Guild Wars 2

I’m going to blow a little steam.

I have a mesmer, 80th level, full exotics, yada yada. I love the class. My favorite character in guildwars 1 was also a mesmer. He’s the only character I’ve really played. Leveled to 80th, then tons of WvW, and a dungeon now and then.

While waiting to see if the patch this month fixes some of our worst bugs, I decided to roll a warrior just for a chance of pace. I’ve played him to 15th level now.

It’s quite possible that later on in the games warriors drop drastically in the power curve – I leave open this possibility. But wow – right now? I actually started to wonder if my character was bugged and simply couldn’t take damage for awhile. Running a simple greatsword build with healing signet, I really can just auto attack my way through the game. I’m doing story mode missions a few levels above me and yawning through them. I feel like I’d have to actively try to die.

I enjoyed leveling up my mesmer. 1-40 were of course a bit of a pain as I learned the class and waited on the traits that really open the class up. I didn’t think it was TOO hard, and this is not a petition to nerf warriors. It’s just an expression of disbelief that the PVE class “balance” in this game could be THIS ridiculously imbalanced.

Ok, enough ranting!

The problem is you’re comparing a heavy armor class to a light armor class. The thing to realise here is that there are several other methods of mitigating/avoiding damage rather than letting your armor absorb the damage. I can go through the pros and cons of each class, PvE and PvP wise, but that’d take forever. Try experimenting with other PvE mesmer builds/armor combinations and you’ll be surprised at how versatile the class really is.

ps: I have a fully geared Warrior, Ranger and Mesmer – so I can compare and contrast these classes pretty well so far.

Jubei.5923:

The problem is you’re comparing a heavy armor class to a light armor class.

If I’m understanding OP right, that’s not really his issue. It’s more the amount of effort that needs to be put into something in order to get a specific result.

It’s a generally known and accepted fact that Mesmers (and some other professions) have to put in a great deal more effort to come out with something even rivaling the sickening ezmodo of specific other professions.

In this case – Mesmer, a profession people generally agree on being relatively terrible at PvE, in comparison to other professions, must extend a lot of effort and action to get what, as noted, the PvEasy Warrior can just make derpfaces through and roll their face along the keyboard.

@OP: The difference can be looked at in two ways, generally.

On one hand, you can become sickened by your Mesmer’s inability to get the same result for the same effort – and reroll a different profession to have access to top-tier efficiency and brain-numbingly easier success in specific fields.

Alternatively, you could look at as Mesmer really giving you more fun. I can’t imagine I would have ever actually stayed in this game if my first profession had been a warrior – The sheer simplicity that makes them successful is boring to me. Mesmer, while less efficient and requiring much more effort, makes even stupid little trash-mob encounters moderately fun and enjoyable just because of my freedom and ability to toy around and execute them.

So it’s the little things and preferences that really make or break things like this.

My bad if I misread the OP. I do agree that other classes out-perform others in certain areas, try playing a RANGER and then try playing a ranged Warrior/Thief. You’ll cry like a girl at how better they are with bows in PvE than the Ranger. To my understanding, anything that seems wildly imbalanced will be worked on, just don’t hold your breath because patches and changes require time.

I do personally agree with Ayanavi that the warrior is fairly boring to play unless you find something that you really enjoy. For me, using a rifle sniper build for the Warrior is tonnes of fun, both in PvE and especially in WvW/PvP. For my Mesmer, I’m using Osicat’s Shatter Cat build —> https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/guide-WvWvW-Shatter-cat/page/6) and I’m having a blast. Makes me feel like a terrorist constantly blowing clones up =P

To be clear – I don’t have any real problem with PVE on my mesmer (other than the current bugs which greatly hurt phantasm builds) – I enjoyed leveling up, and 80th level content while sometimes challenging doesn’t cause me undo frustration.

I’m not so much complaining that mesmer was too hard, as I am saying I’m astonished at how ridiculously easy the Warrior is by comparison, for the same PVE content that I played on my mesmer.

I can not speak to higher level PVE or PVP because I have only experienced that on my Mesmer, of course.

