Guild Wars 2

Ok so I get that the community currently looks down upon the state Mesmers, and there is a general feeling of gimpiness.

I’m not looking for topping any meters, I don’t care if I will get limited opportunity for end game dungeon and fractal runs, and I’m only looking at PVE , just want to enjoy the game that can primarily done as single player.

So with the above in mind would I be able to enjoy the current state of Mesmers to level to 80?

It’s absolutely horrid for leveling.

Mesmer is far and away the worst class to level. It’s always been bad because mesmer is incredibly dependent on traits. Unfortunately, when anet shoved all the traits back 20 levels at the feature patch, that means mesmers went from being incredibly brutal for 40 levels and very difficult for 60 levels right to incredibly brutal for 60 levels and very difficult for 80 levels.

If you have leveled other classes and you attempt to level a mesmer to 80 normally (as in no eotm training, no crafting, etc), you will quit before you hit 60.

Honestly, as Fay said, basically just eotm/craft to 80 and don’t even attempt to level normally.

If you level in open world, it is a fairly long lesson in frustration.

It is like cutting a tough steak. While all other classes are knifes (some of them are sharper than others) you as a mesmer are a spoon.

Good luck.

If you don’t care about how fast you want to level and just enjoy the ride, mesmer is fine. There is nothing too difficult for any class in PVE, especially in open world and when you are playing with others. Also mesmer, unlike other classes, is a fun class to play. Now, if you want to level as fast as possible, that’s another story.

The “everything is fine in PvE” argument is such bullkitten.

It is like in other games, where it takes healers forever to level, and people tell them, that’s fine.
That’s called ignorance. Then noone levels healers and everyone complains about there being no healers.

Now, GW2 does not have a trinity, so noone needs a mesmer for anything. So with this argument, it is ok that there are no mesmers, because noone complains about the lack of them.

And the playing with others thing: Sure, other classes are capable of doing the stuff alone and fast, but as a mesmer you are better off finding support for you.
Again, we had the same discussion years ago with the healers in other mmos. If you can’t do the stuff solo just find a group. Sure, I can do everything fine on my [insert class here] but that’s totally ok in my books. Ignorance at its finest.

The class is broken and weak compared to all other classes while leveling. It needs to be fixed.

Wow, you could at least read the OP before calling people ignorant. He doesn’t care about mesmer being weaker than other classes, he just wants to have fun while leveling. And for that, mesmer is fine in PVE. You can level a mesmer completely solo with no problems at all. And it’s a lot more fun/less boring than leveling other classes. Nobody is saying the class doesn’t need to be fixed.

I am aware of what the OP is looking for.
But if he has ever touched any other class, he will not enjoy leveling a mesmer solo in open world, unless he is a masochist.

DD is too low, without traits phantasm skills take forever to recharge and getting anywhere is a chore. Shatters hit like a wet noodle and no matter what you do, it takes forever to kill anything.
There is no real build variety, and if you want to tag anything in DE’s, you are pretty much kitten’d.

Meanwhile a necro kills mobs in three hits with daggers and can do absolutely insane AoE damage both with weapons and utility.
You can level as DD, with minions, as DS or even with a condition build.

Variety and power is fun in GW2.
Do not level a mesmer if you are looking for that.

I’m level 29 on my mesmer currently. My first and only 80 was a ranger that I leveled when the game first came out. I’ve just returned to the game recently, and decided to try something else out since the I wasn’t really feeling the ranger. I’m leveling a mesmer.

I did the first 20 levels without a 1h sword. I really like the staff, and was trying to see if i could get by with that and the greatsword, just because they felt more caster-y. Finally i said screw it and purchased a 1h sword. I immediately felt the difference. Things were dying quickly, I was able to easily survive encounters, and it was like a whole new world opened up. I bought another sword to dual wield them and I was even stronger. Now I run around in PVE with a greatsword in one slot, and a sword and torch in my other set. It’s a lot of fun, you can take on many enemies at once, and veteran mobs are no real problem at all.

