Guild Wars 2

No matter what the new RoS players say. FoW became stronger within the last week. At least that is my perception. But I have not so much time to play lately.

Yes we lack big organized guilds or even an alliance. And if I had the time, I’d start one myself. But this is, what I like in FoW. Many of the players I know here play GW2 for fun and not for the competition. And when it comes to competition, we can win and lose and have fun nonetheless.

No arrogant words, from a well experienced guild can change that. If the big organized guilds are the military and the smaller more casual ones the militia, then FoW is mostly militia. And anyone, who says, we shouldn’t be proud of what we do, can just go home to mami…

btw: you can crush a 40+ zerg with 5 ppl, if u’re organized and the 40 ppl are not. But when u 15 ppl wanna feel glorious by smashing a zerg of 40 players, that mostly communicate with writing chat, where 20 of them are upleveled players (from lvl 1 to almost 79 all possible) and just play for some short time after work to have some fun, then feel glorious. You seem to need it.

Columba.9730:

well you didn’t address my points, but whatever. I don’t think having a 50th thief makes you objective…

u have no thief? Now u’re objective? Show me a video of what u’re talking about. I fought those “perma stealth” thieves, they couldn’t best me. Much stealth, some condition dmg, but no survivability. Maybe it’s because I apply nice dmg + much bleading + confusion + vulnerability + might stacks + daze + immobilize (with full rampager)… took me weeks to find this build and I’m loving it. Maybe it’s more like Rock, Paper, Scissors: some builds just best others.

U can’t be effective against everything and have to know what fights u should avoid…

@naleb: I am raising my own ele now. I’ll see if what u say is true. It just doesn’t fit my experience with them. I find fighting ele actually more annoying then thieves, not meaning that they are too strong. They have but a insane survivability. Yet, as a mesmer, to chase smth is a pain in the kitten

Columba.9730:

You are desparate to preserve god mode for you thief. That I DO understand.

Rofl. I have a thief. At lvl 50 or so. Didn’t touch her for weeks. Why am I still interested that thieves don’t get nerfed? Because it is not necessary imho.

Ppl claiming thieves are imba should make a video of how them fighting thieves (from the beginning to the end) and show it. Because I believe, if they do, we will be able to see what was the real issue. And if my experience is any indication: the defeat was brought by a lack of skill and reaction.

Desterion.6407:

Wow, it’s kind of funny and sad to see all the thieves coming here to rush in and say they’re not overpowered it’s just everyone elses lack of skill. I sure wish I could hit backstab and heartseeker 1-2x and instantly incap people.

U couldn’t show better, that u have no understanding of thief mechanics…

We’re not playing a different game. But we know how to best thieves. I have lost yesterday to one thief only. And it was a fair fight, the thief wasn’t pure glas cannon and I knew in the moment, the battle shifted to his favor, that I made a mistake (premature shatter + missclick) and I was gone^^

I can only repeat: learn2play!

The eles I see do big dmg and have great healing. Don’t trust the tooltips, they are mostly wrong, go out and see the numbers ur attacks do on the opponent.

I like to fight thieves. Not because I beat them all the time, but because it is about anticipation and tactics. If u can anticipate the thieves moves, and mostly u can, then they are easy foes. Concerning backstab: All classes have some kind of dmg immunity or evade skills, push back or stuff like that, that can be used even in daze and are mostly also stun breakers. so u hit one button and u’re out of it. Yes u need reaction, but if u don’t have that, u will be owned anyway. And why do u need tab targeting? Just cast ur skills in the direction where u’re looking. It is weird, why can I target thieves who come out of stealth (and i don’t see them rendered) and others claim they can’t. Either ur playing a different game or u make smth wrong…

Ilesyt.7084:

That’s a nice blue keep you got ther typin, can I haz ?

We slaughtered on monday a group with the [DEX] tag… not impressed dude

hm… me no like that part with the: less population, less gem cost…

That really encourages the transfer to low population servers.

However, low populated must not always mean low tier. So the transfer to a low tier server, to use the “exploit”, must not necessarily be supported by the transfer cost system.

