Guild Wars 2

Ross Biddle.2367:

You’re wrong on this point.

Seriously? I only ever did Blackwater, but friends which do power or hybrid PU always lamented that the condition classes tend to be meh because they load you up from max-range and keep heckling you that way.

Qaelyn.7612:

Go take your “immortal” PU mesmer to PvP and you’ll discover your mortality right quick.

I did 80% of my tests in open PvP dueling servers.

However! I’m glad to have some news after a week I ask opinion around.
Yesterday I got killed 3 times of 3 tries from a shortbow / sword+dagger thief in 1vs1 PvP situation. I really would like to have recorded that cause I’m kind of new to thieves and so I know I can’t explain his gameplay and build nicely.
But I noticed these (in order of importance in our fights, IMHO):
1) 70/80% of the time he was ranged from me and my illusions, my lack in mobilty made the burst very hard for me and illusions moving is slow too, so bleeding couldn’t stack properly.
2) He had A LOT of dodge. Not only thanks to endurance but mainly from initiative (weapons skills). My Phantasmal Duelists shots were almost always evaded, and same for the sword Leap. This means very low chances of direct damage burst.
3) Ha had a lot of boon steal thanks to Larcenous Strike (sword skill 2).
4) As I use Signet of the Eather, Poison sucks.
5) Getting both dazed and immobilized sucks. I had Mantra Of Resolve in all 3 fights tho, probably I paniced a bit and used it wrong.
6) He had some cond remover – not many. But when I got him to enough conditions stacking, he was able to “run away” (using stealth – as I do – without reset fight) and re-engage with a great timing.
7) He didn’t cared too much about evading my Torment.
8) Pretty much long fights. He hadn’t heavy direct or condition damage. He killed me slowly, engaging me when I had many cooldowns up. Every single fight ended up in this kind of situation: HE was de-engaging me cause of HIS low life, after a condition burst of mine – then I try to reach him for “finish the work” – using a lot of skills – and instead he is the one that re-engages, coming melee and killing me pretty easily – as I was running to him, “old” illusions were too far away.

Thinking about this later, I guess I made some mistakes tho. A mesmer that runs to catch a thief sounds pretty stupid. Maybe I should have just waited for him to re-engage with all of my skills ready instead of wasting them before. But also in that case, if all the times he is low life he is able to de-engage so well, I hardly could kill him. Especially in the 3rd fight we had, I got crazy at the 4th time he was escaping at 10% hp. I just waited the other 3 times he got away, and then he came back almost full life recovered… I was full too, but it was like doing again the fight from the start.
Anyway, it was a build that did counter PU great, also relatively to player skill – he was a good thief.

I really hope I will do more of this constructive fights with him and other players to have more possibilities to counter this build.

phaeris.7604:

Pyroatheist.9031:

People still did the combo after the CnD nerf.

The signet change ultimately increased the damage from the combo, not decreased, if you actually run the numbers.

The mug change was the only nerf that actually affected the combo, but ultimately mug was only roughly 10%-20% of the total damage in the combo, making that nerf comparatively small to the rest of it.

Heartseeker is not part of the combo, and was not nerfed when used after this combo was executed. It was nerfed at high hp levels.

Again, hilarious. I like how on explaining how c+d went from hitting for 5-8k to a 1/3 less on a skill which costs 6 initiative doesn’t somehow effect the combo.

You’ll also find that the signet is in fact now the only signet which has a better effect on damage if you don’t activate it!. Amazing! If you press it you actually decrease your damage output!

Also mug really? It used to crit and hit for 5k, now it barely makes 1.5-2k on a soft target.

Keep trying though.

I got hit for a 4.8k CnD just last night…in a build with 3000 armor…just saying.

Lys.8621:

Qaelyn.7612:

Go take your “immortal” PU mesmer to PvP and you’ll discover your mortality right quick.

I did 80% of my tests in open PvP dueling servers.

However! I’m glad to have some news after a week I ask opinion around.
Yesterday I got killed 3 times of 3 tries from a shortbow / sword+dagger thief in 1vs1 PvP situation. I really would like to have recorded that cause I’m kind of new to thieves and so I know I can’t explain his gameplay and build nicely.
But I noticed these (in order of importance in our fights, IMHO):
1) 70/80% of the time he was ranged from me and my illusions, my lack in mobilty made the burst very hard for me and illusions moving is slow too, so bleeding couldn’t stack properly.
2) He had A LOT of dodge. Not only thanks to endurance but mainly from initiative (weapons skills). My Phantasmal Duelists shots were almost always evaded, and same for the sword Leap. This means very low chances of direct damage burst.
3) Ha had a lot of boon steal thanks to Larcenous Strike (sword skill 2).
4) As I use Signet of the Eather, Poison sucks.
5) Getting both dazed and immobilized sucks. I had Mantra Of Resolve in all 3 fights tho, probably I paniced a bit and used it wrong.
6) He had some cond remover – not many. But when I got him to enough conditions stacking, he was able to “run away” (using stealth – as I do – without reset fight) and re-engage with a great timing.
7) He didn’t cared too much about evading my Torment.
8) Pretty much long fights. He hadn’t heavy direct or condition damage. He killed me slowly, engaging me when I had many cooldowns up. Every single fight ended up in this kind of situation: HE was de-engaging me cause of HIS low life, after a condition burst of mine – then I try to reach him for “finish the work” – using a lot of skills – and instead he is the one that re-engages, coming melee and killing me pretty easily – as I was running to him, “old” illusions were too far away.

