Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone,
I seem to be struggling as a mesmer. Been playing GW2 for about a month now, I have a level 80 mesmer as my first char currently running a 10/20/0/25/15 phantasm build all zerk gear. I currently only PVE, I haven’t even bothered to PVP as I know I would get owned. For the most part I’m okay at open world PVE, a little squishy here and there and struggle a bit with larger mobs with the lack of AoE. I’ve done 1 or 2 dungeons & low level fractals but I feel like I’m always slowing the group down because of my lack of skill at playing Mesmer. Maybe it’s just my lack of knowledge since I’m a new player, but I feel like I’m just lacking in overall skill. I’ve seen videos of other mesmer players so I know the potential of the class. I’m not really sure how anyone can really help me with my Mesmer skills cause that’s up to my own skill level, but any tips on how to be more proficient would be great! Perhaps I just need to play more and develop those skills over time or maybe Mesmer just isn’t the right profession for me and I just suck. Sorry if this is pretty vague, I don’t really know a specific area where I need help it’s more just overall improvement. Again any tips on getting better would be great! Thanks!

Do you feel like you’re not doing enough damage? That you’re not doing enough support for the group? Are you getting downed too much? There has to be a reason you feel like you’re slowing the group down? Can’t really begin to help without knowing what makes you feel like this.

Proficiency comes with time and if you’ve only been playing a month you can always keep at it and see where you’re at in another month.

How do you feel you’re slowing your group down? As a full zerk mesmer, your damage output should be pretty good. Of course, you’re not going to facemelt things like a warrior, but you bring many unique things to the party that no other class can, such as Time Warp and Portal.

You should always bring some kind of “bail” skill in your utility slot. Common choices are Blink, Decoy, or Mirror Images.

I think the only way to really increase your skill with a mesmer is to just play it more to get used to it. I suggest going to PvP. You may die a lot in the beginning, but I feel like nothing improves your level of play faster than PvP. If you find a dueling arena, you can ask your opponents for help sometimes.

What weapons are you using?

I guess I’m just being downed a lot making other players have to come help me. Should I switch out some of my zerker gear for some toughness? I think I need to work on my dodging and utilizing my utility skills more. My DPS is pretty good using Duelist and Warden, however there’s that period during the cooldowns or when I have 3 phantasms up, where I’m not sure what I should do. I’m using sw/p & sw/f for dungeons/ frac and GS & sw/p or f for open world PVE.

What server are you on? I would be more than happy to chat when I get back from class this afternoon (college life woo..) if you happen to be on, and we can practice tips and tricks.

Oftentimes it’s simply a matter of not finding a build that really flows for your playstyle. My mesmer has been my baby since release, and I’ve played every build under the sun and I always return to shatter, and even change builds into a shatter variant if I can. Maybe phantasm just isn’t your niche.

Let me know, I’ll check back later. ~

I’ve never played phantasm personally, but from what I understand it’s a low skill build, which makes it good for beginners. It also seems like your options are limited with it (just as you’ve described, you don’t seem to have much to do when you have 3 phantasms up). You might consider looking into different builds that require higher levels of play. Then you have more room to improve. I doubt any of the mesmers in the videos you’re watching are running phantasms. If you’re going for dps, you might consider a shatter build. Anyways, I don’t want to dissuade you from a build you enjoy, but I suggest checking out what else is out there. Don’t let phantasms be a crutch.

As far as staying alive goes, yea the main thing is just learning how to dodge. Blink is also helpful because you can use it to instantly get far away from the fight to heal up. You can use the F4 shatter (Distortion, I think) to gain a few seconds of evade. You can use sword 2 to get a few seconds of invulnerability, or staff 2 for a quick escape.

I wouldn’t swap out your zerk for toughness, especially not for PvE. Mesmers have the advantage of having high in-combat mobility (lots of teleports) so you can use that to stay alive while still having high dps. =D

I tried a shatter build while I was still leveling and a bit when I first hit 80, I liked it for the most part but again I felt like my skills let me down as I felt like my shatter timings were off and I wasnt using the shatters effectively so i would die a lot. Maybe I’ll try it out again now that I’ve gotten a little better since then. I switched to Phantasm because it seems that it is the best PVE meta from what I’ve read, since most other builds revolve around PVP or aren’t viable in PVE.