Did they announce that? That would be kitten awful…

Today I had the first Zerg experience on FoW. We were maybe 30 or 40 ppl caping towers and keeps. And still, we were pushed back eventually on several fronts by surmia and vabbi.

However, I feel like that more FoW players are getting the courage to WvW. Many new players are hitting lvl 80 and we seem to have some commanders with dedication and a plan. I think that the RoS-Vabbi-FoW-tier will stay for quite some time together, because not only can’t any server get enough point difference to raise in ranks, but also FoW seems to wake up a little.

I was thinking, if I should write that post or not. But I think it must be said, without really wanting to get major bans for those who did it.

When a big guild, or even an alliance transfers to a low tier server, can that be viewed as an exploit? I mean here those ppl make use of an non intended function that leads to major advantages of them over others (yes transfers are kind of intended, but as stated several times by ANet, it was not intended in such an extend and therefor they are pushing forward the pay-to-transfer-function). They not only smash the low tier servers and get bonuses for themselves and the server they have transfered to. They also can farm events in seconds, they can farm the low numbers of players that try to stand against them.

I imagine a method for such guilds like:

1. overrun WvW maps
2. now make some dungeons or stuff
3. come back and overrun WvW map again
4. make some dungeons
   … and so on.

While the low populated servers struggle and need quite some time to take a tower or keep, the now dominating server just comes back with its zerg and overruns everything in seconds. That can not be an intended mechanism. And it leads to unfair advantages.

So the question stands: Is this an exploit?

It’s funny to read this. Yes thieves can be a pain in the kitten But just the other day I killed a thief when he tried to backstab me. We fought for some time already and he stealthed. I waited a couple of seconds and didn’t move on purpose, then I shattered all my illusions and tada: dead downed thief laying behind me

On other occasions a thief killed me in seconds, for I was not fast enough to blink out of the stun.

Honestly, thieves are not that OP as ppl describe it here. They are strong, especially against less experienced players. But I think, once culling is fixed, that many players will have way less problems with thieves.

Until then, we can train against thieves in harder conditions, making it harder for thieves later on, when they have lost a major advantage.

Ivano.2604:

FoW will have its moment of Glory (an hard earned one)

And it will be magnificent!

Ambigram will stay loyal to FoW and will grow (hopefully).

Just so u know: Revenge is a dish best served cold (although it may take us some time to avenge our fallen comrades and structures^^)

Or as my character always says:
“You’re dumb and you’ll leave a dumb corpse” :P

We can avoid everything. I only say: shadow refuge^^

(I love to play with thieves on my side :P)

We are Ambigram [NOON] a small guild on the FoW server, with the more active players mainly focusing on WvW. We are already recognized as being a guild that does backline work (taking supply camps, supporting our attacks with supply and blueprints, escorting supply caravans and intercepting the caravans of our foes).

But we are greatly outnumbered on the FoW server by Vabbi and RoS. So if u seek a real challenge leading to real glory, then we want to welcome you in our guild on the FoW server. Also unexperienced players, who want to play WvW on FoW, but are getting obliterated by the enemy zergs, can join us. We will show u, how to fight even if outnumbered, which foes are to be avoided, which targets can be attacked.

We know the game mechanics very well, we know how our enemies fight and we know, how to exploit their behavior. We now only need the numbers.

Join us and together we will shine in a blaze of glory

Ambigram [NOON]

In Game Name:

• Ty Pin
• Si Lly
• Malvina Gwyn

It is not about the keeps and towers u attack, that are in the hand of the other strong server in the FoW borderlands. Although this is also a pain to see on the map. It is more about FoW Fortifications and camps being overrun by a Vabbi Zerg with 15+ players. We then take it back with up to max. 10 ppl (from over all 20 FoW ppl actively playing WvW at prime time on all maps together) and then it is overrun by a RoS Zerg with 15+ ppl again.

