Guild Wars 2

I want to start by saying I’ve really only been playing GW2 for the SPvP, and it’s by-and-large quite enjoyable. However, these forums clearly echo with cries of, “Nerf thief/mesmer!”

I’ve played most of my 19 ranks as a warrior, and I feel I have a good understanding of why these two classes are disliked so much. Is it because they’re overpowered? Maybe, but let’s consider what “overpowered” means.

To me, overpowered simply means stronger than other classes at the max level of play. I mostly do hot join and once in a blue moon a quick tournament. Like most players, I don’t really have a great idea of what exactly “optimal skill level” would entail with every class. I cannot say that thieves or mesmers would not be balanced vs the perfect elementalist/warrior/engineer for fact.

What I -can- say is that their classes sport mechanics that make them not only very unfun to fight against, they are above and beyond more confusing than every other class to face. Are they unbeatable? Probably not.

However, as anyone who has played in a game with a few extra mesmers has observed (whether or not they’re willing to admit it) that class immediately creates what I can only describe as a flashing purple butterfly clusterkitten that devolves into one unsightly mob of clones (and the worst thing tab targetting has experienced since Necromancers in Age of Conan). It’s very unappealing to new players. In fact, every time I’ve tried to get my friends to come play Spvp, they’ve been so immediately turned off by the “clone spammed battlegrounds” that they’ve quit.

Thieves cause a similar issue. They vanish completely for long periods of time, execute from stealth, and are often untouchable in a 1 on 1 encounter. I’m not saying this cannot be countered, but I’m saying you have to know a lot more about PvP to fight a thief than you do a warrior of equal skill.

I don’t want to say Mesmers and Thieves need to be “nerfed” but altered in such a way that they don’t discourage fun. Fighting a warrior is fun. You can see everything he does, and learn quickly from your mistakes. When he beats you, you know he outplayed you. I feel the same way about elementalists, engineers, necros, and guardians. Those classes -still- take time to learn, and are not too easily played at absolute optimal efficiency. They have an approximately balanced, comparable learning curve.

Thieves and Mesmers do not. They stand alone as the most dreaded classes to fight. Regardless of how many players insist, “Just learn to fight them!” and “Get better!” the massive discrepancy between them and other classes really shouldn’t just be ignored on this basis.

Either way, I have fun as long as I don’t take fighting those classes too seriously.

I made my mesmer just to see if they really where that brainless to play in spvp.

I was correct.

When I play my Mesmer, it’s just drunken button mashing (because if I’m not loaded, I need more of a challenge) and i win just about every battle that way. It’s just that easy.

Mesmers are what you would call, quoting some dev from another game, “Anti-fun”.

The frustration caused on enemy players far exceeds the fun that a mesmer player could possibly have when summoning heaps of illusions one after another, among other annoying mechanics.

And that alone is bad design.

It’s a myth that mesmer is difficult to play. Yes, it is important easy because of there mechanic and pve elements. (pets)

The only hard class to play, nah not to play, to SURVIVE is → Warrior
Yes, i main a War but i play also: Ranger, Mesmer, Guard

It´s a whole other world!

Nothing is difficult in hotjoin. As it comes to tpvp a mesmer has to be good, no doubt about it. As you will find yourself most times in a 1v1 against an ele and the most players know how to evade the mesmers dmg.

“Fun” is an even more relative concept then balance. Fun is subject to personal opinion. Balance is more grounded, and easier to build around though is still relative as a portion of it is subject to personal play style, scalling up to common playstyles of the community. This is why tier lists of PvP games tend to vary between regions.
I should add that making a game as balanced as possible isn’t a game successful either. If it were, Smash Bros and MvC2 wouldn’t be nearly as popular as they are.

Good post. I hate mesmers even more so than thieves because I can hope for thieves to be toned down in the future but mesmers? I just hate that the devs actually implemented such a mechanic in a PvP game. I think I would hate it even if they were brought down to an underpowered level. A clusterkitten is all there really is when a mesmer is around. Not that I cannot kill them when they’re bad, it’s just the worst mechanic I’ve ever had to play against in a PvP game. Unfun fights against mesmers is an understatement. How they could let so much PvE garbage into PvP is beyond me.

