Guild Wars 2

Big Tower.5423:

Hey dear gw2ers, the sitation is like ele is the jack of all trades, no king, but strong in everything, makes ele fully viable and good as the other proffesions. if ele could do 100-120 k damage mutch more would run it and it would get insantly nerfed, and no chance that it can do 120 k. Show me a screen of you doing 120 k and il follow your toughts. but thief got better damage becuse we can do 20 k damage each 3 sec, and 30 k below 25 % hp, ele can beat thief, no doubt in that they are counter of thieves, but in damage we are still supreme over them, but their good side is that if you compare their damage to their survablity to the thief damage and survablity, if you get a together number of that, ele will be best, but if you only count damage thief will rule it defeinivlity. and if you got 100-120 k that got to be on that dungeon boss which let you do tons at him:) So im the one that burst your bubble..

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Whorse grammer then myne? Check.
0/10

How about making Tactic and Defense Banner useful in Dungeons? They fall short compared to all the other Banners, since you can’t facetank most dungeon bosses anyway, having extra healingpower, toughness, vitality wont help you.

Warning: PvE-Dungeon tryhard perspective.
Staff works best with a direct damage setup, even tough WoC applies conditions as well.
The reason for this are mainly: Condition Mesmers suck in Dungeons, you throw away a lot of potential (reflections scale of your critchance and critdamage, not conditiondamage), condition builds get owned by their group, since a lot of classes apply bleeding even tough they are not condition spec’d, taking away from your potential, using clones to apply conditions is a waste if you compare them to your phantasms (the hardest hitting skills of a mesmer, aside from gs#4…).
Warlocks deal great damage and scale of Power, Precision, Critdamage. The amount of Conditions on the target does not mean that the conditions must be applied by condition classes, in general a lot of classes apply conditions even when they are not condition spec’d.
So after all I say that Staff works best as a utility weapon in a Zerker set (or Power based) at least from a dungeon tryhard persective.
Am I satisfied with WoC? No, not at all. Same goes for Spatial Surge and thats the reason why I stick with Sword most of the time. Ranged damage is too low compared to melee damage. Also the fact, that these attacks get blocked by targets standing in the way makes it even worse (things beeing uncontrollable = sucks).

I don’t like celestial for dungeons. The “surviveability” or balance they grant are not needed at all. Mesmers already have a lot of tools to survive and a bit of extra toughness/vitality wont make a difference. If you want to “start out slowly” and have some more surviveability in the begining you can do that. But I would not recommend for this to spend 30 laurels (at least 20 days of work/waiting) for something you might want to switch out later on for something stronger (about 5% better in damage). In my opinion its better to start out with switching out some of your exotic pieces with knights/valkyrie gear at first and then look where you can get.

I never said my build is the best, i only said that the builds that were made by the people that said my build is the worst ever… those builds are falsely advertised.

No they`re not, they contain a some personal preferences tough, for example knights or valkyrie gear, but can be used with full zerker aswell and then ~75% of their damage will be the same as yours, granted you are both able to keep up 3 phantasms at a time.

I never said my build is the best, i only said that the builds that were made by the people that said my build is the worst ever… those builds are falsely advertised.
Every here and then a little false advertising… with a wall of “bonuses” that never come together at once,

Noone said that, you just assumed it. The point some people here want to tell you is that mesmer live and die by their ability to adapt to certain situations.
Of course there wont be condition pressure, lots of projectiles, juicy buffs to steal/share and the need for continous healing all the time at once, but when there is a need for that, these advertised builds can indeed deliver that, they can adapt, your build cant adapt. If there’s a need for chain reflections, your build is almost useless, if theres a need for group condidtion removal, your build is almost useless and so on. It’s just able to deal damage, and its really bad in that compared to other classes.
Now what is the meaning of “glass canon”? Its pretty much focusing on offensive stats, while neglecting defensive stats. Your build does that, sure. But the problem here is, that in order to be a “good glasscanon” you need to do a bit more than just do the above. You need to be useful in a group. Now a warrior GC can do that by just hitting the mob, but warriors will also bring a lot to the party aswell. Even in full zerker they have three great banners, for greater justice, on my mark, shake it off and so on…
Guardians can do that too, they deal more damage than your mesmer does, but also have ways to grant your group aegis, relfect attacks, heal conditions, grant stability….
These builds are labled as glasscanons too, but its obvious that they do more than just damage. They buff the damage of the whole party. In a direct way, by applying some nice buffs like might or fury, and in an indirect way (=the way mesmer is good) by allowing the group to bypass some boss mechanics due to reflections, condition removal, stability…
Why I don’t cry for more damage? Well it’s simple, if they buff mesmer on one end, they will defently nerf them on another end. For example if they turn up the damage output on sword MH they will nerf shatters, since a build like osis shattercat will deal far to much damage then. Also we don’t really need too much of a buff. Maybe some more mobility would be nice, a slight buff to timewarp (maybe lower cd?) would also be quite appreciated, but in terms of direct damage output a buff there would just cause loses on other fronts, which we don’t really want, do we? KITTEN YOU KITTEN BALANCING AROUND KITTEN PVP, KITTEN YOU!
Positive Feedback
Overall this build is not bad at all occasions. As you have shown in your video you are able to wreck open world mobs really fast. Even tough open PvE is neither FOTM nor Dungeon, I kind of liked the way it kills mobs when just roaming around, maybe with some tweaks, like focus instead of pistol for more mobility it can make the basis for a good event roaming build.
edith says: this guy was trying to use spoiler tags for easier understanding, but spoiler tags didn’t want to function properly, so this guy gave up.

