[Guide] PvE Supporting Phantasm Build

[Guide] PvE Supporting Phantasm Build

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

This build is designed primarily for PvE, although I suppose you could use it in PvP to limited effect as well.

Here is the build: http://tinyurl.com/cwgmfqs

My armor is all berserkers stats. My weapons are all soldiers (Power/tough/vit) stats. I use an ascended soldiers backpiece, and exotic berskers earrings and amulet. I have 1 soldiers stat ascended ring, and 1 berserkers stat ascended ring. The runes in my armor are centaur right now, but I feel like runes of air would be a better choice.

My normal utilities are blink/feedback, mantra of pain, and decoy.

My trait distribution is 10/10/0/30/20, focusing almost exclusively on phantasm buffing traits.
I take domination III, for 15% increased phantasm damage.
Dueling II, to give phantasms fury.
Inspiration IV, for condition removal on healing, V for increased phantasm health, and X to cause mantras to do an aoe heal on the charge.
Illusions III for 3% extra damage per illusion, and X for 20% faster phantasm skill usages.

With this build, I have slightly over 20k hp, 2200 power, 32% base crit chance, 54% crit power, and slightly over 2k armor.

This build is based around doing damage via phantasms, and then supporting your team with the aoe regeneration from your phantasms, and the aoe healing from mantras. With all the % damage boosts to your phantasms, they will do pretty massive damage. Berserker hits usually range from between 2k to 5k, with occasional hits of above 8k (I still don’t know why those happen). The warlock will hit for around 2k noncrit, up to 8k crits on a larger boss that has 5-6 conditions on it, with my highest recorded hit being over 14k on the priest of grenth.

Once you have a few phantasms up doing damage, you can turn your focus to healing your team. Every 4 seconds or so, you can complete a charge of mantra of pain, doing an aoe heal for about 2600-2700 hp. By spamming mantra of pain, you can usually keep any decent team at or close to full hp, while not suffering significantly from damage yourself due to your phantasms being the main source of your damage.

Where this build really shines, however, is in the potential utility it can change to. In situations where projectile reflects are necessary, such as the harpy fractal, I will take off the greatsword and put on a sword and focus. You can drop the phantasm hp trait to trait the focus, and drop the condition removal on healing trait to decrease glamour recharges by 20%. With the focus skills and feedback, you become a neverending stream of projectile reflection.
At places like lupicus, you can change the glamour cooldown trait for the feedback bubble upon reviving trait.
In situations of high conditions, you can take phantasmal disenchanter, and even Inspiration XI for more condition removal.

While sacrificing the staff cooldowns, greatsword cooldowns, and deceptive evasion by only going 10 points into domination and dueling, this build picks up a massive amount of utility with the 30 points into inspiration allowing you to modify your build and trait setup to suit any possible situation.

Leveling

This build can easily be adapted as a leveling build. The playstyle remains the same no matter what level you are. The traits should start with 5 points in illusions, then 10 in domination, 10 in dueling, 20 into inspiration, 5 more into illusions, 5 into inspiration, 10 into illusions, and lastly 5 more into inspiration.

I use this build in any dungeons, any level fractals, and any other PvE situations, although I wouldn’t recommend it for mob tagging during DEs in orr. It is a substandard PvP build for a lot of reasons, but as long as you stay with PvE, this build will get you through almost any conceivable problem.

(edited by Pyroatheist.9031)

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Posted by: Katanasama.9702

Katanasama.9702

You should get to gether with this guy and talk shop. I think you both got good ideas.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Forging-the-Ultimate-Support-Mesmer/first#post1384121

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Posted by: eldenbri.1059

eldenbri.1059

Thx for pointing this out on my post. I had a couple more questions looking at this.

Why not use the Mantra of Recovery heal with this build? It would remove conditions more often and heal allies more. (I think that’s how the Inspiration X skill works. It heals when you actually cast the mantra (versus charging), right?)

When you start off a battle, do you try to put up berserker or warlock first (and swap weapon in time to avoid the swap cooldown). Or do you start with a clone from Mirror Blade for example? It seems like for lots of fights, you would want GS auto-attack going while you were casting Mantra of Pain to add more damage (without creating clones).

Do you end up needing blink and decoy as survival skills? Or are they for rez’ing party members? I was wondering how swappable they are.

Thx again!

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Posted by: Esplen.3940

Esplen.3940

Thx for pointing this out on my post. I had a couple more questions looking at this.

