Guild Wars 2

Neptune.2570:

Even so, your missing the point Johnny was trying to make. He’s mentioning how no teams will even take any Mesmer anymore, and request you re-roll to be accepted on a team. Helseth would be taken no matter what class he was playing, and has admitted he’s gimping his team somewhat staying on mes.

The thing people also seem to forget is, that those few Mesmer players started playing the class, making a name for themselves, finding people to play with back when Mesmer actually was desired on a team.
How is new Mesmer players supposed to “learn to play like helseth” if they are rejected instantly due to class? Can’t become a part of a team?
We all need to start somewhere but currently it is a lot easier to get started if you are playing warrior, engi, elementalist etc.

Unlike ProtoGunner, I think this thread is proof that people are quite creative and I am glad it is still going!

That being said: Here is my ranger:

• Head : Nightshade Helm
• Shoulder : Shoulder Scarf
• Chest : Evergreen Coat
• Gloves : Medium Fused Gauntlets
• Legs : Evergreen Leggings
• Boots : Privateer Boots
• Back item : Fervid Censer

Allison The Strange.4519:

The issue isn’t the mesmer, it’s the game type.

Since the Mesmer (like all the other professions) are supposed to fit into certain game types, then the issue is still the Mesmer and how it performs in the available modes.

I faced the same decision 5 days ago. I went with Sylvari for two reasons:

• They look amazing.
• They can fit a nature theme quite well and I wanted my ranger to have a bit of forrest feel to her.

Here is some pictures:

Here is my little ranger. (Less than a week old).
I like how she has turned out so far!

And here is another ;-)

I have 4 mesmers. Here is one of them …

I think the entire idea is horrible. No it is not fun to fight 3-4 turret engies.
This daily should be removed.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Is it only queuing as a team that doesn’t work?

Yes.

data center? EU (Gandara). Cannot team q atm.

Frenk.5917:

• Don’t join at the very last second, not letting your team reroll!
• REROLL if you see you obviously NEED to reroll! (had a match with 3 thieves, I rerolled asking one or two of them to do so, I re-entered the match and they were all there).

Normally I find pugging the team queue to be a more pleasant experience than solo q, but there is always the exception….
Today, I had the honor of being teamed up with a guy that decided to lose the game on purpose, because the other thief asked if he could swap to something else.

How I wish you could block people and prevent ever being teamed up with them again.

No.
Like blackhat said: Promoting passive play is a terrible idea.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Is this entire thread a product of not having enough room for casual players to progress within our modes? If we did have an unranked arena, would hotjoin be as big of a problem?

I do think we need an unranked arena.
I do not think an unranked arena could currently replace hoitjoin.

There is still no option to play with a friend outside of hotjoin (unless you are willing to pug the team q, where you obviously then will fight a full team quite often.) I do think this is one of the reasons people are interested in hotjoin in the first place.

There are however, plenty of possible solutions to the force swap issue:

• Make it possible to only join the loosing team.
• Give people a debuff when going to spectate, which prevents them from rejoining either for the remaining time of the match or for 1 min.
• Disable going into spectate mode once the game has started. People spectating at that point can still join the match, but not return to spectate mode.

I tried out a new spec in hotjoin yesterday.
Here is how my games went. When we were behind 50 points, the first person left and the second person went spectating, forcing a swap. The person making the force swap instantly joined the other team, the person force swapped instantly joined spectate, forcing yet another swap. And that is how the rest of the match continued.

Game 2: same thing
Game 3: I was on the winning team but got force swapped
Game 4: I got force swapped
Game 5: I got force swapped

It is not enjoyable, so if you want to keep hotjoin (which I think you should) you really need to look into this.

Evan Lesh.3295:

For people who are wanting a more structured experience, why not play solo or team arena?

As to why not go team q? I don’t always have a full team. I do almost always want to pvp.

As to why not go solo q? Because of several reasons. Skyhammer, 4vs5 and class stacking being the most apparent ones.

carlobarletta.5638:

What’s the trick?

Being relatively new at thief myself I can share the embarrassing moment (not too long ago) when I died to the necromancer npc …..

