mesmer....hated....why?

I agree with noblepaladin.

It is true that mesmers need to adjust their skills from mission to mission, quest to quest, town to town, if needed.

That's why I believe mesmers are only good for people who are replaying the mission/quest in pve.

Getting familair with enemies' skill set, and their AI is the key to play mesmers successfully in PVE.
On the other hand, if you are not familair with those, it is possible the mesmer is totally useless.

I find it difficult, for me, a long time mesmer user, to play a mesmer very efficiently in some missions I play for the very first time when factions came out.

Even if I do research and knows what boss I will meet, what skills the enemies will use, I still need to fight them at least once to know their AI.

I do not think mesmers are 'hated'. They are just not trusted in general because of the requirement to play them well in PVE.

Mesmers require a lot of brain power to play. This is why the majority of the mesmer hate come from dumb wammos who just can't wrap their heads around anything other than healing breeze (aka godly heal button).

Pay no heed to the naysayers. I played through prophecies with my mesmer and it was by far the most fun I've had with the game, not to mention the quickest of my chars to finish the game by far.

I blame Riverdance.

Please please please.. DONT charge at the mesmer who is standing infront of you and has no intention of moving out of your way. You can be almost guranteed that the mesmer has clumsiness or ineptitude on him/her

Welcome to the quick death of any warrior who ventures near my illusion build.

Assassins are just.. well.. not enough energy to do any serious damage there, and the amount of enchants... gotta love them

quoted for truth.

anyone who hates mesmers have no clue of what there there for and of what they do

That has been repeated time and time again throughout the thread. IF they haven't gotten it by now then its because of complete ignorance.

Depends entirely on the warrior's skill bar and awareness. I honestly have no problem holding up my attacks 80% of the time by pressing S to back directly up to give my team time to remove ineptitude or clumbsiness. An enemy ineptitude mesmer certainly makes you watch your usage of frenzy a lot more than most teams. Having played a lot as an ineptitude mesmer, I honestly have no problem landing a disrupting chop on ineptitude.

Here's the trick if you know it's been about 16 seconds since they last used ineptitude -- bull's strike the mesmer to get a first knock and frenzy them. As soon as they get back up, shock the mesmer back onto the ground. Now that you have that player really pissed they'll be itching to cast ineptitude as soon as they get back off the ground since they see you're frenzied. Fire off disrupting chop and immediately switch from frenzy to rush and you'll get ineptitude interrupted and disabled for 20 seconds nearly every time. The only hard parts are getting the mesmer moving in the first place to get the first knockdown and knowing when to abandon the combo because the mesmer activated distortion.

No one likes a good mes, they are the anti-class. One skill bar (spread over 2 attributes) can counter every class out there. People don't like mesmers because they are hard to play, but when played well are very hard to beat. Mesmers are like the "different" unpopular kids or red-headed step children, just stay away from them and maybe they'll leave you alone

Or simple unwillingness to admit they're wrong and refusal to acknowledge the truth.

And, Divine Shadows, nice strat. I may have to give that a try next time I bother playing my warrior.

It's interesting how this sounds good on paper yet in practice just flat out wouldn't work... at least against me, or any other mesmer in an illusion based build with more than four skills on the skillbar.

Let's put it this way... if you see a mesmer and start charging towards him, and he does the /wave emote... that might be me.

Find another target.

Ah, just to share a thought with the other mezzies out there... I personally will take arcane echo on my skill bar in ABs, and run a Domination/Illusion blend (16 Illusion, 10 Fast cast, 10 or 11 Dom I think... ), which features, Clumsiness, Ineptitude, Ethereal Burden, Backfire and Diversion. The last slot varies... depends on the mood.

For Mssr. Warrior above here, EB to slow him down, and the chaos of battle will normally allow me to get Ineptitude echoed.

I have time to either watch you kill yourself, or run away and hunt down touchies. Touchies are fun when you sneak up on them with echoed Diversion. They rarely pay attention, next thing they're standing there drooling as they meet their untimely end.

Man, I hope I remembered that build right... I've been shuffling my skillbar so much lately. Last night did the Spear mission (big arsed Kraken) and ran a similar Dom/Illusion build heavy on the interrupts but still with Clumsiness and Ineptitude. Capped a nice interrupting elite before we hit the Kraken too. Ah, good times, good times... we got masters. Nice group, I thank them for taking me. I actually got booted from my first group, then the guy booting claimed that the mesmer left. Unfortunately for him, he said it on public chat.

