Guild Wars 2

Here’s why. The 20 points in dueling tree are a no brainer, every single one of them is essential.

-Critical Infusion is amazing and for 5 points is a given.
-Phantasmal Fury is great especially for power/crit damage builds and shouldn’t be ignored.
-Sharper Images is,,,, sharper images, a great trait.
-Deceptive Evasion is the absolute best and worth spending 20 points just for it.

Now in Illusions. Sure not everyone ALWAYS spend 30 points for Illusionary Persona but lets be fair here, its the best grandmaster trait from any tree on mez… Additional damage, 1 more sec of distortion (life savior), more stacks of confusion and one free 1sec daze, 5 more stacks of Vulnerability (if speced with Dazzling ) not to mention faster CD on all your shatter is kinda guuud. At the end, you’re left with 20 points -.- and lots of builds can be made with 20 points… Anyone else thinks mez is way too limited to build variation? No wonder almost everyone run 20/20/0/0/30.

This wouldn’t be a problem if we had free allocation of traits.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Here’s why. The 20 points in dueling tree are a no brainer, every single one of them is essential.

-Critical Infusion is amazing and for 5 points is a given.
-Phantasmal Fury is great especially for power/crit damage builds and shouldn’t be ignored.
-Sharper Images is,,,, sharper images, a great trait.
-Deceptive Evasion is the absolute best and worth spending 20 points just for it.

Now in Illusions. Sure not everyone ALWAYS spend 30 points for Illusionary Persona but lets be fair here, its the best grandmaster trait from any tree on mez… Additional damage, 1 more sec of distortion (life savior), more stacks of confusion and one free 1sec daze, 5 more stacks of Vulnerability (if speced with Dazzling ) not to mention faster CD on all your shatter is kinda guuud. At the end, you’re left with 20 points -.- and lots of builds can be made with 20 points… Anyone else thinks mez is way too limited to build variation? No wonder almost everyone run 20/20/0/0/30.

This wouldn’t be a problem if we had free allocation of traits.

I never run Illusions 30. O.o

It gives a nice ability, but the simple fact that it requires so many points just to get is, I think, rather absurd. I’d rather put 20 points into Chaos to get reduced cooldown and extra toughness with my staff; that way I’m getting more boons+conditions via chaos armor and chaos storm, as well as more PRs, which is one of my favorite attacks in the game. When traited, I often have a PR cooldown of 6 seconds.

30 Illusions is nice, but necessary? Not so sure.

Arganthium.5638:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Here’s why. The 20 points in dueling tree are a no brainer, every single one of them is essential.

-Critical Infusion is amazing and for 5 points is a given.
-Phantasmal Fury is great especially for power/crit damage builds and shouldn’t be ignored.
-Sharper Images is,,,, sharper images, a great trait.
-Deceptive Evasion is the absolute best and worth spending 20 points just for it.

Now in Illusions. Sure not everyone ALWAYS spend 30 points for Illusionary Persona but lets be fair here, its the best grandmaster trait from any tree on mez… Additional damage, 1 more sec of distortion (life savior), more stacks of confusion and one free 1sec daze, 5 more stacks of Vulnerability (if speced with Dazzling ) not to mention faster CD on all your shatter is kinda guuud. At the end, you’re left with 20 points -.- and lots of builds can be made with 20 points… Anyone else thinks mez is way too limited to build variation? No wonder almost everyone run 20/20/0/0/30.

This wouldn’t be a problem if we had free allocation of traits.

I never run Illusions 30. O.o

It gives a nice ability, but the simple fact that it requires so many points just to get is, I think, rather absurd. I’d rather put 20 points into Chaos to get reduced cooldown and extra toughness with my staff; that way I’m getting more boons+conditions via chaos armor and chaos storm, as well as more PRs, which is one of my favorite attacks in the game. When traited, I often have a PR cooldown of 6 seconds.

30 Illusions is nice, but necessary? Not so sure.

I was never running it either for the first couple of months of game’s release but now when im not it feels like a major downgrade to survivability and damage

This is silly. The only mandatory 5 trait points are to get the minor 5 point trait in illusions. That’s it. Tons of extremely effective builds don’t take deceptive evasion, many non-shatter builds don’t go into the illusions tree much. You’re just totally wrong.

Everyone else pretty much said it. Nothing to add just have to disagree with OP.

meh i kinda guessed most would disagree but that’s how i feel about mez.

it depends on what you’re doing.. my bunker mesmer is 0/0/30/20/20 and stacks conditions really well.. it’s mainly to outlast and confuse the opponent. I dont use the shatter skills unless really necessary. In terms of dmg output it’s probably the most common because of the shattering benefits.