After a bit of practice, I think the best answer I can give you (since I am not an amazing thief just yet) is:

Avoid getting hit as much as you can and work on reacting fast to anything coming your way. Your entire defense is active, so you need to learn when to be aggressive and when not to be. You need to get out of a bad situation right away and preferably see it coming and reacting before it even happens.

You need to learn about the other classes, so you are able to recognize and react accordingly to their attacks etc. You are not forgiven for making mistakes when playing a thief.

You need to pop in, when you have your burst ready and see an opening, but more importantly: You need to get back out again if needed. Learn to love the shortbow. It is an amazing weapon imo.

She might not be my main currently, but she is still the character I give the most attention. (And I promised a friend from na to upload an image of her current gear. There you go!)

Playing a Mesmer is like:
Turning into a pretty bad thief, that only truly masters the art of stealing banners….
Unfortunately: the real thieves are doing a /point /laugh at your efforts. They steal the speed, the banner and every other buff from you and run away still laughing.
In the meanwhile, the warriors found you and are fairly grumpy with your theft. Gl outrunning them. :P

Fay.2357:

While I don’t deny that your logic can be true in some ways, it doesn’t help for those of us that no longer find mesmer fun to play because of what it can’t do and because of what has been lost. I’m already acutely aware of its advantages, disadvantages, and how much it stands to gain from a buff. Because of this awareness, I’ve chosen to go play something that feels less like smacking my head on a brick wall.

^ This is also how i feel about it.

Domzz.1260:

You think being a thief main is the closest thing to mesmer that actually kicks booty in all aspects of the game?

Mhm. I made a thief mainly because I like the role of a roamer in tpvp and because anet had planned to change deceptive evasion without understanding how that would punish a shatter Mesmer. I lost all faith in their understanding of the Mesmer class at that point (even though the change was never implemented).

I do find Thief and Mesmer to be similar in some regards.

• I mainly play D/P and you have to find the right moment to land your burst just like a Mesmer.
• Your defense is active just like a Mesmer: if you fail to dodge you will most likely die.
• I melt to conditions just like Mesmer although I can actually clear some of them!
• You do not have to keep track of all of your clones and phantasms (their health and positioning), so Thief is more straight forward that way. However, it is so much more painful if you do not crit on a thief because all your damage comes from that one hit.

I am not a very good thief yet, but it feels like I could do amazing things with it if I become good enough.

Ironically, that was always an aspect I loved about Mesmer too (until it reached its current state that is.)
I like classes where you are punished hard if messing up but rewarded greatly if you do not. That still holds true on a D/P thief I think.

Thief and Mesmer is obviously not identical, but yes it was the closest thing I could find to a Mesmer that seems to be in a decent state still.

Edit: and omg I am not slow anymore!

I think I read the post 5 times by now, thinking this must be a joke somehow.
I am still not sure if he is serious or not lol.

I would have rolled a Mesmer.
I still feel the experience I got from playing this class is extremely valuable.

A friend of mines made a Mesmer alt a long time ago. She had huge issues completing her story line. After a while, I realized she only used one weapon set. She did not weapon swap. She never needed to do that on her ranger to kill things.

I am pretty sure I got a hang of some of the basic mechanics in this game faster than my friends playing other classes, simply because the Mesmer is not that impressive at lower levels.

Then there is the fun factor. I still think the Mesmer is the most fun to play.
I still remember how happy I was when I finally figured out how to blink forward with the staff, or how to phase retreat into the clock tower on Khylo.

That being said: Had I known the state the Mesmer would be in currently, I would have switched main sooner. (Thief)

Sandrox.9524:

yesterday he told me hey,now we on the same boat mate,but you the one who rowing.

Rofl.

Jurica.1742:

Then what the hell are you doing on these forums if it’s all in such crap?
I’m sick of all this forum whining!
This class is a lot of fun and it can still work very well, just because you may not like that people like the class because of veil or some other kitten doesn’t mean the class is kitten. Don’t play it if you don’t like and stop posting here.
All this whining is counterproductive. People won’t play mesmer because everyone on forums says the class is kitten, the amount of mesmers will decrease and Anet will just stop caring about mesmer.

Actually, the Mesmer part if the forum used to be positive and solution oriented. Whenever a change was implemented, people would come up with solutions and new ideas.

I do not blame the change of atmosphere on the people posting here. Many of them are the same after all. Many of them have massive experience with the Mesmer class in one or more areas of the game.

