Guild Wars 2

Considering I like the game’s aesthetics, and I think having two shields would look ridiculously stupid, I would vote for a no on this. Seriously? Two shields? That’d be as silly as seeing a main hand Focus or Torch, or a offhand Scepter. I think they’ve nailed it as far as to what should be possible to go in both hands and what should be reserved for a particular one. While I want more than two skills on my Mesmer specialization, making it possible to dual wield Shields is far from the solution I’d be after. I’m used to ArenaNet not caring much for my beloved Mesmer profession anyways. Not surprised one bit we get 2 skills while others gets 5.

Eh, probably another Human, male. But who knows, while I sit there making it, I may change my mind there and then. I doubt I’ll make another Charr though, nor another Asura. Maybe a Sylvari, male. I don’t really feel like I want to make another Norn, female, and I ain’t a big fan of how armors tend to look on males, so I guess no more Norn either. Human or Sylvari I guess, male. No real reasons, aesthetics I guess. In the case of the Sylvari, I don’t have a male one.

Mine didn’t.. because it is red. Ba-dum-tish.

Question for hedix.1986: Is this Stability change in any way making it impossible for you to continue raiding in WvW, like you say that you enjoy, although with a slightly different approach to your engagements? E.g., you can spread out more, flank your enemies, use positional tactics such as higher ground and line of sight, focus your kills, clear your enemies Boons and use your crowd control on them after you bait out their Stun Breaks and defensive skills such as dodges—because you know, if you are spread out, their blob can only hit a small part of you, and that small part will likely fall, but meanwhile the rest of you get free pokes at them. And if you focus those pokes, you can bet they will see players fall, and fast. If you want no-thought PvP, why not just go to EotM? That’s practically a PvE map anyways.

I used to like WvW a whole lot. Then it turned into blob city. I fail to see what is fun with that way of playing, when you hardly feel like you contribute to anything but exploiting the AoE cap and helping to avoid damage by taking advantage of that flaw.

For those bringing up WvW zerg clashes and how this is such a detriment to that kind of play style, I promise you, that kind of fighting will get stale for you too, just like it does for mostly anyone who has done it for a good long time. It may be fun and exciting when you are still a (relatively) new player (e.g., if you’ve done it for less than 1000 hours), but be fair to yourselves, it is not much skill involved in it. And saying otherwise is fooling yourself and somewhat deceiving others.

Try doing it for about 4000 hours without getting ridiculously tired of the lack of thought process to the actual combat there is in these big large clashes.—Everyone balls up, stacks up Stability, Might and Swiftness.. then they run in a combined blob into the other enemy blob, throwing down fields and pressing mainly 1. It boils down to pressing a few random skills with very little thought behind it. Oh, maybe there’s a “tactical” Veil used before the clash, as if that actually fools anyone.. nobody has any idea where that blob disappeared to, it’s not predictable at all. Nope. Genius play there.

If anything, these changes should be an incentive to shake things up a bit in WvW, which has gotten so dreadfully stale with its main venue being blob vs blob vs blob. The use of Stability, is not skilled play. Skilled play is to use your dodges and skills to avoid damage and crowd control, to use your Stun Breaks and Condition removal, to spread out to avoid the damage and force the enemy to spread out as well, to use your skills effectively—not blob as to make it so that the AoE cap is in effect and only a few is being hit by damage at a time. Seriously, how can you even try to say a thing such as that is skilled gameplay? Taking advantage of a flaw in the game mechanics is a show of skill now?

Why aren’t these clashes more spread out? Why do players blob up in the 40+ zergs that just roams mindlessly around, following that one guy/girl who actually pays attention to what is going on (read: “Commander”)? Why are they just balls of players running through other balls of players when they actually fight? Why are there practically no tactical thought to these clashes? Why aren’t we using all our skills? Because it’s the easy way out. Stability and exploiting the AoE cap. If anything, I hope these changes can revitalize the WvW scene. It’s gotten terrible.

The only skilled play in WvW (as I see it), comes from roamers (that does it solo or at most as a group of five), and/or the harass/focus squads in the clashes who tactically select individual targets to take out, as they are seen as a threat, and who plays together as a team to accomplish this goal. The otherwise large majority of WvW players are rather terrible at PvP, and gets destroyed as soon as they are without their huge blob fortress of bodies. A roamer knows that, as do anyone from sPvP. You should rather ask yourself this; Why are you having issues with your Stability being stripped so quickly? Has it occured to you, that you may be doing something wrong?

Edit: Stability has been a cheap Boon for way too long. In all game modes. Just look at how MAGpie below me (Note: I am sorry if it feels like I am picking on you, I am not doing that, but I am using your complaint as an example. My apologies if you find this provocative.) are complaining about a spinning golem stripping Stability in a short time. Instead of moving out of its way when it does that, he seemingly just stands there and takes it. I mean, he has to be doing that. A golem’s spinning attack has a fairly obvious, albeit short, windup animation. And people complain about PvE being too easy. As soon as they do something to make it require a wee bit more skill, people cry bloody murder. I applaud ArenaNet for this change. Good job on whoever finally sorted out this ridiculous easy mode Boon.

There is no best and worst profession in Guild Wars 2. They are all fairly balanced right now. Sure, there are certain builds that could do with minor tweaks, dare I say nerfs, to certain aspects of them, e.g., Warrior regeneration sustain through Healing Signet, Adrenal Health, Regen and/or Shout heals, as well as a Celestial Elementalist’s healing output with their Signet of Restoration, Regen and so on forth. The Ranger’s Lick Wounds in Downed State has needed a nerf since launch too, with the healing not being close to 15% per tick for one, and at the very least not resuming instantly after you interrupt the pet, without the Ranger needing to activate Lick Wounds again.

But overall, including those things mentioned just now, the professions are in a good state right now, and it’s mainly inexperienced players with a tunneled vision and typically poor understanding of what a profession can actually do, when played by a skilled player, that thinks a specific profession is bad for whatever purpose you wish to use it for.

Play what you wish to play, get good at it, enjoy the game. Ignore the players who thinks you are playing a bad profession, should you not play the popular flavor of the month for that particular month. Again, there is no best and worst profession. Just better and worse players and varying skill required for different professions. Warrior is perhaps the easiest to play of the bunch, and can carry a mediocre player into performing well. Guardian a close second, though it requires a bit more skill. One of the hardest to get good at is Mesmer. To learn, Engineer and Elementalist. And so on forth. But these opinions will vary from player to player.

I’m obviously right though, as are everyone else within their own opinions. Yup.

Aomine.5012:

You guys already mentioned how much cheaper to craft an ascended, so why not just craft one for different sigil choices? Because you’re lazy? Because it waste space? See that’s the exact concern I have. If legendary weapons solve all these issues, then it becomes a mandatory to anyone who want to maximize their performance.

Why should someone who already invested a huge amount of Gold and/or (a combination of that and) time, need to craft even further weapons, when the weapon has a functionality to allow it to change stats when out of combat? That functionality is hampered by the lack of an ability to obtain, consume and unlock the option to swap Sigils outside of combat as well.

How is it different, when a player who has one Legendary; buys two Sigils, one for a Power- and one for a Condition based build, slotting them into their Legendary, consuming them in the process. And when another player who has crafted two weapons as Ascended, one for a Power- and one for a Condition based build, purchases a Sigil for each, as suitable to their build purposes? Both players needed to buy two Sigils. Both players can swap stats outside of combat. But with how the system currently exists for a Legendary owner, they need to either “forfeit” (read: ignore) the entire ability to swap stats outside of combat and invest even further time and/or money into making an Ascended weapon (which arguably does not take that long, but it’s the principle of an entire mechanic to the Legendary weapons being hampered here), or constantly keep replacing Sigils as they swap between builds. That is not very convenient is it?

A Legendary is a inventory convenience, besides a sweet skin with neat effects (and that being variably considered so based on opinions per weapon type of course). It does in no way make it mandatory to own one if you can unlock the ability to swap a Sigil on it, as you would need to buy just as many as the next person would. To me, it seems more like there’s an “envy” going on here, from people who doesn’t have the willpower (or maybe even a desire) to make a Legendary weapon, and them being annoyed at inventory management conveniences granted to those who does have the willpower (and desire) to make one (or more).

