Guild Wars 2

So there’s a bunch of utility skills I don’t use on my Mesmer. Rather than just write them off, I thought it would be good to share with other Mesmers. Maybe someone has an ubur use for a skill I think is useless. Worst case we end up with a “popular vote” of perceived worthless skills for the developers.

Here’s the list we can pick from (NOTE: only utilities discussed here. NO healing, elite, or weapon skills).

Arcane Thievery
Blink
Decoy
Feedback
Illusion of Life
Mantra of Concentration
Mantra of Distraction
Mantra of Pain
Mantra of Resolve
Mimic
Mirror Images
Null Field
Phantasmal Defender
Phantasmal Disenchanter
Portal
Signet of Domination
Signet of Illusions
Signet of Inspiration
Signet of Midnight
Veil

And from that list, skills I never slot are:

Arcane Thievery — this one might be pretty cool, I’ll have to try it in wvw/pvp.
Illusion of Life — looks cool but have never slotted it.
Mimic — reward doesn’t seem worth the effort on this skill.
Signet of Domination — condition dmg not significant, and I already have a daze kitten
Signet of Illusions — health boost just not worth it, and on a delay. I dont’ run legion.
Signet of Inspiration — don’t like RNG on my skills.
Signet of Midnight — don’t see much value in this (passive nor active).
Veil — never use because if I want it I take mass invis instead.

Share your list or counter mine. All constructive discussion is good

Depends on what I am running but I never use

Signets-(except signet of illusions LOVE that for shattering and being able to reset my shatter skills at will)
Illusion of Life-Other professions can do the insta ressing better (elixir R, battle standard)
Phant defender/disenchanter-They seem to die faster than weapon phantasms and rarely work properly
Mimic-Why use this when I have two forms of distortion available and if the distortion grants reflection is traited well… Psh yeah mimc is a joke

Arcane Thievery – I don’t like how random it is. When it did all boons/conditions on a longer cd I loved it though.
Mantra of Concentration- Terrible stability skill… probably the worst in the game.
Mantra of Distraction- It’s ok, but most of our on interrupt traits are trash.
Mimic- It’s clunky, and I hate eating the first hit.
Phantasmal Defender – Dies way to fast to make much impact.
Phantasmal Disenchanter – Dies fast, and needs a target so it’s not a very useful cleanse. For boon strip it’s ok.
Signets, all of the passives seem subpar, and only domnation’s active is in a good place. The others are weak actives, or have long cast times.

Oh kitten completely forgot… I use NO MANTRAS lol…

I only ignored MoP and MoH because they can be useful in a healing build, but I personally don’t ever run any of them since they were nerfed in water.

I use to run 3 mantras in WvW when soloing (and with the +4% dmg trait). I think the condition removal mantra is very good with reasonable recharge. The daze mantra was great for solo fights just to irritate my oponents when I see them winding up with some big uber skill. The stability mantra seems pretty good on paper but the stability is just not long enough to be useful. Instead it’s just a 2-time stun break.

I dropped that build ultimately and run with decoy and blink when soloing in WvW.

Mimic kinda takes the cake here. Mantras are obviously not popular either, and signet of midnight is kitten.

Mimic is so nice on shatter builds, have you ever done a 12shatter (f3 + f2 + f1) on a player in sPvP or WvW?

Arcane Thievery – unreliable and range is too short
Illusion of Life – don’t do donjons
Phantasmal Disenchanter – killed easily and sometimes I need conditions clearance without having a target at range
Signet of Midnight – passive pretty useless
Veil – CD too long. Mass invisibility do it better

I think Mantras are better than most people think. I’ll try using them more often. And Mimic is actually a good escape skill since it blocks everything for 4sec.

Esplen.3940:

Mimic is so nice on shatter builds, have you ever done a 12shatter (f3 + f2 + f1) on a player in sPvP or WvW?

You are probably thinking of mirror images

Well there’s a lot of utilities that I never use, not because they’re bad or anything, but mirror images, decoy, and blink are rarely off my utility bar lol. When I was lvling tho my utilities were all different. I hear mimic is great for karka farming but I have not tried it. Has anyone messed with illusion of life much? I tried it a couple times and it didn’t seem to work for me…

Arcane Thievery – I prefer Null Field (to cleanse repeatedly applied conditions) or Mender’s Purity for more frequent removal.

