Guild Wars 2

As a thief player, I noticed that even when I figure out which mesmer is real and get a clean backstab, the damage is severely weakened compared hitting to other classes like warrior or ranger.

When I backstab a mesmer, it honestly feels like im hitting a bunker guardian. What’s reducing my damage? It wasn’t protection I double checked.

Distortion probably.

If we’re talking damage reduction effects (you’re noting hitting for low damage, not getting invul/block/miss messages), it’s probably the phantasmal defender from Mental Defense.

Timing.. Blocs & distortion.. We bin so much the underdog for so long, especially vs thieves that we actually developed skills & good timing.

Robert Gee.

Inspiration traitline is OP.

Hexs.8015:

As a thief player, I noticed that even when I figure out which mesmer is real and get a clean backstab, the damage is severely weakened compared hitting to other classes like warrior or ranger.

When I backstab a mesmer, it honestly feels like im hitting a bunker guardian. What’s reducing my damage? It wasn’t protection I double checked.

If you hit him during block or if he dodges your attack he gets a phantasmal defender. Phantasmal defenders redirect 50% of the dmg taken to them.

Phantasmal Defender (two with Chronophantasma)

roamzero.9486:

Inspiration traitline is OP.

A metric crapton of evades blocks and invul, combined with heal and condi clear on every shatter and an i defender on block or evades.

The only legit answer in here is Phantasmal Defender from Mental Defence.

There is no other raw damage reduction outside of Protection, which is only going to maybe proc on chaos armour in the meta Inspiration/Illusions/Chrono build if lucky (if the Mesmer takes Chaos traitline then there is more access to protection).

There is NO other passive damage mitigation.

Everything else is active – Blurred Frenzy, Shield 4, Distortion… yeah actually that’s it, there is nothing else. EDIT – I forgot about RNG aegis in chaos storm… but that’s luck and on a long cool down.

Keep an eye out for the illusion of defence buff on the mesmer – once they’ve done a few opening shatters, the initial iDefender is usually gone for some time depending on alacrity. This is a good time to burst because other than the luck of this phantasm, despite what people say mesmer cannot facetank damage.

Other solution is cleave the illusions.

Generally at the start of a fight the iDefender will spawn on the first successful evade or block, so you need to be a bit patient if not able to cleave them away. Either that or overload the mesmer with enough damage to kill the iDefender.

What above poster said.

To add to that, if you see the purple bubble up and have something to make you unblockable, that is the time to use stuns. (sorry, not a thief player)

If you interrupt the block cast the mesmer is mostly dead meat, if you dont senselessly attack him while he is doing blurred frenzy.

You can say that its not alot but lets look for how long mesmers can acutally facetank.

blured frenzy: 2,5 s invul on 12 s cd
shield 4 : 3 secs block on 24 secs cd
Distortion 3 secs invul
Double distortion with kontinuum split: another 3 secs
tripple distortion with signet of illusion another 3 secs

assuming you start with blured frenzy and use a decent clone rotation, you can ignore attacks thrown at you for 17 seconds. The best thing is only 3 secs are block. the rest is complete invul.

I’ll keep preaching it. All classes need a sustain nerf in order to appear balanced. Elementalists, Mesmers, and rangers simply have too much healing, passive defense, and active defense.

Pride.1734:

You can say that its not alot but lets look for how long mesmers can acutally facetank.

blured frenzy: 2,5 s invul on 12 s cd
shield 4 : 3 secs block on 24 secs cd
Distortion 3 secs invul
Double distortion with kontinuum split: another 3 secs
tripple distortion with signet of illusion another 3 secs

assuming you start with blured frenzy and use a decent clone rotation, you can ignore attacks thrown at you for 17 seconds. The best thing is only 3 secs are block. the rest is complete invul.

The OP asked why his backstabs hit for less on a mesmer…

He wasnt asking: “can you name everything that makes mesmer durable”.

Pride.1734:

You can say that its not alot but lets look for how long mesmers can acutally facetank.

blured frenzy: 2,5 s invul on 12 s cd
shield 4 : 3 secs block on 24 secs cd
Distortion 3 secs invul
Double distortion with kontinuum split: another 3 secs
tripple distortion with signet of illusion another 3 secs

assuming you start with blured frenzy and use a decent clone rotation, you can ignore attacks thrown at you for 17 seconds. The best thing is only 3 secs are block. the rest is complete invul.