As if inventory space makes you more powerful than another player.. If inventory space makes you more powerful, then news flash, the Gem Store is selling “Pay-2-Win” Inventory and Bank slot expansions! Start rioting with your pitchforks today! There’s convenience permanent gathering tools as well (which aren’t very cost effective if you were to spend the Gems on Gold and use those Gold on gathering tools in-game), so that you don’t need to carry one or two extra sets of tools in your inventory. There’s convenience salvage items, again not being cost effective, but saving you inventory space. There’s a Permanent Bank/Merchant/Trading Post and Mystic Forge available in the game too, which I happily own to have the convenience of not needing to visit specific locations when I need to perform tasks involving either, though they take up space of course. But let’s riot at convenience! It makes you more powerful!

You may like the Luminescent equipment set. You could also look up Caparace which you will unlock in-game while gaining Luminescent, Ambrite weapons or any of the dungeon armor and/or weapon skins for that matter (and don’t forget the Fractals ones). While there’s not too many things limited to being earned from things done in-game, there are things you can unlock. It’s not completely void of that.

The fact that Legendary weapons can swap stats outside of combat, is only a convenience thing when you look at it from a cost/time investment standpoint. Something that makes them worth their value beyond being pretty skins. For each one Legendary you spend time and Gold making, you can easily craft 10 Ascended—you can cover your bases on every desirable stat combination and have them all use suitable Superior Sigils that makes sense for the build and/or game mode (WvW/PvE) they are intended for.

The convenience of a Legendary being able to swap stats, is somewhat hindered by the fact that you can not obtain, slot and unlock a Superior Sigil into each individually owned Legendary you may have, and then swap between them at your own leisure afterwards.

Let’s make that proposition clear here, so that there should be no misunderstanding in regards to this wish; If you own two Bolts. Let’s call them Bolt A and Bolt B. If you were to slot a Superior Sigil of Energy into Bolt A, it would consume it, unlocking it as a potential Superior Sigil to swap with on Bolt A and Bolt A alone. If you would like to have the option to be able to swap with the same Sigil type on Bolt B, you would need to obtain another one and unlock it on that as well.—Every, individual, Legendary, would need to get a Superior Sigil, and consume it, in order to have it as a swap option for that specific Legendary and that Legendary alone.

Think about it for a second here. A player with a Legendary is semi-punished for having one weapon, even though they can swap stats. There’s more to a build than the stats alone. If you wish to go from a Condition oriented build, to a Power one, you may very well suddenly sit on a Condition oriented Superior Sigil on a Power oriented weapon. If you had just two Ascended weapons covering those build orientations instead, you would not need to swap a Superior Sigil out at all, as you have already slotted the one(s) you want on the Power oriented one, and the ones you want on the Condition oriented one. The time and Gold it took you to make those Ascended, comes nowhere near what it would take to make that one Legendary. So why should a player who invested a whole lot more time and/or Gold, have to spend even more Gold and/or time, if they wish to hop between builds more than once in a blue moon? Why is it so bad if a Legendary is actually.. convenient. From a inventory standpoint. And practically that alone. They aren’t more powerful than someone who makes two-three Ascended. They are barely more powerful than those who wish to just stay with Exotic. You could buy 1000+ of certain weapon types in Exotics, per one Legendary. Keep that in mind.

A Legendary is a convenience item, as well as a pretty skin. Let’s make them actually proper convenient, huh? Not this “halfway there” thing where your Superior Sigil options are severely limited by needing to slot things that fits into both WvW and PvE alike, and both Power- and Condition oriented builds.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Raiment_of_the_Lich is why the wings look the way they look. This Outfit was added to Guild Wars 2 as well for Halloween, but it were missing its wings. They had a preview sale on them before next Halloween when I expect the Raiment of the Lich Outfit to be on sale again, with the wings available separately.

I just wish Illusionary Wave would “shift” players that are in Downed State some distance away in the direction of the push. Who needs to launch players when you can have style points for shifting them off a point in a teleportation animation.

I miss the map. I never found Underwater combat in Guild Wars 2 to be broken anyways, and I’ve played every profession under water just fine. It was perhaps misunderstood, poorly looked into by the majority of the player base. And a large majority had experience with it from PvE having used terrible weapons and Sigils. Underwater combat was kinda like most players going into a wild panic when they got hit by Moa from a Mesmer in the early days, and how most players know what to do with it now.

What was broken, is how the Downed State works under water, that’s pretty much the only thing that needed fixing. Make it so that there are ways to “stomp” a player under water, and it’s actually fairly alright.

I do think it should be in Practice at the very least, if not Unranked as well. I also think Courtyard should be taken out of Unranked. For that matter, they should add a couple more Team Death Match maps, make a separate queue for those. If I want to play TDM, I’d like to queue for TDM. If I want to play Conquest, I want to queue for Conquest. If I want to play Stronghold, I want to queue for Stronghold. If I want to queue for Capture the Flag.. oh, right

Never happens to any of the queues I enter. I get a few 4v5 from the start at times, but that’s different. Never seen anyone rage quit out of Unranked.

[ +1 ], please get rid of this Daily Structured criteria! I get annoyed at it every single day. I don’t even get to finish my Daily in sPvP most days, since Mesmer never comes up and that’s what I main. I have to resort to going into PvE (Home Instance) to gather nodes there. I mean, I do that anyways, it’s just annoying that I feel like I can’t finish a Daily in structured alone, without being forced on to a profession I don’t want to play and are rusty with. I’d rather be excellent at one profession, than mediocre at eight. That’s not to say I’m excellent, but you probably get the idea.

1. How often do you swap from your main class to the class daily to get the AP?
   —Never. I don’t play a profession I don’t feel like playing at the time.
2. Do you enjoy the encouragement to try another class?
   —It’s not encouraging me to swap over to one of my other alts. I have already played them enough to know how they work and how to counter them. I get annoyed at these Daily criteria more so than encouraged in any way.
3. If you were to change this daily, what would you want it to be changed to instead?
   —Win 3 matches (any type and combination, Practice, Unranked or Ranked). Play one Unranked match. Finish (stomp) a player. Revive a player. Progress one bar of a Reward Track. Interrupt another player. Achieve a Top Stat during a match. Etc.

Anything but a Daily that encourage terrible team comps by “encouraging” players to play professions they hardly know how to play. It affects 4 other players if you step into a match without a clue of how to efficiently play a profession.

Mesmer does not need any specific buffs. If anything it needs two things, a reliable Poison application through a weapon skill (—perhaps it could be a thing if they added Dagger besides the Shield?), not being reliant on a Superior Sigil of Doom. And a re-work of, e.g., Signet of Inspiration to include a permanent 25% Movement Speed modifier, so that Traveler Runes feels less necessary in order to stay mobile as a roamer. More so when not using Staff.

Other than that, Mesmer is as viable as the other professions, it just takes a good player behind it. Yes, I think Mesmer is a profession that requires skill and reaction, a profession not reliant on rotations and combos. It’s not easy to be a good Mesmer. Don’t scuff at their ability to lock a player down through chained dazes and interrupts either, which can be huge to get team fights to be in your favor. You can prevent stomps with Moa even, or completely counter another professions Elite with it.

The amount of utility you have as a Mesmer compared to the rest of the professions, makes it one of the best and most fun to play in the game. If some people would stop treating it as a ranged profession, they might see the extensive amount of tools it has to survive, which doesn’t even include our ability to use stealth. You can go toe to toe with it just fine, surviving for enough time to receive some backup, even if outnumbered. And that as a Berserker user.

So no, please do not give my favorite profession any excuse to be nerfed by making it any more powerful. Especially when few players take full advantage of it, something that is bound to change as time continues. If anything, give us Poison to counter the excessive regeneration of a Warrior using Healing Signet, Adrenal Health and Regen (and/or Shout heals), or the Elementalist’s major healing capabilities when swapping into the Water Attunement, using Signet of Restoration and Regen. That’s the two professions that gets frustrating to fight, not just as a Mesmer either, since even though they make many mistakes and take good hard bursts to their faces, they just heal it back up again as if you did nothing. While still having equal burst capabilities in certain builds. Oh, and of course, do something about a Turret Engineer’s turrets. They are a royal pain to try to destroy as a Mesmer, whereas our clones, a major mechanic to our damage output, are something that explodes if you look at them harshly. I know it’s not just Mesmer that hates Turret Engineer as they currently exist.

