Guild Wars 2

Yeah yeah laugh at me all you want, but I’m looking for a dps build for my mesmer to do CoF farming. I’m hitting 80 in not to long, and can’t find a decent GS/Sword-Focus/pistol build. I was thinking of running full zerk but then I though of the cage part, I would probably get killed pretty fast, so how much ratio should I go on zerk/knight?

buy staff, so you have something to swap sword with while in the cage. then you can go full zerker.

I run full zerk, I don’t weapon swap in the cage and just wear whatever weapon I’m currently using (Sword/Sword or Staff) I can survive with both. I can also survive with Sword/Focus, but I swap out of Sword/Focus after the Slave Driver because I prefer Offhand Sword because my Swords are Zerkers, and I have a Sigil of Night in it.

To survive in the cages with a…

Sword/Focus:
Use 4 to pull them against the wall, proceed to do 5 —> 3 —> roll (make sure you stay in the cage) —> 3 —> 2 —> F1
If it’s still not done (or not close to being done), you can use F4 instead of F1.
Otherwise, continue hitting them. They should be near dead if not dead already. Finish them off and hop the gate guy is able to kill before next wave. Otherwise rinse and repeat using heals if necessary.

Weapon swap sparingly.

Sword/Sword:
Start with 5 —> 3 —> Roll —> 3 —> 2 —> Shatter (f1 or f4). If gate is not near complete, use 4 —> roll —> auto attack for a bit —> use other skills as necessary and shatters to finish off mobs. Heal when needed.

Weapon swap sparingly.

Staff:
5 —> 3 —> (if back against a wall, 2 else…) 4 —> roll —> F1 or F4 —> pray that you don’t have other cages aggro. Heal when needed.

Weapon swap sparingly.

Why do I say weapon swap sparingly? If the cutscene occurs and your weapon swap is on cooldown, you will get the weapon swap bug. To fix this, you must open up the hero panel and manually weapon swap. For me, this is a real deal breaker because I have a terrible machine that takes ages to open up the hero pane while running and kiting and whatnot. I can do it, but it takes a lot longer than necessary so I’ve learned how to deal with the cages without weapon swapping. Cautious rolls are rarely used when I do it and I go down about 1/15 times. If I get out of combat and I see a different cage is having trouble, I’ll swap into staff (bypass cooldown out of combat) and use 5 OR I’ll drop a feedback on that cage to help them out a little. It doesn’t do much, but it does help… especially if one of my mobs decided to run to their cage.

I run Rampager gear with a bit of Carrion for added survivability. I start off with staff, stand in the middle of the cage and wait for enemies to spawn. First I drop chaos storm then chaos armor then pop my illusion. While doing that, I run around a little to get all the baddies into a nice, little stack. Then I switch to sword/focus, pop the warden, toss out #2 (can’t remember the name at the moment) and let my condition damage do the rest. Sometimes I stand on one side of the cage and dodge to the other so I can toss out more clones.

Basically the trick is never to let them focus completely on you.

Thank you for very constructive responces. I still can’t find a good build(I suck at making builds) but I guess I have to make one myself :P

I run a 20/20/0/0/30 build so its kinda based off of shatters but is all straight damage. Full zerkers gear with Zerker’s accessories. Mental Torment and Greatsword mastery in domination. Blade training and Deceptive evasion in Dueling. Precise wrack, Illusionary elasticity, and illlusionary persona. Decoy, Feedback(for combo field)/Blink(for survive), and usually signet of Inspiration. Signet is great for when you have a guardian or ele, in group to gain buffs and repass buffs around. If you dont want signet use blink and feedback. Weapons are S/S and greatsword Zerker’s stats on each.
Runes of the Eagle give more crit and crit damage with Bonus damage. Primarily you’ll be using GS and then bursting with the sword.

Other people have given most of the info you need, I just want to clarify one thing about when you’re in the brazier cage. I really dislike staff here because phase retreat will easily send you out of the cage, even if you try to line it up properly. Just for that, I stay with greatsword for the knockback alone in case it gets a bit hairy, and then stay with MH sword as much as possible since that ultimately is your best close combat defense through blurred frenzy.

