Guild Wars 2

Ehh, what dungeons are you doing where you can drop 3 iWardens? It stands still and pops like a balloon.

What you have here is a DPS build without decent crit in exchange for the focus trait which in my opinion is way outshined by the pistol, which gives you ridiculous range and way, way more reliability.

The (good) mesmer’s support capabilities almost entirely come from utilities which are awkwardly separate from build choice.

Retaliation does very low damage by the way, and we are one of the 4 classes to have Crit Chance and Crit Damage coupled in a trait tree (precision.) That’s really too valuable to pass up if you’re looking at damage at all.

It’s play like this that makes people think Mesmers are a bad class.

The worst part is people are spending time complaining about good abilities, and not even mentioning bad abilities (Mantras, iMage, etc.)

There’s more typos than that, the tooltips are horrible. Some are even blank.

Skuld.1382:

Chumsy.5714:

One of the biggest gripes is that there is a summoning cast time on phantasms, a lot of the time, the mob dies while you finish summoning, and pretty much have to wait a full CD.

Not to call you out, but that is part of knowing when to use your skills. If the target is almost dead, then it does not make sense to cast a phantasm.

So you’ve never farmed Dynamic Events in Orr.

Sardoni.8361:

In some of the betas clones did damage but they removed it on launch. Presumably to give people shatter fodder instead of just trying to keep up 3 clones/phantasms without shattering (which is what some people are doing now with three phantasms…)

Personally I love it when they crit for 0. Really glad the UI decided to show me that lol.

Don’t worry at level 80 the damage goes between 4 and 18 so it’s pretty a consistent “confused face” you wear throughout your leveling experience =P

Well they can bleed on crit. Having a beserker clone crit 3 times gets you 3 stacks of bleed, which sort of does do damage.

The tooltips are horrible, do not expect the damage numbers and duration numbers to update properly.

I’m trying to correct the Dissipations but it seems I’ve lost the ability to edit the post. I know what I was trying to write there but I have no idea how it came out that way.

Crippling Dissipation should say 3s, though I guess 3x(1s) is the same thing.

And the block above it should say: 3xVulnerability, not 3xWeakness.

You must be farming somewhere where I’m not. Staff auto attack is useless and Chaos Storm is useless, it doesn’t front load enough damage. Mind Wrack is the only shatter you can use though, so you only need clones every 9 seconds and those are easy to get with rolls + your extra phantasms. You get an effective 15% damage bonus from the mantras.

I need to test it but I don’t think Mind Stab does nearly enough damage for tags in Orr zergs.

And yeah, GS5 is crucial. When a pack of 15 risen spawn and run in a straight line, wait for everyone to drop their AoE and fling all the mobs to the left or right so they completely miss. Gives you a tons of extra time.

Clones “tricking” a player that isn’t trash isn’t even on the table. It’s extremely obvious. There’s no deception with the illusions right now.

This thread is ONLY for discussing builds designed to tag as many of the trash mobs in Orr as possible, during the DEs where waves spawn. It’s one of the Mesmer’s biggest problems.

This is what I’m thinking so far:

GS + Sword/Focus

Domination: III X
Dueling: II IV XI
Illusions: III VII

Sword: Fire Sigil
Focus: Luck Sigil
GS: +5% Damage Sigil (forget the name)

Runes: Traveller’s or raw crit damage / precision / power

Berzerker’s everything, except for Magic Find Jewerly, or atleast opals in the jewelry sockets.

Utilities: 4 mantras of your choice
Elite: Hounds of Balzahar probably, I haven’t tried Grenth.

Gameplay is obvious. Spam on CD, drop Warden in the front of running packs, GS 5 to throw mobs back and ruin everyone else’s AoE. Never fire the mantras.

Can we do better than this?

Nobody thinks Mesmers are bad in PvP.

“But on the other hand, EVERY weapon Memers have has 1 phantasm and 1 clone skill.”

wat

Mesmers are the assassins of Guild Wars 2 minus the popularity.
A ton of terrible players give mesmers a bad reputation, then complain that the mesmer is underpowered.

It’s ok, maybe it will result in a hilarious mesmer buff, ANet tends to overbuff.

Good to see more people wanting to understand the mesmer rather than complaining for changes.

Condition Damage does alter condition damage from clone death.

Condition Duration from domination does not affect conditions applied by illusions (except clone death) but Critical Damage does. I should go re-test that second bit though.

