Guild Wars 2

the power of patches

Mantra insanity was the main reason Mesmers were OP. Now it’s not a thing anymore everyone’s crawling back into the woodwork.

Or like me they gave up playing because anet proved they still had stupidly idiotic balance team. I can no longer bring myself to play a game where the class I enjoy is routinely made a tedious mess by a balance team that do not seem to understand synergy. An innovative change would have been to restore the original mantras with a long charge time and a single charge and leave the cooldown change, but no, lets make playing with manta a pain in the kitten .

Of course nobody is complaining. They brought the class back to roughly where it was before the spec. patch. Now everyone can have fun playing against kitten celestial eles and tanky engineers that nobody can kill because they nerfed the class that could.

Enjoy.

Having played Phantrupt since November, with the old mantra system, harmonious, and cleanse on heal, the revert back meant nothing. I still rek faces same as always.

But I can imagine how your average joe mesmer can’t handle it and need, albeit desire a change to something else. And of course your average opponent has gone back to laughing at Mesmers all the same.

Oh they will, it’s just a short respite.

I bet this weekend will see even more complaints… :/

serenke.4806:

Of course nobody is complaining. They brought the class back to roughly where it was before the spec. patch. Now everyone can have fun playing against kitten celestial eles and tanky engineers that nobody can kill because they nerfed the class that could.

Enjoy.

People my not agree with me, but I play as a condi PU, and Engineers never give me problems. I simply melt them with Confusion and torment, then hide in stealth. It’s to much fun.

Purecura.1795:

People my not agree with me, but I play as a condi PU, and Engineers never give me problems. I simply melt them with Confusion and torment, then hide in stealth. It’s to much fun.

Something need to be done to pu condi.. They should nerf things like PU rather than mirror blade. Its just not fun that they can passively kill people.

I still see QQ about PU, I see QQ about burst, QQ about condi.

I see QQ from people everywhere. The funniest is from thieves especially ones that were running extremely trolly and forgivable builds pre patch.

Edit: Ha ha as I was typing someone never fails to post meeting my expectations.

Cyber Murmeli, if you nerf PU, where do mesmers get their defence from? After nearly 3 years no-one without some kind of mental handicap is falling for clones and there’s now no penalty to cleaving them out which neuters our damage and ability to shatter.

We lost most of our cripple and weakness on clone death so without PU we have what?

Probably because a lot of the people complaining weren’t really looking for balance or fixes, they just wanted to see mesmer get nerfed. That and irrational stealth hate that has plagued thieves and mesmers since pretty much the beginning of the game.

I am but i gave up. Its still ok ish but im more dissapointed in anet who give in
to the qq its never gonna end. Because everyone just
hate playing against it even if they win.
The only they nerfed which somone were talking about was blinding dissepation
The others were something i never seen anyone discuss.
But sure since most mesmers like it wow thats great moar nerf needed!

PU condi wasn’t even really a thing anymore post-patch. It wasn’t even that prominent out of WvW roaming prior to the patch either. Not only did they lose the clone death conditions(which were a pretty big part of PU condi), they also nerfed Maim, meaning even when you aren’t in stealth, most classes can cleanse away your burst fairly easily since it only really consists of two conditions, especially without the cover conditions of clone death. Too many people just like complaining about anything and everything stealth because it doesn’t usually have a character based counter(like a different trait or utility) and instead relies on player skill to be countered.

apharma.3741:

I still see QQ about PU, I see QQ about burst, QQ about condi.

I see QQ from people everywhere. The funniest is from thieves especially ones that were running extremely trolly and forgivable builds pre patch.

Edit: Ha ha as I was typing someone never fails to post meeting my expectations.

Cyber Murmeli, if you nerf PU, where do mesmers get their defence from? After nearly 3 years no-one without some kind of mental handicap is falling for clones and there’s now no penalty to cleaving them out which neuters our damage and ability to shatter.

We lost most of our cripple and weakness on clone death so without PU we have what?

Umm.. Kiting..? Distortion.. Lost of stuff.. People made it work, its player that makes profession viable. If stealth is your only protection (Trying to facetank enemy dps when not in stealth) maybe concider changing class.. xP

CyberMurmeli.3061:

apharma.3741:

I still see QQ about PU, I see QQ about burst, QQ about condi.

