Guild Wars 2

I drop other mesmers a lot because every warrior and his grandmother is playing mesmer right now, so its at the moment the easiest matchup by far just because 99% of the people that play the “OP MANTRA BUILD OMG NERF” actually suck and are free kill if you actually think a bit instead of mashing your face into the keyboard and if you don’t have the reaction time of a camel in surgery. Also the mantra build is the most boring mesmer build ever created. You spend 90% of your time just charging mantras and underpreform in teamfights.

Chaos is also someone I have a lot of respect for because he knows a lot about the class, experiments with random builds like condi, boonshare ect but doesn’t push it down peoples throats, he says the pros and cons of the build and leaves it at that. He is, besides that, a really cool guy to have a chat with and if I was still trying to post on forums I’d like to do it his way. I’m a bit more on the agressive side when debating and I often come across as rude which sort of casts a shadow over my arguments.
My mesmer heroes are the top PvP mesmers. Helseth, Misha and Supcutie.
Helseth and Supcutie being the most consistant help to me, really cool guys that can take my hours upon hours of whisper spamming asking stupid questions that I’ve asked 1000 times already. I have massive respect for them because they speak from experience at top level and argument their statements very well. Helseth has an awesome taste in music and Supcutie loves Biology which boosts their awesomeness factor over 9000!
I respect Misha a lot because he queued with me some time ago when Iisey, Karsaib ect were all 55HP still and it was really nice to see first hand how he plays mesmer and generally it was a really nice first insight into how a top team works. He was also very grounded, calm and also gave me a lot of really cool tips that werent just mesmer related.

lol @MailMan’s “fanboy” remark. Pfft.
Also it’s not about not know how to think for ourselves, its about who’s opinion is most often the best argumented/correct one or who’s comes from the most experience and who we have respect for because of that.

either run Chaos Dom Dueling with PU, mass invis, blink, decoy + rupt mantra (if PvP then replace decoy with portal)
or Inspiration Dom Dueling with the mantra trait, the heal on shatter and the phantasmal defender on evade.
Run traveler, pack or vampirism runes. Whatever you prefer.
Do not take the heal mantra, its a lot of charging and generally really annoying. Without it you still have a lot of sustain and damage. If you go for heal mantra go for 3 charges but that kind of sucks because you have to give up on deceptive evasion which I still think it’s not worth it.
I myself run PU for PvP and swap to the inspiration build when I want to relax more and not care that much about what I do. I’d imagine PU would be better for WvW as well for disengages ect.

Heres the extremely pro tactic for foefire
1)Lord rush at start a la The Dankening
2)Pop deathshroud
3) 111111111
4) nomnomnomnomnomnom to build deathshround
5) 1111111111
6) ?
7) Win & Strike a cool pose while “I put a well on you” is playing in the background.

Clones, Phantasms, shatters, portal, alacity…. We still have stuff other classes do not..

Well I changed my post completely as you were posting, take a look at that. You’re not going to do as good with a build that isnt shatter. If you would, it would be played in ESLs. Thats a fact. If you could do equally well with a shatter and a maim mesmer build, why don’t we see them in ESLs? What happens if you play those builds on a decent level is you get carried. Phantasms die in cleave. Your immobs get cleansed by massive condi removal if you play lockdown. Same thing happens to your condis if you’re playing a condi mes in teamfights, yeah, you can play it as backcap or close point defender/1v1, but why not get an extra ele then? It will do the job even better and will also be good in teamfights.

I’m not against him playing condi, he can do that if he wants, I just want him to know that its got cons too, not just pros. I even said this in one of my posts.

I had a massive wall explaining everything but I just keep repeating myself so I won’t write that much anymore.

In my very first post, did I say anything about peels? No. I only brought it up later as I felt the discussion went towards that direction. The 2nd time I went to post was to tell you that you are leaving out a part of the contract of swapping build and thats all I wanted to say. Everything else is just unnecessary excess that got pulled in by me and you.
Good thieves arent beaten that easily, but still affordable. Great thieves (meaning Levin, Arzsi, Kaazers, Toker ect) are doable, I’ve seen them go down to a mesmer, but its the point where its not wroth trying to fight them.
I also wanted to explain the disengage. I thought like you – how do I disengage when thief just follows me? You didn’t disengage then! Proper disengage is as I explained already. You stealth and blink out, when you’re out of stealth, you shouldn’t be visable to them anymore because you should be far away by then. If you don’t do that, you failed to disengage. I had this issue for a bit until I got help from Helseth with it. It is very much so possible to do.
Most people don’t face great thieves. I have problems with great thieves, even good ones if they get a good opener, nothing you can do vs that without team peels, thats a fact, but if you’re getting those types of thieves, your team will most likely have the brain power to peel for you even the slightliest amount because not noticing a thief attacking your mesmer in a fight you’re in takes serious lack of concentration..

