Guild Wars 2

I thought I should share this build with you all. Would like a constructive opinion on it.

Brief Intro:
This is a PVE build mostly, although I have occasionally used it in solo WVW and sPVP, I have found it very good and effective if got right.

The Build:
15/20/0/25/12

Link:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQRAsa8dnsISra2oGOoB3aIJOzA6LHVBsT+gqLpA38G-e

Reason behind build:
After playing heavy clone damage, power, lockdown, and reflective builds, I was wondering if it is possible to have all those factors in one build with little loss to what makes these builds so good in the first place. That is when I came up with this build:

The build combines all aspects and does achieve what it sets out to do.

Build breakdown: Traits:

Domination:15 points to get Dazzling for vulnerability
III Empowering Illusion

Dueling: 20 points for
II Phantasmal Fury and
IX Blade Training.

Inspiration: 25 points for Phantasmal Strength for more clone bust damage.
(changeable) and
VIII Warden’s Feedback. And not to forget,
Illusions: 10 points for
III Compounding Power.

Gear set:
Wont go into gear set, because we all know berserker is the best dps gear to go for. If you find using this build and berserker gear difficult, I will suggest ticking up some toughness or Vitality gear in the mix to help with survivability.

Weapon of choice:

S/P and S/F

Sword: For close/max damage,

People will ask why go with two sword on both hand when you can use just one, the skill with be on CD anyway. True to that but, my reasons is simple, for keeping might stack up.

It came as a surprise to me while testing sigils out in PVP, I noticed that while having SsofBattle on both sword weapons, during combat while swapping between them, noticed that the three stacks of might were been refreshed. And because the might means more DPS.

Pistols: For Range damage, Lockout/Lockdown and daze, and more vulnerability for more damage.

Focus: For Close and reflective damage, Temporal Curtain for reflective damage and also for mobility, within and out of combat.

Utilities:
SotE: to refresh all phantasmal CD; if they get killed before time, fighting multiple mobs or moving from fight to fight.

Feedback: More reflective damage and armour. Combine with iLeap, you have yourself chaos armour for extra protection on both you and your clones.

Decoy: deceive mobs, to drop aggro

SoD or MoD: More stun, more lockout/lockdown. Shame they can’t be used on champions.

Mass Invisiblity: Same and Decoy.

The rotation and some explanation:

Start of with S/P
Duelist ? Feedback ? Magic bullet
(Timed right, mob is stunned under the dome)
Swap to S/F you now have might stack
iLeap ? Pwarden ? swap with clone ? Blurred Frenzy ? Decoy or
iLeap ? swap with clone ? Blurred Frenzy ? Decoy ? Pwarden

During Blurred frenzy, all attention will be on you, that is when you use decoy. By decoying, mob attention will now be focused on your decoy clone. This also mean your Duelist can unload a second time.

While in stealth, move behind mob, then
SoD ? (sometime I drop TC between the mob and I for good measure) ? Swap back to S/P might refresh.

Then start the rotation again. By the time you finish your first rotation, mob is died or almost died.

So there you go. The build I call The Mason.
What are your thoughts.

I don’t see it becomes very popular.

Ptolemy.5086:

I don’t see it becomes very popular.

I don’t expect anything, I just want to know what people think and have discussions on it.

First it not your usual build or a variant of a popular build, it a build I came up with that is very different, fun to play with. (My point of view)

I use exactly the same build in PvE!
The only difference is 5 points spent differently and a sword offhand instead of a pistol.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQRAsc8dnsISra2oGGpB1aIJOzA6LH9BsTqgqLpA38G-zACBYfFRjm+I0UBBKzcIrZnRsMsIas6aYKXER1AA-e

It works very well if you prefer staying in melee and even tho i swap my PvP build almost every day, i usually run this one for PvE over a year now.

This is basically identical to the 10/20 build which is semi-popular in PvE. It’s fine and you do decent damage, but it won’t be as effective as a 10/30 or 0/30 build because of the significantly lower reflect damage. I also recommend sword instead of pistol for the offhand, as the iSwordsman is excellent and the block from sword 4 is helpful in defense.

For PvP, it seems similar to the common phantasm builds. iDuelist is a nice choice in PvP, and I like the utility setup for that as well.

Yeah, this is nothing new. I refer to this build as the ‘flex phantasm build’, because it’s pretty versatile, great at nothing, but pretty good at whatever you want to do.

maxinion.8396:

This is basically identical to the 10/20 build which is semi-popular in PvE. It’s fine and you do decent damage, but it won’t be as effective as a 10/30 or 0/30 build because of the significantly lower reflect damage. I also recommend sword instead of pistol for the offhand, as the iSwordsman is excellent and the block from sword 4 is helpful in defense.

For PvP, it seems similar to the common phantasm builds. iDuelist is a nice choice in PvP, and I like the utility setup for that as well.

I thought about the sword offhand but I find that I don’t really need the block and the idea of the iDuelist at rang helps sometime by taking the aggro from the mob.

For PVP, I only use it sparingly. Very difficult to chain together when iWarden.

Finally,
From what you all have said, I now believe that it is almost impossible for someone to come up with an original build.

Thanks for your feedback by the way.

Don’t take it personally that the build is not super original. The Mesmer in its current form has been unchanged for a few months, so most possibilities have been explored. And your build is good— that’s something to be happy about. With April 15 patch flipping lots of things, there will be lots of room for originality then (especially with 5 new grandmaster traits).

maxinion.8396:

Don’t take it personally that the build is not super original. The Mesmer in its current form has been unchanged for a few months, so most possibilities have been explored. And your build is good— that’s something to be happy about. With April 15 patch flipping lots of things, there will be lots of room for originality then (especially with 5 new grandmaster traits).

Not taking it personal, just stating a fact.

With all the traits, utilities and weapons combination against the number of people that play the class, I believe someone would have tried it or a variant; although might not have shared it.

As for April 15, I still believe we mostly see variants of builds and not true original build.