Guild Wars 2

Sup guys,

An idea for a little psychological experiment hit me and I’m hoping my-other-favorite-forum-thats-not-the-mesmer-forum-even-though-I-don’t-play-this-class-but-you-guys-are-so-cool could help out!

What I’m looking to find is what its like fighting against a Mesmer (Shatter, Lockdown, and/or Condi) as a Necro? I have a few questions going forward:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

• How do you feel about your odds of winning?

• Strategies and tactics?

• Which type of Necro build do you feel best fights Mesmer?

• What Necro skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?

• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

Along with anything else you’d like to add. My plan is to make a thread in the Mes forums detailing and explaining how fighting us feels for other classes. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Figured I might add my own perspective when facing Necros. I run a 4/4/6 Lockdown Mesmer, and as a result Necros are some of my easiest targets. All necro weapons besides staff are easily interruptible so I’m pretty used to landing immob after immob while keeping my opponent dazed and ruining their projectiles with my spinning Phantasmal Warden.

Lockdown Mesmer are a liches worst nightmare, and if I have at least 2 of my 5 dazed and a shatter on hand, best believe I’m stripping your stab and turning you into a big CC’d punching bag with some fabulous ethereal abdominals. I have no Liches do, I just see them raise their hands and everything dies, but to a competent lockdown Mes it doesn’t matter much, the lich is the most interruptible thing in the game.

Power Necros, if they catch me off guard, can screw me pretty badly, but it is pretty rare to face a good power necro that can handle being interrupted and bursted. In fact, though I run no condition removal I only find Condi necros a threat if I don’t see them before I get Spited.

Now out of my 5 chars none is a mesmer so i generally get kited out especially when im on warr and guard. However mesmers dont concern me mich if im on thief or necro. Naturally terrormancer condi necro is a tough fight for a shatter mesmer especially if he isnt running stunbreak mantra. Now i dont know much about mesmers but here are my main thoughts and observations when fighting one.

Usually the blink/invis mind games dont work as well on me as they do against melee classes. Ill use Deah Shroud 4 and 5 when you are invis as they will track through anyway. Dodging shatters isnt that hard if its not set up. I can also just aoe dps illusions or fear with staff. When facing lockdown, it gets much harder as i cant transfer immob right away and the daze just messes up everything. If im playing condi, ill have a tougher time if i have no life force to begin the fight with. But otherwise shatterers just melt down by all the bleeds and fear.

CC hurts the necro most, illusions are not hard to deal with and neither is your blinks. Also the moa is a death sentence for a minionmaster as it removes all our pets.
Now for specific utilities; necros dont have like bread and butter combos so most is just improvisation. But i can give out a few of our common tricks. A good terrormancer will knock you down with flesh golem right before casting signet of spite. Also when fighting a condi necro, they will try to close gap with DS 2 chill which you must dodge at all times! If you get hit by this, whats going to follow wont be in your favour even if you manage to escape right after the hit. As with powermancers, we often combo spectral grasp with dagger 3 (pull and immob). React fast to that if you couldnt dodge the first skill. Use LoS while we are DS autoattacking, its also slow and kind of easy to dodge. If the necro is traited towards it, it can crit you for 5k when you have below 50% health. Last tip, time you shatter for when we are channeling axe 2 or heal as we will be vulnerable.

Thats pretty much all i could help with without knowing mesmer skills. Hope it was useful. (;

What I’m looking to find is what its like fighting against a Mesmer (Shatter, Lockdown, and/or Condi) as a Necro? I have a few questions going forward:

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?
• How do you feel about your odds of winning?
• Strategies and tactics?
• Which type of Necro build do you feel best fights Mesmer?
• What Necro skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?
• How do you feel about Mesmer in general?

