Guild Wars 2

R.I.P Mesmers

The Deceptive Evasion change is simply misguided based on the reasoning provided by the devs. Not having potential access to an on demand clone, causing your clones to path to the target instead of respawning a few and bursting, and/or needing to use a different shatter first is not “improving the flow of clones” as Peters said. They should definitely address the Dissipation traits separately, as well as the phantasm replacement bug when you have 3 phantasms out.

You guys gave plenty of reasons why needing to spawn a clone is important that I figured would have been obvious and important to maintain, but I guess the devs feel differently? I would really like some feedback from them…

This change has unintended side effects on Shatter that I don’t think were meant to be targeted towards Shatter. I may be wrong, but it’s not like Shatter is in the meta anyway.

I already messaged Grouch and Powerr about this, and haven’t gotten a reply from either (understandably busy). Hopefully they’ll reconsider, although it might be too late.

“Hey guys shatter builds are OP”

Nerf Phantasms.

“Hey guys Phantasms are OP”

Nerf Shatter.

“Hey guys Mesmers are worthless in pvp.”

UHhh, Mantras are Aoe. Well two of them are. See? Mesmers are fine.

“Mantras are still useless in pvp”

What’s a Mantra?

“Hey guys Prismatic Understanding is OP”

HA HA HA HA HA

PURPLE

HA HA HA HA HA

CHEESE

HA HA HA HA HA

PRUPLE CHEESE

HA HA HA Nerf Deceptive Evasion.

Maining a Mesmer is suffering.

clipnotdone.9634:

“Hey guys shatter builds are OP”

Nerf Phantasms.

“Hey guys Phantasms are OP”

Nerf Shatter.

“Hey guys Mesmers are worthless in pvp.”

UHhh, Mantras are Aoe. Well two of them are. See? Mesmers are fine.

“Mantras are still useless in pvp”

What’s a Mantra?

“Hey guys Prismatic Understanding is OP”

HA HA HA HA HA

PURPLE

HA HA HA HA HA

CHEESE

HA HA HA HA HA

PRUPLE CHEESE

HA HA HA Nerf Deceptive Evasion.

Maining a Mesmer is suffering.

yup thats how i feel.
all the bugs that have never been fixed
ileap
they broke iwarden
blink fails multiple times cant blink on a bridge
los issues,cant hit unbuilt oil at all
phantasms obstructed too extreem and phantasm goes into full cd
decoy not working all the time
stuck in terrain after blink or phase retreat

then all the nerfs that destroyed the mesmers in wvw:
glours nerfed to the ground
immortal mesmer nerfed to the ground
phantasms nerfed very hard so now u get consistant obstructed bugs
clones die too quick now cant even reach target as they get cced
bb nerf
blurred frenzy nerf
de nerf now
chaos storm will get fixed soon and im sure they will break it so it will be useless like iwarden
they broke berserker before and it took them 6 months to fix it
no aoe
the vigor nerf
…
etc

and all we got is pu(1v1 and good to run away from a zerg chasing u)
mantras aoe that have a horrible range and seriously try to regarche a mantra in a zergfight…ugh
we havent gotten any real buffs that could make up for the wvw mesmer nerfs.none!
im frustrated and i have been very patient. give us at lest an opportunity to spec for aoe dmg so we can join the zergfights and not just veil and afk while the GWEN train fights each other. give us new skills like hexes or something that doesnt require stupid ai!

but now all we get is hahaha purple hahaha purple cheese

I stayed very calm during the glamor/confusion nerf patch, because I believed the nerf, especially confusion damage made sense to match spvp damage. (wasn’t too happy about you guys releasing Dire set BEFORE the nerf though, since I had to fall back to a crit chance based build, even triforce needed that)

But this Deceptive Evasion change really broke the mechanism BIG time. Let me try to explain to you: ArenaNET on what it is that you really meant “cheesy” and how to fix that ALONE w/o touching the rest of the class.

What you meant “cheesy” is: Constantly dodging in a radius < 240 of your target and killing the clones triggering Debilitating Dissipation and Crippling Dissipation, (imo, mainly DD) , introducing a form of high condition DPS by simply spamming dodge with high vigor up time … a form of offensive play style, triggered by a defensive move: dodging.

Despite the fact that I personally don’t even believe this deserves a nerf if the CI vigor nerf will be in place, (I can write a whole page about this if you want) … just for the sake of argument, assuming that you HAVE to do something about this whole clone death with DE “issue” , this should be your approach:

Debilitating Dissipation does not trigger due to replacement from Deceptive Evasion.
OR
Debilitating Dissipation is blockable

YEAH… I know, this SUCKS for your developers. Instead of a simple if (clone.count == 3) { … tigger deceptive evasion …} now you gotta push your deadlines further to write some more complex logic.

