Guild Wars 2

wow big doge very dead

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/8937/m4yj.jpg

There is video too but I don’t think people would care to see another 9000th lupi solo with a warrior.

The stuff is still worthless. Silk has actually managed to gain some value. Something similar ought to be done to give leather a value significantly better than vendor price.

Here’s something you can do: bind the rune to a piece of common or fine armor, which will make the armor account bound. Put it into your bank. Use a master or BL salvage kit to extract the rune into the inventory of your desire character.

Keiel.7489:

Goldberg.4831:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Goldberg.4831:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

So yes, I see what you just did there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

The dungeon pve community of so-called elitists don’t going around reporting people for champ train farming. We don’t go out of our way to troll the champ trains, or whatever other casual content farm there is.

So in all these forums, all of the complaints come from casuals?? I’m confused.

The anti-selling crowd maliciously plans and inflicts harm on the dungeon sellers in game. There is no opposite equivalent in the other direction, dungeon crowd maliciously griefing the casual scene, which is what my example showed. Your post where you switched the words around created a false equivalence as if the two positions were equally malignant. That is not correct.

Your being a tad dramatic, how does anyone maliciously affect your time in GW2, I was simply pointing out the argument could go the other way. (Ie isn’t the casual vs. hardcore argument getting old?) Are we not just gamming enthusiasts with different opinions?

I know exactly what you mean. One of my firsst few times running Arah, we wiped a few times on Lupi, 3 people decided that it was enough and left the group. So me and the other guy posted on LFG asking for an experienced player’s help. 3 People joined up after a few seconds. Then one of them typed something in /p “L2P noobs this dungeon isn’t for you” and another guy “Go watch a video and stop wasting everyone’s time *”. Beofre I could respond to tell them off, my screen changed to the cursed shores loading screen, found myself party-less. Needless to say I was very angry and oh yeah this story is totally made up.

Players who are actually “good” wouldn’t tell you to kitten off and kick you out.

Ephemeral.5409:

>Frost Spirit
>Not at 1500 range
>Dodging attacks instead of letting your bear handle them

2/10 wnb

yeep

I was thinking the ranger skill could actually be alright in some cases, since 70% chance to proc an 800 heal on hit, with no internal cooldown, sounds pretty strong. This is getting an average of 560 HP per strike, and with no internal cooldown that’s like pre-nerf omnomberry pie/ghost powerful.

The problem is with the spirit dying, so you need to position it well.

I have not had the opportunity to test them out. Any reports so far?

frifox.5283:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Mesmer: 0/30/0/20/20 is the maximum reflect trait setup

x/x/x/x/20 trait I’m assuming is Phantasmal Haste. As of right now it’s broken for Warden and is useless if you’re taking it to better your warden reflect uptime. Might as well shave off those 5pts and invest them in x/x/x/25/x which is a nice +15% DPS for your phantasms.

Yes, I just saw that it was broken. I am now using 0/30/0/25/15.

Bread.7516:

For ele, is that 25/10/25/10 a proposed DPS dungeon build? I assume that’s LH build for the conjures.

has the math been done to compare with a 25/25/10/10?

If group needs PF (running only 1 ele), how would you allocate the traits to get 30 on fire? or is PF outdated?

Yes, it’s a lightning hammer build. It trades 10% dmg >90% HP for a more reliable 10% damage on burning targets. Elementalists have a lot of good trait choices, depending on the needs of the group. They are one of the few classes I would say doesn’t have a be-all, end-all meta trait build. If your group would like an ele for fury stacking, you can go persisting flames, but if your composition gives enough group fury it’s not necessary to have.

I’d like to see what you’ve compiled here. My thoughts:

Warrior: 30/25/0/0/15 is still going to be to “go-to” trait setup for most warriors.

Elementalist: Lots of choices, 25/10/25/10 is one I have been considering. 10 in fire seems like a pretty attractive choice to get 10 more charges on conjures, while 25 in fire gives 10% more damage to burning foes.

Thief: 25/30/0/0/15 is still optimal, arguably even better than before with increased initiative regeneration. 30/30/0/0/10 and 30/30/10/0/0 are also choices but I do not like them as much.

Mesmer: 0/30/0/20/20 is the maximum reflect trait setup, 10 in inspiration and 5 in illusions could possibly be shaved off and moved elsewhere if your group already has enough reflects.

