Guild Wars 2

I see at least 2-3 of them in every sPvP matchup. They feel impossible to kill 1v1. Inba and/or fotm? This is not a cry for nerf, just want to know what your views are?

I think we definatly have the chance to excel in PvP. I don’t however believe it’s a balance problem. Theif and Warriors are currently stronger imo.

There is a learning curve to fighting mesmer’s more than fighting the 7 other classes, that is certain.

I think the main reason the Mesmer is so popular in sPvP is because it’s a noob-stomper. New players do not know how to deal with Clones, making them easy prey for even the least skilled Mesmer.

There may or may not be OP builds: people often cite the Phantasm build as OP, but I couldn’t comment on that as I don’t play one.

in pve the mesmer isn’t as good because mobs die too fast for clones to be useful, and they don’t have much AOE.

in wvw illusions die too fast so shatters aren’t very good.

in spvp it’s just right, the enemies are resilient enough, and illusions live long enough to be useful, 1v1 is simply the mesmer’s domain.

that doesn’t mean that you can’t stomp then with a thief or a warrior.

You just need to pick up a mesmer yourself for a short amount of time.
They’re a lot easier to deal with once you’ve actually had some experience as to how they should be played.

Good players > Bad players.

And i think you are exaggerating on how often you see them. They are also one of the least rolled classes atm.

Mesmers aren’t the most overpowered in my opinion, but they are certainly on the strong side of the spectrum.

I don’t know. The ability to pretty much spam a 3-second invul while dealing damage on an 8 second cool down is pretty dang strong.

Playing League a lot I kind of see mesmers like a duelist champion. Like maybe Akali. Yes, in 1v1 they will almost always win. They’re just very strong against one other person trying to determine which one is them. Throw in another person or two and some aoe spam and suddenly clones are dying too fast to be effective and at least half of the mesmer’s power goes away. Making them much, much less effective in group fights on central points. I feel like a ranger’s pet in those fights sometimes. A little damage, a little CC, but not a full character with all my clones disappearing as quickly as I can summon them in the mass aoe. Are they good? Yes. Are they over powered? Only if you’re on a private server 1v1’ing them.

Some helpful information.
Clones don’t move except when they’re out of range/don’t have line of sight.
Clones don’t carry an offhand weapon.
Clones attack more slowly than the mesmer.
Clones are summoned with a full health bar even when the mesmer is damaged.
Clones only use their weapon’s autoattack.
Clones deal damage in the 1-2 digit range.
Clones+phantasms are very weak and go down quickly to aoe.
Clones+phantasms will not be targeted by bouncing buffs (for mesmers, the staff autoattack and the greatsword throw).

As was mentioned, the problem is a mesmer is hard to deal with for someone who’s not used to fighting them. I mostly do WvW, and any 1 on 1 fights I’ve had are either me completely trashing someone who doesn’t know how the mesmer works yet, or them completely trashing me because they do.

It’s a matter of identifying the player rather than the clone, if you can do that you’re halfway there. I’ve fought other mesmers that were not sure what to do and kept popping my clones, for an easy victory, and I’ve fought one other mesmer that knew exactly what to look for and we were fighting for about 5 minutes solid before he finally got me.

I’ll ruin it… if you see 4 mesmers standing around you attacking, look for the one that is moving not in a beeline to you, or using more than one ability, that’s the player.

Arken.3725:

I don’t know. The ability to pretty much spam a 3-second invul while dealing damage on an 8 second cool down is pretty dang strong.

You can pretty easily walk away from this ability.

I came up against a group of 4 in WvW last night … took down all 4. unfortunately i wasnt able to do the finish move on the last one who got away … made me sad panda

Like they have said – not an OP class just a lot more difficult to deal with at first.
Still not sure how some of the rangers are hitting me for 15k damage….

Treize.7026:

Arken.3725:

I don’t know. The ability to pretty much spam a 3-second invul while dealing damage on an 8 second cool down is pretty dang strong.

You can pretty easily walk away from this ability.

You can, but it’s been used to complete negate strong skills and other attacks, even though it’s not the intention. An invul for 3 seconds guarantees it’ll be spammed just to avoid damage instead of dodging.

Who’s to say what ANet “intended” for blurred frenzy? As mesmers, we just use the skill whenever we find it useful.

If you’re looking for a tradeoff for this 3 sec invulnerability on an 8 sec cd, it is definitely that we are visible and rooted for the duration. Your enemy has plenty of opportunity to create an advantage with that time.