@WhiteRose I’m on Anvil Rock. At work right now so I won’t be on till later as well. I’ll message you when I’m online later tonight.

@bladeofky: Phantasm is the pve Mesmer build. There is no other viable way to play.

@OP: One thing I notice right away is that your trait setup is a little odd. You’ll want to move 5 points from dueling into inspiration, since that 25 minor in dueling doesn’t really do anything for you.

Swapping out some of your zerker gear for something like knights or cavaliers could be a good choice. While you eventually want to play in full zerker, if you’re getting downed all the time then having better defense could help. You’ll still want to learn the fights though, and once you find that you’re not getting hit as much, change back into more full zerker.

Oh ic. Is the average dps higher in phantasm than shatter?

bladeofky.3067:

Oh ic. Is the average dps higher in phantasm than shatter?

Much higher. Phantasm builds also are able to provide more support than other builds.

Shatter is good for spike damage and for fast fights. That is why it works best in open world content when the mobs have low health and you want to tag something too.

If you run more focused content, like dungeons or fractals, go with a phantasm build. Personally I would recommend to go with a standard 10/20/0/25/15 build and adapt to your preferences.
Timing is not as critical as with a shatter build (timing is always important though, but you can manage your defense more easily with phantasm builds as your offense is mainly your phantasm damage + auto attack, while you have to manage both at the same time with a shatter build) and you have more options with you traits.

I’ve played all kind of weapon setups and armor mixings in PVE and no one ever complains about any choices. What I wanted to say with that is that you can choose less difficult weapons if you find it tough to survive. Skip the close combat weapons like sword until you can handle it. Also as Pyro says, try some more forgivning armor, going full glas cannon is a tough way to start you career.

I think you teammates rather see less dps than revive you all the time, that steals more dps.

Also, get some food / runes with health regen and the new heal signet.

MadBomber.3719, what do you die from? are you failing dodges? are you failing to remove conditions?

maybe your battle awareness is low? seems to me you like being in melee, which is not always a good idea, even if you could theoretically do the most dps there.

MadBomber.3719:

Hello everyone,
I seem to be struggling as a mesmer. Been playing GW2 for about a month now, I have a level 80 mesmer as my first char currently running a 10/20/0/25/15 phantasm build all zerk gear. I currently only PVE, I haven’t even bothered to PVP as I know I would get owned. For the most part I’m okay at open world PVE, a little squishy here and there and struggle a bit with larger mobs with the lack of AoE. I’ve done 1 or 2 dungeons & low level fractals but I feel like I’m always slowing the group down because of my lack of skill at playing Mesmer. Maybe it’s just my lack of knowledge since I’m a new player, but I feel like I’m just lacking in overall skill. I’ve seen videos of other mesmer players so I know the potential of the class. I’m not really sure how anyone can really help me with my Mesmer skills cause that’s up to my own skill level, but any tips on how to be more proficient would be great! Perhaps I just need to play more and develop those skills over time or maybe Mesmer just isn’t the right profession for me and I just suck. Sorry if this is pretty vague, I don’t really know a specific area where I need help it’s more just overall improvement. Again any tips on getting better would be great! Thanks!

try pvp out

the trick to using a Mesmer is to confuse you opponent and I’m not talking in gw2.

use stealth and clones to your advantage to distract foes. try to always keep in a place where you are at a advantage. i’ll be honest I’ve saw some pretty clever mesmers. i’ll stand around trying to figure where who is just to find that they’ve gotten the high ground.

if someone doesn’t know how to fight a Mesmer you’ll probably have a fairly easy win as you’ll move to safety as he attacks your clones in a furious rage.

if you see someone not taking the bait so to speak he will likely know which you are as soon as he spots you ik I do anyway. to counter this you’ll want to try to put some distance between the two of you or use some clever trick using the terrain.

with that said NOTHING is more infuriating then accidentally wasting a skill on a clone. I will say that from personal experience.

