118 replies to this topic

[Culture Shock]

MSpurrier24, on 24 July 2012 - 04:11 AM, said:

ahahah i don't think it's OP but people in game were ranting... but isn't that the point of Mesmer? get in and get out and have people think theyre going to kill you then .... "hey where'd he go?"

That's true we are the assassins of casting in my opinion.. we can't take too much damage so we gotta stay spry.

You can just kill the phantasm and you have a nice window to kill the Mesmer between shatters, unless they run.

[assyrian dragon]

23 killing spree hmmm
you  must have faced all the noobs that was thier first time playing .

every time i was dead as a Mesmer I checked who killed me and who killed the other Mesmers in PVP
It was warriors and guardians the one taking mesmers down.

[Gavin]

mesmers are not OP.. also you just got done playing the BETA! launch will be much different. Think about all the balancing Anet can do in 30+days

[Awake]

Feralz, on 24 July 2012 - 03:26 AM, said:

its so easy to get 3 phantasms out, have you ever heard of weapon swapping?

Of course it's easy to get three phantasms out, when your playing against idiots.

Any player with a brain will kill your phantasms as soon as you summon them with one hit. Even dumb players will do it with AoE spells on accident. You can summon 2 phantasms pretty rapidly by weapon swapping, but against good teams they will be dead before your cd's come back up to summon another. If you're fighting anyone 1v1 and they let you get 3 phantasms out they are retarded.

[Delolith]

Awake, on 24 July 2012 - 06:38 AM, said:

If you're fighting anyone 1v1 and they let you get 3 phantasms out they are retarded.

Understatement of the year. However, I have to admit that it happened to me as well. On a particular case I had a ranger trying to shoot me through my iWarden with Warden's Feedback, instead of waiting for a few seconds for the animation to finish and kill phantasm with 1 hit.

Shows the quality of the MMO players these days.

[Feralz]

Awake, on 24 July 2012 - 06:38 AM, said:

Of course it's easy to get three phantasms out, when your playing against idiots.

Any player with a brain will kill your phantasms as soon as you summon them with one hit. Even dumb players will do it with AoE spells on accident. You can summon 2 phantasms pretty rapidly by weapon swapping, but against good teams they will be dead before your cd's come back up to summon another. If you're fighting anyone 1v1 and they let you get 3 phantasms out they are retarded.

"what is possible"
if you have a good team, or a good player, hell theres no class in the world that they couldnt beat.
what if i told you a good mesmer player would stir away as far as they can the phantasm, and do knockbacks to keep distance, what if i shattered as soon as i had 2 phantasms out?

ofcourse everything can be countered, so i dont know what youre arguing about kid

[Awake]

Feralz, on 24 July 2012 - 06:59 AM, said:

"what is possible"
if you have a good team, or a good player, hell theres no class in the world that they couldnt beat.
what if i told you a good mesmer player would stir away as far as they can the phantasm, and do knockbacks to keep distance, what if i shattered as soon as i had 2 phantasms out?

Not gonna lie I have no idea what you are trying to say or accomplish here. Sound kinda like you are agreeing with me though.

Feralz, on 24 July 2012 - 06:59 AM, said:

ofcourse everything can be countered, so i dont know what youre arguing about kid

Whose arguing? You said it was easy for you to summon 3 phantasms. I said you play against idiots. It's hard to argue against facts you both agree on.

Edited by Awake, 24 July 2012 - 07:40 AM.

[Delolith]

Feralz, on 24 July 2012 - 06:59 AM, said:

"what is possible"
if you have a good team, or a good player, hell theres no class in the world that they couldnt beat.
what if i told you a good mesmer player would stir away as far as they can the phantasm, and do knockbacks to keep distance, what if i shattered as soon as i had 2 phantasms out?

ofcourse everything can be countered, so i dont know what youre arguing about kid

You lost me. I seriously don't understand your point. And your "ifs" don't sound very convincing.

Keep phantasms as far as possible? You do know they have the exactly same range (and that is for the ranged ones) as the high range weapons of each class.

Knockback? Every single class can one/two shot the phantasm with their ranged weapon unless it is iWarden.

Instantly shatter? Then why summon phantasms and not clones...they are much easier if that is what you want to accomplish.

Edited by unraveled, 24 July 2012 - 10:12 AM.
Report don't reply thank you.

[Feralz]

Delolith, on 24 July 2012 - 08:12 AM, said:

You lost me. I seriously don't understand your point. And your "ifs" don't sound very convincing.

Keep phantasms as far as possible? You do know they have the exactly same range (and that is for the ranged ones) as the high range weapons of each class.

