Guild Wars 2

So I have alt-itis. I’m afraid that it is a life long condition, known to rear its ugly head in various MMORPG’s. But good news! It’s not contagious, so don’t worry.

So far I have 2 Guardians, Necro, Warrior, Thief, and an Engineer at 80. I’m currently at 78 on my Mesmer and will have him at 80 in a couple hours.

With these snip-its of info, and surfing the forums, it appears as though there are only 2 widely used builds within the Mesmer community, that would be the shatter build (20,20,0,0,30) and the Blackwater build (20,20,30,0,0). Now it looks like the shatter build is primarily used with Berserker’s gear, and the condition based Blackwater is Rabid.

I’m looking to an all around good build. Something that I can take to WvW and PvE. I’m hesitant on conditions, because they seem to be FATM for everything. That and I just geared out my Warrior and Thief for them. So I’m a little burned out. Are there any other alternative builds out there that aren’t gimmicky and will lend themselves to fading away?

Basically, I need to know a good armor/weapon set that I know will last me, I have the resources for multiple sets, but would rather hold off until I decide if I want to invest them.

Thanks for reading the wall of text. And sorry if these questions have been posted.

TLDR:
What are the latest builds?
What’s a good all around weapon/armor set to last a fresh 80?

You missed out a huge category: phantasm builds. Optimal in dungeons, great in wvw and pvp.
This should cover the basics (and more!):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Lyssa-s-Grimoire-The-Mesmer-Handbook/first

No matter where I look, it appears as though Phantasm and Shatter builds only use Berserker gear. Is our survivability that good that we can use it for everything?

Guess I’ll just have to pick up a Berserker and Rabid set then.

Here u go, happy reading
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Lyssa-s-Grimoire-The-Mesmer-Handbook/first

Caligare.7946:

Is our survivability that good that we can use it for everything?

Yes, easily. Mesmers have many different sources of leaps, blocks, evades, and flat-out invulnerability available from weapons, traits and utilities, as well as perma-vigor for easy dodging. It’s all “active” damage-avoidance, but once you learn to play well there’s nothing you can’t survive.

Mesmer does tend to have high natural survivability for a couple reasons:
Aggro removal – access to stealth, access to clone/phantasm generation make it easier for a mesmer to drop aggro than any class other than a thief
Combat mobility – Blink, Phase Retreat, Illusory leap give the ability to instantly travel short distances.
Evades/blocks/invuln – Mesmers have a class-feature that allows invulnerability and multiple weapons have built in evades or blocks

In fact the only real weakness to a mesmer’s defensive repertoire is the difficulty in maintaining good condition removal in some of their builds. Utility-wise a mesmer only has 2 long-cooldown (40, kitten abilities that remove conditions. They CAN trait into condition removals on Signets, Torch Skills, Heals, or shatters but each requires an investment or sacrifice to achieve it.

There are builds that have adequate condition removal and it’s not really a huge issue in PvE setting, but given the current condition-heavy meta of WvW you may sometimes feel yourself lacking adequate condition mitigation without building specifically to combat it.