Guild Wars 2

What is the meta build for a mesmer in pve? All I can find is pvp/wvw guides.

I’m currently running a mantra build because of the 16% dmg boost but i’m not sure if thats the best since there is no up to date information available. Or at least, I can’t find it.

Should I go phantasms? They seem to die rather fast in dungeons when they are not ranged phantasms so makes me wonder if shatter builds aren’t better for dungeons. What kind of traits? I’ve tried 30/30/0/0/10 and like the damage. However I also run with inspiration to get the focus cd reduce + reflection trait. High drop in either power or crit because of that though.

Watch Sanderinoa’s videos on Youtube, you’ll definitely feel inspired.
https://www.youtube.com/user/sanderinoa

He builds specifically for solo’ing stuff which is obviously a lot different than in a group. I simply want THE meta assuming proper group composition and assumption of the various boons like fully stacked might/fury/vuln etc.

Check out this site, which has updated guides for dungeons and meta builds for all professions. http://gw2dungeons.net/.
The current mesmer build you’ll see is 10/30/0/20/10 with sw/sw-sw/f (or pistol if reflects aren’t needed).

10/30/0/20/10
OR
0/30/0/25/15
OR (low/no reflect instances)
30/30/0/0/10
sw/sw + sw/f
can swap out sw/f for sw/p for no reflect fights but … not a massive deal if you don’t.
berserker gear + scholar runes unless soloing or in a pug where you don’t feel you can rely on them for fury, in which case full assassin + scholar is good.
skills you always swap out depending on the situation. for example, feedback is godly for lupicus but terrible on the crystalline entities in arah.
Sigils, you’ll want either force/night, force/accuracy, force/slaying, night/slaying. Force/accuracy is probably the best catch-all since mesmers are pretty low on precision and it’s crucial that you hit higher crit chances.
GS isn’t used because it deals about half the DPS of main hand sword, has zero utility and a phantasm that is completely outclassed by swordsman in terms of DPS, and warden in terms of utility.

I’m currently running 10/20/0/25/15 and doing pretty good http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQNAsaRnsISZaWqGuqB1aIJOzg5NH9BsTqgqLpA35G-zECBYLCikfQEEAEBgJPFRjtMsIas6aYKXER1kBIfDA-w
+30% phantasm damage & 80% critical strike chance
-40% reduced cooldown on iDuelist

Running sword/pistol and greatsword when you need to range. How I start a boss fight:
GS: mirror blade → iBerserker → switch to sword/pistol → summo iDuelist → use signet to reset phantasms → summon another iDuelist and melee with sword.

I usually summon my 2 duelists far away from the boss, so that they can stay alive much longer. This strategy lets you have all 3 phantasms set up within 5s. When the CD on iDuelist ends, you summon a third iDuelist, replacing your iBerserker (which should be dead or nearly dead because of its melee nature and the inevitable damage he’ll take).

If you end up in a party with another mesmer, you can even use timewarp just on yourself and your 3 duelists to see what kind of OP damage you alone can output (selfish dps, no party contribution. It’s always better to use TW on players but it’s still fun to see your duelists spamming damage every 3s and stacking 25 bleeds like np).

Try it out and see how it performs. So far this provided me the highest efficiency, since other phantasms tend to die relatively easily before outputting their full damage (for example, iWarden has the highest potential but often dies after a few seconds of being summoned, while iDuelist can be spawned from 1200m and attack safely from distance and stay alive throghout the whole fight). Also, signet of the Ether will provide a constant 1k heal every 3s, since you’ll have 3 illusions(phantasms) up all the time.

If you try this build in wvw and set up your 3 phantasms on someone while you are in mass invisibility, you’ll output a monstrous pressure.

Metallus forgot to mention 10/20/0/25/15 also aloud to trait reflections and or cond removal if necessary. Shorter CD and longer duration on feedback or reflection on focus skills can be priceless in some dungeons.

I should note that not having 30 in Dueling hurts your DPS in situations where a mesmer is actually useful – namely where your reflects are needed. You not only lose ~5% crit chance and 10% crit damage, you also lose the Empowering Mantras trait, which boosts your personal damage by up to 16% (though it’s usually 12% because Feedback takes up a utility slot). Reflect damage doesn’t scale with your own power, but it does use your crit chance and damage and any active damage modifiers you have, so in fights like Lupicus phase 2 that are very projectile rich, 12% more damage is nothing to laugh at.

Too bad we can’t see a lot of dmg we do and it is impossible to calculate all modifiers. I choose to believe 3 iduelists up on longer boss fights can make mesmer highest DPS in the group. In reality it is rare to have all 3. Usually i have 2 phats up at anytime during the fight.

I don’t think there’s “the meta build” for dungeons. People have their own tastes and run different dungeons in different groups and so on.
10/30/0/30/0 is what I’m running in PvE. Sw/F + Sw/Sw and on certain bosses swapping pistol in. Compared to all the builds mentioned above you loose Illusionists Celerity (which I actually don’t miss at all) and the 3% damage/illusion. In exchange you gain precision, crit damage, Empowering Mantras and 3 major trait slots in Inspiration. With Mender’s Purity, Restorative Mantras and Mantra of Restoration that boosts your survivability a lot and if you need a lot of reflect you can simply swap to glamour traits.
If you happen to have a fixed group for speed runs you could try and maximize dps by modifying the build… but the dps here is already amongst the highest you can get while providing a lot of heal, group support and utility. Perfect for pugs imo.
Also remember: as mesmer you aren’t the main damage dealer (if the group knows what to do), if your dps is 2% below the absolute maximum nobody will notice. People will notice though, if you are dead and/or can’t use your utilities.

‘Tastes’ have nothing to do with it. The Meta build exists for the very reason of being the highest DPS and most effective build period.

10/30/0/30/0 is by far the best build imo. I tried tons of build and not just for like a few hours. I wanted some expiriences and what I can say is that 10/20/0/25/15 is inefficient in what it should do .It is some kind of hybrid build between dps and reflection uptime.

If you want reflection, like for Arah, if this is the only thing that counts, you need CDR on warden, as much as you can, traited focuse and % dmg modifiers aswell as much precision as you can get.
0/30/0/25/15 (in future fixed build even 0/30/0/20/20 since phantsamal hase bugs on warden right now and has no effect).

