Guild Wars 2

I only have a baby Mesmer (lvl 2) but a good friend of mine got hers to 80 and is starting to play around with specs and gear set ups and after lvling and a few days at 80 we found (I’m more into building specs then her so I gave her some help) to a 20/25/10/15/0

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQJARWlwziuXVTpGaNJipC925DRHJFqWqVmBudhA-jgxAYMokXR0YLpFRjVtgpKJiq9GFRrWGA9FA-e

Thats the set up as it stands now, but to summarize-

20 into Domination for 3. Empowered Illusions and 10. Greatsword Training. She enjoys the greatsword so we focused on the 2 things she likes phantasm and the sword for dps.

25 into dueling for 2. Phantasmal Fury and 10. Deceptive Evasion. 2 going back to the maxing of phantasm effectivenes, I also recommended going 25 for confusing combatants more for roaming the world.

10 into Chaos for 4. Illusionary Defense. Shes very concerned about being squishy and being a liability to dungeon groups and the damage reduction was something she liked. I personally think once she gets a bit more experience in the dungeons this will be moved to something else but for now its piece of mind for her.

15 into Inspiration for 5 Persisting Images just to give her Phantasms alittle more survivalbility.

I realize its not an optimal build but for now its what she really enjoys and anything to keep her from nerd raging and yelling at me about her being squishy is always a bonus.

Now my big question is this. I suggested beserker set up for her gear, I realize I dont completely understand the mesmer class but from the outside looking in this seemed like the best way to optimize her damage from gear. Since greatsword doesn’t apply any conditions and bleeds from phantasms seem to be her only condition I felt like maximizing her crit damage was the best route. However, someone in our guild who has a mesmer said that condition damage was the way to go for mesmers but I can’t really understand the logic based off the spec. I realize if she went for a staff build that condition damage would be better but it seems like the greatsword is more built around direct damage and the condition stuff isn’t as reliable in this build. If you guys could give me alittle input on your opinion based on what I’ve provided I would greatly appreciate it. I feel really responsible for her build because I helped her build it and if I’m leading her into a bad set up I wouldn’t be very happy about it.

Thanks

compared to mesmers other ranged weapons…staff and scepter…GS attacks faster. with sharper images ( dueling master trait “illusions inflict bleeding on critical hits”) your GS clones and iberserker can stack bleed fairly quickly. hope this clears things up

Condition damage is absolutely not the way to go for Mesmer pve builds, especially in the build you’ve listed. You want crit damage to make those phantasms hit harder.

Also, those last 5 points in dueling are useless, and that goes along with the condition damage is bad in pve theme. Confusion is 100% useless in pve, so take those last 5 points and put them in inspiration.

Additionally, drop deceptive evasion for sword cooldowns. Deceptive evasion is a clone producing trait, but this is a phantasm build. Try to make sure everything stays conceptually clear in your builds.

There’s not rule to say you need to go condition. I ran a gs/staff build in WvW based on power. It’s great and a kiting machine. Staff is your defensive and escape weapon, not your primary condition dps weapon, your gs will do the damage, and like you said gs doesn’t have that many condition (though i’ve seen gs condi builds before). Personally my gs/staff build had full chaos for the PU crazy stealth boons, but that was more for WvW you dont need all that for PvE.

but it’s not effective to put the final 5 traits in the dueling line for the confusion if you’re not doing condition, and confusion in PvE being largely ineffective since mobs don’t move / fight / spam skills that fast. I used to run the phantasm healing in the inspiration line, but I moved it elsewhere recently, as I usually move around a lot and won’t be near my phantasms that often.

So for traits I would move the 5 from inspiration and 5 from dueling to chaos if she wants survivability. In the 20 for chaos, you can choose to have reduced cd on your staff which boosts survivability since you can spam phase retreat more often (that’s like my fav skill on staff), or choose to have clones apply random conditions when killed bc those are more helpful than confusion, bleed is nice straight damage, vulnerability will boost your damage, weakness is more for wvw. Chaos 20 have some nice choices.

at 20 dueling ur still at 51% crit chance which is completely good enough and more toughness is better than vit imo, because PvE mobs don’t apply that much condition (living story updates seem to differ but anyway lol). That’s my opinion for traits.

A daze skill in dungeons also isn’t so effective since bosses have defiant stacks, you might want null field to support the group, or for roaming the open world or wvw, i’d always have decoy and blink equipped, both are stun breakers and can put distance between danger when it comes to that. I never found a use for phantasmal defender personally, maybe i didn’t try it enough but it doesn’t help survivability imo as it dies fast and feels clunky. I’d rather evade and get out of harms way, block, etc. There’s some other good choices for skills, really up to you

zerker gear is fine and good for pve

Edit: just saw pyro’s reply haha, i’d actually respectfully disagree (the build is gs/staff) and say if she’s been complaining about survivability as a mesmer, the clone on dodge is important for most mesmers, it keeps fodder to proc the -9% inc dmg per illusion, and hold off pve mobs, be fillers between phantasm CD’s, where they can stack bleeds and etc as well as she still has distortion and daze shatters if necessary. I’ve always felt I’m much clunkier, less agile and slower without the clone on dodge. They keep enemies occupied. I was testing builds without the clone on dodge and went to solo champions in Orr and stuff and I managed to, but it was a lot more work/slower. With clone dodge builds, it was an absolute breeze

I thank you guys for your replies, it made me feel like I wasnt completely cluesless about mesmers in the build.

I will admit the 25 into duelist was me probably being too cute with the build, I dont see many people use confusion in pve (and for good reason as stated above) so I figured even if they werent hitting hard they would be doing alittle damage.

I do agree Pyro that Deceptive evasion does proc a clone and not a phantasm and that it doesn’t play with the overall damage side of the build but its more for defensive purposes and I doubt she will be able to consistently keep 3 phantasms up (though you guys would know better then me on that)

Also yes I had technobabble on the build editor, that was more an oversight. I don’t know much about the utility skills so I never really suggested anything to her besides using time warp and feedback the rest we have planned to test out in Orr when she gets back in game from a fried laptop.

Thanks again you guys for the feed back.

For utilities, go ahead and take signet of illusions, and that’ll help significantly with the whole keeping phantasms up deal.

yeah if she has trouble with survivability clone on dodge helps and actually it’s rare for any Mesmer to have three phantasms up at a time unless it’s a Zerg vs a boss or the boss rly doesn’t do much hard hitting aoe. most cases ur phantasms do go down hp increase or not. dodge clone for the ordinary mesmer keeps the battle moving fast and never skipping a beat while ur clones can keep the bleeds on