Guild Wars 2

I’ve recently been PvPing quite a bit on my Mesmer and have been having a hard time with Arcane Thievery and I was wondering what other Mesmers used for condition removal/boon striping. I am currently messing around with a power/phantasm build using S/P and GS. It seems like a good skill on paper but i feel it never does what I want.

Is there any established boon/condition removal order ANet has released? I would much rather prefer to choose what gets stolen and what gets transferred as I seem to always get the short end of the stick. I take mender’s purity as sort of a “main” condition removal but with a lot of condi heavy builds in PvP I wanted more removal (and boon stripping never hurt). The other thing I was noticing was there are many times where the skill just goes on cool down and but no boons are stripped nor conditions removed (even though I am within the 900 range, not blinded, and facing the target). Could someone better explain the mechanics of this ability because it seems very random.

I don’t see many Mesmers running mantra of resolve so I was wondering what everyone else does to deal with conditions because Arcane Thievery seems to have a mind of it’s own. With a class that seems to center around counter play this ability just seems too clunky.

I personally use null field as my only condi-clear. That’s mostly because I wanted more chaos armor, and it’s great in team fights.

To be honest mesmer should try to avoid being in the thick of it (random aoe will kill your clones and phantasms), and you can usually avoid a ton of conditions by positioning.

Null Field and iDisenchanter are a bit more popular on the Condition/Boon removal side of things. They arent as picky about working correctly and can really wreck havoc on multiple targets all at the same time.

I believe AT simply removes the Last (3) Boons applied and grants you their remaining durations. I cant be sure on that tho, there may be a specific order grabbed..

AT going on CD without doing anything is fairly common if you’re very new to the skill. It will not be affected by Blind to my knowledge, or Aegis (Unblockable) but it only functions in a “cone” that is directly in front of you to about 45’ maybe 60’ degrees to either side. This means if you run by your target (them being at your side or ending up behind you) when the skill finishes casting, you get no boons, they get no conditions and you get a kitten CD.

If the target falls out of the 900 range before the animation is finished, the same thing can happen as well.

I’ve found AT does its best work with the Increased range (chaos line trait) applied to it. If you can get out of battle or out of reach long enough to pop the skill it’s a nice feeling.

AT is also Dodge-able, as a final thought, so not a great option against high evade classes (ranger/thief).

Edit: Apparently “Forty Five” + s (for seconds) is frowned upon by the almighty filter..

As someone who used to use arcane thievery as my condi clear/boon removal of choice for over a year, I can pretty safely tell you that nobody really knows how it works. The boon removal has some type of order (tests I’ve done with enemies using lyssa runes pre-patch show that it prioritizes aegis>retal>stability[I think]), but in practice, it will almost never strip stability if the enemy has 4+ boons.

There’s plenty of times where it will not remove conditions or strip boons if you are facing the “wrong” direction, even if you’re looking right at the target. Can’t explain why, but sometimes it just doesn’t work.

Use null field instead. It gives you more access to chaos armor, strips conditions and boons AoE, and works 100% of the time. A lot of people on these forums really like the mantra condi clear, which is decent, but if you’re not stripping boons as a mesmer, you’re probably not doing your job.

I start using AT, when it worked was lovely to return the condition that u had to your opponent but when it didn’t work it was almost a guarantee defeat.

Since I dropped it and started to use Mantra of Resolve my quality of life just went from 8 to 80.

I’m liking how null field is working out so far, thanks for the help. I thought I wouldn’t like the way it pulses but it doesn’t seem to be an issue. Have people complained enough about AT yet to get a dev to at least explain the mechanics?

AT is very finicky with terrain much like sword mains iLeap skill. When I use AT I always like to do it at very close range to ensure success, usually a good idea to use from stealth.

It’s already been mentioned that Mesmer has many alternate choices for condi removal if you can’t work with AT.

If I get condi bombed running traited torch i do a swap to sword/torch, torch 4 for stealth, cast iMage, then AT from the security of stealth. Your opponent doesn’t usually dodge during this time because he’s not on the defensive, and the casting of iMage is a good blind cleanse (if torch 4 or casting of 5 didnt clear it) if you’re blinded which would otherwise stop your AT.

In general situations just make sure to face your target and cast away. Doing so from stealth is always a much better option than not.

Swish.2463:

Null Field and iDisenchanter are a bit more popular on the Condition/Boon removal side of things. They arent as picky about working correctly and can really wreck havoc on multiple targets all at the same time.

I believe AT simply removes the Last (3) Boons applied and grants you their remaining durations. I cant be sure on that tho, there may be a specific order grabbed..

AT going on CD without doing anything is fairly common if you’re very new to the skill. It will not be affected by Blind to my knowledge, or Aegis (Unblockable) but it only functions in a “cone” that is directly in front of you to about 45’ maybe 60’ degrees to either side. This means if you run by your target (them being at your side or ending up behind you) when the skill finishes casting, you get no boons, they get no conditions and you get a kitten CD.

If the target falls out of the 900 range before the animation is finished, the same thing can happen as well.

I’ve found AT does its best work with the Increased range (chaos line trait) applied to it. If you can get out of battle or out of reach long enough to pop the skill it’s a nice feeling.

AT is also Dodge-able, as a final thought, so not a great option against high evade classes (ranger/thief).

Edit: Apparently “Forty Five” + s (for seconds) is frowned upon by the almighty filter..

You need Master of Manipulations to increase range. It’s in Dueling not Chaos, think is 1 I believe.