Countering Mesmers
The best way to know how to defeat a class is to play one yourself. Mesmer Vs. Elementalist is generally decided upon the better player.
Since most people have problems fighting mesmers, I will list the tactics to combat them. The most common one is probably the “shatter cat” build by osicat.
There are many variation of builds out there for mesmers. For the most part, most build setups revolve around 0/20/20/0/30 setups. From there, you can categorize the damage each mesmer does by the following:
Retaliation/Tank Spec
Confusion/Condition damage Spec
Burst/Zerker Spec
Then you can categorize mesmers by weapon type, almost all mesmer builds run a staff and a sword/x, where x is a focus, torch, sword, or pistol. Sometimes the mesmers might run greatsword for burst specs, or scepter for confusion/condition damage setups.
Steps to defeating a mesmer
1. First recognize what type of mesmer you are fighting.
Retaliation / Tank specs are generally the lowest threat ones, since you can really only kill yourself. You should assume all mesmers are burst / Zerker setups though, since this is the most common setup b/c the gear is cheap and easy to obtain from running dungeons. The highest threat build setup is the confusion/condition mesmer, as you can easily take 1k damage from 1 spell due to confusion stacks. You won’t find as many confusion / condition mesmers since the price of gear is so expensive. Confusion / condition mesmers also use scepters, so assume all scepter mesmer users as confusion types.
2. You need to watch out for the common Blurred frenzy + immobilization spike.
It is associated with their sword hand weapon number 2 and 3 skill. What happens is the mesmer sends a melee, crippling clone at you, and then teleports at that clone+immobilizes you, followed by a blurred frenzy spike (High DPS burst spell that makes them evade all attacks in place). Most mesmers also follow up with “shatter”, which is their F1 to F4 abilities, to which their clones blow up on you, dealing either daze, confusion, burst damage, or grants them evasion. Most will use the first 3 on you.
To deal with the spike, immobilization is their key ability to hold you in place. It lasts 2 seconds long, and blurred frenzy is a 2second spike + shatter. Essentially their spike has a 2 second time spam. You need to remove that immobilization and dodge ASAP when you see it. This means blowing off a cantrip with the Water 3+Water11 trait to remove it, or immediately swapping to water to remove 2 conditions. The other alternative is to use ether renewal, but it can be interupted if the enemy uses a daze “shatter” with their spike.
3. Watch out for the clones / Phantasms.
Clones are exact replicas of the mesmer, and deal very minimal auto attack damage, but can be devastating for “shatters” and combined traitlines. Phantasms hit extremely hard, but have less HP. Clones have about 3.2k HP, and its shatter based damage, and armor is dependent upon the mesmer’s stats. Phantasms ~2k HP.
Some mesmers can trait such that clones you kill give you various conditions. For the most part, it is recommended you spread your PbAoE / AoE upon both the real mesmer, and its clones/phantasms. Phantasms need to be dealt with before clones, since they present a threat.
Clones will run up to you when the mesmer uses his “shatter” ability. When you see the clones stop auto attacking, and run to you, dodge the incoming shatter. Shatter between clones has a 0.25second interval.
4. Use line of sight.
Mesmers utilize LoS very poorly, whereas D/D elementalist is the best class to utilize it. This is because, as mentioned earlier, D/D ele’s spells go right through trees / obstacles most of the time. Mesmers on the other hand, can actually lose out on their spell and cause it to go to CD without doing anything if their clone/phantasm summoning ability is blocked by line of sight.
That being said, fighting on open ground is an advantage to mesmers.
Mesmers also have the advantage on high ground access locations, due to their staff 2 ability as well.
Forest / tree heavy areas / walls/ obstacles / Flat terrain are all in your favor.
5. Your cantrips are your lifeline. If there all on CD, you might as well run.
Cantrips are used to coutner the blurred frenzy/ shatter spike by removing the immobilization, and if you don’t have any available you will most likely die. The alternative is to physically dodge right before the blurred frenzy spike by recognizing when it is coming. Your other alternative is to swap to water attunement right before the spike will occur, but a good Mesmer will spike you when you are already in water attunement and force you to burn a cantrip.
