Guild Wars 2

I tend to get into quite the problem when I go against mesmers that keep using clones (Aren’t they all? XD), so I want to ask: what is the best method of defeating them in general? defeating some of their clones while fighting him for less DPS damage, or trying to kill him quickly, things like that.

Also, any advise against the mesmers while they are downed? their clones still do DPS, and their ability to avoid the finisher by making a downed clone of themselves is annoying.

P.S: If anyone didn’t notice, you can check who is the real one by checking if they have the “downed” icon on them.

Best way I found to beat them is to retreat to let the clone regroup and use AoE with the longbow while trying to dish as much condition damage to the Mesmer. But any competent Mesmer can make sure you won’t run away.

Ambrecombe.4398:

Best way I found to beat them is to retreat to let the clone regroup and use AoE with the longbow while trying to dish as much condition damage to the Mesmer. But any competent Mesmer can make sure you won’t run away.

I’m afraid that won’t work for me, while I might be able to retreat with my current build, I only have melee weapons on me with it, so the only way I found is to keep targeting those kittens with my melee until they fall, the problem for me is – they tend to teleport or something like that, I can’t tell if that’s stealth while they leave a clone behind or not.

Yeah, that’s stealth.

From my limited experience, you have your best chances by fighting them in narrow spaces: one of their heaviest defensive mechanic is teleport. By forcing them in a narrow space, you limit the effectiveness of the teleport and its gap-creating capability. Same with stealth.

redslion.9675:

Yeah, that’s stealth.

From my limited experience, you have your best chances by fighting them in narrow spaces: one of their heaviest defensive mechanic is teleport. By forcing them in a narrow space, you limit the effectiveness of the teleport and its gap-creating capability. Same with stealth.

Good to know it’s stealth, that way I can still know that I can hit something even while they are in stealth mode, even though it gets harder to find them once they do >.< (I just keep pressing tab to find them XD)

Ambrecombe.4398:

Best way I found to beat them is to retreat to let the clone regroup and use AoE with the longbow while trying to dish as much condition damage to the Mesmer. But any competent Mesmer can make sure you won’t run away.

Yeah, trying to AoE clones from a bunker Mesmer will only make you eat high retaliation damage. You would end up killing yourself.

To the OP: Go condition damage. Mesmers only real problem are conditions. Once you get the conditions on them they only have a few options to get them off of themselves. Sword/x and Longbow is a strong condition build. If traited and geared correctly you can easily get your Longbow 5 up to 16k damage in bleeds (in one shot over around 16 seconds or so).

Never thought I’d say this but Mesmer is now the easiest thing for me to kill on my warrior lol unless they are wearing a tanks amulet which no one does

Vanthian.9267:

Ambrecombe.4398:

Best way I found to beat them is to retreat to let the clone regroup and use AoE with the longbow while trying to dish as much condition damage to the Mesmer. But any competent Mesmer can make sure you won’t run away.

Yeah, trying to AoE clones from a bunker Mesmer will only make you eat high retaliation damage. You would end up killing yourself.

To the OP: Go condition damage. Mesmers only real problem are conditions. Once you get the conditions on them they only have a few options to get them off of themselves. Sword/x and Longbow is a strong condition build. If traited and geared correctly you can easily get your Longbow 5 up to 16k damage in bleeds (in one shot over around 16 seconds or so).

You go to the extreme side of things and by the way, only phantasm get retaliation not the clones, and it only last 5sec. So yeah condition can be great, but you have the choice between sword, wich will never be enough to stay in melee range in its current state against any good mesmer, longbow with its Burning or long cooldown bleed or Rifle if you play a Rampager build can stack a lot of bleeds between the bursting abilities.

I find bringing a ranged weapon such as a longbow is the easiest way to beat a mesmer. Trying to engage them melee more often than not is futile because their clones will just explode in your face doing damage and CC, the mesmer will teleport, use sword #2, phantasmal duelists will destroy you as well as inflicting like 10 different conditions on you.

If you fight them ranged you eliminate some of the inherent problems that warriors have against them.

You can avoid clones from shattering, phantasms from completely decimating you, being kited to death (though it will still happen due to stealth and teleport). You in essence avoid alot of damage and CC and can kill the clones easier. I find it also easier to target the real Mesmer from afar then up close.

Condition damage might work against some mesmers but sometimes they carry null field on their utility bar and mender’s purity as a trait so they can remove conditions that way. Mesmer’s often pack alot of HP as well so they can absorb alot of condition damage.

Dodging backwards and dropping a Combustive Shot/Arching Shot will pretty much instantly destroy clones/phantasms. Actually, mesmsers are so weak to warrior LB they don’t register as a major threat anymore.

