Guild Wars 2

I’m basically a PvP’er, it’s the reason I play GW2. However it would be nice to also enjoy some PvE, and in a good mmo the two kind of compliment each other, the PvE being a sort of nice break that adds a little spice to your character. I really do enjoy some good PvE if it is there.

I also enjoyed leveling my mesmer, it was fun to learn the class and get used to the game.

Lately I decided to go check out Silverwastes for a nice PvE break from PvP.

Unfortunately, after learning the game and getting pretty solid on my mesmer (I’m at least at an average level of skill in PvP), most of the end game PvE content is just a nightmare. I’m not talking dungeons, I’m talking living story, silver wastes, open world etc.

It’s like the mechanics of the class are just incompatible with a smooth open world PvE experience. Say I want to take on a group of enemies. Well I summon my phantasm on one, and when it dies the phantasm explodes and I have to wait for it’s cd to come back to use it on another mob. Phantasms make up a big part of our dmg, and they are just absolutely so designed as a single target mechanic it’s just horrible for open world PvE.

It’s an un-smooth, clunky and unenjoyable experience for me. Compare to PvP, where downing someone on a mesmer is the smoothest most satisfying experience I have ever had in an mmo. Everything works against a single target pretty darn well, and it makes for a greatly enjoyable gaming experience.

This is also why in PvE, fighting veterans or elites is pretty fun, they take a long time to kill and so it doesn’t feel like I’m constantly ramping up. I really enjoy fighting elites and veterans when I encounter them in the open world (this is also why I think dungeons are ok on a mesmer).

I think that they really need to do some serious spell splits between pvp and pve for mesmers. One huge improvement would be persistent phantasms in pve (not WvW), meaning that phantasms behave like ranger pets and do not explode when the initial target dies. Instead, the phantasm should persist and switch to the next target. The constant ramp up time of re-summoning phantasms all the time in open world PvE is just the worst.

Suggestion: Make phantasms persistent in PvE (not WvW), in that once summoned they persist as pets until shattered.

I’m not complaining about difficulty. I’m saying that the experience is not smooth and not enjoyable. The mesmer is basically fundamentally not designed to properly go through an area downing lots of moderate difficulty enemies, which of course makes up the majority of the open world. It’s a shame to me that I can’t go explore the world on my mesmer without getting quickly frustrated by the rough and clunky experience.

Lately I resorted to an IE condi build, where I just spam staff clones :-/ It is sadly the most effective build for killing groups of enemies in open world PvE.

Edit: I think the chronomancer traits should help this a lot, IF, when the shatter kills a target the phantasms resummon on a new target.

The persistence between targets wasn’t the issue I saw with the Living Story mechanics … it was the large amount of AOE damage that constantly killed the illusions that made living story on my Mesmer take drastically longer than on my other 80s as that was gimping my damage.

If I remember correctly, I had to have 4-5 burn phases on the boss on the last part of Living Story as my Mesmer while my Ranger finished it in 2-3 burn phases (solo both times).

I will concede that my Mesmer was the first character I did each living story on … but when I went back for achievements … I didn’t do them on my Mesmer usually due to it being so much quicker on other characters.

That said … I do laugh to myself and pick on my Ranger buddy when we’re on content that has been updated for Mesmer illusions to not take damage from the AOEs but Ranger pets are still getting kitten by them … though a little saddening since I play Ranger too :-/

I’m a newish mesmer and terrible at PvP so take from this whatever you like, but in PvE open world for any kind of phantasm build, Signet of the Ether is your buddy. Don’t wait to use it for the heal. just summon phantasm of your choice, signet, resummon. Then if need be weapon swap and summon another. If it’s just 1 or 2 mobs, you only need one phantasm and a couple clones anyway.

Against a group, I usually attack a different target to my phantasms to try and spread the damage.

I think having them persist would make gameplay too passive for mesmer. It’s not meant to be a faceroll (for want of a better word) class. Perhaps a compromise where an illusion persists only when there’s a target in extreme short range of where the illusion was standing when its previous target died which it can hit with its next attack, but I wouldn’t want to see them following the mesmer about while he/she goes mob to mob like a ranger pet.

That being said, Kasmeer’s illusions persist and that kinda bugs me.

I basically had the same experience as the original poster. Played mesmer from beta, leveled to 80, and PVP’d exclusively on and off for the last 4 years.

I found Mesmer mechanics just too frustrating for open world PVEing so never bothered to do any of it.

Unless HoT solves these issues, I’d suggest just leveling another toon for PVE.

Silverwaste is the one PvE content where I feel like I’m not punished for being on my Mesmer (or my Ranger) as most of the loot you get comes from event completion …

… instead of everywhere else where tagging is king and my Mesmer/Ranger are inferior at tagging compared to Engineers, Guardians, and Elementalists (side note: oh look, Guardians and Elementalists on top of something else in-game <_< )

I believe the Wells and Shield are part of the currently proposed solution to help with this as we’ll have more AOEs … just not spammable ones like the kings of event tagging have.

