Guild Wars 2

So let’s review the buffs we got related to phantasms and things that can help our phantasm builds to a greater height! Also I’m going to copy ChaosArchangel’s writing style when he defined the future of Lockdown builds… I’m not regretting this! Just to let you know, this will focus on PvP. When I make a proper phantasm guide, I will extend it to WvW and PvE (including dungeons).
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Pre-Specialization Phantasm Builds

There are two ways to build into phantasms. Both are great in 1v1, but terrible in the meta game due to the lack of team support and we are very limited in using shatter skills.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQBYkUDBlfXTyBBK9HhA
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQBgEVD5sNfiuukKQJ7A

Things to note on these two:

• I left out the weapons, utility skills, runes, sigils, and armor stats to focus only on the traits, since I think they’re the important part of what we’ll be discussing.
• The master trait in the Dueling line is left blank due to that choosing Deceptive Evation (Dueling X in the Pre-Specialization) or not choosing it doesn’t really affect the entire phantasm build and gameplay as whole.

They are super well made because the mesmer only needs to focus on surviving. However, they’re terrible in the meta game because of their terrible support to the rest of the team. The wrong assumption about phantasm builds is that they’re terrible. The correct assumption one should make about phantasm builds in the pre-specialization state is that they’re incredibly selfish and teamfights as a whole are NOT meant to have selfish… types in a fight.

It’s the reason why the power shatter pre-specialization builds and by a lesser extent, the lockdown build, is in the meta because they can support the team with high damage, boonstrips, and in the case for lockdown, immobilization and crowd control. Phantasm builds in this state cannot! We can lazily deal high damage, but outside of that we have nothing to bring to the table.

And I WON’T go to other problems phantasm builds face in other environments like WvW and PvE! There are numerous of others that make a mesmer’s experience undermining.

But this all changes!
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Post-Specialization Phantasm Builds

The new specialization traits bring in new and fresh power ups to all the mesmer builds. Shatter builds now have a versatile way to deal high damage to enemies. Lockdown builds are now more volatile to enemies than ever. Prismatic Understanding builds can make a comeback since now that this GM trait doubles the stealth duration. Condition builds are deadlier because they have different ways to deal conditions and are not limited to Torment and Confusion.

And then we have phantasm.

Before, those two builds that I linked above were technically the only viable ways to become as good as the other mesmer builds. Now with the Inspiration rework, the Phantasmal Strength becoming baseline, and other buffs, the specialization traits now allows us to do what we cannot do before: support other teammates and shatter. Yes, shatter. I’ll get more into that why.

We Can Support Our Teammates

The “support” of phantasm builds pre-specialization is that phantasms give out passive heailng. That’s not a good support if only one boon’s given out and that boon comes from a profession with terrible healing power. In other words, this support generally does not exist.

The support to other teammates we got are beautiful! Let’s start with what happens when we summon a phantasm using the post-specialization build. I won’t bother with Empowered Illusions and Persisting Images since I think they’re innate and not in the user’s will.

When we summon our phantasms, these things immediately come to play. Summoning a phantasm means that the Signet of Inspiration is casted to nearby allies. Protected Phantasms get distortion for 1 second, which gives them time to bring out a full attack. So whenever we have a bunch of boons we generated from ourselves or from other teammates, we can copy that back to the other teammates in return just by summoning a phantasm. I will assume that the Illusionary Inspiration has a ICD of 30 seconds, which is good. If there isn’t one, it’s better. xD

We can also cross the line by picking up the Chaos line instead of the Domination line to focus on the Prismatic Understanding. Using the elite invisibility skill with PU will give us 10 seconds to gather up as many boons as possible. Then summon a phantasm, proccing Illusionary Inspiration, which will distribute boons to nearby allies.

But boonsharing isn’t the only thing that benefits we have for supporting the teammates.

These above, I coupled them together to explain better.

We already have the boonshare support from our previous spoilers. Now we can give out healing support and distortion to teammates. This means that using Signet of the Ether helps us a lot! That Signet will gives us distortion when we use it, plus a boosted 300+ healing power when we control 3 illusions. Not only that, when we heal, we also heal other teammates as well. When we gain distortion, we also give distortion to everyone else as well.

