Guild Wars 2

The ones that do are extremely hard to handle… if it wasn’t for the fact I was killing myself from confusion I think it would be an interesting fight >____>

The problem is that the PU trait gives you a random boon every second your in stealth. What it should do instead is give you one random boon when you enter stealth, and give each of the three boons longer duration to balance it. It’ll probably happen at some point, 6 months down the road….

The bigger problem is that Anet keeps making these traits and changes to them that they don’t actually think through or adequately test. Tell me how you’re gonna solve that….like a wise man once said, “You can’t fix stupid.”

I’ll agree to a nerf of PU mesmers and other counterplay builds when I go into WvW and don’t see some huge percentage of the players as otherwise-unkillable, and usually uncatchable, stun-spamming warriors.

The fact that PU was outright banned in a recent 2v2 tournament should be reason enough for PU Mesmer to be looked at.

roamzero.9486:

The fact that PU was outright banned in a recent 2v2 tournament should be reason enough for PU Mesmer to be looked at.

Whose tournament? Means nothing its just a player one, if it was an official Anet one then yeah i would agree, otherwise, No.

This build is built solely for trolling and 1v1s.

Beyond that the build is useless in all other aspects of the game.

What amazes me is that it is even being brought up at all by players in this forum. It is IMPOSSIBLE to balance a game around 1v1s and would unbalance the game even further if they tried.

Balance for all games center around group play. No matter what game or what patch there will always be certain specs or classes which fundamentally do better then others in small settings or 1v1s.

If you are not new to mmorpgs then most of this you already know.

My suggestion for balance is this:

If you can’t handle or aren’t mature enough to handle loosing 1v1s to a duelist based class perhaps you shouldn’t be dueling.

Azreell.1568:

This build is built solely for trolling and 1v1s.

Beyond that the build is useless in all other aspects of the game.

What amazes me is that it is even being brought up at all by players in this forum. It is IMPOSSIBLE to balance a game around 1v1s and would unbalance the game even further if they tried.

Balance for all games center around group play. No matter what game or what patch there will always be certain specs or classes which fundamentally do better then others in small settings or 1v1s.

If you are not new to mmorpgs then most of this you already know.

My suggestion for balance is this:

If you can’t handle or aren’t mature enough to handle loosing 1v1s to a duelist based class perhaps you shouldn’t be dueling.

It’s not just the dueling fact.
I duel PU mesmers all the time in the OS and they drop like flies because they are all cookie cutters.
What we (or at least I) are appointing is the completely low skill floor to play this spec, since it is a low risk, high reward build.

hihey.1075:

What we (or at least I) are appointing is the completely low skill floor to play this spec, since it is a low risk, high reward build.

And how many “low risk, high reward” near-immortal stunlock warriors are there running around in PvP or WvW? PU mesmers are one of the few builds keeping them even slightly in check. Nerf them and we’ll have even more.

hihey.1075:

Azreell.1568:

This build is built solely for trolling and 1v1s.

Beyond that the build is useless in all other aspects of the game.

What amazes me is that it is even being brought up at all by players in this forum. It is IMPOSSIBLE to balance a game around 1v1s and would unbalance the game even further if they tried.

Balance for all games center around group play. No matter what game or what patch there will always be certain specs or classes which fundamentally do better then others in small settings or 1v1s.

If you are not new to mmorpgs then most of this you already know.

My suggestion for balance is this:

If you can’t handle or aren’t mature enough to handle loosing 1v1s to a duelist based class perhaps you shouldn’t be dueling.

It’s not just the dueling fact.
I duel PU mesmers all the time in the OS and they drop like flies because they are all cookie cutters.
What we (or at least I) are appointing is the completely low skill floor to play this spec, since it is a low risk, high reward build.

It only fits the criteria of low risk high reward in a 1v1. That is why conversations around 1v1’s are silly.

Imagine if this game had no loading and you could essentially swap characters on the fly, free trait resets, and a bag with all your armor and trinkets ready to go.

1v1’s would be counter picks that is why this is silly to bring up because 1v1 balance in gw2 would make things worse it would never end and who is even the final word on 1v1 balance?

