Guild Wars 2

I"m a chronmancer, running a power interrupt build: sword/sword and sword/shield.

DragonHunter is by far the hardest matchup for me. All my clones are melee. They die as soon as they make any moves to attack, because of traps. I have to get close to attack also. I can’t get close cause of traps so the point is theirs. I can’t stay far or they will attack with long bow and do big damage, or they’ll just pull me into traps. And they have a lot of blocks.

Mesmer: power shatter greatsword mesmers is a really tough match up for me. My health is at the half way point by time i can finally close the gap. And when I do, they stealth and teleport away, so i have to repeat the process. And the burst combo is enough to one shot me, and I have a pretty decent amount of toughness. I can usually avoid with well timed dodge/block, but then they stealth and repeat it. A one shot burst combo from stealth just isn’t fun to fight against, by any means. Thankfully, there are fewer of these mesmers around thanks to the condi meta.

Warriors: Jesus they kittening hard. Every other hit with their GS is for 8k. half my health is gone in one swing. And can make their attacks unblockable. The multiple endure pains is insane. Long stuns. But the fight is still doable. but really gotta avoid 90% of their attacks, which is hard since i need to get close to attack. Also, they have a lot of acccess to stability so hard to get interrupts off on them.

Revenant: Their damage is also insane, and unblockable. if I’m pushed into a wall and they use that staff spin on me, literaly 90% of my health gone in that instant. The fight usually goes on for a while with me mostly having the upper hand until I run out of CDs. or until I can land a good burst.

Engineer: They just have so many boons on all the time. Lots of might so they hit hard. Lots of Aoe that kills clones. Lots of healing from regeneration, and lots of stability so hard to interrupt. And long stealth.

Druids: a good druid can just lock me down and kill me before I can really do anything. But I don’t see those druids often. Their pet hits very hard. Getting dazed while rooted and comboed down usually is where the fight ends for me. But I would say it’s more fair than the 3 classes above them.

Thief: That condition evade build is hard for me, because I run phantasmal disenchanter for cleanses. Phantasm can’t cleanse because the thief evades all the attacks. and I use the well for healing, which is great for condi cleanse, but the heal Cd is too long to keep up with the amount of condi spam. Also, i run out of dodges faster because they evade so much, I can’t hit them to get vigor. Power staff thieves are easier to deal with cause I can block and evade vault with good timing. Until by luck, one of my attacks land.

Necromancer: I think it’s a fair fight. If i win, it’s usually because they were just interrupted way too much. If they win, it’s they pump out so much chill, i’m moving so slow i can’t get away. I’ll be cautious about getting in close and won’t be able to proc vigor, so run out of dodges. Clones die fast because they vaporize everything in a small radius around them. But it’s really the chill that kills me.

Elementalist: good scepter power eles are challenging to deal with. they’re the only ones i find challenging. They put a lot of area attacks between me and them, so if i have to go through it to hit them, but going thru it means death lol. It’s quite funny actually. But i haven’t had enough fights with these eles, so more fights would probably mean they will become easier for me to deal with in time.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Sure,

The flags are located on the back of a dolyak.
The dolyak is surrounded by a circular capture point.
The more players of whatever team standing in the capture point, the dolyak moves toward said teams base/finish line.

Anet has just given you GW2’s Conquest the Flag

XD

~What you know it’ll be like

lmaooo. Stop giving them ideas, please. lol

The white light that emanates from the points makes it harder for me to see all details of combat going on because of it’s brightness.

Can you implement an option that can be toggled on or off to hide that light.

Eh, I’m still standing by my original point.

Of course, not every build is meant to be a Flag carrier. There only needs to be one flag carrier on a team.

Then you need people that can defend the flag carrier. And people that can run offense and attack the enemy flag carrier. So although some builds are better at carrying the flag, there are still some that are better for defense and offense. There is room for all classes in a CTF in this game.

