Why Mesmer is a joke

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

32 minutes ago, bethekey.8314 said:

Sorry, but I've watched Valhor's stealth + blind spam build farm many people, 1v1/2, on side nodes. Easy to play and great results against the majority of the population.

And it got smokescreen and shadow arts nerfed aggressively before it became meta defining. It -was- effective but not so prominently that it shaped the meta. You can only name one person that was annoyingly effective with it. 

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[bethekey.8314]

1 hour ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

And it got smokescreen and shadow arts nerfed aggressively before it became meta defining. It -was- effective but not so prominently that it shaped the meta. You can only name one person that was annoyingly effective with it. 

Didn't realize # of names was the standard of how effective a build was or not. Not your best argument.

While Anet nerfs can be off-target, a build drawing them is usually evidence of strength. Supports my argument. I recall the build existing for multiple seasons.

Not really sure why everyone is harping so much on the abstract "meta". You understand there are so little theory crafters, build makers etc left in PvP that it's entirely possible, likely even, that the "best" build isn't even played much? That it takes time and many people playing for a "meta" to develop and stabilize? You're so caught up in labels you can't judge builds for what they are lol.

The build is degenerate, has broken mechanics, and should be changed for the fun of the game. Simple as that.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

59 minutes ago, bethekey.8314 said:

Didn't realize # of names was the standard of how effective a build was or not. Not your best argument.

# of players using it is important, yes. Not the standard, but if you're basing a build's effectiveness off of the performance of one person I would say you're the one with the shaky argument. 

That aside, I never argued that the build wasn't good at sidenoding.  I argued that it wasn't meta, as in the most effective way to play thief in the conquest scene. 

It wasn't. While the build does perform well at 1v1/sidenoding, Conquest isn't just that; the fact it had lower mobility than other effective thief builds at hat time meant that playing it in conquest required specific team comps (Otherwise, the high mobility thief on the opposing team would undo your work/shut you down by being faster than you.)

One person playing the build effectively enough to get notable reference does not make it the most effective way to play. Meta is not synonymous by definition with degenerate or broken, though often those things overlap.

Despite that, the build got nerfed anyway because it -was- very effective for 1v1s. 

59 minutes ago, bethekey.8314 said:

The build is degenerate, has broken mechanics, and should be changed for the fun of the game. Simple as that.

It -was- changed. It's gotten several nerfs since then. 

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Not really sure why everyone is harping so much on the abstract "meta". You understand there are so little theory crafters, build makers etc left in PvP that it's entirely possible, likely even, that the "best" build isn't even played much? That it takes time and many people playing for a "meta" to develop and stabilize? 

Correct, but all I argued was that Pistol Pistol blindspam did not have enough presence to be considered as the most effective way to play thief, much less the most effective way to sidenode in conquest. That is objectively correct.  If you don't like the build or find it personally objectionable/worth nerfing solely because of how Valhor plays it, then fine, but that's another topic entirely.

 

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Ixl Super Eu Ixl.3259]

I'm the mesmer in the video. The concept of gaining blades on block, the new utility that stocks blades, and another every 10 seconds ooc made deceptive evasion pointless and freed up new options to be annoying. My build (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiwAs+ZlJwUZJsLGKeOXvxKA-zZoOjMVB9KFc8AA) is meant mostly for unranked fun where winning isn't exactly the biggest goal. In unranked I just want a build that can post up 0 deaths each game so coordinated teams can't take advantage of me when my team is subpar. This guy flamed my build for "being hard to kill" among other nonsense in a casual game where not only does winning not matter as much but also a game where he was winning and farming my teammates. So after a few burst attempts on me you could see him go from "oh boy I love killing scrubs" to "wow this spec is so broken" without even contemplating that he may just be facing a mesmer with 30k+ games just enjoying meme mode in unranked. Also this clip only shows him typing and not all the parts where he actually tries and takes my health down a few times, so whatever point he is trying to make isn't even honest to the audience. This is just another attempt by someone to drag down a specialization they don't fully understand because it is too hard for them to personally deal with. 

[bethekey.8314]

4 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

# of players using it is important, yes. Not the standard, but if you're basing a build's effectiveness off of the performance of one person I would say you're the one with the shaky argument. 

Not only do I not care amount most peoples names, neither you nor I know the number of people playing a given build at any given moment. Use arguments that you can actually back up. That was the point.

4 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

It -was- changed. It's gotten several nerfs since then. 

I'd be curious to see these listed out, to compare to the huge buff that was Distortion.

4 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Correct, but all I argued was that Pistol Pistol blindspam did not have enough presence to be considered as the most effective way to play thief, much less the most effective way to sidenode in conquest. That is objectively correct.

