Guild Wars 2

Below is the message I receive:

At least they’re heavy miner bag pinatas?

Next update: Dredge in the underground fractal no longer drop loot.

Hrmm, I dunno, I would call it hiding as you are letting him protect you? Maybe I don’t do enough PvP (just enough for Map completion ^_-) to understand what is meant by hiding.

I have done many fractal 48s and would not at all feel that a weapon box devalues the skins…however, this coming from someone who has only found off-hands and a shortbow…

colesy.8490:

No semi-competent mesmer is going to hide behind their phantasms in PvE.

Actually, any competent mesmer/player will hide behind/in an iWarden (staying within melee range, of course) in a reflect heavy area while it’s attacking.

I change weapon sets and re-trait (though full Zerk everything with ruby orbs, with the occasional piece of assassins) based on whether I am doing fractals or dungeons. Although, I do carry one of each weapon as each serves a purpose somewhere (except for maybe scepter).

Dungeons: 10/30/0/30/0 and run sword/pistol and sword/(focus or sword). I run sigils of battle on swords, perception/accuracy on off-hands. These allow me to maximize my crit damage as I am not always in a fully optimized group. The only time I pull out my GS in dungeons is pugging lupi, unless the group says they want to melee. I’ll use the torch and staff for running phases.

Fractals: 0/20/0/25/25 and run sword/(focus or pistol) and GS. I run a sigil of battle on the sword, a sigil of perception/accuracy on off-hand, and a sigil of energy on the GS. The energy sigil gives me an escape when I need it and the build allows me to maximize my personal reflect uptime. I swap out the focus for pistol depending on the fight. I like to troll scepter on mossman in guild runs for fun since it’s the only MH weapon I have found in fractals….so many off-hands!

Kyllaa.1385:

What error message are you receiving?

I am receiving the error message: “A serious error has occurred…". That’s all I remember of the message (I should have written it down by now.) When it happens next, I will edit this post.

I recently received a new iMac (27’’, 3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2×4GB, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5, 1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm), reinstalled the client, and everything works fine except for one weird problem (which I did not encounter on my 21.5’’ iMac[3.1GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2×8GB, NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512MB GDDR5, 1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm ).

Occasionally (maybe once every 1-2 hours), I will press [M] to open the map, I will use the scroll wheel to scroll all the way out and move the map to the new WP I want to go to, and this will cause the game to crash. Sometimes it crashes as I am scrolling into the new WP, and sometimes once I finished scrolling all the way out of the map.

Has anyone else every occurred this problem, and if so, how did you solve it? Do I need to turn some of my graphic settings down? Note, a similar crash will occur at some world boss events, where everything is running fine (such as no semblance of a problem in the first 4 minutes of Melandru), and then it just crashes. The way the game closes out (along with the error message) is the same in both cases.

Lastly, I just want to note, that in every other aspect of the game, everything runs perfectly fine and smoothly; it’s only a random crash every so often that mostly occurs on scrolling in the world map.

IGN: In Chancery
Playstyle: Essentially all PvE
Server: Jade Quarry [NA]
Role: Scholar / Tester
Hours: Typically, 7-11 EST on weekdays

@OP: For 1/2/3/5, what colesy said, and make sure to learn when to feedback, it saves lives! As for 4: While full melee (the best DPS a mesmer has) will be fine on trash and some bosses, even up to 48, the higher you go, you will be needing a GS on switch (I recommend a superior sigil of energy on it) to continue DPS if your health gets too low (and the energy sigil will let you dodge out). There are many bosses that almost all pugs (at least that I have been in) will range, and a couple bosses even require it, so you will need a GS as well. While there are videos of groups melee-ing most bosses (if not all) on fractals 48, this is a small portion of the fractal community (and those players are very organized with skill rotations, which you will not find an a PUG and even in many guilds), and you will find that having a GS is necessary.

As colesy touched on the 5 point move, I’ll comment on your armor.

I’m guessing the jewels on your crystals were from WvW? If you don’t have ascended berserker trinkets, maybe switch those jewels to exquisite ruby jewels as the toughness and vit won’t matter in dungeons.

Ruby orbs would be a good (and better) replacement to the runes of strength in your armor. You could go scholar but (1) they are really expensive and (2) since the damage increase only applies to your autos and not phantasms, the price to put them on a mesmer is not worth it (in my opinion).

That superior sigil of strength in your pistol offhand might be doing nothing, and if it is working (and I do not know myself), would only work on your phantasm anyway, likely generating 1 might stack every 4.5 seconds. I think your two sigils of battle are enough for might and that superior sigils of accuracy are better in the offhands to help your phantasms crit more.

Lastly, if you have a weapon (to swap out) that builds up sigil stacks, then perception (over bloodlust) would be the way to go on a mesmer.

