Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

I’m currently gearing my mesmer and I’d like to know which sets would you recommend for each role. I know it’s quite dependent on your build, but as my focus is mainly pve, I guess we can skip that out.

For instance, I was thinking in taking
Berserker or Rampager for normal dps
Rabid for condition damage
??? for support/tank

Any advice? Thanks!

Berserker, Rabid, Solder and Knights should cover all your bases until you get used to the play style and decide to try niche builds requiring other set pieces.

Wouldn’t be Giver’s better for support?

I guess I could pop up another question as it is related to the topic.

Is Valkyrie armor combined with Berzerker Acc/ring/back/neck a good gear for direct dmg builds?

Full berserker. Anything less and you’re doing it either out of personal preference (for example using a condi build rather than a power build, power > condi in PvE but you may just enjoy conditions), or not being able to handle berserker (and on an evasive class like mesmer it’s actually quite easy to handle berserker).

Despite being full berserker you’ll be able to DPS, support and control.

I have 3 sets and 3 trinket sets:
(Brace yourself, I’m about to use bullet points!)

• Knight head shoulder coat gloves, berserker skirt and boots, runes of hoelbrak. Its also my T3 cultural so the one i wear the most ^__^
• full cleric, armaggedon top and apprentice skirt, runes of altruism. Use it for boon support and healing.
• full berserker set with runes of air, the new phoenix gem store clothes
• i want another half berserker and knight set with runes of altruism, but i cant afford. It eould be for boon support without healing

• cavalier rings, usually use these in wvw combined with the 1st set, or in pve when i need a bit more pasive defense
• berserker rings
• cleric rings
• berserker amulet, cleric amulet
• berserker assesories, knights and clerics. I wanted to buy cavalier instead of knigbt, but i wasnt paying attention and got knight >_<.
• berserker backpiece. Its too expensive to replace, so.

• all berserker: super sword of fire, the anomaly of battle, super staff of battle, zenith cesta, zenith avenger of fire, zenith pistol, winter sword (cant remember the name) of fire, frying pan.

• pearl sword of accuracy, krait focus of accuracy. For accuracy stacking :P.

3 Set:

Zerk: cause in PvE dps is what matter AND as mesmer you have so many ways to avoid dmg that it’s even easier to run than other profs.

Soldier: cause WvW needs tankyness!

Rabid/Rampager: if you’re digging a condition build (Rabid>Rampager if you’re aming for wvw use)

And that’s it.

My current gear is:
- Knight’s Mantle/Boots/Leggings
- Berserker’s Helm/Chest/Gloves
- Berserker’s GS/Sword/Focus
- Ascended Power/Precision/CritDam%/Vitality Amulet/Ring/Earring
- Ascended Toughness/Power/Precision Ring/Earring
- Berserker’s backpiece

You probably don’t need dedicated healer gear for support (unless you really want it) since Healing Power doesn’t scale all that well for us. I’d go with Rabid for condition damage builds, and that is about it really. If you decide to not use Crit% or on-crit effects for anything (personally not recommended but whatevs) then maybe Soldiers for tankiness.

A person in my guild runs full support everything. Even mesmer, If you’re diggin healing clerics maybe as well?

In my experience, rabid is great if you are doing map completion by yourself and zerker is great for events/dungeons/with a group. When I explored Orr with zerker, if I aggroed 3 or more mobs and didn’t run, I would die, with rabid I can fight 5 or more no problem.

I’ve kept full Rabid for most of the time I’ve run Mesmer. Also run a Knight/Soldier Armour for additional tankiness, and a Cleric/Shaman/Apothecary for Mantra-healspam experiments. Rabid Trinkets, until I manage to get the rest of my darn Ascendeds.
(Planning one spread full Rabid, and a Divinity for swapouts.)

Carrion Weapons. (Was Rampager, but figured the extra Vitality helps vs. Condition spammers)

Runes:
Perplexity for the Rabid Armour, Melandru for healer, Air for the “tanky” set.

