Guild Wars 2

I know that many people say that every class is equally viable in dungeons but it seems like I have to work much harder, play much smarter and being basically every weapon set to be successful in a dungeon. Have you all had similar experiences? Are there any situations where you would want a Mesmer over another class in a dungeon?

I hear Rangers are the worst class for dungeons. I ran quite a few explorable dungeons with rangers and had no problems, though.

As for us, maybe try something different? I had a much easier time once I switched to a staff toughness build. I’m sure hardcore dungeoneers have their own strategies, but as a regular mesmer I don’t feel like I have problems with dungeons at all.

As to when you’d want a Mesmer over any other class, I can think of two situations: tough mobs with lots of ranged projectiles (Feedback, iWarden, traited Distortion), and whenever you need to run past lots of enemies (Portal, Mass Invisibility and Blink).

Thanks, that certainly gives me something to think about. I’m not big on conditions in general, at least until they can damage things like graveling burrows, but I honestly never thought about skipping mobs before. I will suggest that to my next group.

Mesmer might have to work harder to achieve results in any given area. But they also come with great flexibility to changing situations.

Applying skills in different combination can yield greatly differing results; for example null field can be used to strip boons from an enemy, or strip conditions from your friends, it can be used to add damage by adding confusion to attacks. Illusions can be used as additional sources of damage, or converted into a spike, or a daze, or a shield or they can be left out to serve as decoys to distract a boss from you.

This flexibility obviously requires more input, and more thought, but what we lack in specialisation, we gain in adaptability which can be critical to success in a dungeon when the situation suddenly shifts and this makes Mesmers a fantastic choice for dungeons.

I personally use GS/Sword/Focus for dungeons but me and my guildies are comfortable with me running a bit more towards offence – a staff in place of a GS would be better for party support. Focus is just fantastic. Traitted it offers 2 anti-projectile screens, a high damage AoE phantasm, a cripple, a speed buff and a huge AoE pull skill – you can take control of any situation using a focus.

Rangers are due to their pets being one shotted, lack of group support, lack of damage and lackluster utilities.

Mesmers are just above them due to some gimmicky utilities we can bring.

Mesmers shine in enemies that have huge health pools such as bosses. Their illusions can save a player because the boss might use an attack on the illusion and since boss fights are long you can usually have 3 illusions up throughout most of the fight. You can also portal/invis past groups saving time. Autoattacking with staff gives a random buff to allies. They have survivability with decoy/blink don’t know how you came to the conclusion mesmers are the worst class? Maybe you thought you could just autoattack everything?

Autoattack everything? Not really. I like the GW1 Mesmer play style more is all and am having trouble with the drastically lower damage output offered by the GW2 Mesmer.

With the amount of hitpoints that almost all dungeon bosses have I see one of the biggest assets a class brings to the table to be their damage output though. If bosses had less hit points then damage would be less of a priority.

I often enjoy the role of being a support mesmer, since most of the dungeon groups I do are pugs. Along with the anti-projectile and other utilities mentioned in previous posts, I also love giving boons to my allies and healing them via traits. I keep mindful to combos, which is why I enjoy using torch off-hand for that blast finisher and give everyone Chaos Armor and such. xD

Remember that GW1 Mesmers used to suck in PvE, and Anet reworked a lot of their skills to fix that.

As for damage, funny. I value survivability much higher than damage in dungeons. As a good friend says, you deal 0 dps when dead.

If anything, mesmer makes dungeons much easier in general.

I really enjoy bringing out the Phantasmal Warlock in dungeons, especially on bosses. If your group puts on 5+ conditions on the target when you have 3 Warlocks out then you’re doing plenty of damage. Not to mention putting Chaos Storm/Null Field/Feedback over the party to add confusion stacks and Chaos Armor (Aegis + Retaliation + Swiftness = yum). Feedback is really nice when facing ranged mobs….not to mention the focus abilities while traited also reflect projectiles.

