Guild Wars 2

I need help now, i read all this about the mesmer beeing so good and i rly want to believe it. I’m lvl 41 now and it takes like 10 seconds to kill 1 Ettin (Might be exaggerating). This is not fun, i wanna feel powerful like the Engineer and the Guardian

Play an Ele then get back. I rerolled to Mesmer because of that very statement, now I love this class. Go try the others if you don’t like it, these classes feel very particular to fit different play styles.

I’m going to assume you used a GS on that guardian?

10 seconds for 1 mob is actually not a lot of time.

I nearly every time live long enough to kill a particular enemy (a single one) by myself. It may cost more time (sometimes 4x more) than the thief my bf is playing, but I do not die that fast, so I just outsmart them… :-D
Just combine the thief and my mesmer and the monsters are dead really fast xD
But hey, 10 sec is fast :-)

And yes, I did have some struggles with my mesmer (between level 6 and 16), because I thought I would not do any damage at all, but that’s history.

I feel powerful with my mesmer, she is a really clever one, agile and survivable. She tricks her enemies and does damage, what can you want more? =)

Mesmers basically have an overhead cost to them that other professions don’t have. Our damage generally comes from our Phantasms, which require time to setup. The benefit to this, however, is that once the overhead cost of a few seconds is up, we have some very safe, reliable DPS that doesn’t even require us to intervene directly. Once we have setup we also are capable of fighting off tougher opponents individually than many other professions. 10 seconds might seem like a lot, and maybe it is, but it comes with it’s own set of perks.

You can always trait into the Domination line for extra power. It also has the trait that gives a stack of vunerability whenever a clone is shattered. Using that in combination with sword / GS (ability 2) is very powerful and gives you tons of damage. I find it easy to get up to 10+ stacks of vunerability quickly, and by then you’re already doing huge damage… plus the buff in power you get from speccing into domination

Oh i love the mesmer and i love the concept but i get sad when i feel weak :/

The fastest way I burn down a mob atm, is start out with pistol offhand. As you get close summon iduelist then switch to GS and use #2 then #4. You can through down a feedback first for extra oomph but its not always needed. At about 1/4 health which doesnt take long Mind Wrack and poof they’re dead.

If you feel weak as a mesmer, you need to trait better.

I run scepter/focus sword/pistol and I melt things. One iWarden and one 1duelist and blurred frenzy makes this mesmer happy

I just dont feel powerful in PVE, what can i do?

Phantasms are powerful, but they take time to set up – time you usually don’t have when farming or leveling. Seeing that you’re level 41, you might want to start thinking about more direct approach. I suggest 20 points in domination, 10 and growing in dueling, wielding double swords or sword+pistol as main weapons and greatsword as secondary weapon. The idea is to go for this general build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAscRlwzip3UzoGZNJypCQHqCYHJFqWrV6BvdhzGA;T8AA2ynEOJdS9kyJqZMzImxOjbG5MLIGFMrA

Please do note that it is tailored towards solo gameplay and farming/leveling. As soon as you enter an instance or PvP, you will want at the very least Warden’s Feedback (20 points in Inspiration). However, in return, you get a highly focused direct damage build that will melt things left and right just as fast as a warrior, while giving you plenty of escape options if things get tough. I actually prefer to use Mass Invisibility in place of Moa for that exact reason.

Also note: My Greatsword uses Bloodlust sigil, because you retain those charges even if you swap weapons and I spend like 90% of my time in double sword mode. Once you’re level 80, you might want to swap the heals around a bit in order to ensure the higher swiftness uptime, you won’t need all that much healing anyway.

Another note: this build has virtually no toughness, so don’t try to tank – vitality is there to give you extra buffer, not to play a hero. This build is essentially a “caster thief”.

I agree with most people here.. with 5 caveats:

1 – getting trapped against water or in an otherwise confined combat arena with more than 1 foe feels like instant death to me, whereas most others can easily withstand focus fire from 3x the number of foes with far less movement.

2 – anything that spams immobilize really hurts. inability to gain distance is a killer.

3 – short leashing ranges suck.. period.