I fight a pu I can roll them with my necro or grab my P/D perp thief and CnD clones till I win, I fight a P/D thief I go get my necro or play sword/dagger thief, I fight a necro I go get my warrior with zerk stance and a hammer and mace shield, I fight a ele I can run hambow, never ending cycle. Dueling Servers? Really can’t believe those are even brought into the discussion well one that hopes to be serious.

hihey.1075:

I dueled Doiid (a mesmer from Red Guard) a couple days ago at the windmill. He was using a PU hybrid. He had nearly 500 condi damage, and since he had many zerker pieces his vitality/toughness were not so high. The fights were fun and short and while it indeed felt powerful, his build was BALANCED. There were weaknesses which could be used to kill him (as I did after a couple fights).

My suggestion regarding this matter is this one though:
Make it so that the boons you get while in stealth will proc only if you haven’t already one of those. This way you couldnt stack “perma” Protection or Regeneration.
A lot of other traits already use this format (such as Shadow Protector, one of the Thief’s Shadow Arts traits), so it shouldn’t be hard to implement.

Try dueling a full dire mesmer running pu who has 2k condi damage pre-might.

I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun.

Simonoly.4352:

I think the reason nobody brought PU up so quickly is because its impact in WvW is almost completely irrelevant outside of organised 1v1s. There’s plenty of builds/traits across all classes you wouldn’t use in a serious organised 1v1. Just add PU to that list.

However, if Anet really needed to spend time balancing PU Mesmers, I would of course suggest addressing the trait alone and not touching anything else. I suppose you could swap the protection for swiftness. Allows PU Mesmers to keep the chance to proc Aegis and gain a free block in stealth but reduces the amount of protection gained along with Illusionary Membrane whilst giving Mesmers another source of swiftness (which is always a treat). I suppose it would be less cheesy for 1v1s although I still wouldn’t use it myself.

Very nice idea.

K U T M.4539:

Try dueling a full dire mesmer running pu who has 2k condi damage pre-might.

I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun.

Dire is completely bad for any condi based mesmer. A full dire mesmer would have 10% critical chance at best, thus the clones will not proc bleeds and won’t put any pressure on you. The only thing which would damage you is the Torment (Scepter #2, easily dodgeable) and the Confusion (Scepter #3, easily dodgeable and interruptable). Maybe you would get hit by some Staff clones’ autos for a 1s burning, but that’s it. They of course will be tanky, but are not a threat at all.

oZii.2864:

It only fits the criteria of low risk high reward in a 1v1. That is why conversations around 1v1’s are silly.

Imagine if this game had no loading and you could essentially swap characters on the fly, free trait resets, and a bag with all your armor and trinkets ready to go.

1v1’s would be counter picks that is why this is silly to bring up because 1v1 balance in gw2 would make things worse it would never end and who is even the final word on 1v1 balance?

I fight a pu I can roll them with my necro or grab my P/D perp thief and CnD clones till I win, I fight a P/D thief I go get my necro or play sword/dagger thief, I fight a necro I go get my warrior with zerk stance and a hammer and mace shield, I fight a ele I can run hambow, never ending cycle. Dueling Servers? Really can’t believe those are even brought into the discussion well one that hopes to be serious.

I agree with you that when someone becomes somewhat skilled at playing his spec, he will start losing only to hardcounters of said spec (unless the opponent greatly outplays him).
Still, it is not something that mustn’t be appointed. GW2 is NOT a team based game – you could play it in many ways, some of these are “solo playing”. Solo roaming is one of these, and I find it greatly entertaining.
There are counters for every spec, but so far PU is the one with the lesser amount of counters (the only one being condi necro, and even then it would be hard for the necro to kill him).

Qaelyn.7612:

And how many “low risk, high reward” near-immortal stunlock warriors are there running around in PvP or WvW? PU mesmers are one of the few builds keeping them even slightly in check. Nerf them and we’ll have even more.

Uh? Stunlock warriors? Care to explain?
The only “low risk, high reward” warrior spec is Hambow, which has absolutely 0 mobility in WvW roaming and thus you will hardly see Hambows around.
Another exception would be the cheesy GS/Sw+Sh uncatchable spec, but that is just meant for trolling and getting killed by it would mean that you are really bad.

