Guild Wars 2

As far as I remember, Mime runs the variant that is closest to the traditional traitlines Domination/Duelling/Illusions, only with Illusions swapped out for Chrono and Shield instead of Torch. Zerker ammy, though Marauder is a (probably even more) viable alternative. Sigills, I don’t really know. Probably Exploitation and something with boonshred. Pretty sure about Scholar Runes, though.

Regarding traits:
Dom: 1-1-3
Duel: 1-1- now it gets kinda complicated. Power Shatter used to play Deceptive Evasion, but with the introduction of Superiority Complex I assume that many people swapped to that one. See for yourself what suits you better.
Chrono: 2-3-2; again, regarding the traits that Mime uses, this is more or less a wild guess when it comes to the Grandmaster. Everybody uses Superspeed on clones and since
Power Shatter is mostly a roamer without the survivability to be in any prolonged encounter, Illusionary Reversion seems rather useless which is why I’d go with “better” Alacrity. I personally use Quickness on Shatter / Seize the Moment because I always did and playing Power without it messes up my rhythm really bad, but Chronophantasma probably works too.
Utilities: Well of Eternity, Blink, Decoy, Portal and Gravity Well or Moa as Elite.

That said, I would hardly say that it’s the top power spec out there. It’s fun and if you like the playstyle of the old Power Shatter, this is the “truest” current incarnation. That said, you’ll get torn to shreds if you fight semi-competent players and you’re not absolutely outplaying them. If you pick Shield over Torch, your ability to cleanse even a light condition burst is reduced to Well of Eternity (not that it’s that much better with Torch, tbh) and a Thief will be able to snack you inbetween morning dump and breakfast.

I think there’s another incarnation that relies on the synergy between the Daze-Mantra and the Domination traitline, but I honestly don’t know what they drop for the Mantra.

This post is not even about the mechanics we’re given with Mirage. Some of them will change until PoF launch anyway, numbers will get tweaked etc.

Now, thinking back I was incredibly disappointed with Chrono’s shield. Design-wise, that is, since shield proved to be an incredibly strong weapon that will be sorely missed if Mirage ever makes it into the meta. Still, what I really wanted was a dagger. Offhand, for the style (though I’d have taken main- and offhand). I always pictured the GW2 version of Mesmer as more along the lines of a 15th/16th century duellist, running around with a slender blade in the right hand and a main gauche in his left. Greatsword was another thing that confused me when first picking up the game, but the rather flamboyant way the Mesmer used it kinda redeemed it for me.

Seeing that Spellbreaker got both the weapon I wished for and a good portion of GW1s domination Mesmer (pBlock-variant, if you take the slow-application into account it even has some Migraine in it) was really disheartening for me (silver lining: I play warrior, too. Actually ran around with a demo Spellbreaker called ‘Is Actually Mesmer’). And as a final thrust, we get axe. Like I said, more or less clunky mechanics aside and the fact that I’m not really happy about a dedicated condi-weapon, for me it just doesn’t fit Mesmer’s theme at all. At this point in time, I feel that I’ll have to wait for a long time to get a nice dagger. I mean, what’s next? Folks have been wishing for pistol mainhand for a long time and, while I don’t particularly like it, it might even fit into the duellist theme I had in mind. It could also be that the next weapon we’re getting is .. I don’t know, warhorn? Hammer? Mace, maybe? Offhand scepter?

Well, I’ll just sit here and hope for the best.
/vent

For the record, I just recently came back from half a year of hiatus, but I’m getting back in the saddle. Before the latest balance patch, I feel that mesmer was about on par with thieves, now things have turned slightly in their favour due to quickness on Consume Plasma (and the unblockable buff to flanking strike, but let’s talk about D/P). Some of the advice I’ve read are pretty sound, mainly that you have to make a correct read on the thief regarding his steal. If you manage to dodge it, the thief is fighting an uphill battle against you, otherwise, it’s a pretty good idea to go into the defensive.
First of, I’d strongly advice you to take sword over scepter, Blurred Frenzy is a strong defensive tool and, even though it has been nerfed aswell, it’s still worth its salt. Second, you the iLeap is not only a gap closer but can also be used for kiting. The most important thing though is that your clone production is highly dependant on shield (I’d advice you to stick with shield, too, as it allows you to better contest a node when 1v1ing and shield5 is absolutely amazing, even moreso for Moa setups), namely the double block. But with great power comes great responsibility. On D/P Thief, Shadow Shot blinds you and the blind is further unblockable. Blind is terrible because it will deny you the phant coming from a successful shield4 channel. What was worked for me in the past is, especially if I don’t have any clones up, is to F1-shatter into the blind to get rid of it to get my phant to spawn. The second disadvantage is that the phantasm spawn, contrary to (as far as I remember) every other phantasm, can be dodged. This can be mitigated by jumping at the right time. At least in the past it could be, don’t know if that is still possible. What’s next .. oh, don’t mindlessly spamm AA’s with sword or staff since this will get you headshotted, dealing a load of damage in the process and try to only start shattering if you have three illusions up to proc iReversion.
On the topic of staff, you want to use Chaos Storm to protect both yourself and your clones, not only does it provide you with boons but also basically free Chaos Armor (it’s debatable how useful that one still is).
As the last tipps I’d advice you to play with the clock (traited!Steal has a 20s recharge, this makes it somewhat easier to land a successful read and avoid it in the process) and try to position your illusions between the theif and yourself. The clones will bodyblock both headshots and shadowshots.

