Guild Wars 2

My guild seems to be running out of folks willing to run mesmer in WvW, so I thought I’d dust mine off and finish leveling him. (I’ve played him lots in PvP, but that didn’t go very far toward leveling). The things I understand a Mesmer in organized zerg play MUST have:
* a focus (for pulls and swiftness)
* a torch (for hiding in keeps)
* Veil
* Null Field
* Portal
* Time Warp (or occasionally Mass Invis?)
Does that mean most mesmers use wand for both mainhand slots? If not, which off-hand pairs better with sword/better with wand?
Presumably, you’d keep a staff in your pack too, for when you need it.

My big question is, do most of you use the three mentioned utilities all the time and forgo your Oh-Skritt button (presumably Blink), or do most mesmers not run with portal on their bar all the time, and just hope to be out of combat when the need arises.

Again, my focus here is on helping a group of 15-30 depending on the night, not roaming. I of course will be consulting the guild on their particular needs as well, but I thought I’d reach outto the larger mesmer community as well. Clarification on these and any other tips would be appreciated.

15-30 people mean you should have at least 2-5 Mesmers, so there’s really no point in arguing what you must have. Skills can be spread out. It also depends on the group itself. Many groups dont care about the fancy portal tactics or hiding mesmers, its more slam-your-head-against-a-door-and-hope-the-enemy-comes kind of thing.
So for all your things listed:

a focus (for pulls and swiftness) – Since the pull nerf its pretty useless for that. Only use for focus now is for a reflection based Mesmer. Groups dont want the swiftness from focus.
a torch (for hiding in keeps) – Boring tactic
Veil – A group can usually only coordinate 2-3 veils so keep that it mind.
Null Field – Important in any group vs group situation, yes
Portal – Only have on alternate skill standby unless the commander is horny for portals. Better to replace with say Feedback for example.
Time Warp (or occasionally Mass Invis?) – If its a 10 man group MI can actually be pretty good. 30, not so much. TW should be the skill that you revert to if you never see a use for MI.

What’s more important is that you need to stay alive. You cannot go down when someone sneeze at you, it is simply not acceptable in group combat. 1500+ toughness/vitality is pretty much mandatory in any WvW build. Hell I find my 2100/1600 toughness/vitality WvW gear lacking in stamina sometimes. This is even more important than the skills you use. A player without the ability to stay up is useless to the group as he is a revive magnet. Note that I am talking from a melee paintrain perspective, your guild design may vary.

Ahh, that was a lot of clarification!

A couple things I can clarify. Despite our group size, and the fact we’re one of the better organized guilds on the server, most nights we can’t get even a single mesmer on. So while we should have more, that’s not the case, and it’s why I’m trying to help out. The commander frequently forgets this and we get, “Drop stability.. drop veil.. drop veil… VEIL!… Veil? Godammit!”

I didn’t realize focus had been nerfed, thanks for that.

As far as survivability, I assumed PVT would be the go-to for this kind of build. I’ve been playing thief mainly, which can be useful to a zerg, despite popular belief, but is far from needed. Hence, my change in focus. But anyway, I’m used to surviving with a squishy class.

And a last couple questions. Would Blink would be the ideal stun breaker? And I’m betting the ideal zerging build would be X/X/30/30/X, no?

Thanks for the pointers!

If you are the only Mesmer then its glamour focus you want. The “ideal” way to go about this is relative. Most people would probably say condition damage and confusion glamour specced, personally I prefer raw damage with just the glamour cooldown traited. Having X/X/30/30/X gives lots of survivability and flexibility in terms of traits, but its not really required. X/X/20/20/X leave room for 30 in a tree of your choosing. It really depend on what you want in the end. You could go healing mantras (gate healbot, heh) but then you want at least X/X/20/30/X due to the glamour and mantra trait colliding. Just as an example.

For gear, I say power/toughness/vitality armor/weapons + Ascended power/toughness/precision and power/toughness/crit damage trinkets is the most potent combo for raw damage, especially if you add 30 points in the precision tree. Mostly Rabid with some vitality thrown in if you go for condition damage I suppose, not that into condition.

Blink is not the ideal stun breaker – staff 2 is. But you can never have enough stun breakers. I use blink to quickly reach the commander if we get separated in a zerg.

Ahh, I was so focused on utilities, I forgot about the staff! Great tips all around. Thanks man.