Guild Wars 2

So, I’m here to complain about the MtD nerf that recently hit mesmer. Sure, ANet, love you guys for all the balance changes this patch, but I have to complain about this one.

Firstly, many of us mesmers feel that you based this change on the recent stream where the guy was basically hitting golems to showcase the new skills. MtD is, potentially, very strong if you can get a consistent 8 stacks on someone, hitting with a double shatter for 16. But there are many problems with this: The mesmer and the target don’t usually stand still and whack each other, so the stream showed disproportional results of how MtD might play out in actual combat.

I’m not saying that the theory is wrong or that it isn’t OP, I’m just saying we’re not sure if it’s actually OP in context. A fully set up thief or mesmer could down practically anything in an ideal situation, does this make them OP just because some people can’t defend actively or move.

All I’m saying is, wait and see if there are actual complaints outside of theoretical ideals. Because if it is unbalanced, QQ will undoubtably arise. Can we just wait until it does and you can keep your Big-Red-Buttons-of-Nerf on hold?

Anet is always biased against Mesmers and love the thieves, look at how quickly they fix the “reveal on miss” bug. Freaking unbelievable. When thieves cry loud enough, they give them love and shift the nerf to Mesmers.

Confusing Combatants is also nerfed, application for confusion on mesmers are back to what we had again.
Engineers, warriors can get 4-5 stacks in one attack or trait.

Mesmers and Thieves are totally OP right now with the buff to zerker dmg. Lol incoming more nerfs.

Meanwhile, mesmer got duelist’s decipline and illusionary leap broken. God knows when they gonna fix. Instead they just nerf maim by 50% with a naive reason that some one beat down golem too hard in a stream.

Did you get a chance to seriously test out some of the builds when the original patch first hit? dueling, chaos, illusions using PU and maim was so severely overpowered that if anet didnt nerf it, I would’ve been shocked. Every fight I had with it ended the same way, about 5-15 seconds in the enemy dies to a combination of torment and confusion. 1v4 against respectably opponents were as easy as a 1v2 had been prior to patch. This had to happen.

-Priest of Lyssa

Saying MtD is OP because you can trait it with PU is a straw man argument. Not everyone trait them together and nerfing other traits because of how well PU synergies with other traits is an ill thought out action. You’re only hurting diversity by taking the many wrong medicines to fix the problem.

In case you haven’t notice, MtD itself is unchanged by the patch. It is the same as before, and IP baseline only boost its effectiveness in ideal situation. How many times do you see condition mesmer, wielding condi range weapons, run into enemies to deliver that extra 2 stacks of torment? Hitting it with a 50% reduction nerf bat gutted MtD, and mesmers are encouraged to leave their illusions alive because live illusions deal more damage than shattering. This is a change no one want, you can’t out cleanse constant conditions nor can you dodge illusion autos.

Notice how the much stronger engie condi build wasn’t touched?

Now maim has been reverted back to how it was when it was first introduced and was considered to weak to use in a game that hadn’t gone through the power creep of this patch.

Condition shatter is totally different to the bunker, sustain stacking, ccing engis, rangers, necros and warrior condition based builds around. They rely on condition bombing/spiking.

So to see 15-20 torment stacks in a matter of seconds does not warrant a nerf. A good player will condi cleanse this, so the only other benefit then is the boon removal, blinds, stun/daze thats comes with the shatter build. I have been playing this alot and yes, it is strong, but op? no! Not when you look at the power burst and powr shatter right now.

For condition shatter to be viable/meta it has to have an advantage, be as good if not better than power shatter. Conditions only do good damage when you stack. And right now the big stacks hurt. But we cant spam these. As soon as someone condi cleanses, you are looking at ‘sustain damage of 5-8 stacks’. This becomes less effective and your build rotation then starts to focus on surviving the counter pressure you will face if the enemy doesnt have conditions.