I don’t see how we aren’t useful at all. If anything, the nearly constant Chaos Armor and random boons make us worth taking.

imo a decent mesmer > any other class that is controlled by somebody that is either half there (spacing out a lot) or somebody who just doesn’t understand how group play works.

Just to add a tidbit I’m shocked hasn’t been mentioned much. 10sec aoe haste. This can be invaluable to some groups making up for our occasional lackluster dmg between shatters/building illusions. Also a moa’d mini boss does considerably less dmg often times preventing wipes or aiding in recovery. Mesmers have tools. Useful things that can be applied a variety of different ways. If someone is looking for a face roll type play style I’d urge them to give warriors a shot. I’ve heard that guardians can be facerollable too but I lack any personal experience with that class.

Quick edit:
As far as rangers go, the pets are a huge liability for a dmg role ranger. But get a ranger built and traited for support and there is a world of difference.

I have done fine so far in the dungeons, I really dont feel like the useless one in the group.
I have good damage (IMO), decent survival and the portal can be really useful in many situations. The aoe haster is awesome and even moa form is helpful at times.

RoRo.8270:

Mesmers shine in enemies that have huge health pools such as bosses. Their illusions can save a player because the boss might use an attack on the illusion and since boss fights are long you can usually have 3 illusions up throughout most of the fight. You can also portal/invis past groups saving time. Autoattacking with staff gives a random buff to allies. They have survivability with decoy/blink don’t know how you came to the conclusion mesmers are the worst class? Maybe you thought you could just autoattack everything?

Sorry but have you played (with) a Mesmer in dungeons? I feel a lot of people are theorycrafting with their weak defenses. Their illusions don’t save players. Never have, never will. Their DPS is OK with 3 phantasms up, but in explorables most bosses have enough AOE that takes care of a phantasm before they’re all up.
Portal/invis past groups saving time? I don’t even want to comment there, it just shows you haven’t really played many explorables.
Their random buffs all sound great in theory, until you realize other classes have the ability to pop 2 great buffs near them all the time, which is a wee bit better than your 1 random buff. They have survivability yes, and are generally the last to die. But just like their counterparts in AC, they’re a nuisance and no real threat.

Their DPS is low. No way around this, other classes can all out-DPS a Mesmer
Their utility is low. The random buffs and lack of true support skills make them unreliable support characters. What good skills they have (Null Field) are on a rather high cooldown.

I stopped playing my Mesmer in dungeons because I don’t think they’re as viable as other characters. I have yet to find someone prove me wrong on that. Looking forward to the day, but doubtful it’ll come. Everyone defending it, I urge you to get another class to 80. I thought they were fine too. And then my alt tried a dungeon. Total eye opener.

In my experience from CoE and SE explo as Mesmer:

Forget the damage build. Usually I’m Bleeding build but on 50+% of the cases illusions hurt more than they are useful. My non-illusion damage is always lower than all other classes.
I prefer switching to support build. Going for staff and focus (pull) to support others. If possible, I AoE heal with Mantra of Pain casting, I cure conditions with nullfield and disenchanter, I grant boons with Staff + additional bounce, AoE field and TimeWarp. On certain mobs daze Mantra and projectile reflect dome do wonders, too. Finally another important role is to survive and probably heal. The staffs evade + blink is really powerful for those things.

Thanks to those support and utility abilities of my mesmers alot of my (random) party players thing those dungeons were un-playable without a mesmer. Yet I barely deal damage.

Actually, I would rate mesmers slightly below rangers even. A ranger can at least acknowledge that his pet will be utterly useless and spec for more arrow damage, notably piercing arrows, which makes him generally somewhat useful throughout the dungeon, and only slightly lacking at the boss fight.

A mesmer on the other hand, will be lacking in damage for everything but the boss. There is almost no real aoe to be had for trash, and the admittedly decent focused damage they can dish out has too much of a ramp up. The theoretical damage is nice, but if the group is focussing primary targets like they should, you will rarely get your phantasms out for more then 2 cycles and then be struck with quite a harsh downtime, spamming subpar autoattack.

