Guild Wars 2

In GW1 mesmers were about control, putting enemies “between a rock and a hard place”, forcing them to make hard decisions and punishing for choosing the wrong ones. (Before anyone says “but confusion!”; NO. Just… no. The math proves that bleed beats confusion in every way, 100% of the time. More damage, easier to apply, always does its damage. You can read the other topics dedicated to buffing confuse. Currently people can attack happily knowing that even if they do, it’s still not hurting them as bad as bleed would.)

They were about support. Lording over their teammates like a general, watching the battlefield and manipulating individual players with a series of debuffs and interrupts so that their team could successfully beat them.

If I can use a magic the gathering analogy, mesmers were Blue. They focused on outwitting the opponent and ultimately beating them through weakening their defense and finding that hole.

Right now, control doesn’t even exist in this game apart from removing debuffs (conditions). Mesmers are just marginal damage dealers when played the way they were intended, and great damage dealers when played as “in your face” melee fighters. But why all the emphasis on damage dealing?

Going back to Magic, GW2 mesmers are Red with a couple Blue tricks. But ultimately they’re aggressive and rely on confusing (read: not the condition, but actual confusion) the enemy just long enough to burst them down.

I can hear you guys right now: “But this is GW2 not GW1. Everyone can do a little of everything”. That’s true, but Anet has already explained that while everyone can do a little everything, certain classes have an emphasis elsewhere. It seems like currently Mesmer emphasis is still on dealing damage; the control aspect of them is a joke. I don’t know if this is because of the watered down way Anet has done “conditions” so that all DoTs are bleeds or burn (either slow or fast dps), weakness (the opposite of might), etc.

I feel like as a thief, I can do as much control as a mesmer, but do way better damage. Mesmer utility just doesn’t feel “Oomphy” enough to warrant playing mesmer over something that just bursts people down easier. Necromancers in GW2 are more like Mesmers of GW1 than actual Mesmers are.

What? Why? Thoughts? I’d like to say I’m not complaining, but I guess I am. I’m sad that the class isn’t about control; that it’s about just dealing weaker damage while being a bit more survivable by having these clones.

Is mesmer just a brand new class? Should I forget about the days of control and “intelligent” play and just embrace the new face-roll damage dealing that is shattering or watching phantasms deal damage?

You kinda anwsered your self the “control” you are talking about from GW1 came from having the condtions in a not so watered down way. I still feel mesmers can be a very control based class (I run a WvW based build that forces range to either sit back and do nothing or come to my team and die through constant up times on reflections).

Reflections like feedback? How do you keep reflections up? The mesmer doesn’t have many at all; the personal heal, traited focus and feedback. Doesn’t seem like enough to honestly force a zerg to change their strategy.

The support Mesmer is definitely available if you spec for it. Pick the skills Mass Invisibility and the Portal. Use the staff to Chaos Storm your allies. Switch to an off hand Focus to speed up your team and remove conditions with the iWarden. And go deep into the Inspiration tree for Vigorous Revelation [shattering grants vigor to allies] and Restorative Mantras [mantras heal allies]

It doesn’t have to be about Shattering or Phantasmal damage if you don’t want it to be.

McNuggetBandit.8376:

You kinda anwsered your self the “control” you are talking about from GW1 came from having the condtions in a not so watered down way. I still feel mesmers can be a very control based class (I run a WvW based build that forces range to either sit back and do nothing or come to my team and die through constant up times on reflections).

That’s not true. The devs explicitly explained how complex hexes from GW1 would be brought into GW2 in an intuitive way through phantasms. Instead they abandoned that idea and just made phantasms flimsy damage pets.

It can be, i Drop a warden speced with Haste he does 4 seconds of reflection, I then drop Feedback out front of the zerg force them to move buying me 1-2 seconds then drop focus wall in front for last bit, By the time that is down i can be dropping another warden throwing down feed Back and then wall again. It only takes a few seconds to force a zerg to move closer to your group with it and then you take advantage of that. Plus Relvantex above has a good point

Relevantex.1098:

The support Mesmer is definitely available if you spec for it. Pick the skills Mass Invisibility and the Portal. Use the staff to Chaos Storm your allies. Switch to an off hand Focus to speed up your team and remove conditions with the iWarden. And go deep into the Inspiration tree for Vigorous Revelation [shattering grants vigor to allies] and Restorative Mantras [mantras heal allies]

It doesn’t have to be about Shattering or Phantasmal damage if you don’t want it to be.

