Guild Wars 2

Lord Kuru.3685:

Let’s say your build counts on phantasms for damage… is it possible that Sigil of Accuracy (+7% critical chance) is better than Sigil of Force?

1. I’m assuming that because the +7% critical chance affects your basic stats, they pass through to your clones as well.. while:
2. the +5% damage from Force doesn’t affect your basic stats and so doesn’t pass to your clones.

To be honest, I’m not sure either #1 or #2 are true.. .anyone know for sure?

Critical Chance is not a core stat, Precision is, so it does not affect phantasms. (haven’t checked post apr 15 patch)

Force will give you 2.2% more personal DPS than Accuracy sigil (and no virtually no change in reflect dmg) and if you have a few phantasms out that will then be only 1% more. With full assassins + ranger runes and assuming you have fury and disc banner provided you will be at exactly 100% crit with the Accuracy sigil, so if you get a ranger with Spotter in party that sigil will be going to waste.

Overall I’d say there is no reason to run Accuracy instead of Force.

frifox.5283:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Let’s say your build counts on phantasms for damage… is it possible that Sigil of Accuracy (+7% critical chance) is better than Sigil of Force?

1. I’m assuming that because the +7% critical chance affects your basic stats, they pass through to your clones as well.. while:
2. the +5% damage from Force doesn’t affect your basic stats and so doesn’t pass to your clones.

To be honest, I’m not sure either #1 or #2 are true.. .anyone know for sure?

Critical Chance is not a core stat, Precision is, so it does not affect phantasms. (haven’t checked post apr 15 patch)

Force will give you 2.2% more personal DPS than Accuracy sigil (and no virtually no change in reflect dmg) and if you have a few phantasms out that will then be only 1% more. With full assassins + ranger runes and assuming you have fury and disc banner provided you will be at exactly 100% crit with the Accuracy sigil, so if you get a ranger with Spotter in party that sigil will be going to waste.

Overall I’d say there is no reason to run Accuracy instead of Force.

Ah yes… you’re right about crit chance!

In that case, there’s pretty much no way accuracy is better.

Thanks!

Lord Kuru.3685:

frifox.5283:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Let’s say your build counts on phantasms for damage… is it possible that Sigil of Accuracy (+7% critical chance) is better than Sigil of Force?

1. I’m assuming that because the +7% critical chance affects your basic stats, they pass through to your clones as well.. while:
2. the +5% damage from Force doesn’t affect your basic stats and so doesn’t pass to your clones.

To be honest, I’m not sure either #1 or #2 are true.. .anyone know for sure?

Critical Chance is not a core stat, Precision is, so it does not affect phantasms. (haven’t checked post apr 15 patch)

Force will give you 2.2% more personal DPS than Accuracy sigil (and no virtually no change in reflect dmg) and if you have a few phantasms out that will then be only 1% more. With full assassins + ranger runes and assuming you have fury and disc banner provided you will be at exactly 100% crit with the Accuracy sigil, so if you get a ranger with Spotter in party that sigil will be going to waste.

Overall I’d say there is no reason to run Accuracy instead of Force.

Ah yes… you’re right about crit chance!

In that case, there’s pretty much no way accuracy is better.

Thanks!

I keep one around for PUGs, where I can’t even rely on Warriors for Banner of Discipline (let alone rangers for spotter!).

Anawim.5168:

I really love this! As a casual GW2er who’s been a mesmer for a little over a year now, there’s so much awesome in this guide for any mesmer of any skill level.

I’m a little curious, though: what might be a more universal/worthwhile sigil to invest in instead of Night? And/or how practical would it be to just always have? Is the idea here to swap for another set of weaps with other sigils for the day?

I’m super interested in pursuing full reflects after reading this. There seems to be a huge need for them in PUGs anymore.

Again, thanks!

