Guild Wars 2

Looking at the changes, it seems to me like the new meta build is going to be

10 (empowered illusions)
20 (phantasmal fury, duelist discipline)
0
25 (glamour mastery, warden’s feedback)
15 (compounding power)

What does everyone else think?

Yep, that’s pretty much the best setup for PvE; possibly excepting Blade Training instead of Duelist’s Discipline depending on your choice of offhand.

The other viable setup is switching 5 points from Dueling to Illusions for Phantasmal Haste, for maximum Warden uptime; or to Inspiration for your choice of third trait — there are so many good ones.

With Duelist Discipline fighting a 5 point war with Phantasmal Haste, I’d probably side with that. They fixed that 100% finisher bug, right?

Clockwork Bard.3105:

With Duelist Discipline fighting a 5 point war with Phantasmal Haste, I’d probably side with that. They fixed that 100% finisher bug, right?

Yes, but of course duelist discipline can always be replaced by blade training, which may be more useful overall (more blurred frenzy is always good). Maybe with Sw/Sw, Sw/F instead of Sw/P. Sw/F.

Of course if you go with Phanstasmal Haste is bleed on crit still worth it? or can those 5 points go to better use?

Yes they did, but it’s still one of the more “safe to place” phantasms, which is why I like it, especially in fractals.

I’m thinking about those 5 points and what would be optimal, and their placement could be easily debated. It seems the base phantasm build will be; 10/15/0/25/15, with 5 points to place in dueling, inspiration, or illusions based on preference. I, personally, am leaning to 10/20/0/25/15, though, since P.Haste doesn’t work on OH sword.

Just a note, the max reflect mantra build will likely remain unchanged at 10/30/0/20/10.

TooBz.3065:

Clockwork Bard.3105:

With Duelist Discipline fighting a 5 point war with Phantasmal Haste, I’d probably side with that. They fixed that 100% finisher bug, right?

Yes, but of course duelist discipline can always be replaced by blade training, which may be more useful overall (more blurred frenzy is always good). Maybe with Sw/Sw, Sw/F instead of Sw/P. Sw/F.

Of course if you go with Phanstasmal Haste is bleed on crit still worth it? or can those 5 points go to better use?

I feel like if your two phantasms of choice are iWarden and iDuelist then Sharper Images is always going to have a modest appeal. I personally try to avoid it when I’m not putting any emphasis into conditions until we know more about condition purging past the stack cap. I don’t want to be responsible for killing some condition build’s damage. But in general, I always got the gist from these forums that even with the bleed cap and zerker gear, it supposedly contributes a meaningful amount of damage.

Clockwork Bard.3105:

TooBz.3065:

Clockwork Bard.3105:

With Duelist Discipline fighting a 5 point war with Phantasmal Haste, I’d probably side with that. They fixed that 100% finisher bug, right?

Yes, but of course duelist discipline can always be replaced by blade training, which may be more useful overall (more blurred frenzy is always good). Maybe with Sw/Sw, Sw/F instead of Sw/P. Sw/F.

Of course if you go with Phanstasmal Haste is bleed on crit still worth it? or can those 5 points go to better use?

I feel like if your two phantasms of choice are iWarden and iDuelist then Sharper Images is always going to have a modest appeal. I personally try to avoid it when I’m not putting any emphasis into conditions until we know more about condition purging past the stack cap. I don’t want to be responsible for killing some condition build’s damage. But in general, I always got the gist from these forums that even with the bleed cap and zerker gear, it supposedly contributes a meaningful amount of damage.

I think this is best answered by the following question: do any other class zerker meta builds have bleeds built into their trait distributions? If not (and all I know is that warriors, guards, and eles do not, I am oblivious about the other classes), then the bleeds are not going to override anything else and are a damage boost without hindering other players’ damage. Someone has done the numbers before, and they do contribute meaningful damage. Additionally, the 50 points in precision is a damage boost (for both you and the phantasms) if you aren’t hitting the crit cap without them. Heck, even just the iDuelist makes the bleeds valuable, I think.