Also to the OP – Sorry for all this discussing, another thing I wanted to write but forgot – Small bursts vs thieves are gold. Stuff like dodge mind wrack, mind stab mind wrack. Something thats got very low counterplay.

You dont 1000000% rely on your group @ Pyro. While yes, it is a big + if they can help, as I said, most thieves one will encounter can be dealt with. Also people arent stupid in pugs most of the time. They will peel for you. Its a team game. If you’re put with people that dont peel, means their mmr is meh. If their MMR is meh, most likely enemy team will have meh MMR meaning also the thief. That means a small angle on the slope and that means you will be able to deal with him. I feel like you’re looking at the worst case scenario: arzsi, magic toker, levin… w/e you think is the best thief & rabbit rank team of your own. I still dont see how you could think losing out on so much is worth it having a bit of an easier time against thieves. Thief counters mes no matter which build you’re on. They’re a bit easier on some, but the gained vs given is a very bad ratio. You can also always simply disengage if you find the thief too much. If you disengage and he follows you, you didn’t disengage.
I’m starting to feel like a parrot now.
OP didnt mention anything about wanting a new build. He just said he wanted to survive longer. And a lot of what applies in coordinated teams, often applies in pugs as well. Proper positioning, kiting, disengaging is something you’ll need in coordinated teams and pugs which is what we’ve told him to practice.
@Curu -> 1v1 wise, yes. But teamfights sword is better because it can setup more spikes. It also has stealth to allow you to reposition better ect. I also think its quite a bit nicer in 1v1s now, could be that I just got used to it. I just love the amount of dodges you can bait with ileap and the extra evades from sword. I still play staff on niflhel here and there and I absolutely love it there. I think staff def. helps a lot vs DPS guard but you cna still win with sw/t ofc. The mantra thing is something I used to do but I stopped doing because I got lazy to do my best to avoid condis. I started tanking pindowns a bit again because I was playing with the mantra so I didnt care much.

Fay.2357:

Half the people in this thread:
Here are some other builds and playstyles that allow you to handle thieves much more effectively.

The other half:

No need to change your playstyle, here is a list of 5 different things that you’ll need to do to avoid thieves.

buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut good thieves will still kill you and make your life miserable though, forgot to mention that at the start.

Great job of excluding parts of what we said to make your point!
I said (you can look in my posts) that swapping build is a trade off in a negative sense. You’re going to be a bit better vs thieves (still countered by them btw!) but you will lose a MASSIVE amount of effectiveness vs other classes, in team fights and so on. Also, thief isnt really your job to handle. Yes – you need to learn those “5 things” to survive longer and to not be just a complete free kill (which if it happens IS your fault, poor cd management, positioning w/e the cause is.) but at the bottom line its your thief buddy or your team that should handle him and peel him from you. You just have to not die instantly so they can do that. If they cant for whatever reason peel, you can also always disengage. Also the “thief is gonna kill me, nothing I can do” mind set is a very crappy one to have. Yes. Its an uphill fight which you shouldnt be taking most of the time. The higher the thief skill level is, the more angled the slope is. You can still climb it very easily at the lower angles which most people face.
I mean, its ok for him to go play condi/lockdown if he wants to, his choice, we’re just trying to tell him all the pros and cons of condi/lockdown and how he can deal with the situation better using the build he is running right now while on the other hand you just told him go condi because thieves will be easier. Thats not the whole picture. Yes. Thieves are easier but everything else will be much harder than it was or much less efficient which is also a big thing he needs to take into consideration.

@Chaos, sw/t is better against thieves than staff because you’ve got stealth and more invulns vs staff which, yes, has more constant pressure from clones which hurts no matter if were in a zerk build or no, but you are an easier target.

Well yeah, evading a thief is no easy job, its his job to make it hard for you. While yes, sometimes in soloq you dont get any support and its hard but then its not your fault. Your team is just bad then. Most of the time, by proper positioning, tracking cds and disengaging you can handle most soloq thieves well. I still dont think its worth swapping to some other build. You are gonna have an easier time against thieves perhaps but then your effectivenes in teamfights and overall is gonna drop. Lockdown being the exception, you can do somewhat well but presuming you’re running GS, it will still be less effective than shatter. The trade isn’t worth it.
Its just how things are and with practice you can make it easier. The biggest thing is to just stay calm, kite around, disengage and not waste CD. You should get peels from your team though. Most people just give up when a thief attacks them which is a bad thing to do, its not that hard of a counter.

Nah, dont swap build just because of thief. Every build/class has its counters and its stupid to swap because of that. Granted, thief is a bit of a harder counter than other counters. Shatter is the most viable build and if you’ll wanna compete, you have to use shatter. If you want, you can swap, but thats not something I would recommend doing.