Thinking about this later, I guess I made some mistakes tho. A mesmer that runs to catch a thief sounds pretty stupid. Maybe I should have just waited for him to re-engage with all of my skills ready instead of wasting them before. But also in that case, if all the times he is low life he is able to de-engage so well, I hardly could kill him. Especially in the 3rd fight we had, I got crazy at the 4th time he was escaping at 10% hp. I just waited the other 3 times he got away, and then he came back almost full life recovered… I was full too, but it was like doing again the fight from the start.
Anyway, it was a build that did counter PU great, also relatively to player skill – he was a good thief.

I really hope I will do more of this constructive fights with him and other players to have more possibilities to counter this build.

A PU Mesmer is almost tailor made to obliterate the usual high offense low strategy builds that are endemic in a game that emphasizes ending fights before your opponent can react.

So it’s no surprise many people have issues when facing one because fighting them requires actual thought and observation instead of max possible damage output in the shortest possible time.

Yus I agree with that.
But also (I suppose?) not every class has a build with range damage, tons of dodges, tons of boon steal, tons of stealth, some cc and poison – all together.
I didn’t even know thieves could have all of that.
Surely if he didn’t know well how mesmer works, things would have gone in a different way, but I’m still waiting for more possibilities in countering this build.

One thing that people have not commented on here, the UP Playstyle is VERY timed and slow when compared to other Playstyles.

When you are playing as UP, you activate skills in succession slower and hold out longer.

It makes play styles of that mesmer alot easier to figure out, since you will be fighting them for a longer period of time (if you can mitigate that is).

But, Mesmers in general are pretty nasty to deal with. Add in UP, traited Healing (for Condition Removal) Arcane Thievery, 1-2 Blocks (Block+Parry), Conditions on Clone Death, and the ability to Burst (Mind Wrack, iBerserker…ect) it can be mind numbing to fight them.

I have trolled players via UP for hours before. Not many classes can do that.

Lys.8621:

Yus I agree with that.
But also (I suppose?) not every class has a build with range damage, tons of dodges, tons of boon steal, tons of stealth, some cc and poison – all together.
I didn’t even know thieves could have all of that.
Surely if he didn’t know well how mesmer works, things would have gone in a different way, but I’m still waiting for more possibilities in countering this build.

You don’t even need all the things you quoted.

All a person needs is the understanding how a Mesmer, and by extension a PU build works in order to defeat it using whatever tools your particular class already has.

Issue is right now there is a lot of the high offense low strategy players running around with little to no understanding of how other classes work, much less their own, but they think they are good because they are usually able to win with sheer burst offense.

So they run in, spam attacks without thought or strategy, and get owned by a particular build meant to prey upon that behavior.

It sounds like you encountered a rare Thief who was not a garden variety Heartseeker spammer. You’ll notice he deliberately played in a manner to deprive you of your sustain and your ability to deal damage effectively, and lured you out from a position of strength and used your confidence in your own power against you.

He did not let you solely dictate the terms of the engagement. And so he won.

Overkillengine.6084:

A PU Mesmer is almost tailor made to obliterate the usual high offense low strategy builds that are endemic in a game that emphasizes ending fights before your opponent can react.

So it’s no surprise many people have issues when facing one because fighting them requires actual thought and observation instead of max possible damage output in the shortest possible time.

Precisely. And also precisely why it is good that this sort of build exists AND that I don’t care when people whine about PU being “cheesy” or “OP” or whatever they come up with next week.

A pure PU/Blackwater mesmer is like the porcupine of GW2. Leave it alone and it can’t do much to you, but charge in head first and you get a face full of quills.

I’m not sure if I said it on this forum or maybe in OMFG guild chat, but I can judge the quality of a player now solely by how he responds to scepter #2. If I put my arm up and the guy runs in and attacks me anyway, and then lets the torment sit and tick for second after second, I know the guy’s probably not very good. If he attacks and clears the torment quickly, more of a challenge. If I hit scepter #2 and the opponent waits until my arm goes down before attacking, I’ve got a fight on my hands.

Anyway, I think it should be abundantly clear by now that the idea that PU mesmers cannot be beat is simply false.

I have to say as a diamond skin ele with my particular build pu mesmers are a non issue, and exceptionally easy to kill if they stay around and fight.. there are counters, you just need to figure it out

However, they are seriously annoying, and I normally just run away as I cbf fighting them.

Snorcha.7586:

I have to say as a diamond skin ele with my particular build pu mesmers are a non issue, and exceptionally easy to kill if they stay around and fight.. there are counters, you just need to figure it out

However, they are seriously annoying, and I normally just run away as I cbf fighting them.

Diamond skin actually isn’t a problem at all. Chaos storm, the iWarlock, and confusing images all do quite high damage, so you can take out an ele rapidly if you do it right.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Snorcha.7586:

I have to say as a diamond skin ele with my particular build pu mesmers are a non issue, and exceptionally easy to kill if they stay around and fight.. there are counters, you just need to figure it out

However, they are seriously annoying, and I normally just run away as I cbf fighting them.

Diamond skin actually isn’t a problem at all. Chaos storm, the iWarlock, and confusing images all do quite high damage, so you can take out an ele rapidly if you do it right.

I use d/f, dodge air auto makes short work of any clones / phantasms leave the mesmer with? Not saying it can’t sometimes be hard, but far from not doable. The real problem is it’s exceptionally annoying.. I guess that’s the point of the class tho hehe.

Snorcha.7586:

I use d/f, dodge air auto makes short work of any clones / phantasms leave the mesmer with? Not saying it can’t sometimes be hard, but far from not doable. The real problem is it’s exceptionally annoying.. I guess that’s the point of the class tho hehe.

I don’t know much about elementalists but I’d love to duel you sometime and see how it goes.

