Guild Wars 2

Dest.7410:

Psychogene.6780:

Wow, the over-reaction of some people …

I’ve only read some of the posts, but from what I gather no-one is asking for a full blown nerf to blurred frenzy.

The ‘Over-reaction’ ,as you have called it, come from being at the receiving end of nerfs since release. I was one of the first people to say ‘ok people, we knew it was broken’ to the izerker ‘fix’ (which utterly broke it), I was one of the first to write the ‘calm down’ messages to raging people during our might nerf, hell, I was one of the people that really tried to bring reason to people ranting about quickness nerf.

Oh, and I am against nerfing overall, I like buffing the lacking better than destroying the exceptional.

Before all the aforementioned nerfs, blurred frenzy was fine(!)

I wonder what has changed between then and now….

I agree with you about buffing the other weapons that are lacking. I’m all for buffing scepter (maybe remove skill 2 clone and replace with something else) and also maybe adding another weapon (dagger?) for mesmers. They clearly lack anything at melee range, but for all they lack at melee range – they have it all as ranged damage.

jportell.2197:

Psychogene.6780:

Wow, the over-reaction of some people …

I’ve only read some of the posts, but from what I gather no-one is asking for a full blown nerf to blurred frenzy. At the most, people are asking for a ‘slight’ cooldown adjustment. Yet the reaction from some of you guys are more like a rant then a logical debate.

Both sides of the coin do have valid points you know, whether people on the other side can see it or not. Personally I’d like to see a longer cooldown if blurred frenzy does not hit anything, but its not game-changing for me in any way. Even if they nerfed blurred frenzy, it wouldn’t be the end of the world for mesmers at all.

Anyway it’d be nice if a developer chimed in and told us why blurred frenzy is the way it is and if it is intended the way it is. It would settle this once and for all.

Do you know why it is the way it is? What boons do mesmers have to protect them in melee? What is their armor? Their health… The other two cloth classes have great ways to survive in melee… Mesmers have this that is all…. Thieves have stealth to help them survive melee mesmers have a fraction of that… Rangers have protection on dodge with no CD (mesmers used to have a protection minor trait butt that was nerfed… gg) Engi’s have several ways to access boons and they have gear shield (if you are talking about melee) plus cc… Warriors and guardians have tons of toughness plus guardians boon removal… Warriors need more help but I know for sure that if you tell a warrior and a Mesmer they have to duke it out melee only the warrior will win… even with blurred frenzy as it is now.

My guess is mesmers are not meant to be played in melee range. Think about it – staff is ranged, greatsword is ranged, focus/scepter/torch/pistol/sword off-hand are all ranged. The only melee ranged weapon they have is sword main hand. Thats one weapon they have out of 8 that has any melee ranged potential. 1 of 8. So like necro’s, I don’t think the class was really designed for anything significant at melee ranged. Sure you can trait, sigil and rune for it but theres no denying mesmers have everything they need outside of melee range.

The only time a mesmer more or less gets into melee range is when they get a blurred frenzy (off ileap, stun and blink etc) or when they shatter, or both as a combo. Other then that, theres no real reason to be playing a mesmer at melee range. Its just not as viable as their other options – it can be done, but its not going to get the job done efficiently.

So the mesmers best protection is to actually not be in melee in my opinion. If they had more options at melee range, there wouldn’t be a doubt they would be more OP then they are currently perceived. In regards to their armor and health, it has nothing to do with this argument since it varies with personal preference.

Psychogene.6780:

I agree with you about buffing the other weapons that are lacking.

So the mesmers best protection is to actually not be in melee in my opinion. If they had more options at melee range, there wouldn’t be a doubt they would be more OP then they are currently perceived. In regards to their armor and health, it has nothing to do with this argument since it varies with personal preference.

Buffs can be not specific to mesmers. As it stands now, warriors are in serious need of a buff in PvP while being quite OP in PvE. Almost the reverse can be said for mesmer and thief.

Instead of nerfing their good points, just buff their weaknesses. Blurred Frenzy in mesmers is a good skill? What do other classes have to be on par with it? That’s the mentality I want from a balancing team. It can be anything, from a warrior shout that ends invulnerability, a necro curse that is unblockable, an engineer elixir that allows them to copy the status of their oponent (making them invuln every time the mesmer is)

Why not improve other classes but destroy one?

And mesmer melee is mostly for PvE situations, unless of course it is one of the scenarios you described.

Dest.7410:

Psychogene.6780:

I agree with you about buffing the other weapons that are lacking.

So the mesmers best protection is to actually not be in melee in my opinion. If they had more options at melee range, there wouldn’t be a doubt they would be more OP then they are currently perceived. In regards to their armor and health, it has nothing to do with this argument since it varies with personal preference.

Buffs can be not specific to mesmers. As it stands now, warriors are in serious need of a buff in PvP while being quite OP in PvE. Almost the reverse can be said for mesmer and thief.

Instead of nerfing their good points, just buff their weaknesses. Blurred Frenzy in mesmers is a good skill? What do other classes have to be on par with it? That’s the mentality I want from a balancing team. It can be anything, from a warrior shout that ends invulnerability, a necro curse that is unblockable, an engineer elixir that allows them to copy the status of their oponent (making them invuln every time the mesmer is)

Why not improve other classes but destroy one?

And mesmer melee is mostly for PvE situations, unless of course it is one of the scenarios you described.

Every person would love buffs to all the weaker skills/builds instead of a nerf to the strong skills/builds. The sad thing is that’s not how balancing works for Guild Wars 2.

Nerfing 1 thing instead of buffing 10 is easier and takes less time/money. That’s why pretty much all the professions had more nerfs than buffs. And that’s also the reason why most people (including me) think about nerfs instead of buffs. They are just used to it.

Unless Anet decides to buff instead of nerf, the only way to ask for more balance is to ask for a nerf which obviously sucks for the profession being nerfed.

Psychogene.6780:

Dest.7410:

Psychogene.6780:

Wow, the over-reaction of some people …

I’ve only read some of the posts, but from what I gather no-one is asking for a full blown nerf to blurred frenzy.

The ‘Over-reaction’ ,as you have called it, come from being at the receiving end of nerfs since release. I was one of the first people to say ‘ok people, we knew it was broken’ to the izerker ‘fix’ (which utterly broke it), I was one of the first to write the ‘calm down’ messages to raging people during our might nerf, hell, I was one of the people that really tried to bring reason to people ranting about quickness nerf.

Oh, and I am against nerfing overall, I like buffing the lacking better than destroying the exceptional.

Before all the aforementioned nerfs, blurred frenzy was fine(!)

I wonder what has changed between then and now….

I agree with you about buffing the other weapons that are lacking. I’m all for buffing scepter (maybe remove skill 2 clone and replace with something else) and also maybe adding another weapon (dagger?) for mesmers. They clearly lack anything at melee range, but for all they lack at melee range – they have it all as ranged damage.

jportell.2197:

Psychogene.6780:

Wow, the over-reaction of some people …

I’ve only read some of the posts, but from what I gather no-one is asking for a full blown nerf to blurred frenzy. At the most, people are asking for a ‘slight’ cooldown adjustment. Yet the reaction from some of you guys are more like a rant then a logical debate.

Both sides of the coin do have valid points you know, whether people on the other side can see it or not. Personally I’d like to see a longer cooldown if blurred frenzy does not hit anything, but its not game-changing for me in any way. Even if they nerfed blurred frenzy, it wouldn’t be the end of the world for mesmers at all.

Anyway it’d be nice if a developer chimed in and told us why blurred frenzy is the way it is and if it is intended the way it is. It would settle this once and for all.

Do you know why it is the way it is? What boons do mesmers have to protect them in melee? What is their armor? Their health… The other two cloth classes have great ways to survive in melee… Mesmers have this that is all…. Thieves have stealth to help them survive melee mesmers have a fraction of that… Rangers have protection on dodge with no CD (mesmers used to have a protection minor trait butt that was nerfed… gg) Engi’s have several ways to access boons and they have gear shield (if you are talking about melee) plus cc… Warriors and guardians have tons of toughness plus guardians boon removal… Warriors need more help but I know for sure that if you tell a warrior and a Mesmer they have to duke it out melee only the warrior will win… even with blurred frenzy as it is now.

My guess is mesmers are not meant to be played in melee range. Think about it – staff is ranged, greatsword is ranged, focus/scepter/torch/pistol/sword off-hand are all ranged. The only melee ranged weapon they have is sword main hand. Thats one weapon they have out of 8 that has any melee ranged potential. 1 of 8. So like necro’s, I don’t think the class was really designed for anything significant at melee ranged. Sure you can trait, sigil and rune for it but theres no denying mesmers have everything they need outside of melee range.

The only time a mesmer more or less gets into melee range is when they get a blurred frenzy (off ileap, stun and blink etc) or when they shatter, or both as a combo. Other then that, theres no real reason to be playing a mesmer at melee range. Its just not as viable as their other options – it can be done, but its not going to get the job done efficiently.

So the mesmers best protection is to actually not be in melee in my opinion. If they had more options at melee range, there wouldn’t be a doubt they would be more OP then they are currently perceived. In regards to their armor and health, it has nothing to do with this argument since it varies with personal preference.

if mesmers were not meant to be in melee range there genius then why the kitten do we even have a sword… You are not a game designer for this game you are not a developer or programmer here…. Mesmers were MEANT to have some melee ability… it is even in their description made by anet (you know the people that designed this game) that mesmers wield a powerful mixture of magical and melee abilities. So don’t try and justify a kitten nerf by saying they weren’t meant to be melee kitten.