Now I didn’t mention the Illusionary Inspiration and Signet of Inspiration because I don’t know if the Illusionary Inspiration proccing Signet of Inspiration will also trigger the Blurred Inscriptions, which in turn will proc the Inspiring Distortion. If it does, you’ve already seen how good it would be!

We Can Shatter

Now this is where I’ll get the backlash criticism from, but I welcome it. It gives a better understanding of phantasm builds in post-specialization builds as whole.

First and foremost, Anet devs are slightly displeased that phantasm builds cannot shatter. For them, it’s like “let’s play a powerful mesmer build without being a mesmer at all”. We’re not using shatters and that’s a big criticism for phantasm builds. Now I seek to incorporate shatter specs into our phantasm builds to make us more versatile (until HoT and that CM Chronomancer trait’s out as well).

To cherrypick some…

This ignores PU and goes for the equally awesome Bountiful Disillusionment. Assuming you use a staff, the Staff 5 and 4 skills will give out a plentiful of boons to ourselves. Shattering them will give us stability and other boons we can get based on our shatter. Going to our Illusionary Inspiration, summoning a phantasm can share stability, regenration, might/vigor/fury, and protection.

But the Chaos line isn’t the only one. For a more supportive role, we can also choose the Illusions line to add to our already chosen (assuming) Inspiration and Chaos.

I ignored the Phantasmal Haste from the spoilers just to focus on shattering.

The Persistence of Memory help us get our phantasm back up quickly and with the Illusionist’s Celerity, we don’t have to worry much about losing our phantasms and waiting for a long time to summon them again. Plus when we shatter, we give ourselves might as well as gain extra effects thanks to the Master of Fragmentation trait. We can inflict crippple, Diversion hits up to 5 targets, and the Distortion effect reflects, which the pre-specialization shatter builds can only obtain and virtually no one else.

But having gimmicky boonsharing shattering or extra effect isn’t the only option. For a more offensive role, we can add in the traditional shatter roots as well and the Domination line has that.

Another problem phantasms face is that their “burst” comes in unpredictable (and sometimes unreliable) sustaining damage thanks to their attack speed. Now this gives us more reason to shatter. Not only we can strip boons from other people, we can also deal an extra 15% damage whenever we use a shatter skill. We don’t have to worry about the abysmal shatter damage from the pre-specialization build. With the Illusionary Persona and Phantasmal Strength as baseline, we can be more confident in shattering if we use those traits. Now the debate is no longer why phantasms can’t shatter. It’s now if we want to shatter, and when we do… when. If we shatter, we should make sure that our phantasm summoning is ready again and think about this: we have the burst from shatter and the powerful sustaining damage from phantasms.

A Few Prototype Builds to Share

We’re no longer limited to those two builds that are terrible to shatter and terrible to support. With the new specialization traits, we can open up more versatility to phantasms.

I will focus on the traits only. Adding stuff from sigils, runes, and armor will be different and I think it won’t change much from other mesmer builds just pertaining to the three. Weapon sets will have its own separate section when I create a proper phantasm guide.

THIS IS NOTHING BUT A SAMPLE. THE FOLLOWING BUILDS ARE SPECULATIONS AND HAVEN’T BEEN FULLY THOUGHT OUT/DEMONSTRATED TO SHOW THE ACTUAL EFFECTIVENESS.

Cosmic Inspiration (my personal favorite)
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMBpAJ8BPg~

• Domination: Empowered Illusions, Blurred Inscriptions, Imagined Burden
• Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, Fencer’s Finesse or Evasive Mirror, Deceptive Evasion (or Harmonious Mantras if you chose Restorative Mantras)
• Inspiration: Persisting Images (or Restorative Mantras if you chose Harmonious Mantras), Protected Phantasms, Illusionary Inspiration or Mental Defense

This is a standard phantasm build now revamped with nice amounts of support and healing power. As I said before, the sigils from the Sigil of Inspiration (this part’s subjected to correction) and our Sigil of the Ether will give us distortion, condition removal, and boonsharing to the rest of the teammates. I grabbed Deceptive Evasion because I like to generate clones but it’s your preference. If you don’t, Harmonious Mantras help and it’s better if you have the mantra heal skill and the Restorative Mantras as your trait.

