Guild Wars 2

Seeing as I’m constantly just regurgitating the same thing over and over again, I thought it would be better to centralise my build and similar ones in to one thread. It’s going to be a little bare-bones until I get frequent enough access to my normal computer that I can make videos and run tests.

I. Introduction

The phantasm mesmer is a mesmer who is built to surpass any other class in 1v1 combat. This applies to PvP, WvW and PvE. The advantage in using this build in a dungeon however, is that our damage is able to be amplified by our party stacking might all the way up to the maximum which gives us +875 power and condition damage and. Since our phantasms take our precision, critical damage, condition damage and power stats, this enables us to apply even more damage. A mesmer with three fully buffed phantasmal duelists is said to be close to some of the strongest DPS in the entire game.

II. Weapons

The mesmer class has akittens disposal sword (main hand and off hand), pistol (off hand), focus (off hand), scepter (main hand), torch (off hand), greatsword (two-handed) and staff (two-handed). While this offers a lot of diversity in PvP, the general rule for PvE is that you should maximise your DPS.

- “But I want to play a support mesmer!”
- “It would be great if I could play a tank mesmer!”
- “I want to give big heals to my group!”

Maximising your DPS still allows you to support (in fact it lets you support more – more on that later), so diluting your gear by focusing on something like boon duration is unnecessary. “Tanking” as you may know it in other games is not actually possible in GW2 – major factors in determining aggro in this game are proximity, toughness and damage dealt, but in practice, aggro in this game will boil down to just pure randomness. Don’t ever expect to be able to hold aggro for your team reliably, and this is ignoring the fact that “tanking” isn’t necessary in dungeons. Finally, each class is equipped with their own burst heal – again, do not dilute your gear just to try and heal other players. Your healing will also make such little difference that it is not worth building around. Now to weapons.

Sigils

Sigils for this build you can basically use anywhere. You use bloodlust on your mainhand sword, and you use sigils of battle on your off-hands. If you want a “safe” weapon to swap to after hitting 25 bloodlust stacks, have another sword in your inventory with a sigil of force. If you want to maximise your usefulness in a dungeon though, start off using sigil of night, and then pick up more swords with sigils of inquest, undead, ghost, outlaw, sons of svanir, icebrood, flame legion, nightmare and dredge slaying. I’m not even sure if sigils for all of those even exist, but if you can get them, its worth getting a sword (main hand) to use with them on once you have full bloodlust stacks. It’s more of a min-max thing though, do it if you have a ton of dungeon tokens or gold lying around, but don’t make sure to get swords with all of this on before you even run dungeons, it only makes a minor difference.

Also, run berserker weapons (power/precision/critical damage).

III. Armour

Very short section. Run full berserker armour (power/precision/critical damage) and run berserker stats amulet, accessories, rings and backpiece. Defensive stats don’t matter, and getting used to only being able to take a few hits (which you should be dodging anyway) will make you a better player. In your armour, use ruby orbs, in your trinkets use exquisite ruby jewels. If you can get your hands on berserker ascended, the agony resistance infusions work perfectly fine.

IV. Finally, the build itself

10/30/0/30/0

In Domination, take Empowered Illusions (15+ Illusion Damage)

In Dueling, take Phantasmal Fury (phantasms have fury), Blade Training (50+ precision while wielding a sword, sword skills have -20% cooldown) and Duelist’s Discipline (-20% cooldown on pistol skills, duelist now has 100% chance of comboing on combo fields – for example 8 confusion stacks shoting throug an ethereal field)

In Inspiration, take Glamour Mastery (-20% cooldown on glamour skills), Warden’s Feedback (-20% cooldown on focus skills, focus skills reflect projectiles) and the last skill you can either trait for 20%+ HP on phantasms or longer duration glamours).

