Guild Wars 2

Robin Hood.8123:

Aberrant.6749:

Phantasm delay will be reduced to .25s in the next patch according to the dev. I would like the cast times to be reduced by .25s to make up for the delay. The dev’s said that instant attacks from the phantasms weren’t OP but were causing some other non-specified issues (and the instantly attacking phantasms were caused by a bug in the first place).

That´s not the point. If that story about instant attacking is causing some conflicts, then why does the mariner skill still works properly without delay? It works right now, without causing any troubles.

^

Just this part of what you said Robin Hood. The answer in my opinion is because they changed a lot of how the illusions worked. For me they suddenly started producing finishers in fields when the big bug came on and kitten iZerker. He actually does a whirling finisher now where I do not recall him ever doing that. I don’t think it’s that they fixed it to make it work. I think it’s that they changed the skill that was being used to something like a severely dumbed down version of Warriors whirlwind, instead of the boomerang effect it was associated with before. I understood changes were coming, but for anybody that actually plays mesmer in pvp they know how challenging it is vs good players already.

So… it’s not like anybody really believes that it was entirely an accident. We all have this feeling that we’ve been screwed in our sleep and woken up to the bed having been made with us in it.

Josh.6213:

i have 3 80s and my mes was probably the slowest to level at first once you start to get some good traits it starts to go alot smoother

Mesmer is my second 80, and it has been far slower than leveling ranger. Lack of swiftness sucks. Inability to perform well in dynamic events with a zerg. There’s a huge list of gripes and complaints I have regarding mesmers, but they are easily one of the more flexible classes for being able to adapt to circumstances with all of their utilities.

So where mesmer doesn’t keep up on the DE’s they’re amazing solo farmers if you have the right build. Personally I don’t play an MMO to be alone though and even if I’m not in a group I prefer the crowd or a zerg and mesmer wasn’t the best choice for that. I won’t make that mistake again though I’m just going to roll a guardian next they’re ridiculous in pve solo or in a group or zerg, and even in pvp and wvw where they are OP. Can’t kill a good one in wvw and it’s hard in pvp without double teaming them.

Omen.1879:

Hi All,

So I just wanted to get some opinions on sPvP to see what everyone else thinks. Historically, sPvP in an mmo has been a lot of fun for me. Whenever I finish what I want to do in PvE I could always count on sPvP scenarios to keep me occupied.

The problem I have is that at the moment there really isn’t anything to work towards in sPvP. We have a heap of ranks to grind through but the rewards are simply cosmetic. Furthermore, I’ve had a look at all of the skins available as you rank up and I’m kinda disappointed. It doesn’t seem to me that there is enough reward in participating in sPvP. If you’re the kind of person that just plays because sPvP is fun, which it is, then fair enough, however I like to feel like I am working towards something as well.

Now, I do think that not being able to upgrade gear is a good thing because that seems to cause all sorts of problems in any other mmo I’ve seen. As long as you have a big pool of players with substantially different gear there will be people complaining about it. It just seems like there is something missing.

So I put it to you good people of the Mists:

Are you happy with sPvP as it stands and why? Or,
Are you unhappy with the current system and what could be done to improve it?

p.s. We all know that balance is a constant topic of conversation, but for the purpose of this thread please try and limit your responses to feedback on the sPvP systems that are currently in place.

Looking forward to your posts!

Honestly the only thing I don’t care for about sPvP is that it gives me the same points towards rank as what I get in tPvP. I’d do more sPvP but I don’t really want to out rank my skill level and end up playing with the big boys when match making comes in.

plasmacutter.2709:

How do you reconcile the cripple on clone death vs lowered staff cooldowns, especially using a sword where you have sword 3 for a cripple if needed?

I think he was just going for anything that had to do with illusion death, but I asked myself that same question and played around with traits and gear to tweak it a little. The continuous cripple is definitely not a must vs all classes but it sure is nice vs melee. Anybody that’s capable of kiting you with some condi removal will be a problem without the continuous cripple unless you transition to a different strategy vs them. In which case the CD helps a lot with that.

There is no doubt that the play style is very different between ALL classes.

Play the race you like best for aesthetics, if you’re going to play a mesmer.

SteepledHat.1345:

I’ve already seen that. The video immediately called to mind thieves and warriors to me. Funny how we can interpret things differently.

I guess I was referring to the skill gap required to play mesmer outside of the “Create clone ==> Shatter” rinse and repeat techniques.

Outside of basic illusion generation and deception skills mesmer suddenly jumps in skill required to play it well. A lot of people just don’t see it because they’re still playing vs others that are using the noob OP skill sets. It’s tough to learn a new build when all of the classes have an OP skill set that is commonly used and it feels like they just happen to all counter mesmer everything.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/GS-iBezerker-a-foo-strategy

Click the link on the original post. Watch the video. Become enlightened.

Karl McLain.5604:

I like to refer to it as “Hard Mode” when in PvP.

^ This = Win

Hahahaha. Made my day… it was a long one too.

