Guild Wars 2

Howdy howdy. I’m still new to GW2. Picked it up in 2014 but didnt really get too far into it with my Warrior.

Recently picked it back up and decided to run an elementalist which was fun until I saw a Mesmer, and decided to try out another Mesmer. This time Ive been loving it.

My specific questions are on what’s “gooood” for a Mesmer. I’ve been enjoying both shatter and phantasms, but from what I’ve read it seems like I should be picking between one and the other generally.

Im running a Greatsword and a Sword/Pistol. Though I have tried Staff and Scepter which were both ok (loving the GS. It’s been a constant for me) Torch was very “meh”

Signet of Ether
Mirror Images
Sig of Inspiration
Blink

And I have all of no specializations with like 20 free points for it and Im level 22.

I know Im not optimized yet because of how many free resources I have, which is part of why Im here, so I can make better use of my resources.

PvE, WvW, PvP?

right now PvE. Never done PvP or WvW

Well, unfortunately, Mesmer rely a lot more on their Specializations than other classes do. So, you may not feel like the most awesome class leveling up.

I would definitely hold on to GS since fighting things at a range can make things less stressful. Staff, Torch, and Scepter are about the only weapons that rarely see a use in PvE. Main-hand Sword is one of the best weapons (if not the best) for Mesmers so I would suggest keeping it wielded at all times. Offhand Sword is your big damage dealer followed by Pistol whose Phantasm stays at a range. Focus is good for projectile control and swiftness but gets much better when you can trait it.

Healing? For now you may want to stick to Either Ether Feast or Signet of Ether. The Mantra heal can be good but is unfortunately one of those that requires a Trait or two to really shine.

Utility skills? That one’s really up to you. Decoy and Mirror images are great for distracting mobs. Blink and portals are good for moving around or saving time travelling around but may not be the most straight forward skills to use. Mantras are my personal favorite for leveling as they’re simple to use, and you’ll have plenty of time to use them in open World.

Specializations? I would start out with dueling as you get the ever important Vigor boon upfront. You also have a few items to boost your own damage as well as beef up your Phantasms. A few trickery options in this line as well.

From there, it’s a matter of personal preference. Domination is another damage booster and promotes interrupts, Illusions reduce your Shatter and Illusion skills’ CD’s, Inspirations is great for additional survivability. That leave chaos which doesn’t offer too much for PvE other than a trait or two.

Honestly, if you have time I would recommend you read a guide such a Sandy’s who breaks down the class as well as offering tips and tricks.

I’ve been enjoying it pre specialization, so I imagine I’ll do fine.

Go team greatsword! I will try a second sword, I find I often use the GS most because of its wide variety of offensive powers. I like the main hand sword stuff but havent tried dual wielding yet.

I’ll stick with my Sig, I like regeneration.

MI seems like a weird power. Once I could have sworn I cast it without a target and so they just stuck around till I popped them with a shatter. I often find that when i want to use it, I already have 2 things up, but when I switch it to Phantasmal defender I always find myself wishing i had it. Will look at Decoy. And Im liking blink.

My big weird one is sig of inspiration. Getting swiftness is great, getting random boons is also good. Buuuut my optimization training from other games (D&D 4e/5e and Pathfinder) has me very much not liking the randomness, and Im not sure if that auto swift is really good enough to justify it over something that might see me better use (like a signet or something thats going to give me more mileage then random effects.)

Dueling ahoy. Illusion sounds nice as I find myself using shatter a lot. Should I invest all out in one spec or should i pace it with 2 or 3 specs?

And I am planning on doing some reading (Accompanying a family member to the doctor’s office, so I will have time to read.) I was going to go for the guide here, but it looks like the one you provided is much more up to date for the current game.

Last q: How important is the expansion for me right now?

Hello fellow DnD Player!!

I’m a personal fan of Signet of Ether for Healing. Not so much for the healing but rather I can start off an encounter with 3 Phantasm (P.SummonSkill 1 -> Sig + PSummonSkill 1 -> Weapon Swap -> P.SummonSkill2).

