Guild Wars 2

I love how were having a productive discussion about this in the Mesmer forum.

Aphrodyte.9354:

Boom.6148:

no mesmer nerf

Phantasmal healing = reduced to 2s from 5s

enjoy !

They really dislike inspiration

Seriously?

echofoxtrot.4239:

thanks for the responses fellas. as of 5 minutes ago i’m currently wearing full zerker gear and weapons. saving up for accessories

Consider grabbing a couple cavaliers or knights bits for your accessories. Full on zerker is a tad squishy for my tastes.

Nope.

/15chars

Helios.3598:

I’m considering trying out the skill Illusion of Life in pvp and was also looking to trait the CD reduction and possibly the range increase. Due to the traits I figured I’d toss in another manip skill. For fun I figured I’d try out Mimic.

I very rarely see anyone use Mimc. Is the skill any good? The notes in the wiki seem to indicate it’s very good. One note says “After a projectile has been absorbed, the remaining duration will reflect all projectiles and block all other attacks.” That sounds almost too good.

The note in the wiki is accurate, I put it there myself.

Iavra.8510:

You have to admit, mesmers are basically only used because of portal and illusion of life. I would rather see ArenaNet nerf those and work on our weaknesses than making us into toolboxes.

Mesmers are brought because of portal, illusion of life, the best aoe power burst in the game, the best aoe boon stripping in the game.

Osicat.4139:

I like Thief but but hate to stealth, I love ele but hate to change attinment, I like necro but dont like conditions… see where Im going?

/Osicat

Come now, not all mesmer builds have shatter =P.

There are a lot of viable builds that don’t involve shattering. Take a look through the build list in the stickied threads and see if you can find one that fits your preferences.

Sensotix.4106:

For all desperate mesmers i finally managed to create a viable tourny build check it out
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-Sensotix-Shatter-Mesmer-TPvP-Guide/first#post2470593

Not sure why you think creating a viable tourney build is news. Pretty much every competitive team in the game has run with 1 or 2 mesmers since the start of the game, and this has never changed.

Ryan.8367:

skcamow.3527:

bwuki.2175:

am i the only one that feels as if we’re being shafted?

I don’t feel shafted at all. Taking into account all the issues we still have, bugs and all, Anet will work those out and we have to keep them honest of course. But we’re still an incredibly strong class, one of the strongest in the game. In fact, I love hearing about the buffs to Ranger and Warrior. It will make them harder to kill for sure. Just means we mesmers get to meet the challenge and show everyone we’re still in the top tier of professions.

As a spirit condition ranger who also runs a high regen condition trapper build, i really had no issue with any mesmers (except like Corey Goes Shatter) and I’ve fought EXTREMELY GOOD good mesmers. I think mesmers lack condition removal, but they also have alot of defensives that assist with mitigating that but in the end some better condition handling would probably help them out alot – conditions are just too strong to them and ranger provides a good deal of conditions while timing evasion/dodging for their important counter attacks. I still cringe when I see a mesmer use invis with 12 stacks of bleed on him, only to find him on the ground dead after being uncovered.

Corey goes shatter is a very good mesmer. Having trouble with him is representative of having trouble with any very good mesmer.

If nobody reports bugs, then nobody knows it is broken. This thread was made a day ago, why not a month ago?

No, scholar runes aren’t worth it. Basing 10% of your damage on assuming that you stay over 90% hp is a poor gameplay decision.

Dastion.3106:

stuff

Extremely good analysis here.

Capitan Mancino.7915:

I honestly think I do have some idea, having played the class for quite some time now. What I also think is some of you didn’t bother to read my posts in their entirety, or else I wouldn’t quite explain why some things were said that I never implied myself in the first place.

Might as well be my fault for not coming on in a forum-friendly manner though

I’ll be back in my dusty corner.

We read your posts in their entirety. Your posts simply detailed a plan for absolutely destroying a fun and popular playstyle, hence everyone, including myself, passing judgement that your ideas were abysmal.

Illusionary persona will do much more damage than any other trait modification possible.

With 0 clones: Infinite % increase.

With 1 Clone: 100% increase

With 2 Clones: 50% increase

With 3 clones: 33% increase

Mental torment is simply a 20% increase at all levels of the skill.