Hope this helps and sorry for the wording, I’m terribly tired and working on my thesis rn.

PS: I’d take moa over grav well, too. Just practice the setup a little and your muscle memory will remember.

Wide Rim Glasses, my characters need to look hipster.

Wide Rim Glasses kitten , Anet, we’ve been waiting for much too long.

Wide Rim Glasses would be cool and would give me incentive to play the game again. And throw money at Anet. Plus I’m kinda kittened off by the fact that Anet’s trolling all those people longing for the glasses by giving them to that one NPC in the guild hall

Even your pretentious talking doesn’t change a kittening thing about the fact that the odds aren’t even while they easily could’ve been.

I mean, is this ( @attachment ) supposed to happen? Sure it’s late, but all players were solo and, mixed up, the match could’ve been (kinda) competitive. Played three matches tonight and all of them looked like this, 3-4 Legendaries vs all Diamonds/Rubies. And don’t come at me with stuff like divisions don’t reflect skill, I know they don’t, still 2 of 3 matches were blowout wins ( 223:582; 274:500; 352:500 ).

Ah sorry, don’t get me wrong. I found the recipe, but this is what I see:
Edit:
Aaah, use placeables. Perfect, thanks!

Got a little problem here, guys.

I wanted to level scribe to 150 so I can craft the backpack and stuck to the guide on dulfy for that, but now that I’m 125 the next thing to do would be to craft Green Balloons until I hit 150. Problem is that I can’t craft them, bought 12 white balloons from the vendor for now and got enough pigment and thread, but I cannot create anything.

Thanks in advance

Would really be a great timing to appease the community and re-release the wide rim glasses wink wink Kappa ( and the SAB or at least the finisher )

Another vote for the Wide Rim Glasses

Finally, this is the truth Mesmer players denied since the game released. The class itself is braindead, it’s basically built around cheesing other players while abusing instacast stuns and dealing way too much burst damage. I’m not even talking about Moa, though that skill is, as even Helseth said, brokenly op. Yeah, it might take more than half a brain cell to kite around and abuse jumpspots on Forest or Legacy, but this doesn’t justify the fact that you can absolutely delete everybody with instacast stun + Mirror Blade + Mind Wrack. Please Anet, listen!

I know that there is this option, the problem is that a Revenant standard model doesn’t exist. Thus Asura Revs in ranked are still displayed as Asura.

It isn’t like that, quite obviously. I only brought it up to get some attention to this minor issue, I know that there are worse. Still, with the amount of Condirevs running postal it would be nice to get a human model. On the other hand I can still blame my 1v1 losses against them on the tiny model, eh?

+1
We were all concerned about premades farming the graveyard shift. Sadly it became reality and is here to stay.

OP here folks,

First of all I want to thank everyone for the provided feedback, especially the negative. I’m still on my phone so don’t expect a detailed answer to every point criticized, but thank you anyway.

First of all I do admit that my suggested doublenerf to CS might have been over the top, mainly because I was myself argueing for shaves. My point for only proccing the stun on an actual daze-interrupt still stands with the option to raise the ICD later on if it still is too powerful.

The second and probably more important point are my expressed concerns regarding Harmonious Mantras and the Inspiration traitline, and that might be a rather long one.
Many people attacked my point of these as possible candidates for a nerf because I admitted that I haven’t played them yet. And you know what? That’s not only fair but perfectly fine because I wrote it out of that reason alone. I’m not perfect and I actually wanted people to argue for/against a nerf with more experience on the matter than I have. Ad rem, that is. Some people actually did it and I’m gonna reply to everyone in detail when I’m at home, but some, and this kinda saddens me, just went straight for the ad hominem line of reasoning. I mean, you’re not obliged not to do that and it might win you a) the argument and b) the appreciation of some folks, but the possibility to actually make progress will actually be decreasing. Still regarding the ad hominem: As I mentioned, nobody is obliged to follow some kind of structure when argueing, but to some of you I’ll just give a fair hint. If you’re hellbent on taking some of the stuff I wrote out of context to try to undermine my credibility, go ahead. But you should take into consideration that people usually have a sound mind and nobody’s going to take this bait, leading only to undermining your own point.

