Guild Wars 2

I will updated/add/re-write this as necessary, please leave your tips/comments/suggestions etc.

Purpose

A fun, active build with an option to sit back and pump out DPS close to a full DPS build without sacrificing utility.

Weapons
Staff + Scepter/Pistol

Traits

Domination: V
Dueling: II X IX
Illusions: III VIII X

http://i.imgur.com/bEFBn.png

Swap out Power V for Power III if you know you have a really easy boss coming up

The highlights here are 30% critical damage, 300 condition damage and precision, and all those juicy shatter buffs and free clones.

Slot Skills:

There is no right answer here and you can swap them out between every fight. Utility skills are not part of a build in dungeons, they are supplemental. I will explain what compliments the build later. Picking utility skills and never changing them is a mistake.

Sigils to Consider:

Energy, Frailty, Corruption, Perception, Stamina, Speed

See the write up for this, sigils are more confusing than they seem.

Runes to Consider:

I still have to do the math on this but some promising sets are
Eagle (4/6)
Ranger (4/6)
Thief (4/6)
Lyssa (2/6)

Note that these are all budget runes.

*Equipment: *
Until I see something with Precision, Critical Damage, and Condition Damage, the choice is
Rampager’s (Power, Precision, Condition Damage)
That’s 6 items plus 5 pieces of Jewerly, straight across the board.

Ok, that is the build, now onto the tips and comments.

Shattering

Shattering is critical to playing the mesmer correctly. This build offers 30% faster shatters, confusion on shatter, might on shatter, etc.

You have 4 shatters, you already know what they are but there are some crucial things to remember.

F1 and F2 are your damage shatters. The F1->F2->F1 combo is your bread and butter. This combo shatters 9 clones in around 10 seconds. Beyond a lot of damage, that’s 9 free might stacks and 12 confusion stacks total (not all at once.)

Now you can roll F1->F2->F1->F3->F1 repeat which will have you constantly shattering clones, but I don’t consider this a great idea.

F3 and F4 are your fantastic shatters and they have a ton of tricks.

F3 can daze entire groups of enemies if you spread out your clones, 1 target for as long as your clones are hitting him +1 second after that, OR suck 3 stacks of defiant off of a boss all at once. So good.

F4 is also amazing, 3 seconds of pocket invulnerability? God yes.

These shatters are fantastic and this build gets to use them to nearly their full extent with the dodge clones and scepter.

I haven’t even mentioned the best part:
The shatters are instants

That means you can use them whenever you want, no matter what.
Reviving a downed player and you’re about to take a ton of damage or get interrupted? Nah, invuln yourself for 3 seconds without skipping a beat.

The other critical piece of timing is to roll a split second before shattering if you have 2 clones, you crap out a 3rd for the shatter. You rarely have to shatter with just 2 illusions and there is no excuse for shattering with just one unless you are desperate for an F3 or F4.

More to come later when I edit this post. Feel free to share your comments but keep in mind that I made a lot of decisions based on testing which resulted in some seemingly obvious choices being left out.

But Rhyno, this build has no survivability.

Yes it does. The mesmer does not synergize well with armor and vitality. He synergizes with his clones, who can cripple, daze, draw aggro, turn him invulnerable, etc. More clones = more survivability. Also more dodging = more survivability, AND more clones. That’s why Vigor and energy sigils are so sexy.

But Rhyno, why no +condition durations

That stat does not transfer to clones, or conditions from sigils. That’s why you don’t see condition sigils or runes.

Pistol Range Reference – Traited range on the right

http://i.imgur.com/YEoqI.jpg

Slot Skill tricks and options
Single Target Stun City – Signet of Domination / Mantra of Distraction / F3 = 3 sources of hard CC totaling 6 individual applications.

Trivialize Traps – Blink / Veil / Portal Entre lets you blow by skippable segments while bringing your entire team through after you

Arcane Thievery / Signet of Inspiration is a cute combo but the cooldowns are too long for them to be practical I’ve found

The rest of your utility skills allow you to mix and match condition control and survivability.

Never underestimate Null Field and Feedback.

awesome guide. i have a shatter build that works well for me, but i learned a couple things from this. “trivialize traps” was like a light bulb going off. i did something similar in CM explorable, but learned the pattern and ran through the traps instead of blinking and put feedback on the riflemen shooting me before i dropped the portal exit. same end result, but yours is a lot cooler.

question; are you saying the runes/sigils (i use undead runes and 1 stack/kill +7 condition damage sigils) i have that add condition damage dont benefit confusion put on foes from shattering clones? or just condition DURATION?

Just condition duration. It’s really confusing. In GENERAL any EFFECT a sigil/rune/trait gives you does not transfer to your clones. Effect is extremely broad and ambiguous in that definition though

These include +%condition duration
Extra bounce on bouncing attacks
Chance to proc and effect on crit

and many more.

What weapon combos do you prefer for a dps build? im using GS & sword/torch right now and switching out GS for scepter/pistol on long boss fights. Im still low lvl but this is a great guide, thanks.

Souldoubt.8692:

What weapon combos do you prefer for a dps build? im using GS & sword/torch right now and switching out GS for scepter/pistol on long boss fights. Im still low lvl but this is a great guide, thanks.

