Guild Wars 2

How do we counter it? Let’s discuss from every other class viewpoint how can we shutdown/counter Mesmer play….

Best way is for everyone to play Mesmer. Then maybe, just maybe, ANET will realise there is a balance problem and fix it.

But yeah i’d like to hear other methods too.

Well at least it’s good to see a productive thread rather than the other incessant whining.

I haven’t had a chance to play properly since the patch due to being in the middle of the week but on that note would Thief have some potential with cleansing torment on withdraw?

Yea also thf getting resistance on the steal from Mesmer. Maybe this shut then down little more now

I’m a warrior and I rofl stomp mesmers. Thiefs/warriors are their hard counter imo, but since no one runs them in meta….

Furajir.3815:

I’m a warrior and I rofl stomp mesmers. Thiefs/warriors are their hard counter imo, but since no one runs them in meta….

So hammer/GS warrior? Is it the stuns and control? I have a friend mains warrior he would be interested in your tactic

Katoh.4069:

Yea also thf getting resistance on the steal from Mesmer. Maybe this shut then down little more now

Yeah I forgot the consume plasma change.

Power warrior tends to kill my mes pretty easy. Good thieves as well.

Katoh.4069:

Furajir.3815:

I’m a warrior and I rofl stomp mesmers. Thiefs/warriors are their hard counter imo, but since no one runs them in meta….

So hammer/GS warrior? Is it the stuns and control? I have a friend mains warrior he would be interested in your tactic

Hammer, Mace/Shield or GS Mace/Shield would give you a lot of CC for interrupting moa etc. I havent tested it but it sounds feasible.

I felt very confortable to 1v1 mesmer on a Meditation DH (Heal trap, smithe condition, Ji, CoP, RF), but that was post patch..

Well each Mesmer build has a different counter, but I guess most people are referring to the current meta hybrid Mesmer. The obvious counter to it currently is CC because it has no personal access to stability and only a single stun breaker. Also, heavy ranged damage works wonder against it because it simply cannot provide counter pressure over range. It’s important to note that the current meta build can only gain personal access to defensive boons when in staff from Chaos Armour or sitting in Chaos Storm – it’s worth keeping this in mind especially if you’re a Necro.

The best counter to a mesmer right now is for the person fighting the mesmer to play somewhat defensively to buy time for a DPS class to +1 the fight.

The mesmer relies heavily on the double shield-block for survivability and clone generation (which is used to fuel healing + distortion invuln), and also to buy time for other defensive CDs. If a power-burst class +1’s the fight at the right time to CC the block into a burst, it’s usually a guaranteed fast kill.

Examples of good ways to CC through a block for the 1’er include:
- Rev shiro port into staff5 into legend swap for hydroleech proc into weapswap for sword2 [sorry, no idea why it’s underlining random text]
- DH LB3 + judge’s intervention into F1 is also really strong. The LB3 knocks him out of block (due to heavy light), and the F1 will let you pull him out of blurred frenzy, dodge, or a second shield block. Follow up with ToF so he can’t just blink out. Teammate lays on dmg during all this.
- DH F1 into ToF (to prevent mes from blinking out, which will likely be his next response); follow-up CC and dmg
- Thief opener using basi venom, which will likely proc immob; followup CC and dmg
- Engie slick shoes (if this is still a thing)
- Engie magnet (if toolkit ever becomes a thing again)
- Necro Warhorn 4
- Necro Staff5

A non-DPS class that’s been fighting the mes can also facilitate the +1 by CCing through the block:
- Ele focus air5 when your teammate is about to burst the mes.

If you take out a mesmer who’s already dropped the portal entrance, the whole portal skill goes on CD (the mesmer can’t respawn and drop the exit), which is pretty huge.

TLDR: +1 the mesmer with a burst class, but don’t immediately jump into the fight and dump your skills. Wait for mesmer to put up the shield then use an unblockable CC and lay on the damage. Even if you don’t instagib the mesmer, you’ll throw his tempo and CDs off, which will greatly tip the fight in your favor.

The best counter to mesmer is trap dragonhunter.
Just try one and you will see 90% of the mesmers don’t know how to deal with you.

One gucci way would be to reduce clusterkitten so its more easy to spot a mesm moaing on tfs

Reflect, CC and condition cleanse.

I play with power scrapper: Hoelbrak rune, Elixir U instead of Bulwark Gyro (even tho the later is better than the Elixir), Elixir B, Perfectly Weighted, Mass Momentum and Applied Force traits and can counter the condishatter just fine.

