Guild Wars 2

Pre-facing with this; I run my own builds too, but I also like making ones that are optimal for my role, and it feels like i’m playing the same but kitten if I’m not running something I consider optimal. This is also the perspective of an experienced pvper who’s been pvping since release.

I was really enjoying learning this class on a competitive level, learning it inside out is very rewarding. It took a lot more finesse than a few of the others I’ve tried, and doing proper damage against mid-high+ tier players while having good positioning felt very rewarding.

After the patch however, I notice that I require far less work to achieve the same results now and I can often make more of a difference without using important cooldowns as often and it just isn’t as fun. I also feel like I’m learning a lot less and at a slower rate because I have to do little more than simple combos to pressure or win 1v1s.

Sort of feels like CoD to me when running builds with a lot more survivability AND burst than before, and it feels very lame when running builds that feel spammy with certain conditions/CC etc. I feel as though Mesmer has far too many resources at their disposal now compared to before.

It feels very overkill, and unrewarding now, does anyone else feel this way?

I’m going to guess that you’ve never played ele, warrior, thief, engineer, or guardian competitively.

See, how the Mesmer feels now is how all of those classes have felt for years. Mesmer has for a very long time been the epitome of high risk, high effort, and low reward. Sure it feels good when you manage to squeeze out victories from that disadvantage, but lamenting a set of changes that brings Mesmer in line with the risk/reward of all the other classes is basically Stockholm syndrome for gamers.

Keep playing, I’m sure you’ll manage to get past your misgivings of playing a viable class. You could always go play p/p thief or something if you really want the rush of playing an unviable build…

When you get good at mesmer pre-patch, and then post-patch it feels so much easier, why are you automatically interpreting that as too much power, when really you’re just a much better player who is no longer handicapped?

Recommended reading: Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut.

Yeah, the class is strong now, and there are some professions that need some work to bring them in line.

Having said that though, I’m noticing that players are already adjusting to the “new” Mesmer already. The first few weeks, after being a somewhat experienced Mesmer, it was easy to just wade in, blow things up, and duck out. But I’m noticing that more and more since the patch I’m needing to play smarter because people have wised up to some of the gimmicks.

Not at all.

Fay.2357:

I’m going to guess that you’ve never played ele, warrior, thief, engineer, or guardian competitively.

See, how the Mesmer feels now is how all of those classes have felt for years. Mesmer has for a very long time been the epitome of high risk, high effort, and low reward. Sure it feels good when you manage to squeeze out victories from that disadvantage, but lamenting a set of changes that brings Mesmer in line with the risk/reward of all the other classes is basically Stockholm syndrome for gamers.

Keep playing, I’m sure you’ll manage to get past your misgivings of playing a viable class. You could always go play p/p thief or something if you really want the rush of playing an unviable build…

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Fay.2357:

I’m going to guess that you’ve never played ele, warrior, thief, engineer, or guardian competitively.

See, how the Mesmer feels now is how all of those classes have felt for years. Mesmer has for a very long time been the epitome of high risk, high effort, and low reward. Sure it feels good when you manage to squeeze out victories from that disadvantage, but lamenting a set of changes that brings Mesmer in line with the risk/reward of all the other classes is basically Stockholm syndrome for gamers.

Keep playing, I’m sure you’ll manage to get past your misgivings of playing a viable class. You could always go play p/p thief or something if you really want the rush of playing an unviable build…

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Shatter Mesmer has never been competently non-viable as a dueling build, but most dedicated dueling builds have always torn shatter Mesmer apart.

Shatter Mesmer has never actually been good in large WvW groups (not that it’s alone in that of course), has always been fairly good in small roaming groups, and has never been a great solo roaming build (no, shatter montages are not evidence of effectiveness).

Shatter Mesmer has not been considered truly viable in pvp prior to this patch for well over a year.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Fay.2357:

I’m going to guess that you’ve never played ele, warrior, thief, engineer, or guardian competitively.

See, how the Mesmer feels now is how all of those classes have felt for years. Mesmer has for a very long time been the epitome of high risk, high effort, and low reward. Sure it feels good when you manage to squeeze out victories from that disadvantage, but lamenting a set of changes that brings Mesmer in line with the risk/reward of all the other classes is basically Stockholm syndrome for gamers.

Keep playing, I’m sure you’ll manage to get past your misgivings of playing a viable class. You could always go play p/p thief or something if you really want the rush of playing an unviable build…

This statement is so silly, anything in top tier is high risk, high effort. Shatter did fine pre-patch and it’s overkill post-patch. It’s really just as simple as that. Anybody who is defending mesmer right now and it’s ability is simply a mesmer main that is SO delusional that the only argument you can come up with is ‘every other class has been op for years! so mesmer is now!’ … Which is weak at best, and makes no sense. This is entirely from a PVP and WVW perspective. Shatter has ALWAYS been good in WVW , but in PVP it’s had downfalls due to metas coming and going.

The mesmer in it’s current state is more powerful than almost all of these classes have ever been aside from ele and thief. The class ‘warrior’ you’re referring to being op for years? You remember warrior being absolute kitten for almost a year and a half then it got buffs? Nice analysis of warrior by you there. Shatter dominated this meta also while warrior was kitten.

Shatter then got killed out when condi meta occurred (spirit rangers and condi necros and condi engis), for only 4-5 months condition meta was around then you started to see shatter coming back after those meta builds were nerfed because you could optimally run around a set of team comps (Helseth for example) and it was shifting to celestial meta/dmg orientated meta which shatter was necessary for the boon stripping on celestial classes.

The only reason you don’t see AS many mesmers was because thieves, who have always been a natural counter to mesmers and even then mes was brought into teams for obvious bunker killing reasons.

Shatter has been around for alot of metas, whether you think so or not and used extensively throughout those metas by top teams, this both ranges between Europe and NA teams.

This idea of ‘shatter being weak for 2 years and every other class is op , so now we deserve to be op’ mentality doesn’t cut it, it’s not true and is also the epitome of why balancing is simply just bad in this game.

Yes, shatter pre-patch was hard, very hard at high levels it was high risk, but so is any class played at a top level – but it was still used in most of the meta.

Now it’s just so dumbed down it’s not even fun to play shatter unless you like easy kills. Really, it’s just not fun anymore. I’m sorry for the people that disagree with me on this.

It is so easy now to kill people with shatter , beyond easy, and I don’t feel accomplishments when I kill people now , before patch I would have this feeling of appreciation for killing another good player because it truly was hard, but also very rewarding because of what you had to go up against. Post-patch it’s just expected to do it, and I do it nonchalantly now it’s really THAT easy now.

I don’t know… I main ele and play mesmer alot though, so it’s not my main. I just don’t know how to nerf mesmer. I don’t want to nerf them entirely but they need some shaving , it’s just too much right now. I don’t know what side either, dmg or survivability. A part of me is thinking survivability, but then if you shave that then dmg might go down as well due to being easily pressured and then could become more useless but really SOMETHING needs to be adjusted on mesmer. It’s out of control right now. Fotms everywhere, existing mesmers are just godlike now , some are even rolling other classes now because of how easy mesmer is now.

Just don’t use mantra of distraction+CS and you’ll actually have to think instead of using mantras of cooldown to land all your attacks.

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Let’s say you are both right, you and Fay, that still doesn’t answer what is wrong with wanting balance on the risk/reward scale.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Let’s say you are both right, you and Fay, that still doesn’t answer what is wrong with wanting balance on the risk/reward scale.

No, there is nothing wrong with wanting balance.

I think Fay and others have been advocating for a few things that are to strong or broken trait wise to be fixed and brought in line.

On the other hand.
Their is a big difference in wanting the mesmer to be reverted to its pre-patch performance. I think ( and many others…or possibly every mesmer who plays competitevely) that is wrong, and will only lead to misinformation and unneccessary nerfs that do nothing but destroy the diversity of builds a class has.

This has been going on for as long as the game has been out, for everyone, I would like to see this patch start a new direction where we concentrate on fixing small things, instead of kneejerking a class out of the meta for 2 years

AlphatheWhite.9351:

When you get good at mesmer pre-patch, and then post-patch it feels so much easier, why are you automatically interpreting that as too much power, when really you’re just a much better player who is no longer handicapped?

Recommended reading: Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut.

I interpret it as too much power because I know for a fact that while I’m experienced I’m no where near as good as I could be with the class, the amount of effort that went into it before felt like it took effort. As mentioned above about ele, engi, guardian, warrior, etc who have had very safe competitive builds with little room for the player themselves to shine, Mesmer certainly shined more when the player was successful on many different fronts as opposed to simple tasks of other classes.