Basically dealing with thieves in pugs is kinda weird. I have some issues with this vs decent thieves (usually just dodging the steal will allow you to win against decent thieves, but if he gets a surprise open on you, then thats a different story. Also, decent doesnt mean good. Good thieves you can’t do much about, you can only ask for peels, thats it. A good thief will never die to a mesmer unless they’re being greedy.) and I asked Helseth for help. My problem was that I was not disengaging properly and I’m now

You’ve gotta practice kiting locations and all that stuff, keep an eye out on the map so you know where the thief is at all times. If you don’t see him, its better to be safe than sorry. Get on a spot on the map where if he steals to you it will fail (basically wherever ports are gonna fail) Then if he misses his steal hes not gonna be that much of a threat (He’ll still be able to kill you ofc, but it wont be as easy as if he got steal because he wont have plasma and you wont have 10000 poison on yourself). You should then also note that you’re safe for like 35 seconds from getting stolen from. Still, learn kiting locations and kite if you know your team will kill the thief. If not, disengage – stealth and blink out, run to somewhere so that once you are unstealthed you are no longer visable to the thief.

Vapour.7348:

what counters mesmer – thieves and condi pressure

most thieves are bad and it’s not rare to see mesmers outsmart them.
thanks to ele and warrior cleansing, condi builds are played much less.

mesmers counter:

shout warriors – meta
dps guards – meta
power necros
power rangers
cele rifle engie – meta
turret engie
d/d ele – meta
fresh air ele
staff ele

mesmers arent the best at holding points and their mobility is crap. but the poor mobility is somewhat compensated by their portal.

I used to queue with a good thief and together we’d prevent anyone from reaching our points held by downing them in less than 5 sec.

Out of everything on that list, mesmer really only counters the celestial classes, meaning no DPS guard, no sf ele, no power necro, no power ranger, turret engi ok but that isn’t played much anymore.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Tealots.6095:

@MSFone, agreed. WvW is a bit better for Mesmers because there’s no need to fight on a point, at least not in roaming. And even in a case like a ruin, you can do whatever you need to to kill the enemy. They don’t have a 15-second respawn.

Keep the good vibes coming!

That OP post is what I was responding to.
When can we do some duels btw? If I remember correctly you’re now on EU as well?
Something positive? Mesmer is in a team that is going to WTS and I think mesmer will win WTS for the first time. (Hope at least!)
Also, protons!

Thats a bad thing to do though.. You are out of position then and any decent player will kill you very easily if you just stay on point. Then what will happen
Your team will be 4v5 for 20 seconds which could result in a snowball and a 3 cap or in most cases, a very strong 2 cap.
You will lose the node
You will give them 5 points because you died.

While if you fight off point you will maybe get the point decapped, you will win the fight so then you are 4v5 for 20ish seconds, you got 5 kill points and you get to keep the node.
Either way you really shouldnt 1v1 as a mesmer in PvP you should +1 fights and be in teamfights. Though yes, you do get into those situations.

Why would you have to fight on point as a mesmer? You dont go attack people who arent on points but you do fight around and for them. You’re not restricted to be in that little circle to win. Leave it, win the fight, cap the node.

I moad the ‘Top 5’ just didn’t take ss
kitten it!

I do them a lot in soloq for fun. Just play around with the timing of the stomp start.
Its like 0.5-0.8s after you put the portal down. I can’t really tell, I just got a feel for it now.

You are wasting some cooldowns. I understand you to some extent because I got that habit back again recently and fixed it now. Some of those fights could of been over a lot quicker. Try thinking more about interrupting heals and elites.
For example in the 1v1 vs the dp thief (first one that was shown) you could of interrupted his heartseeker which would of probably killed him. It ended up taking 15 more seconds so not a big deal, but sometimes it could make the difference between win and loose. When he swapped to sd and you did the duel where you got an immob on him while he was in shadow refuge, you coulda swapped GS and noscoped him. Also against thieves a really good thing to do are short bursts (meaning dodge bursts wich you already to) but also mind stab at your feet and mind wrack. Its gonna do good damage!
Generally AA more, other than that, a big improvement from the one video I saw of you which I believe was your first video.

Got infracted for posting names of players here. I apologize for that. Blurred other players names out now.
Heres my post:

I had a 4v5 game because of Leeto being a BigD(get it? [Just a joke!]) and afking. I notice enemy team overcomits to fights. I keep a 3v1 going vs DPS ele, necro, and mes. I kill necro, and get the ele low but I mess up a distort so my heal gets interrupted by vamp runes. I get 5s burn I die because I couldnt heal (kitten you vamp runes!!). I kept 3v1ing them and we ended up loosing 490 to 500. I got called a hacker after the game.
Then a few weeks ago we’re wrecking this team in soloq because I happened to get a good team. 3 cap the entire game, after 350 I setup lord portal. I decide to just sit at range and AA, not do anything, I just tank a few wells from necro and go down because I’m basically not touching the keyboard. Necro calls me noob and proceedes to tell me how he was rank 1 on leaderboards, I tell him it doesnt mean anything because its just a farm. He asks me ‘did you play in ESL?’ I say ‘yes’ and he proceeds to tell me ‘its not a big deal’ in a desperate attempt of getting back at me.
A month or so ago I keep killing this thief by +1ing and in 1v1s. He whispers me in capital letters ‘you lucky c*** getting your lame a** lucky shatters off on me when I dont see you, get good’. Asks for 1v1s. Gets killed every 1v1 we do, proceeds to make excuses about how hes lagging, just came back, messed just this one thing up ect.
Helseth question was when I killed this thief in a 1v1, just proud to show that, he was decent from what I remember.
The ‘lord why you spamming skills’ was obviously a hater. Score was around 450 to 150 for us so I went playing like a kitten (my tradition as you can see).
The first guy is self explanatory.

