Guild Wars 2

Thief vs mesmer stealth. With the nerf bat swinging wildly for the fences on the ball that is the thief….. it usually comes down to one reason. Stealth. So if our stealth is the reason for all our little perks. . . lets put some perspective on it shall we?

Let me also start by saying perma invis builds that use stealth to reset fights or regen for 30 seconds at a time are dumb. i dont think infusion should be nerfed like it is…just HS entering stealth to have a 5 second cooldown or w.e.

Now, the other day i was in spvp dueling arena and fought a mesmer….a condi mesmer. she got mad bc i equipped thieves guild and i said “well they are a helluva lot weaker than your clones thats for sure and both are AI so whats the problem?” This eventually led to me realizing she was a condi spec and the clones/phants or w.e. they are called in that particular build are used for pretty much 85% of the damage. i notice she (probably a he but thats a conversation for another time) was invis probably a good 60% of the battle and kept entering and reentering stealth. I was thinking well wtf right? i have revealed why doesnt she? well what im getting is while stealthed the mesmer clones doing dmg wont release her from stealth into “revealed” and basically was a “make clones and hide” tactic which is pretty lame and pathetic. atleast thieves , even tho they use stealth, have to work VERY hard for the kill and most of the time need perfection (against a good player) in order to win. there is little room for error as we are usually dead in 2-3 seconds.

So why is a mesmer able to enter stealth and not get revealed when clones do dmg or w.e.? if our gunk that is thrown on the ground…then we enter stealth and somebody runs over it….BOOM REVEALED.

This isnt a “nerf mesmers” conversation …just to keep it in perspective how far thief is falling behind other classes. leave us alone and perhaps buff a few needed things …. like p/p and s/p and a few trait changes that have been howled forever

Throw Gunk needs to be reworked so that the damage portion is a front loaded burst skill and the chaos field/condis being applied keep pulsing for the rest of the duration. It would allow you to throw it deal the damage portion immediately and then re-stealth and use it for shadow shot+confusion more effectively. Especially when thief has little room for errors in a fight.

I agree mesmer stealth is far more powerful than thief atm, (sure thief is more annoying but annoying doesn’t=powerful) but mostly because they can play the try to kill me while my phantasms blow you up game while having perma protection regen and aegis spam, and lets not forgot the massive area of denial when a chaos storm is dropped which further adds to the boon spam.

When the current prismatic mesmer fights alongside a thief you can do some really powerful stuff as you both have the ability to stealth one another and play off one another really well but it really is disheartening to see so many classes have access to stealth and in some ways have better benefits from it then the thief who is supposed to be the most sneaky of all the classes.

Of course none of this would even be an issue if one of the huge problems with shadow arts was that it offers no real reward for coming out of stealth for choosing to fight. Almost all of the traits require you to be in stealth to have any effect at all. but yea its really not time to keep swinging the nerf bat but rather time to delete the garbage traits from the game and add some really great ones instead. If they start adding real meaningful choices to the creation of builds rather than 1 or 2 of 6 traits are bad better pick 1 or 2 for this slot all of the classes would be way more enjoyable to play.

It may have seemed like the mesmer was invis for 60% of the battle, but he/she wasn’t unless the battle was a super short one. They just don’t have that many ways to gain stealth.. certainly far fewer than thieves do.

As a long time condition mesmer and one who has recently started leveling a thief to play D/D in WvWvW, I can agree with your complaints about mesmers not being unstealthed by their clones. The problem is that, if you take that away there is almost no point in having a stealth mechanism on the mesmer in the first place. Why? Because every mesmer no matter what build will use illusions. Illusions will always be attacking meaning that if the mesmer goes in stealth he will pretty much immediately get revealed by his clones, meaning that going in stealth was pointless pretty much. Not every mesmer uses stealth but you get my point.

Normally a phantasm mesmer that uses phantasms to deal damage and then hides in stealth isn’t a huge problem because you can CnD of the phantasms and wear them down. Once they are all dead you can engage the mesmer without worrying about getting bursted immediately.

However, the build you mentioned actually punishes you for killing its phantasms, not to mention that a good 30-40% of the damage comes from just regular clones and their explosions when they die, not the actual phantasms themselves because no phantasm aside from the torch is condition based. When traited the pistol can be good for bleed stacking but that about it.

So how to deal with this kind of mesmer? The answer is simply reliant upon the mesmers skill level. After playing this spec on my own mesmer for so long I can safely say that I have almost never died due to being “outplayed” but rather through my own mistakes. The condi mesmer spec is literally impossible to lose with if you play it completely correctly – with the exception of another heavy condi class like engi or necro (tho usually null field can handle them).

In conclusion, if the mesmer is not so good to average skill level you will eventually win. If they are skilled you will probably die. If you are both skilled then it will likely be a draw.

Condi mes is very strong atm and definitely needs a nerf, but it needs to be gradual because the spec itself is very sensetive, take away any of its key traits and the build just won’t work.

Anyway if you want to stand a greater chance at defeating these mesmers just play a condi mes yourself and pay attention to when and what you die from

Are you actually asking for thieves to get constantly revealed every time their thieves guild hits the enemy?

That would be like a self applied stealth disruptor trap since the elite lasts 30 sec.

i like mesmer class as it more like thief class just in light armor
mesmer dont really needed in group play but for their veil or null field and actually use to be roamer like thieves
so 50/50 chance to win for both side

use SB to take away illusion fast

maybe if mesmer use skills from stealth which create phantasm they should revealed that why mesmer should use his skills for you to notice him and than he can go stealth giving you 1 seconds to act , instead from just go stealth and using skills unharmed

Reckless.6325:

As a long time condition mesmer and one who has recently started leveling a thief to play D/D in WvWvW, I can agree with your complaints about mesmers not being unstealthed by their clones. The problem is that, if you take that away there is almost no point in having a stealth mechanism on the mesmer in the first place. Why? Because every mesmer no matter what build will use illusions. Illusions will always be attacking meaning that if the mesmer goes in stealth he will pretty much immediately get revealed by his clones, meaning that going in stealth was pointless pretty much. Not every mesmer uses stealth but you get my point.

