Guild Wars 2

Hey,

I just rerolled mesmer—and I’m loving it. They’re a lot of fun to play. So I’ve been trolling the forms a bit trying to figure out optimal specs/abilities and gear for various scenarios.

And what I’ve found so far… is that you guys can’t agree on anything…

Right now I’m using GS/Staff. My spec is irrelevant because I’m so low level, but I’m thinking of going 20 deep into domination to pick up the GS specialization—that’s as far as I’ve thought it through right now. As for my abilities, I use decoy, blink and feedback. I change the last two fairly frequently depending on my situation, but really haven’t tried any others out I’m really happy with.

I like playing as a more support/hazing role, but I want to maintain my ability to do some damage in small group pvp and pve encounters.

I’d love some guidance, I’d even like to just hear what weapon and ability combos you’re using and how you’re playing it. I would also really appreciate it if someone could tell me what gems you’ve found in our skill tree—most of them seem unappealing to me.

Thanks.

Mesmers have a lot of options >.>.

Figure out 2 mechanics about the class that you like, and then build around those.

E.g. “Greatsword and Shatters”. Or “GS and phantasms”. Or something “Glamours and Phantasms”.

I think the reason you see so many different perspectives on the mesmer is because the class in itself is very diverse. You will see some mesmers running with sword/pistol and maximizing damage output, whereas you will see some using staff defensively.

There are a ton of options out there, I can only suggest trying all of them. Leveling up I have tried every single weapon combination the mesmer has, and all have potential (some will argue scepter is a little underpowered, but I rather enjoyed using it for a while).

Test the waters on all of it until you find a weapon that matches how you like to play. If you like support hazing role, I’d recommend a staff. You have a lot of survivability and utility to support your team and weaken your opponent. As for damage, if you want to jump into the fray, then use sword/offhand or if you prefer to keep your distance, use greatsword.

I too am a user of GS and Staff and I find that going into domination is on my list of traits too, I also add points into chaos and inspiration. This gives me a decent damage output, but I act as a pretty tanked buff bot

I’m still pretty new to mesmer myself, but from my limited experience, I’ve gathered the following about weapons:

Greatsword: Solid long range damage and a good phantasm and illusion come out of it. If they’re pretty close to you, I wouldn’t continue using GS. Swap to another.

Staff: Great for defensive/supportive play. Solid clone generation, bouncing boons and conditions are fun. Chaos storm is great.

Sword: Supposedly the best weapon damage output. An OK gap closer (kinda seems like you could just run to your target instead and be just as fine), skill 2 is clearly the best. Good aoe damage while invulnerable.

Scepter: Some people like it, I find it boring. Not much to say about this.

/Sword: Nice to have a block, lots of people hate the swordsman phantasm though. Not 100% sure why.

/Focus: I use it only for the speed boost. Warden is good too, but seems very easy to muck it up and waste the skill.

/Pistol: Supposedly great damage on the pistol phantasm. Each bullet counts as a separate attack, having a chance to crit which combos nicely with the bleed on crit. Magic bullet.. didn’t think was anything special.

The only way I can rationalize switching weapons is to have one set for close range and one for long range. I will probably always use greatsword for long range .. I just enjoy it too much not too. For close range.. any other weapon. Staff for survivability, sword for damage.

Really enjoying that there isn’t just 1 set ‘build’ that’s better than everything else. Honestly, I would just .. play. Read all the tooltips so you can see what combos with what. I imagine there’s a decent synergy to be found in every weapon combo, so it’s more about what you enjoy than anything else.

Thanks for the feedback.

An favorite skills from any of the trees?

minshaaa.7940:

An favorite skills from any of the trees?

Do you mean traits? If so, Illusionist’s Celerity (5 points into Illusions) is a must have for every mesmer.
I’m personally very fond of Deceptive Evasion 20 points into the Dueling tree (for prerequisites I take Critical Infusion, Phantasmal Fury, and Sharper Images, which are all excellent in a precision stacking build).
Illusionary Elasticity is pretty popular if you’re using the staff and/or greatsword. Imo it’s a tad overrated, but it’s still very good.
If you want to use the focus then Phantasmal Haste is a must-have and Warden’s Feedback is terrific.
Illusionary Membrane+Phantasmal Regeneration is a very strong combination when using the iDuelist (It triggers the regeneration every 3s or so while all other phantasms trigger it ~every 10s).
Restorative Mantras+Mantra of Pain is good if you want to do group healing.

Utility.
The mantras are pretty situational, I wouldn’t bring them without a specific purpose in mind.
The signets are kind of weak but can be useful. Midnight and Domination are the better ones, Illusions is basically broken.
Decoy and Blink are great escape skills.
Mirror Image is very effective at summoning clones quickly if you’re not going to go 20 into the Dueling tree.
I’m not fond of the Phantasmal Defender, but some people find it very useful.
The glamours are all teriffic, although veil and portal are situational.
Illusion of life isn’t that good, but it works when there’s a lot of trash mobs around+people understand how it works.
We have better and more versatile options than Arcane Thievery and Mimic.

My advice as a low level in PvE…slot a 1-handed sword. I disreguarded that weapon early on, and as I progressed into the early 20s, I found myself becoming increasingly inefficient at killing quickly and reliably varied assortments of creatures.

Welcome to mesmer!

My personal opinions:

Sword main hand is probably the best main hand out there right now. Many will swear on focus for iwarden , others on pistol for iduel, both are great but i prefer pistol for magic bullet ( aoe interrupt ftw).

Greatsword combos amazingly well with staff.

Place chaos storm, swap, send izerker, watch mass confusion spreading.

Imho, gs/staff works best on a shatter spammin build( clone on dodge, shatter extra bonus etc).
The aoe is imho unbeatable.

If your facing mons in melee constantly and dont want to kite, sword mh for sure!