Guild Wars 2

I am hoping someone can steer me in the right direction on armor choices. I plan to get a full zerker/assassins set with scholar or ranger runes for dungeoning on a phantasm build. This seems to be the standard meta for PvE right now.

With that said I am still a little lost when it comes to WvW gear. PvP isnt a big deal as I can easily switch everything out for free but I have limited funds for getting my WvW gear and dont want to waste money on something less than optimal.

I have tried looking into builds but it seems like there are a thousand builds and every one uses different traits or gear. I have looked through a lot of them and have made a conclusion that the traits are mainly dependent on the weapon choice and playstyle.
If any one can give me a breakdown of pros/cons for the different stat and rune choices that would be great even sigil/weapons stuff too.

I am hoping to be focusing on solo roaming, small group roaming, and havoc groups. Not really into zergs as it doesnt seem fun with a mesmer due to on being utility and not having lots of tagging options to get bags.

Sorry if this is a dumb question but it seems there are so many choices and no definitive “best” but i cant choose for myself because i dont really know what the pros/cons are for the different stats/runes with regards to mesmer.

Also, I am planning to eventually run both a shatter build and CI lockdown build and will more than likely use GS>Sw/T to start with shatter since the extra stealth is nice and probably Gs>Sw/F or the lockdown (not a huge fan of scepter). Thanks in advance for any help

Seems like most gear in the builds I have seen is some mix of zerk/assassins/cavalier/knights/Soldiers and the runes are ranger/strength/scholar/pack/centaur/travelers

Current meta is zerker for shatter (and I believe) CI lockdown. I am one of those who rolls Travelers runes as I hate filling the Mesmer slow condi death sponge stereotype.

The trade off between zerk and any set that gives T and/or Vit is whether you think you do better in sustained fights or prefer to burst the other player down as fast as possible. There is a case for either IMO, so it really depends on your comfort level. Me, I prefer to be glass with zerk because Mesmer is already weak in sustaining, concentrating on it only makes it nominally on par with other professions with new players behind them. Against a veteran, I really don’t think anything other than zerk will avail you of much.

We have no good condi clearance options and while you can trait for it, I simply gave it up. You will die to condi unless you’re pro, so don’t even try. I use the mantra for condi clear if I think I need it, Feedback and Nullfield also have their uses here. YMMV depending on skill and comfort level.

I run GS > Sw/P or T shatter. Pistol is a must if you are caught relatively alone and want any shred of hope against a thief. Park it in your inventory for that occasion if it isn’t your thing as default, just trust me on wanting one as a backup.

Just my 2 cents: CI lockdown is fun for a diversion, but I just couldn’t get into it. Loading up on the interrupts took away too many necessary tools for survival. It might be really good in a small roaming group, but solo/duo shatter wins hands down.

Wow thanks for the detailed answer. That actually helps a lot I really just didn’t want to waste any gold on something that would t be good as I really don’t have much. Plus I want to eventually work towards a ascended set. Do you also recommend zerk for the weapons? Now I just have to get A LOT better with Mesmer. I haven’t done lots of pvp or wvw up to this point mainly pve and have found most of it pretty easy until I got into pvp tonight and ended up in 3 matches on courtyard against teams with 2 thieves each. Needless to say I felt completely lost with the amount of stuff going on and got eaten alive by thieves. guess I have a lot of learning to do

FYI. you could get Exceptional armor for WvW badges, but you won’t be able to salvage runes out of it (Travelers are expensive.)