Guild Wars 2

Lately, ive been having a really really hard time fighting shatter spec mesmers in WvW when im solo/duo. I can’t seem to figure out what to do when they root via Illusionary leap or CC via Temporal Curtain. Sometimes Im lucky and I have enough dodge meter to get out of a very situations, but usually I spent time eating death shroud and being disoriented so much I can barely do damage. Any ideas? I run a power build, dagger+WH with vampiric . armor 2.39k and hp 22k.

I had quite some engagements with shatter mesmers too. I think the key is to use your CC wisely. Casting reapers mark in preperation of the sword leap beneath you is a pretty nice tool to deny the flurry skill. You have to land your fears pretty good, so you can hit them hard, while they are running away from you. Another thing is to keep their shatters with Chillblains on a high cooldown. Many shatter mesmers have a trait in, that sets all shatter cooldowns to 0, if they fall below 50% health, so that is the part for which I keep the dodges up. All in all, a shatter mesmer is the least problem for me. You just have to time your skills right, and they are an easy kill. More of a problem are “non-shatter” mesmers, which tend to not shatter at all, but every killed phantasm / clone (and it’s hard not to kill them…) gives you a condition (cripple, bleed). It’s just insane how much sustained damage that build can do.

- keep as much distance between you and the mesmer as possible at all times
- save your endurance and dodge the leap (up to you to figure out how)
- apply as many conditions as you can as fast as you can (shatter mesmer condi removal not so good)
- fear him as often as you can
- assuming you use staff, make sure you land your marks on both the mesmer and the clones
- if you run wells, use them as a peel to give urself some breathing room
- chill and cripple are your friends
- stand in their staff bubble thing for 2 seconds, then pass the condis back to him

hf

so… just dont use dagger…

Dagger is really hard to use on mesmer, because they are the hardest class to “pindown”.

A Good shatter mesmer won’t often stay in your dagger range.

Condimancer have a easier time again Shatter mesmer, because most of them don’t have much condition removal.

I also use Flesh Worm and Spectral Walk to get out of their combo.

Anyway, unlike Psygate, I find any fight again mesmer being a good challenge. They are a really strong class with a lot of invul/defence mecanism. And they hit hard.

1 vs 1, phantasm mesmer are a lot worse tho. They hit like a truck.

I think this is a case of just a terrible matchup. Dagger Necros have a lot of problems against Mesmers in general, but especially Shatter ones.

I have a very hard time dealing with any good mesmer regardless of build and i still have a lot to learn but here is what i think helps in addition to what others said ofc…

Having the remove condition on DS trait (if it fits your build) can help get rid of the immobilize since illusionary leap has a 12 sec cd and therefore u ll probably be able to jump into DS every time the mesmer casts it as long as u have enough LF. i m not sure but i believe condition removal works in a LIFO way and therefore u ll be able to get rid of it most of the time.

Also more often than not they try to shatter and use blurred frenzy at the same time. Since illusions need some time to run up to you and explode a mesmer usually has to use his shatter right before he jumps in for blurred frenzy. Therefore when u see illusions coming to you dodge, or use any kingd of CC (WH daze has a pretty big area of effect and should not be underestimated)

Using the golem as elite helps in my opinion, and not only for the charge.If u manage to target the real mesmer once the golem with follow him as long as u dont target any of his clones. Even if the mesmer sthealths the golem will pursue him as long as he re-appears which can be a big help if u are trying to identify him.

The problem is that shatter and non-shatter mesmers should be treated very differently and by the time u can identify what u are dealing with u are probably already in a very bad situation since they are all really strong…

In any way if u are alone and see a mesmer i d suggest u just run… hopefully u ll be able to get away…
Mesmers are in my opinion the best 1v1 class in the game and no matter how well u play they could always use moa (which if i m not mistaken can now be cast while moving) and ruin your day.

Mesmers have very little access to condition removal, beyond Null Field and the Mender’s Purity trait, which removes one condition when they heal. So like someone mentioned above, conditionmancers will generally fare better. But even then, there’s a higher chance that they’ll burst you down before your conditions begin to wear them down. Having mained a mesmer since launch, I rarely found necromancers much of a threat. If I did die to conditions, it was because I was caught off-guard.