I fear, with both servers competing that much, that we will have this matchup for quite a long time. I will still play some WvW, to fulfill my daily achievement. But it’ll be a pain in the kitten . I hope for better times to come. Until then we’ll try to hold at least the main towers and garrison at our borderlands.

And if u see the next time a FoW Mesmer, u can only get rid of with 4 ppl and a fully upgraded camp in ur back, then it is most likely my little cute crazy Si Lly. At least we’re getting some practice in ambushing unprepared groups and some backlining (intercepting supply caravans and taking camps).

Sincerely,

your FoW guild Ambigram [NOON]

For starters: this is basically a QQ thread. But I have to get it out soemhow and maybe I will be heared ^^

As has been made understood, many players have transfered to Vabbi and RoS. I have basically no problem with that. But atm it is impossible for FoW players to get a hold in WvW.

When u check the map, it seems that the dominant server (either Vabbi or RoS) tends to expand in direction of FoW territory (for easy victory and points). And after some time the other server does the same due to the fact, that the now defending server has longer ways to resupply defenses and did not have enough time or recourses to invest in defense there.

Now where does that leave FoW. Right now we are struggling. Being greatly outnumbered and only rarely on even numbers everywhere we go. Getting many unorganized and upleveled players against a wall of organized guild defense or attack. Many of the expereinced players have made a break from WvW or changed servers. Each time we try to hold on to a tower or a keep it gets eventually overrun by a huge zerg. And only in early daytime we don’t have to fight on one side RoS and on the other side Vabbi (being outnumbered by either one of them).

On the upside (personally) I enjoy the smaller fights with my little cute Asura Mesmer girl against the new players. While I was used to be able to take on 2 or 3 of RoS guys at the same time, I am now struggling against only one of the guys with the [WIC] tag (but I eventually got to get them a bit under control).

From the recruitment threads of RoS and Vabbi I see that the transferred guilds are looking for glory and to raise in ranks. I so suggest that those guilds keep their fights to themselves. Why not fight each other? When I see on the one side [Xaoc]-Vabbi and on the other side [Xaoc]-RoS attacking our already broken server, then I see that it is not about glory, it is about easy victory.

Well, I might take a break from WvW too. it’s painful to watch your achievements getting zerged over and over again.

That would be awesome though. I picture epic one time events, that do really change the look of the server. So different looks for different decisions (no idea how that could be realized with hundreds of players playing the event) and of course, an event can be failed or won and this also would also change the look of the world.

But I also see the different servers in WvW as different realities. That somehow clash together. That would explain, why the borderlands look the same.

got the same problem…

I found it anyway funny (by that I mean not funny at all) that the error shows: “most commonly caused by fire wall or connection issues”. Because the errors in the past were barely caused on my end of the Internet….

however, hope I can log in again soon. If they do some maintenance, they could say that in the login-fail-message…

I saw just some minutes ago a mesmer asura from the [RUS] guild. I fought him and another vabbi guy with a friend of mine, but could not CC him and he ran like crazy fast and was constantly teleporting.

The thing is, that those [RUS] kittens are not even able to beat you even though they’re cheating. They fight incredibly stupid and we managed to finish him once in the 3 engagements we had. Not a single time they were able to finish us.

I reported him for botting (because I didn’t know for what to report him, there is no cheating option).

Please nerf (danger: sarcasm):

• Mesmer: they’re hard to kill on 1v1 (btw the most important match up in WvW)
• Thief: they can kill in seconds in 1v1 (still, the most important match up in WvW)
• Ele: they can AoE every defense I build on my tower and mistform out of every battle
• Engineer: I met one the other day. And I am a Mesmer. I needed a whole minute to kill him. (imba imho)
• Warrior: they can spec to super tank and I just can not kill’em
• Guradian: they are OP, because I say so
• Ranger: they can attack everything everywhere with an insane range… IMBA
• Necro: no idea why… if everyone got nerfed, they need to be nerfed too, for ballance issues… ^^

Honestly, why all those nerf threads? They pop up every week. And they lack more often than good the basic understanding of the profession to be nerfed… I am so annoyed by that posts. Sometimes there are some posts that make sense, but most of the time it’s crap.

