Guild Wars 2

Now, disclaimer, I haven’t done dungeons or fractal runs in a long time. I used to do fractals a lot, but haven’t done them since even the last set of ascended trinkets came out. I capped out at fractal level 30 and just ran 20 and 10’s dailies. I haven’t done dungeons in about as long.

I took a hiatus from the game right around the most recent Wintersday, and started playing again recently. Everything I have looked up and read about doing dungeons and fractals involves going some variation of a Sword/Sword and Sword/Other spec. These specs almost always revolve around the Empowering Mantras, and always revolve around Phantasm upkeep.

My problem is while in my mind I would like to run dungeons and fractals, I also do a lot of open world PvE and occasional WvW. I really liked my shatter specs because I could fine tune some of the traits to match my situation, and go from there. I ran lots of glamour/shatter variants.

I am finding I really dislike Phantasm gameplay. I used to be a champion of it when the game first came out, but shatter specs are so much more dynamic for me. Focusing on getting 3 phantasms out and auto attacking enemies to death is so DULL. I just have no fun doing it.

Now, when I am going to be doing Fractals, I am going to want to do higher level stuff. Given the amount of ascended gear out now, I imagine doing 30+ won’t be as big of an issue as it was when all we had were back pieces and rings. Is it imperative I am running one of these snooze specs? Am I undesirable if I am not running mantras/phantasms? I enjoy sword gameplay a lot, but just autoattacking is so dull for me. Additionally, Mantra play is focused around slotting Mantras and not using them for passive stat gain. DULL DULL DULL!

There’s min/maxing, which I am usually all for, and then there is making the game too dull to play. Mesmer has been my main since release, and I’ve invested the most into him. I really don’t want to have to start on a new character because the Mesmer “Meta” is boring as hell.

Just mainly wanting to see if there is anything else people run that is proven successful, and if I can find dungeon/fractal groups successfully without running these specs.

Thanks for your time.

The difference in damage output between the phantasm/mantra builds and everything else is absolutely massive. As much as I’d love to say that condition builds or shatter builds do comparable damage and can be run, it’s just not true. Additionally, phantasm/mantra builds have traiting that lines up with a lot of the heavy support that mesmer can provide, and that’s not the case with other builds.

tl;dr: Yeah, it’s the only game in town.

I think empowering mantras at least should be reworked. It’s a bit ridiculous that the main thing with a mantra build is having them prepared rather than be encouraged to use them. But that’s not the only thing that could use a looking at with mantras I think.

As for Shatter, I really think Mind Wrack needs some kind of DoT or damage synergy added to it. A goal being not to increase burst for pvp, but to make it more viable in longer fights. Either way, I am also not really a big fan of phantasm upkeep. For me it’s like taking the complexity out of the class entirely. I am a way bigger fan of manipulating illusions than being a minion master I suppose. There should be a way to play both types and feel satisfied in PvE.