Mesmers are ultimately a duelist class so… yeah lol.

Bhawb.7408:

I think this is a case of just a terrible matchup. Dagger Necros have a lot of problems against Mesmers in general, but especially Shatter ones.

I sort of figured this was the problem due to fast hitting yet decent damage and the possibility of chaos armor causing hits. Thank you for the reply though. Maybe I need to look into using another weapon to give me better results atleast as an offhand.

Edit: Also, thank you Enferian. I have been swapping in Golem lately for small skirmishes instead of lich as Its a nice extra CC and is nice because it works on multiple people. Never noticed it follows them in stealth though. Im not sure if i can get the DS trait for condition removal with vampiric, but I may try it anyway.

As a Necro and a Mesmer I would say as a dagger power Necro you wil have a very hard time. IMO a mediocre shatter or phantasm Mesmer will probably stomp a good power dagger Necro.

My favorite quote from the Mesmer forums is “we are not OP we are just better designed than other classes”. :p

Loyo.8526:

Never noticed it follows them in stealth though.

Just to clarify… it doesnt follow them in stealth. It comes back to you and then chases the mesmer again once he appears.
Its similar to how it goes for the real mesmer when u down them and they use Deception

Enferian.2705:

Loyo.8526:

Never noticed it follows them in stealth though.

Just to clarify… it doesnt follow them in stealth. It comes back to you and then chases the mesmer again once he appears.
Its similar to how it goes for the real mesmer when u down them and they use Deception

Ah, I understand now. I am still going to try again with dagger as its my favorite weapon, but swapped in Staff as a secondary. Il see if this helps. went 15/0/10/15/30 . No might stacking or vamperic percision, but im fine with this.

Why do u have 15 in spite? the extra 50 power doesnt seem like much and the healing u get doesnt really benefit you u since vampiric traits dont scale with Healing Power.

I might be missing something but why dont you go 10 in spite and 20 in Blood Magic and take vampric precision since u seem to like this trait?

I find mesmers far worse than thieves or ele’s even. Haven’t fought many alone since going over more to carrion but as a rabid condi necro you have no direct damage or burst to kill any of their illusions, which makes fighting them at a distance or kiting a big pain. Hoping with beefier Life Transfer and Marks it will matchup better.

Enferian.2705:

Why do u have 15 in spite? the extra 50 power doesnt seem like much and the healing u get doesnt really benefit you u since vampiric traits dont scale with Healing Power.

I might be missing something but why dont you go 10 in spite and 20 in Blood Magic and take vampric precision since u seem to like this trait?

you’re right. silly me :x

I’m getting better at Mesmer but I still have trouble sometimes. The best advice I can give is to pin point the real one as fast as you can and AE the clones as much as possible for shatter Mesmers. Killing clones effectively reduces that damage. I’ve found that Spectral Wall is also very amazing at mitigating the damage if you do happen to get immobilized and BF’d.

To be honest, the hardest things for me to beat now are Engi’s with that condition immunity at 25% hp. I’ve yet to beat one in a 1v1 because they linger there for so long and there’s no way to disengage them if you’re out in the open. If anyone can give me advice on this, I’d be appreciative. Personally I think that trait is way too powerful.

Coming from a necro main and a mesmer alt, you should never beat a decent shatter mesmer as a power spec. What are you going to do to keep me in place? Blink,decoy, mirror images, mass invis, chaos armor, phase retreat (through chaos storm for more armor). All while chain shattering and doing damage. There is nothing you can do, unless you catch me with my utilities on CD, my weapon swap on CD, my sword out with 2 and F4 skills all on or I am just totally, 100% terrible.

Now, condi damage necro and catch me w/o lemongrass or melandru runes and I’m screwed. Make me blow my blink and then load the bleeds. Don’t make me run before I use blink or I will get away.

If I run phantasm, well that build is op in 1v1 against everyone. And I’ll put 3 of them on you and go to sleep.

