Considering making a mesmer.

[Clockworks.3825]

Hello.I recently retured to gw2 and wanted to finally try out mesmer.But I read about all the bugs and its giving me pause.Is mesmer, fun or even good at All anymore?

Currently im doing solo pve, and I might move on to pvp later.

Thank you

[viquing.8254]

Every class can play solo open field PvE.Mesmer can probably be good at low PvP where people get lost in clones, spam under confusion and burst during temporisation but you will never have high performances with it compared to other class.The best mesmer in this game swap to other class.

[Leonidrex.5649]

is it fun? subjective, but I find it to be the most fun class for me.Is it buggy? yes, one of the worst bugs that happen ALOT, on skills that you actually rely to do their job sometimes they just dont.Is it viable? in open world? yes.In dungeons? yes.In fractals? its viable but others are better.In raids? its very good as support, ok/good depending on niche as dps.In wvw? useless.In pvp? the worst along with warrior.Hope that gives you a clearer picture.Oh and when you choose to play mesmer dont delude yourself that anything gets fixed. What you see is what you get and your best hope is that it doesnt get worse.its not guardian that can randomly eat buff out of nowhere, things wont get fixed, it is how it is and it will be how it is.

[Yoci.2481]

The good thing about Mesmer is you can come to the forum and complain about the sorry state of your class and not feel dirty because in this case you are actually right.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Yoci.2481 said:The good thing about Mesmer is you can come to the forum and complain about the sorry state of your class and not feel dirty because in this case you are actually right.

but the bad thing is that haters gonna hate :D

[Kylden Ar.3724]

@Yoci.2481 said:The good thing about Mesmer is you can come to the forum and complain about the sorry state of your class and not feel dirty because in this case you are actually right.

Steps to playing Mesmer --

Step 1) Look at this board and the past patches for how much Mesmer has been gutted since PoF.

Step 2) Delete your Mesmer.

Step 3) Play literally any other class for 140%+ the DPS at one half the effort.

[Merrex.5384]

Most of the complaints come from people who remember how good things used to be And have had to endure maybe patches where the class was constantly over and over again hit with the Nerf Bat. Those new to the Game / Class probably have no idea what fun it was like in the Mesmer hay days. Go watch some videos or roaming Mesmer's in WvW destroy other players and you will see why it was Nerfed. The problem is WvW and PvP is only a part of the game.

[Ronald McDonald.8165]

I love playing my Mesmer. In solo PvE you can be an absolute monster, soloing Champions and a some Legendaries with the right builds.Great for dungeons and fractals.Contrary to what someone said above about raids, you can play as either Chrono or Mirage depending on the boss and be top DPS in most situations.

In WvW I have a blast. I play a very fast and aggressive condi Mirage that gets in does a fuck ton of damage, gets the stomp and gets out.

I really enjoy sPvP as well. Sure, mesmer is not the best class by any means there but you can still whoop ass and have a great time .

[Jables.4659]

I've been a mesmer main since shortly after launch back in 2012 and over the years I have put over 10k hours into the class. It is hands down my favorite profession in terms of the various playstyles that it has offered, but it currently has a lot of problems that you should be aware of before you decide to invest the time and effort into it.

On the Pve side of things I still use my mesmer for open world and story content. This is an area where mesmer is actually quite useful. Pve mirage is still very powerful. For farms that require you to tag a lot of mobs such as the Halloween labyrinth, mirage is a solid choice by making use of the greatsword ambush and the sigil that grants endurance upon killing an enemy, but shortbow/staff daredevil is better.

Prior to the repeated nerfs, I played boon support chrono and occasionally dps chrono in T4 fractals as well as CMs. Unfortunately, mesmer has been nerfed out of the fractal meta entirely. Firebrand and Renegade have taken the place of druid and chrono as supports. They are able to apply quickness and alacrity in a far more reliable manner than chrono. Since the fights in fractals are short and CM bosses have many quick phases, condition dps isnt used, so mirage is out. Chrono does have a powerful power dps spec, but it behaves in a way that is similar to condi dps in that it takes time to start ramping up damage (since it primarily comes from repeatedly summoning phantasms) and the build requires the slow condition to be maintained on enemies for it to truly shine. As a result, it is very common for fractal CM groups to refuse dps chronos. Currently, I play Alacrity Renegade or DPS Dragonhunter for daily fractals.