6. Keep heavy pressure on the mesmers
Mesmers have almost no condition removal unless they use their utility skill. This means skills that cripple, chill, burn, bleed mesmers will seriously cause a lasting impact and end the battle sooner. Skills like Drakes breath, Churning earth+lightning flash, etc are strong counters. Getting into the mesmer’s comfort zone is the fastest way to kill one, since they have the advantage at long range. The best way to kill a Mesmer is to do it inbetween their Blurred Frenzy shatter spikes.
Do note that their staff2 ability makes them teleport 900 units away from you, and creates a clone where they were once at. The animation cue and sound cue is how you notice it. Also be wary that mesmers also create clones upon dodging too.
Their staff 5 ability creates a giant dome that applies boons to them and conditions to you every second. Counter this using mid range abilities, such as Drakes breath while outside of the bubble.
7. Watch out for cliff sides.
Mesmers have very strong pulling / pushing abilities with the focus and great sword. The focus’s temporal curtain is a freecast pull in any direction, and can easily pull you off a cliff if your not careful. Therefore, it is best to avoid cliff side drop offs.
8. Watch out for their downed state
Mesmers have one of the most powerful downed DPS states in the game. Their 3rd downed ability causes a whirling phantasm (same as their 4th GS ability), very similar to the warriors great sword 3rd ability spin. It has a 10second CD to start, and can deal upwards of up to 9k damage if you are not careful.
To counter this, hide behind a terrain obstacle and heal up once they are downed. Don’t go for the stomps, just keep AoE bursting them until they are dead WHILE constantly moving and dodging, as this will make it harder for their spike to land. Their downed state 2 ability is on CD right when they are downed, and teleports them / makes them invisible + makes a clone. The real Mesmer has a larger red triangle icon above its head.
9. Call target if you have a party
“Control + T” the Mesmer using the standard keyboard configurations. You will be able to see the real Mesmer at all times, provided they do not use stealth skills. IF they do stealth, you need to re-target. Also at the same time, note what stealth abilities they possess
1- Torch 4 provides a 3second stealth + burn AoE
2- Utility Veil provides a line that grants them 4 seconds of stealth
3- Utility decoy creates a clone that grants them 3 seconds of stealth (you can see when the Mesmer uses this by a change in their attack animation)
4- Elite Mass invisibility takes 1.75seconds to cast, and grants all allies 5 seconds of stealth
5- Utility teleport is also noted here as well, b/c they can use it while stealthed to escape. Or they can use their staff 2 teleport skill.
10. Note your spell counter vs. Confusion / Condition mesmers
Spells come in 4 forms for an elementalist, and are all affected by confusion and your signet of restoration spell.
Dodging = 1 spell
Attunement Swapping = 1 spell
Casting a spell = 1 spell
Each unique evasive arcana roll = 1 spell.
Dodging with an evasive arcana spell is considered 2 spells.
Channeling skills cancelled early are not considered spells. Therefore spamming Fire2 and cancelling it near the end with “escape” key is a strong tactic. Same with Water2
Confusion damage per spell ranges up to 1k per spell cast. Your average spell cast is about 1 cast / second, so it really adds up quickly, on top of the mesmers ability to shatter spike on you. The worst case scenario battle is when you fight both a confusion mesmer, and a condition necro at the same time. If that is the case, you might as well run b/c you will not win.
When fighting a confusion/ condition mesmer, the hardest thing to learn is to RECOGNIZE confusion stacks ASAP and NOT cast spells but instead to run away, heal up, and re-initiate. You need to utilize that line of sight tactic as much as possible to win, and time your condition removals perfectly.
11. The trick to winning against a mesmer is through attrition/long drawn out battles, since you have much higher access to healing abilities than they do.
Countering Thieves
As mentioned earlier, the best way to counter a class is to play one yourself.
Thieves are known to be the highest burst class in the game. Most thieves run a combination of Pistol/dagger, dagger/dagger, and shortbow. Occassionally you might find a Sword/pistol type, but they are not common.
