mesmer has the most "utility".
mesmer is best at reflect and boon removal. Then we have access to key utility called portal.
Other things we don’t really do as well as some other professions.
guardian also has best utilities on the game
boons, reflect, aoe, cleanse, blocks, cc
also other profession as well thus ppl want the mesmer to have a portal or viel
Mesmer is the best at interruption and condi cleanse :<
Mesmer is the best at interruption and condi cleanse :<
Both of which are useless 90% of the time in PvE unfortunately…
PvE or PvP?
Regardless elementalist and guardian blow mesmer out of the water.
Guard has better projectile defence, cleansing, stability, damage, CC that still ignores dodge frames and general all round party defence and buffing.
Elementalist has far greater cleansing potential, healing, protection, might stacking and some decent projectile mitigation. Who needs to remove boons when you’re doing a lot of direct and condition damage?
:O
Interruption: Bjarl (CoE), Chanters, Novice (Cliffside), Ascalonian Warriors, Monks, Cultists, Enchanter (Urban), Dredge (Underground), Atherblade Striker, Thug, Inquest Golems (Aetherblade), Baron Von Scrufflebutt (Uncategorized), Irukanji (Jade Maw), Champion Abomination (Arah path 2), Legendary Jotun (Arah path 1), Melandru (Arah P4).
Condi cleanse: at Cliffside, at Aetherblade, at Mai Trin, at Mage Crusher/Hunter (Arah path 3), at Bloomhunger, etc.
(edited by IrisTheCasual.3742)
Interruption: Bjarl (CoE)
Sure, can be useful here.
Chanters, Novice (Cliffside)
Hardly, you just toss up a bit of reflection, yank them into a wall and dps them into the ground real quick.
Ascalonian Warriors, Monks, Cultists, Enchanter (Urban)
Same thing. LoS, yank into a wall, dps into the ground real quick.
Dredge (Underground)
Aaaaand same thing. LoS, yank into a wall, dps into the ground real quick. There’s pretty much nothing dredge do that’s worth interrupting anyway other than the little gong banging.
Atherblade Striker, Thug, Inquest Golems (Aetherblade)
Just toss up reflects and you’re good for the striker. Thugs spam stability, so they’re not usually simple to interrupt. Golems are interruptable…but it’s not really all that important to do.
Baron Von Scrufflebutt (Uncategorized)
I suppose you could interrupt him. Alternatively, you could just dps it down real quick like normal.
Champion Abomination (Arah path 2)
This is really the only single instance in all of PvE that’s actually really important to get interrupts on.
Legendary Jotun (Arah path 1) to name a few.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the guy you just spam reflects on until it dies?
Condi cleanse: at Cliffside
Meh. You shouldn’t be getting hit by the wells much anyway, and the condies are very short duration there. The vuln stacks from the other guys are reflectable.
at Aetherblade, at Mai Trin,
Yep, condie cleanses are important here.
at Mage Crusher/Hunter (Arah path 3),
Yeah, cleanses are handy here, but honestly an ele with healing rain does a better job.
at Bloomhunger, etc.
See comment about mage crusher.
Realistically…almost all PvE instances are better completed by not interrupting things and instead yanking them into a wall and dpsing them down. Where condie cleanse is required it’s nice to have…but your ele/guardian does plenty of condie cleanse without you.
:O
Interruption: Bjarl (CoE), Chanters, Novice (Cliffside), Ascalonian Warriors, Monks, Cultists, Enchanter (Urban), Dredge (Underground), Atherblade Striker, Thug, Inquest Golems (Aetherblade), Baron Von Scrufflebutt (Uncategorized), Champion Abomination (Arah path 2), Legendary Jotun (Arah path 1) to name a few.Condi cleanse: at Cliffside, at Aetherblade, at Mai Trin, at Mage Crusher/Hunter (Arah path 3), at Bloomhunger, etc.
Or play an ele and kill all of the trash in seconds regardless.
