Guild Wars 2

I’ve read alot of information on leveling builds, watched videos, etc. One thing that confuses me is at my low level my powers aren’t doing what I see in the videos or read in the builds. For example the cripple bomb depends on constantly creating clones that are blowing up when they are killed or overwritten but with a staff I have only two skills that create clones. With the cooldown I usually have only one clone up at a time because they die so fast.
In the video I also see the clones firing the staff attack fairly rapidly and regularly but mine uses the skill once and then sits there.
So is this just another build that actually relies on you being at level 80, fully traited, etc.?
What I would like to see are builds meant to level from the beginning on up, and not assuming you have access to every buff and boost in the game, especially because Mesmer seems very hard to play well, and is slow at the best of times.

Anet messed up the leveling for mesmers greatly with their new feature patch lately. As a result, most of the older guides won’t work anymore.

I adapted my leveling guide (in my signature) as good as possible to the mess that is the result of the new trait system, but to be honest, leveling a mesmer now is even more of a pain than in the past.

Give it a try and, on a side note, follow the zerk!

My advise is to PU condition build,
try to get deceptive evasion asap.
-always try to get some rabid gear> precision -toughness-condition damage
-rabid staff/zerker GS : staff for solo trash, GS for Event in open world.
-the build mainly will be 0/4/6/0/4
-prismatic undestanding raise up you survivality by a 40-60% depend the timing you use.
for utility pick> blink,decoy,condition signet and some dps elite, if your human try to get the Balthazar hounds.

If you wanna run dungeons you can try to get some Zerker gear and respec full zerker traits and stay most of you time spamming you GS skills. Remember Staff mainly for defence.

Normally you can pull 6-8 trash in rabid gear full condition damage, mainly you fase retreat and image will do most of you damage, toss you chaos storm in middle of the mess of trash and keeo kitting trash untill you doncition made the JOB. i recomend this to you since the time you hit Orr trash will hit you like a truck and there is a ridiculous ammount of agro.

Edit: If you dodge whit staff in main hands you clone from deceptive evasion will have a staff and in that purpose they will spam wind of chaos that gave trash ramdom conditions. so if you keep kitting and dodgin you clone will be more usefull whit staff than if you dodge whit GS since they will only spam spacial surge that only make likem3 damage in the contrariety of the damage done whit wind of chaos.

Using GS and SW/FOC I’m doing sort of OK. I get downed alot more than on other characters but I’m trying to follow the guide. Now that I have Decoy and the one that creates two clones I might get a little better at it.

rob banzai.2704:

Using GS and SW/FOC I’m doing sort of OK. I get downed alot more than on other characters but I’m trying to follow the guide. Now that I have Decoy and the one that creates two clones I might get a little better at it.

GS and sw/f in a phantasm build is pretty much the way to go.

That being said, the leveling will be absolutely brutal almost the entire way. My personal recommendation is to do crown pavilion gold runs. You’ll get very rapid levels as well as the ability to buy level up tomes with the festival tokens.

Once you hit 80, you’ll have plenty of time to learn how to play the class, but if you really try to slog through leveling it the standard way, you may very well end up hating it.

rob banzai.2704:

What I would like to see are builds meant to level from the beginning on up, and not assuming you have access to every buff and boost in the game, especially because Mesmer seems very hard to play well, and is slow at the best of times.

I recommend Staff and Sword/Sword (or GS) for leveling in open pve. Why? Because the Staff is an excellent kiting weapon, especially for Champions when you want to solo them. When you combine the iSwordsman with Chaos Storm he also gets Chaos Armor because of his leap attack.

The illusions are weak at the beginning, especially without traits or the signet. Their main purpose is to grab the aggro, keeping the mobs away from you. The phantasms have a high cd and are killed within seconds, so better rely on clones who have a much lower cd. In general mobs will attack: Phantasms > Mesmer > Clones. If you have no clones summoned but phants only, the mobs much likely will attack you instead of the phants, because your attacks are much more frequent than the phant’s ones. To lose the aggro simply stop to do damage.

Mirror Images is great to start with (make sure to have the staff equipped when using Mirror Images, because staff clones do condition damage with bleeding and burning too), later I’d swap it for the Mantra of Resolve when mobs in higher level zones start to do more condition damage. I also recommend Signet of Inspiration to buff yourself every 10 seconds with a random boon.

Build until Level 79 inclusive:

0
2 – IV, complete Lornar’s Pass or buy it for 10 silver and 2 skill points
4 – V, X, complete Fields of Ruin and the battle of Fort Trinity (Personal Story) or buy them for 60 silver and 7 skill points
3 – VI, kill the champ krait witch in Timberline Falls or buy it for 10 silver and 2 skill points
3 – III, complete Retribution (Personal Story on Claw Island) or buy it for 10 silver and 2 skill points

Total cost: 90 silver and 13 skill points

kishter.9578:

My advise is to PU condition build,

PU is a GM trait and you can’t get Deceptive Evasion (or Sharper Images) until 60. So until then you’re not really much of a PU mez at all.

You may actually be better off going for Power to get the Phantasmal Warlock to hit harder.