Guild Wars 2

Hi,

Mesmer was the profession that I had the most anticipation about playing — I love playing pure magic users (not necessarily glass canons), and the concept of a control heavy caster had me stoked. Before taking a character to max level in any game, I always do a bunch of research as well as supplement that with my own play experience.

What I’ve found — and please do correct me if I’m wrong — is that Mesmers aren’t anywhere nearly as efficient at solo PvE farming as all of the other professions in the game.

The videos that I’ve watched of Mesmer tactics, although very cool to watch, demonstrate two problems: the time to take out a group of mobs is exceedingly slow, and there are survival issues.

From my own play experience, my Guardian, Ranger, and Necromancer (in that order) are far, far more efficient at taking out a group than my Mesmer, and all of them with far better survivability than my Mesmer. My Guardian and Ranger absolutely plow through mobs; my Necromancer plows through mobs in a Wells build, but is hampered by well cooldown to be as efficient as either my Guardian or Ranger.

To give an objective, measurable definition for efficiency: it’s the number of mobs that can be defeated in one hour.

Farming is the endgame PvE activity for all games. In GW2, there are three types of farming: solo farming, DE farming, and dungeon farming (in a group). It’s important for each profession to be able to perform well in each of these use cases.

Again, if I’m wrong, and Mesmers are able to plow through mobs like other professions, then please do educate me. If they are not, then by definition they are terrible at the solo PvE farming usecase, and this is something that Arena.Net will have to correct.

Mesmer’s can be difficult to solo groups of mobs, but certainly not impossible. I use sword/pistol and greatsword. When getting a group of mobs on me, I try to line them up and use skills that damage in a straight line like Mirror Blade and phantasmal berserker which will also hit multiple enemies, and then you can use the illusionary wave to knock them all back. Then I switch to sword/pistol and use magic bullet to stun all of them and get up close and slash all of them with blurred frenzy, jump back and pick a target with the most health and put Phantasmal Duelist on him. Then I jump back, and switch back to greatsword, push them back and rinse and repeat. With ranged attacking in a group of melee, you can either moa bird them, and when they recover from that, you can also use feedback to reflect their projectiles back at them. You will have to also make sure to roll away when either of those are on cooldown and a projectile is fired at you, or if magic is fired at you, because feedback doesn’t effect magic.

Also when you get elite skills at 30 you can easily use the Series 7 robot to attack instead of using the moa morph to dish out damage to them for 40 seconds which is really handy solo. Make sure to put points into domination for bleeds and use any debuff shields you may have like the radiation field, I don’t remember its exact name.

I prefer to only take on 2 or 3 at a time if I can, and don’t grind by killing, but grind events and hearts.

Mesmers are indeed in lack of some decent AoE abilities.
Swords are good, but being able to actually take out a group of mobs, with a sword/pistol combo, or sword/focus for that matter can be a daunting task as the best damage ability you got is hotkey number 2, and only strikes 3 times then goes on a decently long CD, which is probably there due to the invunerability you get from using it.

Greatsword well, that AoE it has is not really all that great either, and staffs has their auto attack which bounces between targets. Where their number 5 ability is really good, it has an extremely long cooldown.

Focus based phatasms (wardens I think they’re called), does a really good amount of damage, though they’re rooted, which can make them quite difficult to use.

Beserkers, from the greatsword, are decent as well, though only active every 6 seconds or so, and in PvE they tend to be killed more often than they are up in groups, in my experience anyway.

Mesmers do have lots of escaping tools, though absolutely needing more AoE tools when it comes to actually fighting groups of mobs.

Swordbreaker.2581:

Mesmer’s can be difficult to solo groups of mobs, but certainly not impossible. I use sword/pistol and greatsword. When getting a group of mobs on me, I try to line them up and use skills that damage in a straight line like Mirror Blade and phantasmal berserker which will also hit multiple enemies, and then you can use the illusionary wave to knock them all back. Then I switch to sword/pistol and use magic bullet to stun all of them and get up close and slash all of them with blurred frenzy, jump back and pick a target with the most health and put Phantasmal Duelist on him. Then I jump back, and switch back to greatsword, push them back and rinse and repeat. With ranged attacking in a group of melee, you can either moa bird them, and when they recover from that, you can also use feedback to reflect their projectiles back at them. You will have to also make sure to roll away when either of those are on cooldown and a projectile is fired at you, or if magic is fired at you, because feedback doesn’t effect magic.

