Intro:

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Hello Everyone. I wanted to make this guide ever since I noticed that even a semi-comprehensive guide for Mesmer use did not exist here and, as Lord Arrow stated, the last remnants of comprehensive guides were lost when the Presearing.com forums were lost to the ether. I remember reading that guide and thinking to myself that there was no other profession I wanted to walk hand in hand to glory. It was fun and exciting and new and I was all about. While the Mesmer gains a bad reputation and is disgustingly under-represented in pre-searing (based off no tangible proof) I will do my best to take all of you fellow, aspiring Mesmers by the gloves so we may step boldly into the future.

Let's begin by defining the Mesmer class:

Mesmer 

The Mesmer is not content with living in reality—Mesmers prefer to create their own realities. Mesmers are the mental masters of illusion, control, and domination, subverting an enemy's Energy for their own purposes and supporting the entire party in battle with powerful, mind-bending magic. Domination skills put Mesmers in command of a foe's Health and Energy, while Illusion can inflict damage, slow an enemy, and drain away the powers of those that oppose them. The Mesmer can call on Inspiration to steal Energy directly from the opposition, and the primary Memser attribute Fast Casting works just like it sounds—you can sling your spells at a much higher rate than any other profession. The Mesmer is powerful as a damage-dealing spellcaster, a support player, or both. They should usually avoid the front lines, but can turn the tide of most any fight in seconds.

From this quote alone we can take out that Mesmers are cool AF. 
Now we should look at the skills of a Mesmer to better familiarize ourselves with what y'all will be working with when you decide to create your Mesmer. To do this, we need to break down our 4 attributes: Fast Casting, Domination, Inspiration, and Illusion

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Credits:

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Wombatnine

Original Page

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Attributes & Skills:

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Fast Casting:

Straight forward enough. The more points we put into this, the faster we can cast spells. It's important to notice that after Me/E fire magic spammers were deemed "too BS for existence" years back, fast casting only affects Non-Mesmer spells that have activation less than 2 Seconds. The exact wiki quote is as follows: (Fast Casting decreases the activation time of your Spells and Signets. (No effect for non-Mesmer skills with an activation time less than 2 seconds.) In PvE, each rank of Fast Casting decreases the recharge time for your Mesmer Spells by 3%). Increasing Fast Casting decreases recharge time as well which is pretty cool. Quickly cast all your spells and have them all recharge faster to do it again. Very nice. 

 

Skills: There are no fast casting skills in Pre-searing

 

Domination:

This is your main source of damage in Pre-Searing when killing charr. Empathy+Frenzy annihilates Bladestorm/Axe Fiend charr as well as hunters and chaots. You'll find that chaots cast few spells since you'll rarely be enchanted, energy burn is on a long cooldown, and they don't have ether feast, illusion of haste like Ghast Ashpyre. Backfire is essential to killing Ashen claws and Shamans as these charr love casting spells and heals. Shatter delusions is vital spike damage to spike a shaman, Blaze, or any other charr before they can heal/kill you. Domination magic is your key killing attribute and should be what you look to put the most points in.

 

Skills: Shatter Delusions, Backfire, Empathy

 

Inspiration: 
Super good for healing and as a Mesmer it's all you get. Pros: 5 energy, not an enchantment heal, quick cast time.

Cons: Requires investment to be worth much health, requires aggro to heal, longer cooldown comparatively to other healing abilities. I generally have about 50/50 split between fast casting and inspiration for attribute points. This is only because I have a second profession and points are more spread. 

