Guild Wars 2

This is huge for phantasm mesmer and open pve. Oh wow, the Warden won’t die in one hit of aoe.

I believe they do, I might be wrong, but you only have Shatters and Wells that gives alacrity.

Most of time, the alacrity will come from Shatter. It’s quite difficult in the long run to use Wells to give your Phantasms alacrity.

Not only they die fast, you’ll need to cast it on them. I guess it could work on Duelist or Warlock.

I think it’s going to be less useful for ‘’target-lock’’ intensive professions such as mesmer. It’s going go work well with classes that fart AoE there and there or melee oriented combat.

As for Confusing Image, now that it’s so fast, I don’t think the target swap is going to be successful as Rapid Fire, which has more projectiles (6 vs 10) and channeling (1/2 more lol).

Mistrust is pretty bad, you need to interrupt (which is already harder than simple damage) and get… 2 confusion ? Not worth the GM at all. Nobody will take it over DE or Harmonious Mantras.

Beside that, I wish Persisting Images and Protected Phantasm were together and not competing with Warden’s Feedback. Not only iWarden is the most fragile Phantasm, if you trait it, it doesn’t have Distortion. At least make the Distortion works till the phantasm finish its first attack.

Good ? No.

I do use a Phantasm build without Dueling and not needing Chrono, but Phantasmal Fury, Fury Traits, DE, Chronophantasma, Alacrity and more are way too useful.

vespers.1759:

If I were to run a PVE condi build I might take poison master I guess? Not sure as I’ve never run one.

Best PvE condi build for ranger is running traps. A/T A/T.

If you want to run Poison, which I tried in the past, yes, take Poison Master with point blank Poison Volley on SB. Poison Master trait is really dependant to pets, so you need to get reliable pets that will lay poison fields such as : Murellow, Marsh Drake, Carrion Devourer, Spiders. You NEED to swap.

Murellow works pretty good with Beastly Warden.

Superior Sigil of Blight + Bursting. Superior Rune of Orrian. You’re good to go.

Yes, to some and me.

Just gotta keep an eye on it every game :/. It’s a way for Anet to nerf rangers

I use the pigs sometimes, especially the Siamoth, but the Foraging is so annoying, it should be like the Thief F2 : the Pig keeps the object till we press F2 again to consume it. Also, the cooldown is WAY TOO long for some tools to play with. I believe they need the most re-haul or buff.

As for the devourer, they need less dancing around (burrowing).

Now add Ancient Seeds, Bristleback and other utilities. It’s a good single/line targeted bleed weapon.

Chronomancer feels good now. The shield block is perfect.

Scepter/Shield (Tides of Time) + Seize the Moment + Malicious Sorcery are working great. I kind of understand why they didn’t want to buff Scepter and Staff, but it hurts the Mesmer.

F5 is getting up fast if you heal, but for what use ? You need staff to fill the bar. Beside Natural Convergence for dmg, there’s no use for it. The DPS trade is not worthwhile.

Quick Draw doesn’t work with the staff, which is sad.
Ancient Seed doesn’t work with Spike Trap. Didn’t test other.

Solar Beam should be rectangular beam that hurt it front and not a targeted beam, it would help to aoe dmg and also heal. Like Guardian 1 staff, but rectangular and ranged.

Make Astral Wisp do AoE damage, the Druid needs it.

Druid lacks of DMG. Yes I know it’s a ’’healer’’, but GW2 have many modes.

Staff :
1) Bigger beam or AoE at the end.
2) Make it AoE DoT on the target and around.
3) Perfect.
4) Bigger cone and damage.
5) Situational at best. It’s an utility and it should have been in utilities like : mesmer feedback and guardian wall of reflection. Also, it doesn’t have any combo with staff skills. No field and Staff doesn’t have a projectile to use if you put a field.

CA : Needs some more damage, maybe on the 1).

And I agree with this :

Aidenwolf.5964:

I think the glyphs say the Druid is a frontline player, but the staff says backline, and either way it needs more damage.

Well said OP, I don’t even know what to think anymore. I know it’s not about mesmer, but after the ranger WHaO nerf (When ele farts 25 might easily), we know which professions are favored.

