Guild Wars 2

to put the mesmer in a nutshell.

weapons:
-Staff is used for most condition builds, i highly recommend taking up condition damage and boon duration for this one.
-Greatsword is for general combat with strong emphasis on pure damage, power and precision highly advised.
-Scepter mainly useful for Shatter/condition build/
-Sword is good for close combat
-pistol is good for ranged damage and control
-focus is good for anti projectiles and control
-torch is good for close combat, very good with MH sword
-off hand sword is not as great, but it’d best fit with a MH sword.

the Main builds for a mesmer are:

-Shatter: means you put 30 points in illusions and use weapon skill and utility skills that let you get out illusions (phantasms and clones) really fast for you to shatter them (F1~F4)
-Condition builds are usually used with staffs, precision can be good for that purpose to apply bleeds via illusions (a trait).
-Pure damage builds use the Greatsword, usually taking power, precision, and crit damage.

Phantasms are high damage higher hp longer cooldown illusions that compose a big portion of your dps, clones are low damage low hp illusions that are mainly used to apply conditions or for instant shattering, both do the same shatter damage, but it’s better if you shatter clones than phantasms.

nvm, found out about Khilbron’s armor.

quite expensive though!!

I want to get myself rabid gear, but i have just one problem, i don’t know where to get the best/exotic ones.

the only ones i know of is from order of whispers.

any help?

but but….i never have enough money for anything

I just don’t get it, why would you take 10% from the profits + listing fees if you are not a real entity that will benefit from it?

before you people turn into economical critics, i just want to point out that not everything you buy is from the trading post, many other things have fixed prices that you have to pay regardless of the value of the currency (i.e and actual fixed number).

i can’t imagine the loss that people who sell precursors have to endure, 30g or something in a commission that is entirely meaningless.

Not even an update about it except a very vague statement from the reddit AMA.

How’s it going for the solution, is there any more recent news about it?

note: this is just my thoughts, don’t take this as a “i’m right, they’re wrong” thing

When i first got the game i thought i’d be doing everything in the game and especially the dungeons, but i didn’t.

i guess i’ve always felt that dungeons are just one big sugar coated grind, and the sugar starts to lose its appeal after a few times.

sure, the gear looks nice and all, but i don’t want to spend that many hours doing something over and over and over and over just to get that item.

of course grinding for mats or anything similar is equally as boring, but here’s the thing, grinding for mats/ anything similar is usually put into context with other stuff, like events and world bosses.

all dungeons do is just the grind, i don’t think i ever will get the time to ENJOY the dungeon itself without worrying about my run times and how many runs i need to get that item, and the thought of the above in itself puts me out.

I remember when i first heard of GW1 with their “no grind” policy, and it did turn out to be a big grind nonetheless, and i thought that GW2 will have this thing down like nobody’s business, but it turns out it’s even a bigger grind.

with fractals it’s gotten a little better, but it’s not perfect, i can see it becoming a real problem when the ascended gear can be crafted and such.

i want to have the gear and have all the pretty items i want, but on the other hand there’s the excessive grind for all these things that i just won’t let me have fun.

i’d be more than happy building up resources and crafts to get a legendary item, but knowing that i need to grind at least 1 dungeon for it makes me not wanna do it.

right now i’m a window shopper, and it’s bugging the hell out of me.

Staves are supposed to be the symbols of magic, it’s even used exclusively to cast spells.

i agree, staves should have more magical/mystical feel to them than they do now, even the Bifrost strikes me as unimpressive.

i’d prefer if the elite skills would receive a category, that way they can have their cooldown reduced or something.

because afaik, mesmer is the only class with elite skills that no traits affect (except for the 1 second longer stealth, which is kitten).

shattering illusions is not the same as the illusion dying, so no need to take 25 in dueling and illusions, just get 30 in one of them, and based on the major grandmaster traits, you will find yourself being guided towards certain skills that will also determine what type of gear you will want.

the good thing about burn is it’s usually low duration, so you don’t really have to worry about it overwritten by someone else’s

let’s assume for a second that your clones infact do not apply anything other than burn, how is that a bad thing?

the formula for bleed is the following:
your current lvl /2 + (0.05 * condition damage) + 2.5 per second per stack
so at 1000 condition damage, your bleeds will do 92.5 damage per second, that’s 5 seconds * 92.5 dmg = 462.5 damage over 5 seconds.

this is the formula for burning:
8 + (4 * Level) + (0.25 * Condition Damage) per second
at 1000 condition damage this means it does 578 damage over ONE SECOND.

to be honest, i’d be more than happy if my clones only applied burning.

