Guild Wars 2

atheria.2837:

Pyroatheist.9031:

@wookie: I think you misunderstand how I designed this build to be played, and additionally why I take the scepter and sword over the greatsword, for example. This build relies purely on the phantasms for damage, and on everything else for defense. Using skills like blurred frenzy for offense reduces your defense. The point of the trait setup and gear is that you don’t need to augment the damage from your phantasms. They are enough to tear apart any build in the game in short order.

Due to the fact that your phantasms are enough dps to handle any build, you have the luxury of utilizing all of your other skills for defense.

I am trying the build now and getting torn to shreds in spvp…

As noted at the start of the guide, there is a very short list of things this build does well. While you can run it in sPvP, you will get destroyed if multiple competent people attack you.

I just want to make it clear. I made this guide because I’ve been fielding a lot of questions about this build recently. I do not run this build often, because it isn’t great at doing most things. I never intended this build to be effective at sPvP, or wvw, and maybe someone can find a good place for it in tPvP. Ultimately, this is an amusing dueling build that I put together, and that’s really it.

Let’s make this a tad more reasonable

Increase Pistol dmage by 15%.
Increases Vital Shot to 100% projectile finisher (why is not it already?)
Increase pistol range by 20%.

Moonrabbit.1543:

Blackmoon.6837:

Mesmers may have good bursts, however, getting that damage through is a whole other story.

It’s easy to dodge the bursts. Easy to kill the illusions before a burst. Easy to use boons to block or go invul before a burst.

In the long run, we’re not superb.

I am thinking of dungeons where boons and invulnerability are a minimal concern. In this environment, how does a mesmer stack against an ele, necro, eng, or ranger when specced for dps (ST or AoE)? I am aware of the mesmer’s strong utility and weak OOC mobility. However, I have seen mixed assertions regarding damage capabilities.

Mesmer single target damage when specced for phantasm damage is difficult to beat. Aoe is significantly weaker though.

alexparris.3754:

Pyroatheist.9031:

3. Mesmers tank quite well. However, I would never run my tank build in pve.

Do you find it expensive switching between a PVE and WvW spec, or do you tend to do more WvW? I’d like to run Phantasm for PVE and your Immortal Build for WvW (as we discussed in your thread)

To the original poster- I found greatsword or staff with sword/focus a great way to level, focusing on phantasms to do good damage, but also provide great damage myself.

Well, not quite sure what you mean by expensive. At this point, I have 3 fully unique sets of level 80 exotic/ascended gear, but I get all my gear from running dungeons and such, so it’s not really expensive. If you mean the retraiting costs…hahah no.

Targets can only be removed by stealth. Spawning clones will not remove a target. Mesmers have quite limited availability of stealth compared to, say, a thief.

Your entire rant is based on a false premise.

/thread

Dayra.7405:

Yes and that only shows that JQ is (likely still better, but) not that much better than FC or GOM than the current broken ranking suggests.

That’s cute. Please tell me you don’t really believe that JQ wouldn’t completely obliterate any server below probably t2? Not even our NNK/TFV zergs would be able to gain a foothold against JQ, your idea is absolutely ludicrous.

iAmTheDuke.6201:

OnlyFate.8549:

iAmTheDuke.6201:

Man oh man…
Couldn’t take garrison even with two servers working together.
Such a shame….

I think that is exactly the reason for not able to get the garrison, both server fight each other and the remaining killed by Mag

Huh, weird how DB were at inner water gate and YB at West inner gate and didn’t touch each other once.
All I have to ask is how much gold did Yaks pay DB commanders to do a simultaneous attack?

Generally the modus operandi of BP when assaulting the same thing as yak’s is let them do the dirty work for us, then mop up the remains…

Ryn.6459:

Feeling so noob… So, another question. Any tip to control where the warden is spawn?

Spawns on the target. That’s it.

Ryn.6459:

Pyroatheist.9031:

I actually went full on into it with 30/0/0/10/30 for 1700 cd and confusion stacks that last 10+ seconds.

Is Temporal Enchanter worthy?

And also, Pyro which traits do you pick in Domination (guess that V, VIII and ?)

Thanks guys.

I’ve actually since dropped 10 points from domination into inspiration, for the reason that I was actually capping out at over the 10 second confusion duration hardcap….making those extra 10 points useless. I now use confusion on glamour and clone cripple in domination. Glamour cooldowns and focus trait swapped with glamour duration depending on the situation in inspiration.

