Guild Wars 2

Ooooh, oh. You mean group PvE. Yes, you’re almost required to use a staff or one handed sword/torch. If you’re very good, you can run up to the group with the torch invisibility for that aoe fire, and then use the 2 skill to hit multiple targets without danger. After that you’ll need some good escape skills if they’re not dead, but it’s a rather strict build, has long cooldowns, and is admittedly difficult in practice. I agree that shatters do not help that much unless you desperately need tags. But in situations that you do not have companions with you, or where most of your friends are down, I found mesmers ridiculously easy to play.

I’ve really noticed just the opposite. Compared to playing my elementalist or my necromancer, mesmer and it’s ability to create distracting clones on mind-bogglingly short cooldowns is the easiest class I’ve played in PvE after guardian. It’s almost stupid how often mobs will waste so much time trying to kill all your clones. I’ve never even had to learn to properly kite things until I tried the other light armor classes.

Or, if that is the playstyle you desire, with long lasting dots, you could play a necromancer instead. From what I understand, the classes were made to be notably different from each other and to make a mesmer more like the necromancer seems to defeat that purpose.

Scaling depends on the phantasm. The Illusionary mage (Torch Phantasm) causes confusion and therefore does more damage with your condition damage. I think all the others are based on your power, but your Illusionary warlock (Staff phantasm) says it causes more damage depending on how many conditions the target has. So this might scale off both power and condition damage, or just condition damage? I’m not sure.

ITS PURPLE. ITS PURPLE AND I REFUSE TO ADMIT ITS PINK.

Sorry, had to say that. I agree with a lot of your post, especially the teleportation thing. I swear I’m down at leas 20 silver having to use a waypoint due to being stuck under the terrain after that #2 staff skill.

But I really disagree with Torch skill #5. I’m a control build with a dash of condition damage and this is easily the second most useful phantasm I have after the phantasmal defender. Confusion’s gotten a pretty nice buff in it’s damage and this is the most reliable way to keep it almost constantly on a mob. Throw it in with the defender and you’re easily taking the hits the mob makes as the mob takes heavy retaliation and confusion damage every time. Make your third phantasm the staff one and then you’re even getting bonus damage on it for the almost constant confusion condition on the mob. It’s worked out wonderfully for me at least.

The rapid fire skill the Illusionary Duelist uses is a thief skill. Even if we cold dual wield pistols, we won’t be given that skill. The same way the Illusionary Beserker uses the spin skill warriors have but we don’t.

I think I’ve really liked the “control” build I’ve been using. My traits focus on the last 3 trees and the keystones are the “Phantasms grant Regen” trait, and “Gain protection whenever you gain regen” trait. Couple that with the phantasmal defender skill and you’re getting 70%+ damage reduction and regen almost constantly. Lets me absorb a lot of the damage dungeon bosses put out.

It’s not a shout. It’s a racial, therefore it can be used with any class. All charr get it, and because charr elementalists don’t get traits or skills related to shouts, I’d assume that warriors and guardians, while they get shout traits and skills, aren’t able to buff their racial for balance sake.

I took the “Phantasms grant regeneration to you and nearby allies” trait, and while this does indeed work on land; underwater, no matter how close to my phantasms I was, I did not get regeneration.