“Defining the glass canon mesmer” sounds pretty much like saying your build is “the best” or something very close to it and it really is not.
Some people already pointed it out, that by giving your threads titles like these you just attract discontent. Maybe if you use less sensational Titles people here would be more willing to accept the build.
Your build is actually far away from it from a dungeon-oriented standpoint, since again and again and again you are missing all the utilities a mesmer has.
Vuln stacking, where? Sword clones do it, but if you use sword clones your damage will suffer a lot. Phantasms deal around 75% of your damage. And besides mesmer builds can stack vulnerability this way, its by no means specific to your build (a shatter build can vul stack even better….), that argument is invalid.
The damage advertised by these builds is not “unreal” the phantasms in a 10/30/0/25/5 build will hit as hard as your phantasms, but on top of that, they can be made more survival (so that not every single skill in this game 1shots them), and buff the party with permanent regeneration (=useful in another way).

That more damage = unreal numbers that are not correct + situational reflects (not every single mob in this game has projectiles)

I already said my autoattacks deal less damage than yours, but my phantasms deal the same. Idk if a lot of people here just c&p builds and didn’t watch for the kind of armor they were using or were real with that. Just go out there, with your GC gear and use 10/30/0/25/5, with Fury for phantasms, and 15% extra damage for phantasms and 20% less cd on pistol and sword and look how much damage your phantasms will deal. If you wear clerics or smth like that their damage will be lower, sure, never even once doubted that.
Regarding reflections: Sure not every mob has projectiles to reflect, but in a lot of boss fights there is a use for reflections.
Giganticus Lupicus is the best example for this, but there are others too. Pyro also mentioned the ones in fractals, I myself never visted fractals, but I have a lot of exp in terms of Dungeons (the “harder” ones, not AC lol).
And even there you can see a trend. Does the dungeon contain bosses where reflections work? Go get a mesmer (eg. arah, cof – although its not hard at all), are there no great things to reflect? Meh, a GC guardian or another warrior will do better. This does not matter for the casual group of course, but for some more experienced groups it will.
Another thing regarding the damage, you said in your video, that you use GS as your main Weapon, why so? If you want to be able to deal as much damage as possible you need to use the sword. It deals about 20% more damage and has access to better, more consistent phantasms. I dont know if you read the thread about iZerker beeing a buggy blooper, but his damage is definitely not consistent at all.

It’s not a difference from 1.3k to 1.7k… it’s more like 1.3k… 3.4k + DPS uptime since you are at 1200 range.

I was refering to sword, not greatsword in this regard. I did a lot of tests, both in the mist, and at cursed shore, although the mist are better suited for comparison, since you get access to a huge amout of mobs with the same armor, that dont fight back. Also any ratio between builds in Mists can pretty much be applied to PvE. Both tests came to the same result, the autochain of sword deals around 40% more damage. An average of 900,900,1500 with 10/30/0/25/5 and an average of 1300/1300/2100 when looking only at crits. Now before you bother trying to make an argument for you having a higher critchance/critdamage- I used the same gear for both instances, my pve gear. I don’t have as many ascended items as you tough. It is a difference, but it’s not worth in Dungeons/FOTM

Nemesis.8593:

Stats effect phantasms… after all this talking i went in game again and tested again just to be sure.
I had my normal build duelist hit 6k+ every single time… then i went into Pyroatheist.9031 build… and in order to get to his critical strike damage and chance i had to remove my rings, necklace and back piece. I had exactly his critical strike chance and critical strike damage… duelist could barely hit 3000…

I did this for about 10 minutes going back and forth while explaining to someone what i am doing and why… because i was a bit frustrated at that point.

