Guild Wars 2

evade spams while dealing damage

I want that build so bad, what game are you playing?

@Dirame and others

Listen I’m sorry to say this but the talk of comparing builds will go on infinitely – this is the bottom line:

This thread and most of the Mesmer balance discussions are talking about high level play. We don’t have to prove that your build is bad until you show that your build is good. Top players have a lot more evidence on their side currently. Show us your evidence fighting top players. I don’t want to see or hear about unranked or hot join success either.
What is good in theory is not necessarily good in actual top tier gameplay if you haven’t experienced it. Your build might work in unranked or even top 100 but when you get to top 20 and up in tournament level gameplay, you’ll find what works and doesn’t changes a lot.
Can’t get good enough or don’t have the time to network onto a top team? Then I’m sorry but you’ll just have to trust that someone has thought about and theorycrafted what you’re thinking of and decided in won’t work in their environment. Top players are good for a reason, and part of that reason is playing what works, and not playing what doesn’t work.

If you want to just have fun on mesmer you can do that with many builds at many levels. I don’t complain about Shatter in hot joins or unranked queues. I don’t even complain in ranked queues. I’m good enough at Shatter that my skill can overcome the imbalances at those levels. But at the highest level the imbalances are exposed. I even have fun playing other random mesmer builds that I have tried and know don’t work in higher level gameplay. I just play them in lower elo areas of the game, with success, just like many people who claim those same builds are good.

I’m sorry but you have to understand that you may not be as good as you think you are. You need to do some more research and simply play at a higher level before you earn the ability to have a weighted opinion on the matter.

I’m not claiming I’m the perfect player either. I’m simply saying that we need evidence here instead of theorycrafted claims. If you can’t provide, then you’ll simply have to trust that other people are smart enough to have thought through what builds work and don’t.

You bring up very valid points Cutie, and you’re a wealth of knowledge, but if we just listened to the top 20 guys the game would never be balanced. Oh wait…

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Amir.1570:

Darnis.4056:

Shatter Mesmer is strong.. but most people who play it have almost no skill..
The problem is that sustain has become too strong you no longer have to worry about making many mistakes because you can outlast most burst rotations while putting out compareable damage.

Especially if you’re an engineer which absolutely carries even abysmal players just from the fact that they basically can’t be burst down ever. As long as you know the heal rotation.

What’s the point of playing high risk low reward? Pop crate and win all your fights.
(1v1 or otherwise)

Calls Engi, including grenade specs which are skill shots, brainless but plays a class that spams evades, has boon stripping, braindead easy DPS to land, has way too many “I screwed up stun breaks” and can have 6 condition clears every 10 seconds while negating any Berserker/Assassin’s amulet class that isn’t a Thief.

Your class is actually low-risk and medium reward right now. But back in the power meta, it was one of the most braindead zero risk class in the game. You want REAL high risk high reward? Play glass cannon Warrior and see if you still think Mesmer takes skill, lmao.

Learn humility already.

You just.. Like to throw out all sorts of nonsensical “facts” don’t you? What Mesmer build were you playing that made you such a prodigy that you could make such claims?

And then after all that to tell someone else to learn humility? Gawd.

Why? Danis is pink puma and he’s a better mesmer than everyone in that OMFG guild. Same goes for me and supcutie. I respect darnis’ post because some one had to say it and supcutie pretty much sumed up the issues with mesmers and tourneys (tldr cele meta).

Being a top player and giving quality feedback can be mutually exclusive. There is definitely a positive correlation though.

Coulter.2315:

I think the only buff I have ever asked for Mesmer has been to give GS3 a Blast Finisher component (before the last update), I don’t want Mesmers buffed I want Cele, Fire+Air, Geo+Doom nerf’d. Halting might need looking at for nerf too but lets wait til we deal with the Rune/Sigil mess first.

@Dirame – is that your youtube channel in your comment? If it is I’m glad you’re producing content for GW2 thats definitely commendable however I looked at your thoughts on the most recent Mesmer and Ele changes, there is an issue which discredits your opinions on Mesmer. You never noticed that Illusionary Elasticity didn’t effect clones before the update – if this escaped your notice for 2 years then I’m sorry but you cannot come here and demand that people think and try harder. I don’t want to discourage you too much and you can stick to your thoughts BUT I’m pointing out a massive mistake you made for 2 years so you may be mistaken again. Please don’t take this as a personal attack I’m just trying to show that you might want to rethink as you’ve not noticed stuff in the past.

I take my own advice because I enjoy trying new things and developing new ideas. If you feel offended that I’m demanding something that you’ve already done then I apologize for offending you. Wasn’t trying to.

I’m not the best mesmer in the world, never claimed to be, but my thoughts are just based on the fact that I’ve never seen any tournament representation of what I’d consider to be the good ol’ college try. No offence to anyone who has already tried.

