Guild Wars 2

Hi guys , I maxed out necro , engineer , ranger and warrior so I want to max mesmer too.
This is my build http://tinyurl.com/ornxxpt
I want to get as much toughness as possile along with power.
My main weapons are dual swords ( flurry/block ), but I’m not sure about the other set.
My build is focused on mentras and phantasms.
I heard that warlock phantasm is based on power more than condition damage , but What about zerker phantasm ? Is he better than warlock ?
Which will suit me better along with s/s , great sword or staff ?

You did not say what your objectives are with this build, or if it is for WvW or some form of PvE. Without that, it is not that easy to help you with it.

I did look at your build, and while the 2500+ on power seems impressive, you have nothing on critical chance or damage. Power alone is not that good. Other builds that have much less on power but have crit will hit harder.

And since you are running full Soldiers gear, the healing abilities in your traits seem excessive. I ran a Soldiers build in sPvP for a bit, and while it was great at surviving, it really was not that good at killing things. It was nothing more than a troll build.

Mesmers rely on dealing damage, and finding ways to not take any. You will not benefit from the Vigor in the Dueling line, which will hamper your ability to dodge. You may not be worried about that too much, given your toughness and health, but I don’t see a lot of “Mesmer” in this build.

You have half shatter traits and half phantasm traits. You have all pvt gear selected except for a carrion staff which is kinda random as your condition damage is next to nothing lol. Might be a good idea to figure out what you want to do with your build (pve, wvw, do you like to shatter or not- tho all builds will shatter, just some not as much as others lol)

Didn’t you see that this build is on PvE mode ?!
My question again > I heard that warlock phantasm is based on power more than condition damage , but What about zerker phantasm ? Is he better than warlock ?
Which will suit me better along with s/s , great sword or staff ?
Should I switch my gear to Knight ?

What are you trying to do? It’s like going to the Necro forums and trying to run Berserkers while traiting towards minion spawns and wells.

Warlock is based on Power. End of story for that question.

Zerker Phantasm is based on Power.

He is currently not better than Warlock due to inconsistencies.

They both suit you equally when next to S/S. A more descriptive answer lies in your playstyle.

Switching from Soldier’s to Knight’s again lies in your playstyle.

If you want a descriptive answer, give more descriptions or a descriptive question.

@The Demonic Spirit, Not sure why you go for more hp on phantasms and phantasm dmg if you plan to shatter them, its not even a effective hybrid setup.

Healing. You invest both gearstats and traits in healing for a Pve build? You will never be in a situation where your dmg avoidance could not solve it and your normal healing would been enought.

PVT, Why you like to build power toughness and vitatlity for pve? This is not a good stat setup you can have. There is no real tanks in this game and if there was mesmers not the best ones. I see no reason to not use full berzerker stats after 1100 toughness and 16500~health, Ppl can even do fractals at higher lvl with magic find gear, and grinding aswell. Personaly I rather kill stuff fast than have magic find but tank gear I see no reason to go with pover toughnes healing vitality setup for grinding or dungeons.

/Osicat

@Osi, I can see a toughness healing setup being viable when helping weak friends get through areas using a knock-off Fay mantra heal build, but it’s hard to get useful toughness healing stats on gear. If any stat combinations were possible, you could even try getting it to be Healing/Toughness/Power with any one of them being the main stat and then going Phantasm/Mantra heal where you drop 3 Phantasms for regen while spamming Mantras for the AoE heals. Of course, it would be a little bit hard to balance iDefender with Mantras because you’d also want Signet of Illusions, which would mean spamming Mantra of Pain and Mantra of Restoration only, but it can easily be done, so I dunno.

Just food for thought. Of course that’s nowhere in the direction that this build is going.

Here’s a build. Right down to the food.
http://tinyurl.com/ne3o25p

It’s WvW, not strictly PvE, but it’ll do the trick in PvE aswell. Only swap torch for sword or focus, and you can also drop 10 from inspiration and put it into dueling for sword trait for more sword goodness. You should be able to keep at least 15 stacks of might easy, so if you want to see how the numbers stack up make sure to add that on the might drop down box.