Curunen.8729:

For the record – when I say “rotations” I of course mean it loosely so please don’t hook that out of my post, I couldn’t think of a different word to use – I’m sure you are aware that in any post I have made in the past regarding shatter I have always stressed being unpredictable and avoiding any set skill sequences. If not, please see my post history over the last year or so.

Now having said that, when I use this word I mean things like “fitting in” with all the other cooldowns and I never find myself waiting for either blurred frenzy or ileap when I need them. I never find myself “running out” of options (between dodging, moving, shattering, blinking/decoying, prestiging and so on), and I can often stay in melee range and make use of both skills twice (defensively or offensively) allowing me to pressure/play aggressive before needing to swap weapons. But then I also take energy sigil on greatsword and tend to spend more time in melee compared to the status quo of pew pewing a lot from range. Just my playstyle preference, hence the reason I find blade training invaluable in pvp.

In wvw of course more ranged pew pew and running around means that extra few seconds on sword skills isn’t necessary – and then I also don’t take boon strip on shatter, instead opting for torch trait.

While I am somewhat active on forums I don’t actively read all the responses so I didn’t know, my apologies on that. It also sounded like a bit of an attack which I didnt want it to sound like. I apologize if it did come across that way.I did of course see you post a lot but only while I was glancing over all the different posts, I did read through this thread because I had enough interest in peoples opinions on this topic to take my time and read through it all which I often cant do because its just a lot of posts being made.

I don’t think really that I have to wait on ileap or blurred frenzy unless I want to use it 2x in a 3 second time period. Very few times does it happen for me. I too stay in sw/t for at least two blurred frenzy durations and its perfectly fine to me this way. I guess its what you’ve learned to play with. I’ve basically had lack of blink range kill me more than I did not having blurred frenzy. As is, between having distort, kiting, dodges, bf on a short duration as is, decoy, blink if I go in so out of position that all the cd that I mentioned wont get me out of there I did deserve to die. If its enemy extending I will make it out most of the time, if I somehow fail and I die then its also my teams fault for not peeling and focusing the enemy who went out of position.

I dont know about WvW as again, I dont play there much. When I did I was running torch trait but swapped to boonrip as I’m running mantra for condi cleanse as is and it was sufficient enough. The extra cd on prestige isn’t better than boonrip in my eyes. Again, personal preference.

Mesmer doesn’t use rotations… You’re not a d/d ele. Sure you can get extra evades in 1v1 but that doesn’t really matter. I beat Rylock 1v1 when he was running the trait and I wasnt a few times. (I’ve not practiced 1v1s much except when I duel him for fun which is really minimal and he ofc wins a lot, but I do win here and there if I am not as predictable on my bursts and track his cd a bit more than usual.)
If you make mistakes the extra evades wont help you much, maybe it will allow you to win a few 1v1s but thats not something I’d aim at. If you play well, you won’t need them.
I tested it and I didn’t like it.I guess its personal preference. Supcutie was playing it a few weeks ago, he said he might swap back to blink range, not sure if he did..

About dieing with swt a lot. Thats something that bothered me when I swapped to it. Basically how I approach playing it is:
Camp dat GS at range and do your stuff. Go in close range only when someone is out of position and you’re ganking him with your team (to immob and swap mirror blade burst, mind stab mind wrack burst or whatever the situation allows) If you get attacked by say a thief you swap sw/t for defense if you cant kite and save yourself that way. Thats very superficially the swaps explained. Theres a lot more to it which you’ll get a feel for the more you play.
Its different than staff but IMHO better at the moment. I still run staff sometimes on niflhel or against a lot of celes when I’m with pugs but thats about it. In WvW I too prefer it for Excitons reasons.

twitch.tv/thelordhelseth
twitch.tv/hansawesome

Watch these guys play and you will learn A LOT.
It is PvP but the mechanical side of things is the same.
I’d also recommend you read through my guide(linked in my sig) to understand the build better, then through supcuties guide which is linked in my guide to understand gameplay, combos, get tips and tricks. Also go on youtube and find shatter vs shatter by supcutie. Its a long video where he 1v1s shatter mesmers a bunch and explains everything.

@Fay yeah it doesnt allow you to leap instantly but instead of being stuck in the anim you could cast other things.

