Guild Wars 2

As a power Reaper roaming in WvW, I find it a lot tougher to fight PU mesmers (both condi and power versions) compared to chronomancers.
Are Base PU Mesmers still the King of Roaming?
Chronomancers don’t really come close to PU Mesmers in my experience…

I fought a PU Mantra base Power Mesmer from FA EVO guild, i think his name is Andy or something, my record against him in like 50 fights is 50 losses. I won zero times. Zero! He is extremely skilled and I got no chance against him.
Against less skilled base Mesmers like those in my video below, I still find them much harder to fight compared to a Chronomancer =/

In the video below:

• Reaper vs Power Chronomancer @ 52sec
  (a few fights which I felt wasn’t too hard)
• Reaper vs Condi PU Mesmer @ 8min 15sec
  (I won after a long and close fight where I almost died. But it was so hard and my build is in itself advantageous against condi builds)
• Reaper vs Power PU Mesmer @ 10min 20sec
  (I won after a long fight. But it was so much harder to fight a Power PU Mesmer compared to a Power Chronomancer)

Apart from the video below, you can see other Chronomancer fights I had with my Reaper in my signature’s Roaming 1 and 2 videos. They are still not as tough as a PU base Mesmer =/

EremiteAngel.9765:

As a power Reaper roaming in WvW, I find it a lot tougher to fight PU mesmers (both condi and power versions) compared to chronomancers.
Are Base PU Mesmers still the King of Roaming?
Chronomancers don’t really come close to PU Mesmers in my experience…

I fought a PU Mantra base Power Mesmer from FA EVO guild, i think his name is Andy or something, my record against him in like 50 fights is 50 losses. I won zero times. Zero! He is extremely skilled and I got no chance against him.
Against less skilled base Mesmers like those in my video below, I still find them much harder to fight compared to a Chronomancer =/

I have also fought this particular mesmer maybe 300 or 400 times (though his name escapes me as well), and dueled him extensively in attempts to beat him after being constantly rejected while playing a breadth of classes, doing my best to run hard counters since he was PPT’ing our camps one day, and have repeatedly taken down his guildmembers outnumbered many, many times when he is not there. Every fight where he is involved, however, has pretty much been a strict loss without many others there to take down his passives from the Chaos traitline so I can get in and simply kill him. Alone, he’s similarly devastating. He plays full berserker and is next to impossible to kill without single-target damage that will one-shot him. I’d say I lose about 90% of the time on every class and build used against him. He is by far and large the best mesmer I’ve ever seen in the game, and plays an order of magnitude better than most I’ve seen stream in the ESL, including Helseth. He only runs one mantra, though, MoP.

I play a similar reaper build when I’m not on my thief, and a good chrono can easily shut us down with the amount of blocks and lockdown available to them. That said, there are very few actually good chronomancers, and PU/Chaos is absolutely the better roaming option since it has so many goodies meant for the small-scale, and it offers a ton in terms of defense like permanent protection uptime.

You can run Ins/Chaos/Chrono and also do very well, however. Though I’d argue chrono is a little better for larger encounters due to alacrity and the ability to reset important skills like veil.

So PU is basically the only mechanic Mesmer has that allows us to do outnumbered fights. Since WvW solo roaming is basically 90% outnumbered fights, PU is obviously an important choice.

However, chrono provides our only access to a 25% movement speed passive. The importance of this in WvW roaming is also enormous. There’s no point running a build that lets you win fights if you can’t actually get to any fights.

The resolution is to run both. You can take chaos and get 2 useful major traits out of it that are not build-specific (manipulation cooldowns and PU). Chrono has a bunch of good options for any build. This then leaves you with 1 free traitline. Go illusions if you’re condie. Go inspiration if you’re with a group suddenly. Go domination if you’re looking for power burst, and go dueling if you’re power but want a bit more utility.

I haven’t personally fought this Mesmer you’re referring to, being on FA myself, but beating power mesmer is all about recognizing and responding to the burst before it hits you. Mesmer has no sustained damage, so you can easily fight back and put them on the defensive, but you have to avoid eating the burst in the first place. If you let the power Mesmer control the pacing of the fight and use their stealth aggressively, it will be difficult to win. If you put pressure on them and force defensive stealths, it allows you to control the pacing and land hits.

