Guild Wars 2

0/30/0/25/15
10/30/0/20/10
10/30/0/10/20
30/30/0/0/10

Any of those.

Anything which is 20/x/x/x/x and traits greatsword is automatically bad, and x/20/x/x/x builds are questionable because it means you’re unable to use empowering mantras.

I’m going to assume that you plan on playing a Phantasm build, in which case ignore what mahariel said about x/20/x/x/x builds being questionable. You don’t need empowering mantras to play a melee Mesmer.

I personally play 10/20/0/25/15 taking all the illusion boosting traits while using (primarily) sword/focus and sword/sword. Not taking Warden’s feedback while going 25 points deep in inspiration for the 15% boost in phantasm damage is slightly wasted, but it’s perfectly fine. You’ll be able to fill your bar with skills with more utility (aka feedback, null field, blink etc) instead of cluttering it with mantras for the 16% damage from going 30 in dueling.

Empowering Mantras isn’t a bad build (it’s actually pretty efficient), but it isn’t the only one you should consider.

If you want to actually be able to do decent damage yourself then yes, empowering mantras is a necessity. Mesmers are already quite narrow in their uses, might as well try to compensate for their lower practical DPS by getting some damage modifiers in there via mantras.

And you don’t just roll mantras, you roll utility skills and fill all of the blanks with mantras, and adjust to a situation accordingly. For example against Lupicus you can go mantra heal, feedback, mantra, mantra, whereas Archdiviner you might go mantra, feedback, null field, mantra to deal with the projectile attack and if someone doesn’t get out of a well quick enough

If you don’t need mantras at all, you can swap out the trait for that dungeon/section/area for like duelist’s discipline or something. A good player is someone who uses a strong build and swaps utilities, and sometimes even traits around.

Empowering mantras also boosts damage from reflects, which is one of your primary responsibilities as a dungeon Mesmer.

mahariel.4981:

If you want to actually be able to do decent damage yourself then yes, empowering mantras is a necessity. Mesmers are already quite narrow in their uses, might as well try to compensate for their lower practical DPS by getting some damage modifiers in there via mantras.

Taking into account that % bonuses don’t apply to Phantasms, and Phantasm builds arguably provide the highest dps in PvE, I really think that you’re being a little skewed here. Empowering Mantras, while a totally viable and efficient route, is in no way a necessity to dealing decent damage. Phantasms are an extension of yourself (as cheesy as that sounds), and boosting the damage they deal definitely matches up (if not out-performs) an Empowering Mantra build.

mahariel.4981:

And you don’t just roll mantras, you roll utility skills and fill all of the blanks with mantras, and adjust to a situation accordingly. For example against Lupicus you can go mantra heal, feedback, mantra, mantra, whereas Archdiviner you might go mantra, feedback, null field, mantra to deal with the projectile attack and if someone doesn’t get out of a well quick enough

If you don’t need mantras at all, you can swap out the trait for that dungeon/section/area for like duelist’s discipline or something. A good player is someone who uses a strong build and swaps utilities, and sometimes even traits around.

Which is exactly the point I’m trying to bring around. You make it sound like Empowering Mantras is the best thing since sliced bread. It isn’t. It’s good, yes, but not a necessity.

Taking into account that % bonuses don’t apply to Phantasms, and Phantasm builds arguably provide the highest dps in PvE, I really think that you’re being a little skewed here.

The builds I listed all hit a phantasm damage modifier and hit both personal damage modifiers in the form of empowering mantras and compounding power. Phantasms are less reliable DPS than a player, so giving yourself modifiers is always a plus, especially since mesmers are sorely lacking in them (compare it to a warrior with 10%+ while wielding greatsword, 15%+ at full adrenaline, 10%+ to a bleeding foe, 3%+ while not at full endurance and then you have DPS boosts like deep strikes, rending strikes and fast hands which allow you to maintain a greatsword/axe+mace rotation quite solidly which is a DPS boost of ~10%+ in itself over pure axe.

Now what you have to remember, is these are reliable damage modifiers, a mesmer only has two conditional ones, empowering mantras and compounding power, so you’re not even going to be getting the full benefit of them most of the time. Nevertheless, you need to take what you can get.

Phantasms are an extension of yourself (as cheesy as that sounds), and boosting the damage they deal definitely matches up (if not out-performs) an Empowering Mantra build.

