Guild Wars 2

sorry natsos, didn’t realize you were such a pro. Since you are emphasizing player skill so much, maybe the issue is not class imbalance, but skill imbalance? This god-like pro-mesmer you are talking about is probably doing all of those things that you refuse to do, and then some more. To make you think he is invisible, swap between three weapon sets and do great burst damage while tanking conditions. what you are referring to is either a mistake on your part..or a really amazing player who deserves to win..either way, i don’t see a reason to nerf

If I ever had to play against Osicat, I’d probably hate mesmers too :p

@bobross.5034

you have never played spvp right?

You are arguing with a wall Natsos. Better to just walk away and hope they don’t send their clones after you.

natsos.3692:

zaxon 2 days ago my guild did a 1vs1 dueling tournament.
19 participants out of which 7 was mesmers.
Only one mesmer lost before the semi-finals.He lost to a mesmer.
At the finals we had 3 mesmers fighting each other.
Moa is probably the hardest thing to counter on 1vs1(we found a way to counter it with runes like the one that makes you mist or ice block, but still conditions could kill you).
A skilled mesmer,that knows how to hide himself within his illusions and can have 10 seconds of invisibility every 40 seconds of fight, will make you have a really hard time noticing him.
I never said that you can’t see the real, the problem is that he can blink to camouflage, he can vanish, and more stuff, while there are 3 clones of himself casting spells.If you don’t play a mesmer , you wont be able to target a pro mesmer enough so you can kill him..

As one guy above said, mesmers are tricksters.
Tricksters means heavy damage dealers,boon reapers/condition cleaners,thieves,build cancelers(in case of MM necro) and much much more.
It is not the mesmer that is the problem, it is the nature of mesmer.
You can’t have a multitasking proffesions that does everything better than all the other proffesions..
Man I’m bathurt.

Mesmers are DUELISTS (anet description)!!! if you host 1v1s guess what? Those mesmers are going to go into their powerful dueling builds…. Some classes have better 1v1 builds than others Rangers have the amazing BM build… a meditation guard can dish out some pretty good damage 1v1, d/d eles, most thief builds, HGH engi etc etc…. Condition necro is the bane of most mesmers… Do i think mesmers may have some of the most powerful 1v1 specs in this game? yes… Does that make them OP… in the context of game modes… No…. Simple a mesmer that is built for nothing but 1v1 isn’t going to be doing much for their team in the grand scheme of things some mesmers can bring other things and still be somewhat damaging 1v1 but in teams… They bring the least to teams usually.

Null Field lasts for 4s on a 45s CD and removes one condition and boon per pulse, for a total of 4 conditions and boons. The tooltip is wrong, it does not remove all conditions and boons at once and it does not last 6s.

It is, really, a rather poor condition removal, especially if it’s your only one (which it will be).

As for stealth, Mesmers have four stealth skills. Decoy is the most common, 3s stealth on a 32s CD. Mass Invisibility, an Elite, is also often used, 5s stealth on a 90s CD. It also has a rather long cast time. The Prestige is rarely used due to being on the Torch, 3s stealth on a 30s CD. Veil is never used, 4 – 8s stealth on a 90s CD.

In duels, 99% of the time the enemy Mesmer will only be using Decoy and maybe Mass Invisibility. That’s not a lot of stealth at all.

At this moment mesmers are getting hit hard in spvp, they’re too “squishy vs players that know what they are doing” to withstand high dps at this moment. And building tank will not get any glory points unless its a “winning group fight”. If any players here play spvp stick in large groups to never die.

thieves were supposed to be masters in 1v1 combat, not mesmers.

“Mesmer

Mesmers rely on illusions in order to accomplish their goals. They need illusions to accomplish some of their highest damage and control, and without the illusions, they become fairly fragile. They can deal with enemy boons better than most classes, but enemy conditions can often be a problem. They share some of the stealth and mobility that the Thief enjoys, but suffer from a low health pool if you get past all their tricks."

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/first#post1038293

6 months ago they gave you the answer, and people still can’t figure it out.

Clones and Stealth are harder to play against than any other class mechanic. Disagree, then pick one and try to argue it.