On a side note, the guild is EV, not EVO :P

Well, the game isn’t balanced around 1v1. Simple as that. Makes no sense either because it’s a MMORPG.

PU is strong if the following things come together:

• You got room to maneuver.
• You are fighting someone alone.
• They want to kill you.

The last is actually pretty important. A PU Mesmer is surprisingly toothless until you try to hurt them. Try to duel them, they kill you. Do anything else, like try to fight for points, win, do teamfights, anything, they are quite bad and their team will be missing one.

It’s basically a highwayman-trap-spec. You bait people who want to prey on solo runners into attacking you, then you kill them. Used to be the natural answer to the perma-stealthing thieves standing around enemy walls waiting to ambush players, as they’d often jump onto a Mesmer immediately.

Outside of that one use case, not really a point to it. And as 1v1 isn’t a combat format the game supports, also underpowered if anything (why is Mass Invis limited to 10 players? Mass Invisibility!).

DeceiverX.8361:

EremiteAngel.9765:

As a power Reaper roaming in WvW, I find it a lot tougher to fight PU mesmers (both condi and power versions) compared to chronomancers.
Are Base PU Mesmers still the King of Roaming?
Chronomancers don’t really come close to PU Mesmers in my experience…

I fought a PU Mantra base Power Mesmer from FA EVO guild, i think his name is Andy or something, my record against him in like 50 fights is 50 losses. I won zero times. Zero! He is extremely skilled and I got no chance against him.
Against less skilled base Mesmers like those in my video below, I still find them much harder to fight compared to a Chronomancer =/

I have also fought this particular mesmer maybe 300 or 400 times (though his name escapes me as well), and dueled him extensively in attempts to beat him after being constantly rejected while playing a breadth of classes, doing my best to run hard counters since he was PPT’ing our camps one day, and have repeatedly taken down his guildmembers outnumbered many, many times when he is not there. Every fight where he is involved, however, has pretty much been a strict loss without many others there to take down his passives from the Chaos traitline so I can get in and simply kill him. Alone, he’s similarly devastating. He plays full berserker and is next to impossible to kill without single-target damage that will one-shot him. I’d say I lose about 90% of the time on every class and build used against him. He is by far and large the best mesmer I’ve ever seen in the game, and plays an order of magnitude better than most I’ve seen stream in the ESL, including Helseth. He only runs one mantra, though, MoP.

I play a similar reaper build when I’m not on my thief, and a good chrono can easily shut us down with the amount of blocks and lockdown available to them. That said, there are very few actually good chronomancers, and PU/Chaos is absolutely the better roaming option since it has so many goodies meant for the small-scale, and it offers a ton in terms of defense like permanent protection uptime.

You can run Ins/Chaos/Chrono and also do very well, however. Though I’d argue chrono is a little better for larger encounters due to alacrity and the ability to reset important skills like veil.

You’re right about the one-shot way to defeat him.
I heard flamegun berserkers have beaten him. One shot kill from their rifles.
I also heard druids have beaten him. Out-range and out-heal his damage?
He isn’t running any reflects i believe…

I never actually seen it happen though lol…

Fay.2357:

So PU is basically the only mechanic Mesmer has that allows us to do outnumbered fights. Since WvW solo roaming is basically 90% outnumbered fights, PU is obviously an important choice.

However, chrono provides our only access to a 25% movement speed passive. The importance of this in WvW roaming is also enormous. There’s no point running a build that lets you win fights if you can’t actually get to any fights.

The resolution is to run both. You can take chaos and get 2 useful major traits out of it that are not build-specific (manipulation cooldowns and PU). Chrono has a bunch of good options for any build. This then leaves you with 1 free traitline. Go illusions if you’re condie. Go inspiration if you’re with a group suddenly. Go domination if you’re looking for power burst, and go dueling if you’re power but want a bit more utility.

I haven’t personally fought this Mesmer you’re referring to, being on FA myself, but beating power mesmer is all about recognizing and responding to the burst before it hits you. Mesmer has no sustained damage, so you can easily fight back and put them on the defensive, but you have to avoid eating the burst in the first place. If you let the power Mesmer control the pacing of the fight and use their stealth aggressively, it will be difficult to win. If you put pressure on them and force defensive stealths, it allows you to control the pacing and land hits.

