Guild Wars 2

To actually answer your question, op, untraited warden no longer blocks unblockable projectiles. They did “fix” this sometime in the recent past.

As far as when as where to reflect goes, there have been a couple changes. Basically, Anet has been making a rather unfortunate habit of turning previously reflectable projectiles into unblockable ones. The only one I know off of the top of my head is that projectiles from spiders such as malroana can no longer be reflected.

Swish.2463:

I don’t think any of us regulars on here would qualify for the illustrious position of a Forum monkey, as many of us at some point or another have called out anet on bad design or lack of attention etc etc…

and typically its in less than a professional manner.

I get the feeling Anet wants people or a person who is going to give coverage to every forum sub section and who will do so without agreeing with or folding to other players reasoning or anger whether it is justified or not.

Best of luck to those that apply tho!

What they’re mainly looking for is someone that’s able to accurately, clearly, and reliably collect the information on the forums and report it to them without changing things with bias.

That’s happily divorced from what you actually say and your opinions aired on the forums. As long as you can perform those functions effectively, what you think of anet doesn’t matter much.

Curunen.8729:

Hmm, only NA players?

“In addition, all Guild Wars 2 Forum Specialists… must live in the USA and be age 18 or older, for legal reasons…”

Well if we were allowed to vote, I’d vote for any of you guys here who knows the class inside out – at least we might have a chance of seeing something fresh injected into the class.

They mention that this is sorta the ‘pilot program’, and is only being released for the english speaking forums. I presume that once it’s out of pilot, they’ll release it for other areas as well.

Your inbox is full you dope!

fluxit.8247:

So I tested the original build with full celestial just before and it feels really clunky in pvp. The amount of might stacks you usually hover around with all these traits is an average of 15, fluctuating between 25 and 9 but its all highly dependent on timing your interrupts just right.

Verdict, exactly what fay said. It did do sustained damage over a period of time but there just wasn’t enough conditions to go around.

And this is because you focused purely on stacking boons, neglecting the damage aspects of the build. You need to first decide how your build wants to deal damage, and then you can take a look and decide how you want to provide the boon support for it.

With that in mind, perhaps take a look at this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQRArc8alknpMt1oxRNcrNSpxY6cmZHSuQAl8kyB-TJxHwADeCAAOJAi2foYZAA

this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW8clknpMt1oxRNcrNSpxY6cmZHSuQAl8kyB-TJxHwADeCAAuIAi2foYZAA

or this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7clknpMt1oxRNcrNSpxY6cmZHSuQAl8kyB-TJxHwADeCAAuIAi2foYZAA

The general concept of these is that you’re going to might stack with BI, control with CI, deal power damage with your phantasms using phantasmal fury and dom III, and then deal condition damage either with sharper images on phantasms and clones, or with on-clone-death traits combined with DE. I don’t really know how effective it’ll be, but that’s the best I’ve got.

fluxit.8247:

I know, I know, but a part of me wants to believe that they don’t just add these traits randomly. I want to believe that they input them in their specific places for a reason.

Yeah, uh…

As much as a part of me wanted to believe that too, that part died a long time ago. Find a possible explanation for disruptor’s sustainment that doesn’t involve malicious trolling or gross incompetence.

I guess I wasn’t clear enough with what I said.

On defense:

You’ve got plenty of defensive stats and such. This build will definitely be reasonably tanky. However, you’re absolutely not a full tank. You’re not going to be effectively bunkering a point in PvP with this due to the lack of stability (stunbreaks don’t really work in place of stab, I’ve tried it pretty extensively). You’re also not going to be on the front line of a WvW group (because you bring nothing to that front line). That’s why I say you’re not really a tanky/defensive build.

On Offense:

Again, assuming might stacks…your offensive stats are fine. The big problem is that mesmer doesn’t work like other classes in the game as far as damage goes. You can’t just take a random set of traits/weapons/etc and do damage. Mesmer normal damage is absolutely horrid (and this is why leveling a mesmer sucks so much). You have to specialize into something. Conditions from things, phantasms, shatters, a mix of those, whatever. You have to specialize into something in order to do damage.

The build that you have here specializes into nothing. You have literally 0 potential to do damage. As far as I can tell, the extent to which you’ve figured out where you’re doing damage is this:

fluxit.8247:

while scepter would be used offensively, its scaleablity with power and its native torment and confusion damage could be effective.