Normally a phantasm mesmer that uses phantasms to deal damage and then hides in stealth isn’t a huge problem because you can CnD of the phantasms and wear them down. Once they are all dead you can engage the mesmer without worrying about getting bursted immediately.

However, the build you mentioned actually punishes you for killing its phantasms, not to mention that a good 30-40% of the damage comes from just regular clones and their explosions when they die, not the actual phantasms themselves because no phantasm aside from the torch is condition based. When traited the pistol can be good for bleed stacking but that about it.

So how to deal with this kind of mesmer? The answer is simply reliant upon the mesmers skill level. After playing this spec on my own mesmer for so long I can safely say that I have almost never died due to being “outplayed” but rather through my own mistakes. The condi mesmer spec is literally impossible to lose with if you play it completely correctly – with the exception of another heavy condi class like engi or necro (tho usually null field can handle them).

In conclusion, if the mesmer is not so good to average skill level you will eventually win. If they are skilled you will probably die. If you are both skilled then it will likely be a draw.

Condi mes is very strong atm and definitely needs a nerf, but it needs to be gradual because the spec itself is very sensetive, take away any of its key traits and the build just won’t work.

Anyway if you want to stand a greater chance at defeating these mesmers just play a condi mes yourself and pay attention to when and what you die from

true but the problem i was stating is that playing mesmer is really really low skill lvl. just invis and stack protection/aegis and invis half the battle literally. let the clones do the work. takes no skill to do this and is VERY powerful. i dont mind the powerful part. i dont mind losing. but i do when an 10 year old can do it to a 29 year old who has pretty much perfected thief (1v1 class). know what i mean?

i never lose to these specs (if im playing slow and careful) but slow and careful loses caps nodes and causes my team to be short a player. i play p/d as its only real worthy thing for WVW “and” TPVP. with my p/d im never inis longer than 1 second….very rarely do i use Shadow refuge and when i do its usually a sneak attack soon as i cast it for faster/more dmg and a nice heal (steal health field)

Lol, if you play p/d, you’re bound to sit on a person for a long time – this is the reason why you don’t see p/d in high-level play. It’s not a burst spec. It’s a condition spec.

I apologize, this one’s going to have some length.

Here’s how you kill most condition Mesmers: Conditions, and baiting out their condi-clears.

Between a steady application of your own condis, and range-killing clones, you’ve removed most of what a condi-mes uses to fight. Particularly full-Rabid builds; sure, the condi-pressure is pretty harsh, but their Health is lower than -say- a Phantasm spec. (Not to mention, direct DPS will have to account for a Rabid spec’s high Toughness)

Also, Mesmer condi-clear is mostly from Utilities/on-crit Sigils, there’s no passive option as with an SA Thief. Closest things for a Mesmer “passive” cleanse are either Mender’s Purity, which:

• Procs on heal skill usage
• Needs points invested into the Inspiration tree, which a lot of non-Phantasm or Glamour/Triforce Mesmers don’t really work with.

… or …

Cleansing Conflagration, which drops a Condition per use of a Torch skill. The build the OP describes is most likely using this trick. Especially when one considers that Torch #4 is an additional Stealth. (Also a Mesmer’s only Blast Finisher, but that’s not terribly pertinent to this topic )
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Now that we’ve addressed the Condition output, let’s move on to Stealth. Besides Decoy (which does sidestep Revealed; an effect I’ve personally said should be duplicated for Last Refuge), all but two Stealth options are Utility Skills, and will effect
how many other Utilities said Mesmer is running.

Out of those 5 options, two (Veil and Mass Invis) are on rather long C/Ds, one’s best with 50 Traits dumped (Torch #4, using Cleansing Conflagration and Prismatic Understanding), and one moonlights as a stunbreak (Decoy). The 5th (Deceptive Decoy) is a purely reactive skill, rather like Last Refuge. Any of these can easily be self-broken by poor attack timing, especially with Staff autoattacks taking forever to bounce around.

One trick you may want to watch out for is Arcane Thievery. This fun little trick takes 3 of your boons, and replaces them with 3 of the Mesmer’s conditions. It does count as a projectile, however … it can be blocked/dodged/invuln’d.

Also, assuming a Staff/Scepter/Torch Condi-Mesmer: Forget Thieves’ Guild, run Dagger Storm. Staff and Scepter projectiles can -and will- be bounced back.
The free bleed/cripple also helps slow down the Mesmer, and whittle away their Health. Not to mention Stability vs. Condition application. Ideally, you wish to use this after baiting out Arc. Thievery or Null Field, so as to lessen the chance of being stipped of your Stability.

Hopefully this helps you with the Thief vs. Mesmer issues.

Now, as far as the Nerfbat goes: I’m against it, in the vast majority of cases. I’m more a fan of buffing your weaker weapon/skill specs to compete more fairly with their higher counterparts. As for the general idea of which class is sneakier, I’d call it a tie for the following reasons:

1. Thief’s got more overall Stealth options, and their options can be heavily Trait-modified. (Without accounting for the “perma-stealth” effect.)
2. By contrast, it’s less Mesmer’s Stealth, it’s the fact of Stealth plus “pet” usage.
   An unfortunate side-effect of how the class is designed to operate. Clones are the
   “main” Mesmer mechanic, Stealth merely happens to help with the Mindscrew.

Chicago Jack.5647:

Lol, if you play p/d, you’re bound to sit on a person for a long time – this is the reason why you don’t see p/d in high-level play. It’s not a burst spec. It’s a condition spec.

actually i am never invis more than a second at a time. and thats super high lvl play. duel if ud like to learn.

never run daggerstorm. only reflects about 20% of incoming dmg and ur vulnerable for 8 secs. NEVER run it in a 1 v 1

its not about whos stealthier….its the fact we keep getting nerfed all the time and we are the ones that have to atually think while stealth…have to actually plan and move to set up attacks. mesmers dont have to dot hat. they dont get revealed…..we do everytime almost. huge difference. we cnat do dmg while invis…they can. they can invis 50-60% of a 1 v 1 and we can 75%+ but the difference is dmg. they can we cant.

