The Mesmer is an excellent profession in WvW, good for both roaming and group play. In general though one Mesmer build can’t do everything and you’ll need to specialise towards one direction or another, i.e. a good roamer is not necessarily a good sieger, and a great group supporter won’t necessarily do well in a duel.
Some Mesmer traits have great synergy. The others are almost completely useless. Hence almost all Mesmers use only the traits that have great synergy, which to some extent limits Mesmer build options (interrupt traits for example are quite weak).
The Greatsword is definitely a viable weapon and is the Mesmer’s long-ranged direct damage option. The stats you want then are those that focus on direct damage.
Well, mantra of recovery was a flop. 3 seconds is too long to charge mid fight. Kept getting interrupted and lost to a warrior (gasp!).
Channelling Mantras should be done according to the situation: ideally you should be out of line of sight with Illusions keeping your target busy. Otherwise you should cover the channel with Decoy and other defensive skills. Remember that certain skills can be used during a channel without interrupting it.
Without traits however Mantra of Recovery isn’t worth it. It used to be… but then they nerfed it so it can work with silly traits.
With traits however Mantra of Recovery is a very powerful heal. In my variation I can achieve about 3 – 4x the healing per second of Ether Feast compared to Pyro’s build.
Go into options and untick show NPC names. There, now only the real Mesmer has a nametag above his or her head.
The first iteration of Chaos Armour provided Regeneration or Protection when you’re hit, with no default Protection.
I dont suppose you have a link to official patch notes or anything regarding this ? I had a quick google search but couldent see anything and wouldent mind reading back into it. I noticed on the Wiki it says combo finisher Chaos Armour is the old version but that one doesnt proc protection either.
Also does anyone have anymore information regarding the Blind not proccing ?
It may have been as early as Beta, I don’t remember. The Wiki often has wrong information, and apparently some of the editors of the Wiki are pretty resistant to people trying to fix wrong information.
What do you think of this variation?
This is a modified version of a build I used to use in sPvP, back when iWarden whirled forever with Phantasmal Haste. It was very fun(ny) to use against any projectile based enemy: just stand in iWarden and watch them shoot themselves to death.
I later used a version that used Power-Toughness-Vitality instead as Healing Power didn’t seem that helpful (at the time Phantasmal Healing only really worked on iDuelist), but now seems a good time to go for it again.
Mantra of Pain is optional, I only took it because it seemed like a waste to take two Mantra traits for Mantra of Recovery only. Use it for some emergency healing if Recovery is not available/enough, I dunno. Could probably be better replaced with Decoy.
There aren’t any glaring problems with it I suppose. It just seems a little…confused.
You seem to have gone 30 into Dom purely for (let’s face it) one skill. You also have a lot of phantasm damage adds without either of the 3 optimal phantasms for general damage dealing (sword, pistol, gs). Also, you have these damage traits, but no crit chance or damage; which severely limits the amount of damage you can unload.
It just seems to be stuck between a phantasm damage build and a defensive healing bunker, but without the necessary weapons/stats to really do damage, and lacking some of the defensive capability from the other side.
I guess it’s just really unclear what you designed this build to do.
The primary purpose is of course a defensive healing bunker. Don’t get too distracted by Empowered Illusions, the reason it was taken was because there aren’t too many traits in Domination that are helpful and it will at least boost the damage of iWarlock.
Damage is certainly lacking (much like in your build), and is primarily augmented with Retaliation (again much like your build). Other aspects: 300 Power from Domination investment, Runes of Strength (increased Power and +5% damage), and Sigils of Battle (giving you permanent 6x Might by switching weapon sets often) helps to improve its damage. All things considered I’d say damage capability is likely higher than your build.
The basic idea is that it is a variation of your build that focuses on Healing Power instead of Vitality as a defensive stat. Permanent Regeneration from Phantasmal Healing heals you ~280 health every second, and Mantra of Recovery with Restorative and Harmonious Mantras means I can heal myself for 12200 health every 15 seconds, not to mention multiple condition removals from Mender’s Purity.