The build is generally quite simple in its trait choices. Phantasms are our main source of damage so we want them to have fury (more crits = more damage), we want more illusion damage through Empowered Illusions and 25 points in inspiration, and we want faster cooldowns on our phantasms so that when they die we can recast them again without having to wait. Traiting focus for faster cooldowns just so happens to enable focus skills to reflect, and reflects are massively imortant in dungeons, which you will find out when you play them (which enemies have projectiles you can reflect). Faster glamour cooldowns and longer duration means our feedback (another reflect skill) can be cast more often and lasts longer (from 6 to 8 seconds). 30 points in inspiration gives us 300 vitality too which is a nice safety cushion if you’re new to the build, giving us around 19k HP which can soak up hits quite nicely.

Your general attack rotation will consist of casting a phantasm, waiting for it to deal damage and then swapping to your other weapon set (3 stacks of might from sigil of battle), casting that phantasm and then attacking with your sword. Always remember to swap in and out skills for whatever is relevant in a fight, for example your base skill set may be blink, decoy and feedback (just offering an example), but if you go against the legendary golem in Crucible of Eternity, swap out you blink and decoy for Phantasmal Disechanter and Null Field. On the other hand, for the Subject Alpha fights in that very same dungeon, you’ll want something like Signet of Inspiration (to double your team’s might stacks), Null Field (he casts PbAoE burning) and either Mantra of Pain or Signet of Illusions.

The alternate build which I am currently using is 0/20/0/25/25. This sacrifices Empowered Illusions, Blade Training and the grandmaster trait in Inspiration, but in return I gain Compounding Power, Phantasmal Haste and Illusionists’ Celerity. What this means is that while my phantasms do less damage, Phantasmal Haste means they attack more frequently (to offer you an example, if a phantasm deals 5k damage and attacks every 5 seconds for 20k damage in 20 seconds, if my weaker phantasms with this alternate build now deal 4k damage but attack every 4 seconds, it means they still deal 20k – now remember this also means with duelist though that in the same time you would get 8 extra bleed stacks – so in a sustained fight the damage of the two builds tends to even out nicely), Illusionists’ Celerity means that my phantasms are on an even lower cooldown (apart from off hand sword thanks to the loss of blade training, it’s just 16 seconds like it was in the 10/30/0/30/0 build) and with Compounding Power, while phantasm damage doesn’t scale with damage %+ modifiers, our own skills do. So what this means is that if you use feedback, your feedbacks can deal up to 9%+ damage if you have three illusions out, and the same applies to your autoattack.

reserved

V. Videos of the build in action

(to be added)

:(

VI. Specific dungeon strategies

Beginning with easier ones, these are very precise breakdowns of dungeon strategy which will be used by any decent group.

WARNING – The strategies are for maximum efficiency, if you think it will influence the amount of fun you have playing (since they are very repetitive), don’t read.

Crucible of Eternity

At the start, talk to Agent Spire. Your group will stack left while you should run in to the room and aggro the first three mobs. Evade their projectile attack and then run back to your group. As the three icebrood make their way into your group, drop your phantasmal warden and then when it finishes spinning, drop feedback. The elementals have a distinct attack which creates ice in a triangle that can be reflected for absurd amounts of damage

When this is done, your group will stack in a corner on the left. Run up to the three next icebrood, timing your evade so that the wolves don’t eat basically your entie HP pool (this takes practice). Follow your group in to the corner, drop a warden and then basically do whatever. Duelist, Swordsman, greatsword might even be useful here for AoE. A few seconds later the mobs will die. Your group will stack in the corner again (unless theyre skipping the champion) so you run to the last mobs, making sure to evade the leap (and this will be a one-shot, again practice is key), follow your team, drop your warden and then your second phantasm. Burst the wolf down because if you take too long he will leap again and almost wipe your team. Finish escorting Spire, then talk to her and choose your path.

NOTE – Subject Alpha only does a burning PbAoE in path 1 so you can just burst him relentlessly. In paths two and three he will fill the room with AoE. Count to two and then dodge or use blurred frenzy. If your team get burnt, use Null Field.

colesy.8490:

Seeing as I’m constantly just regurgitating the same thing over and over again, I thought it would be better to centralise my build and similar ones in to one thread.

Oh, you finally got it.

:p

I finally have some semblance of a guide, the core is now here, I’ll add more later.

No thoughts on scepter as weapon in regards to utility/phantasm?

