Guild Wars 2

So you want to run with the Zerg ?

Chances are you will never get a group Because people just do not see the advantage to being in a group with a Mesmer ( fair enough ) . Get used to running solo with no help at all. (yes even if your in a WvW guild )

The zerg leader will always want Mesmer veils and Portals. And do not be surprised if the leader swears at the mesmer’s when that veil is not spot on perfect or they have to wait a micro second for you to hit the button and place the line in front of them ( Most of the time while on the run ).

And when the leader says Mesmer’s type ( M ) in chat so they can see who to appoint to veil 1,2,3 ect… and your the only one who types M out of 40 players don’t have a Heart attack ( Yes the " Zerg Mesmer" is a dieing breed) .

I do not think people realize how hard the job really is. Or that your giving up a valuable slot on your bar for Veil that could be used for something else that might save your life .

They treat you like a Tool to help win the battle.

And no one ever thanks you as a Mesmer even if your Veil won them the fight.

I am seeing less and less Mesmer’s out there in the Zerg’s but after playing one for a while I can completely understand.

I play with the zerg from time to time, but I won’t slot Veil for nobody. Veil is as pointless as trying to run backwards into the midst of the zerg fray, on a squishy build, without equipping weapons. Blindfolded.

Nobody is fooled by it. Nobody is caught off guard because of it. Fields are still thrown down exactly where you are moving so stealthily towards your foes. It’s easy to predict movement when you can see half the tail before they pass through the field. The mid- to the back of the tail is going to be targets of ranged skills regardless, so it only protected the precious Commander and his up-close posse from direct attacks, for mere moments. Veil, is overrated. It doesn’t last long enough to be of impact. It is a tool for fool Commanders to shout about.

I do my job. I don’t die. I remove Boons and lock down our enemies while dealing damage. Enemies who goes down in the blink of an eye once they can’t move anywhere. Does my team notice? Probably not. Nobody likely notices the lockdown in their midst. But I provide support far more valuable than some ineffective short attempt of a stealth-engagement. I don’t die. I do my job. I resurrect our downed allies, while I lock down, dealing damage. We just wiped teams twice our size. We had no Veil. The Commander still cries for it. A fool, crying after an unnecessary tool.

Absconditus.6804:

I play with the zerg from time to time, but I won’t slot Veil for nobody. Veil is as pointless as trying to run backwards into the midst of the zerg fray, on a squishy build, without equipping weapons. Blindfolded.

Nobody is fooled by it. Nobody is caught off guard because of it. Fields are still thrown down exactly where you are moving so stealthily towards your foes. It’s easy to predict movement when you can see half the tail before they pass through the field. The mid- to the back of the tail is going to be targets of ranged skills regardless, so it only protected the precious Commander and his up-close posse from direct attacks, for mere moments. Veil, is overrated. It doesn’t last long enough to be of impact. It is a tool for fool Commanders to shout about.

I do my job. I don’t die. I remove Boons and lock down our enemies while dealing damage. Enemies who goes down in the blink of an eye once they can’t move anywhere. Does my team notice? Probably not. Nobody likely notices the lockdown in their midst. But I provide support far more valuable than some ineffective short attempt of a stealth-engagement. I don’t die. I do my job. I resurrect our downed allies, while I lock down, dealing damage. We just wiped teams twice our size. We had no Veil. The Commander still cries for it. A fool, crying after an unnecessary tool.

While I don’t care if you run veil or not, a good guild raid group will move as one so that there is no “tail”. Also, good use of a veil involves misdirection, a fake push if you will, that will bait out enemy aoe’s and CC’s. If you’ve ever been a part of a GvG you’d know how important a veil (or two) is upon the opening of an engagement and how it effects the flow of a fight from the outset.

When coordinated groups use those sorts of advanced tactics on an unorganized blob, it makes all the difference in the world.

But anyway, since it sounds like you’re just another random within the cluster of randoms, there’s not really any expectation for either you, or your commander to use veil to its potential. Saying its not possible though, or done on a daily basis, that’s just wrong.

P.s. I hate slotting veil too :)

You may find veil pointless because it won’t reward you personally, but it does give tactical advantage to the whole guild group. Initial clash can mean everything, so the way your cmdr guide your group after you walk through that veil could mean victory or wipe.

Trying to find more recent video but here are 2 about how their zerg use veil, kudos for people who film them. You’ll see veil isn’t just charging forward into AoE fields that are laid out by opponent, there are also feinting, using terrain or even cut through enemies midline from the side.

5:35 for mesmer one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=335&v=j8tbGcA2SC4

Mesmers are tools :P I am called the Portal-b****h in my guild for the exact reason, but only because nobody else can do it like I do :s

Unfortunately yes, mesmer is a utility bot at its current state due to illusions die to AoE all the time. HoT does bring a whole lot of offensive skills though. With the new change in shield block I could see Runes of guardian (no ICD burn on block) as a very good tagging tool if you’re missing bags and when wells just don’t cut enough profit. Kind of like the good o’ mimic burn build.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Absconditus.6804:

I play with the zerg from time to time, but I won’t slot Veil for nobody. Veil is as pointless as trying to run backwards into the midst of the zerg fray, on a squishy build, without equipping weapons. Blindfolded.

