Guild Wars 2

I’ve been reading the forums a great deal the past week due to being overseas and unable to play the game and I’ve noticed this reoccuring theme labeling theives and mesmers as overpowered. At first I thought it was just a joke and then I saw threads complaining a great deal about it.
This is actually quite crazy because it’s simply a ‘Learn-to-Play’ issue. People don’t understand how to play against a class so they think it’s overpowered. This really, really shouldn’t be an issue at all. Although there are some classes that don’t have access to as much utility as others (ie. Necro stun-breaks aren’t very strong) the balance between classes is actually pretty good.
Yes I understand it isn’t perfect, nor even close to the level of GW1, but generally the better player wins/has more influence in the fight. So it actually has lead me to the conclusion that you’re being outplayed, maybe it takes less skill to reach the skill floor as a Mesmer, but when you learn how to dodgeroll correctly you reduce their damage to barely anything. It seems to me that because when the theif gets a lead they can push all their initiative into further gaining an advantage some players can feel overwhelmed and feel as if they have no chance to come back in the fight.

The solution to this is simply to practice. Get as much experience you can get against as many good players as you can. Analyse your own play, record it and analyse after if you can’t do it during. Play the thing you’re having trouble with, understand how it works against you and what it has troubles with so that then you can be the one causing the trouble. Study skill animations, SOUNDS, and plan what skills you will use in reaction to their actions.
Maybe it’s your build, even in GW1 running an inferior build could disadvantage you enough to lose. Equipment, etc, I write numerous guides (along with a ton of other people) so you don’t really have the excuse of I didn’t know what equipment/builds to use.

As an example, when a Mesmer tries to burst me (standard shatter) they’re forced to use pistol 5 to even hit me, since sword 3 is easily dodged and I pay attention to the clone that was created with Sword 3. Even blink is easily dodged, I know which mesmer is the real one always due to being able to instantly read behaviour and decide which ones are clones. Just knowing which skills to dodge and how to dodge shatters means you’ve reduced their damage to near 0 or waiting until your stunbreakers are all gone.
But to a player who hadn’t practiced as much they wouldn’t dodge Sword 3 and then suddenly the recharge of that skill seems rediculous, suddenly the shatters which I avoided hit 8k and that’s overpowered.

I can give hundreds of examples to this, obviously to save time I’m not going to (unless you really want me to describe some more). Maybe you guys need a guide on what to do/not do against these classes?
So take a chill pill, learn some kittenzle and take a stroll in tpvp and see how mes/thieves are only optional in almost all teams.

-silven

It’s not so much that they are hard to beat, it’s just that they aren’t fun to play against. That’s all. Having stealth and superior movement, together with very high burst damage, is a horrible combo from an entertainment point of view. It makes players feel underpowered, because they are unable to fully react to what they are facing, while they are getting downed very quickly. It’s the feeling of playing against a different set of rules.

The strange part about Thieves and Mesmers, is that ArenaNet themselves has said, on several different occasions, that their aim is to make “professions equally fun to play against, as they are to play”. But how can it be fun to play against something that you can’t see? Even from a design perspective this sounds bad. But the worst thing is that a lot of these player issues could be fixed, simply by reducing the stealth mechanic, and replace it with boons like protection and aegis. Or simply just make stealth a removable boon itself? No one wants any profession to be underpowered. People just want to feel like they have a fair chance to react to what they are facing, even if they do end up getting defeated. Why should anyone have to but up more of a fight against a Thief or Mesmer, compared to any other profession?

I play both a Thief and a Mesmer myself, but I try to make builds that are also fun to play against for my opponent. So instead of playing a stealth based back stab Thief, or a stealth based shatter Mesmer, I play a Thief that’s based on movement, and a boon Mesmer playing on condition damage. These builds makes it more fun to play for me, because I feel like I give my opponents a chance to defeat me. Which in turn makes it that much more rewarding when I defeat my opponents. And that’s how the game should be. If you get defeated, you should have the feeling of “I gave him a good fight, but he was just the better player”. Not “what the hell just happened?!”.

I’m a mesmer and I barely need to put in any skill to defeat a guardian, a warrior, necro, ele, rangers, and most thieves. The only trouble I get is with phantasm mesmers and caltrops thieves due to my specific build.

At least with a mesmer, you can can counter their moves. You can see their shatters coming and prepare for it. A mesmer’s stealth is negligible – I can do it once every 40 seconds for 3 seconds. That’s it.

With a thief stealth, there’s no counter. Merely blowing your cooldowns and hoping you get lucky isn’t a counter. It’s not smart, or skillful.

So yes – I don’t know about mesmers. We definitely have an advantage over other classes, but we can be countered. Stealth with thieves doesn’t have counterplay. It’s not fun and Anet will definitely have to make some changes to the mechanic.

If you look at people complaining about thief/mesmer. you will find the vast majority of them are hotjoin players. And very few, if any are top players.
I can kinda agree that hotjoin experience is effected by these class’s, but that isnt a balance issue.

The only thing about these classes remotely op is timewarp on the mesmer.

I’ve actually semi-retired my mesmer. For the most part its not really challenging at all.

The hardest class for me is a necro, because of my (really) limited condition removal. Other than that, a lot of it is just (too) easy, not all mind you, but a lot of it.. I’m no elite PvPer by any stretch, but mesmers sure do make it pretty easy. A lot of times, when i see a 2 on 1, i feel like im going to get a really good challenge.

Been playing MMOs for a long time, the only thing to me more discouraging than playing an "underpowered " class, is playing the fotm “overpowered” one. Hard to believe, but when you see certain classes representation dominating the PvP landscape, there maybe a reason why..

/shrug

only prof you can’t l2p against is ele. Really nothing counters their bunker. Thief has been easy for me since I main thief and understand all of its non-sense and “op” abilities. Mesmer is just annoying but aoe’s take em out easily enough. Heck even on my warrior I can counter thief, just LB immoiblize or use bolas and watch them go nowhere as you smack them to death. Ele? Nah they just zap away or go invulnerable for longer than a guardian can.

