Why are there so few mesmers around in PvE?

I think making the mesmer's effects more 'visual' could go a long way.


Interrupts and Shutdown

I play a mesmer and a ranger and as far as interrupts and shutdown goes they are both good at it, but the differences need to be understood by some of the rangers here. While ranger skills are cheap and spammable, it's not like a mesmer with Cry of Frustration and Diversion is a sissy... those skills can strip a boss bare of abilities. CoF is a HUGE aoe interrupt with chaos damage thrown in for kicks, and it can be Echoed / Arcane Echoed. Wastrel's Worry is ideal to mix in with shutdown, and is incredible against anything with the 'natural resistance' ability (it doubles the mesmer's WW damage output). There's a host of other shutdown options (Blackout, Ignorance, Signet of Humility), but those 3 are my current favourite combo - Cry / Diversion / Wastrel's, leaving room for the rest of my mesmer duties...


Hex and Enchantment removal

There's the whole hex and enchantment removal side to mesmers. Shatter Hex has the aoe of Energy Surge and does 50% more damage on half the recast. It's punishing on a tank in the middle of mobs, similar to Smite Hex but supercharged. Shatter and Drain Enchantment are also reasonable... although personally I prefer necromancers to do this. Inspired Hex and Enchantment are other options... Inspired Hex is great if you can pick up another Domination hex (I had dual Empathy recently )


Empathy and Backfire

I like Empathy for PvE, although I don't carry Backfire anymore because I use Cry / Diversion / Wastrel's. There's no synergy there with Backfire. Empathy on the other hand is great, because most enemies attack. Very difficult enemies (bosses) that have been shut down are easy prey to Empathy and Wastrel's Worry, because all they can do is attack and not use skills!


Henchmen

I really laughed when I read the 'can't play a mesmer if you only have hechies' argument, because that's mostly what I do and I very rarely die. I made my first ever attempt at the High Priest quest in Sorrow's Furnace the other day with henchmen and suffered only a single death, completing the quest first try. (Paranoia helped a lot! ) A mesmer is tactical and requires lateral thinking to use properly, in some ways like a smite/protection monk (if there is such a thing...). It isn't easily comparable to other classes though... it was indirect damage / shutdown / hex removal and lots of it.

If you want your mesmer to soak up hits better, I would suggest an Inspiration stance and a 'while in stance' collectors shield (swap in when necessary), and a single piece of '+15 armour while casting spells' armour (I like virtuoso's gloves). You can wear rogue's armour too if you don't mind losing the energy compared with enchanter's. An energyless heal like Healing Signet is useful but not critical.

My 2c.


The biggest thing would be making the effects more spectacular, especially considering the deceptive radius on Cry and Shatter Hex...

I think what we have all learned here is that you have to kill mesmers PvP first before monks and don't ever help them PvE. I hate you all you mesmer bastards!

I'm seeing a lot of "people are stupid," but no one has really pointed out effectively that mesmers cannot make money like other classes can.

Every other class has some way to act as a farmer. Even an elementalist can farm grawls for dyes, amongst other things. Mesmers aren't really known for doing anything exceptionally well unless it's either PvP or associated with the Ring of Fire. And they aren't.

No one's main source of income is a mesmer. No one finds it exceptionally easy to get into groups. So... why would you, aside from the novelty?

My solo, mesmerizing engine of destruction, after a half-hour or less.



Yeah, I farm rockshots. For fun. Just picking up monster parts to trade back to collectors, and for those "WTB 5 Topaz Crests" messages in Augury Rock I see regularly.

BTW, not a 55hp Me/Mo, or Me/Mo at all, but Me/R. You figure out the build.

I now have a 55Hp Me/Mo and the setup cost was a lot less than my 55Hp Mo/Me. Mesmer sup. runes for 100g, or a little more, each. I had a go farming griffons with it and it did okay. Not as fast compared to using my monk with SoJ, but it was definitely more fun to use. Taking down a single foe with IW and Clumisness is very quick. Still need more time experimenting to see what 55Hp mesmer can do and where one would shine out over the other.

I see the "amongst other things" part to that line, but I hope you seriously don't think that the best an elementalist can farm is dyes. I pull in 15k an hour with my ele. I've had 55 monks, SS necros, and Wammo farmers all show me the spots they farm, from griffs, minos, trolls, to rune farming, and I surprised them when I can solo it FASTER. I've shown them some neat little tricks to becoming nearly invulnerable (picked up a nice little trick to have mist form on forever) and the only thing that scares me is a mesmer that know's their class.

Sure I don't pull in any money with my mes, but not becuase it can't be done, but because I consider myself to be an elementalist first. I wouldn't go insulting these people with out a solid arguement backing it up.