Nobody is fooled by it. Nobody is caught off guard because of it. Fields are still thrown down exactly where you are moving so stealthily towards your foes. It’s easy to predict movement when you can see half the tail before they pass through the field. The mid- to the back of the tail is going to be targets of ranged skills regardless, so it only protected the precious Commander and his up-close posse from direct attacks, for mere moments. Veil, is overrated. It doesn’t last long enough to be of impact. It is a tool for fool Commanders to shout about.

I do my job. I don’t die. I remove Boons and lock down our enemies while dealing damage. Enemies who goes down in the blink of an eye once they can’t move anywhere. Does my team notice? Probably not. Nobody likely notices the lockdown in their midst. But I provide support far more valuable than some ineffective short attempt of a stealth-engagement. I don’t die. I do my job. I resurrect our downed allies, while I lock down, dealing damage. We just wiped teams twice our size. We had no Veil. The Commander still cries for it. A fool, crying after an unnecessary tool.

While I don’t care if you run veil or not, a good guild raid group will move as one so that there is no “tail”. Also, good use of a veil involves misdirection, a fake push if you will, that will bait out enemy aoe’s and CC’s. If you’ve ever been a part of a GvG you’d know how important a veil (or two) is upon the opening of an engagement and how it effects the flow of a fight from the outset.

When coordinated groups use those sorts of advanced tactics on an unorganized blob, it makes all the difference in the world.

But anyway, since it sounds like you’re just another random within the cluster of randoms, there’s not really any expectation for either you, or your commander to use veil to its potential. Saying its not possible though, or done on a daily basis, that’s just wrong.

P.s. I hate slotting veil too

A good guild group or not, there will always be a tail. There is no argument about it, there is always a tail, some larger than others (when unorganized). There is no single group of players that are capable of running perfectly together, we’re not machines, we’re human. All it takes is one slowpoke. Due to this, you will with some mental gymnastics be able to predict very nicely where a group of players are likely going to move, or not move, through “fake pushing” if you will, a tactic that hardly worked in 2012, nor does it really work in 2015, well, against anyone with baseline knowledge of such tactics that is. It’s as such, not what I’d call advanced tactics. Not when it’s something that’s been done for over 2 years solid. You can spot it a mile away after having done it for over 4000 hours. When I say you, I mean you, you, as-in Ross, you can spot that fake push a mile away. I know you can, you’ve been here long enough to stick out as not being a “scrub”. Each team’s goal is to approach the other team, usually sooner than later, so a quick “advanced tactical” counter is to run towards them as per usual, then backpedal in the angle that gives the best distance from its location, as soon as you see the Veil being dropped. They’ll appear a few seconds later, and it doesn’t matter what their planned tactic using Veil were. They better come up with a new one on the fly as you rush them.

I have never had much interest in GvG, not as it exists in Guild Wars 2, that is true. But I’ve been a part of my fair share during these 3 years, and nothing is more ridiculous than watching two groups of 20 or so players knowingly clash together in open space, trying to use Veil as some sort of desperate attempt to use “advanced tactics”. Do you know what won that fight? Not Veil, it was the harassers picking off the right people, the train of the clash smartly using their offensive and defensive skills, at the right time. Throw down more than one Veil and you make it all the more easier to spot what you’re doing for that matter. Both sides tends to use Veil and the same bait tactics, yet remarkably one side wins. I wonder what caused the victory, must be Veil.

When an organized group clashes with an unorganized group and utterly destroys it, Veil had barely anything to do with it, it was rather the organized manner of which they play together, Veil aside. They know how to function like a well oiled machine, in combat. They know how to properly cover each one another with water fields when healing, fire fields when stacking Might, to not overlap vital fields, Stability through the right group compositions, Protection application, Aegis, how to do pit stop quick-revive on their downed allies (or bannering and the likes), and how to survive individually, etc.

These days I am indeed a random in the randoms (or often I tag alongside guild groups that aren’t so full of themselves that they think everyone is a rally bot). I mainly roam if I’m not doing sPvP to satiate my PvP hunger, as zerging for the most part bores me. Besides the past couple days when my server (SFR) has been seemingly more focused on getting fun outnumbered fights than on taking structures, but that’s besides the point. I don’t even play as much as I used to, while awaiting HoT. But I’ve spent well over 4000 hours in an organized setting. They too asked for Veil, but eventually realized it wasn’t Veil that made a difference, but rather how we played together while we were visible.