Making SE 2 and CoF 3 give 1.5 gold isn’t going to encourage any more people to run them.

How about 25 points? I had been thinking of some builds along the lines of:
10.15.25.10.10
0.25.25.10.10

I haven’t personally tested these, just some fast ideas.

I know that putting points into Valor is generally discouraged for most speedclear Guardian builds, but since the line includes critical damage, and under an optimal group environment, crit chance is going to be near maxed, I would like to know how 30% critical damage compares to the other % based damaged sources that can be picked up in the Radiance and Honor lines.

From the new trailer they had.

Anyone else get a laugh out of noticing that?

From the new trailer they had.

Anyone else get a laugh out of noticing that? Who knows, maybe that means it’s been removed.

After I do my Arah runs for the day, I sometimes run them again and give my slot to guildmates who are too noobish/casual to do Arah.

The phase 2 animation tell is when he hunches over and grabs his chest.

Xyonon.3987:

Why would somone kick you for using the staff? o.O Highest single target dps and best aoe support, even the auto attacks passive damage is great. But yeaaa passive damage – who really notices it? Why does anyone just want to see numbers -.-’’??

It’s not highest single target DPS. That goes to sword mainhand and the sword/pistol phantasms.

a t s e.9614:

No , the real question is can you leave lupi alone . Who said he deserves to be killed?

THE BLOOD GOD DEMANDS IT

DnT’s clever use of descent into madness does not count.

They come from Aether chests, and the rate is very low. Given that the new TA dungeon isn’t particularly popular, the skins are very rare and sell for hundreds of gold.

Dondagora.9645:

I think you guys are taking “love” to mean romantically, where this is more platonic friendly love.

The relationship between Logan and Jennah (or at least Logan’s feeling for Jennah( are romantic, so it doesn’t make sense for Scarlet to use the same word with 2 different meanings in 1 sentence.

Weird, that’s all.

ELement.5647:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

I don’t main an engineer so this is probably better advice than what I have.

Or you can get a Guardian to give you stability then go yolo mode:

http://youtu.be/OzuXIHUeP8U

:>

MAXIMUM SPEED

Wallace MacBix.2089:

thefantasticg.3984:

Or just make a macro to infinitely click for you. I mean, unless you want to wear out your mouse that much faster.

I’m pretty sure that’s against the TOS. If I recall it only allows rebinding, so if you wanted to tap “x” instead of click, that’s okay, but to not have to press anything and just have the macro click for you is against the rules.

Thankfully I have mostly broken mouse (it can only click and not move very well), very glad I decided to keep it.

It’s one of those things like jaywalking, against the TOS but practically unenforceable. I have not heard of a single person getting banned for using a rapid fire mouse to open bags/essences/etc. and Anet probably doesn’t care – their TOS is purposely vague enough to give them the leeway to ban botters and such.

Short story: They’re going to ban people for botting, not for using their mouse/autohotkey to rapid fire a consumable.

In the fights against Logan, I have noticed Scarlet saying “Thackeray loves a silly, fat-headed royal more than he loves you. Does that hurt?” I have only seen this on human female player characters (I have not tried a male human).

So, does Scarlet say the same thing for male human characters? If not, she seems to be insinuating or assuming that human female characters must have some sort of longing for Logan.

If you’re really into dungeons, expect to carry lots of weapons. I try to have 1 weapon set for each dungeon I run regularly in addition to stacking sigil weapons.

ELement.5647:

As an Engineer you can Smoke Bomb into Rocket Boots, Big Ol’ Bomb, Magnetic Inversion and Healing Turret detonate to give yourself and your party 13s of Stealth. You can then swap to Elixir S for another 5s of Stealth, Slickshoes for the Super Speed and Toolkit for the block. You should be able to run past mobs before your Stealth expires since you can apply 18+ seconds if it on your own, but if you’re slow you can use Toolkit #4 or the Elixir S invulnerability. Don’t even need to dodge once.

I don’t main an engineer so this is probably better advice than what I have.

I have a feeling the parts you described as mithril could also be Tarnished Silver.

I knew it was along that spectrum and had been fiddling around with those colors. Thanks.

Does someone know which dyes she uses for her armor set along with their placement? If any of the artists who designed her could comment, that would be great.

Does someone know which dyes she uses for her armor set along with their placement? If any of the artists who designed her could comment, that would be great.

Broken grammar = dead giveaway for scams.

