New Player Dying Frequently

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.

Mesmer is not easy to play, People were right about necro is mostly the best first class for newbies along with rangers.Maybe some people don't like to invite necromancers to fractals and raids but you don't see others stop playing with them =\In general Mesmer, Engineer and Thief are the hardest classes to master especially for newbies.But if you want to continue playing with this class just try to get better. know when to use your skills, understand the foes mechanics and when to dodge instead of wasting it, try different builds if the current ones doesn't work for you(there is no shame in that) and read the whole page on metabattle for your build and train with random mobs in the open world.

There isn't much else to say just train with your class and you should get better over time

Try mirage axe infinite horizon build on metabattle. dodge-ambush will melt most mobs. Just need some condi gear.

If anyone ever tells you that any class isn’t invited to groups, just ignore them.

Hmm, at first glance you picked a burst, glass cannon build, even though you admit you aren't good enough to pull it off? :D

the way I see it, there are three tiers of defensive tools: utilities, traits, & gear attributes. Depending on how much defensive power you need, you'll be balancing between offense and survival.

My suggestion, if you want to go for a safe build, go for a condition build so you can easily stack defensive stats without sacrificing much DPS, and have either illusions (the healing and condition clear traitline) or chaos (the toughness and boon generation traitline). Even though mirage axe has been toned down, it should still pull off respectable DPS.

As you grow more comfortable with the game and realize you aren't struggling as much as before, then it's time to start shifting your build towards DPS.

Other players prefer starting with the "best" build, and just toughen up until they get good with it, but you are in your right to use something safer if that's how you'd feel more comfortable playing.

I remember levelling my first character, a mesmer, it was rather painful at lower levels. :P

Go Power Mirage. You will have crazy burst, crazy evades and crazy clone generation. You will be alost unkillable.

@Randulf.7614 said:If anyone ever tells you that any class isn’t invited to groups, just ignore them.

So much this, I've seen all sorts of builds in fractals even up to t4. You should above all else choose a profession you think you will enjoy to play. GW2 relies heavily on actively avoiding attacks with dodges, blocks and evades (effectively invulnerability frames). Even heavy armour classes can get demolished swiftly if you don't use skills to cancel damage. If you are getting stuck in PoF specifically, don't be too disheartened - many of the story battles are quite chaotic and difficult. You could try adding more vitality to your stats if your meta build is heavily offense orientated, that might give you the extra hp you need to survive until your heal is off cooldown.

@Vences.7238 said:Go Power Mirage. You will have crazy burst, crazy evades and crazy clone generation. You will be alost unkillable.

I don't see that one on metabattle

Noobs are told this is a fun casual game, just do what feels good and you'll have a great time.

But I'm looking for a build/rotation so I can know what to do when things are hard. The bad way I've been playing got me through leveling. But it's not working for anything that's more challenging. So I need specifics.

@Towatha.4671 said:Try mirage axe infinite horizon build on metabattle. dodge-ambush will melt most mobs. Just need some condi gear.

Ok this sounds promising, the descriptions says I can continually dodge. That's probably going to help. I actually set dodge to spacebar so I'd get in the habit of spamming it. (WoW players jump constantly, so now I'm dodging constantly, lol.) Can't wait to try this build! Thanks so much!

I can't help with Mesmer builds but I can tell you from experience that playing a character you don't enjoy as much because someone else told you it's easier (or even because they said it's better) isn't a good idea.

I was told that back when I first started playing Baldur's Gate (not my first RPG but the first where I was really thinking about what class I wanted) a friend - who I trusted because he had a lot more experience with RPGs than me - told me to always play a fighter first and not to try anything else until I'd finished the game with that because otherwise it would be too difficult. He meant well but I'm so glad that game required you to play your whole party - I quickly found I was almost ignoring my character to focus on everyone else, who had more interesting and complicated abilities (especially the casters) and relatively soon I restarted as a cleric and had much more fun.

People have given me similar advice in other games and it's always gone the same way. Sometimes I do enjoy the class/build/whatever they recommended, but usually because there's a more complicated way to play it than they intended. Or because it has a theme I like. More often however I end up choosing something different and having much more fun, even if it takes me ages and quite a few deaths to actually get anything done.

Go back to playing with the build you made for your personal play style.When you know more about the class, then start trying to go meta. Also Chrono is a pretty good tank if you need it.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Go back to playing with the build you made for your personal play style.When you know more about the class, then start trying to go meta. Also Chrono is a pretty good tank if you need it.

I just hit 80 and haven't unlocked Chrono, honestly haven't even looked up how to do that yet. It sounds epic tho!

@Alsandar.7420 said:Noobs are told this is a fun casual game, just do what feels good and you'll have a great time.

But I'm looking for a build/rotation so I can know what to do when things are hard. The bad way I've been playing got me through leveling. But it's not working for anything that's more challenging. So I need specifics.

When approaching a build in Guild Wars 2, it's easier to start off by understanding the core concept of the build, and where the build's main source of damage comes from.

In the case of Power Mesmer and Power Chronomancer, one of your main damage source are your Phantasms. These include those from your weapons, as well as the two available as utility skills, i.e. Phantasmal Disenchanter and Phantasmal Defender. Hence, the idea is to throw as many Phantasms at the enemy as possible, as quickly as possible. Then, when all your Phantasm skills are on cooldown, reload them with Signet of Ether, and fire away.