@ duster. And no, I don’t know that CTF is gimmicky. I’ve played CTF in many games and have never noticed any gimmicks in core CTF. So you’ll have to explain what you mean, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.

zeight.5260:

Rumour says Stronghold was supposed to be 8vs8.
Sadly it became a 5vs5 badly designed (Only 2 lanes for a moba type gamemode?) map.

PvP was once 8v8, until they realized the maps were just too small for it.
But 10v10 is also fine, as long as they don’t put any gimmick mechanics.
Hell, Even a 16v16 lol. If the map is large enough.

The important part is that we get a CTF game mode.

And I’m looking forward to a sylvari themed map :-).

I think it should be actual flags that go on your back like the guild backpack. All skills permitted while carrying orb except teleports, shadowsteps, and portals. And run 25% slower

This game needs an 8v8 Capture the Flag game mode on a large map, without the gimmicks. By gimmicks I mean NPC bosses that give bonus stats, or communes to get bonus abilities, etc. Forget all that.

Please don’t try to reinvent the wheel on this one. Just keep it simple. Nice big, beautiful map. Flag on each side in a multi level base. Maybe a river between with two bridges on each side.

And listen. Enough of the human architecture. Make two maps. One on a syvlari zone, the other in an asura laboratory like CoE.

That’s all.
Not gimmicks please.
Keep it simple. Doesn’t need a GW2 twist on this. Just regular capture the flag.
Thank you.

I’m gonna try to see if I can make better use of chaos armor, and see how things go.

I agree, I think rev damage is a bit too high in PvP. I dont think it’s the class overall that is overpowered, but the damage output of certain builds can feel a little unfair at times, as with most classes.

And about elite specs. I gotta say, really love chronomancer and would not rather go back to core specs. But yeah, it can also be toned down some while still keeping its flavor.

I just wanted to say that opposition on this thread seems so focused on attacking my knowledge base that you’re blind to what the real issue is. Everyone wants to prove that they know more than me, or in some way to dismantle my argument by saying that I don’t know about mesmer. And it seems to me the goal is simply to bring me down a notch below you, because my name is Hot Boy and i stated i’m very experienced and playing at a decent skill level. How dare I exude this much confidence?

For a moment, put your bias against me aside. Think of the practicality of using sword in pvp. Is it a practical choice for anyone wanting to use it primarily in pvp? Are the leap finishers practical? Can chaos armor be reliably attained in pvp? Is any of it practical?

I don’t think it is. It is not even worth mentioning because of how unreliable it is. And I never said sword doesn’t have any leap finishers. I said sword doesn’t have any BLAST finishers, which is accurate. And I said chaos armor is not easy to proc, which is also accurate in a pvp environment.

Please ask yourselves, are you really here because you find some issue with my argument, or do you just find some issue with me?

I think it’s the latter. However, some good points have been raised against changing traits, or adding runes/sigils because of how it could affect other builds, but I haven’t seen any really valid reasons of why sword is already a good pvp weapon to use primarily and doesn’t need any buffs. On paper, lots of the features sound good. It has a gap closer that can be used as a finisher. But the clone dies almost instantly making the skill extremely unreliable. It has a phantasm that can proc chaos armor on itself. It sounds very cool, but it is not practical by any means in an actual pvp environment, because chaos armor on the clone does nothing for me. It even has a boon strip! That is on the last attack of the auto chain, which you will be hard pressed to finish an auto chain in an actual pvp environment on anyone.

So really, what is your argument against? Is it against me or is it against my ideas for sword? Because to me, it seems that you dislike me, so you feel inclined to play devil’s advocate. Because the features of sword that sound amazing on paper, are far from practical in any real pvp environment.

ileap’s finisher is worthless because it requires the clone to be alive. Which it RARELY is in pvp. There’s no clone damage mitigation like there is in pve.

And a ileap finisher on my swordsman phantasm. How does chaos armor on my phantasm help m y survivability.

As far as I’m concerned, Sword has no way of getting chaos armor. But I should say, has no RELIABLE way of getting chaos armor. In PvP, it is only RELIABLE with staff.