Nuka Cola.8520:

LordByron.8369:

Youtube:

Mesmer fractal

checked only first 4 vids high level fotms 50+

100% of them use GS.

I bet most of them uses GS.
Learn to respect Others opinion sometimes.

i have done thousands of fractals, do a lev48 daily and GS is my main. That guy doesn’t do fractals but easy mode CoF path 1 instead so yeaaa.

These.

For fracs48, ranging bosses (final dredge boss, both grawl shaman and grawl elemental [though keep melee on switch for the bubble], jellyfish, mossman, bloomhunger, archdiviner, phase 2 of ascalon boss) is required for almost any non well-coordinated group; and thus GS is a very solid weapon for fracs48 and our best ranged option. The final bosses of snowblind and uncategorized are fine to melee, but I always have my GS on switch for them just in case (as I do with fracs48 trash as well, I melee but keep my GS with energy sigil if I need to get out due to damage). Given how lvl48 fractals are, calling GS lousy seems as if they are being overlooked.

Dungeons, on the other hand, like CoF, CoE, most arah bosses (pugged lupicus withstanding), TA, AC, etc are perfect venues for sword/x and sword/x, and is definitely the way to go since the boss tells are usually pretty obvious.

Pyroatheist.9031:

I’d put in a note at the torch. It’s not a damage weapon, but a utility weapon. I always have one with me just in case for some reason I find myself needing some sort of stealth skill on a weapon.

I also always (and almost solely) keep a torch on me for running from the ice elemental to the svanir chief in the Snowblind fractal to light my way! So useful!!

…sadly this is also accomplished by the random torches scattered on the ground.

:(

Hopefully, when the three new fractals are introduced, there will be some sort of reward overhaul (maybe even as much as a gold reward at the end, which is based on the fractals you are given). As it stands, I feel they either need to do something with the weapon skins or with the loot from the boss chests. I, personally, wouldn’t mind if they made it so that you could only get weapons at 48, and they dropped with a higher frequency (something like 40-50%). This way you: (1) still weed out the players who give up before reaching 48, (2) allow players who farm the heck out of fractals a chance to get a desired weapon in a reasonable time frame, and (3) keep them prestigious. Because running 10 level 48s in a row to get 1 trident is very frustrating when compared to a player who gets something like GS/Sword/Dagger at personal levels 20/21/22.

Although, I would also be happy with better drops from the boss chests. As it stands, I feel I have a lucky run in a 48 when I see 1 rare and 2 cores as the best drops for the run. This would give the people grinding their fractal weapons at least something for their time, instead of wishing they had run a CoF P1/CoF P2/SE P1, which would have taken a similar amount of time (possibly even less) and have yielded at least a guaranteed 3g. This is probably the better option since fractals are really not worth running once you have the weapons you want, so unless they do it correctly, changing the way fractal weapon skins either drop or are obtained would only cause people to abandon fractals faster as they would be obtaining their weapons faster.

Name: In Chancery

Class: Mesmer

Armor: Full exotics/ascended

Weapons: GS/Sw+F or Sw+P/Sw+F (and Staff for trash runs)

Experience: Quite experienced in paths 1/2/3, but have completely avoided p4. I have not done Lupi melee, but would like to.

Builds: Zerker (20/20/0/30/0 or 10/30/0/30/0, depending on who I run with)

Server: NA, Jade Quarry

Time: Weekdays, EST Nights

Other: I also do a daily FotM 48, but I am mainly (and obviously) looking for a tool to get in better Arah runs! I would love to be a part of this if there is still room.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Also, I found a relevant bug. I was doing cliffside and a bunch of chanters spawned and I jumped off the cliff in fear and landed in tafu and was swarmed by spiders and killed. please nerf.

LULZ!

skcamow.3527:

Haha, just gushing over the runes – love ‘em. Aptly named aren’t they? The 1-4 slots especially are really useful for offensive support builds. What do you currently run?

Yes, very aptly named; and I am not so generous to my team.

I run ruby orbs for two reasons: (1) I am not rich enough for Scholar runes, and I always forget to watch my health anyways. I know which attacks deal huge chunks of damage when I don’t avoid them and its only at those time that I will notice my health. (2) I’m selfish and would prefer to buff my own damage. Actually, I almost always run with 2 warriors and a guardian, so SoI is all I need for might. So since mesmers have some of the lowest DPS, I like to do all I can to increase it and keep up with the other classes I run with, and use my utility skills in my support.

