Guild Wars 2

Ok I do know that the answer to any leveling question ultimately is “if it keeps you engaged enough to go to 80” then it is viable. With that truism now out of the way, is a Condi Mesmer viable to use for leveling. I’ve tried the tried and tru GS + S/F , and while it does seem nice in terms of output, it just doesn’t capture me. In early levels (1-20) I found the play style of Staff + Scepter/pistol to be fun if a little slow. I would not expect a Condi based Mesmer to burn through mobs at quite the same speed as a power based build, but was wondering if it was tolerable.

Presuming that it is, the next question is how should I trait while leveling, it seems like the illusion tree , since it helps clones plus increases cond damage , would be the first to go down, but wanted to make sure I was not missing something obvious.

Thanks,

Most awesome mesmer condi traits are locked away in the grand master traits section for most of your levelling experience. For this reason I think levelling a mesmer on condition spec would be a hard slog.

Just level in an EoTM karma train. Run whatever you want.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Just level in an EoTM karma train. Run whatever you want.

Split your time between this and pvp. Do the region tracks as I believe they give more tomes than dungeon tracks.

As a Mesmer, the only viable thing in PvE is zerker. You can run Staff+Sword/Pistol and still achieve some success on zerker. Scepter is literally horrible for PvE. Torment does nothing.

I personally levelled with shatter to start with as mind wrack can be traited early on. I then moved on to phantasm as that interested me and has a bit more distraction for mobs and is also easy to trait for early on (phantasms fury, phantasms strength). Condi is harder to trait for but by all means play what you want. Mesmer is great and has many builds to try.

When I made my first mesmer I leveled her up with greatsword + sw/pistol up until level forty and then was told I was doing it wrong and needed a focus. After promptly being handed a focus I reworked my entire playstyle to adapt to the new weapon (which was broken as …. at the time). Then, some time later, the perplexity runes were released and I desperately wanted a build that could utilize them effectively because we all know confusion is a mesmer thing (or at least it should be). But my entire playstyle revolved around gs+sw/x and I could not bring myself to use staff.

So, I made a second mesmer and leveled him up using only staff + sc/torch. There was only one time I swapped one of my weapon sets for gs because I wasn’t killing mobs fast enough in my personal story to keep them from swarming me. All of this was done before the changes to leveling, traits, and personal story, so, keeping those changes in mind. I would honestly say anet has really hobbled the mesmer class here. Mesmer is heavily reliant on the traits it utilizes and without those traits it makes leveling that much harder.

Yes, you can level up purely as a condi, I did it. It was slow and painful, but I managed it. I did not go into EotM, I did a little crafting, and I only used one birthday scroll to get myself to level twenty instantly. I may have used a few tomes, but I don’t remember. In the early days of my second mesmer I was talking to Aeoldyn (Chaos Archangel) and he did say to me, “Why are you doing that? Leveling would be easier with greatsword or sword.” The whole point of my second mesmer was to develop a playstyle for staff, which I detested using.

As to traits, per your weapon choices, I would suggest looking in the Chaos or Inspiration trait lines. However, my first love is and will always be sword on mesmer, so even my second mesmer runs around as staff + sw/x. My best advice is don’t limit yourself on your weapons; yes, find a set you like best, but keep your options open.

Calliope.8675:

When I made my first mesmer I leveled her up with greatsword + sw/pistol up until level forty and then was told I was doing it wrong and needed a focus. After promptly being handed a focus I reworked my entire playstyle to adapt to the new weapon (which was broken as …. at the time). Then, some time later, the perplexity runes were released and I desperately wanted a build that could utilize them effectively because we all know confusion is a mesmer thing (or at least it should be). But my entire playstyle revolved around gs+sw/x and I could not bring myself to use staff.

So, I made a second mesmer and leveled him up using only staff + sc/torch. There was only one time I swapped one of my weapon sets for gs because I wasn’t killing mobs fast enough in my personal story to keep them from swarming me. All of this was done before the changes to leveling, traits, and personal story, so, keeping those changes in mind. I would honestly say anet has really hobbled the mesmer class here. Mesmer is heavily reliant on the traits it utilizes and without those traits it makes leveling that much harder.

Yes, you can level up purely as a condi, I did it. It was slow and painful, but I managed it. I did not go into EotM, I did a little crafting, and I only used one birthday scroll to get myself to level twenty instantly. I may have used a few tomes, but I don’t remember. In the early days of my second mesmer I was talking to Aeoldyn (Chaos Archangel) and he did say to me, “Why are you doing that? Leveling would be easier with greatsword or sword.” The whole point of my second mesmer was to develop a playstyle for staff, which I detested using.

As to traits, per your weapon choices, I would suggest looking in the Chaos or Inspiration trait lines. However, my first love is and will always be sword on mesmer, so even my second mesmer runs around as staff + sw/x. My best advice is don’t limit yourself on your weapons; yes, find a set you like best, but keep your options open.

This. This is valid for life in general, stick with what you like and do best with but keep you options open.

If you really like that weapons set (staff + scepter/pistol), I think something like this might work for traits:

Level 30: 0/0/0/0/1

Level 42: 0/0/0/0/3

Illusions: Master of Misdirection

Level 60: 0/3/0/0/3

Dueling: Phantasmal Fury
Illusions: Master of Misdirection

Level 66: 0/4/0/0/4

Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, Deceptive Evasion
Illusions: Master of Misdirection, Illusionary Elasticity

Level 72: 0/4/2/0/4

Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, Deceptive Evasion
Chaos: Debilitating Dissipation
Illusions: Master of Misdirection, Illusionary Elasticity

Level 78: 0/4/4/0/4

Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, Deceptive Evasion
Chaos: Debilitating Dissipation, Chaotic Dampening
Illusions: Master of Misdirection, Illusionary Elasticity

Level 80: 0/4/4/0/6

Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, Deceptive Evasion
Chaos: Debilitating Dissipation, Chaotic Dampening
Illusions: Master of Misdirection, Illusionary Elasticity, Maim the Disillusioned

Keep in mind, with the new system you must either find or buy your traits.