Guild Wars 2

I’ve been 1v1ing phantasm mesmers and finding it really hard to beat them outside a point, like in an open field 1v1.

What beats phantasm mesmer? And how?

Silver.9084:

I’ve been 1v1ing phantasm mesmers and finding it really hard to beat them outside a point, like in an open field 1v1.

What beats phantasm mesmer? And how?

Another phantasm mesmer. That’s really it.

Phantasm Mesmer is very hard to beat in 1 vs 1 since the phantasms has very good damage eventhough u dont have too much offensive stats, so a mesmer can easily go to defensive way letting their phantasm doing all the work while they are safe or go full damage with insane burst to fast kill you

I seccond pyro her. Still, take into consideration the fact:

1 vs 1 duels is the one place they have a benefit of this strength. In 1 vs 1 random situations in wvwvw a shatter mesmer or other mobile class just move the fight around loooong distances neglecting the phantasm strength os simply avoid combat.

In spvp unless ist spoken duel any fight soon turn into x vs x and here phantasm again not have a op status.

1vs1 spvp duel maps dont fill any purpose other than fun social enviorment and entertaning, its player created and game not balanced around this setup.

/Osicat

I play phantasm in sPvP and honestly… I have no idea. I never really met any hopeless complete counter yet.

I mean yeah, sometimes I get outplayed, but really when it happens it’s just purely because I did obviously worse. Same skill fight – very hard to lose. I’d say the biggest challenge playing phantasm is landing a killing blow on someone who only tries to run away.

Your best bet would be full condition damage build and to Blind as often as possible. It’s really the only way to counter spammable Blurred Frenzy, Distortions, Blinks, and invisibles, as condition damage still ticks throughout everything.

Immobilize is also a killer because it is not a stun, which means Mesmers cannot Blink or Decoy out of it (you can Blink, but you’re still Immobilized). Only way to counter this is to get lucky with a Warden’s cleansing bolts, sacrifice a traited heal Mantra, or force a traited Prestige. Immobilize stops clone production from dodges, and keeps pressure on Mesmer. Make them panic and look for the slip-up.

A traited condition damage sword/bow Warrior with Throw Bolas, if played smartly, will have it easier against a Mesmer with a total of 11s of Immobilize. The sword alone has 4 second Immobilize every 10 seconds. First Immobilize, force their Blink/Decoy, close the gap and force their panic button, the Blurred Frenzy. Dodge that and go for the Flurry.

Best advice would to play the class you want to counter to really understand what’s going on. One of the most predictable things about Mesmer is that about 99% of them will have Blink/Decoy, regardless of build.

mambastik.8735:

Your best bet would be full condition damage build and to Blind as often as possible. It’s really the only way to counter spammable Blurred Frenzy, Distortions, Blinks, and invisibles, as condition damage still ticks throughout everything.

Immobilize is also a killer because it is not a stun, which means Mesmers cannot Blink or Decoy out of it (you can Blink, but you’re still Immobilized). Only way to counter this is to get lucky with a Warden’s cleansing bolts, sacrifice a traited heal Mantra, or force a traited Prestige. Immobilize stops clone production from dodges, and keeps pressure on Mesmer. Make them panic and look for the slip-up.

A traited condition damage sword/bow Warrior with Throw Bolas, if played smartly, will have it easier against a Mesmer with a total of 11s of Immobilize. The sword alone has 4 second Immobilize every 10 seconds. First Immobilize, force their Blink/Decoy, close the gap and force their panic button, the Blurred Frenzy. Dodge that and go for the Flurry.

Best advice would to play the class you want to counter to really understand what’s going on. One of the most predictable things about Mesmer is that about 99% of them will have Blink/Decoy, regardless of build.

Blind spamming gets countered by Blurred Frenzy and Chaos Storm. Both of them will de-apply the blind and let you open a Phantasm spawn (Chaos storm does it better as it continues to “attack” while you cast other things, whereas Blurred Frenzy will deal all damage except for the first hit as you are invulnerable to the blind, even while standing on a field).

I run a GS S/T shatter build, when I 1v1 phantasm mesmers, my first move will always been, blink ontop of them and use torch invis. This blinds them, so their first cast will be a failure. You’re now invis, and they’ve got nothing. You’re going to want to then pop a mirror images or something and get a full burst off ending with an interrupt. That’ll rupt their current cast. Few more auto attacks, follow through with like a GS knockback and then mass invis so they can’t cast anything on you. Then, you can keep your distance, and auto attack from afar. If they’re summoning use a blink to blink further back, this will cause them to fail their summon yet again. Rinse and repeat, pretty fool proof. Just don’t let them get more than one clone out, if they do, try and force a distortion so you can reset.