Why not use the Mantra of Recovery heal with this build? It would remove conditions more often and heal allies more. (I think that’s how the Inspiration X skill works. It heals when you actually cast the mantra (versus charging), right?)

When you start off a battle, do you try to put up berserker or warlock first (and swap weapon in time to avoid the swap cooldown). Or do you start with a clone from Mirror Blade for example? It seems like for lots of fights, you would want GS auto-attack going while you were casting Mantra of Pain to add more damage (without creating clones).

Do you end up needing blink and decoy as survival skills? Or are they for rez’ing party members? I was wondering how swappable they are.

Thx again!

Mantra heal is on charge completion, not charge activation. Aka, you charge up your mantra and heal people, then you have the 2-3 uses and those don’t heal around you.

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Posted by: Hookerjack.4798

Hookerjack.4798

Hi Pyro. This build is a blast in dungeons! Am toying around with changing the staff for sword/pistol or sword/sword. Which would you think is more viable?

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

Hi Pyro. This build is a blast in dungeons! Am toying around with changing the staff for sword/pistol or sword/sword. Which would you think is more viable?

In dungeons, sword/pistol will be a bit better because the phantasms stay at range more consistently. However, I would highly advise against that change, and here’s why:

No phantasm aside from the iwarden in perfect conditions will outdamage the warlocks. This is even more true in a team with a lot of conditions where I regularly see 8k+ crits from it. This means you will be losing damage from the phantasm. This build has rather low damage on normal non-phantasm attacks because of the massive focus on phantasm damage as opposed to raw damage. This means that your dps would be sub-par with blurred frenzy and the sword autoattacks. Additionally, sword means you have to get up close and personal with mobs, and that is not always a good idea.

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Posted by: eldenbri.1059

eldenbri.1059

I did a little experiment to see about the condition removal of Mender’s Purity in conjunction with Mantra of Recovery. It’s pretty cumbersome. Basically, if you have the Mantra charged, none of the uses remove a condition. And, even after casting Mantra of Recovery (to reset the charges), the condition is not removed. It’s only after you use the first charge (after charging up) that a condition is removed.

At least that’s how my simple test went (trying poison from Marsh Drakes), so it looks like Mantra of Recovery is not very interesting.

I considered trying to get to 30 in Domination and try using two mantras, but it doesn’t feel like it’s worth it.

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Posted by: Esplen.3940

Esplen.3940

I did a little experiment to see about the condition removal of Mender’s Purity in conjunction with Mantra of Recovery. It’s pretty cumbersome. Basically, if you have the Mantra charged, none of the uses remove a condition. And, even after casting Mantra of Recovery (to reset the charges), the condition is not removed. It’s only after you use the first charge (after charging up) that a condition is removed.

At least that’s how my simple test went (trying poison from Marsh Drakes), so it looks like Mantra of Recovery is not very interesting.

I considered trying to get to 30 in Domination and try using two mantras, but it doesn’t feel like it’s worth it.

I don’t know what happened with you, possibly getting re-applied as you removed, but each of the uses of the Mantra of Recovery will remove a stack of conditions. Back when I had 20 points in inspiration, I would run Mantra of Recovery, Mantra of Stability, and the Cond Removal Mantra for Swamp Fractal. If I got hit by a cripple, I would use MoR. If I got hit by cripple again, I would use MoR again. If I was about to pass a trap, I would use MoS (back when traps were in the ground, therefore partially invisible). And if I still got crippled, I would use the Cond Removal Mantra.

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

Yeah, mender’s purity will most definitely provide a lot of condition removal with the MoR. You get one on the charge, and another one each time you expend a charge.

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Posted by: eldenbri.1059

eldenbri.1059

Thanks for pointing out my mistake with Mender’s Purity and Mantra of Recovery – it does remove three conditions when you trait all the way. So given that, I’m trying a variant build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQJARWl4zio3czoGa9IxpHQ35Rn0DVn6VXqAuB;ToA5TSnUPpciaGzMiZsz4mROD

Basically, I’m giving up all the points in Inspiration to go 30 deep in Domination. I know I’m losing a lot of damage for the phantasms (3% per illusion out and 20% recharge rate). The two main reasons I want to try this are I feel like I’ll be able to give even more support (with heals from two mantras recharging) and speeding up the Greatsword skills for solo play feels important to me. (I play solo six days a week and only do dungeons a bit right now – I’m trying not to have to learn new timings between solo play and group play.) When soloing, I have been swapping out sword/pistol for staff – just makes killing faster.

