Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

I’m pretty new to the forums and have basically been lurking in search of builds to adjust to but didn’t really find any that suited my play style.

I leveled up mostly using a Greatsword/Staff with traits that amounted to 30/10/0/0/30 with trait skills focusing on +power, iElasticity and the works but ended up feeling like I could live with either one or the other. In that I mean that I could basically play effectively with one weapon and completely forgetting about the other. I realized that this made it redundant to have a swap slot so I tried to look for a new build that would mesh nicely together.

I came up with this (for solo roaming): http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.0%7Cc.5b.h14.d.1a.h1%7C6.1q.hf%7C1o.b18.1o.b18.1o.b18.1o.b18.1o.71q.1o.71q%7C1o.63.1o.63.1o.63.1o.63.1o.63.1b.63%7Ca3.k2a.0.f5.p3a%7C0.0%7C31.3j.35.36.3o%7Ce

10/20/0/15/25 Staff/Sword + Focus. For utility skills I use Mantra of Resolve (because of the multiple casts and lower cool down than null field), Mirror Images (for condition stacks on staff, or for a quick boost in healing with Ether Feast) and Phantasmal Defender (for general mitigation of damage).

I realized that the utilities I was using wasn’t very well suited for some dungeon runs so I tweaked it a bit for dungeons using Null Field (for the AoE), Phantasmal Disenchanter (for when Null Field is on cool down) and Phantasmal Defender (for general mitigation of damage again). I also swap out Deceptive Evasion for Blade Training, making my build a pseudo phantasm build I suppose.

In terms of gear I have a cheap set of ravenous exotic armor and weapons (basically what you see in the link minus the magic find due to the update to runes of scavenging). My trinkets aren’t actually exotic, just a mix of ravenous greens and yellows, minus the back piece which is exactly as it is in the link above.

I focus on precision and condition damage because of Sharper Images, making any crits my illusions or I make into bleeding stacks. Not to mention burning from Winds of Chaos!

What do you guys think? This build is for PvE as that’s majority of what I do, though I might try WvW or sPvP sometime.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Well, I hate to put down hybrid builds right away, but they are very difficult to pull off effectively as rampager offers no defensive stat which is needed to survive while conditions tick away, and the direct damage will be low without investment in crit damage. That being said, pistol will give you more reliable bleeds than focus. The phantasm traits are a bit completely uneccessary unless you go full power DPS phantasm build in pve. You’re as squishy as a zerker, but with less damage I’m afraid. Also using magi/dire weapon stats is a questionable and random choice. Inspiration in pve is only worth is if you go 20 or 25 for the phantasmal strength and reflecting focus. Other than that, it appears to be a slightly different version of the 0/20/0/25/25 phantasm build used in dungeons, the only thing is the focus on conditions and lack of crit damage or power for that manner will hurt your overall DPS and the effectiveness of your phantasms

Sorry if I’m sounding harsh, but I’m seasoned enough to know how effective builds are onsight, and I can’t recommend using your choices. On further introspection that makes me feel like I’m discouraging alternative builds, and I probably am.

Well, in the build you linked, you’ve got a lot of rampagers gear. You probably want to avoid that. Here’s why:

Power builds require high crit power to really be effective. Rampagers gives no crit power, so your crits won’t hurt much. Additionally, your power ends up pretty low, so you have a low base anyway.

Condition builds are generally built for some sort of attrition fight. This means that they have pretty good defense, and this is supported by the defensive stats on condition gear. Unfortunately, rampagers has no defensive stats, and you’ll end up with less condition damage than in a full condie build.

Overall, rampagers ends up with a build that is incredibly fragile, while doing weak power damage and weak condition damage. Don’t use it.

Looking at your traits, that hybrid confusion also spills over a bit there. My advice is to really figure out which type of damage you want to focus on, and then adjust your gear and traits from there.

One more note. Your runes are a bit odd, as you have 2 tormenting runes listed, but no actual ways to apply torment in your entire build.

Edit: I read your post again. Just as a heads-up, sharper images only causes your illusions to bleed on crits, it doesn’t affect attacks that you use.

Thank you guys for the feedback!

Regarding the weird weapon stats: they were budget buys that I made a month or so back (probably about 1 gold each) just to have an exotic weapon set without actually having done a run through of the build.

Regarding the runes: yeah sorry that was a mistake on my part when editing the build on the site. No tormenting runes at all lol.

So the main changes I have to make are my gear options? Because I have no problems with that at all, as I’ve been planning on doing so eventually – currently just using budget buys and making do.

If I wanted to play a condition build, would that amount to a shatter build? Sorry I’m clearly still very new to specialized play.

Thank you guys again for your time and advice! Really appreciate it.

Well, you mentioned that you want this build to be primarily PvE. Unfortunately, conditions from the best condition classes aren’t an optimal choice in PvE for multiple reasons, and mesmer conditions are very inconsistent with regards to dps (condition builds can do great in PvP though).

I’d recommend going for power damage in PvE. For PvE, you’d also want to focus more on the phantasm side of things. There’s quite a few viable builds that can do this though, it all depends on how focused on damage you want to get as opposed to survivability and/or support.

Got it. Will go tinker more with builds focusing on power and try integrating it into my play style. I’m guessing that power builds don’t have much room for the staff seeing as how condition/ kite based it seems. Would power/zerker builds mainly incorporate Greatswords and S/F? Or Sc/P?

The staff will be used in a power build for just its phantasm, the warlock. The damage it does, however, scales by 10% per unique condition on the target, meaning you need to have a team composition able to produce a high amount of condition pressure in order to make using the staff worthwhile. You’ll also want to stay away from the scepter, as it’s sorta a bad weapon overall, although it has a few uses.

Generally all PvE phantasm builds retain the ability to trait the focus (Inspiration VIII), even if they aren’t using it at every point. This allows the mesmer to produce an incredibly high uptime on projectile reflections through the iWarden and temporal curtain.

In my builds, I’ll usually carry with me a greatsword, staff, 2 swords, focus, pistol, and torch. The torch is purely to stealth past some things in specific dungeons, not for actual usage. What this allows me to do is tack on any combination of weapons that works best for that particular encounter.

Ah so I can use my current weapons for the swap in the mean time?

And yeah I’ve got a rare piece of each other weapon just in case, but have only found use for the torch for, as you said, stealthing past certain dungeons.

I guess I’ll just have to come up with a better stat spread for gear.

Thank you again for the tips. They were just what I was looking for.

DeathReign.7821:

Ah so I can use my current weapons for the swap in the mean time?

And yeah I’ve got a rare piece of each other weapon just in case, but have only found use for the torch for, as you said, stealthing past certain dungeons.

I guess I’ll just have to come up with a better stat spread for gear.

Thank you again for the tips. They were just what I was looking for.

Just a suggestion, post what you’re thinking of here before running around and gathering the gear. Could save you a lot of time and money.

Chuckles Yeah I fully intend to do so. Hope you’ll be able to advise again when I do!