Why would you end with an interrupt? The only interrupts in your build are F3 and GS5, so ending with an F3 is kinda counter-intuitive.

What I would do as a GS S/T shatterer is start with Torch4 —> Blink onto them as it finishes —> Roll + Mirror Images + F3 —> Sword 3 + Roll —> Sword 3 + Sword 2 —> Roll + F1 —> GS2,4,5 Roll Shatter —> Torch 5 —> Torch 4 —> Roll as it finishes —> Sword 3 —> Shatter —> Sword 3 —> Sword 2 —> etc etc etc

Your method gives wayyy too much opening right after you nuke them. Unless you aren’t nuking them hard, it’s really an unattractive way of fighting them and requires so much more skill and effort than whakitten ’s worth. You can just start off with some standard interrupt/disrupt control and then work your way into a shatter factory.

3v1 is how I usually get beatn with my tanky phantasm mesmer in tPvP. When fighting other mesmers only phantasm mesmers give me an issue. I have played pretty much every major build for mesmer and know how to counter them. Bunker Guardians take a while to kill but if left alone I kill them but usually they can last long enough for someone else to come in. Bunker Rangers are probably the funnest fights though I would say its like 50/50 if I can beat them I have never played ranger though so I don’t know the class very well.

Bunker Eng are a joke. D/D eles are a joke.

The most annoying fight is for sure against Condition Necros with those giant staff marks they do. Even with 70% HP bonus if my signet goes off the necro usually can take care of my phantasms with little trouble. Luckly Necro is probably the least played class in PvP that I have seen. ^^

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

I run a GS S/T shatter build, when I 1v1 phantasm mesmers, my first move will always been, blink ontop of them and use torch invis. This blinds them, so their first cast will be a failure. You’re now invis, and they’ve got nothing. You’re going to want to then pop a mirror images or something and get a full burst off ending with an interrupt. That’ll rupt their current cast. Few more auto attacks, follow through with like a GS knockback and then mass invis so they can’t cast anything on you. Then, you can keep your distance, and auto attack from afar. If they’re summoning use a blink to blink further back, this will cause them to fail their summon yet again. Rinse and repeat, pretty fool proof. Just don’t let them get more than one clone out, if they do, try and force a distortion so you can reset.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you seem to rely on enemy doing nothing. Everything you said is countered by one small Decoy at the start.

I met enough shatter Mesmers and honestly, they are not hard at all 1v1. If you dodge their pretty obvious shatter, they have nothing left really and it’s a field day on their faces then.

As a phant mes you would probably have issues going up against something like loljumper’s s/d near constant dodge/evade thief… it would easily prevent SO many phants from appearing.

Aberrant.6749:

As a phant mes you would probably have issues going up against something like loljumper’s s/d near constant dodge/evade thief… it would easily prevent SO many phants from appearing.

Dodges will not prevent a phantasm from being summoned. I’m unsure if a long evade like pistol whip will do it, but I can say that I have never seen flanking strike dodge a summon. An extremely good s/d thief does have a small chance of beating a well played phantasm build, but it is a small chance. Most of the time they will get instakilled by swordsmen once you get 2 out.

Walls and trees so you can LOS the kitten out of the illusions.

Other than that, you’re not beating a profession that’s OP in 1v1 unless your skill level is Goku and the other guy is Krillin.

Krillin’s skill level is OVER 9000 though.

I beat phantasm mesmers.

As a thief, here’s my view for fighting these builds as a thief.

For one thing, this is one of the very, very few situations where I approve of the D/D weapon combo, which, personally, I have always despised. Actually, anything with /D is decent here, as CnD is very good against illusions, particularly if they stay out for a long period of time.

Furthermore, burst is an absolute essential; there’s no doubt about it whatsoever. You have to be extremely aggressive against a phanta mesmer and try to burst them down as quickly as possible, in order to prevent them from destroying you with their phantasms. What the phantasm mesmer lacks in some areas, like toughness or aggression, it makes up for multiple times with its phantasms.

So, the solution? Be extremely aggressive.

Not fighting 1v1 battles mostly disables Phantasm-builds. They’re awesome, but quickly become useless in larger fights since the Phantasms are too single-target focused, too static and don’t scale well with number of targets at all.

Arganthium.5638:

As a thief, here’s my view for fighting these builds as a thief.

For one thing, this is one of the very, very few situations where I approve of the D/D weapon combo, which, personally, I have always despised. Actually, anything with /D is decent here, as CnD is very good against illusions, particularly if they stay out for a long period of time.