Considered, being the key word here. Subjective.

[bethekey.8314]

3 hours ago, Ixl Super Eu Ixl.3259 said:

I'm the mesmer in the video.

I hover over the account name in the beginning of the video, and it's not yours. You might be, but use the right account if you're going to claim something.

3 hours ago, Ixl Super Eu Ixl.3259 said:

so whatever point he is trying to make isn't even honest to the audience.

Are you disagreeing the stealth/aegis/block/invuln count in the video? Happy to update if I made an error.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

1 hour ago, bethekey.8314 said:

I'd be curious to see these listed out, to compare to the huge buff that was Distortion.

 

Was this directed at virt? If so I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about something else. My mistake.

 

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Not only do I not care amount most peoples names, neither you nor I know the number of people playing a given build at any given moment. Use arguments that you can actually back up. That was the point.

?
My argument was literally that Pistol Pistol thief  was not in the meta roster for sidenode duelist. I don't know what you're asking for here. I never made any claim as to how effective the build was when making that statement, only that it did not at any point shape the meta, and had nerfs leveled at it before it could do so. It wasn't frequently played enough in conquest to be of significant note for reasons mentioned before. 

 

Quote

Considered, being the key word here. Subjective.

 

 :J 

I mean

If it ain't game-changing, it ain't game changing. Unless it's a game breaking bug, I'd reason you have to see it often to consider it significant. 

 

We argue about thief more later sorry for derailing

Edited December 7, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Nezekan.2671]

Virtuoso can get fairly immortal, but this is not a new thing in pvp. Virtuoso cannot kill anything that's also a duelist. For example Catalyst versus Virtuoso is a never ending battle. It's pretty much what Virtuoso can do right now. Because you certainly don't have the damage to compete with DPS builds, except a niche confusion spam build that can get countered pretty easily if people are paying attention. Just don't act for a few seconds after being hit by their F2 and the entire build is a bust.

If you are asking for a nerf to Virtuoso's defense, then it's damage must be buffed to compensate. And not just the damage, but how awkward it is to deal damage with it. Your shatters have animations, you must face your target, they are projectiles and they have travel time. It is literally the worst kind of ability in pvp as it has every weakness imaginable.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Nezekan.2671

[bethekey.8314]

1 hour ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

If you are asking for a nerf to Virtuoso's defense, then it's damage must be buffed to compensate.

Maybe, but nerfs aren't always quid pro quo.

 

1 hour ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

And not just the damage, but how awkward it is to deal damage with it. Your shatters have animations, you must face your target, they are projectiles and they have travel time. It is literally the worst kind of ability in pvp as it has every weakness imaginable.

You have no idea how spoiled this sounds lol. I have to...face? the right direction? Projectiles?? Non instant ability? On behalf of every rifle, pistol, and bow user I say, "Welcome to the real world".

[Nezekan.2671]

1 hour ago, bethekey.8314 said:

Maybe, but nerfs aren't always quid pro quo.

 

You have no idea how spoiled this sounds lol. I have to...face? the right direction? Projectiles?? Non instant ability? On behalf of every rifle, pistol, and bow user I say, "Welcome to the real world".

Ah yes, the real world of Guardians and Necros not having any of these problems and dominating for god knows how long? Rangers completely winning any ranged engagement ever? Heck, even their core class is better than some "elite" specs in pvp. Or do you want to talk about how Mech just unleashes their mech on you and they deal 80% of the damage? What is this real world you are talking about?

[Terrorhuz.4695]

15 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

That being said, It's really strange that we're pretending like most mes specs didn't hard counter war for like 10 years straight (and still continues to do so for the power variants that -do- choose to run melee.)

No, it doesn't. Warrior is hardcountered if you facetank kittening everything and then get your mending rupted. All you have to do is LoS your one healing skill and from there with spellbreaker you win by default; there is no way a mesmer can survive any engagement longer than a minute against that.

Clones, phantasms and shatters will proc your full counter 100% of the time, magebane tether will deny half of the skills from a mesmer (no blink, no stealth), you can disengage at will at any given time because mesmer WILL NOT have the tools to chase you and the cleanse is great. "HURR DURR I'M SO HARD COUNTERED BY CONDITIONS", a spellbreaker on just the healing skill has more cleanse than all of my toolset combined even when accounting for perma improved alacrity. Then there's significant cleansing on weapon swap thanks to fast hands, then every movement skill cleanses immob, then there's stab every time you land a CC (mesmer may dodge but you can still land your full counter\stomp on clones) which kind of works against half of mesmer defenses relying on well-timed interrupts, then there's dodge giving resistance (denying blind, the other half of mesmer's defensives) on class that has more dodges than a kittening daredevil thanks to MMR, then there's cleanse on a burst skill when you can use 2 burst skills in a row thanks to FC so at this point I genuinely have no kittening clue how could ever possibly die as a warrior against mesmer other than just going AFK on the kittening keyboard.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Terrorhuz.4695

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

40 minutes ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

No, it doesn't. Warrior is hardcountered if you facetank kittening everything and then get your mending rupted. All you have to do is LoS your one healing skill and from there with spellbreaker you win by default; there is no way a mesmer can survive any engagement longer than a minute against that.

