Guild Wars 2

I’m having great fun running a signet/distortion share/reflect support build. It’s wonderful that 1) I don’t need deceptive evasion to be useful and 2) I don’t have to trait for IP to be useful. I feel liberated.

Confusing Images is now much more fun and the AA chain is a bit less frustrating to use, but condi Mesmer in general is quite weak at present for the following reasons:

- Torment shatter is insignificant once again
- No clone death compensation
- Duellist’s Discipline is bugged
- Staff clones only apply 1 stack of 1 second burn (this is quite significant for a 1/3 proc chance)
- Mistrust is too weak and competes with far more powerful traits
- Confusion on crit is absent (wasn’t this supposed to be the clone death compensation?)
- Torch phantasm lacks pressure for condi builds

Trying to get a condi interrupt build to work and it’s just so pathetic. Power builds all the way right now.

Quadox.7834:

I will lay out some things:
Inspiration tree: Way too much heals support condi remove. A decent inspiration mesmer is at the moment fairly unbeatable in duels. (Except with some cheese builds). I good way to nerf it for shatter builds without breaking it for support/healer mesmer (which isnt op) could be to make the shatter heal scale more from healing power. At the moment it heals 1,5k or something from shatters on zerk build.
Confounding suggesions Instant hard CC is incredibly strong and very probably OP. In combination with daze mantra it is way too strong. Its hard to say if it is the trait or the mantra that needs a nerf.
PU Boring and cheesy to play against, similar to shadow arts thief. Stealth and oneshot with little to no counterplay. Will probably need to be nerfed to at least 50% or something. Personally i would replace it with a more fun trait.

I swear Restorative Illusions is bugged right now. I tried it out yesterday and it seems to give more than 1.5K heal with a full shatter. If it were just 1.5K it would be absolutely fine – that’s the equivalent to mitigating one Double-strike from a zerk Thief. I swear it’s doing more though which is wrong.

Confounding Suggestions could probably do with an ICD of 10 seconds to mitigate Power Lock spam. Otherwise, I’d prefer the meta to shift to take into account the strength of interrupt Mesmers before we start seeing interrupt traits nerfed.

Prismatic Understanding is just horrible. I don’t understand how +100% stealth duration was ever considered a good thing for the game. Like you, I’d happily see it removed in favour of something else that is healthier for the game.

I can’t quite believe that Anet have ruined 2 Mesmer traits so quickly. Don’t mind the Power Block one quite so much.

Main the Disillusioned and Chaotic Dampening are both write-offs.

What an absolute shame that Anet are actively destroying Mesmer build diversity within a couple of days of the patch going live.

Completely disagree. All classes are doing huge amounts of damage right now, why shouldn’t Mesmer be a part of this madness? This is the most build diversity the class has had in such a long time. Let’s not ruin this please.

Also, think Mesmer is too easy now? You should try one of the other 7 classes that were also a part of the overall power creep.

Surely it would have been better for Anet to balance conditions across the board before nerfing specific condition application traits?

It’s the exact sort of unique trait support I’ve always wanted on my Mesmer.

The synergy of Inspiring Distortion with Blurred Inscriptions and Master of Fragmentation is exciting. It’s very powerful in WvW but has an obvious drawback in sPvP

I’m finding it works fine with Null Field, Feedback and Veil – both casts last for their full length. Attempting to create more than one active portal does indeed cancel the first as Anet said.

As for Mantras, yes it doesn’t work too well, although it does lower the ICD between uses of Power Break and Power Lock.

This is a legitimate pre-order of a hard copy of the pre-purchase edition dispatched from and sold by Amazon themselves on their own retail site.

If you read the HoT purchasing FAQ you will see that HoT was always going to be available in this format.

Phoenix.7928:

All the while Captain McStabby sits on a full pool of cooldowns, a spammable opener and endlessly regenerating initiative.

“Captain McStabby” I like it and I’m totally with you on this one. The amount of times I’ve avoided 1-3 backstab attempts only to have to succumb to another has infuriated me on many an occasion. It often feels a little like the Eviscerate spam before the adrenaline change. I wouldn’t mind if it weren’t for the fact that dagger Thieves have incredible cleave to follow up a backstab. Still can’t quite believe they allowed dagger auto-attack to hit an additional target, it’s pretty crazy – fun if you’re the Thief though

I doubt much will ever change to make it more…….rewarding for Mesmers, but luckily we are at least being thrown a bone of sorts. More tools to deal with the nonsense if you will.