In a pvp game, a class with a lot of depth in it’s learning curve often breeds the best players as they’re forced to learn to do many different intricate things in succession. I know GW2 isn’t exactly the best example of having a hardcore super deep learning curve, but it’s far from shallow with classes like Mesmer when played to it’s full extent.

I don’t want it to go back to pre-patch because it simply wasn’t viable for the average Mesmer to compete in very competitive matches, but I think some of our new options are a bit ridiculous right now in terms of offering way too much survivability/damage. The Mesmer’s design may not of even been entirely at fault, either, in the Cele meta we had to begin with.

Situations.2416:

This statement is so silly, anything in top tier is high risk, high effort

I’m not going to bother responding to the rest of that post, since it was all just a combination of incorrect or completely meaningless, but I had to hit this bit, because it’s so hilariously wrong.

The top level meta has continuously evolved towards using low risk, low effort, and high reward builds. Spirit ranger, hambow, shoutbow, cele ele, cele engie, what do all of these have in common? They’re tanky and hard to kill. They have excellent sustain. They do multiple types of damage, and can usually stack might to boost that damage massively.

Low risk. Low effort. High reward.

The only class in the meta that had some modicum of risk was the thief, albeit mitigated somewhat by escape mechanics, but still riskier than the rest.

Mesmer had always been high risk and high effort, but low reward. In order to get a result out of a Mesmer you have to play far better and far harder than on any other meta class. Now mesmers are in line with the standard meta risk/reward ratio, and people whine because they don’t like fighting mesmers.

Situations.2416:

This statement is so silly, anything in top tier is high risk, high effort. Shatter did fine pre-patch and it’s overkill post-patch. It’s really just as simple as that.

Shatter was overshadowed by other classes who could burst faster and easier.
Actually shatter was overshadowed by a lot of classes.

The mesmer in it’s current state is more powerful than almost all of these classes have ever been aside from ele and thief. The class ‘warrior’ you’re referring to being op for years? You remember warrior being absolute kitten for almost a year and a half then it got buffs? Nice analysis of warrior by you there. Shatter dominated this meta also while warrior was kitten.

…I think you need to actually watch what the pvp meta was.
Warrior was among the 2nd most frequent classes picked for all pvp teams.
Warrior , during the time it got buffed, was dominant, and when it was nerfed it was still an invaluable part of most pvp teams.
So I think Fays analysis was pretty correct.

The only time shatter dominated anything was when the might on shatter trait was bugged, and that was nerfed almost instantly.

Shatter then got killed out when condi meta occurred (spirit rangers and condi necros and condi engis), for only 4-5 months condition meta was around then you started to see shatter coming back after those meta builds were nerfed because you could optimally run around a set of team comps (Helseth for example) and it was shifting to celestial meta/dmg orientated meta which shatter was necessary for the boon stripping on celestial classes.

I love people that pull up helseth, totally forgetting to mention when he said mesmer’s arent viable, he was ( is). He outplayed people, he outmanuevered people.
But even he admitted that mesmer was weak when compared to thief.

The only reason you don’t see AS many mesmers was because thieves, who have always been a natural counter to mesmers and even then mes was brought into teams for obvious bunker killing reasons.

You didn’t see AS many mesmer’s because the ability and mobility of a thief made them pratically unviable when measured up against them.
A thief roamed better, was more mobile, could steal boons, could CC, blind,stealth, and burst.
A thief was good at team disruption and could very easily turn the tide of team battles.
And before you try and say " nah ah" the top tier mesmer you picked to name has even said as much.

Shatter has been around for alot of metas, whether you think so or not and used extensively throughout those metas by top teams, this both ranges between Europe and NA teams.

I don’t follow EU, but in NA shatter was most definitaly not in most meta’s for reasons I mentioned above.

This idea of ‘shatter being weak for 2 years and every other class is op , so now we deserve to be op’ mentality doesn’t cut it, it’s not true and is also the epitome of why balancing is simply just bad in this game.

Sorry
But the entire roster or teams in ToL and WTS proves this wrong.
The frequency mesmer was taken was low for a reason.

I don’t know… I main ele and play mesmer alot though, .

That partially explains a lot.
You don’t know.
You main an Ele which right now
IS the god tier of spvp.

If you want a reliable counter to any class right now, pick an ele, get celestial amulet.
laugh at people as you get 800-1000 burn ticks for free. While still doing damage and tanking.

Situations.2416:

Fay.2357:

…

This statement is so silly, anything in top tier is high risk, high effort.

Whats silly is a non-mesmer coming to the mesmer forums to tell mesmers we are all wrong about our class and have no idea on what its like playing a mesmer.

Solori.6025:

That partially explains a lot.
You don’t know.
You main an Ele which right now
IS the god tier of spvp.

If you want a reliable counter to any class right now, pick an ele, get celestial amulet.
laugh at people as you get 800-1000 burn ticks for free. While still doing damage and tanking.

This is so so so so true. Right now I’m defending the idea or a warhorn for the elite spec, and so many people are upset and they’re spouting ludicrous arguments such as, “Main hand dagger isn’t good, so we needed another mainhand weapon” (which is laughable since MH dagger is amazing), or “our current offhands are already so great” (that doesn’t mean that the WH won’t have its own impactful game changing skills).

The problem with ele mains are that they’ve never had to really adapt because except for one meta in 2013, they’ve been the best class in the game, yet those that only play ele can’t see the ele in relation to other classes. They think that the elementalist has tons of problems, when anyone who multiclasses knows that their problems are very few and they have so many great tools to work with.

Its not really relevant, but its what I see, and I’m frustrated with these stubborn ele mains who don’t realize how great their class is, because if they realized that they wouldn’t be so dismissive of getting an offhand weapon for their elite spec.

Is there something wrong with somebody who’s played mesmer before to come into the mesmer forums to discuss the mesmer class?

—

You are confused about the metas, when Skovex / Vain / Sataarcoeny were dominating at the beginning of the game, shatter mesmer were godlike. This was when Supcutie started learning to play.

Warrior was virtually non-existen except Apt’s longbow / gs build which wasn’t that great at all.

d/d and s/f elementalists shined in this meta, trap rangers shined in this meta.

shortly after, warrior was given a huge rehaul and became very good. and slowly got nerfed over time and then kind of settled into metas as they shifted. This is where you also saw BM rangers start to shine as bunker node holders , although that quickly got nerfed as birds were doing about 8k-9k dmg on f2’s consistently with an incredible amount of bunker, so it was nerfed and no longer viable.

This went on and slowly evolved into the condition meta where Spirit rangers became popular due to Deku God / Vyndetta / Tany / Ovi (who previously played Trapper ranger in the paradigm days). This is where elementalists and shatter mesmers were no longer viable due to the condition amount. It was heavily dominant by Thieves / Guardian / Necro / Spirit rangers.

This moment in the meta created the condition meta , the aids meta aka Dhuumfire necro / condi engi / spirit ranger and even condi warrior bunker variants. Warrior was decent in this time sort of because of CI , and it’s ability to tank out conditions but still was overshadowed.

Then came a few spirit ranger nerfs and dhuumfire nerfs. This was around the time Denial Esports vs SYNC days the time of the hammer warrior , spirit ranger , thief , guardian , necro days.

Within this period warriors were king, shatter mesmers starting coming back due to a lessening of condition builds (spirit ranger was no longer viable because of the CC on elite, necro dhuumfire got moved to an ICD and only in DS, etc).

Shortly after this meta came celestial and a overhaul period where you saw conditions become useless due to elementalist buffs , reworking of amulets and the reworking of celestial over the board , not just PvP. This introduced the celestial meta: Shoutbow, celestial engi , celestial ele , etc etc. Shatter mesmers came back in most teams because of the ability to quickly destroy these builds. That is the only reason they were brought, and of course portal. Now, thief counters mesmers so that was your main enemy as a mesmer.

The meta has adjusted and now it still is somewhat of a celestial meta for eles and now for necros (Noscoc), but you notice it being a much burstier meta now with mesmers on top , thief still doing decent dmg but their usefulness, warrior burst and rampage, guardian bunker got better and engi is a bit worse except they run marauder in top tier now no longer running celestial rifle.

