Guild Wars 2

Only flat stats (except Vit) work on Phantasms and the 2 damage modifier traits.

From Wiki :

Most of an illusion’s base stats are inherited from the caster:

• Same as mesmer: power, precision, condition damage & duration, boon duration, critical damage, armor, and healing power. Illusions will benefit from the mesmer’s might stacks, as well as any effects that increase the above stats, such as Banner of Discipline or Spotter.

• Not inherited: vitality, i.e. unaffected by weapon strength, sigils, runes, or other mechanics that boost health.

• These stats can be modified by various traits, boons, or conditions.

Like Sticker said, replace Signet of Illusions for Midnight. Change Retaliatory Shield to Blade Training, faster cooldown on Block is better than Retaliation. Retaliation sucks on a mesmer, you don’t want to rely on that. Get IP instead and move your traits down in Illusion line, something like Masterful Reflection, Illusionary Invigoration and IP. IP will give you Distortion when you want/need it, not when your illusions shatter.

I would have went more phantasm focused instead of shatter, but it works too. Runes of Air works well with blocking build. Also, fire + air.

You have no condition removal, remove Signet of Inspiration or Decoy and put Mantra of Resolve.

It’s a fun build, alright, but you won’t go too far with that. Have fun.

I share your sentiment. All those threads about how Chrono is cooler or better than X profession is like something someone would make to lie to himself. Or how our traits are better. No, not really. Their traits work with their other trait tree lines too. Let’s be objective.

So far, DH and Reaper are specializations that cover something the profession was lacking. Guardian : range, got LB. Necro : melee aoe cleave, got GS. I believe one of the problem we have (mesmer) is a lack of main hand options (precisely : power, ranged, main hand). What we got ? A support off hand.

Did we get a shatter rework ? No. They did. I believe necro new DS gonna have new underwater skills too. Not that it’s gonna change everything, but they get in total 20 new skills. Only other profession that can get a weak spec is gonna be warrior or thief.

Levetty.1279:

Simonoly.4352:

Reaper and Dragon Hunter get access to 5 new weapon skills in addition to multiple new profession skills. Traits and utilities are nice things, but it’s your weapon skills and profession skills that provide the necessarily feedback in combat. Mesmer getting just 2 new weapon skills and one new shatter is disappointing comparatively, especially as to use shield you have to basically rely on sword or the horrid awkwardness of sceptre for your main-hand.

I’m really looking forward to Dragon Hunter personally.

Yep, I’m not really seeing where this ‘just as good’ is coming from.

Me neither. All mesmer players are like oooooh alacrity and F5.

DH : 5 skills, virtue rework (3 skills), traps
Reaper : 5 skills, DS rework (5 skills), shouts
CM : 2 skills, F5 (1 skill), wells

No rework. Still stuck with weird scepter (which people ’’believe’’ the weapon will be viable with Quickness and Alacrity) or sword to wear with shield.

I mainly play phantasm mesmer, but I’m not hyped for Chronophantasma. Yes, I do shatter when convenient. I believe the trait is more interesting for a shatter mesmer than a phantasm mesmer.

You’re risking by using CP (Chronophantasma), because your phantasms will go in a melee range where AoE and cleaves kill your phantasms. Most of phantasms are at range when they finish their animation, except Defender, Desenchanter (depends) and Warden. Berserker and Swordman are in mid range and can, sometimes, be in a safe spot. Warlock and Duelist are at range.

Now, your phantasms or clones need to not die before shatter and if they do, your trait is useless. If they didn’t kill your phantasms yet, they are now in melee range and at mercy of AoE and cleaves. That’s why I believe the trait is superior to a shatter mesmer than a phantasm mesmer.

Depending of your weapon/phantasm choices (Warlock, Duelist), the trait is not good. I will try Chronophantasma trait for sure, but I’m not sold yet. Yes, it gives you an opportunity to do more damage, but at what cost ? I believe they won’t let your duelists/phantasms fire a second time after just shattering it. Just thinking at the spike : phantasm attack, shatter, phantasm attack. It’s making traits like Phantasmal Haste and Alacrity useless. If it stays the same (attacking after shatter), I will of course use it.