The key is to have a reflect up to avoid those small light conditions and only cleanse when have high stacks of confusion and torment; of course, avoid the moa and keep an eye for any possible shatter. Once the mes uses Distortion and you can chain the CC they are pretty much done.

Same thing with my DH. I use Wall of Reflection with Master of Consecrations trait, Smite Condition, one or two traps depending on the rest of team comp.

One thing tho I like to point out is that I have plenty of frustrating experience with dire perplexity mes in WvW, which gave me a real good idea of how to play and (try) to counter one. The condishatter PvP version is pretty weak compared to the WvW one.

the best counter to mesmer is thief and warrior

Daredevil is a razors edge to chronomancer. Both can kill the other but it’s about timing, a nice little dance of death sorta speak

Warrior condi, or even zerker, and such can kill mesmer too. If mesmer doesn’t land that moa, which can be blocked btw. He’s dead.

Majority of mesmer’s viable builds since release have utilized shatters as the apex of their damage. Those require 2 long cooldowns available on each weapon set to summon a grand total of 2 illusions (outside certain exceptions like +1 clone on sword offhand, or AA on scepter. Both of which are rarely used) If the mesmer runs dueling they also have a clone on a doge roll. Not that many mesmers take dueling right now, since most take insp to deal with condi if their team can’t cover them, and even power mesmers require domination to even do decent damage.

So for max damage mesmer needs to pop a minimum of 5 clone or phant spawning c/ds. Mesmers typically have one primary clone generator and one phantasm per weapon set.

^ all of which btw can be negated by cleave and AoE.
image if condis, or warrior adrenaline bar could just be cleaved down or required specific cooldowns per weapon set. lol

Everything else a mesmer can do with their two remaining attacks is negligible damage wise, and is often CC, or a defensive cooldown. Typically though the damage is easy to out heal regardless of your spec. (well unless you run something completely unviable.)

Now to avoid shatters is like avoiding 100b, the tell is there, you see it coming. Doge into the illusions, and you will mitigate most if not all of the damage. I cannot express how easy this is, and this is like the single most valuable thing that shuts a mesmer down. I have killed my fellow mesmers in moa on different classes just because it’s that simple.

So this means that a mesmer to do max damage has to blow C/Ds on both weapon sets, Plus aided utilities, two shatter cooldowns (one of which is over 30 seconds if domination) and this is all under the context that 1. your clones didn’t die in AoE or Cleave. 2. your opponent didn’t take pressure back. 3. he didn’t just doge the obvious animations. Only to achieve: less damage than a thief with less escape, or DH with less chase, and very little momentum to follow up with, nor the ability to keep yourself a float or pressure if you screwed up or fail to eliminate your target.

Also out side of S1. mes gets easily pushed off points, so it has even less value in certain areas.

tl;dr
There is a large stigma against mesmers and it’s only justification is noob stomping for the bads who get lost in the clones and can’t doge shatters. But fact is if you die 1v1 to a shatter mesmer you got out played. Arguably it was given the tools to outplay you, but you had just as much of a chance if not more, to outplay it. Thus Shatter mesmer condi or otherwise is not OP.

If you want to entertain a discussion of mesmers strength being condi, it is a problem with condi itself not mesmer.

If the team utility is what makes it OP, the context of how mesmer has to fight is justification for it’s strong utility roam.

Daishi.6027:

Majority of mesmer’s viable builds since release have utilized shatters as the apex of their damage. Those require 2 long cooldowns available on each weapon set to summon a grand total of 2 illusions (outside certain exceptions like +1 clone on sword offhand, or AA on scepter. Both of which are rarely used) If the mesmer runs dueling they also have a clone on a doge roll. Not that many mesmers take dueling right now, since most take insp to deal with condi if their team can’t cover them, and even power mesmers require domination to even do decent damage.

So for max damage mesmer needs to pop a minimum of 5 clone or phant spawning c/ds. Mesmers typically have one primary clone generator and one phantasm per weapon set.

^ all of which btw can be negated by cleave and AoE.
image if condis, or warrior adrenaline bar could just be cleaved down or required specific cooldowns per weapon set. lol

Everything else a mesmer can do with their two remaining attacks is negligible damage wise, and is often CC, or a defensive cooldown. Typically though the damage is easy to out heal regardless of your spec. (well unless you run something completely unviable.)

Now to avoid shatters is like avoiding 100b, the tell is there, you see it coming. Doge into the illusions, and you will mitigate most if not all of the damage. I cannot express how easy this is, and this is like the single most valuable thing that shuts a mesmer down. I have killed my fellow mesmers in moa on different classes just because it’s that simple.