I see QQ from people everywhere. The funniest is from thieves especially ones that were running extremely trolly and forgivable builds pre patch.

Edit: Ha ha as I was typing someone never fails to post meeting my expectations.

Cyber Murmeli, if you nerf PU, where do mesmers get their defence from? After nearly 3 years no-one without some kind of mental handicap is falling for clones and there’s now no penalty to cleaving them out which neuters our damage and ability to shatter.

We lost most of our cripple and weakness on clone death so without PU we have what?

Umm.. Kiting..? Distortion.. Lost of stuff.. People made it work, its player that makes profession viable. If stealth is your only protection (Trying to facetank enemy dps when not in stealth) maybe concider changing class.. xP

If it’s player skill that is needed to make it work, then why would it need to be nerfed? Mesmer definitely has some good ways of mitigating/avoiding damage, and that is exactly how Anet intended it to be. They even flat-out stated that mesmers are supposed to negate/avoid damage completely and not tank it. Stealth fits right into that. Saying Condi PU should be nerfed because it is/was prominent in 1 psuedo-gamemode is just idiotic IMO. This game never was, and probably never will be, balanced around 1v1/roaming.

CyberMurmeli.3061:

Purecura.1795:

People my not agree with me, but I play as a condi PU, and Engineers never give me problems. I simply melt them with Confusion and torment, then hide in stealth. It’s to much fun.

Something need to be done to pu condi.. They should nerf things like PU rather than mirror blade. Its just not fun that they can passively kill people.

This.

Not everyone play the same build, the MB nerf wasnt necessary when Anet stealth nerfed the fire and air sigils. Maybe GS is not part of every Mesmer player’s weapon set, but this community doesn’t needed to be so fragmented as if a nerf didnt impact your build or style, then “it’s ok”. The problem is Anet has demonstrated time and time again they cant get balance right, and playing a class that has always been the receiving end of “over nerf” is just frustrating.

CyberMurmeli.3061:

apharma.3741:

I still see QQ about PU, I see QQ about burst, QQ about condi.

I see QQ from people everywhere. The funniest is from thieves especially ones that were running extremely trolly and forgivable builds pre patch.

Edit: Ha ha as I was typing someone never fails to post meeting my expectations.

Cyber Murmeli, if you nerf PU, where do mesmers get their defence from? After nearly 3 years no-one without some kind of mental handicap is falling for clones and there’s now no penalty to cleaving them out which neuters our damage and ability to shatter.

We lost most of our cripple and weakness on clone death so without PU we have what?

Umm.. Kiting..? Distortion.. Lost of stuff.. People made it work, its player that makes profession viable. If stealth is your only protection (Trying to facetank enemy dps when not in stealth) maybe concider changing class.. xP

So a 40-50s cool down distortion and something every class can do, kite. So every other class can have a multitude of blinds, blocks, invulns, stealth, weakness, cripple, chill (conditions to help kite) high vigor uptime, protection, aegis, swiftness and reliable boon procs but Mesmer has to make do with kite and a single use of distortion outside some weird terrible signet build?

No, Mesmer isn’t allowed nice stuff, heaven forbid it be any more friendly than a rabid Rottweiler to new players.

Disclaimer: Rottweilers are actually nice dogs but have a bad rep but used in the example for the bad rep.

If there are fewer complaints, it is because pve players have given up about the one-sided balancing for pvp players. I no longer expect things to get better in pve, and probably worse.

How are you getting 50s of Distortion, apharma? That build sounds like fun!

The nerf didn’t hurt much but it did make life more painful to have to manage mantras again. At least they stopped nerfing inspiration

I went and played a mesmer yesterday for the first time since the update. I joined a ranked, expecting to get owned, but we won, and I did awesome.

Ergo, I still think mesmers are OP. Compared to my engineer (where I play most games), I felt stronger, and I have almost no experience with mesmer and none since the update.

Mesmer might not get complained about as much anymore, but they are still very strong. The difference now is that if you are on your toes, you can survive and counter mesmer burst. So things don’t feel ridiculously broken anymore, just like you have one hand tied behind your back when fighting a mesmer.

