Guild Wars 2

So, I’m trying to build a mes that would be good in a support/heal role in dungeons. Only thing is that the only party heal we seem to have is this regen from phantasms. Fine. Only, I’m not seeing any regen.

Maybe it’s not for me, only allies. Maybe it takes Waaaaay too long to tick. Maybe this is old news in the bugs list, but I just noticed it.

As a mes trying to build for support and heals, we are giving up alot of our ability to help others. As far as I can see, this is about the only way we can actively heal anyone.
It doesn’t seem to do anything. If anyone has any ideas about how to be an active healer without this skill, or why this skill doesn’t do what it says, pls speak up.

If i remember correctly, the regen does work, but 1, it’s only phantasms, obviously and 2, the radius the regen is applied is quite small.

An easy way to test it is to click on a phantasm of yours. the traits that grant a boon to it should show the boons there.

That’s all I know. it worked pre Nov. patch, but i haven’t tried it since.

First, as it was said, range is really short. Then if you have the trait giving your fantasm fury or retaliation, the regen won’t proc until the other buff has worn off. Finally, if you have one of the two other traits that I mentioned earlier, they won’t refresh at all because of phantasmal healing.
If you want to heal other people, you can use a mantra build but beware, it heals up to 5 persons so pets/illusions can get the heal instead of your allies, isn’t it wonderful?

I’ve tried with 3 phantasms Not That Far away, with nothing. I’ll try clicking on the phantasm and seeing what boons.

What’s most frustrating is that I’m putting triats in Inspiration (Healing and Vit) with almost no good reason. I’m working toward reflect off of every focus skill, which I know is tricky anyways, but that’s ok. But along the way, I get this awesome regen skill that helps my party, and totally makes it worthwhile, the 15 pts I spent in Inpiration.

Note: Mesmer don’t need a single point in Inspiration. We are so good at not dying. We are so good at slipping out of death’s grasp and coming back. The ONLY reason to invest in this trait line is to be some kind of support asset to a party. And as far as I can tell, the main draw of this line is not working. Hrumph.

Sabyne.6329:

First, as it was said, range is really short. Then if you have the trait giving your fantasm fury or retaliation, the regen won’t proc until the other buff has worn off.

That is alot to put into a tooltip, so I can understand why they didn’t. Working as intended? Or mes as support/heals, worst idea ever, and we truly have only 3 viable builds centered around selfish damage?

Mesmer’s tend to best play offensive support. Let the Water Ele deal with the healing. We can CC the crap out of pretty much any enemy in the game, so healing for us becomes obselete.

However, if the skill becomes unbugged as you say, then running support might be viable.

It is bugged when used with Vengeful Images, which is unavoidable, or Phantasmal Fury for all phantasms except pDuelist.
So equip an off-hand pistol to see what the trait is like.

Well…..we will never be picked for a party for dps. :/

It’s our gimicks that get the love, if any. The ability to reflect projectiles off of two focus skills, in addition to our feedback utility skill, is very temtping when attempting to support a dungeon party with already admirable cond stacks. And stuff.

What’s even better is that if you trait enough points to get those additional, gimmicky, reflects off the focus, then you will by default get regen off phantasms.

But not really, I guess.

There are alot of good ways to play mes without trying to Reflect All Projectiles while passively healing party mates, but every trait pt spent in this endeavor is another one not spamming the current pvp build.

Make this work.

gymdawg.6347:

Mesmer’s tend to best play offensive support.

The problem with being “offensive support” is that the true offense doesn’t know that they are being supported, and then you are accused of being “carried” through a run.

The trait is not completely broken, but working in a very weird way, so I really do not know if it is intended or not…
I would really like a confirmation from the developers.

It has a long delay on every phantasm EXCEPT Illusionary Duelist

The Duelist can stack regen on itself if you have any boon duration bonuses, and if you stand between two of them you can stack protection and regen to their cap

The regen spreads to the duelists as well so they’ll be more durable, so hopefully they’ll live long enough.

TheComet.6471:

The regen spreads to the duelists as well so they’ll be more durable, so hopefully they’ll live long enough.

In the Inspiration line, there is the option early on to Phantasms 20% more Life, which seems logical and worthwhile if you are providing Regen to you AND your party. I stress AND becuase NO mesmer needs this build. It’s strictly for party support, and as I’m seeing it now, its pretty poor party support.

