Guild Wars 2

I’ve been a Mesmer player practically from beta period and it has never been the most common sight around , except for spvp; but actually I feel like Mesmer players (in particular in wvw and spvp, I don’t know in pve) are very very rare and even in spvp it’s not easy to meet one.
Is it only my feel or you did you notice too?
If so why?

There were once statistics about wich profession is most and least played. This has been about 1 or 1 1/2 years ago, but yea, I still beleve the mesmer is the least played profession.

Why? Cuz it’s totally underwhelming to deal 30% of the damage other classes do in cost of slightly better utility and beeing unable to duel anyone with the same skill level in pvp. The only reason to take mes into pvp is the portal, to fight 2v1 at point a and then still 4v4 at point b.

Right now the mes is probably the worst class in pvp and the 2nd worst in pve. And wvw? Aslong as you buy a rune that decreases your overall stats compared to other runes just to be able to move faster than a snail – everything’s fine … hehe.

It took me 3’000 hours to realize or rather accept this statement. You can always sugarcoat the mesmer, but in the end you should be honest with yourself and accept how it is.

Woah, woah.. Hold your horses dude.
30% of other classes damage is just such a silly statement. Did you skip math class or are you just hyperboleizing something that’s false at it’s root?
Mesmer has burst, it doesn’t have sustained damage, but all in all it comes around the same. You can do 1k DPS for 10 seconds or you can do 10k DPS every 10 seconds(which is what mesmer does). I put in low figures, mesmer can pull out more if well setup). If you judge a mesmer by it’s sustained damage, then yes. It has bad damage that way. If you judge mesmer by its burst damage, it has insane damage.
If you judge a dd ele by its sustained damage, it has good damage. If you judge a dd ele by its burst damage, it has bad damage.
Unable to duel anyone at the same skill level? Lolno. Mesmer wins against most classes in 1v1 if you’re not playing it like it’s a warrior and stand on point / don’t kite, abuse LOS & dodge the skills that you need to dodge which most players do which is why it seems like a kitten class. The thing about 1v1s with mesmer is that you should not do them because you can get +1 and die easily if you don’t have the cooldowns to get out of there.
Only reason to take mesmer into PvP is portal?
Yeah, portal is good, but mesmer has high burst(can 100-0 a guardian), high mobility(say what you want but phase retreat, blink and portal mean mesmer has insane mobility) a high amount of boon rip, excellent stomp/resurrection negation and to that mesmer has Moa which is an instant +1 for your team in a fight.
Slow unless you run traveler, sort of, yes. But traveler doesn’t ruin your damage a lot. It will make a difference of maybe 1 or 2k in a burst and either way a lot of damage when you burst goes wasted because you’ll put in more damage than the enemy has HP.
Worst class in PvP? Hell no. All classes are decent in PvP at the moment, each has it’s pro’s and cons. Just because mesmer is harder to play doesn’t mean it’s worse. Mesmer comps are actually a lot better than cele comps but they are much harder to pull off.
Why is mesmer not played a lot? Minimum room for error, extremely unforgiving and takes a lot of time to get good at and then even if you get good, if your team is not supporting you like it should, peeling for you, healing you, cleansing you ect you will be food again, another reason why people don’t like mesmer much.
Necro is in a similar spot, very little room for error, more than mesmer but lower mobility, depends on its team a lot too, but then you get a skilled necro like Noscoc on your team, you support him well and he will in a way carry you all. A good necro is devastating for the enemy team. Same goes with mesmer.
Most people play mesmer like it’s a warrior and are because of that food to everyone and then rage and delete the class.
It’s a kitten class if you don’t take the time to learn it and if you play it like it shouldn’t be played.

Well I expected someone like you to show up, but I didn’t expect such a wall’o’text

Jurica.1742:

Woah, woah.. Hold your horses dude.
30% of other classes damage is just such a silly statement. Did you skip math class or are you just hyperboleizing something that’s false at it’s root?

My bad I forgot to mention that this part of my statement goes for pve. I mentioned pvp in the next sentence and somehow forgot to point out the 30% DPS of other classes is what i meant here.

Jurica.1742:

Mesmer has burst, it doesn’t have sustained damage, but all in all it comes around the same. You can do 1k DPS for 10 seconds or you can do 10k DPS every 10 seconds(which is what mesmer does). I put in low figures, mesmer can pull out more if well setup). If you judge a mesmer by it’s sustained damage, then yes. It has bad damage that way. If you judge mesmer by its burst damage, it has insane damage. If you judge a dd ele by its sustained damage, it has good damage. If you judge a dd ele by its burst damage, it has bad damage.

This is what I meant by “You can always sugarcoat the mesmer”. Mesmer has burst? Every class has burst if you play it as a zerk and the mesmer’s is far from insane. Yet the other classes aren’t forced to play zerk because they deal damage without that. Mes doesnt. A none zerk power mesmer doesn’t work because of lack of damage.