Also, you forgot Ferocious Strikes : Gain increased ferocity while dual-wielding weapons. Oh look, 300 ferocity (+ Assassin’s Presence) in one tree line without doing anything !

Daniel Handler.4816:

But perhaps it is just a common bug with ferocity. As if we look at http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Axe_Mastery we can see that the ferocity increases from that equal 300+ because it mistakenly assumes that dual equipping a weapon that are part of a ferocity increase would give double the ferocity. Which we know is simply not true as sword/focus versus sword/sword maintain similar levels of the buff.

Ah, have you seen the pitiful Honed Axe beside this trait ? Well it’s not like you’ll see many rangers with dual welding axe anyway…

And again, people will say ‘’ but different classes, different stuff, etc, etc, etc ’’.

So yes please ANet, fix Fencer’s Finesse so we can move on.

As an alternative to Travelers…

Since they fixed Temporal Curtain and since I don’t know your build, having Focus and SoI is enough to keep up. Take Rune of the Pack if you wish.

Fay.2357:

I like the buff to the disenchanter though. That sucker is going to be attacking crazily fast.

It’s pretty good ! I was using Disenchanter in PvP sometimes. Good bye booners !

Silverkey.2078:

• Fencer’s Finesse: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to apply ferocity when reflecting projectiles. Fixed a bug that could cause the ferocity boon to be applied when attacking with weapons other than swords.

I had fun with Sc/Sw.

I know it’s the Druid and it’s all about heal, but IMO, it needs more damage and AoE.

Solar Beam : A little bigger beam or aoe radius at the end should be good, but it’s ok this way too.

Astral Wisp : I wish it was doing damage over time on the target and around the target too, an AoE DoT.

Ancestral Grace : Perfect.

Vine Surge : Needs bigger AoE cone and 5 targets.

Sublime Conversion : Situational at best. Make it do something else like a water field so we can blast or give a condition such as blind, cripple or immobilized.

I have this one build that I feel is more about trolling in solo Q with a burn Settler build. So far, I win a lot.

I went with Rune of Balthazar. Sigil of Smoldering and Bursting on Staff, Hydromancy and Energy on Sc/F (Focus because it’s my only way to get some mobility speed).

Dueling : 1-1-3
Inspiration : 1-2-3
Chaos : 2-3-3

Signet of Ether. Utilities : Blink, Feedback, Null Field, Time Warp.

You shatter when you need condi cleanse, heal, stability or when you can spawn clones quickly. You’ll want to not use Signet of Ether, but use it when needed.

Now, for your build and Chronomancer, Rune of Guardian gonna be interesting now that our Shield 4 is a channeling block. I don’t know if going Chaos instead of Illusion is gonna be better to get the Staff trait since you have 4 ethereal fields, then maybe Sword to get those Chaos Armor from leap combo.

Ineptitude is on a ICD of 10 secs. It’s a one time thing and 1 confusion stack is nothing.

As for Dueling, it’s nearly obligatory for any Chrono build unfortunately (DE).

Vieux P.1238:

Chaotic Dampening – 2.5% CDR per tick: Not sure.. Someone explain to me the advantage. Cuz i dont see it? In what circumstance would you use it?

If you can (lol) get consecutive Chaos Armor, it’s better. I really didn’t get the first change/nerf (to me). With the 100 % sure Chaos Armor from Staff 4, you get 12.5% reduction. It should have stood at 20% reduction.

Also, it’s clunky. Then, all leaps from mesmer should prioritize Ethereal Fields instead to give us the random Light Aura. It’s just a nerf to Staff and I wasn’t aware this weapon was so OP to deserve it ?

It’s nerfed because they gave us Protection on Chaos Armor.

tetrodoxin.2134:

I’m jealous because everyone’s getting (way) more skills than the chrono :c

But, hey, we got F5 ! /s

I’m really happy for the Ranger/Druid thought.

Again, the same arguments come ‘’Not same class’‘, ’’Have to use the elite spec’’ and ‘’Comparing different things’’ just to make people that raise awareness go silent.

Gyros from engineer are better versions of pDefender, pDisenchanter (without boon hate) and Feedback (one can argue you can’t target with it, fair enough).

