Guild Wars 2

Hey guys out there I’d like to start a discussion on the traitlines we chose besides Chronomancy. (Regarding an Alacrity Build using “All’s well that ends well” “Improved Alacrity” and “Chronophantasma”.)

Here is what I’ve figured out yet:
Domination: (damage)

• 15% more phantasm damage
• up to 20 stacks vulnerability from breaking breakbars with a 4 person 2Diversion"
• up to 12.5% more damage from vulnerability
• damage on interrupt for trashmobs OR up to 30% more MW damage on broken bosses

Dueling: (damage)

• 20% more crit for phantasms
• a bit of vigor (yay)
• up to 150 more ferocity
• 75% selfbuff fury uptime
• Grandmaster choice is hard imo (not using mantras/conditions and not wanting to overwrite my 3rd phantasm o.O)

Chaos: (support)

• up to 9% damage reduction (or is Illusionary defense calculted by multiplication as well?)
• staff cooldowns and protection
• group buffs from shattering

Inspiration: (support)

• additional condition removal
• more phantasm health/feedback on reviving
• shareable distortion
• focus reflect/heal on shatter
• pDefender for free or boonshare on phantasms

Illusions: Utility

• phantasm recharge on shattering
• less cooldown on illusions
• faster phantasm attack rate
• faster shatter cooldowns (more alacrity and more continuums)
• #bettershatter

ATM I always stick to running Chronomancy, Dueling and Illusions.
Reasoning behind this is to have as much alacrity uptime on myself and on my allies and keep quite a good average damage.

Illusions gives me the opportunity to spawn more phantasms (more frequently) since I can almost recast any phantasm after having 2×3phantasms shattered in a row (12s cooldown reduction). Also I can timewarp more frequently because of my shattercooldowns being 15% faster from this line. 20% phantasm attack rate … I use this one because of the avenger (again for more alacrity) and finally we have #bettershatters in this line which allows us to F3 groups of trashmobs <3.

With dueling I am not sure if that is the right choice. I am using a sword ofc and that’s why I usually want to take Fencer’s Finesse to decrease cooldowns and increase damage. But I have no idea if the domination line would be a better choice here. Not only it provides a 15% phantasm attack boost but also a 12.5% damage boost for myself and the opportunity to highly increase shatterburst on broken enemies.

What would you guys say?
Should I even drop illusions and go with Chrono Duel Dom? Or should I go for the support abilities in inspiration? O.o I really have a hard time deciding what to use everything has a lot of pros and cons >_<

EDIT: I should add that in all cases I am refering to a berserker/assassin gear mesmer =)

I’m taking a somewhat unorthodox approach for PvE of Chr/Cha/Ins. Bountiful Disillusionment, Mental Defence, and Chronophantasma. Also take Restorative Illusions and Chaotic Dampening.

The point of the build is to provide strong survivability via Protection, condi cleanse, and shatter heals. Especially with liberal application of Distortion. I found that I was getting by okish in a lot of situations with a more damage-oriented build, but I was dying a little too much during events with a lot of splash damage. In group fights, the point is to stay alive and keep the Alacrity flowing to your allies. With some condi cleanse as icing, of course. You can even take Restorative Mantras and Mantra of Pain if you want to dish out some healing.

I find it also helps with some of the more difficult pulls while soloing, but YMMV on those.

Recently, I use Chr/Cha/Ins setup and sometimes swap Chaos for Domination or Illusion if I want more damage or more shatters or underwater combat (until wells are usable in the water). When facing new enemies and while still not knowing much of their techniques, I tend to play more defensive before going more offensive, in addition to what Tobascodagama has mentioned. I like having a stunbreaker or stability and condition cleanser (directly or indirectly via traits like Mender’s Purity) in my bar. Out of all the wells, I find Well of Eternity to be least useful for me due to it forcing me to stay in it to get heal/condition removal compare to other heals that I can use while moving around; I feel I gain more if I take other heals, including Ether Feast depending on which traits I take.