Travlane.5948:

its not about whos stealthier….its the fact we keep getting nerfed all the time and we are the ones that have to atually think while stealth…have to actually plan and move to set up attacks. mesmers dont have to dot hat. they dont get revealed…..we do everytime almost. huge difference. we cnat do dmg while invis…they can. they can invis 50-60% of a 1 v 1 and we can 75%+ but the difference is dmg. they can we cant.

Mesmer can at most be in stealth 35% of a fight.
That is with mass invis, veil, decoy, prestige, all with PU and all their cooldown reductions.
Requires a minimum of 20/0/30/0/25 (20/0/30/0/15 after 10th dec)
Many of our stealth attempts also are prone to failing, getting revealed instead of stealth.
Mass invis is easy to get interrupted 1 +3/4s cast time and easily spotted due to how we raise our right arm , and veil is easy to see and can be aoe’ed.
Choosing all those skills uses up 2 utilities, an elite and an offhand weapon.
This leaves us with no room for condi removal and mobility.

As for mesmer being so easy, remember that we have no spammable skills, once we use a skill it’s on a long cooldown.
We can not use the most appropriate skills everytime like a thief can.
Our damage that comes from phantasms is also very random, they usually don’t survive after their initial attack because many classes have access to much aoe that oneshots them, sometimes even before they can even attack once.
Those phantasm skills also have a long casttime that can be interrupted by cc spam.

Op, as a ranger, i rarely lose to a mesmer using strealth.

Unlike thief stealth, “that’s a whole different ballgame”

In other word, you can not compare thief stealth to a mesmer stealth because at the end of the day, you are Forever gone in Perma- Paradise world, while they in the other hand, are Perma-Forever buried 10 foot under.

let’s play a very quick game….

1. where is mesmer? if you kill all the clones, you will find mesmer.

2. where is thief? why not ask yourself, where are you? Oh wait! i’m dead.

No no!

how?

you’ve been long dead before you even started the game…

by whom?

by whom??

by stealth

but i already killed mesmer!

no no

not by mesmer

but by thief..

How can it be?

their perma-stealth..

?

they used perma-stealth that Arena.net intentionally gave them, to kill you.

totally unjust and unfair!!

don’t blame thieves,

blame Arena.net

blame Arena.net for giving it to them since guild wars 2 release.

and for mesmer??

they were created to be a scapegoate

for thief.

Travlane.5948:

actually i am never invis more than a second at a time.

And that is why I’m saying this is the reason why you’re having trouble – you are tying to fit a square block into a circle hole. The fundamental problem with running P/D as a roamer spec is that it involves sitting on a target for a longer amount of time than a typical thief build (S/D or D/P; to a lesser extent with S/D, but S/D can contest cap points) you would see in upper level play. You need to be able to bop in, take out a target, then bop out as a roamer. If it is attempted to be used as a type of team-fighter, then a necro can do the job better. This is why we don’t see P/D in tournies.

Travlane.5948:

they can invis 50-60% of a 1 v 1 and we can 75%+ but the difference is dmg. they can we cant.

If you used your stealth duration for more than 1 second, your endurance bars will will up and you will have more dodges to use while out of stealth thereby mitigating most of their phantasm damage. This situation is, in fact, about how you use stealth.

Travlane.5948:

Thief vs mesmer stealth. With the nerf bat swinging wildly for the fences on the ball that is the thief….. it usually comes down to one reason. Stealth. So if our stealth is the reason for all our little perks. . . lets put some perspective on it shall we?

Let me also start by saying perma invis builds that use stealth to reset fights or regen for 30 seconds at a time are dumb. i dont think infusion should be nerfed like it is…just HS entering stealth to have a 5 second cooldown or w.e.

Now, the other day i was in spvp dueling arena and fought a mesmer….a condi mesmer. she got mad bc i equipped thieves guild and i said “well they are a helluva lot weaker than your clones thats for sure and both are AI so whats the problem?” This eventually led to me realizing she was a condi spec and the clones/phants or w.e. they are called in that particular build are used for pretty much 85% of the damage. i notice she (probably a he but thats a conversation for another time) was invis probably a good 60% of the battle and kept entering and reentering stealth. I was thinking well wtf right? i have revealed why doesnt she? well what im getting is while stealthed the mesmer clones doing dmg wont release her from stealth into “revealed” and basically was a “make clones and hide” tactic which is pretty lame and pathetic. atleast thieves , even tho they use stealth, have to work VERY hard for the kill and most of the time need perfection (against a good player) in order to win. there is little room for error as we are usually dead in 2-3 seconds.

So why is a mesmer able to enter stealth and not get revealed when clones do dmg or w.e.? if our gunk that is thrown on the ground…then we enter stealth and somebody runs over it….BOOM REVEALED.

This isnt a “nerf mesmers” conversation …just to keep it in perspective how far thief is falling behind other classes. leave us alone and perhaps buff a few needed things …. like p/p and s/p and a few trait changes that have been howled forever

I’m 90% sure this was after you dueled me on my mesmer. I wasn’t mad at you, but its kinda silly to use the thieves guild ambush trap trick in a duel. I personally dont ever use thieves guild in duels, just like i would never use polymorph moa in a duel. I just dont see it as a skill thats fun to use in a duel. Sorry if that upset you some how.

Thieves can stealth more regularly, mesmers can stealth more strategically. Stealthy mesmer builds usually run prismatic understanding trait, which makes them increadibly tanky while in stealth, but their access to stealth is rather limited by quite long cooldowns (90s veil/mass invis, 40s decoy, 24 second traited prestige, which is the only short cd stealth, then there is 1 trait that gives stealth at 25% HP). Thieves can benefit from stealth in terms of condi removal, rapid health regen if traited so and increased movement speed, mesmers only benefit by increased tankiness (which is great, but not as good as benefits thieves can get for the same investment into traits).

