Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone. I’m pretty new to the Mesmer. It was my favorite class in GW1 and I really want to try it in GW2. I noticed that popular offensive builds are the phantasm and shatter builds. I have a few questions to help me determine which one I want to play:

1. What is the damage difference? Is one significantly superior to the other?
2. Is there a difference in survivability?
3. I noticed that when playing a Mesmer, there seems to be a lag between using a skill and a clone/phantasm actually appearing. This causes frustration because by the time the phantasm attacks or gets to its target…the target is usually dead (in low level PvE areas)

Thanks for the help!

1. Shatter builds are more about burst damage, Phantasm builds are more about sustained damage.

2. It really depends, but generally Phantasm builds are more survivable as most of their offense is delegated to Phantasms; allowing them to focus more on defense. Shatter builds usually have to get up close and personal to deliver their maximum burst.

3. This isn’t a question, but I suspect what you’re seeing is the Phantasm/Clone’s cast time and maybe some minor graphical rendering lag. Some Phantasms (such as iDisenchanter and iDefender) have particularly long cast times.

.

There is no need to decide beforehand what build you want to go for. Shatter and Phantasm builds generally use the same type of equipment (i.e. Power focused), so it’s a simple matter of respeccing traits to switch between the two.

Thanks for the response. Are the weapon choices significantly different? For my phantasm build I have GS and S/F and for shatter I have S/P and Staff. Is that usually how it goes? Not really looking to diversify the build right now – just something cookie cutter

Weapon choices for either build are quite flexible. The only weapon you definitely don’t want is the Torch, and the Sceptre should only be taken if you want to use two off-hands.

This is from a PvE point of view, in PvP matters are slightly different.

Great that helps out. Yeah I wasn’t planning on using scepter anyway lol. Can’t decide if I want burst damage or sustained. Are both builds good at taking on PvE?

3. Phantasms were meant to be dodged twice (directly implied by developers). Back at the release they attacked instantly and so sometimes damage before you could see them. Developers intentionally set a delay by 1s which really screwed us up. They changed it to 0.25s and it seems fine now. But in pvp this means, if you can’t dodge the initial phantasms, you can also dodge right after the summon and don’t get hit by it.
Imagine you could dodge the whole meteor storm or arrow rain by dodging either while casting once or after the skill started …

for the love of god, you can’t dodge the summon unless you blind/invuln/obstruct the mesmer casting.

I think I’m going to try the Shatter build with a Sword/Pistol weapon set. One question though. Would Sword/Sword work too?

For a Shatter build your choice of off-hand is not as relevant as it is for a Phantasm build. It pretty much comes down to preference. Only the Torch should be avoided as the iMage is useless, but if you really think an extra stealth would do you good (not particularly useful in PvE) then you can still go for it.

Thanks! That helps!

Not sure if it changed recently as I have been unable to play but you can’t invuln a Mesmer casting a phant to stop the summon. Though it should doge the initial attack.

Anyways, both are pretty good PvE, can’t go wrong with either even with niche builds it’s fine kinda like a Sand box RPG you don’t need to min/max, theory craft, or follow the meta to do well.

PvP phantasm is kind of “no skill easy win 1v1” a few classes can run these uber tier 1v1 builds but most suck pretty bad in team fights, and usually don’t take much skill to use. The upside is you can tunnel vision pretty hard and do some good damage while just avoiding everything, and the better builds run somewhat tanky since illusions take our toughness plus you get regen every time a phant attacks so you have a lot of survivability in a 1v1. You have very good sustained damage, think of every phant as a DoT that ticks ever 5-8ish seconds and has a permanent duration but can be attacked. I used to use phantasm a lot starting out, it was good training wheels to learn how to move as the class, since I didn’t have to worry as much about doing damage directly. Occasionally I’ll troll with it but I never consider it to be a serious build since it’s rarely viable for sPvP aside from hot joins and niche teams.

Some would cry OP but its pretty balanced for a 5v5 team base game.

