Guild Wars 2

Well said. I wish I could have voiced my own very similar concerns with such elegance. +1.

Well said, this change to address the clone spammers seems like it will nerf them but also most other mesmer specs in the process. Talk about slash and burn.

I dont know why ANet seems to think its wise to put duel type skills together, those will always be abused. A skill or a trait should be either offensive or defensive. Anytime you mix them two, people will flock to it. Warrior burst skill is a prime example, it hits hard or is a stun, but very useful and highly offesive, and add in a condition removal, a defensive move. Its a obvious choice, do great damage/stun AND help keep you alive. Same with dodging for clones and the easy traits that allow for a lot of dodging. Of course its going to be abused, summon clutter + summon AI help + Evade = Obvious choice to spam.

Like heartseeker of old (pre-nerf), the thiefs choices were 5 (expesive stealth that is situational), 4 (an interrupt/stun, again situational) 3 (deathblossom is rubbish unless you are condi) or 2 (yeah, the hard hitting, gap closing, damage evading, does more damage the more you do it move). HMM, wonder which one will be abused, and of course it was and it was nerfed (which was right). But again its that mixing of defensive and offensive skills that end up EXTREMELY powerful. And good ole ANet takes the nerf nuclear kitten nal to it and ends up shattering as many builds as it can.

It’s too late the only Mesmer build ANet wants is the Phantasm build, spam all your phantams then afk while your GS auto-attacks crap to death.

I honestly couldn’t agree with you more in all of the points.

Please lets keep posting and discussing this until some Dev who has a slight grasp of competitive PvP in gw2 understands it and prevent this change from happening.

saVdoom.2067:

Please lets keep posting and discussing this until some Dev who has a slight grasp of competitive PvP in gw2 understands it and prevent this change from happening.

I dont think the combined lifespans of all Mesmerplayers are long enough for this.

Well said, sadly I doubt they will change their mind.

Just nerf Deceptive Evasion and put a 10 second internal cool down on the trait. Multi-purpose dodge rolls need restrictions and it needs to be the same for everyone.

i started to read and then as soon as i saw you have to dodge to spam stuff i zoned out, im glad they changed mesmer i just wish they had removed vigor all together.

Jomo kenyatta.7351:

i started to read and then as soon as i saw you have to dodge to spam stuff i zoned out, im glad they changed mesmer i just wish they had removed vigor all together.

your input isn’t really constructive Gruntled. Don’t publish when you read only the first lines…. YES mesmer have to dodge cause of the clones (otherwise no shatter). and YES you need dodge to spam stuff!!! Warriors don’t need vigor..they are tanky as hell and can hit like a truck…but shatter mesmer lacking on sustain. If you handle all classes equal and removal vigor, the balancing get more broken like before…..

Jomo kenyatta.7351:

i started to read and then as soon as i saw you have to dodge to spam stuff i zoned out, im glad they changed mesmer i just wish they had removed vigor all together.

People like you are the reason why arenanet make changes like this
People with no clue bout different classmechanics babbling over and over again what they heard in a stream or read in a forum thread

thema:

I dont think this change has anything to do with clonespam – its just part of “QQ – nerf Vigor for everyone”

Arenanet you can´t do changes like this and cut it by 50% for ALL Classes (in notes its engi and guardian too) and completly ignore the mechanics per class. You will kill shatter mesmer.

IMO OP is best mesmer in game – or was when i played a lot a month or two ago. However, he is wrong and biassed I think personally. I think vigor needed to go completely. Or be nerfed more. And the dodge clone thing was good too

every class is getting their vigor access nerfed – engi and thief got it in the last patch, for instance. deceptive evasion needed a nerf ages ago, as well. none of this should really be all that surprising.

In this thread: People that think they understand mesmer mechanics.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance

Syndarin Eledhwen.6513:

-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.

So let me quote this again since for some people it wasn’t clear enough how the mechanic works. Please read carefully the example above and then re-think how this change will affect mesmers, especially the already very weak spec which is shatter, not to mention probably the secondary most weak profession at the moment.

And comeback to me with a decent answer on how this will play out instead of “lol mesmer 2 stronk nerf”.