Uh, because it is extreme fun to play Mesmer? Because to SOME of us, this game isn't all about farming for money, or playing PvP. For some of us it is actually a lot of fun to fight the enemy without hack and slash or fire nuking.

Hmm, it makes me wonder why there are so many Warriors in this game. Why would anyone want to play warrior? All you do is stand up front with no overview of the entire battle and repeatedly hit whatever is before you on the head. So... why would you, aside for the novelty? (I am not knocking warriors as a profession, I am making the point of "different strokes for different folks").

You know, some male mesmers have no problems with the colour pink.. now someone remind me how I can get his 1.5 rogue top hot pink before I regret dying it that colour....

Uhh... 3x 15k armor.. Mesmer chick was the only farmer on the account at the time... guess I'm no one

You forgot to add getting repeatedly hit on the head by the thing you're repeataldly hitting on the head

Mesmers are probally rare cause its a hard class to play well, while warriors... well people like warriors... W/Mo is prob one of the easiest classes to pick up and the start of the game is very easy with one. The inability to farm or stand alone will put first timers off the class, and the rareness will keep them shy of the 'unknown'.

As for me, I love em.

I was having trouble capping on Perdition Rock, and specifically was after Obsidian Flesh. I asked my wife to, out of her characters in each of the six professions, bring her mesmer.

Not a lot of problems for the two of us and six henchies. OK, there was a total party kill or two when we were fighting somebody and his 13 closest pyromaniac friends showed up, but that's par for the Perdition Rock course if you bring a lot of henchies who don't start running until AFTER the meteors start falling and the phoenixes have taken flight.

I'll kill you... ...energy burn!!! bang, sry, didn't mean to kill so fast.

Reson number 4,374 that Mesmers don't group with the standard PvE morons:

Mesmers can Solo the Underworld.

gg

Mesmers get NO respect !!!

If its not some obvious damage dealer like a Necro or Ele or the obvious choice like a Warrior or Monk you don't get picked for groups as easy. I have all the characters on 2 accts (meaning all 6 primary) and I have really come to like the Mezmer!! Granted it is a harder character to play. There is a little more thought in who you attack with what skills, etc.

The problem is nobody on your team sees the impact... Usually when a Mezmer is in a party it's just 1 & the other characters usually just write off the fact that it did any damage in the battle. There is some serious damage these characters can do and several great spells available to them. I find it harder to pick out my skills b/c there are so many good ones.. I have never played in a group that consist of more than 1 Mezmer. I bet a group with like 2-3 of em' would own! I run this echo Energy Surge build & it's awesome!

I've found that nobody likes to experiment in GWs.. Everybody sticks to the book & takes the build that they know owns that area. Mainly b/c they want a sure victory & don't want to waste time. That's what practically everybody is in GWs , a farmer. BE risky, take a Mezmer or 2.

The oviious reason is no one like mesmers they are prob. one of the hardest classes but they are very effective in pvp and pve but many peopel start them and cant either farm or no one wants a pro iteruppter in there group...

People are too set in their ways. PvE PUGs generally only have 1 plan: have a bunch of damage dealers, and have some monks dealing with incoming damage and other discomforts. These two main concerns can be tackled in various ways. Some character builds, and unfortunately practically all mesmers, don't fall in either and thus have a hard time finding a place. I don't think for a second it's just mesmers being scarce. Water elementalists aren't exactly a dime a dozen either.

To play mesmer u need have brain... lots of very good skills, but hard to fit in batle in PvE, need good timming vision of bathle... and we kwon better is a sword in hand that a wand...

Hey, I didn't write the UW Smiterun solo Me/Mo guide for the ego of it!

...ok, maybe a little. But I can still farm hydra/forest titans/smites with my mes.

We are now officially at war. Be advised, male mesmer. I'm going to hunt you down and use your spine as a staff.

Although only real men wear pink. You get some points for that.

There is sooo much writing on PvE mesmering... a good thread on it is the mesmer build discussion thread in mes campfire forum... there's too much for one person to say, because most of it contradicts.

Well it seems Monks are on a strike perhaphs there should be a mesmer strike too. It would be sort of interesting to see how many mesmers are there but I am having real hard time recently finding any groups that accept mesmers...

The reason is because mesmers are inflexible for pve. Illusion magic is worthless for pve simply because the spells cost too much, recharge too slow, and there are just way too many mobs for you to kill.

Domination is used mainly for Surge and burn, usually arcane echoed surge. Backfire maybe some interrupts because they think they can control every single mob out there.

PVE mesmers are generally sub-par spikers. While they can do a ton of damage at once, their recharge on all of those skills is like 20-30 seconds, and by the time your spike is over, you'll be at 0 energy.

Don't confuse this with PvP. They rock in PvP.

