Guild Wars 2

Hi,
I have a mesmer lvl 32 staff main, sword focus second.

I have read alot of mixed threads and responses about the mesmer. I really enjoy playing the mesmer though and I am looking forward to dungeons but how good is the mesmer in a dungeon role?

I even saw a thread saying mesmers have been booted out of a dungeon group before it starts do to not wanted.

If im going to be singled out should I lvl my necro that is at lvl 22?

I dont no why the mesmer gets such bad press.

Mesmers are a prized commodity for their wonderful kit of utility skills. This and nothing else. This is the issue mesmers face when looking for a dungeon group. Our dps is mediocre when boss AoEs immediately smear phantasms and clones and our healing/boon support is pitiful. Were it not for skills like the portal, Mirrored Feedback, and TW we’d be shunned.

So doesnt sound promising unless playing with friend or guild.

I really do enjoy the mesmer and have a lot of fun with it. I also enjoy the nacro but not as much. I tryed the ele up to lvl 15 but it wasnt for me!

I will have to have a couple of goes at the dongeons and see how we are treated.

Mesmars are horrible compared to any other class pve wise.
It doesn’t mater what build you have what you do or where you do it.

Our only salvation is that mesmers are decent pvp class when you learn them.

if you wan’t to keep playing mesmar in pve i would suggest to find some nice guild which won’t care much that you are horrible in pve and will take you with them time by time to dungeons.

I even saw a thread saying mesmers have been booted out of a dungeon group before it starts do to not wanted.

You do not want to run a dungeon with anyone who does that. Simple facts are:

1. Mesmers have plenty of dps if you’re specced for it, but you shouldn’t be for a dungeon, because
2. Mesmers have some of the best support in game.

Why do mesmers get such a bad press? I honestly have no idea – I guess people tried it for 2-3 levels, autoattacked with the staff and scepter, then concluded that the class sucks, the end, completely failing to understand what mesmer even is.

mesmars have bad rep because:

• normal pve is all about burst damage and movement speed.
  * mesmers are horible at bursting compared to others. to get our optimal damage it takes us 20-30 seconds by summoning illusions(on condition that by some mirracle mob ignores it. it almost never happens so we dont even reach our peak dps most of the time).
  * We are the “slowest” class that moves around in world. mob to mob or runing great distances.
  Basicaly if we want to move around like other classes we have to spec for it
• we are bad in dungeons despite that sustained dps shines there
  * in dungeons there is a lot of aoe. aoe instantly kills all our phantasms and with it ~50-70% our potencial dps
  * our utility skills arent realy good in dungeons

Despite all that mesmars are awesome.

I agree we do take time to get up to power, I have great confidence in my mesmer at taking on 3-5 group mob of a similar lvl to myself which I didnt have in my ele. But yes it does take time.

Doesnt look good for the dungeons though

Ignore the posters above.

With the right positioning and use of weapons, Mesmers are incredible in dungeons. The below skills are so sought after (I’ve ran countless amounts!)

• Veil
• Mass Invisibility
• Null Field
• Time Warp
• Chaos Storm
• Illusion of Life
• Feedback

All these skills are invaluable in many of the dungeons, especially if you choose to speed run.

When in dungeon groups I use Staff and Greatsword for the AOE, quickly changing from the Berserker to Chaos Storm for big numbers. On bosses, it’s wise to sit back and use Mirror Images while wielding the staff to quickly get 3 Illusions up or alternate between summoning the Berserker/Warlock. I don’t know of a time when I don’t have 3 Phantasms up in dungeons.

Even if you just get one attack out of your Phantasm, that is absolutely fine.

As for being a slow class moving around dungeons, just take Blink or Focus offhand, alternatively, cast Chaos Storm at your feet. There’s also nothing wrong with relying on someone else casting swiftness.

Any groups that say they don’t love Time Warp and a mesmer in their party are talking garbage.

i never said mesmers are useless.
Yes you can do all that but anyone else can do better.

I have np keeping 2-3 phantasms up once they are up, with the illusion HP signet personally. I’m always swapping between the GS melee illusions and the staff ranged illusions to OT, DPS or cripple/Vulnerability the mob.