 

Skills: Ether Feast

 

Illusion: 

These are all the abilities that involve "conjuring" or "imagining" in the name.  The idea is that they are all in the enemy's head and are being driven insane by all the smoke and mirrors.  Illusion magic is cool...in post-searing.  Here it's little more than an energy pit that should only be used in incredibly specific circumstances or not at all.  Imagined burden has long been deemed as laughable and the most useless skill in Pre-searing.  And I would agree.  It serves little to no purpose with the only idea I can possibly fathom being to slow Vaatlaw Doomtooth from running away so you can kill him in that one quest or take...a picture of him?  Your next move is conjure phantasm which requires a large attribute investment to be useful in most ways.  It's important to remember that increasing illusion magic does not increase the degeneration of Conjure Phantasm, only the duration.  The damage over time vs the energy cost vs the value other spells give comparatively (backfire, empathy) usually makes this pointless and not worth the attribute points.  Still I take it on my skill bar and I'll tell you why later (it's totally optional)

 

Skills: Imagined Burden, Conjure Phantasm
 

 

And those are the skills in a nutshell.  These are strictly Mesmer skills without looking at Second Professions.  Many players prefer to not take a second profession and instead play around with some options.  That's totally fine.  Others, like myself, were fed up with death leveling and were desperate to get any and all experience before driving a nail through their head and chances are they took a second profession.  To be quite honest, I am pretty sure I chose the one I did because the numbers told me I'd get more experience.  That's the only reason.  Is my second profession/build optimal to farming?  Maybe, maybe not.  This also was a time before it was possible to obtain all the skills of the second profession in pre-searing and while that didn't influence my choice to be who I am today, I can now discuss taking a secondary with the confidence that you won't be missing out on a pivotal spell.  Sadly flare no longer works with fast casting.   

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Builds:

Since I am a Mesmer/Necromancer a lot of the farming guide will focus around the use of those skills.  That being said, it should be simple enough to replace "and here is when I use deathly swarm" with "and here is when I use firestorm/banish/symbol of wrath/hammer bash??  in case you decide to go that route.  Before I start the Northlands guide however, I would like to discuss the possibilities of your second profession.  If you have no intention of ever taking a secondary profession feel free to skip by all this and head straight to the part where I discuss farming.
 

Mesmer/Necromancer
 

I'll start here since it is what I have been playing as for the last 8 years in pre-searing 

 

The Necromancer Secondary grants you access a slew of skills that either fall into the category of "it's a trap" or "hey this is going well"  With this secondary profession I have my skill bar set up as follows:

Backfire/Empathy/Deathly Swarm/Conjure Phantasm/Shatter Delusions/Ether Feast/Blood Renewal/Animate Bone Horror

 

Let's break it down.  Backfire is critical for shaman and ashen claw.  Empathy for Melee, hunter, chaot.  Deathly swarm can be used for spike damage.  Charr aren't the dumbest creatures, believe it or not, and wont actively kill themselves with backfire like they would empathy.  At high enough domination, backfire will do too much damage to ashen claws for them to cast more than 1 spell in order to stay alive.  This is where deathly swarm comes it.  Think of it like a poor mans targeted firestorm that does spike damage rather than damage over time.  Luckily they can't run out of it.

 

Remember what I said before about Conjure Phantasm.  How it's incredibly niche and potentially useless?  Well here is one use I love and potentially the only one I know.  This is to be used specifically against 2 melee charr (axe/blade).  Cast Empathy on one, target the other one (w/o empathy) and cast deathly swarm on it.  Chances are it would have cast frenzy by now and will take double damage from deathly swarm.  Now cast conjure phantasm and shatter it instantly to get the spike damage during frenzy and kill it.  This way you can take down both melee charr without having to stand and wait for empathy to recharge and before they can be healed (usually).  Since you are a caster profession standing and tanking melee hits is not your forte.  Conjure Phantasm is also a good "cover hex" or a hex that you can cast and shatter for damage without removing your more important hexes such as backfire or empathy.  Empathy can also be used as a cover hex to backfire for Ashen Claws and Shamans.  Since they won't cast spells if backfire will kill them, they'll start to auto attack.  This means they'll take damage from empathy and allows you to safely shatter a hex while keeping the main one on.

 

Normally shatter delusions should only be used to finish off charr and the idea of "cover hexes" should really only be in place in the event you aren't sure shatter delusions will kill them.  It sounds odd, but remember that Mesmers are all about timing.  Mis-time backfire and you may not apply it before an ashen claw casts all it's spells or have it wear off before a shaman decides to heal another.  The same applies for empathy.  You do not have unlimited energy.  It's very easy to run OOM as a mesmer and blindly wasting 15 energy can really hinder you.  Miscasting shatter delusions in which the charr doesn't die means they have time to be healed and now you're low on energy, and there's a good chance the spells you need are on CD while you're being attacked.  Yikes.  