I thought thieves were OP’d at first, so I played as one. I learned that being invisible most certainly does NOT mean you’re invincible, as well as basic things classes can do to counter me. Now, I don’t have a problem with thieves. Unfortunately I’m going to have to do the same with Mesmer, they kitten me off to no end, but you’re right it’s just a L2Play issue. The difference is Mesmer and thief mechanics are so different to the other classes that they are much harder to “learn” just by fighting them.

NinjaEd.3946:

only prof you can’t l2p against is ele. Really nothing counters their bunker. Thief has been easy for me since I main thief and understand all of its non-sense and “op” abilities. Mesmer is just annoying but aoe’s take em out easily enough. Heck even on my warrior I can counter thief, just LB immoiblize or use bolas and watch them go nowhere as you smack them to death. Ele? Nah they just zap away or go invulnerable for longer than a guardian can.

This is true, ol’ Kaya only seems to go down when I get horrendously outnumbered, or two people manage to do some serious bursting in a short amount of time. But that’s usually cause I’ve used my utilities trying to finish people.

It is not about none is able to counter thieves and mesmers, when does people realize it?
It is all about that those professions are non-challenging, easy to play and too much effective compared to the efforts put into playing them.

This makes those professions extremely funny to play (don’t lie to yourself, winning is fun) but also extremely annoying to play against.

First time I ran a condition thief, I was able to hold 2-3 people all by myself spamming stealth and caltrops, something I was never able to do for a long time with my Necro, which is considered to be a “tanky” profession. Hell, that was fun, but I don’t think my enemies were happy to see me popping in and out of stealth spamming dodges (with the trait) and caltrops and I would never consider to blame those poor guys’ skills because of their loss.

You guys saying that Thieves and Mesmers are a learn2play issue are extremely arrogant.

Of course everyone can beat a Thief/Mesmer if he’s extremely good and practice a lot, but putting 3x of the efforts compared to how much Thieves/Mesmers puts into playing their class to effectively counter them is a joke and it is for sure imbalanced.

It isn’t really about if a certain class is OP or not. Once people can tell whining from complaining … and once some people start to listen what the complaining is about … then we could perhaps start a sensible discussion.

I think I have seen a dozen top-players complain about certain aspects of thieves. That is not the same as saying thieves are OP, but some aspects are really annoying/un-fun … be that tpvp, spvp or even wvw. Same could be said about mesmers .. or ele’s .. or guardians .. or rangers. And most likely engies and warrios as well. Oh, and lets not forget necro’s. I have seen top-thieves and top-mesmers gladly admitting, that some things/aspects are “too much”.

If you in all seriousness find infinite stealthing to be fun to face, repeated TW … or a good thief bursting ppl down from 50% then by all means: That is your choice. I am not saying either of these classes are OP, but I find it extremely un-fun, to be a horrible design, to be mindblowingly unintelligent game-play. There are several other examples, and in order to have what I find to be a sensible match, I am often forced to have a rather large portion of defensive traits/moves, which frankly cripples my professions … imo. That is not the same as saying I can’t counter these, but the general diversity suffers. It is perhaps here I should put, that I actually do also play a thief atm, even if I am most likely quitting the game … and I used to play mesmer.

Do we even have some sort of consensus, when we talk about balance? Does it only refer to 5vs5 and if so, what part of 5vs5? The part where you face a bunker as roamer (and hence a 1vs1) or team-fights where you stand safely and AoE-nuke? People are not very precise, when it comes to talking about balance.

TL:DR: Un-fun gameplay is not the same as being OP.

PS: And what sorrow say as well ….

Mesmers are overpowered that’s for sure, their aoe shatter damage is higher than any other aoe in game(try to 2v1 a mesmer even if hes not targeting you, you can still die) plus lots of conditions, hard to catch and obviously portal allowing them to pretty much be on 2 places at the same time. Their dps rotations are way too easy to the damage output they can provide, almost as a thief spamming heart seeker.

As a glass cannon warrior, i just got fed up of fighting against a thief that i cannot see or a mesmer with clones, trying to mark the right one for the team, whilst my health would just vanish. There’s nothing more annoying than bringing a thief down to 20% health and then they just stealth away. I wish my warrior could just vanish out of a fight when i’m a low health.

So now i just run a bunker warrior. Hammer – shield/mace. Now i can hold my own, or last longer against these two classes, but my damage output is severely crippled. Do i want that as a wariror? No, but as of now, i feel i have to. I just don’t find fighting a mesmer or thief fun.

The problem with thieves and mesmers is their damage is way too high for professions which are built on escape mechanisms. These professions have the greatest strength in game while not having the greatest weaknesses. It’s actually pretty ridiculous logic. When you play these professions, if you wanna know if your skilled, you cannot judge your skill by your ability to kill anything other than another thief or mesmer. And when you play something else, never take it as you lacking skill when these profession kill you, it doesn’t reflect poorly on you, but on the balance of this game.

shaolin.9716:

The problem with thieves and mesmers is their damage is way too high for professions which are built on escape mechanisms. These professions have the greatest strength in game while not having the greatest weaknesses. It’s actually pretty ridiculous logic. When you play these professions, if you wanna know if your skilled, you cannot judge your skill by your ability to kill anything other than another thief or mesmer. And when you play something else, never take it as you lacking skill when these profession kill you, it doesn’t reflect poorly on you, but on the balance of this game.

Well for a medium and light armored class you also want to give them no dmg? Then what? Make thieves perma-chilled and mesmer perma-dazed? wtf….

