Guild Wars 2

Hey Guys, so after reaching level 80 with my Warrior & Guardian, I’m looking to try a non-melee approach to the game, with that said though, i have a play-style already in mind.

I’m hoping to be a sort of “Support” build, providing conditions & whatnot for my team & the enemies, and I’ve narrowed my choices down to either Mesmer or Necromancer, as i feel they can provide what I’m after. I love to solo, and i was able to face-tank quite a lot of champion mobs on my warrior with the build i was using, i don’t expect to do this with a Cloth wearer, but to be able to solo champion mobs with the right build and gear (and skill ofc).

I have no experience with Mesmer or necromancers that can help influence my decision, i have played a Mesmer to level 5 and a necromancer not at all.

I’ve browsed the Mesmer & Necromancer forums, and I’m still unable to make a choice, it seems the necromancer is built more on debuffing the enemy with vulnerability & bleeds/poisons, where-as the Mesmer is built more for PvP with confusions having a bigger detrimental effect on players than NPC’s, leading me to believe that the necromancer is the better choice, but I’m still unsure.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!

if you’re looking for condition based damage mesmer is not even close to that play style. if you are looking to provide a mix of boons and conditions id say the elementalist is better than both. that being said, it think mesmer is more fun than both necro and ele

I completely forgot about Elementalists, thanks for the reminder!

Input from other people is also appreciated.

I prefer the Necro over Ele, personally. I have both…and a Mesmer. Necro is my favorite of the 3 casters. I run a condition wellomancer (no minions….except flesh golem) traited with targetable wells. I like the aoe’s that I can target and fire quickly over and over. Ele’s aoe’s have felt slow to me.

Necro is one of my favorites classes in both GW and GW2. Love the way flesh golem recharges health, I also run a ranged minion too.

applekwisp.2139:

if you’re looking for condition based damage mesmer is not even close to that play style. if you are looking to provide a mix of boons and conditions id say the elementalist is better than both. that being said, it think mesmer is more fun than both necro and ele

Obviously you’ve never used the scepter/torch and staff weapon set for mesmer.

Loosifah.4739:

applekwisp.2139:

if you’re looking for condition based damage mesmer is not even close to that play style. if you are looking to provide a mix of boons and conditions id say the elementalist is better than both. that being said, it think mesmer is more fun than both necro and ele

Obviously you’ve never used the scepter/torch and staff weapon set for mesmer.

why in the world would you ever even considering using torch + anything in pve

applekwisp.2139:

Loosifah.4739:

applekwisp.2139:

if you’re looking for condition based damage mesmer is not even close to that play style. if you are looking to provide a mix of boons and conditions id say the elementalist is better than both. that being said, it think mesmer is more fun than both necro and ele

Obviously you’ve never used the scepter/torch and staff weapon set for mesmer.

why in the world would you ever even considering using torch + anything in pve

wouldn’t say torch is the most optimal choice usually but the blast finisher is nice sometimes, and well if our phantasms were actually affected by condition duration, i could see the mage being really good too. That said condition mesmer is still really viable, with a staff and scepter/any offhand really, i can easily stack about 15 bleed consistently with my mesmer and burst up to about 10-13 (depend on how well i execute it) stack of confusions. So yes mesmer can be nice condition builds, and really good suppor too with things like feedback (reflect bubble), null field (boon and condition removal aoe), not to mention timewarp (10seconds of quickness, the best dps increase skill for a group in the game, by FAR)

Well OP said they wanted a more support oriented build and mesmer is ok at support, but ele and necro blow it out of the water when it comes to support builds, imo anyway. At least until they rework some of the mantras and related traits. I haven’t had a chance to finish my support ele yet but I have finished my support necro and so far it seems the necro is actually better at sustained support for long fights while still being able to contribute to the party.

In fact I swap from my dps setup to support for CoF path 2 all the time and everyone loves me for it. I can do insane AoE and conditions all the while upkeeping protection on the party nearly constantly and providing powerful healing and CC as well. If that doesn’t qualify as a good support role, not sure what does lol. I guess you could say mesmer and ele would be better offensive support with their ability to increase party damage output so well and necro is a good defensive support.

well sure mesmer dont apply a lot of different boons, but can keep quite a few might and fury up on ppl, and yeah try a full set of lyssa runes with time warp+signet of inspiration active… not to mention again feedback, making those archers etc hurt themselves quite badly, since projectiles that get reflected combo with the filed too giving confusion on top as well, so a chance for even more dmg their (admittedly rarely in PvE) and then noone have near the amount of etheral fields that a mesmer have(imo one of the best combo fields generally maybe except of water fields), if i want i can keep up an etheral field on the enemy with about 75-80% uptime (sometimes i might choose to hold back a bit due to the other uses of the skills ofc, but that another case) and well mesmer provide more targets more reliable than any ele, and even most necros can do (minion masters excluded), meaning less chance mobs hit the actual players, so yeah is imo very different form of support, and maybe not near as obvious as that of ele and necro, kinda like the burglars do in LOTRO for those that played that

I would recommend a Necro, since you’re coming from a (presumably) long Warrior/Guardian leadup. Necro has the highest native health pool for clothies, and a more accessible baseline (imo) survivability as you’re levelling up.

Since you’ll probably have a significant melee habit to transition out of, I’d say Necro gives you the best bang for your buck when you forget you were supposed to stand back. :p