Guild Wars 2

Trying again to play shatter, my only motivation ow nice my mesmer looks in his chronomancer outfit.

Every game I’ve played today has been a 4v5 on my end. Simply because no one can kill celestial classes. I play as aggressive as I can with them and wait for water attunement to burst. And even with that they still don’t die, both classes just outlast me.

How do I kill them?

Aylpse.6280:

Trying again to play shatter, my only motivation ow nice my mesmer looks in his chronomancer outfit.

Every game I’ve played today has been a 4v5 on my end. Simply because no one can kill celestial classes. I play as aggressive as I can with them and wait for water attunement to burst. And even with that they still don’t die, both classes just outlast me.

In both games, they proceed to trash talk in a 500-64 4v5. I can turn off chat but I still see it and it wont stop. Its bad enough I’ve struggled emotionally in the 1k hours on my Mesmer because no matter what I do, I cant win.

I’ve put over 2000 hours into my mesmer. Mesmer is a class that isn’t good against attrition or thieves. I’m mainly a wvw roamer and yes I’ve struggled against various builds/classes. At the end of the day you have to realize that mesmer is broken and won’t ever really be fixed, just have to work with what you’ve got. I tried killing a turret engineer the other night and it was extremely frustrating. Would you mind posting a link to your build if possible?

Jedge.3619:

I’ve put over 2000 hours into my mesmer. Mesmer is a class that isn’t good against attrition or thieves. I’m mainly a wvw roamer and yes I’ve struggled against various builds/classes. At the end of the day you have to realize that mesmer is broken and won’t ever really be fixed, just have to work with what you’ve got. I tried killing a turret engineer the other night and it was extremely frustrating. Would you mind posting a link to your build if possible?

Standard GS/S/F Shatter.

If they dodge your shatters, yes, otherwise you may win too some duels.

Burst damage isn’t particularly effective against cele builds. They have too much defense to be burst down (generally speaking) and enough sustain to heal it back up inbetween bursts. The way to kill them is continued boon strip and damage pressure. Not easy to do on shatter, but possible.

Take staff instead of sword and mantra of resolve instead of portal will make dueling against dd ele and cele engi much more manageable.

Staff applies constant damage pressure from auto attack and a decent phantasm while you kite away. Mantra of resolve helps you deal with the nasty burn/poison before you heal.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlknpRttpxQNcrNCrBh6rslfSyEEgS2hrB-TJRHwAC3fIZZABnCAAPBAA

You’re welcome. I never have issues against cele ele or cle engi 1v1 using this build. Maim the Meta.

The only thing besides thief (or a good condi ranger) that will give you trouble is cele Warrior, but that’s only if your 4 teammates completely suck. With this build, your shatters alone will be on par with their condi cleanses. Better yet, you’ll be ripping ungodly amounts of boons from them, which will render them pretty useless at being “bruisers”.

Edited to add:
I’ve noticed that Elementalists seem to be go into panic mode when you return that nasty burn they have such easy access to right back at them! Make sure you steal some great upkeep of protection and vigor while you’re at it! It forces them into water really quickly.

Just want to elaborate on what Exciton said, while staff auto (with zerk amulet) can apply constant pressure against other zerk builds, this isn’t exactly the case against celestial builds due to their accessibility to heals/burst heals. I think you should play aggressively after you successfully burst celestial builds and use staff for defensive manoeuvers.

Also try scepter+x/staff maim build if you feel like something new. The accessibility to 5+ torment is a real test for D/D ele/celestial engi’s skill in condi clear rotations, and any mistake they made can be very punishing. Not so much when you face celestial turret engi who just stand in the same spot though…

MailMail.6534:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlknpRttpxQNcrNCrBh6rslfSyEEgS2hrB-TJRHwAC3fIZZABnCAAPBAA

You’re welcome. I never have issues against cele ele or cle engi 1v1 using this build. Maim the Meta.

The only thing besides thief (or a good condi ranger) that will give you trouble is cele Warrior, but that’s only if your 4 teammates completely suck. With this build, your shatters alone will be on par with their condi cleanses. Better yet, you’ll be ripping ungodly amounts of boons from them, which will render them pretty useless at being “bruisers”.

dam you got there before me xD

Exciton.8942:

Take staff instead of sword and mantra of resolve instead of portal will make dueling against dd ele and cele engi much more manageable.

