Guild Wars 2

If you want to facetank you just have to take a facetank class. I know there are strange people in this world who care about PvE and hold some deep fascination and regard for it, however in PvP a Mesmer can’t stand toe to toe with an enemy in a fight and has to spend his time running, kiting, duking, stealthing, etc. That’s where sustained damage from phantasms comes in as it’s their job to do that for him.

So what you’re actually asking for is another class for PvE, one that’s purple in color with butterfly effects, but that can change out its phantasm summons for face smash skills and much 1 spam. I wouldn’t put money on Anet doing this.

Evasive Mirror and Restorative Illusions were day 1 picks man, where have you BEEN!

Blinds on shatter, pshhh, so easy to cleanse amidst a phant summon. I laugh at mesmers running this silly trait.

;D

Uhhh, boonshare on an ele is all well and good, but you have to bring a smelly ele. Where’as a boonsharing Mesmer gets to come with, you know, MESMER class features. Why would you wan’t to give up the most amazing class for fantasies most generic slice of bread and butter right after the warrior? Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

Cynz.9437:

Sorel.4870:

Cynz.9437:

Here is the joke: i did ask top mes how to counter them. Answer was: you can’t.

And if you think that mesmers are epitome of balance atm, then i think it would be just fair that thieves for example would get 2 sec invul on every steal, backstab woud be ranged aoe and had no positional requirements, basi venom had multiple charges not wasted upon 1 hit and would stip stab, shadowshot should be unavoidable.

Sounds totally balanced doesn’t _it? (HELLO MODS WHY NORMAL ENGLISH LIKE “DOESN’T I T” gets censored or are we not allowed to use normal form of english anymore?)

Play Improvisation instead of Executioner.

If you really want to win against mesmers by hitting your head on the keyboard like you used to, run SD. The problem is, you’ll lose against everything that’s not a mesmer.

Frankly, if you were an engineer or a necro, I would have told you to just not attack them. But come on, as a thief? It’s not faceroll easy like prepatch, so adapt.

Improvisation helps to get things like withdraw back EXCEPT YOU WON’T EVEN GET CHANCE TO USE WITHDRAW BECAUSE OF STUN SPAM.

Do you really think, that hitting face on keyboard was enough to win vs good mes pre patch? Really? You must have never faced Frosty, Helseth, Supcutie, George etc.

Thieves weren’t faceroll pre patch, yes they were in decent spot but hardly faceroll. Please name me a commonly used build pre patch that thief had same footing against (besides mes and power ranger). The only reason thieves ever got spot on teams and still have it is their mobility but by no means they were any good vs most common builds in 1v1 nor they were THAT amazing in team fights. This is far from faceroll by definition.

Please prooooove me how thieves were faceroll, please. I would love to hear it. It gets thrown around so much and yet every single idiot i knew that switched to thief crying they are OP and faceroll was crying day later about how absolutely unrewarding and hard to play thief is.
Not to forget all the cries when team ended up with more than 1 thief. OMG 2 thieves, we lost, OMG 3 thieves!!!?? I am afk. <<<This was common thing. Thieves were totally faceroll yo.

And don’t throw your crappy “adapt” at me. I been adapting after every nerf to the class that happend almost every single patch for years.

Well, thieves have always consistently face rolled their way through QQ forum posts for years. So you have to give them that at least :)

neptunechild.4831:

Necrotize.2974:

Belial.9350:

Extreme.8350:

almost anything can counter “MESEMER” not just useless melee. one trick pony thieves can counter some builds. The best way to counter “mesemer” as a “mesemer”. is actually with condi build but one also has too much counterplay like diamond skin sigh.

Power mantra shatter actually does quite well vs condi mesmer because they have enough cleanses to buy enough time to nuke the condi mesmer.

Conditions still are probably the best counter to most common mesmers since they kind of rely on killing you before the conditions get out of hand. All these pure dps mesmers run either no condition removal or have maybe 1 utility slot for it.

You’re absolutely wrong. Mantra mesmers, running Harmonious Mantras and Inspiration line, can have up to 10 condi cleanses ideally. 2×3 from mantra heal and 4 from F1-F4.

It’s 6 without HM and 8 with HM. The cleanse for mantras is bugged and won’t cleanse on the final charge.

The best build is the one that wins. And what wins is relative.

dank.3680:

PU is fine..

The only problem comes when its mixed with torch and manipulation cd’s. Then its overkill and too easy.. Please fix anet I’m getting bored of my class and I can’t enjoy any of my wins.

Just dont run PU?

It’s not like it’s necessary anyway. Decoy, mass invis, more than enough. Hell, you shouldn’t even need MI. Decoy will do.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

ResJudicator.7916:

Just make it so CS only stuns on interrupt (otherwise, you get a longer-duration daze). That will get rid of the super-easy burst setups that mesmers have. Stealth openers still remain, but they’re on a much longer CD than MoD. And unless the mesmer is point blank, you can still see the mirror blade or ileap coming and dodge it.

