Why Mesmer PvE is awkward
Totaly agree, and i’ve been wanting to say this for a long time :P
I’m going to assume that you’re talking about Orr? I have yet to begin Orr’s maps, but I have 100%‘d every other maps(other than PvP) and I’ve never felt awkward, nor had trouble fighting multiple mobs.
I’m only responsible for what I say, not for what you understand.
I think everyone can agree that Mesmers do well in PvP and even 1v1 PvE. But as soon as you take on a group of mobs especially one in a DE then the class gets extremely awkward and the most you can do it tab and auto attack each mob before they die.
Why is it so awkward in DEs?
Mostly cause illusions and phantasms either waste their cool down on a target that is going down fast or die themselves before doing much of anything. This leaves the mesmer in a constant cool down status getting lucky to have a phantasm get off his attack in time.
Don’t even think about shattering…. this mechanic just takes way too long between summoning your clones and then waiting for them to run to the mob (and possibly even getting destroyed before attacking). By the time this happens your target is down and shatter is wasted. Once again leaving you tabbing and auto attacking everything in sight.
While I agree with the other posts that some better and more reliable AoE skills would be extremely useful in DEs, I think they should first work on making the shatter mechanic useful in these situations. I think a decent start to this would to stop clones from shattering on targets death. Sure, they still have a problem of getting 1 shot by AoEs but at least it would allow us to maybe build up some clones in a DE to shatter with.
Now again I am talking strictly PvE and not PvP, but I think phantasms should be treated more as a skill that goes off once and disappears, not taking up any clone slots (this is basically how that act now since they are often killed immediately).
Phantasms are obviously our DPS skills while Clone skills do almost no DPS at all unless they shatter. They act as our defense unless we sacrifice them for more DPS which makes total sense. But why would I sacrifice a phantasm for less DPS than it can do on its own? This is counter productive and phantasms actually make shattering less reliable since they have so much less HP. This is why I would say to unlink Phantasms from shattering and acting as clones completely… Now I am sure lots of people will hate this since it will prevent them from summoning 3 phantasms and letting them do the work, but personally I would rather a more active role in the DPS than having my NPCs do it all.
Now I am not saying these are the only problems with mesmer, just saying this is why DEs and PvEing in groups is just extremely awkward at the moment.
I am sick of people thinking that our phantasms are our main source of DPS. They are secondary to the damage we can dish out and the boons/conditions we can deal.
Use a greatsword. It’s great for soloing and events. The Phantasm and clone attacks not only spawn them right next to the target monster, but have quick cast times and have short cool downs. This makes shattering faster because they’re standing right there. Then you switch to whatever weapon and repeat.
And phantasms serving their purpose and then disappearing is a God awful idea for two reasons. First, the attack rate of phantasms is much shorter than the cool down. If the clone survives long enough to do a second attack it was well worth the cast. Second, sometimes you need to spend those phantasms on emergency shatters. It’s good to have a backup couple of illusions to be able to get away from an attacking monster or to be invulnerable for a short duration.
I’m thinking that the people who complain about shatters are the same people who can’t tell when a monster is going to attack and think that Cry of Frustration is useless. Listen, this profession takes a lot of thought and well-planned moves. It’s not a standard “hit button and deal a ton of damage” profession. Once people learn the primary function of the Mesmer, which is mainly support while dealing consistent burst damage through various attacks, they will stop complaining about non-issues.
The only thing I would change would be to have the clones/phantasms teleport to the targets location to do their AoE shatter to make stacking confusion easier. However, the real issues with the class are the numerous glitches and bugs plaguing it. The Signet of Illusions doesn’t apply the health increase on phantasm/clone spawn. It does it literally a second after it spawns. This causes the phantasm/clone to lose at least half of its health right after it spawns which is not okay. Cry of Frustration is also bugged. It only lasts for 3 seconds rather than 4 which is indicated on the tool tip and is barely effected by “duration time up” traits and runes. It’s totally bugged. Fix the bugs because the mechanics are fine.
Sighh another mesmer pve thread. Seriously, learn to play as a mesmer they are a powerful class. I might reason with you, but as soon I realize I was playing until level 50 without trait skills. I usually play 2 levels below the requirement. Ever since trait skills, it now became a little too easy for me. Please realize I loved beta event 1. It was punishing and I loved it. The best thing about mesmer is not their dps. It is their tenacity to survive and their ability to support a group. If you ware only using mesmer dps skills then you are doing something wrong.
