Guild Wars 2

inB4 wrong subforum blah blah blah blah. The last dev post in the mesmer forum about any issues that mesmers have been screaming about was over 3 months ago.

So J. Sharp released some hints at what to expect in Oct. with the patch being released and wanting to push classes to more supporty roles. This can be seen with mesmer Mantra of Resolve clearing a total of 4 conditions from allies and Mantra of Concentration will grant stability for 2s to allies.

Here are the issues I have with this… They are buffing mantras, which is cool but they are buffing them in all the wrong ways.

• Mantra cast times are still painfully and I mean painfully long. The mesmer just as well have a huge target over their head saying here is a free kill for the next ~3s. Is there any possible way to get the cast times reduced further. I know they shouldn’t be instant but 2-2.5s may just be where the money is at.

• You are making it so we can cleanse two conditions from allies in an area. That’s cool and all but in general noone is taking mesmers on a team for condition removal (nor will they after this patch). Wait come to think of it noone is taking mesmers on the team anyways. If you really want mesmers to have a fighting chance against this crazy condition meta change MOR to remove at least 3 conditions from ourselves and then the 2 from the allies.

And if you are really REALLY REALLY hell bent on mesmers using mantras for the team utility then some traits need changed/combined etc. Because right now we have mantra traits spread across three different trees and the trait tree with the most mantra traits is a tree that noone goes into for mantras…. ever….

To make Mantras legitimately viable (IMO) these traits need a serious rework.

• Harmonious mantras- A grand master trait in a trait line that has jack diddly to do with mantras. Its kinda like a fat lady entering a bikini contest the first thing to go through your head is “kitten is this doing here” Combine this trait with mantra mastery for the love of god

• Protected Mantras-Instead of 400 toughness while charging can we get a boon like protection or stability (if stability put an ICD obviously) or make it work like blurred inscriptions only “blurred meditations” (this one with an ICD of course as well)

• Mantra Mastery- Combine with harmonious mantras like stated above.
• Empowering Mantras- if mantras are support based… Why even have this? Delete it and get something else in here.
• Restorative Mantras-Honestly this is likely THE ONLY Decent mantra trait in the mesmer mantra traits.

Lastly if J. Sharp and company are still really trying to get the mesmer to be more supporty these issues need to be addressed.

• Condition removal Condition removal Condition Removal Condition Removal Condition Removal Condition Removal. Mesmers have condi clear traits all over the place but they each only remove one per the parameters required to do it and to have marginal condition clearing when compared to necros, thieves, rangers, eles, guards, engis, you know what just compared to everyone then we need a full guaranteed condi wipe somewhere. Shattered conditions is one of the biggest jokes to ever come into the mesmer house.
  You put a shatter dependent skill in a grand master line where the rest of the line has nothing to do with shatters…. Here’s a plaque for logic award of the year. In the last SOTG Jon said that ANET didn’t want to give mesmers too much in the way of condition clear because of all this other stuff we have going for us (evades etc). They used to say warriors should be able to tank through the conditions and just kill the person before the condis killed them…. It didn’t work so they gave warriors cleansing IRE and upped the duration on berserkers stance… Then life got good. Not too mention warriors still had better condi clear than a mesmer before that thanks to mending and sig of stamina. To actually make the mesmer have a prayer in this meta up our condi clear so we get a guaranteed full wipe somewhere.

• Also if they want to make mesmer more “supporty” then do something about phantasmal healing…. As it stands almost every other class (except maybe necro?) can passively regenerate health with out regeneration the boon. Currently mesmer only has regen the boon. You want us to be more supporty? Change phantasmal healing to just apply a passive heal to allies over time that is generated from each phantasm. This will put it more inline with things like elixir infused bombs/backpack regenerator/Shadow’s rejuvenation/soothing mist/signet of the wild/Troll Ungent you get the point not to mention signets that grant health on attacks like Sig of Malice and Sig of restoration (these are used more elsewhere than PvP)

When it all comes down to it the current meta is still broken and even with slight shaving to the condis and what not mesmer still doesn’t have a chance because their support just isn’t as good as it could be and this is just in direct response to the patch that may be coming out in Oct. and something I hope Anet seriously considers before putting the patch live.