Honestly, I’m not familiar enough with the class to advocate any kind of nerf. They just feel very solid. Maybe instead of nerfing, Anet could buff some of the other classes. (engineer, ranger, and give thieves back ricochet)

The game is somehow almost as close to balanced as it was before the update, which is promising. Nerfing the burst sigils, and bringing down some of the crazy damage. (although where is the fire damage nerf? or I should say elementalist burning nerf, that class is in its own league right now) Once, elementalist skills that burn have been reduced, and other classes have had a slight bump, and bug fixes (engineer have lots of bugs since the update which weaken us), I think the game will be even more balanced than before the update. We may be heading in a good direction once all these changes go in. I just hope they don’t wait too much longer.

What I’d like to know is how our vigor on crit trait was nerfed in the past from five seconds cd to ten seconds cd, but eles kept or were given the same trait on kitten cd? (I don’t know if they had it before).

Also I must be the only organized group / blob WvW mesmer in this game since I never see any changes to help us there. Between blink and veil there’s not much room left for utilities, AoE tagging is painful at times. Feedback is decent but it’s not like ranged should be going down .

Mantra of pain is mostly contributing nothing towards us winning the fight.

Null field does a worse job than the necro well simply because condi cleanse isn’t an issue for the front line (also more visible and “easier” to avoid)

The double distortion was removed, I can only use it once now, at most I’m getting 1-2s of invuln and than I just have dodge and blink and that’s pretty much it. Meanwhile don’t get me started on eles cooldowns to survive whilst having more utility and dmg during a fight. If this class didn’t have veil than no one would want us.

I’m just hoping alacrity from chronomancer is so good that I can do a build around it and be useful (edit: Or i guess if well chronomancer is also good for dmg / utility)

tobascodagama.2961:

How are you getting 50s of Distortion, apharma? That build sounds like fun!

“In whiniest kittenbag voice” Lol it’s coz mesmers are soooo broken!

Ok amending it to cool down.

Loboling.5293:

I joined a ranked, expecting to get owned, but we won, and I did awesome.

Ergo, I still think mesmers are OP

http://media.giphy.com/media/w8OOUniai4Gzu/giphy.gif

Loboling.5293:

I went and played a mesmer yesterday for the first time since the update. I joined a ranked, expecting to get owned, but we won, and I did awesome.

Ergo, I still think mesmers are OP

So let me get this straight. You joined a game on Mesmer. Your team won, despite you being inexperienced. Because of this, you think Mesmer is OP.

You’re skipping a couple steps of logic there I’m afraid. Watch what I can do by skipping logical steps!

‘I played a game yesterday. The other team had a guardian. Despite me being experienced on Mesmer, my team lost. Ergo, Mesmer is underpowered and guardian is overpowered.’

See how this makes zero sense? Your statement makes zero sense too. You’re giving a random anecdote that happened to you and then linking potentially totally unrelated things to conclude that Mesmer is op. It’s so absurd it’s almost funny.

I do so love the anecdotes. It’s just a double whammy too when people admit that they don’t actually play mesmer(thus likely don’t really care about what happens to it and sometimes don’t even understand basics of the class).

You won a match on a mesmer.Throws confetti Guess the only logical conclusion is mesmer is so broken that nothing else could possibly be a factor in any of that.

If you read my whole post, you’ll see I’m comparing mesmer to engineer. I actually think that mesmer is where most classes should be. but here is a tldr for those with trouble reading.

TLDR: Mesmer is easy to pick-up due to the numerous stealth, teleports, and evasions. Having played a engineer mostly these past few weeks, I feel that engineer could use a bump to be brought back to the mesmers level. I also think that ranger could use some love. Lastly, elementalist are the only class I think needs a nerf right now.

Amen on ranger.
Amen on eles needing a nerf.
Amen on mesmer being in a good place (in pvp).

As far as your experience though, you really need to run a lot more games to get a good sense for it. You need to experience the good times and the bad times. And if there are no bad times, you must be Helseth, because congrats on reaching the top of the heap.

