Guild Wars 2

I’m a mesmer at heart but my necro alt sports cabalist. Go goth loli or go home!

MrForz.1953:

He trolled you very well.

I wonder. If you know they’re trolling and you respond in jest, does that really count as, “falling for it?”

I find that using Nullfield’s targeting reticule (not the skill itself) helps in dark areas. It’s quite large, reasonably good at lighting up the ground and can be moved around so you’ll always see where you’re going. Some weapons act as a light source but they’re usually inferior to the provided torch. Staff’s #1 attack is a light source too. Without a target, you’ll shoot it straight ahead so it can be used to for tricky jumps.

Personally I’m bad against people trolling mesmers. I know I should ignore them but it just feels so GOOD to let the sarcasm fly!

Sadly the forums don’t come with sound standard so you’ll have ot imagine me saying this in my best Azula voice.

Ahem!

I’m sorry. I can’t hear you over all the loot bags I’m collecting off your corpse. Shouldn’t you be thanking me though? By killing you, I’ve made you that much closer to understanding and embracing death. Surely a Necro would appreciate that.

It’s great that we have all the elements available all the time but I personally hate that you can’t specialize in one or two. That’s why I propose that EVERY elemental trait line should have a grandmaster trait that will allow you to weapon swap but lock you out of other elements. It’s crazy, I know, but if I could swap between D/D and Staff while in water, I could easily fill a support role while doing decent damage. It would give Eles the ability to change their range mid-battle, something that is seriously lacking because of poor skill design. Also, focusing more on weapon swapping instead of attunement swapping would give Eles a reason to stop focusing on Arcana and branch out into other trait lines. Having traits that are “only in fire” would make more sense if you have more than 5 fire-based attacks available. Being that these are Grandmaster traits, it would be possible to specialize in 2 elements with 10 skills in each so Eles would still have the same amount of skills available. If nothing else, such a simple change would open up a lot more build potential.

I prefer it to be light because we already have so many ethereal fields. Gaining a light field would open up more combos.

I’m fairly certain main hand pistol is a given now because so many people have requested it. I’m also hoping shortbows are implemented so I can rock the dreamer. For the longest, I wanted a whip but I think a 2-hand katana would be a better melee weapon. Iaijitsu has Mesmer written all over it!

Ummm…. This forum is an example of a community. Just look at how many people post commonly.

A little piece of me dies inside everytime someone says a particular weapon doesn’t fit the Mesmer profile. We are a class based on strange, misleading and unorthodox attacks. Bows could easily be adapted to fit us. As I started in another post, they could be used like Klingon Battleths with the occasional shot fired, just to remind people that we are using a bow. Another idea came to me today. Ever watch Bleach? Quincies fight an awful lot like Mesmers, if you as me, and they ALL use bows!

Here’s another tip. You can still shatter while downed. Any illusions you have up can easily home in on someone trying to spike you because they are standing still. Also, if you’re traited with Illusionary Persona, a well-timed F3 self-shatter can be used as a spike denial. F4 could potentially work as well. If that’s not enough, I believe shatters may be insta-cast when you’re downed. If that’s so, they won’t interrupt self-reviving.

When you consider all that, I’d say Mesmers really do have amazing abilities. I can’t think of any other class that comes close to having that much denial.

I agree with the, “I just need it to work as a gap closer” crowd. Now sometimes I have seen it do an anime-esque shunpo tactic where it would rapidly jump several times until it got to the target. It’s awesome and a possible fix for the pathing problem.

I know I’m gong to get tarred, feathered and flamed for this but I actually like these “bugs”. It’s like, in Final Fantasy, you can cast reflect on an ally and then use a targeted spell on them to hit an enemy. I’m not opposed to them being fixed but they do make things more interesting.

I’m in the “why choose” party because I use both.

Kazhiel.8194:

I like feedback the way it is, I can put it all sorts of places as long as I can get a target

You don’t need a target for Feedback. Cast it without one and it will appear directly in front of you at full length. One thing I use to do was wait for the catapaults to dissuade attackers from being in melee range. Then I stand a bit behind the gate and cast Feedback to troll everyone using projectiles.

dani.1956:

Cataca.3867:

dani.1956:

Love the sunday players posting troll mesages on forums ! When an elite skill is nerfed 50% its a big nerf mate , so l2p ! And if you didnt play mesmer in PVE for the TW then YOU played the mesmer wrong !