I am happy to see the overwhelming majority seems to agree with me, and I would frankly not be surprised if the nay-sayers were Mesmer and Thief players, especially since there seem to be an awful lot of those! In fact, the hot join I just played was me, an engineer, and 8 other players who were either Thieves or Mesmers.

They also may have had a necro briefly, but it was hard to tell with the entourage of purple butterfly people.

Imagine if I had made this post about warriors or engineers. Saying, “Wow, warriors are so broken! Super hard to fight and just insane!” I’d probably be laughed at. And while some may disagree that thieves/mesmers are the unparallelled best, note the difference in the community’s response to such claims.

Think this is a closed case, by now: These classes need to be toned down or altered in a way that makes fighting them a little more reasonable.

Its true, i’ve played em all. Mesmer and theif are extremely frusterating to fight. Atleast minion master necros areint turning invisable and teleporting all over the place…and mesmer pets do amazing damage. (not to say they shouldnt).

Mesmers problem unfortunatly is extremely more difficult to solve….their pets are built into their class mechanic. So you would have to do a reconstruction of the profession from the ground up to solve this.

As for theifs, a little less access to invis would be nice. I think its definitly something they should have access to…but the durations a bit long, they can get a few too many in one build, they dont suffer enough penalty for being invis.

The theif profession is actually pretty fun to play invis aside, i think some of their invis power should be removed and that power should be redirected towards other strengths and ways of avoiding damage.

key words, i’m not suggesting nerf theifs, they dont have much use at competitive play…nerfing them would not be the answer, shifting their strengths around is what needs to happen.

Well I don’t necessarily agree that mesmers/thieves aren’t fun to play against, but I do think the fun-factor of a game should take precedent over balance. Balance is something that should be focused for a mature gaming scene. Early on in a game’s lifespan when you are creating a playerbase, the fun-factor needs to be emphasized. This means not only class mechanics, but variance of builds, maps, game modes, etc.

If you find Clones confusing (and the reason for your finding them “unfun” to play against), here’s a tip: go to options and untick “Show All NPC Names”.

But yea balance aside these are mechanics that are frusterating regardless of skill.

IMO (balance aside) the best designed classes…which probably had the longest time in the cooking pot of development are Warrior/hunter/gaurdian. While a few play styles are restricted by some numbers, each plays really well…they do what you would expect them to do.

Theif does what you expect, it just needs some shifting otherwise works pretty much how you expect/want to play it.

Necromancer is poorly designed mostly due to their profession ability Deathshroud and pets AI is still bad…also their abilities are a couple amazing ones alongside ones you would never want to use even if they were good.

Elementalist is confusing at first, which isnt bad except the profession doesnt fullfill what you expect/want it to be. You expect access to amazingly powerful long range nukes perhaps summons. It has these but they are lack luster, and the profession shines better at being a support tank. This profession wouldnt be hard to fix, some ability shifting and power shifting like the theif is in order. Its not good enough at what you want to do, and too good at what you dont want to do.

Engineer simply is confusing for many out the door becaues it doesnt do what you expect it to well. Most players pick it expecting to bunker down with turrets while working with gadgets fighting at long range or whipping out a flame thrower to do massive close range damage while laying mines. Instead they excell at chugging potions and hurling grenades and setting bombs at their feet….most of their abilities force you into close range combat. Profession requires a lot of patience…it has its strengths but it will never do what you wanted it to do when you first started playing it.

Mesmer works pretty much like what you expect (though most people didnt think the professions play style would involve kamikaze clones wars…self destructing phantom menace…illusions of….ran out of star wars puns) but its design makes it overly frusterating to deal with. So the fun it brings the player using it does not out weigh the “anti-fun” it brings to everyone else having to fight it.

THIS IS NOT CONSIDERING BALANCE i’m only going off whats fun and not, i base my opinions not only on my own but what i see repeatedly said in profession forums. If a profession does not have abilities or play like you want it to thus forcing you to do things that are not as fun (like laying a bunch of PBAOE dots at your feet to kill anything) then it obviously wasnt designed correctly… when creating these professions and their abilities the developers should have been asking themselves (is this fun?) and sometimes i think they just thought (would someone else probably find this useful?)

Embolism.8106:

If you find Clones confusing (and the reason for your finding them “unfun” to play against), here’s a tip: go to options and untick “Show All NPC Names”.

