My mesmer is nearing level 80 so it’s time to start thinking about gearing her out with Exotics. I want to focus on direct damage so I need a bunch of Power, Precision, and Crit damage, but I’ve gathered from various posts that you can’t just go straight Berserker. I’m wondering what are some good proportions to aim for?
For reference, I plan to mostly play my mesmer in WvW splitting my time between roaming and zerging. I like Staff + Sword/Focus but enjoy the Greatsword and offhand sword as well so I’ll probably switch around as the situation warrants it.
It really depend on the build.
If you like roaming and insane damage, then consider osicat’s combination of amour; albeit, it’s expensive. However, theory crafting with pve takes awhile and its expensive to some extent
Can you please post your trait selection and utilities selection, so other mesmer can comment?
Current I am running 0/20/0/20/30 with my build
I like roaming and adding alot to zerg fights which means I carry the obvious traits with modifications like glamour blind, medic feedback and focus trait.
(edited by loseridoit.2756)
It depends of your build. If you have enough power/crit between 1500-1600 (toughness) is a good reference. In some builds , for example some based in conditions perhaps you need more , i’ve seen around 1800. Of course, there are people that always keeps inside groups and prefer be more glassy hitting hard.
Make some theory crafting and watch some videos. But, be careful, the good for others perhaps is no enough good for you. Good players usually search the limits. But with a good base reference, if you need tweak a bit, you’ll only must change one or two pieces and adjust the final gear.
Good luck
(edited by Zoser.7245)
Start with Full Knights -> then Optimized Knights/Zerker mix -> then Full Zerker.
Full Knights for a new mesmer as you learn the class’s defenses. We mitigate damage by avoiding it – Distortion, Diversion, teleports (Sword #3, Staff #2, Blink), Invulnerabilities (Sword #2, Distortion), Aegis/Protection (Chaos Storm + Armor), Dodge, and Stealth.
Once you get good at avoiding damage, start mixing in Berserker gear working for a statistally optimal stat set (1) , (2) .
Finally, once you’re confident enough in your mesmering abilitles, finish it off with a full Zerker set.
Put 6x Runes of the Air in both sets so you can mix and match. Those help with our lack of travel speed, while being very good for PvP, and decent but not optimal for PvE.
Then you’ll have 2 sets you can mix and match as the situation calls for – easy dungeons and whatnot, go full Zerker. Harder stuff go hybrid Knight/Zerker, or full Knight.
Full Knights: Craft, SE, Arah, WvW.
Zerker: Craft, CoF, Arah, WvW.
(edited by kurtosis.9526)
Hmm, well I’ve been trying out a bunch of different builds. At the moment, I’m running a 0/20/20/0/30 build (or what I’m shooting for) with an emphasis on the cooldown traits. It’s kinda a mix of phantasm damage and shatter, depending on the situation (if I’m fighting a boss who just stands there, I’ll tend my army of Phantasmal Warlocks whereas in a more frantic fight I’ll shatter as soon as I hit 3 clones).
However, I like having the option to respec, so I’d like my armor to cover as many direct-damage builds as possible. I don’t have the money to get more than one set, unfortunately.
Hmm, well I’ve been trying out a bunch of different builds. At the moment, I’m running a 0/20/20/0/30 build (or what I’m shooting for) with an emphasis on the cooldown traits. It’s kinda a mix of phantasm damage and shatter, depending on the situation (if I’m fighting a boss who just stands there, I’ll tend my army of Phantasmal Warlocks whereas in a more frantic fight I’ll shatter as soon as I hit 3 clones).
However, I like having the option to respec, so I’d like my armor to cover as many direct-damage builds as possible. I don’t have the money to get more than one set, unfortunately.
you are essential nearly copying the shatter cat with that trait point distribution.
whatever build you use try to get 1400-1600 toughness. As long as you are not 1 shotted, then you are able to improve your play style so you can change your gear to have less toughness
(edited by loseridoit.2756)
However, I like having the option to respec, so I’d like my armor to cover as many direct-damage builds as possible. I don’t have the money to get more than one set, unfortunately.
