Guild Wars 2

Note: This is still a work in progress. I’ll continue to update this over the coming days. If you have a suggestion for something, please post a comment.

Mesmer Basics
1. Class Mechanics
Mesmers class mechanic primarily revolves around Illusions and shattering them. Illusions are broken down into two categories:

• Clones (which are copies of you in every way, even your guild tag!), and
• Phantasms (which are specialist copies of you that generally perform a specific move and tend toward higher damage or utility).

We have four shatters (illusion destruction) that we can perform:

• Mind Wrack – deal damage to your target and nearby foes; the more illusions, the more damage.
• Cry of Frustration – cause confusion (causes damage to your target when it uses a skill) on your target and nearby foes; the more illusions, the more stacks of confusion.
• Diversion – dazes (interrupts?) the targets of your illusions for 1 second per illusion shattered.
• Distortion – causes distortion (invulnerability) on yourself for 1 second per illusion shattered.

2. Game Mechanics
Game mechanics that specifically relate to playing the Mesmer profession. Any suggestions for relevant info to go here?

3. Weapon Skills
Mesmers can use:

• Main Hand – Sword or Scepter
• Off Hand – Sword, Pistol, Focus or Torch
• Two Hand – Staff or Greatsword
• Aquatic – Trident or Spear

4. Slot Skills
Healing

• Ether Feast – Heals more for every illusion you have out. 20 second cooldown.
• Mirror – Heals and reflects projectiles (heals less than Ether Feast). 20 second cooldown.
• Mantra of Recovery – As with all mantras, you have to charge it in order to use it BUT you can cast a mantra while casting other spells. Charging takes 5 seconds, but you can use it twice between each charge (you can trait later on to get 3 uses between each recharge). 1 second cooldown (for each use). Doesn’t heal as much as Ether Feast each time, but you get two uses out of it.

Utility
a) Signets – Signets have a passive effect that always applies. They can also be activated for an effect. When a signet is activated it has a cooldown and while on cooldown, the passive effect ceases to apply until the cooldown has worn off.

• Signet of Inspiration. Grants random boons to yourself every 10 seconds. Activating it copies your current boons to nearby allies.
• Signet of Domination. Increases your condition damage. Activating it stuns your target for 2 seconds.
• Signet of Midnight. Increases boon duration by 10%. Activating it blinds nearby foes for 3.5 seconds (i.e their next outgoing attack will miss) AND breaks any stuns on you.
• Signet of Illusion. Increases the health of your illusions by 50%. Activating it recharges any shatter skills that are on cooldown.

b) Mantras

• Mantra of Pain
• Mantra of Distraction
• Mantra of Resolve
• Mantra of Concentration

c) Manipulation

• Blink
• Arcane Thievery
• Illusion of Life
• Mimic

d) Clone

• Decoy
• Mirror Images

e) Glamour

• Null Field
• Feedback
• Portal Entre
• Veil

f) Phantasm

• Phantasmal Defender
• Phantasmal Disenchanter

g) Elite

• Moa Morph
• Time Warp – This is hands down one of the best elite skills you can use. It doubles attack speed for 10 seconds.
• Mass Invisibility

5. Traits
Domination

• Increases Power.
• Increases Condition Duration.

Dueling

• Increases Precision.
• Increases Critical Damage.

Chaos

• Increases Toughness.
• Increases Boon Duration.

Inspiration

• Increases Vitality.
• Increases Healing.

Illusions

• Increases Condition Damage.
• Increases Shredding Recharge Rate.

6. Race Selection
I don’t see any major benefits in race selection for the Mesmer.

• Marxo points out that Norn shapeshifting skills make you stick out like a sore thumb around your clones, so this is worthy of noting.
• Ren points out that Asura get an aoe skill with poison and weakness which helps a condition build quite well.

Weapon Skills in more detail
You have access to a variety of weapons and weapon combos. Carry one of each in your inventory all the time. Switch when appropriate. Sometimes a certain combo is just going to be more effective than another or the one you prefer to use most of the time! Don’t pigeon hole yourself. Mesmers have oodles of tricks. That’s what makes us so freaking awesome.