Entering melee is about risk/reward. For the light armored professions, the risk in entering is far greater than for heavy armored professions. Eles rely on boons and conditions to do it. These allow them to move in and out quickly, which is necessary because they don’t have the option of switching to a ranged weapon in combat. Necros have it pretty tough in melee, but their daggers offer them some support with conditions. In addition, they can churn out some good damage in melee, making the risk worthwhile.

Blurred frenzy is the one and only reason a mesmer would enter melee. It offers the damage and risk mitigation to make it worthwhile. Some are arguing that it should be nerfed but aren’t really making a case for it. I could call dancing daggers OP and whinge forever in the forums about it, but that won’t make it true. I could come up with argument that demonstrates how dancing daggers is negatively affecting the meta (much in the way RLT did). That would get more attention than crying OP. Anet doesn’t balance around hotjoin and they didn’t balance around random arenas either. There’s a clear reason for this.

When they actually give mesmer a worthy buff I’d be all for a nerf to blurred frenzy. Without the low cd on it the sword damage will be trash… need to compensate for that somewhere.

JPortell its nice your passionate about your class, but theres no need to come across as being spiteful of other people’s opinions. And especially no need to resort to personal attacks such as saying I’m not a game developer or programmer – totally irrevelant to the discussion.

Stay level headed man, I’m not attacking you personally I"m just out there putting my opinion on a valid discussion. Like I said mesmers can be played in melee range, its just anet has not given them many reasons to besides blurred frenzy + shatters. So what I’m getting at, is all classes have the ability to play melee + ranged its just classes like mesmers have so much more going for them outside of this range.

Once again I’m just giving my point of view, don’t take it out of context and make it something more then it really is. If you don’t agree with it, thats cool but when you start to get alittle personal you lose the ability to reason.

Psychogene.6780:

JPortell its nice your passionate about your class, but theres no need to come across as being spiteful of other people’s opinions. And especially no need to resort to personal attacks such as saying I’m not a game developer or programmer – totally irrevelant to the discussion.

Stay level headed man, I’m not attacking you personally I"m just out there putting my opinion on a valid discussion. Like I said mesmers can be played in melee range, its just anet has not given them many reasons to besides blurred frenzy + shatters. So what I’m getting at, is all classes have the ability to play melee + ranged its just classes like mesmers have so much more going for them outside of this range.

Once again I’m just giving my point of view, don’t take it out of context and make it something more then it really is. If you don’t agree with it, thats cool but when you start to get alittle personal you lose the ability to reason.

I am not talking about whether or not you are a developer in general I am saying you don’t do it for THIS game. So saying whether or not mesmers were meant to be melee isn’t something that you can reasonably say… If we were not meant to be melee EVER then we would have absolutely no melee weapons… this however is not the case….. And someone else pointed out what ele and necro have for their support in melee range… Well all mesmers have is blurred frenzy…. Take that away and we have absolutely no reason to be melee… and then we lose build diversity.. Make sense? Was that argument rational enough for you?

jportell.2197:

Psychogene.6780:

JPortell its nice your passionate about your class, but theres no need to come across as being spiteful of other people’s opinions. And especially no need to resort to personal attacks such as saying I’m not a game developer or programmer – totally irrevelant to the discussion.

Stay level headed man, I’m not attacking you personally I"m just out there putting my opinion on a valid discussion. Like I said mesmers can be played in melee range, its just anet has not given them many reasons to besides blurred frenzy + shatters. So what I’m getting at, is all classes have the ability to play melee + ranged its just classes like mesmers have so much more going for them outside of this range.

Once again I’m just giving my point of view, don’t take it out of context and make it something more then it really is. If you don’t agree with it, thats cool but when you start to get alittle personal you lose the ability to reason.

I am not talking about whether or not you are a developer in general I am saying you don’t do it for THIS game. So saying whether or not mesmers were meant to be melee isn’t something that you can reasonably say… If we were not meant to be melee EVER then we would have absolutely no melee weapons… this however is not the case….. And someone else pointed out what ele and necro have for their support in melee range… Well all mesmers have is blurred frenzy…. Take that away and we have absolutely no reason to be melee… and then we lose build diversity.. Make sense? Was that argument rational enough for you?

Dude, try to make an better argument by saying why mesmer having blurred frenzy is not overpowered.

Right now, all main sword skills does terrible damage which means that damage is very dependent on shatters and off hand phantasm. I believe that Helseth started to use greatsword instead of sword + focus due to the lack of damage

Weapon swap to a staff is meant for defense and survival since the staff have terrible base damage

loseridoit.2756:

jportell.2197:

Psychogene.6780:

JPortell its nice your passionate about your class, but theres no need to come across as being spiteful of other people’s opinions. And especially no need to resort to personal attacks such as saying I’m not a game developer or programmer – totally irrevelant to the discussion.

Stay level headed man, I’m not attacking you personally I"m just out there putting my opinion on a valid discussion. Like I said mesmers can be played in melee range, its just anet has not given them many reasons to besides blurred frenzy + shatters. So what I’m getting at, is all classes have the ability to play melee + ranged its just classes like mesmers have so much more going for them outside of this range.

Once again I’m just giving my point of view, don’t take it out of context and make it something more then it really is. If you don’t agree with it, thats cool but when you start to get alittle personal you lose the ability to reason.

I am not talking about whether or not you are a developer in general I am saying you don’t do it for THIS game. So saying whether or not mesmers were meant to be melee isn’t something that you can reasonably say… If we were not meant to be melee EVER then we would have absolutely no melee weapons… this however is not the case….. And someone else pointed out what ele and necro have for their support in melee range… Well all mesmers have is blurred frenzy…. Take that away and we have absolutely no reason to be melee… and then we lose build diversity.. Make sense? Was that argument rational enough for you?

Dude, try to make an better argument by saying why mesmer having blurred frenzy is not overpowered.

Right now, all main sword skills does terrible damage which means that damage is very dependent on shatters and off hand phantasm. I believe that Helseth started to use greatsword instead of sword + focus due to the lack of damage

Weapon swap to a staff is meant for defense and survival since the staff have terrible base damage

And GS is still not performing optimally I have 3600 power and 66% crit chance in pvp with phantasmal fury… guess how much the iZerker hits for… a whopping 1k… Yup that is our power phantasm…. And yes sword damage does suck out side of blurred. Not to mention if there is even THE SLIGHTEST incline iLeap completely misses and you are swapping and blurred frenzying the air…. But apparently it’s still just too OP? Really… I know that mesmers jump for joy when they land a blurred.

I brought this up a couple of days again in the general Mesmer forum. They didn’t take the discussion to well; in fact, it was hardly a discussion at all…

I agree that it needs a cool down increase. Having Sword/x—-Staff is basically a super defensive build if you can take advantage of the cheesy Blurred Frenzy and Phase Retreat correctly. I started rolling with a Mesmer in sPvP after I realized the Warriors are never going to actually be buffed in a decent manner. I can say, I fully take advantage of the cheesy skills and win without much effort now.

Also, to the “they have no boons” argument… You can easily trait for protection on gaining regeneration.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Healing
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Membrane

The big plus is they are both “minor” Mastery Traits. So, you kind of get the protection and regeneration for free just trating into the lines.

They also have Distortion to use (which is another invulnerability). There are other things Mesmer’s can do to stay in melee range and these are just a couple of them.

Vanthian.9267:

I brought this up a couple of days again in the general Mesmer forum. They didn’t take the discussion to well; in fact, it was hardly a discussion at all…

I agree that it needs a cool down increase. Having Sword/x—-Staff is basically a super defensive build if you can take advantage of the cheesy Blurred Frenzy and Phase Retreat correctly. I started rolling with a Mesmer in sPvP after I realized the Warriors are never going to actually be buffed in a decent manner. I can say, I fully take advantage of the cheesy skills and win without much effort now.

Also, to the “they have no boons” argument… You can easily trait for protection on gaining regeneration.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Healing
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Membrane

The big plus is they are both “minor” Mastery Traits. So, you kind of get the protection and regeneration for free just trating into the lines.

They also have Distortion to use (which is another invulnerability). There are other things Mesmer’s can do to stay in melee range and these are just a couple of them.

That protection proc got nerfed… You know how rangers get protection on a dodge with NO COOLDOWN… well we USED to have that in that trait line but now we don’t it got nerfed now we get it every 15 seconds which with the way this game is paced fights normally don’t last that long. And you claim to be such an expert on a Mesmer after rolling it in hot joins… No increasing the CD on blurred frenzy is not going to fix anything… Maybe if it hit for as much as 100B mister warrior… Or maybe if our auto attacks were actually worth something but no. Pretty much all we have is blurred frenzy for sword… Nothing else about the sword is good and we have a crap option for our other main hand weapon… So unless you want ANET to give us daggers/buff scepter/or give us a main hand pistol most mesmers are STUCK using a main hand sword.

DaShi.1368:

Entering melee is about risk/reward.

Indeed, and the invulnerability pretty much eliminates the risk.

KarlaGrey.5903:

DaShi.1368:

Entering melee is about risk/reward.