Furthermore, burst is an absolute essential; there’s no doubt about it whatsoever. You have to be extremely aggressive against a phanta mesmer and try to burst them down as quickly as possible, in order to prevent them from destroying you with their phantasms. What the phantasm mesmer lacks in some areas, like toughness or aggression, it makes up for multiple times with its phantasms.

So, the solution? Be extremely aggressive.

u know CnD on phantasms dont work.(i mean work ofc but benefits 0) dd thief go off from stealh anyway somewhen, u just spamimg phantasm button. and summon it if see thief only 0..01 sec. and iPhantasm hit u still
d/p harder than d/d 100%

Why would you end with an interrupt? The only interrupts in your build are F3 and GS5, so ending with an F3 is kinda counter-intuitive.

What I would do as a GS S/T shatterer is start with Torch4 —> Blink onto them as it finishes --> Roll + Mirror Images + F3 —> Sword 3 + Roll --> Sword 3 + Sword 2 —> Roll + F1 --> GS2,4,5 Roll Shatter —> Torch 5 --> Torch 4 —> Roll as it finishes --> Sword 3 —> Shatter --> Sword 3 —> Sword 2 --> etc etc etc

Your method gives wayyy too much opening right after you nuke them. Unless you aren’t nuking them hard, it’s really an unattractive way of fighting them and requires so much more skill and effort than whakitten ’s worth. You can just start off with some standard interrupt/disrupt control and then work your way into a shatter factory.

not so easy like u say, phant mesmer have same skill like shatter, diferent only shatter have shorter cooldown, when phant mesmer have 30% more phant dmg. and have same blink, decoy, blured, ileap, and dodge ofc.
sry bad eng

Arganthium.5638:

As a thief, here’s my view for fighting these builds as a thief.

For one thing, this is one of the very, very few situations where I approve of the D/D weapon combo, which, personally, I have always despised. Actually, anything with /D is decent here, as CnD is very good against illusions, particularly if they stay out for a long period of time.

Furthermore, burst is an absolute essential; there’s no doubt about it whatsoever. You have to be extremely aggressive against a phanta mesmer and try to burst them down as quickly as possible, in order to prevent them from destroying you with their phantasms. What the phantasm mesmer lacks in some areas, like toughness or aggression, it makes up for multiple times with its phantasms.

So, the solution? Be extremely aggressive.

That is probably the best shot here at phantasm mesmer – getting a full glass cannon thief with a balls to the wall uber ROFLburst spec AND (important) Basilisk Venom elite… then try and burst the mes down right away ASAP right frikkin NAO!

If you fail – you either run away or die, but overall I’d say that anything less than that is auto-loss anyway, so it’s a good shot at that.

shimmerless.4560:

Gaidax.7835:

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

I run a GS S/T shatter build, when I 1v1 phantasm mesmers, my first move will always been, blink ontop of them and use torch invis. This blinds them, so their first cast will be a failure. You’re now invis, and they’ve got nothing. You’re going to want to then pop a mirror images or something and get a full burst off ending with an interrupt. That’ll rupt their current cast. Few more auto attacks, follow through with like a GS knockback and then mass invis so they can’t cast anything on you. Then, you can keep your distance, and auto attack from afar. If they’re summoning use a blink to blink further back, this will cause them to fail their summon yet again. Rinse and repeat, pretty fool proof. Just don’t let them get more than one clone out, if they do, try and force a distortion so you can reset.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you seem to rely on enemy doing nothing. Everything you said is countered by one small Decoy at the start.

I met enough shatter Mesmers and honestly, they are not hard at all 1v1. If you dodge their pretty obvious shatter, they have nothing left really and it’s a field day on their faces then.

This isn’t true. Most shatters spec 20 into Dueling (so bleed on crit). The phants don’t hit as hard as a true phant spec, but it’s still nothing to joke about.

The difference between having 30% extra damage and 20% crit chance or not on phantasms is large, same with HP boosts from Signet and trait. Besides that, shatter specs usually come around with weaker phantasms to begin with, due to different weapons selection, for example the torch guy, that phantasm is worthless to begin with and GS isn’t amazing either with it’s issues.

Besides, phantasm spec power comes from keeping phantasms around, so they can attack again and again. Can’t really have that with shatter.

Same can be said in reverse too by the way. Phantasm Mesmer can shatter too, I never hold back when a good shatter is possible close to phantasm CDs refresh or just opening up or simply to remove those last 4k health on target. Mirror Blade + Decoy and shatter is a good opener I use, that does decent damage even with only 2 clones.

