Guild Wars 2

I’m talking about staff and scepter here. Slow moving projectiles and long casting intervals. This coupled with mediocre range makes playing Mesmer really dull. Compare this to shooting a rifle or longbow, you can really tell the difference.

Thief can appear from shadows and instantly spike you down. Warrior can leap on top of you. Necromancers have awesome death shroud and spinning scythes. Staff mesmer? Putt….putt….putt. -_-

Because mesmers are great illusionists that can defeat any fool who thinks they appear ‘wimpy’.

I can’t think of anything more scary than the thought of someone able to create copies of themselves then shatter those copies at their own free will.

Don’t use staff and scepter if using them makes playing a Mesmer dull. I use Greatsword when at range and sword/focus for melee.

Staff, GS, Scepter, Torch, Focus, Pistol, and Shield – Ranged Weapons
Sword – Melee weapon

Not a whole lot of choice there all the examples you listed are melee oriented and Mesmers have but one option for that the sword. I feel some of the ranged weapons would stand out more if we also had some melee options. Also I agree staff and scepter are indeed boring but I use that combo for PvP and it works well enough.

Oh and as a further tid bit every class other than mesmer has additional options for melee even the engineer has the bomb kit to go with their hammer, shroud with a necros daggers, or conjures with an elementalists daggers as well. The mesmer is out in the dust on this one. The playstyle is keep your distance unless your using the sword and thus Scepter feels extremely boring to use because your not changing up the playstyle as you would if you swapped to the more exciting sword instead.

In the end its kinda sad the so called duelist class doesn’t have more melee options or even a mainhand pistol.

Staff is a very defensive weapon for a mesmer and is actually quite strong, though I agree that it would be nice if the autocast projectile was sped up some. It has chaos armor, chaos storm, and a very short CD movement skill, and if you take the Chaos tratiline you can get huge uptimes on prot and regen with staff as well.

Scepter is also a relatively good mid range weapon, its biggest problem is not the slow projectile speed but that its a single target weapon.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Don’t use staff and scepter if using them makes playing a Mesmer dull. I use Greatsword when at range and sword/focus for melee.

I would use greatsword but it’s a bugged weapon. Animation displays but it targets enemies way outside range and deals no damage.

Ah, Greatsword isn’t bugged, its just that every greatsword weapon except for GS4 (the phantasm summon) don’t require a target to use.

This is most obvious with the auto attack, which you can use anywhere you are, even with nothing targetted. If you do target something, it will just shoot in their direction, regardless of whether they are actually in range or not. Same thing with GS2. It just takes a bit of practice to know when you are in range of enemies

Well, if you want flashy bursty attacks, try GS 2 + blink to enemy + mirror images and you get a pretty murderous burst that isn’t unlike a thief’s backstab (and generally does more damage if done right). Then you swap weapons and follow up on sword.
It is true that GS’s auto activates even outside of its range, but after a while you get used to it and it really isn’t an issue. Overall power mes does feel more brutal than some of my more “physical” classes when I manage to land it. But that’s what GS is there for after all: heavily offensive gameplay and ranged dps.

Scepter and Staff are both tailored for condi and defensive gameplay, cause condis on most of their skills, and have animations and attacking speeds which are pretty consistent with that. Otherwise scepter auto would pop clones all over the place, and winds of chaos would bounce all over the place. Queue more people complaining about condi mes.

tl;dr: scepter and staff are defensive and condi-based weapons. They don’t have to hit like a warr’s 100B. That’s what GS and sword sets do.

Miss the days when you can trait for clones explosion and you have a scepter in hand spamming aa.

My mesmer is also wimpy, I’ve tried several different weapons and builds but have a very difficult time killing anything. I can only hit and run like heck!

Staff is mostly a defensive condi weapon. You will be glad for that Phase Retreat if you have staff equipped when fighting a Zerker. Our 2-handed power weapon is GS which would be a more apt comparison with LB or Rifle.

You can trait Scepter for more speed and confusing images actually does pretty good power damage(for a condi based weapon). Not only this but last i played the animation would play out even if you stowed. Allowing you to bait dodges.

OriOri.8724:

snip

If you do target something, it will just shoot in their direction, regardless of whether they are actually in range or not. Same thing with GS2. It just takes a bit of practice to know when you are in range of enemies

The quoted reply was 3 days ago, but anyway…

You can easily know if you are in range or not. When you target an enemy and there is a red bar below your skills, you are out of range. If there is no red bar, you are in range.

Zenith.6403:

Thief can appear from shadows and instantly spike you down. Warrior can leap on top of you. Necromancers have awesome death shroud and spinning scythes. Staff mesmer? Putt….putt….putt. -_-

Saying this i sepose you look at it from a pvp/wvw perspective. Boring maybe, but there are other options available. For example you can go for a glasscannon bursty build. I believe it was called “powerlock down”. Executing perfectly means basically 1 shotting your enemy, do it wrong and you’re pretty much doomed to die.

Moa Lith.8140:

OriOri.8724:

snip

If you do target something, it will just shoot in their direction, regardless of whether they are actually in range or not. Same thing with GS2. It just takes a bit of practice to know when you are in range of enemies

The quoted reply was 3 days ago, but anyway…

You can easily know if you are in range or not. When you target an enemy and there is a red bar below your skills, you are out of range. If there is no red bar, you are in range.

I honestly find it easier to judge the range to someone than to look at the red bar at the bottom of my screen. And I’m pretty good at it.

mesmer is really effective. In wvw i prefer scepter shield to sword becouse sword is melee and staff is a strange weapon… it is a range weapon that is not that strong in ranged… .but that can be quite bursty used near ( in melee) combined with shatters … usually in spvp i try to start like this … sword 3 , staff 3 , F1, staff 2 for a simple but effective combo … but in wvw, where the fight is not on a point , i find more effective the use of scepter . scepter can be really really strong, you have only to get used to it. And , as staff, it is strong " in melee" …. if you proc your enemy to trigger scepter 2 … for example …