what shimmerless said is not wrong, but not right either. Without healing power (exc from trait line) the restorative mantra heals about as much as a healing mantra charge. So assuming you’d constantly cast it (max H/S) it’d boost your heal rate by 50%. Which is quite alot with a 10s CD heal.
But yeah, the trait shines with Mantra of pain, and is like redundant with harmonious mantras (3 charges). Except that three charges leave you a bit more flexibility, but restorative mantras has a shorter rotation.
@OP
I don’t understand why you don’t use the +15% illusion damage when you already use Domination. I don’t understand why you want a direct damage build and go domination 30 instead of dueling 30.
You first need to setup your desires with sense. Basically what you said, but “Damage, Criticals, Effective heal and/or defensive alternative, Reliably high vitality, (not necessary, but wanted) use of clones, Use of GREATSWORD + SWORD/FOCUS” is like you’d say “I want damage, survivability, tankability, healing, soloing, grouping, pve, dungeon, pvp, wvw”.
SORT OUT.
ANY survivability limits your damage. ANY healing ability lowers your damage. ANY healing ability lowers your toughness. You can’t have it all.
@OPs build
- Domination without Empowered illusion (+15% illusion damage) is a wierd power build, let’s say you want to use direct damage and not phantasms
- Harmonious Mantras kinda work with a direct damage build … but no Mantra of pain … wierd
It doesn’t match.
Maybe check my build (see my sig). It’s rather focussed on survivability than damage. High uptime of vigor, always ranged blink in slots, Restorative Mantras with Mantra of Pain, Reflecting Focus usually activated. But for damage you can wear your berserker build (I mixed knight and berserker for toughness). In my trinkets I also used some “unnamed” prefixed with knight-like stats but priority on precision. Precision not only increases damage, but also higher uptime of vigor. Another point of my damage abilities would be +30% damage with phantasms and +8% damage from charged mantras.
Personally I used Deceptive Evasion for a long time, but switched it due to lack of slots. It’s an awesome trait (so awesome, it’ll be nerfed one day), but since I usually don’t shatter, I prefer lower mantra CD (for healing) and more damage from mantra charges. You can use two of those three traits as you like.
If you want to alter my build, the only changeable things would be 10 points from domination and 5 points from inspiration. But since you want more damage, only 5 points from inspiration would be acceptable. They can be fit in chaos 5 or domination 15 (for stats)
I tried to make a build reflecting those goals, please let me know what you think. I’ve mixed things about mantras— that they’re terrible, specifically the healing one, but amazing when traited correctly.