Guild Wars 2

Im thinking mesmer is going to be my next class, still cant decide between mes and Engi. Are there good Melee builds out there? Im trying to avoid the typical GS route I usually see if possible. thank ya

sword/x shatters, lots of fun, lots of dmg (decent aoe), fairly survivable, save blurred frenzy and distortion for when you need it

In my opinion, melee shatter build is the strongest mesmer DPS build (especially after the phantasms nerfs). Sword/focus is my main but you can also use sword/pistol or sword/sword. I use staff as a secondary and I find it a lot better than GS in that role.

Unfortunatly you can’t truly leverage melee builds til around 60, at that point you can unlock illusory persona which totally changes the game (Since you can now use diversion and distortion without clones up, giving you a snap evasion and interuppt, as well as drasticlly boosting your shatter damage).

Even so; sword is one of our best DPS weapons and rolling melee on a mesmer is no gimmick

From what I’ve read, mesmer is the hardest class to play. But I will say it’s easy, but hard to master, once you mastered it you can take on 1v3/1v4, even 1v5 if you have the skills, but as I said hard to master, but fun as hell to play

Edit:
I run with sword/pistol, and staff, but dying due to my epic fail in learning :O, also missclick master xD
but still plays better than before

Mesmers are a ton of fun, but they have a lot of moving parts which can make them complicated to master.

the big issue will falls around their illusions. when working on a particular build, you need to decide whether illusions will play a major or minor role in your strategy. you can’t ignore them completely unless you want to make 2 of your skills minimum worthless.

In pve, illusions can distract your enemy, temporarily taking aggro off of others, although they don’t last very long individually. phantasm have the capacity of dealing it significant damage, although in their current state they are easily neutralized..

The shatter skills will let you blow them up for extra damage and effects.

a lot of their abilities are random. 3 of the 5 skills on staff generate random boons on allies or self and random conditions on foes. no direct ability to heal allies.

however, in support mode they can dish out a lot of boons. what is this translates to is a character who can be a potent but unreliable support character

many of their abilities dishes out boons and conditions at the same time, Plus serving of multiple roles.

for example, temporal curtain grants Swiftness to allies, cripples enemies, and for a few seconds can suck enemies through it, sort of like a knock back or pull depending on orientation of curtain and enemy.

you can use your illusions as simply a little weapon in your arsenal, or focus heavily on them. for example, it is possible to build a character who uses lots of mantras and only uses two illusions, nothing in traits for them, and just have them as a little extra.

or you can fill your bar with all kinds of illusions, trait them heavily. regardless, you will want to spend some time getting to know just how you’re illusions work, especially with the shatter skills

Tip: Don’t complete map 100%, cause your illusions don’t get the star reward, next to character or did they patch it?

First of all mate, if its tricky lvl 10-30 dont give up, the mesmers are like a good wine, the more you drink the happier you get

Owerall the class specific strength start to show best at lvl 40 + but its alot of fun on the way. For lvling I reccomed a steady staff and in other wep set test what you like.

I want to recomed a good guide for shatter spec, the spec in it self is not realy a beginner spec but as you got time to learn if you just stared its worth a watch. I also answer any questions reguarding shatter spec in the guide. Also alot of videos in there to see.

Atm Im working on a videoguide for lvling as a shatter mesmer, it will take some time thu before done.

Guide: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/guide-WvWvW-Shatter-cat

/Osicat

I’d say run engineer until the nerf storms stop, otherwise you may wind up with the same problems as people who mained paragons in GW1.

@Esorono, only phantasm mesmers with GS focus have realy got nerfed, mesmers are a strong class in pvp and pve in general. Our " spawn a few minions who kill for you while you drink your te" times are over, thats all.

When Gs get fixed innterms of izerker dmg I expect to see some realy dangerous range burst shatter mesmes in wvwvw.