I kind of doubt a potential 25%+ in personal damage modifiers is beaten by 15%+ phantasm damage considering builds taking empowering mantras already one of the phantasm damage modifiers.

Which is exactly the point I’m trying to bring around. You make it sound like Empowering Mantras is the best thing since sliced bread. It isn’t. It’s good, yes, but not a necessity.

If empowering mantras wasn’t such a big deal, it wouldn’t be run in every single dungeon meta build.

mahariel.4981:

Taking into account that % bonuses don’t apply to Phantasms, and Phantasm builds arguably provide the highest dps in PvE, I really think that you’re being a little skewed here.

The builds I listed all hit a phantasm damage modifier and hit both personal damage modifiers in the form of empowering mantras and compounding power. Phantasms are less reliable DPS than a player, so giving yourself modifiers is always a plus, especially since mesmers are sorely lacking in them (compare it to a warrior with 10%+ while wielding greatsword, 15%+ at full adrenaline, 10%+ to a bleeding foe, 3%+ while not at full endurance and then you have DPS boosts like deep strikes, rending strikes and fast hands which allow you to maintain a greatsword/axe+mace rotation quite solidly which is a DPS boost of ~10%+ in itself over pure axe.

Now what you have to remember, is these are reliable damage modifiers, a mesmer only has two conditional ones, empowering mantras and compounding power, so you’re not even going to be getting the full benefit of them most of the time. Nevertheless, you need to take what you can get.

Phantasms are an extension of yourself (as cheesy as that sounds), and boosting the damage they deal definitely matches up (if not out-performs) an Empowering Mantra build.

I kind of doubt a potential 25%+ in personal damage modifiers is beaten by 15%+ phantasm damage considering builds taking empowering mantras already one of the phantasm damage modifiers.

Which is exactly the point I’m trying to bring around. You make it sound like Empowering Mantras is the best thing since sliced bread. It isn’t. It’s good, yes, but not a necessity.

If empowering mantras wasn’t such a big deal, it wouldn’t be run in every single dungeon meta build.

Multi quoting is getting a little too messy for my phone, so I’ll list it out here.

Take that 25% down to 16%, as compounding power is taken a lot, even in phantasm builds. So it’s 16% of your personal damage (with a full bar of mantras [read: no feedback]) vs 15% phantasm damage (with any utility you want/need.)

Since we’re on the subject of reliable damage modifiers, let’s elaborate on that.

To maintain the 16% modifier, you would have to, as aforementioned, take a full bar of mantras. Mantras are in a bad state (even with the depressing AoE buff) which in turn leaves you with next to no utility (A mesmer’s “job”). Seeing as the OP wants to use sword/sword and sword/pistol, this leaves him with zero reflects and/or projectile nullifies. Taking feedback would deflate your damage boost to 12%, and even looking at it without number crunching, wouldn’t out perform the constant 15% to phantasms. That’s also assuming you never touch your mantras.

Now the 15% increase to phantasm damage is constant. As long as your phantasm is hitting the target, it has that 15% damage buff. You can take any utility skill you want, and not worry about affecting that 15%. I don’t think it gets any more reliable than that.

I would also like to beg to differ on Empowering Mantras being in “every PvE meta build”. Last I checked the meta was phantasms – but then again, now thinking about it, I don’t really pay much attention so you might be right.

I was in a group that set world records for Arah p2 and p3, and I can tell you now, stability and cond-cleanse mantras were extremely useful. Heal mantra is just extra DPS and can be popped for the mesmer to keep up scholar runes, mantra of resolve got us out of combat quicker and dealt with things like poison quickly. Stability dealt with belka’s troll knockback. So…. yeah. A mesmer can still ooze utility with mantras.

mahariel.4981:

I was in a group that set world records for Arah p2 and p3, and I can tell you now, stability and cond-cleanse mantras were extremely useful. Heal mantra is just extra DPS and can be popped for the mesmer to keep up scholar runes, mantra of resolve got us out of combat quicker and dealt with things like poison quickly. Stability dealt with belka’s troll knockback. So…. yeah. A mesmer can still ooze utility with mantras.

…Utility with which you don’t have to be constricted/forced to take.

I’m not going to claim any large titles or boasts like a Norn (even if I am one) to back up my claim. I’ll let the numbers and logic in my points do that for me.

