Guild Wars 2

How to play a Mesmer in dungeons

I have spent close to 800 hours playing a Mesmer (for a total of over 3000 hours in game time so far). I see so many bad Mesmers in dungeons that I think it’s time I write a guide on not just how to build a Mesmer, but how to play one effectively. This guide will spend less time on builds and more on explaining the how and why of playing a Mesmer (though builds and weapon choices are still discussed).

The Mesmer fills several important roles in dungeons:

• Controlling and positioning the enemy, primarily through effective use of Temporal Curtain
• Mitigating and enhancing damage through reflections
• Boon and condition management, by removing conditions on your team, enhancing your teams boons, and removing boons from the enemy
• Speeding up runs through use of portal

While the Mesmer is by no means a “mandatory” dungeon class, it is often highly beneficial to include one because of its aforementioned versatility.

Slot Skills

There are some utility skills that a Mesmer will find more useful in dungeons. Switch out your utilities when necessary. Here is a list of what I use most often:

On my utilies bar almost all the time, no matter what:

• Feedback

On my regular rotation:

• Mantra of Concentration (Stunbreak and stability)
• Mantra of Resolve (Condition cleansing)
• Null field (Condition/Boon management)
• Blink (Stunbreak)

Occasionally used:

• Signet of Inspiration (For copying boons)
• Portal Entre
• Veil (for runs)
• Illusion of Life (Useful when pugging Arah)
• Mirror Images
• Decoy

Rarely used, but still used for some specific encounters

• Mimic
• Phantasmal Disenchanter

As for healing skills, what you use depends on your builds. If you are using mantra damage multipliers, go with the healing mantra. Otherwise, take ether feast. For Elites, Time warp is ideal most of the time, but for some runs mass invisibility is preferred. Any other skill aside from these 2 is usually a waste of your elite slot.

Traits

There are some traits that are mandatory for a Mesmer in dungeons. They include:
Minimum 20 Inspiration for:
1. Reduced recharge on Glamour skills
2. Reduced recharge on focus skills, while granting them the ability to reflect projectiles

In an organized run where need for reflects is minimal and can be provided by a guardian, it may be acceptable to put 10 into Inspiration.

Minimum 20 Dueling for:
1. Permanent vigor on crit
2. Reduced cooldown on sword skills
3. Reduced cooldown in pistol skills
4. Clones on dodge, which help immensely with maintaining 9% damage (if you have 10 in illusions)

15 in illusions is also a very strong choice to gain access to Illusionist’s Celerity and Compounding Power.

To maximize reflect damage, you want to get as many % damage increases as you can. The rest of your points are preferably distributed into Illusions (for 9% bonus damage with illusions) and Domination (for some additional power, increasing illusion damage, or enhancing your shatters), along with optional enhancements to the Dueling and Inspiration lines. The Chaos trait line offers very little for dungeons, so points in it are generally a waste.

Armor and Weapons

Colesy gives an excellent breakdown of the Mesmer weapon types and their strengths and weaknesses in this thread. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-PvE-Dungeons-Phantasm-build-s/first As such, I will not spend much time covering this, as it has already been covered.

A Mesmer, optimally played, will use a sword mainhand and alternate between focus, pistol, and sword offhand a majority of the time. There are some situations where a ranged weapon is necessary or preferred, in which the greatsword can be used as a secondary weapon. However, use of the greatsword should be minimized, as the weapon has low DPS and its other abilities (aside from the Phantasm and push) are generally not suited for dungeons.

If you are going to be running dungeons a lot, you will almost never need a torch, staff, or scepter. I like to carry at least one of every weapon in my inventory, but the use of these three weapons is rarely, if ever optimal in a dungeon environment. The torch is sometimes used for additional stealth on runs or blasting might, but it is never used in actual fights. Unless you are soloing a dungeon, there is almost never a situation where the staff or scepter is an optimal choice.

With permanent vigor, invulnerability on the F4 shatter, a 2.5 second evade with blurred frenzy, and a block on offhand sword, the Mesmer is actually one of the most durable professions in dungeons in spite of wearing light armor. Wear full berserker or assassins gear, and if you time your dodges and skills properly, you will take a minimum of damage while dealing maximum damage.

How to play a Mesmer and why

So, now that you have proper traits, armor, two swords, a focus, a pistol, and a greatsword, what do you do?