Silver.9084:

I’ve been 1v1ing phantasm mesmers and finding it really hard to beat them outside a point, like in an open field 1v1.

What beats phantasm mesmer? And how?

Well..i had some nice duels with mine phant mesmer, im counting myself as quite skilled, 2200+ hours of playing phant mesmer…www, pve and spvp.

Phant mesmer is sure meta class for 1v1 duels in open field. But he is not alone. Good Bm rangers could give u rly big troubles. I fought 1 ranger for 13 minutes. He dodged my skills…I dodges his. If he fails – he gets quite big dmg, but he heals extremly fast. If i fail – i go invis and heal there. So it was battle with no end. Unless some of us fails enough times. After all it was ranger. But it was battle, where i had to use my all and read his every attk. So…Id say our builds is quite balanced. This ranger had only melee weapons. Gs and I dont remember his 2-nd set. But it was melee too.

Now…Condition engineer could give phant mesmer big trouble. Even without his ulti. Its just so hard to survive all his burning conditions. Fighting him is perma panic mode. He allways closing the gap and burning u to hell. Its mostly question of who outdamages whom. And even if its succes and he is downed…u can finaly catch your breath…but…WHAT?!!! Darn…u failed to notice his elixir…and now u have 20% hp left and he is 50%…. So id say same as ranger. Balanced meta build

And thief…Burst thief, if u fail to predict his burst and reacted to slow – ur dead. Even if u used blink on half hp….u already under pressure and its easy for him to finish u off. So…its another hard prof to fight with. IF mesmer make mistake – he is dead. And if u failed – u can try to run away for 2-nd try. Its a possibility too.

Good dodge condi thief is a trouble too. He just dodges everything and puts bleed and poison on you. And its to easy to run away for him. Ill say, if he wont risk, phant mesmer Can’t kill dodge thief. But with time – He can wear u down and kill. Though…he usualy so close to killing u, so he takes a risk and this is where mesmer can strike and catch him. Half balanced battle too.

After I read Pyroatheist’s thread about this OP Phantasm Build, I grabbed my mesmer and went straight to PvP. I am lvl 9 and I got this by joining sPvP with a backstab thief… I have no Idea about PvP…

Wrote a few letters to friends with different PvP experience and invited them for a 1n1. Destroyed them by pressing random buttons and running in circles.

I lost two fights, on against a BS-Thief while my stunbreaker was on cd and another one to the same thief who summoned thief guild and shadow refuge.
This works just like the mesmer: Summon pets, then gtfo while they do the work. I think thats the only way: This build sucks against more than one enemy, therefor create an artificial Xv1.

Molch.2078:

Wrote a few letters to friends with different PvP experience and invited them for a 1n1. Destroyed them by pressing random buttons and running in circles.

Sure you did.

Gaidax.7835:

Arganthium.5638:

As a thief, here’s my view for fighting these builds as a thief.

For one thing, this is one of the very, very few situations where I approve of the D/D weapon combo, which, personally, I have always despised. Actually, anything with /D is decent here, as CnD is very good against illusions, particularly if they stay out for a long period of time.

Furthermore, burst is an absolute essential; there’s no doubt about it whatsoever. You have to be extremely aggressive against a phanta mesmer and try to burst them down as quickly as possible, in order to prevent them from destroying you with their phantasms. What the phantasm mesmer lacks in some areas, like toughness or aggression, it makes up for multiple times with its phantasms.

So, the solution? Be extremely aggressive.

That is probably the best shot here at phantasm mesmer – getting a full glass cannon thief with a balls to the wall uber ROFLburst spec AND (important) Basilisk Venom elite… then try and burst the mes down right away ASAP right frikkin NAO!

If you fail – you either run away or die, but overall I’d say that anything less than that is auto-loss anyway, so it’s a good shot at that.

I mean, I wasn’t necessarily referring to a 100% GC build- you still need to be able to survive if a single phantasm is pulled out :P – but the idea is simply “bust me down before I set up an impenetrable fortress”. How you go about doing that varies based on how you want to play.

Gaidax.7835:

Besides that, shatter specs usually come around with weaker phantasms to begin with, due to different weapons selection, for example the torch guy, that phantasm is worthless to begin with and GS isn’t amazing either with it’s issues.

I find that rather interesting considering every phant I’ve seen runs GS (in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen one without it).

As a side note if I saw a phant ever trying to non-defensively shatter on me I’d take that as an opening to end the game. You’re lacking far more shatter traits than vice versa (IP, Mental Torment, Precise Wrack, shatter CDR in general) to the point where your non-stealth defense rests on Distortion. That and the fact that clones are shatter fodder while phants are not.

shimmerless.4560:

Gaidax.7835:

Besides that, shatter specs usually come around with weaker phantasms to begin with, due to different weapons selection, for example the torch guy, that phantasm is worthless to begin with and GS isn’t amazing either with it’s issues.

