Support Build for Dungeons

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: echofoxtrot.4239

echofoxtrot.4239

90 + views and no replies on my previous post about this build. I assume it’s the wall-o-text thats throwing you off.

so let me shorten it for you.

this build focuses on buffing iMage to the point where 3 of them do enough DPS for you to run around supporting your team with projectile reflection, condition removal, boon dispersal, and a tiny bit of healing without worrying about not contributing any worthwhile damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgQQNAW8dl0zqqHVToGaNJxJFMf5oeg9s7dSFUdpC4G;T4AZXCukcp6SxF1XmvEfZ/y9l8rlIDB2LA
(COPY AND PASTE INTO BROWSER WINDOW)

LOTS of projectile reflection possibilities in this build (a surprising amount, in fact) that any ranged dungeon boss will be a cake walk, but not specific enough that it can be used in any dungeon with a few tweaks. Everything from your heal (Mirror) to skills (Feedback, Mimic) to weapons (both traited Focus skills) will reflect, and with Masterful Reflection your own body can even serve as a reflective surface in a pinch.

Besides the insane amount of reflection, your phantasms are not only doing sick damage but granting regeneration to allies. You can remove conditions with Null Field, as well as the iWarden + Temporal Curtain combo.

any/all comments/suggestions/critiques welcome, especially when it comes to the traits and the stats i should be stacking on equipment.

(edited by echofoxtrot.4239)

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: Vond.2510

Vond.2510

Sounds quite interesting. Bad link for the actual build however so might want to look into that unless it’s a temporary issue.

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: Tombfyre.8496

Tombfyre.8496

Cut and paste the URL into your browser. For some reason the forums don’t allow a click redirect to gw2skills.net.

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: echofoxtrot.4239

echofoxtrot.4239

this build even works alright out in regular world PVE. tried it out this morning. id love to see what everyone else thinks of it.

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: Carighan.6758

Carighan.6758

Considering this is supposed to be a dungeon support build, why the final choice in Illusions instead of AoE Diversion?

The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: echofoxtrot.4239

echofoxtrot.4239

Considering this is supposed to be a dungeon support build, why the final choice in Illusions instead of AoE Diversion?

because it’s a bit of a hybrid build. I want to support, but I want to be able to do respectable damage as well. so phantasmal haste lets the iMages hit more often (damage) but more importantly gives the iWarden almost constant uptime for reflecting projectiles (support). also, the AoE diversion requires me to be shattering, which I try not to do.

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: echofoxtrot.4239

echofoxtrot.4239

I had an epiphany. the third minor trait in inspiration is +15% phantasm damage. so, I dropped the 10 points in domination and added them to inspiration choosing menders purity: cure a condition when you heal. this coupled with phantasmal regeneration means unlimited condition removal…doesnt it?

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: SilentDaunt.4289

SilentDaunt.4289

I had an epiphany. the third minor trait in inspiration is +15% phantasm damage. so, I dropped the 10 points in domination and added them to inspiration choosing menders purity: cure a condition when you heal. this coupled with phantasmal regeneration means unlimited condition removal…doesnt it?

Why trade the 15% illusion damage? I thought that applies to both phantasm and clones? I would trade away the last 10 points in illusions for phantasmal strength and sharper images. Switching out illusionary elasticity for phantasmal haste.

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: Furienify.5738

Furienify.5738

You’ve basically stumbled on what I’ve found to be the only genuinely successful dungeon build for Mesmers. It’s not quite there, but I’ll spill my own secrets.

