Guild Wars 2

I think the correct question to ask is:

Can a player who “rightfully belongs to Tier X” carry teams in “Tier X-1 or even Tier X-2”?
(Eg. Can a player who rightfully belongs in Platinum carry teams in Gold or even Silver?)

Most people will never play at the level of a legendary. The “proof” that arguably the best mesmer in the world can carry teams in bronze-gold is irrelevant to them. Even the proof that a good plat player can carry teams out of bronze is irrelevant to them. What they require is proof that if I am merely a gold or plat player, I can carry teams in silver/gold consistently enough to rise to my “true league”.

Insofar as people are perennially stuck in a tier or two below where they should be (defined as they would perform as well as the average player in that tier) because they simply cannot carry people in their current tier who lose 4v3s or 2v1s, then there’s a problem. Not as outrage inducing as “Omg legendaries get stuck in bronze”, but nevertheless, a very frustrating problem.

JTGuevara.9018:

Kahrgan.7401:

I cannot carry 4 other people in my team. It requires a team effort to win a game, yet I am personally affected (via rating, and therefore losing rating when they decide to crash into the DH zerg trap pile over and over in a match)

The league rating system is absolute garbage, and cannot be taken seriously, because it means you were lucky or unlucky, and that’s it. You can carry your hardest, cap points, decap, assist in teamfights and turn the tide, but if your team is chasing off points… leaving points uncapped after they killed the person decapping it (this happened a total of 10 times today alone), fighting off points, dying by going in 1v4… The list goes on.

But I do like the new reward system, so I got that going for me.

Rating needs to be changed to take into account personal contribution. Team healing, dmg, decaps, defense, offense, etc.

The system is not garbage. What messed up the system were the PLACEMENT matches. They’re pretty much based in luck and inaccurate. They do a lousy job of determining where you should be.

This is pretty much it. In my placements, I have had games of wildly varying quality, ranging from:

1) People disconnecting in a couple of them, resulting in a loss
2) People on my team who literally lose 4v2s and 4v3s multiple times
3) Average ranked games that were close and were fun
4) And a game where we stomped the opposing side.

Thus, where you end up initially is heavily dependent on what sort of teams and enemies you end up with during placements. If I could do this all over again I would have waited a few weeks before even attempting placement.

What about claims that even if you end up in a lower tier, you can just move back up if “you’re better than the tier you should be in”? I’m not the greatest player on the planet, but I can win most of the 1v1s that are in my classes’ favor or which should be a stalemate (eg. I can win most mesmer vs necro 1v1s, but will likely lose mesmer vs dh), and I think I perform pretty well in teamfights. I’ve won 1v2s as well, but that relies on the opponent making huge mistakes. My rotations are not spot-perfect but they are pretty solid. In previous leagues, I’ve gotten to Diamond once (taking a month’s break during the league) and Legendary twice all on solo queue (I sat out the last season).

Yet, as of now, I’m stuck in Silver hell where people are still losing their 4v3s or triple/quadruple cap mid. I can’t carry that unless I can consistently win 1v2s or 1v3s.
The biggest problem, as mentioned time and time again, is that the system uses team performance in a solo queue system to gauge individual skill level. Even if you are “better than your current tier”, you won’t be able to move up unless most of your teammates are ALSO “better than their current tier”. As of now, getting such a team is difficult at best.

As aforementioned, condi warriors, reapers and revs can beat scrappers. If the engi isn’t running elixir C, the first two can do so fairly easily.

Druid and tempests can stalemate the scrapper.

Scrappers more or less hard counter DHs and thieves so don’t even try on those.

Mesmer vs Scrapper just isn’t worth it for the mesmer. Takes way too long, and the engi can stealth and heal up anyway.

Druid on my team vs a warrior from the other team on mid. The druid downed the warrior, then promptly left the point to go somewhere else.

The downed warrior then got a full cap on mid and almost fully rezzed before I got there.

Despite the nerf to chill this season, I still find myself having serious issues fighting reapers 1v1 or 2v2. Before the slick shoes nerf, reapers were a difficult but not impossible fight for me- with the right timing, if I managed to slick shoes them outside of shroud, I had a decent chance of killing them. However, in this season, I find that nothing I do against even a semi-decent reaper works. Without any way to lock the reaper down for extended periods of time, he can do a decent job kiting and piling up conditions just with scepter alone. The massive amount of condi pressure also overwhelms any of the cleanses I have and I either
a) Die slowly to stacks of bleed that get stacked right after I cleanse them or
b) Die to a massive condition burst that I can cleanse only once if I have elixir C.

So I thought I would come here for help with
a) How to deal with getting kited in general
b) How to deal with reapers and the enormous amount of condition pressure that they put out.

I’m running the standard scrapper build with Hoelbrak runes, marauders ammy and elixir C (if they have 2 or more condi classes) or elixir b(if they have 1 or less condi class).

Cheers!

Belial.9350:

Selya.5039:

Condi mesmer couldn’t and still cannot win a 1v1 against tempests, druids and necros.

Is this a joke? What kind of crappy mesmers have you been getting that can’t beat druid and tempest in 1v1s?

…You have been getting auramancers and druids that are losing to mesmers 1v1s? Especially auramancers?

Hell I can’t even remember the last time I lost to a condi mesmer on my tempest…

Ruru.1302:

Selya.5039:

Condi mesmer was and still is very strong against power revs, scrappers, warriors and thieves.
Condi mesmer couldn’t and still cannot win a 1v1 against tempests, druids and necros.
Condi mesmer had and still has a fairly even matchup against DHs.

TL;DR Condi Mesmer counters 4 classes and gets countered by 4 classes. Nothing has changed with this patch.

Even if that were true, it’s almost as if there’s more to winning than 1v1s

True. Yet half the role of a mesmer is to win 1v1s (as seen by half the complaints in this thread). The other half is portal and moa. Again, nothing about portal nor moa has changed since last patch.

So, are mesmers still strong? Yep. Did they suddenly get much stronger? No.

Condi mesmer was and still is very strong against power revs, scrappers, warriors and thieves.
Condi mesmer couldn’t and still cannot win a 1v1 against tempests, druids and necros.
Condi mesmer had and still has a fairly even matchup against DHs.

TL;DR Condi Mesmer counters 4 classes and gets countered by 4 classes. Nothing has changed with this patch.

From my experience:
I took a break from the game for about 3 months and returned about a week ago, with about a week and a half left before the end of the season. I managed to get from Amber to Legendary in about 7 days totally YoloQing, with less than 10 losses during that entire process. Half of those losses were in mid-high diamond.

Most of my matches from Amber→Mid-Diamond were complete blowouts. On one hand, that is perfectly reasonable; assuming that I am indeed a player deserving to be in Legendary, then I SHOULD be dominating matches at the lower tiers. Logically too, the games should get closer as I approach to my “true” tier: this was indeed what happened, as the games from mid-diamond onward started to become a lot closer.

On the other hand, from the perspective of the people who I was matched with from Amber→Mid-Diamond, it would seem very unfair that they were put in blowout matches. This makes it very hard to evaluate the performance of the algorithm. What it seems to be doing well, from my experience, is allowing people who clearly do not belong in that skill bracket to climb up very quickly. Yet, it seems to be using the average player in a particular division as “fodder” to allow these players to move onward at a much faster pace. Thus, it depends on what you value more: Distinguishing players, or allowing everyone to progress?

Of course, the fact that you could be paired with teammates that are much worse than you are could obscure your true skill level. For some reason, from Amber-Mid Diamond, I was very rarely paired with people who were totally clueless, at least relative to that division. Not sure why that is the case. The best advice I can offer to those stuck in MMR hell is to:

a) Multi-class. Play at least 2, preferably 3, classes that fill different roles.
b) I found that carrying a weak team is actually possible from Amber-Mid Ruby, assuming that the skill differential is big but not insurmountable. Scrapper is probably your best bet at a carry profession.
c) In a worst case scenario, find a couple of trustworthy people to queue with. Once you start winning with those people you should get out of mmr hell.
d) Off peak hours are bad for solo-queuing. From my experience, the quality of teammates varies very greatly when you solo-queue during these hours.

