Guild Wars 2

I PvP with a mesmer. Since beta, I’ve had a hard time leveling one. Other classes just seem to have so many advantages while leveling that it almost feels like the group is just pulling me along.

Last night, I leveled with a guardian. Out the gate, he had a near consistent speed boost. I (with the clumsy inventory weapon swap) had a much shorter one and I struggled to keep up with him all night. This wouldn’t be nearly as noticeable if not for the tapping problem…

He tapped every group almost instantly. On a group of 5 mobs, I’d maybe tap 3 by the time we (he) killed them. He not only out gained me in xp, but finished most hearts well ahead of me. This is probably the chief concern for me. In large scale dynamic events with waves. I’m left tab attacking to tap while most other classes get a bounce attack or some nice aoe on a short cooldown.

The illusion mechanic just isn’t helpful in group pve. It’s a great idea, it just doesn’t work. On trash mobs, I end up saving them because the mob dies so quick. On veterens/champions, they are semi-useful, but mostly ineffective. With set skills, having one or two per five unused is horrible and very boring.

Am I doing it wrong? I’m sure there are people who love to level mesmers. What weapons do you use? How do you get around my aforementioned complaints?

I mostly used sword/pistol and greatsword last night.

I’ve leveled a ranger, guardian and an elementalist and in my opinion, the mesmer is very lacking in pve. I’m level 27 and last night was the longest I’ve ever played the mesmer in one sitting. I just can’t stay logged on to it for more than 20 minutes or so before getting annoyed with the poorly thought out class.

I decides last night to research about the Mesmer in Guild Wars 1. What I discovered was not heartening for anyone who things Mesmer will become viable in PvE; especially solo.

The Mesmer is a pure support class with strong 1vs1 PvP capability. The Memser in GW was never a strong character. Instead there talents applied by buffing and more importantly penalizing the enemy.

Mesmers will never get a damage buff; instead they will continue to recieves nerfs until there vision of damage and support is met. This is the design of the Mesmer and this is in line with what they have been doing with the nerf patches.

The only possibility is to learn to leverage the unique element of there use. This will make the class playable solo, but largly no where near as capable or on par to other classes. Instead they just magnify others. If you build a DPS version of the Mesmer… well they just aren’t suppose to exist.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide_to_playing_as_a_mesmer

There are of course changes between GW1 and 2, but the basic principles on the design of play are the same.

We pretty much made the same post at roughly the same time. I know exactly what you mean. In actuality I made a mesmer and had her at -exactly- lvl 27. Then I ended up deleting her, now I started over, but I’m having the same problems pretty much.

I love the style, and the phantasm/clone idea is a great one, but so much time is spent fighting even the weakest little enemy, and once again I’m doubting my profession. Any help would be lovely, though I dread the reply; “Use a sword or greatsword”, because I’ve done that and it gets quite repetitive as well. My main question is if traits will reduce the amount of time spent fighting regular enemies, or if it’ll be pretty much the same.

I totally feel you!

Jayderyu, I don’t really agree with what you said related to guild wars 1, because in that game, every class was meant to work together as a team. While it’s true that mesmers weren’t considered the damage-dealers, their function was incredibly important and useful. Very few classes could solo anything, and often it was an elaborate or difficult build.
In any case!

GW2 is different. It advertised itself as a game where every profession could fulfill a lot of roles, though many professions lean in a certain direction. Warriors buff, do burst damage, are naturally quite tanky, have great ranged damage. Guardians are built for healing and protecting party members, but do great damage of their own. Why they would look at mesmer and go: “This one should be miserable in PvE”, is therefore beyond me.

Exactly. And why should would ArenaNet be mean to the class they practically invented? It makes no sense. It was even the last profession to be revealed, because it was the most anticipated.

Nope, because it was the most undone and it was unsure it would even make it to the final game.

That’s also why it was changed around entirely twice during beta. And what caused the mess in our current traits.
Mind you, I love the general idea, art, playstyle and style. What I dislike is everything which has to do with consistency, there just doesn’t seem to be much attention to it.

Mere Image.8376:

Exactly. And why should would ArenaNet be mean to the class they practically invented? It makes no sense. It was even the last profession to be revealed, because it was the most anticipated.

I won’t quite put on my tinfoil hat yet. I still believe that I must be doing something wrong.

Anet has no reason to hold back a class imo. Either I’m doing it wrong or they don’t know that it’s this bad. Either can be fixed with meaningful, constructive dialog.

Yeah, they have been very hush hush every since the beta. They used to release videos and COMMUNICATE. Now they rarely respond with short paragraphs that basically say nothing except “thank you for understanding that you now suck a little bit more.”

In any RPG, the usual PvE experience is you vs lots of mobs. As such, AoE damage is king. Mesmers don’t have lots of it. Simple as that.

That being said I don’t think mesmers are that bad in PvE. We aren’t great, but decent. Mesmers aren’t mega damage dealers and never will be. All mesmer skills are aimed at utility and providing buffs/debuffs and the problem is that the effectiveness of them fluctuates wildly depending on what mob you are fighting.

Feedback and iWarden’s reflective bubble doesn’t help much against trash melee mobs while doing wonders against ranged bosses.(and young karka =D) Similarly vulnerability application skills don’t help much for killing trash mobs but helps with strong mob fights. Diversion means nothing to champs with defiance but effective against mobs that don’t. While clones fail to distract enemies frequently, phantasms do and every hit they take is one less you or the group would have taken. Time warp. Veil. Mass invisibility. Null field. Decoy. Mirror images. Blink. Portal. Mantras. Utility, utility, utility.