I’m fine with people still thinking Veil is some necessity. Maybe they’re inexperienced (I would rather think they are “brainwashed” by the peer pressure to use the skill), but I’m certain they’ll notice it as not being as great as some seem to like making it out to be, eventually—and to put a bit more faith in their team’s capabilities beyond a gimmick “miracle” skill. Try running without it for a while, your performance as a team should hardly be diminished. You can still bait skills by doing quick maneuvering. Veil is an alright skill for.. well nothing. There’s no reason to use Veil when you can stealth up your team with a Thief in PvE. I was about to say you could use it for skipping enemies, but truly, not even there is Veil really all that useful. Not when others can do what it’d do, better. Granted there is alternative options available that is. In GvG you’d use a Thief to stealth the harassers. Much more useful.

PS: And ok, fair enough, I shouldn’t say nobody gets fooled by Veil tactics. But most people with some experience aren’t going to fall for it. It’s not a miracle that shifts the tide of battle. The team’s capabilities individually and together is.

3 things:
- Mesmers are treated just as tools because the mesmers put themselves in that job, just as veil/portal bot. It’s really hard to see a mesmer who is pushing to do as much damage as it could. Most run very conservative build to not to die, or even some have run the glamour confusion build years after it was nerfed to the ground.

- Mesmer players take a passive playstyle in zergs. That means you wait for the commander to do your work. Be smarter, put a veil in a charge without the commander asking to do it, channel a second veil, pay attention to the chat for people asking for the portal, be proactive and tell the commander to do portal bombs…

- Most mesmers are more worried about tagging enemies, than be impactful. With this mentality it’s difficult for our profession to be successful and commanders to appreciate us more.

I usually don’t keep Portal equipped, I just slot it in when asked.

I agree with others who’ve said that Veil is an over-used tool that removes a skill from a player’s bar and doesn’t always contribute meaningfully to battle. However, 1 skill slot isn’t a whole lot in the bigger picture and when it does work- it works well.

Skill-wise, I will continue to argue that mesmers are in a weird, weird spot. Our class mechanic is all but useless in large battles as our illusions rarely reach their targets. We provide valuable niche utility, but our personal damage contribution is low.

I perform my best when I work within these limitations. If I’m going power-shatter, defend the back line from the few enemies that make it through. If I want to do more support, bring feedback and focus. Interrupt lockdown is a good way to contribute as well.

HoT is going to change a lot. Engineers will be able to add stealth support. We’ll be getting very useful Wells and shield performs wonderfully in large groups.

I’m running a pvt utility bot currently.

Focus reflect
Mantra healing
Chaotic interruption, no pu ;-(
Boon strip, mindstab/nullfield/shatters
Aoe condi clense, god bless inspiration magic
Cripples galore with gs

Mantra of healing, nullfield, blink, (open), mass Invisibility
(Open):
mantra of pain, spam healing
Mantra of daze(?) Less mantra healing, more interupts for immobilize
Veil, rarely since I don’t use pu
Portal, cause I’m a Mesmer portal kitten

I got no idea how to play Mesmer but I don’t regret playing a utility bot over my pewpew ranger while running with group/zerg.

Absconditus.6804:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Absconditus.6804:

I play with the zerg from time to time, but I won’t slot Veil for nobody. Veil is as pointless as trying to run backwards into the midst of the zerg fray, on a squishy build, without equipping weapons. Blindfolded.

Nobody is fooled by it. Nobody is caught off guard because of it. Fields are still thrown down exactly where you are moving so stealthily towards your foes. It’s easy to predict movement when you can see half the tail before they pass through the field. The mid- to the back of the tail is going to be targets of ranged skills regardless, so it only protected the precious Commander and his up-close posse from direct attacks, for mere moments. Veil, is overrated. It doesn’t last long enough to be of impact. It is a tool for fool Commanders to shout about.

I do my job. I don’t die. I remove Boons and lock down our enemies while dealing damage. Enemies who goes down in the blink of an eye once they can’t move anywhere. Does my team notice? Probably not. Nobody likely notices the lockdown in their midst. But I provide support far more valuable than some ineffective short attempt of a stealth-engagement. I don’t die. I do my job. I resurrect our downed allies, while I lock down, dealing damage. We just wiped teams twice our size. We had no Veil. The Commander still cries for it. A fool, crying after an unnecessary tool.

While I don’t care if you run veil or not, a good guild raid group will move as one so that there is no “tail”. Also, good use of a veil involves misdirection, a fake push if you will, that will bait out enemy aoe’s and CC’s. If you’ve ever been a part of a GvG you’d know how important a veil (or two) is upon the opening of an engagement and how it effects the flow of a fight from the outset.

When coordinated groups use those sorts of advanced tactics on an unorganized blob, it makes all the difference in the world.

But anyway, since it sounds like you’re just another random within the cluster of randoms, there’s not really any expectation for either you, or your commander to use veil to its potential. Saying its not possible though, or done on a daily basis, that’s just wrong.

