Guild Wars 2

Yo yo!

An idea for a little psychological experiment hit me and I’m hoping that some of you guys could help out.

What I’m looking to find is what its like fighting against a Mesmer (Shatter, Lockdown, and/or Condi) as another Mes? I have a few questions going forward:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?

• Strategies and tactics?

• What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

Along with anything else you’d like to add. My plan is to make a thread in the Mes forums detailing and explaining how fighting us feels for other classes, and hopefully learn some things along the way. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

In my experience (4/4/6 Lockdown Mesmer) it’s a battle of defensive CDs. Its always trying to make your opponent blow more cooldowns than you, as well as a whole lot of kiting and positioning, clutch stealths and blinking around behind your opponent. Some of the best Mesmers I face make me take a split second to have to find the real Mesmer under an armada of clones and then capitalize on that moment for a burst. Precise timing is key, constant movement is necessary, and having a mastery of your build is often not enough; you have to be able to predict the opponent, bait the opponent, and read their reactions in order to have a chance against a Mesmer of equal skill.

Assuming the situation is a 1v1 so not having to worry about other enemies…

I vastly prefer having high damage burst on gs+sw/t shatter against other mesmers. I find it is the easiest to turn the fight around in an instant, even against tankier builds. Can use range against condition mesmers – have enough stealths to compete well, even if they are running stealth/condition, and then put them on the back foot at the right moment. If they are glass, well then it only takes one solid hit to finish – and I enjoy this style of fighting more as in who lands the knockout punch first. On the flipside the thing I personally find doesn’t work well for me is if I am doing small, sustained damage – because it’s so easy for an enemy mesmer to reset a fight, I find it is much easier if I can deliver high burst at the right time instead of a pea shooting contest.

I find the worst thing against other mesmers is our reflects – sure, an enemy iduelist might suicide on a traited iwarden, but because of things like the greatsword I find that most of the time all our reflect options, while amazing against other classes like engineers are a huge liability against other mesmers. I look forward to build templates so that I can switch between suitable builds/gear at the click of a button.

1. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

There can be only one. . .

HAHA, so much this.
I will do everything possible to be the alpha mesmer. xD

2. How do you feel about your odds of winning?
Depends on watching them. If they’re glass, usually confident. If it’s 1v1, confident. Most of the time confident to start with because of knowing it only takes one good burst to win so even if at a disadvantage, or having lost once it is always possible to win. Problems arise if it becomes 1v2+ and they are of equal skill, because then bad things happen.

3. Strategies and tactics?
Deliver knockout punch with as much surprise as possible (more surprise needed the better the opponent), maintain pressure to keep on the back foot.
If things go south from the start, make sure to have a gtfo option in the back of my mind (through terrain or skillbar) – better to escape and survive.
Play aggressive – don’t give them an inch, but try not to over extend (ties in with the point above) because it’s easy to get schooled when one assumes the fight is over before the enemy is stomped.

4. What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?
Anything but absolutely no reflects (mirror, traited focus, feedback…), especially if they are using GS unless I want to eat dirt.
Stealth obviously helps, energy sigils obviously help, high burst potential (power or condition) obviously helps.

5. How do you feel about Mesmer in general?
Can do with targeted buffs – never afraid of an enemy mesmer. Compare that to a good enemy engineer (shudder), ele, thief, ranger, necro, guardian, warrior…
Funny that.

But also I very rarely see enemy or friendly mesmers who are rude or unpleasant – whereas there seem to be a whole lot of very unpleasant engineers (seem to be always adding to the block list). Generally there seems to be good camaraderie between mesmers, which I’m very happy about.

You fight mirror profession, just as you fight any other profession…

1. Full damagez
2. Dodge is love, dodge is life
3. Better timing

Since I play mesmer myself, I know their weaknesses, and it is easy to abuse them.
This is what I use most of the times…
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8al0npRttqxMNcrRSqxYqbO1Tk8hAKdFdXAA-TpBFwACuAAROIAEOCA62foaZAAPAAA

now that i’m home… As a predominantly Shatter player.

First thought these days.. Kind of the same across the board.

Step 1. Target it.

Targeting a fellow Mesmer quickly spells out what possible type of build its running.
Mantras on the bar – Depending on the mantra I’m either facing a CS or CI or potentially a Phantasm or just a new player.

No Mantras on the bar – Either another Shatter or a PU of some kind.

