Mesmers in PVE

You should see my mez in a three man with a monk and warrior. MMs are nice but hardly necessary.

Side note... I've become addicted to Mantra of Recall. I've heard it mocked as a useless elite, but flip that baby on at the start of a fight, cast my heart out on the bad guys and 20 second later >poof<, I'm sitting on 30 - 35 energy. Bakes it easier to keep using CoF and Backfire (15 e hexes) for example. I know other elites do more damage by themselves, but it's the best for allowing me to sustain continual damage imo.

Besides... mesmers eat monks.

It can be done with a Mesmer replacing the Necro. Killing the boss is actually easier with a Mesmer, thanks to Powerblock and Drain Enchantment. But of course you know this, but since you can actually see what the Necro does, you'll prefer it, regardless of how much easier a Mesmer makes the boss.

I guess when you played Mesmer, all you ever saw in Illusion was Conjure Phantasm, eh? No other skills? Ineptitude, Clumsiness, Imagined Burden, Crippling Anguish, etc. Avarre is more familiar with Illusion than I am, though after reading his testimonials, I've found Illusion to be on par with Domination in regards to effectiveness, you just have to operate a little differently. But no, go ahead, Necros are so superior to Mesmers.

I don't recall seeing any Mesmers in Rifts GvG pandemonium...

Not if they don't get flashy Ele animations or Spiteful Spirit you won't, lol.

Because it is twice faster to kill her with a 16 Dom mesmer than with a necro. WW FTW.
My team (when friends are online) consist in a monk, a necro and a mesmer. I used this PUG because my guildmates/friends were not available.
A warrior/ele aren't so powerful against bosses anyway, the boss armor is generally so high that their normally consistent damage is highly lowered (on the contrary of mesmer's chaos one).

Not out of pity. Most people don't even know what mesmers can do. The culture in Guild Wars is a Culture of "I Tarzan, you Jane, Gorilla waka-waka-waka" and there's only a small population that actually seeks the best for certain situations, which in most cases a mesmer brings to the table.

What's why there're so many w/mos, and so many monks. W/mo's because the mentality of brute force drive's their minds. And because the w/mo's can't keep with with their "self-substaining, self-sufficient" gimmik there's high demand of monks. And then there's all the crap that wraps around that, which is nuking eles and brute-force MM's.

For sure that's the easiest combination, use of brute-force. No class, no style, no cache, no nothing.

you can find a group to join with no trouble at place with enemy's level below 20. As soon as you're made it to more advance place with enemy's level 20 or above than this is where you'll have hard time finding group. Also commom place for me that have hard time to find group to join was in Sorrow's Furnace, Tomb of the primeval king, Underworld. Well I saw GLF mesmer sometime for group to Fissure of Woe. I notice that Tomb of the primeval king is also making warrior no way to find a group as well these day since most groups are barrage/pet rangers, order necro, mm necro, and healer. However even before Tomb of the Primeval King was filled with b/p groups. At that time pretty much all professions are welcome to join a group but still I have hard time finding group to join. I saw group looking for tank, nuker, battery, mm, trapper, and healer but hardly ever saw any group looking for mesmer.

People and their backfire... if you think backfire does anything to bosses you are seriously misinformed on hex durations and effects. Anyway...

Mesmers... ah my favorite class... have uses in PvE however, and unfortunatly, all that people want is numbers and this ofcourse only leaves us with the overly cookified, overly used, branch of the mesmer the Domination line. From which we get such crap as Backfire and Ignorance... though ignorance actually has use... in PvP. Anyway there are golden skills in there like Waestrels which can outdamage every class when it comes to bosses, but falls short on most PvE normal mods as they spam spam spam... unless ofcourse you run and use, run and use... etc... Sure you can run potent blocking with Dom, I won't deny it.

Now ofcourse everyone uses inspiration as utility. Not much to say about it... that's what it is.

And then its that line, my personal favorite, thats called Illusion. The line that actually takes skill to use and not "OMG WATCH BAR HIT BUTTON! BACKFRIEZZZ AAH!!! PINK COLOR?!! SJATTER!@[email protected]!L" Though no one likes this line, it doesn't make big numbers. Oh well.

As for the queen? Who needs teams...

How long does the typical W, N, Mo team take to kill the queen?

I have found that when I went out to kill the team with my monk or warrior the mm's minions ALWAYS die near the end and we have 1-3 attacking the queen (and sometimes the scarabs gaurding her nest) when we finally get her dead it was because of the damage done from the warrior and the wanding dmg of the other 2...the minions were close to worthless. When I have killed her with my mesmer (in 2, 3, and 4 man teams) it is much quicker.

Here are some of the reasons why (granted this is a VERY specific situational use of skills)

IW doesn't care if she has gaurdian up
Shatter/drain enchant help warrior do dmg (rather than healing her)
Clumsiness hurts (an archane echo'd clumsiness hurts even more)
She can't CoP her enchants if they are shattered/drained
Getting to the queen is easy when you don't have to worry about wells sprouting up
When the scarabs start spamming vamp touch, it helps if you can shut them down (blackout)


Even in a 2 man group (me on mesmer and a monk) she dies before she can use MoP twice. Oh well, I guess that is not important.

Please don't come here to cry again; it's called life. You don't get everything you want/need. Personally in the missions with 8 slots i always take a mesmer, and there are many people like me who see their value. Just wait 5 more minutes and beat the bloody game

Better armor, for one.

