Guild Wars 2

I’m just curious & trying to figure the mesmer skill’s players never uses. I would hope this could help the Dev to clean up, remove & replace some of the abilities with useful ones. Since i pvp only i’m just gonna list the pvp that i never use. But you can enter Pve & WvW as well.

I nerver use…

Healing: Mirror & mantra of recovery

I never use…
mantra’s except for resolves, signet of domination & midnight, illusion of life, mimic both new & old versions, Phantasmal Defender & Disenchanter.

I never use…
Elite: Time Warp except in WvW or bosses

Skills I never use:
Weapons: none
Heal: none
Utility: Mimic, SoMidnight, SoIllusions, Phantasmal Defender
Elite: Moa Morph

Mimic, SoMidnight, Arcane Thievery, Mirror.

The Devs keep track of Metrics on weapons, skills, utilities, traits, elites, etc etc etc. So they know what you’re using and not using.

Big brother is always watching O.O

Ross Biddle.2367:

The Devs keep track of Metrics on weapons, skills, utilities, traits, elites, etc etc etc. So they know what you’re using and not using.

Big brother is always watching O.O

I figured something like that.. But i’m still curious.

illusion of life, signet of midnight, phantasmal disenchanter- My big 3. I have my uses for most everything else.

IoL/SoM/Mimic. Especially Mimic, with how it was “fixed.”

I started a new mesmer and the mirror heal was default, dont remember it was before?
It’s pretty nice acutally.

I fail every time I try to use Illusion of Life .. All 4 times in over two years.

50% Failure rate with moa.

Never use: iMage, Signet of Midnight, Veil, Signet of the Ether

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I fail every time I try to use Illusion of Life .. All 4 times in over two years.

50% Failure rate with moa.

Never use: iMage, Signet of Midnight, Veil, Signet of the Ether

I love using Illusion of Life!
Example: Before fighting Lupicus with a whole guild group we all disable the aoe indicators and try to do him on range. When someone goes down I’m the guy who finishes them off by “resurecting” them with Illusion of Life! All that happens is that they stand up with less HP and instantly get hit by another aoe and die =P

I could add it to my list if it’d be called “Skills that I never seriously use”

New mimic… (vomit)
Mantra of Concentration (it’s good but with limited utility bar space there’s always a better option unless full mantra build which I never play)
Illusion of Life (don’t care for this)
iDefender (can’t find a good use for it right now)
Signet of the Ether (many swear by this – I vastly prefer ether feast)
Signet of Illusions (needs a good buff)
Moa (lol)
Time Warp (I don’t play enough pve to make any use of it)
Mirror Images (unnecessary)
Mantra of Pain (don’t care for this)

I’ve had some success with IoL by keeping it on bar in PvP for clutch moments (or down reposition) in pvp, but usually portal is the better option for a utility.

Unused: Mirror, every signet except domination and ether, mimic, arcane thievery, iDefender.

Mirror is just ether feast but worse. Not worth blowing the heal for the reflect and vice versa. iDisenchanter has some use in incredibly small fights (1v1 or 2v2), any bigger and it’s as worthless as iDefender. The mantras are overall pretty good, though concentration is more useful as a stunbreak than a stability generator, since any stab can’t really be used unless it’s 100% expected in the next second (environmental stuff mostly, like in cliffside fractal). The signets are all pretty awful and just kitten builds, except for domination (in which case only the active is good) and ether (pve phantasm reuse). Arcane thievery I just don’t like, since it just feels incredibly situational. Mimic was actually my 3rd utility for roaming before they went and removed it. The glamours are pretty useful all around, as are the clone generation utilities.

Time warp is pretty blah, only really run it when bored in a zerg. The only thing moa is good for is to hard counter necro elites/minions, the cd on cancel/dodge otherwise makes it worthless. Mass invisibilty is only on my bar out of lack of anything else, I’d rather have a longer duration stealth on myself.

Me Games Ma.8426:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I fail every time I try to use Illusion of Life .. All 4 times in over two years.

50% Failure rate with moa.