Shatter build will pull out more spike and less sustain, the clones you Summon become more of a resource to do high damage. It’s a little bit easily telegraphed and needs a bit of set up to get everything to land, since better players can out play you much easier than with phant build. However you are much more viable for team fights and are still given lots of tools to outplay your foe both 1v1 and 2v1. Majority of people run this as full glass meaning high risk high reward, tunnel visioning you are rewarded for more so than classes like warrior and ele, but you still die very easy, without game sense you’ll get stomped 1v1 or end up in a lot of down fights, but you can finish a foe much faster and much more efficiently with shatter. Over the log run you will do more damage with this build. And a truly good shatter Mesmer is one of the biggest engines of destruction and a force to be feared. Not is not only viable everywhere, it is even sought after. You’ll still not do very well against phantasm build, BM roam ranger, and other über tier 1v1 builds but if you can use it, it’s great in skillful hands.

If you just want numbers shatter will do more over time I think.

Oh and as a Mesmer no matter what build you are, people who don’t know how to fight Mesmers are always going to suffer and you roll newbies and scrubs easy. Even as a newbie or scrub.

Archangel Tyrael.4360:

I think I’m going to try the Shatter build with a Sword/Pistol weapon set. One question though. Would Sword/Sword work too?

Sword/sword people claim there are better sets and although I agree, I still run dual sword cuz it looks awesome!!!! (Plus short c/d phantasm that hits once and hits hard is nice)

Torch is fine if you have the malice for good confusion damage.

Sword/sword will generate more retaliation damage if you have that 5 in inspiration (although without extra health this works against you). Sword phantasm does roughly the same as pistol only its damage is frontloaded (pistol has the bleed damage to bring it up). Sword phantasm fires off around 6 seconds and pistol around 9. Pistols big advantage is that the phantasm has to be sought out to be disposed of which takes time.

If you choose signet of illusion for phantasm health don’t be a slave to that. If you’re in trouble do a full distortion, cast the signet, then another distortion to buy time.

Sorry one more thing.

Phantasm specs are analogous to cond specs in that your goal is to buy time to allow the damage to take place. Once you have determined your basic loadout and necessary traits you should identify what your method of ‘creating space’ is going to be.

So what’s a typical shatter trait spec? 10/30/0/0/30 right?

Bah i read good.

If you want to shatter the choice between sword and pistol phantasm lies mostly within the realm of your amulet of choice.

If you are doing significant condition with a good crit proc chance go pistol as it will cause bleeding.

If you have a good amount of toughness or vitality you can use swords block often with little fear, which gives s/s the edge in illusion creation. It would be better if you have some power to go with it.

There are people who wear berserkers or knights and say they run a shatter spec when all they’re really doing is mindwrack. If this is your mentality then you want the pistol because the block from sword isn’t going to do you jack. This really isn’t a shatter spec as you are opening by shattering clone, then generating phantasms to do your damage until yoh finish off with your next mind wrack.

If you are shattering to do condition damage then I strongly suggest you consider trait III in the Inspiration line. It is superior to duelings 5pt minor. Use this with two sigils of energy and you’ll run out of shatters before you run out of clones.

0
20
0
0
20

Is your shatter template. The rest depends on your goal.

IMO a big advantage of phantasm specs is their flexibility in terms of trait as well as utility distribution.
Compared to a shatter spec, where 15/20/0/0/30 is almost mandatory, 15pt dom trait for ~20 stack vulernability after f3 shatter, duelling X for clone on dodge as well as illusion 25pt as well as illusionary persona. This leaves you with merely 5 points to distribute (maybe 10 if you don’t use f3 shatter, but then you are probably doing it wrong).
On the other hand Specs like 10/15/0/25/20 will offer you a really great utility by “focus skills reflect projectiles” (which comes in quite handy in dungeons like arah), while still not beeing necessarily “bound” to playing these traits, since inspiration offers some other great traits too. Putting Points in your Vitality trait line also offers you more room for mistakes in PvE.
Nonetheless if you are still leveling you will find the mesmer be quite a pain in the lower region of your back …
In terms of PvP: I did not play that much sPvP so far, but from what most at least decent people told me, shatter specs get outplayed quite often. They are also easy to play, but quite hard to master once you encounter some decent enemy, since shatterspikes are relatively easy to spot.
Another thing regarding your question about survivability: If you really want to play this game in a decent way, you should start to analyze as well as identify your oponents attacks and how you can avoid them. If you do this properly you will find yourself in a spot where you will almost never die (speaking of PvE here) even in full zerker gear. Blurred frenzy as well as the distortion shatter,~90% vigor uptime, feedback, blink, numerous block abilities, staff #2, staff #4 (which will always provide protection when activated) will offer you great amounts of protection, if used correctly.