  • TRAITS
    • Trim Illusions down to 20, remove the +bounce trait, swap compounding power for the +confusion duration trait (you’ll see why soon), and keep haste. Staff autoattack is just generally bad and should only be used as filler – I’ll elaborate on this later.
    • Cull the points in Domination. I’m fairly sure that trait only impacts clones, making it useless.
    • With these extra 20 points, bring Dueling up to 25. This makes your Wardens apply bleed at a much faster rate than five Staff mesmers put together courtesy of Sharper Images. The 25th point makes all your stuff cause confusion on death, adding further to your damage output (in addition to the Warden comboing off your own ethereal fields). Finally, Deceptive Evasion just ups your survivability in general, as well as providing shatter fodder in the rare instances you’ll want to actually use your class mechanic.
    • With the remainder of your culled points, bring Inspiration up to 25. This boosts your Warden’s damage even further.
    • Swap out the Glamour recharge trait for Medic’s Feedback. Immunity to projectiles during revival can make or break a fight.
  • UTILITIES
    • I find that Mirror’s reflect and shorter cooldown still don’t manage to outweigh the bonus heals on Ether Feast, but your mileage may vary.
    • Null Field and Phantasmal Disenchanter are too situational for long-time spots on your bar. Boons on enemies in PvE don’t show up too often, and there are better forms of condition removal out there, usually brought by your party.
    • Mirrored Feedback irreplaceable, as you already figured out, but I’d recommend slotting Signet of Illusions and Phantasmal Defender almost full-time.
      • Why? Little-known secret: the 50% damage transfer on the pDefender applies to all allies in a 600-unit radius around the Defender. When I add the bonus health from Signet of Illusions, I measure my own Defender’s health at around 10,000hp. If you summon it on the right mobs (non-aoe, focusing on other players) and account for innate Phantasmal Regeneration (and other party-sourced healing), it can almost double your potential health pool.
  • GEAR
    • I disagree with the stacking of condition damage. I’ve found that Mesmers cannot into conditions as a whole in a PvE setting, save for a few specific instances involving super-fast attacks and confusion. Staff is just too slow and unpredictable – any attack you or your clones make risks being diluted by vulnerability, which can be applied much more efficiently by most other classes.
      • With this in mind, just about any other class will out-condition you. They can simply stack on the DoTs better than do, especially considering the investment you have to make with phantasms. The only time this doesn’t hold true is when the enemy is stuck between three of your iWardens, which is a disgusting meatgrinder of death and agony so potent you can safely go walk your dog until the mob dies. All in all – while you benefit from condition damage, it should not be your focus.
    • The build site you linked doesn’t account for the different stats used for PvP/PvE prefixes, so I can’t really link what I use. I can tell you that my gear is usually Rampager (Power/Prec/Condi), Berserker (Power/Prec/CritDmg) and Valkyrie (Power/Vit/CritDmg).

Assuming I linked it right, the finished product looks like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgQQNAW8dlwzKonUzqGa9IyZGK3yhSx15dlZgbXIA;TMALRGCsXA

Your damage isn’t hot unless you manage to get your phantasms up – and some boss encounters make that reallykittenhard to do, though I find it to be solid in general PvE as well. Still, the support you bring, when used right, is invaluable. It trivializes not only specific boss encounters, but often entire dungeon paths, given how ridiculously powerful the Warden is. I expect it to be nerfed at some point, so use it while it lasts.

(edited by Furienify.5738)

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: echofoxtrot.4239

echofoxtrot.4239

I had an epiphany. the third minor trait in inspiration is +15% phantasm damage. so, I dropped the 10 points in domination and added them to inspiration choosing menders purity: cure a condition when you heal. this coupled with phantasmal regeneration means unlimited condition removal…doesnt it?

Why trade the 15% illusion damage? I thought that applies to both phantasm and clones? I would trade away the last 10 points in illusions for phantasmal strength and sharper images. Switching out illusionary elasticity for phantasmal haste.

because this build uses nothing but phantasms. i keep iMages and iWardens up while supporting the team.

I see what youre saying about sharper images, I’m going to try it. but I wasn’t sure when I made the build. whats better, higher chance to crit or bleeding on crits? seems a bit of a toss up.

I like illusionary elasticity because it gives more teammates the chance of getting bounced to and getting a boon. plus it’s good for general open world PVE, keeps me from having to trade out too many traits depending on what im doing.

did you mean to write phantasmal strength for the 10 point illusion tradeoff? because thats the minor in inspiration. are you saying I should keep the 15% illusion damage in the domination line? empowered illusions I think it’s called.

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: Rhyno.7084

Rhyno.7084

Ehh, what dungeons are you doing where you can drop 3 iWardens? It stands still and pops like a balloon.

What you have here is a DPS build without decent crit in exchange for the focus trait which in my opinion is way outshined by the pistol, which gives you ridiculous range and way, way more reliability.