Is it a balance requirement that you screwed up which is too late to turn back? Or is the development/qa team too behind the deadline that you convinced yourself that this easier solution is the fix?

Look at what you “unintentionally” took away from nerfing a “cheesy” mechanism in a bad design decision.

1. Dodge daze
2. Replacing clones after weapon swap (e.g. from scepter to staff)
3. Creating clones during invis to bait out spells
4. Punishing melee aggressors (Passively)

Friendly Reminder:

You’d better coded so that once the 3 clones is registered to be shatter, DE still triggers for more clones.

As long as Deception Evasion creates a clone after activating a Shatter Illusion ability (the illusions are running towards the target), there is virtually little change to a Shatter build.

If the illusion AI was fixed (that includes all pet AI) to travel appropriately over terrain, this change would be a null factor except for Crippling Dissipation, Confusing Combatants, and Debilitating Dissipation (or some combination thereof) trait builds.

TL;DR You’re whole argument is really that the pet AI is horrible and this change makes the DE trait worse. Focus. on. the. real. problem.

Thanks for the response on this, Roy, much appreciated.

But I’m still a bit lost. What is your intent with this change? The changes were presented without really properly explaining why this is being done. And it’s frankly a turnoff that you guys seem to have dismissed an entire build style as “cheese”, a term that suggests a subjective reaction rather than careful analysis.

Do you guys really think mesmers are overpowered compared to other classes? It seems hard to believe.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

I really don’t think that Mesmers triggering their own clones to blow up and cause on-death traits is a problem. If anything, it makes a passive build more active. If you really want to make clone-death traits weaker, you should start by making them blockable and dodgeable.

Roy,

Another very experienced player suggested letting clone-death procs be blockable. Consider that as well.

I’ve heard on numerous occasions, from the developers, that they prefer to let the ‘meta’ settle before they make changes.

Given that Mesmers are currently only skirting the perimeter of the meta, and this build has never even made it to the meta, why the change?

Also, can someone clarify what the devs mean when they refer to a “cheese spec”? I get the impression the developers apparently consider clone-death builds to be “cheese” but HS warriors are not.

I disagree with the Deceptive Evasion change, especially being done with the Vigor nerf at the same time. I hope they will revert this and wait to see how the Vigor change plays out before even considering a change like this one.

cymerdown.4103:

I disagree with the Deceptive Evasion change, especially being done with the Vigor nerf at the same time. I hope they will revert this and wait to see how the Vigor change plays out before even considering a change like this one.

I think the vigor nerf is heavy handed and strange as well. I’ve played a LOT of PvP (WvW and sPvP), and I’ve never once said “wow that guy is dodging too much; that should be nerfed”. The only class that can abuse evades is thief, and it’s not because they have access to vigor. And if a thief is that heavily invested in evades, they’re not doing much else.

Totally agree with cymerdown

The nerf to vigor uptime will already half address this what you believe is a “cheesy” spam. Besides, a mesmer constantly dodging will sometime give away the “real” one quite easily so it do has its negatives. I personally like the blockable DD idea. (That’s assuming if you HAVE to nerf it either or)

I still don’t understand why they are nerfing a profession that is not even in the meta, nevermind dominating it.

Wasbunny.6531:

Could anyone having an opinion (one way or another) relating specifically to the perception that the ‘clone death’ builds & traits are too powerful please post your thoughts & findings here:

PvX MESMER Are clone death traits OP?

Since this was the reason given for the Deceptive Evasion nerf I think it’s important to really look into whether this is true or not, especially when proposing alternative solutions like nerfing those specific traits or builds.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

Saw this coming down the road.
We need to get ahead of this one or we risk just another pointless nerf to an already struggling trait, build and playstyle. Please, before making assumptions like ‘the clone death traits are OP, so just adjust them’ take a few minutes to do a simple test to isolate how much damage the Dissipation traits account for when coupled with DE.

I’m a little surprised I even need to bring this up but when considering any adjustment:

One needs to determine how much something is before stating it’s too much.

You’ll find I did one such test on the link above and the extremely meager results might surprise some that are thinking these traits, combined with DE are causing any balancing issues whatsoever.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

Like shatter mesmer with 3k\hour played i can swear you that previous DE change (not summoning clones when you have 3 illusion up) would just kill the core mechanics of shatter mesmer.

Shatter mesmer is all about positioning clones, and refreshing clones with DE is 75% of positioninh clones.

The DE change who john said on streaming would just make this impossible.

I want also to point out that atm on 1st 100 eu player there are only 3 mesmer. All of them are shatter mesmer.

Doing the change john said on streaming means having 0 mesmer in top 100 leaderboards.

This isnt balance. This is killing a spec and a class who is actually borderline in meta.