I’ll hijack this thread instead of creating a new topic, hope you don’t mind

after finally getting mesmer to 80 (was quite a chore without AC exp-farming anymore), I did a few ‘normal’ runs with guildies experimenting a bit and then joined a 4 zerker warr farm-group for a few runs and found they went down extremely quickly (the runs were still pretty fast though) and I started wondering whether they expect more support from my side. I went vigour on shattering and regeneration from phantasms but that was about it.
the only obvious obligations I know about are timewarp on slave driver/effigy knockback of slave driver into the wall with gs5 and a portal for the burning stones.
what else is expected from a mesmer to be considered useful?
I was thinking slightly altering my build to something like
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgIQNAR8alwzKq3UzhGa9IyZGJX0hmB25dlUgbXIA

any tipps on what to improve?

also as a sidenote: during that run I was thinking my zerker guardian wielding a hammer would’ve been more useful for keeping the warris alive (consta protection, due to high boon duration) or even my knight/zerker vig-shout warri with fast burst-reloading (adrenalin always full with shouts/crits on axe).. are those two timewarps really that much of a timesaver when the alternative would be another dps oriented class with some support to keep the zerker wars alive longer? don’t get me wrong, I like playing mesmer (as I did with every other class I’ve leveld to 80 so far – which is any except ranger), but it didn’t feel like I was doing as much of a difference in that group as I could have.

You shouldn’t be specced or worried about keeping the warriors alive…

As a Mesmer, Immediately as soon as the first gate comes down you need to place temporal curtain directly on top or a little to the right of the first (right) flame turret, and use the pull (Into the Void) to pull all the mobs against the right wall( so warriors can whirlwind into them and the wall). Then count 5 seconds and use feedback on the turret.

At the first boss knock him into the wall, Time Warp, then when the AD (the effigy comes up) use feedback on the boss to protect the party.

The reason I say you shouldn’t be worried about keeping the warriors alive is that the bosses should be dying in 10 sec (or 1 Time Warp) anyways. If they are not then either A) your warriors are not geared/bad, You do not have enough DPS, or C) Their specs are bad. If you sit and focus on support you are actually going to be killing your party members, as in this path of this dungeon it’s all about damage to survive. Less dps means more drawn out fights. Your phantasm regen with you in dps gear is not going to keep glass cannon warriors eating champ attacks alive. Not too mention you should be shattering every chance you can for damage. I do rock the vigor on shatter trait as well though its a solid choice to benefit shattering.

The End Boss, you should be using Feedback on his purple flame things that he shoots in an AOE on the ground, you can reflect those back to protect the party and do a large spike of damage.

If they are dying on the end boss, that’s a skill/experience issue. Just dodge his huge Aoe, you can reflect the projectiles every once in a while, and rally off crystals if you go down.

Hope this helps

I use the very same Confusion build I use for PvE, WvW and it works wonderfully.

All Rabid gear, Scepter+Focus/GS.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

As a Mesmer, Immediately as soon as the first gate comes down you need to place temporal curtain directly on top or a little to the right of the first (right) flame turret, and use the pull (Into the Void) to pull all the mobs against the right wall( so warriors can whirlwind into them and the wall). Then count 5 seconds and use feedback on the turret.

…

Hope this helps

that’s a great idea, didn’t even think about this. was using pistol offhand for added dps and the stun/daze bullet, but grouping those annoying guards together would be more useful.

I haven’t used feedback much, because I thought the relevant attacks weren’t considered melee.
just to be clear: slavedriver is melee, right? but his sidekick-effigy is range? (I always kinda ignore it)
and end bosses purple ground-creeping flames are projectiles?
the big circle probably isn’t and its easier to just dodge that anyway imho.

I’ll try again with those suggestions =)

thx very much

Oranisagu.3706:

BlueprintLFE.2358:

As a Mesmer, Immediately as soon as the first gate comes down you need to place temporal curtain directly on top or a little to the right of the first (right) flame turret, and use the pull (Into the Void) to pull all the mobs against the right wall( so warriors can whirlwind into them and the wall). Then count 5 seconds and use feedback on the turret.

…

Hope this helps

that’s a great idea, didn’t even think about this. was using pistol offhand for added dps and the stun/daze bullet, but grouping those annoying guards together would be more useful.