Glad you like it

So, 5/8 dungeons are night— only Arah, CM, and HoTW are daytime. Most people keep an Undead Slaying sigil instead of Night for Arah. For CM and HoTW… is it really worth getting another two weapon + sigil sets for just 3 commonly run paths? Probably not. Something like Accuracy is probably fine, even if it’s not as much damage as the dungeon-appropriate slaying sigil.

There are also a few more daytime Fractals. It’s not ideal, but I just use Accuracy + Force there.

Anawim.5168:

I’m a little curious, though: what might be a more universal/worthwhile sigil to invest in instead of Night? And/or how practical would it be to just always have? Is the idea here to swap for another set of weaps with other sigils for the day?

I’m super interested in pursuing full reflects after reading this. There seems to be a huge need for them in PUGs anymore.

Again, thanks!

Accuracy is another viable sigil you can use instead of Night, but often if you have a Ranger and Warrior (using meta builds) then you generally go above 100% crit chance, so even Accuracy is not universal. Night/Slaying is (generally) optimal in night dungeons if you want to keep a stack of each of the slaying sigils you normally use, or a different weapon with those sigils slotted in.

In general you want to use Force/Night, and swap to Force/Accuracy or Force/Slaying if you’re not in a night dungeon. If you’re mesmer is your main, then there should be little reason to not invest in these as the weapons and sigils are not very expensive.
Edit: And Max beat me to it. -.-

As far as going into a full reflect build, do take note that you don’t get the most out of a reflect build if you’re main source of damage on the boss is your phantasms, or if you can/are chaining reflects with another party member. A reflect build would be good against a boss like Alphard, Lupi, or Bloomhunger, but not so useful against a boss like the Dredge fractal bosses or Subject Alpha.
Instead of going solely into a full reflect build, consider swapping between builds a lot, it is quite important for mesmers to be swapping builds if you want to be putting out the most damage and utility that people bring mesmers for.

So a person can find this easily

Just wondering, but roughly how many stacks of bloodlust are needed to make it equivalent to force (based on one of those metabuilds)?

Pokecenter.3548:

Just wondering, but roughly how many stacks of bloodlust are needed to make it equivalent to force (based on one of those metabuilds)?

Running 6/4/0/0/4 with full might/fury/vuln and both banners, about 10 bloodlust stacks. The Feedback dmg will still suffer a 5% loss.

Thanks a lot for revitalizing my love of Mesmer. After coming back from a long hiatus, I was at a bit of a loss, but this guide spelled out everything to a T.

Bumping and such – it should be stickied.

I asked ChaosArchangel to add it to the Grimoire.

Thanks all for the comments and feedback!

With the nerfing of stacking sigils, I’ll adjust the gear section shortly… pretty much always makes sense to run Assassin’s + Ranger now (can’t justify to yourself that your perception stacks will pull Berserker gear to higher crit), which means I have to toss my ascended armor and start over. Oh well, that’s life.

maxinion.8396:

Thanks all for the comments and feedback!

With the nerfing of stacking sigils, I’ll adjust the gear section shortly… pretty much always makes sense to run Assassin’s + Ranger now (can’t justify to yourself that your perception stacks will pull Berserker gear to higher crit), which means I have to toss my ascended armor and start over. Oh well, that’s life.

Note that in some dungeons you can take a quick dip underwater and revert the stacking sigil nerf. Not all dungeons, but some.

Pyroathiest.4168:

maxinion.8396:

Thanks all for the comments and feedback!

With the nerfing of stacking sigils, I’ll adjust the gear section shortly… pretty much always makes sense to run Assassin’s + Ranger now (can’t justify to yourself that your perception stacks will pull Berserker gear to higher crit), which means I have to toss my ascended armor and start over. Oh well, that’s life.

Note that in some dungeons you can take a quick dip underwater and revert the stacking sigil nerf. Not all dungeons, but some.

I guess this will be useful for absolute min-maxing, but for general purpose, it’s just getting way too inconvenient to stack :\ Single stacking was already of marginal utility in most places (hard to get to 25 stacks reasonably quickly), and this makes it even more of a pain. But yeah, will still be possible in some situations.