Bulwark Gyro is something mesmers always wanted. pDefender just by being target dependent make it weaker.

Not even talking about the 900 range revealing yet…

From BWE 3 DH changes

Traps (general): Reduced the cast time of all traps to 1/2 second, down from 1 second.

Same as the Ranger. At least it’s consistency.

If you go on Guardian forum, you can see many asking to make traps throw-able or to become marks (Eh, aren’t they becoming like Symbols at this point ? Also, marks do one time damage, not over time like traps, but anyway I guess they want both). Will the dev make the traps throw-able just because Guardian players asked them ? I wouldn’t be surprised.

I’m happy with the changes. Most of feedback were taken by the devs.

Shield channeled block is giving mesmer a breathing room and damage mitigation.

Wells changes are awesome and I really like Well of Eternity. It makes Chrono Wells build even more viable. Before, I was using either a condition cleanse such as MoR or Null Field or Mender’s Purity trait. Making Well of Action the viable ’’second’’ damage well is also interesting.

Zenith.7301:

Mesmer PvE damage is garbage, and your illusions in verdant brink will be cleaved down upon spawn.

It was so bad when I was against huge groups, huge aoe and Wyverns.

You either try to shatter right away or use Protected Phantasm to secure the first phantasm hit before it dies in AoE.

As for solo, both and any classes can do it. Mesmer sustain damage is just harder to pull.

Firelysm.4967:

I don’t care as long as i’ll finally be able to destroy every single mesmer that runs pu, mantra or shatter-mantra cancer Because mesmers currently have to much of every thing, same like D/Ds

And for the boon comparison, you are comparing, a build that requires energy, that has an energy waste + cooldown? AND also a permanent build that you cannot change, do you think your comparison is justified compared to mesmer choice of utilities and build ? you are already OP and you want more, please stop.

EDIT: Alpha, sorry there was auto anet correction.

As for the energy management it’s easily manageable if you don’t spam your skills like a mad man. They require energy, which means they also can spam their utilities and elites. The Dragon stance doesn’t have any Energy cost for the utilities, only removing ’’pips’’ and cooldown. Who told you to have all the Facets on ?

How can’t you not change the build ? For the sake of answering your question, Revenant have the luxury of stance swapping which gives 2 healing, 2 elite, 6 utilities. Mesmer have 1 heal, one elite, 3 utilities. Then, when they swap of legendary, they get 50 % energy back.

Did you even test the Herald ?

All I’m asking from my original post, which is not the talk anymore of the thread, is Swiftness and Boon Sharing. If both of them make you think it’s gonna make mesmer OP, then I have bad news for you. It’s QoL at best for the Swiftness.

Boon Sharing : Get 2 Herald with Facet of Strenght, Shared Empowerment, Facet of Nature and you get easy 20 perma might. You can remove all Might stacking profession from your raids or whatever mode you’re playing and just get 2 Herald. Get 3 and you’ll get 25 might, 100%. Add the 150 ferocity buff over it. They don’t even need to sit on Herald, keep the Facet long enough to get 30 secs of a Boon and do your thing.

Starting your post with ’’cancer’’ this ’’cancer’’ that. It’s ok, you can just say out loud that you hate mesmer and want it deleted of the game. Your hate for mesmer is blinding you.

Zenith.7301:

runeblade.7514:

Krispera.5087:

Let’s look at one of the issue : Swiftness

Robert Gee on Ready Up #35: The passive of this skill now gives 5 seconds of Swiftness… This was gonna be 10 seconds… I assure you all WvW mesmers, I have tried this with no boon duration, and if you run this with your… ohm… ehh… focus, focus 4, you can basically have constant Swiftness, you’ll be fine… We wanted you to have some investment, you should have to invest in boon duration if you want that to be permanent, or at least the focus skill, we wanted there to be some play with it, ‘cause if you get permanent Swiftness all the time, there’s no play to that.

Revenant has zero disengage while mesmers can disengage any time they want very easily.

What good is perma-swiftness if a zerg can chase you down and kill you.

No disengage? WTH, have you even bothered to learn the shiro legend?

Yep.