• 12% mantra dmg
• traited feedback
• traited focus
• 40% cdr on warden
• (-20% cdr on warden attack)
  This is what you only run in arah imo.

Other dungeons aswell fotm are better dealth with, by using a flexible dps build wich still grants good reflection uptime:
10/30/0/30/0

• 32.25% phantasm dmg
• mantra %dmg
• if other utilities are required (no mantras) trait pistol, clone on dodge or other fun stuff
• traited focus
• 3 inspiration traits (wich are by far the best traits we have imo: glamour CDR, glamour duration (better nullfield), feedback on revive (underrated – abuse npc’s), condi cleanse on heal (use mantra heal), healing mantras (up to 800 heal per sec per person, great for mantra heal or mantra of pain), 20% phant HP (iDefender / no more oneshot at some bosses) pick 3 of em, depending on situation

Spending 15 points in illusions is bad in general. The 3-9% damage is nothing compared to 100 power + 17.25% phant damage or 100 precision + 10% crit dmg wich also affects your phants. The 20% cdr are ok, but again a 3rd inspiration trait is superior. Traiting in illusions just grants terrible stats and is onlyrecommended if using a full reflection uptime / dmg build. %dmg affects reflection, power doesn’t, precision does aswell crit dmg.

Xavi.6591:

‘Tastes’ have nothing to do with it. The Meta build exists for the very reason of being the highest DPS and most effective build period.

The meta builds exist for the basic common mesmer player. It’s a good build but also an easy to play one wich is the main reason to start with. Nothing to do with “highest DpS and most effective build”. I’m 100% sure for me 10/30/0/30/0 is much more efficient aswell deals more damage.

Speaking of the 10/20/0/25/15 spread, this is what I use for (mostly) PvE: [link]

One great thing about this setup is that you can swap traits for a lot of special situations… very versatile imo.

Xyonon.3987:

Spending 15 points in illusions is bad in general. The 3-9% damage is nothing compared to 100 power + 17.25% phant damage or 100 precision + 10% crit dmg wich also affects your phants. The 20% cdr are ok, but again a 3rd inspiration trait is superior. Traiting in illusions just grants terrible stats and is onlyrecommended if using a full reflection uptime / dmg build. %dmg affects reflection, power doesn’t, precision does aswell crit dmg.

You’ve neglected the fact that Illusionists Celerity also reduces the CD on both Illusionary Leap and llusionary Riposte, both of which enhance our in-combat mobility, something we normally lack. That’s worth far more than anything else as far as I’m concerned.

It does not reduce Illusionary Riposte. Illusionary leap isn’t that important in PvE, not that you require it to be spammed.

Mainly it’s the 10/30/0/30/0 VS 0/30/0/25/15 thing I’m talking about.

• +3-9% personal (!) damage
• 15% CDR on shatter (mainly F4, sometimes F3)
• 20% cdr on illusion summoning skills
• 100 condition damage (bleeding +5 dps per tic … lol)

or

• 100 power (~3-5% dmg for you AND your phants)
• 10% condi duration (bleeding / vulnerability)
• +15% phantasm damage (if illusion 25 traited, multiplicative calculations result into +17.25% damage)
• vulnerability on interrupt (F3, sword 4, focus 4, GS 5, pistol 5, mantra, Staff 5)
• 5 points left, either in inspiration for a 3rd kitten trait, or in dominion for huge vulnerability stacks on daze mainly procced from F3 or sword 4 in a line.

It’s so clear for me not to spend a single point into illusions tbh

Potentially that build would be better but when we get to reality, phantasms uptime also matters.

If one of your duelist dies “prematurely”, you’ll have to wait 4 s more before you can summon another one (you’ll miss out on a 66% duelist’s unload). Beside, having only 12s CD on duelists and even using your signet to reset phantasms, you can overlap unloads. I’ll explain further:
I set up 3 duelists so that they fire their bullets at the same time: 7k 7k 7k at the same moment. If I summon another duelist after the 3 unloads of bullets, the new duelist will replace one of the previous ones (who already fired his load) and will immediately fire another 7k load. Basically, I take advantage of another duelist unload every 2 rounds (1 round of 3 unloads happens every 6s. CD on duelist is 12s so I have to wait my phantasms to fire their 2 rounds of 3 unloads before getting the extra one). I get one extra unload every 6 unloads that equals to roughly 14% duelist damage., beside that I have at least 3 phantasms up all the time, at any given moment AND WITHIN 5 s of starting a boss battle (and for bosses that last 30s, those extra 10s in the beginning will put some additional dent).

So yes, 10/30/0/30/0 is potentially better but you should take into account battle’s conditions and how often your phantasms are going to die. In the long run, the dps you gain from other traits gets compensed by the damage you miss from not always having 3 phantasms up. Unless you are a master and manage to calculate where and when to exactly position your phantasms so that they have a lifespan long enough to let you replace them and still take advantage of your other bonuses, the build I proposed will provide an efficient way for the average player… I think. Sadly I don’t have combat logs to demonstrate anything and they won’t give us any, ever. In wow I used to do this a lot.

See what works out for you: I’ve been running 10/30/0/30 and 10/30/0/0/30(in the previous patch) and the latter worked better for me because of the increased rate of fire on duelists and reduced cd. The former was awesome and potentially better as well but I sometimes was in a situation where I didn’t have my 3 phantasms up at one time and that’s why I thought "Mh, ok, I do more damage but if I miss out a duelist for 2 rounds, then I’m losing dps) and that’s why I came up with the 10/20/0/25/15 variation.

Xyonon.3987:

It does not reduce Illusionary Riposte. Illusionary leap isn’t that important in PvE, not that you require it to be spammed.

Celerity reduces Riposte if you don’t have your swords traited so pretty sure it’ll be fixed in the upcoming patch along with a lot of the other Mesmer bugs.

Xyonon.3987:

Illusionary leap isn’t that important in PvE, not that you require it to be spammed.

It is if you don’t have blink and ranged weaponry equipped.

Xyonon.3987:

It’s so clear for me not to spend a single point into illusions tbh

Maybe to you, but I’m sure the people you play with would appreciate you not being on the floor and/or stuck far behind which tends to happen more often if you’re set up purely for damage and not much else.

