Guild Wars 2

I remember leaving GW2 since I kept dying in PvE all the time on my mesmer. Now I’ve decided to try again but it seems to be the same all over again. I watched around 10 videos on Youtube, roamed the forums and I keep getting more and more confused because there is so much to choose from regarding builds and no one seems to make me “flow” in gameplay.

Right now I am lvl 62 and I cannot for my life finish the living story quest “Sound of Psi-Lance”, I’m down-graded to 51 so I should have no trouble. I’ve tried several sword/focus + Great Sword builds but I just keep dying and the enemy health is just now going down. Drives me mad! The only time I can stay alive is by smashing out illusions with Mirror Images/Decoy that I shatter, together with Staff and Great Sword, while having the trait that makes you make an illusion when you dodge. Still only good enough for 2 mobs, 3-4 mobs makes it all troublesome.

Regarding gear I have never really bought any just used quest rewards and I have 11 gold to play with regarding upgrades which I’m good to spend with help. I’m sorry to be a whiny brat but grwah I just want to have fun and not die all the time :/

So what am I looking for? Help to understand a basic PvE build, in game if possible (probably best since I seem to be doing things awfully wrong).

/The Asura Mesmer Stumpi

I’m not too familiar with that part of Living Story, been a long time. But have you tried a Phantasm build?

For single target damage the sword and pistol Phantasms are very nice. For AoE GSword and Focus are where it’s at. I struggled with leveling my mesmer till I started using phantasms.

Try Sword/Sword//GSword. Get Illusionists Celerity, Blade Training and GSword Training traits asap. This will cut down the cooldown for your phantasms quite a bit. Signet of the Ether heal can be used to reset you Phantasms skills so you can have 3 phantasms up and doing damage shortly after you start the fight. For non elite mobs you prolly just need 1. Multiple mobs on a single pull, spread out your phantasms across the pack so they don’t all pop when one mob goes down.

Start by hitting the target with some damage before you drop a phantasm on them, this will make the target go after you instead of killing your phantasm right away.

Shatter has nice burst damage but poor sustain. Phantasms are where we get good sustained damage from. If you can keep 1 on the board you’re doing good, if you can keep 3 up you’re doing quite good damage. Let them do the work for you.

Thanks, I’ve been shattering way to much probably.

The personal story can be a bit rough on the mesmer. Especially since the NPE made things a bit more difficult in regards to traits.

My advice, buy some up to date green gear with power and precision on it. Killing stuff fast normally works pretty good and the gear should be fairly cheap.

You can also read my leveling guide (in the signature). While it is a bit dusty, the gameplay should still work to burn down mobs quick.

Hope it will help. I would like to give you more advice ingame, but I have hardly time to play lately (more like ever since and forever). Sorry.

There’s a bunch of dredge, right? Feedback and Focus (w/ Warden’s Feedback) are great vs. shooty dredge and priesty dredge.

The melee ones you can kite. Except maybe those metal-head mole ones; you can dodge their pop-out attack or interrupt them when they start tunneling.

shatter is not good for pve leveling. imo pve level require a complete backward build from end game. Stack toughness and power ignore precision and crit damage.

Stumpe.3684:

Regarding gear I have never really bought any just used quest rewards and I have 11 gold to play with regarding upgrades which I’m good to spend with help.

/The Asura Mesmer Stumpi

The other advice is sound but this could pose a problem too. Make sure your equipment is not dated. The game is very harsh on dated equipment, especially those armor values you lose. Scaling also scales you down to “weaker” equipment if your equipment is dated.

Check the TP for some cheap greens or worst case blues. If you feel like spending gold get some rares. You’ll be even able to salvage some of the cost if the rares are level 68+ since you can salvage them for ectos once you outgrow them.

Ether Fest is your go to heal. Try using Signet of Illusions so your illusions live longer and hold off on shattering until your cooldown has run down a bit. Sword/Sword + Greatsword works, if you have trouble with melee range go for GS + Staff. Staff is a very defensive weapon and the aoe on staff 5 will take care of most normal trash. Staff 2 provides movement and lots of clones.

Don’t ignore karma gear if you don’t have the money for the trading post. As long as you’re leveling in an appropriate zone for your level you can buy greens from quest vendors as good as any in the trading post.

Thanks for all the help, going to take this with me and try again!