Guild Wars 2

I have an 80 Necro, 80 Ranger, 80 Engineer, 62 Guardian and 35 Warrior.

Yes, leveling Engineer was a pain (to 60 at least), but the rest were/are pretty easy.

I picked Mesmer next because I figured that the clones would keep the enemy off of me a good deal of the time. So far that is NOT the case, so I’m wondering if I’m doing something wrong.

I’m level 26 right now, with 10 in the Power line and 6 in the Precision line (10/6/0/0/0 right now). I have a sigil of blood lust on all my weapons right now, and just bought a set of “strong” Masterwork gear at 26, which is + power/precision. My crit chance is between 40 and 50% at any given time. I use Greatsword at range and Sword/Sword for melee.

I think the biggest problem that I have with these illusions and phantasms is that they only work on ONE enemy before they go away. The weird thing about this is that I find solitary Veterans now an easier fight than 3 trash enemies! On Veterans I can keep a couple phantasms up for the whole fight, and the enemy goes down easily (if not quickly).

But against a group of 3 trash guys, it goes like this: Attack one enemy at range and send a clone after it. His 2 friends join in and start heading toward me or perhaps the clone. Clone dies very fast, and now enemies are headed twowards me while my clone ability is on cooldown. Summon Phantasm. Phantasm shows up and takes down the enemy I am targeting, and then disappears. Now that ability is also on cooldown. Meanwhile the third enemy is beating on me pretty much unopposed. No, I don’t usually die, but I frequently have to use my heal skill (which is also incredibly weak) in these trash fights, and I’m not used to doing this with other classes. The other frustrating thing about the clones is that they duplicate the weapon set I am using, so for the greatsword #2 skill, for example, it just puts a second clone far away from the enemy. Given the choice between the two of us, perhaps since I am doing most of the damage, the enemy often ignores the clone and comes after me anyway. Is this how it is supposed to work? I even downed a couple times in low level story quests! As for the “escape” moves like Decoy, yes it is fun, but it seems to have a very long cooldown for just 3 secs of stealth.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the profession. It is very unique and I like the attacks of both of these weapon sets. But it seems to lack good AOE damage or control, so groups of enemies seem difficult for some reason. And like I said I was under the impression that the illusions stay with you the whole fight and not just until their target is dead. I got spoiled by doing Necro and Ranger first I guess

Thanks for your advice on how I can take less damage and handle larger groups of enemies.

Starting at 40, you can get deceptive evasion which makes you clone on dodge. This helps a lot with shatters, mainly Mind Wrack for big aoe damage. It’s probably lack of inexperience too. I have remade a mesmer for fun and I didn’t have any problems surviving anymore because I was used to the style.

vinceftw.5086:

lack of *experience

Fixed

That said I’ll repost the only thing I continuously repost to this exact topic.

Mesmers suck. They’re terrible, clunky, slow, underpowered, and boring as sin.

Then you hit level 40/60 and everything in the world is filled with sunshine, butterflies, and happiness. Seriously, mesmer is continually the only class you here people say “just grind it out, I swear it gets better”.

I mained a Warrior when I first started, I could click a target, press 1 (with auto on) and then I could swap to another screen and I’d have absolutely no worries about killing said enemy.

I started playing a Mesmer a while ago and compared to Warrior, they are far more difficult to level. Their decent traits don’t come to later on, and along with Ele, they are both very squishy.
I leveled mostly with GS and Sword/Focus. GS is great due to the relatively low cooldowns and a nice damage spike while engaging from a distance. The #3 skill also applies nice stacks of might every fight which helps a lot.
I also started to use the Mantra of Pain later on and it helped a great deal aswell. Mobs are spaced out enough in PvE for you to activate it after every pack.

That being said, with most mobs on Gw2 you are able to kite them simply by running round in circles. If you get into the habbit of that, you’ll find yourself killing enemies with little problems, providing they aren’t ranged and heavy condition dealers (those don’t come to later anyway).

If you’re going to be in a prolonged fight i.e. a Elite/Champion/Legendary then I wold advise using the staff. #3 on Staff does great damage.

Go full power gear for leveling, it’s easiest.
Mesmer is great for the challenge though, I get really bored of my Warrior often due to it being so easy. Mesmer I actually have to use evades, heals and utilities to be effective.

Also, about AoE damage.
There’s a great Condition Build at 80 that makes your Glamour skills blind enemies in their AoE, when blinded you apply Confusion to them. Glamour also applies Confusion to anyone entering and exiting their areas.
If you use this build on a large zerg in WvW you see absolutely huge stacks/amounts of Confusion splats appearing everywhere. It’s very satisfying.

Just know.. Mesmers are very sought after in groups as they have – in my opinion – the best utilities and elite there is to offer.

I’m blabbing on a bit too much now, so I’ll let you get on with it.
Good luck with the Mesmer!

KeyLimPi.9031:

Then you hit level 40/60 and everything in the world is filled with sunshine, butterflies, and happiness. Seriously, mesmer is continually the only class you here people say “just grind it out, I swear it gets better”.

^^

Ezcept.. you’re still slow as kitten

I’ve leveled from 2 to 80 with a staff condition build… with Carrion gear (past lvl 60) and not a single point into Dueling. Never felt like I was weak. And the beauty of it is, that you can actually use clones to deal damage… you can spawn them more often than phantasms and you can easily have three of them up most of the time.

