Guild Wars 2

Hi, I just came back to the game after 11 months, I wanted to try a Mesmer but I am wondering how they are Solo / PvE wise (IE Leveling)

Leveling is awful until you hit around 40-ish, it’s just plain boring. You can solo content quite well though, if you run a phantasm build you basically just set three up then kite around in circles for however long it takes.

^ this. Leveling is a pain in the… But you aren’t as squishy as some other classes either, so while it may take you longer to kill things, you will likely die less. I can’t speak to dungeons however.

Mesmer is very good at soloing. During leveling, run a shatter/phantasm hybrid build. Use shatter build to kill regular mobs quickly (spam clones, use focus to pull mobs together, blurred frenzy and shatter, if still not dead, use phantasm, there are many variations of this combo). Switch to phantasm build to fight champ. The worst part of Mesmer is mobility. Without level 60 runes, Mesmers run very slowly compared to other classes.

If you don’t like the Mesmer play-style, it could be frustrating at any level PVE.

It seems a bit busy to me compared to other classes, but I grew to like that.

Mesmer is the worst class to level (I havent tried necro yet) and annoying for casual PVE. Its not a BAD PVE class at all, but you actually have to use your utilties and stuff against mobs, where a guardian ranger and warrior can march through world maps like its nothing

Azure.8670:

Mesmer is the worst class to level (I havent tried necro yet) and annoying for casual PVE. Its not a BAD PVE class at all, but you actually have to use your utilties and stuff against mobs, where a guardian ranger and warrior can march through world maps like its nothing

You can run through Gauntlet/WvW as Necro and tag everything. It’s a joke, I level up every 10-30 minutes in Gauntlet (depending on how good the Commander is at leading the group and doesn’t just kitten everywhere).

Mesmer is a Control/Support class. Which means you are squishy and do no real damage. Which means that even the lowliest monster is an absolute pain in the rear to fight alone – not necessarily hard, but i does take FOREVER to get anything done if you’re not in a group.

PS. As for necromancer, like the person above me said, you basically aggro everything you can→stack all your AoEs→everything is dead before you can even finish chanelling. And you’re also unkillable because you have twice the health of the next best class + a ton of heals.

PMilkos, if you really believe that Mesmers do no damage, I feel really bad for you.

As said before, Mesmers are hard to level until you hit 40-something. Just make sure you start with your build as early as possible and you’ll be fine.

PvE is great on mesmer, levelling was a blast for me. Compared to something where u swing around a sword like a barbarian, you obviously do less damage… but like others have said, the solo-ing ability is what makes the class shine. Even at low levels, before level 40 i was in level 40 zones as a level 30, etc, always up to 10 level higher. Often you can take on like multiple mobs all at once, or champs by urself if you are fluid at the play style. Mesmer has great survivability and fighting mobility, but yeah run speed lolll… I didn’t find the damage lacking though, I ran zerker, shatter/phantasm, but my fav weapon was staff by far actually, those clones once u give them a few seconds to get going, stacks conditions and things melt really quick. I remember taking a level 80 thief friend to a level 40 zone and racing him on killing multiple mobs, and my level 35 mesmer was not even slow in comparison xD but this was a while ago. Nevertheless, mesmer is not bad at all if you know the play style well. Even some good level 80 mesmers now, might have bad memories from it, if they weren’t very well adapted to the play style then. But because mesmer and I just clicked, like it was created for me, I felt really powerful than on any other class

I actually don’t find Mesmer to be bad for levelling, the clone/phantasm spam really helps you stay alive. Some other classes (not all!) can really struggle with respawn situations, I never did on mesmer though.

Necro plays in its own league though…

My advice is to find a friend to level with. I’m leveling my Mesmer with a guildies Guardian, and we haven’t had any problems at any point. (Except that one time we somehow aggroed a champion and 2 veterans….)

I was always surprised while levelling at how many mobs I could handle at once, and still am sometimes. Especially with a shatter build and Staff/Sword+Focus- it’s glorious chaos!

But it’s one of those things where it’s all about timing and if you slip up you’re suddenly very, very, very squishy.

PMilkos.9103:

Mesmer is a Control/Support class. Which means you are squishy and do no real damage. Which means that even the lowliest monster is an absolute pain in the rear to fight alone – not necessarily hard, but i does take FOREVER to get anything done if you’re not in a group.

PS. As for necromancer, like the person above me said, you basically aggro everything you can->stack all your AoEs->everything is dead before you can even finish chanelling. And you’re also unkillable because you have twice the health of the next best class + a ton of heals.

I don’t know what game you were playing. The entire time I was leveling up as mesmer, anyone I played with would remark that my damage seemed very high compared to theirs.

My experience of mesmer as a whole can be summed up by ‘high damage, easy dodging’.

For open world pve, mesmer’s damage seems incredibly high (especially if you run shatter) the reason for this is simply because of the lower health pools of mobs and the way that shatter can burst them down. It does lose some steam in easily sustainable dps in dungeons against targets with large hp pools though (unless of course whatever you are fighting can have it’s damage reflected, I am looking at you lupi, slave driver, effigy)

Leveling is a pain until you get the hang of it. My mes is my first toon to 80 and I enjoyed leveling quite a bit. I googled how to level a mesmer and came up with this http://gw2.junkiesnation.com/2012/08/28/leveling-a-mesmer-getting-started-on-your-journey-to-80/ and it worked awesome for me.

Personally I do A LOT of solo work and events. I run a shatter build and when it comes to bosses or mobs that need a little bit more time to run down I just don’t shatter as often. With the pavillon event bosses I shatter even less because my clones die before I can shatter them.

Leveling with a Mesmer isn’t so much hard as it is a paradigm shift from every other profession. I do admit that it gets a lot easier once you’ve got access to your master traits. Mesmer builds are very trait dependent, but I think it’s the mindset that’s the hardest to conquer.

For me, it was an eye opener to watch the Comprehensive Mesmer Guide series by MrPrometheus0110 on YouTube. It’s kind of old now, and many aren’t going to agree with the way he likes to build a character, but it did me wonders just to see the kinds of things a mesmer player thinks about and emphasizes. I realized that I was greatly under-utilizing my clones, shatters and phantasms. It got me thinking differently about my weapons and character mechanics. I was about level 20 then, and from that point on, leveling got a lot easier.