Assassin Stance with Riposting Shadows and Jade Winds.
Demon Stance with Unyielding Anguish (Pretty OP to me).
Staff is also interesting with Surge of the Mists and Warding Rift.

We have blink, distortion and stealth.

I guess what the Dev said implies only mesmers and from the look of it, some mesmers are happy with that. Anyway the thread has derailed.

I don’t know for which mode you’re asking, but I went Domination 1-3-1 or 3-1-2, Illusion 2-1-2 and Chrono 2-3-3 (Chronophantasma) or 2-3-2 (Shatter Quickness). Your Mirror Blade should be around 2-3 secs cooldown everytime.

Ether Feast, Blink, W/E you want, MoR and W/E you want as elite.

By my observations, Mesmer will outshine Chrono in burst damage. You’re sacrificing many damage modifier traits. Chrono is better for sustaining with Shatter and the help of Alacrity.

Intentional. Unfortunately, it has been asked since launch.

tobascodagama.2961:

While I haven’t played around with Rev yet this beta, I do have to point out that Facet skills require Energy upkeep. So the Revenant is trading the potential use of other skills to get perma-Swiftness.

True, but -1 pip is hardly unmanageable. If you had Facet of Element for a while, its duration goes and stays around 30 secs. It means you can remove your Facet of Element -1 pip in battle or use 2x the active Elemental Blast and re-use your Facet without loosing any swiftness.

Embolism.8106:

The Herald is an Elite spec that specialises in boon sharing. Why would you expect the base Mesmer to be comparable to that?

The only issue with SoI is Temporal Curtain’s Swiftness not stacking with existing Swiftness, making juggling it and SoI needlessly frustrating. Fix Temporal Curtain and non-Chrono Mesmer travelling would be fine.

Yes, I did point that out, I didn’t say mesmer should be comparable to that. I just wanted to say SoI is so weak in comparison to Facet of Elements. Robert Gee said we shouldn’t get perma swiftness without working for it, but then they gave it to the Herald. With no Rune, Sigil or ‘’doing something’’ investment.

Hear me out, I’m not asking for a Herald nerf. It’s just inconsistency.

And yes, fixing Temporal Curtain would helps a lot.

I know, I will compare two different professions and some should apply and some should not. I just want to point out some issues I have.

Not only Herald stole the Spirits mechanic from the Ranger and made it better, it also stole our boon sharing and Signet of Inspiration mechanics.

Let’s look at one of the issue : Swiftness

Robert Gee on Ready Up #35: The passive of this skill now gives 5 seconds of Swiftness… This was gonna be 10 seconds… I assure you all WvW mesmers, I have tried this with no boon duration, and if you run this with your… ohm… ehh… focus, focus 4, you can basically have constant Swiftness, you’ll be fine… We wanted you to have some investment, you should have to invest in boon duration if you want that to be permanent, or at least the focus skill, we wanted there to be some play with it, ‘cause if you get permanent Swiftness all the time, there’s no play to that.

Well guess what, Herald didn’t have to invest anything to get perma Swiftness all the time. It’s just innate. Yes I’m aware it’s an elite spec and they have to be on the Dragon stance. I’m just saying someone can sit all day long on the Dragon stance if he wanted even if it’s probably not maximizing its profession mechanics.

Facet of Elements : Pulse swiftness to nearby allies every few seconds. : It’s better than Signet of Inspiration (SoI) for swiftness (It’s perma swiftness), but also shared in a radius of 600 passively.

SoI do the same thing, but you have to active it and get a 30 sec cooldown. If the Herald is using his active, it’s only on a 15 sec cooldown and do something more useful that just boon sharing. You would say it doesn’t give other boons, but just look at their other Facets, why would you care to receive Retaliation or Regen or RANDOM boons.

To make it worst, our Temporal Curtain ’’feature’’ doesn’t stack.

Another issue : Boon sharing.

Facet of Nature : Naturalistic Resonance (3s): Increase outgoing boon duration by 50%.
VS
Chaotic Persistence : Outgoing boon and condition duration increase for every boon on you. Duration Increase: 3%

Well, it’s not like we give boons like candies (Looking at you Herald), we get a worst version of it ! How much would you work to get 50 % duration ? We can’t even top that. They also changed Signet of Midnight Boon Duration to Condition Duration.