Archaon.6245:

Well for a medium and light armored class you also want to give them no dmg? Then what? Make thieves perma-chilled and mesmer perma-dazed? wtf….

lol..i remember you saying the same thing as him about eles(THE lowest armor/health class ingame)
Oh yeah..totally unbiased ! :P
Anyway in a game where avoidance of damage is everything armor/health dont matter.
Go ask warrior

Alot of issue is that light armor and medium armor classes build for raw damage. The only way to counter that is to build somewhat defensively. The game mechanics work for these classes being able to build damage while still having an ESCAPE mechanism; warriors, guardians, other classes without as good as an escape such as stealth or clones just cant build DPS builds which is how everyone wants to play. If your a warrior and your a high damage burst build your asking to be put down. Theives and Mesmers can build these ‘glass canon’ build’s because they can get out after they throw off there nuke and get prepared for another. A guardian/warrior, (or other light armor classes) would never be able to achieve this though, because they dont have as prominent of an escape.

Going to respond in general to the comments made. (from the point of view of my most played class: Guard)
Half the people saying that it’s just not fun to play against these classes and the other half saying they are overpowered.
It depends on what you find fun, I find winning and defeating my enemy fun. While they’re cloaked they don’t capture the cap point which means I’m pulling ahead. When they waste all their utilities on a burst I dodge then again I’m ahead. I pull enough ahead so that if I do mess up a bit I still have my lead to fall back on, to me this is fun.
If you’re losing to a Mesmer it’s because you’re missing the shatters which means it’s a L2 kitten ue (assuming they’re similar in skill level), I’ve only had a problem with one mesmer and it was a pretty even fight (believe he was in vexx), once you know which skills to dodge, shatter Mesmers are really, really easy to defend against. Once you can easily deal with them I’m pretty sure you’ll have more fun.
Honestly when I get home I’m going to make a video showing how easy it actually is to dodge Mesmers (blink shatter being the only thing impossible to reactively dodge).

The reason I’m so amazed at these threads is because these 2 classes are literally the easiest two for me to play against. When I play Guard it’s only if they have their full burst and I have no utilities that a thief can burst me, if they aren’t burst I don’t even have to worry about them. As a Mesmer I have my shatters and Sword 2 and Staff if playing more defensive, as Warrior if they get hit they pretty much have to fall back. As a Ranger I have to place my traps correctly beforehand, etc.
Mesmers to me are just really easy, easiest burst to dodge (especially if you miss an animation the teleport sound is so unique you just dodge without thinking) and they’re so easy to control, condition Mesmers are difficult but they’re Euro meta not NA meta yet.
And if you’re still having a problem after learning to dodge/stunbreak+dodge, start thinking of actual strategies against specific builds. For example saving GS 5 on mesmer or guard for shadow refuge. Maybe think of team counters, I know when my friend and I come up against D/P thief we just use binding blade and pull him into a mesmer shatter for an instant kill.

There’s so much you can do to beat these classes and make it fun, so honestly that argument doesn’t work either. Although I believe Shadow Refuge and Time Warp should be toned down (and possibly a counter for stealth to help out other game types in the future and wvw).

Archaon.6245:

Well for a medium and light armored class you also want to give them no dmg? Then what? Make thieves perma-chilled and mesmer perma-dazed? wtf….

Their escape mechanisms are worth a lot more than armor. Even when I try tough warrior builds, 30 in defense, soldiers amulet, etc. these professions eat through my HPs at an insane rate considering I sacrificed all my damage stats to survive and it doesn’t even work, it only delays the inevitable. Being nearly uncatchable should come at the expense of extremely low damage. As a warrior there’s just nothing you can do to pin down any half decent thief or mesmer built the right way, they always have an escape available.

shaolin.9716:

Archaon.6245:

Well for a medium and light armored class you also want to give them no dmg? Then what? Make thieves perma-chilled and mesmer perma-dazed? wtf….

Their escape mechanisms are worth a lot more than armor. Even when I try tough warrior builds, 30 in defense, soldiers amulet, etc. these professions eat through my HPs at an insane rate considering I sacrificed all my damage stats to survive and it doesn’t even work, it only delays the inevitable. Being nearly uncatchable should come at the expense of extremely low damage. As a warrior there’s just nothing you can do to pin down any half decent thief or mesmer built the right way, they always have an escape available.

As a warrior atm in pvp there’s nothing you can do vs pretty much anyone, except maybe engis, if they play decently……

fighting something that dissapears every 5 seconds is not fun, I thought WoW Rogues were bad but at most they can only vanish twice in a fight. Thieves? They vanish every 5 seconds…

Mes and thief burst is very strong, but that’s not the issue.

The issue is they can go full GC without worrying about dying due to many escapes. Easy access to blink and stealth is worth much more than a bit of armor and HP.

There isn’t really an effective counter to blink or stealth. If you don’t have a blink to follow, a thief/mes can pop up some ledge that takes you much longer to get to. This is because of the ridiculous blink locations that exist. You aren’t just creating 900 or 1200 distance from your enemy, but 10-15 seconds they have to run around to chase. And in the case of thief, they can do it over and over.

Stealth is the same way. Sure you can spam/waste your AoE abilities try to hit them, but that usually only works if they are bad and using shadow refuge. Otherwise you have to hope to down their teammates before they get back.

I would make revealed (cannot stealth for a moment) longer and occur after every stealth no matter what. And as cool as they are, I’d remove some of the more extreme blink locations, or make them only work out of combat. Actually fighting these professions is manageable, but not with all their escapes.

The level of burst they have should require them to invest in burst-related utilities aka going FULL burst. Virtually every thief runs shadowstep and shadow refuge. They are both amazing, and they don’t really need anything else to accomplish their goal/role.

On the flip side, bunkers like ele and guardian NEED their utilities to accomplish their goal/role. You don’t see bunkers running a bunch of free damage/CC because they are already tanky enough.

