Guild Wars 2

It seems that any half decent mesmer can just beat me no matter what I do.

Do any of you have a build that’s built to counter mesmers or even remotely deal with them. This is primarily for wvw since confusion is feeling pretty broken there.

/sleep and hope they think you are dead and don’t target you?

Sarcasm aside, there really is nothing you can do against a Mesmer in a open field battle. Your only chance would be to confront them in a narrow passage of types and restrict their movement.

Hammer or Greatsword are, in my opinion, the best weapons to go at a Mesmer with because they offer the most damage/aoe for ease. Earthshaker will almost wipe all three clones/phantasmal, but only if they are nearby. Whirlwind attack can do the same as Earthshaker only it does not require adrenaline and is on a 8 second cool down (if traited). Granted, no decent Mesmer should every lose to any Warrior in any given situation. Your best bet is for them to make a mistake while you have your burst up.

If you are going up against a glamour Mesmer, confusion triated Mesmer, then get Mending as a healing skill, and Signet of Stamina.

Best of luck!

Yeah, mesmers are generally tough. Overall I find shatter mesmers to be slightly less problematic then confusion mesmers. Shatter mesmers are usually more squishy then full rabid confusion mesmers. If you get a lucky with whirlwinds and stay on the right one, they can go down. Good shatter mesmers still will win most of the time. Confusion mesmers in wvw are a real pain. They have higher damage reduction and the confusion alongside bleeds and burn really add up and you can pretty much only run away.

Turn and run. Any half decent Mesmer has chewed me up and spat me out every single time. I like to think I’m not completely rubbish as encounters with all other classes feel a lot more even. But to be honest, I don’t even risk starting combat, they do stupidly high damage and are nigh impossible to lock down. Sure I’ve killed a few, but they sucked, or lagged out. People will tell you it’s just a L2Play issue, but the truth is there’s a very simple reason you see so many in WvW/PvP…

Class balance in this game is a joke.

Constantine.7812:

Sil.4560:

Class balance in this game is a joke.

i agree.

first of all what anet should do is remove clones and stealth from this game (no im not kidding) and replace it with decent skills so that we all (warriors most i guess) can see our oponents and fight them, because mesmers hiding behind clones and thieves hiding in stealth while doing tons of dmg is a joke yes. Im sure that many ppl wont agree with this (at least ppl playing thieves and mesmers for sure), but to be honest i dont care and this is my opinion. NO CLASS SHOULD BE INVISIBLE (STEALTH) OR MAKING MORE CLASSES (CLONES) -TO ME THIS IS CHEATING and i dont care how funny this sounds.
They said (anet) that they want to implement new balance in this game slowly, but i think they should be careful, cuz last update kitten off many ppl (including me) and its only matter of time when they kitten even more if they are gonna go this way.

Clones overall are not the issue.. The issue is the overall high burst potential alongside at least 3-6 get out of jail free cards:

For a mesmer:
sword 2 = invuln
F4 = invuln
staff 2 = blink back (works even when stunned)
torch 4 = invis

Utilities (pick any 3)
blink = blink + stun break
decoy = invis + stun break
mirror images = summon 2 images + stun break
null field = remove all conditions on you and all boons on enemies
portal = long range movement (if set up)

Elites:
Mass invis = well mass invis
Moa = run away or die
Time warp = 1.5x attackspeed

So basically as a warrior, its pretty hard to lock any decent mesmer down with any sort of CC. The best hope usually is that they used their blink and can’t get out of a sword immob + 100b because one of the bigger weaknesses of mesmer is still their weak condi removal (Kinda like warrior, except they get all the other free invuln, stealth and blink) and even then staff 2 or sword 2 will mitigate most of the damage.

Just turn off “Show All Enemies” in your options.

Names won’t appear over clones and various other “non-player enemies”.

The real mesmer will always display his name.

Also, I suggest you play a mesmer in spvp and learn how they work. This helped me a lot in dealing with the class. I can usually beat a mesmer in a 1v1 if I am able to break the roots in time to avoid the burst.

