Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the meta lately, and the complete lack of mesmers in high level PvP makes it evident that they could us a bit of a boost.

That said, I don’t think the solution is to give them a better condition cleanse, or to make their burst even stronger. I think the solution is to fix the problems that make mesmers fail in the niche they’re supposed to fill: being confusing and hard to pin down. Up until now, high level mesmer players have been playing around the failings in their main mechanics. Once you get past low-level play, mesmer illusions don’t fool anyone.

I think there are two changes, that combined, could make mesmers viable again:

1. Fix all of the bugs that make clones too obvious:

1. Give clones offhand weapons. This bug has been making mesmers look like fools since beta. I imagine there’s a serious hurdle to making this work in the engine, but it needs to happen.
2. Fix the clone auto-attack rate so that it matches the player auto-attack rate. They don’t do damage anyway, and the tiny boost this would give to sharper images / staff condition builds won’t matter much.

2. Give mesmers a way to escape the giant red arrow of doom:

1. If a mesmer has been called as a target, make the Decoy skill move the target to the decoy clone. As it is, mesmers almost always get a target called on them, which makes all of their illusions useless. Given that being able to confuse opponents is meant to be their primary defense, they need a way to counter the target arrow.
2. Make Ether Blast give 1/4 second of stealth. This is admittedly a bit of a stretch, but mesmer scepter is probably the least played weapon in PvP due to how ridiculously underpowered it is. The tiny bit of stealth would break target, and create a chance for the clone created by the third attack in the chain to actually be confusing.

yep exactly thats what i thought too…they also put an arrow above the downed mesmer to show people who the right one is..thats ridiculous

I’ve mentioned this before elsewhere, but in addition the “Phantasmal Haste” trait STILL doesn’t work for Izerker and Iswordsman. So much for build diversity if we’re stuck with some potentially powerful but bugged traits!

Sensotix.4106:

yep exactly thats what i thought too…they also put an arrow above the downed mesmer to show people who the right one is..thats ridiculous

You got stealth without autoattack, which is a lot better than the garbage necromancers and rangers and engineers have.

Mesmer downed and thief downed and ele downed are the only downed states that can stop stability/stealth stomp.

And the problem with the mesmer really is their poor sustained damage. If they can’t land the shatter or phantasm spike, they do no damage and the current meta builds have more gap closers or do ranged damage that the mesmer just can’t keep up with.

Too much of the mesmer’s damage is tied to his illusions. The shatters also suck without investment (need heavy trait support) and Cry of Frustration is outright bad, while Diversion’s daze doesn’t take amount of clones into account while some warrior can stun someone for 3 seconds on a low cd your mesmer gets huge cd’s on a 1 sec daze and a 25 sec cd buggy aoe knockback.

Clones outside staff and sword just do nothing. Nobody will take scepter because it doesn’t have clones on demand, you have to go through this delayed autochain that also does no damage whatsoever, and then you’ve got a skill with huge windup for 5 stacks of confusion while the engineer does it in one single hit with toolkit and can upkeep high stacks of confusion than the mesmer can in addition to all the other conditions the engineer gets plus his survivability.

Mesmer downed and thief downed and ele downed are the only downed states that can stop stability/stealth stomp.

Mesmer downed 2 does not block a stealth stomp – it requires a target.

greyblue.4962:

Mesmer downed and thief downed and ele downed are the only downed states that can stop stability/stealth stomp.

Mesmer downed 2 does not block a stealth stomp – it requires a target.

In a team fight you can target any other player. And you can still prevent a stealth stomp by starting to mash 2 when you are expecting to go down.

Zenith.7301:

greyblue.4962:

Mesmer downed and thief downed and ele downed are the only downed states that can stop stability/stealth stomp.

Mesmer downed 2 does not block a stealth stomp – it requires a target.

