Guild Wars 2

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Looking for PvE help? Check my signature (newest guide at the bottom)

Seriously, take a look at his guide and his d/f rotation video. These two guides will help you so much. I hated focus for a long time, never got the hang of it until I found his youtube video. Now it’s my favorite weapon set!

Elementalist is a very fluid profession, meaning how we rotate our skills is based off what is happening that moment. It’s one that you have to be open to changes and not be set in a ‘Press 1, press 4, press 5, press 3’ rise and repeat sort of cycle. You have a lot of skills to remember and some will be more useful to save during a certain part of an encounter. Some skills will do damage but will also reflect, so spamming those off cooldown won’t be a smart use of skills, and neither will just going from F1-F4. You have to know what the skills do and know when to properly use them. There is optimal usage of skills, just look at Zelyhn’s video, but don’t get stuck in only knowing that routine. Learn it but also keep in mind that you will have to change it up and don’t get stuck because of it.

Find a might stacking video as well, or you can PM me in game. I have taught many of my guild members/people I find struggling while standing in LA how to properly might stack with anything from a scepter/focus to d/d. It’s simple once you know the rotation, but it’s something vital to know before you go taking your ele off to a dungeon or fractal or whatever really.

When it comes to level 80 gear, zerk is the most efficient but you will die, and a lot. Good news is, your party expects it, so don’t feel bad when it happens. You will get the hang of being super squishy. As for runes, most either go Scholar or Strength runes…for obvious reasons. The Flame Legion ones will work as well, if you don’t have the gold for the more expensive ones.

Just take your ele out and play it. You’ll get the hang of it and you will die a bit. It’s part of being an ele

My first 80 was a mesmer, granted this was pre-the-horrible-new-leveling-system, but it was still a bit painful. Mesmer is a profession can’t roll in expecting to facetank things. This is not your warrior. While you do have stealth, you won’t be stealth ganking things as a Mesmer. This is not your Thief. So try to forget those professions while you level one or you will be disappointed. This is going to be a bit long…so bare with me here.

Staff, while not being a high damage dealer, as a lot of escape and kiting abilities and staff 5 helps with groups of mobs you happen to be murdering at the time. I preferred it over GS while I leveled, because it took care of groups…the GS takes care of single targets and the closer that targets gets to you, the less effective it is. The worst infraction to me is seeing a GS AA laser-beaming Mesmer in my dungeon parties, where that’s all they do…just spam away, never switching to the far more useful sword.

Moving onto sword, learn this weapon. Love this weapon! If you trait for it it by going down the precision line, you will have a weapon that gives you a 2 and half second evade every 9 and half seconds with sword 2. Do not spam this attack! Your AA does about the same amount of damage (while applying vulnerability and stripping a boon), so using sword 2 constantly will only make you miss the large attacks it’s meant to save you from. You will also get a leap with sword 2, your clone appears at the target and you can use 2 again to port yourself over there (so long as the clone stays alive). Pair this with a focus and you will have the perfect Mesmer weapon set.

Focus, oh how I love my focus! It can do so many things with one skill. It can pull things into your warden’s attack, it can cripple enemies who pass over it., it can shove things into your groups stacking point, it can be traited to reflect projectiles, it gives swiftness, and it’s a light field (though I think it really should be an Ethereal). The warden is a little kitten y with it’s attacks but it’s a solid phantom. It naturally comes with projectile absorption and can be traited to reflect them as well.

Sword off hand is another good option (and one to use if you don’t need ranged attacks, so replacing your staff or GS with sw/sw is great). It has a block and will produce a clone if struck while blocking. It also has a daze if you choose to use it before blocking an attack, this can be useful for bosses and defiance removal. The phantom has a natural leap combo finisher and will move in and out of combat, so it will survive longer than the melee phantoms.

As for the other weapon sets (this is coming from a PvE player as I don’t PvP at all)…I personally hate scepter with it’s slow AA chain and it’s easy ability to overwrite a phantom. I am not a fan of pistol, though I can see how a phantom being placed far enough away it won’t get one shot with an AOE. I don’t use torch much, it’s phantom is a joke, though it sees some use with Arah and skips.

