Guild Wars 2

First of all: Im a newbie, so correct me if im wrong with this but:

Now that I reached level 30 and can see all the (unlockable) mesmer abilites I somehow am disappointed in them.

I like the style of the class and the general concept behind it, I like the weapons and their abilities but the other ones? I barely use them. Most of them seem rather gimmickly than great, like ports and invisibility fields. Those are amazing ideas but implemented in a boring maybe even useless way.

When you compare that to other classes, the warrior for example you read every ability description and think “Wow thats great”, “Nice very useful in certain situations”.

With the mesmer I most of the time think “When am I supposed to use this? Only when running away…maybe…”

Am I wrong about this? Will I change my mind once I fully understand the class mechanics? Or should I rather switch the class now (something I really dont want) before Im annoyed for the next 50 levels?

Every mesmer utility is useful somewhere and they can be extremely powerful. It’s the nature of the class that many effects can be subtle or tricky, just as it’s the nature of the warrior to be very explicit about what everything does.

I think you’ll have no problem learning them later on and many aren’t so important at level 30 anyway. I’d recommend trying out things like feedback, blink and decoy for now, but experiment!

You’ll likely change your mind as you progress. Though they look odd in theory, in practice they’re… odd. But that’s the point.

Many Mesmer abilities are all about the creativity of the user, while some samples for many abilities are in the stickied Mesmer guide, it’s going to be up to you to figure out when and where to use them. I’ve been playing Mesmer since launch and there’s still some traits/abilities I’m discovering uses for (like Mimic), and I know I’m definitely not the only one.

And Portal/Blink ROCKS. Go try it.. I’ll wait here.

once u hit 80 and get to try out all kind of different traits/builds u gonna see that u need nearly every skill depending on what u r, for example kittenterer(someone who keeps destroying clones w f1-4) will need tons of clone generating skills,

if u ask for portal or invicibility , people use portals in dungeons to suppport /save ur team or in wvw u put a portal, sneak and run into enemy base, portal again > 20 ppl can come thro portal and charge the enemy base w a suprise atk.

i personally hated lvling and slacked off in pvp and wasted time kinda:p but hey, it was fun,

btw if u could tell wich skills u mean r useless…

mesmer has the most different for all situation utilitys in game in my opinion and i love that and mix up everything

kittenterer > supposed to be shatterer, got no idea how it changed to that lol

Hard to pick out any as useless – different situations suit different skills better, nevermind what can be achieved through traits and creative gameplay.

Illusion of Life is a kittene to justify though – if I had to pick out one skill I see no value in over everything else, it would be this. Cooldown is ridiculous, and better support options are available.

But in other cases, for example untraited feedback vs a melee warrior has almost no value other than a combo field, but in a large crowd with many projectiles flying around it suddenly gains hugely in value – just need to swap out skills regularly depending on situation.

Having said all that, the two wonderful crutches that are blink and decoy almost never leave my skill bar – blink only leaves when underwater.

I slotted a traited Arcane Thievery today in WvW and it blew my mind (1200m condition/boon swap on 32s c/d). I would use it every time some clever opponent popped stability (yay free stability for me!). Made me giggle.

Curunen.8729:

Hard to pick out any as useless – different situations suit different skills better, nevermind what can be achieved through traits and creative gameplay.

Illusion of Life is a kittene to justify though – if I had to pick out one skill I see no value in over everything else, it would be this. Cooldown is ridiculous, and better support options are available.

But in other cases, for example untraited feedback vs a melee warrior has almost no value other than a combo field, but in a large crowd with many projectiles flying around it suddenly gains hugely in value – just need to swap out skills regularly depending on situation.

Having said all that, the two wonderful crutches that are blink and decoy almost never leave my skill bar – blink only leaves when underwater.

A group of 5 Mesmers, each using Veil and Mass-invisibility. You now have 45seconds of stealth, with only a down time of 40seconds, for your 5man group.

Separately MI and Veil look boring, but the synergy for stealth movement is unparalleled.

There is ALOT of synergy with the Mesmer’s skills/traits. You just gotta look at them subjectively.

@Andolas
You should check out the Builds & Guides thread. Mesmer is the most versatile class in GW2 and warrior is the most boring (IMO). However mesmer was probably the weirdest leveling experience until 40-50, then it really starts to get fun. Like many others have pointed out the popular utilities are manipulations and glamour…
Only other thing to add is GW2 is pretty unique in you can gear any class as dps or tank/anchor. And if you like playing support roles guardian or mesmer is king, not counting combo field group dynamics… And mesmers have the best boon stripping abilities hands down. good luck, have fun

What I find lovely about Mesmer is that you have utils for every situation. Running or skipping? Put in stealth + stability + blink. Need condition cleanse? Tons available. Need Reflections? Got that too. Need straight dps? Empowering mantras + mantra of pain has you covered. Need more tankiness? Phantasmal defender has you covered.