All im saying is, you cant nerf a trait after 16 hours just because of a few complaints. Mesmers might finally have more than one viable build at ESL/tourney level, so to nerf it so soon when there is so much power burst and other classes doing insane condition damage, is really sad. Rangers are still allowed to stack 15+ stacks, and engis flame grill their enemies for their next BBQ, yet MtD got nerfed? It was never viable as 1 stack, and even as 2 before y’day its was not viable. So to nerf it by 50% ALREADY is really bad management.

Edit: I know some people were saying that condi shatter as a carrion GS or hybrid power/condition was really strong, but im talking from pure condi shatter build with staff, sc/t. Fix it/move it so power shatter builds dont abuse MtD, not nerf the actual trait.

rchu.8945:

Anet is always biased against Mesmers and love the thieves, look at how quickly they fix the “reveal on miss” bug. Freaking unbelievable. When thieves cry loud enough, they give them love and shift the nerf to Mesmers.

There’s a difference between fixing a bug and nerf/buff a class.

Terrorsquad.2349:

rchu.8945:

Anet is always biased against Mesmers and love the thieves, look at how quickly they fix the “reveal on miss” bug. Freaking unbelievable. When thieves cry loud enough, they give them love and shift the nerf to Mesmers.

There’s a difference between fixing a bug and nerf/buff a class.

If you have been a Mesmer main for the past 3 years, bugs that were not fixed eventually became nerfs to the class.

Whats really funny is a lot of the changes for Mesmer was to make it so every build had to shatter to be effective. 10 hours later and the best thing for a condie mesmer to do is to camp in stealth while staff or scepter clones auto attack.

This should put the pickles in your sauce..

Josh Davis.6015:

The release has been out for 4 hours. It’s a little early to tell.

Yet. Maimed gets knee-jerk nerfed so hard that they didn’t even bother to consider if that was the right change to make. Could’ve (and likely should’ve) lowered duration instead.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Saying MtD is OP because you can trait it with PU is a straw man argument. Not everyone trait them together and nerfing other traits because of how well PU synergies with other traits is an ill thought out action. You’re only hurting diversity by taking the many wrong medicines to fix the problem.

In case you haven’t notice, MtD itself is unchanged by the patch. It is the same as before, and IP baseline only boost its effectiveness in ideal situation. How many times do you see condition mesmer, wielding condi range weapons, run into enemies to deliver that extra 2 stacks of torment? Hitting it with a 50% reduction nerf bat gutted MtD, and mesmers are encouraged to leave their illusions alive because live illusions deal more damage than shattering. This is a change no one want, you can’t out cleanse constant conditions nor can you dodge illusion autos.

I understand that not everyone used it in conjunction with PU, but it doesn’t change the fact that dueling/chaos/illusions with maim and PU needed to be nerfed. The point I was trying to make is that because the trait system changed so drastically, builds that used MtD before the big balance patch couldnt afford to take things like PU due to how many points were needed for MtD and Deceptive Evasion. MtD wasnt all that OP before because in order to use it you had to give up significant traits. Now, you dont need to sacrifice as much to use it, making it a problem. Anet has already changed the original PU at least 3 times, and being that they had already moved MtD down from a grandmaster trait it wasn’t unreasonable for them to come to the conclusion that changing it was their best bet of fixing these absurdly overpowered builds. Mesmer has been my main since the 3 day headstart weekend before the official release of gw2, so believe me when I say I am not in favor of anet destroying the Mesmer profession, but in this case I believe the nerf was beneficial for the game and mesmer players as a whole. Prior to the nerf, it was fairly easy for anyone with a mesmer to slap a build together using MtD and carelessly spam illusions and shatters while better players than them died on the receiving end. The DPS from MtD in its current state is still high enough to justify taking the trait, the difference is that you actually have to think before you press f1-3.

If MTD combined with PU was the problem then maybe they should have finally got off their kitten and fix how stealth is implemented in this game.

And no leaving your clones out to auto attack now provides better condi damage then shattering them.

Levetty.1279:

If MTD combined with PU was the problem then maybe they should have finally got off their kitten and fix how stealth is implemented in this game.