Classic know-it-all guy thinking that the problem with mesmers is not knowing who the real one is.

Protip: It’s more complex than that.

Quoting the above poster:
“So the fun it brings the player using it does not out weigh the “anti-fun” it brings to everyone else having to fight it.”

Exactly. I don’t see how it is rewarding for the mesmer player to mash the buttons, summoning an endless stream of clones and phantasms, while his opponent is overwhelmed trying to evade their attacks / killing the phantasms WHILE the mesmer is having the easiest time waiting for the imminent shatter / blurred frenzy faceroll.

Razor.6392:

Embolism.8106:

If you find Clones confusing (and the reason for your finding them “unfun” to play against), here’s a tip: go to options and untick “Show All NPC Names”.

Classic know-it-all guy thinking that the problem with mesmers is not knowing who the real one is.

Protip: It’s more complex than that.

Quoting the above poster:
“So the fun it brings the player using it does not out weigh the “anti-fun” it brings to everyone else having to fight it.”

Exactly. I don’t see how it is rewarding for the mesmer player to mash the buttons, summoning an endless stream of clones and phantasms, while his opponent is overwhelmed trying to evade their attacks / killing the phantasms WHILE the mesmer is having the easiest time waiting for the imminent shatter / blurred frenzy faceroll.

Clones in general do not deal significant damage (unless you are facing a condition build), and Phantasms cannot be spammed: destroy a Phantasm promptly and it is on CD for a while. If Clones do not confuse you then you should not have trouble focusing your efforts on the real Mesmer, in which case they wouldn’t be having the easiest of times, they would be obliged to use their active defenses to avoid you. Keep the pressure up, make them use up their active defenses.

Well said Embolism. obviously majority of players understand and agree with that. Unfortunately some just don’t get it. As a mesmers, what’s so hard to counter me? Obviously if you can see me than you can challenge me, even behind or along side easy killable clones., phant. And my 3 sec Decoy is a joke to theif stealth. We mostly use Decoy to run away, and we can’t even attack while in Decoy.
Even rangers and engineers can agree on how it is not impossible to down a mesmer and finding the real one.
So what’s so Difficult?

Embolism.8106:

Razor.6392:

Embolism.8106:

If you find Clones confusing (and the reason for your finding them “unfun” to play against), here’s a tip: go to options and untick “Show All NPC Names”.

Classic know-it-all guy thinking that the problem with mesmers is not knowing who the real one is.

Protip: It’s more complex than that.

Quoting the above poster:
“So the fun it brings the player using it does not out weigh the “anti-fun” it brings to everyone else having to fight it.”

Exactly. I don’t see how it is rewarding for the mesmer player to mash the buttons, summoning an endless stream of clones and phantasms, while his opponent is overwhelmed trying to evade their attacks / killing the phantasms WHILE the mesmer is having the easiest time waiting for the imminent shatter / blurred frenzy faceroll.

Clones in general do not deal significant damage (unless you are facing a condition build), and Phantasms cannot be spammed: destroy a Phantasm promptly and it is on CD for a while. If Clones do not confuse you then you should not have trouble focusing your efforts on the real Mesmer, in which case they wouldn’t be having the easiest of times, they would be obliged to use their active defenses to avoid you. Keep the pressure up, make them use up their active defenses.

In a long fight, the phantasms do come back quite often.

And everytime they do, back to square one.

I kill almost every mesmer 1v1, but there’s nothing in this game I hate fighting more. It is incredibly frustrating trying to constantly track them down, waiting for them to do something to differentiate themselves from the clones, waiting for them to come out of stealth, etc. Every mechanic they have is insanely frustrating. The area denial fields if they’re using that build. The immobilize into massive burst which is nowhere near as easy to avoid as people say if you’re fighting at close range. The low cooldown staff back port. Confusion being the dumbest ability in the game, especially in wvw. Multiple dazes. All the downstate crap.

I am well aware mesmers can’t have all these things at once, but the point is that in any build they have mechanics that are very frustrating to fight.

