Guild Wars 2

Thanks, I took time to spectate the guardian he likes to hunt thieves. He can’t kill me unless I over commit. It’s definitely a hell of a fight when he uses Shelter+ a Meditation or Virtue he basically full heals. I will exercise more patience and try to bait him into blowing more cool downs. I notice he run into his support after burning his Elite so I need to prepare for that. Thanks for the advice

Any strategies that are effective in 1v1?
The guardian build in question is 0/6/6/1/1 Greatsword/Hammer

This combo here is the biggest problem I’m having:
… black powder doesn’t completely negate symbol of wrath or whirling wrath combo
…Binding Blade is easy to dodge when I expect it but sometimes if it happens right after Judges intervention and then the above combo I’m left with no utilities. ( Shadowstep, Shadow refuge, assassins signet). That basically leaves me open for Ring of Warding and a barrage of from hammer.

I’m not looking for build advice but successful personal experience fighting meditation Guards. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!

Pyroatheist.9031:

Revelations.3154:

As a Mesmer who’s been playing since beta and has played every style. My achievements my skill that I have gained is getting glory hogged by one trait!? That’s where my ire comes from… I’m not trying to pick on players who use it…

You’ve trolled the forums since beta, and you get laughed out of them every time you show your face again….are those the achievements you’re talking about? You’re not doing any better this time.

See: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-Theory-of-Everything/first#post2837815

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-A-Matter-of-Perspective/first#post2828003

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Discussion-Comparing-Between-Sword-Scepter/first#post2343997

Edit: Ooh this one too: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/PSA-A-Scepter-s-Message-to-Mesmers/first#post2364061

Sigh… No one said his information was inaccurate. If you bother to read what I wrote instead of blind devotion to defend him. You could blatantly see vitriol laced posts. He has a following/subscribers that are willing and ready to defend him. I get that but it does not make him the de facto authority on the Mesmer profession.

Lest we forget: I was talking strictly about PU/DE and he goes to personally attack me derailing this thread by calling me a troll…

Pyro, No one other than you have trolled the longest and been the most condescending to those of a differing opinion. I should actually be flattered that you took the time to compile the 5 most critical posts that I take pride in. You have so happily decided to put up there as a monument to negativity but if anyone would take time to read them they will see that I defended each one because the Mesmer community needed to hear it. You have failed once again to give a balanced portrayal of a person’s perspective, point of view and knowledge because you believe it doesn’t measure up to your own.

I’m not going to crawl down to your level by going through your post history to see how toxic you have been to this community. Sure you play Mesmer like the rest of us and you have obtained your knowledge and skill like the rest of us. You have also shared that with the community that knowledge but it is laced with the most caustic vitriol you can provide if someone dares dissent against it.

You are not the “god” of this Mesmer forum like people believe you are to be or your ego dictates to yourself. Good Day!

@ Boss Riddle
When I made this statement “Having the audacity to laud PU as “strategy” and/or skill is laughable. Call it elitist but I dare you to post video of duel with a competent player without DE or PU let’s see how long you last.”

Your answer basically follows my concerns. What are we Mesmers willing to do to stay competitive?

My point is this: “Perpspective”. PU allows Mesmer’s to play by creating in combat fog of war at the cadence of that Mesmer’s Stealth cool down. Whether a skilled Mesmer or novice Mesmer plays PU it buys them time. These days one wrong move you get hit for 1/3rd-1/2 HP bar. Mistakes on Mesmer are extremely punishing…

So I understand the need for a Mesmer to buy time. PU buys so much time in fact it does become a crutch because it’s reliable at providing time. Time to survive, time to attack, time to re-position and time to heal… etc. all packaged in one trait. If Mesmer had a skill that was the opposite of time warp where it would slow time you would see in-combat results similar to PU.

I remember when other classes complained and got Glamour builds nerfed. People flocked to that build and quickly realized that it required map awareness and coordination to actually pull off amazing confusion stacks. People flocked to it but we all knew Glamours are a situation dependent Build mostly used for group play. Anet’s problem with it was not just Confusion but the most powerful passive AoE in the game.

The ubiquitous nature of PU is that you see it everywhere in some variant. Instead of it being part of tool box of things Mesmer can do it is now defining the Profession. People above have even mentioned that when they beat an opponent they get called out for using PU…

As a Mesmer who’s been playing since beta and has played every style. My achievements my skill that I have gained is getting glory hogged by one trait!? That’s where my ire comes from… I’m not trying to pick on players who use it…

Well, the truth is…. it depends whether or not you plan to do Dueling, Solo Roaming and/or Small group?

If you are choosing to duel most of the time you should be fine. It just takes a lot of practice as glass to avoid taking lethal damage. Avoiding lethal damage is not only throwing a defensive cool down at it… but recognizing your enemies Control(Stun/Daze) and subsequent Burst damage abilities.

Solo Roaming is awesome but you have to watch out for Adds(additional players coming to the rescue) unfortunately most of the time not yours. You need to also mentally prepare for Roamers that will completely counter your build look for opportunites with terrain, npc’s and mobs. Mobs like to aggro defensive players so as glass getting any advantage on the field is invaluable.

Lastly, Small groups. Honestly to me this is where Mesmer really shines the utility we bring and the amazing aoe damage through shatters is nothing short of amazing. Plus you have your team to help you when you slip up :p

Good Luck with your Mesmer!

