Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

Yes I know this gets asked a CRAP load in the forums. I spent about 30 minutes reading through other threads of the same topic, and got SORT of a feel but I still can’t decide.

Unfortunately most of the other threads tended to focus on PvP gameplay which really I am not interested in.

Specifically I want to solo PvE, and do Dynamic Events. That’s pretty much it!

I’ve played both to 10ish and I like them both, and flip flop any given day on which I find the mokittenn, so choosing is proving to be REAL hard

tl;dr For solo PvE and dynamic events only, which would you suggest?

Oh to add to this:
I PREFER not to kite, so if one of the two is better at simply standing toe to toe with mobs in PvE, that would be an important factor for me.

Well you can stand toe to toe with either, it just depends on your build and skills. For example if you use lots of defence you can take lots of hits and stay in melee, if you want to go for full damage you’ll likely have to move a lot, though you don’t really have to kite much.

The most common builds for eles have lots of points in water and arcana, both great defensive trees if you want them to be. As you gain more skill with the class you can strip out defence and replace it with offense.

If you want to stand toe to toe and deal any kind of damage, go with Mesmer (I am leveling mine now, and it does SO MUCH MORE DAMAGE). When handling single or small groups of enemies, Mesmers have insane damage output in comparison to the ele, and can still survive even without speccing completely for it. Mesmers also have so many great traits and skills that you can build in so many different ways and still be really good. You bring great group support with inivisibilty, time-warp, boon-stripping, and ethereal fields.

If want to survive almost anything, and enjoy a mobile play-style, go with ele. Battle with an ele (I am assuming you mean D/D) involves weaving back and forth between enemies laying down player-based area of effect (PbAOE) attacks to take down groups, with frequent burst heals in there. This may feel like kiting to you, although it doesn’t to me. There are also lots of self-combos. However, you are forced to spec heavily into survival, as our way of not dying is healing. You can stand more toe-to-toe with scepter-focus by switching between some decent offense and great defense, which works great for dynamic events. Switching to staff is also great in dynamic events as you can lay down all kinds of fields and group support, although many of your crowd-control skills (and there are a good number on staff) are completely useless against bosses. If you don’t want to die every other second, you are going to have to spec pretty far into defense, and there are many fewer build options. You can get away with tinkering with sub-par builds in PvE, but you will feel less powerful or constrained to more cookie-cutter builds.

Thus, mesmer play-style involves moving around a bit, selecting single targets, and unleashing skills against them (standing toe-to-toe), whereas the ele playstyle is more about moving around and attacking areas where enemies get grouped.

for dynamic events and Open PvE mesmer is the worst class in the game….

While ele is better…unless you use staff.

Or i should say….use staff only in Group events…and go D/D for anything else.

Its hard to learn but once you do everything OPEN pve becomes easy.

Mesmer lacks reliable ways to deal with multiple opponents at once….

Simply put mesmer would be the better option in solo PvE. You’ll do more DPS than ele and if your shatter, staff or both you’ll tag just like ele.

Now to put things in perspective. Both classes will require some kiting unless you go full bunker and if you did that in solo PvE it would be a little foolish. Kill times CDs and anything related to damage will go to mesmer. Ele can be faster getting around but as far as the issues you mention mesmer is the better option.

I can only speak for WvW but the mesmer usually has to kite a lot when built for dealing damage. Sure, you can build to be tanky but your damage would mainly come from retaliation and confusion which are both not really that great in PvE.

LordByron.8369:

for dynamic events and Open PvE mesmer is the worst class in the game….

In some very specific cases they are not up to par but they perform amazing if played well. I can solo champions/events all day long on my mesmer with no issues and do it with relative quickness especially if you’re built for melee the sword 1 cleave is rather large and will hit mobs directly behind you too ^_~ . There are no issues tagging mobs some people will say otherwise because they have horrible timing(hate to say it but it’s a L2P scenario) it “does” require more on the fly thinking/timing time than spam classes however to get the same level of mob tagging in some events and that turns people off (i.e. more work for the same reward since some classes can tag everything with 1 button press). Most champions will require some level of kiting regardless of class some can be easily face tanked though by a variety of classes. The trade off with the mesmer requiring more work is insanely powerful utility which truly benefits groups more than a solo player.