But in GW2, boons and conditions hardly matter unless stacked highly. You won’t notice yourself making an impact at all if you run that build. Putting the occasional might or aegis on someone isn’t going to help nearly as much as playing the game the way Anet apparently wants you to play it: as a damage dealer. Dead enemies can’t hurt your team. That’s the best buff of all it seems.

Sadly, I’m sure a sword/pistol mesmer is going to do far more for his team than a mesmer trying to be support in the game’s current meta.

I feel your pain. Gw1 mesmer here, and I’m playing a conditionmancer because it’s closer to the original mes.

Gw2 mes is just a minion bombing DPS class. It feels to me like Anet got down to the wire, and shipped the class to release in the most functional form they could get in time. What they ended up with is not mesmer-ey, and not what was promised at the class reveal either. I made a longer post on the “IDEAS” thread a couple posts down, but here’s the basic problems imo:

#1, there is no true control in Gw2. They streamlined everything into basic conditions as part of their design intent, and specificity has been the cost for it. Think about it; the only punishment type ability (mesmer’s trademark, to force the hard decisions OP mentioned) is confusion, and it affects every action equally. There’s no control, or forcing hard decisions there, it’s just another DPS condition.

Here’s the bottom line: control should be something that compels the target to act. Disruption (daze, knockdown, confuse somewhat also) is reactive; control should be active. Force the bad guy to make a choice. Your ability to predict that choice is what makes it controlling.

#2: Far too many things are schlepped off to the illusions, phantasms in particular. Mesmer is just a wonky pet class now, the Gw1 uniqueness and brilliance is gone. Clones need to be brief distractions that are sacrificed for momentary gain, and phantasms need to apply very specific effects to the target. They need to be the “living hex” that they were originally designed to be. As an AI entity, this could actually be impressive, since they could be made to respond to certain types of actions by the target, taking the idea of punishment mechanics to a new level.

Rhyse.8176:

I feel your pain. Gw1 mesmer here, and I’m playing a conditionmancer because it’s closer to the original mes.

Gw2 mes is just a minion bombing DPS class. It feels to me like Anet got down to the wire, and shipped the class to release in the most functional form they could get in time. What they ended up with is not mesmer-ey, and not what was promised at the class reveal either. I made a longer post on the “IDEAS” thread a couple posts down, but here’s the basic problems imo:

#1, there is no true control in Gw2. They streamlined everything into basic conditions as part of their design intent, and specificity has been the cost for it. Think about it; the only punishment type ability (mesmer’s trademark, to force the hard decisions OP mentioned) is confusion, and it affects every action equally. There’s no control, or forcing hard decisions there, it’s just another DPS condition.

Here’s the bottom line: control should be something that compels the target to act. Disruption (daze, knockdown, confuse somewhat also) is reactive; control should be active. Force the bad guy to make a choice. Your ability to predict that choice is what makes it controlling.

#2: Far too many things are schlepped off to the illusions, phantasms in particular. Mesmer is just a wonky pet class now, the Gw1 uniqueness and brilliance is gone. Clones need to be brief distractions that are sacrificed for momentary gain, and phantasms need to apply very specific effects to the target. They need to be the “living hex” that they were originally designed to be. As an AI entity, this could actually be impressive, since they could be made to respond to certain types of actions by the target, taking the idea of punishment mechanics to a new level.

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

I agree 100%. Maybe I’ll start playing necromancer to get that feeling of GW1 mesmer the closest way I can.

Narmix.4862:

I agree 100%. Maybe I’ll start playing necromancer to get that feeling of GW1 mesmer the closest way I can.

Thanks. It doesn’t have the punishment mechanic, but spreading conditions (weakness, chill, plus the DPS ones) and corrupting boons at the right moment makes a decent parallel to an illusion mes, at least as far as Gw2 allows currently.

