Guild Wars 2

I recently decided to start replaying my Mesmer in PvE open world (mainly) and some dungeons NOT fractures. After shelving it for a year.

I have been searching for a few hours now and I am a little confused at what the current builds are, I keep getting conflicting information.

One says mantra full phantasm another says mantra sucks blah blah.

tl;dr
What are the current PvE builds and possibly some WvW builds?

Thanks you for your consideration.

PvE: 6/6/0/0/2 with full mantras + feedback is the “full DPS” build. 6/4/0/4/0, again with full mantras + feedback, helps you keep up 100% reflect uptime with traited wardens. These are the two builds I, and many others, switch between depending on how many reflects we need. Always using sword/sword and sword/focus, and taking all traits which maximize damage and reduce cooldowns. Gear can be complicated… a mix of berserker’s and assassin’s is probably the best, but assassin’s can be a pain if you’ve invested heavily in berserker’s already. One option is to run berserkers and stack perception, which is what I’m doing now.

Other alternatives without mantras are 5/4/0/5/0, 2/4/0/5/3, 2/4/0/4/4. These are all more or less equivalent— they do a little bit less damage than the 6/x builds above, but are easier to run because you don’t need all the mantas on your bar all the time. They all also maintain full reflect uptime with the traited wardens.

If you’re starting out, I recommend one of the 2/4 builds (doesn’t matter which one). After you play with things for a while, you can switch to mantras if you want to get closer to the “best” builds.

Thanks you. What would scholar rune be sufficient?

I am not really starting out, I just took a long break after dragon bash.

silvermember.8941:

Thanks you. What would scholar rune be sufficient?

I am not really starting out, I just took a long break after dragon bash.

Scholar runes will be fine. I think that technically the best choice right now is strength runes…but those are upwards of 12 gold each.

Someone did that math somewhere, I cant recall right now but It was something like;

If you can keep the scholar bonus around 50% of the time, they are better then strength.

Id probably recommend strength if you are picking back up again~

I got myself a set of strength runes, sigils and battle sigil and I honestly really like it – maintaining 14 might permanently is a good feeling while soloing. Whether it’s worth giving up 18% in damage modifiers and crit damage though, I really don’t know the math to it. Might be best to just use undead slaying instead of strength, that way it’s only an 8% drop.

Strength is great for pugging/ starting out because of all the solo might gain you get get. But at 80+ gp for a full set, it’s kind of ridiculous, and if you have a good party scholar is better anyway.

If you already have scholar, just stick with it.

maxinion.8396:

PvE: 6/6/0/0/2 with full mantras + feedback is the “full DPS” build. 6/4/0/4/0, again with full mantras + feedback, helps you keep up 100% reflect uptime with traited wardens. These are the two builds I, and many others, switch between depending on how many reflects we need. Always using sword/sword and sword/focus, and taking all traits which maximize damage and reduce cooldowns. Gear can be complicated… a mix of berserker’s and assassin’s is probably the best, but assassin’s can be a pain if you’ve invested heavily in berserker’s already. One option is to run berserkers and stack perception, which is what I’m doing now.

Other alternatives without mantras are 5/4/0/5/0, 2/4/0/5/3, 2/4/0/4/4. These are all more or less equivalent— they do a little bit less damage than the 6/x builds above, but are easier to run because you don’t need all the mantas on your bar all the time. They all also maintain full reflect uptime with the traited wardens.

If you’re starting out, I recommend one of the 2/4 builds (doesn’t matter which one). After you play with things for a while, you can switch to mantras if you want to get closer to the “best” builds.

I hope you don’t mind the noob question, but when you say 6/6/0/0/2 , you’re saying 6 in dom, 6 in duel, and 2 in illusions? It’s been a while since I’ve played and researched builds so I’m very rusty on how the lingo works.

I figured that means 6 in Illu, 6 in Inspiration and 2 in dom only because you mentioned traiting for warden uptime. If you could please clarify for a noob

Hi Gilchin,

Check out the link in my sig for full details (and gw2skills.net builds) for all the builds.

6/6/0/0/2 means 6 in your top line, 6 in the second, 0 in third and fourth, and 2 in bottom. So that’s Domination, Dueling, and Inspiration.

Traiting for wardens comes with the 6/4/0/4/0 or 2/4/0/4/4 builds. The guide in my sig might be helpful for you in deciding which build to run.

Good luck~