Guild Wars 2

I think we can all agree, that right now shatter mesmer is not viable. Some guys might be happy about it but imho mesmer brings a lot to the game, mostly because portal can turn around a game. Mesmer makes a match more interesting due to the possibilities he has. That said, here are my thoughts how to bring mesmer back in line.

The 0815-Shatterbuild was/is 20/20/0/0/30, the main traits are increased MW dmg 20%, boonremove on shatter, illu on dodge and Illu Persona. For some decent cond remove in a Shatter-build you need 30 in Inspiration (4th Trait-line). To get it you have to drop all in Domination (20% MW-dmg, boonremove on shatter) and 10 points in duelling or in illusions. If you drop duelling you wont have Illus on Dodge, or in other words, no shatter. If you drop 10 in illusions you loose Illu Persona, which is a must have (espically w/o 20% MW dmg).

What I want from Anet is to bring Shattered Conditions (1 Condi removed per Shatter, not per Illu) to a Master-Trait in Inspiration, instead of a Grandmaster-Trait. With 30 in Illusions you would be able to remove about 10 condis in 50s (not that much). To get 20 in Inspiration you would have to drop the 20 in Domination, which means no more 20% dmg on MW and no boonremove on shatter. This change would decrease the dmg of a shatter build a lot. So now you do less dmg but can survive better against condis. But, you would still die quite fast due to bersi. You need bersi because w/o it and w/o 20% on MW (or even with) Shatter does laughable dmg. So here comes my second suggestions.

Increase the Base-dmg on MW (only a little bit) but change how it scales with crit-dmg (decrease it more than the base-dmg increase. The whole chang is quite difficult, probably impossible I guess, since the crit-dmg scales with every skill the same). I want this change because a mesm on bersi amu can deal such insane dmg, in fights the mesmer turns into a 1-trick-pony. With this change, Mesmer would probably get away from bersi-amus (the benefits you get would be much smaller) and move more to a sustainable, team supporting class with the possibility to hold up in a 1v1 for a decent amout of time, like the warrior does right now, just w/o the annyoing stuns, but with annoying confusion

You do realize if and when those heavy condi spam specs get toned down mesmer will be right back to being one of the best classes right?

+1 for your first suggestion. Tension between sustain and burst, and addresses a major problem shatter mesmers have right now. That gives mesmers more chance of seeing play. That’s good in itself, but it also puts a slow on warriors, which is probably needed right now. Big step towards a healthy meta with a variety of possible comps.

The tension is key, because it’s not a buff to to their strengths, it’s a buff to counter their weaknesses somewhat, improving their versatility and therefore their chances of remaining viable no matter what happens with other classes.

The only thing you would need to be careful of is completely removing that weakness. You still want them to be weak to conditions, just not so weak that they see no play at all whenever condis are seeing play.

condis are op so let’s give warriors 8 sec immunity!

condis are op so let’s give mesmers more removal!

condis are op so let’s un-nerf eles!

condis are op so let’s give engies immunity at 25% health!

OR MAYBE JUST NERF CONDI? specifically autoproc burning

oh something is easily spammable so let’s add counter spam / one click invulvs yeah that makes sense

if anything make protection effect condis/phys by 15% flat for both. prot is too strong against power right now anyway. at least that would encourage team play

I think we need to stop lobbying so hard for balance changes. One year into the game, nearly every OP/cheese spec is the result of a weak spec getting buffed up at the request of players.

In other words, let’s start trimming the edges, not trying to instantly fix everything. We’re all lobbying for changes that we think will make our favorite profession really good but not quite OP, and the problem is we’re just not as precise in our estimation as we think we are.

Shatter is still viable.

NevirSayDie.6235:

I think we need to stop lobbying so hard for balance changes. One year into the game, nearly every OP/cheese spec is the result of a weak spec getting buffed up at the request of players.

In other words, let’s start trimming the edges, not trying to instantly fix everything. We’re all lobbying for changes that we think will make our favorite profession really good but not quite OP, and the problem is we’re just not as precise in our estimation as we think we are.

you still forgetting that anet were the ones.. that promised they would fix alot of whats broken.. and they still have yet to do so. i know the game hasnt been on for a long long time but its been out for quite a while. and instead they keep releasing more and more content. with little to no fixes to alot of class bugs.. and i mean there is ALOT of class bugs that are still here.

Take for example.. when one of the devs said they was making some major changes to spirit rangers. and will compensate for the loss of that build we rangers still have yet to even receive what that dev said they was going to do. or will they give it a buff next patch ? idk. but i really dont have my hopes up at all. cuz at this point anet has pretty much lost my trust in anything they say.

Bring the condi removal mantra? Use LoS? Shatter mesmer with IoL, Portal, Mirror images isn’t doable sure, but shatter with mirror images, decoy, mantra of renewal is definitely viable imo. Include the fact that there is not much of a reason to remove boons and bring halting strike instead for a 2-3k hit on interrupt and i’d almost argue that it is strong.

waka.9826:

You do realize if and when those heavy condi spam specs get toned down mesmer will be right back to being one of the best classes right?

true story

Lordryux.9785:

you still forgetting that anet were the ones.. that promised they would fix alot of whats broken.. and they still have yet to do so. i know the game hasnt been on for a long long time but its been out for quite a while. and instead they keep releasing more and more content. with little to no fixes to alot of class bugs.. and i mean there is ALOT of class bugs that are still here.

Take for example.. when one of the devs said they was making some major changes to spirit rangers. and will compensate for the loss of that build we rangers still have yet to even receive what that dev said they was going to do. or will they give it a buff next patch ? idk. but i really dont have my hopes up at all. cuz at this point anet has pretty much lost my trust in anything they say.

I understand exactly what you’re saying. In fact, I would say that the PvP playerbase should begin lobbying for bugfixes as much or more than for balance changes. We’ve been extremely vocal about things we want buffed and nerfed, and maybe that’s all Anet’s been hearing.

There are still some Mesmers in TN (and by that I mean around top 500), and they are still doing pretty well.

their is nothing wrong with shatter how it is currently. Its just the meta is hard against mesmers because we are weak against condi damage. When the meta becomes a bit less condition spamy shatter and mesmers will be back on top.

@waka
Ya they would be at the top again. But why should you allways use the nerf-bat? Imho spirit rangers and necros are in a good apot right now (necro probably a bit too good, but with 1-2 little adjustments they’d be perrfect). The build variety is very low and this doesnt effect the power of the old shatter-mesm. So even if condis get nerfed, people would probably still run the more deffensiv build with more sustain (espically since shattered conds is a aoe cond remove)

@Eurantien
Yep you could do that. Or you just bring a thief who is faster between spots, can survive longer, deals probably not that much dmg but also a lot, still has 1 teamutility and can win every 1v1 situation. The only reason to bring a mesmer (it always was) are their team-utilities…

And pls stop this “when conds get nerfed mesmer are top again”. You would still have very very hard times against waris and thiefs. And this change wouldnt affect the old shatter build. So if conds get nerfed you could directly jump on the old build, but now you would be able to play a viable mesmer in the condi-mess..

I can burst pretty well with count’s build
10/25/0/10/25

Try it out! It requires some positioning to play well though, as staff clones must be positioned for explosions..