Guild Wars 2

So I have decided to pick my mesmer up again and do solo games with it. It just feels really well depressing, anytime I come across another mesmer I can win fairly easy. However in pugs people just run around doing whatever kitten they want, leaving the squishiest of the squishies to try and defend a point from a thief or any number of things. I am playing standard shatter with GS+S/F. I know the basic rotations and how to use portal however in pugs it just seems kinda useless as I’m the only one that ever takes it to try and take a point back. I even see people run past the portal after I put it down going to the exact place I had the exit.

So in pugs is mesmer just less than viable? Do I need a coordinated team to even try and make it work. It’s really discouraging because I saw some of the fixes and got super excited, mesmer feels weaker than ever for me now.

The main problem with your story is that the PuG’s had no idea about the PvP and what to do, so that has nothing do with your build, afaik..
I practice player killing in PvP on my mesmer, so I’m most of the time roaming from point to point..

I imagine if you would do a ranked match, that you’ll feel more appreciated on your mesmer? Since I don’t think that a decent PvP player will ignore your portal or just roam around doing whatever kitten he/she wants.. ;-)

Tribio.8531:

The main problem with your story is that the PuG’s had no idea about the PvP and what to do, so that has nothing do with your build, afaik..
I practice player killing in PvP on my mesmer, so I’m most of the time roaming from point to point..

I imagine if you would do a ranked match, that you’ll feel more appreciated on your mesmer? Since I don’t think that a decent PvP player will ignore your portal or just roam around doing whatever kitten he/she wants.. ;-)

All of what I just said is from ranked experience….

jportell.2197:

All of what I just said is from ranked experience….

;_;

Ok, that’s just sooo wrong.. I guess you had a really bad day with the PuGs, since I even see some decent PvP action in unranked from time to time..

On a sidenote: What role do you take on in PvP with your mesmer?
Never too old to learn from another mesmer

Just drop focus and use torch. Or something else, but not a focus.

It’s not a question of mes being viable. All classes have at least one or two builds that are viable unless we’re talking about the uppermost levels of competition. It’s more just a matter of managing your expectations about solo queue.

For example, it’s not worth slotting portal unless you’re using it mostly for personal defense and mobility. Good team portal usage requires fast and often spur-of-the-moment communication that’s hard to achieve outside of voice chat. Some pugs completely ignore team chat or even have it turned off, and you may not have time to type in the first place, for instance if you’re trying to bail out a teammate who’s about to be downed or stop a decap at the last second.

Also, unless you’re in a high mmr bracket, don’t expect pugs to understand different class roles, i.e., mesmer is not a point holder. Try your best to stay alive, do your job as a dps roamer, call out numbers, and try to direct rotations. Outside of that, there really isn’t much you can control.

The only time I really see mes actively unappreciated is if there ends up being two or three mesmers on the team, which can be a pretty bad comp, especially if the other side has a lot of high sustain classes or multiple thieves.

MandJ.8965:

Just drop focus and use torch. Or something else, but not a focus.

Okay my next question is why torch in a shatter build? The phantasm is on a super long cd and most mesmers that are taking it lately aren’t traiting for condi clear…. not too mention focus really helps with the pew pew rangers.

jportell.2197:

MandJ.8965:

Just drop focus and use torch. Or something else, but not a focus.

Okay my next question is why torch in a shatter build? The phantasm is on a super long cd and most mesmers that are taking it lately aren’t traiting for condi clear…. not too mention focus really helps with the pew pew rangers.

Some people like the additional stealth, especially for dealing with thieves. It’s not there to be traited in a shatter build, nor is the phantasm much more than shatter fodder. I personally prefer pistol.

And it can definitely be situational. I take a focus for skyhammer and spirit watch, and against ranger-heavy teams to get them down off their perches.

Because focus is a s*** weapon, in my opinion.

The illusion is only there to shatter, and the stealth can remove (if traited) a condition and grants stealth.
Focus offers you nothing for shatter.

MandJ.8965:

Because focus is a s*** weapon, in my opinion.

The illusion is only there to shatter, and the stealth can remove (if traited) a condition and grants stealth.
Focus offers you nothing for shatter.

Focus offers projectile absorb (more often then the distortion on reflection trait), and if you can lock someone in the warden’s spin it is the hardest hitting phantasm (not highest dps but hits hard), and then focus 4 lets you pull people off ledges….

There was once a time when focus was considered the greatest off hand for tpvp mesmers.