I know Chaos Storm is probably one of the most horrifying AoEs for more folks (ask around) Mesmers are considered very fierce pvp opponents in WvWvW. Not so much solo though. I’ve been literally single targeted chased in my horde group, though a Guardian can do some of things we do just not so much reflect/conditions being laid down. Now that’s PvP in WvWvW and I haven’t done Arenas to know how that goes.

I do agree they need to look at the Mesmer and give us a bit more something, we lack AoE and our Burst is faint… that multiple respawns really become annoying on my mesmer, where as my defense oriented Guardian just whack-a-moles the same content.

Right now I think they should up our baseline dmg… quite a bit until they figure how to “balance” us.

I agree with most of this thread.

There should have been at least a couple conditions which had specific applications.

I’m reminded of a move from rift which caused people to blow up if they walked. I’d love to see things like this on mesmer. I want that aspect of control on a condition based build.

At the same time, I want the tools for damage based builds to make them feel less “passive-aggressive” in their play-style. I remember greatsword builds used to be like this in beta, but now they’ve watered GS builds down to the point it’s almost pointless.

I’d say domination mantra mesmer spec has pretty good burst and great control just like GW1 but I’m coming from a WvW perspective where I play one. I was a huge mesmer fan in GW1 so my first char for GW2 was mesmer. It has a very different style with clones, but if you play it a certain way you can still have the overall manipulative/strike fear effect.

I’ve spec heavily into power/crit/crit damage and have the ability to burst things from 1200 while also using dazes to interrupt. If the target is soft they sometimes can’t even avoid downed after rolling twice to avoid some of the burst. Then again, I liked domination in GW1 and was never much of a DoT/condition guy.

You act as if any role is nothing more than a weird damage dealer, no matter what spec you play you are nothing more than a damage dealer with a gimmick, it was dumbed down for the masses and basically its a button masher with short cooldowns

The power of mesmer in gw2 comes in pvp, where confusion does massive burst and feedback destroys zergs, you really feel like something far more powerfull than a gw1 mesmer or anything ive seen really in WvW as a mesmer, being able to litterally control the battlefield with your reflects and barriers

Lawbringer.1956:

You act as if any role is nothing more than a weird damage dealer, no matter what spec you play you are nothing more than a damage dealer with a gimmick, it was dumbed down for the masses and basically its a button masher with short cooldowns

Yes, yes this is exactly how I feel and I think this is exactly what GW2 is trying to accomplish. I think they’ve actually said it, in so many words, that it’s what they’re trying to do.

Lawbringer.1956:

The power of mesmer in gw2 comes in pvp, where confusion does massive burst and feedback destroys zergs, you really feel like something far more powerfull than a gw1 mesmer or anything ive seen really in WvW as a mesmer, being able to litterally control the battlefield with your reflects and barriers

I think it’s pretty obvious that I am talking about PvP and no, you’re somewhat deluding yourself if you think any of that is true. Feedback does not destroy zergs… What planet do you live on? This is the primary statement that leads to my former statement of you being deluded. Feedback, at most, makes people stop attacking for 6 seconds (its duration) and at worst, causes people to just take 3 seconds out of their time to walk around it. In WvW, as you described, it does hardly anything at all. Instead of using it and thinking “God I’m so awesome!”, actually pay attention to what you’ve changed/done; you’ll find that it was actually hardly anything at all. And it’s on a very long cool down for what it actually accomplishes (which is almost nothing).

If anything, feedback is better in sPvP where skirmishes take a much shorter time and the area being fought in is much smaller. But you’ll notice no good mesmers take feedback with them there, either.

Trust me, I felt like you did at first. I thought “Wow, feedback is so big and has such a devastating effect!” then I realized it only lasts 6 seconds and does maybe 10,000 damage, distributed among the 20 people firing through it accidentally (read: that’s not 10k to each person, that’s 10k divided by 20 people). Oh, and that’s being generous. It tricks less and less people as time goes on; you won’t see many people blindly keep firing through it like you would at release.

