Guild Wars 2

Do you like butterflies?

Level 40 is around where most Mesmers feel to be a turning point, where we go from slow and clumsy to exceptionally powerful.

Most of us attribute this to the 20 points Dueling Trait – Deceptive Evasion. Taking this trait allows you to spawn clones when you’re doing a dodge roll while in combat.

My advice to you is to invest 20 points into Dueling, for Deceptive Evasion, and 5 points into Illusions, for Illusionists Celerity. I’d also advice you to get a staff, as it’s a very defensive weapon, and it – especially with deceptive evasion – will allow you to take on several foes at once, depending on your reactionary skills and playstyle.

If you decide to go with the staff as your main weapon, look into the Chaos, Illusions or Inspiration trees for various ways of enhancing yourself – but I’d definately pick up Deceptive Evasion and Illusionists’ Celerity for leveling.

As for runes… Superior Sigil of the Undead strikes me as most beneficial.

I’d go Superior Sigil of Fire on your Sword (onehanded) and either Superior Sigil of Force or Accuracy on the Focus.

I’d go for either Superior Sigil of Corruption or Superior Sigil of Perception on your staff.

I assumed your 20 points into Domination was for trait X. Any particular reason why you’ve chosen to eschew it? Granted, I’ve no experience with glamour builds what-so-ever, but it does appear as if your traits are all over the place.

If I were to build close to your playstyle (or at least, as I understand your playstyle) I would make something like… This:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQJAWRlwzqqHVzpGa9IiZG9GyhSB2ldlZgbXIA

Mind: This is all theoretical, I’ve not actually tested this myself, though I have played something similar.

The idea with this build is to mainly use the staff. You want to generate clones and the Warlock and let them “tank” the mobs – shatter only when you want to finish the mobs off, or you are able to get new clones up in a very short time span (such as having both dodge rolls and your staff # 2 off the cooldown).

The idea here is to wear down your enemies while they are distracted with your clones. When they kill the clones (but not when you shatter them yourself) the death triggers a negative effect on the enemy.

I’d wager you’d want Toughness and Condition damage for this build. I’m not sure about power – power would make your iWarlock significantly more powerful, but it scales poorly with staff auto attack. If you do decide to stick with the greatsword as your other weapon, I’d say going for Power/Toughness/Condition damage is okay. I’d personally use a sword/focus combo. Sword # 1 and " 2 is AoE damage, and #2 allows you to stay alive. Sword #3 spawns a clone and/or lets you combo for Chaos Armour through own ethereal fields. Focus grants swiftness, and you can also pull mobs away from you – not to mention the iWarden is kinda bad kitten against a cluster of targets. He’ll AoE them all, and when they kill him, they’ll suffer the on-death triggers.

So I’d say Toughness/Precision/Cond Damage. Precision is for Sharper Images.

And again – this is all theoretical. Look around for similar playstyles as yours before you invest in exotics or expensive runes.

I think people are a bit too scared of the term “overpowered”, because they read it to mean that it must be nerfed.

As I understand it, the desire to nerf Illusionary Persona is not to weaken Mesmers, but to re-balance them by making the trait weaker, and compensating by spread the effects out elsewhere, or possibly to buff the shatters baseline.

Illusionary Persona is – much like Deceptive Evasion – so powerful a trait that it re-defines our playstyle. I believe that traits should enhance playstyles, not define them. At least not to such an extent that playing without them feels like doing yourself a great, great disservice.

There are no tools to measure it, sadly, but I’d wager a guess that’s it either shatter builds (20/20/0/0/30) wielding GS/Staff or Phantom builds with Sharper Images and the Pistol Phantom.

I find the GS to be annoying when the mobs decide to come for you, rather than your clones, as your auto-attack depends on max range in order to be as efficient as possible. But I guess it comes down to playstyle.

With Zerker gear, GS clones should be fantastic at applying bleeding via Sharper Images – on the other hand, they’re ranged and need to run to the mob, whereas sword clones are melee and will deal their shatter damage quicker – not to mention that their auto-attack applies Vulnerability.

Like I said – playstyle choices. I used GS / Staff to level the first 20-30 levels, and it was great.

I’d get rid of the greatsword and replace it with Sword/Pistol, personally. Sword/Pistol has given me great control over mobs, and sword # 2 is fantastic for dealing damage in close range while waiting for endurance to go up, or blink/staff # 2/decoy/whatever to get off the cooldown. Not to mention that the auto-attack is AoE.

