Guild Wars 2

My question is simple.
Is there any known pve build using torch offhand?

I’ve been trying things for a few hours and I don’t seem to find a good synergy between torch and our traits.

The prestige is pretty awesome for its Blast finisher but the phantasm is really awful, he’s useless for raw dmg, conditions (confusion) or shatter (long cd).

Unfortunately it’s a trash weapon so no good builds are using it. Especially in PvE. Traits for it are all over the place, the phant is terrible. The prestige is good but the other offhands outclass it quite a bit.

Ultimate Condition Build

Scepter/Torch Build that focuses on Confusion, the ULTIMATE CONDITION.
Remember how good backfire and empathy were in PvE in GW1? All that goodness rolled into one condition – the ultimate condition. Throw in retaliation for a double-whammy and wrap it all up in a nice purple feedback bubble.

Illusion Trait 30

Illusionists Celerity Illusion-summoning skills recharge 20% faster.
Illusionary Retribution All shatter skills inflict confusion.
Shattered Strength Shattering illusions gives you might.
Confusing Cry Cry of Frustration grants retaliation.
Master of Misdirection Confusion you inflict lasts 33% longer.
Blinding Befuddlement Cause confusion when you blind an foe.

20 Domination

Illusion of Vulnerability Inflict 5 seconds of vulnerability when you interrupt a foe.
Dazzling Inflicting daze also causes 3 seconds of vulnerability.
Rending Shatter Shattering illusions causes vulnerability for 8 seconds to nearby foes.
Cleansing Conflagration Torch skills remove conditions. Reduces cooldowns of torch skills by 20%.

20 Inspiration

Vengeful Images Grants retaliation to Phantasms.
Phantasmal Healing Phantasms grant regeneration to nearby allies.
Glamour Mastery Glamour skills recharge 20% faster.
Malicious Sorcery +50 malice when wielding a scepter. Reduces recharge of scepter skills by 20%.

Mirror -Ether Feast – Racial
Feedback
Signet of Domination
Signet of Illusions
Time Warp

Racial alternates: Pain Inverter (Asura)

This might not be the best way to use a torch, but it will be kitten consistent, and lots and lots of purple bubbles will pop up in combat. If only there was a way to make them attack faster. This will really take those Risen abominations and thralls down to size along with any other mob that frenzies. Now the blinding from the torch can cause confusion, too, a nice one-two punch of fiery discombobulation.

Scepter/Torch Build that focuses on Confusion, the ULTIMATE CONDITION.
lel

A condition that doesn’t work when you kite mobs and when mobs actually attack you, it procs every 2 seconds, lasts 3 seconds.

Other than that I don’t find your build that good.

- Illusionist’s Celerity is trash in a condition build. It also doesn’t affect iMage.
- Going 30 illusion and not taking Illusionary Persona? LOL
- Rending shatter is pointless on a condition build because vulnerability doesn’t affect damage from confusion. And even in power builds, 3 stacks of vulnerability are weak.
- You don’t have Clone on dodge which actually severely diminishes your ability to inflict confusion through shatters.
- I don’t see what going 20 inspiration adds to this build. Reducing feedback recharge is not terribly important. Reducing scepter recharge is pointless, as you should be in your other set after using scepter recharges. By the time you can swap back you’ll have recharged scepter skills anyway. The scepter recharge trait also doesn’t work on skill 2.
- Signet of Illusions adds nothing to this build
- Signet of Domination adds nothing to this build. Why would you want to stun someone who wants to attack into your confusion stacks?

If you insist on using torch and confusion, you should go for a build like this:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N3lZ-FKWPk6197BVV71c5ZW-61y6-X;4JJ;0T58-19;548AaoG6-wW4hoHAhomA2Vu

Aside from the fact that the stated build up there is horrific in many ways, torch is a really bad weapon, and should never be used, ever. The phantasm is 100% useless, and confusion is such a useless condition in pve anyway, you should never attempt to build around it.

Actually since the buff The Prestige is a very very powerful ability.
However, then the problems roll in:

• iMage is actually much worse than before the patch. At least beforehand it reliably did low damage. Now it unreliably deals … usually no damage at all.
• Prestige’s invisibility is affected by the +1 of 30 Chaos. Fair enough, but this ofc makes you wait longer for the secondary effect, which is problematic on a design level.

Carighan.6758:

Actually since the buff The Prestige is a very very powerful ability.

2k damage on a 30 sec cd. Soooo powerful.

If you are talking about our “blast finisher” guarentee the area of effect will die before the 3 second stealth channel finishes.

Torch is a trash weapon.

Yeah, I gave it a shot I changed up the skills to add Mirror Images and Mantra of Pain, but kept Signet of Domination for the condition damage boost. You could throw Clone on there instead I guess if you don’t like a passive skill, and signet of illusions can let you milk the retaliation from Confusing Cry. I might switch back to that after I get a little more familiar with the build. I also changed Glamor Master to Mending Purity since I took Feedback of the menu. Ether Feast was working pretty well for healing. I wanted the 20 inspiration for Malicious Sorcery if nothing else. Sorry about the confusion over the game mechanics, but with these changes I was going through Malchor’s Leap easily enough. The enemies bash themselves and 4 digit purple bubbles, like 1300-1800, were popping up. Solo’d a vet without moving an inch. Seemed at least as quick if not quicker than any other build I’ve tried and I had little problem when taking on multiple enemies. For some reason Risen Brutes give me trouble on any build, in that they are too slow to die, but the Risen Thralls went down faster than my Staff/Condition/Shatter build where I did have the clone on dodge and did use signet of illusions for more than F2.

Generally speaking, you don’t need – or even want – to move with this build, so Clone and making clones on dodge would be a bit distracting from all the standing around.

I wonder if Vulnerability affects Retaliation damage?

I’ve been using Sword/Torch since I rebuilt into a mantra/signet heals all day build, found that popping the prestige and using your mantra of heal healing triggers with runes like grenth or balthazar keeps you in stealth and gives you a free chill without being chased, VERY useful

Also I believe vuln does boost up retaliation from some minor testing