Guild Wars 2

Yo whattup Mesmer community. I’m a thief that enjoyed the heck out of thief before patch. Now I’m having a hard time having fun on thief. Do my question from me too you is it worth it to roll Mesmer? I want to do a shatter or power build? Is it in a good place and viable after patch? Are dual swords as cool as they sound and look?
Thanks!

I so desperately want to welcome you with open arms, help you pick out the perfect fuchsia outfit and let you see the joy that comes with screwing the minds of your opponents. However, for the first time since this game was available to the public, I have to say, no. Making a mesmer is no longer worth it. Too many skills are broken and have remained so for far too long. The changes to the leveling system will make a class that was already difficult to level a nightmare. The traits commonly enjoyed around 40 can only be taken much later and that’s only after you do the event to acquire them or buy them outright. The switch of mantra traits makes dungeon runs harder. The nerf to Power Block took the shine off of that new trait. The nerf to vigor hurt those whom used deceptive evasion… The list goes on and on.

There are very few good things here and, thankfully, one of which is completely out of Anet’s control: the community. Though there are the usual members prone to exaggeration and the whining that’s become commonplace, this is the only forum that will not only treat newbies like family but will actually and wholeheartedly help all other professions seeking solutions in taking us down. You won’t find that anywhere else, save the players helping players forum.

Yes.

Yes. It is well worth it. It was my second character out of my six, and its my favorite. they are the most unique class, and can be an invincible bunker, stealth master, confuser, or a thief.

Power shatter is kind of bottom of the barrel at the moment. It’s kind of like playing backstab Thief only there’s additional external dps juggling and your survivability is much lower. However, it’s still such a satisfying way to play Mesmer, so despite its many shortcomings you should definitely try out some shatter builds.

no. stay on thief this class is doomed to be quiet honest. the devs dont pay attention to this class and dont want us to be viable or even(le shock) strong in wvw rids or tpvp. we get a tons of bugs and every single patch we get the following

1-2 nerfs
1 unintended nerf
2-5 bugs
1-3 bug fixes
2 uselss tiny little tweaks that do absolutely nothing for us
1 cosmetic change or tooltip change

meanwhile every other class gets stuff. mesmers being veilbots, not having aoe dmg, having the worst bugs of all classes, only being a 1v1 class after we were actually good in wvw raids, getting ridiculous usless gm traits, getting our core mechanic nerfed to the ground and never got compensated for it. and its been over a year since this has been going on.

devs dont put work into this class, they dont care that we have a broken phantasm for months and they just broke it even worse, they are quick at hotfixing a trait that could make mesmers strong, but they are slow when fixing a terrible bug when it comes down to mesmers,

devs also do not understand this class at all or how on earth would u explain a gm trait that gives 1k healing power, why do devs think we can perma interrupt? why do devs allow perma stunlock, perma fear,perma cripple, near perma chill, perma knockdowns, perma immobilize, but panic and nerf powerlock immediately?
i cant use my aa or blocks either when perma interrupted by thief…

etc.

NO do not play mesmer. u can mayyybe play hotjoin monkey but anywhere ele mesmer is not viable anymore!

Crossplay.2067:

I so desperately want to welcome you with open arms, help you pick out the perfect fuchsia outfit and let you see the joy that comes with screwing the minds of your opponents. However, for the first time since this game was available to the public, I have to say, no. Making a mesmer is no longer worth it. Too many skills are broken and have remained so for far too long. The changes to the leveling system will make a class that was already difficult to level a nightmare. The traits commonly enjoyed around 40 can only be taken much later and that’s only after you do the event to acquire them or buy them outright. The switch of mantra traits makes dungeon runs harder. The nerf to Power Block took the shine off of that new trait. The nerf to vigor hurt those whom used deceptive evasion… The list goes on and on.

There are very few good things here and, thankfully, one of which is completely out of Anet’s control: the community. Though there are the usual members prone to exaggeration and the whining that’s become commonplace, this is the only forum that will not only treat newbies like family but will actually and wholeheartedly help all other professions seeking solutions in taking us down. You won’t find that anywhere else, save the players helping players forum.

This, thousand times this.

