Guild Wars 2

Lanhelin.3480:

One of the great advantages of GS is, that the Berserker (combined with Sharper Images) with its multiple attacks very much likely adds some bleeds and the warranted cripple and grabs the aggro too. Then swapping to Staff, summoning a clone and the warlock. The Warlock – thanks to staff-auto-attack-conditions by clone and Mesmer and condis by Berserker – will do much higher damage due to the overall sum of applied conditions. The Swordsman doesn’t apply any conditions and also bleed from Sharper Images is much less likely due to its only single attack.
I build for condition damage and illusion death effects, even in PvE. 0/3/5/2/4 never disappointed me so far. GS&Staff ofc =)

Glad it “works” for you. Kiting builds like this are very easy to play and survive with. I played one when I was leveling and had a lot of fun.

But if you’re building for condition damage, the warlock is doing less than if you would build for power, even with all the extra conditions. The overall damage from this going to be lower, your reflect damage is going to be lower, your kiting is going to keep you away from might stacks from your team, etc.

But if it makes you happy, hey, enjoy. Pew pew.

maha.7902:

got this commission for my mesmer :p

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18721945/maha--shaded-sketch--FINAL.jpg

How cool!

frifox, master of CoE

My favorite part of fractal threads is seeing all those excellent cats in the signatures.

roachsrealm.9284:

I never seem to have a problem with joining specific groups on the LFG. I will join groups that advertise Zerk only meta exp please and they never know I am not zerk or meta build, and somehow I never get kicked…

if people are kicking you because of your class you don’t want to play with them anyway. Rangers are NOT nerfed. I have consistently seen rangers solo Lupi in a bad group and always be the last one downed in tricky situations. People who hate on rangers are missing out.

We had this argument a while ago on the forum. Just because you aren’t kicked, doesn’t mean people don’t know.

Pyroathiest.4168:

maxinion.8396:

Toeofdoom.6152:

maxinion.8396:

Water field + blast is a significantly stronger heal than Restorative Mantras, though. Healing can be useful in some situations, sure— but RM is very rarely a good heal.

Restorative mantras starts at 2600, whereas a water blast does 1320, so it’s about 2 blasts. It has downsides like the delay, but isn’t reliant on multiple skills, has a far lower cooldown than any water field and can’t be messed up by light fields or feedback etc. So it’s quite different, but you haven’t convinced me it’s worse overall… except for the aforementioned “no-one can see it” thing.

I wouldn’t suggest the shatter skills miku mentioned, not so great with phantasms and I think it only has decent numbers with illusionary persona, otherwise it’s about 1-1.5k per shatter (not per clone)

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. RM doesn’t scale well with healing power, while water+blast does. You can get appreciable healing with water because of that, while 2600 is pretty close to the maximum for RM. And 2600 is a lot.

Uh….no. Healing power scaling means less than nothing, because if somebody is running heal power in PvE, they’ve made a terrible mistake.

I guess I"m not being particularly coherent

My point is just that no matter what, RM cannot provide a significant heal. I concede that water + blast is also a useless heal.

Toeofdoom.6152:

maxinion.8396:

Water field + blast is a significantly stronger heal than Restorative Mantras, though. Healing can be useful in some situations, sure— but RM is very rarely a good heal.

Restorative mantras starts at 2600, whereas a water blast does 1320, so it’s about 2 blasts. It has downsides like the delay, but isn’t reliant on multiple skills, has a far lower cooldown than any water field and can’t be messed up by light fields or feedback etc. So it’s quite different, but you haven’t convinced me it’s worse overall… except for the aforementioned “no-one can see it” thing.

I wouldn’t suggest the shatter skills miku mentioned, not so great with phantasms and I think it only has decent numbers with illusionary persona, otherwise it’s about 1-1.5k per shatter (not per clone)

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. RM doesn’t scale well with healing power, while water+blast does. You can get appreciable healing with water because of that, while 2600 is pretty close to the maximum for RM. And 2600 is a lot.

maha.7902:

I’ve had this account for like a week and I’m already fed up of the Mesmer subforum. good thing maxinion can continue my legacy I guess >_>

Hah! Between Jerem, Sandy, frifox and the other cool kids, I think the forum will be well taken care of. But yeah, good times with the pew-pew squad.

Toeofdoom.6152:

If you’re not in a meta group, optimal might be different. Sometimes that even means healing is useful. If you’re in a group that stacks a lot but tends to die too fast, it becomes pretty obvious. Similarly if you enjoy a particular build or are better at playing with it, that’s important too.

Water field + blast is a significantly stronger heal than Restorative Mantras, though. Healing can be useful in some situations, sure— but RM is very rarely a good heal.

Anawim.5168:

I really love this! As a casual GW2er who’s been a mesmer for a little over a year now, there’s so much awesome in this guide for any mesmer of any skill level.

I’m a little curious, though: what might be a more universal/worthwhile sigil to invest in instead of Night? And/or how practical would it be to just always have? Is the idea here to swap for another set of weaps with other sigils for the day?