Now i’ll put another scenario. Say that you’re running to a node and you get engaged by a thief. So you guys battle for a while and you’ve your clones up since you already blew some dodges and distortion (probably from when he backstabbed you). Now lets say this thief goes into stealth and waits…. Now unless you waste a shatter or simply waits around your clones (to make use of them), whenever you move away from them you are simply a sitting duck… because guess what? your clones are far away, but probably not far enough for them to dissapear on their own. And now you add how much EASY it is already for a thief to completely destroy a mesmer. You get the picture?

Now imagine you’re trying to get someone who’s on a run with a quick shatter such as dodge close the guy and shatter the kitten out of him. Oh wait you can’t do that now? Your clones are running behind the guy with their aweful speed in your last shatter remember? Right.

Well said man. I keep posting everywhere the last couple of days that mesmers need the vigor regardless if they are shatter or not. That’s a stupid decision similar like the ones the took with the ele

Syndarin Eledhwen.6513:

I can’t..i really can’t unterstand why anet nerf the vigor trait instead to move the trait to master or like a 15er trait. I have to confirm also, i don’t like the rnd dodge spam in the game. But as a shatter mesmer you have to dodge for the illusion…it’s your offensive and defensive at the same time. Furthermore you have to dodge so much spam stuffs, that you can’t see cause of the lack animations (necro marks, instant spells,….). As a shatter mesmer you have a really hard time versus a lot of the other classes, especially fights on a node versus soldier warriors. Mostly when you make a failure, you are dead. Other classes can make like 100 failures versus me…and still live.

This is exactly the main reason why this nerf has to be cancelled. Critical infusion is the very only little bit of “cheese” a shatter mesmer has, but he needs it to survive to all the massive cheese other classes bring to the game. This trait has to be nerfed some day, but absolutely not right now.

Regarding DE, here are some other examples you can add to your list:

->You dodge to create a clone to be backstabed by a thief instead of you so the thief is revealed.

-> This happened to me today. Imagine you’re on kyhlo, at the clocktower. You see there is nobody far, so you go to freecap it. You’re in combat so you’re slow. In order to reach far fastest, you double dodge, swap weapon, dodge and phase retreat, letting clones on your path attacking boxes. If some enemy comes to you while you’re capping, those clones will be useless and you will not be able to create others by dodging.

-> You mirror blade + blink to enemy + dodge + shatter very fast to burst an enemy.

It is definitely unacceptable if mesmers are nerfed while incredibly cheesy specs of other classes that define the meta are not changed.

Jomo kenyatta.7351:

i started to read and then as soon as i saw you have to dodge to spam stuff i zoned out, im glad they changed mesmer i just wish they had removed vigor all together.

Please read carefully. He didn’t say that he dodges to spam stuff, but that he has to permanently dodge to avoid the stuff that other classes spam. i.e. for instance you have to dodge almost randomly as much as possible to necros to avoid all the condis they spam.

Justice.3608:

It’s too late the only Mesmer build ANet wants is the Phantasm build, spam all your phantams then afk while your GS auto-attacks crap to death.

oh and dont forget the veilbot role in wvw. thats all we do and can do because verything else gets nerfed to the ground.

There are many lists of Shatter Mesmer plays that are so important to the player and spec’s survival around I hope Anet take a good long look and think about the consequences of the Deceptive Evasion change they proposed. You guys want the population to be vocal and get involved with balance and we are.

We recognise the intent to nerf clone death cheese, please find another way as this method of nerf will cripple the Mesmer class. Summoning clones at our location with dodge is so utterly fundamental to our play you cannot press ahead and hope the players can salvage it through build change or w/e. You are on the brink of completely altering our class mechanic in a way that you havent even tried with other classes, it goes to the very core of the Mesmer.

I won’t quote all the different things that we as Mesmers do with clone on dodge and how overwriting old clones is an important part of it you’ve seen it all before but please really think before surging ahead – just think how many months you’ll let this experiment sit for to give it a run, is it worth what you’d do to Mesmer players?