Mesmers are still wonderful, competitively, when they’re not being chased by two necros.

Leave them as they are.

zone.1073:

Mesmers are still wonderful, competitively, when they’re not being chased by two necros.

Leave them as they are.

You mean 2 necros, a Stun Lock Warrior, a bomb/ft engi, a spirit ranger (these guys are STILL higher on the totem than mesmer even post spirit nerf), a guardian, s/d thief, and lastly an ele… yes even in pax there was one or two eles that I saw throughout the entire tournament… Mesmers had a big fat goose egg… The little tweaks that anet has tried making since then to are way to miniscule to mean anything. I love my mesmer and anytime I try tourneying with my regular team they ask for my engi (better heals overtime than a mesmer with out the ridiculous 3s charge and better condi counters.) Or my warrior…..

Mesmer is not fine. Mesmer was teetering on the edge of unviable before June 26th with Portal and IOL being the only decent things we had going for us. We weren’t taken for damage, we weren’t taken for support, we were taken for two skills… That don’t even matter anymore because warriors are in the meta and so are spirit rangers hence better resses, And if the team really really wanted to they could convince their S/D thief to run shadow trap on home point.

Go on 1v1 servers and destroy people. Then have them all go on the forums to complain on how op mesmers are.

kitten s.7421:

Go on 1v1 servers and destroy people. Then have them all go on the forums to complain on how op mesmers are.

1v1 OPness has nothing to do with tournament viability. And IMO the phantasm build needs nerfed via empowered illusions trait removal

jportell.2197:

kitten s.7421:

Go on 1v1 servers and destroy people. Then have them all go on the forums to complain on how op mesmers are.

1v1 OPness has nothing to do with tournament viability. And IMO the phantasm build needs nerfed via empowered illusions trait removal

Oh i know and i agree with you on both fronts. But that is the main reason people are so against buffing mesmers. People go on duel servers and get owned in 1v1s against mesmers then they complain they are op.

Play mesmer? Crying? HEres SUGGESTION. MAKE A NEW CLASS! A REAL ONE! LOL! You see your skill on mesmer is just an illusion, its not really there and never will be. That’s your class mechanic, automatons.

Mesmers are still OP, their damage is still insane.
Condition spec are slowly disappearing due to huge buff to condition removals and nerfs to conditions while Mesmer are day after day more popular.

After the patch, Mesmer will become FotM again.

We aren’t in condition meta anymore, don’t use it as an excuse to buff mesmers and to bring condition specs again into the oblivion.

Sami.7923:

Play mesmer? Crying? HEres SUGGESTION. MAKE A NEW CLASS! A REAL ONE! LOL! You see your skill on mesmer is just an illusion, its not really there and never will be. That’s your class mechanic, automatons.

And my ability to win on my engi, necro, ranger, warrior, and thief is just an illusion too trolls gonna troll.
And sorrow mesmers have one OP SPEC that most agree needs nerfed however even if the Condi meta is toned down (its still there) its not going to disappear completely and mesmer was barely hanging on to team comps before that patch because of 2 skills and that’s it. S/d thieves took our spot as the boon strippers and still out deepesd us.

What I’m really curious about is ANets goal for the mesmer…. They gave us all these interrupt traits but we aren’t even close to being an effective lockdown class when compared to warriors and in the last SOTG Jon sharp said they liked having it that way…. So then what does that leave mesmer with for being a lock down?

Sami.7923:

You see your skill on mesmer is just an illusion, its not really there and never will be.

According to my CHAMPION ILLUSIONIST TITLE;

My dominance is no illusion.

Mesmers can be the hard counter to Stun Warrior, so hopefully after conditions get shaved there will be an opening in teams that a Mesmer can fill. Mesmers have so many melee counters built into their weapon mechanics that if they were also able to trait for condi removal while using weapons like staff to avoid melee, they would become unstoppable.

