Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone i’d like to ask the forums which class they think removes boons the best Necromancer or Mesmer. I’ve been playing around with boon removal with necro and find it to be useful in team fights and 1v1 but i’ve never really played mesmer enough to see how effective they are in boon removals. With necro I am able to constantly remove boons with dagger/focus or axe/focus while having enough sustain with staff/DS. Can mesmers constantly remove boons while at the same time sustain themselves enough or do they only do it per burst (so 3 boons removed from each shatter I think) and which in your opinion does it better?

necro no question.
corrupt boon
spinal shivers
chill of death
unholy feast
well of corruption
path of corruption

Mesmer definately has better boon removal. They have it on an auto attack for one. Necro has boon conversion. But all boon removal on necro is locked behind long cooldowns and some behind long cast times. So for PvP necros boon hate is actually pretty good because burst boon removal with conversion can be strong. But in PvE its very weak and constant boon removal is needed to counter mobs which constantly reapply their boons.

So mesmer is better for it in PvE. Necro is debatably better for it in PvP.

Mesmer by far.

Agree with Spoj’s post though. Long cooldowns hurt the necro but the burst potential arguably make it better in PvP. Especially with all the eles and engis flying around atm.

After playing a few more days with Necromancers I honestly can’t see how Mesmer is better at boon removal compared to Necromancers. True Mesmers have a trait that lets them remove boon and sword auto attack also removed boons but realistically in a fight Sword auto will barely every get used enough to remove boons and their boon removal trait imo is not as strong as Chill of Death. Necromancers not only can stay in a fight longer then Mesmers but can rotate through their boon strips to do good damage and boon strip almost consistently when rotating between DS #2 Focus #5 CB AND Chill of Death. Personally I think Necromancers can more effectively use their boon strips while still doing enough damage and having enough sustain to fight 1v1.

Its the concept of “removal” vs “corruption”

Mesmer has a plethora of skills that will strip and remove boons. as in they will make them go away.

Necromancer “corrupts” them.

As Spoj Said, in a PvE setting Mesmer trumps as the auto attack among other things will be perpetually removing boons. Where as Necromancer is locked behind long cool downs or in some cases off kilter skills. they are balanced like that in that the boons are now corrupted and are conditions instead.

Simply Put,
Mesmer will strip your boons and they are gone.
Necromancer will take your boons and then do damage with them.

In a PvP setting the Necromancer is better for boon hate ( in “my” opinion). Because after corruption those conditions will do damage. even if the opponent reapplies said boons. the conditions are still there and working.

in the grand scheme of it all though they BOTH work well for that type of thing. Its a matter of what you prefer to play, and what your team may need etc. And to be fair, there are several Necro mains that play Mesmer as well.

A mesmer can remove boons with sword main attack, GS mindstab, shatter, null field, arcane thievery, and the phantasmal disenchanter, alone, removes boons faster than an ele can apply them….

Where as the necro has two skills on a 40 second cooldown (well, corrupt boon), spinal shivers and can spec for a 10% chance to remove boons on pet attack, and I guess you could spec for path of corruption…

A mantra mesmer can remove 2 conditions from his group 3 times before his 20 second cooldown kicks in. He can remove an addition 2 from himself 3 times before a 10 second cooldown kicks in. For a total of 6 button presses, removing 12 conditions.

A mesmer can also remove conditions with null field, disenchanter, arcane thievery, using his torch, or using shatter….

A necro can transfer conditions with staff 4, offhand dagger, use a well to remove them (never works for me) or eat them with his heal.

The biggest difference between the two is that necros are bursty. They have stupidly long cooldowns on their skills, and in long fights can find themselves helpless against other condition classes.

A mesmer on the other hand has massive sustained condi/boon control. Most mesmer builds also have the condi/boon control built right in.

For a phantasm mesmer, using the disenchanter, and restorative mantras is a no-brainer in pve. Any shatter build will remove boons with shatter, wipeing protection is a no-brainer…

Mesmer almost always out-shines the necro when dealing with condis and boons

I don’t know about PvE or sPvP, but in WvW hitting Corrupt Boon at the right time in a zerg fight will cause the target to go down rather quickly. It’s not an insta kill but it’s really close.

For the PvE experts out there, are there any boss fights where boon strip is useful?
Is there anywhere in dungeons where a boon strip build is better than the meta build for mesmer or necro?

Same question for the sPvP experts out there, could a boon strip mesmer or necro be more useful than their current meta builds?

To answer your question for PvE. There are a few fights with boons. But they often involve constant reapplication every second. Which means you really need a mesmer with sword auto and sword clones/phantasmal disenchanters. But you definitely dont need to change the build. You would still use the standard mesmer or necro meta build. Mesmer meta build has plenty of boon removal without speccing for it.

would rather mesmer remove the boons entirely and on lower cooldown as well. works much better in pve and imo wvw zerg

necro removes ina burst on a long cooldown but in a 1 vs 1 they are much better than mesmers
in a zerg fight dont forget those corrupted boons can be re-converted with warrior warhorn and guardian shouts and also those corrputed boons only become useful if you run a condi build to make the few ticks matter before they are removed

I know axe isnt exactly a fav weapon for many necros, But dont forget about axe 3 :P. Aoe boon strip! Agreed that mesmer is better at it though.

Not all boons are worth the same. Converting regen’, aegis, retal’, might, fury, and swiftness into conditions is huge compared to just removing them but corruptions are long cool downs. Protection and vigor are probably the weakest to corrupt so ignore them. Stability is not high on the list, either, unless used as an interrupt.

Corruption >> strip but CD is high, too.

In PvE, Aetherblades did a lot of boon spam and Necromancer flourished. I loved tearing into them with conditions and corruptions that worked.

Sadly, the oldest content is less favorable to Necro.