Jax.5261:

Going to respond in general to the comments made. (from the point of view of my most played class: Guard)
Half the people saying that it’s just not fun to play against these classes and the other half saying they are overpowered.
It depends on what you find fun, I find winning and defeating my enemy fun. While they’re cloaked they don’t capture the cap point which means I’m pulling ahead. When they waste all their utilities on a burst I dodge then again I’m ahead. I pull enough ahead so that if I do mess up a bit I still have my lead to fall back on, to me this is fun.
If you’re losing to a Mesmer it’s because you’re missing the shatters which means it’s a L2 kitten ue (assuming they’re similar in skill level), I’ve only had a problem with one mesmer and it was a pretty even fight (believe he was in vexx), once you know which skills to dodge, shatter Mesmers are really, really easy to defend against. Once you can easily deal with them I’m pretty sure you’ll have more fun.
Honestly when I get home I’m going to make a video showing how easy it actually is to dodge Mesmers (blink shatter being the only thing impossible to reactively dodge).

The reason I’m so amazed at these threads is because these 2 classes are literally the easiest two for me to play against. When I play Guard it’s only if they have their full burst and I have no utilities that a thief can burst me, if they aren’t burst I don’t even have to worry about them. As a Mesmer I have my shatters and Sword 2 and Staff if playing more defensive, as Warrior if they get hit they pretty much have to fall back. As a Ranger I have to place my traps correctly beforehand, etc.
Mesmers to me are just really easy, easiest burst to dodge (especially if you miss an animation the teleport sound is so unique you just dodge without thinking) and they’re so easy to control, condition Mesmers are difficult but they’re Euro meta not NA meta yet.
And if you’re still having a problem after learning to dodge/stunbreak+dodge, start thinking of actual strategies against specific builds. For example saving GS 5 on mesmer or guard for shadow refuge. Maybe think of team counters, I know when my friend and I come up against D/P thief we just use binding blade and pull him into a mesmer shatter for an instant kill.

There’s so much you can do to beat these classes and make it fun, so honestly that argument doesn’t work either. Although I believe Shadow Refuge and Time Warp should be toned down (and possibly a counter for stealth to help out other game types in the future and wvw).

I think you should play against those profession not on a Guardian.
I think Guardian is the profession which feel less the impact of Thieves and burst mesmers, because they usually run with none or few boon removals and, coupled with the innate defensive capability of Guardians, the feel of Thieves and Mesmers is way mitigated.

Anyway, I think you are lying if you say that you put the same efforts to avoid the bursts as the Thief/Mesmer does to produce them. Working way harder to counter a mindless burst isn’t fun and isn’t balanced also. 10k bursts should be easy to avoid, like Hundred Blades is, and they shouldn’t be nearly instant with very low visual clue, no matter the preparation or the recharge time.

I really love how the people complaining about eles being op are here defending their thief/mesmers which can survive as much as an ele and still be glass cannon

Its not so much as a l2 play issue as much as an arenanet needs to learn to develo-p- issue. This was their first time adding invisibility mechanics into their game, so of course they would mess up on a few things about it, such as not adding hard counters to it. I have posted my thoughts a few times so I’m not going to post them again, plus other people like Oareo have done a good job explaining it.

Edit: Seems d e v e l o p is filtered O.o

I’m going to stick with a Build toughness on ANY character and it beats the glass cannon “OP” character. Survive will eventually trump burst.

The problem comes when toughness, is not enough if you are talking about the soldier amulet, otherwise you need to go for the shaman amulet which is max toughness but only viable for cond damage builds. Thieves and mesmers can still cut like butter through toughness.

Kasama.8941:

It’s not so much that they are hard to beat, it’s just that they aren’t fun to play against. That’s all. Having stealth and superior movement, together with very high burst damage, is a horrible combo from an entertainment point of view. It makes players feel underpowered, because they are unable to fully react to what they are facing, while they are getting downed very quickly. It’s the feeling of playing against a different set of rules.

That is a different perspective for SOME people, not everyone gets instantly frustrated and turns into an angry elf.
Some people notice whats going on, and find ways to counter what happened and what can happen.

? No one wants any profession to be underpowered. People just want to feel like they have a fair chance to react to what they are facing, even if they do end up getting defeated.

Everyone has a fair chance..It becomes a L2P . issue in a lot of them, and very few issues are actually a mechanic issue.
Best example would be people that complained about Ele’s. Because they could run away.
Or Guardians, because they were hard to kill..

A lot of complaints are from people that just want to win, and win with the least amount of effort.

Why should anyone have to but up more of a fight against a Thief or Mesmer, compared to any other profession?

Its no more complicated than fighting a bunker, you just have to be smart and pay attention, but also have a build that is viable.

I play both a Thief and a Mesmer myself, but I try to make builds that are also fun to play against for my opponent. So instead of playing a stealth based back stab Thief, or a stealth based shatter Mesmer, I play a Thief that’s based on movement, and a boon Mesmer playing on condition damage. These builds makes it more fun to play for me, because I feel like I give my opponents a chance to defeat me. Which in turn makes it that much more rewarding when I defeat my opponents. And that’s how the game should be. If you get defeated, you should have the feeling of “I gave him a good fight, but he was just the better player”. Not “what the hell just happened?!”.

Funny thing about condition mesmer, is it can be absolutely devestating to people who dont pay attention, but it can also be massively confusing for a new person..
Are you really making it fun for them? OR do you perceive since your having fun, they will too?
Your perception of fun is playing a mesmer that uses conditions.
Do you think its fun to the other player that goes full glass and doesnt take condition removal?

Oareo.1604:

Mes and thief burst is very strong, but that’s not the issue.

The issue is they can go full GC without worrying about dying due to many escapes. Easy access to blink and stealth is worth much more than a bit of armor and HP.

This isnt a team death match.
If a theif or mes runs from you and your doing what your supposed to be doing
( sitting on a point to gain points for your team)

Then when they run from you they have given you score.

Kills dont win this game mode, they help, but the point of Spvp is the nodes.

A GC thief / mes isnt helping their team by running away.