Never use: iMage, Signet of Midnight, Veil, Signet of the Ether

I love using Illusion of Life!
Example: Before fighting Lupicus with a whole guild group we all disable the aoe indicators and try to do him on range. When someone goes down I’m the guy who finishes them off by “resurecting” them with Illusion of Life! All that happens is that they stand up with less HP and instantly get hit by another aoe and die =P

I could add it to my list if it’d be called “Skills that I never seriously use”

Such a befitting name for the skill, you only has an illusion of life. But very soon, you will get disillusioned.

Skills I’ve pretty much never used:
Mirror

Arcane Thievery
Illusion of Life
Mimic
MoP
pDefender
Sig of Dom
Sig of Mid

I used to run Moa a long, long time ago when I roamed on a phantasm build.

lujate.5432:

Skills I’ve pretty much never used:
Mirror

Arcane Thievery
Illusion of Life
Mimic
MoP
pDefender
Sig of Dom
Sig of Mid

I used to run Moa a long, long time ago when I roamed on a phantasm build.

I wont agree about arcane thievery. A must vs warriors when the buff themselves & thieves & Ele to. Moamorph is one of my fav to use vs necro’s & immortal builds or just to kitten off ppl that are full meta. Were low on the food chain so we gotta have fun.

lujate.5432:

Skills I’ve pretty much never used:
Mirror

Arcane Thievery
Illusion of Life
Mimic
MoP
pDefender
Sig of Dom
Sig of Mid

I used to run Moa a long, long time ago when I roamed on a phantasm build.

lol I have Thief, mop and sig dom as perma skills …

edit : forgot Mirror is my main heal in wvw roaming too

I’m going to have to break this down by PvP and PvE:

PvP

Signet of the Ether
This heal is trash in PvP. I’ve explained why more times than I can count.

Mimic
lol

Mirror
Unless I’m abusing the fact that it reflects during the channel and can be canceled for a shorter cooldown, it’s just not worth the tiny amount of healing it provides.

Arcane Thievery
kitten cd skill that does what exactly? Boon steal…but can be dodged/blinded and honestly, we’ve got boon rips out the wazoo. There’s no need for this. It’s an awful condition removal too, kitten cd for 3 conditions that is conditional on not being dodged? No thank you.

Illusion of Life
It’s just not worth it. Regardless of how clutch it can be, the cooldown just makes it not worth taking.

pDefender
Yeah, once upon a time this had a use. Strictly speaking I’ll use this in my spirit watch tanky orb running build but…eh.

Signets
The issue with signets is that they’re all super duper ultra niche or rarely useable. Each one has a really specific situation where it’s useful…but overall they’re just awful.

Moa
Long cooldown, meh effect, easily dodged/blocked/blinded/interrupted. I’ll pass.

PvE

Mirror
You really really never need this in PvE.

Mimic
lol

Mirror Images
Shatter in PvE? No thanks.

Arcane Thievery
Meh. Same reasons as for PvP. It’s just not good.

IoL
If you need this in PvE, something has gone horribly wrong.

Signet of Domination
This really has no use in PvE.

Signet of Midnight
This also really has no use in PvE.

Moa
Other than moaing the jade maw tentacles for fun…

Mimic.
And really I don’t understand why they changed a not very good skill in a useless one: also I loved animation and sound of it. I really want the old mimic back.

Signets, some are okayish but I don’t care for them since other skills are more useful more often.

Illusion of Life, save someone else and hope that one understands what’s going on… yeah… no, I will rezz you afterwards.

Nullfield, i prefer skills that do one meaningful thing over others that do 2 kitten.

Mimic, only place it could shine is wvw where you have many enemies with multiple boons but other skills are just better to have.

Indrea.7803:

Mimic.
And really I don’t understand why they changed a not very good skill in a useless one: also I loved animation and sound of it. I really want the old mimic back.