Black Box.9312:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Black Box.9312:

Endure pain no longer negates killshot damage from deadeyes. I believe renewed focus still works however since it’s an invulnerability instead of just a 100% damage reduction.

R U SERS

I don’t play warrior, but as far as I know from my buddies that do it’s been that way for a while now.

I haven’t had that issue, having used endure pain recently to negate their damage. What it won’t do is prevent the knockback from the shot.

Black Box.9312:

Endure pain no longer negates killshot damage from deadeyes. I believe renewed focus still works however since it’s an invulnerability instead of just a 100% damage reduction.

R U SERS

Given that the boat skip is kaput, I think it’s proper to be charitable to the millions of poor pugs out there who will need help doing this.

If necessary, I’ll add videos.

Basic stuff:
-Deadeyes shoot you 2 seconds after targeting. Count to 2 then dodge. Their attack is unblockable and will penetrate Aegis/other block skills.
-Inquest technicians will stunlock the crap out of you. Bring stability or stealth.
-The poison clouds can hurt a lot – avoid them at all costs.

Warrior: Equip sword/warhorn, greatsword, balanced stance, dolyak signet, and endure pain. Charge through using sword/horn 2/4, gs 5 (3 only if you get aggro). Keep stability up and activate endure pain if you get targeted by a deadeye and can’t dodge.

Thief: Equip shortbow, smoke screen, shadow refuge, signet of shadows. Blast smoke, run, use SR when 1 second of stealth remains. Use shortbow 5 if necessary.

Ranger: Equip sword/warhorn, greatsword, “Protect Me,” and Rampage as One. Use swiftness and Rampage as One, and charge through with your greatsword. Use “Protect me” if targeted by Deadeyes and out of dodges.

Guardian: Bring Sword/Focus, greatsword, Retreat, Stand Your Ground, Save Yourselves, Renewed Focus. Use swiftness, use sword/focus and GS to teleport/leap and SYG to break stun/get stability if trapped. Use renewed focus if out of dodges and targeted by a deadeye.

Engineer: Rocket boots, Elixir B, Elixir S, Elixir X. Start with Toss Elixir S to stealth. Use Elixir B for swiftness. When stealth is over use rocket boots to leap. Elixir X can also be used for additional stability/leaps/knockback/blind. If out of dodges, use Elixir s for invulnerability. Slick shoes + super speed can also be useful as an escape if you get stuck in combat.

Mesmer: A guide here would be appreciated.

Necromancer: A guide here would be appreciated.

Elementalist: A guide here would be appreciated.

I’ve used the boat skip in the past. I can also do the run normally. The thing about the boat skip is that some classes have an easier time running than others, whereas some classes just aren’t as good at running.

I don’t notice a difference?

Vox Hollow.2736:

Here’s my simple question: Would you support ranged weapons doing equal DPS to melee weapons if they, on average, had an equal level of risk?

Yes.

I kind of think there’s two ways you can treat Melee vs Ranged; risk/reward or rock/paper/scissors. And I like rock/paper/scissors waaaayyyy more than risk/reward, personally.

In this game bosses have a subset of AI dedicated to treating ranged players and melee players differently. I don’t know what they were going for with that, but it’s kind of ended up making certain fight ‘melee fights’ (clockheart) and certain fights ‘ranged fights’ (melrona). Although, obviously, disproportionately the former for a variety of other non-boss mechanics reasons like ease of rezzing.

An AI behaviorset like that seems to fit pretty neatly with the idea of rock/paper/scissors (in which you treat your weapons like tools you change to suit the fight), and is pretty counter-intuitive to risk/reward (which should have a consistent relationship between range and risk throughout the entire game. melee’s risk being questionable in some fights is sort of unacceptable).

So boss design sort of seems to make melee and ranged pan out like rock/paper/scissors strategically…..but ranged attacks still suffer from risk/reward balancing numerically. Which is so not working out.

I know why you’d want risk/reward for PvP, and I can see the allure of using bosses to encourage rock/paper/scissors to spice up PvE. But, man, just pick one and stick with it. Both at the same time is just brutal to Ranged.

/edit: eh, I could’ve explained that better.

Malrona actually owns herself if you stack/reflect/melee deeeepz her to death.

I think this thread has gotten a little off topic.

Here’s my simple question: Would you support ranged weapons doing equal DPS to melee weapons if they, on average, had an equal level of risk?

