Guild Wars 2

I can’t for the life of me figure this out.

I mean mostly in spvp but it still apply to wvw since mesmers are still impossible to kill with my setup. I have tried different skills and weapons but still can’t figure it out.

In WvW I run power/crit/conditional with shortbow and gs. This is just my PvE build. I concede if I lose to someone good because the build was not designed for PvP.

In sPvP. I can’t figure it out. The current build I run:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-FV-g-BFxEkx-p2gEF-0;9-9N;1J-T9912;242A5;00;08-V6-Rm0jwmAjwmA1Fb

It works well against almost every other class.

Good question. Curious to hear the answer.

Run away when you see one.

1. Use your roots elite.
2 a). Run away (see shochinhwa’s above post for details) , or
2 b). Attack the one that escapes the roots.

Munrock.3092:

1. Use your roots elite.
2 a). Run away (see shochinhwa’s above post for details) , or
2 b). Attack the one that escapes the roots.

- That is a good idea with the root to ID the real Mesmer.

Upon seeing/encountering a mesmer, call target on them ASAP. This will clearly distinguish the player from illusions. Obviously this mark will fall off as soon as they stealth in some form or other, but it gives you the easiest indicator on who and what to target. If you have somehow lost your mark on them, watch carefully for the player to pop out of their stealth, which isn’t too difficult because they are usually actively positioning themselves for a Swap+Blurred Frenzy shatter combo directly out of their invis blanket. Clones have very mechanical movements, while the individual is more often than not sporadic. If they happen to attempt at pretending to be a clone, you can easily distinguish them from their illusions by the simple fact that their attack rate is distinctly higher than the summons. My suggestion is attempt to experience 1v1 combat with the class as much as possible, either through an organized friendly spvp match or random encounters with them.

-Hope that helps

addition note: Try not to expect to develop or find a build that is capable of taking on anything and everything, as this will only set you up for disappointment. However, you can help to even the odds by utilizing the Ranger’s plethora of evasive skills, which will give you a 1 up on the Mesmer’s deadly burst capability; a well timed evade can gimp their offensive nature.

I shoot them with my bow. Sometimes I hit them with a greatsword too.

Kids these days and their questions…:)

But seriously, what are you really asking with “how do I beat a Mesmer?” Are you having trouble being bursted down by clone shattering? Can’t catch them?

Mnemesis.8257:

Upon seeing/encountering a mesmer, call target on them ASAP. This will clearly distinguish the player from illusions. Obviously this mark will fall off as soon as they stealth in some form or other, but it gives you the easiest indicator on who and what to target. If you have somehow lost your mark on them, watch carefully for the player to pop out of their stealth, which isn’t too difficult because they are usually actively positioning themselves for a Swap+Blurred Frenzy shatter combo directly out of their invis blanket. Clones have very mechanical movements, while the individual is more often than not sporadic. If they happen to attempt at pretending to be a clone, you can easily distinguish them from their illusions by the simple fact that their attack rate is distinctly higher than the summons. My suggestion is attempt to experience 1v1 combat with the class as much as possible, either through an organized friendly spvp match or random encounters with them.

-Hope that helps

the problem isn’t really how to tell which one they are. Its killing him. Its easy to tell the one thats kiting my pet is the one thats not a clone.

The best comment so far is the suggestion to practice 1v1 with them. I would even go as far as to suggest using one for awhile. learn what they can and can’t do. I have a level 45 Ele and when I fight one while on my Ranger I pretty much know everything that is going to happen before it happens.

The only problem is trying to find people to practice on. I am in two guilds and when i ask in guild chat if anyone is interested in practicing new builds with a duel or two all I get is crickets

Esrever.8613

“Its killing him.”

In all honesty, no one is going to be able to tell you how to “kill” another class. There are too many factors involved to be able to say “here is what you must do”. I can say from experience that condition specs against a solid Mesmer build will do very little, and likely backfire on you. Going full DPS might give you a better chance of bringing them down, but it also leaves you more prone to the full impact of their burst if you are not spot on with your stun breaks and evades. Making yourself tanky has a possibility to prolong the fight, which may or may not be a good thing. There really isn’t any particular bit of advice that you can get from here that will alter your success in bull dozing every Mesmer you find. My general advice for any situation is to rely less upon condition as your main source of damage against players, Mesmer and Necro in particular, as it is quite easy for each to consume or redirect them on a whim. Try to maintain them as much as you can, but rely upon them too greatly and you will suffer for it in this particular case.