But I digress. That happens sometimes...

omg you have no idea how many times i've done that to a wammo. If it's not ineptitude... it's distortion, IW and complicate with a /yawn to finish him/her off...ohh yeah^^

Someone mentioned Frenzy.... no matter how many times you say frenzy, you're just provoking the Mesmer to /dance^^.

The best warriors switch targets often to bypass prots or to place pressure on some other opponent depending on how the match is going. You're thinking too much about 1v1 situations which are so very rare in PvP.

Which just so happens to be one of the worst skills in the game. Massive energy cost for minimal effect. Way to e-deny yourself.

No energy management whatsoever. After you've blown your energy in the first 15 seconds of battle, I hope you enjoy standing around doing a whole lot of not much and generally looking like a dork while your team wonders why they are dying.

Domination/Illusion "blend" builds suck in general. There is this awesome line called inspiration. Learn to use it and you'll actually get to do something often enough to matter during PvP matches which includes the Alliance Battles you seem to enjoy.

Bah, not in ABs. Perhaps the best warriors don't go there, but it's relatively simple to lead one away from the pack thinking he's after easy prey.

[quote]
Which just so happens to be one of the worst skills in the game. (Arcane Echo) Massive energy cost for minimal effect. Way to e-deny yourself.
[]/quote]

Minimal effect? Complete shutdown of a touchies touch skills is hardly minimal. Dual Ineptitude on a Frenzied warrior is hardly minimal.

Speaking of illusion, you gave me the illusion you knew what you were talking about. Ethereal Burden plus regen in general provide enough energy to perform well in the skirmishes that occur in alliance battles. The time spent moving to the next skirmish makes up the difference. I'm well aware of the Inspiration line and normally go Illusion/Inspiration... but for ABs, Dom/Illusion provides more balance and just enough management to handle the myriad classes you'll come across and the skirmish style battles you'll be in normally.

noblepaladin posted some great points, so I'll just build on them.

As far as PvE goes, mesmers have always had the potential to be effective. Unfortunately it seems that most players didn't catch on until after the dominate "cookie-cutter" PvE builds and classes took hold.

To all the non-believers and self-doubting PvE mesmers, here's a mesmer movie, which was created well over a year ago, by one of the most respected guilds in the community... War Machine [WM]:



Direct Video Link: http://killerx.linkfile.net/movie/mesmer_1.wmv
Webpage Link: http://warmachine.co.kr/bbs/zboard.p...desc=asc&no=32
Notes: The movie was originally posted on 2005-05-22 on the WM website. Produced by: The Finger (I believe he's inactive) Starring: War First Queen

To the readers who will inevitably point out that what's shown in the movie is no longer possible due to the anti-farming changes in that area... we know. This movie was posted here to show that mesmers pwned PvE back then and they still do today if you're able to analyze what you're up against, take the right skills, and have the player skill to pull it off.

The reference to wammos and "touchies" makes it pretty clear that this is some kind of an alliance battle/random arena mesmer. Serious PvP discussion really doesn't apply. Sure, you can build a mesmer to counter a warrior, but I can make a warrior built to counter that mesmer build just as easy (and we could go back and forth forever like this). 1v1 is not a real form of pvp in guild wars and as such doesn't really support any real discussion either. My point is, arguing about it wont get anywhere.

Mesmers are pretty useless in PvE imo. They are on par with the other classes in PvP however. This discussion would get interresting if people actually mentioned how they play their mesmer in pve thats so effective. Statements like "mesmers are good if you know how to play them" dont really add anything usefull.

I've found mesmers to be of great use in PvE scenarios. The Spear mission, for example with the kraken. Thing never had a chance thanks to interrupts and shutdowns.

Well in RA tanks and casters get mad at the mesmer cause he/she annoys them wiht his/her hexs and it disarms them and makes them mad

O your talking about PvE.

Well it's simple most people in PvE are newcomers and most after they beat the game move on to PvP (some however stay and become Xpert PvEers). So PuGs are fulled with noobs and these simple minded people decide to keep their build simple because if they don't they'll have to start using their brain. So mesmers are rejected because no one can figure out what the mesmer does.

However if your rejected from those kinds of PuGs it does more good then bad. The Xpert PvEers will accept you and your likely to win then those noob PuGs.

Yes, it does depend on the warriors awareness, and I'm counting on most warriors to a) not play a mes themselves, b) charge in regardless of the fact that I'm waiting for them, and c) not know what ineptitude does though.. c) is rare.

Also, Ineptitude and Clumsiness are not the only 2 skills I have, there are other skills there, and fast cast is important to.. well... me.