Build types are not really important when countering thieves, unlike that of a mesmer. Identifying what weapon the thief is using is more important. Their main damage type is burst through direct damage, usually right out of stealth. Condition based thieves aren’t really that a threat to elementalist since they can’t cover it with other conditions.
Steps to defeating a thief
1. Understand what the thief is capable of
The first step is to understand how the thief actually works. They actually have an “energy” counter called initiative, that regenerates linearly. Thieves can only combo as much as their initiative allows them too. Most thieves will use their initiative and spam it on heartseeker, the dagger 2 skill that leaps them to you and deals more damage the lower your HP.
Often times you’ll see a thief use only a few skills, since in all honesty most of their skills are not worth using. The main skills you want to look out for are the following:
-Cloak and Dagger – Dagger skill 5. Melee attack that stealths them if it lands on you. Almost every thief relies on this skill to stealth, and if you cause this attack to fail you’ll have the upper advantage.
-Heartseeker – Dagger skill 2. Enemy leaps forward toward you, and deals more damage the lower your HPs at. This is the infamous spam kill spell.
-Dancing Dagger – Dagger skill 4. Throws a crippling projectile at you.
-Infiltrator’s arrow – Shortbow skill 5. Allows thief to teleport to a position, similar to lightning flash but shorter range and spammable.
-Basilisk Venom elite – turns you into a statue, behaves like a stun. Countered by cantrips
You probably at this point have heard much QQ about thieves being able to instagib enemies, and this is mostly true. A thief before the 3/26/13 quickness nerf was able to perform a 15k burst on a fully armored guardian within 1.5seconds. The 1.5seconds spike only worked if the enemy utilized quickness, combined with consumables, utility preparations, basilisk stun elite (optional), and cheating with macros (1 click that performed several skills in sequence) etc. that had a fairly long cooldown of up to ~90seconds. Most burst from your average D/D thief occurs within a spam of ~5seconds though, with a spam of heartseeker thereafter if you aren’t dead yet.
2. Identify what type of thief you are fighting.
Most thieves come in two flavors : Dagger/Dagger (D/D) and Pistol/Dagger (P/D) for DPS.
D/D as mentioned earlier is infamous for its burst. The way they deliver this burst is from stealth, using a combination of backstab (2x normal damage from stealth), Mug (steal skill traited such that it does damage), cloak and dagger + another backstab, and heartseeker spam. If the thief is using quickness, you will not be able to react to the mug, and initial backstab which will do approximately ~9k damage. It is possible to avoid the next cloak and dagger +backstab, and fairly easy to identify the following heart seeker spam. Dodge as soon as you identify a thief spamming heart seeker, as this will negate most of their damage and initiative.
Once a thief’s initiative is used up, his next move will be to use cloak, either through his healing skill, utility, or cloak and dagger. This is when you hit him as hard as possible with your burst, CC’s, conditions, etc. You need to finish him off before he cloaks and runs away.
P/D is known to be a tanky archtype of the thief that is a roamer in WvWvW. They kill through a combination of attrition through condition based damage, and lack of condition removal on the enemy side. Most P/D thieves will start this attack from a safe distance away. He will then follow up with a “cloak and dagger” skill to re-stealth
Arganthium.5638:
What you can expect from Dagger/Pistol D/P is:
– A lot of blinds
– A combo field that blinds you if you stand in it. Also, the combo field allows for thieves to HS?Stealth, so be prepared for that.
-Tends to rely more on HS than regular D/D builds would
– A bit more of a “tanky” thief build, but still one where you might want to watch out for Backstabs, as they can still really, really hurt.
Note that all of your spells can hit a thief except updraft, as long as you can predict where the thief is right after stealthing. Drakes breath is extremely effective here.
3. Understand how stealth works.
This applies to any class with access to stealth on their own- engineers, mesmers, rangers, elementalist, and thieves (yes I did say elementalist, rangers, and engineers). Stealth can be stacked several times in duration, as long as you don’t deal damage. When you do deal damage in stealth, you are “revealed” for 4 seconds, preventing any re-stealthing from occurring. This does not apply if you let stealth wear off and then attack, but thieves lose out on any special first moves if they do this.