Well then focus your argument against what is causing the issue:
1. Continuum Split
2. Shield 4

Those are the only two things that should be looked at. Blurred Frenzy is perfectly fine – any nerf to it will also severely harm the little defence of a Sword/x (where x is Pistol, Focus or Torch) plus Greatsword power build, therefore it shouldn’t be touched. The cooldown is already more than enough for a rooted evade – it is only with alacrity and in combination with Shield 4 does your problem arise.

Likewise with Distortion – on its own it is perfectly fine.

Now, Continuum Split is the obvious source of many of the current issues, and I’m not about to suggest another solution to the many people have already done, although I agree it can be looked at.

Shield 4 is mainly due to the insane synergy with both Persistence of Memory and Chronophantasma. The difficulty here is any nerf to Persistence of Memory or Chronophantasma will do more harm to builds NOT using Shield. I suggest quite simply that
1. Increase Echo of Memory block duration to 2 seconds and
2. Deja Vu should be a single block and not spawn a phantasm.

But again there are other (and probably better) solutions. But any nerf should be to Shield 4 rather than either of those traits.

In any case it is still active defence, and anyway this is kind of offtopic.

O right i didnt even consider alacrity and Persistence of Memory, you’d probably be able to pull this quite a bit longer than 17 secs. Just imagine if you were running sigil of ether and mimic as well. Lol this is too high maths for me but i wish someone would really calc the max duration a mesmer can invul.

Also im not really knocking mes for having so much more invul than everyone else. Mesmers have always had strong defense with the power creep i wont even deny that they deserve stronger defense. I think the main problem is how much hp they get back while they do it. Restorative illusions is the main offender imo.

Mercenary amu aka dire on steroids.
Ilusionary defender.
About 15s of invuln + 5-10s of kiting time.
And a confusion torment spike may cause you to stand afk for about 5s

Do i need to count 10s of moa every 70 seconds on top?

You people are throwing so many skill names which you clearly know nothing about.
Please get your facts straight, and learn a bit about the actual class
!!
Blurred Frenzy is an invuln? really? since when?!
Infinite condi cleanse? do you realise Mesmer sacrifices most of his offense to do that when being under condi pressure?
Infinite blocks? is 3-4 second really that long? don’t other classes have the same? there are plenty of unblockable skills out there, and most of those mesmer builds only have one (!!!) stun break.
15s of invuln? teach me master!
You have to AFK for 5 seconds because of Torment? ever heard of condi cleanse?
Learn a bit about Moa skills, its actually really easy to not die in Moa form!
(also why do I have a feeling that every time someone gets Moa’d by an Engi, Mesmer still gets the blame??).
Stop all this unnecessary QQ and l2p please.

The OP asked how does Mesmer take LESS damage from his Backstab! Distortion is an invuln, if he uses BS while Mesmer is distorted he would’nt see any DMG at all!! similar goes to Blur and the blocks.
The effect you are feeling probably comes from Illusionary Defender (as said here before), maybe some protection, and possibly combined with Illusionary Defense trait (max. 9% DMG reduction).

Coconut.7082:

Blurred Frenzy is an invuln? really? since when?!

Infinite blocks? is 3-4 second really that long?
15s of invuln? teach me master!
You have to AFK for 5 seconds because of Torment? ever heard of condi cleanse?
Learn a bit about Moa skills, its actually really easy to not die in Moa form!

Stop all this unnecessary QQ and l2p please.

I loled, good work man.

Btw, why dont we have a /troll subforum?
Would put all good humor in one place, instead you need to search through long posts to find such nuggets.

Pride.1734:

O right i didnt even consider alacrity and Persistence of Memory, you’d probably be able to pull this quite a bit longer than 17 secs. Just imagine if you were running sigil of ether and mimic as well. Lol this is too high maths for me but i wish someone would really calc the max duration a mesmer can invul.

Also im not really knocking mes for having so much more invul than everyone else. Mesmers have always had strong defense with the power creep i wont even deny that they deserve stronger defense. I think the main problem is how much hp they get back while they do it. Restorative illusions is the main offender imo.

FYI, neither blurred frenzy or shield are invulns. The shield block is actually the mesmer’s greatest weakness against a thief.

Assuming the thief is doing his job by +1ing the fight: time your basi venom backstab opener for when the mesmer pops his shield.

You’ll interrupt the shield (basi venom makes your attack unblockable), stun the mesmer, and prevent him from summoning the shield phantasm, which is crucial for his shatters. It’s usually a guaranteed kill if your teammate is competent, because the shield4 makes up the bulk of the mesmer’s defense.

