Guild Wars 2

I take pride in the ability to admit when I’m wrong: I thought DE was for sure going to still be mandatory after the patch, but I’m finding that not to be the case.

I really think duelling is pretty crappy now, with DE competing with other GM’s I’d like to take, with the further nerf to vigor, and most of all the removal of confusing combatants, I really don’t see it as that great a line. Just about any other line gives it a run for it’s money.

It seems with cd reducing traits, persistence of memory and building for it one can have ample illusion generation without DE.

So, I apologize to Anet for complaining about DE still being mandatory when traits were first release. I was wrong and this is a really great change for mesmer, possibly the best change from patch (hard to say though with so many amazing QoL and other changes).

I’m curious as to what you’re able to play without DE and the dueling line. Mentioning persistence of memory leads me to believe some sort of phantasm build, perhaps interrupt phantasm or PU phantasm?

Fay.2357:

I’m curious as to what you’re able to play without DE and the dueling line. Mentioning persistence of memory leads me to believe some sort of phantasm build, perhaps interrupt phantasm or PU phantasm?

Two things I can vouch for are Phantrupt, but you’re replacing DE with the high performance power of Harmonious Mantras in conjunction with Inspiration. And Home point Mantra Bunker which, incidentally, uses Harmonious Mantras and Inspiration. The first uses Dom, the second Chaos. I suppose the point being that, while DE is not necessary (not that I’ve run it since last year), Dueling is still a solid trait line. Even if for the vigor on crit (it makes a difference. It always has).

Not that you couldn’t build without Dueling if you did it right, but yeah. Dueling is solid.

I do play without DE myself and believe to be quite successful without it. But the reason is, I take the amazing mantra trait instead. I haven’t tried without the dueling line. Already Blinding Dissipation is just too strong imo to leave it out