The problem is that this simply isn’t even close to enough. You have a bit of torment from the auto, the torment block is good, and the confusion beam is subpar as usual. The power damage from the torment block is low, from the auto is low, and from the confusion beam is easily avoided.

So I’ll recap it again. This build doesn’t have enough of a focus on defense to actually take a typically defensive role (and this isn’t what you designed it for). The problem is that this build is specialized to do absolutely nothing other than put boons on yourself. You have absolutely zero mechanics in your build that allow you to output any reasonable damage whatsoever.

I understand this is just a theory post, but there’s a reason that nobody has done something like this before, and I’m generally pretty good at figuring out what a build is going to do before it does it. Bountiful Dissilusionment, on top of all of the other problems in this build, is just a horrible trait that simply has no use. I literally haven’t seen a single build even remotely viable that’s using it yet.

NetBlaise.2710:

Serum.4067:

This is my mesmer, I look so hot!

How do you get this look? One of the best set’s ever… maybe add some purple in there.. Rep the mesmer

Bloody hell, the necro is strong with this one.

The biggest issue is that this build just….doesn’t do anything. You don’t have the defense to bunker (and I don’t think this was your goal anyway). However, you also don’t have the offense to do literally anything at all. If you manage to get a bunch of might stacked (which I doubt you’ll actually maintain the majority of the time) you still have no way to deal damage!

Lets look at this problem closer. How will you do damage on this build? You don’t have DE, so you’ll be starved for clones. You don’t have a single trait boosting shatters or shatter damage in any way (boons for the sake of boons don’t count), so shatters absolutely won’t do damage. You don’t have halting strike, so no damage from there. You don’t have either of the two phantasm damage mods, nor do you have phantasm health bonuses, nor do you have phantasmal fury, so your phantasms absolutely won’t be doing damage.

You also have no good method of applying conditions. You don’t have on-clone-death traits (which are useless without DE anyway), you don’t have IE for staff autoattack spamming (which is semi-useless without DE again), you don’t have MtD, you don’t have sharper images, you don’t have anything other than staff autoattacks and the scepter block really.

Essentially, you’ve got a build that does one single thing: puts boons on itself. You don’t put boons on allies, you don’t do damage, and you don’t bunker. What’s the point?

Lets compare this to the other standard cele builds: ele, engie, and warrior.

Warrior usually goes longbow + some melee stuff. Longbow has a ton of great conditions. Melee stuff on warrior all does fairly strong damage, and they stack might throughout with blast finishers and such. You have the decent defense and sustain of celestial backing up a strong offense.

Engineer usually just picks nades or something and spams everything. Engineers naturally have good hybrid damage between crazy condition load and decent power scalings, so they fit really naturally into this kind of build.

Elementalists work perfectly with celestial, because all of their weapon-sets come pre-equipped both for condition damage and power damage. Most of the time they pick one or the other, but celestial allows them to pick both.

As you can see, all of these builds have definite strong sources of offense within them, while using boons and celestial defense stats to provide more tankiness and sustain than they’d usually have. Your build has 0 offense in any way, and doesn’t have enough tankiness to be worthwhile on its own as a bunker.

NetBlaise.2710:

Best guide in the world……. The Comprehensive Mesmer Guide Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eZ0NNd7b60

2 years old but a must watch for any mesmer… I would then google and look for a current lvling/meta build for mesmers….

You can also look at Lyssa’s Grimoire stickied here in the forum. It’s text instead of video, so more easily searchable, and it’s significantly more recent than that one.

Since you’re level 37, you’re going to need a leveling build.

Disclaimer: Leveling a mesmer sucks hard. My official advice is to avoid leveling it normally by any means necessary. Zerg around in EOTM, force-feed it rare candies tomes of knowledge, whatever you want to do, just don’t try to level it normally. If you do, you’ll probably end up hating it and quitting before you hit 80.

That being said, you’ll want to level with a power phantasm build. Your weapons should mostly remain sword/focus+greatsword. You’ll want to aim towards acquiring the traits dueling II, domination III, and then the 3 point minor in illusions, letting the phantasms on your weapons do the majority of your damage, supplemented by other attacks.