Loboling.5293:

If you read my whole post, you’ll see I’m comparing mesmer to engineer. I actually think that mesmer is where most classes should be. but here is a tldr for those with trouble reading.

Trouble reading eh? I haven’t done this in a while, should be fun, it’s time for a game of ’let’s use forum quotes to find the backtracking’!

Loboling.5293:

I actually think that mesmer is where most classes should be.

Instant fact check!

Loboling.5293:

I joined a ranked, expecting to get owned, but we won, and I did awesome.

Ergo, I still think mesmers are OP.

Choose one. Either you think mesmers are op, or you think they’re balanced.

It’s nice that you’ve decided to adjust your stated opinion to something more based on logic and less based on the wobbly platform of personal anecdotes and assumptions, but don’t try to deny things you already said.

Loboling.5293:

If you read my whole post, you’ll see I’m comparing mesmer to engineer. I actually think that mesmer is where most classes should be. but here is a tldr for those with trouble reading.

TLDR: Mesmer is easy to pick-up due to the numerous stealth, teleports, and evasions. Having played a engineer mostly these past few weeks, I feel that engineer could use a bump to be brought back to the mesmers level. I also think that ranger could use some love. Lastly, elementalist are the only class I think needs a nerf right now.

The problem for engineers isn’t that mesmer is easier to pick up. It’s that engineers pretty much had a from the ground up rework of nearly all their traitlines and most traits.

Essentially they hit reset on engineers and sent you guys back to release almost.

Rangers need their pet sorting out mostly then a few tweaks to play well with others. They aren’t bad, just not quite meta yet. Oh I forgot spirits, they just need to figure out wtf they’re doing with spirits.

Edit: Pyro making friends again, anyone got popcorn?

Fay.2357:

Loboling.5293:

If you read my whole post, you’ll see I’m comparing mesmer to engineer. I actually think that mesmer is where most classes should be. but here is a tldr for those with trouble reading.

Trouble reading eh? I haven’t done this in a while, should be fun, it’s time for a game of ’let’s use forum quotes to find the backtracking’!

Loboling.5293:

I actually think that mesmer is where most classes should be.

Instant fact check!

Loboling.5293:

I joined a ranked, expecting to get owned, but we won, and I did awesome.

Ergo, I still think mesmers are OP.

Choose one. Either you think mesmers are op, or you think they’re balanced.

It’s nice that you’ve decided to adjust your stated opinion to something more based on logic and less based on the wobbly platform of personal anecdotes and assumptions, but don’t try to deny things you already said.

I’ll try and come back to simplify things for you again, but reading is about context. Sometimes you have to read the before and after to understand the message. Sure I think mesmers are overpowered, but literally the next thing I say is “compared to engineers”. I mean come on, could you not read the next few words? As I said, if the first message was too long to read, please refer to my TLDR.

This is going to be a bit weird to quote myself, but for clarity I’l do it.

Loboling.5293:

I went and played a mesmer yesterday for the first time since the update. I joined a ranked, expecting to get owned, but we won, and I did awesome.

So here, I bring up my recent experience hoping on my mesmer for the first time in months.

Loboling.5293:

Ergo, I still think mesmers are OP. Compared to my engineer (where I play most games), I felt stronger, and I have almost no experience with mesmer and none since the update.

Now I didn’t mention how many games I have on my mesmer, but the answer is 6. So here I mention that compared to my engineer, the mesmer felt stronger and easier to pick up. Overpowered by comparison.

Loboling.5293:

Mesmer might not get complained about as much anymore, but they are still very strong. The difference now is that if you are on your toes, you can survive and counter mesmer burst. So things don’t feel ridiculously broken anymore, just like you have one hand tied behind your back when fighting a mesmer.

Again, here I mention that when playing on my engineer, I feel at a disadvantage when fighting mesmers. However, I also mention that the recent changes have made fighting mesmers a more enjoyable experience. I no longer consider them to be god tier, but I do consider them to be a strong profession.