I haven’t used feedback much, because I thought the relevant attacks weren’t considered melee.
just to be clear: slavedriver is melee, right? but his sidekick-effigy is range? (I always kinda ignore it)
and end bosses purple ground-creeping flames are projectiles?
the big circle probably isn’t and its easier to just dodge that anyway imho.

I’ll try again with those suggestions =)

thx very much

Of course np mate,

Let me try and clarify.

Yes the slavedriver is melee, but the ranged effigy is the one that stacks burning and does enough damage to usually negate heals. So feedback on the first few hits can be a big help.

Phantasmal warden from focus 5 in time warp is a lot of damage as well as added confusion, I run focus the whole dungeon.

Yeah big AOE dodge that, I bring null field so my warriors can tank the Aoe while in the time warp to maximize time warp usage.

You will see the boss has a rotation usually. After the Aoe usually comes the purple projectiles and yes they can be reflected it keeps every one from being knocked down and does a good spike of damage on the boss.

If you happen to have any thieves with you during the flame acolyte part, they can cloak and dagger on the braziers the acolytes spawn in front of without any acolytes being there (the game still registers the mobs as being there even when they are not).

I’d recommend the build Strife posted at GW2Guru:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/79487-buildmy-dps-mesmer-guide-for-organized-dungeon-groups/

He has 6 minute runs posted on his youtube channel to prove the effectiveness of the build.

As for CoF p1 speedrunning as well as PvE in general I would recommend a 20/20/0/0/0 base for your build, afterwards decide on what you want to do.
Options are
10 in inspiration for general utility abilites.
-Vigor on shatters for the party is pretty nice (you get vigor on crits, but the first minor trait in dueling tends to be quite inconsistent when you face dire situations, and even droping of 1 second of vigor can be pretty crucial if you don’t have perfect judgement as well as a perfect build. You might want to consider taking points out of Domination to get 30 in illusions for a full shatter build.
-The feedback bubble on reviving can come in handy a lot of times, take giganticus lupicus for an example. You will be able to rez downed players even during his kittenstorm without having to time an distortion shatter.
-Less cd on Glamour as well as condition remove on heal are also quite nice in some situations, altough i tend to go for the iDisenchanter when facing a lot of conditions (that thing is DOPE)

10 or 20 in illusions
If you want to run a illusion build both options are viable, altough 20 in illusions will generally offer you a bit more with the 20% reduced attack cd for all your phantasms.
If you go for an illusion heavy build take traits like phantasms deal 15% more damage and phantasms gain fury. I would generally put 30 in duelling for these builds in order to be able to grab trait II, IV and either IX or X.

You can also go for 30/30/0/0/10 for the extra strength, precison and crit damage.

As for utilites i would pretty much always use blink (great mobility/stunbreaker)
Strife025 already explained a lot of good utlity skills, altough he left out the iDisenchanter, which surpasses in my opinion the Null field half the time. Also if you run a shatter build you might want to consider taking mirror images for fast clones as shadder fodder.

As for CoF speedrunning you will have to switch up your skills a lot. I generally go for blink 100% of the time, while depending on the group (2 or more warriors) taking signet of inspiration for the first boss. If your warriors are not lazy you can get 3/6/9/12 additional stacks of might on your whole group for pretty much the whole fight (this guy tends to not last for even one timewarp with the right group setup)
For the acolyte event i take Mirror Images and Decoy, Mirror images will help you burst down one acolyte in the matter of a second, while decoy and blink will get you out of combat afterwards (either run to the burning rock part or down the other side, if you are at the end of the path use your invis to shake enemies off).
Afterwards you pretty much have to sacrifice one of your ultility skills for Portal entrance, in order to abridge the buringrockofdoom event. In fast groups you wont be able to switch this one out before you engage the last boss. As for my preference it take blink and mirror images.
Hope i could help you

Agony.3542:

…

my build is currently (slightly altered from the above):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgIQNAR8dlwzKqXVzhGa9IyZGJ3yhmB25dlUwbXIA

I haven’t gone 30 in dueling yet, because the grandmaster traits aren’t really that great, but your suggestion of taking 2, 4 and 9/10 is interesting.
though going this way would mean 15% less damage from phantasms as well as no might from shattering. going only 20 into dueling I can take 4 and 10 and only lose fury on phantasms, which I’m not sure how useful it is really. is it worth losing the 15% flat out damage for phantasms?

vigour on crit is great but as soon as there are multiple enemies on the screen I kinda often overdodge and need any vigour I can get, so I definitely need inspiration 3 ^^
or I’ll go two runes of water/monk each, though I’m sure I’m generating enough boons to justify that.

why do you take blink over decoy? I only take blink for the boulder part to be faster. decoy is a stunbreaker as well, cooldown is nearly the same, helps losing aggro (esp. for acolyte part) or creates a clone if you need one more. personally I like it way more than blink for its multiple use cases. what’s the benefit of blink? you can get away more quickly, but won’t shake enemies (especially ranged ones).
for acolytes I also like to take veil to shake enemies off.