Phantrump Asskicker (Ross Birdle’s build, speculative until he gives it to me)
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMBvAJ8A9Q~

• Domination: Empowered Illusions or Compounding Suggestions, Shattered Concentration or Furious Interruption, Power Block or Imagined Burden
• Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, any of the Master traits, Deceptive Evasion or Mistrust
• Chaos: Master of Manipulation, Mirror of Anguish, Chaotic Interruption

The pre-specialization build Ross Birdle (or Biddle?) combined the raw power of phantasm damage with interruption. It’s a beautiful hybrid build that I felt that has a lot of potential. ChaosArchangel went through the apex of lockdown builds so you should read up on that. But on this one, the only problem I have is that you can only choose 3 traits when we want to chose so much more. But interrupting while giving ourselves phantasm sustaining damage allows us to cc enemy players while giving out damage from our interrupt attacks and phantasm damage.

Chaotic Inspiration
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgME5AJcA7g~

• Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, Fencer’s Finesse or Evasive Mirror, Deceptive Evasion (or Harmonious Mantras if you chose Restorative Mantras)
• Chaos: Illusionary Defense or Master of Manipulation, Chaotic Dampening, Prismatic Understanding or Bountiful Disillusionment
• Inspiration: Persisting Images (or Restorative Mantras if you chose Harmonious Mantras), Protected Phantasms or Restorative Illusions, Illusionary Inspiration or Mental Defense

This is more on the support side and it might be better to grab a healing armor set or go celestial. This is also where I’ll get a lot of criticism from, but it’s worth noting to try. Our damage is from Phantasmal Fury and the baseline Phantasmal Strength. Now support will come from a plentiful of things. One is to shatter immediately, healing allies and using Bountiful Disillisionment to gain some boons, which we can summon our phantasm for Illusionary Inspiration to spread the boons to nearby allies. OR we can use PU to gain random boons, and then abuse Illusionary Inspiration. Mental Defense is another good option to get ourselves 2 Phantasmal Defenders on the battlefield (one from utility and the other from traits) which will allow us to survive more in teamfights.

Condition Phantasm
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMC3AOoBeQ~

• Dueling: Phantasmal Fury or Duelist’s Discipline, Blinding Dissipation or Evasive Mirror, Deceptive Evasion or Mistrust
• Chaos: Illusionary Defense or Master of Manipulation, Mirror of Anguish or Chaotic Transferrence, Prismatic Understanding
• Illusions: The Pledge or Persistance of Memory, Phantasmal Haste or Maim the Disillusioned, Ineptitude or Malicious Sorcery

If not shattering, then our main phantasm attacks will come from the Phantasmal Mage and the Phantasmal Duelist. The former gives out burns and the other gives out bleeds and confusion. This alone has its own paragraph of what you can do when it comes trait choosing. PU for defense, Deceptive Evasion or Mistrust to keep opponents on their toes. The Illusions line is special because you can choose to generate a lot of phantasms or shatter them, proccing Maim the Disillusioned and possibly Persistance of Memory. Signet of the Ether can help a lot because you gain passive healing from having 3 condition damaging illusions on the battlefield.

Cosmic Offense
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMBtAKsBaQ~

• Domination: Empowered Illusions, Furious Interruption (sadly any Domination master trait doesn’t help us a lot), Imagined Burden
• Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, Fencer’s Finesse or Evasive Mirror, Deceptive Evasion (or Harmonious Mantras if you have mantra skills)
• Illusions: Compounding Power or Persistance of Memory, Phantasmal Haste, Ineptitude (or Master of Fragmentation if you plan to shatter)

This has a few shatter related things, but this focuses more on the traditional phantasm pre-specialization roots. The boost we have is that we get the boosted damage and passive cc from our Imagined Burden trait while we get the means to pump out phantasms faster than ever! This has very few shatter skills, but if we do shatter then, then Persistance of Memory, Master of Fragmentation, and Shattered Concentration will help us a bit.