I’m super interested in pursuing full reflects after reading this. There seems to be a huge need for them in PUGs anymore.

Again, thanks!

Glad you like it

So, 5/8 dungeons are night— only Arah, CM, and HoTW are daytime. Most people keep an Undead Slaying sigil instead of Night for Arah. For CM and HoTW… is it really worth getting another two weapon + sigil sets for just 3 commonly run paths? Probably not. Something like Accuracy is probably fine, even if it’s not as much damage as the dungeon-appropriate slaying sigil.

There are also a few more daytime Fractals. It’s not ideal, but I just use Accuracy + Force there.

Lord Kuru.3685:

frifox.5283:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Let’s say your build counts on phantasms for damage… is it possible that Sigil of Accuracy (+7% critical chance) is better than Sigil of Force?

1. I’m assuming that because the +7% critical chance affects your basic stats, they pass through to your clones as well.. while:
2. the +5% damage from Force doesn’t affect your basic stats and so doesn’t pass to your clones.

To be honest, I’m not sure either #1 or #2 are true.. .anyone know for sure?

Critical Chance is not a core stat, Precision is, so it does not affect phantasms. (haven’t checked post apr 15 patch)

Force will give you 2.2% more personal DPS than Accuracy sigil (and no virtually no change in reflect dmg) and if you have a few phantasms out that will then be only 1% more. With full assassins + ranger runes and assuming you have fury and disc banner provided you will be at exactly 100% crit with the Accuracy sigil, so if you get a ranger with Spotter in party that sigil will be going to waste.

Overall I’d say there is no reason to run Accuracy instead of Force.

Ah yes… you’re right about crit chance!

In that case, there’s pretty much no way accuracy is better.

Thanks!

I keep one around for PUGs, where I can’t even rely on Warriors for Banner of Discipline (let alone rangers for spotter!).

Thanks all for the discussion!

@Slurpee: I actually end up using Mantra of Recovery most of the time myself. I’ll reword it to make it clear it’s perfectly viable.

mesmers strike back!

deSade.9437:

maha.7902:

People always say this, but whenever swiftpaw joins groups on her ranger she’s only ever come close to being kicked once, and then they recognised who she was.

I feel like some of these stories are just exaggerations or lies.

Where’s swifty? I miss her Q.Q
– where and how

need moar swifty

Keep in mind you have greatsword, which is a solo weapon which keeps you away from your team (in order to get ~any~ DPS on it), so often you won’t even be close enough to use it.

And even then… well, consider a full zerker ele with 10k hp. A 2k heal is rather small, even for a small hp pool like this— and most things are just going to one-hit the ele anyway, so you don’t even get a chance to heal. A warrior with 18k hp won’t down from one hit usually, but the heal is only 1/10 his health— he’s getting a same size heal passively with no input with Heal Signet anyway. And builds with even more vitality are going to notice this even less, since it’s a fractionally smaller amount of their hp. Call it unfortunate if you want, but it’s just the way it is— healing isn’t terribly useful in PvE (and water + blast is the most effective method if you really do need healing).

For open world PvE, most anything is fine, and this is a decent enough setup. But Restorative Mantras is not a particularly large amount of healing and forces you out of DPS for a few seconds when you use it. No one is going to notice the healing, even if you stack full clerics gear.

Jeremlloyd.6837:

lazycalm.5186:

Hey maxi, great job here.
I wonder if you can help me

I have full assassin’s armor and weapons with scholar runes, and zerk trinkets.

What of the builds you listed would suit me better?
I know it depends on utilities you want or not to use, as well as reflection uptime, but what build do you think contributes with more DPS overall?
I don’t mind giving up slots for mantras because i mostly use only feedback anyway.

Thanks for your help!

You usually want to switch between builds. I’d say go for 6/4/0/4/0 when you need reflection or 6/4/0/0/4 (or 6/6/0/0/2) when you don’t

Absolutely agree with this— I will try to make it clear that the 6/4 builds are the “default.” If you want to not think, use the one with the one with traited wardens if you want to be sure you have reflections going, or use the one with 4 in illusions for more damage.

xallever.1874:

Jeremlloyd.6837:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Please sticky this.

Excellent job!

The only thing I’m thinking about is if the reflection isn’t needed for damage just for damage mitigation, isn’t it better to go after power than precision?

There aren’t many fights like Lupicus to be around whereby the reflection is much needed for the damage.

I am 99% sure that Jerem and frifox’s conclusions on gear are independent of reflect damage, and actually take into account full DPS from sword + phantasms (see this thread for frifox’s numbers). The damage with assassin’s and zerker is basically identical, but reflect damage is higher in assassin’s. You can always stack bloodlust to get more power as well (frifox is not using stacking in his numbers).

The differences are tiny though. I’m running berserker’s because I have zero interest in remaking my ascended pieces.

mesmania.9342:

so if i drop the gs wont i have to re spec to get the duelist recharge trait? so 2/6/0/06 is the better option for sword sword pistol?