Yea, i remember that time. Never understand why.
For projectil you can use the first trait in the last tree if you play shatter.
I think focus is just a wasted offhand. Sometimes i play with it in WvW but only to kick players from walls. Nothing more.

A couple of weeks ago I came back to my Mesmer main (1 year break, 1 year almost exclusivly played or so) and it seems like buisness as usual. Clones are still kittened, targeting goes all over the place and illusionary leap is more broken than ever (I havent gotten the immobilize to work even once with the new ranged spawn mechanic).

The Mesmer isnt particularly crippled compared to other professions, its still a good class on its own. The problem for me has always been that when you try to have a helpfull metabuild for WvW (any crap build can PvE) it becomes sooooooooo booooooooooring. You literally have to take everything boring and weak with the Mesmer. You cant be anything other than a utility bot that barely get any tags. Anet thought it wasnt bad enough and nerfed most things to the ground.

Dawdler.8521:

A couple of weeks ago I came back to my Mesmer main (1 year break, 1 year almost exclusivly played or so) and it seems like buisness as usual. Clones are still kittened, targeting goes all over the place and illusionary leap is more broken than ever (I havent gotten the immobilize to work even once with the new ranged spawn mechanic).

The Mesmer isnt particularly crippled compared to other professions, its still a good class on its own. The problem for me has always been that when you try to have a helpfull metabuild for WvW (any crap build can PvE) it becomes sooooooooo booooooooooring. You literally have to take everything boring and weak with the Mesmer. You cant be anything other than a utility bot that barely get any tags. Anet thought it wasnt bad enough and nerfed most things to the ground.

Oh man i never post often on the forums, but in this topic more than in the last few months

If you feel mesmer is just a bot, it’s maybe a l2p issue. No offense!
But the reason most people play mesmer is, you can make so many builds work, you must only play them right. And this takes his time. I feel mesmer is balanced, only most of the ulities are bs compared to other classes.

OP, mesmer is actually pretty strong in the current meta, especially playing shatter. IMO shatter can be effectively played with any weapons (maybe except scepter). Sword/Focus is a great weapon set to play shatter with. There are so many things you can do, much of which is mentioned in the thread here, but there are also some cool shatter combos you can use with the iWarden/pull.

As for portal, if you don’t feel you can personally take advantage of using it’s utility, it’s usually best to just not take it. I’ve seen solo que mesmers take portal and make great use of it (Countless is a great example). Even with portal and his best efforts, I’ve seen him carry a team only so far and still come up very short many times. So it’s a toss up to me and typically just doesn’t get taken unless there is coordination between at least 2 players.

Johnny <3

I’m taking a lil break (forums don’t count! :P ) but when I come back we should do some ranked on our mesmers again.

Vanilla shatter is still probably best, but You might try 4/4/6/0/0 interrupt or a Cele Maim shatter build instead.

-Sizzap

Powershatter mesmer strong in the current meta? I don’t know about you but unless you’re going stealth in there for some surprisebuttseks, any proper player will dodge or block your obviously announced shatter or at least negate the already average damage to low damage.

The only reason why mesmers are picked in the current meta is because they can turn fights into unfair 2v1 and are “semi-omnipresent” due the portal. They get rekt by too many classes to be “strong in the current meta”.

Mesmer is the most underpowered class in the meta right now, even Necros have their place and Mesmers don’t. Thats the reason Torch is being used so much: Mes need to deal with all the bullkitten passive gameplay that has been going around with more passive gameplay aka invis.

Also, regarding focus, its a good weapon but you have better options than an AoE pull/interrup and a Phantasm that hardly hits more than one time and requires heavy setup to be used effectively.

My suggestion to you is Staff because it is the best weapon choice atm for Shatter spec. Extreme mobility/utility, your >clones< deals more/as much DMG than any other weapon AA, a Phantasm that can hit really hard, and Chaos Storm that is just magnificent. You can go S/Torch too, and yeah it really has its uses like an easy way to deal with some situations and a good tool to setup sneaky bursts, but if you feel good/confident enough pick Staff and you will never change it to any other Weapon.

inhearth.2038:

Mesmer is the most underpowered class in the meta right now, even Necros have their place and Mesmers don’t. Thats the reason Torch is being used so much: Mes need to deal with all the bullkitten passive gameplay that has been going around with more passive gameplay aka invis.

Also, regarding focus, its a good weapon but you have better options than an AoE pull/interrup and a Phantasm that hardly hits more than one time and requires heavy setup to be used effectively.