Triple bounce bleed would chew you apart too. 15-20 stacks of bleeds hitting for 115 sting a little, but a condi necro could give it a decent chance if you can pick the real mes quickly.

All of the above is relating to WvW. I don’t sPvP but I assume it would be similar there.

Kardiamond.6952:

Dagger is really hard to use on mesmer, because they are the hardest class to “pindown”.

A Good shatter mesmer won’t often stay in your dagger range.

Condimancer have a easier time again Shatter mesmer, because most of them don’t have much condition removal.

I also use Flesh Worm and Spectral Walk to get out of their combo.

Anyway, unlike Psygate, I find any fight again mesmer being a good challenge. They are a really strong class with a lot of invul/defence mecanism. And they hit hard.

1 vs 1, phantasm mesmer are a lot worse tho. They hit like a truck.

I love when people say what i want to say, so i have not to write in engrish,

My advice would be to disengage if you meet a phantasm mesmer,

Due you won’t be able to disengage, my only advice is to fight until the bitter end or until support arrives,

I have issues with mesmers on my necromancer too, the problem is that I have a hard time distinguishing the real one, even when they get downed it is hard to tell, for me at least. I can kill mesmers on my thief because I have a little breathing space to find the real one. So i think if you can distinguish the real from fake quickly, you might have a chance.

MM > mesmers

Cleric Geared Bunker/Well/Heal Ncro is the way to kill any Mesmers not with pure Power or Pure Condi. believe. 0-0-25-30-15 Build.

so fun

I m not sure but i think that buffs and food only appear on the real mesmer…
if this is the case then it might help a bit at identifying the real one.

Also Azraeel when u down a mesmer and he uses skill 2, the second one to appear is the real one. And if u hit him while he is down instead of trying to stomp him u ll notice that the real one will also have lower health than the clone.

Best way to know how to tell the real mesmer and eventually know how and if u can beat one is to try the most popular specs for some time and notice the details of how they work. Going into spvp will help with that

The real downed memser has a icone above btw..

Mesmer clones can get boons, but if you want to find the real one you have to watch your srceen not your castbar. You can clearly spot the real one from the movement and spell usage.

i ve never noticed the icon above the downed mesmer.. what does it look like?

i was not talking about boons, i was talking about food and buffs from items like sharpening stone.

The icon is the same one that you would see above a downed player. The real Mesmer has a number of things that make it easier to find them, the only real problem is clicking them.

I always found tab targeting to work better than clicking when facing mesmers, only in 1v1 situations ofc.

Mesmers are just kings of dueling. Lets just leave it at that T_T;

I lose many battles but have also won a few too, really good memsers though and I’m already dead but there are a few things I’ve noticed so as to stand a chance.

• Epidemic is great against them, stack a few on them.. don’t worry too much about how many and when it used it should kill most active clones wihtin a couple seconds. Short cooldwown on this is great too.
• life transfer is great aoe for killling clones too.
• know when to dodge. There are specific animations to look out for that are very dangerous. watch clones when they run at you
• condition transfers for the right time. Dropping putrid mark on my spot as them blurred frenzy puts the immobilize on them.

for a power necro axe can be a good tool. Hitting lots of clones gives good retal. the hit should nearly kill thhem and the retal finishes them off. also as dagger you would need to use a lot of control skills.

• Dark path (ds 2) is a nice gap closer.
• focus chill
• sigil of hydromancy
• warhorn cripple

I find the best build against them is stacking Fear. nightmare runes, reapers protection, terror, ds cooldown. with 2 second fears doing some decent damage against them as well as interupting their casts and movements you stand a decent chance of nailing them.
unfortunately for WvW this means running Twilight arbor until your head explodes from sheer frustration

You can transfer immobilise with putrid mark before they go invulnerable with blurred frenzy. Take a couple of tries to figure out the timing. In a 1v1 just save your dodges for when you see them raise their pistol or when they leap a clone at you and you’ll probably win anyway. If you miss a dodge, transfer immob with putrid, if putrid is down, DS. Good shatter mesmers are rough, but they’re few and far between, and we definitely have the tools to beat them. Phantasms annoy me more.