P.s. I hate slotting veil too

A good guild group or not, there will always be a tail. There is no argument about it, there is always a tail, some larger than others (when unorganized). There is no single group of players that are capable of running perfectly together, we’re not machines, we’re human.

And yet we have skilled artists, musicians, dancers, acrobats, and dare I say swimmers who’s very careers and success depends on their acting in unison as good as machines. They’re all human by the way ;D

Essentially what you’re saying is that I couldn’t get twenty people to stand shoulder to shoulder in a line, count down “three, two, one,” and have that line of people take a synchronized step forward at the exact same time. That’s the level of difficulty we’re facing here, only replace the movement of two legs with the press of a button with the middle finger.

-_-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Ok, Veil is maybe an overrated skill, but let’s talk about an underrated Skill: Sigil of inspiration

I don’t know if it’s worth it in this “small” gvg groups, but with 3+ Mesmers you can stack boons to a ridiculus amount of times. (+3min swiftnes, +2min furry, +1min vigor +2min regeneration ~1min protection)
with ~6 mesmers it’s pretty easy to maintain these bonns on a +30 (Public)zerg.
You can run from your spawn to any point on the map, and be buffed all the time.

You get surprised by an ennemy? no problem, your zerg is already buffed and ready to strike back. And once you’re infight, it’s verry likely, that most of your zerg is moving around with more boons than usual.
Teamwork + Sigil of Inspiration is a very strong tool.
Your zerg may notice the difference

And huh surpries surprise, the mesmer dosen’t lose that much (he can still burst and survive) if he specs for boonshare, but his team will gain a lot.

Rikit Runk.5170:

Ok, Veil is maybe an overrated skill, but let’s talk about an underrated Skill: Sigil of inspiration

I don’t know if it’s worth it in this “small” gvg groups, but with 3+ Mesmers you can stack boons to a ridiculus amount of times. (+3min swiftnes, +2min furry, +1min vigor +2min regeneration ~1min protection)
with ~6 mesmers it’s pretty easy to maintain these bonns on a +30 (Public)zerg.
You can run from your spawn to any point on the map, and be buffed all the time.

You get surprised by an ennemy? no problem, your zerg is already buffed and ready to strike back. And once you’re infight, it’s verry likely, that most of your zerg is moving around with more boons than usual.
Teamwork + Sigil of Inspiration is a very strong tool.
Your zerg may notice the difference

And huh surpries surprise, the mesmer dosen’t lose that much (he can still burst and survive) if he specs for boonshare, but his team will gain a lot.

Yes you are 100% correct on the sigil but people do not know enough about it and and what your talking about is asking way way to much of people. Good luck finding 3 Mesmer’s to run that in a group and know what it does and how to use it !!!!

If you had a full group of Mesmer’s all running that Sigil with +20-30% Boon Duration + each one doing mass invis with the PU skill the whole group could potentially have 8 perma boons running all of the time it would be so OP it would get nerfed.

I shutter to think of a 5 person Mesmer Group with perma boons and im guessing perma stealth if you timed it right. All running around in WvW that would be one scary bunch of people to run into if your alone. I hope that never happens to me.

Ansau.7326:

- Mesmers are treated just as tools because the mesmers put themselves in that job, just as veil/portal bot. It’s really hard to see a mesmer who is pushing to do as much damage as it could. Most run very conservative build to not to die, or even some have run the glamour confusion build years after it was nerfed to the ground.

This is total bunk.

I and many others have tried our very best to make mesmers viable in terms of large damage output in a zerg. Unfortunately, it’s simply not possible due to the mechanics of the class. You’ll try something, get a bit of success with it, then go play a staff ele for comparison and realize just how incomparable the two are. Ever since glamours were nerfed into the ground, mesmer has been 100% totally nonviable for significant damage output other than in a pick group.

Fay.2357:

I and many others have tried our very best to make mesmers viable in terms of large damage output in a zerg. Unfortunately, it’s simply not possible due to the mechanics of the class. You’ll try something, get a bit of success with it, then go play a staff ele for comparison and realize just how incomparable the two are. Ever since glamours were nerfed into the ground, mesmer has been 100% totally nonviable for significant damage output other than in a pick group.

I definitely agree with this. That’s not to say we’re useless… but I definitely don’t think “damage” is my top contribution to my group. Reflects, Pulls, Veil, Portal, and Interrupts are usually where I feel I’m helping the most. Not the most bag-rewarding tasks, unfortunately. A staff ele or well necro will usually land me more income than my mesmer.

I’m really hoping HoT changes this a bit. Shield’s limitless Tides of Time skill, Wells, and faster recharge from Alacrity/F5 may help ease some of the pain a bit. Not sure it’ll overtake the dedicated AoE damage builds, but might get us closer.

