Guild Wars 2

What mesmers need is a good main hand weapon, the only viable one now is sword. So I’m not that pro shield since it’s supposed to be off-hand

I’ve played mesmer since beta weekend 1, but I see no reason to play mesmer anymore if that will happen. At this moment shatter is the only viable build for tournament play. I’ve played a phantasm build for quite some time in tournament, untill I just got completely negated by top teams, because the phantasms die before they get their attack off (even with the trait and signet)

The thing is……. phantasm mesmer is great till you face about rank 80 on the leaderboards or less (at least on EU).
The fact that pro players will just interrupt your casting by blinds/daze anything that’ll interrupt/negate your summon is really killing the phantasm build.

In team fights, the phantasm will get wiped immediatly because the signet buff won’t apply immediatly and also the only aoe phantasms are phantasmal warden and phantasmal berserker. But phantasmal warden doesn’t move, and phantasmal berserker is bugged hitting for 1-2k in berserker gear. Also when you get focussed you don’t really have much of a defence, so you’ll be wiped from the fight immediatly and most of the time you’ll be walking to a point. Only place where phantasm mesmer shines is in a 1v1 server or defending a point, but when multiple enemies are coming you’ve pretty much lost.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have the idea you’ve fought multiple mesmers with all a bit different builds, but because you see them doing “this” at the first mesmer and ’’that" at the second, you get a wrong picture of what a mesmer can do in one build

LovefulfillsAll.4870:

So, without naming any particular class that I play (I play a few).

I gotta say, Mesmer is the one that irritates me the most. I cannot fight a Mesmer with a proper build and plays right.

Why can this profession with the right build seem to do everything?
~Can remove condition while reflecting the conditions back on the original caster.

~25 Sec CD ranged Stun which leads up to the issue of the build where they summon two damage phantasms and do ridiculous burst damage. So even if I broke the stun with a utility I still pretty much get hit because one shoots and never misses unless you LOS it.

~A large immobile strikes me usually after or during the stun, while they use an invulnerable move during phantasm burst.
~Invulnerable moves?? (What)

~ Random Boon generation, meaning they can just randomly take 33% less damage, block an entire attack. You name it.. Its passive its there, and its annoying.

~Surviving as one is funny, cause they just summon multiple clones up in between stun/burst combo if you managed to survive.

~Built in vigor on some things, making it dodge constantly

~ Stealthing – causing target drop while putting out exact replica clones and only way to tell the difference for me is when they use a specific skill the clone don’t do or back pedals

Right now I ran into a few Mesmers with a similar build and they have the whole kite and kaboodle. They survive, they burst heavily and they heal great. There is truly no disadvantage to it.

Its way to strong.

You might say I’m not good, or you could recognize that this class well played has no counter outside of being zerged by 2 or more players. (When a class can be good enough that one player can’t defeat it, its a indicator it’s to strong)

At least in GW1, they had cool tools like they do now, but they didn’t burst 15k health with 2 phantasm almost instantly. All in One – OP

P.S Dieing in ranged stun from 60%+ health is not fun

Always good to see new people in PvP^^

Let me make some things clear for you (first I’ll just go down the list you made)
1) They cannot reflect conditions, but there is a skill which isn’t very common that steals 3 boons and gives you 3 conditions. It’s called arcane thievery
2)The stun is annoying yes, but the phantasm doesn’t do an awfull lot of damage unless on glasscannons or in a phantasm build.
3)The ‘’large immobilizing strike is sword leap 3->tile switch->switch with clone immobilizing nearby targets. But it isn’t a large strike though, it only has 600 range and fails when it is used on uneven terrain, especially up. When you see a clone running at you fast you should dodge, because there will be a switch and sword 2 (the invulnerability will follow up).
4) There are 3 random boons skills: first you have chaos armor on staff 4(only procks on hit, but causes confusion/criple/blind), second you have chaos storm (aoe field which can cause some conditions but not all to you and gives boons to allies), third you have the signet (but people rarely use it though).
There is a 4th (the staff auto attack), but since it only gives might or fury I didn’t bring it up.
5) I’m not going to talk about clone summoning, since that’s mesmer allright xD
6) We have a trait that procks vigor on crit (critical infusion 5 in duelling) and a trait that gives vigor on shatter, but people rarely use that one.
7) Only stealth skills mesmers use these days are decoy and mass invisibility. But a tip when they enter stealth is to start attacking up their clones/phantasms. When you see him reappear attack him again, but watch running clones coming out of nowhere because you will have to dodge. Mass invisibility can be noticed by the actual mesmer putting his weapon high in the air for a long time

Now how do you counter them?
That depends on what kind of mesmer you are facing
shatter: dodge the running clone switch and you’re fine
phantasm: this can be a bit trickier, but you want to dodge the phantasms first attack and then go after the mesmer putting pressure on him forcing him to decoy or f4 (distortion)
condition: I’ve seen these more lately, but the best thing to do is to watch your conditions if you got heavy confusion on yourself and don’t just spam attacks.