Qaelyn.7612:

Snorcha.7586:

I use d/f, dodge air auto makes short work of any clones / phantasms leave the mesmer with? Not saying it can’t sometimes be hard, but far from not doable. The real problem is it’s exceptionally annoying.. I guess that’s the point of the class tho hehe.

I don’t know much about elementalists but I’d love to duel you sometime and see how it goes.

Sounds good – I’m on JQ and am stuck against Sor/Bg for ever

Ah, I’m only really in PvP right now, still not ready for WvW.

I was doing a 5v3, 5 of us vs 3 pu mesmers. Took forever to win. Sometimes i dont even bother fighting them for the simple fact they have to much stealth, gw2 pvp in general annoys me sometimes

Plain and simple, this build is one with far to much survivability and has way to many cards to play in a fight. good thieves and diamond skill eles usually win in a 1v1 situation. But id rather fight a hammer war, a bs thief and a condi engi, than 3 pu mesmers, for the simple fact they are to annoying to fight. Not even fun just annoying. The whole idea of stealth and let your phantasms do all the fighting for you is a boring concept to play and fight imo.

Overkillengine.6084:

A PU Mesmer is almost tailor made to obliterate the usual high offense low strategy builds that are endemic in a game that emphasizes ending fights before your opponent can react.

So it’s no surprise many people have issues when facing one because fighting them requires actual thought and observation instead of max possible damage output in the shortest possible time.

This is not correct. Not even close.

PU is simply a trait that grants a huge amount of survivability through extra stealth, and the defensive boons regeneration,aegis, and the most prominent : Protection.

Stealth is very strong on a mesmer. Simply because unlike thief we can damage our targets without breaking our stealth by summoning phantasms and or keeping illusions up before we stealth to keep a constant damage and pressure on our target.
Illusions being 1/3-2/3 of our dps it astonishes me that we can have that dps while being immune to targeted attacks and nearly immune to the majority of other types of attacks such as aoe.

Ok now that we know the Mesmer has this^ Stealth. Increased in duration and thus effectiveness from PU

Let us then add other factors in to the equation that this trait provides.

Regeneration: ok it adds up in the end but really takes a high healing power to be amazing if at all noticeable although it can tie nicely if used in combination to other traits,runes,skills. But alone it’s alright

Aegis: again it’s alright by itself. It can block some nasty attack but most likely it will just block a auto attack. It can sync nicely in to some of our mesmer traits such as retaliatory shield. Or maybe guardian rune. But again by itself its just ok.

Protection: this is we’re it gets crazy. Protection is 33% damage mitigation stacking with armor and toughness. Knowing this and that the protection uptime this trait provides it is safe to say that the amount of damage mitigation this can provide is amazing by itself . Even though chances are 1/3 a second in stealth. because its for 3 seconds (not including boon duration increases) it will still have a decent duration if somewhat unlucky and a amazing duration if you hit the protection jackpot.

Now what do you get when you consider all of this?
You get a good stealth uptime were you can idle in relatively safe comfort from targeted skills while keeping up a goodly portion of your dps through illusions, and even when cought out of stealth you will still have a extra damage mitigation of 33% from protection. Which is sure to nullify your opponents attack.
^ all this and absolutely no skill required.
Low-skill high-effectiveness in terms of defense to a idiotic degree of dynamic between skill and effectiveness : cheese
yes it is smart to use the best components of a build out there. But it is not honorable to use something that nullifies the skill of the game.

Now getting back to my point.
You say that A PU Mesmer is almost tailor made to obliterate the usual high offense low strategy builds? (I would say players instead of build. All builds can be changed in style by how it’s used my its user.)
Anyway

What about the trait specifically does that? There is no offense. Or more specifically offenses that target a reckless attacker. Instead simply defense.

The only things that Mesmer has that punishes high offense low strategy style players is confusion, the offhand sword ripost, scepter 2, retaliation. And a few other things this trait does not provide At all by itself.

The majority of these things that punish idiotic attackers are found in a classic mesmer condition build regardless if it has PU or not. how can you or anyone honestly label PU as the defining point of a style that punishes strategy less attackers? Really strikes me as idiots talking idiocy.

Overall I would say that PU is a defensive trait that takes absolutely no skill to utilize effectively and is simply a staple in the meta. It is being used to buff the survivability of condition,phantasm, and many other types of builds with very little demand of skill from the user.

Put simply the trait is simply a staple for easy survivability that takes no skill to utilize.

The only offensive tributes this trait can utilize is through the block aegis provides along with runes and or traits.
And the most prominent: the ability to attack the target through illusions without the worry of being targeted yourself because of a large amount of stealth.

Ok now that we have classified a lot of what the trait is and does. NOW wee can come up with a counter that actually makes sense. Instead of something as idiotic as running away?(pathetic suggestion)

As far as I am concerned beating a PU user relies on 2 things.
1) countering the offensive components that the Mesmer utilizes. The stratagy is always the same when fighting any build. regardless if the builds uses PU or not.
Thus if the build is a condition build that applies conditions through projectiles (staff,torch). then the best counter is reflects. If it’s through attacks that relies on a reckless opponents Attack to trigger the condition: play smart and pay special care to pay attention for those specific attacks(offhand sword block,scepter 2).
It goes on and on. but put simply find out how your opponent deals damage and then change your style to counter it.

2) make changes to defend you from a invisible opponent. And have some way to counter the boons provided by the opponent so that when you finally do catch the mesmer you can remove the 33% reduction damage. Just maybe that is what is going to decide if you win or not. Because 33% through a entire battle can be a huge difference in determining victory from defeat.