All in all, I actually preferred this season’s MMR system to last season’s, which really was a pain.

To answer the OP’s question: Druid + 4 condi is usually your best bet for VG. Having 5 people on the green team is crucial for your first few kills as that dramatically lowers the chance of you wiping.

As for the whole Condi Engi vs Condi Berserker debate, I just find it sad that the hardest class to play in pve does less dps in most realistic raid scenarios than one of the easiest classes to play(which also has the highest survivability to boot). That said, players new to VG will probably still want more condi engis as it makes life easier for the green team. However, once VG is on farm, condi wars will probably become more useful due to the higher dps output.

Is full ascended RECOMMENDED for raids? Yea, of course it is. Ascended gear is a strict stat improvement over exotic gear. Why would you not recommend people to get the best gear possible to do difficult content?

Is full ascended NEEDED for raids? That is, do you NEED full ascended to even have a chance at completing Spirit Vale? The answer, as this video shows, is no. You can complete the entire instance in full exotics. Is it a lot more difficult to do it without any ascended gear, or any “new stat combos”? Yea, of course it is. I wouldn’t recommend that people go in on their first try with full exotics, as the video says.

Most important question: Can a raid group with mixed ascended and exotic equipment complete the raid wing? The answer to this is also clearly yes. And this group describes the majority of raiders. Getting ascended accessories, rings and amulets is a trivial task. Most people have them just by playing the game and logging in. Getting ascended weapons is slightly trickier, but all you need is 1 (maybe 2, depending on your class) ascended chest weapon drop and you’re set. Or you could simply do collections or craft that weapon.

TL;DR: You don’t NEED to grind full ascended to have a good shot of completing the raid wing. Having mixed exotics/ascended is more than good enough; pug groups have cleared the instance with such gear. Having only exotics works too, but it’s not recommended. Therefore, insofar as it is realistically possible for most people to get mixed exotic/asc gear, and insofar as it is very possible for a raid that is geared as such to complete the raid, saying that raids REQUIRE people to grind full ascended is a false statement.

I’m far from being an expert engineer player, but here’s what I have gleaned so far from playing the scrapper marauder hammer build that’s currently ubiquitous in the ESL:

1) Why Hammer over Rifle?
- Much easier might stacking, since the autoattack stacks might. This is not insignificant, as it helps the Scrapper maintain at least 15 stacks of might easily, drastically improving damage.

- Hammer 2 is a great damage skill that also reflects projectiles. It is comparable to jump shot.

- Hammer 3 is the key to why the hammer is used. With the scrapper build you should have access to 2-3 water fields. Doing proper leap combos in water fields (and other fields like ice or poison when you’re at full hp) gives you insane sustain, especially in 1v1s. Having access to two blast finishers helps greatly as well in this department.

-Hammer 4 is a block that is nice to have because you won’t have tool kit. I use it just like gear shield.

-Hammer 5: See point 3 below.

2) Function Gyro
- I basically never rely on it because it gets cleaved down in a second. It only shines in very small fights imo, where it can be used to force the opponent to use their down state CC to interrupt the stomp from the gyro, or to stomp while you are focusing on the other enemy player. Gyros as a whole probably need a drastic rework – they are quite subpar in all 3 game modes.

3) Doing damage
-Marauder Scrapper is heavily reliant on getting relatively huge stacks of might to do considerable damage. Thankfully, stacking might is simple due to HGH, Hammer Autoattack, and Sigil of Battle if you’re running it. I can maintain around 15 stacks of might easily in most fights, getting up to 20-25 rather frequently as well. You would be surprised at how much damage you can do when you have a ton of might stacks.

- A nice damage combo I’ve found is:
1) Use acid bomb on Elixir gun in such a way that the opponent is standing on it, at least for a couple of seconds.
2) Use hammer 5 to place down the lightning field.
3) Use slick shoes in the way it is usually used to get chain knockdowns.
4) Go ham on the disabled opponent with hammer 2 and hammer autoattacks.

When executed successfully, the opponent would be disabled in both a ticking acid bomb and lightning field that do considerable damage. Together with the damage from hammer, this can drop unwary opponents surprisingly quickly.

4) Role
I would like some clarification as well. AFAIK, the scrapper best fills the role of side-point contesting. Essentially you try to contest the side points in 1v1s; against good players you might not WIN the 1v1s, but if played properly I can’t think of any build which I can’t stalemate in a duel if I don’t screw up.

Scrapper Hammer is powerful in team fights as well, especially because of slick shoes. However, getting bursted down is still an issue. The way I currently approach teamfights is to stay off the point as much as possible and try to position myself in such a way that I can still do damage without getting focused. Still working on the correct approach though; some help from the pros would be much appreciated.

Yesterday: FoTM 49. Had a thief that literally camped Shortbow on Bloomhunger and the entirety of Ascalon Fractal. Didn’t switch weapons once at all. When I politely asked why our thief was running only shortbow, his friend in the group said “It’s ok”.

Wiped on Ashym 5 times (Warrior in the group was running some weird build as well. Had 0 might stacks despite having a warrior, thief and engi in the team). I left after that.

Today: FoTM 38. We already were off to a bad start because we screwed up a few times on swamp (one of those days..), then a ranger joined. Had triple signets, no Frost Spirit, no Spotter. Literally camped Longbow for the entire run. Pulled mobs multiple times before group was ready, didn’t stack with the party and ranged every mob, thereby pulling mobs away from the stack. When asked to melee with us, he actually used longbow in melee range as well without changing weapons once.

Now, I don’t consider myself a great player, so I tend to be very tolerant with other players making mistakes because I make many of them myself. However, once we got shaman as our third fractal and he started to randomly afk without saying anything on top of everything else he was doing, we just had to kick. First time I’ve ever kicked anyone in a while.

Today: CM P3. In the stealth run to the final boss, the Engi somehow made a mistake and died. One of our thieves waypointed back to get him, but he somehow messed up again and didn’t get the shadow refuge, so the thief just went ahead without him. We told the engi to just stealth himself and run to us, but then he said…

“Stealth not long enough, only 6s”.

Apparently this level 80 engi didn’t know how to blast the smoke field from the bomb kit =-/ So two thieves and I (a mesmer) 3 manned the final boss instead (the fifth member randomly logged out and changed characters and thus got stuck on the other side of the mobs).

—
#puglyfe indeed.

Elite specialization PvP balance is going to be a pain, and a minefield that I don’t want to touch upon right now. Instead, I would like to note just how much Chronomancer would improve Mesmers in PvE, especially dungeons.

Right now, one of the main weaknesses of Mesmers is their lack of burst damage in dungeons, making them poor choices for clearing trash mobs. It is a problem compounded by the fact that PvE mesmers are reluctant to use mind wrack, as it kills phantasms. With Chronomancer, alacrity on shatter and Chronophantasma however, there is now a highly powerful burst rotation available to the mesmer that I have been tweaking with:

1) Summon Phantasmal Swordsman, then summon a clone with Ileap
2) Summon Phantasmal Warden, teleport to clone if needed
3) Use power lock (for 30% increased damage from Mental torment) + blade flurry + 4 clone mind wrack. This gives you 4s of alacrity. Also your phantasms will still live to do more damage!
4) Use well of calamity. Then use cry of frustration or diversion or distortion for 1s more of alacrity. (edit: Use cry of frustration assuming your first target is already dead or your first two phantasms are already destroyed, otherwise, don’t. The 1 additional second of alacrity allows the mesmer to almost instantly do step 5; without it, she would have to wait for another 2-3 seconds. )
5) Use Ileap to summon a clone (assuming phantasms on first target are already dead). Cast phantasmal swordsman.
6) Blade flurry + MoD + 3 clone mind wrack.
7)Improvise

Basically, with alacrity, a mesmer can almost chain 2 blade flurries and 2 mind wracks. Together with well of calamity and the extra phantasm dps allowed by chronophantasma, this gives mesmers great burst for DPS. It’s still not ice bow, but it’s something huge for a class that has always been held back by its low damage potential.