Now the difference in playstyle, as you have mentioned, is simple: thieves have to play actively around stealth (most of the time), while mesmers spawn clones and use stealth to get out when it gets sticky. One thing to consider though, is that condi mesmers have no pressure and little chase skills. In PvP, they are useless since they don’t contest a point, in WvW they are only good if you are slower than they are (which barely anybody is).

The only place where condi stealth mesmer outshine others are duels. They win them, most if not all of them.

Ironvos.9014:

Travlane.5948:

its not about whos stealthier….its the fact we keep getting nerfed all the time and we are the ones that have to atually think while stealth…have to actually plan and move to set up attacks. mesmers dont have to dot hat. they dont get revealed…..we do everytime almost. huge difference. we cnat do dmg while invis…they can. they can invis 50-60% of a 1 v 1 and we can 75%+ but the difference is dmg. they can we cant.

Mesmer can at most be in stealth 35% of a fight.
That is with mass invis, veil, decoy, prestige, all with PU and all their cooldown reductions.
Requires a minimum of 20/0/30/0/25 (20/0/30/0/15 after 10th dec)
Many of our stealth attempts also are prone to failing, getting revealed instead of stealth.
Mass invis is easy to get interrupted 1 +3/4s cast time and easily spotted due to how we raise our right arm , and veil is easy to see and can be aoe’ed.
Choosing all those skills uses up 2 utilities, an elite and an offhand weapon.
This leaves us with no room for condi removal and mobility.

As for mesmer being so easy, remember that we have no spammable skills, once we use a skill it’s on a long cooldown.
We can not use the most appropriate skills everytime like a thief can.
Our damage that comes from phantasms is also very random, they usually don’t survive after their initial attack because many classes have access to much aoe that oneshots them, sometimes even before they can even attack once.
Those phantasm skills also have a long casttime that can be interrupted by cc spam.

i sat back and watched. about 12 times stealthed….1 reveal and about half the match was stealthed. 1v1 against a warrior (hammer/LB).

Chicago Jack.5647:

Travlane.5948:

actually i am never invis more than a second at a time.

And that is why I’m saying this is the reason why you’re having trouble – you are tying to fit a square block into a circle hole. The fundamental problem with running P/D as a roamer spec is that it involves sitting on a target for a longer amount of time than a typical thief build (S/D or D/P; to a lesser extent with S/D, but S/D can contest cap points) you would see in upper level play. You need to be able to bop in, take out a target, then bop out as a roamer. If it is attempted to be used as a type of team-fighter, then a necro can do the job better. This is why we don’t see P/D in tournies.

Travlane.5948:

they can invis 50-60% of a 1 v 1 and we can 75%+ but the difference is dmg. they can we cant.

If you used your stealth duration for more than 1 second, your endurance bars will will up and you will have more dodges to use while out of stealth thereby mitigating most of their phantasm damage. This situation is, in fact, about how you use stealth.

quite wrong but u WOULD be right if u were talking cookie cutter crap. my build isnt meant to stay invis….its a p/d pressure condition build. very different.

It’s your word against mathematics.. I’m going with the math, sorry.

fact is both stealths are the same. thief stealth is more readily available but mesmer stealth is more than useful too. the point ive been making is that they do ALOT of dmg and dont lose stealth into reveal. we do. theres no price to pay for doing dmg in stealth. this means there is no skill involved….well very low skill involved and high reward.

No, actually the facts are that they are not the same. Use, availability, duration — pretty much everything is different.

Mesmers have very slight stealth abilities and even that is if they build for them. Many mesmer builds use little or no stealth at all. In contrast, many if not most thief builds are designed around stealth and use it heavily.

no…stealth is both the same. enter stealth you are invisible. both stealths can be “revealed” but for thief its any dmg and mesmer only weapons dmg.

duration is different but the definition/mechanic is same on both characters.

Feel free to post a video of a duel with a mesmer invis “60% of the time”. That will be a neat trick, since it’s impossible.

Stealth is a secondary ability for mesmers, and only in certain builds. It’s a primary ability for thieves. And as others have said, if mesmer stealth reveals, they might as well just remove it as it would be useless. It’s not a problem for mesmers specifically because their stealth is of very short duration and with long cooldowns.

Travlane.5948:

Chicago Jack.5647:

Lol, if you play p/d, you’re bound to sit on a person for a long time – this is the reason why you don’t see p/d in high-level play. It’s not a burst spec. It’s a condition spec.

actually i am never invis more than a second at a time. and thats super high lvl play. duel if ud like to learn.

If you really think P/D thief is High level Tpvp and that a duel shows whos better or more experiented in a TPVP you really shouldnt discuss anymore.

What Chicago said is True, P/D isnt a burst spec, doesnt matter if you suas invi a lot or not and thais why it doesnt Help your tem in a Tpvp as much as a burst spec. A cond necro or engi Would Help the team much more than the P/D thief.

P/D is good for duels or wvw roaming. It lacks to much when talking team wise thats why nome of the TOP teams use it.

Walker.3056:

Travlane.5948:

Chicago Jack.5647:

Lol, if you play p/d, you’re bound to sit on a person for a long time – this is the reason why you don’t see p/d in high-level play. It’s not a burst spec. It’s a condition spec.

actually i am never invis more than a second at a time. and thats super high lvl play. duel if ud like to learn.

If you really think s/D thief is High level Tpvp and that a duel shows whos better or more experiented in a TPVP you really shouldnt discuss anymore.

What Chicago said is True, s/d isnt a burst spec, doesnt matter if you suas invi a lot or not and thais why it doesnt Help your tem in a Tpvp as much as a burst spec. A cond necro or engi Would Help the team much more than the s/d thief.