Please see: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-How-To-Mesmer-in-Dungeons/

Jeremlloyd.6837:

Nice guide max You should probably say something about how powerful untraited warden can be. I’ll try to make a video compilation of most of the boss where untraited warden shines

Thanks Jerem! I was thinking about this but hadn’t quite figured out how to work it in yet. I’ll post something about it shortly, and we can add your videos on this to the “advanced videos” section frifox proposed! I’m also super curious to see your list, since I only know a handful of places where this helps (Old Tom and Rabso come to mind) and I am sure there are more I am missing.

@virq: Depending on the fight, this can happen. Summoning an Duelist instead of a Swordsman might be a better idea in fights where you notice this happening quite a lot. My rule of thumb is that if the Swordsman gets off 2-3 attacks, he’s done his job and I don’t feel bad re-summoning. Less than that, and I consider slotting pistol in for the future.

@Pokecenter: hah, thanks for noticing on the skills. It doesn’t really matter what utilities to use in those builds on the template, as it’s super situation-specific, but I should put something else in. With regard to the cooldown, it’s only the tooltip which is ever wrong— in game, once you use it, it will properly show up as 12 seconds.

Thanks everyone for the feedback! I really appreciate it. And <3 u 2 colsey

@frifox: That sounds like a great idea. I’ll start picking through your/Sandy/Jerem’s channels and see what I can find. Feel free to PM me suggestions and I’ll be happy to add them as well!

5 – How should i rotate my utility skills? I just got too attached to null field and feedback, specially because they provide combo fields and with the right traits you can use them quite often. I personally enjoy the chaos armor and it gives a chance to all team members to get it as well and do some confusion bolts. But probably the good Mesmers at dungeons vary skills according with the situation, anything i should have in mind?

The combo field from Ethereal is useless, and provides negative DPS in many situations (as you can screw up good, useful fields like Fire by placing under them). Chaos Armor provides short boons randomly— the Aegis can be useful, but if it’s not reliable, it’s not worth using. Confusion does no damage in PvE either, because of the way mob attacks work.

Anyway, my thread lists many different uses for many different utilities, so take a look there.

6 – Also i started to like the phantasm defender, i just like how it helps my party with the survivability, but how good it actually is? Because if he takes half of the damage directed at each of the group players, unless if he has a huge hp pool, in the end probably he isn’t that usefull i suppose?

He’s helpful sometimes, as it can help when your team is really dying a lot. But conversely, you can also help your team by killing stuff faster— and that means using all three of your phantasms for DPS. Defender is very bad damage, and will lower your total damage by 15% or more when using it.

7 – Are any of the illusion stats related with the character, or they only get affect with traits and possible boons?

They inherit your power and precision and ferocity. Boons usually don’t affect them— things like Might will prioritize on players instead of your illusions. But since your own Power goes up with Might, your illusions gain Power as well from your Might.

8 -Does the feedback also reflect projectiles from the outside, meaning that if the players are inside the bubble and you have snipers ranging from outside you are safe?

Yup.

9 – If we are stacked near a mob, and i use feedback, is it useless other than for the combo field? Seeing that the mob’s attack won’t touch the bubble/barrier, but rather directly hit us?

Feedback is as generous as possible with reflections. Anything that could get reflected does. Outside going in, in going out, in staying in— all get reflected.

10 – I rarely use shatterer skills. I do use them every Dungeon, but like once or twice, most of the times im just trying to get illusions on the field and leave them to help doing damage or being just one extra target so that the mobs get distracted. Is this wrong? Should i always shatterer them if possible? or maybe it depends on the situation?

Generally it doesn’t matter, since the damage is so low. You might as well shatter when the mob is about to die in order to get some more last-second burst, since they’ll die when the mob dies anyway.

I didn’t intend to keep using my Mesmer, but in the end i got back to use him, so since it is my main i feel like i should understand him better. I’ve been into Dungeons lately and i would like to improve my game, so i would like to clarify the topics above.

Hope this helps~

Pokecenter.3548:

1 – What is the current meta for Mes? Should i change gear/traits/skills according with the Dungeon or party members?

Spamming my thread again. Definitely switch up according to the situation and what else your party has. I list a few criteria for what you should think about when switching in the thread.

2 – What about the weapons? I use sword+focus, currently Greatsword as well instead Staff, althought i loved my Staff and really disliked the GS, but now i find it fine and i believe it fits better with my Zerker stats. I like having a ranged weapon, i just think it comes handy quite often, but should i think about something else? I don’t think that – with my current build at least – scepter and torch would be an option, but i’ve noticed that some people here seem to enjoy sword+sword as well, and i remember to read a guide that – for dungeons too – suggested Sword+pistol. Should i really get rid off GS for sword+something?

