Mesmers in PVE

lol - that's the boat I'm in too. Geomancer and a Mesmer. Thank goodness for my guild.

Although, when I (Geomancer) out tanked the tanks in a mission the other night, I think I gained some points.

Mesmers are awesome, but since attributes do not need to be pumped that high, N/Me hex users are usually as good (due to energy gain through Soul Reaping).

I played an illusion/smiting Me/Mo all the way up through the jungle and I never had any problems getting into groups. As well, when me and friends are filling out a PUG, we're almost always happy to have a mesmer along. The problem is usually in finding a mesmer.

I think half the problem is just that mesmers are uncommon in PvE. Obviously if there's three eles to every one mesmer out there, then yes, they're not going to be getting as many groups. That's simply how the numbers work out. I'd be willing to bet that if mesmers became as common as eles, we'd see a lot more, "looking for mesmer," as people started to see more of what mesmers can do. But people like playing their direct damage characters, so I'm not sure how to go about making them more popular.

I'm starting to see more and more parties using mesmers, but there's still very little demand for them. The more people see the difference a good mesmer can make, the more sought after they will become.

But I think some of the blame for the ignorace that many (if not most) non-mesmers have regarding the profession is attributable to Dunham. The most visible contribution that he makes to a party is needing lots of heals & dying often.

I did the doppleganger thing last night with my R/Me. I took Backfire & a bunch of junk skills, maxed out Domination magic, and 30 seconds later, I'm in the Dragon's Lair. Nice thing about backfire, with 12 in Dom. Magic, it does 119 damage - for each spell cast. DoT's FTW!

Reason you do not see as many mesmer as elementalist do is because most mesmers can't find any group, due to that reason many people give up on their mesmer character for different profession so they can find group. I know a few people giving up their mesmer character because of this problem. By the way, for me I notice that you can find a group to join much easier at place with enemy's level below 20. As soon as you're made to more advance place with enemy's level 20 or above than this is where you'll have hard time finding group.

I have a pve mesmers and to be honest I think they are the most useless class in PVE - There's not a thing a mesmer can do in pve that an elementalist can't do with meteors. And also, mesmers aren't exactly the easiest of things to play, and due to this there will be a lot of bad mesmers out there.. whereas zomg echo nuking is so mind dumbingly simple and more effective in a lot of pve situations.

That's largely to do with the way a lot of the mobs are designed though - Brohn in Sorrow's Furnace is immune to having his skill recharges messed with and is not affected by skills like diversion and distracting shot... it pretty much screams out for people to interrupt him with meteors and exploit his stupid AI and to keep him on his ass for the whole battle while all the deep knights are screaming "Get him! He has the Keg!" /rant

In PVP though they are really useful, and that's where they shine. I don't at all regret making a mesmer, and would never even consider deleting her, even though I think their uses are extremely limited to perhaps shutting down the monk boss in thirsty river and spamming wastrels worry on other bosses.. but I can use her for pvp, so I'm happy

I love mesmers in PvE. Diversion, Backfire, etc makes quick work of monk and caster bosses so that they do nothing but stand in a spot or kill themselves.

And there is not a thing a Mesmer CAN'T do in PvE, either. Lately, we did the Forgemaster quest in FoW with a "leftover" party of 4 Mesmers, 1 Ele and 1 Monk (at the beginning we had one tank who dropped out later).

Unappreciated Mesmers of the world, Unite!

I wouldn't exclude a Mesmer from any mission or quest, they ARE useful. Good Domination Mesmers own casters in the FoW/UW - echoed shatter hex is more damage in a short span than any Ele can do. Sadly most of their actions remain unnoticed - if you don't know how they work.

Not quite relivant, but the Mesmer Henchie seems to of been given a massive boost. He used to be useless but now me and a guildie noticed he layed down a pritty effective screen of hexes.

Mesmers rock as they can quickly wipe out the monk line in a PvE making everything much easier for the grunts.

You need a hug. And I wanna know why you have a pve mesmer if they're usless.

In the end game; mesmers are really truly overpowerful. Especially to take down bosses. Wastrel's worry is so powerful against them, it' not even funny. Use TS/VEnt to explain what you are doing.
I was doing some Kepkhet runs with a 4-man PUG.
As in the fourth run, a Ranger hadn't got his staff, he started yelling I wasn't doing anything productive. We did another run and I told them on the boss I wouldn't do anything for 5 minutes to prove he was wrong. Boss life wasn't going down and they were completely unable to kill her (team of 1 w, 1r, 1Ele, and me). Then after 5 minutes of sterile fight, I used my Wastrel's worry/Shatter Enchant/Drain enchant skills to take her down in less than 2 minutes. He didn't get his staff aynway, but understood how powerful could be Me in PVE.
In fact, IMHO, they are the best, -provided they know how to play. Monsters feats/skills you will fight in a mission can be easily found on net, so you can prepare yourself to be anti "next mission monsters". As in PVE you can prepare your mesmer, I think in fact that they shine more than in PvP, where you don't know who you will fight (so if you do an anti-caster build and fall upon Iway, you suck).
The solution would be to make their hexes/effects "shiny", that is to say that hexes would have a real visible effect.