I also appreciate the idea of replacing clones not triggering debilitating dissipation. I wont enter inside the need or not to nerf PU\death clones build but i can say that if you choose the way of replacing clone not triggering debilitating dissipation you won’t unintentionally kill shatter mesmer like on john’s idea

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

Thanks for the response! Really apprecciated that you’re reacting to all the feedback.

However, why on earth would you even consider changing Debilitating Dissipation to work that way? What would be the point of taking that trait after a change like that? The on-death of DD applies 3 stacks of bleeding/vulnerabilty, or 3s of weakness (if the enemy randomly stands next to the illusion). The only way those traits were used efficiently was by positioning your clones and replacing them just in time. Clones can easily be ignored, nobody would ever kill them while facing a condi Mes. Congratulations, you just created yet another trait nobody will ever use.
Instead of now randomly swinging the nerfhammer around the Mesmer traits, you should just listen to the community.
On-Death effects being blockable is the best idea so far (imo). But honestly? I don’t understand why those traits need to be nerfed at all. It’s just the combination with PU. Why don’t you just nerf PU.

-.-

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

Thanks Roy, for giving us some assurance it will not be nerfed outright, but I do want to ask, why a minor trait would be so dangerous if it only makes 3 stacks of bleed OR give 3 stacks of vunerability or weakness… Yes they can function as covers for other conditions. Sure, and you can pop a few if you wanted them:

If you do it the most extreme fashion I can imagine:
- You start ot with a phantasm, then a clone, then dodge, dodge again, decoy, mirror images, but then your endurance is out and you’ll have a 10 sec endurance downtime out time OR when vigor is up only a 5 sec out time. Decoy and mirror images will be down for 40-45 secs.

This creates a conditions spike: it wil give 1 phantasm and 6 clones. The clones will trigger 4 times, giving you 4 confusion for 3 secs, 4 times a random condition: for 5 secs or 3 secs

If everything random would go to bleeding and you manage to hit 100% you would stack:
12 stacks of bleeding for 5 seconds ,
4 stacks of confusion for 3 seconds,
12 (!) seconds of cripple and thats it.
In a REALISTIC view these would be 3-6 bleeds but a total of 5 conditions.

If damage from these stacks is the point just reduce the bleeding duration to 3 or 4 secs or change the 3 bleeds to 2 torments with a 3-5 second duration, but I’d ask a buff for the 3 secs of confusion of dueling grandmaster minor (confusion on death) trait in return.
In this case People could choose either to take the damage of ignore it in the case of both the torment as well as the confusion. If you do not want damage just stand still and do not attack. it will keep the confusion from processing as well as getting half the damage compare to the bleeds. In return you could be hit easier… It will be a true dilemma for the mesmer’s enemy , and fit the mesmer profile perfectly.

The results of my change would be
If everything random would go to torment and you manage to hit 100% you would stack:
8 stacks of torment for 3-5 seconds ,
(Torment has 75% of the dmg of bleeds, so when people stand still it’s a 50% reduction in damage, If they do NOT clean and run away it’ll be the same dmg as bleeds were before.)
4 stacks of confusion for 3 seconds,
12 seconds of cripple and thats it.
In a REALISTIC view these would be 2-4 torments but a total of 5 conditions.

One question remains in my head: If this amount of conditions was impossible to deal with, why did necro ever get signet of spite?

I still want to try and make a build that makes mesmer conditions with staff do enough damage to run PvE with it.

But I guess this again has to do with PU mesmers, just nerf the PU instead of affecting all mainly used builds…

I hope you read this before you start typing . Thanks for your time.

There’s nothing really wrong with PU mesmers either. It’s amazing how so many people can claim that something is “useless in PvP” and also that it needs to be nerfed, simultaneously. And they sure as heck are not overpowered in PvE or WvW either.

I kind of feel like a lot of frustration with PU comes from the basic frustration with invisibility in this game. You drop your target, and its getting the right target back is extremely twitchy and clunky. The same frustration people feel with thieves that have mastered maximizing stealth.

Why not just not drop targeting for invisible players? When they go invisible, you are not targeting them. If you do nothing (don’t target anything else in the interim), then when they appear they are automatically targeted again. The AI does this.

Qaelyn.7612:

There’s nothing really wrong with PU mesmers either. It’s amazing how so many people can claim that something is “useless in PvP” and also that it needs to be nerfed, simultaneously. And they sure as heck are not overpowered in PvE or WvW either.

That’s what confuses me. I assume these nerfs are indirectly trying to make PU mesmers weaker, which I’m completely OK with, but that’s only because I 1v1 a lot and they’re annoying to duel. BUT, that’s all they’re good at. I think I’ve played against 2 PU mesmers in solo queue in the past month, and both of them were useless. They bring nothing to team fights, can’t hold a point, and generally just don’t fill a role in sPvP. I thought balance changes were made around sPvP, so why nerf traits that aren’t even strong in sPvP?