These messages asking you to reconsider have been placed in every relevant sub forum, think twice before you do it.

as usual, ANET nerf mesmers to satisfy their favored warriors and thieves player…

Spot on, hopefully people that say that the deceptive evasion change doesn’t hurt shatter mesmer will understand that it really does.
Shatter mesmer was already struggling in this meta and it will be completely shut out after the 21st. It’s THAT big of a hit in all that we can do. Less clones (and we are looking at a LOT less clones) means less shatters, less damage soaking, less boon removal (one of the only things we were still useful for), uselessly positioned clones everywhere (that ultimately lead to wasted shatters to get clones where we need them) , all that we do is going to be nerfed, while our apex predator will still be spamming shortbow 3 and call it a day and warriors healing for 400 hps (oh sorry, 370, can’t forget that 8% nerf!!!!). Good job arenanet, enjoy your thief/ranger/warrior/guardian meta. This game sucks, and the only reason for me to keep playing for this long is gonna suck. These nerfs, in this meta, will kill shatter mesmer until you guys nerf everything else, god knows how long that will take. But good job, mesmer is at ele level, 6 classes to go!

PS: the stupid nerf doesn’t even requires us to play better, you are actually dumbing down deceptive evasion, while making it worse! Unbelievable.

The vigor nerf I believe is warranted, considering every other class has received similar nerfs.

I believe Deceptive Evasion could’ve been handled different, for example with a slight ICD. However the fact is that it was a broken trait combined with the perma vigor and sigils of energy and needed to be dealt with somehow.

TheGreatA.4192:

The vigor nerf I believe is warranted, considering every other class has received similar nerfs.

I believe Deceptive Evasion could’ve been handled different, for example with a slight ICD. However the fact is that it was a broken trait combined with the perma vigor and sigils of energy and needed to be dealt with somehow.

If it was so “broken” then how come a shatter mesmer is a rare sight in high end tournaments even today?
Could it be that they have very little defense outside DE?
Shatter Mesmers are the only spec viable for high end tournaments and are low in the food chain as it is.

SO, I get that the developers want to reduce the on-clone-death functionality and re-balance the risk/reward for that build. I have no qualms with that.

However, to address an issue you should identify the root-cause and tackle that. The problem with the proposed “solution” is that clone generation through dodges is not the root cause. What needs to be looked at potentially are:

- That clones apply conditions when they get overridden, rather than killed.
- That some on-clone-death traits are perhaps too strong or synergise too well

Now, Mesmers need sufficient clone generation because their Shatters are reliant on it. If you limit this too much, you basically start cutting into one of the key elements of our mechanic (i.e. shatters) and thus disproportionally impact on our effectiveness. Let’s look at the builds that a Mesmer can utilise:

- PU condition: actively tries not to user Shatters, except defensively
- Phantasm: opportunistically but very infrequently uses Shatters
- Mantra: uses most Shatters on a fairly frequent basis
- Lockdown: uses F1, F3 and F4 on a very frequent basis.
- Shatter: is heaviliy reliant on all Shatters, except perhaps F2

By addressing DE (rather than on-clone-death traits or condis on clone-override) you basically negatively impact on all our builds, except the one that you’re trying to target. And it not only impacts our Shatters, it impacts our game-play in general as others have already described (e.g. defensively popping a clone when a thief unstealths, etc).

What is worse, you’ll end up moving us from one “cheese” and passive build (i.e. PU Condi) into another (i.e. Phantasm), whilst the builds that rely heavily on Shatters, timing, disrupts, immobilise and understanding your opponents suffer most.

On the point of vigour… I get that you are trying to reduce the number of dodges in-game, but this needs to be done on a class-by-class basis rather than as a blanket-approach. Lighter classes such as the Mesmer inherently need more mobility and evasion compared to, say, a Warrior.

As such, I’d strongly argue you to reconsider this change.

Wow, we get here amazing feedbacks! I’m glad, we have two threads on top, which describe the trouble with the changes. I hope, arenanet take this inputs serious and realize, they affect the whole mesmer mechanic…

At the moment mesmers are low in the food chain like Reesha say it before..no one understand why anet want to destroy the last mesmer spec, that can be played in highend pvp with some disadvantages.

soooo

Mesmer is getting their precious vigor nerfed qq

seems in line with all the other vigor nerfs and its not even that big.

More kit refinement style nerfs and more passives inc this patch.

