Guild Wars 2

From the fractals article: “an instability that…prevents projectiles from being reflected”.

So basically, an anti-mesmer instability. Which would very likely be in a number of different levels.

Guardians suffer too, but at least they have better dps and other important utilities to bring to a group. Mesmers only have niche tricks with blink and portal that only apply in a few instances.

Mesmers choose their gear to maximize their reflects for god’s sake (Assassin/Saphir). Please reconsider this instability.

As fractals is almost the only area in pve that I play, I’m sad and boggled that this is a thing. Mostly sad.

Hate this. I also remember there was a boss battle in living world season two that sits inside a field that destroys any clones and phantasms immediately after they are summoned. Content like that just cripples mesmer so much.

Personally, I think the instability should be unlinked to a certain level.
Instead you can activate any instability on any level yourself, much like what you do with gambits in Queen’s Pavilion boss fights.

Suggestion:

Use a different class for those levels then, and don’t drag your team down. (Heck, you still have timewarp)

Everyone know’s different levels/situations require different tactics/setups/approaches, etc. So why bring a knife to a gun fight? When you can bring an .50 cal.

Adapt and overcome.

Exciton.8942:

Personally, I think the instability should be unlinked to a certain level.
Instead you can activate any instability on any level yourself, much like what you do with gambits in Queen’s Pavilion boss fights.

I’ve always felt like instabilities should be random. But then we’re back to rolling for the instability you prefer. Tying them to specific scales is the best option, unfortunately.

ThyShadowPaladin.9521:

Suggestion:

Use a different class for those levels then, and don’t drag your team down. (Heck, you still have timewarp)

Everyone know’s different levels/situations require different tactics/setups/approaches, etc. So why bring a knife to a gun fight? When you can bring an .50 cal.

Adapt and overcome.

I’ll be bringing my ranger. Because I can’t be bothered to roll a new profession just for fractals.

Feel free to rage at me.

Quarktastic.1027:

Exciton.8942:

Personally, I think the instability should be unlinked to a certain level.
Instead you can activate any instability on any level yourself, much like what you do with gambits in Queen’s Pavilion boss fights.

I’ve always felt like instabilities should be random. But then we’re back to rolling for the instability you prefer. Tying them to specific scales is the best option, unfortunately.

Not really. It’s already tied to scale now but people just play at scales that the instability has the least impact.

After the update, people will just find out the easiest level+island+instability combination.

But, it’s only like one fractal level. Which you can most likely skip by playing a higher level that doesn’t have the instability.

Plus you’re talking one build here. The mesmer is not just reflects.

mesmers aren’t just reflect bots

you can do the entire fractal without getting hit once or using a single reflect

ThyShadowPaladin.9521:

Suggestion:

Use a different class for those levels then, and don’t drag your team down. (Heck, you still have timewarp)

Everyone know’s different levels/situations require different tactics/setups/approaches, etc. So why bring a knife to a gun fight? When you can bring an .50 cal.

Adapt and overcome.

I spent hundreds of gold to gear my mesmer, my main, in full ascended armor, weapons and accessories. I don’t have another character with 70 AR. I can’t just “Adapt and overcome” by changing classes. I shouldn’t be forced to in the first place.

FrizzFreston.5290:

But, it’s only like one fractal level. Which you can most likely skip by playing a higher level that doesn’t have the instability.

Plus you’re talking one build here. The mesmer is not just reflects.

It’s not “only like one fractal”, it’s one instability. It can appear on many different levels. On its own, and with other instabilities.

Plus, mesmer is just reflects. As I said, other than blink and portal, everything else other classes can do better. dps, healing, might, stability and protection come to mind. You name it, other classes can do better. Heck, even reflects can be achieved more easily and more reliably by a guardian. I can’t count how many times floor elevation screwed Temporal Curtain or how many times Phantasmal Warden spawned on the opposite side of the enemy. But it is the best I have, well, until HoT.

I, myself, have realized mesmer is not ideal for casual groups for fractals and switched to guardian. I still main mesmer in PvP, WvW etc.

I suggest OP to start prepare for a switch early as well.

