Guild Wars 2

Topic.

I have invested time into Reaper, but I am not liking the class as much as I though I would…

Leveling up a Mesmer has been a pain, so I’m racking up Experience Tomes, in the hopes it might be what I’m looking for: a mainly DPS class.

Forget the mesmer, you do not like the reaper? Change classes, but lose leaves mesmer.
Take it from someone who plays virtually only mesmer.

What don’t you like about reaper? I would think about that and ask in a general forum what class does not have the aspects of reaper you do not like. I would not say mesmer is a pure dps class, it is more support imo.

Mesmer…DPS class…must, not, laugh.

Ok that’s a bit harsh but really mesmer is outclassed by most things for a dps build. Try ele if you want a dps class which is usually going to be a solid pick whatever happens.

Other good options are warriors, guards, thieves and engineers for DPS and all but thief can bring a lot of other things to the table at the same time.

For one, Mesmers are [imho] the most difficult class to level as they are highly dependent on their traits.

Second, Mesmer is not a DPS class by a long shot. They excel at buffing other team members and act as Swiss Army knives for various utilities.

Bringing a Mesmer for DPS is like bringing a golf club to a tennis match.

The very core mechanic of this class contradicts the idea of DPS.

Mesmers have traditionally played DPS for years. It’s only after recent patches that the play style fell out of favour. You guys already probably know this, so why are all being facetious?

Matty.1953:

Mesmers have traditionally played DPS for years. It’s only after recent patches that the play style fell out of favour. You guys already probably know this, so why are all being facetious?

Yes, Mesmers did always run full glass in PvE. However, Mesmer’s DPS also always was subpar compared to pretty much all the other classes. Not to mention our DPS has a ramp-up time and can die easily (although the latter part improved quite a bit since they’ve reduced non-targetted damage on player summons/pets). Thus, if you want to play DPS, don’t go for Mesmer. Mesmers were and are only brought for the support they can give, and not for their DPS. Because every other class did/does way more DPS than Mesmer.

Saturn.6591:

Matty.1953:

Mesmers have traditionally played DPS for years. It’s only after recent patches that the play style fell out of favour. You guys already probably know this, so why are all being facetious?

Yes, Mesmers did always run full glass in PvE. However, Mesmer’s DPS also always was subpar compared to pretty much all the other classes. Not to mention our DPS has a ramp-up time and can die easily (although the latter part improved quite a bit since they’ve reduced non-targetted damage on player summons/pets). Thus, if you want to play DPS, don’t go for Mesmer. Mesmers were and are only brought for the support they can give, and not for their DPS. Because every other class did/does way more DPS than Mesmer.

Yeah, but Mesmers have always had some of the highest burst, which has allowed them to fill a dps role. This was especially true before the patch because thieves didn’t dominate the metagame. Pre HoT Mesmers had some of the highest burst. At the start of the game Mesmers had some of the highest burst.

Sure, Mesmers now don’t have some of the highest burst.

highest burst highest burst

@Matty

DPS is/was the number one requirement for PvE content, therefore everyone played it. So did people who enjoy playing Mesmer. That doesn’t mean they’re the best choice for DPS, something the creator of this thread is obviously looking for: A “mainly DPS class”.

The truth is; if you enjoy Mesmer and want to play DPS, go for it. Just don’t expect to be the best at it; rather the opposite is the case, as Saturn indicated. That doesn’t mean you are worthless to your team, though. Mesmers can do stuff.
Wasn’t there a DPS ranking around somewhere (frifox, I summon you!)?

Matty.1953:

Yeah, but Mesmers have always had some of the highest burst, which has allowed them to fill a dps role. This was especially true before the patch because thieves didn’t dominate the metagame. Pre HoT Mesmers had some of the highest burst. At the start of the game Mesmers had some of the highest burst.

Sure, Mesmers now don’t have some of the highest burst.

burst != dps

Mesmer burst = shatter

shatter = garbage in PvE due to extremely low dps

Long version: We have/had some decent burst with shatter, yeah. But burst means you do some big amount of damage at once and then you autoattack. Which other classes do better as well btw. But ya; due to the very nature of burst, dps is usually lower with a burst-build than it is with a dps-build. Dps was always phantasm for Mesmer. With the addition of Chronomancer (read: Chronophantasma), we can also incorporate some shatters (not only shattering to finish a target) into the phantasm-playstyle, though.