As for me, I will go Domination/Dueling/Inspiration for pure raw damage. If I want to do a more support oriented phantasm, I’ll go Domination/Chaos/Inspiration. Chaos and Inspiration works well together, they have traits synergy (Perma regen and protection, Chaotic Persistence + Illusionary Inspiration)

Open PvE, I will, the damage ones.

PvP, maybe Gravity Well. In PvP, you’ll need to have blink + condi remover + stun break, which none of Wells have. Maybe if I trait in Inspiration for Mender’s Purity, I won’t have many choices in my utilities.

Mikkel.8427:

Looking for Chronomancer’s “Something just as good”

Revamped profession mechanics- Even though Guard’s mechanics were already useful in all mediums of play. While Mes mechanics are ignored in many builds, and basically useless in PvE. BUT we need to stop being lazy and use shatters anyway because blowing up half our damage and a good portion of our utility is a good thing! (???)

2-hand weapon- Enough said.

More damage modifiers- Because Guard struggled to keep a place in the meta (right? right?)

Thematically and graphically, I love what they did with Mes; extremely cool. The traits are going to have to be OUTSTANDING to compete with the only other Elite we’ve seen so far…. and I’m highly doubting that to be the case.

Then we have alacrity… but from our presentation it looked like we’ll have extremely limited access to it, and for ‘balance’ purposes they’ve put long cooldowns on shield and well skills nullifying its benefit.

Am i missing something? Maybe i need to watch the videos again.

Mesmers are overrating alacrity and F5. Alacrity is a, plain, cooldown reduction. I don’t know but the new weapon traits cooldown reduction look like a nerf to me. GS : 2% cooldown reduction on Spatial Surge (You have 3 phantasms ? Oh well, sucks for you), Interrupting on Pistol recharges 50 % (Did you miss your interrupt ? Though luck, get better), Staff and Chaos Armor (Go in the fields and get your Chaos Armor ! Oops, you got a Fire Aura instead), Scepter and Confusion. It’s like they made Alacrity to make up for it. Nerf you somehwere and give you an another mechanic to compensate. More active play I guess.

F5 is a reset button that leave you some seconds to do your stuff and rewind back. Interesting, but that’s it.

Let’s look at the shield now. A shatter fodder phantasm on block. It needs a charging time and it blocks ONE TIME. 2 if you block (Deja Vu). Why can’t we get long blocks (old mimic) ? Guardians, Warrior, Rangers, Engi have it ? If you’re familiar with off hand sword block and scepter block, there’s an after cast. If you don’t let your character do the after cast, it doesn’t do any damage. While you block ONE attack, you receive other damage sources. Super clunky. I bet the phantasm damage will suck like iMage, iDefender, iDesenchanter because it’s a ’’support’’ phantasm.

Tides of Time is a long cooldown skill. Oh yeah, let’s use that F5 to reduce your cooldown to 20 secs instead of 30 secs. The AA from the guardian longbow do the same damage as this skill. THE AA.

Then we get wells. Traps is constant damage (We don’t know yet about the arming time). Well is huge damage at the end. They want to remove Gravity Well (120s cooldown) float, but yet Dragon’s Maw (60s cooldown) have a 4 secs barrier and do more damage than Gravity Well. I know, it’s a clunky comparison (apples and oranges), but I just want to make you guys see the differences.

Guardians got a Virtue rework. We got ONE new shatter.

Where is our something as good for having an off hand ? I don’t see it either.

I actually like both. I believe Anet didn’t show enough in the DH blog in comparison to Chrono. It’s too quick to judge, let’s wait tomorrow.

The Guardian players QQ tho… It’s like each classes have a certain demographic…

We should be get better in the AoE departement with Wells in HoT.

