvE, but the main thing I was attracted to was the might stacking/sharing. Maybe I can come up with something similar that builds on the same idea of sharing boons. I’m just worried about Bountiful Interruption. I doubt it’d be successful in PvE encounters. It’s disheartening knowing that there really isn’t much diversity when it comes to PvE builds. I feel like I’m only useful to the rest of a group when I’m running full zerker Inspiration builds.

From my understanding, interrupting skills are working in PvE, even on bosses. Seems that the “Interrupt” text pops up on a boss, even if the skill wasn’t interrupted, so you still get the benefits (might in this case).

I just looked again, and here’s an interesting alternative (especially if your main focus is might)

20/10/20/0/20

You can get might from weapon swapping (3 stacks), interrupting (5 stacks), shattering (up to 3 stacks), and double bouncing (6 stacks from GS and 1-2 stacks from Staff). That’s a lot of ways to get might, and it shouldn’t be difficult to get quite a few stacked up quickly.

And that’s not to mention vigor on crit, prot/regen when you take damage, maybe even retal from shatter if you want, and the random boons from the signet/chaos storm!

The more I think about it the more I think it could work very well in PvE.

If you are spec’d enough for damage, any support build like this works just fine in PvE, and you’re right about the boss interrupts. I proc them often using focus pulls and CS. That’s a nice variant as well.

Well that changes everything. I was concerned about using GS#5 as it’s not always good to be knocking back mobs. Though if it it’s used mainly on bosses, it’d be perfect. I’m just curious if it’d be better to drop 10 in Domination to get Deception Evasion because of Shattered Strength in Illusions. With that though, my Mirror Blades would be every 8 seconds, but I’d have more clones to shatter for Might. And looking at the build now, it would’ve been much better pre-IC patch. Mirror Blade would be on a ~5 second cd. I feel like it could still work though.

On other note, Zumi, the original build in this thread has me curious about getting my feet wet in WvW. My usual dose of WvW is reset day with guildies and it’s normally just a boring zerg fest. Your build sounds like it’d be fun though.

Question about this build:
Rather than using staff, would sword/torch be a good option? Since Torch comes with it’s own stealth, I mean. Or vice-versa: switching out greatsword for sword/torch?

Sounds good and more importantly I don’t have to buy more items to make it. Well, will have to change Valkryie gems with runes, but hell.

TwiceDead.1963:

Question about this build:
Rather than using staff, would sword/torch be a good option? Since Torch comes with it’s own stealth, I mean. Or vice-versa: switching out greatsword for sword/torch?

trying a version that’s staff & sword/torch.
so far its fun…..but haven’t really settled on runes yet. like having swiftness attached to heal in open world PvE, but would switch the 4 airs to 4 altruisms in dungeon…or 2 monks/2 grove for perma-protection

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW8fl0zKqnQTgGb9IipH9GyBckU4avWJF82FC-jADBYLERzUEYkFCREBwJPFRjtiZasVXBRXDT7SQVFLxWdAmyMa1A-e

Shave 9 seconds off your boon sharing. Take signit mastery. You boon duration, while something, is also pretty lame. Take 2x water and 2x monk. That’s +60% boon, and +80% might.

I’ve been doing a balanced boon-share/mantra healing support build with Bountiful interruption in pve, works great. I like using sword/focus and staff for it, but you get the same results, lots of interrupts, right before the boonshare.

Hey guys, sorry for the delayed response, I was gone pretty much the whole weekend so I didn’t get to check the forums much.

@TwiceDead – I think sword/torch is a decent option if you want to go a more defensive route. You’ll have another source of prot/regen/aegis to share from the torch stealth, but you lose out on the multiple sources of might/fury and the possible AoE interrupt for even more might. If you’re aiming at more defense it’s a viable option, but I just feel I give up too much going that way.

@Ross – Signet Mastery is something I’ve been fooling around with as well. Obviously you give up some phantasm damage, but if you have more than 2 people in your group I think it definitely provides a greater overall DPS increase.

I’m also glad you mentioned water/monk runes. I had been debating those for a while because I also solo roam and wanted to find a nice balance between personal offense and group buffs. Swapping to those I lose 140 power and the minus -20% condition duration, but the extra 60% boon duration is amazing. I think I’m going to make the swap full time, since I’m always stacking might with my sigils anyway, and 80% might duration is huge, and I find it more than makes up for the 140 power I lose.