Syndarin Eledhwen.6513:

-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.

You are absolutly right eledhwen, playing against players that know these bugs with illusionary leap and other clones is the pure hell. . So the most Mes playing with Greatsword and Staff in TPvP but with that you have not that much bugs to handle, but with that weapons our only defense are the evades.. . And with that nerv.. it will be nearly impossible to face thiefes, off guards and warriors.

Eloquently said, and IMO this is the biggest nerf to mesmers since beta.

You literally just destroyed what has been a staple in 99% of all mesmer builds, and literally assists the CORE MECHANIC of our class.

I currently play phantasm right now, but enough is enough. The vigor nerf? I can accept that.

You literally just gutted the mesmer class, and destroyed the CORE build of what a mesmer was “supposed” to be. You don’t want us to be phantasm, or PU, you wanted us to be SHATTER.

Thank you again ANET, for completely ruining a class.

Syndarin Eledhwen.6513:

Finally pls reconsider about the mesmer changes or instead of ~3 mesmers in top eu you will see no one and you have another ele.

Just want to add, that you three are only existing, because you are really really good. Just take a look at the esl tournaments with 55HP Monks. If Misha would just play a S/D thief, it at least appears, that this would help the team much more.

There is definitely nothing in the whole gw2-universe that would justify the deceptive evasion nerf.

You want to reduce the benefit from the on-death trait? Then change them!
You want to reduce the clone-spam? You are already doing this with the vigor nerf, and probably with a change to the sigil of energy.

I really do believe vigor should be removed and classes should be balanced around having far less dodges available.

Obviously something needs to be done about AI spam and effects spam, but it would create so much more depth throughout the game.

Rolyate.6753:

I really do believe vigor should be removed and classes should be balanced around having far less dodges available.

So what do light-armour classes light Mesmer, that’s heavily reliant on mobility for damage evasion, get in return for less dodges? Fewer dodges impacts every class, but it’s the light armour classes that don’t have the TGH or ARMR to absorb damage, unlike medium/heavy classes.

Rolyate.6753:

I really do believe vigor should be removed and classes should be balanced around having far less dodges available.

Obviously something needs to be done about AI spam and effects spam, but it would create so much more depth throughout the game.

If you want to go down this road then fine. But give us higher amount of armor, give us reliable ways to remove conditions, hell.. Give us 10s condition immunity, give us also an utility that makes us take no damage for x mount of time. How about that?

You have to understand that what we are saying here is that we are fine if they’re trying to reduce dodges overall, which will also reduce the amount of clones created. They should think in giving something back in return of that, its not like mesmers are any good at the moment, pretty much the worst class besides Ele currently.
What we’re REALLY not ok with is them completely destroying all semi-viable builds with the DE change and only pushing us to ONE single build which is already completely crap in competitive play ! Making us even easier to be countered against, it limit even MORE our mobility, and erase any room for quick reactions !

Marsares.2053:

Rolyate.6753:

I really do believe vigor should be removed and classes should be balanced around having far less dodges available.

So what do light-armour classes light Mesmer, that’s heavily reliant on mobility for damage evasion, get in return for less dodges? Fewer dodges impacts every class, but it’s the light armour classes that don’t have the TGH or ARMR to absorb damage, unlike medium/heavy classes.

As well as far less clones generated from dodges to use on shatters for dmg, defense and control.

Teutos.8620:

Syndarin Eledhwen.6513:

Finally pls reconsider about the mesmer changes or instead of ~3 mesmers in top eu you will see no one and you have another ele.

Just want to add, that you three are only existing, because you are really really good. Just take a look at the esl tournaments with 55HP Monks. If Misha would just play a S/D thief, it at least appears, that this would help the team much more.

Thank you for the cookies but on the other side it’s really sad, that mesmer isn’t viable and has less potency than a warrior but need much more effort. It isn’t enough already, anet has to nerf more and more and more on shatter mesmer (since release).

By the way: Good inputs from you Teutos..i had quoted your examples on my topic!

Syndarin Eledhwen.6513:

Alashya on Mesmer Changes

literally who? why do people always make themselves important.

boumz.9851:

Syndarin Eledhwen.6513:

Alashya on Mesmer Changes

literally who? why do people always make themselves important.

