Curse

BellyFlop · Feb 11, 2006, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Instead of M/E, go E/M for echo nuking.

There isn't much in the game can survive 3 - 4 meteor showers, and mobs cant run away with so many knockdowns. Nothing any mesmer can do comes close to that.

i undertand what u mean, but i have a ele and just wanted to try the Mesmer as Prim on PvE.

just wanted to know do u guys run Pure mesmer or use the 2nd proff? and what one u have Mes/? not asking what the Best

yet

Thanks Again.

Age · Feb 11, 2006, 11:17 PM // 23:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by jciardha

I run pure domination builds all the time and eat monk bosses for dessert. Not to be rude or such, but I'm confused as to how you made the conclusion a mesmer can't specialize in a particular line of magic.

This was early in game for me as I only made it to Lions Arch.I just found I could specailize in one area maybe later in game you can.I found self healing a problem as well unlike necro and being in poisonous waters.We all know how Alesia is about that.I would give it a shot agian if I has way more char. slots.

Keyote · Feb 11, 2006, 11:19 PM // 23:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by BellyFlop

i undertand what u mean, but i have a ele and just wanted to try the Mesmer as Prim on PvE.

just wanted to know do u guys run Pure mesmer or use the 2nd proff? and what one u have Mes/? not asking what the Best

yet

Thanks Again.

Early on you'll probably be using mostly mesmer skills, backfire, empathy, conjure phantasm etc. If you can get to droks and pick up elites early, you could try warrior secondary for illusionary weaponry + flurry. It rips mobs apart in PvE until the jungle.

Later in the game you might try necro and combine the hexes with your mesmer ones.

Bleidd · Feb 11, 2006, 11:43 PM // 23:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keyote

Mesmers are very situational, and most situations just dont require one. You cant blame groups for picking the best damage dealing classes, tanks and monks when that is the most efficient set up to mow through AI.

They're not as bad as most people think, but you never need one either. Rangers can interrupt and bring a lot more to the team.

I'd say more accurately that Mesmer skills are very situational, as are several non-Fire Elementalist skills and a good bit of Necromancer skills. These classes have to fine-tune themselves to that particular quest/mission to be most effective, whereas a Healing Monk will always be able to heal, a W/x will always be tanking/DPS. Couldn't comment on the Ranger, minimal experience with that profession.

Keyote · Feb 12, 2006, 12:02 AM // 00:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bleidd

I'd say more accurately that Mesmer skills are very situational, as are several non-Fire Elementalist skills and a good bit of Necromancer skills. These classes have to fine-tune themselves to that particular quest/mission to be most effective, whereas a Healing Monk will always be able to heal, a W/x will always be tanking/DPS. Couldn't comment on the Ranger, minimal experience with that profession.

Actually I meant just what I said, mesmers are situational no matter what skills they use. Only very late in the game when interrupts become most useful against bosses and they can put the hurt on casters do they become a real help to a group. With rangers being able to interrupt too one of those uses is gone.

It took the aoe nerf to force people to start looking at other classes, which is when the ranger really got noticed. Though where rangers were underappreciated, I dont agree that mesmers are. People know they can bring something to a group, but they're right in thinking it's not enough to pick them over other classes.

I can understand the frustration mesmers have finding groups, but other peoples ignorance isn't to blame. The fact PvE is made easy simply by tanks holding agro and monks healing/protecting while damage dealers slaughter everything means the class itself has little use outside of PvP.

Mavrik · Feb 12, 2006, 12:18 AM // 00:18

I run mostly pure mesmer build... though I have 45 energy. I can if need be, become an echo-nuker. Now my ele had like 80 energy which makes echo nuking work like a charm. But thats the only thing I miss about my ele.

Chev of Hardass · Feb 12, 2006, 12:47 AM // 00:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keyote

Actually I meant just what I said, mesmers are situational no matter what skills they use. Only very late in the game when interrupts become most useful against bosses and they can put the hurt on casters do they become a real help to a group. With rangers being able to interrupt too one of those uses is gone.