Weapons : Fused GS, FDS, Rodgort, Fused Pistol, Emberglow, Bloodseeker, Whisperer Staff, Mad Memoires.

Stormbolt.7293:

Domination: Confounding Suggestions, Furious Interruption, Power Block

Chaos: Master of Manipulation, Mirror of Anguish, Chaotic Interruption

Chrono with illusion traits

Ether feast, blink, arcane thievery, Well of Action

Sword/Shield + GS. 15 sec cooldowns, damage, stuns, and immobilization on interrupts.
Cripple and Slow from phantasms, almost constant alacrity on me. Attempting to use CC on me will also cause interrupts. You can’t play against this.

Was thinking the same build but with staff instead. AoE focused mesmer.

Domination : Confounding Suggestions, Furious Interruption, Power Block
Chaos : Master of Manipulation, Chaotic Dampening, Chaotic Interruption
Chrono : With wells/lockdown oriented traits.

Since Wells skills are ethereal, it means more Chaos Armor and faster staff cooldown reduction = more Chaos Storm.

Utilities : Well of Eternity (Maybe not), Blink, Well of Calamity, Mantra of Resolve.

Well of Recall is interesting for a Phantasm build. I also wonder if Chronophantasm will only work on Shatter or they will pop back if they get killed. Could be a game changer here for phantasm build. If not, I don’t know if many phantasm mesmer will go Chrono.

Shatters build looks good in Chronomancer (Illusionary Reversion + DE, gonna be crazy. Duel/Illusion/Chrono). Condition Mesmer, maybe not.

Oh well we don’t know all the traits yet, but just theorycrafting.

My character is not very mesmerish, but I really wanted Sclerite shield for a long time. Only to see the skin at 400G today…

Guess I’ll stay with Lovestruck pink sparkles.

keenlam.4753:

Phantasmal Fury has always been in Dueling traitline and almost every PvE mesmers grab it. I dont get why people just suddenly complain about its placement now. Has anyone been complaining about it for, you know, the last two years since launch?

Because in HoT, if you choose a line, you need to go all the way in. They changed lots of traits around too, so why not Phantasmal Fury ?

I’m alright with Phantasmal Fury being there, even if I complained. Just wish it was somewhere else.

I don’t think you are the only one confused about phantasmal fury placement. There’s nothing else for phantasms in this trait line (Well, maybe Sword, Harmonious Mantra ferocity stacking and the minor traits of condi on hit). Worst, there’s DE and we know it doesn’t work well with a phantasm build.

Xaylin.1860:

The new Trap utilities won’t go to Thieves or Rangers. I really don’t get why people keep mentioning it. Those classes already got Traps. Specializations will bring new utilities. There is no point in providing a class with two full sets of Traps.

Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it after answering on the thread. I wouldn’t be surprised that shatter becomes AoE traps that can be activated. That would help us in the AoE departement.

/hype intensifies.

Aw, the hype is already killing me. Why tomorrow Anet ! Please, today !

We have no trap traits. I don’t even know where that speculation came from. It’s either Ranger or Thief spec.

I normally play phantasm build and I’m upset by the lack of buff in HoT. It’s a pretty bad tree when I think about it. I just realized Protected Phantasm is on a 10 sec cooldown. There’s nothing interesting for phantasm anymore if it stays like that.

I guess they took Triumphant Distortion and didn’t bother to change the cooldown/tooltip or didn’t understand (hope not) that the cooldown was applied to the distortion you received when you killed something.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Illusionary Inspiration: I asked a dev about this trait and they said they were not done with it. I would give them a little more time but yea, the cd is too long.

Same thing happens here, bad tooltip description. The cooldown is about Signet of Inspiration. I guess there’s no cooldown on the signet active boon sharing, which is not that bad I guess.

Also, there is no trait I want beside Mender’s Purity.

I guess you could theorycraft and make a Domination/Chaos/Inspiration support phantasm (and loosing Phantasmal Fury or you can always go Dom/Duel/Insp for full power phantasm), but as many posters said already, support/healing power in mesmer is bad. I can see a Chaos/Inspiration mix with Illusionnary Inspiration/Chaotic Persistence/PU.

