New Mesmer. Tips?
When you get traits, your first goal is 5 into illusions. Period. No matter what. Having all your illusion making skills on a -20% CD is beautiful.
Learn your different weapons. For leveling up, the staff is very useful as a survival tool and a way to stack conditions/boons! This is great at lower levels. As you get more comfortable, working in the sword is also a great idea for when you -have- to deal with melee.
Your offhands are all good – But circumstance specific in their execution. The pistol is great in sPvP and single target boss fights, but the focus is amazing for PvE and any ranged bosses you encounter.
Remember at all times that your clones count as people! You can avoid projectiles by hiding behind them and making them take the shot instead of you. But at the same time, don’t be afraid to shatter your illusions liberally! Mesmers can produce illusions rapidly, sometimes without even trying, so there will never be a shortage of illusions for you to use.
If you have 3 phantasms up, but your phantasm and clone skills are off CD? shatter them. It may seem counter productive, but immediately after shattering you can have a fresh phantasm and clone (or 2) up replacing them. The new phantasm will attack instantly, instead of needing to wait for a recharge.
There’s lots of little tips and tricks you can pick up through experience as to what suits you best as well, so good luck on your mesmer!
Get a staff and greatsword, nice damage and nice survivability. Use decoy+mirror image as utilities, with maybe a phantasmal defender as the third. This gives you very nice on demand clones that can be shattered for nice mind wreck damage.
Never get stuck with using just one weapon set, always alternate between both.
Let Valkyries guide me to my destiny.