Guild Wars 2

I haven’t played my mesmer in months, but started using her in dungeons again. I have no idea what build people are using for dungeons today, so I just put something together that seemed reasonable.

I’m using 20/20/0/30/0 with glamour traits and reflect on focus. Are there any traits I should have that I’ve missed?

Edit: What you guys think about the new signet heal for dungeons? I’m swapping between that one and EF as for now..

0/30/0/25/15 or 10/20/0/25/15 with Sw/Sw and Sw/F is the standard these days.

My guide here:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84947-mesmerizing-the-enemy-guide-to-mesmer-swordx-dps-builds/

Brazil has a guide too but I think it is outdated so just go with mine.

Another viable, and perhaps slightly better with reflections, build is 10/30/0/20/10. You get less phantasm dps, but empowering mantras and the 10 in domination will help with reflects.

The differences between these three builds are going to be very marginal over the course of a full dungeon though, so any of them should treat you well.

I should note that the damage of a reflected projectile does NOT scale with power. It seems to be based on the original base damage of the attack.

What it does scale with:

1) Percentage modifiers, i.e. Empowering Mantras
2) Precision. More specifically, the reflect’s chance to crit is based on YOUR precision.
3) Crit damage. Same as above, the amount of extra damage you get on a crit is based on your crit damage.

As such, your best bet for raw reflect damage (i.e. for one-shotting bosses like Lupicus) is 0/30/0/25/15 in Assassin gear. 10/30/0/20/10 isn’t useful anymore because, as mentioned before, you don’t get any extra bonus damage from the 100 power in Domination, so you’re dropping IC for exactly zero benefit. The whole point of running 10/30/0/20/10 in the first place was to get Empowering Mantras and traited focus reflects in the same build, which you also get from 0/30/0/25/15.

Interesting, thanks for the clarification! I misremembered the domination major trait while on my phone as well.

Either way, you need to decide on the compromise between phant dps and reflect damage that you want to use. I personally skipped out on empowering mantras these days to keep more flexibility with my utilities. But the 0/30 does seem to maximize reflect dps.

Elaborating on % modifiers: 10/30/0/25/0: Warden and phantasms traited. Full zerker Vs Karka, only looking at crit dmg numbers. (Test build, don’t use it)

Warden+double trait buffs: 4265,3839, 3931, 4141, 4187, 3997: Avg =4085
Feedback unbuffed: 3195, 3209, 2957, 2915: Avg= 3069
Feedback w/ 3 mantras+sigil of force: 3774, 3494, 3523, 3784, 3819, 3709: Avg = 3656
0/30/0/20/15 w/ 3 mantras warden: 2975, 3170, 3126, 2979, 3148: Avg= 3079

Buffed feedback should do 18% more and it did 19% here. Buffed warden reflect did 33% more when it should do 32%. Numbers look good in saying that warden traits do reflect warden reflect damage. Mantra traits do not affect warden reflects. I didn’t go all out on testing but the feedback can also benefit from 10% slaying potions/sigils, 10% rune of scholar, 3%^3 per illusion etc…

So 10 domination does help with reflects but mantras and 30 dueling are really nice and it’s hard to find those 10 points in a 0/30/0/25/15 build. Especially since if you want to emphasize warden reflects, then dropping 5 from inspiration/illusions doesn’t help and 10 from dueling drops overall crit damage/reflects and up to 17% personal dmg.

p.Haste is also bugged so don’t go 20 illusions.

Thx for all the input! Which utilities are you guys using in 0/30/0/25/15 build? Beside feedback ofc.

You’ll want as many mantras as you can to maximize damage. Restoration for healing obviously, and concentration and resolve for stability/stun break and condition cleanse. You can swap out some of those situationally, but keep in mind the damage loss when you do.