Mesmers and the state of pvp

I took a hiatus of about a year to play other games and take care of life in general and I came back to the state of pvp that it is now and I'm extremely disappointed. Pvp has always been my favorite thing about gw2 it's what kept me coming back and I always loved playing many different builds and theorycrafting strong builds for my classes(warrior,ranger). While I knew there's meta builds I got great joy making my own builds to compete even if they weren't the best. While the game and pvp have matured over the years I have noticed more and more there's less diversity in competitive traits to choose from or weapon combinations you can use. The best is the best and that's it which I find rather boring and annoying having to play druid or spellbreaker all day every day. I also found some classes to be straight up broken in pvp with no counterplay: enter the mesmer mirage. I know they are the dueling class and the kings of 1v1 but even so it's incredibly frustrating to see them be constantly immune to everything with the highest burst to boot. Never have I seen any class be so broken that nothing I have can stand a chance. Stealth deadeye and scourge is strong too but I can at least stand a chance If I build/spec correctly but not against mirage. It saddens me to say that I will be largely ignoring gw2 other than to log on and check the patch notes to see if mesmers been nerfed. I love this games pvp but it's just gotten more pigeon holed as it went from first release to HOT and now it's practically one competitive spec per class in POF. Mesmers just the nail in the coffin I'll be on Fallout 4 and Monster hunter world until something hopefully eventually changes. I just hope others don't feel this way and get pushed into WoW pvp shudder.

@MarkKing.8094 said:I took a hiatus of about a year to play other games and take care of life in general and I came back to the state of pvp that it is now and I'm extremely disappointed. Pvp has always been my favorite thing about gw2 it's what kept me coming back and I always loved playing many different builds and theorycrafting strong builds for my classes(warrior,ranger). While I knew there's meta builds I got great joy making my own builds to compete even if they weren't the best. While the game and pvp have matured over the years I have noticed more and more there's less diversity in competitive traits to choose from or weapon combinations you can use. The best is the best and that's it which I find rather boring and annoying having to play druid or spellbreaker all day every day. I also found some classes to be straight up broken in pvp with no counterplay: enter the mesmer mirage. I know they are the dueling class and the kings of 1v1 but even so it's incredibly frustrating to see them be constantly immune to everything with the highest burst to boot. Never have I seen any class be so broken that nothing I have can stand a chance. Stealth deadeye and scourge is strong too but I can at least stand a chance If I build/spec correctly but not against mirage. It saddens me to say that I will be largely ignoring gw2 other than to log on and check the patch notes to see if mesmers been nerfed. I love this games pvp but it's just gotten more pigeon holed as it went from first release to HOT and now it's practically one competitive spec per class in POF. Mesmers just the nail in the coffin I'll be on Fallout 4 and Monster hunter world until something hopefully eventually changes. I just hope others don't feel this way and get pushed into WoW pvp shudder.

you can still beat them. yes they are hard but they are not invincible. I play ranger too so at least we have that in common. I'd advise going for something more defensive /sustain that also has aoe dmg at the same time. GS on ranger works quite well with that.. avoid their axe burst as much as you can with dodges, stealth, repositioning etc and try to get the fight in you favor by getting the first hit out of stealth as many times as possible..

@bigo.9037 said:

you can still beat them. yes they are hard but they are not invincible. I play ranger too so at least we have that in common. I'd advise going for something more defensive /sustain that also has aoe dmg at the same time. GS on ranger works quite well with that.. avoid their axe burst as much as you can with dodges, stealth, repositioning etc and try to get the fight in you favor by getting the first hit out of stealth as many times as possible..

You won't avoid Axe burst. It is an ammunition skill with 2 charges that has a recharge per count 8 second.Which means that when you dodge both counts, by the time you'll have endurance for one more dodge, you'll already be bursted again and that's not even taking Mirrored Axes in to account, let alone one of other dozens of Mes skills that need be absolute must-dodge in order to survive.

Of course It is nice and appreciated to offer a little advise like you did, but it still won't change the fact that Mirage is insanely overtuned and anyone with a bit of skill is borderline untouchable with it. It definitely needs to be nerfed so much.

@Alatar.7364 said:

@bigo.9037 said:

you can still beat them. yes they are hard but they are not invincible. I play ranger too so at least we have that in common. I'd advise going for something more defensive /sustain that also has aoe dmg at the same time. GS on ranger works quite well with that.. avoid their axe burst as much as you can with dodges, stealth, repositioning etc and try to get the fight in you favor by getting the first hit out of stealth as many times as possible..