In addition, I think the skill floor on Mesmer is pretty low. It’s not hard to execute a shatter operation, summon three phantasms, use decoy/blink/etc. I’m not saying you aren’t rewarded for skilled play, just that you don’t have to try too hard to be effective as a Mesmer.

Considering these two points, Mesmers definitely have a leg up in PvP/WvW over other classes (the same argument can be made for thief).

When I play against another mesmer or a thief, I have to play hard. I’m on the edge of my seat trying to win those fights. Against any other class I don’t work nearly as hard. That doesn’t mean I win against every other class — it means I don’t have to work as hard to do it when it happens (and yeah it means I win against those other classes more often than I win against thief/mez).

It’s really not a discussion on nerfing skills since the imbalance is really integral to the class-specific mechanic (i.e. illusions/stealth). They are cool mechanics and a lot of fun to play, but obviously these are a notch above other classes in PvP.

MystGun.8249:

I have played my Mesmer for about 300 hours and i feel i have acquired a decent level of skill. Recently i have been jumping into dueling servers and testing my skills. Most people who lose to me automatically say that Mesmer is OP and that it needs to be nerfed. I agree with them somewhat because I do feel like i have too many tools at my disposal in a fight, but at the same time it takes good timing to pull combos off. I just want to know what the Mesmer community thinks about the Mesmer being OP. Haha i just beat like 5 people in a row without dying. They all said that clones are too confusing and that i was cheap for using Mesmer, but whatever i will just keep winning.

not even mesmer has the damage output of thief.(consistently)

natsos.3692:

Go ahead and target a teleporting/charging ele or a thief with click.
GL man.

Teleporting thieves: Once targetted they stay targetted ‘till they stealth. I don’t see your problem in “teleporting” thieves
Charging eles: They are only 1 person, so tab actually does work here. If in group fights, either click him before he casts RTL or click after he used it (you’re supposed to dodge it anyway, he’ll be launching you)

Only started playing mesmer (lvl 18, that’s why i’m on this forum lately) but tabbing to kill a mesmer rly isn’t the way. You should be asking the mesmers how to kill them as a necro rly. Assuming from the posts made here already, necroes apparently is a menace to them. Learn why that is and you’ll have a better time against them.

Not exclusivly necros, condition dmg builds (wich necros are really good at) since we normally dont take many skills to remove them. Tho ill have to admit, fighting necros its annoying, some of them take really long to kill, And its even more annoying in WvW when you finally bring him down and a thief comes out of nothing and stealth ress him…

I think similarly to several other posters, people have come trying to whine to get Mesmers nerfed, now they are changing tact by pretending to be Mesmers and saying they feel OP in hopes of getting nerfs, this is just pathetic really.

You never lose a 1v3? Are you up against toddlers?

Serhend.6382:

Teleporting thieves: Once targetted they stay targetted ‘till they stealth. I don’t see your problem in “teleporting” thieves

They usually do that teleporting by going into stealth as well, most of the times, can’t really call it teleport for some “now here, a second later there” instances.

That means they are “teleporting stealthed thieves” and not “teleporting thieves”
A small detail but changes a lot. A S/P thief won’t be a teleporting stealthed thief. A thief who doesn’t run in SA will most probably not be burning stealth just for a teleport unless it’s dire.

I’m not trying to debate here with you though, the topic is about “mesmer op?”, to which I say: no
I enjoy fighting mesmers.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

I enjoy fighting mesmers.

Because you are a thief. I love fighting thieves as a mesmer, so intense and fast-paced. One mistake and either party could end up on the ground.

IMO mesmers have too many utilities. Just on your f4 bar we have a stun, an invulnerable, a way to make an enemy either stop attacking or use a condition cleanse, and a skill that does a buttload of damage. Other classes might have access to these things, but they are so easy to use on the Mesmer, And if traited, have a very small cool down.

Yes mesmer is the most OP class atm

Excalibur.9748:

Yes mesmer is the most OP class atm

Someone lost to a mesmer recently.

Edit: From a thief? Really?

At higher end we are not oped. They lose to you in duel they need to l2p. At avg and lower skill level mesmer are oped.

Kirec.2394:

Excalibur.9748:

Yes mesmer is the most OP class atm

Someone lost to a mesmer recently.

