Guild Wars 2

You put a really conscious effort into looking like a clone, and it seems to pay off most of the time. Very interesting, and a well done video.

What build are you running in your most recent video? It seems like a strange hybrid between a shatter build and phantasm focused. You’ve got deceptive evasion, but you tend not to shatter much, and your phantasms chunk people for a ton of damage.

Also, something you might want to keep in mind when running with the focus: Whenever you lay down temporal curtain, try to do the double leap combo with sword on it. Since you are getting hit a decent amount, and since that combo gets a clone with retaliation too, it just adds to the damage that you output with pretty much no downside.

bhagwad.4281:

One weakness of this build might be against professions that utilize minions to do their damage. Minion necromancers come to mind since they don’t do their damage directly and are not hit by retaliation.

In sPvP of course, condition removal is definitely an issue. I try and place the curtain under the warden for some cleansing. In a pinch, I’ll take null field.

It is interesting you identify that as a weakness, because it is. However, there is only 1 class in the game able to exploit that weakness, and that is a purely phantasm based mesmer. That build is the only build ever that I have come across and am at a complete loss as to how to beat it. I have been killed by other builds, but can chalk that up to mistakes. The pure phantasm mesmer build I faced completely dismantled this build, and I still have no honest idea how to counter it.

With that being said, only a mesmer phantasm build can pull that off. No other class can do that. Necromancer minions have low hp, and so they get wiped out on retaliation damage very quickly. Additionally, the necro minions do so little damage, you barely even notice them.
Rangers can also try to do this, and their pets can actually hurt a bit. The problem is that the pets able to do the high damage have very low hp. They will die quickly on retaliation, and once the pets die, the ranger is out of luck.

The reason that the mesmer phantasm build can do it is because of how the phantasms work. The phantasms have enough hp that they are difficult for my build to kill them quickly. They also hit very hard, and in large chunks (swordsmen) meaning retaliation damage will not kill them. Even if they do die, they can be resummoned quickly to continue doing the damage.

Renegade.6325:

Its ascended gear with an infusion slot. Not sure where the rulebook is that says therefore we must be able to upgrade them

Every single other piece of ascended gear is infusable. It stands to reason that the amulet should be as well.

Oh boy. I can fast see this materializing into an amazingly epic troll thread just like that “mesmers are op” garbled post a week ago.

kodesh.2851:

For any kind of pvp/wvw, runes of Lyssa are beastly. Assuming the precision compliments your build and you know how to get good use out of Mass Invis (I prefer it to Timewarp, no matter how op it supposedly is).

It’s the condition wipe + stealth. The boons are just icing. I can’t count how many times this setup has saved my bacon.

I agree with xavi. Runes of centaur are a good option if you aren’t using a focus, or don’t like swapping one when traveling. But I feel like using the healing mantra is a punishment for perma-swiftness :P

You use mirror with runes of centaur, as the cooldown is actually 15 seconds. Even swapping a focus while traveling nets you under 50% uptime on swiftness, which is really not enough. Additionally, most builds don’t actually use a focus while fighting, and in-combat swiftness is unbelievably important, particularly in wvw. Overall, the combat advantage of permanent swiftness is going to be many many times more helpful towards your pvping than a once in a while panic skill. The actual situation where this big panic skill is useful is extremely rare. You have to a. be in a situation that you cant escape using normal distortion + blink evasions while at the same time b. have a situation that somehow 5 seconds of stealth and a bunch of boons for 5 seconds are going to save you. This will happen almost never. As a general rule of thumb, if you can’t escape with your normal tools, this little trick won’t save you either.

kodesh.2851:

Ah, I thought you were asking in general, not just pve. I’m obviously more of a pvper :P

For PVE mesmer condition builds felt pretty weak to me. Phantasm power/crit was probably the best damage output. Power/crit shatter sometimes, depending on the fight.

My post was from a PvE perspective, being that’s how he described the build at the start. In a pvp setting, my opinion would be significantly different.