Also, Continuum shift + time warp = 20s of quickness, which is another great present for the mesmer and her team!

On the downside, wells in general seem rather lacklustre. Even our “damage well”, well of calamity, doesn’t really do THAT much damage. Moreover, the shield seems lackluster compared to our other offhands; it’s phantasm wind-up time is too long, and the shield 5 is meh. I can’t think of why I would ever use the shield over other offhands.

P.S: I didn’t actually read the previous posts in this thread, so apologies if I’m just repeating stuff that has already been said.

From a PvP perspective, Nerfs are definitely incoming. Not so much because Anet really hates us, but because certain aspects of every class are definitely over the top right now.

1) Confounding Suggestions will almost definitely be toned down. Hopefully, they will just give it a higher (per target) ICD and not overnerf it.

2) PU change was idiotic to begin with. It was the one of the most brainless and complained about traits in the mesmer’s kitten nal, and they made it even more obnoxious. Defenders of this trait ought to think back to the pre-patch days when the “guessing game” with stealth bursts (which we almost always lost) was one of the main reasons why the mesmer vs thief matchup was extremely frustrating. No reason to foist this upon every matchup in the game now.
The increased stealth duration will hopefully be sharply reduced, together with some corresponding change to increase the group support provided by this trait (eg. decreased to +1sec stealth, but allies benefit from the boon ticks in stealth as well).

3) Damage across all classes will probably be toned down. 11k+ backstabs, insta-gibs to burning and almost 1 shotting people with mirror blade + mind wrack are quite unhealthy for build diversity.

4) Some bugs like blind on shatter going through evades will probably be fixed.

Overall, patch has been very good for us. Some changes are in order, but hopefully Anet will not overdo it. As for the changes that already happened, MtD change was harsh but arguably warranted. Chaotic dampening change was not. Needs to be increased back up to 3-4% a tick.

If you’re talking about power shatter with the power block trait:

1)Trait changes actually didn’t affect shatter damage much; however, the amulet changes certainly did (this system definitely needs a rework. Amulet+ chosen gem seems like a better idea than the status quo). What changed is that, like other classes, mesmer now has access to tools that were previously unattainable in a shatter build, like confounding suggestions.

2) You are probably going to kill him using burning, unless he is using the cleansing mantra and/or specs into the inspiration tree. If he’s using the cleansing mantra, he’s giving up either mantra of distraction, blink or decoy. The loss of the distraction mantra reduces his ability to interrupt you at range and stun you with confounding suggestions. The loss of any of the other two drastically lowers his survivability. Most mesmers atm don’t run the cleansing mantra, so make sure your burning skills hit. Burning is pretty ridiculous atm anyway; a few stacks should kill him quickly if he can’t cleanse it. For the mesmer burst to really hurt, he has to be in melee range, and that’s where your PBAOE condi spam comes in handy.

3) The key to surviving is avoiding the shatter. Three ways the mesmer can set this up (4 if he’s using sword).
a) Blink +mirror blade. If he has blink off cd and you see him start the mirror blade animation from range, either dodge or just walk forward with swiftness at the last second before he blinks (needs some practice and luck on where the mesmer actually blinked to).

b) Confounding suggestions stun+ mind wrack. Honestly pretty hard to avoid, if he has mantra of distraction. All about reflexes here; either teleport away or make sure you get protection when this hits. You need to survive the 2 charges of the distraction mantra and punish the mesmer when he tries to recharge it.

c) Stealth+ mirror blade. Yea yea, stealth in gw2 is pretty screwed up. When he stealths, try to run around in an unpredictable manner, doing frequent direction changes, preferably while running around something that allows you to get out of los. Or you can judge the distance he has to run to you and dodge at the last moment.

d) Sword 3+ leap. Obvious animation. Dodge/kill the clone. Note that the clone leaps twice, so you may want to wait till the second leap to dodge.

His interrupts hurt, though power block damage has been nerfed already (so much for waiting for the scene to settle a bit). Watch out when you are casting channeled skills in particular. Don’t use ether feast against a mesmer if you are doing so.

Hope this helped.

Indeed. Compounding celerity in its current form is rather useless. Making it a passive +25% speed buff will make the currently rather lackluster inspiration tree more attractive relative to the rest, especially relative to the elite specialization.

One idea for the “add on” effect of compounding celerity is to merge it with illusionary defense (i.e. -3% damage for every illusion you have), which is currently in the chaos tree. Illusionary defense is another rather weak trait that people currently do not and will most likely not take, so merging both seems obvious. Of course, this will require the devs to generate another adept trait for the chaos line.

A second possibility is to have compounding celerity add 3% move speed for every illusion we have, with I-persona counting as one illusion. With a 3% move speed increase per illusion, we will effectively get swiftness with 3 illusions, and be slightly faster if we have 4.

Edit: Clarity

I don’t think you quite get the nuance of my posts.

With the option now available , the player would be able to choose what role to play, if you want burst ok , go range

The issue here is that there is no real choice in the current meta if we are talking about organized teams in high-end pvp. The DPS role right now cannot be filled by a shatter mesmer, or a terrormancer, or a S/F ele, or whatever other than a thief, medi guard or cele engi because other classes do not cross the minimum threshold of viability. In order to provide a real choice, you need to increase the survivability of the DPS classes until they cross a minimum threshold. The closest thing we have to a real choice of roles in the current meta is the guardian – if I want to go support, I go bunker. If I want to go DPS, I go hammer medi. But even in this case, there is no compelling reason to run a bunker because bunker guards are outclassed by cele.

Survivability issues should be expected when using a build like shatter or terrormancer and I don’t see why it should be any different.

No one is saying that there shouldn’t be any risk that comes with playing range, or playing DPS, compared with tanky/ bruiser classes. People are saying that the risk-reward ratio is way too skewed for dps classes, such that there is no real incentive to run these these classes in organized pvp. * Players accept that there should be greater risk associated with having higher damage* – it’s just that the risk level for the current amount of damage output is too high, making teams go for safer options, lke cele engineers almost all the time.

Why a shatter Mesmer should survive way more than a fresh air ele or GS warrior when under heavy focus fire? If you like to play DPS role then be ready to accept the risks that come with it.

In the end it’s really :" go cele/tanky amulet or get wrecked" and this goes not only for mesmers and necro….but for everybody else also.

For the fourth time in this thread: I completely support giving other classes other than mesmers and necros viable dps roles as well. S/F eles also suffer from getting popped like a pimple : i.e. they do not cross the minimum threshold of survivability to be viable. Give them more survivability to be viable, or give eles in general another spec option that can fill the DPS role, maybe a D/F ele or something else.

I would like to have a 20/30 fire +20 air ele with nothing in water that does not get insta-killed during teamfights, can I have it?

Again, you are thinking in extremes. No one is asking for yolo specs to be viable. What they are asking for are specs that deal more damage than bruisers and have a commensurate level of risk that comes with that build – but the risk shouldn’t be so high that those DPS builds are not viable in organized play at all.

1. Necro has another viable build which is power. If you really want to play around builds and say that dd ele has another viable build that bascially no one else runs in pvp, then necro does, too. Same with engi, guardian and ranger. All these classes have some sort of viable builds that are not used in pvp because at this current state, other specs are better.

2. Again, you want more diversity? Heck, I want fresh air to be viable, too. Also, two dps specs in one team is not enough for you? How much would you want? 3? 4? I’m gonna say this once again: I do believe dps meta is not viable in conquest mode. You can see it when you queue solo and your team is squishy, you have much harder time keeping nodes.

3. Again, you forget all other classes. How about fresh air eles, SD engis, gs warriors and power rangers? Why can’t those have competitive dps specs in high tier pvp?

4. See 3.

5. I agree necro could use some more survability, I don’t think they should get invulnerable skills, but I would agree with some vigor. On the other hand, I don’t think mesmers need more damage negating skills. Bluzzed frenzy 12 sec, ya know. But again, it’s with all dps specs that are not used in high tier for some reason.