I’ve been experimenting with signet of inspiration a bit (in a non-speedrun group) and I like it.. though the tougher illusions can often soak up a some of the damage a teammate otherwise would have to take. pretty hard choice between the two imho.

portal replaces the signet because I shatter before the aoe of the endboss anyway and it’s the only utility I can sacrifice =)

thanks for the inputs.

@BlueprintLFE:
been trying your tips, worked great. especially keeping focus – it’s way more useful than I previously thought. voidpull is extremely cool (even without gs warriors in a group, my gs 4 berserker hits better well) and the warden being a whirl finisher (didn’t know this until now – the skill doesn’t say anything about that) is pretty cool in a feedback bubble or timewarp.
been trying to block slavedrivers sidekick effigy and the endboss with feedbacks/wardens, worked pretty well, though it’s hard to get the timing for the endboss right imho – his attacks seem random and the visual cue for the flames is pretty short, gotta practice this a bit more =)

Swap sig of illusions for sig of inspirations, at least on boss fights. When the warriors all use fgj before the fight, you can pop your sig to get them capped on stacks, which will make a big difference in how fast the fight goes.

As for Blink vs Decoy:
As I mainly play with Sword mainhand and often times anything except focus offhand (its too boring for me and does not deliver enough reliable singletarget damage) I need to compensate for the lack of mobility (a lot of bosses will do crazy whirlwind or pbAoE in general). While I can evade a lot of stuff by timing my blurred frenzy, there are some situations where I still have to blink the fridge away. For example take the last boss in CoF or Kohler in AC, if you happen to get knocked down/stunned you can of course break the stun with decoy, but you still have to dodge away afterwards (often times you get that nasty red circle after the ground smash of the last boss in CoF).
This means I have to spend two different resources as well as do two different actions to get out of trouble instead of just one.
Also decoy may break aggro, but thats only helpful when breaking aggro is required. I find myself in very little situations to do so and, quite frankly, if such a situation arrives like the acolyte event in CoF, decoy alone will often times not be enough (you can die in the matter of seconds there and I generally want to shake off the aggro with decoy instead of trying to run down the path with it.
I personally dislike veil for speedrunning because of its high cd, if you need to switch something out, for example for portal entrance and veil is still on a long cd you might find yourself fighting the console event with 2 utility skills on cd, and that can be anonying exspecially if you have some very nice people in your party that shake off the aggro of the three adds that spwaned at their position (god i hate these guys …-.-)

As for vigor on crit:
As I mentioned going 10 in inspiration is totally viable.
But please keep in mind for both chaos and inspiration! Putting more points into these trees will have you cut on other things like dom/dueling. If your damage comes mainly form direct attacks (which your build will probably rely on) every point not in domination/duelling will cost you about 0,5-1% overall dps. You can calculate this with the direct damage formula that is true for EVERY ability that does direct damage.
Its Damge=weapon damge*skill coefficient*Power*Crit Chance*Crit damage.
Now lets say you have a flat 2k strength, the difference from 2000 to 2010 strength (1 point in dom) is 5%, now this will of course decrease with the amount of strength you have (also with dueling) but dont forget you also get major traits in these trees that can benefit you.
It goes a bit deep into theory crafting here but as for the extra 15 points in inspiration to get more damage out of phantams, its not worth it regarding damage output.
Now of course inspiration offers you some other nice things, but for speedrunning I personally would put a maximum of 10 points in it.