Drop desperate decoy, take sword cooldowns instead.

Drop feedback or null field and take decoy.

The focus is a strange choice for this build. I would think pistol would work better because of the bleed stacking from the duelist. Wardens will bleed stack as well, but it takes a long time and the target has to not move.

Using carrion armor does not synergize well with rampagers or berserkers gear, as it gives no crit chance. I’ll come back to that.

You mentioned this is a pve focused build. You need to make a choice, however, between focusing on condition damage or direct damage, as this makes a big difference in traits. Right now your traits are sorta floating in-between being a good condie build or a good power build, and are bad at both of them.

It seems to me you are leaning toward condie with your mentions of rabid and carrion. This being the case, forget about shatters. They do nothing for pve condition damage, as confusion is objectively the worst pve condition in the game. Go 5 points into illusions and that’s it. You could also drop mirror images because of this.

You need to focus on getting rabid and rampagers gear. This builds survivability, crit chance, and condition damage. This allows you to take full advantage of sharper images.

Go 30 into dueling. This raises your crit chance and also allows you to trait sword, pistol, and phantasmal fury. In a non-shatter pve build, you don’t need deceptive evasion, and your best bleeds come from the pistol phantasm.

25 into chaos gives you a ton of condition damage, you should hit that as well. Lastly, take your 10 out of Dom and put it into inspiration. This can reduce your glamour cooldowns, provide condition removal, vigor, or other bonuses. The 10 points in Dom really do nothing for a pure condition damage build.

@jazzlana: Take mantra of restoration with those runes if you don’t already. That way you can proc the effect with no downtime.

@ironvos: You are significantly overestimating the basic mobility of a Mesmer, and significnantly underestimating the importance of having that mobility in wvw. Again, the swiftness on the centaur runes is so important that it eclipses any other considerations about the runes. The 6 set bonus for lyssa runes does no such thing, and that is why you must look to the rest of the rune bonuses to see if the runes are at all worthwhile.

It still blocks the grenade barrage, but the grenades don’t stack up like they did before, because they damage from that was unbalanced. I wasn’t aware that feedback ever blocked the diving bomb, but you should be saving feedback for your normal reflect rotation on that boss anyway and/or saving it for when the grubs spawn.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually fought the spiders in Arah, but it still works just fine on hunters and elementalists.

Also, just a note. At higher fractals, you can’t tank his aoes for arcane thievery anyway. The aoes add agony, and that has to be avoided at all costs.

Ironvos.9014:

Let’s look at runes of centaur then.
165 power, +15% bleed duration, +20% swiftness duration, swiftness on heal.
Bleed duration goes poorly with power aswell.
The swiftness is only useful out of combat, it will make you maybe escape from combat that one time more, but won’t help you at all in battle.
And the power bonus is thesame as lyssa’s prec bonus, useless if you don’t use a powerbuild for example.
Now you may wonder, why would anyone not use any power? Well i would also wonder why would anyone not use any precision, it triggers a lot of weapon sigils, triggers vigor trait, makes sharper images useful and increases your damage by a whole lot.

Runes of undead is even more situational, it’s useless if you don’t use any condition+toughness build.

I’m not saying runes of lyssa are everyone’s answers to their problem, but they can be useful for a lot of people, just as runes of undead can be useful for others.
I actually find the all praised rune of the centaur pretty underwhelming.
You can move around almost as fast with focus #4 and blink, you just need to switch a weapon and skill for it if you don’t use them normally.
But atleast you can switch them between battles, unlike the runes.

Your arguments don’t make a whole lot of sense. I’m going to go through them bit by bit and explain why.

Centaur Runes: With centaur runes, the only important thing is the 6 set bonus. The 20% swiftness duration increase synergizes great with the 6 bonus. The bleed duration makes no sense, and is also inconsequential. The power is unimportant as well. No one uses centaur runes for any reason other than to obtain permanent swiftness. Also, the runes are used BECAUSE swiftness is such an utterly important boon to have reliable access to in wvw. Since mesmers have almost no access to reliable swiftness, runes like the centaur are the only other choice we have, as bad of as choice as it may be.