Also when you get elite skills at 30 you can easily use the Series 7 robot to attack instead of using the moa morph to dish out damage to them for 40 seconds which is really handy solo. Make sure to put points into domination for bleeds and use any debuff shields you may have like the radiation field, I don’t remember its exact name.

I prefer to only take on 2 or 3 at a time if I can, and don’t grind by killing, but grind events and hearts.

Some of the elites you listed here are Asura specific and not mesmer specific.

ZoiN.4280:

Swordbreaker.2581:

Mesmer’s can be difficult to solo groups of mobs, but certainly not impossible. I use sword/pistol and greatsword. When getting a group of mobs on me, I try to line them up and use skills that damage in a straight line like Mirror Blade and phantasmal berserker which will also hit multiple enemies, and then you can use the illusionary wave to knock them all back. Then I switch to sword/pistol and use magic bullet to stun all of them and get up close and slash all of them with blurred frenzy, jump back and pick a target with the most health and put Phantasmal Duelist on him. Then I jump back, and switch back to greatsword, push them back and rinse and repeat. With ranged attacking in a group of melee, you can either moa bird them, and when they recover from that, you can also use feedback to reflect their projectiles back at them. You will have to also make sure to roll away when either of those are on cooldown and a projectile is fired at you, or if magic is fired at you, because feedback doesn’t effect magic.

Also when you get elite skills at 30 you can easily use the Series 7 robot to attack instead of using the moa morph to dish out damage to them for 40 seconds which is really handy solo. Make sure to put points into domination for bleeds and use any debuff shields you may have like the radiation field, I don’t remember its exact name.

I prefer to only take on 2 or 3 at a time if I can, and don’t grind by killing, but grind events and hearts.

Some of the elites you listed here are Asura specific and not mesmer specific.

You’re right. Sorry about that. I do play an asura so thats just what I use.

Agreed, Mesmers are not good in DE zergs as well. I would think an AoE focused main-hand ranged weapon could fix this.

You guys are crazy

Staff Mesmer with Great Sword secondry

20 in illusions 30 in vaitality 20 in toughness

Utilities of Ether Feast – Mirror images – Feedback , blink and for Humans Hounds of Balthazar.

Phased retreat and Mirror images for quick clone spawning. Shatter with Cry of frustration. You dont need to do lots of damage because your foes kill themselves.

Chaos storm till your hearts content, and Feedback on all the ranged targets.

Blink for for additional survival and swap to your great sword for the knock back in those "oh shhhh* situations

While the Illusionary Warlock puts out great damage and should be used whenever you can. I find the best damage is the damage they do to themselves from confusion. Stack it like a baws !!

Cake !!

I don’t know, farming as a Mesmer has been incredibly efficient for me. The only trouble I’ve had is when I’m competing for hits during large dynamic events, mostly in Cursed Shore.

Solo farming is quick and easy however. Sword/Focus + Staff. Pop out a Warden and toss a Chaos Storm over him and he can take out a group of mobs on his own. High damage, AoE bleeds and confusion. Group things up with Temporal Curtain pull. Move from group to group with Blink.

I’m sorry if you find this somewhat insulting, but unless you build purely a hlass-cannon, you should have little or no survivability issues as a mesmer if you play it right. If you did build a glass cannon… well… what do you expect? you aren’t SUPPOSED to get hit! (also theres this little thing in GW2 called casting-on-the-run, which is great for kiting… you don’t need to stand still! this isn’t WoW!)

Deneroth has some great suggestions as well. Just proves there are multiple ways of being successful at soloing as a mesmer. Theres no one way to play it really. Depends on what playstyle you choose and what weapons and traits and skills you put together

And still, after all of the people who keep trying to defend Mesmer in PvE and saying people are just doing it wrong, we’re still stuck with a build that is decent enough in AoE to do DEs and groups of mobs, or a relatively slow single target build that still doesn’t compare with most, if not all, other classes.

PvE?
Weapons: Sword + Focus and Staff.
30 Illusions, 30 Duelist, 10 Domination.
Ill: Compounding Power, Phantasmal Haste, and Illusionary Persona
Du: Phantasmal Fury, Deceptive Evasion, and Empowering Mantras
Do: Empowered Illusions
Utilities: Mantra of Healing, Mirror Images, Mantra of Resolve, Feedback
Elite: (??? No clue, but I use the Sylvari Summon Druid Spirit for AoE).

