Guild Wars 2

Not a QQ thread and am not looking for “Necro UP” comments. Clearly there are Necromancers out their beastin’ in sPvP and I could sure use some help.

Currently running a pretty standard condition based Necromancer. I fair relatively well in most match-ups besides Mesmers. I have a really rough time dealing with them in general. Most specifically burst based Mesmers.

I’m curious if anyone out there has some general Necro v Mesmer match up tips?

Thanks in advance.

I play both and personally I think necro should have an easy time vs most burst mesmer builds.

As a necro, you are pretty tanky. Also, standard mesmer burst build doesnt have condition removal. Stun break his sword root and evade immediately.

If you want to autowin the fight go plague form spam bleed.

If you get stunned, death shroud to soak the incoming mind wrack, then pop out again and use life force generators so you’re ready for the next one.

necro is really strong vs mesmer just cause we have a lot of on demand pbaoe and ranged AoE that shuts down 50% of their dmg (phatasms or illusion shattering)

I prefer 30 in soul reaping for stability and larger DS pool that way i can anticipate their stun+2 phantasm bursts and be immune to the dmg and the stun while killing the pets at the same time with DS #4.

ehtom, did you just say, “Stun break his sword root and evade immediately.” ???????

Do you even pvp?

When I pop DS, I usually get morphed into a moa.
How can necros counter with that ?

Well moa morph is pretty ridiculous

If you get moa’d, just run 180 degrees away from him. Dodge at will to get more distance and evade. Come back when you’re no longer a squawker and you should have a favorable match against him.

Remember to stay out of his bubbles, they grant him boons and curse you with random conditions every second.

If you get moa’d run as fast as you can before his team can gank you.

If there’s a lot of clones out, use AoE to kill all of them, or move around a bit, if you see one of them moving while in range, immediately go for it. It’s the real one, and make sure everyone on your team can see him because mesmers can get very tough 1v1.

Thanks for all the advice so far!

Oh yeah, Math reminded me. I’m guessing you’re not using wells, but if you are, jump in the chaos storm and drop well of power for a nice boost.

So the advice is “if you get moa’d, simply survive easily for 10 seconds of doing nothing while he’s bombarding you with bleeds/phantasms/shatters, and then just kill him”?
…
Have you people ever even entered the Mists!?

moa isnt such a big deal its in no way a 10 second stun nor does it immobilize you in any way.. sure it sucks being a bird but its not the reason why i normally die vs them.. that has more to do with 5~6k mage and 5~6 sword strikes..

wheres our pets that do that amount of damage ?

Moa is really disturbing, but keep in mind that if your enemy used this Elite (with 180 cd sec) in a 1 he wasted an important disable just to kill you, what gives your team an advantage if a teamfight starts at the place. Basically, if Moa’d try to hide behind walls and things that can obstruct the mesmer attacks.

Now, to fight agaisnt a Mesmer, here go some tips:
- Dont waste your time killing his illusions;

- Know how discern fastly who is the real mesmer. If you waste more time than it should you can die. To help you, attempt to real character movies, like dodges, personal boons like Distortion, the Swap of Illusionary leap and Mesmer skills that can be discerned from the clones;

- Linked with the previous tip, many times people lose the fight agaisnt Mesmers when they go Invi because they take too much time to find the real mesmer. So, pay attention at the scenario and see where the mesmer will appear. Obviously, also use the logic to previse. Example: If a mesmer is with a low HP he probably will not appear so near from you;

- In general, Mesmers try to combo you with all their DPS in a time. So, if pay attention to the moves. If you see all their clones approaching from you, prepare to dodge or go to DS. Also pay attention at Illusionary Leap, cause it will be follow by Blurred Frenzy;

- Besides most mesmers dont run a Condition spec, they can pop a good stack of confusion without focus properly on this. So, before you just try to combo your enemy, see if you dont have any Confusion. If you have, use your skills to remove or throw back to him.

4v5 is an advantage?

^
Make the enemy team use his best disable without a good reason seems an advantage (In the case of Moa someone that just gone to DS). If i agree that Moa is OP or not is another matter.
If you have your team with you, certainly some of your friends will use some skills to help you, like Guardian’s Sanctuary or Necromancer’s Well of Darkness.

So it’s a 2v1 fight with your necro and another necro or guardian (what kind of team has two necros!?) vs a lone mesmer?

If you’re a condition necromancer you’ve got it easy. If your opponent is an in your face mesmer, cripple him. Keep distance between the two of you and he can’t do squat. Blood is power is your friend. Use it before the fight begins and your opponent will bleed throughout the duration of the fight. In case you havn’t figured it out yet, this means you can always tell who the real mesmer is (he’s the bleeding one). Even if you don’t get blood is power off before he starts popping illusions, just look for the one with the most conditions, that’s your guy. Just keep your distance, keep applying conditions, and when you start getting your own conditions, throw them back at him. To put the final nail in the coffin, turn all his boons into conditions.

Added bonus; if he tries to run, you can just casually walk after him until your bleeding downs him. YOU CANNOT RUN FROM BLEEDING.

As for finishing a mesmer off; add one stack of bleeding before he uses his skill #2 and wait for the two mesmers to appear. The bleeding one is your finisher target. Additionally, you can look for the mesmer that appears second or the mesmer with the skull over his head. Those both also indicate the real mesmer. Wouldn’t rely too much on the skull/2nd to appear thing…That seems kind of like the type of thing that ArenaNet will fix in the near future.

