Guild Wars 2

What’s this month’s flavor of the month? Feed your opponents some Mesmer love from the class that went from suffering months of underpoweredness, nerfs, and silly bugs to absolutely crushing the competition!

INGREDIENTS

• Greatsword (Add one cup of style to match mesmer standards)
• Dueling Line (Clones and Perma Fury ftw)
• Fire/Air Runes (Because there is no such thing as overkill when it comes to delicious)
• Blink or Decoy (Or both!)
• Zerker Amulet (Marauder can work)

OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS

• Domination Line (Confounding Suggestions + Powerblock to ensure the opponent not just eats it, but eats it all.) & Mantra of Distraction
• /laugh (Necessary for proper amounts of salt)

DIRECTIONS

1) Produce a clean, glamourous greatsword (sunrise is a common preference, maybe a bit too common.)

• Note. Take the time out to admire how funny “glamourous” is spelled. Something about spelling ‘ou’ twice in one word is tickling.

2) Find a hungry opponent, preferably one unaware to your presence. ( Stealth helps. To add a slice of cheese with the salt, grab the Prismatic Understanding trait. )

3) Cast Mirror Blade (GS2) @ close range or teleport to opponent while casting. Cast Mind Spike (GS3) immediately after GS2.

• Find some time to throw in a dodge clone in the mix. Jump-dodging takes longer and is not recommended.

4) F1 (Mind Wrack) Shatter for an explosion of flavor!

OPTIONAL STEPS

5) Cast Mantra of Distraction’s Power Lock to stun the opponent before hand, if you’re doing this correctly, the 1s stun should be just enough time for a 0-100 burst on most opponents.

6) If opponent isn’t dead, they’ll likely be on the defensive. Save an interrupt for when they try to heal and finish them.

7) Stir thoroughly in a clockwise motion with Phantasmal Berserker (GS4)

SAMPLE BUILD

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8flknhG1YZawGNwtGLnGE6Y6+3JDwCWeZGae4A-TZBFABCcFAEvMwCHEgW2fAgHAAA

DOMINATION: II, IV, VIII
DUELING: II, IV, IX
ILLUSIONS: I, IV, VII *

• = Last tree is optional.

While I try to make light of the situation, this is actually a bit of a problem (depending on who you’re speaking with). Right now Mesmers are capable of near-to-instant death setups that are just massacring people and rapidly tearing down the “high-skill” quality of the class.

And yes, Anet specifically stated that they want Mesmer to be a high skill – high reward class.

As it is now, there is an army of FoTM (flavor of the month) Mesmer making us all look like scrubs, and the above-mentioned method is exactly how they’re doing it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy as anyone with the improvements that Mesmer has received, but there are a few key things here that do need to be addressed:

• Blinding Dissipation completely unavoidable, even through blocks and dodges.
• The combination of confounding’s instant stun and Mesmer’s massive damage spikes/stealth leaving next to no counterplay. (Just dodge/evade doesn’t count when you’re not facing a 1v1. Often the Mes will burst you out of stealth before you ever knew they were there and with more damage than a thief can put out.. and AOE at that!)

Now here’s the thing.. Mesmer as a whole is not OP. There are a few very specific things that are pushing our Shatter and Lockdown builds into OPness, but the class as a whole is in a very good place IMO. Chaos & Inspiration are fantastic trees, Illusions needs some improvement but isn’t terrible, and Mesmer is currently better than it has been in GW2 history (with the exception of the beta.. but that doesn’t count. =P)

VIDEOS

Vashury demonstrates this perfectly, however do not expect to go from day one Mesmer to .. this!

Even a video is not necessary anymore. Just search for power shatter mesmer roaming video, either before or after patch.

Used to be only the case in WvW because of all the crazy food, stack buff. Now due to the power creep, it gets in PvP as well.

Eciton: It was harder to land before the patch, but it was still really powerful when done correctly in PvP…

And you can just search for Mesmer Burst Montage/Compi. 99% of them showcase this…
Me guilty too, though I stopped using torch in favor of pistol, leading to only have MI and decoy that I use more sparringly, it’s still an insane burst.

You forgot to mention to cast PBerserker somewhere in there to add even more OOMPH
Nothing like a PBerserker to make an opponent cry in despair

Before patch, you can also burst out of stealth a lot with GS S/T setup. However, in PvP the burst only does so much damage, a sustainable class can easily outheal your damage even if he face tanks everything(looking at you, shoutbow warrior). With such bursty setup, you will not be able to win any 1v1 against meta builds.