Raiyo.1584:

i mainly play sword-torch / gs shatter but here comes the thing

until now i went with the torch reduce trait but i see some people using shattered concentration , is that really better ? i mostly go roaming in wvw if thats impotant to know

i basically took the torch reduce trait cuz 30 seconds cd is a little bit too long if u ask me

It really depends on who you end up fighting. Considering you’re roaming in wvw, you’ll be encountering primarily condition roamers, which actually means that the torch trait (for condition removal, not for cd) is better. On the other hand, if you find yourself hitting a lot of guards/eles/etc that are covered in vigor, regen, prot, swiftness, might, etc, then shattered concentration is absolutely essential to do any damage to them at all.

Windwalker.7421:

At this point I wouldn’t suggest PU anymore as a build to start with for a new Mesmer. The play style is too far removed from what you will usually play in grouped PvP, and overall PU just isn’t that strong anymore IMO. It’s a 1v1 build and is forgiving, but so is a Condie Shatter build and it teaches you a lot of the same moves, combos (in general), and skills as you will need for a Power Shatter build.

A good Staff/Sc+X MtD Condie Shatter build is more forgiving both in terms of reaction time (survivability), and learning to land your shatters properly. You’re also useful to groups, and can hold your own in 1v1 as well, without needing a good connection, perfect timing, and countless hours of practice to properly land your 1 damaging shatter.

Then as you grow comfortable with Condie Shatter, you can experiment with Power Shatter and you will begin to understand the advantages and trade offs you make between the two builds.

I’d recommend different things based on what areas of the game a new person is playing. Recommending condie shatter for someone that loves solo roaming in WvW would simply be sadism.

PU condie also allows new players to just generally get familiar with a lot of the mesmer mechanics that need to be understood really well. The odd things about how DE works, the overall feel of how the weapons function, that sort of thing. In a demanding shatter build, you’re going to be too worried about getting ripped a new one to have any time to actually examine what your skills are doing, whereas PU condie (and power to an extent) actually gives you that breathing room to sorta sit back and experiment.

Valik Shin.9027:

Fay.2357:

Valik Shin.9027:

so ive been doing pvp for while now and the only class i constantly have a problem with is mesmers. can’t fuigure out how to beat them. i look for buffs but half the time the clones have the buff to. i’ve try playing mesmer to get a feel for how to beat them but can’t seam to figure out how these mesmers do it cause i get wrecked all the time on mine. anyone have any advise?

So just to clarify, I understand that you’re having general difficulties with mesmers, but are you also having difficulties picking the real mesmer out of the clones?

yeah more with picking out the real one more so than actually fighting them but advise on both is appreciated

So there’s a whole bunch of different characteristics that you’ll learn to just automatically see when fighting mesmers. I’ll try and list as many as I can here.

Movement
Clones move as if they can only use the forward key. They never strafe, never move backwards, never dodge roll. Any of those movements instantly will identify the real mesmer.

Skills
Clones only spam the autoattack of a given weapon over and over. The one using any skills whatsoever is always the mesmer.

Boons
Clones have a quite limited selection of boons. They’ll rarely get vigor, rarely get might, rarely get swiftness, rarely get protection. The mesmer will often get multiple boons, regardless of build.

Persistent Bar Effects
Mantras, signets, food buffs, wvw orb buff, anything like that will show up on the mesmer, but not the clones (be wary of signet of illusions, as it does show up on illusions, unlike all the others). Seeing those persistent bar effects all identify the real mesmer.

Stealth
Mesmer only has one source of aoe stealth that actually ends up applying to clones: mass invisibility. The clones will generally get revealed rapidly due to their autoattacks, while the mesmer will remain in stealth longer. All other sources of stealth for the mesmer are self only (I’m ignoring veil for the moment, as clones tend not to walk through veil). This means that if you see one stealth and then unstealth, that’s the mesmer.

That’s pretty much it. If you learn all of those little characteristics of the mesmer, you’ll be able to instantly identify the mesmer every time.

Edit: I like OMFG as much as the next guy, but fo real -_-

It’s a little on the weak side, but realistically it’s more or less the same as all of the ‘on disable do X’ traits that the classes have. They all really sorta need a bit of a rework.

