Guild Wars 2

The new and improved compendium is available, check here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Leveling-Open-World-Compendium-1/first#post5342268

Kai’s Complete PvE Compendium

Welcome to Kai’s new complete guide to PvE. The old one has reached its editability, time to pack everything and more in a new one.

Disclaimer: The intention of this compendium is to offer guides that work in a wide array of content. The theme is more “casual” for a reason – getting into the game and the mechanics is the first step, perfection itself a whole journey. Discussion is welcome, but I do not intend to add builds that only work in very specific aspects of the game (like high level fractals or dungeon speed running).

Contents:

1. Leveling Guide

1.1 Leveling Guide: Part 1 – The Basics
1.1.1 General Advice: Did you know?
1.1.2 What grinds my gears: Stuff

1.2 Leveling Guide: Part 2 – Leveling
1.2.1 Leveling 1-20: Me, Myself and I – How to blow up the guy in the mirror.
1.2.2 Leveling 21-44: I see myself four times. I must be trunken twice.
1.2.3 Leveling 45-70: Leveling 45-70: Nothing but an illusion, until it blows up in your face.
1.2.4 Leveling 71-80: All good things come to an end.

1.3 Leveling 1-80: TL;DR Version

2. Build Section

The Lazy Kai Build 2.0
TBD

Most parts have been update by now, thank you for your patience.

You can find the original thread over here:
Lazy Kai’s Guide to PvE

1.1 Leveling Guide: Part 1 – The Basics

Leveling as a Mesmer is – unfortunately – not as lazy as most other classes. So before you can get lazy, you will have to make your way to the pinnacle of existence, known as level 80.

There are several stages in the ascend of a new Mesmer, and I will try to cover the shifts as simple as possible.

1.1.1 General Advice: Did you know?

Nourishment – Food:

There is a plethora of food in Guild Wars 2. The good point – some of it is dirt cheap. Why would you bother? Well, most food give a 10% experience boost (some 15%) for all kills, which will, over time, sum up. The food is actually so cheap, even a level 2 can get some off the auction house (just search for food and sort by price). So just buy it. You won’t get much food in the open world, unless you become a cook, but that’s another topic…

Nourishment – Utility:

As with food, utility buffs (from slayer potions, maintenance oils, sharpening stones and tuning crystals) also offer a 10% experience boost. The great thing is, one food buff and one utility buff will stack. They are all crafted by thier respective professions, or you can simply buy some off the auction house.

Boosters:

Boosters can further improve your leveling speed. They can be randomly aquired out of Black Lion Chests or directly from the Gem Store or for Laurel (reward for daily quest). They will stack with each other and potions/food. Combining an Experience Booster, an Improved Experience Booster and a Laureate Experience Booster will already give you additional 180% kill experience. This can be pushed by a further 100% with a Kill Streak Experience Booster, as long as you keep up with killing things.
If you want to invest real money to level, boosters can be a great help to speed things up, but they are in no way a necessity. My advice is to at least save your Laurels for gear instead of investing them in boosters.

1.1.2 What grinds my gears: Stuff

Armor:

Power is what you want as primary stat. Secondary is Precision. If both is on the armor, perfect. Leveling is all about killing things fast, this will help.
Personal advise: Armor is cheap on the trading post, most of the time, you can get level accurate stuff for about the same coin it will give you back when you sell it to a merchant. Keep your gear up-to-date.

Weapons:

Greatsword + Sword/Focus, same stats/advise as armor.

What to put in slots:

While leveling you will change your equipment – a lot. In early levels probably several times a play session. So buying upgrade components is not the best idea. You will probably find yourself running around with empty slots on your armor most of the time.
You can find some upgrade items from different sources, use them if they offer useful buffs.
Later on it is very helpful to at least choose a sigil for your weapon to help you with an area you feel lacking (probably condition removal or simply more damage).

Gathering and salvaging:

The first things you should buy the moment you earned your first few coppers are some gathering tools and salvage kits.
Gathering will give you experience and resources you need for crafting, that again will also give you experience (you can level a character completely with crafting).
Salvaging will also give you resources and will help you to manage your limited inventory space.

1.2 Leveling Guide: Part 2 – Leveling

1.2.1 Leveling 1-20: Me, Myself and I – How to blow up the guy in the mirror.

Here we go, after wasting hours on the character creation screen to find a name that is not taken, you have arrived in the world of Guild Wars 2, Tyria.

The good news is that you are wielding a rusty little sword right now, a formidable choice. Swords will be your friend on your way to 80, so get some practice with it. Do not replace it unless you find a better sword or – even better – a greatsword. Well, you can fool around with other weapons and you should, but for leveling itself everything with the word “sword” in it is your first choice.

