Guild Wars 2

frifox.5283:

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.

They both work fine, but having 3 clones out means your dps drops really low, where you can have 2 disenchanters and 1 damage phantasm.

I guess I’m ok with exchanging few sec from the kill time for a quick & stable boon stripping technique.

2 disenchanters well timed +1 traited warden are my fave for dps/boon strip.
Works better than the vids for me.

I gotta try summoning 3 well timed iWardens one of these days

Thanks for posting the vids. Looking at the playstyle, it seems like most of your time is spent autoattacking. Summon phantasms and auto attack. Is this correct?

Is this optimal? I assume you are saving blurred frenzy for the dodge. Or is blurred frenzy actually worse than autoattacking?

Blurred Frenzy deals slightly more damage than autoattack, but it’s still best to use as a third dodge.

Morri u so weak
jokes aside nice guide

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL THIS TIME

What Slot Skills do you use for this build (PVE)?
..and is condition removal on the Slot Skill?

I generally run Signet of Inspiration for boon-doubling, Feedback, and Blink for survival/mobility/stun-break. Rely on teammates for condition clear; in a pinch the focus can provide some by putting the Temporal Curtain under your Warden. Swap as needed depending on situation.

If more condition removal is needed, swap something out for Mantra of Resolve or Null Field or iDisenchanter; for trash running, put on Veil and Mass Invisibility; for stability add Mantra of Concentration; etc.

Angelica Dream.7103:

What Slot Skills do you use for this build (PVE)?
..and is condition removal on the Slot Skill?

The question isn’t “what skills should I run” but “what skills does the situation require me to bring”

Feedback is going to be useless on your bar if mobs aren’t going to be using projectiles, same with condition removal if the mobs don’t use conditions.

That said here’s how how I view most of the skills:

Reflection

• Feedback: Whenever there are projectiles this should be on your bar
• Mimic: Mostly useful in higher level fractals for catching agony attacks and using them for quick mid-fractal boss kills. Note: you will have to eat the agony damage when catching the attack.

Condi cleanse

• Mantra of Resolve: My preferred condi cleanse as it’s an instant cast and can be used twice before CD (which is shorter than null field) also helps if your getting 4% damage per mantra.
• Null Field: For when you need both boon striping and condi cleanse or for situations where you need to clean more then 4 conditions at a time (AC necros, crusher boss in Arah)

Stun Breaks

• Mantra of Concentration: Stability, 4% damage with trait, two stun breaks on tap. (lowest CD)
• Decoy: Stun break + 3 seconds of stealth.
• Blink: Stun Break + teleport
• Signet of Midnight: Stun break + PBAoE blind
  -Of these three I like the mantra best for a combat stun break as it adds more utility, the middle two for trash runs. The last I mention for slow but hard hitting trash like undead abominations.

Trash running

• Veil + Mass Invis: I’ll have these stealth options on for most trash runs, but try to avoid using them unless I really need them to avoid having them locked on my bar with their high CD
• Portal: For helping team mates

Phantasms

• iDisenchanter: For mobs that constantly put boons on themselves (CoE golem)
• iDefender: I’ll like this for mobs that don’t project a hard hitting attack (Ice wolf champ in CoE) – it’s usefulness is debatable even in that situation

Damage boosts

• Signet of Inspiration: Doubles a party’s might stacks/fury time. Use for when a party is supplying decent might/fury. If they are keeping full or 0 might/fury this skill isn’t going to help. This can also be put together with Arcane thievery for bosses that but alot of boons on themselves (Jellyfish in underwater fractal who puts 25 might on himself)
• Mantra of Pain/Domination: I run the 4% mantra trait, So I’ll take these if nothing else is useful. MoP is also nice to pull/tag from 1200 range without needing a 1200 range weapon.

Angelica Dream.7103:

What Slot Skills do you use for this build (PVE)?
..and is condition removal on the Slot Skill?