Jurica.1742:

Unable to duel anyone at the same skill level? Lolno. Mesmer wins against most classes in 1v1 if you’re not playing it like it’s a warrior and stand on point / don’t kite, abuse LOS & dodge the skills that you need to dodge which most players do which is why it seems like a kitten class. The thing about 1v1s with mesmer is that you should not do them because you can get +1 and die easily if you don’t have the cooldowns to get out of there.

Yea, pretty much unable to duel anyone that has the same skill level as you. If you call dodge as an argument it works vice versa. How will you deal with a thief? You will always die, you can only try to run away as long as you can until someone saves your butt. Rangers? They kill you 1500 range away and channeled abilities deal with stealth, interrupting your heal skill and you’re done. DD Ele? Not enough burst to oneshot them, not nearly engouh dps to duel them. Necro? How do you deal with them without condi cleanse? Same goes for engi, they even simply block your burst whenever they want to. Guard? Tons of blocks and invuln, again -> same skill level, burst denied. Warrior seems the only one you can kite long enough to kill. But until then, he has been sitting on the capture point for so long, the points he earned are so worth it. Be honest to yourself, do you really think you can beat the majority of those classes if they won’t mess up? Really?

Jurica.1742:

Only reason to take mesmer into PvP is portal?
Yeah, portal is good, but mesmer has high burst(can 100-0 a guardian)

Maybe if he’s brain afk… The mesmer burst dpends on the enemies armor type, build and stupidity. You can 100-0 other zerks yes, but who else plays zerk in competitive pvp? Thief, another mes and maybe 1500 range away rangers. Yet you won’t burst a thief, since a proper thief will evade ALL your highly predictable skills. A ranger won’t even let you near him or / and has plenty of evade or invuln skills to block the initial burst. Same goes for guard and ele. Necro and war are just unburstable due to their hp pool and all those guys will destroy you after your failed burst. If enemies know the mesmer, if they are at same skill level as you are, they will deny your shatter burst and then either kill you or ignore you when you run away.

Jurica.1742:

, high mobility(say what you want but phase retreat, blink and portal mean mesmer has insane mobility) a high amount of boon rip, excellent stomp/resurrection negation and to that mesmer has Moa which is an instant +1 for your team in a fight.

Mobility =/= save skills. If you blink to get from point A to B, you’re dead to me. Portal, as I said, yes. And PR is sure good for movement too. Boon rip is the best thing we have, but I wouldn’t argue with stomp. Most classes can stomp better than us (more often), resurrection negation yes. Moa … cheesy skill and very unreliable. I admit it’s hard to keep an eye on a mes in a TF, but 3 min cd is also fairly enough. It’s rather personal preference to take this skill I guess and I honestly haven’t used it enough to bring a proper statement.

Jurica.1742:

Slow unless you run traveler, sort of, yes. But traveler doesn’t ruin your damage a lot. It will make a difference of maybe 1 or 2k in a burst and either way a lot of damage when you burst goes wasted because you’ll put in more damage than the enemy has HP.

Good one.

Jurica.1742:

Worst class in PvP? Hell no. All classes are decent in PvP at the moment, each has it’s pro’s and cons. Just because mesmer is harder to play doesn’t mean it’s worse. Mesmer comps are actually a lot better than cele comps but they are much harder to pull off.

“All classes are decent” sounds more like a green peace slogan :P. So if you won’t mess up a single thing and if you hit all your shatter skills, wich is the difficulty about mesmer, then you are on pair with other classes in pvp? Even if I think that’s not even correct, what does this basicly mean? He’s weaker, easier to deny and overall the worst class in pvp. Comon, don’t lie to yourself like a masochist enjoing to play something like that.

Jurica.1742:

Why is mesmer not played a lot? Minimum room for error, extremely unforgiving and takes a lot of time to get good at and then even if you get good, if your team is not supporting you like it should, peeling for you, healing you, cleansing you ect you will be food again, another reason why people don’t like mesmer much. Necro is in a similar spot, very little room for error, more than mesmer but lower mobility, depends on its team a lot too, but then you get a skilled necro like Noscoc on your team, you support him well and he will in a way carry you all. A good necro is devastating for the enemy team. Same goes with mesmer.
Most people play mesmer like it’s a warrior and are because of that food to everyone and then rage and delete the class. It’s a kitten class if you don’t take the time to learn it and if you play it like it shouldn’t be played.

The mesmer is overall just weaker, that’s what you say here. I pretty much support your statement that a good necro carries you around. But a good mesmer? He’s one of those who would like to have such a necro buddy. I don’t say mesmer are useless in PvP. But I say if you would have put so much effort you have put into the mesmer to learn and master in any other class, you would be stronger than you are right now. And this is what bugs me. It’s not like I failed in my mesmer carieer, it’s rather that once you get decent enemies you’ll notice that they know how to deny you and once you start playing like them, you smile at most mesmers.