Loboling.5293:

Honestly, I’m not familiar enough with the class to advocate any kind of nerf. They just feel very solid. Maybe instead of nerfing, Anet could buff some of the other classes. (engineer, ranger, and give thieves back ricochet)

Here I mention again my limited knowledge of the class, and explain that I am in no position to advocate nerfs to the class. Instead I propose that engineers and rangers be buffed slightly. And that thiefs get their ricochet back.

Loboling.5293:

The game is somehow almost as close to balanced as it was before the update, which is promising. Nerfing the burst sigils, and bringing down some of the crazy damage. (although where is the fire damage nerf? or I should say elementalist burning nerf, that class is in its own league right now) Once, elementalist skills that burn have been reduced, and other classes have had a slight bump, and bug fixes (engineer have lots of bugs since the update which weaken us), I think the game will be even more balanced than before the update. We may be heading in a good direction once all these changes go in. I just hope they don’t wait too much longer.

Now I mention what I find to be some of the reasons that the game feels very close to balanced, but that elementalist is strictly stronger than every class, and should be brought down. I also mention that bugs are a big part of what is weakening the engineer, and if those could be solved engineers may be balanced with the mesmer.

So in a nut shell, again, mesmer is stronger and easier to pick-up than engineer. With only 6 games on a mesmer in the past 2 years, I managed to do very well. (I didn’t explain what I meant in the post, but I won many of my 1v1, and felt like a walking destruction god. I only died once all game, and this is in a bracket of play that is at least somewhat close to the skill level I encounter on my engineer.) Lastly, bug fixes and some small tweaks to engineer and ranger could really help, as well as nerfing elementalist burning.

6 Games in 2 years do not give you good assessment of a class.

That’s basically most of the problem of class imbalance complaints. Most players just pick a certain meta build from some website and did okay after a few games and thought they knew everything inside out.

For example, for mesmer, can you at least try playing w/o PU and playing w/o torch first? You will get a much better idea how the class works.

Loboling.5293:

snip

A thing to keep in mind is that “easier skill floor” isn’t the basis of whats “overpowered” or not.
“Overpowered” is more based around it’s ability to be metagameable and even often overlooks “infinite skill ceiling” scenarios.

Losing a bunch of games then playing a new prof and winning against the cabbage patch because you had a bunch of Cele Eles doesn’t make it OP – just a win vs the cabbage patch.

Exciton.8942:

6 Games in 2 years do not give you good assessment of a class.

That’s basically most of the problem of class imbalance complaints. Most players just pick a certain meta build from some website and did okay after a few games and thought they knew everything inside out.

For example, for mesmer, can you at least try playing w/o PU and playing w/o torch first? You will get a much better idea how the class works.

I’ll admit that overpowered might be the wrong choice of word. However, the game I played was without PU, and I didn’t visit any site to make my build, just read the traits and grabbed what I liked. I know I don’t have an understanding of the class, and I’m not advocating nerfs for mesmer. I was just pointing out that it felt much stronger than engineer. (and I have ~400 games on engineer) There is nothing wrong with a class being easy to pick-up. But it made my engineer feel weak by comparison.

Loboling.5293:

Exciton.8942:

6 Games in 2 years do not give you good assessment of a class.

That’s basically most of the problem of class imbalance complaints. Most players just pick a certain meta build from some website and did okay after a few games and thought they knew everything inside out.

For example, for mesmer, can you at least try playing w/o PU and playing w/o torch first? You will get a much better idea how the class works.

I’ll admit that overpowered might be the wrong choice of word. However, the game I played was without PU, and I didn’t visit any site to make my build, just read the traits and grabbed what I liked. I know I don’t have an understanding of the class, and I’m not advocating nerfs for mesmer. I was just pointing out that it felt much stronger than engineer. (and I have ~400 games on engineer) There is nothing wrong with a class being easy to pick-up. But it made my engineer feel weak by comparison.

While I think your analysis overall is reasonable, the point people are jumping on is what I mentioned earlier: any given pvp game is to some degree a function of the RNG.
You had a great game, but you can’t be certain that wasn’t because you rolled an easier match, with opponents well below your personal skill level, or with terrible group synergy/coordination.
It’s known that mesmers are top duelists, so winning 1v1s in a ranked game on a mesmer wouldn’t be surprising, and if the enemy team was unable to coordinate well, lots of 1v1s or other small engagements is what you’ll see.