Well if your main worry is lack of counter-play to Thief openers we have been thrown a bone somewhat with the new Ineptitude trait. You will be able to use your scepter/sword block on an incoming backstab and be able to land the counter-attack without having to eat the next backstab. It’s even better if you have Aegis, because the Thief will miss 2 Backstab attempts without you having to do anything. Shadow’s Embrace could in theory cleanse the blind applied and there’s an ICD for the blind on block so this won’t always work of course.

Also, now that Illusionary Persona is baseline, Blinding Dissipation will enable you to deliver a PBAoE blind on demand. Combining all the stuff I mentioned should provide some decent backstab protection.

The changes to condi Mesmer will have little impact on sPvP due to the rampant cleansing of on-node fights with the addition of an anti-condi boon. In small scale WvW though, it’s going to be murderous. MtD builds will be of a similar degree of danger, but condi interrupt and PU condi are going to cause some rage, especially with the new duelling specialisation.

Thieves will certainly have a bit more of a fight on their hands dealing with the new Mesmer (at least initially) but leaving Consumer Ectoplasm in its current state is really rather questionable. The very presence of a Mesmer in a team fight is a hinderance because of this stolen skill….which can now be used twice.

On torment shatter:

1) Thieves: unless I take focus I have no way to stop them from using Shadow Refuge to eternally reset a fight and whittle me down. Would be nice if Shadow Refuge had a cast time that was representative of its massive strength so I can actively interrupt it, but oh well I best be building to appease our Thiefling overlords.

2) Mesmer: phantasm builds counter torment shatter really very well. PU condi is just a headache of aegis procs that I can’t be bothered to deal with these days.

Honorable mentions go to: scepter/focus Eles and Medi Guardians.

Commander sniping is an important part of dismantling a zerg that outnumbers you greatly. It’s a valid tactic that is reliant on a group having no autonomy outside of commander orders. Therefore it is up to the commander and the following group/zerg as a whole to ensure that this is not the case.

Basically, if your commander dies, but you all know how to play in the event of a central command role being absent, you shouldn’t be having any problems.

Saves the Thief a bit of time (1 second to be exact) if he just wants to steal off you again without having to first consume the plasma already stolen. But this is dependent on a Thief saving his/her Consumer Plasma for….a rainy day? Never really happens as it’s such a powerful steal that you will want to use it immediately if just for the protection uptime and boon strip safety. Won’t be very noticeable therefore for the most part.

Moa always work if it connects with the target irrespective of form. I really like this and makes the skill powerful as an Elite. However, I think it might be cool if it didn’t cancel the original transformation state of the target.

Moa Morph would return you to your original transformed state for the duration of the skill. So Moa Morph is always a 10 second window to remove a transformed player and not necessarily just a way to cancel that player transformation.

They just need to create more enemies with short openings either as a part of the enemy’s rotation or as a trigger-able event. Basically the beetles in Dry Top.

Does seem rather ripe for abuse given how small the PvP community of GW2 is. I have seen selective matchmaking based on player reports/rep work well with other games with all the worst offenders ending up playing with each other, effectively quarantining them from the rest of the community. The abuse in GW2 is quite tame compared to those other games though.

Pro tip: before you add someone to your block list it’s always a good idea to simply call them out for their behaviour. I’ve managed to get a bunch of people to apologise to me by just making them understand why their behaviour is unacceptable. It’s amusing and you’d be surprised by how many people bend to your will

Necromancer Vs Mesmer is probably my favourite fight in the game because the two classes are quite capable of countering and doing horrible things to one another, build and arena of battle dependent. Reaper sounds like it’s going to give Mesmer a hard time with that Stab uptime, but Chronomancer has other tricks available to it which will give Reapers a real headache. Like those slow Reaper skills, wouldn’t it be horrible if they were to be even…slower?

Reaper and Dragon Hunter get access to 5 new weapon skills in addition to multiple new profession skills. Traits and utilities are nice things, but it’s your weapon skills and profession skills that provide the necessary feedback in combat. Mesmer getting just 2 new weapon skills and one new shatter is disappointing comparatively, especially as to use shield you have to basically rely on sword or the horrid awkwardness of sceptre for your main-hand.

I’m really looking forward to Dragon Hunter personally.

