Guild Wars 2

Of course it was a needed change, OP is just talking about the fact that its not that op trait when used on a shatter mesmer, but theres other builds and gamemodes…

In www with my pu I could run half of the map, without go out of the stealth.

Nerf is fine, honestly i think it will be always superstrong in 1vs1In www.

In spvp is fine too.

Nerf doesn’t impact Mesmers in SPvP.

So I am confused why there’s a complaint in this forum about it.

atlrising.5134:

dunno dude, every time I’ve ever used GS4 it didnt produce a clone unless it hit something.

Yeah, this shows he’s just a troll who has never played mesmer.

Meh, about time it was nerfed. Good riddance to that overpowered bs.

Hopefully the fotms will reroll and others will reduce the moaning about Mesmer… oh wait, no that’ll never happen – there will always be something to complain about Mesmer…

Anyway, both BD and CI are far more fun to use -hopefully more players will now use these traits.

I do trully believe & i know for a fact that i’m not the only one to think so. Ppl miss & or cant handle the free meal gone since patch 23… , especially thieves.

PU was not the problem. It’s the surprise burst we have from our shatters that kill’s. It’s still there. & thank God it is. Or else we have nothing. Our skills & AA damage is way under par vs all other classes. & PU only give mesmers the extra sustain it needs to survive & reset for the next attack. Ppl get frustrated cuz they cant target anything & maintained pressure on the mesmer like they use to.

to be honest, even 50% is not enough. If i was a mesmer, i would take PU even with no stealth duration buff, only cuz of aegis and random boon gaining from stealth. Only difference is that without stealth buff would make other grandmaster traits more appealing

And for wvw roamers: NO, this “nerf” wont reduce the amount of cancer condi mesmer roaming out there.

I don’t think it was nerfed hard enough to be honest, I feel like the 50% duration is going to make barely any difference.

If they maybe throw on top that Phantasm/clone hits proc revealed on the mesmer, sure, and tone down the amount of boons it gives.

Vieux P.1238:

I do trully believe & i know for a fact that i’m not the only one to think so. Ppl miss & or cant handle the free meal gone since patch 23… , especially thieves.

PU was not the problem. It’s the surprise burst we have from our shatters that kill’s. It’s still there. & thank God it is. Or else we have nothing. Our skills & AA damage is way under par vs all other classes. & PU only give mesmers the extra sustain it needs to survive & reset for the next attack. Ppl get frustrated cuz they cant target anything & maintained pressure on the mesmer like they use to.

Mesmer needed improvements, you’re right, but it was given way too many.
Pre-patch, i was horrible with a mesmer, i couldn’t play one for the life of me. After the patch, i turned into a demi-god without even knowing what the hell i was doing.

atlrising.5134:

Heres the thing, I created this post expecting my mesmer brothers to come out and go nope. What do I get instead a bunch of people who dont play the profession who want to complain because the class is not an easy kill no more.

I think we should wait and see how the changes affect gameplay.

I understand your disappointment, but I also think that the PU nerf was hardly a surprise.
It has been stated that balance patches will be frequent, so if this nerf turns out to be too much, I believe it will be addressed in the future.

Numbers are always gong to be in flux, and a 100% increase was a bit too much.

Stop the whining.. even at 50%, its still gonna be effective. Just a less time to reset that’s all. & yes WvW as well wont be as fun.. i admit.

Aomine.5012:

atlrising.5134:

Oh and plus why shouldn’t be able to stealth as a defensive measure…do you know how many times thieves do this….fight…stealth….fight…jump through ring to stealth… its crap you guys complained about PU so much but forgot about the bigger stealth picture as a defensive mechanic.

Because thieves can’t do damage while in stealth, while mesmer can.
(Mesmer can spawn clones/ phantasm without breaking stealth, hide in stealth and let clones/ phantasm do all the work)

One is like high risk high reward. One is like no risk high reward.

LOL

Really, you’re complaining that a clone that does little to no direct damage does damage while the mesmer is stealthed. Too funny.

Phantasms, sure if they didn’t have 5k health and die to a stray fart or have time when summoned to dodge. Bonus points for realising your dodge replenishes faster than the cool down on any pair of damaging phantasms, except maybe the non meta sword offhand…

T raw.4658:

PU was not nerfed enough. Needs to go back to +1 sec. If it remains 50% protection needs to be removed from the boons applied

lol, clearly a clueless mesmer hating thief. Fortunately someone already did the work so I can just point at this.

Vague Memory.2817:

Looking at individual stealth skills +50% stealth time isn’t a great improvement over what it was previously of +1 sec.

Veil

Veil untraited = 2 sec

Veil + old PU (+1 sec) = 3 sec

Veil + current PU (100%) = 4 sec

Veil +Proposed PU (50%) = 3 sec

Note the proposed change would now be the same as the old PU trait.

Decoy (and Prestige)

Decoy untraited = 3 sec

Decoy + old PU (+1 sec) = 4 sec

Decoy + current PU (100%) = 6 sec

Decoy +Proposed PU (50%) = 4.5 sec

Note only 0.5 sec difference between current and old PU. Same as with Prestige on torch.

