Guild Wars 2

I’m suffering from a serious case of “unable to make up my mind,” and need your help because these types of threads are fun to read and helpful. I enjoy both classes but do not have to patience or time to level more then one. With that said, my endgame will consist mostly of running dungeons and pvping. I intend to do lots of WvW but on a small scale (small groups or solo). Which of these two classes do most of you find the most fun? the most satisfying? the most useful?

Elementalist Pros
-Fast mobility
-Twitch playstyle
-Seemingly a sustainable class (I love how d/d feels incredibly easy to pick up and play, even if for short bursts of gaming. This feeling is attributed to the speed of the spec and its ability to jump in and out of combat)
-Can take up many roles with the same spec
-Create for PvE and collecting skins

Elementalist Cons
-Pigeon holed into a few specs (pvp)
-If D/D (my favorite spec), Low damage, low health, pvp frustration
-Not as much variety in specs…may get boring

Mesmer Pros
-Large variety of specs to keep someone interested
-High Burst
-Swords = cool aesthetics (2handed and 1 handed)
-Amazing combat mobility
-Fun mechanics lead to variety of support methods.

Mesmer Cons
-Must prepare spec in advanced for designated role
-SLOW AS * when out of combat.

After this meta is over, do you guys think that Mesmers will be the next class in line to get heavily nerfed? Will the new meta shun mesmers? Will elementalists once again see the light, or remain the underdogs?

Thank you,
Zig

If I missed something, very possible as I have been play FFXIV as of late, Mesmer is currently dead for the most part in PvP even more so than Ele.

Oh yeah? Why? that sounds horrible

The condition heavy meta right now is rather difficult for a Mesmer to handle with out being a superior better player or investing heavily in our condition cleanses. Also with the increase in portal CD and the decrease in illusions health along with tampering with some of our traits has seen a significant decrease in Mesmers on competitive play and on higher ranking teams. I think i read somewhere that the Pax teams didn’t have a single Mesmer at all.

wow, ironically I heard the same exact thing about elementalists – how none were represented at Pax

The current meta seems condition heavy and excludes both mesmers and ele’s alike. We also can’t really predict what the next batch of changes, if they occur, will bring. We’d all love to speculate about what we’d like to have changed, but I don’t think ANet has made many worthwhile statements. It’s mostly been just “looking in to” and “soon”.

That said, try them both. If you’re not building for a “strong right now” and there’s little info about the future, then you’re building for personal preference and hoping it pays off.

Personally, I find Mesmer more satisfying to play. It feels like a broader tool set to work with and I find mechanics like “reflect” and “blink” more intuitive than attunements and cantrips.

If you’re hesitant about picking between the two, watch some videos! See which feels more ‘right’ to you and try it out. Every time I feel hesitant about my class (mesmer!), I watch some high-level mesmer play and say “aww yiss. effing. butterflies.”

“SLOW AS * when out of combat.”

This was my biggest grip with my Mesmer. Thanks to superior runes of the traveler, I’m loving it now. +25 % run speed all the time. Also, superior runes of speed will do it as well.

They fixed the 6/6 on Speed already?

Advent.6193:

They fixed the 6/6 on Speed already?

I was just reading in another thread where that was bugged. I can’t answer that since I’m using traveler runes.

You state build variety for mesmer, then add slow movement speed for mesmer outside of combat.

If you build right (and there are various ways to do it), you can retain all the other pros AND have good ooc movement speed.

Advent.6193:

They fixed the 6/6 on Speed already?

Nope. There hasnt been any patch since yesterday despite the plethora of bugs introduced.

Well the main reason why mesmers aren’t a top pvp class isn’t conditions as much as that they can’t stay on point very well, nor can they knock people off point. This is dueto their reliance on micromobility (blinks/phaseretreat) and stealth in some specs. The Thieves at PAX ran S/D over D/P due to less reliance on stealth and greater evade potential.

Also many mesmers use GS in pvp which is usually a bad idea.. staff is a way better pvp weapon due to the sheer surviability and clone generation, as phantasms are countered somewhat easily in pvp by any class with AoE.

Elementalist is a fun class too, but I played mostly S/D with nice burst, but the auttoattacks were so pointless I couldn’t deal with it anymore.