So no. You can not control the battlefield, unless “control” means stopping ranged attackers from attacking every 45 seconds with a 6 second, relatively small aoe that is easily walked around.

Have you actually paid attention at all to the enemy zerg when you’ve used it? Do you really think anyone is saying “Dukes! We’ve been foiled! Run!”?

Of course not. It does nothing to the zerg’s mentality at all. And why should it? You’re one individual.

Dear Narmix.4862.

the one living in a bubble is YOU. ive red your posts and came to a disturbing conclusion , you cant see further than your own nose.

Feedback+Iwarrden+iBerserker into a zerg attacking ur keep gate = ATLEAST 6 dead people out there.

as this been said , now to control u are looking for.
As you came to know , fighting a Mesmer is VERY confusing and irritation due to his clones , invisibility and whatnot.

want to help your team? what do be a commander? want to be of help? then L2P buddy.

make ur team invisible and flank the enemies , feedback their mages giving massive damage and letting your team to “catch their breath”, send clones of urself into the fray , they will die missrebly , but there again , u made few enemies to stop firing at real players for some time.

or maybe even take a staff and put some dots and Chaos feilds. that will sertanley kitten some people up aswell.

the amount of possibilities with a Mesmer are insane , all u need to do is 2 simple things.

QQ less , think more.

have a good day sir

I suggest taking the time to read all of the Mesmer’s skills and watch some Mesmer guide videos.

And I agree with you Narmix. Phantasms dmg should be toned down, added secondary effect AND new weapon that specialise in condition (not random ones) control.
Right now only iMage and iDisenchanter do the role I believe mesmer should do. Buff team, debuff enemy and grant decent dmg. Other phantasms are pure DPS. How about take 1/2 iDuelist dmg out and give him like 10% chance to daze target for 0,5s? (random numbers), how about adding berserker ability to shout to give nerby allys few stacks of might/fury between its attacks, etcetc.
How about giving mesmer mid range weapon like pistol and give it necro’s scepter like ability to bleed/burn/confuse/poison enemy (2 or 3 in chain skill 1 ability) and some cripples/buffs like retaliation for other 2 abilities. Or make it 1st ability bouning and 1 target bleeds, second burns or grants regeneration, thrid is confused or grant random_boon_name_here depending if 2nd and 3rd target is enemy or ally. Just not so random like staff. Still staff is best weapon for mes right now but too luck-dependant.

This would take down mesmers dmg by nerfing damage of its phantasms. Mesmer as DPS still will be viable with sword+anything/GS setup, and will make condition/support/disabler mesmer viable, not fully luck dependant

My Mesmer IS forcing my enemy to make choices ! Ignore my Phantasms to chase me and get destroyed by them OR ignore me and chase my phantasms and get destroyed by me .

WarHound.5170:

Dear Narmix.4862.

the one living in a bubble is YOU. ive red your posts and came to a disturbing conclusion , you cant see further than your own nose.

Feedback+Iwarrden+iBerserker into a zerg attacking ur keep gate = ATLEAST 6 dead people out there.

as this been said , now to control u are looking for.
As you came to know , fighting a Mesmer is VERY confusing and irritation due to his clones , invisibility and whatnot.

want to help your team? what do be a commander? want to be of help? then L2P buddy.

make ur team invisible and flank the enemies , feedback their mages giving massive damage and letting your team to “catch their breath”, send clones of urself into the fray , they will die missrebly , but there again , u made few enemies to stop firing at real players for some time.

or maybe even take a staff and put some dots and Chaos feilds. that will sertanley kitten some people up aswell.

the amount of possibilities with a Mesmer are insane , all u need to do is 2 simple things.

QQ less , think more.

have a good day sir

Thank you . This ^^

EcoFatalis.5068:

My Mesmer IS forcing my enemy to make choices ! Ignore my Phantasms to chase me and get destroyed by them OR ignore me and chase my phantasms and get destroyed by me .

And as you said – its all about who deals dmg – you or phantasms. I believe its not the way phantasms should be used. Right now its 50/50 dmg for mesmer and phantasms. About half of your dmg as power or crit mesmer comes from phantasms. Shouldnt it be more for mesmer, and phantasms used as utility?

