Guild Wars 2

How are Mesmers supposed to keep up in PvE? Already there are calls to increase the difficulty of enemies on the upcoming maps and more. Mesmers only do sustained damage on one target only, what happens when another enemy like pocket raptors are introduced with more health and armor?

How are we supposed to cope with the Living Story bosses and achievements like at the end of LS2?

Just use Wells, lulz.

Krispera.5087:

Just use Wells, lulz.

yea, I pop a well on them little suckers along with GS 3 and your laughing….hopefully!
But yea, we all hoping Mesmer gets some love of some sort.

I have no idea.

I never got passed the “How do I stay awake doing GW2 PvE” problem.

Maybe we just need Skritt and a challenge for you Ross?

#Hunt #BurnTheWitch #DavesLumberSupplies

@Topic

Yeah it feels like damage on mesmer is slowly but surely disappearing from most peoples memory. You say drop wells and GS3 pocket raptors but do you know how easy it is on other classes to kill them all?

I said in another thread that mesmer is 1 ill conceived signet of inspiration change away from being irrelevant in PvE and WvW for the most part. I can see them being worthless if signet of inspiration only copied 5s of each boon you had.

apharma.3741:

Maybe we just need Skritt and a challenge for you Ross?

#Hunt #BurnTheWitch #DavesLumberSupplies

Hey! WvW is a legitimize PvP area and those skrit official Anet sanctioned PvP mobs.

Ananeos.4587:

Already there are calls to increase the difficulty of enemies on the upcoming maps and more.

Really? Will it be actual difficulty or just adding annoying mechanics like they’ve done with HoT?

One man’s difficulty is another’s annoying mechanics.

Chrono is perfectly fine in solo and pve open world. Our damage is as high as most other professions. Don’t get confused by full buffed numbers you see in parties like fotm or raids.

Joxer.6024:

Krispera.5087:

Just use Wells, lulz.

yea, I pop a well on them little suckers along with GS 3 and your laughing….hopefully!
But yea, we all hoping Mesmer gets some love of some sort.

You use a GS – you have no right to complain.

Just use MoP with some wells and GS/staff for weapons, OP. I can assure you I can tag multiple foes with this set-up

flog.3485:

Just use MoP with some wells and GS/staff for weapons, OP. I can assure you I can tag multiple foes with this set-up

i think op’s point is that either you use that almost a full build setup for some pity aoe damage or cant do “harder” open world or living story content fast enough .
and any other classes will have that damage easily just for doing their AA chain .

it can be done . but i just play my ele or engi for living story now .much much more fun than a mes .

Actually, chrono sucks in solo open world, unless you plan to lose all mobility and just tank the damage. Chrono is nearly worthless except for party support, which is something that I have no interest in.

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.

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.

Yeah, those mobs taking so much damage from confusion by spamming that auto attack while running round like newbs…

flog.3485:

Just use MoP with some wells and GS/staff for weapons, OP. I can assure you I can tag multiple foes with this set-up

Notice what you’re not doing in this scenario: using Mesmer mechanics at all. Nobody else has to ignore their class mechanics just to do open world stuff.

Yeah, those mobs taking so much damage from confusion by spamming that auto attack while running round like newbs…

With a decent condi build (2K+ condi dmg) paired with staff – scepter/focus you’ll apply more then enough bleeds/burns/confusion and vulnerability. Mesmers aren’t useless, it’s how you use them that counts.

On a side note, i love my Chrono equally as much as all my other classes (got em all).

Sthenith.5196:

Yeah, those mobs taking so much damage from confusion by spamming that auto attack while running round like newbs…

With a decent condi build (2K+ condi dmg) paired with staff – scepter/focus you’ll apply more then enough bleeds/burns/confusion and vulnerability. Mesmers aren’t useless, it’s how you use them that counts.

On a side note, i love my Chrono equally as much as all my other classes (got em all).