Tried builds similar to this before, and I didn’t personally care much for them, but I’ll give yours a try too because if there’s a way to make a build like this work it should be lots of fun.

Time elasped: 40 minutes.

So I tried it out and it’s amusing to use vs low rank players. They end up being completely bewildered by what I am doing.

Highest rank I played against was a rank 29 in the tourney matches I played. I sadly won’t get to try it out vs some better players tonight. It was a lot of fun using this spec and seeing the massive number of conditions on my targets. They can’t keep up with condi removal with this spec, but there is very little between me staying alive and me being dead. To be most effective I had to be in melee range and as an evasive glass condi spec there were several times where it was touch and go. 1v1’s went well, but as soon as there’s aoe I was hurting, and 1v2’s went down hill fast. With a thief as back up dps there was no difficulty killing 2v3 and at their near point and having them stream back in for more.

All in all it was fun and I’d recommend it to a friend.

I have been really thinking about the viability of clones and phantasms and with the fact that they have such terrible survivability. They spawn, they pause, they die due to having really basically no health even when their bonus health traits and utilities are being used. Ok so when that gets fixed we will have clones and phantasms that really don’t mimic our movements at all making the Mesmer VERY easy to spot.

So here’s my suggestion: Give clones the ability to dodge roll. They won’t actually dodge anything if something hits them it will just be an animation, and the chaos that it would create by better mimicking a real person could potentially be devastating for our enemies. Even if this went into the Chaos tree as a trait.

Feedback?

Cercie.1025:

Sadly I went back to leveling my ranger for now. It isn’t much better but at least ranger never really had anything noticably good for Anet to destroy.

^
This really is the saddest thing I have heard in awhile.

Keep up the comments guys. Between this thread and the other ones just like it maybe we can break 1000 posts on this subject before the 14th.

The only upside to being forced into mesmer ranged weapons is that I get to laugh against foes that stand like a deer in headlights when your ranged phantasms come out. The 1 in 10 that don’t actually just come and kill them that is.

plasmacutter.2709:

Just a note to all the people still whining…

The 0.25 seconds our red poster Mr. Peters was mentioning was what he adjusted on his INTERNAL BUILD and will be pushing out with the next update.

it does not necessarily mean that it’s live now.

he’s changing the oil on the car, you still have to wait for it to drain and be refilled, if you know what I mean.

So leave it be for a little while.

This will be an improvement and will likely be livable, but is still not a fix for the bugged damage output.

It seems to me that the iZerkers blade needs to connect with it’s target in order to have a chance to hit. So it’s like a spiraling linear aoe, where we expect it to be just a straight linear aoe and anything in it’s path is hit and for the same number of hits.

Carighan.6758:

Wise.8025:

So you’re saying IF our damage wasn’t bugged then it would be powerful?

Something you forgot nicely: The iZerker hits 5 targets, it’s not a single target Phantasm.

To compare single target Phantasm damage, use Duelist or Swordsman, although for both you also have to reflect that they are much better at staying out of AEs than the other Phantasms.

When and if iZerker hits all 5 enemy players in pvp then something has gone horribly sideways. 1st off it seems very unlikely that any sound strategy would involve your entire team stacked close enough for each member to be hit and even less likely every member would be hit for full damage.

Put this into PvE and WvW context: In PvE it makes mesmers viable farmers for DE’s and gives them a stronger dps role in groups (of course they’re not likely to be 100% glass cannon thus reducing damage output sharply). In WvW context: Who cares if this hits the enemy zerg? Maybe the phantasm gets one pass before blowing up on somebody’s retaliation/random targeting/aoe/pissed off pet etc.

You’re trying to suggest that the potential for iZerker is game breaking when it’s far from it. You say it hits 5 targets? I say it hits 5 targets in a very limited line on a very long CD. How wide is area of the elementist meteor shower? How many targets does it hit? Can it be stopped by doing 500 damage?

Here let me copy and paste the info gw2wiki has.

Elementalist Meteor Shower
Damage: 481
Storm radius: 360
Damage radius: 90
Range: 1,200

Mesmer iZerker
Crippled: 2 s
Damage: 259
Range: 1,200

Still threatened by iZerker? There is nothing wrong with Mesmer’s having some sort of AoE in their repertoire, that is actually decent.

Anybody else experiencing Blurred frenzy taking them off point in a pvp match?

Was in a tourney this evening and never once left the point yet the elementalist contesting the point managed to get it neutral. Was this part of the “blur” change to Blurred Frenzy?

Would appreciate some feedback if anybody knows. Logging for the night and won’t be going back to test it out.

wads.5730:

Wise.8025:

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

Can you please define “powerful summon” to us?

I am confused as to what constitutes this definition of the iZerker.

iZerker vs Heavy Golem in the mists
Attack 3139
Crit 44% chance 50% damage bonus

iZerker damage tooltip 576

Typically iZerker hits for an average of 1.1-1.3k plus some minor condition damage.
Lowest damage I saw after 20 minutes of testing was 666.
Highest damage I saw after 20 minutes of testing 2478

I’m not going to be stacking a hell of a lot more than 3100 attack in a pvp setting.

