Guild Wars 2

I keep reading that on this forum. It makes me feel like a cat who grew up with dogs and doesn’t know cats can’t bark, so he does. Before that started popping up all the time I started pulling a minimum of three mobs at a time in pve, and unless I run into trouble, they tend to die all at once. In most cases I’m more limited by how many mobs I can round up than my ability to AoE them down.

Sword and staff are my usual choices for AoE damage. Sword does AoE attacks at close range, the staff effects bounce so they affect multiple targets. Shatter, chaos storm, and warden are all AoE.

Typical three pull is to first clump them up – if something is ranged drop feedback on it and pull the other mobs there. Run to the edge of feedback and phase retreat, roll forward, roll back (for deceptive evasion clones), let then stack a few conditions and shatter when the target is at 30%. Usually the conditions will drop them seconds later. If anything is standing, blurred frenzy and its done. I still have chaos storm, phantasms and utilities if I need them, but on a normal pull it isn’t necessary.

The only things I think are important is movement and distance. You keep moving, if you stop just stay there a second, then change directions. Circle strafe so you can always keep auto attacking. Range makes a big difference in staff spreading conditions. If I have 3 or more, I’ll keep my distance so winds of chaos isn’t bouncing back to me, that gives three conditions spread around the group instead of 2. With the sword you have to stay close in, again keep trying to get behind your target, you’ll avoid most hits that way.

Am I just unaware of how amazing other classes are? Or is this a case of people trying to use a weapon for something it’s not good at? Like GS/Scepter and pistol for AoE?

Mesmers have plenty of AoE, I don’t get all the whine here about it. Maybe people are just trying to play the class like an elementalist that just sits back and puts down ground targeted AoEs…not sure.

A good chunk of our AoE damage comes from certain phantasms (which are only moderately popular) and shatters (which a good chunk of the community doesn’t really use because they use something similar to Taugrim’s “Legion” build).

This is what happens when you read a guide at level 1, copy everything, and don’t experiment and learn on your own. Ignorance is everywhere!

Some of Mesmer’s attacks are bounces (Gsword 2, Staff 1, Pistol 5)

Some of Mesmers’s attacks are AoEs, (Small one on Sword 3, Sword 5 [small damage] Staff 5, 2 of Mesmer’s Shatters + 1 if traited.)

2 Of Mesmer’s Phantasms (Beserker, Warden) attack in an limited AoE fashion.

Combined, Mesmer can do a lot of AoE effects throughout the fight, something that is often underestimated in team fights. I consider knowledge and usage of these things to be one of the differences between bandwagon and knowledgeable Mesmers.

Mesmers have AoE. And they don’t. It depends on what you mean by AoE, and how meticulous you are with your definition.

For example, consider bounce attacks. Do they bounce? Yes. Up to 4 times, fully traited. Except they tend to prioritize friendlies. You can test it yourself. Pull 2 mobs. Toss GS #2, it’ll fly from you, to mob #1, then BACK to you, then back at mob #1 or mob #2, and then if traited back to you. But one thing never changes – if you are close enough, it’ll prioritize you over the second mob. Same goes for other friendlies. You’ll give them boons with your bounces, but you won’t damage the mobs. As such, this is not really AoE.

Sword #3 is nice. But it’s melee range. You can’t move doing it. And while you can root ONE mob (with Sword #2 tapped twice), the other targets can just run past you if you don’t have 100% of the aggro. And then there’s the cooldown, 8-10 seconds? During which you are in melee range and more or less vulnerable, which is hardly ideal.

Then there’s shatters. Except A) it takes time to create illusions for them, and illusions need to travel from where they are to target to shatter. If primary target dies before they get there, it’s no shatter, no damage.

We have damage phantasms. But really only Berserker and Warden are true AoEs. Berserker’s path is unpredictable – sometimes he hits 1 mob, sometimes all. Warden doesn’t move, and dies incredibly easy to melee mobs. I’ve seen him get 1-shot before he can even visually appear more often than I care to admit in PvE. And he is of course stationary, and Focus #4 pull is not precise enough to guarantee good DPS out of him. And with the recent nerf/bugfix to his attack recharge, he’s lackluster at best.

Now, compare that to TRUE AoE classes. Like Engineer, for example. Well, with Grenade kit, you have 1500 range (not a typo, 1500), your basic attack #1 is spammable (no cooldown at all), and you throw 4 grenades. Aim anywhere. They WILL land where you tell them to, and do damage to whatever is there. You can miss with them, which is the only thing keeping the kit from being godmode. And then #2-5 you have your special grenades – DoTs, slow, etc.

Next, consider Mine Kit. Same principle, but no need to target. Again totally spammable. Does AoE damage. No way to avoid it, except not being close to the mine. With right traits, when you roll, you drop a free mine the way a traited mesmer drops a clone. Except it does good AoE damage all by itself, unlike the clone.

Then there’s the Flamethrower – drop a wall of FLAME that BURNS, just like we drop our Into the Void. Your #1 attack is short-medium range cone AoE, and is spammable. Similar goes for the Elixir Gun.

Then, take a look at Coated Bullets in Firearms tree. Description is short and sweet – “Pistol shots pierce”. Not that impressive, right? But what it does is make your pistol shots effectively AoE. Combine that with Explosive Shot, with blows up on impact, hitting anything nearby as well, and add piercing to that, and what you see is a HUGE wave of numbers from each autoattack.

And that’s not counting turrets, some of which are AoEs as well – like Thumper and Flame. They just sit there, happily, as as soon as anything gets close, it starts taking AoE damage. Fun. And unlike illusions, turrets don’t die just because your target did.

And all this is not even counting the toolbelt skills. Really beautiful things, like Grenade Barrage and Big Ol’ Bomb. Which reminds me, remember those annoying heart quests where you have to destroy objects, like centaur weapon racks? Yeah. Plop down a Big Ol’ Bomb near 3 of them, and watch what happens. Granted, both of those have long-ish 30 sec CDs…but hey, if you have a Tools trait, each time you pop one of those you also fire a bolt of friggin’ lightning that will jump 3 times! And it doesn’t go for friendlies like our bounce – it just kills enemies. You know, that thing that gives you XP/gold/etc? Yeah, that.

So, do Mesmers have AoE? Yeah, I guess. Do they come even within shouting distance of TRUE AoE classes? lol no. If you think so, you’re dreaming.

My mains are Engineer and Thief.

Engineer is an AOE class. Thief can be more an AOE class than a Mezmer because of the way they can spam their attacks, short bow, PW, explosive shot in close range, etc.

Mezmers can AOE, but like all combat with the mezmer, you have to work much harder for a smaller effect… all the while only gaining access to basically summonable target dummies.

Mezmers can AOE, but like all combat with the mezmer, you have to work much harder for a smaller effect… all the while only gaining access to basically summonable target dummies.

Time is a luxury you don’t often have. In DEs with fixed spawn points, targets die as they phase in, before you can even target them, to ground-target AoE damage. There’s not even enough time to cast iBerserker, never mind actually have time for him to appear or actually do his attack. You are further hampered by the fact that if the target you’ve been using to bring up illusions dies, your illusions die with it. If some hotshot warrior makes it his mission in life to kill the mob you’ve just blown your Mirror Images and a dodge on, it’ll die long before your clones jog to it at a leisurely pace to shatter, and you’ll still do no damage.