Illusion of Life – I’d prefer to use stealth to revive an ally- there are very few situations where this skill, especially on such a long cooldown, is more useful than a stealth.

Mantra of Concentration
Mantra of Distraction
Mantra of Pain
Mantra of Resolve – Not because they’re bad, but because they’re bad unless you spec most of your traits into them for them to not be bad. If they were better without having to trait into them (so I could try them out and experiment), I’d probably use them more.

Mimic – heard it has decent uses, but it’s utterly confusing and eating a projectile isn’t fun

Phantasmal Defender
Phantasmal Disenchanter – The phantasm utilities die far too quickly to have any good use… so they end up being wasted utilities for me.

Signet of Midnight – Passive is bad, active is bad for the cooldown.

Basically, the things that have niche effects that aren’t particularly strong will almost never hit my bar.

Arcane Thievery is great against the jellyfish in fractals,she gets 25 stacks of might when she “eats” someone,you can steal it and have fun :P

On topic:

I don’t use any mantras or signets at all,they are boring.

Instead of listing the skills I never use,I will list the ones I use instead,its faster:

? Blink
? Arcane Thievery – Only underwater
? Feedback
? Null Field

Mantra of… what is that?

juno.1840:

Maybe someone has an ubur use for a skill I think is useless.

[…]

Veil — never use because if I want it I take mass invis instead.

Veil has a massive advantage over MassInv: it isn’t limited to 5 targets. In WvWvW, it’s a big big difference. Cast in front of a tight melee train about to charge, it makes an entire raid disappear, and only reappear after half the opposition is dead. With the culling problems, the stealth is even longer than what the tooltip says.

So yes, in WvWvW at least, Veil is a major game changer.

Everything that isn’t called Mirror, Sig of Dom, Decoy, Null Field, Feedback and Blink gets no use from me.

Mimic is an interesting skill, due to blocking all attacks after eating one projectile. This is probably a bug though, but anet doesn’t care because it is simply outclassed by everything else.

iDisenchanter isn’t great, mainly because it is bugged. However, when it actually summons, it is a multitarget condition removing boom stripper on a 15ish second cooldown, which is potentially extremely powerful.

iDefender is extremely powerful in a bunker retal build, and that’s all ill say about that right now. Arcane thievey is fantastic. Not only does it remove 3 conditions, it also steals 3 boons, allowing interesting things like 30 seconds of stability if a necro uses an elite.

Illusion of life is interesting, but ultimately not great since it is a death sentence for whomever you use it on.

Signets are bad, unless you are fighting the jellyfish, and you take arcane thievey and signet of inspiration.

Mantras have really nitch uses. MoP is bad. Cond removal one can be really powerful, as it removes more conditions per minute than anything else, and also works as a stun break sometimes. Stability mantra can be good, but I wouldn’t use it. The daze mantra is generally restricted to a build making use of the grandmaster dueling trait for fury…which means you can’t use the trait that increases damage with charged mantras. Horrible design right there.

Illusion of Life – Never use it. Seems extremely situational and not even the best choice in such a situation.
Mantra of Concentration – I used this once during that jumping puzzle in Wayfarer Foothills.
Mantra of Distraction – Never used it.
Mantra of Pain – I used to use in support builds when I ran with more points in Inspiration. However, since respeccing traits is so annoying, I don’t run this at all anymore.
Mantra of Resolve – Never used it
Mimic – Played around with it, but never got much value from it.
Phantasmal Defender – Since I run a shatter build, this isn’t useful. If traits could be respecced more easily, this might see more play.
Phantasmal Disenchanter – As far as I know this one is still bugged so that it won’t appear half the time.
Signet of Midnight – Never used it

Arcane Thievery — this one might be pretty cool, I’ll have to try it in wvw/pvp.

Old version was better as an instant counter to “gain all boons” opponents, or opponents that really just stack 50 boons. Still vaguely ok, but Null Field is way better.

Illusion of Life — looks cool but have never slotted it.

Same. Slotted once for a specific reason. Almost never, though.

Mimic — reward doesn’t seem worth the effort on this skill.

Mimic is rather good, but it is out-done by Feedback. Edit: If you are not running a combofield abusing build (Pistol trait + Confusion duration / cond damage), Mimic is [as good as and can possibly be] superior to Feedback versus single targets in a dueling-like situation.