Mesmer was out of the meta , out of all these years during a period of 8months max until they started returning as the decline in the condition meta started dissipating into the dmg / celestial meta. UNFORTUNATELY, at the very same time Sizer’s build became popular and d/p was strong and thieves were kings in dmg so upon their return, their natural counter was buffed to extreme. But that didn’t put them out of the meta at all. Mesmer has been around in the metas around the condition meta in top teams much more than it has been out of the meta.

Anyway, this is for people who don’t follow top tier PvP and think they’ve been screwed over in competitive pvp for 2+ years because it’s completely, and utterly false.

nearlight.3064:

This is so so so so true. Right now I’m defending the idea or a warhorn for the elite spec, and so many people are upset and they’re spouting ludicrous arguments such as, “Main hand dagger isn’t good, so we needed another mainhand weapon” (which is laughable since MH dagger is amazing), or “our current offhands are already so great” (that doesn’t mean that the WH won’t have its own impactful game changing skills).

The problem with ele mains are that they’ve never had to really adapt because except for one meta in 2013, they’ve been the best class in the game, yet those that only play ele can’t see the ele in relation to other classes. They think that the elementalist has tons of problems, when anyone who multiclasses knows that their problems are very few and they have so many great tools to work with.

Its not really relevant, but its what I see, and I’m frustrated with these stubborn ele mains who don’t realize how great their class is, because if they realized that they wouldn’t be so dismissive of getting an offhand weapon for their elite spec.

Well, I main an ele and various things are true but some are not entirely correct.

A lot of eles complaining about eles are complaining about the complete lack of diversity. In any PvP scenario whether it be WvW or PvP you feel forced into water or arcana, often both. I know, top tier and I do play other classes.

As for the offhand warhorn, it’s just not a good idea to have a complete new specialization system and then add something that will interact with so much. It’s not just 2 skills you’re balancing with possibly 9-12 others on mainhand, it’s 8 skills with upto 24 others on the main hand. It would be much easier and better to give a 2 hander weapon and make balancing easier.

Also I want a greatsword that doesn’t suck kittens to go kitten and then walk home.

As for mesmers, pre patch they felt like cut price guardians and wannabe thieves. After patch they feel like they can compete with the two classes but not both at the same time.

Here is all you need to know.

• Step 1: Create the most punishing build you can
• Step 2: Mercilessly seek to destroy your opponents at every turn
• Step 3: Watch as other players learn, grow, and adapt
• Step 4: Feel satisfied that you’ve contributed in making other gamers better.

apharma.3741:

nearlight.3064:

This is so so so so true. Right now I’m defending the idea or a warhorn for the elite spec, and so many people are upset and they’re spouting ludicrous arguments such as, “Main hand dagger isn’t good, so we needed another mainhand weapon” (which is laughable since MH dagger is amazing), or “our current offhands are already so great” (that doesn’t mean that the WH won’t have its own impactful game changing skills).

The problem with ele mains are that they’ve never had to really adapt because except for one meta in 2013, they’ve been the best class in the game, yet those that only play ele can’t see the ele in relation to other classes. They think that the elementalist has tons of problems, when anyone who multiclasses knows that their problems are very few and they have so many great tools to work with.

Its not really relevant, but its what I see, and I’m frustrated with these stubborn ele mains who don’t realize how great their class is, because if they realized that they wouldn’t be so dismissive of getting an offhand weapon for their elite spec.

Well, I main an ele and various things are true but some are not entirely correct.

A lot of eles complaining about eles are complaining about the complete lack of diversity. In any PvP scenario whether it be WvW or PvP you feel forced into water or arcana, often both. I know, top tier and I do play other classes.

As for the offhand warhorn, it’s just not a good idea to have a complete new specialization system and then add something that will interact with so much. It’s not just 2 skills you’re balancing with possibly 9-12 others on mainhand, it’s 8 skills with upto 24 others on the main hand. It would be much easier and better to give a 2 hander weapon and make balancing easier.

Also I want a greatsword that doesn’t suck kittens to go kitten and then walk home.

As for mesmers, pre patch they felt like cut price guardians and wannabe thieves. After patch they feel like they can compete with the two classes but not both at the same time.

Mesmers have arguably always been forced into dueling, (and domination to a lesser extent) and no ones complaining about that. You take the traitlines that make you viable, and I don’t see how eles can be so miffed by that fact when every class has 1 or 2 traitlines that works its way into every single pvp build. And I don’t see how taking their frustration out on a warhorn, for purely aesthetic reasons is logical in the slightest. Yes a two handed ele weapon would have been cool, but literally any new weapons could be cool becauase eles have such a strong foundation on which the class rests on. They aren’t really deficient in anything like necros were deficient in cleave or mesmers were deficient in wvw aoe stuff.

So I just don’t get why they’re so upset, because I see potential for a lot of geat things when we actually learn about the details for tempest.

Situations.2416:

Is there something wrong with somebody who’s played mesmer before to come into the mesmer forums to discuss the mesmer class?

—

You are confused about the metas, when Skovex / Vain / Sataarcoeny were dominating at the beginning of the game, shatter mesmer were godlike. This was when Supcutie started learning to play.

Warrior was virtually non-existen except Apt’s longbow / gs build which wasn’t that great at all.

d/d and s/f elementalists shined in this meta, trap rangers shined in this meta.

shortly after, warrior was given a huge rehaul and became very good. and slowly got nerfed over time and then kind of settled into metas as they shifted. This is where you also saw BM rangers start to shine as bunker node holders , although that quickly got nerfed as birds were doing about 8k-9k dmg on f2’s consistently with an incredible amount of bunker, so it was nerfed and no longer viable.

This went on and slowly evolved into the condition meta where Spirit rangers became popular due to Deku God / Vyndetta / Tany / Ovi (who previously played Trapper ranger in the paradigm days). This is where elementalists and shatter mesmers were no longer viable due to the condition amount. It was heavily dominant by Thieves / Guardian / Necro / Spirit rangers.

This moment in the meta created the condition meta , the aids meta aka Dhuumfire necro / condi engi / spirit ranger and even condi warrior bunker variants. Warrior was decent in this time sort of because of CI , and it’s ability to tank out conditions but still was overshadowed.

Then came a few spirit ranger nerfs and dhuumfire nerfs. This was around the time Denial Esports vs SYNC days the time of the hammer warrior , spirit ranger , thief , guardian , necro days.

Within this period warriors were king, shatter mesmers starting coming back due to a lessening of condition builds (spirit ranger was no longer viable because of the CC on elite, necro dhuumfire got moved to an ICD and only in DS, etc).

Shortly after this meta came celestial and a overhaul period where you saw conditions become useless due to elementalist buffs , reworking of amulets and the reworking of celestial over the board , not just PvP. This introduced the celestial meta: Shoutbow, celestial engi , celestial ele , etc etc. Shatter mesmers came back in most teams because of the ability to quickly destroy these builds. That is the only reason they were brought, and of course portal. Now, thief counters mesmers so that was your main enemy as a mesmer.

The meta has adjusted and now it still is somewhat of a celestial meta for eles and now for necros (Noscoc), but you notice it being a much burstier meta now with mesmers on top , thief still doing decent dmg but their usefulness, warrior burst and rampage, guardian bunker got better and engi is a bit worse except they run marauder in top tier now no longer running celestial rifle.

Mesmer was out of the meta , out of all these years during a period of 8months max until they started returning as the decline in the condition meta started dissipating into the dmg / celestial meta. UNFORTUNATELY, at the very same time Sizer’s build became popular and d/p was strong and thieves were kings in dmg so upon their return, their natural counter was buffed to extreme. But that didn’t put them out of the meta at all. Mesmer has been around in the metas around the condition meta in top teams much more than it has been out of the meta.

Anyway, this is for people who don’t follow top tier PvP and think they’ve been screwed over in competitive pvp for 2+ years because it’s completely, and utterly false.

Good Stuff, I remember all of these.. You are forgetting Vassangel was also on the warriors list. You are also foregtting Kyra the OP/imba mesmer haha.

I think Sizer only made the build popular. If I remember correctly It was originally Kronos’ build then Jumper started using it and claiming it as his own.

Although Deku was very strong with the spirit ranger meta before but let’s not forget how Caed “tactically” ripped Deku apart with his thief.

But hey these are facts, good ole days. Good luck explaining these to the mesmers here in the forum now.

I have been telling this on my other thread about the perception of meta and top tier, and people are calling me the one who is misinformed.

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Let’s say you are both right, you and Fay, that still doesn’t answer what is wrong with wanting balance on the risk/reward scale.