Mesmers Are easier to Deal with if you run Hammer or Longbow, since AOE chews up the clones and confusion doesn’t hamper your health as severly as auto attacks and constant random swings most people do in WvW against mesmers. I have more troubles with Super bunkers (ret guardian bunkers and Ele d/d Bunkers) than i do with mesmers. I run a Hammer/Sword-Shield Warrior, and I can only get them to drop to 25% health before they start spamming their heals and invuln/dodge/aegis to completely shut my dps till they get 100% again. At the same time they whither you down slowly, and then your forced to retreat and regain health. Its kinda annoying to think that Guardian and Ele bunkers are so tanky and have so much sustain, that they can just spec for defense and still have time to kill their enemy with almost no attack stats or traits.

^ As CoaxialMazer said, Hammer/Sword+Shield is a great set to utilize. It’s what I do.

To be completely honest though, that is only if the Mesmer is decent or worse.
A good Mesmer will chew you up regardless of what you do. It’s often better to run away when you see a Thief or Mesmer that knows what he/she is doing.
If it’s a common backstab thief or a “Mesmer is OP so I will play it!” Mesmer, then just engage and roll them.

Mesmer will almost always win out if a Warrior and Mesmer are equally skilled though.

I usually beat mesmers with sword/shield + great sword.

I run the 1s immobilize on snare which is enough to stop them from getting too far away.

Plenty of movement abilities to get out of thier immo/burst.

The biggest help is turning the display all enemy names though. You will always know which is the right mesmer.

1. Turn off autoattack or you’ll die from confusion stacks.

2. Slot condition removal or die. This is why Warriors have hard fights. Same thing applies goes with other condition-heavy classes.

3. Learn to dodge the clone/phantasm shatter (when all those images run straight at you, guess what is going to happen) This also means to try to fight the mesmer away from the clone party or AoE as much as possible.

4. Learn what Blurred Frenzy is and what it looks like. Since it roots the Mesmer, stop attacking (see #1).

5. Learn that when a Mesmer uses their “2” downed ability that the real Mesmer appears about 1-second later in another spot. Don’t hit the cloned version.

6. If all else fails, run, Mesmers lack burst speed escape except for their teleport. Most Mesmers have this utility (Blink) slotted but use it almost immediately after the clone/phantasm set up. Wait for it to be used and then run…

get to the open area 1st, cuz from my experience, in a small place with terrible camera you can no way defeat a mesmer, in the open atleast its easier to find the real one

Lighter.5631:

get to the open area 1st, cuz from my experience, in a small place with terrible camera you can no way defeat a mesmer, in the open atleast its easier to find the real one

Very wrong. If you are in a open field you will never get close to any decent Mesmer. They can out range a Warrior very easily and their biggest burst potential can be used at range as well.

In a close quarter fight you can effectively destroy all the clones usually before they can accomplish anything since the Mesmer got a nerf where they clones are delayed by 1 second or so after cast.

Best way, and usually the only way, for a Warrior to win is in a close combat fight where the Mesmer has no where to run to but back against the wall. They usually have less health and armor so you can trade blows and win in a smacking contest. However if you let them get out in the field they can cripple you and kite, spread their phantasms so you can not kill them efficiently, or blink away and stealth.

They need a complete change. Staff 2 is just imbalanced. Blink is imbalanced. Confusion/Shatters do way too much damage for them being so difficult to track and chase down.

You shouldn’t be able to have this much survivability without sacrificing a lot of your damage. And if you’re going glass mesmers you’re just bad rofl.

Best place for a warrior(in WvW) is in a zerg ball. Hammer gives you so much control in large fights and you put your large HP pool to good use by soaking up damage for the softer targets. Damage mitigation in zergs + a lot of toughness and HP makes you nearly invincible.

Sadly, warriors suck kitten I’m not gonna say there’s a certain spec or utility set you can put on to be as hard to kill as a mesmer or a d/d ele. If anyone has one I would love to know a good balanced build that’s impossible to kill like a mesmer.

snacks.4852:

It seems that any half decent mesmer can just beat me no matter what I do.

Do any of you have a build that’s built to counter mesmers or even remotely deal with them. This is primarily for wvw since confusion is feeling pretty broken there.

The easiest profession for warrior to against should be Memsers.
All you need is to get the trait of movement skill break immo, and also using gs+lb.

hope this will help.
regards.

Anastasis Tactis

I’ve fought some more mesmers. I’m currently running a Melandru build:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|7.1g.h1.e.1g.h1l|1.1g.h1|1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r|2s.0.2v.0.3v.0.2v.0.3s.0.2s.d13|a5.f6.p58.0.k56|16.8|5y.68.6f.6i.6m|e

Rabid confusion mesmers incl. glamour mesmers
- It’s actually pretty easy against them. They don’t do a lot of direct damage and with reduced condition duration all the confusion and other conditions they apply fall off relatively quick.