Fengist.5739:

Oh, and the other reason I like this build so far… I have an 80 ele that I took d/d and nobody told me beforehand that you had to take crack cocaine to effectively play that build. This one I can do quite well with just caffeine and, I hope, achieve the same results.

Yes, well we all know that video game excellence corresponds directly to blood stimulant level. I use a monster IV drip myself…

@Alexparris: This build works fine in PvE. It’s just fine though. It stays alive. It does mediocre damage for the most part. It’s ok. The thing is, by taking this build, you miss out on a ton of utility that other builds can provide for your party, you miss out on a lot of damage you can have without losing much survivability, it’s just overall not as good for PvE because you don’t have to invest so much in survivability in PvE to stay alive and not take damage. It’s total overkill for PvE, and loses damage and group utility in obtaining that level of overkill.

alexparris.3754:

This looks great. Going to give it a go this week. I am about to try your Phantasm build first and see how that plays and then I will be swapping to this. Need to farm some karma and tokens for the Exotic PVT gear, as I don’t have much gold and can only properly afford rares right now

I recommend doing ac runs for the Pvt gear, if you aren’t one of those that equates dungeon running to flaying themselves with a spork (as was an analogy made earlier in this thread). Just make sure you find a couple people who know what they’re doing. Ac really isn’t very tough, despite the large numbers of people complaining about it. You can also get a nearly full set of Pvt gear from orr karma vendors if you have excess karma lying around.

@Windwalker: Good to see you’re having fun with your adaptation of it.

As far as team fights in s/tPvP go, I usually try to hang around corners and just keep summoning phantasms on that one annoying thief or something. I also usually take null field in tPvP, that way I get some team utility out of the build too.

@Thorment: The berserker doesn’t keep getting nerfed, it keeps getting broken. Every patch that comes out, it gets broken, and anet goes “oh crap, we didn’t mean to do that” yet they keep breaking it. Don’t really feel like explaining how broken it is right now.

Fengist.5739:

I"m missing something guys. After reading this thread I’ve decided to lvl up a mesmer and give this a shot. I’ve only gotten him into the mid 20’s so far and starting at about lvl 15, even pve got to be fun. (still not brave enough to go into wvw without the 2h yet) Got the combo fields down pretty well, thanks for all the explanation. But I’ve looked everything over and not sure how phant regen it’s acquired. Is there some trait or ?? that I need to get them to cast this? So far, mine aren’t.

Regeneration comes from the 15 point minor trait in inspiration. I honestly don’t recommend this build for leveling, as it has so many high level trait dependent functions, although you certainly can use it, if you like the playstyle.

Thorment.7945:

this are my 2 cents here: personally i prefer using gs over scepter/sw simply because it is more reliable: pets, illusions, minions or even rock dogs will block the melee shots of the phantasmal duelist. the phantasmal berserker insta-spawns directly next to the target when casted and is an aoe making it effective against strafing opponents. Additionally, blind can be easily removed using gs autoattack.

A limitation of the sw/scepter blocks are multi-hit attacks. I’ve had problems fighting hammer, mace/shield wars before using this build. Decoy, bf, and blink can only do so much against good kd/daze builds.

@Reven: yeah this build needs more condition removal. like wookie said, disenchanter, null field and AThievery are good alternatives to replace the signet with. In group fights disenchanters are the better choice because it gets the benefit from traits (recharge and hp). I use both disenchanter and AT as I find I can survive most tpvp situations with one blink and blurred frenzy.

GS may be many things, but saying that the berserker is reliable is unfortunately rather hilarious. It is our least reliable skill, mainly because Anet insists on breaking it every kitten patch.

Multihit attacks are a problem for the blocks of course. That’s why you use blurred frenzy for multihit attacks, and use blocks for things like dazes and knockbacks, which are almost all single hit attacks.

Aberrant.6749:

Dub.1273:

Mesmer > Guardian in many cases, called Feedback.

You do know guards get wall of reflection, right?

Feedback is better because it gets placed on the mob, and so will return anything it uses, can lead to much higher damage returns in a lot of situations.

Wall of reflection is better because it lasts longer and is a gtaoe, so you can place it to maximum effectiveness.

…

Yeah, Benjamin is pretty spot on.

