Question: Possible to play with illusions and deception?

[Ice]

Hi. Quick question. I just got the game but since its so big i would need advise:

Is it possible to play something close to a Mesmer (Guild Wars 2) class thing, thats specialises in illusions, magic and deception? Thx

[ComradePreacher]

Mesmer were hella wack and goofy from guild wars.

You have illusion based spells, most of it is control

You have spells like minor illusion, a cantrip to distract creatures in stealth,

Blur, makes you harder to hit, there's a similar spell that summons three illusonary copies of you who will take the blow for you.

There are some psychic damaging spells later on, usually most of them debuff the creature, though if you expect it to be exactly like Mesmer from Guild Wars you may want to accept you have to use tricks that may just be straight to the point.

There is actor feat (perk) that doubles your proficiency in deception and persuasion skills in dialogue.

[Majere]

You could play a Wizard specialising in the Illusion school. Possibly a better choice might be a Bard, who get access to plenty of Enchantment and Illusion spells and have a nice synergy with a ring in Act III that makes them very good at making their spells land.

Bards also have high Charisma, which is useful for speech-based deception.

Whichever way you pick, bare in mind that in the early game casters only get a very limited number of casts per 'day', so you won't feel like a Mesmer straight away. This is another possible benefit of Bards since they get a cantrip 'Vicious Mockery' that inflicts light damage and a debuff and can be spammed if desired.

[Gingermonkey]

Not that functions as a GW2 mesmer. You can make an Illusionist wizard, but its utility is pretty niche

[Mirri]

You can certainly get through a lot of speech encounters via deception skill, so basically lying. My Warlock is pretty good at it. As others have said, there are enough spells around for memser flavour I figure, (not that I'm well schooled in mesmers. I main thief). There are things like dancing/spectral weapons that classes like clerics use, but might also be accessed via certain items and gear. There's a sing that lets you conjure an illusory blade, for example. Probably need to see what you find.

[Maraxus]

Rogue has a subclass that does pretty much exactly this if you want a stealthier experience

[Ranpo]

I want Aunt Ethel's illusion spells, she's probably the only one that does illusions to an annoying degree.

[Banelord]

probably in theory but its not fo rme, seems it would require a lot of micro, just liek stealth

[jonnin]

its limited, but some examples..
illusion mage or anyone with minor illusion can trick NPCs to moving away from things like doors, stuff you want to steal, or just going away to avoid a fight.
invisible, pass without trace, and similar trick spells let you avoid fights and such as well
illusions cover all kinds of magic lighting which is useful to counter darkness disadvantage or just to see better, or act 2 stuff.
that is most of it though. There aren't a lot of illusions like you probably want, faking out the enemy with ethel's hag like stuff that can fight etc.

deception, any cha character can rock this, bards get the bonus proficiency but items and skill + advantage etc ... you can convince anyone of anything if you built for it and find the items that support it.

[ShotBot]

Their is plenty of deception checks in the game and a deception skill for unique dialogue options. Their is also plenty of rogue classes that involve magic (either Arcane Trickster subclass or you can multiclass but do that later in the game) as well as illusion skills but like others have said they are mostly control. Which is not a bad thing. You can specialise in manipulating the battlefield with ur mind and daggers.

[Loot]

Nothing like Mesmer, no. No clones, exactly. You can teleport or go invisible a limited amount of times per long rest. Trickster Cleric can make one-two clones that do nothing other than tank 1 hit for you per short rest and give advantage against an enemy. They don't move or anything. There is a spell called Mirror Image, which visually has 3 clones, that increases your armor class by a decent amount, but disappears after 3 missed attacks.

[Loot]

Originally posted by Ranpo:

I want Aunt Ethel's illusion spells, she's probably the only one that does illusions to an annoying degree.

That would definitely be the closest thing to Mesmer. cx