Xyonon.3987:

First of all – awesome work, really, plz thump it up so it gets a sticker!

I would add the iDisenchanter to the “Rarely used, but still used for some specific encounter” like sometimes in TA when you lack of condition remover or also against the permabuffed golem in CoE. If you got 3 of them the boss will never recive any protection nor anything else. Preventing protection alone gives the team a damage boost of 50% in trade of 3 damage phantasms from you. Pretty nice imo.

-

btt: As for sigils you should go for stack/battle + battle. Nothing is compareable to 6 stacks might, it’s about a 8% damage increase for you and your phantasms. Two stacking sigils make you weak until they are full and you (probably!?) gonna switch them with battle weapons. I feel ok with stack/battle + battle. While killing 25 foes i already have my 6 stacks perma might but its pretty interesting to doublestack, never tought about it.

The Scepter has a worse dps than the GS actually, don’t underestimate the GS that much. It also is more single target based wheras you pick the GS for the AoE. Staff is more useful in general but the GS makes a great job in CoF p2 for example. In almost every situation there:

• many trashmobs (AoE)
• targets that must be killed and are meatshielded
• tagging assassins

There is never a “better weapon for everything” – at lest not in the mesmer pool. They are all situational and I’m happy to be able to use them all in certain situations.

Yeah, I personally don’t use the disenchanter much but I should try it out some time.

For reasons already elaborated, ranged weapons are almost never ideal in dungeons. This is largely a function of their lower DPS compared to melee setups. The use of ranged weapons is frowned upon by many hardcore dungeon runners, for the aforementioned reason but also due to ranged weapons often carrying less risk in their use.

While I understand that this design of ranged weapons (having lower damage) is intended to keep PvP balanced, I can’t help but feel it’s just incredibly lazy. At least with regards to PvE, I believe it’s perfectly possible to have ranged weapons deal equal damage to melee weapons without automatically being “easier” weapons. Other games/MMOs have successfully done it (granted, they also had a trinity system). As we already know, some bosses do become more dangerous at range (Alphard/Spider queen for example). In addition to designing bosses that have powerful ranged and melee attacks, overhauling aggression mechanics to target players more “intelligently” would go a long way.

I’m not trying to be an apologist for players who are too lazy to learn melee mechanics, but if we’re going to be quite honest, a bearbow ranger is about the same as some zerk warrior who thinks one can “spam 2 to win” then ends up faceplanting because s/he can’t dodge.

durend.6237:

Also, the DPS of the iZerker sucks on bosses which don’t have larger hit boxes (so basically almost all of them since ANet just scaled up humanoid models) and missing even one hit makes its damage drop below swordsman and of course it has a longer recharge.

As far as tagging things. The main reason to tag mobs is for sigil stacks. If trash loot was important, we wouldn’t be skipping 95+% of it. You will always stack a sigil faster with s/f that both have stacking sigils in them. Having both a main hand and an offhand that have the same stacking sigil allows you to stack that sigil twice as fast -> 13 tags needed for a fully stacked sigil instead of 25.

I personally prefer a sword with fire sigil with a stacking sigil offhand focus. It tags more mobs (due to the AoE fire blast) and takes up less inventory space.

Yes, but you can bypass that entirely if you just go behind him and slap him to death.

Stealth is not useless in PvE, but traiting heavily for stealth (i.e. using a thief with more than 10 pts in the Shadow Arts line) is not productive. Stealth is useful for some very difficult trash runs, Arah Path 1 in particular.

colesy.8490:

Fortus.6175:

What is the role of GS for mesmers, in dungeons ?(and a little bit outside of them)

The role of GS on mesmer is that it helps me spot bads that I can kick.

lol

http://youtu.be/TEgKjr8t-gg?t=30s

Not to disagree with your overall point – I get incredibly frustrated when I party with several mesmers and I don’t see a single focus pull, but lots of greatsword beams.

Going on a bit further about the GS – it’s a weapon that is situationally useful. It’s great to use GS to get stacks of precision/bloodust using the iBerserker against the first trash packs in Arah.

You should have a GS in your inventory (I would advise that you should always carry 1 of every weapon type for your class) but you should never rely on it as a primary weapon.

Thanks. I hope this helps someone.

