Guild Wars 2

So I summed everyone’s answers, to give you some idea about what’s liked and disliked most:

Worst:
#1: Phantasmal Mage (8 down votes)
#2: Mind Slash (6 down votes, mostly for Mind Stab)
#3: Mirror (5 down votes)
#4: Mimic (4 down votes)
#5: Ether Bolt (3 down votes)

Best:
#1: Chaos Storm (9 up votes)
#2: Temporal Curtain (8 up votes)
#3: Feedback (8 up votes)
#4: Blurred Frenzy (5 up votes, 1 down vote)

(notes: I gave everything a +1 or -1 based on whether it was on a “best” or “worst” list. I skipped anything that said “all X”, as that’s not definitive – however, “mantras” might appear near the top of the Worst list as everyone hates them, and “block skills” also got a high number of down votes. Finally, if someone put in more than 3 skills, I put in the first 3 recognizable (solitary) skills listed, even if some skills appeared on the same line – the assumption there being that the first one you thought to list is really the one you slightly prefer)

I’ll just throw this in – phantasmal disenchanter really needs to spawn at range. He pops up right by your target meaning he lasts about 2 seconds on boss fights.

Also I’ll put in a vote for etherbolt being too slow.

For my own part, I’m totally in love with Blurred Frenzy and Chaos Storm. I really want to like Winds of Chaos, but it’s also way, way too slow. The speed on it needs to be doubled, then it will be competitive.

Best Skills

1. Time Warp. I know it’s an elite, but it’s surprising this hasn’t been mentioned yet. Time Warp is a massive source of damage and utility. It massively increases your presence in all game modes and counts as an ethereal field. Not just a great Mesmer skill; one of the greatest skills in the game.
2. Blurred Frenzy. Singlehandedly making the melee Mesmer possible. Significant damage output combined with complete immunity to incoming effects makes this one of the most powerful skills in our arsenal. The downside of immobility is neatly addressed by the sword’s 3 skill.
3. Illusionary Duelist. With a short cooldown, higher long-run DPS than the Warden, 8 attacks to apply Sharper Image bleeds, mobility, and a combo-finisher projectile, the Duelist is, in most situations, our strongest illusion. Combining hit-and-run sword play and dropping duelists makes for a very fun, dynamic style.
Honorable Mentions: Null Field, Magic Bullet, Signet of Domination.

Worst Skills

1. Mimic. I tried, desperately, to make this skill work. It just plain sucks. It is picky about what it absorbs, locks you down for a long time, and doesn’t help against melee at all. With better anti-ranged options in our toolkit (Feedback, Blink), this is a skill that serves no purpose. Add in the fact that it is impossible to determine if it’s even working correctly, and we have a bad skill. Suggested remake: “Blocks the next ability targeted on you. For 10 seconds, that ability replaces Mimic on your skill bar.”
2. Diversion. For the love of all that is holy, please, ArenaNet, bite the bullet and fix our timing-based shatter. Diversion currently does one thing well: stripping Defiant stacks off Champions. Since Defiant is the worst boss CC immunity buff I’ve seen, that’s not a ringing endorsement. Diversion is useless in PvP and standard PvE: it’s easy to dodge, doesn’t stack, and takes too much time and effort to generate the illusions to feed to it. If you use it with one illusion, it’s mathematically the worst Daze in the game. With three it has the potential to be the best, but the slow approach and non-stacking Daze makes it nearly impossible to hit that point. This needs to be improved.
3. Mirror. Just underpowered. Either increase the healing amount or make it reflect the next damage source, not just projectiles.

