Guild Wars 2

I really can’t decide what weapons are good (PvE). I’m only level 9, I have a greatsword, a staff, and a sword/pistol, but I don’t know what combination of them to use. Greatsword is really my favorite out of all of them, but I heard staff + sword/pistol is best.
I tried greatsword/staff, but it makes it so that I have no melee attacks, but plenty of attacks to create distance. However, when I can’t continue backing up for some reason I barely make it out alive.
What I want is mostly ranged, but I can use melee attacks If I can’t get away.
Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions for me?

Actually, with a more toughness/condition-based build (later on, for yerself) … staff’s best at close to medium range. GS is a straight-out sniper tool, the #5 is for those “Oh crap!” moments when yer neck deep in enemies.

With that said, for lower level: try GS for sniping/kiting, Scepter/Sword or Sword/Sword for in close work. Scepter’s not great, but it has decent clone-gen and a block on #2. OH sword has a block on #4. MH Sword has a clone/position swap & lockdown on #3, and 2 seconds on invuln on #2. Also, MH Sword’s #1/2 can hit close-in targets within an arc in front of the user.

Now, once a guy hits 40 – snag 20 Illusions for Illusionary Elasticity, then try the Staff/GS combo again. IE will make Staff #1 and GS #2 bounce once more. This helps out considerably for both weapons.

at low levels i used to run condition, and in hindsight it made the grind even slower. go for power builds like greatsword and sword MH for pure burst. then you can switch much much later when u get better condition builds for a staff and sword/pistol. the reason is that at later levels it will be much mobbier and staff shines at dealing with mobs

I’m pretty much where you are right now, using GS + Sword/Focus. I’m impatient so I find the speed boon from Temporal Curtain to be a big help for out of combat traveling.

I say you should be using all weapons.

As you level up (in PvE), it’s not like you have dedicated builds or stats (generally, just keep your gear updated) so picking a weapons isn’t necessary. Just use them all, find out which gels with your style and figure out some combos with them. Once you’ve gotten a good feel for that weapon, swap to something you don’t use. By lvl 30-40 you should finally be figuring what you want to focus on and go from there.

But even then, using other weapons is a good idea. When I was first lvling my mesmer to 40, I preferred sword/sword and disliked greatsword and torch. After having played a few more classes and coming back to mesmer, I’ve settled on greatsword/sword+torch.

Not sure why I even care for torch, but it’s a unique weapon and I enjoy my aggro-wipe skill without needed to dedicate a utility slot for it (OMG I wish I had more utility slots!!). It can also grant you blast finishers to give AoE chaos armor. Lastly, Phantasmal Mage tends to stick to range so when swarmed, it’s a better chance of stacking up 3 illusions to shatter vs my berserker or swordmen that tend to get gibbed quicker before I can shatter.

I think the only weapon I don’t rotate to is scepter. Not that I don’t like scepter but for lots of clones, vigor + dodge can get me clones. More clones? There’s a utility slot just for that. And since I’m not a condition mesmer, the rest of scepter isn’t appealing.

I would suggest GS/Staff when leveling. You can switch to sword/pistol or sword/focus later (level 40+).