I do get this thread is about necromancer and mesmer but honestly if you only want to pick two classes and fix them instead of looking at it as a whole. Yes, there will be always specs that are in meta. Yes, we need more diversity. No, it doesn’t only go for necromancer and mesmer.

We can argue all day over what the threshold for “viable” is. For me, a “viable” spec at high-end pvp is one that is actually used often by organized teams. Power-mancer, for instance, is not used often. Therefore, according to my definition, it is not viable. It could be for your definition.

Yes, I completely agree with you that we need more diversity, for classes other than necromancers and mesmers as well as those two classes. I think I said that in both of my posts in this thread. I focused on necros and mesmers because that is the main topic of this thread.

No, shatter mesmers indeed don’t need more survivability in general. They do need trait fixes, bug fixes and more survivability only in the case when there is a thief on the other team (i.e. shatter mesmers need something to not be a complete liability when there is a thief on the other team).

Long story short, we mostly agree 0..0 That’s rare for an online discussion.

1) No one is arguing with the fact that necromancers and mesmers need viable builds (at high-end organized pvp) other than terrorcondi and shatter.

2) EVEN if you give mesmers and necromancers a “d/d ele like bruiser build”, you only solve half the problem. Why? Because everyone can agree that we want more build diversity in the game. A game where every team runs 3 cele + thief + another cele/medi guard is boring as heck. You want viable team compositions that incorporate DPS builds as well.

3) It is a FACT that necromancers, mesmers and rangers are grossly under-represented and out-competed by thieves for the dps role in organized high-end pvp. This is despite the apparent “great damage” of shatter mesmers and condition necromancers that you so laud. Ask yourself: If these builds are so great, why do more teams not run them?

4) The answer to 3 is simple: There are grave problems with these specs that turn teams off from running them, despite the damage output of these specs. Necromancers have huge survivability issues. Shatter mesmers are inferior to the thief in filling the roamer role, and become almost a liability to the team if the other side has a good thief. To put it more clearly: for ANY spec to be viable, it has to cross a minimum threshold of survivability. Necromancers as a class do not cross that threshold. Mesmers do not cross that threshold if the other team has a thief.

5) So, what mesmer and necromancer players are asking for is not to give shatter mesmers and terrormancers D/D ele like survivability. It is to solve the inherent problems that these specs (and classes) face, allowing them to cross that minimum threshold of survivability that would make them viable.

Your proposal of NOT solving the issues that shatter mesmers/terrormancers/rangers face would effectively crystallize the status quo where only thieves and (recently) medi guards can fill the DPS role. Everyone else must go cele or get wrecked. Is this the kind of meta that you enjoy? Giving mesmers and necromancer basic survivability does not make them “overpowered” if you do it right – it merely makes these classes competitive for a role on organized team, which they are currently ostracized from.

The hoped- for end result of these changes is to broaden the meta, allowing DPS builds other than thieves and medi guards to be viable at high-end organized play. The meta can be broadened even further by giving necromancer, rangers and mesmers, thieves etc. new builds that allow them to fulfill a role other than their current ones, which you seem to support.

Supreme.3164:

In the end shatter and terrormancer don’t need buffs, if they do need buffs…then we need to buff all other specs in the game not built around self-sustain, because those as well get hunted down by thieves, focused and generally lack great mobility

Actually, if you read the respective threads carefully, especially the Mesmer one, you would notice that many people do agree that other zerker classes do indeed get hunted down by thieves, and that they deserve some time in the limelight too. S/F Ele was one of the prime examples of another build pushed to the fringes of the meta by thieves. So yea, completely agree with you there that other berserker classes need some love as well.

The reason the situation is a lot more serious for Necros and Mesmers (and rangers) is because terrormancer and shatter mesmer are the ONLY viable builds at high-end organized play (not talking about solo queue here where you play against people who don’t seem to know how mesmers or terrormancers work). If you get screwed on your S/F ele you can always go D/D. If I get screwed on my terrormancer or shatter mesmer I reroll to another class.

At the end of the day, the best case scenario is one where every profession has multiple viable builds that can fulfill multiple roles (at least 2 per profession). So, yes, people do agree that mesmers and necros (and, tbh many other classes) do need some buffs in other areas to give them other viable specs. Congratulations- it seems like you got the main points of the buff threads.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Can you elaborate more on how to address thief problem or how to make mesmer more favorable in those matchups? Sure there are condi builds here and there but most thief builds are funneled into zerker builds like mesmers, so you should consider making a balanced judgement that doesn’t involve in nerfing a class into the ground.

My suggestions, centering around the Thief vs Shatter(and Lockdown) mesmer matchup. Naturally, feel free to disagree.

1) Nerf consume plasma to something more manageable, like giving 3 random boons for 5 seconds. This would literally affect only the Thief vs Mesmer matchup.

2) Move Deceptive Evasion to an adept trait (or make it a secondary class mechanic that can be toggled on and off – whatever floats your boat).

This opens up at least 2 more points that the mesmer will likely spend in domination, allowing the mesmer to get a grandmaster trait there. So, buff the grandmaster traits to:

3) Power block: On a successful interrupt on a thief, reduce initiative recharge rate by X% for Y seconds (X and Y to be determined) OR remove X amount of initiative from thief. Currently, power block has no effect on thieves if I recall correctly.

Or if we want to wait till HoT: On successful interrupt, power block also inflicts Slow on opponents (including thieves, of course).

4) Confounding suggestions: This one has always been a little odd, imo. It’s not bad by any means, it’s just…self-contradictory. Some people seem to like it as it is, but it may be worth looking at either removing the stun and making the daze increase larger, or removing the daze duration increase and making the stun guaranteed.
—-
With 1), 2), 3), and maybe 4), a 6/2/6/0/0 lockdown or 6/2/0/0/6 mesmer will have a much better chance against thieves. The thief will still have a lot of advantages over the mesmer, but the mesmer will have a better chance of winning as an interrupt/daze can be the setup necessary for a big burst. These changes wouldn’t affect thief vs other classes, and would also give (from my perspective anyway) some buffs to mesmers that wouldn’t make them crazy op.

Finally:

5) Feline grace on the S/D thief probably needs to be looked at. I don’t think mesmers are alone in stating how little counterplay there is to it. Maybe reduce the amount of endurance returned on a successful dodge? This would obviously affect more than the thief vs mesmer matchup.

Edit: It is worth noting that even though these suggestions may help the Thief vs Mesmer matchup, there is still the much, much more tricky question of how to handle the situation of thieves pushing almost every other berserker class in the game, such S/F eles and pew pew rangers, to the fringes of the meta. You obviously don’t want to overnerf the thief, but other zerker classes deserve some play too.

jportell.2197:

So an Idea i was mulling over was this. It isn’t a massive “buff” to mesmers as it were but an idea to open up more build diversity.

Way back when many moons ago, deceptive evasion was a minor trait in dueling. It was a 15 point (or 3 point now.)

I’m proposing changing that back. However, not in dueling. Make it the 3 point minor in illusions. Remove illusionist’s celerity all together and reduce illusion cooldowns across the board.

The point of this is not necessarily to buff mesmers (even tho I see it as such.), but to open up build diversity.

Ever since launch at the top level of play mesmers have had only one build. Just one. This has not changed since the launch of the game. If you look at almost any other class they have had a minimum of two truly competitive builds. Mesmer build diversity is by far the worst in the game. It has never seen anything besides shatter at the highest tier of play. The only change that has been seen build wise for mesmers that put them in a better spot, was the introduction of halting strike.

This would merely change the status quo from a compulsory 4 points in dueling compulsory for all builds except phantasms to a compulsory 3 points in illusions. While this would be a huge buff to shatter since shatter goes 6 points into illusions anyway, other builds, most prominently 4/4/6/0/0 interrupt builds, would suffer greatly since 3 points into illusions is inferior stat wise and adept trait choice wise compared with 4 points into dueling.