ZBoss.5610:

No thoughts on scepter as weapon in regards to utility/phantasm?

It’s bad. That’s about all the thoughts you need on it.

Forgot entirely about it, I’ll put a small section on it.

Ya I tried scepter, I know some people swear by it, but I just COULDN’T bring myself to using it. Wish we could use daggers likes Ele’s. LoL

Also, thanks for writing up this guide Colesy!

np, it saves me the effort of having to interrupt threads with giant walls of text :p

I’d put in a note at the torch. It’s not a damage weapon, but a utility weapon. I always have one with me just in case for some reason I find myself needing some sort of stealth skill on a weapon.

So you have sword main hand on both weapon sets?

Hey so this is a pretty informative guide and I agree with pretty much everything.

I was just wondering which weapon you would suggest for encounters you have to range? Basically bosses such as hotw p1 endboss, some iterations of the nightmare tree, etc. I dislike greatsword, staff auto is low but has a good phantasm, and with scepter you can at least have 2 duelists up, although I really wish they removed the clone on auttoattack, replaced that with some kinda condition-thing, but kept the clone on scepter 2.

So you have sword main hand on both weapon sets?

Yes. You don’t need to actually have two swords though, in your first weapon set have your sword and whatever your off hand is, then in your second set just stick the off hand in.

I was just wondering which weapon you would suggest for encounters you have to range?

Probably greatsword. Staff has the warlock, but the autoattack is just horrendously bad. On the other hand, if anything within like 300 range just gets destroyed then using staff and positioning your warlocks out of the lethal radius is probably better.

Basically bosses such as hotw p1 endboss

Might be best to go staff for this one since he moves around a lot and iZerker will probably bite the dust. Though when he does his whirling defense, switch to sword and hit him from max melee range. Wethospu solo’d this dungeon and if you find his video on youtube you can see what I mean by it.

Does the boss cleanse conditions, btw? A downside to staff is that the whirling defense reflects projectiles so a warlock attacking then will just kill itself. On the other hand, a zerker going for a swing will kill itself too.

I so rarely do that dungeon because of the awful HP pools … but you’ll probably be replacing your phantasms a lot in a fight like that :p

some iterations of the nightmare tree

Full melee, reflects and dodge his summons

A tip for that fight is using the phantasmal disenchanter to strip his boons. It helps a lot with kill speed.

Or that “useless” GS#3

Sword auto is better to strip a boon than GS3.

Of course it is.

Pyroatheist.9031:

I’d put in a note at the torch. It’s not a damage weapon, but a utility weapon. I always have one with me just in case for some reason I find myself needing some sort of stealth skill on a weapon.

I also always (and almost solely) keep a torch on me for running from the ice elemental to the svanir chief in the Snowblind fractal to light my way! So useful!!

…sadly this is also accomplished by the random torches scattered on the ground.

:(

I was going to open another topic but I guess I’ll ask directly here for suggestions.

For some time I’ve been running 10/30/0/0/30 in dungeons and found myself much comfortable with it. My build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8alwzipHVzgGa9IBqHY37fnUBVX6Bu5duB-jQyAYLBZiUgoCwJvioxWzKiGr2BTVmUlrgs3QZFA-e (I input the gear I currently have)

I know that I’m giving up on reflection utilities but what you get in exchange is
the possibility of having 3 phantasms up within 12s: I usually start with greatsword, throw the mirror blade for the vuln/might and then land the iZerker; immediately switch to sword/pistol, spawn duelist and then pop another duelist after 12s, while autoattacking with sword. After the CD on duelist is over again, I replace the former iZerker with a third duelist.

The signet of inspiration coupled with the passive condition damage from illusions traits grants me 480 condition damage that, with some might stack, pumps the condition damage to very decent amounts.

The reasons why I gave up on using Warden are:
1) The phantasm attacks in place; if the mob/boss moves (Tazza in SE is an example), the phantasm won’t deal any damage.
2) The phantasm is melee and gets 1shot by boss melee hits
3) The phantasm “pushes” his target while attacking; this is mostly notable in CoE boss fight against Alpha: after you pull Alpha to the walls and then pop 3 wardens, you’ll see Alpha slowly being pushed away until he’s out in the open, demolishing your party with his aoe.

