Guide to playing as a mesmer
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[edit] Overview
Mesmers are usually considered the most difficult class in Guild Wars, but if played well they can cause a lot of trouble for the enemy.They are best played when in a group.
Mesmers can neither heal nor cause flashy damage; their influence on the battle is subtle, which is one of the reasons why they are often underestimated. Although subtle, the Mesmer is capable of turning the entire battle with a well-placed spell. A Mesmer can shut down a character on his own, interrupt his actions, remove the enemies' adrenaline and energy or cause health degeneration. A Mesmer can even use someone's own energy against them {with skills like Energy Burn and Aneurysm).
[edit] Attributes
[edit] Fast Casting
The primary Mesmer attribute, Fast Casting has the inherent effect to reduce the casting time of all your spells and signets. Skills in Fast Casting are often associated with allowing a Mesmer to cast spells more often, such as Mantra of Recovery, or skills designed for optimal usage with a Mesmer primary, such as Psychic Instability and Power Return.
[edit] Domination Magic
Skills of this attribute excel at punishing the actions of your foe, whether it be through damage (Empathy, Backfire, Power Spike), energy loss (Power Leak, Shame, Energy Surge) or skill shutdown (Diversion, Power Lock, Psychic Distraction).
[edit] Illusion Magic
Skills of this attribute will usually be used to hinder enemies, reducing the efficiency of enemy actions with hexes such as Soothing Images, Migraine or Ineptitude. Alternatively, Illusion Magic may inflict indirect damage through degeneration hexes such as Conjure Phantasm, Conjure Nightmare or Images of Remorse.
[edit] Inspiration Magic
Skills of this attribute are usually related to Energy Management and energy manipulation through maintaining the Mesmer's energy (Power Drain, Drain Enchantment, Auspicious Incantation) or adding to the energy denial of Domination Magic (Ether Phantom, Drain Delusions). However, Inspiration Magic contains the Mesmer's only self heals, Ether Feast and Drain Enchantment, as well as skills with unique effects (Signet of Humility, Mantra of Inscriptions, Mantra of Concentration).
[edit] Equipment
[edit] Weapons
Mesmers generally use staves, canes, wands, and perhaps an Offhand weapon.
[edit] Armor
- See Mesmer Armor and see also Insignias
[edit] Understanding the Profession
[edit] PvE
A mesmer has a flexible position in PvE, although some groups will not look for one. They can help keep the Tank alive by weakening the enemy, deal damage as well as any other caster class while improving the effectiveness of your melee teammates and lessen the risk to the Healer(s). Unfortunately this versatility that far exceeds any other class comes at the price that others will not inherently know what to expect from you. So not only be prepared to explain the role you wish to fill, but also be ready to adjust your role to do what you can do best to compensate for whatever the weaknesses of your party are.
Due to your Fast Casting ability, many mesmer skills can determine the outcome of a battle before many members of your team have even started their attacks. Many mesmers are tempted to focus on Domination which has some quite powerful damage skills, i.e. Energy Surge and Energy Burn; however, these are often most effectively alternated with skills which weaken your enemy. Alternately, especially in the fast paced mission environment, mesmers often focus on causing fast damage to their enemies by combining their fast cast and shortened recharge time from the elite skill Mantra of Recovery with damage causing skills. Many mesmers will also utilize these inherent abilities in combination with a focus on a secondary class such as Elementalist to deal damage at a rate significantly faster then an Elementalist can.
A powerful although less noticeable style of play is the interruption mesmer, using skills to stop the enemy from using his spells. These mesmers usually concentrate on the enemy casters, interrupting healing spells or skills that could hurt the team. This approach is especially beneficial against enemy bosses and thus many mesmers will carry an interrupt skill even if shutdown is not their focus.
Mesmers may also wish to play a mass degeneration build, using the skill Mantra of Persistence in conjunction with many of the Illusion Magic spells, mainly Conjure Nightmare, Conjure Phantasm and Images of Remorse. The main benefit of this kind of build is that it can cause severe damage to any kind of foe and the mesmer can stay well back from the fray, as the degen hexes will last a very long time so that all enemies are weakened when your teams damage dealers get around to finishing them off. Other skills can be used in conjunction with this kind of build such as Accumulated Pain to inflict a deep wound as the conditions for this spell will be easily met. Naturally, an enemy with hex removal spells, especially Convert Hexes or Withdraw Hexes will be able to counter this build, so make sure to research the enemies you will be facing if you focus exclusively on hexes.
Mesmers can also run a conditional build if they wish with a Necromancer secondary by stacking skills such as Spiteful Spirit with Empathy and Backfire. These skills can cause major damage to any kind of enemy and are an effective way to deal with melee and Monk bosses, due to the regularity of their actions. This build is even more effective in hard mode due to the faster speed at which enemies attack and cast spells.
Another possibility is an energy spiker, mesmers have many spells to drain energy from their enemies. For most builds, Inspiration Magic is recommended for Energy management and also offers the opportunity to improve your own energy management. Inspiration management also provides some of the best specialized damage reducing stances in the game and it is not unseen for an entire team to carry a mesmer skill such as Mantra of Flame or Mantra of Frost.
Finally, the mesmer needs to remember to take advantage of available PvE only skills. While mesmers can utilize the benefits of Fast Casting and faster recharge with secondary PvE skills such as Necrosis, Pain Inverter or Intensity, their true power becomes apparent when a mesmer hex is combined with Cry of Pain to interrupt and cause 40...100 damage to all foes in the area repeatedly. Mesmers can also make Ursan Blessing more effective by utilizing Dwarven Stability with an appropriate Inspiration Magic stance along with Hex Breaker.