In short, you drew a conclusion from a single game, and that’s just not enough information to draw a conclusion on. Many of the people jumping on you for that are the same people who would jump on you if you’d had a bad game and came in here saying mesmers are *under*powered as a result.
Your full analysis is essentially correct imo, but you came to it based on insufficient information.

I’m sorry, but the mantra nerfs did not wreck the spec. It’s still very, very strong.

Oh, and just to respond back to the OP:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/mesmers-has-too-many-traits-made-baseline
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Why-do-mesmers-have-so-much-stealth

And those are just the Mesmer-specific threads in the first two pages of the PvP, both of which were started after the July 28 patch. I’m not counting threads with broader topics where people show up to complain about Mesmer, nor am I counting any of the threads or posts in this very subforum where non-Mesmers showed up to complain about how OP we are.

I mostly chimed in to counter what some were saying that mesmer got destroyed by the update. I don’t think mesmer is a weak class at all. When I face them, or when I decided to try playing it, it feels like a tough contender, and in all the ways a solo player usually weighs, a stronger profession than engineer.

I’m glad to see people less focused on mesmers, which means I’ll have to fight less of them. I just find them an easy class to compete with, although I’ll admit they have a high skill ceiling.

PainbowBrite.3785:

I’m sorry, but the mantra nerfs did not wreck the spec. It’s still very, very strong.

It made traited mantras and running more than 1-2 very unreliable, especially when you consider that you’re giving up Deceptive Evasion. Between the 3 nerfs to mantra mesmer’s dps (Mirror Blade, Harmonious, and Fire/Air Sigils), more sustainable damage is gonna win out over mantras most likely, especially since it is so clunky to finish a fight now with 1 charge or something. Do I put my heal on cd to get 3 charges back and hope no one finds me while I have no healing skill, or do I hope my next encounter doesn’t require more than 3k worth of heals? It might work in WvW roaming, but in SPvP,recharging mantras on top of the cd they have is just not really worth it unless the fight is over because of how high everyone’s damage is. Prior to the nerf, mantra builds were not common at all. They only became common because of the cd change. Why would they suddenly be “very, very strong” now that they’re essentially back where they started?

The very strong is due to using mantra of distraction for that 1 second. We have become a more specialized 1 trick pony. Sadly if the stars fail to align then it doesn’t matter. Better players see through this so the rest of us have to suffer with an awful mechanic named mantras.

apharma.3741:

Cyber Murmeli, if you nerf PU, where do mesmers get their defence from? After nearly 3 years no-one without some kind of mental handicap is falling for clones and there’s now no penalty to cleaving them out which neuters our damage and ability to shatter.

Are you serious?

Mesmers have innate invulnerability through distortion on a 60 second cooldown. Most classes have to waste a skill slot on this; it usually isn’t true invulnerability, but immunity to one type of damage, and is on a longer cooldown. The skills which do offer true invulnerability do not let you attack or use skills while they are active unlike distortion.

The second highest stealth uptime of all classes including the only stealth skill and trait that ignores the revealed debuff.

A 1200 range port on a 30 second cooldown.

Good access to vigor. Decent access to regeneration and protection.

A mid-tier health pool.

Clones which throw off targeting and block range attacks even if the enemy never gets confused by them.

Good access to blinds, confusion (which is defensive and offensive in nature) and weakness if you run staff or powerblock.

I’d say mesmers have some of the best defense in the game without PU. That is why they have always been one of the two classes able to fill the berserker role.

Are you serious?
“The skills which do offer true invulnerability do not let you attack or use skills while they are active unlike distortion” Ele’s obsidian flesh with same cd?
“trait that ignores the revealed debuff.” Wut?..
“Good access to vigor” 5s on crit with 10s CD vs ele’s 6s on crit with 5cd vs permavigor sw/d thief etc?
“A mid-tier health pool.” Kk. Low-tier armor?
“Clones which throw off targeting” Wut?..
“block range attacks even if the enemy” You could add "and dies from 1-2 ranged attacks’.
“confusion (which is defensive and offensive in nature)” only at condi build
“I’d say mesmers have some of the best defense in the game without PU.”
Mb. Otherwise (without stealth, blinds, distortion, ports) they would just die as low tier armor and mid tier health class

Bacon.4918:

apharma.3741:

Cyber Murmeli, if you nerf PU, where do mesmers get their defence from? After nearly 3 years no-one without some kind of mental handicap is falling for clones and there’s now no penalty to cleaving them out which neuters our damage and ability to shatter.