I honestly don’t mind working much harder for smaller effect. But it just totally blows when I have to work much harder for literally zero effect at times. Just because of flawed mechanic design.

Voodoo Tina.4180:

Typical three pull is to first clump them up – if something is ranged drop feedback on it and pull the other mobs there. Run to the edge of feedback and phase retreat, roll forward, roll back (for deceptive evasion clones), let then stack a few conditions and shatter when the target is at 30%. Usually the conditions will drop them seconds later. If anything is standing, blurred frenzy and its done. I still have chaos storm, phantasms and utilities if I need them, but on a normal pull it isn’t necessary.

As an engineer, when I want to AOE, I press the ‘1’ button a lot.

When people say a mesmer has no aoe, they mean in comparison to the other classes.
After all, all melee attacks are aoe. A mesmer has to work much much harder to create much less potent aoe than other classes. I’m not saying this is necessarily a problem, ,a mesmer has other strengths.

For the 500th time, the complaint about mesmer AoE is in regards to DYNAMIC EVENT FARMING.

We have 1 weapon set that tags mobs acceptably, GS+Sword/Focus and it just BARELY gets the job done.

I think that Sabbathius’ post sums up why people complain about mesmer AoE. It’s not that they can’t AoE…it’s just that they don’t have easily spammable AoE like an engineer.

But honestly…I don’t really see this as a problem. I’ve played an engineer, and yes you can spam AoE with your grenade kit…but that AoE is also fairly slow traveling and ground targeted. So it is wonderful in a keep defense, but it can be tricky to use against highly mobile enemies. iZerker on the other hand works great a group of mobile enemies and can even be cast without LoS…just can’t be spammed. So pros and cons to both.

And as for the shatters, it really doesn’t take long to make 3 clones. You can literally make them in less than a second with mirror image and one dodge. Then you can make two more with dodge and a clone skill like iLeap. That’s two shatters in basically one second.

Then there is feedback that can do great AoE damage to a group of overzealous players in WvW.

Now my point here isn’t that mesmer is a class you should play if you want to do AoEs all day. My point is that mesmers can do respectable AoE damage…you just have to play them right. They are not an engineer or ele that can sit back and spam GTAoEs all day. They are a fairly unique class and deliver AoE damage in a unique manner.

I love my engineer and her ability to AOE, I just hate her appearance (medium armor is not what I find attractive).

I only chose mezmer because I thought the clones were a novel idea. Until playing the class I did not realize how poorly they were implemented. They should be as fast as your character if not a little faster when exploding on a target. They should stick around for a short time or until you are out of combat.

Mezmer is like an old wind up toy. Eventually it will get break the inertial barrier to start moving, mean while the penny racer has already sped across the table, jumped off doing a backflip and continued across the whole room.

I wish I didn’t love how good my character looks and spent 10 gold on dyes for her already…

What do Mezmers excel in? Other than confusing new people in PvP?

Rhyno.7084:

For the 500th time, the complaint about mesmer AoE is in regards to DYNAMIC EVENT FARMING.

We have 1 weapon set that tags mobs acceptably, GS+Sword/Focus and it just BARELY gets the job done.

Shatters? Feedback?

I just really don’t see the problem here. Mesmer is not the BEST class at tagging mobs in DEs, but it’s not the worst either. I’ve had hardly any issues tagging a lot of mobs in DEs. It isn’t as easy at it was with my ele, but I don’t see that as a big issue.

Feedback to tag in DEs? Why do I even bother posting in these threads…

Rhyno.7084:

Feedback to tag in DEs? Why do I even bother posting in these threads…

It is an instant cast…if they are ranged mobs, you will hit them all. It costs you absolutely no time to use. Why not use it?

It doesn’t work in every situation, but it works in plenty. I think that is the rub with people and mesmers…there is no one tactic that you can just apply to every situation. You have to do different things. I couldn’t tell you a formula I use to tag mobs in DEs, but I can tell you that when the DE is over I have tagged nearly all of them.

When people complain about AoE they are talking about DEs, particularly the Zerg fest in Orr where we don’t have time to set up what AoE we do have. AoEing against mobs in General PvE can be done from auto attacking with the Sword so its obvious they aren’t talking about that.

Whereas Engineers can point their mouse at a spot and spam 1 and tag all the mobs in the event with more dps then some classes can put on a solo target (and they still want this buffed on the Engineer forums).

Creslin.1758:

Rhyno.7084:

Feedback to tag in DEs? Why do I even bother posting in these threads…

It is an instant cast…if they are ranged mobs, you will hit them all. It costs you absolutely no time to use. Why not use it?

It doesn’t work in every situation, but it works in plenty. I think that is the rub with people and mesmers…there is no one tactic that you can just apply to every situation. You have to do different things. I couldn’t tell you a formula I use to tag mobs in DEs, but I can tell you that when the DE is over I have tagged nearly all of them.

Look, please just don’t comment on this any more until you have tried farming DEs in Orr. Feedback does nothing when mobs don’t attack a single time before they die. If you’re tagging stuff with feedback, you aren’t where the issue is.

Levetty.1279:

When people complain about AoE they are talking about DEs, particularly the Zerg fest in Orr where we don’t have time to set up what AoE we do have. AoEing against mobs in General PvE can be done from auto attacking with the Sword so its obvious they aren’t talking about that.

Whereas Engineers can point their mouse at a spot and spam 1 and tag all the mobs in the event with more dps then some classes can put on a solo target (and they still want this buffed on the Engineer forums).

So does this complaint boil down to…

We aren’t as good at tagging as engineers QQ?

Rhyno.7084:

Creslin.1758:

Rhyno.7084:

Feedback to tag in DEs? Why do I even bother posting in these threads…

It is an instant cast…if they are ranged mobs, you will hit them all. It costs you absolutely no time to use. Why not use it?

It doesn’t work in every situation, but it works in plenty. I think that is the rub with people and mesmers…there is no one tactic that you can just apply to every situation. You have to do different things. I couldn’t tell you a formula I use to tag mobs in DEs, but I can tell you that when the DE is over I have tagged nearly all of them.

Look, please just don’t comment on this any more until you have tried farming DEs in Orr. Feedback does nothing when mobs don’t attack a single time before they die. If you’re tagging stuff with feedback, you aren’t where the issue is.

You said DEs, you did not say DEs in Orr…perhaps be more specific?

Also, on my server DEs in Orr usually aren’t mobbed, but I’m on a lower population server.

Creslin.1758:

Rhyno.7084:

Creslin.1758:

Rhyno.7084:

Feedback to tag in DEs? Why do I even bother posting in these threads…

It is an instant cast…if they are ranged mobs, you will hit them all. It costs you absolutely no time to use. Why not use it?

It doesn’t work in every situation, but it works in plenty. I think that is the rub with people and mesmers…there is no one tactic that you can just apply to every situation. You have to do different things. I couldn’t tell you a formula I use to tag mobs in DEs, but I can tell you that when the DE is over I have tagged nearly all of them.

Look, please just don’t comment on this any more until you have tried farming DEs in Orr. Feedback does nothing when mobs don’t attack a single time before they die. If you’re tagging stuff with feedback, you aren’t where the issue is.

You said DEs, you did not say DEs in Orr…perhaps be more specific?

Also, on my server DEs in Orr usually aren’t mobbed, but I’m on a lower population server.

