Guild Wars 2

How do you trait/build your mesmer for zerg content?

Personally, I run Greatsword/Staff with a 20/20/20/0/10.
This gives me shortened cooldowns on our best ranged AoE (staff 5 and GS 4)

What do you guys do?

Sword/Focus and GS with Sigil of Fire. I have no problem with that

Staff is not good for zerging. Chaos Storm is not doing enough damage. If you really want to be effective, get a guardian and staff spam 1.

1. put down arrow cart
2. pray that people build it
3. pew pew pew
   IF they dont build
   # Cry

Or if its a pve zerg event (which seems to be EVERY SINGLE living story), i just use spatial surge, berserker and stab to try and tag stuff, cuz thats what pve is about.

Zerging really ruins the living story for me, while if it was a 5 person instance, it would be pretty awesome.

I run a power/PU build with GS/S+T.
The way I “zerg” is running with the blob until they need a veil, I drop the veil for them, take it myself and then split off from the blob to go hunt Elementalists and other squishies on the outside of the fight. I also like to spend time snagging retreating people on low health and stealth stomping downed folks outside the fight to rally my friends.

I use my 30/20/20 lockdown-centric build even in zergs.
I provide support via the usual, Feedback, Null Field, Timewarp. Beyond that however, I use Mantra of Distraction, dual-swords and GS to catch stragglers at the sides, or flankers trying to hit people in the back.

It works amazingly well. Few enough people expect organized skirmishing during a zerg fight (effective as it is), even fewer expect counter-skirmishers.

I just reroll my guardian. You tag everything and never go down. Why making things harder with mesmer?

Fhaeris.9237:

I just reroll my guardian. You tag everything and never go down. Why making things harder with mesmer?

But wouldn’t it be even easier to not play GW2 then, and do something more instantly rewarding? :P
Why making [sic] things harder with playing a game?

Suddo.5487:

How do you trait/build your mesmer for zerg content?

Personally, I run Greatsword/Staff with a 20/20/20/0/10.
This gives me shortened cooldowns on our best ranged AoE (staff 5 and GS 4)

What do you guys do?

I use Bunda’s GS/Staff Zerg Bomber build – very similar to yours (20/10/20/0/20), but even better CD’s for your AOE skills (better CD’s on iZerker, Mirror Blade with double traited GS), along with the extra bounce from staff autos and mirror blade. You definitely won’t be running with the front line with this build, but as far as periph/counter-periph goes, the build works fantastic imo.

I use my great sword and laser beam people . if you really just want to tag you would use a staff as well. pop invis run to the side of a zerg, drop a chaos storm in their path and phase treat out. Then just laser beam people and pick up bags.

Standard 20/20/0/0/30 shatter, most of the time with GS/S+P

I’ve kind of dropped out of using the Focus in WvW- Phantasm gets clobbered in half a second and temporal curtain is one of those “equip for pulling then un-equip as soon as pulling is done” weapons. Crappy without 20 in Inspiration.

Play-style is generally to drop big GS cooldowns as I run in, then iLeap→shatter into the blob for large AoE damage and boon removal, Blink out and swap back to GS. After that, I target the main blob with my GS and shatter when I can, occasionally swapping to S+P to assassinate stragglers or folks low on health looking to get to safety.

I generally model my playstyle after thieves and rangers more than necros and eles; we just don’t seem to have the AoE in zergs to make it a primary focus.

I also enjoy Power PU builds. Similar goals and play style. As a shatter, I rely more on active defense and movement for survival and as PU I rely more on stealth and boons. The end result is pretty similar and I probably swap between them once or twice a week.

Shatter is great if you’re in an offensive and good guild group or fighting morons, weak in a random zerg against an even bigger random zerg.

My zerg specs are usually either 0/20/20/30/0, 0/25/20/25/0 or 20/10/20/10/0. I use the same gear for all of them (~2K power/prec/tough, 1.5K vit, 60-75% crit). Yes I run 20/20/0/0/30 shatter (or PU depending on mood) when roaming and even when the zergs start to form… However there is a huge difference in survivability when you put some traits down the center. The bursts of shatter is absolutely glorious and I do make an evil laugh at times, but living is slightly better.

Dawdler.8521:

Shatter is great if you’re in an offensive and good guild group or fighting morons, weak in a random zerg against an even bigger random zerg.

My zerg specs are usually either 0/20/20/30/0, 0/25/20/25/0 or 20/10/20/10/0. I use the same gear for all of them (~2K power/prec/tough, 1.5K vit, 60-75% crit). Yes I run 20/20/0/0/30 shatter (or PU depending on mood) when roaming and even when the zergs start to form… However there is a huge difference in survivability when you put some traits down the center. The bursts of shatter is absolutely glorious and I do make an evil laugh at times, but living is slightly better.

It’s very true that shatter can be a bit squishy at times, and even a 0/20/20/0/30 or 10/20/10/0/30 can give just a solid boost to survival.

My guild group is pretty organized, so I’ve often got access to some water-field healing and survival boons. Playing nimble and ranged is also a huge help to survival- I really can only risk swapping to sword/pistol when picking off a straggler.

Curious though, what kind of traits/weapons do you pick up with a 0/20/20/20/0+10 build? I’ve tried some of those before and just found myself doing little other than surviving or popping huge cooldowns (temporal curtain, feedback, null field) then sitting around waiting for recharges.

Kelthien.8593:

Curious though, what kind of traits/weapons do you pick up with a 0/20/20/20/0+10 build? I’ve tried some of those before and just found myself doing little other than surviving or popping huge cooldowns (temporal curtain, feedback, null field) then sitting around waiting for recharges.

Greatsword + traited staff. Restorative mantras, cooldown and menders. What you pick in terms of other traits and skills depend on what you want. You can go 30/20/20 and use quickness on interrupt for some fun romps. 20/30/20 and go pseudo PU using veil, decoy, MI, sword/scepter/torch instead. 20/20/30 if you want to slip in some glamour traits. 25/20/25 just take the passive traits.

The 20/10/20/20/0 build (I missed 10 points in my post above lol) is similar, but you trait both greatsword and staff at the loss of deceptive evasion. Its basicly a defensive twohand build (20/30/20/0/0 or 30/20/20/0/0 being the offensive ones). Better zerg performance if you know how to handle your greatsword, less solo capability.

I play GS/staff in PU/interrupt specs of various forms. GS is my main damage dealer/tagger, staff is for evading and for Chaos Storm on the enemy zerg, not for damage but because it is really awesome on packed groups with its chance to cause general irritation and loss of control.

I’m sure it is minor, but experience throughout mmos tells me abilities like that can make a big difference in zerg battles to reduce the enemy threat, especially if you combine them with other things such as traps. Besides, i generally enjoy the staff. Of course, like all mesmer I suspect, I have some other weapons waiting in the bags.