Guild Wars 2

to play mesmer over other classes. Every single other class seems superior. More damage, traits that don’t depend on clones, and easier gameplay. We’ve been damaged to the point that we aren’t effective. Five minutes with a guardian and I could tell you two things.

GS is OP and mesmer is just too hard to play by comparison.

I do well as a mesmer. But I know that with any other class I’ll do much better. I still think that the better players play mes. But they have to work harder at it. Mesmer is tough to play well. Why bother? They’ve nerfed us from OP to UP and we can see more nerfs on the horizon. Why bother with it when you can rofl stomp everyone with a guardian warrior or thief? Can someone tell me why I’m wrong? Or am I?

Not necessarily wrong – I came to a similar conclusion a while ago. Almost anything Mesmer can do, other professions can do better with a fraction of the effort.

I play Mesmer simply because I enjoy the play-style. I can second that playing any other profession, I’ve found it hilarious – How easy it is to survive, how much damage you can deal, everything. But the same thing I’ve found is simply that I don’t enjoy it as much.

Other professions roll other professions for alts. Mesmers, as a rule of thumb, seriously consider rolling another Mesmer as an alt. Speaking from Meta, our effort→result ratio is horrible compared to the others. But the amount of effort we put into getting that result makes the result more satisfying and fun. We have so many ways to achieve that same result that the diversity draws us in.

Are we inferior to almost every other profession in regards to what we can manage? Probably.

Are we infinitely more fun to play? In my experience, yes.

I came to the conclusion that Mesmer is the profession meant for people who just don’t give a kitten We do what we do, however we feel like doing it. If someone chose Mesmer with the intent to go full meta-game min/maxing, they probably chose the wrong profession. If they chose mesmer to be a dick who loves to screw around and have a variety of options for anything they felt like trying?

Mesmer was probably the right profession.

tl;dr – Mesmer is fun. If someone chose Mesmer to be OP, they never really fit the Mesmer profession in the first place.

Not sure bout SPvP…. but in WvW running a shatter build with GREEN items I str8 rip noob backstab thieves. Guardians are lol… just a matter of how many shatters it takes to drop them – they cant catch you to do damage. If you start to lose the fight just portal out and restart.

Need more group support? Make a confusion bomber and laugh as you completely shutdown zergs by spamming Glamours.

If you’re using GS… you’re doing it wrong :P

Mesmer does take more skill to use than most classes because you must manage your clones. The other easy spike classes (Backstab thief) are the equivalent of noobtubes – they’re for noobs that don’t know how to play, but want to compete with the better players.

(Disclaimer: from a PvE focused view point)
it’s hilarious how almost every class has a thread like this. seriously.

personally, i think it’s an awful bore to play the best classes. i have 3 80’s- a ranger, an engi and an ele and i love all of them wayyy more, and done far better with, the warrior, thief, and guardian that i’ve tried to have

Besides, Anet nerfed like one thing with the class and everybody goes into ‘poor me’ mode. Get a little originality and make some different builds

Are you kiding me? Do you guys seriously think we are the WEAKEST CLASS? There are tons of ways we outperform the other classes. Heck, we get almost as much rage as thiefs when it comes to pvp.

Damage? We have plenty. Look at that new shattercat build on these forums, our burst is high AND its aoe. We are also very range flexible and highly survivable even when full burst spec. Between clones and distortion its hard to hit a mesmer no matter what spec they are.

Support? Some of the best. You know all that drama about mesmer being neccassary to WvW? You just can’t beat portal, null field, feedback, and time warp.

Control? In the interupt department we don’t have much (though magic bullet is super strong) but we can manipulate enemies in a way no other class can, with our clones. Before you say a good player will find you remember “You can fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” ~ Abraham Lincoln (I can’t believe I got to use this)

SteepledHat.1345:

to play mesmer over other classes. Every single other class seems superior. More damage, traits that don’t depend on clones, and easier gameplay. We’ve been damaged to the point that we aren’t effective. Five minutes with a guardian and I could tell you two things.

People who have leveled engineers, necromancers & elementalists are rolling their eyes so hard it may cause injury.

SteepledHat.1345:

I do well as a mesmer. But I know that with any other class I’ll do much better.

People who have leveled Engineers are still rolling their eyes, but this gives them an opportunity to check the calendar which has the Wintersday patch circled in bright red ink because that’s supposedly the day they finally get to use weapon sigils.

SteepledHat.1345:

Why bother with it when you can rofl stomp everyone with a guardian warrior or thief? Can someone tell me why I’m wrong? Or am I?

You cannot rofl-stomp everyone with one guardian or thief build. Thieves, warriors and guardians are definitely in a nice position in PvP right now, but I’d argue that if we’re talking PvP then Mesmers definitely have a place. In WvW, mesmers are basically required. In PvE, they can do a lot of good in dungeon runs.

Contrast and compare this to other classes who’s mechanics are either incomplete or not yet finely tuned to be effective in every context.

You do not realize how green the grass appears on your side of the fence.

Picking from various responses here..

Dante.3754:

Damage? We have plenty. Look at that new shattercat build on these forums, our burst is high AND its aoe. We are also very range flexible and highly survivable even when full burst spec. Between clones and distortion its hard to hit a mesmer no matter what spec they are.

First off..
>New
>Shattercat

…where the hell have you been?

More importantly though, shatter-burst -is- our damage. It revolves around shatter-centric builds which don’t really give a kitten about phantasms – the other half of our profession. Naturally, Shatter-centric builds will still be saying “Mesmer is fine~” when the phantasm side is in pain. Doing damage as a Mesmer then becomes a matter of “stop using that half of our profession, it’s silly. come shatter like the cool kids.”