Shantasm
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMBmAKcBag~

• Domination: Empowered Illusions, Shattered Concentration, Mental Anguish
• Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, Blinding Dissipation, Deceptive Evasion
• Illusions: Compounding Power or Persistance of Memory, Phantasmal Haste, Master of Fragmentation

We already have our phantasm sustaining damage from our Empowered Illusions and Phantasmal Fury! Let’s add more to the fun by having shatter skills as well so that we can bring in the sudden burst when we need to. This combines the shatter burst skills that pre-specialization phantasm builds are hesitant to do plus the phantasm bonus damage that pre-specialization shatter builds don’t have. The fun part in shattering is that Persistance of Memory and Phantasmal Haste will bring our phantasms back quickly, especially if any of our phantasm skills are on low cooldown. If their cooldown are still high, we can use multiple shatter attacks to our benefit.

Conclusion and Notes

I hope I presented a nice arguement to show that Phantasm builds can be versatile. Sadly, this entire thread’s rushed and it’s really more of speculization than researched theorycrafting. I also ignored the other things like armor, sigils, runes, and skills to focus on the traits because the mesmer is very reliant on their traits. The weapon sets should have a separate paragraph because a combination of them generally defines what kind of phantasm users they are.

Anyways, critiques and your (educated) thoughts please! Thanks for reading all of it! May phantasm builds rise!

I’m not sure if this solves the basic problem of shatters destroying our damage dealers. Phantasm builds are based on out-pressuring the opponent over time instead of dealing all of it in one burst. Shattering gives you a short term benefit at the cost of destroying your long term fight prospects.

For me, the only shatter trait relevant here is the one where phantasms respawn the first time they are shattered. Otherwise, I don’t see giving up 2-3 phantasms to obtain a fleeting beneficial effect. My phantasms are there to DPS over time – shattering cripples that DPS.

I realize Anet doesn’t like phantasm builds because they don’t shatter. Well…tough luck for them. Shatter is a key mechanic of a Mesmer, but so are phantasms. Unfortunately they are both antithetical to one another.

Great work on this thread!!!

Wow, can see that a lot of work went in to this, good stuff man.

I really hope threads like this help to encourage and push more variety in PvP. I’m thinking of a sword/sword + Greatsword phantasm build dipping into Dom/Dueling/Illusions.

Domination is mostly for Confounding, which will work amazingly well with offhands swords daze/stun, but I’m betting Furious Interrupt and Imagined Burden will also be pretty useful.

Dueling is to trait swords, but also for a bit more defense in Desperate Decoy and hey.. Deceptive Evasion always helps.

Illusions is easy, compounding power, phant haste, and blind-on-dodge.

for utilities Im still not certain, blink for sure.. But other than that I’m pretty torn. I’m thinking of running Mesmer runes, and likely Signet of Domination + Mimic. Perhaps even Moa Signet. (Signet of GG) If so, I may have to grab the signet trait over Furious Rupt. We shall see.

Oo.. The Psionic Swordsman shall rise.

One of my guildmates uses a phantasm build right now with scepter/pistol and sword/sword, and he does surprisingly well with it, mainly as a side point 1v1er.

I think I’ll definitely consider running a phantasm build sometimes when I solo queue, probably with sword/pistol and GS.

Anyway thanks for the really informative thread! you rock!

Nice post! The new specialization changes make me excited to play my mesmer in PvE again.

I have my doubts.

I have been playing phantasm Mesmer on silverwaste for a short while now and in most situations, the phantasms got wiped before they could pull off a 2nd attack. Phantasm build just lack sustainability in certain high lvl PVE content, and if HoT is as challenging as Anet as hyped it to be, I could see phantasm builds losing some of its’ appeal.

Can’t speak for PvP or WvW though.