I don’t know why Phantasmal Fury is still in Dueling when there’s nothing else for phantasm (except the bleeding and confusion on crit).

Yes you can cast it from behind now. We couldn’t before, you needed LoS.

Don’t get a cardiac arrest, it is : 2/2/3/4/3.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8dnsISZaWoGWqB3aKx1QM3nTWcH6qSqAlqCA-TpxGABAcBAaqMQBHEgcPCAm9AA4Y/BA

Intentions : I went different, phantasm support. I figured most of people would go bunker/support and I was not wrong. So, I carry the NPC and the heroes. Defense when nobody do it.

Results : Turned out well. I won 60-70% of the game so far, but I’ve been communicating a lot. iDesenchanter remove the bunkers boons so they are losing their buffs. iDefender helps the NPCs/Heroes. iWarden reflects. Temporal Curtains/iWave to slow and interrupt people to your NPCs or Lord or Channeling. Rune of Dwayna gives enough regeneration to allies/yourself + Signet of the Ether. Just a fun build, totally different from shatter or lockdown mesmer meta.

I also tried support mantra. I hated chanting everytime I wanted to support.

Remove the supply/npc thing and it becomes pug friendly (like a real moba). If it stays like that, I’m with you, it’s premades paradise. You can’t expect pug to communicate.

Boon strip. iDisenchanter always have a special spot for me.

This phantasm is going to be even more useful with the new stability.

Most of time, on Reddit, when they do survey, mesmer is in the middle. Engineers and Necros are at the end.

WvW, I see them, but we see more other classes (GWEN). PvP and PvE I see them quite often.

The Revenant have so many blast finisher and a 100% projectile finisher on the hammer AA. While they nerfed (bug) our iDuelist…

Don’t think they will give many more finishers to us.

Swish.2463:

Ithilwen.1529:

what do you mean it doesn’t sound Mesmerish? it sounds totally Mesmer.

Taunt is a classic mechanic from all the way back in D&D

Mostly relegated and used by the Tanks or Brawling classes and players that needed/wanted to keep an opponent nearby and from attacking and charging at squishier allies.

As a squish-ish mesmer that has to use a lot of active defense idk if i’d want the enemy thief running at me even if it were taunted.. auto attacks still hurt from a lot of the classes i meet in PvP

Well GW2 is a little more innovative when it comes to things.

Put confusion -> taunt -> blurred frenzy = profit.

Maybe stuff based on signet like Blurred Inscription or Masterful Reflection on an taunted bow ranger ? It works even better since we can do Blinding Befuddlement. Signet of Midnight -> Confusion -> Blind + Invul. I’m of course theorycrafting here, don’t know how it’s going to be when it’s live, but we have tools we can use with taunt.

Just gotta be creative for a short taunt.

Also, we have block on scepter and sword, chaos armor, etc.

Just answered you on reddit, but no, it doesn’t work. It applies after and Signet of Inspiration applies only the boons you had before the end of the channeling. Only way to share aegis is to use Signet of Midnight and then Signet of Inspiration.

Just don’t do it. Leave it to guardians.

Spear would be very good.
Trident would be staff 2.0. The attack speed and bounce is killer. I love to use Trident as a power mesmer. When Raid on the Capricorn existed, I always won with it. The bouncing just get insane.

iMage still useless :

- Bouncing one time on enemy. It could actually be good if it worked like Mirror Blade.
- Pathing and speed.

Devs should just rework the trait and remove the condi removal if it’s scaring them to buff the torch. I believe that most of mesmers use Mender’s Purity or MoR for condi removal anyway.

In general ? Beside Deception. Meh.

I’m a Me/W.

15 char.

I go s/p + staff lockdown 6/2/6/0/0 or gs/staff phantasm 4/6/0/0/4 with idesenchanter to mess with booners/tanks.

