Guild Wars 2

So I’ve made a new mesmer, and having looked over the skills I’ve found myself having trouble picking a weapon setup. Or at least one for my secondary.

I’ve tried a few so far. Staff was dull and Greatsword was also boring, with very little happening or anything like that. I’ve also tried a sword main-hand (Not very happy) and a focus (eh). What I HAVE liked so far, though, is a scepter/sword. The mixture of two defensive block skills, along with the high refresh rate of lost illusions, means I almost always have doubles everywhere. And while I don’t know how that affects damage (Still trying to understand the difference between clones, phantasms, and so forth), it at least dumps a LOT of dummies for others to attack.

What about the rest of you? Opinions on weapons and the like?

For all situations, by the way. Levelling, PvE, WvW……not really sPVP though, I don’t do that much.

Try getting Deceptive Evasion if you want clones all over the place.

Once you get Deceptive Evasion the Clone generation of the Sceptre becomes irrelevant (in fact it becomes a liability because the Sceptre is the only weapon without an on-demand Clone conjuration skill).

The Sceptre’s autoattack is the weakest of all MH/2H and is therefore widely considered a poor choice. It is mainly used when people really want to use two OHs or as a secondary weapon set that you don’t plan to DPS with.

The Staff is the Mesmer’s condition damage weapon as well as its best defensive weapon. Every Mesmer build can benefit from using the Staff, no exceptions.

The GS is the Mesmer’s ranged DPS and AoE weapon. It’s powerful, but tends to see less use than the Staff even in Power builds, as Power builds tend to use Sword as the primary weapon and take Staff for its excellent defense.

The Sword has the highest DPS of all Mesmer weapons and is also a very efficient boon-stripper (very important in PvP). Blurred Frenzy is both heavy burst and invulnerability and Illusionary Leap is a gap-closer, CC and double Leap Finisher. Very well-rounded weapon overall.

The only weapon I dislike and am probably in the minority for is Greatsword.

All the other weapons have their utility and place, well- torch 5 could use some help. I keep one of everything in my bag to swap as needed. The beauty of the mesmer is that we can fit ourselves to the situation at hand and use the weapons needed to achieve that.

Zen.4678:

The only weapon I dislike and am probably in the minority for is Greatsword.

All the other weapons have their utility and place, well- torch 5 could use some help. I keep one of everything in my bag to swap as needed. The beauty of the mesmer is that we can fit ourselves to the situation at hand and use the weapons needed to achieve that.

This sentence personifies me. Although I carry more than 2 swords (not greatswords) with me at all times.

Reading up, it sounds like you’ve forgotten what one of the scepter’s strengths is, at least that I’ve noticed. It may have the lowest DPS, but it has two skills that cause confusion regularly, which is frankly quite devastating in the right hands. The way I’m playing that sounds like the things I want… illusions out the wazzoo, and confusion all over the place. A mesmer who confuses his foes in multiple ways.

I will say though, having glanced over the various trait lines the bottom two (Whatever they’re called) seemed most intriguing to me.

Chessrook.8643:

Reading up, it sounds like you’ve forgotten what one of the scepter’s strengths is, at least that I’ve noticed. It may have the lowest DPS, but it has two skills that cause confusion regularly, which is frankly quite devastating in the right hands. The way I’m playing that sounds like the things I want… illusions out the wazzoo, and confusion all over the place. A mesmer who confuses his foes in multiple ways.

I will say though, having glanced over the various trait lines the bottom two (Whatever they’re called) seemed most intriguing to me.

Scepter only has one way to cause confusion, that’s #3, unless you mean the clone creation for shattering.

Kazhiel.8194:

Chessrook.8643:

Reading up, it sounds like you’ve forgotten what one of the scepter’s strengths is, at least that I’ve noticed. It may have the lowest DPS, but it has two skills that cause confusion regularly, which is frankly quite devastating in the right hands. The way I’m playing that sounds like the things I want… illusions out the wazzoo, and confusion all over the place. A mesmer who confuses his foes in multiple ways.

I will say though, having glanced over the various trait lines the bottom two (Whatever they’re called) seemed most intriguing to me.

Scepter only has one way to cause confusion, that’s #3, unless you mean the clone creation for shattering.

Ah, I misread. Was looking at the wiki description for Ether Clone, didn’t realize the tooltip description was wrong (It says it applies confusion and summons a clone)

Yeah, they didn’t change the tooltip when they changed the skill way back in beta. Getting the tooltips correct seems to be a low priority. Really shows a lack of polish and professionalism in my opinion.

I sceptor/sword and sword/torch.

the blocks hit really hard and are not all that hard to time. My favorite thing to do is walk into red circles now and spike the block damage followed by the iswordsman which hits like a truck and is really easy to pop out more.

The strong point of the sceptor is its clone regeneration on auto chain. Combined with rolls and clones will be suiciding to make new ones. Clone death traits shine with it. Lots of CC capability with the weapon set with my sword/torch for quick BF spike or defensive evasion.

Esplen.3940:

Zen.4678:

The only weapon I dislike and am probably in the minority for is Greatsword.

All the other weapons have their utility and place, well- torch 5 could use some help. I keep one of everything in my bag to swap as needed. The beauty of the mesmer is that we can fit ourselves to the situation at hand and use the weapons needed to achieve that.

This sentence personifies me. Although I carry more than 2 swords (not greatswords) with me at all times.

I actually carry a full gearset spare on me, with an extra piece of armor. I have 2 focus, about 4-5 staves, 2 scepters, 3-4 swords, a pistol, torch and gs.

[edit]bah said wands instead of scepters[/edit]

DaisyRogers.6837:

I sceptor/sword and sword/torch.

the blocks hit really hard and are not all that hard to time. My favorite thing to do is walk into red circles now and spike the block damage followed by the iswordsman which hits like a truck and is really easy to pop out more.

The strong point of the sceptor is its clone regeneration on auto chain. Combined with rolls and clones will be suiciding to make new ones. Clone death traits shine with it. Lots of CC capability with the weapon set with my sword/torch for quick BF spike or defensive evasion.

I second this setup. I use focus when I’m in WvW squads but when I’m just doing PvE or solo/duo running in WvW I use torch.

Staff + Signet of Inspirations is good for teams to get full buffs, but like you said, a bit boring. Greatsword is too situational for me. Bouncing in, being invicible twice(with shatter) and stealthing out(with The Prestige) and switching to scepter/sword is pretty nice.

Aye, after playing a bit more I’ve started to take the Scepter/sword and sword/torch setup. It ain’t perfect, but it’s enjoyable.

I think the thing I’ve been frustrated with is that there doesn’t seem to really be any good area attacks in the weapon skills. No matter what, my attacks are focused on one enemy. The few times it can hit multiples, I’m forced to either line them up or cluster them in a very small area. Sword strikes are the closest I can get.