Staff applies constant damage pressure from auto attack and a decent phantasm while you kite away. Mantra of resolve helps you deal with the nasty burn/poison before you heal.

Staff does horrendous damage unless you stack condi damage and even then it has a large ramp up to condition stacks. Playing power amulet/stats with a staff weapon is just using the staff for kiting purposes, not damage ones.

Staff autoattacks are as kittencepter autoattacks in terms of tooltip damage and coefficients. It’s really just used for its defensive properties.

EDIT: This forum has the most absurd censoring system I’ve ever seen in any game forum. “bad az scepter” (replaces s for z) apparently can be construed as profanity.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

MailMail.6534:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlknpRttpxQNcrNCrBh6rslfSyEEgS2hrB-TJRHwAC3fIZZABnCAAPBAA

You’re welcome. I never have issues against cele ele or cle engi 1v1 using this build. Maim the Meta.

The only thing besides thief (or a good condi ranger) that will give you trouble is cele Warrior, but that’s only if your 4 teammates completely suck. With this build, your shatters alone will be on par with their condi cleanses. Better yet, you’ll be ripping ungodly amounts of boons from them, which will render them pretty useless at being “bruisers”.

dam you got there before me xD

This is what I use on ChoKawaii. She hurts people, and I get people complaining against me calling me cheese and PU all the time. I take it as a compliment. Re: your point about turret engis. In that case, I let them have the point and just use a rotation of Staff Clones —> F3 Shatter for the vuln —> Confusion stacks with iMage/Confusing Images —> Back to Staff Clones stacking bleeds.

The great thing about Maim is that you you give them a choice on how they would like to die. Either you move around and chase me over the point and die from torment/confusion. Or you can sit there, not move, not use skills and die from bleeds being constantly stacked. People should be happy that I’m giving them a choice in the first place!!

Boon strip. iDisenchanter always have a special spot for me.

This phantasm is going to be even more useful with the new stability.

Aylpse.6280:

Jedge.3619:

I’ve put over 2000 hours into my mesmer. Mesmer is a class that isn’t good against attrition or thieves. I’m mainly a wvw roamer and yes I’ve struggled against various builds/classes. At the end of the day you have to realize that mesmer is broken and won’t ever really be fixed, just have to work with what you’ve got. I tried killing a turret engineer the other night and it was extremely frustrating. Would you mind posting a link to your build if possible?

Standard GS/S/F Shatter.

Try this build and see how you do – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8flknpRtlpxINcrNipxg6yqbOSGQDlslxB-TpBFwACuAAy3fo9BBYxRAoaZAAPAAA

For ele’s at least, double ranged boonstrip shatter, with mantra daze, IMO is the only way to really do it.

Stay alive and dish out as much damage as you can to force a water attunement swap, it’s here where you want to do a bulk of ur DPS. Daze when they attune, and follow through with a GS shatter burst.

Keep the pressure up as they’ll try to heal, you could stagger ur f3 at this point and try get a nice chain off on them. Other than that I can only suggest trying to take them on with a panic thief or something.

As a standard shatter mesmer, I can surprise-burst celes as a good opener when roaming. In duels it’s extremely hard as they can easily dodge your shatter skills had about 10 games with a cele and only won 2.

MailMail.6534:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlknpRttpxQNcrNCrBh6rslfSyEEgS2hrB-TJRHwAC3fIZZABnCAAPBAA

You’re welcome. I never have issues against cele ele or cle engi 1v1 using this build. Maim the Meta.

The only thing besides thief (or a good condi ranger) that will give you trouble is cele Warrior, but that’s only if your 4 teammates completely suck. With this build, your shatters alone will be on par with their condi cleanses. Better yet, you’ll be ripping ungodly amounts of boons from them, which will render them pretty useless at being “bruisers”.

Edited to add:
I’ve noticed that Elementalists seem to be go into panic mode when you return that nasty burn they have such easy access to right back at them! Make sure you steal some great upkeep of protection and vigor while you’re at it! It forces them into water really quickly.