A new illusion when you already have 3 will replace the oldest clone, if there are 3 phantasms, the oldest phantasm.

Phantasms cannot inherit on hit effects at all. I don’t even think they inherit +Crit Chance but It’d need to sit there watching hundreds of auto attacks to know for sure.

If it’s not exactly your crit chance, it is close. I haven’t done a ton of testing but the stacks it applies is moderately consistent with 8 of your own attacks. I reliably apply 8 stacks when I’m using a crit build. I take Fury though, unless you have like, a ridiculous crap ton of crit.

Oh, and I will also grant you the point that it’s really painfully obvious who the clones are. The “obfuscation” concept of tricking players, if there was meant to be such a thing, is 100% non-existent except in like, rank 1-3 PvP. That could certainly be fixed.

I’m not noticing it that much because I play knowing that nobody is tricked by it, but it’s certainly broken if the intention was confusion.

Bibidiboo.6409:

My weakest phantasm, the berserker does about 6-10k for 1 burst, my strongest does 35-45k(focus), my duelist does 20-30k and the swordsman is realyl weak and only does around 3k damage.

This is definitely one of the more delusional posts I’ve read on the mesmer.
Is this why people can’t understand shattering? Because they think they are doing 30,000 with 1 phantasm attack?

Agreed, Mesmers are not good in DE zergs as well. I would think an AoE focused main-hand ranged weapon could fix this.

Mac.1936:

I’m saying it doesn’t synergize with any build. You are saying it’s a terrible idea. I mean, if your build isn’t effected by this why is it such a terrible idea? In what situation is a clone going to outweigh a phantasm?

The two painfully obvious instances are clone debuffs on deaths coupled with projectile blocking. Sacrificial clones are life savers and turn some bosses into cakewalks.

Making this change would strip that ability away. Keeping it the way it is requires you to not AFK auto attack. At WORST you have what, one or two seconds where you should roll or just not auto attack? What a terrible fate.

Here we go again.

Basic game theory says this is stupid. If a used car salesman offered you a thousand bucks for a beat up old truck, then offered you that same thousand dollars for a luxury car in good condition, no one in their right mind would take him seriously.

First of all, that isn’t game theory, second, there are many, many situations where a shatter is more valuable than any combination of clones and phantasms, coupled with the fact that you can bring up three phantasms right away if the skills are off cooldown.

[Quote]*Like the obsolete Warrior, it has passive damage (phantasms) and bursts (shatters). Low and behold, we have phantasm builds and shatter builds, and the two loathe each other.[/Quote]

Absolutely and ridiculously false. The best dungeon and PvP builds utilize shatters and phantasms. There are a hanful of select situations (DEs against huge bosses, and some farming runs in dungeons come to mind) where you can just leave three phantasms up, and just choose not to shatter. Not being speeced for pure phantasm damage only results in a fraction of DPS loss.

“players have the ability to throw off that ratio and make one of the contradictory mechanics outside the others”

Now you’re saying that the ability to use a crappy build is a design flaw? There are certainly synergistic builds available. Every class has to choose between potentially valuable traits.

Beyond that, it looks like you think shatters are only for damage. I don’t have to explain why that isn’t true.

I will give you the GS complaints, and the iWarden.

I’m not sure if you’re trying to mask your points in a wall of text but brevity is a requirement of eloquence, and this was not at all concise.

I don’t like calling posts out as “class whining” but beyond a couple of points we’ve discussed about a dozen times that’s essentially what this is.

Mac.1936:

Rhyno.7084:

Mac.1936:

Thinking you need to use staff when phantasms are up is inflexible. I use scepter for block and confusion. Should I not auto attack during this time?

Uh, considering you CAN’T auto attack while using your confusion and block, I would say that no, you should not auto attack during that time.

Having a second weapon set is not being inflexible. I just mentioned the staff because it’s very common and excellent. You also have the option of the sword, and GS. People are picking the weapon with the least synergy for their build and wondering why the auto attack isn’t that great.

So I’m just suppose to sit there after blocking and casting confusion until I can switch back to staff. Got it.

Scepter/Pistol and Staff is the most synergy for my build… being a condition build. I also happen to use phantasms to combo field confusion.

It sounds like whatever build you are using that this is detrimental to is the inflexible one.

Uh, what? You’re the one complaining that the weapon you’re choosing to auto attack with conflicts with 3phant. I don’t know why you think every weapon should synergize perfectly with every build. I’m explaining mechanics to you and you’re accusing me of having an inflexible build? Hell no, I don’t have these problems because I build around what we have, not what I ask for on the forums.