It does take a min to get 3 phantasms going but 3 illusions is a matter of seconds. With illusion builds that’s 9% less damage taken and 9% more damage inflicted right there. If AE is pretty intense ill put the ranged illusions up just to keep em up as I work in melee ones… rinse repeat, as I cycle in Chaos Storm. With 3 illusions up I haven’t found a dungeon mob that beats on me through chaos armor and a staff.

GS final hit is 2100+ against the training dummy, and the berserker’s final quad hit is 1200+. It’s not the burst damage you might see in others but I’m often the last alive soloing the mob while the others are rezing and running back.

I do agree the movement speed sucks as IMO the focus isn’t worth the speed buff. I have the rune of the centaur set which is power/precession/bleed and final stack is swiftness every-time we heal, which if you like the mantra heal is constant.

I’m not saying i wouldn’t like to see some improvements and we are not OP in a dungeon, but Mesmer isn’t for auto-attack and take a nap imo. My build is meant to Tank/OT close up (staff) and phantasm/GS ranged damage. I wear Berserker and Valkyrie Armor for high Power and crit%. Sword is Berserker, Staf is Valk. I keep feedback up most dungeons to both damage projectile users as well as a 3rd instant trigger of chaos amor.

hope this is helpful.

Who can do all that better than Mesmer? No one has skills as good as Time Warp, Null Field or Illusion of Life. There are skill variants, but none as good.

guys… mesmers do awesome in instances and reasons?
Feedback
Null field
Chaos storm
Time warp
- all mentioned above are combofields whose stack confusion
- i am playing precision + condition dmg build with staff / scepter,focus
- we have mobility in focus and blink
- i can stack offensive buffs on our melee dps (around 6 might and its a lot) and 20 proc crit chance quite a lot
- i can stack 12 bleeds and 5 confusion in first 10 sec and i can do enough illusions for shatter bombing with f1 and f2 on cooldowns with perma 3 clones up
- thanks to rune of lyssa and signet of inspiration i can grant all buffs for whole party for duration of time warp
- I am mostly the last living party member while wipe
- teleport grants you ability to quick port and ressurect while your staff clones are still dpsing/ buffing

Mesmers are not weak neither slow… If you are doing it right you can do more than solid dps while offensive supporting the whole group. And btw i only use 1 phantasm and thats warlock. Maybe i cant crit for more than rogues or eles or warriors but i can do it 3 times faster then them.

/Close thread to whiners

Thanks dottek this gives me hope! I look forward to leveling my mesmer further and hope as a hole mesmers get treated better by the narrow minded!!

Being a Mesmer is great fun!!

1) Against any mob that is not immune to CC, I can be near immortal for something like 12 seconds. Blurred frenzy. Magic Bullet. Signet of Dom. Hey look, blurred is up again.

2) Moa works on bosses immune to CC. Yes, it only works for like 3 seconds, but guess what? See the boss about to put the mega stomp on an ally? Moa him. His attack is interrupted and he loses all special abilities for that time.

3) Drop Chaos Storm on party. Mobs try to avoid the aoe, and everyone gets boons.

4) Pink butterflies are sexy.

I am fresh 80 with horrible items cause not enough money, but i am working on it! I have 400 jewel and tailor now (still have some items for lvl 55) Actually I was able to kill a lot champions (enemy with gold circle) alone in open world (maybe my guildies sux but they cant handle it)… it takes me around 10 min of briliant kiting and focusing but it does worth for the feelin.

If you think you play well, stick with mesmer, because it is not easiest class to play but still pretty fun and still well rewarding your skill (not like elles).

Mesmers are very useful in dungeons, we may not have instant high damage but it is made up for with a
combination of utility skills and control of the mobs.

I play with a high toughness/vitality build with the soul purpose is being in faces of mobs.

With a Sword and Focus, Temporal Curtain is an amazing skill. It can be used to so much effect. You’ve had a bad pull and the mobs are all scattered around your party, a well placed curtain and detonation can pull them all into one nice big AOE pile. You may not be dealing the damage but that’s not important, what you are doing is ENABLING the rest of your party to do damage. Also I use the curtain to rip mobs of squishy glass cannons, interrupt attacks and to keep all the mobs away from the party when you do one of those slow moving back nuking maneuvers.

