Guild Wars 2

Helios.3598:

I suggest using Greatsword and Sword, because … pink lasers!

Greatsword is a really awesome weapon for leveling. It’s autoattack is powerful, it has a knockback, the clone ability can stack might on you and (most importantly) the phantasm is a lawnmower on legs. That guy kicks some serious behind, even if you pull a bigger group.

As for the second weapon, I’d suggest starting out with a Staff. It’s more straightforward, has also a very powerful phantasm, the clones are actually useful in stacking conditions and it has great defensive capabilities.

As you gain levels and become more familiar with the Mesmer you can think about switching to a Sword mainhand. That one really takes a lot of getting used to but can be very, very strong in the right hands. It also allows you some flexibility with the offhand, with all four choices being viable.

That being said: for a beginner it would probably be more expedient to start with a staff instead of a sword. But by all means, take that greatsword, I absolutely love this thing.

If the leveling experience is important to you – go mesmer. I’ve started out as an ele and was being murdered pretty much every five paces at the beginning. The ele can be really powerful but has a very steep learning curve, you’ll need to learn to manage all of your attunements while usually having little to nothing that can protect you. To boot, your armor and hp are the lowest in the game.

The mesmer in contrast has a bit more health and all those nifty illusions that can take the beating for you. Found the leveling experience to be much more fluent and pleasant than with the elementalist.

It might be that I just suck at ele though :/