Whats worse, the alleged strength of the mesmer, to shine in drawn out boss fights, does not really occur to me at all. Setting up your 3 phantasms for continous fire is what I would call a “win more” strategy. This is because in general, if a fight allows you to just stack up your 3 phantasms with little to no danger to them and a free line of fire all the time, that fight never was really difficult to begin with. On the other hand, when things get hairy, and the mobs/boss start to down your team, your phantasms get blown up almost instantly, so your damage output plummets somewhat. I find this less then reliable performance bothered me a lot, so put my mesmer on a halt for now…

I have no issues in dungeons. Sure, I don’t bring the raw damage of a guardian, theif, or warrior, but the utility at least on par with a support guardian. Null field, Time warp, feedback, Veil, Illusion of LIfe all have a place in dungeons (maybe not in ALL situations for all these abilities, but there is always something). Additionally, clones are GREAT at distracting some bosses (like P3 Giganticus, he pretty much spams his circle ability on them and ignores players). Plus, smart use of shatters for interrupts (F3) and immunity (F4) make you a great contributor to survivability. If your group is smart, they’ll also use leaps + blast attacks in ethereal fields for group chaos armor, which is pretty much the best armor in the game.

All damage in this game can be calculated and known beforehand. I keep having to say this in every thread on this board (and only this board) that confusion is one of the most underrated and under used status afflictions in this game. Used as a supplement, it’s amazing. On a condition build, it’s a necessity. The damage that stacks from it deal several thousand damage on enemy attacks; far more than a bleeding build. People who make Phantasm builds are limiting themselves. Phantasms are not your primary source of damage and they are certainly not your only option as a Mesmer. Use some shatters!

Perceived utility in dungeons:
Warriors > Guardians > Engineers = Mesmers > Elementalists = Necromancers > Thieves > Rangers
The truth:
Warriors = Guardians = Engineers = Mesmers > Elementalists = Necromancers > Thieves > Rangers

Two Warriors, a Guardian, a Mesmer, and an Engineer can pretty much destroy all dungeons. Rangers bring almost nothing to the table. A Thief’s massive damage and stealth isn’t as effective as it is in PvP. Mesmers can make a pretty nasty condition build, has a ton of condition removal, has a ton of buffs, and can support at range.

From what I’ve observed, yes, but it could’ve just been bad playing. I’d rather have had anything else in the mesmer’s spot, in the two runs I’m thinking of.

Since the mesmer is so situational, I figure it was probably just a player who hadn’t learned a knack for exploiting situations. Who knows, game’s still young.

Mesmers are awesome in dungones.
Either run a condition build( power, con dmg, crit) and see you warlock hit over over 3k crits or go more supporty and hand out chaos armour to everyone. Also we got Feedback, Nullfield and Time Warp. Nothing can match the utility of 10 AoE quickness.

Mesmers are great in dungeons. Rangers are the only ones with a real gripe, and thieves are a little underpowered.

I rarely use damage builds in dungeons, I find myself being a much better support character. Use traited focus w/ feedback for range denial. Null field/disenchanted for party condition removal. Medic feedback with distortion,chaos storm, veil or decoy are great to get downed party members up safety. Use iDenfender or chaos storm on party members to survive a dangerous attack. You can go a shatter build with 30 illusions to give your party might stacks or vigor if you have the inspiration trait. Perhaps other classes can do similar things easier, however, I have never felt useless as a mesmer in a dungeon. Only thing I can stress is a mesmer needs to be rethinking their utilities and weapon sets for every encounter since as posters have mentioned above alot of our skills are very situational.

spoonybard.5612:

I rarely use damage builds in dungeons, I find myself being a much better support character. Use traited focus w/ feedback for range denial. Null field/disenchanted for party condition removal. Medic feedback with distortion,chaos storm, veil or decoy are great to get downed party members up safety. Use iDenfender or chaos storm on party members to survive a dangerous attack. You can go a shatter build with 30 illusions to give your party might stacks or vigor if you have the inspiration trait. Perhaps other classes can do similar things easier, however, I have never felt useless as a mesmer in a dungeon. Only thing I can stress is a mesmer needs to be rethinking their utilities and weapon sets for every encounter since as posters have mentioned above alot of our skills are very situational.

