Guild Wars 2

Reevz.2617:

S
+++Necromancer
Guardian (bunker)
A
+Thief
Warrior
-Ranger
B
+Engineer
C
Mesmer
Ele

+1 to this post

Knote.2904:

Master of Timespace.2548:

Knote.2904:

iDisenchanter, Thievery, or Null Field is all my glass cannon mesmer needs.

20 in the POWER TREE, for condition removal on Torch is also fantastic.

Torch damage is really fantastic as well.

Not sure why people would take Torch for dmg, but alright.

I use it for the blind/stealth and condition removal, which are huge.

In that case yes it is huge however mesmer condi removal sucks unless they build for absolutely nothing else in which case we suck at everything else. But this thread is all about how ele’s defense mechanics are really lacking and such. While this may be true perhaps Anet should undo the nerf to cleansing wave in pvp as it was a little uncalled for.

Edit: And mesmsers would love for a heal/condition removal in a weapon set without sacrificing trait points for it.

Fortus.6175:

jportell.2197:

Fortus.6175:

jportell.2197:

Ahem… mesmer cannot afford to go full glass cannon. A full glass mesmer has noooo condition removal. none in their weapons and none in their skills. Clones only confuse absolute morons. And at full glass our damage is still subpar to a stunlock warrior or any form of thief and glass eles.

umm, I play full glass cannon mesmer with arcane thievery, get some point for clones to remove conditions on shatter, sometimes I feel like getting clones to remove boons on shatter. Dunno but you might be playing mesmer wrong, I hav never played anything but zerker on it and do more than fine…

You are not full glass. You are 30 deep into inspiration. The only damage you kitten all damage by not going for iPersona as a glass build and phantasm builds in tourneys are not nor never have been viable.

like I said, only do it every now and then, Im currently running 20/20/0/0/30, how is that not damage? Also, why the need to throw curses, does that make you a bigger boy?

I actually wasn’t cursing at you apparently g_i_m_p is a curse word when I said you kitten all damage by going 30 into inspiration outside of phantasms. Hence why I said you lose all damage by not going for iPersona. Also initially you claimed to be running condition removal on shatter which which would mean you are 20/20/0/30/0 not 20/20/0/0/30/ So make that mind up buddy.

Fortus.6175:

jportell.2197:

Ahem… mesmer cannot afford to go full glass cannon. A full glass mesmer has noooo condition removal. none in their weapons and none in their skills. Clones only confuse absolute morons. And at full glass our damage is still subpar to a stunlock warrior or any form of thief and glass eles.

umm, I play full glass cannon mesmer with arcane thievery, get some point for clones to remove conditions on shatter, sometimes I feel like getting clones to remove boons on shatter. Dunno but you might be playing mesmer wrong, I hav never played anything but zerker on it and do more than fine…

You are not full glass. You are 30 deep into inspiration. The only damage you kitten all damage by not going for iPersona as a glass build and phantasm builds in tourneys are not nor never have been viable.

Ahem… mesmer cannot afford to go full glass cannon. A full glass mesmer has noooo condition removal. none in their weapons and none in their skills. Clones only confuse absolute morons. And at full glass our damage is still subpar to a stunlock warrior or any form of thief and glass eles.

8% chance to convert a condition into a boon. That really is not something that is game breaking…

The thing is mesmers high offense builds have gotten nerfed hard…. Leaving us only with somewhat decent defense options. We can have aegis and protection up all the time. But so can a guard… We lack the passive heal over time to make us something to actually win an attrition fight.

Tier S:
+ Necro- Still stupid godmode tier. The amount of conditions they can stack with little to no risk because it is all AOE ranged is ridiculous. Not to mention the buff to deathshroud where they lose the health slower has been in effect making them quite survivable for a cloth class. (compare this cloth class to the other two and you see what I mean). The dhuumfire nerf was needed and the bleed nerf didn’t really do much.

-Warrior They are only here because of the condition meta and being a decent counter to it. Healing signet is garbage compared to burst classes. If the condition meta gets toned down leaving more room for burst builds warriors and healing signet will see a slight drop off.

