Guild Wars 2

Gubrz.7283:

ive played them all at least a bit. my mesmer is my only 80. and anytime i try to level something else, i flip back to my mesmer… my ele and eng should have been 80 ages ago. but they are 41 and 38 or something.. i dont even know. i play about half a level and give up and go back to the fun of the mesmer

ranger seems stupid easy to me. its like i could auto walk fwd and just spam 1 and hit 80 without having to LEARN how to play it

im sure i couldnt, but it FEELS like i could in comparison to mesmer

MENTAL POWAAAAAAH!

Finish that eng man… they rock and their kits are getting buffed this next patch (allowing sigils to proc with kits)… and more so in the near future (weapon stats will apply while using a kit).

Calling a bugged skill a foo strat…

The video was takling about how foo strats do a lot of damage to help out noobs… my auto attack on gs does better dps than the current izerker summon. So no… it’s not a foo strat.

Even when it is working properly, there are far easier classes to play which do far more damage than an izerker. 100b, kill shot, backstab etc. foo strats. High damage, but a good player won’t use them because they are countered too easily.

Mesmer as a whole is just not a foo friendly class… even when it’s working properly and by the same rules as the other classes (Seriously anet wth… dodge/blind/block rubbish needs to be applied to all classes or removed from mes. If you want to balance and/or nerf mes, do it properly.)

SteepledHat.1345:

When I say mesmer is hard, what I really mean is that the effort to result ration is very high. You have to work harder as a mes to get the same results as other classes. Longer skill chains and more strategic thinking. Contrast that with all the push to win skills on Thief/War/Guard.

I find Thief/Wars to be very easy to counter. Thief is pretty much a one trick pony. At Higher skill levels wars do get to be a lot more difficult, but nothing crazy.

Guard was a bit harder for me and some of matches vs them were just ending in stalemates… which is why I rolled one. I now know a few tricks on how to stop them but they are still more difficult to counter on most classes than the other two.

I find that due to the easily exploitable rule imbalance imposed on mesmer that at higher skill levels it just doesn’t matter how good you are at mesmer… you’ll get shut down by anything able to spam dodges (easily done with vigor), blocks, or blinds… and they can do this within several parts in the attacks… so you won’t be summoning up very much… which denies us our shatter skills. That’s just too much and I won’t return to my mesmer as my main (or use it for anything serious at all) until they sort that out.

Mesmer in PvE I find to be very easily replaced by another class. I can’t think of a single time in PvE where I’ve thought gee… I wish we had a mesmer for ____. Instead I’ll think of the class that does whatever that role is better than a mes (time warp being the only exception to what mes does better).

SuperSpicyCurry.2415:

For some people playing certain classes is difficult and if you find playing the mesmer difficult then don’t play it. I don’t agree that mesmer’s are ineffective however, we’re still one of the most powerful pvp classes. I will agree that warriors are able to do well with minimal brain power, for what ever reason devs love to make warrior/soldier classes stupidly easy compared to every other class.

It’s not even that mesmers are hard to play. I don’t find them to be so, nor ever have. I am used to playing games with a MUCH steeper learning curve than this game has. I’m used to games where you’ll get 100->0 comboed vs other players if you mess up a single dodge. GW2 is far more forgiving than that.

My issue with mesmer is the fact that some of the basic rules of the game are no longer the same when it comes to mesmer vs. other classes. Due to that the entire class is rubbish in PvP.

Mesmer good in PvP? HA! Mesmer gives people a chance to avoid the damage before, during, and after the cast via dodges/blinds/blocks/killing the illusions. If they can’t stop you at any of those times and just eat the damage they are baddies who can be killed by any class.

All that being said… if they roll back the dodge/blind/block rubbish I’ll agree with mesmer being good in PvP. With those unbalanced rules on them the whole class is rubbish vs any player that knows how to exploit this imbalance… and the good ones do.

Mesmer in WvW are portals and time warp. Feedback is nice, but it’s not like other classes don’t have reflection as well (wall of reflection is superior in most situations). I do appreciate mesmers porting me to the end of the JP though…

Stealth in PvE? Tell your team members to go buy some ash legion spy kits for 28 karma each and don’t waste those utility slots. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ash_Legion_Spy_Kit)

Boon/cond removal would be better if null field it actually removed them all at once. You may as well just use anti-condition duration foods instead. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Poultry_and_Leek_Soup) <- VERY cheap on the tp. The field is nice for giving chaos armor, but confusion is a pretty unreliable condition in PvE

And OH SO MUCH variety in the weapons mesmer can use… staff w/ sword + pistol/focus. That’s all that’s worth anything right now due to bugs which constantly plague this class… inb4 scepter, torch, and OH sword are “good” lol

Mesmer is supposed to be the dualist mage. But they’ve taken away their ability to dual via dodge/blind/block =’s no illusion… leaving you with mesmer in this current sad state.