My one tip for leveling would be this. Buy blink, and 2 other utility skills of your choice, and then save up for the healing signet. It makes such a huge difference it’s not even funny. It allows you to last in fights so much longer and you don’t even have to use heal. Yes it costs 25 skill points, but kitten is it worth it to have for soloing. Honestly most of the other skills can wait because they are either more group oriented, or not really needed until you’re fighting much harder foes. Buy the healing signet.

Malakin.2809:

Wow, you could at least read the OP before calling people ignorant. He doesn’t care about mesmer being weaker than other classes, he just wants to have fun while leveling. And for that, mesmer is fine in PVE. You can level a mesmer completely solo with no problems at all. And it’s a lot more fun/less boring than leveling other classes. Nobody is saying the class doesn’t need to be fixed.

It doesn’t matter how slow you want to level. The experience will be awful either way. You’ll be doing incredibly low damage and have little to no utility for about 40 levels, then you’ll be doing quite low damage and still have little to no utility for another 20 levels, and you’ll finally have some damage and more normal utility for the last 20 levels.

It sucks. It doesn’t matter how slow you’re willing to go with it.

Yeah I leveled mesmer as my first 80 last winter and it was quite the strugglebus.

I remember my PvX guildmates at the time dragging me to AC p2 when I was level 50 as my first dungeon in this game, and that scared me away from PvE for the longest time.

But yeah mesmer has always been the hardest class to level. Its not impossible, but very aggravating given our minimal access to speed boosts and the aforementioned trait dependence. If you stick through it though and ask for help when you need it (you can whisper me ingame and I can help you out if I’m not too busy) you can level, but it will be painful challenge when you’re solo.

I,m leveling mesmer and elem after having lvled ranger 52 (Now mesmer is 68).

Tbh, the first 30 lvl was a pain. While it’s so easy as a ranger, leveling a mesmer is horrible.

But then I began to play staff/Gs instead of Staff/DS and I find mesmer REALLY fun and easy to lvl on solo pve. You always stay far from the ennemy, you deal decent dmg (Not the most, but it’s ok) and the ennemies doesn,t attack you because they will attack your fantasms/clones (That’s why I use the signet of 50% more hp for the illusions). I now find it more easy to xp as a mesmer than with my thief or my elem( On my elem most of the ennemies die in 2shot tho’ but soloing veterans and stuff is more easy as mesmer/ranger imo)

Leveling a mesmer isn’t as terrible as you all make it up here. I pretty much beleve like 95% of you never ever leveled a mesmer up these days, yet you guys are just repeating what you heared in the forums …

Mesmers are fine to level, they depend on their traits, that’s true, but they are still not that pain in the “poophole” to level.

Fay.2357:

It doesn’t matter how slow you want to level. The experience will be awful either way. You’ll be doing incredibly low damage and have little to no utility for about 40 levels, then you’ll be doing quite low damage and still have little to no utility for another 20 levels, and you’ll finally have some damage and more normal utility for the last 20 levels.

It sucks. It doesn’t matter how slow you’re willing to go with it.

Well, there are people saying it’s horrible and there are people saying it’s fine. I guess leveling a mesmer varies greatly with the skills/weapons you use and how you play it. I personally had a lot more fun leveling my mesmer than my warrior. If your definition of fun is efficiency/high dps, then please read the OP again.

My first mesmer i levelled as condition. DO NOT DO THIS. Power is the way to go. I am levelling another one with a different race now with greatsword and sword/focus. While still slower than other classess, i at least can kill enemies before they start to overwhelm.

Swordplay

I have four level 80 Mesmers, absolutely hated the first time I leveled up, and that was under the old trait regime when it was much, much easier. Mesmer seems to be my favorite profession, given how often I play it, but I can sympathize with anyone starting out for the first time now, and my heart is with you.

These days my favorite way to PvE with my Mesmers (and even WvW sometimes) is Scepter/Pistol clone spamming, but that’s traited and I wouldn’t recommend it untraited. It’s not a fast killer, but I can solo more kinds of champs with it than with any other build, and it’s utterly insane underwater with the Trident.