Duelist, on the other side:
1) Fast, good and reliable damage: as opposed to iWarden, iDuelist doesn’t need long channeling times to land his damage, stacks 8 bleeds within those 1-2s and stacks 8 confusions if inside an ethereal field (not much important in pve) every 5s
2) Phantasm is ranged and, with pistol traited, you can spawn him in Africa and let him unload his shells on your target from afar, without the need to replace it everytime, losing damage in the process.
3) Very short cooldown: 12s to summon one. If, for some reason, one of your 3 duelists die, you can spawn another one quickly enough, without losing much dps.

HOWEVER, as I do not have ANY means to understand whether my duelist is dealing the highest OVERALL damage or not (I’ll be even clearer on this one: I don’t care if my duelist deals 10k burst in one round if it needs 20s to recharge, does it every 6s, can’t be spawned farther away and requires 40s+ to have 3 functional phantasms up therefore being surpassed by a phantasm that deals less damage but more often and can be spawned more often and farther away, providing an overall higher damage within a certain time window), since we do not have access to damage meters OR a decent combat log that shows EVERYTHING and not ONLY direct damage done by/to YOU, I’ll ask you, more experienced fellows:

For a build focusing on RELIABLE STEADY damage, would you suggest me to change something in my build? I understand that iPersona is not that useful, since I never shatter (if not in emergency cases where distortion is needed, in which case I’d gain another sec of invuln.) but I can’t seem to find anything else enough interesting in the illusions tree.

Since I consider iDuelist the best overall phantasm (It might not have the same top damage of warden or his AoE but is more resilient and provides steady reliable damage in hostile environments without dying), I’d prefer a build that focuses entirely on it. Do you think you can provide me a more efficient build than the one I had come up with? Thanks for your attention, hoping you can help me out. So far I’m doing pretty good but I always strive to improve

Go here:

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

@Metallus colesy did say to switch the offhand based on what situation you enter, so if you fight a mobile boss that you don’t need to pull with curtain, then its would be better to do sword/sword and sword/pistol

I know that I’m giving up on reflection utilities but what you get in exchange is
the possibility of having 3 phantasms up within 12s: I usually start with greatsword, throw the mirror blade for the vuln/might and then land the iZerker; immediately switch to sword/pistol, spawn duelist and then pop another duelist after 12s, while autoattacking with sword. After the CD on duelist is over again, I replace the former iZerker with a third duelist.

And reflection utility is why you take a mesmer. Also, the 0/20/0/25/25 mesmer can have 3 phantasms up in 12 seconds too, if you go duelist/swordsman/duelist.

Also, stop using greatsword.

The reasons why I gave up on using Warden are:
1) The phantasm attacks in place; if the mob/boss moves (Tazza in SE is an example), the phantasm won’t deal any damage.
2) The phantasm is melee and gets 1shot by boss melee hits
3) The phantasm “pushes” his target while attacking; this is mostly notable in CoE boss fight against Alpha: after you pull Alpha to the walls and then pop 3 wardens, you’ll see Alpha slowly being pushed away until he’s out in the open, demolishing your party with his aoe

Swordsman and Duelist are your DPS phantasms, you use warden if you have to use focus for utility – this involves mob pulls and/or reflects. Warden just happens to be the phantasm you end up having to use in that situation.

For a build focusing on RELIABLE STEADY damage, would you suggest me to change something in my build? I understand that iPersona is not that useful, since I never shatter (if not in emergency cases where distortion is needed, in which case I’d gain another sec of invuln.) but I can’t seem to find anything else enough interesting in the illusions tree.

10/30/0/0/30 is the best if you want reliable, steady damage at the cost of most of your utility. 0/20/0/25/25 however is the best if you want that same steady damage but to actually have the utility a mesmer is taken for.