Signets on the bar – Lock down or Condi of some type or a phantasm.
No signets – Shatter or lock down or PU

I’ve already narrowed down potential actions to take at this point and have some idea of whats to come.

Step 2. Weapons – more specifically what weapons is it carrying?

GS – Shatter or Power PU, maybe a Strange Lock down (see step 1 to single out a build)

Staff – Shatter or Lock down or Condi – too many builds use a staff, its not very telling.

Sword – Most likely to be a lock down, could be a Shatter maybe phantasm

Scepter – Its a Condi or PU

Focus – Its a lock down

Pistol – Lock down

Torch – PU or Phantasm or rarely a Power PU.

Step 3 – Self negotiate odds of winning.

Are they facing the wrong way? are they engaged with someone else? How well have they been playing? Do i have a nearby ally that is incoming?

As a mostly Shatter player I rate my odds on when i encounter as well as what build they are playing and how well.

Other Shatter – 75% / 45% odds of winning
PU – 80% / 50% odds at winning
Phantasm – 90% / 30% odds at winning
Lock Down – 60% / 25% odds at winning

Odds are based high to low depending on their current situation and if i get a drop vs if they get a drop on me mid fight.

Stratagies

Depends but themost generic ones i have are Using Shatters to eliminate poorly bunched phantasms and or clones, Baiting dodges and Stealth usages, Shattering Slightly before stealth ends (this is a great way to blow up Phants as well as the mesmer and even thieves, clones will idle for a moment before deciding to shatter, if a foe appears in that time they will auto lock and run to it) , Shattering over an expanded area with full clone coverage, Blinking behind and out of LoS, using Decoy while out of LoS and using a Dodge and then Phase retreat to pop back into their blind spot while they turn around..

uhmm.. using F2 to cause false panic

What to bring

A staff will get me out of the majority of things if i use it properly, as will blink and portal.

Mesmer in general…

My feelings are fairly well noted on the forums in various places, as a Mesmer main here is the Gist of it..

While a fairly interesting class that carries a very unique style, it’s not nearly as robust as it should be. The intimidation factor is quickly lost as Players learn to identify the real Mesmer or discover that clones and Phantasms can be destroyed in only a few hits. It suffers in High AoE combat and the snails pace of its casting and skill usages can leave it extremely open to more highly skilled players to abuse. Bugs hinder as well as aid the class and need a lot of looking into. Traits and Utilities as well as AI of clones and Phants fall into a similar boat as the Bugs.. they need work.

While the Mesmer carries an Ohkitten Factor for Newer players it has lost much of its Fear inducing Mystery from the Gw1 CC master, and can rightfully be viewed as a liability by PvP and PvE Dungeon Veterans..

Given two Mesmers of equal skill, I often find it comes down to whichever Mesmer has the most stealth. That downtime where your opponents illusions cannot target you but your illusions can, is a real game changer personally. It also allows you to cover more of your shatter set-ups, illusion summoning, mantra charging, interrupts etc. So, often I base my chances of success on whether or not my opponent is running an off-hand torch (decoy and mass invis are mostly a given irrespective of build) and additionally perhaps veil. Obviously player skill plays a big part of it, as it is entirely possible for someone to use their stealth skills sloppily, but I find it one of the biggest impacts on my relative success (again not accounting for player skill).

A good example: I duelled a condi Mesmer three times on a condition build with only decoy and mass invis for stealth. He/she was using torch in addition to my two stealth skills and I lost every match even though I had more active cleanse available to me. I switched to the same build as my opponent with torch (now with less cleansing) and things were immediately equal to the point we couldn’t kill one another. Our time in stealth was equal and the duels stagnated. We both laughed over how much of a difference that 3 seconds of extra stealth from The Prestige made.

ON THE PERSPECTIVE OF A PHANTASM MESMER:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?
  “What kind of mesmer is it?” is the first thing that comes into my mind. Then after that, I wait to see how exactly he would play it out. However due to the meta, that usually narrows down to CI or shatter builds. I usually get the answer if I see a mesmer wielding a staff, possibly hinting at shatter mesmers.

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?
  Unlike the other professions where I have a general idea of whether I’ll win the fight or not, going agaisnt a mesmer is basically up in the air. I don’t know how big the fight will swing whether in my favor or not. If I have 2-3 phantasms in the air, then I have an advantage for me to use against my opponent. If I have only three standard clones, then I have to think of how defensive I’m going to be or whether the fight’s simply unwinnable and just retreat.

