Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

I just hit 60, and I’ve really struggled with developing a mesmer build. On my engineer, it was easy to see the grandmaster grenadier trait and say, “I want that.” Then build around it accordingly. There is no 30pt trait like this for the mesmer (for me anyway). In fact, a lot of our passive skills seem more important than the major ones.

For me, there are 3 traits I really want:

Illusionary Membrane (15 pts) – Gain protection when you gain regeneration
Phantasmal Healing (15 pts) – Phantasms grant regeneration
Medic’s Feedback (10 pts) – Create a feedback bubble when resurrecting

Explanation:

The first two seem to combo nicely (although phantasms do die quickly – you get regen at 75% hp and from those around you in a zerg). The third is great for me as I use downed people strategically (often not rezzing to full hp – just want the bubble). Feedback is incredibly powerful – the more bubbles the better.

Rest of the build:

So the core of the build ends up being 10/15/15/15/5 with 10 left over.

(ignore anything else but traits from this link)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQJARGlwzKqHTjtukw8hhf+gyRLgUBVX+AuB

I’m going to put those 10 points into whichever weapon I end up using. If greatsword, I’ll need all 10 into domination/power. Other weapons would only need 5 more. I’ve been using the greatsword almost exclusively, but now I’m thinking about the staff, because I can spend 5 on the staff trait and 5 on some else (clone on dodge? focus skill reflection?).

So I’m asking for input on my build. First, do more experienced mesmers know if the 10/15/15/15/5 core is good-on-paper-only type idea? Second, given that core, where to spend the remaining points? I think I’d like the utility of a staff plus another trait, but I’m concerned with the performance of the staff in WvW. Care to enlighten me?

Thanks!

You have a lot of spread.

I would either:

1. Ditch 10 Dom and focus on your SI stuff with Deceptive Evasion, or
2. Ditch 15 Dueling and get 20 Dom to make it a GS power pew pew, or
3. Ditch both and get Staff trait with Carrion and focus on raw condition damage

Edit: There are many other subtle options too, but /shrug.

Build tries to do too many things:

1. Go back to your core build: 15/15 Chaos/Insp + Medic’s Feedback.

2. Now stop and figure out what kind of stat spread you want to want (e.g. your damage vector — power, precision, or condition damage).

3. Then, finish the build.

It depends on what weapons you are using. The Phantasmal Healing and Illusionary Membrane combo works best with an off-hand Pistol. The reason being is the iDuelist procs the regen more frequently than the other phantasms (likely a bug) and stays at range. The radius on Phantasmal Healing is relatively small which means that it’s difficult to utilize with melee phantasms since they move around so much. I tend to prefer the Focus over the Pistol in WvW, so the IM+PH combo doesn’t really help me much.

30 point illusion, illusionary persona is pretty much the only good one.

Thanks for the replies. I had just 2 or 3 follow up questions for you.

1. I have a real hesitation about condition damage (on all my characters). I guess I just never trust it. With that said, it might be nice to have if I’m tossing around feedback a lot in WvW. Is it viable to go a full condition route with a staff? What are the drawbacks?

2. If I go the dueling route, is Greatsword still a good weapon to use? I’m seeing beserkers mowing through crowds critting and bleeding, but is this fantasy?

3. If I go a power route, is greatsword really hampered without Illusionary Elasticity (extra bounce)?

Thanks again!

You should be hesitant about condition damage. The amount of skills able to outright remove conditions are many and on all professions. I can remove a condition near constantly on myself with at most a 4 second break in between removal. Then factor in group condition removal and it hurts all over because sometimes players aren’t even trying to do it but get residual benefit from others.
Just look at the list on the wiki for an idea.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition#Skills_that_remove_conditions
How about someone giving you their conditions and/or taking your boons. Ready to have it all turn tables on you?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition#Skills_that_transfer_conditions

I find that most people don’t build for much toughness because it reduces your output damage so much. You could get the most oomph from power or crit chance vs condition duration or dmg the way I look at it. Staff itself attacks pretty slowly, you have to be closer range to get faster attacks, meh on that for conditions. Since they increased the CD recently on some staff skills. What you build now would be totally different from what someone could do even 3 weeks ago so you can’t see any evidence of it being viable from old builds or reviewing videos and I haven’t tested it to give you real numbers but I know what I think of conditions, in general, as stated.

That’s very helpful, and kind of what I was afraid of. You mentioned something that peaked my interest, though. Are mesmers able to build mostly offensive traits due to their escape utilities? I was thinking going with toughness/vit would be important, but if I could trade one out to go power/crit/vitality, I would certainly see big numbers popping. I just don’t want to get destroyed if someone looks at me sideways.

Maybe I could go offensive for the trait abilities, and then full toughness/vit on my armor.

Most Mesmers I’ve run across in WvW function as glass cannons, because we can afford to hide behind a zerg, on a wall, or, yes, use our escape utilities to get back into a tower/keep.

Things like Wardens Feedback, Feedback, Null Field, iBerserker, Temporal Curtain and Gs5/Staff5 makes us adept at causing havoc on zergs and just screwing with them in general.

The way I personally play Mesmer in WvW will affect my following advice, however you may find you prefer playing differently.

Forget survivability in WvW. Your survivability is your mobility – Not how much punishment you can take. The key to maintaining an illusion isn’t making it harder to break, it’s making it harder to test. You have the capabilities, and the circumstanes in WvW, to let other people be your Vit/Armor, while you pro-actively support them by negating and interrupting tons of skills and crippling their foes.

If they are your armor, then treat yourself as their weapon.

That’s just my outlook on it.

Thing is, for WvW you want to at least have 10 Chaos and 10 Inspiration. The thing is, you want -50% falling damage, and Feedback Bubble on rezzing. They’re so insanely powerful in WvW, I’d never try it without them.

Carighan.6758:

Thing is, for WvW you want to at least have 10 Chaos and 10 Inspiration. The thing is, you want -50% falling damage, and Feedback Bubble on rezzing. They’re so insanely powerful in WvW, I’d never try it without them.

I never got Feedback Bubble on rez. I can see it being awesome, but I personally am bad at playing field medic.

Fallback is a trait I actually forgot – Mainly because it’s been on my build for so long I just assumed it was always there. -50% fall damage is beautiful in so many ways, and I absolutely support having it in every build you make.

Thanks everyone. It was extremely helpful input. I probably will back down to 10/10 in the defensive lines (I do like those 10 pointers a lot). Although not specifically stated, I’m picking up that the extra bounce on GS2 isn’t as good as in sPvP. It makes sense to me: who cares about 1 more bounce against 30 people? Instead, focus on damaging/controlling many more with other traits.

I think I’ve settled on something like this: (again, just traits)
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQJARGlwzKqHTjtukw8hhf+gyRLgUBVX+AuB

Thanks again.

Forget about Phantasmal Healing and Illusionary Membrane with your ideas and stuff. There’s no point traiting in those 2 of your main focus is dps and not heal/support.

Your regeneration, that won’t pop enough for multiple reasons I’m not going to explain, is going to heal and heal you for crap without a decent amount of healing power stacked.

Just leave these kind of build for pure support Mesmer and move on to a more critt/dps build bro.