Overall I think the Healing Power investment gives this build higher survivability than a build that uses Vitality instead of Healing Power. There are other aspects of course, such as a weaker Mind Wrack (although that may be augmented somewhat with Mental Torment if you desire) and reduced direct damage mitigation; but then it’s a variation, not an upgrade.
Note: Bear in mind this build was constructed in sPvP. If it were in WvW with Ascended equipment and such, the numbers will be higher.
(edited by Embolism.8106)
Yes, although you only get one casting of Winds of Chaos with Echo and it is not cast at the enemy but at yourself (as that was the projectile that was absorbed, as it’s coming back to you), giving you either Might or Fury.
Winds of Chaos from Staff Clones are also capable of triggering it.
The way Mimic works is this:
Mimic is channelled over 4 seconds. When you are hit by a projectile, the projectile is absorbed and becomes Echo (the absorbed projectile still inflicts its full effects on you). After becoming Echo, you will reflect projectile attacks and block non-projectile attacks for the remainder of the channel.
The key to using Mimic is the fact that it can absorb friendly projectiles. This means you can use a bouncing projectile capable of bouncing to allies: Winds of Chaos, Mirror Blade, iMage, iDisenchanter: to trigger Echo and get the far more valuable reflection/blocking effect, as well as a second casting of the beneficial projectile’s effect on yourself (Mirror Blade however has no effect when Echoed).
Don’t forget though, that with 15 points into Chaos, you get 3 sec of protection when regen procs on a 15 second cooldown. That is a fair amount of protection you will still be getting from the leap through field Chaos Armor.
I would be more enthusiastic about it before it was nerfed, when it had no cooldown. As it is it’s not that impressive: IMO the CD should be reduced to 10s.
Yes, only the Staff version grants Protection. As I said in the previous post, it used to be that Chaos Armour, Staff or combo, granted Protection or Regeneration on hit; but people complained so they made Protection applied on casting the Staff version.
Remember however that Chaos Armour also inflicts conditions on hit, which can be quite helpful.
I don’t really mind, it doesn’t make The Prestige UP by any means. But yeah, it would be very nice if they fix up the iMage.
To yet again sum up my suggestions about it:
1. Fix the bug where +Condition/Boon Duration doesn’t affect Illusions.
2. Change iMage’s bounce logic to enemy-ally-enemy-(ally).
3. Allow Illusionary Elasticity to at least work with Phantasms.
4. Make “magical” Phantasm projectiles (iMage, iWarlock, iDisenchanter) track their targets.
5. Reduce iMage’s conjuring CD.
Not every other class has 25% movespeed boosts. Ranger has 10%, Guardian and Warrior have none without traits.
All the +movement speed Signets were boosted to 25%, including the Ranger’s.
Chaos Storm and Glamour skills are excellent support, especially with Blast finishers to give everyone Chaos Armour.
Phantasmal Healing can provide your group with permanent Regeneration (assuming people know to stand next to your Phantasms), which is especially potent if you invest in Healing Power.
Winds of Chaos, which is also cast by Staff Clones, gives allies Might and Fury and inflicts your foes with Vulnerability.
Mantra of Pain and the trait Restorative Mantras is basically a group heal every 5 seconds if required, although you can’t do much else during the 3 seconds of channelling.
Phantasmal Defender, despite its description, actually protects multiple allies, not just yourself: it works by applying an effect called Illusion of Defense to nearby allies when it attacks, drawing half of the damage dealt to them to itself.
Phantasmal Disenchanter can keep conditions off yourself and your allies, as well as stripping boons from enemies.
What do you think of this variation?
This is a modified version of a build I used to use in sPvP, back when iWarden whirled forever with Phantasmal Haste. It was very fun(ny) to use against any projectile based enemy: just stand in iWarden and watch them shoot themselves to death.
I later used a version that used Power-Toughness-Vitality instead as Healing Power didn’t seem that helpful (at the time Phantasmal Healing only really worked on iDuelist), but now seems a good time to go for it again.
Mantra of Pain is optional, I only took it because it seemed like a waste to take two Mantra traits for Mantra of Recovery only. Use it for some emergency healing if Recovery is not available/enough, I dunno. Could probably be better replaced with Decoy.
