Curse

Kattar · Feb 19, 2008, 06:50 PM // 18:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shuuda

Naw, 95% would say either:

- SoI Ebon Assassin Spam, or whatever it's called.
- Ursan /puke /puke /puke
- Fast Caster Fire Nuker.

ROFLCOPTER

You are correct, sir. +10 forum points for you.

Darkside · Feb 19, 2008, 08:24 PM // 20:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shuuda

Naw, 95% would say either:

- SoI Ebon Assassin Spam, or whatever it's called.
- Ursan /puke /puke /puke
- Fast Caster Fire Nuker.

I use a domination build on my mesmer and I'm not afraid to say it...I also use Empathy and Backfire and find them to be pretty good skills. Flame on!

Sir Pandra Pierva · Feb 19, 2008, 08:48 PM // 20:48

they are good for putting on other creatures to harrass monk bosses on NM or HM.

apon which you can really start to shut down the monk boss.
and keep him from healing himself by forcing him to target his allias

empathy is great for tha

Tyla · Feb 19, 2008, 11:23 PM // 23:23

Empathy and Backfire are excelent in PvE, but I prefer Clumsiness now....

=DNC=Trucker · Feb 20, 2008, 12:04 AM // 00:04

Day 1 of starting, reading the description and thought "this is cool, looks like a class that takes finesse". Honestly, it really doesn't take that much time to beat the campaign (relatively speaking). Only until the end game content do things start to form - why? Because I spent 2 weeks getting through the "story" of NF with my mesmer, and 7 months doing the end game content. Vanquishing - farming - elite areas - dungeons, etc. So, I think it's safe to say for our discussion that everyone is leveled up and has most/all mesmer skills at their disposal?

Prophecies. I seemed to find a lot of good uses for my mesmer. The shutdown, interruption, and armor ignoring damage did the trick. Let's face it, at that time we didn't really have things like SF and SH destroying enemy mobs with no chance of the enemy healer keeping up. I finally felt good about the class when facing Willa and the backline monk in Abaddon's Mouth for the first time

That was when my diversion and shutdown really felt like they were needed for the party. As for Prophecies end game, we basically had UW, FoW, Tombs, and Furnace. If you weren't an MM, a B/P, or a Monk, there wasn't much for you in these realms. This was the break point where I had to rely on my guild to "bring the mesmer".

Faction Release. I would have to say factions is when things really started going down hill. This is where mobs started getting quite large (Jade, Afflicted), the T.N.H. (tank nuke heal - holy trinity) started to really take hold because somehow ANET forgot to put formidable monks in those mobs - they balled up like dumbasses and the nuker(s) wiped them out. Sorry, but no "distorting the battlefield" or shutdown needed, or more importantly, not enough time. Gee guys I got diversion on that monk but he went from 100% to dead in the time it took me to cast it! The Rangers gained Broad Head Arrow - a big threat to the demand of mesmers. The best skill for unconditional daze. Wait a minute... longer casting... spells easily interrupt... sure sounds like mind-control/mesmer stuff to me?

Nightfall. I am not sure much changed here. Everyone got new skills and the Elementalist rises to the highest demanding character next to the monk. M Shower, searing flames - rinse and repeat. Besides, when 15 margonites spend all their time beating on the Obsidian tank, who needs support characters? 1 tank 3 monks 4 nukers. Do what works right? Who the hell wants a mesmer? I don't blame them either, sometimes it took 1 hr to get a damn PUG in DOA, sure as hell wanted to run what you know works. I always respected the guild groups who brought in balanced groups and started using paragons and support (and did it successfully), instead of putting all your marbles into that tank, and if they break his aggro - oh crap lets run cause we all real squishy back here!

GWEN. The name of the game at this point coming out of DOA/Deep is AOE. There's just too many damned mobs to worry about 1 guy at a time. So, ANET gave the mesmer some AOE buffs. Things like wandering eye, energy surge got a buff, cry of pain, and others came into play. The problem is that ANET tried to use a bandaid and add AOE damage to the mesmer. I get what they are trying to do here (more yellow numbers!) Thanks but no thanks, I have an ele. I would go interruption, but its tough to out-interrupt a ranger with Dshot/BHA/epidemic/volley. It's worthless since a) my whole party is wanding the dazed enemy anyway, b) my only aoe interrupt costs 15 energy, and c) gwen at 13 FC is the only one in my party that can actually land an interrupt in HM - and lets not even talk about shivers...