But still the best way to know how to fight them is to play a mesmer for a while. They might seem like a huge deal but that is just an ’’illusion’’. They are quite vulnerable when you know what to do

Try to use many avoiding skills/dodges in the beginning, their opening is crucial. That’s why instagib thiefs are hard for them. After that put a lot of pressure on them forcing a defensive cooldown (most of the times either blink/decoy/distortion, but they dont really want to use distortion because it destroys their damage and pressure off the target. After they’ve used that cooldown be carefull, he’ll summon another phantasm, dodge it’s attack and go for the mesmer again. When he has to use his panic distortion you’ve practically got him since he got no damage anymore and you can finish him off. Put as much pressure on him (melee is the best) since it will make it harder for them to summon a new phantasm.
Hope it helped

~r41 phantasm mesmer

Many similarities with my build, however when you run into a skilled ele (and I mean real skilled, not rank 30 ish) you’ll just lose. Their aoe’s just destroy your phantasms even with signet of illusions

as gelltor said cond removal, bad mobility (not taking portal into account when you just have to go from A to B ), bunkering (bad heals since mantra’s have an immense casting time that will always be interrupted, and bad cond removal), condition damage

I’d like to, what is your ig-name?
I got time 7 hours from now (when this post was posted)

In the beginning thieves were my fear. However after playing them a little and getting more experience, they’ve become fairly easy. Use your weapons to your advantage. For example using the focus pull when you think the thief is close really messes them up, try hitting oxigen a lot more on the places you predict them. When they use shadow refuge (the stealth aoe) use greatsword 5 to knock them out, they’ll immediatly become visible again. Also when u immobilized a thief, he might go in stealth but you know he’s there, so keep on hitting. A good way to tell if the thief is still there is using your auto attack, when it continues it’s animation you’ll know you hit him. Also when you see a thief coming up to you with the venom buff on him already (the stone elite) then his opening will be steal/cnd steal, so counter this by using either invulnerability or proper dodging (but dodging in that case is really hard) also blinking away and immobilizing them with sword 3 after works really well. I’ve had so many times that I’ve killed him before he could even use a skill. Also some random dodging will help when you know there’s a thief around. Hope these tips helped

@Hector, no a problem is made by that, some classes have very very limited access to stability while having skills that make them invulnerable. Cloth wearers need these skills in order to survive with their low armor, however when u make it so that invulnerability makes it impossible to stomp then dps’ers with low armor so much less viable, since they won’t be able to stomp ever, they get already downed before the animation is completed

if they bring portal to other professions then I’d like to see arenanet give mesmers more mobility (which they promised before but never did). As of right now mesmers have one of the worst, if not the worst mobility in the game. Portal was helping us with our mobility but since you guys want to make it not a class specific skill

You know people might hate me for this, but I totally agree with you on this part. Stealth should prevent channel spells to chase u down. When a ranger is using his rapid fire, everyone can easily track the stealthed person because they just have to follow the rangers attack, however don’t change it so the spell will cancel, just not track anymore

I am playing mesmer since beta weekend 1. In the beginning I really loved the class, was really different to the other classes, however later in PvE en especially PvP I started to HATE the class. Warriors were still zerging everything at that time (I was really jealous because they had more power, more crit and more armor) however these days I can’t play without it. I tried multiple characters in pvp but never live as long as I do with the mesmer (even though I’m full berserker and dueling and power traits)
But yea in PvE we can lack a bit, but you have to almost make every fight perfect to get a nice damage output, but when you’ve mastered it the profession is just great

Maybe make the animation slower? Anyone ever thought of that?
That way it will be easier to dodge (is already easy but with haste it’s a little tricky) and makes it less spammable while still making it a usable skill

the real problem with thiefs, is that most people don’t know how to handle them. Yes the stealth and their evasive attacks are annoying, but you’ve always got options to counter them between those attacks. Try immobilizing them and hitting them to death while they are still in stealth. I’ve had so many times that I see a thief, immobilize them and end up hitting oxigen for 10 seconds until I find them on the ground.
Very rarely you see a thief who is actually good at playing his profession and I always love those fights.

~r24 mesmer (which will end up with people flaming me for being mesmer, idc)

well there is a trait that causes invulnerability to reflect projectiles. But since you were invulnerable I have no idea. It might go through it but I doubt it

In my opinion it should be included in the skill shadow refuge.
Giving the user a debuff that makes them unable to use stealth again for 10 seconds

Last games in hot join I notice that it has become easy for a proper mesmer now, however there are some builds that I end up not having a single chance against. In particular the elementalist d/d build, together with earth armor is a real tough challenge and when he’s experienced with it I don’t have a chance. Maybe that’ll help, but I just don’t seem to be able to put them down in any way

capture the flag will be really hard to implement since we will get the whining about OP skills all over again. Portal will then just be removed from mesmers I guess, and will be oh so hard to balance together with conquest