Valik Shin.9027:

so ive been doing pvp for while now and the only class i constantly have a problem with is mesmers. can’t fuigure out how to beat them. i look for buffs but half the time the clones have the buff to. i’ve try playing mesmer to get a feel for how to beat them but can’t seam to figure out how these mesmers do it cause i get wrecked all the time on mine. anyone have any advise?

So just to clarify, I understand that you’re having general difficulties with mesmers, but are you also having difficulties picking the real mesmer out of the clones?

I’d probably avoid doom on greatsword. Air is good damage, but single target only. I’d lean towards using fire.

Energy is always a fixture on every weapon set that I use in every build.

StickerHappy.8052:

Since the thread is getting whack, i might aswell derail it myself. I was trying to make a unique support build, can we make a support centered PU build? This might change peoples opinion about PU.

PS i noticed the people who bash PU are terribad in game, i suggest get better before being an elitist jerk. Thank you.

You may want to dredge up a build that Johnny made a while back called the protection master or something like that. It was built around using PU with high boon/prot duration to share to your party.

Snakebyte.2804:

In his defense, admitting that you’re wrong on an internet forum is next to impossible.

I’ve done it on multiple occasions on these forums. It doesn’t feel good, but it’s necessary to be able to do.

Snakebyte.2804:

……how is baiting somebody NOT active?

He’s impervious to logic, I’m done trying. I think I’ve gotten my point across to anyone that happens by this thread though.

messiah.1908:

@FAY – read i what i wrote first

No, you read what I wrote. You just keep repeating the same wrong and blatantly misleading opinions over and over with no logic, reasoning, or evidence to support them, as if saying them again will make them more true.

messiah.1908:

“passive playstyle can be both the player and the build used
so an aggressive player with passive build can be seen.”
your statement are mainly for the player playstyle while i am talking the build playstyle

Grossly wrong statements like this. The build playstyle? I’ve already explained how builds don’t have playstyles. Those are two separate ideas that don’t clash. You keep going on about how builds are passive, and that’s just incredibly misleading and wrong. Builds aren’t passive, players are passive.

messiah.1908:

also lockdown build are bait playstyle and not passive as i said above

And once again you completely ignore everything I said and mindlessly repeat incorrect assertions. Lockdown builds are builds, that’s all. You can choose to play them however you want; passive, aggressive, passive aggressive, whatever.

You’re stuck in this ridiculous mindset of ‘my build completely and totally defines the way I play, and neither myself nor anyone else may ever deviate from the preconceived notions that I have about these builds’. It’s almost comical really.

messiah.1908:

so considering what you said above every build in the game consider aggressive

No, I said that every build in the game is simply a build, and is considered neither passive nor aggressive.

messiah.1908:

thus i think you mean the player play style which can be aggressive which is true

I have literally said this exact thing multiple times in every post I’ve made. How are you just getting it now? Playstyles are aggressive or passive, not builds.

messiah.1908:

as it become boring with no videos to demonstrate i will say no more

wat.jpg

messiah.1908:

p.s
so far almost every pu mesmer i see in wvw just use veil decoy torch4 too much
while if i play aggressive they just abuse stealth (even power pu sometimes)

And almost every shatter Mesmer I see in wvw bashes themselves against my torment and dies in less than 15 seconds. Look, I can anecdote too!

Right, so let me go through this post and point out how everything you said is wrong.

messiah.1908:

so if you have more defense in your skill/utilities bar is force you to play more passive as those skills dont do dmg

So this is wrong. Having defensive skills on your bar provides you with the ability to use them, but doesn’t force you to use them. Additionally, there are absolutely no skills for mesmer that have a 1-dimensional use. Every skill has multiple uses, multiple types of uses, different ways they can be used. Trying to term skills as pure defense or pure offense is just foolish.

messiah.1908:

if you have more control skills (like cc) it force you to a more bait playstyle eg to bait your enemy for the right moment to strike

No it doesn’t. Having more control skills gives you some options. It allows you to go into a baiting playstyle. It also allows you to aggressively pressure and then lockdown. It also allows you to play passively and interrupt the larger skills as they use them.