Zerker shatter mesmer
- This one you really have to dodge the shatter burst anyhow possible (dodge, whirlwind, shield block, endure pain)
- you have to stay on him and put constant pressure with axe or GS. If you are at range, he’ll win
- try to get a lucky eviscerate in. That will usually down them or bring them <30% health

Duelist Phantasm spec (balanced stats)
- This is the only one I will usually die for sure. They have a lot of sustain with frequent regen, reduced damage per illusion etc. Lots of blink
- Best bet, try to take out the phantasms as they provide a lot of benefits and do most of the damage. However a good phantasm duelist will spread out the phantasms and you end up taking too much time / damage while trying to kill them.

peter.9024:

I’ve fought some more mesmers. I’m currently running a Melandru build:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|7.1g.h1.e.1g.h1l|1.1g.h1|1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r|2s.0.2v.0.3v.0.2v.0.3s.0.2s.d13|a5.f6.p58.0.k56|16.8|5y.68.6f.6i.6m|e

Rabid confusion mesmers incl. glamour mesmers
- It’s actually pretty easy against them. They don’t do a lot of direct damage and with reduced condition duration all the confusion and other conditions they apply fall off relatively quick.

Zerker shatter mesmer
- This one you really have to dodge the shatter burst anyhow possible (dodge, whirlwind, shield block, endure pain)
- you have to stay on him and put constant pressure with axe or GS. If you are at range, he’ll win
- try to get a lucky eviscerate in. That will usually down them or bring them <30% health

Duelist Phantasm spec (balanced stats)
- This is the only one I will usually die for sure. They have a lot of sustain with frequent regen, reduced damage per illusion etc. Lots of blink
- Best bet, try to take out the phantasms as they provide a lot of benefits and do most of the damage. However a good phantasm duelist will spread out the phantasms and you end up taking too much time / damage while trying to kill them.

Yea with the melandru build the first 2 are doable the last one I can’t figure out anyway possible to beat it.

Its basically so much stuff that you just cant keep up while still keeping pressure on the mesmer. You have to kill the phantasms but then they still have the blink and regen etc. You just can’t stay on top of them with the amount of kiting. This includes a /torch setup or staff or sword/sword setup.

You cant really burst them either because by the time you can get close to hit them with anything good your going to eat blurred frenzy on its 8 sec cd(12 sec if traited)

To add I couldnt even see any possible buff a warrior could get to even make it close rofl. This one we just might have to swallow. Fortunately meta wise in WvW phantasm builds can be weak to P/D thief bleed builds because leaving clones out means more CnD fodder for the thief. With Aoe classes like necros and ele’s it keeps it in check somewhat as not every mesmer is running this. So yea.

I had a serious problem with mesmers no matter what class I used. My ele could SOMETIMES whoop one out but even when I downed them they would damage me and I couldnt finish them most of the time before someone came to help. Now that ive played mesmer and see how truly powerful it is, I also understand how it works. Just like the D/D ele, the Mes needs certain set ups and ranged to take care of business. If its a shatter ele your best bet is to let them come at you with everything youve got and play the block/evade card. Once theyve mind wrecked, you can get on them because their main offensive weapon is gone. Scepter/Staff eles are harder to deal with but the same rules apply, learn how to play mes and youll learn how to kill them. Strangely I find them easy to kill with my thief now; I can scorpion wire the real one easily and beat him down before he can get away

Uses a condie damage build Never had trouble with mesmers, they’re cannonfodder for me.

^ Not sure if srs or posting in the wrong profession forum.

Problem is: most mesmers are anti-melee characters. Chaos storm alone can be dangerous enough to be a death sentence to anyone who tries to get past it to kill the mesmer.

Once a mesmer adviced me to use a long-range weapon against them as a warrior. And, well, I still make a mess with rifle, but seems like its high damage is good at putting pressure on the mesmer and forcing him on the defensive.

I pair it with hammer, and seems like they get confused by that playstyle. Problem is I get confused, too.XD

You can always just run away from a mesmer. They’re not that great at chasing people down. This might seem like a dumb answer, but in some cases that might be the most advantageous tactic during a real match.

