Random PVP issues [renamed]

Do you see the ridiculous numbers of frag mesmers flooding the random arenas? Is the mesmer class supposed to totally destroy any class( excpet the prepared monk secondary) with a simple press of a few buttons? What is the deal?

Melee in this game might as well not exist. Anet has still not addressed the ease at which melee is totally negated. Either by snaring them, burden, crippling anguish. Or be it by blinding them, weakening, the numerous hexes that necros and mesmers have. Or if all else fails an easy escape is to simply run around, atfer a few seconds your health will magically come back on its own.

How does a melee defend himself against a frag build? Or all the degen effects that totally negate armor and the only real benefit a warrior primary has? Why does a mes/w with illusionary weapon and melee buffs far surpass a warrior in melee and tanking? Excusing overpowered enchants because of the handful and inefficent enchantment removals in the game doesnt cut it.

No one is bringing these things and I understand why. A enchantment removal , besides couple the necro has, does nothing to actually hinder a enchantment build. Bringing them is pointless and nobody does for the most part. Is there an enchantment that allows a W/me cast better and be more effective than a primary mesmer? Not a chance.

Im seeing frag mesmers casting through walls, no line of sight issues, and killing people within seconds. If you are lucky enough to close the gap on one of these in melee, they have th option of simply running, and using one of MANY devastatingly effective melee counters.

Right now PVP in the random arenas is trash. Playing a melee is pointless, whether it be soothing images, crippling anguish, imagined burded, SEVERE armor ignoring degeneration, blindness, weakness, shadow of fear, and the other numerous hexes...you simply have no chance. These skills NEVER fail, and cannot be defended against. There is no strategy, when you see fragility you simply die.

The only prayer is a talented disrupt ranger on your own team. But any frag mesmer would probably frag the ranger immediately behind the cover of a SOLID wall.

Totally useless broken PVP. Melee are worthless, enchantments are out of control, casters have godly defenses and incredible ranged damage. And they have the mobility advantage. I know flames will follow, but to honestly this game has builds that are plain exploits and they run rampant in arenas, nothing is done. That same fire map still loads in random arenas despite I would estimate 85% of people absolutely HATING that map.

I want a game where my play skill matters in the arena. I dont want to surf the message boards for the next exploit build. Strong builds are one thing, but ANET has done NOTHING to fix the melee vs caster imbalances in the game. They leave interrupts and weak encahntment removals the only line of defense against an enormous aresenal of caster based damage. They give warriors armor as their best asset and at the same time give casters enchantments that give them superior armor. And not to mention the fact that at LEAST 50% of damage done in arenas totally ignores armor.


Flame away, intelligent discussion would be nice. But not likely. I would just once like to see some real positive changes to thet game to make melee a decent class that is not so easily countered.

The frag mesmer is a very powerful build indeed. It's also easy enough to play that even unexperienced players can use them quite effectively. And yes, melees have a very hard time against those. But it's only one of many powerful builds. The frag mesmer CAN be countered as can every single one of the other builds. It doesn't mean that random PvP is worthless. Admittedly, if you don't have a class in your group that can counter such builds, you might have a hard time. Random PvP HAS a component of luck to it, true. This can mean you might end up with a team which will get utterly owned regardless of the skill of its players. Sometimes, luck will be on your side, too. If you get owned because you encounter an enemy you don't have a counter for - start a new game.

I am playing Arenas for long enough to know that Tombs is not the only place having a Flavor of the Month build.... Frag mesmers will come, frag mesmers will go again. As long as they are there, I will play my interrupt ranger... 'nuff said.

I'm a Mesmer, but I don't use fragility at all. I can kick ass with good spells like empathy, power block, etc...

It's pretty fun but it's random arenas for a reason. Try the more organized arenas and you'll see that it's a bit harder to be a frag mes there.

My Axe War has actually managed to kill a frag mesmer that was targeting him. He died shortly after he managed the feat, but he still brought the mesmer down.

It's pretty easy. Once a Mez starts his initial barrage of spells, he's useless until recast is up, mostly because of low mp and recasts on spells. Just put the smackdown on him then.

Hexbreaker also causes pains to careless mesmers. Smart ones will lead off with cheap spells like Wastrel's worry or diversion first tho.

Random arenas are problematic because you should have fairly self-sufficient build and carry res signet at the same time. It's almost impossible to make a character that can get rid of hexes and conditions, heal himself, res and do decent damage at the same time. Preferably you'd also need a skill that reduces damage to yourself if you are focused on (defensive stance or some protective spell). Interrupt would be good to have as well (in fact needed due to most players carrying res signet)...

Z.