Bottom line, with Empowering Mantras, you are constrained to the Mantras. With a Phantasm build (or a number of other builds), you can use Mantra of Concentration when you need it, swap it as per needed, and not worry about taking a hit to your dps. You said yourself that a good player should be flexible to the situation. Empowering Mantras is anything but flexible without directly affecting your dps.

The other thing to consider though is the Signet heal, which lets you start fights with three phantasms up – which is further boosted by having 15% phant dps instead of EM. If you’re running SoE and Feedback, that leaves you with two spots for mantras which is just 8% more personal DPS when they’re up.

Situationally, EM can win out, but by no means is it a guaranteed dps increase over the alternative. The more relevant factor is that the stats offered by Domination don’t affect reflect dps at all, compared to dueling which has prec and crit, both of which are a factor.

I’d say if you often run dungeons where reflection is a major chunk of your dps, 0/30 wins. If not, 10/20 is definitely competitive.

mahariel.4981:

0/30/0/25/15
10/30/0/20/10
10/30/0/10/20
30/30/0/0/10

Any of those.

Anything which is 20/x/x/x/x and traits greatsword is automatically bad, and x/20/x/x/x builds are questionable because it means you’re unable to use empowering mantras.

im new to mesmer and willing to learn more about it. Can you please be more specify about the build below or any link you could provide

0/30/0/25/15
10/30/0/20/10
10/30/0/10/20
30/30/0/0/10

since im not a big fan of GS, it worth it to give a try

In dueling you’ll take phantasmal fury, blade training and empowering mantras. If you aren’t currently using mantras you can slot out empowering mantras for something like duelist’s discipline or deceptive evasion. In inspiration you take glamour mastery and warden’s feedback and in illusions you’ll take compounding power and phantasmal haste if you have 20 points there. In domination you take empowered illusions and if you have 30 points in dom (30/30/0/0/10) anything that boosts damage I guess. I remember domination mostly being pretty janky for PvE.

mahariel.4981:

I was in a group that set world records for Arah p2 and p3, and I can tell you now, stability and cond-cleanse mantras were extremely useful. Heal mantra is just extra DPS and can be popped for the mesmer to keep up scholar runes, mantra of resolve got us out of combat quicker and dealt with things like poison quickly. Stability dealt with belka’s troll knockback. So…. yeah. A mesmer can still ooze utility with mantras.

You could have had all of that utility while going 10/20/0/25/15. For every mantra that goes on cooldown you lose 4% damage from Empowered Mantras, and then you have to consider their individual cooldowns, and the fact that each mantra has a 2.75s cast time, in which you’re doing no decent damage, or utility (aside from instant cast spells). Empowered Mantras seems great in theory, but in practice, I can’t get passed the 2.75s cast time and the fact that using them makes you lose the benefit. It kinda seems like a Signet Warrior (thematically, like how it’s meant to be an entirely selfish build, not on it’s merit)

And from what I can tell, unless it has changed, or I was mistaken, Empowered Illusions and Phantasmal Strength stack, giving you 30% damage increase on phantasms versus the 16% from Empowered Mantras (given you never use them). I’m sincerely curious as to why Empowered Mantras is superior to you, than taking both Empowered Illusions and Phantasmal Strength? Especially since every support benefit you listed from the mantras can still be utilized by the latter build, without hinging its dps from having mantras up and unused. Perhaps clarification will get me passed that mantra cast time barrier and have me use it. But 2.75s cast time per mantra is quite a lot.

Edit: I also noticed the wiki states that Empowered Mantras does not affect Illusions. Which means it primarily affects the #1 skill, which can’t be used during the time a mesmer is casting the mantras. I don’t know, the trait just seems counterintuitive to maximizing dps without sacrificing support.

You could have had all of that utility while going 10/20/0/25/15.

And missing out on usually 12-16% in damage modifiers? No.

For every mantra that goes on cooldown you lose 4% damage from Empowered Mantras, and then you have to consider their individual cooldowns, and the fact that each mantra has a 2.75s cast time, in which you’re doing no decent damage, or utility (aside from instant cast spells). Empowered Mantras seems great in theory, but in practice, I can’t get passed the 2.75s cast time and the fact that using them makes you lose the benefit. It kinda seems like a Signet Warrior (thematically, like how it’s meant to be an entirely selfish build, not on it’s merit)

You recharge them in trash skips.