“Illusion fella (can’t remember his name) – Summoned chap, removes conditions and boons. I don’t know much else about him other than the CD is lower than the other two and again needs to target someone. Also take up a clone spot so would get shattered a lot.”

this has got to be the best description for Illusionary disenchanter xD

there is a trait that makes illusions remove a condition when you shatter (or they die, something like that), and there’s a mantra that removes 2 conditions, give those a try.

those of us who couldn’t claim the rewards are still waiting.

everytime i see an update on facebook, twitter, or here, i become hopeful i’ll hear something about it, but always get disappointed.

ANet, what are you planning exactly?

with mesmer you will probably take down enemies slower than other classes in PVE, but you are almost untouchable because of the illusions you pull out, mobs seem to have a liking for illusions.

tl;dr, so i’m just gonna answer the title.

using only traits and skills.
you will need illusionary persona, sword trait, vigor on shatter, manipulation CD, a sword, mirror images, and Mimic

first, use mimic for 4 seconds of blocking after receiving the first projectile, then sword #2 skill gives 2.5 sec evasion, dodge for 1 more second, quickly use mirror images and use distortion for 4 seconds, you should have the used up 50% endurance recharged by then, dodge once for and additional 1 second, your sword #2 should be ready now, use it for 2.5 more seconds, dodge once more for an addition 1 second.

4+2.5+1+4+1+2.5+1 =16 seconds of pure evasion.

if you factor in stealth skills and count reflection skills as “untouchable”, this would add about 6~8 more seconds.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

RapidSausage.4620:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

RapidSausage.4620:

mesmer is a good support, but not a good healer.

you can have a kittenload of reflection skills, speed boosts, as well as stealth and useful aoe skills like feedback, and null field.

The thing is, for all our support options, can one actually make a support build? And would the support build be just as useful as a cookie-cutter shatter build?

you have to understand, shattering is not a one trick pony, it is only a mechanic, of which you can choose to enhance certain aspects.

it just so happens that most people tend to focus on the pure damage or condition applying aspect of it, with traits you can choose to apply mass daze, mass vigor, mass condition removal, mass boon removal, mass damage, mass confusion, or enhance your own offense/defense.

the things is, once you focus on one of these aspects, you have to specialize for it to be effective, but once you spec for it, you’ll be above average in that field.

For a mesmer however, i prefer that you enhance your reflection abilities, since you have tons of it.

Max either Chaos and Inspiration and leave the other at 20, primarily to enhance your stealth and Glamour skills, you will also need to use a focus and a staff, with maybe a sword to add a little extra utility.

There is a trait that makes focus skills reflect projectiles, so that’s 2 skill with reflect, with feedback that’s 3, with the illusions traits “Distortion grants reflection” that’s 4, add in the heal Mirror that’s 5, if you choose the Inspiration trait that creates a feedback bubble when you revive someone that makes it 6, you can take the skill that adds +1 second to stealth and choose mass invisibility for an elite, and pick Veil since you will have reduced glamour CD anyway.

You will be sacrificing your pure damage to do this, but you can choose gear with condition damage since you will have a staff, and one of your other major stats that you invested in (vitality for inspiration or toughness for chaos).

this is all just hypothetical but i hope you get the idea.

Wow that… That is really creative.

oh stop it you

i’m using rampager gear for my build, then again i’m a hybrid.

if you chose power and crit chance already, then you’ll be using GS, you can go 2 ways from here, either take condition damage and the second dueling minor trait to apply bleeds with clones, or take crit damage if you plan on using multiple phantasms.

the second weapon set choice will also differ depending on what you chose, if you chose condition damage then it’s better to take scepter + torch or pistol, why pistol you ask?, well illusionary duelist attacks at range and hits 8 times, with a high crit chance it’ll most likely apply at least 4 stacks of bleed, if you chose crit damage, then go with sword + sword or focus.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

RapidSausage.4620:

mesmer is a good support, but not a good healer.

you can have a kittenload of reflection skills, speed boosts, as well as stealth and useful aoe skills like feedback, and null field.