Bouncing attacks seems to be a sort-of Mesmer specialty, so I don’t think they would change that about the iMage. Fixing the bugs and inconsistencies: making +CondDuration/BoonDuration affect Illusions, make Illusionary Elasticity affect iMage/iDisenchanter, and maybe changing iMage’s bounce logic to enemy-ally-enemy instead of whatever weird logic it has now…
Couple that with changes like making the bolt more accurate and reducing iMage’s ridiculous CD and it should be fine. It doesn’t need an overhaul.
The first iteration of Chaos Armour provided Regeneration or Protection when you’re hit, with no default Protection. People whined that this is crap, so they changed it to provide Protection on cast and Regeneration or Swiftness on hit. The flip side of this is of course the combo version became weaker, but you know how humans are: they can’t see something unless it’s right in their faces, so only a few people complained while everyone else celebrated.
I don’t see a problem with that. To be honest I find Conquest a boring game mode that encourages the burst vs bunker meta, which IMO is not only boring but restricts build variety. I think many would agree with me, people are generally more interested in fighting other people with real builds in PvP, not stand in circles and play the how-long-can-the-bunker-survive/how-quickly-can-I-burst-down-the-bunker game.
Hopefully Anet will take note of the number of Dueling servers in hotjoin and start introducing more interesting PvP game modes. And no, by more interesting game modes I don’t mean Conquest with some other stuff slapped on.
Well, The Prestige without its channel is actually the original; the channel was a change introduced later. The main thing I guess is it can no longer be interrupted and you can do things like churn out Clones in stealth… overall makes it closer to Decoy, I suppose.
While I think I do get killed by Thieves more than any other profession, I wouldn’t call them the hardest as most of their kills against me occur when I’m distracted or otherwise not expecting it. In a “fair” fight where I see them coming, they don’t tend to be a threat.
Being a condition Mesmer, a skilled Necromancer can give me trouble; but in WvW at least I find a Confusion burst at the right time (after they’ve used most of their condition transfers and removals) can still lock them down and secure me a victory.
Other Mesmers are definitely troublesome when they’re played well, but as almost all other Mesmers use Shatter builds they tend to be quite vulnerable to my condition Mesmer.
The above is in WvW. In sPvP it’s a bit different as people are more likely to bring condition removal and Confusion is nowhere near as strong. In this case Shatter Mesmers are a greater threat, as are Necromancers; and Rangers also tend to be difficult to kill… actually all other professions except Warriors and Thieves are more difficult to kill without an OP Confusion burst.
Though I wouldn’t mind that change, I think their idea is that if duration is too long, it will be a bit too powerful in the sense of making (human) enemies be skill-denied for too long, in their efforts to avoid confusion damage. In short, I think they want to keep any enemy skill suppression caused by Confusion reasonably brief.
If it encourages people to run with condition removal more, I don’t see a problem with that. Too many builds run with minimal condition removal and get away with it (including most of mine).
Confusion against (small) WvW groups is so kitten powerful. It must be the zerg mentality, they see a lone Mesmer and all they can think of is to spam offensive skills so they can get a slice. The next thing they know they’re all downed and I’m stomping them one after the other.
Most of us didn’t say we’re “content” with how it is, I think most people on both sides of the argument agree the iMage is bad. What we don’t agree on is whether the Torch, in its current form, is viable or not. But just because we think it’s viable doesn’t mean we’re “content” with the way iMage is.
The fact the community is so divided about it is quite telling.
I use condition/Confusion in PvE as well, and it works well enough. Perhaps I don’t kill as fast as I would in a Shatter build (which is true of sPvP as well), but it certainly isn’t “horribly non-viable” as some people seem to claim.
Oh yeah, you can abuse MoP and RM for AoE Healing, but I wouldn’t call that a Mantra build. Burst is more relevant in PvP than PvE, so my point holds. So is Daze, for that matter.
I wouldn’t use MoP in PvE. If you charge it during combat (i.e. use more than your initial three charges) you’d likely end up with less DPS.