Advent.6193:

I’ve kept full Rabid for most of the time I’ve run Mesmer. Also run a Knight/Soldier Armour for additional tankiness, and a Cleric/Shaman/Apothecary for Mantra-healspam experiments. Rabid Trinkets, until I manage to get the rest of my darn Ascendeds.
(Planning one spread full Rabid, and a Divinity for swapouts.)

As far as WvW, typically Carrion Weapons. (Was Rampager, but figured the extra Vitality helps vs. Condition spammers)

Runes:
Perplexity for the Rabid Armour, Melandru for healer, Air for the “tanky” set.

What kind of a build are you running that lets you go full-rabid? I’m definitely interested in exploring the conditiony side of things!

For me, I have both a Berserker and Knight’s set. I tend to run with about a 50/50 split since I alternate between WvW and PvE so much. I rarely fully-equip my berserker stuff, however. I’m not a big fractal fan and most dungeon runs are helping guildies out, so the extra survival is a nice buffer for their performance.

My Condition spec changes. I was originally 0/20/20/0/30, but have messed about with multiple options (0/25/25/0/20, 0/30/20/0/20, 0/15/25/0/30, rarely sets like 0/0/30/10/30 or 0/0/25/15/30 … those last 2 can work, but you lose a decent chunk of Bleeds).
I’m currently having a messload of fun with a 0/20/30/0/20 Chaotic Interruption spread and Staff/ScepFocus.

colesy.8490:

Full berserker. Anything less and you’re doing it either out of personal preference (for example using a condi build rather than a power build, power > condi in PvE but you may just enjoy conditions), or not being able to handle berserker (and on an evasive class like mesmer it’s actually quite easy to handle berserker).

Despite being full berserker you’ll be able to DPS, support and control.

If we are talking about PvE, this applies for every class. But yes, going full zerker on Mesmer is a bit easier as Mesmer is such an evasive class, however we kind of need that in comparison to other classes to try to not fall too far behind in damage compared to other classes.

For PvP there is a lot more variety, just like for every class, as since PvP is more unpredictable, no one build is necessarily the optimal build, and it can pay to be able to take a blindside hit every now and then.

Whenever I tell somebody to run full berserker, I’m talking about PvE. I don’t feel qualified enough to talk about PvP or WvW so I don’t talk about builds for them.

Though to be fair, I run full berserker glass cannon on PvP and WvW as well, and it works fine.

I’ve kept full Rabid for most of the time I’ve run Mesmer. Also run a Knight/Soldier Armour for additional tankiness, and a Cleric/Shaman/Apothecary for Mantra-healspam experiments. Rabid Trinkets, until I manage to get the rest of my darn Ascendeds.

Why does a light armour class like mesmer need to be tanky when you’re going to be evading the big hits anyway?

Simple. Even with Mesmer evasion/mitigation, there are darned well times when one is:

• out of defensive cooldowns
• out of endurance
  Also, once you’ve fought a few GC Killshot Warriors or BS Thieves, you get downright finicky about having decent Armour. Especially in Zerg vs Zerg combat.

I find that I can do a pretty good job in WvW if I keep a couple of pieces of PVT armor (masque and legs) and a knights staff around. If I’m going to do WvW I just swap those in. (full zerker otherwise)

Advent.6193:

Simple. Even with Mesmer evasion/mitigation, there are darned well times when one is:

• out of defensive cooldowns
• out of endurance
  Also, once you’ve fought a few GC Killshot Warriors or BS Thieves, you get downright finicky about having decent Armour. Especially in Zerg vs Zerg combat.

• why would you blow all of your cooldowns when you have two sources of distortion (distortion and blurred frenzy), stunbreakers (decoy, blink) and mass invisiblity? Depending on your weapon still, there’s phase retreat, the gs knockback, torch stealth, focus pull, magic bullet, scepter block, OH sword block.
• endurance regen food, sigil of energy or even just using your dodges properly (I don’t use any endurance regen and I’m fine)

Isn’t kill shot a very clearly choreographed attack? You just pop an invuln, evade or interrupt them? Excluding other mesmers and thieves who can actually go toe to toe with you, glass cannons of other classes tend to not be able to handle the pressure from berserker mesmers and start running away. Thieves are annoying but you just need to stun break out of basilisk venom, and then try to deploy your phantasms and stun/interrupt them enough so that they eat your burst and just die. If they can escape, then well you got a draw. Armour I felt doesn’t do enough against glass thieves, and I run full berserker in zergs too, if you’re just in a pug one you can stay in the backline and then push when the commander asks for it, and in guild raids it’s even easier since you all know what you’re doing and are much better at stacking boons, reacting to threats and pushing enemies. If you get stuck in the enemy’s lines you have a whole load of escapes or invulns to get away from danger.