I play as a distraction/condition mesmer, I don’t see mesmer as a top tier damage dealer anyways since I’ve tested all the classes and mesmer is pretty close to the bottom so you have to put your phantasms and clones to their best use with F1-F4 skills.

And I <3 feedback in WvWvW.

Run a heavy daze build and tell me a Mesmer can’t lock down.

Or shut down any projectile spammer with Feedback and Warden’s Feedback.

The tools are there; people just aren’t willing to make tradeoffs.

EasymodeX.4062:

Run a heavy daze build and tell me a Mesmer can’t lock down.

Or shut down any projectile spammer with Feedback and Warden’s Feedback.

The tools are there; people just aren’t willing to make tradeoffs.

Agreed there. It would still be great to have some of those weird skills back. I’m talking about the ones with really specific effects like the GW1 Arcane Thievery (which sort of came back with the engineer?), or Ignorance.
But all in all, the tools are there alright.

And as you said – its all about who deals dmg – you or phantasms. I believe its not the way phantasms should be used. Right now its 50/50 dmg for mesmer and phantasms. About half of your dmg as power or crit mesmer comes from phantasms. Shouldnt it be more for mesmer, and phantasms used as utility?

Why should it be that way? Because you said so? What’s wrong with disposable heavy hitting DoTs that actually exist in the physical game space? I think it’s a unique twist on class/DoT classes. Every class in GW2 is more varied than GW1. There are no “support” professions, just professions that can support. The Mesmer has outrageously good support, bordering on overpowered. If you want to play the class as a DPS that works great too though.

They certainly toned down “weird” or unique effects though between GW1 and GW2. That’s a general game design issue though, not specific to the Mesmer. It’s like the difference between DotA and LoL.

Heh, perma Vigor, strong Might uptime, double AOE heals, Protection procs, Regen procs.

Only thing a Mesmer doesn’t really provide in a support build is Stability.

And then all the conditions …

EasymodeX.4062:

Heh, perma Vigor, strong Might uptime, double AOE heals, Protection procs, Regen procs.

Only thing a Mesmer doesn’t really provide in a support build is Stability.

And then all the conditions …

And Swiftness, and 50% damage reduction from defender, reflection bubbles, etc. etc. etc.

Does Defender work for your group? Thought it was just you.

Mesmer if fine in wvwvw. If you are looking for more control I’m personally glad this game doesnt have it, too much cc has ruined so many mmos.

@Rhyno – its not the way simply because i can put down my 3 phantasms and do nothing, just take 3 cloaking spells and wait for my phantasms do everything. Thats the problem why others can call mesmer OP (even he is not, he does comparable dmg to every other class) . You have to kill mesmer OR to kill phantasms (unless you have a lot of aoe to kill them in single spell) and the distribution for dmg done by mesmer is around 50/50. So you will get kicked hard anyway.

Maybe I’m wrong but when AN announced mesmer as last class they called him condition dmg, causing chaos and phantasms were meant to be utility with some dmg power (for now it works for iMage, iDefender and iDisenchanter) not main dmg source (iSword, iBers, iDuelist, iWarlock) iWarden is somewhere between, and clones as distraction mechanic (its working as intended I believe).

And right now conditon dmg mesmer can work if you getting lucky and Staff’s 1 cause bleed/burning not vulnerability and to you might not fury (as condition dmg oriented you dont care about random crits for 300), same about chaos storm. Its better to cast it on yourself rather than enemy because buffs are better than conditions it causes (since they added daze its fine I think). But still Mesmer lacks of being able to STACK any kind of condition. Necros could stack bleeding(~15 i believe)+ quite long poison, thieves the same, wariors bleeding (even up to 25stacks), eles burning/bleeding (around 20 specced with earth), ranger bleeding (flanking) + pets cause poison/bleeding) And mesmer (luckily) can have ~8-10 bleedings (using 3 clones from staff), and spikes confusion (considering all traits with glamours causing confusion, using scepter, and IP +15 illusions trait probably you would keep that 6 stacks up for the whole fight, if not it would be spikes between 0-10stacks and speccing fully for confusion makes you glasscannon since all of these traits are in Domination and Illusions and being glasscannon does not synergies well with condition builds).