In a team fight you can target any other player. And you can still prevent a stealth stomp by starting to mash 2 when you are expecting to go down.

in situation such as 2 v 2, enemy team with a theif, blinding powder or shadow refuge their teammate then you will have no target to cast downstate #2….

perhaps make it so that down #2 doesnt require a target…

Sensotix.4106:

yep exactly thats what i thought too…they also put an arrow above the downed mesmer to show people who the right one is..thats ridiculous

I always wondered about this. It’s so stupid. What’s the point of the ability if it has a HUGE arrow pointing on your head saying “HERE I AM”.

leungclj.4915:

Zenith.7301:

greyblue.4962:

Mesmer downed and thief downed and ele downed are the only downed states that can stop stability/stealth stomp.

Mesmer downed 2 does not block a stealth stomp – it requires a target.

In a team fight you can target any other player. And you can still prevent a stealth stomp by starting to mash 2 when you are expecting to go down.

in situation such as 2 v 2, enemy team with a theif, blinding powder or shadow refuge their teammate then you will have no target to cast downstate #2….

perhaps make it so that down #2 doesnt require a target…

That would be nice. I must agree here that downedstate is where mesmer has a slight advantage over others. However the disadvantage is how easy a mesmer is to bring down currently compared to engis or well just about anyone. Get a well built engi to 25% health and the fun is just starting. Get a mesmer to 25% easy peasy after that. Class viability directly relates to how easy it is to down and the damage it does before downed.

This is why necro, ranger, guard, and engi are demi gods running around the map. They can do sometimes OP damage and still be a real pain in the neck to kill. Mesmer can deal some good damage but any decent condi build on the other team and it is GG mesmer.

Thieves counter mesmers harder and they’re not even condi builds, so the problem isn’t really conditions, especially with null field and condi removal on heal.

The problem is how easy it is to pressure a mesmer because he can’t counterpressure well while on the defensive.

^ That is another good analysis. Some ideas I would like to see to help mesmer.
Illusionary membrane-Right now it is a terrible minor trait when compared to other classes (ranger dodge=protection for one). Reducing the ICD that way the mesmer can at least have a chance of getting more than terrible uptime on a necessary boon for survivability.
Condi Clear-Mesmers need moar and it needs to be more reliable.
Blurred Frenzy-The twofold nerf was too much. We have nooooo hard hitting melee attacks aside from that and once it was over before we still had 8-10s of being a free punching bag before we could do it again. Now it is easily interrupted and any team with a guard on it turns the mesmer into GG.

The problem is right now EVERYTHING counters mesmers. Spirit rangers/necros/engis provide heavy condi pressure. Warriors/Certain engi builds out do mesmers in hard CC. Guards and eles and engis can out bunker mesmers. Thieves have better in combat mobility and better burst/sustained. There is no place where a mesmer fits into the meta anymore. I hate to say it but this is something I called back in Feb.

I do like your ideas, but I don’t think the changes to clones will make enough of a difference. It’s the movement of the clones that is the kicker; they auto attack the target on the spot and then follow it when it goes out of range. They’re just far too obvious anyway, and to truly produce a Mesmer that can confound and confuse its opponent would require giving clones access to dodge rolls and weapon skills other than auto attacks, and their AI would have to be drastically improved.

The thing is, even if Anet could realise all of the above, it would make Mesmers really overpowered. The only way it would work is if clones were made purely visual, and didn’t actually damage the target. However, taking the Mesmer in this whole other direction just isn’t practical. It would require big changes to traits, a whole rethink on the Mesmer mechanics and a lot of coding.

I do agree with your second set of ideas though — I can see the target switch thing making a significant enough impact in a mid fight. Once again though, I doubt Anet will be willing to implement something that requires so much effort. I’m guessing it would take a great deal of tampering with the targeting system to come up with something. I agree with whoever said they should put a red arrow on downed clones though — the fact that this isn’t already in place is very, very stupid.

I just think Anet are big fans of quick fix balancing right now, so I still think a good suggestion at the moment is to just move Shattered Conditions to the master tier. I made a thread about this but it didn’t get a very good following.

Zenith.7301:

Too much of the mesmer’s damage is tied to his illusions. The shatters also suck without investment (need heavy trait support) and Cry of Frustration is outright bad, while Diversion’s daze doesn’t take amount of clones into account while some warrior can stun someone for 3 seconds on a low cd your mesmer gets huge cd’s on a 1 sec daze and a 25 sec cd buggy aoe knockback.