I want to mention that Blink helps alot in the new zones and Mimic allows one extra well usage so I tend to take Master of Manipulation instead of Illusionary Defense (Mirror is a nice quick heal and reflect if not taking Feedback). With mobs having lots of CCs, Mirror of Anguish tends to help out (if I’m not using staff). In Domination, you can bring signets to provide condition removal and distortion (which the latter synergizes with Inspiring Distortion and Illusionary Inspiration traits).

The nice thing about Chronomancer is that every spec has a usage to it, making lots of variety of builds….and indecisiveness for us. XD

Edit: What do you enjoy doing more? Shatter? Being more supportive or having utilities? Interrupting?

Edit2: Sorry, I’ll explain a bit more of Chaos vs Dom vs Illu when it comes to utilities and if I keep Inspiration and Chronomancer traits. I usually keep 2 utility wells and the heal and 3rd utility is:

- Chaos: Mirror and Blink or Mimic
- Dom: Signet of the Ether and Midnight Signet or Signet of Inspiration
- Illu: Ether Feast and Decoy or Mirror Images

I’ve updated my dulfy guide on my own thoughts on the chrono in pve.
What it basically comes down to is that for long fights you’ve made a great choice. Because of the difficulty in traitchoice with dueling(plus melee dependency of fencers finesse), domination comes out slightly better than dueling, but if you like your vigor, you should stay with dueling.

Illusions is great for the shatter reduction and phantasmal haste/compounding power both got buffed with the reduced damage change and chronophantasma.
Especially short fights can use dueling+domination as you can spam alacrity ooc through shatters to decrease CS cooldown, and phantasmal haste loses functionality in fights without a decent duration.

Inspiration can be slotted later on if you really need a lot of reflection, but I’d suggest attempting to master a quadrouple feedback first with mimic&CS. Inspiration can replace domination/dueling if you want enormous reflect uptime with phantasmal haste, but you can replace illusions instead if you want to exchange some for damage.

Mesmers have switched traits frequently since forever, the static chrono line simply makes things a bit easier.

EDIT: for clarification if you’re not aware, I’m referring to the class guide on dulfy which presumes a dungeon/fractal/(raid) scenario, implying a standard level of support coming from partymemembers.

Sanderinoa.8065:

I’ve updated my dulfy guide on my own thoughts on the chrono in pve.
What it basically comes down to is that for long fights you’ve made a great choice. Because of the difficulty in traitchoice with dueling(plus melee dependency of fencers finesse), domination comes out slightly better than dueling, but if you like your vigor, you should stay with dueling.

Illusions is great for the shatter reduction and phantasmal haste/compounding power both got buffed with the reduced damage change and chronophantasma.
Especially short fights can use dueling+domination as you can spam alacrity ooc through shatters to decrease CS cooldown, and phantasmal haste loses functionality in fights without a decent duration.

Inspiration can be slotted later on if you really need a lot of reflection, but I’d suggest attempting to master a quadrouple feedback first with mimic&CS. Inspiration can replace domination/dueling if you want enormous reflect uptime with phantasmal haste, but you can replace illusions instead if you want to exchange some for damage.

Mesmers have switched traits frequently since forever, the static chrono line simply makes things a bit easier.

EDIT: for clarification if you’re not aware, I’m referring to the class guide on dulfy which presumes a dungeon/fractal/(raid) scenario, implying a standard level of support coming from partymemembers.

Great guide as usual! I do have a couple, curious questions. What are your thoughts of Chaos traitline? When taking Mimic, wouldn’t Master of Manipulation trait be useful to reduce it down to 72 secs? Plus, there is Bountiful Disillusionment trait for a stability and boons. I expect the trait to be more defensive/support oriented and perhaps it’s seen more in Pvp/Wvw, right?

Edit: Some typo. >.<

@phloww
I’ve followed the chaosline conversations and mimic being reduced is definitely great. the increased boon duration is of course also beneficial. Sadly though, alacrity isn’t affected by boon duration, and the decrease of mimic is an 18 seconds difference which quite simply doesn’t quite compete against all of the bonusses added by the other traitlines.