The thing is, for all our support options, can one actually make a support build? And would the support build be just as useful as a cookie-cutter shatter build?

you have to understand, shattering is not a one trick pony, it is only a mechanic, of which you can choose to enhance certain aspects.

it just so happens that most people tend to focus on the pure damage or condition applying aspect of it, with traits you can choose to apply mass daze, mass vigor, mass condition removal, mass boon removal, mass damage, mass confusion, or enhance your own offense/defense.

the things is, once you focus on one of these aspects, you have to specialize for it to be effective, but once you spec for it, you’ll be above average in that field.

For a mesmer however, i prefer that you enhance your reflection abilities, since you have tons of it.

Max either Chaos and Inspiration and leave the other at 20, primarily to enhance your stealth and Glamour skills, you will also need to use a focus and a staff, with maybe a sword to add a little extra utility.

There is a trait that makes focus skills reflect projectiles, so that’s 2 skill with reflect, with feedback that’s 3, with the illusions traits “Distortion grants reflection” that’s 4, add in the heal Mirror that’s 5, if you choose the Inspiration trait that creates a feedback bubble when you revive someone that makes it 6, you can take the skill that adds +1 second to stealth and choose mass invisibility for an elite, and pick Veil since you will have reduced glamour CD anyway.

You will be sacrificing your pure damage to do this, but you can choose gear with condition damage since you will have a staff, and one of your other major stats that you invested in (vitality for inspiration or toughness for chaos).

this is all just hypothetical but i hope you get the idea.

mesmer is a good support, but not a good healer.

you can have a kittenload of reflection skills, speed boosts, as well as stealth and useful aoe skills like feedback, and null field.

i run a shatter/condition/sustained DPS build.

20 domination, 20 dueling, and 30 illusions.
for domination i take 20% more damage on mindwrack, and torch trait.
for dueling i take create clone on dodge, and stealth + create clone at 25% hp.
for illusions i take distortion grants reflection, Illusionary Persona, and recharge shatter skills at 50% hp.

i use full rampager’s set, with GS and Sword+Torch, both swords have superior sigil of earth on them.

for utilities i take the Stun signet, Mirror images, and Feedback or blink (thought about using mimic instead lately).

this is my CURRENT build, i keep trying different variations of it once in a while.

i haven’t tested this but i’m pretty sure it’s direct damage.
you can try this in the mists though, and check the damage per tick on a bleed or something.

the problem with mesmer is you have very few methods to survive, and it’s heavily dependent on your build.

for a shatter build you will heavily rely on Distortion to survive, and i recommend taking Illusionary Persona grandmaster major trait, it will most likely also be mandatory that you take mirror images to spawn 2 clones instantly, for a heal skill you will find that Mirror is better than Ether feast.

another route is through natural defenses, in which case you will have to heavily invest in Inspiration or Chaos or even both, and you really don’t have a choice other than using a staff because it’s the major source of utility and boons for the class, but in this case you will be mostly a support character.

another way would be control effects, and the mesmer has quite a lot of those, but they usually are single target, the mesmer has many many skills that daze, and 2 skills (i believe) that stun, but the challenge here would be striking balance between the weapon sets, and will require a good amount of skill to manage execution times and adapt to changes in the situation should you find yourself in a tight spot.

-relying on natural defenses is probably the easiest method to use but won’t net much damage.
-shatter builds are often hybrid builds, and are usually quite good at offense and defense, but it need a little more micro management than other methods.
-heavy control builds are much less forgiving since you’ll be essentially a glass cannon, unless you’re fighting 1 enemy in which case you just need to keep him at bay, you’ll are likely to use a greatsword for this.

this is just normal no matter what ANet does.
players will always find a city that best provides the facilities an has the accessibility they require.

GW1 had Kamadan, GW2 has Lions Arch.

sounds like you don’t have Fiery Dragon sword!!!!