Signet of Domination — condition dmg not significant, and I already have a daze kitten

Vaguely ok for PvE. Slotted it a few times for experimental sPvP builds. Still usable for specific sPvP builds.

Signet of Illusions — health boost just not worth it, and on a delay. I dont’ run legion.

Good for various PvE applications, particularly while leveling up in solo PvE.

Signet of Inspiration — don’t like RNG on my skills.

Used to be horrid but they reverted it to proc outside of combat from what I hear. So, it’s ok and has applications in group PvE boon-sharing builds. I haven’t personally slotted it anytime recently because IDGAF about group support builds.

Signet of Midnight — don’t see much value in this (passive nor active).

I used this at one point, but will probably never slot it again.

However, it could be effective in a defensive Signet build (Signet -> Distortion trait). I’ve never seen such a build be drafted or completed, but it is a possibility, and this Signet would be an option …

Of course Distortion and Blind kind of negate the value of each other, so. Yeah, Signet of Midnight is probably just bad. Even though the cooldown is pretty decent.

Veil — never use because if I want it I take mass invis instead.

Veil is ok as a range Glamour for Glamour-blind-confusion builds. Also good in tandem with other Mesmers to portal bomb or rush through a gate/door in WvW. Initiating a fight with stealth for 58 people is an effective strategy. I’ve slotted it from time to time in WvW. Mostly when attacking a defended location through a general chokepoint. A few times to place it on a side of a Portal so the porting allies have an extra culling advantage.

After reading a lot of the posts, I think I will try Veil in WvW. I like mass invis, and Veil is almost identical with the advantage of more players + combo field, but disadvantage of shorter stealth duration (and you have to run thru it). With the same c/d as Mass Invis I think it may be worth trying. Then I could slot Time Warp instead.

My personal list of utilities I don’t use much…

~ All Mantras. I do not like the “front-loaded” style they have. Being limited to a few shots and then a really long cast time if I want to use them beyond that doesn’t appeal to me at all, even if Mesmer is the best profession to utilize such a strategy with all the clone distractions / stealth. I forget to charge them before battle half the time anyway when I do (very rarely) switch one in. And the traits for them don’t seem all that great either, one extra shot isn’t all that impressive and a power boost for NOT using them seems counter-productive, though I suppose it works alright for those ones that you only use situationally.

~ Veil. Decoy is a much better stealth skill for me personally, considering the fact that I don’t do PvP / WvW and I haven’t really reached the point where I do dungeons at all (waiting until I hit 80), which are the situations in which I assume Veil would be useful.

~ Signet of Illusions. More clone HP is completely contary to my build in which I basically want to throw out as many clones as possible and have them die as often as possible for the clone on-death traits I’m running. Shatter cooldown isn’t useful either as I rarely shatter, since that doesn’t trigger the on-death effects.

~ Signet of Midnight. Boon duration is… meh. I really don’t rely on boons much with my Mesmer. If it was condition duration I might strongly consider it since on-death shatters do output a lot of conditions, but its not, so no.

~ Illusion of Life. The situations in which this would be useful are few and far between. If an ally can get a kill during the “illusion” time, you’d probably be able to kill the enemy yourself and just let them rally off your kill, and against bosses (where most downs will probably happen) its actually detrimental since obviously there’s not going to be any killing done in that situation. I suppose technically having your ally get up and fight at full force to rally is better than letting them lie on the ground and rally, but not good enough for a slot. Maybe it’d be useful if a few people get downed in the same spot, but thats far too situational.

I will add mantras to this- They sound interesting and I have only tried the briefly but having to charge a spell.. it sucks.

I have not tried mimic but after reading this it sounds interesting. I thought after you absorbed the projectile it was just there to shoot back. I will have to check this out.

Simonoly.4352:

*Illusion of Life – used in dungeons and fractals to allow downed players to get up, run away and self-res if it’s too risky for a party member to help when they initially go down. I also use it in WvW when defending keeps, to allow team mates who have been downed outside the keep to get up, run inside, fully res and help bolster the defences.

You are wrong with this. Illusion of life revives your allies for 15 seconds. If they kill something, they are fully revived, but if they do not, at the end of the 15 seconds, they completely die, they don’t go back to the downed state. It could be used in wvw, but you would be reviving a dead person, not a downed person.