Please, we would all like to know what aspect of this damage output is so powerful that it warrants such massive delays?

its already been reported and acknowledged that izerker damage is bugged. in general, damage oriented phantasms are indeed very powerful.

So you’re saying IF our damage wasn’t bugged then it would be powerful? Because currently the damage is laughable even to glass cannons. My concern is the delay that is currently in place that is supposedly there to prevent this pathetic damage from taking place.

The delay isn’t just on iZerker either it’s on all of the phantasms. They’re dying before they even land anything rendering them useless in PvE/WvW and laughable in PvP vs any player that’s aware they can just swat the Illusions and they’ll die without ever having done damage. Also preventing any reasonable shatter from us.

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

Can you please define “powerful summon” to us?

I am confused as to what constitutes this definition of the iZerker.

iZerker vs Heavy Golem in the mists
Attack 3139
Crit 44% chance 50% damage bonus

iZerker damage tooltip 576

Typically iZerker hits for an average of 1.1-1.3k plus some minor condition damage.
Lowest damage I saw after 20 minutes of testing was 666. (was able to get 0 damage after testing here, on a stationary heavy golem)
Highest damage I saw after 20 minutes of testing 2478 (was some bad luck here in the original testing, was able to break 2800 shortly after posting)

I’m not going to be stacking a hell of a lot more than 3100 attack in a pvp setting.

Please, we would all like to know what aspect of this damage output is so powerful that it warrants such massive delays?

Probably an oversight. Mesmer confusion damage sucked so bad they had to double the damage output for PvE and I would imagine they just didn’t boost the underwater outputs. While PvP confusion damage remains the same.

Ryuujin.8236:

EvilToaster.7406:

IIRC iDeulist was getting a 100% combo finisher for every shot instead 20% per shot like other muli-shot finishers

I can confirm this, reliably stacking 8 confusion every summon, never more or less – if it were only 20% then it should average around 2, sometimes less sometimes more.

Did they at least fix zerker or was this update purely to nerf mesmer?

Purely the latter.

Don’t worry about iDuelist finishers either they’re not done “fixing” mesmer.

It is necessary to change Blurred frenzy and separate it from distortion so that they can make mesmers vulnerable to certain attacks while using your “blur” evasion techniques.

Removed my sarcastic comments regarding how they plan on nerfing mesmers next

just the 1st hit. every subsequent hit after that the warrior just lols. if you’re not dead and try to run he will use whirlwind so expect that. if you manage to counter the whirlwind and launch an attack he will swap and use shield stance then eviscerate you.

Isn’t it obvious Anuxdei? They want you to use cripple to slow your opponents to prevent them from running. Of course this means you need to use your focus as an OH and/or GS. Focus is terrible unless you fight a baddie that will sit onto of your phantasm and GS has been nerfed into the ground due to much crying and “fixes” that were unintentional but will never be reversed.

Welcome to GW2, you play a mesmer. Get used to it. Things are going to get bumpy…er.

Kobeathris.3645:

Wise.8025:

Kobeathris.3645:

Wise.8025:

Clones are attacking their nearest target when created now and not who I have targeted. Deceptive evasion is now officially broken for PvE/WvW and to a lesser degree PvP.

Deceptive Evasion has always worked this way.

Wait wait…. you’re trying to tell me that Deceptive Evasion has always created a clone that attacks neutral targets that are not in combat with you and that is something we’ve been content to live with that I have never noticed until now?

Clones generated that attack the closest target regardless of whether it’s neutral or in combat or a rat with 1 hp, is not working as intended I am sure of it. Why would they give us a skill that generates clones that are incapable of attacking our targets? Oooooh wait a second I see what’s going on here. Our phantasms are also incapable of attacking our targets due to instantly dying upon summon. Ok ok you’re quite right this really is working as intended my bad time to close this thread, nothing to see here we’re all wrong about these issues.

I made no comment on whether or not this is the way things should work, but for the purposes of a developer reading this information and looking to troubleshoot something, nothing has changed with how Deceptive Evasion works in the 12/3 patch. It killed critters and pulled yellow mobs into combat before, and it still does now.

Well then I’ll drop the issue with clones for the purposes of this thread despite it being new to me.

Kobeathris.3645:

Wise.8025:

Clones are attacking their nearest target when created now and not who I have targeted. Deceptive evasion is now officially broken for PvE/WvW and to a lesser degree PvP.

Deceptive Evasion has always worked this way.

Wait wait…. you’re trying to tell me that Deceptive Evasion has always created a clone that attacks neutral targets that are not in combat with you and that is something we’ve been content to live with that I have never noticed until now?

Clones generated that attack the closest target regardless of whether it’s neutral or in combat or a rat with 1 hp, is not working as intended I am sure of it. Why would they give us a skill that generates clones that are incapable of attacking our targets? Oooooh wait a second I see what’s going on here. Our phantasms are also incapable of attacking our targets due to instantly dying upon summon. Ok ok you’re quite right this really is working as intended my bad time to close this thread, nothing to see here we’re all wrong about these issues.