Hello,

I have rerolled a mesmer two months ago, after playing a warrior for many months, and trying out a WvW staff elem for my guild for a short time.

The mesmer class has proven, so far, very fun to play, and I can only recommend it to aspiring mesmers. It offer various efficient gameplays, interesting skills and traits, and nice combos. Most of all, it allows you to play with the brain of your foe, which can be quite refreshing. I have found that getting to master the mechanics is long and difficult, but the community has documented a lot of ideas, practices and builds, which have so far been helpful in my learning of the class.

Now, the class indeed suffers from many bugs, which can be quite frustrating. Some can be avoided by not using the skill (or using it in special conditions), but that’s less fun for you. Also, I do not play thief, but I suspect that a thing you’d like less is the lack of mobility. As a warrior, I was shocked: forget about pursuing a fleeing opponent, you’re nearly as slow as a big fat happy dolyak (but of course way more attractive).

HTH.

Yes, its a sort of unique experience you wont find in other games besides GW1. Other classes are terribly lackluster, and what they did to necromancer should be considered a crime to humanity.

Having been in the same position, frustrated with the ineffectiveness of the thief that gets worse and worse every other patch, I went for both Warrior and Mesmer to find the profession that would become the replacement for the fun that was an effective D/D+S/D thief. Warrior, due to the lack of any real tactic, was not for me.

The Mesmer is similar to the thief in a lot of ways. A lot of the tactics that you’ve learned and loved to be anywhere near effective on a thief are 95% transferable to the Mesmer. You just have one major difference/advantage; summoning phantasms in stealth WILL NOT break stealth, so make use of your stealth traits/skills and phantasms to continue putting out damage while you are happily in stealth regenerating. The Mesmer has more diversity, more power, more defense, similar stealth, effective range attacks, amazing utilities, and works well for every game type (open world, dungeons, fractals, zerg surfing, roaming, etc).

As some people mentioned, there are some issues with the Mesmer right now, but that pales in comparison to the mess that is the Thief. You will want to use the Blink skill at all times, because of the mobility you lack otherwise. Condition clearing is a bit limited, a torch and mantra can solve this completely (Sword/Torch is superb anyway!). The 25% movement speed is best to come from Traveler runes.

I personally run full Berserker with Traveller using a Sword/Torch+Greatsword with 20/20/30 for protection/regeneration/aegis in stealth, exploding phantasms, more phantasm damage, fury on phantasms, traited torch for condition remove, illusion on dodge, and 3% defense for each illusion. I often have 39% damage reduction due to this (protection + 3 clones), while regenerating health and doing damage. Powerhouse..

Mesmer is probably the worst to level since most of their damage comes from phantasms, and you don’t get any significant buffs until you’re a higher level.

That being said, Mesmers are amazing at 80. They have great utility and their damage is insane.

Zerk gear with phantasm build and you do incredible damage.
I’m playing Zerk in SPvP at the moment, and Sword #5 Phantasm crits 8k’s on squishy, and it hits every few seconds.

To play mesmer, you need to have a tough skin. From the hard time while leveling (even harder now post-patch) to being an expert and realize that no matter how good you are, we mesmers have our hands tied (bugs/mechanics, utilitybot etc).

Even so, here in this forum you can see how many people love this class. From the concept, archetype, playstyle, animations and such. We may have a lot of problems, but mesmers still are a good and fun class to play. If you have any curiosity, you should give a try.

I’d say now is a horrible time to start any new class, the new trait system (the new level gates and the unlocking system) is awful and has put me off making any alts and a feel sorry for any new players that are starting, particularly if they wanted to go Mesmer.

If you already have a Mesmer sitting around, then sure but only if you prefer being unique rather then useful.

if you care about beign efficient in dungeons runs just stay away from mesmers, engis and necros…. unless you play how you want.. is useless basically at this point

Mesmers are literally trash tier for dungeons — avoid.