• Strategies and tactics?
  Against shatter and CI builds where everything is extremely fast paced, I have to be the one to make the immediate first strike. The usual first strike is quickly summoning out my phantasms, then work on from there. If the enemy reacts first, then there’s a chance that a phantasm mesmer will summon on the wrong target, thus wasting a good phantasm to deal damage. Against phantasm builds, I want to summon my phantasms quickly, then stealth myself giving me more breathing room on what to do next. Against condition builds, it’s a lot harder since the opponent’s standard clones essentially act as their phantasms because of their condition damage. That’s just the general blurb but the nature of battle’s just complex. Anything can happen.

• What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?
  The invisibility skills, especially Decoy and Mass Invisibility. The stealth allows me to regroup and safely summon my phantasms without the worry of getting interrupted, especially from CI mesmers.

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?
  They’re powerful but take out the very thing that makes them mesmers and they become a liability. They’re magical duelists that’s centered around how to dominate one’s enemy. They don’t have much answer to fights that drag really long (especially those around condition builds) and also how to retreat since they have virtually no passive defenses like the guardian. But I still love playing them! Their utilities are some of the best in game, in any mode!

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

There can be only one. . .

I’ve noticed that being the first one into stealth (as a CI as well it’s going to be Decoy) and getting out your 3 clones first is very important. Without a target, they can’t make phantasms while you can. You put them on the defensive from the start.

Decoy -> Zerker -> Mirror -> Wave -> Diversion. If you hit that first, even if they break from the wave that means your clones are going to show up at different times and either interrupt multiple times or at least keep them from doing anything. Then, I swap to Sword/Focus and do Curtain -> start to cast Warden -> about halfway through use Into the Void. If that lands an interrupt (the fact that you didn’t immediately pull means that they generally panic dodged or just didn’t dodge) they’ll get immobed in the Warden’s spinning attack which means you follow up with Leap -> Swap (still immobed) -> Mind Wrack + Blurred.

Of course, it won’t always go that cleanly but if it does, they’re dead. Save your Power Lock for their heal or Mass Invis. Also, if it’s CI vs CI, then only use your heal/invis while Distortion is up if they have Power Lock up.

If it’s purple, kill it.

If it goes into stealth in a blaze of purple, wait for it to come out of stealth, then kill it.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

What weapons are they running? Mantra or no mantra? CI, shatter, PU?

•How do you feel about your odds of winning?

95% I will win, 5% if I mess up or it’s a top mes, which would then be me probably winning, but it isn’t guaranteed.

•Strategies and tactics

If x/gs, interrupt and blow up. If staff/x, wait until they swap out to interrupt. Always interrupt important skills, such as mass invis, phantasms, and especially heal, no matter what wep set.

•What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

CI destroys other mesmers if they aren’t CI themselves. I think GS is the best wep followed by focus because you can set up bursts with them fairly easily, and mesmers cant react to burst when theyre getting tossed like a ping pong ball lol. Best utility is mantra of distraction then moa

•How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

I think Mesmer is the one class that shows if you’re a really good player. A good Mesmer will dominate his enemies and get lots of hate mail. It needs some slight buffs and adjustments to be meta though, such as not being hard countered by thieves.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I can kill him/her this shouldn’t be too hard

How do you feel about your odds of winning?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
better than 90%

Strategies and tactics?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Burst in their face . It’s all about landing my burst and force the other mesmer into survival mode. If they are shatter build it’s about how to avoid their burst and land mine. If they are condi then it’s about using my range and movement . If they are ci build then it’s gonna be tough or real easy. most ppl don’t have the timing on interrupts which makes a lot of ci mesmers rather easy. The one or 2 that are good at it will beat me more often than not.

What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?
>>>>>>>>>>>
First dodge

How do you feel about Mesmer in general?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
one of the weaker class in pvp

Before seeing this thread, I never really gave duelling Mesmers much thought. Then tonight I faced a pair of identical twin PU Mesmers. That was a trip!

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

- What build is she? If she has halting strike and 2 charges of mantra of distraction, the fight becomes a lot more difficult.

How do you feel about your odds of winning?

- Usually very good against most players. Even against good, top level mesmers, I feel like I still have around a 50/50 chance of taking them down.

Strategies and tactics?