Indeed, and the invulnerability pretty much eliminates the risk.

for two seconds… and other classes get something to help them survive in melee.
Thieves get stealth/evade.
D/D eles get TONS of boons
Engis have gear shield which is quite nice and lasts 4 seconds and is on a 20s CD so the ratio for safety is the same. ( if engis would ever take toolkit)
Warriors have high toughness and HP
Necros have more HP than warriors and life steal
Guardians are destined to always be stuck in melee but have tons of blocks and boons to match it.
Rangers have as many evades as thieves in melee plus a block on GS if they choose to take it.
Mesmers have blurred frenzy.. which has a shorter duration than all the blocks these other classes get.
So risk V. reward is essentially the same especially if you look at the ratio for numbers
1s BLOCK/Invuln:5s Cooldown…

You’ve got:

1) Stealth in utilities, which also works as a stun-breaker and clone generator, as well as stealth on (albeit lacklustre) weapon sets
2) Ports on both weapon sets (staff and sword, only the GS is lacking in that department), good port on a relatively low CD in utilities (but no stealth then), AND the portal, which is obligatory anyway, and virtually the best mobility skill ig (and also a combo field, if I remember correctly).
3) Good access to boons, especially because of the nice combo between n2 and n5 staff as well as n2 staff and null field/time warp/portal.
4) Decent access to interrupts/pulls/knockbacks, depending on which doublehand and offhand weapon you go with. Mind the staff field is AOE interrupt, and so are sword offhand n1 (although it is somewhat lacklustre compared to the rest) and focus pull, which makes them all the better.
5) Clones, which give you at least somewhat of an advantage (depending on your positioning), especially while in stealth, because the opponent has to manually look for you and re-target you in the midst of 2-3 clones (the trick of unticking ‘show npc names’ isn’t fully reliable to find the real mesmer, because clone names will still show if you randomly hover over them).

So no, those 2 seconds of invulnerability on an 8 second cooldown are barely justified.
If you still wish to claim that wearing light armor is an argument in favour of keeping b-frenzy the way it is, despite all the survivability options listed above, then I’m afraid you’re simply too immersed in your class. If you complain about low hp and armor, take runes/amulets that grant you vitality/toughness – but then you might actually need to take a few seconds longer to kill. That is what you call a trade-off.

There is no trade off in sword mainhand line (hell, it even has a port, which functions as a clone generator, stunbreaker AND a root).
The only trade offs you are taking (on the classic shatter bar, at least – the issue with phantasm mesmers is similar to the issue with BMs) are the following:
1) Taking GS instead of the staff, because you sacrifice a TON of defensive options for more damage
2) Taking a lot of team utilities, leaving you more vulnerable to skirmish matches (however it is only illu of life that has no purpose in a 1v1)
3) Rolling on full damage runes and amulets to get the kill in asap

Do you even realize the sheer amount of skills mesmers have where several vital utilities are rolled into a single skill?
Moreover, you purposely ignore the fact that having more HP/toughness alone isn’t always better than having access to a lot of good defensive/escape skills, be it in the form of stealth, ports or boon application. That you even include warriors and necros in here is rather buffling, and so is trying to put DS on pair with teleports, invulnerabilities and stealth. If necs want to live longer, they gotta spec in blood and death magic and normally run minions, which means they’ll usually have to take their time to bring you down. Offensive dagger necros will melt without support, for obvious reasons.
I won’t even comment on a warr vs mesmer pairing.

Vanthian.9267:

Also, to the “they have no boons” argument… You can easily trait for protection on gaining regeneration.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Healing
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Membrane

If you want to participate in this debate you should at least have a decent knowledge of the profession being discussed. Illusionary Membrane is on a 15s CD and the Protection procced is very short.

KarlaGrey.5903:

You’ve got:

1) Stealth in utilities, which also works as a stun-breaker and clone generator.
2) Ports on both weapon sets (staff and sword, only the GS is lacking in that department), good port on a relatively low CD in utilities (but no stealth then), AND the portal, which is obligatory anyway, and virtually the best mobility skill ig (and also a combo field, if I remember correctly).
3) Good access to boons, especially because of the nice combo between n2 and n5 staff as well as n2 staff and null field/time warp/portal.
4) Decent access to interrupts/pulls/knockbacks, depending on which doublehand and offhand weapon you go with. Mind the staff field is AOE interrupt, and so are sword offhand n1 (although it is somewhat lacklustre compared to the rest) and focus pull, which makes them all the better.
5) Clones, which give you at least somewhat of an advantage (depending on your positioning), especially while in stealth, because the opponent has to manually look for you and re-target you in the midst of 2-3 clones (the trick of unticking ‘show npc names’ isn’t fully reliable to find the real mesmer, because clone names will still show if you randomly hover over them).

So no, those 2 seconds of invulnerability on an 8 second cooldown are barely justified.
If you still wish to claim that wearing light armor is an argument in favour of keeping b-frenzy the way it is, despite all the survivability options listed above, then I’m afraid you’re simply too immersed in your class. If you complain about low hp and armor, take runes/amulets that grant you vitality/toughness – but then you might actually need to take a few seconds longer to kill. That is what you call a trade-off.

There is no trade off in sword mainhand line (hell it even has a port, which functions as a clone generator, stunbreaker AND a root).
The only trade offs you are taking (on the classic shatter bar, at least – the issue with phantasm mesmers is similar to the issue with BMs) are the following:
1) Taking GS instead of the staff, because you sacrifice a TON of defensive options for more damage
2) Taking a lot of team utilities, leaving you more vulnerable to skirmish matches (however it is only illu of life that has no purpose in a 1v1)
3) Rolling on full damage runes and amulets to get the kill in asap

Do you even realize the sheer amount of skills mesmers have where several vital utilities are rolled into a single skill?
Moreover, you purposely ignore the fact that having more HP/toughness alone isn’t always better than having access to a lot of good defensive/escape skills, be it in the form of stealth, ports or boon application. That you even include warriors and necros in here is rather buffling, and so is trying to put DS on pair with teleports, invulnerabilities and stealth. If necs want to live longer, they gotta spec in blood and death magic and normally run minions, which means they’ll usually have to take their time to bring you down. Offensive dagger necros will melt without support, for obvious reasons.
I won’t even comment on a warr vs mesmer pairing.

yes we get all of that all in one build… we get limitless clones plus every glamour skill and condition removal. we get the pull of the focus the knockback of the gs and the interrupts of the staff ALLL in one build… You are so genius I swear… The same could be said for engis. Invuln/block/more conditions than mesmers… Better access to perma might lots of toughness and cc amazing condition removal and it’s hard to find you in all your turrets…

do not try and play as though mesmers have an auspicious 30/30/30/30/30 triple weapon 20 utility slot build… because we don’t

And warrior AA still hits harder than even a well timed mindwrack.

I clearly listed the main trade-offs you do as a mesmer, but feel free to add in more of them, if you can find them.
The only things you cannot have at the same time in tpvp (on the classic staff/sword+pistol or focus weap sets) are stealth, cond removal and utility teleport, because 2 out of 3 utilities are reserved.
I also mentioned the trade offs when taking the GS instead of staff, while focus and pistol both have CC (stun vs pull/knockdown) and a phantasm (and the focus phantasm is very good on downed targets).

The rest, however, holds very true, so I rest my case, because you cannot refute a single thing, especially after I expressly emphasized the dependance of CC/defensive/offensive utility skills on your weapon choice.
You are too immersed in your class, so I suppose it is to be expected to see you throw straw man ‘arguments’ at me now. We all do that to an extent anyway when it comes to our favourite proffession.

Shay.7534:

I pretty much understand where this new wave of rage against mesmers is coming.

Pretty much this.

Every month sPvPers needs a couple of skills/builds to complain about, regardless if it’s broken or not. (which is a different topic. it’s the attitude i’m talking about).

Last month was D/D Ele Bunker (RtL+MForm+CWater nerfs). (and, partly, Confusion Mes in Wvw – but it’s offtopic here).
This month seems that the target of the PvP crowd bile will be BFrenzy and HGH (engi unique build atm).

As back some months ago were PistolWhip or 100nades or whatever.

No surprise.

KarlaGrey.5903:

I clearly listed the main trade-offs you do as a mesmer.
The only things you cannot have at the same time in tpvp (on the classic staff/sword+pistol or focus weap sets) are stealth AND utility teleport, because 2 out of 3 utilities are reserved.
I also mentioned the trade offs when taking the GS instead of staff, while focus and pistol both have CC (stun vs pull/knockdown) and a phantasm (and the focus phantasm is very good on downed targets).

The rest, however, holds very true, so I rest my case, because you cannot refute a single thing, especially because I expressly emphasized the dependance of CC/defensive/offensive utility skills on your weapon choise.
You are too immersed in your class, so I suppose it is to be expected to see you throw straw man ‘arguments’ at me now. We all do that to an extent anyway when it comes to our favourite proffession.

And you as an engi have absolutely no CC? And currently almost nobody takes gs because even with 3.6k power the stupid phantasm only hits for 1k. YAY anet right? so there goes one weapon choice staff is purely defensive and almost no crowd control usually in tournaments we may run focus but once again the phantasm there is only good defensively and does no damage if you just side step. So then we have sword which don’t get me wrong is quite good it is usually between sword and pistol for off hand most scenarios.. .and main hand is always sword we have no choice in the matter…. meanwhile you guys can have limitless weapon swaps full might up time and access to stun breaks plus Fury and retal two very powerful boons… while still being somewhat tanky thanks to the insane amount of condi cleanses.