I am currently leveling a mesmer. I know the basics to what they do. Rangers just can not kill the clones or hit them when they cloak. The condition part of my build doesn’t seem to be a problem to anything but mesmers. I don’t seem to have a problem with necros, most necros I can kill when Im at half health.

I don’t feel like dragging out a fight with a mesmer is a good idea tho. The can sustain themselfs and retreat whenever. The main damage source is the clones and their mid length cooldowns like phantom unload. They can stack confusion and stun with pistol which means unless I can out heal their damage output(highly unlikely even if I was full healing spec) or I have to kill them before the skills reset.

Mesmers can clear their conditions, it is true but I don’t really have a problem with that. They burn those up fast. If they spec too much into condition removal, the lose a lot of their survivability to other classes and distractions.

Most of my damage comes mostly from the normal damage of crossfire even when speced this much into conditions. The GS is mainly used to block and travel.

I’ve taken the liberty of adjusting your build, you had some strange hybrid of ranged, tanking and an odd mix of direct and condition damage, basically you did not focus on any of the class strengths.

You can build BM/bunker+healing or ranged control, I don’t know of any other viable build ‘type.’

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-FF37kBFxEFx-c2kDV-0;9V8c;3T9T;436A2;025BSNH6aRm0jwmAjwmA9cf

0/0/30/10/30 S+D / A+T (use SB here of you prefer)
H. Spring / LR / “Sick EM!” / SotW / RoA

You can use Healing Runes they are very powerful.
You can switch up shouts with pets or use QZ, up to you but this is condition build.
16k HP is plenty don’t be fooled by how low it seems, no single target will burst you down, you can die, but it will be because you got out played.

Can you explain why that build is superior against a mesmer?

as my build currently stands, it looks more dps and just as much survivability. Its just I can not engage mesmers.

I did not spec into anything specific because I don’t see the need to. The build covers areas with different skills and such. There is something for everything and still allows me to maximize dps and survivability.

doing melee with a sword is higher dps but I don’t see how you will melee a mesmer, the torch would be the only really useful addition as it is AOE. With it you lose the block and counter as well as mobility with gs3 to quickly chase or run.

I also do not like relying on my pet to do DPS, people will eventually just kill the pet since with that build, the pets are your main source of damage and you will be pretty much useless without them.

I don’t like rampage as one. Its a long cooldown burst. The applicable use of it is very limited. Entangle will do more damage in the right places and can be used to flea if needed.

Bird+SB = the fastest way to kill a Mesmer, just watch the conditions being stacks on you and just keep range. The hardest Mesmer you will face will try to get right on top of you,

is where I kill fair few Mesmers, I rarely go into melee vs a Mesmer just to risky if you burst and they stack you with confusion just as you burst.

Hope it helps.

trap condition build…with trapper expertise and trap potency trait
aoe aoe aoe …use your root and aoe them with your trap + torch

make sure you have 1300+ condition damage

Esrever.8613:

They can stack confusion and stun with pistol which means unless I can out heal their damage output(highly unlikely even if I was full healing spec) or I have to kill them before the skills reset.

However unbelievable it might seem, the most success I have experienced and heard from others is that full healing (cleric) spec has worked most effectively to counter-balance the burst. I prefer to use SB & S/D or SB & S/WH, either option gives you a more reliable form of damage mitigation than GS since the sword alone can use 3 evades packed into 2 skills.

Esrever.8613:

Most of my damage comes mostly from the normal damage of crossfire even when speced this much into conditions. The GS is mainly used to block and travel.

Having said this, it makes even more sense to go into a Cleric type setup since you will get more base damage out of your SB crossfire spam and greatly improve your own survivability concurrently. Yet, you did not come here asking for builds, but rather methods of going toe to toe vs. the Mesmer class. In regards to that, what has been previously stated remains tried and true across the platforms of spvp, wvw, and even tpvp; utilize evasion to its fullest and take advantage of the Ranger’s supernatural health regeneration. It is incredibly important to realize that you are not the main source of your damage, implying which pet(s) you choose impact your overall DPS more than your build typically will. When you increase your own survivability you simultaneously improve that of your pet’s, which in turn will solidify your DPS.

Sol.4310:

Bird+SB = the fastest way to kill a Mesmer, just watch the conditions being stacks on you and just keep range. The hardest Mesmer you will face will try to get right on top of you,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFRtYa9FPX8

is where I kill fair few Mesmers, I rarely go into melee vs a Mesmer just to risky if you burst and they stack you with confusion just as you burst.