Right now the only counter to the Mesmers boons is null field, arcane thievery, mind stab, mind spike.
Of course most likely your build will not utilize all of these things. Knowing this it is safe to say that your boon removal uptime will be lower than your opponents protection uptime. So overall you are still at a disadvantage. The idea though it to make that boon removal count right before I burst.

Really I think PU is a idiotic trait. But not looking at the trait itself and instead at its placement in the trait trees I can see another problem. Mainly that the trait is far too easy to get on builds that utilize the chaos tree. Which of course are condition builds.
After all the majority of staff condition builds have 20 in chaos right? So that nullifies the requirement to get the trait to 10 points.

If they moved prismatic understanding to the inspiration tree. I think that this trait would not be nearly as powerful looking at how many builds could viably use it. And in the end result of things the trait should mainly be used as a boon/support role. Thus inspiration is the perfect tree to have it in.

Celeras.4980:

The entirety of their pressure comes from their blocks, and exploding their clones. And they’re the slowest class in the game.

So again, what exactly is there to kill you if you don’t kill yourself? Staff auto-attacks? You want to say they gave up torch for a weak-shooting duelist too like that makes a difference? You sound like a zergling dying to confusion/retaliation and complaining that it’s OP.

I gather, from Lys’s own comments and your observation, there is one thing that is killing Lys.

Pride.

p.s. @Lys, I think you stopped being rational two pages ago…

Chaos.3579:

Now getting back to my point.
You say that A PU Mesmer is almost tailor made to obliterate the usual high offense low strategy builds? (I would say players instead of build. All builds can be changed in style by how it’s used my its user.)
Anyway

What about the trait specifically does that? There is no offense. Or more specifically offenses that target a reckless attacker. Instead simply defense.

The only things that Mesmer has that punishes high offense low strategy style players is confusion, the offhand sword ripost, scepter 2, retaliation. And a few other things this trait does not provide At all by itself.

The majority of these things that punish idiotic attackers are found in a classic mesmer condition build regardless if it has PU or not. how can you or anyone honestly label PU as the defining point of a style that punishes strategy less attackers? Really strikes me as idiots talking idiocy.

A PU mesmer (referring to the build and the variants contain the trait) punishes reckless attacking by denying the effectiveness of mindless offense via that very defense that so offends you.

Cool downs and initiative are resources after all, and most have become maybe a touch too used to squandering them.

Leaving said mesmer able to dismantle the enemy at their leisure if they insist on staying engaged.

An observant player will simply play in a manner to deny the effectiveness of the tools used in a PU build.

If you can’t see that then who is the one being idiotic?

Chaos.3579:

Overkillengine.6084:

A PU Mesmer is almost tailor made to obliterate the usual high offense low strategy builds that are endemic in a game that emphasizes ending fights before your opponent can react.

So it’s no surprise many people have issues when facing one because fighting them requires actual thought and observation instead of max possible damage output in the shortest possible time.

yes it is smart to use the best components of a build out there. But it is not honorable to use something that nullifies the skill of the game.

You still don’t get it. You should really go read Playing to Win.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html

You will not see a classic scrub throw his opponent five times in a row. But why not? What if doing so is strategically the sequence of moves that optimizes his chances of winning? Here we’ve encountered our first clash: the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules. These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary. If you beat a scrub by throwing projectile attacks at him, keeping your distance and preventing him from getting near you—that’s cheap. If you throw him repeatedly, that’s cheap, too. We’ve covered that one. If you block for fifty seconds doing no moves, that’s cheap. Nearly anything you do that ends up making you win is a prime candidate for being called cheap.

Ah thank you Ross, the site didn’t load when I was answering about avoiding the 1v1 encounter entirely, earlier. Although I could also link to the Art of War , since avoiding unfavourable conflicts entirely and instead striking where victory is certain is a very important part of successful conquest.

Anyhow, as Playing to Win states, it’s not cheap. It’s good. Useful. Powerful. If people want to fight 1v1, I’ll bring the most unbalanced 1v1 spec I can find because I know the game isn’t balanced for 1v1 (and will never be, sorry if I crush anyone’s hopes but MMORPG combat cannot be balance for one-vs-one fights) and I know that people are still silly enough to force me into such fights.

And if they want to – and therefore forfeit their chance at overall success – then I’m happy to supply their frustration.

I mean my current build does one thing, and one thing really well: Lock you down for 8-12 seconds, while dealing medium damage. Oh did I mention that my GF playing a condition-thief will appear from around a corner (we don’t fight open field where it’s obvious what we’re doing) halfway through that when you are thinking you’ll win yet, load you up, then I continue to prevent you healing while we watch you die?

Yes, that’s “cheap”. We trick you into thinking it’s 1v1, then we make you waste your skills, then prevent you from using further skills. So sorry. Write to a dev.
But see the positive side, we’re preying on those 1v1 specs. They make perfect targets because they think they control the fight from start to finish, yet without warning it turns into a losing battle and then it’s too late to escape.

Ah, I see. You are using semantics as an excuse to be a prat. Your parents must be so proud.

I could point out the multiple fallacies you have indulged in but your unreasoning vitriol indicates a zealot’s fervor.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Chaos.3579:

Overkillengine.6084:

A PU Mesmer is almost tailor made to obliterate the usual high offense low strategy builds that are endemic in a game that emphasizes ending fights before your opponent can react.

So it’s no surprise many people have issues when facing one because fighting them requires actual thought and observation instead of max possible damage output in the shortest possible time.

yes it is smart to use the best components of a build out there. But it is not honorable to use something that nullifies the skill of the game.

You still don’t get it. You should really go read Playing to Win.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html

And you Still don’t get it.
The end result is not all that matters. Winning is not all that matters. Its. HOW you win that a lot of people pay attention to.