Kysin.6349:

The delay is frustrating, but I can not believe some of you have the nerve to say Mesmer is broken. I played Hot join for an hour today over 3 different server both teams had at least 2 Mesmers at all times, sometimes more. All playing duelist phantasm, and general illusion spam, all downing many players. I know one person that is rank 40, and he always plays a Mesmer. Sheesh, I will only agree that iZerker is now pretty useless.

Ranged phantasms have at least a chance to get off an attack, because they’re not spawned on top of your target.

Just spent an hour trying to partake in WvW events. While defending from the walls of a fort I felt 100% useless. My phantasms just explode the second they’re spawned. Utterly frustrating feeling so completely useless. I am not a melee class. I do not and cannot withstand any sort of beating as I use deception and evasion to survive.

I posted an additional bug related to clone creation on the bug forums but it quickly disappeared to page 3 within a few minutes.

Clones are attacking their nearest target when created now and not who I have targeted. Deceptive evasion is now officially broken for PvE/WvW and to a lesser degree PvP.

If my clones and phantasms can’t attack the targets I am setting them on because they are incapable of attacking before exploding or refuse to attack the target that I have selected PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD REMOVE THEM. I am sick to death of the baby steps being taken for a class who’s core mechanics are BROKEN. Other classes may function with bugs and broken skills/traits but their CORE MECHANICS are not broken and they are able to enjoy game-play unhindered and but not wholly unplagued by their issues.

I thought I could live with the delay. I was wrong. It’s not even manageable in pvp now because players just swat at my illusions and poof they’re gone. My only recourse is to use entirely ranged phantasms if I want to use mesmer now and hope that some random aoe or projectile doesn’t kill them before having been some use.

Jeremy Winston.2165:

I may have half a brain or not… I wasn’t getting a delay, but I can’t say why not. I didn’t even know it existed before.

What’s the ‘workaround?’

The work around is rolling a guardian or a warrior. They’re amazing at PvE/ WvW/PvP.
They’re tanky even when not spec’d for it
They have massive dps when spec’d for it
They are the best farming classes in the game according to majority opinion on the forums.
They have plenty of cc
They have plenty ways of surviving when being focus’d and in fact were designed to withstand large barrages

2 days ago when the latest patch further destroyed what remained of mesmer I decided to reroll as guardian. Haven’t been able to bring myself to do it yet, just don’t have the stomach for rerolling at the moment. I’ll stick to some jump puzzles or something else that doesn’t require a level or any class skills to do.

There’s your work around. Don’t play mesmer. They’ll figure it out when 50% of the mesmer population abandons the class altogether and the other 50% stubbornly sit in the forums crying for change with half a voice.

Whenever a clone is generated now it attacks it’s nearest target and not the target of the mesmer. Doesn’t seem to be a major issue for scepter use since it spawns the clones beside their target, unless multiple targets are stacked or very nearby.

The major issue arises with kiting and nearby foes while using deceptive evasion to generate clones. This bug is easily recreated in the mists on the practice golems. Engage a target to put yourself into combat and keep them targeted. Now stand near another foe and dodge roll to create a clone. It will attack the nearest target regardless of whether or not it is in combat with you.

You may say that it is in combat but I discovered the issue while in a PvE map and my clones decided to attack the nearby rats that have 1 health after a dodge roll. After which they immediately despawned since their target was deceased. I was able to recreate this bug easily and even managed to get my iZerker to attack the nearest and wrong target by casting it while in a dodge roll. Haven’t been able to recreate this issue with any other phantasm or even again with the iZerker, although I assure you it did happen.

@Kavia awesome posts, thanks for helping bring some clarity and information into these forums.

Well Phantasms are still dying most of the time before doing anything, but at least it’s a little better… sort of. I was trying to level a mesmer in PvE but I’ve given up on it for the time being. Also useless in WvW aside from portal… meh.

I applaud the effort made to fix this issue. Frankly I expected to have to walk away from the mesmer class altogether and still may have to at least until we’re fixed.

Once again we’re on the right track here.

erigais.6805:

start leveling other classes looks like this one is untouchable for a while.

Or take a break from the game. I leveled a ranger to 80, then decided they got the short end of the stick on PvE and PvP. I really enjoyed mesmer so I’m working on 80, they’ve decided that the class I didn’t think they could nerf needs to be toned down so the noobs and baddies can compete and understand without qqing all day.

Sadly each and every change to mesmer has really hurt the class and there has been no compensation BECAUSE the dev’s think mesmer is an issue too. I mean really what other explanation is there for the constant nerfs on mesmer if they don’t believe mesmer is a problem?

Put a partially used Salvage kit into the pvp locker and pull it out. Poof full 15 uses again.

Vorpal.4683:

When I choose the trait, the tooltip is updated on Magic Bullet

But Phantasmal Duelist is not affected…

Since pistol only has TWO SKILLS the trait not working on one of them is pretty bad.

