Guild Wars 2

I have full valks, toughness food and 30 in SA but the phantasmal duelist and ibeserker can drop most of my health before I can even get near. On top of that, the duelist continues to unload even after I go into stealth if they already started shooting. If I backstab a phantasm, the 3 seconds of reveal will get you bursted down almost instantly. Adding to this, they can stun you with magic bullet, immob u with swap, and knock you back with iwave.

Every time I meet one of these guys, I’m forced to chain cnd the phantasm until they are gone. But this requires extremely precise timing. If you are too early with your cnd you get revealed. If you are too late you get bursted down. I even tried daggerstorm but they can usually put their phantasm back up in a short while. On top of that, when you finally get to hit them, they almost always have protection up, and you have to always watch their boons because you can’t cnd them if they have aegis.

I’m just wondering what are the strategies you guys use to deal with them. I can usually kill PU condition mesmers with some patience, but with these guys I usually end up running away.

I don’t think you know what Prismatic Understanding is. It extends the duration of mesmer stealth skills and gives them protection, regeneration, and aegis each second while in stealth. It’s primarily used in torch condition builds. S/P+GS mesmers focus more on phantasms and burst gameplay, which running PU discourages (and inversely encourages attrition condition gameplay).

Simple answer, for any mesmer while it lasts, is to apply stealth every time a mesmer gets clones out, killing them all.

Here’s the build I’m talking about:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Stealth-Phant-Hybrid-Update-7-20-w-Video/first#post2458319

I know it’s an old thread but phantasm have actually been buffed since then.

I usually try to continuously cnd the phantasm, but that means I’m forced to stay the full length of stealth on all my cnds while their phantasm recharge and I’m gradually losing my initiative. I’m wondering if there is a better way.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Simple answer, for any mesmer while it lasts, is to apply stealth every time a mesmer gets clones out, killing them all.

That was hot fixed last night.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Simple answer, for any mesmer while it lasts, is to apply stealth every time a mesmer gets clones out, killing them all.

That was hot fixed last night.

Ah, bummer.

im a pu power mesmer and here a few tips:

we got 4 stealth utilities
decoy
torch stealth that can be traited to remove condis and shorter cd
massinvis
veil

veil and massinvis are on a long cooldown(90 sec)
deco has 40 sec
and traited torch has 24 sec

here is what i do with my mesmer:
so as a thief u usually attack first out of stealth. i either get immobilized or the backstab hits me hars
if its backstab i use decoy
if i get immobilized i use torch

dthn the first few clones will appear as i dodge or blink. if i blink i get put out of stealth right away so dodging is better as thieves tend to go after the clones then.
now when i reappear i try to act like a clone and see if thief gets out of stealth to attack eithe my clone or me. if u do i use second stealth and as i use pistol i can daze thief, meanwhile i cast pistol phantasm on u.
pistol phantasm on power pu hits like a truck, kill it or u die because verytime u come out of stealth it will beready to attack u again.
if u are on me i use blurred frenzy so that one can crit u very hard too so watch out for the mh sword mesmers. we want u to be close and if u havent killed my pistol phantasm it will hit u for 3-6k(if pure glass) while i could immobilize u with ileap(if that one doesnt bug out as usual) and then do a blurred frenzy on u.
if u dont kill the pistol phantasm ill be able to summon a second one by now and then its gg for u.

now on my pu power mesmer i have more issues with the condi pu mesmer.
problem is soo many bleeds so many vulnerability and then if they use pistol phantasms ill have a hard time.
pu condi is as tank as i am but their phantasms and clones can be a real pain. so here if u are a thiefgoe in stealth and wai a few seconds the real mes stealth doesnt last as long as yours so he will pop up. lots of pu noobs will use second stealth way too soon so they are 2 stealth down, now all u have to wait for is the massinvis which has a long casting animation and then is your chance.kite around the pu mes and let him use up all stealth, if he manages a pistol blurred frenzy combo on u he cant kill u but he will get that phantasm up that will attack u as soon as u go ut of stealth. u have to kill it or its gg soon. once mes used up all stealth his torch will be up again, go in, attack he will stealth and after that u are free to kill him. avoid the clones unless u can kill them from distance.

Fights against PU mesmers with 4 invis (The Prestige, Decoy, Mass invis, Veil) can last really long. Especially if they are using a Staff instead than Sword+Pistol.
Anyway, a few tips:
when they go in stealth, they will probably have Aegis when they reappear: just attack them with your backstab, doesn’t matter if on the back or on the front. They will dodge most likely after the attack, so don’t keep attacking, just use it once. Keep stealthing as they waste all their utilities and go full offensive when they have used Veil+Decoy really close to each other.
It’s the only spec against which I won’t hold my back about stealth, and will spend most of the fight stealthed. I’ll give them some of their own medicine and usually drop a ballista and a /laugh on their corpse.