Where exactly was it proven that mesmers have trash pve dps I would think a mesmer fully buffed with 3 sword phants going would be pretty sweet on top of the fact that they can shatter now without destorying phant dps. Just curious why its always said that mesmer dps is trash still.

Lalainnia.3598:

Where exactly was it proven that mesmers have trash pve dps I would think a mesmer fully buffed with 3 sword phants going would be pretty sweet on top of the fact that they can shatter now without destorying phant dps. Just curious why its always said that mesmer dps is trash still.

I personally don’t think their DPS is trash, but I do think they aren’t a DPS class. What I mean is, if they want to do some dps, they will be ok, but others will outshine them. I remember playing revenant for the first time and was just shocked at how much more damage I was doing.

But Mesmers themselves are still awesome. What we bring to the table is a lot of options no one else has. Utility. Flexibility. And arguably the best CC build in the game.

I also think they can DPS just fine. Just not top of the line.

Easy, your phamtasms die with your target and then you need summon them again after the cooldowm while other professions rush all plus have more damage, even AoE, that your phantasms. So the only momment where you can aproach your dps to the dps of others is against champions with enough life and legendaries.

The alacrity and SoI was what saved us after the powercreep of HoT in raids. Then they nerfed the alacrity. Now I don’t know because after the nerf I have not played with my mesmer in raids out of the friend/guild environment. Out there…

Morfedel.4165:

But Mesmers themselves are still awesome. What we bring to the table is a lot of options no one else has. Utility. Flexibility. And arguably the best CC build in the game.

I also think they can DPS just fine. Just not top of the line.

I’m agree in the utility and flexibility but not in the CC. Other professions can “chain” CC better than us. Aside, we have some good skills for CC.

Morfedel.4165:

But Mesmers themselves are still awesome. What we bring to the table is a lot of options no one else has. Utility. Flexibility. And arguably the best CC build in the game.

I also think they can DPS just fine. Just not top of the line.

I’d like you to meet my fwend.

I do fractals with 2 fwends…why would I ever bring my mesmer…ever?

Mesmer dps is low. They have decent spike damage though. For dps I wouldnt play mes, but they can be fun, and bring useful tools to the table (just not as much damage as most other professions). If this is for group play, enjoy mes (utility). If you are talking solo, enjoy mes (survivability).

I hope this helps. If I can suggest a profession vastly different from necro that does great damage I’d recommend either the engineer or elementalist. However, a few professions can deal good damage, just not mesmer.

However, on my mesmer, there has yet to be a hero challenge I couldn’t solo in HoT. So it’s not all about damage. (only reaper could manage that with more difficulty) I even just did one while smoking, and on my thief, necro and engie, it was very difficult. I just let the mob focus my clones, while practically afk auto attack with scepter… lol

Mesmer under ideal conditions has lower DPS then any other class just spamming skills.

To get to those ideal conditions you have to wait to you can get 3 sword phantasms up, hope the phantasms don’t die, hope you don’t need to shatter for something and then when the enemy dies set up the 3 phantasms on the next enemy.

Lalainnia.3598:

Where exactly was it proven that mesmers have trash pve dps I would think a mesmer fully buffed with 3 sword phants going would be pretty sweet on top of the fact that they can shatter now without destorying phant dps. Just curious why its always said that mesmer dps is trash still.

It’s been proven all over the place? Just look at any of the dps estimations that have been made since then.

Can you link one please

Lalainnia.3598:

Can you link one please

With 3500 power and 25 vuln on target, a swordsman will crit for 9.4k on average (assuming 2600 armor). Swordsmen hit every 3.5 seconds with phantasmal haste. If you have 3 swordsmen out, that’s on average .857 hits per second. This produces a total of 8k dps.

A condie tempest will easily break 22k dps. Good luck doing 14k personal dps.

Jackums.3496:

Mesmer has one of the lowest DPS outputs of all classes in the game.

Try Ele, Warr or Engi.

It’s not one of the lowest, it’s THE lowest.

Aside from the numbers there are mechanical problems with Mesmers as their damage is split between personal (caster) output vs Phantasmal output.

Phantasms’ damage only inherit raw Attribution points from their caster. Due to how buff prioritization works Illusions rarely, if ever, will get the buffs even those that were generated by the caster herself. What does that mean? All those great buffs and boons like Fury, Quickness, Grace of the Land, Frost Spirit, Alacrity, etc are not inherited by Phantasms and instead require direct application to benefit from the buff. Even in a 5 man team the majority, if not all, of the team’s buffs are going straight to players and will skip over Mesmer’s Illusions.