He is refering to both Empowered Mantras as well as Compunding Power, which both wont buff up Phantasm Damage. I also went out and tested it.
If you remove items, you will also lose on power did you think about that?
I’m running a 10/30/0/25/5 build with full zerker armor and my iDuelist hits for ~6k aswell (without the bleeding put into the calculations)
Sure my autoattacks are weaker, but do i care? No. Why? Because it does not matter wether my autos hit for 1,3k or 1,7k(sword), they still suck compared to other classes. For example, Warriors do 30k 100b in 2 seconds, followed by a potential 18k whirlwind, a 15k eviscarete and around 15k autoattack chain and axe#2.These ~30% more damage on autoattacks are not worth beeing completely pinned to one build with no benefit to your party at all. And I’m not talking about the regeneration a phantasm build offers, I’m still talking about reflections, aoe condition removal over time, boon sharing, group healing (which i favour the least, since i never need it during dungeons).
As you said in your opening post, you main a necro, not a mesmer. Please take advice from players that have played their class a lot more than you have (pyro for example). You can’t apply the same logic to mesmers that you used for your necro. Necromancers don’t have access to the utilities a mesmer has.

A mantra build? Really?
Sorry but this kind of build is really ineffective.
You have no access to any reflection (the thing that makes mesmer so strong in PvE… cough cough). Sure you can get rid of a mantra for it, but you defently can’t get wardens feedback with this build. Also you wont get access to reduced glamour cd (more feedbacks /hooray), feedback on rez, condition remove on heal.
Mesmers are not picked for their direct damage. You rarely see more than one mesmer in a really good group. One is enough, since he already brings a kitten ton of utility.
GS is not a good main weapon choice when it comes to Dungeons. Fotm? Idk, I can imagine that you often have to resort to ranged combat in high level Fractals, but thats not a good enough excuse to make GS your general main weapon.
Mesmers have a lot of surviveability due to blurred frenzy, perma vigor, distrotion shatters and so on. Sword MH has a higher damage output than GS, you are also able to melee most of the Dungeon content if you use your brain.

It really depends on what you want to do.
For leveling? Damage, damage, and even more damage. Just trait into domination and dueling- A real “shatter build” will only work with at least 50 skillpoints, for both illusionary persona (30pt illusion) as well as deceptive evasion (20 pt dueling). I would recommend to use Sword as mainhand and either Pistol or Sword as offhand, since these phantasms really hurt and have a low cd. You can go 10 into domination for +15% phantasm damage, then 20 into dueling for fury for phantasms and -20% sword cd.
Use Armor with power and precision, there is no point in beeing “tanky” in PvE, use dodgerolls, sword#2 and other mechanics (like the f4 shatter) for staying alive.
Once on high level you should get 20 points in inspiration and trait Wardens feedback, in terms of PvE reflections are a mesmers most powerful weapon.
Stay away from scepter. Gs/Staff should only be used when you can’t go melee (or a short cd teleport with Staff#2)

The problem with your suggestion is, that it will only deal with the symptonsn not with the actual cause.
Many mechanics, like regeneration or protection are not useful in PvE, often times mobs will severely outdamage these mechanics and the scaling with healing power or boon duration is not nearly good enough to compensate for that.
If you happen to remove berserker/pure damage gear, most people still wont go for these “alternative” builds (e.g. support) they will just take whatever itemcombination will come closest to the original stats.
By doing so you wont force people to consider other builds, you will just kitten off a lot of them, since their dungeon runs will take longer.
Changing something with the current meta would require a lot of steps, completely splitting up PvE from PvP mechanics would be a good start tough.
The only way to make alternative builds viable is by buffing them and/or making group support almost mandatory.
One downside of course would be, that the slogan “bring the player, not the class” would probably no longer apply.
But to be fair, it was a nice idea on how to change the way the game currently goes, but well… not the right way, sorry.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Agony.3542:

Mesmer DPS is not that great (horrible tbh) compared to most other classes, they have pretty much no offensive support.

