Guild Wars 2

As a player, we all have things we’re good at and things we are not so good at. Though it may seem odd, sharing these strengths weaknesses, and goals with each other can be a great way to learn from one another’s past.

In your Mesmering career, what have you found yourself particularly good at? Was there anything you sucked at that you overcame and how so? Is there anything you’re still working towards overcoming?

STRENGTHS

• Lockdown mesmer – Of all the Mesmer playestyles I’ve tried, I’d have to say I perform the best with Lockdown. I’m decent with shatter, condition, and phantasm and pretty good with boon share but lockdown clicks in a way the others don’t.

• Teaching/analyzing newer players. I spent a lot of time watching for patterns and reactions in my opponents and am decent at seeing things from the point of view of another. Helping people overcome their flaws and advising what they could do better comes naturally

• Proficient with sword/focus – Staff. A very hard weaponset to net damage out of without the right traits, and even then it takes some practice.

WEAKNESS

• Careless. As my videos demonstrate I can land some completely epic failures due to sheer carelessness and negligence. I’d be a much better player if I’d just .. Stop getting lazy mid-fight. People think I go easy on them as a result, but I really just make some dumb mistakes at inopportune times. I put up unedited videos for that reason, so people can see my mistakes and figure what they would’ve done differently.

• Positioning & Awareness lackluster. I don’t spin my camera around nearly as much as I should. I get caught off guard often as a result.. Which wouldn’t happen as much if I made sure to position better!

• Sucks with a great sword.

• Sucks with condition builds.

• Dungeons. I am a proud Leeroy Jenkins.

• Rarely plays sober. No more inebriated videos.. Promise. =P

Something that used to cripple me pretty badly – and still does from time to time – is that I have a habit of staring at my skillbar during hectic fights more than the actual fight itself. Its a habit carried over from when I used to click all my skills that I fall back to when stressed. I’ve been forcing myself to get over it by … Forcing myself to get over it haha! I’ll go into hotjoin and intentionally not look at my skills, occasionally glancing for a half second before continuing. While this may sound super simple, its actually makes a massive difference in how I play.

What say you? What have you learned about yourself in this Mesmery journey of ours?

Strengths:

• Steady Flow: I tend to be able to keep a calm pace throughout my fights, so I can both make decisions and keep control of the fight.

• Stalling: This goes with my steady flow. Even if I can ‘control’ a good amount of my fights, it doesn’t mean I can win them all. For the ones that I can’t win, I’ve found myself good at realizing my situation and instead prolonging the fight for as long as possible, netting in as many enemies as I can, in order to act as a distraction for my team.

• Condition Mesmer: With the new MtD buff, I’ve found the condition-bomb that each shatter provides to compliment my steady flow and the increased survivability to help my stalling a fair bit. I haven’t seen many other condition mesmers, but I think it’s fair to say that I’m decent at it.

• Lockdown Mesmer: Lockdown was my first ‘real’ mesmer. I had used a condition-phantasm build at first, but that was me just theory crafting without a lot of experience in the game. I learned some aggression in lockdown tactics from Warlord of Chaos and read up on it in Chaos Archangel’s topics, and found myself doing pretty well with it.

• Learning: I’ve come to a point where I can try new things and test out theories to the best of my ability, along with changing up my patterns and quickly realize when my normal rotations have become obsolete against certain opponents. Simply put, I feel like I can adapt and learn well.

• Targeting: I’ve somewhat learned myself in the art of Control+T before and during combat. Very useful, but a bit risky at times.

Weaknesses:

• Power-Shatter: For some reason, I’m not much of a burster. The concept of sporadic combos doesn’t do well with me.

• Fatigue: Sometimes I play despite not being in my ‘best condition’. Thus, I react sluggishly and it costs my team. Working on being more careful about this in the future.

• OH Sword: I can use it fine, but it’s probably the weapon I’m the worst with since I use it the least. Theoretically, though, I should do fine with it.

• WvW: Don’t have the gear for it~ I should probably get working on that, though I also don’t care much for the game mode.

I also have that “skill-staring” habit from time to time.

Nice thread.