Clones, phantasms and shatters will proc your full counter 100% of the time, magebane tether will deny half of the skills from a mesmer (no blink, no stealth), you can disengage at will at any given time because mesmer WILL NOT have the tools to chase you and the cleanse is great. "HURR DURR I'M SO HARD COUNTERED BY CONDITIONS", a spellbreaker on just the healing skill has more cleanse than all of my toolset combined even when accounting for perma improved alacrity. Then there's significant cleansing on weapon swap thanks to fast hands, then every movement skill cleanses immob, then there's stab every time you land a CC (mesmer may dodge but you can still land your full counter\stomp on clones) which kind of works against half of mesmer defenses relying on well-timed interrupts, then there's dodge giving resistance (denying blind, the other half of mesmer's defensives) on class that has more dodges than a kittening daredevil thanks to MMR, then there's cleanse on a burst skill when you can use 2 burst skills in a row thanks to FC so at this point I genuinely have no kittening clue how could ever possibly die as a warrior against mesmer other than just going AFK on the kittening keyboard.

Y'know what you win.  I know we are not arguing the same situation here. I'm sure spellbreaker frustrates some mesmer builds due to the above, and I am also sure that there are condition mesmer builds right now that can fight it. Perhaps my wording was stronger than it needed to be, but only marginally.

Quote

That being said, It's really strange that we're pretending like most mes specs didn't hard counter war for like 10 years straight (and still continue to do so for most of the power variants that -do- choose to run melee.)

 

Edited December 7, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

18 hours ago, bethekey.8314 said:

@agrippastrilemma.8741

If neither of you can understand how a pure melee warrior can be kited or forced off point, and subsequently decapped, I wouldn't go around calling others delusional.

You can play LB on spb now (but dagger/gs power works very well too). All I can say is go watch the latest monthly. Not really worth responding to any of the other 8 comments you made since my last comment (so much for complaining about me spamming).

Edited December 7, 2022 by agrippastrilemma.8741

[Mik.3401]

On 12/3/2022 at 9:10 AM, bethekey.8314 said:

 

I not only don't list every defensive ability, but this also doesn't account for how long they last. Torch stealth lasts for multiple seconds, for example, rendering the use of other blocks/dodges etc pointless.

Regardless of duration, a new defensive every 2.5 seconds.

Tell me again why Mesmer requires skill. I could program a bot to do a set rotation better than this.

 

This is virtuoso aka the dumbest cr@p this game has ever put out. Similar abomination to condi inspi mirage.

In my mind you should say condi/bunker mesmer. Power mesmer requires lots of skill. 

But little people will play it because anet decided they want OnE EAsY buiLD foR eAch ClaSs

[Terrorhuz.4695]

3 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

That being said, It's really strange that we're pretending like most mes specs didn't hard counter war for like 10 years straight (and still continue to do so for most of the power variants that -do- choose to run melee.)

 

It's false. More than half of the tools I mentioned (insane cleanse with mending and weapon swap, magebane tether, MMR providing a metric kittenton of dodges, immunity to immobilize) have been there for years and they're not related to the last patches. The only recent meaningful change was adding stab and resistance to the toolset, which basically remove the last defensives a mesmer could get against a warrior; you can't even blind or rupt anymore, which is fine, but now I want to know how the kitten am I even supposed to kill a class that on berserker amulet gets to facetank more than I could on paladin.

IDK about warrior as a whole, but as soon as spellbreaker came out, it stopped being hardcountered by mesmer and that is a fact. The only problem stems from warrior mains refuse to adapt to the one and only win condition a mesmer can get, which is (was) interrupting mending with power block; AND THAT IS IT. You can deny this single win condition by literally casting your one and only meaningful skill behind cover, but for whatever reason even THAT is hard to do, despite being able to facetank literally everything else thanks to some honestly bloated list of defensives. How much do you have to kittening facetank and how many rupts (with both utilities and traits specifically geared towards punishing a single mistake once every 16s) do you have to eat before a mesmer is finally allowed to get a kill? I'm on zerk amulet, I eat one dagger burst I lose a third of my HP bar; dazes won't work, blind won't work, blocks won't work, just land your kittening skills it can't be that hard.

