Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone. I’m fairly new to the Mesmer class, but I’ve been browsing this forum for some hours searching for decent Mantra builds and uses. From what I’ve found, many consider these builds to be really hard to use and not really worth it, but I want to give them a try.

The plan here is to focus on PvE. I think I should make this clear before anything else. I don’t like PvP, even though I sometimes like to mess with WvW. However, the focus here is killing mobs and doing dungeons.

What I’ve gathered and that got me interested in this kind of build is that you can use your readied mantras while you are casting other ones, and while you are doing pretty much anything else. So my idea is to use the following build, and focus on the strategy I’ll explain after the link:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mzmmMc0zMooRLmoogRmxx9Mazcqoaqc

Ok, so my ideal plan is to:
1) Start the battle with all my mantras ready and out of cooldown
2) Quickly cast Mirror Images followed by a Dodge, which will give me 3 Illusions.
3) Compounding Power means I have 9% damage right there. With my 3 ready Mantras and Empowering Mantras, that’s a total of +21% damage.
(Empowered Illusions gives the Illusions themselves +15% damage, but I don’t know if this adds up with the +21% bonus I already have, or if it’s calculated based on that. Anyway, that’s a nice increase.)
5) While my Illusions damage the opponent, unload my Mantra of Pain (3 stacks)
6) Shatter my Illusions with Mind Wrack (20% besides all other bonuses thanks to Mental Torment) while I recast Mantra of Pain.
7) Rinse and Repeat.

If the situation arrises, make use of Mantra of Resolve, or if I know the fight won’t have much conditions, use Mantra of Distraction while I recast my Mantra of Pain (again).

If things don’t go according to plan, Chaos Storm, then start recasting Mantras. Phase Retreat out of the mess while still casting Mantras, getting the Leap finish from Chaos Storm combo field, with Chaos Armor ready to be cast if needed too. Follow up by Phantasmal Warlock.

Also, my Healing is based on Mantra of Recovery, so I have 3 stacks of healing, which can be recast with the support of Chaos Storm + Phase Retreat, Distortion or Chaos Armor.

If things get too dangerous and I need to recast my Mantras even faster, Time Warp is there to help. if not, drop it for DPS increase for the whole group.

If all scape plans fail, Protected Mantras give me increased armor while I recast my Mantras, which will be happening most of the time anyway.

So basically the idea is to use Mantras but not sit around doing nothing while you cast them. The plan is to use my Illusions as shields while they provide me bonus damage, all the while I move, dodge and use Staff skills to remain as untouched as possible.

Well, that’s it. What I want to know is what more experienced Mesmer players think of this whole strategy/build, if it’s a good plan, if it can be improved and so on. Even if it’s not viable, I’m fine with that, as long as it’s shown to me why, since I think this is a way to make Mantras work well, at least in theory. I know from what I’ve read that this is one very hard build to use, but I’m willing to train with it until I muster it as well as I can.

Sorry for the wall of text and thanks a lot for the attention!

Edit: I don’t know why the post decided to underline a certain part of it, but I couldn’t remove it. Sorry for any inconvenience, was not my intention.

Hey there, I played a Mantra 30/30/0/0/10 build for a long time in PvE and WvW.
While I still play it in WvW, I droped it in PvE. I played it with Phantasmal Fury and Greatsword Training/Shattered Concentration but the rest was the same.

Mantra of Recovery is great, if you manage to not get downed once.
Every time I rallied I wished for a heal that I can just use after its CD and not for the mantra I have to cast just over 3secs (now) without being able to dodge.

That basically applies to every mantra we have, using it three times is great but recasting them removes every edge you might gain from them.

Mantra of Resolve became my favorite Mantra, once you have it ready (pre fight) you might not even need to recast it. That’s the one mantra I feeled the most worth one.

Mantra of Distraction is the one I couldn’t find a use for in PvE because of how bosses are stunnable, but that might be me.

Mantra of Pain lets you fire 3 hits that crit for ~2k while you can do whatever you want. Lets even say you critted 3 times, you just got 6k dmg for another 3sec cast.

Mantra of Concentration is very situational it has it uses but very often it is not worth the slot.

Since you want to use Mirror Images, you have 2 slots left. in one of those two you want Feedback really often.

So from a PvE perspective you spec 10 points in Domination and 10 points in Dueling to get a heal that is not that great if you ever go down and 8% more dmg.

Don’t get me wrong its a great build and I really like it. I just feel like every other build is more worthwhile in PvE.

You are correct. I had envisioned the build, but I failed to see that it’d all fall apart if I got downed, which is pretty much certain to happen at one point or another in a dungeon. Thanks for making me see this “little” detail that I had missed.

The only Mantra people regularly use is Mantra of Resolve, because it is actually our best and most reliable condition cleanser. Mantra of Distraction is also extremely useful in sPvP: an instant ranged interrupt on a 5s CD? Yes please.

Every other Mantra is crap without traits, and even with traits they are questionable.