Finally I’m able to post here again – hackers aren’t fun However, I’m back finally!

Great guide maxinion, and I like the fact that you put the 5/4/0/5/0 build into your guide That was a long conversation we had xD This guide is pretty much what every mesmer should know. Really really great guide. Thx a lot!

~ Madame

maxinion.8396:

Pyroathiest.4168:

maxinion.8396:

Thanks all for the comments and feedback!

With the nerfing of stacking sigils, I’ll adjust the gear section shortly… pretty much always makes sense to run Assassin’s + Ranger now (can’t justify to yourself that your perception stacks will pull Berserker gear to higher crit), which means I have to toss my ascended armor and start over. Oh well, that’s life.

Note that in some dungeons you can take a quick dip underwater and revert the stacking sigil nerf. Not all dungeons, but some.

I guess this will be useful for absolute min-maxing, but for general purpose, it’s just getting way too inconvenient to stack :\ Single stacking was already of marginal utility in most places (hard to get to 25 stacks reasonably quickly), and this makes it even more of a pain. But yeah, will still be possible in some situations.

I personally didn’t salvage my underwater stacking weapon and I’m using now my stacking sword as an off hand weapon mostly for Arah when I stay mostly on S/F. (You need the underwater stacking weapon for like Arah P3/P4 because of the part where you have to go underwater (I don’t know if we lose our stacks if we don’t have the underwater stacking weapon equipped).

Great Guide!! I took a bit of a break from GW2 and now I want to get back on my Mesmer, thanks to you.

The build links confuse me because you don’t change the utility skills (and I understand why) but you’ve still got Signet Mastery (Dom VI) traited in all of them. What else would you trait if you’ve got no signets and running Mantras.

Also, the 6/6/0/0/2 build is described as max-dps single target, but I don’t understand the Blurred Inscriptions choice, especially with no signets. I would think Harmonious Mantras with maybe MoP would be better for some extra spike damage and more reliable Mantra charge uptime.

Seras.5702:

Great Guide!! I took a bit of a break from GW2 and now I want to get back on my Mesmer, thanks to you.

The build links confuse me because you don’t change the utility skills (and I understand why) but you’ve still got Signet Mastery (Dom VI) traited in all of them. What else would you trait if you’ve got no signets and running Mantras.

Also, the 6/6/0/0/2 build is described as max-dps single target, but I don’t understand the Blurred Inscriptions choice, especially with no signets. I would think Harmonious Mantras with maybe MoP would be better for some extra spike damage and more reliable Mantra charge uptime.

About Signet Mastery, this is mainly because there’s not really another good trait in the Domination traitline, but you can take Mental Torment to finish off a boss / Halting Strike, but it doesn’t proc when a boss has Defiant stacks, or even Crippling Dissipation for boss fight when you want to keep them crippled.

About the 6/6/0/0/2 build, that might be a typo, because Blurred Inscription is mainly for survivability. Harmonious Mantra or Duelist Discipline are definitely better options there, or Deceptive Evasion for fights like Lupicus.

Jeremlloyd.6837:

Seras.5702:

Great Guide!! I took a bit of a break from GW2 and now I want to get back on my Mesmer, thanks to you.

The build links confuse me because you don’t change the utility skills (and I understand why) but you’ve still got Signet Mastery (Dom VI) traited in all of them. What else would you trait if you’ve got no signets and running Mantras.

Also, the 6/6/0/0/2 build is described as max-dps single target, but I don’t understand the Blurred Inscriptions choice, especially with no signets. I would think Harmonious Mantras with maybe MoP would be better for some extra spike damage and more reliable Mantra charge uptime.

About Signet Mastery, this is mainly because there’s not really another good trait in the Domination traitline, but you can take Mental Torment to finish off a boss / Halting Strike, but it doesn’t proc when a boss has Defiant stacks, or even Crippling Dissipation for boss fight when you want to keep them crippled.

