Hello family,
This week, I decided to condense my PvE builds for my four main PvE classes (Mesmer, Elementalist, Guardian, and Thief). Instead of having separate builds for everything (dungeons, Fractals, and open world content), my goal was to break them all down into one singular PvE build per class... and I've succeeded! Today, I'll be presenting my Mesmer build... so without further ado:
Mesmer (Greatsword & Sword/Focus):
Stats:
19,000 Health
2,300 Power
2,000 Armor
203% Critical Damage
51% Critical Chance
Greatsword is key for those necessary ranged encounters during dungeons and Fractals, and is perfect for being lazy while farming world bosses. When stacking, just open with Phantasmal Berserker before swapping to your melee set. Main-hand sword is the bread and butter of stacking with a Mesmer (thanks to its high-DPS cleaving). Focus offers reflects (via a trait), a pull (a control effect useful for setting up stacks), and Phantasmal Warden (another AoE-hitting phantasm).
Mantra of Recovery is traited to heal for over 8,100 health and can remove up to 4 conditions, and Mantra of Pain (which applies its damage within a 240-radius) can be spammed to heal your party for over 2,600 health every ~5 seconds; that's over 7,800 every ~15 seconds which should be more than every other class can even heal itself for on average. Mantra of Concentration offers 2 stun-breakers and AoE-stability, and Feedback is for added reflects (and can be swapped out if reflects aren't necessary). Time Warp is for added DPS.
Traits (6/2/0/6/0):
Domination III (Empowered Illusions) to increase my phantasms' DPS
Domination X (Greatsword Training) to reduce the recharge of my greatsword skills
Domination XI (Empowering Mantras) to increase my overall DPS
Dueling IV (Blade Training) to reduce the recharge of my sword skills
Inspiration IV (Mender's Purity) to merge my heal with my condition-removal thus freeing up a utility skill slot
Inspiration VIII (Warden's Feedback) to reflect projectiles and reduce the recharge of my focus skills
Inspiration X (Restorative Mantras) for added self-healing and support-healing (by spamming Mantra of Pain)
Important minor traits taken in this build are as follows:
Wastrel's Punishment which increases my DPS against targets when they are not using skills
Critical Infusion which allows me to dodge more
Phantasmal Healing which gives my party more survivability via regeneration
Phantasmal Strength which further increases my phantasms' DPS
Gear:
Most pieces of equipment on my Mesmer add Ferocity to his stats for maximum Critical Damage. That said, I min/max my Power-based builds by the following methodology due to my OCD:
1. Health must be as close to nearest 1,000 as possible while Power and Armor must be as close to the nearest 100 as possible.
2. Power must be no less than 2,300.
3. Armor must be no less than 2,000 and must be greater than or equal to 2,000 (the standard light armor value), 2,200 (the standard medium armor value), or 2,600 (the standard heavy armor value).
4. Critical Chance must be greater than or equal to 51%.
I'm using Superior Rune of the Traveler for the constant +25% movement speed on top of the stat-gains which assist in my min/maxing, Superior Sigil of Force (as another +damage% modifier), and Superior Sigil of Accuracy (to maintain critical chance above 50%).