It’s not an effective AoE outside of point-blank suicide bombing. In PvE or PvP, your clones will either be dodged or destroyed long before they can really shatter unless you spawn them more or less right on top of a target, or lay CC after CC on them to hold them still. Shattering shines on single targets, or in melee – where it becomes a Point-Blank AoE (PBAoE).

Dante.3754:

Support? Some of the best. You know all that drama about mesmer being neccassary to WvW? You just can’t beat portal, null field, feedback, and time warp.

feedback and null field are great tools, but can be better accomplished by other professions. Guardians can reflect/block projectiles all day long – A guildy of mine takes great pride in that. They can also wipe out conditions, but you know what does that way better?

Necros. They wipe out conditions, wipe out your boons, buff themselves, etc. It’s one of the really big class mechanics they have.

I got nothing on Portal. It’s neat to have in WvW due to zerg movement capabilities – the closest any other profession comes to that is perpetual AoE swiftness.

KirinDave.6451:

People who have leveled engineers, necromancers & elementalists are rolling their eyes so hard it may cause injury.

I’ve leveled ele and found it hilariously easier than mesmer. Damage is on demand and easy to access, mobility has me lol’ing around the battlefield like never before, and I have so many ways of escaping, tanking, or outhealing damage that I’m almost never really worried about kiting. Let’s not forget the actual AoEs they have in abundance.

A guildy of mine leveled a necro to 80 and we refer to him simply as the wondernecro. He facetanks 3-4+ mobs at a time and his HP barely moves. Granted his damage output is lower because he traited entirely for defense, but it takes an act of god to kill him, and he can still systematically farm things down at a respectable pace.

The grass may be greener, but Mesmer is pretty sub-par in every field – Not necessarily because we’re bad, but because we’re diverse. We can do everything moderately well. But we can’t do anything exceedingly well.

In a game of min/maxing and defined roles, the jack-of-all-trades is weaker. In something like Gw2 – We’re still weaker, but our versatility makes up for that. We’re convenient.

But because something is convenient does not make it more effective at something. Which is why, just like with variety tools, we do lots of things okay – but nothing comparatively good to the tools meant for it.

With this in mind, anyone who attempts to play their variety tool to compete with the specialty tool in the same game will have extremely limited success for the effort expended compared to the other guy. The Mesmer’s strength is in the fact that we’re so adaptable – Not that we can do any one thing better than other people.

That’s why we’re fun, but inferior in limited comparisons. If you came into Mesmer looking for a specific trait – you could find that trait more potent in a different profession. If you came into Mesmer looking to have fun? We can do that – Because we can do lots of things.

As a side note: This is the first I’m hearing about weapon sigils not working for engi’s. You guys got my respect, I hear it’s a real task juggling all your kits for effective combat.

Ayanavi.1904:

Picking from various responses here..
<Damage rebuttal>

I admit, I don’t go on the forums that much, but you bring up good points about shatter reliability and phantasms.

When it comes to clones being killed I see no problem. After all if the enemy attacks your clones isn’t that the whole point? It becomes a lose-lose for them as they either don’t attack you or take shatter damage. As for the AOE it might be small but it is still usefull, look at warrior and thief burst, a thief BS-burst only hits one person and a warrior bull rush is also single target (though 100b is still aoe it doesn’t give blur like ours)

Phantasms are currently broken but if we look at them from before they are far from weak, its just sustained damage vs. burst damage. A phantasm will actually out dps shatters per clone spot. If you consider that mind wrack will takes 10 seconds to use in a shatter build a phantasm can attack 2~3 times in that period (it seems to take about 4 seconds between attacks but I never timed them). Assuming shatters hit for like 2k non-crit with 3 illusions and phantasms do about 1k each depending on what you use you can easily over take a shatter build, you just don’t see it all at once.

I still wouldn’t mind a buff when they fix them though, more power to mesmers.

Ayanavi.1904:

<Support rebuttal>

When it comes to mesmers vs gaurdians in projectile defence I think mesmers are superior. Feedback and wall of reflection have the same cooldown and can both be reduced by the same amounts but feedback trades duration for range and size (it also looks better :P) When it comes to secondary defenses gaurdians have only the shield bubble (and sanctuary which really should be saved). Mesmers on the other hand still have focus that can trait to reflect projectiles and pwarden both of which are on a lower cd than shield bubble. Gaurdians and mesmers also both get a field on revive trait but mesmer’s reflects while gaurdian’s only absorbs.

As for conditions cleanse necro’s are the main condition profession so it makes sense that they would be better at it. That being said null field makes mesmer and good contender for second since it gets rid of all conditions in an area and keeps them off. It also doubles as a boon remover.

I know mesmers might not be the best class but I don’t see how anyone can say we are weak. We can just do so many things and unlike many versatile classes from other games still be the “best” in some areas.

I say we’re weak with a tongue-in-cheek attitude, if that helps. In direct comparisons between roles, it’s very difficult to impossible to find a role that Mesmer succeeds at better than some other profession – Which can sometimes exceed our capabilities with much less effort.

By no means are we literally “weak” in my mind, however. Our strength comes not from being able to rank number one in a role, but being able to rank number 2 or 3 in multiple roles. We can adequately fill lots of roles on the fly, which I believe is where a Mesmer’s real value shines.

It’s difficult to really express that kind of value on paper – or on the forums, as the medium may have it. It’s something that really only comes to light in practice when kitten hits the fan, or you’re just not expecting a certain twist to occur.

Mesmer is Duct Tape. Other tape may work better for certain things, but we work better than other tapes for everything.

In regards to projectile reflection? Mesmer probably wins there. We have, potentially, four skills which reflect projectiles. That’s crap ton.

In over all projectile defense? I feel like Guardian trumps us. They may not reflect, but they have quite a bit of blocking here.

