Guild Wars 2

Forum bug fifteen characters.

tobascodagama.2961:

Working twice as hard to get half the results is just bad design no matter how you justify it. ¯\(?)/¯

Personally I think that’s quite a bit of sensationalism going. I don’t see a problem with being the hard class, though I don’t think that’s a fair description. Mesmer being harder is based on the player; it is fair to say it’s a busier class to play. For some players, the active and focused style of play is easier than the faceroll or press 1 class. Simply depends on the player. Be glad Anet offers all kinds of different playing options. So to actually complain about ‘working harder’ is a little silly.

Getting half the results? based on? I mean, let’s be honest … what is your OBJECTIVE measure of ‘getting half the results’? Compared to what other class? I will admit that Mesmer isn’t topping PVE charts for success when I play it, but I don’t have these “can’t do” list that others are eluding to when they talk about Mesmer issues here.

Bottomline: I don’t think there is an intentional relation between class performance and style of play on a class, even though as reasonable people, we would like to think there is.

You can hide your head in the sand all you like, it doesn’t make you correct.

Xyonon.3987:

OriOri.8724:

Xyonon.3987:

Just gonna leave this here …

If mesmers are so great at solo PvE content then why don’t you post a video showing us how "easy"it is for a mesmer to solo the new story instances and still receive the achievements?

Can do, the day I can record again. Reinstalled my computer and on my laptop I have no recording programm.

But what I actually wanted to show here is the dps you can deal as condi Mesmer with realistic buffs. It’s top dps against VG (green fields), Sabetha (ranged) and Matthias in general.

Top dps against VG…except you’ll phase VG before you’ve had enough time to sit there dpsing to make up for the painfully slow start.

Top dps on sabetha…until the bandits switch and you have to do another 30 seconds of ramp up.

Top dps on Matthias…until you get volatile or fountain poison and your phantasms pop due to leash range, or you need to use diversion for breaking.

As I’ve always said, Mesmer is great dps on paper that doesn’t translate into reality. Even in the most ideal fights there are still so many mechanics that drastically reduce your actual dps.

tobascodagama.2961:

I don’t know how many times we have to remind you that nobody cares about an artificial testing scenario that plays to all of our strengths and invalidates all of our weaknesses. Stop posting golem parses as if they mean anything.

Edgy :’D but I guess the confusion tics, combo fields and torment damage are all pretty underwhelming aswell <3

Fay.2357:

Top dps against VG…except you’ll phase VG before you’ve had enough time to sit there dpsing to make up for the painfully slow start.

You mean the “painfully slow start” where you have 2 iDuellists right away and the 3rd replacing your warden after it’s 2nd burst? Either you overestimate the setup time or you overestimate other professions ranged dps. Wich one is it?

Fay.2357:

Top dps on sabetha…until the bandits switch and you have to do another 30 seconds of ramp up.

So it’s the 2nd one… They don’t die on Bandit swap btw. Sabetha isn’t dead so they just switch to the next target.

Fay.2357:

Top dps on Matthias…until you get volatile or fountain poison and your phantasms pop due to leash range, or you need to use diversion for breaking.

They don’t die from that leash range… If you have to use Diversion as a Mes, you have a different problem.

Fay.2357:

As I’ve always said, Mesmer is great dps on paper that doesn’t translate into reality. Even in the most ideal fights there are still so many mechanics that drastically reduce your actual dps.

Heavily depends on the fight. But in the mentioned ones – drastically? Not as drastically as it does affect most other professions. You should run a dps meter on your war / ele / thief, whatever you want – on Matthias for example.

I don’t tell you guys “You must use this!”, I just want to mention that things exist and just because pugs don’t use it, it’s not bad. In fact, SC uses condi Mes on Matthias too. You should test it yourself first, but ppl here tend to – deja vu – be whiny and rather look for more things to complain about instead…

Xyonon.3987:

You mean the “painfully slow start” where you have 2 iDuellists right away and the 3rd replacing your warden after it’s 2nd burst? Either you overestimate the setup time or you overestimate other professions ranged dps. Wich one is it?

Even in your picture we can see the dps slowly ramping up over several minutes. It is a very slow start, especially since condie necro/engie lose almost no dps when going for green circles as long as VG stays within range.

Xyonon.3987:

So it’s the 2nd one… They don’t die on Bandit swap btw. Sabetha isn’t dead so they just switch to the next target.

So I haven’t paid enough attention to this, but phantasms usually latch onto another target rapidly, which means they would tend to target any adds currently on the platform, and then die. Does that not happen?

Xyonon.3987:

They don’t die from that leash range… If you have to use Diversion as a Mes, you have a different problem.

They’ll die from leash range if Matthias isn’t on the proper side of the arena when you have to run a poison or something. Yeah, in an extremely coordinated group (a la storm crows) this will never be a problem, but most groups can’t claim to have that much effective control over Matthias. Same for diversion. Can you honestly say that you’ve never been in situations where a strong breaker was sacrificed and you had to pitch in a bit of cc to break?

Xyonon.3987:

Heavily depends on the fight. But in the mentioned ones – drastically? Not as drastically as it does affect most other professions. You should run a dps meter on your war / ele / thief, whatever you want – on Matthias for example.