As for 30 in duelling:
The amount of really beneficial major traits in this tree is indeed quite limited.
Mainly depending on your playstyle, beeing it mainly shatter or mainly illusion focused and wether you want to use a sword mainhand and/or a pistol offhand (which i like because of its high dps output-stronger than the focus phantasm, more reliable, lower cd, as well as faster with its attacks – keep in mind that you have to wait for 5 seconds with the focus phantasm, and the enemy staying in its AoE to get its maximum damage, where the pistol is done in ~1,5seconds).
Now if you want to play an shatter focused playstyle, but dont want to use a pistol, 20 points will be enough, if you use a sword go for the extra precision and lower sword cds, if not go for phantasms gain fury, as well as clone on dodge. If you want to use a sword/pistol the last 10 points in duelling wont be wasted.

As for your build. In my opinion it bares a lot of inconsistenies, you buff your phantasms on the one hand, but want to shatter them on the other hand, without putting out the maximum amount of damage with your shatters (missing the illusion 30 trait)
I would recommend either
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgIQNAR8dlwzKqXVzpGaNJypCJHqHYH49dkK0alUwbXIA
with mainly feedback beeing optional as far as ultilty and either I or VI in illusions (the VI trait can really be a life saver in combination with the distortion shatter)
Or
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgIQNAR8dlwzKqXVzpGaNJypCJHKFYn3RShqlalUgbXIA
with both mirror images as well as feedback very optional ultilty slots and it beeing a build focused around GS, staying far away and shattering not too often (when you have 2 iZerkes and 1 clone, as well as the cd for another iZerker ready you generally want to mind wrack)

All the guys above have already answered you. My input would be that the only thing dps wise that you need is enough to hold your cage. Other than that, really, you’re only there to time warp the warriors and blink past the rocks. I run a normal shatter build (20/20/0/0/30), but change up to phanstasm traits just to speed up the boss killing.

I’d suggest you pay no attention to any of the above posts. You do not run shatter for CoF p1.

(below video) Around 20 seconds for effigy boss. Kills should be at least that fast if not faster. The video begins with no TW because our runs are too fast for TW to recharge in time for slaver. The above builds listed won’t achieve what we are achieving here.

Add me in game, and I’ll give you a build.

Phira.3970:

I’d suggest you pay no attention to any of the above posts. You do not run shatter for CoF p1.

Umm…I didn’t suggest a shatter build, but I agree that most of the replies to this have given some bad advice, such as not taking a focus offhand.

I use my 20-20-0-25-5 build with full zerk equipment.

1; Pull (focus 4) the first two mobs to the wall on the right side behind the turret and use feedback on them to block the other turret.
2; Pull the boss to the wall with focus 4, timewarp and SoI. Alternate between sword autoattacks and sword 2. Shatter once the warden finishes its second whirl.
3; On the bridge (in middle of the bridge), target one of the flame turrets and use feedback. It’s not supposed to reach the turrets, but rather block the turret shots.
4; Switch to GS and kill the acolytes with your group while “hiding” downstairs when you’ve killed one or two.
5; Portal before the gate opens, use temp curtain once it does, and RUN to the left top. Dodge in the end, place portal exit.
6; On the boss, try keeping all your reflects up as much as possible. First feedback, then warden, then curtain right on the boss’ circle. You also timewarp and SoI once you have enough might stacks.

Rinse & repeat.

Only crappy thing is, you’ll only get time to “rest” while killing the acolytes.

Fever.9830:

I use my 20-20-0-25-5 build with full zerk equipment.

1; Pull (focus 4) the first two mobs to the wall on the right side behind the turret and use feedback on them to block the other turret.
2; Pull the boss to the wall with focus 4, timewarp and SoI. Alternate between sword autoattacks and sword 2. Shatter once the warden finishes its second whirl.
3; On the bridge (in middle of the bridge), target one of the flame turrets and use feedback. It’s not supposed to reach the turrets, but rather block the turret shots.
4; Switch to GS and kill the acolytes with your group while “hiding” downstairs when you’ve killed one or two.
5; Portal before the gate opens, use temp curtain once it does, and RUN to the left top. Dodge in the end, place portal exit.
6; On the boss, try keeping all your reflects up as much as possible. First feedback, then warden, then curtain right on the boss’ circle. You also timewarp and SoI once you have enough might stacks.

Rinse & repeat.

Only crappy thing is, you’ll only get time to “rest” while killing the acolytes.

Great tips, but I’d add porting the NPC to the gate at the start as well to cut downtime of the introduction stuff.