I find that rather interesting considering every phant I’ve seen runs GS (in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen one without it).

As a side note if I saw a phant ever trying to non-defensively shatter on me I’d take that as an opening to end the game. You’re lacking far more shatter traits than vice versa (IP, Mental Torment, Precise Wrack, shatter CDR in general) to the point where your non-stealth defense rests on Distortion. That and the fact that clones are shatter fodder while phants are not.

Phantasm builds that run greatsword significantly lack defense, and the GS phantasm is obviously underwhelming. The most efficient and effective phantasm build is one that uses both the pistol and sword phantasms, as they are far and away the most powerful phantasms in pvp situations.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Aberrant.6749:

As a phant mes you would probably have issues going up against something like loljumper’s s/d near constant dodge/evade thief… it would easily prevent SO many phants from appearing.

Dodges will not prevent a phantasm from being summoned. I’m unsure if a long evade like pistol whip will do it, but I can say that I have never seen flanking strike dodge a summon. An extremely good s/d thief does have a small chance of beating a well played phantasm build, but it is a small chance. Most of the time they will get instakilled by swordsmen once you get 2 out.

When did they change it back to where phant summons can’t be dodged (was like that for a long time since they changed a phant summon into an “attack”)? Never saw anything in the patch notes about that.

Aberrant.6749:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Aberrant.6749:

As a phant mes you would probably have issues going up against something like loljumper’s s/d near constant dodge/evade thief… it would easily prevent SO many phants from appearing.

Dodges will not prevent a phantasm from being summoned. I’m unsure if a long evade like pistol whip will do it, but I can say that I have never seen flanking strike dodge a summon. An extremely good s/d thief does have a small chance of beating a well played phantasm build, but it is a small chance. Most of the time they will get instakilled by swordsmen once you get 2 out.

When did they change it back to where phant summons can’t be dodged (was like that for a long time since they changed a phant summon into an “attack”)? Never saw anything in the patch notes about that.

You have never been able to actually dodge a phantasm summon. You can invuln them, blind them, obstruct them, but not dodge them. I have done extremely extensive testing with this, and not a single time have I ever successfully dodged the summon of a phantasm.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Aberrant.6749:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Aberrant.6749:

As a phant mes you would probably have issues going up against something like loljumper’s s/d near constant dodge/evade thief… it would easily prevent SO many phants from appearing.

Dodges will not prevent a phantasm from being summoned. I’m unsure if a long evade like pistol whip will do it, but I can say that I have never seen flanking strike dodge a summon. An extremely good s/d thief does have a small chance of beating a well played phantasm build, but it is a small chance. Most of the time they will get instakilled by swordsmen once you get 2 out.

When did they change it back to where phant summons can’t be dodged (was like that for a long time since they changed a phant summon into an “attack”)? Never saw anything in the patch notes about that.

You have never been able to actually dodge a phantasm summon. You can invuln them, blind them, obstruct them, but not dodge them. I have done extremely extensive testing with this, and not a single time have I ever successfully dodged the summon of a phantasm.

I’ve been able to dodge it before vs. the Izerker… esp when it kinda bugs and you can still see that beam from the gs (idk why but that really seemed to help me with the timing). No Izerker appeared.

It’s been a while since I’ve even bothered with it so I’ll go and try to see if I can do it again today (as in since that month they turned it into an attack). Logically there shouldn’t be any diff between the evade on a dodge vs. any other evade though.

EDIT: Just fought Lupi with the GS and was able to summon izerk during his evade np. Not sure if this is a bug or intended… but I know a while ago he wouldn’t even appear if I tried it during that. IMO it seems more like a bug since the phant summons are supposed to be considered an attacks for all intents and purposes (hence nothing on blind/invuln).

Pyroatheist.9031:

shimmerless.4560:

Gaidax.7835:

Besides that, shatter specs usually come around with weaker phantasms to begin with, due to different weapons selection, for example the torch guy, that phantasm is worthless to begin with and GS isn’t amazing either with it’s issues.

I find that rather interesting considering every phant I’ve seen runs GS (in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen one without it).

As a side note if I saw a phant ever trying to non-defensively shatter on me I’d take that as an opening to end the game. You’re lacking far more shatter traits than vice versa (IP, Mental Torment, Precise Wrack, shatter CDR in general) to the point where your non-stealth defense rests on Distortion. That and the fact that clones are shatter fodder while phants are not.