Mantras… I recalled I had one with stability while doing that Metrica Province JP. Shelved again after that. Clunkiest stability in the game probably. The rest is garbage IMO, too expensive to trait well to gain something.
Arcane Thievery, used it a lot in the past, I gotta give it another chance in wvw.
Veil – Decoy over it because of the stunbreaking. Saved my shiny kitten so many times.
I. of Life. Meh.
Signets: I’m currently trying Inspiration out but I think I’m going to shelf it soon. Those useful retaliation-aegis-swiftness are too random to get. Active effect might still be funny to double back boons on me on a boon-intensive party in pve.
Mimic: same as jazzlanna, I found it totally meh reading its tooltip (and I thought you actually blocked one projectile to throw it back, might have been funny with a Kill Shot but, you know… Feedback/traited focus), I suppose I’ll give it a shot.
iDudes: never ever thought of slotting them.

Pyroatheist.9031:

You are wrong with this. Illusion of life revives your allies for 15 seconds. If they kill something, they are fully revived, but if they do not, at the end of the 15 seconds, they completely die, they don’t go back to the downed state. It could be used in wvw, but you would be reviving a dead person, not a downed person.

In wvw (the only place I’ve used it) it puts the player back in downed state so it is indeed quite strong in certain situations. Also annoying when someone uses it when im on thief because it gives the enemy plenty of time to group up for a fast rez when im solo.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Simonoly.4352:

*Illusion of Life – used in dungeons and fractals to allow downed players to get up, run away and self-res if it’s too risky for a party member to help when they initially go down. I also use it in WvW when defending keeps, to allow team mates who have been downed outside the keep to get up, run inside, fully res and help bolster the defences.

You are wrong with this. Illusion of life revives your allies for 15 seconds. If they kill something, they are fully revived, but if they do not, at the end of the 15 seconds, they completely die, they don’t go back to the downed state. It could be used in wvw, but you would be reviving a dead person, not a downed person.

Illuison of Life does not work like the Warrior downed skill “Vengeance”. When the 15 seconds are up they do not instantly die but instead go into a downed state again. I used it in WvW yesterday to allow two people in downed states to get up, run into the keep and then they both went into a downed state and I helped them rally.

It used to result in death if you did not get a kill in the 15 seconds, but it was changed sometime just after release so now when illusion of life wears off, you just enter a downed state again.

Simonoly.4352:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Simonoly.4352:

*Illusion of Life – used in dungeons and fractals to allow downed players to get up, run away and self-res if it’s too risky for a party member to help when they initially go down. I also use it in WvW when defending keeps, to allow team mates who have been downed outside the keep to get up, run inside, fully res and help bolster the defences.

You are wrong with this. Illusion of life revives your allies for 15 seconds. If they kill something, they are fully revived, but if they do not, at the end of the 15 seconds, they completely die, they don’t go back to the downed state. It could be used in wvw, but you would be reviving a dead person, not a downed person.

Illuison of Life does not work like the Warrior downed skill “Vengeance”. When the 15 seconds are up they do not instantly die but instead go into a downed state again. I used it in WvW yesterday to allow two people in downed states to get up, run into the keep and then they both went into a downed state and I helped them rally.

It used to result in death if you did not get a kill in the 15 seconds, but it was changed sometime just after release so now when illusion of life wears off, you just enter a downed state again.

Perhaps it works differently in wvw than it does in normal pve. I have used it at lupicus before to allow people to get out from directly under the mob, and run to the side of the room for safer ressurection, but they always die after the time runs out.

Never used list:
Blink —-——————————————-(rather use decoy instead)
Mantra of Concentration——(never understand why Mantra exist)
Mantra of Distraction————-
Mantra of Pain—————————-
Mantra of Resolve
Signet of Midnight————————-(not worth for 10% boost with 1 slot)
Veil———————————————————(Mesmer has a master skill do same thing)
Portal—————————————————-( only work with WVW???)
Signet of Domination —-————-(sigil of corruption do better?)
Mimic—————————-(be better if projectile attacks to be redirected at multiple foes)

Pyroatheist.9031:

Simonoly.4352:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Simonoly.4352:

*Illusion of Life – used in dungeons and fractals to allow downed players to get up, run away and self-res if it’s too risky for a party member to help when they initially go down. I also use it in WvW when defending keeps, to allow team mates who have been downed outside the keep to get up, run inside, fully res and help bolster the defences.