• I find mesmers really easy to kill, their heals are almost as interruptible as a necromancers.
• I find myself winning about 2/3 or more against mesmers
• Best strategy is to not let them kit you, they can easily run around you and try to make you lose track of them. The best way to kill any mesmer is to interrupt their heal, they really have no counter against that.
• I feel the best would be a terrormancer due to the fact that it’s so super full of interrupts.
• I feel immobilize is the best counter to mesmers, followed by daze. Even if the mesmer goes invis as you cast the immobilized you know where they are and they usually can’t react. (only exception is blinking away)
• I like mesmers, was the second character I made, but I love how much an engie can use combo fields (and I love necro the best due to the tanky nature)

Little tip for Mesmers against Necros: don’t Moa the Flesh Golem. The Necro can still command it to charge.

Sorry, that happened in my stream last night. Eventually I’ll collect my thoughts on the matter and give a better response. For now, though, I will say lockdown Mesmers are probably the toughest thing for a Necro to fight.

Now… I’m a very honest person.. And generally, I don’t have a lot of rude or ignorant things to say but, if I want to say it I will.. And Mesmers well… For me at least, I’m pretty much a Mesmer racist. I ignorantly and innately hate all of them, including allied. I just cannot stand fighting them and the majority of Mesmer players I’ve met, although this could absolutely be a result of hating them so deeply, seem to be more rude than people who main a different profession (although a lot of Thieves and Warrior mains are pretty rude in general as well). I don’t usually have a hard time against them, so the hate doesn’t come from that.. It’s just the way fighting a Mesmer feels that really annoys me.. I really, really dislike how aggressive they feel and when one is trying to hit me with their greatsword beam when they’re clearly out of range it makes me cringe a bit.

There have of course been many Mesmers in the past that have made for difficult fights and I appreciate skill. Although I absolutely hate Mesmers, I can recognize talent when I see it. Those people I will usually take a few swings at and if I lose more than a few times I’ll just avoid them all together. Because to be honest, losing to a Mesmer annoys me more than anything else… I really shouldn’t be making it public how unnecessary and strong my hate for them is but people do it about Thieves every day so.. Here’s something new for everyone: I would legitimately be happier with the game if they didn’t exist.

How fighting one for me feels: Annoying.
Fortunately I have played a Necromancer long enough that with most Mesmers I can obliterate them in to a fine mist before they have time to react – which is usually the best course of action since the longer they linger the larger the chance becomes that I’ll be killed. I treat Mesmers the same way I treat Thieves; begin defensively only using AA’s then, as soon as I see an opening, (which usually happens within the first 5seconds) begin the burst chain which if properly executed will either kill them or send them running with a fraction of their health bar left.

I started typing out my own perspective, but I think my opinion is probably dated at this point. If/when I get back into the swing, I may be back.

I kind of like facing Mesmers. Not when it’s someone+Mesmer, but for example 1v1.

I run two builds which are both very capable of killing any Mesmer. The key with most is just element of surprise, interrupt on any rotation skill and sheer aggression. Channeled skills like Ghastly Claws also work.

To be honest, on a conquest node, there’s not much Mesmer can do to down my Necro, especially Condi for this matter. They’re much more dangerous on open field.

Mesmers have things I like on Condi build – Boons and conditions I can transfer. Self-explainatory I guess.

Now, there are some “exceptions”. Lockdown mesmers. Those are really tough to fight and I prefer my Power build for them in general.
Most of my experience in duelling them comes from duels with Warlord. I’d say it’s sometimes luck, sometimes good trick. If you can force lockdown mesmer to go defensive early on or really mess up his rotation, that’s the win for you.

I’ll break my comments down into the 3 mesmer builds you listed.
Condition Necro > power necro against most builds and that is what I play, so that is my perspective.