Still, when I say run full glass I’m on about PvE. Running defensive stats is much better in WvW but in PvE there isn’t really much point.

Knight or Rabid are what I run depending on my build. They work for just about everything. Initially I got them for WvW, but it’s nice to have the extra defense in dungeons. My trinkets are a mix of Zerker rings, Knight back pieces, and the rest is Celestial. I’ve an old Carrion set, but I consider it to be almost useless for our class.

I run with similar gear in PvP as well. The high toughness pays for itself when a thief is unable to one or two shot you.

This is the best thing about the Mesmer class. Every freaking one of us posting here has a different setup that clearly works for ‘em. Me, I’m paranoid … I like having any potential defense option, just in case crap goes south. Others can go full GC and excel.

Also, I bleeding wish Blurred Frenzy was counted as Distortion. With how often I slot Masterful Reflection … oh, the fun

colesy.8490:

Why does a light armour class like mesmer need to be tanky when you’re going to be evading the big hits anyway?

Because the big obvious hits aren’t what usually takes a light armor class down any moreso than any other class. It tends to be a lot of hits from different sources that starts causing trouble. Building tanky mitigates that. Also, some people just have more fun that way.

I have a set of Clerics/Magi’s armor (Magis Chest/Legs Clerics everything else. Mixed trinkets) and a set of Zerker armor… Never much needed anything else.

You can run a support build with any kind of gear; its more the traits and utilities that matter. If you want survivability, Soldiers, Shamans, Apothecarys or Clerics can work if you trait into Inspiration.

A thing about support builds: Even though your own damage isn’t as good as it could be with full damage-specced Zerkers – which makes soloing a bit more difficult – you end up making your team so much more powerful that the overall group DPS/survivability increase surpasses the added DPS from a lone Zerker.

(The way I put it: “Even if I only make the other four 1.5x as powerful and survivable and my output is halved, a 5 man team is now as strong as a 6.5 man”)

I am running full soldier gear, with rune of the Dolyaks: needless to say that i almost only play in wvwvw, where i am mostly needed for my utilities and for the fact that my clones bewilder my team’s opponents: so i have to stay alive.

Mantra healin heals like 2700 sith 0 healing power, i tet 3000 with full clerics.
The clerics is pretty much for rune of water procs and reeneration from phantasms.
I want to get a support set withrunes of altruism but without healing aswell, just in case theres a banner warrior or the like with already perma regen.
Theres no poin in having double perma regen :P.

Because the big obvious hits aren’t what usually takes a light armor class down any moreso than any other class. It tends to be a lot of hits from different sources that starts causing trouble. Building tanky mitigates that. Also, some people just have more fun that way.

In WvW, sure. In PvE, enemies don’t do loads of small attacks which you have to sustain through, they just do big slow hits that you dodge out the way of. Even in the situations where sustain is needed (pulling silver mobs which don’t just die in a second) your party can quite easily just spam blinds. If you use off-hand sword or pistol you have access to either a block or a stun/daze/blind.

A thing about support builds: Even though your own damage isn’t as good as it could be with full damage-specced Zerkers – which makes soloing a bit more difficult – you end up making your team so much more powerful that the overall group DPS/survivability increase surpasses the added DPS from a lone Zerker.

I still don’t understand how destroying your own DPS is improving your group’s DPS. I can run time warp on a full glass build. I run a traited feedback on full glass. I can have signet of inspiration to double might stacks and fury duration on a full glass build. I am full glass cannon, maximising my own DPS and maximising my group’s by reflecting projectiles so they don’t have to evade (or at least, as much), doubling their might stacks or even giving them ten seconds of quickness.