OP you have a lot going on in your post. None of it is new to the forums, a lot of your issues have been discussed already. Mesmers aren’t lacking in pve, it comes down to how you play. If tab, auto attack is what you are looking for, you want another profession.
The only place in the game mesmer struggles at all is in getting loot in zerged Orr DE’s. In every other part of the game, mesmer sails through. Solo PvE we take groups of mobs without thinking about it. Dungeons we bring skills that can make life easier for the entire team. PvP – forget about it. The devs can not give us bursty front loaded aoe damage on demand, because that would make us sickenly overpowered everywhere else, where we are more than fine.
The problem is the events, not your character. My simplest solution has been to do what I did for 80 levels – solo. Or run with a small group. Avoid the zerg. Where that’s not practical, put on a sword and do what all melee do – run to the spawn points ahead of spawn and spam 1. Drop Warden or Berzerker as soon as a group spawns, especially if you can target a vet. Its not perfect, but if will work until they address the real issue.
Also on phantasms . . . you have the choice to shatter or not. There are times it doesn’t make sense, and times it does. In a nut shell, if a mob is going to die soon, your phantasm will too, so shatter it to tag as many other mobs as possible. If the mob will be up for at least 1 attack cycle, bring out another phantasm. You can always shatter them at the end for the burst. If you’re fighting a boss, go ahead and get 3 phantasms out and let them rock – I like that with Warlocks especially, they crit like mad men.
Many items in the game are not soulbound or are bind on account. Don’t farm those items on your mesmer. It is really not hard to get a ranger/guardian/ele to 80. Use those classes for farming. I use my mesmer in a glamour / confusion build for WvW with friends. Not for PvE farming.
Sighh another mesmer pve thread. Seriously, learn to play as a mesmer they are a powerful class. If you ware only using mesmer dps skills then you are doing something wrong.
I am sick of people thinking that our phantasms are our main source of DPS. They are secondary to the damage we can dish out and the boons/conditions we can deal.
I seriously wonder if people read posts before replying to them. Not once in my post did I say that Mesmer DPS was poor or that I had any trouble soloing in PvE or PvP…
My main point was focused on DEs and that there are too many factors that go into getting a shatter off in them and even in PvE in general. Between the target dying or your clones dying…. you would be very lucky to get a shatter off with one clone let alone all 3.
And would keeping clones up until you’re out of combat REALLY be that game breaking? I really doubt so, it would just allow us to actually shatter our clones in DEs and make the class actually fun to play in DEs.
As for what I said about phantasms, I also never said they were our main source of DPS, I just said it makes no sense to sacrifice DPS for DPS especially when they are even less reliable versions of shatter fodder. Also, if they ever did rework phantasms to just attack and despawn… obviously the DPS on them would need to be reworked, in fact it may even make it easier for the dev team to balance their DPS since so many other professions seem to constantly be shouting how OP they are. The only people this would affect are the lazy Mesmers who constantly leave 3 Phanstams out and never shatter.
(edited by Sleaze.3748)
I have to agree with the OP. I don’t think Mesmers are weak in PVE (or PVP), but they are fairly awkward in PVE. The biggest annoyance is phantoms getting 1hit before they fire off their round, happens often with multiple mobs. And 2nd biggest annoyance is Shatter. If they made shatter teleport all the clones to the target to explode, that would be awesome, or whatever other mechanic they want to implement to prevent clones from getting killed before they can get to the target.
Overall tho, I’m enjoying my Mesmer, even with the annoyances. I’m sure all the other classes have their own annoyances to deal with.
I have to say I cringe everytime people suggest “Just use a Greatsword!” as their solution for Mesmer PvE play. I personally use Scepter/Pistol and Staff on my Mesmer, because that’s the image I want to build of her as a character; a combination mage/duelist. One shouldn’t be forced into using a particular weapon for your character; if a single weapon is by far and away the most popular choice for a profession, then it is either overpowered and needs to be nerfed, or the other weapons are mediocre and need to be buffed.
One of the main problems with the Mesmer, and to a lesser extent any of the other support classes, with regards to PVE/DE farming is that you don’t get rewarded for providing support – you get rewards from kills and nothing else.