I don’t think feedback works on the boss because he is to big but I may be wrong.

The Brigadier.3847:

I don’t think feedback works on the boss because he is to big but I may be wrong.

The purple projectiles spread out along the ground, so it ends up working fine. The only projectile he uses is the purple knockdown attack.

@Dhakeus:
strifes build seems interesting, and would probably match my playstyle pretty well. it’s a bit more shatter-focused than I usually do, while still not relying only on shattering, which I like.

@phira: very fast runs, despite the warri’s kinda obvious mistakes. shows how much of an advantage a coordinated group has over PUG, even when not playing to their full potential.
I don’t really like ‘secret build sharing’ via pm, either people want their build a secret for competitive reasons (usually only applicable for pvp) or they can give it out freely. if you’d like to share your build in this thread, I (and probably other people as well) would much appreciate it, especially since we can see how it plays out in a video.

@Agony:
I agree, blink works better in some situation (especially if you not only want to stunbreak but also need to gain some distance). I guess I’ll have to switch up before those situations arise (especially for acolytes it’s probably better, those flamethrowers kill me nearly instantly). in other cases though the decoy is better imho for its 3-in-1 (free clone, stealth, stunbreaker). like most mesmer skills, it depends on the situation which skill is more useful =)

theoretical damage calculation is highly speculative, as most stuff in this game doesn’t work as intended, has various side effects or just doesn’t do anything. to be sure we would have to test it with steady weapons but then we also have the pvp/pve differences.
especially points in domination are questionable imho, as there are diminishing returns on power. crit damage on the other hand is an absolute value and thus preferable, so dueling really makes sense – if it’d just offer better traits it would be a no-brainer. an additional 10 points will yield 10% crit dmg plus ~5% crit chance. don’t know if that’s worth it, as dmg calculation is nearly impossible, it would have to be tested over several tries in a controlled environment (which is extremely timeconsuming)

I have no idea how phantasm dmg gets calculated. ie will my precision be used for their crit chance? my power seems to influence phantasm dmg by itself (at least the tooltip shows something different), suggesting they benefit from all my stats. this would make the dueling II trait less useful (compared to alternative traits in other lines), if I myself can bring enough precision.

build inconsistencies aka shattering vs keeping illusions alive: in dungeons I only keep my phantasms for 1 attack, maybe two. they won’t live much longer anyway (next aoe and they’re down). so I usually wait for CD on phantasms, shatter the existing (after dodgeing to have at least 3 around) and immediately summon more. its not really a shatter build, it’s just using my attacks when they can do a non-zero amount of dmg (unlike the warri in the videos above, which nearly never gs#3 whirlwinding into a wall and never using eviscerate while sitting on full adrenaline. all in all, my attention was a bit more drawn to the mistakes of the warri than on the mesmers playstyle ^^). so I’m hesitant to push shattering more apart from those two buffs (vigour / might). the 15% phantasm dmg minor could go into dueling though, it’s hard to say how much dmg this really equals – especially whether its more than the 5% * critchance I could get in addition or less.
a full shatter build could be interesting though, have to test it out, I’m just afraid of losing to much survivability and just be literally dead weight on a group ^^

maybe I should add, I don’t have an organized group. I’m in a tiny guild with mostly older people (as, technically, I’m as well) who prefer chatting on ts and pve around a bit. meaning I can’t depend on my teammates too much while pugging. thus I always try to have a build which hase some survivability built in – even though I know I’ll lose out on dmg.

Now I wont go into details here, but a 30/30/0/0/10 build wont be that much better than (most likely equal to) a shatter build as long as you know how to play.
As for full shatter surviveablity, you will be impressed how long you can survive by dodgeing correctly, as well as your distortion shatter and blurred frenzy.

The damage formula is:
Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) * (Crit damage + 1.5) * (critical chance/100 +1)/ (target’s Armor) for mobs that are viable targets for crits
This thing IS accurate for both phantasms as well as all other direct damage skills/damage sources.
Now the problem is, that the value on your hotbar cant include (target’s Armor), because it varies, resulting in skills doing more or less damage than displayed in the description.
There was also a problem with the focus phantasm, displaying a completley wrong number, but i dont know if this is fixed already.