Control

The first role of the Mesmer I mentioned, which I personally think is the most underutilized and one of the most important, is control. This is where I see the majority of Mesmers fail – they do not effectively position the enemy in such a way that minimizes their killing time. Instead, they let the enemy run about, which can make them take 10x longer to kill and increase the odds that they will wipe your team.

Temporal Curtain (Focus 4) is the bread and butter of the Mesmer’s control tools, and Illusionary Wave (GS 5) is occasionally used to push single targets into corners or walls. How do you use these effectively? Temporal curtain has a pull radius of 600 units, and is frequently used to pull enemies into corners or walls. The following video demonstrates: http://youtu.be/fLfeDzsfy3o

Why corners or walls? There are several reasons. First, an improperly placed Temporal Curtain has a tendency to overshoot enemies that aren’t backed into a solid object. An improperly placed temporal curtain will scatter enemies rather than grouping them up, and by choosing a wall, you limit (or eliminate) this possibility. Second, grouping enemies into a wall or corner dramatically improves your party’s damage, as melee weapons will cleave through them with ease. Instead of hitting a single stray target, you are now hitting a full group.

In addition to grouping enemies up, Temporal Curtain is also used to clear or split enemies on trash runs. Since the pull from temporal curtain does not generate threat, it can be safely used to split enemies off the main path of a trash run so your group can run past them without drawing their attention.

If you want to learn how to focus pull, this is an excellent video guide: http://youtu.be/ajFtp6mnM1k?t=18m28s

Reflects

Another critical, and often underutilized role of Mesmers, is mitigating and enhancing your party’s damage through reflects. Many Mesmers blindly spam feedback on bosses or use feedback at the wrong times. When to use feedback is a lengthy discussion unto itself, and requires a thorough understanding of each enemy in particular encounters. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to use feedback against enemies in dungeons which are projectile heavy. They include Caudeceus Manor, Sorrows Embrace, Twilight Arbor, Crucible of Eternity, and Arah, One of the most frequently missed reflects I see is against the first trash pull in CoE, in which many players do not use reflects. Strife demonstrates why you should feedback them in the first 10 seconds of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B--IxGbvmIc

Properly rotating your reflects (feedback/curtain/iWarden) allows you to completely trivialize some very difficult enemies, demonstrated here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfLsin75gsM

Boon and condition management

A secondary role Mesmers offer is boon/condition management. Often, if you are a Mesmer in a pickup group, you will have to fulfill this role, as your teammates may not be using builds or classes with effective condition removal. Null field, as of this writing, is the best condition/boon management a Mesmer brings to a party, though the Mesmer’s ability to remove conditions via mantras is going to be buffed soon. Condition management is hugely important, as stray bleeds, poisons, and burns in some fights can mean the difference between barely finishing an encounter and wiping.

Boon removal is less frequently used, but when it is important it makes a tremendous difference. Off the top of my head, some of the most important enemies where boon removal is key are the security golem in Crucible of Eternity, Dredge in Sorrow’s Embrace and fractals, and Risen Hunters in Arah. The security golem maintains permanent protection, which will reduce your group’s damage by 33%. The Mesmer sword and clone auto, in addition to null field, will strip boons off without requiring your team to destroy the boon turrets. Boon removal is tremendously important against Risen elites in Arah, as Hunters will buff them with stability and fury. With stability on, you cannot pull or stun them, so either kill them before they get it or remove it as soon as possible.

Hopefully, this helps someone who mains a Mesmer or is interested in playing one. Over time, I’d like to write more dungeon-specific class guides that can help players.

What is the role of GS for mesmers, in dungeons ?(and a little bit outside of them)

Fortus.6175:

What is the role of GS for mesmers, in dungeons ?(and a little bit outside of them)

In dungeons, the GS is occasionally used to:

- Kill trash to generate bloodlust/precision stacks
- Push certain enemies into walls
- Range bosses that otherwise cannot be meleed

The iBerserker has the highest potential area of effect damage among phantasms, which makes it useful for engaging large groups of enemies (zerg WvW). I do not do sPvP/tPvP so I cannot comment on its role there but I imagine it has some use.

If we just look at dungeons, though, only the phantasm and GS 5 push are useful skills for the weapon, which just isn’t enough to make it a good enough weapon to carry into a fight 100% of the time.

You, my friend, have been immortalized in the Mesmer Handbook. Ty for the work you put into this, it’ll go a long way to teaching hundreds of Mesmers for as long as the game is around.