Ppl, get a hold of urself amd learn to play ur profession. And play the profession u believe is OP and u’ll understand how it works and its weaknesses. Then u can come here and post ur nerf suggestion, without just demanding it (honestly it’s a game, and every post saying “ANet needs to do this or that” can not be taken seriously by me).

Well so let them get that. And of course I then would be in favor of ally FoW with RoS. It is basically the same issue. My aim is not winning or dominating here. My aim is a balance between the servers, so that all enjoy WvW and not get dominated or only zerg empty towers and keeps…

I know I could post that in an already existing “RoS vs FoW vs Vabbi thread”. But I hope it gets more attention that way

We have the situation in this matchup that there is one high active WvW server: RoS. And then we have 2 weaker populated servers (WvW-wise): Vabbi and FoW.

Now I am playing on FoW (may the flame war begin^^) but I find it surprising that Vabbi and FoW fight each other. That leads to weakening the 2 weakest servers already and RoS has an easy ride.

I believe, that every server would benefit (in a way) from an alliance between Vabbi and FoW. Yes it first seem hard on RoS, because they now would not fight 2 weakened servers, they would have to fight both servers as they unite. But it would make fights for them way more interesting. Judging from myself, I don’t enjoy zerging. It’s boring to just overrun everything. And RoS may think that way too and enjoy it more, if they have an opponent, that fights them. And of course it would help Vabbi and FoW. For they also can have the chance of fighting a more equal opponent, for this one has to divide its troops.

So I suggest a Vabbi and FoW alliance and see where it leads to. I hope it will create a more even battlefield, where not just 2 servers get dominated by the third one.

I would like to see a cross server map channel (and everyone, who doesn’t want to talk to the enemy can disable this channel) and also the possibility to right click on the invader and choose to whisper him. This would also work through an added whisper channel for WvW and can be disabled too.

This way the ones who wanna talk, can talk, the others can choose not to.

I want to use this discussion, to put in some ideas.

I find the night capping also annoying. I mean I saw a Zerg take our fully upgraded Keep within some minutes… that is not nice. I mean this Zerg should still be able to get the keep, but it should take the Zerg some more time and effort.

So now my ideas:

• Fortified walls are super awesome strong, so that it simply takes more time to destroy them
• One can buy a commander NPC as Upgrade, who gives the existing NPCs the ability to use cannons, oil and morters (so only the siege u get via upgrading the keep)
• Workers use supply to repair doors and walls automatically (can be stoped through the guild who claimed the tower)
• one can buy more workers, to make this quicker
• Towers, keeps and that one very big castle have a constant supply drain (food and maintenance), making supply camps and active supply lines more important, even to fully upgraded fortifications, no supply means walls, doors and siege loses HP until a minimum HP, so that it can be easily destroyed and additional guards and even the NPC Commander will leave the fortification)
• the more NPC you hire for a fortification, the more supply is drained. (and thus the Commander NPC is the last upgrade in its line, it will take much supply already from the personal upgrades like more guards and stuff)

So the supply will take a very very important role, more important than now. And the night crews will have to take care of the supply lines first.

No i did not spam #1 (i rly take this as an insult to my intellect)… it happened always next to a tower. I was surrounded by invaders (around 3 or 4 players, one time a whole zerg, so there probably the AoE dmg killed me) and was laying there until somebody tried to stomp me. Then I used #2 and it felt like the teleport was reflected from the tower’s wall and I ended up almost not moving. I repeat, I did not use #1 and I was stomped… this exact situation happened like 3 or 4 times within some days. From this time on, I always try to avoid to be near any obstacle, when my health is low (what is a bad idea too, because I have no chance of hiding, if I can’t get away).

I’ll run fraps from now on, maybe I can tape such a situation, if it happens again to show u…

Burst is nice, dps is nice and even condition dmg is nice (well my point of view, I have but no real comparison to other professions). I run 20/20/0/25/5 (with phantasmal strength, phantasmal fury and Empowered Illusions my iBerserker and Duelist rock). Also applying with first combo within seconds up to 12 stacks of bleeding. I am full exotic rampager (just one random item for back). 2k power, 58% crit. chance (for the bleeding). I find myself pretty strong both in WvW as also in Dungeons. My burst through shattering illusions is but very weak compared to other builds.