On the other hand you can use crit build and iDuelist alone would stack 6-8 bleeds not to mention its high dmg + your high dmg. Its not heavy hitting DoT just additional player. If you face 1v1 mesmer with 3 phantasms it does not matter if you kill phantasms or mesmer because the other source will kill you.

I like mesmer but i see why people can consider it as op . Every choice while facing mesmer is bad. Thats why i believe that phantasms should got toned down in dmg and buffed as utility tool (like the trait that gives regen near phantasm+when you gain regen you gain protection)

And I agree that support mesmer is fine – thanks to his utility spells, mantras healing traits (and traits generally) and elite. But only viable support weapon is staff (underwater trident), but we can swap weapons and we lack of choices, focus is fine but for supporting sword is useless, same scepter. Sword has at least good dmg but its melee.

^

The core error is that someone let the Mesmer stack 3 iDuelists on them. That situation, in general, is absurd.

Its not iDuelist alone problem. As I have proved somewhere else iSwordsman is better, it just dont stack bleedings but still does more dmg. iWarlock can crit for 1,8k too.
But AN cannot nerf phantasms directly because 3 phantasms is nearly half of mesmers DPS. And without phantasms mesmer does much less DMG than any other class (at least when i compare mesmer to my ranger, necro, warrior) so nerfing phantasms means they need to buff mesmer’s personal DMG by the amount they took off phantasms.

Personally I liked ideas from BWE weekends posted on forum to let mesmer have 2 clones and 2 phantasms at the same time but ONLY 2 phantasms and ONLY 2 clones. Not mixing like 3 clones and phantasm or 4 phantasms. Shattering only clones and adding chain spell to summon phantasm skills to grant side effect.

Lol, 3 phantasms is not half a Mesmers DPS, partially because 3 phantasms never happens in a reasonable situation. Either your target is dead or your phantasms are dying before you ever reach 3.

That, or you’re zerging a vet/champ and nothing you do really matters.

Mesmer damage is just fine without phantasm army. Most people are too lazy.

I mean, afk phantasm DPS is pretty much the worst possible burst damage build anyways. Don’t know why people are complaining about killing slow when they use slow-killing builds.

Play a necro or ele, now that sucks. Actually mesmer does exceptional damage (unless your phantasms get insta-gibbed by aoe) and have great utility and CC.

I am for one finally happy with my mesmer (after necro, ranger and ele). Maybe that’s just because I’m not enthralled by gw1 mesmer fantasies and instead look at the class like it is. Yeah it’s mostly a pet based bombing class, but at least it does work and work well. Necro pets are completely broken and ranger pets are but a passive dps source, and not even a reliable one – any possible utility they could bring is completely negated by the absurdly long cast times on relevant pet skills (aka f2). Phantasms do fine both in dps and utility, and shatters are a fine mechanic.

Yeah right, shatters are a fine class mechanic. Death shroud just plain blows: any survivability based synergies with it have been nerfed, direct damage necros are completely dependant on it to deliver aoe damage and it does not work in pvp at all since you are focused, and also most of necro’s utility is somewhat based on using DS as well. Not to mention DS is extremely one-dimensional and uncustomizable. Yeah attunements also suck, because in favor of those auto-attacks in every attunement on every weapon are nerfed, and the other skills fail to compensate. Ranger’s pets are virtually useless with all of the pathing or skill usage problems. Engineer toolbelt skills are just there to compensate for the garbage kits they are getting in utilities. Compared to the actually broken mechanics of other classes, shatters are good.

Also on a side note, since the iduelist nerfs iwarlock is now strictly better if the target has at least 2 conditions on them, which is to say, always.

Scepter:
1 – clone factory , while i feel this skill is a little slow with high cast, it sure do gets the job done, great to shatter clones , f2 = 6 confusing stacks for 7s
2 – while the counter ability is awesome i prefer its blind effect , blind = 1 confuse stack
3 – 5 confuse stacks on a low cooldown skill
Torch
4 – first cast , aoe blind = 1 aoe confuse , after casting, 5s aoe burning
5 – Image – confuse + retalation for you

there you go your condition weapons that arent random at all( of course, spec on illusions for blindness causing confusion as well.)

and if you spec dominion you can add 9 vulnerability stacks on a single f3.

