Guild Wars 2

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhEQNAsfRl0npMtNqxINcrNitxY6OioiTWTMlMghB-TlSGABAcIAS4JFEoKFEpMot9HMSpHZ6bIUdFDOhCSpEMAACwOrz6cnpzduzd+oH9oH9oHtjuzduzde0SBcxyI-w

Just curious as to what you wonderful people think. It’s a PU power build with some mantra traits. I’m hitting 20k health, 2800 armor, 2k power, and 50% crit which is what I was aiming for. What changes, if any, would you guys make?

I’m still up in the air about weapon sigils and what I should be aiming for ferocity-wise since I’m pretty much sacrificing it for toughness and vitality.

As far as I see its a fairly common PU build with the exception of the Restorative mantras. I would personally change Restorative mantras to Dueling and take Harmonious Mantra wich would give you 2 extra condi removals and an extra heal wich I think would outweigh the 2k heal you’d get on a 2s cast time (very likely to be interupted). I would also put a energy sigil on the Greatsword too instead of the sigil of strength. The battle runes are ok in my opinion, might just want to get fire sigils instead for a bit more raw damage?

Looking at the build, this looks more of a personal damage. You clones are there to do some damage but you do majority of the damage.

Question, why go with pack, am guessing for the swiftness or is it for the might and fury?.

IF you enjoy your build then keep playing it, but may a suggest the following changes if you do every want to change it a bit.

-Remove all points from Inspiration trait and put them in illusions and get Phantasmal Haste. This will help with illusion and phantasm damage

-Change runes to Hoelbrak. This will help reduce the pain from condition damage on you.

-Change your sword and GS sigil of fire to sigil of battle. With rune of hoelbrak increasing
the Might duration, you will hit harder. Build looks something like this

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsaRlknpMttpxRNcrNSqxgyvWjkDEQpPJkuB-TZRBwAUOCAdeEA82fgcZAAnAAA.

Hope this helps.

I don’t know why it’s showing runes of the pack on your end.. it should be Traveler for the passive movement speed (plus the boon duration stacks with the chaos tree which is nice). I went with PU and the inspiration tree for the staying power. Phantasmal Healing, PU and Metaphysical Rejuvenation give good regen / protection up time. Not to mention the high stealth uptime from PU helps loads with the mantra casts.

Harmonious Mantras is a great trait but I feel like you get more out of Phantasmal Healing and Restorative mantras. You still get 3 heals off of MoRecovery and a bonus heal from MoResolve. Plus the instant gratification from the mantra cast can’t be understated mid fight (assuming no interrupt which can be a problem, just got to be careful; Distoration / stealth ftw) and for bonus points you heal nearby teammates. Also the #5 torch skill doesn’t feel like a waste due to regen. That being said you can’t deal with condi spikes as well as when you have Harm. Mantras, but I’m ok with this tradeoff since we have so many escapes.

I still do great damage and as long as I time my bursts correctly I can burn people down pretty quick. I play it more or less like a shatter build without relying too heavily on phantasm damage.

I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the input though, it’s greatly appreciated!

@Melvin Your sigil advice has been taken into account. I went with fire / energy and it feels much better. I lose some might stacking but whatever, I’ll just get a personal Guardian tag along.

Looking at this build, I suppose I’m just a bit confused as to how you expect to do damage. Your stats are reasonable for a defensive build, but you have no trait support for damage whatsoever.

You say you use it sorta like a shatter build, but without compounding power, illusionary persona, mental torment (or halting strike), you simply won’t have strong shatters.

You also won’t get much damage from your phantasms. The iMage is useless for damage of course, so that limits you to the iZerker. The iZerker is fine, but you have no phantasm damage mods, nor anything to boost the durability of the phantasm, meaning it’ll die with an autoattack or two.

Basically, this build is quite durable between PU and your 2800 armor, but you have close to 0 offense. Your personal damage is very low of course (since that’s just how Mesmer damage is), but your shatters and phantasms are both weak, meaning anyone with reasonable sustain will have no difficulty surviving against you.

With the news of the patch I threw this build together and have been testing it solo roaming, I only bring it up because its very similar to yours:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhEQRArc8al0npMtNqxGNcrNCuxY6JaIiTGTLlMgfB-T1xHAB9o8bgnUwgq/c2+Dep/BgTqATKBDAgAEgO35O3ZkCAmhVA-w

I don’t stream so I have never really felt compelled to record any game play but it seems to perform fairly well in 1v1s vs some decent roamers I have met and can 1v2 Pugs that get culled from the zerg. A lot of the damage comes from the Mesmer himself and there are some dirty tricks you can play with scepter and sword blocks to punish AE spammers quite harshly. Depending on my mood, I have been waffling between CI and PU, CI is ridiculous fun in 1v1s but PU definitely makes you more durable when kitten hits the fan. Magic Bullet and iLeap (when it works) also help you reel in runners.