Both professions have some drawbacks or quirks there though, so I believe the argument could really go either way there. They are pretty even.

As for clones dying, the main complaint is that errant AoE destroys them even without trying. In PvE, and in PvP this is true. If they took the time to single-target those clones down? Then yeah, that’s great. The misery comes from someone just lashing out an AoE and accidentally mowing them down.

I heard, but cannot confirm, that a staff guardian can just auto-attack a shatter mesmer into death because of the passive auto-attack murdering the clones. It was mentioned on this forum some time back, but I’ve never really seen or heard much about that happening – So I don’t put much stock in it.

And yeah, Phantasms aren’t weak at all. The issue is just getting them up and keeping them up. in WvW, this is an impossibility. In sPvP, It’s certainly possible, but painfully difficult and easy to shut down. in PvE, it’s still entirely possible to do. The last patch was actually a major boon to them since it fixed so many of their related traits.

And as for Shatter AoE – You are absolutely correct. It’s a wonderful skill that, when successfully executed, is amazing. even in melee, that little bit of AoE is useful. The problem with Shatters is really just getting it to execute successfully without being right up in their face. Unless, of course, that’s how you’re built and you just like being a walking bomb. There’s nothing wrong with that.

I actually had a hilarious thought about PBAoE Shatter mesmers screaming about holy wars before they detonated themselves. I don’t think it’d really be in good taste to type out the joke though.

Ayanavi.190

Necros. They wipe out conditions, wipe out your boons, buff themselves…

Necros do a very poor job of buffing themselves, and would kill for arcane thievery. Mesmers have superior burst condition support, but much of it is tough to manage because you have to carry the conditions on yourself.

I’ve leveled ele and found it hilariously easier than mesmer

Mesmer is no doubt very difficult until you get to 40, then its not bad at all. Necros are easy to level if you go power+healing, but that is a relatively new discovery. Most people didn’t do it that way.

The grass may be greener, but Mesmer is pretty sub-par in every field – Not necessarily because we’re bad, but because we’re diverse. We can do everything moderately well. But we can’t do anything exceedingly well.

Actually there is one thing that Mesmers do incredibly well: they confuse human opponents. Even with all the tricks, the sheer amount of havoc a mesmer sits in the middle of is a powerful tool. Its similar to why thief can be so strong. glass cannon builds are actually possible to field and survive with even in high level play.

Oh, and nearly everyone calls their favorite classe es “unspecialised”. Even thieves. Seriously! Its part of GW2’s novel design.

As a side note: This is the first I’m hearing about weapon sigils not working for engi’s. You guys got my respect, I hear it’s a real task juggling all your kits for effective combat.

Engineer kits currently do not benefit from sigils or weapon stats. Engineers cannot benefit from swap-to sigils. Turrets similarly do not scale with gear, nor do kits.

If you want to know what class is currently broken the most, look no further.

Ayanavi.1904:

feedback and null field are great tools, but can be better accomplished by other professions. Guardians can reflect/block projectiles all day long – A guildy of mine takes great pride in that. They can also wipe out conditions, but you know what does that way better?

You’re committing the same fallacy many of the people who come to the forum to whine about mesmers commit.

Guardians can reflect almost as well as a mesmer, OR they can wipe out conditions. You can’t fit the utilities to do both in to the same build at the same time. You’re taking a cross section of all possible guardian builds and claiming they can do this -simultaneously_ without having to make choices in their spec.

SteepledHat.1345:

But I know that with any other class I’ll do much better. I still think that the better players play mes. But they have to work harder at it. Mesmer is tough to play well. Why bother?

If you want all the power but no challenge then yes, rolling another class is advisable. But some folks just like a challenge for the sake of a challenge, setting up a complex combo chain and snapping the trap shut on the poor fool so hard his head explodes… it’s satisfying.

But if satisfaction for you is simply big numbers, then yeah you’re probably better off rolling a warrior for your dose of 23k kill shots.

I can’t imagine a thief being able to argue that their profession does not have a distinct edge on other professions in terms of burst damage. Gw2 may make multiclassing possible, but most professions are still given an edge of effectiveness in their home field. Mesmer doesn’t really have a “home field”, or pre-defined role that it got an edge in, because there aren’t that many professions like Mesmer out there to define anything.

Just because doing lots of things is possible doesn’t mean doing lots of things equally is.

Guardians iirc have a skill which lets them swap out their conditions for corresponding boons – Which negates the “take them upon themselves” issue. Necro boon removal and condition stacking happens much more rapidly, and in AoE succession than Mesmer using Null Field, and Arcane Thievery is single-target only with a fairly high CD.

Null Field’s power comes from it’s multi-tasking. it removes our conditions and their boons. But, like with all things Mesmer, other professions do it better – We just do multiple things. Reduced effectiveness in exchange for wider spread of versatility.

Mesmers confusing the player is great! in sPvP where that matters. In PvE, we aren’t confusing AI – and in WvW, we aren’t even seen beyond a zerg. Mesmer has never complained it’s too weak in sPvP – It’s WvW and PvE where that happens, and where most people tend to ignore and then recite how in sPvP we’re so OP.

And while Necros may fuss at you in regards to the most broken profession title – I don’t really ever recall saying Mesmer was even remotely broken. By design, we are weaker in specializations and stronger in generalization. The only thing really in need of attention on Mesmers now is the Phantasm delay, but that’s a major annoyance for one category of builds – Not a game breaking bug for the entire profession.

Edit: @Ryuujin

I’m not entirely sure how to say this, and I hope I don’t come across as offensive.

I think you’ve mistaken me entirely. My point has been that Mesmer’s power is in their diversity – They can’t do things as well as other professions because they can do multiple things in a less effective manner simultaneously.