Mesmers excel in 1v1, are great in 2v2, but as you progress into 3v3 and 4v4 and 5v5 it starts getting worse and worse.

Mesmer are niche duelist that typically don’t scale well into larger engagements which I think is fine. It’s not as if they do everything equally well, and builds like backstab thieves give phantasm mesmers a really hard time.

Deneroth.2854:

I came up against a group of 4 in WvW last night … took down all 4. unfortunately i wasnt able to do the finish move on the last one who got away … made me sad panda

Like they have said – not an OP class just a lot more difficult to deal with at first.
Still not sure how some of the rangers are hitting me for 15k damage….

Had a good chuckle at this

I like how I am “spamming” a 3-clone Distortion. You know, spamming my 60s-CD ability. :P

I like how I am “spamming” a 3-clone Distortion. You know, spamming my 60s-CD ability. :P

He obviously means blurred frenzy on the sword.

Mesmer is the 1v1 king of the game. It pays for this by being relatively weaker the more people join the fight. Additionally it gets exponentially stronger the less skilled the opponent is, if your opponent is really good they can give a strong fight, if the opponent is awful they will often die without even touching the mesmer.

I’m just not understanding how one can complain about the “balance,” when the ability to completely avoid damage on such a short cd is just that. Other classes have similar abilities but on much longer cool downs(90s on endure pain). Granted you can move, but the point is it’s not spammable. It would make more sense to add maybe confusion instead of invulnerability.

And how do you mean they become weaker as more people enter the fight? If anything, they get stronger since you’ll be lost in the crowd more and even skilled players will probably go after targets they can see before anyone else.

Arken.3725:

I’m just not understanding how one can complain about the “balance,” when the ability to completely avoid damage on such a short cd is just that. Other classes have similar abilities but on much longer cool downs(90s on endure pain). Granted you can move, but the point is it’s not spammable. It would make more sense to add maybe confusion instead of invulnerability.

Whether other classes have a long cooldown is irrelvant, classes aren’t balanced on one thing in isolation.

Arken.3725:

I’m just not understanding how one can complain about the “balance,” when the ability to completely avoid damage on such a short cd is just that.

Mesmers using swords put themselves in the unique position of being a squishy in melee range and generally use builds that are very skimpy on mitigation and lack toughness as a stat. If we want to use that sword, it’s pretty much a given that we’re spending two skill slots on stun breaks and the phantasmal defender just to make sure we don’t get beefed by aoe and a knockdown or two. 3 every 8 may seem very powerful (it is), but if you actually catch that mesmer on cooldown with no energy or blink, then all it takes is one hundred blades, rapid fire, or a couple heartseekers to ruin his day.

Arken.3725:

And how do you mean they become weaker as more people enter the fight? If anything, they get stronger since you’ll be lost in the crowd more and even skilled players will probably go after targets they can see before anyone else.

On the offensive side, we have poor aoe, our damage doesn’t scale to large engagements, our illusions are extremely fragile to aoe in group situations and our illusions can’t change targets. The last one two are really the most important: it’s nice for your clones to soak a ranged shot or two for you simply because they’re in los; but it’s not nice when your class mechanics rely on having active illusions that you can’t keep up just because ranged cross-fire and melee cleavy aoe constantly one-shots them before you get any use out of them.

On the defensive side, same issue with the clones. It’s actually very hard to hide in a field of clones when they all poof to aoe before the model even appears. Again, a great deal of our class mechanics simply rely on them being active (movement speed, damage mitigation, healing, shattering for distortion). It can be very frustrating to need that clone to survive (say, for the distortion shatter) only to have it pop a split second before you try to shred it. If I can find an appropriate allusion, it would be like if a warrior were trying to switch to his shield only to find out that somebody replaced his shield with a pie.

Mesmer defense is also based heavily on pacing. The 3 seconds every 8 on blurred frenzy is a good example: 5 seconds isn’t much of a window for one person to damage you. 5 seconds is plenty of time for 3 people to stomp you into the ground though.

Seriously people, learn the proffesions and know what they can and cannot do before you say something is imbalanced.

I guess when I get beaten by a superior player, I should make some threads about nerfing his proffesion because it’s to strong and I’m to proud to admit that he was a better player.

RandomPixel.1675:

You just need to pick up a mesmer yourself for a short amount of time.
They’re a lot easier to deal with once you’ve actually had some experience as to how they should be played.

