Guild Wars 2

Hey, I want to make my Mesmer from my alt to my new main and I want to ask about fine tuning him and what I need to do to make him better and more viable.

I am a level 80, human mesmer with Sword/Pistol and Greatsword or Staff as a secondary (I have not decided yet)

My traits are 30/20/0/0/20

I have Rending Shatter, Mental Toment and Confounding Suggestions in Domination.
Blade training, and Duelist’s Discipline in dueling. Finally in Illusions I have Precise Wrack and Phantasmal Haste.

1,4,12 (I, IV, XII)
4, 9 (IV, IX)
1, 10 (I, X)
(numbers are pulled from what Esplen posted! Thanks.)

The heal I use is Ether Feast, and in utilities I have Mirror Images, Decoy, Phantasmal Defender with Time Warp as my Elite.

I like to get in close, using my duelist to start a fight if its a smaller group or mirror images and leap to bring out three clones for a mind wrack for a larger group. I want to also get into PvP in the future, but I doubt I will survive in WvW until they let us make a second build that we can switch between since I am pretty sure what I am doing would suck for WvW.

I think I should get Power, Precision, and maybe something for surviving as my attributes to focus on. I don’t do a lot of Condition Damage unless I am in a group which puts down fields. With my iduelists I LOVE fields, in big fights I might get out 2 or 3 and then my friend will put down a field and I get 8 stacks per duelist and I feel great.

I am 100% sure I am playing my Mesmer not to the best of his abilities. Please help me keep a play style I like while adjusting it to work amazing. I really love Sword and Pistol, but my secondary weapons can really go anywhere so long as they are ranged so I can have a set to keep distance with.

Thanks a lot in advance!
Kaoru Mori of Tarnished Coast

List your numbers of the traits, not just the names (or link a build) because it’s a pain in the butt for people trying to cross-reference. Regardless your traits are:
1,4,12 (I, IV, XII)
4, 9 (IV, IX)
1, 10 (I, X)

The problem I see with your build is that it’s not really specific as to whether you want to shatter often or just get out phantasms and sit with them. All your traits lean towards shattering, and then you have Phantasmal Haste.

It could just be that you’re misunderstanding the trait, it reduces the cooldowns of your Phantasms attacks, not your Phantasm attacks. (That extra s makes a difference… a very, very large difference.)

So, I would probably suggest taking those 10 point and plopping them into, say, Inspiration 3, or into Dueling so you can also get Deceptive Evasion (Dueling 10).

Dueling 10 (Deceptive Evasion) is a MUST (opinionated must) for a shatter build. It lets you create clones on the fly.

Personally, I would actually just swap Duelist’s Discipline for Deceptive Evasion and Phantasmal Haste for Illusionary Invigoration. But those are a few options.

I really haven’t made that decision on what I want more. I am going to have to think about it. I don’t want to lose my pistol though, which I love with all my heart… its an unreasonable love.

You don’t have to be traited into your pistol to use it.

Of course. I will try out he changes, so far they seem that they would work way better. Should I gear like a shatter build even if I am more close ranged?

once you charge and do a leap combo your pistol skills will not be ready even if you trait them. at this point you will have to switch weapons to continue fighting. do you want to continue to dps/pressure with greatsword cc+izerker or do you want to start creating clones with staff+protecting yourself while setting up for the next combo.

Virgil.6729:

Of course. I will try out he changes, so far they seem that they would work way better. Should I gear like a shatter build even if I am more close ranged?

I don’t quite understand what you mean. If you’re running a shatterbuild, you should gear appropriately. I, personally, run full Berserker’s and spend all my time in melee range being very susceptible to damage. I can mitigate almost all of that with rolls, Blurred Frenzy[s], more rolls, Staff swaps (I use Staff, but it’s a semantic) and, in the worst case, Distortion.

With Illusionary Persona, Distortion acts as a roll with 0 clones up because it lasts for 1 second. If you have any clones at all, you get plenty of time to set up or prepare to start taking damage.

Learn how to mitigate, your goal is to be able to run no defense at all because you should be able to avoid most damage.

Thanks a lot this has been really helpful and I can’t wait to put this to use.

Yeah, the main problem I see (and this problem is common to a ton of builds) is that your build is unfocused. You really want to decide to either go shatter or phantasm. Sitting in the middle really doesn’t work, because you will be lacking various traits from both that make the builds successfull.

If you want shatter, you’ll need to go 30 into illusions for illusionary persona, you’ll need to take deceptive evasion in dueling.

If you want phantasm, you’ll need to take the phantasm damage trait in domination, and you’ll probably want to drop at least 20 or 25 points into inspiration for the phantasm bonuses you find there.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Yeah, the main problem I see (and this problem is common to a ton of builds) is that your build is unfocused. You really want to decide to either go shatter or phantasm. Sitting in the middle really doesn’t work, because you will be lacking various traits from both that make the builds successfull.

If you want shatter, you’ll need to go 30 into illusions for illusionary persona, you’ll need to take deceptive evasion in dueling.

If you want phantasm, you’ll need to take the phantasm damage trait in domination, and you’ll probably want to drop at least 20 or 25 points into inspiration for the phantasm bonuses you find there.

He doesn’t NEED iPersona if he’s doing DecEva with the 50% stun on daze in Domination.

But it does help, yes.