You are wrong with this. Illusion of life revives your allies for 15 seconds. If they kill something, they are fully revived, but if they do not, at the end of the 15 seconds, they completely die, they don’t go back to the downed state. It could be used in wvw, but you would be reviving a dead person, not a downed person.

Illuison of Life does not work like the Warrior downed skill “Vengeance”. When the 15 seconds are up they do not instantly die but instead go into a downed state again. I used it in WvW yesterday to allow two people in downed states to get up, run into the keep and then they both went into a downed state and I helped them rally.

It used to result in death if you did not get a kill in the 15 seconds, but it was changed sometime just after release so now when illusion of life wears off, you just enter a downed state again.

Perhaps it works differently in wvw than it does in normal pve. I have used it at lupicus before to allow people to get out from directly under the mob, and run to the side of the room for safer ressurection, but they always die after the time runs out.

It should be the same in PvE. I used it twice during a PvE event earlier today in Straits of Devastation and at the end of the duration they were in a downed state again. I don’t think there’s a skill separation between PvE and WvW, I think thats only with sPvP.

But, because of downed penalties, I suppose it is possible to cause instant death by the end of the 15 second period. I think Illusion of Life gives 2 downed penalties, so if you use it on someone who has already been downed three times, I guess they will die at the end of the 15 seconds unless they rally with a kill.

I’m struggling to find good information on the finer details of Illusion of Life. I feel like I need to test it some more. Must find some willing Guinea Pigs… ;-)

Skills I don’t use/like:

Arcane Thievery - I just prefer Nullfield. Maybe reduce the CD of that skill and I ‘ll think about using it xD
Mimic - Karka farming only (and I don’t do that)
Mantra of Concentration - This one’s actually pretty cool, but I prefer Blink/Decoy for stunbreaking.
Mantra of Distraction - Tried it in PvP, dumped it afterwards. It’s not that bad, but there are better utilities for PvP.
Mantra of Pain - Don’t like it. Even when traited, this thing sucks. The only positive thing about it is the short CD in combination with Restorative Mantras. Other than that, it’s just a utility skill that brings no utility and poor damage (autoattack sometimes deals more)
Mantra of Resolve - Again, I’m using Nullfield. A condition removing, boon stripping combo field? Hell yeah.
Phantasmal Defender - Maybe useful for bunker builds, idk. Bunker Mesmers aren’t that effective (anymore).
Phantasmal Disenchanter - Sometimes I need condition cleansing out of combat, and you can’t summon Phantasms without target. Another problem with phantasms is that they aren’t reliable. Maybe the enemy casts AoEs at the same time – boom, utility wasted.
Signet of Domination - There are better ways to improve condition damage without wasting a utility slot.
Signet of Midnight - lulwut?
Signet of Inspiration - Don’t like the randomness. After the shattered strength (re-)nerf, the active effect is also kinda useless for me.
Signet of Illusions - still bugged (?). Active effect is awesome.

Some skills aren’t that bad, but they suck compared to other ones imo.

Just a general observation to help people understand the mechanics and the impact of the mechanics:

Mantra of Pain is like Mug for Mesmers, except slightly less damage per hit and you can use it multiple times back-to-back at the cost of a utility slot.

I never use:

Mirror Image – With traits like Illusionists Celerity (illusion skills recharge 20% faster) and Deceptive Evasion (create a clone on dodge), I never have any use for it.
Null Field – A good skill, but I always end up using Mantra of Resolve or Arcane Thievery instead.
Illusion of Life – I actually like this skill, but the recharge is way too long considering how rare it’s actually possible to cast it on more then one ally. It should have a 90 second recharge, or at least 120.
Mantra of Concentration – The stability is way too short (only 2 seconds), meaning you have to predict when you’re going to be hit. Mantra of Resolve is much more reliable, as it removes conditions after you’ve been hit, and has a 5 second shorter recharge time.
Phantasmal Defender – I can never find a reason to use this over all the other utility skills. Maybe I’ll make a bunker build at some point where it can fit in?
Phantasmal Disenchanter – Not sure why anyone would pick this over Null Field, or any of the other condition removal skills.
Signet of Midnight – 10% boon duration increase? Absolutely useless. Although the AoE blind is nice, it’s still the worst utility skill Mesmers have.