Indeed. I’m currently levelling one and now at level 38 I can easily pick out which is the real target among the various illusions in PvP where before I used to have a lot of trouble.

RapidSausage.4620:

in pve the mesmer isn’t as good because mobs die too fast for clones to be useful, and they don’t have much AOE.

in wvw illusions die too fast so shatters aren’t very good.

in spvp it’s just right, the enemies are resilient enough, and illusions live long enough to be useful, 1v1 is simply the mesmer’s domain.

that doesn’t mean that you can’t stomp then with a thief or a warrior.

mesmer has many AoE (area effect). staff skills and trait.
chaos storm, null field, etc.

The reason Blurred Frenzy is so low-CD is simply that a Mesmer is not really capable of standing in melee range. Without it.

All our other options are ranged, for a reason.
We need the 2s invulnerability every 8s/10s so that we can dodge the enemies’ worst attacks with it, since we cannot otherwise survive melee combat much.

I’ve versed quite a few mesmers now and was quite easily able to work around the clone thing, as a warrior. But it doesn’t make a godkittenbit of difference. As soon as I catch up to the actual mesmer he either stealths, teleports, or stuns/roots me in place as he gets as far out of range as possible and then nukes me with a brand new summon of clones.

Dumb class that has way too much utility. They have the versatility of a thief paired with the nuke capability of an elementalist with seemingly no downside.

And don’t tell me they don’t have nuke capability when as soon as I get snared I get nuked from full hp all the way down to <10% in a single lot of blasts from their clones.

Carighan.6758:

The reason Blurred Frenzy is so low-CD is simply that a Mesmer is not really capable of standing in melee range. Without it.

All our other options are ranged, for a reason.
We need the 2s invulnerability every 8s/10s so that we can dodge the enemies’ worst attacks with it, since we cannot otherwise survive melee combat much.

But that applies to all classes. If you’re not specced for damage mitigation, you’ll get smacked. Having skills completely mitigate damage while saving your endurance is huge.

A mesmer isn’t OP if there are someone who know the mesmer and know who to target. And if you are two people it is very hard for the mesmer to target the right person with the clone. A mesmer need to time the abilities right in order to be affective in battle and know when to use invulnerability abilities.

Arken.3725:

But that applies to all classes. If you’re not specced for damage mitigation, you’ll get smacked. Having skills completely mitigate damage while saving your endurance is huge.

Go through our traits then, and explore the fun chaotic land of the Mesmer, where unlike the other classes traits for the exact same mechanic are split over multiple lines, so that each line doesn’t have a cohesive theme. Also, the fun traitland where the final traits usually have nothing to do with the traitline itself.

Seriously, it’s not difficult to get around Blurred Frenzy. So what, he’s immune? then… don’t attack him. The damage is trivial to backflip out of, and he’s open at least 6s after that, for most enemies I meet that’s plenty time to kill a Mesmer, even with +300 toughness and all that.
Distortion is the Mesmer class buff, yes, only we have it, we have it since the other part of our defence relies on the enemies being unable to notice the clones don’t wield offhand items (i.e.: if you use a melee setup, your clones never ever fool people as a result of this).

In GW1 Mesmers WERE nothing but pvp really, no one wanted them in their groups for pve really if they could chose others (this was up through the first 2 years of GW1, I don’t know if changes were made afterwards).

In GW2 Mesmers complain about their usefulness in PvE environments like Dungeons, but I think they are pretty darn good. However, once again, they really shine in PvP. Is that broken? I leave that for you to decide, but I like having a character that is strong in an environment even if it costs them to be weak in another. I consider, in the end, that to be balanced.

Mesmers are pretty much overpowered in every aspect of the game.

Which is why I facepalm at all the “QQ I suck” threads on this forum, since I’m more worried about nerfs to the class rather than getting <insert X phantasm army build> buffed for bad players.

Arken.3725:

But that applies to all classes. If you’re not specced for damage mitigation, you’ll get smacked. Having skills completely mitigate damage while saving your endurance is huge.

Some classes have 20k hp and heavy armour or are glass cannons but can chain stealth and avoid fights most of the time. Most classes have some form of defense.

I’ve seen a lot of mesmers in pvp but nowhere near as many as warriors or even thieves. I’ve seen a decent number of guardians but most other classes aren’t a given in an 8v8. The only classes (if I ignore myself there’s always one mesmer if I count me, but more than that isn’t a given) that I always see in pvp are warriors and thieves. This forum is not about them however, but those classes scale much better to running in packs.