When I main the staff, I usually pop the warlock first, and auto-attack. When the mob charges towards me I’ll dodge to it, and then phase retreat (staff # 2) away to get the third clone up. I’ll then auto-attack till it comes for me or – if it attacks a clone instead- simply run in and Shatter with Mind Wrack.

If it’s still not dead I’ll switch to sword/pistol and dodge away, then using sword # 3 to charge back onto the mob and use Cry of Frustration (Shatter # 2) and that’ll usually be enough.

For tougher enemies, I almost only use the staff – switching to sword to use the # 2 and # 5 abilities to protect myself while waiting for Chaos Armor or Chaos Storm to go off cooldown. Aside from blink, all my utility skills are ethereal fields (Feedback, Null Field, Time Warp) so using Staff # 2 or Sword # 3 inside of them will result in a Chaos Armour combo.

I’m probably not the most optimal shatterer, but this style works for me.

A more detailed setup of your traits would be welcome.

The greatsword scales really, really well with power, but your build suggests that you’re using your staff more than your sword, is that correct?

How do you usually play? Like, when you engage a player or a mob, how do you kill them? What abilities do you use? Do you keep phantasms and clones up, or do you shatter them?

…LeBlanc from Final Fantasy?

Lyer.1905:

You do not want deceptive evasion to spawn clones when not in combat.

I do if I am rolling towards a target I’m about to engage in combat. ;P

@Pyro: Thank you. That sums it pretty well.

Range might very well be the issue. It’d appear, though, that if you’re ever that close, you’d be put into combat already, thus making my intent for the leap futile.

Well, perhaps it was intended solely to catch runners in PvP. =P

So having performed some tests, it appears that you can’t spawn clones either by Deceptive Evasion or through the Sword # 3 skill, if you’re not in combat. I’ve been trying to use the Sword # 3 ability as a “charge” or a leap to get into combat with mobs, only for it to fail.

Staff # 2, however, will spawn a clone if you have a mob targeted, will it not? Whether you’re currently in combat or not, as long as you’re in range.

Which makes me wonder is Deceptive Evasion and Sword # 3 are bugged, or if they are working as intended.

I think I’d put another 10 points into Domination and get Rabid Gear. Get the toughness converter trait.

I went ahead with the Osicat guide, since my build was similar (it’s similar to yours too!) and went for 4/6 Zerker, 1/6 Valkyrie and 1/6 Knight. Chest pieces, Pants and headpiece (I think) have higher stats than the other three armor pieces, so they’re kinda “wasted” on Berserker gear, because Berserker gear is a static % increase in crit, whereas raw stats on Knight/Valkyrie gear scale upwards on these three slots.

Also, I find that the Mesmers defenses are all activated abilities. Blink, Decoy, Dodge rolls, chaos armour, veil and what have you. I suppose that the amount of knight/valkyrie gear you get is dependant on how many of your utility skill slots you spend on defensive skills, and how many you spend on offensive ones.

Perhaps it’s just down to taste, but I personally haven’t been using Mirror Images on land-based combat since I got Deceptive Evasion. If the idea is to “disappear in a crowd”, I’d much rather use blink in that spot.

Today I ran Ascalonian Catacombs for the first time. Ran it three times in explorable mode; one for each path, and I can now purchase a piece of gear.

Seems like the most efficient way.

I’m doing Staff/ S+P with a 10/30/0/0/30 build. Somebody did link me to your guides, which is where I learned the optimal zerker to king/valkyrie ratio for these kind of builds. x)

And being somewhat confused as to what to do now, I asked google.

Now, I found a youtube video which basically tells me to keep playing the game as I’ve done before, but gearing for and gemming for magic finding.

I just got myself some zerker masterwork items with a knight and a valkyrie piece tossed in every here and there, but I’m loath to buy superior centaur runes simply for greens. And exploration so far has been quite painful without swiftness.

What did you mesmers do when you hit 80? Did you just keep on playing, or did you gear for “magic finding” in order to find gear that’s actually worth wearing?

Why thank you.

I assume the first specc is the closest to what I’m using (though I only went 10 into Domination, going 30 into Duelling for Deceptive Evasion, and cooldown reductions on both pistol and sword. )

I went with 4/6 Zerker, 1/6 Valkyrie and 1/6 Knight – using the chestpiece for Knight as it’s better in terms of raw stats scaling.