I have full rabid on in this vid, so the damage floaters arent indicative of what you will see, but the setup is pretty much the same to give you an idea. Note: torch instead of focus, and arcane thievery instead of decoy (10 in dueling can also mean increased range on manipulations, which is good for longer blink, and nice if you’re running two manipulations like arcane thievery and blink).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ7xRbGDeoo&feature=youtu.be

Osicat.4139:

@The Demonic Spirit, Not sure why you go for more hp on phantasms and phantasm dmg if you plan to shatter them, its not even a effective hybrid setup.

Healing. You invest both gearstats and traits in healing for a Pve build? You will never be in a situation where your dmg avoidance could not solve it and your normal healing would been enought.

PVT, Why you like to build power toughness and vitatlity for pve? This is not a good stat setup you can have. There is no real tanks in this game and if there was mesmers not the best ones. I see no reason to not use full berzerker stats after 1100 toughness and 16500~health, Ppl can even do fractals at higher lvl with magic find gear, and grinding aswell. Personaly I rather kill stuff fast than have magic find but tank gear I see no reason to go with pover toughnes healing vitality setup for grinding or dungeons.

/Osicat

Thank you all for your help.
http://tinyurl.com/or9e8nn
I made some changes on gear. As for phantasms and shattering , I create 3 clones > shatter , phantasms to attack.

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

Thank you all for your help.
http://tinyurl.com/or9e8nn
I made some changes on gear. As for phantasms and shattering , I create 3 clones > shatter , phantasms to attack.

I’m going to be honest with you here, your traits are absolute garbage.

You’re taking 30 points into domination for just your heal and 1 utility it seems, but by going 30 points into domination, you’re actually lowering your aoe heal/second by making it take longer to spam MoP.

You have no points in dueling, so even having taken full zerker stat gear, you still have a low crit chance, low critical damage, AND really low armor. Additionally, you have 2 swords, but you neglected to get the sword cooldown trait in dueling. On top of that, you say this build does damage through phantasms, but you neglected to get even the phantasmal fury trait in dueling.

You take 5 points in chaos for no apparent reason.

You take 30 points in inspiration. You take heal on shatter, but without illusionary persona, that trait is rather weak. Additionally, your clone generation is extremely low, since you don’t have any of the traits for your weapons or deceptive evasion, and so you will not be shattering very often unless you want to shatter phantasms.

Lastly, you take 5 points in illusions, nothing wrong with that.

The problem here is that you say your goal is to get as much toughness as possible with power…and then you take nothing that gives toughness. You say your build is focused on mantras and phantasms….and then you don’t take a key phantasm trait, and you only use 2 mantras, and you take a strong shatter trait. Your traits just make no sense in general, and make even less sense when you put them alongside what you said you wanted to do with this build.

Now for general build advice, going into a tanky spec for PvE is a waste of time and money. You don’t need to do it, it’s complete overkill. I can run my immortal build in PvE, but there’s no reason to, I survive just fine in a much more damage focused setup. You seem to be confused and thinking that power=damage, when really it’s crit chance + crit power = damage, with power as a poor third. Without crit chance and power, your damage will be horrible.

Pyroatheist.9031:

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

Thank you all for your help.
http://tinyurl.com/or9e8nn
I made some changes on gear. As for phantasms and shattering , I create 3 clones > shatter , phantasms to attack.

I’m going to be honest with you here, your traits are absolute garbage.

You’re taking 30 points into domination for just your heal and 1 utility it seems, but by going 30 points into domination, you’re actually lowering your aoe heal/second by making it take longer to spam MoP.

You have no points in dueling, so even having taken full zerker stat gear, you still have a low crit chance, low critical damage, AND really low armor. Additionally, you have 2 swords, but you neglected to get the sword cooldown trait in dueling. On top of that, you say this build does damage through phantasms, but you neglected to get even the phantasmal fury trait in dueling.

You take 5 points in chaos for no apparent reason.