I am playing mostly as a mesmer in PvP and happen to sometimes use the fragility build as well. And I have to say: a Frag+Vir mesmer is only as good as his/her teammates. OK, I can take out (if I choose the correct target and with a little luck) one player in the first sweep, but if my team gets whacked by the other three, then where am I? All alone (or dead already), trying to run around waiting for my energy to reach acceptable levels again or a chance to use my res signet. And the opposing team can just pick me off quite easily.

No, it's perhaps overpowered in that a warrior might have trouble staying alive due to the few counters he has, but I have seen numerous warriors and even more balanced teams owning me/my team or surviving the initial spike.

If you really dislike to not have any counters against a Frag+Vir mesmer: try changing your secondary to Mesmer itself. Hexbreaker is THE best counter for a Frag+Vir mesmer. (Of course a good monk with quick hex and condition removals is even better as support, but you can't rely on this in Comp Arena's.) Another good counter to a Frag+Vir mesmer is interupts. Although you have to be lucky to have someone do this for you, or as a Warrior get in close without being picked on. But I wouldn't count on interupts to save your day:

Ever heard of "Mantra of Resolve"? It's not ideal, as it'll cost you energy and energy management on a Frag+Vir mesmer is (in my setup) terrible, but interupts no longer hurt me and I manage to get the sequence done.

Probably. Especially considering the original title of this thread. I've changed the title in an effort to keep it constructive. I can understand your frustration but blaming ANet and posting general statements based only on *your* build is not the best idea to attract helpful replies.

Basic replies you can expect:
- If you're playing in the random arena, you need to stay alive by yourself. You can't count on a monk, so you need self healing skills (from monk, necro, ranger...).
- Fragility mesmers can deal a decent amount of damage, but they'll be killed in a few seconds by a good ranger or elementalist who generally deal much more damage (either instantanously or continuously), and they're pretty much useless for hours once they've cycled through their spells and burnt their energy pool.
- Enchantment removal is fine, thank you.
- From the skill you mention below, the mesmers you have met are probably *specifically* designed to counter warriors, because it is the typical newbie/cookie-cutter profession you find in this random arena.
- A good warrior can chew such a mesmer in a few hits. Yes, there are good warriors out there, even in the random arena. Without a monk to save their butt, mesmers generally are very soft targets.
- Try to play a good mesmer, and see if it's such an easy/powerful profession

So, in a few words:
- Don't play in the random arena if you need a monk to stay alive as a warrior.
- Don't blame enchantment removal when you don't use it (correctly).
- Browse the build forum and find a build that suits your taste, if you don't like melee characters.

Sorry to sound offensive, but don't blame Arena Net for your inability to design and to play a good build. Please don't post statements such as "Arena XX is broken", until you have played *many* builds from all professions in this arena.

Recently i have played as a warrior in random arenas. There really IS a counter to fragility build. I use purge conditions (1/4 sec cast time). When i see mesmer casting fragility on me i will prepare for quickly removing incoming deep wound. If you dont have any conditions on you, virulence wont work. Bad thing is purge conditions cooldown is 20 secs so mesmer can do his thing again. . .

Frag mesmers are really the only kind of mesmer with any staying power in random arena. As a mesmer you better concentrate on illusion (as that's the anti-melee skillset, and random is brimming with paladins), and then you've not got much choice but fragility.

Domination (anti-caster) mesmers can easily destroy frag mesmers, but domination mesmers are few because they have a real hard time against warriors.

The easiest solution to fraggers is to simply target enemy N/Me | Me/N first (as anyone with that combination of classes is likely a frag mesmer) - even if your team is all warriors. At worst you'll trade one warrior for one mesmer.

Hell, I sometimes play a frag mesmer in random (it can be fun) and I target opposing frag mesmers as soon as I see them. I don't care if the rest of the team is after the monk, N/Me, Me/N gets my full attention as soon as I see him

Er... my domination mesmer used to totally destroy random arena. My team usually prevented any warriors from getting to me...

Be a W/Me

Get hexbeaker.

Yeah, I suppose it is within the realm of distant possibility to get a team which actually helps a domination mesmer even in random arena, but I never have.

The best secondary class to go into Random PvP arenas is The Mo.Especially for warriors..Going into Arenas without Mend Ailment/Smite Hex/Remove Hex is simply suicidal for warriors.

The thing with melee is, if you're left alone, you will destroy a target faster than most other classes can with simple hits. Warriors can spike pretty viciously. If you're tired of people running away, use your own snares - hamstring, axe rake, or tap into a secondary. Don't want to get crippled, blinded or weakened? Go with Monk secondary to cure them, or Necromancer secondary to Plague Touch them right back. Don't want to be slowed by hexes? Go with Mesmer secondary and take Hex Breaker, or use one of the many hex removal tools.