That AC boss has a long telegraphed animation and if I remember rightly also a flash just before he throws the scorp wires telling you when to dodge/block/get behind a pillar. If they’re having issues with it they might want to work on their dodge skills or use those pillars.

Some dungs you might be able to solo parts of, but all… nah, sorry… you need teamwork (not a bad thing imo).

I have as well… I wasn’t a fan of how you basically do 0 damage since you’re doing nothing other than recharging your mantras all the time : / Other classes can still damage/do more support while using heals vs. the mantra heal specs

Jake Dressler.8204:

Okay you guys seem to be having a problem understanding or maybe it’s just my build that finds the scepter just fine…

I run a scepter/pistol – sword/sword build. That is why I don’t use sword over scepter since I’m already using it.

Skill #3 may have a fairly obvious wind-up animation, which is why I combine it with pistol shot #5 for a slight stun while i get the spell off on them. By the end of the animation they have usually closed the distance to me. Might I add I always summon my phantasm first. Upon reaching me I use the block #2 which counterattacks and pushes me to the side spawning a clone in my place, at which point I dodge again giving me a nice distraction while I switch to my sword/sword and summon my other phantasm.

I see people saying that this weapon doesn’t know whether it’s condition or power… well why not both? I am mostly a power/crit build. #3 does a great amount of ranged direct damage, and the confusion stacks are just the icing on the cake when they close the distance to attack me. They damage themselves while my phantasm hits them and while I counterattack them.

I feel like most of you guys just want an IWIN weapon, which we don’t need in the slightest. If you combine your abilities properly then this class can succeed far above the rest.

There are far stronger things you can do after getting a magic bullet to land other than just scepter 3. Try magic bullet-> lol moa and remove them from the fight for 10s+… or blurred frenzy + shatter for far more damage… I could go on and on…

In essence though… you’re saying that you need them to be stunned in order to get it off. This is in no way showing that it’s a good weapon vs getting something bad to work. I’m glad you didn’t disagree with #1 & 2 being horrid though.

Morfedel.4165:

If I have success with scepter & you don’t, maybe the problem is not that the scepter is a bad weapon, but you are a poor player.

Seriously. Calling it bad, then coming out with comparisons like cleaning bathtubs with toothbrushes or cutting down trees with broken axes proves nothing , those are feeble analogies.

I use the scepter & have GREAT success with it. This would disprove your premise. If you can’t, then I suspect the problem isn’t with the scepter.

I can kill random baddies down with any weapon on any class… doesn’t mean that weapon is any good… I often kill baddies with smack on my support nade eng’s toolkit… but that’s far from a good idea for him to get into mele range.

Me and other players have shown why logically it’s a bad weapon. Just saying I’ve had great success with it proves nothing. Give reasons or show a video of you killing a non-baddie with it to back up your claim.

Osicat.4139:

I wont be drawn into this endless and kinda booring discussion on this forum how we are eather op or usless. Everything is not black or white.

I do feel that the ppl who say that as soon a mesmer meet a “skilled” player they loose due to we only win vs ppl cause they going for the clones or fail to dodge the phantasms to be missleading thu. Remember we have ppl rolling the class and comming into this forum to learn about the class, to then have same ppl in thread after thread feed this statement without in any way bring basic facts,proof is not helping them. The correct way would instead be to try work for solutions for any problem you have.

If we are usless vs high ranked players how come top teams like paradigm use Mersmers?

As soon a mesmer win vs someone the player he win is bad, if mesmer lose its due to class be bad. This is a rather iggnorant statement and kinda unfair for the big amount of good mesmers who accualy beat ppl with skill. It also is kinda cheep to blame al misstakes and looses on class mecanics.

I cant talk for the tPvP or sPvP as there is ppl who do this alot more and better but from a wvwvw mesmers point of viev I say that both in smal group play and solo roaming we are in a superb situation. Our 12 man team have 4(!) mesmers, that 30% of the team, and we destroy guild teams alot bigger. In 1 vs 1 or even in 1 vs x You in no way need to blend in with your clones, clones are dmg and resources not decoys.

