Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I am coming back from a long break, and was just looking for the most recent, and beneficial, fractal builds. This will be starting at 30, since the roll back and such.

10/20/0/25/15 is close to the new meta. Use sword/focus + sword/sword. Maximize damage + cooldown for phantasms on all traits. This gives you basically the maximum dps and maximum reflect uptime, which is what you want for fractals.

10/20/25/15 is pretty much all you want. You almost need every weapon (or can make good use of them) in certain fractales. Only the torch stays useless.

I will go 0/30/0/25/15. DPS is very similar with untraited mantras. But you have more flexibility on trits.

I agree with Ryn, you should either go for 0/30/0/25/15 or 10/30/0/20/10 (if you can maintain 2 phantasm up)

Go 10/20/0/25/15

take with you
Sword
Pistol
Focus
Greatsword

Change weapons according…
If you pug i strongly suggest you to ignore anyone suggesting to go full melee.
You can do that only with someone keeping you alive or in easy dungeons…expecially since you can improve your attack reflect+uptime/reliability playing with the new signet (I.E. going without a heal…).

Also you need aoes for trash mobs…unless you can stack/los everything (thing you won t be able with most pug parties).

I am not pro, I always pug and I can stay at melee with my mesmer much easily than with any other class.
If you end up with a party with warriors, they are going to be at melee, so I strongly suggest go party with them. And if you have to disengage, don’t worry, your phantasm will still be attacking your target, so the dps loss is less than with any other class.
Enjoy your mesmer.

The thing with Mesmers is, we don’t soak. At least we usually don’t (Scepter/Sword with Dire gear can soak kitten well but isn’t a PvE setup).

Instead we avoid. And we’re awesome at avoiding.

Ryn.6459:

I am not pro, I always pug and I can stay at melee with my mesmer much easily than with any other class.

i am more inclined to believe in unicorns than anyone can go FULL melee frequently with pugs…..in high level fractals….

if you Always party with 3 wars and a guardians well the reason you can melee is not the mesmer….

Yeah. Sorry, my fault. I stopped at level 21.

LordByron.8369:

Ryn.6459:

I am not pro, I always pug and I can stay at melee with my mesmer much easily than with any other class.

i am more inclined to believe in unicorns than anyone can go FULL melee frequently with pugs…..in high level fractals….

if you Always party with 3 wars and a guardians well the reason you can melee is not the mesmer….

Do you mention the 3 wars/guard because you actually think that is the best dps set up? Cause it is definitely not the best DPS set up. Or do you think the other classes can inherently mele without any support? Cause most of them won’t go solo melee either. It’s always a team effort, or at least 2 ppl synergizing.

The reason the rest of my party can melee is because I can use the focus pull to group them up and use reflects to negate a lot of the enemy attacks. Furthermore, just using correct LOS helps as well. Blinds from a thief/ele/guard/necro help with the anti melee as well along with blurred frenzy/sword 4.2. Knockdowns or boons/weakness can also help tank some of the smaller hits.

I never go full pug since someone in my guild is always up for fotm but even when we grab 1-3 pugs at high levels, most of them know their class and what to do to help the team. (Seemingly except for rangers, which is sad.) Melee seems the norm in pugs. Perhaps it’s just seeing a mesmer and another already in melee that lets pugs feel comfortable also going into melee.

Torch 4 actually has a use in stealth… group stealth. Smoke Screen from thief, everyone times their blast finishers and the group is good to portal bomb dredge. Can a thief do this on their own? Yes, but the better timed blast finishers give the group a few more seconds.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

LordByron.8369:

Ryn.6459:

I am not pro, I always pug and I can stay at melee with my mesmer much easily than with any other class.

i am more inclined to believe in unicorns than anyone can go FULL melee frequently with pugs…..in high level fractals….

if you Always party with 3 wars and a guardians well the reason you can melee is not the mesmer….

Do you mention the 3 wars/guard because you actually think that is the best dps set up? Cause it is definitely not the best DPS set up. Or do you think the other classes can inherently mele without any support? Cause most of them won’t go solo melee either. It’s always a team effort, or at least 2 ppl synergizing.

Ask yourself why you don t pug….
The answer maybe is “because some pug are bad” but can also be “you can compensate a variable tactic”.

Most parties just go for some tatic that can negate most mechanics….but most of them can t be done in pugs….due to excessive time needed to explain it or simply different experiences…..