And no leaving your clones out to auto attack now provides better condi damage then shattering them.

Even if leaving your scepter clones out to attack applies more condi dmg than the torment from shattering, you need to remember that its not all the shatters do. Once you factor in the torment, confusion, interupts/power damage, I find it hard to believe that leaving clones out would be more beneficial for you.

JesseBensen.4817:

Levetty.1279:

If MTD combined with PU was the problem then maybe they should have finally got off their kitten and fix how stealth is implemented in this game.

And no leaving your clones out to auto attack now provides better condi damage then shattering them.

Even if leaving your scepter clones out to attack applies more condi dmg than the torment from shattering, you need to remember that its not all the shatters do. Once you factor in the torment, confusion, interupts/power damage, I find it hard to believe that leaving clones out would be more beneficial for you.

Power damage in a build with no power. Yeah ok thats going to make up for it…
I just said the clones will be providing more condi so I don’t know why I have to consider the low amount of torment and confusion from the shatter and you have better interupts then F3.

I know this because I play the class.

Levetty.1279:

JesseBensen.4817:

Levetty.1279:

If MTD combined with PU was the problem then maybe they should have finally got off their kitten and fix how stealth is implemented in this game.

And no leaving your clones out to auto attack now provides better condi damage then shattering them.

Even if leaving your scepter clones out to attack applies more condi dmg than the torment from shattering, you need to remember that its not all the shatters do. Once you factor in the torment, confusion, interupts/power damage, I find it hard to believe that leaving clones out would be more beneficial for you.

Power damage in a build with no power. Yeah ok thats going to make up for it…
I just said the clones will be providing more condi so I don’t know why I have to consider the low amount of torment and confusion from the shatter and you have better interupts then F3.

I know this because I play the class.

It has always seemed obvious to me that anet originally intendd mesmer as a hybrid profession. I personally play it as such because I find it to be a lot more fun/engaging and it works just as well as full condi, so yes, in a build where I have 1900 power and 1350 condi dmg, the raw dmg helps. Not everyone plays scepter/torch staff, so you cant generalize a trait’s overall effectiveness with how it works in one build.

Now nerf Shatter.
Anet, please. Until then, I will leave each single match with Mesmer on enemy team >_>’

JesseBensen.4817:

Levetty.1279:

JesseBensen.4817:

Levetty.1279:

If MTD combined with PU was the problem then maybe they should have finally got off their kitten and fix how stealth is implemented in this game.

And no leaving your clones out to auto attack now provides better condi damage then shattering them.

Even if leaving your scepter clones out to attack applies more condi dmg than the torment from shattering, you need to remember that its not all the shatters do. Once you factor in the torment, confusion, interupts/power damage, I find it hard to believe that leaving clones out would be more beneficial for you.

Power damage in a build with no power. Yeah ok thats going to make up for it…
I just said the clones will be providing more condi so I don’t know why I have to consider the low amount of torment and confusion from the shatter and you have better interupts then F3.

I know this because I play the class.

It has always seemed obvious to me that anet originally intendd mesmer as a hybrid profession. I personally play it as such because I find it to be a lot more fun/engaging and it works just as well as full condi, so yes, in a build where I have 1900 power and 1350 condi dmg, the raw dmg helps. Not everyone plays scepter/torch staff, so you cant generalize a trait’s overall effectiveness with how it works in one build.

Like you are?

If PU was the problem, then sure, nerf freakin’ PU. Make it less stealth or something, I don’t care. But the thing is, ANet was planning to nerf MtD even before the patch went live. I don’t remember who, but when a streamer they gave pre-access to was showing off all the new traits on golems a dev stated in chat [these are not direct quotes] “MtD damage is a bit too much” and when someone suggested cutting the stacks down to 1 the dev said “Yeah, that’s what we were thinking.”

So this is another point of annoyance: ANet was planning to nerf MtD before the patch went live when there was no problem with it for all its time as 2 stacks. Combine this with Davis’s quote provided by Chaos earlier saying that the few hours it was out was too early to tell if things were OP broken or not while nerfing MtD within the same day as the patch and you get this feeling that mesmers have been nerfed by a knee-jerk reaction rather than thorough balancing via player feedback and investigation.