The end does not justify the means.
The means justifies the end.
Ring a bell?

I know the game is not balanced around 1v1 and I am not insinuating this.
What I am saying is that there are imbalances in the game that a few individuals have, had, and will take advantage of in order to win.
And what those individuals have to understand is that even though they will win. They will not be deserving of that win if it was decided by a imbalance of the game that had not yet been fixed/balanced that they took advantage of.

As far as I am concerned a build in this is supposed to define your play style. But the deciding factor to determine effectiveness will and should always come down to player skill.
This game was made to be skill-based. However there are imperfections in the original design. Otherwise why would they update the combat system, balance this or that?

People have taken advantage of these imbalanced to reduce the need to be skillful thus breaking the core ideology that a lot of the players in the game rely on in order to have fun in it.

I would say being smart in the game is making a build or utilizing a strategy that counters a opponents tactic or build. For a example. Reflects vs projectiles.

However building a build with the soul intent of winning through taking advantage of imbalances, exploits, and basically reducing the need to be skillful Is not playing smart. It’s just cheating.

Overkillengine.6084:

Chaos.3579:

Now getting back to my point.
You say that A PU Mesmer is almost tailor made to obliterate the usual high offense low strategy builds? (I would say players instead of build. All builds can be changed in style by how it’s used my its user.)
Anyway

What about the trait specifically does that? There is no offense. Or more specifically offenses that target a reckless attacker. Instead simply defense.

The only things that Mesmer has that punishes high offense low strategy style players is confusion, the offhand sword ripost, scepter 2, retaliation. And a few other things this trait does not provide At all by itself.

The majority of these things that punish idiotic attackers are found in a classic mesmer condition build regardless if it has PU or not. how can you or anyone honestly label PU as the defining point of a style that punishes strategy less attackers? Really strikes me as idiots talking idiocy.

A PU mesmer (referring to the build and the variants contain the trait) punishes reckless attacking by denying the effectiveness of mindless offense via that very defense that so offends you.

Cool downs and initiative are resources after all, and most have become maybe a touch too used to squandering them.

Leaving said mesmer able to dismantle the enemy at their leisure if they insist on staying engaged.

An observant player will simply play in a manner to deny the effectiveness of the tools used in a PU build.

If you can’t see that then who is the one being idiotic?

I would think that you among other people are labeling this trait as a counter against the usual high offense low strategy build.
Or are labeling EVERY build that uses PU a counter against the usual high offense low strategy player.
Thus justifying that its effectiveness is only high when the player attacks it.
These ideologies could not be more wrong
PU is simply a survivability staple in a lot of the meta builds available to the Mesmer
Although yes it can be used in a build that counters the usual high offense low strategy player. But that does not mean that the trait itself or EVERY build that uses the trait is a counter against the usual high offense low strategy player.
.
It is stupid to argue that PU or any build that PU is on is only effective if a opponent attacks the user of PU mindlessly.
These ideologies lead people to incorrect conclusions of how to counter PU Mesmers.

Qaelyn.7612:

Anyway, I think it should be abundantly clear by now that the idea that PU mesmers cannot be beat is simply false.

No, really?
Little note: it’s a week I’m interesting and acting in this thread argument. It’s a weekittenep doing tests and duels with friends and/or casual players.
As I already wrote, I’m talking about possibities. Never said 0 – 100%. I wrote 5 – 95%.

EnderzShadow.2506:

I gather, from Lys’s own comments and your observation, there is one thing that is killing Lys.

Pride.

p.s. @Lys, I think you stopped being rational two pages ago…

Wow. This is the best in-topic answer so far.

Overkillengine.6084:

You don’t even need all the things you quoted.

All a person needs is the understanding how a Mesmer, and by extension a PU build works in order to defeat it using whatever tools your particular class already has.

Issue is right now there is a lot of the high offense low strategy players running around with little to no understanding of how other classes work, much less their own, but they think they are good because they are usually able to win with sheer burst offense.

So they run in, spam attacks without thought or strategy, and get owned by a particular build meant to prey upon that behavior.

It sounds like you encountered a rare Thief who was not a garden variety Heartseeker spammer. You’ll notice he deliberately played in a manner to deprive you of your sustain and your ability to deal damage effectively, and lured you out from a position of strength and used your confidence in your own power against you.

He did not let you solely dictate the terms of the engagement. And so he won.

I keep reading stuff like this. I didn’t asked for generic answers. I keep reading different versions of this: “Oh yeah, you can kill PU mesmer with knowing what to do.” Oh. Ok then. Sorry, but can’t I give you the same answer for every other great build in game?

Stop using this thread for saying how for you PU mesmer is good as it is cause “You see, it is not immortal”. Lol.
Instead please “keep” listing builds and classes, specific gameplay and skills use on how YOU can kill a PU mesmer. And sorry if I repeat myself, I would like to see your ideas in practice too.

Curious that when finally I update this thread with an in-topic post about how effectively happened that a build/gameplay/skills countered PU mesmer everyone keeps just focusing on how this build is killable with well knowing instead.

@Qaelyn
I realize now I should have asked you before: what actually kills you?
Since you are using PU so far. And I mean in 1vs1 situation (PvP or WvW), or roamin situation – such as small fights and 1vs2/3.
I’m curious why you didn’t say nothing about this since you are a PU and you claim you are so killable.

And I think you are inserting your own biases into your interpretation of what has been said.

A PU build does not punish every high offense build; it instead punishes people that use them poorly (thus low strategy) by rushing in and expending their burst fruitlessly all at once, while the Mesmer merrily skips away and retaliates using whatever their offensive tools of choice are.