So this means that a mesmer to do max damage has to blow C/Ds on both weapon sets, Plus aided utilities, two shatter cooldowns (one of which is over 30 seconds if domination) and this is all under the context that 1. your clones didn’t die in AoE or Cleave. 2. your opponent didn’t take pressure back. 3. he didn’t just doge the obvious animations. Only to achieve: less damage than a thief with less escape, or DH with less chase, and very little momentum to follow up with, nor the ability to keep yourself a float or pressure if you screwed up or fail to eliminate your target.

Also out side of S1. mes gets easily pushed off points, so it has even less value in certain areas.

tl;dr
There is a large stigma against mesmers and it’s only justification is noob stomping for the bads who get lost in the clones and can’t doge shatters. But fact is if you die 1v1 to a shatter mesmer you got out played. Arguably it was given the tools to outplay you, but you had just as much of a chance if not more, to outplay it. Thus Shatter mesmer condi or otherwise is not OP.

If you want to entertain a discussion of mesmers strength being condi, it is a problem with condi itself not mesmer.

If the team utility is what makes it OP, the context of how mesmer has to fight is justification for it’s strong utility roam.

So you are telling me anytime a Mesmer wins 1v1 I was outplayed? Honestly…Eveyrone else is saying Mesmer is great 1v1….And parking someone at home ot guard the Mesmer portal is stupid because, his portal acts as a proxy so he can +1 a fight. Regardless I think they need a trim. Im not saying that they got buffed….however when everyone else gets a nerf its a buff for Mesmer its simple logic.

Daishi.6027:

Majority of mesmer’s viable builds since release have utilized shatters as the apex of their damage. Those require 2 long cooldowns available on each weapon set to summon a grand total of 2 illusions (outside certain exceptions like +1 clone on sword offhand, or AA on scepter. Both of which are rarely used) If the mesmer runs dueling they also have a clone on a doge roll. Not that many mesmers take dueling right now, since most take insp to deal with condi if their team can’t cover them, and even power mesmers require domination to even do decent damage.

So for max damage mesmer needs to pop a minimum of 5 clone or phant spawning c/ds. Mesmers typically have one primary clone generator and one phantasm per weapon set.

^ all of which btw can be negated by cleave and AoE.
image if condis, or warrior adrenaline bar could just be cleaved down or required specific cooldowns per weapon set. lol

Everything else a mesmer can do with their two remaining attacks is negligible damage wise, and is often CC, or a defensive cooldown. Typically though the damage is easy to out heal regardless of your spec. (well unless you run something completely unviable.)

Now to avoid shatters is like avoiding 100b, the tell is there, you see it coming. Doge into the illusions, and you will mitigate most if not all of the damage. I cannot express how easy this is, and this is like the single most valuable thing that shuts a mesmer down. I have killed my fellow mesmers in moa on different classes just because it’s that simple.

So this means that a mesmer to do max damage has to blow C/Ds on both weapon sets, Plus aided utilities, two shatter cooldowns (one of which is over 30 seconds if domination) and this is all under the context that 1. your clones didn’t die in AoE or Cleave. 2. your opponent didn’t take pressure back. 3. he didn’t just doge the obvious animations. Only to achieve: less damage than a thief with less escape, or DH with less chase, and very little momentum to follow up with, nor the ability to keep yourself a float or pressure if you screwed up or fail to eliminate your target.

Also out side of S1. mes gets easily pushed off points, so it has even less value in certain areas.

tl;dr
There is a large stigma against mesmers and it’s only justification is noob stomping for the bads who get lost in the clones and can’t doge shatters. But fact is if you die 1v1 to a shatter mesmer you got out played. Arguably it was given the tools to outplay you, but you had just as much of a chance if not more, to outplay it. Thus Shatter mesmer condi or otherwise is not OP.

If you want to entertain a discussion of mesmers strength being condi, it is a problem with condi itself not mesmer.

If the team utility is what makes it OP, the context of how mesmer has to fight is justification for it’s strong utility roam.

A) The problem with the current mesmer (chrono) is not the damage, its the sustainability.
Namely Mental defense, Deja Vu, Blurring frenzy, Distortion, Restorative illusion

B) When talking about shatters you should remember that the meta mesmers use signet of illusions and also blow all their shatters during continuum split.
There is also alacrity decreasing both shatter and illusion cd’s by quite some time.
Shatters should be strong skills used tactically to change a fight at the cost of sacrificing precious illusions. Not spammed tools to apply as much condi as possible.

