Guild Wars 2

Hey
As it says in the title, I’d like to get some opinions on a build I’ve been playing around with.

If you have a build you’d like some feedback on yourself feel free to use this thread as well, I’ll even try and rate it myself for what my insight is worth.

This build of mine is soly for spvp, I would not use something like this in wvw, and perhaps a modified version for pve.
I should say I’m a bit of a pvp newb so I can use all the advice I can get given how difficult it is to test strategies with the sheer amount of variables in a spvp fight.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.8.2.7.14.0.4.4.4.0.180.194.192.186.204.4.4.29.0.0.0.543.550.0.559.558.0.0.0.0.587.590.592.0.20.20.0.30

Or a brief rundown:
Sceptre Sword / Staff
0 20 20 0 30
EtherFeast Mimic ArcaneThievery SignetOfIllusion Time Warp
Rune of the Undead 6/6 Rabid Amulet/Jewel

Basicly I want to be a pain in the kitten to kill while throwing conditions around, supporting myself with boons from staff/chaos armor and punishing attackers with blocks confusion and retalliation.
I aim to have the clones live as long as possible with the added toughness and health from illusion signet, all the while shattering once I need to or am ready to churn out more clones.
I guess it would have to go for a bunker build as it’s nothing special on the offense.

Thoughts?

Link is working now, if anyone knows another build calculator feel free to suggest it.

Hey Jelle… and it’s all good, we were all newbs once.

With your big toughness push, I would’ve expected 25 points (maybe even 30) in Chaos to get Chaotic Transference, which will give you a second copy of the bonus as your rune set… I’m pretty sure the two bonuses stack. If you’re planning on using your staff heavily, taking Chaotic Dampening (Chaos-VIII) might be handy for you, since both for the toughness and getting shorter cooldowns on Chaos Armor and Storm in particular, since they are both really big for survivability.

Depending on how much you want to commit to it, another theme you could add to this is the extra conditions that dying clones could give people. Dueling-25 adds 1 confusion (though that’s pretty deep and may not be worth it)… Domination-V adds crippling… and Chaos-V adds weakness/vulnerability/bleeding. I’m not sure if you knew, but when clones explode because you summoned more than 3 of them, they count as having been “killed” and will apply these conditions as well.

I definitely think your plan (lots of toughness & condition damage, apply conditions and be persistent and annoying) is a workable one, though. Are you finding you’re making a nuisance of yourself?… because ultimately that’s pretty much the goal, right?

This is all just my personal opinion, and ultimately the important thing about any build is that it fits you and your playstyle, but…

1) I don’t think Retaliatory Shield is worth it, even with glitching Mimic, because it’s pretty situational to get it off. Furthermore, you’re not really tanky enough to make good use of Retaliation. 15k HPs is too low for being bunker/tanky, unless you have a lot of cond removal, which you don’t really have. (Arcane Thievery is neat, but long CD even with MoM.)

2) As a general caution, I think for sPvP you’ll be a bit disappointed with Confusion damage if you’re relying on it as a significant source of your damage output.

3) I think you’re lacking vital utility tools, most glaringly Decoy. I don’t think you’ll find that especially Signet of Illusions is worth giving up Decoy for. The HP boost to your illusions is sadly applied on a ~10s pulse, so sometimes you have to wait up to 10s for a summoned illusion to receive that buff, but realistically most illusions won’t live that long.

4) Scepter in general is fairly weak in especially sPvP, and for an OH Sword doesn’t really fit your condi-based build IMHO. The Sword Phant is more Power oriented, and the block is IMO too short to work well with Ret. Shield. Consider Torch for OH the blind/burn is very nice, and for a condi build even the phantasm is not bad. (Not to mention the invis part of The Prestige, which helps being more of a PITA. ;-) )

So at the very least I’d ditch SoI for Decoy, change Ret. Shield to Phant Fury (more crits equals more bleeds!), and change OH Sword to Torch. (And personally I’d also either change Mimic or Arc Thievery to Mirror Images…yes even for condi build I love being able to pop 2 Staff clones instantly)

If you want to stick with the block/retaliation thing though, you should maybe try out the Guardian Runes to see how that “burn on block” proc works out. Might be worth losing a bit of Cond Damage over if you plan to block a lot with Mimic, OH Sword, and MH Scepter.

I personally don’t enjoy condi builds in sPvP, because Confusion damage is just plain terrible and unreliable in sPvP, especially when you face smart players 1v1.

GL! And have fun!