No, there is nothing wrong with wanting balance.

I think Fay and others have been advocating for a few things that are to strong or broken trait wise to be fixed and brought in line.

On the other hand.
Their is a big difference in wanting the mesmer to be reverted to its pre-patch performance. I think ( and many others…or possibly every mesmer who plays competitevely) that is wrong, and will only lead to misinformation and unneccessary nerfs that do nothing but destroy the diversity of builds a class has.

This has been going on for as long as the game has been out, for everyone, I would like to see this patch start a new direction where we concentrate on fixing small things, instead of kneejerking a class out of the meta for 2 years

What was wrong pre patch?

If I remember correctly one problem was the thief hard counter (90% of the problem)
And the build diversity issue (10% of the problem)

Mesmers were still strong pre patch.

Mesmers were still meta pre patch, just overshadowed by the celestial people and the thief problem.

Few teams still ran mesmer pre patch, so i dont know where you get “out of the meta”

It’s kinda hard to explain without a ton of ele experience. Don’t get me wrong, I know full well ele is pretty much top tier in many things and I know how much better it has things than many other classes.

Still you have viable builds outside of dueling and even differentiation within dueling. Ele doesn’t. Ele has pretty much the same 4-6 traits in water/arcana in almost every build. The only differences now are the 3rd specialization.

I don’t know any other class more pigeon holed, except maybe thief now.

Anyway perhaps it’s best to continue this in the ele forums.

I certainly feel mesmers are in a much better place post patch than before. Especially as all classes have very clear and distinct functions of trait lines now which are the same across all classes.

It’s also worth pointing out to the thread in general that mobility skills have had their interaction with swiftness massively nerfed. This mobility nerf has certainly worked in mesmers favour.

StickerHappy.8052:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Let’s say you are both right, you and Fay, that still doesn’t answer what is wrong with wanting balance on the risk/reward scale.

No, there is nothing wrong with wanting balance.

I think Fay and others have been advocating for a few things that are to strong or broken trait wise to be fixed and brought in line.

On the other hand.
Their is a big difference in wanting the mesmer to be reverted to its pre-patch performance. I think ( and many others…or possibly every mesmer who plays competitevely) that is wrong, and will only lead to misinformation and unneccessary nerfs that do nothing but destroy the diversity of builds a class has.

This has been going on for as long as the game has been out, for everyone, I would like to see this patch start a new direction where we concentrate on fixing small things, instead of kneejerking a class out of the meta for 2 years

What was wrong pre patch?

If I remember correctly one problem was the thief hard counter (90% of the problem)
And the build diversity issue (10% of the problem)

Mesmers were still strong pre patch.

Mesmers were still meta pre patch, just overshadowed by the celestial people and the thief problem.

Few teams still ran mesmer pre patch, so i dont know where you get “out of the meta”

That’s not true. Before patch, mesmer’s problem is way bigger than a thief counter.

The only good thing from a mesmer is portal before patch. In ESL, you see elite players like helseth and misha spent half of their time in downstate while needing teammates to babysit them. Sadly, you don’t have teammate to babysit you in ranked/unranked.

Yeah, you can hold your own if you pick mantra of resolve instead of portal. But then every team will ditch you and pick a medi guard instead. Even a LB ranger/fresh air ele will be better than you at that point. Because mesmer had only average out-of-combat mobility which is crucial for a roamer role. Our mobility is worse than thief, worse than engi, worse than ele, worse than shoutbow. And sadly that is the only role mesmer can choose to take.

Then in terms of fight, you heavily rely on a thief or engi teammate to CC your opponent. But again why not take a guardian instead, their burst is even higher against a CC’ed opponent. Most of our bursts are way too predictable. Sure you can be good at kiting and baiting out dodges. But that takes a long time. Duration all this time, the point is given up and more likely than not, their more mobile teammate will come and help. If it happened to be a thief, you are as good as dead.

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Let’s say you are both right, you and Fay, that still doesn’t answer what is wrong with wanting balance on the risk/reward scale.

No, there is nothing wrong with wanting balance.

I think Fay and others have been advocating for a few things that are to strong or broken trait wise to be fixed and brought in line.

On the other hand.
Their is a big difference in wanting the mesmer to be reverted to its pre-patch performance. I think ( and many others…or possibly every mesmer who plays competitevely) that is wrong, and will only lead to misinformation and unneccessary nerfs that do nothing but destroy the diversity of builds a class has.

This has been going on for as long as the game has been out, for everyone, I would like to see this patch start a new direction where we concentrate on fixing small things, instead of kneejerking a class out of the meta for 2 years

What was wrong pre patch?

If I remember correctly one problem was the thief hard counter (90% of the problem)
And the build diversity issue (10% of the problem)

Mesmers were still strong pre patch.

Mesmers were still meta pre patch, just overshadowed by the celestial people and the thief problem.

Few teams still ran mesmer pre patch, so i dont know where you get “out of the meta”

That’s not true. Before patch, mesmer’s problem is way bigger than a thief counter.

The only good thing from a mesmer is portal before patch. In ESL, you see elite players like helseth and misha spent half of their time in downstate while needing teammates to babysit them. Sadly, you don’t have teammate to babysit you in ranked/unranked.

Yeah, you can hold your own if you pick mantra of resolve instead of portal. But then every team will ditch you and pick a medi guard instead. Even a LB ranger/fresh air ele will be better than you at that point. Because mesmer had only average out-of-combat mobility which is crucial for a roamer role. Our mobility is worse than thief, worse than engi, worse than ele, worse than shoutbow. And sadly that is the only role mesmer can choose to take.

Then in terms of fight, you heavily rely on a thief or engi teammate to CC your opponent. But again why not take a guardian instead, their burst is even higher against a CC’ed opponent. Most of our bursts are way too predictable. Sure you can be good at kiting and baiting out dodges. But that takes a long time. Duration all this time, the point is given up and more likely than not, their more mobile teammate will come and help. If it happened to be a thief, you are as good as dead.

I stopped reading when I saw LB ranger/ Fresh air ele.

I myself don’t play much pvp because it’s almost effortless. WvW is more captivating for roaming in my opinion as situations can change and vary the whole time.

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Let’s say you are both right, you and Fay, that still doesn’t answer what is wrong with wanting balance on the risk/reward scale.

No, there is nothing wrong with wanting balance.

I think Fay and others have been advocating for a few things that are to strong or broken trait wise to be fixed and brought in line.

On the other hand.
Their is a big difference in wanting the mesmer to be reverted to its pre-patch performance. I think ( and many others…or possibly every mesmer who plays competitevely) that is wrong, and will only lead to misinformation and unneccessary nerfs that do nothing but destroy the diversity of builds a class has.

This has been going on for as long as the game has been out, for everyone, I would like to see this patch start a new direction where we concentrate on fixing small things, instead of kneejerking a class out of the meta for 2 years

What was wrong pre patch?

If I remember correctly one problem was the thief hard counter (90% of the problem)
And the build diversity issue (10% of the problem)

Mesmers were still strong pre patch.

Mesmers were still meta pre patch, just overshadowed by the celestial people and the thief problem.

Few teams still ran mesmer pre patch, so i dont know where you get “out of the meta”

That’s not true. Before patch, mesmer’s problem is way bigger than a thief counter.

The only good thing from a mesmer is portal before patch. In ESL, you see elite players like helseth and misha spent half of their time in downstate while needing teammates to babysit them. Sadly, you don’t have teammate to babysit you in ranked/unranked.

Yeah, you can hold your own if you pick mantra of resolve instead of portal. But then every team will ditch you and pick a medi guard instead. Even a LB ranger/fresh air ele will be better than you at that point. Because mesmer had only average out-of-combat mobility which is crucial for a roamer role. Our mobility is worse than thief, worse than engi, worse than ele, worse than shoutbow. And sadly that is the only role mesmer can choose to take.

Then in terms of fight, you heavily rely on a thief or engi teammate to CC your opponent. But again why not take a guardian instead, their burst is even higher against a CC’ed opponent. Most of our bursts are way too predictable. Sure you can be good at kiting and baiting out dodges. But that takes a long time. Duration all this time, the point is given up and more likely than not, their more mobile teammate will come and help. If it happened to be a thief, you are as good as dead.

I stopped reading when I saw LB ranger/ Fresh air ele.

But that’s exactly how pathetic mesmer is before patch. Fresh air and LB ranger at least have some decent condie cleanse. Mesmer, one pin down, you are basically dead meat.