Either use a 10/20/0/25/15 variant or a 0/30/0/25/15 mantra build. The later one has the advantage that it effects Feedback, thus your damage with it become insane.
A few things.

• You can swap out Phantasmal Fury (Dueling II) to Duelist’s Discipline (Dueling IX) if you can’t crit on the enemy, like the Elemental source in snow fractal.
• Get a mantra heal and if you have a free slot, another one to get the boost from Empowering mantras, if you use that build.
• Try to melee.
• Swap your utility skills if you don’t need something, eg drop Feedback if the mob have no reflectable attack.

Oh, and forgot to add that with my variant you have 3 slots you can change as you wish.

I always have blink on my bar (reliable stunbreak) and null-field helps getting party members and me rid of nasty conditions and and can easily be comboed for a chaos armor. You can change your utilities to portal if required or disenchanter if you are running Hotw p1 without affecting your dps. You can slot decoy and veil for prolonged invisibility when you need to “stall” things or to avoid things or you can slot the (very) occasional Illusion of Life. It’s versatile

Also, mantra builds tend to suck away many precious utility slots that usually offer great support, taking into account you also have to recharge them from time to time when you are forced to use them (especially the heal and the stunbreak/condremoval ones), which takes away 3s.

Xyonon.3987:

Mainly it’s the 10/30/0/30/0 VS 0/30/0/25/15 thing I’m talking about.

• +3-9% personal (!) damage
• 15% CDR on shatter (mainly F4, sometimes F3)
• 20% cdr on illusion summoning skills
• 100 condition damage (bleeding +5 dps per tic … lol)

or

• 100 power (~3-5% dmg for you AND your phants)
• 10% condi duration (bleeding / vulnerability)
• +15% phantasm damage (if illusion 25 traited, multiplicative calculations result into +17.25% damage)
• vulnerability on interrupt (F3, sword 4, focus 4, GS 5, pistol 5, mantra, Staff 5)
• 5 points left, either in inspiration for a 3rd kitten trait, or in dominion for huge vulnerability stacks on daze mainly procced from F3 or sword 4 in a line.

The bleeding with 10 domination ticks for the same amount as the bleeding with zero domination since 5.5 seconds rounds down to 5. 150 condition damage = 7-8 more per bleed. It’s not much but with 2 wardens or duelists ~150-200 extra damage per second isn’t the worst. Definitely better than 10% bleed duration which does nothing.

If you are comparing the two builds, it’s 15% more phantasm damage. Not 17.5%. Collectively they do 32% more than a build with none but the phantasm build with both is only doing 15% more than the build with one.

Those two points are minor nitpicks though and what it really comes down to is:

+3-9% dmg on stabbing AND reflects
20% illusion cooldown
vs
3-5% for stabbing AND phantasms.
15% phantasm dmg
3rd illusion trait
Vulnerability which isn’t sustainable.

Personally, I have never needed that 3rd inspiration trait. Sometimes I don’t even need the second one. What my group does NEED sometimes, is the 20% cooldown because having the 3rd warden up a few seconds faster makes a big difference for a lot fights. So if more reflects are needed that 20% outweighs everything in the other build.

If extra reflects are not needed, then you are making the wrong comparison of meta builds. 10/30/0/20/10 vs 10/30/0/30/0 is what you should be talking about.

+3-9% dmg on stabbing AND reflects

vs

15% phantasm dmg
3rd inspiration trait.

Most high end groups that max out all their damage multipliers are still going to pick the first one. If you don’t have a bag full of potions and weapon swaps though, your build is pretty good. It’s just not meta because it’s slightly lower in damage with no need for that 3rd trait.

Metallus.7690:

If one of your duelist dies “prematurely”, you’ll have to wait 4 s more before you can summon another one.

So you just explained what 20% cdr means? In the end: damage. The same reason why I don’t invest into that trait, but into another one. More damage against enemies where you can keep the illusions or enemies you want to burst. Weaker against enemies that keep killing your illusions. Pretty even to the +17.25% damage trait.

Metallus.7690:

I set up 3 duelists so that they fire their bullets at the same time: 7k 7k 7k at the same moment. If I summon another duelist after the 3 unloads of bullets, the new duelist will replace one of the previous ones (who already fired his load) and will immediately fire another 7k load. Basically, I take advantage of another duelist unload every 2 rounds (1 round of 3 unloads happens every 6s.

Yea I do this rarely, since I really like to keep my sustained heal and especially the ability to replace phants fast. This tactic is only good against bosses who never kill your phants, wich is also the enemy where more damage is > cdr on phants since you can start with 3 of them anyway immediately.
Oh and the 6 sec CD on duellist starts after he finished his volley.

Metallus.7690:

So yes, 10/30/0/30/0 is potentially better but you should take into account battle’s conditions and how often your phantasms are going to die. In the long run, the dps you gain from other traits gets compensed by the damage you miss from not always having 3 phantasms up.

Exactly. So in the end it’s pretty much the same if you just look at the phants. I summon less but they deal about the same damage. However it seems you like to theorycraft so I’ll join you with the fact that I don’t loose as much time as you do with summoning, beeing able to deal more personal damage…

Metallus.7690:

I sometimes was in a situation where I didn’t have my 3 phantasms up at one time and that’s why I thought "Mh, ok, I do more damage but if I miss out a duelist for 2 rounds, then I’m losing dps) and that’s why I came up with the 10/20/0/25/15 variation.

Are you really loosing dps? The mesmer deals damage himself too, if there aren’t 3 phants out even more than them. Sword aa is pretty underrated, especially for the passive damage dealt by vulnerability for free. Most other cleaves just have a traited 33% on crit vuln. stack. Also you miss the 10 points in duelling wich grant advanced stats to you and your phants, traiting into illusions won’t. Also the mantra damage bonus outdamages the missing phant for 4 sec pretty clearly.

medohgeuh.4650:

Xyonon.3987:

It does not reduce Illusionary Riposte. Illusionary leap isn’t that important in PvE, not that you require it to be spammed.

Celerity reduces Riposte if you don’t have your swords traited so pretty sure it’ll be fixed in the upcoming patch along with a lot of the other Mesmer bugs.