S/D is good buy for duels or wvw roaming. It lacks to much when talking team wise thats why nome of the TOP teams use it.

if u think s/d isnt burst setup then idk what to tell u. condis wont work with s/x …. simple as that. not really sure what u were even getting at here.

mesmer can be in stealth for 30 seconds (mmm… remind you perma something?)
and evade for 6 seconds while having aegis+protection+regeneration so about more 3 seconds to use decoy again so 44 up time almost invulnerable
while his illusion doing dmg (mostly conditions)

so if the fight is 1 min (for a thief its long fight) its almost 50% up time and if the fight is 2 min its 50% up time (prestige, mass invi and veil are up again) and so on

so mesmer have 50% stealth up time while not being revealed
we thieves must play more carefully and smartly to take an average mesmer. (take phantasm first, using cnd a lot and dont miss etc

imo p/d v PU → 50% to both as who wins the stealth/illusions game
d/x v PU → thieves have the upper hand with fast burst

messiah.1908:

mesmer can be in stealth for 30 seconds (mmm… remind you perma something?)
and evade for 6 seconds while having aegis+protection+regeneration so about more 3 seconds to use decoy again so 44 up time almost invulnerable
while his illusion doing dmg (mostly conditions)

so if the fight is 1 min (for a thief its long fight) its almost 50% up time and if the fight is 2 min its 50% up time (prestige, mass invi and veil are up again) and so on

so mesmer have 50% stealth up time while not being revealed
we thieves must play more carefully and smartly to take an average mesmer. (take phantasm first, using cnd a lot and dont miss etc

imo p/d v PU -> 50% to both as who wins the stealth/illusions game
d/x v PU -> thieves have the upper hand with fast burst

you are the only person on this thread that obviously knows what is going on. this is my point…and yes d/x is a better matchup for condi mesmer. but the thing is that everyone points out how our stealth is soo op when ew have no defense and we always get these nerfs. mesmers dont have to be good and dont have to really think like we do in stealth and they dont get pestered by revealed like we do. there is a huge gap in skill lvl needed to play each of these classes and i see more nerfs coming….. im just not understanding why anet is taking the direction it is. its like they want thieves to quit. i play thief bc of teleports and dodges bc they are fun. i do NOT play thief bc it is strong….i can beat pretty much anyone 1 v 1 however that doesnt translate well into winning guild vs guild or wvwvw or spvp/tpvp etc. invis is actually a hinderence in tpvp/spvp….. anyway thtas off topic.

now i dont think mesmers should get revealed from clones/phants blowing up or clone/phant attacks but i do think they should have to put a lil more effort in than just letting AI do 75% of the work and stay invis over half the match. maybe downgrade it harshly like a CD nerf or something then buff a weapon skill(s) to compensate EQUALLY for it. basically make atleast 60% of the dmg coming from the player and 40% from clones. this 75 25 or 80 20 crap is a joke. no talent lazy class :/

protection, invulnerabilty, aegis, invis, clones, phantasmsm, blurr, shall i go on? what is the mesmers price to pay for 50% stealth uptime?

Thief …. none of the above and pays with the worst defense in the game for stealth and one of the higher 3 damage classes. :/

Lol. I’ve fought mesmers, and I’ve never experienced anything more than about a third of the time they are stealthed. lol nice try though!

OP, wanna hear something exciting? they are buffing mesmer stealth build hehe

Sanduskel.1850:

Lol. I’ve fought mesmers, and I’ve never experienced anything more than about a third of the time they are stealthed. lol nice try though!

i also have fought mesmers but against good ones who knew what they are doing they told me that they just went stealth to fully utilize the stealth uptime and leaving the illusion to do dmg

it doesnt mean that all mesmer go 30-40 stealth duration rather that looking at your actions and react with stealth to it and teleport with blink or #2 staff so basically we conclude that it is a combination of s/d+d/p thief which can evade/teleport/perma vigor and stealth when needed and they agree to that and we both laugh

messiah.1908:

mesmer can be in stealth for 30 seconds

Over what, a 90 second time frame? And that’s if they spec entirely for that, which means they aren’t going to do much of anything useful.

Thieves can be nearly constantly stealthed without crippling their build. The two are not comparable.

Anyway, not sure what the point of complaining about mesmers is. Not like it’s going to accomplish anything.

Thieves should be made flexible and functional irrespective of how much stealth other classes get.

As i have said before, at most, if you take all traits and skills and use skills everytime they come out of cooldown and are 100% efficient in it, a mesmer can have 40% stealth uptime, 36s out of 90s.
AND they would have to magically get 75 trait points to do it.
AND they would have no condition removal, no mobility and no stunbreakers.
Therefor this mesmer does not exist because this mesmer is dead.

Also take into account stealth for a mesmer is purely defensive.
We don’t jump out of stealth to do 9k backstabs every 5 seconds or so.
Also mesmer is the slowest class there is and has no decent access to stability.
We can not run away from fights and will get easily locked down by cc because a lot of classes have tons of it.
We also do not have all these magical boons up all the time, only when we cast chaos storm do we get a few purely random, and when we go in stealth with PU, purely random.
Most of the time mesmers will have barely any boons at all.

Walker.3056:

If you really think s/D thief is High level Tpvp and that a duel shows whos better or more experiented in a TPVP you really shouldnt discuss anymore.

What are you talking about? First, when did I ever say dueling shows who’s better? That was Travelane. I ignored it, like a decent human being, because I too think dueling is ridiculous. Secondly, S/D is rare in Tpvp, but its not fully extinct, and its one of the two builds that we see in existence for thieves in upper-level tpvp. Do you know of any other builds that thieves are willing to bring to the team? I’m not sure why you even wrote this, tbh.

Anyway, not sure what the point of complaining about mesmers is. Not like it’s going to accomplish anything.

That’s obvious, someone ether got beat in a duel by a ridiculous mesmer spec that wouldn’t see the light of day in team play, or they are trying to do the equivalent of drinking a gallon of milk within less than an hour with their build. Now they are on the forums complaining about it. Thieves get it all the time from other classes.