4 – anything with a low aoe cooldown nullifies 20 to 30% of my damage in a greatsword/staff build by killing every single one of my clones, or ignoring nearby clones and chasing me from 1700+ range.

5 – our condition removal phantasm has the dumbest ai ever conceived, and has yet to cure a single condition from me.. i’m still trying to determine the best way to deal with nastier conditions.

No pvp yet.

My biggest problem with this is any fight involving more than one monster. On every other class, I have no problem with multiple monsters, but on a mesmer, more than one monster is a pain in thekitten because of how my illusions interact with the target they were first summoned to combat.

As a warrior, or a guardian, or even an engineer or thief or elementalist, I don’t have much more problem with 2-3 monsters than I do with one. I set up my attacks so they hit more than one thing, and although I take more damage, I can kill them together. As a mesmer, I have a much harder time damaging multiple monsters, because the illusions are mostly single-target, and even when they aren’t, they’re tied to a single monster. iBerserker vanishes as soon as its original target dies. So do all the clones, if they can survive a multi-monster fight at all (often they die too quickly to be any use because they get focused down).

Perhaps I’m just playing it wrong, but it doesn’t feel like it, and I don’t see any obvious way to make multi-monster fights be similarly easy as on other characters.

As a mesmer, I have a much harder time damaging multiple monsters, because the illusions are mostly single-target, and even when they aren’t, they’re tied to a single monster.

This is one of the reasons I distanced myself from the Phantasm build – when they died, I lost a lot of dps. When I was in trouble, I was reluctant to use shatters, because it wiped out a large portion of my dps. And when they nuked down the target – they were gone, leaving me alone to cope with the rest.

Now, with my weapon-focused dps (similar to what I linked above), I use clones mainly as utility, applying bleeds, cripples and similar, while still providing fuel for shatters, because I can have 3 of them up in no time again. Since I don’t need to worry about phantasms anymore, I can easily adapt to the situation. What’s more, a vast majority of my attacks are AoE – meaning 2-3 mobs at once is no problem – while also giving me plenty of escape options to get the hell out if needed.

Long story short, 3x iWarlock hurts, but when they’re gone, you’re in trouble. Meanwhile, I can reach almost as much dps with double swords and depend on it to remain around when the current target is down.

EDIT:

2 – anything that spams immobilize really hurts. inability to gain distance is a killer.

Blink, staff #2, GS #4

For more DPS, Duelist 15 (Sharper Images) + Precision Equip + Pistol.
If you got Phantsmal Haste, use Focus.

Level up. Mesmers really catch up at higher levels, while many (most of) the classes gradually become kitten the higher you get due to pet ai problems, poor scaling, poor itemization or poor class design – but most of the time, due to all of the above combined. Ranger, necro and ele all fall into that category, and arguably engineers too.

I would like to add some opinion to this tread. Right now I’m lvl 54 as a Mesmer and I can say I’m having the easiest time leveling. And I have a 61 Warrior, so I say this in comparisson.

I run Staff/ Sword+Pistol. Nothing new here. My main weapon is the staff. And I do agreee it takes a bit more of time to kill a single mob with it. However it takes about the same amount of time to kill 3,4, or even 5 mobs. So I just aggro some, kite and in 20 seconds I have 4 mobs killed instead of one in every 8 secs. Of course that is in the perfect kiting scenario.

However when I’m in tight spots, or facing some Immobilize/Stun/Knock Down, I tend to generate Clones ( not Phantasms since they will not endure) with staff, so they continue to apply conditions and deal nice damage, while I use S+P to directly face these opponents.

So far at lvl 54 I’ve soloed EVERY skill point and a handfull of events. Beside that I almost never die to mob fights, if things get really ugly I always find myself able to run. I believe the problem with most of the Mesmer players is not understanding that you should adapt. Mesmers have a great ser of utilitys. Switching between fights, into some powerfull options like Feedback, Null Zone, Blink and others can and will decide a fight.

About traits I believe the way to go with the Mesmer is tanky, not glass cannon. But that’s personal opinion. Just to leave it registered I prioritize Toughness, 5 points into Illusion ( for that Illusion Celerity), some into Domination, for that extra punch. Now I’m just picking what I feel is going to bring the most bennefits.