Old & new mimic is never use by anybody. Come on, your telling me if they brought back the old mimic you would use it? plzzzz. They change it bcuz nobody use it. No! i petition for a new new mimic. Lets call it the Real Mimic! Where it summons a Phantasm of your target & mimics every abilities & keystrokes of that target to himself. Now were talking OP.

Vieux P.1238:

Indrea.7803:

Mimic.
And really I don’t understand why they changed a not very good skill in a useless one: also I loved animation and sound of it. I really want the old mimic back.

Old & new mimic is never use by anybody. Come on, your telling me if they brought back the old mimic you would use it? plzzzz. They change it bcuz nobody use it. No! i petition for a new new mimic. Lets call it the Real Mimic! Where it summons a Phantasm of your target & mimics every abilities & keystrokes of that target to himself. Now were talking OP.

Mimics every keystroke:
Target turns around and walks away → Phantasm turns around and walks away

Skills I don’t use:

-All the signets. Some have potential, but they just don’t sync up with anything well enough.

-Mantra of Pain. For as long as it takes to charge it, I can do that much damage just auto attacking.

-Mantra of Distraction & Concentration. Same with signets, have good potential, but seem to lack with how other builds work better for Mesmer.

-Illusion of Life. Probably the worst class res utility skill. If teammates are going to get downed, it’s far more likely to be from a boss that isn’t near dead enough to rally before IoL kills you. And if you’re teammates are dying to trash, I think you need new teammates.

-Mimic (old and new). New looks like it has some potential, but not enough to justify using it.

-Phantasmal Disenchatner. Limited use. Not an effective cleanse; too random.

-Phantasmal Defender. Dies in like 2 hits, so what did it save me from?

To expand further on Signets and Mantras, again, I think they have much potential, but the mechanics of Mesmer itself don’t work with the skills. Mesmer is centered around Clones and Phantasms, and Signets and Mantras don’t do much to help on the illusion front. Not sure what changes would be needed to fix the issues.

Vieux P.1238:

Indrea.7803:

Mimic.
And really I don’t understand why they changed a not very good skill in a useless one: also I loved animation and sound of it. I really want the old mimic back.

Old & new mimic is never use by anybody. Come on, your telling me if they brought back the old mimic you would use it? plzzzz. They change it bcuz nobody use it. No! i petition for a new new mimic. Lets call it the Real Mimic! Where it summons a Phantasm of your target & mimics every abilities & keystrokes of that target to himself. Now were talking OP.

I used old mimic, as I’m sure did many others.

The problem is as usual, only 3 utility slots and both blink and decoy being god tier utilities compared to everything else – and the necessity of condition removal. Otherwise old mimic was fantastic, especially paired with staff or GS and iElasticity.

Utilities I never touch anymore no matter what build i run…

Mimic
iDefender
iEnchanter
Signet of Anything but Domination
Mirror
Mantra of Anything (I don’t run mantra builds anymore)
Viel
Mass Invisibility (Moa will always be better in PvP and Timewarp will always be better everywhere else)

Sadly that’s over 70% of all utility skills..

The rest i use on a rotational and situational bases..

Heal:
Mirror, Signet of the Ether

Utility:
Mimic(idk what devs fought. Imo it is the most useless skill in the game)
Mantra of Concentration
Mantra of Pain
Arcane Thievery
Illusion of Life
Phantasmal Defender
Signet of Illusions
Signet of Midnight

There’s a ton of skills I should probably use, but here we go:

Ether Feast (should probably use)
Mirror

Mirror Images (should probably use)
Null Field (should probably use)
Illusion of life (never really found out how it worked)
Mimic
Phantasmal Disenchanter (should probably use in a support spec)
Mantra of Distraction (should probably use)
Arcane Thievery
Signet of Midnight (the blindness part sounds average, but I never noticed before that it also breaks stun, maybe useful as an escape tool, but otherwise…)
Signet of Illusion (not big on shatters in general, also big cooldown)

Polymorph moa (sounds cool, but it only helps against 1 person, and Mass Invisibility has half the cooldown)

I find many mesmer utility skills extremely lackluster.

