Guild Wars 2

I recently came back to GW2 after a short break and found I really didn’t feel like playing the characters I leveled before (Engineer lvl 80, Elementalist lvl 60) and so after checking out some skills and traits I started a mesmer because it was one of the only classes I haven’t tried yet and seemed more interesting than my preconceptions led me to believe.

I’m still pretty low, 15-20 range, but leveling is pretty rough so far. My illusions ususally die in one hit, so I can’t ever really build up a good shatter or get my phantasms to really produce any real damage, and the lack of AoE makes fights against multiple enemies pretty hectic. No matter what weapons I use, I keep running into these out of endurance, everything on cooldown situations because I can’t kill the thing fast enough. I’m probably just more used to a more aggressive play style. But after all is said and done I’m still having fun with it, and I’m okay with a harsh leveling experience but if it keeps this pace into the higher levels or gets worse… I dunno.

Does it ever get better? I’m kind of hoping that traits just play more heavily into mesmer than other classes.

Yea it does. The more trait points you spend the better life will get for you.

It’s the general consensus on this board that until you hit ~40 leveling a mesmer can be a pain. I used Staff and Greatsword for leveling and that also seems to be what everyone else suggests when leveling a mesmer. The combination of the staffs defense and the greatsword offence and knock back lets you handle larger mobs pretty easily. Have fun!

Yes, definitely. I actually quit my first mesmer around that level because it was baaaaad. I started another because I was bored of my other 3 80s and couldn’t pick a main. If you’re struggling just try crafting or WvW zerging to get past those levels.

40+ you’ll feel so OP it’s ridiculous. Try sword/Focus. I disliked that a lot of first but now I left it, it leads to some huge huge spikes. Also, if you’re having trouble with phantasms dying too quickly, make sure you get aggro first. If you see the mob turn to get the phantasm, might as well shatter.

Leveling this class is painful if you’ve leveled other classes. Things start to turn around at 40 then really come online at 60. I ran GSword and Sword/Sword for most of my leveling. At 20 Blade Training started to help. I relied on Phantasms to start and at 60 I turned to Shatter and took that up to 80. You can setup Shatter at 40 but I felt phantasms were a bit better at that level. Shatter builds can allow you to solo group mobs once you get good at it.

I would start off with GSword-Mind Stab>Mirror Blade> iZerker >>S/S – iSwordsman> Illusionary Leap > Blurred Frenzy > Shatter. Usually killed most things. Stay with S/S till they’re dead and vigor from crits will help you stay alive.

Think of your Phantasms as a 1 hit ability and its just bonus if they stick around for a while. Signet of Illusions helps to keep them around too. Like Ethics said, get agro on yourself and keep your phantasms alive.

Stick with it, great class at 80, just has a late curve.

Blood~

Okay, great to know it gets better. I really didn’t think I’d like the class, but I’m really digging it despite the current hardship (and an overabundance of purple butterflies that make me question what was in those brownies)

And I appricate the advice on the illusions but for now these things seem to lack any and all survival instinct to the point where even when I get agro before I start bringing out the boys, they seem to go out of their way to put themselves in position to eat the next range attack or sit right in the sweep of enemy melee directed at me, so at this point I’ve been kind of single-shattering them almost the instant they’re summoned, and even then it seems there’s a reasonable chance they’ll get one-shot before they fire off. So it’s a little goofy right now.

Once you hit 40 and can create clones on dodge life gets so much funner and easier. Stick it out till then and see what you think. I used GS and staff and found it quite easy past 40. Also when your cleaning up in pvp you realise it was worth it!

As most OPs already said: Leveling gets easier once you reach lvl 40. What you can do until then: Every piece of equipment should have power and either toughness or vitality. Condition damage is supar in early lvls. Yes, even if you use staff, scepter and/or torch stick with power.

Get 5 points in the Illusion tree for the 20% cd reduction on illusion skills (clones AND phantasms count as illusions) this minor trait effects weapon AND utility skills. This should be the first 5 trait points you spend.

Greatsword is great. Use it. As second weapon set I would suggest Sword/Sword or Sword/Pistol or Sword/Focus, whatever you like more. If you have trouble with dying, switch GS with Staff, but keep the sword. If you use Sword/Sword get Blade training (10 points Duelling).