Who are you?

boumz.9851:

Syndarin Eledhwen.6513:

Alashya on Mesmer Changes

literally who? why do people always make themselves important.

shows you has no clue

Alashya is best mesmer EU – you would know this when would have played with him or vs him

And he is ALWAYS in top 20 soloQ and teamQ as a Shatter Mesmer

Not all Pros (or good players) stream or have to be loud in forum for attention

Pyroatheist.9031:

In this thread: People that think they understand mesmer mechanics.

In this thread: Clone spammers doing anything to avoid the chop. Oh it is so sweet to see the mesmer put in the ground, so sickeningly sweet.

(although of course it also leaves me in dismay as I continue to wonder if the PVP balance team actually play this game at all, other than the “oh look I was in a match” at the odd video event to keep up appearances)

As for the quoted bit, you dont understand the mesmer, no one does. Not even ANet. (as proven by the endless changing of classes, not balance, but changes, thats a major difference)

DaliIndica.9041:

Pyroatheist.9031:

In this thread: People that think they understand mesmer mechanics.

In this thread: Clone spammers doing anything to avoid the chop. Oh it is so sweet to see the mesmer put in the ground, so sickeningly sweet.

(although of course it also leaves me in dismay as I continue to wonder if the PVP balance team actually play this game at all, other than the “oh look I was in a match” at the odd video event to keep up appearances)

As for the quoted bit, you dont understand the mesmer, no one does. Not even ANet. (as proven by the endless changing of classes, not balance, but changes, thats a major difference)

you are in the wrong forum – let me help you
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv

DaliIndica.9041:

In this thread: Clone spammers doing anything to avoid the chop. Oh it is so sweet to see the mesmer put in the ground, so sickeningly sweet.

In this thread: Too many people that want a shatter Mesmer to be even more of a free kill than they are now. Too many people that apparently do not want any competition. Too many people that don’t have a clue. Too many people that want a “I win button.”

Thank you for clarifying that. We now all know what kind of player you are.

I don’t think mesmers want to avoid the chop. I think they want to have it targeting what is really needed (clone death spam of condition) and not affect on-demand clone creation, which is the core of the class.

Make it a % chance to apply condi, or reduce the condi duration/stacks but don’t kill other specs by nerfing PU (I play cheese PU/Condi btw).

One thing I especially don’t like is that the real ‘AI’ build everybody seems to hate (condi on clone death and shatter are not AI builds, it’s purely player action) is actually even buffed.

Now Phantasm specs can safely dodge out of AoE without overwriting their phantasm or revealing their location. Yay.

Reesha.7901:

If it was so “broken” then how come a shatter mesmer is a rare sight in high end tournaments even today?
Could it be that they have very little defense outside DE?
Shatter Mesmers are the only spec viable for high end tournaments and are low in the food chain as it is.

A shatter mesmer is not that rare of a sight in tournaments (in fact the previous winner of ESL tournament included a mesmer), but I don’t think shatter mesmers are the problem. Atleast they use up their clones.

The problem is that you can spawn a ridiculous number of clones with the trait, which along with their phantasms can make the presence of two or three clone spammers unbearable. This game is enough of a mess as it is.

Considering that every other class has had their vigor nerfed, with limits to their dodge-related abilities, this change is only fair.

Reesha.7901:

DaliIndica.9041:

In this thread: Clone spammers doing anything to avoid the chop. Oh it is so sweet to see the mesmer put in the ground, so sickeningly sweet.

In this thread: Too many people that want a shatter Mesmer to be even more of a free kill than they are now. Too many people that apparently do not want any competition. Too many people that don’t have a clue. Too many people that want a “I win button.”

Thank you for clarifying that. We now all know what kind of player you are.

I dont care about shatter, I have no issue with fighting them. Sometimes they win, sometimes I do, but it feels like a fair fight. But the tanked up clone spamming stealth lovers are a completely different story, and that needs to be ruined beyond belief.