Not to bash you bro but if you are playing mesmer for just that one skill, you really should delete yours.

a. We are the only class that can stack 24 stacks of vulnerability, instantly and on multiple targets if you trait for it. thats a 24% damage bonus right of the bat for the entire group. This actually will outtrump TW over time, cause its up every 35 seconds.
b. We are the only class that has a group teleportation spell. Situational? Yes, but useful nevertheless.
c. We are the only class that supplies glamour fields for confusion and chaos armor. Chaos armor is an incredibly powerful defensive boon.
d. Signet of inspiration doubles buff durations on the group for everyone but the mesmer, and doubles might stacks.

And TW is still the single longest quickness buff and has zero downsides. While we deal less damage than warriors, we still have craploads of utility. And our damage isnt that bad.

1400 achievement points player telling me to delete my character) ! you’re pathetic bro !

I have a lot more than 1400 and I’m saying the same thing. If you want to jump ship just because one skill EFFECT was nerfed across the board, then feel free. You will not be missed.

I have just one. Rampager with a few Carrion accessories. The reason I don’t have more is because switching and retraiting has to be done manually and that’s a HUGE pain! When/if Anet finally figures out that they can make a fortune by selling a way for players to swap to alternative builds, I’ll gain more armor sets.

I run a very weird 20/30/20/0/0 Rampager PvE build using Staff as my main and sword/focus for when enemies want to get up close and cozy. While it’s not good at anything in particular, it has an odd jack-of-all-trades vibe which allows me to pull off things even I didn’t know mesmers could do. I think the crowning achievement was soloing the Risen Priest of Grenth with all his adds and widdling away 50% of his health before finally being joined by 2 competent players. Considering that there were 20 players at the start of the event and none of them lasted more than 2 minutes, you can understand the overwhelming odds I had to contend with.

We’re going to keep seeing threads like this until Anet gives Mesmers some swiftness options. That’s just how it’s going to be.

Decimus.1829:

Thinking of the Rabid set for my staff and sword /pistol build. Is sacrificing all power worth it? Doesn’t it kitten phantasm damage? Or is it made up by cond dmg and confusion?

Against a living opponent, you will be very hard to kill while your condition damage will melt their brains into a gelatinous mass which they can only watch in horror as it oozes out of their orifices. It’s is truly a dark and sinister joy to behold!

Against an inanimate object… Well… Shooting paper straw covers at it may be more productive.

And we’re mesmers! Snarky comes with the profession. It’s a prerequisite for our narcissism classes. Countess Anise won’t let us make even one clone unless we have kissed no less than 24 mirrors.

I should be nice but I haven’t been “in character” in a while, so…

This is a joke, right? Line-of-sight screws mesmers over ALL the time! If a mesmer is blinded, attacking a blocking opponent or loses line-of-sight (even on a target that can still hit us) clones and phantasms won’t spawn! To put that in proper perspective, that’s like a Warrior losing 1/3 of their adrenalin bar because they happened to be blinded or a Thief losing 1/3 of their initiative because their attack was blocked. I don’t know about the rest of the mesmers here but I’m still whining about it!

As for Temporal Curtain, it’s a ground-targeted AoE. It’s a weird one but still is one. All it requires is a surface to work on. If that gets “fixed” then every other gound-targeted aoe needs to be “fixed” as well.

Let’s be clear. Should such happen, I will first slap you and then I will slap every ANet employee that listened to you. Please bring your assault charges against me so I can see you in court and slap you again, just to make it worth it!

Now there is presently a bug with that has an obvious exploit but it has been reported already and by mesmers, thank-you-very-much. Knowing Anet, they’ll have it fixed or slap an atrociously ugly band-aid on it within the next month.

Ahhh! I feel relieved now! It’s good to vent.

If you have low precision but high condition damage, I’d go with Earth. With high precision, Strength may be better. I haven’t tried it with strength but I have 57% crit and rock earth. Auto attacks give me around 4 to 6 constant stacks of bleed. Nothing to write home about but nothing to sneeze at either.