Well, my bad then. Didn’t know, I never untrait my sword since it’s a too strong trait imo. Sorry for wrong informations.

medohgeuh.4650:

Xyonon.3987:

Illusionary leap isn’t that important in PvE, not that you require it to be spammed.

It is if you don’t have blink and ranged weaponry equipped.

So … you trait Celerity for the CDR for the sword because it’s ultra important to spam 2 (yes I said spam in my quote and you confirmed it) but you won’t trait your sword according to the post above? o.O Even if it would stack (probably fixed soon), I never tend to spam that skill. It’s not like PvE enemies run away from you, or you couldn’t move during aa.

medohgeuh.4650:

Xyonon.3987:

It’s so clear for me not to spend a single point into illusions tbh

Maybe to you, but I’m sure the people you play with would appreciate you not being on the floor and/or stuck far behind which tends to happen more often if you’re set up purely for damage and not much else.

How can traiting into illusion save me more from death than traiting into inspiration? Actually I’m more focused on support with 10/30/0/30/0 than a 10/20/0/25/15 build. Condi remove from heal skill, aoe 2660 mantra heal, more reflection from glamour or ress, phant hp combined with idefender, I CAN pick mroe than you. If you want to argue plz do it right and don’t just talk something “against me” just because you feel like it.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

The bleeding with 10 domination ticks for the same amount as the bleeding with zero domination since 5.5 seconds rounds down to 5. 150 condition damage = 7-8 more per bleed. It’s not much but with 2 wardens or duelists ~150-200 extra damage per second isn’t the worst. Definitely better than 10% bleed duration which does nothing.

I don’t think it rounds down to 5 since tics are dealt every 0.5 sec afaik. Like the old condition damage counts. Also the main reason I noticed condi duration wasn’t the crappy bleeding wich has enough base damage to be good, no, it’s simply the vulnerability caused from so many sources, especially sword aa.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

If you are comparing the two builds, it’s 15% more phantasm damage. Not 17.5%. Collectively they do 32% more than a build with none but the phantasm build with both is only doing 15% more than the build with one.

Correct, my bad.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Those two points are minor nitpicks though and what it really comes down to is:

+3-9% dmg on stabbing AND reflects
20% illusion cooldown
vs
3-5% for stabbing AND phantasms.
15% phantasm dmg
3rd illusion trait
Vulnerability which isn’t sustainable.

Personally, I have never needed that 3rd inspiration trait. Sometimes I don’t even need the second one. What my group does NEED sometimes, is the 20% cooldown because having the 3rd warden up a few seconds faster makes a big difference for a lot fights. So if more reflects are needed that 20% outweighs everything in the other build.

I really can’t undersand that. I tried to have only 2 inspiration traits, and sure it works. But often you are so happy just to have the additional condi cleanse, feedback, or what ever – just utility. You don’t NEED it. But you also “don’t need” every single additional damage you can get. It works without both, but it goes easier with them. That’s why I really prefer to have the 3rd inspiration trait. You get used to it and know when you can greatly use what. I was also extremy surprised by the mantra heal (X). It’s kitten good in some situations or simply to boost your healing mantra.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

If extra reflects are not needed, then you are making the wrong comparison of meta builds. 10/30/0/20/10 vs 10/30/0/30/0 is what you should be talking about.

+3-9% dmg on stabbing AND reflects

vs

15% phantasm dmg
3rd inspiration trait.

Most high end groups that max out all their damage multipliers are still going to pick the first one. If you don’t have a bag full of potions and weapon swaps though, your build is pretty good. It’s just not meta because it’s slightly lower in damage with no need for that 3rd trait.

Just can repeat myself about the 3rd inspiration trait. The damage is pretty much the same I guess. It dpends too much on the situation to honestly say A or B is better in general. So I can understand ppl playing with 10/30/0/20/10 if they can’t make use of a 3rd inspiration trait. Good input.

And that’s exactly what i meant when i said “there’s no such thing as a mesmer meta”. Meta is for me what a lot of people use because it’s superior in dps, not too hard to play and helps your group.
If anything we could agree that power phantasm builds with reflects are the meta, while the exact build is everyone’s personal choice.
Some prefer mantras, some prefer Illusionist’s Celerity, some prefer the 3rd Inspiration trait.

@ those critisizing the 10/30/0/30/0:

1. Mantras aren’t actually taking away utility slots, they optimize them. For some bosses you will of course need 3 specific utilities, not leaving space for a mantra, but honestly, how often is that? Most of the time you find yourself with needing 1 utility for a boss, then take blink because it’s awesome and you have one last spot for MoP/ MoR/MoC, whatever might be more useful in the next fight.

2. As Xyonon already mentioned, Inspiration has a lot of great traits. Of course, if you don’t need reflection and don’t care about giving your group a bit of extra support (via Restorative Mantras) you don’t need the traits, but in most dungeons you will need reflect. Also the healing mantra in combination with Mender’s Purity actually opens up another utility slot because you very rarely need more/group-condi cleanse.
And I can’t even count how often my Restorative Mantras saved my pugs from wiping.

3. I dropped Illusionist’s Celerity a while ago and I never have problem with reflects. Atm Warden is still unreliable anyway and even if he is fixed you have to consider that the 3rd Inspiration trait allows you to double trait glamour and often you’ll have a guard in your team, giving additional reflect. And last but not least you have to consider how much reflect uptime you actually need. Example Malrona: Her attacks are predictable and if you know the fight a bit you can easily manage with 4 sec more CD on Warden.

In the end nobody actually said 10/30/0/30/0 has the best dps out there. If you go full reflects for Arah take the mentioned 0/30/0/25/15, if you have a fixed group, modify your build to maximize dps with your group composition.
The strongest point of 10/30/0/30/0 is the flexibility you have with it.
And also what I already said: You aren’t supposed to be the biggest damage dealer in your party anyway so sacrificing a neglectable amount of dps (maybe 0.5% of total party dps… actually less i think) to gain a lot of flexibility is a very good deal imo.

Personally, what I like about the Mantra build is that it trains you to let go of Blink. Of course this has nothing to do with the builds themselves.

Before using the mantra build, I used to run the 10/20/0/25/15 build. I slowly learned about the encounters where blink isn’t necessary and used to just run more signets.

