Guild Wars 2

So I love my sword/pistol-Staff mesmer and have it focused a lot around crit/cond/duelist damage. One gripe I do have though is that to anyone smart enough to realize the DECENT damage(not great) that my duelist is doing will completely ignore me hit them one kill them and run back to me. Even if i try to force a melee range fight with my sword to keep a warrior thief etc on me when it generally wouldnt be a smart thing to do. I dont mind illusions not doing damage or dying in one hit well because I dont feel they were meant for that but when they give u opportunities to build for phantasm damage and those still die in 1 hit…it kinda defeats the purpose right?

Please respond with ur thoughts or strategies to avoid this thanks!

Phantasm tree for the 20% increased hp as well as the extra health for yourself, signet of illusions. I’m not sure specifically how the crit/cond build works because I haven’t played it that much but I find having 15/25 in chaos/inspiration combined with those 2 stops my phantasms from being gibbed easily.

One tactic I utilize is firing off a normal clone before casting my phantasm. This way if the mob AI just targets whatever the first thing to whack it is, then the phantasm should be safe for at least a few seconds, enough to fire off one attack cycle at least.

This works especially well with sword, because you can fire off the clone, summon the phantasm, then swap with the clone to immobilize the target then Blurred Frenzy on its face.