So, there is no fixed rotation needed. If a Phantasm skill is available, cast it. If Signet of Ether is available, and all Phantasm skills are on cooldown, pop the Signet, and burst away. If you have three Clones up, Mind Wrack. While waiting for cooldowns, just shimmy around to avoid attacks.

Things get far more interesting with Chronomancer due to Continuum Split, but it looks like you have yet to fully unlock any of your Elite specializations yet.

So first of all what kind of content do you want to do. Based on the post you are tackling open world, story missions and as a new pve player this is where you want to start to learn the game and can basically stay there forever since gw2 has a lot to offer in the open world.This is not wow where best raid build will do great in any pve content and there is really no fear of dying in open world at all.Raid and fractal dps builds are usually glass cannon and are made to get through dps checks and for group content. But all you are left for survival is your skill in positioning and dodging. They actually don't fare so well in open world where there are hardly any dps checks at all but unlike wow you can get killed quite easily.Copying builds is just fine but I would encourage you to experiment and learn your character. Find synergies in your build and stats and don't be afraid to go more tanky. Also don't be ashamed of dying in story missions. Some Hot and Pof fights can be quite hard on a glass cannon build and a few of them are just hard in general at first.

@Ojimaru.8970 said:

@Alsandar.7420 said:Noobs are told this is a fun casual game, just do what feels good and you'll have a great time.

But I'm looking for a build/rotation so I can know what to do when things are hard. The bad way I've been playing got me through leveling. But it's not working for anything that's more challenging. So I need specifics.

Screenshotted this, thanks, gonna apply this next time I play. Thanks!

i always say just find a build that resembles the build your comfortable with and use it or slowly convert to it. even a bad build on their works better if you understand and use it well then trying to use a build you dont understand. i tend to do more shatter like poster above recommended it works great for my style might not be optimal but i play it great whereas one of the high ranked builds on metabattle id play horribly and end up dying repeatingly.

Might also try asking in the players-helping-players forum

@Alsandar.7420 said:You guys are gonna hate this post.

Don't apologize for being new. Everyone has been new one day, and, while the GW2 community has many flaws, being unreasonable to new players is not one of them.

Mesmers are hard to play; if you enjoy playing them, though, don't take this as a sign to change profession, but rather as a reassurance that eventually you'll get better at it.

Something you haven't mentioned are your items; what do you have? Have you upgraded your items to exotics? It helps a bit. Also, which stats are you using in your gear? Sometimes people mix stats their builds don't really need, wasting a bit of them.

Also keep in mind that the build you are trying to use is very offensive, with few layers of defense. For someone who's new, you may want to have a more cautious build while you are learning.

For example, if you are having trouble with your utility skills, you may want to change some of them to signets. Those have passive effects that stay on most of the time, so, if you get overwhelmed in combat and don't remember to use your utility skills, they would still be helping you.

Another suggestion would be to drop the Dueling trait line and use the Inspiration trait line. This one has some defensive effects that could help your survivability while you learn your skills, and once you are feeling more confortable, you could change to the more damage-focused Dueling trait line.

I don't think Metabattle builds are for soloing per se. I would never play a solo build without a cleaving weapon. It takes way too long to kill groups with single target damage when all of the mob pressure is on you. Especially if you're looking for a lower skill cap. It doesn't get much easier than autoattack aoe.

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).

@"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.

Is there? It looks like the only reason it is rated 3 is because only one person gave it a rating and that person gave it a 3. How is anyone supposed to know if that particular person's opinion should carry that much weight?

That build does look awful for solo if you follow the rotations. It sacrifices the heal skill for more damage and has no sustain for longer fights unless you use the health regen food which can be helpful but not good enough as the primary source of healing. If using the vampirism runes that might be okay but only if the fight has adds that triggers the 6th effect(on kill effects don't work with certain mobs).

I'm far from the Mesmer specialist, but I do have one, that I had trouble starting with as well, mostly due to their squishiness. I'd recommend a build that has a Lot of mobility, teleports, swapping with clones, etc, and also spending a lot of time getting Dodge's timing right. Unless you learn the tricky art of tanking via evasion (f4 skill), you will have problems if you dont stay in constant movement as a Mesmer. I can also recommend the Staff as a distance weapon, instead of sword (or in tandem) Mostly because it's projectiles are more simple to manage, and you get a skill that teleports you farther from an enemy (skill 2) in case your HP gets too low. Lastly, if you have trouble doing good damage while staying on the Moving, using a condi type build to deal damage even when you're not attacking can give you the impression you control the fight more. Condi mesmers are more rare than before, but they exist : Scepter and torch is useful if you go for that, and you can trait yourself in such a way that your clones and shatters are more powerful, becoming a distance focused Mesmer. It's only Something you can try, but personally, I'm sure you'll find your way to handle the class through more practice. Failing is normal at first, that's how you experiment. Dont forget to look at other classes as well : not because Mesmer is not good, but because other classes can give you ideas on how to handle a different class altogether.

@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.

@Leablo.2651 said:I don't think Metabattle builds are for soloing per se.

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.