Quarktastic.1027:

ThyShadowPaladin.9521:

Suggestion:

Use a different class for those levels then, and don’t drag your team down. (Heck, you still have timewarp)

Everyone know’s different levels/situations require different tactics/setups/approaches, etc. So why bring a knife to a gun fight? When you can bring an .50 cal.

Adapt and overcome.

I’ll be bringing my ranger. Because I can’t be bothered to roll a new profession just for fractals.

Feel free to rage at me.

You’re calling me out cause I said use a better class for the Occasion/Mistlock cause you can roll mesmer on a different mistlock that doesn’t screw it over for the most part?
Besides, highly unlikely we’ll meet in fracts anyway. Have fun getting carried by some other team.

It’s a smart instability and forces you to play a different way which is exactly why it’s so good. Just about every aspect of this game can be completed with ease using a single build and that’s the main problem with it in my opinion. There is no thinking and I’m glad anet’s trying to change that.

As for class balance, that’s a different topic. Stop blaming the wrong things.

I only wish instability for scale 100 will be:
“Wild elemental magic”
Blasting fire applies weakness instead of might. Blasting water deals damage instead of healing. All conjured weapons spawn enemies instead(eg instead of ice bow you summon angry ice elemental).

Just as a side note to ‘adapting to instabilities and playing in different way’.

Such cluelessness is a prime example of why Anet’s probably never going to read this thread. These forums are riddled with diseased comments like yours.

Edit: To be honest, that first part about blast finishers is actually a good idea for an instability. The second part is where your disease kicked in.

Hammerguard.9834:

Such cluelessness and a prime example of why Anet’s probably never going to read this thread. These forums are riddled with diseased comments like yours.

Edit: To be honest, that first part about blast finishers is actually a good idea for an instability. The second part is where your disease kicked in.

I actually like that instability. I think the point of instabilities is to get us out of our comfort zone, make us use different strategies. While the targetting of elementalist I think is fundamentally wrong, I do think the power they hold with Ice Bows is also wrong. i do await the breakbar change to see what that holds though.

As some people have mentioned in other threads, the variable target size is an issue, when you have Elementalists ranging from 17 to 30k damage depending on the size of the target that’s just… well, messed up.

I do think scrambling field combos would be a cool instability. Dark = might, Fire = blind, Light = weakness, Water = Stealth, Smoke = Heal. something like that would be fun. It’d totally change things.

Edit, OK, i suck and didn’t read your edit, but yeah… So we’re on the same page somewhat.

The power of ice bow was fine albeit with the old AI where mobs moved out of stuff, it was intentionally designed to be extremely powerful only being able to land monster damage on occasion, this was with the old enemy AI concept where they made it a lot harder on a player’s ability to corner targets because they ran out of AoEs.

Had the old AI not been nerfed into oblivion, allowing the mob stacking to occur, we would still have Ice Bow in its regular form.

Will reflect still defend you, at least, from projectiles?

Ventari Revenants will be rolling in their graves at this… and, yes, in the grave if reflecting gets gutted.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

The power of ice bow was fine albeit with the old AI where mobs moved out of stuff, it was intentionally designed to be extremely powerful only being able to land monster damage on occasion, this was with the old enemy AI concept where they made it a lot harder on a player’s ability to corner targets because they ran out of AoEs.

Had the old AI not been nerfed into oblivion, allowing the mob stacking to occur, we would still have Ice Bow in its regular form.

Not really, due to the differences in hit box you can go from a solid 17k to a rediculous 25-30k dps. That’s a bit much.

Ice Bow should still be part of the setup, however that inconsistency allows it to be just crazy. Witht he defiant change Deep Freeze will change which is a good thing, but the damage should still be considered. IMO it should be changed to a barrage like attack (field takes damage rather than multiple strikes) that does equavalent damage to a human sized target. Meteor much the same, though meteor could be troublesome with the radius it had for PVP/WvW so it may need a bit more fine tuning in that regard.

oh is this game sometimes unfair to certain classes? I hadn’t noticed.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

mesmers aren’t just reflect bots

you can do the entire fractal without getting hit once or using a single reflect

Oh i have done fractals where the mesmer did not use any reflects… If you are not using reflects where there is things to reflect, you are being carried.

I main a mesmer in fractals as well, completely geared to take full advantage of reflects and everything, and when I first read this instability I balked at the thought. However, mesmers still have options to be useful the scales with this instability, you just need to use the right build.

