A knight in shining armor is a man who never had his metal truly tested.
Destroy the Clones or Don't?
If the mesmer is traited for on death effects (conditions) then destroying clones can be to your detriment.
If the mesmer is traited for power shatter, then destroying clones denies him shatter effects.
If you’re talking phantasms, then it’s almost always beneficial to destroy phantasms as they produce high amounts of dps or additional effects.
In general, denying a mesmer clones denies him everything. As clones = increased damage, damage mitigation, ether fest healing power, even movement speed (not that anyone ever traits this). Apart from clone death effects. For the most straight forward approach-
- Kill all phantasms
- Ignore all clones
- Focus the real mesmer.
Topic title pretty much, this always has confused me when fighting mesmers. I mainly play necro. Main reason I’m asking now is because I fought a mesmer a couple weeks ago who was using, least according to a friendly mesmer, was a PU build.
So basically, is it wise to destroy the clones as fast as possible with AoE, or just try and identify the mesmer? What would the consequences be from destroying the clones? Sorry for asking this but most other classes I can figure out if I fight long enough, but still don’t understand what’s the best course of action against mesmers.
Don’t melee the clones, at least, or kill them close to you if you want to avoid the conditions at all costs. You can risk-reward it and say that less clones to deal with will be worth the bleed, weakness, etc. The AoE around them isn’t all that strong, but can stack if you just try to kill them all constantly.
Definitely try to identify the mesmer if you can. Mesmers have limited stealth, so unless this guy is spreading his stealth out and staying in the open for bits at a time, he’ll run out within 20 or so seconds and you can burst or stun him down.
Topic title pretty much, this always has confused me when fighting mesmers. I mainly play necro. Main reason I’m asking now is because I fought a mesmer a couple weeks ago who was using, least according to a friendly mesmer, was a PU build.
So basically, is it wise to destroy the clones as fast as possible with AoE, or just try and identify the mesmer? What would the consequences be from destroying the clones? Sorry for asking this but most other classes I can figure out if I fight long enough, but still don’t understand what’s the best course of action against mesmers.
Don’t melee the clones, at least, or kill them close to you if you want to avoid the conditions at all costs. You can risk-reward it and say that less clones to deal with will be worth the bleed, weakness, etc. The AoE around them isn’t all that strong, but can stack if you just try to kill them all constantly.
Definitely try to identify the mesmer if you can. Mesmers have limited stealth, so unless this guy is spreading his stealth out and staying in the open for bits at a time, he’ll run out within 20 or so seconds and you can burst or stun him down.
Honestly the conditions don’t bug me because I could just send them back or eat them. This guy was mainly spreading his stealth out it seemed, used a port and some invulnerability skill as well, made him look like a phantasm? Sorry! Don’t know the skill names, like I said I have almost no experience fighing or playing as a mesmer compared to the other professions, only thing I do know for certain is that you guys have portals….yeah…looked at your wiki page like twice I think.
A knight in shining armor is a man who never had his metal truly tested.
So basically, is it wise to destroy the clones as fast as possible with AoE, or just try and identify the mesmer?
These are not mutually exclusive things. You should always be identifying the mesmer, and this has no bearing on any other combat actions you take. Once you’re experienced enough, identifying the mesmer is something that just happens normally.
Destroying clones is something that’s a little less obvious.
What would the consequences be from destroying the clones? Sorry for asking this but most other classes I can figure out if I fight long enough, but still don’t understand what’s the best course of action against mesmers.
Well, the first thing that needs to be made clear is that mesmer produces 2 different types of illusions: clones and phantasms. Clones look like the mesmer and deal no damage, but can apply conditions. Phantasms are sorta glowy purple and will deal potentially high damage depending on the build.
Killing phantasms is never a bad thing to do (unless that’s all you’re doing and ignoring the mesmer entirely). Killing clones can be dangerous. If when the clones die, they explode causing aoe conditions…you don’t want to kill them when you’re close by. If you can kill them from range, that’s safe to do.