3 phantasms never happen? defending point alone i always end up with 3 phantasms. Im using mostly power/shatter build so i shatter them away just to get another 3. If you dont insta gibb them by aoe i need only 8 sec to have 3 phantasms. Shatter mechanic is fine, but 3 phantasms alone dmg is too high. Not the whole mesmer+phantasm dmg, just phantasms alone.
Tevesh cant agree with your statement about other classes broken mechanics because all are fine right now but its not forum to discuss other classes mechanics. But please tell me what utility brings iWarlock or iDuellist? Ok iDuellist has combo finisher. But still the biggest utility is killing ppl XD Compare his utility and dmg to iMage or iDefender.

@Sabin I said you can go fully for confusion stacking, be 16k hp, 1,8k armor, die in 2 hits. But its not reliable since you need enemy to attack you for confusion to work. With full confusion based build you can have even up to 20 stacks burst or constant 10-12 whole time but is it really worth? It works quite fun in sPVP for zergs but not in tPVP. And staff to stack anything needs to have 3 clones, which you need to shatter for confusion stacks.

Gibon.1705:

3 phantasms never happen? defending point alone i always end up with 3 phantasms.

So what you’re saying is that all the people trying to take a point from you are too dumb to realize that they can glance in the phantasm’s general direction and make it go poof, all while looking for the shrubbery you’re hidden behind.

+20% hp trait and you have to put at least 4 attacks to destroy phantasm (not to mention signet which some are using). Focus on phantasm so I can attack you without you attacking me. Attack me so phantasms cankittenyou. (wtf censorship XD)
I dont want any nerf for mesmers since I love it, but want some tweaks in favor of power and condition mesmers over crit mesmers. Just to balance them. And not to hear from everyone that mesmer is easy OP class because its not. Just there is not good solution what to focus in fight unless you have aoes to take down phantasms.

If you’re running 15/15 Chaos Insp for the point sitting tank-ish build, you are not doing a ton of personal damage. Also, it doesn’t take “4 hits” to pop the phantasm unless:

- You are running Signet of Illusions, and
- I’m using autoattacks (LOL) to pop them

Your assumptions are weird. Also, every 1v1 is different. Personally I’d have Warden’s Feedback, so I can basically ignore any projectile phantasms and let them kill themselves. Some classes could passively drive-by-AOE the phantasms like they’re nothing, or Blind/Block them (mostly applicable to Warlock or Swordsman).

A Ranger could penetrate multiple phantasms in a line while attacking you with any of their attacks.

An opponent Infinite Clone Works build could also simply block the projectiles from the clone spam. Personally I find the most dangerous attack from other Mesmers is Mirror Blade.

Shrug.

i know that confusion needs the enemy to be attacking you, that’s why you have 6 ways of blinding the enemy and the enemy might hit your clones for those confusion to trigger, not mentioning that chaos armor is a great way to increase your defenses and grant regen while at the same time adds more stacks to the attacking, there is also feedback bubble for ranged. i’ve been able to win a lot of 1on1 and even some 1on2 with confusion stacking build. If played wise i think its worth.

thehunt.9315:

I know Chaos Storm is probably one of the most horrifying AoEs for more folks (ask around) Mesmers are considered very fierce pvp opponents in WvWvW. Not so much solo though.

Are you kidding? A mesmer is a monster “solo”. Its the worst nightmare beside a backtab/bleed thief that you can face 1v1.

Narmix.4862:

Reflections like feedback? How do you keep reflections up? The mesmer doesn’t have many at all; the personal heal, traited focus and feedback. Doesn’t seem like enough to honestly force a zerg to change their strategy.

Chaos Storm upon yourself.

Mayama.1854:

thehunt.9315:

I know Chaos Storm is probably one of the most horrifying AoEs for more folks (ask around) Mesmers are considered very fierce pvp opponents in WvWvW. Not so much solo though.