/osicat

I apologize up front for the pessimism, but Anet seems to have a huge hate-on for the Mez. If you intend to play, my advice is to prepare yourself for the constant nerfs and be willing to change up your builds to keep ahead of the nerf-curve.

my main was a thief…Im used to nerfs.. trust.

Sounds good though guys thanks for the advice

Morfedel.4165:

a lot of their abilities are random. 3 of the 5 skills on staff generate random boons on allies or self and random conditions on foes. no direct ability to heal allies.

however, in support mode they can dish out a lot of boons. what is this translates to is a character who can be a potent but unreliable support character

I wouldn’t call it unreliable at ALL, first of all the many reflects you can get is nothing but reliable, and while the boons maybe be somewhat random, it not as bad as you make it really, for instance staff #1 is might or fury, ie they gives more dmg, one way or another, with staff #4 (or chaos armor from ethereal combo fields), gives protection, regen or swiftness when you get hit, ie helps you survive etc

Personally, I’d suggest a Sword/Sword/ Greatsword build for levelling. Focused on mixed clone/phantasm tactics (Treating phantasms as one or two off attackers to be shattered as needed).

If you take blink and put at least 20 points into dueling, you’re light on your feet with strong clones who stack bleeds and can throw a mirror blade, go into melee for the AoE, rolling as needed, shatter, knockback wave on the GS, and swap to kiting tactics while riding out sword cooldowns, then go right back into melee.

You have enough defensive cooldowns to go straight through three boss attacks, before dodge rolls, which due to 100% vigor and greatsword hitting and critting three times per auto, are ALWAYS up.

I personally find that outside of either sPvP (Burst it down ASAP is the rule of the game, ergo, shatters), or champions (Spam phantasms in most cases, as they attack slow), a versatile mesmer who can think on their feet and use their full toolkit, is a strong mesmer.

Greatsword + Dueling creates a very powerful vigor generator that can give you 9 stacks of might the moment you decide to move into melee engagements, while slowing enemies and stripping their buffs so you can get into melee, and comes with a knockback wave.

Sceptre is… suprisingly viable in a shatter/on clone death melee build that relies entirely on clones to do damage. Other than that, do not touch it, it has only one role, and that role isn’t perfomed well unless very specific traits and utilities are taken (Think of it as a double melee mindwrack tool and nothing more).

Sword is a beautiful melee weapon with absolutly no shortage of applications, from champion slaying, to AoE, to simply staying alive. Honestly, one of your weapon sets should always be Sword/X

Pistol offhand, while popular as hell, is a little iffy in my eyes. Duelists have no self preservation instinct, and while strong phantasms while specced into dueling, a skilled player can easily trick it into missing every shot or only use one dodge roll and a little footwork to avoid everything. Stacks bleeds expertly though. It’s stunshot, while good against players, is lacking against champions and bosses, and the bouncing quality can get the attention of more monsters than you intended.

Sword offhand balances a decent, survivable, if not particularly deadly phantasm with an extra block that can protect you from burst combos, champions, or anything inbetween. And it cancels into blurred frenzy. Personally, I prefer it for the survival ability it grants, but you won’t be outdpsing a pistol offhand.

Torch offhand is for running away or abusing player culling in WvW. It’s actual combat application is pretty non-existant.

Focus offhand is for mobility and control. Swiftness (our only real source). A group pull (Mass scorpion wire at less range basically). And a VERY heavy bleed stacking phantasm that does low damage, but destroys and can be specced to reflect projectiles. It’s good, even if its damage is unreliable/low.

Staff is RNG, but potent. Chaos storm is our best AoE by far, and it stacks a ton of debuffs. Or it can go power for champion slaying by having Illusionary warlocks bursting for obscene numbers. Regardless, it’s a safe, slow burn killing weapon. The RNG is somewhat limited, but still a factor.