Of course there was a point where I began to change my build after I’ve hit 80. I’ve also gotten other gear-sets (for example a full zerker one) to use for different situations with different builds.

tl;dr: You lazy bum! Well anyway… go for conditions and use a staff. Might not always be the fastest in killing (though it’s not that bad after all), but you’ll not have any major problems with surviving.

I had a lovely time levelling mesmer. Out of all the classes i tried nothing else clicked for me better. These are all comments we will see thread to thread, plenty threads talks about these issues. It is harder levelling a mesmer, but for me, it was amazingly OP. I was capable of solo-ing content that is much higher level or tougher, including pulling many mobs at once etc. It’s about play style and weapon sets when you’re at low level. You don’t quite rely on clones but your own survivability = damage over time.

I had sword/focus and staff.
- Sword blurred frenzy evade,
- skill 3 aoe immob will keep them off of you if you run or keep them there for damage
- focus temporal pull to or pull them away from you, esp good against a wall or corner
- warden projectile defense and mass aoe dps,
- staff clones will stack tremendous condition damage on low level mobs if u place them well and let yourself have the aggro and just run around,
- phase retreat is spammable stun break and distance maker,
- chaos storm aegis and other boons on top of you and your clones (keeps ur clones alive as well).

The s/f staff set is what i will recommend for levelling. It has alot of damage, AND aoe damage for swarms, both straight forward power damage and staff clones stacking condition for DoT while you have to keep urself alive and can’t be concentrating on damage but also almost every skill can be used defensively. I love to take the aggro at low level, you dont have enough natural clone generation to let them die too fast, so i tag mobs, place phantasms and clones and run around dodging and whatnot, clones can’t dodge, you can, so keep the aggro on you.

Also i had mirror images for clone generation , decoy and blink for stun break and saving yourself. More about AoE, sometimes it is still lacking indeed, sword blurred frenzy, immob, cleaves, your warden will finish off a full chain before it dies if ur target dies, ur aoe chaos storm will tick and CC mobs, staff clones will bounce autoattacks and stack conditions on basically everything you have clustered together. However, sometimes AoE still lacks, so what i do is i tab targets and assign a staff clone on each that needs killing. Sometimes i have two staff clones on one guy, and a phantasm on another. They both will die almost together honestly. The staff clone conditions are just great. I think i had power and condition traits

those combinations right there is more than enough for survivability, especially at the hands of a skilled player who can time everything well.

I managed swarms of 5+ with those sets and solo’d simple champs of 5 level higher as well

While levelling at low level, its not about traits or gear, its about the skills and utility… and well yep it takes some work, but if you’re naturally adept at finger spamming, it’ll feel natural and rhythmic. almost relaxing once u have ur combos and chains and stuff XP

If you can clumb them together torch 4(aoe blast+burning) into sword 2 and mind wrack (since it can be done well channeling other stuff) is the fastest way to deal with multiple mobs that I have found.

Actually Mesmer have some of the best tanky builds, that only a gaurdian can match.

Clones are mostly useless, mobs tend to ignore them completely and even when they magically pull aggro once a year, they die really fast. I liked staff when leveling, very good for more than 2 mobs. Around 70lvl I switched to sword/focus and greatsword for burst. For maximum damage start with gs (4, 2, 3), then switch to s/f, gather mobs, summon phantasm warden and use blurred frenzy. Everything should be dead by now. If it’s not, you have focus 4 and greatsword 5, it will buy you some time to escape or heal.

I leveled my mesmer with a GS/Staff and never felt like I was struggling at all. It is by far the most fun I have had leveling a character, starting at level 1.

That said, when I leveled my mesmer I had nothing to compare it to, so…maybe I just didn’t know any better.

when i was leveling my mesmer i ran into the same issues, i was getting owned and it was tough. I finally cracked and leveled my mesmer to 80 through crafting (i mainly play wvw). Now in pve I can take on tons of enemies, more than I ever could with my ranger or thief. I think practice and knowing how the whole class works helps. Also playing a ton of wvw really makes the pve side of the game seem very easy. Nothings more of a challenge than fighting against another person, gets your blood pumpin.

I’ve leveled 3x mesmers to 80. (Charr was too Charr, Human felt clunky, Asura was just right.) While levelling power (and bloodlust sigil) all the way. Build out for shatter. sword+focus/staff. If anything less than 6 mobs are alive after 10 seconds you haven’t got your clone rotation/shatter/chaos storm/clone rotation/shatters down. When you hit 60 get curious about other builds.

Oops. Didn’t answer the original question. Yes, we are that fragile. Mesmer is about active defense. Dodges, invis/blink/daze, reflect, etc. I started on a mesmer first and EVERY other class seemed like it was wearing plate. But when I play every other class like a mesmer it’s really tough to bring me down.

Can only speak for myself, but when dealing with large groups, I start out with Staff. Drop Chaos Storm on the group, pop Mirror Images + Phase Retreat, and Cry of Frustration for 6 stacks of Confusion + Chaos Armor. Activate Chaos Armor again (skill 4) to increase the aura duration, and drop iWarlock, then switch to my second weapon set (usually Scepter/Pistol, but occasionally Sword/Pistol). Drop a second Clone, then Mind Wrack for 2 more Confusion stacks and extra damage. This is usually enough to kill, or nearly kill, all the mobs. Just mop up with Phantasms, Blurred Frenzy or autoattacks after that.

I previously leveled ranger and guardian to 80. Ranger and guard were fun to level, mesmer was terrible.

I gave up at lvl 20 and crafted for the next 40 levels. At lvl 62 I started running the Queensdale champ train with a full zerker shatter build until lvl 80.
This is how I leveled my mesmer …