Guild Wars 2

I think Consume Plasma is completely fine. But I’m laughing at all of these bad thieves saying Mesmer is bad for losing to them, or Mesmer is hard. I’m not a bad Mesmer, and I can beat Thieves…but in high level play Thief > Mesmer. I could name so many thieves I cannot beat more than twice in ten fights. Sizer, Chozen, Red Levin, Sensotix, Anonymous, Smoozi, Atrastea, A Br A, Ventari. I could probably name more.

Skilled players dodging shatters? I barely miss my shatters on opponents, and they would only dodge an overused combo such as sword 3-3-2.

I can only speak from the perspective of a Mesmer. P/P, D/P and D/D are rarely played, however these are normally free kills. D/D I can beat if I catch them off guard or before they burst me, but it’s not exactly played or viable for thieves atm. Meta thief builds are more of a struggle, Thief is the direct counter to Mesmer in these circumstances. Both builds have built in defense in their melee bursts and an equally skilled opponent should never lose to an equally skilled mesmer in a 1v1. I have to outplay thieves dramatically to beat them.

However, Mesmer is very nerfed and has so many bugs it is pretty much un viable in PvP unless played by someone very good with the class, as I see other Mesmers as free kills if I catch them offguard. Thief has its problems but I think it shouldn’t be reworked because it easily kills mesmers, they compete for the same role and thief generally does it better in direct damage, however Mesmers have bigger burst.

If you see a thief coming you can dodge and interrupt and attempt to nuke them but the only build that can effectively beat thieves like this is a staff / greatsword shatter build. If you’re in EU go in the dueling servers and watch top Mesmers play, often enough they do beat thieves, but remember they are top.

Nice write up to teach newer players interested in this (godly) build. You mention Hoelbrak runes over strength for the minus condition duration, but I find that on this build you should always a) kill them before they condi bomb you and b)manage your conditions well, which is why it is harder to play. I personally use Strength or Pirate if on Forest.

Anyway keep updating this, and maybe get some videos from yourself or top players using it to show how its done

The game doesn’t allow this due to global icd. A decently skilled ele, mesmer or thief can chain 4-5 skills and drop 10-15k on you in under 2 seconds though.

In the game? Warrior, Thief, Guard.
Vs Bads Thief, Mesmer, Engineer

2500 games and you consider yourself a noob? I doubt that. Bare in mind however that Mesmer is the least played class and when people want one, they imagine a god that they’ve seen on the streams, and frankly I could name 15 Mesmers I’d consider good to that level in PvP. I’m not sure why, but everyone I’ve met either sucks and wastes cooldowns, or is very good with the class and little in-between hahah.

Anyway, first job is picking of squishy players, you have a huge burst so use it. Second is support, for us that involves boon stripping and controlling fights with interrupts. Time Warp is one of the best elites in the game, but preserve it…I’ve won games where 1 was down on mid vs 2 and I knocked them back, quickness ressed him and downed them both. Third is mobility, make sure your team is getting the points and make sure you are portal-ing them efficiently.

Another thing to note, Celestial D/D is very viable at the moment on Eles, and this Mesmer build and S/D thief are the only builds that can guarantee a 1v1 win, so push them kitten points. Also avoid thief unless you have one on your team to back you up, because they will beat you 9/10 if they are competent.

Very nice for new Mesmers into PvP. Something I’d add is that as a Mesmer in the current meta there are 2 things you must avoid.
1) Unless you are a shatter build, never run directly into a team fight as we have no armor and it will result in your death, I find that (90% of the time) if you kite around the point and pick of weak targets you will help the teamfight more, just remember to use null field and time warp to swing a victory. Bare in mind this does not mean mindlessly spam 1 on greatsword off point.
2) Thieves. A good thief should never lose to a Mesmer in a fair fight, so always target them and get your team-mates to baby sit you until he dies as unless you are very skilled and lucky, you are free food for a thief.

Quick Edit: If you catch a thief low instantly jump him as your quick burst > his. This is just from my experience as a good shatter mesmer, different playstyle to condition or phantasm obviously.

Engineer is an amazing class at point control, survivability and 1v1 fights and isn’t too hard to play at the moment. The reason you don’t see it in high level play is because it easily gets locked down by immobilise, one of them and the whole team can 1 shot you on a point. But since 95% aren’t high level play, use it in soloq.

I haven’t experienced this at all. I play shatter mesmer and I don’t have any troubles with them.

Go full Zerk and if you die get better. It’s the truth, we have enough active defence you might as well go all out.

Staff and Greatsword is amazing for WvW and PvP, and I’ve mained this set for a while. Firstly the might stacking and burst is actually a lot higher than people give it credit for.