I’ll probably give up Radiation Field a lot of the time. It really does help damage a lot (especially if you throw a mirror blade through it and send iBeserker through it). And it can keep poison and weakness on a mob for 15 seconds for iWarlock. For sure, I’ll swap out for some other things based on what the group needs (Null Field, Feedback, illusionary disenchanter).

Thx for putting this build together. I may end up just copying everything – just trying variants for now. And thx again for keeping me straight on Mender’s Purity and mantras.

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

@eldenbri: Thats an interesting variant. There’s 1 really really bad mistake with it though. You absolutely must take illusions 5. That single trait reduces recharges by 20% on approximately 50% of your skills. That trait is simply not optional in a viable mesmer build.

With that in mind, what you can do instead is take 5 out of inspiration. This will lower your utility slightly, and force you to drop the phantasm hp increaser in favor of the mantra heals, but would still allow you to take harmonious mantras.

One more thing to think about. Harmonious mantras really isn’t necessary in this build. Mantra of Restoration removes 3 conditions untraited, and 4 traited. Most of your damage is coming from the phantasms, not your mantra of pain. Additionally, harmonious mantras actually REDUCES the healing per second you can produce from mantras, because it adds another charge to expend before you can charge it up again.

All things considered, harmonious mantras just isn’t necessary, and you might want to slightly rethink your trait setup with that in mind.

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Posted by: MLieBennett.9031

MLieBennett.9031

Mantra of Restoration removes 3 conditions untraited, and 4 traited.

Just a quick correction. Mantra of Restoration + Mender’s Purity only removes 2 conditions without Harmonious Mantras. This is because it only removes a Condition on the use (Power Return) and does not when you charge the Mantra. Then it becomes 3 conditions traited.

YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?
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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

Mantra of Restoration removes 3 conditions untraited, and 4 traited.

Just a quick correction. Mantra of Restoration + Mender’s Purity only removes 2 conditions without Harmonious Mantras. This is because it only removes a Condition on the use (Power Return) and does not when you charge the Mantra. Then it becomes 3 conditions traited.

I’ll have to test that. I recall removing a condition on the charge, but I also had restorative mantras traited. I know for sure that the charge will proc other on-heal effects, such as runes of centaur. Will test that in 5 minutes.

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Posted by: MLieBennett.9031

MLieBennett.9031

I keep both Mender’s Purity and Restorative Mantras on at all times almost. Only when going for a full Reflect setup do I not have them both.

It USED to clear a condition when you charged it, but it got changed a number of untold ninja patches (coughnerfscough) ago.

YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?
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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

By golly you’re right. Just tested it, and it doesn’t remove a condition on the cast. It definitely procs centaur runes though, that’s for sure.

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Posted by: eldenbri.1059

eldenbri.1059

Just wanted to follow up and say thanks for all the guidance. I took my variant of this build into the dungeon (but putting 5 into illusions from inspiration), and it was a lot of fun. I’m sure part of it was the group I was with, but we made it through quite smoothly – and in most battles I stayed up and helped others to stay up.

At the same time, I feel like I can pop down to Orr and do plenty of damage quickly during the events. The heavy power bias with the greatsword is still very nice for this part.

In terms of doing more or less healing, it’s a little hard to say. Taken by itself, the change for Mantra of Pain to go from 2 casts to 3 casts before recharging definitely reduces the amount of healing. However, with Mantra of Restoration, I don’t have any cast time during battle to just heal myself or clear conditions. So I can keep myself going quite nicely without taking time away. And when it’s time to recharge that mantra, I heal everyone else. Also, with a nice fast recharge on the greatsword skills, I can chuck in a mirror blade easily or bring up an other berserker a bit more frequently.

I haven’t stored up the money to get the centaur runes, so I’m not really sure what this approach means for swiftness. But I really like the basic concept. I feel like I’m playing the unique part of being a mesmer (except for shatters), and it feels both effective and helpful for others.

Thx again for sharing this build!

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Posted by: eldenbri.1059

eldenbri.1059

Just wanted to say thx one more time – this build has been a ton of fun for me.

We did a 4-man through Sorrows Embrace story mode this weekend. With nobody who had done it before, we were able to get through the content, and I think this build helped a lot.

You definitely have to get used to the pacing of the mantra skills, but it feels really friendly to play.

And it mows through mobs in seconds when I’m soloing through Orr. Just start with iWarlock, flip to greatsword and send iBeserker and Mirror Blade. Then maybe one or two Mantra of Pain and it’s all over. With Sigil of Earth in Greatsword, it seems like bleed is always up. And the damage and crit damage is very nice.