Now, the damage is so high that a burst can eats up at least 50% of a foe’s health. Against squishy, it is instant 100-0. It was already like this in WvW because of buffs before patch. That’s why people can roam with such setup in WvW. All they need is one good burst.

The next chapter should be about how you should never, EVER, try stomping or rezzing around a Chaotic Interruption Mesmer.

Weapons emphasized: Greatsword, Focus and Staff.

Level of carnage: Unreal.

Well my personal experience disagree with this, but I guess, at this point, it’s kinda moot since the patch rolled in and I may have played against kittenty people too.
Some class clearly countered me (Medi Guard, Zerker thief), but I could deal my fair share of damage and win my 1v1 against equal leveled people.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• Blinding Dissipation completely unavoidable, even through blocks and dodges.
• The combination of confounding’s instant stun and Mesmer’s massive damage spikes/stealth leaving next to no counterplay.

All right, so the first point has a pretty obvious fix (make BD avoidable through evade/block). But what can we do about the second point without dropping our Power build out of the meta entirely?

Some thoughts off the top of my head:

• Move some of Mind Wrack’s power out of the skill itself and into traits like Mental Anguish/MoF.
• Normalise MW’s damage-per-illusion scaling so that your burst doesn’t hit as hard unless you have all three clones out.
• Reduce MW’s power/weapon damage scaling coefficient.
• Remove or nerf the Wastrel’s Punishment portion of Mental Anguish.
• Remove the Stun/Daze duration increase on Confounding Suggestions.

The danger with any of this is that Power Shatter Mesmer is still considered to be our only particularly viable build for sPvP. I don’t have the confidence in ANet’s balance team required to assume that nerfs to Power Shatter will come with compensatory buffs to other, edge-of-viability builds. In other words, while I think there might indeed be a problem that needs to be fixed, I worry that the fix will come at the cost of destroying Mesmer’s PvP viability entirety rather than making a surgical strike on one or two problematic play patterns.

The other proposal, of course, would be to add a small amount of additional Toughness/Vitality to all PvP Amulets, which would serve to increase TTK across the board. Low TTK is really the main thing that cause people to carry torches and pitchforks when it comes to PvP balance anyway.

tobascodagama.2961:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• Blinding Dissipation completely unavoidable, even through blocks and dodges.
• The combination of confounding’s instant stun and Mesmer’s massive damage spikes/stealth leaving next to no counterplay.

All right, so the first point has a pretty obvious fix (make BD avoidable through evade/block). But what can we do about the second point without dropping our Power build out of the meta entirely?

Some thoughts off the top of my head:

• Move some of Mind Wrack’s power out of the skill itself and into traits like Mental Anguish/MoF.
• Normalise MW’s damage-per-illusion scaling so that your burst doesn’t hit as hard unless you have all three clones out.
• Reduce MW’s power/weapon damage scaling coefficient.
• Remove or nerf the Wastrel’s Punishment portion of Mental Anguish.
• Remove the Stun/Daze duration increase on Confounding Suggestions.

The danger with any of this is that Power Shatter Mesmer is still considered to be our only particularly viable build for sPvP. I don’t have to confidence in ANet’s balance team required to assume that nerfs to Power Shatter will come with compensatory buffs to other, edge-of-viability builds. In other words, while I think there might indeed be a problem that needs to be fixed, I worry that the fix will come at the cost of destroying Mesmer’s PvP viability entirety rather than making a surgical strike on one or two problematic play patterns.

The other proposal, of course, would be to add a small amount of additional Toughness/Vitality to all PvP Amulets, which would serve to increase TTK across the board. Low TTK is really the main thing that cause people to carry torches and pitchforks when it comes to PvP balance anyway.

Yes that’s what I worry about too, Lockdown may seem viable, but really, it’s still inherently dependent on shatters to do well.

Pepsi.8907:

Well my personal experience disagree with this, but I guess, at this point, it’s kinda moot since the patch rolled in and I may have played against kittenty people too.
Some class clearly countered me (Medi Guard, Zerker thief), but I could deal my fair share of damage and win my 1v1 against equal leveled people.

I dueled a lot with my engi friend. Engi was one of the few classes that we actually had an advantage over in 1v1 before patch. I could win about 70% of time on my staff. Because it was so good for kiting and strong AA and clone AA. Remember before patch, shatter mesmer had some condition damage. Also, the base condie damage was way higher. With might stacks, it actually does respectable damage. However, on my S/T, I lost almost every single duel. The stealth burst is nice, but it is so predictable and only does so much damage. You have to wait for cool down after the execution.