So some testing I did showed that my Mesmer with 3x phantasms up is doing quite a bit of damage, on par with my backstab thief if not higher. And with just 1 phantasm we’re still doing pretty good dps. No phantasms means pretty low DPS, if you run a phantasm build. Not saying my testing is completely accurate but how did you come to this conclusion.

I would say we are good dps with some nice support tricks.

Blood~

First off, I’m not saying phantasms are uselees, I’m just pointing out the things that will impede their damage output in a real enviroment, no training dummies, no non moving targets etc.

Phantasms suffer from a lot of things:
-They get killed by most pbaoe, even with traits/utilities that improve their hp.
-They take a lot of time to set up, a minimum of 12 seconds, and then you have to devote two different weapon sets for summoning them.
-You can’t control where or when they move, this partly goes with my first point, but i also had some of my phantasms get “countered” by enviromental obstructions or bosses moving to much.
-Clones will overwrite one of your phantasms, this might not seem that bad, right? You are just not using clone summoing, right? Well the problem is, that a lot of your utility skills come with free clones, thats awesome, isn’t it? Having to decide wether to kill one of your Phantasms and use one of these often times precious summoing cds or not use iLeap to close up, gs2(if you use it, which you shouldn’t because gs is bad), staff #2 (which is great, no doubt), scepter(…nvmd), sword OH (which you wont use that often anyway, but still).

Now everytime one of your phantasms dies, or fails to deliver a full attack or gets overwritten by a clone your damage suffers a lot. Basically while phantasms deal at least some damage compared to your auto chain, they are not a consistent and reliable source of damage, thus often resulting in not dealing the damage.
I play a phantasm build myself, and at least in the dungeons I’m running I’m find myself rarely in a situation where I have 3 phantasms up, and I’m really spamming my weapon swaps to get as many phantasms as possible.
regards

Portals, timewarps and reflections.
Mesmer DPS is not that great (horrible tbh) compared to most other classes, they have pretty much no offensive support.
The condition removing is not bad, but in terms of “defensive support”/damage output reflections (wardens feedback, feedback) really shine.
Timewarp started to suck a bit after the recent 50% nerf without anything to compensate for it.

For me taking or not taking deceptive evasion or duelling X really depends on wether i want a shatter or a phantasm build.
There is no place for clones on dodgerolls , which are really vital if you want to play dungeons, no matter if you take zerker gear or not,in a phantasm build. Why is there no place for duelling X? Because in a Dungeon enviroment you are already quite starved on phantasms anyway, even with some toughness/vit and signet of illusions they will still die quite often to boss attacks. If you are also bound to lose one of your phantasms everytime you dodge it will just make things even worse.

If you play a shatter oriented build on the other hand duelling X will come in really handy. Its pretty much the best way to get consistent shatters on the enemy and can be used quite effectifly in order to avoid damage too→ dodge into distortion shatter grants about 3 seconds of invulnerability.

I’m sorry but IMO swiftness isn’t that great of a boon in Dungeons (I dont care what you do in open PvE, you can pretty much do whatever you want there). For me its defenetly not good enough to spec on Boon duration to get a 100% uptime in dungeons (a lot of other classes have an easier way to buff your party with it too).
In the same manner I was refering to bosses/stronger mobs in Dungeons when speaking about the focus #5 phantasm. Often times bosses will run out of its attack range (even with sword #3 snare) or simply kill it in one hit.

The focus reflect is indeed a really strong trait in some scenarios. Beeing able to knock down/pull enemies is also not too bad.
But the focus phantasm is one of the worst if you dont use it to block/reflect projectiles, since it needs a lot of time to get its damage done, as well as having a high cd. Also the Temporal Curtain speedbuff is not that great, considering it wont stack with other already existing speedbuffs.
IMO focus where you can reflect stuff and pistol/sword when you can’t is the most efficient choice.

Altough the Veil tooltip might be bugged and state it beeing a light field instead of an aetheral field (which it acutally is) the pistol #4 tooltip defenetly is not wrong. The chances of one iDuellist granting 9 stacks of confusion is 0%. First it only attacks 8 times, second the chance for a Projectile finisher is only 20%-ok if traited its 100%.
In terms of runes i would suggest going for 6/6 Melandru instead, since Condition damage is a weakness of pretty much Mesmer builds.
I would strongly suggest to NOT switch out SoI since pretty ~75% of your damage comes from phantasms, and if they get killed easyly, you are boned.
All in all this pretty much looks like Pyroatheists OP PvP Phantasm build with some minor changes. Still a not bad way to combine it with invisibilty.
Regards

I’m not using staff all to often, but in terms of Illusionary Elasticity: I don’t know if an extra bounce on your staff #1 is really worth it, since it wont get carried over to your clones (tried it today, clone attack only bounced once, no matter what)
Now in terms of Phantasmal Healing + Illusionary Membrane: I’m not too sold about the fact, that Illusionary Healing will randomly proc Illusionary Membrane. Altough I have to admit that aside from Metaphysical Rejuvination Mesmer do not have that many ways to get regeneration. (Having ~100% Regeneration uptime is quite nice for a condition based build tough)
I would probably go with the first build, since as I said, Illusionary Elasticity wont work on clones.

