Hello, folks! As WoW has been giving me connection/latency woes lately, I decided to finally shell out the money, buy Guild Wars 2 and give it an honest spin. It looks like a very interesting game so far, and I've been trying out different ranged classes (can't play melee worth a damn) to see what would be more my style.
The Mesmer really caught my eye, as I like the idea of debuffing enemies and using temporary summons as distractions, but I hit a bit of snag. I just can't seem to kill stuff at my own level without my health dropping like a rock. I mean, one of the hyenas in the Charr starting area brings me down to half health before I manage to take them down. If two gang up on me for whatever reason, I usually find myself on the floor. I simply can't do enough damage quickly enough, since my own skills don't really add up to much and my clones/phantasms do close to zero damage. Meanwhile, my Ranger can take down three mobs at once and neither him nor his pet go below 70% health.
Sure, I'm still at level 4 and from what I read Mesmers are very much viable higher up, but it's kind of disheartening to see your early game go that badly. Is there anything I should be doing that's not immediately obvious? Is it meant to be like that and I should just grin and bear it until I reach a certain level? If yes, what would that level be?