Guild Wars 2

Mesmer is perhaps the best dungeon utility class in the game but is increasingly less useful as anything other than a condition spec in pvp imo and conditions are either outright op or easily countered. Mesmerizing solo lupicous in less time than a 5 warrior team. Shatter is the only optimal build and in my experience interrupts and lockdown have too little reward even in www where mass interrupts are possible. Reasonable wish is for members to have more lucrative interrupts as lockdown etc can be hard countered by stab. Requiring members to run heavy boon rip and lessening survivability against foes by removing other utilities. Just the way I see the state of mesmerizing in pvp. Btw condi mesmer is the strongest condi spec as of now… it even tops condi thief against anything other than condi specs with reasonable cleanse… also known as condi thieves. Make distortion block projectiles etc that begin before distortion but do not land before it begins if that isn’t fixed already.

• notes
  I don’t play standard shatter and other builds work… but shatter will always be optimal burst dps meta… I run wacky mantra variants and other builds I don’t want to put out because these forums …. pm me in game if you want a wacky build :p

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Vague Memory.2817:

Junkpile.7439:

Thief of course.

I’m curious as well, why no one has mentioned thief, probably the strongest solo roamer.

They generally don’t do well 1v1 against non-glass-cannons and they probably have the hardest time solo-ing camps/towers. They mostly shine when they can harass enemies that are already engaged against other players or NPCs.

my vote for strongest solo roamer would probably be Trapper Rangers right now

Thief is the best class for soloing tower imo, it is very easy to hide and stealth away to solo the tower, otherwise you are easily found, and it deals great damage condis or power. Power thief permanently blinds the lord and melee pressures him. Condis survive by short condi burst then stealthing of 1/2 seconds to cleanse and regen a little before attacking and dodging away again.

Only Full Dire stealth condi thief has a chance when roaming in 1v4s or 2v5s effectively but when you get a larger group power thief is far more effective like 5v10 5 power thieves can cover the others with stealth easily and few people will be able to withstand 2 thieves bursting then rotating behind the other for a moment to heal. Shatter mesmer works well with thieves and rangers. thieves work well with ranger(s). it doesnt matter to heavily though because different specs take on different roles. Engi does have the highest skill cap but not necessarily the most powerful game play in WvW when outnumbered, it is a great solo class though just watch sir Koroshi. Also, i have no idea why no one ever mentions phantasm mesmers for 1v1s in WvW it plays much more defensive and sends out almost 2x the sustain damage of shatter mes with sacrificing the ability to instant kill low armor classes. It is worse vs thieves because they will stealth around so you cant cast phantasms and stealth off the clones you rely on for damage and survivabilty as well as you until you die but i does much better vs condis in a 1v1 senario.

@OP what class does your friend play ? and i would say that casual players like your friend are average in WvW unless you duel solo roamers etc.. you will have to learn to avoid people who know what they are doing regardless because they will always win vs you and your friend / wife. I suggest specs with decent mobility to run away from conflict with spam rangers. Necromancer, though not that high skill cap, is a very strong class unless your fighting a stupid 2k range ranger and can kill or force anything to run away in a 1v1. it is not as useful when outnumbered because it lacks mobility.

I see so many hackers even in low tier wvw it is ridiculous, arena net need a better prevention system, i see flying mesmer from GOM and people who follow you around perfectly ranged attacking you for 20+ seconds while your stealthed, invincible people, etc..

• Notes : i reported one invincible for botting and kept him on my blocked list for 3 months and he was still doing his thing not banned so i gave up

ok so i want to know everyones opinions on ninja guilds or players and portal mesmers in WvW.

I tried the traditional shatter build, but moved to various mantra mesmer builds and CI builds soon after. The most important part of a build is how it fits your style of play and for some shatter mesmer is the perfect build and others would like to experiment and find what works best for their style of play. I try lots of traits other people never consider because they refuse to believe anything can be better than the meta. I see a ton of mantra mesmers 2v1 in WvW running traits i have never seen before and PU mesmers carryign teams in Tpvp even after the PU nerf ( it wasn’t that powerful in the first place and the " random boons " seem to come out with might roughly 1/3 of the time wrecking any hopes of high protection duration [can someone else test and prove its not just my bad luck ? ])

• note – please excuse spelling errors

• Also, Chaos, what build are you running now ? I know its a little off topic but very curious.