The instability said that we could not reflect projectiles, but said nothing about stopping them. When properly traited and set up, three wardens can destroy all projectiles thrown at the party, providing protection and damage at the same time.

So run Domination, Dueling, Illusions, (possibly switch something out for Chronomancer) and trait appropriately.

Is it ideal? Not really. Does that mean we should abandon our mesmers for this one stability? Not at all.

“Oh no, I have to change my build and adapt it! What will I do?!”

Ithamir.5928:

ThyShadowPaladin.9521:

Suggestion:

Use a different class for those levels then, and don’t drag your team down. (Heck, you still have timewarp)

Everyone know’s different levels/situations require different tactics/setups/approaches, etc. So why bring a knife to a gun fight? When you can bring an .50 cal.

Adapt and overcome.

I spent hundreds of gold to gear my mesmer, my main, in full ascended armor, weapons and accessories. I don’t have another character with 70 AR. I can’t just “Adapt and overcome” by changing classes. I shouldn’t be forced to in the first place.

FrizzFreston.5290:

But, it’s only like one fractal level. Which you can most likely skip by playing a higher level that doesn’t have the instability.

Plus you’re talking one build here. The mesmer is not just reflects.

It’s not “only like one fractal”, it’s one instability. It can appear on many different levels. On its own, and with other instabilities.

Plus, mesmer is just reflects. As I said, other than blink and portal, everything else other classes can do better. dps, healing, might, stability and protection come to mind. You name it, other classes can do better. Heck, even reflects can be achieved more easily and more reliably by a guardian. I can’t count how many times floor elevation screwed Temporal Curtain or how many times Phantasmal Warden spawned on the opposite side of the enemy. But it is the best I have, well, until HoT.

If you are full ascended you can easily swap all your gear to an ele. When you need only dps and no reflect. So it’s easy to adapt.
And with chronomancer coming with HoT you’ll have lot of thing to do instead of reflect,

Rym.1469:

“Oh no, I have to change my build and adapt it! What will I do?!”

So much this! Come on people, take that stick out of your bumhole and try to realize that there’s more to the game than just metazerkdps + reflects

IllegalChocolate.6938:

mesmers aren’t just reflect bots

you can do the entire fractal without getting hit once or using a single reflect

Yes, but some fights, for example the grawl shaman boss …. and you jsut never know which map you’re going to get, though I am unclear if we’ll be able to choose maps in HoT. If so, then this shouldn’t be an issue as every team will go for maps that fit them.

and you know you can drive a car without using power steering or assisted breaks but ….

NotOverlyCheesy.9427:

Rym.1469:

“Oh no, I have to change my build and adapt it! What will I do?!”

So much this! Come on people, take that stick out of your bumhole and try to realize that there’s more to the game than just metazerkdps + reflects

Yes, now we can replace “metazerkdps + reflects” with " metazerkdps + projectile block". I CANT WAIT.

You know wich map you’ll get. In fact from now on each level is a map and an instability and that doesn’t change, if I undestood well.
Soifyou go level 92, it’ll always be swamp for exemple. And 93 could be Mai Trin.
So you know depending on the level what you are gonna fight.

thrag.9740:

NotOverlyCheesy.9427:

Rym.1469:

“Oh no, I have to change my build and adapt it! What will I do?!”

So much this! Come on people, take that stick out of your bumhole and try to realize that there’s more to the game than just metazerkdps + reflects

Yes, now we can replace “metazerkdps + reflects” with " metazerkdps + projectile block". I CANT WAIT.

1 baby step at a time xD

It’s not about “adapting”! As a mesmer, I could change builds all I want, the core issue will still remain. The only thing I bring to a group, that others don’t do better, is reflects. No matter what I would do I will be subpar if I can’t reflect. There’s no other option for a mesmer. I wish there was, but there isn’t.

Ithamir.5928:

It’s not about “adapting”! As a mesmer, I could change builds all I want, the core issue will still remain. The only thing I bring to a group, that others don’t do better, is reflects. No matter what I would do I will be subpar if I can’t reflect. There’s no other option for a mesmer. I wish there was, but there isn’t.

