The past beta weekend was my first time playing. Mesmer was the class I was most excited about, and the first i tried. Thus, i had some trouble, but I'm not sure if it was because i was new to the game or because the class was hard.
Now I'm a PvE-player, and don't do PvP. May dabble now and then in WvW only. Any tips on PvE, as in survivability and burning through mobs. Things that probably bugged me usually had to do with illusions and shattering.
I really want to play a mesmer, but I hope it's for me.
A1:Stick to using 1h sword for PVE until they fix the other weapons. You will kill way faster. Unless you dont mind long battles against regular mobs.
I would avoid traiting for shatters and dont be too concerned with them. [gw2 gold]You are losing clones/illusion on enemy death so shatters arent that great on anything other than a elite/boss due to how short the fight is. Just use f1 to finish a mob if you have clones/phantasms there.
Similar issue with using phantasms, due to mob death wiping them its only worth casting them at a mob that is full hp or against elites/bosses or you waste your long cooldown.
You can probably see a trend that mesmers mechanics are really clunky for PVE and dont work that well.
A2:Stick to whatever playstyle you consider fun imo... It is definately worth trying all of the weapon combos to familiarize yourselves with them if nothing else.
Thing about events with a lot of people is that our class is a builder class when it comes to damage, which means we won't do very well on low-hp mobs that are being hit by a bunch of people. Being preemptive with summoning your illusions will help of course, but that is not a situation where our class shines
A3:I have to second the idea to be skeptical about all the doom-and-gloom you read here about the Mesmer. The one I see most about PvE is that Mesmers do not carry their share of the load in Dynamic Events.
I would say a lot depends on your desired play style. I tend to prefer up-close-and-personal, so I use MH sword. Shatters (currently) are not as reliable as I would have liked, so I will be traiting for "when killed" rather than improving shattering.