See here’s the thing, my ele does 4k+ lava fonts and about the same for auto attacks, solo, no real might generating. Most of my classes easily do that level of damage without a party for buffs and it doesn’t exactly take much set up and can be continued without waiting on cool downs.

Heaven forbid you play another class with 25 might, fury, GotL stacks, frost spirit etc and get 13k meteors, 8-9k fireballs/lava fonts.

apharma.3741:

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.

Yeah, those mobs taking so much damage from confusion by spamming that auto attack while running round like newbs…

Confusion does ticking damage now so…. /shrug

Dirame.8521:

apharma.3741:

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.

Yeah, those mobs taking so much damage from confusion by spamming that auto attack while running round like newbs…

Confusion does ticking damage now so…. /shrug

My ele’s Lava Font does 4k ticking damage now so….. /shrug

tobascodagama.2961:

flog.3485:

Just use MoP with some wells and GS/staff for weapons, OP. I can assure you I can tag multiple foes with this set-up

Notice what you’re not doing in this scenario: using Mesmer mechanics at all. Nobody else has to ignore their class mechanics just to do open world stuff.

What are you talking about? What particular mesmer mechanics are you are referring to? I am still using my shatters, I still summon illusions to shatter, I still gain might and I double on wells, chaos storm and clones and phantasms to cleave foes….and I gain stability for each shatter. What else do you want?

Xyonon.3987:

Chrono is perfectly fine in solo and pve open world. Our damage is as high as most other professions. Don’t get confused by full buffed numbers you see in parties like fotm or raids.

That’s…not even remotely true. Particularly in open world with multiple targets and such, our damage is miserable. Mobs will often pop our phantasms rapidly, our aoe is garbage, and our direct damage is awful…that’s why it’s still awful when fully buffed.

When you play as mesmer, you have to think more, microcontrol, use every skill you have and still be the least effective class for PVE.
For that reason I considered mesmer to be a garbage class, up untill i hit WvW.

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.

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.

Or even other classes with condie builds that don’t rely on the 2 most worthless PvE conditions…

Ross Biddle.2367:

I never got passed the “How do I stay awake doing GW2 PvE” problem.

Same way you do with PvP: Turn it off and play something interesting instead?

I am not sure everyone has the same definition of open PvE, that is, random mobs around the corner which you need to kill to fill the event bar.
I don’t get the impression that mesmer lacks in term of burst damage. I always go around with clone on dodge and double clone utility so I can spam my shatter with 3 illusions even before the mobs started to move towards me. With Sw/focus you can play the invuln burst then move them thanks to the field of focus 4…. I even play the might on GS attack traits, pop 3 clones and when might is high, shatter to maximize the F1 damage. It goes as fast as many other profession with a unique difference that mobs don’t jump on me because they are more attracted by illusion. I spend much less time healing than on my Ele when played solo.

Ranael.6423:

I don’t get the impression that mesmer lacks in term of burst damage. I always go around with clone on dodge and double clone utility so I can spam my shatter with 3 illusions even before the mobs started to move towards me.

Oh boy, you can kill mobs effectively once every 30 seconds!

…somehow I remain unimpressed.

Ranael.6423:

I am not sure everyone has the same definition of open PvE, that is, random mobs around the corner which you need to kill to fill the event bar.
I don’t get the impression that mesmer lacks in term of burst damage. I always go around with clone on dodge and double clone utility so I can spam my shatter with 3 illusions even before the mobs started to move towards me. With Sw/focus you can play the invuln burst then move them thanks to the field of focus 4…. I even play the might on GS attack traits, pop 3 clones and when might is high, shatter to maximize the F1 damage. It goes as fast as many other profession with a unique difference that mobs don’t jump on me because they are more attracted by illusion. I spend much less time healing than on my Ele when played solo.

You’re not going to like this but it needs to be said, if this is indeed true then you’re just bad at ele and this comes from someone with 3.5k+ hours on ele. On staff ele most mobs die in 2 hits, for D/X 2 lightening whips will do the trick, no might stacking needed and that’s without talking about air overload. It’s at the point where I use the glyph heal not because I need a heal but because it gives permanent swiftness in air.