Knockback? Every single class can one/two shot the phantasm with their ranged weapon unless it is iWarden.

Instantly shatter? Then why summon phantasms and not clones...they are much easier if that is what you want to accomplish.

Anything can be countered, just because it can doesnt mean theyre likely going to do it, because of a lot of other external variables.
taking the time to chase around the phantasm while a mesmer is kiting you and getting some cooldowns up, not to mention his other allies around.

so i guess my point is, things just arent as good as it is on paper.

Edited by unraveled, 24 July 2012 - 10:13 AM.
Removed references to deleted content.

[Delolith]

Feralz, on 24 July 2012 - 08:35 AM, said:

its funny how you mentioned wow when youre the one who was theorycrafting.

also i only called you a kid because you were having this argument about rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper.
I guess if you didnt get my point, ill make it clear and simple in a few words.

Anything can be countered, just because it can doesnt mean theyre likely going to do it, because of a lot of other external variables.
taking the time to chase around the phantasm while a mesmer is kiting you and getting some cooldowns up, not to mention his other allies around.

so i guess my point is, things just arent as good as it is on paper.

First, you did not call me a kid. You did not refer me. That doesn't mean that some things don't tick me off whether they are addressed to me or not.

Edited by Delolith, 24 July 2012 - 09:16 AM.

[Sebrent_Tehroth]

Honestly, in my opinion, if you have out 3 phantasms you're gimping yourself unless it's because you initially did Phantasm -> Weapon Swap -> Phantasm -> Utility Phantasm. Even then, you're gimping yourself a bit because you're not shattering. I started my fights by summoning 3 clones (1 with dodge roll), shattering them, and then pulling out a phantasm. I very rarely weapon swapped just to pull out a 2nd phantasm. Then again, the longest phantasm cooldown I had to deal with was 18 seconds, so I had no qualms with using them, letting them get off 1-2 attacks while I generated more clones and shattering again. Traited all-shatters-cause-confusion is a beautiful thing because 3-6 stacks of confusion hurts quite a bit every time your opponent casts.

[kilger]

Sebrent_Tehroth, on 24 July 2012 - 03:27 AM, said:

As for "what I would say" ... I believe I told you what to do ... dodge roll / block / etc. the critical attacks from your foe ... i.e. the damage spikes and/or CC. Aside from that, you simply need to have a decent build, which I think includes having some form of condition removal and a stunbreak. Condition removal because otherwise a single volley from a good condition build will just about kill you and stunbreak because you can't always successfully dodge enemy CC.

Yes I believe a different build would help, I plan to use a phantasm/dps based build on release.

I had 2 stun breaks (clones & blink) and I even had that one that mirrors the stun back (very useful - that really killed a lot of classes alpha strikes).  Stuns werent so much the problem; being forced to the defensive constantly since I needed to generate clones for offense and they kept them wiped out while they aoe me.

You cannot escape a good aoe-er so easily; they can put the aoe right on you and some like staff ele's can spam aoes.  They can run up to you and aoe themselves at the same time so it doesnt matter that your clones run toward them.  Those conditions applied by illusions "on death" do not decide the match since the spike damage ele's can do is far more.  Once you are on the defensive like that they can spike you down in seconds.  This is why clone builds are fubar vs good aoe users.

Edited by kilger, 24 July 2012 - 01:13 PM.

[styken]

mesmer OP? lol.
if the lock target will gonna work the way was on BW mesmer is a crap on sPvP, just mark them and forget clones. with warrior bleed i could kill them very easy with my sword burst

that lock target mark need to work on all clones (not phantasm) otherwise what is the point have clones?

Edited by styken, 24 July 2012 - 02:41 PM.

[MSpurrier24]

personally i don't like the phantasms i think they are way too easy to kill, but using clones is much better because anyone who isn't that amazing has no idea who the real one is ahahaha

[Selvyn R]

Delolith, on 24 July 2012 - 08:12 AM, said:

Instantly shatter? Then why summon phantasms and not clones...they are much easier if that is what you want to accomplish.

I actually found shattering Phantasms rather effective, opponents are well aware that most mesmers will not want to shatter their precious phantasms, using that to your advantage can decide the fight if you play your cards right

Also just as a point on whether mesmers are OP or not, I think we are we are more versatile than people realise, for the argument thats been floating about for a while on the whole "we have to do a whole lot more to achieve something similar to another class who can do the same thing but easier", we can also do a whole lot more than another class who can do that same one thing, the amount of sameysamey builds i saw from every profession was rather surprising. Hundred blade warriors, unload thieves, dragon tooth + Phoenix elementalists, just as 3 examples, I am not saying we have the burst of these classes but we can certainly do a lot more than they can no matter what build we run, keeping us very unpredictable unlike a warrior who runs in, wiggles his/her blade about in the air because you knew what was coming so you dodged/distorted yourself, then proceeding to chase said warrior down because he/she has nothing else they can do (this is an exaggeration, of course they can still fight, but most warriors i faced ran when both their HBs and eviscerates were avoided, those that did stay could occasionally still keep me on my feet!). None of this makes us OP though, not in my eyes.

