Mesmer Discussion Thread

[Durzlla]

I didn't mean to criticise your build since you didn't ask for it. I just wanted to sort of push through a pet peeve of mine that all skills be it weaponskills or utility skills, should be adjusted to the fight, I chose a hands on approach since the rest of our utility skills are identical.

Eh, i personally prefer to build to not switch, makes the skills i do use stronger. That being said though, the build i made specializes in so many skills switching would actually be pretty easy to do.

[nightshark]

Thanks guys. I geared up in exotic berserkers, still using the masterwork berserkers jewelry. I bought the altruism runes for the meantime (thanks for the suggestion) simply due to them being cheap, while I decide which I'd rather go with.

Done a few dungeons and have tripped up a few times but am getting used to what I'm supposed to do and NOT supposed to do now. Trying out these builds and they are giving me a great baseline to figure out the class. Playing around with all the utilities, I am the type of player that swaps them around a lot depending on the situation

[dank75]

I have mainly power, precision and crit (berserker's exalted set). what would be the ideal weapon choices to go along w/ this set? for wvw and pve......

Thanks in advance!

DK

[Tradewind]

I have mainly power, precision and crit (berserker's exalted set). what would be the ideal weapon choices to go along w/ this set? for wvw and pve......

Thanks in advance!

DK

Probably Greatsword since your condition damage is going to be shit.

[dank75]

I've tried every weapon combo while leveling, etc. So, it wouldn't bother me to switch to any of the weapons if i had to. this obviously is not the set i should be wearing as a mesmer, should i keep a few of the pieces and mix in pieces from another set to balance it? one's w/ more condition damage etc?

[Kelesti]

Greatsword is an instant "hi", as is sword/X, where X is either pistol or a second sword depending on your circumstances (offhand sword scales better with power, pistol would want a bit of condition damage for more pressure), your survivability etc.

The Staff and the Scepter are weapons that need both Power and Condition damage to do their job right.

---------- Post added 2013-01-02 at 01:45 PM ----------

I've tried every weapon combo while leveling, etc. So, it wouldn't bother me to switch to any of the weapons if i had to. this obviously is not the set i should be wearing as a mesmer, should i keep a few of the pieces and mix in pieces from another set to balance it? one's w/ more condition damage etc?

I had full Knight's gear (Toughness primary, power/precision) with Emeralds and was sporting Sword/Sword for the longest time and using a very heavy survival build that was utilizing high uptime of Protection via Illusionary Membrane to keep myself going 3v1 for quite awhile.

Power/Precision/Crit Damage is one that works well for pure offensive pressure. But you need a Greatsword->Sword/X combo to pull it off, and you have to be quick on your feet or you're going to get splatted without the ability to bunker down. And people do it, they do it well. It's totally a set worth wearing as a Mesmer, I can promise you that.

[dank75]

i was using scepter/pistol with a staff before i got the set. i felt i was doing ok in WVW, decent damage and good survivability. i wanted to do more damage, 'tis why i got the set. i guess i'm going to have to completely change my play style to use this, which i'm willing to do. should be fun. so GS, with sword/pistol is ok?

[Kelesti]

GS -> Sword/Pistol is more than okay. It's quite common and very well rounded. I myself just prefer the second sword. I do hope you enjoy it.

[Meledelion]

gs, sword pistol is awesome for two reasons. Iduelest combines really well with the range req on GS and Izerker works well with sword so if you'd look at bosses being 100%melee friendy---->50/50 melee/ranged<----100%ranged friendly you've always got a great set. Personally I prefer being in melee so I usually use my sword/pistol

[Tradewind]

sword is fun for blurred frenzy, but for WvW Staff is where the party is.

[dank75]

I'll have to mess around with different variations i guess. don't want to be too squishy in WvW!

[Kelesti]

sword is fun for blurred frenzy, but for WvW Staff is where the party is.

If Chaos Storm actually did decent damage or had a much lower cooldown, I might be inclined to agree with you.

I enjoyed using Staff to bunker, but it just didn't have enough presence on its own to hold up.

[Tradewind]

If Chaos Storm actually did decent damage or had a much lower cooldown, I might be inclined to agree with you.

I enjoyed using Staff to bunker, but it just didn't have enough presence on its own to hold up.

Don't forget Winds of Chaos and Elasticity. You also need to have condition damage to make it more worthwhile.

[Meledelion]

Zomg, Kelesti we seem to be agreeing on quite a few things today

The issue with cond dmg for mes is that they don't have good ways of applying them. The randomness of staff is anoying, for bleeds you can grab the trait but illusions attack too slow (you sort of need iDuelist for this).

[Kelesti]

Don't forget Winds of Chaos and Elasticity. You also need to have condition damage to make it more worthwhile.