I’m going to post this here as well:

The nerf to MtD is misguided and incentivising boring, passive play for mesmer condition builds.

We have several main ways to apply conditions:
1. Auto attacks and clone attacks (staff/scepter clones)
2. Phantasm attacks (iduelist)
3. Other weapon skills (confusing images, icounter… yeah… not many options here)
3. Interrupts (mistrust)
4. Shatters (torment/confusion on shatter)

By far the single most passive and boring option is number 1. I find it even more stupid now that it is one of the most strongest options in condition play.

Propositions

1. Nerf clones to NOT apply conditions. Yes, I’m serious – zero conditions.
2. Nerf iCounter to 4 stacks of torment for 6 seconds.
3. Revert MtD to 2 stacks for 6 seconds.
4. Move MtD to Grandmaster and Malicious Sorcery down to Master tier (force a choice between MtD and Ineptitude).
5. Restore the “new” Confusing Combatants in Duelling.
6. Make Sharper Images also apply to the mesmer.
7. If necessary buff staff and scepter auto attack condition stacks to make up for nerf to clones.
8. Buff certain phantasms to be more useful in condition builds (ie iWarlock, iMage (still)…).

Alternative Proposition:

1. Buff Cry of Frustration to deal one stack of torment baseline. Leave everything else alone.

I prefer the first option, but the second might be a quick bandaid fix that could help.

We should be pushing to shatter in order to deal damage, or to use our own weapon skills (including auto attack), phantasms and interrupts – not to sit back and let clones do it for us. It is the most ridiculously passive and boring method of play for condition builds on mesmer and I can’t believe it still exists and traits like MtD are nerfed.

I also find it stupid that iCounter does more single target torment on a ridiculously low cooldown than a 4 illusion shatter. That should not happen. You deal more torment over time by letting scepter clones auto attack and regularly landing iCounter than by mindwracking and CoFing every time they’re off cooldown…

Another problem – pigeonholing of weapons.
A brilliant thing about the patch preview was, together with the vulnerability change, the prospect of using NON-native condition weapons such as Greatsword and Mainhand Sword in condition builds – thanks to Confusing Combatants among other things. Now this is ruined and we are pretty much forced to use Scepter or Staff in a condition build. I find that a bad thing.

As for PU – well nerf the kitten trait then. Don’t take it out on the wrong trait (in this case MtD) because certain builds and traits are broken and overpowered when used in combination with each other.

Levetty.1279:

JesseBensen.4817:

Levetty.1279:

JesseBensen.4817:

Levetty.1279:

If MTD combined with PU was the problem then maybe they should have finally got off their kitten and fix how stealth is implemented in this game.

And no leaving your clones out to auto attack now provides better condi damage then shattering them.

Even if leaving your scepter clones out to attack applies more condi dmg than the torment from shattering, you need to remember that its not all the shatters do. Once you factor in the torment, confusion, interupts/power damage, I find it hard to believe that leaving clones out would be more beneficial for you.

Power damage in a build with no power. Yeah ok thats going to make up for it…
I just said the clones will be providing more condi so I don’t know why I have to consider the low amount of torment and confusion from the shatter and you have better interupts then F3.

I know this because I play the class.

It has always seemed obvious to me that anet originally intendd mesmer as a hybrid profession. I personally play it as such because I find it to be a lot more fun/engaging and it works just as well as full condi, so yes, in a build where I have 1900 power and 1350 condi dmg, the raw dmg helps. Not everyone plays scepter/torch staff, so you cant generalize a trait’s overall effectiveness with how it works in one build.

Like you are?

No, I’m not. I am simply trying to explain that the trait still has value.

JesseBensen.4817:

Levetty.1279:

JesseBensen.4817:

Levetty.1279:

JesseBensen.4817:

Levetty.1279:

If MTD combined with PU was the problem then maybe they should have finally got off their kitten and fix how stealth is implemented in this game.

