Open World Mesmer?
You will never be as good as other classes at Open World content and Anet refuses to do anything about that even though that is the main focus of the game.
Anyway I presume your other weapon is Greatsword for aoe tagging?
Shatter is good against non-elite/champ mobs due to how fast you can kill them in open world. Against tankier opponents (which you’ll run across a lot in Silverwastes) you may consider phantasm builds for long sustaining fight. When running phantasm build you can have mantra of pain to tag AoE mobs, but mesmer has little options in high damage AoE compared to other classes.
Kind of wish you can have premade trait setups/templates…it’ll be a life saver for mesmer to adapt to different situations.
I will almost always take a focus with me in open world.
Focus 4 can pull mobs together while focus 5 is an aoe damage phantasm. Focus 4 is also our only reliable access to swiftness.
As for trait, I usually go for 46040. I trait harmonious mantra and mender’s purity for survivability and trait focus for reduced cool down and reflection.
I use a 0/4/0/4/6 zerker staff/GS shatter build with vigor shatters and IE.
GS for quick burst and swap to staff for good sustained damage until mindwrack is back up.
I run traveler’s runes and use staff phase retreat for the great mobility (plus it’s good practice for pvp)
I talk more about my build here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Looking-for-PVE-Build-Scepter-if-possible/first#post4769926
I use a 0/4/0/4/6 zerker staff/GS shatter build with vigor shatters and IE.
GS for quick burst and swap to staff for good sustained damage until mindwrack is back up.
I run traveler’s runes and use staff phase retreat for the great mobility (plus it’s good practice for pvp)
I talk more about my build here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Looking-for-PVE-Build-Scepter-if-possible/first#post4769926
I’m doing map completion and to get even more used to the shatter play style and not loose my pvp skills I run a shatter build with gs/sw+focus. It’s pretty nice and very similar to yours.
Almost permanent swiftness up time and the focus + blurred frenzy is nice. Reflects is also very nice to have.
If it’s condition heavy I sometimes take the mantra heal. The mantra cleanse can also be switched for MoP for more dmg. It’s very fun to play shatter in PVE, maybe not the most optimal but for me it works good. I do use the boring meta for dungeons and suck but this is what I use for open world.