To the last!
I’m not allowed to force you into doing something, but I would be very happy if you might consider using kind of a template, especially if you’re going to voice critique, for further posts. Let me give you an example that’ll help keeping the discussion ad rem:
“Regarding OPs 4th point:
I disagree with your proposed nerf, adding an ICD to Blinding Dissipation. The reasons for this are the following: The trait gives us more much needed survivability in melee range and is quite potent, though you might want to take into consideration that you have to actively blow your shatter CDs to get the protection through blinds, etc. Etc”

Easiest thing in the world: Say what you’re disaggreeing with and elucidate why. That’s the only thing I’m asking for, be precise and be on topic, not on my person.

Thanks in advance
Corax

Velimere.7685:

I disagree with everything you said except for Confounding Suggestions only stunning on interrupt and your fourth point.

Would you mind to elaborate why?

Sup yo, main Mesmer for a long time here, ( basically since Prophecies, mostly GvG/AoH back in the old days )

First of, I’m having a blast since last Tuesday and enjoy the overall higher speed a lot, had some flashbacks to the orignal UT with instagib and want to express my happyness towards A-Net for giving me such a fun time.

The post will basically contain stuff that I think is a bit too powerful right now, my personal opinion about it and my proposed change to the trait. Mind that I’m right now posting from my cellphone and that’s exhausting, thus I will not cover every little thing in this opening post.

So, being a Mesmer main might make me somewhat biased on everything concerning the class, always take that into consideration when reading this stuff and especially my proposed changes with which I’m going to start right now:

1. Confounding Suggestions
That trait is strong, freakish strong to be totally honest and needs to be shaved. Emphasis lies on shaved here, not destroyed. In a perfect world it would happen gradually.
Proposed change: Raise the ICD to 10s to weaken the synergy with the mantra AND let the stun only proc on an interrupt. This way the trait will stay strong because you can still interrupt AAs ( Spamming those is a problem that could be held in check by CS ) but will have counterplay, for example cancelling telegraphed skills either through stowing or dodge, in addition the Mesmer won’t be able to spam the mantra charge off CD because he won’t get the stun.

2. That minor in Duelling that basically gives you a 100% fury uptime
Don’t get me wrong, I love having access to fury without a) Staff clones, b) warriors and c) Thrill of the Crime, but I personally think that 100% uptime is a bit too strong.
Proposed change: Again raising the ICD to 10s, that’ll still net you a 50% uptime ( coming from you alone, that is ) and will reduce the window in which the Mesmer can hope for the magical perfect burst.

3. Prismatic Understanding
I’ll be short here: I personally strongly dislike this trait because it encourages camping in stealth ( insert “U don’t say” ) and that’s, imo, neither healthy nor fun. My biggest problem is that it transforms the Mesmer kinda into one of the celestial bruisers ( minus the ability to contest, I know. Could still be a too potent farpoint aggressor. ) from the last meta with the difference that, with the raised basestats, they still hit like a massive truck of illusionary bricks. I could rant more, but..
Proposed change: Either reduce the extended stealth duration to 75% or even 50% OR extend the revealed debuff from 4s to 5 or even 6s when this trait is taken. Maybe both, not so sure because I never specced into Chaos for this trait.

4. Blinding Dissipation
Love that trait because it adds a lot of reaction-based counterplay.
Proposed change: Just fix it, the blind shouldn’t proc if a target is evading. One could argue for ICD, but I wouldn’t go that far for now.

5. Harmonious Mantras
I actually don’t know that much about the trait, but it seems to be becoming meta ( or at least a viable alternative ) for mesmers instead of DE since you are able to spam the healing mantra.
Proposed change: Don’t really know as I have not been playing with it, and I hate making uneducated suggestions. For the sake of an argument maybe, just maybe, shave 1% off of the extra 4% dmg ( max. 5 stacks equals a hefty 20% increase in dmg ), but I honestly don’t know. Maybe don’t change it at all.

6. The whole Inspiration line
Again, haven’t played with it. But I feel there might be something wrong if you’re able to spec into a relatively strong defensive/selfsustaining traitline and still do nearly as much damage as, for example, a Dom/Duel/Illu Shatter.
Proposed change: This time I’m totally gonna hold back because I don’t know kitten about playing with it.