Tier A.
+Engineer- Possibly one of the best bunker builds in the game the ability to shrug conditions off at 25% makes them very effective in this meta and they are not running HGH as much anymore because of the sword dagger thieves. They are likely in one of the best places for a class right now.

=Guardian- still a staple on most every team. Can’t face tank a condi meta like engineers. Maybe some of their nerfs were a little too over done….

=Ranger- The spirit nerf was well needed. They may need other buffs right now for build diversity but they are most definitely not the weakest class.

-Thief: With the s/d nerf inc. They could prolly use a little buff to their sustain. The evading wasn’t the annoying thing the fact that LS could do so much for so little was. Other classes have to go into at least a master tree to even remove a boon and thieves got a very spammable boon transfer for almost no cost….

Tier B:
=Mesmer- May only be slightly higher than ele and that is for one reason Portal. Our AOE is garbage unless we take the greatsword. Shatters are still easily dodge able, and our condition removal is garbage the amount of blast finishers we have are on terrible CD’s and otherwise not very useful to the team. The mantra buffs may be cool but anet needs to look at our sustain and map presence and at least get mesmers to tier A.

=Ele- Ele is just right now. They got their healing wrecked their condition application isn’t all that great they have some of the most telegraphed skills in the game (compare churning earth to a terror necros reapers mark.) They need something back in the way of survivability to even be helpful anymore.

OGDeadHead.8326:

jportell.2197:

You guys are all essentially asking for mesmers to just roll over and scream “here i am here i am!”

I asking for some form of UI improvements to make targeting easier overall.

Targeting is easy point and click…. If you click on the mesmer clone instead of the mesmer… The mesmer is doing it right and using their class mechanic to their advantage. Thieves get stealth, guards are supposed to face tank, warriors now have ridiculous regen, eles/rangers have mobility, engis have the best healing over time skills in the game, mesmers have clones and less stealth than rangers/thieves….
UI improvements sure I’m down with that. Saying that TAB targeting which btw is the laziest way of targeting possible should no longer prioritize a classes mechanic which is meant to distract and confuse opponents is asinine by itself its like saying you should be able to see thieves in stealth no matter what.

If you have a team fight going and you say “target the mesmer” within half a second someone will have a huge target over the mesmer. Mesmers have terrible condition removal, only moderate boon uptime (when compared to guards etc.), light armor and only one heal over time with regen. The time it takes for you to lock the mesmer time is necessary because that is part of their active defense. You guys are all essentially asking for mesmers to just roll over and scream “here i am here i am!”

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Oh, and to answer Fay’s question, I think something like a .4 reduction of Mantra cast time would be perfect.

Someone also had the idea that Mantras begin their cooldown immediately after being charged, the way Mimic/Echo does. I like that idea a lot too.

I’m with you on a further reduction on the cast time. I feel like 2-2.5 seconds is the money charge time… Anet needs to give the mesmer some good buffs for these mantras to actually be viable in pvp next month.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

It’s nice that they are going to buff mantras in the next patch. Ally condi removal and stability is a plus.

Now if only anet would realize that its not ally condi removal we suck at its self condi removal…. Then maybe all would be gravy.

Fjandi.2516:

jportell.2197:

Phantasm mesmer is passive. Every other mesmer build is one of the most active playstyles in the game…. Def not spamming one, def no cheese builds out side of phantasm…. And also not fitting into the stupid condi meta atm.

I was talking about phanstasm builds ofc. That’s true for rangers as well, it’s not like every ranger build relies on autoatt spamming. Shatter builds are actually quite active. Still the class mechanic contributes a lot to the screen cluttering and most mesmer animations are really annoying in teamfights. Also about the auto spamming, the gs is really spam friendly. I see lots of mesmers spamming ss. Some streams are actually very entertaining…
mesmer player (spamming ss like a baws): “lol look at that ranger spamming 1 all the time” 1,1,1,1,1,1,berz,random dodge,1,1,1
I remember even xeph said gs auto deals too much dmg.
Anyway this is OT.

