Guild Wars 2

I’m struggling to choose between one of these two since I want to play a caster. I didn’t really like the necromancer so these are my other choices. What are the pros and cons of each?

Elementalist – Hard PvP, awesome PvE (in my opinion),
Mesmer – Easy PvP, less useful in PvE

But can an elementalist do good in PvP?

in my opinion, i would choose the mesmer. i think elementalist are VERY under-powered in this game and i am continually frustrated by just how squishy my ele is. additionally, spells and weapon sets are not that compelling or fun to play. on the other hand, the mesmer is just a heck of a lot of fun and versatile.

If you want to work really hard to get good play Ele, I mained Mesmer since the first BWE until I decided Ele was more fun.

I tried the mesmer but I found myself on the verge of death all the time. With the elementalist I could survive a bit better.

The thing is mesmers have incredible burst but less sustain than the ele. But mesmers have access to portals and 2 very good elites which are both game changing.

Is it normal for mesmers to die a lot in the beginning though?

What exactly are you dying to?

Veterans and taking on 3 mobs of 1 level lower. I might be playing it wrong so idk.

Well when I leveled my mesmer I used Greatsword Staff and shatters and everything went down before it could damage me unless there was a higher level veteran, so you should learn more as you go along I think.

So it was just me playing badly as a mesmer?

Probably, never had any trouble on my mesmer once I got into it.

Yes, elementalist can be REALLY good at pvp. It just requires A LOT more effort than any other class. In the long run though, elementalist is where it’s at.

CommanderPC.8609:

But can an elementalist do good in PvP?

Yes we do fine in PvP.

I like the playstyle of the elementalist more. I find it a lot funner.

CommanderPC.8609:

I like the playstyle of the elementalist more. I find it a lot funner.

Then you should stick with that, you will not regret it.

I have a level 80 Mesmer & a level 80 Ele. I never play my Mesmer, my Ele is my main toon and I levelled my Mesmer to 80 first. Ele’s are not as bad as people make them out to be, it’s takes more effort to be good with an Ele, than other professions.

My advice, level both to 2 goto the mists, mess around with weapon sets, traits, different play styles. There are mobs you can spar with as well as target dummies, whichever feels more fun for you, roll that one.

From an sPvP point of view though, go Mesmer.

I would still choose Ele for long term sPvP, I have like 500 mesmer games and 800* ele games.

If you like crushing your foes beneath the soles of your boot, to explode their brains upon your personal canvas, the entire world, like a mad sadistic painter that rules the universe with omnipotent powers, pick a mesmer.

If you want to be challenged by yourself and everyone around you, drop your own jaw and the crushed jaws of your burning bleeding enemies in unexpected amazement as their myriad of corpses turn to ash in unison, pick an ele.

I play an elementalist, and a guildmate I party with pretty often plays a greatsword/something&focus mesmer most of the time. Recently he started an elementalist because it looks like more fun.

Can’t advise you on sPvP, but in WvW, his mesmer probably contributes more and dies less, but an elementalist who is good with multiple weapons can probably be just as viable. I stick to staff right now, which is good for sieges, taking camps, and small skirmishes, but doesn’t have the single-target damage or mobility to do well in 1v1’s.

I am loving my elementalist in sPvP. With the build I’m running, it’s very survivable (due to a lot of healing), which I really enjoy. And I can also dish out some decent damage (esp. with might stacking).

It’s definitely not the easiest class to learn, but once you get the hang of it it’s a really rewarding and fun play style.

P.S. I usually use D/D, although occasionally use Staff for more survivability.

I can actually give an unbiased opinion, I play both classes, though my mesmer is fully matured and shelved now.

Mesmer

Many escapes, can fool people easily, can keep up swiftness fairly consistent, ranged damage single target good but aoe is meh (with exception of izerker but has cooldown), and little access to damage “spikes”. Very good 1-1 duelist. Extremely good in wvwvw too with null field, pulls and feedback, can shut down a lot of people.