Here’s one way to consider your weapon choices:

For 1 weapon slot, I’d recommend going with a main hand weapon (Sword or Scepter) and an off hand weapon (Sword, Pistol, Focus or Torch). For your second weapon slot, I’d recommend going with a two-hander. (Note: you can use both main hand/off hand combos in both weapon slots if you wish.)

Main Hand
Sword is a melee style that affords you:

• a vulnerability condition on your target (Mind Slash)
• access to invulnerability for yourself (as well as high damage) every 10 seconds (Blurred Frenzy)
• a handy cripple (but it misbehaves a lot of the time and I find it to be a really awkward skill to use effectively) (Illusionary Leap)

Scepter is a ranged style that affords you:

• a basic damage move that creates clones (Ether Bolt)
• a block that creates a clone (Illusionary Counter) – which I rarely use
• a stacking confuse condition (Confusing Images)

I prefer scepter most of the time, because I’ve built my character around a focus on dealing condition damage. It’s pretty obvious why – Mesmers can lay a crapload of conditions. Bump up your condition damage and things fall over. I also prefer ranged. Don’t ignore sword though – it’s really useful (like, say, when you have to “tank” a certain boss while your team dps’s the other one).

Off Hand
Sword, which gives you:

• a block with an illusion created (Illusionary Riposte)
• a stationary damage dealing whirling swordsman (Illusionary Swordsman).

Pistol:

• a high damage Illusion (Illusionary Duelist)
• a move that stuns your primary target, then bounces to a 2nd and dazes them and then bounces to a 3rd and blinds them – but be careful with it, because it will often pull unexpected foes!

Focus:

• a move that allows you to reposition foes and/or cripple them, and can give you and your team a speed buff (if they run through it) – learn to use it and learn to use it well – you can literally save lives with it! (Temporal Curtain)
• an aoe damage Illusion that protects itself and allies (if they stand close enough) from projectiles. (Illusionary Warden)

Torch

• a hide/invis that blinds nearby foes for 3 seconds allowing you to run away, de-aggro, or just bring control back to the fight – when you reappear you apply a burn condition on nearby foes.
• an Illusion that applies confusion to your foes and retaliation to your friends (it works really nicely with Scepter confusion because it’s a separate stack)

For your second weapon slot, I recommended a two hand weapon. And I recommend a Staff. Greatsword is nice and you will find a use for it in a few situations (it offers some nice control and targetable aoe damage) but I just don’t find it to be that practical. In comparison to what you get from Staff – well, there is no comparison. Here’s what you get from Staff:

• an orb attack that bounces between foes and allies alike, applying random conditions and boons (Wind of Chaos)
• a backward teleport to get you out of nastiness (which you can combo with your own Chaos Storm for a free Chaos Armor, or an Elementalists “fire ring thingy” for a Fire Shield) and summons a Clone (Feigned Escape)
• an Illusion that deals damage based on how many conditions are on your target (remember this, it’s key) (Illusionary Warlock)
• a bubble that applies random boons to you and random conditions to foes when they hit you (Chaos Armor)
• a field that applies random conditions to any foe in it and random boons to any allies in it REALLY FAST

There’s just no reason not to use Staff, in my opinion. One of the key combos I use is to drop a Chaos Storm and then an Illusionary Warlock. Try to time your Warlock when there’s a number of conditions on the target and you’ll see some impressive damage.

Weapon skills in more detail (Cont’d)
I generally go with these combos as “sets and how I like to work” (listed in order of preference):
1) Scepter/Focus (the speed buff from Temporal Curtain for getting around the world is just too good to pass up; the fact that it allows you to control a fight is a huge bonus)
2) Scepter/Torch (usually when I think being able to de-aggro and run is going to be important – or when I situationally want to make use of the burn you can apply)
3) Scepter/Pistol (used a lot early game, but not so much lately – primarily because I get much better damage out of Illusionary Warden, and it’s aoe, and I don’t need the stun most of the time)
4) Sword/Focus (for when I need to keep a mob or two busy while my friends get something else killed or under control)

Noted by other players:
1) Sword/Scepter has been noted by both Ren and Budg for its ability to provide two blocks that deal damage while allowing you to avoid damage. They’ve both had good success with this combo in PVE and PVP.