Melee defends himself against a frag build by being healed, or if you must (considering random arenas) by healing himself. Like any other spike, once you survive the initial onslaught (and this is not as hopeless as you make it out to be), that frag mesmer is going to be powerless for a while, and you're still running around. Alternatively, a secondary Mesmer can use Hex Breaker to weed out 90% of the frag mesmers who open up with Fragility instead of testing the waters with a probe hex. Once you block Fragility they're neutered for a while, take them down.

Illusionary Weaponry mesmers are as fragile as any mesmer, I don't get where you get the idea that they're somehow stronger. Their attack damage can't be buffed, it's always the same flat damage with possibly Flurry to boost its speed, and besides Distortion spam (which would override Flurry) they don't have a whole lot to keep them alive. Their damage output falls into mid-tier warrior damage, and the only attractive part about it is the armour-ignoring aspect; you can complain about lack of decent enchantment removal, which normally is an accurate observation, but as far as 40 second recharge enchantments (such as Illusionary Weaponry) go, the removal options are fine. On top of that, once you remove Illusionary Weaponry, you've pretty much destroyed most of the usefulness of that mesmer for a long while. Personally I'll take an Illusionary Weaponry mesmer hitting me over an axe or hammer warrior any day.

My advice is for you to actually play a Fragility mesmer or an Illusionary Weaponry mesmer in arena. You'll discover they're not the insta-win characters you make them out to be - the former is decent for cheap kills against unprepared opponents, but lacks sustainability, the latter is simply fragile with mediocre damage output.

a good necro/mesmer can remove as much crap as a mesmer can put on, thereby making melee viable again.

Warriors are far more competent in the random arena than you give them credit for. In PvP, they can be serious damage dealers. One of the best random groups I've ever been on was a group of three warriors (only 1 was a W/Mo) and an interrupt ranger. We absolutely shredded casters in seconds. In many matches, the first person we targetted went down in about 5 seconds.

I run a W/R Tiger Fury build, and I've found that Antidote Signet solves a lot of blindness problems. Most people don't bother to reapply it, so once you cure the initial condition, you're usually good to go. I'm not saying it's the best solution, but it's worked well enough for me.

This is the best advice you could possibly take. if you're having difficulty beating a certain build....go play it. It will open your eyes to the weaknesses of that build(and all builds have a weakness). There's no better way to learn to beat a build than to try playing the build.

I play a prot monk and frag mesmers pose no problems even without hex or condition removal. When ever I see one on the opposing team I just keep an eye out.

When someone gets hit with a hex and a condition, I immediately slap on shielding hands and start spamming reversal. That pretty much absorbs the majority of the spike.

Now to some of your points:

1. You can neuter a frag mesmer with by going Mesmer secondary and using Signet of Humility - the spike comes when they cast they elite Virulence spell. Disable that elite and the entire build is severely crippled.

2. Go secondary monk or necro and take a condition removal. Wait for the Frag to be put on you. Wait for the Deep Wound then remove it before they cast Virulence. You'll take 2x Frag damage from the Deep Wound condition but you will avoid the 6x frag spike from Virulence.

3. Illusinary Warriors are neutered again with Signet of Humility.

You didn't mention it but...

4. E/Mo smiters are neutered with Sig Humility also....well not neutered but severely crippled.

5. They are running from you? Take Sprint or Rush or some other speed boost. I also like to take Bull's Strike to knock them down. Or like someone else said, take a snare. I sometimes like to make a W/E with 10 Water and take Conjure Frost to buff myself and Ice Spikes (I think that's the one) to snare the runners.

But yeah if someone makes a mesmer build specifically to counter warriors then consider yourself countered. But that same mesmer will not be able to save himself from the rest of your team. That's why the game is not 1vs1.

How is it fine? Especially with all of them having awkward 20 sec+ recharge times? Compared to many enchantments having 5-15 recharge times? Not even mentioning some monk spells that have a 2 second recharge?

You don't strip enchantments to shut down an entire build based on enchantments, you remove enchantments to strip a target for the killing blow, or to break the main strategy of your enemy. There are two types of dangerous enchantment builds:
- builds that use one very powerful enchantment, often covered with a cheap enchant. typical examples: IW, Aura of Faith
- builds that stack permanent enchantments to build up a stone wall. typical build: healing balls

Both are currently controlled with existing anti enchantments like Well of the Profane (to be coupled with a Glyph of Sacrifice if Necrotic Traversal is expected), Rend Enchantment or Lingering Curse, not to mention basic removals which are quite powerful against the average player (who won't cover his precious enchantment fast enough). Moreover, the new incarnation of Nature's Renewal is pesky enough to break degenerated strategies using permanent enchantments.