You are correct in that guardians need to choose between which role they want to fill – but when that role is chosen, they perform it much more effectively. Mesmer does not choose, but can passively fill both – With less effectiveness. The power comes not from how well they perform the role, but at how many roles they can perform.

In short, you explained to me the point I was making and thought I was whining… About the thing I was being proud of. I’m not sure where you could have gotten the idea that I’m whining about Mesmers when I’ve repeatedly pointed out that we’re fun and diverse – Just because we don’t have a specialization to call our own (besides maybe chaos, as kirin points out) doesn’t mean we’re bad. Pointing that out shouldn’t really be seen as whining.

This thread makes me laugh. It is so unbelievably wrong, I don’t even know where to begin.

Lets start with open world pve.

Orr DE Farming: Mesmers suck. Starting at the worst point of our class. The best we can do is go full glass cannon, drop mirror blade and izerker and shatter immediately, though izerker is messed up now, so it is less effective. Sorry, but if you want to be a beast at farming Orr DEs, you’re going to have to go to another class.

EVERYTHING ELSE: This includes normal single target mob burst, multiple mob killing, veteran soloing, and champion soloing. A well played mesmer is one of the best classes in the game for every one of these categories, and without a doubt the best for chamion soloing. Single and multiple normal mobs will be destroyed in seconds with a 4 clone shatter + blurred frenzy, and maybe a few autoattacks. Veterans are soloed easily with a bit of kiting, continual cripples and decent bleed stacking from izerker, and burst shatter damage with blurred frenzy. Champions are similar to veterans, except it takes longer, and sometimes you have to abuse the rest of your toolset, such as projectile reflects, stealth skills, knockbacks, and dazes.

Dungeons: As a general rule of thumb, the single BEST thing a group can do to make a dungeon run easier and less painful is take along a good mesmer. The group utility of a mesmer is far higher than any other class, hands down. Not only do we have time warp for group killing, we also have mass invisibility for sticky situations, or running past mobs. We have veil for additional stealth, we can take pdisenchanter for condition heavy areas, or null field, to accomplish the same thing. If the bosses buff themselves, we can take arcane thievery, along with signet of inspiration to pass these strong buffs to the rest of the team. We can provide aegis with chaos storm, interrupts with chaos storm, mobility and mob bypassing with portal. We can provide endless projectile reflects with a traited focus and feedback (this trivializes risen hunters and elementalists, try it), we can strip boons in 6 different ways from nearly anything. We can provide projectile reflects upon reviving (this trivializes stage 2 lupicus if you get a teammate to just sit there dead for a free feedback every time he aoe nukes). On top of all this, we can provide significant amounts of buffs to teammates from shatters, and still pump out reasonable damage while doing it.

sPVP/tPVP: If anyone argues that mesmers are not competitive, or are even not one of the very best classes for sPVP and tPVP, slap them hard, slap them fast, and slap them multiple times, because they deserve it. ’Nuff said.

WvW: Mesmers are absolutely essential in WvW. Time warp and portal are the bread and butter of mass combat, and spammable projectile reflects (note, not projectile absorbs like guardians) can be used to creatively cause a zerg to move around, or if they refuse to move, to kill themselves. When put in an offensive glass cannon shatter build, mesmers can tear through any class and any build like it is made of tissue paper. When put into a full tank survival build, it takes 3 people doing their best to have a chance of killing you (more on this soon, I’m making a guide for that playstyle). Overall, mesmers are unbelievably helpful, and even essential, in WvW.

If you choose to play WvW in a smaller kill team, there are few better choices you can make than simply stacking mesmers in different builds. The power and confusion (not the condition) of mesmers stacks multiplicitively when they are working together effectively, and there is nothing more disorienting than continually having 12 different players moving around you, shattering, debuffing, and doing damage. It is nearly impossible to figure out how many people are actually attacking you, let alone which ones are the real mesmers (note that adding in a nice HB warrior or backstab thief to this base combo will always enhance a kill team).

Overall, you can see that mesmers are one of the best classes in the game to play if played right, despite the continual nerfs we have been receiving. Anyone who believes otherwise simply does not know how to play mesmer effectively, and should learn. I don’t play mesmer simply because it is more fun than other classes (it is), or because it has a higher skill cap to be great at it (it does, for the most part). I play mesmer because it is the best, because I can run a build that is literally impossible to kill in a 1v1, and yet still pull out damage. Because I can swap to a facemelting glass cannon build that takes apart anything I see in under 5 seconds, and because I am a veritable swiss army knife of utility that can be applied to any situation in the game, and make the experience easier, faster, and more enjoyable for the rest of your fellow players.

As an addition to what PyroAtheist said, We also run one of the meanest condi builds in the game, all the while having some of the best survivability in the game.

And Guardian is OP in PvE in ALL aspects, i’m sorry. When you’re in Orr, and your friend goes afk for 10 minutes, and he gets attacked by 10 or so risen, he should die right? Wrong. he comes back and notices half his health gone. proceeds to 3 shot everything. Annoying

But anyway, Mesmer is no way conceptually inferior to all the other professions. You just have to use your brain to actually make the build.

SteepledHat.1345:

to play mesmer over other classes. Every single other class seems superior. More damage, traits that don’t depend on clones, and easier gameplay. We’ve been damaged to the point that we aren’t effective. Five minutes with a guardian and I could tell you two things.

GS is OP and mesmer is just too hard to play by comparison.

I do well as a mesmer. But I know that with any other class I’ll do much better. I still think that the better players play mes. But they have to work harder at it. Mesmer is tough to play well. Why bother? They’ve nerfed us from OP to UP and we can see more nerfs on the horizon. Why bother with it when you can rofl stomp everyone with a guardian warrior or thief? Can someone tell me why I’m wrong? Or am I?