Looks decent, other than the pick of dazzling glamours. With only 1 glamour skill, you’re really not going to get much use out of that. Illusionary invigoration is a much better choice.

Other people have covered most of the points. However, as to why it would be impossible to code, skills work with a source and a target. Conditions are on the target, and so it can scale based on the conditions on the target. However, boons on the Mesmer are neither target nor source. Phantasms have their own skills that they use. This would be like using a spell that did more damage based on how many boons were on the person next to you.

Capitan Mancino.7915:

1. Winds of Chaos: Remove Bleeding, Burning and Vulnerability, slightly adjust damage to compensate. Might and Fury are ok.

This is a bad idea. The staff is our condition damage 2handed weapon. This would make it useless.

Capitan Mancino.7915:

3. Phantasmal Warlock: make this phantasm deal 10% more damage for every different boon you have. Substitute the bouncing attack feature, it is far to easy to avoid the bolt, and this is the damage dealing skill of the weapon.

This is a horrific idea. The power of the warlock comes from the fact that massive numbers of conditions will be stacked on mobs with the proper team comp. This would also be impossible to code.

Capitan Mancino.7915:

4. Chaos Armor: Ele Frost Aura says hello – make this skill apply an ARMOR (duh) which reduces incoming damage by 10%. If you’re struck by melée or ranged projectiles (not spells) you get 5s of protection and enemy is inflicted with 2 stacks of vulnerability for each hit (1s internal cooldown).

This would be sort of odd, though at least not as abysmal as our other suggestions.

Capitan Mancino.7915:

5. Chaos Storm: remove poison and chilled (poison and chilled on a mesmer? For real?) and swiftness. I suggest keeping the way this skill work, only conditions applied are now daze and blindness, whereas boons are aegis and 1s quickness (yes I said it, and yes I know this is not a boon).

Yes, chilled and poison on a mesmer. Poison is an extremely strong condition that cripples healing effects, and chilled is an extremely strong offensive and defensive condition. Chaos storm is the only way we inherently have of applying those conditions.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Levitas.1953:

The problem is not to land it but to burst down the moa, iirc it counters lich and plague form while i read somewhere it does not work on DS, but I didnt test it.

Then that changes things, i swear it used to not work on transformed characters, didnt work on ele Tornado either – maybe even Warrior Rampage and the Engi Elixir as well.

No-one really uses rampage, tornado, or the elixir.

Moa is used to counter lich form, plague form, and it used to burst down a bunker guardian.

I actually read the thread a bit more. I noticed that to mentioned how you don’t know necro skills. That’s actually your biggest problem. If you don’t know what to counter, how can you counter it? My suggestion is to either go play a necro in spvp, or spectate some. This will give you a good idea of what skills they are using and how to counter them.

Confusion glamour builds are still decent for Zerg combat. However, any and all confusion focused builds are, and have always been, absolutely worthless for small scale combat, roaming. They will only kill a bad player, and you will have massive difficulty taking down camps by yourself.

Take the iDisenchanter and/or mantra of resolve and/or cleansing conflagration. All three of these provide large condition removal.

Baa.4582:

This isn’t mesmer specific, but reflect damage is based on the reflectees’ (couldn’t think of the real word) power now. It was based on the reflector’s power a few months back.

Tested with guardian steady staff: Orb of Light+Empower vs. mesmer Mirror.
Guardian’ power without empower was 1959 and orb was reflected for 225
Empower raises power to 2379 and orb was reflected for 273
2379/1959 = 1.214;
273/225 = 1.213

Crit chance and crit damage is still based on the reflector, and this inconsistency implies a bug. “Logically” though, reflectee stats should be used.

I will test this out personally, ty for bringing it up.

Maximum protection seems to be 1 minute, but if you are at 53 seconds, lets say, and your next proc applies 7.5 seconds, it won’t register, it has to stay under 60.

Not sure what you mean by that. Combo fields to to combo off of or combo fields to lay down yourself?

Or that player skill matters massively and the forum whiners are just whiners…

iLeap is one of the buggiest skills in the game. That being said, it’s an extraordinary skill, even if you have to roll dice to determine if it works or not.