The (good) mesmer’s support capabilities almost entirely come from utilities which are awkwardly separate from build choice.

Retaliation does very low damage by the way, and we are one of the 4 classes to have Crit Chance and Crit Damage coupled in a trait tree (precision.) That’s really too valuable to pass up if you’re looking at damage at all.

(edited by Rhyno.7084)

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: Furienify.5738

Furienify.5738

Ehh, what dungeons are you doing where you can drop 3 iWardens? It stands still and pops like a balloon.

What you have here is a DPS build without decent crit in exchange for the focus trait which in my opinion is way outshined by the pistol, which gives you ridiculous range and way, way more reliability.

The (good) mesmer’s support capabilities almost entirely come from utilities which are awkwardly separate from build choice.

I’ve done everything but explorable TA and the Warden has gone the extra mile for me every time. Even compared to the Duelist. That extra range does nothing for you, since it only impacts the phantasm and trick shot. In my tests on dummies, the duelist was basically a single-target Warden, sans reflect, with half the damage, that attacked at a slower rate.

Just don’t summon the Warden on melee mobs unless they’re already engaged – be it by you, a Leap clone, or one of your fellow players. If a melee mob isn’t opened, it completely dominates ranged because of their terrible AI. Most ranged NPCs don’t have melee attacks, so they basically stare at the Warden all day and kill themselves.

There are points in some dungeons (CM comes to mind with the scattershots, snipers and riflemen) where I can just summon a Warden on the mobs and have everyone leave for a bathroom break. By the time they get back, nobody’s hurt, all the NPCs are dead, we’re good to go.

Want a boss example? The bomb guy in the farm on the Asura route. Drop a Warden on him, have your party stand in/behind it. You’ll see the mass of red circles everywhere, but nothing happens, because your warden reflects them all into his face. Kill the riflemen on the upper ledges (easy), sit in the warden, go afk for a bit. The boss will kill himself every time.

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: Rhyno.7084

Rhyno.7084

I never said to not use the warden, I’m saying that I can’t think of a dungeon where it works great the whole way through.

I use the pistol and the focus, as everyone should bring flexible weapons, not just 1 set. Now the question is which to spec for.

The warden does more DPS with dampening obviously, at the expense of popping easily making it useless in the fights with gratuitous AoE.

The Duelist is much, much easier to drop and keep.

Since you can use both the question becomes which to spec for.

If you spec for the focus, you get:
200 Vit, 200 Healing
20% Focus CD, Reflect, Phant regen, Phant retaliation, and 20% CD on glamours.

If you spec for the pistol, you get:
250 Precision, +20% crit damage
20% Pistol and Sword CD, huge duelist range, bleed on crit

This choice seems like a no brainier to me seeing as the pistol spec will way, way out DPS the focus spec, even when you’re using the focus.

That being said, it won’t work if you can’t stay alive without the extra health. I personally use the scepter, skipping the sword CD stuff for Deceptive Evasion but that’s personal preference.

And let me repeat: I utilize the Warden in dungeons regardless of what build I’m using.

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: Furienify.5738

Furienify.5738

The forums are breaking replies and eating posts for some reason, so I’m sorry if this comes out as a duplicate. I understand what you’re saying and agree that the duelist is easier to use (and some fights demand it over the warden), but you lost me here:

Since you can use both the question becomes which to spec for.

If you spec for the focus, you get:
200 Vit, 200 Healing
20% Focus CD, Reflect, Phant regen, Phant retaliation, and 20% CD on glamours.

If you spec for the pistol, you get:
250 Precision, +20% crit damage
20% Pistol and Sword CD, huge duelist range, bleed on crit

This choice seems like a no brainier to me seeing as the pistol spec will way, way out DPS the focus spec, even when you’re using the focus.

You’re speaking as though these specs are mutually exclusive. With 25 in Dueling and 25 in Inspiration, I can get everything you’ve listed here except for the duelist/pistol buffs. Am I missing something?

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: echofoxtrot.4239

echofoxtrot.4239

Ehh, what dungeons are you doing where you can drop 3 iWardens? It stands still and pops like a balloon.