Anyway, this ended up longer than I expected. To do well with your Mesmer, find a core you feel confortable in. Than just put some of your personal touch in utilities, traits. Later but not least, adapt. You have in hands one of the most powerfull skill sets of the game, please don’t stick with the same 3 utilities in the whole game. Cya fellow Mesmers!

You know, Ettins have more HP/toughness than the average mob.

I play a Charr Mesmer, level 80.

Due to theme, I selected Sword/Pistol and Greatsword as my weapons, because, even though she is a mesmer, she is still a warrior… No wussie staffs, torches or focuses!

I play practially all the time in melee range. I only use great sword at range when it is tactical to do so (closing in or waiting for Cooldowns).

I Use hybrid Berzerker and Rampager gear. Complete glass cannon gear, yet I melee in open world and dungeons. I excel on a scholar in melee in complete glass cannon gear.
I fight elite dungeon bosses in glass cannon gear. I have held the line solo in pugs (only one not downed) in glass cannon gear. The class has issues yes, but it’s extremely competent in PVE!

I am traited for condition on crit, condition/cripple on clone death, condition removal on heal, condition removal or heal on shatter (I change this depending on what I am fighting), vigor on crit, vigor on shatter and both illusion damage buffs. Oh clone on dodge sometimes, I don’t always find it necessary.

I wreck my enemies, often ending fights at full HP. If I so choose, nothing can ever reach me in melee when I need a few seconds to recover Cooldowns/HP.

I have multiple dazed, multiple distortions, knock back, interrupts, and pretty much perma endurance regen. I laugh at enemies attempting to place conditions on me.

I frankly don’t understand why so many of you people lament and struggle so much.

What annoys me is that your cries of frustration (which I think is unfounded) is hurting the class as a whole, as the only trouble I encounter in PVE is from other players who read this crap and won’t invite me to team because “mesmers suck in PVE!!!!!”

The get that impression from these forums.

Leveling was a bit annoying due to ramp up time on phantasm damage and the inability to do a decent shatter build without clones on dodge due to scepter’s horrendous cast speed on the auto attack. It’s the price we pay for doing very well against more difficult mobs, and in pvp.

No problem with it up to 32 so far. Stack power, rune your armor with just seperate power runes and use sword/focus + X. So far I can only say that I slightly dislike greatsword for solo pve. Zerker whirl damage seems to be pretty random and he can miss entirely pretty easily on mobile targets. Also some care needs to be taken for warden to do damage and not get one shot by certain mobs, but duelist and swordsman both work fine anyway.

Also works easily by going full condition build and going with a staff + x/pistol clone build with illusion spec, master trait iii, master trait vii. Might not be as useful for gold boss events with other people maxing up bleed stacks.

Hocofaisan…mind sharing your build with the rest of us? If you want people to stop their ‘cries of frustration’ you should offer them tools to do so.

I found mesmer frustrating at first, but as I’ve kept playing; learned about the class; and read up on strategies from other players I am enjoying it more & more. I’m not lvl 20 quite yet, so still a newb and have no ‘build’ yet. I have found GS/Staff for group events & then GS/Sword+pistol for solo’ing to be what I like. Keep the suggestions coming, gang!

I find that once you get double bounce effects staff becomes a marvelous weapon to level with. It becomes even more effective with 2-3 mobs around you. Start from range and bring out a clone and phantasm, wade in and drop chaos storm. As it drops you staff 2 to get a another clone out and apply chaos armor. If for some odd reason they are not all close to death you can throw up another chaos armor. Shatter when they are like 20% and boom they will all be dead or very close.

Chaos storm allows your clones/phantasms and you to be very tanky for the duration. The bouncy auto attack stacks alot of conditions on your opponent and buffs you immensely. I love the staff so much I rarely drop into GS or sword/pistol just because Chaos Armor and Storm are that awesome (except vets and champions because the other phantasms are just awesome at upping your extended dps).