PU is only strong in solo roaming or (sometimes) <10 man groups in WvW. Is making balance changes around dueling something that ArenaNet is doing now? Because the counter-play to fighting a PU mesmer is walking away from them. It’s a long, boring fight fighting one, and they can’t kill you if you walk in the other direction and don’t fight back.

No, I think their goal is to nerf dodges across the board, for all aspects of the game (they are trying to reduce active defense in PvE as well, to reduce the zerker meta).

Personally, I think the dodging ability on perma-Vigor classes is currently too high. When you get a 0.75s dodge every 5 seconds, you will use them when under light to moderate pressure in order to not waste the invuln frames, not just in order to avoid big attacks. That is especially true on classes where the dodge gives you some additional benefit (like an AoE heal on Guardian, or a clone on Mesmer). I abuse the high number of dodges I get all the time, and I see Mesmers do it, too. Using a dodge shouldn’t just be an automatic part of a shatter combo, it should be a deliberate decision (do I burn a dodge to make a clone now, but decrease my future survivability?), and right now it isn’t really a choice. Also, perma-Vigor for a 5 point trait is just insane, since it’s probably the 3rd strongest boon in the game. I’d rather see a change like this and then have the rest of the class balanced around this change, rather than hold back on it because of the current meta. Let’s also keep in mind that Mesmer will probably see a 5% damage increase on Greatsword to compensate for the slightly fewer dodges (Energy/Force Energy/Force), so even though their ability to fight in melee will go down a bit, their already considerable ranged DPS will go up a bit.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

Please no, do not make it so overwriting them stops doing clone death, that would TOTALLY destroy the clone death builds. Maybe dodge clones over 3 wont trigger it, but for the love of the color purple please make sure staff phase retreat, and scepter overwrites DO cause clone death.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

Seems to me that replacing clones triggering conditions are just fine… but then, I change my builds so often, I wouldn’t know for sure.

If you are going to nerf clone replacement, let phantasms trigger the other two on death traits as well rather than just DD.

cymerdown.4103:

No, I think their goal is to nerf dodges across the board, for all aspects of the game (they are trying to reduce active defense in PvE as well, to reduce the zerker meta).

Personally, I think the dodging ability on perma-Vigor classes is currently too high. When you get a 0.75s dodge every 5 seconds, you will use them when under light to moderate pressure in order to not waste the invuln frames, not just in order to avoid big attacks. That is especially true on classes where the dodge gives you some additional benefit (like an AoE heal on Guardian, or a clone on Mesmer). I abuse the high number of dodges I get all the time, and I see Mesmers do it, too. Using a dodge shouldn’t just be an automatic part of a shatter combo, it should be a deliberate decision (do I burn a dodge to make a clone now, but decrease my future survivability?), and right now it isn’t really a choice. Also, perma-Vigor for a 5 point trait is just insane, since it’s probably the 3rd strongest boon in the game. I’d rather see a change like this and then have the rest of the class balanced around this change, rather than hold back on it because of the current meta. Let’s also keep in mind that Mesmer will probably see a 5% damage increase on Greatsword to compensate for the slightly fewer dodges (Energy/Force Energy/Force), so even though their ability to fight in melee will go down a bit, their already considerable ranged DPS will go up a bit.

It’s fine if they want to balance around having less dodging, I just don’t get the point of it. While only having a few dodges to dodge big attacks sounds good in theory, when you’re playing 5v5, you have 5 enemies with big attacks to dodge. Like I said, I never thought any class with perma-vigor was a problem, but I can live with the change too. There’s also not any announced balancing around the change either, it’s just a straight nerf.

I do wonder if they thought about the consequences of the change though. If you make dodging less viable, people are going to look to alternative ways of mitigating damage. PU builds already have 30% boon duration, so their vigor uptime will be 65% compared to a shatter mesmers 50%. PU also has high access to stealth to wait out the vigor downtime. (some) PU builds also don’t care about the Deceptive Evasion nerf. So is making PU more attractive than it already is really something that we want?

Thedenofsin.7340:

Another very experienced player suggested letting clone-death procs be blockable. Consider that as well.

This is by far the better change to the situation. Shield warriors can already block shatters quite nicely. Why not let the on death traits be blockable too, and leave the mesmers alone, thanks.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

thank you for the response roy, the thing is at the moment pretty much every player in the top is against this change. It will put mesmer in a state where cheese is even more powerful compared to shatter than it is now. As you said it is unintended to affect the other builds besides “effect on clone-death” builds I suggest you look at those traits themselves. People here have already made some nice suggestions about lowering the effectiveness of that build.
make the clone on death traits:

• blockable
• have internal cooldowns
• make it dodgeable
• make it proc less conditions
• change the way DE works to where it only gimps clone on death builds (but I’m against this since I’m quite afraid there might be some coding mistake nerfing us unintentionally still)

renegade.4851:

• change the way DE works to where it only gimps clone on death builds (but I’m against this since I’m quite afraid there might be some coding mistake nerfing us unintentionally still)

Sorry but I don’t think “kitten his build but not mine” is a particularly far way of approaching this. A shatter build isn’t improper, immoral or fattening compared to a shatter build. They are just builds.