In addition if you truly are using the GS trait to stack might you will be waiting a few seconds before shattering as you described. During that time most other classes have already killed the mobs and moved on. You are also playing a shatter build, even assuming 100% alacrity and illusions line you’re looking g at a 7.5s cool down on your burst while most other classes will kill an extra 1-3 mobs while you’re plinking away with attacks that do half what other professions do.

Fay.2357:

Ranael.6423:

I don’t get the impression that mesmer lacks in term of burst damage. I always go around with clone on dodge and double clone utility so I can spam my shatter with 3 illusions even before the mobs started to move towards me.

Oh boy, you can kill mobs effectively once every 30 seconds!

…somehow I remain unimpressed.

If you wanted to be impressed, don’t check open world PvE performance threads…. and with weapon skills you don’t normally have to wait 30 seconds to have 3 clones… the 12 sec CD of mind wrack is even sometimes too long

apharma.3741:

Ranael.6423:

I am not sure everyone has the same definition of open PvE, that is, random mobs around the corner which you need to kill to fill the event bar.
I don’t get the impression that mesmer lacks in term of burst damage. I always go around with clone on dodge and double clone utility so I can spam my shatter with 3 illusions even before the mobs started to move towards me. With Sw/focus you can play the invuln burst then move them thanks to the field of focus 4…. I even play the might on GS attack traits, pop 3 clones and when might is high, shatter to maximize the F1 damage. It goes as fast as many other profession with a unique difference that mobs don’t jump on me because they are more attracted by illusion. I spend much less time healing than on my Ele when played solo.

You’re not going to like this but it needs to be said, if this is indeed true then you’re just bad at ele and this comes from someone with 3.5k+ hours on ele. On staff ele most mobs die in 2 hits, for D/X 2 lightening whips will do the trick, no might stacking needed and that’s without talking about air overload. It’s at the point where I use the glyph heal not because I need a heal but because it gives permanent swiftness in air.

In addition if you truly are using the GS trait to stack might you will be waiting a few seconds before shattering as you described. During that time most other classes have already killed the mobs and moved on. You are also playing a shatter build, even assuming 100% alacrity and illusions line you’re looking g at a 7.5s cool down on your burst while most other classes will kill an extra 1-3 mobs while you’re plinking away with attacks that do half what other professions do.

I simply say that for what is required in open PVE there is no big difference in moving forward or completing events with a mesmer. I may be bad at Ele or you bad at mesmer, who cares… do you really feel impaired with mesmer progression in open world PVE, a.k.a loot party by following a train or chain killing weak mobs to fill an event bar?

Ranael.6423:

apharma.3741:

Ranael.6423:

I am not sure everyone has the same definition of open PvE, that is, random mobs around the corner which you need to kill to fill the event bar.
I don’t get the impression that mesmer lacks in term of burst damage. I always go around with clone on dodge and double clone utility so I can spam my shatter with 3 illusions even before the mobs started to move towards me. With Sw/focus you can play the invuln burst then move them thanks to the field of focus 4…. I even play the might on GS attack traits, pop 3 clones and when might is high, shatter to maximize the F1 damage. It goes as fast as many other profession with a unique difference that mobs don’t jump on me because they are more attracted by illusion. I spend much less time healing than on my Ele when played solo.

You’re not going to like this but it needs to be said, if this is indeed true then you’re just bad at ele and this comes from someone with 3.5k+ hours on ele. On staff ele most mobs die in 2 hits, for D/X 2 lightening whips will do the trick, no might stacking needed and that’s without talking about air overload. It’s at the point where I use the glyph heal not because I need a heal but because it gives permanent swiftness in air.

In addition if you truly are using the GS trait to stack might you will be waiting a few seconds before shattering as you described. During that time most other classes have already killed the mobs and moved on. You are also playing a shatter build, even assuming 100% alacrity and illusions line you’re looking g at a 7.5s cool down on your burst while most other classes will kill an extra 1-3 mobs while you’re plinking away with attacks that do half what other professions do.