I usually just go down the Empowered Mantras route myself now for open world PvE usually with Greatsword + sword/pistol traited with Duellist’s Discipline so pistol phantasms can stay out of some of the AoE. It’s workable.

Torment shatter is actually fairly decent for Silverwastes for dealing with tough bark enemies, especially during the convoy escort phase where the mobs stream down to the supply cache. It’s rare that torment will ever reach the the cap, so you’re not quite as penalised as you would be relying on bleeds.

Despite this, I actually prefer to PvE on my Thief now because it’s just so much more efficient and kind of more fun these days.

Mantra Necro incoming! Some nice pre-charged instant-cast abilities for the Necromancer especially kitten much of what a Necromancer does is massive interrupt-bait. Don’t forget that Mantras have a base toughness increase of 600 when channeling now! You knows you wants it

This sounds about right. Needs to have the potential to be more powerful than a flat cooldown reduction, but make the Mesmer work for it. It all seems rather….Mesmery.

At least Thieves will have a use for that gunk they keep stealing from Engis

It’s a shame that a rather unique punishment mechanic for the Mesmer has been removed. At least clone death traits required an opponent to actually melee cleave the clones when you didn’t feel like wasting your endurance to make them pop. But now we get some rather insane looking new condi traits to take their place that are arguably worse if your concern is that of passive condition application.

I like much of what I see but, traiting into Dueling is still esseintial for every build and Inspiration still has useless Masters and Grandmasters. What a pity.

I quite like the idea of Rapid Fire rooting you like other multi-hit skills such as Hundred Blades, Blurred Frenzy, Pistol Whip etc.

But I really think Ranger needs some immobilise sources on their weapon skills so there’s less reliance on Entangle/kitteny pet skills. Just throwing out an idea – maybe Point Blank Shot should immobilise instead when hitting a target from behind. Monarch’s Leap could also do with a short immobilise possibly. Pfft just a little more control.

looks at wonderfully herbaceous body fuelled with the power of our new Elder Dragon overlord

Yep, I’m well and truly corrupted. When do I get to burn Divinity’s Reach to the ground?

I didn’t get on too well with either torment shatter or pu condi in sPvP and honestly found them a bit useless against competent players. However, I’ve found condi interrupt builds quite powerful due to that extra control utility. Many players don’t know how to deal with a well versed interrupt Mesmer (can’t imagine this will ever change) so it also benefits from general player ignorance. Obviously power interrupt is even better due to halting strike, but I certainly recomend condi interrupt too.

4. Gates can only be damaged by siege weapons. Poor zerglings.

Just needs to be updated to say “…when using a healing skill”. That should suffice.

It would be nice if it worked with other Mesmer healing traits though (not with regen procs ofc). Well it would make things more interesting at least.

Diovid.9506:

Simonoly.4352:

Just two new weapon skills would be a thoroughly boring update for Mesmer (especially as part of an expansion) so I expect the specialisations have more to them than just allowing you to hold a new weapon type.

We know specializations are more than a new weapon, namely: 1 new healing skill, new utility skills, 1 new elite skill, new traits and a “changed profession mechanic”.

Oh was unaware of this new info. Sounds good.

Just two new weapon skills would be a thoroughly boring update for Mesmer (especially as part of an expansion) so I expect the specialisations have more to them than just allowing you to hold a new weapon type.

Might as well make it a Lifesteal on interrupt

The only thing that’s really changed now is the buff to Illusionary Elasticity allowing an extra bounce on staff clones. So going 0/4/6/0/4 is possibly a better option these days. Running 6 points in Chaos with PU still provides powerful survivability.

Shomaruki.7395:

I’m not even worried about it anymore, Mesmers may not have a TRUE place in Pvp anymore but people have to remember we are what make PvE go around.

When people don’t want to do a jump puzzle who do they ask for help? The Mesmsers ^^
I’m just happy I proved something last night, I fought two different thieves in pvp last night and the conditions were I wouldn’t use any clones if they didn’t use any stealth. (I didn’t use any stealth as well)

…2 out of 2 wins >.>

Mesmers sure are the queens of Player Vs Jumping puzzle. Which is one better than Necro.

HoT would be a perfect time to apply number 2. Kind of bored of having to explain its broken functionality to every new player.