You're thinking of Lingering Thoughts, which is not a burst skill by any means. The skill you're thinking of is Axes of Symmetry which does not have two charges. I'm not here to argue, just to clarify that.

@EpicTurtle.8571 said:

@Alatar.7364 said:

@bigo.9037 said:

you can still beat them. yes they are hard but they are not invincible. I play ranger too so at least we have that in common. I'd advise going for something more defensive /sustain that also has aoe dmg at the same time. GS on ranger works quite well with that.. avoid their axe burst as much as you can with dodges, stealth, repositioning etc and try to get the fight in you favor by getting the first hit out of stealth as many times as possible..

No I am not.I have exactly Lingering Thoughts in mind and yes it is not a burst skill, yet it does a burst-like dmg, because like I said Mirage, as a whole, is extremely overtuned.

@Alatar.7364 said:

@EpicTurtle.8571 said:

@Alatar.7364 said:

@bigo.9037 said:

you can still beat them. yes they are hard but they are not invincible. I play ranger too so at least we have that in common. I'd advise going for something more defensive /sustain that also has aoe dmg at the same time. GS on ranger works quite well with that.. avoid their axe burst as much as you can with dodges, stealth, repositioning etc and try to get the fight in you favor by getting the first hit out of stealth as many times as possible..

....So the skill you can CC a mirage out of because it has a long telegraphed animation with no evade frames can be side stepped unless they port on top of you and does torment which as has been mathed out countless times does less damage than bleeds and does much less damage in burst than confusion and burning. Not to mention less safe than Axes of symmetry that at least gives you some leeway because it is the only reliable non stealth detarget skill in the mirage kit....that skill right..

Based on this conversation, I am going to assume you guys are primarily referring to the condi mirage?

@Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:Based on this conversation, I am going to assume you guys are primarily referring to the condi mirage?

That's what I assumed since lingering thoughts came up.

@Solori.6025 said:

@Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:Based on this conversation, I am going to assume you guys are primarily referring to the condi mirage?

Tbh I run axe in my pure DPS build so I use this myself. Based on the massive damage and sustain that is implied I took it as condi.

Quoting me from another post about mirage :

Today duels overview for me :Guards/FB and axe boon soulbeasts hard counter mirages.Weavers/druids do long fights vs mirages but win the point at the end.SB do never-ending fights vs mirages.Necros, Holo lose vs mes but often decap the point before dying.Thieves, revenants have very variables match up vs mes depending of players.

Not to say that near every other profession is better at teamfight.What did you want as better balance ?

@"viquing.8254" said:Quoting me from another post about mirage :

Today duels overview for me :Guards/FB and axe boon soulbeasts hard counter mirages.Weavers/druids do long fights vs mirages but win the point at the end.SB do never-ending fights vs mirages.Necros, Holo lose vs mes but often decap the point before dying.Thieves, revenants have very variables match up vs mes depending of players.

Not to say that near every other profession is better at teamfight.What did you want as better balance ?

Mirage has a (relatively) high skill floor and I think you just haven't quite broken through yet. Or you're just biased to your favorite class.

Mirage is only "balanced" when you take into account the fact that a bunch of low skilled baddies are playing it and dragging down the overall winrate. The game should never be balanced around the win rates of the middle tiers. Middle tier players don't need class changes, they just need to improve their own mechanics.

Classes with a high skill floor should get destroyed at lower levels because they require more skill to play, something lacking at that level. But as you go up the ranks, you quickly notice that mirage makes up a disproportionate amount of the leaderboard because of how dominating they are when played properly. Balance should be done around that and trickle down to lower levels. Skill ceiling is the important part. Anyways, if you want to faceroll you can always just take reaper.

Quoting me from another post :

With last season's top 250 who look like : gards(~27%), rev/engi/war(~17% each), ranger(~6%), mesmer/necro(~5%each), thief/elem(~3% each).That was this last season.This seasons proportions changed mostly due to duoQ return.

often enough when I fight mirages I notice most of their damage is coming from burning. where da f is this coming from?

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:often enough when I fight mirages I notice most of their damage is coming from burning. where da f is this coming from?

The burning stacks we have now last a very long time at a very low stack amount, it's possible that since the stack amount is negligible people don't rush to cleanse it as fast.