We need to stop using the term spvp, for a moment I thought someone necro-ed a thread lol.

I agree mesmer has insane burst from shatter combo Jurica, but as all combos existed there’s a danger of predictability in shatter combos. Often we need LoS/stealth/teammate CC etc to avoid shatter being dodged, and these situations may not be ideal when equally skilled players duel, which is what I think is Xyonon referring to. People with experience and awareness will know when to dodge, and they don’t have to dodge like us to generate clones for offensive setup. To me winning as a shatter mesmer comes down whether mesmer can deliver an innovative combo, which is outside of equal skill scope that Xyonon mentioned.

Of course other mesmer builds have a different story. Well traited phantasm, lockdown or condition builds can have great sustain but there are counters to those builds.

Speaking of predictability, today in ranked I manage to trick a bad ele who dodged twice when I used decoy, probably thinking I’ll burst him in stealth very soon. Needless to say I did burst him right after he burned his dodges lol.

I personally think Mesmer is pretty underpowered. I used to not agree with this, but Supcutie said to me one day: “The thing is, Mesmer will always be viable due to portal. However, Thief and Engineer completely overshadow Mesmer in everything it can do except portal, and portal isn’t enough to bring Mesmer back into the meta. Maybe the Expansion will give us a second chance, but right now it just isn’t likely you’ll see many Mesmers.”

It just seems Anet has gone too far with nerfing mesmers and has never really given us much needed buffs. I do hope that Chronomancer will be our second chance, but until then you will probably see me on my thief for competitive pvp, as Thief is basically Mesmer 2.0 right now.

It’s hard to balance the mesmer in PvP I have to agree. The all of the sudden burst makes him op when buffed too hard. But isn’t a thieves backstab the same? Yet in PvE he’s simply weak and our class mechanic (shatter) isn’t even used there. And this feels kinda sad. A single iSwordsmen attack outdamages a 3 illusion shatter. I mean wtf… And our poor aa’s… don’t even want to start with it.

The problem is, the mesmer is obviously not strong engouh, but ppl accepted it since release because back then, utility was great because of the lack of skill and knowledge in pve and pvp. But today, an overall buff would certainly result into qq and flame from other classes.

I’ve been mainly playing engineer and mesmer in pvp and all the classes, even necr in pve. Having my main expirience from pve, the mesmer there is just underwhelming. I’ve been playing him for 3000 hours now and my other main became the engineer wich now has his own 1500 hours. Dealing triple damage in cost of having less reflection and no stability, but having other utlities the mesmer hasn’t, sounds so wrong to me. They used to tell us mesmer utlity is the best, yet it isn’t as overwhelming as it should be.

I’d like to see harder hitting utlities, a fearsome chaos storm for example. The cheap solution would be to double the damage of most skills, but yea, that’s not what a mesmer would make awesome. My hope lies in HoT tbh. Change of skills, combo finishers (chaos armor) and defiance. But right now – children who start a new ckitten’t go for mes, just don’t.

Yea, I’m probably gonna have to agree.

I’ve played nothing but mes since release of both GW1 and 2. Now in 1, mes was great for pvp and pve. Yet it seems so underwhelming in GW2.

I’ve been playing a lot of PvP lately as well, and for the most part (given a similar skilled foe), my bursts can’t deal significant damage to tip the tide. They might get through if the person is inexperienced or glass, otherwise I have to resort to playing a dancing game while I either wait for support or go run to support.

Here’s the best part, I don’t play full berserker – at least not 100%. I try to throw in some toughness to allow me time to hold ground a little, yet I still kinda feel worthless compared to other professions.

Don’t get me started on this chronomancer nonsense. A time control related setup will work so well with… nothing… Most of the time, it’s me trying to create space and back up and as much as slow conditions sound like good support for that method, unless those conditions last for like 10s, then it’s be trash. Given other professions getting the same or resistance, we’ll continue to be nullified in the grand scheme.

Mesmer will always be viable in pvp due to portal, and our ability to boon rip on multiple targets.

Right now it is the least played class because imo it is the hardest class to master. There are so many spots in maps where mes can PR to get an advantage. And also the perfect shatter combo results in playing a concerto that would make Mozart blush.

And people prolly just think "Why go through all that when I can play engi and “slick shoes+nades win”

Seeing another mesmer in WvW is pretty rare these days, we’re like an endangered species. You might spot some hiding in a keep or playing Crazy Taxi with golems, but it’s a miracle to find one outside a zerg these days . Those who do roam often belittle themselves by running with a thief buddy. The thief kills everything while the mesmer picks up the scraps, it’s like the thief has their own pet.

Mesmers are weak in PvE.