Thanks. I hope this helps someone.

Fortus.6175:

What is the role of GS for mesmers, in dungeons ?(and a little bit outside of them)

The role of GS on mesmer is that it helps me spot bads that I can kick.

The sooner people get out the habit of using that dreadful weapon and gimping their builds to play with it (hurrrr boon duration runes my mirror blade is rly good guys), the sooner the quality of the average pug mesmer will improve.

Of course it’s not like it’s only mesmers that are notorious for using ineffective builds, you have shout heal warriors, mace/shield cleric guards, bearbow rangers, p/p or shortbow spamming thieves, flamethrower engis, staff camping “healer” eles, staff camping condi necros and the GS camping mesmer.

I can’t quite put in to words how much I despise these weapon choices and probably the awful builds alongside them in 99% of cases.

Also, the DPS of the iZerker sucks on bosses which don’t have larger hit boxes (so basically almost all of them since ANet just scaled up humanoid models) and missing even one hit makes its damage drop below swordsman and of course it has a longer recharge.

colesy.8490:

Fortus.6175:

What is the role of GS for mesmers, in dungeons ?(and a little bit outside of them)

The role of GS on mesmer is that it helps me spot bads that I can kick.

lol

http://youtu.be/TEgKjr8t-gg?t=30s

Not to disagree with your overall point – I get incredibly frustrated when I party with several mesmers and I don’t see a single focus pull, but lots of greatsword beams.

Going on a bit further about the GS – it’s a weapon that is situationally useful. It’s great to use GS to get stacks of precision/bloodust using the iBerserker against the first trash packs in Arah.

You should have a GS in your inventory (I would advise that you should always carry 1 of every weapon type for your class) but you should never rely on it as a primary weapon.

i find myself switching weapons from inventory so much in dungeons lol almost every part i will change to something that fits the best. tho most of the time sword/x is equipped, i hv had to get out the gs cuz u/whole party just has to range things sometimes. I’d say it has its uses and imo a weapon shouldn’t label you as a bad player unless that’s all you use / use it when you shouldn’t. weapons should be separate from the player, bc each can be used effectively in different situations. For example i’ve seen a mesmer solo dungeon bosses with a scepter in his weapon set. If it works well for the situation, then it works. Essentially, the player has to choose the best thing for the best situation, and fishing out a gs should not mean you’re bad

Also, the DPS of the iZerker sucks on bosses which don’t have larger hit boxes (so basically almost all of them since ANet just scaled up humanoid models) and missing even one hit makes its damage drop below swordsman and of course it has a longer recharge.

In my testing against single targets both the duelist and the swordsman consistently got quicker kill times than the berserker.

Also seeing as the GS damage is reduced at any range beyond maximum I would propose scepter/offhand as a superior ranged option.

First off, I fail to think of a single boss that cannot be meleed, so I view the ranged weapons as learning tools to be used while learning tool to fall back to when you’ve made too many mistakes in melee and need to wait for your heal to come off CD.

To that end the burst on scepter 3 and a harder hitting phantasms are going to help more on a boss in the down time from melee, plus the scepter allows you to maintain maximum efficiency while being close to your team mates to share/receive boons.

As far as “scepter’s auto attack destroy’s phantasms” argument, the auto chain can be interrupted through any other skill (scepter 3 and your offhand phantasm for instance) while you’re waiting to rejoin melee.

As far as tagging things. The main reason to tag mobs is for sigil stacks. If trash loot was important, we wouldn’t be skipping 95+% of it. You will always stack a sigil faster with s/f that both have stacking sigils in them. Having both a main hand and an offhand that have the same stacking sigil allows you to stack that sigil twice as fast -> 13 tags needed for a fully stacked sigil instead of 25.

The only other thing I’d change about the guide would be to say that deceptive evasion is more about powering up compounding power than it is about shatters. The largest example would be Lupicus to ensure the 9% modifier when reflecting his p2 AoE. I would highly caution against it otherwise, for the same argument against scepter auto attack (destroys phantasms) as well as the clones will be spawned on the closest mob – be that aggroed to you or not – which can cause bad situations when you’re trying to avoid aggro.

What is the role of GS for mesmers, in dungeons ?(and a little bit outside of them)

A reasonable question.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

-stuff-

An excellent answer.

colesy.8490:

-stuff-

Inflammatory garbage.

This sort of crap is why you have to wait an hour between forum posts, colesy.