Then again, power block has been there for 8 years and to this very day warriors eat every kittening interrupt (except now it doesn't matter anymore, thanks stab), it's a L2P issue and I refuse to elaborate further; if you lose, you deserve to lose. Any warrior with a second brain cell will not get the healing skill rupted, will proc full counter for free every time and the mesmer will not have the tools to get through that.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Terrorhuz.4695

[bethekey.8314]

7 hours ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

Guardians and Necros not having any of these problems and dominating for god knows how long?

Oh I'm with you on that. Other classes exist tho, you know?

 

7 hours ago, Nezekan.2671 said:

Or do you want to talk about how Mech just unleashes their mech on you and they deal 80% of the damage?

 

[bethekey.8314]

4 hours ago, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

Not really worth responding to any of the other 8 comments you made since my last comment (so much for complaining about me spamming).

I'm...the OP, lol.

[bethekey.8314]

3 hours ago, Mik.3401 said:

In my mind you should say condi/bunker mesmer. Power mesmer requires lots of skill. 

Yeah, this is primarily about condi/bunker Virtuoso, to be specific.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Nerf explosives and holo first

[Jojo.6590]

On 12/5/2022 at 10:20 AM, apharma.3741 said:

From something I said back in October:

"From a very experienced player, be VERY careful about buffing core, the devs have not fixed many of the issues that made chrono and mirage brain dead easy to play too strong. Both these classes are a couple of ill thought out buffs away from being the next troll spec."

I said adding distortion to Virtuoso (in another topic) wasn't what was needed and was a bad idea and here we are. What Virtuoso needed was to be able to use shatters without facing the target, keep the cast and the tells and a complete dagger rework. Plus would be nice if the sword leap return was 900 (the 1st leap is about 700) too but that's where I would go. 

Other issues with mesmer are (as with other classes) instant reset type skills, Signet of Illusions is too strong while passive and trait are kinda poo and continuum split is like a bomb just waiting to go off if they suddenly decide to make a set of skills really good on core and is a major reason that mesmer utilities are niche strong instead of generally good like you might find on necro, engineer, revenant etc. Before someone says something about that stop and really think, imagine on any class if you could use your entire skill bar (or strongest 5) twice in a row, now imagine how much weaker you'd need to make those skills to accommodate this.

On the flip side mesmer also has a lot of generally kinda bad skills, weapons and traits that either have always been bad or nerfed below the floor to never be used. They have possibly the worst well skills in the game (looking at all wells available to the class), no glamour trait, "clone" and "phantasm" utility types for inconsistency and generally half the utility skills just not worth taking or with poor synergy. Additionally mesmer should be excellent at boon removal but often can't really do that as effectively as other classes while needing more investment or praying to Lyssa that Arcane thievery hits and doesn't fire blanks.

Anyway enough of a rant, go play something that isn't the low skill bunker on mesmer and you'll see how janky the class is where this build is dumb and alternatives are just poo.

Well said, ty.

[Leonidrex.5649]

On 12/4/2022 at 11:46 PM, agrippastrilemma.8741 said:

What excuse? Such builds have never been meta (before someone says "old bunker chrono" notice that that was a support build).

decap builds were in the meta before, anyone members decap scrapper?
This virtuoso is exactly like decap scrapper used to be.
Only difference is virtuoso de-caps himself rather then the enemy.

[Leonidrex.5649]

Also its kind of funny seeing you complain in the chat rather then fight him properly and he cant kill you anyways 😄
 One wonders if you would do the same against actually good side noders 

[Leonidrex.5649]

video should be named 30k games mesmer vs mechanist with no hands on the keyboard 🤣

[bethekey.8314]

10 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

decap builds were in the meta before, anyone members decap scrapper?
This virtuoso is exactly like decap scrapper used to be.
Only difference is virtuoso de-caps himself rather then the enemy.

And that the scrapper actually had to interact with its enemy, playing around stab, blind, blocks etc.

10 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

Also its kind of funny seeing you complain in the chat rather then fight him properly and he cant kill you anyways 😄
 One wonders if you would do the same against actually good side noders 

Why yes, I am quite skilled, thank you. And no, I probably wouldn't type out against competent players playing non-degen builds because there's nothing to criticize.

Edited December 8, 2022 by bethekey.8314

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

On 12/7/2022 at 6:14 PM, bethekey.8314 said:

I'm...the OP, lol.

So? It is a thread about my main class, Mesmer, so it shouldn't be surprising if I have input on the topic. All my posts which you called "spam" were replies to Indvidual comments that contained inaccuracies or misconceptions which benefited from clarification or correction.

Edited December 9, 2022 by agrippastrilemma.8741