 

Use Ether Feast to Heal, Blood Renewal after you kill the chaots or in between fights to heal faster and animate bone minions whenever you feel like it.  They really aren't necessary unless you are farming past the altar where there is little to no protection.  But dang, they are fun.  

 

On paper, soul barbs sounds fun since you are always casting hexes.  However, the energy cost to cast this hex spell that causes, at most, 15-20 extra damage per hex you cast on the target when there's a good chance the most will be 2 just isn't worth it.  The energy could easily be spent better somewhere else and you would still clear faster. I love the idea of soul barbs, and I would love for it to work, but for solo hunting I see no point.  Maybe if you were dual hunting with another mesmer or necromancer and made sure to coordinate your spells.  Otherwise skip it.  

 

Life Siphon and Faintheartedness = energy depletion.  You simply cannot put enough attribute points into all of these to have them be useful. They are both hexes and thus would be cool with Soul Barbs but combined they do less damage over time than conjure phantasm, cost more energy, and kill slower.  Replace one with phantasm to shatter if you like but don't think they'll do much for you.

 

Vampiric Gaze and Bite never seem to be worth the energy cost in my opinion.  The heal isn't bad but the damage isn't consistent enough for me and I'm really not trying to get into melee range to use vampiric bite.  Plus 15 energy cost totally stinks.  

 

Prioritize Domination Magic>Death Magic>Fast Casting=Inspiration about the same>lastly illusion if you wish.  An example would be 12 Dom, 9 Death, 6 Inspiration and Fast Casting, and 2 Illusion.  Feel free to play around with more fast casting but the damage from Dom and Death is hard to pass up.  6 FC means that casting time is about 1/4 faster than if it were 0 (GWW was my source)

 

In my humble opinion, Me/N is most likely not the best combination, but I certainly have had fun.  Or at least I'm so used to how to make it work I think it's fun.  If nothing else, both mesmer and necromancer spells can't be obstructed so attacking from behind walls has never been easier.  Take full advantage!  

 

Mesmer/Elementalist
 

This is often regarded as the best setup for a mesmer (if you're a commy).  It works similar to Me/N except now you get to fast cast fire storm, which does work, and have access to Glyph of Lesser Energy.  While you can't add points to energy storage you can still cut the energy cost by 10 from 2 spells (GWW) which is super neat when your core skills cost 10 and 15 energy.  Now, they'll all cost 10 rather than 25 when you cast Glyph (5e), Backfire (15e), and Empathy (10e).  Neat.

 

You also have access to blinding flash? and lightning javelin which are cool anti-melee spells.  Now that you also have access to flare it could also be cool to use but could also be an energy pit since it's so spammable with or without Fastcasting.  Aura of Restoration is shatterable and sadly Me/E doesn't offer the potential for a cover enchantment like a Monk could offer but big energy costs means bigger heals.   Me/N doesn't offer this either but at least blood renewal doesn't require spell casts to heal.  Ether feast will probably still be your main source of healing.

 

Probable set up will be:  Glyph of Lesser Energy/Backfire/Empathy/Firestorm/Shatter Delusions/Ether Feast/Optional/Optional  Arguments could be made for a number of skills (flare, javelin, blinding, res signet, aura).  Let yourself be the judge of what you prefer.  Chances are you won't even remember you have something in the 8th skill slot.  

 

Again I'd say prioritize Domination, Fire Magic, Fast Casting and Inspiration.  12, 9, 7,6 or 12, 9, 6, 7.  I'm not sure if higher fire magic would be better in this situation but I am a mesmer fanboy so I'll also say go for more Domination magic.  

 

 

Mesmer/Ranger 
 

Let's look at the potential of this one.  Pros and Cons and such.  You know?  Ranger offers a pet which is always super awesome and fun and cute and I wanna squeeze it all day.  It also offers troll unguent which is a neat-o healing SKILL that can't be shattered and access to wilderness survival attribute even allows you to make the heals better (if you so choose).  Besides this the ranger secondary offers you very little in terms of skills unless you really want to ditch the staff for a bow.  Remember you wont have expertise to reduce the energy cost of ranger skills and fast casting wont have much influence on bow attacks or preparations.  That being said, it could be worth it for the pet and troll unguent because pets are cute and healing is cool.  