Retaliation does very low damage by the way, and we are one of the 4 classes to have Crit Chance and Crit Damage coupled in a trait tree (precision.) That’s really too valuable to pass up if you’re looking at damage at all.

my bad, i meant to write pWarlock instead :/ sorry for the confusion. anyone who responded based on the use of “warden” versus “warlock,” if this changes your opinion please let me know. i’m looking for as much information here as i can get.

makes sense, about the crit. didn’t know the combo of crit damage and crit % was almost unique to use. yeah, makes it hard to pass up.

i’m not cool on the pistol though, sorry loves me some iWarden and Curtain too much.

(edited by echofoxtrot.4239)

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: Rhyno.7084

Rhyno.7084

To Furienify, I was responding to the OP’s build, I didn’t realize you were a different person. I’ll take a look in a sec.

EDIT: Looked at the build. Do you have Confusing Combatants mostly for the stats you get from the 5 trait points? That build looks solid for the Focus. I like that you also prefer the feedback bubble, I do too.

To echofoxtrot, now you’re really confusing me, iMage is the Torch phantasm.

The combo of Crit Damage/Chance is unique to 4 classes, Thief, Ranger, Mesmer, and one other I forget. So good for DPS, the other 4 classes get Precision and Condition damage which is honestly what we should have but I’m glad we don’t.

If you don’t want to use the pistol at all, I think you’re missing out but I think the precision versions are still going to be better.

Reflection and retaliation do very little damage, which brings the discussion down to where the 20% CDs are, and the lost health. I think it’s a tossup, but I think swapping between a pistol and a focus is the way to go.

(edited by Rhyno.7084)

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: echofoxtrot.4239

echofoxtrot.4239

thanks everyone for the comments, much appreciated. keep em comin.

  • TRAITS
    • Trim Illusions down to 20, remove the +bounce trait, swap compounding power for the +confusion duration trait (you’ll see why soon), and keep haste. Staff autoattack is just generally bad and should only be used as filler – I’ll elaborate on this later.
    • Cull the points in Domination. I’m fairly sure that trait only impacts clones, making it useless.
    • With these extra 20 points, bring Dueling up to 25. This makes your Wardens apply bleed at a much faster rate than five Staff mesmers put together courtesy of Sharper Images. The 25th point makes all your stuff cause confusion on death, adding further to your damage output (in addition to the Warden comboing off your own ethereal fields).

first of all, as stated in my above post, i meant 3 pWarlocks instead of 3 iWardens. that’s why i dig the staff and condition damage so much, those warlocks feed on it. sorry for any confusion my typo may have caused.

Finally, Deceptive Evasion just ups your survivability in general, as well as providing shatter fodder in the rare instances you’ll want to actually use your class mechanic.

i don’t like the “dodge to make a clone” minor trait. when i have 3 phantasms up and i need to dodge a bosses attack, that loses me DPS. it’s unfortunate i can’t skip it (it’s a minor trait, right?) to get the rest of the dueling tree. this almost breaks the tree for me. i know that may seem unreasonable, but in order for me to be ok with my damage while im supporting (remember, hybrid build here) i need 3 phantasms up…either 2 pWarlocks and an iWarden or 3 pWarlocks.

i guess i could just re-summon whatever phantasm gets popped. might waste the work i might have done positioning my iWarden between my party and the boss though…

  • Swap out the Glamour recharge trait for Medic’s Feedback. Immunity to projectiles during revival can make or break a fight.

i see what you’re saying about Warden’s Feedback, but being able to put Feedback out faster for the entirety of the fight, protecting the entire team (instead of just over my teammate and i when he dies) seems more efficient. plus, i can just throw it on the boss and then start reviving, right? with the lower CDR, there’s a good chance it’ll be up for use anyway.

  • I find that Mirror’s reflect and shorter cooldown still don’t manage to outweigh the bonus heals on Ether Feast, but your mileage may vary.

you’re right about Mirror being situational. SE Fire Golem, or CM explorable, i’ll have Mirror out. Less ranged-heavy dungeons, Ether Feast.