Sigh… I knew this day would come eventually… where I would have to break my silence.

The Mesmer community has been in denial long enough! Prismatic Understanding IS A CRUTCH! Deceptive Evasion IS A CRUTCH!

Crutch : 1. a long stick with a crosspiece at the top, used as a support under the armpit by a lame person.

These 2 traits have been supporting our increasing reliance on Survivability

With DE being the longest running of the crutches but I digress lets focus on PU.
In the context of WvW roaming, About 6 months ago I remember my first duels with the pioneers of the PU build. They knew back then it was stupid easy to troll 2-4 players trying to play whack-a-clone while the popping in and out of stealth executing and negating attacks at the same time. Whether you tried to get them with brute force or condi they could reset with the application of stealth.

Now here we are 6 months later and many Mesmers are still clinging desperately to this trait amongst others all for the sake of survivability. You think I’m wrong? How many Mesmers continue to wrack their minds over placing 20 in dueling just to gain access to DE? Why? Because it adds a modicum of survivability to the Mesmer by target breaking. Next, PU on top of utility of our stealth mechanic which are mostly defense based, we get defensive boons to further bolster survivability. Even excrement has a modicum of nutritional value but you won’t catch me eating it!

So what happened? As other classes where buffed/defined or just better at hard countering what we offer as a profession. We remained stagnant to the point that we have to rely on cheesey gimmicks to just survive long enough to execute abilities and remain competitive.

We are now in this place for the following reasons; the Mesmer community is stagnating, and now we are choosing to perpetuate ignorance and name calling over dynamic innovation. There are 2 spheres of thought in this thread that can be summed up in a statement: "Is survival and doing anything for the sake of survival skill? Or is executing a strategy based on a balanced set traits and utilities skill?

My personal opinion on PU is that people are willing to defend a lackadaisical approach to Mesmer combat becoming no more than butterfly themed thieves. Having the audacity to laud PU as “strategy” and/or skill is laughable. Call it elitist but I dare you to post video of duel with a competent player without DE or PU let’s see how long you last.

Alas that is the current state of Mesmer call it what you will. I will still call them crutches, A-net gave us these “tools/traits” but they have to do better we have to continue to challenge them to do better even if we do not see immediate results… We need to be unified as a community, we need to be educated as a community and realize that Mesmer is not in a place where we want it.

How so it goes to a post that I wrote a year ago O_o? That was intended…

No one remembers this post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/WvW-I-m-Tired-of-People-Saying/first#post1312655

You better believe I do! I called you out and you delivered! I just wanted to thank you all for all the hard work you put in to Edge of the Mists.

I hope in the same way you saw the above post among the many…before it slips into the abyss of continued complaints and criticisms.

You will see this post saying THANK YOU, ANET! with much gratitude and appreciation.

Deathshroud now feels like I have sustain. I can stay in it long enough to see Life transfer come off cool down if I’m not focused.

Vital Persistence, brings a gratefully evil smile to this Necromancer’s face.

The common denominator and reason for QQ is STEALTH. There are 2 main professions that for a little more than a year have been the constant focus for complaints and subsequent nerfs they are ones that have stealth as a primary (thieves) or secondary(mesmers) mechanic. Remember PU was created because of all the tears over losing Illusionary Membrane. I have not played 1 MMO that stealth is not a cause of complaints.

PU is fine as a grandmaster trait without an increased stealth duration. Why you ask? I have played a condition Mesmer for far longer than the PU change and hated relying on stealth so I never picked it up. Then here comes the condition Meta that I have been heralding since forever and the PU spec is born. My first loss in that original build 1v1 was to a PU build… Why again? The more than generous aegis procs and having to re-target the Mesmer to apply pressure… anytime he stealth’s guess what!? my clones and phantasms re-target a his clones and takes the pressure off the Mesmer. The best counter to a PU build without all the elitism? LEAVE. That’s right walk away there is no reason to fight a troll that can reset the fight at a whim.

Stealth has always been a defensive mechanic for Mesmers to reset being focused now on top of that you have increased stealth durations and defensive boons? DEFENSIVE OVERKILL

I don’t mind PU eating a nerf… we went from as a community politicizing better BUILD DIVERSITY and here we are deliberating over the PU. Mesmer needs a redefined focus because honestly what the mesmer has become is a 2 trick pony PU or Deceptive Illusions take your pick it’s still a crutch that requires no skill.

My life blasts hit for that much but on a target with that much toughness, I need to have might stack and my target with high vulnerability stacks.

My build utilizes additive % damage modifiers such as: Spite(AxeTraining,Close to Death); Soul Reaping(Strength of Undeath); Sigils of Force or Night and whatever rune set give me additional power. I’ll roam today and pick up some screens if I can pull together a 9k hit like that.

Honestly it’s a perfect storm to get a perfect snipe shot like that don’t even talk about Lich Form :p

@Flow Rennoko is right and if you did not fall into the min/max group you fall into this group:

“You will win, but it will be because you significantly outplay your opponent, not because there was some parity in the builds.”