Minibiskit.6158:

this 3 sec invulnerability on an 8 sec cd

it’s 2 sec distortion on 10 sec CD… 8 sec with trait… be exact when talking about balance

i really dont understand your complains about mesmers in 3v3, 4v4….

here is my build, if someone is curious. you just need to learn how to use effective your class, i agree that sword is squishy, but i know that, and in a 5v5 i prefer stay at long range GS.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAsaRlwzKoHTTpGaNJxZGRn6oKgdSFUdJF4O3A;TgAg0CnoqxUjoGbNuak1A

and why you guys say that mesmer lose effective? my illusions have 67% critical chance, when they crit they apply bleed as well, and they have 30% bonus dmg. Phantasmal beserk do tons of damage in the middle

Read the second half of Erch’s post mixtoquente.

i see Somna, well acctually that is my felling when im participating with my guild in W3. i fell my class doesnt do much, except for the glamour field that reflect back projectiles. i’m thinking on a reroll to other class, butkittenim not sure

I find as a Mesmer I can either build myself to be extremely squishy and bursty or hard to kill and do ridiculously low damage… feels pretty balanced to me…

IMBA maybe, but only due to the fact that other classes are underpowered.

Find me something with mesmer that’s truly OP (besides moa and time warp).

Going back a bit to GW1, this class reminds me more of the Ritualist, which was OP as hell with certain builds, than the original mesmer. So as someone who played a lot of ritualist, I would respond “It’s just OP enough.” It has a lot of shortcomings to make up for how great it has to potential to be, and requires a lot of effort and skill to play.

Also. I feel I should add, I have no problem roflstomping mesmers on my wells necro 1v1. If you counter us properly and you’re aware of what defenses we’re using and know how to get past them, we’re not all that hard to take out. All of our defenses are active, so you just have to be aware of what we’re doing at any given time.

Fatal.7136:

I’ve versed quite a few mesmers now and was quite easily able to work around the clone thing, as a warrior. But it doesn’t make a godkittenbit of difference. As soon as I catch up to the actual mesmer he either stealths, teleports, or stuns/roots me in place as he gets as far out of range as possible and then nukes me with a brand new summon of clones.

Dumb class that has way too much utility. They have the versatility of a thief paired with the nuke capability of an elementalist with seemingly no downside.

And don’t tell me they don’t have nuke capability when as soon as I get snared I get nuked from full hp all the way down to <10% in a single lot of blasts from their clones.

That’s a great story.

Arken.3725:

I don’t know. The ability to pretty much spam a 3-second invul while dealing damage on an 8 second cool down is pretty dang strong.

Which ability is that? 3 clone Distortion shatter on 60 sec cd?

i think he means blurred frenzy

It is kind of the GW2 ritualist. Not inbalanced though, just a noob-stomper.

Last night I had this happen in the EU top bracket: a dude was to the side of a zerg that was attacking one of our towers. I spawned a traited iWarden, and the dude proceeded to suicide on the warden.

He wasn’t doing much damage, so it took him like 30 secs until his own reflected attacks downed him. There wasn’t anybody else nearby, no one was giving him any pressure, and I just watched from the wall. He never realized it was his own attacks that damaged him. He never fell back. He never tried melee. And right now he is probably kittening how OP the mesmers are.

I said this in another thread and I’ll say it here, Mesmers are moral breakers. When you kill yourself on a feedback bubble you don’t think to yourself “Oh, that’s a unique mechanic to their class” you think “WHAT THE $%^&!?” When you waste a bunch of cool downs or your elite only to see a bunch of popping butterflies rather than a point added to your pvp kill count you don’t think “That was very clever of them.” you think “SO CHEAP !@#$%!!” So while we might be balanced, we might even be underpowered compared to team fights where our illusions and the majority of our mechanics become useless, we will be kittened about til the cows come home because our moves are annoying. As they are supposed to be.

I think this is just because Mesmers have one of the highest learning curves to play against, due to knowing how to pick out a clone. Playing a Mes myself, I find it fairly easy though.

Also in a small match like 5v5, Mesmers are probably real strong esp if you have such a high number of them, and they have a fair focus on survivability, or good organization. They just have too much ‘free hp’ to throw around. HOnestly balancing them out will be no joke, because it’s really hard to find a smooth playstyle with a Mes as it is.