Edit: From a thief? Really?

nah the thieves just all come here, because of the upcoming balance patch and hope to get us nerfed or to prevent eventual buffs(hope for condition dmg and zerker fix)

Playing as a warrior, it is extremely difficult to beat a great mesmer despite knowing how they work. Especially against cheesy phantasm builds.

With other classes like certain ranger builds and necros they aren’t so difficult.

Fighting a mesmer however is more challenging then any other class because they have two of the hardest mechanics to fight against. Clones and stealth, plus they have their blocks, teleports and invulnerabilities.

Constantly having to retarget the right mesmer is very annoying and really cuts your effectiveness.

Not necessarily OP, but they have a wide array of utilities and skills that can make them amazing at almost any role.

killahmayne.9518:

Playing as a warrior, it is extremely difficult to beat a great mesmer despite knowing how they work. Especially against cheesy phantasm builds.

With other classes like certain ranger builds and necros they aren’t so difficult.

Fighting a mesmer however is more challenging then any other class because they have two of the hardest mechanics to fight against. Clones and stealth, plus they have their blocks, teleports and invulnerabilities.

Constantly having to retarget the right mesmer is very annoying and really cuts your effectiveness.

Not necessarily OP, but they have a wide array of utilities and skills that can make them amazing at almost any role.

Exactly what I was saying earlier. It’s the mechanic that’s hard to play against. It’s inherently challenging. Same with stealth.

Nobody quakes at a ranger pet, a necro death shroud, engineer kits… whatever. Those mechanics are not hard to understand and they do not require special skilled play to surmount.

I know exactly what mesmers are doing, when theyre doing it, how to counter it, when to dodge and when to attack. That said, mesmers are by far the hardest class to beat if they’re on an equal skill level.

Darek.1836:

I know exactly what mesmers are doing, when theyre doing it, how to counter it, when to dodge and when to attack. That said, mesmers are by far the hardest class to beat if they’re on an equal skill level.

Right, we excel 1v1, but so what? every class has a role. Doesn’t make it OP.

Warriors are OP because they kill slave driver in less than 10 seconds.

Eles are OP because they have lots of boons and regen

Guardians are OP because they hav ea lot of reflect and protection skills.

Thieves are OP at skipping content because of stealth.

Rangers are OP (Lol!) because they destroy underwater

Get the point? Sure, mesmers can take you 1v1. But what do I do when I get to a tower? I sit there trying to pull off an unsuspecting enemy, that’s it. PvE, usually more than 1 mesmer is a waste, all you really need is the utility.

Mesmer’s aren’t “OP” because more often than not you lose to one 1v1.

Ethics.4519:

Darek.1836:

I know exactly what mesmers are doing, when theyre doing it, how to counter it, when to dodge and when to attack. That said, mesmers are by far the hardest class to beat if they’re on an equal skill level.

Right, we excel 1v1, but so what? every class has a role. Doesn’t make it OP.

Warriors are OP because they kill slave driver in less than 10 seconds.

Eles are OP because they have lots of boons and regen

Guardians are OP because they hav ea lot of reflect and protection skills.

Thieves are OP at skipping content because of stealth.

Rangers are OP (Lol!) because they destroy underwater

Get the point? Sure, mesmers can take you 1v1. But what do I do when I get to a tower? I sit there trying to pull off an unsuspecting enemy, that’s it. PvE, usually more than 1 mesmer is a waste, all you really need is the utility.

Mesmer’s aren’t “OP” because more often than not you lose to one 1v1.

And mesmer is one of the few classes welcome into the ‘PvE- Meta’.

Being great at 1v1 is not a role, as much as you think a warrior’s role could be to kill a person in CoF. I’m guessing your post was mostly lighthearted but I shall reply anyway.

You do realize it is very likely and plausible a class can be OP in a 1v1 setting right?
Especially bearing in mind Anet has specifically stated they balance around team fights, and team fights only. It is why warriors can be powerful in team fights, yet without someone to hold their hand they can fall pretty hard when solo.

Whether Mesmer is balanced or not, there is a very large and general consensus that it is OP and viewed as such in all game modes. I remember recently I entered a duel server for kicks and not one person there would even bother dueling a mesmer, because there was no point for them, these servers are often ruled by mesmers anyway.