I dislike this suggestion, mostly be because I don’t feel like every single lockdown-oriented trait shouldn’t simply be “on-interrupt.” I’d rather see CS moved up to compete with power block again.

And people are jumping to extremes left and right here. I think for most people this isn’t about good players vs bad players; this is about the average player. And this isn’t about being the underdog, though that WAS an allure, I highly doubt the majority of players picked Mesmer specifically because of that. (I personally don’t know of anyone who has)

Games in general are fun because they challenge you. Chess wouldn’t be interesting if one player had a queen that could move in figure 8s and wipe out anyone in her path. Gameshark is only cool for a little while before all your cheat codes start to get boring because the entire game is trivialized.

Shatter and lockdown feel like that right now. And no, it’s not because “of course if you’ve been playing mes so long you feel like a god” nor is it “Mesmer Stockholm syndrome” or whatever else you want to come up with to explaiin away the fact that a 1-week Mesmer can absolutely dominate most of their PvP games.

Helseth and the Abjured make money from this game, so yeah they play to win. The rest of us play because we enjoy the game and particularly enjoy the class/build we run. In truth we’re not playing to win, we’re playing for the thrill. And no, that doesn’t mean you have to jump to the entire opposite end of the spectrum with “is losing fun?”

The fact is there is a wide gray area between playing competitively and screwing around, and that’s where most of us stand. The majority of Mesmers are playing an overpowered build, and it’s really hard to justify playing anything else.

You don’t have to play in a tournament, or play for money, to play competitively. If you wan’t to trot out the “play for fun” or in this case “play for thrills” argument, then Helseth and Abjured are also getting a thrill out of it, albiet a richer, more deeper, more meaningful thrill. Which then begs the question as to if you’re “in truth playing for the thrill” like you think you are.

There is a place for “screwing around” within the framework of playing to win. But in the end it lends itself to playing to win.

Wait, don’t warriors have a high damage 1500 range attack somewhere in their kitten nal?

Cynz.9437:

Necrotize.2974:

Thieves can no longer hard counter mesmers just by taking 20 seconds to focus them anymore, unfortunately a lot of players got used to not having to try when it came to killing average mesmers.

No, it thieves just have to play like top ESL players vs average mesmer that are incapable of dodging or landing any shatter w/o spamming 3 stuns in a row. That is mesmers i am been facing after patch.

I used to have big respect for mesmers, i knew that class used to take skill, if i died to one i knew i got outplayed and should get better. I LOVED to have decent mesmer on team, the pain train with fellow mesmers was always really fun. Now i just look at mesmers, look them getting rewarded for mistakes, bad position and bad use of spells and think: “wow, turret engis second edition~”

GW2 balance achieved. Mesmer now in line with all other classes since release. :D

Neither.

People are building better and learning to play already. Newbs gonna lose on both ele and mes. Average gonna have their 50/50, and in pro v pro everybody gotta bring their A game or get rekt.

Conquest be about rotations baby.

Levetty.1279:

I have the feeling people are greatly overestimting the Shield Phantasm and Alacrity in general in the various modes, unless soemthing gets buffed before release. If we go heavy into shattering (which Anet thinks is the only thing we should do) we will probably get a decent uptime on it for ourselves but they have already said they are going to negate this by giving a lot of Chronomancer skills long cds, we still have our base skills of course but even a lot of them are on long cds.

In terms of group support, which is what everybody is excited about and thinks will get us guaranteed slots everywhere, it looks rather lackluster. Well of Recall is a 45sec CD for 3 secs of alacrity and uses the worst combo field in the game which will get in the way of fire fields in pve. This will still be our best method of sharing it though.

The Shield Phantasms are going to have various problems in different parts of the game.

WvW Zergs – Useless like most phantasms.

PvE – Due to the blocking mechanic, will take longer to set up then normal phantasms. Hard to keep up due to abundance of aoes. As a support phantasm is unlikely to have particulary good damage so cuts into our dps. can’t control who it bounces and gives alacrity too, not sure on the number of bounces here though.

WvW group roaming – similar problems to PvE but on top of that the bouncing mechanic gets worse the more people you add with the projectile often ending up doing nothing as people move all over the place and it bounces off to nowhere.

Levitty. Aren’t you the voice of all unreason? He Who Made ChaosA erupt like so many volcanoes? The one who spoke doom and gloom for all coming Mesmer changes that vowed, once they’d dropped and proved you right, that you were quitting the game and never returning?

What happened with that?

Darksteel.8412:

the 1st week after this patch hit, I got oneshotted by any mesmer I went look for mesmer in wvw to duel chased every single mes I could find also in pvp….totally got owned 24/7 near insta. a week later still losing hardcore but but dying myself less fast as well…. kept continue doing this instead of cry here….now I’m at a point that I still lose or need to run from mesmer but I do not get oneshotted anymore and I even have a decent chance of winning from them (still learning) next month I think I can beat quite a bunch of decent mesmer players…. stop what you’re doing here and don’t expect things to be handed to you. The game is more balanced now then it ever was AND exciting on top of that. I’ts fast it’s fun and imo no joke or trolling… it’s now extremely balanced (no I don’t play mesmer, I fight them)

I think you’re missing the point of this thread, which is to enable alcoholics to drink ;D

Necrotize.2974:

Take a shot everytime a thread like this pops up. You’ll be drinking for months straight.