Phantasm builds that run greatsword significantly lack defense, and the GS phantasm is obviously underwhelming. The most efficient and effective phantasm build is one that uses both the pistol and sword phantasms, as they are far and away the most powerful phantasms in pvp situations.

I completely disagree. I used to run S/S and S/P, but I always come back to GS, S/P.

Why?

The reason is simple – I use Sigils of Energy on both GS and Sword, so with extra dodges I get all the time my defense is really covered, but what I was sorely missing with Sword main hand setups is 3 things – an efficient way to keep the pressure, AoE and a way to catch an enemy running. GS fixes all of it.

Yeah, berserker is troublesome, but you still reliably get 3k out of it with occasional +-1.5k damage and the big deal in it is that it is AoE. The same berserker also is very good at catching runners, because it cripples and spawns on top of the enemy as opposed to the Swordsman. And besides – just one Mirror Blade or even Surge will cover whatever you MAY lose damage wise there, which is the real point of having GS here! You can nuke and easily from afar!

So, the point is that with GS you can actually safely nuke people from afar with Mirror Blade and Spatial Surge. If both attacks of Mirror Blade crit – it is around 3k damage 1200 range nuke by itself and two casts of Spatial Surge do that too in a line AoE.

Basically, your extra defense here comes from a fact that you can decently pressure an enemy from range YOURSELF in addition to phantasms, you don’t need to leap into melee to actually do some damage and Berserker is AoE, Knockback is AoE and you even got AoE boon strip, a bad one at that admittedly, but still. I find it to be a big deal for a build that naturally suffers in AoE and team fight department.

GS is simply better when it comes to anything that is not pure 1v1, which is what will happen most of the time and it is still just as good at 1v1 really and while it may sacrifice defense it is also better offensively and I think it’s a good trade, because as it is you are armed to the teeth with defensive stuff anyway.

anyone who can interrupt the phantasm casts, dodges right or has enough evades / dodges as a build to counter.

a well played bunker Ranger for example can beat them, so can a dodge/evade thief when everythings used at the time its right for then its ok, as a shatter mesmer myself i make sure to switch to focus and GS, push back, pull and daze mantra (traited) to interrupt casts.

i have to admit though now i come to think of it i have had trouble dodging phantasms when there first summoned (as in very hard to dodge) however the is a slight delay before they attack so good luck

in tpvp play you will see tasm mesmers getting shut out and countered, a lot.

in wvw i dont have any problems with bunkers, especialy rangers. only have problem if enemy spam blind (thief d/p) and spam daze (thief s/d). interupts phantasm cast is nothing , becouse u sumon it again after 1-2 sec. if blinded. need wait much more
and imposible dodge avoid or something else if 3 phantasm is up.

just stop them from summoning with any means necessary and your good, they hit hard but that’s it, not much more to the phantasm builds for the most part, if they do summon a couple destroy them there weak as peanuts, or alternately kite around you don’t need to sit and take it tasm style.

if your fighting on ledges or anything jump down, pull the player (or push him off) carry on the main mesmer he’ll have to re summon then blink back up, or jump back up, use the terrain, phantasm mesmer hit hard that is it take that away and they are weak.

DrixTrix.7168:

just stop them from summoning with any means necessary and your good, they hit hard but that’s it, not much more to the phantasm builds for the most part, if they do summon a couple destroy them there weak as peanuts, or alternately kite around you don’t need to sit and take it tasm style.

if your fighting on ledges or anything jump down, pull the player (or push him off) carry on the main mesmer he’ll have to re summon then blink back up, or jump back up, use the terrain, phantasm mesmer hit hard that is it take that away and they are weak.

It will take more than a few seconds to auto-attack a Phantasm spawned from a Mesmer tank. Pair that with Retaliation and that’s bad news. Armor stats will transfer over. The ultimate last thing you want to do is turn your camera away from a Mesmer.

DrixTrix.7168:

just stop them from summoning with any means necessary and your good, they hit hard but that’s it, not much more to the phantasm builds for the most part, if they do summon a couple destroy them there weak as peanuts, or alternately kite around you don’t need to sit and take it tasm style.

if your fighting on ledges or anything jump down, pull the player (or push him off) carry on the main mesmer he’ll have to re summon then blink back up, or jump back up, use the terrain, phantasm mesmer hit hard that is it take that away and they are weak.

To be honest, you are pretty much wrong… Phantasm casts are very hard to interrupt, they are fast, summon itself can’t be dodged and you can cast them stealthed without breaking stealth. For example – starting with Decoy is pretty much a guaranteed 2 phantasms up, you can’t do anything about it really.