Champ abomination….time warp, frost bow/meteor and he’ll be nearly dead with 2 eles.
Why oh why in the world would you ever interrupt the legendary jotun?!?
Meta else has reduced cool down on water skills and regen removes a condi (last largely due to no other dps option) but can be switched as needed.
Ele renders interrupting obsolete through dps. Additionally guard renders cleanses, projectile blocks, stability and quickness from a mesmer obsolete and there’s a lot more of either of those two classes in all game modes.
I’m not sure if mesmers have the “most”. That would go to the engineer. But, mesmers do have a lot of utility.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
Am i right about mesmers having the most utility in the game with their weapon skills and utility skills?
Not really.
Guardians easily show us the door on utility, for PvE warriors are also absolutely essential due to the banners stacking, for pure boon availability it’s Guardians or Eles.
As far as PvP utility goes, you’ll find it somewhere between Guardians and… well… Guardians. They really are the alpha and omega of that. Although not thaaaat much longer, Revenants are incoming.
We provide ok reflection (lots of it but difficult to utilize well), Portal for WvW, Veil for WvW, and that’s mostly it. We’re ok-ish at boon removal, but more in PvE than anywhere else because sword AA and sword clones are fodder at best in PvP.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
boon removal – guy necro ftw .with so many skills that remove boons
Imo one thing not mentioned is at what cost to get this utility. We actually have to give and take. Ele guard have an easier time providing this utility while providing dps.
Imo one thing not mentioned is at what cost to get this utility. We actually have to give and take. Ele guard have an easier time providing this utility while providing dps.
good point which make our utlities useless regarding team support
blink is must and gives nothinh to others
decoy – in some build also must and gives nothing
portal – yeee
null field – hardly used but good when being used
mantra of resolve – nice condi cleanse while ele and guards do it far better
feedback – hardly used
Interruption: Bjarl (CoE)
Sure, can be useful here.
It is as useful as ele chaining icebow or guardian chaining sanctuary. But hey, what if you are tossed in a pug group as a mesmer and still be useful?
Chanters, Novice (Cliffside)
Hardly, you just toss up a bit of reflection, yank them into a wall and dps them into the ground real quick.
Try those Heart Seeker spammers at the Chest Seal (where groups stacks between two Flame Trap) with not enough Blind. Surely an ele can bring Sandstorm (60 second CD), a thief can exhaust all their initiatives for blind and deal kittenty DPS and engi has two pulses of Blind. But in between the waves when Blind expires, are you gonna tank all the hit? One Heartseeker will down your ele, four or five of them and your ele will be fully dead before pulling any heal himself.
Ascalonian Warriors, Monks, Cultists, Enchanter (Urban)
Same thing. LoS, yank into a wall, dps into the ground real quick.
You assume an average group can DPS them real quick but a Monk with 25 stacks of Might with Heal Area can one shot any unsuspecting thief/ele/guard before they can actually Blind. Same with Warrior’s Rush during channeling. Enchanters has his chaos armor which reflects and are able to one shot any staff eles. Cultists has Dancing Daggers and Heart Seekers. These are extremely dangerous when first pulling to behind the pillar or the tree. You cannot simply use Curtain without yanking them all over the place or risk not reflecting the Mage and Archer projectiles.
Dredge (Underground)
Aaaaand same thing. LoS, yank into a wall, dps into the ground real quick. There’s pretty much nothing dredge do that’s worth interrupting anyway other than the little gong banging.
The Veteran Dredge in the big cage which has the big HP pool has two attacks, the shockwave is reflectable, the PbAoE which knocks back and kills all of your wardens needs to be interrupted. A mesmer can hold aggros of some of the dredges on button with chaining wardens while the group can focus elsewhere.
Atherblade Striker, Thug, Inquest Golems (Aetherblade)
Just toss up reflects and you’re good for the striker. Thugs spam stability, so they’re not usually simple to interrupt. Golems are interruptable…but it’s not really all that important to do.