It seems that you’ve identified the problem. And I recall someone already suggesting transferring gear to an elementalist which provides more for the group (Damage+Blinds+Vuln+Might+Projectile *Blocks*+Earth Ele tank,etc,etc,etc) aside from timewarp every 90s or so and some reflects.
Not telling you how to play, just giving suggestions which are better alternatives to camping mesmer on said “Mistlock Instabilities” that cripple whatever effectiveness it has and complaining about it on forums.

Ithamir.5928:

It’s not about “adapting”! As a mesmer, I could change builds all I want, the core issue will still remain. The only thing I bring to a group, that others don’t do better, is reflects. No matter what I would do I will be subpar if I can’t reflect. There’s no other option for a mesmer. I wish there was, but there isn’t.

With chronomancer you’ll be able to give the new buff that’ll decrease everyone cooldown,
And now you can take the place of the thief with invisibility and portals for skip. And enough CC to be ale (with team work) to perma freeeze boss. You can also stack vulnerability if your group lack of vulnerability and you got blind for mobs fight.

Auto invis and portal, make you better than thief for skipping (since there is less chance that people don’t follow fast enough)

CC are a little bet harder than thief CC but bring so much more damage to the fight.
And blind are also harder to put than thief blind.

In fact you are better than the thief in most of his utility, it’s just a little harder to master it.

There is tons of things you can do more than reflect.

I love how you all pretend you’re entering some sort of fractals esports tournament that’s going to be live streamed on twitch with 200,000 viewers. “My class isn’t meta without its reflects. How am I going to win the $0 prize money, Anet?”

Okay, I’m going to alt-tab back to GW1 now where a player had to actually think. You kids stay mindless ya-hear.

Reflects: No check

Condi Cleanse: Check
Group Healing: Check
Group Distortion: Check
Interrupts: Check
Push/Pull: Check
Quickness: Check
Portal Shenanigans: Double check
Slow: Check
Stability: Check
Stealth: Check

Note that the instability states projectiles can’t be reflected which may allow them to still be absorbed/blocked though. In which case iWarden will be even more desired given the alternatives unless….

‘GUARDIAN SHIELD YOUR TIME TO SHINE HAS COME!!!!’

Anyways, I agree in that the instabilities are designed to make us uncomfortable and break our habits. Hell, even a 38 nowadays makes you think twice before you Deep Freeze something. Adapt or move on, mate.

magestik.4132:

With chronomancer you’ll be able to give the new buff that’ll decrease everyone cooldown,
And now you can take the place of the thief with invisibility and portals for skip. And enough CC to be ale (with team work) to perma freeeze boss. You can also stack vulnerability if your group lack of vulnerability and you got blind for mobs fight.

Alacrity is not nearly good enough to justify bringing a Chronomancer. There are two skills that apply Alacrity to allies: the shield phantasm (which you can’t control and which takes the place of a valuable damaging phantasm) and Well of Recall. Well of Recall has a 45 second cooldown and applies, at most, three seconds of Alacrity, if everyone stays in the well for the full duration. Given the Alacrity math, that takes away a grand total of two seconds of cooldown.

Knocking two seconds of cooldown off of people’s skills every 45 seconds is not very impactful. The only real PvE value Chronomancer brings to the Mesmer is that it lets you shatter once without blowing up all your phantasms—that part’s nice and I’m pretty thankful for that, don’t get me wrong.

magestik.4132:

Auto invis and portal, make you better than thief for skipping (since there is less chance that people don’t follow fast enough)

Portal is valuable in only a handful of instances, and Thief is far better at applying group stealth than Mesmer (while also doing more DPS).

Hammerguard.9834:

I love how you all pretend you’re entering some sort of fractals esports tournament that’s going to be live streamed on twitch with 200,000 viewers. “My class isn’t meta without its reflects. How am I going to win the $0 prize money, Anet?”

Okay, I’m going to alt-tab back to GW1 now where a player had to actually think. You kids stay mindless ya-hear.

The problem with Mesmers is that we’re not just “not meta” without reflects—we simply don’t offer anything valuable without reflects that another profession can’t do better.

Luckily, I only ever run PvE stuff with my guild, and we’re not nearly “elite” enough to actually care about what’s optimal. But elitism does exist, and not everyone has a good guild to run things with.