Since it allows for a type of passive play, I guess we should call all builds with control skills passive, right? No, of course not. That would be stupid.

messiah.1908:

if you have more dmg skills it force you to play more aggressive playstyle for faster kill

Alternatively, you could kite around and play defensively, waiting for your enemy to overextend, and then capitalize on that instead of pushing and pressuring yourself.

Taking certain skills doesn’t force anyone to do a kitten thing. You always have choices. You always can take any build and play it in a fashion that fits how you want to use it.

messiah.1908:

pu as a build used gives you the ability not dying easily and forgivable to mistakes

I take it back, not everything you said was wrong, this clause is actually fairly accurate.

messiah.1908:

and easy to execute while doing dmg slower than any other builds.

This clause is wrong though. PU condie has the potential to output very high damage under the correct circumstances. Incidentally, those circumstances happen to be ones that glassier builds will be outputting little to no damage.

messiah.1908:

thus make it an effective build for roaming (compare p/d condi to s/d power build as thief)

And while this conclusion is also accurate, it’s arrived at by drastically incorrect statements. I’ll classify this one as wrong as well.

messiah.1908:

shatter builds are less forgivable as any mistakes you do can cost you your life

This is such a general statement. There’s tons of mistakes you can make on shatter builds that won’t kill you. Similarly, there are tons of mistakes you can make on a PU condie build that will kill you. The difference is in the type of mistake and the circumstances you’ll tend to make it in.

messiah.1908:

which make you to fight harder and sometimes over commit to secure the kill , they are high risk high reward fast phase

Again, the qualities of the build don’t make you do anything. You can fight more aggressively and over-commit (I don’t think this means what you think it means), or you can play in other ways, baiting and then punishing.

messiah.1908:

to beat a pu build usually the enemy use an aggressive playstyle to bait the pu to focus more on defense and escape utilities

If you try to beat a PU build by playing aggressively, you’re going to have a bad time.

hope it make sense now

Several things are making sense, but your arguments aren’t one of them.

Well, first off you should know that almost every trait is worth unlocking. The only traits you should not waste your time to get are as follows:

1. Disruptor’s sustainment
2. Bountiful dissilusionment
3. Power Block
4. Chaotic Revival
5. Furious Interruption
6. Retaliatory Demise
7. Blinding Befuddlement

Other than those, every trait is at least potentially worth getting.

As far as figuring out what those traits actually do, I’d recommend looking them up in the wiki, as it’s generally quite complete with the effects of traits.

PU condie is not a playstyle, it is a build. You can play it however you choose. The fact that you have so much innate defense in the build actually allows you to be far more aggressive in most situations than you could be in other builds.

Aggressiveness is simply a function of how you use your skills. Do you use phase retreat just to run away, or so you use it on top of them while in chaos storm to generate chaos armor? Do you toss down chaos storm for aegis and area denial, or do you use it offensively to interrupt, chill, and poison. Do you save the block for the very biggest skill they have, or do you endeavor to activate it on every possible attack? Do you use the prestige to run away, or do you use it as an opportunity to close distance and get hefty aoe burns onto enemies?

Aggressive is all in the playstyle. You can play both passively and aggressively in every build there is, including PU condie. Complaining about a build being passive is like saying that a random glass in your cabinet can only be used for water, but not juice. The glass is simply a vessel, what you put into it is your choice alone.

keenlam.4753:

Pyro, do u use iDis with PU build in WvW or Is it always The cleanse mantra?

I’ll almost always use the disenchanter. Having that boon removal is almost as important as the condition removal.

messiah.1908:

Fay.2357:

messiah.1908:

yes its boring to put 3 clones go stealth and put 3 more as you only play most of the time defense (like turret engi)

That does sound awfully boring. As I said, it’s boring if you play that way. I would never even consider playing in such a boring and passive fashion.

messiah.1908:

any decent guardian, warrior, ele, s/d or d/p thief easily wont feel the conditions output of pu

Seems to me like they just don’t feel the condition output that you make, because you play in such a boring and passive fashion.