If I’m near a group in an event, I spawn a trio of clones then shatter (1x with MW and 1x with CoF if CDs allow). If I’m far, I use Warden + TCurtain&Pull then switch to staff for Chaos Storm and spawn staff clones.
If soloing, I spawn a sword clone then a Warden and try to pin the monster between myself and the Warden while using Blurred Frenzy as I can.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MrPrometheus0110

Watch his two mesmer videos. Staff, when properly traited, is just plain OP. Really, run a condition build, and just watch mobs melt under Chaos Storm while being pelted by 2 condition-flinging clones, then there’s the staff phantasm doing extra damage for every affliction… I’ve adjust my build to be a little more like his, and it has paid off well.

Having 0 problems here. Just shatter into enemies to tag for DEs, and for solo farming use a mix of GS + something else. GS is great because it allows you to kill single targets extremely fast with a Mirror Bounce + swap, but also allows you to keep up the AE pressure with PZerker + Wave.

We can farm just as fast as other classes can. However, while phantasm build is powerful, I would recommend against using it for farming. Instead, focus on condition staff build, or my new personal favorite, double sword/shatter burst power/crit spec, courtesy of Miss Sukha:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgUQNAscWlwzip3UzoGZNJypCQHqCgHJFqWrV6BvdhzGA;TwAg0CooqxUjoGbNuak1soYUwugJBA

While originally ment for pvp, I’ve come to like it a lot in pve, as it allows me to melt mobs just as fast as, for instance, a warrior. It does have a nasty drawback, though – unless you’re really, really careful and use your other shatters (yes! we have more than one!), you’ll be down quite a bit in dungeons. You can resort to staff, however that reduces your damage. But hey, you can’t have everything and a respec is something like 2 silver, so care.

Farming groups (4-5+) fast isn’t our strenght and can be often painfull. For me it’s linked to the fact that we lose all our illusions after one mob dies leaving us to cast again our phantasm (main damage dealers) and clones to go on. This delays everything and leaves us with the impression that it takes ages for us to kill groups of mobs. Also once 1 mob dies and we lose all our illusions the remaining mobs start to beat the crap out of our mesmer. So we have to put some distance between our mesmer and the npc’s before being able to start recasting illusions.

On the flip side we are very good and efficient at killing npc’s one by one. Soloing big veterans or easy champions isn’t that difficult with a Mesmer, as long as we don’t aggro everything around or are getting adds. I often see other classes suffer 1vs1 for those skill points where you’ve to spar while I could simply mash buttons randomly and still win it.

Staff is very efficient when it all goes well. But when it starts to get crappy and kitteny ,all your illusions are dead and everything on cooldown it’s a very different story.

Did someone actually tried to use double staff and knows if it’s possible?
And if yes if the cd’s of the skills are shared or not?

ZoiN.4280:

Swordbreaker.2581:

Mesmer’s can be difficult to solo groups of mobs, but certainly not impossible. I use sword/pistol and greatsword. When getting a group of mobs on me, I try to line them up and use skills that damage in a straight line like Mirror Blade and phantasmal berserker which will also hit multiple enemies, and then you can use the illusionary wave to knock them all back. Then I switch to sword/pistol and use magic bullet to stun all of them and get up close and slash all of them with blurred frenzy, jump back and pick a target with the most health and put Phantasmal Duelist on him. Then I jump back, and switch back to greatsword, push them back and rinse and repeat. With ranged attacking in a group of melee, you can either moa bird them, and when they recover from that, you can also use feedback to reflect their projectiles back at them. You will have to also make sure to roll away when either of those are on cooldown and a projectile is fired at you, or if magic is fired at you, because feedback doesn’t effect magic.

Also when you get elite skills at 30 you can easily use the Series 7 robot to attack instead of using the moa morph to dish out damage to them for 40 seconds which is really handy solo. Make sure to put points into domination for bleeds and use any debuff shields you may have like the radiation field, I don’t remember its exact name.

I prefer to only take on 2 or 3 at a time if I can, and don’t grind by killing, but grind events and hearts.

Some of the elites you listed here are Asura specific and not mesmer specific.

Not mention Trick Shot doesn’t " stun all of them," it dazes the first target, then applies a confuse to one, and blind to the other (don’t remember the order of the last two conditions).

Swordbreaker.2581:

Mesmer’s can be difficult to solo groups of mobs, but certainly not impossible. I use sword/pistol and greatsword. When getting a group of mobs on me, I try to line them up and use skills that damage in a straight line like Mirror Blade and phantasmal berserker which will also hit multiple enemies, and then you can use the illusionary wave to knock them all back. Then I switch to sword/pistol and use magic bullet to stun all of them and get up close and slash all of them with blurred frenzy, jump back and pick a target with the most health and put Phantasmal Duelist on him. Then I jump back, and switch back to greatsword, push them back and rinse and repeat. With ranged attacking in a group of melee, you can either moa bird them, and when they recover from that, you can also use feedback to reflect their projectiles back at them. You will have to also make sure to roll away when either of those are on cooldown and a projectile is fired at you, or if magic is fired at you, because feedback doesn’t effect magic.