(also, as a thief, whilst the current state is looking a bit grim, its exactly what needed to happen. For far too long, backstab heartseeker spamming was an easy win, and that needed to be sorted out. It went on for so long that in the end it seemed every single class despised us, and it was entirely justified. Mesmer and thief are both one of those classes that either has stupidly powerful builds or wanders into obscurity. Never truly bad, but nothing special. Shatter mesmer could do with a few buffs if you want my opinion, but the clone spammers have ruined any chance of the mesmer being looked upon with those thoughts. Same as the thief, it will be nerfed to death when it was one thing (or some small aspect) that was the problem.)

And if your shattering your clones etc, I understand a spamming nature is required at times. I am talking about those who never shatter, but just keep spamming clones and trying to stay stealth, with tanky builds. THOSE are the ones that ruined it, but they will never care as they will just move onto some new easy win and that class will end up getting nerfed to death.

Warriors still have issues, but thanks to the hambow players the warrior will not get these long term issues addressed, in stead a few light nerfs are coming in to fix a spec that whilst annoying, didn’t bring that great a deal to a match. Typical ANet, fix the wrong issue, ignore the long term ones, create new ones.

Another eg, people complain about thief stealth, so ANet put more of our healing in stealth, meaning we need it not only for increased damage or stuns, its now part of our healing.

A good skill to remove conditions and provide a bit of immunity would solve a few issues. As long as it had no stealth on it, that would force players to pick the better option, but more importantly, less reliance on stealth (the thing most people seem to hate). But no, they dumped more of our needed skills into stealth, making the issue even worse.

i dont understand why you nerf or change the state of the mesmer anyway?! i mean there are really a lot other builds and especially classes which are a lot stronger than any mesmer build…why dont u begin there?
why do you still try to balance this game? it gets worse with every patch in my eyes. reset it to release day. there it was at its best….

DaliIndica.9041:

I dont care about shatter, I have no issue with fighting them. Sometimes they win, sometimes I do, but it feels like a fair fight. But the tanked up clone spamming stealth lovers are a completely different story, and that needs to be ruined beyond belief.

This is what you are not understanding.

There is 2 topics at hand:

1) Reduce vigor overall for mesmers;
2) Rework of DE trait;

1.1) The first just comes as blatant nerf, which you can argue is ok or not due other classes receiving it too.
1.2) If you also add with the sigil rework Anet said that will happen (most likely nerfing sigil of energy), the fact is that high risk/reward builds such kittenter & mantra, will suffer the most from this.
1.3) Plus take into consideration that mesmers role in competitive play are already close to non-existent losing only to Elementalists, since Phantasm & PU (high survivability due stealth & low risk builds due using condition damage as main source of damage, meaning they can pick defensive stats as well) are not good at all for a team tournament match up since: They can’t hold a point because it rely on stealth for effectiveness, can’t roam because its to slow + can’t train down targets, and can’t be as effective in team fights because everything gets cleaved down in AoE.
1.4) Now wrap it up taking into consideration that outside of Phantasms & PU builds, the main source of survival of mesmers (usually in Mantra or Shatter) comes from dodging the right stuff, since they got no reliable way to clear conditions, no easy access to stability and speed, no 10s immunity to something etc as other classes.

2.1) Now this is the real issue for most of us mesmers because its a blatant reduce in effectiveness in a big mechanic of mesmers especially used in high risk/reward builds, it’ll completely wreck them ! Just read the examples used above by the OP and many others more.
2.2) As mentioned before, high risk/reward builds are already lacking ALOT in survival, so the clone generation on dodge is one of the scarce tools they have in order to battle against enemies ! Such as dodging so the thief backstab the clone, dodge to put the clone between you and the longbow warrior shooting you, or rangers with shortbow, etc.
2.3) This change might actually INCREASE the effectiveness of PU mesmers (the ones you called perma invisibility cheese) because once they lay their clones/phantasms they can freely go into stealth and dodge away without reapplying clones – which is one of the main things that give away the position of the actual mesmer you need to kill.

So just to put it simple, we actually don’t want the cheese to stay, if applying conditions on clone death is to strong and open room for cheese builds, please reduce the effectiveness of the trait ! Make it able to block those conditions, there are many ways to work this out, but the way chosen will actually improve the cheese making PU basically the ONLY viable option for mesmers (so they can say goodbye for competitive tournaments), and will completely wreck high risk/reward builds that people don’t have trouble to deal with it anyway, its an already very easy build to fight against.

saVdoom.2067:

snip

We are both saying the same thing. I know that this nerf will hurt mesmers across the board (for the most part), and whats really needed is that stupid tank spec cutting up a lot more.

