Guild Wars 2

Hi there,

I spent some time reading through the forums, looking at different builds and what their focus is, as well as testing some. One thing becomes clear: You must discriminate between PvP and PvE. There is no: I have the best built for all! Traits are the main thing that change with the considerations.

Here is the build I am using right now and it works the best in PvE for me at least. It is for pure range DPS for use in the explorer modi, meta events and I guess for leveling(go into domination and duelling first):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQNAR7alwzSpHRTkGa9IBKFY37kUo6UX6BuztsB;TsAg0Cno4ywlgLLXOukctsYYxmAA

Stats I go for is: power, precision, condition damage; try to get around 15k HP with clerical armor. Illusions do not gain any benefit from the mesmer’s vitality, condition duration or boon duration, so try avoid these stats. You dont need much thoughness or vitality in dungeons, if a boss comes to you, you run away or your down on the floor, no matter what ( going for vit/toughness is for PvP and not PvE). In cloth armor your cannon fodder. This is also the explanation for why I dropped sword from my combo. I found running in and trying to get that salve (nice DPS, no debate here) of, killed me more than the sustained DPS from being ranged, hence now I use scepter/pistol. Using the GS and Scepter/pistol combo allows you to sustain ranged DPS at all times while running around, avoiding the killing skills from the monsters/boss.

A little to my trait selection:

For understanding:
Illusions = phantasms and clones,
phantasms = skill 4 of all weapons and combos of weapons
clones = created by various skills, hit between 1 and 20

A significant amount of DPS comes from your phantasms and near to zero from clones. So what you dont want to do, is to shatter your phantasms. The pistol one does up to 8k, the beserker from GS is a nice AoE burner. Phantasms can be considered the salve example of the warriors: Hundred Blades, but not doing half as much damage ( I have a 80 warrior as well if your wondering).

The built in the link focuses on maximum buffage for the phantasms, which means:

Having maxmium recharge rate (5 spent in illusions, skill X in domination for greatsword, skill IX for pistol in dueling and skill X in illusions) and increased damage (skill III in domination) for your phantasms, as well as giving you on your 1 -3 skills the maximum damage for each illusion present (Illusions skill III).

Spending points in such a way, focusing totally on maximum buffage of your strongest DPS skills, leaves 10 unspent. Those last 10 points can be spent to your own liking, but for DPS there is only one option: Go 30 into dueling and choose skill XI, which brings me to our skills 6 to 8, number 9 is a no brainer, anyone not taking time warp should consider playing a different class. Skill XI grants 4% of increased damage per active mantra, so 6 to 8 should be mantras, which are very helpful to break out of stuns, remove conditions and deal some damage. You now might think, why did I not choose Skill XI in domination instead of Skill X in illusion, I simply think getting phantams up faster again gives me more benefit than being able to use mantras a third time, as activating of mantras is real slow. Most other skills for slots 6 to 8 are for PvP in my opinion and have their utility their.

Have fun trying this, numbers going up are real nice and I try to avoid to shatter my phantams… use mind wrack if you want, but get clones up fast before.

On a side note, I considered swapping in staff, but to get the useful traits, you loose too much of the rest

I don´t know way,but the link don´t work.Can you remake??

Need to copy & paste into your browser

If you’re focusing on the greatsword, I’d stack crit power over condition damage. And I’d use a sword. The scepter is an awful weapon in general and I’d only reccomend it if your main focus is clones and confusion.

@Natashak:

As for crit power and condition damage I am not sure how much DPS change this will be, Im guessing it will not make such a big difference as I am already at 53% crit chance.

To sword over scepter, I was using sword before. Having to switch to sword and runing to an AoEing boss, your either dead or close to and then he turns onto you and your meat as cloth wearer. I know the scepter is aweful but its better than falling to ground and using those stupid skills or waiting for someone to revive you

Copy paste still gives me bad link. From what you explained it though, it’s a phantasm build. I tried something close to that and didn’t “get” it. With a condition staff build or burst damage shatter build, normal mobs are dead before phantasms recharge, so getting three phantasms out is next to impossible. The only time I manage is if its champion mobs, DE bosses, or dungeons. I thought it worked well there, but for everything else I felt like other builds worked better. Any advice on how to make this build shine?

I got working link.
Phantasmal haste is nearly worthless right now if you aren’t focusing your build around long-scale fights, and even then your phantasms have big chance to die due to aoe and occasional aggros from most of bosses\champions. Better suggestion would be use their first attack, then shatter.

Now, we still have that filthy bug with first attack delay on iBerserker, so if you plan to use GS, you’ll have to spend at least 5 points in Inspiration, otherwise iBerserker will die right after spawn a lot before even managing to pull it’s whirl.

Mantras. Using them as empowering is fine, however you’ll deprive yourself from variety of more useful utilities; and that’s something you don’t want to get most of the time in dungeons: where other builds just switch utilities to more appropriate before encounters, mantra build will stick with charged mantras, or lose damage. Obviously, that will cripple survivability and usefulness of player.
I’d use mantra build only in www and pug spvp for that extra damage press, but that’s my personal opinion.

As for melee and clothie survivability, either staff or hit’n’run blurred frenzy\distortion sword works miracles here.

As others have said it really is matter of getting in and out of melee range as no class is meant to stand toe to toe with strong pve mobs. That being said i think my build is exactly what you looking for as a large majority of my dps come from my melee attacks and survivability comes from combo fields and traits. I run Staff/ Sword & focus 99.99 % of the time (in all situations.). In Dungeons I load self heal, feedback, signet of inspiration, signet of midnight, time warp.

Usually I start off a fight with staff 1 while charging toward a soft target. Staff 2 to create a clone & leap back, followed by staff 3 phantasm. the clone and phant should absorb some attacks and i should be just about in melee range, drop a chaos storm and swap weapons. I target the champ mob and double tap sword 3 for another clone and leap into the etheral field and attack my target (both gaining chaos armor). Follow that up with warden, then blurred frenzy. I’m usually taking damage at this point and will dodge out( creating more clones) and healing if needed. Then either drop the feed back field on ranged mob or ill use it like i used the chaos storm and double tap sword 3 again followed with another blurred frenzy. Dodging out again at this point and possiblyin kite mode to buy time, if so i switch to staff, pop a chaos armor, then staff 2 & 3 and repeat. I mix in time warp on very hard pulls or on bosses don’t forget it is not just haste but you can combo chaos armor from it too. If all my etheral fields are on coold down i’ll start adding in temporal curtain and leaping back through it or into it to get retallation.

Notes: I rarely shatter my illusions as i use them to absorb hits on myself or group.
Leaping in and out of fields is a must learn to do it and learn to set up the rotations if you want to melee and live through it.

Traits: Leaving out the passives. (and only need to swap out 2 for pvp).

Dueling 30: +300 precision +30 CD:
phants have fury, +50 precision w/sword/spear -20% recharge on sword skills, & create a clone when you dodge.

Chaos 30: +300 toughness +30% boon duration:
clones apply random condition when they are killed, -3% dam for each illusion, +50 tough w/staff/trident -20% recharge on staff skills.

Inspiration 10: +100 vitality +10 healing:
create feedback bubble when trying to revive ally.

Ooops, I posted this in the wrong thread belong in the Mesmer in melee explorer mode thread.