Kelthien.8593:

Fay.2357:

I and many others have tried our very best to make mesmers viable in terms of large damage output in a zerg. Unfortunately, it’s simply not possible due to the mechanics of the class. You’ll try something, get a bit of success with it, then go play a staff ele for comparison and realize just how incomparable the two are. Ever since glamours were nerfed into the ground, mesmer has been 100% totally nonviable for significant damage output other than in a pick group.

I definitely agree with this. That’s not to say we’re useless… but I definitely don’t think “damage” is my top contribution to my group. Reflects, Pulls, Veil, Portal, and Interrupts are usually where I feel I’m helping the most. Not the most bag-rewarding tasks, unfortunately. A staff ele or well necro will usually land me more income than my mesmer.

I’m really hoping HoT changes this a bit. Shield’s limitless Tides of Time skill, Wells, and faster recharge from Alacrity/F5 may help ease some of the pain a bit. Not sure it’ll overtake the dedicated AoE damage builds, but might get us closer.

in my Opinion (AoE)-Damage is not everything.
I would prefer one player in downstate, over 5 Players almost dead. And Mesmer is great at keeping pressure on a single Target.
Lockdown + no projectile +1200range is a powerfull combo to make shure that our target stay in unhealthy places and will kiss the floor sooner or later, to rally 5 of our unlucky friends. Or well, leave the lockdown alone, and buff your friends, with all that lovely boons they need to make the kill.

Oh and i guess the Elite Well will be amazing Pull+flow+stabiliy+damage.

Rikit Runk.5170:

Lockdown + no projectile +1200range is a powerfull combo to make shure that our target stay in unhealthy places and will kiss the floor sooner or later

If the other group is at all competent, they’ll have plenty of stab to protect a lockdown from a lone mesmer. Additionally, it’s absolutely impossible to actually get skillful interrupts on someone in a zerg, there’s too much visual spam. You just have to randomly toss out disables and hope something lands, which is hardly that beneficial to your group. I’ve tried this befoer.

Rikit Runk.5170:

Or well, leave the lockdown alone, and buff your friends, with all that lovely boons they need to make the kill.

Or just bring a guard instead, since they’ll give might, aegis, prot, stab, and swiftness all better than a mesmer can without gimping their build.

Ive been playing a glamour build and it’s okish, Feedback is gold, no complaints with it. Null field is a bit kitten, the 1st pulse should rip like 3 boons and then 1 every boon after. Same with the condi clear, 3 on 1st pulse, 1 every pulse after. The resistance and super speed could be a little longer but then has the potential to be over the top in PvP.

Time warp’s cooldown is too long, 3 minutes for a skill that affects 5 friends and 5 enemies. In a small man scenario ok yes it is very strong, warrants the timer. In a zerg situation does it really matter 5 ppl out of that 35 man blob are slowed? No, not really.

And they need to review blasting ethereal fields, pretty much the last field you want to blast, ok maybe light is the last field you want to blast.

Wait literally one month and one day from now, slot chronomancer, and take wells of calamity, action, precognition, and eternity.

Problem solved.

Fay.2357:

Or just bring a guard instead, since they’ll give might, aegis, prot, stab, and swiftness all better than a mesmer can without gimping their build.

“gimping their build” you mean equip one sigil and maybe take inspirarition as traitline?
i hardly call that gimping their build.
And better than a guardian? propaly not if alone, but if said guard groups up with 3 boonshare mesmers, most of his boons last up to ~30 times longer.
and more than 5 people can profit from his boons…
Jeah Guardian is absolutely better than boonshare mesmer and guard has to sacrifice nothing for boonshare, right?

Rikit Runk.5170:

Fay.2357:

Or just bring a guard instead, since they’ll give might, aegis, prot, stab, and swiftness all better than a mesmer can without gimping their build.

“gimping their build” you mean equip one sigil and maybe take inspirarition as traitline?
i hardly call that gimping their build.
And better than a guardian? propaly not if alone, but if said guard groups up with 3 boonshare mesmers, most of his boons last up to ~30 times longer.
and more than 5 people can profit from his boons…
Jeah Guardian is absolutely better than boonshare mesmer and guard has to sacrifice nothing for boonshare, right?

What?

If you have a guard grouped with 3 boonshare mesmers, you’re going to happily be sharing boons back and forth between 3 boonshare mesmers and a guard thanks to how buff priority works.

Additionally, you could just ditch those mesmers…and get more guardians. On top of sharing all those boons, those guardians are also doing aoe heals and removing conditions at the very same time. On top of all that support, the guardian is doing good aoe damage as a tanky frontline build. Guardian is simply objectively better than mesmer. I’d take a guardian over some boonshare mesmer any day of the week.

Fay.2357:

If you have a guard grouped with 3 boonshare mesmers, you’re going to happily be sharing boons back and forth between 3 boonshare mesmers and a guard thanks to how buff priority works.

yes for stacking this boons up you use the group, but once these buffs are up, you can spread out, in your zerg, so your group mates aren’t in range, to share the bonns with your zerg.