If you want the “best” build, sword/sword and (sword/focus or sword/pistol) is what you want. Greatsword is a reasonable option if you insist on having a ranged weapon. I prefer scepter/sword as a ranged option most of the time, as the double blocks (scepter 2 and sword 4) help a lot in the defensive situations where I am bad and require a ranged weapon.

3 – Just making sure, but Ranger runes work it illusions right? Then, it would be a better choice than scholar i believe? They aren’t as expensive, yet it seems to be easier to have Ranger’s 7%bonus (1illusion alive) rather than Scholar’s 10% (hp>90%).

Even a mini-pet procs the ranger bonus. Illusions also do.

4 – Talking about exotic only, but should i consider getting an assassin’s set to replace my zerker? It looks like currently it could be better.

My thread explains this a little bit, and references the best thread on the subject. Short answer: yes. Longer answer: probably yes, but it’s not a huge difference.

I am spamming this all over the place now~

I get to link this now!

skcamow.3527:

maxinion.8396:

virq.4605:

Something like this? http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhEQRAsc8dnsISRaWiGWpB1aGR1QQZ30kOQiIlsTJA-TBCBwAGV+hd/Bcq/A4kAkS/wDzfZUCG4JAQGg8tA-e

Ofc switch to 6/4/0/4/0 when needed (no idea when and where but still :P). Sigils are just example, iam still not sure what to choose. Also iam not sure about 3 mantras (12% dmg from trait, as far as i can read its not buffing illusions).

More or less this, yes. I’m almost done with my Long Post About Everything, which will go into detail on why (and where) you want Mantras.

@maxinion – do you want to create an official build thread? I believe colesy had one but doesn’t reflect the latest patch changes. It would be nice to have a dungeon meta build thread to point folks to when these types of questions are asked (which has been a lot lately).

It sounds like you’re going into a bit more detail than just the build as well, and that might be great information for the mesmer guide (as well as your dungeon build thread).

As a companion to such thread, gw2dungeons.net appears to have the latest mesmer builds linked (to Brazil’s overviews post-4/15).

I see you saw my post here already Yes, that was what I was working on. Hopefully this should answer most of OP’s questions as well.

Brazil’s guide is also very good, and I link it in my thread. I don’t really like 6/2 as a build, but it’s an option. I also don’t quite think the assassin’s trinkets are optimal, since most people won’t be running 6/2 and have 150 more precision from putting 4 into Dueling. But he has good reasons for suggesting the build, and it’s definitely reasonable.

reserved

While mesmers are not necessarily a top-tier class for dungeon running, they provide good damage and support and can be very effective additions to almost any dungeon (but especially anyone that requires reflects). The class has a huge amount of defensive options, and their unique ability to provide 100% reflect uptime with minimal DPS loss is quite useful. In long fights, where phantasm summon time is negligible, the class can provide very respectable DPS (and in ideal situations, even top-tier DPS). This can make them quite well suited for Fractals.

If you want more information, I highly recommend watching Sandy’s videos and Jerem’s videos. Brazil and Nike also have some nice videos. Frifox’s build calculator is here . Chaos’s excellent guide to reflections is here .

I hope you enjoyed this! Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions below. Special thanks to Pyro for poking me to make the thread.

To maximize your DPS, you basically want to always keep 3 phantasms out and keep your sword auto-attack going. This means that typically, you start fights with something like:

Focus pull to bunch up enemies. Phantasmal Warden. Swap to sword. Phantasmal Swordsman. Signet of Ether. Phantasmal Swordsman. Auto-attack.

If you don’t have signet, obviously just skip that bit and wait for the cool down, and summon again.

Once your three phantasms are up, keep your DPS going with auto-attacks (which are slightly back-loaded, so it pays to keep a full chain going). If you need a dodge, use Blurred Frenzy first, since you’ll get just as many evade frames, but you’ll still do DPS. Sword 4’s block is also good DPS— but be careful if you have 3 phantasms out, since the clone it summons will override one of them!

In most situations this is how you’ll start fights, but depending on the situation, you’ll have to be dynamic and react accordingly. Cleanse your party of conditions— watch your allies conditions as well! Put up reflects with Feedback or Curtain if necessary. Re-summon phantasms when they die. “Rotations” is in quotes here because there really isn’t one— we have a pattern for starting fights, but after that you have to pay attention to the situation and respond accordingly.

Note that if you have Compounding Power (III in Illusions), you want 3 illusions up at all time, so summon clones if you can’t get phantasms out fast enough (sword 3 is good for this).

Also note the crazy defensive options that we have. We have 50% vigor uptime from the Adept minor trait in Dueling, an extra dodge in sword 2 on very low cool down, and a nice block with sword 4. This means that while you have light armor and medium health, you are super tanky, even in full DPS gear, compared to other classes like elementalist.

Your choice of utilities should be as dynamic (or even more dynamic) than your choice of builds.

Feedback should almost always be available. There’s usually at least a little bit that you can reflect in a fight, and the combination of active damage mitigation + high damage means that this is very useful for your team both defensively and offensively.

