Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone!

An insight just hit me and I decided, it would be best for me to go for a Mesmer, after Warrior and Guardian.
Caster, light armor, Sword + Shield (got those delicious Nightmare Frac weapons)
But I still have to level him up.

Now, I’m using that infamous leveling build on that board, using S/S or S/F + Staff and it’s already lots of fun.
Any recommendations, on which traitlines to use for leveling?

Second, I have quite a lot of Ascended Light on my Necro and I’m willing to change stats on it for my Mesmer – now I can’t decide, which stats to choose?
It says Berserker, with Commander leggins and Leadership runes etc..
Now, Leadership is quite hard to get by and it also says, I am completely fine with 4x Traveler + 2x Platinum Doubloon?
And how is Ministrel, compared to Berserker?

I’d like to Tank some day in raids, doing Fractals up to 100 (so…all) and lots of open world. Is there a setup, I can use for all of that stuff?

Would highly appreciate your input on that topic!

Let’s start with leveling. I haven’t leveled a mesmer in a very long time, so I’m just throwing out how I might approach it with what I know now.

In open world, since things generally die pretty fast and due to illusions not being able to re-target, I would probably go with traitlines that help with illusion generation. I would start with Dueling (1 1 3) for the access to fury, blinds on shatter, and clone generation on dodge. At slightly higher levels, when your second traitline unlocks, mobs get a bit tougher, and you might have a slightly more extended fight. The Illusions traitline (2 1 2) gives you access to quicker phantasm generation, might on shatter, and a bit more damage for shatters. Last, when you’re near the end of leveling, grab Domination (2 1 2) for general increased damage for shattering.

Generally speaking, you can start with any of those three traitlines and really be fine. It’s a full-glass approach though, so you’d be relying on blinds and dodging for most of your survival.

Things get trickier in the HoT maps since everything does increased damage, takes much more damage to kill, and condis run wild. I have a condi set I like to play for the map metas, but in general, I’m more survivable using the raid set up—the heal and condi clear on shatter in Inspiration really helps with sustain. Due to the longer fights, clone generation once you have chrono isn’t as big of a problem imo.

If you’re looking for a set up that would allow you to do fractals, raids, and open world, I would avoid minstrel and go with one of the berserker set ups. Minstrel doesn’t really work for fractals and open world because you pretty much don’t do any damage. If you don’t WvW or run dragonstand like a madman, go with the full zerker + 4x Traveler +2x Platinum Doubloon set up. Your biggest cost will still be the sigil of concentration.

While it can be helpful to have a minstrel set for tanking in raids, the reality is a) not all encounters require a tank; b) you can tank some encounters with the zerker set up; and c) you won’t be tanking when you first get into raids. Tanking requires some experience with the encounters so that you’re familiar with how the fight goes and how to do your rotation and save it when it goes wrong (at minimum). As the tank, you have more responsibility than the second chrono, and you likely won’t be taking that role straight off the bat.

While having a minstrel’s set for tanking difficult encounters such as deimos or xera can be helpful, you can tank vale guardian, gorseval, and keep construct with your zerk set up + some toughness trinkets. In fact, it’s probably better to tank these with the zerker set up because you’ll still be doing damage. If you’re doing no-updraft gorseval, the extra DPS can make the difference (especially if you PUG). You would also probably start learning to tank at those encounters as well.

Since chronos generally don’t do a ton of damage, you also have the option of going marauder’s for some extra vitaility for survival in high level fractals. It’s not “optimal” but if it means the difference between keeping quickness for your party at 100% vs downing and having that drop, I’d go with the slightly less optimal build. You do have a ton of access to evades, blocks, and invulnerability, so if you’re good with using these active defensives, you should be able to go full zerker without an issue.

Feel free to send me a message in game if you have any more questions! I’m on NA.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhUQNAs+dncfCFohlfC+fCEgiFVjqOZn2q9MIGipjMAGhiD-ThSBQBUS9lAt8wFVy9tdAuiyhDqCBAOJAT8BAgH9CmRJYAgDghLcEOY9qv+6r31DP8wDPcpACckF-e

That’s what I came up with by now, can it be used as a general support / dps build?
I could improve it further, by using Leadership, and for tanking – if I ever want to – can change my Rings etc (it’s the Living World stuff) to even more Commander -> more Toughness + more Concentration, e.g. for 100% boon duration.

Would it work like this for fractals, even without the Leadership runes and without the expensive buff food?
Should I keep the Sharpening Stones for more Power, or am I better off with using the Oil for increased Precision?
(Don’t wonder about the infusions, ofc I will use the +9 and +7 variants of it.)
Oh, and – Power of Precision infusions?

If I only put the Sigill of Concentration on the Mainhand, and only use the Sword in one slot, second slot is only off-hand, does it still trigger on swap effects?
Or do I have to get 2 Sigils and put them onto the off-hand?

Focus is not the only off-hand I will use, of course I will have another sword – maybe get and Greatsword or alike, for passages I really need to range (Volcanic for example, can’t stand melee on that boss..)
Well….Wall of text end, hope you can answer all my questions, as it seems quite reasonable and reaches out to 100% buff and very offensive stats in general

For leveling, not fractals or any content once you are finished with leveling (reach 80). I’d just stick to the old fashioned GS / Staff. Still works the best.

Here is a rough outline of it:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQJARWlsnhG1YZawTNwtGLzGUZAqdyQH+VOu5IWRLB-ThCFABC8AAkb/BsUC22RAAgLAQa6AUTTA3HCAlU+Vo6PAA-e

Now let me explain why this works great for leveling.

1. You have only 2 weapons to worry about, keep them both in your bag, I mean, the ones that you will level into while in the field and imemdiately switch to them as soon as you can equip them. Spares you trips to nearest trade post and possibly break your quests and leveling streak.

2. tons of clones that will often tank mobs for you so you wont die.

3. stealth so you won’t die, can get pass mobs to objectives etc. such as hero points, event sites etc.

4. both offensive and defensive, GS is your offensive weapon while staff is your defensive, when things get rough, swap to staff, pop staff 2 and staff 4 FTW.

5. reflects on your heal skill, very important, “mirror” has a very low CD and is almost spammable, and this comes in incredibly useful because tehre are a ton of basic ranged projectile mobs in the game, double that in the vanila game where you’ll be leveling til you can get to HOT maps.

6. in the Chaos trait line, master trait, both Bountiful Disilutionment and Prismatic Understanding are incredibly useful for leveling. Pick whichever one you choose.

gear wise its very simple, stick with direct power, since condi at low and mid levels sucks. equip GS with offensive sigils and staff with defensive, keep about half your gear PVT (soldiers) the otehr half bersekers, adjust when you hit a rough spot. As you level you will find some level ranges are very easy and all you need is berserker while otehrs are poorly balanced and you may need as much as 3/4 of your gear soldiers if you want very smooth gameplay.

Consumables:

There are utilities and food buffs that give 15% xp, not just 10%, and they stack, there was even something on trade post that gave 20% though I forgot their names. If I were leveling I would run those, not care about 1 or 2 % extra crit rate or miniscule extra DPS.

Once you hit 80 you have a wide plethora of options, do yourself a favor and don’t paint yourself into a single corner with a single gear set because different areas of the game will run and require different builds. you can start with safer side exotics then scale down the defenses and up the DPS from there.

And of course once you get chrono unlocked everything will change, but by then you will have a better idea about what to do with it and you won’t need to ask on the forums.