C) The sheer uptime and access of/to illusions is incredible thanks to Persistence of memory, Illusionary reversion and Chronophantasm.
Now dont get me wrong, mesmers should be able to maintain many illusion…but not by shattering them.
You dont shatter you illusions: you have 3 illusions up most of the time.
You shatter your illusions: You dont have many illusions up most of the time.
Doesnt sound so hard, does it? Unfortunately anet seems to be thinking different.

D) As powerful as mesmers are, it gets much worse considering their mobility. If you have a class that you can either not beat at all or at least is tanky enought to make a kill take a lot of time is usually supposed to be slow, so you can outrun and outrotate them.
Right now mesmers are like a slightly slower thief with much higher sustain and more sustained, harder to avoid damage. Just like thieves a smart mesmer is also able to disengage from most fights, making a kill almost impossible.

E) Finally we have the split moa and the portal. We are not talking combat skills anymore. We are talking gamechangers. Two of them. In one build.

mesmer is strong in 1:1. No doupt and it brings good team utility, a bit oneshots but good.
DH, warior and thief are very strong against mesmers.
UPS all three fell out of meta.. maybe its time think about it. I see what Anet is trying but unfortunately they are scrapping build diversity …
My answer is don´t stick to metabattle….

Spartacus.3192:

Best way is for everyone to play Mesmer. Then maybe, just maybe, ANET will realise there is a balance problem and fix it.

But yeah i’d like to hear other methods too.

You mean like when everyone, their mother and their dog played reaper?

Everyone already knows that moa + csplit is overperforming, and we already have a trillion threads on the topic. This thread is about ways to counter mesmer in the current meta.

(1) Smart rotations to +1 the mesmer is really strong, since the mesmer’s only disengage is blink or sword3/staff2 jukes (the jukes you can outplay). Rotate in a class that can CC the mesmer through shieldblock and you can get a quick kill, then +1 the teamfight until the mesmer respawns. I gave a list earlier in the thread of good ways to CC through the shieldblock, but thieves/DH/revs are great for this.

(2) If you have 2 eles on your team, or an ele+druid, you can rotate in one of the eles or druids to swap with whoever is currently fighting the mesmer. The druid/ele can hold the point almost indefinitely, which makes the fight pointless for the mesmer. (Obviously this is for ranked/unranked and not tournaments).

(3) Most condi mesmers will die to meta medi-DH in a 1v1. At higher levels I think condi mes still wins the matchup. But for 95% of the people complaining in this thread, DH is a good counter.

(4) Maybe the balance patches will open up some new counters, IDK.

Sirendor.1394:

Spartacus.3192:

Best way is for everyone to play Mesmer. Then maybe, just maybe, ANET will realise there is a balance problem and fix it.

But yeah i’d like to hear other methods too.

You mean like when everyone, their mother and their dog played reaper?

yeah pretty much everyone did. ( i did not) but i saw so many reapers and guess what, they got nerfed.

But i think Thief/War could do well against mesmers.

Shockaura is really strong, it interrupts many mesmer skills (such as blurred frenzy or even nullfield). Cc in general are very effective.

My best advice is: play the class yourself, see what weaknesses the different builds have and adapt your main class accordingly. (I guess that’s what they refere to when they say “l2p”)

Asrat.2645:

A) The problem with the current mesmer (chrono) is not the damage, its the sustainability.
Namely Mental defense, Deja Vu, Blurring frenzy, Distortion, Restorative illusion

Mental defense has a 25 second cooldown and is negligible vs proper pressure, any build other than condi will more readily use it for shatter fodder.

Echo of Memory/Deja Vu, is a worse block than most, Requires the full duration to summon the phantasm. It has decent counter play not to mention you can hit between the blocks.

Blurred Frenzy is a rooted 12 second c/d that is easy to pressure the end due to delay. Even then it’s no better than most evade based weapon skills.

Distortion costs all your illusions reducing ability to follow up with pressure, although yes it is better due to the increase in clone generation.

Restorative illusions gives mesmer the same basic neutral coverage of conditions that most meta builds have. Mesmer will die to any blinded sided pindown, or that one fickle high stack of bleed or burn from the approaching enemy without it, unless your team covers for you, the heal is negligible without healing power this isn’t imba it makes the playing field fair.

People complain about mesmer’s “defensive mechanics” Every medium armor class has better access to on point evade/block/invlun/sustain than mesmer. Except maybe thief but even then thief still has options to safely pressure a point. What does mesmer get? “Oh I can’t contest the point I guess I’ll walk away.” sure they leave a method to come back but that just dictates how the meta of conquest should evolve itself. Something isn’t OP just because it’s a viable pick for one slot on a team.