Supcutie.2538:

@Dirame and others

Listen I’m sorry to say this but the talk of comparing builds will go on infinitely – this is the bottom line:

This thread and most of the Mesmer balance discussions are talking about high level play. We don’t have to prove that your build is bad until you show that your build is good. Top players have a lot more evidence on their side currently. Show us your evidence fighting top players. I don’t want to see or hear about unranked or hot join success either.
What is good in theory is not necessarily good in actual top tier gameplay if you haven’t experienced it. Your build might work in unranked or even top 100 but when you get to top 20 and up in tournament level gameplay, you’ll find what works and doesn’t changes a lot.
Can’t get good enough or don’t have the time to network onto a top team? Then I’m sorry but you’ll just have to trust that someone has thought about and theorycrafted what you’re thinking of and decided in won’t work in their environment. Top players are good for a reason, and part of that reason is playing what works, and not playing what doesn’t work.

If you want to just have fun on mesmer you can do that with many builds at many levels. I don’t complain about Shatter in hot joins or unranked queues. I don’t even complain in ranked queues. I’m good enough at Shatter that my skill can overcome the imbalances at those levels. But at the highest level the imbalances are exposed. I even have fun playing other random mesmer builds that I have tried and know don’t work in higher level gameplay. I just play them in lower elo areas of the game, with success, just like many people who claim those same builds are good.

I’m sorry but you have to understand that you may not be as good as you think you are. You need to do some more research and simply play at a higher level before you earn the ability to have a weighted opinion on the matter.

I’m not claiming I’m the perfect player either. I’m simply saying that we need evidence here instead of theorycrafted claims. If you can’t provide, then you’ll simply have to trust that other people are smart enough to have thought through what builds work and don’t.

The question still remains; “What are these shortcomings?” because I genuinely wish to know. Is it the movement, dps, condis, survivability, escapability etc? Because at the start of the game Ele was apparently bad but then it was suddenly good with no change to the class by the devs. “Experts” said they were bad and they had tried everything. Same thing with Engie, same thing with the new Dhuumfire.

So please, I’m not trying to undermine your knowledge, I’m trying to pick your brain and find out exactly what you think is lacking.

It’s okay Dirame, I just felt I needed to post because a typical response from people is that I need to try their build that they’ve had success on. I’m just asking for a little trust, faith, and some evidence.

It’s difficult to really find the problem. I think if we knew exactly then it would have been solved. It’s something like a combination of:
1. Power classes needing to stat for power, crit, and ferocity to be seemingly on the same level of effectiveness as condi who can have success with 2 or maybe even 1 offensive stat.
2. Power damage being arguably mitigated more easily than condi damage, like with what Swish said about spammable condis. And the condi classes being able to stat defensive like in the previous point because they need to invest less in their offense.
3. In the current meta, celestial builds simply being more cost-effective than the alternatives. Hence bunker guards being out of meta, and even rangers along with mes.

I think I’m forgetting some good points but that comes to mind off the bat.

Some base condi cleanse might also help a bit.

masskillerxploit.2165:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Amir.1570:

Darnis.4056:

Shatter Mesmer is strong.. but most people who play it have almost no skill..
The problem is that sustain has become too strong you no longer have to worry about making many mistakes because you can outlast most burst rotations while putting out compareable damage.

Especially if you’re an engineer which absolutely carries even abysmal players just from the fact that they basically can’t be burst down ever. As long as you know the heal rotation.

What’s the point of playing high risk low reward? Pop crate and win all your fights.
(1v1 or otherwise)

Calls Engi, including grenade specs which are skill shots, brainless but plays a class that spams evades, has boon stripping, braindead easy DPS to land, has way too many “I screwed up stun breaks” and can have 6 condition clears every 10 seconds while negating any Berserker/Assassin’s amulet class that isn’t a Thief.

Your class is actually low-risk and medium reward right now. But back in the power meta, it was one of the most braindead zero risk class in the game. You want REAL high risk high reward? Play glass cannon Warrior and see if you still think Mesmer takes skill, lmao.

Learn humility already.

You just.. Like to throw out all sorts of nonsensical “facts” don’t you? What Mesmer build were you playing that made you such a prodigy that you could make such claims?

And then after all that to tell someone else to learn humility? Gawd.

Why? Danis is pink puma and he’s a better mesmer than everyone in that OMFG guild. Same goes for me and supcutie. I respect darnis’ post because some one had to say it and supcutie pretty much sumed up the issues with mesmers and tourneys (tldr cele meta).

For one, OMFG isn’t a .. uh.. guild – guild. If that makes sense. Its moreso a way for Mesmers to meet up and chat in-game. Secondly, it’s not a PvP-specific guild either. Thirdly, it mostly have players who’re trying to learn the class and learn from others. And fourthly.. I think Rylock would take issue with that. =P

Anyways. I respect you, supcutie, and plenty of others because yall are willing to explain your thought process in a way that would benefit others. You’ve specifically told me you’re willing to teach people shatter which is awesome (and we still need to have that duel btw)

I do not respect condescending posts that do nothing to help anyone but stroke one’s own ego. That whole “I rolled a Mesmer for a bit and didn’t have a hard time so it MUST be braindead easy” mentality is doing nothing but indirectly looking down on people who struggle with the class.