Are you sure that shattering gives friendlies vigor and might, not just you?

One thing not mentioned in the above posts is Mesmer’s ability to stretch the fights out in dungeons. Many times I am the last to go down and even in the down state manage to keep the boss fight going long enough for people to run back. Mesmer’s survivability is key to drag the fight out if a lot of your group goes down. Having illusions/clones to keep the boss or mob busy is key to keeping damage off your buddies.

Also, the speed buff is uber, and warriors love it.

Xyrm.5602:

spoonybard.5612:

I rarely use damage builds in dungeons, I find myself being a much better support character. Use traited focus w/ feedback for range denial. Null field/disenchanted for party condition removal. Medic feedback with distortion,chaos storm, veil or decoy are great to get downed party members up safety. Use iDenfender or chaos storm on party members to survive a dangerous attack. You can go a shatter build with 30 illusions to give your party might stacks or vigor if you have the inspiration trait. Perhaps other classes can do similar things easier, however, I have never felt useless as a mesmer in a dungeon. Only thing I can stress is a mesmer needs to be rethinking their utilities and weapon sets for every encounter since as posters have mentioned above alot of our skills are very situational.

Are you sure that shattering gives friendlies vigor and might, not just you?

Based on trait descriptions it should at least give vigor to allies on shatter. I will have test to make sure the might affects allies as well. Even if it does only give vigor to allies in conjunction with illusionary persona you can buff melee range and ranged party members with proper positioning.

Now that I think about does Confusing Cry gives you retaliation or adds that boon as a aoe buff when you shatter?

Welp, lets go over this one at a time.
iDefender – Best damage mitigation in the game, and the tool tip is wrong. You can see it’s effect in a little buff icon on your teammates too. So EVERYONE near it is taking half damage for as long as it’s up.
iDisenchanter – Not the best condition removal in the game but it effects almost your entire team and you don’t have to do anything besides summon it. Without traiting, specializing, or doing anything but taking 1 utility slot you’re already doing more than half the job of a support build. Even if you’re not trying and/or downed.
Feedback bubble – Situational? Yes. That shouldn’t negate it’s usefulness though. I did a ton of SE explorable runs with my engineer friend and nothing amazed me more than it’s use against the 2nd golem on that run. Everytime it raised it’s hands to nuke us all with fire it was Bubble, Nukes itself, Nukes itself,. Heck, if I got caught with that bubble on CD when it started off that move at least one person got downed, if not more. If that doesn’t justify myself on that run, I don’t know what does.
Illusion of Life – Also fairly situational but it seems like there’s a “Survival” part to every dungeon now. Where you’re escorting or just trying to hold off mobs long enough for an npc to do something and this move does wonders then. It gets someone up and almost guarantees that they rally. This is the Warrior downed #3 skill with the warrior’s trait for it on OTHER people.
Finally, the one move I think should justify our spot on a party hands down, Time Warp. This might be from my long-past WoW years but anyone remember Heroism? Anyone? The sole reason a group never went ANYWHERE without a Shaman? Well, that’s mesmers in this game. A 10 second AOE of the best buff in the game with absolutely no downside. You may not do much dps on your own, but the rest of your team will make up for that, at least twice over.