The most underrated Mesmer utility is Mimic. Few people know that it actually reflects all projectiles for the 4 second duration, not just one. And not only that, it also blocks all other non-projectile attacks, except for melee attacks! Next to that, Mimic also recharges “behind” Echo. So if you save Echo for your next fight, you can use the attack from Echo, and then instantly follow up with Mimic again. It’s great when running away from a zerg in WvW, as no ranged attacks can hit you for the 4 seconds Mimic lasts. Plus it’s a lot of fun to see what kind of skill you get from Echo.

Hehe yep, Mimic wins the award for most misleading tooltip in the game.

lol, you people complaining about veil… It can be really useful and has helped me tons of times, I don’t run with it on my slot all the time, but again, things are situational and we prepare when we see the need… And for that it is great, as it should be.

The argument that having mass invisibilty just make it useless is simple senseless, you can use both + decoy + torch to make sure you’ll remain unseen while waiting to portal people inside a keep you hid…
You can use it so you’ll get to use another elite that may be more useful for you at a time, etc.

Seriously, learn to use your utilities, there’s tons of different situations in the game that can be faced differently.

EasymodeX.4062:

Hehe yep, Mimic wins the award for most misleading tooltip in the game.

That is definitely true! From this discussion thread I learned that it reflects all ranged for 4s — so I may give it a try again.

I tried it for 15 minutes a few months ago and was highly dissatisfied with the initial hit that converts the skill to echo. Based upon the description I thought the initial hit would be avoided. It seems illogical that the first hit will be taken. Otherwise you can’t use it to avoid a big range hit you know is coming.

Dan.8709:

lol, you people complaining about veil… It can be really useful and has helped me tons of times, I don’t run with it on my slot all the time, but again, things are situational and we prepare when we see the need… And for that it is great, as it should be.

The argument that having mass invisibilty just make it useless is simple senseless, you can use both + decoy + torch to make sure you’ll remain unseen while waiting to portal people inside a keep you hid…
You can use it so you’ll get to use another elite that may be more useful for you at a time, etc.

Seriously, learn to use your utilities, there’s tons of different situations in the game that can be faced differently.

That’s sort of the purpose of this thread — to learn where a skill might be useful (and we just don’t realize it).

For some strange reason you decided to attack everyone on Veil — instead you could have taken the role of “mentor” and passed on some rich knowledge nugget. Unfortunately any “knowledge” in your post was lost because of your tone.

Signit of domination: Bonus CD damage is bonus CD damage, if you’re running a CD build it’s all good. The active is a stun (better than your daze), and nothing to shake a stick at.

I’m currently running Signit of Midnight: I swear the passive does not work for me for some reason, but if you trait confusion on blind then you get an instant aoe blind confusion bomb to throw out in the middle of a WvW zerg. Someone mentioned cooldown as being a problem but honestly, I never notice it.
Coupled with the other blind skills, you can also shut someone down in a 1v1.

I ran illusion of life in my early days of WvW, but the targets never know what’s going on. If you want to res someone, TW is far superior.

Phantasmal defender: Ive seen this used well in a sPvP phantasm build.

I’m currently running Signit of Midnight: I swear the passive does not work for me for some reason, but if you trait confusion on blind then you get an instant aoe blind confusion bomb

Signet of Midnight’s active is an AOE?

Edit: Checked wiki.

Nifty. May add it to my glamour build as a 3rd slot when I’m not using Portal. Or a generic condition damage build with Scepter and confuse on blind.

Mantra of Concentration's two-second stability lasts long enough for you to pop both charges, so technically it allows you to have up to 4 secs of stability. This in conjunction with Mantra of Healing allows you to save so many lives (including your own)

Phantasmal Defender works well with Chaos Storm and regen from Inspiration, if you have a good amount of toughness along with Signet of Illusions, this guy’ll last pretty long. Definitely long enough to get another one when your first dies.

-Signet of Inspiration never seems to have any effect on any of my builds. =/ Does anyone have any testimonys towards its use?
- I cant find a use for Mirror Images beyond shatter fodder.
- Does anyone EVER use Mirror?
- The Phantasmal Disenchanter only ever succeeds in breaking my heart. It fails me ALL the time.

EasymodeX.4062:

I’m currently running Signit of Midnight: I swear the passive does not work for me for some reason, but if you trait confusion on blind then you get an instant aoe blind confusion bomb

Signet of Midnight’s active is an AOE?

