Guild Wars 2

I started playing about a week ago and went with Mesmer. I’m currently level 40-ish and finding myself to be quite squishy in terms of defense and my damage output could be better.
I’m using Staff/Greatsword, and I’m mostly a PVE player, though guild has taken me on a couple of dungeon runs too.

What would be a nice way to build her without being too squishy (I don’t mind a little squishiness as there has always got to be a compromise between def/dmg) and also have a relatively nice damage output?

Thanks to any and all responses

(Dungeons are pve too)

At any rate, leveling a Mesmer (or most classes) doesn’t give you a lot of choices in terms of durability. You probably won’t have level appropriate gear most of the time, and that’s ok, though try to keep your weapons at a reasonable level. Until you have more traits, you also can’t really design a build.

At this point, just mess around with different playstyles and see what you like. Staff and greatsword is a strong and safe combo for pve, especially leveling. As you get higher, you’ll probably start to specialize a bit more. At any level, though, a lot of your defense is from not getting hit. Use phase retreat to escape attacks, or distortion shatters when you get in a tough spot.

were I to regear my mesmer for strictly pve rather than wvw I’d probably go with something like this:
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/mesmer-best-pve-build-high-damage-fractal-critical-mesmer-9677.html
Translating that to pve (from spvp) you’d just look for mainly Valkyrie gear with some Berserker gear.

Steer clear of confusion if you mainly want to do pve.

Now that you’re level 40, I’d recommend spending 20pts in Dueling for Deceptive Evasion, which spawns clones when you dodge. This will help make you less squishy (more clones means you’re less likely to get hit) as well as help with your damage output (more clones means more shatter damage). I’d also recommend the next 5 points go into Illusions for the reduced cool-down on summoning skills. Together, these traits allow you to spawn illusions at a fast enough rate to make full use of your F1-F4 skills. You’ve still still got a ways to go before you have a complete build, but this is the first major increase in build flexibility. Use this time to adjust to using these shatter skills more frequently and experiment with different weapons.

Thank you all for your replies~!

You’ve given me a lot to think on, currently I have her statted with 20 Dueling and 14 Illusion. I do use my clones a lot with F1-F4, I find my personal play style to be a case of throw out a clone to take some aggro, throw a second and then switch to staff for iWarlock before shattering and finishing mobs off. I have probably messed it up somewhere and I’m open to suggestions, I see the link that Helios provided shows something a little different.

At the moment, gear wise, I do have Power and Precision accessories, and also have it on my armor and weapons.

Please excuse my next question, as it’s probably very noobish ._.
Valkyrie and Berserker gear, what are they and how would I obtain? Is it something to aim for in the long run, i.e level 80?

Any links to guides that I can look over are welcome as it may save me from further embarrassing and cringeworthy questions

-Kiwi

In a few levels you’ll start seeing gear with three stats instead of two. That’s when you’ll start seeing things like the Valkyrie/Zerker prefixes.

SuburbanLion.8095:

In a few levels you’ll start seeing gear with three stats instead of two. That’s when you’ll start seeing things like the Valkyrie/Zerker prefixes.

Thank you very much