Guild Wars 2

Been retracing my tracks through good ol’ GW1, and especially been revisiting my old mesmer. So this question is primarily out to old GW players, or anyone whose visited the lovely world of 250 some-odd years ago. Do you feel that Mesmers as a profession have grown stronger or weaker over the course of the 250 year gap? And if given a fight between the two, who would win? Old or New?

Well, lockdown wouldnt really have much effect on the PU builds of now, so probably the new one would win. But imo the concept of the old one was much better and fun to play. Seeing the changes made by anet from start of GW2 till now you can see they are working on it to bring it back, but I really hope we also get some elite skills, traits and utility’s for more aoe lockdown.

Yeah i can definitely see that. Mesmers nowadays are more adept at dueling than they previously were, which is a pretty interesting development for the profession as a whole. I would definitely like some options to recap the kitten psychic mage they used to represent.I guess you could say they’ve more of sidestepped rather than gone up or down in strength, since they’re still quite a threat, just for different reasons.

I think its more about perspective here. Consider that phantasms and illusions are manifestations that exist in the mind of your enemy, and when he dies so do the manifestations. The truth is, Mesmer’s are STILL psychic mages, but they have focused their powers on inflicting physical damage through manifestations, rather than causing hexes or other effects that debilitate the target. Torment was a step toward the old mesmer, although its application is kinda crappy, I would prefer they gave it to us in place of the blind for skill slot 2, but essentially as Halcyon said, its more like a sidestep along the same road, rather than a different road altogether. In the end, I agree that I want more mental powers that directly affect my opponent in a way that is effective and gives me that good olden days lets throw backfire/phantasmal/empathy on and make this guy suffer, but then it seems they wanted Necro’s to have those powers instead. While appropriate for Necro’s, it also means we lose out here. So I will agree with what’s been said; more skills to give us that good old times feel from GW1, and this would be a nice change/branch out for us. I still favor the pistol for main-hand as the new weapon they were talking about, maybe a pistol weapon could use some direct, mental debilitating effects with a more GW1 feel for skills 1, 2, and 3?

Miss some of the old GW skills like Panic, but the new mesmer’s mobility and variety of phantasms are fun. They are different professions, just with same name. But in a duel, I think the old mesmer would come out on top.

The first time I saw fast casting, I was skeptical it would be a good attribute in GW1. Then when I saw I could interrupt at double the speed of anyone else I realized it really was good. I do miss the focus on interruption, and lockdown that the old Mesmer had. It was all about timing when an opponent would activate their skill. Perhaps I will go with a lockdown mesmer build to better learn ways to use my mesmer, arguably my favorite class.

I miss all or nothing skills like Blackout, and being able to see my opponents skill activation to time my interrupts, that being said two completely different games, I revisit GW1 from time to time, but I’m still playing Mesmer main in GW2 it’s just a refreshing change.

I definitely miss my gw1 Mesmer. They were more inclined about punishment, interrupts and denial. They were back line professions at most (unless you played a wacky illusionary weaponry build)

I also like the Mesmer here too (a lot actually!) But I feel sometimes I’m not even playing a Mesmer. The Mesmer I know won’t let you use your skills just freely. The Mesmer here is more like a psychic duelist. Using clones, phantasm to trick enemies. Gw1 mesmers never really “tricked” anyone. They weren’t tricksters but we’re punishers.

I think they (Anet) put the name “Mesmer” to appeal to fans (like me lol) in but completely recreated their whole….. Well everything. They could have just as easily called us the “Duelist” or “Trickster” and decide to put in Mesmer lore/some skills much like they did to the assassin → thief or paragon/monk → Guardian.

To be honest I started my Mesmer in gw2 because I had a Mesmer main in the previous game. Now that it’s been more than a year with my Mesmer (gw2) as my main, I really love the play style.

Wacky illusionary weapon builds…., scythe+mantra (in their prime for pve=300×3 per swing) or flourishing frustration sword interrupt builds all worked. I guess I was always a melee mesmer+interrupts at heart and went sword/focus/sword from day 1 of gw2.

Backfire/empathy reminiscence does not compute for me:
Backfire = Reflects
Empathy = Confusion/retaliation
Shatter Delusion/Enchantment = Shatters
Wastral’s worry every 3 seconds = p.swordsman every 3 seconds
So forcing ppl to do something and nothing at the same time is still there.

Part of using your skills freely in gw2 is having the right target and not being afraid of cleaving clones that explode (and reflects). We have interrupts as well and plenty of them. Boons and healing spells aren’t as strong as before and we have much more raw power. This isn’t a memser thing though, it’s a gw2 thing. The class has been brought into the new system fairly well and I consider it the same class envisioned in a new game.

GW1 mesmer had 600 health. Gw2 mesmers does thousands of damage =)
But seriously, I think the gw2 mesmers are stronger. If nothing else, just invis and phantasms would destroy a gw1 mesmer. GW2 mesmers also don’t have any energy to deny which is the one thing I miss but cant happen in gw2. 8 mesmers walk into fow. Chaos storm+instability then aneurysm was so fun.

I wouldn’t bring up damage and hit point numbers into the discussion of the match up, not refuting points btw. The whole hundreds vs thousands thing is more of a gameplay setup. Essentially it doesn’t matter what numbers you see, rather that their proportionate to the amount of health enemies have. 80 damage can be just as equal to 8000 in terms of scope depending on what the health cap is, and honestly i think the higher numbers they use in gw2 is more of a personal satisfier thing. People like seeing these crazy kitten numbers pop up, the higher the better right? That aside, I was quite fond of the more concise numbers in the original.getting the scope of the 6 wave 40 damage hits are a lot easier to read then say six ticks of 4000. But that’s just my opinion

LumAnth.5124:

I definitely miss my gw1 Mesmer. They were more inclined about punishment, interrupts and denial. They were back line professions at most (unless you played a wacky illusionary weaponry build)

I also like the Mesmer here too (a lot actually!) But I feel sometimes I’m not even playing a Mesmer. The Mesmer I know won’t let you use your skills just freely. The Mesmer here is more like a psychic duelist. Using clones, phantasm to trick enemies. Gw1 mesmers never really “tricked” anyone. They weren’t tricksters but we’re punishers.

I think they (Anet) put the name “Mesmer” to appeal to fans (like me lol) in but completely recreated their whole….. Well everything. They could have just as easily called us the “Duelist” or “Trickster” and decide to put in Mesmer lore/some skills much like they did to the assassin -> thief or paragon/monk -> Guardian.

To be honest I started my Mesmer in gw2 because I had a Mesmer main in the previous game. Now that it’s been more than a year with my Mesmer (gw2) as my main, I really love the play style.

yep agreed, the only problem i have is that a duelist is usually a medium armor preofession and not light armor. the gw1 mes would have made the perfect 3rd light armor class in in gw2. the aoe punisher class. now the warrior is more the one that can lock everyone down and the mes has a fe phantasms that go poof in a large fight while trying to not get murderer by melee. id be fine with no swifness if i had aoe that wasnt ai related. we are a little bit of a fake medium class. we got pets and are duelists….. i miss gw1 mes a lot. 100 times better than a stupid support tw/veilbot