I have no desire to educate you any further, go read one of the dozens of threads on this issue instead of being willfully ignorant and trying to argue with people over something you clearly aren’t aware of.

Creslin.1758:

Levetty.1279:

When people complain about AoE they are talking about DEs, particularly the Zerg fest in Orr where we don’t have time to set up what AoE we do have. AoEing against mobs in General PvE can be done from auto attacking with the Sword so its obvious they aren’t talking about that.

Whereas Engineers can point their mouse at a spot and spam 1 and tag all the mobs in the event with more dps then some classes can put on a solo target (and they still want this buffed on the Engineer forums).

So does this complaint boil down to…

We aren’t as good at tagging as engineers QQ?

No this issue boils down to Mesmer can’t join in doing anything in the level 80 zone and will take about 5 times as long as other classes to farm mats/coins/karma for any armour or weapon skin we want or to make a legendary. And when that can already get pretty grindy on the good farming classes that increase in time is going to hurt.

But please carry on being condescending.

Rhyno.7084:

Creslin.1758:

Rhyno.7084:

Creslin.1758:

Rhyno.7084:

Feedback to tag in DEs? Why do I even bother posting in these threads…

It is an instant cast…if they are ranged mobs, you will hit them all. It costs you absolutely no time to use. Why not use it?

It doesn’t work in every situation, but it works in plenty. I think that is the rub with people and mesmers…there is no one tactic that you can just apply to every situation. You have to do different things. I couldn’t tell you a formula I use to tag mobs in DEs, but I can tell you that when the DE is over I have tagged nearly all of them.

Look, please just don’t comment on this any more until you have tried farming DEs in Orr. Feedback does nothing when mobs don’t attack a single time before they die. If you’re tagging stuff with feedback, you aren’t where the issue is.

You said DEs, you did not say DEs in Orr…perhaps be more specific?

Also, on my server DEs in Orr usually aren’t mobbed, but I’m on a lower population server.

I have no desire to educate you any further, go read one of the dozens of threads on this issue instead of being willfully ignorant and trying to argue with people over something you clearly aren’t aware of.

Look…I’m on a lower pop server, I play a lot at off-peak hours. Perhaps you should consider that not everyone has the exact same experience as you. When I was in Orr…many of the DEs were hardly populated and yes, I used feedback to tag mobs.

I’m sorry that you took such great offense to my experience being different from yours.

Creslin.1758:

Rhyno.7084:

For the 500th time, the complaint about mesmer AoE is in regards to DYNAMIC EVENT FARMING.

We have 1 weapon set that tags mobs acceptably, GS+Sword/Focus and it just BARELY gets the job done.

Shatters? Feedback?

I just really don’t see the problem here. Mesmer is not the BEST class at tagging mobs in DEs, but it’s not the worst either.

Nope, it is the worst.

Tagging monsters in DE’s has to be done with abilities with little or no cooldown. Shatters do not fit this description and feedback obviously only works on monsters which actually live long enough to shoot projectiles.

An engineer can tag tons of mobs by hitting ‘1’ on his grenade kit, which has no cooldown at all and a 1500 range.

Tagging mobs in the farmed De’s relies upon abilities which are ranged (the monsters will usually die before they get to melee) quick to cast ( the monsters die very very quickly) and have low cooldown (monster waves come very quickly).

Mesmer abilities fail on all these counts. I mean, if you’ve ever been competing for tags at one of the dynamic events in Orr, you’ll know what I mean. There’s no time at all to have a clone spawn and run over and detonate. In fact, often the monsters are dead before they are even targetable just from the blizzard of ground targetted aoe spells falling on their heads.

A guardian sucks at tagging monsters at range, but is still better at tagging than a mesmer in these situations.

It sounds then like people say “Mesmer can’t AoE” when they actually mean “Mesmer can’t tag mobs in zerged DE’s in Orr.” Those are very, very different things. It would be a lot easier to understand if everyone said what they meant.

I’ve been at a few DE’s where the problem begins to show itself, but it hasn’t really bothered me. GS has been my weapon to use on those events, but of course its not AoE.

Sabbathius, thanks for taking the time for a detailed response. In my first post I already addressed the bouncing attacks and positioning. When you are solo, you can keep distance to make sure you don’t get any bounces. If you want the boons, of course move closer. And if you have allies, I don’t consider those boons wasted, since they help kill the mob, which is the point after all. The staff, with clones, puts out a lot of bounces. Traited, you do 3 per cast, three clones do two each for a total of 9 bounces every few seconds.

Sword attacks are all aoe. Not just sword 3. Like I said earlier, mobility is the key. If you stand in front of 3 mobs swinging you will get dropped quickly. Keep moving around them and they barely hit you. The amount of damage the sword puts out is huge compared to something like GS. I use the staff most, but if there is a pesky mob or two that managed to get stacks of vulnerability instead of damaging conditions, jump in and finish them off.

On shatters, its a question of timing. I shatter at 30% to give clones time to get there. If you have sword clones out, that’s not an issue.

Phantasms for aoe I agree – they are more useful for shatter fodder than reliable aoe. If you have the focus traited the warden is useful for reflection as much as his aoe damage. Which is not inconsiderable, once you learn to place him right. Into the Void is good at pulling back anything that tries to run from him. In pve, mobs generally don’t have the sense to, if you stand by him.

On all the other professions and their AoE abilities, I defer to your knowledge, I haven’t played any other classes past lvl 30 or so. But I will say that that sort of ability sounds very out of place with the concept behind mesmers. A ground targeted, spammable explosion? Makes sense for an engineer. Not as much for a mesmer. That isn’t to say there is no problem, and I don’t know how to fix that problem. I will say though that mesmers can AoE just fine, it just doesn’t work in a zerg environment at all.

Voodoo Tina.4180:

Am I just unaware of how amazing other classes are?

You hit the spot.

No, mesmers can’t AoE not even close to fine. Or if you think that way other classes are super overpowered on that aspect. Because if a mesmer can AoE just fine in melee range against 3 mobs mostly classes can to it consistently to either many more or do it from range.

Here’s how I tag at DE zergs in Orr:

1. Memorize where the mobs will spawn.
2. Trait 20 into domination for the “confusion on enter/exit glamour” trait
3. Slot Portal.
4. Grab some condition damage (either through spec, gear domination signet, etc).
5. Place portal on spot where mobs will spawn.

Any of these mobs that so much as get an attack off will take a nice little chunk of damage (confusion 1 if they attack while standing on the portal, confusion 2 if they spawn in the portal and then exit it before attacking).

It helps if you give the mobs something to hit (stand in their spawn area and use your survival skills/blinds/dodges as needed).

You’ll tag plenty. Not as good as an engineer, but faster than relying on shatter/phantasm.

The portal will last a full minute and not have a cooldown if you do not place the second portal.

shatter is an aoe dont forget
iberserker is one of the best aoe phantasms
iwarden as well

I haven’t had an issue tagging mobs with power/precision/crit build. Just iberserker in the middle of mobs then instantly shatter him once he does his damage. GS #3 => GS#2. All of these attacks probably do about 5-7k damage in the span of 6 seconds. Then just auto-attack mobs you think you didn’t personally deal too much damage on. With GS CD trait, your iberserker is usually ready for the next wave.

they have plenty of aoe, you just have to not target a dying mob

Blurred Frenzy is multi target. The 1-chain of the sword cleaves like someone needing kitty-nip. Mirror Images → Mind Wrack is some minor burst AoE (as well as propping up consistent AoE with the dodge→ clone trait). And then there’s Chaos Storm’s AoE, too.