I switched to necro than ele and now ranger. Open world is just so much more joy with everything else but a mesmer. It is beyond me how I could spend a four digit number of hours in my mesmer before I realized that it just pretty much sucks at PvE.

Maybe one day I will reactivate my main, but for now, I just enjoy doing stuff without thinking about placement of clones, or fighting cooldowns to get things done with the same efficiency than other classes do with auto-attack.

Yeah, sad story.

Indrea.7803:

I’ve been a Mesmer player practically from beta period and it has never been the most common sight around , except for spvp; but actually I feel like Mesmer players (in particular in wvw and spvp, I don’t know in pve) are very very rare and even in spvp it’s not easy to meet one.
Is it only my feel or you did you notice too?
If so why?

The mesmer is very similar to the ranger in that its a pet class. This means that you are stuck relying on AI, pathing and clone interaction to get your damage out which is inefficient and often frustrating. Also, our damage output is split between us and our clones. Again, much like the ranger, mesmers don’t have an option to function without our clones (pets for the ranger) and move all our damage output to the player.

In my opinion one of the biggest limiting factors in mesmer builds is need to generate illusions. No other class in the game is so kitten by having to invest 4 trait points and use dodges to have their class mechanic (shatters) function. This is absolutely ridiculous. The illusion generation from most other skills and utilities simply isn’t fast enough and the cooldowns can’t be reduced because it would then cause an issue with the ‘other’ non-illusion component/effect of the skill/utility.

TLDR:
-mesmers are a ‘pet’ class and relying on AI limits the class
-the design of the mesmer class mechanic wasn’t well thoughtout or implemented

Frost

Hi, I play GW2 for a month and after every time i lvlup some profession i go to forums and see that this prof is so underpowered it’s not worth playing it for now. Warriors cry that they are useless in pve, rangers are bad cause of bad AI of their pets and now i see Mesmer is bad cause of lack of dmg and not rewarding skillcap. Are we really that bad or maybe it’s qq train?
Back to the topic as i lvled i saw alot of mesmers in open world, dungeons (sometimes there was 3 of us in group) and wvwvw so i dont think so we are so rare. Im glad its not another WoW, we dont have dps meter addons, cant inspect gear and traits and we can just ignore those elitists who play for numbers. Even if we loose every battle in pvp im going to stick to mesmer anyway. Its very rewarding for me when i see enemy who’s fighting with my illusion while i recover or just go by. I play mesmer for mechanics and fun it gives not for numbers and i hope others feel the same;)

Mesmers, mesmers, dry your tears.
Mesmer is at least somewhat viable in high tier PvP, necro on the other hand… sobs

Mesmers, we used to be proud & ruled the PVE,PVP & WvW… does days are long gone.

Xyonon.3987:

Why? Cuz it’s totally underwhelming to deal 30% of the damage other classes do in cost of slightly better utility and beeing unable to duel anyone with the same skill level in pvp. The only reason to take mes into pvp is the portal, to fight 2v1 at point a and then still 4v4 at point b.

Right now the mes is probably the worst class in pvp and the 2nd worst in pve. And wvw? Aslong as you buy a rune that decreases your overall stats compared to other runes just to be able to move faster than a snail – everything’s fine … hehe.

It took me 3’000 hours to realize or rather accept this statement. You can always sugarcoat the mesmer, but in the end you should be honest with yourself and accept how it is.

Thank God someone understands.

Holl.3109:

Mesmers, mesmers, dry your tears.
Mesmer is at least somewhat viable in high tier PvP, necro on the other hand… sobs

Noscoc and team radioactive disagree

There is reason why mesmer is least played, and why warrior is most played profession.

I play mesmer and see it every day in WvW: “you critically hit … for 10 using [spatial surge]”. I see every day that my damage just ticks the enemy. Enemy runs away from my clones and phantasm. I cannot even run away because mesmer is darn slow. In zerg-zerg fights there is no change to make triangular shatter positions, and other silly things, for bursts. Clones and phantasms die in zerg-zerg fights pretty fast.

I tried my ranger in WvW, and enemies had to run away because longbow 1 made 3,500 crit hits at every shot. Now that is what is needed in WvW.

Mesmer does not need a shield – mesmer needs a direct damage weapon suitable for WvW.