Since I consider iDuelist the best overall phantasm (It might not have the same top damage of warden or his AoE but is more resilient and provides steady reliable damage in hostile environments without dying), I’d prefer a build that focuses entirely on it. Do you think you can provide me a more efficient build than the one I had come up with? Thanks for your attention, hoping you can help me out. So far I’m doing pretty good but I always strive to improve

When I run 0/20/0/25/25 it’s quite duelist-centric since for my master trait in dueling I take the duelist’s discipline so as opposed to blade training.

I’ll have to give this build a try. Right now my Mesmer is stuck running CoF for tokens with an exotic GS and green sword/focus LOL. At least I have full zerkers!

I’d recommend running COE (all paths) for tokens, it’ll take you about 15 minutes per path if your group knows what they’re doing. You can buy berserker gear from WvW with badges from achievement chests too for like 1g each + 100-something badges.

10/30/0/30/0 is honestly the least favorite of my mesmer trait spreads. You do get okay DPS (slightly better than 0/20/0/25/25) and retain the ability to reflect, but you lose Phantasmal Haste and IC, so not only will it take longer between Warden reflects, they won’t reflect as often. so your reflect coverage is substantially worse.

I would personally go all out on DPS or all out on reflects, with 10/30/0/0/30 for the former and 0/20/0/25/25 for the latter. Even with the “all-out reflect” setup you will still outdamage most classes, including everyone’s favorite warrior. I’m sure you’ve seen my Guru thread on the topic.

Nice guide! +1
Minor note you could add to the weapons section – iSwordsman’s leaps are finishers, so jumping through ethereal fields gets him pretty high uptime on Chaos Armor which can help his survivability a fair amount too.
Also, might be nice to have a section detailing the common useful utility skills to have on your bar, and situations where they’re useful.

Chaos Armour does practically nothing in dungeons since you should be mitigating damage through blocks, frenzy and dodging (so chaos armour will never proc). I should probably add information on the phantasm combo finishers though, ty.

I would personally go all out on DPS or all out on reflects, with 10/30/0/0/30 for the former and 0/20/0/25/25 for the latter. Even with the “all-out reflect” setup you will still outdamage most classes, including everyone’s favorite warrior. I’m sure you’ve seen my Guru thread on the topic.

If there was a way to retrait to certain builds on the fly, 10/30/0/0/30 would be good for those dungeons that don’t require reflects (or doesn’t require them beyond feedback), but I think 0/20/0/25/25 is a better “all purpose” build where you never have to change anything, just your weapons when going between areas in dungeons or when you’ve finished with a stacking sigil.

I wouldn’t even mind paying gems for it, switching between WvW and PvE builds is pretty tedious.

I think retaliation (Vengeful Images-trait) is also important to take into account when trying to maximise DPS. For instance, Phantasmal Defender with Signet of Illusions can do considerable amounts of extra (retaliation) damage against dungeons bosses with a lot of AOE damage.

Phantasmal Warden placed next to a stationary dungeon boss, HP buffed with Signet of Illusions and traited with Vengeful Images probably also does a lot more damage than a Phantasmal Duelist, when you take the retaliation damage into account. For moving bosses the Duelist is probably better, though.

retaliation is terrible when bosses do giant 10k attacks and since retaliation was nerfed to not be constantly refreshing on phantasms, it’s still not worth using.

also, this hypothetical phantasmal defender isn’t a duelist, swordsman or warden, so you’re hitting your own DPS already and trying to make up for it with retaliation.

Have you tested Scepter+Pistol with a deactivated autoattack as a pure ranged option? Slot Signet Of Domination and Malicious Sorcery if you can get away with it, and if you have some spare time use #1 twice, then wait for the chain to expire. #3 can be used on cooldown, #2 can still be double-cast for a blind if you have 3 phantasms up.

Note I’m only wondering how this compares when staying at range is mandatory, so the other options are Staff, GS, or sticking with a 0 dps mainhand.

Also, since the builds have that option, on which fights would you recommend using Restorative Mantras? (assuming you’re not in an organised all-melee setup and raw dps is the only thing that matters)

Have you tested Scepter+Pistol with a deactivated autoattack as a pure ranged option? Slot Signet Of Domination and Malicious Sorcery if you can get away with it, and if you have some spare time use #1 twice, then wait for the chain to expire. #3 can be used on cooldown, #2 can still be double-cast for a blind if you have 3 phantasms up.