StickerHappy.8052:

Situations.2416:

-snip-

Good Stuff, I remember all of these.. You are forgetting Vassangel was also on the warriors list. You are also foregtting Kyra the OP/imba mesmer haha.

I think Sizer only made the build popular. If I remember correctly It was originally Kronos’ build then Jumper started using it and claiming it as his own.

Although Deku was very strong with the spirit ranger meta before but let’s not forget how Caed “tactically” ripped Deku apart with his thief.

But hey these are facts, good ole days. Good luck explaining these to the mesmers here in the forum now.

I have been telling this on my other thread about the perception of meta and top tier, and people are calling me the one who is misinformed.

And this entire novel just proves the points I was making, albeit with a bit of warped storytelling.

Mesmers started dropping out of the meta at the same time warrior was buffed. Recall that this was when they nerfed mainhand sword into the ground, making effective play much harder. It came back a little with double ranged shatter builds, but by the time those got much use, the condition meta hit and dunked mesmer out of the meta hard.

After the condition meta started getting toned down was when s/d thief skyrocketed in popularity, and forced mesmers to remain out of the meta for this period. Shortly thereafter, the celestial meta hit, and mesmers have remained out of the meta for the remainder of it.

At all points, a couple people still played mesmer. This, however, is anything but evidence of mesmer’s meta status. Even the very best mesmers in the game spent record time in downstate, and were ultimately only on the teams because of portal, and because their personal skill allowed them to bludgeon a non-viable class into use.

Lastly, as my original point that I made was about, that was foolishly disputed, at every single point in the history of play, the meta focused towards builds that were low effort, low risk, and high reward.

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Let’s say you are both right, you and Fay, that still doesn’t answer what is wrong with wanting balance on the risk/reward scale.

No, there is nothing wrong with wanting balance.

I think Fay and others have been advocating for a few things that are to strong or broken trait wise to be fixed and brought in line.

On the other hand.
Their is a big difference in wanting the mesmer to be reverted to its pre-patch performance. I think ( and many others…or possibly every mesmer who plays competitevely) that is wrong, and will only lead to misinformation and unneccessary nerfs that do nothing but destroy the diversity of builds a class has.

This has been going on for as long as the game has been out, for everyone, I would like to see this patch start a new direction where we concentrate on fixing small things, instead of kneejerking a class out of the meta for 2 years

What was wrong pre patch?

If I remember correctly one problem was the thief hard counter (90% of the problem)
And the build diversity issue (10% of the problem)

Mesmers were still strong pre patch.

Mesmers were still meta pre patch, just overshadowed by the celestial people and the thief problem.

Few teams still ran mesmer pre patch, so i dont know where you get “out of the meta”

That’s not true. Before patch, mesmer’s problem is way bigger than a thief counter.

The only good thing from a mesmer is portal before patch. In ESL, you see elite players like helseth and misha spent half of their time in downstate while needing teammates to babysit them. Sadly, you don’t have teammate to babysit you in ranked/unranked.

Yeah, you can hold your own if you pick mantra of resolve instead of portal. But then every team will ditch you and pick a medi guard instead. Even a LB ranger/fresh air ele will be better than you at that point. Because mesmer had only average out-of-combat mobility which is crucial for a roamer role. Our mobility is worse than thief, worse than engi, worse than ele, worse than shoutbow. And sadly that is the only role mesmer can choose to take.

Then in terms of fight, you heavily rely on a thief or engi teammate to CC your opponent. But again why not take a guardian instead, their burst is even higher against a CC’ed opponent. Most of our bursts are way too predictable. Sure you can be good at kiting and baiting out dodges. But that takes a long time. Duration all this time, the point is given up and more likely than not, their more mobile teammate will come and help. If it happened to be a thief, you are as good as dead.

I stopped reading when I saw LB ranger/ Fresh air ele.

But that’s exactly how pathetic mesmer is before patch. Fresh air and LB ranger at least have some decent condie cleanse. Mesmer, one pin down, you are basically dead meat.

So why aren’t LB rangers and Fresh Air Eles replacing mesmers then?

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Let’s say you are both right, you and Fay, that still doesn’t answer what is wrong with wanting balance on the risk/reward scale.

No, there is nothing wrong with wanting balance.

I think Fay and others have been advocating for a few things that are to strong or broken trait wise to be fixed and brought in line.

On the other hand.
Their is a big difference in wanting the mesmer to be reverted to its pre-patch performance. I think ( and many others…or possibly every mesmer who plays competitevely) that is wrong, and will only lead to misinformation and unneccessary nerfs that do nothing but destroy the diversity of builds a class has.

This has been going on for as long as the game has been out, for everyone, I would like to see this patch start a new direction where we concentrate on fixing small things, instead of kneejerking a class out of the meta for 2 years

What was wrong pre patch?

If I remember correctly one problem was the thief hard counter (90% of the problem)
And the build diversity issue (10% of the problem)

Mesmers were still strong pre patch.

Mesmers were still meta pre patch, just overshadowed by the celestial people and the thief problem.

Few teams still ran mesmer pre patch, so i dont know where you get “out of the meta”

That’s not true. Before patch, mesmer’s problem is way bigger than a thief counter.

The only good thing from a mesmer is portal before patch. In ESL, you see elite players like helseth and misha spent half of their time in downstate while needing teammates to babysit them. Sadly, you don’t have teammate to babysit you in ranked/unranked.

Yeah, you can hold your own if you pick mantra of resolve instead of portal. But then every team will ditch you and pick a medi guard instead. Even a LB ranger/fresh air ele will be better than you at that point. Because mesmer had only average out-of-combat mobility which is crucial for a roamer role. Our mobility is worse than thief, worse than engi, worse than ele, worse than shoutbow. And sadly that is the only role mesmer can choose to take.

Then in terms of fight, you heavily rely on a thief or engi teammate to CC your opponent. But again why not take a guardian instead, their burst is even higher against a CC’ed opponent. Most of our bursts are way too predictable. Sure you can be good at kiting and baiting out dodges. But that takes a long time. Duration all this time, the point is given up and more likely than not, their more mobile teammate will come and help. If it happened to be a thief, you are as good as dead.

I stopped reading when I saw LB ranger/ Fresh air ele.

But that’s exactly how pathetic mesmer is before patch. Fresh air and LB ranger at least have some decent condie cleanse. Mesmer, one pin down, you are basically dead meat.

So why aren’t LB rangers and Fresh Air Eles replacing mesmers then?

Pretty sure he was talking pre-patch, just to be clear.

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Let’s say you are both right, you and Fay, that still doesn’t answer what is wrong with wanting balance on the risk/reward scale.

No, there is nothing wrong with wanting balance.

I think Fay and others have been advocating for a few things that are to strong or broken trait wise to be fixed and brought in line.

On the other hand.
Their is a big difference in wanting the mesmer to be reverted to its pre-patch performance. I think ( and many others…or possibly every mesmer who plays competitevely) that is wrong, and will only lead to misinformation and unneccessary nerfs that do nothing but destroy the diversity of builds a class has.

This has been going on for as long as the game has been out, for everyone, I would like to see this patch start a new direction where we concentrate on fixing small things, instead of kneejerking a class out of the meta for 2 years

What was wrong pre patch?

If I remember correctly one problem was the thief hard counter (90% of the problem)
And the build diversity issue (10% of the problem)

Mesmers were still strong pre patch.

Mesmers were still meta pre patch, just overshadowed by the celestial people and the thief problem.

Few teams still ran mesmer pre patch, so i dont know where you get “out of the meta”

That’s not true. Before patch, mesmer’s problem is way bigger than a thief counter.

The only good thing from a mesmer is portal before patch. In ESL, you see elite players like helseth and misha spent half of their time in downstate while needing teammates to babysit them. Sadly, you don’t have teammate to babysit you in ranked/unranked.

Yeah, you can hold your own if you pick mantra of resolve instead of portal. But then every team will ditch you and pick a medi guard instead. Even a LB ranger/fresh air ele will be better than you at that point. Because mesmer had only average out-of-combat mobility which is crucial for a roamer role. Our mobility is worse than thief, worse than engi, worse than ele, worse than shoutbow. And sadly that is the only role mesmer can choose to take.

Then in terms of fight, you heavily rely on a thief or engi teammate to CC your opponent. But again why not take a guardian instead, their burst is even higher against a CC’ed opponent. Most of our bursts are way too predictable. Sure you can be good at kiting and baiting out dodges. But that takes a long time. Duration all this time, the point is given up and more likely than not, their more mobile teammate will come and help. If it happened to be a thief, you are as good as dead.