In fact Mantra builds in general are more relevant in PvP than PvE. If you’re not going to get Empowered Mantras it probably isn’t worth speccing into Mantras.
Standard Glamour builds don’t have the clone on dodge trait and stealth no longer resets NPC agro.
IMO Confusing Enchantments needs to be merged into Dazzling Glamours, so it would become “Glamours inflict Blind at their location and when enemies enter or exit their area”. That way Glamour Mesmers can use Deceptive Evasion. Besides, each trait alone is a bit lackluster, together they make more sense…
In PvE I think it needs a total rework, I dont really understand why its damage was nerfed to 50% in sPvP but it still has some uses.
Sigh. Because it was never nerfed. sPvP Confusion is the original Confusion. It was buffed in PvE and WvW later down the track.
I’d move the torch CD trait to chaos, too. Would do inspiration, but that already has 2 and they both work better there.
I’m inclined to agree. Domination is not really a good place for that trait (and while we’re on the topic, neither is Confusing Enchantments).
I still wouldn’t use it though, unless it’s Adept tier.
One mesmer using just WoC wouldn’t be a 50% dps increase. There’s no chaos storm, no summoning warlock, no use of chaos armor. All part of staff. That said I still don’t think the clones need another bounce. The DPS on it is already fantastic.
When talking about Staff condition DPS that means a Mesmer and three Staff Clones spamming WoC. iWarlock does less damage than a Staff Clone. Chaos Armour and Chaos Storm are both mainly defensive skills with only a small offensive aspect, coupled with their CDs they don’t really have much of an effect on your DPS.
Don’t get too fixated on maximising Bleeding. It is true that using the GS might get slightly more Bleeding stacks than using the Staff, but the Staff (and Staff Clones) also applies Burning a lot of the time; which deals more damage than Bleeding from Sharper Images.
Overall, the Staff will give you far more condition damage than you’d get from the GS.
It’s a tooltip issue only. Turn on CD numbers and you’ll see they do stack.
Alright, alright, I think we can all at least agree, even if you use the iMage to some success, that the iMage needs a buff.
Say your Confusion does 400 damage and your opponent uses 3 skills during the 3 seconds of Confusion, that’s 3,600 damage: that’s about the same as a Power-based Phantasm in a Power build, and it’s under ideal conditions in WvW. In sPvP it would be more like 1,600 damage. If you factor in Retaliation that might push the numbers up to about 4,400 and 2,400.
So the iMage under rare ideal conditions is roughly equivalent to other Phantasms, which can achieve this level of performance pretty much all the time. And this is in WvW too, in sPvP it’s significantly weaker. And it also has the longest CD of all Phantasms.
Thoughts about improving iMage? Fix the bug where +CondDuration doesn’t affect Illusions, then make iMage’s bounce go enemy-ally-enemy and allow it to double-tap. Reduce its CD to, I don’t know, 25s. Allowing it to work with Illusionary Elasticity would be nice too.
An idea I threw around a while ago was to give Confusion two end conditions: when its duration ends, or when it has triggered X number of times. Extend the duration so mobs can reliably trigger it around X number of times. Then it can be balanced for both PvP and PvE.
Regarding the iMage, I haven’t ever traited this, but have yall ever used Illusionary Elasticity with the iMage? If so, wouldn’t that put 6 stacks of confusion on someone relatively often? More if you have 2 out of course and assuming the extra bounce goes to the same person.
This phantasm is like any other: summon it, let it attack once, then shatter it. For confusion builds, it ups the sources of confusion that you can rotate on a target to keep a constant stack on someone.
Illusionary Elasticity doesn’t work with iMage. Besides, I believe iMage has two bounces by default, but it does enemy-enemy-ally instead of enemy-ally-enemy.
Confusion builds never count on iMage as part of their Confusion repertoire. It is too slow, too short and too unreliable.
If +CondDuration works on Illusions the iMage may be viable. But it still needs a CD reduction.
Don’t tell me what my confusion build can rely on. Not everyone copypastas builds from the forums. My build uses the mage and it is nice for what it does. God. People are so controlling on this forum. Excuuuuse me! Other people who don’t post as much as you can have opinions too that are less vocal because we don’t sit around and read this forum all day.