There’s the side stuff, clones do make good distractions, even if they don’t last long. And you can poop them out like no tommorrow unlike ranger pets or other distractions. DPS is okay, just difficult. iWarlock needs a necromancer or heavy condition teammate. Confusion needs mobs to attack at a decent rate, feedback bubble requires a lot of timing and a projectile user. You can do great damage if you’re good. But to say our utilities aren’t up to par with other classes… Name another class that can half the damage of everything in melee range of the mob. Even for a little while.

Heck yeah. I rolled a Warrior to play dungeons with instead of my 80 Mesmer because the only thing I was good for was Time Warp, Null Field and Feedback.

Cilph.6758:

Heck yeah. I rolled a Warrior to play dungeons with instead of my 80 Mesmer because the only thing I was good for was Time Warp, Null Field and Feedback.

And this is why most people thing mesmers are bad. Because most people do better when they play a class that you can faceroll through a dungeon. This isn’t wrong, this is why those other classes were made.
This isn’t just my opinion either. Arena Net said they released info about classes based on their complexity. Warrior was one of the first to be released. Mesmer was the very last. They MADE mesmers to be harder to play.
But this doesn’t mean mesmers are bad. This just means they are harder to play.

Something harder to play should feel more rewarding and thats not the case for me with my mesmer atm. Just extreemly hard to keep my Iduelists up (which basicly is never) And then when i do have them up i change to staff and they just died so basicly i have no damage for 10s… And dont tell me to go GS i dont want that i want to be able to play a build i want.

Healurownbum.8175:

Something harder to play should feel more rewarding and thats not the case for me with my mesmer atm. Just extreemly hard to keep my Iduelists up (which basicly is never) And then when i do have them up i change to staff and they just died so basicly i have no damage for 10s… And dont tell me to go GS i dont want that i want to be able to play a build i want.

I’m a little confused, I haven’t used pistols so I don’t know why you rely purely on iDuelists for damage. And staff, if that is the “build” you want, typically does condition damage. If you’re using Sharper Images so that your iDuelist does lots of bleeding then you shouldn’t be without damage at all because even after they’re dead your bleeding and all your staff conditions are still ticking. But if you went power/crit then… Yes, you need to go GS. Using a staff isn’t “the build you want” if you went power/crit. It just doesn’t scale off those very well.
Either you change your build to fit staff better or you change your weapon to fit your build better, that’s how this game works. You can still pick the “build” you want but you can’t make staff a power/crit weapon just because that’s what you want. That’s just not what it is. None of it’s moves have high base damage, if they have any base damage at all, and they ALL apply conditions.

Bluenet.2140:

RoRo.8270:

Mesmers shine in enemies that have huge health pools such as bosses. Their illusions can save a player because the boss might use an attack on the illusion and since boss fights are long you can usually have 3 illusions up throughout most of the fight. You can also portal/invis past groups saving time. Autoattacking with staff gives a random buff to allies. They have survivability with decoy/blink don’t know how you came to the conclusion mesmers are the worst class? Maybe you thought you could just autoattack everything?

Sorry but have you played (with) a Mesmer in dungeons? I feel a lot of people are theorycrafting with their weak defenses. Their illusions don’t save players. Never have, never will. Their DPS is OK with 3 phantasms up, but in explorables most bosses have enough AOE that takes care of a phantasm before they’re all up.
Portal/invis past groups saving time? I don’t even want to comment there, it just shows you haven’t really played many explorables.
Their random buffs all sound great in theory, until you realize other classes have the ability to pop 2 great buffs near them all the time, which is a wee bit better than your 1 random buff. They have survivability yes, and are generally the last to die. But just like their counterparts in AC, they’re a nuisance and no real threat.

Their DPS is low. No way around this, other classes can all out-DPS a Mesmer
Their utility is low. The random buffs and lack of true support skills make them unreliable support characters. What good skills they have (Null Field) are on a rather high cooldown.

I stopped playing my Mesmer in dungeons because I don’t think they’re as viable as other characters. I have yet to find someone prove me wrong on that. Looking forward to the day, but doubtful it’ll come. Everyone defending it, I urge you to get another class to 80. I thought they were fine too. And then my alt tried a dungeon. Total eye opener.