You can also pretty much nullify all projectile attacks with wardens and temporal curtain when it is specced into and that is a lot of damage taken away from your group.

Not to mention illusions/clones/phantasms make wonderful distractions to bosses.

If people in a party feel a Mesmer is a dead weight in a dungeon, then they have be unfortunate enough to have played with bad ones who do not play to support a group.

If people think that Mesmer’s shouldn’t be in a group, then you probably shouldn’t group with them.

They have so much utility compared to other classes. Chaos Storm/Illusion of Life/Feedback/Null Field are all perfect examples of that. The Ethereal combo field is amazing as well for confusion/chaos armor.

You also constantly apply conditions to enemies with your staff #1 and #5 while applying many boons to allies. When you trait for the extra bounce in staff 1, it becomes one of the best auto attacks in the game.

You also have on-demand daze with F3 and can avoid and eat powerful attacks with F4.

When your clones and illusions take a hit from a boss, that can save someones life and help reduce the amount of damage the party is taking whether it be minor or major damage.

Personally, I love running dungeons with a Mesmer. I also love playing one. I find that they have the best support abilities in the game.

Mes are awesome in groups. I’ve doe numerous runs with 2 mesmers in group and i usually do better with more. Anyone saying Mesmers are bad, are bad themelves. We do good damage, great buffs for team, tons of combo fields, timewarp. We increase the groups Damage and survivability. I would argue a groups DPS is higher with a mesmer than if they had any other class with them becuase of the combo fields, constant boons to allies and timewarp.

Thanks for all your help and advice. The only thing left to do is find the lvl 30 dungeon! I found lvl 40 dungeon from completing human map sections last night.

Need to start the Char area to find it.

lvl 30 dungeon is in north east parh of char stargin area. if you look at map you will see the gates(enterance) even if you haven’t explored the place

Never understand when people say Mez arent good in a group.

Every single group ive been in for dgns, and Ive ran a ton.

Have always ended up where every one is depending on me to keep mobs under-control and to protect them in boss fights and such.

Had over 30 people friend list me, just so they can run dgns with me.

Found 2 others people who are very good to, and us 3 Me mesmer dub a theif and Ward a engi.

do explorable dgns the 3 of us.

So no Mez is good as hell.

May be I should tell my Guildies to go without me, as Mesmers are useless in dungeons. ^^

Above all what was already mentioned by others, I also heal. I know they all think it’s because of their amazing, alas crappy, regen and self heals with Zero, Nada, Nothing in Heal Power they’re able to constantly dps and stay alive. If only they saw all those Green Numbers popping on my screen and I don’t even see the numbers from the regeneration I give.

So, I’ve run most dungeon on my Mesmer, and while I can’t say I feel particularly powerful, I feel like I just don’t die. Period. If my team is doing particularly poorly and they begin dying on encounters, it’s me running around and picking them up or otherwise keeping the boss busy (quite comfortably) until they get back.

Biggest problem right now is that I’m not entirely sure what I want to spec. For now i’ve been running GS / Sword Sword with Null Field Feedback, Time Warp and typically decoy, and I feel like iZerker is nice AoE Burst and GS1 is decent enough damage spam that I don’t overly mind it. But I’m wondering if I wouldn’t get more utility out of running a Staff + Sword/Offhand spec.

Rather, I’m wondering if our condition spam is worth investing in a Condition Damage set to test it out. Anyone clearing explorables have any advice?

First of the mesmer being bad is such a BS… the only reason we seem to be underpar with other classes is that every non-memser has no clue what we can do.

For example;

Time warp – probably the best AOE support in the game. You place it and your whole party runs out of the circle…
Null field – nice to remove poisons. Party runs out of the circle.

Also on some bosses we do the highest damage in the game. Best example is the spider boss in Twilight Arbor. She shoots out 5 balls of poison which to arround 10k damage each. If you can time your feedback right you can reflect these balls and do arround 50k damage.
Now you tell me which class can do that.