If every tear was a drop of vodka you’d die from alcohol poisoning.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I think they wanted thief to have rifle so they could be like the sylvari snipers that were in game, but then figured out they would be massively OP, high damage range with lots of stealth options, it was never going to be able to be balanced.

The invisible killshot thief. Only the new ultra high damage shot will instantly teleport them away from the target 1500 units and fire instantly. If it misses you can just keep going until it hits. No initiative cost :D

Considering your boonshare on phant summon, is signit of inspiration really necessary? +10% boon duration, random boon every 10s, but the boon sharing part? Is the build significantly weaker without it? Or weaker vs alternative utilities?

Meant pre patch. Can’t edit on this stupid tablet.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Vids are being uploaded. I ended up sick this weekend, so I was more bedridden than online, but heres some 4v4s and 3v3s and 3v2s from both the US and EU events.

US Mesmer 4v4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7Gd4M9Isbs

EU Sudden Death Match
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_ZEKSxj2aI

Trying to beat up IcyIcyIcy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlqPIBjOCDU

Why were you guys trying to shatter burst icy -_-u

Rylock had the same delusions that he could 1v3/1v2 a full mesmer matchup post patch. While my allies pressured him I just summoned phants and sat patiently idle. When he did turn his attention on me I played full defence/prevention/mitigation. Mesmer is great at punishing aggressors.

Not saying icy isn’t amazing especially when he gets his pu setups out, but the strategy your team took made me sad. Need more Sun Tzu in your diet.

StickerHappy.8052:

Ross Biddle.2367:

StickerHappy.8052:

Ross Biddle.2367:

StickerHappy.8052:

Necrotize.2974:

Ross Biddle.2367:

One example
I came across this vid on the warrior forum yesterday. Montage of duels this war has with the new build he’s adopted post patch. Final fights are vs a standard shatter mes setup run by a relatively average mes (link starts at mes fight). This war is running duel melee.

https://youtu.be/hSIge84iGDw?t=721

It is a duel so things should be taken with a grain of salt, but here’s what I saw:

That is an excellent example of how you should combat a shatter mesmer. More often than not, the warrior destroyed illusions far before they became an issue, sometimes even before they had a chance to attack. By destroying clones quickly, you force the mesmer to burst on your terms, not theirs. If the mesmer goes into stealth, don’t just stop attacking. Head for phantasms, then clones. This insures that the mesmer either needs to waste dodges to produce more(and give away their location), or settle for suboptimal bursts. People got so used to ignoring clones because with debilitating dissipation being commonplace in most build, you didn’t want to go around cleaving them. Now you’re actually rewarded for taking down clones.

FYI, as a warrior you have luxury of taking down clones, High armor, High HP, HS, All those stances, so that comparison is really invalid.

Wrong.

Play to win.

I am so sick of this play to win cliche, it like a trump card to avoid all reasoning and disregard aspects that matter.

So where was this play to win when thieves hard countered mesmers? So?

That’s why I ran phantrupt so as to give me a counter and an edge to thieves. Remember it was only power shatter mesmer that was hard countered by thieves. In wvw on release I ran rabid confusion shatter, scepter/torch sword/focus to counter the prevelant domination of thieves. Later hybrid to cover my basis.

Playing to win IS an exercise in reasoning. The only thing it trumps is scrub thinking. You can’t dismiss that warrior build simply because he was successful, and because other builds on other classes are not. There’s no reason in that.

Oh but there is, Comparing classes with different mechanics, different stats, etc is absurd. Then if you say that, then all mesmers have equal chances of killing thieves pre patch?

The warrior build might be succesful, but there is no scrub mentality in this one, warriors have different tools to work with, even a total noob knows that. So saying Playing to win is all that matters is complete and utter BS.

So if mesmers had heavy armor and higher hp like the warrior, would you still believe that thieves will totally hard counter mesmers? If mesmers had healing signet that heals for 300 hp every second with no healing power, would thieves still counter mesmer?

I do not think so.

Also you are talking about SOLO QUE. The game is not balanced around solo q.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say with your argument.

As an aside, riddle me this: If you’re not playing to win, what are you doing?