In terms of utility Feedback, Nullfield and sometimes the Phantasmal Disenchanter are offer good benefits to your group (as long as you encounter projectile attacks/a lot of conditions).
If you play a phantasm build you probably want Signet of Illusions, since it will make sure your phantasms wont just die in one hit.
If you play a shatter build you probably want to take mirror images (more clones=more shatters=more good…).
Most of the time taking stun breaking abilities like Decoy, Mirror Images, Blink or Mantra of Concentration is also a good choice, since getting disabled while standing in a big red circle often times leads to unpleasant things, even in soldier gear.
If you have a coordinated group (which random groups are not) your Signet of Inspiration is also a great choice- that is if you use it for the duplication of Boons on your group. If you have say a Warrior with “For greater Justice!” as well as Battle Standard and a d/d ele which focuses on Might stacking, you can easily grant 9-12 extra stacks of Might. If you want to use this Signet for its random boon production only, you are wasting a lot of potential right there.
In general I woul recommend staying away from most of the Mantras at the moment, since, aside from Mantra of concentration, they offer almost no utility for the cost (utility slot/charge time/cd mechanic).
Illusion of Life, Portal entrance and Veil can be very useful if used in the right way. Portal entrance and Veil in order to skip certain nasty parts of Dungeons, Illusion of Life in order to get downed players out of danger→ to a place where they can be rezed safely.
Arcane Thievery is a skill that rarely comes in useful, altough there are some mobs at least that accumulate high amounts of Might or some other long duration boons (it is very situational tough).

IMO a big advantage of phantasm specs is their flexibility in terms of trait as well as utility distribution.
Compared to a shatter spec, where 15/20/0/0/30 is almost mandatory, 15pt dom trait for ~20 stack vulernability after f3 shatter, duelling X for clone on dodge as well as illusion 25pt as well as illusionary persona. This leaves you with merely 5 points to distribute (maybe 10 if you don’t use f3 shatter, but then you are probably doing it wrong).
On the other hand Specs like 10/15/0/25/20 will offer you a really great utility by “focus skills reflect projectiles” (which comes in quite handy in dungeons like arah), while still not beeing necessarily “bound” to playing these traits, since inspiration offers some other great traits too. Putting Points in your Vitality trait line also offers you more room for mistakes in PvE.
Nonetheless if you are still leveling you will find the mesmer be quite a pain in the lower region of your back …
In terms of PvP: I did not play that much sPvP so far, but from what most at least decent people told me, shatter specs get outplayed quite often. They are also easy to play, but quite hard to master once you encounter some decent enemy, since shatterspikes are relatively easy to spot.
Another thing regarding your question about survivability: If you really want to play this game in a decent way, you should start to analyze as well as identify your oponents attacks and how you can avoid them. If you do this properly you will find yourself in a spot where you will almost never die (speaking of PvE here) even in full zerker gear. Blurred frenzy as well as the distortion shatter,~90% vigor uptime, feedback, blink, numerous block abilities, staff #2, staff #4 (which will always provide protection when activated) will offer you great amounts of protection, if used correctly.

JonPeters.5630:

The 4 hits do not always happen if the IZerker is far away from the target it might only get 1 strike in because the animation generates 4 attacks. Saying it only hit a static target 3 times doesn’t really tell the whole story. Hundred blades or whirrlwind on great sword are similar. Each attack has a size and facing and timing and those things determine if a hit occurs.

I think the problem compared to for example a warriors 100b or ww is, that the person controlling the warrior has a brain (well, most of the time at least), while the phantasm is controlled by the AI. If a warrior uses ww on the edge of its range, and thus losing out on some of the ww hits, he does this for a reason (probably to close a gap). Now of what use would it be, if the iZerker would use its only attack to close up to a mob? I think this would serve no purpose.
It might be possible to fix this by forcing the iZerker to move to a certain minimum range before he does his whirl attack, as long as this bug is only caused beeing out of range.
regards

If scepter #1 would create no clone on the 3rd attack (and maybe do something else instead) or would not have the clone override exsiting phantasms, I would start using it all day long.