If you’re using Mantras, you should almost always have 2 or 3 Mantras on your bar— Recovery, Resolve, and Concentration. Resolve/Concentration can be swapped to others, like Pain or Distraction, depending on the situation. Note that if you don’t need stability/stun breaks/ condition cleanse, you should strongly consider Distraction. Your Master level minor gives 5 vuln on daze, which can help with your party vuln stacking.

If you need more condition cleanse than just Mantra of Resolve, Null Field can be very helpful. Null Field also boon strips, which can be useful (I keep bringing up Dredge, but that’s really important).

Portal is very situational, but hugely useful. A popular example is its use in CoF p1, where the boulder puzzle can be trivialized with a mesmer portal. Other locations commonly using portal are in Dredge Fractal (portaling your full group into the console chamber, running around for bombs, etc.) or Uncategorized Fractal (skipping the harpy jump-runs invisibly with a thief, and dropping a portal to move the rest of the group). The nice thing about portal is that it promotes creative thinking and movement in dungeons, so it can be a lot of fun to use.

Blink can be useful in fights where you need extra mobility (like Mai Trin’s cannon phase).

Decoy/Veil can be useful on skips in Arah.

Phantasmal Defender can help tank for your party if people are dying a lot. This comes at a large DPS loss, because the Defender DPS is very low.

Phantasmal Disenchanter can provide excellent boon-strip and party condition cleanse. This can be useful on bosses like the turret-golem in CoE (where sometimes I even summon two Disenchanters by using Signet of Ether).

Signet of Inspiration can be useful in doubling might stacks on your party members. This won’t help if they can get to 25 on their own, but if your party is only stacking 10-12 might, this can be a huge bonus.

Signet of Midnight can provide AoE blinds— useful when you don’t have a thief or guardian to do this.

Arcane Thievery can strip a lot of boons very quickly. You can also use it to play fun tricks like burning Shog in Arah p1 for many minutes at a time.

Time Warp is your default. A large amount of extra DPS to everyone is very helpful to your party. Use this when the boss is at < 50% HP, or preferably < 33%, in order to maximize the damage that come from Thief and Ele traits which trigger at low mob health.

Mass Invis is good on skips in Arah or some Fractals.

Mantra of Resolve is a 4% DPS boost when using Empowering Mantras. The healing power is not particularly large, but it heals immediately and cannot be interrupted, which makes it very reliable. This is my personal choice in most situations.

Signet of Ether is a rather good heal if you use the passive, but it recharges your phantasm cool downs when you use the active. This can mean a rather large DPS boost at the start of your fight.

Generally, once you get comfortable in the game, heals are used offensively and not defensively. This means you use the Mantra of Resolve for the DPS boost, and Signet of Ether for the phantasm cool downs. If you need an easier to use heal skill (with a shorter channel than MoR), consider Ether Feast.

This is again not 100% straightforward, and there are a few nice options. As a mesmer, we want to maximize our crit-chance so that our reflects do the most damage, but we obviously don’t want to go about 100% crit. Everything else should be going to power. (Note that in most situations we assume Banner of Disciple, which provides 8% crit, and Fury, which provides 20%, will be around. Depending on how good your groups are, you may also have Spotter, which provides 7%.)

The easiest way to do this is probably the one suggested by Frifox and Jerem (see this thread ). This involves full Berserker trinkets and full Assassins armor + weapons, with Runes of the Ranger.

Other options include full Berserker everything, with Runes of the Ranger, and with Perception stacking. This relies on the perception stacking to get to 100% crit chance— with the May 20 nerf to stacking sigils, stacking perception is even harder than before and therefore no longer very viable (as you have to give up a sigil to keep it).

Note that Runes of the Ranger trigger their 7% bonus with Illusions, or with a mini-pet. They are also super, super cheap, which is worth noting.

You can also use Scholar Runes instead of the Ranger Runes. This lowers crit chance a bit, so it makes you more reliant on the presence of spotter, or using Assassin’s gear, or perception stacking. It does raise power a little, and the 10% damage bonus can be great if you can keep your health up.

For weapons, you generally want Night + Force (main hand + offhand respectively). I keep a stacking weapon for my main hand as well. I also keep an Undead Slaying version around for Arah, and Accuracy for daytime dungeons. Daytime dungeons and fractals are a little bit more awkward— in principle you would use the appropriate slaying weapon, but it can be annoying to carry around a weapon for just CM, for example. I use Accuracy in those cases, which allows slightly less dependence on Banner and Spotter, but this is not completely optimal, of course.

In unorganized groups that are not stacking might, one interesting option is to run Strength runes and Sigil of Strength + Sigil of Battle. You can keep 12 might stacks on yourself solo with this combination, which is a non-trivial DPS increase. Considering how stupidly expensive Strength Runes are, I’d avoid this personally.

If you are still learning, you can slot in Knight’s or Soldier’s in place of your armor. It’s best to move as quickly as you can to full zerker though, as you will deal significantly more damage that way.