I played a backbreaker build in Guildwars 1 in PvP a lot – and a Mesmer / Warrior, so starting a warrior next seemed natural.

My mesmer is still my favorite, and I wait with held breath for our bug fixes!

Jubei.5923:

The problem is you’re comparing a heavy armor class to a light armor class.

The problem is you’re comparing a heavy armor class that can hit for ~16k in a single attack to a light armor class who can’t hit for more than a quarter of that kind of damage. Don’t bother comparing mesmers to dps classes like warrior and thief, mesmers are much more of a support class.

Truth is mesmers can own warriors without too much effort if speced and played right, but it is a very different, much less direct approach to that of a warrior. If you are having trouble I suggest trying out a tankier toughness\boons\condition damage staff build. Power based great sword\sword builds are currently a bit kittened due to the last round of changes.

I completely agree with Ayanavi. Furthermore, I think what you’re experiencing is a symptom of the removal of class roles from GW2. Warrior still has to be able to do his thing… just now without a Monk to back him up. There’s a point at which the fights, certain champions/dungeon mobs are just too much for a Warrior to stand up to though. A few of my Warrior buddies tend to get rather upset that they’ve got to resort to rifle kiting certain things because the given mob’s power is over that point at which a Warrior can fight it “traditional” warrior style… without that Monk backing them up. Times like those make me glad that I’ve got one of the most versatile classes in the game.

To echo what other people said: it depends on how you play and, more importantly, how you WANT to play.

My Mez is only 16 so far, but I don’t feel nearly as squishy as I expected I would. My Warrior can stand toe-to-toe against lots of threats, it’s true (thanks to his heavy armor), but when I do run up against something over-the-line, I tend to go down FAST and HARD. Compare that to my Mez, where I expect that I’ll have to keep moving, watch my clones and know when to Shatter and when to Dodge and all that… I dunno, maybe I get “lazy” with my Warrior, but I for some reason actually FEEL STRONGER (at the lower levels anyway) than my equal-level Warrior. But I don’t mind working harder with the Mez; maybe that’s the difference (?)

Plus, like Sky said, I also know that when I get my Elites and my more powerful Utilities, I’ll also be able to do other things for parties, groups, raids, and WvW, from dropping Portals to applying mass buff effects. Coming from levelling a Ranger, and all the fun control and combo field things I can do with that class, that’s very appealing.

From the inception of the announcement of the professions, ANet said they released them in the order of difficulty to learn to play. Guess which was the first profession released and which was the last. From the outset we have known that Warrior was going to have an easier learning curve and Mesmer would have the steepest learning curve. I think this is dead on.

I leveled up a Warrior first, just to see if I was going to be skilled enough to play the game, and now I am leveling up every other class. Now I find that I prefer the steeping learning curve of the Mesmer, because it keeps me on my toes. At least with Mesmer though, I have not been frustrated to no end, like when I play a thief. I just can’t play that class effectively. Thief just requires a playstyle that I am not good at. I love engineer and mesmer, and have a pretty easy time with Necro and Ranger. All of this is from a PvE perspective as I am not huge PvP player.

Vendris.4201:

Running a simple greatsword build with healing signet,

That’s the “problem”. Healing Signet is a bit OP in the beginning, as I don’t think its regen scales properly. When my warrior was lvl 20 or so, she could kill a veteran mob without dodging or taking noticeable damage due to how much her signet regened. At lvl 80, that regen is barely noticeable, at least without heavy Healing Power investment.

In general, I don’t think my lvl 80 warrior is more powerful than my lvl 80 mesmer. Warrior has better AoE damage, but is much worse escape wise. If you screw up as a mesmer, you’ve got a thousand ways to escape, while a warrior who screwed up can just dash away and hope for the best.

Aha! Thanks for the feedback – that’s actually good to know and makes sense. From 1 – 20th I think I can count the number of times I’ve actually bothered to cast heal on one hand. At times I wondered if there was a bug that was making me immune to damage, hah.