Shatter: Generally I’m confident I can beat a shatter mesmer going in, I know they don’t have a lot of condition removal. My strategy is to force stun breaks with doom, so that I can get a fear chain later on. Generally speaking though, landing the scepter auto chain a few times is devastating against mesmers. I generally am worried I won’t land my condition transfers, so I aim for the clones instead of the mesmer. As far as defense, I know I need to avoid a few key skills, Phantasmal zerker, and the shatters are essential to dodge. Unfortunately, necros don’t have too many dodges, so I end up tanking either a shatter or the zerker with DS. I save corrupt boon for when the mesmer lays down chaos field because that should be their highest boon count creation. If I don’t have dodges for incoming clones I might also burn Reaper’s Mark in order to create a little more space/time to avoid the clones. Save a stun break for the end of diversion. Overall a decent matchup for necros.

Lockdown Mesmer: If the other guy is good its gg right there, the build pretty much hard counters necros long cast times on heal. Although If I can get enough bleeds stacked there still isn’t much condition removal. This build emphasizes the problems with necros, all the main skills have apparent animations except CB, and doom. People keep saying necro skills need more animations, and I often ask if they even look at all the instants and 1/2 second casts on other classes.

Condition Mesmer: If we are talking shatter condition mesmer, I play it very similarly to traditional power shatter. The only difference is that I emphasize hitting my condition transfers on the actual mesmer because the torment stacks hurt. If it is a PU build I just /laugh because they should leave pvp.

Overall, I love the mesmer class, I enjoy shatter builds and lockdown immensely.

shatter mesmer or lockdown mesmer i’m not sure of the difference
I find when fighting them it comes in 3 stages
one the mesmer doesnt know what he’s doing and just dies
two mesmer know what he is doing but lets mistakes happen which usually ends his life
three mesmer kills me while im cc’d the whole time
alternate three
condi mesmer kites me while clones do all the work
i play a zerk necro more of the time it comes down who ganks who (in spvp)

my strategy is to dodge his clones and phantasm skills
havent had enough recent experience with other builds
i personally like the mobility utilities because it can save you in a group also good for my group
utilities skill that are brought will depend on the preferred weapons of the necro and what group utility the necro is bringing
my rule is to bring at least one of these staff, offhand dagger or condition cleanse utility

Terrormancer vs mesmer:
Dodge, Dodge, Say kitten you noob kitten when they use moa, kite around, save fear for after the distortion and gg

well after a made a thread about the bs that is lockdown mesmer i have figured out if i let them interrupt my first skill they are likely to go 123 mantra 123 mantra 123 knockback 123… so i literally just stand there and pop ds so they cant see what im doing and think im casting something while they waste everything. this tactic works most of the time

im having more trouble with an ele build atm.. seems to have 3-4 crowd controlls 2 sources of blind and a 123 burst that happens in seconds

You win if you can keep an eye on the real one, if not, you’re dead. (most of the time)

There’s a lot of good stuff here. Really appreciating the feedback!

unlucky.9285:

well after a made a thread about the bs that is lockdown mesmer i have figured out if i let them interrupt my first skill they are likely to go 123 mantra 123 mantra 123 knockback 123… so i literally just stand there and pop ds so they cant see what im doing and think im casting something while they waste everything. this tactic works most of the time

im having more trouble with an ele build atm.. seems to have 3-4 crowd controlls 2 sources of blind and a 123 burst that happens in seconds

Fresh air ele. Depends on what build you are running but that burst is hard to avoid agaisnt a good fresh air ele. Gotta cc them first and watch out for their invuln when they go into earth, that build will constantly be swapping into air for burst but it can’t swap to water as fast so loading them with condis can win you the fight depending on what heal skill they use. If it’s signet just condi bomb them when they swap to water. If it’s ether renewal save an interupt for that and they are dead.

Condi nec

Imo the key of winning is corrupting Vigor as soon as the mesmer gains it (with either path of corruption of Corrupt Boons – the mesmer will mainly have might and vigor, corruption them inflicts weakness and bleeding). This is a huge blow to them.

To mitigate the danger of PoC try to bodyblock Dark Path with a clone whenever the nec enters DS – while Dark path is homing (and does that very well), it does not pierce so if you’re close enough to your clone you can save yourself. If you have staff, you can make your phase retreat clone tank it.

