Guild Wars 2

Phantasmal Haste is suppose to reduce the cooldown on all Phantasm abilities by 20% however by the time you’re able to unlock this perk you would have already unlocked Illusionist’s clarity 15 points ago which reduces the cooldown on ALL illusions by 20%. If the reductions stacked then this perk would have been quite interesting, however they don’t.

Am I missing something here? Does the cooldown reduction affect something else that I’m not aware of or is this really the single most useless perk in the game?

It has a confusing tooltip, but it allows your phantasm to attack faster. Doesnt seem to be working on a few phantasm.

Oh. Well this was embarrassing.

Phantasmal Haste affects the CDs of the Phantasm’s Skills. Meaning less of a delay between your Phantasm’s attacks. (Note, not true apparently for every Phantasm.)
Illusionist’s Clarity affects the CDs of YOUR Illusion Summoning Skills. Meaning less of a delay to use your Clone or Phantasm summoning skill again.

Two different things.

Which ones are not affected by it?

The two Utility Phantasms at the moment, and I think the phantasms on the off-hand Sword, off-hand Torch, and the Spear.

The only Phantasm this trait is worth using on is iWarden, as it makes it whirl non-stop. On all others the effect is small or non-existent as far as I could tell.

Embolism.8106:

The only Phantasm this trait is worth using on is iWarden, as it makes it whirl non-stop. On all others the effect is small or non-existent as far as I could tell.

Same experiences here. Amazing for Warden, useless on the rest.

Phantasmal Haste is about equal in effect to the Domination’s +15% dmg for Illusions, or Inspiration 25 trait for +15% dmg for Phantasms. For the IDuelist, anyways. Slightly small numbers, but he salvos faster and faster again. Only less worthwhile, if your IDuelist dies after the first unload each and every time.

I know I tend to keep Phantasmal Haste slotted, whether I use the I.Warden or not.

The application of Phantasmal Haste is pretty uneven across the different phantasms. It’s definitely a must if you use Phantasmal Warden on the focus, but otherwise your mileage with it will vary.

The wiki page for each phantasm has information on how each one is affected by Phantasmal Haste.