Playstyle: Use a combination of phantasm and shatter: get a phantasm out, then 1 or 2 other clones and once the phantasm finished its attack, shatter.

Once you hit lvl 40 you can start using speciallised builds (phantasm, shatter, mantra, condition, …) and starting with 60 you can kill nearly everything solo.

Having 5 lvl 80s myself, and finally having found my mesmer love, i just do dailies, living story and story quests on my mesmer, geting about 10 levels a week. still about 30 to go, and the class is getting stronger with every 5 levels i gain.

But i spend more time on my mesmer in sPvP then in PvE, because its much more fun, actually i quit leveling my mesmer when he was about 20 and playing him exclusively in sPvP, but now i started leveling him again, at 80 i might make the mesmer my WvW character.

I’d get a cheap focus anyway just to reduce the time you’re runnin around, that gets really annoying after a while since we don’t have reliable swiftness. And for leveling in PvE, I’d stick with toughness and ignore vitality. Our health pool already isn’t the smallest, armor’s damage mitigation is pretty effective and you won’t encounter a lot of condition damage anyway. Also don’t put too much into toughness though, power is by far the most important attribute. Enemies usually won’t hit you anyway so just focus on killing them quickly, at least open world PvE is really easy and the story missions also shouldn’t be a problem.

same issue with me. my first character was a mesmer, as i’d heard from others how fun they were... and i wasn’t seeing the fun. i rolled a ranger and leveled to 80 decently quickly. then i leveled a guardian... at 70 now... but the poor neglected mesmer is still sitting at 22. i just feel so... weak. and die so fast..

i guess once the guard hits 80 i’ll try to tough it out and see how things go when i get another 20 levels on me

I’m in the same boat as the OP, actually came here to post this topic. However I’m probably much worse off, because this is my first ever character. She’s level 13 atm, and after chain dying on some stupid island in the Sylvari starting zone (COVERED in respawning evil mer-men… oh God how I hate them) I took a little break last night. Maybe I should have picked another class but the mesmer style really appealed to me.

I actually broke the norm for leveling and went sceptor/sword. It is great for leveling in PvE especially lower levels where clone generation is sluggish.

Your auto chain generates clones and once you get your timing down on the blocks from sceptor and sword you have two more on demand clones. The sword phantasm is the hardest hitting single target phantasm that has a really low cool down even untraited.

Once you hit 40 it becomes icing as you get clones generated on dodge.

Also, your clone health pool is tied to your mesmer health pool, I forget the fraction, but at lower levels the health pool is a joke because we have so little as well. As you level up your clones will be able to take more and more of a beating.

Enemies hit harder though. Without signet of illusions, they’re still pretty much one hit victims. I guess clones have about ~3000 health and no armor(?)

literalirony.7591:

I’m in the same boat as the OP, actually came here to post this topic. However I’m probably much worse off, because this is my first ever character. She’s level 13 atm, and after chain dying on some stupid island in the Sylvari starting zone (COVERED in respawning evil mer-men… oh God how I hate them) I took a little break last night. Maybe I should have picked another class but the mesmer style really appealed to me.

I started with a mesmer too and I really regret it after I saw what e.g. a warrior could do to mobs in a starting area (actually, in open world PvE I sometimes still envy their efficiency). But I didn’t want to play a warrior again because that’s what I always did. And I’m glad I went through with that decision.

Iruwen.3164:

I started with a mesmer too and I really regret it after I saw what e.g. a warrior could do to mobs in a starting area (actually, in open world PvE I sometimes still envy their efficiency). But I didn’t want to play a warrior again because that’s what I always did. And I’m glad I went through with that decision.

I have been playing mmo’s for a few years and I found the best advice is just play what appeals to you. If you want to play the most popular class, do it, there’s a reason why it’s popular. Likewise a weaker but more stylistically appealing class. I could have made a warrior which looked like it would be easy mode, but it seemed to be lacking some vital essence of interest for me.

Warriors are a faceroll class, there’s not much of a learning curve to it and it’s not really versatile. I understand they’re complaining.