Guild Wars 2

Having trouble fighting several mobs lower level than me at a time. Very frustrating.

Running a GS/Staff. Not sure what I am doing wrong. I feel like I am fine with solo targets, although I have a hard time killing vets my level and obviously above. But I think it is AoE damage I am struggling with.

Any tips for a Mesmer noob?

You could try Sword + Focus. The Mesmer profession as a whole is rather lackluster AOE wise though.

Kaboom.8632:

You could try Sword + Focus. The Mesmer profession as a whole is rather lackluster AOE wise though.

He’s level 17. It’s pointless to run Sword until higher levels.

@Esplen: sword is possible, i ran Sword/sword Staff (shatter) from lvl 1-40 with no problem

@ Veetus: 3 ways vs mobs

1. kill them fast one by one power your illusions to tank there dmg
2. kite them ^^ (takes time but with staff your are rarly hit)
3. pull them close together and go sword (2) shatter

IMPORTEND mesmer aren´t suposed to be hit … teleport, kite, doge, leap, stelth

If you’re looking to actually kill pve mobs quickly and/or do reasonable aoe damage, mesmer isn’t the class for you. At least, not yet. The only way to get decent aoe damage as a mesmer is to run a shatter build. And if you want to run a shatter build, you absolutely must have deceptive evasion, which isn’t possible to trait to until level 40. So you’re going to continuously have the short end of the stick until that point in time, at which point you start doing some catch up.

Some general tips:
-don’t bother using confusion in pve. It is bad unless you really know what you’re doing, and even then its still relatively bad.
-decoy is the best “oshi-” button you have. Use it if you need to.
-The most efficient heal for you is going to be ether fest, if you aren’t using it already.
-Learn to kite properly. Good mechanics go a long way for the mesmer class.
-Time Warp is good, but if you think you might need Mass Invisibility to survive, don’t hesitate to use it. Saving amror repair costs is very, very good, and general pve is more free-for-all than teamwork anyways.
-Do not use underleveled armor. Always, always, ALWAYS have relevant masterwork armor at the least (meaning the req level is within 5 levels of you). Being under-geared is awful, especially if your weapon is outdated. The few extra silver you spend to keep your gear up to date goes a long, long way. And you will make this just from your travels/story mode, so do not skimp out on this!
-You generally want to avoid shatter #3. A 1s daze that you don’t have full control over on a mob that attacks once every 3-4 seconds is bad unless you get really lucky.
-Portal is a fantastic skill, but, outside of jumping puzzles, not in pve. Avoid unlocking it until you play WvW or sPvP.
-Feedback, Null Field, Chaos Storm, and Time Warp will all create etheral fields for you to combo with. If you use staff #2 or sword #3 to teleport while inside, you gain chaos armor. If you use a blast finisher (currently only The Prestige on the torch), you give all nearby allies chaos armor. Etheral Fields will also combo with most finishers to generate confusion.
-If you don’t use the shatter skills at all, you can leave your clones as meatshields to tank a shot or two from mobs. This can buy you loads of time and help you kite.
-Staff #2 can be activated at any time, even in the middle of an action and will not interrupt it. So if you cast staff #3, and part way through need to teleport, then teleport away!
-Always use a trident underwater. The clones you generate while wielding a trident cause confusion on hit. The amount of confusion you generate is unrivaled at any point by any class.
-The type of a clone you spawn depends on your mainhand weapon. If you are wielding a staff, all skills that generate clones will make staff clones (even utilities like decoy or mirror images). They cannot switch weapons.

I agree with Myxo – at lower levels my illusions were more damage soaks than anything else.

I levelled by going condition damage with staff and scepter/focus (as it can be hard to get illusions out before you’ve got a pile of utilities and traits). Then just pump out illusions, kite with the staff and watch them all go down.

It’s slow but effective. Then once you hit 40 you can get to work with decent builds.

Nikku.3562:

I agree with Myxo – at lower levels my illusions were more damage soaks than anything else.

I levelled by going condition damage with staff and scepter/focus (as it can be hard to get illusions out before you’ve got a pile of utilities and traits). Then just pump out illusions, kite with the staff and watch them all go down.

It’s slow but effective. Then once you hit 40 you can get to work with decent builds.

Hence why I said Swords aren’t really useful until later levels. They can mitigate damage, sure, but they open you up for a world of pain if you can’t mitigate more than what it offers you. That, and the amount of skill to utilize a Sword properly without taking any damage is not really to be expected at level 1-20ish, especially without having all your utility skills unlocked. (Elite doesn’t make a huge difference.)

