Guild Wars 2

Hi all!

I played warrior since a few weeks from launch. And of course I really love it, though mesmers always seem to get the better of me. Therefore I want my own mesmer, a man wants what he can’t have right.

Well here’s the thing. I am currently level 6 and I feel like I am doing kitten. No really, I expected some lower dps due to being a spellcaster and such but this is insane. My greatsword is just wack. My staf takes ages, the sword begins great but halfway the enemies healthbar it just kinda stops. And most of all, I cannot take on more then 2 enemies from the same level at the same time.

Why? Am I doing something wrong? Please, experienced mesmers, tell me your secrets, tell me how I am going to survive this torture through level 80?

Sincerely,
Dokuroizo

Mesmers can be really difficult early on. It’s probably not just you. GS/staff are generally a good combo for PVE, but GS is borked right now. I’d recommend going sword/pistol instead while also taking time to learn the focus. Once I got the hang of that thing, I almost never put it down until I got to level 80. You said sword stopped at 1/2 the enemies’ HP; focus takes down the other half and gives you a ton of extra mobility and utility once you master it. It can take a little while, though, especially getting the Void into Warden combo down.

Other than that, take decoy ASAP and also put 5 points into Illusions as soon as you get traits opened up. You feel a bit weak until level 40, and then you’ll faceroll everything when master traits open up. Deceptive Evasion was the game changer for me.

In my opinion staff is great to use but in a party, you got low damage with skill 1 and it focus mainly on conditions and boons in a area or at x numbers of bounces.
GS is best used on longer range so I rarely use it when I play alone other in wvw to knock players down from cliffs.

What I used as a lower level mesmer is scepter/focus and 1-handed sword/torch.
My main focus was to inflict confusion and try block as many attacks right after with blurred frenzy or skill 2 on scepter. Still in higher levels 1-handed sword is my favorite weapon.

Also in my opinion mesmer was kind of boring to play in lower levels and I really wanted it fast up to lvl 80 so I crafted over half the levels, now its my main and I love playing it.
Hope it helps

Over the past 2-3 weeks I have level a mesmer to 40. And ill tell you: its hell. Its takes a lot of hard work to get the mesmer to lvl 40. Story mode can be insane difficulty because of multiple mobs, open PvE is slow and difficulty because of our lack of sustained aoe.

My mesmer leveling advice:
1) use crafting, it will get you pretty fast to lvl 40 where the mesmer starts to take off, because of our traits
2) try and run with groups
3) remember to use your shatter skills to the max
4) as soon as you hit lvl 35, get guildies to level you through dungeons, especially AC+manor can be done quickly with a good team of 4 lvl 80ies in exotics. One path/wing will give you around 85-90% XP of a level in around 20-30 mins. AC+manor will give you both gear, lots of money and XP – best place to level in record time.
5) use sword/pistol with GS in open PvE and sword/pistol with staff in dungeons.
6) try and keep up with yellow weapons as much as you can afford. Personally i craft a top level weapon every 10 levels.

Other then that: grind your teeth.

EDIT:
Forgot to say that save skill points for portal, mass invisibility, veil and time warp for quicker dungeon runs.

Hi Dukuruio,

Atm I beside my 600h wvwvw mesmer also lvling a fresh mesmer to create a smal lvling guide video. Im focusing on shatter spec as thats what I played on my main sens … ever ;D

What is easy to forget as a mesmer especialy if you played other classes before is that we dont do our dmg thru our weapons mainly. Tbh even in 80 my best ever hit with a weap is a 7,8k ~ blurred frenzy but more common is 4,5-6k. Still I regulary bursts in wvwvw for 15-20+k

This due to several facts, mesmers are a class of many numbers… as in many different dmg sources. When they start stack up you do some real havoc but this gets more obious when you get some lvls.

The dmg ways for a mesmers as our weap dmg is low… realy low so eather you do your core dmg thru phantasms, or shatters. Phantsams have receved heavy nerfing last months and some are bugged. Also a phantasm in lvling die quite fast and you never realy get full benefit form it. Best way that remain in my opinion is shatter crit dmg with a survival focus thru lvling.

Get your phantasm up, let it hit 1 time then shatter it. Use staff alot as its a survival wep and second set is atm best for lvling in my opinion sword/focus or later sword/pistol.

Also some ways to get xp is nice listed by Konfuzfanten above.

Gl and wc to the mesmer community!!!!!

/Osicat

PS my guide for Shatter mesmer (high lvl) https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/guide-WvWvW-Shatter-cat/first

I have just started leveling my mesmer. But let me tell you one thing for sure. The class itself gets easier as you level up. I had the same problem as you but I stuck it out. If you haven’t yet, try going to the human areas as much as you can since those are the most populated. The more populated a zone is, the better and easier you’ll level since you’ll have people do DEs with you most of the time. I started on the Charr area and I was having a hard time doing DEs since not many people there. So I took a break from there and went to the human area (forgot the name). There were people there so the leveling was much easier.

Stick it out until level 15 and make sure to get the trait that reduces all illusion summoning skills recast by 20%. This small trait changed mesmer difficulty by a lot. Then after that, go for the trait that gives you regen when your health goes below 75% as it helps you survive longer.

Also, from my own experience, my time got so much easier once I went sword/focus + Greatsword. Lots of AoE damage and a damage of your own means enemies die faster. I couldn’t believe how easy it became. I am able to take on multiple enemies (3-4+) with not so much of a problem. Don’t get me wrong though, I still die if I made a small mistake, but not as much as before.

