Guild Wars 2

At your level you should be taking three or more mobs your level without blinking. Check your gear, and Mr Prometheus’s guide as someone aready suggested. I watched his build guide and it helped immensely, even though I chose to do something quite different. The class doesn’t need to get better, it’s great. There are bugs but nothing that ruins the game for us. If you get better at playing Mesmer, it will get better. Or Mesmer just isn’t your cup of tequila.

Brief answer, probably not. The devs were not unaware of the fact illusions disappear when their target dies, it’s by design.

If you summon a phantasm on something about to die, shame on you. Next time switch targets to something with more health first. And remember illusions are half of our mechanic, shatter is the other half. When your target is at 30% it usually makes sense to shatter.

MMO’s run on a time scale of years. It’s been a month. Expecting everything to happen over night while they are busy fixing problems that actually make the game literally unplayable is unrealistic. If you play a game at launch, expect polish to be lacking. If the mesmer doesn’t make you happy right now, play something else until they get to it.

The phantasm has the big disadvantage that you can’t use it without a target. I stopped using it after dying to conditions simply because there was nothing around to kill.

It has the advantage of being a clone factory, with my traits the recharge on it is 16s I think, so it’s not really a big deal to use it for shatter fodder, you’ll get another one out pretty quick. I did like it for that reason, so I don’t think its horrible.

If you are with a group and someone else can cover its weakness, you might like it. Just know you have to be close enough to its target to catch the bounce or it won’t hit you.

I believe a 100% magic find increases your chance to find magic by 100%. It does not give you a 100% chance to find magic.

Say you had 5% chance to find magic, 100% magic find should give you 10% chance, not 105%.

EasymodeX.4062:

Mesmer does not seem as good at burning down single mobs as some other professions I’ve played. (Using my build – sword/focus and staff, using precision/cond damage and sharper image.) For a lot of people coming from other professions, they will seem weak.

You’re using a damage over time / not a burst damage build.

I know.

The Kay.6539:

Did you understand now? should someone make a graphic or draw a picture to you?

I understand. You don’t so I’ll draw you a picture.

While dazed you are no helpless. While stunned you are, unless you have a stun break. Stunned, you can’t dodge or run away. That makes a huge difference to me. If you chose to just stand there and get beat while dazed, you deserve to die. If you never pvp’d this trait is a waste. If you use your dazes in pvp, it’s gold.

Suggesting it should be a 100% to stun on daze is INSANE. I would not complain, but just imagine this: power lock (1 sec) > counter blade (1 sec) > power lock (1 sec) > magic bullet (2 sec) > diversion (1-3 aoe or up to 4 sec, time to recast mantra) power lock (1 sec) – as it is Confounding Suggestions take that chain from annoying to dangerous. 100% stun would be rediculous. Mesmer is already good at pvp, a stun lock build like that would be impossible to defeat. Unless you roll your own Mesmer and stun then first!

The thread topic isn’t really about stuns so back to my point. There’s a difference between a trait or skill you don’t want to use and one that is actually useless. Most of the problems in this thread are a question of preference, there is actually very little that’s really useless.

Read your own post.

You could be clearer. You say that generally stun is preferred to daze.

The trait gives you 50% chance to stun on daze.

If half of your dazes stun, and you prefer stun to daze, what’s your problem?

So, play an elementalist.

So you don’t prefer a stun to a daze.

Can we change the thread title to something like “Things I would like to change about mesmer?”

Some of your least favorites are on my most favorite list.

Prestige I like as is. Prismatic Understanding too. And Confounding Suggestions – you say a stun is preferable to a daze, but don’t like a trait that lets half your dazes be stuns. Wait, what?

There are underpowered skill/traits in the class, but you not liking something doesn’t mean it needs buffing.

My two cents.

Mesmer does not seem as good at burning down single mobs as some other professions I’ve played. (Using my build – sword/focus and staff, using precision/cond damage and sharper image.) For a lot of people coming from other professions, they will seem weak.

What I found though is I burn down 3 mobs almost as fast as I burn down 1. Chaos storm applies conditions in an area, Chaos Armor to anything that hits you, shatter is AOE, Warden is AOE, Winds of Chaos bounces to multiple foes if you keep them together, sword attacks and Blurred Frenzy are AoE . . . Pull a group, use movement and dodges to survive while dishing damage to the group, and watch everything drop.

