Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

So for dueling purposes, I am trying to come up with a build that can defeat mesmers 1v1. I think I made one that needs a bit of tweaking. It is a bm build that uses cats and I have 800 or so condition damage for myself for bleeds/burning with torch.

Anyone know of any tactics or builds themselves for fighting mesmers? I am talking about the ones who blink everywhere and use their clones to deal all the damage while they kite around the battlefield.

Drakes are pretty nice vs mesmers because of their aoe, which can wipe out an army of clones pretty fast.

Lock your pet on the mesmer with F1, and if unsure which one is the real mesmer, watch which one your pet is attacking.

Greatsword is a nice gap closer when the mesmer runs away!

Im using axe/dagger and sword/torch right now. Maybe i ill drop axe for GS. Which drake do you recommend? Maybe I will drop my lynx for a drake if their aoe is strong.

The ‘easiest’ drake to use would be the marsh drake, if you think about their F2. Other than their F2, they’re identical, and I pick them more for their cleave attack and tail swipe!

I’ll try out a drake later tonight, thanks.

Anyone else have any ideas? Right now it seems most my damage comes from jaguar stealth + sic em + signet of hunt activate. Which isn’t bad, just wondering if there is other ways to combat these really good mesmers.

I’ve actually been working on an anti phantasm build for a while. I was just hoping to get better footage before I posted it up here, but my producing software is giving my funky transitions still.

I posted the full build w/ strategy here.

This is specifically for fighting Phantasm Mesmer, but it really works with any power build. I’ve found it amazingly effective at killing s/p thieves as well.

This is close to what I was doing, but with a few changes. I’ll look into to it thanks a lot.

1) phantasm mesmer will always win but if they make mistakes you can kill them.
2) Use Jaguar but dont blow signet of the hunt since your pet needs the speed.
3) Concentrate on dodging the phantasm and kill them, leave pet on the real player, ignore clones.

Puandro.3245:

1) phantasm mesmer will always win but if they make mistakes you can kill them.
2) Use Jaguar but dont blow signet of the hunt since your pet needs the speed.
3) Concentrate on dodging the phantasm and kill them, leave pet on the real player, ignore clones.

Good advice thank you!

I found a decent counter to them purely by happenstance.

I run GS and SB. GS has Sigil of Accuracy and SB has sigil of fire. I also have muddy ground and frost trap.

Between these skills, I find that it counters mesmers relatively well. The muddy ground stays in place for a nice long time, and the frost trap is great for slowing down clone generation as well as just general skills.

The AoE provided by the fire sigil SB is pretty decent for clearing out clones, and the GS is “decent” at it. The best technique I have found, amongst these things, is to save swoop for when you have the real mes clearly identified. I will lay down muddy ground to stop them from moving for a second, hit them with swoop->hilt bash->maul. All of these skills have relatively short CDs as well, especially if traited for it, so can be used right about at the same time as the major skills on the mes.

I will also tend to use muddy ground, specifically, to put a stop to a shatter. When I see the clones charging, I try to get them close together by kiting and then hit them with muddy ground. This generally allows enough time to get rid of them before they pose too serious of an issue.

Conversely to what most say, however, I find that having a balance between killing the clones/phants and attacking the mesmer gives me better success overall. I know that on my mesmer, when someone is only focused on me, I can use that GREATLY to my advantage in a lot of different ways.

The jag is great though, because they can keep that balance for you without the mes even seeing them for nice periods of time (with stealth). The drake is good for clearing clones, but overall, I just have trouble using them reliably against a quick opponent.

In 1v1 regardless of class, I have also found Siamoth to be a very dangerous tool if used correctly. Though, it has to be said I have found the pig families F2 to be pretty much unusable lately.

If they are skilled, they are skilled. As I think we all know, and extremely skilled mesmer (regardless of build, really) can be a serious threat.

In the end, would most of these types of mesmers be more susceptible to direct damage or condition damage? I can stack burning and bleeds pretty easily, but other than that, I do crap damage. All my damage is from my jaguar. I have to wait for a good opportunity then put jag in stealth, activate sic em, then entagle the mesmer and hope that burst and immobilize really hurts them.

I was thinking of swapping axe/dagger for greatsword so I could use hilt bash to interrupt their heal (as i have no interrupts right now). As well as being able to jump on top of them when they blink away. Not sure how that would play out though. I really do not like axe XD

I find direct damage to be more effective on my ranger.

I am built with flank damage in mind though (thief runes and traits), so there is some condi in there as well from the SB and GS maul.

I also like to use life steal food, since I have decent crit chance (and with red moa, traits, am able to keep fury up a large portion of any fight). It heals, but it also does ~300 damage per tick. Not much, but I basically look at it as a condition of sorts.

I actually find using hilt bash to interrupt heals can be unreliable against other players (but great for guards). If you activate it on someone running directly away from you, it will frequently miss. I dont know if it is working as intended or not, but its something I would like to see addressed actually. I like SB 5 much better for interrupting heals against players.

My basic strategy against most mesmers is a bit of a battle of attrition. I am glassy, so that may sound counterintuitive, but it seems to work well. Most mesmers save their utilities to avoid being bursted. In that respect, I find good consistent damage to be superior to trying to burst them down. When flanked, on most opponents, my SB will crit for ~1500 on its own. When you add in life steal proc, sigil of fire proc, and bleeding it really adds up quick.

I only get in range of a mesmer when trying to land the GS combo (swoop, hilt bash, maul), then I activate GS 4 while running away. Once it drops, I switch to SB to continue the pressure.

I am not the best player, but this strategy has worked quite well for me. Then again, I use a very odd build that I have frequently been told is terrible. Regardless, when it comes to actual engagements, I find a lot of success. The only classes/builds I truly struggle with are condi based. Even with healing spring, they are a real struggle for me!

Bunker ranger works well with mesmers and thieves. With protection, they can’t do enough damage to burst you down. You will heal back up after their burst with passive heals. Slowing them down so pet can hit will help dsp. I tend to use SB because I like the fast autoattack but I can see axe/dagger being effective since you will have two snares and AOE attacks for clones..

Yea I’m going to stick close to bunker. I’m taking away some healing power and some passive regen to pump up my power so i can actually do direct damage (went from 1.1k to 1.7k power) and give pets 30% crit dmg. I’ll see how that works out tonight.

Joey.3928:

Yea I’m going to stick close to bunker. I’m taking away some healing power and some passive regen to pump up my power so i can actually do direct damage (went from 1.1k to 1.7k power) and give pets 30% crit dmg. I’ll see how that works out tonight.

Just wanted to point out that my advice may not apply to the bunker. I only used a bunker build when I was learning the class and its just not my thing anymore. I seem to take the same process with every class.. start out super survivable and slowly add more damage. My build is pretty glassy at this point, at only 2400 armor (pets are red moa and jaguar usually)! I do make extensive use of the protection on dodge roll though (one of my favorite traits in the game).

I figure you know this Joey, but there are others reading that may not!

I typically use greatsword and axe/axe, and the chill effect on axe #3 + the overall utility and mobility of the greatsword have worked wonders with keeping mesmers in place or at least on the run and unable to get any effective clones up. I also use the alpine leopard since the F2 chill effect if both hits land is 6-8 seconds of chill on top of the axe skill. My secondary pet is the jungle spider for the constant poison dots (I’m not a condition spec, but having access to poison is mega handy as reducing any healing they may try to use.)

Also path of scars is awesome at blowing up clones from a safe distance / pegging the actual mesmer with the right pathing toss.