Guild Wars 2

OK, let’s talk about Mesmer issues and mob tapping in DEs, and to a lesser degree player tapping in PvP (WvW).

First, the obvious. Sometimes spawn points are known, meaning all the classes with spammable AoE just spam their AoEs at that location, and mobs die faster than you can summon even one illusion. So things like shatters do not work at all. You could stand at spawn yourself and spam Sword #2 when mobs spawn, but given 2-3 spawn points, even at 100% tap rate you will only average 30-50% of mobs. By comparison, on my Engineer I leave a turret at spawn #1, spam grenades at spawn #2, and roll (bombs) at spawn #3, with tap rate of roughly 85-95%.

Second, when the spawn location is not precisely known, I have time to bring up illusions. Some methods are fast – Mirror Images and a single roll = 3 clones, nearly instant. Problem? 30 sec CD. Less with talents, but not much less. Too slow to do it every spawn. Second problem with this is that if the target dies , you will do no damage as illusions vanish. So if I’m unlucky and target a mob that everyone else targets, it dies while clones are still en route to shatter, and no shatter -> no damage -> no tap -> no loot/xp/tags/whatever.

Now, some people will mention GS and Staff and their bounce. Problem with that is, bounce seems to prioritize allies. That is, it’ll hit the enemy, and bounce to ally next. Only bounces to enemy if no ally is present. Which in DEs never happens. But in an absolutely ideal situation, you might tap 3 mobs. Although often just one attack isn’t fast enough, and again with brutal AoE DPS coming down on the spawn position, you really don’t have much time.

Some AoE phantasms, such as iBerserker, do help. And cooldown can be made relatively short (12 sec?). Not quite enough, but not bad. Problem? The Berserk spin direction is relatively unpredictable. Sometimes it’ll hit most mobs, sometimes just the one you spawned him on.

Glamours and Chaos Storm do not work. Damage is usually too low to tap, and most of all their cooldowns are prohibitively long to be used on every spawn.

Now, there’s some tricks that can be used, such as pulling the whole spawn sideways with Focus #4, but this really tends to kitten people off. And once again, 20 sec CD is fairly risky in that it likely won’t be ready for every spawn. Depends on the event, of course.

Am I missing something here? Or is this class specifically designed to be totally screwed when it comes to getting loot out of DEs?

Note: I am NOT talking about getting the gold medal. You can be blind, deaf and dumb and play with just your big toe and still get gold in most DEs with any class. It’s hard not to. I’m talking about mob tapping, which is what gives you XP and loot.

You forgot that zerker also has a cast, I’ve found that on some events if I don’t time him perfectly his target dies before he spins and I get nothing, or he slices a load of immune mobs while the most other classes just spam nonstop. Staff’s attack is useless, it’s slow travel, most targets are dead before it lands and you need about 3 hits to count for anything. It’s terrible for tagging things.

I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but I do events in melee. If you’re a high enough level, take Illusionary Persona. Since it makes you count as a clone when you shatter, Mind Wrack and Cry of Frustration will do instant PBAoE attacks on you right when you activate them—no cast time or run-up required. Blink or Swap into a group, Mind Wrack and Blurred Frenzy at the same time (and hey, you’ll be invulnerable!), and that should tag most of them.

It’s not perfect, but it works for me in the majority of “mob swarm” events. I’d love it if Chaos Storm tagged better than it does, believe me.

I actually noticed this last night while grouping with three friends. I’m a Staff/Scepter+Focus Mesmer and I had noticed that I was hardly getting any mobs to loot. I was getting Silvers in Events when I was there from the beginning dropping Chaos Storm, spamming Chaos Wind, and dropping my Phantasmal Warden as much as I could. Everyone else in my group (my husband included) got Golds and substantially more mobs that they were able to loot.

Everyone else last night thought it was weird as well. I just thought I was bugged or something. I didn’t realize that my conditional damage may be so slow and sustained as to not be able to land a tag on the mobs before they are killed.

edyn.6413:

I actually noticed this last night while grouping with three friends. I’m a Staff/Scepter+Focus Mesmer and I had noticed that I was hardly getting any mobs to loot. I was getting Silvers in Events when I was there from the beginning dropping Chaos Storm, spamming Chaos Wind, and dropping my Illusional Warden as much as I could. Everyone else in my group (my husband included) got Golds and substantially more mobs that they were able to loot.

