Guild Wars 2

My mesmer is at lvl 70, and while I’ve been wearing greens for a long time, soon the day will come when I will need to decide what exotics to get for this guy. To decide on the final build and all.

So, reading the forums, guides and so on… almost every build shown is a berserker type. Must this be so? The mesmer is my first scholar type, so I’m not quite sure what survivability he can get by using, say, a full knight set instead, losing some damage, but getting about the equivalent of a base heavy armor set.

Now, I can’t say I really like the mesmer, I prefer my engie, guardian or warrior quite a bit, but I want to have a proper character of all professions, so I’m not giving up.

So, are the berserker types really the only way to go?

P.S. We’re talking PvE here, forgot to mention.

Than i would go for Knight armor.
For me, it is not important what others say about dmg or support based builds.
If iam not able to stay alive in dungeons i would improve my defensive stats.
The whole stay alive skills of a mesmer must be used with the right timing. This need some pratice, especially if the mesmer is not your main char.

If you have so much characters… than go for more defensiv stats. Later on you can focus on berserker yewlery for example, to balance the knight gear in the direction of a glass cannon.

greetz

Mesmer is really good at not getting hit due to the plethora of movement/teleport/invulnerability skills and the ability of illusions to distract PvE mobs. Most mesmer builds don’t have the volume of healing to really make the most of toughness and there isn’t an armor set with Power/Prec/Vit, so Berserker is usually the best option even if it leaves gaps in your survivability.

When I hit 80, I thought it’d be better to use knight/cleric armor for added survivability and support. I switched to full berserker gear (including accessories) and my survivability is about exactly the same as it was before.

Yeah, Mesmers have a ton of very easy-to-acquire avoidance abilities in the class. As a result they are possibly the easiest class to play using glass cannon gear.

Naturally, that doesn’t mean you have to, and in many situations (and for many players) it may be better for a more hybrid stat spread.

I actually play a tanky sustain mesmer most of the time, and it works out great.

I run a mix of Magi and Cleric gear so I’ve got a decent spread of power and precision, with a TON of healing power. Also I like to self-shatter for heals on my main build (which is temporarily on the shelf until the devs remove the .25 shatter global CD) so I can REALLY tank it out

You can be as tanky as you want. It’s a trade off, more survival stats leave less room for damage. Gear however you like. Pick up groups will often misunderstand what you’re doing, but you’re not playing to gain their approval, just have fun.

I don’t like being squishy so I run around with a bit more balanced setup with a mix of knight’s and valkyrie’s and do just fine. Full knight’s armor slotted with beryl orbs, all knight’s trinkets save one valkyrie amulet, berserker weapons and back piece.

There’s also condition build in full rabid gear, that gives you a ton of toughness which also contributes to your dps in the end thanks to a trait and quality tuning crystals. Paired with staff you can have ridiculous survivability.

I personally run a Knights/Divinity equipment set with ruby orbs in my armor, focused around Omnomberry pie ;ifesteal and an obscene crit rate o fully exploit the pies.

I’m probably less glassy than tank warriors with this spec in any sort of fight that goes past 5 seconds. You really don’t have to go glass cannon to do well as mesmer unless you’re talking about sPvP, where glass cannon is the only build for almost every class.

And to those who say glass cannon is the be all, end all build, I get damage on par with obscene crit damage stats on my melee, and more on my greatsword with most of my attacks, and don’t have to stop to cast my healing skill in most fights. And ignore protection most of the time.

Atm yes. I tryed condtion builds, confusion builds , glamour builds and stuff but you are just lacking compared to simple and brain dead shatter burst. I

You don’t have to be a glass cannon. I run a 20/30/0/0/20 build with the following exotic gear:

Armor: Soldiers (power/tough/vit) with ruby orbs
Jewels: Knights (crafted)
Wep: Zerks with sigil of fire

With that build and gear my Toughness is 1551 and my Health is 17322. DPS is still very high with Power 2122, Crit Chance 47%, and Crit Dmg 51 (for 201% dmg crits).

It’s definitely not glassy, but it’s not tanky either. Don’t lump everything into those two, there’s a big middle ground between them.

As was already mentioned, we don’t take as many hits because we have illusions, combat mobility, and stealth. So we as Mesmers can get away with a bit more glass than other professions.

You will find that my mantra build has a lot of vitality on it (Especially when not using centaur runes for speed boost in wvw), So far from glass cannon :

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Video-Guide-Mantra-Burst-Heal-Build-PvX

I personally run Rabid/some Carrion, atm. High Illusions/Chaos, the rest changes regularily. I’ll admit my crit rate/dmg aren’t spectacular, but I’m primarily condition-based.