On top of that things like Salad Nourishments, Force/Slaying sigils, and Slaying Potions only apply to the casters direct damage and do not get passed onto your illusions. So where someone like a Tempest gets the full 10% damage boost on all of their skills Mesmers get about 4-6% realistically since their damage output is shared with what their Phantasms are capable of.

Zoser.7245:

Morfedel.4165:

But Mesmers themselves are still awesome. What we bring to the table is a lot of options no one else has. Utility. Flexibility. And arguably the best CC build in the game.

I also think they can DPS just fine. Just not top of the line.

I’m agree in the utility and flexibility but not in the CC. Other professions can “chain” CC better than us. Aside, we have some good skills for CC.

Can they? Who and how? realize I’m not calling you out, I’m genuinely curious. I play a few other classes, but not all of them. While I have an 80 on everything, I barely played them since getting them to 80; I do think a few were competitive, but not outshining the mesmer.

apharma.3741:

Morfedel.4165:

But Mesmers themselves are still awesome. What we bring to the table is a lot of options no one else has. Utility. Flexibility. And arguably the best CC build in the game.

I also think they can DPS just fine. Just not top of the line.

I’d like you to meet my fwend.

I do fractals with 2 fwends…why would I ever bring my mesmer…ever?

A link to the guardian wiki entry proves absolutely nothing.

And as for fractals, really, there is more to the game than fractals. I trash guardians all the time in pvp.

Morfedel.4165:

Lalainnia.3598:

Where exactly was it proven that mesmers have trash pve dps I would think a mesmer fully buffed with 3 sword phants going would be pretty sweet on top of the fact that they can shatter now without destorying phant dps. Just curious why its always said that mesmer dps is trash still.

I personally don’t think their DPS is trash, but I do think they aren’t a DPS class. What I mean is, if they want to do some dps, they will be ok, but others will outshine them. I remember playing revenant for the first time and was just shocked at how much more damage I was doing.

But Mesmers themselves are still awesome. What we bring to the table is a lot of options no one else has. Utility. Flexibility. And arguably the best CC build in the game.

I also think they can DPS just fine. Just not top of the line.

Wrong on all accounts. The best CC build goes to venomshare thief. The best utility goes towards Engi and Ele. And if you think Mesmer is fine at the bottom of the totem pole in all accounts then I have no words for you.

Morfedel.4165:

Zoser.7245:

Morfedel.4165:

But Mesmers themselves are still awesome. What we bring to the table is a lot of options no one else has. Utility. Flexibility. And arguably the best CC build in the game.

I also think they can DPS just fine. Just not top of the line.

I’m agree in the utility and flexibility but not in the CC. Other professions can “chain” CC better than us. Aside, we have some good skills for CC.

Can they? Who and how? realize I’m not calling you out, I’m genuinely curious. I play a few other classes, but not all of them. While I have an 80 on everything, I barely played them since getting them to 80; I do think a few were competitive, but not outshining the mesmer.

So if we’re talking about CC relevant in PvE, then we’re discussing the ability to burn through a large break bar. I just want to clarify that, because any other sort of use for CC in PvE isn’t even remotely important.

Burning through a large breakbar means being able to unload the largest raw quantity of CC possible in a very short time period. The best three skills in the game for this are Mesmer shield 5, revenant staff 5, and engineer slick shoes. I believe that slick shoes is best here, followe by the revenant one and thirdly the Mesmer skill, but they’re all far stronger than any other skills. Venomshare thief gets an honorable mention, but it requires the thief to run a non-optimal dps build, making it questionably usable.

It’s worth noting that interrupt traits and other cc ‘add-ons’ that Mesmer has access to are worthless here. Getting the chance to proc an interrupt is incredibly rare, so the only thing that matters is breaking the bar as fast as possible. While moa and the stun signet also are hefty CCs (moa in particular), the elite slot is necessarily reserved for time warp, and the signet ends up being overkill since you aren’t requires to break a raid bar solo; it’s a team effort.

Edit: For PvP, best cc is going to have to be scrapper. They have immense access to both direct and reactive cc from finishers on their skills, and have a lot of huge cc utilities to choose from between slick shoes, battering ram, blast widgety thing, and turret explosions. I’d say mesmers probably come in second for cc potential after engineers, but our cc is a lot more bursty. It’s on long cooldowns and more difficult to recover from if wasted into a stability-laden teamfight.

Fay.2357:

Venomshare thief gets an honorable mention, but it requires the thief to run a non-optimal dps build, making it questionably usable.