Welp, that’s it for now. Try to stay reasonable and civilized within your responses because I sure tried while writing. And don’t mistake me for a main .. dunno, Ranger or something in disguise, I really care for the Mesmer and have been having a blast. Things I suggested are for the sake of balance and overall gameplay.

Corax

So, this question has been on my mind for a long time now, maybe the devs mentioned it during one of the many streams and I just didn’t understand, but anyway:

What does “baseline” exactly mean? (PvP-Perspective)
Does it a) mean that a trait, for example the future Illusionary Persona or any other trait that is said to be baseline, will always be available, even in the famous 0/0/0/0/0/0-spec or does it
b) mean that the trait is baseline when I pick the affiliated spec, in this example it would be Illusions?

Thanks in advance
Corax

See, I’m a mediocre Mesmer, better than some, worse than some and I’ve got my good and bad days, but I know what I can do and what I can’t. I’m talking about these situations when you solo/duo/tripleQ while you’re playing a class that’s usually detrimental to stack ( Mesmer and Thief for me, same could be said about Pew Pew Rangers, probably to a lesser extent for every zerker spec ), you’re looking at the loading screen and one of your mates on Teamspeak/Skype shouts out “Welp, we’ve got another Mes.”
Look, I’m not talking about the moments you’ve get some top tier player on your team but somebody who seems to be playing, in my example, a standard build like shatter but you’ve never seen that particular dude.
What is it you’re doing then, what’s your inner monologue? Personally I usually ask those guys in a friendly manner if they might be able to reroll to another class and if there’s no answer at the 30s mark, I bite the bullet and reroll myself to Shoutbow, a spec and class at which I’m terrible at, but hopefully not worse than a double mesmer comp, but almost always with a terrible aftertaste because Mesmers, just like Thieves, seem to be either caught in a permanent downstate or rocking the house, there seem to be only a handful of people on the middle ground.

Really excited for your answers,
Whatever Corax

It’s a relatively easy concept. You join one of those lobbies and join a team, after that ( usually in a timeframe of around 5 minutes ) you’ll hear a knocking at your door. Just open it, there’ll be a friendly man demanding your kittens, just hand them over because your right to wear them has been revoked by joining such a lobby with the intent to farm rank. Have fun!

The question stands as it is. Regarding the background: We usually play between 8pm and 10pm ( CET / GMT +1 ), ranked and with a full team, the problem is stated solely in regard to our opponents. Normally, that is if everything is fine i.e. lagfree ( other players from Germany might know the occuring gamebreaking lag during those hours ) and we’re on our A-game, there are two alternatives. First one is that we get matched with a bunch of unknown people ( premade or not does not make a remarkable difference ) and they get obliterated ( i.e. <200:500 ), the other extreme is that we get matched against ESL-level teams ( 55 HP Monks, asdf, Team Exaltation ) or super PUGs with differing members of top teams. In those matchups we either get entirely crashed or manage to kind of hold our ground ( ~350:500 ). The obvious problem is that we rarely get balanced, close matches ( the last few even matches appeared when we formed two teams, queued simultaneously and got matched against each other 3 times in a row ). Disregarding secondary influences like lagspikes or a bad day it’s always total obliteration, either for us or for them. That’s no fun.

Best regards
WhateverCorax

Hello there,

Don’t really know how to start this one, so I guess I’ll just give you a quick overview. I’m playing the standard Double Ranged (and switch to Gs/SwTorch if the enemy team runs a paintrain too), my thief-buddy usually runs either Executioner D/P or Panic Strike. Normally this works out relatively fine, but in recent matches we ran into another kind of paintrain, Mediguard+Shattermes (SwTorch variant commonly) and we’re having huge issues with that. Don’t get the wrong impression, our mobility still works in favour of us, but sometimes we’ve got to take on the 2v2 and that’s when things go South. I had my share of problems with Mediguards in duels, but nowadays I’m relatively confident to take them out. But paired with a mes it’s a huge P in the D. Worked out well at first though, I pressured the guard heavily enough for my thief to snack the mesmer, but after they changed their focus on my kitten it was an uphill struggle, we can’t really take out the mes first because the moment my thief pops out of stealth, the guard snacks him and I can only kite for so long against the pressure of both + SwTorch can outstealth me because I usually run Moa. Hiding in a refuge midfight doesn’t work because either we’re eating damage from Scepter 2 or Whirling Wrath or just get knocked out by iWave. Any advice other than l2p?

Regards
WhateverCorax
Sorry for possible mistakes, English isn’t my mother tongue