About the 6/6/0/0/2 build, that might be a typo, because Blurred Inscription is mainly for survivability. Harmonious Mantra or Duelist Discipline are definitely better options there, or Deceptive Evasion for fights like Lupicus.

I’ll switch it to Harmonious Mantras, that’s what I end up using most of the time, absolutely.

Nike was advocating Blurred Inscriptions for when you have Signet Mastery and are using the healing Signet, as it gives you a bit better survival. Harmonious Mantras is a nice convenience but not a huge improvement IMO… if you’re using the Signet, Blurred Inscriptions might be nice as well.

Anyway, for Signet Mastery… yeah, I’m usually lazy and just keep it there in case I need to switch to Signet. Nothing else is good there, so it’s not a real loss

Thanks for the clarification guys.

Remember also that out of combat you can switch to Harmonious Mantras, charge up 3 charges on your mantra, then switch the trait to something else.

draconx.3102:

Remember also that out of combat you can switch to Harmonious Mantras, charge up 3 charges on your mantra, then switch the trait to something else.

It’s a bug which benefits mesmers! Fix incoming in 3… 2… 1…

Can you use traited Warden or Curtain on Lupi? If so, 2/6/0/4/2 might be better than 6/6/0/0/2? It’s been a while on my Mes in Arah.

30/30/0/0/10 for organised groups; I use 30/20/0/20/0 for solo Lupicus or pugs since warden reflects are kind of a big deal in phase 3 since the fight is drawn out but if you’re in a proper group you’ll most likely burst him to 30-35% with feedback, people will just dodge the first spray and then you’ll have a feedback up for a second one if he does it.

When it comes to using wardens on Lupicus, they reflect some of the phase 2 projectiles but will die every time to splash damage, so don’t try to sit in the reflect radius – but in phase 3 if you sit directly in your warden and he sprays, you won’t be touched and you’ll get a bunch of reflects.

Does Curtain work like Wall of Reflect or is there still the height issue with Curtain on Lupi?

Pyroathiest.4168:

Note that in some dungeons you can take a quick dip underwater and revert the stacking sigil nerf. Not all dungeons, but some.

Wat? :o

All of Lupi’s projectiles are ground-targeted AoE. So in order to reflect the phase 2 barrage with the curtain projectiles have to land on the curtain. If you are standing on the curtain probably some of them will be, but some will hit beside the curtain and damage you. This can also happen if you feedback and stand too close to the edge of the bubble.

So if you’re quick you can probably use the curtain during phase 2 aoe to inflict some damage to Lupi but not to avoid damage to yourself. For phase 3 rapidfire I suspect if you place the curtain by his circle and dodge through him you can avoid damage, but the cast time of curtain is probably too long to use reactively.

Personally I don’t bother with focus reflects for this fight.

I see a lot of people discussing ranger runes, but looking on the wiki it seems to say that ranger runes are NOT affected by illusions. So which is right?

this guide is great and needs to be stickied

Ryuujin.8236:

I see a lot of people discussing ranger runes, but looking on the wiki it seems to say that ranger runes are NOT affected by illusions. So which is right?

Ranger Runes 7% damage bonus is triggered if you have a mini pet with you (this might be a bug). If that is fixed, there’ll be a lot less reasons to go for Ranger runes and that’s one of the reason why I stick to Scholar runes, the other one being that I can stay above 90% health for almost every encounters.

You get the 7% damage bonus if you have illusions or even a mini-pet out however only you get the 7% damage bonus. Your illusions do not get the 7% damage bonus.

Would be nice if anet would add assassin ascendent trinket at this point

Is the mantra all around build recommended for leveling?If not,which build is?

Great guide ;-)

Thanks again everyone!