Today on SoR BL in WvW, before the game reset, our force went to the southern windmill to engage in duels with a guardian from BG. The guardian was very skilled with their class, and was running some insane tanky/toughness/vit/healing build with crazy boons and regens. Out of the numerous people who dueled him, none got him below 70% health, and 70% was rare. Most couldn’t scratch him, while he wore everybody down. Only a few players, three or four, could counter-tank him and had to call stalemate. They could go toe to toe (with a lot of effort) and stay up, but couldn’t deal any damage to him whatsoever. Then I entered with my mes. Using my CD confusion build (sceptre/torch for all you haters out there), I was taking him down to a slither of health where he had to, for the first time out of all the matches I watched, disengage and flee from me in order to survive. Yes it required effort and a fair amount of skill, but it showed he was vulnerable.

Unfortunately my daughter came in and started talking to me, I messed up my CD’s, and things went south in the end, but I know I made my point when the Guardian contacted me to compliment me on the fight.

In conclusion, I disagree that mesmers are weak compared to other classes. In any engagement there will be some way to outplay your opponent. You just have to find it, and play to win. The guardians you’ve encountered have obviously found what works against YOU (not your class, generally speaking).

Ross Biddle.2367:

Today on SoR BL in WvW, before the game reset, our force went to the southern windmill to engage in duels with a guardian from BG. The guardian was very skilled with their class, and was running some insane tanky/toughness/vit/healing build with crazy boons and regens. Out of the numerous people who dueled him, none got him below 70% health, and 70% was rare. Most couldn’t scratch him, while he wore everybody down. Only a few players, three or four, could counter-tank him and had to call stalemate. They could go toe to toe (with a lot of effort) and stay up, but couldn’t deal any damage to him whatsoever. Then I entered with my mes. Using my CD confusion build (sceptre/torch for all you haters out there), I was taking him down to a slither of health where he had to, for the first time out of all the matches I watched, disengage and flee from me in order to survive. Yes it required effort and a fair amount of skill, but it showed he was vulnerable.

Unfortunately my daughter came in and started talking to me, I messed up my CD’s, and things went south in the end, but I know I made my point when the Guardian contacted me to compliment me on the fight.

In conclusion, I disagree that mesmers are weak compared to other classes. In any engagement there will be some way to outplay your opponent. You just have to find it, and play to win. The guardians you’ve encountered have obviously found what works against YOU (not your class, generally speaking).

Confusion builds are really strong in WvW, and under appreciated.

Dante.3754:

Are you kiding me? Do you guys seriously think we are the WEAKEST CLASS? There are tons of ways we outperform the other classes. Heck, we get almost as much rage as thiefs when it comes to pvp.

Damage? We have plenty. Look at that new shattercat build on these forums, our burst is high AND its aoe. We are also very range flexible and highly survivable even when full burst spec. Between clones and distortion its hard to hit a mesmer no matter what spec they are.

Support? Some of the best. You know all that drama about mesmer being neccassary to WvW? You just can’t beat portal, null field, feedback, and time warp.

Control? In the interupt department we don’t have much (though magic bullet is super strong) but we can manipulate enemies in a way no other class can, with our clones. Before you say a good player will find you remember “You can fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” ~ Abraham Lincoln (I can’t believe I got to use this)

While I agree with you for the most part…
Shattercat isnt exactly a ‘new’ build, people have been running it for a long time, osicat just put some awesome videos and instruction together at a time when most mesmers were giving up due to phantasm nerfs. The community needs more people like him, I tried once to put a excel pve gear calculator together but the people to lazy to get excel 2010 either shunned me or told me I was trying to put a virus on thier computer, the link is “http://filebin.ca/N4Gl0RUy1Tp” if your interested, you will have to enable editing, I got a friend trying to put it into a web based app.

Now, back to agreeing with you more

Mesmers can run a great variety of builds, for roaming in a small group you can play shatters and easily and quickly cap camps and if you got 5-8 people can also quickly take towers if you have rams, I solo camps usually since I dont have a wvw guild.

Upscaling to larger scale, you can swap your build (idk why most people dont do this, carry two sets of gear, greens work just fine, and respeccing costs 3 silvers) to a glamor confusion build. 20/0/0/20/30. This build absolutly wrecks zergs, it also wrecks portal bombers, it wrecks just about any group of people that you toss your glamours on. Can also solo with it but its not as fun kittenters solo. If you feel you dont need the glamours last longer trait you can also swap it for focus skills reflect projectiles and wreck zergs some more.

There was always more than just LoSing and casting phantasms in wvw, just people are not aware of the builds just yet.

Dante.3754:

Support? Some of the best. You know all that drama about mesmer being neccassary to WvW? You just can’t beat portal, null field, feedback, and time warp.

Correct, and these skills get nerfed for sPvP instead of WvW reasons, leaving them just as overpowered in WvW as before.

D:

Carighan.6758:

Dante.3754:

Support? Some of the best. You know all that drama about mesmer being neccassary to WvW? You just can’t beat portal, null field, feedback, and time warp.

Correct, and these skills get nerfed for sPvP instead of WvW reasons, leaving them just as overpowered in WvW as before.

D:

None of those got nerfed except portal, and that was hardly a nerf.

What I mean is, when they apply nerf they listen to the sPvP side of the complaints only.

The sPvP side was: Portal needs a larger CD, it’s breaking the treb map and the frequent use is damaging to location viability.

The WvW side was: For all I care Portal could be 5s CD, so long as it’s limited to 5 players per Portal spawned.

What happened? 90s CD. Which made the skill atrocious to use in PvE, and it was already not fun due to the excessively long CD of 60s before (given the use, in PvE). Now the sPvPers are a tad less unhappy, but in WvW raid-teleportation is entirely untouched, you only did it every 2-3 minutes anyhow, never needed to do it more often.