@castlemanic: Yes, I am completely ignoring the heritage of the GW1 mesmer’s abilities, and with good reason. As stated earlier, the GW1 mesmer was an absolutely and completely different class than the GW2 mesmer. People complain constantly about how the GW2 mesmer isn’t like the GW1 mesmer without seeming to realize that they are simply completely different classes. Mechanics like hypochondria and epidemic may have been mesmer skills in GW1, but they are necromancer skills in GW2, that’s simply how this game was developed.

bobross.5034:

But mesmers are also specialists, so there should be ways for them to do necro-ish things, provided they require clones and phantasms to get it done…and that they require a specialized build to accomplish (hence my trait suggestions).

Mesmers are specialists, but keep them within the realm of what our class themes are. Consuming conditions and causing damage would be a necromancer thing, but if we’re able to do it purely with confusion, the only condition we can effectively burst, that’s now putting specialization for a necro-y thing within our class themes.

@castlemanic: Yes, mesmers can apply conditions, but manipulation of conditions is (almost exclusively, with the exception of arcane thievery) the realm of necromancers.

Pulling conditions from aoe targets to 1 foe, that’s the opposite of epidemic, that’s necromancer.

Consuming general conditions to deal damage and transfer them, that’s necromancer, adding duration to conditions, that would be necromancer.

Mesmers don’t play with conditions and boons (for the most part). We remove conditions, and strip boons. The 2 exceptions are arcane thievery and signet of inspiration. Other than those 2, everything else is straight removal or stripping. Necromancers are the ones that change boons to conditions, conditions to boons, heal by eating conditions, spread conditions, etc. Those are all necromancer signature abilities and themes that define their class.

People need to loosen the stranglehold that they have on the gw1 Mesmer. The gw1 Mesmer was a very different class. It has very little applicable to the gw2 Mesmer.

@castlemanic: Pretty much every single one of your ideas is a necromancer skill, not a Mesmer skill. Mesmers play with, apply, and manipulate confusion alone, not conditions across the board.

@ArmageddonAsh: You were attempting to make the argument that having skills and traits that work with confusion shouldn’t happen because not everyone stacks confusion. I was simply pointing out how ludicrous that line of reasoning is.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

That would be AWFUL. Skills should benefit ALL specs, this would benefit the small(imo) number of people that run Confusion builds, This would be a bad move from Anet to introduce Skills/Traits that affect a minimal number of players.

Maybe have it so that it removes stacks of ALL conditions and deals damage per a stack of condition removed? This would then benefit Condition builds as well as Confusion Builds at the very least.

This is massively false. What that change would do is make confusion not a worthless condition, and actually give meaning to confusion bomb builds, which currently blow chunks against anyone halfway competent.

You would be able to spike confusion, then consume it for high damage spike. The only thing that could make this better is if the consumed damage scaled off of condition damage, instead of power.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Again what about those that DON’T take the Confusion traits? Having Skills/traits that have next to no use to those that aren’t spec-ed to stack Confusion?

Sounds about right. Just like how the interrupt traits are useless for people who don’t bring interrupts, many phantasms have little use if you aren’t specced for damage, and mental torment has no use in a phantasm build…

Jijimuge.4675:

AndrewSX.3794:

2 words.

Mainhand Pistol.

Then split power and condition between it and Scepter.

Make it happen already.

Seconded!

One skill from GW1 that I’d love to see return, but in GW2 form….

Shatter Delusions – remove all stacks of confusion on target. Deals X damage to the target per stack removed.

This is gorgeous. I never once thought about having that sort of functionality, but having a consumption of confusion for power damage is a fantastic idea.

I’d just as soon they fix the ones we’ve got before adding new ones to break.

MacLeod.4208:

Pyroatheist.9031:

@MacLeod: Removing 10 points from domination into dueling makes you lose 100 power, gain 4% crit chance, 10% crit damage, and an additional 20% crit chance for your phantasms (that last one is the biggie). To put that in % terms, you are losing ~4% power and gaining ~10% more crit chance, ~16% crit power, and an additional 54% crit chance for your phantasms.

Awesome breakdown, thank you! That is the part of theory crafting that I am just terrible at.