The build is changing bit by bit as I experiment with different options, and if you want to adapt something like this yourself you have to decide what balance of group support vs. personal offense you want to bring. That said I’ve had huge success with the build so far, so I highly recommend you give it a shot!

ive played with willow a few times in wvw and his build can put up a pretty decent amount of damage along with buffing a few of his groupies while hes at it

Good news! I’ve finally got Bandicam to work on my computer and be able to record with at least bearable quality

I’ll be recording my gameplay over the next week or two, so I’ll be sure to update this with some footage of the build in action.

Its like an offensive duration of my permanent protection build. I likes… How many stacks of might are you sharing with the group in dungeons?
Also have you considered going more defensively specced by that I mean putting 20 into inspiration and going for mantra group heals? I ask because if you run a dungeon with one or two warriors they are going to be pumping your group with 25 stacks of might anyways… You can bring the defensive support.

Updated the solo build a bit. Getting some video finally so I’ll be posting it up within the next week or so.

@jportell – To be honest, I haven’t tried it out in dungeons yet. I find myself sharing 15-25 stacks in WvW, but I imagine it might be a bit harder in PvE with the reduced attack time of mobs.

I’ll probably run some dungeons this weekend, and I’ll be sure to let you know it goes, and thanks for the tip, if I notice some warriors in my group (duh, I feel like there’s 2 warriors in EVERY group) I’ll try that out for sure.

Hey guys,

So I just finished putting together my first video. It’s a little montage of the build in action during reset night last night. This is my first attempt trying to edit a video, so feedback is welcome! Enjoy!

Good vid – unfortunately the WvW fps loss made it a little difficult to follow at times, but not too bad. Here are some observations I took from the video and some constructive feedback:

• In your attack chain you’ve laid out in your OP, you say that you typically switch to staff to finish out your boon chain before you pop SoI, but I noticed you rarely switched to staff in the video – wondering why?
• Also in your attack chain you don’t mention using a stealth skill before SoI which struck me as odd considering you’re using PU. Obviously there are some killer boons you would not only acquire, but if you had them already from chaos storm/chaos armor, durations would be significantly buffed. I did notice a couple times where you used Decoy before SoI but it didn’t seem to be the rule.
• It seemed that most of the boons (except a little protection and that glorious might) you shared were coming from the guardians. Not that it’s a bad way to share boons w/allies at all – it’s just that it didn’t seem you were acquiring too many from yourself. Again I’m sure the lack of staff use had a lot to do with that.

These are some of the things I personally would do running a build like this. I’m far from an expert, and maybe I’m missing something in how you were trying to demonstrate it. I Iove the offensive focus of a boon sharing build and I think this one is solid. I’m looking forward to seeing more using that staff :-], since I know this build can really shine in a support capacity.

Thanks for the feedback skcamow!

You’re absolutely right. I have to admit, watching myself play is very revealing. The whole time I was watching them I was yelling at myself “Share those boons, you idiot!”

There were a lot of times where I had 25 stacks of might and didn’t share anything for a while, and plenty of times where the signet came off cooldown and I didn’t share them for a while.

I also completely forgot to add the stealth to my rotation in the description, thanks for catching that, that’s a really important part. I also need to use GS #2 more, swap weapons ASAP, and remember to stealth at the beginning of fights.

But that’s why I started recording, and why I’m posting videos that might make me look bad, to learn =P

In short, there are a lot of things I can improve upon, but even with that many mistakes I felt really useful to my group. Glad you like the build, and I’ll be sure to post more videos as I get some footage of me making better use of it!

So thanks to skcamow and some input from talking to Kylia/Pyro I’ve experimented with and come up with a much more effective and (more importantly) reliable rotation for spreading the boon love! No more worrying about breaking stealth and losing all your beautiful PU boons.

I’ve updated my original post to explain the new rotation, but it involves a lot more staff. I also put a disclaimer on the video that it’s more of a guild video than anything (in fact, I’m considering taking it off this thread considering the amount of mistakes I made running it in those clips).

I’m going to make another video either today or tomorrow showing the full rotation so you can see it in action.

Updated with a new video, The Good and the Bad. Learning how to make these vids, so it’s a bit rough.

More support-themed video incoming soon.

Updated the original post to use more for posting my videos, and also updating the build.

New solo roaming 1vX video up!

Out Of My League

Hilarious – nice job man, very well played. Gotta love that not so pesky LB ranger. Kinda just stood around the whole time.

skcamow.3527:

Hilarious – nice job man, very well played. Gotta love that not so pesky LB ranger. Kinda just stood around the whole time.

Thanks! Yeah that ranger was amusing at most, didn’t help that he was an uplevel haha, he hit like a wet noodle.