I expect one of two things now:

1. Either it’s left where it is, overpowered in WvW, ok in sPvP, a pain to use in PvE.
2. Or, it’s nerfed again for WvW reasons and we end up with a 5-limited 90s CD Portal which people only use in sPvP or to get people unstuck.

The problem is that what Portal needs is very simple. A short CD, a strict target limit, and that limit to be one in sPvP (5 outside of it). Maaaaybe two, needs testing. And short CD I envision at ~25-30 seconds.
More or less the polar opposite of what was done – the problem when you use sPvP as the base of your balance, you end up with unbalanced skills because sPvP is so different from everything else.

@OP

So don’t play Mesmer.

I don’t think objectively means what you think it means. The word you were looking for is subjectively.

Voodoo Tina.4180:

@OP

So don’t play Mesmer.

I don’t think objectively means what you think it means. The word you were looking for is subjectively.

Objectively means what he thinks it means, he simply is objectively wrong, as mesmer is objectively the best class in the game in many situations.

Carighan.6758:

What I mean is, when they apply nerf they listen to the sPvP side of the complaints only.

Well sPvP is supposed to be “fair”. WvW is definitely not using “fairness” as a design goal. They set up wildly asymmetrical systems all the time. I think that’s part of what maks it fun.

Carighan.6758:

The WvW side was: For all I care Portal could be 5s CD, so long as it’s limited to 5 players per Portal spawned.

5 golems is still enough to make Portal earth-shakingly powerful. And a 5 second cooldown would make Mesmers basically unkillable except by a vastly superior force.

Carighan.6758:

What happened? 90s CD. Which made the skill atrocious to use in PvE, and it was already not fun due to the excessively long CD of 60s before (given the use, in PvE). Now the sPvPers are a tad less unhappy, but in WvW raid-teleportation is entirely untouched, you only did it every 2-3 minutes anyhow, never needed to do it more often.

Portal bombing was only one use. See the videos in the shatter-cat thread. Your proposed changes would only make portal stronger in WvW.

KirinDave.6451:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Today on SoR BL in WvW, before the game reset, our force went to the southern windmill to engage in duels with a guardian from BG. The guardian was very skilled with their class, and was running some insane tanky/toughness/vit/healing build with crazy boons and regens. Out of the numerous people who dueled him, none got him below 70% health, and 70% was rare. Most couldn’t scratch him, while he wore everybody down. Only a few players, three or four, could counter-tank him and had to call stalemate. They could go toe to toe (with a lot of effort) and stay up, but couldn’t deal any damage to him whatsoever. Then I entered with my mes. Using my CD confusion build (sceptre/torch for all you haters out there), I was taking him down to a slither of health where he had to, for the first time out of all the matches I watched, disengage and flee from me in order to survive. Yes it required effort and a fair amount of skill, but it showed he was vulnerable.

Unfortunately my daughter came in and started talking to me, I messed up my CD’s, and things went south in the end, but I know I made my point when the Guardian contacted me to compliment me on the fight.

In conclusion, I disagree that mesmers are weak compared to other classes. In any engagement there will be some way to outplay your opponent. You just have to find it, and play to win. The guardians you’ve encountered have obviously found what works against YOU (not your class, generally speaking).

Confusion builds are really strong in WvW, and under appreciated.

Amen! I’ve been running a shatter confusion build for ages, and it rocks. All these “mesmer is unplayable” whiners makes me laugh every time I melt my target to goo without missing a beat.

I’m sorry but I don’t see a replacement to my mesmer. Yes I have other 80’s but which one do I prefer among them…

Without a doubt.. my mesmer.

yes they have made some issues with them but I simply overcome them and still have fun.

Yes others can bring to the table something I can’t bring, but guess what I can bring things they don’t.

I farm Orr just fine. Switch to sword/anything, have a sigil of superior fire on one of your weapons and whatever else you want on the other, trait yourself to act like a clone, shatter f1 and f2 with or without clones, swing 1 wildly, and hit 2 when you’re in the middle.

Sparkles everywhere!

Yes, you do die sometimes, but you’ll usually pop right back up with no damage.

I’ve never had a problem with orr. Seriously, I’m honestly befuddled at that “mesmers can’t farm orr” statement.

Morfedel.4165:

I’ve never had a problem with orr. Seriously, I’m honestly befuddled at that “mesmers can’t farm orr” statement.

I did until I stopped bothering with ranged weapons.

But I know a few mesmers who do all right with staff or GS, too. For me, I found that I never tagged anything in time at range.

I love people who get insta offended and go on saying Null Field, TimeWarp, and Feedback are the best skills ever. Sure Timewarp is awesome….for 10 seconds every 210. Feedback rocks…for like 5-6 seconds out of 40. I think the cooldowns need a bit of work

Nemhy.5230:

I love people who get insta offended and go on saying Null Field, TimeWarp, and Feedback are the best skills ever. Sure Timewarp is awesome….for 10 seconds every 210. Feedback rocks…for like 5-6 seconds out of 40. I think the cooldowns need a bit of work

Thats because they are the best skills ever =P

Timewarp is balanced because of its insane cd, plus all other quickness skills are only 4 seconds (5 for engy) so 10 seconds of team quickness is great. Its a skill that defiantly feels, well, elite.

As for feedback 40 seconds seems to be the base for aoe reflects (gaurdian wall is also 40 seconds) while its 30 seconds for self reflects (ele aura, engy sheild, warrior traited shield stance, etc.) so not much hope for a cd reduction.

I saw this in another thread.
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/balancing-for-skill
It’s made me shift my prospective a bit. Thanks to those of you that didn’t insult me or assume I was a bad player. I don’t think I’m awesome, but I don’t suck either. I appreciate the disucssion. Perhaps it’s just that the other classes are a bit easier to play so it can attract the casuals. I can appreciate that. I’ll stick with mes. It has lyssa as it’s patron goddess. That’s reason enough. :P

Just off the top of my head.