Why even make an issue of this?

sorrow.2364:

Jax.5261:

Going to respond in general to the comments made. (from the point of view of my most played class: Guard)
Half the people saying that it’s just not fun to play against these classes and the other half saying they are overpowered.
It depends on what you find fun, I find winning and defeating my enemy fun. While they’re cloaked they don’t capture the cap point which means I’m pulling ahead. When they waste all their utilities on a burst I dodge then again I’m ahead. I pull enough ahead so that if I do mess up a bit I still have my lead to fall back on, to me this is fun.
If you’re losing to a Mesmer it’s because you’re missing the shatters which means it’s a L2 kitten ue (assuming they’re similar in skill level), I’ve only had a problem with one mesmer and it was a pretty even fight (believe he was in vexx), once you know which skills to dodge, shatter Mesmers are really, really easy to defend against. Once you can easily deal with them I’m pretty sure you’ll have more fun.
Honestly when I get home I’m going to make a video showing how easy it actually is to dodge Mesmers (blink shatter being the only thing impossible to reactively dodge).

The reason I’m so amazed at these threads is because these 2 classes are literally the easiest two for me to play against. When I play Guard it’s only if they have their full burst and I have no utilities that a thief can burst me, if they aren’t burst I don’t even have to worry about them. As a Mesmer I have my shatters and Sword 2 and Staff if playing more defensive, as Warrior if they get hit they pretty much have to fall back. As a Ranger I have to place my traps correctly beforehand, etc.
Mesmers to me are just really easy, easiest burst to dodge (especially if you miss an animation the teleport sound is so unique you just dodge without thinking) and they’re so easy to control, condition Mesmers are difficult but they’re Euro meta not NA meta yet.
And if you’re still having a problem after learning to dodge/stunbreak+dodge, start thinking of actual strategies against specific builds. For example saving GS 5 on mesmer or guard for shadow refuge. Maybe think of team counters, I know when my friend and I come up against D/P thief we just use binding blade and pull him into a mesmer shatter for an instant kill.

There’s so much you can do to beat these classes and make it fun, so honestly that argument doesn’t work either. Although I believe Shadow Refuge and Time Warp should be toned down (and possibly a counter for stealth to help out other game types in the future and wvw).

I think you should play against those profession not on a Guardian.
I think Guardian is the profession which feel less the impact of Thieves and burst mesmers, because they usually run with none or few boon removals and, coupled with the innate defensive capability of Guardians, the feel of Thieves and Mesmers is way mitigated.

Anyway, I think you are lying if you say that you put the same efforts to avoid the bursts as the Thief/Mesmer does to produce them. Working way harder to counter a mindless burst isn’t fun and isn’t balanced also. 10k bursts should be easy to avoid, like Hundred Blades is, and they shouldn’t be nearly instant with very low visual clue, no matter the preparation or the recharge time.

A few things, I indicated above that I do play many classes and it’s that correct dodge rolls with stun breaks against p5 will completely beat a mesmer shatter build. This is irrelevent to your build or class. The only thing that should technically be impossible to evade is a blink shatter, but due to the mesmers not wanting to miss mirror images you can still dodge it.

Once you practice enough it’s second nature anyway, like dodging Banish. Infact I find the Warrior much harder to avoid since each hit will hit way more and is impossible to dodge everything, HB/Bulls Rush is easy to dodge and most skills are but frenzy + axe auto isn’t really possible to avoid.

What I’m trying to say is burst is much easier to react to than dps and if you do well against burst (dodge correctly) you easily win against them.

The reason why i found the mesmer shatter combo disgustingly overpowered in the hands of a good mesmer:
Mesmer starts with I-duelist and since i don’t want to get hit by 3k damage i dodge most of it. He follows with pistol stun (which is very hard to dodge since the projectile is very fast) and you’re forced to use one of your stunbreakers or else you get hit by 10k damage. He uses illusionary leap and you try to dodge – sometimes the distance between the mesmer and you is so small that you can’t do it, sometimes you dodge but something glitches and you’re immobilized anyway so you’re forced to use another one of your o-kitten buttons or you take 10k damage. Since the mesmer is not brain-dead he will not mash the third skill to get the immobilize, instead he sees what are you doing – if you use your block he waits for it to end until he uses mind wrack, if you dodged the illusionary leap – he waits and uses the immobilize only after since the clone is always by your side. Even if you dodge the illusionary leap all the clones are not in the same place at the same distance so it’s very unlikely that with 1 dodge you can dodge through all of them, so you get like 3k as cleave. By now you have used 2 dodges and atleast 1 stunbreaker/o-kitten button and they don’t recharge as fast as mesmer burst – 11sec.
——————————————-
So now is the time to “burst” the mesmer. Too bad 4 out of 11 sec they are invulnerable from distortion (+might get 8sec because of the trait which recharges shatter skills at 50%), add Aegis from Chaos storm, interrupts from Chaos Storm, phase retreat “stunbreaker”, 4 sec daze etc.. Obviously the shatter skills need clones but since the mesmer is not brain-dead he will not blow them all at the first chance.
After this first engagement you both have the same HP but since the mesmer burst recharges so quickly relatively to your stunbreakers/o-kitten buttons he just instagibbs you the second time.

Apologize for the the crappy format and what not.

Just gonna say.. Condition Necro=Mesmer’s worst enemy… Put em on a point with a bunch of wells on their feet and the Mesmer will have bursted the necro into DS but these guys are the bane of a Mesmer… Why? because the griping that everyone has against mesmers is the high burst damage with escape capabilities… That necro held the point… Forced the Mesmer into portal (since everyone thinks they are running it) Also I may add portal requires some fore thought more so than a thieves escape abilities because it must be placed before the fight lol. But against a burst shatter mes… Conditions… Start running necros… And you will be happy.

Jax.5261:

A few things, I indicated above that I do play many classes and it’s that correct dodge rolls with stun breaks against p5 will completely beat a mesmer shatter build. This is irrelevent to your build or class. The only thing that should technically be impossible to evade is a blink shatter, but due to the mesmers not wanting to miss mirror images you can still dodge it.

Once you practice enough it’s second nature anyway, like dodging Banish. Infact I find the Warrior much harder to avoid since each hit will hit way more and is impossible to dodge everything, HB/Bulls Rush is easy to dodge and most skills are but frenzy + axe auto isn’t really possible to avoid.