So, you gave everyone Chaos Armour so they had some cool boons – you get no direct kills/drops/XP from that though. You made everyone attack twice as fast with Time Warp – good for them, they all got twice as many kills/drops, but it didn’t give you any. Mass condition removal, invisibilty, speed boosts etc. etc – all good for the overall objective, but for getting direct mass kills and therefore rewards, pretty useless.
That’s not to say we don’t have any aoe to try and tag a few mobs , but like the OP said, our way of doing it is so clunky compared to other classes. As much as I adore my mesmer, for that kind of thing I have to switch to my boooooring guardian.
I have to say I cringe everytime people suggest “Just use a Greatsword!” as their solution for Mesmer PvE play. I personally use Scepter/Pistol and Staff on my Mesmer, because that’s the image I want to build of her as a character; a combination mage/duelist. One shouldn’t be forced into using a particular weapon for your character; if a single weapon is by far and away the most popular choice for a profession, then it is either overpowered and needs to be nerfed, or the other weapons are mediocre and need to be buffed.
thats like saying you want to do massive aoe damage on ele without staff, or engi without grenades, or if you want to do ranged damage as a thief, but you want the ‘image of your character’ as a dual dagger thief.
its just stupid. when you’re doing DE’s pull out a great sword if you cant tag enough mobs, then switch to your main weapon set for everything else.
For multiple mobs, greatsword and staff, I’m Asuzra so I have the Aoe as well and the DPS golem. I start with chaos field, radiation field, the sword bounce that leaves a clone, 2 clones, shatter with cry, switch to GS, bezerker, and pick off the rest, depending on the mobs 3 to 8. For instances the mobs are so tough aoe doesn’t really help. I use a legion build (strong phantams) for WvW and PvE. I do just fine.
I have to say I cringe everytime people suggest “Just use a Greatsword!” as their solution for Mesmer PvE play. I personally use Scepter/Pistol and Staff on my Mesmer, because that’s the image I want to build of her as a character; a combination mage/duelist. One shouldn’t be forced into using a particular weapon for your character; if a single weapon is by far and away the most popular choice for a profession, then it is either overpowered and needs to be nerfed, or the other weapons are mediocre and need to be buffed.
thats like saying you want to do massive aoe damage on ele without staff, or engi without grenades, or if you want to do ranged damage as a thief, but you want the ‘image of your character’ as a dual dagger thief.
its just stupid. when you’re doing DE’s pull out a great sword if you cant tag enough mobs, then switch to your main weapon set for everything else.
You have so many options with traits with a mesmer, it took awhile for me to tune my traits but depending on how you want to kill something adjust your traits. I don’t think scepter/pistol has a lot of synergy. You have a strong phantasm with pistol while your specter is creating clones. With scepter builds I focus on shatter traits, with pistol I use sword and greatsword. Those two phantasms have great synergy and I do whatever I can to buff the phantasms when I have that combo.
I don’t have problems tagging enough mobs in DE’s. I’m pretty happy with the amount of loot I get just by tossing in Chaos Storm and shooting at mobs with Magic Bullet. When I’m playing a Mesmer, I prefer being on the team that’s helping take down the big, bad boss as opposed to the guy who’s running around mopping up mooks.
I just dislike the fact that whenever somebody makes a complaint about the Mesmer being weaker than most classes when it comes to AoE options, everybody immediately replies, “Use a Greatsword.” There should be more solutions to increasing the Mesmer’s AoE options than just one single weapon, whether that’s by improving the Shatter mechanic, making the bolts from Winds of Chaos move faster, or making Magic Bullet deal more than just negligible damage.
I seriously wonder if people read posts before replying to them. Not once in my post did I say that Mesmer DPS was poor or that I had any trouble soloing in PvE or PvP…
Phantasms are obviously our DPS skills while Clone skills do almost no DPS at all unless they shatter.
I do read your post. You keep mentioning that Phantasms are your main dps.
Well mesmer is a complex class. The dev wanted the player realize they have to choose between protection and shatter. This is what makes a mesmer interesting. No, although phantasms so a significent amount of dps, there are a few other skills that does a decent amount of damage. #2 main hand sword and great sword skills. Majority of mesmer’s skills are meant for survival. It doesnt matter if your clone dies, it matters if you die. If the devs gave a little bit more flexibility then the mesmer class will be overpowered.
I do read your post. You keep mentioning that Phantasms are your main dps.