Asrat.2645:

B) When talking about shatters you should remember that the meta mesmers use signet of illusions and also blow all their shatters during continuum split.
There is also alacrity decreasing both shatter and illusion c/d’s by quite some time.
Shatters should be strong skills used tactically to change a fight at the cost of sacrificing precious illusions. Not spammed tools to apply as much condi as possible.

Signet of illusions takes 1 1/4 second to cast, giving you 4ish seconds to re summon illusions/phants to shatter again, when most phantasms sit at 1 second cast plus delay you wont get enough up to apply much free shatter pressure. So you get one extra free shatter of your choice at the cost of 3 clones unless your just trying to shed condis or poke with what is equivilant of illusionary persoa and no illusions.

After that you are reset to your previous cooldowns if you had to use signet it anyway. Plus running signet means no stealth, and 1 stunbreaker. a very punishable loadout.

Asrat.2645:

C) The sheer uptime and access of/to illusions is incredible thanks to Persistence of memory, Illusionary reversion and Chronophantasm.
Now dont get me wrong, mesmers should be able to maintain many illusion…but not by shattering them.
You dont shatter you illusions: you have 3 illusions up most of the time.
You shatter your illusions: You dont have many illusions up most of the time.
Doesnt sound so hard, does it? Unfortunately anet seems to be thinking different.

Illusions die in AoE and cleave I think the up time is fair… (persitance of memory tho? lol.) Actually no, I’d say it’s still lacking outside of the one condi build that can run illusion line.

Being that the main source of mesmer damage comes from shatters, and how easy it is to avoid, it’s silly to even consider denying access to it based on the resource that takes a while to obtain. (which btw requires a target, in LoS to gain.) If shatters were significantly stronger I’d agree. But it takes two full shatters landing to kill a zerk thief to give an estimate of thier power.

I’d also agree if mesmer had more personal damage, or ways to burst. But as long as it’s tied to the one bad mechanic that requires multiple 20ish second cooldowns before use.

I have to disagree.

Asrat.2645:

D) As powerful as mesmers are, it gets much worse considering their mobility. If you have a class that you can either not beat at all or at least is tanky enought to make a kill take a lot of time is usually supposed to be slow, so you can outrun and outrotate them.
Right now mesmers are like a slightly slower thief with much higher sustain and more sustained, harder to avoid damage. Just like thieves a smart mesmer is also able to disengage from most fights, making a kill almost impossible.

As I stated earlier the mobility is how the meta should evolve around. Mesmer having a viable slot on a team is not a bad thing, and every team should incorporate or anticipate portal plays. The only issue with mesmers survivability right now comes from merc ammy. If we go back to power, and take out the portal usage you get an objectively worse thief, which was like the first 2-3 years. (even with the portal usage actually)

I’ve already explained how to fight a mesmer, if you find 3 clones running at you harder to avoid than a backstab combo purely anticipatory with no tell and can ignore line of sight, than I don’t know what to say.

And yes disengaging and denying a kill is a thing, kills are a priority for me too, I feel the pain and wish we had a game type more about killing players. Since that's why I pvp I just want to kill people. I don't actually care much for the game type but it's what we got.... But it’s not like there aren’t builds that can chase outside of portaling away, such as guard, thief, ele, hell even ranger if your on a flat. At which point if they do portal you forced them off cooldown. Again the meta should evolve around this, not nerf it out of play.

Asrat.2645:

E) Finally we have the split moa and the portal. We are not talking combat skills anymore. We are talking gamechangers. Two of them. In one build.

For a class that is easy to play around and fight if you know what your doing, and would have no place in the game otherwise. Yes two game changers with counter play is fair. Problem is more people want to complain about it, than actually counter it.

IF nerfs are to be had, Removal of Merc Ammy, and Moa only resetting if it misses in CS would be fine.

(excuse grammar)

Asrat.2645:

A) The problem with the current mesmer (chrono) is not the damage, its the sustainability.
Namely Mental defense, Deja Vu, Blurring frenzy, Distortion, Restorative illusion

Mesmers sacrifice their damage for sustainability. This is a fair trade, and needed with all the spam that they other classes get. Mesmer is actually one of the least spammy classes

B) When talking about shatters you should remember that the meta mesmers use signet of illusions and also blow all their shatters during continuum split.
There is also alacrity decreasing both shatter and illusion cd’s by quite some time.
Shatters should be strong skills used tactically to change a fight at the cost of sacrificing precious illusions. Not spammed tools to apply as much condi as possible.