You would say that Herald can’t share the hard worked 25 stack might you had to do to get it with shattering and interrupting. True, but I would trade anything the Herald have right now in the case of Swiftness and Boon Sharing. The Herald would have been a good mesmer spec related with Muse/Bard.

Consistency please.

All’s Well that Ends Well and Alacrity is weird for me. I want to use the Wells as AoE damage and not getting too close, but I have to stay in a Well to get it.

If you use the Staff traits, you want to dance around and get Chaos Storm, but then you need to go foward, Phase Retreat and go back to the Well before the Alacrity is gone.

Beside going Melee (Sw/Sh) to get Alacrity from Wells, I don’t think I’ll use this trait. Also, it confuses me so much to manage Shatters, Weapon Skills and Wells. I’m just not used to it, but too many stuff to do.

And Well of Recall needs a serious buff.

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

Herald seems to take our spot for fury uptime now
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Facet_of_Darkness

Not just Fury, everything Spirit related. They took Spirit from Ranger, gutted it and gave a better version to Rev with reliable actives. Not only it’s mobile, but unkillable and unremovable.

Water Spirit = Facet of Light (More or less)
Frost Spirit = Facet of Strength
Stone Spirit = Facet of Chaos
Storm Spirit = Facet of Elements
Sun Spirit = Not comparable. Elemental Blast from Facet of Element ?
Spirit of Nature = Not comparable.

Maybe we will see shatter mesmer taking Inspiration if burn stays the same. Mender’s Purity, Restoratives Illusions and Temporal Enchanter. Cele Chaos or Illusion/Insp/Chrono anyone (lol) ?

I learned to love Nullfield if it’s traited. Resistance and Superspeed is very good. It’s helping you go out of a bad situation. I wouldn’t mind it to be a stunbreak and gives stability too…

I agree with OP, it should be a more faster and punishing nullification. As for Arcane Thievery, the boon/condition randomization makes it even more useless. If it was stealing important boons such as prot, aegis, quickness instead of retal and regeneration. If it was giving back conditions with the highest tick or important ones like poison and burn.

Sc/Sw is pretty fun with Fencer’s Fitness, Malicious Sorcery, Furious Interruption and Power Block.

I agree with you thought, OP. I like Swish idea that it keeps the Counter damage when we use it as a projectile, like the guardian torch Zealot’s Fire, but then it would be pretty OP with Power Block…

Projectile size and speed need to be increased, for sure, and I really hate the block open wide animation.

With Chronomancer coming soon and the shield that gives free Quickness, stun and damage, the Offhand sword needs to be more competitive.

Chronophantasma is a no brainer to phantasm builds. Quickly spawn 2 phantasm, mind wrack and they use their skills after the daze.

Time Catches Up is funny and so good.

Chrono is very good, I feel like you’re missing a lot for not going chrono.

5 days later. Sorry for the mini necro.

I really really hate this change. Staff cooldowns are ridiculously long beside Phase Retreat. I’m not even talking about the pitiful animation and speed of Winds of Chaos.

Chaos Storm -> Walk -> Phase Retreat ?
Chaos Armor 35 seconds cooldown, lel.
Auras/Chaos Armor not stackable.
Overlapping fields. (As Tongku said)

You need to work so much harder to get your Chaos Armor up and you won’t get the same efficiency as before (20% flat reduction) if you don’t have Glamours in your utilities.

Hell, my bleeding GS condi build is better than Staff for fast condis stack. Easily 2500-2700 condi damage. While a Winds of Chaos travels at turtle speed, I stacked 10 bleeding on a single target with a homing fast laser.

The staff and the trait makes me sad.

I really tried to make something viable out of phantasm build with this Condi and/or Burst meta.

Dom/Duel/Insp : Signet Phantasm. GS, S/X.
Dom/Duel/Illu/ : Phantasm and interrupt. Sc/S, S/P.
Dom/Duel/Chaos : Phantasm and interrupt. Staff ? Gs ? Sword ? Pistol ? As you like.
Dom/Chaos/Insp : More ‘’tanky/boon/support’‘. GS, Staff. No Fury.
Duel/Chaos/Insp : More ’’tanky/boon/support’’. Melee focused, S/S, S/P.

iWarden is bad nearly everywhere without Distortion and EVEN with that. I only use it for Vinewrath in SW (PvE) !

