Guild Wars 2

Mesmer’s lack of reliable ground-targeted AoE really kittens us as casters in Dynamic Events. We have Chaos Storm on a 30 second cooldown and…that’s it. Mind Stab AoE is so tiny it doesn’t even count, and bounce attacks that hit 3 enemies max aren’t going to help you tag the 15+ enemies that are swarming around.

Mind Wrack doesn’t work because by the time illusions get to the enemies, they’re already dead. Illusionary Persona Mind Wrack means you have to run into a huge mob of enemies as a squishy caster just to try to get some AoE.

Meanwhile Elementalists have AoE on like every single one of their spells.

Yes, they lack of reliable AoE’s. No they don’t really need them.
No, they are not squishy. My illusions tank a lot for me and my allies.
I found my Mesmer pretty effective in PvE. Despite Confusion being d*mn weak in PvE because mobs don’t attack every 0.1 second.

(This is my personnal opinion, feel free to disagree)

Sorry no, saying Mesmers are squishy. Shows you dont know much about them.

They one of the best control class’s in the game(meaning one of the easiest to do control with). Meaning being up close in the enemies face and keeping them under control.

I am Melee on my Mesmer 70% of the time, if not more.

With Sword/Focus you can put out really good aoe damage as well, while at same time doing control.

In PvE ive control over 10mobs solo before. This is with being melee for pretty much the entire time.

EsLafiel.4517:

Sorry no, saying Mesmers are squishy. Shows you dont know much about them.

They one of the best control class’s in the game(meaning one of the easiest to do control with). Meaning being up close in the enemies face and keeping them under control.

I am Melee on my Mesmer 70% of the time, if not more.

With Sword/Focus you can put out really good aoe damage as well, while at same time doing control.

In PvE ive control over 10mobs solo before. This is with being melee for pretty much the entire time.

You are a better player than me. I suck so bad at melee in this game that I’ve chosen staff and greatsword so I can play at range. I enjoy the Mesmer very much until I face a thief or ranger 1v1 on PvP…haha.

Petuleme Igeebobo.7329:

EsLafiel.4517:

Sorry no, saying Mesmers are squishy. Shows you dont know much about them.

They one of the best control class’s in the game(meaning one of the easiest to do control with). Meaning being up close in the enemies face and keeping them under control.

I am Melee on my Mesmer 70% of the time, if not more.

With Sword/Focus you can put out really good aoe damage as well, while at same time doing control.

In PvE ive control over 10mobs solo before. This is with being melee for pretty much the entire time.

You are a better player than me. I suck so bad at melee in this game that I’ve chosen staff and greatsword so I can play at range. I enjoy the Mesmer very much until I face a thief or ranger 1v1 on PvP…haha.

There a lot more, but I tell you a basic combo for sword/focus to own a good size group.

Us 4 then place 4 again, if place right. You pull all mobs near into one small area. Then use 3 and 3 again to immb them, use 5 and then 2.

Most reg mobs, would be own by this combo. Because 5 phant does aoe to anyone near it and 1 and 2 of the sword is the same, does aoe to anything near you.

Plus 5 is really high dam, as well as 2 and if ya use 1 to stack teh vul, then they do even more. I have decoy and def phant rdy if needed. Plus number 5 protects you from all projectiles.

Thats a basic knowledge, but the build is a lot more then that.

agreed OP. chaos storm is all we really bring to the party for DEs, all of our other aoe buffs others but doesn’t do much for us.

I keep seeing people say mesmer has low AoE, yet I rake in the drops on Orr zergs.
Maybe you guys need to balance your clone/phantasm creation vs your shattering better and change up your traits.

I think it’s important to note that the way the Mesmer plays is very dependant on the weapons they have chosen. I would really hesitate to say to someone you need to use this weapon or that weapon because sometimes it just doesn’t fit with their playstyle.

Unfortunately though the facts are somewhat clear. The best MASS aoe weapons would be Staff and Focus.

It is true that elementalists have aoe on a lot of their spells, yet when you hear them you’ll hear about how frustrating it can be to lack proper targetted spells for single targets, about mobs constantly running out of their stuff and how long it can take to kill stuff because of it.

Mesmers have an absolutely immense toolkit, but we’re not great at anything until we specialise and that can leave us weak in other areas. Odds are if you’re weak in aoe you’re incredible in single target.