You’re severely overestimating the dps loss that some classes take. As I mentioned, necros and engies lose very little dps when doing circles. On sabetha, any dps lost from swapping bandits is more than made up for with epidemic bouncing when she returns to the platform. On Matthias, as I mentioned, a perfect group like SC can control the fight to an extent that a condie Mesmer can achieve excellent dps. However, that’s unrealistic for 99% of groups out there, where the reality is that you’ll spend most of the fight replacing phantasms that have popped for one reason or another.

tobascodagama.2961:

You can hide your head in the sand all you like, it doesn’t make you correct.

Not sure what you mean. I don’t see where my head is in the sand here, just because I don’t agree with your glib, poorly thought out responses. Put it this way … do you think it’s well thought out dialogue or simple one liners that are going to compel Anet to think about how Mesmers work in this game? Maybe you assume Anet Devs are grinning fools that follow the foolish … I don’t think that’s a respectful way to think about them or the people you respond to and should formulate your responses accordingly if possible.

Just thought since this post has developed for quite some time, I would stop by and drop down my view points on the matter. Most mesmers know that you can burst down lower health pool foes pretty easily with gravity well, well of calamity, mind wrack, etc. Many mesmers also know they are also capable of of putting up some fairly good dps numbers using the condi build Xyonon mentioned on single targets (with some build up time of course). If you ever seen the Chaos Anomaly level 99 Duo by [KING], it looks pretty impressive. However, that is not to say that there isn’t any problems with the current mesmer class and some of the living story mission achievements they have/may put out in the future. For example, I soloed Rising Flames on my mesmer pretty easily. However, I have to say that the last mission took me FOREVER. Of course, party of this was because I most certainly did not have the most optimized build for the encounter at the time (I wasn’t expecting a very high health pool foe to fight). However, I do wander how possible it is to complete the achievement “Maintain Aurenen’s Shield” solo on mesmer. However, regardless, all this means to me is that it is fairly obvious that mesmer has a hard time working on a single high health foe AND a lot of little mobs at the same time, while most other classes do not have a problem with this at all. Most people should be able to notice this and this is really hard to argue against. Many of the mechanics do work against the mesmer clkittenters destroy all your illusions, most phantasms are single target, etc. I also do not really agree that the chronomancer should necessarily get any dps buffs since they are such a strong support class. However, I do think all these obvious problems mean a future elite specialization definitely needs to focus on addressing these concerns.

The problem with the Mesmer is way more complex than this thread allows and I’m not even sure it can be classified as such. It’s the surges in performance differences you get between 3 illusions up vs. having none, both in the defensive and offensive categories. That’s a resource management issue and the market this game targets just doesn’t do well with that kind of class.

This isn’t to say Mesmers should be ignored either but for me, I believe we are seeing what is an intentional class design approach that does have some intentional deficiencies addressed by Chrono elite spec. Admittedly, Mesmer struggles against the Boss + many minions encounter but I think and honest answer to that is the fact that in an MMO, you do have strategies beyond your own resources … you can bring friends. That’s not a brush off to the classes deficiencies either, and there are actually lots of storyline examples where achievements are hard to get without friends helping.

So, to me, to cite storyline Boss+ minion encounters and hard to get achievements as a reason to address general concerns that don’t align to class design … is a stretch.

Xyonon.3987:

OriOri.8724:

Xyonon.3987:

Just gonna leave this here …

If mesmers are so great at solo PvE content then why don’t you post a video showing us how "easy"it is for a mesmer to solo the new story instances and still receive the achievements?

Can do, the day I can record again. Reinstalled my computer and on my laptop I have no recording programm.

But what I actually wanted to show here is the dps you can deal as condi Mesmer with realistic buffs. It’s top dps against VG (green fields), Sabetha (ranged) and Matthias in general.

That’s well and good if you want to talk about the golem test area. But the fact remains that it isn’t a realistic scenario and doesn’t translate to real world DPS for a mesmer, nor does it account for having more than 1 mob (of which, the story instances in question are heavy on constant adds) that you have to deal with. The DPS testing area is good mostly for comparing your build to others in a relative manner, i.e. is your rotation as good as another one? It can’t be translated to actual in game DPS.

The reason I keep focusing on the instances is because they are miserable on a mesmer and it would be impossible for you to get this DPS in the ones I mention. The class is not fun to play in PvE currently when you have more than 1 or 2 mobs to deal with.

Xyonon.3987:

But what I actually wanted to show here is the dps you can deal as condi Mesmer with realistic buffs. It’s top dps against VG (green fields), Sabetha (ranged) and Matthias in general.

Yeah, I know. It’s not entirely useless, but still so far from a decent DPS slot…

And this is with a damage setup. Realistically it’s ~12k while playing boonshare. Fair enough since you’re speccing for that, but there’s little reason to bring more mesmers beyond the boonshare, just bring a DPS char instead.

Though personally? I’d rather want the devs to drop this outdated and frankly not-once-actually-working notion of wanting everyone to “play however they want”.

Just assign me the role of “Boon controller”. And rebuild my class around it. But properly, baking it into the class at all levels. Moving boons, removing, punishing, enhancing, multiplying, disabling, etc etc etc.