Ideally, you would add vit to yourself, making yourself more long lasting and your heals good, except you only have self heal.

At 5 pts, get retaliation for phants, great cus you want them to live, why? the send out regen

At 10 pts, can get 20% more phant health, great why? cus they can send out regen.

At 15pts, phantasms send out regen, only not really, only hardly, just kidding.

Wasted 15 trait points, I could be traiting Precision and using a Pistol like everyone else.

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

TheComet.6471:

The regen spreads to the duelists as well so they’ll be more durable, so hopefully they’ll live long enough.

In the Inspiration line, there is the option early on to Phantasms 20% more Life, which seems logical and worthwhile if you are providing Regen to you AND your party. I stress AND becuase NO mesmer needs this build. It’s strictly for party support, and as I’m seeing it now, its pretty poor party support.

Ideally, you would add vit to yourself, making yourself more long lasting and your heals good, except you only have self heal.

At 5 pts, get retaliation for phants, great cus you want them to live, why? the send out regen

At 10 pts, can get 20% more phant health, great why? cus they can send out regen.

At 15pts, phantasms send out regen, only not really, only hardly, just kidding.

Wasted 15 trait points, I could be traiting Precision and using a Pistol like everyone else.

I used to run phantam regen on my old dwayna build with the signet of inspiration ready, I’d use the full stacks of regen and prot I gained from the duelists while everyone else got up close, get up to them and pop my signet to spread the 20s of regen and prot on the whole party.

It was a different build, full mantras built around party healing and support, but it worked nicely in dungeons.

Once you get that second duelist out, it isn’t too hard keeping them alive long enough to stack regen and prot, considering it should only take you about 3-5 sec to get it way up there as far as stacks go

I have done extensive testing with phantasmal healing, and I can tell you exactly how it works.

For this trait, there are two types of phantasms: The pistol phantasm, and everything else. The pistol works properly, and everything else is borked.

With the pistol phantasm, the first aoe regen is applied 3 seconds after summoning, lasts 3 seconds, and is reapplied every 3 seconds. If you have phantasmal fury, giving your phantasms fury, the duelists will have both the fury and the aoe regen. With vengeful images, giving phantasms retal, the duelist will have both retal and aoe regen. With vengeful images AND phantasmal fury, you will only get the fury, but the aoe regen remains the same.

With all other phantasms, the effects are far worse. The vengeful images and phantasmal fury interaction works the same, where fury overwrites retal. However, with phantasmal healing, there is another reaction. The fury or retal buff lasts 10 seconds. After those 10 seconds, the fury or retal buff will go away, never to return. You will get a pulse of aoe regen at this point, 10 seconds after summoning. The regen duration is 5 seconds, and will be refreshed every 10 seconds, for a total of 50% uptime.

I can’t speak to the range of the regen pulse, as this is not something I have tested. Something to note is that with illusionary membrane, you recieve 2 seconds of protection every time regen is applied. With 2 pistol phantasms, this is 100% uptime on protection, but all the other phantasms are far worse, due to the 10 second refresh rate on the buff.

Edit: Something else to mention is that the aoe regen does not apply to the phantasm that generates it, only targets within the aoe radius. Additionally, I actually read your initial post, and if party healing and utility is what you are looking for, I recommend exploring a healing mantra build. The thread discussing that build can be found here :https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Healing-Mesmer-viable-Sure-is/first#post743860

Thanks to TheComet and Pryoatheist for there insight.

Concerning the iDuelist: while I love the pistol and the duelist, remember that this is a build ultimately centered on reflections from a focus. Even though an iDuelist may do well in spreading that regen, this build leaves little to no pts for precision, and ultimately won’t use the duelist.

And on that note, all I can add is that I’m using Staff main, Scepter/Focus alt. I have no problems setting up iWardens or iWarlocks quickly. (most of the harder mobs don’t move alot, and with a tiny distraction, wardens can last a long time), but I’m just not seeing any regen ANYWHERE off of any of them. Granted, I haven’t tried clicking one yet to see if its on but…..