As far as the torch CD here is how a fight usually goes for me (and please feel free to make suggestions), start off with GS get my zerker out as fast as I can, then use mirror blade and tag them a few times with the laser (if they are ranged) or tag them until they get too close (if they are melee). Then I decoy, switch to sword/torch, ileap, blurred frenzy, prestige, blink behind them, switch to GS and start over. Obviously I deviate from that when I need to, but that is what I basically try to do. By the time I get back to my sword the 2nd time the prestige is off of CD when traited (or very close). I’m scared of the extra time it will take to get off CD if I don’t trait for it. Anyway, that is why I’m reluctant to get rid of that. I will definitely give it a try and see how it goes though.

Thanks again for discussing this with me.

The cooldown will certainly be a bit longer. It won’t flow quite as smoothly. You’ll most likely want to play both ways, see if the extra damage you’re able to pull seems to be worth the longer cooldown.

@MacLeod: Removing 10 points from domination into dueling makes you lose 100 power, gain 4% crit chance, 10% crit damage, and an additional 20% crit chance for your phantasms (that last one is the biggie). To put that in % terms, you are losing ~4% power and gaining ~10% more crit chance, ~16% crit power, and an additional 54% crit chance for your phantasms.

As far as sword cd vs blink distance, that’s a matter of preference. Seven Mirror swore by blink distance, I prefer sword cds usually. Try them both out.

Even traited, the prestige is on far too long of a cooldown to be popping in and out of stealth all the time. It is still used as more of a situational tool as opposed to something that you can spam. Losing the cooldown trait definitely does make it a bit more situational, but the basic use is unchanged.

GalloGSM.8139:

Pyroatheist.9031:

@GalioGsm: What are you on about?

Mesmers have the most projectile reflects in the game. We have temporal curtain, pWarden, mimic, feedback, mirror, and distortion.

I’m taking about reflection on weapon sets, the ones on our weapon sets require a trait. We have to trait to get something elementalist have by default.

Mimic isn’t very good, distortion requires a trait to reflect and pwarden can’t reposition itself.

Elementalists have 1 3 second duration skill on a 25 second cooldown, pbaoe. They also have another pbaoe 5s duration skill on a 30s cooldown, on a different weapon set. It is not possible to take both of them.

Mesmers require traits to be effective. This is a fact of our class. If you don’t like that, you can go play a thief or something that is less trait dependent.

The traited temporal curtain is on a 20s cooldown and is a line aoe projectile reflection with a duration of 5 seconds. The traited warden is on a 20 second cooldown, with a reflection duration of about 6 seconds, with the ability to repeat that every 7 or so seconds.

Mimic is a fantastic skill that not only reflects, but also provides blocking for the duration of the skill along with allowing you to use the attack that it absorbed later. It is also on a 25 second cooldown (4 second duration). The distortion trait is a 10 point major in a commonly taken line.

Well, it’s interesting. You’ve got strong defense, which is good, but your offense is going to suffer a bit. Your crit chance is very low, and so your phantasm crit chance is low too. I’d consider dropping 10 points out of domination into dueling, and taking phantasmal fury.

Having the torch cooldown trait is nice, but unnecessary I think. You’re going to want to save the prestige for when you really need it, and you don’t need the cooldown on that to do it. The iMage is useless of course, and so the cooldown doesn’t really help there either.

Zumi.6384:

Crossplay.2067:

It speeds up the attack rate of phantasms. I think it works on clones too.

Yes it speeds up the attacks of most of your phantasms. For some reason it doesn’t work on all of them. I’m also pretty sure it doesn’t effect clones, but don’t quote me on that, as I haven’t tested it. It shouldn’t, since it’s intended for phantasms.

Someone recorded the exact speed of the attacks with/without the trait a while back and recorded it here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Haste

Keep in mind these numbers are pre patch, so who knows if it changed at all since then. Anet is famous for ninja nerfs/fixes.

Numbers are still accurate, at least superficially.

What aspect of wvw are you attempting to use this build in?

@GalioGsm: What are you on about?

Mesmers have the most projectile reflects in the game. We have temporal curtain, pWarden, mimic, feedback, mirror, and distortion.