Are you serious?

Mesmers have innate invulnerability through distortion on a 60 second cooldown. Most classes have to waste a skill slot on this; it usually isn’t true invulnerability, but immunity to one type of damage, and is on a longer cooldown. The skills which do offer true invulnerability do not let you attack or use skills while they are active unlike distortion.

The second highest stealth uptime of all classes including the only stealth skill and trait that ignores the revealed debuff.

A 1200 range port on a 30 second cooldown.

Good access to vigor. Decent access to regeneration and protection.

A mid-tier health pool.

Clones which throw off targeting and block range attacks even if the enemy never gets confused by them.

Good access to blinds, confusion (which is defensive and offensive in nature) and weakness if you run staff or powerblock.

I’d say mesmers have some of the best defense in the game without PU. That is why they have always been one of the two classes able to fill the berserker role.

Mesmers have strong defenses because avoiding damage IS their defense. Distortion is a powerful skill on a long cd with situational usage due to the fact that it is a shatter skill, so when you need it most, you may not got the full 4 seconds. This is actually incredibly common against classes with good sources of AoEs since more often than not, clones die in 1-2 hits. True other classes don’t have access to distortion(except elementalist’s Obsidian Flesh, which is basically a 3 clone shatter on it’s one), but other classes have their own damage mitigation. Saying mesmer is strong just because it has a class mechanic that no other class has doesn’t really make sense.

I’m not sure where you’re getting stealth that ignores the reveal debuff, but I’m fairly certain no skill does this anymore. Decoy used to because it for some reason applied a unique type of unstacking stealth, but now it applies the same type of stealth as all other skills and is affected by reveal IIRC.

Blink is a great stunbreak. There are shorter cd stunbreaks and there are better ports. It’s kinda middle of the road honestly. Utility slots have always been a very restricted resource to mesmers with most builds only really having 1 slot to play with, if that.

Mesmer’s uptime on vigor isn’t really anything special seeing as most classes have some trait synonymous to Critical Infusion, sometimes on a shorter cd and some even have multiple.

Health tier pool doesn’t really mean much, mesmer shares that tier with 3 other classes.

Clones only throw off targeting of players not familiar with fighting mesmers. May sound a little harsh, but good players aren’t going to be distracted by clones. Some even have the potential to oneshot clones with auto attacks to prevent shatters. As for blocking projectiles, I can’t say I’ve seen this be an issue, especially since very few skills spawn clones right in front of you, plus many ranged skills pierce their targets anyway.

Blinds are useful, but most of them are coming from Blinding Dissipation, which requires you to shatter and be within melee range of your target. Hardly broken or cause for alarm. Confusion isn’t really a damage mitigator, especially since celestial mesmers aren’t really a thing. If they’re a power build, confusion can be pretty much ignored and you won’t be taking any big damage from it, much less avoiding attacking.

Weakness is only reliably applied by power block as you said. The only skill that applies weakness on staff is Chaos Storm, on a 35 sec cd with a 33% chance to apply 2 seconds of weakness. Not really reliable.

Mesmer is still broken in spvp and WvWvW roaming for multiple reasons:

Mantra of distraction + confounding suggestions allows to do 1200 range stun every 5 seconds. The trait is brokenly overpowered. Mesmer has a lot of access to daze and this trait now turns every daze into 1.25 s stun.

Prismatic Understanding + The pledge traits allow mesmer to have very high stealth uptime. Mesmer can do damage from stealth without getting revealed using illusions, reset a fight or set up a burst.

Blink is 30 s (24 s traited) 1200 range teleport + stunbreak, which can be used both offensively and defensively and giving mobility.

Distortion gives invulnerability and unlike most other invulnerabilities it allows mesmer to use her skills at same time.