Fortus.6175:

What is the role of GS for mesmers, in dungeons ?(and a little bit outside of them)

In dungeons, the GS is occasionally used to:

- Kill trash to generate bloodlust/precision stacks
- Push certain enemies into walls
- Range bosses that otherwise cannot be meleed

The iBerserker has the highest potential area of effect damage among phantasms, which makes it useful for engaging large groups of enemies (zerg WvW). I do not do sPvP/tPvP so I cannot comment on its role there but I imagine it has some use.

If we just look at dungeons, though, only the phantasm and GS 5 push are useful skills for the weapon, which just isn’t enough to make it a good enough weapon to carry into a fight 100% of the time.

How to play a Mesmer and why

So, now that you have proper traits, armor, two swords, a focus, a pistol, and a greatsword, what do you do?

Control

The first role of the Mesmer I mentioned, which I personally think is the most underutilized and one of the most important, is control. This is where I see the majority of Mesmers fail – they do not effectively position the enemy in such a way that minimizes their killing time. Instead, they let the enemy run about, which can make them take 10x longer to kill and increase the odds that they will wipe your team.

Temporal Curtain (Focus 4) is the bread and butter of the Mesmer’s control tools, and Illusionary Wave (GS 5) is occasionally used to push single targets into corners or walls. How do you use these effectively? Temporal curtain has a pull radius of 600 units, and is frequently used to pull enemies into corners or walls. The following video demonstrates: http://youtu.be/fLfeDzsfy3o

Why corners or walls? There are several reasons. First, an improperly placed Temporal Curtain has a tendency to overshoot enemies that aren’t backed into a solid object. An improperly placed temporal curtain will scatter enemies rather than grouping them up, and by choosing a wall, you limit (or eliminate) this possibility. Second, grouping enemies into a wall or corner dramatically improves your party’s damage, as melee weapons will cleave through them with ease. Instead of hitting a single stray target, you are now hitting a full group.

In addition to grouping enemies up, Temporal Curtain is also used to clear or split enemies on trash runs. Since the pull from temporal curtain does not generate threat, it can be safely used to split enemies off the main path of a trash run so your group can run past them without drawing their attention.

If you want to learn how to focus pull, this is an excellent video guide: http://youtu.be/ajFtp6mnM1k?t=18m28s

Reflects

Another critical, and often underutilized role of Mesmers, is mitigating and enhancing your party’s damage through reflects. Many Mesmers blindly spam feedback on bosses or use feedback at the wrong times. When to use feedback is a lengthy discussion unto itself, and requires a thorough understanding of each enemy in particular encounters. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to use feedback against enemies in dungeons which are projectile heavy. They include Caudeceus Manor, Sorrows Embrace, Twilight Arbor, Crucible of Eternity, and Arah, One of the most frequently missed reflects I see is against the first trash pull in CoE, in which many players do not use reflects. Strife demonstrates why you should feedback them in the first 10 seconds of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B--IxGbvmIc

Properly rotating your reflects (feedback/curtain/iWarden) allows you to completely trivialize some very difficult enemies, demonstrated here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfLsin75gsM

Boon and condition management

A secondary role Mesmers offer is boon/condition management. Often, if you are a Mesmer in a pickup group, you will have to fulfill this role, as your teammates may not be using builds or classes with effective condition removal. Null field, as of this writing, is the best condition/boon management a Mesmer brings to a party, though the Mesmer’s ability to remove conditions via mantras is going to be buffed soon. Condition management is hugely important, as stray bleeds, poisons, and burns in some fights can mean the difference between barely finishing an encounter and wiping.

Boon removal is less frequently used, but when it is important it makes a tremendous difference. Off the top of my head, some of the most important enemies where boon removal is key are the security golem in Crucible of Eternity, Dredge in Sorrow’s Embrace and fractals, and Risen Hunters in Arah. The security golem maintains permanent protection, which will reduce your group’s damage by 33%. The Mesmer sword and clone auto, in addition to null field, will strip boons off without requiring your team to destroy the boon turrets. Boon removal is tremendously important against Risen elites in Arah, as Hunters will buff them with stability and fury. With stability on, you cannot pull or stun them, so either kill them before they get it or remove it as soon as possible.

Hopefully, this helps someone who mains a Mesmer or is interested in playing one. Over time, I’d like to write more dungeon-specific class guides that can help players.