• Veil – I don’t run with zergs so no use. CD is too long for a selfish stealth.
• Arcane Thievery – I want to like this skill. But the CD kills it. Not to mention it can be LoS’d, blinded, dodged, evaded and cancelled which all put it on a ridiculous CD.
• Illusion of Life – lol
• Mimic – I loved the old block functionality, felt like an engineer running away with that gear shield. Now it’s useless. Plus the CD.
• All mantras – charging them is so dull. LoS is also annoying with the 2 offensive ones. There’s little feedback to tell you they’ve failed to activate.
• Phantasm Defender – Cast time and the phantasms desire to facetank your target kills this guy.
• Phantasmal Disenchanter – I try to use this guy – but he too seems to enjoy inspecting the enemies face. At least when he does attack something happens. (also why are both these phants 0.5s cast time underwater but 1.5 on land…)
• Signet of Illusions, Inspiration and Midnight – both passive and actives suck on these. At least Domination gives you a 3 second stun.

One I use but am beginning to detest in Null Field. It says “removes all boons and conditions”. Well actually it doesn’t – it does 1 of each per second… Still – at least it’s a reliable condition removal.

Phent.9350:

Heal:
Mirror, Signet of the Ether

Utility:
Mimic(idk what devs fought. Imo it is the most useless skill in the game)
Mantra of Concentration
Mantra of Pain
Arcane Thievery
Illusion of Life
Phantasmal Defender
Signet of Illusions
Signet of Midnight

Signet of the Ether is like my number 1 heal cuz most of my builds uses phantasm. I dont use it to heal but mostly to instant cast 2 berserkers.. & you all know mesmers are lacking in intant cast. Man if your build is right it kills likes a running train. Try it on a PU build. Youl see how nasty it can get.

Note, I’m a pvp purist for the most part outside of doing Living Story updates.

Weapons: I use them all, but the one I use least is GS due to me preferring condition builds and with CI lockdown, my preference is sword/focus+Staff.

Heal:

• Mirror – The healing is so low. Even with its secondary effect and lower CD, it’s not worth it. If the healing was at 4,500, it would get more use out of it.

Utilities:

• Veil – Has no place in pvp except dueling in which I’ve seen some fantastic use.
• Mimic – Has no place… anywhere.
• Mirror Images – The CD on this has always deterred me. A recent look at a maim build using this has me rethinking how useful it could be.
• Illusion of Life – hard to actually make work. Not as good as other revive utilities. I would like a rework that gives you Vengeance for 35 seconds with no possibility of rallying, even if you stomp enemies. Now that would be a true “illusion” of life.

Elite:

• Moa – This is really only good in dps builds, as condition builds don’t really have much of a burst. Additionally, in lockdown builds, I think Mass Invis is better as an additional way to recharge MoD.
• Time Warp – I’m a glamour enthusiast, so I’ve always played around with Time Warp even though it’s been a trash utility since its nerf. Now, I think there’s a case to use it again with the reduced CD. Just like Moa, Time Warp can dramatically change the tide of team fights in your favor.

Let me post my list how Pyro did:

PvE:

• Mirror:
  Not enough heal to be worth taking in PvE – reflect is provided by Feedback/Warden
• MoRecovery:
  This may be useful in a mantra build but I personally don’t like charging mantras.
• Veil:
  In PvE 2s stealth is not really long enough to skip anything.
• Nullfield:
  In PvE I really hate chaos fields (so does the might stacking fire ele). So I have stopped using Nullfield and take MoResolve as condition cleanse for my group.
• Phantasmal Defender
  Worthless. It cannot dodge.
• Phantasmal Disenchanter
  I have one spot I could imagine using it — CoE Golem — I rather take Sword clones to save the utility slot.
• Mirror Images
  Skill for shatterbuilds. No shatterbuilds in PvE -> No Mirror Images in PvE
• Illusion of Life
  Explained above that my only use for that skill is to troll my teammates.
• Mimic
  There are almost no enemies that have boons. If they had I would rip them off with my sword. Also the cooldown is to hight to make this skill worth taking. — Could be an additional Effect of SoInspiration.
• Arcane Thievery
  Same reasons as for mimic.
• SoDomination
  No use for 180 Conditiondamage in PvE. No use for single target stun in PvE either.
• SoIllusions
  Passive and Active are a too strong contrast to make use of both effects of this skill (passive also is too weak).
• SoMidnight
  Not worth using a utility slot fot that. I’ve tried it — not worth!
• MoDistraction
  No need for that in PvE.
• MoPain
  No dps boost at all. May be cool for a burst but… meh.
• Moa Morph
  As pyro said, I also only take this to Moa the tentacles in Jade Maw fractal.
• Mass Invisibility
  Maybe for skipping mobs but we have many thieves…