We should be get better in the AoE departement with Wells in HoT.

That’s kind of odd. I’ve always found the personal story missions to be a little too easy with my Mesmer. I usually run a massive clone factory build and the enemy mobs tend to love to kill those clones and take damage.

Same as above really. I find the single target nature and that AoE burst between groups of mobs in open world is where it’s at. Weirdly I find myself running a dps shatter build for those with iWarden for extra AoE, however I do have to think about where to summon it for damage. My staff or D/F else just carves a path of destruction wherever she goes and has just as much utility a lot of the time.

What I found really depressing is looking over frifox’s calculations and DeKeyz stuff on the DnT forums. To put it bluntly, mesmer damage is bad for dungeons and having seen the live stream on the traits I am having very large concerns about whether the effort to get dps will actually be worth it if you’re still subpar to nearly every other build and class.

I would love to play mesmer in dungeons and more in open world but all these little problems keep coming back, lack of AoE, phantasms dying easily, ramp up times and having to sacrifice utility slots for damage.

Oh and never do the dust mites in dry top as a Mesmer unless you love disappointment.

Like a couple other posters, I found the living story stuff really easy on mes. Two burn phases on the last boss, iirc. Get three phantasms up, time warp, and sword autoattack.

It’s certainly true that killing trash can be a little more tedious when it dies so fast that your phantasms only get one attack off, but I don’t think that’s a huge deal in most circumstances. (And in lots of the living story, if you target the right enemy, your phantasms will get more hits in.) And as a benefit, you get lots of survivability: your illusions take aggro, you get 50% uptime on vigor, you get 2.5 seconds of evade every 9.6 seconds, and you get easy interrupts, condi cleanse, stability, positioning, reflects, and pulls as needed. You even get a block if you bring sword offhand, which is often good, because the phantasm does great damage and stays alive pretty well.

(In fights where you can’t stay in melee very well, rabid staff can be better than zerk/assassin sword, but I didn’t find myself having much trouble staying in melee in the living story stuff. Vile thrashers and teragriffs suck to melee, though, so mostly I let other people kill them or swapped to something ranged for the fight.)

Now, I’m not saying that mesmers are the best by any means. But they have plenty of tools. (And if you want practice with those tools? Start running dungeons and fractals! They might be orphaned, but they’re still the most challenging pve in the game, and if you’re willing to learn, we’re really friendly over in the dungeon forum!)

Edit: In response to that last post, yeah, mesmers have bad damage in dungeons. But in solo living story, I don’t think the differences in damage are quite as big a deal. (And even though mes damage is sad, and I hardly ever bring my mes for dungeons, I do still think that if you want to learn pve, dungeons are the place to go. And a good mes can still be helpful in lots of dungeons, even if it’s not optimal.)

Agreed with above. I’d usually swap between sw/f + gs, or sw/p, but I never had more trouble with mobs in silverwaste/living story than I had on other classes. As above, last boss in the living story – first time trying it it took me 3 burn phases. Almost every time after that, while trying to get the achivements (which I did solo), it only took 2 burn phases. I helped someone after who ended up having to die at the beginning to avoid rocks, and then I soloed it – took 3 burn phases that time, but it was also set up for 2 people.

Funny thing that you guys mention that last boss. My ele, war, guard, necro, engy and thief did it in 2 burns. My ranger took an extra burn but not by much. My Mesmer took 4.

Gee whizz I must be some kind of terrible right? Well, not quite. The phatasms wouldn’t summon on it and GS auto attack kept saying blocked. Had to burn it down with simple sword auto and BF.

So yeah add to the gripe list: Mobs being invuln for various reasons or out of LoS slightly and having phantasms go on a full cool down and GS and staff missing half the time because who knows why, the mob is in a field and yet something is blocking it.

Wells won’t be a good tagging skill due to its long CD, the most accessible AoE tagging would be mantra of pain. Ofc I know people get irritated for charging mantra but you’ll have significantly more accessible AoE than wells.

And if you think mantra of pain kills too slow for the mob you’re targeting, chances are your izerker can deal reasonable AoE damage before it dissipated with the dead mob.

But I agree, mesmers aren’t in a good position in LS due to AoEs. Maybe the new furious interruption (CD 5s) can speed up mesmer’s DPS? Its definitely not hard to interrupt mobs, though that may mean you have to slot mantra of distraction.

Way back before the mesmer was even revealed, I remember suggesting (on Guru) that illusions should only be visible to the enemy they’re targeting. Although this was mostly a thematic suggestion and would, in retrospect, be going a bit too far, I think that making them immune to damage except from their target would still be a brilliant change.

Not only does it make sense thematically, it neatly sidesteps problems caused by incidental AoE damage without having to resort to flat health boosts or blanket AoE immunity.