If you didn’t take it, then you have 10/10/0/25/20 base, which leaves 5 points to place anywhere, where your choices, really, are power, dueling, and inspiration. 50 precision and 5% crit damage and bleeds is > 50 power. I, personally, would also value them more than any of the other inspiration traits.

Now that evrryone agrees on mesmers being pottentially a high dps class, and mantras being buffed, I will try droping traited focus ( still using as a projectile blocker plus feedback) in order to achive max dps at all times.
10/30/0/10/20 or 20/30/0/0/20

yeah yeah blasphemy, I know

Reflects are a huge part of our DPS, specially in fractals.

While I’ll probably run 0/20/0/30/20 (phantasm oriented w/ both glamour traits for best reflect uptime), here’s a build I will run when I don’t need glamour traits.

10/15/0/25/20
- Empowered Illusions (15% phantasm damage)
- Phantasmal Fury (more crits, more dps)
- Persisting Images & Signet of Illusions (phantasms survive till skill goes off CD)
- Wardens Feedback (reflects always good to have)
- Phantasmal Strength (15% phantasmal damage)
- Compounding Power (9% self damage)
- Phantasmal Haste (Duelist hits every 6.5s vs 7.5s, Warden 1.5s faster too)

For times where I have trouble keeping 3 Duelists up, I’ll trade Phantasmal Haste for Duelists Discipline, aka 10/20/0/25/15.

If they keep the traits the way they are now, 10/20/0/25/15 will be the only build you will ever need in PvE.

Even I will go phantasm, if you just can get every single trait. It is too good.

On the other side, I have way more fun on my D/D hybrid Necro lately. I will probably store my Mesmer. I do not want to fall asleep on my keyboard, while my phantasms play the game for me…

Bumbler.7581:

Just a note, the max reflect mantra build will likely remain unchanged at 10/30/0/20/10.

I think the best upgrade may be 0/30/0/25/15. Reflects aren’t affected by your power, so you would only notice a small lost of your DPS through phantasms and autoattack.
But in exchange, you can have a iWarden every 15s and a iSwordman every 12s.

Probably still staying on my 20/20/0/30/0. I see no benefits for traiting illusions. :/ However still gonna test something like 0/20/0/30/20

You see no benefit in 20% faster cooldown on phantasms? And 20% on any skill that is related to an illusion.

Someone must have cast blind on you. ^^

Wasn’t it 25% faster phantasms and 20% less CD on illusionskills?

To be honest – yes I see very small benefits in those traits.

I’m playing with sigil of battle so I switch weapons every 10-12 sec to keep up my 210 free power.
Therefore only the first phantasm gets affected by 20% less CD to summon, all others have 20 sec CD automaticly. There is also Staff 2, Sword 3 and GS 2 that can be casted faster, but they are anyway castable twice in a rotation especially Sword 3 waiting for Sword 2.

Then there is the + 25% attack speed for phantasms. But it’s at 20 points in illusion. Uhm … if I go 20 in dominion I gain 200 power with results into + 8%~ damage for phantasms and me. Also I got + 17.25% damage for phantasms (+ 2.25% cuz it stacks multiplicative with Illusion 25). Together they math with the +25% attack speed, jsut I benefit more.

Also: another Inspiration passive + vulnerability wich is much more usful for the party than some tiny additional damage from phantasms. And don’t forget condition duration wich also affects vulnerability, cribble and bleed from phantasms.

I have to correct myself – I actually see no benefits in traiting Illusions :s Correct me if I’m wrong – willing to learn.

Sorry, my typing failed and the brain was not up before the first coffee.

What I meant was that you can cast phantasms 20% faster. If you double trait the phantasms, they will have a cooldown of 12 sec or less, which would even fit in your weapon swap build.

Exception would be the warden, he has a base cooldown of 25 and 15 sec double traited.

I dunno the cd of all phants but I guess it won’t work for phants like the warden? Still – it’s just one point you maybe can make. So I don’t say “no benefits” anymore, I better say “very small benefits” :P

I dunno the cd of all phants but I guess it won’t work for phants like the warden? Still – it’s just one point you maybe can make. So I don’t say “no benefits” anymore, I better say “very small benefits” :P

The forums are sort of broken for firefox, my edit took forever to go in. As said, the warden is the only exception.