Annd yeah. Supcutie pretty much hit the nail on the head. Statements like “Oh mesmers just aren’t being creative enough” is assuming that people haven’t and aren’t trying to find new builds/roles for the class, which is false.

Uhh.. I think I was misquoted somewhere somehow..! I basically agree with Cutie…
Also <3 Ferox.

Anyhow… what Grinds my gears ;
Developers have shared very little insight on Cele Meta AFAIK…
I guess this is better then Chapman coming in and saying
“Actively react to their passives” ( AND then Nerfing spirit ranger)

Would love to hear from Devs whether we’re all wrong and cele is the end goal….
And if so, what is being done about 4/8 Classes not represented in the meta which don’t utilize Cele quite well.

Also Im 80% sure Amir is Vanish(Thief) and is like a mega troll :/

Dirame.8521:

Coulter.2315:

I think the only buff I have ever asked for Mesmer has been to give GS3 a Blast Finisher component (before the last update), I don’t want Mesmers buffed I want Cele, Fire+Air, Geo+Doom nerf’d. Halting might need looking at for nerf too but lets wait til we deal with the Rune/Sigil mess first.

@Dirame – is that your youtube channel in your comment? If it is I’m glad you’re producing content for GW2 thats definitely commendable however I looked at your thoughts on the most recent Mesmer and Ele changes, there is an issue which discredits your opinions on Mesmer. You never noticed that Illusionary Elasticity didn’t effect clones before the update – if this escaped your notice for 2 years then I’m sorry but you cannot come here and demand that people think and try harder. I don’t want to discourage you too much and you can stick to your thoughts BUT I’m pointing out a massive mistake you made for 2 years so you may be mistaken again. Please don’t take this as a personal attack I’m just trying to show that you might want to rethink as you’ve not noticed stuff in the past.

I take my own advice because I enjoy trying new things and developing new ideas. If you feel offended that I’m demanding something that you’ve already done then I apologize for offending you. Wasn’t trying to.

I’m not the best mesmer in the world, never claimed to be, but my thoughts are just based on the fact that I’ve never seen any tournament representation of what I’d consider to be the good ol’ college try. No offence to anyone who has already tried.

You haven’t offended me I promise I was just trying to explain why Mesmer wasn’t doing well atm.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

masskillerxploit.2165:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Amir.1570:

Darnis.4056:

Shatter Mesmer is strong.. but most people who play it have almost no skill..
The problem is that sustain has become too strong you no longer have to worry about making many mistakes because you can outlast most burst rotations while putting out compareable damage.

Especially if you’re an engineer which absolutely carries even abysmal players just from the fact that they basically can’t be burst down ever. As long as you know the heal rotation.

What’s the point of playing high risk low reward? Pop crate and win all your fights.
(1v1 or otherwise)

Calls Engi, including grenade specs which are skill shots, brainless but plays a class that spams evades, has boon stripping, braindead easy DPS to land, has way too many “I screwed up stun breaks” and can have 6 condition clears every 10 seconds while negating any Berserker/Assassin’s amulet class that isn’t a Thief.

Your class is actually low-risk and medium reward right now. But back in the power meta, it was one of the most braindead zero risk class in the game. You want REAL high risk high reward? Play glass cannon Warrior and see if you still think Mesmer takes skill, lmao.

Learn humility already.

You just.. Like to throw out all sorts of nonsensical “facts” don’t you? What Mesmer build were you playing that made you such a prodigy that you could make such claims?

And then after all that to tell someone else to learn humility? Gawd.

Why? Danis is pink puma and he’s a better mesmer than everyone in that OMFG guild. Same goes for me and supcutie. I respect darnis’ post because some one had to say it and supcutie pretty much sumed up the issues with mesmers and tourneys (tldr cele meta).

For one, OMFG isn’t a .. uh.. guild – guild. If that makes sense. Its moreso a way for Mesmers to meet up and chat in-game. Secondly, it’s not a PvP-specific guild either. Thirdly, it mostly have players who’re trying to learn the class and learn from others. And fourthly.. I think Rylock would take issue with that. =P

Anyways. I respect you, supcutie, and plenty of others because yall are willing to explain your thought process in a way that would benefit others. You’ve specifically told me you’re willing to teach people shatter which is awesome (and we still need to have that duel btw)

I do not respect condescending posts that do nothing to help anyone but stroke one’s own ego as Amir (danis?) does. That whole “I rolled a Mesmer for a bit and didn’t have a hard time so it MUST be braindead easy” mentality is doing nothing but indirectly looking down on people who struggle with the class.

Annd yeah. Supcutie pretty much hit the nail on the head. Statements like “Oh mesmers just aren’t being creative enough” is assuming that people haven’t and aren’t trying to find new builds/roles for the class, which is false.