Overall I find the game to be fairly balanced these days however, and that’s even though there hasn’t been any massive balance changes. It’s only a few things that gets on my nerves; that being the Warrior sustain, when taking their highest tier HP pool + Armor (yes, that matters—saying otherwise is ridiculous), excellent mobility and CC, as well as good damage, into consideration. The same goes for Elementalists, which granted is slightly better tuned, and it’s just a tiny bit too much healing on their part that gets annoying, especially when they fail at avoiding 90% of what you throw their way, but gets to just heal it up since you can’t feasibly interrupt it in any way. Turret Engineer’s turrets being frustratingly tanky to deal with when you have a Engineer attacking you in their bunker setup as well. Oh, and I’d say the Ranger Downed State’s Lick Wounds could do with some tuning. Why should one profession be exempt from the tactic of leaving them on the ground to bleed out? Why does the pet continue reviving even if they are interrupted? And does it really need to be “15%” of the Ranger’s HP per second? That’s a bit ridiculous. I’m ok with Lick Wounds existing. Just not in the manner it currently does. That’s basically it, when it comes to what I get frustrated by “balance wise”. Four things.

Archaon.9524:

So Anet, just answer my question:

What shall we play pvp for? As a gaming company you should know what are you doing to make players play your game (And stick to it)…so just answer me. Why should i keep playing your game? Or buy this incoming expansion thing? For what?

Or.. you could sit down a bit more, think that tiny bit harder, and come up with a reason as to why you should be playing, if you want to keep playing that is. If that reason does not currently exist in the game, then help ArenaNet by suggesting it. All I read here was questions, no real suggestions for improvement. It’s easy to question their development and foresight behind what they implement and do to their own game at times. But we should at least give them some feedback, more so than to ask them to tell us why we should play. Nobody can tell you why you should play. People can agree with your suggestions on how to make the game more enjoyable though.

What would make the game better for you? Especially so the PvP side of it. And how does Gold have no place in PvP exactly? I allows you to buy various skins. Either through the TP or by converting them to Gems. That’s an option after all.

I would assume ArenaNet thinks the ability to buy such things with Gold earned, or to convert said Gold to Gems is a perk. As are the ranks and their respective finishers initially. Titles are something to get. Achievements, and their points to unlock further skins exclusive to that. You can earn most PvE skins through the PvP reward tracks, that’s something to play for. There’s a couple unique to PvP too (and they really should add more). You even get various materials needed to craft yourself a Legendary should you so desire. Gold can be spent on buying a precursor (or depending on how Masteries and that stuff works in HoT, you can perhaps craft one then—let’s hope they include PvP as a way of obtaining them too). Fun is another thing. They probably think leaderboards is a perk, even though most of us seem to not think so. At least sPvP has rewards. It’s in a far better state than say WvW with its impossible achievements, horrible rewards and ultimately no reason to play it what so ever, because winning there gets you nothing.

As for what to look forwards to in HoT? One completely new profession, and several skills (and a Trait line) for every profession to try out, make builds with, and probably getting nerfed with from time to time, as well as buffed now and again. Those things and Stronghold maybe. I dunno, the map looks alright. I would expect some new skins to arrive with HoT too, so there’ll likely be reward tracks to aim for again, to build upon your collection. And perhaps there’s other things lurking under the surface. More ranks? More titles? A better Daily that doesn’t ask you to play profession(s) you may have no interest in playing that day, or any other day for that matter? Etc.

For those not aware of their origin, they are supposed to be a part of the Raiment of the Lich outfit, which was released during Halloween. This was originally a Guild Wars costume, that you could display instead of your armor. With how the backpack system works in Guild Wars 2, I was somewhat surprised at the time of release, that they did not release these wings with it, but here they are. I would expect these wings to be on sale again during Halloween 2015, together with the outfit. Probably separate from one another though. More money to make and all that. Even if they butchered a nice costume into two pieces to sell individually.

Guild Wars version: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Raiment_of_the_Lich

I’d honestly rather they went for a quick AFK after the queue has popped and they accept, than them being at, e.g., the toilet when it pops and it timing out. I hate when queue pops, especially after waiting for a while, and that one person didn’t accept before it times out.

If you play Practice? I agree with you. If you play Unranked? I somewhat agree with you, but people are more serious there and expect you to be at least somewhat aware of what your build can and can’t do, the map layouts, the basic idea of how to win, side objectives and/or mechanics. E.g., I’d never try out a new build in Unranked, I’d go to Practice to, well.. practice. If you play Ranked, you should expect people to be mad if you play terrible. Also, in Practice you don’t necessarily need to have Map/Say/Team/Whisper chat enabled, have it on a combat log or something instead. It’s extremely uncommon to have actual useful chatter occur there. Even if it could be good practice.

Also, make sure you aren’t taking all suggestions as someone telling you what to do, as it may merely be players trying to be helpful by telling you what skills (they think) are highly useful and what traits go well with them. You know, maybe they just wish to help you out? So that you can learn from their knowledge, and ultimately presumably have even more fun by “winning”. That said, not everyone sharing knowledge may perhaps be all that knowledgeable. The mileage may vary on that.
______________

PS: I fail to see how anyone can know if you have anywhere between a toaster or a gaming PC. They’d have to be physically present to know that. If they are in the same room as you, I’d recommend taking it up with them in the real world, not on the forums. Sorry if this is seen as me telling you what to do, I mean it merely as a suggestion.

Just make them explode on less incoming damage taken, they are too tanky as-is for something so passive, and shorten the recasts to compensate. Treat them more like a Mesmer Phantasm—Whaaaaaaaa- – you cry out, baffled with shock, confusion and awe at such a ludicrous suggestion?—No.. really, they got perfectly good range as-is, even if they are stationary. If you were to run away for that range on a Phantasm, it’ll disintegrate on its own, even if the Mesmer stays on you the whole time. At least your turrets can stick around, right? That, or the very least make some conditions work on them. Bleed can be seen as oil leakage, Burn could be seen as fuel catching fire, etc.

Completely agree, I always have fun playing on Mesmer. It’s the one profession I feel engaged 100% on. I don’t snooze and take it easy while playing it (unless I was to play some yawn-PU build I guess), but I rather need to fully focus to perform well and outplay my opponents. I also play with a personal rule of not touching any skills that places me in stealth, so I’ve in that sense increased the challenge a slight bit, as the enemy will never lose their targeting on me. We’re in my opinion the most graceful profession to watch in combat as well. It’s just extremely fun to watch a good Mesmer wreck havoc. It’s.. mesmerizing. Pun intended.

We could use a few buffs in certain departments, e.g., reliable Poison application, not from a Sigil, and the inclusion of Movement Speed on one of our signets (e.g., Signet of Inspiration could have that as a base effect, besides granting a buff every 10 seconds), so that it at least feels a slight bit more optional to run Traveler Runes, but I’m happy that we aren’t easy-mode and fattening from too much cheese. It’s a profession that in most cases requires some skillful play, not a profession that carries the player (not including PU—if you go full stealthard and run PU, the profession build is obviously carrying you). When we do play hard, we can pull off some really impressive things. I can somewhat understand that they are careful about buffing us too much.

Get Halting Strike under Domination and practice your interrupts vs. PvE foes, e.g., use the F3 shatter, Diversion, activate Illusionary Riposte (#4) with your off-hand Sword and activate the Counter Blade follow-up skill (or time it so the enemy hits it while it channels, which will be better damage in most cases, besides creating a clone too). They attack slower than players, so you should have a good enough time to get used to how long between each of their attacks you need to wait.

If you run a Greatsword besides your Sword/Sword setup, use the Illusionary Wave (#5) attack to knock back and interrupt the enemy. The closer you are, the faster Mirror Blade (#2) will bounce between you and your target, adding 6 Vulnerability to it (6% more damage) and giving you 6 stacks of Might. You can use Mind Stab (#3) while Mirror Blade is bouncing back and forth, there’s no need to wait.

