Guild Wars 2

Hi,

Just started playing GW2 and have an 18th level mesmer. The guide on these forums strongly recommends duelist for the first specialization. One on reddit recommends Domination. It says a ranged Domination build is a bit easier for new players than the high risk melee style of Duelist.

Which is better? Is it entirely my choice on play style?

I’ve tried to test out ranged vs melee in the PVP zone using the Chieftain and the big ogre thing, but usually die so quickly it doesn’t seem to matter.

As an aside, how do I level quickly? I was doing the heart nodes, but at higher levels they don’t give much xp. Not good at finding crafting nodes, so would prefer not to craft.

You’re going to end up unlocking everything anyway so it really doesn’t matter. Both are powerful specs.

Easiest way to play Mesmer is probably to stick to Greatsword and shoot pew pew laser beams. In that sense Domination may be better because the Greatsword’s trait is in Domination.

Either way though for maximum damage you want both Dom and Duel, so which one you pick first doesn’t really matter for long.

Duelist is probably the better option to begin with. Dom is full of hefty conditional damage and modifiers to damage but with this class you’ll have to start getting used to shatters.

What does that really mean tho? Duelist contains more of your active survivability associated traits which includes Vigor on Crit, Reflect on evade, Blind on evade, etc.. and the base for most mesmer builds of Deceptive Evasion in the GM tier. The last one makes shattering clones and generating them extremely easy.

If you’re comfortable with Gw2 and its systems already I would recommend Duelist first to really get used to the one step back two steps forward way of thinking it tends to take to really get into Mesmer. If you’re a brand new player who is much more used to traditional mage style of distance and damage then Domination is probably a better fit.

As a personal preference, I would go Duelist because I have an easier time in GW2 when it comes to controlling close/mid-range combat than I do when it comes to kiting continuously and because it would allow me to use shatters more frequently. Personally, I find it a more forgiving playstyle.

Running a lot of PvP can drop you tomes of knowledge, which helps a good bit as far as leveling goes. Also, remember to keep up to date on your story quests as well as use food and other exp boosting items. Running the story mode dungeons, at least, is probably worth the Exp when done once.

Hopefully this helps somewhat.

Thanks for the replies!

I think for now I’ll plan on duellist and keep practicing the GS → Sword/focus combos.

I found I got a fair amount of xp exploring Divinity’s Reach, so I’ll add exploring zones to my activities.

I can get more tomes of knowledge? I thought that was some super rare, lucky drop and was saving it for Level 79.

Keltan.1827

I can get more tomes of knowledge? I thought that was some super rare, lucky drop and was saving it for Level 79.

Yup, if you don’t play a lot of PvP you still get Tomes of Knowledge every 7 days with login rewards (if you just login everyday).

I would advise you to use Tomes early though, the benefit of going from lv18-19 is a lot more than lv79-80, because you unlock your third utility slot at lv19 while going lv79-80 has nothing new besides being able to wear lv80 gear. The breakpoints you want to hit are

• Lv21 – Unlock 1st specialization slot
• Lv31 – Unlock elite skill slot
• Lv45 – Unlock 2nd specialization slot
• Lv71 – Unlock 3rd specialization slot

Don’t worry about the experience gap between 79-80 and 18-19. Completing an event always gives a fixed percentage of the total amount of exp needed to level e.g. completing a lv16 event on a lv16 character and a lvl 26 character both gives 7% to their exp bar