My suggestion to you is Staff because it is the best weapon choice atm for Shatter spec. Extreme mobility/utility, your >clones< deals more/as much DMG than any other weapon AA, a Phantasm that can hit really hard, and Chaos Storm that is just magnificent. You can go S/Torch too, and yeah it really has its uses like an easy way to deal with some situations and a good tool to setup sneaky bursts, but if you feel good/confident enough pick Staff and you will never change it to any other Weapon.

After playing a couple more days, I am not giving up focus. The utility is too stronk. I am able to pull 9/10 thieves out of their SR with it if I am in my secondary weap set.

The focus is indeed not a bad weapon. I noticed it too, one underestimates the pull and the projectile shelter.

I do fine solo Q ranked . about 50% win rate which is more or less what you can expect solo Q.

MandJ.8965:

Dawdler.8521:

A couple of weeks ago I came back to my Mesmer main (1 year break, 1 year almost exclusivly played or so) and it seems like buisness as usual. Clones are still kittened, targeting goes all over the place and illusionary leap is more broken than ever (I havent gotten the immobilize to work even once with the new ranged spawn mechanic).

The Mesmer isnt particularly crippled compared to other professions, its still a good class on its own. The problem for me has always been that when you try to have a helpfull metabuild for WvW (any crap build can PvE) it becomes sooooooooo booooooooooring. You literally have to take everything boring and weak with the Mesmer. You cant be anything other than a utility bot that barely get any tags. Anet thought it wasnt bad enough and nerfed most things to the ground.

Oh man i never post often on the forums, but in this topic more than in the last few months

If you feel mesmer is just a bot, it’s maybe a l2p issue. No offense!
But the reason most people play mesmer is, you can make so many builds work, you must only play them right. And this takes his time. I feel mesmer is balanced, only most of the ulities are bs compared to other classes.

Lol what I feel… Yeah, Mesmer has been a veilbot from day 1. Veil and portal is pretty much all they bring to battle – and portal is rarely used effectivly by commanders.

When the Mesmer get a weapon that’s actually usefull in the meta – like the Necro staff, Guardian staff or hammer, Warrior hammer or Elementalist staff – then you can come back and proclaim how much I suck at it.

Sure you can choose to run in a group without any helpfull skills at all, selfish yolo zerging style. I know I’ve done it. The only problem is that every other class does it better. And can help the group at the same time.

If you don’t like mesmer why the hell are you playing it?
Delete it and go play your guardian or warrior.

Jurica.1742:

If you don’t like mesmer why the hell are you playing it?
Delete it and go play your guardian or warrior.

I like this way of argumenting. Almost forgotten that we are in the mesmer forums here.

In solo queue I’ve been mostly using portals for far caps and buffs on TSS, which means it matters less if my teammates ignore it. I may not be able to contribute as well to a fight as some other classes, but I don’t feel like dead weight to my team.

I run staff, not MH sword, and find that the mobility and ability to stay back from a fight lets me live longer and therefore contribute more. GS knockback is enough to deal with SR, the staff field is good for interrupting revivers.

It helps if you can consistently land moa.

Mesmer feels crippled if you fight the wrong profession on your own. Also if you have been consistently using the stealth crutch, so learn to play the profession without it. Most decent players knows how to deal with a player who’s in stealth and how to spot you the split second you are out of it. Also embrace the fact that there are better players out there than you, no matter how good you and others think you are. Play to have fun, and while winning is fun, losing is a part of the game too. It can be frustrating, it can feel like the devs has it in for you, but try accept that you may just be having a bad day, maybe a week. Rage a bit, scream at your monitor, curse at the devs, vent out and carry on.

No—but again, stealth is a crutch, so take off the training wheels already and learn to play and survive without hiding from view. You will become a better player for it. If you get downed, take pride in the fact that you at least didn’t hide. When you win, more so against a stealth’er, enjoy the feeling of superiority. You kicked those crutches out from under their feet, and stomped on their faces afterwards for good measure.. or.. left them bleeding. After you’re actually good at surviving without stealth, go ahead and put the cheese on thick if you really want it, but chances are you won’t anymore. There’s more pride in surviving and being useful, without hiding from sight. At least there is to me.

Keep in mind that it is a profession that excel at helping out in team fights, it’s basically a supportive roamer, not a point guard or necessarily a solo claimer. We’re the magical rogue of the game, with mostly AoE damage spikes and effects, as opposed to Thief, who excel at the same task, but more at single target assassinations. Also, as opposed to (most) thieves, we are actually rather well balanced when it comes to support, and are less self-centered (with our innate AoE effects), no matter how we build ourselves. So use that mini map and locate your team, as you can quickly assert where you have buddies engaged with others, without needing anyone to tell you so. For that matter, use your intuition, it’s usually going to be correct. Where would you go? Players are habit creatures, they will go for certain points depending on what is going on elsewhere (the same way they tend to end up using the same rotations of skills in sequence).