You could also try get the Mantra of Distraction utility skill to use for further interrupts. By interrupting enemies, you can deal damage with the Halting Strike trait (in other words, don’t just use your dazes randomly, use them to interrupt an actual incoming skill). Note that on Champions, interrupting is more of a pain, since they have a mechanic called Defiance (something that will be changed for the better with the HoT expansion), which makes them immune to crowd control effects for x amount of incoming crowd controls (minimum 3, scales with players nearby).

Your Sword’s Blurred Frenzy (#2) will deal a decent amount of- and avoid damage as you use it. Take advantage of that. Also, try get some basic Blue/Green equipment. You can get it on the Trading Post for relatively cheap, or feel free to just send me a mail in-game (use the Forum username) and I’ll craft some for you. I should probably have an abundance of materials laying about in my Bank anyways. While the profession is reliant on traits, you should be able to get by in PvE with some practice and understanding of the mechanics. I think a lot of the early struggles is not knowing how to take effective use of all the tools the profession has to it. While you get stronger as you level up, as is the case with all professions, it’s also a profession that gets stronger the more experience you have with it. It can be unforgiving at the start, to new players of it.

Again, if you let us know if you are EU or NA, I’m sure some experienced Mesmer will be more than willing to show you some things you can do to deal with enemies, even at lower levels, single or multiple. Taking you through what they did when showing you, e.g., why they used Illusionary Leap, why they used Swap when they used Swap, why they Blurred Frenzy, why they used Distortion, etc.—Obviously without asking you to swap your weapons if you enjoy Sword/Sword and something else, all combinations can be made to work for general PvE leveling.

The Mesmer profession is highly dependent on its Traits, and, in my opinion, requires more work than other professions when it comes to performing well. It’s one of those professions that you need to invest some time in, to learn the various mechanics and plays you can make with it, before it truly shines. If you have it in you, and are up for a tiny bit of a uphill challenge, then Mesmer is definitely for you. Keep in mind that it was a pain to level at launch (at least to me, and seemingly most players I’ve talked with), and it is even more of a pain currently (as Fay explained above), but if you endure it, and master it, you will have a very powerful, not forgetting fun, profession available to yourself. To me, this is the one profession I have actual proper fun with. The one profession where I feel that I need to be an actively engaged player behind the keyboard, not half asleep, like while I’ve been playing with a whole lot of the other professions. It requires hard work, some would call that skill. And I like that.

You can go into the Heart of the Mists and try it out a little bit, of course, but keep in mind that you’re not necessarily getting your knowledge of how to play a profession like that, unlike when leveling and learning how to play it in the various scenarios presented to you in PvE. It will put you at a disadvantage from the get-go if all you do is rely on sPvP to learn it, as that venue is very unforgiving to make mistakes in and it can be hard to take it slow and learn how to do something properly. That’s not to say you can’t jump into Practice and start learning by facing real-world opponents, but it’ll be a harsh reality when you likely die, over and over and over. Mesmer is not a profession I’d say most players can just take into Structured and be decent at, but I’m sure some people can, maybe you’re one of those. I would never recommend anyone to skip the leveling curve though, on any profession, even if it’s frustrating. You do learn how to cope with situations in PvE as well, how to get more efficient at bursting without relying on some standardized combo that everyone tries to use (and is ultimately extremely easy to counter by anyone with half a brain), how to survive when toe to toe with a Veteran or a Champion. How to kite. Deal with ranged attacks. Etc.—A basic framework to build upon in PvP.

The Mesmer has some of the arguably best versatile utility in the game at their fingertips with their Trait options, and when capitalized upon efficiently (which takes more work than your average profession), it can be an absolute monster when it comes to PvP devastation.

Don’t worry, our damage is not necessarily bad. We can blast people and foes very quickly with the right traits and a somewhat decent/good player behind the character, it just requires more work on your end. And Sword/Sword is a excellent combination of weapons. The Illusionary Riposte has excellent damage output in a Power build, and is easy to proc in PvE (somewhat in PvP too if you get good at forcing dodges and judging when they are out of them), it also generates a clone so that you can shatter for additional damage. And has the benefit of being another Daze if you activate it instead of blocking an attack, so if you trait into Halting Strikes, you can both interrupt a enemy and deal upwards to 3k+ damage (depends on Vulnerability on the target and the Might stacks you carry on you currently—I’ve had numbers in the slightly-below 6k ranges occur, which is roughly a third of a good amount of players health in sPvP!), while denying them skill usage for a second (and I know that seems like nothing, but it can feel like an eternity if you are on the receiving end). The Swordsman Phantasm deals great damage and has the benefit of jumping out of most harms way between each poke, but unless you wish to specialize in Phantasms (and I don’t think that is our stronger suite, and rather limits our potential gravely), I’d use it as a way to spike a shatter by allowing it to hit once, before blowing it up in your targets face.

Keep in mind that I love the Mesmer profession, I am biased in my opinions of it. If you let us know if you play on the EU or NA side, I’m sure some of the Mesmers here on the forums can come show you in person to what extent our profession can be used. Or you could look up a few YouTube videos I guess, that’s also an option. There’s bound to be a few.

PS: On the subject of illusions not switching targets, keep in mind that we are creating an illusion for our specified target. We are deceiving their minds, so when they die, our illusions die with them.

wauwi.9162:

Not the shiniest, but meh.

The armor sure doesn’t seem suited for battle, but isn’t that, what we all like about MMO’s?

RPG logic for female character’s armor, the more skin shown, the more it defends. (If only that was true with our Mesmers T-T) Nice color synchronization. Fits well with the hair color too!

Pretty sure there’s some sticky topics here in the Mesmer forums that can get you going. I haven’t really read into them, so not sure how good they are, but there are plenty of great Mesmer players here, so I assume they are good.

Ultimately, experiment and play around with the different weapon combinations until you find something you like and enjoy playing with. If you hate playing with a Staff, even though it’s a nicely defensive weapon which can generate some clones and re-direct players off a spot with its Chaos Storm—well, you wouldn’t exactly enjoy playing with it, so why torture yourself? If you love Scepter/Sword and get really good at using those block skills, even if it’s rare to see a Mesmer using those, who’s to say you shouldn’t use those? Experiment a bit. I personally like GS and Sword/Sword the most atm.

Staple Sigil for most Mesmers is probably an Energy one at least. Many Mesmers also run Traveler Runes to circumvent what feels like the slowest profession in the world when it comes to mobility (it’s not that bad).

cyyrix.6105:

Absconditus.6804:

…

Holy walls of text, Batman! If you want people to understand (or even read) your arguments, try to be more concise. Your post history looks like a mass grave for words.

Anyhow, intentional interrupts are very difficult vs. most thieves (save HS, HiS and bassi). Haphazardly guessing with them can work against some classes (engi, for example), but with thieves it is generally a losing game.

Oh no! Someone on the internet uses words! On a forum at that! Rude! Call the.. call the.. someone! Halp! It dazes my poor brain to see words written out in paragraphs and I must call it a wall of text, even though it is not by any standards. I am so insulted to see a post that has more than 3 sentences!

And no, intentional interrupts are not very difficult vs thieves. An inexperienced-with-interrupts Mesmer might think that though. E.g., take on their #1. It’s a predictable pattern. And again, that’s why you string out the Diversion with your own Illusionary Persona being very reliable as the first hit, to increase the odds. You try create your clones a certain range apart, before going for the dazes.

Your poor brain able to read this? Too many words to handle? Did my Diversion hit you on the forums again? Maybe I just like playing Mesmer too much if it works here too.

Hey, if all else fails, we always got Moa, right? Treat the whole profession as a Lich/Plague Form, heh..

SlimChance.6593:

Absconditus.6804:

…. Well, Halting Strike helps by including some damage upon preventing them from doing something we don’t want them to do, and our interrupts, especially our dazes will stop them in their tracks IF LANDED CORRECTLY …

I’m sorry but that’s misleading. Halting Strike ONLY hurts when there is an “Interrupt”. With their initiative system, very rarely, does a daze do ANYTHING to a thief.

Only hard control effects are reliable(push, pull, ,knockdowns, stuns, etc) That’s why they all “screamed bloody murder” with the initial Power Block.

Not sure what is misleading about it.