In addition to what Pyro has said about your DPS screenshot Xyonon I notice you have permanent protection, swiftness and regen. Now we all have suspicions about it because you’ve been inconsistent and manipulative in the past so I have to question are you using the chaos trait line and chaotic persistence to skimp on expertise to buff condition duration? Reason I say this is while regen is likely you’re not usually going to have permanent swiftness and not often protection up 100% which will lower DPS.

You also have signet of inspiration, I hope you didn’t do anything underhanded like share your quickness with the phantasms as we all know they won’t get it in a real raid and only really in low man instances.

That’s without mentioning the other obvious flaws this build has vs every other DPS build. It offers very little utility outside of boon sharing which isn’t needed as most raids make sure the important boons are up 100%. It has very little CC, though I guess you can use magic bullet and another offhand once all phantasms are set up, so long as they don’t die because they are targeted something or it phased as Pyro outlined above.

It also has no cleave which means while it might have a niche in some fights where it’s not completely useless it has more times when it is completely useless. You say it’s alright for Sab but I would choose all other classes first because they can cleave out adds. It also has little to no soft CC. To put it bluntly it is a gimmick build with only a few niches where it might not be terrible.

Xyonon, the point people have been arguing is that the few places where mesmer can do damage are so incredibly niche and messed over by either fight or mesmer mechanics that mesmer is not viable in a DPS role. You can post all the screenshots you like of mesmer DPS numbers being high but it doesn’t fool anyone experienced enough to know that it’s not a reality when translated into real situations.

Edit: To anyone wondering why I criticise signet of inspiration sharing boons, this build does damage mainly through bleeds with duelist discipline and pistol phantasms. The phantasms have a channeled attack so quickness will speed it up reducing the time between the phantasms skill being off cool down. Additionally sharing fury allows you the best of both worlds with phantasmal fury paired with sharper images while having duelist discipline for more and more bleeds.

Carighan.6758:

Xyonon.3987:

But what I actually wanted to show here is the dps you can deal as condi Mesmer with realistic buffs. It’s top dps against VG (green fields), Sabetha (ranged) and Matthias in general.

Yeah, I know. It’s not entirely useless, but still so far from a decent DPS slot…

And this is with a damage setup. Realistically it’s ~12k while playing boonshare. Fair enough since you’re speccing for that, but there’s little reason to bring more mesmers beyond the boonshare, just bring a DPS char instead.

Though personally? I’d rather want the devs to drop this outdated and frankly not-once-actually-working notion of wanting everyone to “play however they want”.

Just assign me the role of “Boon controller”. And rebuild my class around it. But properly, baking it into the class at all levels. Moving boons, removing, punishing, enhancing, multiplying, disabling, etc etc etc.

Just no. If you want a boon controller build that’s fine, but at this point the class should not be redesigned to only be a viable boon controller. If it was going to take that role it should have happened before or very soon after the open betas of GW2.

Fay.2357:

condie necro/engie lose almost no dps when going for green circles as long as VG stays within range.

Necro loses damage while moving towards the green field, Engi loses damage because being unable to follow the skill priority list properly.

More importantly, VG has low armor and while Necro is at crappy 10% power damage, Engi is higher with 20% but is crippled more than Mes while running. Our dps is 25% power damage. Power damage is increased by 36% against VG.

Fay.2357:

So I haven’t paid enough attention to this, but phantasms usually latch onto another target rapidly, which means they would tend to target any adds currently on the platform, and then die. Does that not happen?

That’s not how they work. They still are attached to Sabby, but they will target the first sighted target if they can’t reach her. Once she’s back, they will target her again. If the previous target dies, they still maintain.

There are two things to mention here:

• If adds spawn just the moment Sabby leaves, they might target a thug, zapper, arsonist, but once they got pulled and cleaved they will focus on the champ again.
• If they are positioned too far away, they won’t do anything. They have to be within ~900 range to the middle to retarget.

So it’s not that big of an issue… is this proper english? Nvm – it’s just that you have to know stuff like that, that’s all.

Fay.2357:

They’ll die from leash range if Matthias isn’t on the proper side of the arena when you have to run a poison or something.

→ attachment

If you summon them between 2 wells (doesn’t matter where) and on that distance to the middle, they will never die, regardless where you have to put down your corruption.

Leash range is approximately 2000.

Fay.2357:

Yeah, in an extremely coordinated group (a la storm crows) this will never be a problem, but most groups can’t claim to have that much effective control over Matthias. Same for diversion. Can you honestly say that you’ve never been in situations where a strong breaker was sacrificed and you had to pitch in a bit of cc to break?

In my raid guild, no :P But I often help out pugs so I know what you’re talking about.

If it’s only a little cc, you can pop the domination signet first, if it’s a huge amount – moa signet. If both are on cd and we lack cc, I’m gonna have a word with the players first.

In my expirience druids barely use moas and warrior don’t have para sigills on their m/s. That’s why I always have a stack sigils with me. :’D

But cc is not an issue of this build at all.

Fay.2357:

On sabetha, any dps lost from swapping bandits is more than made up for with epidemic bouncing when she returns to the platform.