You take 30 points in inspiration. You take heal on shatter, but without illusionary persona, that trait is rather weak. Additionally, your clone generation is extremely low, since you don’t have any of the traits for your weapons or deceptive evasion, and so you will not be shattering very often unless you want to shatter phantasms.

Lastly, you take 5 points in illusions, nothing wrong with that.

The problem here is that you say your goal is to get as much toughness as possible with power…and then you take nothing that gives toughness. You say your build is focused on mantras and phantasms….and then you don’t take a key phantasm trait, and you only use 2 mantras, and you take a strong shatter trait. Your traits just make no sense in general, and make even less sense when you put them alongside what you said you wanted to do with this build.

Now for general build advice, going into a tanky spec for PvE is a waste of time and money. You don’t need to do it, it’s complete overkill. I can run my immortal build in PvE, but there’s no reason to, I survive just fine in a much more damage focused setup. You seem to be confused and thinking that power=damage, when really it’s crit chance + crit power = damage, with power as a poor third. Without crit chance and power, your damage will be horrible.

This is the answer I wanted to hear , thanks for your honesty.
Can you give me a good PVE build with maximum toughness and damage ( power, crit chan/damg ) ? ( S/S and staff should be included )

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

This is the answer I wanted to hear , thanks for your honesty.
Can you give me a good PVE build with maximum toughness and damage ( power, crit chan/damg ) ? ( S/S and staff should be included )

If you like to shatter go with one of Osi’s shatter builds, they work great in pve as well. If you don’t want to shatter as much use Pyro’s PVE Phantasm build, it works great and can be a little more versatile for team support if you’re running dungeons.

I saw all these builds , but ……
As for healing skill > mentra of restoration has the biggest healing ( when traited ).
Some build don’t have Mirror Images which is the most important skill , mentra of pain ( traited ) is the strongest utility we have ( will heal us too XD ).
Signet of Illusions keeps my phantams alive , as I use Mirror images > clone > shatter > 3 phantams ( they have short cd ) ( keep playing till the shatter is ready ) > clones …etc

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

I saw all these builds , but ……
As for healing skill > mentra of restoration has the biggest healing ( when traited ).
Some build don’t have Mirror Images which is the most important skill , mentra of pain ( traited ) is the strongest utility we have ( will heal us too XD ).
Signet of Illusions keeps my phantams alive , as I use Mirror images > clone > shatter > 3 phantams ( they have short cd ) ( keep playing till the shatter is ready ) > clones …etc

Mirror images is a skill used almost exclusively for bursting with shatters. In pve, burst is not important. Mirror images offers comparatively little utility when matched up with other utilities.

You seem to be really intent on having a large focus on both shattering and phantasms. You can’t have both, pick one or the other. If you’re focusing on shatters, them you will let your phantasms survive for one attack, then shatter. If focusing on phantasms, then you will want to preserve them, through signet of illusions or other methods.

Ok guys , in order to deal the maximum damage I changed my weapon sets to dual swords and scepter/pistol.
With zerker gear > http://tinyurl.com/nvpw6ud

I still don’t think you understand….

Harmonious Mantra and Restorative Mantra do not work well together. Harmonious will increase your dps from Mantra of Pain, but reduce your (AoE) healing from ALL your mantras.

Persisting Images and Empowering Illusions have no place in your build. You’re shattering, it doesn’t matter how much damage they do. Actually, scratch that, if you’re able to micro manage your timing and phantasms, Empowering Illusions is fine, but Persisting Images is still utterly terrible. Replace it with Medic’s Feedback or Mender’s Purity.

Get rid of your 5 points in Chaos and put it into Dueling for Vigor, or put those 5 points into Illusions and then get Vigorous Revelation instead of Persisting Images.

Lastly, Restorative Illusions is bad without Illusionary Persona. You’re giving yourself too much heal and not enough utility. In fact, Restorative Illusions heals relatively nothing without Illusionary Persona, so I would suggest just scrapping it and getting Condition Removal on Shatter if you want to get Vigorous Revelations instead of Persisting Images.

Your build will still be bleh, but it would be better than a build that keeps on compromising itself.