Because shatter is where 90% of mesmer damage comes from. When shatters are all on cool-down a mesmer is doing nothing but trying to survive. Also, signet of illusions have a painfully long cast time. So try interrupting it or pressuring hard when they cast it.

C) The sheer uptime and access of/to illusions is incredible thanks to Persistence of memory, Illusionary reversion and Chronophantasm.
Now dont get me wrong, mesmers should be able to maintain many illusion…but not by shattering them.
You dont shatter you illusions: you have 3 illusions up most of the time.
You shatter your illusions: You dont have many illusions up most of the time.
Doesnt sound so hard, does it? Unfortunately anet seems to be thinking different.

Again, they need to shatter to make those illusions do anything. Mesmers need to have illusions up or they are extremely weak and vulnerable. And if they exhausted their shatters, their illusions are fairly useless. What you are complaining about is that mesmers can actually attack and defense. It’s like complaining that warriors can use weapon skills.

D) As powerful as mesmers are, it gets much worse considering their mobility. If you have a class that you can either not beat at all or at least is tanky enought to make a kill take a lot of time is usually supposed to be slow, so you can outrun and outrotate them.
Right now mesmers are like a slightly slower thief with much higher sustain and more sustained, harder to avoid damage. Just like thieves (edit by Dashi: and eles, and rangers, and revs, and necros, and engineers, and warriors) a smart mesmer is also able to disengage from most fights, making a kill almost impossible.

Mesmers aren’t tanky. If you are playing a dps class, one hit can hurt them a lot. Mesmer is one of the few classes that uses mostly active defense. They have to do something to block and evade. They have to do something to shed conditions. Mesmers can’t hold a point against two players. Mesmers can barely hold a point against one (and will lose the point in a stalemate because so much of their defense relying on moving and skills that prevent point capture).

Mesmers are not easy kills, but they are not as challenging as you make them out to be. Your statements sound like your want them to be easy kills though.

I was confused for a while due to you people having a very similar name.
As we have been reminded this a thread about discussing ways to counter mesmers, not about mesmers themselves.
I cant say anything Im afraid. I started to make some quick side notes about what you said and ended up with a few hundred words.
Let us just part with this: I like mesmers. But I strongly disliked what they have been turned into. From my point of view things went the wrong way the second illusions started to get summoned for the sake of shattering.

Sublime Peasant.8092:

I felt very confortable to 1v1 mesmer on a Meditation DH (Heal trap, smithe condition, Ji, CoP, RF), but that was post patch..

This works very well against power-shatter, but condi mes can very easily deal with med guards.

In general, I’m finding that when fighting in a 2v2 and up against mes, wait for the mes to blink (or use f4) then lay on the hurt. 1v1 you have to kite a condi mes; they hurt too much if you fight them head-on.

Arcaedus.7290:

Sublime Peasant.8092:

I felt very confortable to 1v1 mesmer on a Meditation DH (Heal trap, smithe condition, Ji, CoP, RF), but that was post patch..

This works very well against power-shatter, but condi mes can very easily deal with med guards.

In general, I’m finding that when fighting in a 2v2 and up against mes, wait for the mes to blink (or use f4) then lay on the hurt. 1v1 you have to kite a condi mes; they hurt too much if you fight them head-on.

Actually DH is quite gucci against condi mesm

This thread is pointless. It’s pretty obvious that there is no intention of doing what is necessary. Best thing at this point is to follow the meta if you are into that or avoid PvP if the meta isnt fun for you and you already have the back piece.

Necro is probably going to slowly die out and more people will switch to condi mes, warriors will probably all go condi and everything else will stay the same.

There are a lot of productive threads pointing out what exactly the problem is and most of them said the same thing, but nearly all of it was ignored in favor of pointless nerfs, and buffs that don’t do anything.

I don’t feel Thief can counter well enough unless he’s +1’ing. Though even then…

Warrior on the other hand, yes. This is my preferred build to run, and it has all the tools to deal with that particular chrono meta build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJAURnMdAlki9dAWhAEliFlA7N3+bTuHZhAwvDJ0NC+AA-TpBBABHfIAe4BAQwRAo/9HA4CAQWZAA

I started this thread in the warrior forum
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Can-Warrior-counter-Meta-Chrono/first#

Pretty much War has incredible resistance uptime, and chrono has zero boon removal.

Typical pick of Last Stand can be changed out to Cleansing Ire if you really want to be crazy about it.

Staff daredevil shreds condi mes in 3-4 vault crits, you just have to toy the mesmer to waste their 3 blocks and bunch of blinks.