Strengths:
- I’d like to think fluid use of skills, positioning and adaptability in pvp most of the time.
- Focusing on one or two core builds and learning them inside out – that is currently 4/4/0/0/6 standard shatter and 0/4/6/4/0 condition CI with traited focus. Unfortunately the latter sucks against… other greatsword mesmers (spatial surge and mirror blade…) so I’m still working on tweaking that a bit.

Weaknesses:
- Mantra builds, I just can’t micromanage all that charging/discharging.
- Overextending – I think we’re all guilty of this at some point or other. I can get a bit too carried away going in for a res or a kill and sacrifice my safety.
- Dungeons/PvE – I actually have a lot of respect for good dungeon players. I struggle to get into the mindset of the endurance test vs the bullet sponge health pools of pve enemies.
- Consistent good play – on the odd occasion, for no reason at all, I can simply press all the wrong buttons at the wrong time. xD
- Never having played necromancer and barely played engineer, and not knowing in precise detail every single enemy skill and its application – fortunately I think my strength in adapting on the fly kind of covers this up, but it is definitely a weakness. The classes I know reasonably other than mesmer are ranger, thief, warrior, guard and ele, but nowhere near in enough depth to accurately identify multiple builds and skill usage and exactly how best to counter everything. I know most of the major tells and skills, but there’s always more to learn.
- OH Pistol… I don’t know why, but it doesn’t like me…

Will probably think of more things to add to this over time.

Hmmm..

Strengths for me..

Shatter builds I’m great with I can drop almost anyone even if I start out poorly. Good with surprise bursts and positioning as well.

Gotten better with 2v1 fights but still can’t handle some match ups.

Baiting out key skills and interrupting stomps and res attempts.

Weaknesses..

Not good at hiding in stealth

I love to stand and stay on point when I probably shouldn’t I also don’t run away when I know things are bad and I should just give up a cap.

Micro management builds are just too much work for me

I often blow skills before or after they are needed when I get lazy or over confident..

Strengths
I’m a fantastic kiter and I generally maintain a good position. I am always spinning my camera and I always phase retreat about in fights, forward and backwards. I am great at shatter and sporadic combos.

Weaknesses
I am still a bit of a failure when it comes to duelling other good mesmers. I am always told I don’t speak out enough in team speak during tournaments. I still panic a lot also, if a good thief jumps on me and I’m not near any team mates to peel I’ll often panic and my lack of communication will turn me into a stomp fodder.

STRENGTHS:

• Condition builds, specifically using signets (see my updated build in my signature).
• Coordinating/Leading teams in solo q: idk what it is about me, but I’m persistent and tend to get people talking by being witty or insanely pleasant. This is usually a game changer in unorganized matches, because communication is the key to winning most games.
• Going off the last bullet, I am able to play a match efficiently and type a lot in team chat. It’s crazy. LOL
• Trying to be a positive person in the pvp community. I almost always whisper teammates and congratulate them on a good game or something they did very well. Sometimes we exchange advice on future matches. This goes a long way in terms of the culture of pvp, and I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from other players.
• Dueling other professions.

WEAKNESSES:

• Great Sword. Like, I just can’t.
• Fighting other Mesmers. It really is the constant target dropping and visual confusion that makes me panic. I say this all the time, but the strength in the Mesmer profession isn’t in our strength relative to other classes (because let’s face it, we’re on the “weaker” side), but our ability to make enemies doubt themselves and make mistakes. Despite the Mesmer being the only class I’ve played since launch, other Mesmers still cause me to panic and become careless. Thieves do this as well sometimes if I’m playing dps Mesmer.
• Landing timely interrupts on my lockdown builds. While I’m really decent on lockdown builds (sw/focus+Staff is the BEST weapon set!) I still need to work on getting those key MoD interrupts. Sometimes, I burn them and it becomes an uphill battle.
• I sometimes let the mistakes of other bother me a lot, especially when they are basic mistakes that shouldn’t be made often. I get distracted instead of focusing on rallying the team in a positive way.
• Paying too much money at the troll toll. While I’m very nice, I never listened to my grandma when she told me to not wrastle in the mud with pigs. I have an album titled “Flame Wars 2”.

The thing is, I don’t know my strengths and weaknesses are. I just play to win. It would be a grand idea if someone would to evaluate me. To improve my craft and to know where i am lacking at.

Please anyone?