Anyway, thanks again – I’m hoping to play this build for a long time.

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Posted by: Decimus.1829

Decimus.1829

I tried this build with our group, and I was asking my groupmates how much I was healing them for – I was healing myself np, and DPS np, but my teammates were not seeing the 2k+ heals everytime… or even any time. What am I missing here?? Thanks!
ps – I’m wearing berserker’s gear, ascended/crafted jewelry that is either berserker-y or pwr/toughness/vit, with stats similar to your own.

(edited by Decimus.1829)

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

I tried this build with our group, and I was asking my groupmates how much I was healing them for – I was healing myself np, and DPS np, but my teammates were not seeing the 2k+ heals everytime… or even any time. What am I missing here?? Thanks!

If you are healing successfully, you will see green numbers on your own screen, no need to as teammates. The range on the mantra heal isn’t huge, so be sure you are reasonably near to them before charging the mantra.

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Posted by: Decimus.1829

Decimus.1829

OK maybe I was just too far away… will try again later, thx for the quick reply

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Posted by: rchu.8945

rchu.8945

anyone have experience using this build in a wvw roamer / small group?

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Posted by: atheria.2837

atheria.2837

The link to the build doesn’t work – it states “bad link”.

This build is designed primarily for PvE, although I suppose you could use it in PvP to limited effect as well.

Here is the build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQJAWRlwzqqHRzoGaNJxpHQP6OHlCs7dSFUdpC4G;TkAg0UzYmRMjdG3MyZWWMiA

My armor is all berserkers stats. My weapons are all soldiers (Power/tough/vit) stats. I use an ascended soldiers backpiece, and exotic berskers earrings and amulet. I have 1 soldiers stat ascended ring, and 1 berserkers stat ascended ring. The runes in my armor are centaur right now, but I feel like runes of air would be a better choice.

My normal utilities are blink/feedback, mantra of pain, and decoy.

My trait distribution is 10/10/0/30/20, focusing almost exclusively on phantasm buffing traits.
I take domination III, for 15% increased phantasm damage.
Dueling II, to give phantasms fury.
Inspiration IV, for condition removal on healing, V for increased phantasm health, and X to cause mantras to do an aoe heal on the charge.
Illusions III for 3% extra damage per illusion, and X for 20% faster phantasm skill usages.

With this build, I have slightly over 20k hp, 2200 power, 32% base crit chance, 54% crit power, and slightly over 2k armor.

This build is based around doing damage via phantasms, and then supporting your team with the aoe regeneration from your phantasms, and the aoe healing from mantras. With all the % damage boosts to your phantasms, they will do pretty massive damage. Berserker hits usually range from between 2k to 5k, with occasional hits of above 8k (I still don’t know why those happen). The warlock will hit for around 2k noncrit, up to 8k crits on a larger boss that has 5-6 conditions on it, with my highest recorded hit being over 14k on the priest of grenth.

Once you have a few phantasms up doing damage, you can turn your focus to healing your team. Every 4 seconds or so, you can complete a charge of mantra of pain, doing an aoe heal for about 2600-2700 hp. By spamming mantra of pain, you can usually keep any decent team at or close to full hp, while not suffering significantly from damage yourself due to your phantasms being the main source of your damage.

Where this build really shines, however, is in the potential utility it can change to. In situations where projectile reflects are necessary, such as the harpy fractal, I will take off the greatsword and put on a sword and focus. You can drop the phantasm hp trait to trait the focus, and drop the condition removal on healing trait to decrease glamour recharges by 20%. With the focus skills and feedback, you become a neverending stream of projectile reflection.
At places like lupicus, you can change the glamour cooldown trait for the feedback bubble upon reviving trait.
In situations of high conditions, you can take phantasmal disenchanter, and even Inspiration XI for more condition removal.

While sacrificing the staff cooldowns, greatsword cooldowns, and deceptive evasion by only going 10 points into domination and dueling, this build picks up a massive amount of utility with the 30 points into inspiration allowing you to modify your build and trait setup to suit any possible situation.

Leveling

This build can easily be adapted as a leveling build. The playstyle remains the same no matter what level you are. The traits should start with 5 points in illusions, then 10 in domination, 10 in dueling, 20 into inspiration, 5 more into illusions, 5 into inspiration, 10 into illusions, and lastly 5 more into inspiration.

I use this build in any dungeons, any level fractals, and any other PvE situations, although I wouldn’t recommend it for mob tagging during DEs in orr. It is a substandard PvP build for a lot of reasons, but as long as you stay with PvE, this build will get you through almost any conceivable problem.