Once, one understood the mesmer, it is pretty dawn good. It takes a while until to play Mesmer gets really awesome. But when it does, u’ll never wanna play another profession :P

“If teleported into an obstacle, and not far enough away from a stomping enemy, the stomp will succeed since the skill doesn’t deselect the enemy’s target”

This bug is listed in the GW2 wiki (see here)

And this happened several times to me. Admittedly this is a bug and not a flaw in the skill design itself. But still it does happen, even if u’re still invisible.

There are already several threads about that issue. I guess it is intended. One can only drop target by using a stealth skill (like deception). Many players say, it would be too hard to fight a mesmer, if clone skills would break target. I imho think clone skills should break target, because, as u mentioned, there are already so many differences between clones and the original that with a little training, one can spot them easily.

Embolism.8106:

While you’re invisible you cannot be stomped even if you’re in range. Time your Deception so the stomp will land during your invisibility (it’s not hard) and resist the urge to spam 1 and break your invis and it’s a guaranteed stomp breaker unless you have no target to use Deception on.

That is definitively wrong. There are times, where i got stomped and also stomped others while in downed mode and stealthed. I admit, that is actually a bug, when deception does not move u away far enough, because of u being close to a wall. But it still happens…

Xlll.9075:

I am assuming you are complaining about PvE downed state, In which I suggest you do not expect the mobs to kill your clone and ignore you .

as for the thief downed state, who care. I blink to finish them, but lately I do not even bother just couple of phantasms and enjoy the show.

We (or at least I) am not talking about PvE… there all downed skills will most of the time only delay… Actually Deception is in PvE quite helpful, because the mobs, granted u pulled them far away enough from their spawn point, will kill the clone sometimes before u reappear and they just run back without finish u off.

The problem is with the PvP part, where there is a marker over the downed mesmer making the clone useless. And the skill teleporting u into AoE fields, because one has no clue, where it will take one…

I use deception as stomp breaker and try to hide in stealth. To suggest I’d use it otherwise is almost an insult to my intellect. But when I teleport not far away enough (happens rly often) i still get finished. And honestly, why is there the need that the game is showing the players, who the right mesmer is? There is a big huge target indicator over my head, but not over my clone’s head. What is that all about? It does not make sense and u have to give me that. If there was no clone, the result would be the same…

And why port into the AoE field I was running away from just moments ago?

The skill absolutely not fine, when it ports u into the enemies attacks and when the game cancels the whole clone part out, by telling ppl, where the real mesmer is. And don’t use the unaware ppl, who don’t see that indicator, as reference… that shouldn’t be the way to judge the skill…

juno.1840:

In WvW/PvP there isn’t really a skill that will keep you from getting finished if you’d get finished anyway without said skill. In other words, in most situations it just delays the enevitable.

However in PvE the skill is fairly useless. As already mentioned it moves you into AoE as much as it moves you out of it. The clone that’s summoned isn’t much of a distraction.

Ele can fight till they get downed in front of their keep/tower and mistform back in… Just one of the many examples, where downed skills can save ur kitten even in WvW… Mesmer downed skill but help u nothing but delay it. I barely see anyone saved by them….

Imperatora.7654:

TyPin.9860:

But why not let the thieves steal a skill, that randomly applies 2 random boons and apply 2 random conditions or smth like that. That would reflect the Staff abilities way better.

cause that is terribly underpowered for a class ability on a 45s cooldown.

I can see ur point. But when it’s a 10 second boon and we might even increas the number of boons and conditions to 3, then I think it is okay. But with the argument, that the steal from mesmers should represent the Staff abilities, then u also need some random factor in it… Staff is not half that reliable then consume ectoplasm.

I agree that it should be strong, if it has a 45 sec cooldown. But that cooldown can be decreased and the steal can get improved anyway by some minor and major trait.