1. Both are viable in PvP, albeit in vastly different situations and builds…you don’t really need to worry about that until you hit 80 and want to figure out a pvp build. Condition mesmer is a horrific choice in PvE though…don’t do it.

2. Depends on build. I found using a phantasm build for leveling tended to be easier, but shatter builds are also highly efficient. It ultimately comes down to personal choice. In PvE, clones are pretty much primarily shatter fodder while phantasms are the business end of your illusions.

3. Mesmers tank quite well. However, I would never run my tank build in pve. Mesmers bring so much more to a team if built and played right, while the tank build just sorta stays alive. As far as survival goes though, mesmers have massive amounts of defensive utility such as tons of projectile reflects, along with tons of active defense like 2 seconds invulnerability on sword 2 (10s/8s cooldown).

4. This depends on the flavor of the fight. Some fights are better melee, some are better ranged, some you can choose. Mesmers excel at both ranges, as sword is probably one of the best weapons in the game in terms of utility, defense, and damage, and greatsword or staff are both fantastic ranged choices. Scepter sucks hard though, especially in PvE, there is really no purpose for it. Generally, I will carry around a greatsword, staff, 2 swords, a pistol, and a focus, and swap them around based on what I’m fighting.

5. Toon is a common term for character in pretty much every game I’ve ever played. Irena seems to suffer from a bit of term ignorance there.

Edit: Just noticed you felt a bit lost in terms of guides and such. Lazy Kai’s PvE guide is the best leveling guide out there, found here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Lazy-Kai-s-Guide-to-PvE-Leveling-Guide/first

I wouldn’t say any class is a “must” in a dungeon party.

However, mesmers and guardians are the 2 classes that would be considered “musts”. Both have unbelievable utility, and having 1 of each in your party will make your runs of any content in the game go so much smoother.

Mesmer’s definitely dps better than guardians, in response to that question, for what it’s worth anyway.

In PvP/WvW, mesmers and guardians do different things. Guardians are more interruption, they can do a lot of group condition removal and buffing, and they have great area denial skills like sanctuary, line of warding, and circle of warding. Mesmers have portal of course. Additionally, mesmers have the best zergbusting skillset in the game with glamours. They can provide good ranged dps with greatsword, and are fantastic in smaller skirmish parties.

Valtrex.2895:

My skills go off 2x faster now in Mags BL, I think we broke the server :O
Sowwy mags :*(

I remember that happening once after a claw of jormag fight. Was really strange.

World completion star got fixed, btw.

Tbh, best to just stop bumping this. It’ll be off the front page in 3 hours.

I’m pretty sure it’s less than summoning range. Around 900 range sounds closer to the correct value.

@Arganthium: You say that if you look at 1/10 of a second of video that you wouldn’t be able to tell which one the mesmer is. That’s because you’re starting in the middle.

Take a video of a mesmer from the very start of a fight, and break it up into small segments. In each segment, you can tell which mesmer is the real one, because you simply follow them. If you close your eyes for 5 seconds and then look at the screen again, then maybe it’ll take you a second or two to find the real mesmer again. The thing is, when I fight a mesmer, I know which one is the real mesmer 100% of the time. If they don’t go invisible, I simply follow them. Once they start losing hp, its the only one with lower hp. If they go invislble, it’s the one that just became visible.

There’s also that setting thing you can do where you turn off npc names and only the player will have a name bar. I don’t need to do this, but it certainly is an easy way out.

This is the very basis of the fault of your argument. You are talking from a perspective that is 100% and completely wrong. You can defend it all you want, you can have whatever opinion that you want, but it won’t ever make you any less wrong.

@Arganthium: The problem is that you’re making a few assumptions that don’t line up.

You say: Deceptive evasion allows people to figure out which is the real mesmer.

Here is the problem. If you make your assumption that this person would not know the real mesmer without deceptive evasion or a normal dodge roll, then you also have to make the assumption that this person is hopelessly inexperienced at pvp, or at the very least fighting mesmers, and will get absolutely roflstomped by any even slightly competent mesmer.

The key point here is general competence. When you pvp, you assume your opponent is competent (with the exception of a zergbusting glamour build, but that’s a special case). For mesmers, assuming competence means that you are assuming your opponent will figure out which one is the real mesmer very quickly. Playing based off of that assumption is the right way to play, because a playstyle that works well in that assumption will work even better if your opponent is incompetent.