I simply say that for what is required in open PVE there is no big difference in moving forward or completing events with a mesmer. I may be bad at Ele or you bad at mesmer, who cares… do you really feel impaired with mesmer progression in open world PVE, a.k.a loot party by following a train or chain killing weak mobs to fill an event bar?

Anyone that has played mesmer for any period of time over a few hours will have noticed the hilariously poor AoE a mesmer has compared to many other classes and I’m not even comparing to guardian lootstick trains either.

There’s only maybe 1 class that I would consider worse than mesmer for what you are saying, ranger. Every other class either has extreme cleave with good damage and high attack speed or pulsing AoE on low cool downs. Sadly I will need to clarify this, by low I mean a few second cool downs not chrono 20s+ well cool downs.

You go to the CD event train and what do you see? Flamethrower engies, lootstick guards, staff eles, staff and well necros, Jalis revs and maybe the occasional thief and warrior.

Edit: This is without going over the other down sides mesmers have like poor sustained damage, sustained damage usually being single target, targets in fights disappearing removing our phantasms and thus our sustained damage or the relatively high ramp up time for them compared to every other class.

Ranael.6423:

I am not sure everyone has the same definition of open PvE, that is, random mobs around the corner which you need to kill to fill the event bar.
I don’t get the impression that mesmer lacks in term of burst damage. I always go around with clone on dodge and double clone utility so I can spam my shatter with 3 illusions even before the mobs started to move towards me. With Sw/focus you can play the invuln burst then move them thanks to the field of focus 4…. I even play the might on GS attack traits, pop 3 clones and when might is high, shatter to maximize the F1 damage. It goes as fast as many other profession with a unique difference that mobs don’t jump on me because they are more attracted by illusion. I spend much less time healing than on my Ele when played solo.

GS, staff and scepter are the only weapons we have that can pump out clones relatively quickly, of those you only claim to use GS. Even if you fully trait Sword and Focus, you only get 1 clone every 9.5 sec and 1 phantasm every 20 seconds. Again if you trait for it, you can use mirror images every 24 seconds. Look at those cooldowns man. Yes, you can pop mirror images and then kill a single mob with it great. So over the next 24 seconds you can get off one more 3 illusion shatter, 2 if you are running chronomancer. For a grand total of 3 mobs every 24 seconds…… Yes, absolutely blazingly fast kill speeds on mesmer PvE, not to mention that other classes can kill more mobs in less time while using only their weapon skills (ie no utility or class mehanics) and you claim that mesmer keeps up with other classes in terms of DPS?

My Thief runs two signets plus the Block/Stun Break, and my Elite is Basilisk Venom just for a little extra Defiance Bar damage during events. It clears mobs so kitten fast in comparison to my Mesmer, and it’s not even considered a particularly good PvE class.

If you think Mesmer is at all reasonable for open world events (which is obviously the direction content will be taking from now on), go play any other class for a couple of hours.

OriOri.8724:

Ranael.6423:

I am not sure everyone has the same definition of open PvE, that is, random mobs around the corner which you need to kill to fill the event bar.
I don’t get the impression that mesmer lacks in term of burst damage. I always go around with clone on dodge and double clone utility so I can spam my shatter with 3 illusions even before the mobs started to move towards me. With Sw/focus you can play the invuln burst then move them thanks to the field of focus 4…. I even play the might on GS attack traits, pop 3 clones and when might is high, shatter to maximize the F1 damage. It goes as fast as many other profession with a unique difference that mobs don’t jump on me because they are more attracted by illusion. I spend much less time healing than on my Ele when played solo.