As I said, I want the mesmer to be a class that deals less dmage than the other classes when I focus on interruption and distortion. If I focus on damage I want the mesmer to have on pair damage. Right now the mesmer has the downsides of both ot those options.

mesmers with high bursts = shatter mesmer = requires multiple skills and probably the hardest playstyle out there = weak condi cleanse

lets be realistic mesmers are only decently playable because of phantasm and if they nerfed phantasms well then mesmers r useless

mesmers right now are jack of all trades masters of none

i mean they nerfed confusion a unique condi to our class (gave it to everyone else because anet loves equality!)…nerfed PU (a kittentier version of SA)….ileap was never fixed and nerfed (you cant trade places if your clone dies)…nerfed debilitating dissipation…nerfed our blurred frenzy (it isnt invulnerable anymore its blurrrrrrr)…nerfed decoy and desperate decoy (trait) which btw i always though it was special that mesmers could use decoy even when revealed thinking it was special to our profession because u know mesmer deception illusion trickster…and on top of that we have to waste 4 trait points on dueling because 98% of mesmer builds now must use the one thing we all need to generate enough clones to do anything is deceptive evasion…so uhm HMMMMMMMMMMM wonder why mesmer is still the least played profession…….
oh and our traits are scattered all over the place not making any lick of sense…

As I said in another thread its amazing how everytime actual problems with the Mesmer class is brought up somebody pops in to tell us about their 50k burst damage and how they can take on entire zergs solo so we all need to l2p.

I do with we’re closer to the bottom of the barrel, but I personally feel that the issue isn’t to do with the state of Mesmer itself. Bunkers, of which we rely on for our sustain aren’t viable to support us as there outshined completely by cele bruisers. everyone runs cele meaning every player can give condi pressure, a huge weakness for mesmers. Our biggest counter, S/D thief, has ruled PvP for almost a year now, and of course, as mentioned, Mesmer simply takes a huge amount of skill and co-ordination to work in comparison to other classes.
I believe we will be viable again, just nerf cele and S/D thiefes plz

+ At release blurred frenzy enabled mesmers to stay in close combat while being part of our burst. Now it’s just part of our burst. I miss playing melee.
+ At this point stability hardcounters control builds (kinda). Those could become more important with the stability rework, but thieves and engies will profit from it just as much as mesmer.
+ Boon control is not very impressiv. While removal can open a window where the enemy is weakend, boons are often reapplied much faster than you can strip them and removal doesn’t cut into the baseline of a class. Aside from that, mesmer itself doesn’t offer many boons, most of them are bound to traits.

There’s so much misinformation, hearsay and just lack of knowledge in this thread (apart from a few actually well-informed mesmers), it’s ridiculous.

serenke.4806:

There’s so much misinformation, hearsay and just lack of knowledge in this thread (apart from a few actually well-informed mesmers), it’s ridiculous.

It’s easier to quote someone to get accepted by everyone rather than have the own opinion It’s funny though to see how everyonw thinks abuot their own profession.

It’s also very hard to see the difference between pve and pvp here.

LunarNacht.8913:

+ At release blurred frenzy enabled mesmers to stay in close combat while being part of our burst. Now it’s just part of our burst. I miss playing melee.
+ At this point stability hardcounters control builds (kinda). Those could become more important with the stability rework, but thieves and engies will profit from it just as much as mesmer.
+ Boon control is not very impressiv. While removal can open a window where the enemy is weakend, boons are often reapplied much faster than you can strip them and removal doesn’t cut into the baseline of a class. Aside from that, mesmer itself doesn’t offer many boons, most of them are bound to traits.

They would have to rebalance some classes if they made boon uptime take a hit from boon strip.

Classes like ele live and die by boon uptime, as do guardians. It’s not that they become weaker. Literally all their damage potential and survivability is sustained by the boons, without them they bring nothing and their group wouldn’t want to bring one over a warrior or thief or engineer.

Here’s a list of all the nerfs (or fixes we got)