Thanks for the feedback, it really is a big help. I’m definatly going to be trying some new stuff so back to the drawing board with me!

Depending on how much you want to commit to it, another theme you could add to this is the extra conditions that dying clones could give people. Dueling-25 adds 1 confusion (though that’s pretty deep and may not be worth it)… Domination-V adds crippling… and Chaos-V adds weakness/vulnerability/bleeding. I’m not sure if you knew, but when clones explode because you summoned more than 3 of them, they count as having been “killed” and will apply these conditions as well.

I did not know this! It’s definatly something I can try building around. The only difficulty I’m seeing is with ranged clones getting one to destruct near the enemy might be tough.
Maybe I can try this out with sword clones. The cripple on death would help them stay in melee as well. Three sword clones with high crit chance and bleed on crit can cause some crazy bleeding.

As a general caution, I think for sPvP you’ll be a bit disappointed with Confusion damage if you’re relying on it as a significant source of your damage output.

That is regrettable I really enjoy the confusion part of the mesmer theme. It’s something I have noticed is fairly lacking in the most popular builds wich is a shame. If the condition isn’t that good I’ll try and rely on it a little less.

IThe HP boost to your illusions is sadly applied on a ~10s pulse, so sometimes you have to wait up to 10s for a summoned illusion to receive that buff, but realistically most illusions won’t live that long.

Wow that sucks pretty hard. Not touching that signet again if that’s the case. I don’t nearly use the activated part enough to keep it then.

Scepter in general is fairly weak in especially sPvP, and for an OH Sword doesn’t really fit your condi-based build IMHO. The Sword Phant is more Power oriented, and the block is IMO too short to work well with Ret. Shield. Consider Torch for OH the blind/burn is very nice, and for a condi build even the phantasm is not bad. (Not to mention the invis part of The Prestige, which helps being more of a PITA. ;-) )

Yeah I’ve noticed sceptre being rather lackluster. I should be loving confusing images but in reality it just takes so long to pull off and for some reason my auto attack keeps interrupting the channel. The speed of clone summoning on sceptre auto attack is pretty pitiful and worse they don’t really bring anything to the table. I did like the block though.
I’ve tried torch offhand as well in the meantime. Not sure if I’m a big fan of the prestige but the phantasm is nice. I really like the block on sword offhand though. Not sure what you mean with block being short, I never waste it anyway.

If you want to stick with the block/retaliation thing though, you should maybe try out the Guardian Runes to see how that “burn on block” proc works out. Might be worth losing a bit of Cond Damage over if you plan to block a lot with Mimic, OH Sword, and MH Scepter.

I’m not sure why I didn’t think of that. This is a great idea thanks.

Thanks again for the insights, I’ll post another build when I’m done testing some stuff.

Try running staff cooldowns, mix in rune of the guardians, swap out your sigils for burn duration/burn duration + condmg stacking

Move the master of manipulation down a tier so you can get staff cooldowns.

Retaliatory shield AND confusing cry is a bit redundant, you’ll get too much retaliation to make that worth it, so I would suggest bumping all the shatter traits down one and grabbing iPersona for more shatter bursts/confusion on shatters.

Test it and see how you like it and we’ll go from there?

Okay how about this

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.8.3.7.14.0.4.4.4.0.180.194.192.183.204.4.4.29.530.0.0.543.550.0.559.560.558.0.0.0.0.0.0.10.25.30.0.5

Sword Sword / Staff
10 25 30 0 5
EtherFeast Mimic ArcaneThievery SignetOfInspiration Time Warp
Rune of the Guardian 6/6 Rabid Amulet/Jewel

Ditching the shattering in favor of letting clones die/destroying them. Will have to see if this is feasable with staff clones, although I suppose I could try and keep them grouped on the point and destroy when someone comes near.

A couple of questions though:

Do sword training/chaotic dampaning stack with illusionists celerity? I cannot seem to find an answer to it. Testing shows they don’t but some sources seem to say it stacks all the way to 40% cd off some skills.

Vulnerability, does it help condition damage at all? Both sword and staff have these conditions but from what I am told they don’t increase condition damage recieved. Kind of a weird condition to have on staff.

Did sword clones always mimic illusionary leap? All of my sword clones in world seem to join in on the leap (although they go back to attacking their target afterwards, if it was not their target). I have not seen this happen when I played back in 2012. Nifty.

Edit: Actually they don’t always join in on the leap. Could someone explain them echanics behind this?

They do stack, it just does not show in y our tooltip. Your actual skills will have the correct cooldown when used.