And from what I can tell, unless it has changed, or I was mistaken, Empowered Illusions and Phantasmal Strength stack, giving you 30% damage increase on phantasms versus the 16% from Empowered Mantras (given you never use them). I’m sincerely curious as to why Empowered Mantras is superior to you, than taking both Empowered Illusions and Phantasmal Strength? Especially since every support benefit you listed from the mantras can still be utilized by the latter build, without hinging its dps from having mantras up and unused. Perhaps clarification will get me passed that mantra cast time barrier and have me use it. But 2.75s cast time per mantra is quite a lot.

I thought it would have been common sense that you don’t charge them mid-fight, but you seem actually be anchoring your argument around the concept that someone would be so braindead so as to completely destroy their DPS and charge one. Empowering mantras is worth taking because phantasms are unreliable and it makes your reflects more potent if you stack damage modifiers.

Watch each fight we did:

At Belka, mesmer drops a warden then grabs a lightning hammer. Second fight, Illusions just eat the abomination swing. Third fight, anything outside of feedback pretty much gets obliterated, plus this is where damage modifiers are key to make Lupicus suicide. Alphard, you’ve got wardens up but the fight is extremely reflect heavy – damage modifiers are important again. Phantasms don’t even work on Brie.
the reason empowering mantras works is because it’s more practical than relying overly on phantasms.

It will depend on quite a few things,

• how long your average encounter will last
• how important is reflect uptime
• how important is reflect dps
• will your party be providing fury
• how long your phantasm is expected to live
• do you prefer sword offhand or pistol offhand
• do you need any specific utility skills
• do you need more evades/blocks
• will you be self sustaining or relying on environmental weapons
• ….

There are plenty jack-of-all-trades builds but mesmers start to shine when we specialize. Answering differently to any of the above will change your “perfect build”, be it simply swapping traits or completely reallocating trait points and utilites. A while back I listed different no-mantra/sword-pistol builds that I wanted to compare. I ended up with a list of 9 different builds. I think ANet overdid it with mesmer build diversity. Only if they paid that much attention to the bugs they introduced for our class…

I agree with mahariel, the mantra damage modifier is a must have in dungeons and fractals. And except fractal maybe, most bosses doesn’t last more than 20s/30s (except Lupicus and maybe Alphard depending of your group) with a organised group running the DPS meta builds.

But don’t go 20 in Illusions in you don’t use pistol since phantasmal haste is currently bugged and only work with iDuelist.

mahariel.4981:

You could have had all of that utility while going 10/20/0/25/15.

And missing out on usually 12-16% in damage modifiers? No.

For every mantra that goes on cooldown you lose 4% damage from Empowered Mantras, and then you have to consider their individual cooldowns, and the fact that each mantra has a 2.75s cast time, in which you’re doing no decent damage, or utility (aside from instant cast spells). Empowered Mantras seems great in theory, but in practice, I can’t get passed the 2.75s cast time and the fact that using them makes you lose the benefit. It kinda seems like a Signet Warrior (thematically, like how it’s meant to be an entirely selfish build, not on it’s merit)

You recharge them in trash skips.

And from what I can tell, unless it has changed, or I was mistaken, Empowered Illusions and Phantasmal Strength stack, giving you 30% damage increase on phantasms versus the 16% from Empowered Mantras (given you never use them). I’m sincerely curious as to why Empowered Mantras is superior to you, than taking both Empowered Illusions and Phantasmal Strength? Especially since every support benefit you listed from the mantras can still be utilized by the latter build, without hinging its dps from having mantras up and unused. Perhaps clarification will get me passed that mantra cast time barrier and have me use it. But 2.75s cast time per mantra is quite a lot.

I thought it would have been common sense that you don’t charge them mid-fight, but you seem actually be anchoring your argument around the concept that someone would be so braindead so as to completely destroy their DPS and charge one. Empowering mantras is worth taking because phantasms are unreliable and it makes your reflects more potent if you stack damage modifiers.

Watch each fight we did:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=427QaI-Ic5U

At Belka, mesmer drops a warden then grabs a lightning hammer. Second fight, Illusions just eat the abomination swing. Third fight, anything outside of feedback pretty much gets obliterated, plus this is where damage modifiers are key to make Lupicus suicide. Alphard, you’ve got wardens up but the fight is extremely reflect heavy – damage modifiers are important again. Phantasms don’t even work on Brie.
the reason empowering mantras works is because it’s more practical than relying overly on phantasms.