Windwalker.7421:

I still fail to see your point that we’re lacking soft CC, especially when talking about Mesmer in melee range! We have Chaos Armor and lots of ways to proc it in our Etheral fields, and we can even trait that CA to provide us with oodles of Protection, which also aids us in melee range.

As long as our opponents attack us, they will therefore proc lots of Weakness and Cripple off CA, while also giving us boons (again Protection) .

Then from Chrono you can add a lot of Slow to this from Interrupts and Critical Hits, or from WoC or WoA, not to mention our TW Elite which is again a long-lasting Etheral field that you can proc CA off.

All that still leaves 1-2 open utility slots of your choice, and one spec line of your choice…although Inspiration is probably highly necessary to get a good bit more sustain. (Which as we’re telling you, you’re going to need as a Mesmer in melee range.)

None of this changes the fact that you’ll still do relatively poor damage output, while still having less on-point sustain than many professions/builds out there.

It’s not a terrible way to spec IMO, and it’s certainly not an issue of lacking soft CC, but rather that our sustained DPS is simply poor any way you slice it…as is our on-point sustain. (The latter of which we’re simply not meant for IMO, as a slew recent nerfs have clearly targeted exactly that.)

It’s frustrating, I agree…I just don’t agree with your solution.

I never have chaos armor. Sword doesn’t have any finishers to blast our fields.
If i could proc chaos armor more easily that would be a huge boon to survivability in melee range.

Your suggestions about chaos armor only apply staff. Staff has a skill for chaos armor and it is the only weapon with a leap finisher to proc it from ethreal combo fields. I want to add that staff is already the most overused weapon in pvp for mesmer. Suggesting I use staff isn’t really going to win you any arguments for build diversity.

And I think our damage in pvp is good as is. Greatsword is actually overtuned, imo. And staff is in a good place. Sword’s damage is in a very good place. I don’t think it needs to be buffed at all.

It is in line with Mesmer. Mesmer is a support class. A debuff build via soft CC/non damaging conditions is support. It would be perfect for a dueling class such as mesmer. Mesmer’s whole theme is about misdirection. Chronomancers theme is about time magic: slowing enemies and speeding up allies.

And I don’t need you to welcome me to the forums. I don’t even understand the sarcasm in that. Because are you telling me that I should care about the opinion of players on a video game forum? Because I’m not bothered by anyone disagreeing and I can’t bring myself to be bothered by it. So, please allow me to welcome you to real life, where this has no real life significance.

And I’ve never seen the developers balance this game as if they were weighing two objects against each other on a scale. If sword gets some love it doesn’t necessarily mean that another class will be given something because mesmer got something new. Or that something will be taken away because something was added. It almost always balanced on the basis of something being added because it is lacking, or something being taken away because it is overtuned.

And you are right about one thing: Sword is my favorite weapon, so most definitely I would like to see it improved in the sense of filling in the holes of where I think it’s lacking in the current state of the game.

Fay.2357:

Hot Boy.7138:

I said i was over it because balance overall is out of wack. The damage is far too high, along with boon uptime and condition spam.

Which is why I made this thread asking for drastic increases to the amount of condition spam available for Mesmer sword

I asked for soft CC in the form of NON damaging conditions, which is inline with the current state of the game.

First, the significance of a single player asking for more soft CC is about equal to 6 players saying it doesn’t need it, out of the entire player base. 6 nays out of the entire pvp community is nothing.

Second, Devs clearly aren’t making balance changes based on player feedback. They’re going to do what they think is best. So even if it were 10,000 players saying nay, if the developers see value in my argument, they’ll implement it. If not, then they won’t. Simple as that.

Basing any assumption on what the devs may or may not do based on 6 players votes is silly.

I said i was over it because balance overall is out of wack. The damage is far too high, along with boon uptime and condition spam. I honestly feel like I’m one of the few players not looking to take advantage of this broken balance system by coming up with the most OPed build I can play. What I"m looking for is to make sword mesmers more fun. I know greatsword power builds are much stronger because you can literally just one shot unsuspecting people in one burst combo. There’s no counter play to that imo. And without counter play, the tug and pull of health bars going back and forth, there isn’t much fun to be had. I think sword is in a good place, but traits supporting a primarily sword build is lacking.