That really is the basic thing wrong with your advice. You advise us to assume incompetence on the part of the opponent, and that is not a good way to base your playstyle and build.

Pretty much every non-stealth build on thieves is varying degrees of crap. The lifesteal build is no longer viable since the nerf to the foods. LDB is happily countered by simply walking away from the thief until all his initiative is gone. P/P builds are horrific, and you barely even have to try to counter them as a mesmer. Any non-stealth attack is easily countered by dodging, using LoS with clones, or abusing the massive amounts of active defense a mesmer has. Additionally, a visible thief is a vulnerable thief. Mesmers have lots of hard cc and disables like immobilize on very short cooldowns, and a thief that tries to duke it out with a mesmer without using stealth as an escape is going to die very VERY fast.

Edit: All of this is applying mainly to normal shatter/condie/w/e mesmer builds. If you’re talking about my immortal build, then it hardcounters all of the builds you listed there pretty much by standing in one spot afk, and my OP phantasm build counters them pretty much by pressing 2 buttons for phantasms.

@Limey: My normal opener is swordsman, duelist, stun.

@Aberrant: I’m fairly sure that blocks don’t work at all. I’ll test this out with shield stance later tonight. Since blinds last a decent time, they’re obviously a good phantasm blocker, it’s just the dodge I could never get to work.

But yeah, that’s what gblast ex spam + time dodge is for. Lotsa get out of jail free cards if you do it right. Just a shame the time dodge cd couldn’t be lowered at all.

With 0% critical damage, your crits will hit for 150% normal damage. Therefor, with 90% critical damage, the crits will hit for 240% normal damage.

For multihit attacks, such as the duelist, or blurred frenzy, the number you see is a running total of the damage output by that attack. You can see the damage per hit in the damage log (or not, because the gw2 damage log is so unbelievably deficient it blows the mind).

@Arganthium: As snarky as that comment may have been, it contained some truth. Thieves are extremely predictable. They have to be. You stealth, and you have a short window of time to use that stealth before you have to start over. Since mesmers have so much active defense, it is very possible to completely ruin the rhythm and attacks of a thief.

Stealth, wait a beat, blurred frenzy. You have no option but to waste that stealth, or hit a clone or phantasm or something. Repeating that sort of thing with other active defenses, burning two dodges to do the same thing, this can completely ruin the damage potential of a thief. Yes, you’re using up your active defense a lot, but against a thief, that’s all that matters. If you can completely ruin their ability to use stealth attacks, the thief loses.

Limey.2769:

Decided to try this out, my swordsman doesnt seem to crit at all on the practice dummies…. I’ve had 3 swordsmen hitting the dummies for a few minutes, zero crits…. this is with 48% innate crit and the trait for fury on phants. They’re hitting for 2200ish per go… that’s not crit damage, right?

It’s not possible to crit on objects.

As others have stated, use a glamour build. Look up Kylias for a real good one. You will instantly become the most dangerous person in your entire zerg.

@bhagwad: That’s precisely what happens.

HGH is strong, but shouldn’t get nerfed. It relies on stacking a boon, and any build that functions with boon stacking is automatically vulnerable to boon removal. Take a Mesmer or a necromancer, and HGH is suddenly worthless, doubly so if the Mesmer is specced for boon stealing.

It’s strong, but has definite and easy to use counters.

I’m sure Osi will do great things with it. Make sure you guys tape that, I want to see how that goes.

@esplen: osis thread actually for stickied but yeah =p.

Since gw2 footage is used in the channels, I’m pretty sure that can’t be monetized, don’t quote me on that one though.

@Amadeus: I would still have decoy and blink. I would drop the signet for the mantra condition cleanse.

Neither phantasm will be kited through your aoes easily. Duelists tend to remain in one spot, and have either 900 or 1200 range on their attack. Swordsmen are interesting. They spawn, do their leaping attack, and leap back out of range. They will then stay still until the next attack unless something gets really close, then they’ll actually run back out of range. It’s a really nice mechanic.

As far as dodging/blinding the phantasm cast goes, I know that it’s supposed to be possible to dodge, but I’ve never seen it done. I’ve actually done tests where I tried to dodge a phantasm cast on me over and over, and I was never able to do it even a single time. Blocks also won’t work, those don’t trigger unless you actually get hit. Invuln skills do work, like blurred frenzy or that elixer, but mainly you’ll have to use blinds. Thing is, your only long range blind is static shot, so I can just stop the cast and do it again a moment later.