Also when you get elite skills at 30 you can easily use the Series 7 robot to attack instead of using the moa morph to dish out damage to them for 40 seconds which is really handy solo. Make sure to put points into domination for bleeds and use any debuff shields you may have like the radiation field, I don’t remember its exact name.

I prefer to only take on 2 or 3 at a time if I can, and don’t grind by killing, but grind events and hearts.

This is where everyone gets things “wrong.” I use quotes because technically there is no right way. My way isn’t the “right” way, but it’s certainly better for farming. Lemme run through weapon types first (in order of effectiveness):

Single Target: Scepter (yes really), sword, Longsword
Multiple targets: Staff, Longsword, sword, scepter

That of course you can debate over, but that’s not my purpose atm. Simply put, staff & sword or Longsword are the best weapons for dispatching groups of foes. Chaos storm does a great job of it! Perhaps I’ll post a video later, but my channel has 2 great examples on my recent shattering video

kagenin.5231:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MrPrometheus0110

Watch his two mesmer videos. Staff, when properly traited, is just plain OP. Really, run a condition build, and just watch mobs melt under Chaos Storm while being pelted by 2 condition-flinging clones, then there’s the staff phantasm doing extra damage for every affliction… I’ve adjust my build to be a little more like his, and it has paid off well.

And honestly staff isn’t OP…on a single target it can take forever to kill people…honestly. But I do agree staff clones are the best clones

Nkrisc.7408:

ZoiN.4280:

Swordbreaker.2581:

Mesmer’s can be difficult to solo groups of mobs, but certainly not impossible. I use sword/pistol and greatsword. When getting a group of mobs on me, I try to line them up and use skills that damage in a straight line like Mirror Blade and phantasmal berserker which will also hit multiple enemies, and then you can use the illusionary wave to knock them all back. Then I switch to sword/pistol and use magic bullet to stun all of them and get up close and slash all of them with blurred frenzy, jump back and pick a target with the most health and put Phantasmal Duelist on him. Then I jump back, and switch back to greatsword, push them back and rinse and repeat. With ranged attacking in a group of melee, you can either moa bird them, and when they recover from that, you can also use feedback to reflect their projectiles back at them. You will have to also make sure to roll away when either of those are on cooldown and a projectile is fired at you, or if magic is fired at you, because feedback doesn’t effect magic.

Also when you get elite skills at 30 you can easily use the Series 7 robot to attack instead of using the moa morph to dish out damage to them for 40 seconds which is really handy solo. Make sure to put points into domination for bleeds and use any debuff shields you may have like the radiation field, I don’t remember its exact name.

I prefer to only take on 2 or 3 at a time if I can, and don’t grind by killing, but grind events and hearts.

Some of the elites you listed here are Asura specific and not mesmer specific.

Not mention Trick Shot doesn’t " stun all of them," it dazes the first target, then applies a confuse to one, and blind to the other (don’t remember the order of the last two conditions).

It stuns the first, dazes the second and blinds the third, if I’m not mistaken.

And just a note – if you are worried about losing damage due to the clones exploding on your Foe dieing, be on to it .. shatter them. If another creature is in range at least SOME damage is being passed on. The Mesmer has an amazing ability to unleash Clones and Phantasms extremely quickly. Use this and you will win

glencocoe.8921:

And honestly staff isn’t OP…on a single target it can take forever to kill people…honestly. But I do agree staff clones are the best clones

I dunno, enemies melt pretty fast from the Staff once you bring the clones out. Obviously the staff doesn’t do much direct damage, but the fact that it’s all tied up in the conditions it inflicts makes the clones way more dangerous than any others.

Remember, Mesmer isn’t a DPS class; it’s a support class. Mesmers are not designed to solo mobs, but they were intended to buff and support other classes.

Ktham.6947:

Remember, Mesmer isn’t a DPS class; it’s a support class. Mesmers are not designed to solo mobs, but they were intended to buff and support other classes.

100% correct they are designed to solo GROUPS of mobs ! the AOE condition application for the Mesmer is insain with the right build – however remember in GW2 there is no right or wrong build only what you enjoy.

Even as staff Mesmer with the 20 toughness 30 vitality 20 illusions build i can pull and hold aggro in DE champion boss fights – clearly doing suffient damage – or maybe they just fancy my skimpy clothing….