In dungeons, I find myself switching utilities for literally every encounter with mesmer. There is always some combination which is a little bit better, depending on what you’re going to face. Compared to my ele and warrior, which are much more static in their util choices, I really like the dynamic nature of the class.

Though you’re absolutely right— it did take a long time to realize that these things were actually useful

There are arguably some Utilities that I do still find to be a bit of a drag to use, namely Mantras. It’s not that they aren’t good, as they can be traited to heal and provide you as well as your team with support, but the cast time on them.. too long for my liking. Running in a circle to avoid interrupts and damage and/or standing still for nearly 3 seconds to channel them up can be a bit.. well boring, in an otherwise very active profession. Just wish the channeling of them would be a bit faster. Again though, that’s not to say they aren’t useful, they’re just boring (to me).

Pretty much all the other Utilities are excellent however. Admittedly I do tend to fall back on Decoy, Arcane Thievery and Blink though. And I would in some ways say our Elites aren’t the most exciting in the world, I hardly ever actually use the Elite skill I got slotted.

Mass Invisibility is to me on of the better ones, but that too isn’t exactly exciting. It’s just a slightly long stealth, more of a “Crud, I got to get out of here” kind of thing. It does make for a, once-every-so-often, stomp denial too though. Someone on your team get downed? Is your enemies trying to stomp your friend? Quickly pop Mass Invisibility and resurrect them. A bit limited in use, but it works fairly often. Time Warp, while cool on paper, isn’t all that useful in my book either. It is a Ethereal field, a massive one, which is nice if you wish to get Chaos Armor on people, and it does speed you (and your clones/allies) up, but overall, I find its effect:CD ratio to be a little bit too poor to be considered an Elite skill. Moa, while funny, is rather useless. The person you Moa can zip away instantly, evading everything you throw at them, so beyond it looking funny, it’s actually a rather terrible Elite in my opinion. Perhaps good against those that don’t know what skills they get on their bar, and to take one person out of the equation for a limited time, but otherwise rather pointless. I somewhat wish there would be some improvement done to the Elite skills, but other than that, Mesmer is by far the profession I find the most fun to play, and the one I play the most actively in combat as. Dodging all the time, Shattering, using every skill I got at my disposal.

On a slightly related note, while it makes sense, I do find the reliance on having illusions up for traits and utilities to be more effective (or useful at all, I’m looking at you Signet of Ether), whilst these clones are so squishy (one-hit kills in most cases), to be a bit of an annoyance as well. I also dislike that your illusions are not displayed with your buffs when targeted (they are super squishy, it is easy to notice you are not hitting the right target). I guess it may be a wee bit too overpowered if it isn’t easy to spot the Mesmer beyond noticing how movement is done, but any experienced player will have you targeted as the real Mesmer within the blink of an eye, because of the buffs (e.g., Bloodlust/Guard Stacks) not showing on your illusions. At least they show your title now, and at least enemies can’t see your World Completion star, but overall, that doesn’t do much when food buffs and stacking ones are only displayed on the real player. I absolutely loathe how Deceptive Evasion creates a clone on the closest target to you, not who you have targeted, making Shatters less effective in several cases. Illusionary Leap has been severely bugged since, well forever, with slight slopes making the clone just run in the spot it spawns, then slowly running over to your target, highly ineffective. Our blinks has a tendency to once in a while send us into the void as well (as in, fall through the geometry). Several of our attacks require us to look pin-perfect directly at our targets too, if the side-strafe just the slightest, our attack goes on a small CD to recover. Examples of this is Mirror Blade on the Greatsword. Another skill on the Greatsword that’s pretty inconsistent is the Illusionary Wave. It advertises knocking your target with a distance of 450, but all too often does it just knock them in the spot they’re standing in. At least it seems to always work on thieves in Shadow Refuge, so at least it’s consistent there.

The profession has it’s problems, but it’s still a very fun one. It really starts to shine around Lv.40. It was my first character to 80, and while I have switched my main to other professions from time to time, I always find myself going back to Mesmer.

Above are excellent answers, but I still want to add sonething for Mimic.

Mimic is… Its quite usefull in some situations, but very unreliable unless you pay alot of attention to it, and plan it out. Which is really difficult in pvp combat.

After absorbing a projectile, it lets you block all other attacks, for 4 seconds. Combined with reliatory shield, or runes of the guardian, you can stack alot of burn/retaliation.

But if you dont block a projectile, you stand there getting hit for 4 seconds, doing nothing.

Maybe it works in duels with staff clones, but so far my succes rate in 3v3 is about 5% :/.

Problem with mesmer utilities is that they are all in synergy with builds, you must learn how to use them with traits and gameplays eg. Mirror images itself is defensive utility but combined with shatter build its become extremely offensive.