I have np setting up phantasms and keeping them up, and I’m just not seeing any regen on me, anywhere around them, so how could I expect a party to trust in it? I don’t think it works, or should work better. Otherwise, I’ll just get a couple swords and a pistol and stop trying to support a party with a mesmer.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Edit: Something else to mention is that the aoe regen does not apply to the phantasm that generates it, only targets within the aoe radius. Additionally, I actually read your initial post, and if party healing and utility is what you are looking for, I recommend exploring a healing mantra build. The thread discussing that build can be found here :https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Healing-Mesmer-viable-Sure-is/first#post743860

Thanks, but the Vitality line does not promote Mantras. Rather, it promotes Scepters and Focuseseses. Foci.

These traits have apparent synergy that I don’t think is actually happening in the game.

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

Thanks to TheComet and Pryoatheist for there insight.

Concerning the iDuelist: while I love the pistol and the duelist, remember that this is a build ultimately centered on reflections from a focus. Even though an iDuelist may do well in spreading that regen, this build leaves little to no pts for precision, and ultimately won’t use the duelist.

And on that note, all I can add is that I’m using Staff main, Scepter/Focus alt. I have no problems setting up iWardens or iWarlocks quickly. (most of the harder mobs don’t move alot, and with a tiny distraction, wardens can last a long time), but I’m just not seeing any regen ANYWHERE off of any of them. Granted, I haven’t tried clicking one yet to see if its on but…..

I have np setting up phantasms and keeping them up, and I’m just not seeing any regen on me, anywhere around them, so how could I expect a party to trust in it? I don’t think it works, or should work better. Otherwise, I’ll just get a couple swords and a pistol and stop trying to support a party with a mesmer.

I can say that the aoe effect is somewhat limited. You will absolutely never get the regen from a warden that you have dropped on some mob at range. The iWarlock is more of a possibility. Remember, however, that the first pulse will occur at 10 seconds in, and I personally almost never let my phantasms live that long, with the exception of wardens occasionally. One last note is that as I had mentioned, the aoe regen is NOT applied to the phantasm itself. The only way you can tell if the regen is going is by standing next to the phantasm and looking at your buffs.

Ya….I’m really starting to think that this is a terrible mesmer idea.

Strong trait ideas that just aren’t working.

I mean, I’m never far from my phantasms….not in any real sense of the word. We are always in the thick together, and I’m not getting any regen at all from them.

It’s tricky enough to place reflections, which is what this build is going towards, but if I have to drop a Warden right on top of an allie to heal like 300 hp, then this trait line is a total bust.

I’ve already tried mesmer with pretty much every other weapon combo and trait setup, and I like them all. This is just the one I wanted to work, and I don’t think it does.

If you’re really hellbent on healing, I’d suggest running Water/Flock/Dwayna runes with restorative mantras and Mantra of Healing+Mantra of Pain.

You can pile on AoE heals using that, but it takes some getting used to.

TheComet.6471:

If you’re really hellbent on healing, I’d suggest running Water/Flock/Dwayna runes with restorative mantras and Mantra of Healing+Mantra of Pain.

You can pile on AoE heals using that, but it takes some getting used to.

Ya….after looking more into that Mantra healing thread, I see the wisdom of your words. Truth is though, that I was more hellbent on reflecting things 3x as many ways as I can now.
But to do this, I have to commit 20 trait pts in Vit and Heals, 20 points I can’t use anywhere else, even though it’d be a Good Idea to do so.

Ok, so let’s say you’ve given up the dream to be a GS spanker, a Sw/Pistol phant spammer.

Let’s say that you just want to reflect things with your focus, cus it Might Be Neat and Stuff.

That’s all good cus you put 20! trait points into a line that :

Grants retaliation to phantasms….great cus I hear they migh grant regen to allies.

Gives 20% more hp to phantasms….great cus I hear they might grant regen to allies.

Phantasms grant regen to allies….only they don’t. Just kidding, unless you are on top of them every other Sunday.

AND THEN, you can get some sketchy reflection skills. THAT NO ONE WILL EVER GET OR USE!

Why would they? 20 trait points down the toilet.

Make it work!

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

TheComet.6471:

If you’re really hellbent on healing, I’d suggest running Water/Flock/Dwayna runes with restorative mantras and Mantra of Healing+Mantra of Pain.

You can pile on AoE heals using that, but it takes some getting used to.

