Guild Wars 2

Sup guys,

An idea for a little psychological experiment hit me and I’m hoping that some of you guys could help out!

What I’m looking to find is what its like fighting against a Mesmer (Shatter, Lockdown, and/or Condi) as an Elementalist? I have a few questions going forward:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?

• Strategies and tactics?

• Which type of Ele build do you feel best fights Mesmer?

• What Ele skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

Along with anything else you’d like to add. My plan is to make a thread in the Mes forums detailing and explaining how fighting us feels for other classes, and hopefully learn some things along the way. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

In my experience (4/4/6 Lockdown Mes) facing Eles is .. a dance. Vs D/D or S/D all my movements are based on their attunement. Evasive against fire, aggressive against water, earth lets me catch my breath and is madly interruptable. Ironically, it always seems like the Ele is dancing with me; matching my spacing, attunement swapping depending on my clones position or mantra charges ect. It’s a very fun fight, but a painfully long fight. In sPvP there’s the problem, as a Mesmer I need to end fights quickly and be mobile while I do it. Eles tend to tie me up for longer than I wanna stay, even if I’m not worried about actually losing the fight.

Staff eles are interrupt fodder, unfortunately, but I have such love and respect for any/all Staff eles I find! (biased. I play one)

*Are they shatter
*50/50, whoever plays better
*line of sight + blinds
*X/F with arcane shield feels comfy against almost everything lately
*I honestly like playing mesmer but zerk shatter feels so weak atm compared to other unfun builds

Here’s my perspective, coming from someone who spends a fair amount of time playing both classes (divided into D/D Ele vs. the three main mesmer builds I play — CI, MtD, and meta shatter, and then S/F ele vs. those 3 mesmer builds). I don’t find staff ele to be particularly effective vs either of the mesmer power builds, so I don’t really address it here.

D/D Ele (standard meta build) vs:

CI Mesmer: I expect to win or draw, mostly due to the ability to sustain. I just have to be careful about not getting interrupted while in water. I usually play defensively until the mesmer has exhausted his MoD charges. (Even while playing defensively, the burning and passive poison procs end up doing a solid amount of damage). Once the MoD charges are gone, it’s pretty easy to avoid the mesmer’s weapon-based interrupt skills, and constantly running through the mesmer frequently messes up some of the directional skills like Pistol5 or Greatsword5.

The only way the fight gets remotely challenging is if the terrain allows for a lot of kiting, and the CI mesmer traits for phantasm fury. Then the CI mesmer can usually maintain distance by interrupting the gap-closers while the phantasms whittle away my health.

vs Condi Mesmer: Depends on the specific build, but a 0/6/0/2/6 MtD build w/ harmonious mantra and cleanse-on-heal varies from stupid easy to stupid hard, depending on how big of a battlefield we have to work with. One of the main issues is that the D/D ele really needs to keep moving, so torment stacks hurt a ton. Additionally, D/D ele skills are all AOE splash, so it’s easy to self-stack a bunch of confusion from the 25pt minor trait in dueling. I basically just try to pressure the mesmer as hard as I can and never let up, while dodging shatters and the scepter2 counterattack. A lot of the fight boils down to how well I’ve dodged.

Shatter mesmer: I generally expect to win these fights fairly easily unless the other mesmer is really good. The main issue for the mesmer is that it usually takes about 2 bursts in a row for me to go down. If he whiffs one — or if there’s room for LOS abuse, I’ll probably be able to heal back to full.
The harder matchups occur when the mesmer runs S/X + GS or Staff. A mesmer who knows how to take advantage of the S3 clone’s double-leap can make S3 really hard to dodge, which then leads into a really nasty burst.
And, of course, double-ranged can be nasty if the battlefield has a lot of Z-axis kiting opportunities.

S/F Fresh air ele:
CI mesmer: I expect to have a slight advantage in a straight fight, without LOS juking. The fight basically boils down to whether or not I can burst the mesmer down before my blocks run out. All of the ele’s scepter autoattacks are interrupt fodder, so once I run out of blocks I’m screwed. That said, stone flesh and arcane shield usually gives me enough time to kill the mesmer. If I also take armor of earth, then the fight becomes a lot easier. Blind also works really well when the mesmer is running sword, because it is a lot harder for the mesmer to clear the blind when I’m at range.

