Guild Wars 2

So recently (yesterday) I cobbled this together. I don’t usually play Phantasm-style, and wanted to branch out a bit and explore how effective other builds can be in sPvP. What I’ve come up with was this:

0/4/6/0/4 Sword – Sword(Focus works best, but any offhand works) / Staff or Greatsword

This build plays in the style of phantasms and lockdown, grabbing the increased recharge rate, attack speed, and crit chance of a Phantasm build while being able to rapidly stack boons, apply AoE weakness/vuln, and immobilize targets in the lockdown style.

There’s a sacrifice though, and it looks pretty steep. You lose:

• Halting Strike (Damage)
• Vuln stacking on daze
• Boonstripping shatters
• Phantasm Damage/HP Modifiers

But this is accommodated for by

• Crackspeed, low cooldown iSwordsman (Damage)
• Crackspeed, low cooldown iDisenchanter (Boon/Condition strip)
• Pretending vuln-stacking isn’t a thing. =[

So far it’s been pretty fun. A phantasm playstyle with lockdown elements. Haven’t taken it to the tournament scene just yet, but I was washing people up in hotjoins with little problem going 2v1 and in some cases 3v1 (and though there are scrubs-aplenty, most of the fights I judged were against opponents my rank or higher)

Anyone try anything similar?

Well, the base spread is what I used for a Condirupt build, pre-patch. Different pickable Traits, I’m sure.
As for Interrupt/Phantasm, I went with 0/3/6/5/0. That way, I could easily pull Traits for Sword/Focus, and the Phants still gained at least one +15% bonus.

Well, color me surprised!
Yesterday I thought trying PU phant build could be fun, and since I didn’t like how it was turning out, I ended up with a lockdown-phantasm build.

I’m going for 3/2/6/3/0 for the sake of testing right now, so I have not much to report, since I have not given the build proper testing (exams are taking away what little free time I have) and it is full of holes, but, I still wanted to post my two cents.

Have you tried using rune of the ranger? Unless they have fixed it already, phantasms were counting as “active companions”, thus granting the 7% dmg increase.
Although it feels like a poor-man’s strength rune, it eases the burden of getting your might stolen. I’m using them for the increased precision/ferocity over strength’s power, so that I can avoid investing in Dueling, however.

Also, could this 2 playstyles combined make SoE viable in pvp? Due to the phant. recharge on activation, and the fact that you should be able to control the flow of the fight while it recharges (part of its recharge at least). So far it has yielded good results to me, but I still kind of missed Ether Feast every now and then.

Also, yeah, I tried it in hot-join, so there are no tournament experiences here.

i’m playing a similar build and i’m having a blast! i go 0/6/6/2/0 with harmonious mantras and mender’s on inspiration. s/s-staff gives so many interrupts. i constantly play with around 15 might and can get it up to 25 with 2 well placed interrupts. then i just look at iswordman stab that warrior for 5k damage… with CELESTIAL. i’m in love.

@Chaos Archangel: I’ve been using an almost-identical build with pretty good success in PvP. It’s sword/sword and staff with the same 0/4/6/0/4 spread. However, I use Dueling II and IV instead of IV and X and Chaos III instead of V. I may give your spread a try though, since I can see the advantage of using Debilitating Dissipation with sword clones in particular.

For runes, I’ve found the updated Runes of the Pack to be pretty useful. The flat bonuses to power and precision are great, and the “when hit” effect gives up to 80% swiftness uptime and significant fury uptime as well. Also, the fury will get applied to nearby illusions, extending/replacing the effects of Dueling II.

How do you handle opponents with strong aoe pressure, like a bow warrior or an ele or an engie?

I ask this because you’re sacrificing a few other things that you didn’t mention. You’re sacrificing any and all phantasm hp modifiers, along with the two 15% phantasm damage modifiers. This means your phantasms will be both squishy and comparatively weak.

I will concede that the durability of the phantasms is one of the weaker points of the build. However, given that all phantasm-summoning skills are reduced to 12s cooldowns, they can be summoned rapidly enough to somewhat compensate for their frailty.

I do not find damage to be an issue, although I have considered taking Domination III over Chaos XI. I generally find that between the now-fixed Phantasmal Haste and the might gained from Bountiful Interruption, they hit sufficiently hard.

Whoops, I thought I had that on the list. I handle opponents with strong AoE pressure with range, honestly. iSwordsman attacks from midrange and iWarlock/iDisenchanter from far.

It’s obviously not as cut-and-dry as that, but with Phantasms on such a low cooldown, it’s not too much of a sacrifice to shatter when I need to, or pressure with lockdown. The situation varies too often for one simple solution, it’s an adaptive playstyle, but the build isn’t as passive as a pure Phantasm build and so far hasn’t been simply a weaker version of both.

I love the idea of that build but I think you give up too much for it. I don’t really think DE is that needed in a phantasm build which opens up some interesting alternatives such as:

3/0/6/5/0 and 4/0/6/0/4

Something i think is underplayed about Illusions (other than the awesome phanstasmal haste) is the cd reduction on illusion skills that you use everyday but might not think about when selecting those points, like iLeap, decoy, etc. I just love Illusionist’s Celerity.

And I also love this build, but I have never tried the disenchanter with it. I will do so!

@Neurophen: You’re right DE is more for my personal preference (for chain-dazes mostly.) but definitely isn’t required, Phantasmal Fury on the other hand is a big help with multi-hitting phantasms like warden or something that attacks as rapidly as Swordsman.

@Amethyst: This is true, and another reason I grab Blade Training. Double cooldown iCounter, swordsman, and leap!

6/4/0/4/0 Phantasm & interrupts locking down the enemy with Power Block. Reflects in there too along with push + pull.