I am not one of those people. I am no dungeon expert, I am not dedicated to WvW although I do roam there as a shatter Mesmer occasionally.
I am not on the leaderboards as I am taking a break and even when I was there: I was ranked on my thief as a friend of mines in all honesty is a better Mesmer than I am.

Regardless: I understand the frustration and the change of atmosphere. The class has not been in a good spot for a while now and I have seen no indication of that changing. I do think anet cares, I just don’t think they understand or even see the problems the class is facing.

Personally, I did as you suggest and made thief my main instead. It is not that I never play my Mesmer because I certainly do. On a thief however, the success or failure seems to come down to my own experience with the class or lack thereof.
To me, it does not feel like The Mesmer have that potential atm.

Neko.9021:

Please make your guide, Caed. I watch your stream and I think the community would greatly benefit from your knowledge.

^ Yes, please make your guide!

EDIT:
As others have mentioned, I too would find a guide on how to deal with the meta builds absolutely amazing.

Domzz.1260:

Hey All!

Hi!
Mesmer was my main for more than a year. I recently changed my main to Thief; I simply have no faith in Arena nets vision for the Mesmer. That is if there is a vision at all. I have my doubts….

PVE: The phantasm Mesmer:
The Mesmer is slow…
The mesmer rely upon phantasms that are easily killed. The damage is rather unreliable. Little access to aoe. There are a few places where I still prefer my Mesmer. Arah for one because at least I can reflect there and feel useful.

SPVP: The shatter Mesmer. (I am not going to say anything about pu. I have tried it and I simply do not enjoy the play style.)
The Mesmer is slow…
Thief says hello! Thief says goodbye! And even if it is a relatively bad thief (like my new main) The short bow will do the trick!
I do not think any other class needs babysitting to the same extend as a shatter Mesmer does.

Then there is the joy of Mesmer being vulnerable to both physical dps and conditions. That’s right! There is still not many cleansing options and gl backing off when everyone else is faster than you are! Thief is the hardcounter, but Thief is not the only class that will cause you trouble.

WVW: The shatter Mesmer.
The Mesmer is slow….
Say goodbye to your phantasms/clones and therefor any reasonable amount of damage in any kind of larger group. We are decent solo roamers if going pu I have been told. Moreover, we can have veil, portal nullfield and/or feedback (yay…).

The Mesmer is in theory fun to play. The fun just fades away when you realize every other class seems to be allowed to be good at something while all your purple shiny animations does so little.

I cannot think of any area where the Mesmer truly shine. The class lacks a sense of direction.

• Mobility: That is definitely not the Mesmer. We are only fast in combat and mainly if we have the staff equiped.
• Conditions: Myah – the neco, engi, condi warrior and thief does it better tbh.
• Control: No not really. I can land interrupts a lot more reliably on my thief.
• Damage: No that is not really the Mesmer either.
• Boon stripping: Yes, we are actually good at that. Unfortunately, we do not gain the boons ourselves nor can we share them with anyone.
• Utilities: Oh yay! Here is the portal, feedback and veil again. The only things along with the boon stripping that justify the existence of Mesmer.

The class needs bug fixes. The class needs a developer that understands the class and has the ability, power and will to lead it in a direction.

So what is life like for a Mesmer? For me it was too frustrating to keep mesmer as my main.

DaShi.1368:

The only fix needed was how unreliable the skill was to begin with. Mesmer is now the only profession that does not have a gap closing weapon skill when going melee.

And we are also one of the slowest of course! (Because that makes sense – oh wait…)

Actually: Is there anything they have not nerfed on sword yet? I do believe this was the last skill they had left. (They must be searching hard to find new things to nerf for the Mesmer that they have not nerfed previously. There are so few left after all.)

Now lets combine the sword with the focus that has also been nerfed in every possible way and you truly have something …
Hmm – well you do have something…. quite … bad.

The nerf to the leap clone is just pathetic. I cannot say I expect a-net to understand why this is a bad idea. So far, they have shown a total lack of comprehension towards the issues the Mesmer class is facing.

I made a Thief when they announced their planned changes to deceptive evasion. They did not see the issue with that either funny enough.

At least they changed their mind, once the community explained to them how the class works.