As always, D/P and S/D having higher skillcap make things a bit more difficult You have to make sure you make a successive steal and you should rather backpedal if you fail. Resistance is too strong to be missed in 1on1 versus mesmer. It allows the thief to apply pressure without consequences for few seconds. With all the mobility and interrupts the thief is perfectly capable to give a run for the mesmer’s money.

Torment cleanse on withdraw is fun too. Wish it could remove confusion too :U

At this moment I am unsure if the current balance isn’t worse than last few years when thief was ultimately killing mesmer without breaking a sweat. The problem with current balance is that thief has no room for mistakes. A random immobilize or a random chain stun could be exactly what the mesmer needs to burst you down and even if you survive you won’t have the HPs to keep on fighting so it’s likely you’ll reset the fight.

It’s a difficult fight.

Counting a Mesmer is not that hard. I main Mesmer myself and I know the classes I have to avoid. I won’t tell them ofc, learn to play lol.
On a sidenote, just 111111ing into a fight will kill you with all classes

Ravenmoon.5318:

Staff daredevil shreds condi mes in 3-4 vault crits, you just have to toy the mesmer to waste their 3 blocks and bunch of blinks.

As always, D/P and S/D having higher skillcap make things a bit more difficult You have to make sure you make a successive steal and you should rather backpedal if you fail. Resistance is too strong to be missed in 1on1 versus mesmer. It allows the thief to apply pressure without consequences for few seconds. With all the mobility and interrupts the thief is perfectly capable to give a run for the mesmer’s money.

Torment cleanse on withdraw is fun too. Wish it could remove confusion too :U

At this moment I am unsure if the current balance isn’t worse than last few years when thief was ultimately killing mesmer without breaking a sweat. The problem with current balance is that thief has no room for mistakes. A random immobilize or a random chain stun could be exactly what the mesmer needs to burst you down and even if you survive you won’t have the HPs to keep on fighting so it’s likely you’ll reset the fight.

It’s a difficult fight.

recall mantra lockdown mes

lighter.2708:

Ravenmoon.5318:

Staff daredevil shreds condi mes in 3-4 vault crits, you just have to toy the mesmer to waste their 3 blocks and bunch of blinks.

As always, D/P and S/D having higher skillcap make things a bit more difficult You have to make sure you make a successive steal and you should rather backpedal if you fail. Resistance is too strong to be missed in 1on1 versus mesmer. It allows the thief to apply pressure without consequences for few seconds. With all the mobility and interrupts the thief is perfectly capable to give a run for the mesmer’s money.

Torment cleanse on withdraw is fun too. Wish it could remove confusion too :U

At this moment I am unsure if the current balance isn’t worse than last few years when thief was ultimately killing mesmer without breaking a sweat. The problem with current balance is that thief has no room for mistakes. A random immobilize or a random chain stun could be exactly what the mesmer needs to burst you down and even if you survive you won’t have the HPs to keep on fighting so it’s likely you’ll reset the fight.

It’s a difficult fight.

recall mantra lockdown mes

What about it? Withdraw has always gotten me out of difficult situations. Back then it was doing more “range” too so I was gaining distance on top of higher HP return.

And last year you could barely touch an S/D thief. Sure the damage is meh but the amount of evade frames was insane. If played right it was borderline impossible to kill. It never made it into ESL because it didn’t burst as hard as D/P although I do recall Toker using S/D in couple of matches.

Ravenmoon.5318:

lighter.2708:

Ravenmoon.5318:

Staff daredevil shreds condi mes in 3-4 vault crits, you just have to toy the mesmer to waste their 3 blocks and bunch of blinks.

As always, D/P and S/D having higher skillcap make things a bit more difficult You have to make sure you make a successive steal and you should rather backpedal if you fail. Resistance is too strong to be missed in 1on1 versus mesmer. It allows the thief to apply pressure without consequences for few seconds. With all the mobility and interrupts the thief is perfectly capable to give a run for the mesmer’s money.

Torment cleanse on withdraw is fun too. Wish it could remove confusion too :U

At this moment I am unsure if the current balance isn’t worse than last few years when thief was ultimately killing mesmer without breaking a sweat. The problem with current balance is that thief has no room for mistakes. A random immobilize or a random chain stun could be exactly what the mesmer needs to burst you down and even if you survive you won’t have the HPs to keep on fighting so it’s likely you’ll reset the fight.

It’s a difficult fight.

recall mantra lockdown mes

What about it? Withdraw has always gotten me out of difficult situations. Back then it was doing more “range” too so I was gaining distance on top of higher HP return.