And as long as my monk can keep me up, I have all the time in the world.

Depending on what build I use as Warrior I can go after one even as a Ranger I can do the samething.I will usually target a mesmer before targeting a Monk.The most interesting Match i wouldn't mid seeing and that is of a Necromancer vs a Mesmer.

When I play my Mesmer in PUGs or henchie groups in PvE, I don't play the role of "Killer." I use my my Mesmer to make it easier for others to do the killing, and making the Monk's healing job easier. I negate the damage dealt to my party by interrupting casters (which also damages them) and using SV on the warrior to take away the offensive weapons of whatever he's doing battle with. (Less damage = less healing needed) I'll get melee class monsters and healers to beat themselves up with Empathy and Backfire, by the time everyone else moves on to the one's I've targeted, my targets are half dead. (easier to kill!)

Quite often I do get the solo kill on a caster boss - that Ele boss in Raisu Pavillion Mission? He's got to be the DUMBEST dragon ever! Backfire is the spell of choice against him - he dies in under 10 seconds!

I hate Mesmer when they are NOT in my team, I will kill them second to the monk as possible. they are so annoying by putting degen and cry of fraustration on my team. hex is a pain in the butt that I can never handle them well.

please Mesmer, stop being my enemy and join my team to fight on MY side

We always were!

If you know how to play a mesmer in PVE, they are extremely useful. There are certain places where an interrupt mesmer is in demand, but 85% of the time my PVE mesmer is an illusion spiker: Ineptitude, Clumsiness, and Images of Remorse combine for almost 300 dmg, 10 seconds of blindness, one interrupted attack, and -3 health degen. In PVE, even caster enemies will try and wand you. Then you add epidemic to spread the blindess. Really helps our your monks. I can still carry 2 interrupts (usually power return for the fast recharge and power drain for energy management) and some hex/enchantment removal which also just happens to help with my energy management. Plus fast casting rez is always nice.

Usually, in PvE, Mesmer targets the highest enemy threat, while the rest of the group attacks "soft targets". So the only visible detail is (as azuresun points out) that the enemy War/Asn/R miss their attacks and that the enemy casters don't cast.
Sometimes, you see "%#&@"... plus some purple enemies' health bars, that's all.
Sometimes you notice buddies coming back to life fast.

But, most of the time, it's hard to see whether the Mesmer actually does something Same applies to some Ranger or Necro builds.

Of course, when there's only the boss left (sometimes sooo hard to take down) then the group can SEE what the Mesmer is doing ! That's why some PuGs are actually looking for Mesmers to ease their way through tuff bosses.

That's life. Misunderstanding is the master word. I'm used to it, now...

Had to share, I only had 1/2 hour to play, so I went to RA. In 2 battles, I faced 3 mesmers. 2 of them suicided on backfire. I was laughing so hard. I use hex breaker, so they were trying to hex me, and just kept casting with backfire on them. I'm amazed that skill still works. You would think people, especially other mesmers would recognize it.

QFT!

The road to being a powerful mesmer is just hard to take,the ansewer to becoming mighty just isnt obvios,because it isnt obvious its scorned by most of the community who cant figure it out.

I agree with you in principle, but late game against high level enemies mesmers can really add some nice armor ignoring damage. The other use for mesmers in PvE is for shutdown when an area is infested with monks crying for their 3 or 4 skills diversioned. Would I trust a PUG mesmer on my team to actually run a useful bar or be effective? Probably not, unless I highly screened them or gave them a skill bar and attribute setup to run with an explanation of how to run it.

Here are some examples of some skill bars that provide nice armor ignoring damage that is useful for PvE:

Migraine or Crippling Anguish {E} depending on enemy composition
Conjure Phantasm
Images of Remorse
Mantra of Persistence
Power Drain
Drain Enchantment
Inspired Hex
Ressurection Chant

Illusion - 12
Inspiration - 15
Fast Casting - 9
Healing Prayers - 3

Easy to trust a pickup with this one. Tell them to keep mantra up, press tab a lot, and spread degen to targets other than the called target.


Energy Surge {E}
Energy Burn
Shatter Enchantment
Empathy (cause every enemy in PvE attacks through empathy)
Cry of Frustration
Power Drain
Inspired Hex
Ressurection Chant

Domination - 16
Inspiration - 11
Fast Cast - 9
Healing Prayers - 2

This second one could not really be trusted to a pick up, because you're basically depending upon the fact that the player is a skilled interrupter.