Then please tell me why someone would use Greatsword outside of them not knowing an encounter and not wanting to faceplant, being bad and not understanding it’s a poor weapon, or extremely rare/fringe situations that force you to be at longer range than scepter of which I can’t even think of off the top of my head. It’s pretty much on torch level in regards to its usability in dungeons, torch probably works in arah but beyond that it’s pretty much useless, and that’s conditional in itself, if you have a thief or an ele giving you fiery gs for mobility you don’t even need torch there.

GS is non reflectable ranged attack. And power precision based. So if you built in any way in that direction you have no reason to be using a staff and scepter is only barely useful for you. You don’t main it but like you bother to main any weapon here. You do whatever keeps you alive.

durend.6237:

Also, the DPS of the iZerker sucks on bosses which don’t have larger hit boxes (so basically almost all of them since ANet just scaled up humanoid models) and missing even one hit makes its damage drop below swordsman and of course it has a longer recharge.

As far as tagging things. The main reason to tag mobs is for sigil stacks. If trash loot was important, we wouldn’t be skipping 95+% of it. You will always stack a sigil faster with s/f that both have stacking sigils in them. Having both a main hand and an offhand that have the same stacking sigil allows you to stack that sigil twice as fast -> 13 tags needed for a fully stacked sigil instead of 25.

I personally prefer a sword with fire sigil with a stacking sigil offhand focus. It tags more mobs (due to the AoE fire blast) and takes up less inventory space.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

durend.6237:

Also, the DPS of the iZerker sucks on bosses which don’t have larger hit boxes (so basically almost all of them since ANet just scaled up humanoid models) and missing even one hit makes its damage drop below swordsman and of course it has a longer recharge.

As far as tagging things. The main reason to tag mobs is for sigil stacks. If trash loot was important, we wouldn’t be skipping 95+% of it. You will always stack a sigil faster with s/f that both have stacking sigils in them. Having both a main hand and an offhand that have the same stacking sigil allows you to stack that sigil twice as fast -> 13 tags needed for a fully stacked sigil instead of 25.

I personally prefer a sword with fire sigil with a stacking sigil offhand focus. It tags more mobs (due to the AoE fire blast) and takes up less inventory space.

My preference (and recommendation) is to use a sword/focus set, each with a stacking sigil on them. You’re gaining 2 stacks per kill, so you’re still gaining more stacks overall, even without the extra AoE from Fire sigil. I also don’t particularly like the Fire sigil at all, but if you have one and want to save on getting an extra sword just to stack with, I guess it works.

AsteriskCGY.5931:

GS is non reflectable ranged attack. And power precision based. So if you built in any way in that direction you have no reason to be using a staff and scepter is only barely useful for you.

Staff and Scepter are both more generally useful than Greatsword. Actually, Greatsword has one nice use. It’s pretty pro at doing Grenth in Arah P4, but I can’t imagine many of you ever do that.

First of all – awesome work, really, plz thump it up so it gets a sticker!

I would add the iDisenchanter to the “Rarely used, but still used for some specific encounter” like sometimes in TA when you lack of condition remover or also against the permabuffed golem in CoE. If you got 3 of them the boss will never recive any protection nor anything else. Preventing protection alone gives the team a damage boost of 50% in trade of 3 damage phantasms from you. Pretty nice imo.

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btt: As for sigils you should go for stack/battle + battle. Nothing is compareable to 6 stacks might, it’s about a 8% damage increase for you and your phantasms. Two stacking sigils make you weak until they are full and you (probably!?) gonna switch them with battle weapons. I feel ok with stack/battle + battle. While killing 25 foes i already have my 6 stacks perma might but its pretty interesting to doublestack, never tought about it.

The Scepter has a worse dps than the GS actually, don’t underestimate the GS that much. It also is more single target based wheras you pick the GS for the AoE. Staff is more useful in general but the GS makes a great job in CoF p2 for example. In almost every situation there:

• many trashmobs (AoE)
• targets that must be killed and are meatshielded
• tagging assassins

There is never a “better weapon for everything” – at lest not in the mesmer pool. They are all situational and I’m happy to be able to use them all in certain situations.

Xyonon.3987:

First of all – awesome work, really, plz thump it up so it gets a sticker!