The complaints about this nerf are mostly derived from overall feel-bad about mesmer nerfs I think. They’ve had some huge nerfs in the past, honestly. However mesmers are still dang strong in the dueling/roaming group role as they can bring a lot of damage while still being a pain to kill. I would welcome this nerf more (which is mostly affecting shatter which is effective in small fights and overall survivability) if it were counterbalanced with mesmers being more team oriented or group viable. They are basically portal/veil/haste bots in wvw and clones just instant explode in any wvw situation.

Something like letting your clone generating skills generate clones of whatever friendly player or guard you have targetted instead of yourself. if enemy is selected its still your clone though. Just something…because mesmers whole gimmick is completely squashed by adding numbers of players who quickly splat any clones and phantasms

Roy Cronacher.1576:

~snip~
We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

This sentence should terrify any remaining Condition Mesmers.

Just to see how devastating this would be on only one of our few semi-direct Condition applying abilities (scepter auto-attack coupled with ‘on clone death’ traits) I did some tests in the Heart of the Mists. This is apparently what the developers are worried is unbalancing the game. I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves.

Stationary Target Test (PvE):
Single stationary target golem (to represent PvE stationary target) auto-attacking with scepter skill 1 and all three clone death traits (45 point investment) taken.

Results:

• Weakness 50% up-time
• 1 stack of confusion 100% up-time
• Cripple 100% up-time
• 3 stacks of Vulnerability 50% up-time
• 3-6 stacks of Bleed 100% up-time

Moving Target Test (PvP):
Single moving target golem (to represent slow moving PvP target) auto-attacking with scepter skill 1 and all three clone death traits (45 point investment) taken.

Results:

• 0-3 stacks of Bleed 100% up-time
• Occasional spikes similar to the stationary results when the target gets crippled, but the duration/stacks of the conditions were reduced. This spike would trigger roughly once every 20 seconds only when the target was snared by cripple and only if near the clone being destroyed.

Debilitating Dissipation Test:
Debilitating Dissipation trait removed, other two ‘clone death’ traits still active.

Stationary Results (PvE):

• 1 stack of confusion 100% up-time
• Cripple 100% up-time
• 0-4 stacks of Bleed 100% up-time

Moving Results (PvP):

• 0-3 stacks of Bleed 100% up-time
• Occasional spikes similar to the stationary results when the target gets crippled, but the duration/stacks of the conditions were reduced. This spike would trigger roughly once every 20 seconds only when the target was snared by cripple and only if near the clone being destroyed.

I’m all for limiting active avoidance, but I don’t see any reason dodge clone deaths are a problem. If they are, put a cooldown, or nerf the trait, dont break this core mechanic. Dodge clones are so fundamental to the class, for so many reasons.

Teutos.8620:

Iavra.8510:

It will only not work if you already have 3 illusions out, which is not that much of a problem for a shatter build.

Here are some example that this change will hurt a lot:

• Currently against some professions you are going to dodge backwards to create a clone between you and your opponent, so that the clone can soak the damage. Not that you can do the whole dodging back, against certain profession you have to use this, otherwise you’ll just die. Now that will no longer be possible.

• Another example is the terrain unevenness. F.e. I get attacked outside of the clocktower, dodge, then go into the clocktower, and now can not use one of my clones, because he is outside (or stuck on a different position). Now even if I dodge multiple times inside the clocktower, my first shatter will only contain a very very low number of useful clones. It could be possible, that the whole shatter is wastes, because the clones are stuck somewhere.

• Imagine your three clones are standing at a certain range, but you want to create a clone next to you, to get a good daze off. This will also no longer be possible.

1: issnt dodge already a counter to that? What does a clone have to do with it? Because you already dodge..

2: make max range shorter maby. So they are removed faster to create new one.

3:to get a good daze off, again you dodge.. Thats already a counter to it issnt it.

dunno dont play allot on mesmer but i dont get the create clone on dodge to avoid damage because you already > dodge

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

Put an internal cooldown on Debilitating Dissipation if it’s the problem.

There’s no need to blanket nerf all of our builds by messing with Deceptive Evasion.

cymerdown.4103:

No, I think their goal is to nerf dodges across the board, for all aspects of the game (they are trying to reduce active defense in PvE as well, to reduce the zerker meta).