Imo, just change deceptive evasion to an adept trait in dueling (i.e. requires 2 points). Most pvp mesmers would go at least one point into dueling anyway for vigor on crit. Some people have suggested making deceptive evasion inherent to the class as a secondary profession mechanic. However, this would work only if you could turn the mechanic off whenever you want, as PVE mesmers do NOT want deceptive evasion.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Kicast.1459:

Ravenmoon.5318:

jportell.2197:

Ravenmoon.5318:

Kicast.1459:

Ravenmoon.5318:

Kicast.1459:

Thief have always needed and still need huge nerfs.
Highest mobility class must never be the hardcounter of anything.
Anet was not able to manage this in two years.
I don’t know if they are blind or if they just simply can’t due to awfull and broken initiative design.
Little tip for you anet…spammable skills must never be powerfull.

And the thief shouldn’t die in 2 crits but hey, it is what it is. If you can’t land 2 crits, that’s your fault. Live by the sword, die by the sword, lol

Yes it should…like other zerkers.
And thief is still one of the hardest class to down when well played.
But you are obviously not aware on what a good thief can do.

You clearly don’t know how immobilize works.

Agains’t s/d thief… Tell me how well immob works.

S/D damage is meh at best anyway … should all thieves switch to condi so you would feel less whiny, lol o.O

A good hambow will completely negate S/D thief.

Do you realize that a power ranger does more damage with bow than a thief with 2 pistols and has more defensive cleave than one.

Ok thank you for your feedback.
Thief does not anihilate mesmer because of hambow.
Good demonstration…and obvious fairness arguments….
I would say….thief spotted ;-)

Hmmmm, Is it really that hard to understand that sPvP and Gw2’s pvp in general is not meant to be 1on1? Yes the thief has the upper hand vs mesmer.

Guess what, DPS guardian wrecks thief. Do we y’all complain now that DPS guard is too bursty now or what?

Part of L2P is to pick your fights. Part of L2P is to bait players to your team. Part of L2P is to keep yourself alive while you are at it. L2P is not always an alias for noob.

If you go guns blazing in a every fight and you think you are entitled to a win just because you pressed 5 buttons, you’re doing it wrong.

P.S: I have yet to see a thief beating my bunker guard. After 2-3 minutes they just give up and move on.

OMGLOL buff thief, guardian too op…

P.S: Have you seen any traps thieves lately? Or venom thieves in that matter. Yeah, thief is not crippled class at all.

You are perfectly right. This game is not balanced around 1v1. Thieves are bad at 1v1 against almost every class/spec but the shatter mesmer. Thieves have been hit by the nerf bat. Thieves have only 2 viable builds at high end play (however if you notice, that is the same for every single class).

However, do read the replies above you more closely. The issue isn’t so much that THIEF REKTZ SHATTER MESMER 1V1 QQ LOLOL. The issues are:

1) While the thief is bad at 1v1, THAT IS NOT THE JOB OF THE ROAMER. The job of the roamer is to exploit opportunities for backcapping and to +1 fights. The thief is simply the BEST class there is for this essential job. That is why the thief has been in the meta ever since Gw2 competitive pvp became a thing. The mesmer, which atm can ONLY fulfill the role of the roamer, is out-competed for this spot.

2) The only times roamers are expected to 1v1 is when they go for a side point decap and the other team’s roamer – which should be the fastest member of the opposing team assuming FGS is on cooldown – comes to stop them. And if one is a thief, and the other is a mesmer, guess who will win? If you have to choose exactly one roamer for your team, which class will you choose?

3) Even in teamfights which this game is apparently balanced around, the team with the mesmer requires a ton more babysitting than the team with the thief does, simply because the thief chooses when and where to gank the mesmer due to its superior stealth, teleports and mobility.

No one is saying that the thief is a godlike class and you can “Win with a team with 5 thieves”. All people are saying, and have been saying for a long time btw, is that in a game mode where you need at least one roamer, that role will always first and foremost be filled by a thief because any other option is just inferior. Even if the team decides to have more than one zerker class in the comp, because the thief is so strong against other meta zerker specs aside from the meditation guardian, the enemy team either

1) Enlists a class (Shatter mes, S/F ele) that is hard-countered by the thief and babysits him all day or
2) Just gets a medi guard or cele engi that is more effective and is not hard countered by the thief.

Most teams choose option 2, which results in the situation today.

Also, many people have suggested that mesmer needs an alternate composition to work, but have not provided any examples of such a composition. Would anyone care to suggest one?

The Gates Assassin.9827:

When I play, I find that certain mesmers in the game make me shiver in my little engi boots. If I see L Ipnotico, arete or sup cutie on the other team, I die a little bit inside. I have out right refused to do 1v1s against my friend’s mesmer cuz it’s just a massacre for my engi repeatedly. If it’s just some random mesmer, I’m really not afraid at all.

With many players I generally don’t find they dislike mesmers, but they’d much prefer to have a solid base to the team (two eles + war) before they start going crazy with a mesmer thief combo. Are you being told to switch classes when you have a solid base?

What could you really add to make mesmer more viable without sending it over the top? The most I could see is maybe throwing a single condition removal on their healing skill so they aren’t just dead if you get 20s of burn on them. Other than that, their burst makes me cry, portal plays done well make me feel like an idiot and their mobility is pretty strong. Is there something you feel they’re missing?

As other posters have mentioned, shatter mesmers DO work. They are not completely out of the meta. They are, more accurately, at the fringes of the meta: they CAN work well, and they CAN be scary. It’s just that you can usually make something else other than a mesmer work better. There’s a reason why Supcutie didn’t play Mesmer against The Abjured in WTS, and why he’s basically the only top player in NA that still plays mesmer competitively (and even then, not always). Heck, even Helseth admitted on his stream that he would probably perform a lot better if he played an “easier” (his words, not mine) class.

What the SHATTER mesmer is missing is, imo :
1) An answer to the thief vs shatter mesmer issue.

2) Lack of out of combat mobility if the mesmer does not use traveler runes (which do almost nothing for the mesmer other than the 25% movespeed increase) – this makes the mesmer sub-par compared to the thief or engineer as a roamer, due to their superior move speed and mobility

3) The lack of a clearly defined niche in the roaming role that would make teams seriously consider taking one. Engineers bring strong condition pressure and CC as a roamer. Thieves bring the best mobility in the game, stealth, soft CC etc. Mesmers do bring some cool stuff to the table, but these things just aren’t enough at the moment.

Some ideas for giving mesmers a “X” factor include:
a) Anet seems to like pushing mesmers into the “interrupter” role, with so many traits centering around interrupting the enemy. Perhaps the mesmer can be given more access to interrupts, such as lowering the cooldown on diversion and giving it a small, inherent aoe? Note that mesmers who run mantra of distraction in the status quo have pretty balanced access to interrupts: unfortunately, mesmers, like eles, suffer from the need to always have 3 specific skills on the skill bar and cannot run MoD, as they have to run portal, blink and decoy to be remotely viable at high level play.

Another idea along this line would be to move deceptive evasion to adept status and buff power lock and/or confounding suggestions. With this, shatter mesmers can now have access to (hopefully) useful grandmaster traits centered on interrupts, and may even give birth to a new viable 6/2/6/0/0 interrupt mesmer spec for high level play.

b) Making the mesmer the premier boon stripping class by giving it moderately more access to boon strips. For instance, mind stab can remove 2 boons instead of one, or attacks by certain phantasms (like Illusionary Warlock and mage) could remove a boon.

c) Making the mesmer more of a portal bot by either reducing portal’s cooldown or, heck, going all the way and make portal (or blink- which might as well be glued to every Mesmer’s skill bar) a secondary profession mechanic (i.e. doesn’t require a utility slot). I’m only half joking with the latter suggestion: if portal/blink becoming a secondary profession mechanic frees up a utility slot, mesmers can definitely bring more to the table through Mantra of Resolve (condition cleanse for team), Mantra of Domination (more interrupts), Reflects (feedback), Temporary rezzes (Illusion of Life), more boon strips/condition cleanse/ethereal field (Null Field/Phantasmal Disenchanter), greater burst (mirror images) or, heck, group stability (Mantra of Concentration).

