Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

We know the feature patch is incoming sometime in early March. In preparation for that, let’s post in this thread all Mesmer-related questions we’d like the developers to answer with their preview post.

The idea is for someone like Grouch to take a look at this thread, then go to the developers and say, “OK, when we put together the preview thread for Mesmers, the community would like some answers related to the following: X,Y,Z…”

Please post your question (1 question per post please), and I will periodically update the OP with a list of most frequently asked questions.

Please scope the questions to be Mesmer-only: no questions about gear/sigils/runes/etc. unless you’re talking about a Mesmer-specific bug associated with said gear.

Thanks!

Questions thus far:

Will Illusionary Warden be fixed with the feature patch? (and why did you prioritize fixing Confounding Suggestions over fixing iWarden?)

What exactly is the reasoning behind making any change at all to Deceptive Evasion or the clone-death condition traits? Mesmers aren’t considered part of the meta in PvP and are not dominating PvE and WvW like a certain other profession.

Players feel Mesmers are veil/portal-bots in WvW, Time-Warp bots in PvE and not meta-viable in sPvP. What are the issues the developers currently see with Mesmers as far as viability in the various aspects of the game?

A while back one of the developers mentioned they were looking into improvements for the Mesmer scepter. What progress has been made on updating/improving the scepter?
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Will Illusionary Warden be fixed by the balance patch?

A while back one of the developers said they were going to completely redesign Mimic. What progress has been made for this redesign?

A while back one of the developers mentioned they were looking into improvements for the Mesmer scepter. What progress has been made on updating/improving the scepter?

The current philosophy in the meta is that thieves are a better fit into the meta than Mesmers. This is exemplified when you look at high-ranking tPvP players and teams.

What do the developers believe needs to be done to make Mesmers more meta-viable in tPvP?

Full Phantasm builds are not viable in WvW or PvE dungeons, primarily because the Phantasms die too quickly. In sPvP, I’ve personally seen warriors face-tank a full Berserker Phantasm and passively heal to 100% in between attacks.

Developers have previously alluded to Phantasm builds being viable. What do the developers see in Phantasm builds that the currently currently does not (or is the situation reversed?)

Are there changes incoming that will positively impact the viability of Phantasm builds in PVE/PVP/WvW?

Given that high-level players have nearly all given up on Mesmers in competitive PvP, what is your rationale for nerfing the class further? i.e. is there a very sPvP-viable spec that players simply aren’t using? If so, what is it?

1) Will iLeap bug be fixed so it doesn’t bug out on uneven terrain?
2) Will the bug be fixed whereby you get stuck and can’t move when you use teleport under certain circumstances?
3) What are your plans for Lock-down Mesmers as they could do with some TLC?

Looking for more input. Duplicate questions are encouraged in this thread! It lets me know more people are interested in the answer.

Thanks!

Sorry to have just copy/pasted my 1) from Valarauka’s but it’s literally word for word what my main question at the moment would be. Well said Valarauka

1) What exactly is the reasoning behind making any change at all to Deceptive Evasion or the clone-death condition traits? Mesmers aren’t exactly overpowered in PvP or anywhere else; I thought nerfs were meant to address issues. What issue do devs see with the current state of affairs? Maybe if we understood the cause being addressed we could propose alternate solutions. (Note that the Critical Infusion change was anticipated and is totally acceptable to me and most others.)

2) The devs expressed wanting to rework the scepter (specifically the auto-attack), to make it more of a ‘tricksy’ condition weapon. A lot of good ideas were put forth on the forums…so how’s that coming?

Good idea! Here’s my list:

1) Could we get the Warden fixed please? Pretty please? As it stands it’s more than likely to fail right when it’s most needed, and that’s just terribly frustrating.

2) How many mesmers are actually using the signet heal in practice? Is the dev team OK with how it is right now? I feel like the base cooldown is too high, and clones die too often, for it to be viable at all competitively, or even very viable in PvE.
- Consider that warriors signet is HIGHER hps (and still will be post-nerf) without doing anything, and we have to maintain three illusions to even get close. Impossible in any kind of team fight, and even 1v1 against good players. Ether Feast with NO clones out beats Signet with 2 clones constantly by a handy 26% (276 vs 220hps); and it’s REALLY easy to bust out an image or two to buff Feast for the split second you need to.
- Further consider that the moment we use the active, we have ZERO healing for 35 seconds! Warriors currently are known to be dead when they use their signet active, and it’s usually on a 16 second cooldown – less than HALF ours. Mesmers have much less durability in general, going more than twice as long with no healing is literally impossible. I understand that the active has a lot more utility, but that’s not enough.
Every single mesmer player I know has tried it out and then gone back to one of the other heals.

3) What is the reasoning behind nerfing Deceptive Evasion or the clone-death condition traits? Mesmers aren’t exactly overpowered in PvP or anywhere else; I thought nerfs were meant to address issues. What issue do devs see with the current state of affairs? Maybe if we understood the cause being addressed we could propose alternate solutions. (Note that the Critical Infusion change was anticipated and is totally acceptable to me and most others.)

4) Can we get mantra AoE upped to 600? The Mantra of Conc/Resolve changes to make them affect allies were great, but they need more range; right now they’re like inferior shouts that need to be charged. If the stack meta is to be broken, our support abilities have to affect people more than two steps away from us.

Will add more as I think of them.

Will Illusionary Elasticity ever be changed to affect Illusions?

This is good – please keep the questions coming. Duplicates are encouraged as they will be prioritized.

This should wrap it up. Hopefully the CMs will forward this to the developers for the upcoming preview.

Will mesmer ever be balanced in WvW?