A while ago, we had a person who advocates power ranger spec come on here complaining that thief backstab was too op.

i think the main issue is mesmer can go stealth while doing dmg and have 3 clones so hard to choose which to hit first and being punished with more conditions and thief just cannot
the issue who which is better depends on player level and not on stealth alone

also the basic 20,20,30,0,0 build of mesmer can give mesmer 2 stunbreak with decoy and blink, 2 condition removal with trait cleansing conflagration and have perma vigor, and regeneration, aegis and protection thus why everyone going after that PU build and know and admit its cheesy

check mesmers forum

messiah.1908:

i think the main issue is mesmer can go stealth while doing dmg and have 3 clones so hard to choose which to hit first and being punished with more conditions and thief just cannot
the issue who which is better depends on player level and not on stealth alone

also the basic 20,20,30,0,0 build of mesmer can give mesmer 2 stunbreak with decoy and blink, 2 condition removal with trait cleansing conflagration and have perma vigor, and regeneration, aegis and protection thus why everyone going after that PU build and know and admit its cheesy

check mesmers forum

I will offer a tip that Thief pR0z used to give me: L2P

Yeah, the build can be annoying, but a dolyak could run away from PU Mesmer (or mesmers in general).

the thread is about stealth and how thieves are punished/held back while using it. we cant do dmg or we get revealed. mesmers need not worry about that. they just do their thing and hide while the computer (AI) does the killing for them pretty much. there is no skill needed.

the other thing i attached in idea to this thread is the fact we are the ones always getting nerfed and our stealth comes at much more of a risk than mesmers.

Qaelyn.7612:

messiah.1908:

mesmer can be in stealth for 30 seconds

Over what, a 90 second time frame? And that’s if they spec entirely for that, which means they aren’t going to do much of anything useful.

Thieves can be nearly constantly stealthed without crippling their build. The two are not comparable.

Anyway, not sure what the point of complaining about mesmers is. Not like it’s going to accomplish anything.

Thieves should be made flexible and functional irrespective of how much stealth other classes get.

they need to have the same risk as thieves do while invis. no dmg or if u do damage it causes revealed. period. unles syou cast AOE on ground like caltrops or null field etc.

Travlane.5948:

no…stealth is both the same. enter stealth you are invisible. both stealths can be “revealed” but for thief its any dmg and mesmer only weapons dmg.

It is the same for both: only direct damage breaks stealth. Thief summons or condition fields don’t break stealth. Anyway, what you fought was a silly, cookie cutter duel build called the PU mesmer. The idea of PU mesmer is to spam phantasms (and clones for their traited death effect) and then just try to survive by running away and stealthing as much as possible. It’s both boring to play against and to play as, I don’t know why people bring these to duels.

Wow… there is some biased stuff going on here which in no way is fact based…

Let’s have a look at the Blackwater PU Condition Build so we can make some realistic and objective observations instead of exaggerating subjective gameplay experiences.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgEQNArfWlwzipXUTsGb9IipHBHyBckUUavWJF62FC-j0CBINCi0CgEGQUJA5QFRjtsuIasaGYaUJVlCQHLyeEDZVKAIWDA-w

Stealth
Some people already pointed out that there is absolutely no way a Mesmer can achieve 50-60% stealth without external help. In the respective build a Mesmer can achieve 24s of stealth within 60 mins (40% uptime) if he perfectly chains – since some Mesmer stealths can’t be stacked – the stealth skills he has. This is both unrealistic and insufficient when doing PvP or WvW because it in no way takes the circumstances into account. You need to time your stealth properly. Decoy is a stunbreaker. MI has a long casting time. Veil has to be crossed twice. Prestige is your condition cleanse. A Mesmer also is not excluded from revealed. Only Decoy is.

Even if the Mesmer specced into Illusions after the incomming patch he won’t exceed a 42.5% uptime (shorter cd on Decoy) but will as well lose DE and other important traits. There also is no Blurred Frenzy in many PU builds.

Phantasms
Phantasms indeed are great in combination with stealth. However, they do not deal a substantial amount of condition damage as it was claimed above. Phantasms are strongest in power builds. This means that the common condition builds actually have rather weak Phantasms.

Furthermore, if you are too “proud” to stealth, it is your own fault. Use CnD on the Illusions and the Mesmer won’t be able to do anything. Any other stealth skill or stealth combo will work aswell. You can also just kill the Phantasms with one or two hits. They won’t proc traits because most on-death traits only proc from Clones. Not Phantasms. There will only be 5-6 Phantasms per minute in this build and when you kill them or stealth the Mesmer won’t deal any damage and just waste his utility skills.

The iMage also reveals the Mesmers position because of the bouncing projectile. Yey.

Boons
Some people constantly mention perma boons. PU builds indeed have a nice time uptime of Protection. However, it is random and in no way permanent. You also lose a quite big amount of Protection uptime while in stealth. Yes, it does mitigate damage while in stealth. But you will need it outside of stealth not while being stealthed. Each boon is very short (3s if no investment was made in boon duration, 4s if using Traveler runes which will result in a damage loss). Aegis is nice but only has a 33% chance to procc which is quite bad considering it only stacks in duration. It might help while being in stealth (area damage or cleave damage). But when you drop out of stealth it is gone quickly anyway. If you are not able to counter-damage Regeneration – which might tick about 110-130 health per second – good lord… There won’t be any help for you anyway. Btw… if you are concerned about healing up in stealth… that’s about 2700 life when chaining stealth. So really no big deal at all.

Since your boons are only applied while in stealth, it is unlikely you will have a higher boon uptime than 50-60% since you can’t stealth more than 40% of the time. Makes sense, right? So no perma-anything.

Vigor
Since the patch announcement people like to stress perma Vigor traits so I want to talk about it seperately. While you are in stealth you won’t deal any damage. Phantasms do not proc the trait. If you assume a 40% stealth up time this also results in a – at best – 60% Vigor uptime. Since this is a condition build you will hit your enemy less often because you do not have a reasonable condition AA. So it is more about 40-50%.