But I do agree that our traits are mostly useless.. almost everything in the defensive one (chaos) is useless other than the staff cd reduction by 20% mirror if anguish is fine but that 90s cd makes it pointless if you’re in wvw and being focused by 4+ ppl.

Arganthium.5638:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Here’s why. The 20 points in dueling tree are a no brainer, every single one of them is essential.

-Critical Infusion is amazing and for 5 points is a given.
-Phantasmal Fury is great especially for power/crit damage builds and shouldn’t be ignored.
-Sharper Images is,,,, sharper images, a great trait.
-Deceptive Evasion is the absolute best and worth spending 20 points just for it.

Now in Illusions. Sure not everyone ALWAYS spend 30 points for Illusionary Persona but lets be fair here, its the best grandmaster trait from any tree on mez… Additional damage, 1 more sec of distortion (life savior), more stacks of confusion and one free 1sec daze, 5 more stacks of Vulnerability (if speced with Dazzling ) not to mention faster CD on all your shatter is kinda guuud. At the end, you’re left with 20 points -.- and lots of builds can be made with 20 points… Anyone else thinks mez is way too limited to build variation? No wonder almost everyone run 20/20/0/0/30.

This wouldn’t be a problem if we had free allocation of traits.

I never run Illusions 30. O.o

It gives a nice ability, but the simple fact that it requires so many points just to get is, I think, rather absurd. I’d rather put 20 points into Chaos to get reduced cooldown and extra toughness with my staff; that way I’m getting more boons+conditions via chaos armor and chaos storm, as well as more PRs, which is one of my favorite attacks in the game. When traited, I often have a PR cooldown of 6 seconds.

30 Illusions is nice, but necessary? Not so sure.

Necessary for shattering. End of story.

the distribution of traitpoints depends on what IDEA your playstyle is based. watch mr.prometheus on yt for further explanations and an excellent indepth mesmer guide.

im playing a glamour/phantasm based lightsupport mesmer and it works.
u cannot take all goodies, but u are able to combine pretty much, as long as u r not the sort of “stats-maxing oldschool mmo frikkin dps no def horst” we usually meet in dungeons complaining about getting down evry 10secs…

heavily check your playstyle u like (e.g. shatter or never, staff or greatsword or dualwield AND weaponswitch combinations!).
then search for the big traits giving you the maximum possible support for that style
(in my case mainly phantasm powerups and glamour boosts with greatsword and sowrd/focus).
THEN check which stats u missed on your gear and fill it up (mostly people fill up power…and dont do any damage or support cos theyre DEAD in dungeons…).

but i agree wiht that 30 point critics generally. personally i dont like any of the 30 traits. worthless imo to waste points for losing another good trait or even stat for just the weaponswitch

I think our biggest issue right now is how unsorted and dysfunctional our traits are, yes. I don’t care about the power or the balance, rather about the integrity between just our traits (ignoring all enemies around us and all other classes).

Deceptive Evasion should probably be a GM trait, or if it’s deemed too useful even to that, something should be done about clone generation baseline and it should be removed. Either it’s required (then it should not be a trait), or it’s not (then it should be used for an awesome trait not for the required stopgap it is right now).

I mean, let’s assume for a moment that we had 10 good Grandmaster traits. Illusionary Persona and Deceptive Evasion being two of them. It’d not be easy to pick which to get. Especially since you can swap between two in each line, what if DE and IP were XI and XII in Illusions? :P

The whole layout is just… argh! And so many traits make no sense or just don’t work for the purpose they must have intended. All the interrupt traits come to mind, which are a good idea, but just don’t work right now.

The 30 points in illusion is a pretty personal opinion. Mesmer is one of the classes, which barely needs grandmaster traits (well, same for alot classes).

Personally, my minimum traits are
0/20/0/20/5

The 20 Dueling not necessarily for Deceptive Evasion, but also Mantra CD reduction. That’s why I have 30pt in there, getting both or +4% dmg for each mantra.
20pt in Inspiration for the additional mantra heal. Survivability +33%.

For me the only must-have I can think of is:

• 5 in Illusions, OR
• The weapon-traits

Both is a bonus, but you want the -20% on Illusions, either way. It’s ok-ish to not have the -CD on the utility-illusions since you get weapon-CD reductions in turn. And ofc having both is best, but not always achievable.
Still, you want either.

