Guild Wars 2

Warriors have both shouts and banner builds
Engineers have turrets and elixir gun
Ranger has spirits
Necros have wells and multitude of condition draw skills
Thieves have venom share
Guardians and Elementalists are support gods

Mesmers have…Chaos storm on a 35 second cooldown? And Null Field on an even longer 45 second cooldown? If you look at the Mesmer inspiration line, which is supposed to be the support line, most of the traits don’t even help the team: they’re selfish or just buff phantasms. What’s the point of even buffing healing if you don’t have any skills that heal teammates?

Every profession is supposed to be able to specialize into every role, but Mesmers are night useless for supporting their teammates. Why are we locked out of that option? A Guardian can spec for damage and provide as much dps as a Mesmer, if not more, so why can’t Mesmers have good support options?

What are Mesmers even supposed to provide to a group? Time Warp with less than 5% uptime? An easy way to do swamp fractals?

Portal, Feedback, Time Warp, Mass Invis.

Also, ranger spirits are terribad. Traps would have been a better example there.

Very, very, very, very rarely will you see a venom share thief.

Engineer turrets aren’t for party support either.

Also, mesmers /can/ heal (although I wouldn’t recommend it), you just need to figure out how.

There’s no reason to run Mass Invis in PvE. Portal is also not useful in PvE outside of swamp, and in any case it’s not a support skill. Feedback isn’t a support skill either.

An enemy targetted, projectile reflecting utility skill that doubles as an ethereal combo field isn’t party support?

Mass Invis can be useful if you know when and where to use it. It’s nice in Arah for example, or some fractals.

Support in my view, and i’d hope a fair few people share this opinion, would be anything you can do that benefits a group that improves a quality of life aspect for the dungeon run.

Limnage: – check over sarcasmic’s reply again:

Portal: – any kind of difficult 1 shot environment puzzle is made infinately easier with a mesmer portal. sure everyone could get naked and run it, but this way is alot quicker.

Feedback:- Wait! a skill that prevents the ranged damage from leaving the bubble? – it reflects the damage to the enemy as well you say? wow! – you’ve prevented far more damage to the group and dealt more than any amount of group wide healing wearing plus healing gear would have done. CD of 40secs unless traited? nps save for the encounters you know are vicious – CM snipers etc

Mass Invis: – patrol or some such? – no thief? or shadow refuge on CD? – 5 secs is not alot but when it means passing through tight corners or scouting new dungeon areas to learn whats up ahead it saves you from running face first into trouble.

Not to mention all the daze’s on shatter for bosses that can be used to remove defiant stacks.

could run signet of inspiration? spread some love-

with 15 – 20 pts in chaos you get 28sec etheral combo field on staff -

a blast finisher gives everyone chaos armour which can give protection and regen – you do that in a chaos storm and everyone also has aeigis and retaliation -

chaos armour is SOOOO good. with ethereal combo fields you should find a blast finisher buddy – warrior banners are good for it as it lets you combo by your self. That or run a torch for prestige.

healing wise – unless you go gear heavily for it – whilst those heals might be quite nice and people will be pleased they brought you – utilising what we got to the best of your advantage will overite any kudo’s you get from healing.

seriously reccomend playing around with combo fields – the only real gripe i have is i really want sceptre to have a combo finisher: – projectile – but then everyone would complain confusion is everywhere.

oneleggedpony.8531:

(snip)

Well said.

I have feedback on my bar and if we’re in a melee fight that isn’t worth swapping things around (champion icebrood in CoE), I’ll throw down feedback bubble just to create the combo field and watch as the smart melee start popping chaos shields and rangers pelt the enemy with confusion.

Nobody here has mentioned Illusion of Life, which is great for fights like Subject Alpha, where the carpet of doom means that reviving is suicide, and it gives the party member a chance to either kill an add and rally or just get the hell out of range to be revived safely.

Staff and trident basic attacks, as well as mirrorblade add random boons/might when they bounce to party members.

As for portal only being useful in the swamp fractal, that was just laughable.

Like you said there are lots of annoying instance hazards that a nimble mesmer can just make go away with portal, not to mention boss fights that require levers pulled/lazers fired/crystals used to power fans that can require fewer people on button push duty due to portal/blink which results in more dps from extra people focusing on the boss.

Mass Invisibility + Lyssa runes + Signet of Inspiration + 2 mesmers = infinite stream of boon love. :]

Winds.3087:

Mass Invisibility + Lyssa runes + Signet of Inspiration + 2 mesmers = infinite stream of boon love. :]

And absolutely zero outgoing DPS which drags your fights by several geological aeons.

Best way to run Mesmer at the time is to reroll a more useful class.

Feedback is a great defensive skill, it can be used in front of you also beside on a targeted enemy, a great example when this skill is really us full is against lupicus in arah, a feedback bubble can reflect all his circle attacks if you stand inside the bubble yourself.
The trait that make focus skills reflect projectiles are nice to chain projectile reflection with. or the tire1 trait that create a feedback bubble when reviving someone.

Mass inv is really nice for losing agro and speed things up in dungeons.

Time warp gives allies dubble dmg, used correctly this skill is a excellent contribution to a party’s damage output. In bad situations this skill can be used to res players faster also, for example on the grawl fractal on the last boss where you really dont want to stand still to long.

Portals are on my skill bar 95% of the times I play a dungeon, this skill have been even more us full since higher levels of fractal.
Even if you don’t use the portal for skipping a JP or any other hard part you can use it as a escape or even speed up a team.