According to my guildy in the beta Revenat IS the new specialisation for Mesmer…

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Banish_Enchantment

I actually haven’t tested all my usual WvW spots with my Mesmer, but nothing has changed for my Thief thus far. Can still travel up 1200 range high cliffs using Shadowstep and Infiltrator’s Arrow similarly works. Only thing I’ve noticed is the not being able to shadowstep through some structures now.

Gifts of Exploration do not stack.

What do you feel the Mesmer is currently lacking ATM?

Reliable blast finishers. The combo system is a key part of the player-to-player interaction that this game is advertised as having (I was at the Rezzed dev session, it’s still advertised as a feature of the game) but Mesmer has no way of reliably contributing to this group mechanic. Mind Stab is a perfect ranged blast finisher on a short cooldown. Mesmers would become immediately more relevant and desirable for group play. Everyone wins with this change.

What game mode (PvP, WvW, PvE Open World/Dungeons) do you feel Mesmer currently excels in the most? Least?

Mesmer does not excel in any game mode other than “jumping puzzles”. It’s a middle of the road class that is saved from complete obscurity by unique utilities. However, the class is at its worse in open world PvE, especially when it comes to levelling.

Without reworking anything, what minor adjustments would you make to any of our weapons/utilities/traits to make them more viable?

Deceptive Evasion dropped to minor tier in dueling line; Mind Stab becomes blast finisher; Chaos Armour (staff skill) gives protection again on activation; Scepter Auto-attack reductions in cast time/after cast; Confusing Images cast time reduction; Illusionary Riposte causes PBAoE damage on target similarly to Mantra of Pain (or any other buff – will take anything); Counter Blade channel time reduction; Temporal Curtain re-imagined to accommodate swiftness stacking; Phantasmal Mage projectile tracking and speed improved; Mirror heals for a similar value as Withdraw; Portal cooldown reduction; Illusion of Life cooldown reduction (still too high); Timewarp becomes glamour (hmm well maybe not with the recent cooldown reduction); original Mimic functionality returned; Phantasmal Defender and Disenchanter cast time reduced to 1 second; Power Block has relevance against Thieves; Furious Interruption ICD reduced to 9 seconds; Triumphant Distortion ICD reduced (removed possibly?); boons from Bountiful Disillusionment are AoE; Disruptor’s Sustainment changed to life steal on interrupt; Blinding Befuddlement ICD removed.

Is there anything that would make you stop playing Mesmer? If you’ve stopped what would draw you back?

Probably not as it’s the thematics of the class that maintains interest for me – although I am having quite a bit more fun on my Thief these days than Mesmer because it’s just better at most things in the game (dat contradiction). The upcoming specialisation will suffice at getting me interested in Mesmer again.

What has damaged your faith in the devs? Is there any faith remaining? What would have to happen to earn back your trust? Again, please no general statements like “a lot of nerfs.”

Nothing. Talk of faith and trust is a tad overly dramatic for me. I don’t feel hard done by or down trodden and the class is still fantastic and fun to play despite its shortcomings. I’m appreciative of the game Anet have created and Mesmer is still the most fabulously stylish class in the game.

What is your one (reasonable) Mesmer wish?

I think it’s time to drop Deceptive Evasion down to minor tier Anet. We’ve tried builds without it and they really really suck in competitive environments. Maybe this isn’t the answer to all Mesmer build stagnation, but it would be a start.

Mirror Blade is probably unblockable to prevent reflect clone generation.

Like Phoenix, it’s a pretty important skill for putting pressure on a target using a long channelled block such as Gear Shield.

Me Games Ma.8426:

Yay disable steal for 5 seconds -> Most thieves use steal as opener…
Yay disable Warriors adrenaline skills for 5s… -> you know that we don’t need a trait to do that right? (we just need to interrupt the right skills)
Yay disalbe element switch -> the flame is real and the trait gets nerfed again.
Yay disable shatters for 5s -> more AI based builds inc
Yay disable pet control -> nothing happens at all
Yay disable toolbelt skills -> actually not bad…
Yay disable deathshroud -> flame war inc (same as for ele)
Yay disable virtues -> nooone cares

This would make Power Block useful against 2 of 8 (soon 9) professions.
Nope please not. Especially the ICD would kill it

It doesn’t have to be equally effective against every class it only has to do something, anything to every class. I suggested that the skill interrupted AND the profession mechanic be placed on a cooldown with the idea of multiplicative interrupt cooldowns creating a slight denial of player rotations.