So you’d agree that Mes dps is higher than a Necro’s? Also pretty sure bringing 2 Necros just to bounce is a noticable dps loss compared to having a Mes and a Thief in the first place.

Fay.2357:

On Matthias, as I mentioned, a perfect group like SC can control the fight to an extent that a condie Mesmer can achieve excellent dps. However, that’s unrealistic for 99% of groups out there, where the reality is that you’ll spend most of the fight replacing phantasms that have popped for one reason or another.

That’s a personal issue.

OriOri.8724:

Xyonon.3987:

But what I actually wanted to show here is the dps you can deal as condi Mesmer with realistic buffs. It’s top dps against VG (green fields), Sabetha (ranged) and Matthias in general.

That’s well and good if you want to talk about the golem test area. But the fact remains that it isn’t a realistic scenario and doesn’t translate to real world DPS for a mesmer…

…The DPS testing area is good mostly for comparing your build to others in a relative manner, i.e. is your rotation as good as another one? It can’t be translated to actual in game DPS.

Facts? o.ô Sure it can, but with common sense.

The only thing that is differnt to the mentioned areas where to use it (don’t you dare twisting again) is the uptime of buffs that affects everyone equally – gotl, spirits, banners.

Every profession has some issues in a real combat. And while one of the Mes is that you may lose a phantasm from time to time wich takes less than 1s to resummon, there are also things in the testing area that aren’t added to the calculations. There is also damage coming from projetile finishers, torment on movement (not Sabetha) and confusion on action.

How well it translates into a real situation not least depends on your own performance.

OriOri.8724:

…nor does it account for having more than 1 mob (of which, the story instances in question are heavy on constant adds) that you have to deal with.

The reason I keep focusing on the instances is because they are miserable on a mesmer and it would be impossible for you to get this DPS in the ones I mention. The class is not fun to play in PvE currently when you have more than 1 or 2 mobs to deal with.

As mentioned like – lemme think – a dozen times? – condi Mes is not made for more than 1v1s! and should only be used in niche areas like the mentioned ones. If you do – don’t complain about it – the issue then is you.

Carighan.6758:

Xyonon.3987:

But what I actually wanted to show here is the dps you can deal as condi Mesmer with realistic buffs. It’s top dps against VG (green fields), *Sabetha (ranged) and Matthias in general.*

Yeah, I know. It’s not entirely useless, but still so far from a decent DPS slot…

And this is with a damage setup. Realistically it’s ~12k while playing boonshare. Fair enough since you’re speccing for that, but there’s little reason to bring more mesmers beyond the boonshare, just bring a DPS char instead.

You seem to misunderstand – you don’t take Time Warp, you don’t take Chronomancer, you are no support. It’s like condi Ranger, just that condi Mes has some niche fights to shine.

While I agree it’s just “as good as other professions” against Sabetha, condi Mes is a superior dps profession for green fields at VG aswell a dps in general for Matthias.

There is no thing as “realistically it’s 12k while playing boonshare”. Realistically it’s 27.5k because you don’t. You are not the Chrono.

OriOri.8724:

Just no. If you want a boon controller build that’s fine, but at this point the class should not be redesigned to only be a viable boon controller. If it was going to take that role it should have happened before or very soon after the open betas of GW2.

Well we can’t all be Role:DPS, that’s clearly not working, and balance is just getting more and more finicky and instable. And I’d rather fix things when it hurts to fix than never fix them. Personally.

apharma.3741:

In addition to what Pyro has said about your DPS screenshot Xyonon I notice you have permanent protection, swiftness and regen. Now we all have suspicions about it because you’ve been inconsistent and manipulative in the past so I have to question are you using the chaos trait line and chaotic persistence to skimp on expertise to buff condition duration? Reason I say this is while regen is likely you’re not usually going to have permanent swiftness and not often protection up 100% which will lower DPS.

“Inconsistent and manipulative in the past” … kind words you got there. :P

Anyway …

• perma Regeneration comes from Illusionary Inspiration of the Chronomancer
• perma Protection is easily achievable through the Rev and the Chrono of the cost of the Rev’s damaging equilibrium proc every 20s. Especially in fights with auras, the Protection will decide if specific professions keep or lose their scholar bonus every few seconds and therefore should be kept up, aswell as in the later phases of Sabetha.
• perma Swiftness is a token of “one random boon will be up anyway from time to time”

I’ve been looking at my boons in my runs and they are between 5 and 7 most of the time, so I just went with 6. Don’t ask me where I randomly get vigor from. O.o

apharma.3741:

You also have signet of inspiration, I hope you didn’t do anything underhanded like share your quickness with the phantasms …

Oh my you’re right! I mean Fury would totally be miniscule, but Quickness, uff – jokes aside :P

apharma.3741:

… as we all know they won’t get it in a real raid and only really in low man instances.

“As we all know”? You mean “as I don’t know how to do it?” :P It’s really very easy – just set up 3 duellists about 600 range away from the team and visit them from time to time.

Just pick 4 of your friends and fight a 10m golem and try to share some boons to your phants only, you’ll see it’s super simple, you’ll see.

apharma.3741:

You say it’s alright for Sab but I would choose all other classes first because they can cleave out adds. It also has little to no soft CC. To put it bluntly it is a gimmick build with only a few niches where it might not be terrible.