Any build is what you make of it. If you play boring, then you’ll get boring. If you play active and aggressive, you get active and aggressive.

i am eager to see how you play aggressively with 4,4,6,0,0 pu condi build

You attack them and apply pressure? Use your skillset in an aggressive manner? I’m not sure exactly how to tell you how to play aggressive. You just don’t dodge a few times to set up clones and then afk.

messiah.1908:

yes its boring to put 3 clones go stealth and put 3 more as you only play most of the time defense (like turret engi)

That does sound awfully boring. As I said, it’s boring if you play that way. I would never even consider playing in such a boring and passive fashion.

messiah.1908:

any decent guardian, warrior, ele, s/d or d/p thief easily wont feel the conditions output of pu

Seems to me like they just don’t feel the condition output that you make, because you play in such a boring and passive fashion.

Any build is what you make of it. If you play boring, then you’ll get boring. If you play active and aggressive, you get active and aggressive.

messiah.1908:

for roaming 1vx pu condi isnt much effective if your enemies notice you r pu
they will just disengage as it will borning slow fight

Only boring and slow if that’s how you fight with the build.

messiah.1908:

also few mtea wvw build can kill pu easily as mention above

There is no meta build other than the ‘meta’ of running a 3 thief gank party that can kill a PU build easily.

messiah.1908:

for roaming or small group go power build like 4,4,6 pu power or shatter 4,4,0,0,6

Small group, sure. Roaming, not unless you want to get dumped on.

messiah.1908:

if you wanna test something new go 4,4,0,0,6 or 0,4,4,0,6 condi shatter which can handle nice 1vx and also give great group aoe pressure

Condie shatter handles 1vx better than power shatter…but it still doesn’t handle it very well. I wouldn’t recommend condie shatter as a solo roaming build for the same reasons as the other ones, you just don’t have the defense and sustain for it.

Zelulose.8695:

So, I wonder what will happen because Mimic did have a bad change. Will the moderators delete this thread because it threatens the pride of those who thought up the change? Or will they heed to the player community? Or perhaps this very post is like a pole to them which is banned according to terms and conditions.

If the mods deleted threads every time mesmers complained/pointed out the unbelievable poor choices taken in the direction of this game, there would be no mesmer forums left. That being said, the devs don’t heed the community, they don’t listen to anyone, both for better and for worse. They don’t nerf based on random people complaining, and they don’t make changes based on what the community tells them is sensible and right. It’s a double-edged sword.

PU condie is still very much the optimal solo roaming build. You can get away with lockdowns, shatters, and whatever you want…until you run into a competent thief/cele ele/cele engie or something and you get melted. PU condie is also the only build really capable of maintaining outnumbered fights effectively.

In a small group, PU condie still works fine, but you have more options at that point. Shatter, lockdown, even phantasm builds have a place in a small group comp.

The first thing I notice is that you have 0 access to condition removal in this build. As you said yourself, this will cause condie build classes to kill you effortlessly. Just being condie yourself doesn’t make you immune to condition fights, you still have to deal with that the same way as power builds.

Ross Biddle.2367:

[enter slanderous comments regarding Anet devs here]

Slander implies that the comments are false.

On topic, mimic is worthless right now. The only situation I’ve used it is to copy the 25 might off of the jellyfish in the underwater fractal. Literally, that’s it. The single use for it in the entire game is that boss.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Conditions

Take a look at the damage conditions, do the math yourself. 200 condition damage is a difference in raw damage output, but other sigils can potentially offer less mathematical bonuses such as higher up time on poison, more dodges, etc.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Just to be sure because my memory is bad, this bug happens when mesmer is down-leveled right?

It definitely happens when getting down leveled. It’s also seemed to pop up as occurring just randomly after a bit of time passes, without movement.

This is a bug. It’s existed since the most recent feature patch.

zaxon.6819:

i know i have trouble hitting windows to get into clock tower.. which is odd.

The windows have really odd hitboxes. Any non-cleave attack will have difficulty hitting them properly.

hggt.7260:

I’ll definitely take a look. Thank you very much for the help and not saying “zerker or gtfo” like I’ve seen in the past.

I’m thinking maybe helm chest and pants are knight’s and gloves boots and shoulders are cavaliers? That was partially rhetorical.

I’ll let you know if I need anything else, you were a great help. Thanks again!

Edit: Is it possible you could send me a link to the dungeon build thread? I only took a minute to look for it but I dont have much time before I have to go. If you could that would be great. Thanks again.

Edit 2: Nevermind, found it. But arent most of those builds a bit out of date? Are there more recent builds that I may not find just by looking at the list?