^ Exactly what I did before I got a new GS to try out. Those who say mesmers don’t have enough AOE just don’t know how to use a staff properly. I’d throw a shatter in there from time to time on bosses, too, because I had Mirror Images on the bar and could get 3 staff clones up again instantly.

My 2nd set was sword/focus mostly for the speed boost and pWarden -> Swap -> Blurred Frenzy is a sick burst when needed and CS is still on CD. Helps to level when you can get around quicker, too.

I love Staff / GS personally.
Try putting down Staff #5 in a group of mobs, and then switch to GS and do #4 in there and watch the beautiful numbers!

When the field is done you should easily have 3 illusions up no matter what build you’re running, so shatter themin there too.

I’d suggest you to reroll but people will reply with “learn to play noob mesmer is fine”. You’ll have alot of frustration once you’ll want to farm events.

Mesmers lack the AoE to tag mobs fast enough to get loot and exp in events.

Untrue.

Not as easy as Elementalists, but still quite doable if you know what you’re doing.

Kurp.3207:

Mesmers lack the AoE to tag mobs fast enough to get loot and exp in events.

Funny I do it just fine, gs with sword/focus is great for high damage aoe.

Esp since you can pull mobs out of other people aoe before they get damage and then kill them your self in seconds.

I have always felt powerful as a Mes in PvE. I run staff as my main and then backup GS. I have no problem taking on multiple mobs. When I was level 24 I attacked a lvl 25, not realizing how fast the others were spawning around me, and ended up taking on about six lvl 25s with no problems.
I have some problems with close quarters, but I was doing the heart in Gendarran where you fight the veteran beasties in the tiny cages and I had very little problems. Even when they popped some poison into the air, I just waited on the edge or threw up null field.
Sometimes it can take me awhile to kill a single mob, but then I start pulling a few more in and I can kill two or three in the same amount of time. It’s all more exciting that way

The way I feel powerful as a Mesmer is by using my illusions and condition abilities to control foes and set up burst damage.

My usual solo PvE setup is a Staff / Sword+Pistol combo. I start off placing a Chaos Storm around myself and the mob(s), Phase Retreat within the Combo Field for an automatic Chaos Armor around myself and the new clone, and Phantasmal Warlock as I circle-strafe. At this point, I’ve got 3 steady streams of random conditions being placed on the mob (myself and my clone using Winds of Chaos, plus the Chaos Storm), and a Phantasm up who’s dealing heavy damage proportional to the number of conditions. You’re also briefly cloaked in Chaos Armor, granting 33% defense increase and random boons.

So, that’s triple condition placement on your enemy, triple random buffs on yourself (Winds of Chaos x 2 + Chaos Storm, more if he/she dares hitting you while Chaos Armor is up), plus heavy damage from your Phantasm.

Depending on the area you’re in and what the level scaling is like, I may or may not swap weapon sets at this point to Cripple the foe with Illusionary Leap, Magic Bullet to stun, then Swap to pop in close for a Blurred Frenzy before dodging backwards and creating separation again. Sometimes I’ll shatter, sometimes I’ll bring in Illusionary Duelist while I wait for the weapon swap cooldown – by controlling my enemy with dazes, stuns, and the like, I give myself a lot of breathing room for experimentation and mistakes. The Bleeding, Vulnerability, and more applied through conditions can do a lot to bring mob health down quickly.

If it bothers you that much, re-roll, even though Mes gets better, you will never be able to kill at the same speed as a warrior, thief, etc, and your AOE will always seem relatively weak compared to most classes.

I would like to say that i felt weak as a mesmer for a while too, that it until i found the build im currently using. What it boils down to is a staff, with the extra bounce trait, and the two traits that make illusions do damage when destroyed. Then you run mirror images and 2 support spells of your choice. creating 3 clones is easy just staff #2 and then mirror images and then you use you staff auto attack for the bouncing damage and conditions while your clones apply conditions. and since their attacks bounce too its aoeish, then when the enemies ball up around you and your clones (try to stay near your clones in a multi monster fight) cast the aoe field spell thing (chaos storm) then switch to sword/anything really and use sword 2 and then sword 1 till swap to staff is back then phase retreat out and repeat if not dead yet, which they probably will be.