So where was my breaking point? As more and more people got into EOTN and ranking up title tracks, consumables became extremely common. Now, I am sitting next to an Ele who comes running up under mindbender, and throws down a 1 second meteor shower under celerity. WTH? - as if mesmers hadn't been in bad shape already, now my primary attribute is washed out?

Alright that got a little long

I better go get a beer.

draxynnic · Feb 20, 2008, 12:11 AM // 00:11

Aye. I even preferred Clumsiness over Empathy before the update. Haven't tried it since, but I think what they actually need is one version that can be cast repeatedly on a single target (the old version), and another for mobs (the new version)...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katsumi Rikyu

The only problem I see with randomized mobs and skill bars, is that the mesmer will be limited by few skill slots. It's difficult to shut down all types of enemies (short of blackout, backfire, and empathy) with the 8 skill choices we have now. I love the idea of going out and killing mobs being fun again, but there seems to be a few issues with that, if they left the overall system like it is now.

Actually, it is possible for Mesmers to have a build that can hinder whatever gets thrown at them. Have a couple of skills for physical shutdown, a couple for caster shutdown, and... well, Echo and Arcane Echo aren't just for gimmicks

.

But unless you're able to do that to multiple targets instead of just one at a time, the Brawling Headbutt warrior comes along and laughs at you by keeping a target knocked down pretty much permanently while dishing out a constant stream of damage.

Shan was talking about reducing AI predictibility as well as skill setup, but it is possible to mess with the latter in ways that aren't going to hurt the Mesmer's ability to shutdown. For instance, the Elementalist is a Mesmer's primary food group almost regardless of build, but if a particular army has, say, one elementalist type for each element rather than just one elementalist type for the entire army, this widens the range of challenges that squads from that army may present while still meaning that a Mesmer built for taking down elementalists can probably still do their thing quite well thank you.

However, we still bang up against the wall presented by the Mesmer simply not being up to scratch even in its specialties any more (when compared to what other professions can achieve), which is where we need either new skills (possibly by drastically changing the functionality of existing skills as was done with Clumsiness) or a complete reboot in the form of GW2.

Tyla · Feb 20, 2008, 12:15 AM // 00:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by draxynnic

Aye. I even preferred Clumsiness over Empathy before the update. Haven't tried it since, but I think what they actually need is one version that can be cast repeatedly on a single target (the old version), and another for mobs (the new version)...

I always prefered Clumsiness tbh, Empathy was too...lacking of interruption...
Clumsiness rewards clever usage imo.

KalleDamos · Feb 20, 2008, 07:23 AM // 07:23

I have had my mesmer for over a year now. I just recently beat the factions chapter with him, I have several weapons, and a lot of gold invested into skills. i deleted him today in favor of a Ritualist. Why? Simple. Anet has nerfed several of my builds into utter obilvion in the past few months. What was left of my illusion line they killed constantly. I moved onto Domination magic and then they started to kill that as well. So rather than let my mesmer fade any more into the sole PvP Empathy/Backfire class that they seem to be I deleted him.

Do I regret it? Only slightly for the 13 months put into him. In PvE Mesmers have never been popular, ever! And these new buffs/nerfs only made me start to see Anet playing favorites with classes. Mesmers seem to be only made for PvP now a days.

And the only time I see mesmers in PvE is when its a FC Nuker, FC SS necro, FC healer or some other rthing. It just makes me sad to see such a great potential drowned. When skills from other professions run better than your primary skills, something is wrong!

Anyways, yeah, 13 months of PvE mesmer, deleted him today, no big regrets.

the_jos · Feb 20, 2008, 02:52 PM // 14:52

Quote:

And the only time I see mesmers in PvE is when its a FC Nuker, FC SS necro, FC healer or some other rthing. It just makes me sad to see such a great potential drowned. When skills from other professions run better than your primary skills, something is wrong!

You never met my mesmer

There is no need to play FC-other profession, but you need a team where the mesmer can perform a decent role.
So no tanking/nuker/healer team. Well, can do that with E-surge, CoP and skills like that but it's not the optimal build.
And since a lot of PUG teams are (were since Ursan?) T/N/H for the elite areas, those teams are known best.
One can think of teams way better than this, however, playing them would need practice and probably higher chance of failure. And since the game is about success and 'get rich quick schemes' and not about fun anymore people will remain using the proven builds. Untill a new build is invented and the masses see it works better.