So not only should you do a lot of damage with shatters when power-specced, but also with phantasms? No need to be so greedy.
I agree they should fix the buggy mess they turned that phantasm into, but it should most definitely not hit hard in a shatter build, and should not hit TOO hard even in phantasm builds (although I did grin over the damage the old zerker did).

As I said (do you even read my posts in full..?), the focus phantasm is great on downed players, also because its damage is aoe, so it hits all the rezzers too. It can die fast, but if players are rezzing, they usually won’t be killing it straight off the bat.

I agree that one hand sword is really good, while the alternatives are horrid, but I woudl like to see a buff to alternatives and slight toning down to mainhand sword.

Mind that the scenarios I listed didn’t take into account scepter nor torch, because not (m)any players run those in tpvp. I was listing options you have when running a staff and sword/pistol or focus with 2 preset utilities.

P.S. My main used to be a phantasm mes, and now I’m sitting on a condimancer, not an engi.

Another thing regarding one of the points I mentioned earlier (multiple utilites rolled into 1 skill), in addition to sword n3, your staff n2 is:
1) teleport, which pretty much works as a stunbraker too
2) clone generator
3) combo field finisher on a REALLY low CD

How many other professions have so many instances of tree utilities rolled into a single skill, which also happens to be on a low cd.
Compare your staff n2 with necro’s staff n4 – it’s good, it removes all conditions from the necro and is a combo finisher. But here’s the trick! If you wish to trigger a combo, you will kick one condition removal goodbye, and for a fairly long time too. If you want to remove your conditions, you can kiss combo fielding goodbye. So it’s in essence only one utility at a time. I wouldn’t call that a trade-off even, but simply bad skill design.

KarlaGrey.5903:

So not only should you do a lot of damage with shatters when power-specced, but also with phantasms? No need to be so greedy.
I agree they should fix the buggy mess they turned that phantasm into, but it should most definitely not hit hard in a shatter build, and should not hit TOO hard even in phantasm builds (although I did grin over the damage the old zerker did).

As I said (do you even read my posts in full..?), the focus phantasm is great on downed players, also because its damage is aoe, so it hits all the rezzers too. It can die fast, but if players are rezzing, they usually won’t be killing it straight off the bat.

I agree that one hand sword is really good, while the alternatives are horrid, but I woudl like to see a buff to alternatives and slight toning down to mainhand sword.

Mind that the scenarios I listed didn’t take into account scepter nor torch, because not (m)any players run those in tpvp. I was listing options you have when running a staff and sword/pistol or focus with 2 preset utilities.

P.S. My main used to be a phantasm mes, and now I’m sitting on a condimancer, not an engi.

Another thing regarding one of the points I mentioned earlier (multiple utilites rolled into 1 skill), in addition to sword n3, your staff n2 is:
1) teleport, which pretty much works as a stunbraker too
2) clone generator
3) combo field finisher on a REALLY low CD

How many other professions have so many instances of tree utilities rolled into a single skill, which also happens to be on a low cd.

Condi necros well of corruption strips boons turns it into conditions on enemies… Well of power opposite for allies… Spectral walk grants swiftness and breaks stun staff nr5 can be an unblockable fear that does damage consume conditions clears conditions and heals… Minions can be specced to take conditions every 10 seconds if that is 5 minions then you pretty much never have to worry about conditions mean while a Mesmer goes down faster than any class to conditions because we have the worst innate condi removal in this game. And phantasm Mesmer is a 1v1 spec that is sad in tourneys especially with how fast phantasms go down… And GS#4 used to hit upwards of 6K in a power build with it traited. So if you are going to tell me that wasting a trait on a weapon should not give any return then you are so backwards that I don’t even know where to begin. Bottom line Blurred frenzy does not need a nerf mesmers lack of defense when it comes to things like conditions does more than make up for it especially considering how many stupidly condition happy specs there are in the current meta. Also the focus phantasm may be good on downed players but that’s it… Unless its traited its not that good of a phantasm. And trust me I am ALL for buffing scepter and torch that is what I am maining with right now… if you want to screw over blurred frenzy that bad then the torch trait should now remove ALL conditions upon activation of torch skills and scepter AA needs confusion re added to it… BTW I would also like the blinding befuddlement nerf to be undone as it hurt Mesmer builds that had nothing to do with glamours. And if you don’t like those ideas then you have no right to justify nerfing blurred frenzy.

Condi necs in tpvp also have 2 preset utilities, possibly even 3 – rez signet, corrupt boon and epidemic. Running wells on a non-power necro is like trying to kill things with phantasms on shatter mes. Well of corr is only good for boon removal, and I do run it solely because of that, but no condi nec will neither be able, nor wanting to bring it in tpvp, because it doesnt complement the bar one bit, and because they’re forced into team utilities, just like the mesmer.
As a solo queuer, I run spectral walk, but it sits on a whooping 60 s recharge when untraited (and if I recall correctly, the trait is in power line, so you cannot spec into it as a condimancer to start with). As already mentioned, no nec will bring it in tpvp, hence why their mobility is terrible, especially if they aren’t running the horn for ims. If you’d lower the recharge to 45s, make the ims last 20 seconds, and keep the stunbreak, then perhaps people might take it instead of…epidemic? Yea..not quite.

Mind that (the better) wells generally have massive cooldowns (especially the condi to boon well – a whooping 1 minute), which cannot be reduced by a trait. The only thing you can do is make them ground-targetable.

Moreover, when you’re specced for minions, you’re pretty much specced for bunkering (offensive dagger necs exluded). Another thing – minions are far harder to resummon than phantasms, let alone clones. Mind their cooldowns go on reset only after they die, and they’re fairly lengthy in itself, while also restricted to utilities, unlike damage phantasms.

Saying a class/build is only strong 1v1 seems to be a popular method to defend broken setups – rangers do it a lot, too. Admittedly, phantasms are subpar in team fights, but most players claim mesmers are taken mostly because of their utilities, so what difference does it make in team fights? They can whoop you 1v1 as soon as you make a tiny mistake, while they have a fair share of o-shiat buttons in their defensive and even offensive weapon sets (hello blurred frenzy).
You are also dismissing the importance of being a strong 1v1 class (ESPECIALLY when you’re also carrying strong team utilities), because many times, node are won or lost in 1v1 matches.
Moreover, it seems you refuse to acknowledge my point when it comes to power specs and phantasms hitting hard. Your main damage, when power specced, comes from shatters, and your phantasms are there to assist in shatters, in addition to giving a bit of extra damage before the main spike. If hard hitting phantasms, next to shatter damage critting for as much as 10k in total, woulnd’t be over the top and just ridiculous, then I don’t know what would qualify as such. Ok, beast masters come close to it, but let’s leave that aside.
If you want phantasms to hit hard, you should be forced into taking traits for it, just like you are forced to take traits to increase mind wreck damage and crit chance. It’s called a TRADE-OFF.
All in all, mesmers don’t lack defense one bit as long as they run a staff, and I made solid arguments as to prove that.
Necros, on the other hand, lack (active) defense (especially in the form of stun breakers and combo finishers), and so do warriors.

So all of this is your justification for nerfing blurred frenzy? Yeah I’ve seen enough you guys all have nothing objective to back ur claim other than I don’t like it or I think these other skills serve that purpose just as well. If we are in a proper tpvp set up we have portal, IOL or Condi cleanse, and ONE stun break. Not much in the way of defense really. And necros good defense comes from their conditions ESPECIALLY against mesmers. You have tons of condis and should be able to wipe the floor with us. And also saying our phantasms should only hit hard in a phantasm SPEC is ridiculous. Its like saying half our weapon skills shouldn’t do any damage… Yeah no completely ridiculous

Psychogene.6780:

Wow, the over-reaction of some people …

I’ve only read some of the posts, but from what I gather no-one is asking for a full blown nerf to blurred frenzy. At the most, people are asking for a ‘slight’ cooldown adjustment. Yet the reaction from some of you guys are more like a rant then a logical debate.

Both sides of the coin do have valid points you know, whether people on the other side can see it or not. Personally I’d like to see a longer cooldown if blurred frenzy does not hit anything, but its not game-changing for me in any way. Even if they nerfed blurred frenzy, it wouldn’t be the end of the world for mesmers at all.

Anyway it’d be nice if a developer chimed in and told us why blurred frenzy is the way it is and if it is intended the way it is. It would settle this once and for all.

If Blurred (or whatever) got hit I doubt many of us who love what we do would stop playing Mes. Thieves seem to cope well with each passing nerf (though you don’t see much of Pistol Whip any more).

The thing is that I feel I’m in agreement with the other gentleman who suggested that this won’t be the last change. Already I’ve heard that we have too much Vigor, too much Protection (from the 15 point Regen trait), etc. All of these seem like scapegoats for either something completely apart from the Mesmer or just for everything the Mesmer is as a whole.

jportell.2197:

So all of this is your justification for nerfing blurred frenzy? Yeah I’ve seen enough you guys all have nothing objective to back ur claim other than I don’t like it or I think these other skills serve that purpose just as well. If we are in a proper tpvp set up we have portal, IOL or Condi cleanse, and ONE stun break. Not much in the way of defense really. And necros good defense comes from their conditions ESPECIALLY against mesmers. You have tons of condis and should be able to wipe the floor with us. And also saying our phantasms should only hit hard in a phantasm SPEC is ridiculous. Its like saying half our weapon skills shouldn’t do any damage… Yeah no completely ridiculous

I’m surprised you’re not standing in uproar because your clones don’t hit like a truck.