Are you kidding? A mesmer is a monster “solo”. Its the worst nightmare beside a backtab/bleed thief that you can face 1v1.

Agreed (although I hate backstab thieves with a passion as a Mesmer). The ability to kite and condition damage your opponent to nothing is remarkable to say the least.

EasymodeX.4062:

Lol, 3 phantasms is not half a Mesmers DPS, partially because 3 phantasms never happens in a reasonable situation. Either your target is dead or your phantasms are dying before you ever reach 3.

That, or you’re zerging a vet/champ and nothing you do really matters.

Mesmer damage is just fine without phantasm army. Most people are too lazy.

I mean, afk phantasm DPS is pretty much the worst possible burst damage build anyways. Don’t know why people are complaining about killing slow when they use slow-killing builds.

Are you unaware that you carry two weapons equipped at the same time?
1) Phantasmal defender
2) iDuelist
3) iBerserker.

There you go, I have three phantasms out. Your move, Sherlock…

No but bitter jokes appart, there is no reason to ever have troubles getting your phantasms out. You people need to learn how to switch weapons…

There you go, I have three phantasms out. Your move, Sherlock…

I guess you weren’t following the conversation from the start, they are discussing DPS phantasms.

Actually, the Mesmer is the one true general of the WvW. Portal and two wide stealths make us the masters of logistics. It’s probably only a matter of time till all the top WvW guilds use a Mesmer to make engage/disengage calls.

Mesmers offer the highest amount of control with their damage. They deal more pressure than burst, and steadily, masterfully trump their foes. I never feel like their damage is lacking, it just isn’t explosive.

I wana make a simple point here to all the people who keep talking about gw1 mesm vs gw2 mesm. To me its simple… there is no longer a tri-fecta set up. IE tank / heal / dps. with a support roll or two open. Here everyone is expected to dps / support / and at least self heal. You can’t expect mesm to be a focused class not in this game. We have toons of options, and the best mesm tend to run a good mix of support and dps. anyone who says our clones dont draw fire… doesnt do pvp / wvw much. You can litterly pump out clones faster than they die.. well most of the time aoe storms can be a problem. and most of the good ones look enough like the player to draw fire for a second or two ( which is about all it takes to kill one ). But thats the point. I run in small groups, normaly 2 – 4 people. and have seen zergs turn and go around us while we were beating the day lights out of some other small group. Why? cause from range, our clones red names look just like players. People dont bother to target them, they just see a sea of red ( 4 names from me, + 3+ from rest of group depending on pets etc ) makeing it look like more people than it is. I have seen this happen with necro also, who brings the 5 names to the field. Its all about confusion.

Least assume for a min, that they do bother to tab target through it all ( which most people use ) than each pet is another possible target they will tab to. just cause they die fast, doesnt mean they are not doing their jobs.

P.S. gramer sucks and Im to drunk to spell check.

Mayama.1854:

thehunt.9315:

I know Chaos Storm is probably one of the most horrifying AoEs for more folks (ask around) Mesmers are considered very fierce pvp opponents in WvWvW. Not so much solo though.

Are you kidding? A mesmer is a monster “solo”. Its the worst nightmare beside a backtab/bleed thief that you can face 1v1.

No I’m not kidding, I take out Mesmers easily on my Guardian. I don’t know if it’s because I play both classes or not… but I find Mesmers one of the easiest 1v1 on it.

I’m not saying Mesmers are bad 1v1 or not scary (to some of my guildies they really are) just saying with a group they are far more devastating.

I can’t even get started on mesmers right now, but I’m glad to see otherskitten off in the same way I am.

Keep on doing what you are doing.

Don’t listen to people from other games, they will say you don’t like mesmer because you are bad at it.

They just don’t have any idea what they are even talking about when it’s a guildwars 1 mesmer talking.

Plus our staff set is a bit ridiculous and we are pretty much a melee class with light armor.

This just doesn’t make any sense if you played domination in gw1.

Funny you say you play a necro as the closest thing to a mesmer in gw1, I’d say the hammer warrior is the closest thing to a domination mesmer in this game.