However the main reason I disagree with using chaos is the addition of the revenant. The kitten class supports with 16 might just by standing still, and already boosts our boon duration by 50%. That all should allow for perma might and ~permaquickness already.

Chaos may find its way in less organized groups and in other game modes it definitely will(where staff is more relevant), but in PvE it hasn’t got enough benefits to compete.

I think Phantasmal Haste is relatively useless with Chrono. With Chronophantasma and Persistence of Memory you can easily keep resetting your Phantasm attack CDs with Shatters and reconjurings without giving them the chance to get a second attack in, Haste or no, which means it’s wasted. And even if they do get a second attack in unless you Shatter them before they’d normally get their second attack without Haste it is again wasted.

You may get some use out of it with Swordsman with its really high attack rate, but IMO you’re better off taking Shattered Strength given the amount of Shattering you’d do.

Embolism.8106:

I think Phantasmal Haste is relatively useless with Chrono. With Chronophantasma and Persistence of Memory you can easily keep resetting your Phantasm attack CDs with Shatters and reconjurings without giving them the chance to get a second attack in, Haste or no, which means it’s wasted. And even if they do get a second attack in unless you Shatter them before they’d normally get their second attack without Haste it is again wasted.

You may get some use out of it with Swordsman with its really high attack rate, but IMO you’re better off taking Shattered Strength given the amount of Shattering you’d do.

Good point, I’ll have to test it out a bit but that is indeed the more shatter heavy approach, it was already documented as an alternative choice. I personally like keeping up compounding power’s 9% and being able to focus on the fight more than constantly shattering and resummoning phantasms.

With the revenant argument, however, shattered strength is just as useless as haste. Next to that, as chronophantasma makes phantasms attack in relative uniformity, and swordsmen are the main phantasm for PvE, shatters can be timed. By using a shatter just after the phantasm stopped attacking, phantasmal haste still has a noticeable effect.

Sanderinoa.8065:

@phloww
I’ve followed the chaosline conversations and mimic being reduced is definitely great. the increased boon duration is of course also beneficial. Sadly though, alacrity isn’t affected by boon duration, and the decrease of mimic is an 18 seconds difference which quite simply doesn’t quite compete against all of the bonusses added by the other traitlines.

However the main reason I disagree with using chaos is the addition of the revenant. The kitten class supports with 16 might just by standing still, and already boosts our boon duration by 50%. That all should allow for perma might and ~permaquickness already.

Chaos may find its way in less organized groups and in other game modes it definitely will(where staff is more relevant), but in PvE it hasn’t got enough benefits to compete.

Ah, good points. Thank you!

Edit: Also, I think there’s a typo within Echo of Memory section. I think it’s suppose to be Signet of the Ether and not Signet of Illusions that can recharge the phantasm skill. XD Also, I wonder if Signet of Illusions may have some usage since it recharges your shatter skills?

Edit2: Nevermind, Signet of Illusions only recharges the 4 shatters and not Continuum Split. Darn.

Sandy, what do you recommend for high level fractal? Being thoughness so high a condition build would seem better to me.

Ryn.6459:

Sandy, what do you recommend for high level fractal? Being thoughness so high a condition build would seem better to me.

Thats a valid point. Frankly, however, I’ve noticed high level fractals to have a lot more vitality scaling than toughness scaling. Another thing is that the new fractals have a huge contrast between bosses and trashmobs, making trash die relatively quickly.

I personally still recommend going for a regular damage build, but maybe focussing a bit more on supporting your condithousiastic allies. While mesmer staff damage is not at all a bad deal, the nerf to condi food and the time needed to build up the damage(oh and loss of shield5 quickness/shield4 alacrity) really don’t help.

In trash mob situations your damage will be subpar due to the build-up, and at bosses it may match but you’ll lose some supportive capabilities.
Also correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m quite sure IR now works a lot less effectively than chronophantasma.