Ianervan.3415:

GW1: Skill based farming

• Endgame consisting of UW/FoW requires team coordination and skill, plus being familiar with the areas
• Dungeons were more fun and enjoyable, while still requiring some skill

i stopped taking this post seriously after these 2 points.

farming UW and FOW were soloable by many builds, which only required precision timing, and that can be easily learned once you do it a few times.

as for dungeons, they require no less skill than GW2 dungeons, after all, EOTN was a preparation to move on to GW2.

just give it some time.
fractals is the new dungeon with the new gear, once the hype settles down you’ll see people elsewhere again.

Claire.4683:

Centaur runes are perfect for my mesmer and have saved my life more than i can count. With a focus you can have swiftness up the entire time, as long as you’re wise with your heal that is. If you see incoming enemies then its best to save your heal for the fight. I use GS/sword focus so the only real condition i apply besides cripple is bleed from the clones so the added bleed duration is welcome. I keep it simple and only rely on swiftness so the added duration is also perfect.

but you also have to consider that if the bleed is 5 seconds, +15% will only make it 5.75 seconds, which is not a full second, so bleed will still only tick 5 times.

unless you have at least 5 points in domination.

i’ve had mobility issues in WvW with my mesmer ever since i started playing due to lack of reliable long duration speed boosts.

then i was recommended that i buy Superior runes of the Centaur, and i can probably keep swiftness on me all day with it, but my real concern is my currently equipped runes (of the Undead), it gives some toughness and quite a lot of condition damage (about 240 with the toughness bonus).

so i’m here to ask this, is it worth it?

p.s: I apply LOTS of bleed, only 5 second stacks though.

Servanin.5021:

Duration doesn’t spread the damage, it just adds more ticks that do the full bleed damage. Extra duration is never really wasted since bleeds stack in intensity rather than duration, but i’ve also heard that they only tick at 1 second intervals, so if you have a 5 second bleed and 10% bleed duration, it’ll round back down to 5.

so this means it’s more beneficial to stack condition duration for already long damaging conditions?
and is it better for shorter duration conditions to stack condition damage?

Keiran.1896:

Well… if your formula is exact, pretty easy, isn’t it?^^

If you have only one stack then,

1000 condition + 50% duration :

1/2 + (0.05×1000) + 2.5
=0.5 + (0.05×1000) + 2.5
=3 + 50
=53 per second, over 20 seconds instead of 10.

1000+500 condition damage = 1500 condition damage :

1/2 + (0.05×1500) + 2.5
= 0.5 + (0.05×1500) + 2.5
=3+75
=78 per second, so 780 over 10 seconds.

Though I am good at maths with numbers but not really for game mechanics. I might be forgetting something^^

+50% condition duration of 10 seconds is 20 seconds?, wut!?

Alright, i’ve been having a chat with a guy about whether Condition damage or condition duration is better for damage per second and overall damage.

So i tapped into the never ending pool of information that we call the GW2 wiki to check out the formulas.

and there is just some things i don’t understand.

this is the equation to calculate bleed damage per second per stack:
lvl/2 + (0.05*Condition damage) + 2.5

Assuming we have a 10 seconds bleed with a Condition Damage coefficient of 1.00 at +0% condition duration, and base Condition Damage at 1000, can someone tell me how much Damage per tick, and how much overall damage over how long of a duration will it produce for the following cases:
1. +50% condition duration
2. +500 condition damage

please tell me how to calculate this cuz it’s a mess in here.

edit: i should’ve asked this from the start, does condition duration increase the damage of the condition or spread the total damage over the adjusted duration?

for example, if a bleed does 100dmg per sec, will 10 sec bleed + 40% CDuration cause a bleed that does 1400 damage over 14 seconds?, OR a bleed that does 1000 damage over 14 seconds?, OR some other value?

For people who got stuck in terrain, disconnected, or got kicked from the game during the last phases of the karka event which took them 2+ hours to get to, what has ANet come up with so far to compensate them?