If I had to do something about that, I’d reduce the CDs on all clone-generating abilities (Weapons and Utility), and make 5 Illusions create a clone when I heal or charge MoR. A clone which in addition to attacking heals itself every X seconds, ideally. For more confusion!

Nuka Cola.8520:

Here’s why. The 20 points in dueling tree are a no brainer, every single one of them is essential.

-Critical Infusion is amazing and for 5 points is a given.
-Phantasmal Fury is great especially for power/crit damage builds and shouldn’t be ignored.
-Sharper Images is,,,, sharper images, a great trait.
-Deceptive Evasion is the absolute best and worth spending 20 points just for it.

Now in Illusions. Sure not everyone ALWAYS spend 30 points for Illusionary Persona but lets be fair here, its the best grandmaster trait from any tree on mez… Additional damage, 1 more sec of distortion (life savior), more stacks of confusion and one free 1sec daze, 5 more stacks of Vulnerability (if speced with Dazzling ) not to mention faster CD on all your shatter is kinda guuud. At the end, you’re left with 20 points -.- and lots of builds can be made with 20 points… Anyone else thinks mez is way too limited to build variation? No wonder almost everyone run 20/20/0/0/30.

This wouldn’t be a problem if we had free allocation of traits.

Well I run 20/20/0/25/5. I agree about Deseptive Evasion and Sharper Images, especially with my rampager armor and a 60% crit chance. Also Illusions 30 is nice, I like it, when I go a full shatterer build, but atm I see only 20 in dueling as a must, the other 50 points I can spend as I want. There was even a time, where I didn’t go for 20 in deception, but this was mostly for PvE, in WvW i find deceptive evasion, especially as glass cannon, essential.

If you’re running a shatter spec, yes.

20 in Dueling for DE, 30 in Illusion for IP. 20 free points.

Detail is, not everybody runs shatter.

(as other said, 5 pts in illusion are the only mandatory thing.)

DE is great i’ll agree, not sure the rest is essential, but its no more restricting than guardians putting 5 in virtues and 15 for voj resets. And the majority putting in points for AH.

There are more popular choices, they are not mandatory.

20 in dueling isn’t always needed.
5 in Illusions is really the only ‘mandatory’ trait points.

Yeah I agree, if I’m going to be shattering I’m going to be running Illusionary Persona and Deceptive Evasion. I see them both as being essential for my shatter builds.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Arganthium.5638:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Here’s why. The 20 points in dueling tree are a no brainer, every single one of them is essential.

-Critical Infusion is amazing and for 5 points is a given.
-Phantasmal Fury is great especially for power/crit damage builds and shouldn’t be ignored.
-Sharper Images is,,,, sharper images, a great trait.
-Deceptive Evasion is the absolute best and worth spending 20 points just for it.

Now in Illusions. Sure not everyone ALWAYS spend 30 points for Illusionary Persona but lets be fair here, its the best grandmaster trait from any tree on mez… Additional damage, 1 more sec of distortion (life savior), more stacks of confusion and one free 1sec daze, 5 more stacks of Vulnerability (if speced with Dazzling ) not to mention faster CD on all your shatter is kinda guuud. At the end, you’re left with 20 points -.- and lots of builds can be made with 20 points… Anyone else thinks mez is way too limited to build variation? No wonder almost everyone run 20/20/0/0/30.

This wouldn’t be a problem if we had free allocation of traits.

I never run Illusions 30. O.o

It gives a nice ability, but the simple fact that it requires so many points just to get is, I think, rather absurd. I’d rather put 20 points into Chaos to get reduced cooldown and extra toughness with my staff; that way I’m getting more boons+conditions via chaos armor and chaos storm, as well as more PRs, which is one of my favorite attacks in the game. When traited, I often have a PR cooldown of 6 seconds.

30 Illusions is nice, but necessary? Not so sure.

Necessary for shattering. End of story.

Support?

It’s not necessary by any means. There are plenty of builds that only go 5 in Illusions.

heh… I don’t even run 5 in illusions. I suppose now is as good a time as any to try another build.

Idk, recently i switched IP for Prismatic Undertanding and loving it. I kinda miss the reduced cooldown on shatters but the buffs from stealths is awesome to make us even more survival

20/20/10/20/0 – since I hit 80. I like it.

Ubi.4136:

20/20/10/20/0 – since I hit 80. I like it.

Interesting, that’s somewhat close to the 20/20/30/0/0 I’m currently experimenting with.
Do you run it Phantasm-heavy, focusing on keeping 2-3 of them out?