Weapon wise, I run Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Strength on my two MH swords (so I rely on these to help build and pass the might). I run a Sigil of Accuracy on one my of off-hands and a Sigil of Energy on the other. If I am ranging, my GS has a Sigil of Energy. Essentially, I like to always run a Sigil of Energy somewhere as I rely on it heavily.

skcamow.3527:

I use 4x altruism and 2x water in the might stacking paladin 2.0 build (see my sig) for 3x party might and 15% boon duration. The water runes give an extra 15% boon duration on top of that. Fury from altruism runes doesn’t come into play unless you are using them on the 5 and 6 slots.

Yes, I have seen your build before, and you, sir or madam, are a true altruist.

colesy.8490:

I thought about Sigils of force and night (or dungeon specific sigils), however since they do not affect phantasms

IIRC, phantasms take on base damage modifiers (%+ damage sigils) but don’t take things like the player’s might.

Really? I could have sword it was the other way around. For example, the iWarden will not inherit your bonus damage from a +%damage sigil, but will inherit the bonus damage you receive from your own might stacks. Let me try and find where I found that….

Edit, found it:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Phantom-Strengh

Alissah.9281:

With sigils of battle and constantly swapping you have perma 12 might, add to that fury and might from altruism runes and signet of inspiration, and you boosted party dps by quite alot :P.

I see. While I do not like the runes of altruism (I’ll rely on warriors for fury), I love the Sigils of Battle/SoI combo and nearly always run them.

I thought about Sigils of force and night (or dungeon specific sigils), however since they do not affect phantasms, I would rather suffer the personal auto-attack and blurred frenzy damage loss for more might (which will affect my phantasms). Although, if you are in an organized group with perma-25-might, then likely the force/night/dungeon sigils are superior as your phantasms have all the boosts they can receive.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

A thing about support builds: Even though your own damage isn’t as good as it could be with full damage-specced Zerkers – which makes soloing a bit more difficult – you end up making your team so much more powerful that the overall group DPS/survivability increase surpasses the added DPS from a lone Zerker.

I’m curious (since I have only ever used zerker gear with either phantasm (and shatter when I first started) builds), what support utilities (aside from mantra heals) are better when not running full zerker?

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Being skilled at reading and having eyes that work are what’s overpowered in this game, everything else is inconsequential.

Lulz! Truth.

lordkrall.7241:

There is however a rather big difference between some classes having it easier and it being impossible to do on some classes.

The first would always be true unless every single class was identical. The second is not true in any way or form.

This.

It has been completed with every class, and I don’t see the problem with having to change your traits depending on the fight. It gets you to try new things and really think about a strategy…but I guess if every class can’t go (14/14/14/14/14), then it’s obviously a stupid, way-too-difficult event that should be nerfed.

Also, as long as you use some dodge food (Bowl of Orrian and Truffle Stew), you do not need to use invulnerability skills. It’s all about kiting and dodging at the appropriate time.

Dub.1273:

When you have time to set up 3 phantasms your team is terribly bad.

And GS at range is possibly one of the worst ranged DPS in the game.

Mesmer DPS is lowest in the whole game, burst and sustained in common circumstances. That is a fact.

With regard to PvE (which I will assume is the case under discussion, and I’ll also assume we are talking about bosses since trash is not relevant), then while I’ll agree that Mesmer DPS is at least bottom 3, and is likely the lowest amongst properly played classes, to claim that a team is bad if you can set up 3 phantasms is just wrong.

As the person before said, you can summon two phantasms almost immediately, and assuming one stays with the sword, then at most 20 seconds later, you have a third phantasm. Therefore you are claiming that a team is terribly bad if they do not down a boss in 24 seconds (16/20 if the mesmer is traited). And sure, most bosses have attacks that wipe out phantasms keeping 3 up nigh impossible in those fights. But the point is, on many bosses, no matter the group composition, there is time to summon 3 phantasms.

And sure, if you are in groups that down Lupi in 20 seconds and other bosses in 10, then yes, there is no time to summon 3 phantasms. But those groups represent a very minor portion of the player base and do not represent the only good players in all of GW2.

Levitas.1953:

And you obviously did not quote the first post, huh?
You can do the same thing with scepter main hand, but as i said in my first reply that setup can be good if you you always want to stay melee and autoattack.

I think a GS could do more damage even in melee range with the shared CD issue while stacking might better.

Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t even see it. Then I agree with you , having 2 swords is only useful if you are in melee spamming the auto (which you are likely even only doing in an organized guild group), although Scepter doesn’t cleave which I guess only matters on trash? Though I hate scepter (everything is just too slow for me), so I never use it.

I’m unsure about the GS though. You are going to get max 2, 2k crits every 8 seconds (so you can use it twice per weapon swap), with 3 might stacks if you get the bounce (so up to 6 might stacks of which to pass). Hrmm, this could definitely be better for might passing in melee, actually, on bosses, which could make it more effective for the group’s overall dps. I’ll have to try and see how effective it is for comparison.

