How to Counter Tanky Mesmers?
There’s a trait that causes phantasms to grant regeneration every 10 seconds (iDuelist is every 3, probably due to a bug) and another that grants it when the mesmer hits 75% (30s cd). Then there’s a trait to grant protection when you get regeneration. It’s not related to specific weapon choices. Kill the clones or make them move away from the mesmer to stop the spam. The 75% one is unavoidable if you can’t get them to 75% twice within 30s.
15 chaos/15 inspiration will give mesmers all three, by the way. They are all minor traits.
They’re running a reflection bunker build. The bubble over you isn’t a trait as it is a utility skill that reflects your projectiles back at you.
If he’s running offhand focus, then likely has traited his focus skills to reflect projectiles as well. Pair this off with runes of blood, regeneration/protection phantasems setup, and powerful healing runes, and he can generally sit there forever against a ranged opponent and hold a point. Melee would have trouble due to the constant DPS from Warden paired off with condition and reflection damages.
The counter to this is to use attacks that cannot be reflected at range, Namedly, AoE damage and AoE condition effects. This is a Necromancer’s and Elementalist’s preview, though Thieves can also do this when traited correctly, and they’ll be necessary for choice interrupts and to pull them out of bunker.
In the end these same counters work for Guardian as well so you need to keep this in mind. Condition removal and transfer skills will stall out the fight but it will prevail, especially if your’e stacking condition fields with high condition damage.
The major problem here is that you cannot burst these kinds of builds, which means when you engage, expect reinforcements, and expect to have to build tanky yourself. Compositions like this is mainly use to provide a strong presence against a bunker to draw attention away from a point vulnerable enough to burst, or to pressure both and capitalize on where the reinforcement is weakest.
I run such a build as the one the OP has mentioned, but run with the Dwayna rune set for even more regen and healing. I don’t think there is a way for a straight dps build to beat this 1v1, as I have too many ways to shut down ranged dps and my regen + toughness is too hard to overcome in melee range. In sPvP I’ve managed to fend off as many as 3 people for an extended period of time by stripping boons and tossing players around with “Into the Void”. I’ve taken down Bunker Guardians with this build rather handily due to my continual boon removal.
The best way to beat this kind of build is to focus on taking the point and not beating the Mesmer. Mesmer’s really have no access to stability. Stack moderate healing and knockback + stuns. Knock the mesmer off the node and try to keep him off as much as possible.
Again, you only mention two types of damage when there are three.
AoE/Condition combination damage will destroy a mesmer as well as his sources of regen and protection. Keep the point pelted with these abilities, especially with Poison and the Mesmer’s condition/boon removal won’t be enough to counter the full scope of the damage.
You can knock a bunker mesmer away from point to capture the point ,but the concept of killing him will rely upon keeping him in the AoE effects . Staff/Well Necro + Bleed Thief work wonders at tearing a bunker mesmer down. (The fear + Scorpion Cord will also do well to rip him off point and keep him pinned.) Bunker mesmers are useless to their points if they are forced to stealth.
Similar ends can also be achieved with combinations including Elementalist.
He may have had a build that looks like this:
By simply changing the neck to Soldier you get over 1700 Toughness but Mesmer does not need that much Toughness. I have seen Mesmer doing well with as low as 900 Toughness in PvP.
I don’t see the point of this kind of mesmer build, except trying to outlast in 1vs1.
I’m heal specced and focus on supporting my team with heals and combo fields and …
But even I am not invincible with my 1800+ toughness and 1300 healing power.
Regeneration isn’t what refill her/his hps bar, it has to be something else. My regeneration tics for 300 and this is with 1300 healing power. A non heal specced Mesmer will have less than half of it.
In PvP as a Mesmer you can play with 9xx Toughness if you know what you are doing.
Look at this ‘naked’ Mesmer how he does it with 9xx Toughness when he has full armor on, its not even funny how fast a Guardian goes down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WDFV8wjumMo
AOE is a mesmers bane, especially one that cripples. Disappearing does nothing, and if he doesnt have condition removal slotted, he is hating life.