It’s not necessarily hard to daze out a Thief as they try to do an attack, which causes an interrupt. It can be especially easy to daze the highly popular D/P Thief on the HS animation to prevent the stealth and hurt them in the process. By stringing out your clones a bit you can chain those dazes to improve on the chance of the interrupt (Halting Strike) happening at least once, if not more as they potentially try to use some other skill(s). Not all of them are likely to cause an interrupt, but when landed correctly, as in you are interrupting a skill, it hurts them and locks them out of skill usage for a second. “Correctly” would also assume that you stringed them to some extent and not had all shatters occur at once. Anyways, a second is something you can capitalize on by dealing damage and using further CC. With IP you have up to 4 shots at dazing, yourself being a very reliable first daze, and it’s honestly somewhat hard to dodge all the remaining 3 of those clones if strung out “correctly”, once you’re initially dazed. But that requires some play from our side too of course, and it’s not like that’s easy-cheesy mode to pull off all the time with a 100% consistency. It’s pretty satisfying when you land it though.

And that’s of course not all the sources we have to interrupt with. E.g., I run Sw/Sw and GS, so I can throw another daze if I don’t want to try Block an attack (kinda ineffective against a Thief who attacks so fast that they hit you anyways right away after you blocked that one initial attack), or I can switch to GS and knock them back. I don’t run the Mantra granted, nor do I run the Signet, although that are obviously options too for even more of a lock down setup. I mainly play as a shatter would though, in a 4/4/0/0/6 build, with a bit of skill interrupts tied into it.

Obviously, while they are dazed, hopefully in succession, it’s about taking advantage of them being visible and bombing the best you can. E.g., as you set it up (and you better get used to playing up close and personal if you’re not) having created upwards to the 3 clones, shatter the strung out Diversion with your IP hitting first, Illusionary Leap, wait for a potential dodge/Shadow Step for a tiny second, Swap to Immobilize or wait until it will land, weapon swap to GS, Mirror Blade up close and personal for the instant bounces (I tend to run the +1 Bounce trait for some added damage as well), as you do a Mind Stab, follow with the Berserker, and knock them over with Illusionary Wave, perhaps the other way around, Mind Wrack, etc.—it’s not like I can sit here and write out what is to actually happen in combat, that’s dynamic, the IW could’ve interrupted something, they may have been interrupted by the chained dazes more than once, and so on forth, but that’s an example of how something can play out. It can completely backfire and go all in favor of the Thief too of course. That’s what’s fun about PvP right? It not being all predictable.

The very reason that Thief has Initiative, not CD’s, is what can make them prone to playing a bit.. more spammy than other professions. Their attacks are also rather fast, making the chance of a daze train to hit more than once and actually interrupting, at least with how it feels like to me, semi increased over someone who’s a bit of a slower attacker. But yeah, in the end, they are hard countering us rather hard. I would expect to get killed by thieves from time to time. They are the assassin’s, the single-out-and-kill-before-retreating profession. We are relatively squishy targets, very much their prey. It takes a whole lot of effort to fight back and actually defeat the decent ones, where as they can take it pretty easy while fighting not just us, but mostly anyone. I’ve played a Thief for about 1000 hours of the 5200 I’ve played in total since launch. I never found it to be a particularly difficult profession to play with all the stealth available and the really strong damage output. It got a bit more challenging when I gave myself rules of avoiding stealth unless it was for split seconds to use in-stealth skills (such as Tactical Strike) and relying more on evades though, but that’s just me being weird.

jportell.2197:

Absconditus.6804:

Definitely helps against a lot of thieves too, as they tend to attack in rapid succession, making a strung out Diversion pretty effective. Not going to help against every Thief, but a whole bunch of them blow themselves up when interrupted. I’d say Masterful Reflection is another oft overlooked trait as well, that can actually help a whole lot in PvP.

Masterful reflection is my favorite trait (outside of iPersona/DE of course). Nothing better than having a LB rapid fire ranger blow himself up. Then hate whisper you for playing something cheesy.

I know, right? It’s also hilarious to cause Longbow Warriors to Immobilize themselves, D/P Thieves to Blind themselves when they try using a Shadow Shot to get close to you, Necromancers to hit a whole bunch of their skills back at themselves. The list goes on. It’s a really fun and useful trait in PvP. I also like how it’s very visually distinct that you have traited it, so the enemy can counter play on it when they see it activated. Pretty sure the sound effect is slightly changed too.

In before we get Power Flux as a Elite on “Chronomancer”, hehe. Honestly, what they told us so far sounded a bit overpowered to me. Like someone went a bit nuts when designing a new profession. One profession to rule them all!

Thieves are our hard counter, sure, but pause and consider what is the major issues with them and us. Their high damage, and their stealth, as well as their mobility of course. So how can we prevent that? Well, Halting Strike helps by including some damage upon preventing them from doing something we don’t want them to do, and our interrupts, especially our dazes will stop them in their tracks if landed correctly. Of all our shatters, a well placed Diversion is our best defense against a Thief (imo.). They aren’t exactly bunkers, what they got going for themselves is their ability to just hide from our sight with their stealth skills, something the majority of them will want to do, all the time. Shut them out of their stealth, and they are actually rather easy to deal with, unless they are experienced in using all the evades they have as well. That’s not to say all thieves are easy to lock down though, there are some brilliant Thief players out there, and I’m willing and ready to get bent over, without the flowers and a dinner first, when they come my way. But just like with a stealth-using Mesmer who gets denied stealth, a Thief denied stealth will be somewhat destroyed in most cases. They rely on it too much and panic without it. Then they rage at your ability to interrupt them of course.

For that matter, you could use Moa on them if you are in a trolling kind of mood, though that’s probably best saved for Lich Form—I’ve never been cussed at so much as when I recently Moa’d a Necro in Lich Form I might add. Then I was a noob, a lame Moa user, a talentless puddle of mud under the hoof of a pig, to put it in milder terms than what was sent my way. I’m not arguing that Moa isn’t a bit of a.. troll move. But hey, Lich Form hurts me and my team. Like.. a lot.

Another problem with thieves, is perhaps that they rarely come at you alone. There’s always a Ranger nearby, a Engineer, another Mesmer, etc.—Always some other enemy lurks in the vicinity, and at that point, trying to survive can almost become pointless (not just for us, but practically any profession). That’s when it can get frustrating. Kinda like trying to go at a Turret Engineer on your own. To try take on a Ele built into high sustain with their million heals. A regen-sustained Berserker Warrior. Some Guardians after they got a damage increase while still keeping their excellent sustain. That’s about as much fun as stabbing a fork in your leg.

Definitely helps against a lot of thieves too, as they tend to attack in rapid succession, making a strung out Diversion pretty effective. Not going to help against every Thief, but a whole bunch of them blow themselves up when interrupted. I’d say Masterful Reflection is another oft overlooked trait as well, that can actually help a whole lot in PvP.

It’s more that players want to believe that specializations will completely change up professions to work drastically different from how they work now. Personally, I doubt that will happen, it’s already a relative mess when it comes to balance, imagine adding another profession, with a specialization that changes it drastically, on top of another 8 classes in a sense, by specializing the current 8 that’s available. It just doesn’t seem feasible. That we get access to new Utility skills and a new weapon, sure. But it’ll still revolve around the same mechanics as it does now. I’m practically 100% certain of that.

All I want from out Specialization, is for the Shield (should we not be massively mistaken and it turns out we get another weapon) Phantasm to use Taunt (once on creation), so that you can create plays by wasting Stun Breakers with some lockdown play, Cry of Frustration w/ Maim and watch and snicker as enemies run and auto-attack themselves out of some health. Scepter + Shield perhaps, force out a Illusionary Counter proc by getting in the way of the auto-attacks, follow up with Confusing Images? A lot of fun things that can be done if we get Taunt like that. Depends how long it lasts of course. In before nerfs.

To understand the mechanics of the Illusions and Phantasms, you need to look at what it is that a Mesmer is doing while fighting others. They use deception and tricks on the mind, to make their target(s) think there is an illusion there, when in “reality”, there is not. A Phantasm is something that is seen, but not really there, it’s a phantom, they in turn, an Illusion. So you are targeting the weak minds of individual targets, making them see things that are not there. If your target is defeated, your mind control over this person is no longer there, thus, the illusion breaks. Likewise, if your target has a strong willpower, they will break your illusion(s) on their own.