Do you have the numbers for that?

I thought that it was found that venomshare thief was about on par with staff and dagger/dagger power

Eponet.4829:

Fay.2357:

Venomshare thief gets an honorable mention, but it requires the thief to run a non-optimal dps build, making it questionably usable.

Do you have the numbers for that?

I thought that it was found that venomshare thief was about on par with staff and dagger/dagger power

Venomshare means abandoning either deadly arts, critical strikes, or daredevil. All 3 of those traitlines contain very substantial damage boosting traits. Deadly arts has direct modifiers, critical strokes has massive critical damage boosts, and daredevil has…daredevil. You could pick shadow arts over one of them for Venomshare, but you’d be losing out on some substantial modifiers.

Fay.2357:

Eponet.4829:

Fay.2357:

Venomshare thief gets an honorable mention, but it requires the thief to run a non-optimal dps build, making it questionably usable.

Do you have the numbers for that?

I thought that it was found that venomshare thief was about on par with staff and dagger/dagger power

Venomshare means abandoning either deadly arts, critical strikes, or daredevil. All 3 of those traitlines contain very substantial damage boosting traits. Deadly arts has direct modifiers, critical strokes has massive critical damage boosts, and daredevil has…daredevil. You could pick shadow arts over one of them for Venomshare, but you’d be losing out on some substantial modifiers.

I was referring to full condition thief, not power thief with less power damage traits.

Morfedel I think that Fay just answered you properly.

Now I’m having fun with my scrapper and learning to master him. Aside, from pvp perpestive, daredevil has a build with an insane cc rotation too. Literaly forcing you to stealth/blink out and try to get out and avoid him next time, less if you are in a favorable situation. I don’t want to put it here to not give them ideas lol. Although talking with some friends and some good thief. I’m sure that they are aware and some are using it like I in my daredevil.

In any case, I’m still here with my fellow mesmers. And I wish that the next balance become more fair in the future, not only for us instead in general. I still use my mesmer, but in pve with guildmates and sometimes wvw although the scrapper out there is a fine thing.

Regards

Eponet.4829:

Fay.2357:

Eponet.4829:

Fay.2357:

Venomshare thief gets an honorable mention, but it requires the thief to run a non-optimal dps build, making it questionably usable.

Do you have the numbers for that?

I thought that it was found that venomshare thief was about on par with staff and dagger/dagger power

Venomshare means abandoning either deadly arts, critical strikes, or daredevil. All 3 of those traitlines contain very substantial damage boosting traits. Deadly arts has direct modifiers, critical strokes has massive critical damage boosts, and daredevil has…daredevil. You could pick shadow arts over one of them for Venomshare, but you’d be losing out on some substantial modifiers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6GSzgW3PwA

I was referring to full condition thief, not power thief with less power damage traits.

That’s quite interesting, I wasn’t aware of that.

Eponet.4829:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6GSzgW3PwA

I was referring to full condition thief, not power thief with less power damage traits.

He’s correcting for vulnerability wrong.
He takes the idea that he’s applying some vulnerability already, and “corrects” that up to 25% by multiplying by whatever extra vulnerability that takes.

So in the 10% example he uses a few times, he would be assuming that he already applied 15 stacks of vuln, then multiplies the measured dps by the remaining 1.1.
So DPS = (base dps) * 1.15 * 1.1. A base dps of 100, then, would be 126.5.

But that’s not how vulnerability works, as vulnerability is additive.
So it should be DPS = (base dps) * (1 + .15 + .1). A base dps of 100, then, would be 125.

Scaling that up to the 6900 where his “base” damage seemed to be sitting generally, his numbers would compute 6900 * 1.15 * 1.1 = 8728 dps with full vuln. But in fact, the real dps would be 6900 * 1.25 = 8625. That’s about a 100 point difference.

At the numbers we’re talking, 100 dps not a huge difference, but at least one of his comparisons brought the two builds within a hundred points of each other.

That is all, of course, ignoring the fact that he’s haphazardly guesstimating the vulnerability stacks instead of actually figuring it out, which is a potentially major source of calculation error.

His choice to pretend his allies’ damage made no impact on the dps was likewise probably flawed. Base stats are 1000, which is a fair chunk of damage in any case.

In all, his testing is highly suggestive, but his mathing has too many possible errors for the testing itself to be conclusive.

