Guild Wars 2

I have a dps engineer with full rabid (gear,weapon,trinkets) and anytime I’m in a group with no Guardian or someone with higher toughness than me, everything follows me up. I have to adjust my traits on the go for this reason so I can actually survive.

A good example would be the last part in CoF P2 where you have to defend the azura npc, from the very start of the event everything just comes to me, I end up kiting the whole thing (or at least it sure feels that way).

Don’t know if it’s a bug or not, but at the moment, toughness plays a significant role at grabbing aggro.

Hi Djinn! I didn’t want this to be long post, but it just happened, so here it goes:

If your favorite weapons are GS/Staff, and pistol I would definitely recommend at least 20 points in illusions, so you can get Illusionary Elasticity, this will greatly increase your DPS with the staff’s #1 skill, your staff clones and also buff your your bouncing attacks with the GS and pistol.

The scepter is probably the reason your damage is so low, this is a really terrible weapon for dps, maybe good for Confusion or some shatter builds, tbh I haven’t used since they buffed it… but the sword is a so much better weapon, it has great damage and it’s AoE on melee, also the #1 skill chain gives vulnerability and rips boons from target which transfer to your clones. #2 (Blurred Frenzy) gives you invulnerability for 2 secs (use it defensively if needed), which is great for survival and #3 helps on keeping clones up, maybe even catch up running targets too, since it roots the target.

For clone spamming (instead of scepter) you want 20 on Dueling for Deceptive Evasion, this will give you Sharper Images too, which will give even added utility to your clones. Now your clones are stacking bleeds and vulnerability each time they hit. Now you can start a fight by summoning the iDuelist from the pistol, #3 from sword and a dodge roll and boom, you have set 3 illusions in a fraction of time, when the iDuelist finished firing his first load, consider shattering everything and finish them with your main sword attack if the mob is still alive, things just die in seconds this way.

Regarding survival, I really like 15 on Chaos. It’s two minor traits give you regeneration and protection when your health reaches 75%, also the 2 sec protection procs with any source of regeneration, so it’s a great skill overall. This also gives you access to Illusionary Defense, which reduces 3% damage for every illusion who is up. Bring the iDefender and a reliable source of regeneration and you become a tank!

I play with this build http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/mesmer#2|10|2647|4089|4091|8134|8987|0|0|0|0|30|1759|1815|2209|20|2220|1818|0|0|0|0|0|20|1775|2228|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0| It´s basically all the above, plus effects when clones are killed, this effects apply even when you, just summon another clone and the first dies, which frees you from wasting clones. The thing I like about this build it’s how versatile it is. I can switch to a staff/gs setup, pistols, retaliation build (sword/scepter blocks) or even a mantra build as I see fit for the situation.

Additionally, for increased survival I use Decoy for losing aggro and Null Field/Feedback/Time Warp for setting up fields and getting Chaos Armor from sword #3, this helps a lot of tight situations.

Finally, Focus is a great offhand for soloing too, #4 give increased movement speed, interrupts and a “light” combo field, #5 iWarden makes really nice damage, specially if you bring everything to melee. Use pistol #5 to root enemies for Blurred Frenzy if needed too.

I hope this helps! Remember to test stuff out, respeccing is really cheap and mesmers have great damage/survival if you can get a spec that works with your style!

Cheers!

I wonder if you could walk backwards, blink and then moonwalk!