If its just hotjoin we’re talking about, the you just have to outsmart them somehow, or wait for a buddy to help out. Some of them will use their CCs on any CC attempts, so if you have some immobilizes from things like longbow, leg specialist, or bolas, they might use all their get-out-of-jail-free cards on those and leave themselves vulnerable for other attacks.

I still have lots of problems with them too, but playing a mesmer for awhile helped me understand what they were doing.

HatasGunnaHate.3627:

Constantine.7812:

Sil.4560:

Class balance in this game is a joke.

i agree.

first of all what anet should do is remove clones and stealth from this game (no im not kidding) and replace it with decent skills so that we all can see our oponents and fight them back, because mesmers hiding behind clones and thieves hiding in stealth while doing tons of dmg is a joke yes. Im sure that many ppl wont agree with this (at least ppl playing thieves and mesmers for sure), but to be honest i dont care and this is my opinion. NO CLASS SHOULD BE INVISIBLE (STEALTH) OR MAKING MORE CLASSES (CLONES) -TO ME THIS IS CHEATING and i dont care how funny this sounds.
They said (anet) that they want to implement new balance in this game slowly, but i think they should be careful, cuz last update kitten off many ppl (including me) and its only matter of time when they kitten even more if they are gonna go this way.

Before you people cry about imbalance please post a video of you playing and your build so the community can determine whether you have a right to your claims. I’m 99% sure most of the cry babies either have sub par gear, builds, and movement (Back peddle, Clicking, Key turning, not dodge rolling). I strongly believe if these things apply to you then you have no right to come to the forums and whine. You are not playing the best you can be playing so of course good people are going to make short work of you “handicapped gamers”.

Mechanics such as stealth and clones put a huge imbalance in the game, you’re kidding yourself if you disagree. Being able to see your opponent 100% of the time puts you at a huge advantage, you can predict their attacks, know when to strike, etc.
Vanishing into stealth and producing decoys on classes that already have arguably the best burst damage puts them a step above. Sure you can still predict and follow them but it takes a much higher skill level to do so, compared to attacking a 100% visible opponent. Professions that take a higher skill level to beat is THE DEFINITION OF OVERPOWERED. Whilst dealing with clones and stealth is much easier to manage in a 1v1, in group situations where attacks are flying everywhere it’s much harder to track an invisible foe/follow the correct Mesmer.

Lets be frank here all else held equal mesmer vs warrior mesmer wins. the problem is memser requires way too much counter play and there is too much punishment for removing clones. At the same time they have so much invul that it makes it a nearly impossible fight to win vs a skilled one. That being said you can always run and given how much people kitten about other players running it seems being fast is a part of balance. While its not impossible for a mesmer to CC while you run if you carry any mobility weapon the mesmer should have chance at catching you.

The sad reality is even a thief can’t do half the kitten a memser can and mesmers take very little risk to run their burst. The only thing i can compare them to is full bunker DD. While there are some innate trade offs in the set the fact is it requires to much counter play to beat thus your left at a loss when you have only so many tools.

Mesmers do need to be nerfed but don’t hold your breath. They probably wont see any anytime soon and DD ele should get hit by the bat this patch. While this better sweet for me (since they could end up nerfing my non pure bunker build in the process) I do have hopes that we warriors will get something good.

Just bend over so you get to respawn quicker.

HatasGunnaHate.3627:

Before you people cry about imbalance please post a video of you playing and your build so the community can determine whether you have a right to your claims. I’m 99% sure most of the cry babies either have sub par gear, builds, and movement (Back peddle, Clicking, Key turning, not dodge rolling). I strongly believe if these things apply to you then you have no right to come to the forums and whine. You are not playing the best you can be playing so of course good people are going to make short work of you “handicapped gamers”.

Ha, you posted this exact same crap over on the thief forum I think. Now you come to the warrior forum of all places. The game isn’t balanced. It’s less than a year after launch, so go figure. You think it’s balanced? You’re on crack. Have fun though.

My warrior can actually deal quite well with glass cannon mesmer — though any sort of bunker build for any profession is pretty much a no win.

I like to roam around WvW with my glass cannon Rifle/GS warrior. If I come across any glass cannons, they’re pretty much dead. I run 10/30/0/0/30. Important traits are Rifle shots pierce and Last Chance.