I didn’t realize I left out the weapon selection. This build utilizes the scepter over the great sword because iWarlock is ranged and thus much more reliable in a dungeon with gratuitous AoE, and iWarlock does amazing damage. The Staff also synergizes with the build very well while giving additional support.

If you are at a point in the game where your Greatsword Phantasm can survive go ahead and use it. This build is mostly focused around dungeons which are quite a bit different than group events.

Other things that are generally boss diesel in dungeons:

Focus! Into the Void is incredible at dealing with a pack, temporal curtain is very useful in certain fights where kiting packs is particularly key, and parking an iWarden on top of many stationary ranged bosses is very useful. The reflection trait is also very nice, since leaving a curtain up for the condition removal combo and having it simultaneously reflect projectiles is very protective.

I completely agree with Null Field and Feedback. These are so strong, between the base effect saving your party and the very strong combo field.

Chaotic interruption applies some surprisingly powerful conditions—I’ve seen blind and chill come up, though the chill may not be long enough to really impress.

Sword’s 3 can activate a leap combo twice. Not so impressive when you’re just reapplying Chaos armor or something, but in, say, a poison field, you quickly apply a buttload of weakness.

The Focus is basically tied with the Pistol IMO but it’s used for different things, I’ll probably do a write-up on the focus. iWarden also does flat out stupid damage but I haven’t found a build that reliably keeps it alive in dungeons. If I can get iWarden to survive without sacrificing too much it will become my main suggestion by leaps and bounds.

A full 12 crits from a warden with the associated bleed followed by a 3 clone shatter is ridiculous.

Nice build man =)
I’m curious tho, did you test it in explorable mode? I’m not so sure because I only did AC explorable but dont you need a bit of vit/tough because of all the aoe/adds/condition that bosses throw at you?

Yes, I’ve done the explorables. It’s actually the story modes that I haven’t done 100%. I’m doing them with my buddy as he levels since they don’t really give good rewards if you’re level 80.

In general AoE is avoidable. Either through projectile blocking or dodging. For example, say a boss throws down an AoE that poisons you. If you don’t time the roll right, you’ll just have to use some of your condition management. No big deal. Since you did AC on exploration I’ll mention the the guy that pulls everyone in and 1 shots them. Skills like that can be blocked hilariously easily with this build. Just roll backwards any time during the spell. You’ll pop out a sacrificial clone that gets pulled in to die for you, debuffing the boss. I’ll add a part about projectile blocking.

Infact now that I think about it, this sort of careful play works pretty much everywhere, though it’s really hard to pull off sometimes.

Arah explorable has a boss called Giganticus Lupicus who has AoE pulses that nothing we have can out range, yet you can still dodge it.

If you aren’t good with timing yet against a certain boss, roll to pop out a clone and F4 before you finish the roll. If you already had 2 clones out you can invuln yourself for nearly 4 seconds.

Staff 2 + Roll + F4 is pretty neat, and that doesn’t even tap into your utility skills.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgQQNArdWlwzaoHUz5G2NJxZGRn6oUgdvTqgqLfA3A

You actually sound like you know what your talking about. How about a build like this. I used to run a shatter build but I felt I couldn’t keep up clones and illusions up consistantly enough to keep up my DPS. Escpecially since clones/phantasms do the vast majority of the damage.
With this build I run sword+focus/staff or GS/staff.

To pose the question again how do you manage to keep up illusions/phantasms up throughout the fight without wasting damage from not having them out?

For instance 3 warlocks with my current build I can easily do over 20k damage sustained throughout the fight. Not to mention short bursts of even higher damage.
All of this while maintaining group synergy very well.

Edit: Linked wrong build.

I mostly keep phantasms alive by only using ranged phantasms, and the +range trait for iDuelist.

There is nothing wrong with leaving up 3 Warlocks and 3 Duelists because you dish out great DPS and it frees you up to support your team, rez, auto attack, whatever. However I’m not suggesting that it’s always reasonable. Dungeons have gratuitous AoE and mobs, and sometimes you’re much better off getting your clones into the fray which is the what the build provides.

The concern with the build you posted is two-fold. First, keeping Warden alive seems to be very difficult, and second, if you can’t keep up the phantasms, the build doesn’t have as much going for it. IF you can keep the phantasms up, and it’s certainly possible in a lot of situations, it should be fine.

If you are finding yourself in situations where you can’t keep the warden alive, drop out of Chaos and dump into Dueling. Grab the +range. The extra crit damage and chance is a HUGE boost.
20 points of Dueling results in a bonus +20% crit damage, and if you are critting say, 90% of the time, that’s a huge DPS bonus. Sometimes the stats you get are worth more than the traits if you’re shooting for high numbers.

Like I mentioned earlier, I really want to make iWarden work so I’ll give your build a try with tankier armor to see if I can extend that survivability to the Warden. iWarden critting 12 times is sick.

Nice guide im going to try it
One thing i didn’t understand.. What is the number near the rune name?
Like Lyssa(2)

I think the numbers should be the “set bonus” to work towards for each one? So for Lyssa, you would be interested in two pieces of armour with that rune to make it effective.

Nice guide, btw, Rhyno!

I clarified the rune thing