You compare the swiftness from centaur runes to using a focus + blink. Using a focus is fine, but you get under 50% uptime on swiftness with an untraited focus. Additionally, you won’t be using the focus in a fight, where swiftness is still a very important boon to have. Using blink to get around is a horrible idea. Yes, it moves you 900 units instantly, but it is also an extremely important utility stun breaking skill on a reasonably long cooldown, and burning it just to move around quicker is a massive waste and liability in any build that could need blink for its normal purpose.

Runes of the Undead: You said it yourself, they are useful in a condition damage + toughness build. Yes, they’re useless if you don’t use a condition damage + toughness build, but that is a useless thing to say. Saying that is like saying the necromancer scepter is useless outside of a condition damage build. It is a true statement, but also has no value in an argument. The runes of the undead are used in that sort of build because they are massively effective and work perfectly with that build.

Runes of Lyssa: The 6 set bonus is gimmicky and almost totally useless. In the best case scenario, you have 5 seconds of uptime on the boons once every 90 seconds. That’s 5.5% of the time. Additionally, if you are running in a team, or simply prefer the quickness utility of time warp over mass invisibility (I use either one depending on the situation) your uptime is down to 5 seconds every 210 seconds, or a 2.4% uptime. That simply is not worth getting 6 runes for. The centaur 6 rune bonus is important enough to justify whatever other crap the runes contain. A maximum 5.5% uptime on a bunch of boons is not.

The rest of the runes of lyssa contain possibly useful buffs, and possibly not. The random boon on healing is almost entirely ignorable. One boon for 10 seconds every 15-20 seconds isn’t anything to think about. The other unique bonus is a 10% increase in condition duration. This is decent, but it is also by itself and doesn’t synergize with any of the other bonuses from the runes. The rune stats add precision. More precision is never a bad thing, but precision doesn’t synergize well with condition duration in most mesmer builds, as even using greatsword clones or pistol phantasms, we are still pretty horrific at stacking bleeds.

Overall, runes of undead are designed and used in specific builds. That is a non-issue.

Runes of the centaur have a 6 set bonus that is of such importance that it outweighs any other disadvantages that the runes themselves contain.

Runes of lyssa have a 6 set bonus that is entirely underwhelming even in the best of circumstances, and almost completely unnoticable in the worst. On top of that, the rest of the runes don’t contain buffs or unique abilities that justify taking that weak 6 set bonus, causing the set as a whole to be generally worthless for a mesmer.

Ironvos.9014:

Pyroatheist.9031:

It’s a gimmicky manouver on a 90 second cooldown, and leaves you with a set of otherwise useless runes. Additionally, the boons only last 5 seconds. That’s barely enough time to get through the portal and make one attack.

Why exactly would the runes be useless?
They have the same sort of stats any other rune has. I wouldn’t call 165 prec, +10 cond duration, 10s boon on heal and get all boons for 5s and loose all conditions, useless stats. Unless you run a build that has no need for prec at all, and does not use any conditions at all.

+10 condition duration goes poorly with the precision. The 10s boon on heal is a useless addition. Its basically the signet of inspiration passive, but worse. The 6 set bonus is complete crap, because the boons only last 5 seconds, and even if you take mass invisibility, its still on a 90 second cooldown. Any other rune set that wasn’t based around a gimmicky 6-set bonus will perform better than lyssa runes.

Sigils have never affected clones or phantasms. This is not a bug, this is game mechanics.

It’s a gimmicky manouver on a 90 second cooldown, and leaves you with a set of otherwise useless runes. Additionally, the boons only last 5 seconds. That’s barely enough time to get through the portal and make one attack.

