GW2. How To Fight Mesmer. How To Beat Mesmer. Class Mechanics. Matchup Guide. Mesmer Chronomancer Mirage Virtuoso. Guild Wars 2 PvP 2023.

Your ability to adapt to situations in PvP is not only tied to your knowledge of your class, but also of the classes you will be facing. This is a basic guide to understanding Mesmers in PvP so that you can figure out how to fight them without having to learn to play the thief class entirely.

Contents

Mechanics

Mesmers have two main mechanics: Creating Illusions and then Shattering those illusions for a powerful effect.

Mesmer skills will create one of two illusions:

Clones
Phantasms

Clones are very weak. They do almost no damage and they have very little health. They can have multiple of these chase a target and while they don’t do much they look exactly like the real mesmer, which can confuse you to which one is real. However, they cannot dodge, use any attacks besides their auto attack, or move in any direction other than towards their target. You can tell which one is the real mesmer by their behavior or by targeting them and seeing the buffs they have. If one of the clones does something that a clone cannot do, then its the real one. Clones also cannot have signet buffs and generally have a low amount of boons.

Phantasms are stronger and will do a single strong attack and will become a clone after finishing their attack. They look more ghostly so they aren’t as confusing, but their strong attack can be dodged or interrupted with a daze or stun which will immediately turn them into the clone without finishing the attack.

Clones can often be killed with AoE and line of sight can help to gather them up to easily dispose of them. If you let mesmers keep their clones they can build up 3 of them which can be used for the maximum effect Shatter.

Shatter Skills

When a mesmer shatters their clones they will stop performing their attacks and run towards their target and then explode for the effect of the skill they chose. To avoid as many of these as possible you should dodge towards the shattered clones running at you. This is because dodging backwards will stagger their arrival and require more than one dodge animation. If you dodge towards them you can trigger and evade multiple of the shatter explosions.

Whenever you see a mesmer has three clones up, prepare to avoid the shatter. Because they are instant cast there isn’t much you can do to kill them once the shatter happens, but you can proactively kill the clones to prevent too many from gathering and make the mesmer choose to shatter early, making their shatters weaker.

Downed State

If you manage to get an enemy mesmer into the downed state, disposing of them involves handling a few skills:

Confusion: the auto attack of mesmer downed state will confuse you which can make finishing them off with damage dangerous. Stomping them can be safer to avoid triggering the confusion, but that can be complicated by their next ability.

Stealth Reposition – You cannot stomp a mesmer easily because stealth will interrupt the stomp and they can move out of range and create a clone as well. If you really want the stomp though, you could stow your stomp and recast it right as they raise their hand to enter stealth. Your stomp will last long enough that they will reveal from stealth and then you can use a port to get back in range.

The easiest way to handle this is to stomp the first time to get them to stealth, then you want to stomp them as soon as they come out of stealth. Discern which one is the real mesmer by which one has the downed icon on them.

Phantasmal Rogue– After 8 seconds a mesmer can summon a phantasm that will deal heavy power damage. If this phantasm hits you from behind, it will deal double damage which can be extremely dangerous. If you CC the phantasm when it spawns, it won’t perform its attack, or you can just dodge the backstab.

Traits

While you can learn how to play against meta builds, not everyone plays the same builds and there are some variations of mesmer that may differ from one another. Understanding their traits and how they synergize with their class can help you to fight them.

The elite specializations mesmers can play offer new mechanics and shatters to play around.

Chronomancer

Chronomancers can perform massive skill combos with Continuum Split, which recharges all of the skills they used within its duration. When you see the Continuum Rift, try to dodge, use defensive cooldowns, or CC the Chronomancer so they can’t get much value out of their combos before they run out of time.

Mirage

Mirages can dodge with no animation using Mirage Cloak, making it harder for enemies to discern which one is the real. Also they gain powerful Ambush attacks which become available after dodging. If you watch their buff bar, the Mirage Cloak buff will show you when they are dodging and when they aren’t.

Virtuoso

Rather than create clones which are chained to specific targets, Virtuosos stock Blades which they can shatter at any time at any target and will pierce at long ranges, these are their Bladesong attacks. This means you can much more easily find the real one. Their shatters are now ranged projectiles. Often they can be unblockable, but they are dodgeable and you can hide behind line of sight. They will block and go invulnerable using their blades which can prevent them from using shatters offensively, however they generate blades from blocking and evading so ignoring them can often be the best way to handle them.

Matchups

There is always a potential to beat an enemy either by rotating into better fights or outplaying their mechanics, but these are the main dynamics of how specific classes interact with mesmers:

Mesmer Counters

Guardian

Mesmers remove the boons and disrupt the synergy of guardians
Guardians struggle to catch up to and stick to mesmers
Mesmer clones can remove the guardian Aegis easily

Elementalist

Elementalists may not survive the mesmer burst to get to their sustain
Condition mesmers have plenty of confusion which counters elementalists
The synergy and rotation of elementalists gets disrupted by mesmers

Revenant

Mesmers have plenty of CC and conditions which revenants struggle to handle
Revenants cannot handle the burst damage of mesmers too well
Revenants cannot stick to the elusive mesmer

Necromancer

Necromancers have slow animations susceptible to interruption
Mesmers are too elusive for a necromancer to stick their damage to
Mesmers can use distortion to trade blows with necromancers when they do choose to fight

Situational Dangers

Warrior

Warriors can get adrenaline from killing the mesmer clones
Mesmers have access to plenty of evades, blinds, and CC to be hard to hit
Warriors can sustain through a mesmer’s distractions

Engineer

Mesmers interrupt engineers, preventing them from rotating through their many skills
Engineers have plenty of AoE and damage to kill clones
Mesmers lack the sustain to survive engineers if they don’t get the kill quickly

Counters Mesmer

Thief

Mesmers are squishy, making them ideal targets for thieves
Thieves have more mobility and stealth than mesmers, allowing them to get the opener
The mesmer stolen ability gives every boon in the game which helps to maintain their lead in the fight

While there are many things that mesmers counter, they do so in team oriented situations, as a disruptor. In actual 1v1s they lack sustain and it may be closer fights.