Still got a marvelous focus pull for those pesky Thugs and Arsonists. That should make up for the cleave damage don’t you think?

What about that soft cc? What do you mean with that? You got pistol for cc against Knuckles or to interrupt Thugs and Arsonists, you also got a blind on your scepter for blinding outer Thugs. Emergency cc would be moa or even dom signet.

apharma.3741:

it doesn’t fool anyone experienced enough to know that it’s not a reality when translated into real situations.

Oh the irony.

Xyonon.3987:

“Inconsistent and manipulative in the past” … kind words you got there. :P

Anyway …

• perma Regeneration comes from Illusionary Inspiration of the Chronomancer
• perma Protection is easily achievable through the Rev and the Chrono of the cost of the Rev’s damaging equilibrium proc every 20s. Especially in fights with auras, the Protection will decide if specific professions keep or lose their scholar bonus every few seconds and therefore should be kept up, aswell as in the later phases of Sabetha.
• perma Swiftness is a token of “one random boon will be up anyway from time to time”

I’ve been looking at my boons in my runs and they are between 5 and 7 most of the time, so I just went with 6. Don’t ask me where I randomly get vigor from. O.o

Still didn’t answer the question, use the trait or not to buff condition duration?

Xyonon.3987:

Oh my you’re right! I mean Fury would totally be miniscule, but Quickness, uff – jokes aside :P

Did you bother reading the edited part where I specifically mention fury as well for double dipping on bleeds or were you too caught up with the personal attack?

Just from a very rough bit of messing around on the golem area, passing quickness onto my power pistol phantasms adding 1-1.5k dps through faster unloads. Without fury on my power but with duelists discipline I was getting 3-4k bleeds with it averaging about 3.5k. When you added fury onto the phantasms by sharing with SoI it goes up to 4-5k. Not exactly a small number and would be significantly higher on a condi build.

Given that boon sharing prioritizes players, you wouldn’t get fury up on the phantasms without phantasmal fury. So answer the question instead of diverting with personal attacks. Did you share fury and quickness in this test?

Xyonon.3987:

“As we all know”? You mean “as I don’t know how to do it?” :P It’s really very easy – just set up 3 duellists about 600 range away from the team and visit them from time to time.

Just pick 4 of your friends and fight a 10m golem and try to share some boons to your phants only, you’ll see it’s super simple, you’ll see.

You really are easily tilted. It still means you have to every now and then move 600+ from your own group, additionally you say:

Xyonon.3987:

It’s top dps against VG (green fields), Sabetha (ranged) and Matthias in general.

Except VG moves so GL running backwards and forward to phantasms and greens all the time while maintaining your own personal DPS. Sab sure not too bad especially if kiting the ranged but Matthias also moves which will make phantasms go anywhere from 600-1200 range from Matthias, will lose you DPS with the extra running. That’s without mentioning the mechanics that actively work against running to them to share SoI or that in the transform phase you wanna stay tight as a group for group heals more often than not.

Xyonon.3987:

Still got a marvelous focus pull for those pesky Thugs and Arsonists. That should make up for the cleave damage don’t you think?

What about that soft cc? What do you mean with that? You got pistol for cc against Knuckles or to interrupt Thugs and Arsonists, you also got a blind on your scepter for blinding outer Thugs. Emergency cc would be moa or even dom signet.

Why? You have permanent quickness, already have a mesmer for pulling and who needs to pull when other classes cleave em out with not a lot of thought? Honestly I rarely find we’re in need of another temporal curtain in any raid boss.

For CC (hard) I do say you have choice of alternate weapon set for breakbars but soft CC comes in handy a lot too, you haven’t got any of that either without destroying phantasms, that’s what I’m saying and other classes do have it if they want it.

Xyonon.3987:

Oh the irony.

Again, answer the questions so we can see if you have been padding the DPS or not. I still stand by my point, I’d take every other class over a DPS mesmer in every single raid encounter. I laughed particularly hard when you said about necro losing dps by doing greens on VG. I do play that role and there is nothing I need to be close to VG for as most skills have a 900-1200 range. It is extremely rare we are over 900 from VG, I guess we just control it’s placement better.

I suggest you should give it a honest try. If you don’t want to because of all your “reasons” – I don’t mind anymore.

Xyonon.3987:

I suggest you should give it a honest try. If you don’t want to because of all your “reasons” – I don’t mind anymore.

Then perhaps you should have linked the build using gw2skills.net with each of your photographic evidence so that people could replicate and test it themselves?

I don’t need to try the build as I am already good at playing ele and surpass this in DPS in my own tests and I believe there are better condition/ranged options for VG. Necro epi bouncing there isn’t just about the DPS, it slows the red orbs down to a crawl so you can largely ignore them.

There you go. I thought I already did this pages ago, but must’ve been on reddit then.

No “need to try” because you have alternatives? This is about science, you can never know too much if you ask me!

Xyonon.3987:

As mentioned like – lemme think – a dozen times? – condi Mes is not made for more than 1v1s! and should only be used in niche areas like the mentioned ones. If you do – don’t complain about it – the issue then is you.