I like the change about swapping Protection for Swiftness.

gawker.8340:

Balancing by destroying a whole trait would be bad because non-condi PU mesmers exists. The only way to balance it would be to lower condi duration of illusions.

exactly.i play pu power build and the extra second stealth helps me to at least be able to escape the gankers in the backline of a zerg. as a mesmer surviving in wvw is pretty tough. yes, im a veilbot, as i dont have anything else to contribute in a zergfight, but at least i get to survive a little longer. pu is a defensive build for me. i do have power and can kill with it, but thats pretty much it. i cant contest a circle or cap a camp and atm it is like glamour builds used to be like: people need to get used to the new build.

if u only attack the real mesmer which is pretty obvious to spot, u wont destroy the clones and not get condis. pu power builds are different as we dont use the random condis. also saying that our blocks and regen is healing all dmg is false. we do take a lot of dmg, but we got higher health and toughness. with those kinda mesmers u gotta think before blindly mashing buttons as a pu mesmer works off your mistakes. we use your own attacks against u: u hit me while i have my scepter 2 block up=5 stacks torment, u 1111 my clones u get cripples, bleeds and vulnerability, u attack my clone and i manage to get behind u while using torch=burn, pu mesmers have to constantly be on the move, dodge, blink and kite and yes we actually need to time our stealth very carefully. i’ve ran into very terrible pu mesmers that are so easy to kill, but then again, i know exactly where they move and how they move.
my advice, play one for a day or 2 and u will have way less problems.

that one master trait means nothing really …

the amount of stealth skills they have .. are what make them OP

most of mesmers in wvw are terrible though you should see what is going on in spvp tpvp

mesmer is not useful in zerg but it’s very very powerful in Tpvp / Spvp / 1 v 1.

Hey guys,
My main is Mesmer (over 1200 hours) and I only roam in WvW kittenter. But when this Blackwater build become so popular and I had hard time to kill it, I tried it.
From my experience, its very boring and I miss that burst.
On topic:
Maybe make mesmer revealed if he cast a phantasm or clone in stealth. DE dont have to be included.
Phantasms are on low CDs, so if u kill them they are recast from stealth immediately.
Make Decoy act like normal stealth skill.
Thoughts?

Punishing style builds and stealth are always going to be considered OP. Add them together and I guess people are starting to foam at the mouth.

It doesn’t need a nerf. It needs you, as an opponent, to understand how the build works and to THINK about what you are doing.

If you want some tips (shameless self promotion), I posted this on reddit a while back: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1tr7pa/lets_talk_about_the_pu_mesmer/

tl;dr: CC and conditions are the best offense. Avoid killing clones (the ones that look like the mesmer). Kill the phantasms (the ones that don’t look like the mesmer). And for god’s sake, do not attack when they are blocking.

hihey.1075:

K U T M.4539:

Try dueling a full dire mesmer running pu who has 2k condi damage pre-might.

I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun.

Dire is completely bad for any condi based mesmer. A full dire mesmer would have 10% critical chance at best, thus the clones will not proc bleeds and won’t put any pressure on you. The only thing which would damage you is the Torment (Scepter #2, easily dodgeable) and the Confusion (Scepter #3, easily dodgeable and interruptable). Maybe you would get hit by some Staff clones’ autos for a 1s burning, but that’s it. They of course will be tanky, but are not a threat at all.

Yes, it’s so very hard to proc clone deaths without precision.

/s

Debilitating is literally spammable.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAra8PlwzKoHTzmeEx0jgz3AOSKKtXrkCc7CB-jkCBYhhGXMQ0CQk0hm8AITtIas1gFRjVJjIqWpEzerIa1SBAx0I-w

Not full dire, almost though. Literally took like a minute to work out. I’m sure it’s very hard to play and extremely skillful and very balanced and fun to fight against.

Replace the chance for Regen while in stealth with a chance for Swiftness.

I find this truly amazing….

GW2 suffers from a total lack of diversity in terms of classes and specs and each and every time a different play style or build comes out which strays from the norm all of you cry nerf.

Quite frankly I think GW2 needs more builds with the same ideology of this. We want more diversity and this spec is a prime example of what can be done. The spec is designed to fight 1v1s and it gives up all other viability to do such. In my opinion that’s a fair trade off and a good example of balance.

But, let’s truly look at why people want this spec nerfed:

1)It’s dominating in the WvW setting. It kills zergs, can solo take any asset in the wvw game. It’s AoE and Single target are the highest in game against the zerg.

