I played a disgusting mesmer phantasm build before the trait rework in 2015 (which was a few months before HoT). At this time phantasms still stick around, attacking over and over until they are killed. They also take up one of your 3 illusion slots. This is where 3 inconspicuous little traits come into play: Crippling Dissipation: Clones cripple nearby foes when they are killed.Confusing Combatants: Your illusions cause confusion to foes around them when they are killed.Debilitating Dissipation: Clones apply a random condition to nearby foes when they are killed. (bleeding, vulnerability or weakness).The thing is. When you have 2 phantasms and 1 clone and you create a new clone, it always replaces the clone and keeps your 2 phantasms while triggering all 3 traits. Rest of the build: rampager stats (power, precision, condi damage), blink, mirror images and decoy to stay alive and generate clones. I forgot most of the other traits but I did use deceptive evasion to create a clone on dodge. Staff and sword/pistol. Pistol gives a really good hybrid damage phantasm when traited to bleed on crit and the staff phantasm deals more damage for each unique condition (which is a lot). Staff and sword are great kiting weapons. It may not seem like much, but imagine playing a core build against this mesmer. They don't need line of sight to attack you, they can hide and kite while phantasms do the work. If you do get close (especially as melee), you will automatically cleave clones and get cripple, confusion, bleeding, vulnerability and weakness. Both f1 and f2 shatters deal a lot of damage with rampager stats and can be used when phantasms are off cooldown or just to finish the fight. It's a very strong build for going far and winning 1v1's and kiting 1v2's for a long time.