Killing phantasms is a sure way to hell, because by the time you get rid of them – mesmer has another batch ready. besides that – with the said Decoy opening after summoning 2 phantasms you can chain CC the target for about 4 seconds, enough time for Signet of Illusions to kick in most of the time.

As a matter of fact, Bunkers are probably the weakest target Phantasm Mesmer can get – they simply do no damage in the window when Mesmer is exposed – which is not that much, while constant pounding from Phantasms that got Signet buff is simply devastating to them.

People that try to play with LoS will lose out, because they have multiple targets to try and LoS and they will simply get hit, less, but still get hit, while on the other hand their dancing will just kill all their pressure on Mesmer. If anything, the Mesmer itself benefits from trying to LoS here.

The only thing that has a real chance is hardcore constant pressure on Phantasm Mesmer, WHILE doing everything to reduce phantasm damage on you. This is a very hard task, because Mesmer himself has loads of CC, escape abilities and tricks on top of the fact that he can also just nuke your face with GS or Blurred Frenzy. Phantasm Mesmer is a god-tier 1v1 exactly because of the fact that it has amazing snowballing pressure AND great active hard defenses.

Gaidax.7835:

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you seem to rely on enemy doing nothing. Everything you said is countered by one small Decoy at the start.

I met enough shatter Mesmers and honestly, they are not hard at all 1v1. If you dodge their pretty obvious shatter, they have nothing left really and it’s a field day on their faces then.

A decoy doesn’t stop the initial blind… Counter with your own decoy. I’m sorry to burst your bubble butttttttttttttttt. I’ve never met a phantasm mesmer I can’t beat. Shattering increases in terms of fighting rewards the higher ones skill cap is. Phantasm is but autopilot.

You can’t blind something you can’t see…

My BM and Trap ranger has beat a lot of phantasm mesmers (i’ll lose to em too, but there’s never been a phantasm mesmer i -can’t- beat), and then my Clone Fodder build seems to do pretty well against them as well.

I’ve heard MM builds do really well against them when the minions actually work, but i can neither confirm nor deny this…

Gaidax.7835:

You can’t blind something you can’t see…

Blink ontop, and pop torch invis. That’s an AoE blind… Enough said.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Gaidax.7835:

You can’t blind something you can’t see…

Blink ontop, and pop torch invis. That’s an AoE blind… Enough said.

If you’re one of those weird scepter users (like myself) you can also throw counter spell out there, because you know, this isn’t kittening WoW or LoL where you need to see your target to hit them.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Gaidax.7835:

You can’t blind something you can’t see…

Blink ontop, and pop torch invis. That’s an AoE blind… Enough said.

…

I just love it how everyone assumes that you somehow have to be in 900 range to decoy…

Want a good start of a fight as Phantasm Mesmer? Decoy just a bit outside 1200 range. Works every time. By the time a target realizes what happened you will already have at least one phantasm out, if they don’t stealth – you will have 2 phantasms guaranteed this way, 3 seconds initial stealth is enough.

Also, in case people here do not realize – you can start casting phantasm from above 1200 range, it will appear anyway as long as by the end of the cast you are in range.

Gaidax.7835:

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Gaidax.7835:

You can’t blind something you can’t see…

Blink ontop, and pop torch invis. That’s an AoE blind… Enough said.

…

I just love it how everyone assumes that you somehow have to be in 900 range to decoy…

Want a good start of a fight as Phantasm Mesmer? Decoy just a bit outside 1200 range. Works every time. By the time a target realizes what happened you will already have at least one phantasm out, if they don’t stealth – you will have 2 phantasms guaranteed this way, 3 seconds initial stealth is enough.

Also, in case people here do not realize – you can start casting phantasm from above 1200 range, it will appear anyway as long as by the end of the cast you are in range.

Everyone knows you can use decoy whenever, but a good phantasm mesmer will channel that Defender immediately at the start of the fight, running forward, a stealth or decoy won’t stop this being summoned so even if you do go invis and start off with 1-2 phantasms (which like I said, is such an easy, skill-less autopilot build) they’ve already got a defender out. And for someone who’s playing shatter, that’s game over. A blink intop of their body, and a blind will ensure that defender doesn’t spawn. I run shatter, so that’s 24 seconds I can damage the phantasm mesmer at full, without the the -50%.

Any fight on my phantasm build that isn’t another Mesmer is varying degrees of easy, with no exceptions.