There is no need to take things personally. I thought you were asking whether iMage has a place in Confusion builds, and the general consensus is no. If it works for you then good for you.
and what a staff has to do with ‘mind wrack nuking’? Its a defensive weapon which can be used on all mez builds… Plus iLeap is extremely useful to port away when you’re immobilize and getting 100swaged by a warrior for example. For a 20 trait points, it should be applied to your illusions as well (at least clones).
If Illusionary Elasticity’s description was “increase your Staff DPS by 50%”, would you still think it needs work? Because that’s what it does. Three Staff Clones is roughly equivalent to one Mesmer using Winds of Chaos. Illusionary Elasticity doubles the damage dealt by the Mesmer, so your overall DPS is increased by 50%.
Making it apply to Staff Clones would mean it becomes “double your Staff DPS”. Don’t you think that’s too much?
That’s not true at all. In order for the bounces to work effectively, there has to be either multiple targets close together, or you have to be close enough to the targets for the attacks to bounce to you, and remain close enough to the targets for the bounces to bounce back. It is not nearly as simple as just increasing staff dps by 50%.
That’s why condition Mesmers like to keep in close range (also facilitates Shattering, and in the case of asura Mesmers Pain Inverter). And let’s be honest, with the slow speed of WoC (and to get Clone bounces) a condition Mesmer would stay in range with or without IE, so what difference does it make? It is, indeed, +50% DPS for condition Mesmers.
To say it’s not true “at all” is being incredibly pedantic.
and what a staff has to do with ‘mind wrack nuking’? Its a defensive weapon which can be used on all mez builds… Plus iLeap is extremely useful to port away when you’re immobilize and getting 100swaged by a warrior for example. For a 20 trait points, it should be applied to your illusions as well (at least clones).
If Illusionary Elasticity’s description was “increase your Staff DPS by 50%”, would you still think it needs work? Because that’s what it does. Three Staff Clones is roughly equivalent to one Mesmer using Winds of Chaos. Illusionary Elasticity doubles the damage dealt by the Mesmer, so your overall DPS is increased by 50%.
Making it apply to Staff Clones would mean it becomes “double your Staff DPS”. Don’t you think that’s too much?
Notice I put “advantage” in brackets, implying I do not agree with your situational “advantage”. I personally find that the Torch is superior than the Pistol with my playstyle.
The keyword is “well-timed”. You want to hit them with Confusion just before or during their attacks, you don’t want to hit them while they’ve disengaged. To achieve this you should try to bait the Thief out while you’re ready to counter their burst.
Again, well-timed use of your own stealth is the key. Stealth a bit after the Thief stealths, so they are unable to do anything for the duration of that stealth. Decoy is particularly good because if you do it at the right time they might burst on your Clone, opening them up to you.
Overall it’s all about timing and, to some extent, having a “feel” of when a stealthed Thief might try to pounce.
(edited by Embolism.8106)
Staff is the only important weapon. Your second set can be almost anything, the only weapon to avoid is the OH Sword.
This is what I use for dungeons: http://tinyurl.com/bsajwt6
This is what I use for WvW: http://tinyurl.com/c3cay7q
This is what I use for sPvP: http://tinyurl.com/cd5u86t
You can use MH Sword in place of Sceptre, I switch between the two depending on the alignment of the stars. Focus can be substituted with Pistol if you’re more interested in single target mayhem.
Imperatora’s build has a critical weakness: condition builds tend to be reliant on Staff Clones for damage, and that build has no way of creating Staff Clones quickly. Almost all condition builds will go for 20 points in Dueling for Deceptive Evasion, which also provides Critical Infusion to fuel dodge Clones and Sharper Images to augment Clone damage. It also gives you a bit of Precision to kick these on-crit effects off.
In terms of stats you almost certainly want to go with Rabid gear, as it maximises your condition damage as well as giving you a healthy amount of Precision to fuel your on-crit effects. It also has no wasted stats, unlike Rampager’s and Carrion.
