Guild Wars 2

Almost all my mesmer playtime I’ve been using clones, phantasms, glamours, and manipulations, but I never got fully into mantras. Reading from Fay’s and Skcamow’s mantra build guides, I wanted to see if I can make a mantra build that I would enjoy. One thing I noticed about my playstyle is that I don’t use my utility skills unless I need them and looking at the mantras, Mantra of Pain seems to require constant spamming/activation. I looked through the mantra traits and Empowered Mantras caught my attention. I came up with this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQNAraRl0zipHSTlGaNJhpCBHlCs7dSFUdpH2O3yG-jwDBoLZEnRIiqAgIYRj5QFRjtmpIasKZwqaAqbYKXQKYJ1qDwOOrWywmyJSIABrBA-e

It seems rather odd build, I know. It utilizes power/condition damage, some phantasm dps, some shattering, and keeping a couple mantras readied as much as possible for the extra damage. Mantra of Distraction is tempting to pick over Mantra of Concentration, but I’ll need to play around with it to see how it goes. I did not go with Mantra of Recovery because I like Mirror and Ether Feast more and I’m concern of how much I will use it and will keep fluctuating my extra damage from Empowered Mantras. The 10 Chaos points is debatable since I can put them into Inspiration instead.

I like to know from mantra experts (or anyone else) if I’m spreading too much around or is this something that could be seen in PvE/dungeons. I usually prefer having some dps with some support/cc, so I’m not sure if this would provide such similarity (unless taking Mantra of Distraction and 10 Inspiration points is more supportive for some group play).

Your build is a … pure hybrid. Nothing chosen, a bit of everything. Like you threw several dice and chose your traits and skills from it.

• Empowering Mantras does not work with Illusions. Getting it without lowered mantra CD is wierd.
• Instead you try to get your pistol up and deal 15% more damage …
• You put 20 pts in Illusions and not 25 for IC …
• You wear mainly rabid and don’t use Staff. You barely use damage gear but have DomIII, DuelXI and IlluX …

As I said, your build has nothing but random things. It doesn’t support, it doesn’t deal damage, it doesn’t rely on mantras.

(PvE) Generally:

• Mantra support relies on Restorative Mantras (and MoP)
• Phantasm builds rely either on Dom10 & Insp25 and/ or on Illu20 and Illu25
• Condition Builds rely on Staff with Malice (and usually DE)
• Bleed builds rely on Duel15, precision and GS

So, if you’re satisfied with your build, have fun, but for me, you’d have to specialize alot and not try to take a bit of everything/ anything.

I agree a bit with Nretep. If you’re able to be effective and having fun with what you’re doing, then by all means go ahead, but I think you’re just a bit too spread thin.

If you want mantras to be your main, I’d definitely lean towards 30 in Domination and at least 20 Dueling. Probably something like:

30/30/0/10/0 for more mantra charges, more damage (300 power), and mantra cooldowns.

A lot of the traits in your original setup are a bit frivolous (Dueling I, Chaos, Illusions) and could probably be put to better use in other places. Also, Mantra of Concentration should be swapped in depending on the situation (dungeon, ect.) and MoPain will give you a nice DPS increase if you don’t mind the rapid playstyle.

If you want to combine MoP and Restorative Mantras, getting a third charge (Domination 30) will only hurt you. Generally, I only recommend Dom30 for Mantra Burst builds. And those are PvP players not PvE or support.

I had a feeling this build was spread out too much, hence why I asked. It’s probably why I don’t play much with mantras often (except MoP + Restorative Mantras). Unlike glamours and manipulations, mantras seem to require a full/specialized build.

I’ll probably just stick to my Flowing Images builds. Despite them being pure hybrid of shatter/phantasms and power/condition, they’ve handled very well in PvE/dungeons play. I may give the Mantra Support a try. Thank you both for your suggestions and help! ^^

PS – @Nretep: Did you meant Illu20 and Insp25 in regards to Phantasm build?

I’m not the guy who makes builds and recommend them to others so they can copy it. I tell others what it does and that they’ve to decide yourself, yet feel free to look at my current build (sig).

Generally, you can use mantras anytime you want (especially in PvE), no need to trait into them. But the more you use them the more you want to trait them. Mantra traits are AoeHealOnCast (Insp 20), ReducedCD (Duel 20), DmgWhileCharge (duel 30), ToughOnCast (Duel 10) and AdditionalCharge (Domi 30).

• AoeHealOnCast (Insp 20): Most used “mantra trait”. Awesome synergy with MoP and awesome boost to HealingMantra
• ReducedCD (Duel 20): Most players don’t like this since it’s at the same place as DE. But as phant build you might not like DE, so I use this. It reduces HealingMantra to 8s recharge. Adding CD, cast and chargeCD makes it a 11.75s cycle (3 x ~2800 HP / 11.75s = ~715 HP/s). It’s one of the most powerful heals in GW2, not even counting AoE and additional heal from MoP charging
• DmgWhileCharge (duel 30): That’s a peculiar trait and doesn’t work with illusions. It usually boosts my own damage by 10% (8% ~ 12%), but well.
• ToughOnCast (Duel 10): 400 Toughness on mantra casting … I only use this trait when I’m fighting a boss I know I’ll permanently charge mantras, but even there it’s barely noticable. I prefer most other traits in the adept slot.
• AdditionalCharge (Domi 30): That’s another peculiar trait, usually only suited for PvP Mantra Burst builds.

As for damage build, you’d also need to decide your way of dealing damage. For mesmers there are shatters, phants, bleeds and conditions. I chose Phantasms, so I spend 10 pts into domination and 25 pts into inspiration. As supporter build, the points in inspiration were planned anyways.

If you want a pure phantasm build, you might think about ditching the whole dueling line to get Phantasmal Haste and IC in the illusion tree. That’d be 10/0/0/25/25 +10. Dmg-wise most players would put the free 10 pts into domination for GS trait. If you want survivability, you could put 5 pts into dueling and 5 into chaos.

As equips, you don’t deal damage with conditions, unless you go for a condition build with the staff. Healing equip barely pays of as mesmer, which leaves us precision (sharper images), berserker, bunker (pow, tough, vit) or boon duration.

I’m the same. I don’t expect everyone to enjoy my builds (which you can see 4 different types at my sig, if you’re curious).

Since beta, I went from shatter, to condition, to power, and then phantasm specs and while I enjoy pure builds, I always keep wanting something from each one, hence why I made Flowing Images builds; that, and I am one of those few that seem to enjoy the scepter and utilizing it as a mix of power and condition damage with a phantasm build. I keep 2 phantasms up while leaving the third slot for clones (sometimes may try to include a clone-on-death trait in my builds).

Out of all the mesmer skill types, mantras are my least knowledgeable and played. Probably the closest mantra build that I’ve enjoyed playing is the first one you mentioned – Restorative Mantra trait + MoP along with phantasm dps.

When it comes to phantasm dps I like Sharper Images, especially on a GS/scepter/sword clone, and I like to have at least 1000+ condition damage so that I can have some power as well. About IC, at first I was a bit upset of it moving further down in the trait, but then I wonder if it would be contradicting to hybrid/pure phantasm dps builds since you want to keep your phantasms out as much as possible and not shatter them or get them killed. The lower cooldown would only benefit when trying to get 2-3 of the same phantasms. I’m just glad that some of our weapon traits, like Duelist’s Discipline and Warden’s Feedback, provide additional perks besides 20% faster recharge.

Anyways, I’ll give Mantra Mastery a try since, like you said, DE isn’t really that useful. Perhaps it is possible to have 1-2 mantras within a hybrid phantasm build. ^^