Guild Wars 2

Ok, don’t want a raid ready build, or WvW or PVP.
Just looking for a decent damage dealing build for open world PVE with some sustain thrown in if able.
Browsed the forums but I suck at searching so if one of you that know the class well could put up something that would be great, perhaps Fay or someone?
Chrono looks fun and I am keen to give it a go and have something to play outside of raids but not be a wet noodle.
Thanks!

GS + sw/sh. Domination (middle top middle), inspiration (top middle top), chrono (bottom bottom bottom). Heal well, blink, damage well/action well, float util, grav well, zerker gear.

Pretty standard build, you get ranged + aoe on gs, melee + aoe on sword, damagy stuff in domination, supporty and sustain stuff in inspiration, chrono stuff in chrono.

Variant: Sw/sh + sw/f, inspiration (top top top)

Here you get focus for aoe control/pulls/reflects.

Variant: Staff.

Press 3 to afk on world bosses.

“Press 3 to afk on world bosses.”
Lol, thanks for the info Fay!!

Also, do you have any videos?
And I’m going to ask what is probally a really stupid question but meh, here goes. What wrong with staff for Mesmer dps? By the looks of it the skills seem like they would be really good? Is it that overall it just doesn’t pump out enough sustained dps or that other weapons simply do more?
Just curious is all as on skills alone (the descriptions) one would think that they rock.

Well staff 1 is a really slow auto-attack (3/4 sec cast time) and it has low damage because of its bounce mechanic that theoretically allows it to hit the enemy multiple times. The problem with it is that it doesn’t bounce enough and prioritizes allies over enemies, which means your already low damage from your auto is usually cut in half or worse when anybody is nearby to receive a bounch.

Staff 2, phase retreat, is infinitely useful but does no damage on its own. Its a stunbreak that summons a clone that applies conditions, useful with staff 3 in theory, but then again you get more damage out of Staff 3 without using this clone in the first place.

Staff 3, phantasm that attacks, deals an extra 10% damage for each condition on the enemy. Useful, and really strong against world bosses and other mobs that have a ton of conditions, but still a really slow phantasm, and if you only have a few conditions on your enemy it won’t be doing much damage.

Staff 4 and 5 are chaos armor and chaos storm respectively, both on 35 second cooldowns, and both only last 5 seconds (so really low uptime on both here). Chaos armor only gives the enemy a condition when they hit you, and aside from confusion its all non damaging conditions. Chaos storm is easy enough to move out of and only applies 1 condition a second. Again though only 1 actual damaging condition can be applied with chaos storm.

So staff realistically has 1 attack with a long cast time and a wonky mechanic that almost always cuts its dps in half or worse. The phantasm isn’t that great unless your foe isn’t moving/attacking it and has a ton of conditions. Skill 2 doesn’t really deal damage, its just clones applying conditions, if they stay alive long enough to do so. Staff 4 and 5 aren’t even guaranteed to do any damage.

OriOri.8724:

Well staff 1 is a really slow auto-attack (3/4 sec cast time) and it has low damage because of its bounce mechanic that theoretically allows it to hit the enemy multiple times. The problem with it is that it doesn’t bounce enough and prioritizes allies over enemies, which means your already low damage from your auto is usually cut in half or worse when anybody is nearby to receive a bounch.

Staff 2, phase retreat, is infinitely useful but does no damage on its own. Its a stunbreak that summons a clone that applies conditions, useful with staff 3 in theory, but then again you get more damage out of Staff 3 without using this clone in the first place.

Staff 3, phantasm that attacks, deals an extra 10% damage for each condition on the enemy. Useful, and really strong against world bosses and other mobs that have a ton of conditions, but still a really slow phantasm, and if you only have a few conditions on your enemy it won’t be doing much damage.

Staff 4 and 5 are chaos armor and chaos storm respectively, both on 35 second cooldowns, and both only last 5 seconds (so really low uptime on both here). Chaos armor only gives the enemy a condition when they hit you, and aside from confusion its all non damaging conditions. Chaos storm is easy enough to move out of and only applies 1 condition a second. Again though only 1 actual damaging condition can be applied with chaos storm.

So staff realistically has 1 attack with a long cast time and a wonky mechanic that almost always cuts its dps in half or worse. The phantasm isn’t that great unless your foe isn’t moving/attacking it and has a ton of conditions. Skill 2 doesn’t really deal damage, its just clones applying conditions, if they stay alive long enough to do so. Staff 4 and 5 aren’t even guaranteed to do any damage.

Ah, thanks for that! Explains a lot! yea, didn’t take a look at the cd’s on each, those really suck. So now Fay’s comment about Staff 3 makes sense.
Btw, I saw a Chrono in TD run up and instantly pop 3 phantasms/clones and then just owned the mob! What the hell was that other than just great game play?
I ask becasuse I am learning and want to try to get as good as I can on this toon. I am a bit of a min/maxer and try to put up the best I can given I am old as and have slow fat fingers…lol.
Cheers!

Did you see which weapon he was using by any chance? It doesn’t make a difference, I’m just curious.

What he did was use a weapon skill that summons a phantasm, and right as it ended he popped up mirror images to summon 2 extra clones. Mirror images is a utility skill that base mesmer gets, its useful as a stunbreak, and just got its CD reduced by 15 seconds (I think) in the last patch a few weeks ago, so a lot more people are using it now than used to. Besides the obvious usefulness of the stunbreak, you saw how it can be used to instantly get 3 illusions out and pop a big MW burst.

Greatsword would make sense. Pop Mirror Images and Mirror Blade at the same time, straight into Mind Wrack?

It’s a fun trick to blow away a single mob, but then you’re sitting on cooldowns for a while before you can do it again.