Well mesmer is a complex class. The dev wanted the player realize they have to choose between protection and shatter. This is what makes a mesmer interesting. No, although phantasms so a significent amount of dps, there are a few other skills that does a decent amount of damage. #2 main hand sword and great sword skills. Majority of mesmer’s skills are meant for survival. It doesnt matter if your clone dies, it matters if you die. If the devs gave a little bit more flexibility then the mesmer class will be overpowered.
Um I never said phantasms are our main DPS so please stop putting words in my mouth. Just as my quote says, phantasms are a dps skill, unless you find some way to disagree with that.
Also for my third time saying this, I am not looking for a DPS boost. I know how to play my Mesmer so stop talking about alternate points. I also love when people speak as if they know what’s on the devs minds when they created the class. You claim the devs wan us to choose between projection and shatter? Then why can you use projection and shatter at the same time so well in pvp? Yet you can barely get any skills off in a DE.
Thank you for explaining to me what Gs 2 skill does as I never mentioned anything wrong with it.
You really think allowing clones to remain up until the player ends combat will really make Mesmers OP?? Wow seriously….
(edited by Sleaze.3748)
Um I never said phantasms are our main DPS…
Phantasms are obviously our DPS skills while Clone skills do almost no DPS at all unless they shatter. They act as our defense unless we sacrifice them for more DPS which makes total sense. But why would I sacrifice a phantasm for less DPS than it can do on its own? This is counter productive and phantasms actually make shattering less reliable since they have so much less HP. This is why I would say to unlink Phantasms from shattering and acting as clones completely… Now I am sure lots of people will hate this since it will prevent them from summoning 3 phantasms and letting them do the work, but personally I would rather a more active role in the DPS than having my NPCs do it all.
It’s like you yourself don’t read what you write!
I seriously wonder if people read posts before replying to them. Not once in my post did I say that Mesmer DPS was poor or that I had any trouble soloing in PvE or PvP…
And maybe you should read the full responses instead of the first line of a post, hmm? Not once did I say the DPS was small for phantasms. What I said was that the Mesmer is a flashy class that can do anything and that relying on your phantasms as your main source of damage is limiting yourself.
And maybe you should read the full responses instead of the first line of a post, hmm? Not once did I say the DPS was small for phantasms. What I said was that the Mesmer is a flashy class that can do anything and that relying on your phantasms as your main source of damage is limiting yourself.
So now everything you said basically sounds like you agree with me but didnt read what I said and you just jumped to conclusions thinking I was begging for a buff.
Obviously when comparing clones to phantasms… as I did, it is DPS vs survivability until you shatter, then clones either become damage or further forms of survivability. I never once said I had problems with the DPS of our other skills that do DPS that are casted by the player, which I use quite often…. Once again you place the phrase “main DPS” into my mouth which I never said.
I also said that I do not leave out 3 phantasms purely for DPS as some lazy Mesmer do, so please read that part again. I said I prefer to take an active role doing DPS rather than summoning phantasms and sitting back like some of the others.
Meanwhile you jumped all over me as if I was asking for some major buff to Mesmers which I am not, I am asking for the game play of them to be more active and fun instead of just sitting with permanent cooldowns in DEs and clones that can never be used and or get off attacks because of targets dying or them dying themselves
(edited by Sleaze.3748)
I agree on OP’s main point that the illusions should not die when a mob dies. When mobs are going down in two seconds the illusions and phantasms dont even have enough time to shatter. They should stick around until they are killed or shattered and maybe disapear after 5 seconds of inactivity.
If illusions stuck around they’d have to increase their CDs, or worse, the CD wouldn’t start until the illusion is killed/consumed. No thanks. Keep em fast and expendable.
If you really don’t like them dying on kills, you can trait for some neat effects when it happens so it’s not a total loss.
Lone Wolf Mesmer | Warrior | Engineer | Thief
Dissentient [DIS] ~Tarnished Coast
Dissentient [DIS] ~Tarnished Coast
Somewhere in the class description, ANet needs to add: “this is not a pet class”.
If you can’t read English, please do not reply to my post.
Somewhere in the class description, ANet needs to add: “this is not a pet class”.
I don’t think OP is trying to get it to be. I think by having the illusions stick around for about 5 seconds of inactivity solves the problem of a two second mob lifespan.
Personally, I don’t feel awkward at all on my mesmer, even during dynamic events.
