Guild Wars 2

Hi,

What is the best build for survivability in PvE for Mesmers? And, how does it compare to other similar builds for other professions?

I’m coming back to the game after a long time away, and I’m wanting to focus on my favorite profession.

Thanks!

10-30-0-30-0 phantasm. Full berserker and damage mitigation through reflects, distortion and dodging. When running dungeons and people drop, I’ve been the last one standing quite a few times.

I’d say the best survivability build is 20/20/30/0/0 with traited torch, staff and prismatic understanding. That + Blink, Veil, Decoy and Mass Invis as utilities and you’re good to go.
Lots of protection, aegis, regen and with torch you also have some cleanses.

“Best” build is relative. For PvE, I run 0/30/20/20/0 I believe, using mantra healing. A ton of damage (berserker armor, ascended prec+tough+critdamage and a few soldiers trinkets) and it take alot to down me, while at the same time I am doing ~2.7K AoE healing every time I pop a mantra (healing, damage, keep 2 skills for what the current fight dictate). Using greatsword/staff for decent offensive/defensive capabilities (staff traited, greatsword obviously not).

When running with pure berserkers its quite funny to see everyones HP bar go up like 25% every 4 second or so.

It is excellent in long fights where bosses has a tendancy to do continous damage. For example the last volcanic fractal boss with all the burning and crap. I often see people with very low HP there, seemingly waiting for their heals to come off cd. Hell they even die on this easy boss! Unless you make some serious mistake like dodging into his blast you will maintain 100% HP throughout the fight.

Well 10-30-0-30-0 is the meta build.

If you’re not interested in that, the only thing I’ll say is don’t waste your time on any non-Zerker gear. If you’ve played mesmer enough, you know we mitigate damage through dodging and distortion and not soaking it, so defensive gear isn’t needed, and if any of you want to challenge that I can argue with you ‘till I’m blue in the face.

And now that you’ve reapeated what you said a few posts up, we can get back to giving the OP our opinions and letting him see what the choices are.

He wants to know what the best build is, I tell him the best build.

/thread?

colesy.8490:

He wants to know what the best build is, I tell him the best build.

/thread?

No, he didn’t ask that at all. He asked what the best build for survivability was, not the meta build or the build to do the best damage.

I imagine he is looking for a safe build that will allow him to contribute to his team with damage and utility while still allowing for enough leeway to make mistakes without getting squashed like a bug.

It is a safe build. You have blurred frenzy and distortion as your oh kitten buttons while contributing as much as possible to the group.

Sorry, I’m not good at suggesting weak builds, maybe 10-30-0-30-0 with PVT?

Blurred Frenzy kind sucks now, its hit or miss weather something will be evaded or not. I would also disagree with

“the only thing I’ll say is don’t waste your time on any non-Zerker gear. If you’ve played mesmer enough, you know we mitigate damage through dodging and distortion and not soaking it, so defensive gear isn’t needed”

You go zerker and its either win or die. Yes we have dodges – just like every other class but i wouldnt really count that. Distortion is on a 46.5second cool down (at best) and as stated Blurred Frenzy is very iffy at the moment.

In my opinion, i would go with SOME toughness gear, not full toughness but you will want enough to survive burst of other classes if they catch you unaware such as Thieves. Every class has burst but if your defense cant handle that burst then whats the point in all your power and damage?

He’s on about PVE. For WvW I’d say more defensive gear would be fine until you get comfortable enough that you can run full glass again, unless you wanted to go in to the middle of a zerg fight.

In PVE, retaliation is a non-issue and enemies conduct slow, clearly choreographed attacks that are quite easy to evade. I ran dredge at fractal 28 a few weeks ago, and when the group I was in (for some reason) wiped at the ice elemental I was the last one standing despite not having any defensive gear whatsoever because I evaded the lethal attacks. Then I got ballsy, ran in too close and died :P

For solo roaming I still run glass because the only class I have problems with are thieves, and in that case it simply becomes a case of evading their burst and landing yours, no defensive gear is going to save you if they can land hits on you, they even melt heavy classes, whereas in full berserker if you are able to (slim chance, but still) land the full damage of your two phantasms you’ll kill a glass thief. Pretty much every other class you can just kite in circles.

I love you mesmers who run in Zerker gear in WvW! It allows my phantasms to crit you kids for 6k+. To the OP IMO a safe good build for just about anything that does good damage and has good survive rate is 20/20/30 GS/Staff(can run sword pistol with trait adjustments), knights gear, cav/zerker trinkets. 1800 toughness/2730 armor, 3500 power with blood lust stacks, and 73-78% crit damage. Works wonders for me.

best build for survivability? Well, in WvW I run a full tank 0/0/20/20/30 in full PVT gear and I survive just fine in the front lines of a zerg and in 5vX fights with my guild. However, for pve, not nearly as much survivability is needed, and you can easily go more offensive in both traits and armor and be just fine with your active defense. I’d always recommend at least 20 into inspiration for warden’s feedback though, as it’s an amazing defensive and offensive trait.

maybe full mantra-utils 0/30/0/(30)/0 is not the best build for surviving or even supporting, but it sure is the laziest one imo. no hassle with utilities most of the time. straight use of weapon skills, thats all. i recommend gs/staff for it (i tested it on champions and one terrible escort-event in orr and it worked well).
equipment is your choice, either full berserker or mix of zerker/knights/heal runes
(the 10points left u can choose the way u wanna emphasize your gear or illusions)

just my cents on pve