GS, staff and scepter are the only weapons we have that can pump out clones relatively quickly, of those you only claim to use GS. Even if you fully trait Sword and Focus, you only get 1 clone every 9.5 sec and 1 phantasm every 20 seconds. Again if you trait for it, you can use mirror images every 24 seconds. Look at those cooldowns man. Yes, you can pop mirror images and then kill a single mob with it great. So over the next 24 seconds you can get off one more 3 illusion shatter, 2 if you are running chronomancer. For a grand total of 3 mobs every 24 seconds…… Yes, absolutely blazingly fast kill speeds on mesmer PvE, not to mention that other classes can kill more mobs in less time while using only their weapon skills (ie no utility or class mehanics) and you claim that mesmer keeps up with other classes in terms of DPS?

No I claim that I don’t feel slower in open world progression with Mesmer, but I don’t count time for all activities, which are timed by the game itself in the end. There is less DPS in mesmer than Ele sure… but it is still way higher than the required DPS for open worlds events in any case. Who cares if a fireball crit for 4 k if a mob has 1 k DPS.
Before you quote those numbers they are just examples OK ?

Ranael.6423:

OriOri.8724:

Ranael.6423:

I am not sure everyone has the same definition of open PvE, that is, random mobs around the corner which you need to kill to fill the event bar.
I don’t get the impression that mesmer lacks in term of burst damage. I always go around with clone on dodge and double clone utility so I can spam my shatter with 3 illusions even before the mobs started to move towards me. With Sw/focus you can play the invuln burst then move them thanks to the field of focus 4…. I even play the might on GS attack traits, pop 3 clones and when might is high, shatter to maximize the F1 damage. It goes as fast as many other profession with a unique difference that mobs don’t jump on me because they are more attracted by illusion. I spend much less time healing than on my Ele when played solo.

GS, staff and scepter are the only weapons we have that can pump out clones relatively quickly, of those you only claim to use GS. Even if you fully trait Sword and Focus, you only get 1 clone every 9.5 sec and 1 phantasm every 20 seconds. Again if you trait for it, you can use mirror images every 24 seconds. Look at those cooldowns man. Yes, you can pop mirror images and then kill a single mob with it great. So over the next 24 seconds you can get off one more 3 illusion shatter, 2 if you are running chronomancer. For a grand total of 3 mobs every 24 seconds…… Yes, absolutely blazingly fast kill speeds on mesmer PvE, not to mention that other classes can kill more mobs in less time while using only their weapon skills (ie no utility or class mehanics) and you claim that mesmer keeps up with other classes in terms of DPS?

No I claim that I don’t feel slower in open world progression with Mesmer, but I don’t count time for all activities, which are timed by the game itself in the end. There is less DPS in mesmer than Ele sure… but it is still way higher than the required DPS for open worlds events in any case. Who cares if a fireball crit for 4 k if a mob has 1 k DPS.
Before you quote those numbers they are just examples OK ?

Not everyone plays PvE just to do the bare minimum to get credit for events, yet your argument seems to revolve entirely around the fact that mesmer dps is enough to get credit for events. That doesn’t make it fun to take forever to kill mobs. That doesn’t help us in story instances. It doesn’t help us when we are soloing events in less populated maps (which for some strange reason seems to happen to me all the time in silverwastes) where we need to actually finish it, not just tag enough mobs to get credit.

The only time story instances took me forever to finish was when I played Chrono. The rest of the time the story instances were done in a comparable time as other characters. I won’t tell it is exactly the same time but it did not seem much longer. I even cleared solo the Chak nest for the achiev (this time I was playing condi), but it bugged because one chak was encased in the textures

Ranael.6423:

The only time story instances took me forever to finish was when I played Chrono. The rest of the time the story instances were done in a comparable time as other characters. I won’t tell it is exactly the same time but it did not seem much longer. I even cleared solo the Chak nest for the achiev (this time I was playing condi), but it bugged because one chak was encased in the textures

You’re definitely playing the other classes wrong then. Every class other than Mesmer (with the possible exception of ranger) will clear through instances and such drastically faster due to much higher damage on skills, and sustained damage that isn’t tied to long cooldown and fragile phantasms.