The third sword skill will generate an illusion – to be more specific – a clone. There are two kinds of illusions, clones and phantasms.
Clones are as pretty or ugly as you are, doing close to no damage and are as durable as ice cream in a melting pot. Sounds promising? Do not despair, clones are mostly seen as a resources for the Mesmer’s profession skills – aka shatters. More about that in a bit.
Phantasms look like you too – sort of – just without textures and more transparent. They actually do good damage and can take a hit, and they also are a resource for shatter skills.
The maximum amount of illusions you can have at a time is three, if you cast a new illusion with three illusions out, one of four things will happen:

1. If you cast a clone, the oldest clone will be replaced by the new one.
2. If there are three phantasms, the clone will replace your oldest one.
3. If you cast a phantasm, the oldest clone will be replaced by it.
4. If there are three phantasms, the oldest phantasm will be replaced by the new one.

So what to do with all those illusions? The same thing you do with all stuff you no longer need in real life – blow them up! Shatter skills (F1-F5) will cause an effect which will get stronger the more illusions you have available. While you can use all shatter skills without a single illusion, which can be very useful in certain situations, it is more often the wiser choice to cast a full shatter (three illusions) to maximize damage.

Your first shatter skill “Mind Wrack” will unlock at level 5. It is our bread and butter and what else you would put on a bread skill. It will be hard to get enough illusions on the screen below level 10 to cast a full shatter, as the mob will be pretty dead until then anyway. Remember, illusions are bound to the enemy they got cast on and will disappear the moment this enemy dies. It is therefore better to cast a Mind Wrack with only one or two illusions, if the enemy is close to dying anyway.

When you reach level 6, you will get the choice between a greatsword or a torch. This is actually not choice, it is a test. If you pick the greatsword you have been reading the guide carefully up to this point. If you take the torch, god help you. I surely can’t. Only excuse, you found a better greatsword on the way, or on the trading post…
The greatsword is a great weapon. It is ranged, everything hits more than one target and its fourth weapon skill, which gets unlocked conveniently at the very same level as your first phantasm skill, the “Phantasmal Berserker”.

Now that you got your first phantasm, you also got a decision to make every single fight: To shatter the phantasm or not. Sure, while the phantasm is alive, it will cause great damage, but if it dies, you have missed the opportunity of a stronger shatter. If you ask me, and you should, let the phantasm do its job once and then, with some clones around create butterflies – which means use it kittenter fodder. Later on you will get a better feeling for when it is right to wait, but for now, you should get some practice on how to shatter in the first place.

At level 10 you will finally unlock the ability to swap between two weapon sets – good times ahead. While one of the sets will be the greatsword, your second set should consist of a sword and a focus. You might have expected a sword in the offhand too, as I said everything sword it good, and yes, a second sword would be a good choice, but for leveling, the focus is simply better. Especially the skill “Temporal Curtain” which gives you swiftness is great. Besides making you run faster it also has many other uses.

Now that you can swap weapons, it will be fairly easy to produce enough illusions for a full shatter. General rule is:

Start with greatsword skill 1 (Spatial Surge), skill 2 (Mirror Blade, your clone generator) and skill 4 (Phantasmal Berserker), swap to sword/focus and cast skill 3 (Illusionary Leap, your second clone generator) which gives you a full shatter for F1 (Mind Wrack).

Now you still have your focus phantasm left, which gives you some nice damage for the time when your shatter is on cooldown. The sword is also preferable in melee range as it does more damage, which is why we start the fight with the greatsword and then swap to the sword/focus and not the other way around.

At level 11 two things are happening. Firstly, you get your second shatter skill, “Cry of Frustration”. It is called that way because you are mad that Mind Wrack is on cooldown and you have to use this inferior shatter to cause damage. But until level 21, you can mostly ignore this skill.
Secondly, you can now pick your first utility skill. My personal advice is to spend four points into “Signet Training” to get both, “Signet of the Ether” – your new healing skill, and “Signet of Inspiration” – your first utility skill.

Signet of the Ether will give you some passive healing, a good base heal and a way to reset your phantasm timers. So even if you do no need healing, you can use this skill to greatly buff your damage. Signet of Inspiration is very nice, as it gives you swiftness and together with the focus you can have permanent swiftness uptime.

At level 15 and again at level 19 you will unlock your next shatter skills and a utility slot. The two shatter skills “Diversion” and “Distortion” are only of very limited use for leveling, so I will skip them for now.
Your second utility skill should be “Blink” which is to be found under “Manipulation Training” and your third the “Signet of Illusions” from “Signet Training”.
Blink is just awesome. Getting out of tight spots never was easier and you can also use it to get faster from A to B. Signet of the illusion keeps your illusions alive a bit longer which is not bad, but the main reason we are picking this signet is the active part. Being able to reset shatters will be very useful later on, especially when you start producing even more clones with the upcoming traits.