The May 20 patch removed the “underwater stacking sigils” trick, which is quite unfortunate. You can still stack if you really want— for example, in some solo environments where you use mostly one weapon set, you can keep a stacking sigil on your second set to keep your stacks up. For assassin’s gears builds, you would stack bloodlust, and for berserker’s gear would be perception. In general, however,this is no longer recommended.

For food choices: usually your gear will allow you to maximize your crit chance without too much investment in food, so you have lots of options. I personally always take Candied Dragon Rolls, because 66% life steal on crit is amazing and allows me to use my heals offensively. Other options like Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash are great, as is Seaweed Salad. But I’m cheap, so I won’t use those.

For utility consumables: obviously the appropriate dungeon potions when available. Skale Venom is a good choice in Fractals. Sharpening Stones are a good default otherwise.

The April 15 patch eliminated the two previous general purpose builds (0/30/0/25/15 and 10/30/0/20/10). However, the April 15 patch also introduced on-the-fly re-traiting. What this means for mesmers is that we no longer have one build which is good at everything, but instead many builds which are good depending on the situation. I’ll outline the most popular options here, and describe what situations each one is most useful in. The key to the most effective runs will be to ask yourself what the situation coming up requires, and to move things around to adapt to it.

Generally, people run the Mantra builds as the baseline. This relies on the Domination XI trait, Empowering Mantras, which gives +4% damage per readied mantra. Most people will use Mantra of Resolve (condition cleanse) and Mantra of Concentration (stun break + group stability), and some also Mantra of Recovery (heal).

1) 6/4/0/0/4 — General Purpose DPS: S/S + (S/F or S/P) — This is the primary build

What it brings: Super high personal DPS, very high phantasm DPS, super high reflect damage, and fast phantasm cool downs (especially on swordsman).

When to use: Warden reflects are not needed. You are able to use 2+ mantras at all times. This is your general purpose build for most situations.

What you lose: Wardens/ Temporal Curtain don’t reflect in this build. Warden cool down is somewhat long because it is not traited.

2) 6/4/0/4/0 — Full Reflection Uptime: S/S + S/F -- This is the secondary build

What it brings: High personal DPS, moderately high phantasm DPS, high reflect damage, full reflection uptime.

When to use: Warden reflects are needed. Between Warden + Signet of Ether + Feedback + Temporal Curtain, you are easily able to maintain 100% reflect uptime on your party.

What you lose: Personal damage and phantasm damage suffers compared to build 1.

3) 6/6/0/0/2 — Full DPS, S/S + (S/F or S/P)

What it brings: Maximum personal DPS, high phantasm DPS, super high reflect damage

When to use: When you absolutely need full DPS. This is the build many people would use to maximize reflect damage on Lupicus. In situations where bosses die so quickly that you have no time to summon phantasms, this build offers the highest personal damage, so you don’t feel bad for not summoning phantasms.

What you lose: Phantasms deal less damage (no Illusion X) and are much slower to recharge (no Illusions Master minor).

4) Others, like 6/5/0/0/3, are a compromise between build 3 and 1.

(Note on these builds: I take Signet Mastery as the Master level major trait. There’s nothing good for this position, and Signet Mastery helps a lot in the cases when you take Signet of Ether).

Sometimes, you have to get rid of mantras. You might be fighting Dredge and need to bring boon stripping (Arcane Thievery + Null Field are great at this). You might be fighting Mai Trin and decide you want more mobility and condition cleanse. In these cases, and others, you’ll want to use one of these builds. Note that the utilities here are just an example, and you should swap them according to the situation, as will be described in one of the following sections.

5) 2/4/0/4/4 (or 2/4/0/5/3 ): S/S + S/F

What it brings: Very high phantasm DPS, full reflect uptime, very flexible utilities

When to use: When you can’t, or don’t want to, bring mantras.

What you lose: +12% personal damage from Empowering Mantras. Significant personal damage loss from lack of power (Domination line).

6) Others, like 2/3/0/5/4 (similar to above, focusing more on phantasm DPS) or 5/4/0/5/0 (similar to above, focusing more on personal DPS).

For everything I’m discussing, I’ll assume you have a mainhand sword, offhand sword, focus, and a pistol. Keep a scepter/greatsword/staff for ranging if you absolutely need to.

You’ll always have the mainhand sword slotted— this is your best personal DPS weapon, so it’s really the only option. The auto-attack applies a bit of vuln and does boon-stripping, so it also has very nice utility. Blurred Frenzy, your 2 skill, is a 2.5 second evade that applies good damage. This is a huge deal, since it means you can avoid wasting time dodging. All the builds I describe below have Blade Training (4 in Dueling) so the cool down on it is super fast.

Offhand sword is your main offhand weapon. The Phantasmal Swordsman, sword 5, is far and away the best phantasm we have— the DPS is much higher than any other. The block on sword 4 (Illusionary Riposte) is also super useful— it does large damage and summons a clone (but this can overwrite a phantasm, so be careful!).