“Personally I feel Confusion is used wrong. At this point, it’s basically doing what Retaliation does but in reverse. I think it would be better of if, when applied, it interrupts the next skill the afflicted person uses instead of causing damage. That would validate its short application times, fit very well with the mesmer’s theme of disruption and, if it works through defiance, open up a huge possibility for mesmers in pve.” – Crossplay

I disagree. this would be an insane buff to any power based interrupt build because guranteed interrupts on every application of confusion would allow us to interrupt far too often ( assuming each stack is one skill ) making scepter the ultimate power weapon for the average 2k damage on interrupt using halting strike with easily 5 interrupts equals dead skill less foe in one skill. Chaos armor on staff would passively interrupt your foe dealing 2k average damage… scepter skill 3 could kill eles in one hit and permanent chaos armor builds would render one attacker useless… anyways i as a greedy mesmer I would be fine with this for about a day then find it no fund at all to simply watch people die on my skill 2. in WvW confusion on interrupt runes would make self producing interrupts causing chains of death… you did not list that they would be removed so i have to assume they would not.

• fixed some spelling

Though a version of this condition that had less interrupts might be a viable change, except for how they would have to rework weapon skills

Do people really run Nomads in wvw ? is that the terrible state of zergling society ?

fast hands is very important in most builds and would only be able to be replaced by another really strong trait. The ability to proc both sets of weapon swap sigils in 10s ( 6 stacks of might [ with 20s duration ] per 10s is very strong and allows your weapon swap only to stacks 12 stacks of might rather than 6 and potentially ot having an extra dodge roll [ if this is how the game mechanics really work and the icds only affect the individual sigil not all of that sigil in your possesion ]) and it does allow warriors a fluidity that other classes dont have. There are great traits in the line that fast hands is in though that would attract attention without it. As for CI ( Ckeansing Ire ) it is not necessary for people who are willing to take 3 points further into the with fast hads rather than 4 into defense because brawlers recovery has strong condi cleanse and can work as long as you have some other form of condition mitigation ( beserkers stance, evades for high condi attacks, blocks, etc..).

i used p/d in spvp dueling with s/d off hand and it does a lot of damage. I was getting 4k power damage alone. and then s/d for immobilize to finish them off.

three into dueling is to high no one would be encouraged to take anything but the normal build and would just stick with 4 into dueling. no minor adept is worth a master major

PU + Maim would become viable for glassier condi shatter mesmers if PU was not so lame and that they already have so much toughness in most builds ( they are rabid or dire if not rampager rabid mix)

Weapons would probably be good for the diversity of mesmers because they could open more possibilities for mesmer as a class. A high confusion stack scpeter toch / pistol pistol would be viable if pistol auto stacked confusion or even if it had confusion at all. Condi – Dagger would add a new off hand or even main hand which could work to add diversity to mesmer builds such as melee condi mes. Builds with different weapons feel different and these might even add new possibilities for build types. phantasms might be stronger with dagger off hand pushing phantasm builds into popularity. if dagger main had was power and high CC it might aid lockdown builds and they might reach tournament lvl. All these weapons could change / create new builds or make old ones popular again.

I personally think people would complain about mesmers being op with GM’s outside of dueling and illusions being viable for shatter mes. It seems like it would make it extremely strong and other classes would cry when us mesmers killed them and complain until anet reverted all changes or just nerfed us in some other way. If the balanced it then e would be back where we started but lockdown would have a worse CI and more clone generation but it would also use IP and I see CI + IP becoming the meta and almost no build differentiation by most mesmers( there will always be those who try pure lockdown or other crazy builds but really 00606 would be way stronger than 60600

no i dont have torment runes they cost to much and so does perplexity
rune of torment should put me way up at 22k and that is insane if your foe has few cleanses, but i think i will just use perplexity because of the confusion stacking which could be more powerful if i can interrupt ( and i am practicing lockdown so yeah that shouldn’t be a huge problem).

I checked and i do have way highier raw condi-duration because of givers weapons that already puts it at 40% highier than his in game which becomes roughly 15k damage off of block and more into the first trait line fore 10% more duration and that accounts for 16k. I dont know why my damage is highier than the calculator shows his i dont remember putting the condi damage signet on my utility bar.

