Guild Wars 2

apharma.3741:

No offence OP but it sounds like you’ve already made up your mind irrespective of what other people say. It also seems like you’re trying too hard to not be meta that you’re throwing reason, logic and any kind of sensible thinking out of the window just to be unique.

I’ve been clocking a lot of time in WvW on core mesmer vs chrono and all I can say is shield blows the socks off everything that isn’t used for stealth. I’ve tried to find an off hand that will let me get nice interrupts for power block with some defence but there isn’t one unless you’re against a projectile only player. Even then it just doesn’t measure up to shield.

For solo PvE I just skip any mob I don’t have to kill with torch. For story instances shield has only one rival imo, focus even then why not use both?

No offence taken. When I made this post I wan’t sure about it, and some of this answers really did help me (and yes, now I’ve already made up my mind). I’m not trying to be a special snowflake if thats what you are thinking, truth is I just got tired of shield playstyle for pve and wanted to try chrono with my old playstyle (which I liked a lot, but wasnt sure it would work). Since people kept posting I just thought it would be polite to keep answering since I started this and to show sometimes we can dare to try other stuff other then meta….. And our playstyles are a lot different from what I can tell, in 3 years I did wvw like 5 times and didnt stay there even two hours… And I dont like skipping mobs in pve, if I did that I would be better off playing thief.

I’ve been doing some tests these past days, and from what I’ve seen pistol is not that bad, I have a decent damage and I’m killing enemies faster then I did with shield (single targets mostly, but when there is some mobs around usually sword skill #2 and shatters does the job) its not really an utility OH but it is an ok weapon and I’m having fun with it… Of course for pvp and fractal I swap back to shield (for the group support) but for me going solo its been good so far!! Only problem I’ve been having are those pocket raptors and smokescales…..
Quartely patch is close, I really hope we get some weapon buffs this time.

The pistol certainly is not the “best” option out there (is not part of the current hur dur meta, which I never follow)… But it is a fun weapon, sure I can’t aoe 10 mobs and kill them in 2 seconds, but sometimes, not everything is about the biggest damage, to me playing gw2 (or any game, really) is all about me having fun! And pistol is fun, with the pew pew phantasm and me having to dodge more often…. I do like the shield, its a cool weapon to play with, but after almost one year I kinda missed some playstyles other than block → block→ skill #5 → repeat.
All these answers make me wonder what will happen to 90% of the mesmers once the next spec comes out hahaha everyone now is all about that shield XD

To be honest here guys, I really appreciate all the answers and discussion on this topic, but I couldn’t care less for condi builds :/
Shield is indeed very good, and I’m not giving up on it, still using it for pvp, group pve, etc cuz there is no comparison with the others OH when on group stuff. But when I’m on my own playing open world pve it doesn’t help much, it is a good weapon for group support, but it doesn’t have that much damage for solo play (its more like a buff weapon to me, and I already got a lot of buffs going on)…. I’ve been playing on my mesmer for a really long time, and I’m sure I don’t need it to be strong playing solo.
After experimenting a couple of days, I will be going back to my pistol for open world pve (gs+sw/p) and keeping the old way for the rest (gs+sw/sh) cuz at least for me it was a little more effective. What I can’t decide is: should I keep dom/illu/chrono or swap to dom/duel/chrono?? The illusions traits work very well with my shatters, but then the cd of sword/pistol is a little longer.
Before chrono I always used illu/dom/duel… now I have to sacrifice one x.x Anyone got an insight on this? Thanks in advance!

That is actually a good way of looking at it. The shield does save my kitten against pocket raptors, smokescales and some cc mobs, but other than that it just prolongs my fights…
So, if i wanted to go back to pistol, do you think it would be a good idea to keep my illusions trait (for shatter stuff) or should I swap it to dueling (for the bleeding)? I’m keeping chrono and domination no matter what.

Hmm.. not sure if that would work for me, I really like my gs. I’m really not into raids, so it would be for pve open world stuff and from time to time some low tier fractal (I’m not much into instance group content). If I enjoyed condi builds I wouldn’t even stress about it, and would prob use something like that build above, but I like the quick burst shatter damage that comes with power builds (with zerker, assassin gear etc). And it is exactly because of that alacrity and quickness that Im doubt about going back to pistol (pistol does more dmg, but shield keeps me alive for more time)

Hey guys, are there any chronos using pistol?? I main my mesmer for 3 years and used to play with pistol before Hot, and I kinda missed it now after almost one year using shield, but on all game modes the shield seems to always be so much better :/
Btw, I play power shatter with gs+sw/sh (I was thinking about only going back to gs+sw/p, no other changes).
What do you guys think? Should I keep using shield or go back to pistol?
Usually I make this decisions easily cuz I never follow the stupid “meta”, but I’m in a huge crisis right now and can’t decide
Oh and also, that would be only for pve, on pvp I still prefer shield.
Thank in advance!