I find myself playing my Thief more and more often.
I would rather play Mesmer: If a-net ever decides what exactly the Mesmer is allowed to be good at and if they ever gain some understanding of the class. Maybe in a couple of years. ^^

Nice video, Horrible map.

jebro.6370:

That population really is small guys Im afraid in comparison to the numbers that casually are playing, can you blame Anet for not focusing on that top 10/5% of the GW2 community?

The short answer would be yes.

The slightly longer answer would be: If they do not, then tpvp will never have a solid foundation. Why? Because Anet is catering to people that are not all that interested in pvp in the first place. Even if some of those people were to become more serious about their play, then they too would be affected by the casual friendly aspect of Anet.
(And this is comming from a casual btw.)

I would much rather have Anet focusing on those serious players and balance the game accordingly. I do believe it would benefit the rest of us and the pvp in this game if they did.

That is off course just my opinion.

From 5 months ago (posted by Tyler Chapman):

This is a global issue happening to all classes. We are investigating this issue and will get a fix in ASAP.

Reports indicate this can happen after leap skills, picking up bundles, or teleporting. If any more reproducible steps come in please add it to this thread and I’ll add it to my report.

Thanks!

Sadly, Anets “ASAP” is an entirely new level of slow.

bud.9246:

I stated my problem was with hotjoins. Let me tell you that it is ridiculously and blatantly obvious what the problem is.

What is this blatantly obvious problem? I can think of a few but I have no clue which one you are attempting to discuss here.

jebro.6370:

Balance wise, and actually class wise. I feel the games more balanced maybe atm than its ever been. There more varying builds atm than ever other than launch.

Interesting. I feel it is all about high sustain and low risk.
Except the Elementalist being viable again, in a build with a lot of sustain off course, and Thieves returning to their high sustain build: S/D, absolutely nothing has changed.

There is little team variety and it is incredible boring to fight heavy sustain teams all the time.

righteousness.6028:

Reesha.7901:

My little thief might not look very ‘thiefy’, but here she is.

Nice! If you dont mind what are the skimpy pants and the snake knives?

They are both from the gem store.
The leggins are from the set called Viper’s Medium-Armor Skin
The dagger is called Marjory’s Dagger Skin, but I don’t think it is available atm.

My little thief, who also happens to be my first human character.

My little thief might not look very ‘thiefy’, but here she is.

Little thief and second armor set:
_________________________________________________
Head: Assassin’s Mask
Shoulder: Magitech
Coat: Sneakthief
Gloves: Assassin’s Gloves
Leggings: Magitech
Boots: Magitech
_________________________________________________

My little thief.
_____________________________________________________

Head: Mask of the Wanderer Skin
Shoulder: Assassin’s Shoulderpads
Coat: Zojja’s Guise
Gloves: (hidden)
Leggings: Viper’s
Boots: Assassin’s Boots
_____________________________________________________

Gryph.8237:

sorry, mesmers and warriors are two of the most prevalent classes due to their usefulness in PVE and PVP meta.

The Mesmer is not a part of the pvp meta….

I too find it disturbing that a vote like this was cast in the first place, but the fact that you want to leave the Mesmer out of this, makes absolutely no sense to me.
A-nets baby?
The only reason to bring one is the portal and even that is not enough. There is a reason you do not see them that often in tpvp. They are not a part of the current meta.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Edit: Just got 9 times.

I just realized Caed got 12 Halting Strike hits the second time. That poor ele.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Yep, nailed it. Basically it’s some sort of odd interaction between shocking aura and mirror of anguish. When you interrupt the ele with the mirror of anguish proc that procced due to a shocking aura stun, it somehow tricks your interrupt traits into thinking they need to go crazy. I’ve gotten it to proc up to 8 times at once in my short amount of testing.

Edit: Just got 9 times.

Ouch….. But very nice detective work.

Halting Strike bug?

All though this works in our favor and all though I have never ever had this happen to me:
Take a look at this

I would guess the bug is related to a particular Elementalist spell and Halting Strike.
Regardless: fun to watch, not working as intended and a perfect opportunity to bump this topic right back to top of the list where it belongs.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Mesmers are getting some nice stuff.

Stay tuned.