Ananeos.4587:

Morfedel.4165:

Lalainnia.3598:

Where exactly was it proven that mesmers have trash pve dps I would think a mesmer fully buffed with 3 sword phants going would be pretty sweet on top of the fact that they can shatter now without destorying phant dps. Just curious why its always said that mesmer dps is trash still.

I personally don’t think their DPS is trash, but I do think they aren’t a DPS class. What I mean is, if they want to do some dps, they will be ok, but others will outshine them. I remember playing revenant for the first time and was just shocked at how much more damage I was doing.

But Mesmers themselves are still awesome. What we bring to the table is a lot of options no one else has. Utility. Flexibility. And arguably the best CC build in the game.

I also think they can DPS just fine. Just not top of the line.

Wrong on all accounts. The best CC build goes to venomshare thief. The best utility goes towards Engi and Ele. And if you think Mesmer is fine at the bottom of the totem pole in all accounts then I have no words for you.

On all accounts? Really? No. Just no.

First of all I said ARGUABLY. They are near the top if not at the top, so if venomshare is better, ok, they are still excellent stunlocks. And as for engi and ele best utility, have you seen, say, chronotank mesmers with boonshare and permaquickness and alacrity, just to name a few?

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

Zoser.7245:

Morfedel.4165:

But Mesmers themselves are still awesome. What we bring to the table is a lot of options no one else has. Utility. Flexibility. And arguably the best CC build in the game.

I also think they can DPS just fine. Just not top of the line.

I’m agree in the utility and flexibility but not in the CC. Other professions can “chain” CC better than us. Aside, we have some good skills for CC.

Can they? Who and how? realize I’m not calling you out, I’m genuinely curious. I play a few other classes, but not all of them. While I have an 80 on everything, I barely played them since getting them to 80; I do think a few were competitive, but not outshining the mesmer.

So if we’re talking about CC relevant in PvE, then we’re discussing the ability to burn through a large break bar. I just want to clarify that, because any other sort of use for CC in PvE isn’t even remotely important.

I agree. Before breakbars, CC in pve was generally worthless. Now with breakbars, they are more worthy. Especially in HoT; of course that makes it very situational.

Burning through a large breakbar means being able to unload the largest raw quantity of CC possible in a very short time period. The best three skills in the game for this are Mesmer shield 5, revenant staff 5, and engineer slick shoes. I believe that slick shoes is best here, followe by the revenant one and thirdly the Mesmer skill, but they’re all far stronger than any other skills. Venomshare thief gets an honorable mention, but it requires the thief to run a non-optimal dps build, making it questionably usable.

Also Gravity Well, which does some great CC too. And venomshare thieves and slick shoes have to get very close to their target, a very bad thing with, say, some of the wyverns when they lay down their fields.

It’s worth noting that interrupt traits and other cc ‘add-ons’ that Mesmer has access to are worthless here. Getting the chance to proc an interrupt is incredibly rare, so the only thing that matters is breaking the bar as fast as possible. While moa and the stun signet also are hefty CCs (moa in particular), the elite slot is necessarily reserved for time warp, and the signet ends up being overkill since you aren’t requires to break a raid bar solo; it’s a team effort.

If we are talking about team builds then we are talking something like boonshare or chronotank, but that’s fine. Like I said, its situational.

Edit: For PvP, best cc is going to have to be scrapper. They have immense access to both direct and reactive cc from finishers on their skills, and have a lot of huge cc utilities to choose from between slick shoes, battering ram, blast widgety thing, and turret explosions. I’d say mesmers probably come in second for cc potential after engineers, but our cc is a lot more bursty. It’s on long cooldowns and more difficult to recover from if wasted into a stability-laden teamfight.

I suppose I could agree with that. But as I said, each has their good and bad points. For example, I can get alacrity and speed up ALL recharges. Its a tit-for-tat thing.

Zoser.7245:

Morfedel I think that Fay just answered you properly.

Now I’m having fun with my scrapper and learning to master him. Aside, from pvp perpestive, daredevil has a build with an insane cc rotation too. Literaly forcing you to stealth/blink out and try to get out and avoid him next time, less if you are in a favorable situation. I don’t want to put it here to not give them ideas lol. Although talking with some friends and some good thief. I’m sure that they are aware and some are using it like I in my daredevil.

In any case, I’m still here with my fellow mesmers. And I wish that the next balance become more fair in the future, not only for us instead in general. I still use my mesmer, but in pve with guildmates and sometimes wvw although the scrapper out there is a fine thing.

