Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

I’m thinking about returning to Gw2, I haven’t played for about 6 months, I left basically right before they implemented the WvW patch that removed culling and added ranks. Back then I played a confusion/condition spamming Mesmer which I see has been changed a lot. So I have a couple questions regarding the class and the state of the class in WvW.

Keeping in mind I enjoy playing in Small to Large engagements mostly. I’m don’t really care about being good at duels.

1. Does Mesmer still have a role in WvW and if so what role are most playing.

2. Does the current large scale meta mean spamming as much Tough/Vit gear as possible or are other variations still doable?

3. I have several lvl 80’s fully geared in Exotics. Is Exotic gear still good or is there tons of Ascended pieces now? I didn’t have any Ascended rings or amulets yet at the time of leaving.

4. Are Melee trains still the meta for Zerg Vs Zerg engagements? Would I find more usefulness out of a Guardian? My guard only made it to roughly lvl 50ish but would be fast to lvl to 80 and I have most of the tokens i need for Tough/Vit dungeon gear.

I loved the play style of a confusion/glamour Mesmer in WvW but never really cared for GS/ISerker builds so hopefully there are viable alternatives.

1. Does Mesmer still have a role in WvW and if so what role are most playing.

- Yes, i love playing my mesmer in WvW, i play a condition/Confusion build and have alot of fun with it. I have also played Shatter and Phantasm builds and they worked well as well.

2. Does the current large scale meta mean spamming as much Tough/Vit gear as possible or are other variations still doable?

- Pretty much any variation based on your build, i run full rabid myself.

3. I have several lvl 80’s fully geared in Exotics. Is Exotic gear still good or is there tons of Ascended pieces now? I didn’t have any Ascended rings or amulets yet at the time of leaving.

- Personally i dont think the gear affects WvW that much. I run Exotics with 2 Ascended rings currently. I dont really notice that much difference from when i was running full rares a few weeks back.

4. Are Melee trains still the meta for Zerg Vs Zerg engagements? Would I find more usefulness out of a Guardian? My guard only made it to roughly lvl 50ish but would be fast to lvl to 80 and I have most of the tokens i need for Tough/Vit dungeon gear.

Currently its a Condition heavy meta, alot of AoE spammers. Never used a Guardian so i cant answer that one.

1. Yes, they are still the best utility profession. But I see a lot less Mesmer on my server these days, for some reason. They are still needed just as much as before, though. Portal, Veil, and Time Warp are still priceless in a zerg.

2. All variations work. But the current meta has more condition damage, so vitality is a bit more important.

3. Exotics are just fine, don’t worry about it. ArenaNet have talk about releasing ascended armor, but we still haven’t seen any signs of that yet.

4. It depends on the profession. AoE damage is still what you’ll see most of. Guardians are plentiful on my server, and I think it’s the same for others. More Mesmers is always a good thing.

The Mesmer is one of the best balanced professions, so I wouldn’t worry about viable builds. Personally, I play a bunkerish condition damage Mesmer, focusing on boon sharing with staff and Signet of Inspiration. It’s always good fun.

The old glamour condition builds are no longer viable imo. Granted, you might try them with Runes of Perplexity combined with a hybrid interrupt build. Hmmm…. Perhaps roll GS + Scepter/Focus, 30(II,VIII,X)/0/0/30(II,VIII,IX)/10(V) build. Your aoe intterupts would be quite brutal. Combine that with your glamour confusion and you could potentially manage 6+ stacks on a portion of a zerg which should hit for nearly 1300 per trigger.

1. Mesmers are not played as much as before, but we still have a place in WvW. Our mission is mostly support, with glamours and reflections, but you can try a shatter front-line soldier in small fights.

2. You need survivability, but the magic of the mesmer is that we have it from other sources. In zergs I run a reflection/glamour build with 2750 of armor and 18,8k of base health. I have no problems to survive, as I rely on blink, phase retreat and 2 Distortions thanks to the trait.

If you know how to move and to avoid the damage, soldier/sentinel gear becomes useless.

3. There’re only ascended trinkets. And no, ascended gear is not needed in WvW, exotic does the job pretty well.

4. Yes, melee is still the meta. Actually it’s even worse than before. In high tiers is not hard to see 60vs60 men fights. Healing Guards are very demanded, and definitely you feel you’re more useful than playing a mesmer.

The problem I see with iZerker in big fights is that you only do 2k aoe damage every 20s, and that is pretty low even for mesmers. Focus is way more useful and popping a Chaos storm in the middle of the e enemy zerg or even in yours for support purposes is way more useful. Then, Glamour Confusion builds are totally dead, so is not worth to specify on it.

Thanks for the answers everyone. It’s good to hear not to much has changed in respects to Mesmers. I ran a variation of a shatter build for a long time in WvW early on and liked it because of the adaptability from small scale to large scale engagements. I think I will go back to that until I get a feel for things are now.

Orikx.9671:

Thanks for the answers everyone. It’s good to hear not to much has changed in respects to Mesmers. I ran a variation of a shatter build for a long time in WvW early on and liked it because of the adaptability from small scale to large scale engagements. I think I will go back to that until I get a feel for things are now.

Ah… I didn’t see you were from SoR. Hmmm… forget my previous comments. Instead, I suggest the “cliff diving maneuver”. This elite WvW move of diving off a cliff in front of your enemies is used to strike fear in them and to show your fearlessness in the face of sheer hopelessness.

Helios.3598:

Orikx.9671:

Thanks for the answers everyone. It’s good to hear not to much has changed in respects to Mesmers. I ran a variation of a shatter build for a long time in WvW early on and liked it because of the adaptability from small scale to large scale engagements. I think I will go back to that until I get a feel for things are now.

Ah… I didn’t see you were from SoR. Hmmm… forget my previous comments. Instead, I suggest the “cliff diving maneuver”. This elite WvW move of diving off a cliff in front of your enemies is used to strike fear in them and to show your fearlessness in the face of sheer hopelessness.

I speant hours trying the cliff diving tactic last night after you suggested it and I can’t seem to get it to work. I just keep dieing. What am I doing wrong? :P

Did you forget to bring the cookies?