Because Phantasm summoning skills are affected by Illusion summoning and are not considered skills to be affected by the weapon traits. You will find this holds true for every single weapon trait. There is only 1 skill per weapon that is affected by these traits and makes them not nearly as appealing.

purpleskies.3274:

So now people have a chance to blind or dodge our summon, then if we get it off they have adequate warning if they want to try and dodge it a second time to take no damage.

Working as intended. Players have complained about Mesmer to the point that the developers felt it only fair that when spawning a Phantasm that any player should not only be able to have time to avoid, run away, kill it, laughdoadancerunalltheirskills, but to have a full 1 second AFTER the animation so that they wouldn’t have to listen/read all the qq’ing.

Can I get a full second to respond after teleport from steal before it goes off and another second before backstab pls? Oh oh and 2 seconds after updraft has been used because it has such a long duration knockdown. Banish too maybe, and double all these timings for Asura because they’re so small and much harder to read.

I have a hard time stomaching this as a fix. 1st in PvP it gives far too much time to respond. 2nd in WvW phantasms are dead to the zerg before they are of any benefit. 3rd PvE don’t expect to keep up with the DE farming just reroll.

choban.9027:

Evan Lesh.3295:

I want to hop in and say that while this bug is proving near impossible to reproduce on our machines, we hope our fixes going out today will finally take care of it.

Let stealthed thief stomp you :P…

Yeah that’s the only time I get the load screen bug, when I get smashed by a thief. Doesn’t seem to matter if it’s stealth or not. Hasted abilities trigger it more often than regular attacks.

On that note it would seem the logical fix would be to nerf thief into the ground so nobody plays them until you can pin point the origin of the issue.

Phira.3970:

I read on wiki that stats affect mesmer such as power/precision/crit dmg.%

but what about:

-5% dmg sigil
-5% dmg crit. chance
-3% dmg per illusion
-4dmg% per mantra
-does switching weapon affect your illusions damage based on weapons sigil?
-does might/fury on the mesmer affect its illusion? if so, what about having might applied after illusion is spawned?
-fire/air sigil

And does “illusion deals +x% more dmg” affect shatter damage?
-if so, does the illusion lvl 30 trait that gives you an extra shatter become affected by "illusions deal +x% more dmg?

What is warlocks real dmg?
It says 103 dmg and +10% dmg per condition but i’m doing 4-6k crits with it. How does 103 dmg go to 4-6k crit? What’s its true base dmg?

It’s only the Mesmers base stats that will scale the illusions. Sigils do not affect illusions, they do not possess your gear when they are created and therefore do not benefit from its effects.. Boons are per individual, meaning if the Mesmer has it they get the bonus but not the illusion and vice versa, whether it’s might or fury or retal or whatever.

I’m not 100% sure on all the traits but I believe the ones you’re referring to do not affect illusions in any way and are added after the base damage is applied to the Mesmers damage (ie your weapon/1 autoattack output).

Shatter damage is scaled according to your Mesmer’s base power at the time of impact, and yes the Illusionary Persona GM trait is affected by your base stats just as any shatter would be.

Once again, all of a Mesmer’s illusions are scaled according to your base stats and different illusions follow different rules according to what they are classified as. I’m sure you can figure this part out yourself if you do a bunch of testing.

Hope that clarifies things a little for you.

jadjay.8701:

Death in seconds, is that supposed to be “fun”.

Burst damage in this game needs to be cut wayyyyyyyy down. At this point its just Burst wars. there is absolutely no stratagy to it at all just a race for who can burst who.

I just dont see how getting killed before you even know your being attacked is working as intended and if so i guess this isnt for me.

go ahead and flame away but deep down you know something is wrong.

I prefer this style. I really dislike it when they give everybody more health and armor and lower damage outputs just so the fights last a long time. Damage HAS to be high enough that a burst build can kill you before your teammates can run all the way across the map and support you. Besides if you’ve got a problem with the bursty nature of the game I suggest playing something that’s not a glass cannon.

aydenunited.5729:

This class and style plays amazing… I’ve fought several recently, both in my burst specs and balanced specs and I haven’t defeated one yet. They seem to play much like the original Ele Bunker, just with a far more consistent damage output.

Anyone else seen a rise in this build? I know I dueled someone the other day who wanted to show that Rangers aren’t nearly as bad as people try to say, and I must say, this seems to be the hardest hitting bunker class in the game so far, at least in terms of consistent damage output.

Ranger was my first class, and the key to beating any ranger is simple. Dodge the arrows and you can laugh at them while you kill them and they may land 10% of their shots, but that is all.

Dodge you say? You lie you say? Try it. Have a Ranger shoot at you, while you’re standing there simply alternate pressing Q and E really quickly to strafe back and forth on the same spot. The arrows will miss and the Ranger will get an obstructed message.
It may be intended so that people can avoid projectiles but seriously? For pvp when I play a Ranger and want to assault a point all they have to do is strafe and I lose? To hell with that.

nurt.5401:

I think the question should be viewed as “which profession is the most difficult to play to it’s fullest potential”, or possibly “which is most difficult to play at a moderate level”. But definitely not “which is the hardest to achieve good results with” because that’s basically just an inverse list of “which profession is the best” which we have seen answered a million times.