Fay.2357:

Ranael.6423:

The only time story instances took me forever to finish was when I played Chrono. The rest of the time the story instances were done in a comparable time as other characters. I won’t tell it is exactly the same time but it did not seem much longer. I even cleared solo the Chak nest for the achiev (this time I was playing condi), but it bugged because one chak was encased in the textures

You’re definitely playing the other classes wrong then. Every class other than Mesmer (with the possible exception of ranger) will clear through instances and such drastically faster due to much higher damage on skills, and sustained damage that isn’t tied to long cooldown and fragile phantasms.

You also forgot they don’t get kitten by fight mechanics like the facets in Glints lair. There are other areas where mesmer gets shafted too but tbh I stopped doing story on mesmer because it was so bad compared to other classes.

apharma.3741:

Fay.2357:

Ranael.6423:

The only time story instances took me forever to finish was when I played Chrono. The rest of the time the story instances were done in a comparable time as other characters. I won’t tell it is exactly the same time but it did not seem much longer. I even cleared solo the Chak nest for the achiev (this time I was playing condi), but it bugged because one chak was encased in the textures

You’re definitely playing the other classes wrong then. Every class other than Mesmer (with the possible exception of ranger) will clear through instances and such drastically faster due to much higher damage on skills, and sustained damage that isn’t tied to long cooldown and fragile phantasms.

You also forgot they don’t get kitten by fight mechanics like the facets in Glints lair. There are other areas where mesmer gets shafted too but tbh I stopped doing story on mesmer because it was so bad compared to other classes.

? The facets were pretty easy fights tbh

OriOri.8724:

apharma.3741:

Fay.2357:

Ranael.6423:

The only time story instances took me forever to finish was when I played Chrono. The rest of the time the story instances were done in a comparable time as other characters. I won’t tell it is exactly the same time but it did not seem much longer. I even cleared solo the Chak nest for the achiev (this time I was playing condi), but it bugged because one chak was encased in the textures

You’re definitely playing the other classes wrong then. Every class other than Mesmer (with the possible exception of ranger) will clear through instances and such drastically faster due to much higher damage on skills, and sustained damage that isn’t tied to long cooldown and fragile phantasms.

You also forgot they don’t get kitten by fight mechanics like the facets in Glints lair. There are other areas where mesmer gets shafted too but tbh I stopped doing story on mesmer because it was so bad compared to other classes.

? The facets were pretty easy fights tbh

There was one where you need a buff to be able to hurt it, none of your phantasms got the buff last time I played it so you had to rely on your own personal attacks. They may have changed it as I haven’t done those stories since release and certainly have had no inclination to go back on mesmer.

It was still like that when I played it, which was at least six months after it was released. Ugh, that was miserable. Yeah, only your crappy personal attacks do anything to the enemies in that one, and they’re hard to melee, so I pretty much had to sit there GS autoing them forever.

The first time was rough yea, but I just redid that instance a week or two ago to finish the achievements and the fights were incredibly easy. One of them took a while but it was still a really easy fight.

And that one that you need the buff to hurt it, phantasms still don’t get the buff but just throw up a ranged phantasm and it will be fine unless you try to shatter it

Ranael.6423:

apharma.3741:

Ranael.6423:

I am not sure everyone has the same definition of open PvE, that is, random mobs around the corner which you need to kill to fill the event bar.
I don’t get the impression that mesmer lacks in term of burst damage. I always go around with clone on dodge and double clone utility so I can spam my shatter with 3 illusions even before the mobs started to move towards me. With Sw/focus you can play the invuln burst then move them thanks to the field of focus 4…. I even play the might on GS attack traits, pop 3 clones and when might is high, shatter to maximize the F1 damage. It goes as fast as many other profession with a unique difference that mobs don’t jump on me because they are more attracted by illusion. I spend much less time healing than on my Ele when played solo.

