Guild Wars 2

Who came up with this? Lving my mesmer im maybe half a day away from 80.

Do any other mesmers feel like an unkillable god that can take on 500 monsters never getting hit?

Im using sword/focus and staff.

I spend most of my time in pvp fighting 3 people at once and wining, all is well but since i wanted to try wvw i was like maybe i should pve.

Pve for a good mesmer is a complete joke, who the hell is having problems killing 4 monster that only auto attack? LMAO at melee mobs and ranged mobs are hilarious as well, phantasmal warden and feedback anyone?

Bosses are the funniest of them all I CAN KILL BOSSES ALONE THAT ARE 10 LVS HIGHER WITH OUT EVER GETTING HIT. Dodge is op as hell in pve. I can solo a event boss that kills me in 1 hit from ranged easily. Once you know how the boss works dying to it is almost impossible.

I AM A MESMER PVE IS MY kitten, pretty fun i must say though. Getting killed in 1 or 2 hits really steps up your game.

Thoughts?

Nice signature.

Who said mesmer is bad for PvE solo/leveling? No, mesmer is awful for tagging mobs in events, nothing else.

Nice nickname, OP, we should find guy with a nickname “of” and start a heavy metal band that feels like utterly dominating God of Grind in pve.

I agree with OP.
A lot of people have been complaining about how bad the mesmer is in PvE (not only about tagging): i.e. “no damage!”, “dying all the time” and so on.

And it must be because some people are just too used to pressing button 1 or 2 (maybe on there guardian or warrior greatsword) through the whole game. Well, what do I know.

But to me, the mesmer is the most powerfull profession. In every situation, the mesmer has the abillity to both survive and kill convincingly.
I am playing Sword/Focus and staff and with a shatter focused build, and im absolutely steamrolling through the content while having much more fun than on other professions, because youre constantly doing cool moves.

By the way: When it comes to tagging, I dont think the mesmer is too bad – as long as you have a shatter focused build.
But none the less, it is not a problem with the mesmer or any other profession: It is the tagging system that is the problem.
Too much relies on mindless DPS (especially AoE zerging) in this game. It takes no skill, and ruines the gameplay.

Mesmer is by far my favorite profession to play, when i first started playing it, it was a little confusing how it actually worked, but in pve i can kill monsters a few levels above me, at lvl 9 i killed a lvl 15, but yeah you have to really be smart with your skills and never get hit. Its possible though. The class is very involved even in pve i find, you really have to use all your skills… its not just mindless throwing out spells and standing in one spot, lots of moving around and making sure your phantom warlocks are up. I love it..lol, but i guess some people would want to just have a easy one button kill/ two buttons to press in pve, thats definitely not the Mesmer.

soloing single targets like vets or champs is easier on mesmer, but killing groups is easier on warrior

Mesmer has great survivability, which also means you can easily solo Vets. But that’s a far as it goes… for everything else in PvE mesmer is actually quite bad. Just doesn’t have the damage.

ManCaptain.3154:

Mesmer has great survivability, which also means you can easily solo Vets. But that’s a far as it goes… for everything else in PvE mesmer is actually quite bad. Just doesn’t have the damage.

The larger the number of targets you face, the more fragile you become as a mesmer.

Pretty much everyone else is very strong against a swarm of low hp targets.

This same swarm is mesmer cryptonite.

they kill your clones as they spawn so you never reach 3, and you never have a distraction, so you’re taking full aggro and full damage. (and getting a nice stack of conditions that eat your low toughness builds for breakfast)

This dynamic is also why mesmers suck so horribly at DE’s and are hit or miss in dungeons depending on the encounter (good luck getting shatters on graveling swarms, for instance).

The devs design the game around a one-size-fits-all philosophy as to what damage people can dish out, but because our clones can die so quickly and our AOE depends on getting 3 up, our aoe falls off at precisely the time when we need it most.

Depends on your target.
As far as killing stuff solo others need to group for, I usually would say we’re by far the strongest. Due to the clones, enemies never ever really get to attack us at all. Sure we take a while to take them down, but given how we are pretty much invulnerable it’s of no consequence. Some really strong ranged multi-attacker mobs we can also 1-shot with a well-timed Feedback.