As a cleave, meh. Sword's 1-chain does a better job of cleaving targets down. As for an actual ground based area effect, Mesmers are lacking in denial when compared to a guardian, or lacking in actual damage when you look at Elementalists, or other effects from Necromancers (or more eles), or Rangers.

When it comes to actual Area Effect damage and not a cleave, Chaos Storm is all we have, and it alone is too weak to justify it.


When you look at the other strengths of the staff it's how defensive it is, because offensively, your Phantasm doesn't scale with Condition damage (only power), the purple blurb has no Condition damage scaling (only power), your clones have zero power scaling but have a chance to apply a single bleed for condition damage, or a single second of fire maaaaybe, but are much more likely to throw up a single stack of vulnerability for you.

If Vulnerability was replaced with Confusion, maybe I'd feel different. For Confusion to be the condition that Mesmers were talked about, it feels so weird with how few ways we actually can make use of it.

Staff itself is too middle-ground to be effective offensively at pretty much anything. It's amazing as a defensive one though, second to none.

[Tradewind]

I think it's just a difference in playstyle now though, in WvW I tend to be more of a pest and Winds/Storm does that pretty well, breaking up a zerg or forcing people out of healing zones as well as extending existing conditions, because lets face it in a zerg vs zerg you're not going to be controlling your conditions anyway, but being able to add duration to your own or teammates is beneficial. If I want to do actual direct damage to a person I switch to my GS.

[Kelesti]

Ah, yes. I personally hated zerg playstyle. I have extremely little to provide in either seige or defense, and would rather be in a small group taking supply camps, butchering Caravans, or effectively locking down and murdering people as they try to run into that tower that my team's zerg is working on.

Or the scout that's off in the middle of BFE being the eyes for your trebs as they start lining up the shots. I can't stand zerg warfare in the least, and my presence there does not make/break much at all. And being useful outside of them, to me, felt much more important than just riding the karma train with them.


But that is completely me, I can't speak for anyone else at all.

[Thelxi]

I have mainly power, precision and crit (berserker's exalted set). what would be the ideal weapon choices to go along w/ this set? for wvw and pve......

Thanks in advance!

DK

GS is our best scaling weapon with P/Pr/%. You will get most dps out of your gear while being relatively safe.


As for secondary weapons, MH sword is the obvious choice, especially for PvP because of the root and 2 second distortion on sword2.

However many people always claim sword cleave is great, but it is not. It only cleaves 3 targets MAX every 2 out 3 swings. The 3rd swing is single target damage. Sword also doesn't scale nearly as well as other professions' melee weapons like warrior GS.

What this means is that you put your light armor glass cannon geared ass in melee, for mediocre 2.5 target cleave damage. The burst on sword2 is also not comparable to melee cleave burst other professions are capable of without having the same risk factor, and also has a 3target cap. (Many melee aoe's have 5target caps)


Having said that, especially for pvp sword is a good choice. Offhand doesn't really matter too much, except for pistol's CC in PvP. Focus for swiftness if you hate moving slower than everyone else is fine too.

Staff works with a GS as well, as a defensive weapon swap, while still providing great support and decent damage. Illusionary Elasticity has great synergy with both weapons as well.

Staff works with MH sword/pistol too. It is perfect for safely setting up shatters for crazy good burst in PvP. You will be gimping your team in PvE with this build though.

[dank75]

GS is our best scaling weapon with P/Pr/%. You will get most dps out of your gear while being relatively safe.


As for secondary weapons, MH sword is the obvious choice, especially for PvP because of the root and 2 second distortion on sword2.

However many people always claim sword cleave is great, but it is not. It only cleaves 3 targets MAX every 2 out 3 swings. The 3rd swing is single target damage. Sword also doesn't scale nearly as well as other professions' melee weapons like warrior GS.

What this means is that you put your light armor glass cannon geared ass in melee, for mediocre 2.5 target cleave damage. The burst on sword2 is also not comparable to melee cleave burst other professions are capable of without having the same risk factor, and also has a 3target cap. (Many melee aoe's have 5target caps)


Having said that, especially for pvp sword is a good choice. Offhand doesn't really matter too much, except for pistol's CC in PvP. Focus for swiftness if you hate moving slower than everyone else is fine too.

Staff works with a GS as well, as a defensive weapon swap, while still providing great support and decent damage. Illusionary Elasticity has great synergy with both weapons as well.

Staff works with MH sword/pistol too. It is perfect for safely setting up shatters for crazy good burst in PvP. You will be gimping your team in PvE with this build though.

Good info Thelxi. Thanks everyone. will try a few of these for sure. I like the staff for the "get the F* out of dodge" factor. i just need to find a good GS now!! is there a sick one i should be focusing on?

[Meledelion]

Any berserker one will do (power/prec/crit)