StickerHappy.8052:

The thing is, I don’t know my strengths and weaknesses are. I just play to win. It would be a grand idea if someone would to evaluate me. To improve my craft and to know where i am lacking at.

Please anyone?

Self evaluation and reflective practice.

StickerHappy.8052:

The thing is, I don’t know my strengths and weaknesses are. I just play to win. It would be a grand idea if someone would to evaluate me. To improve my craft and to know where i am lacking at.

Please anyone?

Just start with broad sweeping generalizations.

Strength
I’m awesome with a little bit of amazing mixed in.

Weakness
It has been suggested by some that my humility might need some work. (But honestly I just don’t see it. I mean, come on, I’m amazing!)

Ross Biddle.2367:

StickerHappy.8052:

The thing is, I don’t know my strengths and weaknesses are. I just play to win. It would be a grand idea if someone would to evaluate me. To improve my craft and to know where i am lacking at.

Please anyone?

Just start with broad sweeping generalizations.

Strength
I’m awesome with a little bit of amazing mixed in.

Weakness
It has been suggested by some that my humility might need some work. (But honestly I just don’t see it. I mean, come on, I’m amazing!)

I dunno, I think we’ve all been pretty honest about it – I’ve certainly listed far more weaknesses than strengths, but then I am fairly self critical in RL anyway.

Regarding weaknesses – for example, I was recently schooled hard by an outstanding mesmer (I can’t remember the name for the life of me). It wasn’t their mechanical skill, but instead their deception which was so outstandingly good.
They played in such a way as to appear as a poor player – encouraging me in to burst them down quickly, but made it look as if they were lucky to escape the burst rather than skillfully kiting away from it. Only when I had overstepped my mark did they suddenly change their “personality” and I realised them to be a zerker shatter build.

It’s hard to describe in text, but I had to applaud this fantastic play. My mistake was severely underestimating my opponent based on first impressions (actually they made it so that I could not figure them out properly until it was too late), and consequently overextending, sacrificing my security.

I love this kind of mind game where I learn something from it – I’ll probably keep making this mistake occasionally, but now even moreso I will try to consciously maintain good balance of offence/defence (yin/yang if you like) instead of all too frequently throwing caution to the winds. xD

Strengths:

Can play any build at the best ability I can and give feedback.

King of lockdown.

Can play every weapon set (even though I don’t personally like scepter)

Calculated aggression playstyle which can completely shut people down and leave me untouched (s/x gs fits this style perfectly imo)

Can kite for a really long time and still take some people with me. Usually takes 2+ people to kill me. Have pretty good positioning and can be everywhere with portal.

Love theorycrafting and am infamous in my guild for trying to challenge and break the meta (I run CI Mesmer in gank sometimes with daze mantra and now almost every other Mesmer I see runs daze mantra after seeing how well it worked killing them)

A really nice person who can attempt to help or answer any question asked on anything really

Can predict what people are going to do and counter it (Why im good at CI)

Love builds that require a lot of skill/micro management/thinking to play

I can find moments of opportunity to turn the fight around completely (I kill a lot of people from 1k or less hp because they think its over and then I usually will pretty effortlessly kill them due to overconfidence)

Weaknesses:

I can get a little confused in spvp only team fights, too much clutter for me to go to work on CI sometimes. When the screen isn’t cluttered in particles and other stuff I wipe teams.

I do play for fun and I don’t play competitively due to time, although I think I would give a lot of people a run for their money if I ever found a team.

Map completion-My only real weakness.

Very critical on myself and see a lot of mistakes that I could have fixed. More of my personality though.

Might be missing a couple really obvious things but I am trying my best
Great thread also!

Edit: Chaos, we both know one more weakness of yourself is Charr mesmers. They are quite terrifying imo

Edit again: I found another weakness! s/d thief.

Strengths

• Survival: This is probably my biggest strength. The one thing I consider myself far better than the typical person at is staying alive. I hardly ever die. Sometimes I successfully kill them, sometimes they get away, sometimes I flee, but they never kill me. One of my favorite things to do in WvW is to run by zergs and lead them on a wild goose chase for the next 5 minutes while I warn my world about them. It’s hilarious.

• Condition builds: I’ve played around with several builds, and I’ve found that I do best with condition builds. They tend to focus around outlasting your opponent, which I’m quite good at. Mesmers are about being annoying as hell, and condition builds are the most annoying in my opinion.