Now one could question how these things can do AoE damage, when you are tormenting the mind of a single individual, but that can simply be because you spread the fear and deception to nearby enemies, through your manifestation of something that is not real, in the mind of one individual screaming out at non-existing terrors in the night. Who’s to say that through the thick smoke of illusions, the crazed individual you are controlling, are not only hurting him-/herself, but also nearby allies, as they flail about with their weapons, swinging at phantoms and ghosts.

This is also how you can think about what is going on when you shatter their illusions, wrecking their minds, confusing them at what has just occured, making them cry out in frustration, as a diversion to their ability to think straight temporarily, or through distorting their sight, making them miss their attacks on you.

And remember, we are are nowhere near as powerful as the Mesmers from the Mesmer Collective. Those guys can unveil incredibly tall towers, hidden in the middle of a lake (by other powerful, evil Mesmers), create Portals to their own desired location. Blink across gaps which you could not normally run to reach, make everyone think they are wearing clothes, even though they are practically naked, and so on forth. We are weak in comparison. Those guys can probably create illusions that manifest themselves far more dominantly in the world. We, the weaker Mesmers, can not.

Essona.9620:

Rentlle.1370:

PRINCESS MESMERS ftw!!!

my mesmer’s evolution; which one do you prefer??

What are all the armor pieces in that last outfit? Absolutely in love and would love to use it on my own!

That’s the Carapace armor set, or the Luminescent skin set which looks the same, but that glows in a pulsing manner (—you get that for collecting every Carapace piece, for every armor weight as well as a few other items in Silverwastes). You can get 3 parts easily by repeating Episode 5, 7 and 8 of Season 2 in the Living Story/World across 3 different characters. The body is from the culmination of the large meta event in Silverwastes. I believe it was gloves you can get out of the chest within the Labyrinth and boots are from the Treasure Chests that you dig up elsewhere in Silverwastes (or open at the end of the over-arching meta event, and you get 3 keys for those, as well as a key for the chest in the Labyrinth from that event. I may be remembering what comes out of what type of chest wrong). You should also be able to finish the sPvP Reward track for Silverwastes to get the gloves (non-repeatable I think), and there is one step in the Story that you can obtain them from once (not repeatable across different characters). Alternatively, should you have terrible luck, you can farm up Bandit Crests to buy a box of Carapace boots/gloves/etc. at a vendor in Silverwastes, but note that you will need some Ascended accessory (that you do not get from playing through the Story/getting Achievements), so you already need to invest some Bandit Crests for that, as well as for extracting body parts from the Mordrems. Note that the boots in that last outfit looks like they are from the Phoenix Light skin which you can get from the Gem Store. The set that Kasmeer uses. Those are not the Carapace boots.

Absconditus.6804:

Vella’s new hybrid (Dire+Berserker) style. Aimed for a bit of an angelic look.

Decided to go for an angelic look again (I know, very original, right..) on Vella’s Berserker set, using the glow of the Luminescent skin set (Silverwastes), boosted further by Sunrise (well, during daytime anyways), the Light of Dwayna (Recipe, check Trading Post) and the Wreath of Cooperation (Gem Store). Minor difference from what I currently had, being mainly dyes, though it has a rather drastically different feel to it (at least in my opinion). Using Pyre-, Electro Peach- and Celestial dye on the armor. For the laurels I use Green Apple- and Illumination dye (I know a part is technically metal, but it’s hard to see so I’m treating it as shading/highlights on the leaves). Celestial hair- and eye color. The halo is from the Selfless Potion (uncertain if that can be obtained again or not, haven’t checked NPC’s in LA). I believe that should cover any potential “Hmm.. what is—”, regarding what is what and colored how, if a newer player should look at it and like something but not know what things are. It’s not going to be everyone’s taste of course, that’s ok. Note that the dyes look rather drastically different with the Luminescent set than on other armor skins, due to how it glows in its pulsing manner. The hairstyle and face (as well as the Celestial color for the hair and eyes) are unique to the Total Makeover Kit (Gem Store). The face sliders has been tweaked. She’s Human. Uhm.. that’s it. I think.

Ross Biddle.2367:

You use Deceptive Evasion? Man, Deceptive Evasion is such a crutch. A real Mesmer gets by without DE. If you run DE you’re no skill. If you’d just put DE down you’d learn to get by without it just fine. Sure you’d die sometimes, everybody does if we’re being honest, but DE is a crutch and good mesmers get by just fine without it.

I’m not used to this, is that about right?

Yes, because DE makes your foes lose targeting and sight of you. It totally makes you hide from your enemies, and totally makes it so that you don’t need to learn how to defend against a enemy that is constantly able to see you, as most of your enemies are seen constantly by you. It’s a unfair advantage to those professions without it, to generate clones on dodges. It is something that makes you lose the ability to contest a point in structured even. Yup. Totally.

It’s true though, you can get by just fine without DE, of course. It’s in no way required to generate illusions to shatter with. Sw/Sw can already output 3 illusions by itself, e.g., start with Swordsman as that’s more survivable and you want that to either trigger a dodge or deal some damage before you explode it, follow up with Riposte and Leap to shatter. That can be made into a quick, relatively instant burst. Stay close to your target of course, so the clones aren’t running over to them, giving it away. I can easily play without it, can you? Or is it necessary, like stealth?

DE helps optimize damage. Stealth does not. Stealth just lets you lean back on that crutch to relieve the necessity of actually optimizing your active defenses as a target.

Off-subject; Know what I find curious about you and Fay? I’ve never seen you once admit that you get defeated by others in any of your posts. I may have missed such statements of course, it’s not like I have likely read all of your posts, considering you are active, as I used to be and are a bit more again now. Anyways, it’s as if you’re some God entity infallible of making mistakes in combat. You’re both poking fun at the fact I stated I get defeated like everyone does, so that makes it seem you hold yourselves in very high regard. Are you that stuck up and high on your horses? Do you think that highly of yourself? Do you think you are such an amazing player that you’re beyond admitting that others can actually defeat you in combat? Is it that you can’t drop stealth and still perform well on the profession? So anyone saying otherwise must be lying or something? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m a better player than you are, but I don’t get why you guys never seem to show any sense of a humble nature.

All I want, is for Mesmers to realize they have so much more potential than relying on stealth as a get out of jail card, and playing in the same cookie cut way of playing that everyone else plays. Rarely do I see someone play to our supportive sides. I want our players to become better and better. We’re the greatest profession in the game (subjectively opinionated and biased as it gets). Stealth does not promote getting better at actively defending and fighting someone who can see you at all times and easily distinguish you from your clones throughout the entire engagement. Playing without it, and getting better at it, does. If you don’t want to play without stealth, then don’t, play what is fun for you, that is the main idea of a game, for it to be fun. For you. E.g., if you like conditions, then go for it, I’ll gladly be one of those that’d hop into a dungeon with you, if that is what you find fun. I want the game to be fun, as much as I want you to get better as a player. The same way I want to get better, while having fun. Keep in mind that if I was destroyed consistently without stealth, I would likely not have much fun. It’s a reason I use the build above. It’s fun. For me. It can be used in all aspects of the game, to get better and better at it. It’s not like it’s a selfish and poorly optimized build that has no place in the x, y or z part of the game. It is a supportive damage-oriented build that increases your parties damage output as well as your own, but also a build you can use when you actually are on your own. You obviously swap out things if it makes sense to the situation.

I’d rather want to see Confusion completely re-worked into one of the old, great, Guild Wars Mesmer skills, Cry of Frustration. Basically, a condition that lasts for x seconds (duration as-is now I guess with traits working as they do), that has no stacks to it, just one, but should the player(s) with Confusion on them use a skill, themselves and nearby targets suffers Daze for 1 second and takes x damage and the condition clears until re-applied. I loved CoF, I don’t really like Confusion all that much as a mechanic. I never found it interesting here. It’s always felt less tactical. Application of Confusion would need to be re-balanced as well of course.