I do not mind mesmers having a lot of defenses, powerful burst and good in combat mobility, but having several of them in one build is certainly too much, leaving very little for counter play.

I could go on.

I give up.

Mantra of distraction 2 or 3 charges (no de if 3)1 shatter on a plus 30 second timer. If you slot mantra of distraction then condition management tanks. It is a give and take not all take as you believe.

Mak.2657:

I give up.

You’re trying to argue balance with people who fundamentally do not give a flying kitten about balance.

Bacon.4918:

Verbal stuff very similar to something I had this morning.

Ok so lets compare power shatter to guard, we’ll go medi so it’s like for like in terms of role.

Medi guard has without traits:
75s CD aegis on F3
2.5k heal on F2
Invuln on elite on 90s CD (72s traited with heal)

Focus:
3 hit block on focus 5 on a 36s CD
Multi hitting blind on focus 4 granting regen to allies too, 20s CD

If scepter MH:
20s CD immob, single target
6s CD AoE damage, it’kitten and miss but does a lot if it hits alot, used for area denial.

If sword MH:
Teleport and AoE blind on 10s CD
Projectile block and damage on 15s CD

GS:
Leap and AoE blind on 15s CD
A stealth disregarding, number 5 ability which turns into a dodge disregarding pull.
Retal granting symbol that does decent damage 20s CD (area denial)
Burst on whirling wrath on 10s CD which can do some pretty high damage.

Full condition conversion on 60s CD (48s trated)
Single condition removal on 20s CD with high damage for doing so (16s traited)
Teleport and AoE burn on kitten CD. (36s traited)
Heal that is almost impossible to interrupt and blocks attacks.

Now we add traits:
Gain about 2k heal per medi used and grant AoE fury + 20% CD reduction on meditations.
GS attacks heal you.
Gain aegis when you revive someone or rally (30s CD)
Gain aegis when struck below 50% health (30s CD)
Gain aegis and retaliation when CC’d (30s CD)
Grant aegis to allies when you block an attack (15s CD) – Not you though.
Gain protection on F3, regen on F2.
F3 passive refreshes every 30s.
F2 passive increased in healing (about 100hp/s)
F2 removes 3 conditions on you and upto 4 allies in 600 range.
F3 breaks stun and gives stability to you and upto 4 allies in a 600 range.
Virtue refresh on invuln.
Use smite conditions when you heal (1 condi removed and damage)
Optionally you can switch out the last one for CD reduction on focus skills and protection on use of them.

Now lets look at GS/Sw-T shatter:
GS: Knockback on 5

Sword:
2.5s rooted evade on 12s CD does moderate damage.
Teleport that relies on soggy paper clone not dying in 1s before teleport is available.

Torch:
AoE blind and 6s stealth on 30s CD.

Blind on a 12/25/38/50s CD
Single target daze (stun on first application) on a 38s CD
Traited 24s CD teleport with mirror at the end.
6s stealth stunbreak.
Portal (though forcing a mesmer to use it early often is a boon to your team)
5s vigor (vigor recently nerfed) on crit 10s CD
1-4s Distortion on 50s CD
Randomly 5s Might, 3s Swiftness, 3s Aegis, 3s Protection or 3s Regen in stealth.
Gain 10s regen when struck under 75% health 15s ICD
Gain 3s protection when you gain regen 15s ICD
Decoy at 50% health. Note doing damage if it activates mid spacial surge etc wastes it.
Reflect CC back at source on a 60s CD.

Elite, all are useful in some ways, moa removes someone from using skills for 10s, timewarp is AoE slow, both on 3 minute cool downs.

Oh and 0 condi cleanses.

This is just a comparison of defences and it’s pretty clear that not only does the guard get a lot more but they also work much better in the team with AoE condi cleanses and stunbreaks. However it is worth noting mesmer can get out a little easier with the stealth but guard has the upper hand in the fight with blocks, heals, sustain etc.

I could do this for other classes if you aren’t seeing my point.

I’d say it’s like talking to a brick wall, but what has a brick wall ever done to me?

So, given how most mesmers in WTS had very little impact do you think we’ve seen an end to most of the nerd crys?