2)Tpvp it’s an unstoppable force. It can hold points while taking on groups of people. It’s burst is so high it always places tops on the end game charts. It can bunker and be zerker at the same time !

3)PvE – It outputs more burst damage and has higher survivability then the current dungeon or fractal meta classes.

Of couse a class like this should be nerfed.

But wait a second here….. I don’t recall the PU mesmer being able to do any of these things let alone all of them at the same time. Although there are quite a few classes in game who imo come pretty close.

The bottom line is this call for a nerf is ridiculous. The spec is good at two things. Trolling and 1v1’s and that’s were it ends.

The problem is obviously far too many bruised egos due to loosing duels.

As I have said prior – don’t duel if you can’t handle the results.

baylock.1703:

immobilize and poison destorys pu mesmer and If you dont have em its ur problem beacose all classes have immobilize and you can get poison from sigils

This is a really valuable comment. The best counter to PU is soft cc and poison….blind, cripple, chill, immob, poison…it works wonders.

roamzero.9486:

The fact that PU was outright banned in a recent 2v2 tournament should be reason enough for PU Mesmer to be looked at.

Banning PU in the 2v2 tourney is mind boggling. The team with the PU mesmer didn’t even place in the tournament.

It’s comical that Blu & co. believe PU is the only trait in the game that shouldn’t be allowed. They’ve just come to expect all the other broken stuff because they see it in high level tournament play, while they rarely run across PU b/c of its difficulties in conquest mode. It really isn’t that much stronger than some of the other ridiculous specs out there.

Imagine the outcry if this build would have been a thing before the flat 50% confusion nerf.

Anyways, I think Prismatic Understanding is well balanced for any zerker-style build. It gives you a good amount of defense – which is absolutely ok for traiting 30 points into a defensive tree and choosing a defensive grandmaster trait.

Combining the trait with some tanky condition builds (+torch) is where it gets debatable. My main is a Mesmer since release and yes, I too think that PU condi builds may need some “shaving”. The only problem I see is: How to shave and NOT completely ruin the trait for any other build type. I’m running PU shatter from time to time and one of the main reasons I take this trait is the regen/protection. Removing those would make the trait really uninteresting again (those +1 seconds of stealth aren’t worth 30 trait points).

People tend to forget that PU was buffed quite a while ago, before it gave no buffs at all – and it was a rarely taken, unrewarding grandmaster trait back then.

Let’s get some numbers here: With PU equipped, you’ll get an average stealth duration of about ~4 seconds:

Decoy: 4 seconds
Veil: 3 seconds
The Prestige: 4 seconds
Mass Invis: 6 seconds.

That basically means you’ll get 4x a random boon (3s) on average IF you have all those skills equipped.
I would actually agree on reducing those boons given, in exchange for some reduction on the “random” part. Maybe something like this:

Cloaking skills last longer, and you gain boons when entering/leaving stealth.
Stealth duration: +1 second
Entering stealth: Regeneration (4 seconds)
OR
Entering stealth: Regeneration (3 seconds) and Swiftness (2 seconds)
Leaving stealth: Aegis (3 seconds) and Protection (3 seconds)

This way, stacking boon duration wouldn’t be a problem anymore since you can’t proc the same boon over and over again. Wouldn’t mind a change like this, it’s kinda annoying that most Mesmer procs are random.

The ideas of swapping protection or regeneration to swiftness seem to be nice. Hope Anet listens. It would be a slight nerf to the trait without changing the general playstile.

Victoitor.2917:

Jackums.3496:

You would appreciate if I didn’t give my opinion because it’s not the same as yours?

It’s the way you said it. “They can’t chase. So run. Problem solved!” is a very trollish way of trying to throw the other person’s topic away. Specially when you use false arguments. Can we please try not to derail this thread?

Jackums.3496:

If you have a whole camp of veterans with you, then you should have no trouble killing them in the first place. Even PU builds won’t be able to down you and the NPCs simultaneously.

One at a time? Usually starting with the player defending since they can somehow burst a 3k toughness 20k health player like it was nothing. I have no clue how they do this, but I’ve seen this being done and they were running scepter/torch and something/pistol (probably sword).

