Why is the mesmer considered so complex?

[Grim]

After reading various posts on here, on YouTube, etc. everyone's saying that engineer, mesmer, and (maybe) elementalist are the most complex GW2 classes. I get engineer, all the turrets, wepaon kits, etc. and SORT OF ele (all the attunements=a whole load of attacks) but I don't get why mesmer is so complex. I mean, is the illusion and shattering thing that tough? Can someone explain this to me?

[iDwarf]

The mesmer is all about timing, position, and manipulating the fight. You have to come up with strategies to effectively use the mesmer. Like most professions, it's easy to jump into, but get's more complex the higher you get. There's a lot of complexity to a mesmer that you can read in an in-depth interview on the mesmer here (http://www.gameinformer.com/games/guild_wars_2/b/pc/archive/2011/12/14/lifting-the-veil-on-guild-wars-2-39-s-mysterious-mesmer-profession.aspx?PostPageIndex=1) on game informer.

[Vayne]

Unlike the necromancer who has high health, and the ele who has great damage mitigation abilities in earth, the mesmer is the most like a glass canon in the entire game. Lowerer armor and health than any other class.

Clones are not long term solutions for survivability. They die very quickly. The entire class depends on figuring out how to use what you have to stay alive, while doing damage. You can destroy clones four different ways and each one has an advantage but you can't destroy them one at a time. You have to destroy them all at once.

Positioning clones to be the most effective when they're destroyed is going to take a lot of time. Similarly, just creating a clone isn't going to save your bacon, unless you learn to act like your clones..use the same skills about as frequently or you'll be easily recognizable in PVP.

Also the mesmer has one of the biggest selection of weapons to use, which does mean more skills, even if you can't have them all at once.

The bottom line is, even in Guild Wars 1, the mesmer requires more thought than most other professions. Eles can brute force stuff, by blasting it with tons of high damage attacks. Mesmers require a lot more finesse.

[CorayThan]

I'm not sure the Mesmer is terribly more complex than other classes, although it could depend to a great extent on how you build your mesmer. The mesmers have a greater number of "fire and forget" skills than most classes, I would say, as most phantasms you just want to summon them whenever they're ready, unless you are about to use a shatter and want to summon the phantasm right after that.

I think the 2 handers are pretty simple weapons. Just spam your attacks, using what control you have available to keep range, and judiciously use your shatter abilities.

The one handers are considerably more complex, as they have reactive blocks, deceptive illusion-creating jumping skills, scepter stacks confusion, and most off hands have a complex skill (aside from their phantasm one) like the cripple / swiftness wall, The Prestige which includes a blind, stealth, and burn, or trick shot which hits three targets for three different effects.

Also, the shatters can be difficult to use correctly, as you need to know how to set your clones up correctly to survive, and need to know when it's better to keep your clones alive to allow them to deal damage, versus shattering to get the effects and replace the clones.

I think players who go heavily into Mantras and/or cloaking skills also have increased complexity when playing the class, as it's very important when using stealth skills to not just use them indiscriminately, but to use them at the exact correct time based on your health and cool downs, and your opponent's health and cool downs and abilities, etc., like for example using stealth to escape elite skills, or using stealth to save time until you can heal, and not using stealth right after a shatter so your illusions can be dealing damage while you're stealthed so it's not just dead time, etc.

[Amei]

I used mesmer as my secondary for my Blood Necro, tho I have a Mesmer, cant say we used it alot.

[HypnoGoggles]

Any class can be complex. I guess people just consider mesmer more complex because they have more condition abilities.

[ComplexNuber]

Lowerer armor and health than any other class.
While everything else you said is true, Mesmers do not have low health. They are in the medium health category.

Not to call the GW2 Mesmer not complex by any means, but I feel like a lot of it has to do with how hard Mesmers were to play properly in GW1.

[Keith Fyans]

I find it funny when folks say that GW2 is so revolutionary... it reminds me of old style cRPG's more than almost any other MMO I've seen, in much the same way Eve reminds me of Elite. I just think the story team have been on the ball, while other games have been lazy (often due to necessity/style/choice/lack of investment), and this drive has been used to inform other areas of the game.

All the professions, at a remote glance, look simple to pick up and difficult to master. This is perfect as you can pick up a new character, get into the story/tutorial without feeling like you could be wasting your time entirely and then weigh up if you are enjoying the play style and want to invest your time into getting better at it or try with a different combo.

[Griff]

I think mesmer looks so complex because of the idea of using illusions while following up with controlling your character.

[Pachyderm]

I think with the way the Mesmer's skills are set up, that it may look a bit complex from a spectator's perspective, but I believe that once you sit down and get used to their abilities it will become second nature faster than you would think.

I don't think there is a class in GW2 that is inherently complex, they just require some practice.