OTOH, Dynamic Events are often cited as tricky, especially Orr.
I solved this by doing what Orr was designed for, never going there alone. Since Parties share kill credit, this means if I am with 4 other people out of the group of 40+ doing the event, we are all pretty much assured we get credit on everything.
Outside of that, Shatter on Dodge and Signet of Illusions (for resetting F1-CD) help a lot, shattering seems one of the most reliable ways to AE-tag.

plasmacutter.2709:

ManCaptain.3154:

Mesmer has great survivability, which also means you can easily solo Vets. But that’s a far as it goes… for everything else in PvE mesmer is actually quite bad. Just doesn’t have the damage.

The larger the number of targets you face, the more fragile you become as a mesmer.

Pretty much everyone else is very strong against a swarm of low hp targets.

This same swarm is mesmer cryptonite.

they kill your clones as they spawn so you never reach 3, and you never have a distraction, so you’re taking full aggro and full damage. (and getting a nice stack of conditions that eat your low toughness builds for breakfast)

This dynamic is also why mesmers suck so horribly at DE’s and are hit or miss in dungeons depending on the encounter (good luck getting shatters on graveling swarms, for instance).

The devs design the game around a one-size-fits-all philosophy as to what damage people can dish out, but because our clones can die so quickly and our AOE depends on getting 3 up, our aoe falls off at precisely the time when we need it most.

I can’t believe how clueless people are… I’ts simple guys GS is pure trash unless your in a large group. The staff destroys in PvE and PvP. Chaos armor wrecks other GS mesmers 1v1 and all melee/most ranged classes, and lets you take on 4-5+ npc’s of equal-ish level at the same time solo. Even if your build is all staff orientated just switch it for a GS and change a trait or 2 if your in a large group and you’ll “tag mobs” no problem, the rest of the time rock the staff. 0-20-20-0-30 FTW.

My first death after level 50 was in 430-450h range… u don’t die in pve unless you get one shotted by some hard hitting boss or if you’re running a glass cannon crap.

The minute I read i’m running sword/focus and staff, i stopped.

OF course you’re an unkillable god of PvE when you use those two combos. it’s practically cheating. I will say that taking a billion mobs with them is harder than the +10 boss though

(I’m not harassing you on what weapons you use, i use that combo as well, but it’s kind of good that someone else realizes how freaking amazing they are)

I would LOVE to see a video of a Mesmer taking a +10 level Champion solo. Mostly I would love to see the technique used. My illusion usually get smashed in 1 shot before they are of use to either provide distraction or shatter.

I’m only level 55 and I’ve been building up
Duelist, Chaos and illusions as my spec because they fit my character RP design.

I use staff after realizing the buff it offers my wifes warrior with Tactics:10 with the Empowered Trait(+Power per unique boon). So it was fire.dot, burn.dot + vulnerability + boost ally. yeah I thought that was pretty sweet. Purchased extra bounce(required for staff) to faster stack everything. Staff turned out to be pretty bad kitten

I continued to use a GS mostly for second support that the berzerker does a cripple and GS2 for bounce. But I’ve been thinking the torch for the invis to lose agro and it’s aoe on appear

The area with the white mantle had a champion ghost soldier guy that I kited on and off a cliff for over an hour. Mesmers are kiting experts. I found myself in an area with 3 veteran cave spiders spawning as fast as I could kill them – along with a couple regular cave spiders – and I just never went down. In both situations I was using the greatsword only, I didn’t start switching weapons sets until more recently.

Once you make illusions on dodge (Illusion trait 20) the shatter builds really open up to the point where you want to activate signet of illusions. Mirror Image and switching weapons gives a good cycle, too. To maximize your damage, you have to take the burst damage phantasms and sac them with as little delay between shatter skills as possible.