Honestly, A specialist in Domination or Illusion Magicks with a good knowledge of how to supplement with Inspiration is a powerful player. People just don't see what he or she is doing to be so effective. They only know that the other team seems "easy" because they're not healing or casting effectively and doing wimpy bits of damage to you, if anything.

Well I know what mesmers do because I have one, and I know they dont do much compared to other classes in PvE. You can argue it any way you like, the fact is mesmers do not bring enough damage, they cant tank, they cant heal, they have less utility than rangers and that is the most you need in PvE. If you want to bring diversity for the sake of it, sure bring a mesmer.

I'm sure you'll say I'm just an ignorant person who cant play his mesmer well enough, but I've played every class in the game thoroughly, I know I play them well and I cant for the life of me see the point of a mesmer in PvE. Can anyone give a good reason for having a mesmer in the group that doesn't involve the odd boss mob or healer that dies in no time with direct damage anyway?

Exactly my point, everyone goes for the universally accepted, even tho you can do just as well with any other option. It's a culture problem, not that mesmers suck at all.

PvE is about holding arggo and healing. A mes doesn't fit because of those reasons. The AI is still junk. As long as they stay on the warrior the entire match and don't do cordinated strikes then it will always be like that.

If they make the AI choose the most logical target based on the team it would be a much different story. I'm still waiting on the AI for cordinated strikes to be incorporated into PvE. They can already time a TA earth spike.

Mes are for a pvp type environment. PvE is like kindergarden for the proffesions so the simple proffesions are goin to do well. Besides the majority of GW has a war and a monk for pve so they are the most common classes.

Take a chrono.
Make a mission with: 1 monk, 1 necro, 2 whammo, 1 ele. Note duration
Make a mission with: 1 monk, 1 necro, 1 whammo, 1 mesmer, 1 ele. Note duration.
Compare.
Conclude.

So you're saying the team only needs 1 tank? In that case swap him for another ele, or necro, or ranger...that does nothing to prove mesmers are worth bringing.

And Kate, it's not just because it's universally accepted. People know mesmers are lacking in PvE, it's a design flaw by Anet so players aren't to blame.

Want to have some fun? Go into a quest or mission or farming party as Mesmer with a fairly high illusion, say at least 12, and cast ineptitude and clumsiness on ANY enemy (may not work against a monk if that monk only casts healing) and watch the over 200 armour ignoring damage the next time that enemy attacks. On top of that, the enemy is also blinded for about 8 or more seconds.

When I get bored of doing that, I use so many other neat skills that are available to a mesmer.

And what does a fire elementalist do? Nuke nuke nuke over and over and over again. Damaging and effective? Yes, maybe, but boring! Give me mesmers anytime!

I had fun last night using Diversion and Arcane Conuncrum on those poor, poor enemy monks. I don't have Ineptitude yet, but spamming Clumsiness and Empathy on warrior types was great, too.

Oh, I'm an Ele.

Mesmers are useful in PvE.
I've gotten further in FOW and UW when mesmerizing than when monking, simply because i prevent alot of damage done with interrupts.

Also note that Monsters hardly take account of hexes cast on them: put backfire on a caster boss, and they will keep casting through it, same for empathy. You can, after a while, start profiting off your enemies' 'strengths' (kind of guerilla)

Imho, mesmers are made to be hated.
In PvE they are hard to control (adaptation to each region you're going to play in is advised, illusion is more useful than you think), thus making the good/total mesmer rate alot smaller than let's say, elementalists. People just don't like them because they 'deal' too much conditional damage, but this is just a good thing about them: if they know the region and the monsters, they can be the best class in there instead. (similar to guerilla warfare, perhaps? XD)
In PvP... then you know that you're a good mesmer when you completely shut them down, thus the enemies hating you and your teammates not noticing that you manipulate the entire battle (and not giving you any creds for all shutdown you have done)

Mesmers are subtle, your teammates don't know what you're doing, and they can hardly see what damage you actually inflict (i've had it before that a teammate give the creds to an ele who didn't do anything whilst i power spiked an opponent as a finishing blow).

Just look at it like this: if people insult you because they're annoyed by your actions (your in-game actions, not what you say, but what you actually do, mostly shutdown or annoyance), consider it a compliment, it means you're doing your job fine.

Do you place any value whatsoever on damage prevented?

Besides, in a no-heavy-thought-required Domination mode, queen farming for example, I easlily out-damage the warrior much of the time. Heck, throw empathy around on the not-currently-targetted-but-currently-attacking critters and by the time the warrior gets to them they're already half-dead, just spamming one of the lesser dominating skills.

If you can't see the value, you can't play one well.

You can bring as many tanks as you want, but you certainly don't NEED more than one tank. If you want, you don't even need to bring that one. 'nuff said.

People don't KNOW that. They BELIEVE that - because most players think a Mesmer is all about Backfire. Well, 95% of all players in GW have no clue about playing a Mesmer because they never really bothered to understand that class, so I don't really blame them, either.

And since you don't seem to get it either: OF COURSE you can replace a Mesmer with an Ele (or Ranger or whatever) in any group and still succeed. Just as you can replace an Ele with a Mesmer and succeed, too. I will tell you a secret: GW is balanced. No class is better than another...

Then there have been hardly any mesmers in PvE since the game started because they're just so hard to play, and after almost a year people still dont know how good they are?

I play them in PvP but I just cant grasp how to play them in PvE because mobs are far too clever for me?

Whatever you say.