Guild Wars 2

So after playing around with all weapon sets (I enjoy all of the weapon sets Mesmer has to offer), I found that greatsword/staff seems to fit my playstyle the best. Now where I am struggling is I keep going back and forth on my traits and so I was looking for some feedback which may help me come to a decision.

Generally I like to start with greatsword 2 then 4. This throws a mirror blade creating a clone, and drops the berserker to do some damage and cripple. I usually dodge after this to generate a 3rd illusion (I try to keep 3 up at all times to continuously proc sharper images). I generally throw mirror blade every time it’s off cool down (spike damage, conditions/buffs, and conditions/cripple from clone death are always a plus).

I try to carefully time my shatters based on how long I have before my illusion generating abilities are off cool down. For example, in the above rotation, I’ll generally shatter when GS 4 has maybe 3-5 seconds left before recast. This gives me enough time to quickly throw out more clones/phantasms without having to use mirror images (I use this more when I need a quick clone generation if my illusions go down faster than I can generate).

Depending on the fight, I may put more emphasis on the use of staff. Staff 5 + 2 for combo field bubble and clone, dodge for more clones (this time casting WoC). This usually leads to a lot of condition damage from WoC (myself and clones) and from sharper images. If I feel damage is lacking, I’ll throw in a staff 3 for good measure. It always feels nice to have a pack of WoC casting clones in a chaos field with an aegis boon.

I will often swap back and forth in a fight between greatsword/staff based on the situations I am faced with. I’ll use GS 3 and 5 if I need to remove a regen off target or if I need to give myself more space.

Below is the build I currently run (10,20,10,0,30), and while it works well, I still can’t decide whether I can optimize it more. The points that feel somewhat out of place are the 10 grandmaster points in illusions. While I enjoy contributing to the shatters and the utility of F3/F4 when in a pinch, I’m wondering if they’d be better spent in Domination or Chaos for damage or survivability.

Sorry for the long winded build explanation but any feedback, positive or negative, is appreciated.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQJARWlwziq3UzoGaNJipCBHqHYX29dkKUalUMbXIA

Your build sounds like a keep-away build. The last 5 points in Illusion definitely sound wasted as a result. Chaos is the only place that seems to makes sense to put those 5 points.

For example, in the above rotation, I’ll generally shatter when GS 4 has maybe 3-5 seconds left before recast.

You can run the timing tighter. When you command a Shatter, your Illusions immediately stop counting towards the cap (the purple bubbles in this case are not accurate). So, you can immediately re-summon.

Usually I will hit Shatter in the middle of the GS2 animation and combo into GS4.

Below is the build I currently run (10,20,10,0,30), and while it works well, I still can’t decide whether I can optimize it more.
[…]
While I enjoy contributing to the shatters and the utility of F3/F4 when in a pinch, I’m wondering if they’d be better spent in Domination or Chaos for damage or survivability.

If you are shattering often, then you are not getting much use out of that Chaos trait. If you are using GS as primary, then the GS Trait in Dom will benefit you significantly. If you are not moving into melee for shatters, then the 30 point Illusion trait is less effective.

I would generally recommend dropping the points in Chaos and moving them to Dom. If you are not going into melee for Shatters, then drop the last 5 points in Illusion. If you are Shatters semi-often but not “very often”, then drop another 5 points from Illusion (e.g. drop the ‘Might on Shatter’ trait).

From there you have various options. If you use Staff primary over GS, you can swap the GS trait for the Staff trait. For certain Game Purposes, you could even hit up 30 Dueling and get Mantra stacking (not recommended unless you actually want to learn how to use a full set of Mantras, which can be painful).

Other options — 15 Inspiration is always a reasonable survivability play. In general you could always get the Mantra heal trait as a random option.

So different things … the main changes are to evaluate your personal playstyle and determine whether you really are shattering often, shattering in melee, and whether you use GS or Staff as primary.

The only thing I would point out that might make choosing your traits harder is that your weapon choices go against each other. The staff is a condition damage weapon while the greatsword is direct damage power weapon.

The final 10 points in illusions doesn’t really seem to be serving much of a purpose, as shatting your illusions doesn’t seem like your top priority, as you seem to be focusing on stacking up Sharper Images and are using compounding power.
I’d move them into Chaos and pick up Illusionary Defense (Since you won’t be shattering all that much) or Chaotic Dampening for the bonus toughness and the 20% Cooldown Reduction on staff.

Personally, it seems like the final 20 points you’ve placed in Illusions seems entirely for the purpose of Illusionary Elasticity, which is a decent boost to Mirror Blade.
Thing is, Elasticity doesn’t affect your clone’s use of Winds of Chaos, only your own, so it’s really only useful for Mirror Blade.
Depending on what you’re planning on using this build for (Phantasms/Burst, Condition Damage, or PvP) either replace Illusionary Persona with Phantasmal Haste (it is only really useful for the bonus Distortion stack unless you plan on being in melee range of your opponent).