Esplen.3940:

Dub.1273:

Mesmers have the lowest dps output in the game. Probably not with 3 Phantasms up that all have fury and 25 stacks might, but no fight in this game is long enough to get 3 phantasms up. Also buffing phantasms is hard due to the 5 player limit. And in most fights phantasms die like paper when meeting a pair of scissors.

It’s actually really easy to get 3 phantasms up. Getting phantasms fury is a trait, therefore ridiculously easy, and phantasms pull from your might, so you only have to get yourself might (which isn’t all that difficult, either).

While there are some fights where phantasms “die like paper when meeting a pair of scissors,” I agree with Esplen here. PS Dub, don’t forget Feedback damage, which is significant on a great deal of fights.

Levitas.1953:

The answer is in the date. I dont think people use sword main hand in both sets anymore, although you can use almost everything in pve and still be somewhat effective.

Esplen.3940:

The only time I can see using the same weapon[s] in two sets is to utilize Sigil of Energy for getting more Endurance every 9 seconds. This gimps your skill-selection, but you can always change an offhand or a mainhand. (It’s still better to just run Sword/X + Scepter/Y).

With Superior Sigil’s of Battle on both MH swords, you can swap every 10 seconds for 3 stacks of might, which can then be passed around with SoI. So if you are in an organized group that prefers to stick to melee, then having 2 MH swords is very effective and most beneficial to the group.

This was Strife’s old build. He quit before the June 25th patch, and has moved on to other things. The new main dungeon build in those forums is:

http://bit.ly/19rdv2g

I essentially use this when not in a PuG, and think it’s great. I do, however, swap out deceptive evasion for the pistol cooldown on bosses (I find deceptive evasion on trash fights, such as dredge for example, to be very helpful. Not so much on bosses, when I want to do my best to keep 3 phantasms up.). Also, I swap out temporal enchanter for other things depending on the fight.

And to reiterate Esplen, I very rarely don’t have both feedback and blink on my bar for utilities (save for melee only bosses). They are just too good to NOT slot, in my opinion.

Devildoc.6721:

I did some quick experimentation with 10/10/0/25/25 .. was not impressed. Yeah cds were a bit lower, but frankly losing 20% crit damage and 10% crit chance resulted in lower dps. Phantasmal haste is good on paper but reality is phantasms get destroyed in 1 hit by bosses so they rarely ever get a second chance to attack as it is.

They get to attack once, then you dodge/clone skill, and shatter.

Isn’t the case on trash always I suppose, and isn’t the case on world bosses.. but any dungeon/fractal boss just one shots a phantasm, and even the 20% more health trait doesn’t save them a lot of the time.

This is what I have found, and thus I prefer to stay away from the 25 points in illusions as I was also unimpressed by the 25 point placement. That power/precision/crit.damage is more valuable to me in higher level fractals than the phantasmal haste trait. However, I think that either way, it just depends on your play-style, either option is fine. If going 25 pts into illusions, I like LordByron’s 0/20/0/25/25 over the 10/10/0/25/25 variation, just because of sword mastery.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

However if whatever you are fighting can have it’s damage reflected then mesmer can reaaaallly out pace some other classes.

This.

I feel like this should be included when thinking about a Mesmer’s DPS (sure it is untestable when considering DPS on a golem, but those are not wholly accurate in reflecting true dps anyways). Many of the bosses have significant tells on reflect-able moves, and some of them have a circular arc. Examples include: Bloomhunger (throw up feedback when he raises his left hand), the first time you fight the Archdiviner in cliffside (he usually does his AoE shadow bolts after his condition agony attack, and there is a brief pause before he does it, and this will yield at least 6 (it could be 8) 8k crits). Not to forget the CoF final boss, and the between 20-30% damage done to Lupi in a melee group.

Then there are normal mobs such as the dredge on the dredge fractal.

I could go on and on. On many fights, feedback is a very strong dual-offensive/defensive move.

And your third speed-running phantasm option is: 10/30/0/30/0

You get the additional power and precision/crit dmg, but lose out on illusionists celerity and phantasm recharge rate. It all depends on how fast your speed run group kills things. If you rely on greatsword heavily, then 20/20/0/30/0 and picking up greatsword training is the alternative to this (more PuG friendly).

Also, if you are in a really organized group and trying to maximize speed, and if you can afford it, Scholar runes are more dps than ruby orbs if you have >90% health for at least 25% of the fight. I personally just stick with ruby orbs, though, because it’s just easier.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

But they aren’t fair game play mechanics, if the player has no way of anticipating his/her deaths. This is what Demons Souls for example did different. Yes it was hard, but you always had nothing but yourself to blame if you died. Everything was always properly communicated to the player. You just had to practice. Not trial and error.

Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls are the epitome of trial and error. “Let’s walk down this dark hallway….shoot! died to boulder”. “Now lets go again…dodged boulder…got to end of hallway…encountered three dogs…dogs jumped on me and I died…time to go again”. And repeat.

The tells may be slightly more subtle in some enemies and bosses in GW2, but as with Demon’s/Dark Souls, you just have to go through trial and error to learn them. And once you learn them, the game, or in GW2’s case dungeon paths, and their respective bosses, become easier. PS – Demon’s/Dark Souls are two amazingly fun games, I recommend to all!

See this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Question-about-Exp-Dungeon-Tokens/first#post2511132

Levitas.1953:

I remember a video on dulfy but i cant say for sure if it was t4.
That said, i only tried it a couple of times (well three, i can run t4 but i never tried it) and PU helped me a lot.

I recall this same video, and using it to help me, but now cannot find it. However, to the OP, do note that (and I have not yet tried) there was a ‘fix’ to the trials and it is now more difficult, and some videos will no longer be accurate (such as the Dulfy one). I did it pre-patch, so I can’t say anything, but below is a video I found of a mesmer doing it post-patch.

“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uf5Dkz_OSc”

+1

Ran dredge twice yesterday. Both times, on ice elemental boss, while the consoles could be interacted with and the appropriate condition would be placed on the elemental boss, the actual bucket animation did not happen after the first couple times.

This is what I use, similar to most older, pre-6/25 patch fractal builds but it no longer takes illusionist’s celerity:

“https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Builds-The-Instance-Mesmer-PvE/first#post2432390”

There is also the Phantasm build by Skoteinos, which is similar to LordByron’s, and has a video guide:

“https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Builds-Point-of-NO-Return-PvE-PvP-WvW-FoTM/first#post2439014”

Both are very solid for high-level fractals.

Hello Fay:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Builds-The-Instance-Mesmer-PvE/first#post2430777

I’ve posted a dungeon/fractal build that you may want to add to your list. It’s the standard phantasm/support fare for those who want to run dungeons.

Nretep.2564:

pDisenchanter is situational but unbeatable in those situations. I even learned to like it as illusion summoning with lowest-CD as utility, sounds wierd, but the situation excused it.

If you use MInvi to get to the bombs, it’s not long enough, if you use it to get away, the dredges get the bombs. For that I usually tend to get Feedback, pWarden, Sword#2 and sylvari ulti for invul. Just lay the bombs and stand your ground as long as possible. If MInvi has its uses, tell me. I even use Moa on tentacles of the jade maw … rather than MInvi.

Sigil of Energy is wasted (imo) since we have perm vigor (dueling 5). Sigil of Force is barely useful for non-shatter skills since our illusions don’t inherit it.
I’d rather get an stat-stacking sigil, sigil of blood (life leech) of sigil of battle into it, if you intend to use SoI.

Great examples (especially since the Golem in CoE can no longer be port-bugged), I may steal (with credit) some.

Any run path, really. If you do not have a thief, this can help at the start of a run. If you do have a thief, you can extend the group stealth 5 seconds longer, 2 extra seconds if you pop veil when that is over.

Even with perm vigor, I find the sigil of energy to help me survive loads, but I could just be a scrub. And hrmm, I might consider, in cases where I know I will not melee, having two greatswords with sigils of battle, to use with SoI, as you say.

Does the phantasm or illusion go on a full cooldown or a 3-second cooldown? If the former, I don’t know. If the latter, this happens when dodge rolling just before it goes off, which stops the cast and you need to wait 3 seconds before you can cast the summoning skill again.

LordByron.8369:

That means that from my tests (and other players out of 3 threads the day after the nerf) it was inferior.

By saying something is inferior, are you not then implying that the alternative is superior?

Anyways, I apologize for claiming you meant that when you did not. Also, I will probably re-label the title once more so that it does not come across as me claiming this as the only option, just one possible option.

I totally understand your need for something reliable since you pug a lot. I, personally, find that both the original and your new build are still reliable, so I find both to be solid builds. I think I am down 4 seconds or so without reflect in my build, which is only noticeable in the harpy fractal, and since there is typically a guardian in a party comp, at least for me, this does not pose too much of a problem for me.