Blink is just a nice to have skill, if you really require a stunbreaker, the mantra is the better solution. Blink is however still great for skipping and get out of a bad situation. But my mesmer buddies allways keep blink in their utlity bar, even if (imo) it’s not needed. Maybe it’s because it’s so typical mesmer style. I just think the CD is a bit too high for what it’s granting.

The meta builds used by DnT and rT and so on are 10/30/0/20/10 and 0/30/0/25/15 and occasionally 30/30/0/0/10. There are lots of opinions out there, but the folks doing record runs have a preferred setup, so keep that in mind.

maxinion.8396:

The meta builds used by DnT and rT and so on are 10/30/0/20/10 and 0/30/0/25/15 and occasionally 30/30/0/0/10. There are lots of opinions out there, but the folks doing record runs have a preferred setup, so keep that in mind.

Im still not completely sure about 30/30/0/0/10 or 25/30/0/0/15… though I admit I miss the triple mantra a lot with the second one.

And that’s exactly what i meant when i said “there’s no such thing as a mesmer meta”. Meta is for me what a lot of people use because it’s superior in dps, not too hard to play and helps your group.
If anything we could agree that power phantasm builds with reflects are the meta, while the exact build is everyone’s personal choice.
Some prefer mantras, some prefer Illusionist’s Celerity, some prefer the 3rd Inspiration trait.

It needs to be said again – your preference does not equal a good build. Meta builds are meta because they meet the acceptable trade off between damage modifiers and utility, which all meta builds strive to do (e.g. 30/30/0/0/10 mesmer is higher DPS, but with 0/30/0/25/15 you’re able to drop your DPS slightly in return for glamour and focus traiting which is deemed an acceptable tradeoff). This is why 10/30/0/20/10 and 0/30/0/25/15 are the meta builds, they hit damage modifiers and a bunch of other useful traits which are useful in a lot of instances, rather than having a full 30 in inspiration where the third trait could just be irrelevant or extremely narrow and not worth giving up the 9% damage from compounding power when a mesmer is scarce on damage modifiers already.

Most of the time you find yourself with needing 1 utility for a boss, then take blink because it’s awesome and you have one last spot for MoP/ MoR/MoC, whatever might be more useful in the next fight.

There is zero reason to take blink in any dungeon fight ever. There are literally zero fights where blink is useful.

2. As Xyonon already mentioned, Inspiration has a lot of great traits. Of course, if you don’t need reflection and don’t care about giving your group a bit of extra support (via Restorative Mantras) you don’t need the traits, but in most dungeons you will need reflect. Also the healing mantra in combination with Mender’s Purity actually opens up another utility slot because you very rarely need more/group-condi cleanse.
And I can’t even count how often my Restorative Mantras saved my pugs from wiping.

If you don’t need reflection, slot out focus traiting and stick on restorative mantras. you don’t need 30 points in that trait line. Replace glamour mastery with the 20% phantasm HP or something.

3. I dropped Illusionist’s Celerity a while ago and I never have problem with reflects. Atm Warden is still unreliable anyway and even if he is fixed you have to consider that the 3rd Inspiration trait allows you to double trait glamour

You don’t need to double trait your glamours.

On weekends, Nike streams dungeons and fractals so maybe it might be worth watching for all the situations where 30 in inspiration would be a complete dud and damage modifiers are better.

hendo.1940:

There is zero reason to take blink in any dungeon fight ever. There are literally zero fights where blink is useful.

I didnt raise you like this

Sanderinoa.8065:

maxinion.8396:

The meta builds used by DnT and rT and so on are 10/30/0/20/10 and 0/30/0/25/15 and occasionally 30/30/0/0/10. There are lots of opinions out there, but the folks doing record runs have a preferred setup, so keep that in mind.

Im still not completely sure about 30/30/0/0/10 or 25/30/0/0/15… though I admit I miss the triple mantra a lot with the second one.

I stand corrected on the no-focus option by the expert himself Thanks Sandy!

I like 0/30/0/25/15 as well. The damage modifier to yourself (+12% dmg) is so much better than putting those 10 points into Domination. During speed runs, I find myself being able to summon maybe 2 phantasms max before the whatever we’re killing is dead.

Bearlin.7238:

I like 0/30/0/25/15 as well. The damage modifier to yourself (+12% dmg) is so much better than putting those 10 points into Domination. During speed runs, I find myself being able to summon maybe 2 phantasms max before the whatever we’re killing is dead.

Note that this is actually an argument for 10/30/0/20/10. If you only summon two phants, you never have a chance to use the reduced cooldown from Illusionist Celerity (since I’m assuming you summon warden and swordsman and then melee). The extra 10 in domination, instead of Celerity, gives another 4% DPS.

I personally run 0/30 as well, but keep in mind that it’s only useful if your fights take long enough to get out a third phant (so it’s much better in places like fractals, for example).

I don’t say that Inspiration 30 is a must have. However Duelling 30 is. The mantra damage is too awesome to be ignored. But the mantra heal itself isn’t worth taking, it’s pretty weak since it lowers the dps during charge when in longer combat. To be able to trait the mantra healing makes it much stronger and definitly worth taking. Especially combined with condi cleanse on heal wich is not available if reflection is required and only 2 traits are unlocked.

To say that this is the only reason would be silly indeed. But those phant modifiers are so strong too. I don’t just want to find “excuses” why not to go a meta build. I’m just looking for my personal best fitting build, wich also should be most efficient and helpful. And here are my main twists:

Comparing 10/30/0/30/0 with 0/30/0/25/15

• I really like the 15 of illusions. It’s more phant uptime indeed, but I will loose about 15-20% phantasm damage due the lack of a trait and power. I think those are extremly +/- in each situation and not really a general “A is better than B”. It’s just … we are talking about 4 sec waiting while aa vs 15-20% dmg.
• Then we have the 3-9% more damage wich is probably ø6%. 6% personal damage (including reflection) is indeed very nice. But I really like to sacrifice this damage boost for the 3rd utility trait. Even if it’s just a higher survivablity for phants, condi cleanse, mantra heal, in the end it results into an increased passive damage due supporting. I like to react on my enemies and I guess aslong the enemies aren’t total faceroll, wich gets removed slowly as we can see at the aetherblade dungeon for example, this becomes better and better. If enemies are total faceroll, The damage just saves a bit time but when it’s getting serious it’s less important. That’s my opinion.