I would add the iDisenchanter to the “Rarely used, but still used for some specific encounter” like sometimes in TA when you lack of condition remover or also against the permabuffed golem in CoE. If you got 3 of them the boss will never recive any protection nor anything else. Preventing protection alone gives the team a damage boost of 50% in trade of 3 damage phantasms from you. Pretty nice imo.

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btt: As for sigils you should go for stack/battle + battle. Nothing is compareable to 6 stacks might, it’s about a 8% damage increase for you and your phantasms. Two stacking sigils make you weak until they are full and you (probably!?) gonna switch them with battle weapons. I feel ok with stack/battle + battle. While killing 25 foes i already have my 6 stacks perma might but its pretty interesting to doublestack, never tought about it.

The Scepter has a worse dps than the GS actually, don’t underestimate the GS that much. It also is more single target based wheras you pick the GS for the AoE. Staff is more useful in general but the GS makes a great job in CoF p2 for example. In almost every situation there:

• many trashmobs (AoE)
• targets that must be killed and are meatshielded
• tagging assassins

There is never a “better weapon for everything” – at lest not in the mesmer pool. They are all situational and I’m happy to be able to use them all in certain situations.

Yeah, I personally don’t use the disenchanter much but I should try it out some time.

The disenchanter is an incredibly strong skill that really doesn’t see much use in pve because needing high output boon stripping and condition removal is very rare.

Xyonon.3987:

btt: As for sigils you should go for stack/battle + battle. Nothing is compareable to 6 stacks might, it’s about a 8% damage increase for you and your phantasms. Two stacking sigils make you weak until they are full and you (probably!?) gonna switch them with battle weapons. I feel ok with stack/battle + battle. While killing 25 foes i already have my 6 stacks perma might but its pretty interesting to doublestack, never tought about it.

Note: If you are using a fell melee set, then you are losing a sigil with stack/battle + battle. If you are running sword/x + sword/x, then you only need to put a MH sword in one of the weapon slots to obtain the +3 stacks every weapon swap. This leaves room for the stacking sigil and an extra sigil to boost your MH auto’s (such as accuracy for extra crit if you are not capping, force, or a dungeon slaying sigil). If swapping to Scepter, then the double battle sigil is usable (but you likely aren’t taking full advantage of the swap-sigil in this case so a different sigil is likely better). Lastly, if I am swapping to GS, then I am in trouble or simply needing to back out fast (such as the p2 switch in ascalon fractal) and would recommend the sigil of energy.

I really don’t know what you wan’t to tell me Maybe because of my lack of english but i doubt it.

I use

• MH: Bloodlust
• OH: Battle
• 2H: Battle

So I got a stack with every kill when I use A/B + A/C and still got battle with A/B + D. There aren’t any good sigils anyway for mesmers.

I had two points:

(1) If you are using full melee, your MH should hold the Sigil of Battle and one of your off-hands should be bloodlust/perception and the other off-hand should be force/accuracy/slaying. You are losing out on a sigil if both of your OH’s hold sigils of battle since swapping weapon sets with just 1 MH sword holding a battle sigil will give you the 3 might stacks every 10 seconds.

(2) Battle on the 2H is largely based on how you use the 2H. When using a 2H weapon in the off-set, are you switching every 10 seconds? If you are, then you would be better served using a scepter with a battle sigil because you don’t need to back out quickly to maximize damage. If you are staying in greatsword when you use it (such as a boss that needs to be ranged), then you would likely be better off with a force or slaying sigil as you won’t be able to take full effect of the might stacks.

And while there aren’t that many great sigils because of how the phantasms work, it’s still worth knowing that using Battle for “A” in the A/B + A/C setup is more efficient, because you get an extra sigil for your setup and if you are big on maximizing the reflect damage, then you can use both perception and accuracy in your off-hands to help with feedback crits.

colesy.8490:

Fortus.6175:

What is the role of GS for mesmers, in dungeons ?(and a little bit outside of them)

The role of GS on mesmer is that it helps me spot bads that I can kick.

BaHAHAHAHAHA so true, i can think of one single fight where id use the GS over s/x.

Also great a great guide!

colesy.8490:

Fortus.6175:

What is the role of GS for mesmers, in dungeons ?(and a little bit outside of them)

The role of GS on mesmer is that it helps me spot bads that I can kick.

other stuff..

In the right builds* GS is only 5% to 10% lower then Sw/Sw or Sw/P. If you don’t camp the weapon it isn’t as terrible as you make it out to be. If you build for Zerker DPS you’ll still do more with GS then non-Zerker builds do. At least from my testing, and thats good enough for me.