Kind of like how Mesmer is Warriors natural enemy I suppose the idea was that Mesmers natural foe should be Condis. Of course that meant that when they became the Meta Mesmers got phased out.

In a perfect world conditions would remain viable, so Stun Warriors will be used to counter them, which means a Mesmer/Thief will be brought to counter the Warrior. You would have a loop and it would come down to who does their role best and has the best communication. Over time roles could be expanded, Ele needs to maybe get a bunker build on par with Guardian, then the last slot would be whatever the team wants. No class left out in the cold because they can all have a purpose.

Yes but even warriors can face tank melee and/or escape from melee while being able to hard counter conditions what bugs me is Anet once said they want warriors to tank through conditions and therefore they should have marginal Condi removal…. But then they gave them exceptional Condi removal. They are saying something similar for mesmers and well it just isn’t working anet should realize that by now

jportell.2197:

Yes but even warriors can face tank melee and/or escape from melee while being able to hard counter conditions what bugs me is Anet once said they want warriors to tank through conditions and therefore they should have marginal Condi removal…. But then they gave them exceptional Condi removal. They are saying something similar for mesmers and well it just isn’t working anet should realize that by now

So your solution is admitting the warrior opness and buff mesmer until they are brought up to the same level of opness of warriors until conditions become again the sad joke of PvP because of the huge power creep of condition removals?

Mesmers are fine, they are getting stronger condi removal next patch if anything that will make them out of control faceroll again. Just bad design when AI builds/classes are strongest.

now that spirit rangers got toned down a little people are back on crying about mez? how exciting.

If the condi duration stacking cap goes in, then too many people will not know how to effectively team fight with conditions to prevent mesmer from coming back.

They’re gonna take the same faceroll builds into teamfights and waste all their burning and poison stacks, lose a huge amt of damage, and then give up on condis.

Mesmer benefits from that in two ways – confusion will become 10x more valuable b/c of how burning and poison will cap in condi builds, and obviously if people play power classes more Mesmers will be more dominant like the old days.

The stacking will still allow for perma burning because each stack ticks separately. So you can have 5 duration stacks on you and one can wear off so you still have burning but they can reapply another duration. So it wont benefit mesmers the way you say as we have no condition immunity and garbage removal

portell, you have a good post, but unfortunately it falls on deaf ears. Other players who play other professions just doesn’t like Mesmer. Always screaming the Mesmer is OP or saying it’s hard to track the real Mesmer. Some players are actually furious that the new tab targeting will not ignore clones.

The fact of the matter is that nowadays, people want things made easy for them. And when the truth is that the Mesmer could use a few buffs, there’s just too much of a large cry from players who despise Mesmers.

still, when the cap is reached anything they put on is wasted. so if you have an bomb engi w/ incendiary powder, dumbfire necro, and ranger w/ torch and sun spirit in the team fight they will put a bunch of burning on but their stacks far exceed the cap.

While they can reapply them effortlessly, they’d be better off stacking bleeds rather than burning and poison b/c you will always get a return on bleeds and confusion you put on. People won’t really realize that right away and they’ll stop using condis when they can’t put 12 stacks of 30s burning on people anymore

Also the Halting Strike build is very strong vs. quite a few builds even now

However for team utility its utter garbage. No AOE daze unless you hope chaos storm profs compare that to reapers mark or earth shaker I mean really plus halting strike doesn’t scale with weapon damage. At all.

team pugging is doing pretty well for being stuck with one

jmatb.6307:

team pugging is doing pretty well for being stuck with one

Yea i’m watching ESL too. Illusion of life is very helpful, but again, the Mesmer is filling a role of support. The mesmer might as well be the light armor version of the Guardian with the way things are going

helseth’s doing portal, blink, null field I think that was the other mes

jmatb.6307:

helseth’s doing portal, blink, null field I think that was the other mes

Yea my fault I thought Helseth was carrying Illusion of life too.

Well it’s game mode problem. When you scatter 5 players around map you really can’t have any kind of team play so mesmer is kind of useless.

