Mesmer Guide

Sylvari mesmer and two purple clones in Guild Wars 2

Want to attack with weird ghost clones that disappear in a cloud of purple holographic butterflies? Then Mesmer is the class for you. GW2 Mesmer is a unique, odd, and somewhat complicated class which can be very useful in a few niche situations.

Mesmer in PVE

Mesmer is quite viable in PVE, although managing your clones can be complicated. Playing Mesmer well involves mastering the mechanic of shattering clones, including honing your combat and situational awareness to choose the best time and method for shatter. If you just want to kick back and faceroll through PVE content, Mesmer is probably not the best class to choose.

The Mesmer Aesthetic

As mentioned above, Mesmer has a real aesthetic going for it. You either love it or hate it. Put it this way: I named my Mesmer Princess Sparklefarts.

Mesmer Ports

One of the best use for a Mesmer is one of the game’s most niche functions: the teleport skill. Mesmers can put down a portal which other players can use to teleport to the other side. The ends of the portal can be up to 5,000 apart, which makes it easy to teleport other players through jumping puzzles and into other tricky locations.

This is a nice way to help other players, and can earn you some money. Players sometimes tip a mesmer for their use of a port, particularly for help with the daily jumping puzzle, and for difficult jumping puzzles like Not So Secret.

Best Mesmer Builds

Chronomancers are in high demand for raids and fractals, due to their ability to deal damage and maintain Quickness and Alacrity on teammates. For more information on the current meta, we recommend the Snow Crows and MetaBattle builds.

WvW Mesmer

Mesmers are a staple of WvW, where a single mesmer can wreak a large amount of havoc. Between throwing clones, using stealth, and creating “portal bombs” to port an entire zerg into a contested location (or directly into the middle of an enemy zerg), Mesmers are a valuable class for WvW.

Note: Playing a Mesmer in WvW is complicated, and takes a great deal of skill and experience to master. We do not recommend Mesmer for newcomers to WvW.

Mesmer Weapons

The greatsword is the most common main weapon for a Mesmer. For WvW, Sword/Focus is a good choice. Particularly for Focus skill 4, which puts down a curtain that grants swiftness to every friendly player who passes through it (and damages enemies).

Elite Specializations

Chronomancer: Chronomancer is a fantastic upgrade to Mesmer, and made Mesmer a much more viable all-round class. Chronomancer wells are great, particularly in any kind of group combat situation.

Mirage: This specialization is only really useful for WvW, where the additional stealth options are valuable.

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