You cannot reflect the Static Field attack – deal 8k damage over 4 sec and stun 1 sec when crossing them. You interrupt the Warbanner animation so that it doesn’t deal damage and the Thugs won’t have Stability. In a group with not enough Stability – since it’s pulsing stacks instead of permanent now- it is imperative to interrupt the golem’s head charge spin or your group will get knocked all over the place. Interrupt it once and group has plenty of time to DPS it down before the skill is up again. Even better, your Daze is an AoE! The pull can be reflected, however.
Baron Von Scrufflebutt (Uncategorized)
I suppose you could interrupt him. Alternatively, you could just dps it down real quick like normal.
You only need to interrupt his unblockable projectile attack twice (before and after all of them wake up) and whoever is doing the DPS doesn’t have to care about interrupting themselves to dodge that attack. Icebow, 100 blades, Meteor Shower are those skills having long channeling time.
Champion Abomination (Arah path 2)
This is really the only single instance in all of PvE that’s actually really important to get interrupts on.
Really? Don’t you argue that two ele can ice bow and burst it down in one single burst before it has a chance to stomp? Glad you agree though.
Legendary Jotun (Arah path 1) to name a few.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the guy you just spam reflects on until it dies?
So you set up two wardens perfectly to reflect his projectiles and ignore him when he summons lava font to kill them? In the process, some melee party members get killed as well. And then, condi cleanse or burn to death.
Condi cleanse: at Cliffside
Meh. You shouldn’t be getting hit by the wells much anyway, and the condies are very short duration there. The vuln stacks from the other guys are reflectable.
All melee classes will get condis from the wells. The damaging condi expires fast so it’s fine to skirt around but warrior surely doesn’t want to see all his greatsword hit becomes a glancing blow and generates no might. In a meta group, everyone will not be happy. Condi cleanse for people who pick up the hammer or accidentally re-pick it up. 1 minute of Poison and Burning says hello. Also, it is to remove the Burning when stacking at the chest seal.
at Aetherblade, at Mai Trin,
Yep, condie cleanses are important here.
at Mage Crusher/Hunter (Arah path 3),
Yeah, cleanses are handy here, but honestly an ele with healing rain does a better job.
The poison is not the point, the immobilization is what kills people. Also Healing Rain has long CD and you want your ele to focus on DPS when the mesmer does his job as a team support.
at Bloomhunger, etc.
See comment about mage crusher.
Because people will never bother evading or blocking his Poison attack and guess what? 3K damage from Poison alone. That is like 30% HP of any zerker ele or guard which force them out of rotation. Experienced group doesn’t get the poison here, so it can be swapped out for other utilities
Realistically…almost all PvE instances are better completed by not interrupting things and instead yanking them into a wall and dpsing them down. Where condie cleanse is required it’s nice to have…but your ele/guardian does plenty of condie cleanse without you.
I can’t believe you! My answer to each point is the bolded ones.
My opinion is the mesmer is a good asset to the group when playing his strength right instead of fully relying on others. If you are to be a deadweight, why not playing guardian or ele instead of mesmer? If you are playing mesmer, why not giving your best support instead of asking others to do your job. Don’t you feel good when your ele or guard can comfortably DPS without investing too much into surviving?
I do play ele. Without proper interruption, I have to dodge more instead of DPS, think twice before using Meteor Shower, sacrifice my precious Signet of Fire, bring Arcane Shield, lower the CD of Glyph of Storm instead of taking Tempest Defense or bring Lightning Hammer for extra Blind even when I play staff. Without condi cleanse, I have to bring Ether’s Reneweal, meaning even less Blast, less Fury to the group.
I also play guardian. With all the pressure on my support because the mesmer decides to slack off, I have to sacrifice Bane Signet for an extra Stability, Purging Flames or Retreat. Sometimes I have to use the Hammer for more crowd control over burst DPS of greatsword.
