Guild Wars 2

I started GW2 at launch (and open beta events) and stopped playing right after the first part of the Living Story with Braham, but have recently restarted playing.

One thing I don’t remember hearing much about in the forums is discussions on tagging mobs in open world PvE events.

We likely will never match the easymode effectiveness of the Guardian Lawnmower (staff) or Engineer (Flamethrower, Grenade Kit, Bomb Kit), but I’m curious what others do.

I try to use Greatsword and target enemies behind the cluster coming so my beam hits all of them. I also try to have reduced cooldowns on Greatsword and Illusion abilities so I can use berserker more often.

Other than that, I have been playing around with the new incarnation of Mantra of Pain since that is 2+ instant cast AOEs I can use to tag real quick.

As a last resort, if the waves of mobs are coming too quickly for my cooldowns, I’ll swap to MH sword and OH Focus and just jump into melee while casting my iWarden into clumps of mobs.

So what do you guys do?
Or do you just play an alt when farming? :-p

You’ve listed most of the ways. Shattering is also alright, especially with iLeap + Deceptive Evasion + Illusionary Persona. Generally, though, playing an alt is much better in areas like Orr. A Mesmer just can’t tag mobs reliably enough.