I mostly play Sword/focus (or sword/sword) and Greatsword. The veil of focus is so nice once specced into, cause of the reflection, you can counter any foe with ranged damage. And greatsword cause it just does more damage without heavy focussing on staff. But is more a personal preference.
Most importaint is that i play my mesmer in a counter style, i try to learn paterns from foe’s to counter them. Nullifying their damage while doing damage myself. I does require precise timing, but the reward is in my eyes far greater.

Hope your sticking to your mesmer, cause else your missing something great.

I still am and really enjoying it and having loads of fun with my mesmer, my necro and ele are just craft banks now!!

Also I find I can take on mobs of a higher lvl with my mesmer without being worried , I may take time to kill but its hard to die if you use all the skills the mesmer has to offer.

^^“Also I find I can take on mobs of a higher lvl with my mesmer without being worried , I may take time to kill but its hard to die if you use all the skills the mesmer has to offer.” ^^

This ^^. My bf is constantly peeking over my shoulder watching me take on Veterans my level with their adds and muttering about how he should roll a mesmer. If you know how to play, then you can be really awesome.

I was worried about dungeons too. I had originally rolled a ranger which can have some decent support for dungeons. After reading all this, I no longer am afraid to look for a group. I’m going to try a healing build that I saw in another thread.

Arani.9057:

I have np keeping 2-3 phantasms up once they are up, with the illusion HP signet personally. I’m always swapping between the GS melee illusions and the staff ranged illusions to OT, DPS or cripple/Vulnerability the mob.

It does take a min to get 3 phantasms going but 3 illusions is a matter of seconds. With illusion builds that’s 9% less damage taken and 9% more damage inflicted right there. If AE is pretty intense ill put the ranged illusions up just to keep em up as I work in melee ones… rinse repeat, as I cycle in Chaos Storm. With 3 illusions up I haven’t found a dungeon mob that beats on me through chaos armor and a staff.

GS final hit is 2100+ against the training dummy, and the berserker’s final quad hit is 1200+. It’s not the burst damage you might see in others but I’m often the last alive soloing the mob while the others are rezing and running back.

I do agree the movement speed sucks as IMO the focus isn’t worth the speed buff. I have the rune of the centaur set which is power/precession/bleed and final stack is swiftness every-time we heal, which if you like the mantra heal is constant.

I’m not saying i wouldn’t like to see some improvements and we are not OP in a dungeon, but Mesmer isn’t for auto-attack and take a nap imo. My build is meant to Tank/OT close up (staff) and phantasm/GS ranged damage. I wear Berserker and Valkyrie Armor for high Power and crit%. Sword is Berserker, Staf is Valk. I keep feedback up most dungeons to both damage projectile users as well as a 3rd instant trigger of chaos amor.

hope this is helpful.

1. 1200 on spatial surge is not the damage of the final hit, it is the damage of all single tics combined.
2. Bleeds on a mesmer are pretty mediocre compared to what others can do. Dedicated bleed builds can use a combination of runes/equipment that ramps up bleed duration as much as +~60% or more, before consumables. Mesmer’s can’t really do this because condition duration does not transfer to illusions.

A mesmer will maintain roughly ~15 stacks of bleed using duelists, provided nothing gets in their way or destroys them (which is not very likely in reality.) He will also require a somewhat lengthy ramp up time for every new mob he engages and can’t really shatter much without cutting into his sustained dps. Now look at an earth specced elementalist. They can maintain bleed cap by themselves, in a large aoe radius and with more cond damage then the mesmer can.

The moral of the story here is that, at the moment, you probably are better off not hoping for a random group to see the merit in your class/build. If you explain it to them and they agree, then good on them and on you, since you’ve found a good random group. If not, you’ve suffered no great loss from them booting you.

I imagine this -might- change as more people have gone through the game with more classes. Even if the ‘group leader’ wants to auto-boot you or something after seeing your class, the chances will be higher that somebody in there will know what a mesmer can do. But in either case, mesmers are probably the biggest assets for simply not dying. A good guardian can do a lot for that too, but in this game, at least currently, I don’t think it’s too much to say ‘not getting hit at all works a lot better than offsetting damage -from- getting hit’. Mesmer just has so many ways to not get hit, which means you should almost always be there to rez your allies if they take a 1HKO to the face.

Chaos Storm + Radiation field have made dungeons easy mode for me so far.