I really wish I could duel you, because I have my doubts about you staying in melee range. All of my skills and whatnot are just used defensively to avoid getting caught in melee range. The bomb kit in particular will be tough to hit me with because of the delay on it.

With ether feast and the mantra heal, ether feast definitely outheals it. The thing is, if you consider the additional condition removals the mantra gives (2x as many on half the cooldown) it probably will come out ahead, especially with poison involved.

Also remember always how bad the phantasms hurt =p. your build doesn’t sound extremely durable, so the swordsmen would probably hit for about 4-5k. The opening of the fight usually involves both phantasms and a stun, and they chunk you for usually around 7-10k when all is said and done. It’s painful to try to survive them.

In pvp, it’s an interesting, albeit mainly useless build primarily designed to produce the maximum amount of curses from your fighting target.

No use in pve at all, it’s a really bad idea, unfortunately.

Mr Fancypants.1270:

will the Immortal Mesmer go down fast against this phantasm build?

If I try to stay and fight, yes. I could easily run away…but that of course defeats the purpose of having a tank build.

An experience like that was actually how I created this build in the first place. The guy I fought was actually using sword/pistol and sword, but I decided to toss on the scepter for the additional defense.

@wookie: The swordsmen attack every 3 seconds or so. That’s not a whole lot of time. Duelists are on a slightly longer recharge, at around 6.5ish seconds. Still not very much time. Trying to attack a mesmer inbetween those phantasm attacks when the mesmer is actively running away and has blocks and a 2s invuln to pop whenever is a very difficult task.

@wookie: The thing about the phantasms is that they aren’t burst. They are sustained dps. They are difficult to kill, difficult to dodge, and can be resummoned faster than they can be killed. They do massive damage, and keep that massive damage sustained at a high rate. You summon them, forget about them, and they act as your own personal chainsaws, eating at your opponent. You then use the rest of your skills to avoid any heat that your opponent tries to apply on you. Normally using all of your time to avoid things will mean you do no damage, but with your phantasms eating them, your opponent will die quickly.

I really need to get up some video of this build in action.

@Amadeus: You won’t actually have +60% duration, due to how it’s calculated. Say you have a burn lasting 10 seconds. With 100% duration, it now lasts 20 seconds. However, since condition duration is calculated after addition, against a target with the -40% food, the burn will last 12 seconds, or a total of only +20% duration. Might not make a huge difference in overall dps, but an important distinction to make nonetheless.

Seeing as you have so much melee, I would be interested in seeing how easily you maintain melee range. With proper use of blocks of blurred frenzy to dodge the magnet pull, it could be difficult for you to close range, when I can use blink to gain distance, decoy for distance, and actually illusionary leap/swap can be used to gain a lot of distance if you are careful with how you use it.

As far as the mantra heal goes, if I recall correctly, it actually has very comparable hps to ether feast if you are able to continuously spam it, which would be very possible with this build. Some hps would definitely be lost, but being able to remove bleed AND burning, or a non-damaging condition along with a damaging one would quite possibly overrule that hps loss.

@wookie: I think you misunderstand how I designed this build to be played, and additionally why I take the scepter and sword over the greatsword, for example. This build relies purely on the phantasms for damage, and on everything else for defense. Using skills like blurred frenzy for offense reduces your defense. The point of the trait setup and gear is that you don’t need to augment the damage from your phantasms. They are enough to tear apart any build in the game in short order.

Due to the fact that your phantasms are enough dps to handle any build, you have the luxury of utilizing all of your other skills for defense.

@Rhoellan: Try using my pve phantasm support build: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-PvE-Supporting-Phantasm-Build/first#post1761930

It’s pretty much optimized for PvE gameplay. It has very good dps, great survivability, and really high group utility.

@wookie: I’m not missing out on any dps. I don’t attack with this build. I run around in circles and let my phantasms attack. Every single skill on my bars other than the 2 phantasms are for defense.

@Amadeus: I’m actually going to start experimenting with the heal mantra, as I’ll get doubletap on the condition removal with mender’s purity, and it’ll be up every 10 seconds. If I were to fight a condition damage engie, I might even take the condition removal mantra as well, in place of signet of illusions. Those 2 combined would probably be very very tough for you to keep conditions up, combined with blurred frenzy and well timed blocks.