And no leaving your clones out to auto attack now provides better condi damage then shattering them.

Even if leaving your scepter clones out to attack applies more condi dmg than the torment from shattering, you need to remember that its not all the shatters do. Once you factor in the torment, confusion, interupts/power damage, I find it hard to believe that leaving clones out would be more beneficial for you.

Power damage in a build with no power. Yeah ok thats going to make up for it…
I just said the clones will be providing more condi so I don’t know why I have to consider the low amount of torment and confusion from the shatter and you have better interupts then F3.

I know this because I play the class.

It has always seemed obvious to me that anet originally intendd mesmer as a hybrid profession. I personally play it as such because I find it to be a lot more fun/engaging and it works just as well as full condi, so yes, in a build where I have 1900 power and 1350 condi dmg, the raw dmg helps. Not everyone plays scepter/torch staff, so you cant generalize a trait’s overall effectiveness with how it works in one build.

Like you are?

No, I’m not. I am simply trying to explain that the trait still has value.

In your one specific build and even then I have no idea why you wouldn’t want the other two traits in that slot.

I’d happily lose IP to get 2 stacks of torment back at this rate.

JesseBensen.4817:

I understand that not everyone used it in conjunction with PU, but it doesn’t change the fact that dueling/chaos/illusions with maim and PU needed to be nerfed. The point I was trying to make is that because the trait system changed so drastically, builds that used MtD before the big balance patch couldnt afford to take things like PU due to how many points were needed for MtD and Deceptive Evasion. MtD wasnt all that OP before because in order to use it you had to give up significant traits. Now, you dont need to sacrifice as much to use it, making it a problem. Anet has already changed the original PU at least 3 times, and being that they had already moved MtD down from a grandmaster trait it wasn’t unreasonable for them to come to the conclusion that changing it was their best bet of fixing these absurdly overpowered builds. Mesmer has been my main since the 3 day headstart weekend before the official release of gw2, so believe me when I say I am not in favor of anet destroying the Mesmer profession, but in this case I believe the nerf was beneficial for the game and mesmer players as a whole. Prior to the nerf, it was fairly easy for anyone with a mesmer to slap a build together using MtD and carelessly spam illusions and shatters while better players than them died on the receiving end. The DPS from MtD in its current state is still high enough to justify taking the trait, the difference is that you actually have to think before you press f1-3.

No one doubt your love or your time in mesmer, but you’re missing the point entirely. There are many other builds that synergise well with PU. Pure glass power mesmer who takes domi/dueling can still one shot player while hold PU to reset fights and survive, should we nerf mental anguish instead? You can camp in stealth once you hit your opponent with confusing images (6 stacks) and scepter block (5 stacks), should we nerf those 2 skills instead?

If PU is the problem then by all means nerf it, 100% duration increase is the reason why mesmers can reset the fight if they want to. MtD has always been the same and the power creep caused by 3 traitlines is the same across all builds. Players can stack up to 12-18 stacks of torment prepatch if they want to unload all shatter skills, but no smart players will do that as most competent opponents will cleanse all torment in one go. Somehow “unloading every shatter to achieve high stacks” only warrant a nerf right now is beyond me, particularly when most builds have better access to condi removals.

And no, having DPS gutted by 50% does not make its “DPS still high enough to shatter”. If you are talking about launching every shatter from F1-F3 to achieve 12 stacks of torment max at ideal situations, you’re thinking about a very niche, one trick pony playstyle that will only hit a target golem. If we’re talking about a single shatter, then any illusion can deliver sufficient DPS from incorporated conditions and sharper image to match your shatter damage. Why let your illusions run towards enemy like the self-destruct golem in CoE, when they can deal the same damage and survive from range? As it stands right now even GS clone can stack enough bleeds to overcome your single torment stack, the only clone that can’t achieve this is sword clone.