As far as the content goes for Southsun cove, it’s not as good as cursed shore but at least it’s good to expand on, the jumping puzzles are fun anyway

But as the crafting materials goes, it’s horrible, this is a level 80 zone, why is the passion fruit a 50 chef crafting mat?, why is the passion flower only a 350 JC mat?, same goes for karka shells.

there is no real incentive to do anything there, farming is much better in Cursed shore, there is a bigger variety of mobs, the crafting mats there are better……what does southsun cove have to offer to lure us in?, imo nothing.

now the consortium chests.

the equivilant of 2.5 gold for a high drop rate on passion fruit, passion flower, a green worthless skin, and some karka shells?

this is what i call overpriced.

i’m sorry ANet, but it is.

how the buck did you get to 29 already =O ?

Macha.9160:

Okay Sorry english is not my nativ language and i simple overread it thanks for clearing it up..

no probs
let me know how it goes if you chose to try it.

Macha.9160:

RapidSausage.4620:

if you checked the link out, you’ll see the GS has Sigil of superior earth on it, and with a full rampager set you will have around 60% critical chance, so with every tick (3 ticks) of your already fast attack #1 GS skill you will at least apply 1 stack of bleed; Now imagine that you used mirror images and dodged once, now you have 3 clones and yourself using the GS #1 skill, you have a chance to apply bleed with your Sigil, and since the clones inherit your crit chance, they will also have the same chance of applying bleeds via the minor trait Sharper Images (Include Time Warp for maximum stackage)

The Question is, do clones, in fact every Illusion, benefit of this Sigil? I mean, do they really apply bleeding if they crit? I remember that i read they would not?

Expect from this, it seems like it could be worthwhile to try… if the clones can do it

i said that clones would apply bleeding via the dueling minor master trait but not the sigil, the sigil is for yourself.

and as far as clones surviving, you need to position them right, for example, if you’re on the edge of a wall being AOEed they will die fast, if you drop them in a crowd they will die, also keep in mind that clones don’t have the same attack rate as you, and due to the huge amount of clones you’ll be putting up, you only really need a specific clone to use the attack once before disposing of it.

Ceelaniri.8410:

solution to mesmer’s lack of inherent speed exist.

i appreciate the suggestion, but this is more like a workaround, not a solution.

you sacrifice a part of your build to compensate for something that should’ve been implemented in more than a 2 skills.

Needless to say, Swamp is my least favorite fractal, i’m saying this and I’M A MESMER WITH PORTAL!!!!

Keep in mind i’m saying least “favorite”, the design of the fractal itself is brilliant, and it’s quite a quick fractal if people are well organized, but the main thing that puts me off is the process of getting the things from the hive nests and back, because it is simply to annoying to dodge the completely invisible trap, the stealthing little raptor things, and the out-of-nowhere champion drake and hunter guy.

they are annoying as heck.

My most favorite by far is the one with the giant Dr. Manhattan, it’s just so rewarding when he turns around and bows to you and you bow back…..just so satisfying.

Highlights:
-Always dodge when you have full endurance when you’re in battle.
-In this build, your Cry of frustration applies 2 confusion per illusion, for a total of 8 stacks including yourself
-First thing to do when opening with GS is summon 2 clones and cripples with #4.
-Don’t spam shatter skills, only use them under the outlined circumstances.
-You have lots of reflection, use it to your advantage and coordinate your timing to maximize reflection durations.
-All your AOE skills are Ethereal combo fields, use this to your advantage.

This is the end of my explanation, the above tips and techniques are subject to minor changes depending on playstyle and personaly preference, but when doing so please keep in mind the synergy between traits and skills.

I cannot stress enough on dancing between weapon sets, it is quite vital to maximize the effectiveness of a Hybrid build.

Some sigils are left on purpose, because i’m yet to find out the most suitable ones for these spots.

I hope you enjoyed my build, and please feel free to ask question or criticize

I wanted to make a condition mesmer, but the staff didn’t quite cut it for me as it was very “chaotic” in terms of reliability of applying specific conditions, some benefitted more from condition damage, others from duration, plus the attack speed was too low for me, so i gave it some thought for a few days and came out with a DPS/Condition/Shatter hybrid build.