Regards

Well, Fay and I have disagreed before, and that’s fine. In the past I’d have dug in my heels, but I’ll admit I havent kept up with the meta and such since HoT came out, so I won’t argue too strongly about this

Fay: Are you saying that Mesmers are crappy across the board, or just in some areas?

Morfedel.4165:

Fay: Are you saying that Mesmers are crappy across the board, or just in some areas?

PvE: Despite the nerfs, Mesmer (chrono obviously) is still a best choice meta pick for any possible raid comp due to the buffing they’re capable of providing. The nerfs hurt a lot, and more nerfs would probably knock us into the realm of ‘maybe useful, but probably better to bring a dps instead). For now though, we’re still solid.

Dps Mesmer is not a remotely viable pick though. We’re not capable of doing dps that approaches what other classes can do. The only viable option is chrono support.

WvW Roaming: Still good, chrono 25% boost is nice.

WvW Groups: Still needed for veil + portal. Still sucks to only be needed for veil + portal. There’s some gimmicky tagging builds you can do with guardian runes and the shield block, but you’re not actually contributing to the fight that way, just tagging. Wells are too small, too weak, and too low range to have any meaningful impact on the vast majority of fights.

PvP: Mesmer is really bad right now. We had 1 single viable build: chronotank. It was op and needed to be nerfed, but Anet decided to nerf it in ways that also nerfed all the other already nonviable builds. The end result is that Mesmer is really bad.

Power shatter gets eaten alive by thieves, reapers, DH, scrappers, and revenants. Interrupt builds have no teeth because of the ludicrous quantity of stability that everyone seems to have these days. Bunker builds simply can’t bunker hard enough to be impactful under hard pressure.

Condie shatter is the only halfway decent build we have left right now, but it gets massacred by reapers and out rotated easily by revenants and thieves.

Mesmer isn’t crappy across the board, but it is crappy across most of it. Organized PvE is really the only thing we excel at, and that’s a pretty limited set of options.

As an unrelated aside, wyverns don’t spit fire at their feet, so you can always be safe from their fields if you’re standing directly under the wyvern.

Fay.2357:

PvP: Mesmer is really bad right now. We had 1 single viable build: chronotank. It was op and needed to be nerfed, but Anet decided to nerf it in ways that also nerfed all the other already nonviable builds. The end result is that Mesmer is really bad….. Condie shatter is the only halfway decent build we have left right now, but it gets massacred by reapers and out rotated easily by revenants and thieves.

In my experience, condi shatter did great too. Or at least, it used to; I did VERY well with condi shatter in pvp in the past. However, I haven’t done much pvp since HoT came out, and am really starting to get back into it, and my condi shatter hasn’t done nearly as well. Not sure how much of it is me being a little rusty and how much of it is all the new stuff flying around and change of meta.

Gonna play it a little more and see what happens. But I’m not quite happy with the results so far.

As an unrelated aside, wyverns don’t spit fire at their feet, so you can always be safe from their fields if you’re standing directly under the wyvern.

Well yes and no. They don’t spit at their feet when they are standing still – but they move around, spit more, and fling you back with their wing flaps. I’ve done the whole standing under their belly thing, and it works great… until they shift position, hurricane wing you around, etc etc.

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

PvP: Mesmer is really bad right now. We had 1 single viable build: chronotank. It was op and needed to be nerfed, but Anet decided to nerf it in ways that also nerfed all the other already nonviable builds. The end result is that Mesmer is really bad….. Condie shatter is the only halfway decent build we have left right now, but it gets massacred by reapers and out rotated easily by revenants and thieves.

In my experience, condi shatter did great too. Or at least, it used to; I did VERY well with condi shatter in pvp in the past. However, I haven’t done much pvp since HoT came out, and am really starting to get back into it, and my condi shatter hasn’t done nearly as well. Not sure how much of it is me being a little rusty and how much of it is all the new stuff flying around and change of meta.

Gonna play it a little more and see what happens. But I’m not quite happy with the results so far.

As an unrelated aside, wyverns don’t spit fire at their feet, so you can always be safe from their fields if you’re standing directly under the wyvern.

Well yes and no. They don’t spit at their feet when they are standing still – but they move around, spit more, and fling you back with their wing flaps. I’ve done the whole standing under their belly thing, and it works great… until they shift position, hurricane wing you around, etc etc.

So when I’m talking about builds and such, it’s all post-hot. HoT changed the pvp landscape so substantially that nothing pre-hot has any bearing on current situations. Condie shatter was decent pre-hot. Post-hot bunker meta condie shatter was laughable, now it’s not good, but the best we have.

