Mesmer: Too difficult to play?

Mesmer: Too difficult to play?

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Posted by: lordhelmos.7623

lordhelmos.7623

I have been playing since beta and seen the game go through various evolutions.

I actually started as a main mesmer then moved to other classes, now being a ranger main within the last 8 months.

From my personal experience, I can’t say that the mesmer is “weak” because when its mechanics are executed perfectly you can absolutely dominate people. However, I found it to be a class of extremes.

It’s “balanced” in a sense that you can spec for certain aspects to be incredibly strong and unmatchable, but at the cost of giving up everything else.

A shatter mesmer can you let you spec for far more burst damage than a warrior or guardian (killing just about anyone in one perfect shatter spike), but you give up all your survival, all your condition removal, and all your mobility.

PU lets you spec for massive condition damage and sustain, but you have very little CC and no mobility to entrap targets.

To make up for weaknesses in extremes, you have to play extremely well. On shatter, if you mess up one active defense or distortion, your instantly dead.

On PU, targets can just run if you don’t engage them in an area that is hard to escape or bring teammates to force them into a fight.

Because what you give up when you spec on mesmer is so important, you can’t make player mistakes. Especially against anti-build like condi or backstab thieves.

But when you play perfectly, you are untouchable and either kill your enemy in less than 3 seconds, or never get hit while dancing around 4-7 targets in stealth while your clones kill them.

There is no inbetween. It feels like this is a master’s class. If you don’t bring you A game and make mistakes, your gonna lose and your gonna lose hard. If you play perfect, you absolutely destroy people. The line between a perfect match and a complete disaster on a mesmer is as thin as one misplaced skill.

So why do people vacate mesmer?

I think mesmer is very strong, but requires perfect play. To sit there and play mesmer perfectly everyday is hard. After a few hours you might get tunnel vision and miss clinch distortions in a fight -leading to frustrating nights of respawning at the rez point.

Or maybe you might play PU and be fighting 3-4 people just to have them fight reset on you because you missed the 1 window to kill them that you worked 10minutes just to open.

Mesmer is not easy at all. I think people vacate the class and play it less because there is no real middle ground. Played perfectly, a mesmer can outmatch any class. When a mistake happens, even a bad player can captilize and kill you (it only takes 8 stacks of bleed to kill a mesmer).

While its a fun class, I found myself playing other classes and choosing ranger over mesmer because this class just takes too much effort to be effective (when compared to other classes). After long play sessions with a mesmer it gets draining if your not “in the zone.”

It’s nice to have perfect games where you just crush people with no retaliation because you executed your shatter burst at the right moment. But I feel that it takes too much effort when compared to another class.

(edited by lordhelmos.7623)

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Posted by: Neptune.2570

Neptune.2570

I like that the skill cap for Mesmer is so high. If it was ezmode faceroll I wouldn’t be maining it.
Also in saying that there are a few easier/lower skill floor builds for people as well. High skill cap builds for some, low skill floor builds for others. Can’t complain with that.

Daliriant, Dr Octogon [Champion Illusionist]
Mellowpuff [Champion Hunter]

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Posted by: NICENIKESHOE.7128

NICENIKESHOE.7128

I agree with what you said, but I like this extreme. There should be some form of weakness in each build so players have to support each other in “Guild” Wars 2, or else trying to outplay their opponent through experience and flexibility. Currently there are a lot of self-sustaining and forgiving builds from other professions that are near great in everything. While I kind of wish mesmers are part of it, having more of those around is probably not a great idea.

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Posted by: Clownmug.8357

Clownmug.8357

I don’t know if mesmer is too difficult or not, I think it’s just that other classes are more straight-forward to play. Unfortunately, we have a form of resource management that consists of stupid and flimsy npcs. We have to take time to summon them, then they need to stay alive for whatever we need them to do. The only thing other classes have to worry about is their cooldowns or if they have enough initiative or whether they should use their burst skill (adrenaline) now or later.

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Posted by: Ross Biddle.2367

Ross Biddle.2367

You found playing Mesmer draining after a little while?

kitten son, I’ve been playing Mesmer every day straight for two years and I’m still going at it.

An extreme class or character is not uncommon in games (I’m reminded of Phoenix is Marvel vs X-men). Why shouldn’t GW2 have one? Are you really wanting another EZ-mode ranger class to play for the next 8 months? I wouldn’t even be playing this game anymore if it weren’t for the unique and interesting experience the Mesmer provides. Simple as that.

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Posted by: Windwalker.7421

Windwalker.7421

I wouldn’t even be playing this game anymore if it weren’t for the unique and interesting experience the Mesmer provides. Simple as that.

Not to mention the entertainment factor of smashing those FoTM EZ-Mode professions/builds into the ground through superior play on a more difficult class. :-)

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

There’s a certain type of people that gravitate towards “weird” or “difficult” characters/classes/builds in games. From what I’ve seen, these people tend to be the same people that are turned off by “average” or “normal.” Hell, the word “normal” defined means “Conforming to the standard type. Usual. Regular.”

It’s that last one that gets me: “Regular.”

… Ew.

It comes down in a large part to personality. Mesmer is a cerebral class. You have to be forward-thinking, strategic, and adaptable in order to be successful. While there’s no right or wrong way to play, people often find success with a class that matches who they are.. Just like with sports, music, school, jobs and… anything else in life. (Yes, some people don’t have a main class and prefer to multi-class but that in and of itself is a personality trait, too.)

