Guild Wars 2

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Ng-3S;0VPVz047BVV71;9;4JE-O929-1;314-2;0Y-F66;1sV2DsV2D5BT

Is the above what people mean when they talk about Phantasm build? As in combining both 15%+15% increase illusion/Phantasm traits and maximized Phantasm up time?

Health 21,472
Critical Hit 45%
Critical Damage 47%
Power 2,149
Toughness 976

20 / 15 / 0 / 25 / 10

I’m not that much into popular builds, but I believe that the point of the phantasm build is to deal as much direct damage, as quickly as possible. So survival of your phantasms is not really a priority, as much as damage. I would remove 10 or 15 points from Inspiration and add them to Dueling instead.

^Part of getting that as much damage as possible, however, is having 25 points in Inspiration. The 25 point trait is ‘Phantasms do 15 percent more damage.’ This phantasm build is trying to utilize the 15 percent illusions trait, illusions bleed trait, 15 percent phantasms trait, and 3 percent damage per illusion out trait.

I personally use 20/20/0/20/10. I love Deceptive Evasion too much to let it go. And I trait in Phantasmal Haste.

When I used a phantasm build, I went with 10/15/0/25/20 to pick up Phantasmal Haste, but I dropped that build after the Warden interaction with PH was corrected. I would probably still spec that way in terms of points, but I would go with Elasticity as the 20-point illusions trait now.

Deceptive Evasion is really nice—I love it in my current build—but it’s not as important for a phantasm-centric build, I found. That was for PvE/WvW, though, not sPvP.

So its not about combining both 15%+15% with the bleed trait or not?

Cempa.5619:

So its not about combining both 15%+15% with the bleed trait or not?

In order to make a good build, you can’t just look at what you get, but also what you lose, when you trait for something. Even though phantasms can do a lot of damage, the main source of damage still comes from you. So 15% critical damage/chance is going to be much more valuable to you, then 15% more phantasm damage in Inspiration. Adding 15 more points to dueling also means you can get 20% faster recharge on your pistol, and 4 second fury when you interrupt (greatsword and pistol both have an interrupt skills).

The 15% for phantasms @ 25 Inspirations is nice, but you will typically get MUCH more DPS from points in other lines. That minor trait is more of a “pity trait” to let heal-spec’d mesmers do at least a little DPS’ing, too.

Dueling in particular needs to be 30 to maximize phantasm output.

BTW, there was a time when I used to leave my phantasm hanging out in full view all the time, but I’m a bit more polite now and blow them up after they’re done spraying the target.