I normally play classic phantasm build, such as s/f and gs, but I really love to play blocking mesmer.

Scepter/Sword. 0/6/0/5/3 with Rune of Air + Sigil of Air + Flame and blink/MoR/iDesenchanter as utilities. Mostly use GS or S/P as second weapons.

Most of time people don’t know how they died. It reminds me of Backfire/Clumsiness/Images of Remorse/Empathy from GW1.

Line of sight ? Not targeted ?

I never had any problems with Spatial Surge, can you be more specific ?

I play full phantasm in LS. I always bring iDisenchanter, lots of mobs with boon spamming and condi now (in LS). Never really had problems since then.

As Fay, my default is s/f+gs in PvE/LS.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

On the side note, the wiki (updated at about a year ago) said its bugged with IP, causing restorative illusions to heal twice as much. Does this bug still happens?

’’bug’’, yes, it still happens. If they nerf it, it’s going to be an over nerf. Nobody use it anyway…

I guess it could work with Zealot stats, but like you said, the healing power scaling is terrible.

Ross Biddle.2367:

It’s not that Shatter is a bad thing, rather that there’s no flexibility in shatter builds. 4 4 0 0 6 works because it’s 4 4 0 0 6. You can’t take anything away from the setup because at that point it ceases working.

Exactly. Nobody use GM : Bountiful Disillusionment, Restorative Illusions, Shattered Conditions, Imbued Diversion (Why use this one when you have IP on the same branch and Mantra of Distraction do the same work?). IP and DE are nearly obligations in shatter builds.

Seyiwaji.4082:

Carighan.6758:

Problem is it’d make no sense comparing the other Phantasms. none of those evade while attacking, well ok, Mariner, but that’s incidentally his special ability, that he evades. The Zerker has a crippling AE attack as a special.

you missunderstood my post.

And the other replay too. I am comparing the Skill wirlwind attack, from berserker and other class similar skill. They all evade. but the berserker not.
It should evade aswell.

What do you want ? That everyone use the same mechanics if the skills look alike ? Why is Healing Signet better than Signet of the Ether ? Flurry vs Blurred Frenzy vs Pistol Whip ? It’s the same kind of questions.

For iBerserk and Whirlwind, it’s because the Warrior is taking a risk to move in the battle field while the mesmer just spawn it at 1200 range, without taking damage/conditions from enemies and also buff like retaliation.

Just use Triumphant Distortion. Feels like it was specially made for iBerserk.

Wyrden.4713:

shatter build w full dmg (6 2 0 0 6) mirror image + decoy + blink

blink to enemy, decoy + mirror image + mindwrack- win

could kill zerkers!

(actually idk, worth a try tho)

Ahah, tried for the lulz and mesmer doesn’t spawn clones without a weapon. I guess we could play mantras/lockdown or play with iDesenchanter + iDefender for shatters.

Ehh, I just listen to old school hiphop, RnB, PBR&B. Some Vocal Trance and Majestic Casual on YouTube for the chill/relax feel. I’m very relaxed when I play video games.

Childish Gambino – Telegraph Ave
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3f-eDzkxcw

Not really mesmering though…

No crutch. Scepter would be one ;d.

I always used staff as a power weapon. I don’t like the slow killing condi with staff. Slap Air+Flame, IE, Runes of Rage… You get an annoying mid range teleporting mind game weapon.

I’m more relaxed when I play staff, period.

Then the person get sniped by Mage Strike. I actually get ‘’ WTF MAGE STRIKE ? ’’ often. Yah, well, in an encounter, you can get iLock for a while so it can adds up the damage to over 10k-15k damage.

I use Staff over GS in PvP and GS over Staff in PvE.

Curunen.8729:

Bit fed up with traveler pigeonholing – like to try the theme of air sigils + air runes.

In addition to that, is anyone still using air runes with mirror heal? Seems a bit lackluster now – could do with ~1k more healing and ~5s more swiftness.

Try Centaur. Perma swiftness with MoR or Mirror.