What mesmers in general need is the ability to fill a role other than the roamer/DPSer and trait lines that actually make sense. Oh, and bug fixes. Can’t ask for too much though, can we?

Necromancers and (especially) rangers are in the same position, if that’s any comfort. 3 main things are pushing Mesmers out of the meta in high-elite level play, imo.

1) Mesmers face very serious role competition from thieves. Thieves are generally better at fulfiling the role of the roamer. Thieves have higher mobility and stealth uptime for backcaps and +1ing fights and can disengage from fights better. Mesmers can only do three things better than thieves: Boon stripping, sustained ranged damage and portal. These are things that can be very useful to the team, however…

2) (Shatter) Mesmers get farmed by thieves. If the other team has a thief, the mesmer spends most of the game kiting and trying to survive getting ganked, if he doesn’t get 2 shot from stealth to begin with. In other words, the mesmer becomes a liability for most of the game. This skewed matchup is especially problematic since the role of the mesmer is to +1 fights. If the mesmer rotates to +1 a fight, the enemy thief can get there to even out the fight. And in an equal numbered fight where one team has a thief and the other has a mesmer, the team with the thief will probably win.

Good peeling from your team can help to mitigate the thief hard counter. However, the simple need to peel can be a huge liability to the mesmer’s team as well, as when teammates have to peel for the mesmer, it forces the team out of position and lessens pressure on other players on the enemy team. Moreover…

3) Why would teams want to invest all that time and effort to make a mesmer comp work, if there are alternatives that require far less effort to succeed and are more effective? Thieves are simply kings of the berserker classes in conquest, and has been since launch, so every team will reserve one spot for the thief. If the team needs a second DPS/roamer class, a cele engi can perform the role exceptionally well AND counter the enemy’s thief. Same thing for a hammer meditation guard.

TL;DR: Mesmer faces serious role competition from thieves. Even the most exceptional mesmer players struggle against enemy thieves, even with impeccable team support. The availability of more effective alternatives to the mesmer for a second DPS/roamer class, such as the celestial engineer or the hammer meditation guardian, removes any incentive for teams to try to make a mesmer comp work unless the mesmer is REALLY exceptional.

Solutions:
1) Making the Thief vs Mesmer matchup more balanced (the thief should still have an advantage imo, but not an utterly overwhelming one as in the status quo).

2) Giving the mesmer more out of combat mobility so that it can better fulfill the role of the roamer (right now, mesmers are pigeonholed into traveler runes in order to even be competitive in the “roaming” role).

3) Maybe….gasp, fix some of the underlying issues of the class such as the huge number of bugs, nonsensical trait lines, the need to always have deceptive evasion (unless you spec for phantasms, which is great for pve and 1v1s but is terrible for tPvP) and useless grandmaster traits so that mesmers can spec something other than shatter and be useful to a team in high level play.

Vs Elementalist
Dagger/dagger: 4/6
Reasoning: Again, an even matchup SO LONG as the Mesmer does not stand on point. The boon stripping of the Mesmer undermines the foundation of the elementalist’s survivability and damage. If the Mesmer does die, it will be to burning. As such, the match is decided by how much burning the Mesmer can avoid, and whether the Mesmer can time a shatters well enough to hit right after the swap from water to air.

Scepter/Focus: 4/6
Reasoning: A high-octane matchup, this matchup would be a lot easier for the Mesmer if she runs sword/torch instead of staff. The ele’s burst has little to no counterplay; you just have to hope that you dodge at the right time. Yet, the ele dies if the Mesmer sneezes on him. Comes down to whoever manages to get the burst to land first.

Vs Necromancer
Condition necromancer: 4:6
Reasoning: Again, most mesmers do not bring condition cleanses; however, they do have enough stunbreaks to break the inevitable fear chain. The necromancer’s abilities are quite easy to interrupt, and the necromancer has little to no way to mitigate damage. This is an attrition race that will be decided by whether the Mesmer can kill the necromancer before she gets too many conditions on her. Mantra of resolve makes this matchup a lot easier. If the necromancer chooses to equip signet of spite, the mesmer must somehow manage to dodge it, or she will simply roll over and die unless she has mantra of resolve.

Power necromancer: 4:6
Reasoning: This matchup would be easier if the Mesmer brings mantra of distraction. One wrong mistake by the Mesmer can result in getting 2-shot by the necromancer. On the other hand, the Mesmer has plenty of ways to stay at range, drop target, interrupt and damage the necromancer. One of the more enjoyable 1v1s, this comes down to whether the Mesmer can dodge at the right time and how much life force the necromancer had at the start of the fight.

Welp. That’s the end of this wall of text! Mesmer matchups are obviously 50/50.

Edit: When fighting bunker classes like Bunker Guardians and Shoutbow warriors, a “win” for the mesmer would be defined as “killing the bunker is a relatively short period of time”. Obviously, a bunker guardian will never kill a mesmer; however, if the mesmer takes like 3 minutes to kill the bunker, the bunker has lost the fight but won the war. Also, all the 4:6 matchups are theoretically even; I put 4:6 instead of 6:4 as the mesmer profession tends to punish mistakes much more harshly than other professions.

Lovely thread. All of the following is from the perspective of a Double-Ranged Shatter Mesmer. X:Y indicates Xx10% in favor of the Mesmer.

vs Guardian:
Bunker: 7:3
Reasoning: Shatter Mesmer is one of the few classes capable of killing a bunker guardian 1v1. It does, however, take time. Empower can be interrupted, and the burst and boon strip of the shatter Mesmer will wear down the bunker eventually.

Meditation Guardian: 4:6
Reasoning: An even matchup. Both have the ability to kill the other in an instant, and both have the ability to mitigate the other’s bursts. Medi guards have better sustain; however, the conditions from the mesmer’s staff wears the guardian down pretty quickly. One of the more enjoyable 1v1s in the game.

Vs Warrior
Shoutbow: 7:3
Reasoning: The warrior will not be able to kill the Mesmer as long as the Mesmer does not get hit by too much burning. The warrior will die to shatters eventually. However, a good warrior may be able to survive for quite some time on the point, gaining precious points for the team.

Vs Ranger
Condition Survival: 3:7
Reasoning: Mesmers usually do not run condition cleanses. As such, a single mistake by the Mesmer will result in 10+ stacks of bleed on the Mesmer that cannot be cleansed, which will mean death eventually. Even if the Mesmer manages to down the ranger, he will go down himself soon after and then lose to the ranger’s superior downed state. Mesmers can however, win if they land good bursts. Bringing Mantra of resolve instead of portal also helps greatly. If the ranger manages to land entangle, the fight is probably over.

Power ranger: 4:6
Reasoning: A rather even matchup, especially if the Mesmer brings Mantra of Distraction instead of portal. Getting hit by rapid fire means death for the Mesmer; however, the same goes for the ranger if she gets hit by a shatter burst. This matchup comes down to whether the Mesmer can interrupt/reflect(with Masterful Reflection trait)/dodge/los rapid fire until the ranger gets killed.

Vs Engineer
Celestial Rifle: 7:3
Reasoning: Celestial rifle engineers are famous for their crowd control abilities, which they rely on to do significant damage. However, mesmers have the ability to stay at range, and have 4 (phase retreat, distortion, blink and decoy) ways to survive/break an engineer’s CC combo. If played right, the Mesmer will win; but one mistake by the Mesmer and the match can be over very quickly.