Personally, I think the dodging ability on perma-Vigor classes is currently too high. When you get a 0.75s dodge every 5 seconds, you will use them when under light to moderate pressure in order to not waste the invuln frames, not just in order to avoid big attacks. That is especially true on classes where the dodge gives you some additional benefit (like an AoE heal on Guardian, or a clone on Mesmer). I abuse the high number of dodges I get all the time, and I see Mesmers do it, too. Using a dodge shouldn’t just be an automatic part of a shatter combo, it should be a deliberate decision (do I burn a dodge to make a clone now, but decrease my future survivability?), and right now it isn’t really a choice. Also, perma-Vigor for a 5 point trait is just insane, since it’s probably the 3rd strongest boon in the game. I’d rather see a change like this and then have the rest of the class balanced around this change, rather than hold back on it because of the current meta. Let’s also keep in mind that Mesmer will probably see a 5% damage increase on Greatsword to compensate for the slightly fewer dodges (Energy/Force Energy/Force), so even though their ability to fight in melee will go down a bit, their already considerable ranged DPS will go up a bit.

If it was truly that insane, you’d see more shatter mesmers in solo and teamq. How good it is depends on the build.

Deceptive Evasion as a trait is actually too strong without an ICD. Whether the mesmer is viable or not is up for debate and not really an argument, but the trait itself makes way too much of a difference and is too good compared to other options for most mesmer builds out there, not just clone on death.

This has usually been a good reason for designers to intervene and change it. A trait that adds so much to a class and is above all others not only in the trait line it rests in but all other trait lines as well for 20 points, I am genuinely surprised it hasn’t been changed since release.

A lot of the condi application from the PU build which has been around for a while comes from Debilitating Dissipation. Run the build without it and the it becomes noticeable. This change to DE makes decent skill shatter builds even less worth running and is the wrong approach.

If you want to tone down the passive nature of that condi build, replace the bleeds from that trait with something else. At the same time, can you look at mesmers overall and consider changes to allow a decent condi build that doesn’t rely on staff clones/clone death traits. Previously that was possible with confusion but with so many class changes, often making no sense, it doesn’t really work anymore.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

Thank you for listening to feedback!

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

replacing clone not triggering debilitating dissipation is not a good idea either, by doing this you outlawed the manual overriding of clone triggering dd, which makes the only usage of scepter 1 meaningless, all the light class scepter 1 is a condition applier of somekind, ours are especially hard to use, atm it is literally a skillful 2sec cast chain for a chance to replace a well placed clone for DD, unless your intention is to completely wipe out condition mesmer viability, otherwise I see a very obivous act of doing A by sacrificing B.
I really hope that you read my post since it is submerged in DE talks, please do consider this

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

That’s great to hear. But it would be nice if you didn’t completely remove the active functionality of clone death traits. I honestly think the strength of Debilitating Dissipation is being over inflated here. You honestly just need to allow clone death effects to be blocked and evaded

First, I’m really happy that some changes got previewed and that conversation is being encouraged. It’s too to make software that makes everyone happy, but staying engaged and involved in the conversation helps a lot.

I don’t play shatter and don’t use DE, but I hope it doesn’t get heavily nerfed. As I was leveling up my Mesmer, I found DE to be one of the most fun traits I tried. It has that magical feeling of being tricky and useful while still relying on the player skill to use it well. It not only helped me survive, it helped remind me to dodge.

The Mesmer class is always going to frustrate other players because it has a nice combination tricky skills and clones popping up. If these characteristics go away, then the Mesmer won’t be the same class and won’t be as fun to play. I’m hopeful that there’s a good balance solution to whatever the problem is here, and I’m hopeful that Anet can find ways to teach players about clones by adding more things in PVE that help train players on the concept. I thought it was cool that down-state and stomping was added to the tower, and I think a lot can be done to leave Mesmers with their trickiness while giving players better preparation to deal with us.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

I’ve been running clone on death longer than most, so I believe I have some knowledge on the mechanic. But what you’re suggesting not only hurts clone on death, but mesmers as a whole, and that simply isn’t fair in my opinion. There are plently of ways to make clone on death more balanced without ruining one of the best traits that mesmers have. An idea that comes off the top of my head is the following.

- Make clone on death blockable

that alone would deter a decent amount of damage for quite a few classes including guardian, warrior, engi, ranger, and mesmer. But what you’re currently doing is limiting diversity once again, which is sad. Mesmer right now is struggling in the current meta. And the only mesmers who have any place in the meta are relying off the exploit confounding suggestions to hold their weight, and that simply isn’t right either. A bigger effort needs to be made off of fixing bugs then re-evaluating the situation before moving forward.

Also I would like to add a few things that also need to be considered when it comes to clone on death that some people don’t realize, which is the fact that your choice of weapon sets highly dictate whether or not your clone on death conditions hit at all.