@LordByron: In your reference to using Skoteinos’ old build, yes, this is quite similar. I read the discussion which led him or her to eventually switch to (10/10/0/25/25), along with your other option of (0/20/0/25/25), and so there is no reference to the old way. I still find this to be perfectly viable over taking 25 points in illusions, so I wanted to make it available for players looking for PvE builds to find more than one option. Also, when you say “the other players have spoken”, I only recall a few people in the discussion, which is not a representative sample of the player base. Additionally, there are a plethora of WvW/PvP builds on this site, and all of them have their unique characteristics. I do not see why there can only be one true PvE build, when this is not the case for WvW. While, when tested, you might find (0/20/0/25/25) better for you, and if played “properly”, then best for everyone ; I personally find either of the two I posted more conducive to my play style. We have 70 points to spend and there isn’t just one way to spend them. I really like the new builds you and Skoteinos use, and I have tried them. I just prefer either of the ones I posted. That doesn’t make either of them a superior build.

@Nretep: Personally, I like the freedom given to me during a fight when traiting both weapons when I am running with a greatsword, although I see where this can be inefficient, especially if I stick to just one or the other for this most of the fight. For my playstyle, there also seems to be a lack of other options, so I just stick with these by default. I’ll throw in alternatives to them, as this is a good idea. Also, I forgot about iDisenchanter. I’ll add him on and suggest where I have found him to be useful. As for Mass Invisibility, I seem to only notice them stealing bombs when a group uses port to run away before the bombs explode. Next time I run dredge, I’ll check this and change accordingly. On a greatsword, if I know that Sigil of Energy will not be needed, what do you recommend besides sigil of force? Fire or Air? What makes the sigil of force useless on a mesmer…the fact that it doesn’t affect illusions?

@Levitas: If I see an attack in which I know all my current phantasms (be that 1,2, or 3) will die, I will f3 shatter for vulnerability (f4 if i need the distortion such as when I am myself in an AoE field and can’t get out through other means). I can see where the might is useful, but I tend to only shatter maybe once or twice per fight (I have a tendency to forget to shatter, and if that makes me a total noob, oh well). I’ll run two MH swords when I am not in a GS mood, and this is because with a superior sigil of battle (and I’ll probably switch to battle on both MHs when I can afford it), I can weapon swap every 9 seconds to gain 3 additional stacks of might.

Thank you for the constructive comments!

@Cain: Thanks!

@Captaineemo: good idea, i’ve switched the name to match its purpose. I also realized I forgot a food section, I’ll be adding that soon, as well as general fixes.

@Hexxen: Ahh, thanks! I’ll definitely redo them.

Weapons:

Superior Sigil of Battle on MH Sword and Superior Sigil of Perception on your most used off-hand. Use a Superior Sigil of Accuracy on your secondary off-hand for the crit-chance for reflects. Since you are most likely swapping to greatsword when you need to back out for a brief period, a Superior Sigil of Energy is recommended. If you are in a might-optimized group, then a battle sigil is wasted, and you should run either a force or a night sigil. If you care a lot about min-maxing, then run (force/night)/slaying for the MH/OH depending on the dungeon and when your perception stacks reach 25; and you won’t need the accuracy in this case as you are likely crit-capping without it.

Food: Potent Master Maintenance Oil and Omnomberry Pies/Ghosts. The crit-on-heal helps with a mesmer’s survivability and it comes with precision. However, if you feel the crit-on-heal to be lackluster, then the Bowl of Curry Butternut Squash Soup is what you want. You could also go for power-based food if you are in a group hitting the crit cap without it.

Skills:

Healing: If you are using the mantra build, then you you will slot Mantra of Recovery. If you are using the pure phantasm build, then you have a choice between Ether Feast and Signet of the Ether. The former, in my opinion, is still your best heal; but the latter let’s you start the fight with an immediate 3 phantasms and will provide healing over time. However, if you need to pop the heal, you lose that healing over time for 35 seconds….of which I am not a fan. I would recommend Ether Feast, but it’s up to you. If you slot Signet of the Ether, I would recommend taking deceptive evasion to help keep 3 illusions up constantly.

Utility:

The main three that I run with the phantasm build are:

Blink: This gets out of everything, and for me, is useful everywhere. Great in getting out of red circles, moving when you are rooted, and a great tool when you are kiting something.

Signet of Inspiration: The passive is worthless (unless you get aegis); however, the active is great. In the start of a fight, when everyone pops their group boons (such as might), this is great for doubling up on those and going straight into a Time Warp. In a min-maxing group, this is the epitome worthless and you should slot something else.

Feedback: The crutch of the build as this is traited. Useful everywhere you need reflects. If I know a boss has nothing I can possibly reflect, I will switch this out, though: Old Tom in the harpy fractal is an example of when I switch out this skill. This is rarely removed from my bar.

If you are running the Mantra build, then you typically want to have:

Mantra of Resolve: Replace Signet of Inspiration with this. It has been buffed to be quite useful for both yourself and the party.

Mantra of Concentration: Replace blink with this. If you need a stun break, this gives you access to 2! This is also extra useful if you are in a group melee-ing Lupicus. Pop this if he uses his bubble and the entire party has a get-out-of-lupi-jail free card.

