Guild Wars 2

Hi guys.

I’m little Asura mesmer mostly playing WvW and I don’t have experience in dungeons (Done Ac and CM few times with partial success). After reading some topics on forum I find out that ppl don’t agree with best build for dungeons because there is no one ultimate build for anything. I’m not pro in making builds but I made one I intend to use and need help from guys with dungeons experience to tell me is this build any good.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAsa8dlwzKqXVTqGaNJhZBnZE9ljSR39eJF4O3A-jQyAY/BRTZAJRBiKAn8KiGblrIasqFMVJRUtHvIa1SBcxyI-e

Idea was to trait phantasms but still have dmg and some survivability in case of missed dodge (You are no good if you are dead, right?).
Weapon sets: s/p as main (I prefer s/p over s/s), s/f as 2nd. I had hard time choosing between s/s and s/f for 2nd set, but ended with s/f mainly because I wanted some aoe (no staff in build).

What do you guys think? Please don’t flame. Constructive criticism is welcome though.

I’d say your build focuses more about self-damage than team cooperation/support. I personally think that being able to support your team better but doing a little less damage is more important for the most parts.

With Sword as both MH weapons…there’s very little that you can do besides autoattack and then wait for Sword 2/3 once you’ve gotten your Phantasms up and have used up your Utilities. And without Deceptive Evasion, you will essentially be locking yourself into keeping your Phantasms alive until their CDs wear off so you can use Mind Wrack as a finisher. Given dungeon environments, neither are likely to happen – your group is likely to kill a particular mob within 10 seconds, or your Phantasm/Clones will die in 5-7 seconds.

In more pressing mob encounters at harder dungeons (Arah, CM, TA), you’ll want to 1.) be able to either get out and back in fast, or 2.) do a lot of AoE damage quickly to kill, or 3.) AoE interrupts/snares on demand to limit damage done to your group. The former is really possible with Staff & Sword + OH combo, while the latter two are best achieved via a GS & Sword + Focus combo.

That said, this is what I personally run for dungeons.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsdWl4zipHVzqGa9IiJFEHyd6BztcOXJF82FC-jQxAYfioxkXR0YrZFRjVXjpcJiqBA-e

Overall it’s a group-based support and reflect build that still packs a decent punch (soloed Lupicus by swapping out Null Field for Mantra of Concentration). Basically with the trait point distribution like this, it gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of having good access to things like traited Illusion of Life, Portal, Veil, etc.

Pros:

- 100% group Swiftness uptime
- Three reflect skills on moderate CDs and can be cycled – for near 100% reflect uptime if there is a Guardian using WoR or another Mesmer with similar build – super useful in dungeons like Arah and CM
- Good amount of interrupts (Chaos Storm, Temporal Curtain, and Diversion)
- Good survivability with decent retaliation uptime, 100% Vigor uptime and 100% Chaos Armor uptime
- Good group heals (heals group for 2.7k every 15 seconds roughly if you spam Mantra of Recovery – or swap in Mantra of Pain in a utility for 2.7k group heal every 5 seconds)
- Good group condition removal (traited Null Field + placing Temporal Curtain under an active Warden)

Cons:

- Not as powerful as a Shatter or Phantasm build (when vs. 1 monster)

swap out the 5 points in chaos for 5 more in illusions and you basically have the best dungeon build possible, OP.

swap your first trait in illusions for compounding power too since it gives stronger reflects and you will rarely be using shatter skills anyway.

the above poster is actually suggesting a build that’s worse than the one you’re using so ignore it.

@mystic

I tried to avoid deceptive evasion because of that, I don’t want it to replace my phantasms with clones and it will since sword is a close range weapon and ill need to evade a lot (while its a good thing to do with condition build here I didn’t want it).
You are right about dmg, this build is imagined like dmg build with a little def stuff to give me chance if I screw evade or smt. Talking about support, isn’t 3 slot skills and traited focus enough of support + if mobs concentrate on my phantasms there is more time for group members to do dmg heal themselves etc since mobs wont be on their kitten constantly :P

@colesy

Ill add that. I didn’t plan to shatter them unless they survive till new ones are ready. Idea was 2 duelists and a warden to be constantly out for boss if possible and advantage to warden when there is more mobs.

As colesy touched on the 5 point move, I’ll comment on your armor.

I’m guessing the jewels on your crystals were from WvW? If you don’t have ascended berserker trinkets, maybe switch those jewels to exquisite ruby jewels as the toughness and vit won’t matter in dungeons.

Ruby orbs would be a good (and better) replacement to the runes of strength in your armor. You could go scholar but (1) they are really expensive and (2) since the damage increase only applies to your autos and not phantasms, the price to put them on a mesmer is not worth it (in my opinion).

That superior sigil of strength in your pistol offhand might be doing nothing, and if it is working (and I do not know myself), would only work on your phantasm anyway, likely generating 1 might stack every 4.5 seconds. I think your two sigils of battle are enough for might and that superior sigils of accuracy are better in the offhands to help your phantasms crit more.

Lastly, if you have a weapon (to swap out) that builds up sigil stacks, then perception (over bloodlust) would be the way to go on a mesmer.