Lvl 14 EDenial/interupt Mesmer just beat THK with Henchmen last night: alone.

Thats the lowest level I've ever soloed Thunderhead with, and apart form the ele boss, i didn't have a problem.

Mesmers, like any well thought out toon, can MAKE a place for themselves in a group. Its up to the mesmer to sell itself to groups. People just don't understand how powerful Fast Casting makes us when we use those same skills they "love to hate". And when I get Echo again...shivers; watch out world

Personally I have never found any problem getting a group for my mesmer- at any stage of the game.

One of my favourite aspects of playing a mesmer is the flexibility in yor build- greater than any other class IMO. When you see a mesmer they could be a casters nightmare or death on two legs to the first warrior to think about swinging their axe- it is impossible to tell just how they are planning to ruin your day this time.

The difficulty of this is that a less effective mesmer might bring entirely the wrong spells to the party- backfire is about as welcome as a bacon sarnie at a bah-mitzvha when you are trying to kill warriors.

It won't kill you if you just hold back that thought. Sympathy costs nothing.

I do need a hug, yes

Useless was a stupid term to use, my bad... in pve I believe that there's very little things that won't work.

As far as breezing through things are concerned, sad as it is - I think tank and lots of aoe spells (Spiteful, meteor showers) is what will do it faster, probably because the AI is weakest against them kind of things. I think most people will have seen the effects of Spiteful on a pve mob - it pretty much kills everything.

In PVE you can pretty much shut down or kill everything at the same time with certain skills - a mesmer can normally only shut down 1 or 2 targets (in both PVE and PVP), in PVE an elementalist shuts down everything with chain knockdowns (obviously you can't make human opponents stay in the same positions all the time, but the PVE mobs are desperate to stop that warrior from reading the book or holding that highly dangerous torch).

I have a PVE mesmer because I like playing mesmers in PVP - and due to this I figured I'd roll myself a PVE mesmer, same goes for my monk - though I find him to be much more useful in PVE

Maybe part of the problem is that an Ele's damage is accompanied by pretty graphics --- meteors or fire raining from the skies, etc. When Briallan uses Backfire, all that is seen is a decline in the health bar --- IF you happen to be watching the right target (usually the next caster over who's causing the tanks and the rest of the party so much grief whilst they're taking down their present target). Otherwise, it just looks like we're standing there lobbing magic sorties with our staves/canes.

Last night in Ice Caves, I 'threatened' teasingly to change my secondary to monk and be a stylish-looking healer (a good sister in dominatrix duds ) since we couldn't convince a healer to join. In the end, we did get a single healer...not but two or three there...and we mesmers were as rare. My other girls are either finished Titan quests or nearing the end and there aren't that many mesmers in those outposts either.

Sadly I agree with the OP, I also see the first person to reply's point as well.

Imo mesmers can do big damage if played right. But I dont know, I guess you have to know how to play them right like any class, and mesmer (arguably) being the least played class there is - that maybe makes this even less. Skills like Shatter hex for example are excellent in places like FoW. You are removing a hex - quickly from an ally, and you do big damage at the same time.

I think they are especially usefull for hard bosses, this i believe is where they are undestimated. Second last mission for example - the monk boss that can take ages to kill. A decent mesmer can really screw him up and make it alot easier.

Imo its because they rely on their targets to attack or use skills in order to be effective too often. You could argue against this listing skills like the surges but they can never do as much damage as an elementalist or necro which have several shadow damage skills. Degens are nice and again their are the surges. But i would like to see some more pure damage type skills added to the mesmer line in factions or again like the necromancer more hexes that effect several foes.

I'm currently playing a mesmer, and I've never had a problem getting into groups. Out of the 4 hours I played yesterday, I spent only 30 minutes out with henchies--the rest of the time I was out with PUGs. Don't wait for invites. If you see someone's looking, invite yourself. Chances are, they'll accept you into the group.

Hm why would i bring mesmer in 4 mean team to farm queen,when it can easily be done with warrior,necro and monk??
My first character ever was Mesmer/monk,and you could say i like mesmers. But the fact is that they dont have much use in PVE: the main reason for this is that most of areas in game are crowded with melee/ranged dmg dealing mobs,and the mesmers biggest adventage is DOMINATION.You could use illusion/degen spells but necros got more powerfull spells for dmg /degen(SS,FoC,Suffering etc). But mesmers are exeptionaly strong in PVP ,and you cant find good balanced team without 2 mes.
I deleted my first character ingame bcs of lack of ability to find (good ) parties in any area of the game,and created Necro.I cant say i am sorry,bcs i get invitations all the time from Sf,tombs,missions to 2 man UW farm (try that with mesmer ).
But i belive that a-net will keep up the good work ,and will improve mesmers skills and maybe armor/weapons/mana pool in chapter2,and give them some credit in PVE.Who knows,maybe ill play mesmer some day again...