Guild Wars 2

If you’re like me, you’ve settled on the so-called “Legion” build for your Mesmer toon.

To run this build most effectively, you PvP with GS + Sword/Pistol.

Why this build does fluctuate to some extent, it centers around going at least 15 deep in the Dueling tree making for builds like:

10/20/15/15/10

or (my current build and the focus of this post)

0/20/15/15/20

With another, perhaps better damage, less survivability spec being

10/20/5/15/20

However you look at it, you’re specing yourself to get the following MUST HAVE phantasmal traits from the tree:

1. Phantasmal Fury (10 into Dueling)
2. Sharper Images (15 into Dueling)
3. Illusionist Celerity (5 into Illusions)

The trick to this build is that your phantasmal duelist hits the target 8 times, each individual attack has a chance to crit, and each crit applies a bleed. With three duelists out, you can quickly, and from range, stack bleeds up to 20-25 on a target.

I’d like to do some of the math for those of you who AREN’T using phantasmal haste, as many specs seem to pick up the Empowered Illusions for 10 points in the Domination tree as opposed to the somewhat cumbersome 20 into Illusions.

On average, let’s say my duelist does 1k dmg a cycle (it doesn’t matter how much, it’s arbitrary and would be the same with any scaling of damage and any phantasm). The cycle, untalented takes 7 seconds, giving me an effective dps of 142.9dps.

When I spec into Empowered Illusions, I gain 15% additional damage. This means I’m now doing 1150 damage a cycle. The cycle still being 7seconds equals 164.3dps.

Now compare that with Phantasmal Haste, 20% faster recharge speed on phantasms abilities. This means my duelist is not shooting someone every 7 seconds, but every 5.5seconds. At 1k dmg every 5.5 seconds he does 181.8dps.

Beyond having a straight up better damage output, there are other intangibles associated with doing damage FASTER, with this build.

First, dead enemies aren’t killing your teammates.
Second, you stack bleeds faster, and they have less chance of coming off because your next cycle is starting 1.5 seconds faster.
Third, phantasms are squishy, any phantasm that died 5.5seconds to 6.9 seconds after their last rotation would have underperformed the spec that picks up Phantasmal haste.

For those of you who are curious, the two abilities together, 1150dmg every 5.5seconds equals 209.1dps.

So let’s talk about picking up both PH and EI. The only way I see it working is to get rid of a bit of survivability by only going 5 deep in the chaos tree and emerging with a spec like:

10/20/5/15/20

Here what you’ve done is you’ve removed 9% max dmg reduction and your protection when you gain regeneration (your synergy between Illusionary Membrane and Phantasmal Regeneration is gone) for an effective 13% increase in phantasm dmg:

(209-181)/209=.13

I don’t see it being worth while for a WvW or PvP build.

The other gripe I have with the community at large is people taking Deceptive Evasion over Duelist’s Disipline (The 20 point Dueling Talent).

While DE is an incredible ability, no doubt, our damage potential in this Legion build is SO slow to get started. You have to do everything you can to get the duelists out faster.

Additionally, our mantra in the Legion build is “I WILL NOT SPAM BUTTONS, I WILL NOT SPAM BUTTONS, I WILL NOT SPAM BUTTONS.” Spamming buttons, more specifically, over-summing clones, will get you killed. It reduces your dmg and slows down your gameplay, it also removes your O S*** buttons. Now some of the better Mesmers out there, understand this and USE CLONES WELL, to build up shatters, during their phantasm cooldowns. Effective use of shatters early, phantasms mid battle, and ultimately shatters at the end, is what you should be aiming for.

Your armor for this build should be about cnd dmg, precision with power and toughness as third stats.

Complexes
Darkhaven

I like it there are still people who blindly believe ANet’s tooltips.

i’m actually glad phantasmal haste has been proven to work yet still not be all that great.

i can drop illusions down to 20 and get 100 more precision or power now.

