Guild Wars 2

I am really trying to learn the rotation for getting to 25 might stacks. I know the rotation for the most part and want to practice it so i can build the muscle memory and actually be able to do it. Here is my current rotation:

S/F
Dragon tooth, Firewall, (start moving for comet positioning), Phoenix
Switch to water while activating Arcane brilliance, Comet
Swap to main hand dagger
Frozen Burst
switch to earth, magnetic wave
Swap to offhand dagger
earthquake, churning earth

this should give me 24 might stacks. But i cant seem to get through the whole thing before flamewall is gone. I have the trait to make it last longer. I tried watching some videos and noticed people seem to be able to swap weapons really fast. i am just not sure how they are doing the offhand dagger swap.

i usually double click on my dagger to make it swap with the scepter which works great. but if i double click on the second dagger it just swaps the two daggers with one another and i end up still having D/F as my weapon set. The only way i know to do the offhand swap is in the equipment part of the hero pane and dragging it or right clicking and selecting equip to offhand. but it seems in the videos they are just double clicking and it automatically goes to the offhand. is there a secret im missing? Also, any other advice on speeding up my process would be great. Thanks!

Trying to set up a staff ele for dungeons and fractals. Metabattle says to use sigil of accuracy and force but then comments on using the 10% dungeon specific ones like night etc. Which sigil would i be replacing with the night sigil the force or the accuracy? Also, is there a good general set of sigils if i can not currently afford to have a bunch of staffs in my inventory. Thanks!

Hello all,

I was starting to get the hang of the shatter mesmer just before the HoT release. Unfortunately when it came out i had to take a break for real life reasons. I was wondering if anyone can point me to some good tutorials on learning the right way to play the current meta mesmer builds as it seems different than the old shatter builds. such as the right skill rotations/combos etc. Thanks!

I was hoping you wouldnt say that. Well there goes my hard earned money

I will be testing as well tonight and will report my results. If this is indeed the case and illusions and mini pets no longer count as pets for the ranger runes what is the best alternative for dungeons and general pve ( pvp or wvw suggestions welcome however i typically run pack or travelers runes for those)

noted in the wiki is this:

Once you have unlocked the collection trinkets seen below, you can purchase more copies from Legendary Master Collector Rednax Youngblood at Lion’s Court for 40 Laurel.png and 5 Gold coin.

So try checking there as the assassins dungeon trinkets are on the list following that quote.

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

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

Okay. So i was under the impression race has little to no difference on gameplay minus the story aspect and the few race based skills you unlock. Im almost afraid to ask now that i have my human mesmer leveled to 50ish but is there some sort of advantage of being a asura mesmer?

It seems that 90% of the mesmer videos i have watched all seem asura. Is it just a coincidence or is there some reasoning as to why there are so many asura mesmers?

Okay so I am still leveling my mesmer and trying different things out. I mainly want to use him for high level fractals and WvW but the occasional PvP is fun too. I can only try builds out in pvp since i am not 80 and dont have all of the traits/gear for WvW yet. I am trying to figure out what builds i like most and am having trouble understanding lockdown builds the most.

I understand the phantasm builds (condi and power) mainly get their damage by keeping up phantasms to do direct/condi damage and shattering clones when needed.

Shatter builds obviously mainly set up shatter bursts for damage.

When it comes to lockdown I know they mainly focus on CC and manipulating the enemy with interrupts etc. I just dont know how they deal a majority of their damage. If any one could like a good updated guide on how they are played that would be great. Thanks!

Thanks to the recent comments in my other thread I decided to stick with mesmer after all. I am still a low level (<30) and have no access to traits. As with all classes this severely limits me in learning the class and i have just been killing things any way I can. I have been trying to look at builds to get an idea of their playstyles so i know what i should be concentrating on to be semi prepared when i reach 80. However, most builds i have seen dont give much on how the build is played other than gear, weapon, and traits for me to get an idea. If someone could clarify what the different builds playstyle is like so i know what i might like to try out in the future. I know i can test stuff out in PvP but the builds i find dont seem to give a lot of insight on how all of the skills are used. I may just be dumb since i previously played an ele and I am used to guides laying out a full skill rotation.

Also, most of the guides i find are older (still use the previous trait system) and I am unsure how accurate they still are with all of the changes.