I rolled with scepter/pistol for awhile, cause I thought the gun was cool and the extra clone on the third hit was a good distraction. Illusionary Duelist with Fury was decent, and Sharper Images made that even better. Once I tried the GS and saw the self-contained synergy, I found my lazy man’s weapon of choice. Increased damage at range, cripple, knockback, and might/vulnerability – why bother switching weapons?

With mesmers, your build is all about how you want to play your illusions. You either mean them to stick around or not, and if not, they can be mere distractions while you vanish/deaggro or fuel for rapid shatters or anywhere in between. Many of the illusions take advantage of vulnerability because they are all burst damage, which you can pick a trait to cause vulnerability on interrupt, iterating another build. You can even go with a mantra build and specialize in something as specific as picking up downed people, but mantras are so boring to me. I have no idea what other classes offer, cause I have it all right here. I am not even sure that there aren’t shatter/warlock builds that wouldn’t put up dps numbers competitive with other classes.

I just never went in for the melee weapons. The focus and torch seemed to gimmicky to me, but I bet they offer up several more gameplay styles and specialized build options. You really get to pick your gameplay, and in PvE you can kite forever. If you want AoE, you are going to be stuck with chaos storm, prestige (delayed burining,) and that trait that makes Cry of Frustration AoE – and AoE confusion isn’t the greatest AoE condition. And maybe the crippling phantasm, but that’s 3 weapons.

I also find it interesting that mesmers make a better melee class than ranged when underwater, though they can still win the Kiting Olympics. Changes things up a bit.

And they are really good at moving when stunned/bound/breaking fear etc. and removing conditions. It’s like my Mesmer/Monk from GW was genetically engineered with a little ritualist spliced in.

jayderyu.3751:

I would LOVE to see a video of a Mesmer taking a +10 level Champion solo. Mostly I would love to see the technique used. My illusion usually get smashed in 1 shot before they are of use to either provide distraction or shatter.

I’m only level 55 and I’ve been building up
Duelist, Chaos and illusions as my spec because they fit my character RP design.

I use staff after realizing the buff it offers my wifes warrior with Tactics:10 with the Empowered Trait(+Power per unique boon). So it was fire.dot, burn.dot + vulnerability + boost ally. yeah I thought that was pretty sweet. Purchased extra bounce(required for staff) to faster stack everything. Staff turned out to be pretty bad kitten

I continued to use a GS mostly for second support that the berzerker does a cripple and GS2 for bounce. But I’ve been thinking the torch for the invis to lose agro and it’s aoe on appear

Greatsword is the way to solo champions. The cripple keeps them away from you indefinitely.

If they have ranged attacks things get more complicated. Maybe you could run an illusion spamming build but I don’t know if that would keep you alive either.

NineOnine.4327:

I can’t believe how clueless people are…

Chaos armor wrecks other GS mesmers 1v1 and all melee/most ranged classes,

How is this relevant to pve?

and lets you take on 4-5+ npc’s of equal-ish level at the same time solo.

I never said I couldn’t take on mobs, like I said I have no problems surviving. It just takes much longer to kill them compared to… say a bomb kit engineer.

To get back to how durable we are in PvE, playing an Elementalist and an Engineer as alts now, I’m always taken aback by how fragile other classes are. Seriously.

On the Mesmer I know I just have to spawn a few clones, by dodging or Mirror Images or Mirror Blade or whatever, and I’ll be fine.

Carighan.6758:

To get back to how durable we are in PvE, playing an Elementalist and an Engineer as alts now, I’m always taken aback by how fragile other classes are. Seriously.

On the Mesmer I know I just have to spawn a few clones, by dodging or Mirror Images or Mirror Blade or whatever, and I’ll be fine.

I think mesmer and necro are those that can get away with running gear without defensive stats just because of active defenses. Can’t do that on ele. :C

jayderyu.3751:

I would LOVE to see a video of a Mesmer taking a +10 level Champion solo. Mostly I would love to see the technique used. My illusion usually get smashed in 1 shot before they are of use to either provide distraction or shatter.

People tend to mix up veterans and champions.