I came to the same conclusion back in beta by simulating them with
a spreadsheet. PH is clearly superior to EI if you’re going for bleed damage, while EI is better in a power build with more frequent shattering. Of course, those were based on the assumption that PH worked as described which turned out not to be true.

I’ve spent a good deal of time running 0/20/15/15/20, but what I’ve been doing lately is ditching the 15 points in Inspiration. I’m hardly ever in range of my phantasms’ regeneration in PvP because I’m constantly kiting, and the extra points open up some fun combinations. For example, going 0/20/20/0/30 lets you pick up Imbued Diversion or Illusionary Persona. There’s several other interesting ways to spend those points. Give it a try and see what you think.

Really late to the discussion here, but I’m really interested in GS + Sword/Pistol builds.

What weight does anybody put into +20 Domination purely from a Bleed damage point of view? Sharper Images puts a 5 sec Bleed on target that only ticks in one second intervals, thus putting 20 into Dom will push each Bleed duration to tick one more time. I’m unaware of any gear that will allow conditions to last longer. This is an effective 20% Bleed damage increase, which (without doing the math) seems like more bang for your buck than increasing condition damage itself.

Throw this into the previous discussion, shake it up a bit, and what build comes out on top for a good mix of damage and survivability?

I am also interested in GS+ S/P , builds . A little off-topic , but I’m curiosu!

EI is better than PH if your phantasms stay alive long enough to get off a second attack. this also means you can’t shatter as often when you have phantasms out, as you need to wait for their second attack to make full use of a trait.

for a burstier build, taking PH is better.

Sir, I’m asking this because I’m not actually sure about the tool tip on the ability, but after using it quite a bit I haven’t noticed a big change in the phantasms. So have you actually timed your phantasm’s cd? Because I’m pretty sure the tool tip means that the cd to summon them is 20% shorter, not that the cd for them to use their ability again is 20% shorter. I do know that the CD on their summoning is a bit shorter thanks to this trait, which is a great help in dungeons where they die often and getting them back up quickly is important, thus is why I think this way, but I don’t know if it effects their abilities too. I sorta doubt it.

Sarelm.8317:

Sir, I’m asking this because I’m not actually sure about the tool tip on the ability, but after using it quite a bit I haven’t noticed a big change in the phantasms. So have you actually timed your phantasm’s cd? Because I’m pretty sure the tool tip means that the cd to summon them is 20% shorter, not that the cd for them to use their ability again is 20% shorter. I do know that the CD on their summoning is a bit shorter thanks to this trait, which is a great help in dungeons where they die often and getting them back up quickly is important, thus is why I think this way, but I don’t know if it effects their abilities too. I sorta doubt it.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Haste

you dont calculate the power you obtain from having domination skill points into the illusions dmg. its a lot more complicated than what you put it. I never assume my illusions survive long enough for a second attack, therefore i think phantasmal haste is worthless. If you gain 15% dmg from illusions its a constant 15% that will always be there. PH will only benefit you if your illusions survive, which means a increase in dps for a chance they survive which is better? I rather go for a sure thing.

When comparing I.Duelist with PH vs. EI?

The only time PH pulls ahead is the quite literal second it activates its next skill before the EI. Then by the time the PH gets a 9th attack in when EI a half-a-second later pulls off its 8th attack (54 seconds later about), EI is still ahead in theoretical damage by 10% more damage. Thats ignoring the +Power from the Domination Line that the Illusion line does not get.
Even then, as the gap in seconds increase before then, the amount of damage that PH cumulatively does decreases.

The only time PH is better then EI is if you are using Phantasmal Warden for its anti-ranged benefits, or doing long-term Bleeds with I.Duelist. A 1-1.5 second smaller window is useful beneficial for effects like that.

Otherwise? EI. It also has the added benefit that you’ll get the effect, even if the Phantasm dies after its first attack.

Ahhh, I see. It must be that 5 point skill in illusions that’s doing the deduction instead. My bad.