How to play a Mesmer in dungeons

I have spent close to 800 hours playing a Mesmer (for a total of over 3000 hours in game time so far). I see so many bad Mesmers in dungeons that I think it’s time I write a guide on not just how to build a Mesmer, but how to play one effectively. This guide will spend less time on builds and more on explaining the how and why of playing a Mesmer (though builds and weapon choices are still discussed).

The Mesmer fills several important roles in dungeons:

• Controlling and positioning the enemy, primarily through effective use of Temporal Curtain
• Mitigating and enhancing damage through reflections
• Boon and condition management, by removing conditions on your team, enhancing your teams boons, and removing boons from the enemy
• Speeding up runs through use of portal

While the Mesmer is by no means a “mandatory” dungeon class, it is often highly beneficial to include one because of its aforementioned versatility.

Slot Skills

There are some utility skills that a Mesmer will find more useful in dungeons. Switch out your utilities when necessary. Here is a list of what I use most often:

On my utilies bar almost all the time, no matter what:

• Feedback

On my regular rotation:

• Mantra of Concentration (Stunbreak and stability)
• Mantra of Resolve (Condition cleansing)
• Null field (Condition/Boon management)
• Blink (Stunbreak)

Occasionally used:

• Signet of Inspiration (For copying boons)
• Portal Entre
• Veil (for runs)
• Illusion of Life (Useful when pugging Arah)
• Mirror Images
• Decoy

Rarely used, but still used for some specific encounters

• Mimic
• Phantasmal Disenchanter

As for healing skills, what you use depends on your builds. If you are using mantra damage multipliers, go with the healing mantra. Otherwise, take ether feast. For Elites, Time warp is ideal most of the time, but for some runs mass invisibility is preferred. Any other skill aside from these 2 is usually a waste of your elite slot.

Traits

There are some traits that are mandatory for a Mesmer in dungeons. They include:
Minimum 20 Inspiration for:
1. Reduced recharge on Glamour skills
2. Reduced recharge on focus skills, while granting them the ability to reflect projectiles

In an organized run where need for reflects is minimal and can be provided by a guardian, it may be acceptable to put 10 into Inspiration.

Minimum 20 Dueling for:
1. Permanent vigor on crit
2. Reduced cooldown on sword skills
3. Reduced cooldown in pistol skills
4. Clones on dodge, which help immensely with maintaining 9% damage (if you have 10 in illusions)

15 in illusions is also a very strong choice to gain access to Illusionist’s Celerity and Compounding Power.

To maximize reflect damage, you want to get as many % damage increases as you can. The rest of your points are preferably distributed into Illusions (for 9% bonus damage with illusions) and Domination (for some additional power, increasing illusion damage, or enhancing your shatters), along with optional enhancements to the Dueling and Inspiration lines. The Chaos trait line offers very little for dungeons, so points in it are generally a waste.

Armor and Weapons

Colesy gives an excellent breakdown of the Mesmer weapon types and their strengths and weaknesses in this thread. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-PvE-Dungeons-Phantasm-build-s/first As such, I will not spend much time covering this, as it has already been covered.

A Mesmer, optimally played, will use a sword mainhand and alternate between focus, pistol, and sword offhand a majority of the time. There are some situations where a ranged weapon is necessary or preferred, in which the greatsword can be used as a secondary weapon. However, use of the greatsword should be minimized, as the weapon has low DPS and its other abilities (aside from the Phantasm and push) are generally not suited for dungeons.

If you are going to be running dungeons a lot, you will almost never need a torch, staff, or scepter. I like to carry at least one of every weapon in my inventory, but the use of these three weapons is rarely, if ever optimal in a dungeon environment. The torch is sometimes used for additional stealth on runs or blasting might, but it is never used in actual fights. Unless you are soloing a dungeon, there is almost never a situation where the staff or scepter is an optimal choice.

With permanent vigor, invulnerability on the F4 shatter, a 2.5 second evade with blurred frenzy, and a block on offhand sword, the Mesmer is actually one of the most durable professions in dungeons in spite of wearing light armor. Wear full berserker or assassins gear, and if you time your dodges and skills properly, you will take a minimum of damage while dealing maximum damage.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’d like to add this to the stickied Mesmer guide if you don’t mind.

… And about class forums, atleast the Mesmer forums, this guide would be very welcomed there. The majority of players aren’t PvPers (More WvWers but still) and are always looking to digest new helpful info.

Go ahead. I’d add it to the Mesmer forums too, but knowing Anet moderation, they’d infract me for “spamming.”