Im sorry but have you actually played a mesmer at 80 in a dungeon with a proper PvE build? because I’m certain that have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. As far as “random buffs”, you realize with a staff, and traits to support it, you are applying 2 buffs instead of 1, across 2 people, (1 per person) at an auto attack speed. Now add in staff clones. Staff clones, 3 of them, also provide buff and dots. With a damage over time, tanky support build, yeah damage starts slow, but build up bleed stacks and burn plus insane amounts of buffs. It really shows.

My average party, I can keep a natural 7-12 stacks of Might + Furry + Vigor on my melee or close ranged party Members. 10-16 stacks of bleed, burn, and vulnerability.

stack on top of that, Chaos storm, which can potential provide, 2 Aegis stacks in 1 duration, and protection. Plus, in conjuction for AoE fights, an axe warrior or really any other class, can use the Combo Field Etheral to provide confusion or chaos armor to allies / enemies. yes I know confusion isnt that great, but still its free.

Mesmer portal is greatly helpful in many situations, as well as using Mass invis, but even more so then both of those. Haste. 10 seconds of haste on a good damage party, can provide enough DPS to take some end game bosses down to 40% health before it fades. CoF path 2, you can coordinate with a group of geared DPS and 1 mesmer, and kill the crystal nearly on its first vulnerability time. Stand in haste, dps, win.

So you my friend, REALLY need to play a class built properly before you make lame and uneducated judgement.

TL:DR

Tell me how, roughly 7-12 stacks of Might + furry + vigor on all melee, at all times and Haste. and twice a minute Aegis / Protection is a bad thing?
Please do. Please tell me how all of this helps no one. I dare you.

Sarelm.8317:

Healurownbum.8175:

Something harder to play should feel more rewarding and thats not the case for me with my mesmer atm. Just extreemly hard to keep my Iduelists up (which basicly is never) And then when i do have them up i change to staff and they just died so basicly i have no damage for 10s… And dont tell me to go GS i dont want that i want to be able to play a build i want.

I’m a little confused, I haven’t used pistols so I don’t know why you rely purely on iDuelists for damage. And staff, if that is the “build” you want, typically does condition damage. If you’re using Sharper Images so that your iDuelist does lots of bleeding then you shouldn’t be without damage at all because even after they’re dead your bleeding and all your staff conditions are still ticking. But if you went power/crit then… Yes, you need to go GS. Using a staff isn’t “the build you want” if you went power/crit. It just doesn’t scale off those very well.
Either you change your build to fit staff better or you change your weapon to fit your build better, that’s how this game works. You can still pick the “build” you want but you can’t make staff a power/crit weapon just because that’s what you want. That’s just not what it is. None of it’s moves have high base damage, if they have any base damage at all, and they ALL apply conditions.

Im crit/Condition dmg for the trait yea. But the problem is my Iduelists tend to maybe if lucky get one round of cause ppl are constantly running around with bosses so the AoE’s get them or the phantasm runs in to AoE range and dies. And Staff is ok dmg but more so supportive use. I just want more dmg from myself now as Phantasms are a let down for me in PvE. For all i care they can remove them now.

Sarelm.8317:

Cilph.6758:

Heck yeah. I rolled a Warrior to play dungeons with instead of my 80 Mesmer because the only thing I was good for was Time Warp, Null Field and Feedback.

And this is why most people thing mesmers are bad. Because most people do better when they play a class that you can faceroll through a dungeon. This isn’t wrong, this is why those other classes were made.
This isn’t just my opinion either. Arena Net said they released info about classes based on their complexity. Warrior was one of the first to be released. Mesmer was the very last. They MADE mesmers to be harder to play.
But this doesn’t mean mesmers are bad. This just means they are harder to play.