Mesmers are hard to master. Just look at all the previous comments about how versatile we are. Now imagine being a new player, trying to find which niche is good for you. Personally I’ve gone from being confused about what stats are best for me to Carrion to Rabid and finally settling in Rampager. Runes are even harder as I’m debating yet another change.

Naturally you can’t do everything at the same time so I wouldn’t say we are good at everything. Instead, I’d say we malleable to almost whatever any player desires. So, in essence, the class is designed well. In my opinion, it’s a good class but there are a lot of little things keeping it from being a great class.

If they guaranteed a rare in every large chest, all dungeons would be run a lot more. As to why I don’t run AC anymore is because I find the game boring now. I’ve done just about everything but the last story mission and Arah explorable. I’m sick of grinding for particular gear stats. I hate trying to get particular fractal levels and end up having to leave because of family business. My guild only reps when in WvW and that’s only a few hours at a time. Otherwise, I’m lucky if I even hear from any of them.

This game has become dull. I’m looking for ways to spice things up but ultimately, I may take off and not come back until they release the first expansion. And if that includes more senseless grinding…

Void.1806:

Why does Sword/Focus seem to be the most accepted leveling combo for Mesmer? Serious question, mine is only level 10 atm. The abilities that the Focus gives you doesn’t seem to be that great when compared to what an additional sword gives.

I wouldn’t say it’s the most accepted combo but it certainly is a good one. The sword provides the most reliable dps for its auto-attack and can cleave up to three enemies. Illusionary Leap has 2 leap finishers, both of which can apply Chaos Armor not only to you but to the clone you spawn too. Skill 3 (can’t remember what it’s called) is 2 seconds of high dps while invulnerable. Temporal Curtain is reliable, multi-person swiftness, a cripple, a pull AND a combo field! That’s a lot of versatility in one power! The iWarden is the highest dps phantasm we have and can deflect projectiles for as long as it is swinging those axes, which also serves as a combo whirl finisher. There’s a lot of damage and versatility in sword/focus and that’s why it’s my second weapon set.

No drastic change. Plus there are areas on Earth that don’t experience seasons at all.

Personally, I think Mesmer abilities are all psionic. They are able to bend time and space with their minds as well as use arcane energy to turn their thoughts into reality.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Plus, teleporting physical, solid, matter is different than sending electricity that captured and transmits sound wavelengths.

Though short-distance communications is possible, as is short-distance video output/input, but not long distance as far as we know.

That’s the thing. Teleporting physical matter is a lot more complex than teleporting energy. Considering how valuable information is during wartimes, you would think any entrepreneurial asurans would be all over communication arrays. It’s a gold mine!

I find Midnight Ice to be the poor man’s Abyss. It’s pretty dark on cloth armor. In fact, it’s actually a bit too dark for what I wanted but I can’t find anything better. It also fades into a blueish gray on extremely light fabrics, which I find better than Midnight Fire.

As for purples, I run around with T3 Asuran cultural weapons so I use Glory to match them. Other possible colors are Grapevine, Heliotrope and Phlox.

If you’re more into pink/fuchsia, you can try Cotton Candy, Rose Breeze and Pastel Rose. They are all fairly cheap, last time I checked.

For white, I use Blue Ice, which is a poor man’s Celestial. It’s not quite white on most fabrics but I find it works remarkably well for lacy trimmings.

It really depends on the class. For my Mesmer, I go for vitality because they have so many ways to avoid direct damage but only a few condition removals. With more life, I can easily remove major conditions and outlast minor ones.

For my Elementalist, I take both because, though they have so many ways to remove conditions, they are just so freaking squishy for the sheer amount of aggro they draw. PVT stats plus several ways to regenerate health makes them quite beefy!

For my Warrior, I don’t bother with either. Her base stats, good condition removals and high damage potential makes her perfect for stacking on the magic find.

So, again, it’s really a matter of covering your profession’s shortcomings, as well as your own.

I think the problem at the moment is complexity. While I too would love to see centaurs laying siege to Divinity’s Reach if left unchecked, it would take a lot more coding and a LOT more debugging to get dynamic events to scale that far. One bug in any of those events could lock players out of the entire chain. We’re seeing multiple cases of that already with what we already have. In fact, with every update we see a lot of fixes. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.