1. Fixed a bug with Signet of Illusions. It now give phantasms 50% more health instead of 300% more.
2. The Prestige – Fixed a bug so that Burning duration no longer amplifies when additional enemies are present.
3. The Prestige: This skill now requires full recharge if it’s interrupted at any time.
4. Phantasmal Warden: This skill no longer has a 0-second recharge when affected by traits. It now has approximately a 5-second recharge.
5. Signet of Domination can no longer be cast on targets behind the mesmer.
6. Phantasmal Warlock: Increased recharge to 20 seconds.
7. Chaos Storm: Increased recharge to 35 seconds.
8. Phantasmal Duelist: Increased recharge to 20 seconds.
9. Phantasmal Swordsman: Increased recharge to 18 seconds.
10. Phantasmal Warlock: This illusion’s recharge between attacks is now slightly longer.
11. Mirror of Anguish: This trait no longer functions on necromancers when they have Reaper’s Protection active.
12. Moa Morph: Targets transformed by this skill have 5 new and less-frustrating skills, and this skill can also be used underwater to turn enemies into tuna.
13. Portal: This skill’s recharge has been increased to 90 seconds.
14. Illusionary Duelist, Phantasmal Swordsman, Phantasmal Mage, Phantasmal Defender, Phantasmal Disenchanter, Phantasmal Rogue, Phantasmal Warlock, Illusionary Mariner, Illusionary Whaler, Phantasmal Berserker, and Phantasmal Warden: These skills must now be cast in line-of-sight of the target. These skills now behave as normal attacks that the mesmer must connect in order to summon the phantasm, and they will fail if the mesmer is blind or the ability is cast on an invulnerable target.
15. Prismatic Understanding: No longer affects the Prestige.
16. Critical Infusion: Vigor duration increased to five seconds. This can only trigger once every five seconds.
17. The Prestige: This ability now plays the blast finisher only at the end of the ability.
18. Blinding Befuddlement trait: Can now trigger only once every 5 seconds on any target that is blinded by the mesmer.
19. Distortion skill: No longer allows capture of control points in all formats or communing in PvP.
20. Mind Spike: Reduced the base damage by 20% ((This skill does an additional 50% damage to targets with no boons.))
21. Into the Void: This skill now has a 1-second recharge before it can be used after placing Temporal Curtain.
22. Siren’s Call: Bleed duration reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second.
23. Ineptitude: Fixed an issue that allowed this skill to be cast at infinite range.
24. Blurred Frenzy: This is now evasion instead of immunity. This means it will be affected by retaliation. Increased the cooldown to 12 seconds.
25. Signet of Illusions: Decreased the bonus hit points to clones and phantasms to 50%.
26. Split the hit point values of clones and phantasms by game type:
    - Decreased the clone base hit points by 25% in PvP and WvW.
27. Illusionists Celerity: Moved to the Grandmaster Minor trait.
28. Vengeful Images: This trait now only applies retaliation for 5 seconds when they are created and does not persist after that.
29. Chaos Armor: This skill no longer automatically applies protection when activated. This buff now provides an equal chance to trigger regeneration, swiftness, or protection on hit with a 1-second internal recharge. The random condition applied now has a 1-second internal recharge per target. These changes apply to the Chaos Armor provided through combo finishers as well.
30. Phantasmal Duelist: The Illusionary Duelist’s attacks now have a 20% chance for a projectile combo finisher instead of 100% when traited with Duelist’s Discipline.
31. Phantasmal Warden: This phantasm will now properly try to enter the attack range of its target before using its skill. (all of us who played after that patch know why I listed it with the nerfs)
32. Chaos Storm: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to stun enemies whether or not it dazed them when traited with Confounding Suggestions.
33. Power Block: Fixed an issue that caused this trait to set skills with zero recharge on 10 second recharge; namely auto-attacks from creatures and players, as well as thief initiative abilities. This trait will no longer trigger through stun immunity effects such as Stability and Defiance. (Hey, Power Block what a nice…. ohhh!)
34. Far-Reaching Manipulations: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to reduce the cooldown of Arcane Thievery by 5 seconds.
35. Illusionary Leap: Fixed a bug that allowed players to swap places with their clone after it was destroyed.
36. Illusionary Leap: Removed the ability to use this skill in midair.
37. Phantasmal Warden: Fixed an issue which caused this skill to destroy unblockable projectiles when not traited with Warden’s Feedback

@ Me Games Ma,
Nice list, but i hate to be THAT guy…
1 and 25 are the same, or did they actually decrease the signet twice?
20 misses a skillname, or i am too dumb to recognice ^^

But really nice to see how many fixes we got…

I play mostly WvW and some sPvP… and I see Mesmers all the time. I mean ALL THE TIME. It seems my experience is very different from others here, but having played all the professions to a certain extent (except engi) I not only enjoy Mesmer the most, but also think Mesmer has one of the greatest potential to completely wreck other players. I play not at the highest of skill levels, but I enjoy my game and my 2 Mesmers very much. And being a supposedly rarely played profession, makes me enjoy my relative uniqueness even more

Zenith.7301:

LunarNacht.8913:

+ At release blurred frenzy enabled mesmers to stay in close combat while being part of our burst. Now it’s just part of our burst. I miss playing melee.
+ At this point stability hardcounters control builds (kinda). Those could become more important with the stability rework, but thieves and engies will profit from it just as much as mesmer.
+ Boon control is not very impressiv. While removal can open a window where the enemy is weakend, boons are often reapplied much faster than you can strip them and removal doesn’t cut into the baseline of a class. Aside from that, mesmer itself doesn’t offer many boons, most of them are bound to traits.

They would have to rebalance some classes if they made boon uptime take a hit from boon strip.

Classes like ele live and die by boon uptime, as do guardians. It’s not that they become weaker. Literally all their damage potential and survivability is sustained by the boons, without them they bring nothing and their group wouldn’t want to bring one over a warrior or thief or engineer.

I agree, especially on ele. To not break classes outright with stronger boon strip I would like to see new forms that are more specialized at the same time. Ranger and thief have skills and traits that remove poison or cripple. A skill that removes protection and stops protection application for a few seconds for example would be interesting.