Summary
While PU builds are very good for roaming the scenarios described in this thread are very subjective and simply not true. The PU builds also have several disadvantages like weaknesses to boon stripping, poor condition removal and close to no CC which makes running away very easy for your enemies. Especially S/D can destroy those builds. When using Pistol you can blind the Mesmer which will result in no Phantasm spawning at all. And if you can’t beat him just stealth away. That’s something a Thief is best at.

This might indeed be a L2P issue. Sorry.

Travlane.5948:

they need to have the same risk as thieves do while invis.

No, they don’t. Period.

They are different classes with different mechanics. And you are not going to win anyone to your point of view by continually misstating and exaggerating how mesmers function.

Travlane.5948:

Walker.3056:

Travlane.5948:

Chicago Jack.5647:

Lol, if you play p/d, you’re bound to sit on a person for a long time – this is the reason why you don’t see p/d in high-level play. It’s not a burst spec. It’s a condition spec.

actually i am never invis more than a second at a time. and thats super high lvl play. duel if ud like to learn.

If you really think s/D thief is High level Tpvp and that a duel shows whos better or more experiented in a TPVP you really shouldnt discuss anymore.

What Chicago said is True, s/d isnt a burst spec, doesnt matter if you suas invi a lot or not and thais why it doesnt Help your tem in a Tpvp as much as a burst spec. A cond necro or engi Would Help the team much more than the s/d thief.

S/D is good buy for duels or wvw roaming. It lacks to much when talking team wise thats why nome of the TOP teams use it.

if u think s/d isnt burst setup then idk what to tell u. condis wont work with s/x …. simple as that. not really sure what u were even getting at here.

You totally right I miss spelled it everytime by p/D. Just swap every s/d for p/d
Sorry about the missunderstanding
Edited.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Travlane.5948:

no…stealth is both the same. enter stealth you are invisible. both stealths can be “revealed” but for thief its any dmg and mesmer only weapons dmg.

It is the same for both: only direct damage breaks stealth. Thief summons or condition fields don’t break stealth. Anyway, what you fought was a silly, cookie cutter duel build called the PU mesmer. The idea of PU mesmer is to spam phantasms (and clones for their traited death effect) and then just try to survive by running away and stealthing as much as possible. It’s both boring to play against and to play as, I don’t know why people bring these to duels.

if shatter doesnt break stealth then neither should cluster bomb. they are both explosions without targets. so…. u were saying? :P

Walker.3056:

Travlane.5948:

Walker.3056:

Travlane.5948:

Chicago Jack.5647:

Lol, if you play p/d, you’re bound to sit on a person for a long time – this is the reason why you don’t see p/d in high-level play. It’s not a burst spec. It’s a condition spec.

actually i am never invis more than a second at a time. and thats super high lvl play. duel if ud like to learn.

If you really think s/D thief is High level Tpvp and that a duel shows whos better or more experiented in a TPVP you really shouldnt discuss anymore.

What Chicago said is True, s/d isnt a burst spec, doesnt matter if you suas invi a lot or not and thais why it doesnt Help your tem in a Tpvp as much as a burst spec. A cond necro or engi Would Help the team much more than the s/d thief.

S/D is good buy for duels or wvw roaming. It lacks to much when talking team wise thats why nome of the TOP teams use it.

if u think s/d isnt burst setup then idk what to tell u. condis wont work with s/x …. simple as that. not really sure what u were even getting at here.

You totally right I miss spelled it everytime by p/D. Just swap every s/d for p/d
Sorry about the missunderstanding
Edited.

i prefer p/d as im not dodging out of battle and im doing AOE dmg and AOE conditions. im only in stealth for 1 second and have basically the same energy as s/d build…. much more defense….. i work well in tpvp with p/d. i just change around my utilities for the job and 2 traits.

Xaylin.1860:

Wow… there is some biased stuff going on here which in no way is fact based…

Even if the Mesmer specced into Illusions after the incomming patch he won’t exceed a 42.5% uptime (shorter cd on Decoy) but will as well lose DE and other important traits. There also is no Blurred Frenzy in many PU builds.

Furthermore, if you are too “proud” to stealth, it is your own fault. Use CnD on the Illusions and the Mesmer won’t be able to do anything. Any other stealth skill or stealth combo will work aswell. You can also just kill the Phantasms with one or two hits. They won’t proc traits because most on-death traits only proc from Clones. Not Phantasms. There will only be 5-6 Phantasms per minute in this build and when you kill them or stealth the Mesmer won’t deal any damage and just waste his utility skills.

The iMage also reveals the Mesmers position because of the bouncing projectile. Yey.

Boons
Some people constantly mention perma boons. PU builds indeed have a nice time uptime of Protection. However, it is random and in no way permanent. You also lose a quite big amount of Protection uptime while in stealth. Yes, it does mitigate damage while in stealth. But you will need it outside of stealth not while being stealthed. Each boon is very short (3s if no investment was made in boon duration, 4s if using Traveler runes which will result in a damage loss). Aegis is nice but only has a 33% chance to procc which is quite bad considering it only stacks in duration. It might help while being in stealth (area damage or cleave damage). But when you drop out of stealth it is gone quickly anyway. If you are not able to counter-damage Regeneration – which might tick about 110-130 health per second – good lord… There won’t be any help for you anyway. Btw… if you are concerned about healing up in stealth… that’s about 2700 life when chaining stealth. So really no big deal at all.

Since your boons are only applied while in stealth, it is unlikely you will have a higher boon uptime than 50-60% since you can’t stealth more than 40% of the time. Makes sense, right? So no perma-anything.

Vigor
Since the patch announcement people like to stress perma Vigor traits so I want to talk about it seperately. While you are in stealth you won’t deal any damage. Phantasms do not proc the trait. If you assume a 40% stealth up time this also results in a – at best – 60% Vigor uptime. Since this is a condition build you will hit your enemy less often because you do not have a reasonable condition AA. So it is more about 40-50%.

Summary
While PU builds are very good for roaming the scenarios described in this thread are very subjective and simply not true. The PU builds also have several disadvantages like weaknesses to boon stripping, poor condition removal and close to no CC which makes running away very easy for your enemies. Especially S/D can destroy those builds. When using Pistol you can blind the Mesmer which will result in no Phantasm spawning at all. And if you can’t beat him just stealth away. That’s something a Thief is best at.

