A Look At The Mesmer in GW2: Part III: 2h Weapons

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Staff (2hand)

The staff is probably one of my favourite weapons as it is my goto weapon for AoE fights and handles itself quite well as a ranged weapon on single target fights. The staff does have a bit of random nature to it as some of the boons (buffs) and conditions (debuffs) it applies are a bit random.

Wind of Chaos is your primary attack, it is a mini AoE attack as the orb can bounce between enemies if they are close together. This attack will also apply one of the 3 random conditions to enemies it hits and apply one of two boons to you or nearby allies with every attack (it seems to give boons to whoever it is closest when the orb bounce back)

Here is a screenshot to show you the orb bouncing from one enemy to another.

Feigned Escape is an ability I find extremely useful, especially when kiting. It is an ability with a 10s cooldown that teleport you a short distance away from the direction you are facing. At the same time, the ability summons a clone at your original position that casts Wind of Chaos repeatedly. One combo that I find super neat is running into the middle of a group of mobs, cast Chaos Storm directly on top of yourself and when the Chaos storm is about to be over, escape out immediately with Feigned Escape. This will trigger a combo (etheral field + leap finisher) and apply Chaos Armor on yourself!

Illusionary Warlock is a ranged phantasm that deals extra damage for each condition on the enemy. This goes well with Chaos Storm/Chaos Armor as they tend to apply a lot of conditions to enemies. Since the phantasm can take a bit of time to start up once you summon it, I recommend summoning it right before you use Chaos Storm/Chaos Armor to get maximum effectiveness (due to the amount conditions these abilities stack onto enemies).

Chaos Armor is sort of a protective armor that applies boons to you and applies conditions to enemies whenever they hit you during a 5 second span. Like the Wind of Chaos, the boons and conditions are random (choice of two for boons and choice of three for conditions). One mistake I find myself make a lot with Chaos armor is running around from the mobs after I activated the armor. Unless you are really low on health, you will want mobs to whack you as to maximum the amount of condition and boons you receive from Chaos Armor.

Chaos Storm is probably one of the biggest AoE abiliites the Mesmer get. When you click on the ability, you get a circle on the ground you can drop. Place that circle on the ground will place random conditions and boons to enemies and allies standing inside it (respectively) for 5 seconds. You get a choice of 4 conditions and 3 boons and an additional boon/condition seems to be applied for each second the enemy/ally is standing inside the storm. In the picture below, you can see I dropped Chaos Storm on an enemy and the first condition it received its Chilled, which lasts for 1 second. When Chilled is about to fade, you can see that Fear (1s) was applied next. You will want to stay inside the circle as much as possible to maximize the amount of boons you will receive and leap out the last second using Feigned Escape to receive a "free" Chaos Armor.

Something I find super neat is that the boons and conditions that Chaos storm produces are different from the ones provided by Wind of Chaos and Chaos Armor, giving you a large arsenal of boons and conditions just with one weapon.

Last but not least, don't forget that Chaos Storm is an ethereal combo field and will combo with other finishers. See the section on combos near the top of the page.

Greatsword (2h)

Greatsword is the other 2h weapons Mesmers get. Unlike the staff, it has less AoE abilities and does not depend on boons & conditions as much

Spatial Surge is a ranged attack (beam) that deals more damage the further enemies are (the max range of the skill is 1200 units or 100'

*in-game tooltips for this skill is bugged and doesn't show this damage.

Mirror Blade is a semi AoE attack like the Wind of Chaos from the staff. The downside with this ability is that it has a 8 seconds cooldown but it deals significantly more damage (280 damge for Mirror Blade vs 168 damage for Wind of Chaos at level 80) and summons a clone at its final target. It doesn't apply any conditions to the foes it hit but does provide Might (+5-35 power) to nearby allies (if you are standing too far, you won't get the boon).

Mind Stab is actually a close ranged high damage melee attack (despite the fact that it says range 1200 on the tooltip). This is the ability you would use when enemies get close to you as it deals high very damage and applies 5 stacks of Vulnerability condition on the enemy.

Phantasmal Berserker is a melee phantasm that swings a greatsword around and cripple enemies (-50% movement speed). Unfortunately, this phantasm has a significant "start-up" time and cannot attack enemies until it is close to them. This in combination with its low health make it fairly useless in my opinion (ranged enemies can kill it in 2 hits, see video).

Illusionary Wave is basically a large knockback that also deals damage. It will knock back enemies that are in your frontal arc abit of distance away. I find it really useful on melee mobs where I can do a Mind Stab once they get close and follow up with Illusionary Wave to push them back.