If you’re looking for a high damage build, concentrate on phantasms or damaging illusions. A mesmer doesn’t have the capability of creating high damage on it’s own, but if you summon 3 phantasms, your damage output increases significantly, especially since each phantasm does more damage if the target as a lot of conditions.

Sometimes I end up against 6 mobs in Orr and I still get out alive on my Mesmer. I’m a Sword/Focus + Pistol tho. Staff is too limited for my taste.

i think GS/staff mesmer is very viable for aoe farming. i just don’t bother with solo killing, every time i just pull three or four mobs (traited for 4 bounce and lower cd on both weapons + faster shatter), because it’s much faster than kill them separately. and you can handle pack with one veteran easy, staf is AMAZING weapon for this ^^
anyway don’t stack only power/crit, pick some toughness and every pve will be much easier this way. enjoy

Thank you for the great posts. I’m not sure though if everyone here realizes though: most other professions in PvE farming builds routinely solo 8-10 mobs at once, and take them all down in less than 15 seconds. That’s outside of DEs.

No joke, and not hyperbole either.

Also, one of the posters in this thread stated that Mesmers aren’t a DPS class, but instead a support class. Warriors and Guardians both offer phenomenal group support — much better than Mesmer. Both professions are phenomenal farmers too.

If Mesmers are supposed to be a support class, then clearly ArenaNet needs to change the way drops work in dynamic events so that Mesmers don’t get fewer drops than other classes because they’re supporting instead of contributing damage.

Because right now, since the only thing that matters in DE’s is damage done, this leaves Mesmers in a much worse place than any of the other classes which have easier access to quick burst and better AoE.

Ultinomicon.2805:

Thank you for the great posts. I’m not sure though if everyone here realizes though: most other professions in PvE farming builds routinely solo 8-10 mobs at once, and take them all down in less than 15 seconds. That’s outside of DEs.

No joke, and not hyperbole either.

Also, one of the posters stated that Mesmers aren’t a DPS class, but instead a support class. Warriors and Guardians both offer phenomenal group support — much better than Mesmer. Both professions are phenomenal farmers too.

Just to make it clear – by Most classes are you mainly referring to Warriors/Guardians?
Please do keep in mind ALL Melee classes do far greater damage than ranged/Casters.. more so casters. This is to balance the game. If casters did the same damage as a Melee class then Warriors/Guardians would have zero chance in PVP.

Deneroth.2854:

Ultinomicon.2805:

Thank you for the great posts. I’m not sure though if everyone here realizes though: most other professions in PvE farming builds routinely solo 8-10 mobs at once, and take them all down in less than 15 seconds. That’s outside of DEs.

No joke, and not hyperbole either.

Also, one of the posters stated that Mesmers aren’t a DPS class, but instead a support class. Warriors and Guardians both offer phenomenal group support — much better than Mesmer. Both professions are phenomenal farmers too.

Just to make it clear – by Most classes are you mainly referring to Warriors/Guardians?
Please do keep in mind ALL Melee classes do far greater damage than ranged/Casters.. more so casters. This is to balance the game. If casters did the same damage as a Melee class then Warriors/Guardians would have zero chance in PVP.

Necromancers, Rangers, Thieves, and Engineers can also pull this off. The only other profession that struggles in solo PvE vs. many mobs is Elementalist, as far as I know.

Check out the forums on the fansite guildwars2guru.com. There are videos there for each of the classes that I mentioned, as well as discussions about farming builds and their performance.

[/quote]

Necromancers, Rangers, Thieves, and Engineers can also pull this off. The only other profession that struggles in solo PvE vs. many mobs is Elementalist, as far as I know.

Check out the forums on the fansite guildwars2guru.com. There are videos there for each of the classes that I mentioned, as well as discussions about farming builds and their performance.[/quote]

Correct – caster classes have to work a little harder in PvE – Just like Warriors and Guardians have to work a little harder in PVP and why Thieves and Rangers are Kings and queens of PVP – tbh i know very little of the Necro so cant comment.. Each class has strong points and weaknesses. I find i take a wave of mobs in a DE down to 50% before they even reach the Meat grinders by spawning a wave and cheap clones to shatter, unloading Chaos Storm and getting another 3 clones/Phantasams prep’d for a Cry of Frustration shatter. Its huge damage, while my weapons auto attack may only be hitting for 150 the confusion stacks is causing them to hit themselves for 1000+ per Mob (and thats every mob). The damage is there .. you just need to understand how to harness it