This might indeed be a L2P issue. Sorry.

i think its more of a learn to read issue. its not not being able to kill/survive. the topic/point went right over your head. maybe thats myfault for insinuating rather than bluntly stating. let me try again

shatter = no reveal
cluster bomb = reveal

both are aoe explosions (shatter has conditions too but w.e.) and no target needed.
why is one have no drawback but the other does. hrmmm.

Stealth on mesmer = doing pretty much the same dmg as not in stealth
Stealth on thief = dealing NO dmg unless you count caltrops?

a mesmer can hide pretty much half the battle and dodge the other half the battle and let the mesmers clones/phants do all the work. this takes no skill and is very formidable. thieves used to be strong with burst but not are kinda of laughable… and our benefits came at the price of being able to use stealth…. we would die. but when we win it was well earned and worked for (last 8 months or so).

Its about taking the control away from the player yet leaving them the same amount of power. like warriors who get amazinghealing for a passive…most amazing.

Hide in shadows is 5500 per 30 seconds which is 183.333 per second.
Healing signet is like 13500 per 30 seconds which is 450 per second PASSIVE.

high reward high power low/none skill needed.

in summary thieves’ stealth = revealed on dmg and so should mesmers. period.

how to fix? just some ideas not saying they are good but its a starting point to talk.

no clonesmade while invis? shorter invis? shatter=revealed? etc etc etc

i have duel in wvw several PU mesmer as p/d with massive venom conditions
i won most of the time but here are the results:

1. the staff is so powerful defensive weapon with bleed and burning – 3 stack of bleed and burning most of the fight if i didnt kill them asap i could end up with 8-10 stacks
2. the mesmer went to stealth as soon as i did with torch and let their illusions to do the dmg
3. protection, aegis and regeneration was almost all the time
4. their tactics is not the be in stealth 30 seconds rather that in and out when needed (like we do). and run back to observe the results and reengage
5. illusionary counter is hard to notice so get prepare for 5 torment stacks
6. prestige is too powerful with blind and burning dmg as on its own but combined with scepter which lack of conditions its ok. so must to dodge after 4 seconds

so we talked after that and we agree that without the illusion that do the dmg the same tactics both classes have.
again the main different is that mesmer have clones which do all the dmg and being able to stay in stealth while we thieves cannot

compare it to ambush and thieves guild – if they didnt follow us while we in stealth and went to attack their target (like illusion) and didnt disengage i am sure so plenty QQ was on each class forum on us

why i think i won – i won in the stealth contest and put lots of pressure with conditions
so every time i saw condition i went stealth to clear it so he wouldnt stack me.

the basic 0,0,30,20,20 with bleeding only wont cut it as the mesmer will cleanse up to 2 conditions easily

why i lost – the mesmer pushed me to fight over 1:30 min so he got his stealth skills again while i was 50% hp or less

so my conclusions:
both p/d and PU mesmer have the same tactics and abilities to stealth in 2 min fights
so as mention above that the 2 classes are different with different mechanism is wrong in this case
have you ask yourself why both mesmers and thieves have the same problems. both are roamers and not group fight type (although the mesmer have staff and thieves have SB)

messiah.1908:

i have duel in wvw several PU mesmer as p/d with massive venom conditions
i won most of the time but here are the results:

1. the staff is so powerful defensive weapon with bleed and burning – 3 stack of bleed and burning most of the fight if i didnt kill them asap i could end up with 8-10 stacks
2. the mesmer went to stealth as soon as i did with torch and let their illusions to do the dmg
3. protection, aegis and regeneration was almost all the time
4. their tactics is not the be in stealth 30 seconds rather that in and out when needed (like we do). and run back to observe the results and reengage
5. illusionary counter is hard to notice so get prepare for 5 torment stacks
6. prestige is too powerful with blind and burning dmg as on its own but combined with scepter which lack of conditions its ok. so must to dodge after 4 seconds

so we talked after that and we agree that without the illusion that do the dmg the same tactics both classes have.
again the main different is that mesmer have clones which do all the dmg and being able to stay in stealth while we thieves cannot

compare it to ambush and thieves guild – if they didnt follow us while we in stealth and went to attack their target (like illusion) and didnt disengage i am sure so plenty QQ was on each class forum on us

why i think i won – i won in the stealth contest and put lots of pressure with conditions
so every time i saw condition i went stealth to clear it so he wouldnt stack me.

the basic 0,0,30,20,20 with bleeding only wont cut it as the mesmer will cleanse up to 2 conditions easily

why i lost – the mesmer pushed me to fight over 1:30 min so he got his stealth skills again while i was 50% hp or less

here in lies the problem. they should be revealed but almost NEVER are. so they attack to add torment and burning and bleeding and hop back in 1 sec later and are STILL doing dmg in and out of stealth. theres no price to pay for stealth.

Id like somebody to dare try explain to me how its fair shatter which blows up clones with no target wont cause revealed but cluster bomb hitting a round almost 600 range away will.

our thieves guild and ambush should attack just like clones but they dont. we get really short changed while stealthed. i dont mind it… but to give somebody the use of stealth like thief (inherent to class build/mechanic) and not have them pay any real penalty 90% of the time just seems like a gift.

in conclusion:

1) mesmers do dmg and no reveal
2) they have an extremely high uptime on stealth + dodges/regen
3) their AI clones follow and attack while owner in stealth

none of these a thief has. obv the balance/devs/prog teams play mesmer. we thieves get used to it. makes me 2nd guess my purchase. i played monk as primary and assassin as 2ndary in gw1. i loved both classes. they dumbed this game down too much but making every self reliant and losing team atmosphere by doing so. took our build creativity away by 90% from gw1. weapons look like a 5th grader created them…just go look at the lions arch trader up the stairs behind the TP. cmon anet …really? anyway my peace is said.