I stopped reading when I saw LB ranger/ Fresh air ele.

But that’s exactly how pathetic mesmer is before patch. Fresh air and LB ranger at least have some decent condie cleanse. Mesmer, one pin down, you are basically dead meat.

So why aren’t LB rangers and Fresh Air Eles replacing mesmers then?

I already said, it is portal. W/O portal, mesmer would be in the exact same tier as LB ranger and fresh air ele. However, portal requires a lot of team coordination. So in unranked/ranked, we are actually even worse than a LB ranger and a fresh air ele.

There was a quote from Phantaram post on forum before patch. I agree with his view point.

Phantaram.4816:
Here is my 2 cents on Mesmers.
Currently on a personal power level Mesmers are a quite bit weaker than the rest of the meta. What mesmers bring to the table though is portal which is extremely strong.
If the personal power level of mesmer is to rise, which it seems to be judging by the trait changes, then Mesmer will become mandatory because portal is just that strong.

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Let’s say you are both right, you and Fay, that still doesn’t answer what is wrong with wanting balance on the risk/reward scale.

No, there is nothing wrong with wanting balance.

I think Fay and others have been advocating for a few things that are to strong or broken trait wise to be fixed and brought in line.

On the other hand.
Their is a big difference in wanting the mesmer to be reverted to its pre-patch performance. I think ( and many others…or possibly every mesmer who plays competitevely) that is wrong, and will only lead to misinformation and unneccessary nerfs that do nothing but destroy the diversity of builds a class has.

This has been going on for as long as the game has been out, for everyone, I would like to see this patch start a new direction where we concentrate on fixing small things, instead of kneejerking a class out of the meta for 2 years

What was wrong pre patch?

If I remember correctly one problem was the thief hard counter (90% of the problem)
And the build diversity issue (10% of the problem)

Mesmers were still strong pre patch.

Mesmers were still meta pre patch, just overshadowed by the celestial people and the thief problem.

Few teams still ran mesmer pre patch, so i dont know where you get “out of the meta”

That’s not true. Before patch, mesmer’s problem is way bigger than a thief counter.

The only good thing from a mesmer is portal before patch. In ESL, you see elite players like helseth and misha spent half of their time in downstate while needing teammates to babysit them. Sadly, you don’t have teammate to babysit you in ranked/unranked.

Yeah, you can hold your own if you pick mantra of resolve instead of portal. But then every team will ditch you and pick a medi guard instead. Even a LB ranger/fresh air ele will be better than you at that point. Because mesmer had only average out-of-combat mobility which is crucial for a roamer role. Our mobility is worse than thief, worse than engi, worse than ele, worse than shoutbow. And sadly that is the only role mesmer can choose to take.

Then in terms of fight, you heavily rely on a thief or engi teammate to CC your opponent. But again why not take a guardian instead, their burst is even higher against a CC’ed opponent. Most of our bursts are way too predictable. Sure you can be good at kiting and baiting out dodges. But that takes a long time. Duration all this time, the point is given up and more likely than not, their more mobile teammate will come and help. If it happened to be a thief, you are as good as dead.

I stopped reading when I saw LB ranger/ Fresh air ele.

But that’s exactly how pathetic mesmer is before patch. Fresh air and LB ranger at least have some decent condie cleanse. Mesmer, one pin down, you are basically dead meat.

So why aren’t LB rangers and Fresh Air Eles replacing mesmers then?

I already said, it is portal. W/O portal, mesmer would be in the exact same tier as LB ranger and fresh air ele. However, portal requires a lot of team coordination. So in unranked/ranked, we are actually even worse than a LB ranger and a fresh air ele.

Are you kidding me? Mesmers worse than LB ranger? Cmonnnnn! this is the most LOL post I have read all day.

Rangers are the lowest tier class, comparing mesmer to ranger, what an honor.

Where are you getting these statements? PvP experience?

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Let’s say you are both right, you and Fay, that still doesn’t answer what is wrong with wanting balance on the risk/reward scale.

No, there is nothing wrong with wanting balance.

I think Fay and others have been advocating for a few things that are to strong or broken trait wise to be fixed and brought in line.

On the other hand.
Their is a big difference in wanting the mesmer to be reverted to its pre-patch performance. I think ( and many others…or possibly every mesmer who plays competitevely) that is wrong, and will only lead to misinformation and unneccessary nerfs that do nothing but destroy the diversity of builds a class has.

This has been going on for as long as the game has been out, for everyone, I would like to see this patch start a new direction where we concentrate on fixing small things, instead of kneejerking a class out of the meta for 2 years

What was wrong pre patch?

If I remember correctly one problem was the thief hard counter (90% of the problem)
And the build diversity issue (10% of the problem)

Mesmers were still strong pre patch.

Mesmers were still meta pre patch, just overshadowed by the celestial people and the thief problem.

Few teams still ran mesmer pre patch, so i dont know where you get “out of the meta”

That’s not true. Before patch, mesmer’s problem is way bigger than a thief counter.

The only good thing from a mesmer is portal before patch. In ESL, you see elite players like helseth and misha spent half of their time in downstate while needing teammates to babysit them. Sadly, you don’t have teammate to babysit you in ranked/unranked.

Yeah, you can hold your own if you pick mantra of resolve instead of portal. But then every team will ditch you and pick a medi guard instead. Even a LB ranger/fresh air ele will be better than you at that point. Because mesmer had only average out-of-combat mobility which is crucial for a roamer role. Our mobility is worse than thief, worse than engi, worse than ele, worse than shoutbow. And sadly that is the only role mesmer can choose to take.

Then in terms of fight, you heavily rely on a thief or engi teammate to CC your opponent. But again why not take a guardian instead, their burst is even higher against a CC’ed opponent. Most of our bursts are way too predictable. Sure you can be good at kiting and baiting out dodges. But that takes a long time. Duration all this time, the point is given up and more likely than not, their more mobile teammate will come and help. If it happened to be a thief, you are as good as dead.

I stopped reading when I saw LB ranger/ Fresh air ele.

But that’s exactly how pathetic mesmer is before patch. Fresh air and LB ranger at least have some decent condie cleanse. Mesmer, one pin down, you are basically dead meat.

So why aren’t LB rangers and Fresh Air Eles replacing mesmers then?

I already said, it is portal. W/O portal, mesmer would be in the exact same tier as LB ranger and fresh air ele. However, portal requires a lot of team coordination. So in unranked/ranked, we are actually even worse than a LB ranger and a fresh air ele.

Are you kidding me? Mesmers worse than LB ranger? Cmonnnnn! this is the most LOL post I have read all day.

Rangers are the lowest tier class, comparing mesmer to ranger, what an honor.

Where are you getting these statements? PvP experience?

Not worse but exact same tier w/o portal before patch.
Basically playable but lacking. not worth taking by a serious competitive team.
In unranked/ranked, LB ranger was just worth as much as a shatter mesmer. TBH, I would rather see two LB rangers on my team than 2 shatter mesmers.

Of course now everything changes. LB ranger still the same as before. Mesmer way stronger.

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Exciton.8942:

StickerHappy.8052:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Solori.6025:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Careful with the gross generalizations. A profession has many builds. Beside, what is wrong with wanting all builds to inherently balance out on risk/reward?

P.S. Shatter mesmer was never,ever, an nonviable build in many competitive settings (duel, pvp or wvw).

Sorry, but history of tournaments pre-patch, and the fact that mesmer was basically cannon fodder for thieves.
Kinda proves that statement false.

Edit. Nvm
Fay covered it.

Let’s say you are both right, you and Fay, that still doesn’t answer what is wrong with wanting balance on the risk/reward scale.

No, there is nothing wrong with wanting balance.

I think Fay and others have been advocating for a few things that are to strong or broken trait wise to be fixed and brought in line.

On the other hand.
Their is a big difference in wanting the mesmer to be reverted to its pre-patch performance. I think ( and many others…or possibly every mesmer who plays competitevely) that is wrong, and will only lead to misinformation and unneccessary nerfs that do nothing but destroy the diversity of builds a class has.

This has been going on for as long as the game has been out, for everyone, I would like to see this patch start a new direction where we concentrate on fixing small things, instead of kneejerking a class out of the meta for 2 years

What was wrong pre patch?