The issue with being primarily in sword set is that it’s hard to stay on top of a target, or create any space. I don’t know if you remember this, but greatsword had been a great kiting weapon since launch, if not the best paired with stealth. And then they changed the greatsword trait later on so it every greatsword skill applies cripple. That was when I realized the balance team aren’t doing a good job. I think sword should have gotten that buff.

In either case. I’m not worried about anyone that disagrees in this thread, as long as it’s not “play another class response.” Many of the points are valid, and I don’t think that invalidates any of my issues with sword. I know what I’m talking about because I’m in sword set literally all the time with sword/sword and sword/shield. Other people who are more adaptable are fine because they don’t sit in sword all the time the way I do. But even if I used gs in the other weapon set, i would just use it for the phantasm and switch back to sword asap, similar to how sword is used just for blurred frenzy, and I guess shield skills since that’s the offhand of choice in pvp. After my gs phantasm is out, i’m annoyed waiting on the cd to get back to my sword set.

But as I said before, we are waiting very long between balance patches for a poor attempt at balance. I got annoyed last night in pvp and decided that I put my suggestion out there for the devs to see. Though maybe I should have put my thoughts in the pvp forums.

To sum up. Sword is fine. But being primarily melee suffers from not being able to stay on top of the target and being unable to survive well against other melee, and that could be fixed with traits, and more sigils/rune variations.

DeathReign.7821:

Hot Boy.7138:

I’ve over it.

Balance in this game is just terrible all around.
WTB competent balance team.

gonna try to make a switch to raids and just pve.

K bye!

Unnecessary.
Sometimes I have to wonder about the people on these forums… so many of you seem sad to me. Enjoy your weekend. Hope things get better for you.

I’ve over it.

Balance in this game is just terrible all around.
WTB competent balance team.

gonna try to make a switch to raids and just pve.

I’m sure you’re really laughing hard at that….

So back to the topic. For anyone not wanting to go through the entire thread, this will sum up the direction I’d like to see power build melee mesmers go in.

I’d like to see melee mesmers get more access to cripple.

And I’ve had some time to think.

I’d like melee mesmer sword builds go in the direction of focusing on soft CCs, in the form of non-damaging conditions. I don’t think melee mesmer need a damage buff in pvp with this change.

It would essentially be a debuffing build: It has pretty decent access to blinds and vulnerability so far, but the rest can be improved upon.

I don’t see a clear direction right now for sword focused mesmers right now, and making it a debuff build could give it a unique role. And that would justify it’s current damage output.

For starters:
There needs to be more support in terms of runes and sigils for soft CC conditions, especially Slow and cripple.
Chill needs a rune set that is power based.

I’ll think of more.

And running in and out of melee by keeping the target crippled works well. I have a whole youtube channel dedicated to exactly that playstyle.

Anyways, I have midterms to study for and won’t be on forums for 48 hours starting now. I’ll respond to any new posts then.

You raise a good point. I already get kited to hell by greatsword mesmers and they’re the toughest match up for me.

Maybe cripple should go on the sword trait in dueling that stacks ferocity. Making it also make sword clones and sword phantasms cause cripple may be a better option.

Fay.2357:

Hot Boy.7138:

It doesn’t matter and YOU don’t matter. I’m petitioning to the devs, not to 6 people who play the game. Devs and the balance team makes the changes.

In that case I wish you luck when a dev comes by next august for their bi-yearly stroll through the profession forums.

Thank you. One can never have enough luck.

Fay.2357:

Hot Boy.7138:

Fay.2357:

Carighan.6758:

Hot Boy.7138:

They should just remove all cripple, chill, and (…)

Can you stop for a minute with the childish reactions and actually react to his input?

No, no, that would involve formulating an actual argument that didn’t contain inherent contradictions.

yeah, okay. I’m sure that gave you and your lackey a good laugh.

