Guild Wars 2

I just started playing again and just got my first level 80 (mesmer)! I am wondering if a I should have made a different class as my first character. I am fine in groups and have learned a few dungeons but when it comes to soloing I find my damage/survivability is lacking.

I’m in full assassins with berserker weapons. I jumped into living story season 2 episode 1 (to start from the beginning) and have been getting destroyed. Should I be using Knights or soldiers gear to do these stories? It just seems I don’t yet know how to deal with the inquest groups with 2 assassins and a gernaider or the spinning golems as my clones/phantasm get destroyed.

Also for reference I am running a mantra build. Any advice?

As I remember, those were tough fights. I do a lot of my open world/LS as a staff/gs shatter build because it’s fun and you have distance. I always kill the assassins first. I’m sure other people here use a different build, and maybe even reflects.

As more me, I just prioritize targets and move around a lot. Save dodges for the grenadier barrages and the golem projectiles.

What weapons are you using?

Gz on 80 and welcome to mesmerworld. Solo can be a bit hard at first, mesmer has a looong tough learning curve since we use an active defence. This becomes very clear when soloing in pvp and pve. With active I mean we have to use skills to prevent damage instead of high armor as a warrior for example or high vitality as a necro.

I don’t play much PVE but I just tried the new Torment Shatter a little bit in PVE (I also solo everything) and it works pretty good. People will probably shout “staaap you can only play power mesmer in pve” but since you solo I think condition could be feasible. The mobs will chase you around and 20 stacks of torment melts kitten down.
With a torment shatter you run either Rabid or Dire with high toughness. As I said I’m no PVEer so there are probably better builds.

Edit:
Here is the build thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Maim-The-Disillusioned-Impressions/first#post4548527

While conditions are viable for solo Mesmer in pve, they aren’t necessary here. What is necessary is lots of reflects. The grenadier and most ranged inquest attacks in general are reflectable. Use a traited focus and feedback to kill the nasty ranged mobs and then kite around the melee ones at your leisure.

Thanks for the advice. I play with swod/focus in main set and /sword /pistol in the other set. I use feedback, warden and temoral curtin as often as I can. However if i recal the last fight I did was two spinning golems and two assassins.

The assassins keep going invis then appear right on me. I keep moving but they hit so hard and not much I can do with all the other stuff going on, I think in that fight I was s/s mainly and basically was using sword block on cool down. I went down a lot.

Assassins are similar to thieves. Most skills occur in a 1-2 pattern, as in you can count 1…2… and dodge or use an evade type skill. Perhaps save your Blurred Frenzy for when they pop stealth, or you can dodge. If you have traited into Illusions and have the grandmaster Illusionary Persona, you can pop Distortion (F4) on yourself. I might suggest swapping out one of your weapon sets for something else (like staff, for defensive purposes). You don’t have to keep it for the whole chapter, but I often swap out my weapons as the situation requires it.

Unhygienix.2834:

Thanks for the advice. I play with swod/focus in main set and /sword /pistol in the other set. I use feedback, warden and temoral curtin as often as I can. However if i recal the last fight I did was two spinning golems and two assassins.

S/s+s/f is the preferred dungeon set, but I find that it’s often suboptimal for open world stuff, including living story. My default set is s/f+gs. That provides a bit more control and allows you to actually do some kiting as necessary.

I play full phantasm in LS. I always bring iDisenchanter, lots of mobs with boon spamming and condi now (in LS). Never really had problems since then.

As Fay, my default is s/f+gs in PvE/LS.

Unhygienix, congragulations and welcome to mesmer land!

You’ve chosen a great and versatile class that isnt as simple as some of the others in the game (cough warrior).

I think what many others have directed you to is right, in PvE you want to run Sword/Focus GS and get your reflects traited. However, you said in your first post that you’re full Assassins with Zerker Weapons, and this means that you’re, in fact geared perfectly to go and insta-gib people in World vs World if you choose to play a Shatter style build.

Here’s how it would work. Watch this carefully, and a couple times. Joe is pretty good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APW_UEeiQRE

grats! hope you enjoy (moa so fun – but i digress).

for solo consider using your blink and portals to leverage the npcs in the LS. That is what i do (takes me a while, but I don’t really mind so much).

anyway, have fun with it!