(The way I put it: “Even if I only make the other four 1.5x as powerful and survivable and my output is halved, a 5 man team is now as strong as a 6.5 man”)

Or you can make the other four 1.5x as powerful/survivable while keeping your output at 100%.

It’s hardly even a learn to play issue either, if you want to mitigate damage on a full berserker mesmer, literally all you have to do is be awake. I sat there a while ago on fractal 28, ice elemental boss (dredge fractal) and my team consiting of myself, a mesmer with… some build, a tank ele a tank guard and something else I don’t remember all dropped, while I the full glass mesmer was at 100% HP the whole time simply because I dodged properly, it’s just that I got ballsy after they died, missed a dodge and died myself which is why I died, and no stats would have saved me there.

I’m not trying to be confrontational by the way, I’m just trying to understand your mindset.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

A thing about support builds: Even though your own damage isn’t as good as it could be with full damage-specced Zerkers – which makes soloing a bit more difficult – you end up making your team so much more powerful that the overall group DPS/survivability increase surpasses the added DPS from a lone Zerker.

I’m curious (since I have only ever used zerker gear with either phantasm (and shatter when I first started) builds), what support utilities (aside from mantra heals) are better when not running full zerker?

Bumbler.7581:

I’m curious (since I have only ever used zerker gear with either phantasm (and shatter when I first started) builds), what support utilities (aside from mantra heals) are better when not running full zerker?

Runes of altruism procs, better regeneration from phantasmal healing, sigil of water, boon duration from runes… Thats abou it i think.
You dont have to turn your damage into nothingness, you can use a berserker set with runes if altruism. Youd do damage with 10 domination and 25 inspiration, but still have boon support!

With sigils of battle and constantly swapping you have perma 12 might, add to that fury and might from altruism runes and signet of inspiration, and you boosted party dps by quite alot :P.

You don’t need to stack might and fury when your group is doing it themselves (unless you’re popping a signet to double them, such as cof p1 slave driver). And if you’re running a night sigil (depending on the dungeon of course), X slaying sigil and X slaying oil, the 30%+ damage I’d prefer over sigil of battle which won’t even work if your group has you on 25 stacks anyway which any organised group would.

Regen and boon duration are irrelevant since bosses are bursted down in one, maybe two standard weapon rotations.

Alissah pretty much summed it up. I was talking about support builds in general rather than Cleric’s support builds.

And by sacrificing damage, I meant trait-wise rather than gear. (Mesmer support builds tend to lend themselves more to a Phantasm-based playstyle rather than shatter, but you can’t take all the phantasm traits depending on how much support you’re loading up on).

I take Clerics gear for:

• High regen to mitigate Bleed/Burn
• Burst heals for lower HP classes (Guardians/Eles/Thieves)
• Heals add a different sort of playstyle, and helps keep NPCs alive in certain event.
• Keeping Phantasms alive longer

@colsey: I sacrifice DPS (not destroy, I can still do pretty good damage even in Cleric’s when done right.) to add team survivability. I agree with most of your points, but feel its all a matter of personal preference. My team can take bigger risks and fight for longer knowing their health keeps restoring and the playstyle is more fun for me. I’ll still slap on Zerker gear and drop Mantra heals when the situation calls for more DPS and still be giving as many boons/CC as before.

Er.. except, you’re not always going to be in a highly organized group and you cant expect that everyones always going to be playing at the same skill level. Oftentimes my group has 25x might BECAUSE of me, likely because they’re thinking the same thing: “I dont need to stack might, someone in my group will.”

Also the runes and sigils are fantastic for soloing.

For direct damage, phantasms, and ambush builds, go with pure berserker. Berserker gear does the most damage, and even though it has no defenses, the mesmer has a crap ton of defensive measures to take that compensate for this. Mesmers have blinds, blocks, reflects, stealth, interrupts, and easy permanent vigor.

An alternate option for DPS is to use berserker gear until you get to 50% crit rate, then use valkyrie gear. Precision takes a steep drop in usefulness once you have a 50% crit rate, so it is better to invest in something else. Valkyrie is a nice alternative, since it has the same power and crit damage, but vitality instead of precision.