What I’m trying to say is burst is much easier to react to than dps and if you do well against burst (dodge correctly) you easily win against them.

I don’t know if we are talking about the same shatter build.
The one I’m talking about is S/x mesmer which uses Illusionary Leap (then Swap) to immobilize the enemy in order to make sure he takes all the shatter damage plus the Blurred Frenzy damage.
This combo has really low visual clue, just a teleport and the burst start and, once it is started, there are few ways to prevent the burst. Dodge and stunbreaker are uneffective against immobilization, the only chance you have is to use a condition removal as fast as you can and get out of the mesmer range, but this is really, really hard to do, considering latency, the usual condition removal skills’ casting time and the very low time window the spike takes place.

Same topic applies to average Thieves burst, without considering all the stealth-reliant conditions builds, their burst takes place in a way too short time, it opens with a teleport and it is capable to wipe away more than an half HP bar if you aren’t fast enough. Also, tryhard thieves can also use Devourer or Basilisk venom to get the same effect Mesmer bursts take but, considering the very low time the bursts take to be performed, venoms are not that needed anyway.

DPS, on the other hand, is way more easy to avoid. Sustained damage from an Axe warrior can be prevented with a simple snare or either any movement impairment skill, something you aren’t able to do on teleport based spikes. Also, Frenzied warriors takes 50% more damage, so they won’t last that long.

I think you should check the bursts build we are talking about better.

At chess, I can defeat another player, even a good one, without using my queen. That doesn’t change the fact that I could be even better with my queen.

The thief argument has and always boils down to… is it fair? 1v1 as an Engie, I typically prefer fights against thieves to any other profession, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are terribly balanced… that doesn’t mean they are OP, because they obviously are not, but their damage distribution + basically uncounterable stealth movement makes them something that should have been looked at by now, but honestly have really just stayed mostly the same since launch. Stealth is a poor PvP mechanic anyway, and when you add how fast the TTK is in this game along with how frequent the access is to the skill/inability to bring player out of stealth by damage or debuff, it’s a really poor design overall.

I am in favor of damage breaking stealth.. But if that is the case they should make it so channeled skills stop hitting when someone stealths…

sorrow.2364:

Jax.5261:

A few things, I indicated above that I do play many classes and it’s that correct dodge rolls with stun breaks against p5 will completely beat a mesmer shatter build. This is irrelevent to your build or class. The only thing that should technically be impossible to evade is a blink shatter, but due to the mesmers not wanting to miss mirror images you can still dodge it.

Once you practice enough it’s second nature anyway, like dodging Banish. Infact I find the Warrior much harder to avoid since each hit will hit way more and is impossible to dodge everything, HB/Bulls Rush is easy to dodge and most skills are but frenzy + axe auto isn’t really possible to avoid.

What I’m trying to say is burst is much easier to react to than dps and if you do well against burst (dodge correctly) you easily win against them.

I don’t know if we are talking about the same shatter build.
The one I’m talking about is S/x mesmer which uses Illusionary Leap (then Swap) to immobilize the enemy in order to make sure he takes all the shatter damage plus the Blurred Frenzy damage.
This combo has really low visual clue, just a teleport and the burst start and, once it is started, there are few ways to prevent the burst. Dodge and stunbreaker are uneffective against immobilization, the only chance you have is to use a condition removal as fast as you can and get out of the mesmer range, but this is really, really hard to do, considering latency, the usual condition removal skills’ casting time and the very low time window the spike takes place.

Same topic applies to average Thieves burst, without considering all the stealth-reliant conditions builds, their burst takes place in a way too short time, it opens with a teleport and it is capable to wipe away more than an half HP bar if you aren’t fast enough. Also, tryhard thieves can also use Devourer or Basilisk venom to get the same effect Mesmer bursts take but, considering the very low time the bursts take to be performed, venoms are not that needed anyway.

DPS, on the other hand, is way more easy to avoid. Sustained damage from an Axe warrior can be prevented with a simple snare or either any movement impairment skill, something you aren’t able to do on teleport based spikes. Also, Frenzied warriors takes 50% more damage, so they won’t last that long.

I think you should check the bursts build we are talking about better.

Umm yeah you got no clue, illusionary leap has tonns of audio and visual cues. Very easy to dodge and avoid the leap clone. Shatter is easy to dodge unless they Blink + Mirror, but due to human reaction time you can still dodge it. So yes we are talking about the same build but you obviously need to practice more.

Jax.5261:

Umm yeah you got no clue, illusionary leap has tonns of audio and visual cues. Very easy to dodge and avoid the leap clone. Shatter is easy to dodge unless they Blink + Mirror, but due to human reaction time you can still dodge it. So yes we are talking about the same build but you obviously need to practice more.

While ileap is relatively easy to dodge there’s also a limit of dodges you can do. Need to choose between dodging ileap, phantasms or cc. I think everything is fine with mesmers but phantasms. Just pressing a button on a target to do 4k isn’t my idea of a skill based game. A shatter combo on the other hand is. Less phantasms, more shatter/player type builds plz! ie: confusion,bunker,support,cc types.

Thief’s are effective against low toughness targets. High toughness targets pretty much eat thief’s. Thief’s could have been a cool class with either blinds for defence or evades, instead anet went with stealth. What’s worse those is that they went with upfront burst for offensive. It’s not fun to play against such a class when you are a squishy. You see a mesmer setting up for their burst, a thief just teleport + leaps from far and smacks you for the majority of your health.

I think the conversation should be around why anet made such bad decisions when designing classes.

Solori.6025:

That is a different perspective for SOME people, not everyone gets instantly frustrated and turns into an angry elf.
Some people notice whats going on, and find ways to counter what happened and what can happen.

Everyone has a fair chance..It becomes a L2P . issue in a lot of them, and very few issues are actually a mechanic issue.
Best example would be people that complained about Ele’s. Because they could run away.
Or Guardians, because they were hard to kill..