Offhand focus is the other offhand weapon for most situations. The Phantasmal Warden, focus 5, is your main AoE phantasm, and does respectable damage. When traited with Inspiration VIII, both the focus 4 (Temporal Curtain) and Warden skills provide reflection. They are both sometimes inconsistent because of bugs (Curtain reflects only low-flying projectiles and Warden can sometimes forget to spin). The Temporal Curtain can also be used as a pull, and in fact is one of the nicer and more reliable pulls in the game. In many situations, even if you don’t really need the Warden, you’ll want focus for this pull.

Offhand pistol is your other offhand weapon. The Phantasmal Duelist, pistol 4, is higher DPS than the Warden, but lower than Swordsman. If you don’t need the pull or Warden AoE from the focus, you can swap in the pistol for higher single-target DPS. In addition, you can drop Duelists at 1200 range, which is often far enough that they are never in danger from AoEs in battles and can therefore live longer. The stun on pistol 5 is moderately useful, especially if you need to burn off Defiant stacks from bosses.

Mesmer DPS is split between two sources: phantasm and personal. In most situations, the split is about 50/50 (assuming you have 3 phantasms out). Depending on the traits you take, this splits towards more personal or more phantasm DPS.

Note that anything that says “+X% Damage” does not apply to phantasms— only your personal DPS. Conversely, things which say “+Y% Phantasm Damage” obviously only apply to phantasms.

Which is better? Like everything else, it depends. Personally, I prefer personal DPS— it doesn’t go down if my phantasms die, or if I don’t have time to summon them. There is one situation in particular where the personal modifiers are very important, and this is your Feedback damage.

The mesmer utility Feedback creates a big bubble which reflects everything it touches (any projectiles inside going out, outside coming in, or just moving inside). Reflect damage does not scale with power, but it does scale with critical chance and critical damage and personal modifiers. This damage can be truly, truly insane, and far out-strip your phantasms and personal damage from weapons. With a full set of damage modifiers from gear + traits, a mesmer can, for example, deal about 3/4 of Lupicus’s health in one hit (skipping phase 2 and phase 3 entirely). Given that this damage far outshines everything else, and can only be improved only with personal DPS modifiers, people often favor those.

Reflections are great— they provide excellent defense for your group, and offense at the same time. However, some projectiles in the game are marked as unreflectable: these end up going right through reflections, so you and your team take damage and you deal no damage yourself. However, these same attacks are more often than not still blockable: projectile blocking skills will eat them up. You don’t get any additional damage from this, but your team gets protected from the damage entirely. It turns out the Illusionary Warden, without the VIII in Inspiration, does exactly this.

The classic example of this is Old Tom in the Uncategorized Fractal. His projectiles are all unreflectable, so you can’t actually kill him with a well-placed feedback. However, the projectiles are all blockable. The job of a mesmer in this encounter is to 1) Summon Warden 2) Use signet heal 3) Summon Warden 4) Win. With two Wardens and the Illusion X trait (Phantasmal Haste) you can apply 100% projectile blocking uptime (and you can always summon a third if the timing of the spins is off). The Old Tom encounter becomes much easier with this strategy, since you are able to completely block his main attacks for your entire party— it’s like a 100% uptime Aegis, and only Mesmers can apply it.

Where is this useful? Basically, anywhere you want to reflect, but notice that projectiles are still damaging you. Here’s a partial list from Sandy:

Sandy

Rabso, shogoroth arah, ta worms or w/e, Mai trin unblockable projectiles, Hunter crushed arah, subject alpha, alphard, deadeyes in arah, subject 6 fractals, belka ofc, probably ice elemental source in snowblind, some other dudes anywhere you’d like to reflect but can’t.

Before we get started, we should make clear what your job as a mesmer is in dungeons. In particular, you can ask yourself “why would my party want my mesmer, instead of someone else’s class X?” The answer to this will help you to understand what you bring to the table, and what you should be providing to your group. In no particular order, the unique qualities of the mesmer are:

1. Solid DPS in long fights (where the phantasm ramp-up is more negligible)
2. Full reflection uptime
3. Super high reflect damage with Feedback
4. Very good boon-stripping
5. Very good condition-cleanse
6. Easy access to many stuns/pulls/etc.
7. Portal

These are your responsibilities as the mesmer in your party. If the group needs reflects, you better be ready to provide them. If there’s lots of conditions flying around, you’ll be expected to help clear them. If the enemies (like Dredge) have tons of annoying boons like protection, you have to remove them. The builds I’ll outline below each excel at various combinations of the above points.

There are some more, very well organized, thoughts on these points from Chaos here .

virq.4605:

Something like this? http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhEQRAsc8dnsISRaWiGWpB1aGR1QQZ30kOQiIlsTJA-TBCBwAGV+hd/Bcq/A4kAkS/wDzfZUCG4JAQGg8tA-e

Ofc switch to 6/4/0/4/0 when needed (no idea when and where but still :P). Sigils are just example, iam still not sure what to choose. Also iam not sure about 3 mantras (12% dmg from trait, as far as i can read its not buffing illusions).