I guess one can only hope this is true.
It would be great if this “nice stuff” is related to utilities/traits/weapons and does not include yet another broken phantasm.

Sensotix.4106:

So how exactly do you want to keep mesmer in pvp in the future?

I am starting to think that they don’t.
Considering the changes, they have announced so far, I doubt they have understood the issue at all.

AlbertoUlkesh.4517:

That the players who trash talk their team the most, are the ones who contribute the least to the match?

Yup. Had a PU stealth heavy Mesmer today on the opposite team complaining loudly in map chat about his horrible useless team.
Due to his spec, we ignored him the entire match. He could not kill, he could not cap he could not hold a point anyway. He did not run portal, he did not bring any other utilities that could help his team.

He was not contributing, the rest of his team was. Yet he was the one complaining about them. I guess he thought he did well because he did not die. What he failed to realize is, that there was no need to attack him. He posed no threat.

Cush.4063:

Ya, the leaderboards right now are meaningless and really don’t lair you up with the right people atm. Let’s just hope that that these new ladders Anet is implementing will be worth all the hard work they’re putting into them and actually work. I’m excited for all the new changes coming, I just hope they aren’t too far away.

I sure hope they will look into fixing the match making system.
I played with 3 guildies and a random today. None of us are even on the leaderboard. We got paired with a team in the top 30.

In solo q you have to endure the 4vs5 and 2 maps that should not be there.

I would love to see a fix to this tbh. Without a fix, the leaderboard will imo continue to be pretty meaningless.

I normally stay far away from solo q.
I decided to do one game today and no surprise: It was a 4vs5.
The class stacking is awesome also btw…..

Travlane.5948:

reesha it hinkt hey are talking about being able to target thief while in stealth and not being a channeling thing.

i made another post about this while i was targeting in stealth and being attacked well outside of the realm of it being a channeling possiblity.

Thing just is: You cannot cast the leap without a target. I don’t see how the scenario he described would possible, unless the thief went into stealth after the cast had started.

It could be a bug of some sort. Just not one I have come across.

The bug was that Mesmer clones destroyed themselves when the Thief went into stealth. It is a bug that has been hot-fixed.

The leap clone has always worked like this. It appears in the beginning of the cast and leaps to the position of the Thief. Even if he stealth during the cast, he will be immobilized once the swap is made, if he did not dodge the leap clone charging him.

Julie Yann.5379:

Toned down to me sounds like something that is slightly stronger (close to being balanced) that others and need a few small adjustments to even the playing field again. Which is completely different than the abundance of “OMG OP GODMODE WARRIOR!! NERF IT” threads proliferating the forums over the past 2 months. If warriors were really as OP as all the nubs say it they are you would have 5 warriors on the winning team.

Yes. I guess it does.
I think what you are seeing is people reacting very strongly to 3 things:

1) The announced changes for the warrior will most likely not change much. There is a risk that the sigil changes will make them even stronger because hammer/longbow is so popular.

2) ArenaNet is most certainly not fast when it comes to making balance changes. Meaning if they get it wrong: We have to wait a loooong time, hoping they will get it right next time.

3) There seem to be a lot of easy mode specs going around atm. Warrior is definitely not the only sinner in that regard. As a Mesmer I can assure you condition/stealth heavy PU builds are not exactly hard to be successful with in a hotjoin either. Thankfully, PU is not tournament viable at a higher level.

I do not wish to see the Warrior pushed out or being hit with the nerf bat the same way ele did in the past. I do wish to see the profession toned down to the point where you potentially could run something else.

Since there are 8 professions it would be nice if you could run different setups without putting yourself at a disadvantage. This does off course not only apply to the warrior.

Julie Yann.5379:

I fail to see how having 2 warriors out of 5 players makes them OP? I’m not saying we don’t need a few adjustments but at higher levels Warriors are no where near as OP as all these people make it out to be. A few small tweaks to HS and Cleansing Ire would probably even it out.

Thing just is: When it was viable to run more than one of anything in the past, that particular class has always been toned down. This makes good sense as there are 8 professions and only 5 slots.
Currently it is viable to run more than one warrior. It is not viable to run 2 of anything else really.

This does obviously not apply for most of us as we are not playing on that level anyway. I do however still think it says something about the warrior and its strengths at a higher skill ladder.