Mesmer is fine, even now

Strip Boons to make people easier to kill: Null Field, Shatter
Safe Stomps: Distortion
Safe Burst: Distortion
Make other classes carry better: Time Warp, Null Field
CC for other people and make them easier to kill: Moa Morph, Illusionary Leap, Signet of Domination, Focus, Pistol

Other classes just need to get toned a bit. Mesmer is fine.

Timewarp has been a joke since the confusion nerf and most teams if they run a mesmer prefer MOA or Mass Invis.
Distortion is just as safe as plague form stomp, blind stomp, mist form stomp, stability stomp, and blind stomp. So no difference there between us and other classes.

Safe burst is no more because retal wrecks us now which is a little ridiculous since we only have one way to burst.

Its more safe to condi burst and throw as many condis as you can at once that way you don’t eat retal after.

Illusionary leap is the most obvious skill a mesmer has and never works on any incline. Moa can be blinded blocked and invulned making us useless for the next 3 minutes.
Mesmer CC is pathetic when compared to warrior CC engi CC and necro CC. The sad part about that is we have a ton of traits around interrupts that even if we build to be a full on halting strike bountiful interruption interrupt build we still won’t do as much for a team as say a hammer warrior or a engi with bomb kit….

Don’t act like we have 3 elites at once all off hand weapons available and dont get eaten alive during our burst thanks to retal…. Just no.

Mesmer is not fine in this meta and will not be fine when the new patch hits because they upped our group condi removal but that isn’t the issue with mesmers it is and always has been SELF-CONDI REMOVAL that we needed.

i dont like that anet is slowly moving mesmers into support. in wvw we are already that. spvp i find a few builds that still work. the typical phantasm build is nothing i like. too ranged and burst only is not as much fun.
i use blackwater atm and it seems to work alright.
a lot of thta stuff doesnt work in wvw and we are stuck watching the big zergfight from the sideline after we put our veil down for the warriors.
we are stuck as a 1v1 class.

Remember, we got into this mess by asking Anet to give massive buffs to the professions we perceived to be weak, warrior and necro.

Mesmer is very good at a variety of roles and can do things no other profession can do. Just because there are a couple FOTM builds doesn’t automatically make mesmers bad.

Mesmers are fine

NevirSayDie.6235:

Remember, we got into this mess by asking Anet to give massive buffs to the professions we perceived to be weak, warrior and necro.

Mesmer is very good at a variety of roles and can do things no other profession can do. Just because there are a couple FOTM builds doesn’t automatically make mesmers bad.

A couple? Guards, Engis, Necros, Warriors, Thieves, and Rangers are always considered for a team before mesmer and ele. The only thing keeping mesmer slighly above Ele at this point may be if they try to use portal for back point.

6/8 professions being guaranteed to have use in a team before a mesmer some professions even doubled up on a team is a signal that something is very wrong. Like I said most mesmers will agree that pre-June 25th mesmer was teetering on the edge of unviability because of the horrendous condition removal. June 25th just solidified it.

The group AOE cleanse from MOR is cool but it isn’t what mesmers need to be viable again. Mesmers need better condition removal. They always have. Even with the new patch reducing the “stacks” of duration conditions will not be enough because it is still possible to mindlessly achieve perma burning.

Anet’s excuse for mesmers crap condi removal is a bad one “They have so many evades and teleports that it would make them good at everything.” If that is the case why is it that ranger condi removal out shines ours by a long shot, Or sword thieves?

Anet used to have a similar excuse for warriors “We didn’t want to give warriors too much condition clear because we want them to have a big sturdy body and tank through it.” Now warriors have a spot in the meta which is cool. But all classes need an equal chance to contribute something to their tournament team. Team condi removal is only good if the mesmer can survive the onslaught of other conditions besides those 4.

That is the biggest issue. And if ANet wants to really push this whole support thing then they need to make mesmers a little bit more self sufficient because we are now where necros were in Feb/March… We need a babysitter to do anything decent for our team.