Time Warp. Doubles the DPS of you, and the rest of your party. Also doubles Rez speed. I’ve seen it turn around countless bad situations.

Illusion of Life. Quick resurrect for 15 seconds, or until a party member scores a kill. If it fails, they go down again one downed penalty tier higher. In other words, it can save people on the brink of death, and if they fail to get a kill, they’re still down with more health than before.

Null field. Where do I even begin? Combo field. Strips buffs. strips debuffs. AoE. Decent cooldown. Null field is an outright AMAZING ability for dungeons and WvW.

Decoy + Distortion Shatter combo. Secures kills in WvW better than most anything. You can leap off a wall, then pop distortion when it ends, and get a stomp kill.

Feedback. Get a few mesmers with this in WvW and watch the magic. Also counts as a combo field on the rebound, confusing targets for shooting at you.

Portal. It’s portal. That’s all that needs to be said.

Blurred frenzy + Illusionary riposte combo. You can stand on top of MANY bosses in dungeons, and just ignore whatever attacks they use on you. Mix with Knights gear and blood sigils and you can generally outlast whatever you’re fighting.

Spatial Surge + on crit Sigil (I like blood personally). Three chances to proc your sigil. One attack.

Mind Stab (Both). Buff removal on an auto attack and AoE buff removal at range.

That’s just a few that I like. Mesmer has no shortage of great support options, outperforming anyone. We’re not really DPS, and shouldn’t focus on numbers.

SteepledHat.1345:

I saw this in another thread.
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/balancing-for-skill
It’s made me shift my prospective a bit. Thanks to those of you that didn’t insult me or assume I was a bad player. I don’t think I’m awesome, but I don’t suck either. I appreciate the disucssion. Perhaps it’s just that the other classes are a bit easier to play so it can attract the casuals. I can appreciate that. I’ll stick with mes. It has lyssa as it’s patron goddess. That’s reason enough. :P

I posted that link/thread btw. If you liked that, I recomend you read through this http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/
If you want to become a great player and get the most out of your gaming, you’ll want to read this. It’s not very long, and while you can buy a published book, it’s also there on the authors website for free

Mesmer good in PvP? HA! Mesmer gives people a chance to avoid the damage before, during, and after the cast via dodges/blinds/blocks/killing the illusions. If they can’t stop you at any of those times and just eat the damage they are baddies who can be killed by any class.

All that being said… if they roll back the dodge/blind/block rubbish I’ll agree with mesmer being good in PvP. With those unbalanced rules on them the whole class is rubbish vs any player that knows how to exploit this imbalance… and the good ones do.

Mesmer in WvW are portals and time warp. Feedback is nice, but it’s not like other classes don’t have reflection as well (wall of reflection is superior in most situations). I do appreciate mesmers porting me to the end of the JP though…

Stealth in PvE? Tell your team members to go buy some ash legion spy kits for 28 karma each and don’t waste those utility slots. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ash_Legion_Spy_Kit)

Boon/cond removal would be better if null field it actually removed them all at once. You may as well just use anti-condition duration foods instead. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Poultry_and_Leek_Soup) <- VERY cheap on the tp. The field is nice for giving chaos armor, but confusion is a pretty unreliable condition in PvE

And OH SO MUCH variety in the weapons mesmer can use… staff w/ sword + pistol/focus. That’s all that’s worth anything right now due to bugs which constantly plague this class… inb4 scepter, torch, and OH sword are “good” lol

Mesmer is supposed to be the dualist mage. But they’ve taken away their ability to dual via dodge/blind/block =’s no illusion… leaving you with mesmer in this current sad state.

For some people playing certain classes is difficult and if you find playing the mesmer difficult then don’t play it. I don’t agree that mesmer’s are ineffective however, we’re still one of the most powerful pvp classes. I will agree that warriors are able to do well with minimal brain power, for what ever reason devs love to make warrior/soldier classes stupidly easy compared to every other class.

SuperSpicyCurry.2415:

For some people playing certain classes is difficult and if you find playing the mesmer difficult then don’t play it. I don’t agree that mesmer’s are ineffective however, we’re still one of the most powerful pvp classes. I will agree that warriors are able to do well with minimal brain power, for what ever reason devs love to make warrior/soldier classes stupidly easy compared to every other class.

It’s not even that mesmers are hard to play. I don’t find them to be so, nor ever have. I am used to playing games with a MUCH steeper learning curve than this game has. I’m used to games where you’ll get 100->0 comboed vs other players if you mess up a single dodge. GW2 is far more forgiving than that.

My issue with mesmer is the fact that some of the basic rules of the game are no longer the same when it comes to mesmer vs. other classes. Due to that the entire class is rubbish in PvP.

When I say mesmer is hard, what I really mean is that the effort to result ration is very high. You have to work harder as a mes to get the same results as other classes. Longer skill chains and more strategic thinking. Contrast that with all the push to win skills on Thief/War/Guard.

Another thread reminded me of a point, mantras are just another example of mes doing the same thing for more work. Have to charge them and maintain them just to access the skill. More work for the same result. Granted, this might not be so bad if there was a viable mantra build. But mantra traits are so scattered…..

SteepledHat.1345:

When I say mesmer is hard, what I really mean is that the effort to result ration is very high. You have to work harder as a mes to get the same results as other classes. Longer skill chains and more strategic thinking. Contrast that with all the push to win skills on Thief/War/Guard.

I find Thief/Wars to be very easy to counter. Thief is pretty much a one trick pony. At Higher skill levels wars do get to be a lot more difficult, but nothing crazy.

