Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone. I’m a low leveled Mesmer and I find that it’s tough winning fights (pve) and doing missions. Perhaps it’s because the damage is low.

Are there any tips you can give for low-level Mesmers?

Thanks everyone!

Lower levels are quite difficult, partially because our survival relies on having enemies attacking clones, but you’re missing the greatest thing of all for that (once you hit lvl30, respec 20 into Duelling to get Deceptive Evasion, after that levelling is a breeze).

Until then, I’d advise something like Sword+Focus (high damage to groups and stationary targets, good defence, rips boons, easy access to swiftness and cripple) together with a Staff mostly like (very high defence, more AE, Chaos Shield and you can #2 while inside your Chaos Storm to get another Chaos Shield).
Then play it defensive. Don’t try to overpower things, especially not groups. If you have it equip the Phantasmal Defender, and stay near him to take 50% less damage, have the Phantasmal Warden and Defender be the mainstays of your combat and support them with sword attacks, Chaos Storm and a Phantasmal Warlock on bigger targets.

While I am fairly quiet on the forums lately, my leveling guide is up-to-date. Feel free to give it a try (link is in the signature).

Staff is way too defensive to be good on offensive. Grab a greatsword.

Staff is fine on offense, it’s just one needs to keep in mind that Staff (especially when Traited fot I. Elasticity) performs better in close-to-medium range. Sure, the tooltip says 1200, but any of us who’ve played Mesmer for a while know exactly how hard it is to land a Winds that far out. Effective range’s honestly more like 300-600 units.

Now, a Staff/GS combo is honestly the best of both worlds. Staff for the ranges I just mentioned/defensive combat, then GS for straight DPS/long-range sniping. However, you’ll move like a turtle, out of combat. Unless you swap focus in for speed, then go back to the other weapon for fights.

I would second that, Staff/GS is a very powerful combo once you’re comfortable with your character and want more range. I used the staff in my example specifically because for PvE, Sword+Focus is a lot of offensive power already.
In turn, the Staff helps getting you out of trouble.

Staff may be considered fine for offense only if you target something like huge boss that has tons of unique conditions on him. Otherwise, it’s straight up defensive weapon with a little touch of one of those condition builds(which are useless in pve anyway) in my book.
Snails of Chaos just ruins it’s offensive potential.
Even with elasticity.

Take it from a guy who’s done 98% (and counting) Map Completion on a condition spec.
Condi’s not as useless as folk like to think, especially full-Rabid Condi. Sure, you kill slower, but you pack some nice durability to offset that. But I digress.

Advent.6193:

Sure, you kill slower, but you pack some nice durability to offset that. But I digress.

That’s a point. You kill slower. This game’s pve revolves around killing as fast as you can, while durability doesn’t matter at all.

We’ll never agree on that one. /shrug
I’m merely a fan of keeping all options on the table. Our OP here may not like the “Leet deeps ’Zerker” style of things, after all.

Advent.6193:

We’ll never agree on that one. /shrug
I’m merely a fan of keeping all options on the table. Our OP here may not like the “Leet deeps ’Zerker” style of things, after all.

Aw, come on. People, specially new on mesmer, they all like killing stuff faster.

It’s like going back to queensdale on your mighty 80 and finally showing dem oakhearts who’s the boss here.
Like one of those little mesmer’s tricks where if you hit your “1” faster, you’ll shoot purple rays from your greatsword faster.
Or painting yourself pink and while running in LA you’ll suddenly realize people greet your phantasm instead of you.

If you are using power gear (and if you aren’t you should), then my advice is start each fight with a phantasm and end it with a shatter.

That may sound trivial but it makes a big difference. Just like the ranger does less damage because ANet assumes it’s pet will attack, we do less damage because it is assumed that we will have a phantasm or two out.

So as soon as you can when a fight starts launch a phantasm (Greatsword 4, Staff 3, Offhand Pistol… er… 4, Offhand Focus 5, Torch 5 (but don’t use a torch), Offhand Sword 5).

If you find your phantasms dying a lot, shatter them after they get off a full attack cycle.

If you are using a Greatsword, here is a good rotation.
Greatsword 1, Greatsword 4, Greatsword 2, Greatsword 3

Here is my basic (PVE) rotation for a Sword / X + staff.
X Phantasm.
Sword 3
Sword 3
Sword 2
Swap to Staff.
Number 5 on staff
Staff 2
Staff 3
Staff 4
Swap to sword / x and repeat.

I think the phantasms are generally designed to be gotten out early and shattered after their first volley (and again, and again, etc.), UNLESS you trait them up for durability, fury and faster hitting.

The one exception seems to be iWarlock (Staff 3), which seems to be designed specifically to help burn down big bags of hitpoints with lots of conditions on them. 3 powerful, critting iWarlocks are the best possible contribution a Mesmer can make to a boss with tons of different conditions on him, possibly even giving the Mesmer some of the biggest sustained dps of any profession under those circumstances (i.e. I’m suspecting that’s what a parser would show).

Even solo, with one iWarlock, as a Staff player setting a bunch of conditions on a mob, you can see a bigger jump in the mob’s healthbar from just one iWarlock hit than almost any other thing you could do.

To maximize iWarlock, when it comes to condition buffs, condition duration is more important than condition damage per se – you want more different conditions up as much of the time as possible.