Nvm I sure some of the forum ppl with the agenda to downwrite the class rather than help ppl out think different but in my oppinion mesmers are in a great spot holding a ground that no other class can cover.

I only wich we can instead of strait on qq left and right try find soulutions on problems ppl have. Alot of skilled mesmers around this forum and if ppl have strait on questions and others have will to help we can work together to be a even stronger class.

/cheers Osicat

Having to work around these unbalanced rules is why mesmers are the weakest class.

Lets be real honest… most wvw-ers are baddies.

If they can’t stop the summons before they are summoned (blind), during the summon (blind/block/dodge), OR after the summon (block/dodge/kill illusion) then they probably just eat every attack thrown at them and you could kill them with any class by just spamming them.

Also you should never be able to blend in with your clones with everyone having the ability to put a big red target over your head with a single mouse click… I can still do it many times in WvW though by just using stealth and then standing there in my clones and only auto attacking and after. Again… this is due to most WvW-ers being baddies.

Right now if you’re planning on doing PvP vs anyone of skill don’t play a mesmer. If you’re planning on doing PvE there are other classes that can do what a mesmer does… but better.

Illusions won’t appear if you are blind, if they block, or if they dodge at the time of the illusion creation. Baddies don’t know how to abuse this imbalance in game rules and will just get confused by your clones… you can kill those players with any class.

Say somehow you do manage get a phantom off without being blinded/blocked… they have a long delay before they attack… long enough for them to be killed before they do damage. Say they don’t kill it right away… they can then dodge the attack of the phantom itself… and this doesn’t even consider the current damage bugs or any of the other 20+ bugs that plague the mesmer class.

This is why mesmers suck in PvP. I have yet to die in a 1v1 vs a mesmer since they put this in the game. Not ONE… and I’m far from pro. In a 1v2 I thank god that it’s only a mesmer I have to deal with in addition to that other person.

PvE Mesmer has mid dps and doesn’t do anything that another class can’t do better other than a group haste on a very long cooldown (which is really nice tbh). Oh wait… I was wrong… they do confusion better… too bad that sucks hardcore in PvE…

IMO wait to roll a mesmer to see what they do in this next major patch… actually… wait to roll ANYTHING until after this next patch. Whatever you choose now might be nerfed into the ground or have a massive bug which kittens the class.

ashleydoll.8563:

UnknownFreak.2805:

Mesmer is not OP, if you fail with one timing in a 1v2, may happen in 1v1 aswell, you die almost instantly, but however if your timings are correct you can crush anything, well not a 1v5 and up

Mesmer is not even that strong 1v1, it only happens when bad players get confused by the illusions.

It’s actually incredibly hard to keep any competent melee class off of you, people are realizing now it’s quite easy to keep track of the real Mesmer and just beat their face in, especially Thieves with their myriad stuns, snares and roots. It is because of this that glass cannon shatter builds are essential for Mesmers, you will never kill melee in your face unless you counter their damage with even more of your own.

Of course I have been involved in the humiliating butt kicking of up to 3 enemies before, but they’re always bad puggers. Against good players you should struggle in most 1 on 1s and a 1v2 should be unwinnable. Anything else that happens is the result of playing against bad people and has nothing to do with the Mesmer itself. Those same people would probably have lost to me if I was any other class.

I used to always think of Warrior as an easy kill, until I started going against Warrior players that competently busted out shield stance with good timing and would counter an entire shatter. Stuff like that is what you see with good players, whereas a bad Warrior would just keep trying to Hblades you and probably forget he has a second weapon to swap to.

If people just played at higher levels more often, they’d see this game is incredibly balanced.

I agree with this other than with the dodge/blind/block =’s no phantom/clone mechanic in place right now… and downed skills need some balancing as well.

IMO Mesmer is the weakest class right now because those rules apply to mesmers. No other class has to deal with multi hitting, telegraphed, and delayed attacks just not appearing due to any of those 3 reasons. That imbalance alone means any good player on any class can stop a mesmer in its tracks with minimal effort. They have a chance to avoid the damage on and after the summon in many many ways. If they applied these same rules to all classes, we wouldn’t be complaining… but it’s ONLY mesmer.

1 Slow ranged attack, have to get in close with a ranged weapon for it to do ok damage = rubbish

2 Block… horrid with that animation time… it means you have to choose between eating damage or actually getting in the counter-attack in after the block

3 Confuse – strong dmg, but very easily avoided with the telegraphed wind up animation and then easily dodged even if they let the first hit smack them

From 1-3 it’s bad all around without even comparing it to your other weapon options.