If the power curves are just very different between the two classes but it levels out later, that’s better.

dekou.6012:

Vendris.4201:

Running a simple greatsword build with healing signet,

That’s the “problem”. Healing Signet is a bit OP in the beginning, as I don’t think its regen scales properly. When my warrior was lvl 20 or so, she could kill a veteran mob without dodging or taking noticeable damage due to how much her signet regened. At lvl 80, that regen is barely noticeable, at least without heavy Healing Power investment.

In general, I don’t think my lvl 80 warrior is more powerful than my lvl 80 mesmer. Warrior has better AoE damage, but is much worse escape wise. If you screw up as a mesmer, you’ve got a thousand ways to escape, while a warrior who screwed up can just dash away and hope for the best.

pahldus.1678:

From the inception of the announcement of the professions, ANet said they released them in the order of difficulty to learn to play. Guess which was the first profession released and which was the last.

First was Elementalist, which is actually now one of if not the hardest profession to play effectively.

Admittedly, partially due to nerfs during beta…

They were released in rough order of complexity as envisaged at the time of release, both in terms of complexity to play and in complexity to grasp the concept (pretty much any RPG-player will recognise an elementalist or warrior, mesmers… not so much), but there has been a lot of balancing since that has adjusted the balance. At the moment, the simplest yardstick of difficulty to learn is probably roughly in order of armour, with warriors and rangers probably being the easiest to learn to play adequately – however, in my experience, while those professions can power through most things, they tend to have little ability to turn around something that they prove unable to power through, while mesmers are fairly good at turning around situations where they should have died.

draxynnic.3719:

pahldus.1678:

From the inception of the announcement of the professions, ANet said they released them in the order of difficulty to learn to play. Guess which was the first profession released and which was the last.

First was Elementalist, which is actually now one of if not the hardest profession to play effectively.

Admittedly, partially due to nerfs during beta…

They were released in rough order of complexity as envisaged at the time of release, both in terms of complexity to play and in complexity to grasp the concept (pretty much any RPG-player will recognise an elementalist or warrior, mesmers… not so much), but there has been a lot of balancing since that has adjusted the balance. At the moment, the simplest yardstick of difficulty to learn is probably roughly in order of armour, with warriors and rangers probably being the easiest to learn to play adequately – however, in my experience, while those professions can power through most things, they tend to have little ability to turn around something that they prove unable to power through, while mesmers are fairly good at turning around situations where they should have died.

Ele was god mode in betas. Even after balancing it still isn’t a hard class to play.

It is as Ayanavi says. Mesmer is one of the classes that requires you put a incredible amount of time, energy, and thought into in order to play effectively and combat threats, survive, and all while dealing any damage. There is a particular rhythm involved and it can be grueling in the 1-40 (and potentially even the 1-60, depending on content and build you use and current state of bugs) level ranges.

What input we put in for less output that many other classes can just one-skill. Guards and Wars with a greatsword can steamroll on through PvE content quite easily. It isn’t just because of their heavy armor nature. It has more to do with the easier dealing of direct damage output and utilities. Mesmers rely on illusions for everything, whether you are a shatterer or a phantasm or a hybrid in between, for survival and damage. There are many, many ways PvE content (and other players) can mitigate those sources of damage from even getting a chance to happen. Whereas other classes, when you press a skill — you get direct damage. We have a song and dance to go through.

I enjoy my main. It is why I joined GW2 and was my first character that I played and leveled up to 80 upon getting into headstart. But it doesn’t mean that I am blind to the many issues and inconsistencies of our class (not to mention the sheer amount of bugs integral to the class’ functionality). As things are right now, I just don’t think we get enough returns (and no, I’m not just talking about raw damage here, there can be many other complementary returns) for the energy and time investment we put in.

totally agree with Ayanavi.1904. I started with a ranger, leveled to 80, then started a mesmer and just about gave up on it. Way more involving then the ranger was. I felt with the ranger I can just sick my pet on mobs, then kite a little and done. Not so with the mesmer.. holy toledo, I had to q and e my kitten off to stay alive.
Once I got used to the added movement keys I did realize that it is way more fun even, as said above, on mediocre mob types..
I don’t think this makes it unbalanced.. just harder to learn/play. I remember starting Aion and right at the profession screen it had a beginners difficulty rating where rangers where considered easy and sword wielding classes as hard but all where pretty much balanced..