I did not know that, ty!

Quick question.. How useful is plague form? What’s its purpose besides general annoyance?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I did not know that, ty!

Quick question.. How useful is plague form? What’s its purpose besides general annoyance?

It depends on when plague form is used.

If the necro is above 50% health it helps let the necro reset some cooldowns while still applying poison along with another condition. Most necros use #2 and blind + poison. If they are trained for it, chilling darkness is nice too, chill on blind. It keeps 3 conditions on the mesmer and mitigates a lot of damage.

The only problem with plague form is there are no condition clears while using it. You can stack a lot of conditions on them and it hurts. Usually if my group is fighting another group we are happy when they plague because we stack conditions on them and epidemic

First thoughts when I see a mesmer? I am going to rek ur kitt!
I play power necro so mesmers a very easy. Almost as easy as a thief. Only reason they aren’t is because they stun/ interrupt you more. Only give them about 5 extra seconds (max) than a thief but that isn’t saying much. Thieves only take 5 or less to take down (unless they run of course).

If I can imob/daze you…you dead unless you blink.

You say power necro is easiest? Then you aren’t playing against anyone good. Be all end all, if I have full DS you can blow every interupt and util you have and you will still die. Power necro average hit on mesmer with Life blast is 6-7k. I can throw those all day with full DS… If you don’t see me coming, you will be dead before you know what hit you as well. Thieves and Mesmers are #1 easiest targets for power necro. Only way you survive is to double zerk me with coordination.

That is my opinion Yes, Mesmer hurts a lot. But not hard enough. You let me free cast for even 2 seconds and you are dead. Gotta put me into defensive mode asap is your best option.

witcher.3197:

Condi nec

Imo the key of winning is corrupting Vigor as soon as the mesmer gains it (with either path of corruption of Corrupt Boons – the mesmer will mainly have might and vigor, corruption them inflicts weakness and bleeding). This is a huge blow to them.

To mitigate the danger of PoC try to bodyblock Dark Path with a clone whenever the nec enters DS – while Dark path is homing (and does that very well), it does not pierce so if you’re close enough to your clone you can save yourself. If you have staff, you can make your phase retreat clone tank it.

Just don’t get too close. It has radius.

Just position the clone between the projectile and yourself.

Puppet.9712:

First thoughts when I see a mesmer? I am going to rek ur kitt!
I play power necro so mesmers a very easy. Almost as easy as a thief. Only reason they aren’t is because they stun/ interrupt you more. Only give them about 5 extra seconds (max) than a thief but that isn’t saying much. Thieves only take 5 or less to take down (unless they run of course).

If I can imob/daze you…you dead unless you blink.

You say power necro is easiest? Then you aren’t playing against anyone good. Be all end all, if I have full DS you can blow every interupt and util you have and you will still die. Power necro average hit on mesmer with Life blast is 6-7k. I can throw those all day with full DS… If you don’t see me coming, you will be dead before you know what hit you as well. Thieves and Mesmers are #1 easiest targets for power necro. Only way you survive is to double zerk me with coordination.

That is my opinion Yes, Mesmer hurts a lot. But not hard enough. You let me free cast for even 2 seconds and you are dead. Gotta put me into defensive mode asap is your best option.

If, as a Power Necro against competent opponent, you want to sit in Shroud and just cast Life Blasts, you won’t get far.

Ugh, still too used to fighting them on my ranger. Completely different fight on my necro. I use all my aoes as much as possible focusing on where the mesmer is/was or where I think he might be going. They drop target with stealths too often to rely on any direct damage shot (ie lifeblast as indicated above even with unyielding). Watch for confusion to hand it back or clear it is always on my mind. If fisty (flesh golem) isnt wonky that helps a lot.

Mesmer is my toughest opponent on necro, everything else I feel far more in control. But I either wreck them or they wreck me, not much middle ground in recent experience.