 

Probable Set Up: Backfire/Empathy/Shatter Delusions/Ether Feast/Troll Unguent/Comfort Animal (No longer need charm animal (best update ever, btw)).  Two empty slots for literally anything you want.  Would probably be conjure phantasm and res signet for lack of anything else and a desire to not have empty spaces on your skill bar.

 

Prioritize Domination, Fast Casting, Inspiration, Wilderness Survival, whatever else is left BM or Ill.

 

You don't really need fancy secondary spells to kill things and a pet offers vital shielding potential.  I've never done this but it'll work fine.

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Mesmer/Monk

 

 

Monk as a secondary seems a little excessive but is always a safe option and offers interesting potential in smiting/healing/protection prayers.  Honestly, it's tough to choose which to prioritize with this but it comes down to a simple question..Do you want to prioritize safety in healing or damage in smiting?  Either way you're taking domination magic since you're a mesmer.  If you want to use brute force you may have come to the wrong place and if you want to use brute force as a Me/Mo then you definitely came to the wrong place.  It's tough to think of splitting your attribute points in so many directions to actually make your skills worth using.  While it doesn't make sense to take so many healing skills due to energy costs or lack of necessity, taking domination, fast casting, healing, protection, smiting, and maybe inspiration and seeing to it that they all serve a purpose makes my head hurt.  

 

Potential Builds: Backfire/Empathy/Shatter Delusions/Healing or Prot Enchantment X/Healing or Prot Enchantment 2/Ether Feast

 

Healing enchantments require cover enchantments since Chaots will shatter them.  This will not only hurt you but also prevent the heal from one.  That's why we bring two.  Personally, I feel that you most likely wont need them with ether feast and proper usage of walls.  To each their own.

 

Potential Build 2: Backfire/Empathy/Shatter Delusions/Bane Signet/Banish/Symbol of Wraith/Ether Feast/Healing Breeze

 

Here would be for more damage with your core staying the same and smiting prayers acting as spike damage.  Symbol of wrath will probably be situational and would function more for dealing with multiple melee charr.  I'd save healing breeze for healing between initiations or until the chaots are dead since we don't have a cover enchantment here.

 

I'd still prioritize Domination, Smiting, Fast Casting and Inspiration, and healing if you like.  Either 12, 9, 6, 6, 2 or even 12, 9, 7, 6, 0 with the FC and Inspiration being interchangeable.  0 points in healing still gives +3 regeneration which is not awful but not worth being shattered.  Be careful.
 

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Mesmer/Warrior
 

I was very friendly with a player in my guild who went by Paff.  He was super cool and loved collecting weapons in pre-searing.  His favorite activity was to collect/farm super rare purples and compare them to the ones I got my hands on.  It usually went with him showing me dual modded charr armor offhands, 18/18 domination cane, max damage tribal axe, and the list goes on.  I've seen a lot of crazy drops in pre through him and I always had nothing to show him and he'd laugh at me.  It was fun.  One day he got on his account and had a shield drop for him that was +1 domination magic and health while hexed so naturally he told me he was going to create an offensive Me/W and see how it would work.  Since then, I never saw him again.  Take that for what it's worth.  Me/W is not something i'll ever recommend.  But, in theory, there's no reason why it wouldn't work.  It won't hurt you, it just won't offer you anything or help at all.  Healing Signet?  Wowee. 

 

If you must go Me/W for whatever bet you lose focus everything into obtaining alcohol and drinking the pain away.  But really, just focus Domination, FC, Insp, and Ill.  Don't expect to be anything more than a Me/X if you take warrior as a secondary.  

So, now that we have Secondary options, let's look at how we operate North of the Wall.
 

 

Hunting:

Piken Square will never be this beautiful again, so make sure to explore all around and take in the sights.  They truly are stunning.