Long fights should be the exception, not the norm.

Nice read, but I disagree. Shatters can be a little bugged but I work well with the class mechanic as is.

I think your problem might be that you don’t like the Mesmer anet made, and want them to change it to your liking. That is, you complain that we are all “forced” to use the class mechanic, when that’s true of all classes. Your argument, to me, reads like a ranger complaining he is forced to use a pet, or a guardian who hates virtues.

I think that the system is fun, and flexible. No matter my trait build there are times I makes sense to shatter and times it doesn’t. Those who say its a waste to shatter three phantasms are basing that on damage numbers – there is a lot more to it than damage. Distortion can keep me alive, confusion can force my opponent to stop spamming his burst chain, daze can save me or an ally from dying.

The game is new and nearly everything could stand some refinement and polish, which will happen with time. But I can’t agree at all with your premise that the illusion/shatter mechanic is fundamentally flawed. On the contrary I think it’s fun as kittens!

I would not mind more range.

But I think the short range should be a real big clue that it’s not there to be a long range charge ability. It has plenty of other uses though, it’s not exactly a wasted slot as it is.

It is viable. You will want to trait differently than if you use a sword, but I’ve used every weapon and you can pve with any of them you like. The GS and scepter are my least favorite personally, but I have friends who favor them. Staff and sword are the two stand outs for me.

I’m leveling, so can’t address end game content.

At early and mid level, Mesmer is incredibly good for pve content. I would not say incredibly easy, which some other professions are. For my two cents, I focus on my mesmer because it is not easy mode, rather it’s fun mode.

And the reason I feel like an kitten for buying on the trading post – most common enough items are sold at just over the merchant price, which means the poor sap is screwing himself for selling to me.

You can use it to engage an enemy. Like, to initiate combat. Target your enemy and then look right below the skill icon. If there is a red line, you are out of range. No red line means you can leap. If you leap from too far it won’t work.

I have a norn necromancer. I haven’t seen another though there surely are some. When I play him in any other race’s area, I don’t see other norn often at all.

I have a norn necrimancer. I haven’t seen another though there surely are some. When I play him in any other race’s area, I don’t see other norn often at all.

So I’m dying to know – if you have a Charrzooka and use mirror images and decoy, do you have three clones blasting your enemy with fiery burning death? That’s bound to startle people in pvp!

That’s why in group fights you swap targets when making a clone, then back to your main target.

Edit: shatters aren’t all that valuable. Look at them as a helpful bonus, but the illusions are the more powerful part of the class mechanic than the shatters.

I like it as it is. I generally play melee. If you imagine bosses could never 1-shot, it stands to reason no smart player would ever die to a boss during a zerg. You would simply heal or back off until you regen a little. If there’s no risk of dying there’s really no challenge to the encounter, the players WILL win every time. I’ve been in a few boss encounters where the boss killed everyone. So when we win I feel like we actually had to work at it.

If you don’t like melee, switch to ranged for the fight.

I haven’t played every profession, but all my melee chars have skills to get in range, and conditions to help me keep up when they run (cripple, immobilize, stun etc). What profession are you having a hard time with?

I do agree ranged is easier, but you can still compete.

There is a portal. In lions arch go to the north west corner and go inside the cave, inside a charr vendor gives it away.

I use duelist traits for crit rate. When holding a sword I have 60% crit rate. That also gives me vigor so I can dodge almost constantly. With defensive skills and dodging I am very hard to hit, never mind kill. I use sword/pistol and scepter/sword.

A fight might start with magic bullet (stun/daze/blind), duelist, feedback, leap(cripple), dodge, swap (immobilize, combos with feedback for chaos armor), auto attack, blurred frenzy, dodge and swap weapons, swordsman, illusionary counter – counter spell (block, clone, blind) …..

Also remember your shatters are there if you get in trouble. Distortion is amazing when you’re in a pinch, as is diversion. Also go ahead and shatter for damage when a mob is almost dead. Those clones will vanish any ways, might as well get area damage before they do.

Controlling the pace is the trick. Keep dodging and controlling the enemies with cripple, blind, daze, and you will do fine. If you just stand still pressing buttons you won’t last long at all.