If this build is for PvP, consider moving all 20 of those points from illusions. 5 points to chaos for Illusionary Membrane, and 15 to Inspiration, for the Phantasm regeneration to grant you the membrane boon.
Getting the Vigor on Shatter trait here will also give you more evades to generate more clones post-shatter.
These inspiration points along with the Phantasmal healing + Membrane combo will give some very good survivability.

Overall, if you just want more damage, shift those final 10 points into Domination, picking up either 15% more illusion damage, 20% mind wrack damage or -20% Greatsword cooldowns.

Overall it comes down to what you want to use the build for.

The staff is a condition damage weapon while the greatsword is direct damage power weapon.

GS is actually one of the better Sharper Images weapons.

EasymodeX.4062:

The staff is a condition damage weapon while the greatsword is direct damage power weapon.

GS is actually one of the better Sharper Images weapons.

Staff also is fantastic utility for keeping clones alive / fury / might stacks for shatters and for being in range to take advantage of illusionary persona.

Personally I prefer 20 0 20 0 30 for greatsword / staff and focus more on shatters.

With the greatsword I like to pull with mind stab > mirror blade(when in range for bounces) > wave > berserker > mirror blade(when back in range) > shatter.

With the staff chaos storm > phase retreat(for chaos armor) > warlock > chaos armor > phase retreat > shatter.

Basically trying to stack boons before the shatters, switch and repeat. I also switch out the 3rd utility often, just been having fun with mimic lately.

Thanks for all the feedback. I figured those last 10 points would be better elsewhere, I think I was just holding on to the “cool” factor of illusionary persona. I just needed some points to think through to help me convince where to move those points to.

I did test out some traits like Empowered Illusions, but there was really very little damage gain that I could see (since my build focuses on condition damage from sharper images which proc more often from clones than berserker). The condition damage from bleeds seemed to have no change with this trait either. It seems to be designed more for phantasms builds than clones.

I will take the advice for moving those last 10 points from illusion, but whether to chaos or domination I am still undecided. I’m still torn between damage or survivability.

I tested out the damage increase on the greatsword auto-attack by adding points into domination and while there was a difference, I’m still trying to see if the damage increase is worth the skill point cost (and not just something I can make up for with gear).

Greatsword training seemed to increase this damage by another 100-200 or so dmg (base equipment) per cycle of the auto attack, but I haven’t been able to do any solid testing on the rest of the abilities yet. The cool down reduction would really only benefit GS 5 in my build (6 second reduction) since I am already traited in Illusionists Celerity (5% reduction) and the other skills have decently short cool downs already.

As for the comment on Illusionary Elasticity, I definitely enjoy this with the GS mirror blade, but also when I switch to staff, I tend to fight a little closer because I usually like to run around inside my own chaos storm for a bit if there is room. This lets me take advantage of the WoC bounce from my own auto-attack.

I probably should have clarified that I run this as a PVE build and have not done any testing with it in a PVP environment yet.

Again thanks for all the advice, I will look through all the comments and tweak out my build some more tonight. I appreciate all the help with my theorycrafting.

The cool down reduction would really only benefit GS 5 in my build (6 second reduction) since I am already traited in Illusionists Celerity (5% reduction) and the other skills have decently short cool downs already.

The cooldown reduction effects stack. The tooltip is bugged to only reflect one of the two traits.

EasymodeX.4062:

The cool down reduction would really only benefit GS 5 in my build (6 second reduction) since I am already traited in Illusionists Celerity (5% reduction) and the other skills have decently short cool downs already.

The cooldown reduction effects stack. The tooltip is bugged to only reflect one of the two traits.

Ah, I was not aware of this, that changes things up a bit.

The biggest problem with the GS + Staff combo is the two don’t synergize at all with each other. GS is all about power and crit. Staff is all about conditions and crit. If you’re comfortable ending up with Rampager gear (Power, Precision, Condition) then you’re probably better off using a Staff based build (0/20/20/0/20 with 10 to spend wherever) and just using a GS as your second weapon. Builds are more than simply traits you also have to consider in your armor, jewelry, sigils, runes, etc at some point.

Can you pull it off and will it be viable? Sure. Will it do as good as a pure Staff or pure GS build? Probably not.

I am play this right now and while I am mostly GS, I switch to staff to spam some fast clones and drop chaos storm. Then right back to GS.

I am using 30 – 30 – 0 – 0 – 10. Taking traits for GS and to buff shatters. Using sigils of ogre (I think, that is the rock dog pet?).

It works pretty well, especially for group play.

Staff/GS is AWESOME together. Try a power/percision phantasm build.

I destroy stuff.

Watch iWarlock crit hard.