Pros to a mesmer in pve: Powerful spike, fast cast secondary skills.
Cons to a mesmer in pve: Slow recharge, high cost skills leads to poor energy management, illusion magic is serves no purpose in pve, no skills related to primary attribute leads to inflexible characters.

Blah blah. Make some points for me to disagree with.

In agreement. Switching over thru targets is boring, but this is a team game so lets stick with why they r unpopular in teams hmmm?

Really? He power leaked a ranger? Seems unlikely cuz ranger spike groups dont use a spell . . Single handedly diffused an entire spike team? lol very very funny.

True but if new players were to face the most powerful class in the game b4 they knew wat was wat . .then would you still be playing?

Never EVER do they get credit. But if YOU know ur doing ur job, then the PUG shouldnt matter tho hmmm?

Tell that to every IWAY player, MF player, ranger spike player, EoE spike build and come and place this BS dribbling from ur mouth. PvE cookie cutter builds? lol . . . PvE builds are more diverse then PvP. Farm builds are the only cookie cutter.

What exactly do you have against male mesmers? Is it somehow less effeminate to pretend to be a girl? Is someone a little insecure? Or just a little confused when looking in the mirror? I harbor no ill will towards you, I think you're genius in your play of your class... but this loathing strikes me as a little... neurotic...

Hehe... hehehe.... bwahahahahaha!

Do you really believe that, and think thats how most mesmers play?

That's like saying PVE warriors are generally mending paladins.

...ok so you'd be right, but it doesn't mean the real mesmers don't do different.

It's my little eccentricity, pay no notice

I'm a Domination Mesmer, and I can farm Hydras very easily. Pretty much anything that relies on spells is cannon fodder for the mesmer.

Its also rare that I ever run out of energy. And no, neither of the echos are in my skill bar.

And what other class can wear a bow-tie? Thats the definition of class, right there..

Two things. One, that would be Mesmer sacrilege simply due to the fact that there would be one less Mesmer in the world... though it would only take a resurrection spell to bring him back and somehow let him grow a new spine. Kinda like when your whole skeleton gets removed and horribly deformed to add to an unholy legion of the dead and you grow a brand new one when resurrected.
Second, it would be the most powerful staff in the game! That just churns up so many entertaining images of Mesmers carrying around their own spine as a weapon.

Oh, and eccentricities are what make those people brilliant.

Bone Staves have to come from somewhere! Adding a new green called 'X's Spine' would be pretty cool, like the 'String of Ears' in Diablo II

Anyways, it goes without saying a bone staff from a mesmer spine is superior to a bone staff from any other spine.

Naturally. We Mesmers draw from a deeper level of magic than any other profession. This, in turn, means that when you wield the spine of a Mesmer you are wielding something that has access to the core of magic and thus shall be god-like in its power. However, no one shall wield my spine until the end of July. I'm in Germany right now and the Internet is currently down in my dorm room (goes off to sob quietly in a corner). If any of you quest with me in July and I don't perform up to par with a good Mesmer, don't think poorly of me. It's because I haven't been able to use my magic to raise people's blood pressure to dangerously high levels in the past 5 months. I'm in the Internet room in the library and they don't allow gaming on the library computers, so I am not contradicting myself. If the Internet comes back in my room or I can hook up my laptop to the network at Savigny Haus, then I'll see you all then. Oh, and I like my spine. Please don't remove it. I'm still using it.

Ok, two classies I play is e/me and a me/e. I have the 15k lords armor for for mesmer dyed black. He is also a black male mesmer on top of that lol. Alot of people always come up to me and say my charactor looks cool.

As for fast casting I love it, I have it maxed out. I use a balance of fire as well as mesmer skills. I am still learing the memser class but I have say I love it. People who have played with seen my tactics are impressed maily because I use both mesmer skills as well as fire skills.

I can also say my build is far from a cookie cuter, very fast. I am still trying new setups and new skills with my mesmer. I have come to love him as much as my nuker. It is hard to say it but the mesmer is better dressed than my nuker.lol

i love mesmers

A lot of people don't like Mesmers because they're different. Mesmers are, until the Ritualists come to pwn all, the most original class in Guild Wars.

Warrior- Swordsman/Knight
Monk- Priest/Healer
Ranger- Archer
Elementalist- Mage
Necromancer- OMGGOTH AWESOME BLOODANDDEATH
Mesmer-...

They defy all stereotype. Bard is close, as someone I think said toward the beginning of this thread, but only in terms of function. People will go with what they're familiar with, and what they're familiar with is Swords, Arrows, Fire and Angst, not thespians.

(Note: Nothing against Necros. They're great, if done well. That was aimed at those ten year olds with character names like 'Dark Naruto Dragon' and 'Mega Killer Death'.)

i started a pve mesmer about 2 weeks ago and it's been a blast, every second of it. except capping fevered dreams... );

but this topic has been beaten to death already. mesmers don't fit any previous stereotype.