If they are on cooldown, the damage is gone. My argument points out that if you use the mantras and they go on cooldown, then you lose the damage, and you’re response is to charge them between fights? Sure that could work, but for the fight you were just in the damage modifier wasn’t there. Hence why I compared it to a Signet Warrior. You lose some incentive to use the mantras. If you need to cleanse a few condis then you lose 4% damage, and you’re saying you’ll keep it that way till next fight. Understandable. And then if you need the heal, that’s another 4% lost till next fight.

Phantasms are not as unreliable as you make them seem (in general, not Arah specific), especially with Signet of the Ether now, which can have a Mesmer constantly have a phantasm up. The iduelist can be summoned at a good range to prevent death, or summoned on top of the group for support benefits. For me, I’m usually able to keep phantasms going pretty easily.

I’m sorry, but Arah isn’t exactly the pinnacle of content in this game to be using it to say Empowered Mantras is better than a phantasm build. I’ll submit, that in bossfights that are reflect heavy, Empowered mantras is more efficient than a phantasm build given the dps modifiers aren’t lost due to mantra usage, but Mesmer’s damage largely comes from Phantasms, and with no Phantasms, your dps is kitten regardless. And unless a player like the OP is always going to be with an Ele to be using a Lightning Hammer the damage from EM won’t exceed each phantasm that’s summoned and gets even one attack off (non-reflects).

My main issue is that EM’s dps modifier is largely selfish, aside from reflect heavy bosses. Once you use them for party support you can’t recharge them till next fight. In places like high level fractals, I can potentially see this as a problem, where the other build, opens up 3 other slots for different purposes. iDefender isn’t too bad and has its uses at times, Null field of course, Illusion of Life. It depends on the encounter, and who you’re running with. With an organized group, sure, definitely a must. But depending on each Mesmer they may not do that.

Regardless, I’ll do some testing and see if Empowered Mantras gives an overall dps increase over using Signet of the Ether to recharge iSwordsman/iWarden/iDuelist, after they’ve been used/been killed to immediately allow them to attack again.

Alasteir.7031:

Empowered Mantras seems great in theory, but in practice, I can’t get passed the 2.75s cast time and the fact that using them makes you lose the benefit. It kinda seems like a Signet Warrior (thematically, like how it’s meant to be an entirely selfish build, not on it’s merit)

Considering they added a group effect for mantras and that youre running a melee build so group stacking or close to it… Whats quoted is a trash statement. Sorry dude

Edit: The character attacks more often then phantasms. So you notice the damage difference. It really does help to have a static group though.

Dekk.3459:

Alasteir.7031:

Empowered Mantras seems great in theory, but in practice, I can’t get passed the 2.75s cast time and the fact that using them makes you lose the benefit. It kinda seems like a Signet Warrior (thematically, like how it’s meant to be an entirely selfish build, not on it’s merit)

Considering they added a group effect for mantras and that youre running a melee build so group stacking or close to it… Whats quoted is a trash statement. Sorry dude

Edit: The character attacks more often then phantasms. So you notice the damage difference. It really does help to have a static group though.

See the whole post. Any benefit mantras have aside from Empowered Mantras can be used in any Mesmer build. However, with EM, once you use the mantras for group support you lose the dps modifier. Does the auto attack end up doing more damage than a Phantasm build with 30% increased phantasm damage though? Especially since fights don’t last that long, and Signet of the Ether can be used to re-summon them should they die?

This is what I intend to test. An earlier poster said fights don’t last longer than 20s/30s which from my experience is generally true with a good group. So I intend to test both. In a span of 20s/30s, will the sword auto make up the difference in damage than a phantasm build, with Signet of the Ether? I’m not foolish enough to say yes or no without numbers. So maybe someone has already done this and can provide the data, and then I can replicate it.

Well this is the only other thing I will add to this conversation since it really boils down to playstyle preference. I run a phantasm support build cuz im not elite, I can and have run EM blah blah blah not so good experiences with the randomness of PUGs.

EM builds
Pros
25% personal damage (16% + 9%) Honestly its more like 21% but w/e
15% phantasm damage
10 more trait points = 100 precision + 10% crit damage

It gives slightly more control over the damage you do since the phantasm damage difference between builds is only 15% (15% with EM build, 30% phantasm build). Phantasms attack as soon as the timer is up, blocking, boons, it doesnt matter, they are AI.

Cons
Utility skill with 2 charges… Then damage reduced, then long recharge.