Well, I have spectated Mesmers with such a horrible builds in hotjoins, that it almost looked like they rolled their face over the keyboard just to fill out 30/30/x/x/x for teh l33test dommag! and got out to the field with no clue whatsoever.

I bet it’s like that for 70% of the people there, so just let it out…

On a serious notion, there is a sticky in the Mesmer forum with a bunch of build generally acknowledged to be effective. I think you should go read those guides there, before you take decisions.

Don’t be mad for my post, but, for what I’ve seen, you still do the same mistake.

You want to run a build that can do a little bit of everything, even if they don’t work well together, and these type of builds normally are weak.

You want to have a lot of damage, with a lot of toughness, you want to rely on mantras, you want to shatter, but at the same time you upgrade your phantasms, you want to heal through mantras, but you have 1 more activation…

Then, another mistake you do is to make changes just to say you changed something, but you don’t consider if they’re good for your build (can you explain me why you choose to use scepter in pve and in a build without condition damage?)

What I recommend you is to focus on less things. 1 or 2 maximum. Then, make the build around these things, but don’t upgrade these aspects too much (don’t put full berserker gear, as you did, if you want damage). Finally, balance the aspects that are worst, but always only if the don’t affect the main aspects of your build, so if you decide to go shatter, forget about upgrading your phantasms.

The perfect build is not the one that can do lots of things, niether is the one that is the best in one aspect. The perfect one is a well balanced build, one that provides good amount of the aspect you focused, and also implements the rest of the stuff that synergize, so you can take profit from as much aspects as the build offers.

Ansau.7326:

Don’t be mad for my post, but, for what I’ve seen, you still do the same mistake.

You want to run a build that can do a little bit of everything, even if they don’t work well together, and these type of builds normally are weak.

You want to have a lot of damage, with a lot of toughness, you want to rely on mantras, you want to shatter, but at the same time you upgrade your phantasms, you want to heal through mantras, but you have 1 more activation…

Then, another mistake you do is to make changes just to say you changed something, but you don’t consider if they’re good for your build (can you explain me why you choose to use scepter in pve and in a build without condition damage?)

What I recommend you is to focus on less things. 1 or 2 maximum. Then, make the build around these things, but don’t upgrade these aspects too much (don’t put full berserker gear, as you did, if you want damage). Finally, balance the aspects that are worst, but always only if the don’t affect the main aspects of your build, so if you decide to go shatter, forget about upgrading your phantasms.

The perfect build is not the one that can do lots of things, niether is the one that is the best in one aspect. The perfect one is a well balanced build, one that provides good amount of the aspect you focused, and also implements the rest of the stuff that synergize, so you can take profit from as much aspects as the build offers.

Should I be mad ?! No , I’m very greatful
You are right , but I’m confused as I want to maximize my AOE as much as possible.
I don’t want to die much , can u give me a good build that increase AOE and healing ( without utilities that have very long cooldown ) ? I got scepter to create as many clones as possible for shattering , pistol and sword phantasms as they are the strongest.

Oh my

Unfortunately, mesmers doesn’t have a lot of aoe damage skills. F1, bliurred frenzy, iBerserker and iWarden are the main aoe skills.

In clone creation, it is better to take Deceptive Evasion (trait X of duel) intead of using the scepter, since it’s a broken weapon.

For healing, Ether feast will be better. With Deceptive evasion you will always have 3 illusions up, so you’ll maximize the healing.

I put you one random build that focuses on phantasms, but also have some toughness and provides you quicker shatters:
http://tinyurl.com/q2duyqu

- Phantasms: +15% damage, permanent fury, x2 life, +20% attack recharge.
- Survivability: +2400 of armor, +17000 hp, -3% damage received for each illusion (you will normally have 3 illusions), permanent vigor (more dodges), phantasmal defender, 7558 of healing with 3 illusions, condition cleaner with generosity sigil (sword).
- Dps: 20% less cd on shatters, 45% crit chance and +57% crit damage, +3400 of power with 25 stacks of bloodlust sigil and greatsword.