I am a PvP player but I did use to roam and still have gear which I take into WvW here and there.
I used to be a massive staff fanboy and I still like the weapon a lot.
Each has its own pros and cons and really does depend on your playstyle for WvW while for PvP it can also be a matter of playstyle, in some instances staff will outshine sword and somewhere sword will outshine staff. Thats for PvP only.
Why I like sword:
bf is amazing for avoiding damage. You can also cancel cast in that small tiny window and get a free evade off. iLeap is amazing for baiting dodges. Torch was my favorite mes weapon before because I just like using it. The stealth is great for disengages, avoiding damage, you can also use it to blind skills and so on, the phantasm isnt that bad, I think it cleanses condis here and there but mainly its just another thing to shatter.
Why I like staff:
The mobility ineed is nice, it is easier to kite some melee builds. Against other mesmers that are running sword torch and against thieves, sword is better.
Staff clones add a lot of pressure despite being in a power build.
iWarlock rocks!
Chaos storm is really great to have in some scenarios.
For me, I try to play both somewhat but I play sword torch 80% of my time.

about bf cd and leap. Who cares? I like using blink range and I rely on it a lot, so I take it!You’re not loosing out on a while lot if you go for blink range.

Ok another thread from me… Lately I keep getting really, really, really bad people on my team. Like no stomping, no focus targeting, overrotating ect. (not all of it always, but often its rotation issues + either no stomping or no focus targets) I think I’m on a 20 game loss streak now. Its really annoying for this to be happening all the time. Poeple go into 1v3, feed mid, don’t support eachother, don’t dodge, seem really unaware/confused sometimes. As hard as I try to carry I just can’t do it. I managed to get some of these teams that I got to 400 points a few times but they always screw it up by either pushing for 3rd node as full zerk comp or just doing something flat out dumb. Even if I was a horrible player I’d still get carried at least once in those games, no? How come that I used to get ESL players in queues before, generally people that werent unexperienced or whatever name I should use and all of the sudden I’m getting this type of player? My win % has dropped over 10% in these past few days. Its been happening before the test season ended…

warrior currently? shoutbow.
I think greatbow is pretty fun.
Basically http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki PvP warrior builds here are all okay. If you wanna be serious about it, in this current meta you have to go shoutbow.

I just read Turks post here, didn’t notice it before.
I don’t insult. I do use the words stupid ect sometimes but always in the context of like ’don’t go 1v3, thats a stupid thing to do because you will die for sure’ or sometimes I say ‘come on guys, focus a bit, lets win this’ which could be taken as an insult but really isn’t. Lately I just ping the map and ignore the chat mostly and sometimes give heads up like if I die because guardian didn’t cleanse me from something alike thief poison and had the virtue I say in chat like ‘Hey [playername], you had the virtue, you shoulda cleansed me, then I wouldn’t die’ or stuff like that. Of course I’m not always like that, sometimes I do lose it and start insulting but it happened like 10 times since launch.
Maybe I do insult more, I don’t know. I think I’m pretty polite normally.
I think it would be good that you could like block a max of 2-5 people out of your games and give us a special block list for that.

Saiyan.1704:

What I absolutely would love is a
“Player” stomped “Player”
Notification.

I would know when a player respawns and further judge where he’ll go based on where he’s not.

Almost every game has it. I don’t understand why gw2 doesn’t. It just boggles mind.

You have that above your map. It shows when someone dies, it will show if he gets stomped, if so, by who and if he bled out or died from falling damage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUQ6QYvAxQI
you can watch a guide by Denied here on soloq, he covers (aside from all the other stuff I see 99% of people in soloq not doing) the list thing that I’m talking about.

I don’t really WvW much, but from what I’ve done in PvP over time, I can take a backstab and still have decent HP left. I can’t however take a hs, steal + backstab, there is no way to do that which seems to be the combo.. So yeah, you can go full zerk, I still think this is better because while it may not be such a help against thieves, it is against other classes.

I still feel like it isn’t clear here that I don’t block without a good reason. Granted a lot of people are a bit triggerhappy on the block and I understand you guys from that perspective, but as someone else said – people who’ve got so many actual players on their block list for no reason will be working against themselves.

I do block some people who just randomly talk sh… but are actually the ones messing up and costing us the game, who doesn’t? I don’t mind getting those people.
If I get whispers its mostly ragers telling me to shut up when I’m trying to say stuff like regroup in base and push out or they rage at me for beating them and telling me I suck because they’re kittenhurt that I beat them, sometimes I just say something rude in a playful manner in my head and go on about my day, if I get those ragers in my following games I often go and focus them to make them rage harder or just troll them a bit.
My issue are people who I used to play with who ended up scamming me or turning into complete aholes towards me. Basically people who I completely lost all respect for and have no interest in seeing them there.
I don’t have many, I’ve got like 1-3 of that nature but I still somehow happen to get them every once in a while.
Provost pretty much summed it up. I understood that this was a very weird thing to ask for, I pretty much wanted to see if anyone agreed with me or if I was alone on this.

bump…
I merged this thread with my video thread and changed a few minor things in the guide.