Condition engineer: 4:6
Reasoning: Again, mesmers have no condition cleanses. Thankfully, engineer grenades can be easily dodged. This matchup comes down to how well the Mesmer can avoid getting hit by grenades/poison dart volley while killing the engineer.

vs Thief
Sword/Dagger: 1:9
Reasoning: Alongside Condition Engineer vs Condition Necromancer, this is, I feel the only other truly ridiculously imbalanced matchup in the meta. Mesmers are reliant on single target damage and single-moment bursts to kill enemies. The stealth and infinite evades of the S/D thief can prevent the Mesmer from even TOUCHING the thief. The power of consume plasma is the final nail in the coffin. The matchup against the S/D thief as a shatter mesmer is one of the most rage-inducing and frustrating experiences in the game imo.

Dagger/Pistol: 2:8
Reasoning: The blinds, dazes and stealth combined with high burst of the thief can kill the Mesmer without her being able to react. However, a well-timed shatter can end the match quickly in favor of the Mesmer: it’s just very, very difficult to land, and almost impossible against good thieves.

The vast majority of players indeed do not play in these tournaments; for most people, pvp comprises just hotjoins, daily farm servers and at most, unranked queue. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend players who are new to mesmer pvp to start learning with meta shatter: it is too unforgiving. Something like a PU power build would be a much more welcoming introduction to the class.

The people who tend to participate in these amateur tournaments are the phoenix/dragon ranked players that you meet in ranked queue (that is, those that actually have a solid knowledge of rotations and their class, and didn’t turret engi their way to legendary champion). Are they the top 5%? Perhaps – the current pool of regular pvp players is so small that you actually recognize many of them by name if you play for a while, so these players can easily be in the top 5%. However, the point still stands: semi-competitive players who simply want to participate in amateur tournaments or compete in the upper reaches of ranked queue are pigeonholed into shatter, a build that is not only eaten alive by thieves, but is also inferior to the thief as a “roamer” in almost every way.

That said, now that I know that you are condi shatter alanis, I will be sure to avoid you if I run into you on my engineer/ take mantra of resolve if I’m on my mesmer >.>

I guess it depends on how you define “elite”. You can definitely get away with quite a lot in solo queue: compositions there aren’t planned, after all. However, even at upper-middle MMR levels, you already start running into strong, experienced players that DO run the prevalent meta builds. And fighting against an opposing team with D/D eles and shoutbows that know how to cleanse and heal not only themselves, but their team as well makes condi mesmers quite irrelevant. Of course, if you run into the typical double-ranger + turret engi + 2 medi guard compositions in solo queue…heh, do whatever you want.

Now, let us ignore the “big” tournaments like ESL and WTS and look at some tournaments established JUST for amateurs, such as the Academy Gaming Weeklies or the Tournament of the Gods. These are the small tournaments that people form a team with their friends and join, and are for experienced veterans who are by no means top tier. In fact, I’ve run into many of the participants of these amateur tournaments while solo-queuing. EVEN in these amateur tournaments, the prevalent meta builds dominate, and teams that try cutesie-things tend to lose pretty hard. This goes back to the point: once you reach the higher ends of gameplay, even if you are by no means at the very top, the pool of optimal builds narrows significantly. Of course, there is the occasional rare event of someone trying a new build and making it work in the meta: the hammer meditation guardian is the best contemporary example. But this rarely happens without ANET intervention once the meta settles after a big patch.

Moreover, even if we ignore all this and say that, yes, the meta builds do not matter for the vast majority of the playerbase, this does not mean that there are no problems with the thief vs mesmer matchup/role competition. Sure, the OP can simply re-trait to another spec, but what about people who DO want to play their mesmer at least semi-competitively? They run into a brick wall that prevents them from doing so, a brick wall that many mesmer players feel is unjust. Hence the many QQ posts.

There are many mesmer builds that fare pretty well against thieves, especially condition builds. However, to achieve success against the thief, all these mesmer builds sacrifice something important that makes the mesmer desirable on the team, be it burst, boon strip or mobility. If you build to fight a thief, you build to become more of an overall liability to your team: why would your team want, say, a condi mesmer over an engineer or even a condiiton necromancer?

The response of some users seems to be that “Well, this doesn’t matter because 95% of players won’t ever be tournament-level anyway. So play something non-meta.” I don’t claim to speak for everyone here, but I think that the following goes for a lot of people who play pvp: Our definition of “fun” is to go up against skilled players in a close match. The key word is SKILLED. Beating 5-signet warriors and people who barely know how to dodge does not give me any satisfaction – if I wanted to do that I would go do PvE. What keeps many people playing pvp is the drive to improve their personal skill levels and face better and better opponents. Sure, most people wouldn’t want to actually become professionally competitive, but they sure would like to join semi-casual teams that play in some small tournaments. They would also like to have a MMR high enough to have the chance to play against big names like Magic Toker or Ostrich Eggs when they queue – and put up a good fight against them.

Here then, is where the problem starts. As mesmers start getting better and better at the game, they eventually reach the point where shatter does become the only viable build – if they run anything else they become a burden to their team. So, saying that “the meta doesn’t matter for most people, just play what you like” is akin to saying “Mesmers don’t have problems so long as you are content with your skill level and MMR stagnating, and if you don’t even intend to join a team”, which really doesn’t sound like an appealing solution to me.

As for solutions:
1) Nerf consume plasma
2) Move deceptive evasion to adept
3) Buff power block/confounding suggestions to make them more viable in general and useful against thieves.
4) Do something about Mesmer utilities. Mesmers and eles share the same problem: they are pigeonholed into the same 3/4 utilities just to be effective. This is a very complex problem to fix though.

Thanks for the input everyone. Some very useful information in there!

I run 6/0/0/4/4. Pretty normal build, but with leg mods and protection injection instead of power wrench and backpack regenerator. I definitely have a problem with overextending, so I gotta work on that.

Thieves “hard counter” other classes zerker builds in one of three senses.

1) The majority of zerker builds, like Shatter mesmer, power ranger and s/f ele get destroyed by the thief .

2) In cases where a zerker build has an advantage against a thief (eg. meditation guardian), the thief’s vastly superior mobility allows it to outrotate the other zerker.

3) Even if we’re talking about a zerker build that has pretty good mobility AND can outfight the thief, the thief’s unparalleled ability to disengage from any fight makes it better for team skirmishes, as it can actually survive.

Thieves do their job (roamer, backcapping and shutting down other squishies) far better than every other class in the game. That is why they make other zerker builds unviable. In a game mode where teams usually have one, at most two, spots on the team for a zerker, thieves will always be the first pick.

Hello All,

After playing around with several classes, I have settled on an engineer as my primary alt in sPvP. I usually solo queue ranked, and run the pretty standard cele rifle build. I am obviously still very new to the class, and am still learning the ropes. Could more experienced engineers help to answer the following questions?

1) Are engineers expected to be able to stand on point for long periods of time during teamfights? Am I supposed to facetank a warrior’s longbow F1, or not kite off point, for instance? Obviously, point holding is better left to d/d eles, shoutbows and bunkers. However, in a situation where my team does not have any of these, should I still attempt to stand largely on point or will that usually be too risky to my poor charr?

2) How are good engineers able to survive for relatively long periods of time under focused fire from more than one player(eg. in a teamfight or a 1v2)? What sort of tricks do they employ? I find myself dying really quickly the moment gear shield goes on cooldown.

3) How would you categorize the builds below in terms of the following orders of difficulty to fight 1v1? I would like to know so that I can better rotate, and know when to kick myself if I lose an easy matchup. If it helps, I am pretty certain that my MMR is significantly but not staggeringly above average (I get matched against big names now and then), so you can assume that the players I face are experienced with their class.

A) Almost impossible to win 1v1. Avoid whenever possible (eg. S/D thief vs Shatter Mesmer matchup)
B) Difficult matchup. 1/3 chance of winning.
C) Even matchup. 50/50.
D Easy matchup. 2/3 chance of winning.
E) Lol faceroll

Warrior: Shoutbow | Hambow | Axe/X Longbow | Condition warrior
Guardian: Meditation (Both GS and Hammer variants)
Mesmer: Power shatter | Condition Shatter
Ranger: Power longbow | Condi point holder
Elementalist: D/D celestial |S/F Fresh air
Thief: D/P | S/D
Necromancer: Power | Terrormancer

Thanks in advance!