ALL attributes do suffer from diminishing returns, crit damage is no exception.
If you have +80% crit damage your crits will deal 230% damage, if you get 10% more your crits will deal 240% damage instead, the damage increase is 240/230 which is an increment of 4.34%, if you add another 10% crit damage its 250/240 an increment by 4.16%

The thing with phantasm builds is, they need some time (~20-30 seconds) to really get going on one weapon or need weapon switches which also can be unfavourable.
Also phantasms don have that much hp, thus most AoE skills in CoF will simply clean them up (exspecially the last boss, where you would have enough time to set up your illusions). Now one might want to run signet of illusions to compensate for that, but beware, 50% more health isnt helpful, if your phantasm still gets 1 shot.

I’m still trying out a new builds every so often, and haven’t fully decided yet on what to take. strifes build is pretty nice and his tutorial video is very informative like his others (even though he has to update the warri one without critfood).
in a good group I kinda doubt the mesmers build really makes that much of a difference (within reason) and correct selection of the available tools is a lot more important during the run than a few percent more damage from myself.

for example, I still can’t blink past the rocks. whenever I try it I die because I have to concentrate on positioning my mouse for the targetting (insta-cast aoe is usually active). I’ll keep practicing but I think it’s just easier for me to run through the rocks instead of forcing myself to blink just because everybody else does it. (they should make a dungeon with a mad clock tower sequence in it, without portals. I’d love to hate it ^^).

@Agony:
yeah, I think damage can certainly be increased with a perfect build, but imho the build also has to match the playstyle, otherwise it just cripples the player to an extent. the 10% more in duelling will increasy my dmg, but if it will increase my overall efficiency as a mesmer-player is another page.
I’ll probably won’t be able to run a full shatter build nor a phantasm build, I see phantasms as just one or at most two attacks, after that they just have to explode

I think you kinda misunderstood my non-dr argument. yes, every attributes relative benefit grows smaller and smaller to the total the higher the total is, I think that’s a given.
don’t really know how to explain it eloquently in english, so I’ll try it in simple terms (by which I’m in no way questioning your intellect, just the easiest way to state my case in a foreign language):

• if you add 10 points to 100, it’s a 10% increase, for a total addition of 10.
• if you add 10 points to 1000, it’s a 1% increase, for a total addition of 10.
• if you add 10 points to 2000, it’s a 0.5% increase, for a total addition of 10.
• if you add 1 percent to 100, it’s a 1% increase, for a total addition of 1
• if you add 1 percent to 1000, it’s a 1% increase, for a total addition of 10
• if you add 1 percent to 2000, it’s a 1% increase, for a total addition of 20

all the other stuff around the formula just makes it seem more complicated than it really is. percentile additions are favourable as soon as you get to high enough numbers. there will be a point where power is ‘stronger’ than critdmg (lower values), and if you never invest any amount into power critdmg will be useless in fact. but if you have a decent amount of base power (which, wielding berserker armor you should), there will come a point when adding 10 points into power more will be less useful for the overall output than adding 1% critdmg. in gw2’s case this break even point also depends on the targets armour, weapon dmg and a skill coefficient.

Oranisagu.3706:

for example, I still can’t blink past the rocks. whenever I try it I die because I have to concentrate on positioning my mouse for the targetting (insta-cast aoe is usually active). I’ll keep practicing but I think it’s just easier for me to run through the rocks instead of forcing myself to blink just because everybody else does it. (they should make a dungeon with a mad clock tower sequence in it, without portals. I’d love to hate it ^^).

Here are some tips that may help:
Drop portal entrance, then drop the swiftness curtain before the gate opens. Just before the gate opens, also hit auto-run and Blink so that you get the targetting recticle open. Once the gate opens, all you have to do is let your character run forward and click where you want to teleport to. Don’t get too worried about landing it at exact maximum distance, but just get it a bit ahead of you.

Changing your hotkeys may help as well. Personally, I have the click down of the mousewheel set to auto run and I bind blink to one of my mouse hotkeys on the side so that I can run, stop, and blink without interferring with turning or anything my left hand is doing.

But yea, in the end, practice makes perfect. =)

-Do not use shatter.

-Do not use blink. Just run across.

-Use Signet of Inspiration

-Use GS + sword/focus

-Utilities = portal, feedback, signet of inspiration.