No one said you can’t make hybrid builds viable. The problem is some professions do it better than others and WvW requires you to have a role or strategy that works for the individual playing. Unfortunately for necros, playing hybrid requires additional skill and our weapons sets are too stratified to to stay in the middle lane and hope to maximize to the fullest potential what you intend to do in battle…

Great Music, Great Play and mad respect to a fellow Maguuman Necro

Thanks Dedelta, as a new Necro it put some things in perspective. Honestly, I know the weaknesses of the Necro… it was really frustrating at first but the profession really doesn’t deserve all the crying it gets. :/

@Nagato

All your statements are true but there is slightly too much over emphasis on being squishy… Anyone playing power Necro should know that the mid-line is the best place to be. The strategy is to soften up high priority targets or support the back line from getting killed by thieves and rangers. Just don’t get focused or caught in an Ele’s AoE…

Tips:
*Situational Awareness is a must in this build.
*Save your dodges!
*Again save your dodges!
*Dodge cross grain against and incoming push if you are caught in an oncoming push.
*Well of power has saved my life it may save yours or buy you some precious seconds for DS.
*When roaming use death embrace you’ll thank me later… :p
*I’m sold on Weakening Shroud reapers precision is lackluster it looks good on paper but it is only effective in melee range with war horn. Most of the time you will need to engage at range. Leaving you with very few options to gain just 1% LF.
*Power necro’s are similar to a venus fly trap or a pitcher plant or even one of those mosquito lamps let the enemy get close and burst em!

Necro maybe unforgiving as glass but we’re something to be feared if they don’t take us out quickly. Just make sure the enemy plays on your terms not theirs…

I’ve wondered about this, but I honestly feel it is something that only the developers can answer…

Another thing to add is that for PvE Rabid makes you a mob magnet… I have to run without armor and trinkets in the CoF switch room or I will aggro the whole room. Depending on which route you go “old school” or “new school” determine the most consistent way to apply your inconsistent conditions.

When my guild mates and I fought Lupi for the first time they picked on me for Mesmer being OP lol there reason: During the last 5% I had the most sustained dps because of my conditions was still damaging as we scrambled for our lives. Haha

@ Chaos and Advent, Thanks for your contributions. I’ll wholeheartedly admit sometimes I have difficulty giving the full picture of what I’m thinking. That is why I posted this so that the Mesmer community could help me fill in the blanks and provide feedback or debate.

When I first started this path to condition Mesmer last year it was because people said it was not viable because of the random nature and short duration of our conditions. Of course those individuals were comparing us to classes that have pretty much full command over applying conditions. 2 things inspired me to begin changing my mindset on Mesmer:

1. A spectacular loss in a roaming duel to a Necro who had 110 per tick bleeds. I asked myself how high can this go?

2. Chaotic Transference this paired with Superior Rune of the Undead and finding out it stacked.

Once I go to full ascended rabid and my short duration burns with might stacks started to hit between 850-1000 dmg and my bleed ticking any where between 140-190 I knew I discovered a playstyle that would eventually become main stream and viable.

That it how I spend my time in GW2. Now I’m looking for ways to evolve not only that playstyle but others by opening a door that doesn’t stifle our Mesmer inventiveness. We as a community need to start standardizing our roles/builds in how we apply it to the field.

I look forward to giving my feedback in this post after some testing of course:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Lockdown-The-Underexplored-Playstyle

They are strong in the sense they have the luxury of the “set up” or ambush… If and only if they can summon their phantasms. Blind if in range of the mesmer and dodging are the easiest remedies. In SPvP they are insane to deal with 1v1 but the phantasms are too squishy to deal with pressure from an secondary target. That’s why they excel at the 1v1 they have no pressure because you may already be on the defensive.

Playing against that type of mesmer has been difficult and requires practice in reading the enemy mesmer. You have to be absolutely prepared for that moment when you see that GS Mesmer’s hand go up. You also have to be absolutely prepared to make a counter attack that puts that enemy mesmer immediately on the defensive…

Remember phantasm based Mesmers have 3 defensive strategies from the most general stand point of course and that is (Stealth, Distance and Burst).

Your main objective is to gap close and utilize your terrain/environment. Sometimes it is advantageous to distance your self from the Izerker other times you need to bring it in close. If the enemy Mesmer is glass so is the phantasms in that case try to kite the phantasm by being familiar with its attack intervals…so you can possible destroy it along with attacking the Mesmer.

Honestly at this point most people say Phantasms build are OP. Why? it requires the least amount of effort offensively by the Phantasm Mesmer but the most effort from the opposing enemy to counter by apply enough pressure to that Mesmer to create and advantage. This advantage can only be created by paying attention to many details…

That is why you will see Mesmer’s retort that phantasms are not cut out to be what people make them outside certain places in the game(SPvP/ 1v1 Duels). Once you get used to seeing those details and limitations you can put the needed pressure on that Phantasm Mesmer and hopefully find the opening you need.

Excellent, this is what I expected when creating this thread.

Let’s start with your question:

“What is difficulty?”
Difficulty to me in this game equates inexperience How many times have we as a community called something unviable without exploring the possible realms of where it could be so called viable. Why ruin and limit the playground of innovation when we can just say that there are limitations to this build and as a concerted community discuss way it could be viable? What unknown future changes can devs makes that creates viability? These are pockets of innovation that can be discussed and innovated upon but it takes one persons opinion to create an environment that breeds stagnation and it takes one person to debunk that when given the opportunity to.

Where is the difference between difficult to play and simply worse?
This can be applied to all manners of game play for Mesmer.

Fay eloquently wrote about this very topic in a response to this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-A-Matter-of-Perspective/first#post2825288

Something that I will take into account in my future writings is your quote here as a caution:

“Sure, they’re more difficult to play effectively, but that difficulty is artificial, arising from a build that is simply objectively not viable.”

