Guild Wars 2

I never had a mesmer before (mesmer engi and ranger are the 3 classes I didn’t have a 80 on… until now!) I’m working on unlocking chronomancer but with this class I feel like I have so many tools I don’t really even know what to use in what circumstances… I generally run PvE Fractals and Dungeons.

So I’m making this thread to ask some basic noob questions:
1. Mesmers I’m told are very good at busting break bars and stripping boons. Errm… How exactly do I do this?
2. I’ve seen mesmers portal people through certain dungeons through CoF and occasionally pop the reflect in projectile bosses, and ofc time warp. Any other high utility skills I should know of?
3. If there is any specific chronomancer build y’all think will do really well right now in dungeons/fractals and eventually raids?
4. Along with #3, what kind of gear should I be working on? Normally people just went zerk zerk zerk but with the new HoT stat sets what do you think of like the commander’s or marauders set for example?

Thanks for any advice, I appreciate it!

Hey Tiggers! Hope you are going to have a lot of fun with your Mesmer!

1. Shield skill 5 Nom Nom break bars, Signet of Domination is a 3 sec stun that nom nom, Pistol 5 also Nom Nom, Staff 5 chaos storm can nom nom, Gravity well Nom Nom and the Shatter Diversion also Nom Nom it! Also Blinds and slow takes away from a break bar, and with the right builld you can have plenty of both!
2. I think you cover a lot of the utility skills, but you can also skip a lot with sealth, which should not be underestimated:)
3. Quickness + Alarctiy sharing well builds are quite fun! You should check this thread out for more info: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/PvE-The-New-Chronomancer-Dungeon-Rotation/first
4. I’m probaly not the right person to answear here, I’m not a min/maxer hehe

Hope it helps! =)

The mesmer can certainly feel overwhelming, but once you get to fully understand the class you will love how flexible it is.

1. Amadeus already answered your quesiton regarding break bar. As for boon stripping. The 3rd skill of the sword auto attack line will remove a boon and you will cycle through it rather fast. Additionally there is a trait in Domination that makes your shatters strip boons.

2. The greatsword has a nice knockback and the focus has a great pull. Wells offer a lot of utility as well on top of the alacrity they give. And with the right traits you can share boons and do a bit healing as well.

3. It seems like there are many chronomancer builds that works. As long as you have the chronomancer traits you are already supplying your party with alacrity and being a huge help. The remaining two traitlines can be swapped out to match a playstyle you like. Domination + Dueling can be great for direct damage. Dueling + Illusions are great for condition damage (or hybrid). Inspiration can be slotted for more support.

4. I am not familiar with high level fractals, but the glass cannon meta seem to still be strong. Zerker gear is still great for direct damage and Sinister/Viper allows you to do much damage with condition or hybrid builds. Other statlines can be useful as well, but having a glasscannon set is a solid choice to begin with. If you find yourself dying too much you can swap in some defensive stats and I think that boon duration can be worth it for some support oriented builds (jsut remember that alacrity isn’t affected by it). The chronomancer’s main defense is avoiding damage so you can still be somewhat tanking with offensive stats.

Thanks for the advice that really helps! In terms of direct vs condi, is condi Mesmer a thing? Usually I hear necros Rangers and engi go condi haven’t heard too much about Mesmer. That being said, I want to go the sword/shield duelist kind of Mesmer that offers team support with the alacrity and quickness that seems really fun!

Tiggers.3890:

Thanks for the advice that really helps! In terms of direct vs condi, is condi Mesmer a thing? Usually I hear necros Rangers and engi go condi haven’t heard too much about Mesmer. That being said, I want to go the sword/shield duelist kind of Mesmer that offers team support with the alacrity and quickness that seems really fun!

Generally, condie mesmer is worse than power mesmer in a group. It’s not really recommended, especially since going condie often makes it more difficult to properly chain uptime on alacrity and quickness.

Fay.2357:

Tiggers.3890:

Thanks for the advice that really helps! In terms of direct vs condi, is condi Mesmer a thing? Usually I hear necros Rangers and engi go condi haven’t heard too much about Mesmer. That being said, I want to go the sword/shield duelist kind of Mesmer that offers team support with the alacrity and quickness that seems really fun!

Generally, condie mesmer is worse than power mesmer in a group. It’s not really recommended, especially since going condie often makes it more difficult to properly chain uptime on alacrity and quickness.

Actually, mesmer does not excel in personal dmg in any way (every other class will do more personal dmg than it). The thing where he excels is the team support. Whether u’re power or hybrid rly doesn’t matter as far as u’re able to get your quickness/alacrity rotation properly with every Continuum Split.
The longer I play the HoT content (especially raids) I find the hybrid builds more usefull, since in most situations u can’t just stay at boss and use sword AA.

What I like about the hybrid build is the flexibility it offers. I have many roles at the vale guardian boss when doing raids with my guild and I honestly don’t mind that my dps will be subpar, because I know that I will free up the other guys to focus on their dps. The sceptor allows me to stay ranged and be one of the people who stays in the green circle. Likewise since the damage of the sceptor is more focused on number 3 skill rather than autoattack it doesn’t really matter if I spend much time doing other stuff than directly attacking. And the Illusions traitline is amazing in my opinion as it allows you to pump out more illusions and more shatters which means more alacrity and other good stuff. Even C. split got lower cooldown which makes it possible to have less than a minute between each timewarps.