Dealing with mesmers
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.
I suggest you roll another class as most of the warrior players found that they do twice as good with half the effort playing other classes especially mesmers and thieves. I’m serious..
However, if you enjoy playing the warrior then you have to be vocal on the forums and not take the bad nerf we got and stuck with us since beta. In the meantime let someone else go into the mesmer to force them to blow their stun breakers and then rush in and blow your dps on them. Still doesn’t work sometimes since they have crazy get out of jail cards.
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.
I don’t think any good mesmer will fall for a kill shot nor wait on you patiently to try repeatedly with an obvious animation that can be interrupted, dodged or stealthed away from at any time.
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.
Victory at any cost. They’re already hiding behind class imbalance while fighting you, so do whatever you need to with no regrets. Make sure to /laugh at their dying body.
However, if you enjoy playing the warrior then you have to be vocal on the forums and not take the bad nerf we got and stuck with us since beta.
Agreed! Showing the outrage is the only way we’ll see fair balancing.