[edit] PvP
PvP is the area where mesmers show their full potential, shutting down the enemy backline singlehandedly, assisting spikes with the other hand by removing defensive enchantments with skills like Shatter Enchantment.
The first thing a mesmer should learn is to think like the enemy. Try to get a feeling for the enemy, when does he cast his spells, how much energy does he have and so on. A well timed Diversion disabling a Word of Healing might cause the enemy to retreat, panic, or die. Knowing the recharge times on spells can greatly help you timing your skills, as you wont waste a shutdown when the skill is not yet recharged.
The second thing a mesmer should learn is to find out what might annoy your team most, like "Do they have a Blinding Surge Elementalist preventing our Frontline to kill them?", "Is their Mesmer good enough to prevent our Monks from healing us?" or "We play a condition build, do they have a monk with Restore Condition?". Make sure that your team is communicating to you what they need shut down. A group thats communicating well with their mesmer will utilize their mesmer much better. This includes things such as knowing when you have disabled a key skill (like Spirit Bond or Infuse Health) so that your team can act upon that.
While most skills are used in an obvious way, mesmer skills have very subtle uses that the skill doesn't specify. For instance, using Blackout on a warrior drains all his adrenaline, and using Psychic Distraction goes through anti-interruption skills. You should learn these, and put them to good use, using your bar to the fullest to aid your team. Ether Feast is not commonly on a mesmer bar, but if it is, remember you drain energy, and use that to its full advantage.
Most mesmer bars in PvP will contain at least one interrupt. Cry of Frustration and Power Drain are 2 very common examples. On a mesmer, its important to note that even your 1/4 second interrupt skills cast faster due to Fast Casting, so you can easily reactively interrupt 1 second spells, which some rangers have difficulty doing. Since your skills have slower recharge then most ranger or warrior interrupts, you should be careful to use them only to interrupt key skills where their effect is most used. It's pointless to interrupt Orison of Healing with Power Drain unless you need the energy, because it will recharge in 2 seconds anyway. If you interupt Aegis though, the enemy team will be without passive defense for up to 10 seconds.
Lastly, keep in mind that while some hexs last only 6 seconds, a lot can happen in 6 seconds if they are timed properly. Diversion for example, can be placed on a monk when someone is being spiked, and forces that monk to choose to either divert a skill or let the person die. Its not always possible to shut down all the monks, but if you do it successfully, you have a virtually guaranteed kill. By contrast, using the skill randomly allows the monk to just wait for it to wear off with no consequence, since nobody is in danger of death.
Learn to use your bar correctly and efficiently, and you will soon be a force to be reckoned with in PvP.
[edit] Staying alive
Because of the low Armor rating of mesmers, it is best to stay in the midline. Kiting is also an effective tactic. Also, take self heals such a Ether Feast and Drain Enchantment and make sure that you have enough energy to cast these spells. Mesmers have multiple tactics that they can use to aid them in staying alive as well. For instance, you can easily put a shutdown skill on the enemy thats attacking you. Mesmers also have various powerful insignia to aid them in survival, and they can wield a shield for added armor more effectively than most professions, since their skills require precise conditions for them to be most effective, usually meaning the skill is recharged when you need to use it.
[edit] Playing in a Party
[edit] What to Avoid
- Damage: A mesmer should avoid any direct contact with the enemy. A combination of a maximum of 60 Armor and weak self-defense makes it easy to get killed by even a single enemy.
- It is easy for a mesmer to get killed in Factions and Nightfall due to the many missions. Be sure to pick a good secondary profession to help avoid taking Death Penalty.
[edit] Play Styles
[edit] Choice of Secondary Professions
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Warrior class can be used mostly because of some defensive skills like Defensive Stance and Sprint. However, since most of the Warrior's skills are melee attacks, few of this class' skills are useful for a Mesmer.
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Ranger has very little utility for for a Mesmer. However, Melandru's Resilience can be used for farming in condition/hex heavy areas, although this is not very common.
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Monk is often used to even out the bad self defense of the mesmer. Often this includes a hard res that takes advantage of Fast casting.
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Necromancer most often includes builds that make use of Fast Casting on slow Necromancer hexes. Some Necromancer hexes combine well with Mesmer hexes, like Reckless Haste and Spirit of Failure cast on one target.
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Elementalist can be used for fast casting slow AoE skills like Meteor Shower. Some defensive skills like Ward Against Melee are very useful when the team doesn't have a main Elementalist with Earth Magic. Glyph of Lesser Energy is also very useful to lower the energy cost of some skills, such as Conjure Nightmare.
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Assassin may be used for some defensive Shadow Step skills, as well as some enchantments. Also, using daggers with Dagger Mastery (for the double strike chance) is a decent choice for IW mesmers using Illusionary Weaponry.
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Ritualist is useful for the same reasons as the monk: better self defense and a hard res.
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Paragon is quite uncommon, since paragon chants do not take advantage of Fast Casting, though some of the Shouts of Chants can still be useful for the team as a whole.
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Dervish has few skills which are slow enough to take advantage of Fast Casting and thus isn't a common secondary. That said, some Dervish skills (like Mystic Regeneration, Mirage Cloak or Conviction) can be useful for improving the Mesmer's resistance.
| Guides for all Professions |
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Core:  Warrior •  Ranger •  Monk •  Necromancer •  Mesmer •  Elementalist
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Factions:  Assassin •  Ritualist Nightfall:  Paragon •  Dervish
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