Guild Wars 2

Noobling here,

I’ve read and seen a lot of Mesmer strategies revolving around Shatter Builds. Is this a build that can work, obviously with minor tweaking, for both PvP and PvE? I only ask because it almost seems like it would be hard to keep pumping out clones when you need them.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

tried both builds in pve
Shatter is burst
Phantasm is sustained dps

Shatter is thus bad in most istances :| because the burst is not even that good considering health pools.

PvE and PvP are different monsters entirely.

In PvE, you should shatter clones whenever you can, since they otherwise do no damage (or no noticeable damage at least). Phantasms, on the other hand, should stay alive as long as possible, seeing as they deliver more DPS alive than you can get out of them dead.

So, usually, for PvE you spam phantasms and only shatter either when they’re about to die anyways, or after they attack, if you have everything off cooldown again so you can, essentially, reset their attack timer and get a slight damage spike bonus.

For PvP Phantasms and clones don’t last long anyways, so ideally you want to let them deliver their full attack and maybe shatter them after for additional burst… Then again they do meatshield, and if your enemies are ignoring them entirely, feel free to put 3 phantasms up and let them be. They really hurt.

And then you have specific situations where you want to shatter or not, but that you’ll have to learn as you play.

For the record, Staff clones apply conditions, (Burning, Bleeding, Vulnerability) and any Illusion can apply Bleeding on a critical hit if you’ve put 15 points into your Dueling trait line for the Sharper Images trait. (This is particularly potent with Greatsword clones as their auto-attack hits frequently)

If you’re running a condition damage build, this could be an argument for letting clones linger instead of shattering them, especially if the particular shatter you want to use is still on cool down.

Particular traits, (Illusionary Defense, Chaos IV – Compounding Power, Illusions III – Compounding Celerity, Inspiration VI,) also boost your defense, offense, and in-combat forward movement speed respectively based on the number of Illusions you have up at any given time, which is another potential benefit for leaving Illusions up instead of shattering them.

A few other traits, (Crippling Dissipation, Domination V – Confusing Combatants, 25 points into Dueling, Debilitating Dissipation, Chaos V,) trigger specifically when a clone is killed, or when a clone “pops” because you’ve summoned another Illusion already reached the maximum number of Illusions allowed. There’s a few builds focused on this mechanic (“Clone spam” types) that also typically only use shatter skills in emergencies.

In short, whether or not you want to shatter your Illusions or let them hang out depends entirely on your build and the situation you’re in. Most of the traits I’ve mentioned are generally more useful in PvP than PvE, but it’s all about play style and preference!