Thanks for the tips. The last thing I can’t figure out is utility. I have no use what wouldn’t best. Any tips there?

I run phantasm in sPvP.

Shatter is awesome because it allows you to pump out some really insane bursts, way above what Phantasm build can do, you can literally kill some people in 3 seconds without exaggerating here IF you pull everything out perfectly.

What I don’t like about Shatter though is that it is sort of an “all in” type of the play. You really need to focus on nuking or else it just does not work well.

Phantasm build on the other hand can’t really burst that high, right away, but you get the ability to systematically snowball into a monster that enemy just won’t be able to sustain eventually. It takes some time, but not really that much and you also are really good at buying that time. Basically it is a very safe approach, which I like more. Also it has some great sustained damage, which is pretty hard to avoid unlike shatter.

In terms of utility Feedback, Nullfield and sometimes the Phantasmal Disenchanter are offer good benefits to your group (as long as you encounter projectile attacks/a lot of conditions).
If you play a phantasm build you probably want Signet of Illusions, since it will make sure your phantasms wont just die in one hit.
If you play a shatter build you probably want to take mirror images (more clones=more shatters=more good…).
Most of the time taking stun breaking abilities like Decoy, Mirror Images, Blink or Mantra of Concentration is also a good choice, since getting disabled while standing in a big red circle often times leads to unpleasant things, even in soldier gear.
If you have a coordinated group (which random groups are not) your Signet of Inspiration is also a great choice- that is if you use it for the duplication of Boons on your group. If you have say a Warrior with “For greater Justice!” as well as Battle Standard and a d/d ele which focuses on Might stacking, you can easily grant 9-12 extra stacks of Might. If you want to use this Signet for its random boon production only, you are wasting a lot of potential right there.
In general I woul recommend staying away from most of the Mantras at the moment, since, aside from Mantra of concentration, they offer almost no utility for the cost (utility slot/charge time/cd mechanic).
Illusion of Life, Portal entrance and Veil can be very useful if used in the right way. Portal entrance and Veil in order to skip certain nasty parts of Dungeons, Illusion of Life in order to get downed players out of danger→ to a place where they can be rezed safely.
Arcane Thievery is a skill that rarely comes in useful, altough there are some mobs at least that accumulate high amounts of Might or some other long duration boons (it is very situational tough).

Focus is not a bad offhand for shatter builds… nor overrated.

With traiting + runes of air you get perma swiftness + 2 more reflects + more cc.

Use the warden as a sort of reflect turret/soft cc. If they stand there the warden hits HARD, thus they move. You can then move into the warden.

It can also be used offensively to keep people from running with the curtain cripple/pull. If you pull some one into your warden, then use the swap root you can get the full warden attack to hit.

Warden is also a whirl finisher that spits out bolts like a sprinkler in a combo field.

In a group I find these abilities to be superior to a sword offhand… but prefer sword offhand for 1v1. It just comes down to what you want your character to do.

As far kittenter Vs. phant… phant is superior on a single target but quickly diminishes with the more targets you face. Shatter is an aoe so it gets stronger with the more opponents you face (until you get to the point to where the clones/phats can’t reach the target).

I find shatter a LOT more fun (which is the most important thing to me). With a staff + sword it has amazing mobility/juking/burst. It does have a higher skill requirement though.

Honestly, into the void is single best thing anet could do with our offhands. How one could give away enormous chunk of control willingly is beyond me. It’s useful everywhere – be it tpvp, spvp, wvw, pve.