Edit: We got into this mess because necros were asking for defensive buffs so they could have a little bit of map staying power instead Anet through in a new condition and gave them burning…. We got into this mess because in reality Anet doesn’t listen to the community.

Raijinn.9065:

Mesmers are fine

in spvp 1v1 1v2 i think i agree with u. im trying out a ton of builds i and seem to enjoy a few of them.in wvw we are not though unless u wanna be support or roaming. same for tpvp. we lack a lot of multitarget options. i agree with jportell on the issues in tpvp.

selan.8354:

Raijinn.9065:

Mesmers are fine

in spvp i think i agree with u. im trying out a ton of builds in spvp and seem to enjoy a few of them.in wvw we are not though unless u wanna be support or roaming. smae for tpvp. we lack a lot of multitarget options.

The main reason mesmer hasn’t really been buffed is just that in one aspect of the game we are great and that is in 20 man sPvP…. and noone that actually gives a rip about class balance cares about hotjoin hero status…. We care about how we can meaningfully help a team in tPvP, what we can do for a zerg in WvW aside from veil/portal botting, and if we can finally have a decent viable support bunker build. Anet’s statement about wanting to bring more supporty play styles to the front is what marked this post. And things in the OP are some things that Anet should do if they really want mesmer to be both supporty and viable…. Right now we can effectively do neither.

jportell.2197:

wall

And yet out of all of that, the only things holding mesmer back are really S/D thieves being a bit too strong and necros being a bit too strong. We could buff mesmers to OP status (again), or we could just shave the tiny details holding them back.

jportell.2197:

selan.8354:

Raijinn.9065:

Mesmers are fine

in spvp i think i agree with u. im trying out a ton of builds in spvp and seem to enjoy a few of them.in wvw we are not though unless u wanna be support or roaming. smae for tpvp. we lack a lot of multitarget options.

The main reason mesmer hasn’t really been buffed is just that in one aspect of the game we are great and that is in 20 man sPvP…. and noone that actually gives a rip about class balance cares about hotjoin hero status…. We care about how we can meaningfully help a team in tPvP, what we can do for a zerg in WvW aside from veil/portal botting, and if we can finally have a decent viable support bunker build. Anet’s statement about wanting to bring more supporty play styles to the front is what marked this post. And things in the OP are some things that Anet should do if they really want mesmer to be both supporty and viable…. Right now we can effectively do neither.

agree with u. the points u brought up in your op are good points. i used to be interested in mantras, but atm the way they are implemented atm it is quite hard to use in the current spammeta. if an enemy puts pressure on u and u run out of charges, there is very little u can do. i tried mantras vs the tornado boss in queens gaunlet as i was lacking stability and it was a pain!!!
also the condition cleansing is a problem for us as our cleansings are on long cooldowns.maybe that mantra buff will bring some improvements. but mesmer needs to get an option to move away from duelist only speccs.

NevirSayDie.6235:

jportell.2197:

wall

And yet out of all of that, the only things holding mesmer back are really S/D thieves being a bit too strong and necros being a bit too strong. We could buff mesmers to OP status (again), or we could just shave the tiny details holding them back.

S/d thieves a bit to strong, Necros a bit too strong, Warriors now a bit too strong, Engis also a bit too strong, Rangers even post nerf still a bit to strong… The only thing not stronger than a mesmer is an ele and they are just on par maybe a little below….

In reality 6 out of the 7 other classes in the game are stronger and more preferred then mesmer. It’s not just s/d thieves and necros holding mesmers back. It’s things that are actually wrong with the mesmer like our condition removal and heals over time which if you would read the OP is kind of the point.

NevirSayDie.6235:

jportell.2197:

wall

And yet out of all of that, the only things holding mesmer back are really S/D thieves being a bit too strong and necros being a bit too strong. We could buff mesmers to OP status (again), or we could just shave the tiny details holding them back.

honestly u are talking about 2 builds that are very strong in 1v1 1v2 and i wouldnt mind those to be toned down if anet would give us more teambased skills that are not support only. less veilbot/twbot/less massinvis bot… more glamlike attacks.less ai, more actual weapon dps and also less rng boons/conditions. im also happy to give up moa!

