Guild Wars 2

Here’s a 3-minute video of a fight at a WvW camp to show how the build is coming along. Thanks for all the help answering my questions and sharing tips. After two year of just playing Mesmer, there’s a lot of adjusting to do and you all have been really helpful.

Sorry the video cuts off at the end. I hit the stop recording button because I was worried about locking up my PC (it turns out the video file was already 11 GB at that point). I actually took the camp, but the outcome isn’t as important as the build ideas. I make tons of mistakes in that fight, and a lot of how the fight goes is because the opponents make more mistakes. But there are a few things it illustrates about the build

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNQQNAnfVjEq0ua3KmrQ1aABhYVQ73wW2RZbp8jj82D-TFyCABA8AAO+QAAo+gw3fwT1fm4MAkoSwsU+FAABwRP6RP6RPazcmzcmzcmFCYxaA-w

First conclusion is that I really appreciate the quick cooldowns on the trap skills. Sometimes I’m looking to use the traps too much. But it’s extremely helpful both offensively and defensively. Because ground targeting takes a while, sometimes I let them go even when I’m not hitting quite where I want. I don’t worry about it too much because I feel like the fight will likely go through that spot eventually, and because I don’t lose too much on the cooldown (and if I miss everything with a trap, I probably get 3 seconds of stealth).

Amazingly, empathic bond seems to be a sufficient condition defense so long as I pick pets with fairly high vitality. As a Mesmer, conditions were tough and pretty much required a utility slot to handle. These aren’t particularly condi-heavy fights, but the build also seems to work against some of the engi and necro builds. On the flip side, taking two traits to act as a stunbreaker that mostly only functions every 90 seconds feels like a tough tradeoff.

Pets are the last big area where I’m still trying to work things out. I see the value in the immobilize of things like the jungle spider and drakehound. As I’m fighting so far, it hasn’t mattered tremendously if the opponents are immobilized or not. I get how the wolf fear can be really powerful, but so far, I rarely use it well. Because I’m not great at pet management yet, the pets with lower health pools don’t work so great for me. I need the pet to do a reasonable amount of damage, so I’m avoiding the bears right now.

I do like river drake and think I’ll stick with him. The F2 hits at least a few times when I use it. The tail swipe is great because I usually have a combo field down. I tried ice drake and may go back to that. I’ve tried the siamoth (like Flopy the Rabbit uses in his video), but the process of finding, picking up and using the item is too much for me in a fight. In this fight, I’m testing using the warthog and trying to start with its dropped item. That works fine for the first opponent, but I never use it again. And in the whole fight, I think he lands his charge attack once – against a downed opponent… lol. I’m currently trying river drake and marsh drake.

Thanks again for all the help.

You did well mate. =]

Haha, you need a bit more practice when it comes to picking out the real mesmer though.

And just a few more things:
– A/D might work out better for you with the extra evade. Torch isn’t necessarily needed, since you have flame trap + combo finishers to stack burning anyways.
– Spike Trap + Entangle + Axe 2 (Point Blank Range) = 15+ stacks of bleeding.

Other than that, I’ve also noticed that you’ve got pet swapping down pat. You have pretty good pet management, so nice job on that as well. =]

Here is my trap build. I don’t usually give out my specs, but I think you’d do very well with it with enough practice, so here it is. =]
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8fjEq0ya7KerQ1aABhaVA0uGS2WgkittenBbQBraA-TFyCABA8AA2T/Q47Pg8JBwT1fm4IAkoSwsU+FAABYmlZZWmBDdoD9oH9oN0hO0hO0hWKAYWWB-w

Thanks and thanks for sharing the build – it looks really good.

It’s ironic after playing mesmer for so long that I still goof up on picking out the mesmer. I tabbed past the right one – for some reason, the signet didn’t stand out to me.

It’s easier for me to manage pets with a lot of vitality. When I was using drakehound and wolf, they died a lot. But perhaps some of that is learning curve as well.

Anyway, thanks much for the feedback and sharing your build – I’m having a lot of fun still learning the profession.

Just make sure to F1 the pet onto the real mesmer and the pet will always prio the real mesmer :P It will start attacking clones and other irrelevant things when the mesmer is invisible, but will always start attacking them when visible.

(works for thief too)

eldenbri.1059:

It’s easier for me to manage pets with a lot of vitality. When I was using drakehound and wolf, they died a lot. But perhaps some of that is learning curve as well.

Try spiders, they have decent damage and vitality, immob, poison and as they are ranged they will have a higher chance of staying out of harm’s way and better hit chance.

If you weren’t running trapper runes I would go so far as suggesting dropping Trapper’s expertise. It can be really useful however if you throw your traps to places where they trigger later to use stealth fully to reposition or cast (entangle for example). I would get 1 more stunbreak instead of flame trap (Lightning reflexes is amazing), or swap viper’s nest and torch for dagger offhand (cripple, poison, evade).