Its one of the problems Mesmers have in general. Clones & Phantasms get wiped out by anything that has tons of aoes. & the mesmer needs to be lucky that his clones & phantasms don’t get caught in all of the AoEs.

Phantasm builds WILL get stronger with this. But Shatter builds (especially condi shatter) seem to be getting the biggest buffs out of this.

bhagwad.4281:

I’m not sure if this solves the basic problem of shatters destroying our damage dealers. Phantasm builds are based on out-pressuring the opponent over time instead of dealing all of it in one burst. Shattering gives you a short term benefit at the cost of destroying your long term fight prospects.
…

The big difference is that before you were exceptionally foolish in shattering your Phantasms for what was/is generally poor damage. (Except for a death-blow, but even that was risky many times.)

Now you not only can spec for basically equal to Power-Shatter damage, but also gain a lot of other benefits in the process. Shattering 3 Phants will net you -6s on recharges. Shattering will AoE Blind, heal yourself & cure a condie, get you some Might stacks, etc. Most of these things you simply couldn’t get before at all.

In the case of Condie/Phant builds you can shatter for a big AoE Torment & Confusion spike to add to the Bleed, Confusion, and Burning your Duelist & Mage are putting out. So you’re really a Phantasm & Condie Shatter hybrid, and no longer depend on your Phantasms as your primary source of damage.

That is the big change. The old statement that your damage primarily comes from your Phantasms is simply wrong and outdated. The most effective way to play now will be to keep your Phantasms for ~2 attacks max, then shatter them for a big spike, and then resummon. This will be brutally effective…but will really no longer be a Phantasm build in the traditional sense.

We’re all going to be shattering, just like all Ele’s use Attunements, Guardians Virtues, and Warriors Bursting.

Windwalker.7421:

The old statement that your damage primarily comes from your Phantasms is simply wrong and outdated. The most effective way to play now will be to keep your Phantasms for ~2 attacks max, then shatter them for a big spike, and then resummon. This will be brutally effective…but will really no longer be a Phantasm build in the traditional sense.

We’re all going to be shattering, just like all Ele’s use Attunements, Guardians Virtues, and Warriors Bursting.

Perhaps in a PvP sense this is true, things will certainly be different in PvE where you’ll need to keep an eye on cool downs and shatter when you can resummon, as you’ll likely (in power builds) be taking compounding power over the phantasm recharge trait on shatter.

I think it’s more accurate to call phantasms the sustained damage. There are certainly more incentives to shatter now in all builds even phantasms, which is good and the number of phantasm recharge or resummoning that can be done is great.

My only concern is that people will see mesmers who were previously fighting with one hand tied behind their backs fighting with 2 hands and crying OP. Then the nerf hammer descends.

That makes me extremely curious about Chronophantasma. It essentially allows us to summon, shatter and have the phantasms attack again, shatter, use signet to summon them again..

And then with Continuum Shift in the mix? Possibilities, yo.

That makes me extremely curious about Chronophantasma. It essentially allows us to summon, shatter and have the phantasms attack again, shatter, use signet to summon them again..

And then with Continuum Shift in the mix? Possibilities, yo.

Oh sweet! Posts! Alrighty… time to get to replies…

bhagwad.4281:

I’m not sure if this solves the basic problem of shatters destroying our damage dealers. Phantasm builds are based on out-pressuring the opponent over time instead of dealing all of it in one burst. Shattering gives you a short term benefit at the cost of destroying your long term fight prospects.

For me, the only shatter trait relevant here is the one where phantasms respawn the first time they are shattered. Otherwise, I don’t see giving up 2-3 phantasms to obtain a fleeting beneficial effect. My phantasms are there to DPS over time – shattering cripples that DPS.

I realize Anet doesn’t like phantasm builds because they don’t shatter. Well…tough luck for them. Shatter is a key mechanic of a Mesmer, but so are phantasms. Unfortunately they are both antithetical to one another.

The Illusions traits Persistence of Memory and Illusionist’s Celerity helps a lot with the cooldown reduction of phantasms. Much of our offensive bonus that’s difficult to get in the pre-specialization build is now easily accessible to the post-specialization build. Not only that, but the easy access gives us room to incorporate otehr tactics. So while we have the sustainability damage from phantasms, we can have the option to shatter as well.

