42 replies to this topic

[LavaSquid]

Dank, on 13 October 2012 - 04:20 AM, said:

-snip-

Very detail on how to fully utilize Feedback. Any above average WvW player will love and know how to complete a combo with any AOE field skill. Feedback is my favorite skill in WvW, it is instant and doesn't disrupt your skill cast. (I can cast feedback when charging mantras.)

[SimplyAlways]

u press 5 buttons and burst ppl down in less than 1 sec if they are plate armor and below. (after u burn their dodges)

if they are plate, u use moa or timewarp. If you have the latter:
1. u time warp, and hopefully u have the xtra bounce trait for staff.
2. kite in ur chaos storm with chaos armor
3. watch them get melted by yours and their own autoatks

If they are sin:
1. use focus 4 and pull them out of their aoe stealth

Edited by SimplyAlways, 15 October 2012 - 05:12 AM.

[Bottoms_Up]

Get underwater - it's a whole different world.

[InterSlayer]

Feedback is a pretty powerful tool to scatter a zerg and reflect a ton of damage.

Josip is correct that generally speaking, its uncommon that you will have people who just sit there killing themselves.

It's pretty uncommon that you will score a lot of kills from reflection alone (feedback + traited focus reflection) unless you're in a massive zerg on a bridge or fighting people wedged into a corner and perfectly set up for that type of situation.

That being said, if you feedback a door repeatedly and the attackers get pushed out and all die...its a really good way to score a trail of loot bags. Probably more than you would have if you had not used feedback at all.

So going back to the OP and title of this post, feedback is a good way to tag damage for loot.
If you want to actually kill people outright, feedback alone probably won't do it.

[Targanwolf]

My experience is  WvW is a fight to attrit down  some on the other side.My necro can wear on people...he rarely kills at 61 level.My archer can give some burst and the short bow fires rapidly to chop away at people.When I die...its usually at the hands of several people.All are trying to hold me in place while damage is applied.
This is a criticism of the game.Killing other players in WvW is a group activity.....and I think thats unfortunate.
Of course the micro size maps and zerg...just adds to this.

[Lakvar]

@ Josip & in general, from having played both mesmer and an "easy-mode" engineer in WvW.

Background: I have my engineer, lvl 80, in full exotics, mostly Berserker with some Valkyrie thrown in, Scholar runes, specced 30/10/0/10/20. I throw grenades. Shoot my rifle. Die hard. Go 1v1s and 1v2s and generally run with my guild to good success.
It's mostly fun, it's rather repetitive and the idea is simple: kill people. zone out zergs. abuse superior range and perma swiftness. provide a few useful combo fields for my squad.

Now, my mesmer. My mesmer is level 50 (started it last week). I run a GS / Sword+Focus or Staff / Sword+Focus.
Decoy - Blink - Portal - Feedback - Veil. Currently 0-0-10-20-10. Damage is lacking and I would not go against most lvl 80s.

First off, somewhere in this forum I watched a video of the laziest glass canon spec you could do for mesmer - 30/30/does/n't m/atter, in full bersker + scholar runes. I believe the player never switched away from greatsword.
Greatsword 1 skill = rifle 1 skill.
Greatsword 2 skill = grenade 2 skill + clone + hitting more people generally + buffs
Greatsword 3 skill = as good as any grenade and they will not have time to dodge.
Greatsword 4 skill = grenade 4 skill + more damage and better chance to hit
Greatsword 5 skill is for playing tennis with the enemy.

Now, take mesmer utility - that player lacked some of engineer's range but had more battlefield mobility than an engineer. It had better escape skills. It does more than enough damage to destroy non-tanky people from 1200 range.

Imagine if he had played with sword/focus off-hand.
Sword 3, if you get in range = better version of rifle net shot, which normally misses unless you knockdown or CC the player in some other way or he has depleted his dodge bar and is close.
Sword 2 ... you know that with that glass cannon spec it'd be ridiculous.
Scepter 4 (and GS5) are the better CC version of Rifle 2 and I'll not even talk about knocking people off cliffs or walls or them being aoe yet.
Scepter 5 - more on that later.

All in all, I can tell you that playing a mesmer in WvW can be about as effective as an engineer and you should not feel underpowered unless you choose to be.

That said, this is not how I'll play my mesmer.