Boon strip isn’t useless, but it doesn’t feel like it makes that much of a difference when a target has everything back a second later…

Macha.9160:

@ Me Games Ma,
Nice list, but i hate to be THAT guy…
1 and 25 are the same, or did they actually decrease the signet twice?
20 misses a skillname, or i am too dumb to recognice ^^

But really nice to see how many fixes we got…

1 and 25: It was buffed somewhere between those two
20: 3rd-AA of our sword

It also seems like I missed some (or they were not listed in the patchnotes)

Yeah, the problem is mesmer can’t sustain for kitten. Yeah, we do have PU and distortion, what use are they when holding a point against a warrior who can use his stances without losing point capture contribution. We do not have any decent healing abilities such as elementalist signet, or warrior SUPER OP heal signet, or thief dodge roll and cure condi every 15s. If we wanna remove conditions while healing, we have to waste our precious points, not to mention Ether Signet is complete garbage healing, even with 3 clones up and cleric amulet, a zerker warrior still heals more with his stupid signet. Ether feast is the only viable heal we got.
That’s just the PvP side of it. The only viable PvP Build is shatter, since it does nice ranged aoe dps. For wvw, mesmer is very unpopular. There are several reasons.
Zergs: Confusion and other nerfs ruined our glamour builds. we can’t do kitten nor get bagz.
Roaming: A billion flaws.
- Shatter Mesmer: you’ll get your kitten kicked by anyone who plays condi and can dodge roll.
- Power PU phant mesmer: you’ll kick any noobs kitten , and you can use traveller runes too. But even with full zerk, you won’t scratch DPS Greatsword warriors because they’re so overpoweredly hybrid in 1v1 regardless of stats. Thieve’s are a 50/50, and if you’re somewhere enclosed a D/D ele will own you hard.
- Condition Scepter Confusion stacker: Yep, it has nice confusion and all and with Perplexity runes? Hey, you’ll rek kitten up so hard with all that confusion. Perfect. Oh wait, I’m as slow as a snail. No jumps besides kittenty 900 range blink on 30s cd, and no swiftness. Warrior pulls out his GS, he’s gone. Ele FGS’s, gone. the thief stealths, gone.

Don’t listen to those kittenty websites, there are no builds that’ll 1v1 anything. You’ll either lose to warriors or eles, or the enemy will have no problem escaping. good Mesmer roaming builds will exist when they give us a trait we can run faster with out of combat, or some actual sustain other than stealth. The only sustain I know of is Staff/GS 2/4/4/0/4.

I’ll be enjoying myself on D/D Elementallist in PvP, PvE and roaming until the 2018 changes when arena net realises how bad mesmers are.

PS. Don’t judge my stupid typos in there, my auto correct is literally kittened.

mepher.3721:

i see enemy who’s fighting with my illusion

Whut? :O

mepher.3721:

Hi, I play GW2 for a month

Think this is a reason. Match-up selection.
If you will progress at pvp, you will notice that almost no one is tricked by your illusions.

imo necro is the least played in pvp, engineer in dungeons, and yeah mesmer in wvw.

In dungeons i often find myself being the second mesmer, and others say “SHOO, we dont need antoher one” :S

Me Games Ma.8426:

Here’s a list of all the nerfs (or fixes we got)
[…]

You missed the 15s internal cooldown that got added to Illusionary Membrane. That was a massive kick in the clones for tanky wvw mesmers at the time…

cafard.8953:

Me Games Ma.8426:

Here’s a list of all the nerfs (or fixes we got)
[…]

You missed the 15s internal cooldown that got added to Illusionary Membrane. That was a massive kick in the clones for tanky wvw mesmers at the time…

Yes I know I missed some… i just went through the patchnotes but did not really find all of them. My concentration right now isn’t the best since I’m ill atm ._.
I also missed:
Traited Blink does not work underwater anymore for example.

I have to disagree. I play a LOT of solo Q ranked, mesmer while not the most popular it’s not the least played at all. I would say.
1. Necro,Rangers.Engis
2. Warrior,Guard
3. Msemer Thief, ele

Me Games Ma.8426:

cafard.8953:

Me Games Ma.8426:

Here’s a list of all the nerfs (or fixes we got)
[…]

You missed the 15s internal cooldown that got added to Illusionary Membrane. That was a massive kick in the clones for tanky wvw mesmers at the time…

Yes I know I missed some… i just went through the patchnotes but did not really find all of them. My concentration right now isn’t the best since I’m ill atm ._.
I also missed:
Traited Blink does not work underwater anymore for example.

To be fair to your collection, some googling about the membrane nerf seems to indicate that it was ninjaed in without any mention in the patch notes.

Most of time, on Reddit, when they do survey, mesmer is in the middle. Engineers and Necros are at the end.

WvW, I see them, but we see more other classes (GWEN). PvP and PvE I see them quite often.

Xyonon.3987:

…and beeing unable to duel anyone with the same skill level in pvp. The only reason to take mes into pvp is the portal, to fight 2v1 at point a and then still 4v4 at point b.