So yeah, that would be my top tip – be aware that while the Staff generally is a defensive weapon, it’s one offensive phantasm is a very heavy hitter under the right circumstances.

Advent.6193:

We’ll never agree on that one. /shrug
I’m merely a fan of keeping all options on the table. Our OP here may not like the “Leet deeps ’Zerker” style of things, after all.

Oh look, another person mocking power builds with the use of poor grammar.

Because people running berserker are braindeads, right?

Sure, I say something in a jesting fashion, and I’m automatically a grammar-impaired mocking arseface? You’ve seen my posting history, I would assume. You (should) know better.

Be assured, if I honestly wanted to call anyone braindead, I simply would. I’m not a person who likes to waste time, or mince words.

IMO Staff is OP in PvE. Staff clones cast Winds of Chaos. Combined with your own Winds of Chaos, Chaos Armor & Chaos Storm you can turn your iWarlock into a monster.

The iDefender utility skill is a pretty awesome tank for the earlier levels too. Stick him on the toughest mob while you clean up the weaker ones.

As for tips, I wouldn’t worry about getting Mantras until you’ve got some trait points to throw around. Decoy is awesome, and for 1 skill point it’s a steal. Your starting heal (Ether Feast) is pretty much the best one you’ve got. Remember your clones + phantasms are bound to the target you cast them on. It’s usually a good idea to not stick them all to one mob, unless you’ve got some fresh clones/phants ready for the other mobs.

Mesmer is a slow starter. You will not kill faster than most other classes, but with a staff and some common sense it’s pretty much impossible to die in pve.

low level mesmer eh… I suggest you avoid Scepter, Torch, and Pistol. Also, grab some cheap toughness food on auction house like
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Loaf_of_Zucchini_Bread
or if you’re not level 30 yet then something cheap with vitality or toughness.

Criselli.7462:

IMO Staff is OP in PvE. Staff clones cast Winds of Chaos. Combined with your own Winds of Chaos, Chaos Armor & Chaos Storm you can turn your iWarlock into a monster.

Solo PvE. Due to condition congestion it is instead underpowered in larger fights.

Advent.6193:

Sure, I say something in a jesting fashion, and I’m automatically a grammar-impaired mocking arseface? You’ve seen my posting history, I would assume. You (should) know better.

Be assured, if I honestly wanted to call anyone braindead, I simply would. I’m not a person who likes to waste time, or mince words.

I have no idea about your posting history.

All I know is that no-skills all over the forum make use of poor spelling in order to knock zerker gear despite it being the best PvE gear and fairly decent in WvW and PvP.

IMO Staff is OP in PvE. Staff clones cast Winds of Chaos. Combined with your own Winds of Chaos, Chaos Armor & Chaos Storm you can turn your iWarlock into a monster.

When given the choice to begin a war of attrition against mobs with staff or one-shotting with a phantasmal berserker, I’ll run greatsword 10 times out of 10.

This is the issue, colesy, and it’s all in your head. You perceive that anyone without a direct preference for Zerker spec is knocking Zerker, and thus “bad.” Your posting history tends to reflect such. Fact is, neither of our preferences are anything past a suggestion to others, in regards to equipment choices.
The difference between us is simple: I readily accept that my preference towards Condition builds is merely a preference. You act as your way of doing things is the only valid course. All I’m pointing out is that the situation is nowhere as … rude
as you’re making it out to be.

This is the issue, colesy, and it’s all in your head. You perceive that anyone without a direct preference for Zerker spec is knocking Zerker, and thus “bad.” Your posting history tends to reflect such.

No, I was referring to people who say stuff like “leet deeps zerker”. Every single time, hopefully excluding you, something of that type has been said it’s been said by bads mocking a more efficient type of gear (which baffles me).

You act as your way of doing things is the only valid course. All I’m pointing out is that the situation is nowhere as … rude
as you’re making it out to be.

I have already stated many a time on the forum that anything is viable. I have also stated that, for the sake of PvE, berserker gear is the most optimal because it takes down bloated mob HP pools faster than conditions ever will.

If you have a preference to conditions, that is perfectly fine.

Then we’re not at odds. I don’t make a habit of (seriously) giving folk crap for gear/spec choices. Fact is, I run about 90% WvW/9% PvE. As such, my own loadouts tend to go more towards in-zerg survival. If someone can run zerk and survive, more power to ’em.
I just generally suggest survivability for folk starting off fresh.

I don’t understand all the fuzz…

You can level with every combination and trait setup, the following has to be considered though:

If you like seeing things die, condition gear and the staff is your choice.
If you like to see things dead instantly, go power gear, equip a GS and a sword.

Honestly, if you don’t care about efficiency, you could level without gear and just a starter weapon from start to finish. If you do care though, you will go with the power GS/sword route.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Honestly, if you don’t care about efficiency, you could level without gear and just a starter weapon from start to finish. If you do care though, you will go with the power GS/sword route.

Thing is, 95% parties care about efficiency and poor dps will not help it.

My tips? Try everything out so you at the very least know what they do. Don’t take everything you read on the Internet as the only truth. Try to take their advice, of whatever value, and use it to make informed decisions that work out for the way you play. Don’t be afraid to try stuff, you might see it works better.

Oh, and whatever you try to use, try to find stuff that work off and with each other. For example, the Chaos Storm field. You can use Staff 2, Sword 3, even the blast reappear on Torch 4 with it. Stuff like that.