Guild Wars 2

I am aware that there are several builds available, but i am relatively new to the class at lvl 80 and would rather just get a high performance meta while i work on things. Complicated is fine i just don’t want to try out like 10 different builds just for pve.

I’d like to know that as well. Almost every build for PVE is for DG only, with a lot of reflections and stuff.

I’m currently opening the map, and a good DPS PVE build would be awesome.

10/20/0/25/15. Empowered Illusions, Phantasmal Fury, Blade Training, Glamor cooldowns, Warden’s Feedback, Compounding Power.
Sword/Sword+Focus, Feedback, Time Warp. Signet of Inspiration for boon-doubling is great. Pick a stun-break of your choice — Blink is great for mobility; Decoy has stealth; Mantra of Concentration has AOE stability.
Swap the focus for a pistol if you don’t need reflection from Warden; switch the Warden trait for Medic’s Feedback or phantasm HP or Restorative Mantras w/ Mantra of Pain spam if your team needs more healing.
Berserker gear, Ruby orbs. Scholar gives a little more personal DPS but the 10% bonus doesn’t work on phantasms so it’s kind of a wash. Ruby is cheap and good.

yanniell.1236:

I’d like to know that as well. Almost every build for PVE is for DG only, with a lot of reflections and stuff.

I’m currently opening the map, and a good DPS PVE build would be awesome.

The dungeon phantasm build works great open-world too; reflections are amazing against a lot of mobs. Only thing I’d change is run S/F + GS instead of full-melee.

A variant build which is probably better for high level fractals (because it gives you a strong range dps option for fights where melee is suicide) is:

20/10/0/25/15 with Greatsword & Sword + Focus

Similar to the 10/20/0/25/15 build mentioned above, but you swap 10 out of Dueling (losing Sword Training) for an extra 10 in Domination (for Greatsword Training).

Soul.9280:

A variant build which is probably better for high level fractals (because it gives you a strong range dps option for fights where melee is suicide) is:

20/10/0/25/15 with Greatsword & Sword + Focus

Similar to the 10/20/0/25/15 build mentioned above, but you swap 10 out of Dueling (losing Sword Training) for an extra 10 in Domination (for Greatsword Training).

While I agree you would be fine pulling out GS on certain bosses, the biggest boon in bringing a mesmer is feedback which is arguably one of the most powerful skills in the game, and you need all the crit chance you can get to max its damage. 10/20 is far superior to 20/10 in high-level fractals, hands down. On that note, 0/30 is probably even better, but in my opinion, is better for the player who has a set high-level fractal group and has all fractals down to a science.

Soul.9280:

A variant build which is probably better for high level fractals (because it gives you a strong range dps option for fights where melee is suicide) is:

20/10/0/25/15 with Greatsword & Sword + Focus

Similar to the 10/20/0/25/15 build mentioned above, but you swap 10 out of Dueling (losing Sword Training) for an extra 10 in Domination (for Greatsword Training).

This is incorrect. 10/20/0/25/15 is superior even when using GS.

As usual too much information or too little. If you are about to do maps on mesmer then start with runes. I recommend traveler. Expensive but worth it. So far i can’t find better rune and it is good for WVW as well. There is few better runes for pure DPS but 25% speed bonus for mesmer is a huge deal. Berserk armor, maybe mixed with few knight or PTV items for survival but not necessary. Full zerk armor is OK on mesmer in almost any environment.
Weapons. Sword/pistol and GS. It can be Sword/Focus as well but i prefer pistol off hand. Focus is good to reflect projectiles and running but with Traveler rune in PVE you newer need it. Still it helps to have focus in inventory for some dungeons. Warden and duelist roughly give about same DPS.
Traits
Domination 20
III-X
Dueling 10
II
Chaos 0
Inspiration 25
IV V
Illusions 15
III
This build basically provide maximum ranged DPS and fastest GS phats recharge time.
Healing- Signet of the Ether should work like a charm for this build as long as you can keep 3 phantasms alive all the time. Skills :Blink, feedback, decoy. Elite: mass inviz.
Please note. It is solo PVE build you are not good for anyone but yourself.
Skills and traits can be easily changed tho for almost any dungeon group without visiting trainer.
I was trying some different variants of this build in WVW. Keeping 20/10/0/25/15 and tweaking traits and skills. Don’t really like it. Comparing to my usual WvW 20/20/30/0/0 this build gives less survival in mass combat even with 2 cond removals and less escape chance.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84947-mesmerizing-the-enemy-guide-to-mesmer-swordx-dps-builds/

The first build (“balanced variant”) is pretty much the closest you will get to a universally applicable PvE meta variant. You can also trade the Scholar Runes for Traveler Runes if lack of speed boost annoys you (it does for me) and you won’t necessarily lose that much DPS in the process. Your DPS won’t be minmaxed for dungeons but you will get around everything else much faster.

Unless I’m in a situation where my phantasms are getting instantly killed, I take scepter instead of gs. This lets me use sword/pistol/focus which are all better phantasm then izerker IMO. Scepter has a block built in, so with scepter/sword you can have access to 2 blocks on a low cd. With gs you trade the block for an aoe knockback, which has situational use but isn’t typically needed.

Ptolemy.5086:

As usual too much information or too little. If you are about to do maps on mesmer then start with runes. I recommend traveler. Expensive but worth it. So far i can’t find better rune and it is good for WVW as well. There is few better runes for pure DPS but 25% speed bonus for mesmer is a huge deal

If cost is an issue, grab some Runes of Speed instead.