For condition damage, I’d recommend a mixture of rabid and rampager gear. The best mesmer conditions come from procs, which require precision to really work. The only thing that is really lost by using this setup is the damage that shattering would normally give, but that isn’t so bad since it is done for the confusion anyway. Again, greatly diminished effects at 50% crit rate, so once you have 50% crit rate you can change around the rampager gear for rabid.

For damage/condition hybrids, I’d recommend rampagers to 50% crit rate, then carrion after that. The goal is to stack up as much offensive stats as possible, and the mixture of carrion and rabid gives a whole lot of everything. The other way to do this is to have rampager armor/weapons, but celestial stat trinkets.

For support… run anything? The only stat that is really a support stat is healing power, and mesmers don’t have that many heals to begin with. Other than spamming restorative mantras for heals, you can have any build be a “support” build.

Alissah.9281:

With sigils of battle and constantly swapping you have perma 12 might, add to that fury and might from altruism runes and signet of inspiration, and you boosted party dps by quite alot :P.

I see. While I do not like the runes of altruism (I’ll rely on warriors for fury), I love the Sigils of Battle/SoI combo and nearly always run them.

I thought about Sigils of force and night (or dungeon specific sigils), however since they do not affect phantasms, I would rather suffer the personal auto-attack and blurred frenzy damage loss for more might (which will affect my phantasms). Although, if you are in an organized group with perma-25-might, then likely the force/night/dungeon sigils are superior as your phantasms have all the boosts they can receive.

Bumbler.7581:

Alissah.9281:

With sigils of battle and constantly swapping you have perma 12 might, add to that fury and might from altruism runes and signet of inspiration, and you boosted party dps by quite alot :P.

I see. While I do not like the runes of altruism (I’ll rely on warriors for fury), I love the Sigils of Battle/SoI combo and nearly always run them.

I thought about Sigils of force and night (or dungeon specific sigils), however since they do not affect phantasms, I would rather suffer the personal auto-attack and blurred frenzy damage loss for more might (which will affect my phantasms). Although, if you are in an organized group with perma-25-might, then likely the force/night/dungeon sigils are superior as your phantasms have all the boosts they can receive.

I use 4x altruism and 2x water in the might stacking paladin 2.0 build (see my sig) for 3x party might and 15% boon duration. The water runes give an extra 15% boon duration on top of that. Fury from altruism runes doesn’t come into play unless you are using them on the 5 and 6 slots.

I take Clerics gear for:

•High regen to mitigate Bleed/Burn

Null Field? Phantasmal Disenchanter? Mender’s Purity even?

•Burst heals for lower HP classes (Guardians/Eles/Thieves)

Guardians have their own burst heals, a ton of damage mitigation and blocks. Don’t elementalists have like the best healing capabilities in the game too? Thieves, fair enough (a pretty steep learning curve to playing a glass thief in PvE, there’s pretty much zero room for error, same for LH eles). Even then, I never really thought the mesmer was meant to be a healing class, that’s the kind of thing that guards and eles are just … better at.

•Heals add a different sort of playstyle, and helps keep NPCs alive in certain event.

Not really needed if it isn’t a group event, if it’s a group event then somebody else can do it. There’s some things that I feel a mesmer shouldn’t have to completely gut their potential for when another class can do it better, and almost effortlessly while we have to take a ton of traiting for it.

•Keeping Phantasms alive longer

Signet of illusions?

My team can take bigger risks and fight for longer knowing their health keeps restoring

So you’re basically rewarding bad play on their part and having to carry them. They’re not having to actually learn an encounter because you’re just healing them out of their failures.

Er.. except, you’re not always going to be in a highly organized group and you cant expect that everyones always going to be playing at the same skill level. Oftentimes my group has 25x might BECAUSE of me, likely because they’re thinking the same thing: “I dont need to stack might, someone in my group will.”

See now I find that funny, if I have skills that are worth using that stack might I’m thinking to pop them straight ASAP, not waiting for someone else to do it (why would somebody think that, seriously? that’s like having a second mesmer in the group and waiting for them to drop a phantasm or a clone before dropping your own).

