Guild Wars 2

Here it is: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQRAsf7al0zipXUTgGbNJhZBnZAdpjSB29eJF4O3A-jU0AorIjxyIuLIUAM6TiJRAEBQqAUCsIas1sioxqtxUuAa4UriTk5Oz27gYwjqMAVLA-w

I know Phantasm build isn’t the best for larger fights but I don’t mind giving up some power on that if I get stronger somewhere else… for now.

Basically I wanted a strong range option without using neither Staff or GS. What’s left? Scepter (btw, reading the patch notes it could be a good weapon choice so I would like to test it now and get ready for when patch will come out since I never used it and I am not good with it yet) Duelist and Mage.

By picking the three Phantasm traits (fury, damage and haste) the Duelist becomes really strong. By using Scepter in conjunction with pistol it should allow me to stay far, deal damage and put pressure (hopefully). The target is to have at least two/three Duelists out.

Eventually I would be closing in by switching weapon set Leap/Blurred frenzy and escape with torch, gain some distance and repeat.

Gear mainly knight/cavalier
Having 4 weapons I would use these sigils:
Battle/Accuracy on sword/torch
Damage/Energy on scepter/pistol

I haven’t tested it yet.
What do you think? Do you see any lacking points/weaknesses?
Suggestions?

Ty

The problem I find with this, although SoInsp. is nice, you’re going to have a hard time reaching your target of 2-3 duelists. This being, without any phantasm HP buff, each duelist can be killed really easily.

This becomes bad for a couple of reasons;
1) Phantasmal Haste becomes redundant; if they’re going to be dying moments after they’ve been casted because of low HP, why bother?

2) In group fights they’d die pretty fast that’s a given (even phantasm builds with increased HP pool find their damage dealers dying fast), and in 1v1 situations you’d be handy capped significantly especially if the opponent has retaliation. Combine that with low HP pool and you’re not going to be able to reach your desired 2-3 duelist target.

Also, the 5 points into Chaos seems like it could be used better somewhere else. Like in Inspiration for Restorative Illusions. Then remove the 10 from Illusions and grab pistol recharge as your grand master in dueling, and get out dodge roll clones as your master. This will allow you to proc your iDuelist for the initial burst of damage, but not waste a trait because they’re gonna die eventually, and synergise better with your food and energy sigil.

As for your heal, I’m a major fan of Mirror, however I usually run shatter builds. I can see it ether feast being more beneficial possibly in group situations here.

I guess it’ll give your more sustainability and take advantage of your phantasms squishiness.

thank you for the reply.

In fact I did not really know where to put those 5 points
Tbh I thought of Persisting images but wasn’t too sure about it. I will follow your advise and try it. Eventually I will try Restorative Illusions and lastly, if everything fails do as you say and get 30 points in dueling.

The thing is that when I use iDuelist without P.Haste it seems it’s taking ages between an attack and the other. I guess it’s just a matter of getting used to it… But you assume the images always dye immediately. When they do not dye and you have 2-3 of them out (in a pve environment for example, it doesn’t have to be always a wvw zerg) they can deal a lot of damage.

But more important. What do you think of Scepter and Scepter trained? I see majority of ppl using pistol in conjunction with sword. How do you see Scepter and Pistol for a ranged solution? Sword/torch I’m not too worried about. It should work, shouldn’t it?

In power builds, scepter does 1-2k auto attack hits, nothing really spectacular. However, scepter block and confusion ray do a lot of damage. I would say it’s alright, however personally I’m a bigger fan of invulnerability from sword 2.

Thank you again for your feedback.

I tried it in spvp and I was quite happy, good survivabilty, good damage… until I went out in the open, and realized scepter has a major drawback: 900yards range. When fighting on the nodes I didn’t realize it!
What it also kitten es me off is that pistol trained, not only the tooltip, but its effective range doesn’t change. Bug?

Anyway, the scepter short range in wvw is unworkab for me le so I immediately switched back to 2h + sword pistol

trooper.2650:

Thank you again for your feedback.