Bers is fun to watch spin and cripple everything.

this is my video, my build with staff/GS is in the youtube description, it works great for me =D

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-PVP-video-Mesmer-Mind-Games

here’s my suggestion. try traiting into the two vigor slots (Critical Infusion from dueling and Vigorous Revelation from inspiration) while taking the remove condition when you heal one one the way. works great for me and i’m using almost exactly the same rotation as you but i never have all my illusion generations skills on cooldown. most of the times they’re ready and i sometimes even forget to use them when fighting easy targets cose of the “create a clone when you dodge” mechanics. the extra vigor and a few runes should do the job keeping your endurance at least half full most times. and if you ten to use greatsword more (like I do) it REALLY is worth while speccing all the way to the end in domination. this is because the minor in the last tier gives you increased damage against inactive targets(even dazed ones) and if you go for confounding suggestions your life will be so much easier (it does say 50% chance of stunning but from my experience the thing procs almost every singlekittentime… seems like 90% to me) so if you’re setup for 30,20,0,20,0 this means that every target you daze will also get stunned 50% of the time which allows you to run around them, dodging and creating clones or recharging your most important skill (it’s a must – have for this to work): mantra of distraction. this skill is incredibly useful in countless situations. for example right before a foe is about to charge you or launch a bigkitten fireball towards you, you simply hit the key and they are interrupted. This is also instant just like your shatters and if your diversion is on cooldown this mantra might be the thing to save you. not to mention that it also has 2 charges and it works extremely well both with multiple squishy enemies as well as big bosses. getting those stacks of defiant down will be a breeze. regarding your other 2 utility spells you can go for whatever you feel you’re lacking. either the phantasmal defender if you feel too squishy or maybe the disenchanter if you die a lot cose of conditions piling up or anything you like frankly. I personally go with signet of midnight and signet of illusions. midnight goes well with my gear and enables me to have all my might stacks from GS2 by the time i cast it a second time as well as an aoe blind which is always handy and illusions gives me that all important shatter recharge when i need it as well as more health to my little pink friends. whichever way you’d like to go I just wanted to point out what worked for me and I should warn you that you may find this build flawed or simply missing something as well but through experimenting with it maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for. srry for the long post and the bad grammar but it’s 8:00 am and I’m still here on the gw2 forums, sleep-deprived and all…:))

You clearly go for a pure dps build so I’m not sure going staff/GS is the right choice here. As mentioned by others already you’re mixing Power damage with Condition damage while being literally a glass canon.

Anyway,
good luck with it and at the end the only thing that matters is having fun. :-)

GS+Staff is fine if you use them as appropriate for the build.

If you run power it means you won’t be sitting in Staff autoattacking. If you condition, it means you will focus on clone generation when in GS. With SI+crit, condition damage is equally applicable to both weapons.

For pure DPS, Staff is not a great choice though, lol.

I started experimenting with GS/Staff and I feel like it is a viable build.
Condition damage build is not gonna work for this weapon set in my opinion because sword choice is much better. Also you only use GS if you’re going dps.

So my build focus on GS, so my secondary weapon would be sword or staff. Why staff over sword?
1) Chaos armor. GS DPS is great, but lack defensive capabilities. Although theoretically you can kite all day with GS, there will be some situations where your enemy will get close and getting some buffs will help you out.
2) Chaos storm. Aegis!! Speed boost!! Retaliation!!
3) Warlock, 4k+ dmg! =.=
4) Kite. I love kiting and enjoy my 1200 range.
5) oh yea, there is also phase retreat to blink out of close range stand still bursts.

Cons: Hunters with rampage as one, is so hard to beat! Without it, chaos shield will help you alot because of confusion and blind.

Without sword, you are not going to be able to immobilize thieves. Atleast you can cast aegis when he is invis and give you a split second to react with diversion or blink.

Oh, and it’s a phantasm build that does not shatter unless diversion

I’ve been playing around with this weapon setup as well, and I’ve been debating a few things:

Should I get 20 points in Domination for 20% gs cooldown?
Should I get 20 points in Chaos, or Illusions for 20% cooldown on staff or an extra bounce?

So far after a bit of testing a build like this feels best for me

20 Mental Torment for mind wrack damage. Greatsword training for damage and lower cooldowns

20 Phantasms have fury (seemed the only useful first slot), Deceptive evasion (essential)

0

10 Vigorous Revelation – you dodge to make a clones, then when needed shatter the clones and get vigor for more dodges. Its a win

20 Precise Wrack (Can be changed with anything really, but goes with mental torment, and Illusionary Elasticity for the extra bounce. Thats an extra condition on the enemy, or a boon on you.

With this build I usually open with the greatsword 2, then 4. While they’re crippled I hit 3, and when they get close I dodge to have 3 clones up then hit 5. I usually shatter, and if 2 is off cooldown I’ll hit it before switching to staff

Spam auto attack 2-3 times, the 5 and 2 for chaos armor and a clone. 3, then dodge right after. The clone, plus your auto attacks. plus the chaos storm makes the staff phantasm do a fair chunk of damage.

From there I usually shatter again, either mind wrack if its off cooldown or what ever else the situation demands. Toss down a null field for the etherial combo field and 2 again for chaos armor and a clone. Then its swap back to GS and repeat as needed.

Mirror images is a nice utility for quick clone generation, or as a stun break. Null field is a must for pvp, and if your in pve then swap it for feedback

I ran into the same dilemma. After testing it out some, I felt the added power in domination (with the great sword trait) seemed to work better than the added toughness. With the staff, most of your survivability seems to come from your skills anyways.