Guild Wars 2

Hello forum peoples!

I recently started this game and fell in love with my Mesmer. I actually rolled it thinking it’d be one of the underdog classes only to find out it’s extremely popular. Go figure.

I’m now Level 50 and steadily making my way toward 80, so I figured it’s time to actually know what my endgame goal should be. My favorite weapon is the Staff, for its epic kitability, and I pair it with either Sword/Pistol or Greatsword if meelee isn’t an option. So far I’ve invested in Dueling and Illusion traits; my general playstyle involves spawning a ton of clones, kiting and dodging (thereby spawning MOAR CLONES) and exploding them in my opponent’s face while pew-pewing away with my staff. Switch to sword as AOE/survivability demands/allows.

I feel this works fairly well for me. Now… looking mostly at PvE dungeon content, which stats should I prioritize? Staff has a lean toward condition damage, I know, but shattering seems to demand power, as does my sword/greatsword.

So, what will yield better results, Ravager (Precision, power, Condition damage) or Berserker (Power, Precision, crit damage)? Or should I not go glass cannon at all and build some defensive stats?

PS: I realize this is probably a common question, but any guides written on this matter were before the confusion nerf of the last patch, so I’m wondering if that has changed things.

Both are viable but I lean towards rampager because… well, I’m a hipster and zerker is too common for my taste. The good thing about it is you can get some “on crit” sigils (earth is my favorite) and go with the sharper images trait so you do a lot more bleeds.

The glass cannon argument is a matter of personal taste. Because I only roll with one condition cleanse and I often place myself in harm’s way just to see what I can handle, I have a little bit of toughness and vitality.

For pve dungeon running, I use mostly zerker gear with a mix of pvt on my accessories and weapons to bring me up to 20k hp. Shatter builds tend to be a bit less optimal in higher pve content as phantasms will usually end up doing more damage over the course of a fight, and clone tend to get destroyed real quick.

All right, so… Aiming for balance, I tried to mix Berserker weapons with Ravager Armor. For tough encounters, I’d have defensive accessories/rings/amulets. Am I spreading myself too thin? Is it better to focus on a few core stats?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgUQNAsdWlwzqqXQzhGe+IiZG9WwhSB2ldlZgbXIA-jQyAYLioRyCEJCkKAk/KiGblsIasKbM1LRUtNvIa1A-e

So…is that build horrible?

That looks like a nicely balanced hybrid. One thing that I might suggest is moving 5pts from Chaos to Illusions. With your toughness, Chaotic Transference is only giving you 77 condition damage. By moving those points into Illusions, you get 50 condition damage, 5% shatter cool-down reduction, and Might on shatter.

Staff is fun but I’ve always seen it as almost a pure PvP weapon, in PvE it can be a bit dodgy what with Phase Retreat’s habit of gluing you into rocks and such. If I take the staff, what I like to do is trait for iElasticity (extra bounce on WoC), hit iWarlock, CA and then switch to melee while I still have Fury up.

I would also probably go for Chaotic Dampening over Debilitating Dissipation but either are very strong choices. DD is again a bit more PvP-oriented because of the conditions it applies (weakness in particular).

Sounds as though you have similar thinking to me; I love the staff and didn’t want to give it up, so I ended up with Staff/Sword/Focus and 0/20/20/0/30 traits. Rampager’s gear/weapons and Berserker trinkets. A lot less survivability than yours for certain but with Decoy/Mass Invis/Chaos Armour/Chaos Storm/Phase Retreat I find I’ve still got enough (with some condition damage for the lulz) but have burst when switching to the sword.