Yeah and I apologize for being a kitten. Just kinda frustrated watching some people post MESMER OP NERF CAUSE I CANT TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLONES I ALSO KEYBOARD TURN AND PVE ALL DAY BUT MY EXPERIENCE IN PVE SOMEHOW CORRELATES INTO PVP EXPERIENCE SPECIFICALLY ZERKER CLASSES.
I actually love the mesmer community, idk if you look at the other class specific threads but they are full of noobs and toxicity. I personnally love reading your posts because they make sense even if I don’t agree with it. I’m just salty right now cause of the meta and general state of spvp.

I can try to dissect this more, but bear with me as comparing and contrasting between classes is extremely difficult because of so many variables.
I’ll start basic and try to build up a case and define things.

Let’s pretend it’s a power team vs. a condi team. Power meaning their damage sources are power specs like thief mes or something, and a condi team, their damage sources being condi based like engi necro. Currently for the condi team we could also just be talking about like a celestial team since celestial stats are so strong. Also since might affects power and condi damage the result is a higher sustain to damage ratio in addition to what they have already (which is a high sustain to damage ratio) on classes that utilize celestial well like engi/ele.

The power team’s damage has to be invested in the triple offensive stats of power crit ferocity because otherwise they simply won’t have enough damage. This is how the game is currently balanced.
So right off the bat you have the condi team with more room for error, because they mathematically have more defensive stats.

The advantage of the power team is that they have upfront, burst damage that can kill targets with proper coordination. The advantage of the condi team is that they have more sustain and higher room for error.
So now we have a condi team with more room for error and a need for less coordination in addition to having more sustain.

Now let’s compare some damage. First I want to define effective damage. If an s/d thief and a d/p thief are both in a fight, the s/d does way more damage overall, but the d/p can still cause equal pressure to be put out because their damage is burst. So the d/p thief has more effective damage, less total damage.
Typically, for the same skill use investment, condition skills or the celestial power-condi combo skills, do around the same amount of damage as power, but over a longer duration. This is fine except they also have all of their defensive stats (compared to the power triple offensive stats).
Now Usually the power classes have more damage skills (which results in more total damage output from the team), and the condi/celestial have more crowd control. Crowd control leads to the lesser damage of the condi/celestial team outputting equal pressure on the power team because the power team is squishier (so the condi/celestial team has more effective damage).

The result we then get is, the condi/celestial team has similar effective damage to the power team but with a lot more defensive stats. So, maybe this is fair? The power team has the opportunity to win immediately if they play it correctly, right?

And this is the important part – the answer is yes, but is it realistic? -> no.

This is because the coordination required is not rewarded fairly as a result of the luck factor of random dodges, and the increased defensive capabilities of the condi classes through raw stats and more crowd control. Weakness for example hurts a power class a lot more than a condi class. Instant fears, or instant overcharge shot. Celestial engi and ele being able to heal each other and the rest of the team.
It is often the case that even if you kill someone on a condi team, once your opener is done, the condi team can rotate, kite, and sustain all while doing damage (nades, marks, other aoes), allowing them to marginalize their losses a lot more effectively than an equivalent power team who couldn’t do damage like that while running.

Basically if for any number of reasons the power team doesn’t perfectly open and kill the condi team quickly, the power team immediately falls behind into an extremely difficult uphill battle.

It’s simply an imbalance of stat point and coordination investment per unit of reward.

Please discuss though!

Supcutie.2538:

It’s difficult to really find the problem. I think if we knew exactly then it would have been solved. It’s something like a combination of:
1. Power classes needing to stat for power, crit, and ferocity to be seemingly on the same level of effectiveness as condi who can have success with 2 or maybe even 1 offensive stat.
2. Power damage being arguably mitigated more easily than condi damage, like with what Swish said about spammable condis. And the condi classes being able to stat defensive like in the previous point because they need to invest less in their offense.
3. In the current meta, celestial builds simply being more cost-effective than the alternatives. Hence bunker guards being out of meta, and even rangers along with mes.

I think I’m forgetting some good points but that comes to mind off the bat.

Some base condi cleanse might also help a bit.

I think the difference is pretty obvious between celestial and zerker.

1) Sustain is forgiving, zerker builds (aside from S/D thief and warrior) lack sustain, celestial builds do not lack sustain.

2) Zerker damage comes in bursts, meta builds have a lot of counters to burst, be it blocks, evades, CC, blinds, invulns, teleports. Good players on meta builds can often avoid burst.

3) Zerker’s don’t have low risk sustained damage.

4) Celestial has low risk sustained damage

5) Sustained damage isn’t mitigated as heavily as burst damage is by Blocks, Evades, CC, blinds, invulns, teleports etc.

6) The meta celestial builds have greater range than melee. Ele is 300 range (still bigger range than melee), but has perma vigor, mobility skills, more healing, and heavy protection uptime to compensate. Celestial Engineer is ranged. Celestial Warrior swaps between range and melee, and has heavy sustain to compensate for when it’s in melee.

Basically celestial is low risk high reward compared to zerker builds. Even though Shatter mesmer has range to compensate for it’s squishiness, celestial has range and sustain and sustain damage. Mesmer can’t stand on a point and be effective in the same way celestial builds can.