Now, I’m level 24 and back to the charr areas. I just tanked a giant 98% of the time on one of the town Group Event DEs and never died! I was downed (due to the faulty dodge mechanic. I still got damaged even though I perfectly dodged out of the way before the stomp) but I got up through all of it.

thank you all for reacting to my plea for help! I am now level 9 and I have discovered the hard way that some Skill Points are not for me yet. I level with my sword/focus + greatsword, and in theory it should work great. But it’s all up to chance, do the mobs go after my phantasm or after me? And if they go after me can I kill them before they land two hits, for I have discovered I can be hit three time before dying.

It’s a brutal proces, but high level mesmers really wreck kitten left and right so I am gonna stick this one out. But for the record:

Level using greatsword + focus. What’s my opener? Do I bash all my summons and hope I am left enough to shatter ( which doesn’t even kill most mobs anyway ). Do I blow all my phantasms and hope they actually do what I want for a change?

Not asking a cookie cutter build and a way of working, but I ask these questions because I have the feeling I am mismanaging my skills.

Again, thank you very much!
Dokuroizo,

Np Dokutoizo.

A good way for early gameplay is that if your phantasm done hes 1st dmg epsode/attack and a mob go after him he will die so use mindwrack. Also if mob at 30% use mindwrack or if on cd cry of frustration. This as if mob die your clones despawn/die anyway so might aswell speed it up.

/Osicat

Ps Gs is great and its a personal taste for ppl but if you find a staff, try it out. Pull 3-4 mobs and stand in the chaos storm with the enemys, get 1-2 clones up and hit mindwrack. You love it.

This is what I have been doing so far. With my sword/focus + GS setup, I usually open with Illusionary leap followed by Phantasmal warden. Then I switch to GS and use Izerker. But if it’s only 1-2 enemy, I do blurred Frenzy before switching to GS. While doing Blurred Frenzy, it makes your character invincible to all attacks.

I go with those 3 illusions for awhile and when my illusion summon skills recast are done, I shatter them and summon again. I usually rinse and repeat like this. I do all of these while moving around. The only time I don’t move is when I use Blurred Frenzy or if my illusions got most or if not, all of the enemies’ attentions.

For multiple enemies, I like to distribute my clones/phantasms to keep them off me. I guess this is how I was able to survive. That way, if one of the enemies die, you don’t lose all of your illusions.

I have decoy and mirror images for utility skills and use them for emergencies when one or most of my illusions die right away or if I just want a quick mind wrack damage.

If you’re having trouble surviving atm, try staff instead of GS. Like everyone here are saying, chaos armor and chaos storm are really good defensive skills. If you are inside a chaos storm and use Phase Retreat, you get a free chaos armor. This helped me alot too.

Honestly staff/gs is the easiest way to level up to 40 when you get traits that make a more melee-focused build more useful.

If in GS to start:

Start with iZerker, use GS 3, auto attack, GS2 so it bounces because the mob is close to you by now…mob is in melee range by now and has two clones on it. Switch to staff, cast phase retreat, shatter your 2-3 clones depending if the mob killed one. A normal mob should be dead by now if you are fighting mobs 1-2 levels below you which is what you always should be doing. If for some reason it isn’t dead just start kiting with staff, use warlock to finish the mob off.

If in staff to start:

Start with an auto attack, then phase retreat, then warlock, then another auto attack or two. Switch to GS, use GS 3, GS2, shatter your 2-3 clones, then izerker. Mob should be dead by now. If not kite for a few seconds, switch to staff then start the kite.

I played GS/Staff til lvl 80, then changed to Sword/pistol n’ Staff, from my experience it’s easier to run GS/Staff in beginning and maybe around lvl40-60 start change your build to something you would like to try out, but be careful if you change to melee, cause now you may take more damage than usual, can result to a lot of times dying cause of your inexperience with that new build, happen to me when suddenly changing to sword/pistol n’ staff → dying to everything.

But now I can easily take 1v1, and 1v2 sometimes, depends on enemy class, also making a lot of “suicide runs” but I will still live, where I portal and then escape using portal and then portal back and do even more damage, while risking my life, 6/10 times I die, but get rezzed cause I do enough damage so the rest can AoE the kitten out of them, may cost a little repairs, but when capping places in WvW makes it worth the effort.

Mesmer is like that, your damage starts to shine once you’re around 60 (at least its’ like that for me). I’ve been using sword/pistol and scepter/focus from lv1 to lv80 and I wasn’t even aware they’re pain in the kitten Good thing is those harder-to-control weapons will force you to master every trick and evasive maneuver a mesmer can do. And that’s the heart of playing this class.

Hello again!

Once again I am back. But this time with good news. I took the advice from my veteran co players to heart and to my satisfaction I am ripping the whole of ascalon a new kitten.

the staff + greatsword combination is such a great succes! The last 15 mobs, from which 2 were even veterans, didn’t even touch my furry charr behind! I thank you for giving me the tools to shine in this class. I am not there yet at level 11. But you made it a lot easier getting there.

Sincerely,
Dokuroizo

Awesome thread.

I main as a norn engineer, but i started leveling an asura mesmer because a lvl 80 mesmer can do so much. I use GS/sword+focus and don’t forget about phantasms and illusions. Definitely utilizing some of the tips left here.

Thanks!

Sadly IC got recently moved to grandmaster trait and levelling will be even more a pain in the kitten