Agreed Nurt. I see various answers and it seems the question needs to be more specific. There really is no BEST class and there’s really no 1 build beats all, but it seems like that’s what these lists are, “Who has the cheesiest, easy to learn, easy to execute build that any baddie can use to win better than 50% of all their fights 1v1.”

I like the way you posed the question.

“Which profession is the most difficult to play to it’s fullest potential”

1 Elementalist
2 Engineer
3 Thief
4 Mesmer
5 Necro
6 Ranger
7 Guardian
8 Warrior

While others may not agree with this list I think it sums up nicely which classes are more complex and require far more elaborate combo’s, forethought, strategy and planning to play and execute at their FULL potential.

So in reverse from the bottom up, you have your classes that you just need to hit a couple of buttons repeatedly and you don’t have many other dynamics available to you.

Sure you could argue that a specific build for thief or mesmer is easy to play, but we’re talking full potential not just 1 spec that you believe to fit all situations because you died to it and felt your ego get slapped in the face when they danced on your corpse.

This sounds like a qq thread about sPvP. Everybody plays dps in sPvP cause they’re playing to see big numbers both with damage and with score. Just means they’re all glass and you should adjust accordingly.

Thief, Shatter mesmer, Burst ele, Well Necro’s…. expect them to be a larger part of the sPvP population than you’d see in tournaments.

Jeenks.1348:

I’m a level 80 Elementalist but I’m a noob to PvP. Recently I’ve been finding it pretty much impossible to take down a Mesmer, what advice do you have for an Elementalist VS Mesmer fight.

Elementalists are one of my hardest fights as a mesmer. Unless you’re pure glass then it’s whoever gets off their combo first.

Elementalists simply need to just have a good combo to shut down their opponents and they can win by out surviving them. Only fights that become hard at that point are vs bunkers. Aoe’s destroy illusions super fast since they seem to have around 5-600 health unless otherwise spec’d to increase health. Mesmers often have a couple of stun breaks on their utility bar too but they like using them for clone creation. If you see clones pop-up in large numbers: 1 expect a shatter coming and 2 your opponent now has his stun breaks on CD and it ripe for the picking.

There is another tactic that works well vs mesmers. Immobilize them, burst, laugh cause they spec’d glass and don’t use condition removal or can’t use it fast enough to save their kitten

Blackmon.1903:

I’m about to make a Charr Mesmer but I have to ask first how they are in farming groups. Tagging monsters before they die. Are they poor at that or is there a way?

Thank you.

I’m torn between a Charr Mesmer or Charr Ele but I find Mesmer more active and challenging as I saw another Player make mesmers look cool in my eyes in battle.

Hmm not sure how well mesmer does for group farming but I have heard that they are sub-par for the zerg farming. They just don’t have enough initial damage or aoe damage for the zerg farming to capitalize like engi’s can.

Krathalos.3461:

I honestly don’t understand all these complaints about the nerfs being “out of hand” for Mesmer players.

I also play Mesmer, and I find this perfectly okay. When another class misses a skill because of obstructed, blind, etc., it’s placed on CD. Why do you think Mesmers shouldn’t follow this game rule? It seems more like a bug fix to me. The fact that players are seriously quitting the game because of this makes them seem extremely immature. This does nothing but put Mesmer in the same bracket as other classes. Mesmers aren’t now UP, kitten, etc. They’re still a very strong class, and far above other classes in terms of what they bring to the table.

It makes it annoying when sieging a base, I’ll give it that. But there are other classes who are terrible at this as well (Guardians, for example, are worse off than Mesmer in this regard).

Just because you now can’t do something else that no other class can doesn’t mean your class is now UP. That’s what balance is. There’s no reason for Mesmers to be able to completely ignore Obstructed, Blind, etc. on certain abilities.

Because other classes are not balanced the same way. Mesmers are balanced around their maximum potential which is having up to 3 illusions out at a given moment. If I have a skill that fails due to somebody dodging or running out of range I don’t care in the least as it’s a part of the game that affects everybody. When my core game play is affected by a bad patch and I can’t get max potential without spending 4 times as long to setup then it becomes frustrating. Most classes do not even need to setup to achieve their full potential, just pop a couple of skills and let fly.

I agree with you that mesmers shouldn’t be able to ignore obstructions and blindness but we’re talking about our core ability. If I blind a thief or engi it doesn’t stop them from being able to stealth, or an engineer to switch tool kits does it? THAT is what has happened. Please keep up with the logic behind the class instead of adding your “please don’t change mesmers back” cries to the forums. It confuses other people like yourself that don’t actually comprehend the depth of the damage done.

Moxic.5892:

Yes, clones proc when they crit. I often pop out a couple clones with staff (sigil of fire) and switch to GS, and watch the light show. Staff is especially nice with activating the proc because with all the bouncing the clones quickly get fury and start procing more.

LOL they do not proc sigils when they crit. Put on the sigil of fire because it’s REALLY obvious when it goes off. Put yourself in combat and put up 3 clones, then disengage yourself and watch for the effect. No proc. Not on fire, not on air.