RinKyu.4317:

Ele was god mode in betas. Even after balancing it still isn’t a hard class to play.

Maybe this is a case of different people having different experiences, but I find mesmer and, well, pretty much anything to be more survivable and generally easier to play than elementalist. And I’ve seen enough similar sentiment around to know I’m not alone there.

draxynnic.3719:

Maybe this is a case of different people having different experiences, but I find mesmer and, well, pretty much anything to be more survivable and generally easier to play than elementalist. And I’ve seen enough similar sentiment around to know I’m not alone there.

Survivability is low, yes, and gameplay is hectic. Ofc, the char also feels explosively strong when dancing through attunements and firing off utility after utility in a continuous barrage.
I only ever see Staff-users really be “meh!” about their Eles.

And to be honest… I tried it, yes, Staff is very nice for support, but feels way too weak for anything beyond that. It rocks at healing and combo field setup. For anything else, give me either Scepter+Dagger if I need range, or Dagger+Dagger. Feels like the class becomes 2x more powerful when you swap out the staff.
Staff isn’t weak, mind you. It just isn’t strong for you. It is for your team. Next to Necro staff, it might even be the strongest group utility weapon of any class, even comparing Guardian. The array of combo fields alone is staggering ,with 1-2 people on voice comm to pop them, you can cause a lot of havoc.

the other day someone posted about “Foo Strategies” i think Warriors (and maybe guardians) are THE Foo class in this game, i’ve played a bit as Thief, Ranger, Guardian and Warrior, and kitten! warriors are such an extreme facerolling class, but think about that totally noob people that came to play GW2, they need something to get into the game… also if you pay attention, is not that hard to make full use of a warrior’s potential, but a mesmer well played can do the same or even more (well not AoE damage, but that’s another story)

so think about it this way:

Warrior = Easy mode
Mesmer = Hard mode (well is not thaaaat hard, but still)

I just stopped by to say I like your thread title. Very clever.

That same healing signet on the warrior doesn’t heal for beans. The first time I used it I was like “wtf?!?!?”. The regen from the signet is on-par with the guardian virtue of resolve, but it’s nothing for a good heal — especially when you are use to ether feast on your mesmer.

One of my best friends plays a warrior, and I see him dancing around at range during a fight with 10% of his health left. He has to back out and wait for his regen to bring him back up. During that time he’s plinking away with his bow or rifle — at greatly reduced DPS to what he was doing with that GS previously.

whole different game at lvl 80.

I hardly know what I’m doing yet at level 46, but have killed fully geared 80s that by all appearances have some grasp as to how to play more so then a newbie Mesmer.

The class is great, but we need movement speed and bugs fixed.

Balance is not always two equals, sometimes it’s two opposites making a greater whole. The Warrior is made easier to play then the Mesmer, to create versatility in gameplay. Some players like playing complicated/difficult classes, other players don’t. But just because the Warrior has an easier time surviving encounters, it doesn’t mean that it’s more powerful then the Mesmer. It’s simply just that the Mesmer relies on other, more complicated, means in order to survive (read; clones and stealth).

Thing is, while many of us mesmers obviously enjoy a more complex and intelligent playstyle, we at least expect to be as potent as the easier professions.

As it stands now, mesmers have to put a whole lot of effort in order to achieve stuff that all other professions do a bit better with much less effort. Sustained AoE is a good example for this.

Healing Signet is a little broken at lower levels. You can quite literally get Healing Signet on a new Warrior, and afk facetank Champions in level 1-15 zones.

Healing Signet scales poorly as you level though, also scaling poorly with healing power. Once you get to about 30-40’s, you’ll notice that the sheer regeneration alone is no longer keeping you alive.

Edit: Dekou beat me to it!

Alex.9268:

Thing is, while many of us mesmers obviously enjoy a more complex and intelligent playstyle, we at least expect to be as potent as the easier professions.

As it stands now, mesmers have to put a whole lot of effort in order to achieve stuff that all other professions do a bit better with much less effort. Sustained AoE is a good example for this.

You have a point there…