@viquing.8254 said:Quoting me from another post :

With last season's top 250 who look like : gards(~27%), rev/engi/war(~17% each), ranger(~6%), mesmer/necro(~5%each), thief/elem(~3% each).That was this last season.This seasons proportions changed mostly due to duoQ return.

So what is current seasons proportions?

@"viquing.8254" said:Quoting me from another post :

With last season's top 250 who look like : gards(~27%), rev/engi/war(~17% each), ranger(~6%), mesmer/necro(~5%each), thief/elem(~3% each).That was this last season.This seasons proportions changed mostly due to duoQ return.

Where can we find those stats? It would be interesting to see what they are for this season. The "Mesmers are over-represented in the top 250" was pulled from an ArenaNet employee's quote discussing how they can't (won't) nerf Mesmer.

Where can we find those stats?look at the accounts / streamers /games played in my 378 games in top 250 from 10th to average 75th position last season ? (I didn't know for NA indeed.)I just re-checked it, it appear that somes mesmers pop-out the last week of the season (I can't play lasts days of last season.).

The "Mesmers are over-represented in the top 250" was pulled from an ArenaNet employee's quote discussing how they can't (won't) nerf Mesmer.Wasn't it 2 and 3 seasons ago ?

So it's basically a rough guess, made up of the players who actually grind during the main season and not taking into account the majority that only play to work off their decay at the end? I'd guess that the casual words of an employee with access to the stats are probably more accurate. It's also the only sensible explanation as to why Anet's darling class never receives any substantial nerfs.

Pretty sure it was very recent. Week or so. The post that had the screenshot was just a link without any keywords to search for though so I'm having trouble finding it (or it was deleted).

It's a rough guess that you can confirm seeing any eu top 250 streamers last season.

the majority that only play to work off their decay at the end?Lol ?Which impact class representation during one season, thoses who only play 120 games that you only see during 4 days per season or thoses who play regulary each weeks ?BTW grind is more risky than rewarded so what's the problem ?

I'd guess that the casual words of an employee with access to the stats are probably more accurate.Of course it is but I really doubt it was about last season stats.

It's a rough guess that you can confirm seeing any eu top 250 streamers last season.

the majority that only play to work off their decay at the end?Which impact class representation during one season, thoses who only play 120 games that you only see during 4 days per season or thoses who play regulary each weeks

I don't think you understand the conversation. We're talking about how Mesmer is incredibly overtuned and needs significant nerfs. Not about which class is played in the highest number of games. Mesmers make up most of the leaderboards because when you're good at them, it's easy to carry (have a high win rate). Has nothing to do with the prevalence of the class throughout all tiers during the season, purely the number of spots they take up on the leaderboards/upper tiers at the end when people are try-harding. Players aren't exactly swapping to Ele in the last weekend to fight for those top spots, they choose Mesmer/Mirage for a reason.

The problem is that Anet is looking at this and thinking, "Oh well that's fine, all of the low gold/silver mesmer's drag the overall win rate down to slightly below 50%. It must not be atrociously balanced after all." When it reality, the overall win rate for a class doesn't matter at all. It doesn't suggest that the class isn't overpowered, only that it's ever so slightly more complex to play.

Balance should be based around how a class is played by the upper 10%, because they're the only ones playing it to its full potential. Taking into account the bottom 90% just leaves us with an unbalanced outliers (Mirage) at the upper ends. Low level players don't need classes balanced around them, they need to practice and improve their personal skills so they can pull out more of a class's potential. A bit repetitive, but hopefully this post helps make the point clear.

@MarkKing.8094 said:I took a hiatus of about a year to play other games and take care of life in general and I came back to the state of pvp that it is now and I'm extremely disappointed. Pvp has always been my favorite thing about gw2 it's what kept me coming back and I always loved playing many different builds and theorycrafting strong builds for my classes(warrior,ranger). While I knew there's meta builds I got great joy making my own builds to compete even if they weren't the best. While the game and pvp have matured over the years I have noticed more and more there's less diversity in competitive traits to choose from or weapon combinations you can use. The best is the best and that's it which I find rather boring and annoying having to play druid or spellbreaker all day every day. I also found some classes to be straight up broken in pvp with no counterplay: enter the mesmer mirage. I know they are the dueling class and the kings of 1v1 but even so it's incredibly frustrating to see them be constantly immune to everything with the highest burst to boot. Never have I seen any class be so broken that nothing I have can stand a chance. Stealth deadeye and scourge is strong too but I can at least stand a chance If I build/spec correctly but not against mirage. It saddens me to say that I will be largely ignoring gw2 other than to log on and check the patch notes to see if mesmers been nerfed. I love this games pvp but it's just gotten more pigeon holed as it went from first release to HOT and now it's practically one competitive spec per class in POF. Mesmers just the nail in the coffin I'll be on Fallout 4 and Monster hunter world until something hopefully eventually changes. I just hope others don't feel this way and get pushed into WoW pvp shudder.