To elaborate further, mesmers by themselves hit like wet tissue, being very reliant on having 3 phantasms up for good DPS. The one thing they were actually useful for in dungeons were their reflects, and for certain dungeons portals, but mostly the reflects. With the feature patch, Empowering Mantras, a trait crucial to maximising reflect damage, was shifted into the Domination (Power) line from the Dueling (Precision and Ferocity) line. Reflect damage does not scale with your Power, but it does scale with your damage multipliers including Critical Damage.

Long story short, mesmer was once viable in dungeons that had projectile-rich encounters, now it’s outclassed by guardians who offer superior support and damage to begin with. It’s still a pretty fun class to play around with, just don’t expect it to shine in dungeons.

Do you like butterflies?

Do you like magic?

Do you ever dream about cloning yourself?

If the answer to all of those is yes, then come and play!

Don’t play mesmer purely for its combat effectiveness – you are better off staying with thief. Especially if thinking of playing power shatter. Play mesmer because you want to be stylish.

Yes, play one, but don’t give up on thief. Mesmer has it’s problems like all classes do (more/less? I can’t really say) but it’s really the only class that’s almost as fun to play as the thief (for me). It’s going to operate differently though in that it tries to trick people by giving them too much information whereas thief attempts to deprive opponents of information. It’s slightly more effective at range than thief while being slightly less effective at close combat (at least in how I build both of my classes). Burst is slightly lower, but is AoE.

In conclusion, mesmer is really the only other class that has that high octane feel to combat that thief does. I have a warrior and engi at 80 also and have made multiple attempts to level necros, eles, guards, and rangers, but they don’t feel right an I get bored with them so they sit in their 40s collecting dust. Give the other side of denial magic a whirl and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

P.S. played 20/20/0/0/30 S/S + GS and had a blast for a long time with it. Just switched recently to 30/10/0/0/30 S/T + GS and am having even more fun.

Well worth it, mesmer is so much fun

If you care about having a build ir role that will do something better than any other profession, avoid Mesmer at all costs.

… But if you’re looking to have the best time in your entire kitten life, and join the qmazing Mesmer community and guild whivh contains people who are always willing to help, thrn by all means, roll Mesmer.

Or to quote the famous quote: “Mesmer, on demand threeway action with a spare set of hands to hold the camera”.

Mesmers are trash for dungeons… you guys are cute.

No come on in, the water’s fine.

Doesn’t change the fact that mesmer damage has always been poo, bar reflects – and even that is weaker now.

Stick with your thief for dungeons.

Only if you really enjoy the class. I don’t think mesmer is more than average at anything at the moment.
Portal, TW, Veil etc. make mesmers somewhat useful for zerg WvW, but I don’t really think a build focused around long cooldown utility skills is very fun or rewarding to play.
Roaming is pretty nice, but nothing a thief couldn’t do as well or better. Kind of the same for PvP.
Mesmer does a decent job in all game modes, but I don’t really think they shine anywhere. Compare to a class like warrior which has a perfect build for almost every role in every gamemode (buffer/frontline zerg/hambow/warrior basically is the dungeon DPS meta).
I think mesmer needs a big checkup soon. But it’s still my favorite class because of the skills, aesthetics and mechanics, broken as they are.

Lindbur.2537:

Doesn’t change the fact that mesmer damage has always been poo, bar reflects – and even that is weaker now.

Stick with your thief for dungeons.

My damage is fine, you must be doing it wrong.

I mean I will agree when it comes to damage, I don’t think you’ll get higher than a thief ever, but weak is far from the truth.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

Mesmers are trash for dungeons… you guys are cute.

No come on in, the water’s fine.

A lot of us in Death and Taxes have shelved our mesmers because they’re pretty weak DPS and have replaceable utility, and the patch didn’t help things at all.

They can be used as a pug carry class – but so can guards.

I have just leveled mine to 80 the weekend before the April Feature Pack. I was so thrilled. After a week of post-patch playing, I do not feel a significant different than before. As a shatter mesmer, yes, damage seems to be lowered a bit and vigor has become an issue (which made me rely more on Decoy and Mirror Imagines for clone production). Honestly I am not happy with the changes but I am still playing my mesmer.

I however have to say that I do not know how to build a mesmer any more. None of the builds stands out. Do not get me wrong, they are ok; but not attractive, or in some cases unique, to play one any more.