I’ll use the other combos rarely and in specific situations (usually dungeons).

I always have my staff in my second weapon slot. I know this breaks my advice earlier of “don’t pigeon hole yourself” but oh well!

This is looking great, very helpful for people wanting to try the class. I may make a mesmer so I’ll definitely keep an eye on this.

Build Ideas
1. PVE
This is the build I’m using.| – which gives you:

• 15% more damage from your Illusions (not Clones).
• Vulnerability on nearby foes when you shatter.
• 3% reduced damage to you for each illusion (so, 9% ideally).
• +50 toughness when wielding a Staff (or Trident).
• 3% increased damage from you for each illusion (so, 9% ideally).
• Confusion lasts 33% longer (and confusion is a lot of your condition damage, via Scepter and Staff and to a lesser extent Torch).
• Interrupt a foe? They get 5 seconds of vulnerability (increased dmg to them).
• Daze a foe? They get 3 seconds of vulnerability.
• When your health reaches 75% – 10 seconds auto-regen (internal 30 sec cd).
• Gain regeneration? You also gain 2 seconds of protection.
• 5% of your Toughness stat goes to your condition damage.
• 10% faster recharge on the cd of your Illusion skills (so you can get your Warden and Warlock out faster)
• All your shatters cause confusion (did I mention it’s a great source of your dmg?)
• All your shatters give you might (makes you hit harder).

That’s all on top of your trait line bonuses:

• +200 Power (increases your dmg)
• +20% increased condition duration (the longer they last, the more damage and more effective you are)
• 250 (300 when wielding Staff or Trident) Toughness (getting hit doesn’t hurt as much – and even though you’re in light armor, this really does make a difference!)
• +25% increased boon duration (so all the goodness you give your party makes them more effective for longer)
• +25% increased condition damage
• 25% faster recharge on your shatter skills (NOTE: shatter in this build is situational, not your main source of damage!!!)

2. PVP
Still to come

BCDragon.5614:

This is looking great, very helpful for people wanting to try the class. I may make a mesmer so I’ll definitely keep an eye on this.

Thanks BCDragon! Just having a few issues with formatting it all. No fair that there’s a post limit of 5001 characters!

One question though, I don’t see any healing skills on that build? Do you not use any?

BCDragon.5614:

One question though, I don’t see any healing skills on that build? Do you not use any?

sputters Mesmers? Healing? Preposterous!

In all honesty, I haven’t toyed in the slightest with a healing build as yet. It’s on the to-do list. Welcome your (or anyone else’s) input though!

Edit: So, took a few minutes to understand what you meant! I’ve added in the healing, utility and elite skills I predominantly use to the build. I originally didn’t add them as I really don’t feel they’re make or break – I change them all the time depending on situation.

Just thought I’d let you know that I indeed make a mesmer XD

Edit: Don’t know why I waited so long to make one either

Good thread. Bumping for visibility.

very nice, thank you. i’ll have to use my staff and other weapon sets more often. early in the game i fell into a comfortable groove of using my Greatsword and have relied heavily upon it. i love using the mind stab in combination with the phantasmal berserker – illusionary wave is also very helpful, especially when trying to confuse mobs.

A nice starter guide. I would try to avoid excessive favoritism towards condition builds as there are some professions that completely nullify condition characters in PvP, including the mesmer and guardian – though I do agree that at this time staff is easier to do well with than greatsword (GS still decent though).

Great guide, Mesmer is the class that has interested me the most since installing the game last night and I’m excited to give it a go when I get off of work!

Any advice from anyone on races that synergize specifically well with the Mesmer, either enhancing certain skills/attributes or giving the Mesmer a skill they otherwise would not have?

Chili, I play a sylvari and I have found that the racial skill “healing seed” which causes a short range regeneration synergizes well with the trait that gives protection upon receiving regeneration.

The only race I would say is pretty bad as a mesmer is Norn, those shapeshifting skills just make you stick out like a sore thumb around your clones.