Agent Noun.7350:

The problem with Mesmers is that we’re not just “not meta” without reflects—we simply don’t offer anything valuable without reflects that another profession can’t do better meta.

That’s literally what you just said.

Erm, you know, most content is anti ai or pet mechanics, and consequentially anti-mesmer, at least regarding damage. Just sayin’.
You think you have it bad? I wish I could shatter my godkitten pet, believe me I do. Shatter, break, DISINTEGRATE it in a burst of green butterflies.

savacli.8172:

Reflects: No check

Condi Cleanse: Check
Group Healing: Check
Group Distortion: Check
Interrupts: Check
Push/Pull: Check
Quickness: Check
Portal Shenanigans: Double check
Slow: Check
Stability: Check
Stealth: Check

Note that the instability states projectiles can’t be reflected which may allow them to still be absorbed/blocked though. In which case iWarden will be even more desired given the alternatives unless….

‘GUARDIAN SHIELD YOUR TIME TO SHINE HAS COME!!!!’

Anyways, I agree in that the instabilities are designed to make us uncomfortable and break our habits. Hell, even a 38 nowadays makes you think twice before you Deep Freeze something. Adapt or move on, mate.

You forget Thief Smoke Screen, Air Ele Focus 4, a and Revenant’s Ventari shield, which are all also projectile blockers than can protect an entire party.

…and that’s not including personal blocks, which IIRC every profession save Necro and Thief have at least one (well, technically Thief does have one other than smoke screen, it’s just underwater.)

Of course, that’s assuming No Reflections truly means reflections will not work at all, when I think it’s just as likely that reflect skills will still stop projectiles from hitting you, they’ll just no longer Return to Sender.

ThyShadowPaladin.9521:

Quarktastic.1027:

ThyShadowPaladin.9521:

Suggestion:

Use a different class for those levels then, and don’t drag your team down. (Heck, you still have timewarp)

Everyone know’s different levels/situations require different tactics/setups/approaches, etc. So why bring a knife to a gun fight? When you can bring an .50 cal.

Adapt and overcome.

I’ll be bringing my ranger. Because I can’t be bothered to roll a new profession just for fractals.

Feel free to rage at me.

You’re calling me out cause I said use a better class for the Occasion/Mistlock cause you can roll mesmer on a different mistlock that doesn’t screw it over for the most part?
Besides, highly unlikely we’ll meet in fracts anyway. Have fun getting carried by some other team.

Delicious delicious rage.

mmmmmmmmm

Reflect may be a thing of the past for Mesmer meta. Sure it will still be needed and run on certain shards and bosses but remember…. That thing called a specialization….

Mesmer will have more roles or even a better set up most likely with the specialization. It’s way too early to QQ about this lol.

Gods. the exageration here is REAL. Do you think your the only ones that reflect or something? Every class except necro and revenant says high -.-.

Yeah. there making a fractal where you can’t completely reverse certain damaging attacks. Good. Its different. In that fractal youl have to do something different than you did in another. Which is the entire bloody point of instabilities.

If the strategy for fighting mobs stayed the exact same for every single fractal level you end up with dungeons. Mindlessly rolled through without even a care in the world.

Its GOOD that there doing stuff that changes it up. When we hit that fractal level and we see that instability were going to have to sit and think (okay. what besides reflection can we do to reduce the damage we take). Maybe bring your slow? Maybe bring one of the new wells that mesmer will have access to? Theres never just one awnser to a problem. If you think that not being able to reflect negates your entire class than I hesitate to think you actually know how to play it.

Shadelang.3012:

Gods. the exageration here is REAL. Do you think your the only ones that reflect or something? Every class except necro and revenant says high -.-.

Rev has the highest reflect uptime of any profession, aside from perhaps engi. That ventari tablet bubble thing is absurd.

Gav.1425:

Will reflect still defend you, at least, from projectiles?

Ventari Revenants will be rolling in their graves at this… and, yes, in the grave if reflecting gets gutted.

Ventari tablet can only absorb and not reflect projectiles : http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Protective_Solace

stof.9341:

Gav.1425:

Will reflect still defend you, at least, from projectiles?

Ventari Revenants will be rolling in their graves at this… and, yes, in the grave if reflecting gets gutted.