But still, if it’s out of personal preference, that’s fine. It just irks me when people pass off a certain set of gear as ideal, and then when I debate it with them they just go “ignore the zerker fanboys”. That’s not to say you’re doing that at all, you’re being perfectly reasonable.

—

I thought about Sigils of force and night (or dungeon specific sigils), however since they do not affect phantasms

IIRC, phantasms take on base damage modifiers (%+ damage sigils) but don’t take things like the player’s might.

colesy.8490:

I thought about Sigils of force and night (or dungeon specific sigils), however since they do not affect phantasms

IIRC, phantasms take on base damage modifiers (%+ damage sigils) but don’t take things like the player’s might.

Really? I could have sword it was the other way around. For example, the iWarden will not inherit your bonus damage from a +%damage sigil, but will inherit the bonus damage you receive from your own might stacks. Let me try and find where I found that….

Edit, found it:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Phantom-Strengh

Bumbler.7581:

colesy.8490:

I thought about Sigils of force and night (or dungeon specific sigils), however since they do not affect phantasms

IIRC, phantasms take on base damage modifiers (%+ damage sigils) but don’t take things like the player’s might.

Really? I could have sword it was the other way around. For example, the iWarden will not inherit your bonus damage from a +%damage sigil, but will inherit the bonus damage you receive from your own might stacks. Let me try and find where I found that….

@Bumbler, I believe you are correct on that.

skcamow.3527:

I use 4x altruism and 2x water in the might stacking paladin 2.0 build (see my sig) for 3x party might and 15% boon duration. The water runes give an extra 15% boon duration on top of that. Fury from altruism runes doesn’t come into play unless you are using them on the 5 and 6 slots.

Yes, I have seen your build before, and you, sir or madam, are a true altruist.

Yes, other classes can do it. No, that doesn’t mean they’re doing it better than us.

• Null Field, Disenchanter, and the other condition removal stuff are all taking up trait/utility slots that I can use for other things if I have good regen.. And the same argument applies that other classes (like Elementalists) can bring team condition removal.

• Eles and Guardians are known for their heals, yeah, but not always specced for it. I actually had a discussion with all the other forums on comparing the supportive qualities of each class; Mesmer can keep up team heals as good as Elementalists or Guardians (still not positive on this, but it takes us a lot less effort and skills to blow then guardians for burst heals) if so inclined.

The reason why most people don’t look at Mesmers as supportive the way they do for Eles/Engineers/Guardians is just that: A matter of perspective. Guardians and Eles have big flashy support abilities whereas the Mesmers are more subtle. Guardians and Eles have the heals and boons a bit more naturally where the Mesmer has to dedicate slightly more traits and change his/her rotation around a bit.

But in the end, its all the same thing.

A zerker Ele may actually have better DPS than a zerker Mes (don’t quote me on that, I’m not sure) and bring AoE heals, and some buffs. A Zerker Mes can compound any buffs he recieves from the team, provide reflects and portals and summon illusions that have all these willy-nilly effects. If you don’t play a Mes, you don’t know the phantasms are reflecting or giving regneration or removing conditions or absorbing half your damage. You’re not ready for when they drop Illusion of Life on you so you don’t know to kill something ASAP or fall back to where you can recover safely. You just think “Oh cool its a Mesmer, we’ll get some Mass Invis, a Portal, or maybe Time Warp”

Whereas for a guardian, you know “OK Ima get some heals, protection, stability” but don’t really understand how they do damage, same for an Ele.

• I’m pretty sure I’m right when I say this, but in WvW Cleric’s Mesmers output better team healing than almost every other class without needing to waste skills. Get two support Mesmer together in a zerg and that’s 10 people that’re going to be ungodly hard to kill. For world events its the same thing. Everyone is always thinking “someone else will do it” but that doesn’t mean that they’ll be doing it better.

• Keeping Phantasms alive longer is a bonus along with keeping everyone else alive, without taking up a utility slot (Er yeah, Mantra of Pain, but I use it for the actual ability too. Once you’re stacking 13+ might, MoPain hits rather hard for something with a 1s cooldown)

• Its not necessarily rewarding bad play. Its making sure the team doesn’t wipe because of a bad player. I can still function perfectly fine while making sure the worse player stays strong. With my heals, my team spends less time ducking out of a fight to recover. But no heals are meant to outshine anyone’s Skill 6, the mantra heals are for the times in between when the healing skill is on cooldown.