Staff is your number one weapon for mobility and controlling the fight, it provides you with teleports and dazes. Remember to use 4 when the enemy is in melee range as it will blind them (if you are lucky), I always see people randomly use it when it is least needed. Do not waste skills on this set. I cannot see your build but I’m going to assume you use the trait Illusionary Elasticity, and if you don’t…take it! What it offers you is the extra bounce which adds to your staff damage and vulnrability, but more importantly it makes Mirror Blade an amazing skill. Mirror Blade will give you 6 might, them 6 vulnerability, it will hit them twice for usually around 2000-3000 on squishies and it is unblockable and a 100% finisher.

Greatsword 3 Mind stab is going to be improved by the developers, but it already removes a boon and does decent damage. This set does require a higher skill as Bunda mentioned above because you don’t have that free shatter combo…but you wont lose to anyone but a skilled thief using it. Kite is key, kite in staff, control them with dazes and chaos storm…when you want to damage them always hit them with Mind Stab then Mirror Blade, as Mirror Blade first hits it will make a clone, hopefully you will have a zerker out so dodge through them and mindwrack…on light armor classes Mirror Blade and 4 Mind wracks will do 12-14k. Do not use Illusionary Wave to set up shatters, just work with them. Make triangles with your clones, get them in the middle and normally all of them will hit.

The most important thing is not wasting skills, so don’t scroll 1-5 then switch, and also to handle your dodges…when you need a dodge and when you need a clone is essential to differentiate.

I’ve never had this problem, you shouldn’t allow an enemy get close to you until you are certain you can burst them, but simply using gs 2 and f1 will do 12-15k damage on a squishy.

Kite them from a distance and utilise the cripple from gs 4, when they get near use gs 5 and then reposition yourself. The number one thing when fighting people as a mesmer with gs I find is that you have to be quick.

For PvE it would seem to be a silly QoL issue as every mob dies so quickly anyway.

Duelling a Mesmer using a Valkyrie Amulet just now to prove how the damage comes quickly and is impossible to react, this was after he’d stealthed and used distortion and the fight lasted about 25 seconds (sorry if you see this it was a fun fight). You can see that my Mirror Images and diversion were off cooldown during this also.

EDIT I’m not hating on you, and I appreciate that you share your builds and ideas, but what people have said here is trying to be constructive.

KingZmaN.6473:

The simple truth of the matter is, there those that want me to believe as they believe regarding Mantras, and, I’m simply saying that I do not believe as you nor will I believe as you regarding Mantras.

And they simply can’t or won’t accept someone disagrees with them regarding Mantras, so they continually try to ‘tear down’ any notion in favor of using Mantras.

I don’t want to jump in on the bandwagon of ganging up on you, but as a greatsword staff shatter mesmer I will chip your health down at 1200 range away before dropping you in a shatter combo, with teleports inbetween.

Want a viable mantra build? Play a lockdown build with mantra of distraction and the mantra heal, saves you two useful utilities and you will have a lot more fun locking people down. 6-4-4-0-0 or 4-4-6-0-0.

I don’t want to come across harsh, but this is just a weaker version of the classic 4-4-0-0-6 Shatter build. You take signet of the ether but you want to be shattering your illusions, and disenchanted would be better replaced by null field in most settings. In PvE you shouldn’t really need either and would be better off taking feedback or mimic.

If you think you can handle the style Staff / GS is the most effective weapon set all around…but it’s harder to play.

Consider Pirate runes as they allow you to get a lot of might just through greatsword 2 and Illusionists elasticity. The parrot hits for about 1.6-3k.

You are a shatter, which should be GC so consider taking air sigils for a bit of extra burst also.

Staff Sword Pistol gives you some mobility and a lot of single target damage, but it won’t be as affective versus tankier bruisers or in 1vX situations. Greatsword and Sword Torch is similar but has more burst damage from prestige, but less control. Sword Focus would be good in team fights as you have a potential reflect, whirl, aoe damage and pull.

Also don’t give up on Mesmer when you meet some Thieves. At the current meta a Thief of equal skill should always beat you, unless you play a stealth build due to how squishy we are and the am mount of active survivability they have through evades and stealth.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

The class and build you play don’t determine your skill level. Your intelligence and reflexes do.

So many people need to understand this, especially in a class such as Mesmer that is going through a tiny rough patch. You can’t just copy and paste a build and play it effectively as you could with a Hambow.

First off the GM’s, they are very situational but not necessarily game changers. A condi shatter build could work with the torment on shatter, but it might not be crazy effective, take a look at osicats condition build. Glassy mesmer builds are very hard to play atm, but you could try a Power PU build. The problem is our best straight damage builds are shatter based which aren’t as good anymore, and the GS/Staff combo requires both exceptional skill and an exceptional team.

1) Helseth is the best (PvP) Mesmer in the game
2) His team was very effective at body blocking him and allowing him to kite enemies.