To emphasize a point stated above, I’ve found that actually killing PU mesmers rather than ending in a stalemate requires me to put on my A-game and play extremely aggressively. Don’t pull back to give yourself a break, because you’re only giving the mesmer a break when you do. You have to constantly be on them, and be sure that you’re the one controlling the fight. Make them panic. When they start panicking, they make mistakes and the fight is yours.

hihey.1075:

Fights against PU mesmers with 4 invis (The Prestige, Decoy, Mass invis, Veil) can last really long. Especially if they are using a Staff instead than Sword+Pistol.
Anyway, a few tips:
when they go in stealth, they will probably have Aegis when they reappear: just attack them with your backstab, doesn’t matter if on the back or on the front. They will dodge most likely after the attack, so don’t keep attacking, just use it once. Keep stealthing as they waste all their utilities and go full offensive when they have used Veil+Decoy really close to each other.
It’s the only spec against which I won’t hold my back about stealth, and will spend most of the fight stealthed. I’ll give them some of their own medicine and usually drop a ballista and a /laugh on their corpse.

I can vouch for this, I had a fight with a PU mesmer and it took 15 minutes. Be extremely careful when they are on low health, do NOT get anxious and try to finish them, even mesmers can have tricks up their sleeves. Take your time, you’re not going to kill them fast anyway.

I usually avoid PU builds. Even when I’m confident that I can kill the Mesmer, past encounters have been long enough to deter me from engaging.

On any of my chars, if I come across a PU mesmer I will either log out or waypoint. The fight will never end unless it ends with you dying. I really hate perma-stealth but PU mesmer is a whole different kind of cheese. It’s actually worse than cheese – it’s velveeta. PU hybrid/condi build is so broken that it is more of a pain than perma stealth.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I don’t think you know what Prismatic Understanding is. S/P+GS mesmers focus more on phantasms and burst gameplay, which running PU discourages (and inversely encourages attrition condition gameplay).

Tbh More and more mesmer run PU with Power now. The buid I have out in the mesmer sticky “shatter Cat guide” is reather effective and so far quite popular. It normaly use GS but also use Pistol if its the prefered wep, al it take is another wep and 1 trait change. I often change my GS if I se a thief close in solo roaming mode.

Tip is accualy if you catch a PU mesmer in a fight, blind him early. If hes play bad he will waste hes Phantasm on the blind and you will have a advantage untill he get a new one up. Also make sure to fight close to NPC,s

I explain. When I duel thiefs and start a cast, if he stealth in mid cast and I have a npc close my “autotarget” will cast the phanantasm and let it target the NPC. This lift preasure of you.

Alot of mesmer run autotarget as it accualy work quite well with clones and phantasms. Se a enemy close? cast a phantasm and like a hellfire misile its a fire and forget.

6 min video of the Power PU Build Hidden Cat

/Osicat

Use shortbow.

/15chars

I use the p/d condi set to deal with PU mesmers, with a fair degree of success. You can always CnD off their illusions, and sneak attack doesn’t require you to be in melee range to dish out your main source of dps. Sleight of hand + 1500 steal + bountiful theft are all very effective against PU mesmers, since they have poor mobility, few stunbreaks, and lose their boons.

The idea is just to outstealth them. Keep CnDing, and eventually they’ll run out of defensive maneuvers. Then use your combo. 10/0/30/0/30 p/d allows you to burst every 21 seconds, which is more than enough to deal with mesmers’ poor condi removal.

If all else fails, you can reset the fight by either outstealthing them or just using shadowstep/sb 5. A PU mesmer will never catch you. Just make them play to your rhythm instead of playing to theirs.

Save your dodges for when you get out of stealth.
Phantasms will attack when you get out of stealth, so you already know when to dodge. (This happens if there is nothing in the area that they can tag while u are in stealth)
Then it becomes a rhythm thing. If you feel the pressure stay more time in stealth.

Another way is like it was already said, destroy the phantasm. If it’s a PU build probably they will not have reduce CD on the phantasm summoning, this will give you around 20 sec of play without pressure.

Mango has the right idea. PU is a very powerful survival tool (it’s a XII trait after all), but its main weakness is the fact that it’s a stealth-buffing trait on a class which isn’t really designed around stealth the way a thief is. This means too long cooldowns on stealth unless you run with a traited torch, which is what most (if not all) PU mesmers do.

Anyway, the main goal would be to get the mesmer to burn his stealth cooldowns as fast as possible. You should easily be able to keep up more stealth time than him and hopefully that will tip the scales in your favor. Also, MI – the mesmer elite stealth skill – has a long cast time and is therefore super vulnerable to interrupts.

Also, keep in mind that since mesmer stealth is not actually stealth but “cloaking” (different skill type), there is no stealth debuff and stealth skills can be chained. This sounds bad, but keep in mind those long cooldowns. If a mesmer chain-stealths that probably means he is trying to run away or doesn’t want to fight you for some reason. This could be a good time to strike.

Finally, PU mesmers tend to have low health but high toughness. This is because the PU trait line is tied to toughness and boon duration, and with another 20 points needed for the torch trait, there’s usually no room for stacking vitality without breaking the build somehow. This is the same survival stat distribution as a stealth-heavy thief, so think about your own weaknesses and how you would exploit them, especially when it comes to stealth.

as PU mesmers go my build is funnyest im revealing it now beacose I cind a quit game now xD buy prestige blurredfrency combo can get full health class cannon thief downed with this build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsfWnUEFTbRNS1wWbEx0jeL4AOSKKtXrkCd7CB-jECBYjCiUEA0HRMRtIaslhFRjVVTQWXDT5KpSBYmwI-w