ResJudicator.7916:

Pride.1734:

O right i didnt even consider alacrity and Persistence of Memory, you’d probably be able to pull this quite a bit longer than 17 secs. Just imagine if you were running sigil of ether and mimic as well. Lol this is too high maths for me but i wish someone would really calc the max duration a mesmer can invul.

Also im not really knocking mes for having so much more invul than everyone else. Mesmers have always had strong defense with the power creep i wont even deny that they deserve stronger defense. I think the main problem is how much hp they get back while they do it. Restorative illusions is the main offender imo.

FYI, neither blurred frenzy or shield are invulns. The shield block is actually the mesmer’s greatest weakness against a thief.

Assuming the thief is doing his job by +1ing the fight: time your basi venom backstab opener for when the mesmer pops his shield.

You’ll interrupt the shield (basi venom makes your attack unblockable), stun the mesmer, and prevent him from summoning the shield phantasm, which is crucial for his shatters. It’s usually a guaranteed kill if your teammate is competent, because the shield4 makes up the bulk of the mesmer’s defense.

Yup, if the thief does this, then there may be a chance at winning the 2 v 1. =P

Dahkeus.8243:

ResJudicator.7916:

Pride.1734:

O right i didnt even consider alacrity and Persistence of Memory, you’d probably be able to pull this quite a bit longer than 17 secs. Just imagine if you were running sigil of ether and mimic as well. Lol this is too high maths for me but i wish someone would really calc the max duration a mesmer can invul.

Also im not really knocking mes for having so much more invul than everyone else. Mesmers have always had strong defense with the power creep i wont even deny that they deserve stronger defense. I think the main problem is how much hp they get back while they do it. Restorative illusions is the main offender imo.

FYI, neither blurred frenzy or shield are invulns. The shield block is actually the mesmer’s greatest weakness against a thief.

Assuming the thief is doing his job by +1ing the fight: time your basi venom backstab opener for when the mesmer pops his shield.

You’ll interrupt the shield (basi venom makes your attack unblockable), stun the mesmer, and prevent him from summoning the shield phantasm, which is crucial for his shatters. It’s usually a guaranteed kill if your teammate is competent, because the shield4 makes up the bulk of the mesmer’s defense.

Yup, if the thief does this, then there may be a chance at winning the 2 v 1. =P

Mesmer is a 1v1 powerhouse in all levels of play. But at higher levels, it’s pretty easy to +1 a mesmer for quick kill. This requires coordination and competence from both players, though, which is one reason why mesmer may seem “invulnerable” in soloqueues.

@op: there are several things you may need to look at
1. Did you crit? (This may seem a stupid question, but then again there is weakness)
2. Did you backstab or did the stealth run out just before?
3. What illusions and how many did the Mesmer have? (There is a passive on chaos that reduces dmg by 3% for each illusion; haven’t seen someone using chaos in ages though)
4. Did you really not hit the Mesmer with full force? (Maybe he had cs up, you killed him and the cs progged?)

Vieux P.1238:

Timing.. Blocs & distortion.. We bin so much the underdog for so long, especially vs thieves that we actually developed skills & good timing.

Lol, so much truth in this.

ResJudicator.7916:

Dahkeus.8243:

ResJudicator.7916:

Pride.1734:

O right i didnt even consider alacrity and Persistence of Memory, you’d probably be able to pull this quite a bit longer than 17 secs. Just imagine if you were running sigil of ether and mimic as well. Lol this is too high maths for me but i wish someone would really calc the max duration a mesmer can invul.

Also im not really knocking mes for having so much more invul than everyone else. Mesmers have always had strong defense with the power creep i wont even deny that they deserve stronger defense. I think the main problem is how much hp they get back while they do it. Restorative illusions is the main offender imo.

FYI, neither blurred frenzy or shield are invulns. The shield block is actually the mesmer’s greatest weakness against a thief.

Assuming the thief is doing his job by +1ing the fight: time your basi venom backstab opener for when the mesmer pops his shield.

You’ll interrupt the shield (basi venom makes your attack unblockable), stun the mesmer, and prevent him from summoning the shield phantasm, which is crucial for his shatters. It’s usually a guaranteed kill if your teammate is competent, because the shield4 makes up the bulk of the mesmer’s defense.

Yup, if the thief does this, then there may be a chance at winning the 2 v 1. =P

Mesmer is a 1v1 powerhouse in all levels of play. But at higher levels, it’s pretty easy to +1 a mesmer for quick kill. This requires coordination and competence from both players, though, which is one reason why mesmer may seem “invulnerable” in soloqueues.

Even more in this.

1. reason mes is so hard to take down is it requires coordination and competence. Thus the near universal qq xD