And yes I also agree and in fact endorse the idea that high damage specs must also be balanced with higher punishments for failure (eg less able to take damage as you said). But the problem is the spec that allows for high amounts of error, whilst still being able to put out some nice damage.

Shatter is never really a problem for me, either I play better or they do. Its perfect, the most skilled will win (or luck if both players are new), but no one has a clear advantage from the spec, its how they play it. But the tank spec allows for them to make huge continuous mistakes whilst pumping out damage and being able to survive most of the damage they take.

And my point with the thief and warrior etc is to point out the real issue at the bottom of all of this, beyond the mesmer clones the hambows etc, is that ANet does not know how to correctly balance the game at all. This mesmer issues is just another in the long line of issues that every “balance” patch will have.

You know as well as I do that mesmer will most likely slide even lower with this next patch. But a year from now, Mesmer could be the new cheese class, go back to being broken, then op again, then just pointless all in that year. We know this, we know the warrior was good in pvp, then it was junk, then it was junk for ages, now its great, it will be a little less great, soon enough it will be crap again awaiting some new fix.

Engies have been locked into basically two roles since this game came out. Bunker or conditions, thats it. And at times they have been a poor bunker, and only recently has the conditions been an improvement. We all know this will not last long though, something else will change. Its the constant change of core mechanics that annoy people. Balance is good, adding broken skills onto already broken trait lines with a broken build is not going to help matters at all.

Necro is another thats been up and down since release. There was a time when the necro was considered junk and had no useful builds, now it has a fair few, with one being a bit of a pain for a lot of people.

Slightly off topic but the only class that can rightfully complain is the Ranger. Even when the ranger was half good it was his pet/s that were the OP part, never the ranger. Poor old ranger has never been at the top. Engie to a lesser degree is the same, never really been a solid OP choice. Even the nade builds were one trick ponies that required a lot of things to go right, back when thiefs could just backstab huge hits and just stealth away (back in the bad old days, or were they good, I dont know if the balance is better anymore, I think it was a mess and it remains a mess)

DaliIndica.9041:

I dont care about shatter, I have no issue with fighting them. Sometimes they win, sometimes I do, but it feels like a fair fight. But the tanked up clone spamming stealth lovers are a completely different story, and that needs to be ruined beyond belief.

(also, as a thief, whilst the current state is looking a bit grim, its exactly what needed to happen. For far too long, backstab heartseeker spamming was an easy win, and that needed to be sorted out. It went on for so long that in the end it seemed every single class despised us, and it was entirely justified. Mesmer and thief are both one of those classes that either has stupidly powerful builds or wanders into obscurity. Never truly bad, but nothing special. Shatter mesmer could do with a few buffs if you want my opinion, but the clone spammers have ruined any chance of the mesmer being looked upon with those thoughts. Same as the thief, it will be nerfed to death when it was one thing (or some small aspect) that was the problem.)

And if your shattering your clones etc, I understand a spamming nature is required at times. I am talking about those who never shatter, but just keep spamming clones and trying to stay stealth, with tanky builds. THOSE are the ones that ruined it, but they will never care as they will just move onto some new easy win and that class will end up getting nerfed to death.

Problem just is, it is not the targeted build that will suffer much from this.
I do not believe the condition based PU build will have major issues after this patch.
Shatter will…..

Should they do something to reduce the effectiveness of the condition PU build? Yes they most likely should. As a shatter mesmer I find them extremly annoying as well.
This just isn’t a good solution.

Also – I do believe you see so many mesmers running the condition based stealth heavy build for the following reasons:

• It is easy to play for a beginner.
• Unless a thief mess up he will rip you appart if you play shatter. The fight favors the thief big time.
• Shatter need some love.

Vigor nerf is fine. However the change of “Deceptive Evasion” will be game breaking, due to the issue of uneven terrain. I can’t see why ppl think it is not. Create a mesmer and play shatter. After 10 games you will have the same opinion.