Infact reading what you write i really doubt you accept more than 2 pugs….

Expecially when you say that most pug melee…..
I played so many fractals to know exactly how different parties plays….

If you say pugs melee, its clear you are not really “pugging”…….

Prove me wrong …lets go do a run together….

5 pugs and you can choose the 3 pug profession and the level (40+)

in the meantime avoid suggesting going fullmelee in fractal….
Main reason is:

SW-X/SW-Y offers just 2 skills keeping 3 main hand CD shared. if you really need you can just do the same staying in SW-X/GS….(even more true with the new signet)

GS is an Emergency (and opening) weapon…..
The dps loss in fractal sitting in your primary SW-X is less noticeable if you haven t an optimal party, while the difference in saving the day, switching to GS if something goes wrong (paired with the opening burst) saves way more time.

not to mention Aoe efficience.

I’m at lvl 39 or 40 (in no rush), and I run with 30/20/0/20/0 (zerker). Always go with mender’s purity and unless you taking newbs then go with medic. I use GS & S/F mainly sometimes switching to staff. I use either zerker gear or my toughness gear (certain fractals). Another mesmer (at same lvl) I run with sometimes is pure condition based, so you can run either way. Some fractals I use mantras (stability or condition removal).

Fractal 39
10/20/0/25/15 full Zerker
Sword+Focus Sword+Sword (or Pistol).
Greatsword for certain fights like Thermonova Reactor boss, Molten bosses, Jade Maw
Mostly Pug and mostly Melee

You stated that a full mele mesmers is only doable with 3 warrior/guard and the mesmer isn’t doing jack to help. I disagree. I explicitly stated that I never go full pug. If I went full pug I could understand wanting to stay ranged. If I don’t see anyone else in melee for fotm, I would be scared to solo melee. Also boon stacking wouldn’t be happening so the melee vs ranged dps wouldn’t be as bad.

If everyone knows their class and tries going melee while also doing that classes style of defense, that collective localized defense adds up to a group surviving. And of course, boon stacking ftw. Furthermore, it doesn’t require everyone to be in melee from the start. Just having 1 other person near you makes things so much easier. Having 2, even easier. When my friends end up adding a few randoms from the group most of those pugs will “test waters” with us. If they see us in melee, I notice they tend to drop their ranged weapons and also swap to melee. That doesn’t mean they always melee. Some ppl are still scared to melee some bosses but mosts pugs I’ve seen have the ability to melee if others are doing it as well. Every class has the ability to help defensively. It doesn’t require optimal group compositions, just a few people willing to take that first step.

Also, the sword auto attack doesn’t have a CD. Sword 3, gs2 are both clone spawns which are usually bad for phantasm builds so there is no 3 shared CD problem. In fact, I would prefer having blurred frenzy always available as soon as it’s off CD.

TLDR:
Ranged begets more ranged.
Melee stacking begets more stacking.
I appreciate all classes when they melee with me because going with a melee group has always lead to a smoother run for me.

Thank you all for the information, I was planning on using my mes more in fractals (my personal reward level for fractals is 50, I main an engineer but used my war for a few of the levels going up).

Jeremlloyd.6837:

I agree with Ryn, you should either go for 0/30/0/25/15 or 10/30/0/20/10 (if you can maintain 2 phantasm up)

These are the two best builds you can get on mesmer right now plain and simple.

Titanimite.2534:

Jeremlloyd.6837:

I agree with Ryn, you should either go for 0/30/0/25/15 or 10/30/0/20/10 (if you can maintain 2 phantasm up)

These are the two best builds you can get on mesmer right now plain and simple.

Why the final 10 in dueling? Traiting pistols, or empowering mantras? Either way, the 100 power and 15% damage from 10 in domination is nothing to sneeze at. Empowering mantras gives you 16% at most, and usually less (since it’s rare to bring all mantras). Traiting pistols is great, but sword offhand is better in most places.