LOL GS damage is kinda lack luster. But when I use it I spam dat AA just because you are shooting a giant purple laser out of a sword…. Come on that’s bawwwwssss lol… However the last time I actually used a GS was april. :/ But I do think the only reason most mesmers take GS is because it is our only ranged power weapon (mainhand pistol anet CHOP CHOP!) You could argue for the staff phantasm however his projectile is so slow moving that you can just side step it (remember orb of wrath having this problem?) So if you are going for any kind of direct damage with the staff in PvP you are SOL because there is noone that just stands still to eat the staff phantasm.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Shatter isn’t dead. Anet just gave us – gasp – some build diversity! Shatter specs haven’t really been nerfed.. but you’re definitely gonna need some condition removal nowadays.

Yeah… and we all just happen to love the class with -gasp- worst innate condi removal…. Seriously hope they give us something besides “this mantra now cleanses conditions from allies TOO!” Our allies are fine in self condi clear. We are the ones that suck at it lol.

Fjandi.2516:

Oidmetala.8426:

just interesting how all of you forum masters have problems with max 4 spirits but at same time nobody of you cry about the mesmer illus :P

Mesmer mechanic is terribad just like the ranger one. I can not stand that class. Dunno why must be those pink butterflies. Ranger is just as passive as the mesmer, but spirit build is nonsense. The op is correct, builds like that (spirit build) should not exist in this game. It’s too late and the devs don’t really realize how bad this issue is. We don’t need a way to make targeting easier, I don’t give a kitten about targeting if there are tons of ai-controlled pets, minions and other crap around plus tons of effects cluttering the screen. That’s not fixing the problem, that’s avoiding it.

Phantasm mesmer is passive. Every other mesmer build is one of the most active playstyles in the game…. Def not spamming one, def no cheese builds out side of phantasm…. And also not fitting into the stupid condi meta atm.

Anyone gots a score update. This guy has class but wants to know what to expect when getting home.

I stopped using shatter in like May… The play style is fun and such but you are more vulnerable than a thief if you get focused. Been running tanky builds for awhile. Just more fun to be able to stand a 1vx for a much longer time.

Wow no. Just no. Mesmers are meant to confuse the person behind the keyboard and even that doesn’t last long

Iscariot.4876:

Reasons for my listing is pure representation based. No theory crafting or views on individual abilities, just a real world litmus test of what classes a team will bring when a real consequence to losing exists.

The data I am using comes from the PAX invitational, both the final and the Open qualifier finals for NA and EU, and the ESL Open Finals and Grand Finals. That is a total of 8 teams, each reaching the highest levels of success.

S:
=Ranger
9/8 On the 8 teams being most successful in these tournaments there were 9 Rangers. One team was willing to bring 2 rangers over any other class.

A:
+Guardian
8/8 Every single one of the 8 teams had 1 Guardian. May be closer to S class.

+Necromancer
8/8 with one Necromancer per team. May be closer to S class.

-Thief
6/8 Six of the 8 teams gave a team spot to a thief. With 8 professions and only 5 spots on a team, no profession should expect 100% representation. With 40 total spots over 8 teams, each profession should have 5. The thief may be the only true “A” but I will assign it a – and give the other two A class professions a + to denote the difference.

B:

=Warrior
3/8 Warriors were found on only 3 of the 8 teams. Two of the teams were finalists so Warrior may deserve a +, only more tournaments will show that. Regardless warriors are under-representing since each profession should achieve 5 spots out of 40 or 12.5% representation in top teams.

=Engineer
3/8 Three of the 8 teams had an engineer spot. One of the engineer spots was a finalist team. Engineer may be a – when compared directly in this category with warrior. Finalist spot is a very close distinction, and both are equally under-represented, so both are simply listed as =.

C:
Elementalist
1/8 Only one elementalist found a spot in the top 8. Help these guys. The most under-represented profession at this time.

No mesmer? lol and people are still calling for nerfs on us.

Dirame.8521:

Iplaytokill.1674:

Dirame.8521:

jportell.2197:

• Wait come to think of it noone is taking mesmers on the team anyways.

Team Pugging uses a mesmer.

Well golly, I guess as long as the ratio of Necro’s and War’s are 20-1 against Mesmers, EVERYTHING IS ALRIIIIGHT.

