Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, one of the new grandmaster traits being introduced next Tuesday is Imagined Burden, named after the Illusionary Berserker attack skill, under the Domination trait line. Here’s what it reads:

Imagined Burden: Reduces recharge of greatsword skills by 20%. Gain 2 stacks of might for 5 seconds whenever you or an illusion uses special surge. All of your other greatsword skills inflict cripple for 2s when they hit.

This trait could have fantastic might generation potential in PvE & WvW, and immense group utility when synergized with the Illusionary Inspiration grandmaster trait in the Inspiration trait line. I did some napkin math in sPvP earlier with the target dummies and found that:

• My character was able to perform 7 spatial surge attack chains in 10s, which should translate to a sustained 7 stacks every 5s.
• Each clone was able to perform 19 spatial surges over the course of a minute, which should translate to a sustained 9.5 stacks every 5s when you have 3 greatsword clones.
• Fried Golden Dumplings have a 33% chance to proc might for 5s with no ICD when you critically hit. If we assume the Mesmer has 80% crit including Fury, that’s roughly 2.8 stacks every 5s.
• Superior Sigils of Strength have a 60% chance to proc might for 10s on crit with a 1s ICD. With a 78% crit rate in sPvP using high-crit gear, I was able to produce a sustained 6-8 stacks of might off AAs alone. This is in line with the numbers on paper, which says we should expect a sustained 6.72 stacks over kitten period. There is a slight discrepancy with the sigil ICD nullifying the next might proc but from my testing this seems to have a larger impact on variance rather than the averages.

When you sum these numbers up, a post-patch greatsword Mesmer could self-stack a sustained 26 stacks (if it wasn’t capped at 25) after the ramp-up phase before you factor in boon duration. This doesn’t even take into account the might and vuln stacking of Mirror Blade, which will benefit from baseline Illusionary Elasticity. When you add the boon duration multipliers, you get the following estimates:

• +65% boon duration (strength runes, dumplings, 80% crit inc Fury) —> ~43 stacks
• +75% boon duration (strength runes, dumplings, bountiful stones, 80% crit inc Fury) —> ~45.5 stacks
• +65% boon duration (strength runes, dumplings, 100% crit inc Fury) —> ~46-48 stacks
• +75% boon duration (strength runes, dumplings, bountiful stones, 100% crit inc Fury) —> ~49-51 stacks

To achieve these numbers you would have to camp greatsword and maintain three clones. This is a huge departure from the phantasm and sword mainhand oriented builds that are currently popular. If you want to share this might with the rest of the party, you’ll need to trait into Inspiration and grab the new grandmaster trait Illusionary Inspiration. Here’s what it does:

llusionary Inspiration: Phantasms grant 3 seconds regeneration to allies near them every 3 seconds. If you have any boons when you summon a phantasm you cast Signet of Inspiration. This trait benefits from the recharge bonus provided by Blurred Inscriptions.

Unfortunately, the last bit about the recharge bonus hints that there will be a 24s ICD on the signet active if you have Blurred Inscriptions, so I don’t expect people to abandon the damage and reflect capability of their phantasm builds anytime soon. The might stacks gained from Illusionary Burden simply don’t last long enough to make it through to each phantasm cast. Had there been no ICD on this trait, IB mesmer could have had the might stacking utility of PS warrior and reflection capability of guardian rolled into one build. I did consider using Mimic and slotting in the actual signet for 40s of boon sharing at 8s intervals, but at that point you’re better off just using other classes.

That aside, I can’t wait to work with these traits as well as all the other Mesmer changes come Tuesday. Even now, I’m imagining how effective an IB sinister build would be for boss solos, benefiting from all the on-crit minor traits in Dueling. A backline IB phantasm build will be a game changer for small group roaming where mid-fight regroups and boon uptime is essential.

Questions and comments appreciated.

Well in PvE, you don’t want to use GS unless absolutely necessary because its sustained damage, even at max range is so low, and having to be at max range prevents you from recieving party buffs. The sword autoattack, even though weak comapared to other classes dps, does much more damage than a maxed range GS. With the Inspiration boon share trait, you’d have to be closer to the group for the signet to work I believe? It seems like a decent pug might stacking strat though, at least on the level of necro blood is power, and with PS warrior, the might could get even crazier.

The way I see it, is that this trait will be similar to how the ranger axe autoattack got buffed, but a bit stronger. It doesn’t give them much might at all really in normal fights, but due to traits and stuff, it really buffs their pet with might much more than it buffs them.

In WvW, it seems like it could be a lot more viable of a trait to have, if anything for the high cripple uptime more so than the might. The Inspiration synergy, like you said looks useful too.

I know you didn’t mention pvp, but I think it could be an interesting choice for a phantasm based mesmer build, since it would help keep cripple uptime, might for phantasms, and would let you rock out with more izerker uptime. Still, on any other build, I see power block, or mental torment even, far outclassing it.

Quick update.

Shinyruku_ku tested Imagined Burden on his stream just now with Berserkers amulet, Strength runes, and Air/Fire sigils. He was able to hit 25 stacks of might on a test dummy, albeit using Mirror Blade and Mindwrack.

There are 2 ways this could work.

1: Might stacking to do heavy burst with zerker amulet in PvP.

2: Might stacking combined with dueling + another line for stacking insane amounts of bleeding & confusion via critical hits from you & your illusions.

Remember there is basically no condi cap anymore, bleeds got a slight buff and dueling allows you to stack allot of them with allot of confusion (which does damage over time in addition to damage on skill use)

So while the second option wouldn’t have a ton of AOE burst it could still have some very high maintained single target damage.

if he was testing on a golem, it’s probably gonna be nerfed…