I havent personally taken part raids in quite some time, so others can be of more assistance here. As far as I know, chrono is still used in raids as tank, dps, and general boon support. Back when I was into raiding, mirage was frequently used on bosses such as Mathias for condition DPS, and I would be surprised if that isn't still the case since mirage is still very powerful in pve. Afaik, raids is the only coordinated group content where mesmer is still in the meta.

WvW is where I spend the vast majority of my playtime, and almost all of it is spent solo roaming or roaming in a small group. This was traditionally where mesmer shined. Unfortunately, both expansions brought about unhealthy mechanics with the new elite specs which has resulted in Anet messing with aspects of core mesmer as well as nerfing the elite specs in weird ways that don't actually address the problems. For chronomancer, the chronophantasma trait allowed mesmer to throw out phantasms and kite while their AI did the killing for them. This same behavior was mirrored by condition mirage thanks to the trait Infinite Horizon which allows mirage to create clones and focus on kiting/surviving instead of actively engaging their enemy. Both elite specs have been heavily nerfed as a result and its left mesmer in a place where core is absolutely stronger than either elite spec for solo roaming, but still less powerful than other small scale/roaming builds of other professions. Bare in mind, mesmer is still very much viable when it comes to solo roaming, but only because the skill disparity in GW2 is so large. To give you an example of this, I spent a few hours solo roaming in alpine borderland this morning and ended up in a 1v5 at north camp. I killed them all repeatedly as they graveyard rushed from their spawn until eventually they all gave up. Afterwards, I spent some time dueling with a very skilled holosmith, and he handed me my ass on a platter. It felt as though mesmer literally does not have the tools it would need to win that match up. This is a big part of why Anet struggles so much with balance. Here we have a singleNade-Holo who can easily beat my mesmer in a duel, and five other players that I can have my way with singlehandedly (the group consisted of a daredevil, power mirage, tempest, druid, and scrapper). Im sure that these five players left the experience believing that core Hybrid mesmer is stupidly overpowered, but a skilled/experienced player knows that mesmer is one of if not the weakest class in the game.

Once upon a time, mesmer was actually somewhat useful as condition DPS in zergs by making use of a trait that applied confusion when enemies walked into glamor aoe. That trait is gone and mesmer as dps is ancient history. As it currently stands, a zerg might use one mesmer for focus pulls and portal/veil, but it does not have a strong standing in the meta. Illusions are not suited to large scale fighting as they die very quickly in this environment. To make a long story short, mesmers mechanics just do not mesh well with large scale pvp, and other supports are better at applying boons than chronomancer.

When it comes to spvp, the same sentiment from the small scale wvw section can be applied. Skill disparity is huge, so mesmer can absolutely excell in the lower tiers, but skilled players will walk all over it. Portal is something that has traditionally made mesmer valuable as it allows mesmer to instantly hop between two capture points, but anet cut portals duration in half which has left it severely lacking. Some success with mesmer has been seen playing hybrid/condi mirage with the current balance, but its undoubtedly outclassed by other professions.

TLDR: mesmer is a fun and unique class that lacks a strong position in almost every meta in the game. With the exception of raids, there is always a stronger class choice for the content you are playing. It is a viable class in a lot of gw2 content, but viable != optimal.

[SunTzu.4513]

Ty @Jables.4659 for your insight as long time player. Like op i'm also coming back from a longer break of the game and thinking about from switching from my necro main to mesmer. The first read of the mesmer class forum give me some strange flashbacks, i first thought ''damm this reads like the necro class forum a year ago''. But i think i will move on from my necro to mesmer. It's just so much fun and feels really unique, never played a class like mesmer in my mmo career.