I was running the 0/30 for a while and switched for these reasons, curious on thoughts otherwise though

Hola,
Don’t post much on the forums but figured I’d throw in my 2 cents. I run a phantom build 20/10/0/25/15 with GS S/F and I keep a pistol and extra sword handy for my runs.
The melee mesmer thing is a great idea and mesmer is fantastic with it but there’s one very crucial thing missing from using s/s s/f. Aoe. Aoe Aoe Aoe. Do not forget a lot of what fotm is about is trash pulls. Lots of aoe to kill groups of mobs = faster runs. This is more important, in the end, than how fast a boss dies. And having zerker for that extra aoe damage is huge. Also, lets not forget about all the bosses you have to sit at range and attack. And a whole level where you sit in the back and let npcs do all the work (Ascalon.)
In my mind, it’s much more worth it to go for GS Training rather than Blade Training. In the end I dont think it really matters all the much. Mesmer damage will always be average at best in fotm compared to warriors and such. We offer so much more than that. Temporal Curtain for grouping mobs together (works better than Binding Blades if you ask me.) Feedback and Warden offer crazy amounts of reflect and with the new heal you can have 100% reflect up time by bursting out wardens (amazing for Old Tom as he won’t even get to use his projectile attack.) And my favorite might stealing/sharing! 25 free stacks of might for everyone!
So in the end, play whatever style you like, if you stick with those basic things listed above, your group will love you.

I like 10/30/0/30/0 for Fractals.
Sword cooldown, clone on dodge, condition removal on heal, heal on mantra (spam group heals with mantra of pain) and reflects on focus.
Does a bit of everything really.

Kioso.4819:

Hola,
Don’t post much on the forums but figured I’d throw in my 2 cents. I run a phantom build 20/10/0/25/15 with GS S/F and I keep a pistol and extra sword handy for my runs.
The melee mesmer thing is a great idea and mesmer is fantastic with it but there’s one very crucial thing missing from using s/s s/f. Aoe. Aoe Aoe Aoe. Do not forget a lot of what fotm is about is trash pulls. Lots of aoe to kill groups of mobs = faster runs. This is more important, in the end, than how fast a boss dies. And having zerker for that extra aoe damage is huge. Also, lets not forget about all the bosses you have to sit at range and attack. And a whole level where you sit in the back and let npcs do all the work (Ascalon.)
In my mind, it’s much more worth it to go for GS Training rather than Blade Training. In the end I dont think it really matters all the much. Mesmer damage will always be average at best in fotm compared to warriors and such. We offer so much more than that. Temporal Curtain for grouping mobs together (works better than Binding Blades if you ask me.) Feedback and Warden offer crazy amounts of reflect and with the new heal you can have 100% reflect up time by bursting out wardens (amazing for Old Tom as he won’t even get to use his projectile attack.) And my favorite might stealing/sharing! 25 free stacks of might for everyone!
So in the end, play whatever style you like, if you stick with those basic things listed above, your group will love you.

Yes, a cleaving autoattack and phantasm on sword/focus means that you’re lacking AoE when you can hit six targets at the same time.

Do you really want to do this?

And my sincere input is met by insincere criticism. How delightful. And no I don’t but it appears you do.
You really think you’re 2k cleaves are touching warrior cleave? You really think your warden aoe is as reliable as Meteor Storm? I’m sure you don’t, unless you are truly delusional.
And at any rate I was attempting to emphasis the importance of aoe in fotm. Thus maximising aoe for runs is very important, in my opinion.

And you can maximise AOE by cleaving six targets for the next five seconds.

I’m not sure what a warrior has anything to do with things either, both warriors and mesmers can cleave the same amount of targets, they might do more damage but you’re still hitting them yourself, so how is that relevant? And yes, warden cleave is perfectly reliable.

You can “emphasise the importance” of aoe in fractals all you want, but this discussion has been had countless times on the forum, and I always end up winning because people realise that just because the phantasmal berserker gives you lots of numbers doesn’t mean that the actual dps is good when you can achieve better results with a better weapon equipped and a better phantasm.

What you need to realise, is that fractals played properly will involve grouping (either through LoS or pulls) mobs and then bursting down. Guardians, warriors, or whatever other “OP” class people think is too good are all cleaving three targets at a time, and the mesmer is doing exactly the same, therefore you’re all hitting the same amount of targets, and maximising your AOE potential which basically every greatsword user in this subforum gets so hung up over.

Then if you’re playing with bads, well you’ve got a temporal curtain, do the pulling yourself. If you’re using a proper build you’ll be dealing more damage than the fails in your group running cleric bearbow ranger which means the mobs will stick to you since most mobs like to hit the highest damage dealer (mossman pls stop).

Take in what I’m telling you or don’t, but if you’re just going to ignore it then just tell me so I don’t have to waste my hour of flood control replying to your posts.