Don’t run dagger.

Why would you ever roam in WvW as a non-terror condimancer build? Anything besides that is asking to get killed by good players who just get out of your wells and kite your dagger.

Powermancers DON’T WORK against smart people. I hope you come across enough D/P shadow arts thieves to teach you that hard lesson.

Better yet, level a different class for roaming. The necro is not a roaming class. I suggest a mesmer, thief, ele, or BM ranger.

Zenith.7301:

Don’t run dagger.

Why would you ever roam in WvW as a non-terror condimancer build? Anything besides that is asking to get killed by good players who just get out of your wells and kite your dagger.

Powermancers DON’T WORK against smart people. I hope you come across enough D/P shadow arts thieves to teach you that hard lesson.

Better yet, level a different class for roaming. The necro is not a roaming class. I suggest a mesmer, thief, ele, or BM ranger.

maybe because I am silly and don’t run wells?

I’m a powermancer that run with only 1 well, Well of Suffering, the rest of the utilities are Blood is Power, Spectral Walk/Signet of the Locust, and Consume Conditions as my heal skill. I don’t have that much issues while roaming, maybe because I don’t roam that much unless im heading to a zerg, but so far the classes I’ve met while roaming are guardian (wasn’t a problem), Engineer (popped Lich after they used their elite), Ranger (Ignored their pet, and went directly to them), Elemental (tie, downed each other), thief (they ran away).

Im sad to hear daggers aren’t so hot. I am leveling a dagger/Focus necro because I wanted a class that could use a dagger, but is rarely used by the class. XD

Decided after some reading from this thread to go back and fight while using Condi set against player. (Rabid with unnamed ascended acc. 0/20/20/0/30. Carrion Staff. Rabid scepter, Valk warhorn. Necromancer runes) I ran into a Melandru + -36% condi mesmer and tried 3 duels in both Condi and Power. Honestly, Condi I feel I did do better, however only because i was able to interrupt his heals, blocks on a couple attacks. no duels were won whatsoever so maybe im just not good at condi, but same problems still arrived with power: blocks were very frequent and confusion was hard to remove after a heal. Chaos armor was up for a good deal of the time and/or was invis. constantly had problems even getting close to landing root because when I dazed to set up he just phase retreated out. I think I may just continue to try running condi against other mesmers to see if things change with experience, but right now it is very difficult.

edit: I will also note that in power that it was very hard to kill clones as he just stacked confusion on me while i was channeling life transfer, essentially eating my whole death shroud via my own attacks + phantasms. I should have cancelled as this was a big mistake.

Against a shatter mesmer, conditions are the way to go. Power (especially on a necromancer) will not kill them, as daggers require very close range, and you won’t be able to close distance on a mesmer unless they want you to.

Shatter mesmers generally have very poor condition removal. Most run some sort of condition removal sigil, either generosity or sigil of purity, but even with those, their condition removal is poor. If you can get them stacked up with a good amount of bleeding and poison, those conditions will stay.

Range is your friend in this case. A shatter mesmer’s burst is close range. Illusionary leap has a range of 600, though often requires closer than that to be effective. If you get within that range, you will get bursted with blurred frenzy and mind wrack. Putting a reapers mark below you before the leap will not help, as the clone will trigger it, and the mesmer can still swap for immobilize. Staying out of range of the leap, or dodging the leap clone will keep you alive.

Against a phantasm mesmer you lose. This is not unique to necros, but simply common to any class that is not another phantasm mesmer.

I noticed you mention confusion with life transfer. Unless I’m greatly mistaken, life transfer is a channeled attack. Confusion will proc once at the start, and that’s it. However, since he stacked confusion on you (as a shatter build) during life transfer, that means he unloaded a full shatter burst on you…and THAT is where your death shroud went.

Mepheles.2087:

Im sad to hear daggers aren’t so hot. I am leveling a dagger/Focus necro because I wanted a class that could use a dagger, but is rarely used by the class. XD

Dont be discouraged. Daggers are fine in general in my opinion. There are weak points in every build and every weapon combination.

Against mesmers for example daggers are weak, thats all…