Everyone else last night thought it was weird as well. I just thought I was bugged or something. I didn’t realize that my conditional damage may be so slow and sustained as to not be able to land a tag on the mobs before they are killed.

Yep. That’s pretty much what I’m seeing as well. And this is rather glaring if you try a class that does have good spammable AoE.

I gave the example of Engineer, and the class is absolutely excellent. I mean, suppose there’s an event with 3 spawn points. I stand on one, and throw down a flame wall or just spray with a flamethrower. There, I tapped all the mobs. I got 1-2 turrets sitting at the spawn #2. They don’t tap all mobs, but about 90% I’d say. And the third spawn is about 1800-2000 away (guess), but I can easily reach it with my 1500-range grenades. So I don’t even have to run there, I can just toss grenades hardly ever moving from spawn #1.

At the end of the event, it is not uncommon for me to run out of bag space, when I start practically empty. This never ever ever happens with my Mesmer. Not ever. Hardly what I would call “balance”, considering DEs are “endgame” for GW2.

GS + Sword/Focus

GS: #2 and #4 are the bread and butter, #5 can push mobs out of AoE
Sword: #3 when they are running through you, #1 as you run beside them.
Focus: #5 stays up and finishes his whole attack even if the target dies, drop it in the front of the group

This is pretty much all you can do. It’s enough to tag 100% of mobs in a lot of events in Orr. There is absolutely nothing we can do for stuff like penitent path.

We have NO good AoE that we can just spam in anticipation of mobs, and for phantasms we have to actually wait for them to spawn which is really lame.

As a follow-up to this… I’ve been experimenting and switched from Staff + Scepter/Focus to GS + Sword/Pistol and found that the number of mobs I am able to loot has increased substantially and I have not had a problem getting golds in every event in which I participate.

While Staff + Scepter/Focus is my preferred play style, I believe I’ll have to settle with a different weapon set to get a reasonable amount of credit for kills in a group setting. I’d much rather do that than switch classes as I absolutely love Mesmer.

I am going to give GS + Sword/Focus a shot today.

I run GS/Sword/Focus, traited towards phantasm damage.

In unpredictable spawns I use focus 4 to yank mobs into a pile, and then drop iZerker/iWarden on them (Which in orr is about 4-6k damage each), and dive into the pile with blurred flurry – Often this works so well I end up taking out the group before some of the other players can tag them (I actually had a warrior ask me to stop taking all the kills in one smaller group!) – Plink’s event chain, or defending the Arah gate tend to be great for this style of play.

In predictable spawns where mobs have a period of invulnerability I switch to my sword, and drop a pair of mirror images on them (So they chase them closely), in this way once they reach their destination and become vulnerable I can just detonate them and swing my sword about for good measure. That usually tags most of the wave but the cooldown is a limiting factor so I tend to avoid these if i get a choice of event.

In sudden, vulnerable from word go spawns you may as well give up if there’s a clusterkitten of warriors and eles sat on spawn swinging and AoEing pre-emptively – I just avoid these events and go find something I can tag.

This is a huge problem with Mesmer…I remember leveling to 80 and hardly getting any loot as a Mesmer. Even in the events for Orr, if there’s a boss I’ll get a gold, but for mobs I’ll get no loot.

Rolled an engineer and I was getting loot on 90% of the mobs, versus 20% of them on my Mesmer. I think I made more gold leveling from 1-50 on Engineer than I did from 1-80 on Mes.

I also had issues when I got to 80 and decided to farm the cursed shore de’s. Then I got a gs and it all changed. Most de mobs there come in large waves so I always start with iberserker. Its pretty much an instant whirlwind attack that tags alot of mobs right off the bat. Where the OP says the zerker is unpredictable I totally disagree. He’s the best tagger we have for de’s. Next spam 2 and 3 and thats it. I’m traited for illusion and phantasm cd reduction so zerker is always up fast. And although I can swap to sword/focus I never do unless its a long fight…ie veteran or champ that just stays in one place. I have no problems tagging mobs/getting loot and compared to my 80 warrior I would say I get 80-90% of what he can farming those de’s. So not too shabby at all.

One thing I’ve noticed is if you come in late..ie mobs health is already going down, you have less chance of getting loot. I’m always quick to get the zerker out asap which makes a huge difference.

I think Mirror Blade should only attack enemy, not buff allies. We already have a similar skill with staff bounce and chaos storm, not every single bounce skill needs to be allies and foes.