Mesmer - Phantom Menace

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Maybe it never coalesced into something brilliant. Maybe it never made it off the ground floor. Maybe we based our better ideas off of it. Basic builds are anywhere from downright bad to just shy of being good enough to showcase. These builds share the widest ratings and can lead to wildly differing levels of success.

Focused on: Support, Assault, Hybrid damage.

Designed for:

Conquest

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Overview

A phantom build that works on the principle of: "a strong defense makes for the best offense." This build's primary purpose is to bunker, offer healing, boon, and condition removal support, while secondarily being able to offer respectable damage output through Phantasm spawning, weapon skill set, and talent spec synergy.

Skill Bar

Scepter/ShieldHealingUtilityElite

Sword/Torch

Equipment

Superior Sigil of Transference

Outgoing healing effectiveness is increased by 10%.

5

Superior Sigil of Water

30% Chance on Hit: Heal nearby allies around your target (360 radius). (Cooldown: 5s)

9

Superior Sigil of Hydromancy

Damage nearby foes and chill them for 2 seconds when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (Cooldown: 9s)

9

Superior Sigil of Leeching

Your next attack after swapping to this weapon while in combat steals some health. (Cooldown: 9s)

Superior Rune of the Water

(1): +25 Healing Power (2): +5% Boon Duration (3): +50 Healing Power (4): 25% chance when struck to remove a condition. (Cooldown: 30s) (5): +100 Healing Power (6): +15% Boon Duration; When you use a heal skill, you and nearby allies are healed for a small amount. (Cooldown: 10s)

Cleric Amulet

+900 Power +900 Toughness +1200 Healing Power

Variants

Rune

• Superior Rune of Leadership

  Superior Rune of Leadership

  (1): +8 to All Stats (2): +2% Boon Duration (3): +12 to All Stats (4): +3% Boon Duration (5): +16 to All Stats (6): +5% Boon Duration; when you use an elite skill, convert up to 2 conditions into boons of all nearby allies. (Cooldown: 45 seconds)

This exchanges healing power/potential for team condition removal support.

• Superior Rune of Altruism

  Superior Rune of Altruism

  (1): +25 Healing Power (2): When using a heal skill, grant 3 stacks of might to nearby allies for 8 seconds. (Cooldown: 10s) (3): +50 Healing Power (4): +10% Boon Duration (5): +100 Healing Power (6): When you use a heal skill, grant fury to nearby allies for 8 seconds. (Cooldown: 10s)

This exchanges healing power/potential for team boon sharing of might and fury.

Usage

Roles

It is important to understand the role of this build: there is a lot of diversity and role options available to you. Do you want to support your team by providing supplemental damage, heals, and boons? Do you want to hold home, or assault the enemy's far point? Whatever decision you make, you have to be willing to adjust it based on the context of the match. Additionally, this build is NOT recommended for novice Mesmer players that are new to the class. Reason? Patience and pacing the timing of your skills is critical to the build's ultimate performance and success.

General

• Do not stand still; you are not indestructible! Dragon Hunter (DH) Guardians and Necros will find it much harder to down you when you stay on the move. A great tactic for any enemies pursuing you is to place a right in front of your movement path; often times the enemy will get caught in the event horizon of the , which buys additional time for your cool downs, enables you to launch a counter attack, and/or break free of them altogether.
• Your Shatter skills will grant nearby allies boons from and healing from , while will provide you with self condition removal and healing
• and >> will provide you with your main defense, along with "Sword" supplementing it with and . Be liberal with these skills - due to the rotation of this build's design with Alacrity, you'll find yourself cycling through these defensive skills often, which in turn equals more phantoms, clones, and shattering/healing/damage absorption.

• Additionally, utilize >> and often because they will net you a lot of phantoms/clones in a short amount of time thanks to . Equally important, don't let all those phantoms and clones go to waste! Be ready to follow up with this ideal combo: >> >> >> >> >> .
• NOTE: is optional; use only in circumstances when you really need it (i.e. prevent condition stacking; multiple sources of incoming damage, which is typical when bunkering against 2+ players, etc).
• Immediately follow up with and , and use your , , and skills dependent on your current situation.
• NOTE: Do NOT burn through your F1-F5 skills without proper timing; pace your usage of these skills to maximize the full potential of entire skill set rotation! Failure to do so will leave you susceptible to heavy spike damage, knockdown, fear, DH bait-pull-trap tactics, and Necro heavy boon corruption and condition applying, etc.

• is an amazing phantom generator for you! Keep in mind that each phantom is going to transfer 50% of incoming damage from you to it. Optimize these phantoms by shattering them before they're destroyed, and now comes into play by re-summoning them. That's potentially 6x , and you're just getting started! :)
• enables you to remove conditions upon shattering; it is recommended to use for cleansing any stacked Burn, Bleed, and Torment conditions primarily. Additionally, will provide you with some useful healing kickback. For additional healing, be sure to double cast your once you cast
• Thanks to , you'll have Stability anytime you shatter. This is a great way to force your way onto a Cap point, and/or is an excellent option for securing an Stomp on a fallen enemy!
• Utilize your Sword/Torch weapon set primarily to supplement your damage output, and to take advantage of . This is especially effective on the Forest Of Niflhel map, on the center cap spot, where enemies typically like to assault from the upper ledge there, and you're trying to pressure them back or finish a player kill (i.e. thief or mesmer teleports on the upper ledge after going into a downed stance).
• One of the primary sources of damage for this build is the Retaliation your phantasms get upon being spawned, which comes from Can't find such trait "Persisting Images"! Please refer to our trait index. So, whenever possible, try not to shatter immediately unless your playing more offensively than defensively, or you have too many phantoms/clones coming into your skill rotation and don't want to waste the shatter benefits they offer you/your teammates.

Additional Notes (Based On Feedback)

• Bare in mind that you have more mobility than you might realize; you have a permanent 25% speed buff that comes from , which makes you viable in capping far if/when necessary, and selecting this trait is by build design. Additionally, it enables you to have enough mobility to remain optional in your role, which is crucial when considering that the context of the battle changes constantly.

Counters

• Heavy Condition spike pressure.
• Heavy Interrupt/Immobilize/Knockback/Knockdown pressure.