Since the optimal comp currently revolves around having 3 brawlers and 2 roamers or 4 brawlers and 1 roamer Mesmer is competing with Necromancer and Thief for those roles. Thief mobility keeps it viable in the meta, and necro’s condi lock and 2nd life bar keep it viable. All three have boon removal, but the other two have more to offer arguably than what portal offers. Also Necro and Thief have condition removal, which Mesmer does not have.

All that said, Mesmer has the potential to be in the meta currently. However, I defintely don’t see any mesmer’s near Helseth’s level in NA.

Shockwave.1230:

All that said, Mesmer has the potential to be in the meta currently. However, I defintely don’t see any mesmer’s near Helseth’s level in NA.

TIL NA needs to get Good, cause Helseth won against the Celestial Meta team and so can YOU.

Yeah Shockwave those are good points. Also I think there are good mes on NA! Maybe even better

Elitist.8701:

The thing is, mesmers role is basically +1ing fights because you never really want an even fight with a mesmer… cuz they suck at 2v2s, 3v3s, etc. But even when they +1 fights, they have similar effect to something like a Thief or Necro, but Thief and Necro can do so much more elsewhere as well. Thats just what I think.

-Teef Teef Teef Teef

I think this is accurate. Celestial isn’t whats causing mesmer to be out of the meta. The only roamer build that uses celestial that competes for the roamer slot is cele engi. So it’s a small part of it but there is plenty of other roamer builds/classes I would take over a mesmer that don’t use celestial.

Best on point classes use celestial, but mesmer does not compete for that slot on a team.

This is a very simple way to put it and if the on point classes weren’t celestial it would make mesmer more powerful by alleviating some of it’s problems but that doesn’t alleviate the fact that there are other more powerful roamers you can take.

Yeah I feel like the greater picture we’re getting into is basically trying to pinpoint why mesmer is often subpar to other classes meta after meta.

Phantaram.4816:

Elitist.8701:

The thing is, mesmers role is basically +1ing fights because you never really want an even fight with a mesmer… cuz they suck at 2v2s, 3v3s, etc. But even when they +1 fights, they have similar effect to something like a Thief or Necro, but Thief and Necro can do so much more elsewhere as well. Thats just what I think.

-Teef Teef Teef Teef

I think this is accurate. Celestial isn’t whats causing mesmer to be out of the meta. The only roamer build that uses celestial that competes for the roamer slot is cele engi. So it’s a small part of it but there is plenty of other roamer builds/classes I would take over a mesmer that don’t use celestial.

Best on point classes use celestial, but mesmer does not compete for that slot on a team.

This is a very simple way to put it and if the on point classes weren’t celestial it would make mesmer more powerful by alleviating some of it’s problems but that doesn’t alleviate the fact that there are other more powerful roamers you can take.

Celest Meta teams also tend not to have a bunker Guard so a Mesmer is faced with a full team of things that are all deadly to it. The “team fights” are also smaller due to Celest teams prefering to spread out over the map meaning the Mesmer team will always be either in a situation where the Mesmer is fighting on a node where there is no condi cleanse for it OR you’ll be likely over commiting OR not enough damage to kill anything with any speed.

Its not whats in your team slots really, its the removal of the Guard from the enemy team and whats in their slots all burn you

Supcutie.2538:

Yeah Shockwave those are good points. Also I think there are good mes on NA! Maybe even better

There are some really good Mesmer’s in NA, but in terms of playing conquest, you Mime and Mide (who’s been MIA recently) are the top 3 that I’m familiar with. And as good as the three of you are, I think we can agree that Helseth plays conquest noticeably better. No offense meant, as I’m sure numerous Mesmers are better than Helseth at various aspects of Mesmer. Helseth is a shot caller on his team so he can help them rotate to compensate for what Mesmer lacks, so that probably helps keep him in favorable positions. TCG has also evolved their play around Mesmer and Thief, which definitely helps.

Part of the issue may be that players don’t necessarily want to play around the strengths and weaknesses of a Mesmer. Thief being in the Meta basically requires Mesmer to be baby sat in matches where the enemy team has a thief. Perhaps teams find this too restricting to play around, since S/D Thief is often what they have to contend with, and S/D thief is very difficult to lock down and can quickly swap targets it wants to engage on.

But I would say that it’s not just the combination of Necro and Thief that push the Mesmer out of the Meta, even if Necro weren’t viable, in a team setting I feel like it’d be better to take another Celestial Rifle Engineer (possibly rabid) over another Mesmer. Even though it loses that matchup in a 1v1, on a Node with LoS engi doesn’t have to lose that fight especially if he’s potentially willing to give up the neut. This keeps that point even and gives plenty of time for people to rotate the fight into a 2v2, which immediately puts the team with the mesmer at a disadvantage in that fight.

So I’d argue it’s Thief, Necro, and Engineer that push Mesmer out of the Meta for that 2nd Roamer spot on teams. However, because of the sustain Engi has it’s technically considered a brawler.

It’s nice to read the reviews here.

Thanks supcutie to explain the situation so well.

++1.

