Guild Wars 2

Was messing around with the basic S/S /F dungeon build and I’ve begun to wonder if illusions provide a better QoL than dueling.

As I understand it your run of the mill dungeon build is domination/dueling/inspiration. But if we were to switch to illusions from dueling we would only loose out on ~150 ferocity. Illusions offer a better % multiplier, higher phantasm damage and lower illusion cooldown.

Thoughts?

I personally use Illusions over Domination. Only really found like 1 trait to be appealing in Domination dungeon wise.

But I’m a little out of the meta loop so it might not be optimal.

Bacon.1835:

Was messing around with the basic S/S /F dungeon build and I’ve begun to wonder if illusions provide a better QoL than dueling.

As I understand it your run of the mill dungeon build is domination/dueling/inspiration. But if we were to switch to illusions from dueling we would only loose out on ~150 ferocity. Illusions offer a better % multiplier, higher phantasm damage and lower illusion cooldown.

Thoughts?

Duelings provide stronger personal damage boosts. Illusions provides stronger illusion support. But phantasms die fast in high-cleave environments, so if you can’t keep the phantasms up, you’re losing value from Illusions. This is why Illusions is generally neglected, because for personal dps, Confounding Power < Dueling < Dom.

AFAIK, the “meta” S/S /F build now is actually Dom/Duel/Illu. Inspiration is only taken for reflects on iWarden, and my understanding is that a huge variety of projectiles in dungeons are actually unreflectable.

I do think it’s somewhat debateable whether Dueling or Illusions increases your personal DPS more, though. It basically comes down to computing Phantasmal Fury + Fencer’s Finesse vs. Compounding Power + Phantasmal Haste. I’d give an edge to Dueling on this one just because Compounding Power doesn’t affect Phantasm damage at all, so its multiplicative effect is actually quite small despite +9% damage sounding pretty good on paper.

Dueling
The minors aren’t anything too flashy so I won’t go into detail. The selling factors are the majors in this trait line:

• Phantasmal Fury: Phantasms may not have been around during boon stacking so guaranteed Fury upon being summoned
• Fencer’s Finesse: Up to 10% critical damage wouldn’t be that great on most classes, but seeing how we’re on Reflect duty most of the time we can make use of every point of Ferocity we can get. That, and our Illusions gain the same increased in Ferocity as well. 20% cooldown reduction on sword means we can evade/block more frequently as well as summon our iSwordman more frequently.
• Harmonious Mantras: Up to 15% increase to base damage. The extra mantra charge works well in multiple builds.

Illusions
The biggest seller in the minors is Illusionist’s Celerity since that affects quite a lot of skills across multiple weapons and utilities. Additional confusion application is kinda meh since we don’t have the condition damage to make use of it. The cooldown reduction on shatters may be worthwhile depending on how long the fight gets drawn out.

• Compounding Power: Up to 9% additional base damage though this might not be as easy to maintain depending on how companion friendly the fight is.
• Phantasmal Haste: The other best seller of this traitline. Though this runs into the same problem of a needing a companion friendly fight as some illusions may not last long enough to benefit from this trait.
• Master of Fragmentation: Improved Crit chance and AoE factor for Diversion are phenomenal. The Reflect on distortion also affect skills beyond the F4 as well, though I personally wouldn’t pop a distort for a small reflect window alone when I should be saving it for a pseudo-aegis situation.

As far as PvE instances are concerned Domination and Dueling are always taken due to their reliable/constant damage modifiers as well as offensive utility. Inspirations is used in situations were additional party support/survival is needed as well as when Reflect uptime is important. Otherwise, Illusions is the go to for the bit of extra damage.

tobascodagama.2961:

I do think it’s somewhat debateable whether Dueling or Illusions increases your personal DPS more, though. It basically comes down to computing Phantasmal Fury + Fencer’s Finesse vs. Compounding Power + Phantasmal Haste. I’d give an edge to Dueling on this one just because Compounding Power doesn’t affect Phantasm damage at all, so its multiplicative effect is actually quite small despite +9% damage sounding pretty good on paper.

Don’t forget harmonious mantras.

With harmonious mantras, channeling mantra of pain is actually a DPS gain (Since unloading the power spikes are free actions that you can do while attacking) vs the sword autoattack, and can be done at range, allowing you to back away for a second or two during the channel.

Additionally, after the recent buff to harmonious mantras’ duration, using mantra of pain on cooldown is sufficient to maintain a full 5 stacks of the buff (Only dropping down below that point during the actual channeling when you’re not doing damage), adding almost an extra +15% personal damage buff.