Far Shiverpeaks
Mantra DPS builds in PvE?
Mantra DPS builds? Sure you can go 30 dueling and load up on mantras, but you’ll have no team support whatsoever. The +damage traits sadly don’t work on illusions.
The main mantra “build” is 20+ Inspiration+Mantra of Pain for spamming AoE heals. Generally going 25+ and speccing for phantasms is the best bet, check Pyroatheist’s build for that.
Otherwise Mantras are situational utilities which can be very powerful in specific situations: Resolve is one of the heaviest self-cleanses we have, Concentration gets you through most jump hazards, Distraction is great for chewing at Defiant stacks (Mai Trin etc), Recovery iirc has the highest heal/second even without the traits and the shortest cooldown, ideal for “on heal” runes.
Mantras are usually a way of doing things, but not builds. The only “real” mantra build is the PvP mantra burst one. Meaning, the mantras don’t tell you howto play, you you decide howto play and choose the mantras (traits) accordingly. So other than “mantra builds” better tell us what you want to do and if it can be done including mantras.