For mesmers specifically, I open with a volley which will either take half their health pool or force them to burn a dodge. I will then activate killshot. If they don’t dodge they’re dead already. If they do dodge it, I immediately switch to GS and Bull’s Charge + 100 Blades. Most mesmers are caught completely off guard by this and die, especially since Last Chance procs.

That’s the ideal outcome of the fight, but if the memser isn’t downed by that combo, do a Whirlwind Attack and switch back to the rifle. You stand a much better chance against a mesmer at range.

HatasGunnaHate.3627:

Constantine.7812:

Sil.4560:

Class balance in this game is a joke.

i agree.

first of all what anet should do is remove clones and stealth from this game (no im not kidding) and replace it with decent skills so that we all can see our oponents and fight them back, because mesmers hiding behind clones and thieves hiding in stealth while doing tons of dmg is a joke yes. Im sure that many ppl wont agree with this (at least ppl playing thieves and mesmers for sure), but to be honest i dont care and this is my opinion. NO CLASS SHOULD BE INVISIBLE (STEALTH) OR MAKING MORE CLASSES (CLONES) -TO ME THIS IS CHEATING and i dont care how funny this sounds.
They said (anet) that they want to implement new balance in this game slowly, but i think they should be careful, cuz last update kitten off many ppl (including me) and its only matter of time when they kitten even more if they are gonna go this way.

Before you people cry about imbalance please post a video of you playing and your build so the community can determine whether you have a right to your claims. I’m 99% sure most of the cry babies either have sub par gear, builds, and movement (Back peddle, Clicking, Key turning, not dodge rolling). I strongly believe if these things apply to you then you have no right to come to the forums and whine. You are not playing the best you can be playing so of course good people are going to make short work of you “handicapped gamers”.

This game has like 8 buttons you need to press and a mouse to wave, its hardly olympic level sport.

Haven’t read the whole thread…

Immobilize really hurts the mesmer. We may teleport with staff (6s cd traited) or blink (24s traited) but we will still be immobilized and mesmer condition removal usually comes with a huge cd.

Against a confusion mesmer i’d like to kite him around not doing much (avoiding confusion damage) and waiting for an opening to burst him.

I suck when playing power mesmer so i can’t really help in that case…

Hi, shatter Mesmer here
To tell you the truth, as a warrior dueling a Mesmer will be quite a challange for you, for a few reasons:
1)Meamers have fantastic in-combat mobility,as oppose to to warriors,allowing them to dodge your attacks, and reappear on the other side of the battlefield and kite you to death.
2)High burst and sustained damage,combined with the havoc they can cause with all these clones running at you,fighting
Esmera can be seriously misleading.
3)Confusion.
Always have a conditio. Removal especially against confusion spec Ed mesmers (which are not uncommon in wvw.

General tips I will give you:
1)Learn to stay on the real Mesmer, never waste time on his clones, doing this gives HUGE adventagr to the mesmer, he basically can do as he eases with you (shatter,let proc-on-death traits kick,mite younto death,heal etc).
This is excluding certain phantasams which can inflict alot dmg very fast.
2)carry wirh you a reliable condition removal, for confusion.
If you cannot remove confuse,refrain from using skills quickly,let it wear off.
3)immobilize+100b or any of your powerhouse skills, one or two of these will,without a doubt, finish the fight.
Mesmers are,eventually,a light armor class and most of them go GC set,making them squishy,yet elusiveike an annoying fly
Good luck!

Iavra.8510:

Haven’t read the whole thread…

Immobilize really hurts the mesmer. We may teleport with staff (6s cd traited) or blink (24s traited) but we will still be immobilized and mesmer condition removal usually comes with a huge cd.

Against a confusion mesmer i’d like to kite him around not doing much (avoiding confusion damage) and waiting for an opening to burst him.

I suck when playing power mesmer so i can’t really help in that case…

Immobilize hurts pretty much all classes for nothing else, they can’t dodge. If they can’t dodge, unload your burst.

I agree though, it has helped tremendously in beating Mesmers by playing one. If nothing else, you learn the build types and can predict what will happen based on damage done to the Mesmer, amount of confusion stacks you are incurring or whether the Mesmer is using heavy clones (ignore dodge roll clone trait) or heavy phantasms.

How I deal with good mesmers is jump/run away since they can’t catch up, come back with a friend :P

You watch him blink/invul/stunbreak all your stuns and immobilizations and if somehow you get lucky and and trap him in a burst, watch him stealth and get away.