Patina does as well, ty ^^ Dark brown→gold→green.

Midnight ice and fire seem to have more flecks of the blue/red on most armor vs a total color change.

Here is my mesmer in all heirloom dye below… it’s def. not just one solid color. You can see on the front/main part of the legs how it goes from black->dark red. It varies within the individual color boxes themselves quite a lot. Yes they do vary a bit on the other colors, but not nearly as much as it seems to with heirloom going from black->red->orange->gold in a single color box. This seems to be a feature of this particular dye. I’m wondering if there are more that do this in other colors such as blue etc. (this one being a red).

I understand that colors vary depending on the armor type… but I haven’t seen any others that vary the color that much within a single color box…

I love how much heirloom dye varies within the same color box… it makes armor with only one box appear as if it has more than just one. See pic if you don’t get what I mean… that’s all just heirloom dye.

Are there other dyes that do this as well? I would love to find one that does that in a blue or green. Thanks for your help

Nice vid

I have an 80 theif, eng, mes, and guard. After trying multiple classes, I’ve switched from my now dead mesmer class (kitten you anet for the dodge/block/blind rubbish) over to using a guardian as my wvw main.

Guards have great solo ability and great team support. Guards have a nice selection of solid weapon skills to choose from as well… I’m a fan of using the gs to crit proc of might buffs on allies… which heals… as well as giving me vigor → evades which heal. Wonderful synergy there. Hammer is great for keeping people where you want them (as shown in the video).

All you need to do to switch between multiple roles is swap weapons and a utility or two. I love all that flexibility

JonPeters.5630:

Ok so its sounds like you could counter the summon delay by having a subset of traits. So we fixed a bug that lets all those triats work together but that also makes them not able to exploit the delay anymore. Since it seems like they were working and mostly balanced without the delay I am going to go ahead and reduce the delay on this stuff to .25 seconds. I just tested it at 0 seconds and that breaks some other things so I think .25 is the best compromise.

Look @ the bold… the reason for the delay isn’t to give them extra time to ract, it’s because it causes other issues.

IMO to make up for the delay before the attack, they should shorten our animation time by .25s.

It’s quite overkill for how many chances people get to avoid the phantom. The summon is already telegraphed with an obvious animation… that should be enough. No need to kill mesmers with the dodge/blind/block and then nothing gets summoned rubbish which applies to no other class’s multi hit/aoe attacks. However, if that gets applied to all other classes we would be fine with that…we just want an even playing field.

I’ll wait and see what they do for this next patch. Although after the last one my hopes arn’t high for this class. Oh well at worst I’ll keep playing my guard, theif, and eng. They are working on getting sigils to proc and stats from weapons to apply while using eng kits… how awesome is that !

Ryuujin.8236:

Aberrant.6749:

…Only that phantoms aren’t attacks… they are summons…

They’re an exotic ranged attack that doubles as our class resource.

• You have to launch them at a single target, when the target dies the illusion ends. Summons patter off to find a new target.

• Summons are typically fairly robust allowing them to help attack multiple foes, illusions are made of glass and are there to be broken they serve as a close analogue to walking, stabbing adrenaline bars – you can either break them, or you can gamble that they’ll live long enough to make a second strike or use them as a decoy, but they’re an expendable resource foremost.

• Summons are created in advance and stand by their master until they are needed. Illusions are created on the fly and launched at the foe and are removed from play when the target dies.

The fact you treat your illusions are summons says a lot about how much experience you have playing the class. Mechanically they behave more like ranged attacks, and if you treat them as such your play-style will benefit greatly from it instead of trying to herd phantys around like a minion master.

Attacks can’t be killed. Summons can. Our phantoms are temporary summons, just like the guardians weapon summons (which also can be destroyed for an effect). The only difference is we need a target to create them and they die when our target dies (again… attacks don’t die).

Krathalos.3461:

I completely agree that it needs to go off whenever they use an ability. I wouldn’t argue that.

However, although it does hurt a Mesmer using an Illusion far more than another class using a multi hit ability, it doesn’t mean all classes are hurt the same from a blind.

Let me give you a situation: A thief uses Cloak and Dagger, but was hit by a blind beforehand. The skill may not be on cooldown, but 50% of their global cooldowns are now gone. See what I’m getting at here? Classes and skills are affected differently by blind. Depending on what skill is blocked via blind, you are hurt the most. For mesmers, it happens to be illusions. For thieves, it’s really any ability that isn’t low cost initiative or an auto attack. I could list more, but I think this example should suffice. Only as you see it are all classes aside from Mesmer treated the same via blind. In reality, they are not.