Crossplay.2067:

WvW, is an entirely different matter. I remember my guildmate telling me that at one point, we had all 4 battlegrounds and I didn’t bother to grab all the stuff I needed then because I hate WvW for the most part. That was one of the dumbest things I have EVER done! I was on Crystal Desert then and we were at the top of the T3 rotation. However, we would then move to T2 and be the prison kitten of Blackgate and Isle of Janthir. It took 45 to 60 days more for me to complete WvW areas and I hated every second of it. It’s also the reason why I refuse to do map completion again.

With the new matchup system, getting your wvw points is usually just a matter of a week or 2.

@ArmageddonAsh: I would still dispute that an equally skilled player of any class could win a 1v1 against any other class. Part of the problem here is that equal skill level doesn’t mean the same at every level of skill. Some classes are much easier to play, and so lower equal skill would favor them, while higher equal skill would favor others.

So, I normally wouldn’t recommend this, but my immortal build does perform nicely in solo pve, with the one warning that your kill speed will be very slow: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Immortal-Mesmer-Build/first

You will not be mowing things down rapidly in this build, but you will be extremely safe. You won’t ever come across something that really threatens to kill you, even in Orr.

That being said, it’s really not necessary. Most any strong build will do fine for open world, again, even in Orr.

@ArmageddonAsh: 1v1 builds are not usually suitable for team composition. This is a well known fact. Your question was with regards to a 1v1.

However, you do bring up a good point, that of player skill. An adequately skilled warrior could beat any other class played by someone with little skill, and the reverse is certainly true for every class. How do you determine a matchup of equal skill? Not easily done, certainly.

My points, however, are drawn from the fact that with very few exceptions, every mesmer build can be modified to directly counter almost every single class build on the spot. You can take more stunbreaks, or more active defense, or reflects, or more stealth, or condition removal. The massive range of utility that mesmers have easy access to also allow them to be easily tuned to counter an opponent.

The one problem with this idea is more of a basic problem with animation locking melee attacks.

Think about the attack that drakes use (which is pretty much exactly what you’re thinking of here). You can avoid that attack by just walking away from it because the mob is animation locked into this short range conal aoe. The same issue would occur with the iMage. It would walk up to someone, use the attack, and by the time the attack actually hits them, they would have moved or killed it.

A good thought, I just don’t think it’s the proper choice.

@Lafiel: Mesmers are not weak at all against stealth classes (thieves? how many other stealth classes are there?). You can summon phantasms and whatnot as the thief stealths, and the cast will finish even if you have no target. Additionally, mesmer has a lot of active defense that allows you to heavily punish thief stealth attacks.

@ArmageddonAsh: Not sure, maybe 22 or so?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Pyroatheist.9031:

@Arale and ArmageddonAsh: A well played mesmer should not lose a 1v1, regardless of the class or build facing it. That is simply a fact. You may believe it not to be the case, but it is.

Again i totally disagree. Mesmer is NOT powerful enough to be able to beat any spec, build of any class. Sure they have the potential to do well, i have seen plenty of Mesmers lose 1 Vs 1, does that make them bad? No, it just means they were beat.

Saying that a Mesmer shouldn’t lose a 1Vs1 in my opinion is nothing more then opinion. Sure the class overall is solid but a Evenly geared/skilled player from another class has just as much of a chance of beating a Mesmer as the Mesmer has of winning.

As you may or may not be aware, I’m fully willing to back up my statements. Find someone willing to try to beat me, pm me in game, and I’ll show you. Until then, put up or shut up.

@ArmageddonAsh: Yes, I can easily beat condition necros when I slot those skills.

@Arale and ArmageddonAsh: A well played mesmer should not lose a 1v1, regardless of the class or build facing it. That is simply a fact. You may believe it not to be the case, but it is.

The cost is 2 utilities and a major adept trait. You take condition removal mantra, mantra heal, and pDisenchanter, along with mender’s purity. You are now very heavily specced towards condition removal. However, against strong condition classes, you don’t need those slots for anything more important than strong condition removal.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Our condition removal is weak to say the least

It’s only weak if you don’t spec for it. Specced for it, mesmers have the strongest condition removal in the game.