Hope it helps.

thats interesting, what armor and runes do you use?

if you want to face a good mesmer go tpvp and spvp not wvw

Esrever.8613:

doing melee with a sword is higher dps but I don’t see how you will melee a mesmer

Sigil of Hydromancy

Esrever.8613:

I also do not like relying on my pet to do DPS, people will eventually just kill the pet since with that build, the pets are your main source of damage and you will be pretty much useless without them.

Tough cookies. There’s nothing you can do about pets being your main source of damage, seeing as it is a core mechanic of the class. The best you can do to preserve that is to improve their survivability and try to work them into your build’s objective.

Esrever.8613:

I don’t like rampage as one. Its a long cooldown burst. The applicable use of it is very limited. Entangle will do more damage in the right places and can be used to flea if needed.

Offensively and Defensively RaO has better applications in regards to its lengthy duration to not only provide you with a means of IMS (used either flee or aggressively track your target), but also its ability to nearly double your pet’s damage by very quickly stacking Might 25 times in a matter of seconds. Entangle on the other hand can quickly be countered by use of AoE or melee (both of which are at the Mesmer’s disposal).

@Lavexis.5360 that’s load of garbage, for starters Mesmers can hit you for hell of allot more in WvW then SPvP or TPvP and that’s fact. Go ask any good Mesmer.

Also I run Rampager’s armor with Knights Acc and Berserker Jewels for WvW. The build I use is the same build I use in SPvP and TPvP just has half the damage.

My old SPvP build was very trap focused and it tended to wreck mesmers in short order just due to a fairly constant output of sizable AoE damage weeding out the clones/phantasms to prevent/reduce their shatters and the fact that trappers don’t have to stand still for very long to leverage their dps so you are usually dodging or using evade attacks and thus blunting the majority of their damage.

The current build I run with is a beastmaster/bunker build and it still does quite well, most mesmers are very killable with it and the ones who aren’t usually can’t prevent me from capping/holding a point so I’m not too bothered by them. I’ve met several I can only really fight to a stand still, but again they’re always on the defensive so even if they aren’t dead they aren’t capping anything either (and many of the really survivable ones just don’t have the dps to take me down even when they delay long enough for a friend to help them).

The problem with mesmers is them getting the jump on you. Then its harder to distinguish the real from the illusion.

I dont find it to hard to find the real player though. You can tell by their behaviour, the amount of damage they take etc.
Longbow and axes works very well against them. Longbow barrage and the bouncing axes kill off most of their clones in no time.
Have 3 clones around you and you dont know which is the mesmer ? Just barrage lol.

However probably the easiest way to counter a mesmer, or any other class for that matter, is going heavy toughness and full beastmaster build.
With 2k toughness and your cat pet hitting like a truck you dont have to worry about anything much from anyone.
If you want to have time finding the real player between all those clones, stack enough toughness.

Ofcourse this works for spvp, wvw is a whole different matter where they usually get the jump on you, are in a zerg, culling issues etc.
For instance, In wvw i dont stand a chance against thieves coz of culling. In spvp they are 10 times easier coz i can see them.

Well, besides the extremely good advice of rooting the real Mesmer – Reggie’s mention is also reasonably workable. Barrage , aoe the entire spread of me+clones/phants. Unless I pull a fast condi removal/dodge-stealth, I’m the one limping away. We thrive on positioning/mindscrew, my friend – remove that, and we’re easier to deal with.

However, with the Barrage trick, be EXTREMELY cautious of Feedback/Confusion-Bomber Mesmers. Between that and Rapid Shot, it’s very possible to down yerself, with minimal effort.

My main is 80 mesmer with a TON of hours in pvp (both types)..

Few things..

1. Roll into shatters
2. Watch confusion and wait it out
3. If grouped, mark the mesmer
4. Clones don’t have off hand weapons. So if you face sword/off hand mesmer, watch for that. Clones won’t have the off hand
5. Clones won’t dodge. The guy dodging to spawn clones, he is the mesmer

looking at your build there is no reason you should be losing to a mesmer, you’re pretty evened out in defense and offense (a good thing), your skills are a nice set up… I’d say it’s more you need just general help vs mesmers (which is common because fighting a mesmer isn’t the same as fighting any other prof in pretty much any game -i’ve- played.).

