Guild Wars 2

Hello guys,

I do realize that the expression ‘roamer’ is usually used in PvP terms, but what I’d like to do in PvE with my future mesmer is kind of close to WvW roaming. So…

What I mean by that is open-world bosses (Teq, Destroyer, Temples, etc.), solo PvE, farming and stuff. I have a dungeon-goer guardian, and my beloved main: a thief. The thief is a good ‘PvE roamer’ imho, but I dont want to get bored of her. Guardian has mobility issues… I got a ranger as well and she has nice utilities and weapon skills for solo PvE, but her damage sucks. Even now that she’s fully decked out in exotics (bah… what a waste of gold that was to gear her up). Warriors are good at mobility, but only mediocre at tagging stuff. Imho a ranged weapon that has this ‘bounce effect’ (thief – shortbow, ranger – mainhand axe) is the best for tagging stuff in group events, and also useful when you solo-fight a group of mobs that are scattered all over the place. (Cleaving does a lot more damage, but many times its hard/impossible to make mobs stack on eachother.)

So all in all – without playing one myself – the best option seemed to me to roll a mesmer. Nice mobility, a lot of tricky stuff (so that you can skip mobs easily when you go for rich gathering nodes or skill points or whatever – stealth, teleport, lots of AI). My question to the mesmer community is first and foremost about damage. Will my mesmer cut through stuff faster than my ranger? And in general, am I missing something? It would be a pity to level an other toon to 80 just to find out that it sucks just like my ranger.

Please beware, that the above assumptions about the mesmer class are solely based on other players’ experience, I dont have any on my own. So they may as well be wrong.

I’ve played mesmer since beta… believe me if you want a class that can run around well mesmers are a bad choice. If you want a class that can tag well, mesmers are a bad choice…

Seriously… mesmers are (imho) the worst taggers in the game…

Mice.8921:

I’ve played mesmer since beta… believe me if you want a class that can crawl around like a snail mesmers are the perfect choice. If you want a class that can tag well, guardians are a good choice…

FTFY, think positive!

its true ^

mesmers got in combat high mobility tho, nic roaming as mes, but thats really all u got

I love my mesmer, and I’d never say it “sucks”.

You will be very slow as far as getting around if you don’t have a full set of Superior Rune of the Traveler and/or use Focus 4 for a minor speed boost.

Greatsword is actually pretty good for tagging in events due to the bounce effect, and the fact that your phantasms can do quite a bit of AOE damage. However, it’s not the best dps weapon and you’ll want to keep a sword/X on hand for when you’re not concerned with doing a lot of AOE.

From what I’ve read from others though, mesmer is more of a utility class (for dungeons/fractals/WvW) than a class that is brought for their dps.

On their own, a mesmer hits like wet tissue. The highest you’ll probably see from Blurred Frenzy is about 10k or slightly higher, depending on how many buffs you can get from your team and your target’s vulnerability stacks. Mesmers are very reliant on their phantasms for high DPS, but because it can be difficult to keep 3 swordsmen up against a boss that uses AoEs and cleaving melee attacks (which is to say nearly every boss in dungeons where DPS really matters), you’re not going to be outputting that much damage at all.

However, you are the only class that can maintain 100% reflection uptime using your traited wardens, so in any fight that is rich in blockable projectiles, your DPS will soar. Lupicus is an excellent example, a single Feedback in phase 2 when he does his barrage can easily wipe off over 25% of his bar assuming all reflected projectiles crit.

Don’t misunderstand me, like every class, mesmer can be set up to PvE “roam” well using traveler runes, lining up the GS, etc… BUT I understood that op was looking for a good class for tagging, and mesmer just isn’t his best bet… ofc if you want to play mesmer, they’re more than viable, and they’re amazing in dungeons…

Try 20/20/0/0/30 Greatsword & Staff. Between 12sec iZerker, chaos storm, and shatters, you can tag pretty well; and you have good ranged dps w GS. It’s also good practice learning to use shatters.