Berserker, while nice, tends to die too fast for the one thing it’s really really good for (cleaving down a ridiculous amount of low health targets), because… it’s tied to a low health target. The others will never really compare to say an Elementalist, or a Necromancer’s wells, but they’re something at least.

I personally like Chaos Storm the most, not because I feel it does the most damage, but because it’s not target limited, and it offers combo field usage and other residual effects.

The primary problem with Mesmer AoE is that very little of it is ground targeted, most of our AoE is target-centric. A lot of the time however our target is not the best place to centre the AoE on, another mob is; but in order to optimise the AoE we then have to target that mob, throw out the AoE, then retarget our original target…

For more AoE, put Sigil of Superior Fire in your GS.

Just to make it clear I’m fine with how Mesmer AOE is, because I don’t expect every class to be equally good at everything.

However the people who are claiming it is comaparble to every other class (especially at taggin in DE) are simply living in cloud cuckoo land or have never played an engineer, ele, warrior, etc, and are totally ignoring the issue of targetting mobs that are often insta dead when other classes sit there spamming AOE skills at the spawn points in DE.

Sylosi.6503:

Just to make it clear I’m fine with how Mesmer’s AOE is, because I don’t expect every class to be equally good at everything.

This should really be false. For everyone who’s given it some thought. Mesmer HAS to have as viable an AoE for tagging as the best classes. Simply due to how looting and XP is done in this game.

Let’s look at WoW really quick. If you are alone, if you land the first hit, you get the XP/loot. If someone else taps the first mob, you get nothing, and you know about it by the color of the portrait. When in a group, regardless of how much damage you do, you get both XP and loot. Similarly in a raid (40 people group), you can do zero DPS and still get full XP and loot. Thus, in WoW is did not matter which class has a lot of AoE, some or none. Your XP did not suffer much. Though admittedly classes with great AoE were also fastest levelers and farmers, which put others at a disadvantage. Mage, for instance, was arguably the best trash-farming class and leveled faster than anyone else.

Now, in GW2, your DPS and its AoE potential are directly linked to your XP and loot. Simply put, in DEs, if you don’t have strong spammable AoE, you will get considerably less XP and loot from the same event, with the same amount of work, compared to a class with strong spammable AoE.

This is not right. It is not a question of “not good at everything”. DEs in this game are as important an element as anything else really. They’re what rifts were in Rift. Heck, they practically are rifts, just done differently. A class being weak in this department makes the class TOO weak.

Guess what I’m trying to say is, unless the way mobs are tapped is changed, I cannot accept this as “fine”. If, for example, I gave someone else Might or Protection, and they tapped a mob, and I would get credit/loot for the kill, then perhaps Mesmer might be fine. But right now? Not even close. You get CONSIDERABLY less loot/XP from DEs on a Mesmer. And this both slows down the leveling, the gold you make, the quality of your gear, your crafting progression (from salvage of unusable drops), etc., etc., etc.

It simply cripples us in PvE (and by relation WvW as well). This is not something I can live with, and neither should you. It’s a fundamentally flawed and unfair state that needs changing ASAP.

Sabbathius”

This should really be false. For everyone who’s given it some thought. Mesmer HAS to have as viable an AoE for tagging as the best classes. Simply due to how looting and XP is done in this game.
Let’s look at WoW really quick. If you are alone, if you land the first hit, you get the XP/loot. If someone else taps the first mob, you get nothing, and you know about it by the color of the portrait. When in a group, regardless of how much damage you do, you get both XP and loot. Similarly in a raid (40 people group), you can do zero DPS and still get full XP and loot. Thus, in WoW is did not matter which class has a lot of AoE, some or none. Your XP did not suffer much. Though admittedly classes with great AoE were also fastest levelers and farmers, which put others at a disadvantage. Mage, for instance, was arguably the best trash-farming class and leveled faster than anyone else.
Now, in GW2, your DPS and its AoE potential are directly linked to your XP and loot. Simply put, in DEs, if you don’t have strong spammable AoE, you will get considerably less XP and loot from the same event, with the same amount of work, compared to a class with strong spammable AoE.
This is not right. It is not a question of “not good at everything”. DEs in this game are as important an element as anything else really. They’re what rifts were in Rift. Heck, they practically are rifts, just done differently. A class being weak in this department makes the class TOO weak.
Guess what I’m trying to say is, unless the way mobs are tapped is changed, I cannot accept this as “fine”. If, for example, I gave someone else Might or Protection, and they tapped a mob, and I would get credit/loot for the kill, then perhaps Mesmer might be fine. But right now? Not even close. You get CONSIDERABLY less loot/XP from DEs on a Mesmer. And this both slows down the leveling, the gold you make, the quality of your gear, your crafting progression (from salvage of unusable drops), etc., etc., etc.
It simply cripples us in PvE (and by relation WvW as well). This is not something I can live with, and neither should you. It’s a fundamentally flawed and unfair state that needs changing ASAP.

I will completely agree that mesmer is not the best AoE class in the game. However I don’t really agree with the rest of your post…I think it’s exaggerated.

If you’re talking about DEs used for leveling…then you are not talking about these DEs in Orr that are apparently so zerged that MOBs don’t last more than 1 second. I’ve never seen these on my server, but that is what I hear.

Anyway, in most DEs, mobs last a few seconds, which is plenty of time for you to tag most of them, even with mesmer AoE. Also, it’s REALLY easy to get gold contrib for a DE, and that’s all you need to get the most DE experience. So yeah, not really seeing how mesmer is “crippled” in DEs. Yes, they aren’t the best, yes it takes more work…no they are not crippled.

Finally, given that mesmers have poorer tagging capabilities than the other classes, why don’t we discuss how engineers can’t create portals as good as mesmers? Or how elementalists can’t pull as good as mesmers? Or how warriors can’t reflect as good as mesmers?

Every class is different, they all have different strengths and weaknesses. And IMO, that is a GOOD thing. It gives me a reason to try different classes. If every class was equally as good at everything, it would be a boring game.,

Creslin.1758:

I will completely agree that mesmer is not the best AoE class in the game. However I don’t really agree with the rest of your post…I think it’s exaggerated.
…
Anyway, in most DEs, mobs last a few seconds, which is plenty of time for you to tag most of them, even with mesmer AoE. Also, it’s REALLY easy to get gold contrib for a DE, and that’s all you need to get the most DE experience. So yeah, not really seeing how mesmer is “crippled” in DEs. Yes, they aren’t the best, yes it takes more work…no they are not crippled.

You’re missing the point a bit. Getting gold is very, very easy, unless you’re in a small group with very strong classes and nobody else is there. I’ve had cases where I worked my butt off and got silver in such cases. But anywho, this is not really critical. I agree getting Gold Medal is easy.

What is not easy is all the bonus XP you’re missing. I strongly suggest you make yourself an Engi, and do some DEs with grenade kit. You will notice TONS of bonus XP from kills you’ve tapped. On a Mesmer, you’ll tap a lot less, and get a lot less XP from the same amount of time in the same event.

