Guild Wars 2

Hello :)

After getting a bit bored of ranger, I had to think about which class to play. Mesmer was always a gw1 favorite, though it has gone through a rather dramatic change since then. I’ve begun to get into the profession (level 19 at the moment), though I’ve noticed that every new monster I fight requires me to set up clones, then indirectly dispatch the enemy through careful placement of phantasms and well-timed shatter skills.

This is fine. It’s lovely, and excellent, until the 1000th enemy. I’ve grown a bit tired of having to spend a long time trying to eliminate a single enemy. It would be lovely to know if things get better as my traits increase. I’m not asking for a better pve class than ranger/warrior/guardian – I just like the idea of relaxing a li’l bit, and not having to focus every battle.

As for weapons: I use all kinds. Sword seems like the damage-dealer alongside greatsword, though I like being able to switch weapons on occasion. Variety makes the game more fun.

Any suggestions or thoughts? :)

x

As nobody seemed to care to answer yet, I’ll give it a try.

At first, the early levels (until ~40) are very slow and don’t reflect how the class feels later on. You miss absolutely important traits like spawning clones on dodge or one additional bounce for bouncing attacks. Believe me, it gets better and basically every Mesmer can confirm that.

Also, Sword is one of the more potent weapons but it’s not feasible early on. I tried it too, at first but in the mid twenties I realised you take too much damage for too little gain. As a scholar class it’s just not that good to stay in melee range almost 100% of the time, no matter if you use S/S or S/F. At least until you have good enough gear to benefit from the swords good damage output.

I suggest using the Greatsword or (my preferance, as it’s my favourite weapon) Staff as ‘main’ weapon, whatever suits you better. With both you can stay at a good range, letting your illusions tank for you while you either deal direct damage.
Especially Staff focuses more on the gimmicks that make Mesmer that great (for example, you have two sources of Chaos Armor when Staff is equpped) and Chaos Storm is a great utility along with sufficient AoE damage. Of course, the Greatsword offers more AoE damage but has less utility.
As secondary weapon, I suggest a combination of Sword or Scepter along with Pistol or Focus. Both iWarden and iDuelist are great Phantasms and Temporal Curtain and Magic Bullet are insane utility. Torch is sadly pretty kitteny for everything outside of PvP and Sword offhand is imo meh compared to Focus or Pistol but can work.

As a last advice, Null Field is THE to-go slot for utility and Feedback works wonders against every enemy that’s reliant on projectiles.
And again, don’t get fooled by the early levels. Once you get certain traits, it feels like playing a totally different class.

I am also leveling a Mesmer, and as many of my observations go along with dare’s analysis, I’ll just throw in my two copper.

First off, staff is absolutely the best primary weapon to run with. I use Sword/Focus as my secondary weapons, but the focus can easily be swapper for a pistol. Scepter isn’t terrible, but I feel like it doesn’t do anything that Staff + Sword can’t do better (aside from confusion). But don’t rely too much on Sword, being in melee range is dangerous.

For utility skills, I agree that Null Field and Feedback are great skills to use. I also highly recommend Mirror Images. With staff, being able to bring up 3 clones almost instantly is a massive benefit when you just want to kill one enemy really quickly. For the healing skill, Ether Feast all the way.

Edit: Just realized dare didn’t bring up another reason why Staff is amazing: the clones are the most useful clones that Mesmers have access to.
Most clones: Shatter/Tank fodder
Sword clones: Applies vulnerability to enemy
Staff clones: Applies vulnerability, burning, and bleeding to enemy and applies Might and Fury to you/allies

I’m pretty new on Mesmer, so this might be terrible advice, but the second tier skill “Mirror Images” is pretty nice for getting fights done quickly. It drops two clones right away, and if you’re on GS, and you open with this at max range, then immediately go into GS 2, you get two clones and yourself doing max damage, with a third clone gaining damage as the mob closes in on yourself and the two initial clones.

Once the mob has closed enough, you can 5 them back, or just shatter.

Again, this may be terrible advice, but it chews through mobs pretty quick for me.

After lvl 40 have a try with my guide Shatter cat. Its extremly fun if you like acctive gameplay. It also in my oppinion make you a better player after a while as you need to be in game mode alot to be effective (cant sleep and play).

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/guide-WvWvW-Shatter-cat/page/2#post786868

Guide ofc is made for wvwvw but I use the build in pve aswell with some chnages to skills depending on what I do.

Video strategy guide for wvwvw:

Here is wht staff pistol/sword combo is so amazing:
Obs dont miss the 7:25 —--> part.

GL on your mesmer and happy you joined your secret ops ranks.

Thank you very much for your replies. This has been incredibly helpful :)

I’ve had to browse a lot of threads to learn why people enjoy mesmer, though this here has been way more informative than other threads. I don’t doubt that I’ll enjoy mesmer now <3. It may take a bit longer to beat enemies, but it’s absolutely fabulous in style, and the playstyle after level 40 looks incredibly appealing.

Also thank you to dare for reviving this thread. I was getting discouraged at the 0 replies thing. <3 Hearts, I mean it :D

I love Osicat’s build, huge advocate for it!

Here are my two cents also. When I was leveling, I found the GS and sword/pistol to be a good combo for early on. GS has a nice slow/damage in iBerserker and encourages you to kite with the damage increase w/ range on attack 1. Plus the knock-back is nice in emergencies. I switched to the staff once I got higher because it is a nice defensive aoe in staff 5 (getting aegis is awesome! plus doing staff 2 inside of chaos storm gives you staff 4 for free and a clone!) and staff 4 is also great for gaining boons when things hit you. Then sword is really good because the basic attack does nice consistent damage and removes boons on enemy and sword 2 gives you invulnerability with massive damage. (Saved my kitten more than once.) Pistol gives you a good multi-target controller ability and a high damage phantasm which is great!

My biggest problem early on was creating enough clones. It was very hard until I got dueling to 20 and got deceptive evasion. Once I could create clones quickly between that and mirror images, it got a lot easier.

Osicat’s build is a shatter build, which means you will be creating lots of clones and killing them to do lots of damage. It’s a balance of bouncing between close and far away while your cool-downs come back. Primary stats are power, precision and crit. I have a ranger friend who says he is considering making a mesmer just because I kill things faster than him in Orr. This class is not for the lazy I will admit that. You have to be constantly moving and anticipating. It takes a while to get used to, but it’s very rewarding in the end.

I just wanted to thank you guys for the advice in this thread! I too have just started a Mesmer. Created it on Saturday night and hit 22 last night. Best word I can use to describe it is…Consuming.

I love it.

Can’t wait to get to 40 and try Osicat’s build. Thanks for the video!

Since the last patch I too have switched to Osicat’s shatter build from a GS reliant build. It is a totally different style of play that is more intense and engaging. Takes a bit to get use to.

The downside for me is my gear and current funds. I do not have berzerker gear or air runes. Without the proper gear you don’t get the spikes the build is capable of but it is still effective. You are slow without the focus offhand and lack of proper runes.

I play mostly WvWvW and was getting tired of the perma-stealthed thieves beating me with a GS build. The shatter build provides much better survival against them and quite often makes alot of them run away.