Once again, I completely agree that blind should be removed when it blocks a summon. I play a Mesmer, and I honestly have no problem with this. I’m more annoyed by “obstructed” when trying to hit someone on tower walls, honestly.

…Only that phantoms aren’t attacks… they are summons… no other class has a summon negated by a blind. If they applied the rules to all summons I wouldn’t complain, as it would be balanced.

Even if they were attacks… multiple hit/aoe ones like izerker and idualist still shouldn’t be stopped by a single blind/dodge/block. You could make that case for iswordsman though. Again… if you applied these rules to all multi hit/aoe attacks I wouldn’t complain.

All people are asking for are for the same rules to apply to everyone. Because of this change, they don’t… no matter how you look at it.

Gulesave.5073:

That being said, this is currently the biggest thread on the Mesmer front page. Any sort of dev acknowledgement of what’s going on would be appreciated.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you believe this to be a bug, file a bug report!

Look up a few posts on this page to Drunken Mad King’s post and you’ll see a quote about what’s going on…

Mefistofell.8619:

U guys think other classes dont have problem with blind ? we all suffer from it ,considering how long cd some skill of the other classes has ,and we dont have 5 guys who look like us running around on the field and confusing every1 do we? not to mention all the other cool stuff u have. Blind messes up every1 combo not only mesmers

You can look at illusions in two ways, and in both cases it’s unfair. They are either attacks (which I disagree with, but the dev’s stated that they considered them attacks when they made this change) or summons (because that they are created and then attack).

If you consider illusions attacks… Blind/block/dodges behave differently for every other class vs mesmer. We have multi hitting/aoe attacks that don’t even occur due to a blind and arn’t even removing the blind after. Other classes attacks just lose 1 hit.

If you consider them summons… other classes can also summon without worrying about a bind/block/dodge… such as the guardian weapon summons… with mesmer our summon skills won’t occur at all.

We even have utility skills that take the form of a phantom and are negated by a block/dodge/blind (ex. idefender)

This further hurts mesmers because our class f-keys are dependant upon our illusion summons.

It’s the fact that ONLY mesmer has this happen which is why it needs to be changed either for mesmers or all other classes need to fall in line with these new rules. We’re not against balance changes, but the basic gameplay rules for all classes should be the same.

Because as the title says it’s unbalanced…

It’s far more than just blindness not falling off that’s the problem…

Numot.3965:

So tossing an auto when you have blindness to get rid of it, like a smart person is too much effort?

Okuza.5210:

A good thief simply keeps up the blind pressure. New blinds will land between removing a blind via an auto and using a phantasm. And, uh, why should a mesmer be the only class that’s in a near-total shutdown due to a condition that is basically only a minor annoyance to other classes?

I agree with Okuza. Blind should behave the same to all classes.

If they changed the blind/block/dodge mechanics against all classes to where their attacks didn’t even occur regardless of how many hits the attack does, plus some of their utilities can be prevented with a block/blind/dodge, AND one of each of their 5 weapons skill sets only has a 50/50 chance of not removing the blind at all when that happens, then I would be ok with it if they left it as is.

Seems pretty crazy huh?

But we’re not done yet… it gets even worse for us as our illusions are what our class f-keys are based off of… so something would need to be done to the other classes f-skills to balance that as well.

Or they could just fix mesmer.

So scepter is a ranged weapon that you need to use at mele range to get it to do damage? The clones that spawn are still useless? Yea, that doesn’t sound in any way good to me still.

With how bugged out the GS is right now… no. If they fix it… yes. One of the cool little things about legendary GSs on mesmer is that you throw a version of that instead of the normal mirror blade.

If this is happening to you in WvW it’s because the person hit alt+f4 to close the client to avoid repair bills. In this case your illusions do shatter… as the target they are “bound” to no longer exists in the game.

sephire.7296:

I don’t understand all the complaints about the 15th nov patch; I’ve barely noticed the difference. Besides, the whole point of dodge, block and blind is to prevent your foe’s attack, if phantasms spawn regardless to attack only a few seconds later, what was the point of their dodge/block/blind?

The big issue with mesmers is not our attacks being prevented when they are prevented, it’s the ease of telling clones apart from their masters. Sigils, Food, Unremovable buffs (like Outnumbered), Full-health-on-spawn, Gold Star and being Target Marked renders clones completely useless.