For a good pve build using greatsword and staff, take a look at my phantasm build: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-PvE-Supporting-Phantasm-Build/

It uses gs/staff with a focus on survivability and phantasm damage. Right now, I don’t have anything in that thread that adapts it to leveling, but I’ll update the post a bit later with the specifics for how to use it as a leveling build, which it does very well.

kandolo.2574:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Ok, I have just carefully restested every phantasm and put the results on the phantasmal haste page of the wiki. The table there is now 100% accurate.

Some of the phantasms are actually not affected at all by phantasmal haste. Not a single phantasm actually has the recharge reduced by 20%. The closest is the warlock, at 18.5% reduction, but most fall closer to 15% or less.

Have you tested and have attack speed for the Rogue? (Not that it makes a huge difference in a downed/drowning state)

I have not. If I’m really motivated tonight, I’ll see what I can do for that one.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Hey Fay, your list is growing fast… ^^

To give an update, I added a leveling guide lately.
My newest addition is a GS Mantra PvE build (Kai’s Go Go Power Ranger Build 30/30/0/0/10) as I couldn’t find anything similar on your list. They are both in the same thread as Lazy Kai.
No clue what to do with them, just thought I let you know… ^^

Oh jeez, I use that build in wvw when I can safely stand on top of walls or something and nuke people with the greatsword just for the lols of the unblockable damage. What on earth do you actually manage to use that in PvE for? I usually have like 15k hp with that build >_<

Ok, I have just carefully restested every phantasm and put the results on the phantasmal haste page of the wiki. The table there is now 100% accurate.

Some of the phantasms are actually not affected at all by phantasmal haste. Not a single phantasm actually has the recharge reduced by 20%. The closest is the warlock, at 18.5% reduction, but most fall closer to 15% or less.

This is a thread that should be in the sPvP forum, not the Mesmer forum. Requesting that this thread be moved to the appropriate forum.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I definitely did forget about the iDuelist. I’d place it inbetween Swordsman and ’Zerker.

… and thanks for the link! I didn’t know there was a chart on attack speeds.

That chart is incorrect. I have personally done extremely extensive testing of phantasm attack speeds, and have updated the wiki page for each individual phantasm with that information. If you want to find the correct information, make sure you look at those pages, not that big chart. If I have time today, I’ll change that chart so that it is correct as well.

Edit: just went and checked the wiki. Some bozo has gone and removed the stats I put on for half the phantasms. I’ll fix that along with the chart once I get home and have access to my spreadsheet.

Kazhiel.8194:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Blind on glamour trait actually only occurs when you first place the glamour. You get 1 hit of blindness this way. With the confusion on blind trait, this provides 1 stack of confusion for 5 seconds. The confusion on glamour fields trait causes 1 stack of 4s confusion every time someone enters or exits the area. These effects are applied independently of one another.

Thought that confusion on glamour trait caused 5 secs of confusion. So what you’re saying is having both traited to confuse would cause 9 seconds of confusion? I played glamour mesmer using kylia’s build for a while but that’s been a long time ago, it doesn’t seem like I remember people getting confusion lasting that long.

Confusion on glamour causes 4 seconds base of confusion. Also….that’s not how confusion works…

Rodigee.7139:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Here is the kicker: Any incarnation of the portals counts as a glamour field.

In my experience, portal only acts as a glamour field after you’ve dropped both parts. What are you doing to get confusion procs off the entrance only?

Unfortunately, you seem to be correct. This must have been a ninja change at some point, as you used to be able to do it.

As it turns out, dropping the first portal still causes a blind, even though it won’t act as a glamour for the other trait.

Kazhiel.8194:

Question: If you’re going to trait for glamours cause confusion why also trait for glamours cause blinds and blinds cause confusion? Confusion or blind only happens on entry of the glamour field right? Almost seems like one would negate the other or does the confusion from glamour and the confusion from the blind stack intensity or help the duration?