And for a point all on its own, i regret anything bad I ever said about CoF, or confusion, it. is. BEAUTIFUL! <3

[Naekuh]

assyrian dragon, on 24 July 2012 - 06:14 AM, said:

23 killing spree hmmm
you  must have faced all the noobs that was thier first time playing .

every time i was dead as a Mesmer I checked who killed me and who killed the other Mesmers in PVP
It was warriors and guardians the one taking mesmers down.

LOL...  +1

i was gonna say the same thing.
I spent 15 minutes on a mesmer in PVP and went back to warrior.

U spam clones? I spam whirlwind and destory all your clones.
You teleport away, i rush you and then cleave the hell out of you.

You back tele with clone.... again i whirl the hell out of you and watch as you frantically try to run away.
(and u will run away... no class except gaurdian is stupid to be point blank melee range against a warrior)

You try to shoot me with your great sword from range.. i pwn the hell out of you from range too with rapid fire from my rifle...


Mesmers arent OP, Warriors are OP... and the last thing a warrior likes to see is a gaurdian which makes the gaurdian OP.
Because Warrior vs Gaurdian = a melee brawl with both sides asking there allies for backup so they can take each other down with the least amount of collateral damage.

Edited by Naekuh, 24 July 2012 - 07:15 PM.

[Kernave]

Mesmers are crap at the moment, 3 phantasms not a chance, they just get cleaved/splashed down, the fact you rely on crap AI for damage is useless. Staff is an auto attack boring weapon, sceptre is a weak auto attack with a long cool down skill, sword is pretty fun and great sword is ok. AOE damage still none existent

Utility skills are very similar and dull on the most part

Would be nice to have one more elite skill to stand out from the reset

[MSpurrier24]

[Esorono Osuiger]

Mesmers aren't OP. They have no attack power themselves and have to rely on phantasms to really be a threat which are normally killed before they even get a chance to hit against any decent player. Also they aren't going to fool anyone who played a mesmer before, they're only overpowered if the opponent doesn't know their tricks.

[Phys]

MSpurrier24, on 15 August 2012 - 04:40 AM, said:

well man, its good you re liking mesmer but ya still got a bit to learn. be interesting to see how your opinion evolves with more playtime, and as people start to adapt to pvp and mesmer styles.

[MSpurrier24]

Phys, on 15 August 2012 - 05:14 AM, said:

well man, its good you re liking mesmer but ya still got a bit to learn. be interesting to see how your opinion evolves with more playtime, and as people start to adapt to pvp and mesmer styles.

thanks man, yeah i do have alot to learn but im willing to!

[Culture Shock]

Mesmers aren't OP, they are just tricky to catch when they are damaged.  If I've lost too much health in a fight, I leave in a hurry. I don't count running and hiding as being OP.  And as stated many times in this thread, when foes kill your illusions, your tricks are exposed and you have to become very evasive to survive because we are very vulnerable without our illusions.

Not to mention the Mesmer is not even finished or polished yet, so saying it's OP in it's current state is a stab in the dark.

[Cherrie]

Mesmer is far from OP.
As target locking stands now, Mesmer is completly ruined for any serious PvP because the "confusion" element of gameplay does not work AT ALL.

Even if that gets fixed, it is extremely easy to spot the real Mesmer and very shortly after release everyone who is interested in PvP will be able to do it in 2 seconds. Even without paying attention, Illusions die so fast that a single AoE gets rid of the problem.

Then there is the unreliable shattering mechanics plus illusions' AI...

To sum things up, Mesmer heavily revolves and is balanced around its primary mechanics of Illusions, but in PvP this doesn't work.
No OP here, imho Mesmers will become very UP soon after release because of the above.
In PvE they seemed perfectly fine for me (though I'd prefer Shatters to be more reliable, but it's not often that you really need them there anyway).

Edited by Cherrie, 15 August 2012 - 08:49 AM.