I tested it, loved it. If you don’t like it thats okay, im just here show an Option that works well for me and my mates.

Fay.2357:

This is total bunk.

I and many others have tried our very best to make mesmers viable in terms of large damage output in a zerg. Unfortunately, it’s simply not possible due to the mechanics of the class. You’ll try something, get a bit of success with it, then go play a staff ele for comparison and realize just how incomparable the two are. Ever since glamours were nerfed into the ground, mesmer has been 100% totally nonviable for significant damage output other than in a pick group.

Your mentality is what I’m talking about: First, since eles and necros do way more damage than us, let’s forget about this thing, WRONG.
And second you measure the damage as the amount of hits you achieve, and that’s the wrong way to do it (Better deal 4k to 2 people than 1000 to 15).

I won’t negate our damage is much lower than eles and necros, but that doesn’t mean we’re not able to do big damage spikes. In fact, mesmers are more capable than what people usually think.

Rikit Runk.5170:

yes for stacking this boons up you use the group, but once these buffs are up, you can spread out, in your zerg, so your group mates aren’t in range, to share the bonns with your zerg.

This takes so much time and effort to do though, it’s extremely inefficient. First you need to get the guards and mesmers together, the guards provide boons, the mesmers share them back and forth to stack up time. Now you have to split up, wait on the cooldown of the signet, and then share again. This is going to take 20-30 seconds to do in total before you’re able to actually deliver those boons to the group.

If you just took guards instead, the lag time between wanting to provide boons and providing boons is instant.

Ansau.7326:

Your mentality is what I’m talking about: First, since eles and necros do way more damage than us, let’s forget about this thing, WRONG.
And second you measure the damage as the amount of hits you achieve, and that’s the wrong way to do it (Better deal 4k to 2 people than 1000 to 15).

I won’t negate our damage is much lower than eles and necros, but that doesn’t mean we’re not able to do big damage spikes. In fact, mesmers are more capable than what people usually think.

You’re horrendously misrepresenting the facts of the situation. Let’s get more specific to cut through the bluster, shall we?

Mesmer bursting damage is typically quite strong. The standard mirror blade burst combo can unload 10k-13k damage nearly instantly, and that’s very powerful. However, there are caveats associated with this:

Firstly, that burst is single target. For an aoe burst value, you can remove about 4k off the top, leaving us at 6k-9k total. Additionally, this burst relies on 2 clones; one from mirror blade and one from a dodge roll. Lastly, this burst requires you to be at point blank range of your target to execute, otherwise the damage drops drastically.

All 3 of these things are a big problem. If you only burst a single person, their allies will just hit F and res them instantly. Leaving the burst reliant on illusions means that in a situation with aoe pressure, your burst will be 100% eliminated. Lastly, being at point blank range in an enemy group is distinctly unhealthy.

Now, let’s compare it to what eles are capable of doing. Meteor shower is a large aoe capable of being cast from 1200 range. It hits many times, effectively having an extremely high target cap. Each hit from meteor shower will do 6k-8k damage on a squishy target.

So here we have one single skill from Elementalist. It does similar damage in a single hit to what Mesmer does in a burst combo. It hits many targets, can be cast from 1200 range, and is ground targeted with a big aoe making it useful on walls.

If literally the only skill on their bar was meteor shower, Elementalists would still be better than mesmers.

You’ve also got lava font, the 1200 range aoe doing 3k-4k a tick. On the utility side you’ve got static field, unsteady ground, and multiple water fields. Essentially, Elementalist is just better at everything other than portal and veil.

Necros are similar. Their wells do massive damage, 3kish per pulse for some of them. On top of that, the wells do nasty things like boon corruption or blindness. On top of that, their wells are unblockable. On top of that, necros can pop into death shroud for additional 50% crit chance, meaning they can build with quite tanky gear and still achieve massive damage output.

You’re trying to say that Mesmer burst is actually good and makes up for their lack of aoe capabilities. The reality is that Mesmer burst is not only difficult to execute effectively, but is hardly more powerful than a single hit of meteor shower, or a couple ticks of wells.

@Fay
Do you run your mesmer in group WvW or do you swap to a different profession? Do you think Chronomancer will bring enough to the table to make it worthwhile or will it still be outshined by other professions?

Just curious. I always struggle with my desire to play the Mesmer in all game types but the disappointment at my performance compared with my alts in medium/large battles.

If I’m going to WvW with the intention of participating in a group, then I get on my ele. Compared to ele, Mesmer is effectively worthless, especially considering I flat out refuse to veil.

Regarding Chronomancer:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Announcing-the-OMFG-WvW-Division/page/3#post5494908

Additionally, there will be some other fun tricks chrono could pull to make the Zerg experience less horrid. The old Zergmower build I made with guardian runes will work well with the new shield block, and that lets you tag quite nicely without utility investment.