PU gives you enough defense that I have not felt the need to trait Mantra or Manipulation cool downs. Phantasmal Fury just gives you too much damage from iDuelist to give up and the weakness and vulnerability from DD are quite nice. Regarding armor, I feel like rabid with zerker trinkets helps you get the most out of conditions from scepter and Sharper Images while giving you enough toughness to not fold if you get into a bad spot.

Edited because I posted the totally wrong link.

Point taken Fay, I could go with a bit more burst.. I’m still trying to find the sweet spot between offense and defense. I really like the sustain and synergy of this setup but I can’t decide on what to sacrifice for more damage.

That’s an interesting build Feaduin. Do you feel like you do more damage with a split between condi damage and power rather than just stacking one or the other?

I like my strong blink but I may drop the distance in favor of Fury and maybe torch for pistol to give me some more offense.

Come to me. I’m the right person. I am training at least 3 other mesmers. If you want to be a pro who destroys all, PM me.

Henrik.7560:

Come to me. I’m the right person. I am training at least 3 other mesmers. If you want to be a pro who destroys all, PM me.

…wat

Henrik.7560:

Come to me. I’m the right person. I am training at least 3 other mesmers. If you want to be a pro who destroys all, PM me.

Are you for real? /smh

Funky, I have run this as full Zerker and Rabid/Zerker. I have not done any math, but my impression is having some condition damage helps cut through the very high armor that some opponents will have. Condition damage also has nice synergy with scepter 2 and 3 and Sharper Images. Having a long range Blink is very nice, but fury on phantasms will make the duelist stack more bleeds through SI and do more power damage as well, so that’s why I chose Phantasmal Fury. Others may have differing opinions, but I feel like an untraited torch is possibly the most useless weapon a Mesmer could bring to a fight especially in a power build.

Ok, I’ve been fiddling around to see what I like using your guys advice.. I’m going to try out a lockdown / mantra build in light of the upcoming changes. I lose a lot of staying power but the best offense is a good defense right?

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhEQNAsaRl0npMtNqxGNcrNipxcqqIdAHMQpLZ8FA-TFDCAB+t/wVKpySpyYKBd4IAAwDAoKlBSqWhGHog603UpqKXcKFCAgAcz2sNvZ28m38mP6RP6RP6R7o38m38mHtUAyqMC-w

I’m just starting to experiment with it and I likey so far. Thoughts?

I just want to say a disclaimer that while I am a PvP and PvE centered person, I have little to no experience when it comes to mesmer roles in WvW.

I see not much problems or inconsistencies with your build above. I think what could be strengthened a bit more is that you replace the Domination X (Greatsword Training) with Domination III (Empowered Illusions). The reason is that you used Dueling II (Phantasmal Fury) which increases damage more from your phantasms. With Domination III, you can increase more damage output from your phantasms.

As for the sigils, the Sigil of Energy is a good idea. I think that the Sigil of Accuracy on both weapons is needed as well to increase the chance on critical hit.

Now this is where I separate my alternative build into two routes. Dueling IX (Duelist’s Discipline) and Inspiration V (Persisting Images).

Your Phantasmal Duelist will deal out a lot of damage firepower in such a short time, the only thing rivaling it in terms of attack speed is the Phantasmal Swordsman. While I see why you want Dueling XI (Harmonious Mantras) to gain more chance to heal and to daze more, a good alternative might be to get Dueling IX so that you can summon your phantasms more often. A 15 second cooldown is better than a 20 second cooldown.

Another alternative is to remove two points in Dueling, put it in Inspiration and get Inspiration V. Now that ensures that your fragile phantasms live longer. A smart person will make sure to take your source of damage (which is phantasms in a phantasm-centered build). Inspiration V makes sure to mitigate that by a bit.

Or the final alternative is to make your build as it is (except that I would suggest switching from Domination X to Domination III) because it’s seemingly solid. If you plan a 1v1 fight, I think you’ll have a good chance to survive and eventually trump your opponents. However, I can’t say much about zergs though. I’m not a big fan of zergs…

If you like it, play it If you are serious about going to lock down route you will do yourself a great service by reading over this thread by Chaos: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/The-Lockdown-Mesmer-Thread/first#post2938726

One last question. I really like Far Reaching Manipulations and am pretty set on it, but I see a lot of people recommending Phantasmal Fury. My question is, how much DPS does this actually add? I don’t really have much else in terms of Phantasm traits so I’m wondering if it’s worth it.