Also keep in mind that if we were good at killing every single profession, that’d be unbalanced as well. Every profession excel at killing some other professions. Feel free to taunt people by calling them out on what you consider cheese though, even if it’s fair that it’s a counter to yourself. That’s just mild innocent amusement and it tends to make them aim for you more, which gives you more practice at defending against (and killing) what you may have trouble with initially.

As a Mesmer, you should be able to deal with pretty much anything but a (good) Thief though, which is what I’d consider to be our hard counter—and although that doesn’t mean you can’t kill them too, it’s just more difficult than with the other professions.

Play Mesmer supportive to the team you’re with, use your shatters to remove Boons, deal AoE damage, gain Might (one Mirror Blade, to a full shatter, is 10 stacks of Might, swap your weapons with a Battle sigil to make that 12, do another shatter and hit 16 within seconds), share that Might with Signet of Inspiration (or enjoy the random Boons otherwise (such as Aegis which can cause players to dodge)), use Time Warp on team fights to gain a upper hand at a critical point (fast stomp (to rally)/-resurrect), cleanse not only your own Conditions, but your team mates’ as well.

Here, try something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8clknpItFoxMNUrNCrxg6s26MSOQAlMkrB-TJxHwADuIAn3fAwTAQZZAA —it’s what I currently run myself, so I know that it works just fine.

Make sure you are up close to your target, so that you can gain the Might from Mirror Blade and to speed up the damage burst. Apply that tasty Vulnerability before a spike. If your enemy dodges the Illusionary Riposte, success, you just took one evade away from them, if they didn’t, enjoy the high damage spike and clone. Don’t always feel there is a need to have 3 clones before a shatter, you can deal spike damage with just one or two of them as well. And if all you need is a tiny burst, use your Illusionary Persona. Time Warp is great for quickly getting a downed team member back on their feet. It also creates a quick damage burst for the team, albeit at the cost of CD rotations being thrown off, but if you rely on a rotation in PvP, you’re bad anyways, right? Share your buffs! Those you gain through other team members as well. Be supportive in team fights. Ultimately, only play the profession if you enjoy it. If you don’t, perhaps another one is better suited for you?

The game is rated for 12+ years children too. What profession a 12 years aged girl would pick? Mesmer. And ranger because ranger has pets.

What mesmer build is suitable for children?

Lol man, if you can’t help your group, don’t complain and learn how to play it right. If you don’t want, then play celestial ele or something like that.

MandJ.8965:

Lol man, if you can’t help your group, don’t complain and learn how to play it right. If you don’t want, then play celestial ele or something like that.

Played some team ques tonight. Mesmer feels alot stronger in a coordinated team. I think in soloque mesmer plays require a little too much communication to be effective…

I don’t post much, but I’ll just put this out there because my experience of coming back to Mesmer after a long time away from it has been great.

This is for those having a hard time with Mesmer – I’m guessing you probably play Shatter spec because of that word – ‘Viable’ right? – try something different:

I’m playing tPVP (solo Q) and sPVP (Hotjoin).

Sry no link, you’ll have to do with the ghetto method of build display

0
3,10
5,10,12
0
5,7

Staff – Scepter/Torch – Sigils of Generosity & Doom on both
Amulet = Rabid
Ether Feast / Blink / Portal / Decoy / Mass Invis.

I don’t know how standard this build is for condi, I haven’t copied from anywhere but I know I’m not re-inventing the wheel here.

Important thing here is understanding the build and the playstyle.

There are 3 downsides to this build:
1). No condi removal (see below)
2). Shatter Mesmers are hard to fight – personally my toughest match up.
3). Cannot DPS structures like Trebs or Doors

Having no condi removal is just something you learn to deal with. Decoy and Blink both break stun. You could swap out one for condi removal BUT – death by condi I always see coming so I do something about it whereas you can get blown up in a stun, so the extra stun break with benefits suits me. This build has such incredible ability to disengage from a fight, heal and re-engage with everything on short cooldowns that with the right playstyle – I really don’t need it. Really… I don’t.

