Guild Wars 2

Hello! I started playing again after one month due to ESO (which lacks of competitivity too much for my taste) and I completely missed the 15 April feature patch, so if what I’m telling you sounds obvious/stupid, please bear with me.
A few days ago I’ve fought a mesmer who was using a wierd build, with scepter/pistol and greatsword, definetely not a common setup.
I was inspired and came up with THIS BUILD, which relies on both condition and direct damage.

How to play
I think that all of the experienced mesmers have already figured out how to play: it’s not that hard to understand. This build heavily relies on might stacks, wether they are gained through weapon swap or GS#2, or stolen thanks to AT (which truly is amazing: I often let elementalists hit me with churning earth hit me just to send them back those 8 stacks of bleeding). Spam GS#2 like there’s not a tomorrow. You are probably wondering why didn’t I chose runes of strenght, but we lack of reliable condition removals and that additional precision helps a lot.
When you have the GS equipped start with GS#2 and before swapping to S/P use it again. Once in S/P try to start with S#2 in order to have it ready to be used before swapping and after having used S/P#3, #4, and #5 (not in that order, of course).

Remember that you don’t have to care at all about your phantasms dying: they are supposed to do so, just like in a condition build.

You should drop debilitating dissipation and pick up phantasmal haste.

I personally would swap out deceptive evasion for the pistol trait. Having an extra 300 range and lower cooldown gives you better initiation and control over a fight.

Increased confusion duration over compounding power may be a thing to consider as well.

So a few things.

In a phantasm build, you’ve got an incredible way to deal with conditions in the form of the iDisenchanter. Unfortunately, this will also prevent you from stealing might stacks as they’ll be stripped instead. So drop arcane thievery, take runes of strength, and build your might stacks that way. This only drops your crit chance by about 9%, which isn’t too bad in a phantasm build.

Other than that, it looks decent.

adelaide.6213:

You should drop debilitating dissipation and pick up phantasmal haste.

I personally would swap out deceptive evasion for the pistol trait. Having an extra 300 range and lower cooldown gives you better initiation and control over a fight.

Increased confusion duration over compounding power may be a thing to consider as well.

What are you suggesting would drastically chang my build. Moreover, atm, P#4 and GS#4 are on a 16 seconds CD, which is low enough to let me use them when swapping weapons. I’ll surely give it a try, though!

Pyroathiest.4168:

So a few things.

In a phantasm build, you’ve got an incredible way to deal with conditions in the form of the iDisenchanter. Unfortunately, this will also prevent you from stealing might stacks as they’ll be stripped instead. So drop arcane thievery, take runes of strength, and build your might stacks that way. This only drops your crit chance by about 9%, which isn’t too bad in a phantasm build.

Other than that, it looks decent.

Thanks for your advice, this is truly what I needed. Can you please elaborate why the build is only “decent”, assuming I made the changes you proposed? (And please, please!, drop the “I’m an ESL pro” attitude, one Helseth is enough )

Frenk.5917:

Thanks for your advice, this is truly what I needed. Can you please elaborate why the build is only “decent”, assuming I made the changes you proposed? (And please, please!, drop the “I’m an ESL pro” attitude, one Helseth is enough )

Looks decent because I’m inherently wary of hybrid builds. I’m not positive you’ll be able to get enough might stacking to really make it work the way an ele can, but I’d like to see it in action.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Looks decent because I’m inherently wary of hybrid builds. I’m not positive you’ll be able to get enough might stacking to really make it work the way an ele can, but I’d like to see it in action.

Arcane thievery served that purpose.. When facing a Warrior or an Ele, I was able to steal those 15+ might stacks. But then I wasn’t able to maintein them, because of the lack of might duration.

After your suggestion I should be able to gain and mantain at least 10 stacks of might, which is not that bad, afterall.

Frenk.5917:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Looks decent because I’m inherently wary of hybrid builds. I’m not positive you’ll be able to get enough might stacking to really make it work the way an ele can, but I’d like to see it in action.

Arcane thievery served that purpose.. When facing a Warrior or an Ele, I was able to steal those 15+ might stacks. But then I wasn’t able to maintein them, because of the lack of might duration.

After your suggestion I should be able to gain and mantain at least 10 stacks of might, which is not that bad, afterall.

Yeah, arcane thievery isn’t really a viable way to might stack. It’s nice for a laugh now and then, but with the 45 second cooldown you can’t actually maintain anything with it. You’ll also run into the problem where there’s 3 targets with huge might stacks, and you want them off of all of them, but arcane thievery can only hit one of them.

I run a Celestial Hybrid build in Spvp but I use scepter / pistol – sword torch. It’s a lot of fun to play

Syprus Soulslayer.1640:

I run a Celestial Hybrid build in Spvp but I use scepter / pistol – sword torch. It’s a lot of fun to play

Can you share it with us? I’m interested in how you managed to effectively use S/T.

Frenk.5917:

Syprus Soulslayer.1640:

I run a Celestial Hybrid build in Spvp but I use scepter / pistol – sword torch. It’s a lot of fun to play

Can you share it with us? I’m interested in how you managed to effectively use S/T.

Sword/torch is a great set in various builds. I prefer it when I run shatter, because the prestige gives such fantastic defense, with added aoe burst capability if you use it right. The phantasm is unfortunately just shatter fodder on a 35s cooldown.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQRAra8fnsISZaWkGOqB3aGx1YM9JhUCJDYgSWx0A-TJBBABAcSA84JAI4+DgVGAA

Here you go, it’s a well rounded build nice for running around and supporting the points when needed. The clone death traits make it useful when attempting to hold a point, constantly swapping weapons keeps the might stacks high usually between 6-9 and if you manage to daze your target you get an additional 5 VIA bountiful interruption and also stack vulnerability. You don’t really want to shatter unless you’re busting / locking down your target (F3 shatter) this hurts your dps and your regen via Signet of Ether. I personally run sig mastery because I occasionally like playing a little more lockdown and swap out blink for signet of domination which is where bountiful interruption really shines with access to 3 Dazes. Lets not forget with the +7%crit chance sigils and Phantasmal fury your Phantasams will be critical hitting and stacking bleeds like a boss. Conditions are no problem you got your 2 torch skills and mantra of resolve for a total of 6 condi removals if timed right you’ll always have one available besides the CD on resolve is very low. This build really shines when you get in your enemies faces, the scepter block torment hits like a train and the pistol duelist is devastating. The torch 4 skill is another nice combo when paired with sword 3 for the lockdown as you blurred frenzy and pop out of prestige. hope you like it! For me this is one of my all time favorite builds

Just a note. Crit chance sigils don’t work on phantasms. Phantasms don’t inherit your crit chance, they inherit your precision.

Interesting didn’t know that, well you can use w/e other sigils you like in that case. In my wvw version of the build I use sigil of bursting on the pistol and torment on the torch. Bloodlust for stacking then swap to battle