Keep in mind this is mainly designed for WvW conditions, but it also works very well for Dungeon bosses and overall small group PvE.

so here it is:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmmz0MMM0mnLCmmnLCm0G0GxVazcVmq8kiT7070m7kGW70V

I won’t give much detail on how i use the build, but i will give you some of the hidden features and techniques in there.

a) to start off you will need full rampager set, including jewelry and weapons.

b)I know many people will think “Condition damage with GS??, that’s ridiculous”, well it isn’t, the greatsword is by far the best Bleed applying weapon that i know of.

if you checked the link out, you’ll see the GS has Sigil of superior earth on it, and with a full rampager set you will have around 60% critical chance, so with every tick (3 ticks) of your already fast attack #1 GS skill you will at least apply 1 stack of bleed; Now imagine that you used mirror images and dodged once, now you have 3 clones and yourself using the GS #1 skill, you have a chance to apply bleed with your Sigil, and since the clones inherit your crit chance, they will also have the same chance of applying bleeds via the minor trait Sharper Images (Include Time Warp for maximum stackage)

The above scenario can very easily apply and maintain 12~14 stacks of bleed on any given target with 2 clones without Time Warp, with time warp you will almost constantly have 23~24 stacks of bleed on your target.

So far all the damage i’m talking about was from the bleeds with #1 GS skill, imagine the damage the skill itself does, and the phantasm which keeps the enemy in range for you.

c) Now that we’re done with the GS, we’ll move to Shattering; In this build, shattering is used mainly for 2 things, survivability and applying confusion

Use Distortion if you’re getting focused, you will be hitting 2 birds with one stone, the invincibility to escape, and the reflection for ranged enemies who want to finish you.

Use Cry of frustration to apply confusion, and i strongly recommend using it exclusively with scepter or when you’re about to switch to scepter because you want to save your clone skills for GS bleeds.

Use diversion ONLY when you have 1 or less clones, depends if the enemy is ranged or melee (remember you have illusionary persona).

Use Mind Wrack in small fights where bursting down a small group of enemies is the better option.

d) Now for the hidden trick of the traits; Many people read Illusionary Persona and feel confused as to what it actually does, well i’m here to explain, This trait only works for skills F1~F4, and the way it does it is it counts yourself as an illusion when executing the algorithms for the shatter skills, so even when you actually have no clones, you will still gain benefit from shatter skills as if you had 1 clone.

The usefulness of this is huge, this means that you can use Diversion as an emergency interrupt without having to have a clone, but more importantly this means, free 5 second vigor.

You see, this trait doesn’t only apply to the shatter skills, but it also triggers Vigorous Revelation (5 second vigor to nearby allies when you shatter a clone around that clone), and considering the amount of shattering you’ll be doing along with all the critical hit from GS skill #1 that will also trigger Critical Infusion (1 sec vigor on crits) you will be swimming in vigor, more vigor means more dodging, more dodging means more clones, more clones mean better shatter effects, more shatter effects means more confusion because of Illusionary Retribution (all shatter skills cause confusion).

e) Now the reason i picked Feedback is quite obvious, but you might ask why i didn’t pick the trait that increases it’s duration and reduces it’s cooldown?, because this is WvW, many people will be downed, and as a result, being able to get a feedback bubble that lasts 6 seconds every 10 seconds alongside the skill Feedback itself is much better than 1 Feedback bubble every 32 seconds that lasts only 7~8 seconds.

f) As for portal i mainly use it for defending outposts or setting up an escape point if i’m entering a fight that i’m not entirely sure of winning, so you will not be using it very much, therefore reducing the CD isn’t that big of an issue.

Fun?, yes
Easy?, no

i should also note that mesmers get nerfs out of the blue, and no decent reworks/buffs so far.

if you lvl fast, then by all means roll a mesmer, if not, i suggest you wait till ANet gets the class more balanced.

mesmer is not OP, if you ask me it has lots of UP skills, mantras being the major sucky utility skills.

the trick about mesmers (especially in sPvP) is knowing how to distinguish between the mesmer and it’s clones, once you’ve figured that you basically have just another caster on your hands.

in short distances, the mesmer has quite a nice set of skills, from portal to blink.

but in long distances (which is the case in WvW), the only reliable skills are blink and temporal curtain.

meanwhile, the thief gets a signet that has a whopping 25% speed increase as passive, and a shadowstep as an active, not to mention the shortbow.