Thieves are frustrating as well, but not to the same degree. The biggest problems I have with thieves are the insane burst and the stealth. It’s not that they do too much damage, it’s that it’s so frontloaded. Either you avoid their opening and they aren’t too much of a threat, or you die instantly. That can be an intense and enjoyable dynamic in very small fights, but in team fights, the likelyhood of never seeing the thief and simply dropping dead is far too high. I’d really like to see the burst lowered and the sustained raised to compensate.

The stealth is just kind of dumb. CnD is too good. Stealth shouldn’t be constantly available like it is with /D builds. D/P uses a huge amount of initiative and takes two steps to stealth. /D builds use a medium amount of initiative and can be done at any time, especially against any class that has a pet. I don’t know if it’d be better to make CnD less available or just raise the revealed time, but they definitely shouldn’t be able to go into stealth as often as they do. If they need a survivability boost to compensate then fine, as long as it’s something less frustrating than my opponent disappearing every three seconds.

Hopefully game devs will one day learn invisibility isn’t a fun mechanic to play against, no matter how cool it seems. Its too late for gw2, the mechanic is already there and there is realistically no way its going to be removed. The only hope I see here is gw devs implementing a hard counter to it, at least then it can turn into a game like chess, where you got to at least try to outplay each other and not just have one person unable to do much until the other person feels like attacking/retreating .

MEAN SECTION>

Stop complaining about the fact that you are a terrible player we already know that. Stealth is a great mechanic as is clones.

No it isn’t op maybe when you actually l2p you will change your mind. O wait you will never l2p.

Losers always hate what they don’t understand.

As for the fun issue… its fun when you win correct? So stop losing. O wait your complaining about your lack of skill.

It takes less than 2 seconds to find real mesmer.
Stealth isn’t invulnerable.

NICE SECTION>

want some advice?

Mesmer Clones:
No icons.
Doesn’t move. (shatter all of them move 1 direction)
No damage.
Options change show only player names clones won’t show up.
No animations except spam attack.
Call target on real one.
Condi the real one for long time (dead)
aoe the clones (whirlwind is fun)
Mesmers have lowish hp and no armor.

Thief
CND is soooo easy to dodge. They can only use it twice. Dodge it constantly and they wont restealth.
black powder heart seeker costs 9 initiative. they can do it once every 5-6 seconds
stealth isn’t invulnerable. Auto attack,aoe,more than 2 condis, etc and they will constantly take damage. CC, immobilize, and actually hitting them. They either have 17-20k hp and only 2k armor total or 12k hp and 3k armor.
Figure out which your fighting.
Condi wont beat the 20k guy and damage wont beat 3k armor. (not easily)

Learn when to not pick a fight.
Certain builds beat others. Accept them and life is easier.

JinDaVikk.7291:

MEAN SECTION>

Stop complaining about the fact that you are a terrible player we already know that. Stealth is a great mechanic as is clones.

No it isn’t op maybe when you actually l2p you will change your mind. O wait you will never l2p.

Losers always hate what they don’t understand.

As for the fun issue… its fun when you win correct? So stop losing. O wait your complaining about your lack of skill.

It takes less than 2 seconds to find real mesmer.
Stealth isn’t invulnerable.

NICE SECTION>

want some advice?

Mesmer Clones:
No icons.
Doesn’t move. (shatter all of them move 1 direction)
No damage.
Options change show only player names clones won’t show up.
No animations except spam attack.
Call target on real one.
Condi the real one for long time (dead)
aoe the clones (whirlwind is fun)
Mesmers have lowish hp and no armor.

Thief
CND is soooo easy to dodge. They can only use it twice. Dodge it constantly and they wont restealth.
black powder heart seeker costs 9 initiative. they can do it once every 5-6 seconds
stealth isn’t invulnerable. Auto attack,aoe,more than 2 condis, etc and they will constantly take damage. CC, immobilize, and actually hitting them. They either have 17-20k hp and only 2k armor total or 12k hp and 3k armor.
Figure out which your fighting.
Condi wont beat the 20k guy and damage wont beat 3k armor. (not easily)

Learn when to not pick a fight.
Certain builds beat others. Accept them and life is easier.

I have already answered to you in some other thread but after reading this now I’m certain that you are not trolling.

How can you be so dense? Seriously, this is worrying me. For the last time, the issue with mesmers IS NOT IDENTIFYING THE REAL ONE. The issue with mesmers is their entire frustrating and forgiving kit, try reading other posts before you embarrass yourself even further.