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

@atheria: Should be fixed.

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Posted by: Ryn.6459

Ryn.6459

Love this build, Pyro .-D

Quote: “The runes in my armor are centaur right now, but I feel like runes of air would be a better choice”
Time to get my runes, so, centaur or air?

Learning English, any correction is very welcome.

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

Love this build, Pyro .-D

Quote: “The runes in my armor are centaur right now, but I feel like runes of air would be a better choice”
Time to get my runes, so, centaur or air?

Well, if you happen to have gobs of cash lying around, get a set of divinity. The choice between centaur and air is mainly a personal choice though. While the swiftness can be sorta nice, it really isn’t necessary outside of wvw, which is what I originally got this particular set of gear for. Air is better for the crit damage though, because your phantasms will be critting a lot.

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Posted by: Ryn.6459

Ryn.6459

Errr, no, just 4 gold X-D

By the way, is phantasmal haste that good? I’ve been playing around… What do you think about 20(III-X)-0-20(IV-X)-25(V-X)-5. That would mantain your versatility, allow staff/GS abuse and increase overall survival by dropping phantasmal haste and fury.

Thanks a lot for you time

Learning English, any correction is very welcome.

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

Errr, no, just 4 gold X-D

By the way, is phantasmal haste that good? I’ve been playing around… What do you think about 20(III-X)-0-20(IV-X)-25(V-X)-5. That would mantain your versatility, allow staff/GS abuse and increase overall survival by dropping phantasmal haste and fury.

Thanks a lot for you time

Phantasmal haste is key to being able to quickly stack 100% reflects by using wardens. It does increase dps from duelists and warlocks, but but the utility of wardens is severely diminished without it.

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Posted by: Cygnus.6903

Cygnus.6903

Phantasmal haste is key to being able to quickly stack 100% reflects by using wardens. It does increase dps from duelists and warlocks, but but the utility of wardens is severely diminished without it.

Can you explain this a bit more? I’ve been looking at this build as well, and thought of a similar variant (10/10/20/25/5), to drop haste but keep fury (you’ll be switching out GS for SW/FC often anyway).

But I don’t know if I fully understand what you’re saying here. Do you mean that with the reduction you get the attack to be once every 6.77 seconds, and with the 5 seconds of reflection almost 100% uptime?

I only state my opinion unless stated otherwise.
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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

Phantasmal haste is key to being able to quickly stack 100% reflects by using wardens. It does increase dps from duelists and warlocks, but but the utility of wardens is severely diminished without it.

Can you explain this a bit more? I’ve been looking at this build as well, and thought of a similar variant (10/10/20/25/5), to drop haste but keep fury (you’ll be switching out GS for SW/FC often anyway).

But I don’t know if I fully understand what you’re saying here. Do you mean that with the reduction you get the attack to be once every 6.77 seconds, and with the 5 seconds of reflection almost 100% uptime?

The iWardens have the longest recharge attack time of any phantasms, and thus are affected the most by phantasmal haste. With phantasmal haste, you will have 100% uptime on projectile reflects with just 2 wardens. Additionally, with warden’s feedback traited, you can do the following 2 rotations:

Warden —> temporal curtain --> warden spins again —> 2nd warden = 100% proj reflects
Warden --> feedback —> warden spins again —> 2nd warden = 100% proj reflects

Without phantasmal haste, 100% reflects are not possible with just 2 wardens, and this hurts severely in places that are projectile heavy. In addition to allowing that, phantasmal haste also increases the dps on all land-based phantasms with the exception of the swordsman, and that ends up being a pretty decent dps increase, especially considering the more attacks it can fit in before dying, the more efficient the skill is.

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Posted by: Ryn.6459

Ryn.6459

Cygnus, i was considering 10/10/20/25/5 as well, but I think the domination minor trait dazzling is too good (more if you change Dom X for IV).

Pyro, mmmh, I don’t know. How many places are projecticle heavy Vs being useful in all places (taking in acount that you still can do the combos, althought without achiving the 100% proj reflects (would be at 75%?).

Learning English, any correction is very welcome.

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

Cygnus, i was considering 10/10/20/25/5 as well, but I think the domination minor trait dazzling is too good (more if you change Dom X for IV).

Pyro, mmmh, I don’t know. How many places are projecticle heavy Vs being useful in all places (taking in acount that you still can do the combos, althought without achiving the 100% proj reflects (would be at 75%?).