Nothing has changed for Mesmer in a significant way since that guide was last updated. All of the builds and other information contained within it is accurate and complete.

zaxon.6819:

You can overstate how unskilled my enemy is to try and drive your point home. Or you can realize that you do not know how skilled my enemy is and not make statements with very little info to keep them accurate.

You provided us with all the info necessary. No good player will get 20 stacks of bleed on them, that’s just how it goes. That necessarily leaves the other option: an unskilled player. The only way to get 20 bleeds would be something silly like stacking 2-3 iduelists on someone. If they didn’t notice that and take steps to counteract it, they’re awful.

zaxon.6819:

Lots of people deserve to die.

Perhaps, but you shouldn’t base the effectiveness of a build off of horridly unskilled players, as they don’t really matter. Always judge a build based on how it performs against good players using good builds, as that situation is the only one where a build can distinguish itself.

Unhygienix.2834:

Thanks for the advice. I play with swod/focus in main set and /sword /pistol in the other set. I use feedback, warden and temoral curtin as often as I can. However if i recal the last fight I did was two spinning golems and two assassins.

S/s+s/f is the preferred dungeon set, but I find that it’s often suboptimal for open world stuff, including living story. My default set is s/f+gs. That provides a bit more control and allows you to actually do some kiting as necessary.

While conditions are viable for solo Mesmer in pve, they aren’t necessary here. What is necessary is lots of reflects. The grenadier and most ranged inquest attacks in general are reflectable. Use a traited focus and feedback to kill the nasty ranged mobs and then kite around the melee ones at your leisure.

You’ll want to take a look at the stickied dungeon thread for your builds. However, since you mentioned not being able to keep yourself alive in glass cannon gear, you can make some modifications.

You’ll still want to follow the build advice for weapons, utilities, traits, and playstyle. The difference will be that you’ll want to replace the zerker (or assassin’s) gear with knights and cavaliers. A mix of knights and cavaliers will still let you do pretty solid damage while boosting your toughness tremendously. As you get more skilled at playing and avoiding damage, you can gradually replace pieces of your defensive gear with assassin’s or zerker to increase your damage.

Edit: I noticed that you actually mentioned wanting health as well. You can sprinkle in some valkyrie gear if you find yourself needing health. Mesmer’s have pretty decent base health, and you’ll often be traited into inspiration giving some more, so I generally don’t have issues with health.

Your problem is that you’re trying to run this as a hybrid with celestial stats. This doesn’t work on mesmer. Yes, you can burst yourself up to very high might amounts temporarily, but you can’t actually maintain that much might reliably, and you have very few cover boons for protecting it from boon strips. The majority of the time you’ll be going around with 10-15 might, and that’s really just not enough to make both your condies and your crits hit hard.

Shatter builds are also just conceptually ill-suited to celestial hybrids. Celestial hybrids are usually very tanky with a lot of sustain. This allows them the time to really build and maintain that might, as well as making use of the more defensive stats that come along with that celestial amulet. Shatter builds are not tanky and have poor sustain.

Combine those two issues and you’ve got a build that will get roflstomped every time.

Vieux P.1238:

Sounds to me you dont know how to play a mesmer or how clunky it is.

I’ve played Mesmer fairly extensively and I find it to be very much the opposite of clunky. Most skills work the way they should, and the effects they have are useful and helpful.

Vieux P.1238:

As i mentionned before no matter how much skills or abilities you have on the mesmer, the casting time makes it slow. By the time you get to your second skill, the thief is done & kills most often the mesmer.

See, you say this but it’s not my experience at all. Some Mesmer skills are slow, some are very fast. Knowing when to use the fast ones and when you can use the slow ones is part of the skill set required to play Mesmer effectively. Defense skills are often very quick, try using some of them to protect against that skill-spamming thief.

Vieux P.1238:

Why do you think ppl are complianing?

I think people are complaining for the same reason they ever complain: they lack the necessary skill to understand why their complaints are invalid.

…I’m still confused as to why you’re discussing burst thief builds in a thread focused on P/D.

Vieux P.1238:

Noooo, i’m good anoth. Actually i’m one notch under the pros. Trust me i can make the difference between a good & bad player.

Forgive me for not taking your word on this one.