Weapon swap is on a 10 second CD. Scepter 1 resets in like 3 seconds.

Swap -> Scepter 1, Scepter 1, Confusion, Scepter 1, Scepter 1, Pistol 5/Block -> Swap if you want, or use your remaining skills, summon a phantom, whatever.

There, 0% idle time and you didn’t summon a single clone. This really isn’t difficult.

Too much swag?

Oh good, someone that knows what’s up, I was worried I’d have to drop some knowledge bombs in this thread but Easymode has it taken care of.

Links are broken, I’m guessing you copy-pasted this from another forum?

What they should have done is just given him a +20% crit damage buff rather than the boon. Can’t be stolen, can’t be cleansed, can’t interfere with retaliation. Best solution IMO.

Mac.1936:

Thinking you need to use staff when phantasms are up is inflexible. I use scepter for block and confusion. Should I not auto attack during this time?

Uh, considering you CAN’T auto attack while using your confusion and block, I would say that no, you should not auto attack during that time.

Having a second weapon set is not being inflexible. I just mentioned the staff because it’s very common and excellent. You also have the option of the sword, and GS. People are picking the weapon with the least synergy for their build and wondering why the auto attack isn’t that great.

Mac.1936:

Alrighty, fair enough. I suppose that is one reason that clones should be replaced. But, there are numerous instances where it is detrimental.

I don’t really care if a change is made or not, but it seems to me that there are more mesmer builds that would benefit from it than not.

There is 1 instance where it’s detrimental, and that is when you have a 3 Phantasm setup and you aren’t doing anything but auto attacking. If that’s the case you should be using your staff anyway if you’re just auto attacking. That’s the biggest thing that’s confusing me. Why are we auto attacking with the focus if we have 3 phantasms up?

3 Phantom AFK is an inflexible build, you shouldn’t everything to synergize with it. It’s actually getting strange how many people are saying things along the lines of “this skill is bad when I’m using this one specific build, fix it!”

I do agree that we should probably have a power focused ranged main hand weapon though. The staff is outstanding, and I don’t think raw damage is how mesmers were “meant” to be played but it would still be nice to have that flexibility. Sword/Focus + Sword/Pistol is awesome for PvP but it obviously lacks range.

Standard in WvW AFAIK is Focus Reflection.

Basically Staff + Sword/Focus.

If you’re just doing group events and you can maintain 3 iDuelists or iWarlocks, you don’t have to shatter much.

Shatter if their target is about to die, or shatter if you only have clones and you’re about to summon phantasms. Use F4 if you’re about to die, or get interrupted while rezzing someone.

Shattering becomes more effective with thought out builds later on.

Mac.1936:

I don’t believe replacing a clone activates “on clone death” traits

It does
I wrote about a build that uses scepter and duelists, alongside shattering here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-PvE-Dungeon-Builds-With-Tips-and-Tricks/

If you shatter, and then summon an illusion right after, it pops right out normally as if you had no clones. When you shatter, mechanically speaking you have 0 clones except you still get the passive bonuses for having them if you’re specced into that.

Make sure to stress that slot skills can be changed between fights and that picking a slot skill “build” is silly.

So far my attention has been focused solely on level 80 play so I’ll be interested to see what you say about dungeons.

I wouldn’t want this stickied. A lot of the advice is good but the actual build itself isn’t that great, and it’s far from “comprehensive.”

The build is really schizophrenia, it’s definitely not amazing for dungeons, and maxing condition damage is extremely weak in group events.

The “I tend to not interrupt my opponents much at all” line really made me cringe. That’s a bad mistake in my opinion. The mesmer has some phantastic interrupts.

Mantras are horrible because even the best mantra build is atrocious compared to mediocre builds without them.

Please do not throw away all your utility slots and time with mantras.

The stun one is situationally alright though.

I clarified the rune thing

Diretemus.7235:

There is more to Mesmers than just shattering illusions.

There is more to just sitting on your phantoms.
If you are going to severely limit your build, don’t expect everything to work well with it.

Added some and edited some

I’m raising an eyebrow at anyone who thinks the scepter’s auto-attack is a bad skill.
It just means you’re using an inflexible and boring DPS build.

I mostly keep phantasms alive by only using ranged phantasms, and the +range trait for iDuelist.