But leveling up, the very same weapon combo led me to give up on Mesmer for quite a long time. When I came back after trying out all the other classes to give it another go (around level 21 I believe), I decided to try just focusing on killing stuff as fast as possible to get through the content. I ended up settling into Sword/Sword, came up with a routine that worked best for me (sending in the phantasm first may seem counterintuitive, but it works best for me), and before I knew it, I was level 80.

That was my first level 80 character, despite how awful I thought the profession was at the time, and after I got the hang of it, leveling three more was fun all the way from level 1.

I’m not sure how well Sword/Sword would work for leveling now, because keys to that approach involve getting Deceptive Evasion and sword traits as soon as possible, but I will always appreciate swords for getting me “over the hump” on my first (human) Mesmer (who is now my “main”).

Staff Action

On subsequent Mesmers, I experimented with other weapon combos for leveling. Swords can really lay out the damage, and Blurred Frenzy is awesome, but I wanted to try different approaches for the others as I leveled them up. I went with Staff next, and went all the way to 80 with it. Definitely viable as a main weapon, but as with many things Mesmer, not always intuitive.

For example, the Staff has a range of 1200, which allows sniping from a relatively safe range. Given how squishy Mesmers are, it’s tempting to always use it that way. But if you get close, you gain the advantage of self-buffs as well as reducing the travel time of the slow-moving projectile, which can really improve your kill rate.

And, of course, any time Chaos Storm is off cooldown, casting that on both yourself and your enemies buffs you and debuffs them to a crazy degree. Whenever I cast it, I try to cover myself as well as any enemies around, and will run or dodge into a group of mobs to maximize its buff/debuff benefits.

Phase Retreat out of the combo field for a bonus Chaos Armor to evade melee mobs, and remember Chaos Armor itself buffs you and debuffs enemies whenever they hit you, but only when they do.

Undersea Adventure

Something I found helpful whenever I was feeling gimpy leveling up was to find a map with a decent amount of water (Caledon Forest, Kessex Hills, Gendarran Fields, Harathi Hinterlands, Bloodtide Coast, etc.) and bust out the Trident.

The key to the Trident is bearing in mind that you and every clone you spawn each stack bleeds with your autoattack. If you start combat with Trident #3 and autoattack while evading, you will melt most mobs very quickly. The fact the attacks bounce allows the same effect for multiple mobs.

Add Deceptive Evasion as soon as you can for “dodge clones”, and you will be an absolute GOD underwater. Great for relieving stress.

Dispelling Illusions

Anyway, as the saying goes, your first Mesmer is always the hardest, and if you get discouraged, I can definitely understand, because I sure as hell did.

My tales above describe as very small cross-section of my own experiences, but yours will naturally vary, and you may find a much different path that better suits your tastes. In fact, I hope you do, because the versatility of Mesmer is one of its greatest strengths. Experiment and see what “clicks”.

And if it just isn’t working out, play other professions for a while to “cleanse the palate”. I did, and came to appreciate each class for its own qualities. I have four of every profession now, most of them 80s, so there’s usually a character to suit my mood.

I also came to appreciate what Mesmer offers that no other profession can, and I hope you will as well.

It’s fun! Leveling my third now. I use sword/focus and gs. I group mobs with the focus #4 (there are tutorials on YouTube for that) drop #5 phantasm, blurred frenzy, if they still up hit gs #5. I mostly do www so maybe there are faster ways but I like it. Focus4 is also great for speed between events.

Go mesmers!

disregarding all the skill bugs ( i can’t, but some can)….a fully geared 80 mesmer is very fun to play….and you will spend the bulk of your time playing the character after it hits lvl80.

that said, it was the least “fun” to level up of all classes for me (and this was before the new trait system that only makes it worse).

basically, the two milestones for leveling are: being able to take DE (this greatly increases your ability to survive) and next is being able to equip 3-stat gear (this allows you to finally deal decent damage). basically….it’s frustrating to level until lvl 60+….so you really only have “fun” leveling, for about 20 levels.

i would suggest waiting to do the bulk of your world exploration until you reach those two milestones, because what really makes leveling fun is exploring and unlocking the world…..even more fun when you have the optimal skills/traits/gear.