I’ve stopped playing Mesmer and taken up my Guardian instead because I’m sick of the stupid balance in this game. I might even go buy GTA V for my gaming hours because GW2 is almost dead to me with this crap balance. It’s a $60 I’ll gladly spend that would otherwise have been spent on GW2.

I’m just saying, a skilled team is using a mesmer. It might be that you would have to rethink your approach when fighting one of the “op” classes. I think Team Shad (don’t remember their full name) also use a mesmer and I also play Mesmer with 3 mantra utilities. The very thing that people consider extremely bad.

My team may have gone against yours but I’m not sure how long you have been running triple mantras. The mesmer we have faced running triple mantras while skilled in his own right melted once target was called…. Everyone knows mesmers melt toot sweet and thanks to the readied mantras icons he was easy to pick out for those on my team that weren’t familiar with mes. In short he was in fact a liability to the team.

And you are pointing out an issue yourself. You are eluding to teams building around the mesmer. Which anet used to say was the very problem with necros before the dumbfire patch.

Its not bugged in the way that illusionary leap isn’t bugged. Anet said they can’t do anything about the pathing on iLeap because of the game engine or some nonsense… Arcane theivery just has an awkward range and misses way to easily…. Definitely not worth the 40+ s cooldown.

Iplaytokill.1674:

jportell.2197:

Iplaytokill.1674:

I like how Arcane Thievery keeps coming up. Like it still isn’t buggy as all kitten.

Range of 900 and works 2/10 times arcane theivery is the worst condition clear in game

To be honest, you’d be better off doing Mender’s Purity with Mirror.

Menders purity works best with MOR. However what is really holding mesmers back is innate Condi removal in a heal skill and a gauranteed full wipe in a slot skill like every other class!

Iplaytokill.1674:

I like how Arcane Thievery keeps coming up. Like it still isn’t buggy as all kitten.

Range of 900 and works 2/10 times arcane theivery is the worst condition clear in game

Thats garbage Condi removal when compared to well everyone else and I mean that literally as long as mesmers have no condi clear in their heal we will be worse off than everyone else and we were only on every team for 2 reasons. Portal. Illusion of life. Roamer was still the thief (better burst too) bunker has always been a guard mid and an engi, ranger, home then eles were far point assaulters for awhile literally the only reasons mesmer was taken is IOL and portal. Once June 25 hit we became the biggest liability to our team hence we were the first ones taken off teams.

The change to bombs is going to make my bunker build go from 10/0/30/30/0 to 0/10/30/30/0 so that I can reduce the recharge on super elixir

Oh many mesmers need this… This would be something that is just amazeeeeeeeinnnnggg.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Mesmers are fine. Just wait for the condi-aoe spam nerf and Mesmers will shine again.

Pre-June 25th mesmer barely viable because conditions were completely unviable. Post June 25th mesmer unviable because conditions got buffed so hard that they became the meta…. Now conditions and CC are the Meta mesmers still unviable. If Anet brings conditions down even a little bit they will still be stronger than they were pre-June 25th when mesmer was nothing more than a Portal IOL bot… Hence mesmer still needs buffed in the condition removal area and that is SELF CONDITION REMOVAL

NevirSayDie.6235:

jportell.2197:

wall

And yet out of all of that, the only things holding mesmer back are really S/D thieves being a bit too strong and necros being a bit too strong. We could buff mesmers to OP status (again), or we could just shave the tiny details holding them back.

S/d thieves a bit to strong, Necros a bit too strong, Warriors now a bit too strong, Engis also a bit too strong, Rangers even post nerf still a bit to strong… The only thing not stronger than a mesmer is an ele and they are just on par maybe a little below….

In reality 6 out of the 7 other classes in the game are stronger and more preferred then mesmer. It’s not just s/d thieves and necros holding mesmers back. It’s things that are actually wrong with the mesmer like our condition removal and heals over time which if you would read the OP is kind of the point.

selan.8354:

Raijinn.9065:

Mesmers are fine

in spvp i think i agree with u. im trying out a ton of builds in spvp and seem to enjoy a few of them.in wvw we are not though unless u wanna be support or roaming. smae for tpvp. we lack a lot of multitarget options.