• I didn’t mean people don’t stack might ALL the time. I’m saying theres plenty situations where the reason we we have a permanent 25x might is because of me. I don’t always get grouped with Warriors or classes that can spam fire fields & blast finishers. And when they aren’t stacking might, its usually because they’re doing something else to help out, not just waiting for me to carry them.

• I think its the opposite. Phantasms don’t receive weapon/sigil bonuses but gain our Power/Precision/Toughness stat increases.

Bumbler.7581:

skcamow.3527:

I use 4x altruism and 2x water in the might stacking paladin 2.0 build (see my sig) for 3x party might and 15% boon duration. The water runes give an extra 15% boon duration on top of that. Fury from altruism runes doesn’t come into play unless you are using them on the 5 and 6 slots.

Yes, I have seen your build before, and you, sir or madam, are a true altruist.

Haha, just gushing over the runes – love ‘em. Aptly named aren’t they? The 1-4 slots especially are really useful for offensive support builds. What do you currently run?

skcamow.3527:

Haha, just gushing over the runes – love ‘em. Aptly named aren’t they? The 1-4 slots especially are really useful for offensive support builds. What do you currently run?

Yes, very aptly named; and I am not so generous to my team.

I run ruby orbs for two reasons: (1) I am not rich enough for Scholar runes, and I always forget to watch my health anyways. I know which attacks deal huge chunks of damage when I don’t avoid them and its only at those time that I will notice my health. (2) I’m selfish and would prefer to buff my own damage. Actually, I almost always run with 2 warriors and a guardian, so SoI is all I need for might. So since mesmers have some of the lowest DPS, I like to do all I can to increase it and keep up with the other classes I run with, and use my utility skills in my support.

Weapon wise, I run Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Strength on my two MH swords (so I rely on these to help build and pass the might). I run a Sigil of Accuracy on one my of off-hands and a Sigil of Energy on the other. If I am ranging, my GS has a Sigil of Energy. Essentially, I like to always run a Sigil of Energy somewhere as I rely on it heavily.

Yes, other classes can do it. No, that doesn’t mean they’re doing it better than us.

•Null Field, Disenchanter, and the other condition removal stuff are all taking up trait/utility slots that I can use for other things if I have good regen.. And the same argument applies that other classes (like Elementalists) can bring team condition removal.

But you can get regen off your phantasms too? And if you focus on regen, you’re compromising your stats somewhere. Also, I can’t think of many situations in PvE where all three of my slots absolutely must be three things and I can’t swap any of them out for null field. The only time I can think of is against the golem in CoE where I stick in feedback, null field and phantasmal disenchanter because you’re literally just spamming boon removal, reflecting the golem’s projectiles and reflecting the turrets (which doesn’t seem to work … odd)

•Eles and Guardians are known for their heals, yeah, but not always specced for it. I actually had a discussion with all the other forums on comparing the supportive qualities of each class; Mesmer can keep up team heals as good as Elementalists or Guardians (still not positive on this, but it takes us a lot less effort and skills to blow then guardians for burst heals) if so inclined.

Guardians can pop their virtue of resolve for a burst heal, and if traited it also provides 5 seconds of regen too I believe. Then there’s hold the line which is just a solid skill to use.

A zerker Ele may actually have better DPS than a zerker Mes (don’t quote me on that, I’m not sure) and bring AoE heals, and some buffs.

I believe mesmers have the worst DPS in the entire game.

A Zerker Mes can compound any buffs he recieves from the team, provide reflects and portals and summon illusions that have all these willy-nilly effects. If you don’t play a Mes, you don’t know the phantasms are reflecting or giving regneration or removing conditions or absorbing half your damage.

Doubling buffs off of signet is good, but if you check the dungeon forums, Nike made a post stating, IIRC, a dungeon composition should always be able to stack 25 might, fury and 25 vulnerability. Once you hit that, you keep optimising your group for as long as you are still able to do that. Mesmers are no longer meta in high-end groups, so the signet can’t be as good as you/we think it is.

