New Player Dying Frequently

Cyninja.2954 · March 15, 2019

> @"Leablo.2651" said:

> > @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > > @"Alsandar.7420" said:

> > > So now I'm 80 and I'm running this build from metabattle https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Greatsword_Burst. I'm really struggling.

> >

> > There is a reason why that build has such a low rating. It just isn't good enough for new(er) content. I wouldn't recommend using anything with a rating below 4.7 or 4.6.

> >

> > > @"Leablo.2651" said:

> > > I don't think Metabattle builds are for soloing per se.

> >

> > Please take a thorough look at the website and educate yourself before making such claims. MetaBattle is the best resource for builds as it has _everything_; you have builds for all game modes, and they are rated for a reason. It sports the best builds for all game modes, including solo open world PvE, as well as some older builds that are niche and no longer particularly powerful (extremely old builds that no longer get the job done are being archived whenever new elite specs have been released). I have been successfully relying on MetaBattle builds for years, and so have plenty of other people.

> >

>

> Their own rating system tells us that not all of the builds they post are actually good. It seems you're the one who needs to take a more thorough look and educate yourself a bit better.

It's community rated. Doesn't change the fact that the site has a dedicated open world build section which can be immensely helpful to new players.

Unless you are ready to give a better alternative or want to share your build with people, I would refrain from calling something out which is simply not true.

The majority of open world builds on metabattle work very well and the explanations on how to play them are a good starting point.

As far as greats word Mesmer, it doesn't take a genius to realize it would be trash for PvE. Because it is, thus the low score on metabattle is justified (unless all you want to do is tag things in meta events).

Leanan.1607 · March 15, 2019

Hi, main power chrono here!

A lot of good advices have already been given, and Westenev's post is very acurate :

> @"Westenev.5289" said:

> If it helps, try to think of mesmer as a phantasm spam skill class (usually on your 4 or 5 skill). Phantasm utilities like Phantasmal Enchanter and Phantasmal defender help too. Use Signet of Ether for moar phantasm spam when everything is on cooldown.

>

> Another thing to note, it's not a good idea to think of clones as fodder like a ranger or necro does with their spirits or pets or minions. They are f skill fodder and generally should be shattered as the situation demands.

>

> Your main defense is mainhand sword 2, shield or offhand sword 4 and your f4 blurr. Your F3 is also great against breakbars or as an interupt. The feedback utility reflects most projectile targets, so is great offensively and defensively.

>

> I don't overly recommend the greatsword, since its gameplay doesn't really mesh with the sword. It feels junky and out of place with the phantasm recharge speed - you're better off using the fractal dps build and carry a greatsword for the rare times you actually need a GS (like tagging mobs while Zerging, which is probably the intended purpose of this build).

I would just add some little things :

- don't hesitate to modify your build according to the situation

- if you struggle to stay alive, [inspiration](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inspiration "https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inspiration") is your best friend. You won't be as bursty as a totaly glass canon build, but it brings very welcomed things like cleanse on shatter ([Restorative Illusions](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Restorative_Illusions "https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Restorative_Illusions") ) and various heals

If you are on a european server, we can talk more and kill some stuff together to see what I meant (english is not my mothertongue, so I may not have been very clear).

Cristalyan.5728 · March 15, 2019

> @"Alsandar.7420" said:

> You guys are gonna hate this post. I'm new. And playing Mesmer. Just that alone is a warning sign right? I leveled with a Greatsword Dom build and I really understand that rotation and that style of gameplay. I've mostly pulled 1-2 mobs and used my clones as tanks and kited them out away from other mobs. I died kinda often, but not too bad. So now I'm 80 and I'm running this build from metabattle https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Greatsword_Burst. I'm really struggling. I'm doing the POF story and it's almost impossible to avoid 7-8 mobs in the story. I just mentally can't handle it. There's so much going on and I die A LOT.