And last year you could barely touch an S/D thief. Sure the damage is meh but the amount of evade frames was insane. If played right it was borderline impossible to kill. It never made it into ESL because it didn’t burst as hard as D/P although I do recall Toker using S/D in couple of matches.

you talking meta or no…because everyone can counterbuild in 1v1 but it’s completely useless in real..

lighter.2708:

Ravenmoon.5318:

lighter.2708:

Ravenmoon.5318:

Staff daredevil shreds condi mes in 3-4 vault crits, you just have to toy the mesmer to waste their 3 blocks and bunch of blinks.

As always, D/P and S/D having higher skillcap make things a bit more difficult You have to make sure you make a successive steal and you should rather backpedal if you fail. Resistance is too strong to be missed in 1on1 versus mesmer. It allows the thief to apply pressure without consequences for few seconds. With all the mobility and interrupts the thief is perfectly capable to give a run for the mesmer’s money.

Torment cleanse on withdraw is fun too. Wish it could remove confusion too :U

At this moment I am unsure if the current balance isn’t worse than last few years when thief was ultimately killing mesmer without breaking a sweat. The problem with current balance is that thief has no room for mistakes. A random immobilize or a random chain stun could be exactly what the mesmer needs to burst you down and even if you survive you won’t have the HPs to keep on fighting so it’s likely you’ll reset the fight.

It’s a difficult fight.

recall mantra lockdown mes

What about it? Withdraw has always gotten me out of difficult situations. Back then it was doing more “range” too so I was gaining distance on top of higher HP return.

And last year you could barely touch an S/D thief. Sure the damage is meh but the amount of evade frames was insane. If played right it was borderline impossible to kill. It never made it into ESL because it didn’t burst as hard as D/P although I do recall Toker using S/D in couple of matches.

you talking meta or no…because everyone can counterbuild in 1v1 but it’s completely useless in real..

Before June thief nerf last year I didn’t consider mesmer a viable opponent. Not under any circumstance. All they could do is flee with a portal and that’s about it.

Sure they one-shot me every now and then when they caught me by surprise and under cooldowns but mesmer was a joke to the thief for quite some time. Unless you facetanked all the shatters

I had better sustain, I had interrupts, I could go everywhere they go with shadow step and steal. Then they introduced this full 3 trait lines bullkitten and rearranged traits and completely kittened up the thief. And EVEN THEN the thief remained in the meta until the revenant. Because of mobility.

Ravenmoon.5318:

lighter.2708:

Ravenmoon.5318:

lighter.2708:

Ravenmoon.5318:

Staff daredevil shreds condi mes in 3-4 vault crits, you just have to toy the mesmer to waste their 3 blocks and bunch of blinks.

As always, D/P and S/D having higher skillcap make things a bit more difficult You have to make sure you make a successive steal and you should rather backpedal if you fail. Resistance is too strong to be missed in 1on1 versus mesmer. It allows the thief to apply pressure without consequences for few seconds. With all the mobility and interrupts the thief is perfectly capable to give a run for the mesmer’s money.

Torment cleanse on withdraw is fun too. Wish it could remove confusion too :U

At this moment I am unsure if the current balance isn’t worse than last few years when thief was ultimately killing mesmer without breaking a sweat. The problem with current balance is that thief has no room for mistakes. A random immobilize or a random chain stun could be exactly what the mesmer needs to burst you down and even if you survive you won’t have the HPs to keep on fighting so it’s likely you’ll reset the fight.

It’s a difficult fight.

recall mantra lockdown mes

What about it? Withdraw has always gotten me out of difficult situations. Back then it was doing more “range” too so I was gaining distance on top of higher HP return.

And last year you could barely touch an S/D thief. Sure the damage is meh but the amount of evade frames was insane. If played right it was borderline impossible to kill. It never made it into ESL because it didn’t burst as hard as D/P although I do recall Toker using S/D in couple of matches.

you talking meta or no…because everyone can counterbuild in 1v1 but it’s completely useless in real..

Before June thief nerf last year I didn’t consider mesmer a viable opponent. Not under any circumstance. All they could do is flee with a portal and that’s about it.

Sure they one-shot me every now and then when they caught me by surprise and under cooldowns but mesmer was a joke to the thief for quite some time. Unless you facetanked all the shatters

I had better sustain, I had interrupts, I could go everywhere they go with shadow step and steal. Then they introduced this full 3 trait lines bullkitten and rearranged traits and completely kittened up the thief. And EVEN THEN the thief remained in the meta until the revenant. Because of mobility.

Exactly, why take a thief or a warrior over a Revenant when they do the job better than both?