Ele is also much harder in PvE but has a higher DPS potential that can easily be interrupted or killed (read S/D lightning hammer might/fury stacker).

Mesmer in PvE is very easy thanks to blurred frenzy being your main defensive and offensive skills, while doing reflects and sustaining phantasms.

I think mesmer is more effective in WvW roaming. While ele’s staff fields are great only in WvW, the nerfs to D/D make godmode builds tough these days. Mesmers also have viable condition damage specs, one of the things that elementalists can’t pull off at all.

Mesmers have an easier time carrying bad players in dungeons but elementalists offer might stacking and conjured weapons to maximise DPS.

Thank you all for the responses. In so far, it seems like there’s a trade off to be made between fun vs practicality. I’ve level both to 25 and find the elementalist to be more fun than the mesmer (in terms of basic class mechanics.)

This observation may be inaccurate in the long term because I’m not factoring in any traits and builds given my low level – just the class mechanics. What that ultimately means is that by 80 the lack of practical builds on elementalist may wind up causing the character to be more boring in fact (and less useful).

The thing is, I will be playing solo for the most part – or with a guild of strangers. In light of these circumstances, it seems the mesmer, while more boring than elementalist, is the more practical and useful of the two. Seemingly, mesmer’s versatility would open up more gameplay options than if I were an elementlist…or am I wrong? Before the present meta got so condition heavy and D/D was nerfed, did the public have such a poor perception of the elementalist in PvE?

colesy.8490:

Mesmers have an easier time carrying bad players in dungeons but elementalists offer might stacking and conjured weapons to maximise DPS.

please don t suggest conjured ele to any player unless you really hate him.
its the dumbed down version of a warrior….as gameplay.
(without an appropiate build i can assure you that conjured dps is low)

nakedziggy.3187:

Thank you all for the responses. In so far, it seems like there’s a trade off to be made between fun vs practicality. I’ve level both to 25 and find the elementalist to be more fun than the mesmer (in terms of basic class mechanics.)

This observation may be inaccurate in the long term because I’m not factoring in any traits and builds given my low level – just the class mechanics. What that ultimately means is that by 80 the lack of practical builds on elementalist may wind up causing the character to be more boring in fact (and less useful).

The thing is, I will be playing solo for the most part – or with a guild of strangers. In light of these circumstances, it seems the mesmer, while more boring than elementalist, is the more practical and useful of the two. Seemingly, mesmer’s versatility would open up more gameplay options than if I were an elementlist…or am I wrong? Before the present meta got so condition heavy and D/D was nerfed, did the public have such a poor perception of the elementalist in PvE?

You really can’t rely on what the general public thinks when trying to decide if you will enjoy a particular class. The obvious reason is because “fun or interesting or good or boring” are subjective in nature and will vary from person to person. Mathematically speaking in terms of damage output all the classes are close enough that they are all competitive with one another, close enough that individual player skill is more of a factor than the class. The main difference between any class is really in terms of the utility they can bring to a party and how “easy” it is to use to it’s full potential, it’s the major reason you see people claim that warrior is top dps when it’s not, but it is “easy” to use successfully compared to say a multkit engi build. Having said all of this, play what you enjoy, if you put the effort into learning a class that you like you will be much happier in the long run since you can not control public perception.

Hexxen.7216:

If I missed something, very possible as I have been play FFXIV as of late, Mesmer is currently dead for the most part in PvP even more so than Ele.

wth are you talking about, me and 2 other of my friends just switched from our classes to mesmer. well i didn’t know they changed as well just before tonight..

and theres way more mesmer then ele. there’s actually the same amount of mesmer as necro and rangers

I started GW2 with an Ele, which played for about 8 weeks, lvled to 80 within about 10 days and started playing wvw….imo the only viable build in wvw in staff, I have used s/d, d/d which was i struggled with. I got fed up with having to work 3 times a hard to get any results.

So I switched to mesmer and love it! I won’t be going back to Ele until anet fixed the class. I think for fun part of the Ele such as attunement swapping and having access to 20 skill as opposed to 10 is great but for longevity you will find the the Ele in its current state is lacking and you will get more success with mesmer.

The great thing about the mesmer is there are loads of builds which are viable despending on your play style. With Ele you have limited choice of viable builds when it comes to wvw.