Stealth is NOT a crutch it’s a really powerful weapon. It’s not for hiding in passively. You do the majority of damage yourself in this build although your clones are great too.
Stealth = opener / disengage / target drop / heal / re-position / free-cast / extra conditions (torch 4) etc

Unless I’m disengaging I rarely let stealth go full duration – just do what I need to do and pop out to keep the damage rolling.

Basic playstyle:
Staff – With 46% crit (which also effects your clones) and Illusionary Elasticity trait you’ll have staff 1 from you and your clones bouncing around like nobodies business doing massive bleed damage and pretty much 100% uptime on burning. Staff 1 applies bleed and burning plus Duelling trait makes clones apply bleed on crit. Obviously you’re not going to keep 3 clones out, as they will die which doesn’t matter too much because you’ll be making tons of them and they apply more bleeding or vulnerablitly or weakness when they die anyway. Just forget the Staff Phantasm even exists, you don’t need it, you’ve always got something better to do than cast it.

Scepter – Torch 5 for confusion / Scepter 3 for confusion / Scepter 2 (block) for Torment and Retaliation (Dueling major trait)
This alone – especially against ele’s and Thieves who spam their abilities into the confusion stacks (ikr – but it happens regularly). This alone is big damage on a short cooldown.

continued………..

………………continued
Ideal opener & Basic playstyle:
(Torch 4 for stealth if required) then -Torch 5 Phantasm > Scepter 3 confusion > Scepter 2 – stand there and really bait them so you get the block, let your character do the counter move to apply the big Torment condi then evade and switch to Staff.
Try to get your oponent and you (but more importantly you) into Chaos storm – bait a block once you get Aegis to trigger more Retaliation, phase retreat for chaos armour just before Storm ends, replenish storm, focus on keeping your clones out with evades and phase retreat and switch back to Scepter for more confusion and another big Scepter 2 block.

This isn’t a slow, passive build – it’s twitchy and active. You’re frequently actively trying to get hit – when you have aegis from Chaos Storm (to proc Retaliation) and when you’re using Scepter 2 block (8sec cooldown). So you’ve got to really get in amongst it – dipping in – dipping out and making you’re evades and defensives count.

With good timing, frugal use of torch 4, decoy, blink and evades you will put out a lot of damage to your target and those around him whilst maintaining good defence.

Always keep a back door – pretty much any one of your utilities or Torch 4 can disengage you from a fight but more than one of them combined is pretty much a guaranteed exit.

You absolutely should be disengaging! You’ll get a feel for how far you can push it – and you can push things really far with this build against multiple opponents and still disengage.

When you disengage – you can either go do something more productive or heal up, let an ability or 2 come off cooldown and get back in. Low cooldowns mean there’s rarely not something becoming available every few seconds. You won’t have to wait usually – by the time you’ve disengaged, healed and run back in – you’ll have enough off cooldown to make it a safe play more often than not. Also any clones you had out will still be doing damage while they last in your absence.

I play sPVP and tPVP – pretty much all I’ve done since beta weekends were a thing. This is one of the most successful builds I’ve played. Might just be that it suits my playstyle – I like flexibility, high mobility, viable damage, and the ability to decide when I fight and when I leave the fight. I HATE getting stomped and rarely do unless I over commit in an out-numbered fight.

I would say I win about 90% of 1v1’s what ever the class/spec (50% vs Shatter Mesmers)

I like playing the role of Far Point Assaulter with this quite often and generally do well with it – either I’ll flip the point (most likely) or make their defence so paranoid they’ll have a defender on there 100% of the game which means I can swing the balance of the game in our favour elsewhere porting back occasionally to remind them why they’ve got a man standing there twiddling his thumbs.

Just realised how much I’ve written so I’ll stop.

I know Shatter is the goto spec for Mesmer atm but really – out there in the wilds of real everyday Joe Schmoe hotjoin and solo queue, this spec, with the right playstyle can pretty much do what it wants, when it wants, where it wants, to who it wants – and then GTFO if things turn sad-face :-)

Just because top of the top tier play shatter in his meticulously organised and voice-linked, highly talented team of Guild Wars 2 aficionados doesn’t mean it’s the best spec outside of that highly optomised set-up playing against other highly optomised set ups who assume you are set up optimally high… (I lol’d when I wrote that) – but the point stands.

You’re a Mesmer – Male or Female you’re probably wearing something that looks a lot like a dress from behind and gives you about as much protection. When you get hit it really hurts. Blocks, Aegis, Stealth x3, Blink, Evade, Ether Feast, Portal… you’re not dying when you’ve got this lot… really… you’re not.