Oh right I just heard about vipers. I think you can do fine when fighting a boss in that, but it’s not worth making an entire ascended set of it if you don’t ready have one lying around.

Phloww.1048:

Ah, good points. Thank you!

Edit: Also, I think there’s a typo within Echo of Memory section. I think it’s suppose to be Signet of the Ether and not Signet of Illusions that can recharge the phantasm skill. XD Also, I wonder if Signet of Illusions may have some usage since it recharges your shatter skills?

Oh wow thanks, I often make those kinds of mistakes. Sadly signet of illusions doesn’t affect CS, and therefore doesn’t have the functionality it could have had.

I reaaaaaaally have been liking persistence of memory in conjunction with echo of memory, just because it allows me to chain blocks almost permanently, and this is super nice in some cases (idk, I’ve been 2-manning snowblind a lot, don’t ask me why…).

Anyway, just as a point of clarification to the OP: All damage boost and reduction modifiers are multiplicative. To any PoE folks, every damage modifier both up and down is a ‘more’ multiplier, not ‘increased’.

Edit: This is why if you have rite of the great dwarf and a pDefender up at the same time, you take 25% damage instead of 0%. Multiplicative modifiers have inherent diminishing returns on them, and that’s important.

My two copper on the subject:

For the most part I run Dom/Illu/Chrono with Illusions being my floater in case I need to swap a line for Inspiration or Chaos. Dueling was a hard choice for me to give up, but I ultimately justified it due to me dropping my mantras for Wells.

Dom has a lot of raw power in it (figuratively speaking) for Illusions and the Mesmer both. Ether Signet still stays on my bar for the insta Phantasm skill resets as well. I also have the flexibility for Blurred Inscriptions (faster CD on Ether Signet), Furious Interruption, Mental Anguish, and the ever so delicious Power Block.

In Dueling, my traits are fairly static and ultimately lost out to the utility that other trait lines would bring.

Chaos is on standby for skipping/stealthing

Inspirations is on standby for high reflect or group distortion requirements.

Illusions is normally my floater, but the reduction on Rift, Compounding Power (since Illusions have better uptime from Minion damage reduction QoL update), and Phantasmal Haste makes the Traitline win over Dueling as well. Keep in mind that Haste reduces the base cooldown of Phantasm skills (assuming the trait has finally been fixed). This is generally useful as the Alacrity blasted by iAvenger seems to prioritize players over AI’s or NPC. I don’t even think that the iAvenger includes himself in the Alacrity casting.

Note to Sandy:
Thank you so much for the guide!!! I can across your guide late into my Mesmer life, but everything seemed so much clearer after reading your insight on the class!!

Thanks for all the replies.
i’ll join in for a more detailed discussion than just saying “thank you” once i’m home.

One thing I’d like to clarify just now though is that i’m thinking of instanced pve (fractals/dungeons/raids) and that i expect having full buffs (at least 25 stacks might from my beloved warrior and at least enough initial fury to get the enemy below 75%)

See you guys soon c:

edit:
@ pyro: what about the damage increase by our dom grandmaster minor?
Having dmg*1.125 or dmg*1.005^25? (~13.27 dmg)

Me Games Ma.8426:

Thanks for all the replies.
i’ll join in for a more detailed discussion than just saying “thank you” once i’m home.

One thing I’d like to clarify just now though is that i’m thinking of instanced pve (fractals/dungeons/raids) and that i expect having full buffs (at least 25 stacks might from my beloved warrior and at least enough initial fury to get the enemy below 75%)

See you guys soon c:

edit:
@ pyro: what about the damage increase by our dom grandmaster minor?
Having dmg*1.125 or dmg*1.005^25? (~13.27 dmg)

The grandmaster minor is basically a modification of vulnerability, which does stack additively. It changes each stack so that instead of it being worth .01, it’s worth .015. Full stacks of vuln gets you to a 1.375 final modifier instead of 1.25.