I find it hard to believe that any serious mesmer player to not be able to tell how huge changes were since the patch… but ok… I’ll explain…

You dodge to avoid the damage, like with any aoe or multi hitting attack.

Unlike with mesmers, other class’s attacks can still hit other people in the line/area of attack. ONLY With mesmer do these attacks not even occur at all. Even our utility phantoms such as iDefender can be stopped by a dodge/block/blind because of this change.

On top of that illusions are our main class resource and our class skills become unusable. Denying us ALL of those to use by a simple dodge/block/blind is obviously unbalanced and needs to be changed.

That’s why people are upset. Either apply this change to ALL classes or remove it from mesmer.

As far as being able to pick a mesmer out of a lineup… it’s not hard even without the obvious signs. The mesmer is the one that has the faster attack rate and isn’t moving in an obvious ai fashion.

The dev’s have said that this game’s balance is based off of high end players… they can instantly pick up on which is the real one regardless. It would be far more fair if the clones were obviously not us like the phantoms, but our class mechanics were the same as every other class vs the opposite (which what we have now).

Infectious.4836:

Mesmers are still fine.
Anyone who is having issues should be looking at how they are playing.
Pro-tip, if you are blind don’t try to summon illusions, and learn what the blocking (boon and sheild blocks) look like.

I would be fine with this nerf if it applied to all classes and not just mesmer. All multi hitting attacks should no longer occur and go on full cooldown if they are blind/blocked/dodged as this is what happens with our multi-hitting phantoms. Then we would be on something closer to equal footing… but every other class would still have an advantage… as this also has changed how our utility phantoms have been altered to not appear on blind/block/dodge. It would be an ok start though….

Focus is generally more of a cc/utility weapon but is great when used properly. It seems to take some people a bit of time to get used to it. Personally I’m not a huge fan of the phantom summon on it… it can be nice for blocking shots, but has other issues. I do I love that pull though.

Scepter, torch, and sword offhand are all bad when compared to your other options… and gs is bugged out atm.

So (at least for now) your options basically are: Staff, sword+pistol/focus

JohnJSal.8634:

The only downside seems to be that if I go condition damage but no power, I can’t switch weapons without losing a lot of dps. All my gear would be for the staff only.

Is this normally how it is for other professions, or do they tend to use the same stats for all weapons?

They have to change gear based on their builds… and then their builds usually decide which weapons they’ll be using as well.

Lumines.3916:

Carry on rationalizing however you want to, won’t change what’s factual. Mesmers have shatter, phantasm, and condition builds going for them.

Mesmers have phantasm builds going for them right now? Just… wow… I think I’m done here.

Lumines.3916:

Mesmers unlike a lot of classes also have a much bigger variety of viable specs

This made me lol.

Mes is very limited right now. Staff+sword/pistol or focus. That’s it.

Scepter, sword offhand, and torch suck… and GS is bugged (mind stab will continue to suck even after they fix the zerk bug as well… not to mention the bug where wave doesn’t push back close up people).

That’s what I figured from my games in sPvP testing them out. Thanks all ^^

I play 4 classes… Thief, Ele, Eng, Mes. Mes has many issues that the others don’t. You’ll kill baddies with mes still… yea… but you can do that on any class. Anyone worth a salt will just dodge the phantom summons when they see those animations. I shut down phantoms constantly with my other classes and it’s ridiculously easy to do so after the last patch. Keep on trolling though…

Raijinn.9065:

The best thing I can tell you is to try them out yourself. You might like one of them for whatever reason, but in my experience supply crate trumps the others.

I would prefer to not use/waste skill points if I can…

LegoTechnic.5910:

I have used the mortar in keep defense before, and it’s fun sometimes. The #5 attack is a large multi-hit AOE (five rounds) that causes considerable knockback, but to be honest it’s the only really useful skill and its cooldown is rather long. Otherwise the mortar is kind of weak and its range a little limited so if you’re defending you’re almost always better off using grenades (though dropping the mortar and using the #5 when up isn’t a bad idea). Supply Crate is definately superior in the field, but a mortar for WvW defense certainly isn’t a bad option (especially if you let someone without grenades use it instead).

Other than that test for yourself. I can’t help you with the racial elite, but I’m not too fond of Elixir X. Sure there’s some times I’d like to be a tornado, but since it’s random in the effect there’s never really an occasion where I feel the need to lock out my 7-9 skills in order to be melee.

