Guild Wars 2

I have two questions, and I hope someone can answer. First, can someone link me to the PvE mantra builds that are currently “meta” right now?

Second, I like to use more balanced builds in most play that aren’t glass cannon/zerkers/sins setup all the time. I feel more at home knowing I can survive a long time than just duke nukem style. Are there any good builds that can deal damage while utilizing say, healing power, to maximize one’s heals while still being able to do significant damage on the field? I haven’t explored healing power much, and wanted to get thoughts. “It doesn’t work” is a realistic answer, but its not a fun one, so I would prefer experimental builds and let trial and error decide it for me afterwards. I love experimenting, so builds/armor/weapon sets are what I prefer to discuss.

Freedan.1769:

I have two questions, and I hope someone can answer. First, can someone link me to the PvE mantra builds that are currently “meta” right now?

Second, I like to use more balanced builds in most play that aren’t glass cannon/zerkers/sins setup all the time. I feel more at home knowing I can survive a long time than just duke nukem style. Are there any good builds that can deal damage while utilizing say, healing power, to maximize one’s heals while still being able to do significant damage on the field? I haven’t explored healing power much, and wanted to get thoughts. “It doesn’t work” is a realistic answer, but its not a fun one, so I would prefer experimental builds and let trial and error decide it for me afterwards. I love experimenting, so builds/armor/weapon sets are what I prefer to discuss.

Well I can’t answer the first one. As for the second one, you could always take a look at my build, although the usage of healing power in that build is more coincidental than anything else. It actually does decent damage and is still very viable more than half a year after its creation, but you have to test it out to see whether or not you really enjoy it.

Honestly, healing power is mathematically a pretty crappy stat- I wouldn’t take it before power, vitality, or toughness, and probably not even before precision or ferocity (both of which are way overrated, given that they don’t scale very well to increase your damage- though I still love using Zerker stats). However, if you do want to invest a little bit into healing power, I think a x/2/x/6/x build with zerker or soldier (for much more survivability) stats is a pretty solid way to go to get a decent bit of defense along with good damage. I wouldn’t invest into healing power via amulets/accessories/etc though, because honestly healing power isn’t really worth sacrificing one of the aforementioned stats for (although the Inspiration tree is IMO a very underrated and powerful tree which, coincidentally, contains healing power).

Thanks for the reply Arganthium! Some of the builds I want to know more about are mantra PvE builds that do good damage, and the buffs to IE as well. I have never been a big fan of the Sword/Sword / Sword/Focus style of builds per se because I feel like mesmer is at heart a mid-line class, not a melee one, so I never use more than one sword at a time and usually only for its defensive benefits. I like the greatsword but prefer a more robust defense, and thus I love the staff, except its slow projectile damage kills me inside a bit. Really, if they ever fixed the torch to be a good weapon as opposed to its horrifically low damage(I pray some dev notes that one day, there’s only a billion posts about it!) I would use a staff/scepter/torch build and go condie damage just to be different. I am reviewing your build now, and would like to know other build idea’s as well.

hate to tell you but staff scepter/torch is extremely common… specially in condition builds…

as for Healing Power i’ll echo what was already said, its garbage. It scales terribly on every single class and if i recall some math regarding the newer +1k Healing Power on interrupt Trait Mesmer got, it equated to about a 200 difference in healing amount..

If you want you can run a 6/4/0/4/0 Mantra build for PvE

it supplies Healing every time you charge a mantra to you and nearby allies, its not awesome but it can help when you’re pugging with slow reflex players.

I appreciate the candor from both Swish and Arganthium regarding healing power in general. I was afraid that was the answer, so I will drop that for the moment. Sounds like its smarter for someone looking for damage and defense to maybe stick with soldiers armor for now. Your build is a solid one Arganthium, Swish I will look up the 6/4/0/4/0 mantra build set and see how it compares in terms of survival versus damage. Appreciate the replies from both of you