Edit: I could also always toss on a focus instead of the pistol probably, and trait it for the reflects on everything. That would absolutely seal the deal, as hiding behind reflects permanently is the easiest way to deal with a CD engie.

Double Edit: I’d also probably toss on the -40% condition duration food. There’s actually a lot of modifications that you can make to this build to really make life hell for a projectile based condition build.

@People talking about scepter: Scepter is there for the block. That’s it. Sometimes I’ll cast confusing images just cause I’m bored. The block is a potent defensive tool, and on a separate cooldown from blurred frenzy. Generally, after blurred frenzy I will swap immediately to have the blocks available, and swap back as soon as I can so that blurred frenzy will be up again.

@Benjamin: Rangers are really easy. This is gonna be just an issue of getting used to how the build plays, and figuring out more of the specifics.

@Amadeus: The problem is that you cant condition burst what you can’t hit. The fight will start with a duelist and a swordsman chunking you for a lot of hp, and that is tough to ignore. It is very easy to simply invuln through the nastier parts of your burst, blink away if you hit me with magnet, and use decoy if things get really hot. Remember, the entire time you are trying to kill me, I’m doing everything I can to be evasive and dodge your burst. I’m not trying to attack you in even the slightest way, I’m 100% focused on avoidance. At the same time, my phantasms will be tearing you apart.

A well played condition engineer certainly could hurt, but it would be very difficult to really kill the build before the phantasms ripped you to pieces.

cArLiCuS.4690:

Hey all, and thanks Pyroatheist for sharing and creating this awesome build.

I read through the forum and although I don’t happen to have a full leveled mesmer yet, I do run a modified immortal guardian, warrior and am attempting at making a similar ranger.

I do have a question though – what are your thoughts in using a scepter/torch instead of the staff?

Someone at the first page asked that but presumably wanted to swap the focus out (which would be really bad). I’ve heard that these weapons are generally awful on a mesmer, but prior to some fix the Prestige could send out two blast finishers as I understand, and coupled with the blast field of Feedback could also cast chaos armor like the staff and get stealth, burning and loads of more confusion, a block/blind and hopefully more retaliation provided the iMage does its thing?

It would be a pretty horrible idea.

First, what you lose: You lose phase retreat, a forced movement leap combo finisher capable of being used while stunned/dazed/knocked down/immobilized/crippled/chilled that creates a clone and is on a 5 second cooldown. If staff only had 1 skill and it was phase retreat, I still wouldn’t give it up. You also lose chaos armor, which is 5 seconds of protection on-demand, as well as providing pretty much permanent swiftness while in combat, even more regeneration, and cripping, blinding, and confusing the enemy. Chaos storm is a potent defensive and offensive tool. It can generate chaos armor with phase retreat, applies aegis to yourself and any illusions in it, applies some more retaliation, and is a highly reliable aoe interrupt. Lastly, its cooldown trait provides 50 more toughness.

What you gain: A block from scepter. Confusing images, a long and slow channel that stacks 5 confusion, scaling off of condition damage of which I don’t have very much. The cooldown trait clashes with that of focus. The prestige is an awesome skill, no way around that. Unfortunately, the iMage is objectively the worst skill for any weapon, on any class, in the entire game. You can find my analysis of that here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Torch-isn-t-viable-in-PvE-Dungeons/first#post1788743

Additionally, the cooldown trait for torch is 20 points into domination.

Overall, you get a decent stealth tool from scepter and torch. That’s pretty much it.

There are a few reasons I opted for scepter/sword instead of greatsword. First, the sword phantasm is vastly superior to the greatsword phantasm, both in damage and reliability. Additionally, the greatsword has almost nothing in the way of defensive/evasive utility. It is all offense, which is fine, but doesn’t fit this build. You don’t do offense yourself, you let the phantasms take care of that, and your focus is on defense.

Due to the number of questions I’ve been fielding lately regarding this build, I’ve decided to make a guide for it.

What this build does best is win any 1v1 duel. It is the most overpowered dueling build in the game. There is no way to counter it. There is no way to beat it. If you use this build and play effectively, you will win every single 1v1 you have, with absolutely no exceptions other than fighting a mirror build.

Here is the build

In sPvP, simply use the normal bersker’s amulet and runes of divinity.