A lot of complaints are from people that just want to win, and win with the least amount of effort.

Its no more complicated than fighting a bunker, you just have to be smart and pay attention, but also have a build that is viable.

Funny thing about condition mesmer, is it can be absolutely devestating to people who dont pay attention, but it can also be massively confusing for a new person..
Are you really making it fun for them? OR do you perceive since your having fun, they will too?
Your perception of fun is playing a mesmer that uses conditions.
Do you think its fun to the other player that goes full glass and doesnt take condition removal?

You misunderstand. Just because something is countable, it doesn’t mean that it’s automatically fun to play against. Having to place AoE skills where you think a Thief is going to appear, and flailing your melee weapon around like you’re trying to hit a pinate, is not fun gameplay. Your playing on your opponents terms, instead of playing on equal terms. Which would be fine, if it was for a short duration. But players are very capable of effortlessly spamming one stealth skill (or clone) out after another, with the right build.

Again, the complaint isn’t about not being able to defeat these professions. It’s about not being able to see who, or even sometimes why, you beat these professions. It becomes a guessing game. An Elementalist who runs away, or a Guardian that’s hard to kill, is okay. Because you can see them. You can see the Elementalist running away, and you can see the Guardian’s health isn’t going down easily.

You got it the wrong way around. A lot of these complaints are from players who want a fun fight, and who don’t want to lose against an opponent they didn’t even know they were playing against.

But it is more complicated. Fighting someone you don’t know where is, is more complicated then fighting someone you can see. It means you have to change your playstyle when fighting against a Thief or Mesmer, compared to when you are fighting against any of the other six professions. That alone makes it more complicated. Some variation is fine, but not when it’s overdone.

A lot of builds can be devastating. That doesn’t mean they aren’t fun to play against. I know my opponent are having fun, because I can see that he can come very close to killing me, and that he can obviously react to the things I do. Condition damage is damage over time, and is therefor automatically easier to counter then burst damage. If you’re playing a glass canon build, you purposely choose to neglect defense in return for offense. So you could really only be mad at yourself.

Nikkle.4013:

I think the conversation should be around why anet made such bad decisions when designing classes.

Why? Because every other game has some sort of stealth class cause its “cool” and arenanet wanted to jump in the bandwagon too! Forget gameplay like gw1 Assassins! Its all about invisibility now!

/end rant

When people mention fun fight, I know they’re talking out of their kitten
Lol since when has smacking on a bunker been fun?
Lettuce be real tea, it’s not about fun fights, it’s about what you feel is over the top, and what you think is not.

If I kill a guardian in 15s or 1 minute. I don’t stop and think “oh that was such jolly good fun, and I hope we can do that again, after 15s” Who the hell does?

If a thief,mesmer vanished and then appeared dead every-time no one but thieves and mesmers would complain about not having “fun” they wouldn’t care.
There is a feeling of being too effective for what we’ve got, no reason some have to sugarcoat “fun” as an excuse.

There’s no “is it fair” issue.
There’s parts of the thief and mesmer that are lame, and disproportionally effective and parts that suck kitten Same for everyone else, keeping it real they just need to iron out the wrinkles on the classes.

Jax.5261:

The solution to this is simply to practice. Get as much experience you can get against as many good players as you can. Analyse your own play, record it and analyse after if you can’t do it during. Play the thing you’re having trouble with, understand how it works against you and what it has troubles with so that then you can be the one causing the trouble. Study skill animations, SOUNDS, and plan what skills you will use in reaction to their actions.
Maybe it’s your build, even in GW1 running an inferior build could disadvantage you enough to lose. Equipment, etc, I write numerous guides (along with a ton of other people) so you don’t really have the excuse of I didn’t know what equipment/builds to use.

As an example, when a Mesmer tries to burst me (standard shatter) they’re forced to use pistol 5 to even hit me, since sword 3 is easily dodged and I pay attention to the clone that was created with Sword 3. Even blink is easily dodged, I know which mesmer is the real one always due to being able to instantly read behaviour and decide which ones are clones. Just knowing which skills to dodge and how to dodge shatters means you’ve reduced their damage to near 0 or waiting until your stunbreakers are all gone.
But to a player who hadn’t practiced as much they wouldn’t dodge Sword 3 and then suddenly the recharge of that skill seems rediculous, suddenly the shatters which I avoided hit 8k and that’s overpowered.

I can give hundreds of examples to this, obviously to save time I’m not going to (unless you really want me to describe some more). Maybe you guys need a guide on what to do/not do against these classes?
So take a chill pill, learn some kittenzle and take a stroll in tpvp and see how mes/thieves are only optional in almost all teams.

-silven

I’m sorry, but complaining is easier.

ensoriki.5789:

When people mention fun fight, I know they’re talking out of their kitten
..
If I kill a guardian in 15s or 1 minute. I don’t stop and think “oh that was such jolly good fun, and I hope we can do that again, after 15s” Who the hell does?

I often do enjoy solo and team fights in this game. Silly me for wanting more fights to be fun. Here I am assuming most people played games because they were fun. People continue to confuse me.

bhagwad.4281:

I’m a mesmer and I barely need to put in any skill to defeat a guardian, a warrior, necro, ele, rangers, and most thieves.

Sorry, but I just don’t believe you.

Any really good player playing one of those can kill you. Especially the Elementalist.

tic.7425:

I’ve actually semi-retired my mesmer. For the most part its not really challenging at all.

The hardest class for me is a necro, because of my (really) limited condition removal. Other than that, a lot of it is just (too) easy, not all mind you, but a lot of it.. I’m no elite PvPer by any stretch, but mesmers sure do make it pretty easy. A lot of times, when i see a 2 on 1, i feel like im going to get a really good challenge.

Been playing MMOs for a long time, the only thing to me more discouraging than playing an "underpowered " class, is playing the fotm “overpowered” one. Hard to believe, but when you see certain classes representation dominating the PvP landscape, there maybe a reason why..