Comparing 10/30/0/30/0 with 10/30/0/20/10

• Really can’t accept this except for a full reflection dude in Arah. Otherwise sacrificing 15% phant damage + utility for ø6% damage is just silly.
• If someone really wants to go full reflection oriented builds, he should go for 0/30/0/20/20, granting him best uptime and cdr with 0 phant sup, but up to 27.5% more reflection damage if I calculated the modifiers correctly. Well I guess only 22.5% since you require feedback. After PH is fixed this should probably be best. Otherwise 0/30/0/25/15.

You keep saying additional utility— but there really is none which is super useful at 30 inspiration. Longer living phantasms don’t live appreciably longer. Longer lasting feedback is not necessary for most situations if you time your feedback correctly. Restorative mantras or mender’s purity is not necessary. 6-9% damage, on the other hand, is always useful. It’s not a huge difference, but even 6% DPS is important.

Actually more like 3% since 50%~ is phant dps (if not reflecting much). I guess your probelm is that there are no “keep it allways” traits at inspiration. But I change my traits to adapt the situations. There are more than enough situations where condi remove is required and by cleansing myself with mender’s purity I can save my cleansing mantra for the others so they don’t need time to cleanse themselves or heal themselves wich results into higher passive damage. The only thing I read in your post is this:

• longer living phants? no they don’t!
• restorative mantras are useless
• mender’s purity is useless
• longer reflection uptime is useless
• [enter any trait but focus and glamour cdr] is useless!!!

There are enough situations where at least one isn’t useless, rather very useful! I’ve explained condi cleanse already, restorative mantras support the selfheal at difficult levels or when allies get hit by stuff like Mai Trin, wall fractale, snowblind, dredge or other places where you just have to survive. Longer reflection uptime is definitly useful, for example ascalon fractale, harpy, etc, where not single bursts have to be reflected, rather permanent volleys.

Just because you do not use it, and you don’t know where you can use what (yet?), doesn’t mean it’s useless everywhere. There is never a situation where I had to say “oh boy, I don’t need any of those”. Those traits help pretty good and a tiny % bonus on the lowest personal dps class is a almost nonexistent sacrifice I am definitly willing to make.

A 6-9% bonus which applies to your feedback can be huge— keep in mind that in most places your biggest numbers are going to come from reflecting huge spikes (on Lupi, for example). Your primary job in dungeons as a mesmer is to nail these reflects and make the most of them, so the 10 in illusions is important for that. This is the same justification as dropping 30 into dueling to grab Empowering Mantras. There, the 8-12% gain doesn’t affect phants so it’s actually only a 4-6% increase in the normal DPS— but it is still absolutely worth it because of the increased damage from reflects.

I’m actually quite familiar with all of the traits in Inspiration, since I swap out focus in fights where I don’t need reflections or an AoE phant and use that slot for something like Restorative Mantras or Mender’s Purity. They’re both helpful, sure, but they’re not absolutely critical— they don’t improve DPS, and they don’t provide active damage mitigation. I certainly agree that playing with Mender’s Purity or Restorative Mantras is easier, as it gives you a little bit more wiggle room for mistakes.

I’m fine with saying that 30 in inspiration is a nice build for more casual runs or while you’re learning the class. But as hendo outlined in his post, the trade-off in damage vs. utility doesn’t quite cut it here for most people. Many meta builds have related builds which are more comfortable to play (Obal for example in his guardian guide highlights a few alternatives which can be easier to play than the meta), and I think that’s exactly where the 30 inspiration build sits.

To be able to trait the mantra healing makes it much stronger and definitly worth taking. Especially combined with condi cleanse on heal wich is not available if reflection is required and only 2 traits are unlocked.

No it doesn’t.

I really like the 15 of illusions. It’s more phant uptime indeed, but I will loose about 15-20% phantasm damage due the lack of a trait and power. I think those are extremly +/- in each situation and not really a general “A is better than B”. It’s just … we are talking about 4 sec waiting while aa vs 15-20% dmg.

So you are able to replace phantasms faster and get a 9% damage modifier. Why would that be worse than a 15% phantasm modifier when compounding power scales up your reflect damage which is kind of the reason why mesmers are taken in the first place? you don’t need two phantasm damage modifiers.

But I really like to sacrifice this damage boost for the 3rd utility trait. Even if it’s just a higher survivablity for phants, condi cleanse, mantra heal, in the end it results into an increased passive damage due supporting.

Restorative mantras is basically the AH of mantras where it goads you in to using irrelevant utility skills just for the heal proc. The problem here is you’re over valuing the third inspiration trait slot when there is really just nothing worth taking. If warden’s feedback was an adept trait I’d be tempted to just run 15/30/0/10/15 for if the vuln ever gets low on a boss.

Actually more like 3% since 50%~ is phant dps (if not reflecting much)

If you’re not reflecting you’re basically not worth taking in the dungeon.

There are more than enough situations where condi remove is required and by cleansing myself with mender’s purity I can save my cleansing mantra for the others so they don’t need time to cleanse themselves or heal themselves wich results into higher passive damage

Or you could just use mantra of resolve. If that isn’t enough there’s phantasmal disenchanter or null field. I don’t see the point in trying to hold off using your mantra.

restorative mantras support the selfheal at difficult levels or when allies get hit by stuff like Mai Trin,

We don’t use restorative mantras and we do Mai Trin at Fractal 50. What actually happens is four people stay on the left side of the room while the mesmer sits on the right side to block every pistol shot so that Mai doesn’t teleport. This means restorative mantras is a complete dud since you’re out of range.

Longer reflection uptime is definitly useful, for example ascalon fractale, harpy, etc, where not single bursts have to be reflected, rather permanent volleys.

You just stealth past the harpies, and if you can’t kill a harpy within the duration of your focus and untraited (duration) feedback then your group is literally just bad. Ascalon fractal, blind is a bit more relevant.