- Whoever gets the jump first has an enormous advantage. It’s very difficult to recover from a point blank mirror blade, for instance. Whoever has more cooldowns up also has a huge advantage. Whoever is forced to stealth first is at a severe disadvantage, because the other mesmer can wait for a couple of seconds and then stealth in order to regain the initiative.

What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?
- I find that having MH sword tends to help a lot; GS/Staff mesmers are at a disadvantage because staff simply doesn’t put out enough damage in this race of burst damage. If one mesmer has halting strike and mantra of distraction and the other doesn’t, the one with halting strike should win hands down.

How do you feel about Mesmer in general?
- Shatter mesmer is probably the hardest “meta” class and build to play well right now. A single mistake will utterly screw you over, even against players that are considerably worse than you (eg. even a bad medi guard can take you down if you fail to dodge their burst). The lack of any avenue to screw up is both fulfilling (when you play well) but can be extremely frustrating.
-Relative to other classes, the shatter burst is quite a lot harder to land. A longbow ranger’s rapid shot does as much damage as a shatter burst and takes only one button press, for instance (though it’s not aoe). I’ve always thought it would be nice if clones gained swiftness when they are commanded to shatter, or if they did a short 300 yard leap to their target.
-Thieves are really the main thing locking mesmers out of the current (cele) meta. Imo, shatter mesmers fare very well against cele engis and warriors, and do pretty well against cele d/d eles; unfortunately, a thief can simply make the mesmer useless the entire game. Lockdown mesmers may fare better against them, but a good thief will still destroy any zerker amulet wielding mesmer. So long as the thief vs mesmer matchup remains so one sided, mesmers will probably remain in a precarious spot in pvp.
-We need better grandmaster traits.

Updated and i’ll just bump this back to the top

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

What build and weapon set is he/she? Interupt based? Shatter Burst? Phantasm? Condis? GS? Staff? Sword? Scepter?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?

Can’t say much. Depends on Game Mode i think? 1v1? Team fight? Overall maybe 66% ~ 80%

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• Strategies and tactics?

vs Burst Shatter with IP:
They have very hard burst with 4x F1 explosion. Dodge that and then for next 10s they won’t deal much damage. But good Burst Shatter Mes will Lure for that 10s for next burst with OH Torch. Kiting will help coz 4x F1 explosion only available in Melee range
Build concept: High Burst, Moderate DPS

vs Condi Mesmer – PU with Clone Death:
If u have shatter remove boon trait the fight will become easier. Spam ur shatter to remove the prot boon from PU then burst them. They don’t have good Burst but have nice DoT from Condis. They will stealth a lot so will need better camera movement
Build Concept: Damage Over Time

vs Interupt Based:
If they have Mantra. Dodge all their mantra. They can deal nice burst like Burst Shatter Mes with halting strike trait esp if u are using GS Mesmer coz GS Mesmer has many channel. But they need to charge for 2,75s for their mantra. Can abuse that 2,75s to deal damage/ interupt them
Build concept: Higher Burst, Burst + DPS +CC with interupt, Bad DPS when no Mantra coz channeling 2,75s

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

Decoy and Blink are simply too strong for many situation

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

Jack of all Trades aka FLEXIBLE. Ur damage won’t as high as Pure Role like Ranger for Ranged damage and Warrior for melee damage. But Mesmer compensates that with Utility and ability to adapt at any situation and can deal damage from any range. Well this definition is for my Mesmer… hehehe..

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

In most cases I don’t think it’s a big deal, though I’m not much of a fan of fighting mesmers. PvP lately has been like fighting PvEers or people that play in zergs and can just autoattack (won a 2v1 with mesmer against dd ele + cele rifle engi which is a very deadly combo, as deadly as mesmer/thief or maybe even more because of the billion of CCs they can put out and chain and in the meantime kill you with a ton of weapons) so most of the time I don’t really mind 1v1ing people, especially mesmers because it’s often like trying to kill a golem, but a few months ago when PvP wasn’t like this I HATED fighting mesmer, I of course wasn’t at the skill level I’m at now a few months ago. I enjoy fighting good mesmers from time to time.

How do you feel about your odds of winning?