The term “not viable” is thrown too loosely because we can go and say that glamour builds are not viable and yet I see it in WvW all to often and people still get downed when played effectively.

Playing effectively may begin individually but it doesn’t end with the individual it is dimensional and it can be applied to group setting. Please when was the last post that talked exlusively about mesmer builds outside support that complement a team effort? When have we broken down by boon and conditions applied that made the mesmer unseemingly indispensable to their team?

Not through individualistic play but through synergistic play. How many times have people complained about the uselessness of vulnerability on staff when they should see that 1% damage helps your group more than it helps an individuals precious condition spec?

This is how I see Mesmer a wide ocean of Viability. Call me an idealist if you want but the Mesmer is a Profession of the mind and I intend to use to that fullest extent.

Neutral Tone!? Haha! Chaos now surely you jest. I do not know of a Mesmer who consistently contributes to the Mesmer community that does so without conviction. It that very burden of experience that spurs you on laboriously to write the way you do to inform the community. There are some that may not like your ideas but may respect you enough to refrain from replying contrary to your beliefs. Then on the other hand there are people like myself and colesy that have our own styles of writing that makes that conviction so visceral and that it turns peoples stomachs but it is none the less a style of writing that incites and should inspire people. In an effort to join together and debate and discuss that is the essence of forums and what makes it worth your time to read.

@ Pyro… “Meaningless” is a YOUR biased conclusion. In this case have created a point of conjecture because you are basing your bias on MY opinion. An opinion of which was formed on MY personal experience as a Mesmer and what that entails is an unknown to you. (Unless your NSA lol) So you conclude based on your incomplete knowledge of how and what I have experienced playing Mesmer as meaningless…

Kudos to you! So in anticipation of that, I made this thread very easy for you and I asked kindly to spur on debate because I took a biased stance…So again, if you read my post, please debate me on the points I made.

I’m just going to leave this here because I honestly respect you Pyro… I don’t know why it has gotten to this or how but I will leave this quote because everyone who contributes to the Mesmer community has the right to say their peace and spur healthy debate:

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.
-Nelson Mandela

A way to look at is as a Mesmer trying to zerg bust in WvW. Is what I like to call playing “zone”. I’m not sure if you are familiar with “american football” but you may have heard of “zone defense” (google it). In WvW you can do the same offensively. The current hammer train meta can be countered by kiting and flanking the head of the charge you have to apply the burst to the center (neck) of the charge in an effort to isolate the head after stability has dropped. This requires timing, patience and definitely coordination with your raid leader. You need to observe the enemy formation because Mesmers are about accurate application of our shatters when other professions have the aoe strength for precision.

Glamour Builds require high amount of coordination since the nerf… Depending on your weapons you need to practice how to best apply confusion at the most opportune times during a fight and testing builds that utilize glamours..

TL;DR
Zerging on a Mesmer requires some work. Build research and testing… I use a condition shatter with interrupts… flanking at midpoint between the heavies and squishies in an attempt to seperate the head from the body of a hammer train.

Thank you, there are many grammatical mistakes… but I am happy you enjoyed it because I enjoyed writing it

@ Chaos: “Scepter says ‘I find your ignorance amusing.’ Heres a cryptic hint about how to improve with it .. hehhheh. Any good mesmer will know what I mean.”

This statement I made in jest but the Mesmer community took it as a slight because it was the most unpopular weapon at the time and it came from a no-name Mesmer. I then retracted it and started a new but still there were people who defended and refuted Scepter as un-viable so… I withdrew because it has to be sugar coated unless you have popularity or a provocative title or content. Pyro can say whatever he wants at this point so it doesn’t matter what he said to someone else.

Chaos, believe or not you are well received in the Mesmer community I come off blunt because that is the way I write. I may come off condescending to some if you look for it but that is how I speak irl. A character fault maybe but it’s who I am…

But all in all the truth was realized with the Conditions meta… Vindication indeed… but the Mesmer community still needs to grow and innovate and a post like this is the very beginning to that drive forward…

Never have I received so many replies to a post that had a negative connotations to it “PSA:Scepter” it’s almost a defining moment in this community lol. People can hate me as long as there is a chance they’ll listen. Whether they take it or not won’t be realized today but eventually they’ll come to understand…

Conclusion:

We as a community have become too sensitive and emotional to the changes the developers make to the Mesmer profession because of the emotional investment in the builds people create. Listen I understand there are some changes that are downright uncomfortable and jarring but I’ve learned to adapt and surprise players that thought they have seen it all from the Mesmer profession. We have to acknowledge that Mesmer has it strengths and weakness against other professions and make that an acceptable part of conversations instead of crying for buffs accepting changes only as nerfs. This does not mean we can’t critique the Mesmer but our voice needs to be unified as a community as to what changes need to be made for the advancement of our profession. We need to be educated about our profession by standardizing our roles and how we are used in game. I honestly believe once this happens the Mesmer forums and community will be on a new level of skill that other professions can only imagine and will continue to cry about.

If you have made it this far thank you. It took about a month to write and I was not comfortable posting this… only because I had to get it off my chest primarily(Craziness lol) and appreciation of this profession and what we as a community bring to GW2.