They used to proc off of our illusions and even managed to have their own cd timers, but as you can imagine it was terribly broken and got fixed. I mean honestly if they could proc off of any illusion the sigils would be on CD 100% of the time and every 5s you’d be adding a nice burst to your damage output.

If you would like to prove otherwise to me go ahead with video because after reading this I went back and tried to get my clones to proc effects like they used to and am happy to say that they do not.

It occurred to me that maybe what you’re seeing is the burning effect from your clones that staff actually adds as a condition, but visually the flames on your target are very different from the big flame blast that comes from the sigil effect.

Esoteric.5490:

Are these game types going to be seen in Guild Wars 2? If so, are we going to have to wait until an expansion to get them?

The game is called Guild Wars and the 2 most successful PvP types from Guild Wars 1 are nowhere to be seen in this game, most notably there is no fighting against other GUILDS in a structured match. I played GW1 for 5 years just for HoH and GvG. These game types were massively successful and never got stale. Why are they not in the game?

Guild Halls, GvG, and HoH were some of the aspects that made GW1 such a great game. I’ve been very disappointed to see that they haven’t come back, especially when the systems were so well designed. I know I’m not the only one that thinks this. THESE game types are dynamic forms of PvP. Guilds need to actually play a role again instead of solely being an organized force for WvW. 8v8 is a great number for PvP and currently, I feel like WvW doesn’t do enough for guilds who play it and sPvP is so streamlined that guilds don’t have a whole lot of freedom to make group comps because of how small the teams are. There are far too few styles of play, in my opinion, and those styles are pretty much cookie-cutter builds.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? This is, of course, open to discussion.

I heard they’re working on these aspects of the game, I also heard that the GvG objectives will put the free/paid tourney’s to shame depending on the map, but what do I know… nothing.

gwawer.9805:

I’m not asking for strategy on how to win. I’m saying these elements just aren’t very FUN to play, relative to pure PVP.

Is it too major of a factor in a PVP game? I don’t want play with some 1-ability treb toy I would rather be playing my character fighting other players. Does it force players to play an element they’d rather not?

It’s one thing to attack NPC’s (lord on legacy) that are a major factor, which I think is too much points given, but to pilot a 4-button thingy is just….i mean come on man…

i’m so glad Temple doesn’t resort to these gimmicks.

nerf treb, lower points on lord.

I’m not asking for strategy on how to win. I’m saying these elements just aren’t very FUN to play, relative to pure PVP.

Lord needs a change without a doubt. He should not be capable of being solo’d by any class in under 10 seconds (Thief). He should either be more capable, be invulnerable until his support is killed, or both if he’s to be kept at 150 point value.

Treb I completely disagree with. It takes time to fire the treb, it doesn’t take a lot of time but you do have to align it to the general area. Killing treb is easily done and honestly most groups I see play don’t even both with treb at all any more because having another team member on the ground is far more beneficial. Even with mesmers using their portal to repair or another class with high mobility that can keep swiftness up 100% of the time I don’t see treb being an issue unless you have a couple of weak players or the enemy has 3+ bunkers and low mobility.

Hmm I don’t know maybe it’s just the times you’re queuing up. Been doing paids for a couple of hours this evening and I haven’t waited longer than 2 minutes for the queue to pop. In fact it has been faster queuing than free tourney’s

Lumines.3916:

Mesmer is tied for most played along with Guard and Necro for me in tPvP and Hotjoin.

It’s the only class without a true hard counter. Thieves come to a full stop against bunkers, warriors have trouble with anything that kites remotely well. Condition specs should always fall to Necros and so forth. But there’s nothing in the game that comes remotely close to checking Mesmers.

Mesmers unlike a lot of classes also have a much bigger variety of viable specs, for most other classes you could count at three max, one really viable and others just effective. For the Mesmer shatter is possible the most “OP” one, but that doesn’t mean any of the other builds are lacking.

The class design in itself is really slippery, like Thieves they can get away with building full on glass if you’re decent at actively avoiding damage. They have stealth too (albeit more limited) but also the huge advantage of really good ranged. Not to mention, distortion effects on Blurred Frenzy is bounds better than Pistol Whip evade or any other channel swing shindig skill. If you’re a shatter build, you’ll always immobilize them before your burst combo and unless they have a condition removal, they can’t peel. You can’t fear a Mesmer away like you would a Pistol Whip thief or 100b Warrior mid channel.

They also have the lowest CDs on a large number of stun breaks and better iterations of other class’ skills like Blink > Lightning Flash, Null Field > Wells.

Then you get to the elites, even though Time Warp is the best elite, Moa is still bounds better than a lot of what other classes can utilize, most classes can only dream for their elites to have such game changing consequences as Mesmer elites.

Mesmers are also really self sufficient, unlike some specs who play better when supported (Warriors), Mesmers are great at doing whatever they’re doing AND bringing unique support to others at the same time.

All of these points while not OP by themselves adds up to a lot and sets this class ahead of all classes right now in PvP. Yes, Mesmers are OP.