StickerHappy.8052:

Ross Biddle.2367:

StickerHappy.8052:

Necrotize.2974:

Ross Biddle.2367:

One example
I came across this vid on the warrior forum yesterday. Montage of duels this war has with the new build he’s adopted post patch. Final fights are vs a standard shatter mes setup run by a relatively average mes (link starts at mes fight). This war is running duel melee.

https://youtu.be/hSIge84iGDw?t=721

It is a duel so things should be taken with a grain of salt, but here’s what I saw:

That is an excellent example of how you should combat a shatter mesmer. More often than not, the warrior destroyed illusions far before they became an issue, sometimes even before they had a chance to attack. By destroying clones quickly, you force the mesmer to burst on your terms, not theirs. If the mesmer goes into stealth, don’t just stop attacking. Head for phantasms, then clones. This insures that the mesmer either needs to waste dodges to produce more(and give away their location), or settle for suboptimal bursts. People got so used to ignoring clones because with debilitating dissipation being commonplace in most build, you didn’t want to go around cleaving them. Now you’re actually rewarded for taking down clones.

FYI, as a warrior you have luxury of taking down clones, High armor, High HP, HS, All those stances, so that comparison is really invalid.

Wrong.

Play to win.

I am so sick of this play to win cliche, it like a trump card to avoid all reasoning and disregard aspects that matter.

So where was this play to win when thieves hard countered mesmers? So?

That’s why I ran phantrupt so as to give me a counter and an edge to thieves. Remember it was only power shatter mesmer that was hard countered by thieves. In wvw on release I ran rabid confusion shatter, scepter/torch sword/focus to counter the prevelant domination of thieves. Later hybrid to cover my basis.

Playing to win IS an exercise in reasoning. The only thing it trumps is scrub thinking. You can’t dismiss that warrior build simply because he was successful, and because other builds on other classes are not. There’s no reason in that.

Phantrupt + Boonshare.

StickerHappy.8052:

Necrotize.2974:

Ross Biddle.2367:

One example
I came across this vid on the warrior forum yesterday. Montage of duels this war has with the new build he’s adopted post patch. Final fights are vs a standard shatter mes setup run by a relatively average mes (link starts at mes fight). This war is running duel melee.

https://youtu.be/hSIge84iGDw?t=721

It is a duel so things should be taken with a grain of salt, but here’s what I saw:

That is an excellent example of how you should combat a shatter mesmer. More often than not, the warrior destroyed illusions far before they became an issue, sometimes even before they had a chance to attack. By destroying clones quickly, you force the mesmer to burst on your terms, not theirs. If the mesmer goes into stealth, don’t just stop attacking. Head for phantasms, then clones. This insures that the mesmer either needs to waste dodges to produce more(and give away their location), or settle for suboptimal bursts. People got so used to ignoring clones because with debilitating dissipation being commonplace in most build, you didn’t want to go around cleaving them. Now you’re actually rewarded for taking down clones.

FYI, as a warrior you have luxury of taking down clones, High armor, High HP, HS, All those stances, so that comparison is really invalid.

Wrong.

Play to win.

Necrotize.2974:

Ross Biddle.2367:

One example
I came across this vid on the warrior forum yesterday. Montage of duels this war has with the new build he’s adopted post patch. Final fights are vs a standard shatter mes setup run by a relatively average mes (link starts at mes fight). This war is running duel melee.

https://youtu.be/hSIge84iGDw?t=721

It is a duel so things should be taken with a grain of salt, but here’s what I saw:

That is an excellent example of how you should combat a shatter mesmer. More often than not, the warrior destroyed illusions far before they became an issue, sometimes even before they had a chance to attack. By destroying clones quickly, you force the mesmer to burst on your terms, not theirs. If the mesmer goes into stealth, don’t just stop attacking. Head for phantasms, then clones. This insures that the mesmer either needs to waste dodges to produce more(and give away their location), or settle for suboptimal bursts. People got so used to ignoring clones because with debilitating dissipation being commonplace in most build, you didn’t want to go around cleaving them. Now you’re actually rewarded for taking down clones.

Yup.

I asked the guy to take a vid of a full match. I want to see it play in a proper environment.

Any chance of running/recording this build in action in a full match vid?

One example
I came across this vid on the warrior forum yesterday. Montage of duels this war has with the new build he’s adopted post patch. Final fights are vs a standard shatter mes setup run by a relatively average mes (link starts at mes fight). This war is running duel melee.

https://youtu.be/hSIge84iGDw?t=721

Necrotize.2974:

Also consider that it could be due to your own perception. Obviously if prior to the patch you were getting hardcountered or had to work significantly harder to kill someone then all of a sudden you only have to work as hard as other classes, it’ll feel like you don’t have to try nearly as hard to be successful because you got used to being an underdog. A good analogy would be suppose you went your whole life wearing weighted shoes that slowed you down. After a while you probably wouldn’t even notice them anymore. But then one day, you take off those weighted shoes and realized everything is a whole lot easier than before, so easy that things that were previously much more difficult seem incredibly easy. Of course this is all objective and not very precise, but the point still stands.