(edited by Embolism.8106)
Regarding the iMage, I haven’t ever traited this, but have yall ever used Illusionary Elasticity with the iMage? If so, wouldn’t that put 6 stacks of confusion on someone relatively often? More if you have 2 out of course and assuming the extra bounce goes to the same person.
This phantasm is like any other: summon it, let it attack once, then shatter it. For confusion builds, it ups the sources of confusion that you can rotate on a target to keep a constant stack on someone.
Illusionary Elasticity doesn’t work with iMage. Besides, I believe iMage has two bounces by default, but it does enemy-enemy-ally instead of enemy-ally-enemy.
Confusion builds never count on iMage as part of their Confusion repertoire. It is too slow, too short and too unreliable.
If +CondDuration works on Illusions the iMage may be viable. But it still needs a CD reduction.
This might be true against opponents which stay visible and don’t cleanse 1-2 conditions every second. However, against a well-played stealth-build, the attacks of your staff-clones are just too slow. They might hit once each (maybe not even that), which would lead to 2-6 stacks of bleeding and maybe a second of burning in total. Two iDuelists on the other hand will (even with no power in your build) nearly instantly inflict around 2×700 direct damage (probably more) and around 4-6 bleeds each (8-12 both). If you time your ethereal combo-field right, you can add some confusion.
Staff clones make more sense if they can constantly hit your target, but if the target is permanently stealthed unless its attacking you, you need to apply as much damage as fast as possible, before it goes into stealth again (which will also remove conditions).
Since we seem to agree that iMage isn’t capable of doing so, I’ll throw in that The Prestige also doesn’t help you with that (Magic Bullet does, btw). Sure the burn is nice, but you need to be next to the target to apply it… and if your target is invisible most of the time, that’s only gonna happen if you’re lucky.
The only other option in a staff & torch setup would then be the iWarlock; but it only can crit once and the direct damage is also not nearly enough with no or low power in your build and no conditions on the target.
I find it slightly amusing that you deliberately avoid mentioning the word “Thief”, as though you are trying to obscure the fact that only one profession out of eight is actually potentially capable of what you describe, and therefore how situational your iDuelist “advantage” really is.
In any case, Thieves do not in any way require iDuelist to defeat with a condition build, I deal with them just fine without using any Phantasms. Confusion is the key, even in sPvP: their low HP means they can spam themselves down in an instant with a well-timed Confusion burst.
The Prestige is first and foremost a powerful defensive skill, it is essentially another casting of Decoy. Trying to compare it to Magic Bullet is apples and oranges. I might also add that Mesmer stealth is one of the best counters to Thief stealth.
(edited by Embolism.8106)
Deception is one of the very few Downed skills that’s almost guaranteed to break a stomp, the only way it won’t work is if you don’t have a target to use it on (which generally means 1vs1 against a Thief). It is one of the best Downed #2s.
If you feel Clones are unreliable (understandable if you’re not running a condition build), you could always fire off a WoC of your own before starting Mimic. If there are no allies nearby (WoC does not bounce to Illusions) that should quickly proc your Mimic.
In any case though I do understand that the utilities you have chosen are quite important. Decoy is possibly the only one that is non-essential, but it’s just so useful generally every Mesmer uses it.
As an aside, I find it slightly amusing that you say Decoy is extremely important (which it is) while brushing The Prestige off as merely “very good”. But that’s not relevant to this build.
Have you considered using Mimic for 4s Block/Reflect on 25s CD? It seems to me it would be perfect in your build.
The problem is that it would replace something else that is more important. Mimic is a 4s block/reflect, but only under certain conditions. If the first attack it takes is a cc, then you lose the whole thing. If they don’t shoot you, then it becomes useless. In very specific situations, it can be really great, but in almost every single one of those situations, the exact same thing would be accomplished by simply dropping temporal curtain and letting them attack into that.
Additionally, if you take it for the retaliation stacking on blocks, not only do you have to put 10 traits into a useless line, but it is even less necessary, since the build already gets over 100% uptime on retaliation.
Did you know that Mimic can absorb friendly projectiles? By using Winds of Chaos or just having Staff Clones out bouncing Winds of Chaos at you, Mimic is a guaranteed Block/Reflect.