>

> Is there a build/rotation that's good for noobs with low skill cap? I'm just so slow to react, I think it's my fault. This is so much harder than WoW. I'm used to never moving (except out of ouch) and casting from a long ways away, lol. So there's a pretty big learning curve for me.

>

> If there even is a build for bad mesmers like me, can you link it and possibly explain the rotation a bit?

>

> PS - everyone told me to play Necro but everyone ALSO told me Necro players can't get groups. I really like the mesmer, it's so pretty, but maybe it's just too hard for me. I dunno.

You play a glass canon build. Bellow you have a comment form the site the build is posted:

"This build has good burst damage for farming and has the ability to fight from range with Greatsword. However, it has extremely low sustained damage, **which makes it non-ideal for soloing more difficult fights. Its personal sustain is also pretty poor."**

In my opinion, at least until you will master the mesmer, I recommend a build with more defense. If you can use the Chronomancer specialization, I suggest you to use a Sword/Shield instead of Sword/Sword. The block on shield 4 is very good in helping you to live. Also, Shield 5 is excellent (in attack and in defense too).

I prefer using the Well of Gravity as the elite, instead of Time Warp. TW is more suited for a group. Being solo it is not a great help.

Tsakhi.8124 · March 15, 2019

First of all: Welcome! <3 Glad to see ya here.

Now to the meat of the post.

Never apologize for being new, we've all been there. Also, I suggest you test things out in low-level areas before hitting the higher ones, if only because the low-level mobs are not nearly as aggressive and it'll give you time to adjust to whatever build you are trying out. I am by no means an expert mesmer, but I do know that the great sword is great for distances, but when they get all up in your face, it's not nearly as effective. I'd suggest equipping either a stave or scepter and focus. You can easily bunch the enemies up together using this method. Clump them up, use confusion to mow them down. The stave is a bit more versatile due to its ability to do chaos storms that give out debuffs and conditions with the added bonus of being an AoE that can also heal your team if they're close. I would also suggest surrounding your enemies with your clones and phantasms; doing so will help you when you explode your clones and get more enemies/allies. You may also want to team up with us if you would like and it if doesn't make you nervous. Friend me if you'd like and I'll see what I can do to help you.

Once again, welcome!

Rasimir.6239 · March 15, 2019

The thing about GW2 combat is that build and rotation only get you so far. Knowing what your class/build is about and reaction appropriately is a lot more important, and that is something no metabattle or any other build site can teach you.

Personally I love playing mesmer and play a variety of content with class cannon mesmer builds (both power and condition) successfully. I need to pay attention and stay on top of my game with any of my mesmers though, or they'll be dead in a blink. Knowing when to use defensive skills (sword #2, F4) and how to get a little breathing room (pushing enemies away with greatsword #4, dazing them with F3) is very important on those characters.

If you are learning to play mesmer, try to adjust that build to be a bit more defensive. Take Deceptive Evasion instead of Superiority Complex as grandmaster trait in the Dueling traitline for an extra clone on dodge. Desperate Decoy instead of Phantasmal Fury is also good to give you a bit of time to react/reposition when things get tough. Get some defensive trinkets to give you a bit more vitality and toughness so you can learn the enemies and their attacks to know when to use what ability to get out of their damage. In general, full damage glass canon builds are good in this game once you know what you face and what tools you have to face it, but for learning going a bit more defensively is always a good idea.

One more thing to note: mesmer greatsword damage decreases dramatically if you are close to the enemy. Check your autoattack tooltip, and you will find that you lose almost a third of the greatsword damage if you are next to the enemy instead of max range. As such, I often play sword/sword and sword/focus in story instances unless I know there's a fight coming up where I want to be in max range most of the time. Take inspiration traitline instead of domination in that case to lower focus skill recharge and get some extra reflect oportunities.

