Need help with a PvE greatsword mesmer build

[itspomf.9523]

Got back into playing my mesmer after growing bored with condition damage. Found a decent basis to work from (sadly I haven't the resources to make / acquire the full Marauder's set of gear) that has proven pretty effective. However, having gone more of the glass cannon approach, it's painfully evident that I don't have enough durability, after some recent testing in the Mad King's Labyrinth.

I'm thinking of swapping from full Berserker's gear to Knight's armor, keeping the Berserker's weapons and trinkets.

That gives me pretty solid uptime on Fury, thanks to the Master Fencer trait, and an 83.42% chance to deal heavy damage with crits (whether from range with the greatsword or with dual swords). The modest loss in damage shouldn't be too bad.

My question: would Knight's prefixed armor and the added toughness for a greatsword-focused mesmer be more worthwhile than something with vitality instead?

Proposed build -- tool may be inaccurate: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PiQAElFw2YYsE2IOyKdrMA-zRQYhSBCHdYJ2YwlwjUAmGA-e

[Noodle Ant.1605]

Toughness goes hand-in-hand with high/decent hps (heal per second), which your build doesn’t really focus on. It’s an attrition stat that favours long, drawn-out fights.

Your build/traits are currently built to be very bursty, and statting anything besides zerker/sins (with a mix of marauders being an exception) greatly detracts from this purpose. You might as well run inspiration traitline to complement the statted toughness.

I happen to play a similar build that has even less defenses - my heal skill isn’t even used for healing, and I can hold my own in the lab, even when I aggro a whole bunch of mobs for lols (save for steve/viscount which I mostly pewpew from range; you’d need a very different build to tank any of their direct hits).

[synk.6907]

At a simplistic level you could consider toughness as useful for reducing direct damage and vitality as a tool to help give you "room" to deal with conditions/DoTs. Neither are going to help your burst damage, however, as already noted. Still, if you're looking for some more defense you could certainly go with knight's exotic gear for now, swap back to berserker's (or marauder's if that's what you really want to use) as you get more comfortable. Note that mesmers really enjoy precision, since illusions benefit from your precision, which will be missing with Knight's or Valk armor.

For the actual question -- I think I'd pick Knight's over adding more vitality, but on thinking about if you're not going all-in with a defensive build that may be a bad call. The vitality could be immediately useful -- on the surface, you can take more damage before it becomes panic time -- while the toughness from 6 pieces of armor may not be noticeably effective in a power burst build. The real number crunchers can weight in better on that.

The rest of this post provides some advice about skills, which after I started drafting I realize you did not ask for and may not care for. So I've stuffed the content into a spoiler tag; feel free to ignore!

! Before swapping your gear, however, consider your tools available. I've run berserker's/assassin's gear on power mesmer since the beginning and have always felt it had a nice balance of maneuverability and damage, while there have been other classes that, in my opinion, are way more glass cannon.!! Your mainhand sword has a built-in evade that also deals a nice chunk of burst damage (Blurred Frenzy). Your offhand sword has a block skill (Illusionary Riposte) that can help you ignore damage for a period while also arming you with another clone to shatter. Both of these add to what damage you can avoid above your dodges.!! If you don't need the block, Riposte can be triggered to fire off Counter Blade for some CC.! GS also has CC in its knock back, and your shatters can provide a little more situationally.!! The fast(er) recharge of Ether Feast is nice, but the Signet of the Ether also gives you some passive healing as you churn out illusions as well as a means to reset phantasm cooldowns, allowing you to bring them out more often.!! Signet of Midnight is doing nothing for you in a power build. Swap it out for another utility. I suggest Blink, as that effectively gives you another means to mitigate damage by evading an attack, and/or getting out of danger. It's also fun.!! I think on the surface the idea of Arcane Thievery to help with conditions is good, but personally I don't find it to be very useful in PvE -- especially when enemies rarely have boons. You could instead slot Phantasmal Defender for more support (and shattering), Decoy for a rapid clone and stealth, or a mantra for condi cleanse or quick damage, for example.!! If you're not in a group, you can rotate among the GS and sw/sw skills to keep a kind of rolling summon of illusions on targets. Chrono would be nice due to providing some cooldown reduction and access to wells for AoE damage, for future planning if you need to unlock it.!! A superior sigil of frenzy in a weapon can be useful, as well, to provide little cooldown reductions as you rip through enemies.

[Toku.5972]

Use Marauder gear if you need more survivability on a Power GS mirage build. If you don't have the resources for it yet, I still think it's better to start saving for it and replacing pieces as you can rather than invest in another stat combo.

Domination 1 2 1Mirage 2 2 1Dueling 1 2 (3 if you need to tag or need more survivabilty, 1 if you need more single target damage).

Sigil of Energy and Force in both Greatswords. Swap on cooldown (when below 50% endurance) for ambush attacks. If you're doing open world, I would suggest Eagle runes because it can be difficult to keep the Scholar buff up all the time while soloing.

[Rainbow Dragon.7268]

STEP 1 delete power gear.STEP 2 buy condition gearSTEP 3 play condi mirageSTEP 4 PROFIT!!!!

but seriously if you have to play power "cringe" on mesmer go sword/sword - Greatsword berserker/assassins mix armor with marauder trinketsdomination top middle top / duelist top bottom top chrono top top bottom traits thats basic power build? i have no clue ive been condi mesmer since i started back in hot launh power mesmer is gross to me GS skills do look cool but i need more substance and i found it in condi mirage XD