Mortar was the main one I was considering… but I’ve used it on other toons and it didn’t seem that useful unless my other toon lacked any sort of aoe. Nades seem like they would be better in almost any situation for what the mortar does if I’m just considering myself.

I’m a char… is the charrzooka any good?

Raijinn.9065:

wintermute.4096:

Raijinn.9065:

Lead the target

Depending on range, leading a moving target that does actually bother to not conveniently run in a straight line (read: everyone in pvp) is impossible.

I noticed you said depending on range, and range does mean everything

BUT

This is where you apply your own playstyle. i can hit any moving target I need to and it doesn’t matter how you are moving. With the way I play I just stay at the right distance and chase you down, you will eat every grenade I throw your way. And if you bother to chase me you will get it even worse. Just because you have the capability doesn’t mean you have to use them like a ranger

Got a vid showing how you do this to help others get better at it?

Should I bother with anything other than supply crate? I do mostly WvW on my other toons and probably will do the same on this one after I get some dung gear.

Durzlla.6295:

Well with the whole phantasm thing they kinda sit around until destroyed, so it kinda makes sense that they made it so they had 2 chances to block it… and i’ve never been able to dodge an entire multi hit attack by any prof, trust me, i’ve tried… blocks are different, there’s some blocks that can block for an entire duration, in which case it makes sense they block an entire multi hit attack…

Phantoms right now have the drawbacks of both summons and attacks and the benefits of neither. They can be canceled on creation in many ways, killed (with 1-2 normal attacks, thus denying our resource and many traits), and don’t proc sigils. You can even stop the mesmer from summoning up defensive phantoms at all.

I’m fine with it if they want to make them either attacks (which they clearly aren’t, but I could deal with it) OR summons. Hell, put a self destruct timer on them instead and I would be fine with that too…. but atm it’s all messed up.

Mesmer has full trait lines devoted to phantoms which are very very easily denied now.

Also I’ve personally dodged and seen other people dodge the izerker spin attack fully before this patch. There are some others you can fully dodge as well such as the thief’s sneak attack. But now vs mesmer you just need to dodge when the mesmer loudly broadcasts when they are going to do summon with their animation and none of the multi hitting phantoms will even appear at all. With other classes you still have the chance of hitting other people in the line/area of attack and they aren’t totally denied a major resource on top of that.

Durzlla.6295:

Aberrant.6749:

Durzlla.6295:

Yeah, i think the thread has essentially decided they were just bad, mesmer isn’t even my main and i don’t see them as OP, i think the reason a lot of people think they’re OP is because of the whole “Mind kitten” aspect of the prof

It’s pathetic for anyone to complain about mes at this point. We have major drawbacks that NO other class has to deal with… and people still complain. That just shows it’s their unwillingness to learn about the other classes and how to fight them… instead it seems most will just re-roll to another class, complain about their own, and call for nerfs on whatever beats… then the devs listen to those people -.-

Hey that sounds exactly like what i’ve heard in the ranger forums!! Personally i don’t notice any issues with mesmer, it has issues where if you break the clones faster then you can put it up that the survivability is pretty much destroyed… but other then that i haven’t seen many issues.

Other than the major damage bugs, multi hitting attacks being countered by a single dodge/block/blind (blinds arn’t even removed half the time after the failed phantom summon), 2 chances to avoid every phantom attack (on summon and once they attack), and the 20+ other major bugs we’ve had since launch… yea… no issues…

Durzlla.6295:

Yeah, i think the thread has essentially decided they were just bad, mesmer isn’t even my main and i don’t see them as OP, i think the reason a lot of people think they’re OP is because of the whole “Mind kitten” aspect of the prof

It’s pathetic for anyone to complain about mes at this point. We have major drawbacks that NO other class has to deal with… and people still complain. That just shows it’s their unwillingness to learn about the other classes and how to fight them… instead it seems most will just re-roll to another class, complain about their own, and call for nerfs on whatever beats… then the devs listen to those people -.-

Xom.9264:

Winds.3087:

Necromancer is weak? I won’t say that. Hard cc that ignores defiant stacks(fear) and wells make any dungeon easier.

I think any class can do PvE just fine, but its a well known issues that Necro is very weak at tagging in events due to conditions being the viable build and wells having such a long cooldown and burst not being an option.

Just find it comical anyone would say mesmer is weak its stronger and easier to play then my necro by a large amount. Thief is a bit faster in some situations but mesmers is easier to kill the elites and do the harder content solo.

Perhaps my view is jaded because I play a necro and pvp alot, but mesmers seem overpowered to me and my opinion is not changing the more I play my mes.