I dont play gvg much or much of wvw even, but it seems to me that you will be a harasser and it depends on what the rest of your harassing party’s needs what you should bring. If you party has little CC then bring a lock-down CI build. if your party has low burst( idk why they would) then standard shatter is fine. If they dont have any reflect or boon rip definitely use null field and then probably just go glamour support and CI ( Chaotic Interruption) and play from ranged, lockdown down opponents for the rest of the harassers to burst.

mail that skill idea is great. If that trait was implemented i would use it on a glamour interrupt mesmer for the healing. isnt staff 5 an ethereal field ( i guess that would not be op if the regen was something like 200-300 hp per second and not 1k[ 1k heals per second would be so OP] )?

I think your house of glass ability is way to OP and would give mesmers 20s of invincibility unless they were fighting a staff ele or other high dps AoE class.

general i like it to play more groupfriendly and i think it should go in this direction
Traits:
XIII disruptor`s sustainment becomes a aoe healing on interrup
Effect of singnet of inspiration for the group every 10s random boon for group
passive ppl unter the effect of “Illusions death” gain 2 seconds stealth when go in downstate and you create a clone looking like your teammember on its current position ( could also be for yourself instead of VI in chaos)
love the illusions : gives a additional illusion slot
Utility:
elite Mantra with 3 s quickness intern cd 5s general cd 40s or 1 seconds destortion for your group or give 1 cast to each mantra you use without channeling.
illusionary weaponswap gain weapons a opponent control, gain a skill he controls,
a skill that changes opponens walking directions like forward is backward
play death stealth and create a downd clone

I love your ideas Flow

Mimic – reworked
Summons a mimic of your current target. Mimics will try to act exactly like the target, using as many abilities as possible. Friendly players cannot accidentally target your mimic and will easily recognize it. Might not work properly on very large targets.
The idea here is that you can mimic either yourself or a friendly player to confuse enemies, the mimic will appear to be using a lot of abilities but nothing has any effect at all. You can also mimic an enemy, making them potentially waste effects on the mimic or try to rezz the wrong person or so, while your people cannot even target the mimic and can easily tell it apart. – this is awesome i would use this in ever glassy build for spvp or even just every build( faking your team’s glassy ele just sitting there as long as it has high enough health to delay for a couple of seconds is invaluable).

lolevy – i think your idea is great because there really is no benefit to summoning lots of clones in pve unless you rapidly shatter them.

my torment on shatter build does over 17k damage of torment on the block i dont know why your torment damage slightly more than half of mine ( like i would love to know the math that makes it that way because i dont have any better gear than you.)

My build also is long term damage and stacks over 6 stacks of torment on auto in a couple of seconds. It will really eat anything with less than 8 cleanses in wvw if it is power because they will never hurt me with power damage. I cant use my build to its full efficiency because i dont have the proper runes( they are expensive and i am broke- ingame) and so haven’t set up my mesmer on it yet.

@Doom…………………………….lol

“A similar condi option I saw the other day was a 0/0/2/6/6, with Restorative Illu, and Maim. The mes used Sc/T and Staff with a Settlers Amulet of all things. At first it didn’t seem like much for damage besides Malicious Sorcery, just trying to survive and remove condis. But when he landed shatter combos and covered the torment with random burning, chill, poison… I watched warriors and eles just melt. This build is clearly timing based since any mass cleanse or dodges set you back and the settlers should probably be switched out, but its an example of something fresh for mesmers.”
I first saw these on dueling servers and they are spreading slowly and settlers actually seems to work for them. They are tanky as heck and no-one can out cleanse the spam atleast, though it is easy to out cleanse or escape shatter torment if you are good enough and have a cleanse/ lots of evades..

@ flufferz i linked it as celestials as it is tankier and is more balanced than a mainly condi build ( because high cleanses are a problem in wvw so you need some dps. as this is wvw the toughness is also important) but i appreciate your advice. I find celestials to deal more power damage than carrion ( testing outside of this build ) and have more health the only problem i find is that the condi pressure is lower.