Prior to the patch, there really wasn’t much to fear from your average mesmer. Their bursts were predictable and most classes could eat a full burst to the face and recover, especially warriors. My experience fighting average to above average warriors in SPvP was that I needed to land 2 consecutive full bursts to seal the deal. If either was messed up, chances are I was wasting my time and I would be of more use elsewhere. It’s not that they could kill me easily(since I usually ran staff so kiting was natural), it’s just that if the fight takes longer than say 45 seconds on point, I’d be much better off just leaving him to cap and +1ing another fight.

I’ll add to this that in the pre-patch days, other classes outright laughed at the ease of fighting Mesmers. Also if you brought a Mesmer to a ranked match you were instantly flagged as a liability, dead weight, or questionable at best. You had to prove yourself by the end of the match with the top score on top of a win before you’d get the tick of approval. If there were two Mesmers in the team, people would write off the match.

This was only a few weeks ago people. Not long enough that you should have forgotten.

Tealots.6095:

skcamow.3527:

The long and short of it is that it’s become very easy for new mesmers to be very effective. In essence, this patch lowered the skill floor for mesmer in general, which is unfortunate.

Now what veteran mesmers need to do is learn to adapt to this new influx and find ways to counter. It’s only been a month after all and already I’m seeing people learn to counter it. I know this can be easier said than done, but it isn’t just in play style; it’s analyzing different tactics and most of all, choosing a build that helps you perform the best.

QFT. The FotM mesmers stick out like sore thumbs. Veteran mesmers stab like jagged knives (and thus replace thieves).

The FotMers are coming in two forms, I’m noticing. PU with MoD and GS, or Ross’s Dom, Dueling, Inspiration Mantra build. As a Mesmer, there are definite strategies to dealing with both. Just last night I came across one of those Mantra Mesmers and a CI Mesmer. I was toying with PU/Powerblock and I had plenty of counterplay without relying on stealth for defense. The key is to get them to burn their cooldowns, then show them how to burst.

Or you go PU condi and puke confusion all over them.

Yes, and since I’ve been playing this build since last November, there’s a HUGE gap between these new/FOTM Mesmers and where someone like me is at. Luck doesn’t even come into it, it’s just not going to be enough. That’s why encounters like this are staple
https://youtu.be/1S61F2Io9l0?t=35

Honestly, the scariest things out there for Mesmers are warriors and guardians who’re adapting, and good thieves (albiet they’re very rare).

As for the bad rotations comment ChaosA made, this isn’t limited to Mesmers. In just about every single match I’ve played for weeks now, both teams have been made up of marauding lunatics who know no rotations, run to every point that needs capping, and fight everywhere they can which more often than not is off point. It’s like “holding a point” isnt a concept at all.

Yup. Always have.

Maris.3164:

Ithilwen.1529:

shatters still take skill to land.

Not really. It takes an experienced player to dodge the shatters is more like it. But trying to get all your clones spread and then using one button is not skillful. Try a thief, the real Leroy of the current game…

Isnt backstab a single button press and completely non-dependant on having clones?

Read the bit on “Intro”
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-How-to-make-a-half-decent-vid/first#

Jump to 4:30 to actually see the illustration -_-u

Good fights. Fun to watch. Loads of pressure. That mes though -_-u Shows how lackluster a standard shatter setup can be.

Major mantra QoL update. You’ll feel the presence of those channels, and even the CD’s when pressed. Especially when running multiple mantras.

Silinsar.6298:

Ross Biddle.2367:

“A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win.”

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

Play to win. Use everything at your disposal. Be a truly good gamer.

This goes for every class, in every game, for all time.

“[…] If you want to win over the long term, then you can’t play every single game as if it were a tournament finals. If you did, you wouldn’t have time for basic R&D, you’d never learn the quirky nuances that show up unexpectedly at tournaments, and you are likely to get stuck honing suboptimal tactics.”
https://sirlin.squarespace.com/ptw-book/love-of-the-game-not-playing-to-win

Agree. It’s all part of playing to win.

Silinsar.6298:

Also, while Playing to Win is an interesting read and there’s much to learn from it, don’t simply tell people to play to win. The book was written for people with the ambition of becoming high level tournament (professional) players in competitive games who are willing to put a majority of time and energy into that endeavor. It’s not for everyone, it’s not for every game and it’s not for all time.

Disagree.

There are scrubs, and there are those those who play to win. You’re either on the path to self improvement, or you’re not. There is no caveat that states there’s no practical application for those not engaging in professional tournaments. More’over, the avenues for competitive play extend far beyond platforms that provide cash prizes.

Pistol has always been found in power, condition, and hybrid builds.

Here is all you need to know.

• Step 1: Create the most punishing build you can
• Step 2: Mercilessly seek to destroy your opponents at every turn
• Step 3: Watch as other players learn, grow, and adapt
• Step 4: Feel satisfied that you’ve contributed in making other gamers better.

GS Sw/Pistol, offense is the best defense.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Ross Biddle.2367:

nearlight.3064:

Mesmer is really good right now with several viable builds. Take domination, dueling, and a greatsword and you’re all set, the last trait line is just for either some extra support/sustain/survivability. The condi shatter builds are also pretty decent with carrion too. Don’t play the faceroll mantra builds though, it’ll keep you from getting better since the stunlock mantra won’t teach you how to shatter at the right time and it’ll probably get nerfed anyway. Playing mantras would just make it harder for you to learn how to be a good mesmer.

