Now I feel retarded. (sorry no other word comes to mind)
I have literally been sitting at home levelling like a damn fool just looking at guild chat and saying to my toon "Soon Rika, soon you can play with the other kids too !!"
I'll get mumble tonight and watch out for call outs in areas I have been or can get to.
Can I vehemently recommend a couple of things?
1) Do the Rox and Braham storylines as soon as you can. I think the minimum level to do them is around 15, and after, I think, the 14 of this month (i.e. in four days) they're supposedly gone forerever. This will be a great introduction for both of them, just in time for:
2) The Molten Weapon Facility, a dungeon that is only up until then as well, and IMHO is the best dungeon in the game right now. What's more, this saturday there is a guild event to raid that dungeon (split all the guild into 5-man parties and race to see who can complete it first, all participants get a free unidentified item just for attending). The dungeon itself has NO LEVEL restriction, as you get upleveled all the way to 80 for its duration (I completed it at 38 with Hawkian as a 20 something without wiping once).
Seriously, if you've not done Molten Facility yet, absolutely do not miss it. You might even want to run it a few times until then, since, like any dungeon, you get quite a lot of loot, plus about a level per run worth of exp, and, frankly, it rocks.
Alright, didn't play much last night and made no progress when I did. What a waste -_-. So, about that guild invite. kreeze.9074 is my user handle thingy. I'll be on tonight, hopefully for longer than to just kill SB (I'm so addicted to those events). I'm also west coast, so don't know if that makes a difference for anything?
Some of us are in Europe!
There's people virtually all around. Obviously, make a point to convert the times for guild events.
Ok, so while I'm at work, I typically browse GW2 stuff when I have down time. I see a whole lot of variety in builds and what not when looking for Mesmer builds and whatnot. I really have no pure preference on weapon, well maybe GS, but I can't figure out an effective leveling build. I seem to die more than I should when playing solo, so is there a particular resource I can look at for a more "standard" Mesmer leveling build? I had no idea where to put my traits so I feel like they are a bit scattered. Same for skills.
I think the essence of the Mesmer has little to do with builds and much to do with gameplay. Mesmer is a class that took a bit to click, but once it did, I have better survivality than with a lot of my other alts (admittedly I just hit level 30, though).
The secret to playing Mesmer is resource management; specifically, your illusions. I know it's obvious that they're the core of the class, but they're so enormously flexible that it's a bit overwhelming at first what to do with them. Let me give you a couple pointers:
1) You probably already know this, but there's two kinds of Illusions, Phantasms and Clones:
1a) Phantasms are resilient illusions that actually do stuff, like protect you, reflect projectiles or do damage.
1b) Clones are paperthin, not-damaging illusions; these have the advantage of looking exactly like you down to the name tag, so they're useful for confusing people in PvP, but this advantage is lost in PvE as mobs will attack ALL illusions and phantasms are more resilient. Therfore, Phantasms are ALWAYS preferable to Clones in PvE (conversely, they have longer cooldowns).
2) For me, the Mesmer's game is a delicately balance act between having three illusions up at most if not all time, but also not wasting cooldowns because you already have three illusions and would waste a fourth one. Particularly, weapon swapping is important because virtually all weapons have at least one Phantasm in the 3-5 skills. You ideally want to have three Phantasms up; if you do, chances are that you're doing well. If not, fill empty slots with Clones.
3) When facing a Veteran with adds, ALWAYS throw your illusions at the veteran. Remember that your illusions shatter as soon as their target dies, so this way they'll last much longer, not to mention all of their effects will affect the most dangerous enemy. This may mean a slightly fancy targetting work, as your damaging skills should definitely concentrate on the adds to take them down ASAP.
4) The Mesmer is paperthin; your defense are the illusions themselves. I would recommend to have at the bare minimum one skill that stealths you, like Decoy or The Prestige, so you can reset aggro and hopefully peel the enemies off you and onto your cheap illusions. Remember though that unlike WoW, you CAN be attacked and damaged while stealthed.
5) Try to spread out your illusions so that the enemy can't hit them all, let alone you, with AOEs or wide-range slashes. To that effect, it's not a bad idea to circle the enemy while you summon them, so as to get them surrounded by them. This also has the bonus that the enemy is with their back to at least one illusion and probably you, and also, they have to turn to face each illusion.
6) It's probably best (or at least that's how I play) to have a mental count of how many more illusions you can summon at any given time (taking into account your utility skills and your other weapon set). If at any time this number is three (or more), or is soon going to, it's probably in your best interest to shatter your current illusions and summon another three; this is also a good thing to do (and therefore you might want to even if you can't replace all three) if you can't peel the enemies off you and have no stealth skills available.
7) The one handed sword has a great defensive + offensive skill in Blurred Frenzy. You're entirely and completely invulnerable during the two seconds you're slashing like mad, and it has a measly 10s cooldown. Invaluable when you're in a pinch and need to wait a handful of seconds for your other cooldowns to reset.
I'll try to think of more stuff, but Hawkian also has a Mesmer so I'm sure he'll have some great advice that even I could really use.