Since you don’t get Empowering Mantras till very late, I wouldn’t do the mantra builds for leveling. I think the 2/4/0/4/4 is your best option, since you can get access to all those traits fairly early.

maxinion.8396:

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Phantasmal Disenchanter can provide excellent boon-strip and party condition cleanse. This can be useful on bosses like the turret-golem in CoE (where sometimes I even summon two Disenchanters by using Signet of Ether).

You can use untraited iWarden instead of iDisenchanter for this fight to maximize DPS, as uiWarden destroys the turrets’ boon-beams. 2x uiWarden (Ether Signet + Phantasmal Haste) should be good enough and autoatks can strip the occasional boon that slips through. I always tell PUGs to not worry about the protection turret and just maximize DPS with the golem.

Welgaia.7523:

maxinion.8396:

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Phantasmal Disenchanter can provide excellent boon-strip and party condition cleanse. This can be useful on bosses like the turret-golem in CoE (where sometimes I even summon two Disenchanters by using Signet of Ether).

You can use untraited iWarden instead of iDisenchanter for this fight to maximize DPS, as uiWarden destroys the turrets’ boon-beams. 2x uiWarden (Ether Signet + Phantasmal Haste) should be good enough and autoatks can strip the occasional boon that slips through. I always tell PUGs to not worry about the protection turret and just maximize DPS with the golem.

Lately I’ve been double Wardening there instead, yes. I was just trying to think of places where Disenchanter might be useful, and that was one of the only ones where it’s a maybe.

Traited warden reflects golem’s attacks for quite substantial DPS. It would be quite unwise to keep wardens untraited for the golem

Been using this same set up forever, I also carry a Traveler rune set as well and I prefer it for the most part. Dont understand why you have reduced recharge on signets though

Azure.8670:

Been using this same set up forever, I also carry a Traveler rune set as well and I prefer it for the most part. Dont understand why you have reduced recharge on signets though

Because with 30 in domination for mantra damage modifiers there isn’t much else better to take.

@frifox: Thanks for the point there. I do keep mine traited, but wasn’t clear in the response.

@Azure: If you need speed, I suggest an alternate set of Centaur Runes. I know many mesmers who carry a set like that. Traveller’s isn’t particularly good for DPS, and is slower than Centaur for movement.

And yeah, the Signet Mastery is because there’s nothing else worth taking in Domination Master. I sometimes switch to Signet of Ether depending on the circumstances, so it’s nice to have it already traited without having to switch that.

frifox.5283:

Traited warden reflects golem’s attacks for quite substantial DPS. It would be quite unwise to keep wardens untraited for the golem

I haven’t done the exact math, since I rarely do dungeons with a full organized group. I’ve done traited and untraited, and it boils down to:

Traited
- Reflect Ultra Beam (purple laser) for ~11k-ish (?) every 10 (?) seconds.
- Someone has to take down the protection turret
- iDisenchanter uses up a clone slot and a mantra utility slot
- Retaliation sometimes causes me to go under Scholar runes’ 90% hp bonus

Untraited
- No boons reach him at all
- No time wasted on protection turret
- All 3 offensive phantasms (2x iWarden + iSwordsman); iSwordsman on Phantasmal Haste does about the same damage in the long run than a warden reflect every 10s… maybe more?

Please correct me if I missed something, but I just feel like untraited build (phantasmal haste, mantra 4%, clone slot, etc.) does more DPS. :x

Welgaia.7523:

frifox.5283:

Traited warden reflects golem’s attacks for quite substantial DPS. It would be quite unwise to keep wardens untraited for the golem

I haven’t done the exact math, since I rarely do dungeons with a full organized group. I’ve done traited and untraited, and it boils down to:

Traited
- Reflect Ultra Beam (purple laser) for ~11k-ish (?) every 10 (?) seconds.
- Someone has to take down the protection turret
- iDisenchanter uses up a clone slot and a mantra utility slot
- Retaliation sometimes causes me to go under Scholar runes’ 90% hp bonus

Untraited
- No boons reach him at all
- No time wasted on protection turret
- All 3 offensive phantasms (2x iWarden + iSwordsman); iSwordsman on Phantasmal Haste does about the same damage in the long run than a warden reflect every 10s… maybe more?