Anyhow, do point out this subjectivity you’re hinting at, I’m all eyes.

Necros are fairly good vs mesmers (well, shatters, at least), I never claimed the opposite…but only if they don’t make a mistake at the start, and/or IF they have built a fair amount of DS to fall back on when they do make a mistake, or simply when the mesmer is good.

I still haven’t seen you refute ANY of the points I made, and that is because all you did so far was throwing a straw man argument at me, which amount to accusations that I’m claiming you have access to all skills/utitilites at the same time, which I am not.

I also like how you completely ignored all the points I made in regards to necro’s subpar survivability, and their restriction to certain utilities. Still waiting for proper arguments against my walls of text.

As for protetion…I think it is the ronger that needs to be fixed in that regard – protection triggering on every dodge, without any recharge on the proc, is just stupid and broken, especially given their long vigor maintenance times. It is rathersimilar to receiving free vigor on every critical hit without any kind of cooldown between the procs.

I’ll tell you why the nerf would be bad. The only usefull thing Mesmers has on the sword/x weaponset is blurred frenzy and swiftness/iduellist…

iLeap is not bad though but its bugged and every half-decent player dodges it. So you switch to your sword/x set cuz your staff skills got 15s cd+ (except phase retreat). With the chagne you would be 8s long forced into melee w/o any reliable source of boons which means you would be kitten. With the cd right now you can use it twice, so you got a chance to survive, thats it. Right now the cd and the disto uptime is right. A. its easy to dodge & B. while the channek you can easely set up a spike. stop qqing

If any change is warranted, I’d say it’d be to move the ‘20% reduced sword skills cd’ from the 10 trait to either the 20 or 30 trait option. I don’t find blurred frenzy overpowered by any means but I think moving that trait up so that the 8 sec cd on BF isn’t so easily accessible would be the most rational decision. In the same sense that getting a reduction on staff skills is at the 20 line along with pistol skills.

This is assuming there would be any nerf or change at all, otherwise I believe nerfing the 10s cd itself would be gimping the weapon set too drastically.

Yea, I am well aware of the buggy spawn, and complained about it too. Sadly, given the low priority with which Anet is treating such bugs, we can all but wait, or move on.
Anyhow, the unreliable spawn, in addition to the distinct icon that appears on the mesmer, is the reason why mesmers normally stun/pull before the jump, or coordinate the stun/root with team mates (again being a good asset to team fights). And that is where the necro, or any class without escape skills a-la phase retreat style, is normally fked if they don’t have a stunbreak ready, or enough DS to either fear the mes instantly before they leap to them, or tank the damage, if they were too slow for the fear.

I am wondering for how long mesmers will be able to get away with the excuse that they have to be in melee range to deal damage just because they use a sword, which is why they need a 2 second invul on a 8s cool down in their opinion. That’s really nothing more than a weak excuse of an argument, as no current build forces the mesmer into melee range at all.
No mesmer will intentionally and purposefully attempt to stay in melee range of their target as much as possible like other professions using melee builds/weapons actually do. In fact, sword mesmers, actively try to stay out of melee range and only engage in melee for their invul skill (blurred frenzy). This is proof enough that the sword mesmer is not a melee profession/build.

By design a 2 second invul on an 8s CD is very questionable already. Considering no other mitigating circumstances, it’s obviously grossly overpowered. There are, however, factors that could actually justify such a high uptime in evasion. If the mesmer was a fragile profession (it’s not the most fragile, but I’d say it’s fragile, so we’ll check this prerequisite) that relied heavily on maintaing melee range in order to deal its damage (currently absolutely false as shown above), then some form of defense like “Blur” would be warranted.

So given that, in my opinion there are 2 ways to balance the weapon:

1. Remove the invul from Blurred Frenzy, as the main bulk of damage a sword mesmer currently deals is not putting him in harms way ever. It’s ranged damage through shatters and the melee damage from the very same invul skill that is meant for the class to be able to stay in the fray (this is basically as if you added damage to endure pain and rifle warriors would charge in with endure pain to deal damage with it).

2. Move some of the shatter damage to the sword skills, so that the sword mesmer needs to seek out melee range actively to deal damage. In return Blurred Frezy could remain as it is, in order to allow a fragile class to stay in the fray

It is kind of odd that no matter what weapons the mesmer class uses, its main damage source originates mostly from its f-skills. These f-skills are instant and on a much lower cooldown than any other classes “burst skills”.

Now, there will be technical difficulties in moving some of the shatter damage to the sword as proposed above, because you can’t lower the shatter damage for swords specifically (I am aware that weapon damage factors into the damage, but you are neither forced to shatter with your sword and can just swap weapon before you do, nor is the difference worth mentioning).

In the end I believe that the invul on Blurred Frenzy will have to go, unless shatter damage is revisited and stops being the cornerstone of every single weapon set.

Med.6150:

I am wondering for how long mesmers will be able to get away with the excuse that they have to be in melee range to deal damage just because they use a sword, which is why they need a 2 second invul on a 8s cool down in their opinion. That’s really nothing more than a weak excuse of an argument, as no current build forces the mesmer into melee range at all.
No mesmer will intentionally and purposefully attempt to stay in melee range of their target as much as possible like other professions using melee builds/weapons actually do. In fact, sword mesmers, actively try to stay out of melee range and only engage in melee for their invul skill (blurred frenzy). This is proof enough that the sword mesmer is not a melee profession/build.

By design a 2 second invul on an 8s CD is very questionable already. Considering no other mitigating circumstances, it’s obviously grossly overpowered. There are, however, factors that could actually justify such a high uptime in evasion. If the mesmer was a fragile profession (it’s not the most fragile, but I’d say it’s fragile, so we’ll check this prerequisite) that relied heavily on maintaing melee range in order to deal its damage (currently absolutely false as shown above), then some form of defense like “Blur” would be warranted.

So given that, in my opinion there are 2 ways to balance the weapon:

1. Remove the invul from Blurred Frenzy, as the main bulk of damage a sword mesmer currently deals is not putting him in harms way ever. It’s ranged damage through shatters and the melee damage from the very same invul skill that is meant for the class to be able to stay in the fray (this is basically as if you added damage to endure pain and rifle warriors would charge in with endure pain to deal damage with it).

2. Move some of the shatter damage to the sword skills, so that the sword mesmer needs to seek out melee range actively to deal damage. In return Blurred Frezy could remain as it is, in order to allow a fragile class to stay in the fray

It is kind of odd that no matter what weapons the mesmer class uses, its main damage source originates mostly from its f-skills. These f-skills are instant and on a much lower cooldown than any other classes “burst skills”.

Now, there will be technical difficulties in moving some of the shatter damage to the sword as proposed above, because you can’t lower the shatter damage for swords specifically (I am aware that weapon damage factors into the damage, but you are neither forced to shatter with your sword and can just swap weapon before you do, nor is the difference worth mentioning).

In the end I believe that the invul on Blurred Frenzy will have to go, unless shatter damage is revisited and stops being the cornerstone of every single weapon set.

Errr…. taking out the invulnerability from burr frenzy will absolutely change the sword skill. Every memser weapon has some type of survivability. I consider stuns to be survivability.

shatters requires clones which makes it non spammable unless they have IP.

Off hand sword- block
specter – block
torch – stealth
pistol – stun
staff – teleport + aoe defense
greatsword – aoe
main hand sword – invul
focus – aoe + reflect

The sword has a root and a teleport + stun breaker on the #3. Even if the premise that every single weapon should have “some type of survivability” for mesmer would be correct, you’d still have it on the sword #3.

Currently, there’s no reason for Blurred Frenzy to make the mesmer immune not only to damage but also CC. Force the Mesmer into melee range to deal damage and Blurred Frenzy is fine. Given the mesmers shatter mechanic, I don’t see how you’d do that.

Tell me a single Mesmer that keeps chasing their target with their sword. Nobody does that. They stay away, prepare their clones, use their shadowstep + immobilize (swap) and then blow up their clones that are converging on your butt, while using their no risk invul skill in your face for some extra damage.

Firstly before you come here NERFANETNERFQUICKOPOPOP!!!!!!!

The Sword #3 skill AI is buggy as hell, And being able to use it effectively as a stun breaker is not always the entire intention, most of the time it would just so happen that you sent Ileap JUST BEFORE someone stunned you from another direction and swap. Also if i were to try use it as a stun breaker purposely there is a 40% chance it will actually work. for e.g. Ranger uses AoE root i try use ileap on ranger, A) ileap gets stuck right next to me i use swap and because i am still be the root i stay rooted. it doesnt appear and C)it is the perfect terrain and will work 40% of the time. This is not an active defense and once CC’d you can not use it like a stun breaker if ileap has not been set out.

All i have been reading is how everyone complains about the combination of Shatter and B-frenzy together. What about people that dont have strong shatters. When i read through these post it a all in one build you guys are complaining about which in fact is false information and impossible. Blurred frenzy gives people enough time to react. as mentioned it is mostly used ileap, swap, B-frenzy. Giving you 2 times to dodge and one extra time to screw the mes over. All you do is ileap comes to you knock back the illusion, mes uses swap and B-frenzy where we the clone was knocked back to and thats 2 CD wasted a very very fragile mes left. Practically DEAD already without that abillity already.