Warriors dont have instacast ranged skills with no animations like “Mind Wrack” or skills with invulnerability like"Bluried Frenzy". Lets give that to warriors too? Mesmers have their own mechanics while the 3sec warrior stun is also linked to their own mechanics.
Its like to say that if that class do that better than mine i also want that. In that case shall warriors be able to have clones, mind wrack and bluried frenzy? I would not want that to warriors.
I believe mesmers should be toned down in a 1v1 cenário and be buffed a little in team fights (suport).

Zenith.7301:

Too much of the mesmer’s damage is tied to his illusions. The shatters also suck without investment (need heavy trait support) and Cry of Frustration is outright bad, while Diversion’s daze doesn’t take amount of clones into account while some warrior can stun someone for 3 seconds on a low cd your mesmer gets huge cd’s on a 1 sec daze and a 25 sec cd buggy aoe knockback.

I don’t really agree that CoF is bad, but I definitely agree that Diversion should have some return on investment — it truly is stupid. The only way you can do this is by staggering your shatter by placing the clones at varying distances from the target to chain dazes, but it shouldn’t require this much effort and the long distance clone will probably die on the way, especially in a mid fight. Thing is, this issue stems from CC not being stackable. Maybe if the amount of clones influenced the number of of targets affected, that might work. Compare it to a warrior burst skill and the recharge does seem frighteningly high, though.

Matty.1953:

I just think Anet are big fans of quick fix balancing right now, so I still think a good suggestion at the moment is to just move Shattered Conditions to the master tier. I made a thread about this but it didn’t get a very good following.

This

silentnight warrior.2714:

Zenith.7301:

Too much of the mesmer’s damage is tied to his illusions. The shatters also suck without investment (need heavy trait support) and Cry of Frustration is outright bad, while Diversion’s daze doesn’t take amount of clones into account while some warrior can stun someone for 3 seconds on a low cd your mesmer gets huge cd’s on a 1 sec daze and a 25 sec cd buggy aoe knockback.

Warriors dont have instacast ranged skills with no animations like “Mind Wrack” or skills with invulnerability like"Bluried Frenzy". Lets give that to warriors too? Mesmers have their own mechanics while the 3sec warrior stun is also linked to their own mechanics.
Its like to say that if that class do that better than mine i also want that. In that case shall warriors be able to have clones, mind wrack and bluried frenzy? I would not want that to warriors.
I believe mesmers should be toned down in a 1v1 cenário and be buffed a little in team fights (suport).

Mind Wrack is not instant cast at range. The clones walk to you. If you’re too terrible to avoid them it’s your fault. Jumper’s channel constantly shows him dodging mindwracks even at melee range.

And they do have skills with invulnerability. It’s called shield stance and endure pain and whirlwind attack and defy pain and even berserker stance, 8 seconds of immunity to conditions that mesmers would kill for.

And effing please, toned down in 1v1? Mesmers cannot beat warriors 1v1 with the new healing signet and running a cc spec, ever.

If you’re losing 1v1’s as a warrior now your build sucks. Warriors are one of the strongest duelists at the moment, only really having a tough match up against s/d thief.

Mesmer beat just about everything else in 1v1 except for warriors.

They only sucked because of the condi build meta, but their spike is still among the strongest. Also they pretty much counter ALL other power build except the warrior’s, given how hard it is to pin them down otherwise given a ton of evades.

And when Mesmer wins, it’s not even because of skills coz they just pop clones one after another like there’s no tomorrow, each dealing a goodly 3-4k of damage per shot, letting cheap AI do the dirty work and the main one can just focus on healing/surviving. Anyone fighting them on the other hand will have plenty of things to keep them busy such as retargeting and dodging their endless spike.

Actually I think Mesmer spike or survivability could use a few hit by the nerf bat before the devs should consider buffing them.

Sensotix.4106:

yep exactly thats what i thought too…they also put an arrow above the downed mesmer to show people who the right one is..thats ridiculous

Agree.
I think that ilisuon become useless with red arrow.