Part 2
Traits:
I had a section here but an awesome post does it better justice:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Some-Trait-Suggestions-Issues

On the Topic of traits and builds if any of you have read my previous posts you may have realized that the way I play Mesmer is biased toward Peripheral damage. “Peripheral damage” is a term I use to describe the primary medium in which I deal damage and that is through the continuous application of conditions and the retaliation boon. Direct Damage builds are normally your (Shatter & Phantasm) builds. My opinions on these 2 types are as such and I admit to you all now I’m biased intentionally to spur debate.

Direct Damage:

Phantasm Builds: Beginner
Shatter Builds: Intermediate
Mantra/Power Builds: Advanced

Peripheral Damage:
Conditions Builds: Advanced
Mantra/Interrupt Builds: Advanced

Now I’m sure at this point a number of you are heated because of my opinion which is fair… The ones that are advanced are what people like to call “un-viable”. This term gets thrown around casually out of ignorance… So many times I’ve heard that Scepter as unviable for Mesmer…Now look at how many people are using it…

So let me explain:

1. GW2 as it stands today favors direct and on-demand DPS as a primary tactic regardless of skill level. It allows everyone to feel like they are making contributions by seeing numbers fly. The difference between 100bs War a BS thief and a shatter Mesmer is after such a telegraphed burst who’s profession has more abilities and utilities to not only avoid damage but to set-up another chain of burst damage? It is this difference that most classes believe Thieves and Mesmers are OP because we can reset the pacing of battle to our advantage with stealth.

2. High Damage is also your defense. Taking 1/3 of your max hp in the first 5 second of combat will put any recipient on the defensive. Cessation or negation of aggression action by an opponent is a form of defense. This allows the attacker to have more openings to exploit because they now control the pace of combat allow more opportunities to land their high burst.
3. General Skill level of opponents. In GW2, Skill=Awareness more accurately “Situational Awareness”. Situation awareness allows a player to plan ahead and adapt to combat changes more adeptly. A player’s ability to handle situations and avoid being downed before their opponents is only a testament to their level of situational awareness. As it stands the application of power/high dps is ubiquitous in taking down an opponent. Highly skilled players can still be taken down when hit with arbitrary damage and if you don’t agree let me ask you this: How many times have you been almost downed/downed by the random flailing of an enemy who obliviously kills clones until you pop out of stealth downed? Especially when you have killed a couple of his buddies already and he’s just lucky you didn’t have healing off CD…

These 3 points I make is why my opinion stands that direct damage builds are beginner/intermediate but hold your anger at my opinion…Look at every game mode even with the recent conditions meta and tell me that direct damage has reigned supreme for almost a year?

Pre-Combat Preparation:

How do you enter combat? Do you worry about the profession you have targeted? Do you approach more aggressively or wait until there is an opening to exploit? Do you ambush or LoS enemies using obstacles and terrain?
These are the questions that run through my mind when I engage and enemy. Am I an exceptional Mesmer that never loses? Of course not! But what I am is a Mesmer who is knowledgeable about what he is getting himself into and positioning himself for the most option within combat.
One of my combat rules when roaming as a Mesmer: is to always have my back face deep water or water that exceeds 1200 or preferable 1500 range.
Remember Mesmer’s we are a profession that fights extremely well in 2 dimensions on land and underwater. If I cannot best an opponent on land I take them under water and they retreat or die most players are not good underwater so practice under water combat. Only 2 class really threaten mesmers underwater and that is condition engineers and condition rangers (pet revive).

Combat Positioning/ Pacing
Honestly, this particular section is hard to put into words while trying to be concise. Mesmer by design is supposed to put the decision making process action or no action of our enemy into our hands. This is ridiculously hard to balance for one and the other is that it is hard for most people who play Mesmer to grasp the totality of what that means on the battle field. So to expand on the 3 points above and why I have classified certain builds as Beginner/Intermediate or Advanced but I’m leaving it the the Mesmer community to define that because I am no “Master” Mesmer by a long shot.

Part 1: A Call for Standardization:

Why I call this the Mesmer "Theory of Everything”?
The Mesmer profession has evolved to the point of build saturation no matter what gimmicky name you call your build. “Your build” will fall under two main branches of delivering damage: Direct and/or Peripheral Condition Damage. The challenge to Mesmer’s new and old today is to standardize our roll in combat situations and to drive the sense of utility within each build/trait set up.

Simply… Stop just naming gimmicks but instead inform the community on how you apply your build and what profession is the most susceptible to your style of play additional what professions have hard countered your play style. We need to start fostering an environment that promotes innovation outside of just traits/builds… Traits/builds can be changed at a whim by the developers but how we play the game and how we employ our strategies to own other professions daily will always be in our control to innovate and pass on.

Example of what I’m talking about with my current build:

Play style: Conditions
Weapons: Scepter/Pistol
Engagement: Ambush Mid/End
Cons: Slow Starter, Vulnerable to early pressure by the following classes (burst Thieves and Burst and Condi. Warriors and Condi. Engineers/Necros)
Weak against other condition builds and movement impairing CC.
Pros: High Survivability against Ranged, Hybrid and Non-burst builds, Lot of room to control opponent, burst is not an immediate obvious threat and great at assisting in teams.
Strategy: and so on…

Is this example going to be followed… Highly unlikely but it should be the mindset we should adopt when talking about how we play our Mesmer. Whether you deem it a style, art, or a ubiquitous “build” it should belong to the community that will be able to take it further than you have. Our Mesmer legacy is in how you play it not the build!!!