I will mainly be using my mesmer for dungeons ( to get some experience in them and then for high level fractals where reflects help in the future) and roaming in Wvw either solo or with a few friends.

This is my current understanding of builds and may be off by a little or a lot:

Phantasm: mainly uses sword MH and focus/pistol/sword off hand. Just does damage with sword skills and uses phantasms to deal damage as well usually keeping them alive for DPS instead of shattering them. Great for dungeons and is more than likely what i will use for them. Mainly stays in melee range?

Mantra: Uses a lot of mantras but other than this im very unclear.

Condition: I think they mainly use P/U(scepter /torch) and deal most of their damage with conditions. How they go about dealing conditions i am unclear on. It seems they are similar to a phantasm build but the phantasms deal condition damage over regular? i am possibly very wrong. No idea how they work to know if they are mostly melee or ranged.

P/U power build: again use scepter/ torch based on the P/U but i havent really found any guides to know how they do their damage.

Shatter: This seems great for roaming and they do high burst damage. I dont know what weapons they typically use as i have seen MH Sword and MH scepter with all of the offhands. I think i would enjoy this build but i still have a hard time understanding how they deal the huge burst damage. Is it really all about getting illusions out asap and using one of the shatters and rinse/repeat.

lockdown: Mostly stay ranged i think but im unclear about how they normally are played and may avoid since i read they have a high skill cap.

Any advise or clarifications are greatly appreciated.

i don’t mind a squishy class. In almost every game i have played i tend to go for a squishy class (typically a mage). I just find with ele you don’t have many answers to multiple targets unless you go staff which i find boring. It probably doesnt help that i have only been able to get zerk gear for dungeons which increases the squishyness in WvW.

I mainly want to try out a slightly different playstyle since both mesmer and theif use stealth and still have a more fast paced play similar to the ele. I tend to shy away from the tankier professions because i assume (this may not be true in GW2) that they are similar to the staff ele where you mainly just faceroll the keyboard while tanking vs. ele standing far away. I prefer a more active playstyle that takes thought and strategy.

I guess what I am mainly looking for is a direct comparison between the two when it comes to Wvw solo or small group roaming, dungeons, PvP, and general open world stuff. I like them both now but I know lots of stuff changes at high level and I cant get a full feel of the class and how it plays without traits. I know I started to hate my ele at around level 20-30 because i got down anytime more than one mob aggro’d me at a time but once i got the traits I found it A LOT more fun and survivable and do dungeon runs without ever getting downed unless in a pug and things go very poorly.

I have been trying to browse the forums but (this is no offense) it seems in every profession forums it is a lot of “OMG! X class should get nerfed because of Y skill destroys everyone” (in reference to other classes) and “Our profession is so underpowered and needs more buff every other profession is so much easier” and “Our profession has the highest skill cap in the game and is extremely hard to play due to (insert some profession specificthing here)” So it is tough to get an idea. Im not trying to be rude but in the past 30 minutes i have read ele/thief/and mesmer are all underpowered and have the highest skill cap than every other class for different reasons.

I have a quick question for all you mesmer players. I am a relatively new player having just started a month or two ago. I currently have 3 toons. I have my level 80 ele which i definitely find fun but wanted to branch out a little. I have made both a thief and a mesmer but both are very low level. I came to the forums looking for tips on how to play both to get through leveling since i know it can be a bad experience with some classes ( i spent a LOT of time downed as my ele). I think both classes share some similarities in play style and i do enjoy the premise and looks of the mesmer in general. To my unfortunate discovery on the forums it seems most mesmer players and going on and on about how under powered and worthless the mesmer is right now and their huge lack of damage and no compensation for that. It definitely has deterred me slightly from even wanting to level my mesmer now. I would hate to invest all of the effort leveling it just to find at the end that it is a horribly weak class that isnt good at anything. I havent seen many of them while playing to get an idea how good they are end game.

I guess my main question here is if you had to choose a profession right now with HoT coming soon to start learning what would you pick. I have a elementalist that i mainly use for PvE and have touched a little WvW and PvP but very little and was sort of overwhelmed by the skill gap between me and others. I am not sure what i want to mainly do in game as there seems to be so much to do.

I am just looking for something to have fun with. I find ele’s to be squishy when roaming and while great in dungeons they are kind of boring in open world stuff like Silverwastes where there are so many mobs i pretty much have to stick with Staff and just spam the same skills. Any suggestions would be great the one thing i know i dont find fun is zergs.