Richard Nixon.6573:

If you’re looking to actually kill pve mobs quickly and/or do reasonable aoe damage, mesmer isn’t the class for you. At least, not yet. The only way to get decent aoe damage as a mesmer is to run a shatter build. And if you want to run a shatter build, you absolutely must have deceptive evasion, which isn’t possible to trait to until level 40. So you’re going to continuously have the short end of the stick until that point in time, at which point you start doing some catch up.

Some general tips:
-don’t bother using confusion in pve. It is bad unless you really know what you’re doing, and even then its still relatively bad.
-decoy is the best “oshi-” button you have. Use it if you need to.
-The most efficient heal for you is going to be ether fest, if you aren’t using it already.
-Learn to kite properly. Good mechanics go a long way for the mesmer class.
-Time Warp is good, but if you think you might need Mass Invisibility to survive, don’t hesitate to use it. Saving amror repair costs is very, very good, and general pve is more free-for-all than teamwork anyways.
-Do not use underleveled armor. Always, always, ALWAYS have relevant masterwork armor at the least (meaning the req level is within 5 levels of you). Being under-geared is awful, especially if your weapon is outdated. The few extra silver you spend to keep your gear up to date goes a long, long way. And you will make this just from your travels/story mode, so do not skimp out on this!
-You generally want to avoid shatter #3. A 1s daze that you don’t have full control over on a mob that attacks once every 3-4 seconds is bad unless you get really lucky.
-Portal is a fantastic skill, but, outside of jumping puzzles, not in pve. Avoid unlocking it until you play WvW or sPvP.
-Feedback, Null Field, Chaos Storm, and Time Warp will all create etheral fields for you to combo with. If you use staff #2 or sword #3 to teleport while inside, you gain chaos armor. If you use a blast finisher (currently only The Prestige on the torch), you give all nearby allies chaos armor. Etheral Fields will also combo with most finishers to generate confusion.
-If you don’t use the shatter skills at all, you can leave your clones as meatshields to tank a shot or two from mobs. This can buy you loads of time and help you kite.
-Staff #2 can be activated at any time, even in the middle of an action and will not interrupt it. So if you cast staff #3, and part way through need to teleport, then teleport away!
-Always use a trident underwater. The clones you generate while wielding a trident cause confusion on hit. The amount of confusion you generate is unrivaled at any point by any class.
-The type of a clone you spawn depends on your mainhand weapon. If you are wielding a staff, all skills that generate clones will make staff clones (even utilities like decoy or mirror images). They cannot switch weapons.

those are all very good tips, but in terms of the up to date gear its not really a necessity, if you know how to play a mesmer u can let ur gear fall 5-10 lvls its not really a big deal. i wen 1-15 with lvl 1 gear(give or take a quest reward piece or 2) and 15-30 with lvl 15 gear all with no problem then ran ac with lvl 30 gear till about 60ish and crafted to 80 on my 2nd mesmer xD(have 2 only because I decided I wanted to race change from asura to sylvari =P)

You can always run in WvW with a zerg for xp/levels. By the time you hit 80 you’ll have enough karma for a set of gear as an added bonus.

To OP: if the group of mobs is close to you (in melee range), use staff- drop chaos storm and summon the phantasm on 1 mob, switch targets and use phase retreat to summon a clone on a second mob. Switch targets again and just spam #1 on the third mob (you might need to consider chaos armour here) whilst waiting for phase retreat to come off cooldown. During all of this you are moving around, staying close to your clones for winds of chaos buffs and dodging where necessary. You will probably need to spawn a clone on the mob the phantasm was on and from there you can just dance around the mobs letting the clone conditions and bleeds from the sharper images trait do their work (the trait isn’t necessary but it speeds things up).

If the mobs are far away, use GS2 then #4 then #3 quickly on one mob- the berserker will probably hit the rest of the group in it’s initial swing. Spam #1 throughout (switch targets if u like) but be ready to hit #2 as soon as it’s off cd (preferably on a new target) and have #5 ready if they come for your char. This works well for smallish groups of 3 or 4 mobs if you can keep the clones on different mobs and re-summon izerker if the first gets squashed. I have found that, more often than not, if you start with izerker then the clone, the phantasm gets squished in a second leaving you with a clone (at best) and the mob coming for you while your GS1 does less and less dmg.

For GS, use as offensive a weapon as you can (power, precision, crit dmg etc) and with staff you will appreciate some toughness/vitality to help you survive whilst you dance

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the tips everyone. I will put these to the test and let you know if I have any further issues.