Most times I think I’ll win as I’ve been practicing fighting mesmer but sometimes I still think I’ll loose and usually when I think I’ll win, I win and when I think I’ll loose, I loose.
Yesterday I thought I’d win but I lost, the mesmer was running some sort of a 1v1 build with a ton of mantras which was really hard to beat considering I was spammed with phantasms, interrupt mantras as well as mantra of pain and we were fighting on treb area so I couldn’t LOS or kite that well. I didn’t really have to go there as no one was using our treb but I got greedy and wanted to kill him again. I beat him multiple times that match but on other points. I’ve seen a lot of those mantra/phantasm w/e mesmers lately, what’s up with that?

Strategies and tactics?

Autoattack a lot. The one who autoattacks more wins.
Before he gets his air + fire proc, dodge backwards in hopes of your clone eating the proc instead of you.
Never waste dodges.
Dodge his burst (most are very predictable if you know how to track cooldowns and have seen him play a bit), izerker and mirror blade are good dodging options, don’t stealth before he stealths (this is very important)
If you will burst, burst him when you know he has no dodges or when you’re coming out of stealth. This will either kill him or make him blow distortion which gives you a massive upper hand.
What will decide who wins is who manages his cooldowns better, who kites more, who positions himself better, who autoattacks more and who dodges properly.

I think staff + gs has a massive advantage in 1v1 to gs + sw/t because staff gives you some defense, which sw/t doesn’t really have all that much. + you can phase retreat straight out of the path of the ileap clone. Chaos storm boons are really good and staff clones are overpowered as hell. If done properly you can put up 20 bleeds + perma burn on the enemy which will melt him, regardless of the fact that you’re in a power spec, also iWarlock, I love him. I’ve gotten a 7k+ crit on mesmers/thieves with with it.
Also staff gives you more mobility which is awesome and can save your life oh so many times. For example you can phase retreat on the bridge(s) at Graveyard, you’re better positioned than the enemy and have an upper hand.

What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

Not really that important to me, I never gear up specially for a fight because its pointless.
I will kill him now because I have interrupt mantra and I’ll get good at fighting mesmers but I’ll rely on the mantra perhaps and when I’ll fight mesmers in teamq I won’t be able to do anything.
I just use my standard tPvP build (st/gs shatter)

How do you feel about Mesmer in general?
Generally shatter vs shatter depends on luck often. I can recall when I was learning how to play (well I still am but when I was just starting out) and I was 1v1ing Helseth, he was kind enough to give me some lessons.
I had been playing shatter for maybe 2 days at that point and I decided to do a blink burst onto Helseth at the start of the fight which got him to like 20% HP. He didn’t expect that from me and ate the burst of course. Guess what, I still lost.
He kited the hell out of me, now allowing me to do any more damage to him, bursted me and interrupted my heal.
I could of won against Helseth, I who had played for 2 days vs. Helseth who has thousands of hours on shatter, why? Because I got lucky. Also here was shown that skill really plays a big role in the encounter and how much kiting can help.
It’s always very interesting to fight other mesmers because it mostly depends on skill.

My advice:Get a mesmer buddy and fight him 1v1 as much as you cna. That’s the way I learned how to 1v1 every class/build.

I was over reading the Thief forum version of this thread. I noticed that all thieves, in their explanations, typically spoke from the perspective of fighting a GS weilding Mesmer (mostly a shatter mes). There were some additional comments to PU or “phantasm” (whatever that meant, I presume the classic phant build), but really all answers to questions were tied to GS/shatter mes.

Thought that was interesting.

•What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?
I have this bad habit of assuming power shatter.
•How do you feel about your odds of winning?
With my usual MtD, I’m fairly confident 80% of the time. Condi is a mesmer’s usual weakness, so I feel at ease stacking on them.
•Strategies and tactics
Use stealth to avoid initial burst and Chaos Storm to start the fight, getting the first hit and starting condi pressure. The various defenses of MtD with stealths and blocks can avoid the shatter combo. If Lockdown, attempt to stay stealth and avoid AoE CC like Into the Void or Chaos Storm. Main point is is to keep up the condition pressure and the mesmer tends to go down, as most don’t have more than one cleanse and once they’re out, so long as you can get hits in, they’ll go down.
•What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?
Chaos Storm and Decoy. The AoE from Chaos Storm is very powerful in pressuring a mesmer, even if it doesn’t hit, it becomes a shield they avoid to avoid CC and hindering condi. Decoy helps to shatter faster and cover yourself while disengaging clones and phantasms.
•How do you feel about Mesmer in general?
An easy fight for a condi build of any kind, probably.