Blurred Frenzy and Auto Attack… depending on the fight. Like CoE runs (as boring as that dungeon boss is) then EM ftw. Edit: There could be examples probably fractals where i would prefer a phantasm build so that is just a perfect example to run an EM build.

Really I don’t care what people run. Mantras are part of my support build and I’m used to them. Much more useful then any signets I’ve ever seen. Although I haven’t toyed much with the new signet healing skill in PVE. But it seems like overkill to use it at the beginning of a fight… an extra 3 maybe 4 phantasm attacks? If they make it through the initial boss attack rotation. Ehh not for me but again i wouldn’t complain either way.

Have fun

Dekk.3459:

Well this is the only other thing I will add to this conversation since it really boils down to playstyle preference. I run a phantasm support build cuz im not elite, I can and have run EM blah blah blah not so good experiences with the randomness of PUGs.

EM builds
Pros
25% personal damage (16% + 9%) Honestly its more like 21% but w/e
15% phantasm damage
10 more trait points = 100 precision + 10% crit damage

It gives slightly more control over the damage you do since the phantasm damage difference between builds is only 15% (15% with EM build, 30% phantasm build). Phantasms attack as soon as the timer is up, blocking, boons, it doesnt matter, they are AI.

Cons
Utility skill with 2 charges… Then damage reduced, then long recharge.

Blurred Frenzy and Auto Attack… depending on the fight. Like CoE runs (as boring as that dungeon boss is) then EM ftw. Edit: There could be examples probably fractals where i would prefer a phantasm build so that is just a perfect example to run an EM build.

Really I don’t care what people run. Mantras are part of my support build and I’m used to them. Much more useful then any signets I’ve ever seen. Although I haven’t toyed much with the new signet healing skill in PVE. But it seems like overkill to use it at the beginning of a fight… an extra 3 maybe 4 phantasm attacks? If they make it through the initial boss attack rotation. Ehh not for me but again i wouldn’t complain either way.

Have fun

Oh certainly. I’m not suggesting people play one or the other. I ran fractals yesterday nice and easy and the Mesmer there was Staff and Scepter/Torch, yet the run was smooth as hell. Not as quick as it could have been but I personally don’t mind so long as the dungeon gets done with minimal deaths.

This entire debate on EM vs Phantasms is entirely academic. At least for me, it is an intellectual exercise, as it is one of the reasons why I like games like this to begin with, and not sports.

@Mahariel – I just realized your argument against Phantasms also makes your choice of CP meaningless since that trait hinges on illusion uptime. Instead of going 10/30/0/20/10, you can go 10/30/0/30/0 and get more bang for your buck due to the fact that if Phantasms are too unreliable for damage due to their constant deaths, then clones follow the same rule, therefore making them do as much damage as possible before death is better then getting a trait that only gives 9% damage IF you can manage to keep 3 illusions up.

Not only that but from your own video, you use a lot of Lightning Hammer which makes CP even more useless since you can’t summon an illusion to begin with (factor in the fact that illusions die a lot, it becomes very hard to keep an illusion up to utilize CP), unless you give up another mantra for Decoy or Mirror Images. The rotation being that you start off with your strongest phantasms, they do 30% more damage, pick up lightning hammer, and get a damage increase for so long as those phantasms stay alive. And in between lightning hammer uses, you rinse and repeat. And if there’s no lightning hammer, the point still stands. Illusions need to stay alive for CP to give you the dps modifier.

why not 10/30/0/30/0? o.o

1) How about we keep with the helpful mesmer forum community thing. There are a lot of great mesmers and everyone is just trying to give good advice. There is no absolutes, because if you can read between the lines it all depends.

2) Currently, if your group is organized, high dps (meaning know the content well, co-ordinated, and can burn down bosses before they pose any problems) then just go with the mantra build. This all depends on your group. You can be max dps and be very good, but if your whole party wipes and you end up soloing. Your traits don’t make up for the dps of 4 other people. Just mathematically it can’t.

3) If you don’t have a steady group, or like myself, tend to run with friends who are new to the game, then the Phantasm build is a lot more flexible for utility. You take longer, but keep your friends alive making them happier and willing to run the content again.

4) Just try both builds. Unless you have a time constraint to improve and become an expert at a certain build. Nothing stops you from trying both builds in all the major dungeons and high level fractals. Experience will teach you more than just numbers.

Good luck.