Thanks for the info. I guess i will give dungeons another try as they seem like a good way to get gold. I have yet to do one yet and think they seem like a fun way to make some gold. I just havent had luck finding a group yet it seems the one or two times i tried it was all groups wanting full zerker gear for speedruns or wanting people that knew all the ins and outs of the paths. I haven’t even been able to find a group to complete my story modes yet.

Thanks again for all of the advice.

I recently started playing GW2 for the first time and have since leveled my first character to almost 80. I have found leveling to be not that difficult but getting gold for good equipment VERY difficult.

Over my 80 levels i have amassed a whopping total of about 8 gold. This included selling off most of my mats along the way. This is frustrating since exotic armor and gear ina general for a level 80 runs about 20 gold a piece not to count some of the skins i would want like the cultural armor.

I have tried looking into ways to make gold at a slightly faster rate to reduce the amount of time i would have to “farm” to get it but haven’t found much that is promising. Alot of the articles recommend champ trains that have since been removed from the game. Others recommend dungeons but with the limited time i play coupled with not knowing anyone who does play and never having done one before finding a group is difficult and even harder to be able to do anything near speed runs to acquire gold fast.

I have considered playing the tp as well since i have delved into irl stocks and am very good with numbers but there seems to be a sharp learning curve when it comes to the economy. I testes out the waters a few times and cant seem to figure it out. Obviously it is sell high buy low. Any time i have found anything worth “flipping” i put in a buy order and one of two things happens either i never get sold any because it turns out to be an extremely slow moving item even if i am the highest buy order the whole time or i am quickly undercut by several large orders of 250 units. Even if i then unlist my original order and uncut them (yes this is bad for the economy but i only do this when buying around 5 to test if the item even sells) i am just undercut again repeatedly. This ends up leading me to lose money due to the fees or at best break even.

I know tons of people play the tp and do great with it but it seems they all have their own list of items they know they can easily buy and sell quickly where as everything flippable i find seems to take a whole day just to buy 2-3 of an item. Is there a good way to get gold faster or even a way to tell how fast an item it normally bought and sold on the tp or can anyone suggest some items to get started with in the tp flipping business. Everyone seems to say they have a list of typical items they flip that is their secret.

Thanks for any advice

I have made an elementalist and am working on leveling him. The problem i am having is all the builds i find are for level 80 and i am having some trouble surviving. I am currently level 32 and only has access to one trait and do not even have it equipped since i haven’t done the required things to unlock the actual traits i just have the trait point. I have tried a few weapon sets and know i dont really like standing in the back with staff spamming the same things. I also mainly play solo PvE.

I think i have a decent rotation down for spells and i dont have any real trouble 1v1 my problem is mainly when i get to areas where is is near impossible to get a mob 1v1 like mini dungeons or areas for unlocking traits where there is multiple mobs very close together and they all aggro me. I have tried pulling one at a time to me but by the time you get to the third or fourth the original ones seem to spawn right behind me and aggro me.

I have mainly been playing D/D but am open to trying out D/F and S/D as well. I just want to not spend as much time in the downed state if it can be avoided. I usually keep my skills as (signet of restoration, arcane shield, arcane wave, and signet of air/fire) i use signer of air for the movement speed running to different hearts etc. and switch to fire for combat. My general rotation is

Air: 4(to engage mob), 3, 2, 5 (to knock them down and get distance)
Fire: 3 (to reengage), 2, 4, 5, Arcane wave( for might)
Water: 3 (for might) , 4
Earth : 4 (for might), 2
Air: spam 1 till cooldown reset and use arcane shield if i am taking lots of damage.

This seems to work great to take down a single mob 1v1 it is when there are 2-4 of them at the same time. After i finish the rotation the first one is near dead and the AA in air usually finish them off. But while i wait on my cooldowns the other 1-3 typically just down me once arcane shield wears off. Is there any tips or weapon set that will let me survive better. I am pretty comfortable switching attunements and doing combos if there is a better one. I just hate trying to go somewhere to do a “mission” to attempt to unlock a trait or finish a heart where multiple mobs can not be avoided and failing multiple times or having to wait for random other players to come by and follow them through so i dont have to take all the aggro.

Any help is greatly appreciated.