And these two classes have way way way better DPS than the mesmer, who thinks he can tag a group to DPS his way out.
(edited by IrisTheCasual.3742)
Personally I find supporting on the mesmer to be quite easy. I run inspiration/domination/dueling in PVE, and it gives me access to quite a lot. Most notably boon stripping and stealth, which is Eles and Guards lack.
Should I run the mantra build, it gives me spammable AoE condi Cleanse, spammable significant heals with ambient non-regen healing, regen healing, a lot of automatic reflects, group invulnerability on command, and further group support with automatic boon duplication. I can swap the boon duplication for speed/resistance and stronger glamours. The signet variant lets me grant AoE distortion on heal, so I no longer have to shatter my phantasms to save someone, along with stronger phantasms and more frequent boon duplication. This is in the inspiration line alone.
The sword gives me vulnerability and spammable boon stripping. The focus will give me group swiftness, a large AoE pull, and projectile destruction/reflect. Feedback reflects, null field cures condis and strips boons, veil and mass invisibility give stealth. Illusion of Life provides a sometimes permanent rez on a relatively fast cast and recharge time. The support mantras provide concentrated bursts of stability and stunbreaks. Phantasmal Defender provides a unique kind of defensive buff. Portal provides a unique method of navigation that has niche uses, and Time Warp is a very powerful buff + debuff. We have plenty of interrupts for boon stripping, plenty of tools to personally avoid damage, and in certain boss fights our DPS is actually quite high.
The thing is, I don’t have to go out of my way to support as a mesmer. All but stealth come naturally. Memsers might not be the most super-efficient awesomeness of the extreme regarding utilities, but its still good to have one around.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
Imo one thing not mentioned is at what cost to get this utility. We actually have to give and take. Ele guard have an easier time providing this utility while providing dps.
good point which make our utlities useless regarding team support
blink is must and gives nothinh to others
decoy – in some build also must and gives nothing
portal – yeee
null field – hardly used but good when being used
mantra of resolve – nice condi cleanse while ele and guards do it far better
feedback – hardly used
For interrupts, add Melandru from Arah p4 to the list. Thief stripping defiance with mes power blocking his Empower animation makes him a piece of cake to melee. Definitely one of the encounters where interrupts actually are rewarding.
Imo one thing not mentioned is at what cost to get this utility. We actually have to give and take. Ele guard have an easier time providing this utility while providing dps.
good point which make our utlities useless regarding team support
blink is must and gives nothinh to others
decoy – in some build also must and gives nothing
portal – yeee
null field – hardly used but good when being used
mantra of resolve – nice condi cleanse while ele and guards do it far better
feedback – hardly used
sry i was talking pvp not pve. i am clueless regarding pve
For interrupts, add Melandru from Arah p4 to the list. Thief stripping defiance with mes power blocking his Empower animation makes him a piece of cake to melee. Definitely one of the encounters where interrupts actually are rewarding.
Rogers. I was hesitating putting it down because I think it’s a tall task for mesmer to peel defiant and interrupt by himself. If I dare to include thief, then people will probably discredit the mesmer and ask why not replacing the mesmer with ele or guard for extra damage?
Also the Irukanjis at fractal level 50 also require moderation with interruption as well.
Imo one thing not mentioned is at what cost to get this utility. We actually have to give and take. Ele guard have an easier time providing this utility while providing dps.
good point which make our utlities useless regarding team support
blink is must and gives nothinh to others
decoy – in some build also must and gives nothing
portal – yeee
null field – hardly used but good when being used
mantra of resolve – nice condi cleanse while ele and guards do it far better
feedback – hardly usedsry i was talking pvp not pve. i am clueless regarding pve
Sorry, I misread your intention.
Thank you for your input
Group Quickness as well, though Guardians now top us on that too.
Group Quickness as well, though Guardians now top us on that too.