I disagree with nearly everything you have said.

I was expecting something about combo fields and finishers in here as well. Instead I have come in to look at the thief 4-6 skills that will kill anybody vs the mesmer 13 skills that should should kill any light and possibly medium target, maybe even a heavy that isn’t spec’d for bunkering.

I’d much rather see a thread talking about how to maximize the effectiveness of combo fields because I just don’t think there is enough awareness about them and their finishers.

Personally I’d love to see the whole Mantra thing scrapped. I have really no desire to have 5 whole skills (4utility and 1heal) be almost completely useless for 99% of all pvp content. They are so situational and the large cooldowns with the ridiculous 4.5s charge/cast time makes the skills almost impossible in to use plus the fact that for what you get from the 2 charges is really subpar. If you traited 30 points JUST to get the extra 1 charge it seems still pointless unless you’re running at least 3 mantras.

The ONLY good reason to take mantras is if you want to play team support and try to heal in pve. I laugh when I see people using them in pvp. Let’s take Derako’s comment about liking to have Mantra of Resolve charged up. Without spending 30 points to get the 3rd charge it’s already a complete waste and there are better options such as Null field which will strip ALL conditions off of you and boons from your opponents for 7 seconds. ADD the fact that null field put you into a combo field that has potential to give you and your teammates support and you have a superior option to Mantra of Resolve. If you went for the 3rd charge, you spend 30 points in domination JUST so that you can get 1 more charge on 1 skill that still has a 20s cooldown and an easily interupted and clunky 4.5s cast time just so you can remove 6 conditions 2 at a time.

Scenario:

Let’s say you’re fighting a Necro because as we all know they like condition specs. They constantly have 3-6 conditions on you at all times. You want to use your Mantra of Resolve to remove the poison effect on you so you use it once and hope you get lucky. Thank goodness you did get lucky and it removed it with your first cast, but now it’s back again only half a second later because the Necro is watching the conditions he’s putting on you and wants to make sure you’re not going to be able to heal through it. You use your skill again, but this time you weren’t so lucky. Now you have to wait 20 seconds which seems like it’s a very short time, but when the 20 seconds is up you have a 4.5 second charge time in which the necro just uses a fear to interupt and laughs at you for even trying.

I honestly doubt this would even work in pve arena’s such as the WvW maps unless you were a part of a larger group or a zerg where you could just sit safely in the middle and use your mantras for healing. In which case spending 30 points in domination just to get the 3rd charge seems really kind of a waste since there are much better trait choices for a healer.

Here’s a couple of suggestions for skill replacements

Healing Flux – for the next 10 seconds if your target uses a heal it fails and dazes them for 1 second

Illusion of Retribution – for the next 5 seconds any attack used by your target damages their nearby allies

I could go on and on and on… but it’s late.

TL;DR? Mantra’s are clunky and poorly implemented in their current state. They need a serious overhaul, or better – completely removed.

Durzlla.6295:

PLUR.3086:

Mesmer is highly dependent on player skill. on paper you could say its UP but a good player can do anything behind a mesmer. Were pretty great at backing up allies too. those clones get a little more confusing when there not the only thing running at you. con effects and aoe boons are always awesome.

It’s even more confusing when there’s multiple mesmers I remember I was in a 5v5 against a team of all mesmers and it was awful trying to figure out what was happening other then the fact that we were losing…

tPvP has seen it’s share of 5 players all the same class and it has never been difficult to deal with by a balanced group of players that can recognize the cheese. Try it out sometime and see how far you can actually get. It is quite amusing to see the reaction of random join players but that’s about it. If you make it passed round 1 you’re not likely to go any further. Besides if you’re going to do a 5 man same class cheese team you should go all Guardian.

Ceelaniri.8410:

this thread might help you

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-Speed-Buff-Skill

solution to mesmer’s lack of inherent speed exist.

They had some great solutions in that thread for swiftness in PvE settings. Now how about something solid to keep Mesmer on par in PvP settings. Ever try and chase an Elementalist, Warrior, Thief that has almost no health left? Forget about it. They want to leave and they’re gone. Being that Mesmer seems to only fulfill a dps role in tPvP I can’t help but wonder why we don’t have a couple more options for mobility. I mean we don’t need to be roamers like the 3 classes above can be but it would be nice to have the option. I’m just talking about some short term mobility so we can catch a fleeing enemy or run from a hopeless battle. We have no ranged damage to speak of what would it hurt?

One could argue that portal is the ultimate mobility skill albeit not swiftness based, and I would have agreed with that before they started nerfing it. How about allowing our Focus 4 to stack with other swiftness or build a swiftness buff into our shatter fodder… er our phantasms. I mean phantasms have a shelf life of less than 10 seconds tops that’s enough time for a 1-2 second stackable swiftness buff to be shared. For the number of times a phantasm gives buffs that would be 1 time in it’s life span x3 if you had 3 out giving you a whopping 6 seconds of swiftness to run away with or catch up to a fleeing enemy while other CD’s came back up.