Guild Wars 2

saw a mesmer finishing me and his clone was copying him so i wouldn’t know which is the real finisher, how is that possible?

also the sword off hand phantasm is really powerful, why do I NEVER see mesmers with dual swords?

Clones can’t do finisher. I don’t know what you see, but they just can’t do that. A clone can only attack with #1, or run to get into range of said attack or shatter. They can undertake no other action at all (not even getting out of AoE or running away from melee).

As for the off-hand sword, there are multiple reasons :
- focus is our only reliable access to swiftness, can be traited to reflect projectiles, does AoE pull, and bring a whirl finisher and a light combo field (hello cleansing bolt). An awesome OH, overshadowing sword ;
- pistol OH phantasm has more burst, attack at range, with a projectile finisher. Sword phantasm has more survivability, and so more sustained damage, but in a lot of cases burst beat sustained, and pistol is preferred to sword for raw damages ;
- staff and GS are really good weapon, but don’t allow OH ;
Hence, most mesmer will have only one OH, and sword isn’t specialized nor general enough to be chosen over the other one.
- condi or PI mesmer will prefer torch because of burning/invi ;

TL;DR: sword is good, but the other OH either are more specialized (torch, pistol) , or bring more general utility (focus).

As well as the iSwordsman only has 1 hit, that means it will not reliably crit.
The Pistol and Focus have 9 and 12 hit respectively, each hit with a separate chance to crit giving a more reliable burst than the iSwordsman.

OH Sword is hard to build to its full potential. This is the best I can come up with to use OH sword, but I have little success so far. I post it here in case anyone interested in and want to try it out: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAscWl0zKqHWThGb9IipH9mvBckKYaleob82FC-jUCBYLCiEEgkFBK5pIas1tht6KalXBRXDT5iIqWEAzYA-w

It’s basically a powercrit interrupt build + retaliation high uptime with retal on block and PU traits.

OH Sword, in Phantasm builds, kinda relies on having the -20% cooldown reduction. This makes it somewhat necessary to run 10/10/0/25/25 but the 25 in Illusions is also a bit useless for Phantasm. The two traits that it does give you are not very good for Sword Phantasm (one reduces attack downtime on Phantasms for most Phantasms, Swordsman NOT included), the other increases direct damage the Mesmer deals while Illusions are out, but it’s a Phantasm build, so it doesn’t help out that much.

While it’s fun to run OH Sword, it’s not quite as easy to use it full potential since the “diversity” patch.

I actually use OH Sword, just because I dislike other offhands. iSwordsman hits hard, isn’t melee but isn’t ranged and evades while attacking. OH Sword also provides a block/daze and a clone+dmg (if blocked).

Focus: While I use this for exploring (and 1 part in CoE and in CoF if necessary, for the pull), I really hate the iWarden. Yes, it protects from projectiles and it can be traited for reflect, but I have never learned to love this Phantasm. It hits slow, so I have to wait some time before shattering. The foe may also walk away from the Phantasm before it finishes damaging, making it almost useless. As for traiting, I have no idea which traits I can lose from my build (20/20/0/0/30).

Pistol: More of a pvp weapon, having a stun (OH Sword gives daze, although not as reliable as the bullet). iDuelist… it’s ranged, so it won’t shatter at the same time as my clones and it needs to run to the foe, so while minor issues, they still make it less desirable. Also makes many hits and they can be dodge, iSwordsman either hits or misses (which I like).

Torch: Phantasm is bad in PvE and stealth isn’t needed so badly.

The sword phantasm is extremely strong. It does more reliable damage than the pistol phantasm as it is difficult to LoS, can not be negated with projectile reflects, and will ignore retaliation while evading on its attack that is also a leap combo finisher.

It will not stack up bleeds like the pistol, but it will do reliable high output sustained damage by attacking every 3.6 seconds. It is not affected by phantasmal haste, and this is actually good here since it means you don’t need to put 20 points into illusions to maximize its damage potential. Additionally, OH sword comes with a nice block for a bit of added defense.

I have had sword 4 hit for upwards of 7k dmg and spawn a clone. This and runes of air +F1 usually spells a very quick death for thieves. It is a dangerous game of rocket tag though.

For PvE, my default set is sword/focus/sword. I mention it because I don’t think a lot of people realize you can have only 1 main hand and 2 off hands.

Edit: As for the finishing trick, maybe he used a phase retreat blink combo on you. Looked like a clone started stomping but it was actually the mesmer the whole time.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

I mention it because I don’t think a lot of people realize you can have only 1 main hand and 2 off hands.

^ Lol this. Saved me a lot of money during leveling.