1.2.2 Leveling 21-44: I see myself four times. I must be drunken twice.

You did it! Yeah, you might not have realized it, but you have left your early days behind and are now to become one of us. What made the difference? Traits. If you were as greedy with your hero points as I have hinted earlier (like not spending them on skills to actually experiencing the beauty of GW2), you will have some left to dump into your traits. The obvious question is, where to put them. And if you are reading this, the obvious answer is: You have no idea. Fear not, the answer is at hand.

You will have to pick one trait line, and the one you should choose is Dueling. From now on, EVERY SINGLE HERO POINT you earn is to be spent here. You should have enough hero points to actually get some nice stuff. We are specifically aiming for Phantasmal Fury (adept), Fencer’s Finesse (master) and Deceptive Evasion (grandmaster). Getting these traits is your Nr. 1 priority. Nothing else matters. If you do anything else with your hero points, you will regret it later on, be warned.

Chances are slim that you will get all the way up to Deceptive Evasion right at the start. So as a rough guesstimate you should aim for level 31 to get Deceptive Evasion as a follower of this guide from the start. Things change quite a bit as you produce a clone whenever you dodge in combat from now on. What the happy little trees are in the “joy of painting”, the fragile little clones are in the “joy of mesmerizing”. From now on they are everywhere and you should not be greedy with them. The trick is to use dodge clones as fillers when your other illusion skills are on cooldown. Most of the time you might not even need to swap from greatsword to sword/focus to kill a single enemy.

Level 31 also unlocks your elite skill slot. What you want in that slot is Time Warp. But wait a sec – just forget about that. You might want it, but you won’t get it. Why? Ain’t nobody got hero points for that. But praise the six gods, with the new trait system, racial elite skills are unlocked by now. So unless you are a Norn, you might actually find something useful on your list.
The problem with hero points is, that at level 45, you will unlock you second trait line, and at that time, you want a kitten 52 hero points saved up to get down to business. So unless you grind all hero challenges on your way to level 45, you will probably not going to get close to having enough points for your traits and Time Warp. You will get it later, you will survive without it, you will enjoy it when you finally get it. It is always good to have something you can look forward to.

1.2.3 Leveling 45-70: Leveling 45-70: Nothing but an illusion, until it blows up in your face.

So you made it this far. Good. Level 45 offers you another choice to make. Which trait line will you unlock next? If you want to make the choice by yourself, go ahead, if you want to make the right choice, read on.

The best choice (with exception of all others) would be investing heavily into Illusions. You will benefit greatly from the minor traits Illusionists Celerity and Master of Misdirection as well as getting a serious amount of extra punch from the major traits.
The traits you want to pick are Compounding Power (adept), Shattered Strength (master) and Master of Fragmentation (grandmaster). With Illusions as second trait line, you will generate illusions faster, have a shorter cool-down on shatters and hit harder than ever before. A win-win-win situation, especially for the play-style we use with this leveling guide.

Not much more to say here, all you need is to safe up 52 hero points for level 71. Depending on your focus (PvE/WvW) you should have enough hero points to spare for getting Time Warp by now. If not, remember that filling up trait lines as soon as they unlock should be your Nr. 1 priority.

1.2.4 Leveling 71-80: All good things come to an end.

If you have been following this guide and reached 71 by blindly accepting my questionable decisions, you will have at least 52 hero points to spare and a choice. Yeah I know, choices have not been a thing I have offered before, but it is time to learn standing on your own feet.

Luckily for you, I will give you some clear advices first. Your third trait line to pick shall be Domination, dump your 52 hero points there. Good.

Now if you liked the way you have been leveling your Mesmer the last few dozen levels, you should get Empowered Illusion (adept), Blurred Inscriptions (master) and Mental Anguish (grandmaster). Your play-style won’t change much, but your shatter damage will significantly improve.

If you want to relax a bit while playing you can also simply use the trait setup found in the Lazy Kai Build below from now on. It is top efficient in open world and quite fun. You can also fool around with different weapon setups with your free secondary set while mainly using a greatsword.

That’s it, thank you for following this leveling guide.

1.3 Leveling 1-80: TL;DR Version

1.3.1 Leveling 1-20:

Step 1: Level to 10 preferably with greatsword. While it is difficult to maintain a rotation because of cooldowns you can go with greatsword 1, 2, 4 shatter f1.
Step 2: At 10 equip sword/focus as second weapon set. Rotation is greatswords 1,2,4, weapon swap sword 3 shatter F1.
Step 3: At level 11, pick “Signet of the Ether” for healing and “Signet of Inspiration” as utility 1. At level 15, pick “Blink” as utility 2 and at level 19 “Signet of Illusions” as utility 3.