Edit: Checked wiki.

Nifty. May add it to my glamour build as a 3rd slot when I’m not using Portal. Or a generic condition damage build with Scepter and confuse on blind.

It is an aoe but it is a very short range so If you do not like to be in melee range it sucks.

I wonder how well you could stack confusion with this, and the asura racial + sceptre.

Regarding illusion of life – In PvE, it ONLY kills the player if they’re already at a red penalty when they have it cast on them.

In HotW with the ice AoE boss with the quaggans, I ALWAYS use this skill, as someone always ends up downed inside his AoE. Thankfully I only do HotW with a guild group who knows what IoL is and what to do when I cast it on them (hint: run away and rez, not jump back into the fight). IoL is extremely situational, but in the situations it’s usable in, it has potential to be very good (still not as good as signet of undeath, warbanner, etc though…).

Arcane Thievery Long CD. Unreliable for condition and boon swapping.
Illusion of Life Useful for specific situations, just not on my skill bar. There are always better options, and in pvp other classes do it better.
Mantra of Concentration Terrible skill. Needs to have longer stability to approach becoming viable in a build. Or put protection in with the boons it gives.
Mantra of Distraction Fun to harass people with only if you have 3 charges, but it’s still not a great option even in a mantra build. In pvp it sounds like it should be good but you give up too much control and dps in order to fit this in to a build.
Mimic Better than it used to be, but still pointless unless you’re farming a specific mob in pve. Could be improved if it absorbed melee damage as well.
Phantasmal Defender Dies too fast to be of any use. Allow it to mitigate the incoming damage and provide protection at 300 range.
Phantasmal Disenchanter Dies too fast to be of any use. Could be useful if it lived more than a couple of seconds. Needs some sort of damage mitigation
Signet of Domination Stun is nice, but I gain nothing from running conditions on a mesmer in pvp or pve. Conditions are subpar to power unless fighting certain mobs.
Signet of Illusions Garbage. If it were instant and had half the cool down I’d use it despite the useless passive portion
Signet of Inspiration RNG on boons that last only a couple of seconds. Useless right? Wait it gets more useless! You can transfer your terrible uptime on your boons to your teammates!
Signet of Midnight Mesmer boon uptime is terrible already 10% isn’t going to help in the least. Make it 50%
Veil Used this a couple times for stealth builds when exploring, but other than that I’m not sure why we even have this skill.

Alex.9268:

Esplen.3940:

Mimic is so nice on shatter builds, have you ever done a 12shatter (f3 + f2 + f1) on a player in sPvP or WvW?

You are probably thinking of mirror images

Dangit, you’re right. Mimic is like Arcane Thievery. One of those skills I want to run, but can’t due to the fact that it’s not really THAT useful.

Wise.8025:

Arcane Thievery Long CD. Unreliable for condition and boon swapping.
Illusion of Life Useful for specific situations, just not on my skill bar. There are always better options, and in pvp other classes do it better.
Mantra of Concentration Terrible skill. Needs to have longer stability to approach becoming viable in a build. Or put protection in with the boons it gives.
Mantra of Distraction Fun to harass people with only if you have 3 charges, but it’s still not a great option even in a mantra build. In pvp it sounds like it should be good but you give up too much control and dps in order to fit this in to a build.
Mimic Better than it used to be, but still pointless unless you’re farming a specific mob in pve. Could be improved if it absorbed melee damage as well.
Phantasmal Defender Dies too fast to be of any use. Allow it to mitigate the incoming damage and provide protection at 300 range.
Phantasmal Disenchanter Dies too fast to be of any use. Could be useful if it lived more than a couple of seconds. Needs some sort of damage mitigation
Signet of Domination Stun is nice, but I gain nothing from running conditions on a mesmer in pvp or pve. Conditions are subpar to power unless fighting certain mobs.
Signet of Illusions Garbage. If it were instant and had half the cool down I’d use it despite the useless passive portion
Signet of Inspiration RNG on boons that last only a couple of seconds. Useless right? Wait it gets more useless! You can transfer your terrible uptime on your boons to your teammates!
Signet of Midnight Mesmer boon uptime is terrible already 10% isn’t going to help in the least. Make it 50%
Veil Used this a couple times for stealth builds when exploring, but other than that I’m not sure why we even have this skill.