The main reason mesmer hasn’t really been buffed is just that in one aspect of the game we are great and that is in 20 man sPvP…. and noone that actually gives a rip about class balance cares about hotjoin hero status…. We care about how we can meaningfully help a team in tPvP, what we can do for a zerg in WvW aside from veil/portal botting, and if we can finally have a decent viable support bunker build. Anet’s statement about wanting to bring more supporty play styles to the front is what marked this post. And things in the OP are some things that Anet should do if they really want mesmer to be both supporty and viable…. Right now we can effectively do neither.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Remember, we got into this mess by asking Anet to give massive buffs to the professions we perceived to be weak, warrior and necro.

Mesmer is very good at a variety of roles and can do things no other profession can do. Just because there are a couple FOTM builds doesn’t automatically make mesmers bad.

A couple? Guards, Engis, Necros, Warriors, Thieves, and Rangers are always considered for a team before mesmer and ele. The only thing keeping mesmer slighly above Ele at this point may be if they try to use portal for back point.

6/8 professions being guaranteed to have use in a team before a mesmer some professions even doubled up on a team is a signal that something is very wrong. Like I said most mesmers will agree that pre-June 25th mesmer was teetering on the edge of unviability because of the horrendous condition removal. June 25th just solidified it.

The group AOE cleanse from MOR is cool but it isn’t what mesmers need to be viable again. Mesmers need better condition removal. They always have. Even with the new patch reducing the “stacks” of duration conditions will not be enough because it is still possible to mindlessly achieve perma burning.

Anet’s excuse for mesmers crap condi removal is a bad one “They have so many evades and teleports that it would make them good at everything.” If that is the case why is it that ranger condi removal out shines ours by a long shot, Or sword thieves?

Anet used to have a similar excuse for warriors “We didn’t want to give warriors too much condition clear because we want them to have a big sturdy body and tank through it.” Now warriors have a spot in the meta which is cool. But all classes need an equal chance to contribute something to their tournament team. Team condi removal is only good if the mesmer can survive the onslaught of other conditions besides those 4.

That is the biggest issue. And if ANet wants to really push this whole support thing then they need to make mesmers a little bit more self sufficient because we are now where necros were in Feb/March… We need a babysitter to do anything decent for our team.

Edit: We got into this mess because necros were asking for defensive buffs so they could have a little bit of map staying power instead Anet through in a new condition and gave them burning…. We got into this mess because in reality Anet doesn’t listen to the community.

Bump I would like a dev to actually say something about the sad sad state of the mesmer in PvP and WvW due to the lack of AOE. And absolutely horrendous condi removal.

Mrbig.8019:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Sword thief will probably get an evade nerf if they have any sense. BS d/p thief is balanced. Its powerful and effective and yet can be countered and killed.

Please tell me how D/P thieves are effective, when you can kill them with a standard necro condi rotation ( DS ( enfeebling blood), dark path, fear).

D/P thieves are no longer effective now due to conditions being out of control.

If they were ever going to nerf S/D thieves into the ground to unplayable ( not going to happen), the thief will simply disappear from the meta.

Then you will join the ele/mesmer ranks.

kaikalii.4198:

Sorry, but crippling dissipation and debilitating dissipation only work when your enemy kills a clone, not when a clone dies from being overwritten by another. Because of this, there is not reason to “clone spam”. You don’t need to make clones any faster than they are destroyed.

Far far far from the truth. Clone death counts as the following things:

• Enemy Dies
• Clone is killed by enemy
• Clone is overwritten by another clone/phantasm.
  The only time these traits will not proc is if the mesmer hits a shatter skill. That’s it. Other than that if the clone is removed from the field he will proc these traits.

Trait wise this is a carbon copy of Keenlam’s Clone Spammer build…. You use different weapons, and try to optimize on power…. which…? Why?

However yes this build has been explored and is nothing new really.

Because Lopez is a necro that has been enjoying god mode for the last 3 months.

Timewarp has been a joke since the confusion nerf and most teams if they run a mesmer prefer MOA or Mass Invis.
Distortion is just as safe as plague form stomp, blind stomp, mist form stomp, stability stomp, and blind stomp. So no difference there between us and other classes.