/shrug

hotjoin player? bc mesmers dont dominate the 1vs1 tounry landscape. Nor are they underrepresented.

A game is usually balanced when everything is being complained about equally. When one (or two) classes tends to be called out by the rest of the player base there is usually an issue.

The only issue I see with calling the thief OP (and it is in WvW, maybe not Spvp) is that the stealth mechanic is one of the most negative any game designer could add to their game. Regardless of the MMO people are always going to hate the stealth class be said complaints balance related, or simply a negative play experience.

Not defending the thief here, just saying people should consider whether it just isn’t fun to play against versus an actual power level issue.

Jax.5261:

Umm yeah you got no clue, illusionary leap has tonns of audio and visual cues. Very easy to dodge and avoid the leap clone. Shatter is easy to dodge unless they Blink + Mirror, but due to human reaction time you can still dodge it. So yes we are talking about the same build but you obviously need to practice more.

You should take care to read what I wrote. Illusionary Leap has a poor 1s crippling effect. What has no visual clue is the Swap skill, the one which is available after the I-Leap cast, which is the one who gives the Immobilization I was talking about. It could happen in any moment without any visual clue after the clone is summoned and, after, you’ll find yourself immobilized with the mesmer teleported to you casting Blurried Frenzy and loads of clones shattering on you.

You can’t have a clear clue on when Swap happens, it is instant and the only way to effectively counter that skill is to be out of range of the I-Leap clone, something which is quite hard to do because of the snare it has built in and the fact that, probably, a whole fight and a bunch of other clones are wandering around.

But, keep this in mind, once the Swap skill is activated and you’re hit, you are dead or, if you’re not dead yet, you’ll be almost dead. How can be this balanced?

Your presumption is getting annoying to be honest. Just focus on the overall balance and forget about bashing people because you think everyone should learn to play except you. Nobody cares here if you think you are good enough to deal with any Mesmers and nobody said here that they want suggestions from you on how to counter them. I wonder when people realize what balance is and how it is not related to someone’s skill level.

well.. i still dont get why most people havent moved from thieves/mesmers to..eles.
Not irony here i really dont get it :O

kostbabis.8791:

well.. i still dont get why most people havent moved from thieves/mesmers to..eles.
Not irony here i really dont get it :O

I think this actually kind of shows my perspective on this thread… these threads often get derailed into a “if you can’t beat a thief it’s L2P”… when most of us aren’t talking about beating thieves, it’s about the way you have to go about defeating them vs. other professions.

Those professions are played the most or frustrating because they are OP, it’s because people gravitate towards classes that have frustrating mechanics to work against, because it tends to cause the first major divide in talented players. New players that can fight well with other professions will suddenly start to struggle the moment you introduce stealth mechanics, or in the case of the Mesmer, misdirection which causes a similar effect on an opposing player. It’s why Eles aren’t usually complained about as much in pick up play, their full potential really applies to how they perform in point and map control tPvP.

From my perspective, it’s the inherently cheap nature of stealth mechanics from a sPvP perspective in general, and while Mesmers aren’t really stealth masters like thieves, they do have mechanics that allow them to slip around easily and, in a crowded fighting space, get lost in the fray.

My personal opinion, if you MUST use stealth in a game, it should be primarily for scouting/opening attack, and an escape, not a constant every few seconds thing to deal with during the fight, with no tells as to if you’re hitting the stealthed player or not, and no repercussions for the stealthed player if you do, and this game instead chose to flail that power around for a thief like a child with a loaded gun.

JMO.

My main is a Mesmer… and tbh… Every Mesmer is very predictable (even me). And not hard to play against at all… And if its in a group setting then call a target… If its 1v1 its even easier.

Play a warrior and tell me how much a ‘non-problem’ these classes are, granted thieves are much easier to deal with, game balance is pretty lop sided. Too many power escape mechanics coupled with extreme damage.

sorrow.2364:

Jax.5261:

Umm yeah you got no clue, illusionary leap has tonns of audio and visual cues. Very easy to dodge and avoid the leap clone. Shatter is easy to dodge unless they Blink + Mirror, but due to human reaction time you can still dodge it. So yes we are talking about the same build but you obviously need to practice more.

You should take care to read what I wrote. Illusionary Leap has a poor 1s crippling effect. What has no visual clue is the Swap skill, the one which is available after the I-Leap cast, which is the one who gives the Immobilization I was talking about. It could happen in any moment without any visual clue after the clone is summoned and, after, you’ll find yourself immobilized with the mesmer teleported to you casting Blurried Frenzy and loads of clones shattering on you.

You can’t have a clear clue on when Swap happens, it is instant and the only way to effectively counter that skill is to be out of range of the I-Leap clone, something which is quite hard to do because of the snare it has built in and the fact that, probably, a whole fight and a bunch of other clones are wandering around.

But, keep this in mind, once the Swap skill is activated and you’re hit, you are dead or, if you’re not dead yet, you’ll be almost dead. How can be this balanced?

Your presumption is getting annoying to be honest. Just focus on the overall balance and forget about bashing people because you think everyone should learn to play except you. Nobody cares here if you think you are good enough to deal with any Mesmers and nobody said here that they want suggestions from you on how to counter them. I wonder when people realize what balance is and how it is not related to someone’s skill level.

Actually no you just take note of the clone created, which is really simple, and you won’t get hit by swap. You dodge the leap and avoid the clone, easy enough for you to get now?
Also all AI in this game is kitten and can’t keep up with you perfectly. So no I’ve never had trouble avoiding it not to mention they’re really easy to kill.

I also think the problem with thieves and mesmer is not so much in a 1 v 1 situation, but in group fights the way stealth and clones work in this game it gives them a great advantage (and mesmers have both).

Its hard enough keeping track of whats going on in group fights, and even worst when you got thieves who are almost perma-stealthed and mesmers who can stealth + clone to take up basically all the screen real estate. Sure there are counters for them but in reality it makes group fights a huge P.I.T.A