Against other mesmers, things get harder, particularly other phantasm mesmers. Shatter mesmers aren’t very difficult though. If you’re using torch offhand and you burn a blink and the prestige to open a fight…and I just so happen to not be where you blinked, or I stop my cast, or I actually was invulnerable, you’ve just burnt a stunbreaker and a strong defense for nothing. Quite honestly, torch is just a horrible idea in general, for reasons I won’t get into here.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Any fight on my phantasm build that isn’t another Mesmer is varying degrees of easy, with no exceptions.

Against other mesmers, things get harder, particularly other phantasm mesmers. Shatter mesmers aren’t very difficult though. If you’re using torch offhand and you burn a blink and the prestige to open a fight…and I just so happen to not be where you blinked, or I stop my cast, or I actually was invulnerable, you’ve just burnt a stunbreaker and a strong defense for nothing. Quite honestly, torch is just a horrible idea in general, for reasons I won’t get into here.

Generally speaking I was referring to situations regarding 1v1’s, where you start off fairly close. I’m a firm believer in getting the upper hand on an opponent, sure you’ve just melted a stun breaker, and your torch invis, however you’ve still got a mass invis and decoy left, with roughly 20 seconds on your other devices. If you’re relying on utilities, as opposed to positioning and damage mitigation ( wether that be through sword 2, dodge rolls or overall situation when fighting) then you’re doing it wrong.

In response to your notion of torch offhand and it being a horrible idea in general… Well… You’ve really got to experience it first hand in group play. My roaming partner and I frequently get ourselves into 2v6+ situations, being the bunker guard he is, tanking that many people is no problem for him, however dealing unforgiving AoE bursts is where I come in. No point in having all that burst power if I’m just going to get focused right? That’s why the torch + decoy allows me to stealth every 10-15 seconds for 3 seconds.

I only defeated a few phastasm mesmer and they are difficult to beat. If they are skilled enough, they will always win.

In order for me to have an fighting chance, the first few seconds of the match determines if anybody have a chance a winning.

The general strategy is to kill or prevent the first few phastasm quickly by using an aoe attack and reflect the i duelist attacks and perhaps reflect the OH pistol stun if the opponent is stupid enough.

If these step are done, there is around 20-30 second window to burst down the memser.

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Gaidax.7835:

theCOREYCOLAK.5698:

Gaidax.7835:

You can’t blind something you can’t see…

Blink ontop, and pop torch invis. That’s an AoE blind… Enough said.

…

I just love it how everyone assumes that you somehow have to be in 900 range to decoy…

Want a good start of a fight as Phantasm Mesmer? Decoy just a bit outside 1200 range. Works every time. By the time a target realizes what happened you will already have at least one phantasm out, if they don’t stealth – you will have 2 phantasms guaranteed this way, 3 seconds initial stealth is enough.

Also, in case people here do not realize – you can start casting phantasm from above 1200 range, it will appear anyway as long as by the end of the cast you are in range.

Everyone knows you can use decoy whenever, but a good phantasm mesmer will channel that Defender immediately at the start of the fight, running forward, a stealth or decoy won’t stop this being summoned so even if you do go invis and start off with 1-2 phantasms (which like I said, is such an easy, skill-less autopilot build) they’ve already got a defender out. And for someone who’s playing shatter, that’s game over. A blink intop of their body, and a blind will ensure that defender doesn’t spawn. I run shatter, so that’s 24 seconds I can damage the phantasm mesmer at full, without the the -50%.

Good Phantasm Mesmer probably won’t be taking Defnder. The idea is not to get hit and it will get in a way with that, you either lose blink or lose Signet of Illusions. Not a good enough advantage over he loss, IMO.

Getting a good start is not “skilless, auto-pilot”, more like a sensible use of tools available to get early advantage. It is a powerful start, why not use it?

Defender is a very strong tool actually, it can’t be burned down easily the way other phants can.

Defender could be good IF it did not take utility slot OR would not count against the 3 illusions limit.

It is problematic because you can’t have it and 2 phantasms together really, unless you totally want to ditch using leap, decoy or mirror blade.

I have no doubt that it can be powerful, but in my opinion it is not flexible enough.

Gaidax.7835:

Defender could be good IF it did not take utility slot OR would not count against the 3 illusions limit.

It is problematic because you can’t have it and 2 phantasms together really, unless you totally want to ditch using leap, decoy or mirror blade.

I have no doubt that it can be powerful, but in my opinion it is not flexible enough.

Okay, if you’re not taking defender you’re going to die to a shatter mesmer… Enough said. And yes, I’m sorry, but phantasm mesmer is an autopilot. It’s easy to press a summon button, and then kite and spam invis. Shatter > Phantasm, when it comes to skill cap.