The reason for choosing a scepter (atleast for me) would be having range, as well as a way to get offhand weapons at the same time.
The problem is, that the only scenario in which this would come in hand would be a Phantasm focused build, which would require you to have good positioning.
Now the problem with phantasm builds is that you can’t have stuff that kills your phantasms once you reached your “goal”, getting out 3 phantasms on one target.
Now some smartass might say: “You can stop the attack chain and wait for it to reset or use another skill”. Sure, I can also cut off my arm or stab out one of my eyes. Each of these things would be highly unpleasant and would only make playing the mesmer even more “complicated” than it already is (#100bandevisceratespam).

-Don’t run Dueling X.

I lol’d … seriously wtf?
Running Duelling X has its purpose in some builds, not running it would simply be dumb. Of course there are a lot of “noobish” players in WvWvW as well as sPvP, but a better advise for them would actually be to improve on their general decision making/reactions instead of going that deep and saying dont use skill ‘x’ .
You may want to take a look into some of the mesmer builds that were brought together in Fay.2735s thread (kudos to him/her for doing it! It’s really helpful and some other class forums lack such a thing). I have not found one that relys on duelling X as distracion and that is for a good reason.

Now as a lot of people already mentioned clones wont stop any half decent player from identifying the real mesmer. And by the way most burst classes work clone production wont provide you with any indirect defense at all (again: as long as the enemy is at least half decent). IF you want to confuse an enemy you are bound to use portals/blinks/swaps/invisibilty skills in all sorts of combinations (which often times leave a clone behind).
The point of duelling X is pretty much producing clones for more frequent shatters and maybe for X-on-clone-death traits (although I have happen to run into such a build yet)

A more realistic argument for duelling X beeing a duoble-edged sword would be the fact that you burn your stamina without actually doding anything most of the time. This can be crucial if you mess up your other defensive mechanisms, such as distortion/blinks/aegis, but you did not even bring up this argument.

Now I wont go into details here, but a 30/30/0/0/10 build wont be that much better than (most likely equal to) a shatter build as long as you know how to play.
As for full shatter surviveablity, you will be impressed how long you can survive by dodgeing correctly, as well as your distortion shatter and blurred frenzy.

The damage formula is:
Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) * (Crit damage + 1.5) * (critical chance/100 +1)/ (target’s Armor) for mobs that are viable targets for crits
This thing IS accurate for both phantasms as well as all other direct damage skills/damage sources.
Now the problem is, that the value on your hotbar cant include (target’s Armor), because it varies, resulting in skills doing more or less damage than displayed in the description.
There was also a problem with the focus phantasm, displaying a completley wrong number, but i dont know if this is fixed already.

ALL attributes do suffer from diminishing returns, crit damage is no exception.
If you have +80% crit damage your crits will deal 230% damage, if you get 10% more your crits will deal 240% damage instead, the damage increase is 240/230 which is an increment of 4.34%, if you add another 10% crit damage its 250/240 an increment by 4.16%

The thing with phantasm builds is, they need some time (~20-30 seconds) to really get going on one weapon or need weapon switches which also can be unfavourable.
Also phantasms don have that much hp, thus most AoE skills in CoF will simply clean them up (exspecially the last boss, where you would have enough time to set up your illusions). Now one might want to run signet of illusions to compensate for that, but beware, 50% more health isnt helpful, if your phantasm still gets 1 shot.

Dastion.3106:

Agony.3542:

I don’t quite understand the hate on GS mindstab.
What do you people want? A skill that removes up to 5 boons, slightly increases the GS damage output (dont be fooled by the number that pops up, keep in mind that GS auto needs more time to complete its attack than mindstab) and have it hit up to 5 targets on a big AoE?
Are you kittening me?

It’s not as horrible as some would make out, I use it in my rotation all the time. Everything you say is true, except the last bit.. It’s a ridiculously small AoE, which makes aiming it cumbersome – especially in the very mobile PvP where you are also rooting yourself.

I completely agree on the rooting yourself part. The skill description says it takes 1/4 of a second to cast, but the actual time you spend immoblie feels far more. In general i would aprreciate removing this stand still while casting it all together.