Agreeing with what has been said above I also believe it is a trend that has carried from PvP into WvW…into PvE. Melee Mesmer used to be viable but due to the class changes there is too many bruiser type builds that outsustain the melee Mesmer and due to our squishy armor we just get bursted down quite quickly. From this the use of Greatsword, despite its nerfs, emerged. In WvW it is extremely efficient due to the ability to kite more easily.

The auto attack is good, #2 is amazing, #3 is amazing, #4 is meh and #5 is amazing In a Player versus Player setting. Also some of the best Mesmers in the game used the staff/greatsword combo aka Sensotix, Helseth.

Go to one of the dueling server’s and watch other Med guards if you can catch them. On EU you can watch Bullet who is probably the top med guard.

We’re not an easy class to learn, but not hard either. Playing Engineer well is about understanding your own class and everyone else’s and I feel this is more important than on any other class. I can see an Engineer win every 1v1 until I play them and kill them relatively easy, then along may come another Engineer better than me still and beat me. It’s all about understanding how things work, but also yes Perplexity will carry you and the 3 kit build you use is kinda in the middle grounds for difficulty.

ellesee.8297:

snip

Everything Ellesee said. The build is very glassy and is a nuke or be nuked spec to run. Also at competitive play it requires extremely high skill and often you have to make compromises, not necessarily using med kit, tool kit, rifle turret and utility goggles as the “standard” spec would suggest. But it’s not OP, people gotta just learn and adapt and as Engineer seems to be the current fotm people will vent at us.

You also get shards of zhaitan, 240 to be precise…So you can buy another piece of gear.

I tried a Celestial build today and killed a minion master necro and a thief. However I seriously believe Celestial sucks on engineer after my testings. Why don’t you give rampagers a go on this build?

The people that complain about thief are just those who are unwilling to learn how to improve and/or counter thief. Look at the ToL that just happened, most teams had a competent thief.

I can’t say the build is bad without playing it, and you’re using my fave kit elixir gun however a full zerk mesmer or ranger could pretty much screw you over from a range, and a condi necro/engie will do some damage. Even with AR you’re still susceptible to conditions, mainly immobilise which will lead to your eminent doom when the team warrior arrives. How would you say you deal with them situations?

I’ve tested this and it isn’t the knock back of Big Ol’ Bomb that is getting revealed, but if you have traits such as incendiary powder and that procs of of the Big Ol’ Bomb then you will get the revealed status. Just try and kite away from someone before using it.

Decap Engineers are extremely easy to counter, get a full zerk mesmer or full zerk longbow ranger. They melt so quickly when they can’t kite you.

Engineers mainly fill up three potential roles: Roamer, Bunker or “Sniper”.

Roaming Engineers will usually use a typical 6-2-0-4-2 or 4-2-0-6-2 condition build and excel at high condition pressure and carrying teams. (Pistol Shield)

Bunker Engineers will usually play a decap style build which can be any set of traits but usually 2-0-6-2-4 or 0-0-6-2-6. (Rifle Bomb Kit Flame Thrower X)

What I called “Sniper” would be the full zerk static discharge build, where you pick a target and nuke them before they nuke you. Warning this build is very squishy. Since the patch they’re is a lot of variants for it now but usually it would be 0-6-0-2-6. (Rifle Tool Kit Rifle Turret X)

Werkuh.2579:

There is a lot of QQing because people simply don’t understand the engineer and don’t want to either. They get killed, they run off to the forums and shout “NERF PLX! kthxbye” (see OP). I mean, the engineers skill floor is higher than the skill ceiling of most classes, but besides that, people simply don’t open their eyes. How often do I laugh myself nearly to death when guards, thiefs, necros tailgate me while I stroll around and kite them to death, how often do I see ranged classes simply standing there getting wrecked by grenades and the ONLY thing they don’t do is dodging… or getting away.. but 10 minutes later you’ll find them QQing in the forums.

This 100 times. Engineer is very versatile and every engineer will have a different spec, but consider that the skill ceiling is higher…I don’t believe engineer is harder to play than any other class as anyone can spam grenades or bombs, but I believe it’s harder to play very well. People cba to learn how to counter engineer and the answer is kite or cc. Stick at range and attack (except rangers lul) or use cc. Condi necro will 100-0 most engineers still, zerk necro is also a tough matchup.

But to answer your question, yes the classic BM build is still effective and trumps most people and can win you many 1v1 duels when played well.

TheRuler.1290:

But does it have to hold a point, why can’t the Ranger be a roamer? Has Ranger been exclusively stereotyped into that role?

Sure Rangers can roam however why would you take a Ranger when a Thief, Engineer (or Mesmer) are superior at that role indefinitely. To roam you need to be quick, have strong utility, fast damage and stealth.