1.3.2 Leveling 21-44

Pick Dueling as your trait line, spend all your points there to get Phantasmal Fury (adept), Fencer’s Finesse (master) and Deceptive Evasion (grandmaster).
Safe 52 hero points for level 45.

1.3.3 Leveling 45-70

Pick Illusions as your second trait line, spend all 52 points there to get Compounding Power (adept), Shattered Strength (master) and Master of Fragmentation (grandmaster).
Safe 52 hero points for level 71.
If you can afford it, get Time Warp.

1.3.4 Leveling 71-80

Pick Domination as your third trait line and:

A) Spend 52 points there to get Empowered Illusion (adept), Blurred Inscriptions (master) and Mental Anguish (grandmaster)

- or -

B) Spend 44 points there for playing the Lazy Kai Build.

2. Build Section

2.1 The Allrounder: The Lazy Kai Build 2.0 Now with 100% more useless explanations!

For years the Lazy Kai Build has been a very popular build (at least for myself) and as we got all this new trait stuff happening everywhere, it was about time to give the build some love.

If you are new to the Lazy Kai Build, you will probably ask yourself what is this, it looks great(sword)! Or, if you are a PvP fan, probably not. The Lazy Kai Build is in it’s core an optimization for PvE open world play. It is efficient and simple, so that you do not feel like you have had a math exam in quantum physics every time you log out of GW2. If you like that kind of stuff, the Crazy Kai Build might be something for you, to be found here soon.

So here we go, time to sing along together!

Trait lines: Domination/Dueling/Illusions

Domination: Who wants to live for greatsword?

II Empowered Illusions: Could it be that it’s just an illusion?
VI Furious Interruption: Like a virgin, interrupted for the very first time.
VII Imagined Burden: Stop – greatsword time!

Dueling: It’s one on one (on one on one on one) tonight!

I Phantasmal Fury: It’s the hard knock life for us!
IV Blinding Dissipation: Close your eyes, give me your loot, baby!
IX Deceptive Evasion: Papa was a rolling clone…

Illusions: Is this the real Kai? Is this just fantasy?

I Compounding Power: I are family!
IV Shattered Strength: There’s a thousand clones, there’s only one of me!
VIII Master of Fragmentation: Phantasms and clones may break my bones!

Armor: Berserker for all slots, we are too lazy to search for something else!
Rune: Superior Rune of the Centaur x6. Just because it has always been that way.

Extra lazy advise: Zhed’s Armor is exactly what you want!

Weapon1: Berserker’s Greatsword gets it all done, no need for other fancy stuff!
Sigil 1: Superior Sigil of Air for more damage, and it is cheap too.
Sigil 2: Superior Sigil of Stamina for more dodges -> clones -> explosions!

Weapon2: What ever rocks your boat, you won’t need it anyway.
Personal advise: I like the focus. This is my guide, so you like the focus too.

Skills:

Ether Feast: And when I get that feeling, I want illusionary healing!
Blink: Right here, right now!
Decoy: It wasn’t me!
Signet of Illusions: I got a little something for you!
Time Warp: Let’s do the time warp again!

Most important advise for lazy players:
Go Options/Combat: Activate Fast-Cast Ground Targeting!
Clicking twice for an attack, sounds like a chore!

Genereal GS playstyle:

Attack 1: get aggro so the mob does not kill clones
Attack 2: clone (and tagging event mobs)
Attack 4: iZerker (and tagging more event mobs)
Dodge to target: clone (and closing gap for max shatter dmg)
F1: shatter

Most mobs are dead or sort of dead by now.
Veterans, just go on: generate more clones/ iZerker and shatter.
Boss with AoE damage, go with rotation, if not, be extra lazy, avoid shatters let iZerkers do the damage.

Additional skills that could be useful if you are not super lazy:

GS 3: More AoE damage if you feel the need for it.
F2: If F1 is on cooldown and you want to shatter.
GS 5: There are some mobs around and it looks like one is using a skill. Free quickness.
F3: There are some mobs around and it looks like one is using a skill. Free quickness. Used preferably if you have no illusions around.

Here we go, ready to kick some kitten without even lifting a foot. Safe that energy for potsing all the loot you got without effort.

Have fun – the lazy way!

Lazy Kai’s Build

Updated the Leveling Guide a whole lot for players not just new to the mesmer profession but new to the game.

Added Random Pain build (still in beta ^^).