Finally, if you go down before a mesmer, you still have hope. As long as the mesmer is down to around 20% health or lower, you can down it before it can finish you. Your downed skills are really quite powerful, especially against other downed opponents. You win a downed vs downed fight.

ahahahha.. so, renominate the 3d.. the question is.. how can i survive against moa trans??
remember.. often, mesmer’s clone stack bleeding when hit… so, u’ll have a lot of bleeding.. a mesmer has ridicolous life.. we have enough of it.. we have a lot of armour.. so, let moa trans passes, stack a lot of bleeding, then transfer all bleeding stacks on mesmer——→ GG

Can’t quote… again.
Anyways, what Simplicity wrote about necros winning a 1v1 downed fight vs mesmers, especially condition necros… is completely untrue. It’s not even a combat, mesmer wins, end of story. We can hope to gain POISON! He can hope to gain a phantasm that will deal ~5k damage in two seconds. The necro downed 1 skill deals next to no damage in a condition build, and the mesmer is likely to have power so his will be better. The healing is miniscule without +healing gear, and even with it is mostly unimpressive.
Also, bleeds will take too long to work. A shatter or phantasm mesmer WILL kill the necro before the necro can stack enough bleeds to down the mesmer. It’s not a matter of figuring out the real one, that’s trivial, but you just can’t match him in DPS, and being stealthed for half the fight does WONDERS for the mesmer’s survivability. The necro has a chance against a condition mesmer that focuses on confusion and bleeds, but those guys are rare, and not the brightest bulbs in the box.

@Boz
You said 4v5, so i presume that you were saying about a teamfight. Like i said, if a Mesmer use a Moa in a 1v1 just trying to kill you, he wasted his best disable. Seems unfair, but its another problem. If the thread was about “What you think about Moa, blabla” I would say that has a too long duration, while the idea should be just disable your oponent, and not gives you an almost certain kill. But the thread’s proposal are tips agaisnt Mesmer and his current state.
And no, bleed dont take too much time to work. What probably happens is that youre stacking all your best bleeding stack skills in a first moment, then Mesmer probably uses Null Field, removing your bleeding. Besides Null Field, Mesmers usually dont have another Condition Removal, so its easy to stack. About stealth, is only every 32 sec. Like i also said, people usually take too much time to find the real mesmer, what gives him an advantage. And about the Downed State, what gives Mesmer good chances to down you is the fact that even he goes downed his clones doesnt disappear, and in sometimes when you down him with a low HP the clones kill you. Probably if the clones disappear when he goes down it would be more fair.

i roll a mesmer atm.. liv 50 ( in 5 days ).. i like it and feel he’s strong.. but i can’t see too much difficulties.. we have 150% of he’s life.. and a lot of armour..
of course isn’t a automatic win.. but ain’t an automatic lose

If I use a skill, and I manage to kill someone because of that skill… how is that a waste?

The only that really bothers me is that staff wells don’t trigger on downed people. It can be a nuicance to kill a mesmer that is down, specially in wvw there they render really slow after clone.

Does killing a clone rally you? If you are both downed and he has clones (which except for staff clones deal no real damage anyway, except possibly stacking some bleeds, and the staff clones only apply debuffs) it seems as though it would be more advantageous to the opposing player for the Mesmer to have his clones up when downed rather than have them disappear… Assuming killing one will rally you anyway, it takes very little to kill one or a phantasm. They are not going to move either so if you make it to fetid ground it should be even easier.

Also if you can afford a mark or even a well killing illusions is worth it, especially since they will not move out of it while the player will. Just don’t be near them when they die hehe.

In SPVP only players rally, thankfully. And Fetid Ground is in no way an advantage, it’s poison. Poison. Not gonna kill anyone any time soon.

Rizach.4852:

The only that really bothers me is that staff wells don’t trigger on downed people. It can be a nuicance to kill a mesmer that is down, specially in wvw there they render really slow after clone.

Yes, this is really quite obnoxious and should be changed. Marks should trigger if there is an enemy within their radius period, regardless of state or type. This would also help us with the painful task of killing objects.

Edit: it can be fun though to stack a bunch of marks on a downed player you cannot really reach to finish so that when someone comes to help them they trigger them all.

The Boz.2038:

In SPVP only players rally, thankfully. And Fetid Ground is in no way an advantage, it’s poison. Poison. Not gonna kill anyone any time soon.

It will kill an illusion that will not move out of it fairly quickly, but the point is moot anyway if clones do not rally you.

~240 damage per second won’t kill anything fast. Six ticks of it won’t kill a clone by itself.

The biggest BS with Moa is the instant Despawning of our minions. I know hardly anyone in their right mind goes MM in pvp but the golem and the exploding minions are still quite useful.

Cancels transformation elites too, though that is using a long cooldown elite to cancel another long cooldown elite, so I don’t know. You still eat the bird’s whole duration while you only got a few seconds of your own elite, less even if they were waiting for it.

It’s not moot, one elite is canceled, the other elite cancels the first and gets full effect; making the cancellation just a bonus.

@TheBoz
I know it seems ridiculous, but if mesmer kills you just because used a win button like people say, if his elite is in cooldown he wont be able to kill you so easily. I really would like to say you something different but unfortunately i dont. We just can accept and hope for a reduction at Moa duration or some balance.

Guys- this is just between us necromancers, but I heard blind spam in plague form is pretty op, and can similarly shut down a target like moa… except it works on multiple targets, and has double the duration.

As for dealing with mesmers in general. You either need to be good at locking onto the real character, or unload some massive aoe condition damage via epidemic.