Guild Wars 2

Hello all!

I’m relatively new to the game – my highest is a warrior at level 44 – and I’ve been playing a mesmer recently. He’s only level 18, and I haven’t spent any trait points yet as I’m kinda unsure about what to go for.

So far my favourite weapon is the greatsword – the damage seems better than the others and the only ability I don’t like is the GTAOE (number 3) skill. It also looks great on my tiny Asura. I’ve been using scepter/torch as my alternative set but I hear staff is best to run with greatsword?

I’m hoping to focus on WvW when I’m a bit higher (and when I have a computer capable of handling it!) so I’m not really looking at dungeons or anything.

Basically, I wondered if someone could point me towards a relevant guide for greatsword/staff in WvW or just tell me what sort of spec I should aim towards? Much appreciated.

Theres plenty of mesmer guides here, and a lot of them are really good.
But tbh i suggest you try diferent weps and see what they can do, better to find your own playstyle than copy some1 elses.

As for weps sinergy…. well, diferent weps increase dmg a lot with power (sword/GS/pistol/focus) while others seem to be more effective with condition dmg (scepter/torch staff)

The thing with staff its it is a great defensive wep (phase retreat, chaos armor, chaos storm) wich would be kinda the opposite of GS wich is highly offensive. So you can chose to conbine your weps looking for them to work well with same stats or 1 to cover other weakness. Tbh, your choice.

Also mesmers have a lot of possible effective builds, so dont be affraid to try some, its really fun and reskilling its so cheap that it would be a waste to not do it

Personally i run with GS and sword/focus most of the time but i allways carry a staff with me in case i want to have better survible skills. Maybe if im ever rich enough i would carry all weps with me :P

The first 5 trait points should be in illusions for Illusionist’s Celerity. This reduces the cooldown on all weapon skills that summons illusions by 20%. Most Mesmer builds take this trait at the very least.

Dess has good advice for you, just try different things to find what you like. Staff is a very defensive weapon but you can be defensive with other weapons too. Scepter has block/blind, and confuse, main hand sword has invulnerability thru blurred frenzy, off hand sword has block/daze, focus you can cripple and pull enemies and block or reflect (if traited) projectiles. Torch has stealth, blind, and a phantasm that causes confusion and retaliation. Torch, main and offhand sword, and focus can be comboed with various fields for different effects including chaos armor and condition cleanse.

Thanks guys. I’ve tried all the weapons and like greatsword the best – I guess I was just wondering what stats/trait builds I should work towards because I’m not too good with traits and stuff.

Tons of guides are in the build list at the top of the page. Some of them are for lvling and some of them are end game. For the most part you can get by in over with pretty much anything. My traits while lvling were such a random mishmash and my gear was crap. It’s very easy to lvl in this game so for the most part you can save your monies toward end game gear. It wasn’t until after getting to 80 and getting some different gears to try out that I decided on a play style that suited me. Until I got there I had thought I wanted to play Osi’s shatter cat (back when his guide was one build, some of the newer ones would have suited me better) but I tried and it just didn’t mesh with me at all.

I’m gonna echo Kazhiel a bit. I tried many of the various builds as I was leveling and after hitting 80. The one piece of advice that I kept reading was to find your individual playstyle. In the end this will lead you to a build for your mesmer. For me, I ended up with a Glamour Bomb build and really love it. I discovered that the most fun I have is being the “point of the spear” for our main force. I run at the point with the commander, head long into the enemy zerg as far through it as I can (reminds me of battle sequences in Braveheart). I drop Glamour/Light fields, switch to GS and spread mass confusion. I like seeing lots of purple numbers………..

Also you don’t have to get pigeon holed into only one build. I have 3 sets of armour (Berserker’s, Knights, Rabid) and working on a 4th SVT set to try the Immortal Build. Trying different builds help you to understand the class and traits that you might have never used if you were to stick with one build. I think I’m up to 3 or 4 different 1H swords, 2 focus’, 3 staffs (staves?), 2 greatswords and other random weapons as well, plus variations for jewelery.

I’m same as Xavi, I have so much different exotic gear for different builds lol

Same here. I have two sets of armor and often switch out weapons depending upon situation. Now if we could just have more weapon sets………….

Lol well, even if i dont have it still im also planing to get diferent stat gears to try even more builds and have some for diferent situations….
kitten I cant wait to make my “a clown vomited on me” armor looks! :P

I highly recommend to play some time with all weapons and trying a lot of builds. The best things are normally those, that you discover on your own.
Anyway, if you get stuck or want to speed up some leveling, take a look at my leveling guide in my signature. It might help.

bretk.6019:

Same here. I have two sets of armor and often switch out weapons depending upon situation. Now if we could just have more weapon sets………….

I wouldn’t mind the GW1 weapon set system even if it was only in an “out of combat” style, since it would save a lot of time constantly going to the inventory to drag. Also adding like 1-2 optional buttons for use items, such as food.