Signet of Inspirations is generally recommended because of the swiftness, tbh. Running around in open world is a big drag more so without swiftness. That, and Mesmers aren’t the world’s most mobile class (shenanigans put aside). Though at higher levels the Active effect of boon copying has some rather interesting payoffs if you can set it up correctly, but that’s something for you to test out later.

Spec investment? Up to you. By level 80 you will have enough points to fully unlock your 5 core specialization so there’s no chance of you accidentally locking yourself out of a trait or never being able to unlock it. The extra Hero challenges you see will help you speed up unlocking your traits but will also be used if you ever buy the expansion and want to unlock your class’s “Prestige Class” which comes in the form of an overhauled 6th Specialization (New weapon, skills, modified class mechanic).

Speaking of the expansion, you’re not missing out on too much (assuming you have the core game). There’s 4 new maps, a continuation of the Storyline, new equipment stats, Mastery System, new class Specializations, new class, etc. I’m generalizing here, but a good portion of the game can still be accessed through just the core game alone. Personally, I’m the type of player who wants to complete it all so getting the expansion was more or less mandatory knowing I wasn’t “finished” with the game until I got it.

Overall, Mesmer plays much more dynamically than some of the other classes. What I mean by that is this class often has to switch up builds on the fly during an instance to where some other classes stick to one static build and just roll with that. Having said that, there’s even more emphasis on Mesmer needing to know what they’re capable of.

The guide in my signature might be helpful.

Yay for DnD buddies!

So thats a double yarp on my signets. Reassurance on my specializations

That looks like a “You only really want the expansion after you max your level.” because it doesnt seem to be giving me much before that.

And Ive been seeing that, Mes feels like a very strategic class and has been pretty fun.

Kai- Will def look at your guide as well.

Kai’s guide is pretty good for 1-80 (just finished reading it, and it’s pretty hilarious as well). The one I linked from Sandy caters a bit to 80’s, but I like that he goes in depth on the skills.

All classes except for Engineer and Revenant (HoT Exclusive) have signets. So while you can maintain a passive effect you can sacrifice it for a more potent active effect.

Chronomancer has been regarded as one of the best Elite Specs in the expansion so I definitely would recommend the purchase of HoT for that reason alone. Before that though, core Mesmer is still lots of fun and is still quite potent. Though, Chronomancer lets you do silly things like use a utility skil back-to-back…..to-back-to-back.

If you have any questions regarding the class feel free to hit me in game, I’m mostly on during 6pm CST for a few hours on the weekdays (mileage varies on the weekends).

Will do, and only thing I really did wrong was forget I have to choose which specialization’s are active. O_O

Buuuut I’ll be fine. I’ve already hunted down like 10 hero points, i’ll just make sure to keep pumping domination until I can toss the Dualist spec on.

Tried dual wielding and had a blast, it’s really helped my aoe game and theres something cool about switching between a great sword and 2 long swords

Going to read Kai’s guide this morning, took a look yesterday and liked it but RL got in the way (stupid problems with stupid people.)

make that run duelist, which thankfully I invested the most points into anyways

Yeah, long term you only get to choose from 3 Specializations to equip from the 5/6 Specs you have available (note that a class’s Elite Spec can only occupy the 3rd slot). You can change all that on the fly once you’ve unlocked the Specs and individual traits…which you’ll be doing A LOT.

Personally, when I had a core Mesmer I ran Sword/Sword + Sword/Pistol unless Reflects were needed in which case I ran Sword/Focus.

Oh! that reminds me. You don’t have to fill all your weapon slots when dual wielding. What I mean by that is if you plan to use Sword for both your weapon sets you can slot Sword in your mainhand in one weapon set and leave the main hand blank for your second weapon set; you only need to slot in the off hand you’ll be using since the mainhand sword will be “inherited” from the other weapon set.

This helps long term cutdown on costs since you can have one main hand weapon that is used in both your weapon swaps. That way you don’t have to budget for double to weapons.

I will recall it, but im fairly happy with my Great sword.

Annnd yeah, all the guides Ive seen generally say that as mes you are going to be swapping your specs a lot as well as your abilities and maybe even weapon sets.