Your arrogance is amusing. But your ability to read is not. I never said don’t group mobs (in fact I encouraged it), and I never said don’t warden and don’t cleave. I didn’t say sit at range with GS out and use 1. I said I don’t use sword/sword on group pulls. And since there’s a hell of a lot more group pulls than single target ones I am using GS SWORD/FOCUS over sword/sword sword/focus most of the time. So GS training is the logical choice. Not only do you get the izerks bonus aoe damage, you also get a knockback that can help knock ranged mobs to the melee ones.
I’d also like to point and laugh at you for the comment about warden cleave being reliable. Players aren’t the only ones that cleave, melee mobs can too. And when you’re fighting a group of them warden tends not to hold up so well in those situations. Where as izerker chills outside of cleave range till the next attack spools up.
I hope you actually take the time to READ what I am saying, instead of just completely putting words into my mouth. It’s a real waste of everyone time.

Sword/Sword on grp pulls is fine. iSwordsman being in range of the party also grants AOE healing. The block on OH sword is great as is the daze which is also useful on a grp. However, IWarden is boss (when it works, thanks Anet for nothing) and while iWarden is AOE’ing, it is also reflecting projectiles.

I only find GS useful on a few fights – Jade Maw, Molten bosses, final Dredge bosses

Kioso.4819:

Your arrogance is amusing. But your ability to read is not. I never said don’t group mobs (in fact I encouraged it), and I never said don’t warden and don’t cleave. I didn’t say sit at range with GS out and use 1. I said I don’t use sword/sword on group pulls. And since there’s a hell of a lot more group pulls than single target ones I am using GS SWORD/FOCUS over sword/sword sword/focus most of the time. So GS training is the logical choice. Not only do you get the izerks bonus aoe damage, you also get a knockback that can help knock ranged mobs to the melee ones.
I’d also like to point and laugh at you for the comment about warden cleave being reliable. Players aren’t the only ones that cleave, melee mobs can too. And when you’re fighting a group of them warden tends not to hold up so well in those situations. Where as izerker chills outside of cleave range till the next attack spools up.
I hope you actually take the time to READ what I am saying, instead of just completely putting words into my mouth. It’s a real waste of everyone time.

In fractals, most of the major sets of group pulls carry the benefit of feedback being exceptionally powerful. Avoiding 20 in domination and instead having 20 in dueling is going to be stronger as your chance for feedback to crit will inch closer to 100%. This will also be a boon on all bosses where feedback is king, which is at least half of them. You are also able to trait either sword or pistol which is going to be stronger on most other bosses than GS training. GS training will give you a one skill benefit wheres sword training gives you 4.

Additionally, the increased cooldown reduction is not going to do much because the cooldown reduction is worthless. If you open with the GS and then go into melee sword cleave range, you should be staying there until the trash is dead. Use out of GS training? None. The knockback is irrelevant as it is extremely situational….and you have a focus pull you could also use which allows you to stay in melee range. Using sword/sword on the switch makes it so that you have blurred frenzy constantly available. Additionally, see everything Xavi said in the above post on sword/sword.

Lastly, as for the iZerker chilling outside of melee range, I would say that is just as reliable is the iWarden cleave. Feedback is really all the reason you need to go 20 into dueling.

Bumbler.7581:

In fractals, most of the major sets of group pulls carry the benefit of feedback being exceptionally powerful. Avoiding 20 in domination and instead having 20 in dueling is going to be stronger as your chance for feedback to crit will inch closer to 100%. This will also be a boon on all bosses where feedback is king, which is at least half of them. You are also able to trait either sword or pistol which is going to be stronger on most other bosses than GS training. GS training will give you a one skill benefit wheres sword training gives you 4.

Additionally, the increased cooldown reduction is not going to do much because the cooldown reduction is worthless. If you open with the GS and then go into melee sword cleave range, you should be staying there until the trash is dead. Use out of GS training? None. The knockback is irrelevant as it is extremely situational….and you have a focus pull you could also use which allows you to stay in melee range. Using sword/sword on the switch makes it so that you have blurred frenzy constantly available. Additionally, see everything Xavi said in the above post on sword/sword.

Lastly, as for the iZerker chilling outside of melee range, I would say that is just as reliable is the iWarden cleave. Feedback is really all the reason you need to go 20 into dueling.