You can call that honorless, stupid, and idiotic all you want, but that is a personal construct of your own pride. You are not the arbiter of what the terms of engagement are.

Lys.8621:

Qaelyn.7612:

Anyway, I think it should be abundantly clear by now that the idea that PU mesmers cannot be beat is simply false.

No, really?

EnderzShadow.2506:

I gather, from Lys’s own comments and your observation, there is one thing that is killing Lys.

Pride.

p.s. @Lys, I think you stopped being rational two pages ago…

Wow. This is the best in-topic answer so far.

Overkillengine.6084:

You don’t even need all the things you quoted.

All a person needs is the understanding how a Mesmer, and by extension a PU build works in order to defeat it using whatever tools your particular class already has.

Issue is right now there is a lot of the high offense low strategy players running around with little to no understanding of how other classes work, much less their own, but they think they are good because they are usually able to win with sheer burst offense.

So they run in, spam attacks without thought or strategy, and get owned by a particular build meant to prey upon that behavior.

It sounds like you encountered a rare Thief who was not a garden variety Heartseeker spammer. You’ll notice he deliberately played in a manner to deprive you of your sustain and your ability to deal damage effectively, and lured you out from a position of strength and used your confidence in your own power against you.

He did not let you solely dictate the terms of the engagement. And so he won.

I keep reading stuff like this. I didn’t asked for generic answers. I keep reading different versions of this: “Oh yeah, you can kill PU mesmer with knowing what to do.” Oh. Ok then. Sorry, but can’t I give you the same answer for every other great build in game?

Stop using this thread for saying how for you PU mesmer is good as it is cause “You see, it is not immortal”. Lol.
Instead please “keep” listing builds and classes, specific gameplay and skills use on how YOU can kill a PU mesmer. And sorry if I repeat myself, I would like to see your ideas in practice too.

Curious that when finally I update this thread with an in-topic post about how effectively happened that a build/gameplay/skills countered PU mesmer everyone keeps just focusing on how this build is killable with well knowing instead.

@Qaelyn
I realize now I should have asked you before: what actually kills you?
Since you are using PU so far. And I mean in 1vs1 situation (PvP or WvW), or roamin situation – such as small fights and 1vs2/3.
I’m curious why you didn’t say nothing about this since you are a PU and you claim you are so killable.

For kittens sake, you are getting generic answers because there are a million and one (hyperbole for emphasis) flavors of PU builds out there so you are going to have to observe (like has been said repeatedly) what your opponent is using and act accordingly. It is not being done to troll you or be unhelpful, it is literally the most helpful advice that can be given other than the standard stuff that works on almost all Mesmers like:

Dodge phantasm summons
Kill clones phants outside the close range death kitten or all at once when you have a cleanse you can afford to use if they are clone death specc’d.
Use conditions/cc strategically to use up their cleanses/stunbreaks.

Basically without knowing the specific PU user’s build you are facing….there is no way to give advice to the level of precision you desire.

I’m asking for experience. I’m sorry if this wasn’t a clear point.
The build I’m talking about doesn’t have so many different flavours, I introduced it in the first post.

Lys.8621:

I’m talking about the 20/20/30 traitline, usually with Crippling Dissipation, Cleansing Conflagration, Phantasmal Fury, Deceptive Evasion, Debilitating Dissipation and of course… Prismatic Understanding. Then you get a Torch offhand, Decoy (maybe also Veil), and Mass Invisibility.
The rest I guess is up to your gameplay (taking a Staff, or Sword/Pistol, Scepter ecc)… And this can work with Rampager, Rabid, Dire, or mix with Berserker gear too.

….

How to counter this?

Still a LOT of variables present even in that.

A general tip is carry any cripple/chill/immob that you can, getting hit with those tends to either make the Mesmer panic and blow a cleanse immediately or sets them up for a spike from you; as getting in combat mobility restricted is potentially lethal to them.

The ones using Staff + Scepter/torch may sit there for a moment, hoping to lure you in for a #2 scepter block to stack torment on you while wasting your burst when you try to go in for the kill though; be wary as they can still staff port when immobilized right after that and then use a stealth while you are still swinging away.

Carrying a ranged backup weapon if you are melee to pop clones from a distance for clone death traited builds like the above is highly recommended; while you do want to do something about them, using up your endurance dodging them may not be optimal outside of an incoming shatter.

If they are running a power based spec, dodging the phantasm summons becomes more of a priority.

Keep in mind the clones and phants do have a slight lag time to their reactions, so you can kite an overly aggressive Mesmer outside their range. Not guaranteed to work if they are smart.

To steal a strategy from an outside source:

Observation; orientation; decision; action.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

I find it interesting that in this regard people always say “Encounter should be decided by player skill alone”.

Sorry, but if I use a better setup and managed to dictate the fighting conditions onto you, that is player skill. Player skill is a lot more than just APM and reflexes. As the Art of War teaches, ideally you win your encounters before you engage. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to do.

See the 2-player-preying-setup I described above. It’s exactly meant to exploit the fact that so many players seek 1v1 encounters, presenting me with a readily usable weakness.

Target locking on phantasms makes my build murder PU mesmers handily. Normally the Swordsman phantasms attack at a given rate, so it’s not all at the same time.

But a PU mesmer coming out of stealth will be hit by 2-3 swordsmen every time he destealths for 12,000+ damage given the full critrate, in addition to whatever you might use yourself. When he’s in stealth, the phantasms cannot outdamage the 1790 heal per second you have in active heal mode (by rotating Mantra of Pain/Power Spike at max speeds using his high-priority targets like the Duelist as targets for PSpike).