Fay.2357:

You’re horrendously misrepresenting the facts of the situation. Let’s get more specific to cut through the bluster, shall we?

Mesmer bursting damage is typically quite strong. The standard mirror blade burst combo can unload 10k-13k damage nearly instantly, and that’s very powerful. However, there are caveats associated with this:

Firstly, that burst is single target. For an aoe burst value, you can remove about 4k off the top, leaving us at 6k-9k total. Additionally, this burst relies on 2 clones; one from mirror blade and one from a dodge roll. Lastly, this burst requires you to be at point blank range of your target to execute, otherwise the damage drops drastically.

All 3 of these things are a big problem. If you only burst a single person, their allies will just hit F and res them instantly. Leaving the burst reliant on illusions means that in a situation with aoe pressure, your burst will be 100% eliminated. Lastly, being at point blank range in an enemy group is distinctly unhealthy.

Now, let’s compare it to what eles are capable of doing. Meteor shower is a large aoe capable of being cast from 1200 range. It hits many times, effectively having an extremely high target cap. Each hit from meteor shower will do 6k-8k damage on a squishy target.

So here we have one single skill from Elementalist. It does similar damage in a single hit to what Mesmer does in a burst combo. It hits many targets, can be cast from 1200 range, and is ground targeted with a big aoe making it useful on walls.

If literally the only skill on their bar was meteor shower, Elementalists would still be better than mesmers.

You’ve also got lava font, the 1200 range aoe doing 3k-4k a tick. On the utility side you’ve got static field, unsteady ground, and multiple water fields. Essentially, Elementalist is just better at everything other than portal and veil.

Necros are similar. Their wells do massive damage, 3kish per pulse for some of them. On top of that, the wells do nasty things like boon corruption or blindness. On top of that, their wells are unblockable. On top of that, necros can pop into death shroud for additional 50% crit chance, meaning they can build with quite tanky gear and still achieve massive damage output.

You’re trying to say that Mesmer burst is actually good and makes up for their lack of aoe capabilities. The reality is that Mesmer burst is not only difficult to execute effectively, but is hardly more powerful than a single hit of meteor shower, or a couple ticks of wells.

If you put me Mirror Blade as the main source of spike damage in zergs, there’s nothing much more to say.
Mesmer damage in zergs comes from MW, iZerker, BF, The Prestige or MoP (all these without counting Chronomancer). With those skills the damage per target goes from 2k up to 6-7k, and you can easily hit 2-3 people for every skill, which starts to be quite considerable.

Ansau.7326:

If you put me Mirror Blade as the main source of spike damage in zergs, there’s nothing much more to say.
Mesmer damage in zergs comes from MW, iZerker, BF, The Prestige or MoP (all these without counting Chronomancer). With those skills the damage per target goes from 2k up to 6-7k, and you can easily hit 2-3 people for every skill, which starts to be quite considerable.

First, I’ll just take your numbers at face value. 6k-7k, on 2-3 targets as an outcome of blowing all your offensive cooldowns? Congratulations, your full bar of offensive cooldowns is equal to one single meteor from meteor shower! Seriously, it’s pathetic.

There are other issues too though. MoP and iZerker both require targeting to work. Since WvW fights usually occur mostly at the fringe of 1200 range, this makes it difficult to pick a target that’s both in range and in a good position. On top of that, you have to hope that they don’t have aegis/dodge or MoP won’t work. For iZerker, if you don’t have protected phantasms, it’s 50/50 that it’ll work at all. Compare that to just dropping a gtAoE.

For blurred frenzy, MW, and the prestige, we have a whole different set of problems. MW requires both illusions (a tall order) and melee range to do good damage. The prestige requires melee range, as does blurred frenzy. Sitting in melee range as a Mesmer is generally bad for your health, making these questionably useful. Blurred frenzy has the added bonus of killing you if you cleave into people with retaliation.

So to recap: you won’t get to 6-7k due to various reasons, but even if you do, you’re still just roughly as impactful as a single meteor from meteor shower.

I never said it was easy, but being more difficult doesn’t mean impossible. And sorry, but I’ve been playing mesmers in zergs for 1.5 years and I haven’t found major problems on any what you say.
Even the lost of self distortion in Protected Phantasms doesn’t affected much, since the meta has moved to the known pirateship, so the past incursions you could do now are nonsense.

Anyway, you’re just proving again my point. The thing is not what we can do compared to eles or necros, but what we can do as a mesmers.
You all lose yourselves in this nonsense discussion about how eles and necros can do much damage than us. And this is why this community has failed so much at bringing a good build for zerguing.
Your heads are so focused on what others do compared to us that you forget what you can do as a mesmer, so you just end up playing as a veilbot and put mesmers as a useless profession.