With all that said just do to the way some of the class mechanics work with mesmer, ele will probably give people an easier time need to tag a bunch of mobs in an event either via staff(group) with easily accessable aoe you have to press once or run into a mass of mobs and spam Dagger 1 fire/air and tag tons of stuff while running around all be it D/D solo will still require you to weave-in-and-out of mobs for the evades etc.. not necessarily kiting though.

LordByron.8369:

Mesmer lacks reliable ways to deal with multiple opponents at once….

2 Phantasms capable of aoe attack, Sword 1 Cleave, Sword 2 Blurred Frenzy cleave(the sword cleaves(and warden aoe) are easy to achieve if you use Focus 4 pull to stack mobs up) Then you have shatters on top of that which are also aoe. It’s all about positioning and it’s all still reliable. For ranged mobs that refuse to stack w/focus pull you can interrupt/daze them first and they’ll come running into range or you have a variety of reflection options and they’ll just kill themselves withing out needing to come close while you aoe the rest. There is also staff which has a bouncing projectile attack that hits multiple mobs that can be traited for an extra bounce along with staff’s chaos storm. GS Auto attack as of a couple patches ago has the ability to hit multiple targets near it’s beam. Using abilities in tandem is necessary to maximize aoe though. There are some other options but I’ll leave it at that.

@disastro

I happen to play ele/mesmer only….
And i wrote “reliable” exactly for a reason….

You can hit an opponent with dragon’s tooth/meteor shower….
But that is not reliable…and will fail in most occasions

You can hit multiple mobs with blurred frenzy, Sword, iWarden and stuff…
But its ore likely you won t as its quirte likely your shatter will be quite randomly divided amongst multiple targets and you wont getter a full shatter on all..

That is why

Mesmer 1VS1 reliable, 1VSmany unreliable

Ele 1VS1 unreliable (unless you use daggers), 1VS many reliable.

I appreciate all the comments. Unfortunately they don’t really help lol. I’m still stuck squarely on the fence. They are both fun, just in different ways.

For now, at low level, what i’m finding is Mesmer is more survivable. Elementalist is better at AoE and maybe a hair better at dps all together.

How do they stack up in utility? Just plain getting around for example? So far it seems my Mesmer can move faster due to the #4 skill on focus.

Both are very fun professions to play and can be great help in PvE. Though you may not get a full overview of both professions by just playing to level 10 as they have very drastic changes and hit a peak of full potential at level 80. To put it, both professions are very ‘Meh’ in effectiveness in PvE until later levels where they bloom into very diverse and powerful professions.

I’d honestly suggest Ele though. Mesmers have better burst indeed, but many mesmer players will tell you how annoying PvE mesmer solo content is. They are good at what they do but mesmers have a very indirect approach to damage in most cases, and require tons of kiting to stay alive against some hard hitting mobs.

Ele’s running the D/D cookie cutter standard build can tank many mobs at once while dealing consistent and aoe damage. Its actually very effective and easy to learn, (one of the easiest professions I had leveling up). Once you get the rotation down, its pretty much habit for using your skill set. They are also great at getting tags on mobs and this could help you in spots where you are looking to farm or tag things for whatever reason.

Bear in mind, though I suggest Ele for souly PvE as they are a great asset on any team and very powerful in solo content, Mesmer is a far more powerful profession in many areas, often being accused of borderline OP a lot in pvp. Though I know you said you’d only stick to PvE, you never know when you might wanna try other game modes, and Mesmer is very powerful in all game modes, where as Ele only really stands out as very powerful in Spvp.

Also to add, both these professions use some form of kiting to achieve survival, so if you are looking for a profession to literally stand toe to toe with enemies without budging and still doing respectable damage, in my opinion unfortunately, Guardian or Warrior might be a better choice for you.

PistolWhip.2697:

Also to add, both these professions use some form of kiting to achieve survival, so if you are looking for a profession to literally stand toe to toe with enemies without budging and still doing respectable damage, in my opinion unfortunately, Guardian or Warrior might be a better choice for you.

I appreciate that. I tend to gravitate towards ranged characters in games because while I don’t like kiting, I also hate BEING kited I hate having to chase down mobs, and during events where the screen is totally covered with effects so much you can’t even SEE the champ, it just gets annoying trying to melee.