My spec will likely be based around Chaos / Inspiration / Illusions with toughness+vit+power(+healing+conditions) gear.
At level 50, with some quick decoy/blink/veil etc, I already sneaked my squad through a broken down wall, a bridge that had 6 arrowcarts firing on it, up a jumping puzzle and on top of garrison, where the Invaders were defending garrison with said arrowcarts. Mesmer is hard to stop when he decides to go somewhere.

Later that same day, I dropped down, blinked in middle of enemy zerg that had siege up at cliff edge and attacking same garrison @ inner gate, waterside and knocked down 8 people with focus 4 and GS 5. They died. We wiped the remaining members.

Since mesmers are "hip", there's quite a few alts and mesmer 80s in our guild atm. It used to worry me, but always having 3-4 around has made things interesting.
3xmesmer portal trains into supply camp from tower.
Porting people back for a quick retreat.
Dropping down cliffs and porting your squad down, as most of them are not running falling damage trait.
Blinking through zerg, assaulting siege weapon (warden - traited to reflect - is a nasty, nasty thing to cast on a catapult/balista) then porting back.

YES, portals do fail sometimes and YES, organized squads can shut down your group as you appear, if you're not prepared.
However, it is fun, it is useful and it is not a gimmick, as much as you feel like it, Josip. Portals = mobility.

If you're running with a guild, focus on being useful and train them on how best to utilize portal and your being fast, mobile and somewhat tough to kill.

If you're running by yourself, by all means, grind yourself a glass cannon spec - the escape utility is there and the damage is as good as any and unlike Meteor Shower or grenades, people can't just step out. Run with a zerg/larger group and focus down smartly. You have enough utility to not die easily and you'll rack up enough loot bags to be more than happy.

P.S. I run Feedback Medic trait and pop down next to a corpse / downed player every 10 sec just to get the bubble up. Is it effective? Not always .. but it has a psychological effect - people back away or stop firing. As for the actual feedback utility ... Try to get a few mesmers together and chain it on keep/tower doors that are being attacked.

Edited by Lakvar, 16 October 2012 - 10:51 AM.

[YreepYreep]

You do solo/group roam/skirmish.

Mesmers have very strong utility in Zerg VS Zerg. A sudden [Feedback] on a door against a mindless zerg, portals on unsuspecting enemies or key targets, time warp, iZerker for attacks through wall, chaos storm for defensive buffs. Too bad you can't kill anything with these.

p.s: I run as a feedback medic too, with 6 mercy runes! Pretty funny watching all those projectiles bounce back.

Edited by YreepYreep, 21 October 2012 - 03:07 AM.

[Sinnacle]

The Josip, on 12 October 2012 - 11:21 PM, said:

What? You did the strawman and now you're trying to accuse me of one? Get real. Go back to my first post in this thread. You're arguing with yourself. You have failed to counterargument a single line of mine and now come with ad hominem attack while at the same time admiting "mesmer is not good at big fights".

Focus of WvW are big fights. This is not "focus of my argument", it's what WvW is. Unless you're doing the nightcapping you'll need more than 3 people to take a Tower, Keep, Orbs; basically everything that generates points. And undefended Camps any profession can take so that's not the issue (although some are better than others at it).

You're also contradicting yourself with your "arguments". You talk about 10 Feedbacks and then how my focus is big battles in which mesmer isn't good? Which you finally admitted. Where did you get 10 feedbacks (10 mesmers) in small-scale battle? Looks like a decently sized group already, it has 10 mesmers plus whatever else.

And seriously now, tell me honestly, when have you seen 10 mesmers in a single mob on Ehmry Bay? I don't know, maybe I was talking about normal sized WvW battles and you were talking about 3v3 - for all I know it could be an average zerg size on Ehmry Bay.

The op asks how to kill people in WvW specifically people running away trying to escape he even gave a example for you.  He just asks how to kill people as mesmer in WvW. You went on a tangent about how mesmer is overated in WvW because of the portal bomb trick.  Then you go on to basically breakdown in several different posts your reasoning as to why Mesmers arent good in WvW with Zerg fights as the bases of your arguements.  

You should have just started your own thread if you hate mesmer so much or the publicity they have gotten like there is some popularity contest some where.  If you dont like the class play something else its easy.  

Maybe its your server or something I don't know.  Most people arent going cocoa for cocoa puffs just because mesmers have portal bombs.  Its cause mesmers can frequently hold off more than 1 person by themselves or beat more than person by themselves if played right.  