More or less this, yes. I’m almost done with my Long Post About Everything, which will go into detail on why (and where) you want Mantras.

virq.4605:

Maxinion would you make and post gw2skills build here? I used to play pvp/wvw only i don’t even know what gear should i use.

Also, same build for dungeons and fractals? what about agony resist on fractals 20+.

I’ll make a dedicated post later tonight with all of the builds laid out.

Fractal builds are the same as dungeon builds. Just slowly gather ascended equipment and drop in Versatile Infusions to get +5 AR per piece. Trinkets are a good place to start, since you want pure zerker there no matter what (no ascended assassin’s option).

Vicious.4381:

maxinion.8396:

No— 3 total of anything. So 1 clone, 1 swordsman, 1 warden. Or 2 swordsman and 1 warden. Etc.

This is why Phantasmal Defender/ Disenchanter is a large DPS loss— you give up one of your three slots for DPS, and in most situations it’s not worth it.

Oh sweet, thanks for clarifying! That makes total sense. Gotcha.
So it seems like the optimal DPS is keep all 3 phantasm up at all times and in the mean time auto attack for dmg, #2 for dodge if needed, and refresh phantasm if any are killed. I learned so much today

That’s correct, yup. Something like warden-swordsman-signet-swordsman gets you your three phantasms out quickly, and then auto-attack, evade, and re-summon as necessary.

One other thing to keep in mind: once you have three phantasms out, clones can overwrite them, causing a DPS loss. So don’t use sword 3 once your phantasms out, and be careful with sword 4. On the other hand, if you have Compounding Power (III in Illusions), it always behooves you to have as many illusions out as possible— so if you can’t get 3 phantasms, get clones out instead. When summoning phantasms after that, they’ll preferentially replace the clones and keep your DPS high.

For what it’s worth, my only fractal skin has been post-fractured, on a 19.

Vicious.4381:

Carighan.6758:

It “depends”?

I would say that recasting any Phantasm while you already have 3 up is a waste.

I am kind of lost at this statement. How can I have 3 phantoms? Does that mean I can actually have more than 1 type of phantoms and 3 is the max?

Yup. You can have three swordsmen up.[/quote]

Oh wow AND 3 wardens total of 6 phantasm? I never knew…
[/quote]

No— 3 total of anything. So 1 clone, 1 swordsman, 1 warden. Or 2 swordsman and 1 warden. Etc.

This is why Phantasmal Defender/ Disenchanter is a large DPS loss— you give up one of your three slots for DPS, and in most situations it’s not worth it.

Vicious.4381:

Thank you for your detailed response! Your feedback made sense, in that it is not necessary to recast the phantoms as long as their alive. I thought by spaming the phantoms I was doing more damage (since they attack immediately upon cast).

Carighan.6758:

It “depends”?

I would say that recasting any Phantasm while you already have 3 up is a waste.

I am kind of lost at this statement. How can I have 3 phantoms? Does that mean I can actually have more than 1 type of phantoms and 3 is the max?

Yup. You can have three swordsmen up.

6/4/0/4/0 if you need warden reflects.

6/4/0/0/4 if not.

2/4/0/4/4 or 2/4/0/5/3 if you can’t use mantras.

Switch it up between these depending on the encounter.

Kick them, for sure. No mercy.

(Though honestly I’ve had a great deal of fun lately joining groups like this with my meta builds and carrying hard. I never ever complain about anything and follow the group in stacking or not if I do this though.)

Pyroathiest.4168:

Mesmer didn’t get any significant nerfs, we just got nothing good. No new worthwhile traits, only 1 significant bugfix out of the many we were promised…

We did get the Empowering Mantras switch, which was a pretty big hit to the most effective PvE builds. There are workarounds now, so it’s not a huge hit, but it was still not great.

I don’t think it made the class very much worse than it already was in comparison to others, though.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

Hi, I’m back from the shadows again. I had a post prepared, and in the middle of typing it, I figured out how to solve the problem. Basically, the meta is about to change, and Guang is right.

I’m personally choosing Berserker, for what it’s worth, because I’m betting it will be more resilient to changes in the game from ANet than Assassin’s. And I would really hate to remake it.

I think that the consensus is: assassin’s weapons + armor, zerker trinkets.

If you’re stacking, you can get away with zerker weapons + armor and use perception stacks, and that will be good as well. But given the inconsistency of stacking (and the fact that the underwater weapons might be “fixed” at some point), it might not be good to rely on this.

deSade.9437:

Lucas.9157:

maxinion.8396:

GS shatter specs or fun things like that.

GS is actually good in duelist spec, where you tank several hits then strike the vulnerability.

Well, I can’t say this is off-topic, uhn.

I was about to say…