Marxo.3829:

A nice starter guide. I would try to avoid excessive favoritism towards condition builds as there are some professions that completely nullify condition characters in PvP, including the mesmer and guardian – though I do agree that at this time staff is easier to do well with than greatsword (GS still decent though).

Thanks Marxo, and couldn’t agree more. If you have any particular PVP info or a build you’ve had good success with and can help explain (better than I) feel free to add it in or shoot me a message. I’ll throw it in and of course give credit. You (and others) should have noticed that this is pretty much a PVE centric guide so far, but I really do want to be fair and balanced with it.

Marxo.3829:

Chili, I play a sylvari and I have found that the racial skill “healing seed” which causes a short range regeneration synergizes well with the trait that gives protection upon receiving regeneration.

The only race I would say is pretty bad as a mesmer is Norn, those shapeshifting skills just make you stick out like a sore thumb around your clones.

Good to hear, Sylvari was the race I was looking at. The long distance root especially seemed quite nice.

ChiliPalmer.9860:

Great guide, Mesmer is the class that has interested me the most since installing the game last night and I’m excited to give it a go when I get off of work!

Great to see – you probably can’t half tell Mesmer is my favourite class. :p Even if you don’t get into the swing of it from the get go, give it some time – it has a lot of subtlety to it and little tricks. And our survivability (for a light armoured class) is incredible.

Any advice from anyone on races that synergize specifically well with the Mesmer, either enhancing certain skills/attributes or giving the Mesmer a skill they otherwise would not have?

I’ve only played Human (in the BWEs) and Sylvari (live) and can’t say either one has an advantage over the other. Sylvari cultural armor is real pretty though!

No mention of the scepter/sword combo?

One weapon grouping you didn’t mention that I find very useful in WvW is Scepter/Sword. I use my staff mostly but when I got players getting on me, i can switch to scepter/sword and since both weapons have a block/counter skill, i can chain those to live through any initial onslaught while creating more clone bombs. I know you said you didn’t use them much, but once you get the hang of hitting them just as they swing at you, you don’t waste as much time from attack cycle and double block counter can turn a close fight fast. Also the sword offhand has the strongest attacking illusion we got(and maybe only that finishes combos, not sure on that).

Also Asura have an aoe skill with poison and weakness, which helps a condition build quite well

Mesmer is a blast to play and this guide is great.

For those thinking of playing a Mesmer and those mesmer players I’ll remind why the class is so great.

Mesmers CONTROL the battlefield. Everyone fights on your terms and your conditions (double meaning if you like condition builds hah) if you don’t like a situation amazing abilities to get out. Want to take on 2-3 people keep illusions and shatter. Keeping the enemy guessing always means they will forever be reacting to you and not the other way around. You decide whas going to happen. A Mesmer will never let the enemy he comfortable fighting. This is a huge advantage.

One thing, I’m pretty sure they nerfed the greats word damage a few patches ago. I dumped it completely when they did for staff and have never been happier. I run sword and pistol (originally I hated the thought of guns in an MMO) but the stun and illusion duellists are great. A ranged attacking illusion is great passive damage while you actively control the enemy.

My preference in PVE (different in pvp) is to drop choas field on the enemy first, ideally multiple enemies, then mirror image immediately to get 2 clones, then summon a 3rd from the instant teleporting back staff move immediately shatter them for the aoe damae and to get it on cooldown, then summon phantasms and use blurred frenzy to clean up whats left. I have seem some amazing numbers on shatter in pve and ESPECIALLY pvp.

For pvp I run the same set up utilities I use mirror image decoy and usually phantasmal defender (absorbs half the incoming damage) this gives me 2 additional ways to make clones and a phantasm as well as a stun break. Shattering clones provides amazing spike damage that either gets the enemy to use their heal immediately, or surprises them and immediately puts them on the defensive (reactig to you) Honestly with a Mesmer I am moving around so much, teleporting, creating clones, stealthing, it becomes extremely rewarding to see the skill for playing the class pay off when you see 2-3 enemies swinging at midair.