We can only expect a correction in the cele amulet or the engineer or Elementalist.

Or hope that in a future patch born another build of mesmer.

Also remember that the mesmer is the hardest game counter. The thief. The difference is ridiculous. should reduce this difference. (not eliminate)

Sorry my bad English.

merry christmas and happy new year.

I wondered what puts you in the unique position to critique high level play,
So I looked you up on the leaderboards from when leaderboards actually had some semblance to them, Sure they weren’t perfect, but you could sortof tell the skill of a person if they never even broke the top 100.

Then I remembered who you were,
the
completely
below
average
Thief who solo’qued a lot.

Never having achieved a high rank in either Solo or Teams I can see how it would be easy for you to tell us to get good, and on the level of Helseth.
(EVEN THOUGH He lost to Cele-engi/ele team.)

It also demystifies your amazing understanding of the meta and balance from such a high level never having actually played on it.

If Anet decides to keep things going on the path they’ve set with the celestial meta, one thing they could do for mesmer is increase their sustain capabilities (mainly speaking of healing). Increasing sustain could be accomplished by many varying things. It could be as simple as adding a blast finisher to a couple existing weapon skills, introduce some other trait or utility, or even maybe tweak the ether signet to outperform ether feast in raw healing output. I think this is the direction Anet was trying to go with the signet in the first place – giving mesmers more options in this area, and it wouldn’t take a whole lot of fidgeting to provide a bit more.

I’m not suggesting this should happen, as I’m not sold myself on the current meta. But if we are stuck with this current sustain driven meta, something like this could potentially be a solution.

I’ve always thought that Mind Stab should be a combo finisher, blast

But that detail will not fix the problems of mesmer

Zento.7401:

But that detail will not fix the problems of mesmer

Of course not, but certainly having more capabilities to blast available water fields would be a very nice option to have.

@Zento Yeah it would be awesome if Mind Stab was a blast. Unfortunately that has been talked about by devs and it was decided that Mesmer is not the class to blast things like that.
I always imagined Mind Stabbing a black powder from a distance or something haha!

Darnis.4056:

I wondered what puts you in the unique position to critique high level play,
So I looked you up on the leaderboards from when leaderboards actually had some semblance to them, Sure they weren’t perfect, but you could sortof tell the skill of a person if they never even broke the top 100.

Then I remembered who you were,
the
completely
below
average
Thief who solo’qued a lot.

Never having achieved a high rank in either Solo or Teams I can see how it would be easy for you to tell us to get good, and on the level of Helseth.
(EVEN THOUGH He lost to Cele-engi/ele team.)

It also demystifies your amazing understanding of the meta and balance from such a high level never having actually played on it.

I have no wish to engage in mudslinging with you, but I’m quite flattered you know me considering I never previously tried to play on a team and used to just be a yoloer. Thank you sir.

I’m not mudslinging you, I’m just pointing out ,if it wasn’t already painfully obvious,
You don’t have the slightest frame of reference.
As you yourself stated “I Never tried to play on a team”
Your opinion is irrelevant,

Thanks for bumping the thread with"Get good like helseth, he can beat cele" Spam

Miku Lawrence.6329:

evade spams while dealing damage

I want that build so bad, what game are you playing?

I think he messed up mesmer and thief in his mind lol

Honestly I think what is keeping mesmer out of the meta has always been thief. The only way Mesmer will be viable is to make it so thief doesn’t hard counter Mesmer in literally every aspect (nerfing/changing consume plasma would be a very good starting point).

Consume plasma is ridiculous; it’s a free I win card against any mesmer because you can do absolutely nothing about steal; RNG dodge? Yes, Realistically? Nothing.

Prioritize Boonstrip (Stability), If I get a shatter off in the evade spam(Ele) meta Id like to boonstrip something useful! Not the 0.1 seconds of Regen.

Darnis.4056:

I’m not mudslinging you, I’m just pointing out ,if it wasn’t already painfully obvious,
You don’t have the slightest frame of reference.
As you yourself stated “I Never tried to play on a team”
Your opinion is irrelevant,

Thanks for bumping the thread with"Get good like helseth, he can beat cele" Spam

You assume I have none, you’ll be seeing me and my teammates soon in the upcoming January weeklies.

We have Mesmer in our team comp, and we’re working our play around the strengths and weaknesses of shatter Mesmer. We see in what situations it’s good and in what situations it struggles.

That’s neither here nor there though, and you’ve derailed the thread enough. The point is, even with the struggles Mesmer has there is only a few that have shown to be good enough to compete in major tournaments of the last couple months. And only 1 has shown to be good enough to consistently make finals appearences.

This isn’t me saying people need to get good, it’s me simply pointing out the facts. That doesn’t mean Mesmer doesn’t have strengths and can’t be viable, it just means it’s challenging to make it shine, which is what the whole thread is about and we’re highlighting why it’s challenging.