Basically, in order to pull off what you’re suggesting, it would be best if they focus on fixing as many bugs as possible first. Only when we have worldwide stability, not just in Queensdale, would it be feasible to add new event chains and start linking them together for a more dynamic experience. I say not just Queensdale because it would be epic to see Harathi centaurs link up with the other 2 groups and make a push across 3 zones to Divinity’s Reach. I also imagine it would take a meta event chain longer than the one-time Karka one to return the status quo.

With the Asura gates, we have instantaneous long-distance travel. I assume the gates can even open portals to anywhere close by, which would explain how we can teleport to them but not to a spot without one. While this is obviously a technology far beyond what we have today, there is no way to instantly communicate over long distances. This is evident in the personal story missions where we have to journey back to prior locations just to talk to particular npcs. Does anyone else find this odd?

I’m about to really screw with your heads! The full maps of Tyria that I’ve seen show that we haven’t seen even 1/8 of the planet and that includes all the areas from GW1. What if Tyria is a Super Earth and the sun is a lot smaller than our own? Though astronomically unlikely, it is possible that Tyria is an exoplanet from a much larger solar system that eventually broke free, drifted too close to a star smaller than it and got caught in its gravitational pull at just the right angle. If that’s the case, they would form binary rotation with the planet pulling harder on the star, thus giving it a more elliptical orbit.

In this fashion, “night” as Tyrians know it, could simply be a very quick winter as the star moves further from the planet so its light isn’t as intense but then comes close again, causing “day”. The natural heat trapped in the atmosphere would prevent the planet from getting cold enough to show a seasonal change. It would explain seasons having no drastic change too as the planet and star would maintain the same relative distance from each other all year round.

Human female. Mesmers are all about attitude and I can’t imagine anyone with more attitude than a black woman!

I have nothing to add but a quote from a friend: “I love it when foreigners apologize for their great English skills!”

GodricMaelstrom.3068:

I am just as excited about getting new weapons for the class either from new weapons entirely or from existing ones becoming available, but at the same time you have to look at what defines a character class. Certain classes being able to use certain weapons adds definition to that class and adds a uniqueness to it that would be overlapped if the weapons were widely available. I have a Mesmer main and a Ranger alt and I admit I have thought at times how awesome it would be to have my Mesmer fire a few arrows. I want it just as much as everyone else but I’m just trying to be the mediator here. :P

But the beauty about Guild Wars 2 is that different classes have different skills for the same weapon. I imagine Mesmers using shortbows more like Klingon battleths with only the occasional arrow being shot out. We really don’t need another 2-handed long-range weapon but turning a 2-handed bow into an unorthodox melee weapon would match the mesmer M.O. Also the Dreamer would still be a desirable legendary because I can’t imagine a harder way of trolling sexist homophobes than dancing around like a ballerina while physically curbstomping them with a “My Little Pony” bow!

If only I could curtsy afterwards while saying, “I just loved and tolerated the HELL out of you! Teehee!”

I find that an elementalist makes a decent alt but it’s mostly because of personal preferences. Weapons work in almost the same fashion as staff is supportive while one-handers do most of the damage. I can’t imagine what I would do without Blink and they have Lightning Flash, which makes an… “okay” alternative. The pitiful damage, longer recharge and 900-unit range is just within my tolerance.

The two big problems I have are the inability to swap weapons in-battle and how lopsided the trait lines are. While I understand the weapon limitation, the problem is that no individual weapon is designed to fluctuate as battles do. For example, staff is great at support and taking on mobs but, when faced with a single champion with easily dodgeable attacks, the staff is the worst weapon an elementalist can have. I wish I could swap to d/d, even if that meant locking myself in a single element.

As for the second complaint, if you don’t go deep into water and/or arcana, you’re pretty much gimping yourself. The trait lines were clearly made with constant attunement swapping in mind and that’s a HUGE error on Anet’s part! Instead they should have encouraged sticking to one or two elements while anyone whom decided to go the Avatar route being a “master of none”.