I don’t get the problem. We have reliable way to remove conditions.

If you use Mender’s Purity and Mantra of Recovery, you can get 4-6 condition remover with a single healing skill. If you don’t want to use the trait, use Mantra of Resolve.

As for Disenchanter, this thing is a beast. I mainly use it to counter bunkers and booners and the condi removal is a plus.

Stop thinking you absolutely need DE and Decoy to play a mesmer is the first step.

Fay.2357:

Back in the heyday of the Immortal build, the leap combo with iLeap and temporal curtain was extremely reliable and worked great. At some point though, they changed something about the field. It suddenly became incredibly difficult to reliably combo on it—the only reliable way was basically leaping down along its length, not across it.

Now, however, iLeap isn’t a normal leap. It’s near impossible to control where the clone ends up, so you can’t guarantee that it actually lands on the curtain for a leap combo. Basically, in normal play you’ll get maybe 1/10 leaps to actually work on curtain, and that’s a big problem.

I was about to make a thread about it, but then thought I must do something wrong or just being a noob. I still don’t know how to procc it reliably.

IMO, GS clones bleed stack faster IF you have higher crit chance. Staff clones have the opportunity to bleed 1/3 of time AND also on crit.

If you wand a rapid bleed stack and at range, GS is better. They can crit (bleed) 3 times on a single rotation. If you want to play moderate build up at mid range, staff is better. IE will only works if your clones or you are in range of Winds of Chaos.

GS is an unusual game style for condition, but it can be both, power and condi.

To answer the thread, I don’t hate any mesmers. Even if they play ’’easy’’ or ’’cheap’’ builds. If I decided to play an another build, then I suck it up and assume my build.

Phantasms in 10-15 and zergs will get a little buff next patch with Triumphant Distortion, but that’s pretty much it…

Xour.5732:

Here’s the deal: I like the GS, and even though I know it doesn’t get much love, I would like to use it as my main weapon.

Majority of mesmers in PvE open world use GS and Sword. GS haters and min-maxers are just too vocal and it makes new people confused.

Just change your Medic’s Feedback to Mender’s Purity and it’s a good build. Also, maybe Mantra of Resolve instead of Null Field. Have fun !

Let’s brainstorm ! If you’re bored with the power meta in mesmer, it’s always interesting to theorycraft.

IMO, Mantra of Pain with Restorative Mantra is annoying to play. You keep charging and charging, over again. Guardians and Eles do it better. Restorative Mantra looks more usefull for Mantra of Recovery, because you’ll get an instant heal after your charging, which can be crucial.

Maybe Phantasms will give better healing/support than spammy mantra builds. For the lul, in PvP, I tried full cleric with idesenchanter, idefender, sigil of water and it turned out fine.

LOL ! So much for mind game, ANet… Now we will have to hope that our clone won’t die before reaching destination and I’m not even adding up the terrible pathing.

Fay.2357:

Krispera.5087:

Would love iZerker to be cast like Whirlwind Attack, but only the phantasm moves, but I guess people would hate it, because you don’t need line of sight to cast phantasms…

You absolutely need LoS to cast phantasms. You didn’t used to, and it was a wonderful time, but that was within the first 6 months of the game iirc.

Yeah I knew those times, but I was talking the situation when you could be behind them and still be able to cast a phantasm, which is still possible.

I wanted more a cleaving phantasm projectile (crazy talk named by Ross Biddle). Yah, I know, it’s crazy talk. I just wish we had better AoE.

And also (not concerned by Pyro or Ross in this thread), can you… please stop the toxicity in mesmer forum. I’m posting less and less in this forum because everyone is being leet (lel) and judging everyone. Let’s be more helpful and constructive. Not only top 10 world mesmer have something to say.

Let’s keep GW2 casual. If you want hardcore, go back to WoW or start Wildstar.

Would love iZerker to be cast like Whirlwind Attack, but only the phantasm moves, but I guess people would hate it, because you don’t need line of sight to cast phantasms…