IMHO, the experience in PvP hardly matters. The matchup system is so bad that you get matched to players with drastically different skill levels. However, there were clearly a lot of even non-beta builds you had little chance against in a straight-up duel. e.g. condie ranger, condie ele. or meta builds like shoutbow, medi guard, dd ele(this one you have chance, but they have more margin for error)

I ran that exact combo pre-patch, specced 4/4/6 and could even take the torch trait for condi cleanse. For that burst, the 100% stun on MoD doesn’t really do that much since it’s instant and comes from stealth.

The only thing that really changed for the burst is the higher overall damage.

What i can do now is ensuring my freshly summed iZerker hits by stunning someone. Since i’m not specced into Duelling i can’t take BD, but it’s obviously strong against melee opponents.

The main culprit, imho, is the generally high damage which scales very well with stealth and fast combos.

Pepsi.8907:

Yes that’s what I worry about too, Lockdown may seem viable, but really, it’s still inherently dependent on shatters to do well.

Absolutely. Consider what Chaos listed as the traits for MirrorBlink:

DOMINATION: II, IV, VIII
DUELING: II, IV, IX
ILLUSIONS: I, IV, VII *

• = Last tree is optional.

Replace Illusions with Chaos+CI, and you’ve got a Lockdown build.

Being dependent on shatter is a good thing. It’s our main mechanic and things like clone death that work completely against it shouldn’t even have existed in the first place.

tobascodagama.2961:

Pepsi.8907:

Yes that’s what I worry about too, Lockdown may seem viable, but really, it’s still inherently dependent on shatters to do well.

Absolutely. Consider what Chaos listed as the traits for MirrorBlink:

DOMINATION: II, IV, VIII
DUELING: II, IV, IX
ILLUSIONS: I, IV, VII *

• = Last tree is optional.

Replace Illusions with Chaos+CI, and you’ve got a Lockdown build.

I wasn’t saying that Lockdown was impossible, just that our condition uptime and the slow dps from Power lock doesn’t make it sufficient alone, we actually need somewhat of a shatter build to work with it
You can’t kill someone with lockdown alone.

Iavra.8510:

Being dependent on shatter is a good thing. It’s our main mechanic and things like clone death that work completely against it shouldn’t even have existed in the first place.

Yes, I don’t mean to say that shatters is bad or that we should have a non shatter build, it just that this core class mechanics makes it very hard for mesmers to pitch in and be viable in other builds that doesn’t depend on the shatter damage… which makes it very tricky to actually fix, because one wrong thing and we will get back to our not so very viable place unless played by highly skilled players.

Shatter is no more “our core mechanic” than Steal is the thief’s “core mechanic.”
Too many people on the boards here keep forgetting that the illusions themselves are also a “core mechanic.” Indeed, Phantasms were designed to be able to keep attacking forever for a reason.

Shatter is A core mechanic. But as Pepsi pointed out, the very nature of it makes it very hard to balance around.
Far better to allow for multiple ways to build a class, and make them all balanced.

Make phantasm builds competitive. Make sustained condition builds competitive. Make shatter condition builds competitive. Make lockdown builds competitive, but not OP.
Nerf this 0-100 instakill, but not below the level of competition.

Whatever you do, don’t make an entire class’s competitiveness dependent on the balance of a single mechanic, because you’re inevitably going to get that wrong sometime.

Chaos using GS??? I want to see how that will go again lol.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Chaos using GS??? I want to see how that will go again lol.

Now Ry that’s just rude!

Jace al Thor.6745:

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Chaos using GS??? I want to see how that will go again lol.

Now Ry that’s just rude!

The last time that Chaos used GS it didnt go so well

He’s right. I am woefully terribad with GS.

Woefully.

Maybe use Twilight instead? I hear its much better for bursts than silly ol’ Sunrise.

Hahaha at least you’re honest with yourself Chaos.
You just need to practice with GS more and stop laying down whenever Ry duels you :P

I have the simple fix to all stealth related problems.

No weapon skill activations while in stealth. Done.

The sole exception being Thieves #1 skills because thieves have always gotten special treatment. :)

Ross Biddle.2367:

I have the simple fix to all stealth related problems.

No weapon skill activations while in stealth. Done.

The sole exception being Thieves #1 skills because thieves have always gotten special treatment.

An even better fix would be convert all existing characters to kill shot warriors. No stealth involved :P

Jace al Thor.6745:

Ross Biddle.2367:

I have the simple fix to all stealth related problems.

No weapon skill activations while in stealth. Done.