PD: All this damage numbers are calculations with a quite conservative gear required for my past playstyle, plus the increase of damage from the stats rebuild I’ve seen a bit. But once I’m able to mixmax the stats for this pirateship meta I think the numbers can be higher (here not counting the huge numbers chronomancer will bring).

Ansau.7326:

Anyway, you’re just proving again my point. The thing is not what we can do compared to eles or necros, but what we can do as a mesmers.

This is absolutely absurd!

So let me get this straight, your point is that you don’t want to bother thinking about what other classes can do, but just feel happy about the best you can do no matter what?

Sorry, but that line of reasoning doesn’t work once you get out of parent-pitch baseball leagues. Your personal performance is meaningless without a comparison to everyone else. You can’t go around touting how great your damage is if everyone else has damage that just blows yours out of the water! That’s like entering a marathon and saying that 8 hours is a fantastic time because it’s the best you can personally do, while ignoring all the other folks that finished in 4 hours.

Numbers are meaningless without comparison. In our case, the comparison must be made between us and the other classes that fill a similar role: eles and necros. When you make that comparison, it is plain for all to see just how extraordinarily pathetic our performance is.

Fay.2357:

Ansau.7326:

Anyway, you’re just proving again my point. The thing is not what we can do compared to eles or necros, but what we can do as a mesmers.

This is absolutely absurd!

So let me get this straight, your point is that you don’t want to bother thinking about what other classes can do, but just feel happy about the best you can do no matter what?

Sorry, but that line of reasoning doesn’t work once you get out of parent-pitch baseball leagues. Your personal performance is meaningless without a comparison to everyone else. You can’t go around touting how great your damage is if everyone else has damage that just blows yours out of the water! That’s like entering a marathon and saying that 8 hours is a fantastic time because it’s the best you can personally do, while ignoring all the other folks that finished in 4 hours.

Numbers are meaningless without comparison. In our case, the comparison must be made between us and the other classes that fill a similar role: eles and necros. When you make that comparison, it is plain for all to see just how extraordinarily pathetic our performance is.

That argument would be valid if other professions could do the same as we can do. But the reality is mesmers are still needed for the unique features we can bring. Once this point has been settled, the only question that matters is how do you perform as a mesmer, let it be as the profession who only brings those unique things, or be more useful besides that?
Here is where comparing us to eles or necros is pointless.

WvW large scale fight is ruled by ground targeting skill and cleave damage. Mesmer really sucks in those two aspects.

Most of our AOE damaging skill requires target which greatly limits their usage. izerker needs a target. MoP/MoD needs a target. Even feedback needs a target.

Luckily, devs showed some love to our new chronomancer well skills. I am really looking forward to testing them out in WvW.

Ansau.7326:

Fay.2357:

Ansau.7326:

Anyway, you’re just proving again my point. The thing is not what we can do compared to eles or necros, but what we can do as a mesmers.

This is absolutely absurd!

So let me get this straight, your point is that you don’t want to bother thinking about what other classes can do, but just feel happy about the best you can do no matter what?

Sorry, but that line of reasoning doesn’t work once you get out of parent-pitch baseball leagues. Your personal performance is meaningless without a comparison to everyone else. You can’t go around touting how great your damage is if everyone else has damage that just blows yours out of the water! That’s like entering a marathon and saying that 8 hours is a fantastic time because it’s the best you can personally do, while ignoring all the other folks that finished in 4 hours.

Numbers are meaningless without comparison. In our case, the comparison must be made between us and the other classes that fill a similar role: eles and necros. When you make that comparison, it is plain for all to see just how extraordinarily pathetic our performance is.

That argument would be valid if other professions could do the same as we can do. But the reality is mesmers are still needed for theunique features we can bring. Once this point has been settled, the only question that matters is how do you perform as a mesmer, let it be as the profession who only brings those unique things, or be more useful besides that?
Here is where comparing us to eles or necros is pointless.

“Unique”

As a new player who recently hit 80 on a mesmer and was wondering what my role was in the zerg, this thread has both enlightened me, and shattered my dreams. 10/10 would read again.

When I zerg play on my mes these days (which is very rare) I actually prefer my role to be scout / scrapper which I can do as well or situationally better then theives. This suits me much better and I do not have to worry about veil / portal.

I will still veil / port on very rare occasions but then switch out to another toon because thats how much I hate not having all my utility slots.

in addition, mesmer is by far the absolute worst out of all my toons at tagging targets giving me even less incentive to bring it to large scale combat.

As far as the boon share mes team comp goes, bad idea from 2 perspectives:
1. Far easier and better achieved by other comps without anywhere near the trade offs.
2. I also play a condi wellomancer on regular basis, usually with a partner (another condi wellomancer). I can tell you, that a group comp like this on enemy team is our dream come true. We will melt you so quick and so reliably and repeatedly it will be basically free lootbags. You might as well just sit there and not do anything so you can repawn faster and go take a camp or something thus be more contribution to your team this way rather then waste valuable toon slots.