I absolutely love playing my Mesmer, but I feel bad when grouping with friends because I know my Warrior can just faceroll and be of more help than I am then. I’m not an idiot when it comes to Mesmers. I don’t have a crappy build, I know what I’m doing and I’ve played one in GW1 for quite a while.

When a class is harder to play, this should have a benefit to it. Even when played by a professional, the class is just inferiour compared to another professional playing a Warrior.

I mean, kittens, Mesmers can’t throw their illusionary Greatsword behind them, while Warriors can (Warrior GS #4 skill, works like Mesmer #2). I feel something more is at play here.

Healurownbum.8175:

Sarelm.8317:

Healurownbum.8175:

Something harder to play should feel more rewarding and thats not the case for me with my mesmer atm. Just extreemly hard to keep my Iduelists up (which basicly is never) And then when i do have them up i change to staff and they just died so basicly i have no damage for 10s… And dont tell me to go GS i dont want that i want to be able to play a build i want.

I’m a little confused, I haven’t used pistols so I don’t know why you rely purely on iDuelists for damage. And staff, if that is the “build” you want, typically does condition damage. If you’re using Sharper Images so that your iDuelist does lots of bleeding then you shouldn’t be without damage at all because even after they’re dead your bleeding and all your staff conditions are still ticking. But if you went power/crit then… Yes, you need to go GS. Using a staff isn’t “the build you want” if you went power/crit. It just doesn’t scale off those very well.
Either you change your build to fit staff better or you change your weapon to fit your build better, that’s how this game works. You can still pick the “build” you want but you can’t make staff a power/crit weapon just because that’s what you want. That’s just not what it is. None of it’s moves have high base damage, if they have any base damage at all, and they ALL apply conditions.

Im crit/Condition dmg for the trait yea. But the problem is my Iduelists tend to maybe if lucky get one round of cause ppl are constantly running around with bosses so the AoE’s get them or the phantasm runs in to AoE range and dies. And Staff is ok dmg but more so supportive use. I just want more dmg from myself now as Phantasms are a let down for me in PvE. For all i care they can remove them now.

I see. Yes, the phantasms die much faster, but what might help a lot is just spreading them out. I do find that I have a very hard time keeping 3 up at a time, but keeping 1 or 2 up isn’t too bad as long as I’m moving enough to set them down far enough apart that a single aoe won’t hit them all. I’d also suggest the torch phantasm. It won’t survive better, but just because you said you’re a condition build, I believe retaliation scales from condition and the extra confusion isn’t bad on most mobs. Plus the retaliation/confusion sticks for a bit even after they’re dead. Yes, they could use more tweaking, and yes it’s sad that they don’t feel more rewarding. But that’s support in general. You’re not going to see big numbers on staff for mesmer the same way you won’t see big numbers with an elixer gun on engineer. The stuff you’re doing is still very useful. Just very behind-the-scenes.

Sarelm.8317:

Healurownbum.8175:

Sarelm.8317:

Healurownbum.8175:

Something harder to play should feel more rewarding and thats not the case for me with my mesmer atm. Just extreemly hard to keep my Iduelists up (which basicly is never) And then when i do have them up i change to staff and they just died so basicly i have no damage for 10s… And dont tell me to go GS i dont want that i want to be able to play a build i want.

I’m a little confused, I haven’t used pistols so I don’t know why you rely purely on iDuelists for damage. And staff, if that is the “build” you want, typically does condition damage. If you’re using Sharper Images so that your iDuelist does lots of bleeding then you shouldn’t be without damage at all because even after they’re dead your bleeding and all your staff conditions are still ticking. But if you went power/crit then… Yes, you need to go GS. Using a staff isn’t “the build you want” if you went power/crit. It just doesn’t scale off those very well.
Either you change your build to fit staff better or you change your weapon to fit your build better, that’s how this game works. You can still pick the “build” you want but you can’t make staff a power/crit weapon just because that’s what you want. That’s just not what it is. None of it’s moves have high base damage, if they have any base damage at all, and they ALL apply conditions.