“A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win.”

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

Play to win. Use everything at your disposal. Be a truly good gamer.

This goes for every class, in every game, for all time.

Look at you and your edgy self. I don’t know if it occurred to you, but people play games for fun. Another platform exists where you get to try hard and go for the win, although I’m not sure I’d be capable of simplifying it in terms you’d be able to understand. Sweating over using the most powerful triple S rated builds isn’t what maaaaany people define as fun. Also, that website is full of kitten.

Fun is covered too. Playing to win generates deeper, more meaningful levels of fun :)

“A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which one tries to win at all costs is “boring” or “not fun.” Who knows what objective the scrub has, but we know his objective is not truly to win. Yours is. Your objective is good and right and true, and let no one tell you otherwise. You have the power to dispatch those who would tell you otherwise, anyway. Simply beat them.

Let’s consider two groups of players: a group of good players and a group of scrubs. The scrubs will play “for fun” and not explore the extremities of the game. They won’t find the most effective tactics and abuse them mercilessly. The good players will. The good players will find incredibly overpowering tactics and patterns…..

Let’s return to the group of scrubs. They don’t know the first thing about all the depth I’ve been talking about. Their argument is basically that ignorantly mashing buttons with little regard to actual strategy is more “fun.” Superficially, their argument does at least look valid, since often their games will be more “wet and wild” than games between the experts, which are usually more controlled and refined. But any close examination will reveal that the experts are having a great deal of this “fun” on a higher level than the scrub can even imagine. Throwing together some circus act of a win isn’t nearly as satisfying as reading your opponent’s mind to such a degree that you can counter his every move, even his every counter.

Can you imagine what will happen when the two groups of players meet? The experts will absolutely destroy the scrubs with any number of tactics they’ve either never seen or never been truly forced to counter. This is because the scrubs have not been playing the same game. The experts were playing the actual game while the scrubs were playing their own homemade variant with restricting, unwritten rules."

Aomine.5012:

Ross Biddle.2367:

nearlight.3064:

Mesmer is really good right now with several viable builds. Take domination, dueling, and a greatsword and you’re all set, the last trait line is just for either some extra support/sustain/survivability. The condi shatter builds are also pretty decent with carrion too. Don’t play the faceroll mantra builds though, it’ll keep you from getting better since the stunlock mantra won’t teach you how to shatter at the right time and it’ll probably get nerfed anyway. Playing mantras would just make it harder for you to learn how to be a good mesmer.

“A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win.”

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

Play to win. Use everything at your disposal. Be a truly good gamer.

This goes for every class, in every game, for all time.

If we use your logic, then people who beat a hard-core action game by using invincible exploit would be the good players lol. However everyone will disagree with you because the one who truly deserved the phrase of being a good player is those who beat the game with an unleveled character. (Best example is some people beating Dark Souls without leveling it up. You can use exploit to max out your level for easy mode, but everyone will actually laugh at you)

I’d say only scrubs resort to any means to win (like cheating) because they can’t win without OP or broken stuffs.

A truly good player will win with skills, not broken stuffs to carry them.

“What about using the map hack in StarCraft, or a packet interceptor, or a macro to cast your spells faster, or just a swift kick to the shins of your opponent?”

Cheating is covered – It’s two paragraphs.
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/cheating

Mogar.9216:

Fay.2357:

Tongku.5326:

Gear wise, I would get rid of the superior sigil of fire because you use ranged a lot and the sigil procs only melee,

I have no idea how you decided on that, but roughly 2 seconds of testing will show that statement to be blatantly false.

lol I was scratching my head on that one as well

A looooooooooooong time ago it did proc on the user, not the target. So maybe he’s a time traveler who skipped a few patches.

Decimus.1829:

Thanks Ross B! Indeed I read your vid thread, and I wish I had read that a long time ago, good stuff in there. FWIW in some previous vids I’ve quickly shown the build w/ mouseovers so that I can fast-track to the good stuff. It does seem though when you include a build, you get more hits on YouTube… not that that makes it a better video of course. Yes, this was just to demo blowing people up- usually not MLG calibur players At least I kept it to under 4 min of gameplay right!?? Anyways, thanks for the watch, and perhaps next vid you will agree to a second (third?) date!

As for the Mesmer class right now… after being out of the meta for some time, it’s good to be back. We are a hated class right now, which of course makes it very fun to play.

Interesting about the increased views.

I like your attitude. +10 points.

nearlight.3064:

Ross Biddle.2367:

nearlight.3064:

Ross Biddle.2367:

nearlight.3064:

Morwath.9817:

@nearlight.3064
Why would you care if RandomNobody.7685 calls you scrub in internet? His opinions means nothing, since it’s only his opinion. Just ignore those guys, ‘discussing’ with them is pointless.