Ya….after looking more into that Mantra healing thread, I see the wisdom of your words. Truth is though, that I was more hellbent on reflecting things 3x as many ways as I can now.
But to do this, I have to commit 20 trait pts in Vit and Heals, 20 points I can’t use anywhere else, even though it’d be a Good Idea to do so.

Ok, so let’s say you’ve given up the dream to be a GS spanker, a Sw/Pistol phant spammer.

Let’s say that you just want to reflect things with your focus, cus it Might Be Neat and Stuff.

That’s all good cus you put 20! trait points into a line that :

Grants retaliation to phantasms….great cus I hear they migh grant regen to allies.

Gives 20% more hp to phantasms….great cus I hear they might grant regen to allies.

Phantasms grant regen to allies….only they don’t. Just kidding, unless you are on top of them every other Sunday.

AND THEN, you can get some sketchy reflection skills. THAT NO ONE WILL EVER GET OR USE!

Why would they? 20 trait points down the toilet.

Make it work!

I actually run a build in dungeons and some pvp right now that is 0/0/20/20/30. It is a massively defense focused build with full soldiers (power/vit/tough) on every piece of gear I have, coming out around 1800-1900 toughness and 26000 hp. I won’t go into it much right now, as I’m working on a guide for it that I’ll post soon, but those traits certainly do get some use and utility, that’s for sure. They aren’t a complete bust.

Pyroatheist.9031:

I actually run a build in dungeons and some pvp right now that is 0/0/20/20/30. It is a massively defense focused build with full soldiers (power/vit/tough) on every piece of gear I have, coming out around 1800-1900 toughness and 26000 hp. I won’t go into it much right now, as I’m working on a guide for it that I’ll post soon, but those traits certainly do get some use and utility, that’s for sure. They aren’t a complete bust.

Well ya, I almost never die or not rally. Thing is, I did as well before the Vit and Healing. I mean, I really don’t think I need the extra vit at all. I’m only in the line for the support traits, which is my issue.

But ya, we can tank. Even without the Inspiration line.

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I actually run a build in dungeons and some pvp right now that is 0/0/20/20/30. It is a massively defense focused build with full soldiers (power/vit/tough) on every piece of gear I have, coming out around 1800-1900 toughness and 26000 hp. I won’t go into it much right now, as I’m working on a guide for it that I’ll post soon, but those traits certainly do get some use and utility, that’s for sure. They aren’t a complete bust.

Well ya, I almost never die or not rally. Thing is, I did as well before the Vit and Healing. I mean, I really don’t think I need the extra vit at all. I’m only in the line for the support traits, which is my issue.

But ya, we can tank. Even without the Inspiration line.

The key with my setup is 100% uptime on retaliation, which is where a majority of your PvP damage comes from, and a massive amount of PvE as well, against certain types of mobs.

In a lot of testing vs another guy in sPvP, his kill log was consistently showing 13k-18k damage from retaliation during the fight.

Pyroatheist.9031:

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I actually run a build in dungeons and some pvp right now that is 0/0/20/20/30. It is a massively defense focused build with full soldiers (power/vit/tough) on every piece of gear I have, coming out around 1800-1900 toughness and 26000 hp. I won’t go into it much right now, as I’m working on a guide for it that I’ll post soon, but those traits certainly do get some use and utility, that’s for sure. They aren’t a complete bust.

Well ya, I almost never die or not rally. Thing is, I did as well before the Vit and Healing. I mean, I really don’t think I need the extra vit at all. I’m only in the line for the support traits, which is my issue.

But ya, we can tank. Even without the Inspiration line.

The key with my setup is 100% uptime on retaliation, which is where a majority of your PvP damage comes from, and a massive amount of PvE as well, against certain types of mobs.

In a lot of testing vs another guy in sPvP, his kill log was consistently showing 13k-18k damage from retaliation during the fight.

Not to belittle retaliation, but we can keep Chaos Armor up almost 100% without traits, as well as confusion ( which hurts when acted upon, similer to retal) without traits.

Isn’t tanking with retal more of a Guardian thing? Why would a mesmer do this when they can just avoid hits?

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

Pyroatheist.9031:

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I actually run a build in dungeons and some pvp right now that is 0/0/20/20/30. It is a massively defense focused build with full soldiers (power/vit/tough) on every piece of gear I have, coming out around 1800-1900 toughness and 26000 hp. I won’t go into it much right now, as I’m working on a guide for it that I’ll post soon, but those traits certainly do get some use and utility, that’s for sure. They aren’t a complete bust.