Off the top of my head, some mobs in ac, the big spider in ta, some archers in ta, the entire CM dungeon, the entire SE dungeon, some spots in CoF, some spots in CoE, the entire arah dungeon, some spots in hotw. Harpies in harpy fractal, old tom in harpy fractal, final boss in harpy fractal, dredge fractal, a lot of mobs in ascalon fractal. There’s probably more that I’m not remembering.

Edit: Ghost eater in ac too, that’s a big one.

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Posted by: Ryn.6459

Ryn.6459

Jajajaj ok ok

Learning English, any correction is very welcome.

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

The thing about pve is that you can really set up wardens as just projectile shields for your party when you place them properly. In most cases, without 100% uptime, both wardens will end up getting killed very quickly, and with 100% uptime they will chain the reflects until the target is dead. That small gap makes a big difference.

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Posted by: Ryn.6459

Ryn.6459

Learning English, any correction is very welcome.

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Posted by: Cygnus.6903

Cygnus.6903

The iWardens have the longest recharge attack time of any phantasms, and thus are affected the most by phantasmal haste. With phantasmal haste, you will have 100% uptime on projectile reflects with just 2 wardens. Additionally, with warden’s feedback traited, you can do the following 2 rotations:

Warden —> temporal curtain --> warden spins again —> 2nd warden = 100% proj reflects
Warden --> feedback —> warden spins again --> 2nd warden = 100% proj reflects

Without phantasmal haste, 100% reflects are not possible with just 2 wardens, and this hurts severely in places that are projectile heavy. In addition to allowing that, phantasmal haste also increases the dps on all land-based phantasms with the exception of the swordsman, and that ends up being a pretty decent dps increase, especially considering the more attacks it can fit in before dying, the more efficient the skill is.

I might be missing something here, but according to the wiki, the timing without haste seems sufficient to accomplish this. The Warden attacks once every 8,07 seconds untraited, with his attack reflecting for 5. So you need 3,07 seconds to overlap for 100% reflection..? Or am I reading the wiki wrong? Is it in fact 8,07 seconds between the 5 second reflects?

Other then that, I agree that you would be sacrificing some DPS, but that would be countered somewhat by the ability to summon Warlocks faster. Also using Chaos Storm/Armor more often will help you’re entire party (DPS-wise but also with surviving, which in itself is increasing DPS because you can focus on DPS more). The added survivability in total for the 10/10/20/25/5 will help with focusing on DPS more. And as a plus, you can change some pieces to Berserker’s because you have 200 more toughness. That leaves room for something like the -40% condition food.

Have to say though, awesome build man, again. Perhaps my skill level just begs me to alter it slightly. I would say ‘my version’ is a little more novice friendly.

BTW, I read somewhere you stated you have a PvP phantasm build also? I’m digging this phantasm stuff, so is there a read-up on it somewhere?

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

@Cygnus: The listed times on phantasmal haste are the recharge times of the phantasm abilities. I got those specific times by counting the frames from the end of one attack to the beginning of the next.

I’m also fairly certain the reflection duration is slightly longer than 5 seconds, as the reflection lasts a bit after the animation dies down, which you’ll sorta learn as you use the wardens more.

Basically, you need the other warden’s reflection bubble duration to fit into the recharge of the first warden’s skill, so that the coverage is continuous.

Also, another key of this build is versatility. I don’t always use staff, by any stretch of the imagination. I often ditch staff for greatsword/sword+pistol or sword+focus. For example, in the jade maw fractal, I want no projectiles, so no staff there. In other situations where I would rather have the boon stripping of the greatsword with decent ranged dd I’ll use the sword and pistol instead of staff. By taking 20 points in chaos, you lose some of that versatility in exchange for lowering cooldowns on one of your weapons.

As far as my pvp phantasm build, yes I have one, yes its grossly overpowered, and I might make a build guide for it. The traits are 10/30/0/25/5 with blade training, phantasmal fury, dodge on clone/duelists discipline. Mender’s purity and increased phantasm hp. In spvp, I use the zerker jewel. In wvw, I use the same setup as here with zerker armor and accessories but pvt weapons. The weapons are scepter/sword and sword/pistol. Utilities are blink+decoy and signet of illusions or null field for more team situations.