I’d like to rebuke your arguments and critique your suggestions.
Argument 1: Illusions de-spawn on targets who die easily
Simply target your illusions on monsters who recently spawned, or have high health pools. Yes it takes more time. But it is achievable if you can react to the spawns first.
Argument 2: Shattering is worthless as it takes too long for illusions to run towards targets
It all depends on the positioning of your illusions, and the movement of the enemies.
In regular PvE or soloing, the mobs should be running to either you, or your illusions, so shatter them once I can see they are close enough for an immediate effect.
In Dynamic Events, the only thing that changes is the number of people participating, and the number of monsters increases. This means that the likelihood of a monster running towards your illusions will go down according to how many people there are. This is not an issue with melee illusions, but for stationary illusions, the distance can be quite large. That is why when I use my staff, I create my clones in mid-to-close range, and I do a rough estimate to time the shatter.
Suggestion: Separation of Phantasms and Clones from Shatters
I am against it, because of the existence of down time of the phantasms after their attacks. Yes, the shatters do less damage than a phantasm, but even on the phantasm with the lowest time between attacks (4.5 seconds), there is enough time to pop a shatter and re-summon the phantasm.
Instead, I’d argue that the paradigm of not shattering phantasms arises from how shatters transform due to the powerful traits for shattering.
For Example:
Mental Torment increases Mind Wrack damage by 20%. That’s an increase of 1.2x, and even though I don’t know what the exact formula for calculating the damage, I know that it turns Mind Wrack from an “eh, I’ll pop it to quickly finish off an enemy” to a skill that removes anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3 of an enemy’s health bar. I’d love to reduce the 20% to 10% or 15%, and transferring the difference into baseline, so that even if you don’t trait for Mind Wrack, it is still potent enough to consider using it often.
Now, to the issue of Dynamic Events and mob tagging:
I really don’t have a good answer. In Dynamic Events, I’m more than content in my role as a behind-the-scenes master of mob control, where I daze mobs before a big attack, or pop a time warp when we need a huge burst of damage, or removing a huge stack of burning with Null Field when we fought against the Flame Shaman, or surgically remove dangerous Plague Carriers before they hit the main party.
Of course, I don’t get as much loot, but often times my friends are more than happy to share their spoils with me, and the rewards of karma, gold, and experience are more than enough. That is my personality, and it is how I interpret the mesmer class to be: the bringer of surprises (pleasant surprises for my friends, horrific surprises for my enemies).
There is another great discussion on the Mesmer Forums about how loot should be given to those people who participate, but don’t take such an active role in dealing damage.
Again, I certainly do not feel awkward in fighting monsters in PvE.
(Mesmer) Ceuthonymos – Nothern Shiverpeaks
Somewhere in the class description, ANet needs to add: “this is not a pet class”.
I’m not trying to make it a pet class, I am only trying to be able to use the F1-F4 skills that we get, which are the special mechanic that makes us different. Just like thieves get steal, elementalists get attunement change, etc……..those of which do not get rendered useless in DEs like ours do.
Also if you read what I had to say about phantasms, that would actually take us even further away from people thinking we are a pet class.
Oh, I wasn’t really responding to your post. I was actually referring to Badaboom’s and the general concept of making illusions persist.
They simply don’t need to. Sure, maybe they could add 1 second of fade-out time wherein you have a short grace period to do something with the expiring illusion, but that’s a minor fringe training-wheel (“quality of life”?) change that won’t really impact Mesmers.
The biggest thing is to make Orr DEs actually scale to # of players by upgrading trash mobs to vets and even minor champs. The susceptibility of any significant game content to raw bot-style AOE farm pew pew is absurd. It’s an issue not really tied to Mesmers, although Mesmers get hit by it.
For the rest of PvE, stuff works. A slight decrease in AOE damage taken by illusions may also be useful, but not a major deal one way or another. I mean, illusion expiration traits rely on them getting popped. Shrug.
If you can’t read English, please do not reply to my post.
EasymodeX, I was just suggesting that they persist for a period of 5 seconds of inactivity. Which would not make it a pet class. This fixes the problem of 2 second lifespan mobs.
I’m going to assume that you’re talking about Orr? I have yet to begin Orr’s maps, but I have 100%‘d every other maps(other than PvP) and I’ve never felt awkward, nor had trouble fighting multiple mobs.