As far as I can tell, if you run a power build against a good S/D,D/P or S/P thief you are probably going to lose hands down. Playing a power mesmer against a good thief is one of the most frustrating experiences in the game: there is almost nothing that you can do, and you become an instant liability to your team if the enemy thief knows how to hunt you down. Lockdown builds may fare better against thieves than shatter, but a good thief will still eat a lockdown build alive.

If the enemy team has a thief and my team doesn’t have one to peel for me I basically just switch to another profession. Yes, that’s running away from the problem, but I play the game for fun, not to get frustrated. Less drastic options would include switching to condi builds, which fare better against thieves, at the expense of making you less useful to your team.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?

- What build is she? If she has halting strike and 2 charges of mantra of distraction, the fight becomes a lot more difficult.

How do you feel about your odds of winning?

- Usually very good against most players. Even against good, top level mesmers, I feel like I still have around a 50/50 chance of taking them down.

Strategies and tactics?

- Whoever gets the jump first has an enormous advantage. It’s very difficult to recover from a point blank mirror blade, for instance. Whoever has more cooldowns up also has a huge advantage. Whoever is forced to stealth first is at a severe disadvantage, because the other mesmer can wait for a couple of seconds and then stealth in order to regain the initiative.

What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?
- I find that having MH sword tends to help a lot; GS/Staff mesmers are at a disadvantage because staff simply doesn’t put out enough damage in this race of burst damage. If one mesmer has halting strike and mantra of distraction and the other doesn’t, the one with halting strike should win hands down.

How do you feel about Mesmer in general?
- Shatter mesmer is probably the hardest “meta” class and build to play well right now. A single mistake will utterly screw you over, even against players that are considerably worse than you (eg. even a bad medi guard can take you down if you fail to dodge their burst). The lack of any avenue to screw up is both fulfilling (when you play well) but can be extremely frustrating.
-Relative to other classes, the shatter burst is quite a lot harder to land. A longbow ranger’s rapid shot does as much damage as a shatter burst and takes only one button press, for instance (though it’s not aoe). I’ve always thought it would be nice if clones gained swiftness when they are commanded to shatter, or if they did a short 300 yard leap to their target.
-Thieves are really the main thing locking mesmers out of the current (cele) meta. Imo, shatter mesmers fare very well against cele engis and warriors, and do pretty well against cele d/d eles; unfortunately, a thief can simply make the mesmer useless the entire game. Lockdown mesmers may fare better against them, but a good thief will still destroy any zerker amulet wielding mesmer. So long as the thief vs mesmer matchup remains so one sided, mesmers will probably remain in a precarious spot in pvp.
-We need better grandmaster traits.

I play 4/4/0/0/6 shatter, swapping between GS/Staff and GS/(Sword +Torch). However, I run a solo-queue build with Mantra of Distraction/Blink/Decoy (swapping out one of these for the cleansing mantra if I’m against a condition heavy team).

Compared to the build that I run, lockdown mesmers have two main advantages: Increased access to boons and the great setting-up potential of a CI immobilize. CI’s immobilize makes setting up for an illusionary leap + blade frenzy + wind wrack far easier, especially against thieves. However, the issue I have with it (from my limited experience playing some lockdown) is that it is quite unreliable: you not only have to interrupt, you also need to happen to have the sword equipped and be in range to actually hit the blurred frenzy. Sometimes, it works beautifully. Frequently, however, one of the elements just doesn’t line up. For instance, you get the interrupt, but you are out of range of the frenzy, or you get the interrupt, but you just don’t have 2+ clones in range for the mind wrack. In these instances, the immobilize + condition from CI is nice but isn’t game breaking.

Playing with persona, it is much more difficult to get your opponent to hold still for a perfect shatter (+ blurred frenzy if you play with sword). On the other hand, I think that a shatter mesmer’s damage potential is not so dependent on a “chain of events”. For a shatter mesmer, interrupts are just a way of disrupting the enemy and doing damage, not the first step in a burst chain. Illusionary Elasticity, gives a mesmer tremendous burst potential and makes staff clones a threat. Access to illusionist’s celerity also means more mirror blades/phantasms/decoys/phase retreats. The damage from compounding power adds up over time. Might on shatter closes the “boon gap” between the two specs a little. And IP, of course, is amazing, and actually makes interrupting with diversion far easier. A shatter mesmer has more opportunities to “dictate” when to deal damage and deals damage more consistently, whereas a CI mesmer, imo, has to wait for a good opportunity to interrupt and follow up.

So, in short, I think that CI mesmers have the opportunity for some epic plays (i.e. pulling someone off the point with an interrupt+immobilize which then allows for a decap) and have more opportunity to set up for a perfect burst. Shatter mesmers on the other hand are not so dependent on an interrupt for their damage and thus perform more reliably and consistently. That’s my analysis anyway.

One more thing: I am puzzled as to how lockdown mesmers can plausibly survive on point against good players. With my build, I have about the same amount of interrupts as a lockdown mesmer (IP Diversion, lllusionary wave, mantra, chaos storm vs Diversion, focus pull, mantra, chaos storm), so that can’t be the answer. Even with increased boon duration, spam from d/d eles and engis on point would still obliterate the zerker-amulet mesmer, and close range fights against necros ain’t pretty either. How is it possible that you survive in the thick of the melee, unless you’re doing the whole “go in, burst, run out” thing?(in which case the lack of damage in between bursts due to the lack of a GS quickly shows).

Thanks so much for the tips! They are really, really helpful. I wish I had Helseth’s reflexes…

I always try to focus thieves first – but the moment they get focused, they stealth and my target is dropped. Moreover, for some reason I find it very difficult to retarget thieves after they come out of stealth. “Target nearest target” works well when it’s a 1v1, but when there are more targets, I often target something random, and by the time I manage to retarget the thief I am already dead =(

As requested, this is my build for tpvp:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJARWlknpWtlpxUNcrNCrxg6s26MSOQAlsirB-TZBFwAMOEAl2fYxTAoaZAAXAAA

Hello fellow Mesmers,

I recently got into tPvP on my Mesmer(only r30), and have been experiencing some…serious difficulties. I usually perform very well in hotjoin, but tPvP seems to be an entirely differently beast. I currently run a Gs/Staff shatter build, and would, as far as possible, like to continue using a shatter build. Here is a list of the problems I’m facing:

1) Thieves. I knew that thieves are supposed to be the hard counter to Mesmers, but I never knew they were THIS hard. Bad thieves are killable, but I basically die in about 2-3 hits to a good thief. I usually react fast enough to get a blink/phase retreat off, but then they just Shadowstep and kill me. It is incredibly frustrating; I often feel like there’s nothing I could have done, especially if they get the jump on me. In fact, whenever there’s a good thief on the opposing side ( which is very often ), I just feel like a complete liability to my team.

2) Any class with high survivability that can put out serious damage (eg. Hambow Warrior…or warriors in general, really, turret (?) engineer). Even if I get a perfect burst off, I can’t kill them, but they obviously can easily kill me.

3) Staying on point. Often I find myself unable to stay on the point to prevent a decap/cap; if I try to, I die.

Would anyone have any suggestions on how to ameliorate the above problems? I don’t expect to be able to 1v1 pwn a thief or a hambow, but I would like to not die before I can even get them below half hp.

Moreover, I would like to ask:
A) What exactly is the role of a Mesmer in tPvP? That is, what does the Mesmer bring to the table that another class doesn’t do better? It seems, to my very inexperienced eyes, that aside from portal, some other class can do everything we do, but better (eg. Thief for roaming, hambow for smashing stuff). I’ve had more than a few people telling me to “reroll a real PvP class”…

B) How should a shatter mesmer move in tPvP? It’s a very broad and vague question, I know, but any tips would be greatly appreciated. Should I gravitate towards teamfights, instead of pushing potentially guarded points alone? Should I run away from all 1vX, even if it means losing the point?(assuming backup cannot arrive within the next 10 seconds.)

Thank you so much for your help.