I’ll be honest here, looking at the DPS output and potential for opponent to dodge and cleanse. If you’re shatter one at a time then you’re a fool. If you shatter every skill to achieve high stacks, then you have very high risks of looking like a complete fool. This standard applies to the gameplay level before power creep occurs, it looks even more silly after power creep brings the entire game to a whole new level.

Every match I have been in tonight has been filled with Engineers who can unload every condition in the game on you in seconds but no its clearly Mesmers who needed nerfing before most people had even downloaded the patch.

Ridiculous.

Levetty.1279:

Every match I have been in tonight has been filled with Engineers who can unload every condition in the game on you in seconds but no its clearly Mesmers who needed nerfing before most people had even downloaded the patch.

Ridiculous.

Nevermind the number of power builds blowing people up left, right and centre.

And condition eles, guardians and whatever…

I’m not going to let this MtD nerf go.

Yeah, it makes no sense to me either. PU is a way to strong trait imo. MtD was alright with 2 torment stacks.

If they should look at stuff, it should be PU. As it stands now, you are better off when hiding in stealth an letting your illusions do the work. The occasional shatter is okay as long as you get the clones back out there fast enough.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

This should put the pickles in your sauce..

Josh Davis.6015:

The release has been out for 4 hours. It’s a little early to tell.

Yet. Maimed gets knee-jerk nerfed so hard that they didn’t even bother to consider if that was the right change to make. Could’ve (and likely should’ve) lowered duration instead.

I agree, I’d be willing to compromise with a duration decrease of maim by say 20%? That’s if they were to give the 2 stacks back. Other wise simply nerfing maim by 50% is way too harsh. Maim having 2 stacks gave the opportunity of condition spike granted you land your shatters. In any ideal situation the possibility of getting yourself and three illusions out to have a full burst is rare. On top of worrying about everything to negate it, dodge, condi clear, etc. This change was not needed.

Countless

I don’t know why PU was buffed at all. Was that necessary? No. I am completely saddened by the gutting of Maim. Condition Mesmer is back to square one: letting clones auto attack and not shattering ever.

I guess I’ll just have to shelve my condition Mesmer completely now since I’ve never found PU to be fun in the least bit.

Anet didnt stop with MtD either:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/And-yet-another-Mesmer-nerf

Mesmers just kept getting nerfs, while other classes are untouched (except when it favors the class like thief with the “reveal” fix).

Why does Anet hate Mesmers so much?

TyPin.9860:

Yeah, it makes no sense to me either. PU is a way to strong trait imo. MtD was alright with 2 torment stacks.

If they should look at stuff, it should be PU. As it stands now, you are better off when hiding in stealth an letting your illusions do the work. The occasional shatter is okay as long as you get the clones back out there fast enough.

MailMail.6534:

I don’t know why PU was buffed at all. Was that necessary? No. I am completely saddened by the gutting of Maim. Condition Mesmer is back to square one: letting clones auto attack and not shattering ever.

I guess I’ll just have to shelve my condition Mesmer completely now since I’ve never found PU to be fun in the least bit.

Both of these, 100%.

Trigr.6481:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

This should put the pickles in your sauce..

Josh Davis.6015:

The release has been out for 4 hours. It’s a little early to tell.

Yet. Maimed gets knee-jerk nerfed so hard that they didn’t even bother to consider if that was the right change to make. Could’ve (and likely should’ve) lowered duration instead.

I agree, I’d be willing to compromise with a duration decrease of maim by say 20%? That’s if they were to give the 2 stacks back. Other wise simply nerfing maim by 50% is way too harsh. Maim having 2 stacks gave the opportunity of condition spike granted you land your shatters. In any ideal situation the possibility of getting yourself and three illusions out to have a full burst is rare. On top of worrying about everything to negate it, dodge, condi clear, etc. This change was not needed.

Countless

And this – I would be ok if they reduced it to say 5 seconds base ( no less than 4 because that would be equally ridiculous when Scepter 2 does 5 stacks for 8 seconds base…) but kept the 2 stacks.

I will keep on about this until MtD is restored and condition shatter is playable again.