Simply put, adding an enchantment removal able to deal with Reversal of Fortune or Healing Breeze would be the best way to create a balance problem identical to the old Nature's Renewal, and to trash all the average enchantments which are perfectly fine.

Sure, we could use a couple of skills like wards to slow down the spellcasting of enchantments or to increase their recharge time. It could be good to keep enchantment spammers under control. But we don't need more or better enchantment removal.

how are they fine? because while the mesmer has to cast EACH SPELL AGAIN a spell like rend takes them all down at once. so does lingering curse.

a good disenchante nevero will have 3 enchant removals by himself.

if the mesmers lives long enough to start casting his hexes again the necros enchant removal will be recharged by the time the mesmer has his second hex back up.

enchant removal is no where near underpowered.

play in team arenas whereyou can control your team build.

random arenas is not a good place for you if you rely on a monk for hex removal and heals.

Although the enchantment removal discussion is pretty much a side-track issue, I don't think it should be judged based on how it works with average players, instead only the competitive top should be regarded to determine its current balance position. As it is, spot removal loses out pretty easily to cover enchants, and the big guns (lingering, rend, profane) tend to be a larger burden than what they're removing (but do get the job done). I think the problem mostly lies with the highly diverse nature of enchantments (from 60s recharge conjures to maintained enchants to short duration enchants such as orders or guardian) set against pretty consistently priced/potent removal (spot removals consistently being 10-15 energy with 20-30s recharge), and the stack system itself promoting using cover enchantments to protect enchantments that actually matter isn't helping either.

salja Wachi, could you please bother taking longer than 10 seconds to blurt out your post? First you're talking enchantment removal, then you're talking about a mesmer reapplying hexes, your gross typoing makes it unclear if you meant to write 'necro' or 'never' which makes it very difficult to understand your standpoint, and after comparing a mesmer (not very enchantment heavy) with a necro (still the best enchantment removers) you suddenly conclude enchantment removal is no where near underpowered. Make some bloody sense, thanks.

The frag build is, IMO, the same as an elmo for mesmers. It is as easy to use, as strong in small battles, and easy to use... wait did I say that twice? Most of the mesmers I have seen in RT or AT have actually been pretty bad mesmers :/ I guess it is the same as elmo, attracts all the bad players because it is so easy to do. Any mesmer worth his weight in gold will always have an ability to counter this, if not turn it against the user. Also a Me/Mo will just totally destroy it... as in worthless to even try

I never run frag for the reasons above really, I like to run original builds not FotM... actually I don't run any of those mesmer builds that you see litered over RT... its just sad and very very easily counterable my personal favorite is Inspired Hex + Enchant... you can stop both builds... and with a few other skills totally lock two possible builds out of excistance.

Every class has these strong to use "uber/leet" builds with which players, who either farm faction or are just bad players, use to gloat over those who actually try original things. Sad isn't it?

<angered and confused>
what the hell are you talking about? a necro running enchant removal has nothing to do with mesmers casting hexes. you cannot remove hexes with enchant removal. so again what the hell are you talking about?
</angered and confused>

I have to agree with the statement above. If not many of the experienced betas and alphas who Anet has responded too ... slowly. The consensus just sees the face of things while the experienced players who know the skills better then the food the eat, can really see how it is effecting other skills.

There are also the spammables that make any single layer enchantment removal pointless. This means you are left with three methods of enchantment removal. Rend, curse, and switching targets, are what you are left with, assuming that group buffs are not also being used. Well requires a dead target, so if you arent wasting all of your time beating up against a heavy defense stack of enchantments, then its kinda pointless to bring. Sure you could try and sacrifice one of your own, but only a couple maps require the other side to actually stay near a given position.

Stacking wouldnt be a problem, if there were limits to the stacking of type and number. It would also make the single layer removals more viable.


Actually the only enchantment placement that really needs to slow down is in the monk realm, its fine everywhere else in terms of speed versus effect and duration(for the most part). There is one style missing from the enchantment removal, just following spell patterns. We have 3 types of varied beneficial gain, 2 mass removals, a corpse exploitation, a direct offensive one dealing fair damage, and a point blank aoe one. What is missing is the ranged aoe single layer type. The refresh times for the multi layered enchantment removal is alright, but the single layer removal is too slow, considering none of them except chillblains can even hope to keep up with things like balthazar's aura, never mind the more simple and useful augmentation and protection spells. This is why many instances are defaulted to the diversion solves everything cliche.