Pve meta for mesmer is easily summed up:

- power builds
- full zerker
- ruby orbs or scholar for max damage (I prefer ruby for pug viability and simply the huge difference in price. been running travelers though ever since those got changed). traveler for convenience (and also enjoying your mesmer 1000 times more). centaur for cheaper perma speed if you can’t afford traveler.
- Superior Sigils of Energy are a good start on at least 1 weapon set
- weapon sets usually are:
A.) S/x+S/x (x=pistol, focus, sword)
B.) S/x+GS (x=pistol,focus,sword)
C.) S/x+Scepter/x (x=pistol,focus,sword) (I really don’t like Scepter for pve and
would recommend setup A.)

Most used meta build is 10/20/0/25/15 with some variations of minimum
x/20/x/20/15. This might change once they fix Phantasmal Haste.

If you’re going to sum it up for the layman, running Scholar isn’t very efficient. Most people won’t stay in the health threshold and, if they do, they typically aren’t dealing damage themselves. They’ll be damaging via Conditions/Phantams.

However, this is just overgeneralization, since we are overgeneralizing the PvE meta.

Esplen.3940:

Ptolemy.5086:

As usual too much information or too little. If you are about to do maps on mesmer then start with runes. I recommend traveler. Expensive but worth it. So far i can’t find better rune and it is good for WVW as well. There is few better runes for pure DPS but 25% speed bonus for mesmer is a huge deal

If cost is an issue, grab some Runes of Speed instead.

Actually that is good idea on my knight set. So I can use it in wvw and pve when I have to skip. Ty.

In general I find Staff more useful for PvE than GS, but that is because I mostly have to run with pugs. In that case you are not going to down everything in matters of seconds and Mesmer value as utility class can shine.
Chaos storm for your team aegis is priceless. Also while rezzing downed members, staff 2 lets you dodge quicker than normal key dodge.

Usually I run with sw/sw+focus and swap to staff only when I know the team will need it. though.

Personally I’ll still run 10/30/0/20/10 (or 0/30/0/25/15) if I need reflect else I’ll stick with 30/30/0/0/10. Mantra Damage modifier is totally worth it and the Dueling trait line affect both our precision and critical damage so it’s the best trait line we have

Valarauka.2719:

10/20/0/25/15. Empowered Illusions, Phantasmal Fury, Blade Training, Glamor cooldowns, Warden’s Feedback, Compounding Power.
Sword/Sword+Focus, Feedback, Time Warp. Signet of Inspiration for boon-doubling is great. Pick a stun-break of your choice — Blink is great for mobility; Decoy has stealth; Mantra of Concentration has AOE stability.
Swap the focus for a pistol if you don’t need reflection from Warden; switch the Warden trait for Medic’s Feedback or phantasm HP or Restorative Mantras w/ Mantra of Pain spam if your team needs more healing.
Berserker gear, Ruby orbs. Scholar gives a little more personal DPS but the 10% bonus doesn’t work on phantasms so it’s kind of a wash. Ruby is cheap and good.

This is by far the best post here. If you require range so bad, just use a scepter with a pistol. If you need 1200 range the staff is as viable as the GS, depends on your allies and condition spam. However try to stay with the sword, it deals about the double damage of the GS.

Jeremlloyd.6837:

Personally I’ll still run 10/30/0/20/10 (or 0/30/0/25/15) if I need reflect else I’ll stick with 30/30/0/0/10. Mantra Damage modifier is totally worth it and the Dueling trait line affect both our precision and critical damage so it’s the best trait line we have

Have you tried 25/30/0/0/15? I really like IC and in domination there is not much to trait for.
I also run 0/30/0/25/15, even with no mantra traited the dps is quite similar to 10/20/0/25/15.

What I cannot get used is not having centaur runes (I got full assassin and ranger runes). I miss my swifntness on demand. I am even thinking in getting travelers

No I didn’t try 25/30/0/0/15 but I don’t like IC that much ^^ And most boss fight doesn’t last enough to have get the full benefit of it ^^. For the new Alphard for exemple, I just use Signet of the Ether to chain two Warden at the start

:-).

May I ask your traits on domination line?

Well for the Risen Giant I used I, III and XI (3 daze mantra ready = more vuln, but I forgot to use it for the video ^^’)

Kilandros.2098:

This is incorrect. 10/20/0/25/15 is superior even when using GS.

Is that because of Sharper Images?

On the DPS topic, is it possible to defeat the arah’s path 2 final boss with a 10/20/0/25/15 mesmer? Any tips on the matter?

Knowing that phantasms won’t get the “out of phase” buff and will do 0 damage, you’re better off with a build that buffs self DPS. Its doable with 10/20/0/25/15, I’ve done it before, but you’ll be cutting it pretty kitten close.

yanniell.1236:

On the DPS topic, is it possible to defeat the arah’s path 2 final boss with a 10/20/0/25/15 mesmer? Any tips on the matter?

It’s a pain, but yes. Basically you have to switch your traits to become kittentery as possible; mental torment, DE, etc. A full shatter build would probably be better on that boss, but it’s not worth retraining for, or running the rest of the dungeon in a bad build, so you’ll generally just want to sorta deal with it. It’s a very easy fight anyway.