Most people I’ve got blocked, I’ve got blocked for a good reason. I’d be really happy if it was made so that if I have someone blocked that he can not be put into queue with me.
I realize some people might not want this so you could put a tick box in the PvP menu to allow or ban blocked people from being put in the same queue as me.
What do you guys think about this?
EDIT: Please read the rest of the thread before thinking I’m blocking bad players or that I’m being triggerhappy ect.

My advice is to either play it in PvP and use the tomes to level it or run around in eotm with the zerg to level (also bring some buffs to speed it up!) You can be at 80 in 3-4 days in eotm and in like 1 minute if you already have the 78 tomes that you need. To skip the first few levels you can dish out 2 gold and get cook to 250 there is a guide on gw2 crafts thats the cheapest possible. It will put you to level 10 instantly. What I prefer doing is complete queensdale at start then get cook to 400. You’re alreday level 20 and you can do all that in three hours.

Helseth made this vod commentary of 2 games in the monthly ESL GO4 finals which I think is really useful for a mesmer that is new to PvP to see how you play properly as well as to a veteran mesmer. He explains a lot of the things which most people don’t catch on official streams but actually impact the game a lot.
If you’re having troubles using your portal and moa well (which isn’t too straightforward often) I think you will learn a lot from this regarding those two things. Also it has a lot of good information for anyone who wants to compete on high level, no matter which class.
Watch it here

Helseth made this vod commentary of 2 games in the monthly ESL GO4 finals which I think is really useful for a mesmer that is new to PvP to see how you play properly as well as to a veteran mesmer. He explains a lot of the things which most people don’t catch on official streams but actually impact the game a lot.
If you’re having troubles using your portal and moa well (which isn’t too straightforward often) I think you will learn a lot from this regarding those two things aside from all the other stuff.
Watch it here

Thats so friggin stupid. Thats like giving mesmers conjure weapons that more than 2 people can pick up. Why the hell would you do that?
“Mesmer back in GW1 was a very high skill based class, we are trying to bring that back.”
lol…

“Traits that are made baseline: Illusionary Persona, Illusionary Elasticity, Protective Mantras (gain extra armor when you cast a mantra), Phantasmal damage boost traits,Manipulation range.”

drool

Fay.2357:

I think you need to go back and review what I’ve actually said.

Every single time I’ve discussed the viability of these builds, I’ve made it painstakingly, explicitly, unambiguously clear that they are not viable at the very top level. Seriously, go back and look. Every time I say something along the lines of ‘at every level other than the very top’.

Why do I say this? I say it because in my experience and extensive knowledge, that’s what I’ve found to be true. The very top level of play drastically limits what is viable. Outside of that, though, many different options become more or less equally viable.

Now, it can be debated whether or not my statements hold true regardless (and several people certainly have tried that debate), but to say that I’ve been making incorrect statements about what is viable at a tournament level simply is factually false.

Have you played in Go4 or ESL weekly and gotten to the finals, or even quarter/semi finals if there was a decent amount of teams? If not then you aren’t able to state that ‘from experience’.
You have me confused. First you state that it works everywhere other than very top, then you say
“…To be saying that I’ve been making incorrect statements about what is viable at a tournament level….”.
Tournament and very top are two different things.

I explicitly remember you stating that its viable everywhere other than WTS, if I searched for your posts I might be able to find where you said it, but they aren’t viable at average tournaments either(Go4, ESL Weekly 5v5..), the amateur tournaments don’t count (the french one that was held a while ago, AcademyGaming ect). It just may work there but it will work because you will get carried.