By nerfing this(after all the nerfs recieved -_-) You will completely destroy builds and limit everyone to go shatter defensive builds. Build diversity will = 1

Maybe a nerf to the trait is more suitable but what you guys are suggesting is way to much. It will break the sword main hand. There are also way more uses for the sword than just those two abilities. Sword #1 skill i use many times! I dont care what you think about that statement it can help in many situations.

not to mention We already have a broken greatsword, Torch can be handy, scepter is the worst weapon skill set in game and staff is pretty much only for bunker or Shatter build.

Med.6150:

A bunch of stuff that asks for mesmer to be mini warrior.

First off – our shatter skills are NOT on a much lower cooldown then other professions. Learn the class before you start writing a wall of text with pure non-sense.
Mind Wrack : 15s by default, 10.5s with 30 points in Illusions
Cry of Frustration : 30s by default, 21s with 30 points in Illusions
Diversion: 45s by default, with 31.5s with 30 points in Illusions
Distortion: 60s by default, 42s with 30 points in Illusions

Mind Wrack – indeed the bulk of our damage, but saying you can just cast it from range is a bunch of crap that only someone who doesn’t know mesmer can say. The illusions have to walk to the target and explode. Casting it from range in a team fight is more or less useless as clones die till they get to their target from all the AoE. Blurred frenzy is the method that allows us to reliable mind wrack. Without it our rotation would be leap in , mind wrack, staff #2. No sane mesmer will sit around to cast blurred frenzy without immunity because he will be dead before he even finishes the cast!
Cry of Frustration – 457 damage/clone and applies 3s of confusion. Again suffers from the same problem with casting it from range. Heck, engineer’s Static Shot is even better then Cry of Frustration.

Mesmer is not Warrior to do amazing damage if they reach the target( which has a fail class design at the moment just because of this exact reason! ). We are a bit like thieves but with much lower burst, less mobility, less stealth and less condition removals but with survivability due to blurred frenzy. You want to remove immunity from blurred frenzy. Where exactly does that leave us in your mind ?
But you want to make it mini-warrior actively running around in melee range to kill ? How exactly does that work for warrior ?

Let’s review mesmer weapons :
Scepter – fail design, nobody uses it outside of WWW, PVE where you can basically run with anything at all. Received minor buffs that no mesmer actually cared about since the weapon itself is a total mess.
Torch – same scenario as scepter. Has been reworked about 5-6 times.
Confusion mesmer in Tournament PVP simply DOES not work!
Sword OH – the bad version of Pistol and used only by some phantasm mesmer, which is a dead spec in Tournaments
Greatsword – Good damage overall, very bad #3, iBerserker has been bugged for months – lacking severely on the defensive part, for which reason very few mesmers use it.
Focus – Provides the out of combat mobility that mesmer lack completely and amazing CC. Warden is pretty much useless as it spawns at the target location and dies very fast in team fights, while providing no damage. Might reflect 1-2 projectiles if lucky.

Then there’s staff and sword which everyone uses because they are practically the only sets available for mesmer.

I can agree that stunbreaker on #3 needs to go cause it’s clearly a bug and porting out of knockdown/knockback with staff #2. But by God you people want mesmer to the ground while lying through your teeth that it’s not true.

just one post in my most hated game mode forum

Before even thinking of suggesting nerfs think:

Anet separates ONLY numeric values …(also on few things…not on cd it seems)

So if you change traits skill positions you ruin PvE and WWW game that will hate pvp even more….

For me BF could even have a damage reduction of 90% in PvP….for what i care….

Going to say this again, the nerfs never stop.

This month Blurred Frenzy is ‘the’ ‘OP’ ability just because people have nothing else to complain about?

Stop and I mean STOP crying for nerfs, cry for bufs instead to make a difference!

That mesmer is killing you because of Blurred Frenzy? What would you need in your class to make you be on par with that?

But, please, by all means, avoid creative thinking. Carry on destroying skills one by one until your favourite skill is hit next. And then you’ll be a miserable player amongst miserable players….

Don’t like that? Maybe use constructive criticism.

Don’t destroy, create and improve! Is that too much to ask?

Shay.7534:

First off – our shatter skills are NOT on a much lower cooldown then other professions. Learn the class before you start writing a wall of text with pure non-sense.
Mind Wrack : 15s by default, 10.5s with 30 points in Illusions

This is the kind of delusion there’s no cure for. How can you say your burst is not on a much lower cooldown and then proceed and discredit yourself in the same sentence. 10.5 seconds. There’s no burst mechanic on such a low cooldown for any other class. Let alone AoE, instant and target seeking.

Mind Wrack – indeed the bulk of our damage, but saying you can just cast it from range is a bunch of crap that only someone who doesn’t know mesmer can say.

Take another class and use your burst out of range of the target. See how that goes. When you shatter a target in front of you and your target decides to blink away right before your shatter goes off, your illusions will not explode, they will chase down the target and try to explode in his face, once they get there. On top of that, your Mind Wrack will also begin its cooldown the second you pressed F1, so that even if the illusions take 5 seconds to get to your target, you couldn’t care less, as all that means is that your next shatter will just be coming all the sooner.

The illusions have to walk to the target and explode. Casting it from range in a team fight is more or less useless as clones die till they get to their target from all the AoE.

Read above. Any other class doesn’t have their burst following and chasing the target, if they mess it up or the target runs away.

Blurred frenzy is the method that allows us to reliable mind wrack.

No, Blurred Frenzy is a crutch you’ve come to rely upon. Your MW from I-Persona is instant and has medium range. Too bad your own MW isn’t as smart as your NPCs’, so that you actually have to stand by the target your want to burst eh? And for that you need an invul, because as soon as you get in melee range for an instant spell, you obviously need to have an invul that deals damage going with it.

That’s kinda…distorted, don’t you think?

Mesmer is not Warrior to do amazing damage if they reach the target( which has a fail class design at the moment just because of this exact reason! ). We are a bit like thieves but with much lower burst, less mobility, less stealth and less condition removals but with survivability due to blurred frenzy. You want to remove immunity from blurred frenzy. Where exactly does that leave us in your mind ?
But you want to make it mini-warrior actively running around in melee range to kill ? How exactly does that work for warrior ?

I’ll be blunt. Read again what you wrote and tell me why you need an invul, if you are not going to be in melee range? You’re only moving into melee range to do damage with your invul ability, which only makes sense, if you actually would have to stay in melee range for dealing damage in the first place.

Dest.7410:

Going to say this again, the nerfs never stop.

This month Blurred Frenzy is ‘the’ ‘OP’ ability just because people have nothing else to complain about?

Stop and I mean STOP crying for nerfs, cry for bufs instead to make a difference!

That mesmer is killing you because of Blurred Frenzy? What would you need in your class to make you be on par with that?

But, please, by all means, avoid creative thinking. Carry on destroying skills one by one until your favourite skill is hit next. And then you’ll be a miserable player amongst miserable players….

Don’t like that? Maybe use constructive criticism.

Don’t destroy, create and improve! Is that too much to ask?

Buffing isn’t always a good way to balance stuff, for the simple reason, that if you just keep on buffing, you will soon face a powercreep which isn’t fun.
Also buffing can potentionally harm balance much more than it benefits. Especially with the really slow update cycle. If you buff something too much, you can end up in a situation were one class got something which becomes so strong, that this class basically becomes the only viable choice.
Nerfing is a valid, and much better strategy. Nobody is asking for a Smiters Boon kind of nerf (in case you don’t know what this means: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Smiter%27s_Boon_%28PvP%29), but to bring it down to reasonable levels.

Varonth.5830:

Nerfing is a valid, and much better strategy. Nobody is asking for a Smiters Boon kind of nerf (in case you don’t know what this means: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Smiter%27s_Boon_%28PvP%29), but to bring it down to reasonable levels.

Played monk before it was cool.

You are talking about ‘buffing too much’ and ‘not nerfing too much’, might I ask to reverse it?

Med.6150:

Take another class and use your burst out of range of the target. See how that goes.

Sigh… just in case you haven’t noticed, these ‘homing burst’ clones/phantasms can be destroyed with 1 (maybe 2) hits

Try hitting another class while they’re using their burst ability and see how that goes.

In all fairness, you are hiding behind a reasonable facade while all you want is mesmer to be ‘easier to deal with’

Med.6150:

No, Blurred Frenzy is a crutch you’ve come to rely upon.

No, Blurred Frenzy is 100% the reason you don’t see mesmers and go ‘Yum, lunch’ (pretty much as everyone views warriors now)

Please do inform me for mesmer sources of perma prot? Oh right, whiners got that nerfed, even if the mesmer needed 2+phantasm in 100% uptime to achieve that.

Oh, and please, oh please, do tell me how iLeap works reliably. Or how every other class has damaging abilities that might do the damage stated.

Oh, and of course, disregard the implications a nerf might have to any and all other aspects of the game…..

To use your own words

Med.6150:

That’s kind distorted, don’t you think?

Dest.7410:

Med.6150:

Take another class and use your burst out of range of the target. See how that goes.

Sigh… just in case you haven’t noticed, these ‘homing burst’ clones/phantasms can be destroyed with 1 (maybe 2) hits

So basically you want people to move into range of homing shatters and swing at one of the 3 clones twice. You realize they’d blow up in your face, before you could kill them, unless you had some form of power based range damage and nothing else going on on top of that.

Try hitting another class while they’re using their burst ability and see how that goes.

Trying? My mesmer will Blurred Frenzy any class that tries to burst me. Around these parts people call that balanced risk vs. reward.