Jackums.3496:

If they’re not running the condi build with torch, then they’re hardly impossible to kill. I run a zerker PU build for WvW roaming and it’s not even nearly as survivable as the full condi specs that take staff and scepter/torch. They don’t need a nerf.

You should see other variations out there. And don’t you think that build is OP?

Jackums.3496:

Condi PU Mesmers are the ones that are so difficult to take down, not all PU Mesmers, which is why I disagree with the idea of nerfing the trait. Some builds, such as zerker builds, that run PU are still very glassy. They don’t deserve to be hit just because of a single build that’s useless everywhere but WvW roaming.

So what do you think should be done to balance them?

almost all PU builds are condition builds that need you to kill these illusions. Much like you they are a Condi bunker spec. This is the current meta of the game for the most part. The build us no more trollish then a pistol bleed thief or any of the other crazy Condi bunker builds all of the low risk high reward. Its not the PU meaner that is the problem its the passive Condi bunker build meta that is the problem and singleing out one class is not going to fix that.

Samhayn.2385:

Victoitor.2917:

Jackums.3496:

You would appreciate if I didn’t give my opinion because it’s not the same as yours?

It’s the way you said it. “They can’t chase. So run. Problem solved!” is a very trollish way of trying to throw the other person’s topic away. Specially when you use false arguments. Can we please try not to derail this thread?

Jackums.3496:

If you have a whole camp of veterans with you, then you should have no trouble killing them in the first place. Even PU builds won’t be able to down you and the NPCs simultaneously.

One at a time? Usually starting with the player defending since they can somehow burst a 3k toughness 20k health player like it was nothing. I have no clue how they do this, but I’ve seen this being done and they were running scepter/torch and something/pistol (probably sword).

Jackums.3496:

If they’re not running the condi build with torch, then they’re hardly impossible to kill. I run a zerker PU build for WvW roaming and it’s not even nearly as survivable as the full condi specs that take staff and scepter/torch. They don’t need a nerf.

You should see other variations out there. And don’t you think that build is OP?

Jackums.3496:

Condi PU Mesmers are the ones that are so difficult to take down, not all PU Mesmers, which is why I disagree with the idea of nerfing the trait. Some builds, such as zerker builds, that run PU are still very glassy. They don’t deserve to be hit just because of a single build that’s useless everywhere but WvW roaming.

So what do you think should be done to balance them?

almost all PU builds are condition builds that need you to kill these illusions. Much like you they are a Condi bunker spec. This is the current meta of the game for the most part. The build us no more trollish then a pistol bleed thief or any of the other crazy Condi bunker builds all of the low risk high reward. Its not the PU meaner that is the problem its the passive Condi bunker build meta that is the problem and singleing out one class is not going to fix that.

Passive play isn’t the problem either.

People who can’t handling loosing 1v1 duels are.

You confuse button mashing with skill. They are two totally different things. Pressing more buttons doesn’t require more skill it simply requires you to press more buttons – so this passive play argument is nothing more then rhetoric.

This spec is not viable in 95% of the game due to giving up so much to be what it is – so I can hardly justify anyone calling it op or unbalanced.

I feel like the main offender is Debilitating Dissipation.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Debilitating_Dissipation.

If this skill gets an internal cooldown… the condi-spam mechanic aspect of this build will be toned down.

Victoitor.2917:

READ THE BOLD TEXT BEFORE POSTING!!

Hey guys, I know it’s really hard to discuss OP builds on these forums. Most responses come in the form of “trying doing this” or “try doing that”. “You should play this” or “you should play that”. This topic is for the people that believe PU mesmers are OP and would like to think of ways to balance them. If you want to post on strategies for fighting a PU mesmer, please create another topic and post there. This is not the place to discuss strategies.

I’m surprised no one has brought this up yet. In WvW, these guys can take camps with defenders and still kill everyone while being virtually immortal. I can’t say what exactly is is so OP about them, but everyone I talk to, even mesmers themselves, agree PU mesmers are quite OP. I don’t really know this build well and why it’s so strong, but I at least would like to know what other players think on this topic.

I do know what they are doing. I’ve read tips on how to deal with them, but they generally don’t really work. I don’t even know how to balance this properly, just wanted to start the discussion.