Do consider changing weapons and getting familiar with the focus, I’ve got some guids about weapons on my site that you can see in my signiature. Ultimately though do what you find fun.

Agreed, we got no real AoE.

EsLafiel.4517:

Petuleme Igeebobo.7329:

EsLafiel.4517:

Sorry no, saying Mesmers are squishy. Shows you dont know much about them.

They one of the best control class’s in the game(meaning one of the easiest to do control with). Meaning being up close in the enemies face and keeping them under control.

I am Melee on my Mesmer 70% of the time, if not more.

With Sword/Focus you can put out really good aoe damage as well, while at same time doing control.

In PvE ive control over 10mobs solo before. This is with being melee for pretty much the entire time.

You are a better player than me. I suck so bad at melee in this game that I’ve chosen staff and greatsword so I can play at range. I enjoy the Mesmer very much until I face a thief or ranger 1v1 on PvP…haha.

There a lot more, but I tell you a basic combo for sword/focus to own a good size group.

Us 4 then place 4 again, if place right. You pull all mobs near into one small area. Then use 3 and 3 again to immb them, use 5 and then 2.

Most reg mobs, would be own by this combo. Because 5 phant does aoe to anyone near it and 1 and 2 of the sword is the same, does aoe to anything near you.

Plus 5 is really high dam, as well as 2 and if ya use 1 to stack teh vul, then they do even more. I have decoy and def phant rdy if needed. Plus number 5 protects you from all projectiles.

Thats a basic knowledge, but the build is a lot more then that.

If I could add to this; if you toss a field down (usually feedback as it is instant) your Illusionary warden will cause mass confusion and you will give yourself and your clones/illusions chaos armor when you illusionary leap and swap into the field. This combo holds up quite well throughout the leveling up experience.

Muji.7034:

Agreed, we got no real AoE.

If specced for it, in the right situation, the mesmer brings more Aoe than any other profession in the game.

No other profession can bring 20-25k damage every 6 seconds in an aoe format.

The issue is that our -situations- are more specific, so they’re harder to cover.

I actually find Mesmer’s AoE just fine.

I actually find greatsword to be the best for AoE, 2nd is staff. Why?

Greatsword has 3 abilities. Bouncing Blade, Illusionary Blade (#3 or w/e it’s called), AND #4, the illusionary beserker. Open with Bouncing Blade to get a few mobs together, and then summon the berserker to cleave through them all. Use your #3 to add icing on the cake.

Switch to staff to hit up Chaos Storm and your auto attack, which bounces to multiple enemies if you didn’t notice.

Now, I also specced into the trait where I get 1 extra bounce from bouncing abilities, and I find it awesome, because both Staff #1 and Greatsword #2 end up getting you an extra hit on your target.

I also specced into the trait where the shatter effect is created on you when use shatter clones as well as your clones.. It was probably my best idea ever. Just try it. Gather up a few mobs, summon three illusions, and then hit F1-4 as quick as possible, it’s great.

And if your an Asura, extra fun for you, because that first listed combo with Pain Inverter AND Radiation Field let you take 5 mobs on at once, and take very little damage.

You just gotta look at those other trait lines and experiment with the mesmer. It’s a class that lets you get as much out of it as you put in it. And leveling from 1 – 80 on mine I feel confident, and I can even solo open world champions.

djones.4751:

Muji.7034:

Agreed, we got no real AoE.

If specced for it, in the right situation, the mesmer brings more Aoe than any other profession in the game.

No other profession can bring 20-25k damage every 6 seconds in an aoe format.

The issue is that our -situations- are more specific, so they’re harder to cover.

You are joking right ?

And don’t tell me you are talking about confusion trait with glamour ( confusing enchantments) or you’ll make me laugh hard.

Read the description, it says upon entering or exiting the glamour. Also it only applies 1 confusion which equals 120 dmg or so per skill use.

But if you are talking about F1 shatter, then you are not funny anymore cause it is not true.

It’s easy to say things like ‘No other profession can bring 20-25k damage every 6 seconds in an aoe format’. It’s harder to backup such saying with actual data / builds.

No, I am not talking about those things although they’re all pretty solid builds.