If you are having problems in the silverwastes, maybe take a look at your build/playstyle and adjust accordingly. You don’t need staff-spamming or anything like that.

serenke.4806:

If you are having problems in the silverwastes, maybe take a look at your build/playstyle and adjust accordingly. You don’t need staff-spamming or anything like that.

playstyle has nothing really to do with it. I dont use my mes in pve as mesmer in the current state is a 1v1 duelist. we lack aoe and many of our traits rely on the opponent to attack us or so like with confusion.confusion worked great in wvw but in pve was not viable at all. same with clone deat trais. most of the mobs are highly resistant to condis. our main dps comes from phantasma that die in aoe. thats why im much better off using my war to farm. easy mode u run in button mesh and u collect the loot. as mesmer u stay our u try to hit mobs but until your phantasm reached or the shatter happened they are allready all dead cause the warriors have killed the mobs .

selan.8354:

serenke.4806:

If you are having problems in the silverwastes, maybe take a look at your build/playstyle and adjust accordingly. You don’t need staff-spamming or anything like that.

playstyle has nothing really to do with it. I dont use my mes in pve as mesmer in the current state is a 1v1 duelist. we lack aoe and many of our traits rely on the opponent to attack us or so like with confusion.confusion worked great in wvw but in pve was not viable at all. same with clone deat trais. most of the mobs are highly resistant to condis. our main dps comes from phantasma that die in aoe. thats why im much better off using my war to farm. easy mode u run in button mesh and u collect the loot. as mesmer u stay our u try to hit mobs but until your phantasm reached or the shatter happened they are allready all dead cause the warriors have killed the mobs .

Yo Selan: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Announcing-the-OMFG-WvW-Division/first#post5037415

selan.8354:

serenke.4806:

If you are having problems in the silverwastes, maybe take a look at your build/playstyle and adjust accordingly. You don’t need staff-spamming or anything like that.

playstyle has nothing really to do with it. I dont use my mes in pve as mesmer in the current state is a 1v1 duelist. we lack aoe and many of our traits rely on the opponent to attack us or so like with confusion.confusion worked great in wvw but in pve was not viable at all. same with clone deat trais. most of the mobs are highly resistant to condis. our main dps comes from phantasma that die in aoe. thats why im much better off using my war to farm. easy mode u run in button mesh and u collect the loot. as mesmer u stay our u try to hit mobs but until your phantasm reached or the shatter happened they are allready all dead cause the warriors have killed the mobs .

I did say playstyle/build… Adjust your build, traits accordingly and you won’t suck in pve.

I played a fair amount of Silverwastes and got ALL the story achievements (except the ghost escort in 8 minutes, I’ll need to bring more people for that) on my mesmers… did you try a phantasm build? I’m running 26060 with gs+sw/focus in pve usually.

I usually just go down the Empowered Mantras route myself now for open world PvE usually with Greatsword + sword/pistol traited with Duellist’s Discipline so pistol phantasms can stay out of some of the AoE. It’s workable.

Torment shatter is actually fairly decent for Silverwastes for dealing with tough bark enemies, especially during the convoy escort phase where the mobs stream down to the supply cache. It’s rare that torment will ever reach the the cap, so you’re not quite as penalised as you would be relying on bleeds.

Despite this, I actually prefer to PvE on my Thief now because it’s just so much more efficient and kind of more fun these days.

I’ve always wanted phantasms removed from the game, Mesmer damage bumped up and made clones the only thing we shatter. That way we could have another skill on each weapon set for utility/whatever. It would also actually make sense for us to use our class mechanic in dungeons, rather than just re-summoning phantasms until the very end when we might use one shatter just to help finish of the target. /sigh I hate phantasms.

We’ll have to see if the new Chronomancer trait(s) will help alleviate this with the new Chronophantasm trait … though, as I expressed in a separate thread, I’m concerned with how that trait actually works.

Example:
Yay, I can shatter my phantasms and then they’ll resummon this one time!
Go phantasms, shatter for magical butterfly damage and resurrect like the purple phoenixes you are!
What the heck! My phantasms died to AOE on their way in to shatter! Noooooooo!

Example #2:
Yay! My phantasms shattered and resurrected!
Wait … now all 3 of my phantasms are sitting in melee range of the boss mob …
Son of a … all 3 just got cleaved/AOE’d down by a single attack …

Ok some people made the annoying mistake of assuming “I’m having problems in silver wastes” when I said in the OP “I’m not complaining about difficulty.” Yes I understand all pve content is very doable on a mesmer. I’m saying it is kittening annoying and clunky to do compared with other classes. PvE is not PvP, and open world PvE is not dungeons. Open world PvE is running around in general fighting groups of low-moderate HP enemies with an elite/veteran thrown in now and then. For this type of content the mesmer reward/effort ratio is just kitten . So yes, I know I can do it on a mesmer, I’m not saying it’s hard, I’m saying it’s annoying, un-enjoyable and not worth the effort.

I like the effort I have to put in to play well in PvP because the reward is great. Having to do that over and over again for the crappy reward of killing 1/100 low HP mobs is just a kitten experience, imo.

Edit: Yes Chrono may alleviate this, just have to wait and see.