I always try to put iDesenchanter in my build, but it’s either that or MoR. Reliable condi removal or unreliable one that can boon strip bunkers ?

You always need to do a sacrifice somewhere. Hardest is to stay alive and to keep your damage high. As a Phantasm player, you might want to get more ’’support’’ oriented runes or trinkets, which lower your damage, but your Illusions are still easily killable. Persisting Image + Signet of Illusions ? Only when I’m bored, lazy and in PvE.

If you don’t take Domination, you lose :

Empowered Illusion (%DMG)
Blurred Inscription (Signet Trait) or Furious Interruption
Imagined Burden

If you don’t take Dueling, you lose :

Phantasmal Fury (%CritChance and this one HURTS to lose) VS Duelist’s Discipline (Which is more of a Condi/Interrupt trait)
Fencer’s Finesse (If you use Sword)
Then you scratch your head about which GM to take, none are really interesting for a phantasm build.

If you don’t take Chaos, you lose :

Illusionnary Defense (%Defense by each clones)
Master of Manipulation
Staff trait (I doubt you want to use Staff in a phantasm build)
Then you scratch your head about which GM to take, CI is good, PU is good if you put Decoy or MI in your build, then BD is useless.

Overall, Chaos is good if you’re mixing it with Inspiration (The minor traits)

If you don’t take Inspiration, you lose :

Persisting Images
Protected Phantasm VS Warden’s Feedback (They shouldn’t be on the same tree, iWarden is pretty bad without Distortion)
The GMs ? Mental Defense is good. Illusionary Inspiration is clunky/buggy, it takes a while before the phantasm gives you Regen, but the trait is good if you have traited Signet.

If you don’t take Illusion, you lose :

Persistence of Memory (which helps for phantasm generation when you shatter)
Illusionist Celerity (20% reduction, this one HURTS to lose).
Phantasmal Haste (is godly with iSword and iDuelist)
Then, you don’t really know which GM to take.

What I only wishes ?

Protected Phantasm (Insp)
Phantasm Fury (Duel)
Phantasmal Haste (Illu)
Illusionist Celerity (Illu)
Empowered Illusions (Dom)

Other ? I can live without.

Silverkey.2078:

“Increases attack speed while wielding a scepter.” that’s exactly what it says!

Ahah, if we are playing with words, yes indeed !

When I was testing the Scepter attack speed, I was wondering if something was weird with my off hand sword when I was spawning iSword, but I didn’t investigate. Looks like something was off !

GG, good work Pyro. Fencer’s Finesse and Malicious Sorcery are my favourite now, they are not OP and makes the Scepter play interesting.

Hardly any nerfs beside Mirror Blade. Other nerfs are fine and expected.
If you think mesmer is still not a strong class, then the traits and bugs carried you before this patch.

Since Poison application with the ranger doesn’t rely on Critical Chance, your trinkets are fine, but you have Sharpened Edges, which relies on that. Maybe change for a precision/condition trinket.

Not a pro ranger and still learning, but :

Pets : Spider is good, you might want Carrion Devourer and Murellow for easier poison AoE.

Traps traits instead of bleeding : Condition cleanse with Healing Spring. Poison Trap.

Your utilities : Poison Trap, Lightning Reflexes (You need that for Stun Break, Condi Removal and getting away from spike) and the last utilities for your taste. Maybe Signet of the Hunt for movement speed, Signet of Stone for damage reduction or Spike Trap for CC/Knockdown.

Not sure about Marksmanship. Maybe Nature Magic for support/condition cleanse or Beastmastery for F2 related traits. Beastly Warden + Murellow is interesting.

Add Sigil of Hydromancy to it :P ! (Hammer 3 swapping legend combo). I know the skill already chills, but the Frost Burst is good. You can put any swapping sigils with that.

Oh wow, I can 10k damage with RF that follows the target with super fast velocity. Here we have a mage strike from a super slow phantasm that can’t aim for its life.