And no, I’m not saying Mesmer players are smarter or more cerebral than anyone else, I’m simply saying that these are traits of the class that draw people. My brother hates mages, his personal pride makes him abhor magic-focused classes and steers him towards Warrior, Guardian Ranger, and/or Thief. He doesn’t like paper-thin classes because he likes to be in the thick of a fight trading blows, which narrows him down to Warrior/Guardian. He thinks Guardian is cool, but not enough damage, so Warrior it is. This man will never touch an Ele, Necro, or Mesmer. My other friend loves rushdown (rapid in-your-face) and flashy combos characters in fighting games, he was right at home with Elementalist but would refuse to play Warrior feeling that it was too simple, even though he admits it’s fun.

Maybe Mesmer is fun, but just not for you. For me, it’s Mesmer allday errday with the occasional spice of terribad Ele.

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Posted by: Xaurniven.2065

Xaurniven.2065

Half my mind goes:
-On the fact of which the Mesmer Class is being proclaimed to be the Highest most Superior class in comparison to any other of the 5 – I do agree.

In my eyes, Mesmer’s, have the only ability to be able to be “stretchy” – as you morguls call it, and by being so one who has mastered the class – such as I have – can confuse the opponent even deeper then the usual standards, for instance the opponent can know the “Build” or “Spec” – as you say – but with skill you can change your gameplay to be less predictable.

In my other half
God *%&:"@ I feel hell o’va crai crai and shag the spag playing Mes, yo :P

Fury By Furry |Given Fury | Furiously Small | Furiously Risen | Serayath

[RaW] Sassari – Commander

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Posted by: Chaos Archangel.5071

Chaos Archangel.5071

In my other half
God *%&:"@ I feel hell o’va crai crai and shag the spag playing Mes, yo :P

L M A O

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Posted by: Calypso.2578

Calypso.2578

I wouldn’t even be playing this game anymore if it weren’t for the unique and interesting experience the Mesmer provides. Simple as that.

Huh. I never thought about that. Yeah, I think I’d quit this game for good if they ever got rid of the mesmer class. It’s so fuuuuuuuun.

Kaalypzo ~ Twitch ~ YouTube

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Posted by: MailMail.6534

MailMail.6534

My opinion:

Mesmer is easy to pick up, but hard to master. There’s a huge gap in skill between experienced Mesmers and casual players. This is of course from a pvp perspective.

https://www.twitch.tv/thatcho
“The jealous are troublesome to others, but certainly a torment to themselves.”

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Posted by: KaporHabakuk.6219

KaporHabakuk.6219

Its not hard to play,i would say hardest to play is d/d thief or zerk d/d ele.You can see difference on any class if you facing a noob “noob as newbie” or a seasoned veteran with good gameplay,experience and build.

Erm,well,ofc if you pick some crazy thinks and make some very very bad build,it might be hard :-),else its quite forgiving class most of the time.

OTAN guild,WSR server

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Posted by: Coulter.2315

Coulter.2315

I particularly like the line about PU being hard xD

“PU is hard cause you need to bring team-mates”

Priceless.

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Posted by: KaporHabakuk.6219

KaporHabakuk.6219

Yeah,seems ppl are thinking PU means condie and it comes from a guy which claims to know mesmers :-).Sad story

OTAN guild,WSR server

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Posted by: NICENIKESHOE.7128

NICENIKESHOE.7128

Hey! I find PU harder than shatter. Some of you may disagree with me, but I actually feel I can control damage better with shatter. Probably no killing hits me harder than no survival xD

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Posted by: Ross Biddle.2367

Ross Biddle.2367

Hey! I find PU harder than shatter. Some of you may disagree with me, but I actually feel I can control damage better with shatter. Probably no killing hits me harder than no survival xD

For the psyche this is very true.

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Posted by: inhearth.2038

inhearth.2038

Since when a passive gameplay spec is hard to play?

I played PU for a looong time before changing to Shatter, and I can say that I had some easy and simply fights spamming invis everytime I would get punished by my mistakes, what is the opposite when I’m playing Shatter because I have to make every skill usage worth it and don’t have any chance to kitten it up. Even when I play Shatter against a PU it’s ridiculous annoying how they keep spamming invis and doing nothing, and can still deal damage without any effort than pressing everything that is off cooldown.

Sadly, PU is almost like playing D/P Thief, but more cheese. PU power is more active tho, but still kinda cheese too.

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Posted by: KaporHabakuk.6219

KaporHabakuk.6219

Again some PU witchhunt,did you knew that you can stealth without PU?!Amazing,isnt it?

OTAN guild,WSR server

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Posted by: Daishi.6027

Daishi.6027

Well I’d rather it not be easy, but still be effective #Shatter4Life #MindCrush

“I control time and space; you can’t break free.~”
“Maybe I was the illusion all along!”

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Posted by: Miku Lawrence.6329

Miku Lawrence.6329

PU witchhunt made me choke, ahaha.
I think Chaos nailed it, i see myself so well in his description. :o

Snow Crows [SC]

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Posted by: inhearth.2038

inhearth.2038

I didn’t said the build is bad or anything, just said it’s a really baby mode spec and it’ s BS to compare and say that PU >>>spec<< is more difficult or better (??) than Shatter >>>spec<<<, because it’s not.
And yeah, you can stealth without PU, but that’s not the point when you get a Trait that works around stealth.

And I like to play PU sometimes too, I even said that I played the build for a long time before changing to Shatter. I just really don’t like people saying that PU is hard to play or it’s something special, like when people say that Thief is hard to play too lol Xd

(edited by inhearth.2038)