Just because you haven’t been willing to learn better solutions to situations in dungeons doesn’t mean that your solutions are the best, especially when high level dungeon guilds don’t do anything you’ve just wrote.

maxinion.8396:

A 6-9% bonus which applies to your feedback can be huge— keep in mind that in most places your biggest numbers are going to come from reflecting huge spikes (on Lupi, for example).Your primary job in dungeons as a mesmer is to nail these reflects and make the most of them, so the 10 in illusions is important for that. This is the same justification as dropping 30 into dueling to grab Empowering Mantras. There, the 8-12% gain doesn’t affect phants so it’s actually only a 4-6% increase in the normal DPS— but it is still absolutely worth it because of the increased damage from reflects.

Totally agreed.

maxinion.8396:

I’m actually quite familiar with all of the traits in Inspiration, since I swap out focus in fights where I don’t need reflections or an AoE phant and use that slot for something like Restorative Mantras or Mender’s Purity. They’re both helpful, sure, but they’re not absolutely critical— they don’t improve DPS, and they don’t provide active damage mitigation. I certainly agree that playing with Mender’s Purity or Restorative Mantras is easier, as it gives you a little bit more wiggle room for mistakes.

At some places they become critical and that’s the point. Mistakes happen everywhere, since getting hit once or just reciving a few conditions already is a “mistake”. It will improve the dps passive due to allies who not have to backup or use their own utility slots who otherwise could have been more agressive (another banner, signets, spirits, etc).
I guess I should let you know that I mainly pug since my freinds aren’t elitists. We also are often 3~ ppl who play with 2 randoms. If noone would do mistakes I’d change my traits more offensive too I guess.

maxinion.8396:

I’m fine with saying that 30 in inspiration is a nice build for more casual runs or while you’re learning the class. But as hendo outlined in his post, the trade-off in damage vs. utility doesn’t quite cut it here for most people. Many meta builds have related builds which are more comfortable to play (Obal for example in his guardian guide highlights a few alternatives which can be easier to play than the meta), and I think that’s exactly where the 30 inspiration build sits.

I wouldn’t say it’s for learning a class. I switched to 10/30/0/30/0 from 0/30/0/25/15 because THAT was too easy to play. It felt boring without the 3rd inspiration trait. I really enjoy them. I enjoy protecting allies, helping them by healing and cleansing etc. As I mentioned before: If I’d play with elitist only, I’d probably switch back.

That’s what I meant by ‘casual runs.,’ so I think we are in agreement.

Sure we are It’s funny how sometimes ppl see those posts as a challenge and literally as a fight / duell … xD Glad you said that sentence now.

hendo.1940:

To be able to trait the mantra healing makes it much stronger and definitly worth taking. Especially combined with condi cleanse on heal wich is not available if reflection is required and only 2 traits are unlocked.

No it doesn’t.

+50% heal and 3x 2 conditions removed is weak indeed. I guess I better use my mantra of resolve just for myself if I’ve got some conditions and if it’s on cd while somone dies, i don’t care. Probably I’ll take aetherfeast instead, lowering my healing AND my damage by 4%. MASTERPLAN.
… Yes it does.

hendo.1940:

I really like the 15 of illusions. It’s more phant uptime indeed, but I will loose about 15-20% phantasm damage due the lack of a trait and power. I think those are extremly +/- in each situation and not really a general “A is better than B”. It’s just … we are talking about 4 sec waiting while aa vs 15-20% dmg.

So you are able to replace phantasms faster and get a 9% damage modifier. Why would that be worse than a 15% phantasm modifier when compounding power scales up your reflect damage which is kind of the reason why mesmers are taken in the first place? you don’t need two phantasm damage modifiers.

Read the whole text if you wan’t to respond in a productive way. Taking 15 instead of 10 reduces inspiration 25 to 20. There is no connection to the 9% damage modifier here. So your correct response would be:
“So you are able to replace phantasms faster. Why would that be worse than a 15% phantasm modifier when… ugh. You don’t need two phantasm damage modifiers!!”
Reads silly, doesn’kitten

hendo.1940:

But I really like to sacrifice this damage boost for the 3rd utility trait. Even if it’s just a higher survivablity for phants, condi cleanse, mantra heal, in the end it results into an increased passive damage due supporting.

Restorative mantras is basically the AH of mantras where it goads you in to using irrelevant utility skills just for the heal proc. The problem here is you’re over valuing the third inspiration trait slot when there is really just nothing worth taking. If warden’s feedback was an adept trait I’d be tempted to just run 15/30/0/10/15 for if the vuln ever gets low on a boss.

10/30/0/10/20, but ok. However it isn’t an adept trait wich makes it cheap to spend only a few point for a damage boost and the other 5 points are spend worse in any other traitline. If it would be just a 10 trait, I would probably go for only 10 too since the damage from 10/30/0/10/20 is enormous, for you and your phants, yes.

hendo.1940:

Actually more like 3% since 50%~ is phant dps (if not reflecting much)

If you’re not reflecting you’re basically not worth taking in the dungeon.

Since you are permanently reflecting stuff… TW alone is worth taking a mesmer, highest boss dps is also the mesmer, even without TW but with 3 phants it is. I mainly do fotm with my mesmer at 50. There are fractals where tons of reflection is required, but also fractals where almost nothing is to reflect or reflection only is there to protect (absorb would be enough).

hendo.1940:

There are more than enough situations where condi remove is required and by cleansing myself with mender’s purity I can save my cleansing mantra for the others so they don’t need time to cleanse themselves or heal themselves wich results into higher passive damage

Or you could just use mantra of resolve. If that isn’t enough there’s phantasmal disenchanter or null field. I don’t see the point in trying to hold off using your mantra.

That’s what I said. If only I am harmed I use my heal cleanse, if others are harmed I can go for my utilites. I’ve got my personal mantra of resolve and one for the others, because the charges are sometimes used pretty fast. I’ve got 2 utilities left for even more condi cleanse or other useful stuff. Like this I can allways react ankitten ever out of utilities.

hendo.1940:

restorative mantras support the selfheal at difficult levels or when allies get hit by stuff like Mai Trin,

We don’t use restorative mantras and we do Mai Trin at Fractal 50. What actually happens is four people stay on the left side of the room while the mesmer sits on the right side to block every pistol shot so that Mai doesn’t teleport. This means restorative mantras is a complete dud since you’re out of range.