Ok, I will regret posting this and will get trashed by your group opinion, but I think Helseth is right, not fully, but he is right. Call me a fanboy if you wish, I probably am one anyway, so what? I respect him, I think he’s a really cool, nice guy (despite his character on stream which I don’t believe you guys think is what he’s really like, maybe he is, but I don’t see it when I talk to him in game) and an incredible mesmer. I do not take everything he says for granted, despite of what I think of him.
I listen to what he has to say because the fact is that Helseth more top tier experience than you all probably have in general PvP, including myself, then I objectively look at what he says and get a well argumented standpoint of my own which does indeed 95% of the time overlap with his because he isn’t the type of guy that will say something that isn’t true because he has so much experience.
I’ve 1v1d him, Texbi and other top players where I did a terrible job mostly, partially because it was 4AM, partially because I was confused as to what weapon to learn fully and kinda got to the point where I was meh at both, partially because I just quit the game for a little bit then came back, generally not practicing 1v1s ect, don’t want to do too many excuses. I’ve also queued with 55HP, MLG, been put up against oRNG and other top teams/players in queus.
From that I did see how high level play is like, how so many little tiny things can cause you to die which in actual soloq games people get away with every time without it costing them 1% HP, that is why I can make sense of what he is saying without him having to spell all of it out, while an average joe who hasn’t seen a player better than say Vingador – probably won’t. People who play in top tier really know what they are talking about, otherwise they wouldn’t be playing there.
I probably make myself sound like I don’t know what, but actually my experience is very minimal most likely, I don’t even think I should be considered a great mesmer. Lately I’ve been playing my worse for various reasons but I’m practicing to hopefully become good enough to play in Go4 and get some proper experience against top players.
Also, as much as I don’t want to do this, I’ve gotta agree about Pyro. Despite the fact that I have huge respect for Pyro as he has incredible theoretical knowledge of the class, the problem is theory doesn’t always apply to practice. Soloq is =/= tournaments (& tournaments =/= WTS) and I don’t really know that he played in any therefore I don’t think he is one to say it works in tournaments and I think that because of that Helseths word is more valid since he’s been doing those for years. Why are we even only talking Helseth? Misha and Supcutie would run condi if it was good enough, wouldn’t they?
I asked Supcutie about celestial shatter so many times and he really did try it a lot, tried doing everything he can to make it work but the thing is, against good players, it doesn’t work as good as mind wrack (I’d write the actual name but it gets censored).
I could of just written those past three lines and that should be enough for you guys to realize that MtD is not better than standard power shatter, but judging from this and all the previous threads, I doubt that. I know you want something different, something more viable, easier don’t we all? The truth is, there is no such thing at the moment.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I’ve always told my friends that if ArenaNet came out with a track that gave me overall less money than I’d get from other tracks, but it was JUST straight gold with no need to open anything more than some gold coin bags, I’d choose that on an infinite loop. How does this sound?:

1. Bag of Coins (15s)
2. Tome of Knowledge
3. Bag of Coins (15s)
4. Transmutation Charge
5. Big Bag of Coins (30s)
6. Bag of Coins (15s)
7. Tome of Knowledge
8. Bag of Coins (15s)
9. Transmutation Charge
10. Superior Bag of Coins (50s)
11. (Repeat 3 more times to finish and get)
12. Choice of:
    1. 10 Transmutation Stones
    2. 5 Tomes of Knowledge
    3. 2 Gold
    4. 20 Slot Slayer’s Bag (Account Bound)
    5. PvP Trait Unlock

Keep in mind, these are rewards for winning or losing in PvP. I think it’s fair to say that black lion stuff is out of the question. Those numbers are completely rough estimates. They’d have to be roughly equal to what you get out of normal chests from salvaging and getting random rares/exotics, which I simply don’t have the numbers for. The whole idea is that I don’t care about crafting materials or these worthless skins, so just gimmie money cuz i like it.

Just some stats, this track would give you exactly:

1. 5.6 Gold (7.6 Gold Max)
2. 8 Transmutation Stones (18 Transmutation Stones Max)
3. 8 Tomes of Knowledge (13 Tomes of Knowledge Max)

I love this!

Well its not hard to do what he did, while it is nice to see. I did it before as well, its very logical though.
Thief arrow from stealth always immobilizes. If he reflects it the thief will be immobilized where the arrow hit him which you are able to see. Then you just go there and do a shatter combo as if he was there.
My favorite thing to do with that reflect is reflect killshot if I see warriors that use it. At one point I had 2 warriors trying to killshot me (some troll group in unranked…), reflected it and they both got 1shot. Again, not hard to do but really nice to see done :P

Shatter is not there for sustain DPS, it is there for burst that is the first thing you got very wrong.
Condi shatter compared to power is nothing. The players in your video were really bad. Keep in mind the people that Helseth is fighting have thousands of hours of high tier PvP experience. They aren’t Gods of course but it is really hard to get a good burst onto them because they are aware of whats going on and most importantly they know how to dodge stuff.
If condi was really better than power, trust me, Supcutie and Helseth would run it. They’ve extensively tested a lot of different mesmer builds and weapon sets to see what is best for top tier play and nothing beat power shatter.

What was done here was a clip of Helseth autoattacking Alkore who is a really good warrior (shoutbow so even more tanky) and + there was a lot of cleave around Alkore so his clones were getting destroyed then a clip of messiah just killing noname badies with a condi build which disregards armor in a 1v1. Thats nowhere near a fair comparison. If you compared Helseth getting a nice shatter combo off onto someone to what you did, I’d call it fair and it would be in favor of power shatter. You may argue that power is squishy so condi is automatically better. Power isn’t supposed to take damage/be on point in the first place so it is irrelevant. Condis can also be removed while power damage can not without using a heal which is also something you can do against condi. There are a ton of condi cleanses in todays teams with all these cele classes. You may say power can be dodged, but so can the condi application.
If you don’t care about playing at a higher/decent level, condi shatter will do, but beyond that you kinda have to go power shatter.
A good comparison would be this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQglrsPBeF0

Insta killed a thief in stealth. Probably not the best example but a much better one than the one you supplied.