Please correct me if I missed something, but I just feel like untraited build (phantasmal haste, mantra 4%, clone slot, etc.) does more DPS. :x

Coe is the istance i prefer right after fotm. I do it daily bases since nearlier release.

I could be wrong but imao you’re right, untraited wins.

Some other points for untraited warden are:

1) no buff reaching boss is better than 1 idisenchater cleansing boss (idisenchanter with ph rate is 2,6 sec and your sword chain rate is 2,48. This means that with just 1 idisenchanter and your autoattack if you’re unluck you can take up to 2 sec to remove protection)

2) you can bring feedback with untraited warden and reflect 1st beam anyway, animation is really easy to see. Also with high dps party and tw golem won’t reach 3rd beam so you have a 50% reflect uptime anyway (sometimes he dont reach 2nd beam with a bit of luck on boss rotation).

3) if you have traited warden+ph you aren’t mantra build or you don’t have point in dueling. In both case your dmg will be kinda meh xD

my 2 cents

Good points guys. I think this depends a little on your group. Organized folks know how to take out turrets quickly (or attack both turrets and golem at once) so you don’t need the blocks and the reflect damage helps. In pugs where you need to carry hard, warden blocking helps keep the boons off and is more important than a little dps. Frifox is probably used to the more organized runs.

Anyway, it helps to know the advantages for both, so thanks for pointing them out!

My standard rotation for that encounter is,
1. Warden
2. Disenchanter
3. Signet of Ether
4. Wait 2 seconds
5. Disenchanter

I avoid relying on wardens because when he spins he pushes them away and they stop reflecting his attacks unless they’re targeted directly at them. This is why I always prefer to evenly stagger 2 or 3 disenchanters and then protect them with my reflects in case the golem starts targeting them. Of course, in organized groups if they can time the cc’s to interrupt all his spin then with wardens you can set up a perma reflect field which will reflect both the boss & the turrets and do decent damage at the same time.

I personally prefer the way that requires less effort for those who are in my party.

Bump! Need a sticky!

Why is this not a sticky yet? Awesome guide!

Veprovina.4876:

Why is this not a sticky yet? Awesome guide!

cause arenanet doesnt check mesmer forum anymore:p

Sticky like my hands!

Awesome guide, most every question I had was answered. So recharge traits do stack? that’s good to know.

I’m curious, is 60044 ever worthwhile? PH + Reflecting wardens seems like it’d be nice coverage for reflects, but you lose the precision bonuses of the dueling tree. Is it worth it?

Also, you mention that the 64004 build has a negative of longer reuse on wardens, wouldn’t it be the same as the 64040 build you list for reflects as you lose the illusion minor but gain the warden’s feedback? Only 60044 should be better in that regard right?

Jerus.4350:

Awesome guide, most every question I had was answered. So recharge traits do stack? that’s good to know.

I’m curious, is 60044 ever worthwhile? PH + Reflecting wardens seems like it’d be nice coverage for reflects, but you lose the precision bonuses of the dueling tree. Is it worth it?

If you need traited wardens and PH, 2/4/0/4/4 is likely a better choice. This combination allows you to maintain 100% warden reflect uptime with just two wardens. Since Empowering Mantras does not benefit warden reflects I think the precision, ferocity and phantasmal fury are more valuable (these do benefit the warden).

Remember that untraited wardens still defend against projectiles so you can still achieve 100% defense uptime with 6/4/0/0/4 and two wardens.

Also, you mention that the 64004 build has a negative of longer reuse on wardens, wouldn’t it be the same as the 64040 build you list for reflects as you lose the illusion minor but gain the warden’s feedback? Only 60044 should be better in that regard right?

6/4/0/0/4 has the same warden cooldown as 6/4/0/4/0. TC’s cooldown is longer though.

Unbugging thread.