However, to get all boons for 10 sec (with one exception) is not even close to anything the mesmer can do…

I run a phantasm build in WvW. Greatly relying on the Berserker for AoE and the Duelist for single target dps (and of course both together with weapon switch apply arround 8 to 12 bleeds) and I love it. I have also many illusions, but they are there to keep me company until I shatter them^^

Shatter isn’t a must be imho. But it is very very strong, and u can use them not only to deal dmg, but also to buy time for survival with f3 and f4…

Deception doesn’t work at all. I have 4 issues with it:

1. One can not control at all, the direction of the skill, making u port way too often right into an AoE kitten or smth.
2. sometimes it doesn’t port u anywhere, letting u still get finished by the first stomp, one actually should have evaded
3. The clone appears earlier than oneself before the enemies eyes (even without the Prismatic Understanding trait), making it easy to find out, where the real Mesmer is.
4. For all the ppl who don’t see or understand that, the game indicates, who the real mesmer is.

Bottom line is that the deception skill doesn’t do much and sometimes nothing. That is super weird and not helpful at all. I have but some suggestions how to fix it.

1. to choose target location would be too OP considering the skill does more than just teleport u away. But it could work similar to phase retreat and port u a random distance away from ur target.
2. yeah well, this is a bug and just needs to be fixed
3. make clone and mesmer appear the same time before the enemies eyes. Where clone is also teleported a random distance away from target (but to make sense, a different distance then oneself teleported)
4. put indicator for downed player over the downed clone and the downed player and it’s fine.

lol, don’t overextend urself^^

Just want to bring the Mesmer’s attention to this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/What-thieves-steal-from-Mesmer/

Doomdesire.9365:

Clones would be fun to play with. Always wondered why we stole consume plasma, and not a skill mesmers actually had…

That is exactly my point.

Negated.4105:

We also steal a stealth ability from your clones, teheee, kittens good ^^

U are kidding, aren’t u?

Alice.8694:

It’s the same benefit you get from 6th rune of lyssa bonus… Lyssa being the goddess of illusion and therefore governing mesmers.

U serious? I mean it fits from a role play perspective, I give u that. But still, it’s a skill we as Mesmer can not perform. Btw the Lyssa rune gives only 5sec boons.

TheGuy.3568:

Its appropriate. We don’t need more stealth. It’s class appropriate due to staff mechanics ie the bouncing random boons. Its basically save yourself so I get your point but unless its OP there is no reason to change what gets stolen.

I see ur point. But why not let the thieves steal a skill, that randomly applies 2 random boons and apply 2 random conditions or smth like that. That would reflect the Staff abilities way better.

First, I’ll admit it: I am a Mesmer.

Second: To understand thieves I tried several thieve builds myself in the heart of the mists and got an idea of their limitations (u won’t fool me again, u constantly invisible thieve, you)

But then I saw that thieves steal from Mesmers and I didn’t understand that. As far as I can see it, thieves steal smth, that the “victim of theft” can perform itself. A daze from a Guardian, a whirl from a Warrior, A stealth from a thieve, Fear from a necro, and so on.

But which Mesmer’s ability should “Consume Ectoplasm” represent? I as Mesmer have no way to give me all boons for 10 or more seconds just like that (unless with rune of Lyssa or smth)… A guardian has such abilities, yes, but no Mesmer (Or I have missed smth).

I would say, that the thieve should steal the ability to make an illusion or two, or to daze, or a decoy for all I care. But let them “steal” a skill, that the Mesmer can not perform is just not fair…

This is not the most game changing issue, unless a thieve kitten the steal ability. That would be very strong against Mesmer then (maybe I’ll try that myself)…

What do u guys as thieves think about that? Is this Consume Ectoplasm an appropriate steal or should it be rather changed?

uh, thieves… did u know that there are thieves describing their profession as utterly underpowered?

Personally I have been backstabed to death by thieves quite a lot. First I didn’t know that build, then I lacked the reaction time to use one of my 3 stun breakers Now they get me mostly, when I have wasted my utilities on smth or somebody else.