Well, what I’ve found is that AoE is key. Make sure you have cleansing too. It may be a bit biased since im an ele, and every skill i have is aoe, but i tend to not find them as much as a problem as you do.

Aveneo.2068:

Then thieves should also be forced out of stealth when someone gets damage from traps, caltrops, thieves guild etc.

Forcing mesmers out of stealth just because a phantasm attacks would make all their stealth useless imo as Mesmers would then get the Revealed debuff constantly and randomly.

Besides, phamtasms are not the issue as they can be killed very easily and do not benefit from any OnDeath traits.

Effectively your suggestion would just be another sledgehammer nerf to mesmers. Already we’ve seen numerous nerf to phantasms (LoS required, no summon on Block/Dodge/Invulnerability and reduced overall health). So no need to make mesmers completely useless by making stealth unreliable as well.

Just my opinion though.

I think using any form of ai from stealth presents massive issues since there really is no counter to stealth and the pressure they provide don’t allow your opponent to capitalize on the fact that you don’t want to reveal yourself. To a lesser degree, even thieves guild and ranger lb irks me, but one is an elite and the other one is a ranger.

I personally like Armageddon’s suggestion, but I think stealthing should destroy phantasms rather than revealing the mesmer.

First time using this, have played for a year. Have ranger necro and 2 mesmers. (Son plays one). I personally find the discussion insulting. A passive play style is materializing. A nerf to confusion in wvw and now let’s nerf another play style. Why attack a mesmer with his hand up? Why kill clones? The taking of camps I say foul. Those guards throw bolas and blind both bad for the mesmer. Just defend with npcs problem solved. If you are upset because you didn’t finish the said mesmer a retreat is a win. Protected camp. Move on. Roam with another. Not like a pu mesmer takes towers alone.

Azreell.1568:

Samhayn.2385:

Victoitor.2917:

Jackums.3496:

You would appreciate if I didn’t give my opinion because it’s not the same as yours?

It’s the way you said it. “They can’t chase. So run. Problem solved!” is a very trollish way of trying to throw the other person’s topic away. Specially when you use false arguments. Can we please try not to derail this thread?

Jackums.3496:

If you have a whole camp of veterans with you, then you should have no trouble killing them in the first place. Even PU builds won’t be able to down you and the NPCs simultaneously.

One at a time? Usually starting with the player defending since they can somehow burst a 3k toughness 20k health player like it was nothing. I have no clue how they do this, but I’ve seen this being done and they were running scepter/torch and something/pistol (probably sword).

Jackums.3496:

If they’re not running the condi build with torch, then they’re hardly impossible to kill. I run a zerker PU build for WvW roaming and it’s not even nearly as survivable as the full condi specs that take staff and scepter/torch. They don’t need a nerf.

You should see other variations out there. And don’t you think that build is OP?

Jackums.3496:

Condi PU Mesmers are the ones that are so difficult to take down, not all PU Mesmers, which is why I disagree with the idea of nerfing the trait. Some builds, such as zerker builds, that run PU are still very glassy. They don’t deserve to be hit just because of a single build that’s useless everywhere but WvW roaming.

So what do you think should be done to balance them?

almost all PU builds are condition builds that need you to kill these illusions. Much like you they are a Condi bunker spec. This is the current meta of the game for the most part. The build us no more trollish then a pistol bleed thief or any of the other crazy Condi bunker builds all of the low risk high reward. Its not the PU meaner that is the problem its the passive Condi bunker build meta that is the problem and singleing out one class is not going to fix that.

Passive play isn’t the problem either.

People who can’t handling loosing 1v1 duels are.

You confuse button mashing with skill. They are two totally different things. Pressing more buttons doesn’t require more skill it simply requires you to press more buttons – so this passive play argument is nothing more then rhetoric.

This spec is not viable in 95% of the game due to giving up so much to be what it is – so I can hardly justify anyone calling it op or unbalanced.

your understanding of passive play and mine seem to differ, passive in this instance is letting illusions die for conditions, stay in stealth to gain random boon, generally let your traits play for you. Much like warrior signet coupled with auto shack it off and auto damage immunity and adrenal health make defense to passive on warriors. Mashing buttons has nothing to do with active play. Active play is knowing and using your abilities at the correct time. So active defense abilities or using mesmer again bountiful interruption. These abilities only work when used correctly.