In all fairness, you are hiding behind a reasonable facade while all you want is mesmer to be ‘easier to deal with’

In all fairness, you’ve yet to have anything going for you at all. You have no argument whatsoever, except the “we need to be invul while we burst, else we’d be warriors”.

Nowhere in that silly argument do you touch upon the fact that mesmers do not require melee range like warriors in the first place. You’re essentially a medium range class, that, if they happen to get caught by a melee, they’ll be able to invul up while doing damage to their pursuer.

So you don’t want to be forced to move into melee range, because you say warriors are suffering from that. Fair enough, but logic disctates that if you are not forced to move into melee range, just like you are not currently, you don’t need an invul with a 25% uptime and deals melee range damage.

No, Blurred Frenzy is 100% the reason you don’t see mesmers and go ‘Yum, lunch’ (pretty much as everyone views warriors now)

Again, you are not in melee range, unless somebody is catching up to you. You’re playing a 100% glass cannon (no idea if you do, I am stating this from the perspective of the general shatter meta build), you have a 4 second invul on a <47 second cool down, you have access to protection by whielding a staff, you have shadow steps, a full stun breaker and a semi-stun breaker on your weapon set. You have a 75+% uptime on vigor and you have multiple CC options on top of passive damage from any phantasms

No other glass cannon has so much defense. Yet you argue you also need a 25% uptime invul on your weapon skill bar. I don’t even care if mesmers are op or not, I am just handing you a much needed reality check.

Dest.7410:

Med.6150:

Take another class and use your burst out of range of the target. See how that goes.

Sigh… just in case you haven’t noticed, these ‘homing burst’ clones/phantasms can be destroyed with 1 (maybe 2) hits

Try hitting another class while they’re using their burst ability and see how that goes.

In all fairness, you are hiding behind a reasonable facade while all you want is mesmer to be ‘easier to deal with’

Med.6150:

No, Blurred Frenzy is a crutch you’ve come to rely upon.

No, Blurred Frenzy is 100% the reason you don’t see mesmers and go ‘Yum, lunch’ (pretty much as everyone views warriors now)

Please do inform me for mesmer sources of perma prot? Oh right, whiners got that nerfed, even if the mesmer needed 2+phantasm in 100% uptime to achieve that.

Oh, and please, oh please, do tell me how iLeap works reliably. Or how every other class has damaging abilities that might do the damage stated.

Oh, and of course, disregard the implications a nerf might have to any and all other aspects of the game…..

To use your own words

Med.6150:

That’s kind distorted, don’t you think?

No class can oneshot a clone with autoattack.
Most classes cannot twoshot them, even with zerger.

Are you talking about weaponskills other then #1? If so, think about what the clone just accomplished. He put a cooldown on an enemies ability. That is still a gain for the mesmer.

Even if they die in AoE, for example when you send them on a point, there is a high chance, that they tanked some AoE damage that could have harmed a player or damaging AI, like pets, or Elementals, because they count as one Entity towards the limit of 5 entities hit with AoE. Perhaps they even got AoE retaliation from blast finishers etc. Then they also deal back damage as they die.

Mesmers defense is that they can stay out of the fight better than other classes.
Stuff like phase retreat, and blink, clones absorbing projectiles etc. are enough defense.
It probably is still too much defense after a potentional Blurred Frenzy nerf. They should have to take defensive utilities for themself like any other class does if they want to survive, and so should zerger amulett hit them just as hard as other classes in terms of survivability.

The reason people see warrior as cannonfodder is because like 90% of the warriors run the same build which isn’t working. When they die they complain about this build not working. I mean, why do they believe, that a warrior should be allowed to bring just their heal, dodgerolls and shieldblock as defensive, and go full offensive on the rest. Of course they are going to die fast.
Warrior have to get defensive just as much as other classes.
Yes it can work, if you are good, and/or the enemy is bad, but it shouldn’t be easymode.
Basically that is where Mesmer, and every other class going full offensive should be in terms of suvivability. Mesmer isn’t close to this. They can still take quite a while to take down.

And saying that Med wants Mesmers to be easier to deal with. I guess he doesn’t have alot of problems with them, as he is #34 on the european leaderboards.

Med.6150:

This is the kind of delusion there’s no cure for. How can you say your burst is not on a much lower cooldown and then proceed and discredit yourself in the same sentence. 10.5 seconds. There’s no burst mechanic on such a low cooldown for any other class. Let alone AoE, instant and target seeking.

Take another class and use your burst out of range of the target. See how that goes. When you shatter a target in front of you and your target decides to blink away right before your shatter goes off, your illusions will not explode, they will chase down the target and try to explode in his face, once they get there. On top of that, your Mind Wrack will also begin its cooldown the second you pressed F1, so that even if the illusions take 5 seconds to get to your target, you couldn’t care less, as all that means is that your next shatter will just be coming all the sooner.

The illusions have to walk to the target and explode. Casting it from range in a team fight is more or less useless as clones die till they get to their target from all the AoE.

Read above. Any other class doesn’t have their burst following and chasing the target, if they mess it up or the target runs away.

No, Blurred Frenzy is a crutch you’ve come to rely upon. Your MW from I-Persona is instant and has medium range. Too bad your own MW isn’t as smart as your NPCs’, so that you actually have to stand by the target your want to burst eh? And for that you need an invul, because as soon as you get in melee range for an instant spell, you obviously need to have an invul that deals damage going with it.

That’s kinda…distorted, don’t you think?

I’ll be blunt. Read again what you wrote and tell me why you need an invul, if you are not going to be in melee range? You’re only moving into melee range to do damage with your invul ability, which only makes sense, if you actually would have to stay in melee range for dealing damage in the first place.

Eviscerate is on a 10s cooldown is it not, while providing more damage? Thieves have no cooldown, but HS provides 3-6k damage, while mind wrack provides 4-8k damage ( 8k meaning 4 consecutive crits ). Backstab provides 10k+ damage. I am pretty sure I can come up with more examples by testing with same stats (2.2k power, 47% crit, 44% crit damage, 4% damage ogre runes ) . Many skills in this game offer similar damage with the same stats and similar cooldown – actually being available as a tourney build is another issue.

It’s not even funny to have discussions about cooldowns and damage with a thief no less! You realize how twisted this is right ?
I will reiterate – shattering from range in a team fight is useless. Clones will die on their way to the target! It works in 1v1, but not in teamfights. If you played a mesmer you would understand that very easily.

You want blurred frenzy dead? Ok let’s say for one second that’s fair. Now let’s have a cool discussion about Infiltrator’s Strike : how is it possible for one skill to be a double port, a root, a stunbreaker and a condition clear?
And the 2nd question – why no S+X set from thief never reached viable status in tourney play after pistol whip nerf until #3 was buffed recently? Infiltrator’s Strike clearly provides more then ANY other skill in this game, yet it failed to be good until recently.
What exactly does #3 on S+D provide that made it popular after the latest patch ?
Oh yes! Reliable Evade making thief actually able to land a hit without getting killed before he is able to port back!

Blurred Frenzy+Illusionary Leap+Phase Retreat provide to mesmer a similar situation for thief as Infiltrator’s Strike+Flanking Strike, albeit with differences both positive and negative for both classes.

Berserker Amulet in this game simply does not work at all without evades/immunities & ports (see warriors ). Berserker Shatter mesmer is the only spec mesmer has seen viable in tournament play since october-november. As much as I like playing mesmer, I will ditch it in a second for BM ranger.

And to answer your question : please ask your mesmer NEVER to go melee range in a tourney game – just sit in the back, shatter and autoattack with staff from range. Then come back and tell me how much you raged at him for being useless. Or better yet, try that yourself. At least like this you will spare your teammate a headache.

Med.6150:

So basically you want people to move into range of homing shatters and swing at one of the 3 clones twice. You realize they’d blow up in your face, before you could kill them, unless you had some form of power based range damage and nothing else going on on top of that.

And there’s a reason every single class in game has access to aoe ranged abilities. use them? Or maybe that would force you to actually face the mesmer without gimping him first?

Med.6150:

Trying? My mesmer will Blurred Frenzy any class that tries to burst me. Around these parts people call that balanced risk vs. reward.

Yes, tell me how your mesmer uses blurred frenzy to escape warrior 100b for example (which is still considered one of the weakest classes in pvp). Oh right, you don’t

Med.6150:

In all fairness, you’ve yet to have anything going for you at all. You have no argument whatsoever, except the “we need to be invul while we burst, else we’d be warriors”.

Never said that

Med.6150:

Nowhere in that silly argument do you touch upon the fact that mesmers do not require melee range like warriors in the first place. You’re essentially a medium range class, that, if they happen to get caught by a melee, they’ll be able to invul up while doing damage to their pursuer.

And that means that gasp I would manage to survive 2 secs if chased by a melee class? That’s so op, destroy it. I’d rather argue that a good mesmer does not use sword at all for his defense, mainly because having a 2 sec invuln =/= a whole new skillset which is quite more useful. Swords are being used because our other main hand, the scepter, is the worst main hand currently in game, period.

Med.6150:

Again, you are not in melee range, unless somebody is catching up to you. You’re playing a 100% glass cannon (no idea if you do, I am stating this from the perspective of the general shatter meta build), you have a 4 second invul on a <47 second cool down, you have access to protection by whielding a staff, you have shadow steps, a full stun breaker and a semi-stun breaker on your weapon set. You have a 75+% uptime on vigor and you have multiple CC options on top of passive damage from any phantasms

And yet, you still see mesmers dropping like kitten on the first indication of serious burst.
Guess why?