But Mesmer still very strong, in my opinion

Bud.5617:

Mesmer beat just about everything else in 1v1 except for warriors.

They only sucked because of the condi build meta, but their spike is still among the strongest. Also they pretty much counter ALL other power build except the warrior’s, given how hard it is to pin them down otherwise given a ton of evades.

And when Mesmer wins, it’s not even because of skills coz they just pop clones one after another like there’s no tomorrow, each dealing a goodly 3-4k of damage per shot, while the main one can just focus on surviving. Anyone fighting them on the other hand will have plenty of things to keep them busy such as dodging the endless spike.

Actually I think Mesmer spike or survivability could use a few hit by the nerf bat.

just thought I’d point out that an endless spike isn’t a spike and that our spike actually has to walk up to you to deal the damage, unless its a phantasm ofcourse, in which case you can just evade or block and we wont even get it to spawn… And even after all this, rangers think their pets have it bad

Zenith.7301:

silentnight warrior.2714:

Zenith.7301:

Too much of the mesmer’s damage is tied to his illusions. The shatters also suck without investment (need heavy trait support) and Cry of Frustration is outright bad, while Diversion’s daze doesn’t take amount of clones into account while some warrior can stun someone for 3 seconds on a low cd your mesmer gets huge cd’s on a 1 sec daze and a 25 sec cd buggy aoe knockback.

Warriors dont have instacast ranged skills with no animations like “Mind Wrack” or skills with invulnerability like"Bluried Frenzy". Lets give that to warriors too? Mesmers have their own mechanics while the 3sec warrior stun is also linked to their own mechanics.
Its like to say that if that class do that better than mine i also want that. In that case shall warriors be able to have clones, mind wrack and bluried frenzy? I would not want that to warriors.
I believe mesmers should be toned down in a 1v1 cenário and be buffed a little in team fights (suport).

Mind Wrack is not instant cast at range. The clones walk to you. If you’re too terrible to avoid them it’s your fault. Jumper’s channel constantly shows him dodging mindwracks even at melee range.

And they do have skills with invulnerability. It’s called shield stance and endure pain and whirlwind attack and defy pain and even berserker stance, 8 seconds of immunity to conditions that mesmers would kill for.

And effing please, toned down in 1v1? Mesmers cannot beat warriors 1v1 with the new healing signet and running a cc spec, ever.

If you’re losing 1v1’s as a warrior now your build sucks. Warriors are one of the strongest duelists at the moment, only really having a tough match up against s/d thief.

You can beat these warriors 1v1 but you need to kite back and forth so much to land 2 shatters to be able to put enough preassure on him, and even then he’ll just run away. Not to say its anywhere near viable in tPvP.

(Also you mentioned thieves somewhere I want to point out they only really preassure mesmers if the refuge at a distance and get a significant opener.)

That being said its better than ranger which will just pew pew pew and you can do nothing about it except die slowly.

I don’t know where or how A-net tests balance, to many builds can just outlast shatter even if they don’t know how to doge it. What happened to “not letting a bunker or survivabillity build just out last and kill DPS with barely a scratch by the end”

I think we need stronger base attacks or a way to pump out shatters faster. I hear guardians saying “oh 10k WW” mesmers barely get that on a MW and that’s only with vulnerability, phants half make up for our in consistent damage but it’s still not enough to even hurt something that can outlast. Problem then is builds that aren’t like that die super fast if they don’t know how to doge shatter so ppl rage.

I mostly can beat 1v1 if I have enough time, but I find myself just avoiding builds because it takes to much time and the games about cap points right… -_-

Sometimes I think gw2 would play better as a 3rd person DOTA-like or MOBA’ kind of like smite.

Bud.5617:

Mesmer beat just about everything else in 1v1 except for warriors.

They only sucked because of the condi build meta, but their spike is still among the strongest. Also they pretty much counter ALL other power build except the warrior’s, given how hard it is to pin them down otherwise given a ton of evades.

And when Mesmer wins, it’s not even because of skills coz they just pop clones one after another like there’s no tomorrow, each dealing a goodly 3-4k of damage per shot, letting cheap AI do the dirty work and the main one can just focus on healing/surviving. Anyone fighting them on the other hand will have plenty of things to keep them busy such as retargeting and dodging their endless spike.