If I remember correctly one problem was the thief hard counter (90% of the problem)
And the build diversity issue (10% of the problem)

Mesmers were still strong pre patch.

Mesmers were still meta pre patch, just overshadowed by the celestial people and the thief problem.

Few teams still ran mesmer pre patch, so i dont know where you get “out of the meta”

That’s not true. Before patch, mesmer’s problem is way bigger than a thief counter.

The only good thing from a mesmer is portal before patch. In ESL, you see elite players like helseth and misha spent half of their time in downstate while needing teammates to babysit them. Sadly, you don’t have teammate to babysit you in ranked/unranked.

Yeah, you can hold your own if you pick mantra of resolve instead of portal. But then every team will ditch you and pick a medi guard instead. Even a LB ranger/fresh air ele will be better than you at that point. Because mesmer had only average out-of-combat mobility which is crucial for a roamer role. Our mobility is worse than thief, worse than engi, worse than ele, worse than shoutbow. And sadly that is the only role mesmer can choose to take.

Then in terms of fight, you heavily rely on a thief or engi teammate to CC your opponent. But again why not take a guardian instead, their burst is even higher against a CC’ed opponent. Most of our bursts are way too predictable. Sure you can be good at kiting and baiting out dodges. But that takes a long time. Duration all this time, the point is given up and more likely than not, their more mobile teammate will come and help. If it happened to be a thief, you are as good as dead.

I stopped reading when I saw LB ranger/ Fresh air ele.

But that’s exactly how pathetic mesmer is before patch. Fresh air and LB ranger at least have some decent condie cleanse. Mesmer, one pin down, you are basically dead meat.

So why aren’t LB rangers and Fresh Air Eles replacing mesmers then?

I already said, it is portal. W/O portal, mesmer would be in the exact same tier as LB ranger and fresh air ele. However, portal requires a lot of team coordination. So in unranked/ranked, we are actually even worse than a LB ranger and a fresh air ele.

Are you kidding me? Mesmers worse than LB ranger? Cmonnnnn! this is the most LOL post I have read all day.

Rangers are the lowest tier class, comparing mesmer to ranger, what an honor.

Where are you getting these statements? PvP experience?

Not worse but exact same tier w/o portal before patch.
Basically playable but lacking. not worth taking by a serious competitive team.
In unranked/ranked, LB ranger is just worth as much as a shatter mesmer. TBH, I would rather see two LB rangers on my team than 2 shatter mesmers.

I would leave that to other mesmers to answer this….

Same tier? What? Rangers do not have BOON RIP do not have PORTS What are you even talking about?

I can’t take the premise of this thread seriously.

I’ve seen it before… it goes something like, “Mesmers are OP. I know because I just went into spvp and played one”. -Says the Ele main that doesn’t like anyone cramping his style.

StickerHappy.8052:

I would leave that to other mesmers to answer this….

Same tier? What? Rangers do not have BOON RIP do not have PORTS What are you even talking about?

Ranger does not need ports. Mesmer burst is the in-and-out style. Ranger burst is executed by staying in range. A port would be super OP on ranger

Yeah, boon strip is the mesmer strength. But LB ranger has the longest range, strongest long-range dps, good utility on LB, pretty good cc, longer invulnerability as well. They also have good out-of-combat mobility with GS.

In the end, a comparison with ranger really doesn’t matter. You can always have your personal opinion on rangers.

All that matters is what Phantaram stated: QUITE A BIT WEAKER THAN THE REST META .

Fay.2357:

StickerHappy.8052:

Situations.2416:

-snip-

Good Stuff, I remember all of these.. You are forgetting Vassangel was also on the warriors list. You are also foregtting Kyra the OP/imba mesmer haha.

I think Sizer only made the build popular. If I remember correctly It was originally Kronos’ build then Jumper started using it and claiming it as his own.

Although Deku was very strong with the spirit ranger meta before but let’s not forget how Caed “tactically” ripped Deku apart with his thief.

But hey these are facts, good ole days. Good luck explaining these to the mesmers here in the forum now.

I have been telling this on my other thread about the perception of meta and top tier, and people are calling me the one who is misinformed.

And this entire novel just proves the points I was making, albeit with a bit of warped storytelling.

Mesmers started dropping out of the meta at the same time warrior was buffed. Recall that this was when they nerfed mainhand sword into the ground, making effective play much harder. It came back a little with double ranged shatter builds, but by the time those got much use, the condition meta hit and dunked mesmer out of the meta hard.

After the condition meta started getting toned down was when s/d thief skyrocketed in popularity, and forced mesmers to remain out of the meta for this period. Shortly thereafter, the celestial meta hit, and mesmers have remained out of the meta for the remainder of it.

At all points, a couple people still played mesmer. This, however, is anything but evidence of mesmer’s meta status. Even the very best mesmers in the game spent record time in downstate, and were ultimately only on the teams because of portal, and because their personal skill allowed them to bludgeon a non-viable class into use.

Lastly, as my original point that I made was about, that was foolishly disputed, at every single point in the history of play, the meta focused towards builds that were low effort, low risk, and high reward.

Mesmers were brought for more than portal, for boon stripping as mesmers did it much more reliably than necros and with alot more team support and moaing guardians to burst them down quickly.

Mesmers have always been needed on teams, even in the condi meta they were needed (destroying boons ruins bunkers, but bunker condi is a complete counter to shatter mesmer) the only problem is just they couldn’t be brung in condi meta because there was never enough condi removal to couple with going shatter.

Mesmers were always needed for 3 things: Boon removal, moa’ing , portal and this was precisely what they were brought to teams for. This is still what they’re only needed for today, even with the burst damage they have now – that’s just icing on the cake but now you get more team viability running mantras if you wanted.

My ‘story’ is far from warped , it’s a very accurate description obviously there’s alot more detail to each meta but this is a topical view of each meta event in GW2 history in a PVP perspective of course.

Rhomulos.2089:

Pre-facing with this; I run my own builds too, but I also like making ones that are optimal for my role, and it feels like i’m playing the same but kitten if I’m not running something I consider optimal. This is also the perspective of an experienced pvper who’s been pvping since release.

I was really enjoying learning this class on a competitive level, learning it inside out is very rewarding. It took a lot more finesse than a few of the others I’ve tried, and doing proper damage against mid-high+ tier players while having good positioning felt very rewarding.

After the patch however, I notice that I require far less work to achieve the same results now and I can often make more of a difference without using important cooldowns as often and it just isn’t as fun. I also feel like I’m learning a lot less and at a slower rate because I have to do little more than simple combos to pressure or win 1v1s.

Sort of feels like CoD to me when running builds with a lot more survivability AND burst than before, and it feels very lame when running builds that feel spammy with certain conditions/CC etc. I feel as though Mesmer has far too many resources at their disposal now compared to before.

It feels very overkill, and unrewarding now, does anyone else feel this way?

You can always try to do MORE. Tbh I don’t get why people think opness == easy play. If you are insane op which I don’t think we are, you can try to carry your whole team. Win 1 v 2 1v 3 fights, try keep your useless teamates alive as well as killing everyone in sight. Push your build to the limit.

Exciton.8942:

There was a quote from Phantaram post on forum before patch. I agree with his view point.

Phantaram.4816:
Here is my 2 cents on Mesmers.
Currently on a personal power level Mesmers are a quite bit weaker than the rest of the meta. What mesmers bring to the table though is portal which is extremely strong.
If the personal power level of mesmer is to rise, which it seems to be judging by the trait changes, then Mesmer will become mandatory because portal is just that strong.

And you can guess what he said about mesmers post-patch. He’s said they’re much stronger than they should be and are pretty OP now and should be shaved down accordingly. Same with Magic Toker , same with Backpack, same with most of the Abjured players. This spans not even just in NA but into Europe as well where most of the top tier players are expressing how mesmer is horribly overpowered now – Rom , Helseth , Texbi , Denshee , etc. They’ve all stated this on their stream.

Alot of the people in this thread though have very mixed feelings of mesmer, most of them are players who have never ever been at the top tier level of gameplay and truly aren’t great players and probably will never be. Some are players who only visit the forums and theorycraft all day and duel and roam WvW and occasionally play PvP at a low-mid tier level and are considered advice-givers so their opinion is considered heavily (Fay) but in truth they’ve never been at a top tier level of PvP gameplay or on a top tier team ever like other mesmers who also coincidentally never visit the forums – which ALSO IS WHAT THIS GAME IS BALANCED AROUND, not PvE , not WvW , but PvP. There is where 90% of your balancing comes from.