And as mentioned like – lemme think – a dozen times? – people in this thread are talking about general open world PvE where you have to fight more than 1 mob at a time and everytime without fail you retort with this build that you yourselkittennowledge as a build that is only effective at fighting one mob. That is why I keep pressing you for the video of you doing the new story instances on your mesmer to show us how “easy” and “enjoyable” they are for a mesmer. You keep derailing this by coming back to this 1 mob build despite the fact that we are trying to discuss how mesmer fares against spawns, and neverending spawns in the case of the new story instances.

Those are simply two different topics. The problem here is the confusion what one is talking about. The thread is about damage in general, there are post about damage dealer in raids, posts about open world content in general, posts about instances, post about hero points etc.

I will do the requested video, but not on my laptop, so I’ll have to do it on the weekend, and then I have to reinstall – how’s it called – the recording programm again – and I HATE to find all the settings again >:( …

I think one big problem is that some people keep arguing “yeah but we can do <number> damage!” while others say “we suck at damage”.

The two opinions are ofc both valid, and in fact, both are valid as observations, too. Comparing the majority of the game, our damage isn’t terrible. Unnecessarily complex to apply maybe, but that’s if anything part of the class (even though it’d be nice to be rewarded for doing it well then). But not outright bad.
Only problem is, giving that same person an Ele just does worlds more damage, and that’s the other side of it. Alright as the damage might be, outside of boon sharing we don’t really do anything others won’t do better. And without our weird combat mechanics, plus having loads more options as far as specs go.

OriOri.8724:

Xyonon.3987:

As mentioned like – lemme think – a dozen times? – condi Mes is not made for more than 1v1s! and should only be used in niche areas like the mentioned ones. If you do – don’t complain about it – the issue then is you.

And as mentioned like – lemme think – a dozen times? – people in this thread are talking about general open world PvE where you have to fight more than 1 mob at a time and everytime without fail you retort with this build that you yourselkittennowledge as a build that is only effective at fighting one mob. That is why I keep pressing you for the video of you doing the new story instances on your mesmer to show us how “easy” and “enjoyable” they are for a mesmer. You keep derailing this by coming back to this 1 mob build despite the fact that we are trying to discuss how mesmer fares against spawns, and neverending spawns in the case of the new story instances.

Hold on … OW PVE is not mainly about fighting more than one mob at a time and if THAT’S the core complaint for why Mesmers need love, then the solution is for Anet to give players lessons on how to play. No Mesmer player should have an issue with a few trash mobs in PVE so much so that it justifies buffs to the class. This is 95% of my ‘Mesmer activities’ … Throwing down wells and AOE attacks on multiple mobs in OW PVE is NOT something that should challenge any player in this game, regardless of class.

Now, maybe you were talking HoT? I don’t know … different story. If so, apologies.

Xyonon.3987:

Snip.

I was going to stay out of this. I have a lot of fun on my Mesmer, so Its deficiencies don’t usually bother me, but has gone too far. You’re using a 100% selfish, single-target-only DPS spec and all it does is 22k…? My Viper Ele does about that, and I consider it a support build.

Know what else it does?

-Provides high uptime (100% uptime with rev) of the following boons:
Fury
Regen
Protection
Vigor
12-20 stacks of might (20-25 with rev)

-Almost everything it does is AoE
-Has access to group healing when needed
-loads of soft CC
-Has access to plenty of hard CC when needed
-High Reflect uptime

Want to know what I did find impressive about your post, though?

Your Raid group seems fine with carrying you on that build.

A full signet Guard with a Hammer that did absolutely nothing but AA would do about that much damage and still offer more to their group.

You misread – during the ramp up time it does an average of 22k. After you’ve got the 3rd duellist (aka ~15s), you’ll be at 25k, after the first fury share 27.5k.

The ramp up time of condi professions is visible in golem tests, the ones of power professions however isn’t since you start with all buffs right away; that is what I was saying.

I’m well aware of the dps numbers of all professions and almost all of their specs. I’ve got rather elitist standards for my guild, so testing each build and idea more than once is a must. From what I’ve seen about condi Mes is that it’s neither better or worse than the alternatives at Sabby, but superior at VG and especially Matthias.

CptAurellian.9537:

Dirame.8521:

How do you deal with large groups of enemies as a mesmer? Simple! Play condi. Condi hits everything in the area, you apply 2 conditions that the enemy will always take full damage from and you’re not dependent on a phantasm to do damage.

And by the time your condis have killed the enemies, all other classes with a power build have already killed the next two packs.

He asked for a way to deal with mobs like pocket raptors with higher health and armour. I gave an answer that is perfectly viable but you know, eat me alive why don’t you. I’m not the one who has problems in PvE.

Dirame.8521:

CptAurellian.9537:

Dirame.8521:

How do you deal with large groups of enemies as a mesmer? Simple! Play condi. Condi hits everything in the area, you apply 2 conditions that the enemy will always take full damage from and you’re not dependent on a phantasm to do damage.

And by the time your condis have killed the enemies, all other classes with a power build have already killed the next two packs.

He asked for a way to deal with mobs like pocket raptors with higher health and armour. I gave an answer that is perfectly viable but you know, eat me alive why don’t you. I’m not the one who has problems in PvE.