Let’s look at a basic level 40 event. You get around 2500 XP from that. Ballpark. Well, from a single kill if memory serves I get around 70 XP and up to 110 XP bonus depending on what gets killed. But let’s say I just get 100 XP per kill tapped, all told. How many kills in an event? Depends on an event, but the one I’m thinking of in Harathi, let’s say 10 pulls of 5 mobs? 50 kills? That’s 50×100 XP = 5,000 XP. With 100% tap rate, you get 5,000 XP. With 50% tap rate, you get 2,500 XP, etc. The less you tap, the less XP you get.

As a second effect from all this tapping is the LOOT. As in items, crafting components, salvaging components, etc. It is not uncommon for me to trigger a chain on my Engineer with completely empty bags (crafted 11-slots), and by the end of a 3-event chain to have totally full bags. The kind of full that deposit collectable and opening containers cannot alleviate. Actually full bags of loot. This translates into huge amounts of gold, on top of the DE reward. Plus upgrades. Plus easier crafting because I’m more likely to get mats. Etc.

Finally, given that mesmers have poorer tagging capabilities than the other classes, why don’t we discuss how engineers can’t create portals as good as mesmers?

If you could level and get items from creating portals, I’d totally agree with you. Sadly, it has no effect on our earning potential. It makes a handful of things, like jumping puzzles, easier. But this is VERY debatable. My Engi for example has a targeted leap that makes many difficult leaps absolutely trivial. Because unlike our Blink, it actually WORKS.

With warriors and reflect, you have a bit of a point. Aside from Guardians I don’t think anyone else reflects as well as we do. But first, we have to trait for it (Master level, 40+) and second not many mobs are ranged. And now that iWarden is nerfed/fixed, our reflection potential took a VERY steep nosedive.

Every class is different, they all have different strengths and weaknesses. And IMO, that is a GOOD thing. It gives me a reason to try different classes. If every class was equally as good at everything, it would be a boring game.,

I don’t mind different. But when I press 1 on class A, and on average tap 5 mobs, and get loot out of them plus 5x XP, and on class B I press 1, and on average tap 1 mob and get loot out of one with 1x XP, this is fundamentally unfair. For leveling, for farming, etc.

We have decent AOE, not as good as elementalists and some other classes have much better damage that way, but its not bad.

Wish we had more ground target aoe however.

Creslin.1758:

Sabbathius”

This should really be false. For everyone who’s given it some thought. Mesmer HAS to have as viable an AoE for tagging as the best classes. Simply due to how looting and XP is done in this game.
Let’s look at WoW really quick. If you are alone, if you land the first hit, you get the XP/loot. If someone else taps the first mob, you get nothing, and you know about it by the color of the portrait. When in a group, regardless of how much damage you do, you get both XP and loot. Similarly in a raid (40 people group), you can do zero DPS and still get full XP and loot. Thus, in WoW is did not matter which class has a lot of AoE, some or none. Your XP did not suffer much. Though admittedly classes with great AoE were also fastest levelers and farmers, which put others at a disadvantage. Mage, for instance, was arguably the best trash-farming class and leveled faster than anyone else.
Now, in GW2, your DPS and its AoE potential are directly linked to your XP and loot. Simply put, in DEs, if you don’t have strong spammable AoE, you will get considerably less XP and loot from the same event, with the same amount of work, compared to a class with strong spammable AoE.
This is not right. It is not a question of “not good at everything”. DEs in this game are as important an element as anything else really. They’re what rifts were in Rift. Heck, they practically are rifts, just done differently. A class being weak in this department makes the class TOO weak.
Guess what I’m trying to say is, unless the way mobs are tapped is changed, I cannot accept this as “fine”. If, for example, I gave someone else Might or Protection, and they tapped a mob, and I would get credit/loot for the kill, then perhaps Mesmer might be fine. But right now? Not even close. You get CONSIDERABLY less loot/XP from DEs on a Mesmer. And this both slows down the leveling, the gold you make, the quality of your gear, your crafting progression (from salvage of unusable drops), etc., etc., etc.
It simply cripples us in PvE (and by relation WvW as well). This is not something I can live with, and neither should you. It’s a fundamentally flawed and unfair state that needs changing ASAP.

I will completely agree that mesmer is not the best AoE class in the game. However I don’t really agree with the rest of your post…I think it’s exaggerated.

If you’re talking about DEs used for leveling…then you are not talking about these DEs in Orr that are apparently so zerged that MOBs don’t last more than 1 second. I’ve never seen these on my server, but that is what I hear.

Anyway, in most DEs, mobs last a few seconds, which is plenty of time for you to tag most of them, even with mesmer AoE. Also, it’s REALLY easy to get gold contrib for a DE, and that’s all you need to get the most DE experience. So yeah, not really seeing how mesmer is “crippled” in DEs. Yes, they aren’t the best, yes it takes more work…no they are not crippled.

Finally, given that mesmers have poorer tagging capabilities than the other classes, why don’t we discuss how engineers can’t create portals as good as mesmers? Or how elementalists can’t pull as good as mesmers? Or how warriors can’t reflect as good as mesmers?

Every class is different, they all have different strengths and weaknesses. And IMO, that is a GOOD thing. It gives me a reason to try different classes. If every class was equally as good at everything, it would be a boring game.,

Did you even read his post?

Ability to get Gold has nothing to do with anything, I have got Gold contribution just by running through an event to get somewhere else.

The Problem are tagging mobs for DROPS, getting loot from an enemy is dictated purely by being able to do enough damage to it before the Zerg kills it. We don’t have the AoE to do that and thus falling behind in our ability to gear up, craft and get legendaries.

Nobody is talking about the other classes inability to do Portal or reflect as well because they provide absolutely 0 use in these situations.

I’m sure if they changed the mechanics so our support options (even though most of them still require casting a clone on a mob that will be dieing a second later) or somehow teleporting large groups of people about will tag us mobs then I am sure people can live with our AoE. But until then talking about our utility is pointless and this is a major problem in a long list which makes Mesmer sup par in PvE.

Sabbathius.1465:

Now, in GW2, your DPS and its AoE potential are directly linked to your XP and loot. Simply put, in DEs, if you don’t have strong spammable AoE, you will get considerably less XP and loot from the same event, with the same amount of work, compared to a class with strong spammable AoE.

The amount of XP you get from mobs is minimal compared to what you get for completing hearts/getting gold in events etc.

Sabbathius.1465:

This is not right. It is not a question of “not good at everything”. DEs in this game are as important an element as anything else really. They’re what rifts were in Rift. Heck, they practically are rifts, just done differently. A class being weak in this department makes the class TOO weak.

I hate to break it to you, but in this game DEs (and PvE in general) come a poor second in terms of importance to PvP (and in particular to structed tournament PvP) the class mechanics will be balanced on that, not DEs.

Sabbathius.1465:

Guess what I’m trying to say is, unless the way mobs are tapped is changed, I cannot accept this as “fine”. If, for example, I gave someone else Might or Protection, and they tapped a mob, and I would get credit/loot for the kill, then perhaps Mesmer might be fine. But right now? Not even close. You get CONSIDERABLY less loot/XP from DEs on a Mesmer. And this both slows down the leveling, the gold you make, the quality of your gear, your crafting progression (from salvage of unusable drops), etc., etc., etc.

