Need help against A/Me

Even if you're a Mesmer you wouldn't want to focus too much on a single profession. True, however, you can, but the end result is that you can be a jack of all trades, really. Most of the Mesmer skills are extremely versatile so it doens't matter if you're geared towards Monk-killing with Surge and Burn because you can use that on anyone.

Hammer works well because of knockdowns, as per my earlier tip. A well-played shock warrior can kill most assassins also, unless they catch you with no adrenalin.

Mesmers don't do well as jacks of all trades. Surge and burn will do damage to anyone that has energy, but the reason they're so devastating to monks in particular is because you deal damage while destroying their ability to heal that damage. A warrior isn't going to care about your surge. He'll eat your 100~200 damage, and then he'll run up to you and rage your face. EVERYONE needs Energy. Using a Surge/Burn example, a Hammer/Axe Warrior without energy will be unable to spike (no Shock, no Crushing Blow), Rangers need energy for Cripshot and the like, etc. Diversion, a frequent skill on a Mesmer's bar, is quite decent for everything, from getting rid of Shocks, to Wards, to annoying Blinding Flashes, etc. Blackout doubles as a shutdown to support players and an adrenaline emptyer.

However, building a Mesmer as a jack of all trades, to counter each specific profession, is usually a bad idea. For example, taking an anti-ranger skill (perhaps Spirit Shackles), an anti-Warrior skill (maybe Soothing Images, Spirit of Failure), then a bunch of anti-caster skills (Diversion, Backfire *cough*), will probably cause much more micromanagement than necessary compared to a timely Blackout here and there.

EVERYONE needs Energy. Using a Surge/Burn example, a Hammer/Axe Warrior without energy will be unable to spike (no Shock, no Crushing Blow), Rangers need energy for Cripshot and the like, etc. Diversion, a frequent skill on a Mesmer's bar, is quite decent for everything, from getting rid of Shocks, to Wards, to annoying Blinding Flashes, etc. Blackout doubles as a shutdown to support players and an adrenaline emptyer. Warriors need very little energy. Burn+Surge at 16 attribute only burns 16e, so the warrior will have more than enough left to Shock+Frenzy if they're a shock warrior, or Frenzy+Crushing if they're a hammer war.

Diversion, as you said, is good against anyone.

Blackout is a 1s cast. If a warrior sees a mesmer running at him (or worse, if he's running at you and already has you targetted), what do you think he's going to do? You better hope you Diversion'd his distracting blow ... except then he can also just Shock you.

Warriors need very little energy. Burn+Surge at 16 attribute only burns 16e, so the warrior will have more than enough left to Shock+Frenzy if they're a shock warrior, or Frenzy+Crushing if they're a hammer war.

Diversion, as you said, is good against anyone.

Blackout is a 1s cast. If a warrior sees a mesmer running at him (or worse, if he's running at you and already has you targetted), what do you think he's going to do? You better hope you Diversion'd his distracting blow ... except then he can also just Shock you. Shock+Frenzy is 15 energy, and a Warrior has about 30 energy altogether. And even then, a good Warrior will be using Bull's Strike a lot of the time, and Frenzy to build adrenaline, and that's not counting the instances that he's already used Shock and is suffering from Exhaustion.

As for Blackout, if he Shocks you, okay fine. You've given him 10 Exhaustion, and you can happily activate Distortion, skip away and Black him out 12 seconds later. I don't actually see many Warriors in high-level PvP use Distracting Blow either, but okay, assuming that they do, you'll be very unlucky that you do get hit by it (since traditionally Warriors will be pressuring your Monks). A Mesmer with good observation skills can spot when the enemy are preparing to spike, and interceed with a timely Blackout (much like a Flashbot can).

Shock+Frenzy is only 10 actually. Say you start at 25e. You use Frenzy, you're at 20e, and Shock, which puts you at 15e. The exhaution puts your max energy at 25-10 = 15e.

The difference between a flashbot and a blackout is that blinding flash happens at range, whereas blackout is a touch skill. The degree to which each is telegraphed is vastly different, because there's usually no other reason for a Mesmer or Cripshot (the other main blackout user) to run into melee range of anyone. I'm not saying it's unusable - it's definitely a good skill with careful usage, but you can't rely on it.

I'll concede that an esurge mesmer is at least moderately effective against everyone, but I'm not sure that's saying much. My original argument is that it's non-optimal. Esurge builds are generally designed to destroy monks and casters, and they're extremely good at doing it. Turning the same guns on a warrior may or may not be effective depending on the situation, and definitely isn't going to work as well as someone that brought dedicated warrior hate.

A fair comparison I think is the cripshot ranger, the standard 'jack-of-all-trades'. A good cripshot is an impediment to everyone - she spreads conditions, snares warriors and kiting targets, interrupts casters, blacks-out warriors trying to spike and monks trying to heal spikes. Typically, a spike will occur on a caster. Mesmers are either backline or mid-line, pretty close to where most of your casters are at. In any case, yes, I'll conceed that a Surge build is *non-optimal,* but a jack of all trades is pretty non-optimal in the first place. I'll agree that a Cripshot probably does more in terms of random damage/pressure, but the two professions have different styles of playing and do vastly different things.