The problem with mesmers is in the big zerg groups that do dynamic events in Orr for drops, money, and karma. The groups are so big that many of the mobs drop before you can even tag them (classes with many AOE skills have it a lot easier).
I am not really sure that I agree that this is a problem with the mesmer class however. I think it is more of a problem with the game mechanics that make people want to farm this way. It is SOOOO freaking boring and I can’t imagine that this is what ANet wanted when they were building this game.
But the facts are that everything costs huge amounts of either money or karma and people will always find the quickest ways to farm to get their needed currency.
ANet needs to address the problems causing people to want to play this way just as much as they need to address mesmer aoe and tagging abilities.
“Do what you want to do and don’t tell other people how to behave.” ~ Ruth Stout
I really miss my dual pistol mesmer from the beta test. I was in love with that play style, and when the head-start happened and I couldn’t do that anymore I was pretty bummed, I hope in the future they re-enable that option it looked really neat, did good DPS, and was honestly the most fun I had in the game. It’s unfortunate that GW2 takes place in this industrial era and all we can use is an off-hand pistol, which is a pretty weak option anyway IMO.
“I don’t have problems tagging enough mobs in DE’s. I’m pretty happy with the amount of loot I get just by tossing in Chaos Storm and shooting at mobs with Magic Bullet. When I’m playing a Mesmer, I prefer being on the team that’s helping take down the big, bad boss as opposed to the guy who’s running around mopping up mooks.
I just dislike the fact that whenever somebody makes a complaint about the Mesmer being weaker than most classes when it comes to AoE options, everybody immediately replies, “Use a Greatsword.” There should be more solutions to increasing the Mesmer’s AoE options than just one single weapon, whether that’s by improving the Shatter mechanic, making the bolts from Winds of Chaos move faster, or making Magic Bullet deal more than just negligible damage.”
Seconded.
The brutal irony of Mesmers complaining about “having” to use a particular weapon for Orr farming when all other classes are limited to specific weapons as well.
If you can’t read English, please do not reply to my post.
The brutal irony of Mesmers complaining about “having” to use a particular weapon for Orr farming when all other classes are limited to specific weapons as well.
Says the one who favours GS…
And that matters how? Do you think Guardians LIKE using Staff? They use what works.
I favor GS because it’s good for my purposes (WvW and tearing through trash PvE, particularly with a Power-centric build). If Staff were a good weapon for my build or gameplay focus, I would use it.
It’s not.
I don’t use it.
If Staff were good for Orr DE farming, I would use it when I farmed Orr DEs. I have 1 of every weapon in my backpack, and have since level 10. I even have a Scepter.
I use the tools that work best for the job at hand. To complain that a weapon you don’t want to use is actually good at something specific … lolz.
It completely boggles my mind. I mean does a GS Warrior kitten about the lack of CC? No, they switch to a kitten Hammer. How simple can this get?
There’s a weapon in your backpack that will increase your performance … let’s not use it and complain instead!
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GS with my Condition build does not…
Then your build is bad for Orr DEs?
You could at least swap to a better weapon for Orr DEs if you’re unwilling to drop 3.5s to respec? The game allows you to switch weapon separately from your build?
Do you think condition or support Guardians make excuses about Staff, even though a power build would tag better? Does a condition Engineer eschew grenades for farming? Does a condition Thief stop using Shortbow direct damage AOEs? Or a condition Elementalist (do these exist?) stop using direct damage AOEs?
If you can’t read English, please do not reply to my post.
If I’m going to PvE farm all day, I want to use a build / weapon set that works well stacking magic find. I leveled up other classes (guardian, ele, ranger) so that I could use whatever class was most efficient at farming DE (or dungeons, or solo / gathering, or even WvW if it were particularly monotonous).
I really miss my dual pistol mesmer from the beta test. I was in love with that play style, and when the head-start happened and I couldn’t do that anymore I was pretty bummed, I hope in the future they re-enable that option it looked really neat, did good DPS, and was honestly the most fun I had in the game. It’s unfortunate that GW2 takes place in this industrial era and all we can use is an off-hand pistol, which is a pretty weak option anyway IMO.
Mesmers could never dual pistol. You’re confusing it with Thief, and the fact the offhand duelist Phantasm dual wields (spamming a Thief skill). It wasn’t disabled, it was just never there to begin with.