Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

I’d love if anyone could post any tips and tricks against fighting Mesmers as a whole, things I should look at for and expect etc.
The last couple of days I’ve come across a few Mesmers that I have found very difficult to fight against. Now, I have only played a Mesmer up to level 20 or so as my main is D/D Elementalist and has been since the beginning so I’m not informed on popular builds and such.
The things I have noticed is the Mesmer’s I have been fighting are spawning a LOT of illusions, and shattering them constantly. No matter what I try I’m being burst down very quickly. I have fought Mesmer’s in the past and don’t find it terribly difficult to stick to the target but that’s not the problem here, I’m not able to do nearly enough damage to a Mesmer but they seem to be able to get me down very quickly.

Anyway, would really appreciate all input and suggestions!

A skilled tanky d/d ele can give any mesmer a very hard time. If you are glass canon though you will get bursted and facerolled like everyone else by a good mesmer.

Best thing you can do is just melt away all the illusion, heal up after mind wreck. If you are still being outplayed just run away. No one runs away as well as an ele, except maybe a thief.

Playing a Mesmer in PvE up to level 20 will effectively grant you little to no knowledge about the class.

This advice literally goes for fighting all classes and is critical for anyone who wants to become good at PvP:

To fight any class effectively you must:
-Learn how x class does its damage and either execute good dodges or learn how to effectively use your own defensive cool downs to riposte their attacks and counter with your own.

-Learn both defensive and offensive cool downs x class has and what you need to look out for

-Pay attention to what they ARE doing so you know what CAN’T be doing

Honestly with any two people that are good at their chosen classes there should be a lot of back and forth through the fight. This is especially noticeable when said two people duel each other a lot and you start to see differences in the way each one deals with the other one and the meta gaming that is going on between the two.

Playing a mesmer in Pve and leveling is SUCH a pain in the neck…. At level 20 your understanding of the class will not be helpful to you. Mesmers don’t really shine until they reach 40 or sometimes even 50… Then you really start having fun.

I did benefit from playing a thief through level 30. I wanted to understand the seemingly permanent stealth a P/D build uses. When I figured it out, I dropped the thief because it just wasn’t for me lol.

I’m certainly not glass cannon, PVT gear and cleric acc’s. I’m probably just being outplayed, I know my class pretty well and rarely lose a 1v1 scenario, unless it’s a mesmer :P I will have to keep practicing against them, thanks for the replies people!

Indeed,
D/D Eles are my least favourite class to fight, as a Mesmer.

I would take on culling-abusive thieves any time before a skilled D/D Ele.

Shatter mesmers will burst you constantly. They can line their skills and illusions up pretty well and hit you with 5+ sources of damage in under a second, and all of the Shatters can stack over 10 stacks of Confusion on you so you just get hurt more as soon as you try to engage or heal. I’ve watched my opponent’s HP drain so quick with my bursts that I don’t even see it go down, they simply go from 80% HP to Downed.

Watch where the real mesmer is.
If the illusions are ranged, and then start walking, don’t let them get near you because it means they’re going to shatter. Dodge roll at the right times.

Honestly, you will get a lot of insight into mesmer strategies and how to counter them by leveling your mesmer more.

Other than that, the best I can suggest is that you play aggressively and hope you Down them before they Down you. If you play defensively against a Mesmer they can literally just toy with you and troll you for as long as they feel like.

1. If you see three illusions running at you, try to dodge roll INTO them. They don’t explode until they contact you, so rolling away isn’t effective (past the first illusion).

2. Always always ALWAYS have a stun-breaker ready for when they try to use the Blurred Frenzy/shatter combo. Eating normal 1 or two clone shatters is nothing compared to that- and if you negate the damage, they are harmless to you for 15 seconds or more.

3. Use ctrl + t targetting to put a target over the real mesmer’s head, but don’t rely on it (since stealth breaks it). Have it just in case you lose track of the mesmer- might save your life.

Just remember that your tactics are going to differ based on what type of mesmer they are, but those should help you in general. For most other issues, you just need to either get used to versing them, or continue to play your mesmer. The class totally changes at level 40 due to Deceptive Evasion.

There have been good suggestions given. I don’t have any additional Mesmer counters to suggest. PVT gear is good. You need to build tanky if you are playing the spec, but especially if you are pvping as I see you are. I would reevaluate the benefit of healing power and not be afraid to work in a little precision into the build. D/D ele is my least favorite class to play against no matter what profession I’m playing. They have adequate damage capabilities, good control, an extremely synergistic build, and the ability to shape and extend a fight if desired. When a fight extends and you are a good player there are more opportunities for opponents to make errors. When you watch good ele’s like daphoenix, they make extensive use of extending fights. While the Mesmer is my favorite profession in regards to playstyle, my money would be on a D/D ele given equal player skill.