A base for a Shatter build would be 10/20/0/0/30, leaving you with 10 points spare. A base for a Phantasm build would be 10/15/0/25/10, again leaving you with 10 points spare. Note this is assuming you go for Berserker stats, a.k.a. glass cannon. You could certainly switch some traits around if you want more defense at the cost of offense.

I don’t recommend investing in CondDmg with either build. If you want more offensive power you’re better off investing more in Power/Precision/CritDmg.

As for Utilities, in PvE I don’t feel like it matters much as most Mesmer Utilities are more geared for PvP anyway. Signet of Illusions is good for Shatter or Phantasm. Mirror Images is a good Utility for Shatter builds. Mimic and Feedback are good when fighting mobs that use projectile attacks. If you feel you need condition cleansing, get Mantra of Resolve, Null Field or Phantasmal Disenchanter. Phantasmal Defender is a very strong defensive skill for any build.

Personally I run with mostly racial skills in PvE.

playing with phantasms as your main(=50% dmg at least) u have to beware that it takes pretty much time and in most situations really static poisitoning by the rest of the group to build up maximum damage. i tried out many variants of phantasm setups and the one with fastest damage output and the best support was with sword/pistol plus sword/focus.

so all in all phantasm mesmers are mostly kitten to lose their optimum due to failpositioning or selfish behaviour of others (who on the other hand dont hesitate crying for timewarp…).
its sometimes a pain in the kitten to play phantasm mesmer hte bad traits and bugs not mentioned, but its a hell of versatile gameplay tbh.

Would a Greatsword be viable for shatter as well?

Archangel Tyrael.4360:

Would a Greatsword be viable for shatter as well?

I would say if Izerker is fixed then yes. Otherwise not really. It’s nice that it puts illusions on your target with its skills though.

Don’t understand the Torch hate; the Torch is absolutely wonderful in a Shatter build.

I started using GS in conjunction with Staff and it seems to be working really well for me in PvE. Enemies die too fast at the lower levels where I am right now and so iZerker works just fine. I’m sure later on if it’s still not fixed and I’m in my 40s-50s, things may start to get difficult. But the damage increase over dual sword is amazing. Combined with the low CD of #2 and 4, I can always have at least 1-2 illusions up. And my utility skills are Mirror Images and Decoy so it works out.

Sword does more damage in pve due to natural cleave btw.

fadeaway.2807:

Sword does more damage in pve due to natural cleave btw.

I didn’t know that. What is natural cleave though?

Archangel Tyrael.4360:

fadeaway.2807:

Sword does more damage in pve due to natural cleave btw.

I didn’t know that. What is natural cleave though?

Some melee weapons cleave the target adjacent to the target you have or in the case where you chose no target up to 3 targets in range. Greatsword, sword, axe, mace, hammer, and spear on classes where they are used as melee weapons have cleave. Cleave is limited to 3 targets.

The exception with dagger is lightning whip from ele which does cleave.

Might be of interest, for wvwvw not always pure berzerker gear is the bets way to go. I nowdays use 1600+ toughness and feel my burst is realy strong. Chavalier gear help alot to get good defensive stats and good burst at same time.

Enjoy my latets video of group play, in tanky Mist spec:

/Osicat

What I mean by natural cleave is the effect caused when you hit multiple enemies in front of you every time you swing your sword. What this means is that bunching up enemies (using movement, bottlenecks in terrain or focus pulls) and then unleashing sword swings is usually the way to maximise your pve dmg whether you’re in a dungeon or soloing.

Ohhhh okay thanks guys! I may switch between GS and S/S then

I would highly suggest torch offhand for a wvw build. Sure the phantasm sucks but when fighting outnumbered the more stealth the better. Also, better players avoid the sword swap very easily making it hard to set up burst. Opening from stealth and right on top of them is hard to avoid.

That won’t be for a while but I shall consider it. Thanks!

Daishi.6027:

Occasionally I’ll troll with it but I never consider it to be a serious build since it’s rarely viable for sPvP aside from hot joins and niche teams.

I think hotjoins are the heart and soul of sPvP. You can get far more rank points with it than anywhere else. Hotjoin is by definition the highest tier of PvP you can aspire to in GW2.