Might something like this be better, where glamours don’t cause blind but blind does cause confusion to play off of blind from scepter and blind from torch. Wouldn’t this extend the amount of time you could keep confusion on someone? http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mzmmmMz9MMFCnmMbC0oG9MxGcRMRmVs8khV707khf7kiO7070z7kNL70V7owZ7ow170z7owZ70z

Or alternatively if you like having lots of clones are your disposal and/or want to let scepter auto (since they summon right at your target) and dodge overwrite clones to cripple on death. Might be able to exert a lot of control of an enemy this way http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mzmmmMz9MMFCnmMbC0oGG0aGVRVaMVs8khV707khf7kiO7070z7kNL70V7owZ7ow170z7owZ70z

Maybe some different stated gear/armor would be better. I’m pretty sleepy at the moment, this might all look different in the morning. Hopefully I got the links right xD

Blind on glamour trait actually only occurs when you first place the glamour. You get 1 hit of blindness this way. With the confusion on blind trait, this provides 1 stack of confusion for 5 seconds. The confusion on glamour fields trait causes 1 stack of 4s confusion every time someone enters or exits the area. These effects are applied independently of one another.

Volatility.6729:

Sigil of Rage. Your new best friend in 1v[x].

That sigil is horrific, never use it. Heres why: Being the on-crit type of sigil, when this proc goes off it locks out all other on-crit effects for 45 seconds. This means that you have to choose between 3 seconds of quickness once every 45+ seconds or something like sigil of earth, sigil of air, sigil of fire, or any other on-crit sigil that has the normal 2 second cooldown. In short, there isn’t really any comparison, any other sigil would be massively better than sigil of rage.

Esplen.3940:

Xavi.6591:

Time Warp + Stomp I think works.

When I do this, I feel guilty after/during for wasting such a great skill on a stomp.

Not if you do it right. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been on my tank build, down someone in the middle of an enemy zerg with confusion/retaliation damage, time warp and instastomp them with 20+ people trying to revive/knock me off them, and you get successful stomp and successful escape. No guilt or shame there, just pure GTFO I’M A MESMER!

Samiell.1259:

Wait for an enemy TW and toss all fields on it.

Feedback reflected projectiles pick up the quality of the ethereal field of feedback, causing confusion from that itself. cringe

@playandchill: The only singular drawback of portals is that you can’t drop them at range. If I were to attempt to do this, I would do it in 1 of 2 ways. The first would be to place them at somewhat of a choke point that the enemy was fast approaching, and then gtfo with all haste. The second would be to drop one of the other glamours for blink. This way you could easily make it out into the zerg with proper use of distortion, and then blink instantaneously back to safety.

The issue of confusing allies is not really a problem. If you are using this offensively, the portal probably won’t be anywhere near your allies are for the most part, and quite honestly if your allies stack up on this random portal that you dropped in the middle of the enemy zerg then those are the types of allies that would probably fire catapults backwards as well and are not really necessary to win a fight.

@kurtosis: If you read that somewhere, they were completely and totally wrong. Each illusion is 100% identical to every other illusion for the purposes of a shatter. The first will do exactly the same as the last, and phantasms behave precisely the same way that clones do.

The information that you posted from Dastion is 100% and totally correct. It fully describes the behavior of shatters. There is really 0 uncertainty in this regard.

Yeah, the thing that gets me about this skill is how inconsistent it is. Sometimes I thi k that terrain has something to do with it, but it really doesn’t. I’ve used this skill so much, and I’ve seen it work 2 ways in almost every imaginable situation. The first way is the clone sorta derps around and might get to your target eventually. This second way is the clone seems to be shot out of a cannon, barely touching the ground before smacking your target in the face, and sticking on them for the duration of the swap.

I have found absolutely zero correlation between any factors that cause these two different behaviors, and it annoys the hell out of me.

This is interesting. I’d love to see a video of it in use.

Now, about portal. You seem to think that it is useless in this build because of the long cooldown time. However, you forget how the skill works, and possibly don’t know a trick or 2 about it.