As promised from this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-A-Matter-of-Perspective

Disclaimer: I have realized that my posts maybe perceived as cryptic, condescending and perhaps not valuable to the Mesmer community. I have never proclaimed myself a master Mesmer and neither do I have a contingency of followers who will defend my viewpoint. So I’m just going to mention this …I do have my biases but I’m open to debate and I appreciate and respect all of your opinions even if it differs from mine. I don’t like judging others posts based on subjective personal aversion to their point of view… So all I can ask is: weigh the content of what I say and what it means to the topic at hand and let us have a lively discussion.

If you’re an analytical type of person who requires diagrams, statistics and/or videos to prove a point or define relevance…this may not be a post for you. If you a conceptually minded and prefer to think about ideas and debate about how methods are applied abstractly please continue reading and perhaps enjoy my post.

Goal:
The goal of this post is to open dialogue on the future of the Mesmer profession. What I seek to challenge is what the Mesmer community believes today as being meaningful knowledge and or skill. Should we equate traits/builds as skill? Something that was given to us by ANET as a known variable in all Mesmer game-play and then all of a sudden we put a fancy name to it and now it’s “my build” I’m gifting to the Mesmer community…Really!?I think it is about time we change the paradigm of what we call skill or knowledge for Mesmer’s new and old.

@ Colesy

I feel your pain… I’ve tried explaining things that I’ve discovered to the Mesmer community but if it is not rose hips and sugar coated… You becoming the embodiment of the MMO elitist archetype. I’ve almost completely stopped contributing to the Mesmer community because of it…but I’ll leave this quote here

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
? Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays 2, 1926-29

This no-name… Mesmer will post one last “gift” for the Mesmer community. It follows the same theme as Chaos ArchAngle’s thread and I was encouraged to see his view point generally accepted but it danced around something that the Mesmer community needs to hear bluntly…

So I have a feeling you will surely hate my post. It’s okay I’m used to that already…

I more or less agree with some of your suggestion but a couple stick out that I believe are off:

Domination Master [Cleansing Conflagration (IX)]
1. Torch is a hybrid weapon not soley a “Condition” weapon.
Reasoning: Being in the power trait line you increase condition duration also you increase retaliation dmg. Retaliation+Confusion+Burning+General Dmg= 4 different sources of damage with 2 being condition and the other 2 physical damage. Hence hybrid weapon…

Chaos Adept [Debilitating Dissipation (V)]
1. This trait is fine with vulnerability… Any additional damaging conditions just make this not an adept level trait… Plus staff and the Choas Traits in general are about defense if anything should be added to replace vulnerability it should be blind.
Reasoning: Most burst builds just kill clones and the place the burst on you without consequence (looking at you d/d thieves). They just cloak and dagger and then set up burst with a blind however you have to rethink that option to just spam your burst. But again I believe for and adept trait debilitating dissipation is very powerful as is…

I find it interesting that another Maguuman run this build. I’ve been running a similar build but with a different rune set and weapons. Scepter/Pistol and Staff. 0/20/30/0/20 the difference is that I use Bountiful interruption, Debilitating Dissipation and Chaotic Dampening in Chaos Trait line and Phantasmal Fury in Dueling Trait line. In essence, I balance my reliance on clones for dps with a Dualist to apply condition burst of 3-4k. My mode of attack is to start at range and circle and close in tighter and tighter at that point they start getting the effects of killing clones from dissipation between the might stacks from interrupts and high stacks of bleeds and 1k burns it’s a wrap.

For starters if you want to get the basic logic of the Phantasmal Mage you have to look to the very trait line that it is in. Domination. What stat boosts does domination apply? Power and Condition Duration… I’m sure at this point you like duh what’s your point?

My point is that Power buffs ones Retaliation and the other increases the duration of conditions. All very obvious knowns… The problem that many fail to realize with in the Mesmer community is that a lot of our abilities are meant to be concerted together…
If you play for power you condition durations are supposed to be long to increase the viability of control and damage increasing conditions such as cripple and vulnerability which is associated with the individual traits in the Mesmer: Domination line. Having long duration on confusion when your condition damage is low also helps with confusion dps.

Most Condition players over emphasize the usefulness of Condition Duration when applying conditions which should only be the icing on the cake after stacking enough condition damage into a build…most will not agree with me… but I digress…

Phantasmal Mage is intended to bolster a Mesmer’a ability to apply a diverse peripheral damage through Retaliation/ Confusion. In application with low condition damage and high Power, Retaliation and confusion should be doing comparable dmg. If you get hit and you enemy activates a skill they take damage from 2 damage sources.

Let’s round up and say retaliation does 200 base damage and you have some good might stacks or a reasonable condition damage and your confusion ticks for 300.
Anytime the enemy attacks you they have the potential of taking 500 dmg per attack, 1k per 2 attacks and so on… as these small hits land, it adds up quickly as long as they continue to attack. Meaning the assault on your enemies HP does not end when you go on the defensive… Remember this does not take into account the damage you’re already dealing by other means whether it be through shattering or phantasms. Meaning as a mesmer when you are on the defensive or the offensive your enemy will have consistent pressure on their HP.

When it comes to the duration of retaliation/confusion from the Mage itself it negligible in the grand scheme of things because depending on your build/traits mesmer apply Retaliation/Confusion in their sleep… there are so many ways to apply either as a mesmer to lay that as a fault on the I-Mage is meaningless.

