Guild Wars 2

Well hello!

I made my first Mesmer the other day and I’m trying to understand how to level it. I was using a greatsword at first because greatsword + mage, you know othe deal. But I’m finding that GS 1 is pretty weak when I’m fighting NPCs right in the face, which is pretty much always.

What weapon(s) are ideal for leveling? Sceptre seems heavy on confusion, which seems more like a PvP thing. Staff is cool but kind of weird.. swords, maybe?

Which trait lines work well for leveling? I built a confusion spec for PvP and that was kind of fun, but I’m not sure where to go while leveling to 80.

Thanks!

Hi there and welcome to mage. GS is contrary to the way you are thinking of it. GS is a range attack weapon on mesmer. The further away you are the more damage it does with your 1 attack.

My best explanation on how to use GS is this. (vary it to your gameplay of course).

I start from a distance with a mob. I use mirror blade [GS2]. This creates a clone near the mob that attracts his attention. I then use the creation of a phantasm [GS4] to help damage and give him something else to pay attention to. With that I use Mind Stab [GS3] to give some nice punch in damage. GS1 will occur in between all these attacks. GS5 is used to push back mobs should they come close. With GS you are attempting to stay further back from your mob. I hope this helps. This is just the basics on starting an attack and you don’t always do this. But it helps in the beginning to get a feel for what attacks do. I wouldn’t carbon copy this attack on everything. It’s just a bit of help to someone starting out.

Staff is great for defense and up close. I know it’s confusing but it just takes some time to get a feel for Mesmer.

mesmer just isn’t as intuitive as other professions.

+1 king.
The only thing i would suggest is using the GS auto-attack first just to make sure you have actual line of sight to the mob, otherwise you find out the bad way and you lose the clone from gs2. It’s frustrating to fire mirror blade only to get ‘Obstructed’ -.-

Funky,

I agree with that later on but the only reason I state early on is because early on your clones don’t seem to aggro very well so starting with that attack usually has the mob running toward you. If you fail on the first try with 2 then you can simply wait for cooldown and move and do again.

I meant this really only for getting started early as a GS mesmer but I agree the obstructed from a blade of grass is annoying. However once you get used to distance and environment you can work within and get fairly consistent results.

I just started leveling my Mes this week as well, and it’s a lot less easy than most of the other profs (leveled all but ele and eng to 40+). W/O a real “dedicated” AOE weapon, you have to kite a lot and can be more of a challenge especially with a mix of ranged and melee mobs.

I feel like the GS is the best range option at this point, but love switching to sword when the mobs are in my face. Haven’t decided on an off hand yet, but will probably be either sword for awesomeness factor (looks + nice block/2nd clone) or focus for the speed buff out of combat (and the cool synergy of the AOE phantasm + pull ability in combat). I want to like the pistol, but just not quite there for me.

So i’m still very new at this prof though, so any tips or best practices would be appreciated. Also planning to level tailoring and jewels as I go most likely.

I found GS + Staff to be my personal comfort zone while leveling. GS does great, but as you’ve already noticed, it’s amazing how little dmg it does when a mob is in your face. As it’s somewhat difficult to keep mobs off you, I found the ‘tankiness’ of the staff to be the best choice as a second weapon.

My general rotation is [GS] autoattack (to ensure los) > Mirror > Zerker. Zerker helps a lot as he will often draw aggro, else he at least cripples. I then switch to staff > Warlock > Phase Retreat > autoattack till a shatter will kill the mob.

For Traits, imo the first 5 go into illusions no matter what. After that I did Dueling for Deceptive Evasion & the other very useful passives; then I started up Chaos for some survival.

This is just what I found works for me, I’m sure some hate this style. It’s probably a little slower killing than other weapons, but I can take a beating pretty well and still kill fast enough.

Mister Mustard.7203:

I found GS + Staff to be my personal comfort zone while leveling. GS does great, but as you’ve already noticed, it’s amazing how little dmg it does when a mob is in your face. As it’s somewhat difficult to keep mobs off you, I found the ‘tankiness’ of the staff to be the best choice as a second weapon.

My general rotation is [GS] autoattack (to ensure los) > Mirror > Zerker. Zerker helps a lot as he will often draw aggro, else he at least cripples. I then switch to staff > Warlock > Phase Retreat > autoattack till a shatter will kill the mob.