This is not what I asked for and you know this.

Dirame.8521:

CptAurellian.9537:

Dirame.8521:

How do you deal with large groups of enemies as a mesmer? Simple! Play condi. Condi hits everything in the area, you apply 2 conditions that the enemy will always take full damage from and you’re not dependent on a phantasm to do damage.

And by the time your condis have killed the enemies, all other classes with a power build have already killed the next two packs.

He asked for a way to deal with mobs like pocket raptors with higher health and armour. I gave an answer that is perfectly viable but you know, eat me alive why don’t you. I’m not the one who has problems in PvE.

“Apply 2 conditions that the enemy will always take full damage on.”

Please don’t tell me you’re referring to torment and confusion here…

Fay.2357:

Dirame.8521:

CptAurellian.9537:

Dirame.8521:

How do you deal with large groups of enemies as a mesmer? Simple! Play condi. Condi hits everything in the area, you apply 2 conditions that the enemy will always take full damage from and you’re not dependent on a phantasm to do damage.

And by the time your condis have killed the enemies, all other classes with a power build have already killed the next two packs.

He asked for a way to deal with mobs like pocket raptors with higher health and armour. I gave an answer that is perfectly viable but you know, eat me alive why don’t you. I’m not the one who has problems in PvE.

“Apply 2 conditions that the enemy will always take full damage on.”

Please don’t tell me you’re referring to torment and confusion here…

But mesmer so OP, why u not know dis?

To be honest I think all the different situations require different setups on the mesmer. Too many people rely on the test golems as the “word” on how to setup. The only real good test fight scenario I found is against Vet Karka (only lacks the break-bar). It’s the one non-boss combat NPC that has the most variety of attacks, interrupts, lockdowns, boon generation in the game. I would like to see all classes test themselves against that NPC for stats of various setups and stats like average DPS, spike DPS, direct dps, condi dps, and takedown time. This kind of test would be more “real world” in demonstrating the proficiency of the class. Of course PvP 1v1 is another good valid test, but it relies on the equivalency of play between the two players.

Ananeos.4587:

Dirame.8521:

CptAurellian.9537:

Dirame.8521:

How do you deal with large groups of enemies as a mesmer? Simple! Play condi. Condi hits everything in the area, you apply 2 conditions that the enemy will always take full damage from and you’re not dependent on a phantasm to do damage.

And by the time your condis have killed the enemies, all other classes with a power build have already killed the next two packs.

He asked for a way to deal with mobs like pocket raptors with higher health and armour. I gave an answer that is perfectly viable but you know, eat me alive why don’t you. I’m not the one who has problems in PvE.

This is not what I asked for and you know this.

What did you want then? An AoE build?

Here’s an AoE build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8dncfCtfidqB+pBEgiFWj6cJWumjMBCggruYf2oF-ThCEQBMUJ2EeIAbUJI/Upwd6GaoyA/puC92fAAXBAHq0IAwBw93n9tPY5lXe5lXu5nf+5nf+SBExSL-e

I haven’t tested it yet but the theories in it seem sound to me. Seems like it would kill pocket raptors real good too.

Oh please … Marauder and Commander gear to cripple your already medium damage even more? And ofc the glorious GS for it’s ultra cleave damage you can swap back to all the time without any heavy drawbacks wich is clearly superior to a stacking pull or the shield in general! YAY! I don’t even want to get started with the trait picks …

I didn’t want to sound rude but … how do ppl even come up with stuff like that?! o.ô Unless you are new, then I’m deeply sorry for my language.

I agree on suggesting Bloodlust wich is a (who knows why) barely used sigil that increases your damage so much. You should even use it in raids if you can stack it in any preevent.

If you want to cleave and deal with trash effective in solo, you have to focus fully on damage and gain “tankyness” with your evades, dodges and blocks. Then just use one or two mantras, depending on what enemies you’ll face together with WoC and you’re fine. The food may be a bit expensive but it’s amazing since the might on crit without internal cd stacks up so fast.

For example for the new maps, the destroyers barely got defiance bars, so you can freely interrupt them for big aoe damage: Click Me!

In the HoT maps I’d rather pick this: Click Me!

Xyonon.3987:

Oh please … Marauder and Commander gear to cripple your already medium damage even more? And ofc the glorious GS for it’s ultra cleave damage you can swap back to all the time without any heavy drawbacks wich is clearly superior to a stacking pull or the shield in general! YAY! I don’t even want to get started with the trait picks …

I didn’t want to sound rude but … how do ppl even come up with stuff like that?! o.ô Unless you are new, then I’m deeply sorry for my language.

I agree on suggesting Bloodlust wich is a (who knows why) barely used sigil that increases your damage so much. You should even use it in raids if you can stack it in any preevent.

---

If you want to cleave and deal with trash effective in solo, you have to focus fully on damage and gain “tankyness” with your evades, dodges and blocks. Then just use one or two mantras, depending on what enemies you’ll face together with WoC and you’re fine. The food may be a bit expensive but it’s amazing since the might on crit without internal cd stacks up so fast.

For example for the new maps, the destroyers barely got defiance bars, so you can freely interrupt them for big aoe damage: Click Me!

In the HoT maps I’d rather pick this: Click Me!

