Guild Wars 2

I am looking for suggestions on how shatter spec Mesmers deal with Meditation Guardians. The combination of AoE burst, the burning, the blinds and CC are all overwhelming.

Clones are useless as they die immediately to AoE (if I can even get them out through the blind), blink is immediately countered with GS 5 or the burst teleport, if I managed to get everything else working the passive burning just chews through my health.

Either there is no counter and I am wasting my time looking and just need to play another spec.. or I am playing it all wrong and am in dire need of some advice on how to handle them.

I usually run a standard GS+Sw/T with 2/2/0/0/6, (Ether Feast, decoy, blink, mantra cleanse, TW).

Anyone care to enlighten me?

The burning is kittening annoying for sure. That and eating retal damage with blurred frenzy at any point during the fight, if unlucky/unable to strip in time.

I find it’s crucial to avoid the opening burst, then range and kite with the GS, keeping distance as much as possible while drawing out cooldowns -then deciding when the best moment is to dive into melee and nuke them.

Blink, GS 5, GS 4 (force dodge or cripple), mass invis, or distortion/diversion are extremely useful. If necessary swapping to sw/t for extra defence if out of other options and about to eat a ton of damage. Well timed diversion on their “spin to win” nonsense can be followed up by heavy F1 burst which can put them on the back foot fast (providing you strip any aegis or stability first) – of course unlucky if they put up the shield wall while doing so. Then the only option is to dodge out or F4. I don’t hold onto F4 like it’s the precious when it comes to dps guardians – better to use it early if needed because of their aggressive ridiculous damage output.

Probably one instance where GS/Staff users have it a little easier because they can kite and let staff clones keep up the pressure (I don’t know because I don’t have much experience with GS/Staff)

Bring on the new traits patch tbh.

Edit: Oh I just saw TW I your spec? Personally if playing solo I always use mass invis. In a team, moa has more use, personally I don’t think TW is good in pvp.

2/2/0/0/6? You don’t mean 4/4/0/0/6 right?

Its not our worst matchup, with boon removal you stand a decent chance. Honestly though I’d recommend keeping your distance as much as possible, and using the terrain to your advantage. Try taking staff over sw/T to phase retreat up ledges, but I think sword/x can work too as long as you can keep your distance and time your bursts for when their defenses are down. Shatter mesmer is a very hard build to play, so don’t feel bad if you have trouble, just keep trying until the matchup clicks.

DPS guardian is one of the hardest matchups for us, but staff helps a lot since it gets you out of melee range so well. Also distort through their initial burst.

I forgot, you could try starting in Sw/T if it feels easier – got 3 options of damage avoidance (bf, swap, prestige), while you bait their cooldowns and shatter off boons – then swap up to GS for the burst.

Have a play around and see what works best for you. Have you got a guard friend to duel against? Useful to do that if you can find someone willing.

Curunen.8729:

I forgot, you could try starting in Sw/T if it feels easier – got 3 options of damage avoidance (bf, swap, prestige), while you bait their cooldowns and shatter off boons – then swap up to GS for the burst.

Have a play around and see what works best for you. Have you got a guard friend to duel against? Useful to do that if you can find someone willing.

Thanks for the suggestions. I am going to play around with staff, I think the additional ranged AA and built in CC break could be helpful in kiting out some of the burst/ blocks.

I think finding a Guard to duel would help a lot. Funny that it often feels like the medi guards are either very good with the spec or they play it very poorly. Either way one of us gets destroyed very quickly.

staff is actually much better if you want to take down a medi guard. The Staff auto and clones can give more dps pressure and kiting potential.

With s/t you really have to be spot on with zero tolerance of mistake to win the matchup. If things go south, you should really think about a way to disengage rather than trying to turn things around.

nearlight.3064:

2/2/0/0/6? You don’t mean 4/4/0/0/6 right?

Its not our worst matchup, with boon removal you stand a decent chance. Honestly though I’d recommend keeping your distance as much as possible, and using the terrain to your advantage. Try taking staff over sw/T to phase retreat up ledges, but I think sword/x can work too as long as you can keep your distance and time your bursts for when their defenses are down. Shatter mesmer is a very hard build to play, so don’t feel bad if you have trouble, just keep trying until the matchup clicks.

DPS guardian is one of the hardest matchups for us, but staff helps a lot since it gets you out of melee range so well. Also distort through their initial burst.

Yes, 4/4/0/0/6. Sorry about that.

Staff seems like it could be just the thing. The gain range CC breaker in St#2 plus the ranged AA with a touch of (apparent) condition pressure could be enough to get a gap off the burst teleport and set-up for some DPS.. and I am guessing a chaos storm F3 could be horrifying to a low health pool guardian lacking defensive utilities.

Thanks for your input!

fought a few just tonight, didn’t have many problems… build

used AA to get rid of Aegis and Blinds, timed interrupts when they didn’t have blocks up, used F2 for boon stripping and torch to setup the burst and add some damage to it