I dunno the cd of all phants but I guess it won’t work for phants like the warden? Still – it’s just one point you maybe can make. So I don’t say “no benefits” anymore, I better say “very small benefits” :P again ^^

You can nearly double your phantasm DPS in a switch build, how can this just be a “very small benefit”?

I m using the obvious 10/20/0/25/15 but totally with blade training.
Faster BF is too good to ignore…

Phantasmal haste is nice but not as nice as a 15% damage from phantasms.

I wonder btw it there is any adept trait better than compounding power ._.

LordByron.8369:

I wonder btw it there is any adept trait better than compounding power ._.

Nope… ^^ At least not for PvE.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

You can nearly double your phantasm DPS in a switch build, how can this just be a “very small benefit”?

Double my phantasm DpS? Do you shatter your phantasms or what? :o

LordByron.8369:

I m using the obvious 10/20/0/25/15 but totally with blade training.
Faster BF is too good to ignore…

Phantasmal haste is nice but not as nice as a 15% damage from phantasms.

I wonder btw it there is any adept trait better than compounding power ._.

Just don’t take the crappy pistol and go in with a real man weapon with chest hair – 2nd sword. The phantasm damage is about the same (calculating combo finisher, bleed, cd, dps), just that it won’t miss an enemy that runs out of range or gets meatshielded by another mob. Also dat block with daze <3

No, by having 2 out in roughly 24 secs than one ever 20 sec. ^^

Summon iDuelist – swap – summon iSwordsman/iWarden – swap – Summon iDuelist. 3 phantasms in 12 sec. With dual CD reduction traits you are at your peak DPS faster and have much easier time keeping them up (can summon replacements sooner in case one goes down). IC is too good to pass up.

I could argue now that we just can have 3 phantasms but that would be totally wrong in practice.

Phantasms die and you will have yours up thats true. It seems very viable with this results.
If they don’t die 20/20/0/30/0 seems better, but normally they will die, especially when the target dies (elite mobs).

Hm it also depends on the weapon wearing, for example 3 phantasms with a staff, gs, ohsword, scepter isn’t desirable since you will destroy them anyway.

Some phantasms have too long cd even with doubletrait. And what do you have doubletraited? Sword and Focus, so actually just sword means swordsman since focus has a 25 sec cd (-40% =15).

So you can summon 2 swordmen, 1 X, 2 swordmen, 1 X. Not bad to be honest, but I would never give up my vulnerability or the 3rd inspiration trait. I even would like to have a 4th one snif

60s worth of single iDuelist damage:

no PH, 7000*60/7.5 = 56.0k (933/sec)
w/ PH, 7000*60/6.5 = 64.6k (1077/sec)

That’s 15% more DPS. Do not underestimate PH.

Also, I missed to mention that IC also applies to Disenchanter, Decoy, and similar utility skills. It really is one of the best and most important traits to get.

frifox.5283:

60s worth of single iDuelist damage:

no PH, 7000*60/7.5 = 56.0k (933/sec)
w/ PH, 7000*60/6.5 = 64.6k (1077/sec)

That’s 15% more DPS. Do not underestimate PH.

1. theory – there are plenty of situations where a phantasm dies after one attack, iDuelist even during sometimes
2. 17.25% more damage from dominion seems to be more useful, especially if 1. happens

:)

well i’m still stuck to good old 20/20/0/30/30
swapping nullfield with feedback depending on situation and see no point to change it.

link http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgIQNAR8dlwziqHTTiGa9IxpHM35LnkCVn6SKwNvB-jgCBYfERzkFwUBDRL5pIaslhFRjVVLyqFYKXCpGxER1eDYSBwiwK-e

It’s nice to have 100 trait points.

So what is the best 3rd utility skill besides blink and feedback?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Builds-The-Instance-Mesmer-PvE

XeRauS.1073:

So what are the most optimal utility skills for the current phantasm build meta?

You’ll change utils based on the encounter. I usually try to keep signet of illusions on my bar, but other than that one, everything changes. Feedback, mantra of condition removal, stability mantra, disenchanter, signet of inspiration, they all go on at some point in some encounters.