Raine.1394:

There have been good suggestions given. I don’t have any additional Mesmer counters to suggest. PVT gear is good. You need to build tanky if you are playing the spec, but especially if you are pvping as I see you are. I would reevaluate the benefit of healing power and not be afraid to work in a little precision into the build. D/D ele is my least favorite class to play against no matter what profession I’m playing. They have adequate damage capabilities, an extremely synergistic build, and the ability to shape and extend a fight if desired. When a fight extends and you are a good player there are more opportunities for opponents to make errors. When you watch good ele’s like daphoenix, they make extensive use of extending fights. While the Mesmer is my favorite profession in regards to playstyle, my money would be on a D/D ele given equal player skill.

For most classes, stacking healing power is almost useless as it scales best from area heals, which are plentiful for an elementalist if you’re traited for healing ripple in D/D. As it stands my max health is around 17k (depending on bonuses etc). I am am not using the cookie cutter 0/10/0/30/30 build that every D/D ele and their mother is using atm, I am running a 10/25/0/20/15 build for more precision and crit damage and 10% more damage in fire. My burst is pretty decent and survivability is also very good.

I think what it comes down to is not understanding the mesmer well enough to effectively counter, I don’t have a problem with any other class 1v1. Thanks for all the suggestion and tips guys, I will put these in to practice

Strodor.6051:

I think what it comes down to is not understanding the mesmer well enough to effectively counter, I don’t have a problem with any other class 1v1. Thanks for all the suggestion and tips guys, I will put these in to practice

Always happy to help. I’m just glad you decided to better yourself rather than whine for more nerfs

I can confirm what others have said, i would happily murder to thieves before taking on a bunker dd ele. They can be a real nightmare. As others have said, try to keep him close in the fight, if he tries to open up the field keep on him at all costs, so save your gap closers for that. They will most likely pop stealth at least once, more often in a stun or when he has low health. Hit the earth dagger 4 to hopefully interrupt whatever it is they are trying to do.

Its a good fight in many ways, as both are somewhat matched. Either duke it out, or run away. Plenty of AoE to mess up his clones, and save your water for when he has stacked confusion (if thats hit game).

Hi, il try add some here aswell, at work so cant type as long post as I would like to but I try add some usefull stuff.

It al come down to how we mesmers work, a ok mesmer will in general try avoid your first burst the cripple and burst, then be low on cd,s. This is the major of shatter mesmers usual setup and best avoided by use a own immunity as soon he cripple you. You problem will come when you run into a more skilled mesmer, he will start use dazes and mobility to hit from weard directions and use Los + terrain as a defense for your mele skills.

To counter this you want to fight mesmers in open terrain where we cant use our incombat mobility and immunes to our advantage, its tricky as most mesmers will move the fight to a place with pillars, hight differences and trees.

I duel alot of bunker 0-10-0-0-30-30 eles just cause I find em the hardest class in game in a 1 vs 1 situation. Fot that setup terrain and cripple spam + daze is central.

Il add 2 vids that show mesmer shatter gameplay, first vid include first staff eles, but after that fight its a d/d ele. Look for the daze then burst setup in that fight. 2 nd vid show later in a longer game vs a d/d and a ranger, here notice how terrain work in mesmers advantage, look how mesmer on purpose move the fight up and down.

/Osicat

Hey Osicat, very impressive and overall helpful videos, would you mind giving me a quick rundown of the gear you’re using? That burst is just incredible…

Looks like he’s running crit gear with air runes with shatter cat.

The best tip I can give you against memser’s is skill. Yepp, mesmers destroy bad people, using high burst and being hard to catch. I can 1v4 people in wvw often due to usually better gear, food buffs and generally a lot more skilled. Meanwhile a equally geared and skilled person of almost any class can give me a lot of trouble 1v1.

The key is saving your dodge for shatters, this includes dodging the Daze shatter that comes before mind wrack (if the mesmer is decent, any mesmer opening with mind wrack is bleh.)

Ctrl-T the real mesmer so you can keep target on him. If you lose target you can easily spot him again through his movement (clones and a real player move very differently.)

Heal and so on when he is using chaos armor. To many people through all their kitten at me when I got my chaos armor up, and then proceeds to QQ.

If he is sword MH (not GS) expect and dodge the 3-2 combo.

Generally speaking as a Main mesmer I have no trouble beating them when I play other classes (or on my own Mesmer, to easy.) Most mesmers are not very good and once you know WHAT TO DO against them they become a lot less trouble.

A very >skilled< mesmer will always give you trouble and is one of the best classes 1v1 overall, so don’t feel bad if you lose to one. Of course always try your best.

Glhf

@Strodor, al gear I use is listed in my guide, idd in the hybrid spec its crit gear combined with knights (toughtness), fractal rings, air runes, sigil of precstacking, force and sigil of generosity.

See the guide for more info, 4 good shatter spec in it for wvwvw and pve.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-WvWvW-Shatter-Cat-reworking/page/11

/Osicat