(edited by echofoxtrot.4239)

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: echofoxtrot.4239

echofoxtrot.4239

  • Mirrored Feedback irreplaceable, as you already figured out, but I’d recommend slotting Signet of Illusions and Phantasmal Defender almost full-time.
    • Why? Little-known secret: the 50% damage transfer on the pDefender applies to all allies in a 600-unit radius around the Defender. When I add the bonus health from Signet of Illusions, I measure my own Defender’s health at around 10,000hp. If you summon it on the right mobs (non-aoe, focusing on other players) and account for innate Phantasmal Regeneration (and other party-sourced healing), it can almost double your potential health pool.

AWESOME point about pDefender and Signet of Illusions. i’m all over that. is it worth further traiting for phantasm health? or is the signet enough?

  • I disagree with the stacking of condition damage. I’ve found that Mesmers cannot into conditions as a whole in a PvE setting, save for a few specific instances involving super-fast attacks and confusion. Staff is just too slow and unpredictable – any attack you or your clones make risks being diluted by vulnerability, which can be applied much more efficiently by most other classes.
    • With this in mind, just about any other class will out-condition you. They can simply stack on the DoTs better than do, especially considering the investment you have to make with phantasms. The only time this doesn’t hold true is when the enemy is stuck between three of your iWardens, which is a disgusting meatgrinder of death and agony so potent you can safely go walk your dog until the mob dies. All in all – while you benefit from condition damage, it should not be your focus.
  • The build site you linked doesn’t account for the different stats used for PvP/PvE prefixes, so I can’t really link what I use. I can tell you that my gear is usually Rampager (Power/Prec/Condi), Berserker (Power/Prec/CritDmg) and Valkyrie (Power/Vit/CritDmg).

i see what you’re saying about condition damage…in boss fights, there will be enough conditions on the enemy already, mine might not make that much of a difference. and the pWarlocks benefit no matter who put the condition on the target. in that case , why did you recommend Rampager gear? (sounds a lot like the Carrion gear i’m currently sporting). sounds like Berserker or Valkyrie might be better.

this being the case then, the next question is what should my main auto attack be? if i’m not using the staff for filler damage, what AM i doing while waiting for some support work to be required?

Assuming I linked it right, the finished product looks like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgQQNAW8dlwzKonUzqGa9IyZGK3yhSx15dlZgbXIA;TMALRGCsXA

yeah, it worked. you had Signet of Domination in there though, i assume you intended Signet of Illusions…?

(edited by echofoxtrot.4239)

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: echofoxtrot.4239

echofoxtrot.4239

To echofoxtrot, now you’re really confusing me, iMage is the Torch phantasm.

ugh, im sorry…i meant pWarlock. the staff phantasm…so sorry for the confusion

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: Rhyno.7084

Rhyno.7084

Condition damage gear is fantastic with the Warden OR Duelist. It’s actually even better with the Warden.

Sharper images drops a 5s stack of bleed per crit, with near 100% crit chance on your Phantasms, you can expect 11 stacks off of the Warden. If those ticks are for 80 damage, you’re getting another 4400 damage out of the Warden’s attack, in an AoE. Wowzers. If you go for crit damage instead you’re not going to get nearly that much out of it.

I tested the bleed damage against test dummies at 0 condition damage vs. a lot (can’t remember the exact number.) and the bleed amount went from around 40 to over 80, so depending on what the warden is hitting for you’re looking at a huge DPS boost, more than you’ll get from some crit damage.

I really should sit down and do the math using the correct bleed damage formula though (website is wrong.) The discussion comes down to getting the right mix and the trade-off isn’t always one to one. (for example crit damage GEMS in the jewerly will almost certainly be better)

Of course that damage doesn’t transfer as well to the iWarlock either, but I typically drop more duelists/wardens than warlocks.

Bleed is the best condition for damage, and you get a TON of free confusion.

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: IntheCoconut.3497

IntheCoconut.3497

Thanks for posting this. I love supporting, so I can’t wait to try this out in a dungeon!

Support Build for Dungeons

in Mesmer

Posted by: echofoxtrot.4239

echofoxtrot.4239

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgQQNAW8dlwzKonUzqGa9IxpHMP6LHlCs79SKwNvB;TkAqmMNJay2krJZTLRGBsXA

(EDITED THE BUILD)

here is the build i’m running with currently, considering everyones feedback. full rampager’s gear (Pow/Prec/Cond)

(edited by echofoxtrot.4239)