Fay.2357:

There’s not a single build that works effectively for every game mode (WvW zerg, WvW roam, Dungeons, open world PvE, tPvP). Maaaaaaybe you could find something that works sorta ok for all of them with some weapon and major trait changes, but I sorta doubt that too.

sPvP: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8clknpItFoxMNUrNCrxg6s26MSOQAlMkrB-TJxHwADuIAn3fAwTAQZZAA
WvW/PvE: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8clknpItFoxMNUrNCrxg6s26MSOQAlMkrB-T1xHwADuoC+U+de/h16eirEEwTKQv6PBAOA+938tv993f/9yLv8yLvcXP86Dv+6lCQPZWA-w

Same build, pretty much no difference beyond obvious stats tailoring outside of structured. Plays exactly the same way, and has the same exact purpose—team support while dealing damage, but with the capability of functioning by itself on your own, e.g., roaming or general open-world PvE. It takes roughly 5 seconds to create 16 stacks of Might, combined with 25 stacks of Vulnerability. Might which can be shared to your party for a quick Time Warp burst. Are you going to say that you can’t shatter in a WvW zerg perhaps? Because don’t even try to say that’s not possible—you’d have to be rather intelligently challenged and try to be in the middle of the enemy zerg, on Mesmer at that, if you think it’s impossible to shatter the enemy zerg players with an harassment squad. You know, those little groups that specialize in taking out individuals in the backline and thinning the ranks of the enemies. Very often targeting the Elementalists to kill off their heal support. Boon strip is wonderful is it not?

Obviously swap out Utility skills (mainly Blink) for, e.g., Feedback and such should you really need the reflects in a dungeon. But otherwise, it plays the same as elsewhere.

There’s no huge difference in s/tPvP either. You use your skills to support your team, you roam to where you’re needed, but can hold your own in a 1v1 scenario should that occur. If that occurs away from the point you’re heading to, you can Block, Blink, Distortion to get to your team, there’s little point in randomly engaging off the points when you could spend that time assisting in taking a point for your team to tick more than the enemies. You may have trouble with thieves and if you get outnumbered by burst-heavy players, but even with Decoy you’ll likely have trouble with a good Thief or if outnumbered, they are a hard counter to Mesmers and anyone will struggle when outnumbered by strong bursters. Surviving by running away from-, or being in stealth around the point in structured is hardly what I consider winning, you just lost that point, the enemy team is now ticking higher than you. Not that you are supposed to be a point guard, but should the situation arise, and it will, you could have been visible, kept yourself in that circle and used the block, evade, distortion, dazes, knockback, cripple, immobilize and dodges to maintain neutrality and/or gain progress as your team can get to you. In stealth, you aren’t doing that, you are allowing the opposition to gain a upper hand.

Yes, I think stealth is a crutch, because I know the Mesmer profession can survive rather well without it. Of course I will be honest enough to admit I will be defeated, everyone gets bloody defeated. The most bunkery of PU will get defeated. No matter if you run stealth or not, (edit) health regen on Warriors are annoying (as a whole, not just the Boon which we can shatter off), even if you were to use a Doom sigil to try counter it (given they can shed it rather easily). Stealth or not, Guardian is another Heavy profession that is not as easily blown up, albeit a bit easier. I’m perfectly capable of accepting and stating that there are better players out there than me, players that will outplay me, players who will kill my character with ease, just like I outplay some players myself, without resorting to stealth. I dislike stealth, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to fight against someone in stealth (e..g, make it impossible for them to do anything while in stealth through evasion/block/distance, be aware of where and when they pop out of it for quick re-targeting, set up clones and camp for a quick burst should they engage from stealth or quickly shatter upon them entering it, should you be right by them (you can shatter just fine without 3 clones of course), predict and Mind Stab, Illusionary Wave, etc.). I just don’t want to be yet another person who uses it.

I don’t really use a rotation and/or combo. I tend to Diversion before I Mind Wrack though, 4 stacks of Might and 25 stacks of Vulnerability after a Mirror Blade has been tossed in their faces, which again is another 6 stacks of Might (10), kinda helps. But those things can come at random times depending on the fight, I don’t always open with the same things, nor do I always continue in a predictable rotation as I fight. I guess I tend to shatter after Illusionary Riposte, depends if I used it while I had any Phantasms and/or clones out already, or how low the health of the opponent is. Nope, too hard to just say I have a favorite combo, as I don’t have a specific combo.

PS: Never, ever, use Illusionary Leap right after swapping to your Sword. Any decent player knows that is the first thing you will likely do. Throw them off by using it randomly or expect it to be dodged in most cases.

Or use the Sword offhand block at the right moment for that matter, either removing the remaining endurance the opponent has, as he/she dodges on the blocked message, or dealing a good amount of damage—while creating another clone ready to be bopped. You may even consider to continue by using Blurred Frenzy and some dodges on your own, then swap back to Greatsword, regaining endurance from a Energy sigil perhaps, maybe even steal some life in the process with Leeching, etc.—I agree, Mesmer isn’t a one trick pony.

As for what happened to our lovely clone AI and damage, complaints did. Just like Confusion was complained about and nerfed. Just like any nerf to pretty much any profession really. Something, players didn’t understand how to counter properly, was complained about in droves, and ArenaNet nerfed it. It’s a shame really that a part of our damage is from paper clones which dies with harsh looks. I think they could do with a bit better AI again, as well as a boost in base health.

Meanwhile, they still haven’t given us a reliable way to Poison our targets, to counter, e.g., the excessive Regeneration that Warriors have gotten with their boosts. Balance at its best through ArenaNet’s team.

Tinfoil hat; They have someone that hates Mesmers, that pulls a lot of strings.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Absconditus.6804:

I run a no-stealth Mesmer setup just fine, which works perfectly okay for all game modes, and that without needing to swap any gear or traits. Sure, I get killed if I am outnumbered (as to be expected), or a decent Thief is on me. Sure it can be annoying to fight HP regeneration-master-race Warriors or survivable not-really-all-that-glass cannon-but-hits-like-a-truck-nonetheless-since-their-re-balance-which-took-a-balanced-profession-I-loved-and-made-it-unbalanced Guardians.

But if you need Decoy? No. You don’t need The Prestige, Veil or Mass Invisibility either. You can be competitive without using the crutch that is stealth. That’s how I see it, a crutch, as hiding from sight is not a display of skill. The enemy couldn’t see you or what you were doing. Hence, it’s a crutch.

It can be something that tricks you into thinking you may be decent, when you really aren’t (in the majority of cases) the second you stop using it. And that sudden change from being a winner to a wiener, is not because the profession needs stealth to function. It is because you actually used a crutch and aren’t as good as you think you are. Try it, if you’ve been a stealth user for a long time. It’s kinda like thieves saying they need stealth (beyond triggering in-stealth skills, e.g., Backstab) when a great Thief knows that they have so many evades that stealth is not entirely necessary for them. Once in a blue moon you come by them, but they’ll demolish you as well. The good players, not the ones that ride on a crutch.

I am a proud Mesmer, proud of not using stealth. You can probably defeat me just fine in PvP, but I don’t care. At least I weren’t using stealth. That said, if you enjoy using stealth skills, and that is fun to you, by all means, use it, have fun. That is ultimately what matters. Just be humble enough to realize it is a OP tool that means you probably aren’t as good as you may think you are, even if you win a lot of 1 v X.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw

You’re in desperate need of reading this. Play to win.

I already play to win. That’s why I run a build that actually shares the 16 stacks of Might I can generate within about 5 seconds of engaging. Why I back up my team members who are outnumbered and why I play for the points, and not for necessarily the individual kills. Everyone gets killed if outnumbered, it happens if you have stealth or not. Every profession has a counter that somewhat melts them. You can play to win, while still actually improving skill wise, which stealth is not really helping you with. All stealth does is make you invisible to your enemies, meaning they had no real way of reacting to what you did as you were hidden from sight. They can predict, and most decent players will, but they can’t know. You also break targeting, instead of learning how to survive using our various abilities to interrupt, evade and deal damage, while being the constant target of damage. Not sure what half the things you highlighted in bold text were supposed to point out either.

I run a no-stealth Mesmer setup just fine, which works perfectly okay for all game modes, and that without needing to swap any gear or traits. Sure, I get killed if I am outnumbered (as to be expected), or a decent Thief is on me. Sure it can be annoying to fight HP regeneration-master-race Warriors or survivable not-really-all-that-glass cannon-but-hits-like-a-truck-nonetheless-since-their-re-balance-which-took-a-balanced-profession-I-loved-and-made-it-unbalanced Guardians.