Actually I think Mesmer spike or survivability could use a few hit by the nerf bat before the devs should consider buffing them.

What a dirty lie. Thieves beat mesmer 1v1. Bunker ranger beats mesmer 1v1. Necro beats mesmer 1v1.

Mesmers can somewhat cope with engineers and guardians and elementalists. Any spec that can outlast and pressure the mesmer beats it.

Lue.6538:

Bud.5617:

Mesmer beat just about everything else in 1v1 except for warriors.

They only sucked because of the condi build meta, but their spike is still among the strongest. Also they pretty much counter ALL other power build except the warrior’s, given how hard it is to pin them down otherwise given a ton of evades.

And when Mesmer wins, it’s not even because of skills coz they just pop clones one after another like there’s no tomorrow, each dealing a goodly 3-4k of damage per shot, while the main one can just focus on surviving. Anyone fighting them on the other hand will have plenty of things to keep them busy such as dodging the endless spike.

Actually I think Mesmer spike or survivability could use a few hit by the nerf bat.

just thought I’d point out that an endless spike isn’t a spike and that our spike actually has to walk up to you to deal the damage, unless its a phantasm ofcourse, in which case you can just evade or block and we wont even get it to spawn… And even after all this, rangers think their pets have it bad

Oh great so you don’t even need to get your hands dirty coz you have AI to do it for you.

You realize all other power based classes need to risk their health getting into melee range in order to spike – right?

Of course Mesmer had to be special, they only need to push one button, once to win, the AI will take over. At least HS spamming thieves had to push that button repeatedly and get into melee. Hey I know it’s like the easy button that clicks itself! How is that for skill?

Bud.5617:

Lue.6538:

Bud.5617:

Mesmer beat just about everything else in 1v1 except for warriors.

They only sucked because of the condi build meta, but their spike is still among the strongest. Also they pretty much counter ALL other power build except the warrior’s, given how hard it is to pin them down otherwise given a ton of evades.

And when Mesmer wins, it’s not even because of skills coz they just pop clones one after another like there’s no tomorrow, each dealing a goodly 3-4k of damage per shot, while the main one can just focus on surviving. Anyone fighting them on the other hand will have plenty of things to keep them busy such as dodging the endless spike.

Actually I think Mesmer spike or survivability could use a few hit by the nerf bat.

just thought I’d point out that an endless spike isn’t a spike and that our spike actually has to walk up to you to deal the damage, unless its a phantasm ofcourse, in which case you can just evade or block and we wont even get it to spawn… And even after all this, rangers think their pets have it bad

Oh great so you don’t even need to get your hands dirty coz you have AI to do it for you.

You realize all other power based classes need to risk their health getting into melee range in order to spike – right?

Of course Mesmer had to be special, they only need to push one button, once to win, the AI will take over. At least HS spamming thieves had to push that button repeatedly and get into melee. Hey I know it’s like the easy button that clicks itself! How is that for skill?

Yes phant is dumb and easymode but they got the nerf bat nicely, unfortunately it didn’t do much at least there is a little bit more play.

Please explain how summoning 3 illusions each on their own different C/D then shattering, then having to do it a 2nd time for max damage that is still less than a zerker guard whirling wrath while the shattering process is easy to avoid, is one button win or easy button win?

Also having to get in melee range for the full effect to do it

Once the condi meta gets balanced out, mesmers will easily be one of the most powerful classes again. Their weakness is to aoe condition spam.

And if you run a phantasm build w/ staff, you should at worst stalemate vs a CC warrior. Your blink is on the same CD as skullcrack and you can kite him and use clones to bodyblock (skullcrack doesn’t stun in an aoe) while your phantasms whittle him down.

ResJudicator.7916:

Once the condi meta gets balanced out, mesmers will easily be one of the most powerful classes again. Their weakness is to aoe condition spam.

And if you run a phantasm build w/ staff, you should at worst stalemate vs a CC warrior. Your blink is on the same CD as skullcrack and you can kite him and use clones to bodyblock (skullcrack doesn’t stun in an aoe) while your phantasms whittle him down.