Whilst I agree that it might be nice if they did something about DEs (even making them less zergy or spliting up groups of mobs and making them enter from all sorts of places so it favours AOE less), GW2 is no different from any other game in this regard, classes that kill fast / AOE lots always level / farm faster than anyone else.

People are in for a long wait if they think they are going to upset tPvP balance by giving mesmers more AOE just for tagging stuff in DEs, a reason a lot of peopel are playing this game is Anet’s focus on putting PvP balance first, rather than the poor secodn it is in most MMORPGs to PvE.

Sylosi.6503:

Sabbathius.1465:

Now, in GW2, your DPS and its AoE potential are directly linked to your XP and loot. Simply put, in DEs, if you don’t have strong spammable AoE, you will get considerably less XP and loot from the same event, with the same amount of work, compared to a class with strong spammable AoE.

The amount of XP you get from mobs is minimal compared to what you get for completeing hearts/getting gold in events etc.

Sabbathius.1465:

This is not right. It is not a question of “not good at everything”. DEs in this game are as important an element as anything else really. They’re what rifts were in Rift. Heck, they practically are rifts, just done differently. A class being weak in this department makes the class TOO weak.

I hate to break it to you, but in this game DEs (and PvE in general) come a poor second in terms of importance to PvP (and in particular to structed tournament PvP) the class mechanics will be balanced on that, not DEs.

Sabbathius.1465:

Guess what I’m trying to say is, unless the way mobs are tapped is changed, I cannot accept this as “fine”. If, for example, I gave someone else Might or Protection, and they tapped a mob, and I would get credit/loot for the kill, then perhaps Mesmer might be fine. But right now? Not even close. You get CONSIDERABLY less loot/XP from DEs on a Mesmer. And this both slows down the leveling, the gold you make, the quality of your gear, your crafting progression (from salvage of unusable drops), etc., etc., etc.

Whilst I agree that it might be nice if they did something about DEs (even making them less zergy or spliting up groups of mobs and making them enter from all sorts of places so it favours AOE less), GW2 is no different from any other game in this regard, classes that kill fast / AOE lots always level / farm faster than anyone else.

People are in for a long wait if they think they are going to upset tPvP balance by giving mesmers more AOE just for tagging stuff in DEs, a the reason a lot of peopel are playing this game is Anets focus on putting PvP balance first, rather than the poor secodn it is in most MMORPGs to PvE.

That is stupid. A lot of people play this game for PvE and a lot of people have played this series for PvE from the beginning.

It is not fair that they make a class so useless in PvE just to balance PvP (and if the PvP population turns into what it did in GW1 then eventually it will die and it will be PvE carrying the game). If they really want to do that then they need to put a big warning up on the Mesmer creator warning us that it is a PvP class.

Or they can go back to PvE/PvP skill splits but considering they seem to want to avoid that I am hoping they are smart enough to fix up Mesmer’s PvE shortcomings when they get round to finishing the class.

Sylosi.6503:

The amount of XP you get from mobs is minimal compared to what you get for completeing hearts/getting gold in events etc.

Define “minimal”. I just did a DE, that involved killing about 40 bandits in total. Each kill was 38 XP. And I got around 2k for the completion. I’m not sure if it’s because I was downranked (low level zone), but that is still 1520 XP for the kills, 2k for the DE. Is that “minimal” to you? This is on Engi, by the way, with a near-100% tap rate. On Mesmer you’d be lucky to get half that.

I hate to break it to you, but in this game DEs (and PvE in general) come a poor second in terms of importance to PvP (and in particular to structed tournament PvP) the class mechanics will be balanced on that, not DEs.

At the risk of sounding hostile, according to whom? I have zero interest, NONE, in tPvP. I did a fair share of sPvP though. And my principal interest is in WvWvW, which is about 60% PvE, including heavy DEs.

You are arguing player preference. I’m arguing game mechanics. One is debatable, the other is pretty cut and dry unbalanced.

People are in for a long wait if you think they are going to upset tPvP balance by giving mesmers more AOE just for tagging stuff in DEs, a the reason a lot of peopel are playing this game is Anets focus on putting PvP balance first, rather than the poor secodn it is in most MMORPGs to PvE.

This assumes Mesmer is balanced right now. Take a good look at sPvP board and you’ll see tons of complaints about 2 classes primarily – Thieves and Mesmers. Now, personally I disagree at least on the Mesmer front, and the whole hysteria comes from having to fight something you can’t even see or at least not easily identify (especially if you’re a total noob, as most people still are).

But the point is, arguably Mesmer right now is not balanced, if you believe public opinion. Look at all the threads of “rate the classes” and “what’s the hardest for you”, and Mesmer usually shows up in top 3.

So I wouldn’t really argue that classes are balanced right now. In general I personally feel some classes get WAY too much payoff for very little work. Others get almost no payoff for tons more work. And others yet are simply not viable. Doesn’t exactly scream “balance”.

Though I wouldn’t ask for class changes necessarily. Perhaps just changes to how tapping mobs works. That is, if someone whom I gave a stack of Might kills a mob, I should get some credit even if I didn’t do any damage to that mob myself. That might alleviate some of the issues Mesmers have, as a quick and dirty solution. HOWEVER, this still wouldn’t even come close to balance, as once again my Engi can just toss an Elixir at a clump of friendlies and give them each 4 boons, including retaliation. It’s ranged and has a 20 sec CD untraited. When it comes to “spreading the joy” of boons, Engis are at least as fast as Mesmers too.

But anyway, I’ve said my piece on this topic and I think I’ve covered all the aspects. Anything else and I’ll just be repeating myself. You can agree or disagree. Most importantly, ANet can agree or disagree. If they disagree – well, let’s just say I foresee Mesmers will continue to be the least played class in this game for a long time to come.

Levetty.1279:

That is stupid. A lot of people play this game for PvE and a lot of people have played this series for PvE from the beginning.

It is not fair that they make a class so useless in PvE just to balance PvP (and if the PvP population turns into what it did in GW1 then eventually it will die and it will be PvE carrying the game). If they really want to do that then they need to put a big warning up on the Mesmer creator warning us that it is a PvP class.

Or they can go back to PvE/PvP skill splits but considering they seem to want to avoid that I am hoping they are smart enough to fix up Mesmer’s PvE shortcomings when they get round to finishing the class.

The class isn’t useless in PvE it is fine in dungeons and getting gold on events is also easy, it just kills things slower than most and isn’t very good at AOE.

The Mesmers “shortcomings” are by design, it is called balance, no class is good at everything, Mesmers weakness is AOE/ramp up time, if you want huge AOE you picked the wrong class.

What is stupid, is failing to research a game before you buy it, it should be abundantly clear GW2 is more PvP focused than your typical MMORPG, they even want to eventually make the tPvP an esport, as such class design / balance will always make that a priority. But even aside from that in most games there are classes that are weak at AOE, because they are stong in some other way, again it is called balance.

What is stupid, is failing to research a game before you buy it, it should be abundantly clear GW2 is more PvP focused than your typical MMORPG, they even want to eventually make the tPvP an esport, as such class design / balance will always make that a priority. But even aside from that in most games there are classes that are weak at AOE, because they are stong in some other way, again it is called balance.

That’s just it! Mesmer is not weak in AoE in PvP! :P

In PvP players don’t just run in a straight line and keel over when you fart in their general direction like mobs do. Nor do they have predictable spawn locations you can AoE down. In PvP you have the time to bring up your illusions, and from there AoE is considerable. Still not reliable or fast or on-demand, but still considerable. And THAT I do accept as balanced.