We’re talking full power precision Phantasmal haste triple warden that throw out 6-7k a piece(a lot more with some nice crit streaks). Now note I did mention a highly specific situation.

The dynamic events where you have a very strong central enemy. Centaur chieftains, Champion risen abominations, etc etc that don’t move about. (mostly due to the mass of melee players there). You drop 3 wardens and smile.

Phantasmal haste currently is…not working right for Wardens where instead of it reducing a 14 attack cooldown from activation to 11.2 seconds it reduces it to 6.6 seconds. As such you can have 3 phantasmal wardens out doing IMMENSE damage over a very short time. They can have a good 50%+ crit chance with Phantasmal Fury and when you’re rocking 2k power they just hit so incredibly hard, and they do it in an aoe.

Note : That will be sustained 20-25k on one target, as well as up to 20-25k on other targets depending on how close to the center they are but to be honest they’re never getting that close.

You want data and builds? There you go. Is it specific? yes. Does it happen? Definitely. Is it applicable in dungeons? Hell no but we weren’t talking about that.

Generally speaking it’s good manners to ask for the data before presuming people don’t have it.

djones.4751:

No, I am not talking about those things although they’re all pretty solid builds.

We’re talking full power precision Phantasmal haste triple warden that throw out 6-7k a piece(a lot more with some nice crit streaks). Now note I did mention a highly specific situation.

The dynamic events where you have a very strong central enemy. Centaur chieftains, Champion risen abominations, etc etc that don’t move about. (mostly due to the mass of melee players there). You drop 3 wardens and smile.

Phantasmal haste currently is…not working right for Wardens where instead of it reducing a 14 attack cooldown from activation to 11.2 seconds it reduces it to 6.6 seconds. As such you can have 3 phantasmal wardens out doing IMMENSE damage over a very short time. They can have a good 50%+ crit chance with Phantasmal Fury and when you’re rocking 2k power they just hit so incredibly hard, and they do it in an aoe.

Note : That will be sustained 20-25k on one target, as well as up to 20-25k on other targets depending on how close to the center they are but to be honest they’re never getting that close.

You want data and builds? There you go. Is it specific? yes. Does it happen? Definitely. Is it applicable in dungeons? Hell no but we weren’t talking about that.

Generally speaking it’s good manners to ask for the data before presuming people don’t have it.

So you can summon a warden around every 7 seconds?
What kind of server a you playing on, when your DE mob does not die in 14 seconds (killing your warden aswell).

Also even if 3 warden deal 20-25k dmg, you will still deal that amount of damage just around every 8 seconds. That would be ~2.500dps. Should be around the same, a fire staff ele does with autoattack.

it is not 20-25k over 8 seconds. It is 20-25k over 5 seconds, with a 1.6 second cooldown. This puts it at 3k-3.7k dps. It does NOT account for your own damage which can rotate into Chaos Storm or Blurred frenzy and sword spam.

I didn’t say you can spawn a warden every 7 seconds. I said they attack every 6.6 seconds.

I explicitly pointed out the situation which does arrive. I’m talking Legendary mobs. We’re talking dragons. We’re talking champion group events that take 10 minutes for 40 people to kill.

And yes, you can easily get 3 wardens up against dragons and keep them alive due to clever positioning if you so wanted too.

(although yes it has a long ramp up time due to the cooldown but when it’s a fight that lasts 10minutes + it’s not really a big deal)

First you got to summon all 3 wardens.
Second your targets must be very close to warden, I beleive warden aoe range is something like melee range(200 range).
Three you said yourself it uses a BUG talent to work.

Phantasmal haste currently is…not working right for Wardens where instead of it reducing a 14 attack cooldown from activation to 11.2 seconds it reduces it to 6.6 seconds.

I’m sorry but I don’t call that AoE when you need to summon 3 illusions to make it reliable (that’s a total of what 30+ sec to make this aoe?), melee range, and relying on a bugged talent ?

You made me laugh this time

However, I would like to thank you for backing up your saying even if the result was unexpected. Generaly speaking you provide data before stating things. That is justifying things or going from theory to reality.

edit: oh and fury on phantasm is only 10 sec now.