I don’t think the condi meta is going anywhere anytime soon. Took em a while to bring eles in line and then we got a bunch of BM rangers and that was never really evened out they just added more things to the mix, but at least at the time, it was a poor team comp to run 3 BM rangers.

Phant mes was dumb too but that was also a hindrance to run more than one of, and a balanced 5v5 having one godly 1v1er was fine.

But unless something is restricted based on the state of the game, as long as one thing is dominant team fight and 1v1, that has low risk high reward we will always see 3 of the same in one team no matter the class.

ResJudicator.7916:

Once the condi meta gets balanced out, mesmers will easily be one of the most powerful classes again. Their weakness is to aoe condition spam.

And if you run a phantasm build w/ staff, you should at worst stalemate vs a CC warrior. Your blink is on the same CD as skullcrack and you can kite him and use clones to bodyblock (skullcrack doesn’t stun in an aoe) while your phantasms whittle him down.

CC warrior includes hammer/axe+mace. Not just skull crack.

And if you sit in staff all day so your phase retreat is always available for skull crack assuming he didn’t force you to use it by, you know, meleeing you to death in the meantime you do no damage to a guy that has 8 secs condi immunity, cleanses condi with burst skill usage, and has signet of rage with lyssa.

Don’t expect a response on this one. Anet has already addressed this thread many-many times. “The use of clones is only meant to provide a temporary distraction.” “The clone is intended to provide the foundation for the mesmer shatter abilities, not to leave a opponent entirely unsure which one is the player.” If you back read through the mesmer forums you’ll find they have answered all of your questions in this thread, apart from the red arrow in down state.

Bud.5617:

Mesmer beat just about everything else in 1v1 except for warriors.

On a strictly 1v1 basis, I don’t think a good player should ever lose to a shatter Mesmer. That’s just my personal opinion. Shatters are very telegraphed and easy to dodge.

Fighting a Phantasm Mesmer, it’s a little trickier… Nevertheless, any high damage class should be able to beat them. The abilities are VERY telegraphed and delayed… you can also “line of sight” and dodge them.

I just tested my Mesmer, in both PvE, and sPvP. I have noticed my phantasms (who usually hit 8k+) are now only hitting 3k… I have also noticed I am ALOT more squishy..
On top of this, I have noticed my underwater skills are crap.. Anyone else notice this?

Bud.5617:

Lue.6538:

Bud.5617:

Mesmer beat just about everything else in 1v1 except for warriors.

They only sucked because of the condi build meta, but their spike is still among the strongest. Also they pretty much counter ALL other power build except the warrior’s, given how hard it is to pin them down otherwise given a ton of evades.

And when Mesmer wins, it’s not even because of skills coz they just pop clones one after another like there’s no tomorrow, each dealing a goodly 3-4k of damage per shot, while the main one can just focus on surviving. Anyone fighting them on the other hand will have plenty of things to keep them busy such as dodging the endless spike.

Actually I think Mesmer spike or survivability could use a few hit by the nerf bat.

just thought I’d point out that an endless spike isn’t a spike and that our spike actually has to walk up to you to deal the damage, unless its a phantasm ofcourse, in which case you can just evade or block and we wont even get it to spawn… And even after all this, rangers think their pets have it bad

Oh great so you don’t even need to get your hands dirty coz you have AI to do it for you.

You realize all other power based classes need to risk their health getting into melee range in order to spike – right?

Of course Mesmer had to be special, they only need to push one button, once to win, the AI will take over. At least HS spamming thieves had to push that button repeatedly and get into melee. Hey I know it’s like the easy button that clicks itself! How is that for skill?

HS spamming thieves=terrible thieves. Decent thieves are running dual S/d sustained build which has nearly permanent evade (it actually quite ridiculous the number of built in evades in this build). Necros can eat an entire spike damage in death shroud while having decent toughness.
Of our 6 phantasms only 3 are of a threat to a player that isn’t comatose. Of the remaining 3 one has one attack its chain. The other 2 have repeated attack that can be negated through entire dodges and then nuked before their next attack goes off. After that any phantasm mesmer is a sitting duck.
Engineers are bordering the god mode of necros and spirit rangers but because of the skill it takes to run certain engineer builds people aren’t really screaming for the nerf bat on them.

