Guild Wars 2

I am a little unclear why some phantasms appear to be so much better than others. The duellist (offhand pistol), for example, does about twice the amount of damage than the swordsman (offhand sword). Even though the swordsman is a melee, meaning its in more danger of getting killed, and less likely to connect.

This does not makes immediate sense to me. Am I missing something? Is there a logic behind this?

EDIT: It seems this question was based upon a misreading of damage figures. (see below). I assumed each number was an individual hit – whereas it is actually adding up cumulatively. Swordsman is higher damage than duellist, which makes sense .

I’ve wondered the same thing. Im new to the class so I probably am just misinformed, but illusions do no damage, and certain phantasms do way more than others, duelist being one of them. Agreed sir.

cesmode.4257:

I’ve wondered the same thing. Im new to the class so I probably am just misinformed, but illusions do no damage, and certain phantasms do way more than others, duelist being one of them. Agreed sir.

Illusions refers to both clones and phantasms. Clones look like you (except for no offhand), but do little damage – are easy to spawn and are confusing to enemies.

Phantasms don’t look like you, have a little more health, and do damage. When you pump out a random mix of clones and phantasms, it seems to give you two phantasms and one clone.

But yes, the original question still stands – I understand different flavours of phantasm, but the disparity between these two is so large it doesn’t make obvious sense to me. Is there an advantage to the swordsman I am unaware of?

Is something wrong with me or swordsman DOES more dmg when crits? with crit/power build swordsman, when it crits does much more dmg than duellist when crits most of his attacks.
Swordsman crit: http://imagenic.net/viewer.php?file=r6kivq7lqa27uv2kw22.jpg
duellist 7/8 crits: http://imagenic.net/viewer.php?file=dn70s1jqy7nr2hzbv5yq.jpg
duellist 5/8 crits: http://imagenic.net/viewer.php?file=hxx7f43rzxgaqxdz4262.jpg
swordsman nocrit: http://imagenic.net/viewer.php?file=sajdp6f1tmo8v8ugfkxf.jpg

No changes in traits, using only inspiration 25 to boost phantasms attack

Not sure if this is factored into your observations, but the damage numbers you see on the Duellist’s attack are cumulative, i.e. the total damage is equal to the final number.

Do phantasms damage scale with your own stats?

cesmode.4257:

Do phantasms damage scale with your own stats?

Yes.

Not sure if this is factored into your observations, but the damage numbers you see on the Duellist’s attack are cumulative, i.e. the total damage is equal to the final number.

And that why i called that iDuellist 2,4k is less than iSwordsman 3k. Additional factor is that iDuellist can stack up to 8 bleeds, while iSwordsman can not. but in crit/power build it bleeds 50per tick so im not sure if it will be more than 2,7k total (direct dmg+bleed)

Mnemon.1854:

Not sure if this is factored into your observations, but the damage numbers you see on the Duellist’s attack are cumulative, i.e. the total damage is equal to the final number.

O-o… if this is true that does make a difference.

Are you sure? I assumed each number was a separate bit of damage… in the tooltip it even says xxx (x8)

Thanks for pointing this out.

Yes, I am fairly sure this is the case.

The tool-tip is accurate, but the combat text just presents the information using a cumulative number. (Note that there is no reason why subsequent attacks in a chain should hit harder than preceding attacks.) The same is true for similar attack types, e.g. Hundred Blades.

MrMT.4061:

Mnemon.1854:

Not sure if this is factored into your observations, but the damage numbers you see on the Duellist’s attack are cumulative, i.e. the total damage is equal to the final number.

O-o… if this is true that does make a difference.

Are you sure? I assumed each number was a separate bit of damage… in the tooltip it even says xxx (x8)

Thanks for pointing this out.

Just go to golems and look at numbers. it starts like 400 then 800, then 1200 etc. Last number is total dmg. Same goes about thieves unload skill, blurred frenzy etc (last number is total dmg)
It says XXX its quite weird. DMG formula is something like your power+weapon dmg+skill dmg where XXX is that skill dmg. (in tooltip you have actual dmg you should do with that skill w/o crits but still you have to remember that every weapon have some DMG range so it can be less or more,. At wiki you will see for Blurred Frenzy Damage (8x): 808 which, I believe, is that ‘skill dmg’) But when it comes XXX (x8) it means that you have to divide that XXX per 8 to get skill dmg per tick. XXX is for total. Or I believe so based on my observations. if it’s XXX multipled by 8 then swords 2 should hit over 10k.
http://i50.tinypic.com/zlxmd3.jpg
now you can see its 400per crit (219 no crit) while tooltip says 1768(x8). 1768/8=221.

Well, this all makes a big difference, thanks.

I was assuming each number that flashed was separate damage.

OK – The swordsman totally holds his own.

Thanks Mnemon and Gibon.

Wow – the more I look through the implications of this, the more I realize how much it changes the way I understood things.

So, for example, I now realize it does more damage to shatter illusions 1 by 1… rather than 3 at a time. (I was assuming the 3x: xxx number meant 3 applications of that number, not that number divided by 3.)

Doh – this requires a rethink!

Shortening the recharge of shatter skills now suddenly seems much more useful.

I wonder how many people have been misled by this…

Yep. I understood how it works (the XXX (xY) thing) when i was randomly testing diffrent builds at dummies and noticed that my mind wrack untraited did more dmg than traited. Then I looked deeper into it and noticed that i was randomly shattering one or two clones. Then looked into combat chat and there was everything. Single shatter with 3 clones does more dmg overall but less per clone providing higher spike dmg but loosing its full potential. Right now I’m mind wracking 1st clone right after it comes out and use F2/F3/F4 for the rest of clones waiting for F1 off cd.

I wish the swordsman meshed better with the dueling line, after all mesmer going that line are more likely to be using swords and yet it’s pretty bad for applying bleeds which is a baseline minor trait in this line.

I’ve played with a handful of builds using different phantasms (though nothing exhaustive) and I find the Duelist has a solid edge 1 on 1 in terms of DPS. It’s ability to stack bleeds gives it that edge. It obviously loses in AoE so it’s clearly not superior across the board, but in WvW/PvP I tend to like it coupled with Phantasmal Haste for faster recharge and Duelist’s Discipline so it can be farther back and the cooldown reduction (stacks with Illusionist’s Celerity).

Ojo.2543:

I’ve played with a handful of builds using different phantasms (though nothing exhaustive) and I find the Duelist has a solid edge 1 on 1 in terms of DPS. It’s ability to stack bleeds gives it that edge. It obviously loses in AoE so it’s clearly not superior across the board, but in WvW/PvP I tend to like it coupled with Phantasmal Haste for faster recharge and Duelist’s Discipline so it can be farther back and the cooldown reduction (stacks with Illusionist’s Celerity).

From what I have noticed Duelist’s Discipline does not stack with Illusionist’s Celerity. I wish it did as I really wanted a 9 second CD on I.Duelist. However I notice that Celerity brings the tooltip number physically down from 15 to 12 seconds but Duelist Disc only effected magic bullet’s CD.

Infact, if you play around with all of the weapon specific traits such at blade training for sword; it too only reduces the cooldowns of non-illusion summoning skills. So really even with blade training that 20% faster recharge is only for #2 skill in main hand and #4 in OH. kinda makes them less appealing now.

That’s not true. Duelist’s Discipline definitely stacks with Illusionist’s Celerity. If you enable numeric cooldown displays you can see it reduces it.

Yeah the cd reductions stack (just not on the tooltip). That said, as you’ve already discovered swordsman is quite strong. The question still stands for iMage though… worst phantasm by far.

iMage is not worst, just useful only with heavy condition build