Guild Wars 2

Currently working on levelling my Staff mesmer, and I’m looking ahead at what I’m going to with Exotics at 80.

Build (20/0/30/0/20): http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcmc0mzMzMLnrmMLnbmG0x0GzVmVack8070V7kGW70V7owX70m8ofZ
Weapons: Staff, Sword/Focus
Utilities: Mirror Images, Feedback, Null Field
Elite: Time Warp

What I’m planning on doing at 80 is mostly PvE (dynamic events, dungeons) and WvW. I have no intention to do any sPvP at all. With this build I can typically keep high uptime on Chaos Armor and keep myself highly mobile, so I’m fairly comfortable with using a glassy build.

Which brings me to my question… What should I do for gear? Since I focus on the staff, I don’t believe Berserker’s is something I should be using. But should I be using Rampager’s or Carrion?

Rampager has the advantage of having all pure damage stats. Carrion has no Precision, which isn’t that much of a problem because I have no traits which actually benefit from crit (unless I use a sigil for that?)

Also, should my armor have the same type as my jewellery, or should I go Rampager for the 6 armor pieces, and then Carrion for all the jewellery? Or even Carrior jewellery with Knight’s gems in it? How about runes and sigils?

At the moment I’m leaning towards the following setup;

Rampager’s gear, runes of the Adventurer
Carrion jewellery, Crysocola Jewels
Sigil of Strength in staff
Sigil of Energy in Focus, Sigil of Hydromancy in Sword

I appear to be lacking some real focus in my gear. Should I just dump the whole idea of having any crit at all and just go with straight Carrion and do with Sigil of Corruption in my staff? Or does the above look reasonable and flexible?

Hi Darkwolf. I see you’re going for a Condition build right? In that case both Rampagers and Carrion are good options. However there are 3 things you should consider:

1 – The “Illusions bleed on crit” is, hands down, the best trait for condition focused mesmers. So i think you should use it to maximize damage.
2 – While Staff is nice for conditions, Mesmer don’t really have other Cond weapons. While Sword/Focus adds some defence and works good with Staff you should consider the fact that it has no damaging condition and as such is best in Pow/Pre/Crit builds.
3 – Condition mesmer are not very good at tagging in DE so if you plan on doing mostly DE be prepared not to get a lot of loot. In Dungeons most Mesmers run Pow/Prec/Crit builds with GS & Sword/Focus because it offers the greatest damage and the survivability isn’t an issue with proper knowledge and the right traits (Vigor on crit for example lets you dodge like there is no tomorrow). Conditions specs are not sought after by other players when it comes to Mesmers.

Hope this helps.

For the Illusions bleed on crit, don’t worry too much about critical chance, just opt for the trait that grants Phantasms 20% bonus crit and try to let them get 1 or 2 hits out before shattering, if you do shatter.

Vigor on crit is nice, and does potentially let you keep 100% vigor uptime, but if you truly want 100% vigor uptime, you’ll have to mix that with the Vigor on Shatter in Inspiration (it also grants it to party members, so that’s a bonus feature!)

Staff is a great choice for PvE. I currently run Berserker with Staff/Sword + Sword because the two Swords let me keep all my damage output going off, and Staff grants me defensive disengages if I must. I can also do quickswaps for more shatters and get a quick 6 -12shatter off (Start on Sword and do 53roll32 swap shatter 32roll shatter decoy + mimic shatter) If you count iPersona, that’s 12 assuming no clones die.

Although I do like Inspiration magic a ton, I have opted for going 20/20/0/0/30 for maximum damage output and to allow my Diversion to be useful in PvE other than a boss interrupt. For condition removal, I simpy run a Sigil of Generosity on my main sword (offhand has Purity, for Roleplaying purposes, swords of Generosity and Purity, huehuehue, although the Purity sigil can be used as a cheaper alternative).

Although I do use the Sigil of Generosity, if you’re not very good at avoiding conditions, you’ll want to use more condition removal as the Sigil only gets one condition every 10 seconds.

Rampager’s doesn’t have any toughness or vitality.
Carrion does have vitality but vitality is only so good in wvw
Another option is Rabid’s gear which is prec/toughness/condition

Keep in mind that for PvE, conditions aren’t as strong as they are in wvw, especially confusion.

Thanks for the responses all. I’ve now hit 80 with my Mesmer as of yesterday morning (yay!). From 60-80 I changed over to a GS / Sword+Focus build (Lazy Kai’s build) and used that. But I still love the Staff.

My main concern right now is that I want to go back to Staff, preferably Staff and Sword/Focus (for perma-swiftness), but I don’t want to lose the ability to tag mobs effectively in dynamic events. I’ve also grown to really love Dueling 20 and the clones-on-dodge feature, and I’m loathe to lose that.

With the secondary weapon, I like sword/focus, but I think I have a bad habit of dodging into melee, dropping attack 2 (with a shatter), then immediately dodging away and not autoattacking with the Sword until I can swap back to my main weapon. Is this a bad idea? Should I be staying in melee, dropping the Warden etc until the weapon swap’s up, then dodging away? I feel I’m losing damage by doing that, but it also seems risky to me to hang around in melee for too long.

Does staff and sword/focus synergize reasonably well? Or would I really be better off going staff and sword/sword and just sucking up losing permanent swiftness?