That’s exactly what I described above. Optimized Knight/Zerker mix. Get both sets if you have the time/motitivation/money, but if not, get the optimized mix.
0/20/20/0/30 is Shatter Cat Heavy, great build, can’t go wrong with it in any situation.
This is my gear philosophy… you want enough vit and tough to be able to survive a reasonable burst, after that just go into damage.
Mesmer is blessed with quite a few escapes and active defences to counter bursts, so you won’t need to go nearly as deep as you would with other classes. You still will want some defensive stats to help mitigate the non-burst damage though.
Your traits will make a sizeable different in your stats so keep that in mind as well.
Personally I’m a big fan of cavalier ascended trinkets… gives you nice damage and toughness at the same time. If you’re not there yet with your gear, some knight’s with exquisite rubys will work well in the meantime. I would also have at least your chest be knights as it’s more worthwhile statwise on that particular piece… but I wouldn’t go much more than that.
For exotics (if you’re broke) SE and CoF are very easy and fast dung runs for knights and zerker gear (respectively). A nice plus is that mesmer is a great class people want to have in both of these (for reflects in SE, portal for CoF, time warp for everywhere).
Save the $ you make from these to help you buy your exotic jewelry and runes.
(edited by Aberrant.6749)
Personally my stats are around:
2k power
1,8k precision
1,5k toughness
~50% critical chance
~90% critical damage multiplier
this has all the defense i need, its really tough combined with active defense. previously i ran a build with:
2,4k power
2k precision
standard toughness standard vita
60% critical chance
112% critical damage multiplier.
this works too. usually in small fights your active defense via stealth, dodging, clones, invulnerability, blink and so on gives you more than enough time to burst through your enemies. pure glascannon is getting kittenty when you wanna fight outnumbered or when you fight really tough and good skilled players. so don’t let anybody tell you that running pure glascannon is a noobish behaviour it is pretty awesome in a lot of situations.
My current build in WvW has 2201 power, 1704 precision, 1567 toughness (with staff, 1518 without), 1012 vitality, 68% crit damage, and 51% crit change.
I don’t feel squishy at all.
It depends on the amount of evades and/or “deception” skills your build has. You can gain a lot of survivability by using stealth and teleportation, but you can also gain survivability by using smart clone spawning and shattering. The latter requiring more practice and skill of course. A good thumb rule when it comes to toughness, is having at least 1400. Anything less the that will make you drop too easily.
I use Zerker armor/weps, Zerker/Valk ascended rings and ears. Knights ascended neck. 0/20/20/0/30 staff sword pistol mostly in wvw.
It’s amazing to me how glassy I am and get away with once I crossed the 1000 hour mark on my mesmer.
Now day’s I feel survivable by cycling CD’s properly. Sometimes I still get caught out if enough pressure is applied but mostly not.
Managing CD’s and active defense properly let’s you play glass. Just takes time and practice.
Yes, mesmers active defenses are great and let you run a glassy build in small group stuff. However, I’d disagree with gearing like that in WvW. The problem is that large fights also come with skill lag which can prevent you from using those active defenses when you need them the most. You need to have enough passive defenses to survive long enough to break combat if you can’t use your heal (it happens).
Stat-wise, there’s a sweet spot to “effective health” (largest single hit you can take and live) that you can use to decide between toughness and vitality. As a rough guideline, take your armor (base+toughness) times 10 and compare that with your current HP. Whichever is less is the one you’d benefit more from. It doesn’t need to be exact, but might be handy if you’re having trouble deciding between vitality and toughness.
We did a theorycrafting podcast where we breakdown vit and toughness, if you want to check it out:
http://sittingonacouch.com/the-gw2-mesmer-podcast-mesmerized-theorycrafting-mesmer-numbers/
Two gear setups (exotics only) I recommend you start as bases with a power build.
More crit-y: soldier armor, knights trinkets + ruby gems
More hp-y: knights armor, soldier trinkets + ruby gems
That will give you ideas on the stat ranges that are available. From those you can decide if you want more toughness, more crit, more whatever.
“Need?” 920 and don’t get hit.
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