Because my pride is my biggest weakness. Thats basically it. But you’re right, I have nothing to prove to him or anybody else.

I’m right and their wrong, and the opinions of many top veteran pvp mesmers back up my point.

If opinions mean nothing the both of these opinions defending yourself, and directing to the opinions of “top veteran pvp mesmers” are also equally meaningless. Either opinions can obtain a measure of weight and meaning or they can’t. You can’t have it both ways :/

You rudely insulted me as a player just because I believe the mantra builds are too cheesy. And go to any streamer and they’ll tell you the same thing. I’m just defending my credibility as a player.

I was discussing game philosophy and disagreeing with your assessment. If you took offense that’s on you. I wasn’t rude, I didn’t call you any bad names. If your credibility as a player was in jeopardy it wasn’t because I was drawing any attention to it.

Also I’m not sure how streaming is some sort of credential. I know plenty of great players who stream/record, I know plenty that don’t, and they differ in the opinion you’ve presented. Playing to win is a long standing philosophy many competitive gamers adhere to and expound, either because they’re read it or adopted it naturally as a faucet of reality. You should give the entire book a read, it’s free and would do you good.

Well to clarify, I meant streamers that are top pvp players who have placed well in many tournaments.

I just don’t like being called a scrub okay. Thats all.

You’re have the option to be in complete control of who you are, and how you’re going to develop as a gamer

nearlight.3064:

Ross Biddle.2367:

nearlight.3064:

Morwath.9817:

@nearlight.3064
Why would you care if RandomNobody.7685 calls you scrub in internet? His opinions means nothing, since it’s only his opinion. Just ignore those guys, ‘discussing’ with them is pointless.

Because my pride is my biggest weakness. Thats basically it. But you’re right, I have nothing to prove to him or anybody else.

I’m right and their wrong, and the opinions of many top veteran pvp mesmers back up my point.

If opinions mean nothing the both of these opinions defending yourself, and directing to the opinions of “top veteran pvp mesmers” are also equally meaningless. Either opinions can obtain a measure of weight and meaning or they can’t. You can’t have it both ways :/

You rudely insulted me as a player just because I believe the mantra builds are too cheesy. And go to any streamer and they’ll tell you the same thing. I’m just defending my credibility as a player.

I was discussing game philosophy and disagreeing with your assessment. If you took offense that’s on you. I wasn’t rude, I didn’t call you any bad names. If your credibility as a player was in jeopardy it wasn’t because I was drawing any attention to it.

Also I’m not sure how streaming is some sort of credential. I know plenty of great players who stream/record, I know plenty that don’t, and they differ in the opinion you’ve presented. Playing to win is a long standing philosophy many competitive gamers adhere to and expound, either because they’re read it or adopted it naturally as a faucet of reality. You should give the entire book a read, it’s free and would do you good.

Got a good fight in with a good Ranger last night running power/LB. I overcome him eventually in the first fight but its worth seeing what he did because he put me through my paces
https://youtu.be/1S61F2Io9l0?t=37

If you continue watching you’ll see him consistently stick to 2v1’s after that which causes me to either go down or withdraw. His ranged presence/pressure was supurb.

blitzkrieg.2451:

Ross Biddle.2367:

blitzkrieg.2451:

I’ve seen a couple rangers taking down nearly everybody they’ve faced in duels and in roams in both pvp and wvw throughout the metas against top players of their ‘meta builds’ atleast and 2 of them are tanbin and vyndetta and they also use to practice together as well back in the day but vyndetta got real popular with top tier teams when spirit rangers were viable and then quit and tanbin still does it today post-patch and even against op insp mantra cheese builds/stun lock shatter specs and good mesmers too, not just fotms.

“A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win.”

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

Play to win. Use everything at your disposal. Be a truly good gamer.

This goes for every class, in every game, for all time.

Apparently those pro Rangers rolled the supposed face roll cheese mesmer builds (which I take your word for), so it begs the question as to how this OP cheese mesmer build is OP after all? Which is it, is it OP faceroll, or defeatable even by rangers?

Sorry, I meant to say such a low skill floor even a monkey could play it and be effective, but OP also doesn’t mean not killable , it just contains things that are ‘above power’ compared to everything everybody else has – simply very easy to be very effective.

I know you, as a mesmer, get super defensive when mesmer and OP get put into the same sentence, but surely you and I both know that mesmer is 300x easier to play. Kyra said he’s almost embarassed to play it as it so dumbed down now and Kyra used to dominate nearly everybody even pre-patch but still runs it because he likes it in GvG scenarios which is all he gets on to play now for [Agg].

Putting that aside, the problem with mesmer has always been high conditions and high evasion. Naturally, condi ranger is one of the hardest counters to even the OP insp mantra cheese yes, OP as in low skill floor, easy to play and be effective yet doesn’t mean unkillable unless setup to absolutely to be hardcountered which ranger does so while most mesmers will kill 98% of them, there’s still some rangers that can wreck even the best mesmer players. In contrast, most people call condi ranger builds OP Cheese, but that hardly means they aren’t killable.