But if you need Decoy? No. You don’t need The Prestige, Veil or Mass Invisibility either. You can be competitive without using the crutch that is stealth. That’s how I see it, a crutch, as hiding from sight is not a display of skill. The enemy couldn’t see you or what you were doing. Hence, it’s a crutch.

It can be something that tricks you into thinking you may be decent, when you really aren’t (in the majority of cases) the second you stop using it. And that sudden change from being a winner to a wiener, is not because the profession needs stealth to function. It is because you actually used a crutch and aren’t as good as you think you are. Try it, if you’ve been a stealth user for a long time. It’s kinda like thieves saying they need stealth (beyond triggering in-stealth skills, e.g., Backstab) when a great Thief knows that they have so many evades that stealth is not entirely necessary for them. Once in a blue moon you come by them, but they’ll demolish you as well. The good players, not the ones that ride on a crutch.

I am a proud Mesmer, proud of not using stealth. You can probably defeat me just fine in PvP, but I don’t care. At least I weren’t using stealth. That said, if you enjoy using stealth skills, and that is fun to you, by all means, use it, have fun. That is ultimately what matters. Just be humble enough to realize it is a OP tool that means you probably aren’t as good as you may think you are, even if you win a lot of 1 v X.

I got to agree I miss the older Mesmer as well, it looked cooler too when the clones were more active. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0nKx_Ukpec)

I don’t think it’d be very balanced if the illusions were to continue chasing an opponent in stealth. It is already easy enough to predict where a player is, and you can always dodge up a couple clones on the spot and stand among them until the opponent pops out of stealth again. If they are dumb enough to engage you and break their stealth, that’s an easy instant shatter hitting them with some quick reaction. If they, e.g., used Shadow Refuge, bomb it if you’re not going to knock them out of it. I’m not a fan of stealth, and I take care not to use it anymore in my builds, but I don’t think our clones should chase a person in stealth. It’s dumb enough that channeled skills continue to follow them.

Mesmer feels crippled if you fight the wrong profession on your own. Also if you have been consistently using the stealth crutch, so learn to play the profession without it. Most decent players knows how to deal with a player who’s in stealth and how to spot you the split second you are out of it. Also embrace the fact that there are better players out there than you, no matter how good you and others think you are. Play to have fun, and while winning is fun, losing is a part of the game too. It can be frustrating, it can feel like the devs has it in for you, but try accept that you may just be having a bad day, maybe a week. Rage a bit, scream at your monitor, curse at the devs, vent out and carry on.

No—but again, stealth is a crutch, so take off the training wheels already and learn to play and survive without hiding from view. You will become a better player for it. If you get downed, take pride in the fact that you at least didn’t hide. When you win, more so against a stealth’er, enjoy the feeling of superiority. You kicked those crutches out from under their feet, and stomped on their faces afterwards for good measure.. or.. left them bleeding. After you’re actually good at surviving without stealth, go ahead and put the cheese on thick if you really want it, but chances are you won’t anymore. There’s more pride in surviving and being useful, without hiding from sight. At least there is to me.

Keep in mind that it is a profession that excel at helping out in team fights, it’s basically a supportive roamer, not a point guard or necessarily a solo claimer. We’re the magical rogue of the game, with mostly AoE damage spikes and effects, as opposed to Thief, who excel at the same task, but more at single target assassinations. Also, as opposed to (most) thieves, we are actually rather well balanced when it comes to support, and are less self-centered (with our innate AoE effects), no matter how we build ourselves. So use that mini map and locate your team, as you can quickly assert where you have buddies engaged with others, without needing anyone to tell you so. For that matter, use your intuition, it’s usually going to be correct. Where would you go? Players are habit creatures, they will go for certain points depending on what is going on elsewhere (the same way they tend to end up using the same rotations of skills in sequence).

Also keep in mind that if we were good at killing every single profession, that’d be unbalanced as well. Every profession excel at killing some other professions. Feel free to taunt people by calling them out on what you consider cheese though, even if it’s fair that it’s a counter to yourself. That’s just mild innocent amusement and it tends to make them aim for you more, which gives you more practice at defending against (and killing) what you may have trouble with initially.

As a Mesmer, you should be able to deal with pretty much anything but a (good) Thief though, which is what I’d consider to be our hard counter—and although that doesn’t mean you can’t kill them too, it’s just more difficult than with the other professions.

Play Mesmer supportive to the team you’re with, use your shatters to remove Boons, deal AoE damage, gain Might (one Mirror Blade, to a full shatter, is 10 stacks of Might, swap your weapons with a Battle sigil to make that 12, do another shatter and hit 16 within seconds), share that Might with Signet of Inspiration (or enjoy the random Boons otherwise (such as Aegis which can cause players to dodge)), use Time Warp on team fights to gain a upper hand at a critical point (fast stomp (to rally)/-resurrect), cleanse not only your own Conditions, but your team mates’ as well.

Here, try something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8clknpItFoxMNUrNCrxg6s26MSOQAlMkrB-TJxHwADuIAn3fAwTAQZZAA —it’s what I currently run myself, so I know that it works just fine.

Make sure you are up close to your target, so that you can gain the Might from Mirror Blade and to speed up the damage burst. Apply that tasty Vulnerability before a spike. If your enemy dodges the Illusionary Riposte, success, you just took one evade away from them, if they didn’t, enjoy the high damage spike and clone. Don’t always feel there is a need to have 3 clones before a shatter, you can deal spike damage with just one or two of them as well. And if all you need is a tiny burst, use your Illusionary Persona. Time Warp is great for quickly getting a downed team member back on their feet. It also creates a quick damage burst for the team, albeit at the cost of CD rotations being thrown off, but if you rely on a rotation in PvP, you’re bad anyways, right? Share your buffs! Those you gain through other team members as well. Be supportive in team fights. Ultimately, only play the profession if you enjoy it. If you don’t, perhaps another one is better suited for you?

Vella’s had a little bit of an appearance change again, dressing up in the lovely Luminescent armor and sporting Copper Red hair. The dyes used on the armor are Pyre, Flame and Charred (on the metals). Her eyes are now Celestial, which goes well with the Necromancer’s Wraith Masque. I really like this “new” armor, with how it pulses and glows.

Adding myself to this as well. (Connecting from Europe, Norway specifically.)

I also keep logging in dead, even though I haven’t been in combat. People resurrect me each time I log in, then after I disconnect, I find myself dead in the same spot again. It’s as if the server doesn’t save the updated state.

coglin.1867:

They cannot allow it to stack, but have a cap on it. Because then many players would have skills not take effect and it is unfair to anyone who wasted a skill once the cap was met. So what is a solution? As I see it, the solution is to stop ccomplaining when you get into combat and a large amount of enemies, accept that you reacted to slowly to escape, and accept your death.

By that notion, I want my Dazes to stack as well. I want to shatter you and give you 4 seconds of Daze, then another second from Power Lock. Let’s throw in a Counter Blade for another second on top of that. Of course, there might be other professions that can Daze nearby, so you should of course get their duration stacked on top of my 6 seconds of Daze already applied to you. Fair? Ok, great, let’s make it happen team. You do realize how idiotic it is to say that Immobilize has to be possible to stack, right? It does not. It used to be annoying, because some professions has access to 4 second long Immobilizes, now it’s just infuriating at times, to get rooted in place for what feels like an eternity. It’s about as fun as it is to be on the receiving end of a really good (lucky) interrupt Mesmer.

Professions such as Mesmer are however, rather balanced on this condition. They do 1 second of Immobilize from one skill. It actually feels pointless at times. Or they need to actively do something, interrupts, to root you in place for 2 seconds. That is not overpowered. A couple sources of 4 seconds is, but then again, Warrior is ArenaNet’s little toolkit for everything with a low skill ceiling, so it’s not surprising that it has that too, is it?

I don’t think it was OP, nor is it necessarily OP now, but it became a proper annoyance when they allowed for it to stack in duration. That was one of the most horrible decisions they ever had and went through with, PvP-wise (WvW), at least in my opinion.