I tried it in spvp and I was quite happy, good survivabilty, good damage… until I went out in the open, and realized scepter has a major drawback: 900yards range. When fighting on the nodes I didn’t realize it!
What it also kitten es me off is that pistol trained, not only the tooltip, but its effective range doesn’t change. Bug?

Anyway, the scepter short range in wvw is unworkab for me le so I immediately switched back to 2h + sword pistol

Pistol traited allows you to summon from 1.2k range, and stun from 1.2k range. However once summoned, the clones still move in to 900 range… I dunno why. Maybe it’s a bug, maybe Anet just doesn’t care.

What do you want to use this build for?

WvW/pve. But I already changed mind. 900 range isn’t good enough

trooper.2650:

WvW/pve. But I already changed mind. 900 range isn’t good enough

To be perfectly honest here, WvW and PvE are very much different. You do not want to be running the same builds on both.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

trooper.2650:

WvW/pve. But I already changed mind. 900 range isn’t good enough

To be perfectly honest here, WvW and PvE are very much different. You do not want to be running the same builds on both.

Don’t tell me you switch build every time you leave WvW… I neither have the money nor the will to do so. I want a build which is viable for both. I lately spend more time in WvW so if that is not possible I would sacrifice PvE.

I was watching some scepter videos and the weapon seems fine in short/middle range small/middle size fights. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, before trying the spec in WvW I was doing spvp and I did very well enjoying myself.
However, my experience (short) was mainly in zerg battles and I did not find myself comfortable with it: with 900 range you often get caught in huge aoes with no/little ways to escape, especially when rooted/crippled and so on.

Now, what I did not like of these two weapons combo scepter/pistol and sword/torch is this: when someone is running away/trying to enter a gate you can only stop them by using pistol or leap dependign which set your using in that moment. If that isn’t enough you have to wait and swap set in order to use the leap from sword or the other way round. Changing weapons combo to the more popular sword/pistol gives you two “immobilize” in one set making this one your primary source of damage and control. Swapping to scepter/torch gives you the defensive option which I like.

Obviously I am still experimenting here but I started wondering if it’s worth using a full phantasm build when I have the iDuelist as the only damaging phantasm available (not counting the iMage ). I guess I will have to think of something else

If you need something which doubles for both, it is smarter to focus on spec layout, not individual weapons or traits used.

Because you can easily carry 2-3 extra weapons in your backpack to swap, and you can easily swap the traits and slotted skills (Most of us do that on a per-fight basis, anyhow).
The only thing set in stone is the actual point spec.

You better make an alt for WvW. Running both in the same build will only add defiencies in both. We all hope for teritary builds on a single character (well, more like 6 builds for underwater fights).

My general opinion:
You seem to mix conditions and direct damage too much and should either focus on one weaponset or not get any weapon traits.

• Put 10 points from illusions to domination to get more direct damage from phantasms. +15% damage > -15% recharge. Illusions usually too squishy to rely on their survivability.
• Don’t get Scepter + Pistol traits if you don’t intend to use them 80+% of your playtime. There are wonderful other traits in the same slots.
• You infusions are all mixed. Decide on Power/ Prec or Malice. Prec for damage and bleed, power for damage.
• Are you constantly running around with T6 prec food ?
• Do you need dodge food as mesmer ?

As for your equip, it’s too mixed.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Pistol traited allows you to summon from 1.2k range, and stun from 1.2k range. However once summoned, the clones still move in to 900 range… I dunno why. Maybe it’s a bug, maybe Anet just doesn’t care.

Thought I’d answer this:

The trait only grants YOUR skill additional range, once you’ve summoned the duelist, it is no longer your skill, it is the duelists.

Which sounds like a bug, because the trait description says it grants the illusions extra range, too.

Carighan.6758:

Which sounds like a bug, because the trait description says it grants the illusions extra range, too.

Completely agree and I’d love to see it fixed, just pointing out that it seems like that is how it is working right now and all we can do is cope with it until a fix arrives