Im crit/Condition dmg for the trait yea. But the problem is my Iduelists tend to maybe if lucky get one round of cause ppl are constantly running around with bosses so the AoE’s get them or the phantasm runs in to AoE range and dies. And Staff is ok dmg but more so supportive use. I just want more dmg from myself now as Phantasms are a let down for me in PvE. For all i care they can remove them now.

I see. Yes, the phantasms die much faster, but what might help a lot is just spreading them out. I do find that I have a very hard time keeping 3 up at a time, but keeping 1 or 2 up isn’t too bad as long as I’m moving enough to set them down far enough apart that a single aoe won’t hit them all. I’d also suggest the torch phantasm. It won’t survive better, but just because you said you’re a condition build, I believe retaliation scales from condition and the extra confusion isn’t bad on most mobs. Plus the retaliation/confusion sticks for a bit even after they’re dead. Yes, they could use more tweaking, and yes it’s sad that they don’t feel more rewarding. But that’s support in general. You’re not going to see big numbers on staff for mesmer the same way you won’t see big numbers with an elixer gun on engineer. The stuff you’re doing is still very useful. Just very behind-the-scenes.

I dont expect big numbers with condition damage build, and i do spread them out but they tend to get one shot still i mostly run TA Exp Only boss i had 3 up was the last boss first path before they fixed him… And i play a engineer elixer gun cause of the weakness and healing and some what dmg.. I like that sort of play but i can see it make a differnce. And torch as far as i have seen isnt that great cause confusion is based on the boss doing alot and if it doesnt get a chance for that it does no dmg at all. The bleeds do dmg no matter what atleast. I guess my problem is the whole behind the scene feel like i have barely a impact to it all.

I loved the GW1 mesmer so much i felt in control as well in PvE as in PvP and thats what im missing now the feeling of control over the battlefield and i cant find that. Just so far dissapointed in the mesmer probably cause i been waiting for the game and this class for so long and reading up on it all rly looked amazing made it more in my head then it rly is.

I aint going to give up tho i love my mesmer and i trust Anet to fix it moreso make it balanced for PvE and PvP.

If you rolled a mesmer expecting to do massive amounts of DPS in a dungeon…you’re going to have a bad time.

Yes it’s possible, but probably not the best use of a mesmer’s ability. Mesmer ability is by far, heads and shoulders above the rest, the best support in a dungeon. When I play, I play as support because I know keeping my party alive and buffed is much more important than trying to do more damage than a warrior.

Theres 2 things i found as a lvl 80 mesmer in dungeons…
1st- I didnt know what mesmers can do at first. It took me some time to realize we support ppl even when not tryng to… Example: every clone creates a safe zone from proyectiles, go behind 1 and you wont get hit by them.
2nd- Ppl dont know what mesmers can do. Same example applies: If you keep deing from proyectiles stop QQing and move behind a clone! Everyone can use them and should use them! Why do you thing we try to spread them??
And there i didnt count the obvius feedback, time warp, null field and other support skills.
As for dmg… I also find out that mesmers can do a glass cannon/high DPS build and still be effective. We have so many tricks to not get hit in the first place that im often the last to die or the only alive even on power/presition/condition dmg gears. So yeah, we can do nice dmg and thats not even counting the reflection skills, ive seen some crazy numbers with them….
Also bring 2 mesmers to a dungeon and watch everything run from clone to clone not hitting anyone, its hilarious. And thats not to mention ranged mobs/bosses fights, they become a walk in the park if both mesmers time theyr reflections, basically bosses kill themselfs
So imh as we play the class more and ppl play with us more we will all become more aware of what mesmers can do.
And dont get me wrong, im not the best meser you can find, ive seen some mesmers that if i could play half as good as them id be really happy.
So mesmers are the best class for dungeons?? I dont know, but I think we bring lots of help there