Most pugs won’t care what you run. So, if you like one play style, I would say go for it. The thing about builds is mesmers have to change them so darn often to be “optimal”. I pretty much always have domination and dueling in pve because thats where a good chunk of your damage is coming from. Need some extra stealth for situations like CM and last part of AC p1? Use chaos as the last trait line. Need reflects or are going into condition heavy encounters? Go inspiration. Just want to go all out damage or want a little more cool down reduction? Go illusions. Same thing with weapons. Ill swap weapons and builds in the middle of dungeon runs. The actual exact build doesn’t matter as much as if you are or aren’t using specific traits. Just ask yourself why you are choosing that particular line of traits and what you want for the encounter or how you can help the group. PU is good for stealth, Warden’s feedback is good for reflects, Harmonious mantras is good if you are using mantras at the time, etc. There is not one “God” end all and be all build for mesmers.
No you don’t necessarily have to use scholar runes. Some do something like superior rune of the eagle for the extra precision for reflects. You can run this with zerker as well.
The difference between assassins and zerksers is not that big. Zerkers is technically better for bad pugs when no reflects are needed. Assassins is better any time you need reflects or are with a meta group. I would also be aware that if you use the chronomancer trait line when it comes out, mesmers are gona potentially get a lot more critical chance. I went for both. Assassins for dungeons with a lot of reflects and zerk for casual dungeons with few reflects. You can do what ever you want. If you would rather spend your money on other stuff first than go for it. This is mostly if you have some extra cash to spend. The actual differences are minimal. Playing the class correctly and knowing when to use what skills is a lot more important than the armor differences.
That’s actually a really good response. Very magnanimous.
I would like more info on the interaction of precision with reflects? I am not clear on that build mechanic and what the connection is. Just a quick response; don’t want to sideline the thread.
Sure, glad to help Reflecting returns projectiles to hit the source with the same properties. Therefore, power doesn’t help. Power only increases direct damage. This means if one enemy was shooting weak projectiles and one was shooting powerful projectiles that would do a lot of damage to you, if you reflected the more powerful projectile, it would do more damage to the enemy. However, the kicker to this is that reflect damage still benefits from damage multipliers that don’t specify DIRECT damage, like critical hits. Ferocity increases your damage on critical hits while precision increases the chance of getting a critical hit. Therefore, its best to increase your critical chance as much as possible. Critical chance is increased by precision.