I’m really at a loss of words… You deserve much worse adjectives addressing your intellect, but the forum rules won’t allow me to.

I’ll leave you with this: Every one of us complaining know who the real one is, but we still believe that they’re unbalanced. What now? What’s your easy l2p counter? I’m certainly curious.

hahahah the issue is you cant kill one of the glassiest classes ever just because they have a single combo? thats the same as hundred blade that everyone hated.

As for the forgiving skills ( I assume you mean the escapes) last I remember my warrior,necro,trap ranger,and thief have a large amount of forgiving skills, with more damage than mesmers. shame really.

Go back to school, and learn to read. Once you learned how to read, take a look at this and the other thread, there are many reasons why mesmers are considered imbalanced. Oh and while you’re at it, learn to take part in an argument without sounding extremely childish and nonsensical, that would help too.

Seriously, re-read your post… “hahahah” you’re not even laughing bro. It’s sad. It lacks coherence and any substance. It adds nothing to your PoV and just makes you look like a fool.

Razor.6392:

Go back to school, and learn to read. Once you learned how to read, take a look at this and the other thread, there are many reasons why mesmers are considered imbalanced. Oh and while you’re at it, learn to take part in an argument without sounding extremely childish and nonsensical, that would help too.

Seriously, re-read your post… “hahahah” you’re not even laughing bro. It’s sad. It lacks coherence and any substance. It adds nothing to your PoV and just makes you look like a fool.

You keep complaining about me trolling but every one of your posts in the last hour have been hate filled against me. such a hypocrite.

Wonder why? Stupidity ticks me off.

Here little baby, I’ll explain everything to you step by step.

1. You come all high and mighty calling us losers and saying that we need to l2p and learn to recognize the real mesmer. Whether you were serious or not it’s irrelevant, your point is made and confirmed in the following section of your post. It boggles my mind how you could have the guts to formulate such an ignorant statement all while thinking that you were genuinely right in your assertion.

2. You fail to read any of the posts that state what are the actual mesmer flaws.

3. You derail this thread, making no sense whatsoever and acting like I would expect a mesmer player to behave.

For the last time, there are many posts out there, some even explain it better than me. So go read them, ask someone around you to help you understand them if you can. There are reasons why people consider mesmers imbalanced, and I can safely say that it isn’t because we fail to tell who is the real one.

Look all this anger over how you cant beat mesmers or you think they are too strong means something in your life is wrong. its a game chill lol.

as for the mesmer player I have played mesmer 200 hours in pve… 12 in pvp… never enjoyed it. As for the comeback?

what? Your making this sound like a competition. Chill Out.

Excellent comeback, I rest my case.

I find thieves very fun to fight against, but only with certain builds. For example, glass cannon vs. thief duels just feel…silly. It’s like a boxing match that ends as soon as the first punch lands. But I love fighting thieves with my tanky engineer build.

I don’t enjoy fighting mesmers much at all, even though I’ve forced myself to learn how to do it. I don’t generally play burst builds, but I imagine they make for more exciting fights with mesmers. Playing something even remotely tanky just feels like wading through PvE mobs trying to catch up to the real mesmer, who I have no trouble recognizing, thanks. It’s just getting to him, landing some dps, watching him port back, then continuing to plow through the illusions that makes it less exciting. Don’t get me wrong, I win a reasonable percentage of fights against mesmers, but I’ll agree that they’re the least fun profession to fight against.

apparently learning isn’t fun—our education system has failed us.

Razor.6392:

JinDaVikk.7291:

MEAN SECTION>

Stop complaining about the fact that you are a terrible player we already know that. Stealth is a great mechanic as is clones.

No it isn’t op maybe when you actually l2p you will change your mind. O wait you will never l2p.

Losers always hate what they don’t understand.

As for the fun issue… its fun when you win correct? So stop losing. O wait your complaining about your lack of skill.

It takes less than 2 seconds to find real mesmer.
Stealth isn’t invulnerable.

NICE SECTION>

want some advice?

