Guild Wars 2

So I’ve gone back and forth with mesmer several time, usually getting to lv20 or so before getting discouraged and re-rolling. So I’d like some input on how others feel about the mesmer at higher levels.

At level 20, I feel like I finally have some points to play around with although they’re nothing special. I enjoy pumping out illusions but it seems like most of the enemies beyond this point have large AoE skills which destroy most illusions before I can shatter them or before they can attack. .. so it seems very silly to invest in illusions at this point. Does that get better?

I have heard several times that early leveling is rough with mesmer. I’ve been sticking with sword/sword due to the high damage and high defense (blur and block) with staff as a swap.. it’s kind of hard to NOT use staff. It’s just so good and it seems to pump out much more damage than my greatsword does.

Anyways, I’m gonna stop my self before I ramble on for another 10 paragraphs. Simply stated, how does the mesmer feel at higher levels?

Again, just my opinion,

At level 20, Mesmer play is all about kiting and staying alive. You want your clones to tank for you as much as possible. At level 20 lets say you have 9 trait points and 18 skill points. Personally, I would put 5 trait points into illusions and 4 into duelist. Your two utility skills. I would take decoy and mirror images.

Staff is fine, it’s what I used. Get a staff and a sword / pistol for offhand.

My general skill rotation was staff 1, staff 3, staff 1.

When the enemy gets close, staff 5 (chaos storm) followed by staff 2 (teleport out and get chaos armor).

Then I’d swap to my sword / pistol.
If the enemy was close, pistol 5 (which is an interrupt and a 1 sec stun but will bounce and aggro other enemies),
Pistol 4. (ranged phantasm, which will frequently be outside of any aoe)
Sword 2 is great because it does good damage and also grants temporary invincibility.
Sword 3 is a clone generator.

At level 40 the Mesmer becomes fun. 20 points in duelist gives deceptive evasion which pumps out clones when you dodge.

At level 40, I put 20 points into duelist (blade training and deceptive evasion)
5 points into illusion (always a must)
5 points into domination – keep adding points here so that at 45 you get the mental torment trait.

Start shattering clones for damage. With a mesmer you will always be playing keep away, so get use to it. Sometimes you want to dodge offensively to generate a clone.

At level 60 it was a lot of fun, I could handle multiple mobs.
I did (10/20/0/0/20) the illusion traits I used were compounding powder and illusionary elasticity.

I used a staff all the way to 80, but here is a good time to play with a greatsword.

from 60 on put 10 points into illusion and take illusionary persona, this allows shattering without clones.

Last 10 points into domination, at 80 you can respec into whatever you want to be.

Until you reach lvl 40, it is generally advised to use your illusions to tank for you and only shatter if you know it will kill the enemy.

Once you reach lvl 40 you gain access to the master traits. This means you can get Deceptive Evasion (20 trait points in duelling) for a shatter spec (which is awesome) or you can get 15 in Inspiration so your phantasm give aoe regen for a phantasm spec (which is imo better for long battles, like bosses in dungeons and fractals)

But don’t be afraid to play around and test things, after all retraiting isn’t overly expensive.

I’m surprised at the number of “use illusions to tank” responses there are. Generally I’m using sword/sword which gives me 2 reliable damage immunities.. I’m not constantly dying, my problem is the gameplay just seems haphazard (though not as much as Engineer did) at this level. Many times I’d summon a phantasm and the enemy would quickly turn and 1 shot it before it could do anything .. then a quick AoE takes out the clones. It feels like as soon as I get 3 illusions up, I should just shatter them ASAP because otherwise they’re wasted which really defeats the whole purpose of phantasms. Seems the only safe phantasms to use are torch or staff.

Yeah, first lvls are kinda hard, but as many told you at lvl 40 you get Deceptive Evasion and that means you can pop out more clones than you can shatter. Seriusly, you become a clone factory.

Also the “make your ilusions tank for you” thing its quite possible at those lvls depending gears. Keep in mind your ilusions share most of your stats so if you se defensive stats like toughtness and vit your clones will be more durable.

I cant tell about other classes since i cant bring myself to play anything other than mesmers, but for us traits are very important, in fact they completely change how a mesmer can be played, thats why they higher lvl you are the more fun the class is.