The sole exception being Thieves #1 skills because thieves have always gotten special treatment.

An even better fix would be convert all existing characters to kill shot warriors. No stealth involved :P

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!

Make it P/P thieves and I am game, I actually saw some in PvP this weeked …

Ross Biddle.2367:

I have the simple fix to all stealth related problems.

No weapon skill activations while in stealth. Done.

The sole exception being Thieves #1 skills because thieves have always gotten special treatment.

I’d prefer ‘Activating a skill besides #6 while stealthed will reveal you.’
Plain and simple. Will work with Thief #1.

Ahhh… finally no more ‘But Mesmers cast Illusions from stealth…’
And bye bye Steal-Stab. No mercy … uh… exceptions for specific classes.

Xaylin.1860:

Ross Biddle.2367:

I have the simple fix to all stealth related problems.

No weapon skill activations while in stealth. Done.

The sole exception being Thieves #1 skills because thieves have always gotten special treatment.

I’d prefer ‘Activating a skill besides #6 while stealthed will reveal you.’
Plain and simple. Will work with Thief #1.

Ahhh… finally no more ‘But Mesmers cast Illusions from stealth…’
And bye bye Steal-Stab. No mercy … uh… exceptions for specific classes.

Being able to activate and recharge utilities in stealth is very, very important. Stealth is not some sort of 100% guaranteed immunity against all forms of danger you know -_-u

Ross Biddle.2367:

Being able to activate and recharge utilities in stealth is very, very important. Stealth is not some sort of 100% guaranteed immunity against all forms of danger you know -_-u

I know. But with just disabling weapon skills I’m quite certain the whining will go on regarding utilities. Clones and Illusions. Blinks. Mantras. Buh. Why not just go the whole way?

To be honest, I just can’t bear all the complaining anymore.

Decent players are rapidly adapting to this spike, and most of the time I’m lucky to even get them to 50% anymore. The first few days after the patch were insane, but it’s changed quite substantially since then.

It’s definitely powerful, and perhaps due to CS a bit too powerful esp. when combined with PU, but the vast majority of players can not be 100-0’d anymore. I’ve had some really really long fights with Rangers, Eles, Engies, Guardians…you name it. In most of these bouts it came down to skill IMO.

I have lost quite a few times to players I feel were obviously more skilled than I am, and won a few after 3+ minute battles where our skill levels seemed fairly comparable.

The biggest irony of this patch has to be Thieves. Oh how many self-proclaimed experts cried that they would wreck the game after the patch! lol! It’s not that they’re bad, but we’ve definitely been given the tools to greatly even out the battle field.

I think Vashury got it covered on his videos.

Xaylin.1860:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Being able to activate and recharge utilities in stealth is very, very important. Stealth is not some sort of 100% guaranteed immunity against all forms of danger you know -_-u

I know. But with just disabling weapon skills I’m quite certain the whining will go on regarding utilities. Clones and Illusions. Blinks. Mantras. Buh. Why not just go the whole way?

To be honest, I just can’t bear all the complaining anymore.

Because without weapon skills it then becomes impossible to “burst from stealth”, which is the complaint. You can’t burst with utilities.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Xaylin.1860:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Being able to activate and recharge utilities in stealth is very, very important. Stealth is not some sort of 100% guaranteed immunity against all forms of danger you know -_-u

I know. But with just disabling weapon skills I’m quite certain the whining will go on regarding utilities. Clones and Illusions. Blinks. Mantras. Buh. Why not just go the whole way?

To be honest, I just can’t bear all the complaining anymore.

Because without weapon skills it then becomes impossible to “burst from stealth”, which is the complaint. You can’t burst with utilities.

Forcing kill shot builds looks better day by day lol.
But seriously. A shave to the duration on PU, either a flat 2-3 sec or 66-75% duration, remove might and add resistance instead would fix that.
Then by making CS with a slightly high per target icd and the large majority of the burst complaining is fix.
But once that’s done they’ll move on to saying we have too many evades, invulns, ports, etc and therefore are a skill less class.
Sigh. You can’t win for losing I guess.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Xaylin.1860:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Being able to activate and recharge utilities in stealth is very, very important. Stealth is not some sort of 100% guaranteed immunity against all forms of danger you know -_-u

I know. But with just disabling weapon skills I’m quite certain the whining will go on regarding utilities. Clones and Illusions. Blinks. Mantras. Buh. Why not just go the whole way?

To be honest, I just can’t bear all the complaining anymore.

Because without weapon skills it then becomes impossible to “burst from stealth”, which is the complaint. You can’t burst with utilities.

