I originally did not pay very much attention to my build, and my gameplay was just exploring at heart. I couldn’t care as much for high quality gear, or max damage. I’d rather find out what’s in some unknown forgotten cave tucked out of sight and beat up whatever poor monster lived there. But since I’ve almost completed the world map, and visited most (I doubt I found all) of the hidden areas, I’m planning to gear my mesmer properly.
I still want to keep my mesmer as a soloist – good survivability, but still able to pack a punch. Mostly I want to be able to keep soloing champion mobs, but still offer enough damage/assistance for group events. I don’t want a tanky mesmer, but I don’t want to fall flat in a few hits. And until I can level my other characters, my mesmer will be my go-to dungeon runner for now.
Right now the trait build is 30 power, 30 precision, and 10 toughness (only for fall damage skill). I’m content to keeping it at that – but I need to adjust my gear. I’m planning to set it to be a flat Power/vitality/other stat, and I need advice for what that ‘other stat’ should be. Mesmers being light armor, I don’t think toughness would be much of help anyway. I’m leaning more to having it either be precision or crit rate.
Speed is another issue. I don’t want to sacrifice rune stats for movement speed, but if it will help in single combat PvE, I’ll consider it.
As well on another note – I can usually handle one champion alone, even if it spawns non-veteran minions. But if there is a veteran or two along with the champion, I can’t solo it. I wonder if any mesmers here can manage to solo a champion along with some veterans…
If I want to be a soloing mesmer, how much should I pay attention to healing traits? Currently I don’t bother with anything with regenerating health stability. Most enemies don’t get close enough to me, and if they do I just escape out of the way. If I take too much damage I just keep moving until I can heal. If it’s too much I sacrifice my illusions for distortion. (Or since I’m a sylvari, use seed turret ultimate skill, gain temporary invulnerability, and use the seed turrets as a distraction to move away until I can recover). But I’d like to know if there are any ways to have steady regenerating health for a mesmer?
And lastly, my weapon choices are scepter/pistol and the greatsword – plenty of range damage, and enough illusions to provide a distraction. I’m fine with my weapon choices now, but I bet it can be improved – I’m more than happy to try something else.
The last area for me to explore are the Orr regions, and my general tactics for soloing don’t seem to be viable there. My biggest weakness is being immobilized – which there seem to be a lot of in Orr. And consistent poison damage, bleh. I also can’t seem to rely on my seed turrets either, since they aggro more enemies than I can handle. Usually if this is the case, I’ll summon either the Druid spirit or Sylvan hound (other racial skills), but the cooldowns are too long for my preference.
All right, if you sat through that wall of text, I’ll thank you for having the patience for reading it. Now lend me some advice!