Ventari tablet can only absorb and not reflect projectiles : http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Protective_Solace

The instability will most likely prevent projectile destruction skills from working as well. The main purpose of projectile reflect in fractals isn’t to kill enemies faster, but to defend your party from those projectiles.

While enemy projectiles deal tons of damage when reflected back, the fact that they aren’t dealing that damage to your party is what I feel Anet was trying to focus on with this instability.

Essentially, I picture the instability making all projectiles unblockable.

Just saying, “reflect” and “absorbing/destroying” are different terms, so it’s likely going to work in a way that projectiles are simply being blocked instead of being reflected, which is still good enough.

Shadelang.3012:

Gods. the exageration here is REAL. Do you think your the only ones that reflect or something?

No, that’s not what Ithamir is saying. He’s saying that reflects are the only way for Mesmers to bring relevant DPS to Fractals.

Brazil even says that reflects on Lupicus are all he uses Mesmer for: http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/page/1/m/6563292/viewthread/12497837-dnt-mesmer-build-specialization-update

The general argument that “you don’t need to be 100% optimal in GW2” obviously doesn’t apply to Fractals, since the whole point of them is to offer hardcore content. So Anet has a responsibility to not lock out entire classes from their hardcore content.

tobascodagama.2961:

Shadelang.3012:

Gods. the exageration here is REAL. Do you think your the only ones that reflect or something?

No, that’s not what Ithamir is saying. He’s saying that reflects are the only way for Mesmers to bring relevant DPS to Fractals.

Brazil even says that reflects on Lupicus are all he uses Mesmer for: http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/page/1/m/6563292/viewthread/12497837-dnt-mesmer-build-specialization-update

The general argument that “you don’t need to be 100% optimal in GW2” obviously doesn’t apply to Fractals, since the whole point of them is to offer hardcore content. So Anet has a responsibility to not lock out entire classes from their hardcore content.

You still don’t have to be 100% optimal to run scale 49/50 fractals though.

I’ve done several scale 49s with a not very optimal group (one of them still doesn’t have enough AR to survive a double agony stack) and they were the smoothest runs I’ve ever had at that scale.

I main mesmer and ya mesmer is currently mostly there for reflects. However, I don’t think chronomancer is not going to be as simple as Agent Noun makes it sound. For example, this is a rotation I came up with. This is the “longest” rotation I could come up with. It would need to be toned down for shorter stacks or fights.

Use sword 3 and dodge with deceptive evasion (harmonious mantras is no longer needed unless you are a Mesmer). Shatter Continuum split for 9 seconds. Cast mimic, cast well of recall, cast well of action, cast time warp, cast well of recall, shatter using the four other shatter abilities you have, continuum shift.

¼ sec + 1 sec + ¼ sec + ¼ sec + 1 sec + 1 sec or so for all shatters = 3 ¾ seconds (it may be a tad longer with clicking, just did the pattern on my keyboard and came up with a time of around 4 seconds). With quick fingers, you should be fine on time. If needed, you can always dodge again for an extra 3 seconds in continuum split. If you have enough time, you can also summon a few clones for mine wrack in continuum. After continuum shift, cast mimic, cast well of recall, cast well of action, cast well of recall (don’t cast time warp unless it’s the finale boss because its 180 sec cool down is longer than the 60 sec cool down of continuum split), then use all four shatters.

With flow of time traited, this should give around 20 seconds of alacrity and 16 seconds of quickness, along with the other effects and damage tied to the traits. As previously stated, this time period should be plenty for most encounters. Therefore, it typically would need to be towned down by the chronomancer for better cool down and play through management.

Xstein.2187:

With flow of time traited, this should give around 20 seconds of alacrity and 16 seconds of quickness, along with the other effects and damage tied to the traits. As previously stated, this time period should be plenty for most encounters.

It sounds like a lot, but the Chrono is going to be even less damage than usual for the first 10 seconds of the fight as they bring all those stacking buffs up. They still have to then summon their actual damage phantasms, by which time their Quickness is expiring already.

The real question, one that I don’t think can be answered until the beta weekend, is whether the team DPS from the shared Alacrity and Quickness makes up for pushing back the Mesmer’s “DPS online” time.