^ I just did this, made me so mad. Landed a superb Killshot through a sea of clones, used Healing Surge then immediately dropping Eviscerate on his face, he’s on his last legs and just invisi’s away like a thief kitten spits

Going DPS build gives you the best chance of killing them, but it makes you an easy target for any competent mesmer.

I role a 10/0/30/30/0 warrior (Full Knight w/ Soldier and PVT/Cavalier trinkets from Fractals). I find that while I have a hard time killing them, I can easily keep pressure on them thanks to the 1s immobilize trait. Heal Sig + Manga + Adrenal + Shouts + Dodge + Weakness from Warhorn = I never die

Running Hammer / Sword + Warhorn btw..

hey all. my main mesmer sometimes immortal build, sometime phantasmal build

immortal build can beat any type of warrior with perma retal boon+phatasms have retal to. in this build mesmer have 2.9+ def and 24-26k hp. so he can take some dmg from warior easy. only another mesmer can counter this build (sometimes hgh engi)

phantasmal build so epic simple for mesmer, just need summon 3 phantasmal and run around enemy. for this build sometimes hard is hammer/swshield warior. u must be rly near mesmer allways

sometimes “kill shot” can rly hurt mesmer. but dont forget about reflect

p.s. sry bad eng

p.s.s mesmer is one of balanced champion in game, dont need nerf him,. just need some love for other class, look at elem, they have only 2 viable builds, 1 dd bunker second group field user

p.s.s.s u cant beat mesmer in 1vs1. but 5 warior can beat 5 mesmers. dont forget wvw not only about duels. in large group or guild operation i preffer have in group 10 warior than 10 mesmer

Mesmers are the easiest class to duel on warrior with enough practise. All I can say is min max your spec and eviscerate is your friend (you can practically one shot even the best mesmers in the game).

Whirlwind attack them/their clones too.

^ Trust me, you’ve never been near the best mesmers in the game if you were able to one hit K.O with an eviscerate…

Bad troll is bad, stop trying to farm loot bags from warriors who should be running for back up.

Constantine.7812:

Sil.4560:

Class balance in this game is a joke.

i agree.

first of all what anet should do is remove clones and stealth from this game (no im not kidding) and replace it with decent skills so that we all can see our oponents and fight them back, because mesmers hiding behind clones and thieves hiding in stealth while doing tons of dmg is a joke yes. Im sure that many ppl wont agree with this (at least ppl playing thieves and mesmers for sure), but to be honest i dont care and this is my opinion. NO CLASS SHOULD BE INVISIBLE (STEALTH) OR MAKING MORE CLASSES (CLONES) -TO ME THIS IS CHEATING and i dont care how funny this sounds.
They said (anet) that they want to implement new balance in this game slowly, but i think they should be careful, cuz last update kitten off many ppl (including me) and its only matter of time when they kitten even more if they are gonna go this way.

Oh yeah perma stealth i love that

Stealth really could have been implemented in different ways, especially if they were going to combine it with a class that gets the initiative system and such huge spike damage.

As an adapt mesmer, I feel like giggling while reading this post. Half of you guys have no idea what you are talking about.

First, most mesmers have one HUGE disadvantage: a lack of condition removal. I haven’t known many to have more than 2 removals. If you stack conditions on them, you will force them to play defensively and/or run away.

Second, NEVER try to pin down a mesmer! NEVER! You’ll only catch the bad ones. Any with half a brain cell will use one of the many evasion powers to get out of melee range. As noted above, there are a LOT of them! The list is even bigger than that. A mesmer traited with Illusionary Persona can hit F4 and be untouchable from 1 to 4 seconds.

Third, aoes are your friend! While mesmers can crank out a lot of clones in short order, those clones are ridiculously fragile! Aoes will clear them out just as fast if not faster than they are created.

Now for some more specific tips. Against shatter mesmers, you better dodge that first shatter like your life depended on it, because it literally does! It will almost ALWAYS be Mind Wrack and it can be traited to hurt like hell! Any mesmer dodge rolling without reason and otherwise spawning clones very quickly is very likely a shatter mesmer. Stay at range, let them come to you and then evade when they are close enough. Once they wiff, you have 5 to 15 seconds to pour on the pressure. Some will respawn clones quickly and try to shatter again within the 15 second range. They are likely using Cry of Frustration, which will place confusion on you. Sadly the next patch will take care of that threat. If you can keep up the pressure and keep a count of when to dodge a Mind Wrack shatter, you’ll be fine.

