Guild Wars 2

All right, I am trying Mesmer again, having gotten frustrated previously and giving up on it, but I need some help finding a build that lets me get the abilities I want on the class. I am looking for:
1) Long-range.
2) Run speed increase (probably through Runes of the Centaur, but they seem useless on most Mesmer builds).
3) Able to do reasonably well in events. Not looking for Orr-farming quality here, but at least gold on events would be very nice.
4) Useful on teams.
5) Able to use staff effectively, if possible.

If you can help me find something that works with these things in mind, I would be very happy. Seems to be a good community here and I would love to be a part of it, but haven’t been able to find a way of playing Mesmer that was fun yet.

Ditch staff, it’s hard to tag in events with staff. It’s usefull for boons, AoE dazing and combo fields (team play). Get GS (fast, quick, long range and some AoE) and Sw/F (swiftness, cleave auto attack, blurred frenzy, aoe phantasm with projectile protection).

Get Boon durations runes if you want longer swiftness (2 sanctuary, 2 water, 2 monk).
If you want more mobility, get Blink. Then get a condition remover (Null field) and Signet of Inspiration if you went Boon Duration runes or Feedback.

Finnaly, Berserker set.

You should be fine with that.

For long range, Greatsword is your friend. It has long range and, due to the recent buff, Spacial Surge (gs1) can hit enemies between you and your target. Lazy Kai’s Leveling Build is a very good ranged build, although frankly, it does better with sword/x than Greatsword.

If you want a speed buff, I recommend using xxxx/focus, for Temporal Curtain. RoCentuars rely on heal skills, as such, Mirror might be your best bet rather than Ether Feast.

For events, general strategy is use GS4 >>> GS2 >>> GS3 (if needed to tag more mobs) >>> dodge towards target >>> Mind Wrack. As Lazy Kai says, it works, but you are never a warrior. Usually, I get gold, unless I don’t find the event till part of the way through.

If you like staff, I recommend Osicat’s Shatter Cat builds. Personally, I run SC Heavy, due to the focusing on Staff defensive skills. (Piece of advice, keep a copy of every weapon in your inventory. I do not like to use staff unless traited for it, due to the long-ish cooldowns on #4 and #5) If you run with a staff, you will end up needing to swap it out for a GS during events.

A sample build (based on one of the Shatter Cat builds) would be this It’s not ideal, but if you want to fight at range, just use scepter instead of the MH sword.

You could do both gs and staff. Though traiting for both is pretty demanding and wouldn’t leave you much to work with for shattering or phantasms. Probably be best to trait for staff, then phantasms or shatter. Ignore gs traiting imo.

As for what stats, maybe rabid? Or power, vit and condition if you are more into support.

HEY RAMIAH!!!

I ran into a similar problem, one that I wanted to be able to have extreme range, perma swiftness, amazing mobility all while doing damage. I also wanted to take advantage of being able to kite effectively and deal significant damage in the process.

This is what I eventually came up with. GS/Staff, perma swiftness through centaur runes and boon duration food (you can not eat the food, but there’ll be like a 2 second gap in uptime of swiftness, which annoyed me.)

It’s an AoE killing machine, while having decent survivability. I’ve got 1.4k toughness purely because I run this build in WvW too, however if you’re just in PvE and feel confidant enough with your ability to mitigate damage without the need of higher toughness then by all means go full crit.

Illusionary Elasticity is critical for this build, as it takes advantage of both GS and Staff, you’re able to deal 900 damage through a single auto attack of the staff, plus applying 2 conditions. Note that you can swap out arcane thievery for sig of Insp, however if you’re in groups Sig of Insp is a really nice thing to have.

Hope this fits what you had in mind

Ramiah.5648:

1) Long-range.

GS or Staff. GS is better.

Ramiah.5648:

2) Run speed increase (probably through Runes of the Centaur, but they seem useless on most Mesmer builds).

Only reliable swiftness you’re getting on mesmer is Focus.

Ramiah.5648:

3) Able to do reasonably well in events. Not looking for Orr-farming quality here, but at least gold on events would be very nice.

eh…? You throw a rock in the general vicinity of an event and you get gold…

Ramiah.5648:

4) Useful on teams.

Mostly any build. Sword is especially good for boon ripping.

Ramiah.5648:

5) Able to use staff effectively, if possible.

Seems like what you want is a GS (or Staff) / sword-focus build. If GS try 20/20/0/25/5, if staff try 0/20/20/25/5.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Staff & Sword/Focus are the best weapon combinations in PvE. Staff for the ridiculous defensive utility and sword/focus for DPS.

The iWarden has the highest DPS out of all the phantasms and when traited reflects everything under the sun. This is especially good for Southsun as you can simply drop one on the karka and watch them implode in about 3 seconds. Temporal curtain is again good for reflect (though this implementation is not as reliable), swiftness and bunching mobs together with the pull.

Using the staff means you can easily keep up to 80% chaos armour up time if you make use of combo fields. Chaos storm and phase retreat are ridiculously good and the iWarlock hits hard when combined with conditions (group with a Necro and watch it crit for 8-10k on a zerker build).

Farming with a Mesmer becomes seriously easy when you have 3 things – a GS, high crit and a Sigil of Fire. Basically all you do is auto attack at max range while pressing 2 and 4 occasionally. Sigil of Fire’s AOE range is big enough to tag practically everything and it procs often.

Okay, I think I am starting to realize that a lot of what I am looking for is mutually exclusive on the Mesmer.
If I want staff, I won’t be good at events, and shouldn’t use Runes of the Centaur for perma-swiftness with Mirror.
If I want to do solid support/damage then I should go sword, and that’s not ranged. I am thinking that perhaps the reason I have struggled with finding a build I like for Mesmer is because there isn’t one.
theCOREYCOLAK did mention a build using Greatsword and Staff, that sounds like exactly what I am looking for. Range and damage speed of the greatsword for events, plus the support and utility of staff. I will see if I can make something like that work.

Don’t forget that Mind Wrack (Shatter 1) is AoE, flip a “mirrroed images” and 1 more clone and shatter can tag quite a few mobs if in a group.

Phantasm on GS can tag a few mobs too, as can the focus one (if the mobs are standing still).

Glamours can also be used quite well in PvE to tag.

Ramiah.5648:

Okay, I think I am starting to realize that a lot of what I am looking for is mutually exclusive on the Mesmer.
If I want staff, I won’t be good at events, and shouldn’t use Runes of the Centaur for perma-swiftness with Mirror.
If I want to do solid support/damage then I should go sword, and that’s not ranged. I am thinking that perhaps the reason I have struggled with finding a build I like for Mesmer is because there isn’t one.
theCOREYCOLAK did mention a build using Greatsword and Staff, that sounds like exactly what I am looking for. Range and damage speed of the greatsword for events, plus the support and utility of staff. I will see if I can make something like that work.

If all you’re doing is PvE, then perm swiftness with mirror is just fine!