For Traits, imo the first 5 go into illusions no matter what. After that I did Dueling for Deceptive Evasion & the other very useful passives; then I started up Chaos for some survival.

This is just what I found works for me, I’m sure some hate this style. It’s probably a little slower killing than other weapons, but I can take a beating pretty well and still kill fast enough.

Great, thanks! I’ve liked the staff a lot as well, just find the auto attack to be a little slow (better than scepter though w/ the bouncy boons). The rest of the skills are really great though – AOE conditions+protection, chaos bubble and the get out of jail free phase retreat. I’ll throw it into my second slot and give it another run tonight!

Thanks for the trait tips too. What are your go-to utilities? I picked decoy first for an all purpose oh-kitten button, but I’d be interested to hear about other top choices for early leveling (not necessarily the end game shatter-builds, read those guides).

Also, what about heal-slot? I’m a not-quite-elf-vegetable (a.k.a Sylvari) and the healing seed almost looks like BIS, but maybe I’m missing something. Otherwise Mes heals seem pretty weak.

I leveled a little differently. I played almost the whole time with staff and sword/pistol.

My general pattern was staff 1, staff 3, staff 1.
When the enemy gets close, staff 5 (chaos storm) followed by staff 2 (teleport out and get chaos armor).

Then I’d swap to my sword / pistol. If the enemy was close, pistol 5 (which is an interrupt and a 1 sec stun but will bounce and aggro other enemies),
Pistol 4.

Sword 2 is great because it does good damage and also grants temporary invincibility. Sword 3 is a clone generator.

Go to abilities are mirror image and decoy my third ability I swap around depending on circumstances. Feedback is great for Kessex Hills and the Hirathi Hinterlands.

I used the default healing skill.

For traits I did dueling up to 10 points to take Blade training.
Followed by Illusion to 10 for Precise Wrack
Followed by Domination to 10 for Mental Torment.

At level 40, respec and get Dueling to 20 for Deceptive Evasion

DarkHeart.1760:

Great, thanks! I’ve liked the staff a lot as well, just find the auto attack to be a little slow (better than scepter though w/ the bouncy boons). The rest of the skills are really great though – AOE conditions+protection, chaos bubble and the get out of jail free phase retreat. I’ll throw it into my second slot and give it another run tonight!

Thanks for the trait tips too. What are your go-to utilities? I picked decoy first for an all purpose oh-kitten button, but I’d be interested to hear about other top choices for early leveling (not necessarily the end game shatter-builds, read those guides).

Also, what about heal-slot? I’m a not-quite-elf-vegetable (a.k.a Sylvari) and the healing seed almost looks like BIS, but maybe I’m missing something. Otherwise Mes heals seem pretty weak.

For utilities, I usually leveled with Mirror Images, Null Field, and Signet of Illusions. I currently use Blink, Null Field, and swap between Decoy or Signet of Inspiration, depending on how I’m feeling or what I’m doing.

I really like Null Field, as it clears boons on enemies, clears conditions on you, and gives you a second combo field to keep Chaos Armor on you.

For a heal, I pretty well exclusively run Ether Feast. Just make sure you have your clones up before you use it, unless you’re within an inch of your life

TooBz.3065:

I leveled a little differently. I played almost the whole time with staff and sword/pistol.

My general pattern was staff 1, staff 3, staff 1.
When the enemy gets close, staff 5 (chaos storm) followed by staff 2 (teleport out and get chaos armor).

Then I’d swap to my sword / pistol. If the enemy was close, pistol 5 (which is an interrupt and a 1 sec stun but will bounce and aggro other enemies),
Pistol 4.

Sword 2 is great because it does good damage and also grants temporary invincibility. Sword 3 is a clone generator.

Go to abilities are mirror image and decoy my third ability I swap around depending on circumstances. Feedback is great for Kessex Hills and the Hirathi Hinterlands.

I used the default healing skill.

For traits I did dueling up to 10 points to take Blade training.
Followed by Illusion to 10 for Precise Wrack
Followed by Domination to 10 for Mental Torment.

At level 40, respec and get Dueling to 20 for Deceptive Evasion

I also have been using this Staff, Sword/Pistol combo for leveling with one hitch…
When I join an event ie. Maw, I swap my S/P out for GS so that I am running Staff, GS
Staff it up until you get some conditions going then pop to GS for some decent ranged Damage while being free to assist in some revives.