Guild Wars 2

So, brought me back into guild wars 2. I actually have a thief lvl 80 who I really enjoy in WvW roaming but, thief being not so interesting to play in zerg, I am struggling on which profession to level up between elemental or mesmer.

I tried both in PvP but I can’t make my mind on which to choose and I hope you guys can help me make up my mind. My favorite playstyle is roaming with a bit of zerging on the side. I would like something that can switch between the two without too much setup. My favorite builds and professions are the one with big damage spikes and good mobility. I also read that mesmers, besides their massive utility skills, doesn’t do much in a zerg?

Thanks in advance!

With Ele, and todays ability to gear up with celestial, you do not need to change too much your build between the roaming dnd 00266 and 02066 builds. and ease to swap to staff if u want to zerg though u can zerg with a DnD but u have to be really good.

Not sure about mesmer

I love eles.

Mesmer can be really good if your running either shattter or mantra, the both have really high AoE spike potential, along with the ability to win a 1 v 1 if it needs to. However both require mostly zerker gear to be effective, so if you don’t know how to position, your pretty much done. But when you get used to it, I can push into the enemy zerg and survive longer then the front line classes because I know where I need to be in order to avoid most damage entirely.

+1 to everything said in the thread already.

I personally run a full zerk elementalist on my staff.

If you are talking about zerging, I feel really important as a mesmer. I can hide in keeps or towers and port my friendly zerg in, portal bomb another zerg, or put veils down if the commander calls out the veil.

kelmax.6549:

If you are talking about zerging, I feel really important as a mesmer. I can hide in keeps or towers and port my friendly zerg in, portal bomb another zerg, or put veils down if the commander calls out the veil.

Portal and veil are basically the only utility a mesmer brings to a zerg. For the rest of the fight, you’ll probably be playing on the periphery ganking squishies.

Ele, on the other hand, brings just about everything to a zerg: aoe damage (meteor), aoe CC (static/chill), aoe sustain (two water fields). Not to mention the fields they offer, along with the ability to self-blast those fields.

Celestial staff ele is a blast, and can also normally escape ganking thiefs etc on your way around the map.

Thanks for your answers!

I guess my only choice is to try them again in pvp I really can’t choose which one to play G_G. Or maybe I could level up both? How much time does it take to hit 80?

Mesmers in a zerg are highly situational and are below par for typical zerg fighting. Ele on the other hand is a potent part of the large group fights. Neither perform well using the same build and weapons in small scale AND large scale fights. Both generally require significant trait and skill modification to maximize their effectiveness in the different combat settings.

Basically Mesmers are beasts in small scale and moderately useful in large scale. Eles are potent in large scale and moderately powerful in small scale.

Thanks you all! I finally decided to roll an ele!

good choice… mesmers get no love from anet – only class in the game where their own elite can kill them faster.

As other posts have stated… playing a mesmer is all about positioning. The one place that mesmers excel over all other classes are garrison fights which is why I love them so much and spend half my life scouting garrison. You can jump between the floors with ease – which also makes refreshing and building siege easier too – mesmers make the best keep scouts – but you have a distinct advantage of dropping to the lord room ganking a few strays… then blinking back to the 2nd floor and ganking a few squishies trying to do range damage to those below or using wave to push them into the lord room.

The three worst things about playing a mesmer are 1) speed – you need a focus for speed boosts which is a pain because I hate using a focus when fighting solo and would sooner just potter about at slow speed than risk being ganked with a focus equipped, 2) damage – there are times when I can hit a warrior with everything I got and do zero damage – and this works both with condis or as a power phanstasm build, 3) skill failure – the skill failure rate on a mesmer is unbelievable – the number of times blink does not work, or decoy does not make you invisible, or the phantasmal duelists refuses to spawn, or magic bullet fails to fire, or mind stab does not execute, or you fail to swap with illusionary leap or the immobilization fails, is uncanny… not to mention the failure of some of the additional buffs that are supposed to work – many a time I have cast null field and a warrior or guardian has maintained their buffs or I am still covered in conditions.

If you’re actually considering playing a mesmer, I highly recommend dispensing with all the gimmick builds and simply learning how to play the basic 4/4/0/0/6 shatter build. Although it’s been weakened (comparatively) in a very bunker and condi spam oriented meta, it’s still a good build. For example….

Roaming
Zerging

All you have to change is a slot skill (portal or veil, which ever is needed) and four traits. When you are going to try to hide in towers / keeps, change all the illusion traits to chaos for PU and the fall trait, put veil + portal on you slot skills.

As for playing a mesmer in a zerg, people try the craziest “zerg only” builds that are really terrible. You can still get plenty of tags with greatsword skills and shattering if that’s what you care about, and running a real build you can actually gank glassy back line or at least make eles burn up all their cantrips, which is your real job in zergs besides the glamor skill.

Much as I enjoy mesmers on a personal level though, I don’t think you’ll enjoy it as much as playing an ele well. If I had one do over in this game I would have learned to play ele first and had that for my main instead of dabbling so much with niche classes and builds, then being relegated to an easy mode blob guardian in zergs.