Safe burst is no more because retal wrecks us now which is a little ridiculous since we only have one way to burst.

Its more safe to condi burst and throw as many condis as you can at once that way you don’t eat retal after.

Illusionary leap is the most obvious skill a mesmer has and never works on any incline. Moa can be blinded blocked and invulned making us useless for the next 3 minutes.
Mesmer CC is pathetic when compared to warrior CC engi CC and necro CC. The sad part about that is we have a ton of traits around interrupts that even if we build to be a full on halting strike bountiful interruption interrupt build we still won’t do as much for a team as say a hammer warrior or a engi with bomb kit….

Don’t act like we have 3 elites at once all off hand weapons available and dont get eaten alive during our burst thanks to retal…. Just no.

Mesmer is not fine in this meta and will not be fine when the new patch hits because they upped our group condi removal but that isn’t the issue with mesmers it is and always has been SELF-CONDI REMOVAL that we needed.

Well now I am happy I never went 30 into dom…

Add in tons of stability and group protection…. We may not over take guardians. But a mes guard combo…. Lets just say….

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/293/590/6f6.gif

I really don’t see this being much of a change… Boon wise and condi wise. The only place it may be noticeable is wvw where you can’t get a full minute of swiftness anymore or get a minute of poison on an entire zerg…

In PvP I don’t see this changing much.

Except perma burning and poison are still possible. It can happen like this.
Player 1 inflicts burning on target one for 3 s.
At the same time everyone else on the team inflicts burning for say 10s total.
At 10s. Someone can proc burning. Even if you still have burning on you, someone can add to it because it is at 4 stacks after that first 3s have worn off.

Essentially nothing will really change.

I am looking forward to how this mantra buff will work… I may run a PU mantra healer build…. Gonna be interesting. lol.

I’m pretty sure avtr in FA runs zergs of nothing but glam mesmers and that group is a force to be reckoned with

Retaliatory shield works quite well with PU builds since you can proc tons of aegis there fore tons of retal

However for team utility its utter garbage. No AOE daze unless you hope chaos storm profs compare that to reapers mark or earth shaker I mean really plus halting strike doesn’t scale with weapon damage. At all.

The stacking will still allow for perma burning because each stack ticks separately. So you can have 5 duration stacks on you and one can wear off so you still have burning but they can reapply another duration. So it wont benefit mesmers the way you say as we have no condition immunity and garbage removal

Yes but even warriors can face tank melee and/or escape from melee while being able to hard counter conditions what bugs me is Anet once said they want warriors to tank through conditions and therefore they should have marginal Condi removal…. But then they gave them exceptional Condi removal. They are saying something similar for mesmers and well it just isn’t working anet should realize that by now

Sami.7923:

Play mesmer? Crying? HEres SUGGESTION. MAKE A NEW CLASS! A REAL ONE! LOL! You see your skill on mesmer is just an illusion, its not really there and never will be. That’s your class mechanic, automatons.

And my ability to win on my engi, necro, ranger, warrior, and thief is just an illusion too trolls gonna troll.
And sorrow mesmers have one OP SPEC that most agree needs nerfed however even if the Condi meta is toned down (its still there) its not going to disappear completely and mesmer was barely hanging on to team comps before that patch because of 2 skills and that’s it. S/d thieves took our spot as the boon strippers and still out deepesd us.

What I’m really curious about is ANets goal for the mesmer…. They gave us all these interrupt traits but we aren’t even close to being an effective lockdown class when compared to warriors and in the last SOTG Jon sharp said they liked having it that way…. So then what does that leave mesmer with for being a lock down?

Confusion has always sucked in PvP but suffered an additional nerf when blinding befuddlement was nerfed via ICD

kitten s.7421:

Go on 1v1 servers and destroy people. Then have them all go on the forums to complain on how op mesmers are.

1v1 OPness has nothing to do with tournament viability. And IMO the phantasm build needs nerfed via empowered illusions trait removal

Yeah OH sword is a great power weapon and in the clone spammer build you get the condition through the traits. It is just that scepter/sword has and always will be our illusion machine making set up. Don’t touch OH sword damage its amazing.