Ahem,
1 Interupt Mesmer + Grawl Unglodytes (sp?) = Ascalon foothills masacre
1 Mesmer + Shiverpeak Protectors = easy Borlis Pass and others.
Later those nasty Fire Imps get slaughtered by Mesmers.
Even the Jungle Trolls get slaughtered by Empathy.

Please, unless you REALLY know Mesmers, do not make generaized comments like that.

SisterMercy · Feb 12, 2006, 12:52 AM // 00:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xonic

... maybe once in a while people notice, hey, that monk boss's healing spells keep on getting interrupted...

Yes, but that invariably turns into "WTF? wheres the heals? u are so noob, monk!"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warskull

... Fourth, Mesmers never get credit for their work... I used to echo shatter hex (back before it got the nerf and GoR got buffed) in Fissure. I would churn out a large 300 damage armor ignoring spike before the fire ele's meteors ever landed. The fire ele got the credit. In ascension missions I will run a glyph dom memser. The casters fall over without doing much and the last group (with the monk boss) is easy because I prevent the monk boss from doing anything (divert orison and word on that guy and everything suddenly becomes really easy.) The warriors get all the credit for killing everything. This further leads to the belief that mesmers don't do much and discourages people from playing them....

This is exactly true. There was a time when it sucked to be Necro, too, but enough of us got out there and proved to monks how valuable it is to have a BiPer alongside them; then we proved the value of a solid Spiteful Spirit build; then we demonstrated effective Minion-running...

But it doesn't work so well for Mesmers, going back to the first comment (a Mesmer's work is near-invisible). If Mesmers can't show their value as easily, they'll have to start taking their credit.

During the early runs demonstrating BiP, I used to get monks complaining "why is your health dropping like that? Stop sacrificing health, noob." So I would. All of a sudden, everyone in the party would notice the monk pinging his energy and everyone complaining about the healing. There's ways to make a point.

Echo is one of your best niches. Show it off. Once people start taking notice, move on to Backfire and the various Power (Drain, Block, Leak) skills.

One other problem might also be the Mesmer armor value. I don't play Mes primary, so I don't know if this is just from poor evasive manouvers, but Mesmers seem to be frequently first down on the battlefield (or second to Eles).

Keyote · Feb 12, 2006, 01:17 AM // 01:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chev of Hardass

Ahem,
1 Interupt Mesmer + Grawl Unglodytes (sp?) = Ascalon foothills masacre
1 Mesmer + Shiverpeak Protectors = easy Borlis Pass and others.
Later those nasty Fire Imps get slaughtered by Mesmers.
Even the Jungle Trolls get slaughtered by Empathy.

Please, unless you REALLY know Mesmers, do not make generaized comments like that.

Were you being serious with that post?...

In case you hadn't noticed all those mobs/areas are easy without the help of a mesmer. Why bother interrupting mobs when they die in seconds?

Sorry but I see nothing in that post that suggests you know anything about mesmers other than basics in the early areas of the game, so dont accuse me of not knowing the class.

Chev of Hardass · Feb 12, 2006, 01:35 AM // 01:35

Actually, I PvP with my PvE mesmer. I went from rank 3 to rank 6 playing mesmer. I beat all of the missions to Abadon's Mouth with hench and my mesmer. If we were to meet up and I found myself suddenly responsible for shutting you down, I would win.

I made those examples because they are early in the game and you said that...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keyote

Only very late in the game when interrupts become most useful against bosses and they can put the hurt on casters do they become a real help to a group.

You are ignorant to the uses of mesmers, I will not argue with you about this at this point, but because of your general ....tty attitude people in the PvE could go on believeing that mesmers are not for PvE.

They are very good, but ignorant people like you keep them from enjoying the game.

knives · Feb 12, 2006, 01:37 AM // 01:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by SisterMercy

One other problem might also be the Mesmer armor value. I don't play Mes primary, so I don't know if this is just from poor evasive manouvers, but Mesmers seem to be frequently first down on the battlefield (or second to Eles).

Its not that the mesmers die easily, but the mobs always know to target the biggest threat.

