Guild Wars 2

the uprising.6317

The main problem is with clones, the huge majority of the time, there is no deception involved. If your enemy understands the mechanics of the mesmer, you can never use mirror image to fool your enemy into thinking you are one of the clones.

So? The goal of clones is to make the opponent hesitate, even for a second or two for you to set up a couple casts like phantasms or even mantras. If he immediately knows where you are and goes straight for you, that’s when you break out your other skills. Chaos Storm yourself, Chaos Armor, Stuns, Leaps, Dodges, Blink, Decoy, etc. all the while your phantasms are dropping his health. He goes after your phantasms? Chaos Storm them and him and start widdling down his health with your own damage.

I see Mesmers as the reactive class – you change tactics based on what your opponent is doing or will do next. We’re not one trick ponies. We have multiple skills that can be used both defensively and offensively depending on the need for it, which means multiple layers of defense. “Haha which one is me!” may be the first thing a mesmer learns to do, but a good mesmer already assumes the opponent knows (or will know in the next 2.5 seconds) which one he is, and has already planned for when it happens.

I realized the same thing. It’s the range. The range is really small, and when you’re out of it you still cast the spell, it goes on CD, and nothing happens. It’s extremely lame.

I like it. Very clone/illusion reliant, but then again that might just be Mesmers in general lol. You can summon all your illusions for all your buffs, and then just unload. My only suggestion would be that since you’re going 25 points in Inspiration for Phantasmal Strength, you might as well go 10 points in Domination for Empowered Illusions (another 15% damage increase) too so your illusions hit like trucks.

The support Mesmer is definitely available if you spec for it. Pick the skills Mass Invisibility and the Portal. Use the staff to Chaos Storm your allies. Switch to an off hand Focus to speed up your team and remove conditions with the iWarden. And go deep into the Inspiration tree for Vigorous Revelation [shattering grants vigor to allies] and Restorative Mantras [mantras heal allies]

It doesn’t have to be about Shattering or Phantasmal damage if you don’t want it to be.

Recently I’ve seen a lot of Mesmers recommending to go 25 points in Inspiration to get Phantasmal Strength [phantasms do15% more damage]. I know along with the pretty much mandatory 10 point Domination trait Empowered Illusions [illusions do 15% more damage], your illusions start hitting like trucks with a 30% damage increase. However the first 20 points in Inspiration seem so lackluster, it’s making me question the investment.

The whole Inspiration tree is very support oriented, and the best traits for PvP are just…not that good:
Warden’s Feedback: Useless in sPvP. Kinda nice when you use a Focus in WvWvW. It’s still easy to just avoid the Warden altogether though. A better option is to just use Feedback in WvWvW.
Persisting Images: Meh. No one (smart) is going to sit there and attack your clones. The best way to fight a Mesmer is to go straight for him and mow him down ASAP, and I’d rather spec against players who do that.
Vengeful Images: see above.
Phantasmal Healing: Too minimal to really care about since Mesmers don’t stack Healing Power.

You have to go 25 points in Inspiration, getting barely useful traits on the way, just for another 15% increase in phantasmal damage…wouldn’t it be better to just go in the Dueling tree for awesome kitten like more Precision/Crit Damage, Sharper Images , Confusing Combatants; Phantasmal Fury, Duelists Discipline, Dodge Clones (!), or even Desperate Decoy?

Really good video. What traits do you use for sPvP?

Question: how much damage does Signet of Domination add to Condition damage?

I just started playing but honestly, it just doesn’t seem worth it. Especially if you mainly use the Phantasmal Warlock and Phantasmal Duelist. By the time they run over, get to their enemy, and then explode the enemy’s probably dead anyway. And that’s assuming the phantasm didn’t randomly die on his way to there. Clones aren’t even worth mentioning since they hardly ever last long enough to be at the end of a fight. I would rather just get the talent in the Domination + Chaos trees that cause conditions when your Clones die for a much more reliable damage source and less micro managing.

Nice video. I see you switch from Signet of Domination to Arcane Thievery. Did you switch based on how many casters you’re fighting or do you just like using either or?

I hate when people get SO defensive of the class they play:

“OMGWTF we’re not weak STkittenU you just suck!!!11!!11!!”

Learning about a class comes with recognizing both the strengths AND weaknesses. We have great control, escapes, debuffs, and single target DPS however AOE burst is definitely not up to par. The key is being able to realize the weakness and address it, like learning to use the warden effectively when you need to AOE or picking certain talents to make up for it. But outright denying a weakness is there is just…sad.