Where the real fun as a mesmer comes is in PvP or veteran/champion fights, out kiting, confusing and purely dominating an enemy is so much fun. (atleast for me it is)

Word of advice, remember when Colin Johanson said “I swung my sword, oh I swung it again”. The number 1 ability on any weapon is testament that Arenanet tried to make PvE more exciting and generally just faster. It’s an auto-attack that deals the second highest damage on most weapons. Use it! Don’t be afraid to just auto-attack and then prioritise the other weapon skills for cripples, knockbacks, etc. They’re all created with PvP in mind. Same goes for utilities, they’re called utilities because they’re utilities. I.E. you’ll want to use them in dangerous situations or in a tactical approach with your team or against your enemy. Also, you mentioned you were fighting an ettin and it took long. This isn’t uncommon, they’re tough creatures. If you want to talk DPS in this game (forbid it, it’s more about staying alive) then auto-attacking and button 2 are your friends. In PvE it’s safe enough. Dungeons, are of course another story.

I’ve put together a build based on Hocofaisan’s description, and came up with the following:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAR8alwz6pXVzoGZNJipCB3pHQXyNdkKUalUgbXIA;ToAg0CnoQygkAJLSOkkIt+YMC

runes/sigils are of course fungible, but I added a few utility skills to deal with ranged because this build seems to (on paper) have a weakness with ranged.

I’d need to get a feel for the build.. it may be possible to retain the condition resiliency or even enhance it if you go 30 points into might and use MoR as your #6 slot. The question is, can you afford to drop the 10 pts in chaos and inspiriation to pick it up while still being durable enough.

If you want pure, from the mesmer itself DPS then what you want is a mantra-build. That is, charge up your mantras, take the trait that increases your attack power for every charged mantra and then go to town with your auto-attack only using the other weapon skills to not die.

The damage/survivability on dual swords is nice and greatsword is wonderful too. Just uh…don’t do this in dungeons and you probably don’t really want to do this when playing with other people around to help you kill things since it kind of offers nothing -but- damage in terms of support.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that for most classes you can do most things so long as you trait it right.

The damage/survivability on dual swords is nice and greatsword is wonderful too. Just uh…don’t do this in dungeons and you probably don’t really want to do this when playing with other people around to help you kill things since it kind of offers nothing -but- damage in terms of support.

I don’t agree with the notion that MH-sword, OH-sword, Pistol and great sword do not bring team utility.

Stuns, blinds knock backs, vulnerability, might boons, leap combos, and speedy clone generation (I don’t always use clone on dodge) are helpful to your team.

The amount of vulnerability a Mesmer and 3 sword clones can stack is significant.
The cripple/immob from illusionary leap is significant, as well as its combo ability.
The knock back from illusion army wave is always useful, and it interrupts.
The stun, blind, and daze from magic bullet can save a teamate.
The boon removal and might buffs from GS 2 is always helpful too.

And yeah, plasma utter that is pretty much my build.

Like the OP, I felt a bit weak on Mesmer compared to my Engineer and Thief, until I hit 40 and had some decent traits (namely Empowered Illusions, Phantasmal Fury, Sharper Images, and Illusionists Celerity). Now I kill much faster than my other chars.

I run with Staff and Scepter+Focus, which I know isn’t the norm, but I found GS to be a DPS loss in PvE because most foes will run toward you which quickly diminishes the damage of the #1 skill and I had to constantly kite to keep distance. Plus the iBerserker doesn’t do that much overall damage and winds up aggroing nearby foes to boot. Sword does decent damage, but it’s cumbersome getting into and out of melee range sometimes, and if your weapon swap is on cooldown you’re doing zero damage while you back away.

I had much, much better results with iWarden from focus and Confusion Images. The foe starts attacking the iWarden with a 5-stack of Confusion on him and dies in seconds while I plink away with Ether Bolt.

For AoE, I’ll pop the iWarden, switch to Staff, and lay down Chaos Storm. Then just use Winds of Chaos on each foe until they’re dead. If there are tougher foes still alive, I’ll drop either the Phase Retreat clone or the iWarlock on them.