Redesign Power Block entirely to:

Power Block: profession skill(s) of the target are disabled for 5 seconds on any interrupt (10-15 second ICD)

Interrupt a Thief using heart seeker and they can’t use Steal for 5 seconds. Interrupt a Warrior using Shield Bash and no Eviscerate. The idea being that Power Block interferes with profession skill rotations regardless of the skill being used. This would be especially powerful against Elementalists to the point where you could actually bring an interrupt Mesmer along to screw up a D/D cele Ele.

It’s much easier landing burst and maintaining good sustain as a Ranger, but Mesmer has an easier time misdirecting people when the going gets tough. Although, much of that misdirection (and survivability) involves stealth and a short invulnerability, which prevents them from capping a point so it requires careful planning, whereas a Ranger can just activate Signet of Stone and ignore direct damage for 6 seconds whilst still capping a point, so it’s contextual.

It does seem strange to want to know which one of these classes are the easiest to play when they both occupy middle of the road territory in mid-high level sPvP because other classes have builds that are both easier to play whilst also be far more viable in this game mode.

Maybe the guy was just scouting and therefore didn’t have any interest in fighting you? People have different goals and motives in WvW, so you’re often going to come up against things that don’t match your standards of fun.

Also, running around allowing illusions to do the brunt of the work seems like quite a good counter to a Mesmer packing some daze mantra charges.

I think it’s most likely that the party just hasn’t updated their LFG description yet. I highly doubt anyone is doing it out of malicious intent. Well, maybe now we might see a few…

I was roaming with my guild in WvW yesterday and we were taking on numbers twice our size which is something we’ve become accustomed to and have experience dealing with (because that’s basically all there is to fight now). Unfortunately they had a S/D+D/D Thief who completed removed me from the fight for the most part. The effort it took me to remain alive, contribute to the team fight and try and kill the Thief was considerably high. Anticipate and dodge the first backstab only to have to blow another important cooldown or dodge to avoid the immediate second backstab chance. I even dodged Steal twice, but S/D allows the Thief to instantly gap close me anyway and Withdraw allowing him to easily avoid my burst. I honestly felt like a burden on my group just because of this one Thief and am considering switching class now for this activity.

I’m okay with natural counters existing in the game, and it’s important that Thieves have an edge over Mesmers so we’re not running rampant, but somewhere between the buffs and nerfs to the two classes, it feels like its gone a little too far.

Martial.4916:

Oh I see. Well I’ll make a PU support Mesmer anyway. What do you think of the current state of chaos armor?

On a singular scale it’s rather disappointing to use given the 1 second ICD. There was some nice elements of player skill before, where large penalties were applied to opponents use multi-impact skills over single-impact skills. Rangers deciding that Chaos Armour was a good time to rapid fire your face felt the pain, whereas Rangers that decided it was a good time to PBS your face and stick to long range shot reaped the benefits from a Mesmer who just decided to reduce his clone integration by covering himself with a big shiny purple ball. These risks and benefits still apply of course, but just not quite as satisfying.

Now, I find it’s best used personally when you must face-tank something due to cooldowns and pray to the RNG gods that you don’t just get swiftness every proc.

As for the combo version, it’s well worth blasting Chaos Storm when your party has to sit in some AoE (causes havoc for Rangers using Barrage). That’s probably why the ICD was introduced.

Given two Mesmers of equal skill, I often find it comes down to whichever Mesmer has the most stealth. That downtime where your opponents illusions cannot target you but your illusions can, is a real game changer personally. It also allows you to cover more of your shatter set-ups, illusion summoning, mantra charging, interrupts etc. So, often I base my chances of success on whether or not my opponent is running an off-hand torch (decoy and mass invis are mostly a given irrespective of build) and additionally perhaps veil. Obviously player skill plays a big part of it, as it is entirely possible for someone to use their stealth skills sloppily, but I find it one of the biggest impacts on my relative success (again not accounting for player skill).

A good example: I duelled a condi Mesmer three times on a condition build with only decoy and mass invis for stealth. He/she was using torch in addition to my two stealth skills and I lost every match even though I had more active cleanse available to me. I switched to the same build as my opponent with torch (now with less cleansing) and things were immediately equal to the point we couldn’t kill one another. Our time in stealth was equal and the duels stagnated. We both laughed over how much of a difference that 3 seconds of extra stealth from The Prestige made.