S/D Core vs Condi Mesmer

Does someone have tipps as how to fight against a condi mesmer? I just don't know what to do, like at all. I can't move cause torment and can't use skills cause confusion. On top of that the condi burst is kinda op for it to be ''condi''. My one cleansing signet helps a bit but i find it not enough against the flood on condis he has. I usually get him down to 25-50% before he kills me which is pretty frustrating and atm I just run away from them because it's a sure death for me. I'm only talking about conquest (I'm gold 1-2 atm).

The best advice I can give you is to never engage a condition mirage head on. Try to outnumber them with an ally so you can easily kill them because that's what thief does best, moving around maps quickly and outnumbering fights.

However, if you're asking for advice on how to fight a condition mirage in a 1v1, the first thing you should do is try to avoid their burst. They'll usually do their ballerina spin onto you, blind you, confuse you, torment you etc. Kite the mirage until their burst ends. Landing your steal is definitely a must. If you want to hard counter a mesmer, especially a cheese condition mirage one, make sure you land your steal. This can be quite difficult considering that mirage has Mirage Cloak (same thing as dodging, only it doesn't use the dodge animation, making it difficult to tell when their dodge has ended), but you can use steal once you see the Mirage Cloak icon expire from below their health bar.

Landing steal on a mesmer gives you Consume Plasma, by far the strongest stolen skill because it gives you every single boon in the game and if that wasn't enough, using the Improvisation trait from Deadly Arts allows you to use Consume Plasma twice. I usually try to land my steal after I teleport in with Infiltrator's Strike, teleport out with Infiltrator's Return, use Consume Plasma and teleport in again with Infiltrator's Strike and just keep auto attacking or using Larcenous Strike to steal their boons.

Lastly, this may not be the most popular opinion, but I prefer using the Trickster trait in Trickery over Bountiful Theft. I know almost every single thief main is going to reply to my comment saying how wrong I am and that Bountiful Theft is so much better, but I always preferred Trickster because not only does it give you condition cleanse with Roll for Initiative and Withdraw, but it also reduces their cooldowns, making Withdraw an even better skill: instant cast, condition cleanse and 14 seconds cooldown instead of 18 seconds. What more could you possibly ask?

Hopefully these tips helped you out, because quite frankly it can be very frustrating fighting a condition mirage, a soulbeast or any broken build as a s/d thief or a d/p daredevil, no thanks to ArenaNet constantly nerfing thief over and over again for the past 2 years. They'll nerf thief no problem, but nerfing condition mirage or soulbeast is just too much for them apparently.

sindrener (top thief eu) can beat misha (top mes eu) as an s/d teef. I suggest watching some of his vids.

First of all you CAN NOT SPAM THE CRAP OUT OF HIMI personally deal with mesmers as followsI am a condi trapper so if i see a mesmer lets say on far at the begining of a match he is alone i am alone etc i do this1 steal to him2 lay needle trap usually it deals dmg to him right away also it triggers his passive traits and abbilities he has3 QUICKLY (no rly you should be fast about it) eat ectoplasm !!!! I run imrpovisation so i get 2 ectos keep it in mind4 i wait for him to blow first clones, since i am under ecto it blocks the main dmg and only drops conditions PUT TARGET ON A REAL MESMER if he stealths do it again when he appears this is very important so you know which one you need to focus on later5 use healing i go invigorating vigor + deadly trapper so i lay another trap under me it cleans some condi and restores some life mesmer evn can step no a trap if he is not precaucious (he deals with a teef he usually isnt :D )6 Attack 3 on sb to avoid anything he might drop on me if he hits me with another set of condition use sigil of Agility to clean condis and gain 50 endurance7 dodge to him and poison field on the point8 dodge to him again and poison + attack 3 on sb for evade9 by this time the second wave of clones should be already blown and your steal partially recharged eat second ecto10 drop poison as close as to him as i can and elite Dagger storm at him INSIDE the poison field try to hush him across it if you can ALSO dmg him with the spin of the DS follow him around if your steal is recharged steal to him durring DS you might even get another set of ectoplasm if he wont block or evade it out11 there is possibility he is dead by now if he doesnt run some vitality build (i did it couple a times so i 10/10 dont lie) if he is still alive and still within the point dodge to him and put one trap as much accros the point as you can12 eat ecto again13 poison fields on point combined with attack 3 on sb for dodges maybe some interupts it helps if interupt as many of the skills of his and run that trait which gives enemy tornment on interupt also Distracting daggers are nice just beware you cancel cast by dodging so time it14 if he is still not daed he clearly runs around the ponint to recharge skills so stay on point to cap it as much as you can15 if he charges you with another wave of clones and your block from ecto is alraedy down dodge away from him so he or his clones follow you and step on trap16 dodge to him eat ecto and plant trap from healing again use poison on point17 by this time if he is not dead 2 options usually occur1st mesmer runs away or is dead from condisand B someone from mid (according to my statistics ranger or guardian) arrived and together with the mesmer they killed you :)this is how I DEAL WITH MESMERSit requires specific buld which i am playing for a very long and it demands practicei just put it here so you can see how approximately you should deal with mesmerdue to confusion you can not attack him constantlythat is what the mesmer counter play for thief is they have tons of conf and tornment because they know thief is gonna chase them and spam on them which will kill him in the process and that is why you need to push him out from the point with fields you got maybe even caltrops would be nice here i dont use it personally but anything that makes mesmer move away from you is good for you so you can cap that point you are not aiming for the kill right awayif you get him under 40 health you can aim for kill if you think you could do itbut the main point of fighting mesmer on point is to get him away from the point so you can cap it as much as you can so he has to wait there longer if he kills you which would be fault of ur build or timing or the fact someone came to help himmesmers can be killed if you time your condi cleneses and make them go where you want them to go + some interupts with tornment are always nicei never fought mesmer on power build so i cant tell but this works for me lets say 6/10 times which is imo nice