Slot in whatever is relevant to the encounter, your utility skills can be swapped whenever you’re out of combat so it’s good to take advantage of that. Also, I’m going to start editing this and adding more to it since I think some of the weapons need a re-evaluation and there are and soon will be a few more build variants which I want to cover. EDIT – my infractions mean I now have an hour cool down between posts, blah.

The Dec. 10th patch will likely cause a fairly major rewrite, you may want to just hold off until then.

edit: also, wb! haven’t seen you post here in a while.

Valarauka.2719:

The Dec. 10th patch will likely cause a fairly major rewrite, you may want to just hold off until then.

Nah, as far as these builds goes, the only real change will be freeing up 10 points by moving IC to 15pt instead of 25 for the builds using it, thus turning the 0/20/0/25/25 in 10/20/0/25/15 or 0/30/0/25/15 or 0/20/0/30/20 or whatever.

Of the other changes nearly no one is worth nothing for PvE Phant DPS builds.

Again, assuming that no other trait or skill will get changed, which is quite unlikely..

Hey Colesy,
I really like your threads about the Mesmer, and because of your Guide i realized how much more powerful melee is compared to range, but i´ve got a Question about the damage of the Phantasms. It is often stated that the iswordsman is the phantasm with the highest damage but the iduelist will often deal more damage, and the swordsman only deals more damage when it crits. Should i focus more on precision to get more crit chance, or how much crit chance do you have?

P.S: It would be really cool if you could make a Mesmer guide for Fotm, like which weapons do i have to use in different boss fights or something like that.
Keep up the good work and i hope more people will realize how much better melee is, because since the 2 months i started playing that way the only mesmer with swords i saw was me

Hope you will answer

Bloody Mary.8513:

Hey Colesy,
I really like your threads about the Mesmer, and because of your Guide i realized how much more powerful melee is compared to range, but i´ve got a Question about the damage of the Phantasms. It is often stated that the iswordsman is the phantasm with the highest damage but the iduelist will often deal more damage, and the swordsman only deals more damage when it crits. Should i focus more on precision to get more crit chance, or how much crit chance do you have?

P.S: It would be really cool if you could make a Mesmer guide for Fotm, like which weapons do i have to use in different boss fights or something like that.
Keep up the good work and i hope more people will realize how much better melee is, because since the 2 months i started playing that way the only mesmer with swords i saw was me

Hope you will answer

Duelist will hit harder but swordsman attacks faster. Durend did some phantasm dps testing and swordsman and duelist were pretty even in kill speed with it slightly in favour of swordsman. Power vs. precision I’m starting to think stacking perception in pug groups or arah would be best and maybe bloodlust anywhere else. If your group can’t maintain fury (so basically every pug group ever) then the precision boost from perception sigil will do a lot to help your dps.. I’ll get round to writing guides for all dungeons when I can be bothered though that will mean I’m going to have to do hotw p2/3 and se p2 and pretty much learn them on the spot because they’re practically black holes in regards to tactics since they’re so unpopular. Also it means playing Mesmer which I’m bored of atm :p

Was reading through the guide again, read your notes on the phantasmal warden. Just something that you should add.

The actual reflecting/blocking effect of the warden persists for roughly 2ish seconds after the animation of the spinning actually ends. This allows you a decent amount of leeway on stacking wardens for consecutive reflects.

This extra reflection time also occurs on feedback, but I believe it’s slightly less, closer to 1ish seconds.

I have a question about this guide(I might missed it thought) but if you ever need range, do you equip any range weapons or just let the pistol phantasms do the work?

Any chance you could make any comments on the changes that went in this last patch? Them moving skills around and also the new heal?

Also, I’ve been a Mantra mesmer for a year now… is that bad? lol…
I’ve usually grabbed healing mantras, and the additional armor that Protective Mantras gives is tempting. Of course, even the +4% for readied Mantra’s sounds good, but Mantra of Pain is always re-charging, so I’m lucky to have more than 3 charged.

colesy.8490:

Sigils

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.

