Guild Wars 2

Do any mesmer builds have a similar feel to the gw1 mesmer? (Focusing on s/tPvP)

I’ve been playing sword/pistol + gs shatter. I’m decent at it but I picked up a thief last week and I’m pretty convinced they can fill the same roll just as easily, with far less effort. I still love mesmer, but would like to find builds that focus more on confusion/deception, which I feel shatter largely lacks.

I’ve tried interrupt, but the game doesn’t seem to really reward interrupts enough to make the builds worthwhile. Too many spells are instant cast, and it is hard to both interrupt and keep pressure on, which I find s/d thief can do easily.

Anyone have any recommendations?

Sadly I think you’ve summed up the sorry state of affairs for mesmers right now, even though you didn’t mean to. Thieves pretty much replace us in most basic combat roles we have, aside from utility with portal, veil or whatever.

Interrupt or control builds can work, check out the Lockdown Mesmer thread, or take a build with at least -/6/6/-/- for the extra charge on MoD and for CI. With those two you can focus on interrupts and actually get some good control and damage at the same time on a single target. But does this actually help your team in PvP, not that much probably. So ya you can make an interrupt focused build for dueling, and some people have some other builds around for a more group oriented interrupt strategy, like one with Imbued Diversion and CI for aoe dazes on diversion. Again, how good this is, I don’t know.

But it is possible to get a really control-y interrupt focused build using CI and have fun with it. Probably still not as good as just playing a thief though, sadly :-(

Not sure how we could even remotely get close to the beauty of a Guild Wars Mesmer. We have nothing that would really rival the Echo-, Ineptitude-, or Shared Burden elites. (Signet of) Clumsiness, Wandering Eye, Fragility, Frustration; we can do somewhat similar things (except the knockdowns) through “inconsistent” paper-clone Shatter mechanics and traits, but it is not as beautiful as how it is when a well played Mesmer in Guild Wars shuts someone down.

Even stuff like Drain Delusion or Drain Enchantment, could have made it over to Guild Wars 2; remove a disability/buff on the target, steal e.g., 25% Stamina and grant Mesmer 100% Stamina on success (w/ a little heal for Enchantment). But we don’t really see such kind of skills. Everything’s a bit more simplified it seems.

Skills and combat in Guild Wars 2 has been perhaps overly simplified, with the balance team seemingly making it more and more about having one viable build for every profession as we go forward. I like the combat in Guild Wars 2 I should add. I just wish we had a few more of the brilliant hexes and elites we had in the first game. I do understand how frustrating it is to get shut down of course.. I guess that’s why we have a milder form of it here in Guild Wars 2. But I find that a bit boring. It’s almost like they only want us to have a Berserker-race, who can mash buttons faster.

You could try this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8MFlptGNGphZtRMNoTVFSHgDM0S3iRsAA-TpQQgAA7PgWGAA

5 Interrupts – GS #5, Sw #4.2 (double-tap), MoD x3. Each has reduced cd, does damage, and applies 10s cd to interrupted skill/s. Good condition removal too, although you can replace those traits/skills with something else if desired.

That said, you’re right, the game doesn’t really reward interrupts enough to make it worth it, and also interrupt skills can’t really have cast times or travel times (like GS #5 or Sw #4.2).

I’ll have to try a few more interrupt builds then. I wish there was something that played a bit more like the original mesmer.

I would love to see confusion be like 5x stronger (maybe less for shorter CD skills), but only last a second or two at most. That would reward carefully placed confusions, while opponents would have to watch their skills more carefully. Currently it does too little to really work well.

Interrupt builds by far will get you closest to the original GW1 mesmer, but without cast bars it’s never going to really feel like it. Instead of cast bars, you have a much more complex job of reacting to skill animations and then knowing which ones to interrupt (heals and elites being paramount).

My biggest problem with interrupt skills is that too many heals and elites are instants.

I think this shows most clearly with thief, who we really need to be able to fight decently in a 1v1 to stay in the meta. Their roll heal has zero cast, and their elites can be cast from stealth quite safely. Given a choice, I would take a thief over a mesmer any day in PvP, and I hate that.

Other classes have similar issues. I would say the easiest class to use an interrupt build against is actually another mesmer, which seems crazy.

You make a valid point about thieves/stealth, although the same could also be said to some degree about mesmers.

There are certain heals that are instant, but they are definitely not the norm. The majority of #6 healing skills and skills that heal in the game have cast times:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_skill

As do most elites:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elite

The tricky ones are 1/2 and 1/4 and lag can get you quite a bit if you’re trying for those.

I agree that on paper there are plenty of skills to interrupt, but I think you need to weigh what skills are most commonly used. Warriors and eles usually go with their passive heal signet. Engis too if they have the turret out before you get there. Roughly half the classes can’t have their heals interrupted, and those classes are also really strong right now.

Elites do often have cast times, but it’s pretty hard to really interrupt an elite during the chaos of a team fight. During 1×1 it is easier, but most classes don’t need an elite to beat an interrupt mesmer in a 1×1.

I would love for the build to be more viable, more reward for so much risk, but I’m not sure it will change. It would require ArenaNet to make more changes to other classes, rather than changing the mesmer.

Eleivo.2761:

It would require ArenaNet to make more changes to other classes, rather than changing the mesmer.

Well, they could change up the Mesmer slightly, and still keep these no-CD heals and such around. Imagine some Hex Utilities.

Even something as crude as the first few you get in Pre-Searing Ascalon of Guild Wars. Such as Backfire, which is a 10 second hex that makes the target take damage upon casting a spell.. oh right, Confusion. Except it’s worthless after they nerfed it so heavily because they want to baby their players who can’t do anything but auto-attack, and it’s not that it’s exactly unique to Mesmer, considering we apply it probably the worst out of all the professions now… Yay for everyone being able to do everything, right?

Honestly, I think CD’s in Guild Wars 2 are a bit over the top. If I recall right, the longest CD we had on anything in Guild Wars was for Arcane Thievery with its 60 seconds, which actually stole a target ally’s Elite.. you know, it was actually.. cool. Perhaps we simply suffer from having too many skills on too long cool down periods.