Stomp

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Ambrecombe.4398:

You go to the extreme side of things and by the way, only phantasm get retaliation not the clones, and it only last 5sec. So yeah condition can be great, but you have the choice between sword, wich will never be enough to stay in melee range in its current state against any good mesmer, longbow with its Burning or long cooldown bleed or Rifle if you play a Rampager build can stack a lot of bleeds between the bursting abilities.

You underestimate it. There is a reason why there are so many bunker Mesmers that run stealth+phantasms+retaliation. It is very easy to pop out three then watch people try to AOE them down and eat 3k+ in retaliation damage + phantasm damage. Not to mention they give each other regeneration and have more health than a standard Mesmer’s phantasms/clones. Even a Warrior, who has less AOE on range than most other professions, with a long bow can hit all 3 of them at least 4-5 times while the retaliation is up. A single hit is around 200-300 damage. Not to mention if you do kill one (highly unlikely in one rotation as they have more health) they will just pop out another one and the retaliation will be restored.

I have watched Elementalists use burning speed over my phantasms and take 4k-6k damage in one go (it is a continually hitting move against three targets plus myself, and yes Mesmers can trait to get retaliation for themselves.)

If you are playing against any half decent Mesmer you will not win. In the current set up of the game the Mesmer class has more ways of dealing with CC, gap closing and damage than what the Warrior can give out (they have Phase Retreat on a 10 second cool down untraited that is a 1200 range teleport which can be used while stunned, they also have Blurred Frenzy which now grants evade which is also on a 10 second cool down untraited).

The only way you will have a chance to win against a good Mesmer as a Warrior is sneaking up behind them while their utilities are on cool down and get a high bleed move off or do the chump combo (Bull’s+Frenzy+100blades).

Now a standard Shatter Mesmer is not that big of a problem, phantasm Mesmers (as described above) are very much a problem.

When speaking of PvP I assume you mean sPvP.

@Vanthian: The stereotypical tank retal Mesmer is my build. It is no longer viable. The trait that applies the retaliation to the phantasms no longer works. Anet nerfed it into non-existence, and broke it while they nerfed it. Retaliation is no longer a thing on phantasms.

Edit: phase retreat actually only moves you about 600 units. The 1200 range is the range at which it will actually produce a clone.

That being said, no good Mesmer will lose to a warrior. You just don’t hav the necessary utility to overcome the tricks of a Mesmer.

And THAT being said, you can get better. Learn to identify the real Mesmer quickly. Learn to distinguish between clones and phantasms, and what that means. Learn the tricks a Mesmer uses to try to overcome them. If you want help learning that, I encourage you to make a post on the Mesmer forum asking for advice.

Pyroatheist.9031:

@Vanthian: The stereotypical tank retal Mesmer is my build. It is no longer viable. The trait that applies the retaliation to the phantasms no longer works. Anet nerfed it into non-existence, and broke it while they nerfed it. Retaliation is no longer a thing on phantasms.

Edit: phase retreat actually only moves you about 600 units. The 1200 range is the range at which it will actually produce a clone.

That being said, no good Mesmer will lose to a warrior. You just don’t hav the necessary utility to overcome the tricks of a Mesmer.

And THAT being said, you can get better. Learn to identify the real Mesmer quickly. Learn to distinguish between clones and phantasms, and what that means. Learn the tricks a Mesmer uses to try to overcome them. If you want help learning that, I encourage you to make a post on the Mesmer forum asking for advice.

It is still a thing because I use it in sPvP and still see quite of few others who do too. Just because it only last 5 seconds doesn’t completely destroy the build (nor moving the overpowered 5 point trait).

I can fight Mesmer and kill bad ones easy, but there is no way a Warrior can kill a decent one at any skill level (on a balanced skill playing ground the Mesmer will win everytime, even if slightly tilted the Mesmer is still going to win, it has to be severely handicapped for the Warrior to win). There is no amount of CC/damage/Gap Closers I can use to stop them as they have more breaks/teleports than I have gap closers/stuns. Not to mention the majority of their breaks and teleports are on a lower cool down than my stuns/gap closers. As you said yourself.

The point is, it is still a stupidly strong build with massive amounts of stealth and cc breaks. All the while having decent damage. The retaliation damage is no longer the focus, true, but the majority of the damage came from the phantasms anyway. Not many people are stupid enough to AOE down phantasms when they see they are fighting a phantasm Mesmer, although there are a special few.

Edit: Massive amounts of stealth if you used the same build as I did, which has a torch.