Guild Wars 2

I recently decided to start playing a sylvari mesmer. i love the theme and the pvp potential. however, i find monsters 2 levels below my level with scale difficult to kill, and i die about once every five minutes on average. i am stuck in the storyline because i cannot handle the waves of monsters sylvari storyline apparently like to throw at you. i am level 10 at the moment with all gears up to date from general armour/weapon merchant. i use staff and great sword, and it just feel like i dont have enough aoe, mobs dont die fast enough and i die in very few hits. and help and suggestions?

if this is relevant, i have a MM necro as main with staff and dual daggers. i rarely die on my main and i have a ton of aoe at my disposal from the staff. in contrast i find mesmers to be very demanding to play, maybe im just not familiar with the clone/illusion system. any help appreciated!

It’s a well established fact that mesmers are late bloomers. On their own, are skills are mediocre. It’s only when they are properly traited that we become demigods. Also, this is a duelist class. What we lack in fighting crowds, we excel at one-on-one. That said, there are already a few guides out about getting past lower levels. I can’t think of any off the top of my head but a simple search should produce them easily.

thanks, that makes sense. i will definitely take a look at the guides.

Some suggestions for early game PvE:

1) Try using one handed sword, and maybe offhand focus or sword, if you don’t mind changing your weapon scheme. This will give you a little splash damage, since sword attacks may hit more than one enemy. Blurred Frenzy (the sword main hand #2) makes you invulnerable for 2 1/2 seconds, which is soooo useful. This may very well help your dying problem a bit. Sword offhand gives you a block, which is useful for some survivability, and also the Phantasmal Swordsman, which is the single highest sustained DPS for the Mesmer. Focus offhand gives the Temporal Curtain, which gives swiftness (so good for leveling!) and also can be activated to pull enemies towards you. If you combine this with your sword #3 you can immobilize a large group of mobs for some good splash with Blurred Frenzy.

2) Definitely practice utilizing your clones. For example, if a big veteran is about to unleash a projectile, you can use Phase Retreat (Staff #2) to blink back and create a clone. The clone will then take the full attack for you (and probably die, but in this situation, consider the clone to be like a free aegis for that attack). Use your clones to block projectiles, and try to shatter them fairly frequently, since they’ll die very quickly anyway.

3) Some helpful utility skills (which you should be able to unlock pretty quickly) decoy (soooo good in “oh kitten” situations), Phantasmal Defender (it’s not bad at very low levels, but quickly starts to suck, so don’t get attached).

4) Take advantage of Chaos armor. Mesmers get a lot of access to ethereal fields, and also have several leap finishers. Leaping into or out of an ethereal field gives chaos armor, which always grants protections, which reduces damage by 33%. This can increase your survivability by heaps.

I remember really hating the early levels, and even now that I’m 80 PvEing on my Mesmer is sometimes very frustrating.

Good luck and if you have any more questions feel free to ask.

Regenerator.7326:

I recently decided to start playing a sylvari mesmer. i love the theme and the pvp potential. however, i find monsters 2 levels below my level with scale difficult to kill, and i die about once every five minutes on average. i am stuck in the storyline because i cannot handle the waves of monsters sylvari storyline apparently like to throw at you. i am level 10 at the moment with all gears up to date from general armour/weapon merchant. i use staff and great sword, and it just feel like i dont have enough aoe, mobs dont die fast enough and i die in very few hits. and help and suggestions?

if this is relevant, i have a MM necro as main with staff and dual daggers. i rarely die on my main and i have a ton of aoe at my disposal from the staff. in contrast i find mesmers to be very demanding to play, maybe im just not familiar with the clone/illusion system. any help appreciated!

Once you hit 40+ your Mesmer is going to start to shine brighter than Edward from Twilight.

Theres a couple of approaches you can take when you level, personally I went with staff + sword/focus and just cleaned out all the 1-15 zones for a level advantage over the mobs. Alot of people has had great success in leveling with a greatsword/ sword/pistol combo aswell.

In short tho, the longer you stick to it, the better it’ll become.