Now I don’t care much either way, seeing as I main a warrior and I know that I’m in too bad of a spot and anything would seem OP to me, so I don’t pass judgement on mesmers but, think about this…

One of the classes consistently called OP by a lot of the community is mesmers nowadays. There is a bunch of players out there saying this, some who play mesmer and some who don’t.

If there is a very large proportion of players who are saying 1 class is too hard to beat, more so griped than any other class there is two conclusions to draw.

Either Mesmer really is OP in certain settings and needs a tone down, or the mesmer community is more skilled than the other players and it is a L2P issue.

The latter sounds unlikely, so the former could be drawn to be the case, either way I don’t care much, its just a game anyway lol, Anet will nerf what they deem OP and they get final say not us.

(Human mind is also to factor here. Consider this, the two most hated professions in this game are Mesmer and Thief, this is undeniable, there stigma is very apparent all over the forums. I would think this is due to being very ‘cheese’ in their victories. Now I’ve played both so I don’t mean it in a demeaning way I more so mean, they have styles which are literally built to rob the other player of a victory, hence their unique lore-wise concepts too.

How does this play into all of this? The most popular 1v1 matchup I’ve seen (In terms of likeability) is Warrior vs Warrior, and I believe this is mostly due to the warrior having very direct mechanics and abilities which are easy to see and keep track of, thus every warrior victory is earning in the eyes of people, being able to distinguish each move made as a skillful play to the point they can support each play skill for skill.
If you think of it in these terms, it makes sense that those classes built for direct combat are more popular on a spectrum of popularity (I mean this not as played, but liked among other classes, we know mesmers are very popular as a class to pick) and reputation heading downward in these two factors to culminate at the least liked 2 to be the most ‘cheese’ classes, the thief and mesmer.)

These are just theories, happy posting

PistolWhip.2697:

Human mind is also to factor here. Consider this, the two most hated professions in this game are Mesmer and Thief, this is undeniable, there stigma is very apparent all over the forums. I would think this is due to being very ‘cheese’ in their victories. Now I’ve played both so I don’t mean it in a demeaning way I more so mean, they have styles which are literally built to rob the other player of a victory, hence their unique lore-wise concepts too.

This was my favorite part of your post. I think it’s spot-on.

Because in early game, nobody is versed enough to predict, dodge, anticipate and recognize skills.

When players evolve as a community, obvious and clunky animations on warrior become easy to spot, I’d say that’s why they should revisit a lot of nerfs on classes.

Asura shatter mesmer is thief level cheap. The two of them are why I don’t run zerker on my mesmer, or without toolkit or elixer s on my engineer.

So you are saying that because a GC class can wreck you when you go GC… It is automatically OP? Wow… Logic right?

Zoser.7245:

Again, and again, and again the same question. Have you read the tons of posts with the same question before post one more?

Mesmer is the cheapest class in this game. Ai deals most of your damage for you from range while you have short cool down teleports as well as in-vulnerabilities. Not to mention you can also stealth.

To the argument you can’t stealth much…. You can easily take torch, decoy, mass invisibility, and the trait to cloak at 25% to have a pretty decent up time of stealth. This isn’t including the benefits you gain from using stealth if you trait right. I have tried this in sPvP going with a retaliation spec. It is insanely easy to kill people with and still leave the fight with >75% health. Elementalists will kill themselves in a couple of skills just from the retaliation damage they will receive by hitting your clones/phantasms. Not to mention I have constant regeneration/protection (at least 50-75% up time)/other boons as well.

This is not a case of people claiming something is OP and it is some mediocre thing. This is not the “Beta Warrior” phase where no one knows how to dodge. The Mesmer is by far one of the easiest classes to do well with. Stand at range and use skill 4 with greatsword + 4 with offhand pistol will kill a baddie. Against a decent person, you might have to shatter a couple of times. Against a skilled person you have to pay attention somewhat to win.

The Mesmer class is a problem and is stupidly strong in the current version of the game. The majority of this Mesmer forum will down play this so you can stay on top. It is understandable I suppose. It sucks being on the bottom in terms of power. Try playing a Warrior in sPvP and you will see where skill comes in.