As other’s have said, I believe the problem isn’t that Mesmer’s don’t have a traditional form of AoE, but that you aren’t effectively using your Mesmer. The staff is an incredible weapon that bounces attacks by default (great sword also has bounce for number 2), and combined with chaos storm or other ethereal field combo abilities and proper usage of shatter can be devastating.

We don’t call down obvious streams of fire or lightning, or even shoot arrows in the sky to rain down death from above, but if you use the right combination of weapons and properly manage your illusions, we can put up a steady stream of damage to multiple targets.

I’m not sure if you visit reddit, but a user by the name of Prometheus0110 made two videos that explain the Mesmer class in great detail to people who are not as familiar with it as they would like to be. This is a link to the thread http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/zpd2b/as_promised_the_comprehensive_mesmer_guide_parts/ and I heavily recommend anyone who thinks the Mesmer lacks multi target viability watch them.

I haven’t touched the other classes yet, but I get the impression that the Mesmer is a class you have to work at if you want to be awesome at it.

Shatters should be a way supplement to AOE capability, but the implementation is… off putting and situational to new players.

lol? if u’r having problems with AOE dmg on a mesmer.. u’r just not playing it right.. lol!!
im always farming Solo, doing trains of 5~10 mobs just fine..

and Phantams Warden, can pretty much kill a monster, or a pack of them if placed right, alone with the several amount of hits+crits+bleed stacks..

idk what kind of mesmers are u guys playing, seriously..

The problem is that our AOE can die… or disapears when our target dies. Chaos strom is on a to long CD to be effective in events, shatters take to long to setup and can also die.

I’m not saying were terrible, just need some easy fixes.

1. Signet of illusions need to be applied directly instead after 3 seconds.
2. Remove the casting time on Phantasms.

The fact that chaos storm gives multiple instances of Aegis makes the cooldown seem just about right to me if you spec for the reduction in cooldowns for the staff. You can also spec/outfit your utilities so that your illusions live longer making the AoE more effective.

Chaos Storm does not give you multiple instances of Aegis. It CAN give you multiple instances of Aegis, but you can also end up with 10s of Swiftness and no Aegis at all. The chance to get aegis after aegis is as big as it is to get swiftness after swiftness.

Also to the 3 times warden thing. Saying that you can summon 3 wardens when fighting a dragon or champion mob does show the awesome AoE of a mesmer? How? You are still fighting a single mob.

In a DE where you have to defend multiple sides of a camp, the warden becomes much less effective.

I don’t know about summoning 3 wardens, chances are the first one will go through it’s motions once or twice and then die, but I end up with aegis more often than not so forgive me if my statement was skewed in that directions.

I just wanted to clear things up for those reading this forum, and being unfamiliar with how Chaos Storm works.

Yes Chaos Storm is nice, but staff is heavily lacking in terms of damage. Chaos Storm damage is rather low, compared to other AoE of similar size, and of similar CD. Clones attack much slower then you do with auto-attack (~50%), and the vulnerability of the autoattack does not help when playing a condition damage build. It also seem to prefer to bounce back to allies instead of jumping from target to target.
While the buffs of #1 are nice (especially fury), the damage of it is, as most of the mesmers damage, kinda low.
The warlock isn’t even AoE, which does not fit the rest of the weapon at all.

Staff is a jack of all trades, but it isn’t very good in anything, and is lacks direction of what it should be.

If the orb of winds of chaos would not bounce but actually ‘explode’ on impact, making it a small aoe (~180, which is a bit larger than Mind Stab), it would be much better in terms of AoE. The buff duration should be lowered aswell, with fury being between 1/2s and 1s depending on how much bonus boon duration you have.
Also the clones could have a smaller aoe radius on their autoattack.
Then reduce the warlocks damage, and give it AoE aswell, and we have a nice aoe weapon.

I tag mobs with chaos storm, wardens, shatters and staff with the extra bounce, but get very little credit (and sometimes none at all) for kills during heavily populated, multi-target DEs.

My only request would be that Mind Wrack consistently do its damage when the original target has already died if it was activated prior to that target’s death.

Yes mesmers CAN have nice aoe. Too bad we need a target to do it. And in DE zergs things just die too quickly because every other class has direct dmg aoe and they just spam it on mob spawn points.

Cannot effectively farm Orr events with a mesmers. Anyone who says they can is lying.

I think the mesmer class is great, but the way DEs scale or something needs to be looked at. Mobs simply die too quickly.