[Naglifar]

How to be deceptive:
1. Use staff, the clones match your attack speed & weapons in hand.
2. If it is appropriate (in a group setting) move less. People ignored me ALL the time.
3. Cast Clones behind walls, pillars, in chaos storm, or your foes back
4. Send in a pre-clone, drop a portal, if you can use blink to secretly pass a distracted player then open on them from thier back side, drop portal exit/port to entrance & send another clone, wait a few seconds then portal back to exit.
5. The sword clone will literally stand in place if his foe is out of range, and will attack when you do. To take this for your advantage: flee, find a corner, swap to sword, cast still clone, wait. If they chase you, and they are melee, they always assume the still things are clones. If they attack you - blurred frenzy, if they attack clone - swap, blurred frenzy.
6. Follow up iReposte Clone with Blurred Frenzy, when the run chase them immediately with your clone, on the way cast a swap clone, blink behind them and swap, they will almost always assume the clone behind them is you, good time for a shatter or staff opener (as your sword clones will put some vulnerability on the foe before they die).
8. Walk in a straight line towards another objective (with clones present)
9. Use swap sword clone in Chaos storm (or other combo field) the. Blink away, they will most likely attack the bubbled clone
10. Always have a target selected somewhere on the map (gates and stationary structures are good) spam clones on CD.

[Naglifar]

Also on pvp maps with NPC mutual foes. Cast a portal, aggro players into the NPC mob, portal back, send ranged clones in & distract them. Usually you can 1v2/3 groups as long as Mob NPC sticks to them.

And Cherrie is making absolute statements. So she is either correct, or has never seen a decent Mesmer in PvP...

[Nibiru23]

Cherrie, on 15 August 2012 - 08:48 AM, said:

Mesmer is far from OP.
As target locking stands now, Mesmer is completly ruined for any serious PvP because the "confusion" element of gameplay does not work AT ALL.

Even if that gets fixed, it is extremely easy to spot the real Mesmer and very shortly after release everyone who is interested in PvP will be able to do it in 2 seconds. Even without paying attention, Illusions die so fast that a single AoE gets rid of the problem.

Then there is the unreliable shattering mechanics plus illusions' AI...

To sum things up, Mesmer heavily revolves and is balanced around its primary mechanics of Illusions, but in PvP this doesn't work.
No OP here, imho Mesmers will become very UP soon after release because of the above.
In PvE they seemed perfectly fine for me (though I'd prefer Shatters to be more reliable, but it's not often that you really need them there anyway).

Mesmer is better at PvP than PvE.  Mesmer clones are weak but phantasm are really nice, plus the stuns and daze.

In PvE mesmer is by far one of the slowest class to kill mobs ( atleast at low lvl).

[Phys]

Sebrent_Tehroth, on 23 July 2012 - 08:49 PM, said:

Obviously someone didn't take these then. It's 3 conditions multiplied by the number of clones you force them to go through ... basically translates to clones just about always inflicting damage on your enemy whether they live, die, or get shattered.

Avoiding elementalist AOE is cake. Staff or Scepter elementalist? simply move, maybe dodge roll if your movement has been impaired. If they have an off-hand dagger, look for them to right the lightning ... dodge away when they are about to hit. The meanest is the quick AOE knockdown from earth but I didn't ever really have trouble here since my utilities were all about getting me out of stuns and conditions.

No, dodge rolls don't allow you to cast during them, but mine were creating more clones for me. On top of this, smart dodging is part of the game. If you avoid damage spikes and other CC through proper use of dodge, block, etc. then you will do well. It's well worth it to stop attacking for a second to avoid these from your opponent ... and your dodge bar regenerates. If you think dodge rolls don't get you anywhere in the end then just "lol".



You do realize that thinking you have to choose between "clone build" and "phantasm build" is what a majority of people having trouble with playing as a Mesmer are doing? Look through the forums here and in the official beta ones. The people most often complaining about Mesmer are the ones also talking about "clone builds" and "phantasm builds" ... using one or the other, having to pick between them, etc. The ones not complaining about Mesmer comparatively aren't by a large factor. In fact, most of the time you see the latter group mention them, it is because they are directly replying to a post from someone in the former group.

The class mechanic worked fine for me. Want damage? You've got two great shatters for that. Want to interrupt? Covered. Want some invulnerability that didn't require you to invest and traits, pick a particular weapon, nor use a healing/utility/elite slot? Covered.

