Guild Wars 2

Returning from a very long haitus and trying to get back in the game, I caught myself asking this. Just…what am I trying to accomplish with this class?

Really, Mesmer is my main, but for some reason I can’t bounce back into it. I’m looking at all these skills, meta builds, gear, and traits, and none of them seem to agree on anything. I get it’s supposed to be chaotic, but…I’m supposed to make other people confused, not myself. So I asked, what is a mesmer?

Well…they’re sort of like spellblade-inspired casters that focus on manipulating the flow of battle. They create chaos with illusionary magic.

‘Manipulating’ the flow of battle…that’s the basic idea of a mesmer, ain’kitten Then I looked at the skills and traits and thought…“most of these feel pretty straightforward. Not counting the one or two skills that never have use (I’m looking at you, pointless reviving skill…and what have they done to mimic now? Can’t you change it back to what it was?), but…there’s not a lot of ‘manipulating’ going on…”

As it stands now, I can be more of a control freak on my thief without even trying, with all the troll stealthiness, stuns, and shadowstepping around. And I only play one specific variant of the thief build. I’ve invested even more time on mesmer, but nothing seems to work as intended.

I haven’t dived back into structured PvP/fractals/dungeons yet, so I’ve yet to paint the whole picture. But so far, mesmer feels…lacking. how am I to be a control freak in battle? Please, tell me. I’m several months behind and need to rediscover how to play as the chaotic manipulative mesmer. So far the only manipulating I’m succeeding in doing is boring utility veil for WvW. I’d rather zerg on my ele….somehow I get more loot bags. And I’m not even good on ele.

Mesmer is a dead profession.
U welcome.

I can only speak from a PvP perspective, but this is the status quo as I understand it:

Mesmers were in an extremely favourable position just since last patch as the prime bunker spec (a first for Mesmers). This is because Alacrity (a new buff [technically not a buff]; it was 66% cooldown reduction, now it’s 33%) introduced through HoT proved extremely powerful and there was a trait that granted alacrity at the end of wells, providing team-wide cooldown reduction.

Now that build is completely non-functional, and DPS specs are outclassed by every profession other than warrior. However, Mesmer still has access to a couple of very strong play-making skills, Signet of Humility and Portal. These are pretty much the only things that now distinguish the class from every other class, so I guess in the new season any builds capitalising on them could be popularised.

A condition based shatter build is also making the rounds but I really don’t subscribe to it, since Necromancers are the new FoTM and can throw condis back in your face.

In my mind a Mesmer pulls the fears and complexes from her enemy’s sub conscious. These manifest as clones and Phantasms. I choose to see it more or less as making the enemy fight themselves.

The GW1 Mesmer isn’t welcome in GW2. Witness the absolute removal of the clone death build.

Confusion does provide a little bit of a punishment mechanic. I go out of my way to stack confusion. There’s also some manipulation and boon stripping available through [Chaos Storm] and [Null Field].

It’s deeply sad that I have to make up my own narrative and reasoning to play a Mesmer as it’s intended or at least pretend to play as intended. That I suppose is part of Mesmerizing…..

Franz Anton Mesmer.

“Working in Paris, Mesmer claimed to cure people of illnesses through an elaborate routine involving a “laying on of hands.” Mesmer had some complicated theories about how he had harnessed “animal magnetism.” However, we know today that he had simply stumbled onto the power of suggestion. It was rumored that the French government offered him a princely amount of money to disclose how he effected his cures. He refused, probably because he didn’t really know.”

Nor does A-net, or the majority of the player base who can’t doge shatters & cleave illusions and thus think we are Mewtwo.

As a matter of fact, Mesmer wrote very little. A lot of what he did write isn’t very comprehensible without context and background knowledge. I do however have in my collection a couple of volumes by students of his.

He worked through suggestion and primitive hypnosis. The methods closely resemble those of Huna, a mystical tradition from the Hawaiian Islands and some other shamanistic practices.

The vision I create for myself of using my enemy’s fears and complexes dovetails nicely with this.

-edit- ANET, maybe something based on Confusion and Fear would work out for mesmer?

The GW1 Mesmer was based on manipulation and punishment. In GW2 that’s mostly lost. So, I make up my own explanations and reasoning.

I don’t think anet takes Mesmer seriously. That’s just my opinion.

What Is A Mesmer? Necro don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more!

It’s still a good class to troll people in various ways. Moa still makes me smile every time. Mesmer is really hard to balance in pvp, because portal and moa can result in amazing play in a coordinated team. Balancing at the top level means taking these things into account, to avoid Helseth becoming OP.

I heard mesmers are some kind of worse thief or Revenant but I don’t know, they seem to have gone almost extinct in pvp.

A miserable little pile of secrets.

Good question, I don’t know anymore.

At least we’ve always got butterflies to amuse ourselves with.