Guard was a bit harder for me and some of matches vs them were just ending in stalemates… which is why I rolled one. I now know a few tricks on how to stop them but they are still more difficult to counter on most classes than the other two.

I find that due to the easily exploitable rule imbalance imposed on mesmer that at higher skill levels it just doesn’t matter how good you are at mesmer… you’ll get shut down by anything able to spam dodges (easily done with vigor), blocks, or blinds… and they can do this within several parts in the attacks… so you won’t be summoning up very much… which denies us our shatter skills. That’s just too much and I won’t return to my mesmer as my main (or use it for anything serious at all) until they sort that out.

Mesmer in PvE I find to be very easily replaced by another class. I can’t think of a single time in PvE where I’ve thought gee… I wish we had a mesmer for ____. Instead I’ll think of the class that does whatever that role is better than a mes (time warp being the only exception to what mes does better).

ive played them all at least a bit. my mesmer is my only 80. and anytime i try to level something else, i flip back to my mesmer… my ele and eng should have been 80 ages ago. but they are 41 and 38 or something.. i dont even know. i play about half a level and give up and go back to the fun of the mesmer

ranger seems stupid easy to me. its like i could auto walk fwd and just spam 1 and hit 80 without having to LEARN how to play it

im sure i couldnt, but it FEELS like i could in comparison to mesmer

MENTAL POWAAAAAAH!

Gubrz.7283:

ive played them all at least a bit. my mesmer is my only 80. and anytime i try to level something else, i flip back to my mesmer… my ele and eng should have been 80 ages ago. but they are 41 and 38 or something.. i dont even know. i play about half a level and give up and go back to the fun of the mesmer

ranger seems stupid easy to me. its like i could auto walk fwd and just spam 1 and hit 80 without having to LEARN how to play it

im sure i couldnt, but it FEELS like i could in comparison to mesmer

MENTAL POWAAAAAAH!

Finish that eng man… they rock and their kits are getting buffed this next patch (allowing sigils to proc with kits)… and more so in the near future (weapon stats will apply while using a kit).

tl;dr
i like mesmer because i need to click a lot more buttons in correct order to be good with it. and in the end of the day i’m the last one standing

Even the meshes are pretty broken right now, it is still my N.1 because its fun. I like my supporting build with heavy condition dmg and I love my surviveability. I am the last man standing in most cases. I am always the first rezzing up dead allys. I can solo keep aggro on boss during partywipe before they come back from waypoint. And in pvp I can own 1v2,2v3 and sometimes 1v3 battles. Maybe mesmers dont have the burst like warrs or thieves, we cant bunker tank like guardians and we are not fast as elles, but we can mindfack the whole universe. And thats the right pleasure for me.

Lots of stuff here that isn’t correct – H ave to agree with several people and add:

1. Shatter confusion is very strong but it isn’t as flashy as lots of other builds or classes. Can do this with just about any weapon but in sPvP it’s alot better if one is a scepter. This just melts any high speed attack class spec – example SB rangers.
2. Shatter conditions + confusion is incredibly strong, IMO it’s incredibly boring, but that is more about play style.
3. With LOS issues phants are currently under performing, this is much worse in WvW and certain aspects of PvE than others.

There may be a bit of extreme arguments on both side happening in this thread, by some posters, but in loosely general terms: the op is correct. Mesmers need to keep track of, strategize, think ahead, and use their environment and skills properly in order to be useful and maintain a decent damage rate. We, generally speaking and not focusing on any one build in particular, need to put in more energy and effort when playing this class for roughly 60-80% returns of other classes. In other words, we need to do more for less or equal output of other classes. Whether this is something people enjoy or not is an individual case by case basis. However, in my opinion, something does need to help alleviate the strain and stress and energy input.

For those of us that play Mesmers and are posting here, I think it is important that we speak from a place of consideration beyond our own builds. Something that affects one aspect of our class but may not affect you/your build could be affecting — or even crippling — a good chunk of our fellow Mesmers. Some things you may not need to notice or pay attention to with your build may very well be impacting fellow Mesmers to harsh degrees.

If we weren’t supposed to use phantasms or be able to make builds that relied upon phantasms, then they wouldn’t have been a part of our class and we wouldn’t have had many traits dedicated to improving/buffing/making builds from them. We’d simply be The Shatter class. The fact is that we do have these options available to us and it should be a viable source not only of dps and survivability, but also of diversifying our class’ options of what we can be and what players can build.

As is, phantasms do underperform right now as a source of reliable output. Shatter builds do much more and much faster. Certainly do not want shatter builds to be affected negatively in any way; their builds are fine and their damage is good. But there does need to be an overhaul of phantasms and the viability of phantasm builds. Whether that means a nitty-gritty reworking of our traitlines so that excelling in Phantasms causes our shatters to be more useless, and excelling in shatters makes phantasms more useless, I leave up to the dev teams. But something does need to be done that increases our energy input vs. output and our overall satisfaction (from all angles of builds) of the class.

A class shouldn’t need to painstakingly get to L40+ before they start feeling more capable and more useful and like they are able to do more output. A class also shouldn’t feel like they are forced into one or two specific builds just to play effective output. And a class’ balance should not solely be looked at through a lens of PvP.

Completely correct. There is no real argument to play mesmer instead of anything else.

But if I played anything else, I’d quit within a week.

And I’m usually the first in combat and the last one standing in PvE. And in PvP I can beat almost any other class.

Go figure.

Mesmer best pvp class in the game if you know how to use it ive had only 1 problem and 1 class i die to and that is a necro mostly condition and well bombing necros but anywho every other class is easy cake walk for me as they pose no threat. and warriors and thiefs are my breakfast in the morning when i wake up to go WvW and spvp for bit ^^