Weaknesses

• Interrupt timing: Unfortunately, even though I can outlast people, I take a long time to kill them. The main reason for this is because I’m bad at recognizing animations. If I can figure out how to interrupt heals, I can take people down a lot better.

• Shatter builds: For some reason, I just can’t play shatter builds well.

Okay for Ross’ suggestion. I’ll give this a shot.

Strengths

>My creativity in designing unique builds.
>I play Shatter Mes and Lockdown Mes really well. (I think i do better on shatter tho)
>I also play condition builds well enough but not as better as power builds.
>I am really good at timing interrupts (Used to be)
>I can say before I only dreamed of downing Chaos A and others, but now I am proud to say I can play at the same level or maybe even better now (peace Aeo! )

>If friendship is a strength then this would be my main forte. I am really friendly IRL and IG so anyone who needs help learning mes don’t hesitate to pm or add me

Weaknesses

>I usually do very good against people I do not know, But as long as I know who I am facing and know how good they are, My hands get jittery/tingly (Looking at you Rylock)
>For some reason my worst matchup is against other mesmers.
>I have keen eye for smaller characters, I seem to have trouble against larger models (should be the opposite but I don’t know why)
>I am a pvp addict, I cannot stop queing over and over again. (OMFG team ques I am sorry! )

Well that’s easy enough for me, and the same as in most multiplayer games:

Strengths

• Outsmarting the enemy. I often find players play PvP too much as a test of reflexes and rote performance, conveniently forgetting that there’s an actual player on the other side. I’ve won fights by making mistakes, because some players no longer expect certain mistakes from their targets, and will then fumble, unsure what to do.
• Planning/Leading. Used to it from years and years of doing that in MMOs.

Weaknesses

• Reflexes. I’m terrible.
• Really thin skin. The average “talk” in PvP (in any game) usually gets me to just log off. I lose all will to live on this planet, basically.
• Obsessive underdog player. I cannot play a popular build. Not possible. Need to prove that something weak can perform well!

Strengths

Movement: I am very mobile. I never stand in the same place which seems to benefit me very well as a mesmer ^^

Condition builds: I LOVE condition builds on any profession. I just always found them fun.

Great with clones: It is fun using clones to distract players in order to accomplish different tasks. Whenever I am trying to help a downed friend or blend in with my own clones, it is always a fun task.

Weaknesses

Timid: I am extremely timid in real life and that reflects my gameplay. Its actually why i chose mesmer(I can hide behind clones and stealth to avoid attention). That also means I don’t usually jump into a fight to help friends unless I am certain that I can escape if things go wrong :c

Strategy: I have none. I just kinda go in and hope for the best :P

Mouse clicking: Yep, I totally click all my skills ^^ everyone tells me thats bad so I guess I will list this as a weakness. That might change this christmas though :O

Strength/Weakness

Fashion: I put fashion before everything else ^^. That can be both strength, because I always put on a show, and a weakness, because I am more concerned about how all of my Asura look rather than how good I play :P

Strengths

-My temper
-Rage quitting daily
-Observing that when another team has an engineer, they will likely win
-Rage quitting daily after fighting engineers, I’m really good at that
-Not getting stomps
-Getting on teams that can’t land stomps
-Being focused
-Getting Moa Morphed versus two mesmers and a thief

Weaknesses
-Engineers
-Elementalists
-Thieves
-Warriors
-Guardians
-Rangers
-Necromancers (JK)
-Sometimes other mesmers

How interesting, This makes me want to express my feelings as a Mesmer main. I will tell you this. I woke up like this, Flawless.

Strength is easy for me. Mantras. Mop dodge rolls into staff 2 3 shatter then mop again has caused people to hate me in wvw and pvp forever.

Weakness is even easier, the April 14th patch

STRENGTHS
-Classic Shatter Mesmer is something I play best in WvW, and sPvP
-I adapt fast to my opponents combat style
-I can learn to play almost any power build
-I use mobility to my advantage

WEAKNESS
-I can not play, or understand condition damage builds
-I need time to warm up in battle. (Get that brain working)
-Anger is something I do not contain. I am the definition of toxic player
-I do not use the map to my advantage
-I tend to use my condition removal too fast, or not use it at all