The reason I say this is, is because the only weapon mesmer has that forces your clones to run into melee range of your target is main hand sword. Scepter, staff, and greatsword clones stand in place and auto attack from the point in which you dodge from deceptive evasion. The only time this changes if the target runs out of line of sight, then the clones follow. Torch, pistol, and off hand sword don’t factor in because they are not considered main hand weapons obviously.
So you also have to take into account that even though there are clones on the field, you might not even get that damage, weapon sets, positioning, & simply ranging the clones play a big factor at negating clone on death damage. Also something else to consider with debilitating dissipation is that it’s not guaranteed damage.

Mesmers in general are pretty well off the way it is. It’s just the other classes who are overshadowing mesmers for some time now and that’s fine. However it seems you guys are taking your balance stick and poking it in the wrong places overall in a attempt to makes things better, but honestly this was taking things a step backwards with the changes that you are proposing. Hopefully you will change your minds.

Thanks for reading

Countless

But if the on-death traits are nerfed, that’s actually much worse.

Because, without DE the on-death traits are really weak. I’d even go as far as say they need a buff. It’s only when DE enters the field that they become strong.

I’d rather see a general change to DE. Make it something different. It’s clone-generation is causing way too many issues. I want better clone-generation, more powerful clones, better on-death balance, better shatters… all that is impossible while DE exists.

Trigr.6481:

Mesmers in general are pretty well off the way it is. It’s just the other classes who are overshadowing mesmers for some time now and that’s fine. However it seems you guys are taking your balance stick and poking it in the wrong places overall in a attempt to makes things better, but honestly this was taking things a step backwards with the changes that you are proposing. Hopefully you will change your minds.

Though, keep in mind that sPvP is a tiny portion of the game, and in the minds of most non-sPvP players fairly inconsequential. It doesn’t even share items or buffs, after all.
It’s balance also works nothing like the balance in the rest of the game, a result of it’s too-small team size.

It’s not really an ideal place where to start a balance discussion. It cannot ever be balanced, and it’s mechanics make it quite peculiar. It’d be easier to balance it as a separate game, and just remove it from GW2’s main game. Different classes, different game, different mechanics.

It’s too tacked-on to really worry about it much in balance discussions, IMO. WvW and PvE balance are more comparable in that at least both scale freely from solo to zerg, and both feature both character and object combat. Including a variety of tasks.

Carighan.6758:

But if the on-death traits are nerfed, that’s actually much worse.

Because, without DE the on-death traits are really weak. I’d even go as far as say they need a buff. It’s only when DE enters the field that they become strong.

I’d rather see a general change to DE. Make it something different. It’s clone-generation is causing way too many issues. I want better clone-generation, more powerful clones, better on-death balance, better shatters… all that is impossible while DE exists.

Trigr.6481:

Mesmers in general are pretty well off the way it is. It’s just the other classes who are overshadowing mesmers for some time now and that’s fine. However it seems you guys are taking your balance stick and poking it in the wrong places overall in a attempt to makes things better, but honestly this was taking things a step backwards with the changes that you are proposing. Hopefully you will change your minds.

Though, keep in mind that sPvP is a tiny portion of the game, and in the minds of most non-sPvP players fairly inconsequential. It doesn’t even share items or buffs, after all.
It’s balance also works nothing like the balance in the rest of the game, a result of it’s too-small team size.

It’s not really an ideal place where to start a balance discussion. It cannot ever be balanced, and it’s mechanics make it quite peculiar. It’d be easier to balance it as a separate game, and just remove it from GW2’s main game. Different classes, different game, different mechanics.

It’s too tacked-on to really worry about it much in balance discussions, IMO. WvW and PvE balance are more comparable in that at least both scale freely from solo to zerg, and both feature both character and object combat. Including a variety of tasks.

Sadly I’m not even quite sure how the whole thing with debilitating started to begin with as far as justifying a nerf to be quite honest. Because if they were to nerf just debilitating, that would be inconsistent with leaving the rest of the clone on death traits alone. They should not mess with the overwrite, they should not mess with deceptive. Deceptive IS mesmer, without it and or a lesser version of it, mesmers would fall down a hill in which it could not recover.

Not to mention to what I said earlier is that debilitating is not guaranteed damage. Positioning, weapon sets, etc play a role in your damage landing. Refer to my earlier post for a more specific example above.

Countless

Before we all start asking for a nerf to any of the Mesmer ‘on-dodge’ traits (DE + clone death) by making them uniquely blockable or whatever we must find out if they are really overpowered in the first place.

You need to find out how much something is before stating it’s too much.
Sorry to sound like a broken record, I’m really more reminding the devs than anyone else.

So I did a simple side by side comparison between Mesmer & Thief using only ‘on-dodge’ traits (Deceptive Evasion & Caltrops) and only dodging to kill a moving target golem.

Mesmer: About 3-5 stacks of bleed 100% up-time (90% from auto-attacking clones). Very rarely a few seconds of Cripple,Vulnerability or Weakness.