Thank you so much for this! I started playing about a month ago and have been trying to get the hang of my mesmer, but all the guides around here seem to be either focused on PVP (which I don’t do) or just overly complicated with heavy use of acronyms and other terms I don’t understand yet. I got so frustrated I just abandoned my mesmer and rolled something else. This is a simple guide that any idiot can follow. These forums need more Guides For Dummies.

Thank you for the feedback. My main aim is to give people an easier start with the mesmer profession. Sometimes I get the feeling that everyone in this forums thinks, that all other players have been here since day one…

I am glad you enjoy this guide.

Btw, I just added a Phantasm variation of the Lazy Kai Build. While it misses reflects for dungeoneering, it is very efficient in open world and solo play.

This is an amazing guide for people who need help getting started with mesmer. Should have gotten more attention, but I guess good threads are all hidden away.

Sirendor.1394:

This is an amazing guide for people who need help getting started with mesmer. Should have gotten more attention, but I guess good threads are all hidden away.

I totally agree! I completely recommend this guide for people new to either the game or the profession. I don’t think I would have stuck with it if I hadn’t found this – I’ve even passed the link on to a friend considering playing a mesmer!

Thanks for the guide. It’s been a wonderful bit of assistance.

Oh, thanks! ^^

Glad people like it. The nature of this guide is obviously, that there are more people just checking for information than leaving a comment.

The old threat had a ratio of 150 comments to 121363 views. And there was way more editing. This guide now simply is an essence, and there is very little discussion going on, as things have been discussed before.

Btw, people can find the leveling guide over here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Lyssa-s-Grimoire-The-Mesmer-Handbook/first#post2916342

So I am not too worried about promoting the guide to the frontpage much.

Minor update to the leveling guide to include the patch changes.

Saw a fair amount of leveling questions lately, so I thought I would simply bump my guide. ^^

I have been using this guide with my Mesmer. Great guide, thank you. Do you have guides for any of the other professions?

Hey! Sorry that I didn’t answer to your PM, I am fairly busy with my new third member of my family lately, so GW2 is not a priority.

Unfortunately, I have only written a leveling guide for Mesmers, as all other professions I leveled felt fairly straight forward and easy.

I once thought about writing a necro leveling guide so maybe if you need help with that, I could offer some ideas.

^^^
Congratz Kai

After skimming (Because I am too lazy to actually read) about 100 Mesmer guides and builds I have to say yours is easily the most straight forward and easy to understand one that I have been able to find. I wouldn’t consider myself new to gaming but I am also no old hat, I tend to keep to myself and people I already know who play, however much of the info that is out there is so full of acronyms and short forms that I never feel like I am fully understanding what I am reading. I have been casually leveling my Mesmer to 34 trying to figure out how I prefer to play, deciding whether to focus on keeping my illusions up or shattering and I think after reading this I have decided to give your lazy build a try!

For rune on weapon, why not use Sigil of Force???

I love these straight-forward guides. I hope Kaiyanwan has the time to update them after April 15. Congrats on the addition to your family.

The lazy kai build I’m so happy with as I mainly do dungeons and fractals for now, I’m looking forward for an update or improvements for this build if there is due to the April 15 patch.

I can fix the builds easily with changing the trait values and adapt the Go Go Power Ranger build from 25/30/0/0/15 to 6/4/0/0/4 for the mantra trait and adding a superior sigil of stamina to the GS.

What I can not fix is the stupidity of ANet in regards of their new trait system. Leveling a mesmer will be a pain in the lower back even more now than ever before. It is like ANet had this pointy stick left and didn’t know where to put it until they saw the mesmer profession.

For a start, I recommend to just avoid leveling a mesmer by playing the regular content. Wait for some new LS zerg events to brainlessly push trough most levels, craft your way or get your hands on tomes. Just try somehow to reach at least 60.

I am so sorry for everyone who will start a mesmer now, with all what happened in this great feature patch, those poor souls will have a hard time.

Updated both, Lazy Kai build and Go Go Power Ranger build, and the Phantastic Phantasm variants.

Still work in progress though.

Thanks Kai. I actually furiously grinded from 30-60 the past 2 weeks to make sure I got at least to 60 before the patch. So glad I did that.

Anyway, I don’t mean this to be an insult, just strictly speaking, is the lazy kai build still viable? I know it’s still a work in progress so I’m just asking for your initial reactions. I still have 20 levels to go and I mainly play open world and dungeon, so with the move of the mantra trait I’m not sure what I should be using for PvE anymore.

It’s plenty viable for open world content, where it had always excelled. Still not the best in dungeons.

I have been roaming the open world with a pelthora of possible builds after the patch. Put a superior sigil of stamina into the second GS spot and nothing will keep your killspeed up as fast as the Lazy Kai build in open. Switch to Lazy Kai PP for harder mobs if you want.