Bonus: Decent skills that could be tweaked:

1. Arcane Thievery. AT is a superb effect strapped to a miserable cooldown. Even with Master of Manipulations, 36 seconds means that this is going to get used infrequently. Either reduce the cooldown or give it a small AoE.
2. Mind Stab. The AoE is small, the damage is low, and it only strips a single boon. It’s useful, but not as useful as it should be given the difficulty of placing it. Either increase the AoE, increase the damage, or have it switch the boon to a condition.
3. Mantra of Resolve. Doesn’t break anything but true stun, and you can’t immediately reuse the Stability buff. 1s isn’t enough stability to merit taking this. 2s probably is. Quick fix: Increase the effects that Mantra of Resolve frees you from and remove the cooldown between activations of the instant-cast piece.

sPvP
Best:
1) Blurred Frenzy – Invulnerability, high damage, low CD. Not much to say here.
2) iDuelist – it stands back and fires, keeping it safe most of the time. Does a good bit of damage, especially with Sharper Images.
3) Null Field – This turns the tides of a team fight immensely. Not in my WvWvW top-3 because the radius feels a lot smaller in WvWvW and often times conditions are just going to come right back on after it’s done if you are standing in that area to get them all cleaned.

Worst:
1) iMage – This Phantasm will almost never do anything of note for you.
2) Mind Stab – I love the Greatsword but I am never going to want to stand still in sPvP that long.
3) Signet of Midnight – Just doesn’t really do anything for you. Assuming you are holding a point by yourself or with 1 other, unless they are a boon-spammer it’s passive is pointless. A blind is nice, but not on a 35 second CD.

PvE
Best:
1) iBerserker – Might be a weird choice. I love him for clearing out groups, or helping DPS down a larger target (which means more of his attacks will connect as it can hit 1 person multiple times if their hitbox is there)
2) Blurred Frenzy – Another vote for the Frenzy because it does everything you want in PvE. Survivability + High DPS + Cleaves + Low CD = Dead things which aren’t you
3) Time Warp – This helps in Dungeons and in large scale DE’s. 2x attack for a group OP.

Worst:
1) Phantasmal Disenchanter – No one ever stacks conditions on you enough for this to matter.
2) Mantra of Concentration – The number of time you need Stability and stun breakers in PvE that isn’t telegraphed is incredibly small
3) Arcane Thievery – Once again, mobs don’t tend to stack conditions OR boons enough for this.

WvWvW
Best:
1) Phantasmal Berserker – Hits people on walls when attacking, hits people on the ground when defending, can prevent people from chasing you and can enable you to catch people you are changing. Oh and he hits for a truckload of damage in AoE with no risk to you.
2) Temporal Curtain/Into the Void – Been talked to death already. Excellent for many of the same things as above, but more-so (minus the damage part). Also excellent to interrupt a stomp or rip people off siege engines temporarily. When you get a big group and you Blink + Curtain + Void and drag 5+ opponents who are routing, you will know love.
3) Feedback – Also talked to death. Amazing stuff happens on both offense and defense with this skill. I love to Feedback + iBerserker for the confusion finisher which punishes people even MORE for continuing to attack in the bubble.

Worst:
1) Illusionary Riposte – Does so little in a many vs many setting. If you end up getting focused, this skill will NOT help you.
2) Illusionary Counter – Same as above
3) Mimic – Just no. 1 ranged auto-attack (and let’s be fair, that is the only thing you will ever reflect with this) isn’t enough.

Mimic does more than copy a single ranged attack.

Everyone in this thread that cites Mimic had better actually use the skill a bit before commenting and not merely look at the tooltip.

EasymodeX.4062:

Mimic does more than copy a single ranged attack.

Everyone in this thread that cites Mimic had better actually use the skill a bit before commenting and not merely look at the tooltip.

I say “1 auto attack” more to mean that it reflects a minimal amount of attacks. That should have been more clear in my post, however. Thanks for the reminder of that.

Uh.

It does more than that. The tooltip basically only describes half of what Mimic does.

Best.

Blurred Frenzy – Great all round skill
Mirrored Feedback – So much fun in WvW especially
Blink – Once you get used to the targeting this skill is a life saver in sPVP and fun everywhere else.

(Honourable mention to Temporal Curtain)

Worst:

Mimic: Awkward and weak. You seem to still suffer damage initially before it begins to absorb. This concept has so much potential, I would love for it to copy another professions’ utility (not all ofc, but those Anet considers fair).
Illusionary Counter: Both block skills aren’t great but, the scepter version seems out of place.
Signet of Midnight: Perhaps it is useful on certain builds but for me it’s just weak and would be a wasted utility.

Heyo, we got our #2 least-liked skill dramatically buffed.

<3 you, ArenaNet, thanks for reading these threads!