Guild Wars 2

Hey all; I could use some help creating a good build. I played at release and took a break from Nov 2012 to Nov 2013 and am feeling kind of overwhelmed. Long story short; I am dying all the time. I feel like I’m a moderately good player and remain aware of my surroundings but would like some help with a build that maximizes survival.

Would you suggest using illusions or shattering them? Currently I rely mostly on staff and greatsword and rarely shatter at all. Any suggestions on skills, weapons, abilities and traits would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

The below link will fix all of that for you…

http://osicat.weebly.com/guide.html

• Survivability comes from:
  0/5/0 (5)/ 20/0 + 45 (40)
  Using Healing Mantra & Mantra of Pain + Restorative Mantras
• Phant builds:
  10/15/0/25/0 + 20
• Shatter builds:
  0/20/0/0/25 + 25

Generally,
you’ll learn howto survive by doing/ dying. Vigor helps (Dueling 5) alot. As utilities you can use decoy and blink.
The defensive weapon would be Staff, but you need to preserve staff #2 and cast the #5 upon yourself and stay inside of it.

The most PvE players run Phant builds (followed closely by shatter) with GS & Sw/[x]. Sword is just stronger and also gives you another evade. GS is for long range fights. All this including berserker gear, ether feast and no restorative mantras. The great survivability of mesmers comes from perm vigor, enemy reading and reflect.

Survivability is a matter of perspective. I run a DPS Phantasm all zerker geared mesmer in both PvE and WvW, and survive just fine. Know what you are fighting, know when to dodge the big hits, etc. = one fun mesmer to play.

Mesmer specializes in combat survivability and mobility regardless of stats due to utilities, distance makers and escapes, stun breakers and stealth and denial of targeting correctly.

skills good for survivability, mobility, escape, evade: Blink, Decoy, Phase Retreat, Chaos Storm, Blurred Frenzy, Distortion shatter, Warden projectile defense, Feedback projectile defense, among many other things like timed interrupts and other stealth

however u can try my build which is WvW designed but I use it in pve too cuz I’m lazy to switch and it does enough damage and I tend to push my limits n solo all kinds of crazy things so it helps to have the tankiness.

or similar PU builds. PU is pretty cliche but slap on PU to ur play style and optimize the damage u can still get from it and it’ll really help survivability. on my build in my signature I have -42% inc damage, aegis and regen, while I swap for diff weapons depending on situation. my build is a phantasm build so I don’t shatter much. I also run gs staff a lot in WvW

new patch I been running the standard sword/focus for dps and staff to get away from the stupid cc or whatever. sometimes gs. sometimes sword torch for extra stealth when running past mobs on the way up the tower. works great for me! can solo basically any situations in pve and take outnumbered fights in WvW with some PU help

Thank you very much for your replies. Mainly my frustration is fueled by the most recent living world events and how I cannot complete most of it on my own. I’m trying to make a build that is reliable for solo play. That Mantra build looks like fun!

i actually got stuck in overflows almost exclusively where there weren’t many ppl and I solo’d everything lol I had to choose staff and sword focus for fights and sword torch focus for running though , weapon selection is just as important sometimes

takatsu.9416:

-42% inc damage

Just tested this (with steady weapon) and protection + illusionary defense happens to give you 39% reduction (1-67%*91%), not 42% (33%+9%).

Blueroseknight.7954:

Thank you very much for your replies. Mainly my frustration is fueled by the most recent living world events and how I cannot complete most of it on my own. I’m trying to make a build that is reliable for solo play. That Mantra build looks like fun!

The Nightmare Tree events (if that is what you are referring to) are kind of OP (and lame) and any class trying to solo it’s way up the tree might have problems. It’s best to stay with a group (even if you are solo) so you don’t get all the aggro yourself. Ressers near by also help too.