PvP:

• MoRecovery:
  Hate mantras getting interrupted even worse if it is my heal!
• Veil
  This cooldown for 4 seconds of stealth which you can’t even stack.
• Feedback
  Only counters ranged builds… I don’t want to waste a slot for a skill that I cannot use against meeles (who are the higher threat imo)
• Phantasmal Disenchanter
  No relyable cleanse
• Phantasmal Defender
  Was worth taking when we had “Vengeful Images” apply endless Retaliation. After the nerf… not.
• Illusion of Life
  Most players die faster than in downstate because of less health than in downed.
• Mimic
  No use against any opponent, I’d rather take Arcane Thievery. Too long cooldown.
• Arcane Thievery
  Not relyable condi cleanse, too long cooldown, blindable, evadable…
• SoMidnight
  Just not a good skill.
• SoIllusions
  May be worth in some phantasmbuilds but I don’t really think so.
• MoPain
  Just not worth the utility slot. Also too easy to interrupt…
• Moa Morph
  Blockable, evadable, blindable,…

• Arcane Thievery works well if well timed. It takes skill
• Feedback is a ranger killer. The more power dps glassy he is the faster he kills himself. Feedback still needs some tweaking do.
• Moa Morph
  Blockable, evadable, blindable,..True. But also when well timed it can be a game saver & also real fun to troll with.

Makes me wonder if other classes have as many unused skills as Mesmer does. I’m sure there are some, but as many or more unused skills? Hard to imagine.

Vieux P.1238:

• Arcane Thievery works well if well timed. It takes skill
• Feedback is a ranger killer. The more power dps glassy he is the faster he kills himself. Feedback still needs some tweaking do.
• Moa Morph
  Blockable, evadable, blindable,..True. But also when well timed it can be a game saver & also real fun to troll with.

Agree with moa. I never used moa until about 1 month ago always thought it was too gimmicky and the cooldown way too long. Anyhow I had one of those 10 game losing streaks and felt I really need to blow up my build and try to get something better going. I loaded moa as extra CC option in a pinch more than anything. After 2 nights I never took it off my bar. Now I tried moa in wvw and remembered why I didn’t use it in about 5 mins But pvp it’s gold.
So just goes to show you ‘useless’ skills may not be useless.

It’s easier to say what I use.

Ether Feast
Blink
Decoy
Portal
Feedback
Mantra of Resolve
Mantra of Distraction
Time Warp
Moa

WoW.. i dint know they wer so many unused mesmer abilities. ammayhem brings up a good question. But i’m willing to bet since the mesmer class is the lowest class in the food chain i’m willing to bet that no other class has as much unused skill’s as the mesmer.

I’d say engineer has a lot more unused skills due to tool kits being so much more useful than everything else. On that note, the new Mimic is even more useless than Personal Battering Ram.

Yeah, we should really just bow down to the almighty Blink, Decoy, Portal and Mantra of Distraction/Resolve. Not like anything else can really compete with those five crazy good utilities…

Curunen.8729:

Yeah, we should really just bow down to the almighty Blink, Decoy, Portal and Mantra of Distraction/Resolve. Not like anything else can really compete with those five crazy good utilities…

Yeah!…& all that, & yet we still cant seem to escape thieves moderate ganking abilities.