You’re not going to like this but it needs to be said, if this is indeed true then you’re just bad at ele and this comes from someone with 3.5k+ hours on ele. On staff ele most mobs die in 2 hits, for D/X 2 lightening whips will do the trick, no might stacking needed and that’s without talking about air overload. It’s at the point where I use the glyph heal not because I need a heal but because it gives permanent swiftness in air.

In addition if you truly are using the GS trait to stack might you will be waiting a few seconds before shattering as you described. During that time most other classes have already killed the mobs and moved on. You are also playing a shatter build, even assuming 100% alacrity and illusions line you’re looking g at a 7.5s cool down on your burst while most other classes will kill an extra 1-3 mobs while you’re plinking away with attacks that do half what other professions do.

I simply say that for what is required in open PVE there is no big difference in moving forward or completing events with a mesmer. I may be bad at Ele or you bad at mesmer, who cares… do you really feel impaired with mesmer progression in open world PVE, a.k.a loot party by following a train or chain killing weak mobs to fill an event bar?

I do feel impaired playing solo. Yes, it is doable, but compared to the three other classes I play the most: theif, rev and guardian, the damage and the survivability are pathetic at best. Even as part of group, yes PvE open world content is extremely easy, but unless I am playing support, my contribution to the group is nearly worthless.

The questions are:
- Why do all Mesmer builds require a long build-up to deal damage (except power shatter, which suffers from CD issues)?
- Why do all Mesmer build lack strong/decent AOE?
- Why does Mesmer have to rely on mechanics that clearly do not work well in PvE environment (shatter and phantasms).
- Why do all Mesmer condi builds rely on the two conditions that work very poorly in PvE?
- Why does Mesmer ranged weapons damage fall way behind all classes?
- Why is Mesmer’s survivability heavily reliant on one trait?
- Why are all Mesmer’s builds way behind most other classes in dps?

So far I have not seen logical explanation for any of the above.

Because other players don’t know how to fight against a mesmer in a PvP setting and get kittened off. ANet balances this game around PvP, and a well played mesmer in PvP is indeed one of the most dangerous players in the entire game even though our sustained DPS is kitten (I mean just look at the impact Lord Helseth has on games for kittens sake) (not that sustained DPS means much in PvP anyway). We can burst pretty hard one time by blowing a bunch of cooldowns, which can down unprepared players fast, but it sucks for PvE where it will down one mob at a time and then we have to wait on so many cooldowns to finish, not even if its a scaled up event or a veteran in HoT. Is that logical? No, no it is not, but it is the reason base mesmer DPS is so low.

Chronomancer was designed to address these issues. It gave us not 1 but 2 traits for keeping illusions up in the world, a clear indication that ANet recognized that the base mesmer shatter mechanic is a fundamentally flawed concept. And to help us deal with needing to blow a bunch of CDs to get any sort of halfway decent burst going, we even got the unique Alacrity effect. But Alacrity was deemed way overpowered in a PvP setting for bunker builds (and indeed it was), so it was nerfed across the board (their official statement was that they didn’t want Alacrity to become a necessity in PvE content like raids or fractals because of how powerful it was) without our damage being buffed at all, which is the key problem here. Chronomancer also gave us most of our AoE capabilities with our new wells, which are great but on relatively high cooldowns for being most of the damaging AoE we have access to period, especially when you compare it to other class’ access to highly damaging AoE skills.

Because of our rather unique utility skills, Mesmer will always be a strong class in PvP. But even though we are strong in PvP our damage still sucks, and since the Devs won’t truly separate PvE and PvP skill balance yet still insist on balancing a PvE game around PvP they are too scared to buff our damage at all.