Elementalists, Necros, Rangers, Warriors, Thieves, and Guardians and Engineers to a lesser extent, all have much more reliable longer term swiftness and/or passive speed skills.

it really bugs me, and i would like to see this looked into.

as a mesmer you have different choices depending on the build.

as a rule of thumb, Distortion (F4) is your best friend when you’re going as an all out dps mesmer.

-with GS you can use skill #5 then #4 to soft CC him.
-with Shatter build it’s about effectively using distortion and diversion.
-with sword builds just use skill #2 and #3 mainly, skill #4 if using offhand sword as well.
-with domination builds, you have diversion, mantra of distraction, and signet of domination, which is quite a lot of CC.
-with heavy condition builds you’ll most likely have a scepter and a staff, you want to put as much confusion on the thief before he engages you, so he takes quite some damage, when he’s attacking you i advise use distortion, and skills like scepter skill #2, and staff skills #2, #4, and #5.

that’s my take on survivng thieves as a mesmer (i main mesmer)

feel free to ask.

i’ve been running a GS/ Scepter+Pistol with full CD, Precision, and Power runes and jewelry (all max exotic), Hybrid shatter/condition build, for WvW (mainly) and Pve.

and let me tell you something, you will not survive well if you don’t know when to fall back, i also had really bad survivability problems until i started using feedback and Distortion properly.

i cannot recommend using Distortion (F4), Mirror (heal), Feedback, and Masterful Reflection (trait) enough, these are your bread and butter survivability tools in WvW, without them, you will be completely decimated by ranged enemies.

i also like to take mirror images to quickly get out 2 clones for distortion, along with Illusionary Persona (grandmaster illusions trait) and an extra clone/phantasm, you get 4 seconds of invincibility and projectile reflection, and it’s quite fast on the recharge.

as for trait distribution, i have 30 illusions, 20 dueling (fury for phantasms and deceptive evasion), and 20 inspiration (medic’s feedback, and Vigorous Revelation because it works without clones when you have illusionary persona).

tanking is not the same as avoiding damage.

warriors and guardians have natural strong defenses, they take less damage by reducing it through armor.

mesmer have much lower natural defenses, they take less damage by avoiding it through the different mechanisms they have.

Swadow.6213:

If you want an experience like GW1 Necro, you would get it better from Mesmer. (Sounds a bit crazy right?) Mesmer clones and phantasms are much closer to the minions of GW1 and also actually useful unlike the Necromancer minions, the minion AI is horrible and they really dont have much of an impact.

Hexes are gone and pretty much all that Necro anti-melee and Mesmer anti-caster hexing were smashed together and into Confusion, to which Necromancers have ZERO access besides Spectral Wall+Staff auto (The magnificent 20% physical projectile finisher chance).

Lifestealing or Siphoning as it is now called is not viable for Necromancers at all. The amount you siphon per attack is 29 and can be increased to something above 30 with a trait. Oh and in order to get the siphon you need to spend 15 points to a single Traitline.

Necromancers arent even the best at conditions, all Necromancers have that others cant do is Epidemic and lolmasterdsandyoullbefine.

my main is actually a mesmer, but it doesn’t feel much like a GW1 necro.
in theory it may be, but in actuality it’s nowhere near.

i’ve been exclusively playing Elementalist, Assassin, and Neecromancer in GW1, and these are the 3 most favorite classes for me.

since GW2 shifted things a little this is no longer the case, but the classes are still inspired by GW1, so i wanted to know, How does GW2 Necro feel compared to GW1 necro?, is it still possible to go all out lifesteal builds or builds similar to “hex” builds in GW1?, Assuming all the above is false, is it worth it to roll a Necro?

Mesmer can be quite tricky to build, especially when it comes to utility skills since the Mesmer seems to have the most niche of utility skills of all classes imo.

so, i bet everyone has their trio of utility skills that suit their play style the most, i’m interested to know which combo everyone uses

for myself i run feedback, mirror images, and portal.
-feedback because it’s awesome to combo field a group of enemies, and can be a haven from projectiles to stand in, or a hell of a trap for ranged enemies.
-mirror images because i’m a shatter mesmer, having constant illusions to use distortion and cry of frustration, as well as for inflicting bleeding with my gs.
-portal because it is very helpful in jumping puzzles, dungeons, and defending outposts in wvw where i can do a commando style counter attack from the walls.