Thanks for the tips! I think I’ll need to really re-think my way of engaging mesmers/chronos.
I’ve been very passive mostly, dodging their bursts first then counter-bursting them.
Perhaps I should try to pressure them more and control the pacing like you said!

Carighan.6758:

Well, the game isn’t balanced around 1v1. Simple as that. Makes no sense either because it’s a MMORPG.

PU is strong if the following things come together:

• You got room to maneuver.
• You are fighting someone alone.
• They want to kill you.

The last is actually pretty important. A PU Mesmer is surprisingly toothless until you try to hurt them. Try to duel them, they kill you. Do anything else, like try to fight for points, win, do teamfights, anything, they are quite bad and their team will be missing one.

It’s basically a highwayman-trap-spec. You bait people who want to prey on solo runners into attacking you, then you kill them. Used to be the natural answer to the perma-stealthing thieves standing around enemy walls waiting to ambush players, as they’d often jump onto a Mesmer immediately.

Outside of that one use case, not really a point to it. And as 1v1 isn’t a combat format the game supports, also underpowered if anything (why is Mass Invis limited to 10 players? Mass Invisibility!).

True…but as a reaper its hard to outrun any other classes assuming I don’t want to kill them but they want to kill me XD

I believe he runs Mimic and often uses it for Blink – he’s extremely mobile. Without Staff 5 or Warhorn to burn his Mirror of Anguish, GS 5 and Grasp (good luck landing either due to how unreliable these skills are), you’re likely not catching up. I’ve only fared well on my reaper against this particular guy when I’ve gotten kill credit mid-fight off his guildmembers to reset Death’s Charge after a fresh Blink due to Onslaught. PU condi will want to stay in your face, baiting attacks and movement while you try to flail around and kill them proccing confusion and taking extra damage from torment; this guy doesn’t since he’s power-shatter, making the matchup for a reaper pretty poor overall.

Thinking about druids, I did actually beat him once, though on a build which couldn’t really be a more aggressive counter, so I don’t really consider it much of a victory. GS for its block with Railgun longbow + Bristleback, Sic ’Em, Signet of Stone, Lightning Reflexes, and RoA worked as disabling his protection access and mitigating his escape efforts via Sic ’Em after playing highly defensive in GS with signet of stone for him to burn cooldowns to no avail, swap longbow and pewpew while he tried to flee.

That said, it didn’t work a second time. He paced his blurs and defenses between stealth periods, preventing Sic ’Em from really having any use.

EremiteAngel.9765:

True…but as a reaper its hard to outrun any other classes assuming I don’t want to kill them but they want to kill me XD

Yeah but also you’re a reaper, the Mesmer player would die from old age before they managed to hurt you! :P

On dire condi, yea. But condi is busted and boring :P

Glass reaper is quite squish to burst, and the mentioned-mesmer’s damage typically exceeds 25-30k per shatter combo, and even if dodged, he typically gets off at least the mirror blade from stealth with fire/air procs for around 7-10k.

Pretty sure he runs sth like this (with all zerker gear and traveler runes) -

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAsfRl0nhG1YZawENwtGLrGk5Mm2KOPSSeeZEKeAA

I personally think it’s an old and boring build to play cuz I don’t like PU and cmon Chrono is much cooler. The build has been working well since before the pu nerf. It is hard to beat in 1v1 situation because of its crazy defense from traits (pu/mantra heal since MoP has no CD/Mirrored Anguish) and decent damage from zerker gear and MoPx3. I don’t know much about reaper but as a power mesmer, it’s all about who burst who down first.

The FA mesmer is probably pickles from EV – Dopplepickleandy or something is his account name.

talking about dire/condi, I wonder if that mesmer has enough condi clearance in his build?
Will a condi build take him out?
I’ve not tried it myself, but condi reaper is pretty OP if you ask me.

Condi reaper can take out pretty much everything but daredevil with relative ease. Went for one day playing rabid condis and started winning fights vastly outnumbered because there’s just so much damage on the build. I imagine dire is borderline faceroll. There’s no fun in that, though.

