Guild Wars 2

I’ve been toying around with my Mesmer again as she was pretty well geared before I changed over to my Thief. I was wondering though, are there any decent power-based builds that allow for the GS + Staff? I was using GS + Sword/Pistol which was really fun and dropped out some amazing damage but it was also fairly squishy.

I’ve looked at some of the scepter builds and to be honest, they just aren’t that much to me. I know that the GS has some issues but the purple laser of death is just… pretty.

I could imagine using Staff + GS in a condition build, mainly using Rabid gear.

GS auto-attack tends to do a lot of hits and could be used with Sharper images to quickly apply lots of bleeding.

So, if I stick with the GS, the only real secondary set will have to use sword #2 as it’s main defensive ability?

What? No you can use staff as the backup/defensive weapon for GS just fine.

I would have advocated 20 points in illusions for elasticity before today’s patch, but not sure whether it is worth it at the moment – haven’t had the chance to test it personally yet.
Otherwise x/20/x/x/20 would have been good as a base
- then you can either pickup 30 in illusions and go with a standard shatter build
- can go with a suicide clone build (sticking 10 in domination and possibly 10 in chaos), although bear in mind it is harder to pull off with GS clones because of them staying at range
- I wouldn’t recommend a pure phantasm build with those two weapons – better to go hybrid, and maybe pick up one of the damage traits. As such I would never spend more than 10 points in inspiration with staff and GS, though YMMV.

Iavra.8510:

I could imagine using Staff + GS in a condition build, mainly using Rabid gear.

GS auto-attack tends to do a lot of hits and could be used with Sharper images to quickly apply lots of bleeding.

I would suggest Rampager instead of Rabid if you’re going to use the greatsword as your main weapon. Both weapons scale well with power but the GS comes out on top as it has a longer range, does more direct damage per second and beam attacks can’t be reflected. The staff is better at condition damage and makes one hell of a defensive weapon, if played right. I also suggest a superior Sigil of Earth to take advantage of the precision and stack with Sharper Images.

I prefer a GS/Staff zerk shatter to anything else.

I have had a very significant amount of success with this build: Probably Best Build Ever

For sPvP I run divinity runes, for WvW and PvE I run Melandru runes with lemongrass soup for the reduced condition duration.

Played well this build can be confusing to fight and hits hard.

In WvW I would also recommend swaping Mirrored Images for Feedback when zerging.

Good luck finding a build to suit you, and remember: a focused build that suits your playstyle will be far more enjoyable and probably just as effective (if not more so) than whatever the community has deemed is the current ‘meta’. x

I toyed around with this a bit more and just found it to be frustrating and though the armor/protection is really nice, it’s not really for me. I picked up the sword/sword for my secondary set and to my surprise, it’s been a ton of fun to play so far. I kind of even felt bad when some up-leveled ranger ran into my path and that iSwordsman wacked him for over 7K.

I run GS/Staff . Tried all kinds of other sets in the end I just can’t get away from GS staff. I run a balanced build
10,20,20,15,5
Traits are pretty much no brainier. 20 mind wreck, dodge for clone, faster cool down on staff skills and remove condion on heal.
I beat pretty much every thing when I’m on. The only class I really have to work to beat are phantasm mesmers. The key is timing vs noobs you can pretty much bust them with just GS. Vs tougher guys I start with burst then slowly wear them down with staff. When they are lowish I steal their boon and shatter + gs zerker burst. You must be very good at using your stealth and staff 2 to confuse people as to where you are and be good at timing sta kitten as well. As I said when I’m on I beat everything, but when I’m off it’s pretty bad. I love this build because I can do everything IF I’m skilled .

The thing I really like about GS/Staff is that it allows you to build zerker and still be extremely effective in zerg vs zerg where you can use the range to survive and absolutely melt your targets with high dps.

Mogar.9216:

I run GS/Staff . Tried all kinds of other sets in the end I just can’t get away from GS staff. I run a balanced build
10,20,20,15,5
Traits are pretty much no brainier. 20 mind wreck, dodge for clone, faster cool down on staff skills and remove condion on heal.
I beat pretty much every thing when I’m on. The only class I really have to work to beat are phantasm mesmers. The key is timing vs noobs you can pretty much bust them with just GS. Vs tougher guys I start with burst then slowly wear them down with staff. When they are lowish I steal their boon and shatter + gs zerker burst. You must be very good at using your stealth and staff 2 to confuse people as to where you are and be good at timing sta kitten as well. As I said when I’m on I beat everything, but when I’m off it’s pretty bad. I love this build because I can do everything IF I’m skilled .

I may toy around with this some as I got crushed by another mesmer using the staff and sword+sword. Granted I pretty much suck at this class still but she really did give me a brutal beating.

Are you using a zerker staff though?

FinalPatriot.8034:

Mogar.9216:

I run GS/Staff . Tried all kinds of other sets in the end I just can’t get away from GS staff. I run a balanced build
10,20,20,15,5
Traits are pretty much no brainier. 20 mind wreck, dodge for clone, faster cool down on staff skills and remove condion on heal.
I beat pretty much every thing when I’m on. The only class I really have to work to beat are phantasm mesmers. The key is timing vs noobs you can pretty much bust them with just GS. Vs tougher guys I start with burst then slowly wear them down with staff. When they are lowish I steal their boon and shatter + gs zerker burst. You must be very good at using your stealth and staff 2 to confuse people as to where you are and be good at timing sta kitten as well. As I said when I’m on I beat everything, but when I’m off it’s pretty bad. I love this build because I can do everything IF I’m skilled .

I may toy around with this some as I got crushed by another mesmer using the staff and sword+sword. Granted I pretty much suck at this class still but she really did give me a brutal beating.

Are you using a zerker staff though?

pvt armor, all zerker Jewelry , Zerker GS and Rampager Staff. Trick of beating Sword/Sword is time your staff 2 when they use blurred frenzy on you. When they CC you they charge in for blurred frenzy, staff 2 blink away and shatter. He will be rooted in place because of frenzy and your clones should shatter on him more or less right as the frenzy ends. In general trick of beat another mesmer and thieves are well timed stealth. My build has more healing than most other mesmer builds even if I screw up I can just stealth and run away regen then try again.

GS + Staff is nice, but don’t go in WvW with a pure Zerker equip.
You’ll die easily, and help invaders to rally.

Few pugs with berserk equip in the blob can ruin the inc.