The 2 most talked about classes in WvW is Mesmers and Thieves.  Thats because some people don't know how to beat those classes and if you havent even done any tiny research on those 2 classes you wont have a clue what to do so you die.  Then people talk about it n team chat.  Thats been my experience in WvW.  

Oh no Thief is op he just killed 3 of us.  Oh no a mesmer portaled everyone and they they took the keep.   You can't tell if you got portal bombed or not half the time cause it can happen with out the portal in the first place just going out side your gate.  So im pretty sure the hype train you speak of automatically assumes its a portal bomb everytime they have rendering issues.

Edited by Sinnacle, 21 October 2012 - 02:37 PM.

[Mr_Finesse]

Use an arrow cart.

[Passive Aggressive]

I used to wonder this too. Until I switched to a shatter build with great sword as my main weapon.

[koroshi]

Moa transformation skill, doesn't matter how low your health is. Instant win.

[Soulstitchmmo]

http://www.guildhead...M7kIM70V7owZ70m

1.) Confusion Bomb (decoy+mirror images, cry of frustration, scepter 3)
2.) Block Attack
3.) Swap Staff
4.) #2, #3 for faster run speed + damage
5.) #4 to get regen + protection rolling
6.) ????
7.) Finish them

Even Decoy+Mirror Feedback as an opening on a group = 6 stacks aoe confusion, and with the trait + pizza that's 77% increased duration.

Throw on Feedback bubble on them, and watch your group mop them all up.

[The_Kaizz]

The Josip, on 12 October 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

You say it's not all about damage and then mention bleed and confusion which is just that - damage. Except, pitiful. Few seconds of cripple are also insignificant in a pitched zerg battle and besides other classes have much more cripple/chill/immobilize/whatever than a mesmer. I don't know what you meant by "disruption" means as phantasm dies instantly so it doesn't really disrupt anything or anyone in a zerg battle.

I always liked mesmer the most, but in GW2 WvW let's face it, it's overrated because of few tricks everyone keeps hearing over and over. Mesmer has its moments but they are few, and on a consistent basis it's rather weak IMHO. These few moments have become urban myth about some kind of great uber WvW mesmer class.

I say this because I see mesmer getting more and more nerfs while nothing is being done addressing issues and improving the class where it needs improvement. It seems a one-way street for a mesmer, much like in GW1. The way of a dodo. And then in several years they will buff the class again for marketing purposes. When they finally buffed PvE mesmer in GW1 I knew we're going to get a mesmer in GW2. They just couldn't afford no one playing a mesmer in GW1, except few old-school PvPers from Prophecy days.

When he says it's not all about damage, I believe he meant upfront damage. Conditions are a different story, and do more than you've seen, apparently. In a massive fight, yes, phantasms will generally be blasted down. That's fine, they open up with a whirling blade attack that cripples and does pretty good damage. When traited, they can give a random condition and/or crippling. Never sleep on Confusion. It's just like Wastrels Demise/Worry+ empathy/backfire. Attack and you're going to be hurt, don't, you're still going to be hurt. I've killed a fair number of ppl with confusion just because they decided to use a skill to escape with 5 stack of confusion to escape, and it ends up finishing them off.

Disruption isn't just about interrupting an opponent. Disrupting can be something as simple as using an illusion to block an attack, disrupting burst attacks, or just being a general nuisance. Small example. I was with a mesmer (I play Guardian), and we get into a fight with 3 other enemies in wvw. After a minute or so, I'm in down, an enemy is down, 1 is completely dead, 1 is alive, and the mesmer is alive. Instead of trying to go head to head with the mesmer, the enemy that was alive starts running to rez. Mesmer drops berserker on him, crippling him, and gets me up first, while the enemy was still trying to limp to his friend. Disruption succeeded.

As for Mesmer nerfs, the only thing I've really seen is Phantasms getting a longer CD. It's hardly noticeable. In regards to Guild Wars 1, Mesmers we're op from the moment everyone learned that they could hard counter casters. They have been, and always will be, a nuisance, a disrupter class, and probably the most underrated class, both in GW1 and GW2. I don't understand where you're getting "marketing" purposes from, and they didn't really buff PvE for Mesmers, they just split the skills and nerfed Mantra of Resolve to nothing.