I’d like to state that the final sentence of what I quoted is very, very true. The min-maxing is so minor to the negligible extent because the +10% damage only affects damage that YOU deal, not damage that your Phantasms/Conditions deal.

Unless you’re shattering/auto-attacking (which is very minor damage in PvE), you’re not going to have a good time. Not to mention this is a Phantasm build, not a Shatter build, so shattering to get that 10% damage would lower your DPS.

I mean, I guess you get more damage on auto attacks, but the difference between about 100-500 dps while not casting.

I’m still leveling my mesmer to 80, but I’m thinking about running either 0/30/0/25/15 or 0/30/0/20/20. Really the only difference would be Phantasmal Strength vs. Phantasmal Haste. Which of those two traits is more beneficial? My thought is that phantasmal strength would be better if the phantasms are staying alive for a while, but phantamal haste would do better when they are dying and need to be replaced often. Thoughts?

BTW I will be doing mostly dungeons and using S/P and S/F mostly (S/S or GS if the situation calls for it). My plan is:
30 in Dueling to get Critical Infusion, Sharper Images, Confusing Combatants, II. Phantasmal Fury, IV. Blade Training, and IX. Duelist’s Training.

20 or 25 in Inspiration to get Vengeful Images, Phantasmal Healing, (maybe) Phantasmal Strength, VI. Compounding Celerity, VIII. Warden’s Feedback.

15 or 20 in Illusions to get Illusionary Retribution, Illusionists Celerity, III. Compounding Power, and (maybe) X. Phantasmal Haste.

Again, I’m not 80 yet so I can’t really test anything.

At the moment (and almost since forever, sadly), Phantasmal Haste is bugged. Of the phantasms on the sword, focus, pistol, and greatsword, the pistol is the only phantasm to see the proper recharge reduction; the others see no benefit from the trait. Until this is fixed, you are better off running phantasmal strength for +15% damage to all phantasms rather than +20% damage to just the pistol phantasm: so run 0/30/0/25/15.

Also, in inspiration, you should run II (Glamour Mastery) instead of compounding celerity to increase feedback uptime.

Also, most people who run 0/30/0/25/15 will take only one of Blade Training and Duelist’s Discipline, and additionally run Empowering mantras. This will increase your auto-attack and feedback damage. If you dislike mantras, then you would be better served with 10/20/0/25/15, which is the pure phantasm build.

Thanks for the advice! I will definitely change compunding celerity to glamour mastery. I guess I kind of ignored the Domination line too lol. 15% more damage from illusions is better than illusions having fury then?

Now I just need to make it to 80!

Danneskjold.5143:

Thanks for the advice! I will definitely change compunding celerity to glamour mastery. I guess I kind of ignored the Domination line too lol. 15% more damage from illusions is better than illusions having fury then?

Now I just need to make it to 80!

Actually, having fury on your illusions is better, however, your 10pt trait in dueling should always be phantasmal fury. Then your 20 point dueling trait should be either Blade Training or Duelist’s discipline. The next 10 points you can put into either domination for the phantasm damage trait or 10 more points in dueling and take Empowering Mantra. Have fun leveling!

I’ll add a note that the guide is out of date.

I have a question about this guide(I might missed it thought) but if you ever need range, do you equip any range weapons or just let the pistol phantasms do the work?

Haven’t really played mesmer in months (when I did range things I camped GS like a bad) but I’d just recommend scepter/x right now if you wanted a range weapon. Going scepter/x + scepter/y means two phantasms up straight away too. You could maybe go scepter/pistol, pop a duelist, pop signet of ether, cast duelist #2 then swap to greatsword, pop a berserker, and even though the auto dps is kinda trash, it means three phantasms up right off the bat. It sounds ok in my head, then again I can’t really think of any ranged examples where I’d actually use this.