Right now the mes is probably the worst class in pvp…

LOL? 3000 hours and you still don’t know how to play? I won a 1v4 in Obsidian Sanctum just YESTERDAY as a mesmer.

You sir have been banned from this sub forum by democratic vote.

sMihaly.1492:

imo necro is the least played in pvp, engineer in dungeons, and yeah mesmer in wvw.

In dungeons i often find myself being the second mesmer, and others say “SHOO, we dont need antoher one” :S

I see wayyy more necros than mesmers in PvP.

Power.2957:

Xyonon.3987:

…and beeing unable to duel anyone with the same skill level in pvp. The only reason to take mes into pvp is the portal, to fight 2v1 at point a and then still 4v4 at point b.

Right now the mes is probably the worst class in pvp…

LOL? 3000 hours and you still don’t know how to play? I won a 1v4 in Obsidian Sanctum just YESTERDAY as a mesmer.

You sir have been banned from this sub forum by democratic vote.

I too can kill 4 uplvls.

There are some facts, some fiction, and some total exaggeration in this thread…

All I know is, I rather enjoy being the least played profession (which according to the last metrics Mesmer actually is). I also know that everytime I play Mesmer, be it on CI or Boonshare, I have hell of a lot of fun with my homies.

Simpleton stuff, I know, but its all I really need to enjoy my favorite class.

Me Games Ma.8426:

Here’s a list of all the nerfs (or fixes we got)

You forgot the most insulting of all, when Shattered Strength was buffed up to give 3 might per clone shattered and was nerfed back down to 1 within 24 hours with devs going to the pvp forums to beg for forgiveness for buffing this.

Levetty.1279:

Me Games Ma.8426:

Here’s a list of all the nerfs (or fixes we got)

You forgot the most insulting of all, when Shattered Strength was buffed up to give 3 might per clone shattered and was nerfed back down to 1 within 24 hours with devs going to the pvp forums to beg for forgiveness for buffing this.

That was the biggest kick in the pants ever.

jportell.2197:

Levetty.1279:

Me Games Ma.8426:

Here’s a list of all the nerfs (or fixes we got)

You forgot the most insulting of all, when Shattered Strength was buffed up to give 3 might per clone shattered and was nerfed back down to 1 within 24 hours with devs going to the pvp forums to beg for forgiveness for buffing this.

That was the biggest kick in the pants ever.

Yes I didn’t list it because I thought that we never were buffed with this one :P
Same applies to the ninja nerf for distortion (when distortion was dodge instead of invulnerability) well with that one WE started a flame war :P

Power.2957:

Xyonon.3987:

…and beeing unable to duel anyone with the same skill level in pvp. The only reason to take mes into pvp is the portal, to fight 2v1 at point a and then still 4v4 at point b.

Right now the mes is probably the worst class in pvp…

LOL? 3000 hours and you still don’t know how to play? I won a 1v4 in Obsidian Sanctum just YESTERDAY as a mesmer.

You sir have been banned from this sub forum by democratic vote.

Perplexity, pu, condition mesmer inc. //link or it didn’t happen :P

Levetty.1279:

As I said in another thread its amazing how everytime actual problems with the Mesmer class is brought up somebody pops in to tell us about their 50k burst damage and how they can take on entire zergs solo so we all need to l2p.

I found him =)

I shouldn’t even react to such an inferior post like Power’s. Yet it’s still adorable

Power.2957:

Xyonon.3987:

…and beeing unable to duel anyone with the same skill level in pvp. The only reason to take mes into pvp is the portal, to fight 2v1 at point a and then still 4v4 at point b.

Right now the mes is probably the worst class in pvp…

LOL? 3000 hours and you still don’t know how to play? I won a 1v4 in Obsidian Sanctum just YESTERDAY as a mesmer.

You sir have been banned from this sub forum by democratic vote.

Pics or it didn’t happen.

But really, anecdotes mean absolutely nothing. I’ve walked into a 30-man Zerg solo and come out with 2 kills. Does this mean Mesmer is crazy overpowered? No. Does this mean I’m basically god? No. It means that zergs are generally made of bad players that are easy pickings for someone that knows how to pluck.

As was said elsewhere in this thread, having the possible capability to unload massive burst has zero correlation with viability in pvp, not to mention meaning nothing in pve. Every class can unload burst. Most classes can unload burst in a simpler and more effective manner than mesmers can.

Mesmers have an incredible amount of utility, this is true. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean a huge amount.

In Dragon Nest, a class with low damage but unbelievable utility can be god-tier in pvp due to the mechanics of the game allowing skilled juggling and combo-chaining via that utility to control and ultimately dominate in a fight. Guild wars 2 is not Dragon Nest, and utility is not the end-all of pvp. Yes, mesmers have utility; no, it doesn’t make them effective and efficient picks on a team.