Two shatter attacks with the two Illusions traits that I listed means a 12 second cooldown reduction and with Illusionist’s Celerity, we can easily and readily get our phantasms out again. With the shatter burst damage and the phantasm sustainability damage, not only do the “shantasm” mesmer become versatile, but also unpredictable to the enemy becaues they don’t know if that mesmer will keep the phantasms or shatter.

Unknown.3976:

I have my doubts.

I have been playing phantasm Mesmer on silverwaste for a short while now and in most situations, the phantasms got wiped before they could pull off a 2nd attack. Phantasm build just lack sustainability in certain high lvl PVE content, and if HoT is as challenging as Anet as hyped it to be, I could see phantasm builds losing some of its’ appeal.

Can’t speak for PvP or WvW though.

The Inspiration trait Protected Phantasms solve it as the short time Distortion immunity ensures that summoned phantasms get their attack out quickly. Usually what happens in those types of PvE fights where phantasms may die before a second attack’s released is when you’re facing multiple foes, some with potentially damaging AoE attacks.

Now I’ll be set against phantasm builds losing appeal in HoT. In the pre-specialization PvE and even post-specialization PvE, phantasm builds will be sought out for because it’s easy to keep the actual mesmer in track of its defenses and surroundings while the phantasms deal damage. The Mind Wrack shatter attempt against PvE foes wouldn’t be effective as you have to wait for 8-10 seconds to take down a foe while there’s a chance that they can kill your illusions and not work on the burst. The mantra build may not solve it because mesmers have a innately low autoattack damage.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

That makes me extremely curious about Chronophantasma. It essentially allows us to summon, shatter and have the phantasms attack again, shatter, use signet to summon them again..

And then with Continuum Shift in the mix? Possibilities, yo.

I’ve looked at the possibilities of a Chronomancer phantasm build.

Burst Chronophantasma
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMBqAJcBmg~

• Domination: Empowering Illusions, Blurred Inscriptions or Shattered Concentration, Imagined Burden or Mental Anguish
• Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, Blinding Dissipation, Deceptive Evasion
• Chronomancer: Time Catches Up, Improved Alacrity, Chronophantasma

This is an example. This focuses on the quick and powerful shatter but the problem is that you lose the Illusions benefit of phantasm summon cooldowns in exchange for the extra gamit on the Chronophantasma resummon.

Assume a mesmer with three phantasms out on the field. The mesmer decides to shatter with Continuum Shift, which the Chronophantasma trait brings them back. First “burst” comes with the phantasms unleashing their salvo of damage. Second burst comes from the Mind Wrack. Third attack comes with the quick resummoning of the phantasms (if possible) from your two weapons. Then the Continuum Shift ends and the cooldowns have been reverted to back when it was before, which means you can have your phantasms ready out again. It’s a nice possibility with plenty of combo bursts. This doesn’t include the Signet of the Ether, which benefits from the Blurred Inscriptions.

Tormenting Chronophantasma
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMF-ALcBmg~

• Dueling: Duelist’s Discipline, Blinding Dissipation, Deceptive Evasion
• Illusions: The Pledge, Maim the Disillusioned, Ineptitude or Malicious Sorcery
• Chronomancer: Time Catches Up, Improved Alacrity, Chronophantasma

This is another variant, but using conditions and Chronomancer.

The same kind of combination could be applied as if playing a Chronomancer phantasm power mesmer, but you have more options of using Mind Wrack or Cry of Frustration. With this, you can inflict:

• burning from the Phantasmal Mage
• bleeding from the Phantasmal Duelist and autoattacks
• confusion from the Phantasmal Duelist and shatter attacks
• torment from Maim the Disillusioned
• blind from Blinding Dissipation

This doesn’t include the possible other conditions from sigils and runes, like poison.

Unfortunately, it’s going to be difficult creating Chronomancer builds using the Chaos line or the Inspiration line. I’ll have to look more into that.