Meh, I care about survivability just as much as damage so, to each his own.

Dirame.8521:

Meh, I care about survivability just as much as damage so, to each his own.

In PvE? That’s cute…

Dirame.8521:

Ananeos.4587:

Dirame.8521:

CptAurellian.9537:

Dirame.8521:

How do you deal with large groups of enemies as a mesmer? Simple! Play condi. Condi hits everything in the area, you apply 2 conditions that the enemy will always take full damage from and you’re not dependent on a phantasm to do damage.

And by the time your condis have killed the enemies, all other classes with a power build have already killed the next two packs.

He asked for a way to deal with mobs like pocket raptors with higher health and armour. I gave an answer that is perfectly viable but you know, eat me alive why don’t you. I’m not the one who has problems in PvE.

This is not what I asked for and you know this.

What did you want then? An AoE build?

Here’s an AoE build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8dncfCtfidqB+pBEgiFWj6cJWumjMBCggruYf2oF-ThCEQBMUJ2EeIAbUJI/Upwd6GaoyA/puC92fAAXBAHq0IAwBw93n9tPY5lXe5lXu5nf+5nf+SBExSL-e

I haven’t tested it yet but the theories in it seem sound to me. Seems like it would kill pocket raptors real good too.

That’s not what I was asking for nor what I care about. My original question was how is mesmer supposed to survive upcoming living story episodes and manage the achievements for those episodes. You take that trash build that you linked and go redo that Egg Chamber room featuring an infinite minion spawn kill box room and clone killing aoe. There are two achievements that you have to get which states that you cannot have the shield go below 50% and you cannot die in the chamber once. Dying and letting the shield drop removes the chance at the achievements and you have to redo the entire episode again. Better yet, go ahead and take that crappy build and attempt Glint’s Lair too, which has mechanics so infuriating such as bosses don’t take any damage from phantasms. Record and post both videos here.

Same goes for you Obtena, you haven’t given me anything, yet you still blatantly lie on other class forums on how mesmer needs to be toned down. Shame.

Ananeos.4587:

That’s not what I was asking for nor what I care about. My original question was how is mesmer supposed to survive upcoming living story episodes and manage the achievements for those episodes. You take that trash build that you linked and go redo that Egg Chamber room featuring an infinite minion spawn kill box room and clone killing aoe. There are two achievements that you have to get which states that you cannot have the shield go below 50% and you cannot die in the chamber once. Dying and letting the shield drop removes the chance at the achievements and you have to redo the entire episode again. Better yet, go ahead and take that crappy build and attempt Glint’s Lair too, which has mechanics so infuriating such as bosses don’t take any damage from phantasms. Record and post both videos here.

Same goes for you Obtena, you haven’t given me anything, yet you still blatantly lie on other class forums on how mesmer needs to be toned down. Shame.

Oh please, stop whining and get a group if you want to do those achievements.

Why should only Mesmers need a group for LW achievements, though? That’s the question at hand. No other class has trouble doing the achievements solo.

Every profession needs a party for doing the achievments if you aren’t good enough. Mesmer just makes it more noticable.

So, you admit that there’s a balance discrepancy between classes, then? You know, the thing the whole thread is about? I’m glad you finally came around to admitting that.

How’re mesmers supposed to keep up?

With a 6% damage buff to the 2 lowest damage parts of its auto attack!

Woooo

Oh and 100% buff to blurred frenzy o.O

Ananeos.4587:

Same goes for you Obtena, you haven’t given me anything, yet you still blatantly lie on other class forums on how mesmer needs to be toned down. Shame.

Well, let me help you out a bit, since you asked so nicely by calling me a liar …

I have already given you a hint about how you can do exactly that in a previous post. This isn’t an MMO for no reason. If you struggle with some part of the game, it’s not out of the question that you get people to help you out. As I’ve already said, that’s not just a glib answer to ignoring what you think is a problem, it’s a strategy that people employ to get things done in MMO’s all the time. It’s not Anet’s concern to fix the game for you if you want to play it like a Single player RPG … I know, I know, it’s supposed to be a ‘personal’ story right? You’re supposed to be able to complete ‘personal’ stories on your own yes? The fact is that there is no accounting for how well people play with what builds and classes, unless you are suggesting that Anet dumb down all content in the personal story based on the lowest common denominator for class, skill and build. That’s not unreasonable either .. there are a few story instances where it’s hard if not impossible to get the achievements without help, so my question here is what makes whatever particular instance you’re talking about so special that it requires a buff to the class when previously hard instances did not?

apharma.3741:

How’re mesmers supposed to keep up?

With a 6% damage buff to the 2 lowest damage parts of its auto attack!

Woooo

Oh and 100% buff to blurred frenzy o.O

Hey, that’s a pretty massive bump all things considered. Definitely not the correct direction, but this is ANet. Aside from powercreeping bunkers and condition builds, they don’t seem to be very good with the whole direction thing.

Inb4 tons of confusion by other players as to why BF does “no damage” in WvW/PvP but hits for 30k in PvE.

Ah, the merits of split balance. Mesmer is going to be one of the first to live in the chaos that discussion about the class will become, though you could argue that’s been the state of the thief for several years…