Guild Wars 2

Build Link: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQJARWlsnhO1YZawGNQtGLnG05Tiy1N3xQKKZAWQQB-TpBFABCcBAEvMQDHBgFOEA6s/AAPAAA

Build Specifics: GS (Air, Fire)/Staff (Leeching/Energy), Marauder Amulet, Vampire Runes. Traits are Domination (Up, Up, Down)/Chaos (Down, Down, Down)/Inspiration (Mid, Mid, Up). The build provides around 21k HP, ~2250 Power, ~55% Critical Chance, and ~188% Critical Damage.

I am looking for some feedback on whether or not this could work as is.

The basic idea (which was inspired by watching Chaos Archangel’s Chronomancer game play videos; TY for posting it to your channel!) is that you could use your abilities to control your opponent without needing stealth. This control will work in combination with the build’s many sources of healing (Leeching from Swap, from Proc, and on Heal every 10 seconds plus primary, mantra, and shatter heals), a fair amount of cleansing (on heal and shatters), and good access to boons (nearly all, including stability) with some ability to share to allow me to fight on-point more effectively.

It seems to be working ok so far at my current level of play but I am unsure if I should commit without an outside opinion or two. I know it isn’t exactly WTS bait (not enough mobility) but does this have potential for serious lower to mid level play? Should I make any changes (torn between decoy and mirror images)?

No de, no blinding dissipation, no stealth, and your only condition removal is on restorative illusions.

Basically, this build is food for any celery elery that glances your direction, as well as any thief that goes after you. You’d have a hard time dealing with a longbow warrior as well, or any sort of engie.

The build is relying on the hope that there won’t be any strong cleave pressure, otherwise you’ll rarely get good shatters off. You’re also relying on being able to avoid conditions by leveraging interrupts…but that’s simply not realistic in most environments without some way to disengage.

Fay.2357:

No de, no blinding dissipation, no stealth, and your only condition removal is on restorative illusions.

Basically, this build is food for any celery elery that glances your direction, as well as any thief that goes after you. You’d have a hard time dealing with a longbow warrior as well, or any sort of engie.

The build is relying on the hope that there won’t be any strong cleave pressure, otherwise you’ll rarely get good shatters off. You’re also relying on being able to avoid conditions by leveraging interrupts…but that’s simply not realistic in most environments without some way to disengage.

I appreciate the feedback! Any suggestions on where to go from here? I like the play style this build has, but is there a way to do something similar and get more out of it?

Edit: For utilities I have been running Decoy over Mirror Images and it seems to help by quite a bit having a 3 second stealth. What else could I change/do (change traitlines? sigils? runes? amulets?) in order to keep the play style (I like GS/Staff) but increase effectiveness?

@Fay: Why longbow warrior? With mirror and the Inspiration traits I don’t see wars being a particular threat.

@Happi: You are welcome! So lets take a look at this build..

PROS

• Runes & Sigils seem legit.
• Trait choices are solid.
• Solid defenses via staff & Chaos/Inspiration line.
• Respectable damage.

CONS

• Low clone production.
• Lack of role.
• Few reliable damage sources

To me, what stands out is that you opted to not take the Dueling line despite having Restorative Illusions. Restorative heals you per-clone-shattered so you’re missin out on a bit of survival without it, as well as losing some needed damage via shatters. I think your condition removal is decent enough with just restorative and heals, maybe consider a generosity sigil if condis are still a problem but the general shatter mesmer rule of “don’t get hit” applies here even despite your defenses.

Ironically, this build seems like it’ll rely pretty heavily on shatters both for damage and defense. Diversion (F3) becomes super important to master here; it grants fury for your GS burst and mind wrack shatters, keeps you safe when ganked by stunning, and is a necessary form of damage/defense when it interrupts and applies weakness. Yet another reason you may wanna find a way to worm dueling in here (if I had to chose, I’d replace chaos. None of the traits in chaos are crucial to the build functioning.)

As for lack of role, it seems like a build that is decent at lots of things but master of none. The good thing is that makes you adaptable and able to handle different situations, but it also means you can’t be relied on for anything that anyone else could possibly do better. Everything in this build is average stat-wise, you’re like the Super Mario of mesmers. If you’re happy with that, then awesome, it can definitely work, but if you’re more serious about the build then figure out your plan for when you enter a match.

So.. Damage. We’ve got GS wombo-combo (gs2 + 3 + shatter) / interrupts / phantasms / mind wrack. With such low clone production, very few of that is reliable. You’re gonna have to be pretty skillful to make this build highly effective, but for low/mid tiers I think you’ll be fine.

Also… Decoy > Mirror Images almost all the time.

(If I get a chance, ill try to record a match using this build!)

@Chaos: As you said, this build is highly reliant on being able to have a lot of shattering going on. Longbow warrior is able to easily maintain very high uptime of a rather painful and very large aoe field. That’s a very toxic environment to illusions, and will make it extraordinarily difficult to do any shatters.

@Chaos: Ty for feedback! I agree that decoy has turned out to be much better than Mirror Images. As for traits in Inspiration, I have also had some luck using the Temporal Enchanter trait over Mental Defense for use with Time Warp. The extra time has helped me proc chaos armor more often which is nice for CD’s and it has the handy side effect of helping deal with situations like the fire field mentioned by Fay (clones with resistance gives a small window to get damage in when it is needed, though it is a unreliable as anything but an emergency band aid due to the long CD/short duration of resistance).

Edit: Regarding the jack of all trades style of the build, I have been doing a lot of unranked solo queue recently and given the random nature of my playing partners, it helps to fill niches where needed and leaves me with some options in almost every situation. That being said, I have also had some bad luck where a focused build would have been better off. I’ll have to give that some thought

@Fay: Good point and it is a valid criticism. I usually have to be very careful about how I go about using clones/phantasms with this setup (like you mentioned above; cleave can be rough).

@Both: You both seem pretty sure I could benefit from Dueling over Chaos. If I swap that in, how should I set up my skills (should I replace Mirror with another heal? Is Decoy/Blink/Mantra of Distraction fine, or should I swap out something?) and dueling traits (I am guessing DE and Blinding Dissipation are mandatory, but what should I take for the minor)? Thank you again for the help!