In my opinion here are some potential changes regardless of cele balance:

Overcharge shot given a cast time – counterplay
Withdraw given a cast time of some sort – counterplay
Nerfing Feline’s Grace – the dodging isn’t good for the game.
Potentially toning back some of the Thief stolen abilities. – This one I’m willing to say is debatable.
Look at Necro fears – they’re all instant except 1 which has a 3/4 second cast time and I’ve personally tested that sometimes it can come out faster than that based on relative latency. And Reaper’s/Nightmare still proc Terror. What if Terror caused fears to have diminishing returns? Maybe it needs some sort of ICD. Maybe Terror shouldn’t apply to Rune/Trait fears. I would just like to see more counterplay here.
Fix stow weapon cancelling across the board. For Mes, War, Ele, etc.
Should Mes GS auto have instant travel time?

Shockwave.1230:

Supcutie.2538:

Yeah Shockwave those are good points. Also I think there are good mes on NA! Maybe even better

There are some really good Mesmer’s in NA, but in terms of playing conquest, you Mime and Mide (who’s been MIA recently) are the top 3 that I’m familiar with. And as good as the three of you are, I think we can agree that Helseth plays conquest noticeably better. No offense meant, as I’m sure numerous Mesmers are better than Helseth at various aspects of Mesmer. Helseth is a shot caller on his team so he can help them rotate to compensate for what Mesmer lacks, so that probably helps keep him in favorable positions. TCG has also evolved their play around Mesmer and Thief, which definitely helps.

Part of the issue may be that players don’t necessarily want to play around the strengths and weaknesses of a Mesmer. Thief being in the Meta basically requires Mesmer to be baby sat in matches where the enemy team has a thief. Perhaps teams find this too restricting to play around, since S/D Thief is often what they have to contend with, and S/D thief is very difficult to lock down and can quickly swap targets it wants to engage on.

But I would say that it’s not just the combination of Necro and Thief that push the Mesmer out of the Meta, even if Necro weren’t viable, in a team setting I feel like it’d be better to take another Celestial Rifle Engineer (possibly rabid) over another Mesmer. Even though it loses that matchup in a 1v1, on a Node with LoS engi doesn’t have to lose that fight especially if he’s potentially willing to give up the neut. This keeps that point even and gives plenty of time for people to rotate the fight into a 2v2, which immediately puts the team with the mesmer at a disadvantage in that fight.

So I’d argue it’s Thief, Necro, and Engineer that push Mesmer out of the Meta for that 2nd Roamer spot on teams. However, because of the sustain Engi has it’s technically considered a brawler.

You obviously dont know me then. +1 for supcutie and mime, both great players!

Also Shockwave I would like to say that the same one mesmer has also been stubborn enough to not off class and alleviate the disadvantage Mesmer has continuously brought. TCG has built up a lot of synergy and that’s great but we’re simply saying here that there shouldn’t only be one Mesmer who at the behest of his team still stayed Mesmer.
I would be curious if you would report back here with your findings after playing your Mesmer comp. I can assure you it will be more difficult than you think, especially playing against something like Abjured.
Helseth has had a lot more opportunity in EU to play, and continued to play Mesmer so I think it’s a fair statement that his conquest gameplay is good. I can also fill you in that recently people playing on both EU and NA scrimming TCG and others have said that he hasn’t seemed as good lately and many would argue that I’m better. Anyway I’m not interested in slinging mud either and that’s all irrelevant now because neither of us are playing Mesmer.

I honestly think the only thing holding mesmers back is thieves. I think thieves are aids for this game. If teams didn’t have thieves I think Mesmers would destroy cele comps. Most available boon combined with a lot of pressure and mobility. I used to main Mesmer and i played it recently in ranked team qs. We played a lot of celestial teams without thieves.. I was able to obliterate them… Especially teams like radioactive…. I don’t think cele is holding back Mesmer… I think it is only thief…

mesmer natural predator is thief and there are lots of thieves around so very little mesmers. also there aren’t enough necros around which is partly why so many engi/eles out there. if nobody plays mesmer at all maybe the thieves will starve and die allowing mesmers to come back into meta. wat

Well then what’s keeping Necros out of the meta? Shadow Art Thieves and the Necro power builds being below par?

Atherakhia.4086:

Well then what’s keeping Necros out of the meta? Shadow Art Thieves and the Necro power builds being below par?

Player skill issues … Look @ noscoc

Mesmer has always been fringe meta at best. We have been over this many times before. Its teef that pushes out zerker burst classes out of the meta. Shatter mes, fresh air ele, medi guard, even power ranger and power necro all fill the same role and can favorably stand versus tanky builds but they are out shined by teef. Out of those teef is the only one that can operate on its own without needing a baby sitter (usually a teef) thanks to its mobility and stealth. Mesmer comes close to competing with teef thanks to portal and stealth but mesmer is basically a “fair” teef because it actually has cool downs (it cant blink 3 or 4 times across the map to decap/escape/+1). Burst and power builds dont need more damage. Damage is all ready insane especially with sigil procs on auto attacks.

Frankly, I dont know how to make the other classes on par with teef without making teef unviable or downright breaking something.

Maybe they should think about reducing the cd on portal and/or making it ground targeted like flesh wurm.