Well ya, I almost never die or not rally. Thing is, I did as well before the Vit and Healing. I mean, I really don’t think I need the extra vit at all. I’m only in the line for the support traits, which is my issue.

But ya, we can tank. Even without the Inspiration line.

The key with my setup is 100% uptime on retaliation, which is where a majority of your PvP damage comes from, and a massive amount of PvE as well, against certain types of mobs.

In a lot of testing vs another guy in sPvP, his kill log was consistently showing 13k-18k damage from retaliation during the fight.

Not to belittle retaliation, but we can keep Chaos Armor up almost 100% without traits, as well as confusion ( which hurts when acted upon, similer to retal) without traits.

Isn’t tanking with retal more of a Guardian thing? Why would a mesmer do this when they can just avoid hits?

Funny you should mention chaos armor, as I additionally have chaos armor up over 50% of the time, and when you combine a multihit combo with both retaliation and chaos armor, it deals impressive damage.

As far as it being a guardian thing, it is a whoever can have retaliation uptime thing. I actually didn’t make the build for retaliation or chaos armor, I built it for raw damage mitigation, as I have a pretty decent protection uptime as well. No class in the game has the same unbelievable damgae mitigation that mesmer does, between protection, illusions, 3% less damage per illusion, phantasmal defender, and evasiveness, so I decided to make it extreme with a bunker build, and it worked fantastically. After the fact, I noticed that I can easily get 100% retaliation uptime, and high chaos armor uptime, without sacrificing anything in the build. Guardians can get 100% retal uptime…but it requires significant sacrifices in utilities and traits.

Edit: I saw you compared retaliation to confusion. Multi-hit attacks such as a flame thrower, or rapid fire from a ranger will trigger 1 hit of confusion, but will take retaliation/chaos armor damage from each distinct hit. There is only 1 mob in the entire game that confusion is a viable damage source on, and that mob is the subject alpha boss in CoE.

Soooo, I guess regen on phants is a fail. Gonna respec to pwr/prec and GS/Sw+Sw for fun I guess, and give up on some convaluted dungeon support spec. Just hope these pug guys will not kick me.

I also tend to mix “support” into my builds, and I found an interesting way to add it to my mesmer.

- To your “reflect” tactic: iWarden reflects itself, the trait is useless here. The curtain has a limited altitude and like 50% of the projectiles just fly over it – even with the trait.

- To the “regeneration on phantasms”: It’s a nice trait but far from good, rather a “nice to have”. It’s very situational (except for the iDuelist) and mainly works on immobile targets with long range Phantasms. So for non-staff users like me, it’s only the super-situational iDisenchanter and the trident one. Sad, but true.

- Support Mesmer:
Mesmer can provide several types of support: Heal, Combos and Aggro taker. Conditional removal and reflect is too situational (high CD or unreliable phantasms).
For combos, just use staff/ focus, feedback, nullfield, veil and time warp.
For heal the most effective is Inspiration X (heal allies on mantra cast) + mantra of pain. this automatically grants your phantasms regeneration. Comboed with Inspiration IV (remove contion on heal) + mantra of recovery you make yourself almost immune to conditions.
For aggro taking you need toughness, power and Dueling X (clone on dodge). Even if the aggro system is awkward, having always 3 illusions can provide meatshields for your party, especially with scepter #1 on high-hp targets.

Personally I have 30 Dueling (Dueling X and Dueling 15 and Dueling XI for mantras), 5 Chaos (nc), 20 Inspiration, 15 Illustion (for condidmg and confusion) with GS/ sc+fo. I consider it a bleed/support build.

It “works”:

• Around Phantasms only, and only in melee range around them.
• Applied every 10s, except from the Duelist, there it correctly re-applies just as it runs out (every 3s).
• Blocked by Phantasm Retaliation for the first 10 seconds.
• Blocks Phantasm Retaliation after the first 10 seconds.
• A few more bugs we’re probably not aware of yet.

So yes, every 40-60 minutes you might see some 2-digit or low-3-digit green numbers above a friendly player. If that’s worth it, all awesome. I actually specced out of Inspiration in the faint hope that if enough do, the devs might see no one is taking Inspiration any more in their stats.