Arzurag.7506 · March 15, 2019

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > @"Leablo.2651" said:

> > > @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > > > @"Alsandar.7420" said:

> > > > So now I'm 80 and I'm running this build from metabattle https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Greatsword_Burst. I'm really struggling.

> > >

> > > There is a reason why that build has such a low rating. It just isn't good enough for new(er) content. I wouldn't recommend using anything with a rating below 4.7 or 4.6.

> > >

> > > > @"Leablo.2651" said:

> > > > I don't think Metabattle builds are for soloing per se.

> > >

> > > Please take a thorough look at the website and educate yourself before making such claims. MetaBattle is the best resource for builds as it has _everything_; you have builds for all game modes, and they are rated for a reason. It sports the best builds for all game modes, including solo open world PvE, as well as some older builds that are niche and no longer particularly powerful (extremely old builds that no longer get the job done are being archived whenever new elite specs have been released). I have been successfully relying on MetaBattle builds for years, and so have plenty of other people.

> > >

> >

> > Their own rating system tells us that not all of the builds they post are actually good. It seems you're the one who needs to take a more thorough look and educate yourself a bit better.

>

> It's community rated. Doesn't change the fact that the site has a dedicated open world build section which can be immensely helpful to new players.

>

> Unless you are ready to give a better alternative or want to share your build with people, I would refrain from calling something out which is simply not true.

>

> The majority of open world builds on metabattle work very well and the explanations on how to play them are a good starting point.

>

> As far as greats word Mesmer, it doesn't take a genius to realize it would be trash for PvE. Because it is, thus the low score on metabattle is justified (unless all you want to do is tag things in meta events).

Greatsword mesmer may suck but greatsword mirage is quite powerful.

Engage with greatsword, put all skills on CD, then switch to sword for even higher damage. Additionally the ambush-skills are rewarding you for dodging properly.

My advice for the OP is to get mirage and run power-gear.

The utilities from mirage will also increase survivability greatly.

lare.5129 · March 15, 2019

> @"Alsandar.7420" said:

> his build from metabattle https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Greatsword_Burst.

Burst = die. this is ok, you should die always. This build for skilled players and for pve team whit 2+ support

> Is there a build/rotation

you don't need any magic rotation if u not go raids or top pve content. just press button and have small understand level that they do.

Simonoly.4352 · March 15, 2019

Do you have Chronomancer unlocked? If you do, it's possibly your best choice for dealing with many mobs in a straight forward manner. You can cast wells on top of yourself if you're getting overwhelmed, including using Gravity Well to lock them in place and deal a large amount of damage. Whilst that's occurring, you can block with your shield and you can use the stun on shield to also dish out some more AoE control. It might be enough to prevent you from getting mentally overwhelmed in incidences where there are loads of mobs to deal with.

Nepster.4275 · March 15, 2019

Drop Domination and use Inspiration 1-2-2 it will help a bit, also, this is full glass gear if you dont want to change it use food with some toughness like Bowl of Truffle Ravioli. Also, since you are using GS dont go full meele you can range them even with sword, since sword 5 phantasm is moving. If you are still strugling drop Dueling too and use Chaos 2-1-3(or 1) this will help too, but as others said the best open world build for mesmer is Chrono with shield/focus and sword with precog well and inspiration i can take down champions with that, and if you want to go mirage, thats kinda unkillable even in full Viper gear(since its a condi spec) and you can solo bounties easy with a full trailblazer build and staff.

Also, mesmer has a lot of utility to support itself but you cant expect it to go full damage and be unkillable. Your best friend is F4 tho never forget it(and maybe even Signet of Illusions(the one that recharges shatters instantly when casted)).

Pyroatheist.9031 · March 15, 2019

So the build link you posted is actually fairly close to what I'd end up recommending for a newer player. However, the devil is in the details with Mesmer, and the details of that build make it less than effective for what you want. Since you mentioned that you leveled with GS and have used this build for a bit, I'm gonna to stick to it reasonably closely so that it remains familiar to you.