Thief : 4 stacks of bleed 100% up-time. 45+ seconds of cripple.
also 2-4 stacks of might gained as well as swiftness and endurance regeneration

If anyone can seriously look at those two examples and arrive at the conclusion that the Mesmer is in need of having their ‘on-dodge’ traits nerfed in any way for the sake of balance…then I just don’t know what else to say.

Trigr.6481:

They should not mess with the overwrite, they should not mess with deceptive. Deceptive IS mesmer, without it and or a lesser version of it, mesmers would fall down a hill in which it could not recover.

Exactly why I want it to be nerfed.

Deceptive Evasion is to Mesmers what the Grenade Kit is to Engineers. It’s causing indirect balance issues by being too well-rounded and too useful. It’s even more integral than the Nadekit, though.

Thing is, those things shouldn’t exist.
And it’s holding a lot of things back. I’d like stronger clones for example, and more life-like ones. Impossible while I can easily create clones with DE. I’d like stronger on-death traits and stronger shatters. Impossible while I can easily create clones with DE.

I’d much rather have 3-4 months without DE and without other buffs to show where the class has it’s flaws than continue the state of permanent-band-aid which DE is.

Wasbunny.6531:

Before we all start asking for a nerf to any of the Mesmer ‘on-dodge’ traits (DE + clone death) by making them uniquely blockable or whatever we must find out if they are really overpowered in the first place.

You need to find out how much something is before stating it’s too much.
Sorry to sound like a broken record, I’m really more reminding the devs than anyone else.

So I did a simple side by side comparison between Mesmer & Thief using only ‘on-dodge’ traits (Deceptive Evasion & Caltrops) and only dodging to kill a moving target golem.

Mesmer: About 3-5 stacks of bleed 100% up-time (90% from auto-attacking clones). Very rarely a few seconds of Cripple,Vulnerability or Weakness.

Thief : 4 stacks of bleed 100% up-time. 45+ seconds of cripple.
also 2-4 stacks of might gained as well as swiftness and endurance regeneration

If anyone can seriously look at those two examples and arrive at the conclusion that the Mesmer is in need of having their ‘on-dodge’ traits nerfed in any way for the sake of balance…then I just don’t know what else to say.

Agreed, as I said it’s not guaranteed damage. And the mere fact that this thread is taking place in the first place is rubbish. I’ve had talks with many mesmers including helseth about deceptive evasion. He also agrees that DE makes mesmer. Also talk of actually incorporating DE into the core mechanic of mesmer “meaning you wouldn’t even have to be spec’d into it to get it.” But that’s probably a fairy tale. So regardless of logic and reason it will never see the light of say as far as that change.

Personally if they want to see mesmers emerge into the meta for the long term “outside of exploits”, something really positive has to happen overall to see alout of diversity in builds to show. I feel that making deceptive evasion easier to access in some way would pave the way, or with the suggestion I posted above. However the direction this is heading isn’t too inviting.

Countless

The more I think about the idea of making DE a baseline mechanic rather than a trait at all the more I like concept. Opens up so many possibilities for the replacement trait and addresses the issue that all builds but phantasm are almost required to take it anyway. Would add a little more active play to phantasm builds too since they would have to be careful if they didn’t want to override if 3 phantasms were out.

These are the kind of balance ideas I would welcome debating with the balance team and community but as you said Countless, that’s probably a fairy tale.

Carighan.6758:

I’d rather see a general change to DE. Make it something different. It’s clone-generation is causing way too many issues. I want better clone-generation, more powerful clones, better on-death balance, better shatters… all that is impossible while DE exists.

How is altering a trait that almost every build uses a better way at handling the issue as opposed to altering the single trait specific to the single build that’s the “problem”?

Making changes to DE will have a ripple effect that will cause issues for multiple builds, and there’s no one single change that you can make to Deceptive Evasion that will suit every Mesmer build that relies on DE. They can either be lazy and hit DE and cause more problems in an attempt to solve just a single one, or they can focus on the issue in question, which is Debilitating Dissipation and its associated build.

Your whole “Mesmers are too reliant on DE and that’s a problem” is good and fine, but it’s too ingrained in the profession and its class mechanic at this point. If you want an overhaul of how Mesmers play and their traits, that’s something that should be handled separately, not in the midst of a patch trying to tone down a single cheese build.

Jackums.3496:

How is altering a trait that almost every build uses a better way at handling the issue as opposed to altering the single trait specific to the single build that’s the “problem”?

• Really strong trait
• Already really weak trait

Which would you nerf?
Sure, if all you care about is win-percentage in sPvP, then you won’t mind a weak trait getting a nerf, as you’re not using it already.

If you’re interested in a balanced class, then a more balanced trait setup makes more sense. And I’m just as sick of DE holding Mesmer balance in check as I am of the Grenade Kit holding non-kit traits on Engineers back. Bleh.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

Thank you so much for listening. A bit of faith has been restored.