I haven’t but feel free to try it yourself and post whether the three phantasm and needing to cancel auto issue came up often and if so, how long it stopped you from attacking. I’d only recommend slotting in malicious sorcery if focus wasn’t needed and signet of domination if literally nothing else was needed though. Normally when I can’t think of anything I just slot in mantra of pain, signet of inspiration and signet of illusions.

Note I’m only wondering how this compares when staying at range is mandatory, so the other options are Staff, GS, or sticking with a 0 dps mainhand.

Obviously using a sword when you can’t melee is pretty bad, though I’d say duelist and warlock would be better choices than the zerker since they attack from ranged unlike the zerker which might get killed by PbAoE.

Also, since the builds have that option, on which fights would you recommend using Restorative Mantras? (assuming you’re not in an organised all-melee setup and raw dps is the only thing that matters)

Never used it myself, and there’s only a handful of fights I even use mantras (where there’s literally nothing else that’s worth using). I just can’t see mantra heals doing enough, especially since it means giving up focus traiting and the fact that a 2k heal isn’t going to matter that much if your group just can’t dodge.

Is there a reliable way of canceling an individual autoattack? Hitting Esc doesn’t work if the animation has already started or something.
I mainly tried the setup against world bosses (Dwayna Statue being a prime example), where I can simply deactivate the autoattack and hit 1-1 whenever I have nothing else to do (i.e. 3 duelists up, #3 on cooldown, #5 or all combo fields on cooldown). The reset takes several seconds and doesn’t seem to speed up with Quickness. Confusing Images+occasional autoattacks should still hit for more than Staff auto.

Why do you use MoP without mantra heal? Is there any time it’s worth channeling in combat instead of autoattacking?

Do you find Signet of Illusions useful? Even during regular dungeon runs most phantasm deaths seem to occur from instagib AoEs or weaker attacks that pulse for far too much total damage. For example, does the Signet allow a phantasm to survive the CoF p1 endboss’s flamethrower attack? Without it my iDuelists seem to die within less than half the channel time if they get hit.

I find mantra heal to be a godsend during certain fights if some people can’t handle the damage on their own. Obviously not a problem for organised teams, but it’s very useful for introducing guild mates to dungeons/fractals without having them spend half the time on the floor. Especially Subject Alpha (he deals a lot of damage if your own Null Field is the only available AoE cleanse) or the Grawl Shaman (newbie/PUG runs often descend into chaos during the first Lava Elemental wave, if not sooner. Running between allies cycling MoP is priceless to watch)

I actually consider this another strong point of the build: You don’t need an organised group, and you don’t have to relog/quit after the first wipe. Unlike most other setups our main dps keeps going regardless of what we do, so we’re free to rezz people or stand there cycling a mantra. After all, the goal is to maximise the dps of the group as a whole, and with new/less skilled allies this often means keeping the Thief/Warrior/melee Elementalist on their feet.

I apologize if this is common knowledge and I’m misunderstanding the posts, or if this has changed only recently, but I’ve tested this in the mists today and clones don’t overwrite phantasms anymore.

So, scepter / focus + sword / pistol?

If you have 3 Phantasms out, producing a clone will overwrite your oldest Phantasm. Further clones will just keep overwriting your clone.

@Photoloss: Regarding autoattacks.

If you have your 1 skill set to automatic autoattack, you can interrupt the action with any other action nearly instantly. If you are manually pressing the button, you cannot.

Why do you use MoP without mantra heal? Is there any time it’s worth channeling in combat instead of autoattacking?

It helps keep up DPS for those moments where you’re out of melee and are closing distance again. Still…it’s a load of meh. Probably better off using a glamour skill and having a duelist shoot through it.

Do you find Signet of Illusions useful? Even during regular dungeon runs most phantasm deaths seem to occur from instagib AoEs or weaker attacks that pulse for far too much total damage. For example, does the Signet allow a phantasm to survive the CoF p1 endboss’s flamethrower attack? Without it my iDuelists seem to die within less than half the channel time if they get hit.

