Guild Wars 2

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAW7dlwzypXVzpGa9IhpH9m4I/0DlvcojqA2B

I am wondering what people think about this build. any weaknesses, or things i can do better? I have not yet tried this in game.

This is what I’ve found, you don’t need to build a support mesmer, to be a support mesmer…..

Let me put that another way

Most of the support a mesmer can dish out comes in the form of your utilities, for example; feedback..

I know the inclination when building something for support is to up your survivability, almost to it’s limits, this really isn’t needed as a mesmer…

You can run the same support utilities whether you’re specked for damage or specked for defense…

Mesmers have an uncanny knack of surviving without traiting for it, so why hinder your damage output?

I’m the only light armored profession in my dungeon group, I play glass cannon or hybrid condition/crit, I die the least, by a long, long way – This is simply due to the tricks with have…

My advice to anyone wanting to build a support mesmer, don’t spec for sole survivability, you just don’t need it, a competent player will simply survive because we are mesmers…

Support can also be described in this sense as dealing considerable damage to help take down mobs easier…You can still rock those fantastic support spells while doing so…

This is far better than building a tree that deals almost no damage, is traited to heavily for survivability because you don’t need it, and still only having access to the same spells that a more damaging build can produce..

Just need to decide on your weapons…

Greatsword or Staff is the big one…

I like the GS personally -

Staff offers: (for the group)
Ethereal Combo Field
Chaos Storm (buffs and debuffs)
Condition Stacking

GS offers:
Aoe Cripple
Aoe Bleed
Aoe Damage
Vulnerability stacking
Might Stacking
Knockbacks/Interrupts
Boon Removal

I also find I’m able to kite much better with the GS

GS offers better and faster bleed stacks

Really all down to preference, some like the staff for it’s inherent defensive properties, combo fields etc -

Of course you can run both ^^

In fact, I take 6 weapons with me wherever I go….

I talked about this in relation to dungeons, as I assumed that’s what it was for, don’t know why you would build a support spec for solo pve

Anyway, to sum up:

You don’t need to build a “support” mesmer, to build a support mesmer..

I talk of building support as you have done, heavy in survivability, it’s just a waste..

Hope this helped O-o

""""I’m the only light armored profession in my dungeon group, I play glass cannon or hybrid condition/crit, I die the least, by a long, long way – This is simply due to the tricks with have…""""
This is the same for me lol
The reason i bring it up is that im trying to keep others alive longer. I have ran a confusion build and i have ran a power/crit build. Yes i am talking about group settings and particular group dungeons.

I have a similar issue with my mesmer, even when im not likely to die (in fact i tried and i can solo things inside AC if they come 1 by 1, didnt get passed after the first “semi” boss that opens the door in AC story tho, i saw no point and mobs came in groups) i find quite hard to see my role there and to notice if im actually helping besides the dmg part.

As an example, i tried a necro and it was really easy to keep all meles with perma regen thx to staff and even more healing ticks cos of healing well (forgot the name)
As a guardian you can think on some obvious ways to support ppl by healing or blocking mobs with bubles.
Now as a mesmer…. feedback seems a nice support skill, but even when in theory hurts a lot and make ranged attacks useless i find i normally cast it late, the boss allready started his ranged attack and hit and maybe drowned some1. Same with ilusion of life, sure its great to “semi” raly ppl, but would probably be better if i could saved them with a well timed heal or constant regen (in fact with 2 staff necros focused on wells i didnt saw ppls HP bar move once)
So even when i love the class i tend to go back and fowards to it tryng to find diferent builds that can help my group in ways other than dmg. I know, chaos storms casts aegis A LOT, but still doesnt seem enough considering i cant cast it that often.
Seems that to be an effective support mesmer you need to know the dungeon and bosses very good so you can anticipate theyr actions and counter them before they happen, no easy task for sure since you need also to change the skills you bring….

So basically after this tl/dr monography id love if i could get some more insight to how we could help ppl in dungons besides the obvious DPS/finish faster thing.

What I was doing for a while is. I put 20 points in Inspiration for the ‘Heal allies when casting a mantra’ trait. Then you can go full Domination to get the ‘Use mantra 3 times’ trait. Then you simply use ‘Mantra of Pain’ (which has no cooldown) to heal yourself and allies and do decent damage right after.

Something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAW7dlwzypXVzpGatIxJFK35ke4aWvaA

Then you still have the 20 points to play with into whichever direction you wish to go.
Also the feedback bubble when rezzing allies is incredibly useful. It’s repeatedly made the difference between a wipe and victory.

Also if you rather go for boons than direct healing via mantras go for signets like ‘Signet of inspiration’ you can trait it to reduce cooldown. ‘Phantasmal Disenchanter’ can be useful as well to remove conditions.

My best advice really is to look through all weapon, utility and traits to see what each does then if you aren’t sure what a word means look it up on the wiki it’ll explain it to you and then you can try to figure out a build from there.

Thx a lot. After reading this post i went (again) to build generators and came up with this http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAW7dlwzypXVzpGa9IhpH9m4I/0DlvcojqA2B
Probably its a good idea to get mantra of pain in this build also, maybe instead of double images since i can create clones by dodging when im not being focused. That would mean i can heal ppl with 2 mantras (means 4 heals). So i guess later ill be logging my mesmer again lol
Im gessing ill give phantasmal defender and disenchanter another try also.

@Fay

You don’t heal while casting a mantra but when recharging it so you certainly don’t go for the triple cast as it slows down your healing. Need to cast 3 times before being able to recharge and heal your allies. Also the heal goes through at the end of the recharge.

nidwin.6731:

@Fay

You don’t heal while casting a mantra but when recharging it so you certainly don’t go for the triple cast as it slows down your healing. Need to cast 3 times before being able to recharge and heal your allies. Also the heal goes through at the end of the recharge.

I know about this seeing as I ran a build with the mantra healing setup for a while.

I suggested the 3 times thing because if you go all the way into the domination line and use mantra of pain you do a lot of power damage and so it makes it worth your while more if you have the 3 mantra trait.

It’s entirely optional to go for domination but I like the idea of doing a lot of damage and healing at the same time

To me it just felt like the 2 casts didn’t outweigh the time spend casting the mantra and if the effect of the mantra isn’t significant that would be a waste of time as well.

Especially with the other mantras having a cooldown it’s great to use mantra of pain to spam and combining it with a greatsword will increase your ranged damage output.

The only downside with it is that the range for the healing is rather small.

Also if you then decide to use even more mantras the 3 times thing will be especially favourable.