Guild Wars 2

Kind of like my question on phantasmal disenchanter, does anyone use phantasmal defender as a utility slot?

There are lots of builds that get a defender based on the inspiration grandmaster trait. Just curious if anyone also ever slots this.

Just like disenchanter, this would be so much nicer if the cast time were a little faster. I’m hoping the balance changes find a way to make some of these utilities more appealing.

Just like the Disenchanter, I really want to like this ability. For the exact same reasons it just doesn’t work. The cast time is too long and being tied to a target (that can block or dodge even casting it) makes it tough to use in any type of team fight.

When you want this the most is when there are multiple enemies. Well hope you pick a good one because if it dies you just lost this.

I’d love to see the utility phantasms work more like pets and go after your current target and stick around until killed/shattered. Not be based on the target at the time you cast it.

Both these need active components (along with every other phantasm skill) and reduced cast times.

With chrono and shield defender, phantasmal defender pales in comparison.

Yup – I use the shield phantasm.

The question is about slotting the phantasmal defender as a utility.

When you have the Persistence of Memory trait plus Chronophantasma trait, having the ability to cast the defender as a utility means lowering the cooldown on your shield phantasm, your other weapon set phantasm, and the Mental Defense trait by an additional 4 seconds. The phantasm itself can soak up around 8500 damage in pvp, so it can, in theory, help if you are dying from direct damage (which is my challenge with Carrion amulet).

On top of all that, with Persisting Images, you actually get a fair bit of damage from the retaliation (when you get hit, damage goes to the defender and it procs retal in addition to when the defender gets damage from being hit).

So the theoretical synergy is great. But the cast time is so brutally long that it’s really hard for me to use in pvp matches.

Just wondering if anyone has made it work…

I like to use it for my shatter rotation in open world PvE on my chronomancer when I am lazy.

And I am always lazy.