Ranged Mesmer - It's possible?

Hello there!

I want to play mesmer, is there any build that I do not need stays in melee range and can deal damage from a distance? It does not have to be top dps or reach magic numbers, I just want to be effective in the open world and not take kick in fractals.

A good example of what I want is a shortbow build of soulbeast, I got the hint here, found on metabattle and I'm very happy with it. Now I wanted a mesmer with the same characteristics.The closest I saw was a power chronomancer, but still practically half of the rotation is melee.

Thanks in advance for the help ;)

Greatsword has fast and strong burst which is very useful in open world. I guess you could use normal meta build, but with sw/sw and gs.

A double staff Mirage is what you need, very strong in soloing, you pretty much can't die due to infinite dodging, fun as hell. For fractal adjust the build and use axe/X and you are set.

The down side is there are some mobs that has anti-ranged mechanics tho they are few in numbers, you have to be extra careful and most object in core tyria don't take condition damg so you might find yourself struggle abit.

@Eros.6801 said:A double staff Mirage is what you need, very strong in soloing, you pretty much can't die due to infinite dodging, fun as hell. For fractal adjust the build and use axe/X and you are set.

The down side is there are some mobs that has anti-ranged mechanics tho they are few in numbers, you have to be extra careful and most object in core tyria don't take condition damg so you might find yourself struggle abit.

At least get one GS. It has great range and pretty good cleave. It is extremely useful in the open world.

Go Core Condi if you want to play Mes from a distance. Staff clones will apply decent condi dmg, at least in open world, dungeons and fractals.

Greatsword lol

Dunno about fractals, GS for power builds is one of the strongest ranged builds in open world PvE. Staff for condi build is fairly strong as well.

You can use a Staff/Staff Mirage. GS and S/S in OW is also an easy build. Scepter clonespam in OW is a nice funbuild. But beware if you bring a staff/staff, GS or scepter build in T3+ fractal or raid pug content ppl will kick or denial you pretty fast.

Greatsword is great for open world. Power chrono, with domination and illusion, and keep sword/sword on swap.

But why are you looking for a ranged build for fractals? The whole point is to stay close to your support so that you receive their boons and healing. Not doing so is a detriment to the group regardless of your build.

Plus even power chrono has long windows where you spam your phantasms and reset them with your heal and CS for more spam. All of that can be done at range.

Power Mirage with GS and Staff come to mind, Staff being your utility/defense weapon. Scepter can work too instead of Staff but it mostly scales with condi.

scepter 3 has strong power burst. scepter 2 has decent damage, the auto attack sucks but its good at generating clones.

There's pretty much no hope in being a ranged character for most of the professions in any serious capacity. Even if you're lucky enough to have a non-melee weapon that's effective, you'll still be expected to stack in melee range because buffs and buff sharing are so short range, you're not really allowed to stray very far from the herd. :T

Open world though, you can do whatever you want. I run staff/ axe+torch in open world as a mirage and it works well enough.