Curunen.8729:

Yeah, we should really just bow down to the almighty Blink, Decoy, Portal and Mantra of Distraction/Resolve. Not like anything else can really compete with those five crazy good utilities…

This is totally not true if you’re playing in unranked AND not playing standard dps shatter. And honestly, I think MoR is overrated as a condition clear. We have so many at our disposal, and everyone thinks that one is our best? lol Just a matter of opinion though!

Severely underrated utilities:

• pDisenchanter
• Null Field
• S. Domination (especially in builds with pistol and sigil of paralyzation)

Signet of Illusions is pretty much necessary for a lot of PvE encounters, how can some of you not be using it? So many enemies have abilities that 1-shot phantasms otherwise. Beekeeper in the SW is a good example. He rotates 4 attacks, 360 degrees in a circle, and doesn’t do much else. Being able to survive a hit lets your Swordsman survive for a full rotation and ups damage significantly.

It’s certainly not useful everywhere, but never? Comon now.

MailMail.6534:

Curunen.8729:

Yeah, we should really just bow down to the almighty Blink, Decoy, Portal and Mantra of Distraction/Resolve. Not like anything else can really compete with those five crazy good utilities…

This is totally not true if you’re playing in unranked AND not playing standard dps shatter. And honestly, I think MoR is overrated as a condition clear. We have so many at our disposal, and everyone thinks that one is our best? lol Just a matter of opinion though!

Severely underrated utilities:

• pDisenchanter
• Null Field
• S. Domination (especially in builds with pistol and sigil of paralyzation)

I find that no matter what build I’m playing, blink and decoy are always the best utilities.

And regarding condition clears – MoR is instant and can clear 4 on a 20s cooldown which isn’t too shabby in any build (unless traited for harmonious/restorative mantras and using heal mantra).

pDisenchanter only truly shines in “stationary” and small fights – the moment a fight becomes strung out over a distance or becomes more than a few people (ie in wvw) it starts to become less desirable. Add to that the horrible cast time.

Null field is great of course, but let’s face it – the only parts of the skill worthwhile are the ethereal combo field and condition removal – the boon strip is minor unless immobilising someone inside the field or plonking it on a conquest point when there’s a big fight on point. It isn’t instant so if you suddenly get landed with a bunch of dangerous conditions it’s not going to remove them all just like that. MoR also has aoe aspect so it’s not like null field is head and shoulders in front when it comes to group condition removal either.
And as for the combo field – the extra chaos armour on a long cooldown is trivial at best – sure a few blinds and boon procs might help, but personally I find it unnecessary.

SoDomination – yeah I’ll give you that one. In any case, Blink and Decoy are still way better, and because of only one more slot the most useful thing unless traiting for menders/mantras/shattered conditions is another condition removal utility. And as for the stun – MoDistraction is just better. The only thing SoD has going for it is the condition damage boost.

Vieux P.1238:

Curunen.8729:

Yeah, we should really just bow down to the almighty Blink, Decoy, Portal and Mantra of Distraction/Resolve. Not like anything else can really compete with those five crazy good utilities…

Yeah!…& all that, & yet we still cant seem to escape thieves moderate ganking abilities.

That’s another issue altogether – our utilities aren’t the cause of that problem.

Curunen.8729:

Vieux P.1238:

Curunen.8729:

Yeah, we should really just bow down to the almighty Blink, Decoy, Portal and Mantra of Distraction/Resolve. Not like anything else can really compete with those five crazy good utilities…

Yeah!…& all that, & yet we still cant seem to escape thieves moderate ganking abilities.

That’s another issue altogether – our utilities aren’t the cause of that problem.

Your right about that. It’s the casting time of our abilities that are at fault. If we could burst our skill’s as easy as the thief, in the end it would come out who is the better pvp player. I can say the thief would not have it easy anymore if we could do that.

Clownmug.8357:

I’d say engineer has a lot more unused skills due to tool kits being so much more useful than everything else. On that note, the new Mimic is even more useless than Personal Battering Ram.

It doesn’t count when your used skills each contain 5 used skills :p