@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

theres the vid. I could be completely wrong lol I have no idea if that's misha or not, plus the video is 3 months old so there could be nerfs/changes that makes this matchup unfavorable to teef.

Yeah thx, I already watch his stream if he's online but he's way beyond my current skillset^^

Learn the icons for distortion and mirage cloak.land steal the stolen skill gives resistance and protection space them out if u do it right u have the boons up until steal is off cd and rinse repeat. If the Mesmer stealths start spamming the various dodges till they reappear or simply shadow step behind their last location.mesmers can only cloak twice and then one distortion for half a second if they don’t have any clones out and most will use it if u just land the immobilize from 2 on them so just blow the dodges then steal and at that point train them down with the resistance if they’re particularly spammy or u could t get the job done back off and use short bow to stall till next steal or utilities return and try again.fyi short bow cucks mirages that like to have mass clones with 1 and 2.if u miss a steal you have to back off till it’s back up and stall basically if u land steal and blow their dodges u can’t really lose the matchup

It depends heavily on whether or not this is PvP or WvW.

PvP you can punish them by watching their icons and using ectoplasm (with Improvisation) to engage safely with its resistance. Disengage, and repeat, slowly whittling it down through its heals. You need to chain cleanses after their bomb so you don't die, and then try to match their tempo and bait them to play overly-aggressive with ports. Granted, odds are other enemies may be around, and you don't have the resources to 1v2 because it's a tough matchup.

WvW, SA Stealth DE cheese is about the only way to win be honest. They have higher dodge uptime than you do thanks to might-on-dodge food (which you can't benefit from if you're in Acro since you hit the hard cap on endurance regen at 100% with Vigor) and MC's extended dodge duration, and without abusing LoS can generally beat your open-field landspeed thanks to mesmer's MH sword ambush skill being spammable.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

WvW, SA Stealth DE cheese is about the only way to win be honest. They have higher dodge uptime than you do thanks to might-on-dodge food (which you can't benefit from if you're in Acro since you hit the hard cap on endurance regen at 100% with Vigor) and MC's extended dodge duration, and without abusing LoS can generally beat your open-field landspeed thanks to mesmer's MH sword ambush skill being spammable.

I have some success using S/P acro deadeye vs condi mirage in WvW, with the extra evade frames plus CC to force them to burn dodges when they may not want to. They have high mobility but their burst has a limited range, so you can juke that if you're careful, and you have to keep your health high and be really proactive about your cleanses. Don't be afraid to stealth and OOC if you need a reset. I play tankier than most so I can afford to run pain response over instant reflexes, that helps a lot. Antitoxin runes are also a very good option, making death's retreat and sword port remove two condis each use.

It largely depends on the mirage and their skill at that point, bad/glassy ones will die quick under sustained pressure but good ones can be a problem. You're not wrong tho, SA DE is definitely the easier option haha.

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

WvW, SA Stealth DE cheese is about the only way to win be honest. They have higher dodge uptime than you do thanks to might-on-dodge food (which you can't benefit from if you're in Acro since you hit the hard cap on endurance regen at 100% with Vigor) and MC's extended dodge duration, and without abusing LoS can generally beat your open-field landspeed thanks to mesmer's MH sword ambush skill being spammable.

While true, and I haven't played with the new runes and sigils having basically quit the game to really test in-depth, my experience was the better mirages tend to beat S/D by abusing MH sword ambush for landspeed and just retreating when they get low. S/D DE is potent, but only if the foe agrees to stay fighting toe-to-toe, since the DE's melee engage options are pretty poor.

Here is my recent video.

Have a look mate! ;D

@"Lociaz.4027" said:Here is my recent video.

Have a look mate! ;D

Has the recent vault->steal changes made any difference to your playstyle?

@DemonSeed.3528 said:

@"Lociaz.4027" said:Here is my recent video.

Have a look mate! ;D

Not at all, it was a small bug only I'm still playing as normal.

The vault steal was rarely to land because you needed to steal at end of the vault.