6 different people have responded to this thread, all in agreement that your suggestion and complaints make no sense. Not a single person has been in agreement with you. Normally this produces a reaction of thinking that perhaps your original idea just isn’t as great as you thought it was. Other times it means you explained it poorly, and need to provide a better explanation or examples.

What makes you so sure that you’re right and all of us other experienced mesmers are wrong?

It doesn’t matter and YOU don’t matter. I’m petitioning to the devs, not to 6 people who play the game. Devs and the balance team makes the changes. Don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re somehow of some higher stature. This is a community forum. You’re not a council that decide anything. If the devs agree, they will implement my suggestion. If they don’t, then they won’t.

Everyone is welcome to give their opinion. That’s all there is to it.

I do want to thank Windwalker for his well thought out post though. No disrespect to you, brother.

Fay.2357:

Carighan.6758:

Hot Boy.7138:

They should just remove all cripple, chill, and (…)

Can you stop for a minute with the childish reactions and actually react to his input?

No, no, that would involve formulating an actual argument that didn’t contain inherent contradictions.

yeah, okay. I’m sure that gave you and your lackey a good laugh.

I don’t play a necro. But at the start of any match, i mark the necro so he can be killed quick before he gets any life force. I feel bad for capitalizing on it.

I agree with OP. Necros should start with SOME life force. It seems fair to me.

Fay.2357:

Hot Boy.7138:

Fay.2357:

Mainhand sword has a powerful gapcloser and control skill in illusionary leap. Additionally, the radius of a point (excepting foefire mid) is barely larger than the range of the mainhand sword cleave. If you’re unable to autoattack someone when they’re on a point with you, more cripple isn’t going to fix that problem. If you’re complaining about people running away…you just won the point. If you’re fighting off point…you’re playing poorly.

Well thanks, I guess that solves everything.

Your complaint simply doesn’t make sense within the context of PvP. Do you want to deal sustained melee damage? Then you have to be on the point. If you’re on the point, you can hit with sword auto, so you don’t need cripple. If you want to kite around, you have to be off the point. If you’re off the point, you lose and therefor are playing poorly.

You’re complaining about a problem that doesn’t exist unless you’re playing in a way that guarantees your team loses.

They should just remove all cripple, chill, and immobilizations from the game in that case. Everyone should be fighting on the point and anyone who leaves the point has already lost. Makes perfect sense. No one needs any movement impeding effects and all this time Arenanet has just been making their own game wrong.

Fay.2357:

Mainhand sword has a powerful gapcloser and control skill in illusionary leap. Additionally, the radius of a point (excepting foefire mid) is barely larger than the range of the mainhand sword cleave. If you’re unable to autoattack someone when they’re on a point with you, more cripple isn’t going to fix that problem. If you’re complaining about people running away…you just won the point. If you’re fighting off point…you’re playing poorly.

Well thanks, I guess that solves everything.

To your first point of sarcasm, you can be kitten if you want.

Melee builds were viable. I don’t follow esports and care little for pre-made teams. But as a solo queuer pvp and solo roamer it was definitely competitive choice to play. Maybe not in your world where anything that’s not meta is invalid. Even now it’s not a terrible choice to be melee, though it needs some improvements. Viability isn’t based on popularity.

To your third point, it evades while dealing damage. When more mesmers were power shatter builds, it was mostly paired with shatters for bigger burst. It’s a dps weapon and the reason it evades is because it roots the player while they’re doing damage. But that could also be used defensively. It has the highest damage out of auto attack out of all weapons available to us. It just so happens it’s hard to keep it up with cripple. It is a dps weapon for melee players. I’m gonna assume you’re basing your judgement on what is most popular, then it is a defensive weapon for people who only bring it for the evasion.

The meta is dynamic. It always flip flops. It’s always changing. Maybe you don’t remember there was an era of most people running bunker. Before that most people were running zerker sets but thieves were causing too much havoc at the time. the flow of the meta goes by what people are trying to counter most. Therefore it changes with every balance patch.