Israel.7056:

Maybe they should think about reducing the cd on portal and/or making it ground targeted like flesh wurm.

I’d like to see the cool down of portal reduced but not below 75 seconds. It’s such an interesting ability for players to deal with. But the biggest reason I’d want it buffed is for viewers of the game, portal is one of the major skills that is easy for spectators to see utilized.

Mesmer should be more like thief, where if you go ranged you do almost no dmg. Mesmer may be balanced in a node fight, but put open field and we see that it is no risk and high reward. Has short cds, low or insta cast time, ranged skills, clones, imunes, etc.

Portal was originally 60 seconds, and EVERYBODY ran Mesmer..
Then Portal was nerfed to 90 and Mesmer basically rotated out of the meta
A Lot of Noteable mesmers stopped playing and mesmer wasn’t given anything that would allow them to be viable in the Metas that followed which were more or less established by one or two overbuffed classes.

I don’t want Mesmer viability simply because of 1 utility skill. We’re already dependent on 1 or 2 specific traits to viable (DE and IP). Don’t corner us even more.

I’m of the opinion, that it’s not so much that Mesmer is in a bad state. Its just other professions currently overshadow Mesmer. And that Thief counters us like no other class. (Partly because Consume Plasma is over the top.)

Right, Every profession has seen serious buffs and changes.
Mesmer had some minor buffs to try to make some unviable weapon sets viable.

Lowest Animal.8014:

Mesmer has always been fringe meta at best. We have been over this many times before. Its teef that pushes out zerker burst classes out of the meta. Shatter mes, fresh air ele, medi guard, even power ranger and power necro all fill the same role and can favorably stand versus tanky builds but they are out shined by teef. Out of those teef is the only one that can operate on its own without needing a baby sitter (usually a teef) thanks to its mobility and stealth. Mesmer comes close to competing with teef thanks to portal and stealth but mesmer is basically a “fair” teef because it actually has cool downs (it cant blink 3 or 4 times across the map to decap/escape/+1). Burst and power builds dont need more damage. Damage is all ready insane especially with sigil procs on auto attacks.

Frankly, I dont know how to make the other classes on par with teef without making teef unviable or downright breaking something.

Thief -> Mes -> everything else.

No zerk build is even remotely viable aside maybe medi guard and power nec ( arguably).

Other zerk builds simply bring NOTHING to the table when compared even to a simple Hambow ( fairly balanced build) or rabid engi ( slightly over the top build but still fairly balanced).

Stop saying it’s thieves/mes faults if you get rekt with your eviscerate war or fresh air ele.

They

just

suck

Get over it.

^ I agree with this guy. Zerk warr , zerk engi etc …are just awful builds with sub par damage and survivability. It has nothing to do with thieves even if they counter them 1v1.

Medi guard cannot disengage. That’s why its trash in conquest. Power Necro has mediocre mobility and easely focused unless you are radioactive and use 2 lich.

Most zerk builds are just trash. Thief is just better the way its designed.

Mrbig.8019:

Lowest Animal.8014:

Mesmer has always been fringe meta at best. We have been over this many times before. Its teef that pushes out zerker burst classes out of the meta. Shatter mes, fresh air ele, medi guard, even power ranger and power necro all fill the same role and can favorably stand versus tanky builds but they are out shined by teef. Out of those teef is the only one that can operate on its own without needing a baby sitter (usually a teef) thanks to its mobility and stealth. Mesmer comes close to competing with teef thanks to portal and stealth but mesmer is basically a “fair” teef because it actually has cool downs (it cant blink 3 or 4 times across the map to decap/escape/+1). Burst and power builds dont need more damage. Damage is all ready insane especially with sigil procs on auto attacks.

Frankly, I dont know how to make the other classes on par with teef without making teef unviable or downright breaking something.

Thief -> Mes -> everything else.

No zerk build is even remotely viable aside maybe medi guard and power nec ( arguably).

Other zerk builds simply bring NOTHING to the table when compared even to a simple Hambow ( fairly balanced build) or rabid engi ( slightly over the top build but still fairly balanced).

Stop saying it’s thieves/mes faults if you get rekt with your eviscerate war or fresh air ele.

They

just

suck

Get over it.

Actually Warrior glass cannon simply takes more skill than Mesmer and arguably Thief and can definitely be more rewarding because of the cleave that it provides for the team. But that’s your opinion though, an opinion of a Bronze level loser.

There’s a reason why people play Mesmer and Thief for glass cannons by the way, and that’s because Mesmer is braindead easy to pick up class and Thief is a high skill cap class.

The only reason why glass cannon Warrior isn’t working is because people such as you are kinda bad that you can’t do jack without spamming evades as a glass cannon.

I suppose ANET is truly at the biggest fault for making Mesmer the most forgiving braindead glass cannon in the game and that they make Mesmer stupidly braindead vs. most power builds but suck really hard vs. conditions.

Nothing will change unless ANET changes something and I suppose it will always be that way because ANET is essentially enforcing the META.