Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

I am currently debating on my main between Engineer and Mesmer.

I like both classes as they both offer some fun gameplay.

As for Engineer, I really like the low cooldowns, wide variety of skills to play with. (Always something to cast).

As for Mesmer (I really like the concept of Mesmer), the phantasms, shatters really make it an enjoyable class for me. The thing that used to bother me was the apparent lack of swiftness. Now I was wondering out of these two, which is my best multi purpose PVE option?

I should note I do enjoy taking on veterans or even champions on solo to see how far I can go solo :-) I also dislike having to wait for high cooldowns to be decently efficient (as such I very much dislike the ‘internal’ cooldown of attunements of elementalist. I like the variety of spells but I would only consider playing it if I could pop into water to cast 1-2 spells & be able to return to my previous attunment instead of being forced to chose between the remaining 2).

Tldr; Which one of these two is better for multi purpose PVE and solo play? :-)

Multi purpose PvE? – mesmer
Solo play? NG

I like that the chronomancer is now giving the class of mesmer “something to do” at all times. I have run a number of builds but the one I am playing now is quite fun and has a lot of uptime. I made a comment to my guild last night about how much fun mesmer is but how it is a lot of work. Keeping alacrity going and the constant skill uptime management has made this class much more fun to play. Gone are the days of waiting for a CD and pressing numbers 1-5

That said, I deleted my 80 NG years ago and have not regretted it as I do not enjoy the class, even though it can be fun and effective

For solo play, I notice Mesmer dies a lot less. I especially notice this for bosses and toxic mobs(still low level). In dungeons I suspect condition engineer would contribute more as far as damage goes.

Engineer can be great, but especially for condition, the DPS rotation is about as complicated as it gets. You’re going to be mashing keys like crazy, and I notice I can fumble it quite a bit against something tough and I forget to swap kits to use some skills on cooldown. I did that a lot and substituted a kit for a turret to simplify it. And while you can take on tougher mobs, I generally find that only happens under ideal conditions(say, a hero challenge) where you have the opportunity to “set up”(turrets, proper kits, tool belt skills).

Mesmer is more survivable given the constant clones and phantasms that divide enemy aggro. With engi you get blind skills spread across different kits that let you take… 1 hit. It could also be that Mesmers are more forgiving to the ham-handed.

Is it just me?

I recently created a mesmer because I like the concept a lot..
but.. I feel like he’s lacking a lot of damage in open world / solo play? :|

Im at ~ 20 now, but when I compare my guardian he killed the mobs much faster than my mesmer does (yeah I use illusions and shatter skills constantly).

I hope when I access all the traits that will become better. and I hope the wells (at least the one that is mainly taken for damage) works as good as the nec’s wells.

Another question: Do I play chronomancer still with assassin’s stats to be most efficient?

Nefarius.9702:

Is it just me?

I recently created a mesmer because I like the concept a lot..
but.. I feel like he’s lacking a lot of damage in open world / solo play? :|

Im at ~ 20 now, but when I compare my guardian he killed the mobs much faster than my mesmer does (yeah I use illusions and shatter skills constantly).

I hope when I access all the traits that will become better. and I hope the wells (at least the one that is mainly taken for damage) works as good as the nec’s wells.

Another question: Do I play chronomancer still with assassin’s stats to be most efficient?

If you look around at the other threads of people asking about levelling mesmer (there are multiple even on the first page, man!), you’ll see that it’s partly because of how the mesmer is, partly because people don’t know how to leverage the damage that is there.

Yes, it will get better when you get traits. Where other classes are supplemented by their traits, mesmers are enabled by them. Start with Dueling, then go to Domination, then go to either Illusions for damage, or Inspiration for sustain.
Then create a specific build when you hit 80, and start working toward chrono.

Yes, assassins is best at 80. Anywhere below 80, however, just stick with power primary. Assassin is the gear of choice because of reflects, but reflects aren’t very important when levelling.

Nefarius.9702:

Is it just me?