This build uses scepter/sword and sword/pistol, with the traits of 10/30/0/30/0. The playstyle is extremely simple: summon phantasms, run in circles, and your target dies.

This build focuses on 2 things: Phantasms and defense. Optimally, you don’t use any skills offensively other than your 2 phantasms. I generally even turn off my autoattacks, especially on the scepter. Your offense consists completely of the phantasms, and that is more than enough. The swordsmen will hit for upwards of 4.5k per hit on bunkers, and the duelists will do similar damage, but also stack bleeds. Since all your offense is taken care of by the phantasms, all you have to worry about is defense.

Your defense consists of a decent hp pool and toughness to absorb the odd hit from a bouncing attack or aoe. Your active defense is blurred frenzy on an 8 second cooldown, and 2 blocks, each on ~11 second cooldowns. You use all 3 of these skills purely defensively. Don’t be afraid to overwrite your phantasms with a clone from the block, or with a clone from illusionary leap (which is only used for the cripple, or maybe an immobilize followed by immediate running away), as the phantasms are on low enough cooldowns that it won’t matter. You use decoy and blink to gain and keep distance, as well as break out of dangerous situations.

The phantasms hit like trucks. They also have a significant amount of health, especially once they get the signet buff, and so are difficult to kill in any timely fashion, as well as having permanent retaliation. If your target tries to ignore the phantasms, they will be dead very quickly, and if they try to kill the phantasms, you can resummon them faster than they can be killed.

If they focus on you, you just run away, in circles preferably. Blurred frenzy is a great initial defense if they jump on top of you, followed by the blocks if absolutely necessary. Using decoy will instantly drop any heat on you, and you can summon more phantasms from stealth without getting revealed, while gaining more distance.

Burst build are completely countered by the active defense. A build that tries for sustained dps will be quickly killed by your phantasms, and your defenses allow you to stay alive, as well as getting large range and using your phantasms to LoS block. Traditional weaknesses of mesmers, condition builds, lack the ability to stack conditions. You can remove them quickly with mender’s purity, as well as block and invuln the stacking, all while your phantasms hit them hard. A necromancer busy stacking bleeds on you will quickly be worried about other things when the swordsman and duelist you spawned at the start of the fight instantly take out 10k hp, and repeat that 4 seconds later.

I have yet to find a counter to this build. If anyone manages to find one, please tell me, because this build is a massive pita to encounter when I’m not the one running it.

Update

I’ve updated this build with the current setup I use to run it in WvW. I take centaur runes for mobility, and I use a mix of cavalier trinkets to give me some more survivability. I wouldn’t use this in a zerg fight, since the phantasms will die too quickly, but it’s a fantastic roamer, and very good in smaller havok groups.

To clear something up, the build referenced in the op is a purely pvp phantasm spec that I created, substantially different in traiting and playstyle than my pve build. I wrote a pretty thorough explanation of it in my pve build’s thread, so head over there if you want that explanation.

Idk, I think op might be right. I mean, if mesmers really were not overpowered, then it would mean that all the people complaining about them would have to be complete noobs, and we all know that definitely isn’t the case…

All the 10s CDs have always been 15s. Some joker at anet just decided to write the wrong thing repeatedly for some reason.

When an attack hits feedback, it now becomes your attack in all ways. This is the effect responsible for strange things like teleporting to necros, or getting rifle kills on your Mesmer. As such, the condition damage and duration associated with the attack are yours, being applied to the normal base duration of a confusion stack from an ethereal combo finisher.

Edit: @Kazhiel: Non-projectile finishers will not, of course, combo with feedback. Reflecting combo finishers will.

Kazhiel.8194:

painHV.2516:

Wait sorry just to be clear you use this exact build for sPVP and tPVP also? And it works out completely fine?

I used it for tpvp when my guild was doing that for the monthly. I’m not a regular pvper, preferring to stick to wvw, so I picked out a tanky build to try it with. It worked well enough once I remembered how to play it haha I haven’t used the build in wvw for quite a while, tho I don’t think it worked as well as it does in wvw.

It works well, but nothing as compared to in wvw. You don’t have the -40% condition duration food, and that hurts a lot. Retaliation also doesn’t scale properly in sPvP off of your phantasms, it is a fixed amount that varies a bit per phantasm, which is really weird. Lastly, confusion hits about as hard as a wet noodle.