One nearly dead giveaway of Rabid mesmers is they will mainly use a staff. If you can’t burst them down in 3 seconds, expect a long war of attrition to follow. Don’t bother trying to get into melee range because they will teleport-dance all around you. Their mile high toughness makes raw damage laughable. They will try to melt you down with conditions so be sure to have some removals. Use aoes to keep the clone count low and rely on ranged, condition damage to defeat them. If you don’t have a ranged weapon or you can’t do enough condition damage, don’t even bother. Winning any other way is likely to be a very exhausting affair.

Phantasm mesmers are a good practice for learning when to dodge. Most of them hit hard but only once every 5 seconds or so. They are a bit tougher than clones but still easily dealt with. However, you could time your dodges to evade their attacks and focus on the mesmer. Just don’t let them get 3 out at once unless you’re a boss ad manuvering. It also helps to know that mesmers can’t spawn clones if they are blinded, have no line-of-sight to their target or said target is blocking. Use this to your advantage.

If the mesmer is using a 1hand sword, fight on uneven ground. That makes it nearly impossible to spawn the sword’s clone.

Be very VERY careful when you use killshot. Mesmers have a lot of reflection powers and killshot’s startup animation is quite obvious. I usually save a reflect just for the killshot.

Mesmers can’t stay invisible for more than 6 seconds, 5 if untraited. If they are running form you when they use it, bad ones will keep running straight ahead but good ones will turn 90 degrees and go for the nearest hiding spot. Gauge their performance and guess which they are likely to do.

Above all else, remember that a mesmer is a master of misdirection. Only horrible ones will try to take you head on. Great ones will mess with your head. For instance, I play a condition mesmer but I may act like a shatter mesmer at the beginning of the battle, using Cry of Frustration instead of Mind Wrack. This is to make people think my damage is front-loaded and make them sweat when they realize I do a lot more damage than they were expecting. If they ignore my clones and go straight for me, there’s always a Mind Wrack in my back pocket.

I’ll let you guys ponder on how to defeat that.

I’m no pro warrior but here is the pattern that I found most average Joe Mesmers use :

1/ They try to burst you down
2/ They’ll try to trick you with clones, decoy, teleport …
3/ They’ll start running

1/ Dodge, use shield, avoid initial burst at all cost

2/ Take your time guessing which is the real one, don’t waste all your burst on one spot cuz he’ll certainly just teleport, break stun or else.

3/ They usually use stealth and start running while you have a great chat with his clones, dont let him fool you, a mesmer will almost never run straight into a warrior, so start taking some terrain advantage before he gets out of reach and don’t forget using stability if he uses his temporal curtain to push you back.

If you manage to get that far he should be pretty much dead.

Crossplay, as an adept Warrior, I feel you greatly overestimate what a warrior can do. Warriors have laughably weak condition damage and the frequency of attacks that apply conditions is abysmal.

We have a whopping two AoE attacks that we can use to clear clones, longbow #3 and F1, and F1 won’t even kill them if they’re bullrushing us or are super tank phantasms. And they’ll all be respawned in the next two seconds anyway, so I disagree about wasting time on them.

You can go toe to toe with a Mesmer, wait to burst after you’ve seen the staff teleport and blink, then immobilise and beat them repetitively, that said, their army of clones is about to either explode in your face or give then invuln, also their sword attack gives invuln aswell. So against any competent Mesmer they simply can’t be beaten, best we can do is put up a good fight and keel over to our subpar healing.

The phantasm build is the closest thing to an ‘I Win’ button as they rely on beefed up allies to dish out insane damage. It’s up there with Bunker Ele and Shortbow- S/P thieves.

Dolan.3071:

^ Trust me, you’ve never been near the best mesmers in the game if you were able to one hit K.O with an eviscerate…

Bad troll is bad, stop trying to farm loot bags from warriors who should be running for back up.

The best mesmers in the game run full glass, and furthermore I run a different build to the warriors in these forums that can hit them for 9-12 k (without might stacking).

But from your reference to loot bags , respectfully, I’m guessing this conversation is irrelevant.

What kind of build do you run?

