Just like the title says who should I level next Elementalist or Mesmer? So essentially you could sell me a complete lie and I would believe you. But any and all responses are appreciated.
Ele is 500x more enjoyable in PvE. Mesmer is pretty much the worst open world PvE class, in large part due to the fact that illusions will die when their target dies. Another large part is their horrible out of combat mobility. Mesmer is the slowest class at getting around the map.
Ele is tons of fun, its also very challenging. For PvE your ele is 1000x more useful. FGS is really op, also ice bow for AC and you will be always wanted (except for the occasional brain-dead war+mes group for P3 who will kick u as soon as u join :p) So get ele for might-stacknig fun and the awesome conjured weps
I play both at different times. My first main char was a mesmer, and I’ve had great fun in both PvE and WvWvW with her. Staff & sceptre/focus or sceptre/pistol, and she gets by well enough. My d/d ele is still around L50, and takes a different style of play—much more mobile with rapid swapping of elements. I haven’t taken her into WvW yet, but as a solo roamer in PvE, she holds her own.
I’ve played both. Mostly I play in WvW so I’m biased in that direction.
It really depends what you want to do. Staff ele is a good ranged class with a lot of useful skills. Most of them are ground targeted, which I find clumsy and it doesn’t suit my style of play. I like to move around a lot. Staff ele feels stiff, almost rooted.
D/D ele is a sort-of melee class. It’s fun to play, feels fluid and fast, does a fair amount of damage but it IS relatively squishy compared to say a warrior.
Mesmer is my favourite. The out-of-combat speed problem is easily fixed by traveller runes, which frees you from the constant need of all classes for constant swiftness buffs. In combat, I think only a thief has more mobility.
It’s very difficult to hit a mesmer when played properly so you can get away with Berserker gear, even in WvW. That gives you a lot of striking power. Using Phantasms lets you set a seriously damaging ‘pet’ loose on an opponent, which is quite capable of killing someone unattended while you take on another. Clones and stealth skills will let you move around the field unmolested, picking suitable targets as you please.
In fact, as a Mesmer, my favourite food is Elementalist.
Mesmer needs Traveler runes. The clone death issue isn’t actually so bad since you can Burst them before the mob you’re attacking dies normally to do AoE – this often takes out a group. Also, depends on your traits. At the moment I can summon one Phantasmal swordsman every 9 seconds and both counterblade and blurred frenzy can essentially 2hit kill any normal mob. However, you’re stuck at 25% speed even with Traveler. It’s extremely strong against players and bosses, but weaker against very large groups – condi classes and Guardians do much better for those.
Elementalist is plain OP for openworld exploration – you get >100% swiftness uptime with hammer blasting, and if you blast in the vicinity of mobs you get free AoE kills in addition to the swift so you never really need to stand still to kill anything. Against vet+ mightblasting takes out all normals in the area and leaves the veterans there with only 20% hp left. In dungeons a good elementalist is also the most useful class – you can basically mightbuff 25 might permanently alone on your whole party, while healing more than any class except guardians, and having more invulns than most classes. You also have 5 (!!) condition removal skills at your disposal, while direct damage is generally nullified by AoE blind. Having lower armor also means your party members usually meatshield for you – so you can relax and nuke everything to death. However, it’s laughably weak in PvP applications, especially against a debuffer type build (mesmers, steal-spec thieves etc) to make up for its ridiculous overpoweredness in PvE.
Did I mention the Fiery Greatsword? Used against a wall, you can kill ANY nongiant champion in the openworld within 2 fiery greatswords – ie, one summon – takes about 1 minute 20 seconds. Nothing else even comes close to that.