Its all rather stupid. We just need a reworked mechanic (some great ideas have been coming up recently), we need to get our skills truly separated balance wise between PvE and PvP and most of our weapon skills need adjusting (anything from higher damage, to lower cooldowns, to revisiting their effects/conditions applied etc…)

Anyhow to be constructive about the whole open-world PvE thing, I’ve gone through a lot of Mesmer setups and because I tend to always spend most of my time between raids / wvw / whatever in open PvE just running around and doing events while chatting to people, here’s the setups I thought worked really really well:

• Dom / Illusions / Chrono with heavy shatter focus and zerker gear. Kills this ridiculously fast, and the constant barrage of clones running in to blow themselves up means you will most of the time auto-rally. Also like all neat PvE specs includes Master of Fragmentation for that extra reflect and the cripple on F2 if you want to run away.
• Insp / Illu / Chrono with heavy phantasm focus. Kinda annoying to play at first because phantasm-spec, but you spawn them fast enough so it’s not a big deal, especially with all the CD reductions and the free ones on dodge/block from Inspiration. The upside is that this spec cannot really get downed independent of how many mobs are streaming into a group of AFK players.
• My current one, Chaos / Illusions / Chrono, because I figured if I already have pieces with +boonduration, I might as well be a boonslinger, too. Only the inspiration part with the spreading is kinda meh (for personal survival I prefer to equip Gravity Well, anyhow), so I picked Bountiful Disillusionment instead, coupled with might on shatter and all the extra clone/phantasms from Chrono leads to a lot of boons flying around. Pretty neat, and can still run past virtually anything.

OriOri, I agree with what you said, but lets say without making any changes, the devs increased sword AA damage by 100% (yes x2) what difference will that make to sPvP and WvW? Almost negligible. Even if the fundamentals of Mesmer as a class do not change, there are so many easy changes that can be implemented making none support and none conditional builds functional in all game modes.

Since HoT was released, all none condition builds in PvP and none support builds in PvE have been sucking without any action taken.

Even though the change would be almost negligible, ANet would never hear the end of it from other players. They cry when we just aren’t nerfed during balance patches. Can you imagine their reaction if we were to be actually buffed in a meaningful way?

Carighan.6758:

Anyhow to be constructive about the whole open-world PvE thing, I’ve gone through a lot of Mesmer setups and because I tend to always spend most of my time between raids / wvw / whatever in open PvE just running around and doing events while chatting to people, here’s the setups I thought worked really really well:

• Dom / Illusions / Chrono with heavy shatter focus and zerker gear. Kills this ridiculously fast, and the constant barrage of clones running in to blow themselves up means you will most of the time auto-rally. Also like all neat PvE specs includes Master of Fragmentation for that extra reflect and the cripple on F2 if you want to run away.
• Insp / Illu / Chrono with heavy phantasm focus. Kinda annoying to play at first because phantasm-spec, but you spawn them fast enough so it’s not a big deal, especially with all the CD reductions and the free ones on dodge/block from Inspiration. The upside is that this spec cannot really get downed independent of how many mobs are streaming into a group of AFK players.
• My current one, Chaos / Illusions / Chrono, because I figured if I already have pieces with +boonduration, I might as well be a boonslinger, too. Only the inspiration part with the spreading is kinda meh (for personal survival I prefer to equip Gravity Well, anyhow), so I picked Bountiful Disillusionment instead, coupled with might on shatter and all the extra clone/phantasms from Chrono leads to a lot of boons flying around. Pretty neat, and can still run past virtually anything.

How about I take my zerker staff ele and put fire 2 on auto attack and auto target then match it off against your whatever mesmer abomination you came up with. We can do a timed trial to see how many mobs we can kill in a minute.

I’ll even take off my accessories as a handicap. Chances are you crash and burn.

To be honest mesmer does have one thing going for it, has the easiest and possibly highest lazy DPS on world bosses. Summon 3 warlocks and auto attack if traited Dom, duel and illusions for buffing phantasms to the max.

Ofc I wouldn’t say this is something to be encouraged though…

apharma.3741:

To be honest mesmer does have one thing going for it, has the easiest and possibly highest lazy DPS on world bosses. Summon 3 warlocks and auto attack if traited Dom, duel and illusions for buffing phantasms to the max.

Ofc I wouldn’t say this is something to be encouraged though…

I mean, it’s better than anything else we can do…