BUT, this game also has a strong PvE element. Case in point – dungeons, world boss events, etc. Even in WvWvW, a lot of it is PvE – knocking down walls, killing keep commanders, disrupting supply lines by killing dolyaks and NPC guards, etc. And in PvE, Mesmer’s AoE effectiveness is inversely proportional to the number of people present.

Sabbathius.1465:

Define “minimal”.

On my engi in sparkway fens (level 55-65) I recieved about 95xp for a killing a mob and 7000xp for the completing the heart (I needed to kill about 6 mobs in total).

Really XP is not an issue, this is not Everquest, it is easy to level, the XP curve is linear (after the initial few levels), you even get XP for crafting.

I hate to break it to you, but in this game DEs (and PvE in general) come a poor second in terms of importance to PvP (and in particular to structed tournament PvP) the class mechanics will be balanced on that, not DEs.

Sabbathius.1465:

At the risk of sounding hostile, according to whom? I have zero interest, NONE, in tPvP. I did a fair share of sPvP though. And my principal interest is in WvWvW, which is about 60% PvE, including heavy DEs.

Well according to numerous interviews the devs/anet want to make tPvP an esport, so you take a guess at which is going to take priority when it comes to balance, structued PvP or the fact somoe classes are better than others at AOEing in DE.

I had zero interest in raids in Rift, however I didn’t whine about it because I knew the game was primarily PvE focused so most of the time balance or class mechanic considerations would obviously put PvE first PvP second, hence the excitment I and many others have for GW2 a more PvP focused game.

Sabbathius.1465:

You are arguing player preference. I’m arguing game mechanics. One is debatable, the
other is pretty cut and dry unbalanced.

Not really, your preference is that all classes should be able to AOE the same, that somehow that equates to balance, I disagree and think you are in for a long wait.

This assumes Mesmer is balanced right now. Take a good look at sPvP board and you’ll see tons of complaints about 2 classes primarily – Thieves and Mesmers.

It assumes that they are unlikely to chage the basic mechanics/premise of a class in anything but the very long term, so Mesmers will have a ramp up time and relatively bad AOE for the foreseeble futrue regardless of balance changes.

If you want a class that is good at AOE and has a low ramp up time, you picked the wrong class, all I can agree with is that they should look at improving how dynamic events work, but not merely because in loot terms many currently favour AOE spwamming, more because AOE spamming is kinda of lame and uninteresting.

Creslin.1758:

So does this complaint boil down to…

We aren’t as good at tagging as engineers QQ?

Yes. This is basically a PvE Orr DE farming QQ.

Mainly centered on the players’ inability to target nearest + iBerserker instantly while inserting Illusory Persona Shatters. This combo WILL net a good fraction of tags even in the Orr farm. However, most players like their phantasm army builds. Kekeke.

The only classes that are really capable at this are Staff Guardian lols, and Engi/Ele AOE spam. Every other class has to Deal With It.

these DEs in Orr that are apparently so zerged that MOBs don’t last more than 1 second. I’ve never seen these on my server, but that is what I hear.

I play on Jade Quarry and during primetime, these events have about 40 players all spamming AOE on the spawnpoint of the mobs. There is some exaggeration — in the super-predictable DEs with literally 40+ players, the mobs will last about 1.0 seconds. In the slightly-less-predictable DEs with 20-40 players, the mobs last about 1.5-2.0 seconds.

In the first situation, you can always get an IP Shatter off, and often use the GS knockback to buy extra time. I can typically actually get iB off for damage ticks as well. In the second situation, iB is always reliable with the Shatter on top. Easy farm.

Sylosi.6503:

Levetty.1279:

That is stupid. A lot of people play this game for PvE and a lot of people have played this series for PvE from the beginning.

It is not fair that they make a class so useless in PvE just to balance PvP (and if the PvP population turns into what it did in GW1 then eventually it will die and it will be PvE carrying the game). If they really want to do that then they need to put a big warning up on the Mesmer creator warning us that it is a PvP class.

Or they can go back to PvE/PvP skill splits but considering they seem to want to avoid that I am hoping they are smart enough to fix up Mesmer’s PvE shortcomings when they get round to finishing the class.

The class isn’t useless in PvE it is fine in dungeons and getting gold on events is also easy, it just kills things slower than most and isn’t very good at AOE.

The Mesmers “shortcomings” are by design, it is called balance, no class is good at everything, Mesmers weakness is AOE/ramp up time, if you want huge AOE you picked the wrong class.

What is stupid, is failing to research a game before you buy it, it should be abundantly clear GW2 is more PvP focused than your typical MMORPG, they even want to eventually make the tPvP an esport, as such class design / balance will always make that a priority. But even aside from that in most games there are classes that are weak at AOE, because they are stong in some other way, again it is called balance.

No what is stupid is thinking a game that has way more PvE content then PvP , all the marketing is based on PvE and they didn’t even show off PvP until right before the Betas started is a PvP mmo and they should balance it around tournaments. Just a little thought please.

Once again GETTING GOLD IN DE IS NOT THE PROBLEM. I would repeat that but since it has been repeated several times in each thread about this then I don’t think it will help. I have got Gold from running through an event doing nothing, if I hacked the game and gave myself a rabbit to play as I could get gold in DEs. The problem that the only way to get materials/coins at the rate you need to to not have to grind the game for 5 years is from tagging mobs in the Orr DEs. In them support doesn’t matter, the all mighty portal that everybody seems to think is the answer to all of Mesmers problems from damage to getting across maps doesn’t matter, noobs inability to fight us in PvP doesn’t matter. All that matters is aoe damage and Mesmers can’t do it fast enough to compete there and they are the only ones who can’t.

You keep saying this is the Mesmer’s weakness so fair enough, how about we replace all the DEs in Orr with champions that you have to fight solo and have that as the only way to farm, when the other classes complain that they can’t do anything in Orr we can just reply with ‘Yeah but you have good AoE to get rid of all those trash mobs’ lets see if they accept that.

^

That’s the obvious type of change ANet needs to make. When the DEs are scaled to 20-40 players, the DE should spawn a high ratio of Veteran and some sub-Champ (easy Champs) to replace trash mobs. Instead of waves of 15 trash, it should be 2 mini-Champs, 8 Vets, and 5 trash.

To be honest, that is what I expected when ANet said that “DEs scale to the players”. I expected the mobs to have more HPs or be upgraded in category.

Also: This is a PvP game.

Mesmers can’t do it fast enough to compete there and they are the only ones who can’t.

1. They can do it fast enough to compete reasonably well.
2. Other classes are in the same boat.

OK I get the complaint people have. Really I do. But I don’t think they are making the right complaint.

The issue is that certain DE’s have so many players present the mobs did to AoE before the Mesmer can do anything. So they want all classes to have the same kind of AoE so everyone can do the same thing and its fair. But isn’t really the case that we can AoE just fine everywhere else? Not the same, but we definitely get the job done. Like someone said already, a part of the problem is that the spawn points are too predictable. If there weren’t so many mobs spawning from the same points, AoE would be less of a concern. Also, if mobs are scaling to the number of people present, they aren’t scaling properly. If mobs melt in 1 sec there’s really no challenge, so the mobs should get tougher to kill to keep it from being a silly grind fest. If mobs were lasting longer, this problem would disappear.