asking here for tips is very good but also don’t shy away from spvp. I learned more in 2 days of dueling then I did in 8 months of wvw zerging. spvp can be very fun but in all honesty it’s a team sport which can make learning at times diffuclt as people either carry you or you get demolished prior to really doing anything. for that main reason I suggest dueling.

with that said if you do lose keep in mind it is not always your fault they are a lot of things that go into winning other then what you do. coordination experience build are just a few. if you lose at spvp get up dust your self off then do it again. one thing to keep in mind do not think of some generic formula to fight professions you’ll want to try to learn and use the various professions weaknesses against them.

Thanks everyone for your input! I’ll try out different things over the next couple weeks and hopefully see some improvement. I think my issue is not knowing what to do in dungeons/ fractals because of inexperience. I don’t think I’m utilizing my utility skills enough and dodging effectively, and as someone stated above it probably has to do with lack of battle awareness and knowing when to use what, thus I’m being downed more than i should.

MadBomber.3719:

Thanks everyone for your input! I’ll try out different things over the next couple weeks and hopefully see some improvement. I think my issue is not knowing what to do in dungeons/ fractals because of inexperience. I don’t think I’m utilizing my utility skills enough and dodging effectively, and as someone stated above it probably has to do with lack of battle awareness and knowing when to use what, thus I’m being downed more than i should.

Now I’m not saying this is the best, but I ran a hybrid (GS/Sw&P) 20/20/-/10/20 build that was very forgiving and incredibly tough in PvE/dungeons/fractals. Few things could easily wade through my phantasms and I used to run pDefender for extra tanky-ness. I wasn’t doing heavy burst damage like Shatter builds, but I was probably the hardest to down while providing steady DPS. The tough phantasms also often bought a lot of breathing room for my group tying up mobs.

Hi mad bomber. I played a mesmer as my first class (on my way to my 7th 80 now) and I also struggled a bit. While it is very true that combat awareness is probably causing most of your issues, there are a few things you can do to mitigate your downed state issues until you get better.

1) Two handed ranged weapons. Nothing says I need to chill for a moment and get a sense of my surroundings better than using a GS or Staff. I do not recommend both weapons simultaneously, however 1 or the other is a good thing.

2) Power/toughness/vitality gear. This is available through karma, gold or wvw. I bought a full exotic set of this when I was a new 80, and have slowly been replacing pieces as my skill level has increased. I started replacing Weapons than trinkets 1 at a time with zerker, and now I am in the process of replacing armor with assassins.

3) Etherial combo fields are your friend. Chaos armor is great for survivability in PvE.

4) 20 points in inspiration. Weird I know, but I have recently fallen in love with a mild mantra build (really Mantra/Phantasm build). Menders purity is great for condition removal if you use Mantra of recovery. Restorative mantras is great when coupled with Mantra of Pain. Mantra of Pain has a really short recovery time and Power Spike has a quick unload time. Spamming Mantra of Pain with the occasional Mantra of Recovery is an effective way to AOE heal your party or more importantly yourself.

Lots of other stuff to learn, but these are the tips that have gotten me through while out surviving most PUGs.

Use your chaos armor, it gives condition to enemy, boons to yourself and grant -33% damage. Excellent in survival for fractals and dungeons.

Mesmer has almost infinite chaos armor if you slot feedback, nullfield and equip a staff. Combine staff’s phase retreat (skill 2) with those fields and chaos storm (skill 5) you can have continuous chaos armor. And if you think its not enough staff’s skill 4 gives you chaos armor directly.

If you like close combat, illusionary leap (sword skill 3) with those fields also give you chaos armor. Also blurred frenzy will also give you evasions to evade attacks. Riposte and Prestige is also a good escape skill if you want to back out from PvE’s close range attacks. Personally I think mesmer is a great close combat class, just not the type to stay and tank in the same spot. You usually need to be ready to dodge out of attacks.

If you think the PvE’s range attack hurts your mesmer a lot, use your illusions to block it for you. Standing behind an illusion may sound silly but they actually block arrows for you.