XD thankfully AI in PvE isn’t smart enough to kite in this game.

LordByron.8369:

@disastro

I happen to play ele/mesmer only….
And i wrote “reliable” exactly for a reason….

You can hit an opponent with dragon’s tooth/meteor shower….
But that is not reliable…and will fail in most occasions

You can hit multiple mobs with blurred frenzy, Sword, iWarden and stuff…
But its ore likely you won t as its quirte likely your shatter will be quite randomly divided amongst multiple targets and you wont getter a full shatter on all..

That is why

Mesmer 1VS1 reliable, 1VSmany unreliable

Ele 1VS1 unreliable (unless you use daggers), 1VS many reliable.

I’m not sure if were playing the same class, but if properly played and utilized, I can take on 5+ mobs, plus a veteran and a champion as a shatter mesmer easily. Proper skill usage and shatter timing also lets me be competitive at tagging monsters in events.

The only reason people fail at tagging mobs is because they expect to press F1-F4 and everything be dead, when you need to set up your attacks and weave the battle in your favor to get optimal results. I.E., it takes skill. We aren’t designed to just press 1 button and win. We need to do more to tag monsters, but it’s very possible. I rarely ever get silver on events, and I can tag fairly well.

Maybe it’s just you.

Arale.4207:

LordByron.8369:

@disastro

I happen to play ele/mesmer only….
And i wrote “reliable” exactly for a reason….

You can hit an opponent with dragon’s tooth/meteor shower….
But that is not reliable…and will fail in most occasions

You can hit multiple mobs with blurred frenzy, Sword, iWarden and stuff…
But its ore likely you won t as its quirte likely your shatter will be quite randomly divided amongst multiple targets and you wont getter a full shatter on all..

That is why

Mesmer 1VS1 reliable, 1VSmany unreliable

Ele 1VS1 unreliable (unless you use daggers), 1VS many reliable.

I’m not sure if were playing the same class, but if properly played and utilized, I can take on 5+ mobs, plus a veteran and even at times a champion as a shatter mesmer easily. Proper skill usage and shatter timing also lets me be competitive at tagging monsters in events.

The only reason people fail at tagging mobs is because they expect to press F1-F4 and everything be dead, when you need to set up your attacks and weave the battle in your favor to get optimal results. I.E., it takes skill. We aren’t designed to just press 1 button and win. We need to do more to tag monsters, but it’s very possible. I rarely ever get silver on events, and I can tag fairly well.

Maybe it’s just you.

@OP

Mesmer class design is clearly 1VS1 and as any mesmer in that section can confirm it has aoe issues…

Was designed so and works so….unfortunately there are people that feels the need to prove their skill on forum writing l2p everywhere….even when you say the most obvious thing in the game…..

Ask in mesmer section if needed…

“Dynamic Events” is pretty vague, so I’m splitting it into categories:

Killing Veterans/Champions
Both are great, but Elementalists have a slight advantage here because they can sustain better (their group as well).
Mesmers don’t have much ways to heal themselves other than their healing skill, so they fall short when the battle drags out, but they do feel stronger in damage.

AoE Farming Events
Events where spawns a bunch of monsters, and you have to kill or tag them as fast as you can.
Elementalists win with a blast here. Mesmers are terrible for tagging absurd amounts of enemies in short time, and their AoE damage isn’t on par with Elementalists, sometimes not even enough to tag enemies. It is manageable though, but feels more like a job.

Walking around killing stuff
Both are great, but Mesmers have a slight advantage with more damage negation and burst than Elementalists. You can kill stuff probably faster since you don’t need to heal and end up with more than 90% health easily.
Works fine up to 5~ or so enemies, where Elementalists start getting the edge (and it’d fall in the AoE farming).

Like Byron said, Mesmers are awesome for duels (1v1s) and they provide a different support with projectile protection, Time Warp and Portals, lacking in AoE power.
This means their role have more appreciation in WvW and PvP (and dungeons to some extent), since in PvE all you need to do is AoE/Burst mobs.

Elementalists are a good choice overall, they do great in all aspects of the game and I’d suggest starting with them, and only play a Mesmer if you know what you’re doing and what you want (playing a specific role for example) or if you enjoy the profession more.