I don’t play mesmer,
I play something like BM regen ranger bunker.
In 1v1 I never defeated skilled Mesmer. I’m here, because I was curious how mesmer forums looks like
I saw only 1 topic where is discussion about potentially mesmer OP.
and as for now I cann onlyy sum the aall this topic right this:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself,
you will succumb in every battle”
just replace “battle” with “duel”

Vanthian.9267:

The Mesmer class is a problem and is stupidly strong in the current version of the game.

Only in the meaningless side-game-mode you choose to play. Play the “real” game and there’s a host of issues which need fixing, both on the overpowered and on the underpowered side. As goes for every class, pretty much. Even Rangers.

If you are any other class that cant stealth,teleport, break out of stun/immobilize, teleport stomp, access to best elites in the game, 2 sec invulnerability on 10 sec cool down, etc..then yes..mesmer is OP

If you play a mesmer and think it’s your skill that is helping you win..then no..it’s not OP

Sums up every Op class in every mmorpg. I’m surprised the devs aren’t bored playing the class and decided to balance it by now.

Then you must have not read any of the patch notes since launch, XII. Our main point is that we never get our broken stuff fixed, because we are instead getting nerf after nerf every patch.

Deserved or not (sPvPers I’ll never get, they play a game mode which cannot be balanced in the genre they play it in and complain about imbalance, well duh), it’s annoying if you have half your traits be an unusable mess, and don’t get me started on the Phantasms.

Mesmers aren’t OP, they are cheap!
lol troll!

Honestly, Mesmer is OP, just not at all to the extent suggested.

Mesmer is so stromg due to their abundant stunbreakers/stealth and trash clones which create physical barriers between enemies allowing them to run full zerker stats and maintain very significant survivability.

Shatter combo’s are capable of near instantaneous takedowns and the iDuelist is extremely hard to counter whilst hitting very hard.

Realistically, mind wrack and the iDuelist should scale slightly lessefficiently with power to balancethis.

Stop complaining and wait to see how everything balances in the upcomming patch. Mes is fine as is atm though. I beat them on my non-mes classes all the time. Learn the mechanics and you’ll be able to as well.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Honestly, Mesmer is OP, just not at all to the extent suggested.

Correction:
Mesmers are too strong in sPvP due to the reasons given by you.

Our issues are really manifold, as are our strong points. However, in each game mode (sPvP / WvW / PvE) they are different, and individually only 2-3 abilities are too strong in each mode. If they were to nerf them all, that’d have 4-6 abilities (more, because there’s plenty already) woefully underpowered in the other game modes.

They are most definitely overpowered…

I only think there are two instances where mesmers can be considered overpowered:

1. Max damage phantasm build in 1v1 duel.
- Needs no explaining, but even so they are not unbeatable. I do believe phantasm damage traits should be looked at though.

2. Illusions and the game’s targeting system.
- If there were NO illusions, just the mesmer, even with all the active defence they would be easy.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s easy to target a mesmer. However illusions add to visual clutter, passive offence through retaliation or on death conditions, and passive defence through other traits, and there will be times when you do not have them targeted and will have to retarget them – any second where you do not have the mesmer targeted adds to their survivability. I’m not going into mesmer stealth because we only have 4 skills, with an average stealth rotation time of around 15 seconds, and I consider that to be perfectly fair. However this does become compounded with the illusion screen clutter, when a mesmer stealths.

Otherwise I believe there is no problem at all – bunker build? Plenty of other classes doing that too.

Blurred frenzy damage is moderate in any build with passive defence – I do not understand the complaints about this skill.
Distortion has a long cooldown on its own, and yes you can get more of it but at cost of traits and signet of illusions.
Shattering is such an active mechanic – it requires a lot of skill to use properly. In my opinion pure shatter builds are the hardest build to play.

Everything comes at a cost buildwise – every mesmer build will have a weakness.
The challenge is trying to determine what kind of mesmer it is while you are fighting them (because of the build variety), and it is not obvious at first glance.

A build/class/playstyle doesn’t need to be totally unbeatable to be overpowered. If there’s a build that doesn’t sacrifice enough for its huge gains, or is just way too simple (i.e. cheap) to pull out, is considered OP. If a build’s weaknesses don’t match up with their strengths, the build is OP.
Mesmers, at their current state are exactly that. Of course, it’s natural for the mesmer community to be defensive about it.
Remeber being OP is not equal to being god mode!