You’re not ready for when they drop Illusion of Life on you so you don’t know to kill something ASAP or fall back to where you can recover safely. You just think “Oh cool its a Mesmer, we’ll get some Mass Invis, a Portal, or maybe Time Warp”

Why would a mesmer ever have illusion of life spec’d in? That’s practically a pvp-exclusive skill. And I don’t know about you, but I like knowing what classes are capable of skills-wise, not like a breakdown of it all but to generally know what they are capable of, so warriors can vuln, might and fury (duration) stack, guards can give blocks, prot, regen, etc.

•I’m pretty sure I’m right when I say this, but in WvW Cleric’s Mesmers output better team healing than almost every other class without needing to waste skills. Get two support Mesmer together in a zerg and that’s 10 people that’re going to be ungodly hard to kill. For world events its the same thing. Everyone is always thinking “someone else will do it” but that doesn’t mean that they’ll be doing it better.

Then why is it in the WvW guild I’m in we use the typical water fields + blast finishers? Mesmers are just there for glamour, not healing. Guardians spamming prot and regen and then water + blasts on regroups gives massive burst heals.

•Its not necessarily rewarding bad play. Its making sure the team doesn’t wipe because of a bad player. I can still function perfectly fine while making sure the worse player stays strong. With my heals, my team spends less time ducking out of a fight to recover. But no heals are meant to outshine anyone’s Skill 6, the mantra heals are for the times in between when the healing skill is on cooldown.

Well it is because you’re basically saying “don’t worry about missing this dodge, I’ll heal you up”. Not to say healing’s a bad thing, I just disagree with this more on principle than an actual practical reason – not enough players learn the encounters in this game, they just want to press a few buttons, things die and then collect loot.

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From the searching I’ve done, yeah it seems phantasms don’t get bonuses from %+ damage sigils so it’ll probably be worth me picking up a bloodlust sigil. Could anyone run some tests anyway though? It may have changed … which would be nice considering I was planning on getting X slaying swords for every single dungeon.

I’ll look into the dungeon forums, I’ve actually never taken much time to browse there.. so ty for the idea; but I wasn’t talking about high-end groups. I was talking about random dungeoning (is that a word? It is now.) in general. A support Mes can make a run with PUGs soooo much smoother. If I’m in an organized group, of course I’ll adapt accordingly.

And yeah, Illusion of Life was a bit of a lousy example, but still an example nonetheless. All I mean is that a lot of people don’t know what most other classes have to offer and go off what they’ve seen/heard. I’ll admit, I’m one of them. Too Mesmer-focused and not enough time learning other classes.

Edit: And as for the heals. Yeah it’s a bit of hand-holding for less-skilled players, but I don’t really see that as a bad thing. I like playing a healer roll, and people like getting heals. Plus good players make great use of it as well, adjusting their strategies accordingly.
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And thus we come to a theoretical stalemate. (Not that either of us were trying to win)
“Mesmer are just there for glamours”
A Mesmer can drop glamours, 3k burst heals without needing a field, keeping up perma Protection/Regen/Swiftness/Retaliation/Vigor/Might, while still throwing in damage. One can argue that other classes can do similar, but that’s point. Its not a matter of which is superior, its a matter of preference.

All I’m saying is that support Mesmers can run with the best of ‘em, and have something to offer even in Cleric’s gear.

I’ll look into the dungeon forums, I’ve actually never taken much time to browse there.. so ty for the idea; but I wasn’t talking about high-end groups. I was talking about random dungeoning (is that a word? It is now.) in general. A support Mes can make a run with PUGs soooo much smoother. If I’m in an organized group, of course I’ll adapt accordingly.

Obviously we’re both here just giving anecdotes, but my full berserker mesmer can make or break runs when the utility is required. If I’m sloppy on pulls or reflects it can cause wipes. My DPS can also salvage things when things go pear shaped. Of course, we can both give each other different stories here all day of “I did awesome thing X which means build Y is better”.

Seems this has boiled down to optimisation vs. preference, which of course is futile to debate about.