So I solo’d CM path 1 today…

ManCaptain.3154:

NineOnine.4327:

I can’t believe how clueless people are…

Chaos armor wrecks other GS mesmers 1v1 and all melee/most ranged classes,

How is this relevant to pve?

and lets you take on 4-5+ npc’s of equal-ish level at the same time solo.

I never said I couldn’t take on mobs, like I said I have no problems surviving. It just takes much longer to kill them compared to… say a bomb kit engineer.

Its relevant because its is a clear example of how much stronger staff is over GS in almost every situation PvE or not…… And in reference to champions that someone else mentioned, I’ve soloed many champions in orr (veterans are lol) it takes a long time but other than that its easy.

NineOnine.4327:

ManCaptain.3154:

NineOnine.4327:

I can’t believe how clueless people are…

Chaos armor wrecks other GS mesmers 1v1 and all melee/most ranged classes,

How is this relevant to pve?

and lets you take on 4-5+ npc’s of equal-ish level at the same time solo.

I never said I couldn’t take on mobs, like I said I have no problems surviving. It just takes much longer to kill them compared to… say a bomb kit engineer.

Its relevant because its is a clear example of how much stronger staff is over GS in almost every situation PvE or not…… And in reference to champions that someone else mentioned, I’ve soloed many champions in orr (veterans are lol) it takes a long time but other than that its easy.

it depends which kind of champions in Orr, if you fight the Abomination one which builds up its frenzy in stacks, not only he attacks faster, he can kill you in 1-2 hits

Ben K.6238:

jayderyu.3751:

I would LOVE to see a video of a Mesmer taking a +10 level Champion solo. Mostly I would love to see the technique used. My illusion usually get smashed in 1 shot before they are of use to either provide distraction or shatter.

I’m only level 55 and I’ve been building up
Duelist, Chaos and illusions as my spec because they fit my character RP design.

I use staff after realizing the buff it offers my wifes warrior with Tactics:10 with the Empowered Trait(+Power per unique boon). So it was fire.dot, burn.dot + vulnerability + boost ally. yeah I thought that was pretty sweet. Purchased extra bounce(required for staff) to faster stack everything. Staff turned out to be pretty bad kitten

I continued to use a GS mostly for second support that the berzerker does a cripple and GS2 for bounce. But I’ve been thinking the torch for the invis to lose agro and it’s aoe on appear

Greatsword is the way to solo champions. The cripple keeps them away from you indefinitely.

If they have ranged attacks things get more complicated. Maybe you could run an illusion spamming build but I don’t know if that would keep you alive either.

soloed the champion inquest golem (the one with the 16k rapid-fire ranged attack) by using scepter/sword sword/focus pair for the invulnerabilities and projectile reflects. That thing spent most of its time behind feedbacks or being blocked.

That is not the issue though. The issue for mesmers is many targets. Their clones get killed before they reach 3 to shatter and this leaves them up the creek because they have no other real source of burst aoe and with that many separate foes, no distractions.

Chaos.5893:

Who came up with this? Lving my mesmer im maybe half a day away from 80.

Do any other mesmers feel like an unkillable god that can take on 500 monsters never getting hit?

Yeah no kidding im crushing pve content as I level up the mesmer its easier then any of my other classes…. I read the mesmer threads and think that this is where all the bad players must live if they cant own with Mesmers they are BAD lol. Not that its 100% thier fault Anet did make a class that tookittentle skill and dominated everthing with a roll of a face over a keyboard…. so people never needed to learn how to play.

As someone that has played with a class that has to deal with blind/block dodge actually working against skills I already played the game looking at the screen and did not randomly hit buttones to win like the mes…. but my first 80 was a necro so I learned the hard way leveling and to do well in spvp tpvp. /shrug.

plasmacutter.2709:

Ben K.6238:

jayderyu.3751:

I would LOVE to see a video of a Mesmer taking a +10 level Champion solo. Mostly I would love to see the technique used. My illusion usually get smashed in 1 shot before they are of use to either provide distraction or shatter.

I’m only level 55 and I’ve been building up
Duelist, Chaos and illusions as my spec because they fit my character RP design.