Any chance you could make any comments on the changes that went in this last patch? Them moving skills around and also the new heal?
Also, I’ve been a Mantra mesmer for a year now… is that bad? lol…
I’ve usually grabbed healing mantras, and the additional armor that Protective Mantras gives is tempting. Of course, even the +4% for readied Mantra’s sounds good, but Mantra of Pain is always re-charging, so I’m lucky to have more than 3 charged.

Changes are pretty huge. Sig of the ether basically gives you amazing reflect uptime, plus the 0/30/0/25/15 build gives you phantasmal warden on 16s cooldown as if an instant phantasm recharge wasn’t enough. With either that or 10/30/0/20/10 though, the core is phantasmal fury, blade training, empowering mantras, glamour mastery, warden’s feedback and compounding power for both builds, then just swap out traits (if feeling more hardcore) depending on situation. For example, if you are going sw/sw + sw/p but need utility skills then you can slot out empowering mantras for duelist’s discipline or something.

I’d like to state that the final sentence of what I quoted is very, very true. The min-maxing is so minor to the negligible extent because the +10% damage only affects damage that YOU deal, not damage that your Phantasms/Conditions deal.
Unless you’re shattering/auto-attacking (which is very minor damage in PvE), you’re not going to have a good time. Not to mention this is a Phantasm build, not a Shatter build, so shattering to get that 10% damage would lower your DPS.
I mean, I guess you get more damage on auto attacks, but the difference between about 100-500 dps while not casting.

On the other hand, damage multipliers are multiplicative, so assuming a 10/30/0/20/10 build, that’s 1 * 1.09 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.16 = 1.85120804(85%) in damage modifiers versus 65% if they were additive (someone please tell me I’m right, my math is ****ing terrible). That’s assuming scholar rune bonus, three illusions for compounding power, slaying potion, slaying sigil, night sigil and four mantras charged, but the point is … we shouldn’t get so hung up on damage modifiers not affecting our phantasms when it makes ourselves hit a lot harder, especially since we’re picking up either the inspiration grandmaster minor or the domination adept major trait for a phantasm damage modifier. I mean after dumping phantasms, our remaining DPS is from our own mostly autoattacks, so to maximise that is always good especially if in a group capping might where battle sigils kinda become blanks.

But yeah, this guide needs a bit of a rewrite, plus I’m not sure why I thought ruby orbs were fine when scholar runes offer the 10%+ damage modifier, plus 45+ power (and crit damage scales on power so losing 4% crit damage …. meh) at the loss of 4% crit chance. Probably a bigger deal in pugs, but in premades you’ll be getting perma fury and disc banner plus maybe spotter so you cap out on precision anyway, especially if with perception stacks.

Now to find the willpower to edit this giant pile of junk.

Just as a note colesy, compounding power is calculated as 1.03*1.03*1.03 instead of 1.09. That’s actually how I tested the difference in the first place.

At any rate, the one specific fight where I would absolutely say you want greatsword is the molten facility boss fight. Range is absolutely essential in that fight, but the specific thing is that when the bosses get the rage stacks, the rapid-fire triple hit of the greatsword auto does a fantastic job of taking down the stacks. That fight is also pretty brutal on phantasms unfortunately, it’s very hard to keep them up for more than a few seconds.

Are these still viable anymore ?

it’s all pretty outdated

maha.7902:

it’s all pretty outdated

Only the actual build itself is outdated, all the general info and remarks that you put into it are still very relevant.

Not sure I follow your logic there fay. If the builds are outdated then to answer my question no they are not viable. The general info is regarding the builds specifically so it thus is also outdated info.

mikeew.8607:

Not sure I follow your logic there fay. If the builds are outdated then to answer my question no they are not viable. The general info is regarding the builds specifically so it thus is also outdated info.

Yeah, don’t use the builds here. For builds, go to the stickied dungeon guide. However, the general playstyle recommendations, tips, and other assorted commentary that colesy wrote is still valid.