Shatters are the main mechanic. F1 will move your illusions to the target they are currently attacking and do a small AOE damage burst. Depending on your build, this is usually used at the end of a fight or you just constantly produce them to shatter them. F2 is a stacking confusion one, you won’t see much use for this really. F3 is a dazing shatter, but warning…if you have all melee illusions it will only produce one daze. It’s a stacking sort of thing, so if you have a ranged, and a melee the melee will shatter first while the ranged in still running in, giving you two dazes. It’s good for defiance if your group needs help with it. F4 is your distortion, for each illusion shattered you will get 1 sec of full evasion for attacks. You must have a clone up (or have Illusionary Persona, the GM trait) in order gain the distortion.

Basically, try not to compare this profession with your previous two. You will die a lot, as you are not used to having a caster running around in their pajamas. Learn your sword and find an off hand you like using to pair with it. If you are running dungeons, use a GS as your secondary (as most groups prefer damage over utility, which is what the staff is). Learn how to use your shatters. Mesmer is seriously fun if you give it a chance.

I like the magician’s leggings. Maybe those? The starter legs are a bit…much.

If you equip an offhand sword, like on a Mesmer, you will need to have two different swords in your inventory. You equip the main set, say a sword/focus, and then in your inventory you right click the other sword and set it to equip in off hand. This will dump a copy of your mainhand sword into the secondary slot and fill the offhand with your other sword.

Well guess I won’t be worrying about leveling up my guardian any time soon.

You can place it on yourself now…if you point the camera down and take a step back before casting and move forward. It’s a bit like the Ele trick for landing Dragon tooth for might stacking. You will end up inside the bubble.

Well in WvW it’s easier to place a feedback by targeting the offending ranger/projectile user on walls than to have to hand place it, and sometimes that extra second saves lives. Though I would love to have the option of both, being able to insta-place and be able to target it when I wanted.

Dunno how they expect people to use conjures if they are going to nerf them into the ground. Gonna miss my ice bow

Hmm I dunno I solo champs pretty easily on my Mesmer? Just don’t use GS attacks, use a staff for kiting. Have to learn to use other weapons beyond the laser beam

I have 2 of ele, mesmer, thief, ranger. I happen to like playing Asura and Humans…can’t decide which I like better at any given time so it was easier to just make both races.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

IMO, don’t waste your time and resources on Ascended Weapons. Make Ascended Armor but not weapon…make Legendary Weapon instead. It is better for you in the long run.

Whoa don’t listen to this guy. Ascended weapons over armor any day, all day. You gain far more when crafting a weapon. Legendaries aren’t the way to go, you will always use zerk so there is no point in getting them for the stat change. Ascended and Legendaries have the same stats…just Legendary is a shiney look at me skin.

If you already have your dagger made, and making SB now…I’d say pick up the pistol next. It’s an always useful offhand. Then you can go to the sword. Dagger is a fine mainhand, more so now that it cleaves. Sword still will hit more, but I’d still say get the pistol.

There’s a problem with only giving us a mainhand. We’d be left without a new phantom. Our phantoms come from the longer cooldown side of the weapon skill number set. That’s why we have so many offhands.

A two handed weapon would have been nice to have but I can’t see only getting a main handed pistol as being something of any note worthy addition.

Behellagh.1468:

I have both. Thief is more melee, Mesmer more range, as you would expect. I think a Thief is more “fun” to play. YMMV.

I dunno what kind of mesmer you’ve been playing but they are not ranged if you don’t want them to be. S/S and S/F is an amazing set up and you are in permanent melee with. GS is the only real weapon that lends itself to being ranged because the AA says the further away you are, the more damage you do. Staff and Scepter perform better the closer you are to your target, as the bounces/projectiles get to the target quicker; the staff ones especially as the bounces happen a lot faster.

Maybe you prefer to play one of those AA GS mesmers but not all of us do. I love my melee mesemer and I die waaay less than on my thief when in dungeons because the mesmer has so much damage mitigation it’s not funny. If it had to pick, I’d take my mesmer over my thief any day.

I am pretty sure they said it reflected projectiles today?

The reflect he was talking about was from the Shield 5 skill, that wall that goes out and comes back.

I am pretty sure when he pulled up the utility bar, he could still pick any other skills a mesmer normally has access to.