Portal has a 90 second cooldown. However, this cooldown is calculated from the moment the first portal is dropped. When left alone, this un-linked portal will persist for 60 seconds before disappearing and sending the skill into recharge. If the exit portal is dropped at the end of those 60 seconds, the 2 portals will persist for an additional 10 seconds.

Here is the kicker: Any incarnation of the portals counts as a glamour field. The unlinked portal that sits around for 60 seconds is a (small) extremely long lasting glamour field. If there is an area you can reach quickly, you can run in, drop 1 end of the portal, and just let it sit, causing massive confusion for 60 seconds. Additionally, an unlinked portal is easily the least visible of the glamours, making it harder to avoid. ADDITIONALLY, the enemy zerg will cluster on top of it of their own accord, thinking it to be a friendly portal, causing massive aoe confusion before anyone realizes what is going on.

One last thing. In a smaller fight, or in a tight choke point (thinking east keep lords room) you can drop both ends of the portal for a double-loaded glamour burst causing confusion for each portal side, double the amount possible for any other glamour skill.

Fay.2735:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Trying to categories Mesmer builds can be very tricky, the build you linked is a perfect example of this being a hybrid. All builds share multiple aspects across the board. Some are easier to place than others

I could make many different categories which would make it confusing or divide it between phantasms and/or shatter builds which would make it too simplistic and unclear. I basically tried to separate builds depending on what their main focus is, what makes them special, the idea behind the build.

So looking at it your phantasm build it looks like its mainly focused on ‘power’ damage with healing and support as a second primary focus with some condition damage thrown in there as well.

A hybrid (kind of like my power/heal mantra build but with phantasms). I would put it under power/condition damage builds section myself. It’s up to you

Don’t get me wrong, I find no fault with your categorizing. I was just looking through them, and there appears to be not very many that actually focus on phantasm damage.

I can make a note behind it to state it’s based on phantasm damage?[/quote]

Yeah, that’s fine. What I meant was that phantasm focused build guides seem to not exist in this forum so far. None of the builds that I was looking at had a focus on phantasm damage, they were all aimed at other types of damage applications. I think I’ll have to whip up a phantasm build and run with it in wvw for a bit to see if I can make a guide for it effectively.

EasymodeX.4062:

So the light field effect remains after you use Into the Void?

Sounds nifty.

That’s correct. I explained this effect a bit more in depth earlier in the thread. I’ll add something about that when I update the main post tonight.

Perhaps, though I hope not. If it gets nerfed, I can just go back to my original build which works fine. I must say though, since most disabling conditions have a low base duration to balance them, having the -65% duration really turns my build into quite the juggernaut, shrugging off immobilize and things without even needing to burn condition removals for it. Just last night, I had a magguman zerg of over 20 people (not exaggerating, I swear) chase me clear across their entire borderlands for over 4 minutes before they caught me by waypointing a group ahead to cut me off. Nothing they threw at me would stick, so I was just able to keep trucking ahead of them.

@EasymodeX: I tested out Melandru runes last night in HotM with the help of a friend. The results were such that I immediately went and bought a full set of them, and a bunch of the -40% duration food. I’ll be updating the guide and linked build to reflect these changes. Running in wvw with those stats is amazing. Conditions bounce off me like crazy. Immobilize, cripple, chill and the like become hardly noticeable. I can even camp in caltrops and get no more than 3 stacks of bleed on me.

Just figured I’d give a quick kudos to the 20+ man magguman zerg that chased me around their borderlands for about 5 minutes before finally managing to run me into another group. Was a fun chase.

By golly you’re right. Just tested it, and it doesn’t remove a condition on the cast. It definitely procs centaur runes though, that’s for sure.

MLieBennett.9031:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Mantra of Restoration removes 3 conditions untraited, and 4 traited.