Utilities are effective when the conditions are met, making them situational. Damage on the other hand always retains its effectiveness regardless of what you are fighting. Mesmers lack it, relatively. Mesmers can be both essential and near useless depending on the build and what you are fighting.

If you do want to go into direct damage, sword and greatsword are good and should be enough for most encounters. They are not that bad even when compared to other classes in dps output when geared for it. For condition damage staff will melt away small groups of mobs, simultaneously. For DE’s with waves of mobs greatsword is usually the solution with the AoE from iberserker and mirror blade. I think the problems you are facing has more to do with your level. Mesmers become far more effective in PvE when tier 2 traits are unlocked.

Mere Image.8376:

Yeah, they have been very hush hush every since the beta. They used to release videos and COMMUNICATE. Now they rarely respond with short paragraphs that basically say nothing except “thank you for understanding that you now suck a little bit more.”

To be fair, they’re probably way surprised (and reeling from) their own success.
I doubt they ever thought this game would impact as well as it did.

One of the best things I ever did for my Mesmer was put superior runes of the Centaur on all of my equipment. Any time you use a heal, you get a 10 (boosted to 12 thanks to the runes) second Swiftness buff. Using the heal skill “Mirror”, you are able to keep it up pretty consistently.

That said, Superior Runes come pretty late (level 60). You can use Major Rune of Air at level 39, but its’ swiftness duration is only a paltry 3 seconds (3.45) and not really worth burning your heal for, in my opinion. If you can hold out being kind of slow for 60 levels it really does make a difference.

Otherwise invest in a long ranged weapon to make up the difference in speed. Staff is a good option for condition based builds, and Greatsword is good for power.

Don’t forget that you can use Mind Wrack and Cry of Confusion to shatter your clones and phantasms for some good AoE damage. Look into unlocking the ability in the duelist tree called Deceptive Evasion for getting clones out quickly so that you can blow them up for some good AOE damage. Beyond that, you also have some AoE options in your weapons. Greatsword tends to do a bit better in AoE with Phantasmal Berserker, Mirror Blade, and Mind Stab. Staff has Winds of Chaos Storm. Sword has they very useful Blurred Frenzy for damage/evasion as well as a very generous cone with its’ auto attack.

Finally, make sure you’re equipping good armor with a focus in stats that are useful to you. This seems like such obvious advice, but keeping your armor up to date really does impact your performance quite dramatically. If you’re crit focused get some sigils on your weapons that capitalize on that, otherwise Sigils of Bloodlust or Force are good options if you just want to straight up apply more damage to your enemies.

Ultimately Mesmer can be quite the damage powerhouse, it just takes a bit longer and is less readily apparent than with other classes.

The problem is, while you are correct, the class should be “complete” without traits. This ofc goes for all classes, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: No other class has as screwed up traits as we do. Underpowered, overpowered, nonfunctional, detrimental, nonsensical, and that’s just before we get to the lines having little theme or cohesion.

Granier.7985:

Am I doing it wrong? I’m sure there are people who love to level mesmers. What weapons do you use? How do you get around my aforementioned complaints?

I mostly used sword/pistol and greatsword last night.

Ok, so the last week i have started my own mesmer and gotten to level 56 and I love playing a mesmer.

I’m using mainly the staff and going for Power & Condition Damage stats, offset I use sword and focus. The most important utility skill I use is the Mirror Images that creates two clones, this together with Phase Retreat from staff gives me 3 clones instantly that helps me stack conditions and if the mob dies fast I have 3 clones ready to get Mind Wracked.

3 instant clones getting wracked together with chaos storm and the trait that makes your staff number 1 skill bounce 1 more time makes tagging in dynamic events decent.

This have been working incredibly well for me since i started leveling.

You can watch this youtube video from MrPrometheus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-B3mkM7dqM&feature=g-user-u

He explains the build very well.

Edit: And by the way, the traits are not needed to make this viable, just build towards it as you level. I used this weapon combo from level 10.

My experience has really not been what this thread describes. When I’m running around doing PVE stuff with my Mesmer, I get more party and guild invites than when I play Guardian or Thief. My survivability is way beyond a lot of what I see during events.

I agree we’re not so great at taking out trash mobs before the horde wipes them out, and clones aren’t a great mechanic for doing that. We do boost everyone’s performance though. And against veterans and champions, we shine.

I had similar experiences that Foosnark had and looking back at GW1 mesmers, the mesmers in GW2 may not be far off. Why I say that? In GW1, mesmers were great at interrupting, controlling, pretty much help turn the tides of the battle. Think of it as the ice frosting on the cake (or cookie) that makes the food more delicious. I look at the mesmers as the “one that adds more flavor” to the party. We help make the battles easier and not as frustrating (i.e. – Feedback, removing boons, having illusions take the hits, etc.). We help make others stronger (i.e. – Timewarp, Chaos Storm boons, Signet of Inspiration, etc.). In a way, we are like bards in other MMO/RPG games – that support class that is great to have (why else would Anet joke with “introducing the Minstrel” when the Mesmer was finally release?).

Sure, mesmers may not be the most damaging profession, but we can do fine in PvE solo or group plays. And there are various builds and playstyles to do it.