Teufel Eldritch · Feb 12, 2006, 01:44 AM // 01:44

Mesmer armor is base 60. Same as Monk, Necro & Ele.

Keyote · Feb 12, 2006, 02:14 AM // 02:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chev of Hardass

You are ignorant to the uses of mesmers, I will not argue with you about this at this point, but because of your general ....tty attitude people in the PvE could go on believeing that mesmers are not for PvE.

They are very good, but ignorant people like you keep them from enjoying the game.

Yeah, lets blame my attitude for the lack of interest in mesmers instead of class design and game mechanics.

Sister Spice · Feb 12, 2006, 02:22 AM // 02:22

The blue analogy with MTG is a good one.

I used to play control decks in MTG and was drawn to Mesmer for just that reason when introduced to GW.

In MTG Blue had SOME key powers (countering) but a mono deck was never very effective : crap at dealing damage, crap at getting the win, great at controlling the environment.

In MTG there were 3 (ancestral recall, time walk, and timetwister) that were so broken people had to play them in most decks - the equivalent would be 3 totally overpowered weapons or skills in GW - MTG banned those cards, GW would nerf them

So to be effective blue players in MTG always combined it with other colours (pretty much)
In GW therefore - a mesmer wouldnt be solely a mesmer - they'd need something else for the win - either themselves, or in their other team mates.

Funnily enough when you FIRST started playing magic - you looked at blue and saw the HUGE creatures (10/10 Leviathan) and thought WOW - and didnt notice the countering until you were a bit more experienced.

As you go along in magic you start to see how blue is supposed to be used, and if slow thoughtful (and very annoying) control suits you - you started using it yourself .... that's why it's really tough to play Mesmer in PVE as you simply dont get that opportunity to see how it's played well against you. I daresay it's more possible to see that if you PVP / observe PVP - but it still doesnt help you much for PVE as the environment and foes are so different.

I dumped my mesmer and moved on to creating a monk as I realised that I simply wasn't *getting* Mesmer - I knew it was *like* blue in magic - but my skill level was not up to it.

I think it still isnt .... working through monk, necro and ranger but think it will be a long time before I can be an effective Mesmer.

Sister Spice

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

However, mesmers are unlike blue decks in that blue was the most overwhelmingly overpowered color for many years

noblepaladin · Feb 12, 2006, 05:42 AM // 05:42

In terms of farming groups, Mesmers tend to be less helpful, because most farming groups go for places where the standard Tank, Monk, Nuker will be able to clear it out very fast, after all farming is all about making money as fast as possible (then again, most of the good farmers do it with their guild or solo, which are both more efficient that pickup farming groups).

In the early parts of the game, Mesmers also tend to be less useful. Most enemies are pretty weak and just using brute damage is enough to get the job done. Enemies don't have any particularly nasty spells that needs to be shutdown.

However, in the late game, Mesmers really shine. With the right build a Mesmer can easily shut down 2 or more enemies. Since most of the time you are not fighting more than 4 or 5 enemies, a Mesmer can effectively "tank" half of the enemies. I really don't get the purpose of the second or third "tank" warrior in pick up group. The same is true for an extra Monk. Two monks are not needed at all if half of the enemies are disabled. In terms of dealing damage, Mesmers can do a lot by using echo to place empathy or phantasm on several enemies very quickly, which usually does more damage than a warrior can.

However, all of this is theoretical. In order to use a Mesmer with this much efficiency, you must know the mission and area well. You must know what types of enemies you will face (ex: the Shiverpeak areas that have gnashers, heretics, ice imps, and siege golems tend to place many hexes on your party, echo, shattered hex, inspired hex, maybe hex breaker or mantra of frost will allow you to shatter hexes many times and stay at very high energy, so you can cast other stuff such as backfire or interrupts. You will probably do as much damage as a fire nuker while getting rid of hexes). However, when you pick up mesmers most likely they do not know the area that well and will bring the wrong skills. This is not only true with Mesmers but also true with all other classes. One common example is warriors who advertise as tanks (I'm not picking on warriors, but it's just the most common one). A warrior is not a tank because they have some more armor than the other classes. An elementalist with earth spells, a mesmer with mantras/resistance, a ranger with stances, a protection monk... they can all tank better than warrior armor. A warrior is a tank when they have stances or armor enchancing skills such as dolyak signet and watch yourself (in areas without enchantment removal, some monk healing/protection spells will work as well). Warriors can be the ultimate tanks if they choose to be (in many missions, a super tank is not needed, so they can optimize their build for another function).