The ultimate questions are this:

Who do you balance for in this game? do you balance for the noob / average gamer or do you balance for the top tier player?

If you’re balancing for the noob, mesmer isn’t where it should be or atleast where it should be because of course, it completely caters to a noob playstyle now as opposed to pre-patch and if you’re balancing for top tier , then mesmer is horribly overpowered (as said by most top tier players). Which one do you listen to? If this game truly wants to go esports, as they’re very clearly trying to go , they should follow suit and balance for top tier like Dota , etc. – otherwise, noob players will continually ruin this game even more than it already is in the top tier / esports pvp aspect of it.

Can you link concrete Helseth’s stream, where he says it? Just curious to see.

Situations.2416:

The ultimate questions are this:

Who do you balance for in this game? do you balance for the noob / average gamer or do you balance for the top tier player?

If you’re balancing for the noob, mesmer isn’t where it should be or atleast where it should be because of course, it completely caters to a noob playstyle now as opposed to pre-patch and if you’re balancing for top tier , then mesmer is horribly overpowered (as said by most top tier players). Which one do you listen to? If this game truly wants to go esports, as they’re very clearly trying to go , they should follow suit and balance for top tier like Dota , etc. – otherwise, noob players will continually ruin this game even more than it already is in the top tier / esports pvp aspect of it.

Thing is not everyone is wanting “balance” they’re very one sided and don’t even stop to think, compare, look at what a class loses and gains in patches.

Example: Mesmer lost Confusion, bleed, weakness, cripple and vulnerability on clone death in a variety of different traits.

What it gained was a blind on shatter, a longer stealth on PU and a much improved interrupt GMs to really weaken foes you interrupt.

People are looking at mesmer stealth and jumping on PU when the reality is mesmers lost a lot of drawbacks to killing their shatter fodder and damage and so needed to gain it back somewhere.

I believe Pyro said in the MW damage thread that a 3+1 clone shatter has a 3.08 coefficient. That’s absolutely insane so of course a moderate increase in power is going to benefit it a lot but people don’t sit and really examine what really is causing the “problems”.

Having said that there are clearly some things that could be tuned up. Blind on shatter shouldn’t go through evade/invuln, not saying people will time it but it shouldn’t should they by chance dodge it. CS is a bit too strong atm but it’s hard to balance it without making it silly. The torch trait is just plain bad, promotes stealth camping and is borderline useless otherwise.

apharma.3741:

CS is a bit too strong atm but it’s hard to balance it without making it silly.

The trait is fine as it is. However, it’s insanely strong for an Adept. It should be a GM, as it was before. Therefore, you would have to choose between the insane MW damage, Power Block or CS.

Situations.2416:

Some are players who only visit the forums and theorycraft all day and duel and roam WvW and occasionally play PvP at a low-mid tier level and are considered advice-givers so their opinion is considered heavily (Fay) but in truth they’ve never been at a top tier level of PvP gameplay or on a top tier team ever like other mesmers who also coincidentally never visit the forums

Aside from being fairly inaccurate in your assessment, it amuses me that you make this argument and then expect people to ignore that advice when it comes to the proclamations you’ve been making yourself. Last time I checked, you’re as unremarkable a player as the rest of us forum heroes, so why should anyone listen to what you, some random person entering the forum to give a biased perception of Mesmer, has to say over what veteran and consistently accurate members of the community have to say?

Situations.2416:

Who do you balance for in this game? do you balance for the noob / average gamer or do you balance for the top tier player?

The proper answer to this question is you balance for the average gamer, otherwise you lose the average gamer, and subsequently your game.

Some games, the balance for the average gamer fits the balance for esports (see LoL). Some games it could, or maybe might with a lot of work, but currently doesn’t (see GW2). The Anet balancing team cant decide which they want to do, and so we end up with a schizophrenic mix of balance decisions intended to try and foster esports alongside balance decisions designed to make the game easier and more approachable for average players.

Fay.2357:

Situations.2416:

Some are players who only visit the forums and theorycraft all day and duel and roam WvW and occasionally play PvP at a low-mid tier level and are considered advice-givers so their opinion is considered heavily (Fay) but in truth they’ve never been at a top tier level of PvP gameplay or on a top tier team ever like other mesmers who also coincidentally never visit the forums

Aside from being fairly inaccurate in your assessment, it amuses me that you make this argument and then expect people to ignore that advice when it comes to the proclamations you’ve been making yourself. Last time I checked, you’re as unremarkable a player as the rest of us forum heroes, so why should anyone listen to what you, some random person entering the forum to give a biased perception of Mesmer, has to say over what veteran and consistently accurate members of the community have to say?

Situations.2416:

Who do you balance for in this game? do you balance for the noob / average gamer or do you balance for the top tier player?

The proper answer to this question is you balance for the average gamer, otherwise you lose the average gamer, and subsequently your game.

Some games, the balance for the average gamer fits the balance for esports (see LoL). Some games it could, or maybe might with a lot of work, but currently doesn’t (see GW2). The Anet balancing team cant decide which they want to do, and so we end up with a schizophrenic mix of balance decisions intended to try and foster esports alongside balance decisions designed to make the game easier and more approachable for average players.

Just Curious, how can you say that he is an unremarkable player too like the rest of us?

StickerHappy.8052:

Fay.2357:

Situations.2416:

Some are players who only visit the forums and theorycraft all day and duel and roam WvW and occasionally play PvP at a low-mid tier level and are considered advice-givers so their opinion is considered heavily (Fay) but in truth they’ve never been at a top tier level of PvP gameplay or on a top tier team ever like other mesmers who also coincidentally never visit the forums

Aside from being fairly inaccurate in your assessment, it amuses me that you make this argument and then expect people to ignore that advice when it comes to the proclamations you’ve been making yourself. Last time I checked, you’re as unremarkable a player as the rest of us forum heroes, so why should anyone listen to what you, some random person entering the forum to give a biased perception of Mesmer, has to say over what veteran and consistently accurate members of the community have to say?

Situations.2416:

Who do you balance for in this game? do you balance for the noob / average gamer or do you balance for the top tier player?

The proper answer to this question is you balance for the average gamer, otherwise you lose the average gamer, and subsequently your game.

Some games, the balance for the average gamer fits the balance for esports (see LoL). Some games it could, or maybe might with a lot of work, but currently doesn’t (see GW2). The Anet balancing team cant decide which they want to do, and so we end up with a schizophrenic mix of balance decisions intended to try and foster esports alongside balance decisions designed to make the game easier and more approachable for average players.

Just Curious, how can you say that he is an unremarkable player too like the rest of us?

Because if he wasn’t, he would have been using that experience and background as a bludgeon in every post, instead of constantly making vague references to what other people said or did.

Fay.2357:

The top level meta has continuously evolved towards using low risk, low effort, and high reward builds.

I just want to point out that this is literally how every metagame in every competitive game always evolves. It’s a law of the universe. The only way to win consistently in any game is to always min/max around options which require the least risk for the most reward. Winning competitively is about reliable performance, full stop.

tobascodagama.2961:

Fay.2357:

The top level meta has continuously evolved towards using low risk, low effort, and high reward builds.

I just want to point out that this is literally how every metagame in every competitive game always evolves. It’s a law of the universe. The only way to win consistently in any game is to always min/max around options which require the least risk for the most reward. Winning competitively is about reliable performance, full stop.

Yes, but in a perfectly balanced game, you have different rewards. Low risk correlates to low reward, and high risk correlates to high reward. This then gives the strategic decision of high or low risk, the big bet or the safe bet, or a mix of both. When builds exist that are low risk and high reward, it destroys that decision because you’re able to simply get the maximum outcome with the minimum risk.

Fay.2357:

Yes, but in a perfectly balanced game, you have different rewards. Low risk correlates to low reward, and high risk correlates to high reward. This then gives the strategic decision of high or low risk, the big bet or the safe bet, or a mix of both. When builds exist that are low risk and high reward, it destroys that decision because you’re able to simply get the maximum outcome with the minimum risk.

Exactly. I’m not disputing anything you said, I’m mainly reiterating your points by confirming that this isn’t some weird artifact of GW2s metagame. All metagames will converge on low risk/high reward, so the folks in charge of game balance really need to keep a closer eye on the performance of their low risk designs than their high risk ones. Unfortunately, the high risk designs are, by definition, flashier and therefore get more attention from both devs and players when they’re actually good.