Sir Pandra Pierva · Feb 20, 2008, 08:04 PM // 20:04

i am sad that mes have been nerfed so much into oblivion but i still have fun on my mes spreading conditions in HM.
the vilurnce build

i know a nec can probolly run it better but the FC right off the bat is just fun.

I am just sad how mes have gone from even in pvp
OH SHIT A MES WATCH OUT to oh whoopie a mes ignore him.

Jaigoda · Feb 22, 2008, 11:05 PM // 23:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir Pandra Pierva

to oh whoopie a mes ignore him.

Phailfest.

12chars

C2K · Feb 23, 2008, 12:06 PM // 12:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir Pandra Pierva

i am sad that mes have been nerfed so much into oblivion but i still have fun on my mes spreading conditions in HM.
the vilurnce build

i know a nec can probolly run it better but the FC right off the bat is just fun.

I am just sad how mes have gone from even in pvp
OH SHIT A MES WATCH OUT to oh whoopie a mes ignore him.

Mesmers are the backbone of the recent sinsplit fad in GvG.

Mesmers are also quite strong in PvE. Wastrel's Worry kills Wurms and Abaddon fast and has a chance to abuse the boss "half hex duration". Degen skills are armor ignoring damage. Interrupts thwart heal skills or prevent damage to your party giving your monks some breathing room.Snares slow down super fast enemies in HM. They do alot.

The mesmer is a good class and is very versatile. However, any class sucks if the player has no skill with it.

LightningHell · Feb 23, 2008, 01:37 PM // 13:37

Wastrel's Worry simply doesn't hold its weight against any competent damage dealer. Degeneration is outdone by the Ranger and the Necromancer, and attack skills ignore armor anyway. Interrupts are done better by Rangers. Snares are done better by other classes, as well as a general lack of need for snares in PvE.

The Mesmer is a good class. However, PvE in its current incarnation just doesn't give the Mesmer a chance to play to its strengths.

Btw, to Pierva; Mesmers are at least equally important in terms of PvP in comparison to two years ago.

Clarissa F · Feb 23, 2008, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

Btw, to Pierva; Mesmers are at least equally important in terms of PvP in comparison to two years ago.

In a nutshell. They suffer from being the only class where, to keep them or their skills from dominating in PvP, they get their effectiveness diluted in PvE. If they gave AI the 'quaking' factor of humans, a delay in cast more in tune to our average ping, and a realistic energy pool, mesmers would be more useful in PvE, especially in HM.

Terra Xin · Feb 24, 2008, 02:13 PM // 14:13

Attack skills don't ignore armour.... do they?

LightningHell · Feb 24, 2008, 02:31 PM // 14:31

I mean the +damage portion of the attack skill, which does ignore armor.

I.e. the +38 dmg from Dragon Slash at 14-spec ignores armor.

Brian the Gladiator · Feb 27, 2008, 03:26 AM // 03:26

Current State of Mesmers in PvE = Sig of Illusions which, you probably already know my opinion... Awesome in PvE

Current State of Mesmers in PvP = A lot of differnet stuff and are pretty important. A gvg group without a mesmer is an insta-fail. Mesmers are bringing wards more often then ever... thats about it.

viens87 · Feb 27, 2008, 09:38 AM // 09:38

Mesmer can make big AoE dmg , AoE interup , tnx to GWNE can make big AoE Dazed , AoE hex hp degen ..

mesmer is crazy thing ..

and if someone say no , u r not right .. then use ur W , A , D , E , N ... etc ..

I love mesmer , and i have a lot of builds for Farming in Team UW , FoW , he stiil can be a Ursan in DoA .. i made crazy AoE mass build for LFFF .. for Vq , HM Guardian, AB ..

for every thing what u want

IGN Baltaas Slaapes

Naylyn · Mar 09, 2008, 02:05 AM // 02:05

I wonder how many people post here without reading the OP.

I denied the truth for a long time but in the end it was still the truth, mesmers are sub par in PvE.

Clarissa F · Mar 09, 2008, 03:27 AM // 03:27

The point in a nutshell.

Are mesmers viable for PvE? yes

Are they as good as or better than most other professions in any area of PvE? If you look at it objectively... no

Though I do like what they did to CoF. Almost spammable with MoR, now.