I recently created a mesmer because I like the concept a lot..
but.. I feel like he’s lacking a lot of damage in open world / solo play? :|

Im at ~ 20 now, but when I compare my guardian he killed the mobs much faster than my mesmer does (yeah I use illusions and shatter skills constantly).

I hope when I access all the traits that will become better. and I hope the wells (at least the one that is mainly taken for damage) works as good as the nec’s wells.

Another question: Do I play chronomancer still with assassin’s stats to be most efficient?

You’ll find that Mesmers are largely dependent on their traits both to function well and to dish out damage.

I personally felt leveling from 21 and up was faster than anything below simply because of that.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

If you look around at the other threads of people asking about levelling mesmer (there are multiple even on the first page, man!), you’ll see that it’s partly because of how the mesmer is, partly because people don’t know how to leverage the damage that is there.

Yes, it will get better when you get traits. Where other classes are supplemented by their traits, mesmers are enabled by them. Start with Dueling, then go to Domination, then go to either Illusions for damage, or Inspiration for sustain.
Then create a specific build when you hit 80, and start working toward chrono.

Yes, assassins is best at 80. Anywhere below 80, however, just stick with power primary. Assassin is the gear of choice because of reflects, but reflects aren’t very important when levelling.

This helped. I leveled my mesmer further and you seem to be right, which is great.
I personally feel like the mesmer got the most “fascinating” concept out of all the classes gw2 offers, so it’d be great if I personally get along well with the class too. Cheers for giving me back my motivation

~ A delighted mesmer player

I have to say, having gotten up to from lvl 35 to lvl 43 today, I enjoyed the mesmer profession quite a bit. I noticed Necros are more tanky and Warriors dish out better damage.

But I went to Ebonhawke due to the personal story and did a couple of those [Group Event] bosses by myself. The ability to kite indefinitely is simply delicious. I would argue that Illusions spec would be more desirable for 2nd IMO. You get faster illusions, faster shatters, and your phantasms attack more often.

Valiant.8016:

I have to say, having gotten up to from lvl 35 to lvl 43 today, I enjoyed the mesmer profession quite a bit. I noticed Necros are more tanky and Warriors dish out better damage.

But I went to Ebonhawke due to the personal story and did a couple of those [Group Event] bosses by myself. The ability to kite indefinitely is simply delicious. I would argue that Illusions spec would be more desirable for 2nd IMO. You get faster illusions, faster shatters, and your phantasms attack more often.

I’ve done both. I find that smart use of domination outpowers, because there’s more raw boost to your stuff, but the vulnerability application is the real meat.

Illusion suffers from too much spacing out of the useful traits, and from multiple traits centered around conditions, which don’t come into their own until you’ve got at least 2 full traitlines available (lvl 45), and generally 3 (lvl 71).

Though learning to use Mantra of Distraction, I think, makes Domination even better.

Just curious, while in Open world Post 80, besides wielding a GS; do you recommend using an offhand sword or focus?

And.. what offhand weapong is recommendable for open world once you access the chrono? Shield? Since you receive a perma movement speed bonus anyways..

edit: and whilst in dungeons / Fractals using the builds of metabattle, should I always bringt out my illusions ( sword and focus 5) and let them “fight” until the fight is over? or should I keep shattering ?

Nefarius.9702:

Just curious, while in Open world Post 80, besides wielding a GS; do you recommend using an offhand sword or focus?

And.. what offhand weapong is recommendable for open world once you access the chrono? Shield? Since you receive a perma movement speed bonus anyways..

edit: and whilst in dungeons / Fractals using the builds of metabattle, should I always bringt out my illusions ( sword and focus 5) and let them “fight” until the fight is over? or should I keep shattering ?

Focus and shield are roughly the same imo. If I’m running a marathon across the map I put focus on, but otherwise I prefer shield for great damage on groups.

In regards to bosses, with CP you can shatter once for a dps gain if its right after they attack. If you have signet and F5 off CD you can then shatter again while summoning 3 more pretty quick. Not that its is really necessary though, as our dps is lackluster at best.

F5 → phantasm → Signet of Ether → phantasm → F5 → phantasm