Last… I don’t know why a long CD is needed on Phantasmal Mage but what I do know of what builds I have tested in the right hands it can be extremely powerful against enemies who rely on #1 skills and channeled damage abilities.

Ps. As a disclaimer I know that many don’t like my Mesmer philosophy so I stay away from the forums but I felt compelled to write… for a different perspective… Just remember that Mesmer is a Profession that has depth that we are all slowly beginning to grasp how deep we can employ our deceptive strategies. Mastery of the Scepter another disliked and misunderstood weapon that I use extensively and of course torch will be a journey that we need the most patience and innovative application to get the most out of it…

Topic has already been discussed and is in discussion: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Are-condition-mesmers-viable-for-PvE

^This anytime I see that happen in Video or In-game is another reason I’m proud to be a mesmer :p

The problem is who here in this community has the right to judge anyone for their playstyle or what level they are playing it? Just a bunch of hypocrites measuring ego’s…

No one falls and in this category more than the “Talking Heads” of the Mesmer community. It’s super hard to get good footage in WvW. What is good footage? Not you just winning but demonstrating all the facets of a build GOOD and BAD! Do you think it’s easy to take up a build no one plays frequently or for that matter has mastered? and then go as far to try to demonstrate it on Video? Maybe you have maybe not but honestly you blame individuals like this of some self righteous crusade to support their build when all they are trying to do is debunk the hypocritical foolishness this mesmer forums have become… /rant

For a Mesmer I have very high armor… Checking out the Skritt area I happened upon two warriors killing the Veteran Skritt. I decided to enter the fray knowing full well that I would be getting all the aggro from the Veteran Skritt and his lackies. The 2 warriors decided I wasn’t invited and fighting over the Veteran Skritt ensued..

TL;DR I was able to kill the Veteran Skritt and the 2 warriors and live to tell about it.

@xXThRaXx I applaud you for showing a build you truly love to play. Just keep playing it through whatever shortcoming you have now until you master it. I myself play unconventionally but after dipping my finger in trying to feel out this community and getting scolded and scalded. I now choose encourage those with unconventional builds to keep playing & keep practicing and one day we will embarrass one of these talking heads who will never show their fan-boys what we did to them on their video.

My advice to you is: don’t stop improving, don’t stop innovating!

@Ryuujin I don’t know what game mode your primary experience is from. PvE/WvW or S/TPvP so excuse any liberties in my assumptions. If were are talking WvW Scepter can be deceptively devastating for example… When an enemy engages me for a split second they pause and execute an opener. Since the patch I start with scepter out instead of Staff solely because I went to set the pace of the battle in my favor by apply immediate mobility pressure along with my other DPS skills. It gives me space to set up for the next wave of attacks. In S/TPvP Scepter starts me off with a free clone and 3% less damage an aware player knows that is a fake and immediately closes in right into Scepter 2 which is a second clone and possibly a stack of torment at this moment the sky is the limit I can get another clone and activate a shatter or I can employ a different strategy.

The difference I will say again with Scepter is that it is a Set-Up weapon. It gives me options that one are not obvious until employed. Anytime I see a mesmer in sword unless they stealth I know the exact combination of moves they will use before they have to stealth and reset. Shatter mesmers excel at overwhelming defense with direct effective use of high offensive DPS and stealth/blinks if in a jam. That pace is set by your ability to offload DPS the pace the scepter allows in one that reacts off the situation you’re in to apply an effect/condition indirect and in conjunction with other attacks.

Sword is not fool proof experienced people dodge the initial and secondary effect of Illusionary Leap it’s that obvious… liabilities also reside with scepter but in different scenarios.

@Sephire Good players are not impervious to a bad situation or mistakes. There are many instances where a good player is out of tricks and dodges. The same way you pointed out where landing torment could fail there is the same likeliness that it will succeed. You play Mesmer and you know good Mesmer’s just don’t fall over or give up a strategy because it failed once we improvise and find the best opportunities to employ those skills to a devastating effect.

@Haxxen You’re post history indicates to me that you are not one to make direct/indirect attacks at people. You have very constructive criticisms and observations.. What I mean:

“I also have never been kicked from anything because I mained a Scepter so it may be less the weapon and more the user.”

I guess you are implying I get kicked because of how I play? Crude but an effective belittlement of me without knowing anything about me… :/ I made mention of whom my target was for my initial post and there was collateral damage to the Mesmer community…and I promptly apologized. So if I have rubbed you the wrong way and you feel the need to put me in my place. I understand. Again, apologizing is all that I can do…

I play the way I do because I feel strongly about that play style. It’s a philosophy of sorts. Almost a year playing Mesmer has almost passed and all builds I have encountered use a basic formula and dichotomy between Direct Damage and In-direct summation of Condition Damage and I advocate perhaps to a bias the latter. That fervor which I bring to that play style I believe is no different than those who post builds and advocate for their play styles just a different methodology.

@ Esplen, Hahaha! That’s the kind of thinking I love. Thanks, I see exactly what you are hinting at with scepter 1. I think adding a condition to it would increase our reliance on spamming #1. To your last point I run debilitating dissipation and use my clone for LoS. I have thwarted some Shatter Mesmer’s with that trick it foils their Illusionary leap. With a timely addition of torment it can be deadly for all the mobility a shatter Mesmer or any Mesmer has in combat.