Telling someone to play another class is trolling. There’s no exchange in that kind of discussion. It’s simply, “don’t like it, leave”. I was telling my friend that the forums function a lot like society. In society they stress individualism, but if you stand out, they want you to conform. In this game, people want build diversity, but then only the single most popular build is the only one that’s viable, though there can be success with many others for people willing to experiment and go against the grain.

All classes, for the most part, have the potential to be all things. Warriors used to have a shout healing build. Who would have thought you could play a healing warrior? Mesmers have a healing build, and a tank build. It has a dps build, it just so happens the damage sucks, because it’s totally outshined by maximizing boonshare. Eles used to run bunkers. The potential is there. I once saw a video of vale guardian tanked by a thief. You’re mistaken on this point.

It’s true that other classes have a variety of melee weapons instead of just one. that’s just my unfortunate luck that I fell in love with the class that only has one, so I make it work. sword/sword and sword/x is a viable set up. Like i said before, i don’t follow professonal gamers and copy their builds. I play in unranked as a solo queuer and after 4200 matches as melee mesmer, my winrate is more than my losses.

And I agree, the game is intended for wep swap. It’s worth it to me to keep sword in main hand on both wep sets. I actually thought it would be ridiculous, but realized i play much better this way. I have much more success. With demolisher’s amulet i can participate in group fights, and still be an asset to the team.

And I’m a reasonable guy. But I don’t take advice from people who doesn’t have anything to add to the discussion but play another class if you don’t like it. There’s no exchange of ideas in that kind of discussion.

Bertrand.3057:

Seems to me that playing mesmer as a melee class goes pretty hard against the class design. There’s a reason why MH sword is primarily a defensive weapon; as you point out, if you stay in melee against stronger melee classes, you’re going to get wrecked pretty quickly. If you’re playing power mesmer in the middle of the group fight, you’re going to get wrecked pretty quickly. You’re supposed to use your weapon swaps so that you can kite and avoid damage, and the clone death trait never made melee-only mesmer a viable build. If you don’t like that playstyle there are other professions that you might find more enjoyable.

And I’ve been playing mesmer since beta. I’ haven’t mained any other class. I’ve always run dual swords on one wep set and sword/x in the other set. I remember what melee builds were viable and what weren’t very clearly. Sword is the ONLY melee weapon mesmer have. You’re telling me that sword only being used for blurred frenzy evasion is how mesmer should be and I should just play range like every other mesmer in pvp? What happens when the meta shifts to melee builds? Will you then say that range was never viable and it’s against class design asking for ranged weps to be buffed? There’s no end to the flip flopping of meta. It’s dynamic and will always be so, but that doesn’t mean someone should just delete their character and make a new one when it shifts. What i’m suggesting is a change to improve build diversity that fits the class design of a chronomancer/mesmer.

One of this game’s major selling point is that there are multiple playstyles available for each class. You can be a warrior with a longbow, or a melee ranger with a greatsword, or even a elementalist with dual daggers, or play traditionally if you so choose. Sword is a dps weapon. Please don’t tell me that sword is supposed to be a defensive weapon and that it’s against class design for it to be anything such.

Telling me to play another class because I want better access to cripple is asinine. If the best you can come up with to anyone who makes suggestions to improve build diversity is to play another class then you shouldn’t comment. Whenever I see a response like that I think to myself that person must be a troll.

Build diversity involves having the options of multiple playstyles for a certain class. Don’t like direct damage, then you can do conditions. Don’t like melee, then play ranged. Want to play like wolverine, then run a drain life build., etc. The list goes on. Melee is my preferred playstyle on MESMER, not on any other class. I’ve always played melee mesmer through all the ups and through all the downs, and will continue to do so, but it can be improved. It could be made more fun. If i wanted to play another class, I don’t need you to tell me that.

okay.