Greatsword or Staff (especially greatsword) phantasm mesmer, you might as well run and avoid this fight. They will do way too much damage to you, kite you (use iBezerker which hits like a truck and cripples) and use their knockback and multiple stunbreakers and you will be more than half way dead before you even go into melee. Warriors depend on CC to deal damage in melee to do damage and even if you do get in melee it is very risky because a mesmer can immobilize you and shatter all the clones in your face while being invulnerable. I find that they are better able to control the fight than a warrior.

Phantasms can be hard to kill and illusions may take 3 auto-attacks before going down but I find this is futile as they spit them out faster than you can kill them or just wait for their cooldown before they engage. As you are focusing them down, they will be focusing you down, hard.

Confusion Mesmers are very annoying. They can stack heaps and heaps of confusion on you and this isn’t good for a warrior who lacks alot of different routes for condition removal. They are often pretty tanky, very hard to take down with their high survivability and stun breakers. They are easier to manage than Phantasm builds, but still this fight will probably not end up with you on top. Since warriors lack the sustain, it will eventually go to the confusion/condition mesmer.

I find zerker shatter mesmers to be the easiest if they are using a staff. Sure they have the blink, but their auto-attacks are slower and definitely not as strong as that of the greatsword and you can probably force them to blow a lot of cooldowns.

The best weapon to fight a mesmer I find is just the plain old rifle. It is the only weapon a warrior has that can out DPS a mesmer consistently at range. Use your #2 to cripple them and then bust out some volleys or killshots. And when you see them reeling go melee and beat the crap out of them. Beware of greatsword/phantasm mesmers though, they can do comparable or higher damage than you at range.

One day in WvW I was fighting a phantasm mesmer 1v1. He owned me twice because I had two sets of melee weapons and I couldn’t get close to him without taking major damage. It kinda ticked me off so I was wondering what I could do against him.

That is when I busted out my glass cannon rifle set with over 100% crit damage and around 1,400-1,500 toughness with minimal HP. I popped on my mark on the mesmer, popped my signet of might for extra power and the precision signet for adreanaline. He was approaching me trying to get in range to kill me, and that is where I popped him for a 18K killshot. You might have to try a few times because they dodge but you should be able to get one lucky fatal shot on them, if you don’t just retreat or hit them with a #2 and Volley and see if it does enough damage to make them fall back.

Yes it is a very scumbag and lame strategy, but sometimes you have to improvise and be creative and do whatever it takes to win. It is probably our most effective strategy in dealing with certain mesmer types. A glass cannon rifle build overall isn’t really optimal in most situations, but sometimes I carry it just in case because you never know when it may help you.

Sometimes it may be hard to discern a great mesmer from a bad one because it is the build that makes them powerful. The glass cannon rifle test offers up a litmus test of sorts, a competent mesmer will be able to counter it. But still, if you play your cards right, bust one kill shot and then retreat, the fight will be at a stalemate, but you tend to be at an advantage because one slip up from the mesmer and they are dead.

Why do mesmer always turns invisible when they dodge and create a clone or any other clone ability, body blocks me to get to them, and my targeting always changes to the last clone they summon.
If the mesmer is shatter spec than i can’t even get any lock on to the target and they always get a perfect victory out of me cos I’m unable to target them for more than a few milliseconds or they spawn massive amount of clones and the real player hardly appear on my screen.
Seriously, i have a mesmer at lvl 80 and i know exactly how they work but not even once i saw an enemy’s Illusionary Leap clone run towards me at all.
This leads me to be totally vulnerable to their skill and can never react to an invisible attack from them.
Why does this game has a class that has absolutely no way of winning another class.
Why am i having such a difficult hard impossible amount of effort to click onto the correct target and direct my attacks to it?
Why does other players mock at the effort and persistence i spend to fight them while they can easily dominate me without much effort and i can’t do a kitten thing about it?

I played many different mmo games. And i must say im not surprised at all that you cant beat Mesmer.
Mesmer is a mage. Mage 9 out of 10 times will beat any melee class and wont allow them to get even close. You will find same thing in every mmo.
The only thing you can do is re-roll to ranged class in my opinion. They will not balance this out because they would have to either delete mesmer from this game or delete/ rework completely most of their abilities.

I generally just don’t bother. Switch to full soldier runes and try to find some friends.

Little too ranty for my taste so I deleted the post. Either way just run makes more sense.