Guild Wars 2

I need some quick help, looking for any experienced PvP input.

So I just fought a Mesmer in a 1v1. Or sorta 1v1.
Staff and… Sword/Torch I guess, didn’t really notice his other weapon (didn’t really needed to use it either).

First, my build is full Soldier with some Precision thrown around. Stats are something like:
2180 Power, 25% Crit Chance, 50% Crit Damage, 2500 Armor. Crit Chance is low because I rely on Fury alot and I wanted extra survivability.

I open by jumping on him with Burning Speed, Ring of Fire. Fire Breath, he dodges, I’m still following him. Clones start popping up, I see a Staff and Chaos Armor. I got 3 conditions already.
Swap to Water, try to Chill him, Frost Armor, he dodges the chill, I cleanse myself and heal a bit while still following him, and he’s still dodging/running and clones are popping. Conditions are still stacking on me even though I just cleansed.
He took some damage by then, so did I, then he stealthed (either Decoy or the Trait) right when I switched to Air and was ready to RTL. I’m already at 50% health even though I just left Water 5 secs ago.
He finally pops out, and I notice he is at 100% health. I RTL and Updraft, he blinks, more clones pop out. My health’s at 35% and going, so I run behind a pillar and see the Shatter inc.
Switch to Earth since Water is still on CD, and I assume the Mesmer is prob. heading my way as well. Wait for the first clone to get close, dodge most of the Shatter and Earthquake.
Lightning Flash away, back to Water, I’m at 20~25% health, and lag happens. Game is freezed for a second, and next second, I’m down. He stealths (Torch prob), and I’m dead.

So, seeing the outcome of the combat now… there were thousands of Clones everywhere. I think I managed to stay following the real Mesmer for a good time, always spamming him with skills, even when he stealthed I had a pretty good idea where he went. The massive stealth/target dropping from clones really killed my targetable abilities, but I don’t think it was that much of a big deal.
Yet conditions and his attacks were killing me, and my signet/water wasn’t enough to sustain, even though he had NO burst and I avoided the Shatter combo.
Outcome for me was, I used everything available to me, and the duel ended with 100% – 0% for the Mesmer.

I really love my Elementalist, invested thousands of hours on it, mainly for WvW, and it’s awesome to stay on top of walls AoEing down but… is this normal? Is my Elementalist worthless besides that?

I have other professions and I can’t invest Ascended gear and such on all of them, so I’m looking for one to “main” so to speak, and Elementalist was my first option until I tried PvP…

So my question is: Is this a L2P issue? What could have I done to NOT have ended this bad?

Sadly, never lost to a ele on my mesmer while running a PU build. It is a very, very strong 1v1 build. One of the best.

Be more aggressive, dont cleanse so early and hope someone else comes along. Yes I am being 100% serious. Being very DPS heavy and trying to burst him is your best bet.

What I believe you just fought is a blackwater mesmer arguably the toughest 1v1 spec in the game. If they are competent they will beat you every time, though in wvw you can run away anytime you want if that is any consolation. With that being said, for dueling purposes, diamond skin completely wrecks them now unless they do manage to break the 10% threshold which isn’t easy for most of them unless they invest a decent amount into power.

Playing a mesmer helped me out hugely against them. A lot of tricks are very predictable, and many people pick up this build because of how easy it is to crush with it, and panic when you can actually counter what they are doing because you know what the limitations of clones and shatters are.
That being said, I don’t think I could defeat one on my elementalist if they were actually good players instead of someone who just searched Google for the best mesmer build. It still doesn’t make it easy to defeat even the worst of players, but it makes it possible.

I used to have trouble with mesmers but I’ve been absolutely kittenting on them after the patch. I haven’t fought any really good ones yet, but all of the mediocre at best condi mesmers are just free kills now. Diamond skin gives you such a massive advantage against them since they lack almost any power damage. If you want to give it a try, my build is in my post history, and it looks like our gear is fairly similar already.