First I would like to see elementalist given a secondary weapon set available. Then I want a Grandmaster trait in every elemental line that states, “you can swap weapons in battle while in this element!” That way we can see more builds than variants of 0/10/0/30/30.

But such a rant really belongs in the elementalist forum…

I would say staff is as close to “jack of all trades” as mesmers get. It excels at defense but can be used for offensively too, if properly traited. It works well with power, (Winds of Chaos and iWarlock will hit harder) precision (clones will gain your crit precentage and inflict bleed on crit when traited) and condition damage, (winds of chaos does vulnerability and burn, clones will do bleed when traited, Chaos Storm does just about every condition and there is a lift of weapon sigils that apply conditions on crit!) which are the 3 damage stats.

Defensively, Winds of Chaos, Chaos Armor and Chaos Storm give boons while Phase Retreat can get you out of hairy situations. You can literally teleport out of cages and traps while summoning a clone! Chaos Storm is an ethereal field so using Phase Retreat within it will cause a combo that will give you Chaos Armor! This makes staff one of the few weapons that has a combo field and finisher! As for Chaos Armor, it’s pretty much considered the best aura in the game. If you’re traited for extended boon time, it can be godly.

The staff has only one major downside. Winds of Chaos is a very slow moving projectile with a 900-unit range. You have to be close to enemies to get the best benefit of bounces so more like a melee/mid-ranged weapon than long range. Once you understand this, you’ll be soloing champions in no time!

Shortbow, mainhand pistol and whip. Give me all of those and I will be a happy mesmer!

When you make an awesome discovery about butterflies and wonder when Anet’s going to nerf it.

I’m a staff user and I just can’t see myself using Bifrost. It just doesn’t go with the look of a mesmer. Now, if ANet made legendaries account bount instead of soulbound, I wouldn’t mind testing such questions. Then again, I still need to get a legendary first and that fact is really what’s holding me back. I’m already peeved that I spent 30 more laurels on essentially the same amulet because i couldn’t just give it to another toon when i changed my build.

At level 25 or so, you start getting equipment with two stats so you have a choice. you can go with power/precision and grind low level events until you’re high enough to go after more skillpoints or you can try something that I’ve barely tested. Get a staff, go for precision/condition damage and do renown hearts in high level areas. The latter is a high risk/high reward solution. Power means nothing to enemies 5 levels above you because glancing blows will half your damage. Crits will never be glancing blows and, as far as I know, condition damage doesn’t have anything working against it except a stack cap. With these two stats, you’ll do decent damage against enemies 5 levels above you and possibly damage enemies 8 levels above you. You’ll have to dodge a lot as one blow can down you but, if you can kite it, you can kill it. You’ll also look pro while doing so! It’s a great way to learn when to dodge and when to just move out of the way and save your dodge for something more threatening.

At level 40 and with 1 gold in your pocket, go to any trainer, get the second book and immediately put 10 points into dueling so you can get Deceptive Evasion! Now, every time you dodge, you leave a clone behind. This is stupidly powerful! It will drastically increase the speed in which you can create clones. That, in turn, makes shatters a lot more viable.

Level 40 is also good for one of the best event grinding spots in the game. In the Hirathi Hinterlands, there’s a cave with a champion giant. That the start of a meta event chain that will lead you into the centaur camp. Another meta event chain can be started there which ends with you killing another champion and getting a world chest. When I last played in this area, this could easily be repeated until you were sick of it and you will gain one level for each rotation. A lot of people shy away from it because that first champion has a ridiculous amount of HP and a ground stomp that can and will down everyone within 700 or so units of him. The bulk of your time will be spent taking him down. Once that happens, the rest just flows. If you decide to do this, be weary of diminished returns. I’ve done two rounds without noticing any effect but that could have changed recently.

When you get to 70+ and have balls of orichalcum, you can go to the Cursed Shore with Rampager stats (power/precision/condition damage). You will basically follow the zerg grinding dynamic events but be sure to hang back and focus on tagging as many enemies as possible. You do not want aggro as pretty much anything there can kill you, however, so many people are there that things will always die stupidly fast. You can level up at your leisure and gain some pretty good drops while doing so.