Just a quick correction. Mantra of Restoration + Mender’s Purity only removes 2 conditions without Harmonious Mantras. This is because it only removes a Condition on the use (Power Return) and does not when you charge the Mantra. Then it becomes 3 conditions traited.

I’ll have to test that. I recall removing a condition on the charge, but I also had restorative mantras traited. I know for sure that the charge will proc other on-heal effects, such as runes of centaur. Will test that in 5 minutes.

The skill is a clunker, that’s for sure. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes it seems to have a range far bigger than 600, and sometimes you can be at 300 range and the clone takes a leisurely stroll to the target.

On the other hand, it didn’t work better in beta. It acquired the name illusionary casual walk in beta for a reason.

To use it properly, you really just have to watch the clone carefully. If it makes the leap, you’re set to go. If not, then you still have a free stunbreaker for the next few seconds.

@eldenbri: Thats an interesting variant. There’s 1 really really bad mistake with it though. You absolutely must take illusions 5. That single trait reduces recharges by 20% on approximately 50% of your skills. That trait is simply not optional in a viable mesmer build.

With that in mind, what you can do instead is take 5 out of inspiration. This will lower your utility slightly, and force you to drop the phantasm hp increaser in favor of the mantra heals, but would still allow you to take harmonious mantras.

One more thing to think about. Harmonious mantras really isn’t necessary in this build. Mantra of Restoration removes 3 conditions untraited, and 4 traited. Most of your damage is coming from the phantasms, not your mantra of pain. Additionally, harmonious mantras actually REDUCES the healing per second you can produce from mantras, because it adds another charge to expend before you can charge it up again.

All things considered, harmonious mantras just isn’t necessary, and you might want to slightly rethink your trait setup with that in mind.

Fay.2735:

Pyroatheist.9031:

If you could toss my PvE phantasm build on as well, would be muh appreciated: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-PvE-Supporting-Phantasm-Build/

I actually just noticed that you don’t even have a phantasm section. Perhaps this deserves a bit more inspection, as there are some phantasm builds that are really strong, but I’ve seen no guides for them.

Trying to categories Mesmer builds can be very tricky, the build you linked is a perfect example of this being a hybrid. All builds share multiple aspects across the board. Some are easier to place than others

I could make many different categories which would make it confusing or divide it between phantasms and/or shatter builds which would make it too simplistic and unclear. I basically tried to separate builds depending on what their main focus is, what makes them special, the idea behind the build.

So looking at it your phantasm build it looks like its mainly focused on ‘power’ damage with healing and support as a second primary focus with some condition damage thrown in there as well.

A hybrid (kind of like my power/heal mantra build but with phantasms). I would put it under power/condition damage builds section myself. It’s up to you

Don’t get me wrong, I find no fault with your categorizing. I was just looking through them, and there appears to be not very many that actually focus on phantasm damage.

If you could toss my PvE phantasm build on as well, would be muh appreciated: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-PvE-Supporting-Phantasm-Build/

I actually just noticed that you don’t even have a phantasm section. Perhaps this deserves a bit more inspection, as there are some phantasm builds that are really strong, but I’ve seen no guides for them.

Yeah, mender’s purity will most definitely provide a lot of condition removal with the MoR. You get one on the charge, and another one each time you expend a charge.

Almost every weapon that mesmers have has some sort of interrupt. Use that to temporarily stop the revive. Do not attempt to out damage the revive, you just have to get the stomp, and there are several ways to do that safely. If you are in a crit damage shatter build, you can also probably down the person reviving with a well set up shatter burst, as reviving means 0 defense.

EasymodeX.4062:

I was considering Rampager, but I wanted the Vit from Carrion; something to test for sure. The might stacks from Illu25 would supplement the raw pow/cdmg somewhat.

The issue is that sPvP Rampager has really low condition damage (PvE Rampager has mid-level cdmg, although it has no Vit). Even with extra might, you’re really losing a lot of cdmg with Rampager from Carrion.

I like using the Guardian example because most people complain about bunker Guards.

