Guild Wars 2

I really like staff but I find that focus is more useful and it is necessary for the obvious reason, Staff don’t give us enough swiftness. I find staff totally unhelpful in dungeons like Arah which I do a lot and if I keep using it there’s just no way to skip trash. I also find that in easier dungeons it drags me down since as a mesmer I’m slow

Signet of inspiration gives random boon so don’t have much control for the 11 secs or so swiftness from it. So anyone else feel that focus is mandatory?

Even without worrying about swiftness at higher level dungeons focus + wardens feedback really is mandatory. Mesmer’s ability to set up reflect/absorb is only exceeded by guardians making it about as close to as a class role GW2 has.

Not to mention the ability to pull large groups together for easy nuking and the swiftness/snare it provides – and the amazingly powerful (thought difficult to master) phantasm.

Target nearest → run/dodge past → phase retreat, coupled with the odd blink. Or if no mobs, about turn and phase retreat? Fully traited on both of course.

I’m not much of a dungeon player – not my cup of tea, but surely you can cover distance pretty fast that way without TC.

then use staff and focus?

i use sword+focus/staff (since izerker is bugged)
warlocks hit ridiculously hard when a boss is loaded up with conditions (which happens with most comps)
chaos storm aegis is great, and has saved quite a few people in dungeon runs when theyve gotten downed near a boss (or blocking captain…ascalon…guys first agony blast; so you still have a few NPCs up)

I use sw/f + staff and find both to complement each other. As Linguistically Inept (lol) mentioned, staff has some great group weapons and you don’t have to sacrifice your focus to have it.

Also, if you’re running thru an area to skip fights just equip a focus for the run and then back to a combat weapon set if necessary. Annoying, but an option.

In arah in particular, there’s very few fights where you’ll have an occasion to swap out of sword focus. Almost every single fight in that dungeon is trivialized with the skillful application of reflects. Additionally, swiftness shouldn’t be a problem at all in dungeons. Your party members should have enough group swiftness boons to keep it up most of the time while moving.