Just Moa Morph the bugger the first time he gets hit by the Swordsmen out of stealth so he can’t run away, and it’s an easy kill.

Lys.8621:

Qaelyn.7612:

Anyway, I think it should be abundantly clear by now that the idea that PU mesmers cannot be beat is simply false.

No, really?

Yes, really. In fact, the further the thread progresses, while I pay more attention to how I fare personally against other classes, the more obvious it becomes that you have no experience playing a PU mesmer against other classes that are strong against them.

This entire thread is predicated on either ignorance of PU-based gameplay, or deliberate falsehood for some hidden agenda, and is a gigantic waste of everyone’s time.

PU counters itself. You choose the trait to have 1 seconds less dps with the reward to become more tankier.
That means hard hitting aoe specs who can easily bring down phantasm can easily win of specs that rely their dps on phantasm. What most people are trying to do is to search for the real mesmer somewhere when he’s in stealth while they forget to kill the hard hitting phantasm.

At cond PU builds it’s just a matter of who can spam the most conditions/who can cleanse the most conditions. Don’t kill clones when standing next to them. Stay ranged, pu condition builds are mostly based on medium to close range.

Qaelyn.7612:

Lys.8621:

Qaelyn.7612:

Anyway, I think it should be abundantly clear by now that the idea that PU mesmers cannot be beat is simply false.

No, really?

Yes, really. In fact, the further the thread progresses, while I pay more attention to how I fare personally against other classes, the more obvious it becomes that you have no experience playing a PU mesmer against other classes that are strong against them.

This entire thread is predicated on either ignorance of PU-based gameplay, or deliberate falsehood for some hidden agenda, and is a gigantic waste of everyone’s time.

The point of this thread was to find out which are those “strong against” classes and builds. I finally find out 1 that is not mesmer and shared with you. If you know others you should say it, maybe answering the question I asked to you and that you totally ignored, of course. Oh no, maybe not, you should have said about it a lot before in this thread.

Be careful what you say. Please, stop wasting your and my time, go write somewhere else.

Again, I feel like I should point out how inherently broken the 1v1 balance argument is. If classes were supposed to be balanced, the idea of finding a class or build “strong against” PU Mesmers makes no sense.

But then, let’s be honest: We all know 1v1 is never balanced and will never be. That’s why we think of builds “countering” other builds in the first place. The whole concept of that wouldn’t make sense if 1v1 was a balance goal.

PU adds way too many passive rewards to a class which already heavily relies on passive play. It really isn’t hard to kite, stealth, or block while AI fights an opponent for you. Far too many mesmers here defending what is clearly over the top. I personally don’t need this crutch to be successful versus other players and would be happy if it was reverted.

Lys.8621:

The point of this thread was to find out which are those “strong against” classes and builds.

I and others have provided those answers multiple times over the course of several days — yet you persist with the flatly false implication that PU mesmers cannot be beaten.

Go find a decent condition-based necro, warrior or engineer and show us a video of you beating him 3 times in a row with a PU mesmer. In fact, it would be nice to see any video evidence at all of your supposed “immortal” experiences with a PU mesmer so we can see exactly what sort of opponents you’ve been facing. My guess is that it will be a lot less impressive than the text descriptions you keep providing.

Bacon.4918:

PU adds way too many passive rewards to a class which already heavily relies on passive play. It really isn’t hard to kite, stealth, or block while AI fights an opponent for you. Far too many mesmers here defending what is clearly over the top. I personally don’t need this crutch to be successful versus other players and would be happy if it was reverted.

Interestingly, did you use PU pre-buff? (I did)
What was your take on it back then?

The issue I have with your argument is that PU is strong only in a 1v1 setting. As soon as you do actual PvP, it’s comparatively weak really. It’s ok, but nothing to write home about. If it would work on the other players affected then yeah, awesome and probably overpowered. But it doesn’t.

Chaos.3579:

<snip>
But not looking at the trait itself and instead at its placement in the trait trees I can see another problem. Mainly that the trait is far too easy to get on builds that utilize the chaos tree. Which of course are condition builds.
After all the majority of staff condition builds have 20 in chaos right? So that nullifies the requirement to get the trait to 10 points.

If they moved prismatic understanding to the inspiration tree. I think that this trait would not be nearly as powerful looking at how many builds could viably use it. And in the end result of things the trait should mainly be used as a boon/support role. Thus inspiration is the perfect tree to have it in.

I might not be looking at this the right way, but wouldn’t that be an insane buff to stealthy phantasm builds? Could go 10(III)/15/x/30/x or something?

I think it’s safer in the chaos tree, and instead should have the boon refresh reduced back to at least 2 seconds, perhaps give protection even less of a chance to trigger.

Edit: I should say – my biggest fear as a direct damage PU build are greatsword/pistol wielding phantasm mesmers.

I would have to agree that the amount of protection up time from PU is probably ever slightly too strong… I could see decreasing Prot to 2 sec per proc helping.

That said, I have never found PU to be oppressive…. and for this thread to really make any ground in terms of discussion someone needs to either:
a) show a video of them playing PU vs good people (and losing)
b) show a video of them playing vs a PU mesmer (and winning)

Just my 2 cents =)

PU Mesmer is vulnerable to:
1. Multiple Conditions
2. Fighting classes that have multiple minions (e.g. Phantasm Mesmers, Shatter Mesmers)
3. Immobilize
4. Brains

People really, really overestimate the damage that phantasms are capable of. Kill them, outrun them, or dodge their attacks. Phantasms are not all that threatening. Mesmer is one of the professions I never have a problem tackling in SPvP or WvW. Thieves remain my biggest gripe and they will continue to be as long as stealth has no counters… which goes full circle back to the reason why I started using PU. Guess who the majority of PU complaints are coming from?