Mesmer Clones:
No icons.
Doesn’t move. (shatter all of them move 1 direction)
No damage.
Options change show only player names clones won’t show up.
No animations except spam attack.
Call target on real one.
Condi the real one for long time (dead)
aoe the clones (whirlwind is fun)
Mesmers have lowish hp and no armor.

Thief
CND is soooo easy to dodge. They can only use it twice. Dodge it constantly and they wont restealth.
black powder heart seeker costs 9 initiative. they can do it once every 5-6 seconds
stealth isn’t invulnerable. Auto attack,aoe,more than 2 condis, etc and they will constantly take damage. CC, immobilize, and actually hitting them. They either have 17-20k hp and only 2k armor total or 12k hp and 3k armor.
Figure out which your fighting.
Condi wont beat the 20k guy and damage wont beat 3k armor. (not easily)

Learn when to not pick a fight.
Certain builds beat others. Accept them and life is easier.

I have already answered to you in some other thread but after reading this now I’m certain that you are not trolling.

How can you be so dense? Seriously, this is worrying me. For the last time, the issue with mesmers IS NOT IDENTIFYING THE REAL ONE. The issue with mesmers is their entire frustrating and forgiving kit, try reading other posts before you embarrass yourself even further.

I’m really at a loss of words… You deserve much worse adjectives addressing your intellect, but the forum rules won’t allow me to.

I’ll leave you with this: Every one of us complaining know who the real one is, but we still believe that they’re unbalanced. What now? What’s your easy l2p counter? I’m certainly curious.

Please, instead of spamming the forum, you should better learn how to deal with these classes. And NO, they’re not OP. You just have no idea about how their mechanics work.
seriously…

Well imo mesmers and thieves ruin this game. Simple as that. I so enjoy matchs where no of them is presented. Its so rare these days. 8 Thieves in scenario isnt rare.
I play pvp in mmo pretty much last 12 years and I never met so badly balanced stealth class. I agree with dmg its how that classes works but stealth? Its ridiculous here. It needs some internal cd between stealths at least! But only one who get more internal cd well be my engineer..

As usual when you try to explain how something is NOT FUN to fight against.

Everyone starts with their l2p its not OP.

Read the posts. People are saying (as for theifs) lower their invis and give them other survivability options that are less frusterating. Theifs arent in a good spot competively last time i checked, where mesmers are very good still.

Do mesmers need nerfed due to their skill ceiling being too high? Maybe, who knows. But regardless they are frusterating to fight.

Theres a reason these professions are so popular and so many people despise them.
its a problem. Balance aside, its a problem.

Burnfall.9573:

Well said Embolism. obviously majority of players understand and agree with that. Unfortunately some just don’t get it. As a mesmers, what’s so hard to counter me?

I love how most responses are, “Yeah, Mesmers are pretty absurd and not fun at all to fight.”

And yet you claim the majority opinion is the exact opposite. Blatant denial of obvious trends. Interesting tactic.

faeral.7120:

apparently learning isn’t fun—our education system has failed us.

and another person completely missing the point. It’s not a matter of whether or not you can learn to beat thieves and mesmers. I can and have before, as have countless others.

It’s just about 10x harder to fight than every other class. This is the point. It’s called balance. Nobody is saying thieves and mesmers auto win all the time forever. It’s about how they compare to OTHER classes in general. I don’t get how this concept is so confusing.

Besides, if you have so much fun overcoming challenges with your 1337 skeels, then I’m sure you’ll have a fantastic time making the thief/mesmer work after they get toned down to the same level as every other class. :P

Zinwrath.2049:

Theres a reason these professions are so popular and so many people despise them.
its a problem. Balance aside, its a problem.

The reason is “hotjoin” aka zerg-join. If you move on to tpvp where players actually know how to handle things, you will see that every class is played and not only thieves/mesmers.

Jackalrat.5493:

[original post]

Razor.6392:

Mesmers are what you would call, quoting some dev from another game, “Anti-fun”.

The frustration caused on enemy players far exceeds the fun that a mesmer player could possibly have when summoning heaps of illusions one after another, among other annoying mechanics.

And that alone is bad design.

These two posts describe exactly how I feel about it. After not having played for a week or two, I played some sPvP today, to be so annoyed by thieves and mesmers again that I just gave up and quit after half an hour.