Don’t take it serious, is just to show you how you should do builds. It upgrades phantasms, but you also have a quick clone creation and quite quick shatters if all phantasms are on cd.
It might seem 20 points in illusions are too much, but phantasmal haste do a pretty job with iwarden, iberserker and also idefender. You will also have +200 condition damage, so bleeding stacks from sharper images will deal more (think both iwarden and iberserker deals multiple hits).

Thanks for your great build , I shall give it a try
Do you think that +9% defense is better than perma regen via Phantasmal healing trait ?
What is Blink skills for ? I will be more powerful when attacking from long range ! Shouldn’t I replace it with Mirror images as they will inflict bleeding( can shatter too ) ?
According to this build > http://tinyurl.com/q2duyqu
I checked the wiki , mentra of recovery heals more than ether feast by 3000>>
ether cd = 20 , healing with 3 illusions > 7558
mentra cd = 10 , healing > 5288 >> 5288*2( as its cd is half ether’s one ) = 10576

I Think your problem is that you value healing as you do. Mesmers can heal, especialy aoe in pve. BUT we far better set to simply avoid the dmg in first place.

By go for skill like “9% less dmg” “Illusionary persona + reset shtter @50% hp” “blink” “Decoy” “Veil” “Massinvis” “Sword cd 20% – (for more block and disorsion)”“staff cd 20%” “Portal” "Idefender (if you into phantasms) etc etc you be surviving beter + can invest in dmg.

When bursted and you suddenly go from 100%-50% in 1,5 sec it dont matter if you theoreticly heal more over 20 sec with 4 chased smal heals, you need hp instantly, you hit a immunity to not take more dmg, blink out and heal up and ready to fight and dont have to think about recharche a mantra in 8 sec, the heal cd itself.

/Osicat

PS ,Blink is far the strongest pve utility we have on the side of portal. It let you not only close gap, brake stun, avoid aoe dmg. It also can climb terrain. Chased by a zerg? blink up on a high ground that other need to run around to get.

As Osicat said, you’re obsessed with healing. Mesmer is a class that is made more to prevent the damage than recovering from them. That’s why we have skills like blink, decoy, blurred frenzy, distortion, perma vigor, mass invisibility, phase retreat…
All this skills bring us the possibility to avoid damage.

If you want regeneration through phantasms you need to spend 5 more points, so you need to get rid of one trait of other lines, so is a bad choice. Think what I said before “balance the aspects that are worst, but always only if the don’t affect the main aspects of your build”.

For blink explanation, I think Osicat said all is need to be said xd

About Mirror images, is a burst shatter skill, and you don’t need in pve, since it’s mainly based in constant dps, not burst. With Deceptive evasion you can supply Mirror images perfectly, so you don’t need it.

And finally, you did the maths wrong in healing calculation xd
In my build, mantra of recovering has 10s of cd, but also has 2.75s of casting. So it’s not true that heals +10000 in the same time that ether cast. Note that between mantra’s activation, there’s also a 1s of cd, so ether feast casting time is neutralized.
But there’s another more important thing. In PvE you don’t need to worry too much about healing, because mobs don’t have a big constant dps. So it’s better to have a big instant healing (ether feast), if a lot of mobs attack you or you’re dealing a boss, than a more constant healing (mantra).
For your information, I get used to go with mirror as my healing skill, I have no problems in PvE and it’s the worst healing skill.

I got you point , thanks
Will get greatsword and dual swords, but why did you get Divinity runes ? wouldn’t be better if you get scholer or fighter runes ?
http://tinyurl.com/o8pteyr

As I said, don’t take it serious. I put Divinity cause it’s what I use in my PvE set. It gives you all rounded stats and best crit damage., but they are also the most expensive ones xd

PD: Also, if you’re running dual sword, think about trying blade training for phantasmal fury, and choose what you most like.

Blade training will just give me +50 precesion as 4/5 of swords skill have -20% ( illusions )
Both spear and triedent got 3/skills with -20% cd

CD reduction really stacks, even if the descriptions don’t show it, so for 3, 4 and 5 sword skills you will have 40% less cd. Also you will have blurred frenzy every 8s. It’s up to you, if you prefer a quicker spamming build or just stronger phantasms.