The traits are generally solid, but I would recommend changing the illusion adept trait from shatter storm to persistence of memory. Shatter storm is more optimal for dps, but it requires you to be rather experienced in how you use the mesmer skills to make use of it. Persistence of memory will help you passively maintain boons that will ultimately make your combat experience smoother without any extra gameplay on your part.

The skills are decent, but you should make a couple changes. Mantra of pain is the dps-optimal skill, but it doesn't make a ton of sense for a new player or even for anyone doing open world PvE. I recommend dropping that and taking signet of midnight instead. The signet has a low cooldown and does an aoe blind, stunbreak, and stealths you when you use it. It's a great defensive tool that you can use in a tight situation. Additionally, lose the heal signet in favor of ether feast. The heal signet is great for dps, not so great for keeping you alive. Take ether feast, use it with 3 clones up when you need to heal.

The weapons on the build are generally fine, but I want to bring attention to a particular point. The build mentions that you can swap offhand sword for focus instead. I would recommend running mostly with focus and only swapping to sword if you have a single tough target to beat. Focus has a huge aoe pull that makes grouping up mobs for rapid killing so much easier. Sword does much more damage, but the name of the game here is utility and usability, not dps benchmarking.

The gear setup is fine, but there's some nuance here if you have trouble surviving. What the build lays out is a full glass cannon setup, but there are some simple swaps you can make to get more tanky. If you replace some pieces of gear with Knight's stats or Valkyrie's stats you'll get a decent boost to your survivability without sacrificing too much damage. This is the last thing you want to try and change after making all the other modifications that I mentioned, but if you really still have trouble surviving then you want to tank up like this instead of just dying all the time.

There are options to swap to other builds that people have mentioned, but they're pretty much all only available once you fully unlock chronomancer and/or mirage. What you have now is pretty much the best (and only) choice for a vanilla mesmer setup.

Ashantara.8731 · March 15, 2019

> @"Leablo.2651" said:

> Their own rating system tells us that not all of the builds they post are actually good.

Exactly.

> It seems you're the one who needs to take a more thorough look and educate yourself a bit better.

No, you need to learn to read what people write and process it properly, because I said exactly that myself: check the ratings. :s

kasoki.5180 · March 16, 2019

> @"Alsandar.7420" said:

> You guys are gonna hate this post. I'm new. And playing Mesmer. Just that alone is a warning sign right? I leveled with a Greatsword Dom build and I really understand that rotation and that style of gameplay. I've mostly pulled 1-2 mobs and used my clones as tanks and kited them out away from other mobs. I died kinda often, but not too bad. So now I'm 80 and I'm running this build from metabattle https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Greatsword_Burst. I'm really struggling. I'm doing the POF story and it's almost impossible to avoid 7-8 mobs in the story. I just mentally can't handle it. There's so much going on and I die A LOT.

>

> Is there a build/rotation that's good for noobs with low skill cap? I'm just so slow to react, I think it's my fault. This is so much harder than WoW. I'm used to never moving (except out of ouch) and casting from a long ways away, lol. So there's a pretty big learning curve for me.

>

> If there even is a build for bad mesmers like me, can you link it and possibly explain the rotation a bit?

>

> PS - everyone told me to play Necro but everyone ALSO told me Necro players can't get groups. I really like the mesmer, it's so pretty, but maybe it's just too hard for me. I dunno.

I have used this for playing my mesmer both through HoT and PoF content. Its one of more enjoyable builds i have ever used in open world. Has decent sustainability while still dishing out good dps. Its also less hectic to play than some other builds.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhEQRAse8cncfCtfiFqBmoBEgilVjqcDGhAo+Yb2pFdLOjqA-jBBXgA9q/As/o8LU/wjSQA-e

You can make some tweaks like taking Signet of Ether if you want it, but honestly i don't remember I ever needed the CD reset in open world

New Player Dying Frequently

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