Hmm…now that I look at it, I kinda like the Wintersday one too. It’s a pretty shield…and not too expensive right now either. Dunno if I like that Tormented one enough to get the skin

What to get…what to get…

The grandmaster trait they described is awesome though! You summon phantoms with a butterfly affect around them and when you shatter, they reappear (sans butterflies). So each of your phantoms get an extra life…

Leonhardt.8164:

wtf lol whisperblade is perfect, simple yet flashy, its the perfect mesmer weapon, if you arent using any of the ecto weapons, than you are seriously playing mesmer wrong, i dont respect any mesmer who arent using those weapons, its the only weapons that fit a mesmer, anything else is bad and ugly

I can’t see making/buying the Wall of the Mists though. It’s not a nice looking skin, I wish they had used a prettier base skin for it! The spikes and crud don’t appeal to me…so I might have to stick with a tormented shield because it’s the only other purple one.

Or I might make that violet colored ascended one for the skin, it’s fairly nice too. I have the white and gold one and it’s lovely…may just use it.

I love whisperblade and vision of the mists though, and the anomaly of course. Heck I even made the trident Mirage because I love that set

Oh right! if I can get my hands on the fractal shield, all will be well. I love that thing but man the RNG hates me

I own the Cat Tonic, though I don’t know about the birthday blaster part? But it forces your pet off the screen and you can take damage while in the tonic. You can even use it while in the middle of combat…only drawback is it costs 100 laurels.

At least you know where you stand with your puppetmaster. Ours is rather cruel and pig headed; after almost two years, she still can’t decide on one of us to be the Favorite. Right now it’s little Asura mesmer, mostly because she is too cute for her own good. She says she is waiting to see what this new ‘Specialization’ to figure it out, but we all doubt it. She’ll go right along, swapping pretty trinkets among all of us…making some of us stand around naked under our ‘outfits’ while another gets to wear the shiney armor. She even has two of some of us, just to have one a Human (to use as a dress up doll, she says Humans have the best clothes) and some are Asura because she thinks they are cute.

I really wish the Wall of the Mists was based of a more elegant looking shield. I don’t want spikes and a basic looking shield just because it’s purple and misty

I’ve been considering the Lovestruck shield, as it’s lower in price now or the tormented one because it’s purple.

First of all, they aren’t races, they are professions. Secondly, you do have a swap but its the f1-4 skills, giving the ele 20 different skills to use on top of their utilities. If they were given weapon swap, that would be 40 different ones. So no.

Ooooh new toys to play with! So excited for this

Nope. Please for the love of my mesmer don’t make it baseline, having IP is the best choice! I don’t want to have to watch my dodges to make sure I don’t overwrite my own damage by overwritting a phantom with a clone. No thank you…let me dodge when I need to!

IP as default…best day ever! No more having to go down a full line for that awesome trait…my mesmer wants to squee with joy

Butterflies…need I say more?

I think the profession appeals to me because of it’s uniqueness, no other game (except GW1) has anything like a mesmer. I love the clone mechanic, even if it is a bit clunky and borked. I’d love it more if my clones/phantoms didn’t die from an enemy looking at them but still, I really do enjoy the playstyle. It lets you think about positioning and situational awareness. You find yourself thinking in triangles and using geometry! I watch the super awesome mesmers on youtube and they just amaze me with what they can do with this profession.

I love all the blocks, reflects, and ways it has for mitigating damage. I stay alive a lot more on my mesmer than say on my Ele (though this might be because mesmer was my first loved profession in the game). I like knowing I have a back up dodge in case things go wrong with sword 2. I wish I could work IP into my build so I could use f4 without clones but it’s nice having it when they are up.

Plus purple…I just love purple

tobascodagama.2961:

IP is always beneficial, DE sometimes overwrites phantasms. Unless clones stop overwriting phantasms, that makes IP the trait that would be a no-brainer in every build, while DE is actually a little bit situational. (Even if that “situation” is most of the game outside of dungeons.)

This. I would hate for my needed dodges in a dungeon to overwrite my phantoms. IP is useful in ALL forms of play…DE is really only useful for a shatter mesmer in certain areas of the game, well maybe other specs too but I found it to be sort of annoying to have to watch my dodges to not overwrite my heavy hitters. If they stop making clones overwrite, then DE would be a lot more useful.

I like the IP trait more than DE, but I PvE and DE can get me into trouble. I’d like to see IP added as a mesmer innate ability over DE.