Basically just repeating what colesy and Bumbler have already said here…
For sure move the 5 from Chaos into Illusions – you can already have perma-regen just by standing near a phantasm; and Celerity reduces cooldowns on so many skills it’s not even funny (Decoy, Leap, Duelist, Warden).
Don’t use Sentinel or PTV jewels – jewels are THE best place to get crit-dmg from (you only trade 5 stat points for each % of crit) so if you really DO want defensive stats get it from your armor instead (using Knight’s head, chest, legs is the common optimized swap).
Don’t mix on-crit with on-swap sigils – SPECIALLY Battle since you want to be swapping on every cd with those to keep 6 might up. All sigils share icd, so your crit sigil will never proc. Even worse, if the strength sigil does proc in the last second before you switch, the OTHER battle sigil won’t work when you swap weapons since the Strength cooldown (2 seconds) will still be active. Two battle is fine, I would put a Perception sigil on the focus (or a third offhand) to build stacks – since focus does more AoE, I tend to get more trash kills faster on it – and put Accuracy on the pistol.
Runes wise, the 6th bonus from Strength (5% dmg while under Might) is reportedly bugged, so Scholar or Ruby Orbs would be better for overall damage. For WvW I like Hoelbrak too – they’re like a more damage-oriented version of Melandru (still get condi reduction, but with Power and Might duration instead of toughness). They’ll work well with your Battle sigils too.
Traits and skills – I’d switch the 20% phantasm HP for glamor cd reduction, more frequent Feedback and Null Fields rock, and with Celerity you’ll be able to summon replacement phants VERY often anyway. I personally often use Medic’s Feedback in that slot, it’s great for helping people up safely.
In dungeons you’ll want to have Signet of Inspiration on unless your teammates are good at capping might & fury themselves – you can basically double the boon output on the team.

Loki.8046:

@mystic

I tried to avoid deceptive evasion because of that, I don’t want it to replace my phantasms with clones and it will since sword is a close range weapon and ill need to evade a lot (while its a good thing to do with condition build here I didn’t want it).
You are right about dmg, this build is imagined like dmg build with a little def stuff to give me chance if I screw evade or smt. Talking about support, isn’t 3 slot skills and traited focus enough of support + if mobs concentrate on my phantasms there is more time for group members to do dmg heal themselves etc since mobs wont be on their kitten constantly :P

@colesy

Ill add that. I didn’t plan to shatter them unless they survive till new ones are ready. Idea was 2 duelists and a warden to be constantly out for boss if possible and advantage to warden when there is more mobs.

You will VERY rarely ever have more than 2 Phantasms out, especially if one of your Phantasm is a Warden. If you ever have more than 2 Phantasm out then you’re either fighting a glitched boss or the rest of your team is just so tanky and isn’t killing the mobs fast enough.

Clone from Deceptive Evasion only replaces your third Phantasm, and any subsequent Clones from Deceptive Evasion will replace a Clone if possible. Given most dungeon encounters, you most likely will never have 3 Phantasms out – whether it’s on a group of silver mobs, champ, or legendary.

If silver mobs focus on your Phantasms (nevermind Warden, you’d be lucky if that thing survived for the entirety of its attack even without being focused on), they will die in 2 seconds, and you will be left with nothing but Sword autoattack within melee range, and your entire DPS-centric build falls to the ground – hence a ranged weapon + Deceptive Evasion for more clones.

If you’re just planning to do things like CoF p1 or AC p3, then I can see your build panning out okay (but with 5 more into Illusions like what others have said). But run a bit of Arah and CM and you’ll see what I mean~

Funny then that the top Arah players put a whopping zero points in Chaos then.

Thank you guys. I changed traits like colesy said, changed sigils and runes, didn’t know about bugged 6. Vala gave me some ideas to think of, I’ll stick with 20% phant for now and see how it goes. When I become more confortable with this build maybe I change it for things you mentioned.

colesy.8490:

Funny then that the top Arah players put a whopping zero points in Chaos then.

Funny that the meta is constantly changing too, eh? I really can care less if you have a guide here, or if you think you and a few others running a particular build are “top Arah players.” If you can’t be constructive and analytical in your posts/arguments, then you’re just another arrogant elitist prick.

MysticHLE.7160:

colesy.8490:

Funny then that the top Arah players put a whopping zero points in Chaos then.

Funny that the meta is constantly changing too, eh? I really can care less if you have a guide here, or if you think you and a few others running a particular build are “top Arah players.” If you can’t be constructive and analytical in your posts/arguments, then you’re just another arrogant elitist prick.

Staff and healing mantras are useless for Arah. If you want to run Mantraway in Arah go 10/30/0/20/10 or 0/30/0/20/20. Also, Phantasmal Fury > dodge clones. Clones are useless in general, I dunno why you’d even want them except as filler for Compounding Power.

Because Clones block projectiles and help draw further aggro from mobs, esp. against likes of Giganticus Lupicus. There have been far too many times where I’ve been spared from Necrid Trap and his single target life drain because of an extra clone/phant aggroing him.

Also, if you’re running any sort of Shatter build, you might as well put that 25 points in Illusions to use in terms of shattering often, especially considering that you have pretty good access to Distortion – but only if you can produce clones fast. And even without Illusionary Persona, you can still make very good use out of 25 in Illusions for the shredding recharge rate and Deceptive Evasion.

Or you could just dodge those attacks and focus on DPSing him.

Also, you don’t run shatter builds in dungeons. It just isn’t worth the trait investment.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Or you could just dodge those attacks and focus on DPSing him.

Also, you don’t run shatter builds in dungeons. It just isn’t worth the trait investment.

You run out of blink/Mantra of Concentration/dodges from time to time, even if you use Superior Sigil of Energy and keep your Vigor up – in the context of soloing him, that is.

And I wasn’t even advocating a shatter build. I was merely saying how actually FULLY utilizing the traitline that you dump 25 points into might be a good idea.

I’ve never had problems with Blink/Mantra ever running out. If you’re being bubbled that often you’re probably doing something wrong.

Also probably dead, since bubble hits like 7k per tick.

Never had trouble with my build either. =)