Guild Wars 2

I would like to have the highest survivability with all the changes with a sword mesmer. I’d like to be tanky if at all possible but the changes have made the builds i’ve seen invalid. Any help please. Thanks!

bump. lots of views and no advice? id like to know this as well

Straight Swords, eh?
Besides definate 10 Dueling for sword c/d reduction …

I’d say that’s best off with heavy Chaos or Inspiration, the main choice being what weapon besides S/S yer using. Staff, definately Chaos – preferrably 25 and a condi/melee build. As for Inspiration, even with Illusionary Membrane issues and Phant LoS issues, Inspiration helps with condi removal/healing/health.

Other than that, I’d vote either high Dueling, for Deceptive Evasion – or high Illusions, for Illusionary Elasticity/Illusionary Persona. Never underestimate the ability of in-close Staff bouncing/self-shatter. Even without Staff use, it’s still a kitten useful skill-tree.

I myself run 30 Chaos/10 Inspiration/30 Illusions. As a past Dueling addict, it’s been hard to get into, but I’m starting to hit the point where my survivability is even with the older build. Especially with Prismatic Understanding and some stealth options.

Only for PVE, I recently gave up the sword and pistol and switch to scepter+ focus
which I think has more defensive skills( focus can reflect arrows back with trait) I run main staff, second scepter+focus,
0/0/25/25/20, very hard to die in dungeon run, pretty tanky, lol

My build that im using is 25 Dueling 15 Chaos 30 Illusion. Im good at surviving and i even use it on PvP and i live easily.

Scepter is pretty useless, imo, especially in dungeons. You usually want that extra 300 range on Staff/GS and you can get it on offhand weapons making you have to go forward for an auto attack which destroys your phantasm army that you build. Might as well just go sword for 3s of invuln if you need to dodge something.

I run GS + S/S build in PvE and in dungeons. (20-10-20-15-5).
http://tinyurl.com/czr56n8 something like this, accessories may varry

Spam distortion stuff. There’s a trait where each signet gives you distortion. There’s a trait that also gives your distortion reflection.

Sword 2 spam will also give 2 seconds of distortion.

F4 can give you up to 4 seconds of distortion depending on if you have a certain trait.

If you do it all together you can get 9 seconds of invinciblity and reflection.

@Phira, the Sword2 isn’t Distortion, and never has been (by all technical regards). It was called Distortion, but never gave you “Distortion” and therefore could not stack on top of your F4, you’d have to wait ones duration to use the next for full effect. Additionally, it doesn’t get the bonus from the Reflect trait.

The Signet one, however, probably will/does stack with your F4, but I have not tested it as I don’t really like the signet choices.

Esplen.3940:

Scepter is pretty useless, imo, especially in dungeons. You usually want that extra 300 range on Staff/GS and you can get it on offhand weapons making you have to go forward for an auto attack which destroys your phantasm army that you build. Might as well just go sword for 3s of invuln if you need to dodge something.

Scepter auto attack no longer destroys phantasm any more