Both Go Go Power Ranger builds work perfectly fine and have been adjusted to the new mantra trait setup. But I simply miss my utility too much to run them constantly.

Edit: Slightly adjusted Go Go Power Ranger Build to be more DD (Illusions X to VII for shatter).

Updated the Leveling Guide to the new trait system. Still facepalming on ANets design decisions on traits and leveling…

I think I am fairly done with the mesmer profession for now and probably with GW2 too. So I see this as my farewell present as you can not have my stuff.

Best regards -

Kaiyanwan

Those builds are all terribly bad in PvE (Dungeons/Fractals).
Well, whatever suits you best for open world.

Dub.1273:

Those builds are all terribly bad in PvE (Dungeons/Fractals).
Well, whatever suits you best for open world.

Kai’s guide has always been primarily an open world and leveling guide.

GW2 dungeons are one of the biggest disappointments since release. This is probably related to the lack of trinity

nope

and any mechanic that makes fights less random and interesting.

rng =/= interesting

How desperate must one be to set own challenges like speed runs, because there is nothing new and exciting to do.

personal satisfaction is “desperate”?

They are overly simple, boring and the same old same melee stacking on every boss.

Feel free to do this yourself.

In fact, feel free to get four other people to “melee stack” with you.

You know, a couple days ago there were some people in Divinity’s Reach map chat saying that PvE is just faceroll stack and smack. I repeatedly asked them if they could duo Arah with me and they just made excuses saying that they weren’t interested or that it would take too long (spoiler – it would not take too long).

You sound like one of those people. You sound like one of those people who just does easy AC and COF, doesn’t bother touching any of the challenging content (Arah, FOTM 40+) and then claims the game is too easy, because if you hadn’t noticed, Fractals aren’t even close to stack and smack in most cases, and Arah pugs have a pretty high failure rate if there’s no experienced player to help them through.

My connection stops being atrocious around reset. Message me on Serah Mahariel and we can do Arah. Even better, we can “stack and press 1” for the bosses and wipe over and over again until you get the message that there’s more to the game than just stacking in corners.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

I think I am fairly done with the mesmer profession for now and probably with GW2 too. So I see this as my farewell present as you can not have my stuff.

Best regards -

Kaiyanwan

That’s a pity. For me, as a noob, your guide was extremely helpful, and one of the most comprehensible and competent profession guides I ever saw for any game.
I wish you well in whatever you will do from now on.

hendo.1940:

-snip-

While I don’t personally have any problem with the stack-n-smack dungeon meta, I do see the fact that this strategy is even possible as a massive failure in dungeon design. Just because this game has massive amounts of active defense doesn’t mean that stacking in one spot should be possible or the optimal strategy. This is a result of substandard boss design.

Most bosses in this game have less than 3 attacks/mechanics. Usually they’ll have some sort of boring autoattack, some sort of aoe type thing, and maybe one additional booster. Lupicus is really the one single outlier in the entire game. He has 10 unique attacks (assuming I’m adding properly). However, Lupicus fights are quite vulnerable to the reflect mechanic, tending to trivialize most of his mechanics as long as the party is on point with the reflects for a fast kill.

Additionally, defiance itself makes boss fights bad. Defiance means that CC is not a consideration. This removes an entire aspect of support in this game that doesn’t normally conflict with dps like healing does. However, since cc is completely useless against bosses, this makes the fights that much more 1-dimensional. You saw this yourself with the few days of Power Block being a mechanic that could actually affect PvE through the use of CC.

This isn’t how boss fights have to be. Look at other games that have done bosses well. WoW is renowned for interesting and complex raid bosses. Dragon Nest has the best boss fights I’ve ever seen in a game—and they do it with just as much active defense/dodging as GW2 has.

Ultimately, the challenge that you guys find in GW2 dungeons is running them incredibly rapidly. You do this because there is no challenge in them otherwise, going full glass builds and attempting to beat it as fast as is possible is the only challenge you can dig out of these dungeons, and that’s sad. Sad because this is a great game, and it deserves more interesting content.

Look, I have been playing MMOs for over 15 years. I have been successfully raiding vanilla WoW AQ40 and Naxx40 (as you might know these dungeons and their difficulty level).

And I tell you with a straight look on my face: GW2 dungeons are no challenge. They are dumb. Their design is dumb. The bosses are dumb. The rewards are dumb.
So my final statement on this topic is: My guides are for open world and casual PvE. If they are not for you, feel free to ignore them.

Thank you, have a nice day.

I don’t really see how 15 years of MMO experience is relevant to the topic at hand.

Message me around reset and we can duo Arah. Then I can demonstrate to you that it’s not faceroll at all.

