Guild Wars 2

I hate you all

Not the class in particular, nor the individual players. Not even the community. What I hate is not being able to get inside your mind, collectively. I hate not being able to figure out what makes you tick. I hate having to fight based on the situation at hand, to have to adapt on the fly and use general tactics as opposed to specialized ones.

Usually whenever a class gives me issues in spvp, I’ll make a character of that class to learn the mechanics, timing, tricks, and tells. I’ll lurk on the class forums and learn their builds and take mental notes on what kind of players play these classes. It’s worked wonderfully, I might add.

Except for you.

For the life (or unlife) of me, I can’t figure out this class. When I have rolled a mesmer and taken it into the wide, wide world, I get a mud puddle stomped in my rear end only to have it get kicked dry. Stealth, distortion, shatter, confuse, pull, teleport— there’s so much thrown at you all at once and for this player at least, becomes overwhelming. Combat mechanics, timing, evasion— I just don’t get it. When I fight against a mesmer, I’ve about a 30-40% chance of picking the right “one” out of all the clones. When I play as one though, well… you’d think my opponent was duct-taped to me.

To make things worse, as the fight wages on, the more clones you make & the more the odds tip into your favor. I have to fight highly aggressively to stand a chance—something not easy for my main. Each loss against you is so bittersweet; each victory exhilarating.

So to you mesmers, I’ll say this: You bring out the best in me, and I can’t stand it. You’re the humbling reminder that you can’t plot every fight out, that you have to “go for it” and act reflexively. It takes a certain type of player to play this class, a type of player that is so fundamentally “not me”, that I can’t help but be amazed at how your mind must work. Any class well-played deserves respect. Mesmers, however, earn more from me.

Practice tbh.

Should spot the correct target almost all the time in a small scale fight. Some will be clever and try to act like a clone but still easy to spot once they move a bit (if it isn’t already obvious from their buff bar). Then be able to retarget the correct mesmer within a second or two of button pressing.

It’s annoying when you are say 2v4 with other enemy clutter around (pets etc) – do the best job to focus fire on one target.

Regarding stealths – be aware of all the cooldowns and whether skills have been used (decoy, veil, prestige, MI) – yes good players will time these skills very well, but take advantage of windows of opportunity between cooldowns. Same applies for all the other defensive skills (blurred frenzy, blocks, distortions, also dazes/interrupts) – pull out the cooldowns and time the attacks.

Personally I like high burst damage to hit in those windows of opportunity, but condition burst or tons of mobility impairing effects (ie immobilise/stuns/dazes) are great counters.

Sors Immani, are you sure you’re not working in ANet’s class balance team?

@Lishtenbird As far as I know of. If not, then I’m either due a fat check or an obscene amount of gems

@Curunen I understand what you’re saying. As for targeting, I usually try to observe the buff bar, but with buffs being applied to clones as well as players, it’s still fairly difficult unless the player’s dumb enough to enter pvp with a bday or MF boost active. The fact that I’m no good as a mesmer still remains though.

Sors Immani.8429:

@Lishtenbird As far as I know of. If not, then I’m either due a fat check or an obscene amount of gems

@Curunen I understand what you’re saying. As for targeting, I usually try to observe the buff bar, but with buffs being applied to clones as well as players, it’s still fairly difficult unless the player’s dumb enough to enter pvp with a bday or MF boost active. The fact that I’m no good as a mesmer still remains though.

I’m no good playing as thief, doesn’t matter.

It’s more than the buff bar – you just know instinctively which one to target – how they move, position relative to clones, skill use. Playing as one of course helps because you get used to the mindset and tells. Not saying you always get it right – sometimes it can be a bit messy. But most of the time it should be ok. Maybe just persevere and eventually it’ll click?

Mesmer as far as PvP goes at the moment is in an interesting situation. High risk / High reward comes to mind. If you play badly as a mesmer, you will get wrecked. If you play average on a mesmer, you will get wrecked. You have to play good to be successful with the class. You need to use your f3 every time someone goes to heal, you need to strip stability at the right moment, you need to know the blink locations, know how to kite, fluently 180 phase retreat 180 and no when to peel and who to avoid. You have to support your team with a spike at the same time as keeping your eye open to tackle far.

We’re an interesting class with a lot of skill plays such as portal stomps and chaining teleports, interrupting heals etc but to do well we have to sort of know everything and do it at once. A bunker guard knows his job, and he can stick to it hoping his team mates will finish the job. Mesmer isn’t quite like that and whichever build you choose to play, be it shatter or phantasm you have got to do it all.

Also remember on the scale of 1 to high skill cap Mesmer is pretty much at the top with Elementalist at the moment so it might not just “click” right away, I’m still learning new things with 680 odd days as a main on my Mesmer and over 2000 pvp matches.

Play around with the different builds and you’ll see the sunshine.

I can tell you what the problem is. You’re thinking mechanics instead of meta. Talk to a pro fighter and you’ll notice that they’ll mention abstract concepts like OTG, crossups, block stun and happy birthday more than basic skills.

The answer is to play the class and your main until you get so good at both that you stop thinking about “how” to pull off combos and start thinking about “when” to do them. Once you have the muscle memory down, it literally becomes a battle of wits.

watch helselth videos.

All I’m going to say is that you have to be extremely patient to play a mesmer, particularly with the PU build. If you’re playing your mesmer “on the fly” and constantly attacking, you aren’t being as effective as you could be.

Use a stealth skill if you have to dodge, but not before. Put up a couple of clones, heal and wait. Position yourself to hide in plain sight, and then auto-attack. I prefer a scepter, for the auto clone generation and then back to step one.

1v1 in WvW I can keep a fight going until help arrives for one of us, or my target runs (cuz I can’t catch anyone), or I see a chance for a burst kill. This bugs people badly, particularly the thieves.

@*Crossplay* This has been the biggest piece of advice I’ve received yet (not discounting from the others, either).

Thank you everyone for the input. After some practice, I’m getting a little bit better.