5 sec of the guard versus 10 (12) sec with slow effect and chaos armor abilities if blast or confusion if whirl etc…
5 sec of the guard versus 10 (12) sec with slow effect and chaos armor abilities if blast or confusion if whirl etc…
Actually, 30 seconds on the Guardian (check the cooldowns!), 37,5s if specced, then it also removes conditions and gives fury (IIRC).
The guardian elite shout might not be one for one comparable, but it completely dethrones Time Warp for quickness access and overall power gain. Slow is strong, but not 5s-quickness-every-24s-strong.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
5 sec of the guard versus 10 (12) sec with slow effect and chaos armor abilities if blast or confusion if whirl etc…
Actually, 30 seconds on the Guardian (check the cooldowns!), 37,5s if specced, then it also removes conditions and gives fury (IIRC).
The guardian elite shout might not be one for one comparable, but it completely dethrones Time Warp for quickness access and overall power gain. Slow is strong, but not 5s-quickness-every-24s-strong.
i dont agree 5 sec quickness versus 10 sec quickness can turn over the figth.
sure the cd are not the same and probably the guardian need bit longer icd like 50 sec. or lower the time warp icd to 90 sec
5s quickness can turn a 2 man downed and almost team wipe into a win by quickness stomping or quickness rezzing.
Slow is strong and will also have the same effect via timewarp however timewarp you might use once in 4 or 5 fights. Feel my wrath you can use in every team fight because of its cool down.
Personally I would love to see the cool down of time warp come down a bit. 1 min cool down would be amazing but realistically 2mins wouldn’t be so bad imo, especially if quickness and slow get herded in the future as is most likely.
When we’re talking about PvE:
Mesmers are really great for speed runs. A skilled Mesmer who knows how to use Blink and Portal well can save their team tons of time going through dungeons. Similarly, some bosses get absolutely melted by projectile reflection, though keep in mind that Guardian can do this just as well as Mesmer can.
And… that’s about it. Take DPS, for example. Mesmer DPS is excellent in a vacuum. Go into Heart of the Mists and conjure three phantasms against a golem. It’s great. But that’s not how dungeons and fractals work. There’s constant AoE and cleave going on. Your phantasms are not going to survive long enough to get off more than a couple of attacks in the majority of fights, and they make up a lot of your DPS potential. You might say, “Okay, I’ll try a shatter build!” But unfortunately, that’s not much better. Against lower health enemies, the burst damage from a shatter build is wonderful. Against bosses, though, it’s even worse damage than a phantasm approach, even when you factor in phantasms dying to a stiff breeze.
Everyone above already did a good job of enumerating how other professions do most of the Mesmer’s utility tricks far better than the Mesmer can, excepting, of course, Portal. And remember that Portal is really only going to do anything for you in PvE if you’re speed running with a competent and coordinated group.
The one that stings the most for me is just how much better “Feel My Wrath!” is than Time Warp in PvE. Sure, Slow is awesome in PvP, but it’s not all that incredible in PvE, so the Guardian’s ability to drop 5 seconds of quickness every 30 seconds absolutely wrecks the Mesmer’s 10 seconds of quickness every 3 minutes. (Chronomancer might help this quickness uptime a bit if you use Continuum Split for it—you could pull off 20 seconds of uninterrupted quickness every 3 minutes with that.)
In WvW? We’re awesome at solo and small group roaming, and only useful for Veil and Portal to zergs. I think we’re doing fine in WvW.
In PvP? We’re awesome, all around. I have no complaints about Mesmer’s position in PvP. We might even be too good, but that’s probably just down to the bug with The Pledge making it trivial to stealth all the time.
PvE is just kind of bleh on a Mesmer. I do it anyway, because Mesmer is just by far the most fun profession for me to play, and it’s fine overall because I’m not exactly an elite PvE player. It does sting to see how much Mesmer is built up as a versatile bag of tricks, only to see Elementalists and Guardians do almost all of those tricks better while also doing excellent DPS.