Guild Wars 2

So I recently decided to try a light armor class, and since I love the concept so much, I decided to go with a mesmer. The way the class works feels brilliant to me, and I love the execution, but I simply don’t know what I’m supposed to build, what weapons to use, or even what my purpose is in a team. I like using Staves right now, simply because it feels fitting and the conditions on them are downright awesome. I also like using the Scepter, but I’ve heard alot of bad things about them. Despite that, I seem to vastly outdamage my Staff using a Scepter right now. As for the offhand, I have absolutely no clue what synnergises with Staff+Scepter. Also, I’m morally obliged to avoid greatswords at all costs – they simply feel conceptually out of place on a mesmer for me. Same with swords – I want to play a mage-style class, and shooting lazers out of massive swords or stabbing my enemies in the face aren’t things I really want to do! :p

Build-Wise, I feel like I should be using Condition Damage, due to the menagerie of conditions Staff+Scepter gives me access to, but then I’d be useless against things immune to certain conditions. The obvious solution to that would be Rampager’s gear, but then I have the problem of my crits doing kitten damage.

And then come the traits and skills – I’m completely out of my comfort zone here, and I have absolutely no idea what I should build for or what skills I should use. I think a big problem is that I simply don’t know what Mesmers are supposed to do – are they a bursty-damaged focused class? Or are they a backline support?

I do have some idea of the direction I want to take with my Mesmer, however. I want to stay true to the concept, using things like confusion as a damage source, jumping around the battlefield, and really baffling my enemies with invisibility and clones. Is there any way I can cater to that desire while doing plenty of damage, and getting to utilise the weapons I want?

Unfortunately, when it comes to being a PvE Mesmer you don’t really have a choice about using Sword in one of your sets, as Blurred Frenzy is literally too good to pass up and the auto-attack is, IIRC, the strongest in terms of straight damage.

If you’re going PvP there’s a lot more flexibility, of course.

As to what you do in PvE? It really depends on the build, but you should be going for power since it’s PvE, and you should probably be looking to have perma-reflect up through use of a Focus, as that’s one of the main reasons to bring a Mesmer into a dungeon.

PvP, of course, is really different and more wide-open. You’ll have to read a bunch of stuff about that, and I am, to be entirely honest, not interested in rewriting all of it here.

like fuschia said… dont think of mesmer as a typical spellcaster…

mesmer is more akin to thief than anything..

think of mesmer more like a magical version of thief as that is what mesmer really is.

sword is one of mesmers best weapons.

in the lore… mesmers share the same human god lyssa as thief.. and they do so for a reason the classes are very similar in goal except 1 is magic and 1 is physical.