In order for a proper shatter to land the mesmer has to be in melee and thanks to the uncalled for blurred frenzy nerf we can eat more damage from retal than we can deal with shatters. Something I have always wondered…. Certain classes are meant to fill certain roles with regards to conditions and boons. Necros are obviously meant to manipulate conditions til they’re blue in the face. Guardians are meant to spam boons for their teams, rangers are great at providing passive buffs. Something that may make the mesmer viable again is something to do with boon/condition transfer.

Rework shattered concentration to where instead of just “removing” the boon on hit. The boons are transferred to the mesmer. I kinda find it ridiculous that s/d thieves got this luxury through a weapon rework and a class that is clearly meant to manipulate boons (BOON REMOVAL IS IN OUR AA CHAIN!) gets squat other than arcane thievery for boon steal which… come on arcane thievery…. just no.

Or make a trait anywhere IDC where shatter skills transfer conditions from you to the foe. There is too much nullification going on with mesmers just simple removal of certain things. And this is another reason why mesmer is out of the meta.

Why take someone that removes boons when you can take someone that can turn all dem boons into conditions. Why take someone that simply removes boons when you can take someone that steals them repeatedly at a low cost (yes s/d thieves have a low risk for great reward with LS.) which makes them stronger and taking out targets much faster.

I think this is an issue with mesmer right now we are terrible in any sense compared to other classes right now. Even with the new confusion rune warriors/necros are making more use of it in WvW than mesmers… I mean kitten?

One thing about thief is that you are given incentive to keep your initiative above half most of the engagement with the 25 minor in Critical Strikes. That means a disciplined thief is going to be very strong vs. wasting all your initiative and losing damage b/c of it.

The Acrobat spec, however, has nearly permanent vigor uptime and recharges vigor on dodge. I’d start with the dodge recharge b/c that part is what makes it over the top. The damage and #3 is fine b/c you have to close a gap as a squishy. The #2 is too b/c a new thief is not going to have any idea how to use it so it will be a learning curve.

The dodges are the problem, and they need to be looked at.

Mesmers, the point of the topic, are fine as they are, what needs to happen is Necros need to be reflected or more telegraphed in general. Helseth has it 100% right on that with his video. They did slightly increase how telegraphed Signet of Spite and Reaper’s Mark is, but in a teamfight that isn’t going to matter.

There are plenty of dusty old skills that nobody’s bringing that reflect projectiles. Why is a Necro special and not able to be reflected in any of their best pressure? Also Necros happen to be the best class at eating condis b/c they can heal based on condis, cleansing all of them too, and pass them back to people, so it eliminates choice even further.

Mesmers are awesome for reflecting. If Necros could be reflected then they would have to develop better timing or at least be worried about their mesmer. Right now nothing scares Necros besides a 1v1 vs. someone with high CC and burst damage.

Zenith.7301:

silentnight warrior.2714:

Zenith.7301:

Too much of the mesmer’s damage is tied to his illusions. The shatters also suck without investment (need heavy trait support) and Cry of Frustration is outright bad, while Diversion’s daze doesn’t take amount of clones into account while some warrior can stun someone for 3 seconds on a low cd your mesmer gets huge cd’s on a 1 sec daze and a 25 sec cd buggy aoe knockback.

Warriors dont have instacast ranged skills with no animations like “Mind Wrack” or skills with invulnerability like"Bluried Frenzy". Lets give that to warriors too? Mesmers have their own mechanics while the 3sec warrior stun is also linked to their own mechanics.
Its like to say that if that class do that better than mine i also want that. In that case shall warriors be able to have clones, mind wrack and bluried frenzy? I would not want that to warriors.
I believe mesmers should be toned down in a 1v1 cenário and be buffed a little in team fights (suport).

Mind Wrack is not instant cast at range. The clones walk to you. If you’re too terrible to avoid them it’s your fault. Jumper’s channel constantly shows him dodging mindwracks even at melee range.