You could do her with a condi shatter build if it makes you happy. It’s just harder and less helpful for the team. What you describe is a cute szenario wich is easy for you but annoying for your team. What do the others do? Right, they fight her in melee or short combat. You could stay with them, blocking their pistol shots in melee and she won’t port anywhere. It’s your position that matters and that’s a bit harder like this bur more efficient since you deal more damage in melee. If she cleaves with the bleeding you can cleanse it 3 times for yourself, 2 times for allies, healing them with MoP and help them to survive the cannon phase, since some ppl really have problems with that. 800 HpS is pretty ok there I think.

hendo.1940:

Longer reflection uptime is definitly useful, for example ascalon fractale, harpy, etc, where not single bursts have to be reflected, rather permanent volleys.

You just stealth past the harpies, and if you can’t kill a harpy within the duration of your focus and untraited (duration) feedback then your group is literally just bad. Ascalon fractal, blind is a bit more relevant.

And then there was a 2nd harpy… Or even a 3rd? The 2nd path is not skipable without a thief / engi, mesmers stealth won’t last long enough. It helps – again – but what I really wonder is if the wardens reflections are affected by modifiers … ? o.o

hendo.1940:

Just because you haven’t been willing to learn better solutions to situations in dungeons doesn’t mean that your solutions are the best, especially when high level dungeon guilds don’t do anything you’ve just wrote.

Just because I write my personal best solution doesn’t mean it’s everyones. According to you every mesmer should use the same build, but that’s not really necessary. I play with pugs and only with a few players i really know and they aren’t elitists. I don’t play with high level dungeon guilds and that’s pretty much the reason why different builds for some are better than for others.

Xyonon.3987:

Actually more like 3% since 50%~ is phant dps (if not reflecting much).

By this logic 15% more phantasm damage is only 7.5% more. Be fair about those comparisons. If you stack a lot of damage multipliers, I find that phantasms become >40%. I’ve actually been using torch 4 in some encounters for the blind, blast finisher and nuke. (You can immediately attack after stealthing and the bomb will still go off)

Xyonon.3987:

And then there was a 2nd harpy… Or even a 3rd? The 2nd path is not skipable without a thief / engi, mesmers stealth won’t last long enough. It helps – again – but what I really wonder is if the wardens reflections are affected by modifiers … ? o.o

If you want to fight them, 0/30/0/25/15 is better. Between the warden, curtain (Even if they are on different platforms you can melee cleave a few of them with a good pull and stack reflects easier) feedback and mantra of concentration (#@!$ buggy warden moments) I never felt the need for a longer feedback. Like the first leg bugged out so bad one time that I felt the need to redeem myself. Even though a pug mesmer ported up the side, I went and solo’d the second leg with that build. No 3rd inspiration required.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Dungeon-reflect-build/first#post3434148

My post in that link answers your question though. Phantasm reflect are only affected by the phantasm traits. If you are optimizing all those multipliers though, you should default to feedback for stuff like lupi because it will still hit harder, is instant and catches more projectiles than the warden does.

Also
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-vs-Phantasm/first#post3251209
Going from the last time we had a similar conversation, I mentioned sword auto ~= swordsman x 3. It looked like you agreed with me at the end. (The potions are fixed now too) Keep in mind that those were not optimized numbers and I didn’t factor in mantras at the time or super optimized sigils. So toss in 1.04^3 on those numbers since we both now use mantras. Already, it’s not a 50/50 split anymore.

The idea that you won’t always have compounding power maxed is also not an argument for traiting phantasms. If my sword auto isn’t doing 1.03^3 more then I don’t have 3 swordsman/illusions out. This means that my damage is weighing heavily in favor of my sword auto. So if you say the average of compounding power is 3% then the stab to phantasm ratio is actually about 80% stabbing to 20% phantasm. Furthermore, I will still use sword 3/4 which happen to spawn clones. So I’m actually more likely to have 6-9% stabbing even though I don’t have 3 phantasms out.

15 in Illusions is USELESS as you already have shortened cd on phantasms by sword trait and focus trait!!! when will people realize?

maxinion.8396:

Bearlin.7238:

I like 0/30/0/25/15 as well. The damage modifier to yourself (+12% dmg) is so much better than putting those 10 points into Domination. During speed runs, I find myself being able to summon maybe 2 phantasms max before the whatever we’re killing is dead.

Note that this is actually an argument for 10/30/0/20/10. If you only summon two phants, you never have a chance to use the reduced cooldown from Illusionist Celerity (since I’m assuming you summon warden and swordsman and then melee). The extra 10 in domination, instead of Celerity, gives another 4% DPS.

I personally run 0/30 as well, but keep in mind that it’s only useful if your fights take long enough to get out a third phant (so it’s much better in places like fractals, for example).

The 15 in illusions also grant you more DPS though, just not towards your phantasms. Having 3 illusions up would give me 9% more damage, which I can also use for things like fiery greatsword.

^ for this you need only 10 in illusions

Sublimatio.6981:

15 in Illusions is USELESS as you already have shortened cd on phantasms by sword trait and focus trait!!! when will people realize?

When will you realize the cooldown reduction stacks? Try it. For realz.

maxinion.8396:

Sublimatio.6981:

15 in Illusions is USELESS as you already have shortened cd on phantasms by sword trait and focus trait!!! when will people realize?

When will you realize the cooldown reduction stacks? Try it. For realz.

Omg. You are right, the tooltip is bugged and it doesn’t show the real cooldown when both traits are active…

Sublimatio.6981:

maxinion.8396:

Sublimatio.6981:

15 in Illusions is USELESS as you already have shortened cd on phantasms by sword trait and focus trait!!! when will people realize?

When will you realize the cooldown reduction stacks? Try it. For realz.

Omg. You are right, the tooltip is bugged and it doesn’t show the real cooldown when both traits are active…

:) Glad it worked for you. I didn’t even realize the tooltips were bugged as I haven’t looked at them in so long…

@DuckDuckBOOM:
Those are arguments I really like to read. You argue postivie for your traits instead of trying to tell me how “bad” my traits “are”. Thx. You made it – I probably will change my traits again back to what they were once to test it again. Maybe it’s simply not my playstyle but we’ll see.