I bought a lot of of extra bank tabs and a few bag slots back when the conversion was 50 silver for 100 gems. My sister only started playing the game after the game went free 2 play and i don’t know how she will manage her bag space, because it really is extremely expensive now to buy these things,

I think Mesmer is outclassed in melee by other melee classes because it’s not made for trading blows. I believe melee mesmer died when clone death traits were gutted from the game. I don’t think we need to see a return of clone death traits. I can’t speak for everyone, but just for myself here. But from my experience, I did well quite well in pvp because of clone death traits and i was a power build. The cripple and weakness applied gave me a chance to survive in close range with them.

Since losing the cripple and weakness on clone death traits and stats from traits, there was an era of very limited amulets in pvp. As melee mesmer, berserker amulet was almost useless for me in pvp because I couldn’t survive in the midst of group fights without the stats from traits. They introduced the demolisher’s amulet and suddenly the build I enjoyed playing became possible again. It offered decent toughness on top of what is essentially a power dps amulet, with the loss of some crit damage. Fair trade.

But even with this new amulet, I can have some fun in pvp again, but it’s lacking in soft control. By soft control, I just mean cripple and weakness.

I don’t know about you, but I play unranked and when I see other mesmers using a main hand sword, it’s only for blurred frenzy, usually defensive move. And they swap back to the other wep set asap to do damage. And it has been like this since they removed the clone death traits. Main hand sword has turned into a defensive wep only good for Blurred Frenzy, because illusionary leap has been gutted. And it’s hard to keep up a steady auto attack chain on a target because I can’t slow them down.

So the demolisher’s amulet was a good move in helping melee mesmers to survive in group fights and in 1v1s. But without a steady access to soft CC like cripple, and possibly weakness, it won’t be able to compete.

Now I love sword. I won’t use any other weapons in mainhand. So I would like to see it work. And offhand sword is fine as it is in my opinion. And I think it’s fair for me to say that because I always run offhand sword, so I have a lot of experience with it.

But right now, melee mesmer is easily kited by anyone simply running in circles, and is outclassed by other melee. To conclude, I just wanna restate that demolisher’s amulet was a good move for power melee builds, but I believe it also needs a more consistent source of cripple. Which is why I’m suggesting to have Sharper Image trait apply 1 sec of cripple on clone crits.

By slows, i mean movement speed slows.
General term I use when talking about “cripple” like conditions across all games. Similar to terms “roots” used to describe immobilizations

Let me explain then. Shatters are burst. Sustain is how you maintain damage when your burst skills are on cd. The reason mesmers dps is so low is because they have a lot of burst in pvp, that’s supposed to justify their lack of sustain dps in pve and pvp. The issue in PvE is mostly issues with scaling. In PvP, the issue is extremely limited access to slows that a melee mesmer would need. I don’t have superiority complex. But people on the forums are too quick to tell someone they’re playing wrong. The thread isn’t even about my skills as a player. It’s about petitioning for more access to cripple for melee builds.

Thanks, but i’m very experienced and I’m sure I’m playing at a decent or higher skill level.

I want to add that because clones and phantasms die so easily, my sustain comes from spamming auto attack, and it’s hard to do that on targets running away from me because I can’t slow them down either.

I agree. I’ve been playing since the xpac released and I don’t have enough mastery points because i don’t want to do adventure’s or go through old living world story episodes just to do achieves. I actually don’t want to do achieves in the current living world episodes. I just wanna enjoy the story and kill what’s in my path. Locking Mastery Points behind achieves makes the achievements feel like work and a chore. Achievements should award bonus items, not items that are core to character progression.

Anet, put some holiday visual effect themes for each class in the gem store. Could just be usuable in PvE.

For example, instead of pink pink aura and pink butterflies on mesmer, the halloween theme could be a dark aura and shadow ravens from all the skills instead of pink regular stuff.

I think it would be a big hit if you did for each class. You can be very creative with it.
Whacha think?

I stopped enjoying mesmer after the trait overhaul update patch the summer before HoT came out. Was so few options for amulets and my build was totally gutted. I started to enjoy mesmer again when HoT came out. Chrono helped a lot, but i think it’s mostly due to the introduction of the demolisher’s amulet in pvp. That little addition made mesmer fun for me again.