And they do have skills with invulnerability. It’s called shield stance and endure pain and whirlwind attack and defy pain and even berserker stance, 8 seconds of immunity to conditions that mesmers would kill for.

And effing please, toned down in 1v1? Mesmers cannot beat warriors 1v1 with the new healing signet and running a cc spec, ever.

If you’re losing 1v1’s as a warrior now your build sucks. Warriors are one of the strongest duelists at the moment, only really having a tough match up against s/d thief.

1) for your first sentence i can tell you to see this and go to the mesmer part and watch the “obvious animation” of Mind Wrack.

http://www.twitch.tv/helsethgw2/b/441180799

For your information:

2) The only “Invulnerability” warriors have is while doing a whirlwind attack and its a evade, conditions will still damage you and retal, confusion.

Shield stance – some classes have unblockable attacks in their weapons skills. No Invulnerability there.

Endure pain and defy pain – Just immunity to direct damage (have you heard about the meta?) Condition will melt you. No Invulnerability there

berserker stance – 8 sec of imunity to normal condition duration (if you have +% of condition duration the condition will get trough.) You are still taking direct damage. No Invulnerability there. Mesmers have Null field on a 40 sec CD, it also removes boons on foes and remove conditions on allies. Null Field last 7 seconds, creates a combo field and is a 1200 range utility.

What warriors do its take 3 stances and pop berserker stance with endure pain and sometimes balanced stance also to not being cc while attacking that gives 8 sec of almost imunity to conditions and 4 sec of imunity to direct damage. with 60 sec CD. Can you see the diference with the invulnerability warriors have and mesmers have? And they use all utilitys to do that.

3) Mesmers can beat warriors with Healing Signet runing with that build and they do it. I have seen it many times and i also have lost some fights against mesmers.

4) I didn´t say that mesmers should be toned down in 1v1 because i was losing to them. Sometimes i lose and sometimes i win. The only thing that mesmers should be toned down in 1v1 is in the never ending clones and rework some animations. And of course being buffed a little in team fights (only suport)

Maybe they should just remove the class.

Class is fine, it just needs more easily accessible condi removal, only reliable options are to either go mantras which many don’t want to or 30 points into inspiration. You just can’t play spvp without decent condi removal so that’s holding the professions back. That’s all there is to it, clones are fine as is.

Bud.5617:

Oh great so you don’t even need to get your hands dirty coz you have AI to do it for you.

You realize all other power based classes need to risk their health getting into melee range in order to spike – right?

You realize that mesmers have all their damage come from either clones or phantasms, both which suffers from dreadful AI and can easily be killed?

Bud.5617:

Of course Mesmer had to be special, they only need to push one button, once to win, the AI will take over. At least HS spamming thieves had to push that button repeatedly and get into melee. Hey I know it’s like the easy button that clicks itself! How is that for skill?

Reductio ad absurdum, google it scrub.

Don’t expect a response on this one. Anet has already addressed this thread many-many times. “The use of clones is only meant to provide a temporary distraction.” “The clone is intended to provide the foundation for the mesmer shatter abilities, not to leave a opponent entirely unsure which one is the player.” If you back read through the mesmer forums you’ll find they have answered all of your questions in this thread, apart from the red arrow in down state.

I actually went to the trouble of reading through the entire Mesmer board. This is not true. They said they wouldn’t give clones dodges, which is fine. The offhand bug though is ludicrous and needs to be fixed.

greyblue.4962:

Don’t expect a response on this one. Anet has already addressed this thread many-many times. “The use of clones is only meant to provide a temporary distraction.” “The clone is intended to provide the foundation for the mesmer shatter abilities, not to leave a opponent entirely unsure which one is the player.” If you back read through the mesmer forums you’ll find they have answered all of your questions in this thread, apart from the red arrow in down state.

I actually went to the trouble of reading through the entire Mesmer board. This is not true. They said they wouldn’t give clones dodges, which is fine. The offhand bug though is ludicrous and needs to be fixed.

Not just the offhand bug, but the big arrow on the head when downed. Ridiculous.