Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been on here for a bit now and I keep noticing that people say levelling a mesmer can be a deal breaker (or at least very difficult) in the early levels (this seems to range from the first 40 to 60 levels, which is huge) and I’ve been wondering why this appears to be the popular opinion?

I’m completely surprised by this, throwing on a greatsword and speccing domination/dueling from the get go has, in my experience, easily dealt enough damage to make it through pve solo with absolutely no problems. Sure, you can’t stand there and face tank enemies, but that’s what kiting is for – with greatsword 5 working wonders in this regard. On top of this, iZerker + Mind Stab+ Mirror Blade + Mind Wrack kills nearly anything short of a veteran in one fell swoop.

Please unravel this mystery for me

tl;dr Why is levelling a mesmer supposedly very difficult?

It’s not really difficult, more like annoying. Especially after war\guard who can faceroll vets in afk-mode.

Mesmsers are ok against single targets, but when theres a mob of 6+ it gets kinda hard to kill them 1 by 1.

Ah that’s fair, aoe is a place where we tend to falter…

Though iZerker works well in that regard as well – provided you have the eye to summon one on the right mob, it sweeps across and can hit most enemies in a pack of 4-5, plus a well-timed Mind Wrack is fairly good aoe damage with 2+ illusions up. Plus Blurred Frenzy hits multiple targets in a small forward-facing cone for considerable damage.

Thanks for the input though! Good to know it’s not actually that Mesmers are really that much more difficult.

I’ve been having fun changing from Sword/Torch/Staff to GS/Staff (in the molten dungeon) to Scepter/Pistol/Staff (PVE leveling 30 to near 40). I used the S/P/Staff combo with some mantra healing and random boons to kite a pen of respawning dogs and centaurs for 10 minutes, accomplishing a heart by myself. GS/Staff was a little more effective for the molten dungeon (did it at level 28 with some nice folks). Probably would have been quicker and less frantic with a warrior or guardian, but there’s something to be said for riding the edge.

And staff Chaos Storm→Staff 2 is totally ftw. Thanks to the reddit contributor who pointed out how many options we have with that.

To be honest, I just leveled a mesmer from 1-80 in the last few weeks and I didn’t feel like leveling was sluggish at all. Once I hit like 25-30, as long as I kited well and used my iZerker, I could pretty much solo any content I needed to. I actually enjoyed leveling her more than I did my warrior. FWIW, I pretty much leveled using GS exclusively. Though, once I got 20 points in Duelist and started spawning Illusions on dodge, things got way easier, considering I could usually burst mobs down from 40% with a 4xShatter.

Didn’t have any trouble with Vets either — they rarely hit me, so long as I timed my dodges/decoys well. My experience certainly doesn’t match up with the “First 40-60 levels are rough” mentality that I’ve heard about.

salaman.7913:

tl;dr Why is levelling a mesmer supposedly very difficult?

For one, it’s really only difficult for new players leveling their first character, or perhaps players who specialize only in heavies and aren’t used to squishies.

And second, open field fighting when you can kite is fine, no problems there. The problems arise when you have to go into caves or other enclosed places where you can’t kite without accidentally overpulling.

For example, the bandit caves in Queensdale (esp the one under the cemetary), give new players a ton of trouble, unless they’ve figured out how to use Staff + Sword/x to fight multiple mobs at close range.

Here’s a leveling guide that covers that , fwiw. You can actually solo some same-level Champions while leveling with the first build.