He probably has overall weaker condition cleanse, though typically there’s an ele or two running with him these days which soak conditions.

DeceiverX.8361:

Condi reaper can take out pretty much everything but daredevil with relative ease. Went for one day playing rabid condis and started winning fights vastly outnumbered because there’s just so much damage on the build. I imagine dire is borderline faceroll. There’s no fun in that, though.

He probably has overall weaker condition cleanse, though typically there’s an ele or two running with him these days which soak conditions.

Condie reaper will kill most anything that’s either unwilling or unable to run away from a build with the mobility of a 1 legged tortoise. It’s a very powerful build, but it’s really slow. Anyone that wants to run away will, and there’s not much you can do to stop them.

An inspiration Mesmer can fight condie reaper if they’re careful though. It’ll take a while, but the Mesmer should win eventually.

Fay.2357:

DeceiverX.8361:

Condi reaper can take out pretty much everything but daredevil with relative ease. Went for one day playing rabid condis and started winning fights vastly outnumbered because there’s just so much damage on the build. I imagine dire is borderline faceroll. There’s no fun in that, though.

He probably has overall weaker condition cleanse, though typically there’s an ele or two running with him these days which soak conditions.

Condie reaper will kill most anything that’s either unwilling or unable to run away from a build with the mobility of a 1 legged tortoise. It’s a very powerful build, but it’s really slow. Anyone that wants to run away will, and there’s not much you can do to stop them.

An inspiration Mesmer can fight condie reaper if they’re careful though. It’ll take a while, but the Mesmer should win eventually.

I am inclined to agree about the resetting/running part (especially again if the mesmer is running PU to enable those escapes), though it is quite easy to overload most classes with a crazy amount of conditions depending on how you build the reaper. Meta mightstack frostfire doesn’t do well in engages where running away is possible, but a curses build can pack a devastating amount of conditions and follow through fairly well. I recall mine frequently ticking for bleed/torment/poison/chill damage well over 7k per second after only a few seconds in combat. Realistically the mesmer cannot keep up with the cleanses, and won’t have the damage to kill a condi build (save sinister/viper) through its health and shroud combined.

DeceiverX.8361:

On dire condi, yea. But condi is busted and boring :P

Glass reaper is quite squish to burst, and the mentioned-mesmer’s damage typically exceeds 25-30k per shatter combo, and even if dodged, he typically gets off at least the mirror blade from stealth with fire/air procs for around 7-10k.

Condi builds got no chance against this mantra build. 3 heals on mantra removes 6 conditions and 4 more on shatter. Not to mention with PU, reset is easy.

neptunechild.4831:

DeceiverX.8361:

On dire condi, yea. But condi is busted and boring :P

Glass reaper is quite squish to burst, and the mentioned-mesmer’s damage typically exceeds 25-30k per shatter combo, and even if dodged, he typically gets off at least the mirror blade from stealth with fire/air procs for around 7-10k.

Condi builds got no chance against this mantra build. 3 heals on mantra removes 6 conditions and 4 more on shatter. Not to mention with PU, reset is easy.

Tbh it depends how much shroud they have. I generally wouldn’t bother with a necro with full shroud as it takes a long time to bring them down. Condition I generally don’t bother with unless I’m with a group and we can focus the necro down even though I’m running inspiration nowadays.

Pyro was spot on when he said the mesmer can take it on and win but it will take a while and if you’re in WvW you always have to balance that up when engaging. The longer a fight takes that isn’t in a duelling spot the more chance you are of getting +1.

Duel/Insp/Chaos PU Mantra spam build is incredibly easy to play and very effective in small fights. A drawn-out fight vs a reaper is in the mesmer’s favor, because the mesmer can disengage much more easily than the reaper. Not to mention the mesmer can quickly end the fight if he just stealth/kites the shroud.

I haven’t WvW’d as much lately, but I imagine a well-played power rev could win the matchup due to Facet of Darkness (reveal), Sword2 tracking through stealth, and the potential for a Staff5 instagib. The matchup would depend heavily on the terrain though — ambient mobs and walls mess up the Sword2 projectiles and diminish the damage from Sword3.