A trait I feel any pvp build should utilize is “Illusions cause a condition on being killed” so many players and mobs attack your illusions it can stack conditions quickly. For me personally Crit is king. I run a heavy precision build, but stop once I get around 40-50% Crit rate. Then use the rest in vitality and toughness. I have seen phenomenal results in pvp with this set up, easily getting 10+ kills in SPVP mostly getting 15+ kills with 1-2 deaths, when you put the effort into learning the class and become able to utilize the options of the Mesmer without thinking twice it becomes extremely rewarding and a lot of fun. It is a class that takes some micromanagement but hat is another thing that makes the Mesmer great.

I am having a blast with my mes XD…thanks again for making this guide

Budg.3064:

No mention of the scepter/sword combo?

I covered it in the options, but I personally don’t use it as a combo. Your major benefit of scepter main hand is about laying confusion. Sword off hand doesn’t really add to that; it gives you a block and a Phantasm that doesn’t apply conditions. So at least to me, they don’t synergise well.

Your experience might differ and I’d like to hear about it as it might be a useful addition to the guide! I’m guessing if you’re using Sword off hand you’re not focusing as much on conditions?

Ren.1540:

One weapon grouping you didn’t mention that I find very useful in WvW is Scepter/Sword. I use my staff mostly but when I got players getting on me, i can switch to scepter/sword and since both weapons have a block/counter skill, i can chain those to live through any initial onslaught while creating more clone bombs. I know you said you didn’t use them much, but once you get the hang of hitting them just as they swing at you, you don’t waste as much time from attack cycle and double block counter can turn a close fight fast. Also the sword offhand has the strongest attacking illusion we got(and maybe only that finishes combos, not sure on that).

Oh, that’s really neat – I hadn’t considered chaining the blocks! I usually evade in PVE and I haven’t spent all that much time on the PVP side of the fence (when I roll in WvW I tend not to directly engage but support those that are). I’ll add this in!

Also Asura have an aoe skill with poison and weakness, which helps a condition build quite well

Great info – I’ll add this in! Thanks!

Illurim.6059:

Budg.3064:

No mention of the scepter/sword combo?

I covered it in the options, but I personally don’t use it as a combo. Your major benefit of scepter main hand is about laying confusion. Sword off hand doesn’t really add to that; it gives you a block and a Phantasm that doesn’t apply conditions. So at least to me, they don’t synergise well.

Your experience might differ and I’d like to hear about it as it might be a useful addition to the guide! I’m guessing if you’re using Sword off hand you’re not focusing as much on conditions?

The scepter/sword combo gives the mesmer a lot of surviability, I’ve been able to solo same level veteran enemies in PvE with their regular enemy friends spawning around me. The thing about the two mesmer blocks from the scepter and sword is that they not only just block and create a clone, but they also damage when they block too, and not a small amount of damage.

For comparison, at my current mesmer level (31), my mind wrack when used with 3 illusions does 228 damage according to the tooltip. The scepter block causes 252 damage to the enemy on a successful block and the sword block causes 235. Both block abilities do more damage themselves than a full 3 illusion mind wrack does to a single target. They also have secondary uses however, activating the block skills again will perform a counter attack. The scepter counter attack will blind the enemy and the sword counter attack dazes the enemy. Both very handy in certain situations.

On top of all this, putting only 5 points into the illusions trait line will grant you illusionists celerity, which reduces the cooldown on illusion creating abilites by 20%. Both blocks benefit from this, allowing you to use them even more frequently in a fight.

The best use of blocking I’ve personally found is to start a fight by a casting the sceptre skill confusing images, get the full 5 stacks of confusion up which should give the enemy time to run up to you, and then block their first attack. Heavy confusion damage, a strong attack, a blocked enemy attack and a fresh clone is how I start all my encounters. If the enemy is ranged replace the block skill with the feedback utility skill and watch the ranged enemy literally kill themselves. I’m not joking, have you seen enemies that say ‘throws daggers’ under their healthbar? Usually pirates or bandits. 5 stacks of confusion, feedback bubble, killed itself with its own whirling dagger throw attack.