Learn to dodge/blind/block and the mesmer won’t be able to summon up anything at all. This just shows how most players won’t bother to learn to fight the class that theirs has issues with and will instead just re-roll.

You can shut down the entire mesmer class now with simple dodges. I fail to see how they could possibly be op in their current state.

I just wish the devs showed that they cared about them breaking the mesmer class with poorly thought out nerfs and changes… but they remain silent. In most games you’ll at least get a “we’re sorry and we’re working on it”… I guess we’ll have to wait until the next patch to see.

: /

Haltus Kain.4578:

mischwoof.9785:

I don’t think this is much of an issue this early in the game’s lifespan. Surely in the future engineers will get some cosmetic love with kits, but i’m not expecting it to happen any time soon, what with all of the bug fixes and functionality changes the game needs.

I really wish people wouldn’t make posts like that. Just because there are bigger fish to fry doesn’t mean the smaller things should be ignored, especially on a fan-discussion level; not like we’re eating up dev time by discussing it… And getting a solution growing now could have some awesome results when the devs do decide to start putting time into it.

Anywho, I agree with the OP… Probably the best thing to do now is encourage folks with some artistic skill to get some concept art drawn up – intact you might want to make a new thread specifically for that.

I just wanted to add that they have different people working on cosmetics than they have working on the functionality stuffs. It’s not like it’s just one guy sitting there doing it all lol (Although they apparently only have 2 people working on game balance… what is this… I don’t even…)

1 attack with scepter does piddly damage and summons clones at the same rate as other weapons can. The other weapons summon them with far more benefits than these ones.

2 a single block with a cancel for a blind or will hit them back. Either case it’s still a single hit stopped. Not very useful.

3 strong damage + confusion stacks. It’s good damage but has a very obvious/long wind up, is easily mitigated, and has a long cooldown.

So to sum up the scepter skills… rubbish + rubbish + rubbish =’s rubbish

@ Fade

Before you could dodge the illusions attacks just as you can with thieves guilds “phantoms” or any other damage from a non-player source. Now you can dodge the initial creating of the illusion AND their attack.

@ Hudry

Same with any multi hitting attack. If they are blind, the first hit misses. The entire attack doesn’t cease to exist.

We have the drawbacks of summons AND attacks with our phantoms and clones right now without of the benefits of either. This obviously is unfair and needs to be changed.

Put 15 into chaos to help you get some breathing time. The regen will proc the protection is great vs. any class with high burst damage.

Pay attention, you should be able to see the vast majority of thieves coming and be ready. If you did… then your reaction time was also slow… you should have blinked away or distorted before he got all of that in. When I’m in any PvP my finger is always on one of those two buttons.

Once they fix mesmer you should be able to outplay them from there. Stealth when they stealth if you can and watch your phantoms (they’ll go for him before they render in). Keep your distance and be ready to distort/blink/retreat quickly again. I use a sword with pistol offhand as one of my weapon sets and it helps a LOT with burst damage class, burst damage on them and survival. Once they appear I will cc->moa then a thief will die VERY fast without his stealth skills.

God just talking about this makes me miss my mesmer I hope they fix this rubbish dodge/blind/block and the dmg bugs soon.

Birdrock.1697:

I agree we need some clarification and unification of what type of ability phantasm constitute. If they are an attack, in addition to the issues raised above, our condition damage should apply. All bleeds, burning, etc should increase in damage based upon my stats. Currently this is not the case, so it would suggest that it is bugged or that phantasm aren’t an attack, but a summon.

Not only that but our multi hitting/aoe “attacks” (dualist/izerker/warden) shouldn’t be fully countered by a single blind/block. The first hit from it should only miss just like with every other attack from every other class. No matter how you look at it (summons OR attack) the way mesmers operate right now is just wrong.

You need to decide if our phantoms are summons (which they clearly are imo) or attacks.

If they are summons then they shouldn’t be denied if we are blind or they are dodged/blocked the same way that thieves guild or pets aren’t.

If they are attacks then our multi hitting/aoe attacks (ex. izerker, idualist, iwarden) shouldn’t be denied from occurring due to a single blind/dodge/block and should still be able to hit other nearby foes.

Right now mesmers have the negatives from both of these and the benefit from neither. Our phantoms and clones can be totally denied on cast, mitigated after cast, and killed.

No other class has this happen to them. It is unfair to apply these rules to just this one class. So either apply this to all other classes or fix it for the mesmer class.