Or you can be like those randoms in Divinity’s Reach, deflect from what I’m trying to say and worm your way out of it because you’re too scared that you’ll eat dirt for 95% of the dungeon like what happens when I pug it and solo basically every single boss for the group. And just so you know I’m not smack talking:

http://i.imgur.com/GGdMwAC.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/H44RZPI.jpg

While I don’t personally have any problem with the stack-n-smack dungeon meta, I do see the fact that this strategy is even possible as a massive failure in dungeon design. Just because this game has massive amounts of active defense doesn’t mean that stacking in one spot should be possible or the optimal strategy. This is a result of substandard boss design.

And it shouldn’t be possible because you said so? There’s nothing substandard about it, it’s people complaining for the sake of complaining.

Most bosses in this game have less than 3 attacks/mechanics. Usually they’ll have some sort of boring autoattack, some sort of aoe type thing, and maybe one additional booster. Lupicus is really the one single outlier in the entire game. He has 10 unique attacks (assuming I’m adding properly). However, Lupicus fights are quite vulnerable to the reflect mechanic, tending to trivialize most of his mechanics as long as the party is on point with the reflects for a fast kill.

Reflects only trivialise it when the party knows what they’re doing. As you may or may not have noticed, the projectiles are semi-targeted and he aims a number at teach player and ally present, so if you are all at range and dump a feedback on him, you’ll get like no reflects. But that’s consistent with the rest of the game – a competent party trivialises content because they’re that proficient at it they can blaze through it … this is perfectly reasonable.

Additionally, defiance itself makes boss fights bad. Defiance means that CC is not a consideration. This removes an entire aspect of support in this game that doesn’t normally conflict with dps like healing does. However, since cc is completely useless against bosses, this makes the fights that much more 1-dimensional. You saw this yourself with the few days of Power Block being a mechanic that could actually affect PvE through the use of CC.

The whole point of Defiant is to stop bearbows from smashing point blank shot off of cooldown. Defiant is perfectly fine, it requires a co-ordinated group to peel off stacks and then CC at the right time so that the party can maintain their damage rotations uninterrupted.

Ultimately, the challenge that you guys find in GW2 dungeons is running them incredibly rapidly. You do this because there is no challenge in them otherwise, going full glass builds and attempting to beat it as fast as is possible is the only challenge you can dig out of these dungeons, and that’s sad. Sad because this is a great game, and it deserves more interesting content.

Yes, the game does deserve more interesting content – but if you honestly think there should be challenge with instances we’ve been able to learn for two entire years then I don’t know what to say.

Colesy, there’s just a little bit of information that you often conveniently forget.

The only potentially challenging dungeon in this game is Arah.

You often link to videos/screenshots of Arah runs. You often cite the difficulty of bosses in Arah. Don’t you see the problem here? All of your arguments are based around 1 single dungeon, and most of your arguments are based around one single boss in that one single dungeon.

This is a problem, and even you should recognize that.

The problem is that people play easy content and then complain that the game is easy.

Play hard content and you’ll be able to challenge yourself.

Play hard content solo and then you can challenge yourself even more.

Make a non-specific LFG for Arah (just a path name … or … anyone welcome, etc.) and just … watch what happens.

Countless groups can’t do the skip from Belka to abomination. Countless times they get knocked back at the abomination and pull drakes. Or they don’t dodge the attacks. Countless times they fight Lupicus with stupid utilities, weapons and just a complete lack of knowledge and eat dirt. Countless times I’ve stacked for Alphard, I’m the only one that dodges, they get pulled in, ragdolled by the big ‘ol bomb and sit there in defeated while I solo from basically 90% HP onwards. I always kill Hunter/crusher where they spawn. Pugs die all the time. They try to afk range Magecrusher. I purposely melee him so that he throws gunk over and over again until they either adapt or eat the floor. They can’t do the skip to ooze. They can’t do the skip to entities. They pull elites or champions in the room prior to fighting Lupicus. They can’t do Simin.

The fact of the matter is – the game has been out two years. Strategies have been found for almost everything- and with this new patch, downscaling has made berserker gear insane for lower level dungeons. Lower level dungeons are a joke. People complain that the game is too easy, and most of it is. But they refuse to challenge themselves.

It’s like spending your days champion farming and then complaining that the game is just running to bosses and autoattacking. Well yeah, if that’s all you do – that’s all you’re going to experience. If you actually make an effort to do the challenging content the game has to offer – you’ll get a different experience. We need new dungeons. But claiming “GW2 dungeons are no challenge”, that Kai has done here is a lie. If it wasn’t a lie, I wouldn’t have over fifty screenshots of people expressing their gratitude.