Med.6150:

No other glass cannon has so much defense. Yet you argue you also need a 25% uptime invul on your weapon skill bar. I don’t even care if mesmers are op or not, I am just handing you a much needed reality check.

25% uptime invuln would mean that I am crit specced and staying in sword pretty much 100% of the time, which is by the way, certain death.

Oh, and glass cannon mesmers are long dead. They were burried in might nerfs, and still have a buggy iZerker dancing on their grave.

Thank you for your reality check, but please bring something else apart from your reality in it.

Varonth.5830:

No class can oneshot a clone with autoattack.
Most classes cannot twoshot them, even with zerger.

cough staff guardians cough longbow warriors cough shortbow thieves cough grenade engis cough etc….

Varonth.5830:

Are you talking about weaponskills other then #1? If so, think about what the clone just accomplished. He put a cooldown on an enemies ability. That is still a gain for the mesmer.

Wasting 2-3 cds for one enemy cd? seems fair enough

Varonth.5830:

Even if they die in AoE, for example when you send them on a point, there is a high chance, that they tanked some AoE damage that could have harmed a player or damaging AI, like pets, or Elementals, because they count as one Entity towards the limit of 5 entities hit with AoE. Perhaps they even got AoE retaliation from blast finishers etc. Then they also deal back damage as they die.

Aoe ret would affect the attacker whether they faced clones or not. It is perhaps the only group defence ability except for IoL and feedback that mesmers can bring to the table in an aoe fight.

Varonth.5830:

Mesmers defense is that they can stay out of the fight better than other classes.
Stuff like phase retreat, and blink, clones absorbing projectiles etc. are enough defense.
It probably is still too much defense after a potentional Blurred Frenzy nerf. They should have to take defensive utilities for themself like any other class does if they want to survive, and so should zerger amulett hit them just as hard as other classes in terms of survivability.

Mesmers and Thieves are the masters of controlled combat, it even says so in class descriptions… want that changed?
And I’m quite sure that zerker guardian hit me harder than that thief/engi or even necro. Don’t even get started on eles.

Varonth.5830:

The reason people see warrior as cannonfodder is because like 90% of the warriors run the same build which isn’t working. When they die they complain about this build not working. I mean, why do they believe, that a warrior should be allowed to bring just their heal, dodgerolls and shieldblock as defensive, and go full offensive on the rest. Of course they are going to die fast.
Warrior have to get defensive just as much as other classes.
Yes it can work, if you are good, and/or the enemy is bad, but it shouldn’t be easymode.

Agreed. Loving warrior currently just because of this.

Varonth.5830:

Basically that is where Mesmer, and every other class going full offensive should be in terms of suvivability. Mesmer isn’t close to this. They can still take quite a while to take down.

And that’s usually because of misdirection of attacks, which is the main idea behind mesmers

Varonth.5830:

And saying that Med wants Mesmers to be easier to deal with. I guess he doesn’t have alot of problems with them, as he is #34 on the european leaderboards.

Oh, please, the #1 has been inactive for weeks. Leaderboards are a joke as of now. And just because he is a high-ranked player doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a hard time against certain classes.

@ Shay

Heartseeker is only useful when the target has low health. Reason why everyone laughs at HS spammers. Thieves are also vulnerable while heart seeking.

S/D did not become viable because of a reliable evade. It became viable because of boon stealing. Now bunkers have a counter.

If you want an evade you might as well go S/P since S/D evasion is not that long in comparison but with the pistol whip nerf…

Sword auto damage is not that impressive which is why D/X is the burst set. Infiltrator strike has always been good no one denies that but pre-patch there was really nothing S/D could contribute in tourney play.

@ Dest

Zerker amulet has always been 100% viable for mesmers no matter the spec and probably always will be.

I don’t even know what the argument is about. Mesmers can have some insane survivability as glass cannons. Everyone should know this. Some of the suggestions offered will barely effect the class. If eles can get over RTL having an extra 20 sec cooldown than mesmers should be fine with an extra 2-5 sec cool down on blurred frenzy.

In all honesty I don’t even care if A-Net were to apply this change but if they did I feel like it would be completely understandable.

My whole point in trying to avert nerfs is that I have found out, after 8 months of constant nerfing, that they never stop. They cry about more and more abilities until there is none that can escape and be ‘good’ I do not particularly care about Blurred Frenzy as I have stopped using sword a long time ago. But I can absolutely say that these+ 5 secs can and WILL lead to even more nerfs. So no, for the first time in my 8 month silence, I cannot just say ’it’s ok’ because it is not.

Benji.9203:

@ Shay

Heartseeker is only useful when the target has low health. Reason why everyone laughs at HS spammers. Thieves are also vulnerable while heart seeking.

S/D did not become viable because of a reliable evade. It became viable because of boon stealing. Now bunkers have a counter.

If you want an evade you might as well go S/P since S/D evasion is not that long in comparison but with the pistol whip nerf…

Sword auto damage is not that impressive which is why D/X is the burst set. Infiltrator strike has always been good no one denies that but pre-patch there was really nothing S/D could contribute in tourney play.

The forum posts around here did not complain about boon stealing, though I know that’s the reason they have become useful to teams. They complained about evade. Now S/D thief has approximately the same amount of survivability as mesmer does, but you don’t see people yelling about it as much as they do complain about mesmers.
Low health HS, clones for mind wrack, stealth for BS, adrenaline for eviscerate. They each have a requirement attached to them but they provide damage on the higher end of the spectrum.

S/D thief can tackle mesmers and other classes quite successfully, even with it’s so called OP blurred frenzy, mind wrack and apparently chaos storm is there too. So can we expect S/D to the ground once blurred frenzy is buried?

And Med is just on a disgusting hate spree. He says that himself : “I don’t even care if mesmers are op or not, I am just handing you a much needed reality check.”
So if mesmers are not OP, and that can be seen in game actually – no team is running 2 mesmers since December, almost every class except warrior can tackle them – what would a blurred frenzy nerf to them? Well we have the answer from Med :
“We don’t even care!”

Well here comes the real reality check : Balance should not be done based on biased hate towards a class – balance should be done based on what’s happening in the game.

Fact is back in october-november, while playing mesmer I was a strong supporter of Time Warp, Moa, Portal nerf and I strongly agree the current Illusion nerf ( maybe it needs another one ). I strongly advise on giving portal to another class and can probably get on board with other nerfs to mesmers.

Back in December, when I discovered the shatter exploit I posted it on the forums , I submitted it as a bug and it lead to a fix and a 0.25 CD on shatters. You can probably even find a post from me asking WTF were they thinking when they buffed might on shatter.

But this topic is just ABSURD.

@Shay

Ah i see what your saying. At a base level with no traits, runes, sigils, and jewels S/P evasion trumps S/D evasion. But with sigils of energy, runes of the adventurer, withdraw as heal spell, signet of agility and whatever other ridiculous things you can throw in the agility on any sword set becomes ridiculous.

I wholeheartedly agree with you there but this level of evasion has always been present. It’s still all about the boon removal though IMO (reason why S/P is not on the rise as well). If not for that S/D would still be claimed as “unviable” in tpvp and for good reason.

The main thing that should be feared is the possibility that boon stealing thieves may soon be able to share the boons that they steal with their team mates. I can already see the QQ for it.

Varonth.5830:

Dest.7410:

Going to say this again, the nerfs never stop.

This month Blurred Frenzy is ‘the’ ‘OP’ ability just because people have nothing else to complain about?

Stop and I mean STOP crying for nerfs, cry for bufs instead to make a difference!

That mesmer is killing you because of Blurred Frenzy? What would you need in your class to make you be on par with that?

But, please, by all means, avoid creative thinking. Carry on destroying skills one by one until your favourite skill is hit next. And then you’ll be a miserable player amongst miserable players….

Don’t like that? Maybe use constructive criticism.

Don’t destroy, create and improve! Is that too much to ask?

Buffing isn’t always a good way to balance stuff, for the simple reason, that if you just keep on buffing, you will soon face a powercreep which isn’t fun.
Also buffing can potentionally harm balance much more than it benefits. Especially with the really slow update cycle. If you buff something too much, you can end up in a situation were one class got something which becomes so strong, that this class basically becomes the only viable choice.
Nerfing is a valid, and much better strategy. Nobody is asking for a Smiters Boon kind of nerf (in case you don’t know what this means: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Smiter%27s_Boon_%28PvP%29), but to bring it down to reasonable levels.

On the other hand you can’t creat more build diversity only trough nerfs. Unless you’re bringing all options on par with the weakest one…but at that point ppl will already have stopped playing the class.

Nerf what is OP. But do not touch what it’s ok/good/balanced. BF is good, nobody can argue, but it’s not OP.
Buff other things. Buff other builds. Create natural counters.
Tweak BF to be “Blocking” and thus proc “on block” traits. Add more “on block” proccing to the game. Do not start with “hey, let’s halve dmg or double the CD and that’s done”. Still assuming that it deserves a nerf for real and not due to the usual WotM (whine of the month).

ps: KR got SmitersBooned instead of getting moved to 20/30 pts or rework of dmg/heal of the 2 procs causing crying. This is a dangerous policy to me – and by far a “whack a mole” way of dealing with it (KR got actually removed from the game. not nerfed).