They are not OP, they are not UP. They are fine, from my perspective. I tried to rebuild the feared BS glass cannon thieve build in the heart of the mists. It worked, but it’s boring to me…

I think it should be possible for thieves to deal with an unprepared foe in seconds and I think it should be possible to counter this. And it is. So it’s mostly fine. And that they disengage a fight easily is not that much of a concern to me, for it is not my goal in WvW to win 1v1s against thieves. I want to get camps, towers and keeps. I want to take them and I want to hold them. Let them run, those cowards. They’ll come back and run again :P

The FoW perspective:
As Blue Perception probably would say: “I have won so many things for FoW, but FoW ppl are sick, so they lost everything again” ^^

Today night, we are greatly outnumbered and while a 4 man group from FoW recaptures Acalonian Hills via portal, we lose 2 towers and one other keep. It is a frustrating experience. But well, WvW was introduced as unbalanced… and it is ^^

Yep, Blink takes u, where u can walk to. It still sometimes is bugged, but I guess that is the basic mechanism. If you could blink just anywhere in range, it would mean u could blink ur way through jumping puzzles or into Towers, Keeps and that one big big castle in WvW.

agreed, i never rly know how far my portal reaches…

I agree with wads. Shadow refugee, once understood how it works, can be countered easily.

But I also agree that Mass Invisibility is too weak. It can be useful in the current state (I use it offensively when I for example wanna kill a downed character within the enemy lines; or it can be used defensively to slipp by enemy forces, to get out of hopeless sitautions), but the cast time makes it vulnerable to interrupts and stuff. But it’s not the cooldown. If the casttime would be reduced to like 1/4 second, it would already become super strong and I would use it even more… Reducing the cooldown would make it OP, especially in combination with runes like superior rune of Lyssa.

I basically disagree with the first post in this thread (as layed out earlier by other posts and my own). But some posts paint an unfair picture too. The Mesmer ain’t that weak, as some describe it. Yes we die quickly if we run out of illusions and yes, we do not deal 2k dmg with each single hit. But do we need to?

I actually had to rework my Mesmer for WvW purposes and wanted a build that works in PvE as well as WvW and I believe I found that for me. Relying on phantasms do deal direct dmg and apply bleeding and clones to also cause bleeding and fuel my shatters I am very pleased with the performance of the mesmer. I still struggle sometimes, but after 2 weeks of constant training in different WvW situations and tweaking my gear to the stats I desire, I find myself quite effective in both PvE and WvW.

Often switching my weapons, to get the most out of it, and using different weapons for WvW and PvE I think that the Mesmer (in the right hands) is very powerfull but not overpowered. Maybe there are some issues to be dealt with (clones not breaking target is one of them imho), but for the most part the Mesmer is fine as it is atm and I love playing that profession.

I wrote a thread about that exact topic some days ago. And I agree. Maybe not all, but most clone skills should break target in order to make sense. Clones don’t have to be improved by more health or dmg. If they break target and therefor distract the opponent, than it is more than okay as it is atm imho. I also agree with Embolism about the conditions clones can apply.

Here I was in another thread complaining, that Mesmer needed some improvement and then I read this. I guess it looks real different from a different perspective. I do not believe that Mesmer really got too much. Take for example the Mass Invisibility. It is a 5 seconds invisibility with over 1 second cast time. And then I saw a thief the other day in WvW, who turned himself and his comrades invisible at an alarming rate and with only 1/4 second cast time and a lower cooldown.

But overthinking the whole thing and playing a little bit the thief myself, I figured out the limitations of the thief’s invisibility. I guess that is the same fighting a Mesmer. I saw so many ppl dodging my shatters and even my berserker. And also the 20 stacks confusion me and my friend applied to that one guy, were removed almost instantly (I admit, we should have seen that comming^^)

Confusion does already less dmg in sPvP. But personally I like the concept of that condition. It allows you to control the moves of your enemy or punish him for not “obeying”. This is similar to GW1, where the Mesmer could basically disable the usage of skills for other players. We could probably talk about the amount of dmg the confusion does, but from my point of view it doesn’t need a major overwork. The only thing is, that it is stronger in WvW compared to sPvP. So maybe one should work on that.