When they flap, you can still stay under them, just need to make sure you’re just slightly behind their center line.

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

PvP: Mesmer is really bad right now. We had 1 single viable build: chronotank. It was op and needed to be nerfed, but Anet decided to nerf it in ways that also nerfed all the other already nonviable builds. The end result is that Mesmer is really bad….. Condie shatter is the only halfway decent build we have left right now, but it gets massacred by reapers and out rotated easily by revenants and thieves.

In my experience, condi shatter did great too. Or at least, it used to; I did VERY well with condi shatter in pvp in the past. However, I haven’t done much pvp since HoT came out, and am really starting to get back into it, and my condi shatter hasn’t done nearly as well. Not sure how much of it is me being a little rusty and how much of it is all the new stuff flying around and change of meta.

Gonna play it a little more and see what happens. But I’m not quite happy with the results so far.

As an unrelated aside, wyverns don’t spit fire at their feet, so you can always be safe from their fields if you’re standing directly under the wyvern.

Well yes and no. They don’t spit at their feet when they are standing still – but they move around, spit more, and fling you back with their wing flaps. I’ve done the whole standing under their belly thing, and it works great… until they shift position, hurricane wing you around, etc etc.

So when I’m talking about builds and such, it’s all post-hot. HoT changed the pvp landscape so substantially that nothing pre-hot has any bearing on current situations. Condie shatter was decent pre-hot. Post-hot bunker meta condie shatter was laughable, now it’s not good, but the best we have.

When they flap, you can still stay under them, just need to make sure you’re just slightly behind their center line.

I’ll try that.

And yeah, I suppose I shouldn’t speak about pvp until I get deeply into it again. I know whats been working for me in pve, and assumed it would all be good in pvp, as I knew what worked for me there.

I know my PVE pretty well overall except raids, but I’m starting from scratch with the pvp. I didn’t think things would change THIS drastically. Should have known better, lol

As a side note, I recently read and posted on a thread in the necro forum where they are complaining about how do you beat a mesmer, and MOST of them are saying if its a good mesmer you have an uphill battle and will probably lose.

Considering i’ve seen people here saying the exact same thing in reverse, I was somewhat amused.

Morfedel.4165:

As a side note, I recently read and posted on a thread in the necro forum where they are complaining about how do you beat a mesmer, and MOST of them are saying if its a good mesmer you have an uphill battle and will probably lose.

Considering i’ve seen people here saying the exact same thing in reverse, I was somewhat amused.

Well to be fair a lot of them only started playing reaper like two weeks ago.

Falir.4251:

Morfedel.4165:

As a side note, I recently read and posted on a thread in the necro forum where they are complaining about how do you beat a mesmer, and MOST of them are saying if its a good mesmer you have an uphill battle and will probably lose.

Considering i’ve seen people here saying the exact same thing in reverse, I was somewhat amused.

Well to be fair a lot of them only started playing reaper like two weeks ago.

This.

People still playing mesmer are going to average higher skill with the class, because they’re the nuts that just really like mesmer. People playing reaper are going to average lower skill with the class, because the pool is diluted by FotM players. Give them some time to catch up, and it’ll become fully clear just how bad it is.

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

PvP: Mesmer is really bad right now. We had 1 single viable build: chronotank. It was op and needed to be nerfed, but Anet decided to nerf it in ways that also nerfed all the other already nonviable builds. The end result is that Mesmer is really bad….. Condie shatter is the only halfway decent build we have left right now, but it gets massacred by reapers and out rotated easily by revenants and thieves.

In my experience, condi shatter did great too. Or at least, it used to; I did VERY well with condi shatter in pvp in the past. However, I haven’t done much pvp since HoT came out, and am really starting to get back into it, and my condi shatter hasn’t done nearly as well. Not sure how much of it is me being a little rusty and how much of it is all the new stuff flying around and change of meta.

Gonna play it a little more and see what happens. But I’m not quite happy with the results so far.

As an unrelated aside, wyverns don’t spit fire at their feet, so you can always be safe from their fields if you’re standing directly under the wyvern.

Well yes and no. They don’t spit at their feet when they are standing still – but they move around, spit more, and fling you back with their wing flaps. I’ve done the whole standing under their belly thing, and it works great… until they shift position, hurricane wing you around, etc etc.

So when I’m talking about builds and such, it’s all post-hot. HoT changed the pvp landscape so substantially that nothing pre-hot has any bearing on current situations. Condie shatter was decent pre-hot. Post-hot bunker meta condie shatter was laughable, now it’s not good, but the best we have.

