I’ve been playing for about a month now, and I wanted to try a Mesmer, because they looked fun with their “clones”. I am PVE only right now. My other characters are 33 Necro, 26 Ranger, 23 Warrior, 22 Guardian and 20 Engineer. Of these others the engineer was a pain at first but got much easier once I had bombs.
But my Asura Mesmer is level 8 now, and it has been an agonizingly slow 8 levels compared to the others. I started as I usually do and bought cheap (fine) versions of all the weapons that he can use from the TP, and then ran around in the easy starting areas killing things to get all the weapon skills. (Wow those offhand skills take a long time to get.) After trying them all out, at level 7 I decided on Greatsword to start at range, and Sword/Sword for when they get closer.
I read in these forums that staff would be good, but found that 1) I need to stay close to kill faster, but I take a lot of damage while the conditions stack, and 2) The auto-attack pulls unintended nearby mobs, which is a huge problem for me.
Sword/Sword is my most survivable setup right now, because of the built in Evade and Block, and it seems to do great damage as well. The cooldowns seem low as well.
Regarding Utility skills, I am seriously under-impressed so far, unless I am just missing something. I have not bought them all, because the descriptions of what they do are so vague. I’m actually using the Asuran Pain Inverter the most, as it is a decent AOE at this level. I’m looking at Phantasmal Defender as my possible first 3 point skill? Is that a good survival skill?
Observations: When I come from my Necro main to this character it seems like night and day. The “power” Necro can drop one well that melts everything in seconds, gets permanent pets, has a lethal dagger auto-attack, has a massive health pool, AND has the additional advantage of death shroud. In comparison this Mesmer seems extremely weak for soloing purposes. Also, these “clones” seem like they do nothing, and they die extremely fast. The phantasms have better attacks, but they attack super slow. And all of these “helpers” go away at the end of each fight anyway.
What am I missing as I near level 10? What do you consider a good PVE setup for levels 10-20? Thanks so much for your advice.
Hey, I extended my leveling guide, feel free to try it:
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