Not sure whether it’s worth it to buy expensive runes for Masterwork gear, though. Not sure where to go in order to start grinding “real” gear…

I’d be content with a sigil for the swiftness.

Or if we are allowed to dream, I’d replace blink with a Sigil of Swiftness, and having us blink as an effect on consuming the sigil.

So since I’m borderline OCD with completing zones, I found myself accidentally leveling from 60’ish to 78 by completing two Norn zones while on my way to a level 62 mainstory quest (my Mesmer is a human).

…Which means I am nearing 80, and will have to start to seriously consider what kind of gear and runes I’ll be getting.

I’ve leveled with the Greatsword/staff shatter build until level 50’ish, at which point I went back to my prefered playstyle of Sword + Pistol / Staff. I run a 10/30/0/0/30 build. I’ve no clue if that’s something common, but it suits me and my own playstyle.

My build looks as follows:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcmmMc0MzManrmManrmax9Mxzmsazkq

I’m mostly just questing and exploring at the moment, running DE’s. I want to eventually get into WuW (not necessarily super competitive, as long as I don’t simply exist for the opponent to farm, I’m happy) and dungeons. Loving fractals so far, and would like to have a viable build for attempting even the higher level ones in time.

So I guess I’m saying I want to be able to do it all. Dungeons, PvP and solo-play.

Now, I’ve been using normal Zerker gear until now, but I’m not sure that the frailty will be forgiving as I enter Orr and PvP. As you can see, I have 3 utility skills which create ethereal fields (as well as Staff # 5, of course) so combo finishers and chaos armour’s a plenty. Can I rely on defensive and tactical staff play, as well as sword # 2 and # 3 to keep me alive? Or will level 80 areas, PvE and PvP be too unforgiving?

Should I go ahead and invest in Zerkergear as I inevitably aim for exotics? Or is there another suffix I should be aiming for, perhaps even mix it up a little bit?

Thankful for your comments and criticism. x)

I prefer Null Field, myself.

I like shattering, but I also love my phantasms. I wish there were builds that could somehow persevere the phantasm upon shattering, using only the illusions.

Logging out and logging back in at a later date did indeed solve the issue, as I didn’t complete the entire quest. I’ve learned to never use Mesmer staves in caverns anymore, or houses, or places with walls, or places with rooftops.

If anyone wonders, the quest in question was the one where you have to protect the Order of Whispers' chantry from Zhaitan's minions'.

I play a Mesmer. The staff # 2 ability, phase retreat, has often put me in trouble, by blinking me into an area where I can’t get out.

Well, now my main storyline was kinda ruined. Let’s just say that I was inside a cave, and while trying to get out, even doing the /stuck thing, my NPC… Companions, cleared the entire cave and progressed the story without me being able to experience what was going on.

I’ve thus missed out on a form of climax to the current main storyline. I couldn’t exit through any portals, so I just logged out and hope that I’ll log in later to a reset instance of the quest, or that I’ll somehow be able to leave the area and do it from scratch.

I tried to google for a command in order to force the game to reset the quest, but there doesn’t seem to be one. Or at least, I haven’t been able to find one.

Any insight?

15 tries and nothing.

Spent about 7-8 gold on it as well.

Oh well.

Researchers’ pants and Aristocrats chest looks perfect. Are these hard to come by? I’m still only around level 50’ish.

I never did play GW1, but looking back at the armor that was available to this class back then makes my fashion senses tingle.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-XXWwAaDMkfyVkv-wvuCcsb3XfLJEgmacyIUQZNLjgOWEzi9xWnV6XYBW

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/4179/mesmerqh7.jpg

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/2305/ernstengardeoo7.jpg

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/7606/sanstitre4s.png

Suits, wests, jackets, coats, hats.

I should very much like to dress up my human noble Mesmer as a dastardly gentlemen, plucked from victorian England and plunged into Tyria. I’d love to dress him in a suit and a monocle, armed with a sword and a pistol.

Are these kinds of armor available as cloth? I’m getting a bit sick of wearing dresses. Not that’s anything wrong with it, I’d wear it on my Necromancer and on an Elementalist, but I should very much like to suit up on my Mesmer, if possible.

For most DE’s, I just spam staff 1.