Dont forget a mesmers interrupts, blinds and clones/phantasms. Clones and phantasms can take up lots of damage from the party.

I really dont see how mesmers are bad at support. The only reason I can think of for any1 to believe this is if they never played with a good mesmer.

Sarcasmic.6741:

Portal, Feedback, Time Warp, Mass Invis.

Also, ranger spirits are terribad. Traps would have been a better example there.

Very, very, very, very rarely will you see a venom share thief.

Engineer turrets aren’t for party support either.

Also, mesmers /can/ heal (although I wouldn’t recommend it), you just need to figure out how.

Exactly, different kind of support, a good and unique one. You have different role in a group… learn to perform it

Actually with a mantra/power build you can do decent damage + heal at the same time using Restorative Mantras in the Inspiration tree. Just spam mantra of pain and you heal yourself and those near you ever 8 seconds or so.

Overall though mesmers are quite peculiar when it comes to support, a lot of their abilities and weapon skills are situational. To counteract this I take all weapons I can use with me in dungeons + swap out utility skills or even traits for specific encounters.

It’s all about knowing the encounter and how to best utilize what you have. I also find they are more about control than support which I suppose in a roundabout way is support. You can use immobilizes, slows, cripples etc. to control the enemy’s movement. You use confusion, daze, blind, feedback etc. to stop the enemy from doing damage.

So in a weird way you are actually playing as a ‘tank’ also unless you roll a pure condition damage mesmer in which case it’s all about the DOTs.

Mesmers fulfil all roles in one package, that’s what makes them so awkward and situational at times and hard to master.

Oh please, 2x necro + 2x mesmer can be amazing team in fractals. And that’s because of portals and quickness. 20 sec. of quickness + 2x Lich Forms can do extreme dps to a single target.

And of course the problem with getting stuck in textures, where mesmer’s portals can do miracles.

They’re not amazing boon givers / condition removers, but have different role. And they can be crutial.

Divus.3175:

Oh please, 2x necro + 2x mesmer can be amazing team in fractals. And that’s because of portals and quickness. 20 sec. of quickness + 2x Lich Forms can do extreme dps to a single target.

Find me two mesmers in the same group that perform well and I’ll make cheese for ya.

Iehova.9518:

Find me two mesmers in the same group that perform well and I’ll make cheese for ya.

We did searing effigy pre-nerf with 3 warriors and 2 mesmers and have done lupicus with that setup just fine as well and I rarely get downed on subject alpha in melee range as mesmer, So….yea. Mesmers are great additions to a party if played properly and can do great with any encounter just like any other profession. It’s the player that matters here not the profession.

Limnage.9581:

Warriors have both shouts and banner builds
Engineers have turrets and elixir gun
Ranger has spirits
Necros have wells and multitude of condition draw skills
Thieves have venom share
Guardians and Elementalists are support gods

Rangers Spirits? Have you even touched this class?
Thieves with venom share?? They have better support options and you just say this?

I think you just don’t know your class. You need to just sit down, look at your traits and utilities and really learn your class. Stop mindlessly complaining about crap you obliviously don’t know.

Illusions/clones are support they give bosses extra targets to waste attacks on(such as the jade boss in fractals) what more do you want?

I really think most of the posts above nailed the fact that you bring a unique set of support tools as a Mesmer to a party. Feedback, Null Feed, Time Warp, Knock Backs, Illusion of life, Interrupts , Projectile Reflect from focus phantasm, group speed buff and group chaos armors from ethereal fields + blast finishers might stacks to melee from mirror blade. I’ve had thieves/warriors/guardians thank me for giving them 12 stacks of might constantly.

Honestly, I have a harder time picking my utilities on my Mesmer than any other class with 4 80s. I’m sorry our support utilities are just that good.

Ayo Blame.7051:

I really think most of the posts above nailed the fact that you bring a unique set of support tools as a Mesmer to a party. Feedback, Null Feed, Time Warp, Knock Backs, Illusion of life, Interrupts , Projectile Reflect from focus phantasm, group speed buff and group chaos armors from ethereal fields + blast finishers might stacks to melee from mirror blade. I’ve had thieves/warriors/guardians thank me for giving them 12 stacks of might constantly.

Honestly, I have a harder time picking my utilities on my Mesmer than any other class with 4 80s. I’m sorry our support utilities are just that good.

We have excellent support as long as we know the fight at hand and can anticipate what skills to use. Either way we do excellent at jobs non of the other professions can perform as well. We play a very unique roll in it all if complex. It’s why I love the mesmer Steep learning curve, got to work hard for results but makes it more rewarding once accomplished.

One of the best groups I’ve ever been in was a group of 4 mesmers. It was just another pug group taking on HotW Path 2 (no skipping). We had a warrior as our fifth who dropped out right before that first champion (literally the beginning). With just the four of us running, it was bloody awesome. I miss that group. . .

Yes, mesmers have plenty of support. Believe it or not, mass invisi and portal come in handy all the time. I pretty much use them daily at some point during my dungeon runs. For example, CoF Path 1 – the part where you carry the flame balls past the rolling fire balls. I always port my group and it’s ridiculously quick.

Mass invisibility is great for times when your group is taking too much heat and needs a way to pull out and re-organize. Heck, even a skill like Illusionary Wave is helpful for a downed player that has too many enemies hording over him/her.

As mentioned above, it is more for control, but control in a way that’ll definitely “support” the group.