Overall I can read from your post that you have problems dealing with Mesmer. But I as a Mesmer have my own problems (and we’re back to the thief). But I rather try to beat the thief in it’s current state than demanding a nerve on them… People seem to expect, to be able to handle everything that someone throws at them, but that shouldn’t be the case, I believe. Every build and every class should have it’s weaknesses and most feared enemies…

I have actually never played seriously sPvP. But I see it in WvW very often. While a thieve can choose his destination or an ele can mistform out of the heat (of course both only useful in certain situations and most of the times only a delay too) I teleport with deception in an opponents AoE field rather than out of it. That is annoying. And I always die a little bit when I see a downed mesmer, who can not confuse me at all with deception (because the game tells me, who the real Mesmer is).

But the biggest issue is that a mesmer can not really confuse his targets with clones. I mostly find my target easily. Maybe the mesmers I fought were easy prey, but also I myself have the feeling of never been able to confuse my foe with clones, unless I use decoy…

Of course that doesn’t matter in a shatter build, where u summon and shatter ur illusions anyway almost instantly. But I like to fool my opponents and I feel, I can not do that properly…

I really love my little silly Mesmer. She is just crazy and likes to do the opposite, of what I am expecting… like surviving unsurvivable situations and getting downed in a WvW while my team outnumbers the opponent 3 to 2^^

But hey, I am a Mesmer, so they have to find me first… What? I teleported closet to the enemy and they found me the very moment I lose stealth granted by Deception? Well, they were lucky, weren’t they?

No actually they most likely weren’t. While the clone created by Deception sometimes confuses my teammates so that they try to revive the clone instead of me, the enemy finds me always, if they know, what they’re doing. Not is it only obvious that after I disappear, first a clone appears and after that myself, letting the opponent know, that the second me that appeared, is the real me. I have also a marker over my head, showing them, that I am the original.

What is that all about?

It is getting worse. When I’m still not downed and I have any boon on me, or if I am using a signet, the opponent will instantly know the difference between me and my clone. Because the clone won’t have my signet or boons or stacks from weapon sigils or norishments or whatever… I, for myself, have learned to deal with Mesmers quite well, because they can not really confuse me.

And if I call a Mesmer target, the Mesmer losses that big call over his head only, if he goes into stealth, but not when he uses Mirror Images for example. That makes it super easy for my group to find the Mesmer and he can do almost nothing about that.

Buttom line is, it is too easy to find the original between all the Mesmer illusions. Possible solutions:

• If a Mesmer clones himself, the target on the Mesmer should switch randomly, between him and the clone created, to cause some real confusion, otherwise Mesmer are only meat to be sliced away.
• Also the target over a downed player should be over the downed clone too, to really confuse the enemy.
• And the clone and the Mesmer should appear the same time before the enemy’s eyes after using Deception in a downed state.

Also, Deception should teleport me away from my currently selected target and the created clone should go away from the target too, randomly deciding, who goes further, me or my clone…

Mesmers are about confusing the foe. But if the foe is skilled enough, it can pick up on so many more hints, then just the behavior from the clones and the original, making it super easy to find the original Mesmer…

I am playing Mesmer myself. Well I am playing Mesmer all day long, because it is the only unique, original and truly stylish class in GW2. However, I was annoyed, that I have no real reliable speed buff myself. But on the other hand, with a friend of mine (mesmer himself too) we can basically cheat ourselves through many jumping puzzles, can bring each other back to the top. We can make quick runs for supply in WvW (and help others with that too) with portal use and so on…

But then I discovered the Superior Rune of the Centaur. It fits perfectly in my build and and now we both are using it and basically everyone else is running after us now or at least the same speed. There are many ways in GW2 (at least this is my impression) to make up for the disadvantages of ur class by the propper equipment…