Other options include:

Null Field: Very useful on fights with heavy conditions (CoE Golem, removing vulnerability in dredge fractal, etc..). Useful for those melee-ing on Bloomhunger. I replace Signet of Inspiration with this probably half the time, especially if I am running without a guardian.

Decoy: Great for when you need more stealth for trash-skipping and/or an extra stun break.

Portal: A great help when you need to speed things up, such as swamp fractal or using it to help players who can’t make a jump or run in a skipping part of a dungeon path. (i.e., in Arah path 3, as long as the Mesmer makes it through the run to the mage (second boss), he or she can lay a portal, waypoint, and then walk to the first big room with all the mobs, lay the portal, and then those who didn’t make it are through the skipping portion.) Learning the best ways to use this will make your team love you.

Mimic: This can be great, but it can also be worthless. A perfect time to use this is during the elemental fire shaman fight in fractals. Pop this if you are being attacked by lava elementals and win.

Arcane Thievery: A very situational skill, and it’s worth mentioning to those who don’t use it. When in the aquatic fractal jellyfish, this skill, in combination with signet of inspiration, is wonderful in passing 25 stacks of might. This is also good for stealing boons from dredges in the dredge fractal.

Phantasmal Disenchanter: Again, a situational choice. Useful on the CoE Tower golem (since it can no longer be port-bugged) and the Ettin on the harpy fractal.

Elite:

Mass Invisibility when you need stealth (such as almost any run sequence in any dungeon, I’m looking at you Arah) and Time Warp in every other situation. Note: Running Moa Morph at the Jade Maw is great for lulz.

BUILDs – The Instance Mesmer (Dungeons/Fractals)

EDIT: Updated builds for the 12/10/2013 patch.

These are essentially the standard PvE phantasm builds for running dungeons and fractals. One is purely phantasm-based, with the other focusing on using mantras to maximize your personal and reflect damage.

Pure Phantasm: (10/20/0/25/15) In my opinion, 15% damage across all phantasms (Inspiration(25)) is far greater than Phantasmal Haste (Illusions (20)), which is beyond bugged and currently does not work for either the iSwordsmen or iWarden. This is the easier-to-use build better aimed at PuG runs.

Mantra/Phantasm: (0/30/0/25/15) With a sacrifice to phantasm DPS, you boost your personal DPS which includes the amount of damage you do with feedback and temporal curtain. This is the harder-to-use build better aimed at organized groups. This will give you an additional 12% damage for both you and your reflects. If you don’t like mantra of recovery, this will give you 8% more damage, which is still extremely nice.

Traits:

Pure Phantasm Domination (III [Empowered Illusions]), Dueling (II [Phantasmal Fury], IV[Blade Training] or IX[Duelist’s Discipline]), Inspiration (II[Glamour Mastery], VIII[Warden’s Feedback]), Illusions (III[Compounding Power])

Mantra/Phantasm Dueling (II[Phantasmal Fury], IX[Duelist’s Discipline] or IV [Blade Training], XI[Empowering Mantras]), Inspiration(II[Glamour Mastery], VIII [Warden’s Feedback]), Illusions (III[Compounding Power])

Weapon sets:

The following is the same for both builds.

When running dungeons:

Your primary weapon set will be Sword/(X + Y), where X and Y represent your choice of off-hand between the focus, pistol, and sword. If reflects are needed, run a focus as both skills are traited to reflect damage, and either the pistol or sword. If reflects are not needed, then run the sword and pistol as off-hands. For the most run on-farm dungeons (SE p1/3, CoE p1/2/3, CoF p1/3, etc…) you will not need to switch to ranged weapons and will want to spend most of your time with dual-melee to maximize your damage. The biggest exception is Lupicus in Arah. Many ad hoc groups range him and in this case, you will want to swap out to your greatsword for the fight (though in his phase 3, melee-ing, even if his health is only slowly dropping, is more than manageable). Additionally, make sure to carry a staff and torch for phases where you need to run past trash mobs as these are great for it…do not use them on bosses. Ever.

When running fractals:

The same weapon set applies here as it does for dungeons, but contrary to the meta-opinion, there is more emphasis on range. A typical strategy for most bosses, at some point during the fights, requires a ranged weapon. For some it’s necessary, such as the second Archdiviner fight on cliffside and the second phase for Captain Ashym in the Urban battlegrounds; and for others, it’s either optional or a standard PuG strategy, such as the Rampaging Ice Elemental, Mossman, or the Elemental Fire Shaman. You will need either the Scepter or GS for these cases, and they differ based on the fight. For example, the Scepter is great for Mossman and Captain Ashym, as with an off-hand phantasm, it will result in higher damage than the greatsword. For the Elemental Fire Shaman, the greatsword is often preferred for the iZerker’s AOE capability on the adds. Just choose what you are most comfortable with. Do your best to stay in melee when you can, but swapping to ranged for the 10 seconds to wait for the weapon swap cooldown and gather your bearings is not the end of the world.