The playstyle is very very simple. Spawn phantasms, and let them kill your target. If you’re feeling perky, use blurred frenzy as an attack. I normally just run around them in circles cycling blurred frenzy and the 2 blocks to avoid getting hit at all, and maybe I’ll dodge once or twice. I have yet to find a counter to this build. It will eat through the bunkerest bunkers, it will rip apart glass cannons, thieves can’t hide from phantasms and can’t stealth attack through blocks and blurred frenzy, the phantasms are pretty beefy and tough to kill…

The downside is that it is very weak in anything larger than a 2v2ish situation. The phantasms will get killed by stray aoes when you get into group fights. The reason I have hesitated making a build guide for it is that it is almost 100% useless in any wvw situation other than scraping people on the floor in duels, and I really don’t do very much s/tPvP.

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Posted by: Cygnus.6903

Cygnus.6903

Basically, you need the other warden’s reflection bubble duration to fit into the recharge of the first warden’s skill, so that the coverage is continuous.

Clear point, and it’s a big one.

Also, another key of this build is versatility. I don’t always use staff, by any stretch of the imagination. I often ditch staff for greatsword/sword+pistol or sword+focus. For example, in the jade maw fractal, I want no projectiles, so no staff there. In other situations where I would rather have the boon stripping of the greatsword with decent ranged dd I’ll use the sword and pistol instead of staff. By taking 20 points in chaos, you lose some of that versatility in exchange for lowering cooldowns on one of your weapons.

Haven’t thought about it this way, and another point taken. Reading your guide I understood most versatility in this build comes from the 30 in Inspiration, but it’s just the ability to use any weapon really.

Gonna try out you phantasm build in PvP. Seems fun. Thanks for sharing, and for the clarifications!

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Posted by: Kazhiel.8194

Kazhiel.8194

As far as my pvp phantasm build, yes I have one, yes its grossly overpowered, and I might make a build guide for it. The traits are 10/30/0/25/5 with blade training, phantasmal fury, dodge on clone/duelists discipline. Mender’s purity and increased phantasm hp. In spvp, I use the zerker jewel. In wvw, I use the same setup as here with zerker armor and accessories but pvt weapons. The weapons are scepter/sword and sword/pistol. Utilities are blink+decoy and signet of illusions or null field for more team situations.

The playstyle is very very simple. Spawn phantasms, and let them kill your target. If you’re feeling perky, use blurred frenzy as an attack. I normally just run around them in circles cycling blurred frenzy and the 2 blocks to avoid getting hit at all, and maybe I’ll dodge once or twice. I have yet to find a counter to this build. It will eat through the bunkerest bunkers, it will rip apart glass cannons, thieves can’t hide from phantasms and can’t stealth attack through blocks and blurred frenzy, the phantasms are pretty beefy and tough to kill…

The downside is that it is very weak in anything larger than a 2v2ish situation. The phantasms will get killed by stray aoes when you get into group fights. The reason I have hesitated making a build guide for it is that it is almost 100% useless in any wvw situation other than scraping people on the floor in duels, and I really don’t do very much s/tPvP.

Pryo’s pvp phantasm build is fun for roaming wvw, it does a lot of damage, as long as you don’t run into groups cuz they’ll kick your kitten haha. For a phantasm build in wvw I usually run 0/20/20/25/5 with scepter/sword and either sword/torch or sword/pistol. The dueling traits are obvious tho sometimes I’ll swap out fury for far reaching. In chaos take 3% reduced damage an mirror of anguish. In inspiration get condi cleanse on heal and either hp for phant or move faster for each illusion. If I’m running in a small teamset sometimes I’ll choose glamour recharge for portal and veil. Utilities are situational and change depending on what I’m doing. I use cavalier trinkets and a mix of knights/Valkyrie armor and weapons, centaur runes. You won’t do the damage of Pyro’s pvp build but your survivability is upped tremendously.

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

@kazhiel: Survivability in group situations is one thing that my build doesn’t really do well. 1v1 it has more survivability than even remotely necessary, but as you toss more people into the equation, better passive defense becomes very important. I would experiment with moving 10 points from chaos into Dom for the 15% damage, as mirror of anguish really has limited viability in a group setting.

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

Hey Pyro, I was considering a Phantasm build with the same trait setup but I was figuring more along the lines of Sword or Scepter/traitedFocus – Staff. and with Soldiers gear(or any other kind of toughness armor/runes), Signet of Illusions, iDefender, and maybe Mantra of Pain+Recovery.

A sort of Puppet Master build.. The idea was to be actively keeping my Phantasms alive and well protected via Chaos Storm/Armor, Mantra channeling (with Protected&Restorative Mantras). Since clones emulate your stats, Protected Mantras would add 11% damage reduction to illusions whenever I’m channeling. Protection from Chaos Armor would give 33% defense to them, and of course iDefender would be soaking up damage.