There is nothing wrong with leaving up 3 Warlocks and 3 Duelists because you dish out great DPS and it frees you up to support your team, rez, auto attack, whatever. However I’m not suggesting that it’s always reasonable. Dungeons have gratuitous AoE and mobs, and sometimes you’re much better off getting your clones into the fray which is the what the build provides.

The concern with the build you posted is two-fold. First, keeping Warden alive seems to be very difficult, and second, if you can’t keep up the phantasms, the build doesn’t have as much going for it. IF you can keep the phantasms up, and it’s certainly possible in a lot of situations, it should be fine.

If you are finding yourself in situations where you can’t keep the warden alive, drop out of Chaos and dump into Dueling. Grab the +range. The extra crit damage and chance is a HUGE boost.
20 points of Dueling results in a bonus +20% crit damage, and if you are critting say, 90% of the time, that’s a huge DPS bonus. Sometimes the stats you get are worth more than the traits if you’re shooting for high numbers.

Like I mentioned earlier, I really want to make iWarden work so I’ll give your build a try with tankier armor to see if I can extend that survivability to the Warden. iWarden critting 12 times is sick.

Best: Temporal Curtain
Worst: iMage

Yes, I’ve done the explorables. It’s actually the story modes that I haven’t done 100%. I’m doing them with my buddy as he levels since they don’t really give good rewards if you’re level 80.

In general AoE is avoidable. Either through projectile blocking or dodging. For example, say a boss throws down an AoE that poisons you. If you don’t time the roll right, you’ll just have to use some of your condition management. No big deal. Since you did AC on exploration I’ll mention the the guy that pulls everyone in and 1 shots them. Skills like that can be blocked hilariously easily with this build. Just roll backwards any time during the spell. You’ll pop out a sacrificial clone that gets pulled in to die for you, debuffing the boss. I’ll add a part about projectile blocking.

Infact now that I think about it, this sort of careful play works pretty much everywhere, though it’s really hard to pull off sometimes.

Arah explorable has a boss called Giganticus Lupicus who has AoE pulses that nothing we have can out range, yet you can still dodge it.

If you aren’t good with timing yet against a certain boss, roll to pop out a clone and F4 before you finish the roll. If you already had 2 clones out you can invuln yourself for nearly 4 seconds.

Staff 2 + Roll + F4 is pretty neat, and that doesn’t even tap into your utility skills.

The Focus is basically tied with the Pistol IMO but it’s used for different things, I’ll probably do a write-up on the focus. iWarden also does flat out stupid damage but I haven’t found a build that reliably keeps it alive in dungeons. If I can get iWarden to survive without sacrificing too much it will become my main suggestion by leaps and bounds.

A full 12 crits from a warden with the associated bleed followed by a 3 clone shatter is ridiculous.

No idea, if none of your clones are popping.

What’s the sigil on your weapon?

Just checked, buff still lasts indefinitely.

I wasn’t aware of this, where have you seen this change? It doesn’t really matter much though because you can refresh 3 illusions in 20 seconds.

The real question is how in the world you’re keeping an iWarden alive for 20 seconds.

Souldoubt.8692:

What weapon combos do you prefer for a dps build? im using GS & sword/torch right now and switching out GS for scepter/pistol on long boss fights. Im still low lvl but this is a great guide, thanks.

I didn’t realize I left out the weapon selection. This build utilizes the scepter over the great sword because iWarlock is ranged and thus much more reliable in a dungeon with gratuitous AoE, and iWarlock does amazing damage. The Staff also synergizes with the build very well while giving additional support.

If you are at a point in the game where your Greatsword Phantasm can survive go ahead and use it. This build is mostly focused around dungeons which are quite a bit different than group events.

What I said is true but you’re right that it doesn’t answer all of your questions.
When I said counters I just meant the displayed number, it doesn’t just drop the skill totally.

You are right about Portal Entre, I assume it’s a typo. The tooltips are horrible.
As for the daze, are you using it on trash mobs, or bosses that have Defiant stacks? I have never noticed a daze just not work when it should.

Syn.3459:

it’s bare not bear

http://i.imgur.com/tl68x.jpg

Just condition duration. It’s really confusing. In GENERAL any EFFECT a sigil/rune/trait gives you does not transfer to your clones. Effect is extremely broad and ambiguous in that definition though

These include +%condition duration
Extra bounce on bouncing attacks
Chance to proc and effect on crit

and many more.