4. Know what stealth moves the thief is capable of.
Most thieves will bring in their utility and heal slot:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Refuge
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blinding_Powder
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hide_in_Shadows
Shadow refuge is something every thief will carry. It grants them 15 seconds of stealth, and has a noticeable animation. Thieves will generally stand within this area to build up on stealth, and exit the area once the spell is done. You can land many attacks when the thief is building stealth in this spell, especially with spells such as Fire2,3,4, earth 2,4,5, water 2,3, air1. If the thief’s HP is low, you may actually down them in stealth refuge. If this is the case, feel free to spam AoE for the next 15 seconds within that area, + a little bit surrounding it. A thief can revive himself with 15seconds of stealth as long as they are not attacked, but if you spam AoE you can stop this from happening.
Blinding powder is an instant AoE cast, and has a noticeable animation as well.
Hide in shadows is a utility skill that most thieves use to stealth+heal.
Cloak and dagger as mentioned previously
Combos as well, but your average thief won’t perform this.
5. Keyboard and Mouse Reflexes
Offensive reflexes
You have to be quick when dealing against a thief in order to kill them. P/D thieves will attack and give themselves a short time frame for you to attack. You can counter this by constantly 360* panning + Closest target filter + ride the lightning once they unstealth and instantly start your DPS combo. This applies to D/D thieves as well, when they are trying to run away.
Defensive reflexes
For D/D thieves, you need to prepare for the worst situation possible. Assume that a thief can spike you in 2-3seconds, using quickness and the elite basilisk venom (turns you into a stone statue). Have your Dodge and cantrip button ready to be pressed the moment you see the thief’s animation clipping and hitting you. Identify the spike by looking at your HP bar first, since there is a slight animation delay between your HP dropping, and the enemy’s blur. Dodge as soon as you can, and use any other spells that can CC / prevent you from dying such as earth 4 and air5.
6. Predicting, countering, and positioning
Thieves only have a limited stealth duration, and will generally strike near the end of it to reap the benefits of HP reg, initiative reg, and CD on spells. Expect D/D thieves to be within melee proximity when they’re stealth is running low. You can cast AoE spells such as earth 5, fire 4, fire 2 (and do a 360*) to easily hit them when this is going to happen, and just spread AoE at random.
For a more defensive approach, use air3, air 5, earth 4, etc. when you expect a D/D thief to come at you from stealth. Air3 can be casted in advance and still be effective, and this will stop D/D thieves in their tracks.
Thieves also deal double damage if they hit you from behind with their 1st ability out of stealth. You can easily make this extremely difficult for a thief to perform if you run around in circles, constantly spamming random AoE spells to punish them if they are in range.
7. Downed state
Thieves have 2 downed moves that allow them to escape. The 2nd downed move allows them to teleport to any location they want, and the 3rd ability stealths them. You can only stomp a thief if you do so within the first ~1second of them being downed, otherwise they will teleport/ stealth. If they do teleport, you can always chain your stomp with lightning flash.
The best method to killing a thief in its downed state is to just burst them on the floor, so you don’t have to worry about either ability they possess. Just spam AoE until they teleport, and spam more AoE where they stealth. Repeat until thief is dead. You can always chain this while killing another enemy at the same time as well.
Arganthium.5638:
8. -Spam AoE/PbAoE” when Shadow Refuge is thrown down. Typically, thieves can do little or nothing about damage you do to them when they’re in SR, and, 99% of the time, thieves will spend the entire duration of SR just sitting there, waiting to max out stealth. If there aren’t any nearby enemies threatening to kill them, they’ll typically just stand in the center, but otherwise they’ll stand closer to the edge of the circle to avoid getting hit. I would say that this makes Lightning Whip most useful, because it hits the entire radius around you, while other skills don’t have that option. Also, because LW is so powerful, that gives you yet another reason to use it.
daphoenix's Elementalist Guide 