In the dueling tree, Sharper Images should be changed to apply 1 sec of cripple when a clone crits. As of right now, it’s incredible hard to dance around stronger melee fighters like Thieves, Scrappers, Warriors, and Revenants. Melee mesmer isn’t meant to go blow to blow with other melee and I think we are supposed to dance around them and have more finesse when it comes to take them out. As of right now, I’m usually in a position where I have to go blow to blow because I can’t slow them down.

Also, reverting the change that made illusionary leaps’s clone death prevent teleporting to the location it was last at would help tremendously.

These two changes are, imo, necessary to bring life back to main hand sword power builds in pvp.

I really want illusionary’s leap reverted to being able to reliable switch places with a clone, even if the clone died before the duration ends, like it used to be. It was such an amazing skill for melee, and imo it was the biggest nerf to main hand sword. The clone died just as fast as it does now, but at least then the skill was still useful.

I would put the Power Block trait in the dueling Tree. I’d probably switch with the phantasmal fury trait. Since domination is about damage, and that tree already has a trait that buffs phantasm damage by 15%, giving the phantasms fury has more synergy. And then i can grab Power Block more easily and can use in my interrupt build.

And in the dueling tree, I would change Clones bleed on crit to inflict 1 sec of cripple on crit. Because cripple would be FAR more useful in my melee build, and bleeds are pretty weak in general. Melee mesmers needs a consistent source of cripple in my opinion.

That’s all i would change.

I only do pvp these days. I run a power melee build: sword/sword and sword/shield. No stealth and no regen boons. But I get decent blocks from shield and offhand sword. It’s very hard to stay competitive with my build and I wouldn’t recommend it. For me, it’s just the only way I enjoy mesmer. I do fairly well against most except dragonhunters and druids for obvious reasons. So it’s doable, but imo you will have to put in more work for less results. If you go the power route, i suggest using greatsword over sword. I don’t use it because I don’t like ranged, but greatsword is a stronger weapon to use in pvp especially if you can pair it with stealth utilities. it has high burst, lots of stealth, and amazing at kiting.

about Ele not getting a sword, it seems possible to me that it was legit, because I remember you could actually link the sword skills with chat codes. they just changed it to warhorn for whatever reason. Probably will save sword for some kind of battle mage specialization.

I think mesmer will get axe simply because there is only one melee wep. It needs another melee wep. Adding another ranged wep on top of all the other ranged weps seems redundant at this point.

But I would really only want axe if I can dual wield axes. I don’t think mix matching an axe and a different offhand looks good.

I’m glad for another melee wep. I would have preferred dual daggers though to be honest. But I’m okay with this if it is indeed a melee wep. I already have the materials to craft Astralaria, I’ll hold off though until things are set in stone.

Tangled Depths is my favorite map. I love the complexity of it. I wish there was another map like it. Maybe an entire map in a Big deep cave. That would be something amazing. Or a Map of a ruined modern city. With many layers above ground and layers of sewer system below ground.

Maybe if Slow had some runes and sigils to amplify it a bit further.

I agree with OP. It used to give weakness also which helped for melee builds to survive in melee against other melee.

After they removed clone death builds I didn’t enjoy playing mesmer again until they patched in the demolisher’s amulet in pvp.

I’d like to see a class similar to Kiritsugu Emiya from Fate.
No clones, but instead using shatters to give quickness/swiftness on me and slow/chill/weakness on target.

New weapon could be pistol in main hand, so dual wielding pistols would be possible.
Would keep dual wielding swords in other weapon set.

No clones, so damage coefficients for that spec should be increased to push out damage comparable to a thief.

The reason I don’t raid, and my only issue with it, is because I don’t like having to spend hours looking through LFG in hopes of finding a group. When you’re not in a guild, it takes too long to find a group. I don’t feel comfortable starting my own groups since I haven’t done the encounters.

Mesmer is a dps-support class.
The dps is low and is justified because of the group support.

Since support is getting nerfed, I think it’s time we get build options to deal competitive dps on par with other high damage classes, like warrior or rev.

It’s always nice to have options.