The point about switching traits is very valid. You go GS Training it’s pretty much the only trait you can use in 20 Dom. However your comment about the 20% reduction in GS Training being useless and knockback too situational. I respectfully disagree. 24s knockback is huge for me. Whenever you pull a group a lot of the times there’s ranged mobs that can be knocked into the group, also very often guard pulls will fail to pull everything in, as it suffers from the 5 limit AoE cap. The 24s knockback makes sure I have a pull and a knockback for every pull made. Also, the knockback is great for picking people up that go down. I’ve been emphasising the importances of stacking in fotm for fast runs. This isnt a question of best damage you can maintain as it is utility you provide. Well knockback is a very large part of this, because with a pull and knockback I can make sure everything is nice and tight for EVERYONE to maximise their potential AoE output.

I dont feel that lacking 10 points in dueling is hurting me all that much as boosting my ranged damage will come in handy as well. I feel it makes the build more rounded.
My issue is being assault for using GS in the first place no so much a problem with my traits. Now let me clear this up again. I DO NOT sit in GS. In fact I start most fights in GS and weapon swap only once after making sure everything is nice and tight together and I have my Izerker out. Then I am using my sword/focus the rest of the fight. I run 49,39,30 everyday. And I pug it everytime as my regular group from last year has since quit playing. If I had a regular group I might feel more comfortable running mostly without GS, but since I pug lots of kitten ups happen and with this set up I can minimize those kitten ups.
I am probably right in assuming most people don’t have regular groups for fotm either, which also makes the whole melee thing a lot less viable in my mind. You’ll get less group cooperation in terms of correct pulling, stacking techniques and the like. So in a situation were group cooperation is poor, gs is always nice to fall back on as I watch netflix and wait for the dredged run to be over.

I never assumed you sat in GS, and being able to back out in GS can be helpful when things start falling apart.

But nevertheless, maximizing your feedback damage for fractals is very important. Your own power has no effect, and 50 additional power through GS training is almost nothing when in GS. You should note that you also lose the bleeds from the 15 point dueling trait. On the svanir shaman, you can safely place 3 pistol phantasms to have perma 20+ bleed stacks, that amounts to quite a bit of damage.

The additional bleed damage, higher feedback crit chance, as well as the ability to have a very flexible second dueling trait, is much more valuable than 100 power and a 4 second faster ranged phantasm, which you aren’t going to be making much use of in the first place since you are in sword/focus (and truthfully, I can’t think of a single set of trash mobs in the game where I would need to use the GS knockback twice during the encounter, unless of course you consider the dredge clowncar one set of trash mobs, in which case, 6 seconds isn’t doing much).

Would be nice to have a dps meter in this game.

I’m pretty sure a dps meter will just delete 95% of actual meta build all around

Bumbler.7581:

I never assumed you sat in GS, and being able to back out in GS can be helpful when things start falling apart.

But nevertheless, maximizing your feedback damage for fractals is very important. Your own power has no effect, and 50 additional power through GS training is almost nothing when in GS. You should note that you also lose the bleeds from the 15 point dueling trait. On the svanir shaman, you can safely place 3 pistol phantasms to have perma 20+ bleed stacks, that amounts to quite a bit of damage.

The additional bleed damage, higher feedback crit chance, as well as the ability to have a very flexible second dueling trait, is much more valuable than 100 power and a 4 second faster ranged phantasm, which you aren’t going to be making much use of in the first place since you are in sword/focus (and truthfully, I can’t think of a single set of trash mobs in the game where I would need to use the GS knockback twice during the encounter, unless of course you consider the dredge clowncar one set of trash mobs, in which case, 6 seconds isn’t doing much).

Oh Bumbler I wasnt saying you were saying that.. It seemed the guy before you was. I see where you are coming from with the traits, that’s not the issue here. The issue is for group pulls I think having one izerker summoned from the start is better than being able to swap focus for sword offhand. Warden, frenzy blade and 1 are the only important thing when it comes to group pulls. A extra block and a single target phantom isnt as good as a izerker.
Idk man maybe it’s just I run a lot of groups where people dont know what they are really doing a lot of the time (it’s why I made it a point to note I pug), maybe thats why my knockback gets utilized more than you. I wasn’t saying two knockbacks in a fight, most group pulls wont last more than 20s, the point is that by the next pull I have the knockback if i need it. This helps reflect more mobs also with feedback damage as feedback does not suffer from the aoe cap.