The fight becomes a lot harder (and potentially unwinnable) if there’s a lot of room for LOSing, in which case the mesmer can summon phantasms and then just run around a pillar or something.

Condi mes: I can usually burst down the condi mes before going down myself. The focus skills really help reduce the incoming damage from clones via projectile hate, condi clear on earth4, and invuln on earth5 which is basically a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Shatter mes: I find this fight to be about 50/50 vs a good shatter mesmer. We’re both capable of instagibbing the other. I can block bursts via stone flesh and arcane shield. The mesmer can avoid bursts through stealth, distortion, and kiting and/or sword2. The fight usually turns on crits, sigil procs, and good dodging. My goal is usually to rely on air bursts early in the fight while I dodge the initial greatsword opener, then do a quick phoenix + lightning flash + airburst when it looks like the mesmer is vulnerable.

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?
  - Track the position of the mesmer going in and out of stealth. What are his phantasms? If Duelists, kill asap. If Berserker, dodge when the mesmer raises his arm and prepare stability when gap closing. If Swordman, be prepared to cleanse or evade when the mesmer immobilize me.

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?
  - 50:50. If it’s a condi mesmer on a capped node, I would ping for help before the fight gets worse.

• Strategies and tactics?
  - Condi and Pressure. Keep the burning up. Keep the protection up. Use Ring of Earth and Magnetic Grasp before swapping out from earth. Spam Lightning Whip to heal when they go in stealth. Try to dodge in Fire and Air as often as possible. Try to predict and dodge his Boon strip. Stun break when he shatters. Use LoS often. Don’t get kited or CC’d too much.

• Which type of Ele build do you feel best fights Mesmer?
  - I play d/d and staff, but never use staff in 1v1 against the mesmer.

• What Ele skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?
  - Save all cantrips as a last resort to disengage. Keeping up the might stacking rotation is also very important.

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?
  - They are a threat in group fight. They can hide behind bunkers to deal big damage and strip your boons. They should be focused, or covered if they’re on your side.

Over all its a lot of chasing for d/d for the other weapons its about guessing witch one is real.

I personally don’t play against many good mesmers playing your build, however I will speak from my experience dueling many many shatter mesmers.(Im an S/F Fresh air ele)
As an S/F ele I really struggle against some of the better shatter mesmers that know how to fight me. I bold “know how to fight me” because of the way I play S/F ele, if they give me the chance I will one shot them but the good ones don’t allow me that option most of the time. This is basically how the match-up goes if the mesmer is running Sword properly, I have to dodge all GS damage, and dodge his sword burst. I as well have to wait out his double distort, decoy, sword invulns, mass invis, and possible torch invis before i can effectively do damage. So basically If i manage to live all that with decent HP I will probably win. Of course I can win with a lucky one-shot but a good Mesmer usually wouldn’t give me the opportunity. If the Mesmer is running staff, as long as he isn’t able to out-range/kite me the whole fight I probably have the advantage.

I don’t play D/D but I know match-ups and a shatter Mesmer is actually able to kill D/D eles but they have to play well. They are able to because of their excess amount of boon removal, but yea if the Mesmer gets hit by a few too many ticks from a drake breathe it could easily be GG. The Mesmer on top of that has to play aggressive with its shatters to keep regen off of the ele, you won’t win the sustain game against a D/D ele.

Edit: Just realized that I didn’t type in your format. Sorry! Wasn’t paying attention but I think I answered most of those in my free write.

This is from a d/d perspective

Vs shatter its pretty much dodge the shatter and focus on aoe cleaving the clones. Save the burn for when I see the mesmer. For me its pretty easy to kill a mesmer that cant dodge my burn. With the burn duration nerf i expect shatters to have an easier time.

Vs condi expect a draw or a loss vs the mesmer. Luckily the fight last long and usually results in the mesmer dying do to help.

Lockdowns dont really do much vs eles because all our healing is passive. Of course i havent fought many good lockdown mesmers. They are just as easy to kill as a shatter do to little condi removal.