Basically all classes can do a few specific tasks very well. For a mesmer, some of these include interrupt, shutdown, and hex/enchantment removal. In the end, whether the build is effective or not depends on what the party needs. For example, a party can choose not to need any monks at all. Heavy tanks, interrupters/shutdown and maybe one or two nukers can do fine with one basic healing spell because all the damage sources are tanked and/or shutdown (for those who don't believe me, note that warriors have been able to solo almost all of Mineral Springs and much of Ring of Fire and some parts of FoW and UW with healing signet as the only source of healing, add a bit of shutdown, condition/hex removal, and a damage source and you should be able to take on just about any PvE area without a monk primary if your party is smart enough).

Francis Crawford · Feb 12, 2006, 08:32 AM // 08:32

My wife got a second account, and has one char in each profession. She reports that the mesmer is pretty good, but not quite as good as the Ne/Me. On the plus side, I think she looks really good in her nightgown armor ...

What I'm not convinced of in PvE is the big advantage to making mesmer a PRIMARY class. Obviously, that depends on the strategy. Does Fast Casting really matter when interrupting monsters? Does it matter enough for any other purpose at all (OK, rezmers)? I have a few elementalist builds in which I'd like Fast Casting over Energy Storage, but not enough to give up the fire runes.

Next, if you're going interrupt, are the runes all that valuable? If not, is there a high value to the extra attribute points in any line except Domination? And even there, isn't the temptation to echo your favorite spells, in which case you'd really appreciate a bit of energy (and healing) from an elementalist primary?

My uninformed guess is that there's something to be said for a PvE Domination/Inspiration build, but that a mesmer primary doesn't have the same versatility of strategies to be worth taking as a PRIMARY character.

Francis Crawford · Feb 12, 2006, 08:47 AM // 08:47

Another reason for not taking mesmer as a primary profession is that it makes a great secondary for almost everybody.

Elementalist: Ether Feast is wonderful early in the game -- over 50 points of self-healing without attribute points. And the most popular late-game builds are the echoed ones.

SS Necro: See Elementalist. Also, disruption is thematic.

Warrior: Epidemic could be fun for a conditioning strategy, especially if you don't need the energy elsewhere. I imagine SV would be nice for a tank. Plague Touch can become great defense. And the stances last a lot longer than warrior stances, if you want to use "in a stance" items but focus on other skills.

Ranger: Actually, I see less of a fit here, but a ranger has so much going on that secondary professions aren't that important anyway.

Monk: My wife thinks the Blood line is better for energy gain than the alternatives. If she's right, I'm not sure there's a great fit here either.

Anyhow, my point is that a lot of people play around with mesmers as their secondaries, which is another reason not to play them as primaries.

And as a bonus:

Second Easiest Ascension Ever (at least that I've heard of): Mine, with Backfire + Ice Spear
Easiest Ascension Ever: My wife's Ne/Me, with Backfire + sacrifice spells

XSniper · Feb 12, 2006, 04:19 PM // 16:19

I have a male Mesmer.
My Mesmer is such a powerhouse Spiker for PVE, but most people need Eles and such.
Figured I can do ~550 dmg with the skill set I have excluding Backfire. So I think my Mesmer is fun.
Just I think Mesmers start to get alot of their good skills at and after Droks which is why most people dont follow through with them unlike how Rangers, Monk, and Warriors tend to get tons of skills before Droks.

Barinthus · Feb 12, 2006, 07:29 PM // 19:29

My reason - 4 character slots.

I just had to have a ranger.

