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- General Mesmer Tactics (gwmeg7a) -
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PvP is where a Mesmer really shines.  All of your abilities are geared toward
shutting down player-controlled opponents.  You have a wide variety of tools at
your disposal to shut down casters, or weapon-users, or perhaps a little bit of
both.  You have spells that ignore armor, a wide variety of interrupts, and
significant ways to manipulate Energy, both yours and your opponents.

Hex Bluffing
============
This “trick” relies on the fact that people generally don’t pay attention to the
exact amount of damage that a Hex is doing during the heat of battle.  If you
have few/no points in Domination Magic, sometimes you can bluff an opponent into
thinking that your hexes are more powerful than they really are. You cast a
common hex like Empathy or Backfire. The opponent, glancing up at the condition
monitor, sees the icon and makes a snap judgment, thinking either “I need to
get this removed” or “I’d better stop attacking/casting until this wears off”.
Note that this bluff fails to work on experienced players (who often glance at
the damage of the hex while they are CTRL-clicking) or players who often use
Mesmers (oldest trick in the book), but sometimes it can just as effectively
shut someone down as if you had a high Domination Magic rating.

Bait and Switch
===============
Another technique is to cast a moderately powerful Hex on an opponent who you
know has some Hex Removal.  They use their Hex removal to remove that Hex, and
you follow up with a different Hex, effectively using the first Hex to soak
their Hex removal.  Or alternatively, you can cast two Hexes in a row, your
desired Hex followed by the “buffer” Hex, as Hex removal always removes the
last Hex applied.

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- Dealing with opponents (gwmeg7b) -
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Mesmers
=======
The first thing to do when dealing with other Mesmers is to identify what kind
of Mesmer your opponent is playing.  With your own experience at playing a
Mesmer, you should quickly try to identify what sort of tactics the opponent
will be using.  Remember that as a Mesmer, part of your strength is the ability
to keep your opponent guessing, and that strength will be an obstacle in facing
other Mesmers.

Once you have identified the opponent’s build, you can set about countering it.
Interrupts are always an option to counter Hexes and other spells, and even with
Fast Casting, there’s a window for you to interrupt a Mesmer.  Hex Breaker is
the ideal counter-stance against most Hexes that are tossed at you, while Guilt
and Shame combined with Energy denial can keep your opponent bogged down.
Shatter Enchantment and similar anti-enchantment spells are needed to take out
IW specialists.

Remember, though, the same defenses you can use against other Mesmers are going
to be used against you.  Expect Hex Breakers and Shatter/Inspired Hexes when
facing other Mesmers (especially Mesmer secondaries). The pure spell duels
between two Mesmers are a sight to behold, as they are difficult tests of
subterfuge and skill.

Rangers
=======
Rangers are a tricky opponent to face in PvP, as they are quite versatile and
good at mitigating or avoiding damage.  They also have interruption abilities,
and thus can be a threat to prevent you from casting your spells.

However, Mesmer DoT spells and Chaos damage ignores armor, which allows a
Mesmer to deal effective damage against a Ranger (as opposed to Elementalists,
as Rangers have increased Armor against Elemental damage).  Conjure Phantasm,
Phantom Pain, and Crippling Anguish (Elite) can deal effective DoT while
Empathy and Energy Burn can deal direct damage.

As far as defense against Rangers, Ineptitude (Elite) can blind them.  Signet
of Midnight (Elite) can also be used, but it has a touch range, which makes it
difficult to use against the bow-wielding Ranger.  Clumsiness stops one attack
and deals a lot of armor-ignoring damage.  Distortion can help you avoid a
Ranger’s arrows (although some Preparations will still get through). Spirit of
Failure is another option to reduce the effectiveness of a Ranger.

Rangers, while having the primary attribute of Expertise to reduce Energy costs,
are still just as dependent as a primary spellcaster on Energy, but they also
have to rely on their bow for damage (most of the time).  Thus, Spirit Shackles
can drain their Energy if they attack, while Energy Tap and Ether Feast can
drain them of their meager Energy supply.  Note that Rangers only have one skill
to remove Hexes, making them particularly vulnerable to Hexes.  Often, a Ranger
will have to rely on the secondary class for Hex removal, so remember to watch
for Remove Hex/Smite Hex from R/Mo and Hex Breaker/Shatter Hex from R/Me.

Another threat from the Ranger PvP bag of tricks is something making the waves
in the Metagame, Nature’s Renewal.  Not only does it strip all enchantments and
hexes, but it doubles the casting time of said spells, to boot.  You might want
to babysit a Ranger that is spamming this ritual, and use Leech Signet or Cry
of Frustration to prevent it from being used.

Warriors
========
There are a few ways to deal with Warriors.  Since Warriors are often the last
targets in PvP due to the “standard” attack progression (Monks are targeted
first, followed by Spellcasters, followed by Rangers/Warriors), they often stick
around for a while.  Thus, most of your efforts against Warriors are probably
going to be focused on attenuating the threat rather than eliminating it. In
other words, you are probably going to nullify the Warrior’s effectiveness until
your team can focus on the Warrior and kill him/her.

If you are being directly attacked by a Warrior, Signet of Midnight (Elite) and
Ineptitude (Elite) can Blind while Distortion can keep you safe. A warrior’s
effectiveness is directly tied to how quickly the warrior can gain adrenaline,
and Mesmers have two spells that can prevent adrenaline gain, Soothing Images
and Sympathetic Visage.  You can use Empathy or Clumsiness to damage a warrior,
punishing him for attacking.  Spirit Shackles removes 5 Energy per attack, and
Spirit of Failure gives you Energy while adding a miss chance to the enemy.
Finally, if all else fails, you can use Physical Resistance to halve the damage
being done to you.

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- The Metagame (gwmeg7c) -
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The Metagame is a difficult abstract concept to explain, but it is an easy
concept to grasp, and it is of utmost importance in a competitive game with
such tactical and strategic variety and balance as Guild Wars.  Basically,
while many combinations of skills can be powerful, all combinations of skills
can be countered in some way by some class combination.  By following trends in
which combinations are popular in PvP, one can figure out which combinations of
“counters” to bring to a match.

For example, currently in late May of 2005, Aeromancer Elementalists were
popular in PvP matches because of their ability to quickly “spike” damage. If
an Aeromancer or a group of Aeromancers all focus on one opponent (usually the
Monk), then they can quickly take that player out of the action at the
beginning of the match, forcing an early game resurrect (which makes the team
lose tempo) or even unraveling an entire game plan.  Folks are starting to
either “Fight fire with fire” by bringing their own or finding ways to counter
the Aeromancer horde (a Mesmer solution would be to bring Mantra of Lightning
to defend against Lightning damage while bringing along Power Block (Elite) to
shut down the Aeromancer completely).

I don’t play enough PvP to follow the Metagame, nor is it useful to write down
the current state of the Metagame in a Mesmer guide, as it relies on both
up-to-date information and discussion of techniques to counter as of now
unknown strategies.  But if you play a lot of PvP, you need to be aware of the
changes in the metagame, so you can more effectively counter your opponents
even before they enter the arena.