Mechanics that are purely annoying and ruin the PvP experience for me:

- large amount of clones
- stealth / other dissapear like teleport

If it were up to me stealth would be totally removed, and the amount of clone skills would be reduced. Before people go cry that thieves and mesmers are too weak then: that’s a kitten argument, obviously some balancing could and would be done to compensate for it. But even if not, the general fun of playing the game is more important than balance, as the thread title says.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

The reason is “hotjoin” aka zerg-join. If you move on to tpvp where players actually know how to handle things, you will see that every class is played and not only thieves/mesmers.

Things being fine for tPvP is in no way an excuse for the horrible experience that hot join currently is. They should either remove hot join alltogether, or make it fun, which would involve changing things that may also affect tPvP.

The issue with any class being “too difficult to fight” or “anti-fun” is not understanding how that class works. You lose against Thieves and Mesmers because of IGNORANCE, not because of Clones, Stealth, a “forgiving” tool kit or whatever. Roll one of each and figure out how they fight. Learn some common builds and strategies. Learn their weaknesses. I have a Thief and a Mesmer, but also an Elementalist, a Warrior, and a Guardian. I have absoluetly no trouble fighting all but the best Mesmers or Thieves.

Thats because I have extensively played both of them. Get inside their head and figure out how they fight.

Heh
This thread is funny.

“Thieves and Mesmers are ‘anti-fun’ classes to fight against”
(I actually agree with this as invisibility mechanics and similar have been obnoxious and annoying since their inception in pvp games. The mesmer mechanics are somewhat new but still obnoxious and annoying in their own right)

Counter argument
“You need to L2P because you are bad”.

What’s funny, is that somehow people think that:
1- If you “learn to play” somehow those mechanics that you find annoying and anti-fun suddenly become fun. Possible, sure, but highly doubtful.
2- Something being anti-fun means you’re bad at it. This is absurd. I am actually really good at smashing my fingers with a hammer, it’s still not fun.

Fun is subjective. No amount of high-horse “L2P” comments will ever change the fact that many people simply do not enjoy, like or have fun playing against the mechanics offered by thieves/mesmers. A large portion of it comes down to the target dropping and invisibility + burst design.

*To whomever above said that shatter mesmers are glass… NO. Sorry but the reason that thieves and mesmers benefit from zerker statting so much is because their inherent survivability outclasses what just about every other class is capable of. Thieves and mesmers have the best natural defenses in the game.

Ive said this several times but Ill throw in my experience again. I main(ed) a ranger for the past 4 months and have just under 700 hours on it. I refuse to run the trap build since I find it should be nerfed imo, so I play more single target damage in a tanky/BM build. I’ve had tons and tons of trouble with mesmers in the past due to hitting he ranged skill cap about 3 months into playing it. So, in the past couple weeks I rolled a Mesmer to see how to counter it. I currently run a bunker style build on it as well, and when I used it I was insanely surprised at how easy it is to win because it is literally impossible to hurt me unless you do tons of ranged damage and condi stacks and do most of your damage with pets. So after about 75 hours on my new Mesmer (I’m already better with it than my 650 hour ranger) I still cannot defeat phantasm mesmers because of the insane pet damage and inability to hit the actual Mesmer. Additonally, even though I know exactly what the Mesmer is doing when playing my ranger, it makes absolutely no difference because of all the escape capabilities and MASSIVE phantasm damage. (There’s currently no way to dodge a zerker phantasm because the reflexes required needs super human capabilities and a 360 degree Fov) Thus I’m kittened easily by these mesmers even though I know EXACTLY where they are and what they’re doing. How is that fair?

Stealth is a bad game mechanic. Ever since Dark Ages of Camelot (the first pvp MMORPG with it that I know of) it has been a controversial mechanic. It doesn’t matter if it can be countered or not it is totally unfun to play against and often leaves people on the receiving end feeling like they were cheated somehow.

Kwll.1468:

Stealth is a bad game mechanic. Ever since Dark Ages of Camelot (the first pvp MMORPG with it that I know of) it has been a controversial mechanic. It doesn’t matter if it can be countered or not it is totally unfun to play against and often leaves people on the receiving end feeling like they were cheated somehow.

Indeed! While we’re on it, they abolished the holy trinity, why A-Net aren´t ballsy enough and turn one’s back on something like stealth?