And Retaliatory Shield is actually not very good with Mimic because it will only trigger off non-reflectable attacks.
The healing effect is a relic of Beta, back when Siren’s Call inflicted Confusion and healed allies. The healing effect was present when Trident Clones inflicted Confusion too. Unfortunately this effect was nerfed to nothingness when Clone direct damage was nerfed to nothingness.
It seems like Anet always gets confused with Clone skills. Staff Clones for example still use an older version of Winds of Chaos that inflicts 5s of Bleeding instead of 7s, which makes no sense because it deals less damage than Burning does in 1s.
Have you considered using Mimic for 4s Block/Reflect on 25s CD? It seems to me it would be perfect in your build.
Illusions exist in your mind: they are your fears, your insecurities, your paranoia. You can try to hide your feelings, but you cannot escape them.
Alright, I think we can all agree the iMage is bad. I think we can also agree that The Prestige brings something to the table that no other off-hand could even come close to offer. Now, here’s the part that Torch skeptics don’t seem to understand: some builds don’t care about Phantasms, and therefore don’t really care that iMage sucks.
Yes, it is true that in condition builds iDuelist is stronger, but here’s the thing: it isn’t really that much stronger than a Staff Clone (which attacks more often and provides you with Might and Fury to fuel yours and all other Illusions’ damage), so the actual benefit you gain from maintaining iDuelist is not that high. Plus, unless you switch back to the Staff, you will start losing DPS as your Staff Clone are lost/Shattered. As for the lower CD of iDuelist compared to iMage in terms of Shattering, you shouldn’t have problems maintaining Shatters with Clones alone, Phantasms are just a minor boost; so it matters little.
Also, I would like to point out again that The Prestige used to have a 20s CD, and there is a good reason why they nerfed it.
(edited by Embolism.8106)
Because Decoy is a stun breaker, summons a clone and most importantly an utility which you can change if you don’t like. You can’t change Prestige if you’re running Torch and as is its not good enough and i don’t expect anet to care or do anything to this weapon in the next 6+ months.
We have so many stun breakers it really doesn’t seem to matter, plus the stealth and target dropping is far more important (if I want to stun break I’d generally use a teleport to get out of whatever combo they’re using).
Conjuring a Clone is good for deceiving new players but to any experienced player it’s quite obvious what happened; and the typical Mesmer can roll out so many Clones an extra one from a 32s CD skill makes little difference.
You can change Utilities, but why can’t you… change the Torch? The only difference is it’s two skills together instead of just one…
Using a Torch more or less doubles your stealth and target dropping capability. Obviously this is a niche weapon, it’s not going to work with every build; but for builds that benefit from it it is excellent. Well, The Prestige is, iMage is still crap; but for condition builds that are more interested in Clones than Phantasms in general that’s not really a big issue.
I must confess I do not understand why using the Sword locks you into Mirror Images. Personally I see the Staff as my primary weapon and keep to it as much as possible, switching sets only to use The Prestige or some other skill. I don’t see why I’d take a Utility just for a secondary set that I use only for specific (defensive) skills. Plus what’s so special about the Sword that makes Mirror Images so necessary? This isn’t a Mind Wrack build, so a fast point-blank Shatter doesn’t seem as important.
I don’t quite see the benefits of Signet of Inspiration either: as you say this build has a strong focus on boons, which is why I feel Inspiration doesn’t really add much to it. I already have permanent Fury and multiple stacks of Might from Staff Clones, near-permanent Vigour, frequent Aegis, and high uptime on Protection and Regeneration. Illusionary Membrane has a 15s CD, so Inspiration is unlikely to milk more out of it. Overall the infrequent boons provided by Inspiration just seems like a drop in the ocean.
It is true +condition duration doesn’t help our Illusions, and is not that great on Staff conditions either. Confusion however I find benefits greatly from the increased duration, locking down perceptive enemies longer or ensuring the death of spamming enemies. Maybe it’s all in my mind, I don’t know; but I feel that my Confusion is more powerful when I have that extended duration.
I rarely meet condition builds when roaming in my world, so I dunno.