I have both. There is no harm in leveling a human, I honestly like the Asura animations a lot more though. I find the human ones so boring. Also, when I spin my Asura in place the hoofprints of Dreamer follow, they don’t do this with humans. <—— This is super important to me…dunno why but it is.

MindWipe.3028:

If I where you, I would move on from pve. It wont challenge you at all and you will never get better in skill level. Try going into pvp or wvw so you can really see what builds are good and fun. You are probably board of backstab because npcs don’t try to counter it so its easy and pointless. In wvw you will find people that know how to fight someone that backstabs and force you to find better ways to fight them.

I swear to dog, this is the reason why I hate these forums so much. A poster asks specifically about PvE and here comes the holy than thou PvP crowd to rush in on their high horse about how much better they are because they PvP.

If you have nothing to say about the OP post…don’t kitten say anything.

As much as I love S/P, I tend to prefer D/P. I know sword AA cleaves 3 and 2 helps with condi (lord knows condi eats most PvE thieves alive), but dagger gives me heartseeker for a quick stealth if I need it and Shadowshot helps a lot when I get knocked back for returning to the target and another blind. It’s really hard for me to choose what to take in a dungeon, and weapon swapping isn’t an easy past time for me…so I tend to stick with dagger as I am way more familiar with the D/P set up. Nothing like expecting a heartseeker only to remember it’s a sword LOL

nesh.7234:

Well HoT new non tradeable legendary may pull me enough to start working on one provided that they set it so everything related to them is not tradeable too.

There is no point (for me) to get one while they are just measure of farming/wallet. If they put it behind a lot of hard content (mandatory dungeons and WWW should included too, but most important part should be done solo) then I may be interested again.

While I agree completely that legendaries should not be able to be sold on the TP, having one now shouldn’t be frowned upon. A lot of players did make them rather than buying them so they aren’t exactly a wallet size indicator. I put myself in the poor house crafting Dreamer, so try not to look down on everyone who is using an old legendary.

Sebrent.3625:

Future plans:

• Beg ArenaNet to give Mesmers access to shortbow
• Get The Dreamer
• Blow people’s minds with Butterflies and Unicorns.

I’ll join for that. I dunno why they haven’t given mesmers shortbows yet. I’d kill to have one on mine…kitten, I’d kill to have my Dreamer on ALL of my characters.

For the record, get Dreamer anyway…it’s worth it even if you don’t main a ranger or a thief. That bow is amazing and the hoofprints, I’ve had mine for half a year now and I still love those stupid things. I just like wandering around watching them slowly disappear. Now if only people would stop calling it My Little Pony and realize it’s modeled after Robot Unicorn Attack…

Yeah basically. P/P has it’s uses but they aren’t in PvE.

S/P is a good way to go, but you will find that it can be a lot like D/D. Use skill 5 to blind and AA. Though you will use more of the skills with S/P, as skill 2 helps with conditions and 3 is a nice evade so long as you don’t use it when defiance stacks are off. It’s a bit more interactive than D/D, I will give you that. If you are dungeon running, it’s good to start off S/P and when you get to the bosses swap out to D/D so it drops faster. Or D/P will work too as you can heartseeker to get stealth for backstabbing.

Our legendaries for GW2 aren’t like other games. This isn’t much of a tiered progression game where those who can afford the best will dominate the landscape. This is the problem with your idea, you would NEED a legendary to be able to compete with others, thus making them more common than a standard skin. GW2 is a game based around skins and I like that you don’t need to have a weapon to be able to be proficient in the game. If you like the skin/footfalls you get the legendary but you aren’t forced into it.

S/P is part of the meta for trash mobs but you can’t beat D/D for single target massacring. Please, for the love of your future groups, don’t bring P/P into a PvE dungeon/fractal. If you are on your own, by all means…use whatever you like but P/P will end up wiping you over and over because you lack the evades of S/D or the ability to stealth on demand of D/D or S/D. Unload is a meh skill that is fun to look at but not so fun for your party members when you are only helping at killing one thing at a time.

S/P is a fun build and very useful for clearing lots of mobs and giving your party a nice constant source of blinds. It also gives Pistol Whip, which not only clears defiance, but also gives you a nice evade on demand. S/D is very mobile and a good source of evades as well but it lacks the defiance removal and the single target killing power of D/D.

SB is your best friend for your secondary…don’t replace it!