“Don’t jump”
Hmm ok. I will now just stand there with my mesmer while say a thief is attacking me and I won’t try to parkour my way out because yeah, being instantly killed is better than having a slight chance of getting immobilized mid air. Oh, I’ll also miss my phantasms due to obstructed instead of jumping to make them him.

I was ok with it yesterday but TWO… TWO! engi dailies in a row. I’ve no clue why arenanet didn’t nerf this already when people have been complaining so much. It blows my mind. I’m mad right now because any game that I play that I queue with someone BOOM, two turret engis.. I tried being polite about it yesterday but come on already! I’m tired of not being able to play the game because of this friggin AI cancer 24/7 the past 5 days.
Do something about it!
I proposed something I think would help, make sure that you don’t put 2 engis in the same team and simply don’t allow people to duoq with two turret engis or just nerf this into the ground because it makes the game really, really annoying and effortless, you’re basically punishing us for spending more hours on the game and enforcing brainless AI play because why would you spend a thousand games learning thief or mesmer when you could just choose these magical traits, get some other dumdum to come with you with the same dumb build and win while stuffing food in your face and barely touching the keyboard.
This has gotten so bad that I ragequit today, I’ve not ragequit ever in my gw2 experience. I did rage (but not quit because of it) when I was getting close to rank 80 and I lost games due to other peoples stupid mistakes and I wanted the rank bad, but since and before then not even once. I think I may even pause the game until this stuff is taken care of because its just not ok and seriously unpleasant. If only anet said something on this subject but all these threads are left unresponded do. Probably they are read but at least tell us ‘Hey, we’re gonna fix this’ or something. This way it seems like nothing will change and its really sad.
I know I am being rude but how can you not be after so many hours wasted to be frigging outplayed by two PvEers every friggin game and not getting any response from devs? Really demotivating.

What I liked doing was centaur runes + a tonic. You use a tonic then exit it and that counts as a healing skill since most tonics have the end transform key where your heal would be. It could also be traveler runes or speed runes…

If enemy has one turret engi thats very simple to deal with. Focus on the two points where the engi isn’t. You can still beat a turret engi 1v1 as a mesmer quite easily, but as Pyro mentioned, it does take time. What I do is usually just range with greatsword and put chaos storm on point. If I see an opening to go ahead and burst him, I do so. Most likely I just cast iZerker and shatter him while he’s still running through him and put in a mind stab.

One turret engi is perfectly fine since you can just go to the other two points but two or more is sorta what people make 1 turret engi to be, overpowered and quite frankly something that shouldn’t be allowed.
It’s carrying teams really hard with 0 effort put in.
Even this can be dealt with but 90% of people in soloq don’t know how to do it so it almost always ends up as a loss.

To fix this I’d like to propose two things. Tone down the build by itself but I don’t think that’s the right path because if there is one turret engi thats really easy to deal with and making it even weaker wouldn’t be good.

Second suggestion is to do something to check if the engineer that you’re putting in queue is a turret one so you do not put more than 1 in a team such as searching for turrets in utilities and non-zerker amulet(so you don’t remove a static discharge engi) or some turret engi specific traits?.

Also I think rocket turret may be bugged. I dodged it today as I was running and it said evaded. The rocket just turned around and hit me. If an attack is dodged it should fail. Anyone else got this?

I know there have been many threads on turret engis but they’ve mostly been ‘omg this is OP nerf pls’ but as you can see, this isn’t one of those threads so please, following my example keep civil.

Generally if in a fight you’re always aggressive you’re doing it wrong. You have to change your tactics according to what the enemy does.
I do however like being aggressive a bit more than kiting around constantly, even though that does also make me happy if I manage to say kite two guys by parkouring over terrain and survive for like 1 minute until someone gets to me to help me out.

I don’t normally struggle much with guardians and can take down even bunker ones.
DPS guardian I like to put my staff clones up and they will melt him quite a bit then I just go for a burst at a good time. Make sure you prepare a dodge when they pop their focus shield. They will wait out until its almost out of duration then port to you to burst you, thats where their main burst comes from (focus 5 + hammer 2). Generally just kite them. With iElasticity fix that it works on clones DPS guards are very doable. With sword I still don’t have many issues since I don’t think I’m fighting good enough DPS guards. You can avoid a lot of their stuff since it’s pretty obvious what they will do and you can burst them. If they heal up to 100% they are most likely out of meditations meaning what you do to them for the next 10-15ish seconds they won’t be able to make up for and a mesmer is more than capable of putting out 15k damage out in that amount of time.

Bunker guards will go down too, it will be a longer fight but you can kill them for sure, just time your bursts well and autoattack a lot.

iLeap also works up there.

Full condi team can stack you with condis real quick and they can put a ton of them on you, I really hope mesmer gets some ways to deal with those..