Guild Wars 2

I am a new player that doesn’t like new changes at all! I thought this patch had to help new players, but it made things worse…

As you can see from the title I am level 46. I’ve got stripped from essential leveling traits Greatsword Training, Deceptive Evasion, Sharper Images, Illusionist’s Celerity, Phantasmal Haste… I don’t know what kind of build to run now. I have 14 more levels till I will unlock all those traits that make my class fun and playable again. It will be too long cos mesmers without some of those traits are so… kittenty.

I don’t want to power level to 60. I don’t want to waste money on expensive items so I could have a little easier time. I know most people that visit forums are lvl80 already and have no idea how new players could struggle with these new changes. But yeah, they made mesmers so bad to the point that I want to reroll. Please help me with the build, thanks!

My suggestion is to go to pvp and get the level up tomes there.

Pyroathiest.4168:

My suggestion is to go to pvp and get the level up tomes there.

This

Try Crippling Dissipation with staff, or Phantasmal Fury and Persisting Images with Signet of illusions on sword/focus + greatsword.

I’m saddened to hear about your plight NaGa. What hurts even more is to say that we did tell the devs this would happen and they did it anyway.

Maybe I’m gonna create a 2nd mesmer, just to see how much it sux right now. The mesmer is the only class that really lacks so hard in lower levels. Oh my …

Btw the following things can help:
Sigil of Blood in every weapon set, together with sigil of battle. Allways swap weapons to gain much might. It will help a lot. Buy new gear every 5-10 lv, and also use runes in it, mainly power and might dura (strength). But don’t waste too much money in each set.

I created a second mesmer right before the patch hit. I tried to struggle through leveling in PVE, but it was painful to say the least. So I ended up going to edge of the mists. It was like a 24/7 karma train. Just hop on a tag and go. I got about 20 levels this weekend alone, with a lot of gold and karma! And it was surprisingly fun. The zerg is a friendly bunch even though we were pv-door the entire time. Just make sure to keep up the chatter in chat, and the time will pass easily enough.

Give it a shot!

Dammerung.6419:

I created a second mesmer right before the patch hit. I tried to struggle through leveling in PVE, but it was painful to say the least. So I ended up going to edge of the mists. It was like a 24/7 karma train. Just hop on a tag and go. I got about 20 levels this weekend alone, with a lot of gold and karma! And it was surprisingly fun. The zerg is a friendly bunch even though we were pv-door the entire time. Just make sure to keep up the chatter in chat, and the time will pass easily enough.

Give it a shot!

Not half bad advice actually. I’d recommend bringing greatsword/staff for this sorta thing. Gives you the maximum amount of ranged tagging ability.

I figured this would happen. Mesmer PvE leveling was bad enough, we really relied on certain traits to make up for areas we lack.

I agree with Pyro. Go do sPvP and use the tomes. I’ve been doing that on my Mesmer and it was fun to turn around and have a level 40ish engineer in moments (granted, I used a birthday level 20 scroll).

My second mesmer is currently lvl 40, and he is perfectly fine. He is even wearing level 20 clothes, because I want to run around in style, and don’t want to invest more transmutation charges^^

You don’t need ‘Deceptive Evasion’, you just have to adjust your playstyle. Don’t shatter your illusions, let them live.

Currently playing:

• Greatsword / Staff (Sweapon out to focus when I’m running a longer distance)

• 2-0-0-0-0 (+15% Illusion Damage), prior the second point I used the minor trait in chaos for regeneration.

• Blink and Decoy for mobility and survival-ability , Radiation Field as Asura and Mistfire Wolf for veterans. (Elite suggestions depending on race: Summon 7-Series, Warband Support, Hounds of Balthazar, Take Root or Moa [I don’t have any experience with Norn racials])

• Play-style: Normal mobs: GS 4,2,3 should end them quickly.
  Veterans: GS 4,2,3.Elite,Radiation Field (more Debuffs), swap to staff 5,3, depending on clone uptime 2 through the aether field for chaos armor, maybe press decoy for additional staff clone.