I was considering making Bifrost but when I saw it required not only 750 crystalline dust but also Arah tokens…I noped out. Thinking of making Quip for my next one…so I can be super annoying to everyone around me, but waiting for the new ones to decide. I dunno what people are complaining about with Dreamer, I find the horse neighing to be soothing. That might just be because I love that stupid bow so much…

That finisher…was the first thing I have ever saw before it was released and said ‘I have to have that’.

It really was easy to make. Opals and Chrysocola are super easy to get. TA is one of the easier dungeons to run. I think the hardest part of making Dreamer was that stack of ancient wood and even then, it’s not that bad. No lodestones needed or silver doubloons, nothing super crazy hard to get.

It annoys a guild mate of mine as well, so of course I use it anytime I can get away with it. Thankfully it’s one of the few ranged weapons I can use in melee combat and no one will yell at me for doing so…except the OP’s engineer of course!

I am going to assume you are talking about light armor? If so, you will need 500 tailor. If you are crafting a medium set you need 500 leatherworker and if you are crafting heavy set you will need 500 armorsmith.

The wiki is the best place for info on this: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_armor

I find GW2 to be better than any other MMO out there for the combat alone. I cannot for the life of me return to a game where I am statically taking damage while dealing damage. I want my dodge!

The gem store is not P2W here. It’s filled with things that make you quality of life better, but it doesn’t help you in combat or help you ‘win’ the game. An outfit won’t keep you from getting killed, you will just make a better looking corpse. You can buy a permanent salvage kit so you don’t have to worry about running out. You can get tools that are forever harvesters/loggers/miners. But there are no gear helping things in the gem store. Once you get to 80, you will soon find out that half the fun of this game are the skins.

Also, take most advice here on the forums with a grain of salt. There are a lot of bitter, angry people here that can and will ruin your fun/love of this game. Try to ignore the meanness here on the forums and just enjoy the game.

Sebrent.3625:

I just hope that one day I can get a Shortbow on my Mesmer (2nd, 3rd, 4th expansion) … then I can truly emasculate anyone I kill with my Butterfly and Rainbow Unicorn tyranny! :-)

… topped off with the new Rainbow Unicorn finisher, of course

You have no idea…no idea how much I would kill to have Dreamer on my mesmer. 3 clones up spamming a pony every few seconds…talk about a real dream

But for now, my bouncing ponies will suffice. That finisher was the best thing ever!

Sebrent.3625:

The Dreamer + Thief = all you need in the world.

I like the way you think. Dreamer is partially why I love thief Sb so much

If I could main hand SB I would. I’d just like to spam my uniponies in every instance possible and forget that dagger/pistol/sword even exist.

Not going to lie, I hardly ever notice the Juggernaut at all on anyone…even the biggest of norns. Mostly because the metallic effect looks like a dye at first glance, I know it covers most everything but it still looks like a dye. It doesn’t have ostentatious footsteps either, it’s one of the more subdued legendaries.

If you want the most bang for your size, a huge norn is always the way to go.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Yep. instead of being miles behind pistol, which can be mixed with dagger.

Which is fine for your main hand set…but who slots p/p in secondary? Who would take a lousy bleed and meh spammable damage over mobility/AoE poison? Over an on demand blast finisher? Over on demand evades??? Sure the immobilize is nice to have with p/p, but if you go invisible a SB can do that too…so I fail to see how SB is miles behind p/p?

But I am completely and totally biased, as thief SB is my favorite weapon out of any available for any profession. So I am not intending on offending anyone who likes p/p…I just love my SB more.

I bought a full set…the watchwork, a log o tron and the new mad scientist harvesting one. I can’t see buying more, as I can just switch them to other characters. I did buy the watchwork one after I bought a mine o tron because the watchwork drops sprockets. That on it’s own is worth the gems.

I just used whatever I looted and bought a few power weapons from the TP. Gear choices don’t really matter until you get to 80 anyway, just try to replace armor every 10 levels or so if you can afford to.

If you are buying stat based and can go with the power stuff by all means go for it

Ah kitten it! We’re planning on moving up there but not soon enough

Ha I just noticed the emblem on it’s rump. It’s even better now!

Dreamer thieves/rangers away to murder with a herd of unicorns!

Sort of like that updo female human one…

Those female charr ones just made be laugh..and laugh and laugh and laugh.