On signet of illusions. I love this signet soooo much. The difference it makes in my illusions health is very noticeable and I can sometimes run through my shatters very fast so being able to reset them and not wait for my health to go below X amount is nice. Hmmmm I should try mimic lol

Chaos Archangel.5071:

- I cant find a use for Mirror Images beyond shatter fodder.
- Does anyone EVER use Mirror?

Mirror Images will break a stun, and is great for 3 clone generation not just for shatters, but also for a full strength heal (3x clones = best). In fact 3 clones for any shatter IS not only good, but important much of the time. It’s a get out of jail free card combo utility.

jportell.2197:

Wise.8025:

Arcane Thievery Long CD. Unreliable for condition and boon swapping.
Illusion of Life Useful for specific situations, just not on my skill bar. There are always better options, and in pvp other classes do it better.
Mantra of Concentration Terrible skill. Needs to have longer stability to approach becoming viable in a build. Or put protection in with the boons it gives.
Mantra of Distraction Fun to harass people with only if you have 3 charges, but it’s still not a great option even in a mantra build. In pvp it sounds like it should be good but you give up too much control and dps in order to fit this in to a build.
Mimic Better than it used to be, but still pointless unless you’re farming a specific mob in pve. Could be improved if it absorbed melee damage as well.
Phantasmal Defender Dies too fast to be of any use. Allow it to mitigate the incoming damage and provide protection at 300 range.
Phantasmal Disenchanter Dies too fast to be of any use. Could be useful if it lived more than a couple of seconds. Needs some sort of damage mitigation
Signet of Domination Stun is nice, but I gain nothing from running conditions on a mesmer in pvp or pve. Conditions are subpar to power unless fighting certain mobs.
Signet of Illusions Garbage. If it were instant and had half the cool down I’d use it despite the useless passive portion
Signet of Inspiration RNG on boons that last only a couple of seconds. Useless right? Wait it gets more useless! You can transfer your terrible uptime on your boons to your teammates!
Signet of Midnight Mesmer boon uptime is terrible already 10% isn’t going to help in the least. Make it 50%
Veil Used this a couple times for stealth builds when exploring, but other than that I’m not sure why we even have this skill.

On signet of illusions. I love this signet soooo much. The difference it makes in my illusions health is very noticeable and I can sometimes run through my shatters very fast so being able to reset them and not wait for my health to go below X amount is nice. Hmmmm I should try mimic lol

I mainly do PvP and WvW though. 1.25s cast time on signet of illusions is too long as well as the CD. I’d rather just take a trait for the additional reset of my shatters since I only really need them back up instantly if I’m getting pounded on.

I am curious whether or not I’ll be able to add Portal to this list soon too since ANet stated today that they will be looking at giving the skill to other classes. If I don’t need to carry it for people movement then I won’t. Just hope they give us a 25% movement speed utility to compensate for our mobility.

Okay so I just did some dungeons with mimic… This thing has just earned a place on my skill bar… U have to tank the first projectile but it blocks the rest after and what ever damage you took on the first projectile gets thrown back in the target of your choosings face. One scenario I did 3k damage just off of that to a boss. It is really a good skill if those that have looked at it scoffingly haven’t tried it try it against a projectile enemy it is 110% more effective then feed back (which i notice still lets projectiles through if you start it after they start a chain attack which… WTF?) But mimic will still reflect even if they are in a chain projectile attack. Seriously TRY IT.

Mantra of Concentration is a nice little skill in wvwvw , to ensure uninterrupted stomps on warriors/guardians. Being a stunbreaker also means that it’s not a complete waste of a utility slot if no stomping opportunity occurs.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Simonoly.4352:

*Illusion of Life – used in dungeons and fractals to allow downed players to get up, run away and self-res if it’s too risky for a party member to help when they initially go down. I also use it in WvW when defending keeps, to allow team mates who have been downed outside the keep to get up, run inside, fully res and help bolster the defences.

You are wrong with this. Illusion of life revives your allies for 15 seconds. If they kill something, they are fully revived, but if they do not, at the end of the 15 seconds, they completely die, they don’t go back to the downed state. It could be used in wvw, but you would be reviving a dead person, not a downed person.

No, they are downed at the end of it. However, this counts as a separate instance of being downed so if you’ve been downed too much recently then it could kill you.