Mesmers are fine. Just wait for the condi-aoe spam nerf and Mesmers will shine again.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Mesmers are fine. Just wait for the condi-aoe spam nerf and Mesmers will shine again.

Pre-June 25th mesmer barely viable because conditions were completely unviable. Post June 25th mesmer unviable because conditions got buffed so hard that they became the meta…. Now conditions and CC are the Meta mesmers still unviable. If Anet brings conditions down even a little bit they will still be stronger than they were pre-June 25th when mesmer was nothing more than a Portal IOL bot… Hence mesmer still needs buffed in the condition removal area and that is SELF CONDITION REMOVAL

They’re trying to fix mesmers by buffing mantras, but they’re not removing the redonk cast time? FDL. No thanks, I’ll keep flogging that OP condi war.

jportell.2197:

Pre-June 25th mesmer barely viable because conditions were completely unviable.

Lolwut??

I don’t know what game you’re playing but prior to the Dhuumfire patch, there was pretty much always a mesmer in all teams in a tPVP setting. They were pretty much viable and borderline OP even after the bug fixing like LOS requirement on clones/phantasms, quickness nerf, and stuff shaving. Yeah, they got a lot of nerfs that right now they feel like eles but waay far from being unviable once condi-aoe is toned down if you ask me.

And also, I find Mender’s Purity and Arcane Thievery sufficient condi removal for my mesmur.

Thats garbage Condi removal when compared to well everyone else and I mean that literally as long as mesmers have no condi clear in their heal we will be worse off than everyone else and we were only on every team for 2 reasons. Portal. Illusion of life. Roamer was still the thief (better burst too) bunker has always been a guard mid and an engi, ranger, home then eles were far point assaulters for awhile literally the only reasons mesmer was taken is IOL and portal. Once June 25 hit we became the biggest liability to our team hence we were the first ones taken off teams.

I like how Arcane Thievery keeps coming up. Like it still isn’t buggy as all kitten.

Iplaytokill.1674:

I like how Arcane Thievery keeps coming up. Like it still isn’t buggy as all kitten.

Range of 900 and works 2/10 times arcane theivery is the worst condition clear in game

jportell.2197:

Iplaytokill.1674:

I like how Arcane Thievery keeps coming up. Like it still isn’t buggy as all kitten.

Range of 900 and works 2/10 times arcane theivery is the worst condition clear in game

To be honest, you’d be better off doing Mender’s Purity with Mirror.

Iplaytokill.1674:

jportell.2197:

Iplaytokill.1674:

I like how Arcane Thievery keeps coming up. Like it still isn’t buggy as all kitten.

Range of 900 and works 2/10 times arcane theivery is the worst condition clear in game

To be honest, you’d be better off doing Mender’s Purity with Mirror.

Menders purity works best with MOR. However what is really holding mesmers back is innate Condi removal in a heal skill and a gauranteed full wipe in a slot skill like every other class!

jportell.2197:

Iplaytokill.1674:

I like how Arcane Thievery keeps coming up. Like it still isn’t buggy as all kitten.

Range of 900 and works 2/10 times arcane theivery is the worst condition clear in game

I’m not playing mesmer too much but I can surely agree on this. It simply doesn’t seem to work sometimes. I’m in range, no blind yet condis are on my and stability on warrior is there also. Mesmers need condi removal (maybe upgrade in terms of offensive on torch?) and also there is no logical condi build for mesmer either as 2 from scepter seems bugged about the same as Arcane Thievery. On my condi warrior i send most mesmers in 1v1 (and team fights alike) back to waypoint crying because i have 75% hp and still some utility to use :P

ah yes + i have +150 power for team and rez banner

At this moment i found means to forgive all GS/pistol mindless win spammers – it can be dodged, really thats 1st and 2nd – there no other builds to play effectively unless you are really skilled and dedicated mesmer (probably ransacker AT LEAST).

jportell.2197:

• Wait come to think of it noone is taking mesmers on the team anyways.

Team Pugging uses a mesmer.