Mesmer in Pugs
As someone who ONLY plays Mesmer. My advice (right now in this meta) is to “stay with the necro”.
Unless you are an extremely experienced mesmer player, you will feel the class being pretty underwhelming in this current meta.
The condie meta build is decent but tolerance for error is low and you need very good map awareness to be effective.
If you want to be successful in pugs, the best advice I can give you is to have a source of condi-removal the best being to run inspiration). Saw a streamer today and he was running chaos/inspiration/chrono with paladin amulet and sword/shield, staff. He was doing fine overall and won most of his games
Look on messiah condi build (check messmer forum).
It can gives a lot in group fights.
Agree with the condi clear. I have one mes that runs as marauder’s with greatsword/sword/pistol and it does a ton of damage. It’s fun and I still have some survivability.
Another mes with condi staff/scepter/shield build that’s also fun but a completely different playstyle with more survivability and relies solely on constant shatters for quickness and burst damage/utilities.
It just depends on which playstyle you’re good at/used to/enjoy the most. I’ve found the biggest help playing a Mesmer is just knowing which abilities to use because it seems to be all about utilities.
Like gravity well or cc, shatter 4 for invulnerability, the stealth clone spell for escaping or distracting, and the defender illusion ability which is nice but doesn’t always work.
Just play a bunch of different builds until you find one you feel you’re comfortable with and decent at.
Mainly, just be glad you aren’t a warrior.
Take Signet of Illusions over Decoy.
Anyone who says Zerk is the average Joe build is an average Joe.