I started making another mesmer recently. Granted, I deleted her at level 20 but that did give me a fair assessment of leveling one up since I haven’t done so in months.

The first thing I recommend is going for the greatsword. Mesmers are squishy starting out. If you haven’t gotten the rhythm of dodging, blinking and other damage-negating powers, you had best keep your distance and cripple as often as possible. Go for a power build. It’s easy to dance around enemies at lower levels so you don’t need any defensive stats yet. Also, get in the habit of shattering (F1 or F2 in this case) when an enemy is nearly dead. This will help you gauge the power of your shatters and ingrain it in muscle memory. Your illusions will self-shatter after an enemy is dead anyway so this maximizes their damage.

As soon as you get to level 7, get a second weapon! Seriously! If you’re doing an event, complete it and head over to the TP. If you’re doing a renowned heart, stop immediately and get a second weapon! The greatsword is good for sniping but you will need something better for enemies that like to get up close and personal, which is every single one of them with a melee attack! I suggest staff if you’re not comfortable with evading attacks yet as the bounces benefit from close quarters, scales decently with power and has a bit of condition damage early on. Those few ticks mean a lot against opponents that have little hp to begin with. If you’re more confidant, go with sword and focus. Both have higher damaging attacks but it will take a while to get the rhythm of when to strike and when to evade. The focus will also help you get around faster, which is something mesmers desperately need!

The first utilities I went for were Blink, Feedback and Nullfield. These are my bread & butter utilities. Others may be more useful in particular situations but these are on my bar almost all the time. Your mileage may vary but go for what you know.

Whenever I start a character, I always complete Queensdale. I love the scenery, I know the events, it’s always populated and it’s pretty easy to get around. You may want to do the same.

After that, I start skillpoint hunting while going somewhat out of my way to get waypoints. Both give pretty good experience and you’ll need skillpoints for unlocking more abilities anyway. Start with the starting zones for each race and progress as you see fit. There will be times when you’re still not leveling fast enough though. You can either do story missions (which give goof armor for their level) or grind dynamic events.

The first trait I went for is Illusionists Celerity. It’s 5 points into the Illusion line and 20% of the cooldown off of ALL illusion powers. This includes any that spawn clones and phantasms from weapons and utilities! It’s arguably one of the best traits for mesmers, second only to Deceptive Evasion. Get it!

People say confusion is worthless in pve because enemies don’t attack often enough to put it to good use. I use to agree with this until I decided to make another mesmer and level with weapons I usually don’t use. While running around with a scepter and torch, I used it on a bandit right before he used a spin attack next to me. I’m astonished at how fast he killed himself.

But that got me thinking…

Imagine stacking confusion on Kholer, popping protection and letting him pull the entire team in. A guildmate also had the crazy Idea of everyone equipping the Signet of Inspiration and perpetually bouncing boons to teammates forever. Then there was talk of everyone placing entry portals right in front of an enemy zerg to get them to stop and then ambushing them from a blind angle.

What other crazy ideas have you guys come up with? I would love to hear them and some I’m even willing to test.

Go toe-to-toe with the Risen Priest of Grenth and then you tell me that falling damage traits are pointless.

Actually, why not give all professions 4 weapon set slots but only allow the first 2 to be swappable in combat? I use a staff and sword/focus on my mesmer but I carry a greatsword with me in case of situations where it’s needed. It would be great if I could just press a button out of combat to switch to it than open my bag, sort through all my loot to find it and then equip it.

I agree that it is an interesting feature but it still needs some tuning.

I run Rampager gear with a bit of Carrion for added survivability. I start off with staff, stand in the middle of the cage and wait for enemies to spawn. First I drop chaos storm then chaos armor then pop my illusion. While doing that, I run around a little to get all the baddies into a nice, little stack. Then I switch to sword/focus, pop the warden, toss out #2 (can’t remember the name at the moment) and let my condition damage do the rest. Sometimes I stand on one side of the cage and dodge to the other so I can toss out more clones.

Basically the trick is never to let them focus completely on you.

Believe it or not, that gold sink is helping to keep costs down. Without it, you would have inflation because little to no gold would leave the market. This happens in real life as well. Each year, the US destroys millions of old dollar bills to offset all the new ones being printed.