I’m glad calmer heads of prevailed in this…I didn’t come here to troll I wanted to provoke a change in mindset. As said I apologize if people perceived my original post as condescending… I’ve encountered and read a lot of misinformation and ego’s that flail and fling that misinformation it in the faces of players who may not have experienced all the facets of this awesome profession. Those players have made a conclusion through their own game play and stifling open dialogue about the viability of other. It’s to those folks that my post carried vitriol.

People who do impact the community with builds and videos should do it in an objective way or at least do justice to acknowledge all play styles. I understand I maybe cryptic to a fault and it is why I do not frequent the forums even though every once in a while I try…

I don’t post builds I post an idea for people to build off of…if that’s not good enough… Then I’m sorry, for wasting your time.

That is your opinion and you’re entitled to it. My only problem is that it doesn’t even show up in conversation as viable, because it is quickly dismissed as broken. I’m not here to dismiss one weapon over the other. As said before they are comparable.

The responsibility for me is not to show how to make it shine. That should occur naturally with experience. I know my stance isn’t popular and it won’t be… but for the people that are not biased they can try it instead of writing it off.

I know the play style isn’t for everybody but I can’t just sit back for people to assume Scepter is not viable. The only authority on that is the person who picks up the weapon and tries it for themselves.

Disclaimer: I maybe the only one to support this and you can rally behind any talking head but Scepter and Sword are comparable in utility and control.

Another patron of the Mesmer kindly pointed out the faults of Scepter compared to Sword:

“Parallels between scepter and MH sword you say? Let us count the ways.

Autoattack: Scepter is slow and does nothing but spawn a clone. Sword is fast, provides vuln, and strips boon. They both do damage.

Blurred frenzy provides 2.5s of evade, and high damage.
Illusionary counter provides a block. They both are a form of defense and offense.
Illusionary leap/swap is a double leap combo, a stun break, a cripple, and an immobilize.
Confusing images is a slow, obvious, channeled attack that doesn’t hit very hard and provides 5 stacks of confusion."

Fine observations but please allow me to retort:

Scepter is a “Set-Up” weapon. The fixation with speed is not only over emphasized but it is not needed to win every battle since as you pointed out; Sword exists for that purpose… Out of all the weapons we have that requires us to spam the #1 skill, Scepter gives us the opportunity to diversify our strategy. One Clone maybe what we get out of it but you must know the many utilities our clones provide, so I will not attempt to insult your intelligence on that front.

Blurred frenzy provides 2.5s of evade, and high damage.

Comparatively with the addition of torment you block a direct attack and you apply an immediate counter offensive. Your description of “High dmg” is build specific toward power along with my description of an immediate counter offensive with the right build catered to condition dmg.
Again, I will not insult your intelligence over the strategic application of torment.

Illusionary leap/swap is a double leap combo, a stun break, a cripple, and an immobilize.

Sword #3 is this case has many powerful abilities rolled up into one skill activation. Where Scepter 3 is comparable, is in it’s versatile strategic application you complement this skill with another. Again the fixation with how things are applied directly vs. and indirect summation of abilities and how that is ridiculed as being ineffective boggles my mind.

Confusing images is a slow, obvious, channeled attack that doesn’t hit very hard and provides 5 stacks of confusion.

Again the fixation on the speed of this attack. Confusing images is an amazing ability especially with the addition of pierce if and only if you will to apply patience timing and the willingness to think out side the box when using it.

Post after post I read people write Scepter off… If I sound condescending to anyone… Let me ask you: how do you think it feels to be spoken that way to just because I use Scepter in any game mode? How many times have I been asked to “re-roll”,insulted or kicked because just because I use a misunderstood weapon set.

I’m cryptic because ignorance has impacted our profession Negatively. The people who take the time and experiment with Mesmer know what I was talking about. The people who don’t they will be left to figure it out on their own to complain ignorantly.

As smarmy and condescending as this post “PSA…A Scepter’s Message to Mesmer’s” was perceived. My message to the Mesmer community will always be for me to challenge and provoke fellow Mesmer’s to a paradigm of their own experimentation and implementation.

I hope they remove IC entirely for a functional balance to all our illusion summoning abilities. It is has been a crutch and crux of too many builds and it should be incorporated into out play style already. I personally do not like “set it and forget it” Phantasm builds myself but we all know for the continued versatility of our profession Anet has to do something about our Illusion CD’s.

Sorry for double posting…I will not be replying to this post again. Moderators this post has ceased to be edifying to the Mesmer community. You may delete if necessary. Thank you.

Listen… I can read in between the lines. Your “brother” made that apparent as soon as he posted. The mesmer forums doesn’t need another talking head to tout their supposed knowledge of the Mesmer profession.

I don’t have a podcast or YouTube channel for the masses to glean verbatim knowledge straight from game play. What I do have is experience, what I also have is the willingness to challenge ignorance from people who dismiss a weapon simply because they are closed minded and maybe not proficient with it. But again it’s my perception of the matter…

Whatever a person reads it is internalized and perceived to be whatever they want and however they want to construe it. You perceived my post and condescending to those who may have been offended my apologies that is how I write to challenge and awaken people.

But I will say this one more time from one of my previous posts concerning my intentions for writing:

“No gimmicky ego inflating names just make it work and make it yours.”