One of your classes, spellbreaker, is actually the best 1v1 class but yes mesmer is still stupidly broken and easy to win with.

They won't change this anytime soon. The changes they made didn't effect the main problems mesmer has and I don't think they understand what they are.

I see the best mesmer players that like to main power go condi when they see a good player on the other team for an easier win on streams i.e pink shorts etc.

It's op and will be for a long time.

@NaturallyNick.4058 :

We're talking about how Mesmer is incredibly overtuned and needs significant nerfs.Based on what ? some personnal feeling like op and 80% of nerf post ?

Not about which class is played in the highest number of gamesWhy not ?Personnals feelings are better indicator or ghost player who only play 4 days/seasons ?

it's easy to carry (have a high win rate). Has nothing to do with the prevalence of the class throughout all tiers during the season, purely the number of spots they take up on the leaderboards/upper tiers at the end when people are try-harding. Players aren't exactly swapping to Ele in the last weekend to fight for those top spots, they choose Mesmer/Mirage for a reason.Condidering mesmers, we are talking about ~10 players who popped. You use this argument like if the top 250 was 50% mesmers.Players chooses other class for good reasons too.

Balance should be based around how a class is played by the upper 10%, because they're the only ones playing it to its full potential.And it's really easy to verify by looking at 10% upper's streams.So what's wrong with that :(changed axe soulbeasts to melee because some mes use evasive mirror thoses days.)@viquing.8254 said:

Today duels overview for me :Guards/FB and melee boon soulbeasts hard counter mirages.Weavers/druids do long fights vs mirages but win the point at the end.SB do never-ending fights vs mirages.Necros, Holo lose vs mes but often decap the point before dying.Thieves, revenants have very variables match up vs mes depending of players.

Not to say that near every other profession is better at teamfight.What did you want as better balance ?

A bit repetitive, but hopefully this post helps make the point clear, yes.

Condi mirage is a bit strong, but that is because the nature of condi and it's output.

In total mirage including condi isn't to difficult to dodge just wait a few seconds for the engagement, and stow weapons on blocks.

@viquing.8254 said:Based on what ? some personnal feeling like op and 80% of nerf post ?

Based on personal experiences and frustrating fights lost by several. Play as another class and you can experience what Mesmers can dish out when in capable hands. We don't need a class to be this capable of carrying a game. List of broken stuff is way too long.

@Solori.6025 said:

....So the skill you can CC a mirage out of because it has a long telegraphed animation with no evade frames can be side stepped unless they port on top of you and does torment which as has been mathed out countless times does less damage than bleeds and does much less damage in burst than confusion and burning. Not to mention less safe than Axes of symmetry that at least gives you some leeway because it is the only reliable non stealth detarget skill in the mirage kit....that skill right..

The design of mirage cloak and em makes mirage effectively immune to CC.

You are only going to CC a mirage and have it count if the player behind it makes a very serious mistake.

@"NaturallyNick.4058" said:

The problem is that Anet is looking at this and thinking, "Oh well that's fine, all of the low gold/silver mesmer's drag the overall win rate down to slightly below 50%. It must not be atrociously balanced after all." When it reality, the overall win rate for a class doesn't matter at all. It doesn't suggest that the class isn't overpowered, only that it's ever so slightly more complex to play.

I suspect this is part of the problem as well. I recall Anet specifically using winrates to defend certain decisions before, and it's a bad method as it doesn't account for individual player skill. Mesmer is a class that requires some basic knowledge of when-to-dodge and has a unique defensive rotation in comparison to the other classes. However once said rotation is understood by the player, the class becomes completely busted. The result is that mirage won't make a silver player look gold, but absolutely will make a platinum player look legendary. Until the balance team finally realizes this fact, the spec will likely remain broken.