Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone
So, direct to the point, whta are the main roles with a staff while playing it in a Mesmer? For what I’ve seen so far it’s pretty much condition damage based but I have also reade that is the most defencive weapon Mesmer’s have and I kinda like defencive roles.
(I play with a Guardian bunker, and a staff Elementalist that is hybrid between damage and defense)

Also, I don’t really like seeing casters with swords, so is it possible to have good WvW/PvE builds with the Staff + Scepter/Focus or Torch?

Staff does work really well in condition builds but it also works just fine on shatter and power builds – iWarlock does a huge amount of power based damage, and the staff is ideal for generating lots of shatter fodder quickly.

The main attraction however is chaos storm; which has a pretty good chance of granting aegis to allies (often multiple times), stunning enemies in the area, and can be combo’d into chaos armour – throw in genuine chaos armour, and that’s a huge amount of damage mitigation. (Not to mention phase retreat letting you keep one step ahead of enemies)

Scepter is almost useless in PvE/WvW unfortunately; it’s a strongly single-target orientated weapon and only really excels in small scale fights (1 Vs 1, 1Vs 2, sPvP, tPvP), the huge zergs in WvW, or larger swarms of enemies in events and orr render scepter largely worthless.

Even then, all of mesmer’s weapons except greatsword are close-combat weapons (Sceptre has a built in block and confusion requires the enemy be encouraged to attack you, sword is melee, staff works best at close quarters, etc). As the official description of the class states, mesmer’s are duellists who utilise illusions, if you don’t like melee combat, mesmer isn’t the class for you; they’re not a stand-off caster like classical mages.

As I often tell new mesmers – they’re basiclly un-thieves. A thief hides in the shadows and stabs you in the back. A mesmer hides in plain sight and stabs you in the front.

Im going to have to agree with ryuujin here, the scepter is moetly useless. The only time i see people usin it is for the blocks, but the other skills dont really do much.
Staff works better with condition damage, but i use it for y power/shatter build aswell, for defensive purposes (especially phase retreat). Traited for illusion cooldown and staff cooldown phase retreat is on a 6 second cooldown!
If you cant decide what your build will be, you can go to the Spvp lobby and set your traits there for free, buy runes sigils and attributes for free and such. There are also some golems you can test your damage on.
3 staff clones attacking is pretty good damage imo, but less so in pve dungeons because youre going to hit bleed caps with others in the party etc.
In my signature i have some videos using the staff in a power build if youre interested.
Tl;DR: the staff shines for its defensive skills

Ryuujin.8236:

As I often tell new mesmers – they’re basiclly un-thieves. A thief hides in the shadows and stabs you in the back. A mesmer hides in plain sight and stabs you in the front.

Good one xD

Since you don’t like swords I assume you won’t like greatswords either. I would advise you not to kitten yourself as mainhand sword is one of the most useful for mesmers. Try not to pigeon-hole your view of the mesmer as a “caster” only class. Heck even a guardian can be called a caster too! I say go for a different kind of playstyle for you, who knows you might find it fun!
Regarding your point, a staff / scepter-torch sounds more of a defensive mesmer. You get phase retreat, scepter block and torch stealth. For damage you probably won’t have much if you spec bunker, and as for condition builds, I’m not sure of their state at the moment.

May I suggest you to try scepter/sword with your staff?

Scepter is an amazing weapon. People don’t realize how block is powerful, because it deals very nice damage. With the sword block, it’s the perfect glass canon counter. Thieves will hate you.
Try to find Seven Mirror’s videos. He’s using staff + scepter/sword with a very high thougness /crit dmg build. You can go defensive with phantasms still hitting quite hard.
Scepter #3 can crit for 1k + x 5 AND put 5 stacks of confusion.
You can channel block while moving too, which is a huge plus compared to blurred frenzy ( MH sword #2), especialy when you have to espace a zerg. Combined with chaos storm, chaos armor and the combo field, you can get tons of blocks in a row.

And the prettiest weapon ever (imo) is a scepter ( Immobulus<3)

Oh and check Osicat’s videos too. If I remember well, he has a nice tutorial on how to use phase retreat too.

I hope it helps

I’ve always seen Mesmer as more as Psionicists than traditional Mages. All of their spells and abilities affect your mind or bend time/space. Mental focus and control often ties into martial arts; thus the dueling aspect. (Sword, Pistol, & the Greatsword that I don’t think anyone expected Mesmers to get)

And the Scepter definitely isn’t bad. Its really awkward. The auto attack is slow, but does do some damage. The counter rocks. And the beam takes a lot of getting used to, but actually can wrack up some pretty good direct damage in a power build.

I’d advise checking out the first Mesmerized podcast, a lot of awesome info there.

If you like playing defensive or support and want to main staff, you may enjoy taking some inspiration from my build, The Chaos Maestro which is a defensive support build that uses the staff along with Sword(or Scepter)& Focus to reliably manipulate every boon in the game for allies save for Stability.

or Fuschia’s Doctor Mesmer
That mains the staff and has heavy condition damage while providing superior burst heals to allies/illusions.