Edit: this is the build i normally use( http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8dlknpMtdqxRNcrNCvxcyN+A15k0RlMgbB-TZBHwAAuAABOIADeCAl2foZZAA), I dont have anything for wvw on my mes yet and lvled complete through spvp, not entirely on him though.

@ jenzie this build is not a build i have tested , lol, it is just supposed to be an idea that i have seen people run builds similar too, mostly they play zerker and ip with confounding suggestions. Also know as Chaos’ build of the month submission, shatter lock. I can not test it as i dont have celestial gear.

i like focus pull warden summon[ curtain #4 and 3/4 through warden cast you use skill #4 again to pull warden at the same time (with CI and IP or just either GM)] and then dodge, swap weapons f1 ( especially with intelligence sigils, your shatter alone crits upwards of 9k against some specs in spvp) and knockback ( gs #5). with halting strike and IP your damage is amazing against glassy specs and it is almost all AoE which really hurts roaming parties and you can occasionally 1vX ( especially when all the dps goes down that quickly and even more if all foes are glassy and down in roughly 1 and 1/2 seconds). you can use it while being chased, it doesnt take many cds ( only weapons ) and you have your next burst setup ( gs 4 and 2 which will definitely finish off any who are still standing there and they will likely be if you have CI).

Also i was thinking that mace crack was so weak i mean it doesn’t even do anything ( im joking )

oh anet to deal with “the thief problem” ( like it exist :P )dont nerf thieves, buff mesmers. Thieves dont need buffs or nerfs, other classes just need ways to deal with them. Like a buff that makes a foes first attack on a mesmer hurt them instead that resets whenever we ( the mesmer ) leave combat because that is totally fair, we are hypnotists so we should be able to do that. This way s/d thief will kill itself by immobilizing itself at the beginning of its burst. this will allows us to deal with them without having to have much highier skill than the nooby thief.

lol…………………………………………………..

d/d auto should deal more than a frontal bs. s/p does less dps than dagger auto but s/p evades and stuns with skill 3

dont let him hit you. Dodge and stealth while he is in death shroud. Mabye spend some time using necro to learn their skills better.

What: Steal
Why/How: Thieves dont deserve to get all boons from my mes they already hard counter him. Mesmers are masters of deception give us what the thief tries to steal instead because we tricked them. Or better Reverse the entire effect of steal onto the thief because we manipulated their mind. It makes perfect sense right?

What: Nerf a popular trait and Buff on thief trait but don’t tell anyone about it except me and dont make the tooltips show it.
Why: Metas are lame removing them is good (jk, they will always exist) and i am so bad at thief i need the secret buff of like perhaps 300% dps :P

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJAWRlsnpMtdqxGNcrNipBZ6bEjcg6xcmlSqAA-TFCEAB2pLQQlgYq+zx7PolyPAOQAHcJAc+JAEAABY36GdezArX9qX9qX9MexLexLexTIAFzBA-w

This is a hybrid lockdown mes. It is using the new torment on shatter trait and i think it could be very strong. It has torment pressure and huge amounts of hard and soft CC. Unfortunately you are limited in your shatter out put by lack of DE, but like shatter lock it has the potential to be a powerful build.

also s/d thief is nearly un-killable to a glassy mes of the same skill lvl. you have to down them faster than they down you which often means instant blink MI shatter

If you plan on beating thieves that are just as good as you i think your crazy, they hard counter glass and mesmers in general which makes the meta difficult to beat them on mes.
My advice is explode them when they leave stalth and pray they arent d/d thieves that will wittle you away with perma stealth CnD faster than you can heal. Also i think their stab used to last 5s as i used to get that playing thief.

I personally would love a gadget engi to be viable, it think i would play it. I love the boons idea and i basically find engi to not have enough dps when on zerker gadgets and little survivability compare to other builds so how do we plan to make gadgets better in these ways? I think boon rip ( 1-3 ) on PBR would be great for engis though not necessarily removing stability first ( stability = the biggest counter to power engis ). I think a high boon duration gadget build would fit nicely because it works to fill in the missing damage and survivability. Making boots an evade would be amazing. I also think that slick shoes is really strong but the toolbelt is not very powerful and it should be buffed in some way like stability which would make it ideal for kiting and escape. BTW i dont play engi much and so i dont have that great an understanding of their mechanics but i know some.