Guild Wars 2

A few of you here on the forums know me. I like to think I’m a decent Mesmer in PvP, I can hold my own pretty well (except against other lockdown Mesmers). Normally I play some variation of Lockdown, either CI or lately CS just to see what it’s about. I’m pretty capable of playing a shatter build, too.

I wanted to gauge the community’s opinion on “hard counters.” As a power Mesmer, do you ever come across a certain profession/build that you absolutely know you’re going to defeat? For me, I’d say it would be a power necro, if I’m playing a lockdown build.

And what, specifically, is it about thieves that hard counter us so much? Can you think of a similarly balanced matchup? I’m more than aware that pvp is not all about 1v1 fights. But lately I’ve been feeling like even in a 2v2 or a 3v3, if there’s a thief present, I will more than likely be killed.

I’ve been dabbling with a few other classes in pvp: Ranger, Elementalist and even a Thief. On each of those professions, I never get the same feeling about a class that I do about a Mesmer when I see a thief approaching.

Los target dependant easily negated majority of skills that make up the Mesmer are a big reason for the counter.

And there isn’t really an analogous feeling when playing another profession aside from maybe an mm metro vs a Mesmer with moa?

Usually I feel I don’t have a hard counter on my condi shatter. Thieves are eaten by the torment and confusion[some good ones don’t, of course, so it just comes down to skill at that point]. So I don’t feel I have an hard counter. I think it’s because I don’t usually have to be so picky about the order I shatter in along with the many defensive skills our condition weapons offer.

Mesmer
My #1 easiest kill ever of all time. This is for two reasons.
1) Its the only class I truly understand inside and out. Its the only one I’ve ever played.
2) Mesmer mechanics are such that, as a Mesmer, I find them easy to counter.
Oh and heres a vid my favorite Mesmer kill. Its purely asthetic. The Mesmer has his back to a wall while an execution-style pistol shot to the head and accompanying firing squad unload on him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tKpMw1gShbI#t=236

Thief
I don’t believe thief is the absolute hard counter to Mesmer. They are the ultimate solution to something like Shatter mes though. So my thinking is, if there’s a thief about why bring shatter?
It seems to me if you’re going to face such a hard counter and you’re interested in winning, bring something different.
No matter what, Thief is going to pose a challenge but there’s no reason to count yourself out of the fight to begin with. Instead I believe we have the means to raise ourselves to the challenge. Its not going to be a roflstomp face roll, there might not be an insta success hard counter, but you can contend on an equal footing. And that is more than enough, the same as bringing a thief to counter a thief. That’s sound strategy and not something to shake your head at.

As a bonus note: If its a team fight and there’s a thief present, the thief gets my undivided 100% attention until he’s down and out of the fight. No questions.

Here’s 2 reason’s why I think Mesmer’s struggle with Thief’s more than other scholar classes.

Partly their class design and partly Consume Plasma.

To make up for Thief’s low health pool. Thief has LOTS of evades and access to stealth. This combat mobility and stealth makes it hard to keep a thief targeted during a fight. Mesmer is designed primarily as a single target profession. Our mechanic “illusions” require a target to work properly. We can only use our mechanic when the thief is out of stealth for a long enough for our shatters to hit.

Mesmer’s also have minimal AOE/condition application that other scholar classes possess to help counter the thief’s evades/stealth. Other classes can blanket an area with AOE and have better luck actually causing damage.

Thief’s initiative system also is a pain for Mesmer’s as well. With initiative, a thief is practically immune to daze/interrupt, probably our most common condition. Just look at what happened with Power Block when it was first released. It actually locked down AA attacks, it actually worked against thief’s. AND it was quickly “nerfed” soon after.

Lastly, is Consume Plasma. The skill that grants thief’s EVERY BOON when “stealing” from a Mesmer. So now, not only does the thief have tons of evades and stealth. So now when he’s not “evading” or “stealthing” and we can actually land a shatter, he gets Stability, Retaliation, Regeneration, Might, etc, etc..

So basically, the “window of opportunity” for a Mesmer to hurt a Thief is pretty small.

I think Consume Plasma definitely needs a tweaking. EVERY BOON is too much. Mesmer’s don’t have anything even close to that. Consume Plasma comes from Mesmer’s so it should be “like” a Mesmer skill and have some of our lovely RNG in it. Guarantee a specific boon and then an “additional” 2 boons out of a pool of 5. (See PU or BI for examples.)