When they flap, you can still stay under them, just need to make sure you’re just slightly behind their center line.

I’ll try that.

And yeah, I suppose I shouldn’t speak about pvp until I get deeply into it again. I know whats been working for me in pve, and assumed it would all be good in pvp, as I knew what worked for me there.

I know my PVE pretty well overall except raids, but I’m starting from scratch with the pvp. I didn’t think things would change THIS drastically. Should have known better, lol

Oh yeah, the changes were massive. The meta immediately post-hot up to the most recent patch was a bunker meta. Thief was out, warrior was out and additionally was objectively the worst class in the game. Revenant, tempest, and chrono made up the meta almost entirely, with very few variations.

HoT introduced massive power creep to the game. The classes that didn’t creep ended up incredibly weak. This was warrior and thief for the most part. Reaper and DH got creep, but were countered by the insane pressure of revenants.

In true Anet fashion…they have no clue what they’re doing. They nerfed revenants, and this alone would be enough to give reaper and DH a chance in the meta. However, they then went on to give enormous buffs to reaper. Thief also received massive damage buffs, giving them their own power creep.

Mesmer and ele were in the meta only as bunkers. Since Anet removed all bunker amulets and heavily nerfed bunker skills in other ways, Mesmer and ele lost the primary form of their power creep, and are now extremely weak along with warriors. Mesmer didn’t really get any offensive goodies with chrono, just utility and defensive tricks, so we’re basically starting from square 1 again.

As a general rule of thumb, what you saw as strong in the pre-HoT world is now weak unless it too received substantial power creep. Everything else has gotten stronger, mesmers have largely stayed the same.

Thief DPS increases were made to justify their weakness in PvE/raids. There was quite literally zero reason to bring a thief to a raid because it got both out-DPS’ed and out-supported in either one or both categories by every other class by very large margins to the point where its existence in a raid could not actually be justified.

ANet in their stupidity, rather than nerfing the DPS/damage power creep given in HoT, instead settled on unnecessary buffs. The thief community neither asked for or cared for a buff to AA DPS – but unfortunately it seems we’re settled on power creeping the game into ridiculous rather than nerfing the new shiny specs driving sales for the sake of balanced and diverse gameplay.

Matty.1953:

Mesmers have traditionally played DPS for years. It’s only after recent patches that the play style fell out of favour. You guys already probably know this, so why are all being facetious?

Well, I was playing my longbow ranger and dealing some nice damage from range. With that opening strike and criticals, I was able to kill NPC monsters pretty quickly with one burst. Then I switched over to thief and played with dual pistols. Sure, thief is squishy as hell but the damage was acceptable.

Then I took my greatsword mesmer, traited and built for damage…. I couldn’t kill the same NPC monsters with one burst. Greatsword autoattacks are laughable. Slowly building might stacks and having that small packet damage dealing. Even condition builds usually hit harder.

Then I met d/d elementalist in WvW. You know what the elementalist does? It has all the buffs in the game and deals monstrous damage and heals too. I used all my abilities and I couldn’t bring that elementalist health below 50%. What’s the point of this class?

I love the discussions about DPS where no one brings data. Nothing like having a discussion about a quantitative aspect of the game … qualitatively.

Can anyone tell us where Mesmer ranks currently, using meta build (or whatever you want to call it) for DPS in a team-instance content, like raids or dungeons?

BTW, the OP didn’t even specify what kind of PVE content he’s talking about so there’s that as well. I know all the pro people are going to simply assume he’s talking raids but the simple nature of his post gives me the suspicion he’s not.

Obtena.7952:

I love the discussions about DPS where no one brings data. Nothing like having a discussion about a quantitative aspect of the game … qualitatively.

Can anyone tell us where Mesmer ranks currently, using meta build (or whatever you want to call it) for DPS in a team-instance content, like raids or dungeons?

BTW, the OP didn’t even specify what kind of PVE content he’s talking about so there’s that as well. I know all the pro people are going to simply assume he’s talking raids but the simple nature of his post gives me the suspicion he’s not.

I believe I’ve seen Pyro and a couple of others do number crunches off hybrid mesmer.
And the max damage was 17k DPS, if I remember correctly.
Trying to find the threads, haven’t found them yet.

The flaw here, is if he isn’t talking about raids, mesmer is horrible at trash mobs.
You won’t get anywhere near the 17k DPS mark, as you need your 3 phantasms to hit that.