Vieux P.1238:

There is a balance issue & it’s well known that mesmers are subpart compared to other classes. Thers lots of threads on the issue.

There’s lots of threads on how overpowered moa and shatter mesmers are. That doesn’t really mean a whole lot though, does it?

Vieux P.1238:

We got nerfed cuz guys like you.

Not sure if implying that I’m a thief and whined about mesmer, or that I’m just so OP Anet nerfed mesmers to spite me.

Vieux P.1238:

Arikyali.5804:

Vieux P.1238:

One of the biggest problem with the mesmer is it’s slow & clunky from skills casting time. Unless the timing is right, you will never out skill, or out class other classes due to there quick speed on there skills vs the mesmers. It makes all the difference in the world.

(thief—spam..2-2-2.. ur dead!)

To be fair, if you manage to survive the 2-2-2 spam, that thief is in trouble. A thief is speedy, but if you don’t control the speed, the thief will flop.

If anything, I think thief is more difficult to master than mesmer in a lot of instances.

Actually i manage any noob player with there 2-2-2 attacks. It’s more the ones that know how to play there 2-2-2 that kills in 3 seconds. The warrior with his 15 seconds stun dosent let you breath. & other classes just burst damage to fast for you to finish your rotation & skills. Mainly, your stuck with some sort of shatter build & you cant make any mistake if you want to survive. Lets not deni it mesmer friends. We need a mesmer revamp! & i would be first to sigh that petition.

You keep saying stuff like this in all the threads you show up in. ‘Oh, Mesmer is so weak, every other class can use like 3 skills and kill me, it’s so hard to do anything about it’. This is all just unsubstantiated whining.

If you’re getting destroyed by so many classes using just a single extremely simple combo, that doesn’t mean those classes are too strong. It means you’re simply not a good enough player to conceive of effective counters to those attacks. While I concede that Mesmer is still rather fringe viable in the general tpvp meta right now, it has nothing to do with other classes destroying us with a couple skills. The issue is a complex one, having to do with a combination of mobility problems, inherent weaknesses due to utility choices, and the necessity of the role we play. Mesmers can fight other classes absolutely fine, it’s just you that can’t.

Vieux P.1238:

Chris McSwag.4683:

Daze and torment shatter spam works pretty well against thief, though i haven’t tried it on p/d yet.

For noob thieves, sure. Daze & all can work. Not that well if that thief knows how to play his toon. No matter what, Thief only need to set him self up for there quick kill rotation & your dead in 3 seconds. Done, cooked! In the other hand, you can play a staff mesmer that spams phase retreat all the time with tones of toughness but zero damages. You’l never kill but you’l prolly bug the hek outta of them.

Sounds to me as though you’re simply not experienced enough to understand the counters to simple skill rotations like that. Mesmers have an unparalleled amount of active defense; use it properly and you can negate the vast majority of burst damage.

…I’m still confused as to why you’re going on about burst thieves in a thread discussing P/D.

Kicast.1459:

I am pretty sure things are not working how you describe it.
When i put my 3 on guardian staff I have immediately a first speed buff.
When i put nullfield with my mesmer first conditions disapear immediately.

The interaction Carighan was referencing only occurs with applied conditions, no other effects except maybe regeneration (though I haven’t actually tested that).

Vieux P.1238:

Like i said before, thief are spam in a can….2-2-2..ur dead!

Yes, this is eminently constructive and useful in this thread. This thread which is specifically asking about a P/D thief. The thief that uses their ‘2’ skill incredibly rarely. You’ve been spamming misinformed opinions all over the mesmer threads today, would be nice if you’d just sorta not do that.

Schattenlied.4873:

You´re right about the vulnerability to interrupts, that´s why I use torch (to replace Decoy) and 1200 range Blink. If you know your enemy´s interrupt skills, you can wait until they´re on cooldown or you interrupt them with MoD. LoS is another option, wvw is full of useful terrain. Nevertheless, I will always run mantra with at least 2500 armor so I can take some hits while charging.

Mantras aren’t too bad to charge vs a P/D thief. Obviously steal is a really strong interrupt since it’s instacast from range, but it’s on a long enough cooldown that you can just instantly start charging a mantra once steal has been used and generally be safe from interrupts since a P/D thief will only have that one interrupt.