Guild Wars 2

Fellow Guards of all regions! Just to hype up and engage that SOAC tournament coming up tomorrow which will be a faceoff between 5 Guards vs. 5 Mesmers – What experiences do you as a guard have against fighting mesmers? All information is welcomed and suggestions for Guard shenanegans. Please look out for the casting stream tomorrow, and hopefully I and the others who have signed up will represent the Guardians well.

Tournament Link w/ Stream Information

The standard: turn off all name plates other than players.

oh GAWD! this will suck XD

oh mann. i know about the touney and heard about Guards’ first match being against mesmers. my last game of tPvP broke my streak and left my high note hanging rather low.. lol.

so myself, two thieves, ranger and a necro. not a bad matchup. we were 3man queueing and then got paired up with two more that we played together with in pervious matches and were doign well together. then our opponents..

one thief, meh. and two mesmers! could be tricky. o wait, what’s this, 4th person joins. mesmer. again. and wuddya know, last one to fill their team’s spot, yep, another mesmer.

needless to say, it was like fighting a mini zerg. lol. and so. much. stealth. i’ve been in 3v5’s where i felt we still had a chance. but this match? it was pretty rough. i used to struggle with mesmers.. then i looked up their skills / traits a bit. and then once i figure dout how to pinpoint the real deal, it made thigns a lot easier.. but facing so many at once, i felt i was trying to find the real one or two or three, who knew, in the sea of illusions / clones , etc.. was pertty tough. make sur eyou guys communicate well!

hope the training will help you guys put together some strats to deal with them mesmers!

i usually just auto attack the hell out of mesmers in PvP and WvW

I play both Guard and Mes, and here’s the first thing I’d try for the Guardian. Depends on what the Mesmer’s setup is, but assuming they’re all running Shatter builds, I’d counter with an AoE healing bunker spec:

Everyone run a modified Healway build. kitten near unkillable.

1. Kill their Illusions with AoE fast, ideally before they can Shatter them. GS #5 + #2, Mace #2 (increased symbol size) + Shield #4.

Or try Staff instead of GS – #1 is spammable AoE, plus massive AoE Might stacking from #4, and the #5 bumper will be useful.

2. Stack on the point and bunker each other with stacked Symbol of Faith (Mace #2) + rotating Shield #4 for 100% Protection uptime. Run full clerics, heal through their damage – dodge + Symbol of Faith.

3. Keep Retaliation up, it scales off Power which Clerics provides.

4. If they’re all using Null field and Arcane Thievery, intending to win with Boon stripping, then swap to an Altruistic Healing build, that heals you when you apply boons to allies but does not depend on boon uptime.

Thieves, for example, fight mesmers with shortbow – cluster bomb their Illusions to death, whittle the mesmer down by kiting them and attacking at range (since mesmer’s only real burst is melee-range – IP Shatter + Blurred Frenzy), then when Mes hits 50% (or ideally below 25%) swap to Dagger and C&D + Mug + BS + HS them to death.