1) As said above call targets, but don’t -rely- on it.
2) Spam F1 on the real mesmer every time you get them targeted to get your pet to stop attacking a clone.
3) if anything dodge rolls, strafes, turns, runs away from you, moves after/during it’s attack (exception of the sword) it’s not a clone.
4) If you’re using your great sword swing constantly, never stop, even if you know the real mesmer isn’t nearby, sure you may get hit by random conditions, cripples etc, but that’s a hell of a lot better than what they can do with a shatter.
5) if you see 3 mesmers that all look the same running at you, hit 4 on the great sword, or dodge roll through them to avoid the shatter.
6) if the mesmer throws a lot of confusion on you don’t freak out, just don’t attack, chances are if they throw 10+ stacks of confusion on you they rely on conditions as their damage and want to have you burst yourself down, just wait, don’t heal, don’t attack, just run away and let your pet eat them until it drops back down to ~5 stacks, then heal/continue the assault.

Hope it helps.

Durzlla.6295:

looking at your build there is no reason you should be losing to a mesmer, you’re pretty evened out in defense and offense (a good thing), your skills are a nice set up… I’d say it’s more you need just general help vs mesmers (which is common because fighting a mesmer isn’t the same as fighting any other prof in pretty much any game -i’ve- played.).

1) As said above call targets, but don’t -rely- on it.
2) Spam F1 on the real mesmer every time you get them targeted to get your pet to stop attacking a clone.
3) if anything dodge rolls, strafes, turns, runs away from you, moves after/during it’s attack (exception of the sword) it’s not a clone.
4) If you’re using your great sword swing constantly, never stop, even if you know the real mesmer isn’t nearby, sure you may get hit by random conditions, cripples etc, but that’s a hell of a lot better than what they can do with a shatter.
5) if you see 3 mesmers that all look the same running at you, hit 4 on the great sword, or dodge roll through them to avoid the shatter.
6) if the mesmer throws a lot of confusion on you don’t freak out, just don’t attack, chances are if they throw 10+ stacks of confusion on you they rely on conditions as their damage and want to have you burst yourself down, just wait, don’t heal, don’t attack, just run away and let your pet eat them until it drops back down to ~5 stacks, then heal/continue the assault.

Hope it helps.

^ this.

But I generally get the drop on em – dont give them the time of the day to unleash on you. eek.

Raven, Jaguar, Wolf, – Raven does the most damage(it has terribad defence tho); Jaguar for stealth crits; Wolf for Knockdown/cripple, Howl for battles you cant win..to try and escape.

thrice.9184:

Raven, Jaguar, Wolf, – Raven does the most damage(it has terribad defence tho); Jaguar for stealth crits; Wolf for Knockdown/cripple, Howl for battles you cant win..to try and escape.

For the record, Ravens have more health the Felines and the same defense. Felines do crit for much more though.

ChillyChinaman.6057:

thrice.9184:

Raven, Jaguar, Wolf, – Raven does the most damage(it has terribad defence tho); Jaguar for stealth crits; Wolf for Knockdown/cripple, Howl for battles you cant win..to try and escape.

For the record, Ravens have more health the Felines and the same defense. Felines do crit for much more though.

Ravens F2 has been known to crit close to 15k or so (adding both attacks together since it’s a double hit) which makes them THE HARDEST hitter, felines on the other hand can keep up really high amounts of damage constantly.

PERSONALLY i think Cats do higher damage than ravens, and ravens are more survivable because of the additional health and that.

I personally like birds because they seem to lose a lot less of their dps to players kiting them, and their BM trait is pretty nice for keeping up vigor. In my golem testing cats did indeed generally take down the stationary heavy quicker than anyone else, but birds were the winners when it came to the roaming one (and weren’t far behind on the stationary). Their dps can be less consistent though depending on how often they decide to use swiftness.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/77512-condition-assassin-bleed-stackingbm-build/

“- bunker that does a lot of dmg. very difficult to lose a 1v1, even to shatter kitten ”

Mesmer use 2Hsword get clost to them
More far = mord DMG u got
Max range u will got 1.5-3K DMG.
At close u will got 3-400dmg.