I agree completely. It is as easy as you said to completely negate a melee character, whether through blind, empathy, run speed debuffs, run speed buffs, and simply running away without any run speed buff at all. In exchange for this monumental weakness, the melee characters surely have a great advantage as well? No, they do not. Damage is comparable, and yet melee can be easily shut down and casters can not. Oh sure, the warrior has high armor. Big deal when AT LEAST 60 percent of pvp damage completely ignores armor (hexes, smiting, fire, etc). The only solution is to remove the incredible amount of melee counters, or vastly increase melee damage.

Or you know, not. Apparently your missing that whole thing about a Melee character shouldnt try to be a Stand Alone, which is most of the problem. You get things cast on you that shut down Melee, get someone else to take them off you. This is why a Mesmer is also your best friend as a Warrior.

I cant tell you how much I hate getting attacked by tanks as a Mesmer. I get double-teamed half the time. And against one, I have some rate of success, I can take down a single warrior attacking me with no problem. But two warriors is a problem, and I die like a lemming vs a cliff.

Your going to complain because Hexes and things like that ignore armor and damage you for doing Melee, if even letting you at all. So apparently, you dont know to use something other than just Melee attacks in your skill bar. You have a secondary class for a reason, and there's no rule stated somewhere that says "You MUST be a Monk secondary if your a Warrior".

Complaining because casters can take you down is like me saying a Warrior beating me is unfair.

Its stupid, and pointless. This is competition. You arent outmatched, you're just equally matched. Learn to cope or get out of the way.

Lay out for me, if you will, the multitude of ways with which a caster can be completely shut down. If you can't, you've proven my point. Because there are a great many very obvious ways to COMPLETELY shut down a warrior. I'm complaining not because casters take me down, ooh I'm a crybaby, but because of the EASE with which I am COMPLETELY removed from the picture. And spellbreaker is an elite only available to monks, which can still be bypassed by any sort of ranged attack that is not a spell.

Well it's like a mongoose and a snake or a wasp and a spider, or maybe a dolphin and a shark. There is no one on top, it depends on how they fight.

You think you're easy to kill as a warrior? Wow. Try playing as a domination mesmer or a minionmancer necro and learn what "easy to kill" really means.

Again, if you're a team without defence against N/Me | Me/N's, target them first. He may kill one warrior, but then he's toast as he'll get no support from his team. Ignore the monks, monks in 4v4 random are prot/smite anyway and tank better than warriors.

Damage isn't comparable at all. Melee has the highest sustained damage output in the game (broken exceptions such as ER smiting aside), can get the benefit of critical hits, especially on running opponents (which spellcasters cannot), have excellent speed buffs, some decent snares, the most scary array of knockdowns in the game, and that's just from tapping purely into their primary, many of the problems you describe can be circumvented by the secondary profession. Really, go play a spellcaster for a change and find out how enjoyable it is when a warrior -isn't- disabled. The reason why there's disproportionally many anti-warrior skills being carried into PvP is because of the threat warriors pose, not because it's so easy to get rid of them.

Shatter delusions suck on frag mesmers.

Have you seen GvG lately? 90% of the teams rely on warriors as the main dmg dealer due their staying power and lack of dependency on energy. As a warrior you must rely on your team mates to remove conditions and hexs for the most part. In an organized build there are players assigned to these duties and will keep a melee character up and ready for the fight. The random arena is a poor example for pvp as you have no control over what skills your teamamtes have. It's just there for poeple to test skills/get an idea of pvp or just mindless fun.

The best advice I can give u for random arena warrior build is to make a w/mo and carry purge conditions as ur sole monk skill. It requires no attributes and will solve a lot of the problems you are getting.

If warriors pose so great a threat, why are the best guilds in near universal agreement about killing them last?

Because they have the best armor rating for the most part and is very difficult to take down when the healers can still protect them. It's more efficient to take out the casters unless a warrior is out of position.

hexbreaker = gg frag mesmer, then just have a hammer, kd>mesmer and if you really need it, warriors cunning.

for enchant hogs, they own because nobody brings enchant removal, and its pointless to make a build to destroy only enchants because then you serve no further benifit to your team.

warriors are f-ed by blind or signet of midnight and epidemic for multiple melees and everyone but enchant casters are left. thus you see every caster with enchants on them slaughtering the arena.

I disagree. The real reason is that warriors are easily, effectively, and completely removed from battle, while other classes are not.

Sorry for the double
I never said I was easy to kill. I said that my damage was easily completely and utterly removed from the picture.