Blood~

Bloodgruve.6038:

In the right builds* GS is only 5% to 10% lower then Sw/Sw or Sw/P.
Blood~

Do you have the math for this? I ask because I have seen the math for full melee, and when you include boons that you will not have in range, this increase in damage is far greater than 5-10%.

Bloodgruve.6038:

If you don’t camp the weapon it isn’t as terrible as you make it out to be.
Blood~

If you do not camp the weapon, then I assume you start out with it for the phantasm and immediately switch to melee. By swapping to it while in melee, you lose a lot of DPS having to back out to max range. I don’t see either situation as a making sword only slightly more damage.

Bloodgruve.6038:

If you build for Zerker DPS you’ll still do more with GS then non-Zerker builds do. At least from my testing, and thats good enough for me.

Comparing GS damage in berserker-gear based builds to non-berserker builds, in this situation, is the equivalent to comparing apples to oranges. You should be comparing it to other weapons within a berserker gear based pve damage build.

TheKillerAngel had it correct when he explained the uses and benefits of the GS.

I kind of wish there was a power mainhand for range, for backup. But otherwise it looks to be a very nice guide for pveing in this style!

First off, this is a great guide Killer, every Mesmer and group containing a Mesmer would benefit from reading it. +1

@Bumbler
I’ll be honest, I don’t fully trust any spreadsheet I’ve seen, nor do I fully trust my own math or testing but… There is a lack of verification, unless I’ve missed it. Anyway, the numbers come from in game solo testing derived from timed kills with know armor and HP.

I agree that Sword/X is going to be optimal in most situations. DPS, group buffs, etc.. I like having a ranged option for Power builds and GS is IMHO a solid choice for that. Since I’ve had to PuG more often lately the weapon has shown to be a bit more useful in the unorganized groups.

If you hit LFG you can’t expect an optimized group. I’d rather have a Zerker GSword mesmer then a PVT anything if they stay on their feet. Zerk vs Zerk, with 20/20/0/0/30 Phantasm, GSword max range with 2x phantasms on the board is ~5% lower then what I’ve seen as ‘average zerker dps’ across a lot of class and builds. Again, this is just what I’ve seen in my test scenario. Other builds can push the numbers up above ‘average’. I’ve come to the conclusion that if you build for DPS and understand what your build does it will make for good runs, regardless of class and in a lot of cases weapon choice.

I guess I think more highly of the GW2 community, I’d hate to see this game turn into WoW by kicking people for not running the cookie-cutter fotm build. Not saying there are not just plain bad players out there though.

Blood~

Thank you for doing this, I play mainly wvw and have never stepped into a dungeon on my mesmer, should I ever need to this will be most useful

@ Bumbler:
Makes sense for the battle sigil, but to be honest I personally prefer to get a stack for bloodlust in both sets (A+B / A+C) → A has the bloodlust. After it’s filled I can switch A Bloodlust with something else.

To the common “we hate or we love GS”-comments – GS is a totally situational weapon, like every weapon the mesmer carries. There is just the sword MH that can be used almost all the time. Every other weapon should be used adapted to the situation… Nothing beats the GS against trash mobs, aswell nothing beats the Staff against boss mobs and nothing beats the pistol/sword OH against veterans or elites in dungeons.

Bloodgruve.6038:

If you hit LFG you can’t expect an optimized group. I’d rather have a Zerker GSword mesmer then a PVT anything if they stay on their feet. Again, this is just what I’ve seen in my test scenario. Other builds can push the numbers up above ‘average’. I’ve come to the conclusion that if you build for DPS and understand what your build does it will make for good runs, regardless of class and in a lot of cases weapon choice.

Agreed. And as long as people play smartly, I personally do not really care what someone runs, despite my reservations against what weapons they may be using. I.e., someone who uses the GS push cleverly and doesn’t just scatters mobs randomly is a +1 in my book.

Xyonon.3987:

Makes sense for the battle sigil, but to be honest I personally prefer to get a stack for bloodlust in both sets (A+B / A+C) -> A has the bloodlust. After it’s filled I can switch A Bloodlust with something else.

That’s understandable. Those bloodlust/perception stacks are nice, and the sooner you have them, the better.

If you’re really into dungeons, expect to carry lots of weapons. I try to have 1 weapon set for each dungeon I run regularly in addition to stacking sigil weapons.