Play challenging content, and then when that gets too easy, play it low man or solo. You’re not going to think it’s so easy when you’re raging at your screen after spending ~7 hours trying to practice Lupicus for your first solo. I find Arah easy, but I’m not going to pretend it isn’t challenging – the sheer fail rate of players keeps me in check with the average player’s perception of the dungeon – it is challenging.

People got seriously spoiled on what is difficult. The fact that you can actually solo those dungeons is a bulletproof sign that they are too easy.

Not really. You have people soloing dungeons in WoW and Tera too.

Again, duo Arah with me at reset if it’s “too easy”. But of course, you won’t – because it’s not easy.

And spending 7 hours practicing?

How about getting 40 (skilled) people together and practice for several weeks 4 to 5 nights a week to get a single boss down. Does that sound hard? That is where I am coming from. I learnt my lesson on wiping long ago. Sorry that I am not impressed by the dungeons in GW2…

And from my experience, once they get the mechanics down, the reason people fail these raid bosses is because like one guy slips up and bones the entire fight because they can’t maintain their level of consistency long enough. Or if we take the wurm or teq from GW2, you had people messing up a part of it which made us lose enough time that we failed – condis not killing husks fast enough, not enough stability while doing burst phases, not enough might stacking during bursts (blasting dark and light fields is no bueno) or getting knocked down after the wurm heads turned in to normal enemies by its charging attack which reduced peoples’ DPS uptime.

At that point it’s not hard, it’s just “for the love of god can we just be consistent enough to get this part right” and it’s just practicing the same strategy over and over again hoping things don’t mess up since everybody already knows what to do.

I honestly find you chickening out of my offer kind of laughable. It’s like you know it’s challenging but you want to save face.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

So my final statement on this topic is: My guides are for open world and casual PvE. If they are not for you, feel free to ignore them.

Thank you, have a nice day.

Delurking just to thank you. I swear, these forums are worse than even WoW’s ever were in terms of hostility from the “pro” players. Having a few differently-focused guides and voices like this around won’t bloody kill anyone.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Updated the Leveling Guide to the new trait system. Still facepalming on ANets design decisions on traits and leveling…

I think I am fairly done with the mesmer profession for now and probably with GW2 too. So I see this as my farewell present as you can not have my stuff.

Best regards -

Kaiyanwan

I’ve kept using your build, even through the recent update – I enjoyed the lazy build so much I started another for fun – and just got to 60 today. There is a noticeable difference between the first one I made with your guide and this recent one (pre-60 it’s a little lacking in its previous oomph because of the trait situation), but for mostly enjoyable PvE, it still works well.

So, thank you again! I’m very appreciative of the work you put into the guide, and for your sharing it with us. Good luck with whatever you do in the future!

“Stop being lazy Kai!”

Got some PMs and direct requests if and when I will update my compendium. We had a big patch after all, we have Traits 3.0, we have a whole lot of changes.

And wow, ANet did some things right this time (at least compared to what we got with the last two feature patches).
Things I like: Shatter is now worth it in PvE again, yay! Leveling looks more promising and more traits are always nice (even though I dislike how we are forced into adept/master/grandmaster traits).

So here we go. I have a new and working open world Lazy Kai Build I am testing right now with all the qualities the old one offered, sort of. Go Go Power Ranger Build? Not so much as it feels like it was fused with the Lazy Kai Build too much.
Also working on a new melee build, but first things first.

Updating the leveling guide will take some time. First of all I feel the need to roll yet another mesmer to get the right feeling for leveling under the new system. I am planning to use my revenant slot for this even though I would greatly appreciate a free character slot for the expansion. ^^
I really think that updating the leveling guide will help a lot of new players joining us with the expansion, so doing so should not be a waste of time.

So I will stop being lazy so that you can be. Cheers.

You are a marvelous creature, bless you for the work you do. <3

The new leveling guide for the early levels is done (1-20) and got a bit longer than what it was before, added a TL;DR version. Final editing will be done when all parts are complete.

Feedback is welcome.

The Lazy Kai Build is updated.

The first one who finds all song jokes will get a free retrait.

Added another chapter for leveling from 21 to 44.

I am a bit burned out on leveling and not sure if all this is worth the effort though. Will add the rest of the guide soonish, maybe.

thanks a lot for updating this, really helping me out as a new mesmer

Thanks for the lazy build. I am new to mesmer and have been wanting something for pve but have never found anything other than reflect builds.

I have finished the Leveling guide all the way up to 80.

Some heavy editing (I want to put all TL;DR parts in one big block, gotta create links to the wiki) as well as some proof-reading and stuff like that ahead.

Feedback is always welcome.

Guide got too long, won’t have enough posts left to put in more new stuff… :/

Probably have to start all over again in a new topic…