Yeah, i think that in random situations mesmer aoe is ok. I would like though that one of the ppl that say that mesmer aoe is fine in DE zergs (aka orr events) explain me how to do it, maybe i’m just doing it wrong..warden is completly useless in a zerg of mobs that dies in 2 – 3 secs from their spawn..

Then control the situation. Use Focus 4 to pull them to you and then give them hell up close. The Mesmer being a control class needs YOU to be in control and to be aware where to place a skill and where not. And more important: when!

And on a side note: why are people constantly comparing the AoE with an Elementalist? Look at the kitten Necromancer! Staff + wider marks + 3 wells + ground targeting = 7 massively huge AoE skills. I can literally cover my whole screen in AoE

Illusionary persona and signet of illusions is way to go, but you’ll need to know exact spawn locations of mobs. Outcome will still be subpar and require lot of work.
On the bright side, shatter build is really nice in dungeons.

And on a side note: why are people constantly comparing the AoE with an Elementalist? Look at the kitten Necromancer! Staff + wider marks + 3 wells + ground targeting = 7 massively huge AoE skills. I can literally cover my whole screen in AoE

And they damage mobs even before they appear! I feel like jelly when I see trap ranger or necromancer.

And consider all the other things Mesmers can do. Take for example the Breeders in Ascalonian Catacombs. As soon as they start puking out their Hatchlings, drop Feedback on them and the Hatchlings will belong to you and start attacking the Breeder, because they count as projectiles. Most fun I had in a long time

Lol considering all the other things mesmers can do doesn’t balance out Orr DE’s, as this is a big thing for late game. I don’t think half the people who posted here actually read the first post. The only thing I have found in DE’s is that sometimes when I can see mobs before they are already dead, iPersona shattering has had some good results. When there are less people gs/staff swaps actually works out really well. But 20+ people there, shatters really your only shot.

Using GS I open up with berserker then mirror blade and shatter. This usually does enough damage in the roughly 3 secs it takes to tag enough mobs for loot. It would be nice if mind stab had a bigger target area though.

or maybe some of u guys choose a verry populated server so thier would be more people doing events in my server Fort Aspenwood. thiers not many people on at times so its fairly empty in terms of that the most ill see is about 15. 20+ on weekends lol.

On the topic of Necromancers, why not look at the Greatsword as our option for changing to a AoE class weapon?

I may not be correct on this and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t they the only class that has a piercing attack? Why not lower the damage slightly on the auto attack of the Greatsword and allow it to pierce to it’s full range?

You could then strafe the attacks through an Orr DE. It would require greater control of your characters positioning, but with the three attacks it gives, in my opinion, a more versatile form of AoE than placing a red circle on the ground. Yes you still need a target, but as an auto attack shouldn’t that be slightly easier to control as you don’t need it to be a specific centered target?

Phantasmal Zerk, mirror blade and mind wrack say hello.

Numot.3965:

Phantasmal Zerk, mirror blade and mind wrack say hello.

Requires target, Requires target, Requires target.

Seriously, I don’t farm Plinx event, but sometimes it pops up while I’m finding gatherables.

Anyway, whenever I do Plinx, half of the time, the target is already dead before iBerserker, Mirror Blade, (clone) Mind Wrack hit.
If I get lucky, iBerserker hits a lot of mobs and I get loot, but, as stated earlier, that’s like half the time.

Hmmm im a old school GW player and have been playing GW2 for about 2 days now and i have to say the staff AoE is quite powerful in pvp matching it with allies and then getting up close and personal with conditions and illusions. i wouldnt consider myself that squishy. although i prefer fighting at a distance popping my illusions and using buffs makes me pretty hard to kill no matter what class as long as its not 3 on 1 then i die quick like

i usually farm at pent and shelter, all i can say mesmer have a very quick AoE damage burst. they can kill or make a group of risen almost dead in maybe 1 to 2 seconds

yes they need a target, so i think it is much better to farm on a location where it is easy to acquire one.

You need to pick your spot, Plinx is bad for mesmers if there are 50 people doing it, but Shelter-penitant is pretty good for mesmers.

We ahve excellent AOE, it just works a bit differently form other professions.

Clearly Mesmers are the best profesison in the game.!!!!