I don’t quite understand the hate on GS mindstab.
What do you people want? A skill that removes up to 5 boons, slightly increases the GS damage output (dont be fooled by the number that pops up, keep in mind that GS auto needs more time to complete its attack than mindstab) and have it hit up to 5 targets on a big AoE?
Are you kittening me?

As for Blink vs Decoy:
As I mainly play with Sword mainhand and often times anything except focus offhand (its too boring for me and does not deliver enough reliable singletarget damage) I need to compensate for the lack of mobility (a lot of bosses will do crazy whirlwind or pbAoE in general). While I can evade a lot of stuff by timing my blurred frenzy, there are some situations where I still have to blink the fridge away. For example take the last boss in CoF or Kohler in AC, if you happen to get knocked down/stunned you can of course break the stun with decoy, but you still have to dodge away afterwards (often times you get that nasty red circle after the ground smash of the last boss in CoF).
This means I have to spend two different resources as well as do two different actions to get out of trouble instead of just one.
Also decoy may break aggro, but thats only helpful when breaking aggro is required. I find myself in very little situations to do so and, quite frankly, if such a situation arrives like the acolyte event in CoF, decoy alone will often times not be enough (you can die in the matter of seconds there and I generally want to shake off the aggro with decoy instead of trying to run down the path with it.
I personally dislike veil for speedrunning because of its high cd, if you need to switch something out, for example for portal entrance and veil is still on a long cd you might find yourself fighting the console event with 2 utility skills on cd, and that can be anonying exspecially if you have some very nice people in your party that shake off the aggro of the three adds that spwaned at their position (god i hate these guys …-.-)

As for vigor on crit:
As I mentioned going 10 in inspiration is totally viable.
But please keep in mind for both chaos and inspiration! Putting more points into these trees will have you cut on other things like dom/dueling. If your damage comes mainly form direct attacks (which your build will probably rely on) every point not in domination/duelling will cost you about 0,5-1% overall dps. You can calculate this with the direct damage formula that is true for EVERY ability that does direct damage.
Its Damge=weapon damge*skill coefficient*Power*Crit Chance*Crit damage.
Now lets say you have a flat 2k strength, the difference from 2000 to 2010 strength (1 point in dom) is 5%, now this will of course decrease with the amount of strength you have (also with dueling) but dont forget you also get major traits in these trees that can benefit you.
It goes a bit deep into theory crafting here but as for the extra 15 points in inspiration to get more damage out of phantams, its not worth it regarding damage output.
Now of course inspiration offers you some other nice things, but for speedrunning I personally would put a maximum of 10 points in it.

As for 30 in duelling:
The amount of really beneficial major traits in this tree is indeed quite limited.
Mainly depending on your playstyle, beeing it mainly shatter or mainly illusion focused and wether you want to use a sword mainhand and/or a pistol offhand (which i like because of its high dps output-stronger than the focus phantasm, more reliable, lower cd, as well as faster with its attacks – keep in mind that you have to wait for 5 seconds with the focus phantasm, and the enemy staying in its AoE to get its maximum damage, where the pistol is done in ~1,5seconds).
Now if you want to play an shatter focused playstyle, but dont want to use a pistol, 20 points will be enough, if you use a sword go for the extra precision and lower sword cds, if not go for phantasms gain fury, as well as clone on dodge. If you want to use a sword/pistol the last 10 points in duelling wont be wasted.

As for your build. In my opinion it bares a lot of inconsistenies, you buff your phantasms on the one hand, but want to shatter them on the other hand, without putting out the maximum amount of damage with your shatters (missing the illusion 30 trait)
I would recommend either
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgIQNAR8dlwzKqXVzpGaNJypCJHqHYH49dkK0alUwbXIA
with mainly feedback beeing optional as far as ultilty and either I or VI in illusions (the VI trait can really be a life saver in combination with the distortion shatter)
Or
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgIQNAR8dlwzKqXVzpGaNJypCJHKFYn3RShqlalUgbXIA
with both mirror images as well as feedback very optional ultilty slots and it beeing a build focused around GS, staying far away and shattering not too often (when you have 2 iZerkes and 1 clone, as well as the cd for another iZerker ready you generally want to mind wrack)