My only thing is, I’m not too sure how good the damage would be, even with soldiers gear. I’d ideally like to be able to fight with two iWarden’s and a Warlock up around me, but was curious on your thoughts?

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Posted by: Kazhiel.8194

Kazhiel.8194

In a group setting yeah, 15% more damage probably is better than mirror of anguish with its 90 sec cd but for scouting or solo roaming it’s pretty handy as it negates anyone’s first cc on you. Pretty entertaining when someone runs in and tries to knock you down and they find themself on the ground as well lol

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Posted by: Thedenofsin.7340

Thedenofsin.7340

I’ve been running something similar:

http://tinyurl.com/cc2dqg6

10/30/0/20/10

However, I run sword+pistol and GS. Also, I go 30 points into dueling to get 4% more damage per readied mantra. This allows me much of the same flexibility as the OP’s build. The thing I really like about this build is that Empowering Mantras have the power to turn my utility slots into damage slots. If I end up in a PUG with a support guardian or ele, I can swap out for more mantras and get up to a 16% damage boost from mantras, which is really substantial.

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

@Archangel: I’ll get to the build in a moment. First about somehing you mentioned.

Illusions inherit our stats. The key word here is stats, and nothing more. Whenever we get might, our stats change, same situation with fury. Protection does not alter our stats. It simply reduces incoming damage. If having protection made clones take less damage, it would be as if having regen made our clones regen hp.

As far as the overall build, I feel it would be overkill. If you’re in a situation with too much aoe, the phantasms will still die instantly, and if you aren’t, they really don’t need that much protection since you can resummon them so quickly.

@Thedenofsin: I use pistol and sword as two offhands because those are by far the 2 strongest phantasms we have, no contest. At any rate, you’ll never see me running a damage mantra build like that because you have no defense, and it is really flashy and obvious. When I see someone with a bunch of mantras I think “I know their build, it’s squishy and has no defensive options, they die first”. And they do. Running a bunch mantras outside of a zerg situation is just painting a target on yourself against any competent opponent.

Also, note that my build is vastly different in pve and pvp. Your build is very similar to my pvp build, but you reference somewhat of a pve situation. Losing the points in inspiration and illusions makes the build vastly less flexible in terms of weapon usage and adaptability. My pve build is not optimized for damage, it’s optimized to be able to optimize itself for each encounter, if that made any sense.

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

Ah, my mistake. I knew that they inherited stats, and I knew protection is a flat 33% damage reduction yet for whatever reason as I was theorycrafting, I saw Protection as a toughness increase.
I really want to explore Phantasms next, will probably be shooting you some more questions in the future. Is there a formula for exactly how much toughness reduced damage?

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

Ah, my mistake. I knew that they inherited stats, and I knew protection is a flat 33% damage reduction yet for whatever reason as I was theorycrafting, I saw Protection as a toughness increase.
I really want to explore Phantasms next, will probably be shooting you some more questions in the future. Is there a formula for exactly how much toughness reduced damage?

Damage = (weapon damage)(power)(skill coefficient)/(armor)

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

The damage formula led me to believe that the amount of damage reduction varied depending on armor, but I was looking more along the lines of percentages, such as ..

Looking at gw2buildcraft.com, +247 toughness gives you 11.86% damage reduction.

I have a rather lousy head for math. Does the above calculation use the same formula?

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

% reduction will vary based on your current armor.

With 20 total armor, adding 20 more will result in a fifty percent reduction in damage taken.
With 100 total armor, adding 20 more will result in a 17% reduction in damage taken.

kittening moronic piece of kitten over zealous idiotic filter.

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Posted by: Dahkeus.8243

Dahkeus.8243

Maybe I haven’t used it enough to appreciate it, but I’m still not sold on Restorative Mantras in builds. That being said, I definitely like the diversity in this build, which is where the Inspiration tree really shines.

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Posted by: Mr Fancypants.1270

Mr Fancypants.1270

pyro I love your builds. been using immortal Mesmer for WvW and now started using this for PVE. Not sure if its me, but the mantra healing seems like it does not work at times. From my understanding it should heal after you meditate.

How close do party members have to be? Sometimes I get no green numbers!

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

pyro I love your builds. been using immortal Mesmer for WvW and now started using this for PVE. Not sure if its me, but the mantra healing seems like it does not work at times. From my understanding it should heal after you meditate.

How close do party members have to be? Sometimes I get no green numbers!

I believe the radius is somewhere around 300 range. It isn’t a huge radius, but it is large enough to catch several allies at once if you position yourself properly.