Guild Wars 2

I still occasionally get clipped into the ground with Phantasmal Retreat. It’s starting to make me reluctant to use this move, despite how good it is.

@Cherrie: Yeah, you’re only considered in combat when either you hit something or you get hit. Summoning a phantasm doesn’t count as being in combat until they hit something.

So what’s possible is to Summon Sword 5, Swap, and Summon Staff 3 and 2. You won’t have the cool down associated with swapping mid-combat.

Again, Decceptive Evasion won’t generate a clone, until you either get hit, or hit something.

Build: Constant Clone generation and High critical Attack – “Attack of the Clones” (PvE)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgEQNAW8clwzKq3UThGaNJiJFBHyhqA2RqQpV6BvdhzGA

Weapons: Staff and Sword/Sword

Traits:
10 Domination – Crippling Dissipation (V)
30 Dueling – Blade Training (IV), Deceptive Evasion (X), and Desperate Decoy (V)
20 Chaos – Debilitating Dissipation (V) and Chaotic Dampening (X)
10 Illusions – Compounding Power (III)

Heal:
Ether Feast

Utility Skills:
Decoy
Mirror Images
Signet of Midnight

Elite Skill: Time Warp

Summary: This build is heavily focused on keeping 3 clones up as much as possible and high crit with the sword. It can also be played with staff to round off mid to long range offense/support.

Trait Breakdown:
Crippling Dissipation – Helps in the kiting dept.

Critical Infusion – Fuels Deceptive Evasion.

Blade Training – You want as much precision as possible. Reduces already short sword CDs, and ups your clone generation.

Deceptive Evasion – This is probably one of the more important traits. When combined with Debilitating Dissipation (sword clones), it ups your damage greatly. It also provides you with a means to constantly maintain 3 clones. It contributes so much to clone generation that I find myself using decoy and mirror images rarely. It also grants you another ability to overwrite clones which can prove invaluable when micromanaging them and maximizing condition and damage.

Desperate Decoy – To maximize precision. Synergy with Ether Feast. You might even want to forego the utility Decoy for another skill.

Debilitating Dissipation – Source of either bleeding, vulnerability, or weakness. To maximize this, you want the AI to kill sword clones. Triggered by overwriting as well.

Chaotic Dampening – The staff synergizes with the sword and vice versa. In this build you will be switching back and forth (as often as possible), and will want short CDs.

Illusionist Celerity – Speeds up clone generation, enough said.

Compounding Power – You will constantly have 3 clones up, this just ups your damage even more.

Honorable Mentions:
Illusionary Elasticity – One of better traits for staff wielding Mesmers. If you must have this skill though, you can forego either 10 domination or 10 precision to get Illusionary Elasticity.

Illusionary Defense – If you are having trouble surviving, you can use this in place of either Debilitating Dissipation or Chaotic Dampening.

Heal/Utility/Elite Breakdown:
Ether Feast – You are pumping out clones constantly, this has the shortest CD of all the healing skills and just makes sense.

Decoy – This is another source of clone generation, breaks stun, and has synergy with Ether Feast. Because of Deceptive Decoy trait, you can swap this out for something else.

Mirror Images – Yet another source of clones, also breaks stun. Again, because of deceptive evasion and critical infusion, this can be swapped out for something else.

Signet of Midnight – Has one of the shorter cooldowns for signets. Actively applies blind in immediate area for survivability. Increases boon duration.

Time Warp – Arguably Mesmer’s best elite, and one of the best in the game. Provides yet another ethereal combo field.

Various Notes:

Mesmer’s are too squishy, why even use sword at all?
It’s true, Mesmer’s are pretty squishy. However, the Mesmer has a slew of damage mitigation abilities. Whenever you have a sword you either want to be inside of a Chaos Storm, have Chaos Armor, be distorted, stealthed, blocking, dodge, or kite away. It’ll be a balancing act managing your clones and maintaining those states at all times. You will constantly be active and unfortunately are not allowed to stand in one place and auto-attack the whole time.

Why not Signet of Illusions?
Currently this skill is bugged. Also if it properly worked, it would make Crippling and Debilitating Dissipation less effective. You can keep up with clone death and replace one just as quick.

If I don’t want Decoy or Mirror Images, what other skills are there?
Skills still effective with this build are Blink (breaks stun and maneuverability), Null Field (combo field and condition removal), and Feedback (combo field and useful for ranged).

Why no mention of Shatter and when should I use it?
Shatter should only be reserved for last resort (specifically distortion) or when you know the last Mind Wrack will kill. Shatter makes Crippling and Debilitating Dissipation less effective.

Trust me I wanted to add more, but there’s a character limit.

I’m trying to wrack my head about how aggro works in this game. I understand that whatever generates the most “threat” is at the top of the list of the enemy AI. However, I’ve been getting mixed results with different monsters.

For example: I use the staff #2 skill and cancel my attack with esc or weapon switch. I am definitely further away from the enemy. I do not attack at all and let my clone (does no damage but applies a random condition), and most of the time the AI goes straight for me. Is it because clones don’t do any damage at all?

However, sometimes, the AI goes for the clone. But, as soon as I attack a couple times, the aggro then shifts on me. So I get to choose between running around with my head cut off letting my weak clones try and help me, or choose to not attack at all and hope that my clones can slowly chip away at the AI or explode from Debilitating Dissipation.

I also notice other times if the AI is crippled either through crippling dissipation or sword #3, the AI seems to initially go for me, but changes its mind and lazily goes for the nearest clone.

What’s been consistent though is that phantasms when generating a large spike in damage take the aggro from the AI. But as soon as they die, they usually go for me instead of the nearest clone.

Right now, it seems that clones aren’t really present on the AI aggro list. Maybe because they generate no damage, or are given some sort of low threat level by default. Since they don’t even do any damage, what really is the point of them in PvE if the AI immediately goes for the caster.

Main reason I am having a gripe with this is because trait skills like crippling dissipation and debilitating dissipation are virtually useless if the AI goes straight for the caster.