Also, keep in mind those are arguably 2 of the best rangers in the game as well in a dueling platform. 98% of the other rangers will get wrecked.

It’s like Noscoc, arguably the best necro in the game but every other necro sucks absolute balls and can’t even come close to the level of necro play he is able to produce.

Fair call.

Yes the skill floor has been lowered and now newbie Mesmers have a means of contributing without spending years honing their skills. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that of course, and in fact it’s been interesting to watch the pvp community adapt to this and show these Mesmers that they need to up their game if they want to remain.

blitzkrieg.2451:

I’ve seen a couple rangers taking down nearly everybody they’ve faced in duels and in roams in both pvp and wvw throughout the metas against top players of their ‘meta builds’ atleast and 2 of them are tanbin and vyndetta and they also use to practice together as well back in the day but vyndetta got real popular with top tier teams when spirit rangers were viable and then quit and tanbin still does it today post-patch and even against op insp mantra cheese builds/stun lock shatter specs and good mesmers too, not just fotms.

“A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win.”

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

Play to win. Use everything at your disposal. Be a truly good gamer.

This goes for every class, in every game, for all time.

Apparently those pro Rangers rolled the supposed face roll cheese mesmer builds (which I take your word for), so it begs the question as to how this OP cheese mesmer build is OP after all? Which is it, is it OP faceroll, or defeatable even by rangers?

nearlight.3064:

Morwath.9817:

@nearlight.3064
Why would you care if RandomNobody.7685 calls you scrub in internet? His opinions means nothing, since it’s only his opinion. Just ignore those guys, ‘discussing’ with them is pointless.

Because my pride is my biggest weakness. Thats basically it. But you’re right, I have nothing to prove to him or anybody else.

I’m right and their wrong, and the opinions of many top veteran pvp mesmers back up my point.

If opinions mean nothing the both of these opinions defending yourself, and directing to the opinions of “top veteran pvp mesmers” are also equally meaningless. Either opinions can obtain a measure of weight and meaning or they can’t. You can’t have it both ways :/

StickerHappy.8052:

@Ross

kitten bro your pet melts in seconds haha. Try a different build, shout are so bad dude. High CD, and leaves you of the mandatory slotting of soldier runes.

PS: The video is superlagging.

Fixed my laggy FPS drops last night
Checkit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S61F2Io9l0

Don’t knock my pet. His bones are hollow!

So what’s the purpose of the build other than to cram all the evade/block features into it?

Well it’s certainly a burst montage. I’m guessing the montage is the culprit for why PU seems absolutely unnecessary for what you were doing. I thought the MI before you dropped down on top of that ranger was weird as you burned a 90s elite and used about 2s of the stealth. Sure it allowed for the sneaky attack, but I’m not sure why you wouldn’t have bursted him in full view without it. I know we all encounter bad players, but your montage seemed to have an abundance. Like, people complain about Mesmer burst from PU stealth being OP, but even average players know what to look out for and dodge. These guys weren’t locked down under a stun at all, or imob. They just ate everything. Poor awareness of surroundings and failure to dodge :/. I know I at least run around everywhere with my thumb on decoy now with a dodge roll sitting right in behind it.

The vid quality/editing was fine. The 90s build opening was a major turn off. I would not take you out to dinner a second time :( Check my sig for tips on how to make a decent vid. Mostly though, you did fine.

Necrotize.2974:

Awww I totally thought you had that game too. If the necro hadn’t tried to steal beast you might’ve won though so nice little bit of irony :P

Condis tended to stay on you for quite a while, do you think once the Inspiration minor is fixed it’ll drastically change that or just kinda be a drop in the bucket?

Really exciting match though, those phantasm crits were just so satisfying.

The rotations for our team were totally bad. I made a number of crucial errors myself. Also their ranger was good at what he did, he had the top points for his team, would only fight 2v1, and I assume was gunning people down all over the map. At the very end if I’d gone home or mid and killed one person, we’d of won :p

I suppose the condi presence was heavy but I was cleansing and healing constantly. That’s how it goes when you’re up against condi users I guess. The fact is that I eliminated the pressure and they didn’t lead to my demise. If I were running Chaos I’d of been boned the moment that ranger used his binding roots. When the inspiration bug is fixed it’ll be great. Sometimes you see that heal there and think “its a cleanse” but it doesn’t, and you have to wait a whole mantra recharge to get those condi’s off. You just have to play through it.

You have a really good match. Logged in to sort out my recording fps issues I’ve been having (fixed, yay) and ended up having some great encounters. The opening fight was a systematic ongoing fight with each and every member of the enemy team, Necro – Ranger – Condi Mes – Thief – Power Mes.

Oh, also, a new look Tealot. Note the lack of cabbage.

• Vid
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S61F2Io9l0&feature=youtu.be