As for CoF p1 speedrunning as well as PvE in general I would recommend a 20/20/0/0/0 base for your build, afterwards decide on what you want to do.
Options are
10 in inspiration for general utility abilites.
-Vigor on shatters for the party is pretty nice (you get vigor on crits, but the first minor trait in dueling tends to be quite inconsistent when you face dire situations, and even droping of 1 second of vigor can be pretty crucial if you don’t have perfect judgement as well as a perfect build. You might want to consider taking points out of Domination to get 30 in illusions for a full shatter build.
-The feedback bubble on reviving can come in handy a lot of times, take giganticus lupicus for an example. You will be able to rez downed players even during his kittenstorm without having to time an distortion shatter.
-Less cd on Glamour as well as condition remove on heal are also quite nice in some situations, altough i tend to go for the iDisenchanter when facing a lot of conditions (that thing is DOPE)

10 or 20 in illusions
If you want to run a illusion build both options are viable, altough 20 in illusions will generally offer you a bit more with the 20% reduced attack cd for all your phantasms.
If you go for an illusion heavy build take traits like phantasms deal 15% more damage and phantasms gain fury. I would generally put 30 in duelling for these builds in order to be able to grab trait II, IV and either IX or X.

You can also go for 30/30/0/0/10 for the extra strength, precison and crit damage.

As for utilites i would pretty much always use blink (great mobility/stunbreaker)
Strife025 already explained a lot of good utlity skills, altough he left out the iDisenchanter, which surpasses in my opinion the Null field half the time. Also if you run a shatter build you might want to consider taking mirror images for fast clones as shadder fodder.

As for CoF speedrunning you will have to switch up your skills a lot. I generally go for blink 100% of the time, while depending on the group (2 or more warriors) taking signet of inspiration for the first boss. If your warriors are not lazy you can get 3/6/9/12 additional stacks of might on your whole group for pretty much the whole fight (this guy tends to not last for even one timewarp with the right group setup)
For the acolyte event i take Mirror Images and Decoy, Mirror images will help you burst down one acolyte in the matter of a second, while decoy and blink will get you out of combat afterwards (either run to the burning rock part or down the other side, if you are at the end of the path use your invis to shake enemies off).
Afterwards you pretty much have to sacrifice one of your ultility skills for Portal entrance, in order to abridge the buringrockofdoom event. In fast groups you wont be able to switch this one out before you engage the last boss. As for my preference it take blink and mirror images.
Hope i could help you

Actually removing the 5 cap on AoE spells would make it practically impossible to cap any bigger structure in WvW without tearing down at least 3 or 4 walls.
If AoE spell would have no limit teams could start spamming holes in their defense while standing outside LOS of the attackers.
They could improve on some skills like temporal curtain tough, in order to make it possible to split stacking parties. On the downside this would increase the strain on servers/pcs .

IMO a big problem with restorative mantras is the application. I rarely find an encounter in a dungeon in which 2k heal every 5 seconds would help in some form.
From what I’ve heard about high level fractals, healing there is negletable, since once you get hit by agony you just die, and a mere 2k heal wont save you.
Tbh i would much more prefer it if you could heal on activation, while building in an internal cd for the heal itself.
By doing so the amount healed can still be in a good range, while not running into the problem that a mesmer can simply spam heal the whole party.
The fact, that i can’t immediatly react by using the mantra to heal somebody that got hurt and thus getting him “out of trouble”, but instead having to channel 3 1/4 seconds before the heal comes really kills this trait for me.

tl;dr No application for trait, 3 1/4 cast time makes timed healing impossible, fix could be: heal on use with internal cd on heal

I do not like the reasoning for shatter damage nerfs.
They basically said that by adding AoE potential on beam attacks they might have to cut down on shatter AoE.
This might sound reasonable if you think about it, but keep in mind the GS is a long ranged weapon, while shattering is the complete opposite of it.
In order to deal really high AoE damage you need to stand in the enemy zerg, then summon your 3 illusions and blow them up immediatly after, since they wont live for long.
If you try the same thing with a GS you run in the problem that you might be able to have 2 illusions (GS 2+4) for a short time, but you probably wont get a third illusion in close range in time (before the other 2 get smashed).
Some kind of fear I have is that with the incoming changes they might just put the mesmer into kind of a pigeon hole, where you just have to run GS+illusion builds, just because of some sort of superiorty. GS builds already allow you (at least in my experience) to make a lot more mistakes and require less setup.
I actually would like to see some buffs to the offhand choices, as well as more buffs to the scepter, since if feel its place pretty much only comes with “effect on illusion death”.
Of course one might say: Nobody can stop you from using the weapon/set/build/etc you want to, but I don’t think anybody would really deny having even choices builds/weapons.