Will PvP and PvE traits EVER be separated, so that whey they balance the PvP meta, they don’t utterly kill out PvE specs?

BlackDevil.9268:

Will mesmer ever be balanced in WvW?

this!
since the glamour nerf almost a year ago, the mesmer has received soo many nerfs, that we are veilbots now. could we please get some help in wvw raids?
we need aoe. glamour was popular for us because it didnt depend on clones or phantasms. we need some kind of build options that allow us to deal aoe dmg that doesent require a shatter or a phantasm.
glamour worked as it was not depending on ai.

none of the spvp builds work in wvw. i tried every single build out there and all i can do in a raid is tag a few enemies. maybe get a berserker out, but thats it, nothing out there makes me strong in wvw raids anymore, nothing. all i am in wvw is a veilbot. please veilbot is soooooo boring, help the wvw raid mesmer.
i played mesmer in wvw raids from the start of gw2 and mes used to be viable in wvw. all the nerfs and also buffs to other classes have made us veilbots.
glamours have been nerfed into the ground and we never received any wvw buff after that. and no mantras are not the answer. we need aoe, non ai based aoe. we are alight armor class btw. aoe kinda makes sense on a light armor class. no more ai stuff give us new aoe or at least traits that can turn something into aoe DMG!

• Confusion nerf
• Phantasm damage nerf
• Phantasm health nerf
• Phantasm LoS nerf
• Phantasm summon nerf
• Glamour nerf
• Might-on-shatter nerf
• iCelerity nerf
• Invulnerability nerf (Sword#2)

And the list goes on and on with this kind of whack-a-mole nerfing we have seen the past 1.5 years. And apparently ANet devs still wanted to continue nerfing (seemingly random) things that did not need to be nerfed at all (like Deceptive Evasion; of which they finally saw reason and listened to this community – for once).

So when will we see some viable build diversity as all I have seen so far is ANet nerfing the class and any build we might have had into the ground (because we’re ‘cheese’)?

Promoting build diversity by destroying build diversity seems to be a recurring theme nowadays, and they succeeded as we have almost no competitive builds left (and those we have left will most likely get nerfed soon).

So when will ANet revert the Mesmer back to becoming something more than Veil and Portal bots?

(And when am I going to get my Mainhand Pistol so I can finally wield both Lyss and Ilya at the same time?)

Aveneo.2068:

• Confusion nerf
• Phantasm damage nerf
• Phantasm health nerf
• Phantasm LoS nerf
• Phantasm summon nerf
• Glamour nerf
• Might-on-shatter nerf
• iCelerity nerf
• Invulnerability nerf (Sword#2)

And the list goes on and on with this kind of whack-a-mole nerfing we have seen the past 1.5 years. And apparently ANet devs still wanted to continue nerfing (seemingly random) things that did not need to be nerfed at all (like Deceptive Evasion; of which they finally saw reason and listened to this community – for once).

So when will we see some viable build diversity as all I have seen so far is ANet nerfing the class and any build we might have had into the ground (because we’re ‘cheese’)?

Promoting build diversity by destroying build diversity seems to be a recurring theme nowadays, and they succeeded as we have almost no competitive builds left (and those we have left will most likely get nerfed soon).

So when will ANet revert the Mesmer back to becoming something more than Veil and Portal bots?

(And when am I going to get my Mainhand Pistol so I can finally wield both Lyss and Ilya at the same time?)

yeah thats what im wondering. glamours were the ONLY aoe attacks that didnt require a clone or phantasm. they made us strong in wvw raids. the los nerfs were so extreem that we cant hit anything on walls anymore, we cant even hit il or cannons properly, the phantasms go into full cooldown if something is obstructed and in wvw it happens all the time even if it isnt true.
if there was a few traits that would allow us to make certain skills deal aoe dmg, the mesmer would be in a better spot. or just get rid of mantras and replace them with hex like aoes. we are a light armor class after all and therefor should have the option to spec into aoe that is not ai based.
if u gotta nerf something for that, then goe ahead, but im tired of being a veilbot

I would like to ask about the torch phantasm (illusionary mage). In a power spec, he offers nothing. In a condi spec, a staff clone is more useful for condi application. His only ‘use’ other than as an illusion is the condi clearing on skill use, but the application is so slow it isn’t exactly reliable.

What are anets thoughts on this skill and do they understand that the torch is taken for the 4 skill (stealth), never for the phantasm. (spreadsheet balance causes assumptions)

I think everyone covered everything nicely. I do want to touch up on Phantasm’s. Is there any chance of getting Phantasmal Haste fixed (I hear the Phantasms don’t actually attack any faster). I feel like if you want to get the most out of Phantasm’s is you need the major traits that add damage and the faster cooldowns for them. I feel a big fix to this would be to change Domination III with Illusion III allowing us to spec for Phantasm damage and lower cooldown. With proper play it would allow us to utilize the signet and maybe make them more viable in dungeons and WvW.

You forgot the Time Warp nerf…

Filosophi.7251:

You forgot the Time Warp nerf…

omg yeah thats true we forgot about that one. tw got nerfed heavily, but the cooldown has never changed

Filosophi.7251:

You forgot the Time Warp nerf…

I knew there was at least one major nerf missing from my list and this was exactly it! Time Warp (or rather the effect it produced: Quickness) was yet another 50% nerf without any compensation. At the very least I would have expected a significant reduction on the cooldown to compensate for the reduced effectiveness.

Also, I just remembered that Portal was another big nerf for us Mesmers and not only got it’s cooldown increased (from 60s to 90s) but also its number of uses was reduced (from infinite to 20). Yet the cooldown remained the same.