Guild Wars 2

I am working on maxing my 6th character (by pve and crafting) which happens to be a mesmer and I was wondering besides the Portaling (bombing as well) and haste fielding for golems and and point take overs, are there any specific builds/gear/strategies etc to help me enjoy my mesmer as much as I enjoy my other 5 toons in WvW?

Actually, there’s a fun trick that works with the portal strat you just mentioned. Namely the 20-point Domination Trait that makes Glamours cause Confusion. This works on anyone that enters or exits the AoE. Also works for stealthing your group, via Veil.
As for EQ: Depends. Do you wish to focus more on Condition Damage, or survival?
C. Dmg, you’re going to do best with either Carrion or Rabid. (Rampager is another option, but more glassy, and mainly focused on Precision with a side order of Pow/C. Dmg). Survival, pure P/V/T specs.

Weaponwise: No matter what build, Staff is indeed our best “defensive” weapon. Especially buffed by Chaos 20 (Trait X), and Illusionist’s Celerity. Never underestimate
the escape use of a 5-sec. C/D Phase Retreat. Chaos Armour is -arguably- the king of
armour moves (and tosses conditions on the poor guy what hits you). Chaos Storm
is a nice combo of damage/party buffing/ethereal combo field. Slap that on yourself/allies, gain buffs. Then you can Phase Retreat (or other Leap Finisher) for free
Chaos Armour. Blast Finishers apply this effect to an AoE – fun for giving your squad
free C. Armour. And of course, Winds of Chaos buffs you/tosses conditions. Too bad
Illusionary Elasticity (in Illusions traits) only works on your WoC.

Another survival/attack trick is Dueling 20(Trait X): Deceptive Evasion. This lil’ number
allows the generation of a Clone when you dodge. This is always good fun.

Also, the stickied guide/build thread has some very effective options. Any one of them might arguably inspire your own playstyle. That’s the “real” key of Mesmer, finding what you are best at, and refining it. Arguably, even our “worst” builds
have at least one Mes player who’s pretty darned effective at running ’em.

What advent seems to have neglected to mention is the existence of builds that don’t rely on condition damage….

You have 3 main choices in terms of builds. Power damage, Condition damage, or tank.

Power builds can either be shatter, long range nuker with greatsword, or phantasm build.

Phantasms are great for just capturing camps or really small 1v1-2-3s, but blow chunks in any sort of larger fight because they die instantly.

Shatter builds are extremely effective for any sort of fighting activities except larger zerg fights, as clones start to suffer the same problems as phantasms at that point, along with the problem that most shatter builds are primarily close range fighters.

The long range greatsword pure glass cannon nuker using mantra damage amplification is good for absolutely nothing but melting people from 1200 range from the safety of a zerg or tower/keep defense where you don’t have to worry about getting hit. It is, however, extremely good for that purpose.

For condition damage, you also have a few options. You can go for a confusion bomb build, a glamour build, or a more general staff condition damage build.

The confusion bomb build (in my opinion) is ineffective against anyone that isn’t incompetent, due to the inherent mechanics of confusion itself. It is also horrific against the guards in a camp (not an opinion). Being a type of shatter build, it also suffers from the same drawbacks in larger fights.

The staff condition damage build is great for taking camps and smaller skirmishes, but loses power really fast in larger fights because it has absolutely no bursting potential, and staff projectiles are really iffy for anything over around 900 range.

The glamour build involves using traits that make glamours cause confusion in a few different ways. This build, unlike all the others, is really bad for taking camps and 1v1-2-3 fights. However, it gets massively more effective as fights get larger, and in zerg fights it is incredibly strong due to some of the key glamour traits allowing you to bypass the 5-target aoe limit and stack up massive amounts of confusion on huge numbers of people ikittenerg.

Lastly, you have tank builds. Like all the other classes, tank builds are capable of pretty much any sort of fight, and are not particularly more or less effective in any. Ikittenerg fight, the tank builds will be taking a front line attack position, absorbing and returning damage.

Heh – thanks, Pyroatheist. Facts are: 1. Was off to work in ~5 min, and 2. I’d say that you
and Grimmson are better on the tank/damage Mesmer builds. And what in the heck does this word censor keep calling Ikittenerg, btw?