Regardless, keep in mind, a good mesmer, is a versatile mesmer. I know alot of builds go one way or the other, into one particular hole, but ALOT of mesmer’s kit is designed around being changed to fit the situation. Mimic/Echo has let me almost one-shot warriors with their own killshot, then recast mirror blade out of it to finish the job. Decoy + Distortion has let me kill people in the middle of WvW zergs who went down from my own feedback bubble. Null field has made condition builds entirely useless. The various mantras have helped me shave off enemy CC immunity, stop bull rush warriors dead in their tracks, escape CC, or even added a little extra oomph to a full shatter build (Not much, but an extra 2k during blurred frenzy is something when added atop a mirror blade into mirror image into shatter, illusionary leap, swap, blurred frenzy combo)

Change your skills and tactics to fit the situation and twist it to your advantage. You’re not a one-trick pony, you’re an every trick in the book horse.

Right now if you’re planning on doing PvP vs anyone of skill don’t play a mesmer. If you’re planning on doing PvE there are other classes that can do what a mesmer does… but better.

Illusions won’t appear if you are blind, if they block, or if they dodge at the time of the illusion creation. Baddies don’t know how to abuse this imbalance in game rules and will just get confused by your clones… you can kill those players with any class.

Say somehow you do manage get a phantom off without being blinded/blocked… they have a long delay before they attack… long enough for them to be killed before they do damage. Say they don’t kill it right away… they can then dodge the attack of the phantom itself… and this doesn’t even consider the current damage bugs or any of the other 20+ bugs that plague the mesmer class.

This is why mesmers suck in PvP. I have yet to die in a 1v1 vs a mesmer since they put this in the game. Not ONE… and I’m far from pro. In a 1v2 I thank god that it’s only a mesmer I have to deal with in addition to that other person.

PvE Mesmer has mid dps and doesn’t do anything that another class can’t do better other than a group haste on a very long cooldown (which is really nice tbh). Oh wait… I was wrong… they do confusion better… too bad that sucks hardcore in PvE…

IMO wait to roll a mesmer to see what they do in this next major patch… actually… wait to roll ANYTHING until after this next patch. Whatever you choose now might be nerfed into the ground or have a massive bug which kittens the class.

Aberrant.6749:

Right now if you’re planning on doing PvP vs anyone of skill don’t play a mesmer. If you’re planning on doing PvE there are other classes that can do what a mesmer does… but better.

Illusions won’t appear if you are blind, if they block, or if they dodge at the time of the illusion creation. Baddies don’t know how to abuse this imbalance in game rules and will just get confused by your clones… you can kill those players with any class.

Say somehow you do manage get a phantom off without being blinded/blocked… they have a long delay before they attack… long enough for them to be killed before they do damage. Say they don’t kill it right away… they can then dodge the attack of the phantom itself… and this doesn’t even consider the current damage bugs or any of the other 20+ bugs that plague the mesmer class.

This is why mesmers suck in PvP. I have yet to die in a 1v1 vs a mesmer since they put this in the game. Not ONE… and I’m far from pro. In a 1v2 I thank god that it’s only a mesmer I have to deal with in addition to that other person.

PvE Mesmer has mid dps and doesn’t do anything that another class can’t do better other than a group haste on a very long cooldown (which is really nice tbh). Oh wait… I was wrong… they do confusion better… too bad that sucks hardcore in PvE…

IMO wait to roll a mesmer to see what they do in this next major patch… actually… wait to roll ANYTHING until after this next patch. Whatever you choose now might be nerfed into the ground or have a massive bug which kittens the class.

Null field. Illusion of life (Warbanner is an elite, comes out MUCH slower, and is done in melee.). CC immunity chipping. Tanking boss instant kills (I can stand on Kholer and melee him through the spin. Survive Howling King’s scream while being directly in the path. And that’s just a small portion). Timewarp. Mind Stab (Both). Blink rezzing. 100% Vigor uptime. Mimic/Echo. Phantasmal defender tricks.

We have ALOT more going for us than simply shatter builds.