I use staff after realizing the buff it offers my wifes warrior with Tactics:10 with the Empowered Trait(+Power per unique boon). So it was fire.dot, burn.dot + vulnerability + boost ally. yeah I thought that was pretty sweet. Purchased extra bounce(required for staff) to faster stack everything. Staff turned out to be pretty bad kitten

I continued to use a GS mostly for second support that the berzerker does a cripple and GS2 for bounce. But I’ve been thinking the torch for the invis to lose agro and it’s aoe on appear

Greatsword is the way to solo champions. The cripple keeps them away from you indefinitely.

If they have ranged attacks things get more complicated. Maybe you could run an illusion spamming build but I don’t know if that would keep you alive either.

soloed the champion inquest golem (the one with the 16k rapid-fire ranged attack) by using scepter/sword sword/focus pair for the invulnerabilities and projectile reflects. That thing spent most of its time behind feedbacks or being blocked.

That is not the issue though. The issue for mesmers is many targets. Their clones get killed before they reach 3 to shatter and this leaves them up the creek because they have no other real source of burst aoe and with that many separate foes, no distractions.

If your having problems with many targets with a mesmer its YOUR build, not the class. To do lots of aoe you must have 30 in illusion and have illusionary persona on also 20 in dueling with deceptive evasion and finally staff>sword/torch. Torch is the only off hand that does any aoe dmg. as utility take decoy, nulfield and signet of inspiration. The aoe is out of control, with 3x chaos armor, chaos storm, prestige, blurred frenzy and 11 second cd mind wrack/ 22 sec cd cry.

You don’t need 3 clones to shatter, with illusionary persona you don’t even need a single clones for 1 shatter work just you to be close to the target. Just 1 clone out you got 2 mind wracks every 11 seconds + 2 stacks of aoe confusion, if you get in trouble you’ve got 2-3 maybe 4 invis skills to wait for your heal, skills and shatters to come off cd.

Seriously think about it with the above build you have perma vigor on crits = HEAPS of dodge = heaps of evade and clones. Then perma confusion on npc’s with perma retaliation on you with almost every boon in the game stacking on you on top of that + invis and all the damage from bouncing staff, chaos storm blah blah on and on it goes…. Again the problem is you.

The question has >never< been whether or not we can survive almost anything. That was never part of the argument, no one ever doubted that. People seem to completely misunderstand the actual argument about Mesmers being bad in PvE and this is why these arguments go no where, people don’t take the time to actually read what is being said and understand it before they just start replying away and stroking their kitten.

The problem is that we have no instant AoE damage that can tag mobs in packed events where they are going down in one second, and that we take much longer to kill mobs than other classes in exchange for survivability. Survivability is great, but we’re at a severe disadvantage when other classes can drop mobs at severely faster speeds with far less effort.

Which leads us back to the broken concept of farming low HP event mobs. I really hope that the changes Chris Whiteside talked about in his blog post finally lead to proper scaling of these events or remove drops from event mobs at all, like it was during the Karka event.

Veltoss.9135:

The question has >never< been whether or not we can survive almost anything. That was never part of the argument, no one ever doubted that. People seem to completely misunderstand the actual argument about Mesmers being bad in PvE and this is why these arguments go no where, people don’t take the time to actually read what is being said and understand it before they just start replying away and stroking their kitten.

The problem is that we have no instant AoE damage that can tag mobs in packed events where they are going down in one second, and that we take much longer to kill mobs than other classes in exchange for survivability. Survivability is great, but we’re at a severe disadvantage when other classes can drop mobs at severely faster speeds with far less effort.

Firstly you need to read exactly what i was replaying to if infact your talking to me. Secondly to “tag mobs” in group events, and only when in large groups, switch to GS press 4 half a second later as zerker has just finished running through press f1. If you try and mirror blade (skill2) at any point it will make the combo too late. Just skill 4 +f1 is tons of damage you don’t need 3 clones to shatter… Next wave comes, switch to sword jump in and mirror blade then f2 as mirror is going off, rinse and repeat. You might miss 1 in 4 ish waves if they come fast, but no class can max burst and tag every wave without fail in large groups.