My guild did a few tournament matches and did fine. On my mesmer I was our "1v1 guy" of sorts. Later when we did the tournament games again, I switched to Engineer and didn't do nearly as well. It wasn't because Engineer is better/worse than Mesmer, it's because my playstyle and the Mesmer's capabilities mesh well and the Mesmer, despite being the class in the "roughest shape" is still solid. Perhaps you should take a step back and think, "Plenty of people are doing more than fine with Mesmer, but I'm not ... what is the difference". Since there is only one "Mesmer" class in the game, the answer should be obvious.

uhh i think you are overstating, "want damage you have 2 good shatters", thats a lie. cry of frustration is pretty crappy damage, unless traited and statted for conditions, and if that is the case usually mind wrack is subpar. In fact i think mind wrack damage is still undertuned for giving up options and all the flaws in delivery.  Diversion is.. rarely good? 1-2 seconds daze versus guaranteed 3 seconds of distortion. Only really useful if you are trying to help a group, and even then pretty good chance you wont interupt anything. Shatters still need work before they are doing the job they could do in battle.

Edited by Phys, 15 August 2012 - 11:10 AM.

[Cherrie]

Nibiru23, on 15 August 2012 - 10:43 AM, said:

Mesmer is better at PvP than PvE.  Mesmer clones are weak but phantasm are really nice, plus the stuns and daze.

In PvE mesmer is by far one of the slowest class to kill mobs ( atleast at low lvl).

I'm not arguing any of that, at least that was not my point.
Mesmer is not a brute force class so expecting them to beat speed records in killing is a misconception. The class is definietly better suited for PvP, however one can not ignore some serious issues with Mesmers in PvP. Do remember that marking the Mesmer means that there is no chance of even a split second of confusing your enemy while this was "calculated" into Mesmer balance.
All I meant is that mesmer is definietly not OP and that as time passess and players learn, it may very well become crippled by it's class mechanic and become under-powered in a way that it will be trivial to deal with.

Naglifar, on 15 August 2012 - 10:16 AM, said:

And Cherrie is making absolute statements. So she is either correct, or has never seen a decent Mesmer in PvP...

I simply don't believe there's much, if any, confusion margin in mesmer gameplay in PvP. Some reasons:
- target marking: catch the Mesmer once, you'll always know which one is real
-even if you don't, one hit is enough to know because of the HP bar (imho it shouldn't show how much HP the Illusion really has)
-Illussions AI: it's an AI, it will always behave in the same way and thus trivial to spot; this can't be overcome so all other aspects of Illusions should be top-notch for confusion to actually work
-Shattering has issues, again because of AI
-Mesmer downed summon is completly useless
-Big fights: no use to summon anything because it will die right away, though here it doesn't really matter

Edited by Cherrie, 15 August 2012 - 12:26 PM.

[RandolfRa]

Cherrie, on 15 August 2012 - 12:16 PM, said:

I'm not arguing any of that, at least that was not my point.
Mesmer is not a brute force class so expecting them to beat speed records in killing is a misconception. The class is definietly better suited for PvP, however one can not ignore some serious issues with Mesmers in PvP. Do remember that marking the Mesmer means that there is no chance of even a split second of confusing your enemy while this was "calculated" into Mesmer balance.
All I meant is that mesmer is definietly not OP and that as time passess and players learn, it may very well become crippled by it's class mechanic and become under-powered in a way that it will be trivial to deal with.

I simply don't believe there's much, if any, confusion margin in mesmer gameplay in PvP. Some reasons:
- target marking: catch the Mesmer once, you'll always know which one is real
-even if you don't, one hit is enough to know because of the HP bar (imho it shouldn't show how much HP the Illusion really has)
-Illussions AI: it's an AI, it will always behave in the same way and thus trivial to spot; this can't be overcome so all other aspects of Illusions should be top-notch for confusion to actually work
-Shattering has issues, again because of AI
-Mesmer downed summon is completly useless
-Big fights: no use to summon anything because it will die right away, though here it doesn't really matter

You are right. The AI should be drastically improved. Make clones evade and run away when they are attacked, just like the real mesmer would, and do not display the true health of the clones. Instead, display a health that behaves in the same way as the health of the real mesmer would.
The targeting glitch is also very questionable as it completly removes the misdirection factor of clones. I am not sure how to work around this one though. Maybe change the targeting system so that if you target a mesmer, you also target all clones of that particular mesmer.

[Nibiru23]

Cherrie, on 15 August 2012 - 12:16 PM, said:

I'm not arguing any of that, at least that was not my point.
Mesmer is not a brute force class so expecting them to beat speed records in killing is a misconception. The class is definietly better suited for PvP, however one can not ignore some serious issues with Mesmers in PvP. Do remember that marking the Mesmer means that there is no chance of even a split second of confusing your enemy while this was "calculated" into Mesmer balance.
All I meant is that mesmer is definietly not OP and that as time passess and players learn, it may very well become crippled by it's class mechanic and become under-powered in a way that it will be trivial to deal with.

i understand you point and i agree with you.

The call target issue makes scepter totaly useless, confusion is easily removed by foes and shatter...no comments.