Finally, onto the phantasmal swordsman. Again, he has a strong attack compared to our others, being 253 at my level. But its the fact that each attack he does counts as a leap finisher thats important. Just using the mesmers own ethereal combo fields gives the phantasmal swordsman chaos armour, which means when he goes down in 1-2 hits, he’s gonna at least give the enemy some sort of condition. If he manages to stay alive, he’ll be applying those conditions regularly. If you manage to get 3 of them up, like on an event champion or something, this effect is tripled. And this is only using your own ethereal fields, get a fire attuned elementelist and they’ll be stacking burning as they attack, or constantly applying darkness to the enemy with a necromancers dark field.

Anyways, looks like I got a bit carried away. Sorry for the wall of text.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

A trait I feel any pvp build should utilize is “Illusions cause a condition on being killed” so many players and mobs attack your illusions it can stack conditions quickly. For me personally Crit is king. I run a heavy precision build, but stop once I get around 40-50% Crit rate. Then use the rest in vitality and toughness. I have seen phenomenal results in pvp with this set up, easily getting 10+ kills in SPVP mostly getting 15+ kills with 1-2 deaths, when you put the effort into learning the class and become able to utilize the options of the Mesmer without thinking twice it becomes extremely rewarding and a lot of fun. It is a class that takes some micromanagement but hat is another thing that makes the Mesmer great.

Some great info on the PVP side of things there, Blueprint. Don’t suppose you’d be happy to share your PVP precision build would you? I could throw it into the Build ideas section (with credit to you)?

Finally!

I’ve yet to see any mention anywhere of the Scepter/Sword combo.

Until now, I thought maybe I was the only one to have stumbled upon its usefulness. Or to at least recognize its potential and its survivability.

With Scepter/Sword, 4 of your 5 skills generate clones/illusions… and all are on relatively short cooldowns. This, combined with traits that enhance shattering have made this build extremely potent. Many times, I have “3 dots” back up before my shatter is off cooldown (that’s just how fast this weapon combo generates illusions). The only non-illusion-generating skill we have is #3 from Scepter which adds confusion and damage, and is amazing to use on its own.

Next, the survivability of this combo is great. You have two blocks on very short cooldowns. They DO work on ranged attacks too (at least arrows/projectiles… not sure about magic). Two short-cooldown blocks, amazing illusion-generation, and double-tap evade and you rarely get hit. Even if you get aggro from a 2nd or 3rd enemy, the blocks will work on their attacks even if you aren’t targeting that enemy, so no crazy target switching is necessary.

The blocks also second as a disable of some sort, as mentioned before. The Scepter block can blind for 5s, and the Sword block dazes. Sometimes I’ll send in my Illusionary Swordsman, then double tap #2 to blind the enemy, wait a bit, then double tap #4 to interrupt their next attack. The Swordsman already leaps to attack his enemies, so if in the middle of leaping, he evades naturally. All this amounts to the ability to keep your phantasm survivability high while you wait for a cooldown or whatever.

While the Scepter’s auto-attack isn’t as high damage as the Sword (main hand), it does spawn clones, which when shattered more than compensates for this. Also the sword requires melee range, and even with Blurred Frenzy which provides invulnerability, its 10s cooldown means that for the next 8 seconds you are within melee range and squishy. I loved the theme of sword main hand, but couldn’t stand how quickly my health went down. So Scepter has its advantages in my opinion.

I attempted Scepter/Pistol for a while, but found the block/clone/daze of the Sword off hand was more useful than the Magic Bullet (the cooldown of which is way too long, and has an annoying tendency to aggro neutral creatures nearby). I also found that the Illusionary Swordsman does more damage than the Duelist (which attacks so infrequently its annoying). The Swordsman also moves towards the enemy and tends to distract blows from the enemy more often than the Duelist, who stands still and seems less likely to get aggro (to some that may be a good thing, but I enjoy when the enemies go for my illusions).

I have a staff as my second weapon for groups/dynamic events.

Ultimately it comes down to personal playstyle, but I’m glad others have recognized the utility of Scepter/Sword. At the same time, I feel like we’ve let the cat out of the bag, and now more will be running with that combo, making me feel less unique