I’ve been ignored
about that argument with bunkers that every class can run bunker…
why only mesmer bunker in wvw can take a camp in recordive time?
once my bunker mesmer friend have teken the camp in less than minute (he masakrated guards in less than half) – and after that told me that mesmers are weak – good joke… my bunker characters need twice of this time to kill just the guards (and start to killing supervisor) – so if it’s bunker and everyone can run bunker, so I’m asking why this bunker deals at least 6 times greater damage per second against multiple foes than any other bunker?

You know there is no class without weaknesses and it’s not like that class is OP only when it’s unkillable/no weaknesses etc. it can be slightly OP, or just “op”
as for me mesmers belong to group of classes that have one “OPness” to all the rest – they can run bunker that is very difficult to kill even in group – and still their damage is still great.

natural should be that if You pick more survivability You should sacrifice some overall damage for it(and back picking damage sacrifice survi). so fully bunker would deal a little of dmg, and fully damager would have very low survivability.
but as for now some classes (not only mesmers)have that issue that they canrun fully bunker and still outdamage some damage builds
(and players playing it still mostly see it as weak class :P)

Vanthian.9267:

Zoser.7245:

Again, and again, and again the same question. Have you read the tons of posts with the same question before post one more?

Mesmer is the cheapest class in this game. Ai deals most of your damage for you from range while you have short cool down teleports as well as in-vulnerabilities. Not to mention you can also stealth.

To the argument you can’t stealth much…. You can easily take torch, decoy, mass invisibility, and the trait to cloak at 25% to have a pretty decent up time of stealth. This isn’t including the benefits you gain from using stealth if you trait right. I have tried this in sPvP going with a retaliation spec. It is insanely easy to kill people with and still leave the fight with >75% health. Elementalists will kill themselves in a couple of skills just from the retaliation damage they will receive by hitting your clones/phantasms. Not to mention I have constant regeneration/protection (at least 50-75% up time)/other boons as well.

This is not a case of people claiming something is OP and it is some mediocre thing. This is not the “Beta Warrior” phase where no one knows how to dodge. The Mesmer is by far one of the easiest classes to do well with. Stand at range and use skill 4 with greatsword + 4 with offhand pistol will kill a baddie. Against a decent person, you might have to shatter a couple of times. Against a skilled person you have to pay attention somewhat to win.

The Mesmer class is a problem and is stupidly strong in the current version of the game. The majority of this Mesmer forum will down play this so you can stay on top. It is understandable I suppose. It sucks being on the bottom in terms of power. Try playing a Warrior in sPvP and you will see where skill comes in.

erm….well most of us don’t trait into the 25%
i prefer using my human hounds
i don’t use decoy
most people do not use torch
i do not have a clone on dodge

but yeah thats right,I DONT PLAY SPVP!
u guys want nerfs over and over and forget that your crying affects wvw players wayyyyy too much. a warrior is pretty strong in wvw and a roaming thief pretty deadly, so yeah lets seperate spvp from wvw a little.
in spvp it is easier to go for power builds…when glam was still viable in wvw i went to spvp with the same build once to try it out and it is not viable at all.
if u take a phantasm mesmer to wvw your phantasms die very quickly in a zerg and with all the siege.

i agree with u that in spvp mesmers are very very strong, but in wvw u cant just choose the same utilities as in spvp. its almost a must to have nullfield, for the cleansing…if 20 people are attacking u, retal will not save you if u dont have people with u. the confusion nerf down to spvp level was pretty much the kill for many many viable wvw builds. not everyone likes using power builds…i prefer conditions, cc and punishing mindless zergers….

still good mesmer in wvw can solo-out a phew players with his phantasm/clones (there are situations when those are harder to kill tha mesmer himself
and Yes I have to admit – every ewentually balance would be separatelly for PvE, sPvP and WvW because balancing everything by one of this modes will create bigimbalance in the others.

“It takes more skill to beat a mesmer, than it takes to play one.”

PistolWhip.2697:

“It takes more skill to beat a mesmer, than it takes to play one.”

- Thief.

How does that maxim work when it’s Mes v. Mes? Does the space-time continuum explode?

No, a thief is generated who global-ganks them both, then complains how overpowered they are.