Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone! Just starting out in the world of the Mesmer. Thing is, I’m…very inexperienced with them. I’ve developed a fondness for the pistol off-hand weapon, but other then that, I’m very out of my league.

Would someone be willing to help me find a nice build for PVE and eventually dungeoning, the only criteria that it uses that wonderful off-hand pistol. It’d mean a lot!

Speaking plainly but with genuine consideration…

You sound like you’re still very low level and unfamiliar with the class.

For nearly all classes (and mesmer is no exception), you can level all the way to 80 with no difficulty at all by using any mish-mash of armor colors and stats, any weapons, and any traits.

Most mesmers will agree that for leveling to 80, you simply cannot go wrong with GS + Staff as your two weapons. And that the only “mandatory” traits in that setup are the ones that give you 20% faster cooldowns on your staff attacks, and the one that gives you 20% faster cooldowns on your greatsword attacks. Everything else is flavor and experimentation.

You only need to obsess over specific builds and specific gear stats after you hit level 80 and want to maximize your potential for farming, dungeons, sPvP, WvW, etc. You can level just fine with dropped gear, even below your current level, all the way to 80. You’ll save a lot of money this way too. Don’t obess over having greens or yellows on the way up to 80.

Now that said, you want a pistol offhand. I advise you go to with sword main hand then, and use Staff as your weapon swap. By the time you hit level 40 and have some decent Power in your mish mash of gear, learn to make the Retaliation effect work in your favor, because it’s so easy to apply with your F2 shatter for 15 seconds with a simple 10 point trait in the bottom row “Cry of Frustration grants retaliation”. Retaliation is your friend. Read up on it in the wiki. It’s not that powerful at lower levels, but by 40 plus it is very strong in PvE fights.

Since you have Pistol offhand, look around in the various traits for something that gives pistol a faster cooldown, and of course since you have sword in your main hand look for the trait that gives that a faster cooldown.

Other than looking for faster cooldowns on your three weapons and getting yourself that special retaliation on F2 shatter trait by around level 40, just experiment and find what you like. You’ll be a much better mesmer by experimenting than by blindly following one cookie cutter build. Read about all the popular builds and puzzle out why they work and try them for yourself and figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. But that’s a task that will make more sense after you’ve got about 60 levels under your belt. It won’t take long.

One other thing to note is that illusions 5 is mandatory in every build, and should be the first trait you get.

I’d say that getting anything done without Deceptive Evasion past 40 would be… Impressive.

Malice.8439:

I’d say that getting anything done without Deceptive Evasion past 40 would be… Impressive.

If you can get to 40 without Deceptive Evasion (generate a clone when you dodge), you can certainly do fine after 40 without it. That said, if you’re plannign to go 20 points in the Dueling line, that’s an easy no-brainer pick for the Master trait.

But really, any two weapon combos can put out 4x clones/phants continually (and this is easy to do while kiting at max range if your two weapons are Greatsword and Staff), and you also have Mirror Images and Decoy for 3x more illusions you can pop out when needed.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t bother with Deceptive Evasion until after I hit level 80 and started experimenting with WvW and dungeon builds.

Besides, you’d be surprised how many people either don’t like dodging or aren’t comfortable trying to do it well and often.

I levelled my Mesmer to 80 with little real difficulty, I also used the scepter and pistol and a greatsword for most of it. (I did not take the Deceptive Evasion either) so it can be done easily enough without it.

But since i’ve hit 80 and began actually looking at the skills and traits more. I can understand and appreciate why certain skills appear to be essential. I just didn’t need them when i was levelling

Deceptive evasion is only necessary in a fast paced shatter build. I find that phantasm based builds are generally safer and more effective in pve, especially for leveling. This makes deceptive evasion an optional pick, and frees you to go 20 points into dueling to take fury for phantasms, and pistol cooldowns.