Spear (2h Aquatic)

Spear is the aquatic melee weapon and can be only used while you are underwater. It is primary a single target weapon.

Stab is the primary melee autoattack for Spear and is actually a chain of three skills: Stab -> Jab -> Evasive Strike. The last ability in the chain actually allow you to evade an attack from the enemy.

Feigned Surge is fairly self explanatory based on the description. The clone it creates will use the Stab skill.

Illusionary Mariner creates an phantasm that can dodge attacks from the enemy.

Slipstream is a bit like the ability Temporal Curtain from the Torch offhand. It essentially give you a small lead ahead of enemies that are chasing you. I was disappointed to discover that it actually doesn't propel you forward too much - I was hoping to use it as a means to travel faster underwater while not in combat.

Vortex pulls in enemies within 400 units to you, allowing you to use your melee abilities (i.e. Stab) on them.
Trident (2h Aquatic)

The Trident is your ranged aquatic weapon with a bit of AoE ability attached to its primary attack. This weapon can stack quite a few of conditions on the enemy (stacks of Confusion and Bleed) so it is useful if you have traits that favor condition damage.

Siren's Call is abit like Wind of Chaos from the 2h staff or Mirror Blade from the 2h Greatsword. It is a ribbon that bounces between multiple enemies, damaging them and placing a high number of stacks of Confusion on them (you can get upto 10 stacks of Confusion). Remember that Confusion damage enemies whenever they use a skill so you can stack up quite abit of damage. Healing component of this spell is quite insignificant and should not be relied upon.

Ineptitude basically blinds your enemy (and any other enemies nearby), causing their next outgoing attack to miss. I find it useful to use when you are surrounded by multiple enemies or use it on the initial pull as you can guarantee the first attack of the enemy to miss.

Spinning Revenge essentially summons a clone that will use Siren's Call repeatedly. When you cast this ability, you will also grant you and nearby allies 3 seconds of Retaliation, which reflects a very small amount of damage (more useful if you are facing multiple enemies or those that have a fast attack speed).

Illusionary Whaler is a ranged phantasm that put stacks of Bleed (DoT) on the enemy. Like other Phantasms, it does have a bit of "start-up" time after summoning before it will attack enemies.

Illusion of Drowning is a nice ability to use when you are chasing an enemy/being chased as it will immobilize them for 2 seconds. I use it on pull sometimes as it seems to prevent mobs from attacking me while I summon clones/phantasms.

My favourite weapon combinations

When soloing, I like to use the sword (main)/pistol (off) and swap to the 2h staff. I feel like this weapon combination give me the most versatility as I can melee, attack from range, hand out boons and conditions and handle myself decently in AoE situations.

Pistol give me a ranged phantasm and crowd control for multiple enemies (upto 3). Sword allows me to deal great damage up-close and Blurred Frenzy really come in handy due to the invulnerability effect it gives (nice to stand in the middle of a group of mobs). Blurred Frenzy also complements Chaos Storm from the staff quite well as I can run in, activate Blurred Frenzy, drop Chaos Storm, and leap out using Feigned Death at the last second to get "free" Chaos Armor via the combo effect.

For attacking from ranged and kiting, I can just spam Winds of Chaos and use Feigned Escape whenever it is on cooldown. This is a lazy way to get 3 illusions to use for shattering (covered in the next section). Illusionary Leap and Illusionary Warlock are the two other illusion summoning skills and they both complement their respective weapons quite well (Illusionary Leap allow me to get inside a group mobs to melee via the chain skilled - Swap and Illusionary Warlock deals more damage the more conditions are present on the enemies). On top of all these, you basically cover your foes in conditions and enhance your allies with boons.

in groups when you need to play a support role, swapping the pistol to the focus offhand allow you to aid group members that are kiting mobs and protect them from projectiles (if they are smart enough to run to the phantasm and hide under it).

If you really love to stay in and melee, the sword offhand or the torch offhand might be better suited as they have more melee friendly abilities (i.e. block, stealth).

My gripe with the scepter mainhand is that while it is an excellent ranged weapon, it is limited to single target. 2h staff can fill the role of the scepter and also do quite abit of AoE damage.

The alternative to the staff would the greatsword but it's lacking in its AoE abilities and I find its playstyle a bit weird. If you keep the enemy too close to you, you can use Mind Stab but your Spatial Surge will do crappy damage. If you keep the enemy too far out, your Mind Stab won't do any damage but your Spatial Surge will perform at maximum. Illusionary Wave may aim to solve this issue by allowing you to knock the enemies back after you damage them with Mind Stab but its long cooldown means it won't be up everytime you want to use it.

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