Oh I gotta try that, there go my badges again.
On the other hand it could be that you just are a very good mesmer player, in that case changing my build wont help me much =)

I’d like to think I’m a pretty good Mesmer, but sometimes even a skilled player can have a hard time against certain builds. I think the cele meta has challenged a lot of people even when their skill level is a bit higher than their opponents.

Hopefully you have better luck with that build. Boon strip combined with overwhelming condi pressure is the hard-counter to cele engi/ele. Let us know your results.

Here are my thoughts:
Ele will not go down to sustained DPS. What will kill it is either
a) high burst (which you need 2 people to do or you need to be extremely lucky that they don’t have protection and that you crit on all your shatters, get air/fire proc all that good stuff) basically something that will 100-0 them, or get them low so you can finish them off somewhat easily.
b) Burst followed by sustained damage and then another burst.
Sustained DPS can do it but burst is more likely to do so I’d say.

Engis do not have as much access to heals so they go down much, much easier than eles. 1 well timed burst is all it takes or a bit of a cc chain when you know they blew their elixir or the slick shoes stuff. Also if you manage to interrupt the heal (which is hard as hell but doable) you can easily win if you follow it up with a burst or just a bit more damage.
I can beat a lot of d/d eles 1v1, and I don’t mean the bad ones, I’ve friends who have thousands of hours on ele and they still die to me. It isn’t a quick fight of course, takes a lot of kiting from my part and making sure to secure the kill. I do die to them too but I win more(because of boon rip). I think with sw/t it’s a lot harder, staff is nice because the clones add extra pressure which combined with burst can tear through their defenses with a bit of time.
My advice is to keep practicing fighting eles and engineers 1v1, start off with bad ones then move your way up. Thats how I learned to 1v1 them. Eles and engis are actually one of the few classes that I know well how to fight 1v1, otherwise I’ve not practiced 1v1 against the other classes much (except thief and deeps guard) but I still do beat them from what I know that Helseth, Misha & Supcutie taught me. I’d probably loose to a top ele/engi still, I’ve not fought any so I can’t really tell but then again, you’re not getting them in your matches either.
I will do class specific 1v1 matchups after I put my sw/t vs staff video out and I’ll try to put ele first.
I don’t think you should swap to a condi build to deal with eles. Play shatter and learn to kill them with it, plus condi builds are boring
You said you’re retrying mesmer so that is a big issue and the fact that you said they outlast you means two things
Either you’re not putting in enough damage to kill them while kiting them (so that you mess up before you kill them) or you are playing mesmer like a warrior and tank their stuff which is something you should not do. If you’re 1v1ing with mesmer you spend a lot of time kiting, line of sighting ect.
If you want I can help you out in game with this in more detail.

Aylpse.6280:

How do I kill them?

Kill them before they kill you

The big mistake everyone here is making is focusing on burst damage. Bunkers are built specifically to counter that. Instead, I use a condi build and engage in a war of attrition. I find very few are capable of outcleansing/outhealing my dps.

Ele is a condi cleansing machine tbh, a well played ele has to be burst down I think that’s why thieves are the best class to counter them and maybe a good necro who can boonstrip and immediately condition spike while they’re locked in cc.

Celestial engineer is pretty easy to kill if you don’t make mistakes. Open with a good burst, or with diversion if you play Halting Strikes. You won’t be able to interrupt his heal, but you can mess up his timing with a well-timed Diversion. Don’t underestimate your F2: even with berserker amulet, you have 6 points in Illusions to boost your condi damage and confusion really ruins engineers. If they carelessly block with gear shield, make them eat a whole unblockable melee GS2, see if they like that. Keep them at range in-between your melee bursts. Keep Blink for Slick Shoes: your CD is lower. Keep Decoy and Distortion in case you were to eat an OS (dodge Magnet Pull, it’s not that hard). Use Mantra of Resolve if you’re in soloq: Portal is not worth it. Try to keep it for the rifle immob and the Pry Bar confusion stack.

While I can’t speak for shatter, there most definatly not unkillable, Infact i don’t have much trouble against them Atall with my 0/6/2/0/6 condi build