I’m curious. Does anyone else play Mesmer for the sole purpose of being an annoying, diversion-y time-waster guy? Right now, my Mesmer’s traits are 0, 20, 30, 10, 10. Basically, I took pretty much every possible clone/illusion ( not phantasm ) bonus there was. I don’t do a lot of damage, but I have to say, I survive a lot more fights than I did when I was a Guardian ( which I assume is supposed to be a lot more tankier ). I’m finding it really easy to just throw enemies off – and that’s all I’m focusing on doing. I don’t really care about damage numbers and high crits and all that nonsense, I just want to pester my opponents. This build is also good for defending, although I am having trouble against people with AoE attacks ( they are able to destroy 2 or more of my clones with one skill ).
Not only is this build very clone-focused, but I am also very difficult to kill. Even when my clones are not up, I stealth when I hit 25% health and again once I hit 10% ( with Rune of Infiltration ) . I also have the cloak bonus which lets me stay invis one second longer. Not to mention my Elite skill is also the one that makes you and your allies invis. Basically, I go invisible more often than a Thief does. I also took Blink which I find to be incredibly useful if they get me locked down in a stun. When someone comes to cap my point, I pop all my clones instantly ( takes about 5 seconds to get them all out ) and if they just so happen to kill them and get me low to HP, I just blink out, heal, rinse and repeat. I love this style of play – as I said before, I’m not usually getting the highest damage numbers or scoring all the kills, but I can tell I’m making a difference in team fights. Enemies have to deal my harder-hitting allies AND about 6 or 7 little Asura-dudes jumping towards them and they just start panicking, popping their heals and trying to barrel roll away. This class is the only one I can say I really feel “satisfied” with in PvP.