Gear:

For both builds: run berserker/assassin’s armor, weapons, and trinkets (berserker’s is better in a crit-chance optimizing party, assassin’s otherwise, although it does not matter much, the difference is between 1-2%); Mesmers are naturally tank with our high health-pool and access to blurred frenzy, that other armor sets are unnecessary.

Sigils/Runes:

Armor: If you are not in a crit optimizing party such as a standard PuG group, then Ruby Orbs are the way to go as the stats will transfer to your phantasms. If you do run with a set group, that focuses on getting crit chance to 100 (such as making sure to have fury/banner/spotter/etc), then Scholar runes are superior in every way as the extra 45 power and 10% damage is better than the additional 4% crit damage from ruby orbs.

I use a build similar to Fay’s but have two different cases:

When pugging fractals: 20/20/0/30/0.

I find myself ranging more in pugs since it’s less coordinated and typically just safer, so GS training helps a lot with that. I also never know what to do with the 3rd inspiration trait, I take persisting images (+20% phantasm health) just because I’ve found shattered conditions to be lackluster.

When running with guildies: 15/30/0/25/0.

Since we are on chat, and more coordinated, I do not have to drop to GS as often, so I’ll run sword/focus and sword/sword and take deceptive evasion for added survivability. The 15 in domination allows me to shatter right before time warp (using DE and sword 3 to produce the clones) for the vulnerability, and thus added damage. This is the only time I will really ever shatter.

@fay, I never thought about taking 5 points in Chaos for the added regeneration. That sounds like a good idea. I’m going to try that in my builds, so (20/20/5/25/0) and (10/30/5/25/0) and see how it works. Thanks for the idea!

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

That isnt what i meant, sure you can attack but who is doing most of the damage – You or the Phantasm? THAT is what i meant. That is why i have moved away from the Phantasm build that i was using, It got kinda boring knowing that most of my damage wasnt coming from me but the Phantasm

In retrospect, I probably took that more literally than I should have. ^_-

Also, I have not tested this, but say you have 3 phantasms out (be it iWarden or iZerker or iSwordsman or iPistolguy). How much damage do you produce with the sword auto + blurred frenzy (or the GS auto), assuming you can just swing-away the encounter, in comparison to the damage of the phantasms? Is it a straight 3 to 1 ratio? Or more like 5 to 2? I don’t know.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Totally agree, with zerker builds it just feels like we arent doing anything thakittens all down to the phantasm which is fine for some, Condition builds (to me at least) are more engaging, more fun and make it seem like i did MORE rather then just summon a phantom to do all the damage for me while i stand around doing nothing.

This bothered me…

Those shatter/phantasm mesmers have a sword which can auto-attack while the phantasms are out…which I believe is not doing nothing…and it is quite good dps…

Anyways, as to the OP: condition builds may be viable in PvE (and do very much shine in WvW), but shatter/phantasm with utility in PvE are going to provide better team support in most groups. The possible exception being the organized dungeon group built largely around a mesmer condition build.

Jacob.4280:

About runes:
If u want to do as much dmg as posible – dont use runes, use Ruby Orbs
If u want to buff your party a bit more (which is not necessary if u run with warriors) use Runes of the Pack
Personally I dont see any use for those runes presented in the video above when they have lover crit boost then Orbs.

Agreed about the Ruby Orb choice.

Jacob.4280:

My conclusions:
After a bit of testing I can tell that the build 0/20/0/25/25 is better in dps than 10/10/0/25/25
The second build lacks that bleed from crits which does more dmg than +15% direct ph. dmg

Since bleeds are capped, then couldn’t you rely on other players to build bleeds in a group setting, thus making 10/10/0/25/25 the better option?

keenlam.4753:

2) If you’re setting us up for an argument:
Then please disregard my post since we will not waste each other’s time here and I promise will not post in the thread again.

Nevertheless, I see that you already have your pick. Enjoy and have fun in the game.

I was genuinely curious. Almost everywhere I have read, condition builds are crapped on, so naturally, I decided not to run one. However, someone in my guild (who I don’t normally run with, so I do not often see it in action) loves his scepter/pistol and staff build for PvE, and then you, also, recommend a condition build. I have not tried a condition build, therefore I cannot speak to its validity in a PvE setting. I just wanted to know how you use the build in case I decide to try it and test out using conditions for myself in a dungeon setting. So thanks for the input!