Ah, right. I always forget that they screwed around with stat distributions for no apparent reason in sPvP gear.

@Contritition: Illusionary elasticity is a good choice for PvE. I would take that trait back when I still used this build in PvE. The cooldown refresh is primarily a pvp thing. If you have burnt distortion and you drop below 50% hp, chances are you’re gonna need it again real quick.

As far as the runes go, I’m not really a fan of that boon duration stacking mix. This build in particular really doesn’t need it, with the exception of protection uptime, which shouldn’t really be a problem in pve. I’m definitely considering some other runes than the soldiers mix I use, but the boon duration is really just overkill.

@EasymodeX: That’s interesting. A rampagers stat gear with that sort of build might be interesting. I have a bit of a skewed perspective with guardians though, as they are the easiest matchup (other than a flamethrower engie) for my build, because they do so much weak aoe. I’ve seen them literally 80-0 on a single whirling wrath purely from retaliation damage.

EasymodeX.4062:

To come back to your last statement, I think you haven’t taken a close enough look at the benefits of interupt bonuses within the Domination tree. Specced correctly, a MantraMesmer can make any class regret casting a skill.

The interrupt bonuses in Dom are mostly horrible. Although, I don’t think I ever re-tested the damage one since I hit 80 / got power exotics.

The interrupt bonuses are total crap. The vulnerability on daze (15) is tremendously powerful in a shatter build though, especially with the trait that removes boons with a shatter. The daze mantra isn’t good for that trait though, because the cooldown on the dazing is too long to stack up vuln effectively. With a 4 clone daze shatter, you get 20 instant vulnerability (and 3 stacks of might) and you can follow that up with 4 clone mind wrack and blurred frenzy at 20% higher damage.

@EasymodeX: RM is placed fine. The trait that increases armor while channeling mantras is in the dueling line, which is dumb, and additionally useless. EM(3 charge mantras one) should not exist, and mantras should kittenarges base. In place of it, reduce casting time by 1 second or something more balanced.

The problem with mantras is that they are front loaded. This makes sense in an offensive setup for pain or distraction, but not for the other 2, where the front loading produces a big problem once it is used up. The defender is only useful in my build, but the synergy is 100%, where the mantras just stop halfway.

Awww, ac isn’t that bad with a competent team. Also, when you remember that the only other dungeons with pvt gear are SE and HotW, ac starts to look a whole lot more appealing.

The food I use now is still condition mitigation. It removes a condition whenever I have a heal effect applied to me, with a cd of 10 seconds. Because it procs on regen application, regen ticks, or w/e, it is an automatic condition removal every 10 seconds. The difference between that and condition duration is a bit more subtle. The balance is going to be in the number of conditions applied. With small numbers of conditions, a full removal is more effective, but with large numbers removing one is less effective than lowering g the duration on all of them. I might just have to carry both foods and eat one or the other mid-combat.

@EasymodeX: After a careful examination of my build and playstyle, I’m forced to say that your judgement of IP is accurate, under 2 conditions. First, the other traits need to be more worthwhile than it, which they are not. The really important distinction though, is whether the fight is a straight 1v1 duel, or a 1vs anything more than 1. In a duel, I can be careful and effective with my clone management, and always have a shatter ready. In any other sort of fight, the extra damage can easily wipe clones at a critical moment, and if I need distortion or an interrupt NOW, IP is the only option.

That effect you mention about fine-tuning condition duration also makes me wonder if the normal food I use would be better replaced with condition duration lowering food. I’ll need to run some calculations and see if that is the case.

As far as the gear thing goes, the vit is more important than you think. As tanky as this build is, Mesmer is still a light armor class. A lot of the damage mitigation comes simply from having a large health pool, and out healing the damage after the spike. This also helps with soaking up bleed spam and the like. The build wouldn’t break with knights/Valkyrie gear, but 1 stat on each piece would be completely useless, and it would be less effective because of that.