Thieves are everywhere in WvW. The only way to beat them is with counter-stealth mind games. It works very well when they aren’t actively trying to (and successfully) predict what you’re going to do next. A very good thief will always (always) beat anything you can throw at it in a 1v1 contest, however… and they still have more mobility than we do.

Chaos.3579:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Chaos.3579:

Overkillengine.6084:

A PU Mesmer is almost tailor made to obliterate the usual high offense low strategy builds that are endemic in a game that emphasizes ending fights before your opponent can react.

So it’s no surprise many people have issues when facing one because fighting them requires actual thought and observation instead of max possible damage output in the shortest possible time.

yes it is smart to use the best components of a build out there. But it is not honorable to use something that nullifies the skill of the game.

You still don’t get it. You should really go read Playing to Win.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html

And you Still don’t get it.
The end result is not all that matters. Winning is not all that matters. Its. HOW you win that a lot of people pay attention to.

The end does not justify the means.
The means justifies the end.
Ring a bell?

I know the game is not balanced around 1v1 and I am not insinuating this.
What I am saying is that there are imbalances in the game that a few individuals have, had, and will take advantage of in order to win.
And what those individuals have to understand is that even though they will win. They will not be deserving of that win if it was decided by a imbalance of the game that had not yet been fixed/balanced that they took advantage of.

As far as I am concerned a build in this is supposed to define your play style. But the deciding factor to determine effectiveness will and should always come down to player skill.
This game was made to be skill-based. However there are imperfections in the original design. Otherwise why would they update the combat system, balance this or that?

People have taken advantage of these imbalanced to reduce the need to be skillful thus breaking the core ideology that a lot of the players in the game rely on in order to have fun in it.

I would say being smart in the game is making a build or utilizing a strategy that counters a opponents tactic or build. For a example. Reflects vs projectiles.

However building a build with the soul intent of winning through taking advantage of imbalances, exploits, and basically reducing the need to be skillful Is not playing smart. It’s just cheating.

It’s you who’s labeled them “imbalances, exploits, and cheating” though. While you may be able to argue for imbalance in any feature of the game, the fact is that the developers and balance testers of the game implemented and intended PU in its current form. This includes the copious amounts of stealth and survive the mesmer has.

Doing one move or sequence over and over and over is a tactic close to my heart that often elicits the call of the scrub. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over? Is he such a poor player that he can’t counter that move? And if the move is, for whatever reason, extremely difficult to counter, then wouldn’t I be a fool for not using that move? The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. That is true by definition of playing to win. The game knows no rules of “honor” or of “cheapness.” The game only knows winning and losing.

A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which one tries to win at all costs is “boring” or “not fun.” Who knows what objective the scrub has, but we know his objective is not truly to win. Yours is. Your objective is good and right and true, and let no one tell you otherwise. You have the power to dispatch those who would tell you otherwise, anyway. Simply beat them.

Let’s consider two groups of players: a group of good players and a group of scrubs. The scrubs will play “for fun” and not explore the extremities of the game. They won’t find the most effective tactics and abuse them mercilessly. The good players will. The good players will find incredibly overpowering tactics and patterns. As they play the game more, they’ll be forced to find counters to those tactics

Aneirin Cadwall.9126:

People really, really overestimate the damage that phantasms are capable of. Kill them, outrun them, or dodge their attacks. Phantasms are not all that threatening. Mesmer is one of the professions I never have a problem tackling in SPvP or WvW. Thieves remain my biggest gripe and they will continue to be as long as stealth has no counters… which goes full circle back to the reason why I started using PU. Guess who the majority of PU complaints are coming from?

Thieves are everywhere in WvW. The only way to beat them is with counter-stealth mind games. It works very well when they aren’t actively trying to (and successfully) predict what you’re going to do next. A very good thief will always (always) beat anything you can throw at it in a 1v1 contest, however… and they still have more mobility than we do.

Mobility, especially on most PU builds, is a huge factor compared to the thief. I’m not going to suggest it’s a viable feature of normal gameplay, but consider the stealth trap. Vs a thief you might catch him by surprise, and take him down. But with his mobility he’s easily able to escape and come back in 30s. For the majority of condi/phant pu mesmers however, you hit him with a massive stealth debuff and he’s toast. The fact that many of these PU builds are having to run two stealth on their utils bar is very telling of just how weak, and reliant on that stealth these mesmers are.

Aneirin Cadwall.9126:

People really, really overestimate the damage that phantasms are capable of. Kill them, outrun them, or dodge their attacks. Phantasms are not all that threatening. Mesmer is one of the professions I never have a problem tackling in SPvP or WvW. Thieves remain my biggest gripe and they will continue to be as long as stealth has no counters… which goes full circle back to the reason why I started using PU. Guess who the majority of PU complaints are coming from?

Thieves are everywhere in WvW. The only way to beat them is with counter-stealth mind games. It works very well when they aren’t actively trying to (and successfully) predict what you’re going to do next. A very good thief will always (always) beat anything you can throw at it in a 1v1 contest, however… and they still have more mobility than we do.

Oddly in spvp I have a much easier time against thieves in a 1v1, compared to phantasm (specifically GS/pistol users) mesmers, of similar/average skill – find it easier to time thief’s rhythm and counter with icounter/riposte/stealths/BF… as well as reacquiring target after appearing from stealth being a push of a button compared to cycling through a bunch of illusions. Some of my favourite 1v1 fights (in mostly empty hotjoins) have been against thieves – love the stealth and counter stealth. Granted, I’m only average, and very skilled players of any profession can demolish me.