So the complaint of the strongest class in the game is that you can’t tag mobs? Thats it thats why people call mesmers weak at PvE one small aspect of the game lol LOL LOLOLOLOL

Try a necro below the mes in all aspects of the game or if you really want to just event zerg farm just make a Ranger terrible at spvp and tpvp but good at farming pve.

What if mesmers can do that? and people still belive they cant?

Necromancer is weak? I won’t say that. Hard cc that ignores defiant stacks(fear) and wells make any dungeon easier.

Winds.3087:

Necromancer is weak? I won’t say that. Hard cc that ignores defiant stacks(fear) and wells make any dungeon easier.

I think any class can do PvE just fine, but its a well known issues that Necro is very weak at tagging in events due to conditions being the viable build and wells having such a long cooldown and burst not being an option.

Just find it comical anyone would say mesmer is weak its stronger and easier to play then my necro by a large amount. Thief is a bit faster in some situations but mesmers is easier to kill the elites and do the harder content solo.

Perhaps my view is jaded because I play a necro and pvp alot, but mesmers seem overpowered to me and my opinion is not changing the more I play my mes.

Xom.9264:

Winds.3087:

Necromancer is weak? I won’t say that. Hard cc that ignores defiant stacks(fear) and wells make any dungeon easier.

I think any class can do PvE just fine, but its a well known issues that Necro is very weak at tagging in events due to conditions being the viable build and wells having such a long cooldown and burst not being an option.

Just find it comical anyone would say mesmer is weak its stronger and easier to play then my necro by a large amount. Thief is a bit faster in some situations but mesmers is easier to kill the elites and do the harder content solo.

Perhaps my view is jaded because I play a necro and pvp alot, but mesmers seem overpowered to me and my opinion is not changing the more I play my mes.

Learn to dodge/blind/block and the mesmer won’t be able to summon up anything at all. This just shows how most players won’t bother to learn to fight the class that theirs has issues with and will instead just re-roll.

Xom.9264:

I think any class can do PvE just fine, but its a well known issues that Necro is very weak at tagging in events due to conditions being the viable build and wells having such a long cooldown and burst not being an option.

Necromancer is one of the best tagging machines out there due to precasted, ground-targeted marks that tag mobs even before they appear.

I play Staff/GS and built around wvw. I never had a problem in pve with this build. The only downside I can possibly think of is that Mesmers can have lower damage then other classes, especially with the recent iBeserker “nerf”. What they have is survivability and mobility. I never had an easier time moving around Orr. Blinks and near infinite swiftness with Centaur runes and short cd healing and a clone for every risen.

I’m finding it funny people are telling me stuff about necro when I have a level 80 and farmed exotics on it.

Let me keep this simple when you play both classes you can talk until then take my word for it Mesmer is very strong. If you think mesmer is not strong…. you’re playing the wrong class, I cant really recommend a class for you because mesmer is the strongest I have played by a large amount. I hear rangers are good at pve /shrug.

Xom.9264:

I’m finding it funny people are telling me stuff about necro when I have a level 80 and farmed exotics on it.

Let me keep this simple when you play both classes you can talk until then take my word for it Mesmer is very strong. If you think mesmer is not strong…. you’re playing the wrong class, I cant really recommend a class for you because mesmer is the strongest I have played by a large amount. I hear rangers are good at pve /shrug.

Just because A you are lvl 80 and B you have farmed exotics, it doesnt mean that C; you know more about the 2 classes than the rest of us is true.

Your argumentation here seems to be that well, reaching 80 and farming exotics is hard, neither of which is actually the truth. Farming exotics be it through karma grinding(Normally done in huge numbers) or explorable modes(done with 5 players) would somehow require you to perform above average. Explorables for that matter doesn’t really take that much time either.. 3x explorables for a week yields you a rough estimate of 1260 tokens, just from the final boss!

Aside from that tho, mesmers are pretty decent in PvE, they dont excel at it but they’re really fine.