Guild Wars 2

Check those wiki pages: clones phantasms

In general: clones are around 3.2k hp at lvl 80 and phantasms at around 2.2k

As far as I know yes. The only stats that don’t apply to the illusions are boon/cond duration and I’m not sure about healing power. The rest should apply.

Tried it on a GS in PVE and the sigil of earth does work but, as LiuliRenai said it has an ICD of 2s. The basic bleed duration from the sigil is 5s and with +65% bleed duration I couldn’t get more than 2-3 stacks of bleed from autoatacks – I think it’s not the best option. I’ve tried Sigil of Frailty (30% vuln on crit, vuln duration 10s, ICD 1s) – as I thought it would go well with the Vulnerability from Mirror Blades, but I only ever got to 10 stacks (6 from Mirror Blades, so I guess 4 from the sigil) – overall underwhelming.

I think the GS based condi build should focus on bleeds from the Sharper Images trait. Keep in mind that clones/phantasms don’t get your condi duration bonus but they do get your condi dmg score – focus your build on condi dmg.

Edit: I had around 45% crit chance when I tried those sigils.

I’m doing dungeons with a GS/Staff build, so far I did AC, TA, CoF and SE without problems. I’ve used various builds:
20/10/10/25/5 – Phantasms build (+30% dmg on phantasms, GS CD reduction), its ok, but once you have the phantasms up you basically stand and do nothing and can’t use Mirror Blades (good dps skill) nor Phase retreat (fantastic defensive skill) in order not to substitute one of the phantasms by a clone, but if you go for Inspiration trait that gives heals on mantras you can then switch to casting mantra of pain time after time to heal your teammates (check Pyro’s Ultiate support build)
10/20/10/10/20 – a kind of a shatter build, with Mind Wrack +20% dmg trait, clone on dodge, Debilitating dissipation for a chance of weakness on clone’s death and Illusionary elasticity for another bounce on WoC and Mirror Blades – it’s ok, you deal dmg when shattering and even if the clones die or get substituted they either cause aoe weakness, 3x vulnerablity or 3x bleed

Soon I’m going to try a 20/20/20/0/10 build for CD reduction on both GS and Staff clone on dodge and 3%dmg per illusion.

Overall conclusions:
- I think IP is not that useful in dungeons since you want to stay away from mobs (I think one second distortion on a long CD will not save you as much as being aware of your surroudings staying 600 units away from harm )
- 10 in Inspiration for the Remove Condition on Heal trait is worth it (especially paired with runes of the centaur – e.g. if you get immobilized you heal, remove immobilize and get swiftness to run away more efficiently)
- 20 in Inspiration for Warden’s feedback is useful for some of the dungeons
- 5 in Illusions is more important than CD reduction trait for any weapon
- There’s no point in putting a lot of focus on defensive gear if you go for staff CD reduction trait – you get to Phase retreat every 6 sec, have good uptime of chaos armor and can frequently cast chaos storm – just keep moving and you’ll be fine

Hope it helps. Cheers!

@exilio: If you run with GS out most of the time then yes, your trait distribution would suit you better. One advise though, if you don’t really shatter much consider changing Mental Torment for either Empovered illusions (good for boss fights when you have 3 phantasms out) or Crippling Dissipation (synergizes better with Debilitating Dissipation from Chaos and helps you kite mobs)

I use GS/Staff combo with semi-condition build. Trait setup:
http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-NZ-g;1VPkz027oW-71;9;5JJ-J;119-49;226E

Last 10 points – anywhere you want, I currently put them into Inspiration for Mender´s Purtiy (helps with condition heavy dungeons). I’m running Rampagers and Cond/prec/Tough armor with Carrion/Berserker mix of trinkets with 6/6 runes of the centaur and am at:
43% crit
2900 attack
850 cond dmg
18k hp
2.1 defence

For more survivability you could go for full cond/prec/tough armor, but with constant dodging/chaos storm/armor etc. I didn’t really see it as necessary. As illusions don’t share your condi duration I didn’t really invest in Domination.

The build is still a bit green and I don’t really know which sigil to use for the GS, but so far it’s been fun I currently have sigil of earth on the GS but as it has ICD of 2s it’s not really that good, I’m thinking about changing it to Frailty. For staff I use Sigil of Fire to give it a bit more direct dmg. With centaur runes I get 14s swiftness on a 20s cooldown and sometimes I get swiftness from the signet = swiftness around 80-90% of time.

Full rotation: running towards the target I start with GS autoattack to measure distance -> iBerserker -> and when I´m close Mirror Blade (with Elasticity it jumps 3 times, giving me 6xmight, hitting the target twice and stacking 6x vuln on the mob), then I dodge back (I now have 3 clones all very close to the target) -> switch to staff -> iWarlock (one of the clones explodes due to Debilitating Dissipation causing either 3x bleed, 3x Vuln or Weakness) -> dodge (another clone explodes), phase retreat (another explosion) -> shatter

Throughout the rotation I always have 3 illusions = +9% dmg, the mob usually has weaknes and vulnerability and I can keep around 8-10 stacks of bleeds on it, I dogde quite a lot and always have the option of chaos storm/armor for survivability.

Hi,

That’s some great info, I didn’t know the scaling of Mind Wrack worked like that, thanks!
A quick question: between Mental Torment and IP which one would you go for (PvE-wise)?

I run a similar build to the one proposed by Link, but I focus on meditations. With Master Maintenance Oil, Omnom ghost/pie, RHS and sigil of accuracy I’m at 71% crit chance.

omnom ghost/pie is insanely good, but basing a whole build on it is a bit too unsafe for my taste. That’s why I think you should either include AH or MF. I run MF since I usually play solo or with a friend – not that many boons get thrown around.

I run: P/T/V armor + 6/6 runes of the wurm, knights trinkets with beryl orbs, berserker´s GS (51% crit chance) and berserker sword/scepter with P/T/V torch/focus (71% crit chance). In the end I get:
2.9 attack (GS), 2.8 with 1h/offhand
3k defence
16k hp (GS), 16.5k (1h/offhand)
51% crit chance (GS), 71% with 1h/offhand
63% crit dmg (GS), 59% 1h/offhand

@akamon – I think what Bash meant was that conditions tick every second so unless you can stack 100%+ burning duration (for anoter second on passiveVoJ) it is not going to benefit from condition duration. It does benefit from condition dmg.

Hi, that depends a bit on the weapons you’re using and your play style. The 3rd attack on the hammer provides a knockback – which I think is part of that “utility” you mentioned – and it can be a hindrance to you if you pack mobs for an AoE. Let’s say you pull all mobs with GS #5 and are about to hit WW and the hammer knocks one of the mobs away from you, or you immobilize an enemy with scepter #3 and cast scepter #2 on him and the hammer knocks him out, etc. The knockdown command you can only use twice – it’s decent but nothing super-fancy in PvE.

I’d say go for the sword if you want a DPS increase and for more utility maybe consider the shield? The dome it creates will prevent ranged mobs from damaging you while you deal with melee oponents and it can be commanded to cause weakness further lowering the damage you receive.

I was thinking about a similar build lately, but as far as I know the sigils used (Hydromancy and Ice) share their cooldown, so wouldn’t it be counter effective if, for example, the sigil of Ice would proc just before you switched to the hammer (in which case the Hydromancy sigil wouldn´t proc on that swap)? Does that happen often?

Any suggestions for an alternative sigil for the GS? assuming you would swap often to maximize the chill uptime from Hydromancy proc, would the Sigil of Battle work?