Deciding between Ele and Mesmer
What type of role do you like to play in PvE, and what type of role do you like to play in WvW?
Rev, Ele, Burnzerker
“Beware he who would deny you access to information,
for in his heart he dreams himself your master.”
“Beware he who would deny you access to information,
for in his heart he dreams himself your master.”
In PvE im looking for the ability to blow away the enemy and survive the fight. WvW I haven’t played much but scouting/Backline spark my interest
sounds like staff ele. But if you want to fight 1:1 mesmer is extreamly strong in WvW. In PvE if find mesmer very comftable for map completion. I don´t play raids or fractals so can´t help to much here.
Ele in T4 fractals: Lots of dps which is nice, but it can be very difficult to stay alive. Many times eles just end up dying all the time, but when there is a skilled player they are very nice because the encounters go faster.
Ele in raids: Very useful. It is the highest dps class on large hitboxes, so many groups like to have a few of them. Survivability is not as much of an issue because you have a dedicated healer, but you do have to be a little more aware not to get hit by avoidable attacks than other classes.
Mesmer in T4 fractals: The alacrity from mesmers is very nice in helping fractals. It is also more survivable than ele do to blocks/evades/distortion. The focus pull is very nice when clearing trash. It doesn’t do all that much damage though, and I wouldn’t want two in a group.
Mesmer in raids: Required for every encounter, but you’ll probably be asked to tank. If you are just starting raids or haven’t tanked before I wouldn’t recommend this.
Open world: I like ele more than mesmer because of mesmer’s low dps. Also, when killing small enemies it is hard to stack illusions which is pretty important for mesmers.
That’s just my quick overview. GLHF
Fluffy Fuz
The Edge of Oblivion [EDGE]
The Edge of Oblivion [EDGE]
in PvE: Dagger Ele has some of the highest mobility in the game with very nice damage, and staff ele has decent utility, great group heal options that fit well within the rotation, and the best large hitbox damage in the game. That said, ele’s are very fragile unless you really know how to move, so that’s my warning. I main a staff ele and I love it.
Mesmers have some of the highest utility in the game. In terms of dps support, a boonsharing mesmer has basically the highest and most varied dps support in the game even without much might-stacking since alacrity and quickness are so useful. You will never do the most damage by far, but every group needs one. The challenge is that, at least in raids, you will basically have to use the most expensive armor set in order to be effective and no group wants more than one. If you like tanking and have great timing for using your distortion, you’ll go far with that. For damage purposes, that type of mesmer doesn’t do a whole lot.
Continuing for less common types of mesmers: Condi mesmers kick kitten in general PvE, but are not very useful for instanced content and nearly useless for raids as the build requires you to not give any buffs to anyone on top of having low dps compared to other condi classes (the kitten kicking comes from some of the highest kiting capabilities in the game combined with high confusion and torment spikes)
As for PvP/WvW, I don’t do much of those but mesmers make great scouts and ele’s make great backline/support
Rev, Ele, Burnzerker
“Beware he who would deny you access to information,
for in his heart he dreams himself your master.”
“Beware he who would deny you access to information,
for in his heart he dreams himself your master.”
If you want single target dmg, and can handle the color pink for hours and hours, letting your clones do the job and you getting the glory, and the horrenous sound effects, go mesmer.
If you want the best aoe dmg (also fair mid range single target), like to be seen as doing too much but actually doing not much than any other, and if you can handle dying much, go ele.
From strictly a pve perspective Elementalist is generally a safe pick. Mesmer can amplify the power of the party significantly. However, if your group is terrible you’re not bring much in terms of dps.
Ele is great for the blow it away feeling, mesmer is great for backline support in any gametype. You won’t get the blow it away feel from mesmer (more the death by a thousand papercuts), and I haven’t tried support with ele, but I feel I can safely say it’s not really the ele’s forte.