Voodoo Tina.4180:

OK I get the complaint people have. Really I do. But I don’t think they are making the right complaint.

The issue is that certain DE’s have so many players present the mobs did to AoE before the Mesmer can do anything. So they want all classes to have the same kind of AoE so everyone can do the same thing and its fair. But isn’t really the case that we can AoE just fine everywhere else? Not the same, but we definitely get the job done. Like someone said already, a part of the problem is that the spawn points are too predictable. If there weren’t so many mobs spawning from the same points, AoE would be less of a concern. Also, if mobs are scaling to the number of people present, they aren’t scaling properly. If mobs melt in 1 sec there’s really no challenge, so the mobs should get tougher to kill to keep it from being a silly grind fest. If mobs were lasting longer, this problem would disappear.

This is true and would help to an extent. But a large disparity in loot would still exist, even if we ignore other benefits like XP gain. But the problem wouldn’t disappear.

I keep bringing an Engineer into this, because the class just beautifully illustrates the issue. It’s fairly simple – Grenade Kit, fully traited, spammable, 1500 range. Turrets – can be positioned anywhere, don’t die just because their target did.

Even if mob spawns are randomized and staggered all over the place, on my Engineer I can “reach out and touch” a mob with my grenades before anyone else can, as grenades have high AoE radius as well as range (1500 range + radius of the explosion).

Further, I can be “in several places at once” thanks to turrets. Thumper in choke #1, Flamer in choke #2, myself in choke #3, hopefully with line of sight to choke #4 within 1800 range to reach with grenades.

This of course plays into the “area denial” class design of the Engineer. Which is fine and dandy. But it still doesn’t solve the problem of Engineer walking away from the same event with considerably more XP, loot, etc., than a Mesmer. Heck, more loot period than most other classes!

At the same time, how do you balance it? Nerf grenades? They’re the only kit that sort of works right now, most others are a joke. Nerf turrets? They’re weak as it is outside of tapping mobs – they can’t solo them, that’s for dang sure. Simply put, the class works because of the way tapping/looting is designed.

Which is why I feel the whole DE XP/loot issue is not really a class issue per se. It’s just that Mesmer suffers from it BY FAR more than any other class, and is just a perfect illustration of what’s wrong with the system.

Buuuut I’ll admit that perhaps it’s not as great a problem. As someone above pointed out, some events include 100+ mobs and piles of loot. Other events are “break 4 eggs without dying to spiders”, which can be done with a perma-swiftness class without killing anything at all.

So it is only a “problem” is you see getting screwed on XP and loot as a problem in the first place. If you don’t care about XP any more (level 80), and don’t care about loot (you are happy with the look you have), it’s not a problem really. Ironically, since many Engineers hardly ever use their main weapons, and there’s no legendary kits, the class that is very well suited for that is the class that also probably has less interest in it! :P

Voodoo Tina”

OK I get the complaint people have. Really I do. But I don’t think they are making the right complaint.

The issue is that certain DE’s have so many players present the mobs did to AoE before the Mesmer can do anything. So they want all classes to have the same kind of AoE so everyone can do the same thing and its fair. But isn’t really the case that we can AoE just fine everywhere else? Not the same, but we definitely get the job done. Like someone said already, a part of the problem is that the spawn points are too predictable. If there weren’t so many mobs spawning from the same points, AoE would be less of a concern. Also, if mobs are scaling to the number of people present, they aren’t scaling properly. If mobs melt in 1 sec there’s really no challenge, so the mobs should get tougher to kill to keep it from being a silly grind fest. If mobs were lasting longer, this problem would disappear.

Yeah that’s how I understand the complaint as well. And I agree, if spawn points were less predictable, then ground target AoE spamming would be much less effective, and mesmers would have an easier time tagging things.

But to be honest, I really just don’t see this as a big problem. This complaint, like many others is just a “class whine” complaint. And those all boil down to “class X can do action Y better than I can! This is broken!”

But seriously, that is the way the game is SUPPOSED to be. I’ve said this before, but every class should not be equally good at every little thing. If mesmer was generally weak in PvE, then it would be a problem, but that is not the case.

The ONLY thing complained about here is that mesmers have trouble tagging mobs when their spawn point is being saturated with so much GTAoE that there is hardly any time to tag them. But that complaint is so ridiculously specific that it doesn’t mean anything.

It would be the same as an engineer complaining that Mesmers are better at pulling people off keep walls than they are so that needs to be fixed.

@Sabbathius: Your post is FULL of errors, bud. Let me help explain some things to you since you (and many others) can’t seem to understand Mesmers have some of the greatest AoE in the game.

So, where to start? Bounce attacks are completely misunderstood. Sure, you can have it hit another mob, which is nice, but stop for a moment and contemplate this; they bounce to allies and buff them as well. So, taking that into consideration, that means winds of chaos can give you multiple stacks of might and stacking durations of fury (which is awesome) and Mirror Blade (GS #2) can potentially give you up to 12 stacks of Might. That is a lot of might, bud.

Okay, so, you’ve bounced your skills back onto yourself and gained might/fury. What next? Assuming you weren’t ridiculously silly and took Scepter as a second weapon and took Sword/offhand for your second weapon set, now is a good time to switch and unleash the storm with Blurred Frenzy (Sword #2, not #3 btw). That attack hits up to 5 enemies and at level 80 in rare gear and exotic weapons I hit all the way up into the 5000’s with it. Again, I repeat, that is a lot of damage. AND YOU’RE FREAKIN’ INVULNERABLE FOR THE DURATION OF IT! I call h4x!!

Okay, maybe you’re not into sword OR staff. That leaves your handy dandy greatsword (I don’t even consider scepter to be worthy of being named a weapon). #4, Illusionary Berserker, is your best friend for AoE. He hits EVERYTHING in his path for RIDICULOUS numbers when traited. Just be careful about where you conjure him so you don’t put him in a red circle, ending his phantasmal life before it even begins

Let’s not forget your #3, Mind Stab. Sure, it’s a small radius, but man if you can set it up right it can hit a lot of enemies and hard. It even removes boons! Remember that stupid regenerating mob? Yeah, he’s not regenerating anymore.

So let’s say all of this still isn’t enough AoE for you. Fine. We have a beauty called Mind Wrack. And before you claim shatters are broken, I want to assure you that Mind Wrack is one of the few that isn’t. With 10 points in the power trait line, you can select a major trait that increases this baby’s damage by 20%. Do you know how hard Mind Wrack’s hit for when you have it traited with three illusions out? It has a much larger radius than you think and it can hit a near endless amount of targets. I get 2000 crits PER ILLUSION with this sucker.

In short, AoE on the Mesmer is phenomenal. It just takes a lot of dedication to set it up prior to unleashing the chaos that is your AoE DPS. A tip for those who have trouble with Mind Wrack; be sure to pick mobs that have a lot of health like veterans or just plain meaty mobs when you begin to summon your illusions for AoE. This way you won’t end up having your illusion fade early due to the death of your target and it leaves you plenty of time to get three up for a massive Mind Wrack.

It really isn’t hard to get three illusions up quickly, either. 3-4 seconds at maximum, and if your team somehow kills them within that time, then you just have a freakin’ awesome team.

I rest my case.