Guild Wars 2

Class or Build, primarily PVE

I know there’s no hard control in GW2. I’m looking for a “manipulator”- one that controls and manipulates it’s enemies, predicting or forcing their next move and turning their own actions against them. A lot like the Mesmer from GW1 (gw2 mes doesn’t have remotely the same playstyle). I’ve played most of the classes to lvl20 or higher in trying them out, along with an 80 and a couple 40+, and none of them seem to fit the bill for this kind of gameplay. The closest I’ve come so far is a corruption spec conditionmancer. It seems the game just isn’t built that way and I am sad.

Anyone have any ideas?

I agree that the best (and most obvious) class you’re describing is a mesmer. There is a lockdown build on the mesmer forums that allows an almost complete lockdown with dazes and stuns – but it requires almost total focus on traits that in almost any other build are silly to grab.

Having said that, you might be interested in an engineer control build as well. Traited for rifles and utilizing gadgets you can completely control an opponent with knockbacks, blinds, immobilizes and cripples. Melee will never be able to touch you, and ranged will be blinded half the fight. Slower kill rate as you sacrifice dps for control, but very fun.

Enjoy!

You said it yourself mate, the game isn’t built that way.

Necromancers can fear
Warriors can fear
Ele’s can control movement as can the guardian.

Every class has a bit of everything.

My suggestion is play each class but go to sPvP in the mists at level 2 (once you complete the starting instance) this way you can try each class as if you are level 80 with all skills unlocked etc.

hard control, guardian has the most options. pulls, bubbles, knockback, reflect.
other classes have a few of those as well but not as many.

Mesmer.
You get to pull people. Off keep walls too , its a lot of fun.
You have a knockback.
You can turn people into a moa.
Stealth and AOE stealth.
Skills that make it really painful for ranged attackers to attack.
Skills that give/strip boons.

And of course skills that make people puch themself in the face. My particular favorite. Especially against thieves since they can punch themself in the fast harder and faster than anyone else.

I’m sorry but Mesmer is the only one that fits.

A few examples:
Confusion makes them hurt themselves when attacking.
Stealing enemy boons and giving him your conditions.
Creating a controlled chaos with your illusions, the enemy takes a condition when he kills one or you simply blow them up in his face.
Reflect bubble around your foe, every projectile is reflected back at him.
Absorb the enemy projectlie and throw it back at him when you want.

And a lot of other stuff.
There’s just so many things to know when you play as/against a Mesmer.

Like you said, the game isn’t built that way. A good interupt control mesmer in GW1 was priceless and very fun. However when it comes to PvE, you have no heroes, and they wanted every class and build be able to solo play the game (with the exception of dungeons). So I think that one of the victums of breaking the trinity is the specialty of the interupt/control mesmer. Unfortunally for you, but not many people played that way in GW1 (though I enjoyed it from time to time).

For the reasons already stated by others,and though the game is ‘not designed that way’, I would have to go along with Mesmer as an answer!

I found the warrior and guardian to have the most effective control abilities. Hammer and mace gives lots of knockdowns and stuns and each has a decent number of cc utility skills.

You can still play an interrupt Mesmer. Look in domination for skills that enhance daze, and elsewhere there are traits that benefit you for interrupting. Great sword for knock back, focus for pull, staff or sword for daze, mantra of distraction … I ran into someone doing something like that, and while I don’t think it’s going to be a top rated build, it might be what you’re looking for. It felt as if every time I tried to do something he had a way to stop me.

I’ll take another look at the mesmer then. I just hate the clone system, it feels so clunky and hard to control. I’d have to find a build that didn’t focus on them, and I don’t think that’ll work out well. But I’ll go look up some builds.