My mesmer happens to like his spine, and his purple/pink top! I swear, the guy has a mind of his own and I don't wanna know what he's up to half the time...

Mesmers not fiting a stereotype? They are illusionists and mentalists. I think you want to beleive that they fit no mold... cold hard truth is I heard mesmer when first picking up the game and knew exactly what I was going to see. Not that that's bad... they still defeat all others... because they are the thinking man's mage... drawing the intelligent. They mess with the meta-game. That puts more of a shiver up your spine than any necromancer. They deal in pure game mechanics. A warrior needs to attck and a mage needs to cast... and a mesmer needs to dominate them both.

Bah, sick of the "Gay" mesmer thing. If you want, you can opt to make them look that way. Alot depends on hairstyle, and courtly armor, butr even courtly done rigth you can look like an insane harlequin freak. But still more hetero than a blue haired elem in hydro armor.

I believe that most don't pick Mesmur in Pve as they make a better secoundary to all prefessions.I would assume the only popular Mesmer would be Mes/Mo in a party.I even find it hard playing this profession in PvP but I still have way to many skills to unlock.I am considering making a Ele/Mes.

The new armors with factions armor for mesmers looks good. One from a distance looks like something you'd find an asian noble wearing. But time shall tell if the 'gay' mesmer stereotype will disappear. Shame we can't dye boxers, they are purple. T_T

I've been a primary elementalist or warrior most of the time, and have just resently been learning my mesmer's role. And I have to say I love it. I've been able to do every mission in the game with my mesmer and henchmen. Nothing else. The last few missions really taught me how to use my domination skills, and I can't wait to really push myself in the other attributes.
And if you think fastcasting isn't worth it, you really don't know what you are talking about. Faster spells means faster damage, faster response, faster healing, faster everything. It really makes a difference in keeping an enemy down and your party up. It also means that being interupted by the enemy is harder. You notice it if you try it.

Mesmer is one of the most under-appreciated classes in the game. If people only began to realise the true power that a talanted mesmer can unleash then there would be more mesmers. However, this class is not for everyone. Most people restrict themselves to the usuall classes of the War, Monk, Ele, etc. and to a degree i have to admit the same as well. Mesmer blood does run in all of my chars veins though. Their support skills and debuffs are second to none. For me i find that I can utilize a Mesmer more fully as my secondary proffesion than my first.

I like the fact there are so few mesmers. It increases the chance of getting a good one that knows what he/she is doing in the group, and how they can contribute instead of some noob who spams Backfire on warriors.

Mesmer requires more knowledge about the game if you want to use its full potential. Average player notice effectiveness only when something is visually hitting to the foes. Mesmer's actions are quite invisible and their culture is considered "soft, gay, weak, etc." which is bad for virtual ego boosters. Those who don't know much about the game, are more likely playing only PvE so even if Mesmers are appreciated in PvP, they have weak status in PvE. That is the public opinion I afraid. Clichés have deep roots in RPG games. If there is new type of character, it will be rejected very often because you don't have any knowledge about them.

Some players complain for example about annoying monk bosses. Good mesmer will save your day in frustrating situations.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Dunham (the Mes hench) doesn't seem to use interrupts? It seems like he uses a lot of energy draining skills...which, of course, are even harder to see than interrupts.

I'm sure this has been mentioned, because it's so obvious, but why not show the enemies energy bar as well as his life bar? I mean, it would have a pretty dramatic effect: "Hey Ned, did you take that Hydra's Energy Bar 1/2 way down? (Ned) Nooooo....did you do it, Labius Constricticus? (Labius Constricticus) Nooo..... (both look over to the Mesmer...)

I'm guessing there's an ongoing debate as to why this is or isn't good, and I've just missed it in my n00bness.


Until I went Ele/Mes to improve my chances of getting on a team, I really had no idea what they did. I'd put Dunham on my team occasionally, but never really saw an appreciable effect that would warrant him taking over, say, a second fighter position.

If there are no plans to show mob energy, maybe they could give him some interrupts so people could see how indespensible a good mesmer is. There have been many times I've been sitting there waiting for exhaustion to wear off/energy to recharge, when I wished a good mes was around to break that damned "infuse health" the monks were casting on each other...

As far as PvP goes...I plan on making a PvP only Mesmer in the future. To me, it seems like the mesmers are where the real action is, with the split-second interrupts and whatnot.

PS: Mesmers do look kind of gay (or at the very least, metrosexual)...but male ele's have a kind of Siegfried and Roy unmistakable gay thing happening. If this game had white tigers, they'd definitely have a lawsuit on their hands...(especially if people got in the habit of using Otyugh's Cry more often...)


The rest of the post didn't seem too bad, but it all forgotten when I read this entirely stupid and offensive generalization.