Necromancer looked interesting so I had to have that too.

I made a w/mo and I was bored out of my mind so I wiped and casted a M/wo - much better. I enjoy playing supporting class and healing people's sorry backsides.

That left elementalists and mesmers for last slot. It wasn't an easy decision but I eventually went with elementalist so I can play hydro/geomancer.

There are days when i wish I made a mesmer instead. I even considered buying one more account just so I can make a mesmer. But now that Factions are coming up, I'm hoping they will have more than two new character slots so I can use extra slot (sorry I must have assassin and ritualist) for mesmer. Warrior is definitely last on my list but if Factions come with 4 slots I'd make a warrior so I'd be able to play all classes.

Kai Nui · Feb 12, 2006, 10:12 PM // 22:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warskull

There are a number of reasons mesmers are unpopular in PvE.

First off, they are weak with henchmen. If you take an all henchmen group when you can't get a part it is a real pain in the rear. A mesmer is best off target hopping, shutting down multiple targets, spreading degen, ect. The henchman AI goes berserk if you don't baby sit it and they all have such poor damage output that they can't kill anything without focus firing it very heavily. So when you hench you can only function at 10% of your potention, or function at 100% while the henchmen do nothing.

Second, PvE players do not understand mesmers at all. There are very few memser enemies in the game. The most they run into is conjur spammers. A.net knows how a well designed mob with a mesmer would absolutely decimate most groups. Thus when the AI plays mesmer they do it extremely inefficiently. They have never felt what a mesmer can really do. When one of my guild mates plays a mesmer and a spike is incoming. He can use cry of frustration to interrupt 2-3 characters and then swap over to another guy and nail him with powerleak before the spike goes off. He has single handedly diffused entire spikes. Most PvE players don't understand anything other than damage or healing.

Third, PvE mob design is very poor and against mesmers for the most part. For a large portion of the game mixed mobs are rare and you are usually just thrown against 10 monsters of the same type trying to kill you. Brute force works very well vs these styles of mobs. Mobs that cater to something other than brute force don't even begin to appear until the desert missions.

Fourth, Mesmers never get credit for their work. A mesmer can solo many of those impossible to kill mursaat bosses (the ones your warriors spend forever wailing on fruitlessly.) There are some great examples of this, I used to echo shatter hex (back before it got the nerf and GoR got buffed) in Fissure. I would churn out a large 300 damage armor ignoring spike before the fire ele's meteors ever landed. The fire ele got the credit. In ascension missions I will run a glyph dom memser. The casters fall over without doing much and the last group (with the monk boss) is easy because I prevent the monk boss from doing anything (divert orison and word on that guy and everything suddenly becomes really easy.) The warriors get all the credit for killing everything. This further leads to the belief that mesmers don't do much and discourages people from playing them.

Most PvE players are ignorant and suck pretty bad. They run cookie cutter builds because that is all they can run.

I would just like to say that I completely agree with you. I started the game out with Mesmer, mainly because everyone everywhere said that it takes the most skill and it's not for the new player. So, the danger looking person I am, I decided I'd only half-take thier warning and put on a monk secondary, since after all that seemed the most sensible to have (and actually it is, necromancer is the only other good secondary in my oppinion.)

As it turns out... I was right. No other classes take any skill to play, with a few exceptions, and everyone just constantly runs crappy cookie cutter classes. And the sad thing is... they can win with them. So much for the skill in the game, I can fight a warrior with a mesmer, but without a monk on the team, you're ultimately screwed. No random arena for mesmer. Ever. Don't even know why they bother putting it on the map when you play mesmer.

EDIT: I noticed someone mentioned Rezmer. Notice when I was talking above I was saying how I started as a Mesmer/Monk. Me and my friend created Minion Factory build, whether or not you believe it, it's the truth. We originally used a 55 monk with IoW for the deaths, and then I had max fast casting with resurrect. At the time I really didn't know much about necros, I knew they could sacrifice life, I just didn't know how well. Unfortunately when we created it, E/Mo smiters were the FOTM, so smite+undead=failure. But fun.