Most hate is staff mesmer

Cempa.5619:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/77512-condition-assassin-bleed-stackingbm-build/

“- bunker that does a lot of dmg. very difficult to lose a 1v1, even to shatter kitten "

All these builds are great. I only wish that each one had a label. Since I am 98% WvW I don’t think this would work as well as it does in sPvP

In WvW -my opinion- I think the ranged control build works really well…You are right what I linked is more of a small fight build not for zergs. Zerg build would be:

30/30/5/0/5 LB in bag

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-FV-g;2FFu-e2gDF-0;9V2O;1TT4-403A19B;74-k6;2LNW4LNW46gb

Between Dog and Spider you have 11 sec of back to back immobilize and with SB perma Cripple…That is a TON of control, not counting the off set weapon and elite.

i kill them a lot but i have 2 use my axe for them because it bouncers off them so the cloths dnt matter

It’s pretty easy, call the birds on him, and use your axes to get a bunch of aoe out there. Your pet in this fight can be useful if he has an aoe ability, the wolf ability is great (aoe fear). The problem for rangers are melee classes generally, thiefs are so annoying.

My issue with Thieves is the fact my pet becomes my downfall since it provides an easy CnD target for the Thief.

It’s funny, but Mesmer illusions are smarter than our pets, when fighting Thieves.

jkctmc.8754:

My issue with Thieves is the fact my pet becomes my downfall since it provides an easy CnD target for the Thief.

It’s funny, but Mesmer illusions are smarter than our pets, when fighting Thieves.

yup it’s true sometimes, the problem with ranger’s pets that they lack another “aggressive” mode that attack enemies on sight like mesmer’s illusions. Even if you micro manage well your F1-F4 commands, you’ll still get frustrated when fighting abused stealthy thief as they disappear/reappear before your pets can land a hit on them.

Honestly, there is not a ton you can to do counter a really well played mesmer. I have 3 different builds on my mesmer: Glass cannon, full condition damage, and full tank.

The full tank build will beat you every time. You won’t get the mesmer under 75% hp. Your pet will do nothing to the mesmer, and you will deal more damage to yourself every time you hit them than they are taking due to retaliation and a phantasmal defender.

Full condition damage build is a little bit more touch and go, especially with a shortbow. If you get loaded up with confusion over around 10 stacks, your shortbow spam will kill you very VERY fast, as 10 stacks of confusion will do ~3k damage per skill usage. Even a lesser number of stacks will hurt badly with shortbow spam. Fighting this build, the single most important thing is to avoid attacking with confusion. Unfortunately, a good mesmer will keep at least 5 stacks on you at all times. The best way to avoid this is to dodge every shatter you can, by dodging INTO the clones running at you, as was previously mentioned in this thread. Other than that, just chew them down as much as you can. Be careful of feedback, and be especially careful if they are using a focus, as a traited focus will reflect projectiles with both temporal curtain and the illusionary warden.

Glass cannon: This is the build that you probably have the best chance against, simply because it has the least defense. Many glass cannon builds do not run with feedback, opting rather for decoy, mirror images, and blink. Without feedback, the mesmer doesn’t have area denial of projectiles, and that means they have to kill you very fast. Unfortunately, if you get a glass cannon mesmer on top of you, you should be dead in under 1 second. They will have 3 clones out already, daze shatter for daze + 23ish stacks of vulnerability, then immediately pop out 3 more clones via a utility and a dodge or skill that will immobilize you, use mind wrack for upwards of 3.5k damage per clone (4 clones), and use blurred frenzy, which will probably hit for around 5-8k.

The way to avoid this is range, and timely use of a stunbreaker. The glass cannon mesmer will have 2 hard disables, the pistol stun and the illusionary leap on the sword. The pistol stun will be very very difficult to dodge, as it is fast moving and a very fast animation. If they set things up properly, the stun leads into the immobilize. Your best bet is to be watching for that stun, and use your stunbreaker + a dodge immediately. Once the stun is gone, the only other gapcloser is a 600 range leap/swap skill, that often bugs out over terrain, and so is only truly effective within about 450 range. Therefore, stay out of that range.

Mesmer autoattacks do very low damage in comparison to other classes, and this holds true even for a greatsword at high range. In order to really take you down, the mesmer needs to hit you with other skills and shatters. By staying at the highest range you can at all times, you allow yourself extra time to kill clones running towards you for a shatter (shatter doesn’t work if clones are killed), and you prevent the mesmer from getting on top of you with their only disabling gap closer and unloading burst. Obviously there are counters to this strategy, such as blinking close than using the illusionary leap. However, that falls into a more specific form of playing that really just needs experience to develop counters for.

What I put up there are general strategies for dealing with mesmers. Don’t mess with bunker mesmers, as you will lose. Condition damage mesmers are largely underwhelming on damage with the exception of confusion, and so be super conscious of avoiding that damage. Lastly, glass cannon mesmers rely on short range burst combos, and staying as far away as possible gives you the time and ability to avoid those.