• Don’t shatter until you can kill the mob with the shatter damage, otherwise keep the clones and phantasms attacking.

You should not have any problems leveling in pve this way (at least I don’t have any). Most part of the leveling experience feels more easy than ever, since the have adjusted the npcs. f.e. some skill point challenges are really easy now.

PvE is still to hard for you? Go into the Edge of the Mists, follow a commander. Most of the time you’ll not meet any opponents, but get a lot of event experience, and therefore you can level up quickly.

Thanks a lot for all the advices that you gave me guys! I have never been into Edge of the Mists because story never guided me there. But I will try that place just to see what it’s like!

Teutos.8620, I know that mesmer is still a playable class, but it’s not enjoyable anymore especially after I have seen what it’s like to be a mesmer with traits I’ve mentioned in my first post.
To be more specific, I used greatsword/sword-pistol/focus as my weapons. I tried shatter build but it was too weak for single target damage and too risky due to my lack of experience with this game. Then I tried noob friendly phantasm build. Got me Empowered Illusions with Greatsword Training (love this trait!) then I went for Phantasmal Fury and unlocked Sharper Images (<3).

Now all of that was taken from me! I didn’t even have enough time to enjoy this when ArenaNet decided that I had enough fun and changed everything! Actually I wish I had never tried this build before, maybe I wouldn’t feel as helpless as I am right now.

Anyway I will try Greatsword/Staff now. Staff seemed too difficult to master when i tried it during my early levels. But what kind of stats i should focus on? Still power/precision? Or maybe I should lean more towards condition? Is it ok if I will mix all three? Thanks!

Stats: max power >> precision >> Vitality = Toughness >> Ferocity
Try to completely avoid Condition Damage and Healing Power.

Your Staff Phantasmal Warlock scales with your power and precision and with the number of condition on the target, and therefore even the staff scales better with power than condition damage.

I know, that less CD on the summoning skills is more fun, but the leveling does not take too long, so you’ll enjoy them soon enough again. In the meantime it should still be possible to have fun leveling without any problems.

Maybe also take a look at which PvE Maps you have not yet completed, are designed for lower levels.

For PvE, condition is a bit slow. It has been an issue even for level 80 conditionmancer (condition necro), and mesmer has bigger problem due to random conditions. Power/precision is a solid choice. But if you want GS/staff mesmer can tag players in Edge of the Mist well, just need to stay on the back line of zergs.

Mesmer is by far the most tedious to level of the classes. With the new PvP reward tracks, you do get +1 level tomes quite often.

I would suggest using Mantra of Pain when leveling. If you cast it between groups of mobs, it helps with the DPS a lot. I know it made my life easier.

Dammerung.6419:

I created a second mesmer right before the patch hit. I tried to struggle through leveling in PVE, but it was painful to say the least. So I ended up going to edge of the mists. It was like a 24/7 karma train. Just hop on a tag and go. I got about 20 levels this weekend alone, with a lot of gold and karma! And it was surprisingly fun. The zerg is a friendly bunch even though we were pv-door the entire time. Just make sure to keep up the chatter in chat, and the time will pass easily enough.

Give it a shot!

I can confirm that Edge of the Mist – altough it is a total failure from a PvP point of view – it’s perfect for farming experience, karma, gold and wvw ranks.

Menaka.5092:

Dammerung.6419:

I created a second mesmer right before the patch hit. I tried to struggle through leveling in PVE, but it was painful to say the least. So I ended up going to edge of the mists. It was like a 24/7 karma train. Just hop on a tag and go. I got about 20 levels this weekend alone, with a lot of gold and karma! And it was surprisingly fun. The zerg is a friendly bunch even though we were pv-door the entire time. Just make sure to keep up the chatter in chat, and the time will pass easily enough.

Give it a shot!

I can confirm that Edge of the Mist – altough it is a total failure from a PvP point of view – it’s perfect for farming experience, karma, gold and wvw ranks.

I used to ignore rare gears, major sigils and runes while leveling. With the new restriction on unlocking traits, those seems to become a necessity for mesmer.