Will become the dodge roll in stealth pop mirror images mind wrack tears flowing creating the ocean of Mesmer hate.

All the ignorant bashing of Thieves on this thread… Shatter mesmer, at this point, requires absolutely no skill. Thieves, on the other hand, have all their weapon sets nerfed to oblivion, except the P/D build, that also requires no skill.

GW2 is becoming more and more a noob fest for people who cry and whine about other classes, while ignoring how ridiculously easy and strong their own class is. Just look at the abundance of mesmers in WvW, while there are close to no thieves in WvW or PvP.

Youkay.5294:

All the ignorant bashing of Thieves on this thread… Shatter mesmer, at this point, requires absolutely no skill. Thieves, on the other hand, have all their weapon sets nerfed to oblivion, except the P/D build, that also requires no skill.

GW2 is becoming more and more a noob fest for people who cry and whine about other classes, while ignoring how ridiculously easy and strong their own class is. Just look at the abundance of mesmers in WvW, while there are close to no thieves in WvW or PvP.

I’ve been through this thread twice now and see nothing bashing thieves. And of all the people that’s posted in it none would be ignorant about something. I think instead of coming to the Mesmer forum you should stay on the thief forums.

I think blinding thing needs to be fixed its not ok for it to go through block ect, but I don’t think these bursts are a problem really. Every mesmer I get in a game does that and you know what I do when I get in that setup? I decoy and dodge or distort as soon as I get stunned, thus avoiding all the burst. How can one do that? Because its always at such a predictable time because people suck at mesmer. Then you know what the mesmer does? He uses blink and decoy and fails to disengage. When he sees me he does a 1 second distort and then gets smacked. This keeps happening over and over and over and over again. People will learn how to fight this, they will always be prepared to insta stun break and dodge because if they do that, its game over for the skilless brandwagon mesmer and the amount of bandwagon hoppers will be reduced dramastically. They’ll go back to playing stone heart d/d ele or something. I’m alright with mantra being nerfed or cs or something. I’d be actually very happy if they were to make it so that cs is removed and replaced with shatter recharge trait, do that and fix the blind thing, leave PU as is since the actual PU build will only include 2 stealths and while they are 6s duration they’re on a 30+s cooldown and stealth can only be accessed 2 times. Granted thats if people don’t go for moa but since Anet balances around top tier PvP where moa is needed, it’ll be fine, maybe nerf mass invis a bit and make it a 4s stealth base instead of 5.

“No thieves in PvP” – What game do you play? EVERY team in the game NEEDS a thief if they wan’t to be competitive. The fact that you think mesmer is easy and have trouble vs those bandwagon hoppers is just amazing to me. I don’t see why its hard to save shadowstep for the stun or blinding powder into dodge to get a basically free kill.

You assume that people run stun breaks in PvP, Jurica. Why would anybody possibly want to do a thing like that?

Jurica. If confounding is removed and replaced with a shatter trait I’m coming for you…

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Jurica. If confounding is removed and replaced with a shatter trait I’m coming for you…

They could disable CS and EI (while we’re at it… because iZerkers are so mean) so we’re stuck with Rending Shatters. I’m having a hard time imagining anything worse for a shatter trait than we got already.

Well, they can change confounding suggestion so that it only applies to F3 shatter…

#REPLACECS2015 @ Chaos hehe

Exciton.8942:

Well, they can change confounding suggestion so that it only applies to F3 shatter…

Chaos Archangel.5071:

7) Stir thoroughly in a clockwise motion with Phantasmal Berserker (GS4)

xD

Slight necro, but I wanted to ask.. Since the recent patch, how has dealing with this burst felt? Same? Worse? Better?

Also.. The link should have Power Block but I can’t edit that on my phone. X.x

Have to say that it doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue post patch. The mantra nerf/fix (depending on how one looks at it) seems to have made encountering mantra of distraction much rarer, so there is that. Also, the toning down of MB seems to have brought the damage back in line (roughly) with what it was Pre-07-23-15 (dangerous to lightly armored targets but is otherwise manageable). I think it is safe to say that it has been watered down sufficiently to avoid further nerfs (again, just my opinion).

Objectively, the combo has been nerfed to a point where it should avoid further nerfs.

Subjectively, there are a lot of scrubs still crying to the heavens about how OP Mesmers are. So who the kitten knows what will happen?

I fully expect to see another patch that picks away at our optimal burst damage here and there, then eventually CS will get nerfed into the ground, with the result that our optimal burst will be harder to achieve and easier to counter, but the damage nerfs will not get reverted.