I have no idea how useful it is, all I know is that I slot it in when I can’t think of anything else.

I find mantra heal to be a godsend during certain fights if some people can’t handle the damage on their own. Obviously not a problem for organised teams, but it’s very useful for introducing guild mates to dungeons/fractals without having them spend half the time on the floor. Especially Subject Alpha (he deals a lot of damage if your own Null Field is the only available AoE cleanse) or the Grawl Shaman (newbie/PUG runs often descend into chaos during the first Lava Elemental wave, if not sooner. Running between allies cycling MoP is priceless to watch)

I’ve never used mantra heal and I’ve never thought of slotting it in, so I while I can’t say it’s bad, I can’t imagine it’s that useful.

—

I apologize if this is common knowledge and I’m misunderstanding the posts, or if this has changed only recently, but I’ve tested this in the mists today and clones don’t overwrite phantasms anymore.

So, scepter / focus + sword / pistol?

Even if the auto chain didn’t override the third phantasm, sword dps > scepter dps, so always sword. Swap out focus for off-hand sword if reflects aren’t required too.

On my mesmer for the advanced golem I use different strategy. I also run 0/20/0/25/25 so for that fight I swap in X in 2nd line and equip Decoy and Mirror Images. During the fight I keep 3 sword clones up at all times. If one of more gets killed I have no problem immediately summoning more to replace them. Every 3rd sword auto-attack both me and my clones rip one of his boons.This results in the whole fight golem having more or less zero boons, which makes the fight easier/faster.

Also, if many in the party run Scholar runes, I might slot in mantra of pain + appropriate healing trait to keep whole party at 90%+ health at all time.

2 disenchanters will do the job better than 3 sword clones.

5, since i’m stripping boons as well (3 clones and me, since I attack ~2x as fast). I’ve also noticed that he loves to target my 2nd disenchanger immediately if I summon him so it’s not easy to keep them up if he destroys them so fast. Though, last run I’ve noticed something interesting. If I summon a disenchanter during his spin (long skill animation) I can summon all 3 and he will ignore them (similar trick where you glitch some of Arah bosses)

frifox.5283:

5, since i’m stripping boons as well (3 clones and me, since I attack ~2x as fast). I’ve also noticed that he loves to target my 2nd disenchanger immediately if I summon him so it’s not easy to keep them up if he destroys them so fast. Though, last run I’ve noticed something interesting. If I summon a disenchanter during his spin (long skill animation) I can summon all 3 and he will ignore them (similar trick where you glitch some of Arah bosses)

I tend to find that he completely ignores my disenchanters, only hitting them with stray aoe damage which is negligible. I will put 2 disenchanters on him at an alternating pace in order to keep his boons gone, and then use a damage phantasm.

The golem prioritises ranged targets as far as I’m aware, so you’ll want to spawn disenchanters as close to it as possible.

Do you have / know of any videos of this play style in action?

Tell that to a d/d ele, lol… Also, many times I had him switch aggro to me right as soon as I swap to a gs, in a party with 4 melee warriors, while being in melee myself as well. Swapping back to sword lost that aggro. Something tells me your luck with keeping disenchanters alive might very well depend on your party composition, what weapons they’re using, and how far away you’re from the golem as it seems that all of the above affect the aggro in some way or another.

TooBz.3065:

Do you have / know of any videos of this play style in action?

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is Brazil’s veteran risen giant kills.

I really should go record something but I haven’t got a clue what to do once I have the base footage. Is it literally just click > upload or is there something more to it?

colesy.8490:

TooBz.3065:

Do you have / know of any videos of this play style in action?

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is Brazil’s veteran risen giant kills.

I really should go record something but I haven’t got a clue what to do once I have the base footage. Is it literally just click > upload or is there something more to it?

I don’t know, I don’t record either. But the style seems interesting and I’d like to see it. I know I would probably get into trouble on cooldowns if I played the way I normally do.

Pyroatheist.9031:

2 disenchanters will do the job better than 3 sword clones.

recorded 2 vids from today’s runs. note the boon stripping on the golem.
- video 1
- video 2

IMO it’s more stable / predictable than disenchanters.