Phantasmal Swordsman

Phantasm. Perform a sword strike and create an illusion that attacks your foe. If the sword strike hits, you gain might. — In-game description

Phantasmal Swordsman

Profession

Mesmer (skill list)

Weapon

Off hand sword

Type

Phantasm

Summons

Illusionary Swordsman

Game link

API

10174

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1  

15

20

 

Phantasmal Swordsman

Phantasm. Perform a sword strike and create an illusion that attacks your foe. If the sword strike hits, you gain might.

 Phantasm Damage: 504 (0.5)^?

 Sword Strike Damage: 183 (0.5)^?

 Phantasm Damage: 504 (0.5)^?

₈ Might (10s): 240 Condition Damage, 240 Power

₄ Might (10s): 120 Condition Damage, 120 Power

 Sword Strike Range: 130

 Combo Finisher: Leap

 Range: 1,200

— In-game description

Mechanics

• This skill has three attacks:
  • The Illusionary Swordsman is summoned near the target and lunges towards it casting   Illusionary Sword Attack, performing a Leap Finisher combo for itself. If the target is not within lunge range, the phantasm will first run into range.
  • The Mesmer swings their sword. If the melee range sword attack connects, the mesmer gains  Might. The mesmer also performs one Leap Finisher combo at the start of the casting time, and a second one when the swing finishes, without actually leaping. Both combo finishers happen regardless of whether the attack connects.
  • Finally, the phantasm casts   Blurred Frenzy, striking up to 8 times within 130 range.

Bug:

If the sword swing connects, the phantasm will be spawned with the same 8 stacks of might the mesmer gained.

Phantasm

Phantasm	Skill used	Range	Effect
Illusionary Swordsman	Illusionary Sword Attack	480	Deals damage, cripples, and causes a leap finisher.
	Blurred Frenzy	130	Strikes the foe with a flurry of strikes, distorting the space around the phantasm, making it evade attacks.

Related traits

Dueling

• Phantasmal Fury — Your phantasms have fury.
• Fencer's Finesse — Gain a stacking ferocity effect when you or one of your illusions strikes with a one-handed sword or an underwater spear. Reduces recharge on sword and underwater spear skills.

Inspiration

• Sympathetic Visage — Phantasms take your conditions from you when summoned.
• Illusionary Inspiration — Increase healing to other allies. Summoning an illusion heals all allies around you. Virtuoso: Triggers when stocking a blade.

Illusions

• Persistence of Memory — When a phantasm becomes a clone, it transfers its boons to you.
• Compounding Power — Creating an illusion increases your outgoing damage and condition damage for a short duration. Virtuoso: Triggers when stocking a blade.
• Escape Artist — When a phantasm is created, grant it distortion.
• Phantasmal Haste — Phantasms spawn with quickness. Gain quickness when you create a phantasm.
• Phantasmal Force — Phantasms deal increased strike damage for each stack of might you have. Gain might when your phantasms become clones.

Chronomancer

• Time Catches Up — Activating a Shatter gives your illusions superspeed. Shatters deal increased damage to movement-impaired foes.
• Stretched Time — Flow of Time now affects nearby allies. Grant alacrity to nearby allies when you summon a phantasm.
• Seize the Moment — You and nearby allies gain quickness for each clone you shatter. Grant quickness to nearby allies when you summon a phantasm.
• Chronophantasma — The first time a phantasm would become a clone, it instead resummons itself and attacks again. Resummoned phantasms inflict a percentage of the original's damage. (Resummoned phantasms are briefly dazed.)

Virtuoso

• Phantasmal Blades — Phantasms that successfully complete their attack launch a blade at their target and grant you fury when they expire.

Notes

• The phantasm evades during the cast of Blurred Frenzy.
• Phantasms have their own unique weapon strength that is independent of the player's equipped weapon rarity. The swordsman has a weapon strength range of 2485-2746, with the midpoint being 2615.5.
• The 10 attacks will max out the trait  Fencer's Finesse's effect.

Anomalies:

• The tooltip only lists   Illusionary Sword Attack under phantasm damage, ignoring the phantasm cast   Blurred Frenzy, this makes the tooltip misleading as most of the damage is in the latter (listed below).

 Phantasm Blurred Frenzy: 1,611 (1.6)^?

Version history

For a detailed skill history, see here.

Patch	Changes
October 08, 2024	Reduced the cooldown from 20 seconds to 18 seconds in PvP and WvW. Increased the initial phantasm hit damage from 0.35 to 0.5 and the flurry damage coefficient per hit from 0.1 to 0.12 in PvP and WvW.
July 07, 2020	The phantasm is now summoned based on the target's location rather than the mesmer's.
February 25, 2020	Competitive content update: (Competitive split) Reduced power coefficient of the phantasm leap attack from 0.5 to 0.35. Reduced power coefficient per strike of the phantasm flurry attack from 0.15 to 0.1.
March 27, 2018	Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from summoning a phantasm if the mesmer jumped while casting it. Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW. Decreased might from 8 stacks to 4 stacks in PvP and WvW.
February 06, 2018	Phantasms can no longer be shattered and no longer count toward your maximum illusion count. Phantasms are destroyed and then replaced by clones after completing their unique attack or if their attack is interrupted. This phantasm now performs a flurry of attacks after the leap attack. The damage of the leap attack has been decreased by 30%, but the overall damage has increased. The initial attack from this skill no longer grants might to phantasms.
May 16, 2017	This skill now performs a sword strike in front of the player when summoning the phantasm. If the sword strike hits you and all Swordsmen currently summoned, gain 8 might for 10 seconds.
June 23, 2015	Specialization update: Phantasm damage has been increased by 15%.
May 20, 2014	Updated the skill facts to have the appropriate damage indicator. (Separate from the general fix to minion skill damage.)
October 07, 2012	Increased recharge to 18 seconds.
August 28, 2012	Game release: Phantasmal Swordsman has been added to the game.

Trivia

• This phantasm wields a sword with the same skin as Whisperblade.