To get 9k with mage strike, it means the person was loaded with conditions. Now targeting phantasms mesmer too ?

This is getting ridiculous.

My GS full dmg phantasm : Domination, Dueling, Inspiration. All signets, all phantasms, some mantras.

Inspiration + Chaos if you want more support and boon. Lots of traits synergy.

I think you should go for sword : Dueling, Inspiration/Domination, Illusion. Phantasmal Haste works with iSword.

Mental Defense and Ineptitude work great with Sword mainhand.

I’m mainly a phantasm player, I play other builds too, but I love phantasm. While I don’t refuse to shatter, I totally agree with OP.

The risk to shatter for the mesmer, in comparison to other class mechanic, is higher. Yes other classes can miss their class mechanic, but they don’t lose their sustain, which phantasms are. Most of classes mechanics are fire and forget, but mesmer are ’’crippled’’ by using it. Having IP and higher clones generations with this patch really helped in general to remove that crippling feeling.

IMO ANet should give love to both builds : shatter and phantasm. Even in condition mesmer, you have 2 decisions to take in consideration : Should I shatter to put more confusion and torment or should I leave my phantasm here so they can stack bleed ? Should I take Phantasmal Haste so my iDuelist recharge its skill faster or MtD ?

Dastion.3106:

Krispera.5087:

Dastion.3106:

Krispera.5087:

Was toying with Scepter and traited the Sword. Scepter attacks give the sword trait, so with a Confusing Image, you can get 8 stack of ferocity from the trait. Intended or not ?

Staff + Chaos Storm + Traited interrupt : Amazing
GS : Those might stacks…

Huge buff damage overall.

What was your offhand weapon?

Yes, I thought it was only applying with sword attacks ?

I mean: was your OH a sword? It might just work on any weapon attack while a sword is equipped. It gives the OH sword a lot more value that way.

Oh yeah sorry, sword was OH. Also, it works with Mantra trait.

Dastion.3106:

Krispera.5087:

Was toying with Scepter and traited the Sword. Scepter attacks give the sword trait, so with a Confusing Image, you can get 8 stack of ferocity from the trait. Intended or not ?

Staff + Chaos Storm + Traited interrupt : Amazing
GS : Those might stacks…

Huge buff damage overall.

What was your offhand weapon?

Yes, I thought it was only applying with sword attacks ?

Was toying with Scepter and traited the Sword. Scepter attacks give the sword trait, so with a Confusing Image, you can get 8 stack of ferocity from the trait. Intended or not ?

Staff + Chaos Storm + Traited interrupt : Amazing
GS : Those might stacks…

Huge buff damage overall.

Why a tanky build ? Maybe a more supportive, ok. Also, you don’t need to shatter your clones if you feel you’re squishy, learn when to shatter or not.

Chaos is a good line for boons/tank. Protection when you have Chaos Armor or Regen.
Inspiration is a good line for support/heal/phantasm/mantra.

Make a build around those tree lines. A phantasm build is good to make you learn about Mesmer mechanics.

If you don’t want to use Focus or go in Chronomancer line, using Chaotic Persistence (Chaos line) should probably band aid and give us near perma swiftness or even perma.

Put yourself some boons to start : Chaos Storm, Chaos Armor or Bountiful Disillusionment, slap Rune of the Pack into it and tada perma swiftness.

In combat, you’ll get perma swiftness for sure if you use the Staff or Boons on shatter or anything giving you boons. I’m currently eyeing Rune of Radiance for theorycrafting purpose (It also gives swiftness when you have an aura and longer Chaos Armor = more reduction = more chaos storm and chaos armor)

I’m very happy with all the changes they did. Buff everything, make everyone happy. Everyone is OP in their own way.

What made me more pleased :

- Sword ferocity
- Listened to the weird cooldown reduction from GS and Scepter. Gave them flat reductions.
- Scepter activating and speed buff, making it interesting with Shield and Sword.

Got interested by :
- Mental Defense: Whenever you successfully block or evade an attack cast Phantasmal Defender on your attacker. This trait benefits from the recharge bonus provided by Illusionist’s Celerity and Persistence of Memory.