Elementalist

Very versatile, easy to get full time swiftness, gets good mileage out of combo fields, has a lot of escapes too (just not so much as mesmer), better dps but not the best, lots of debuffs. However requires A LOT of knowledge of class and clicking to get it all out there. You’ll have to memorize several sequences of abilities to keep ahead of yourself and push out meaningful damage and effects. The best range aoe in the game (fantastic for wvwvw).

Both are weak to sustained dps but elementalist has very good access to protection, while mesmer has higher health, in addition to active defenses.

Ele was the first class I played, and now all other classes feel like they run in slow-motion compared to him (except the thief, but I’m only mildly interested in that toon). Mesmer is a ton of fun, and I really enjoy many of their abilities and all the REALLY amazing things that you can do with one, but the mesmer is sooooo dang slow, and you have to use the focus to get some swiftness, and I’m just not a huge fan of that weapon.

So if you don’t want to ruin your other toons, then play the mesmer, because after playing ele its hard to go back to running around at such a slow speed.

Actually, this is a more interesting question than you may have thought when asking it. In my opinion, ANet did a very clever thing for the Mage-type class by splitting it in two. Most of the other professions (“classes” in other MMO’s) are clearly based on a single archetype, but they took the classical Mage and split it in two: Mesmer (Illusions and Manipulations) and Elementalist (Calling down Fire and Ice on people’s heads).

Anyhow, I started with a Mesmer and got him up to 20 or so, but got intrigued by the Elementalist. He’s now my main and up to level 50 or so.

Playing PvE straightforwardly, my Mesmer feels like he’s tougher and better able to survive. If I play straightforwardly, the Elementalist feels squishy, but if I throw myself into it and watch combinations very carefully I actually feel stronger than the Mesmer.

The Elementalist feels like he has more utility for a group (heals, AoE, buffs, debuffs, pets, etc).

I don’t do PvP, but enjoy WvW, where both feel useful, and both are successful. Right now, the Mesmer has a few tricks which some WvW teams have borderline abused, so maybe they’re more useful — if you’re on the right server — but I wouldn’t expect that to last forever.

Even though they’re not technically a caster, I’d recommend you also look at Engineers. They do their magic via steam-punk-style equipment, so if you really need to see balls of flame rather than flame-throwers, it won’t work, but… (Engineers are similar to a WoW Shaman whose profession is an engineer.)

For single target dps, u just cant go wrong with mesmer, in spvp when traited correctly a mesmer can annihilate an elementalist with all its petty bunker build, if he is glass cannon then he just made ur day, u can usually kill it in 4 hits before he even has a chance to switch back from healing to dps skills, however with mesmer u need alot more strategy, you are reduced to a very limited ammount of healing and you really need to do ur best to make sure he wastes those precious seconds hitting ur clones to figure out which is the real you or not, as long as ure nowhere near the clones sometimes and other times right near ur clones pretending to be one of them, he wont be able to tell u appart by just random guesses, but thats not even necessary, stun, launch, confuse, permableed, cripple, and deal 3.5-4k damage per phantasm is enough to take him down in few seconds.

Elementalist right now is a confusing class, it contradicts its own concept with its borked trait system, so ull find many of them with very similar build which only makes ur life easier because u will not notice too much discrepancies.

I’ll most likely make my elementalist on Thursday since I referred some of my friends.

The D/D ele was really fun. I loved playing it with air and fire.

I’ll be making a ranger too since elementalist and ranger are like the classes I played in WoW(shaman and hunter)

Alright hf and dont get dissapointed if u die too much, personally i didnt but that was because i invested in gear right away, ele is a good support class and in some dungeons u feel like u could be of actual use to ur party that other professions wouldnt be as good, but this is pve im talking about.

I have leveled both elementalist is more fun but underpowered. I found mesmer got pretty boring to lvl around 40.

If you actually want to be a threat in sPvP go mesmer.