I’m not trying to put you down, but I have yet to face a Longbow ranger on my own Ranger or my main Engineer I had trouble with. Sure you can use your own cleanses, invis, imob etc but that doesn’t stop the opponent from using their own. Every second you’re not capping you’re losing points also. I don’t want to make you seem bad, however that range is unnecessary in team pvp and a Sprit, shout or trapper range brings more to a point fighting game. Just my 2 cents.

Or if you play intelligent players they will reflect the arrows to 1 shot you back, pull you, stun you, daze you, block, interrupt or just juke you so that you don’t cap the point or achieve anything. Sounds like hotjoin hunting tbh.

I find this funny as I’ve yet to see a longbow ranger at all in PvP

You’re a Mesmer. You need to out kite an engineer to beat one, use your greatsword and keep dodging. If the engineer is spamming grenades on a point s/he probably sucks anyway. The heal will be on a 15/20s cooldown so keep that in mind and watch out for other heals they perform. Constantly strafe and the grenades wont hit you, and don’t be scared to stand in them, they had a 30% nerf recently. Burst will scare an engineer as we don’t have many oh s**t buttons, although some take elixir s.

You said you are a condition mesmer which against a engineer is going to be really tough, we can sustain and heal pretty well now. It used to be that condi necros would 100-0 us but even that isn’t true any more (sometimes). But if they spam grenades in a circle they sound pretty noobish as the grenade auto sucks.

Zombie I love how you complain like Engineer is a bad class, especially as you talk about dueling. I wreck absolutely everyone in our current state bar a very good condi necro. This patch has also buffed us significantly compared to some other classes, especially with rune and sigil changes.

It is our Best kit for support. It lets me cleanse allies, allows me to go 1 v x, gives me a heal and escape, lets me cleanse my own conditions, gives me retaliation and applies weakness. The auto already is extremely effective vs bruisers.

It’s because people assume engineer is a “hard” class to play when in fact engineer is an easy class to play, but hard to play well. For someone who does not know how to counter an engineer, grenade spam will slowly overwhelm them…grenades are an easy kit to use so they pull out the OP card. Decap engineer successfully decaps against them and the pull out the OP card. When in reality Decap is countered by rangers and mesmers and if an engineer is spamming grenades they probably don’t know any decent combos and just suck anyway.

Akeif.7491:

I’ve played over 900 hours and rank 25 in PvP and you guys just want to win for points. You kitten everybody when you don’t win.
Since the patch i’ve been in loosing team and there’s always someone who kitten about ‘noobs’ and rage about something.

You can get to rank 25 in 1 week of playing, but rather than put you down I will say that yes we play to win and yes we do do team tournaments, which are also full of new people that leave points. No ones perfect but when people simply refuse to read chat because they don’t like being told what or how to play, that’s the problem. I wish I could try and teach new players the mechanics so they can improve, but most of them don’t listen and one person told me to stop telling him what to do as he knew how to play…:)

Dredd Spirit Caller.4082:

is it engy or mesmer forum???

Being the supreme class it is our duty to attempt to help the other class “peasants”.

Just keep your distance with a greatsword. I can’t remember a fight where I won vs a well played greatsword mesmer. It completely hard counters me.

The ranger is still very viable post patch and so is the regen ranger/beastmaster. Also I’m 90% sure Koroshi’s build is just a copy of Faux Sheaux’s one so have a look at his build if you want to see some variants and guides.

Supply crate is too good to give up, unless we get an Elite Kit. Bring on the Mecha Armor.

Hey, as a Mesmer you lack a decent amount of Condition removal without setting up for it however there are a few tricks you can use vs Engineers.

First, it depends on the skill level of the Engineer, the class is easy to play(Grenades?) but hard to play well. Remember that.

Greatsword is your best friend when fighting an Engineer, that weapon will counter 80% of Engineers until they learn how to deal with it. Engineer has a decent amount of survivability but the Mesmer Greatsword is extremely gifted at kiting, try and keep range and knock them back or teleport while your illusion and auto attack kill him. If you can try and remove his might asap. Remember to not fall into a confusion bomb, even without perplexity we can get 12-14 stacks of confusion on you. Watch out for the magnet animation and if they stealth get distance to avoid the pull.

If the engineer is leaping a lot or blocking then they are probably using Tool Kit and Elixir Gun/Rocket Boots. If they leap forward then they are using the boots, in which case they are going to be more hit and run oriented, whereas the Elixir Gun gives them more survivability. Because of the versatility of the Engineer class it is hard to pin down any one build, but try and keep Engineers away and kite them. Also Interupts.

Static Discharge has always been like this. Targeted skills will send the bolt towards your target, no targeted skills send the bolt to the centre of your screen. You can learn to use this with your turrets to get extra hits.