Mass invis (MI)

MI untraited = 5 sec

MI+ old PU (+1 sec) = 6 sec

MI + current PU (100%) = 10 sec

MI +Proposed PU (50%) = 7.5 sec

Proposed PU is 1.5 sec longer than the old PU. Obviously MI has the highest increase over old PU because it has the longest stealth.

So overall for everything but Mass invis, the proposed PU of 50% is effectively the same as the old PU.

Personally I think the devs thought we have the current pledge trait and with the upcoming addition of alacrity with Chrono we can still keep fairly high stealth frequency if we want to build for it. But overall stealth duration will decrease.

I actually like the +100% PU, but I never traited it much with the pledge trait (stealth reduction), which seems to be the main problem for keeping high stealth uptime at the moment. If I had to choose, I would rather keep 100% PU than I would the stealth reduction component from the pledge trait.

But yeah, 0.5s more stealth than old PU (1s total on whole build), too stronk, must nerf moar.

Watch how many whining PU Mesmers stop running PU because of this “nerf”…NONE

It’s not even that big a nerf if you work out the math and it’s FAR better than many other profession’s grandmaster traits.

This kind of thread just shows that some people will whine about ANYTHING.

livlaender.8790:

i have a question, are you aware, that chaos line has two more grandmaster traits and did you use them, or would you use them inseatd of pu? if your answers are no, than you should admit, that pu is overperforming

and lets be realistic, pu nerf is just minor, it wont affect stealth burst, or stealth decaps

this just means the other GM trats are weak

the way pu mesmers fight at the moment is that they spike damage from stealth and count the seconds for reveal to go away until they can hit another stealth. that is not skilled gameplay.

the reason it is ok for theif is because they need to black powder atleast for thier combat stealth.. and that is easily interupted and then they are boned.

it took any skill out of a high skill profession and made it faceroll…

If a 0 skilled player played pu they can beat most other professions just through repeated resets.. if a good player plays pu they are pretty much unstoppable.

good thing most good mesmers got bored of pu and its skillless nature after 1 week and went back to a more fun burst.

atlrising.5134:

Oh and plus why shouldn’t be able to stealth as a defensive measure…do you know how many times thieves do this….fight…stealth….fight…jump through ring to stealth… its crap you guys complained about PU so much but forgot about the bigger stealth picture as a defensive mechanic.

Does a thief have countless of blocks + invulns ontop of that stealth ? Thieves only defense mechanism IS stealth.

Caedmon.6798:

atlrising.5134:

Oh and plus why shouldn’t be able to stealth as a defensive measure…do you know how many times thieves do this….fight…stealth….fight…jump through ring to stealth… its crap you guys complained about PU so much but forgot about the bigger stealth picture as a defensive mechanic.

Does a thief have countless of blocks + invulns ontop of that stealth ? Thieves only defense mechanism IS stealth.

No they have countless blinds, teleports and evade frames instead.

apharma.3741:

Caedmon.6798:

atlrising.5134:

Oh and plus why shouldn’t be able to stealth as a defensive measure…do you know how many times thieves do this….fight…stealth….fight…jump through ring to stealth… its crap you guys complained about PU so much but forgot about the bigger stealth picture as a defensive mechanic.

Does a thief have countless of blocks + invulns ontop of that stealth ? Thieves only defense mechanism IS stealth.

No they have countless blinds, teleports and evade frames instead.

2 builds in 1? nice

apharma.3741:

Caedmon.6798:

atlrising.5134:

Oh and plus why shouldn’t be able to stealth as a defensive measure…do you know how many times thieves do this….fight…stealth….fight…jump through ring to stealth… its crap you guys complained about PU so much but forgot about the bigger stealth picture as a defensive mechanic.

Does a thief have countless of blocks + invulns ontop of that stealth ? Thieves only defense mechanism IS stealth.

No they have countless blinds, teleports and evade frames instead.

While blind is a defensive mechanism,it’s not the same as a block or an invuln.The thief can still get hit while walking through aoe’s while the same doesn’t happen when you pop a block or an Actual invulnerability.

apharma.3741:

Caedmon.6798:

Does a thief have countless of blocks + invulns ontop of that stealth ? Thieves only defense mechanism IS stealth.

No they have countless blinds, teleports and evade frames instead.

This isn’t 2012. People have figured out how to work around Blind (never mind the fact that only one Thief weaponset has real access to it). As for ‘infinite teleports’, Thief has… Shadowstep (50s CD), and using all their Initiative to get away with SB #5. Those ‘infinite evade frames’? Only S/D has a plentiful amount, and it’s barely even playable anymore.

But hey, it’s easier to complain than it is to look at things from different perspectives…

apharma.3741:

No they have countless blinds, teleports and evade frames instead.

There are only two thieves in PvP right now: D/p and S/d. D/p has gap closers but how is that helping them to survive if they are blinking into the enemy? Same deal with S/d, though I-Return is a blink away, I would hardly consider it countless (not to mention S/d is a rare sight nowadays anyway). As for having “countless” blinds and evades, we get one or the other. Definitely not both.

It was as full of half truths and misleading advise as eveyone claiming about mesmers.

They have no blocks in the meta build outside of random aegis.

a pu mesmer has enough stealth that thier only time required to be out of stealth is during reveal..

In that time they are revealed they have blurred frenzy.. or actual shatter distortion.. or just dodge 2x to stall out the reveal and go back into stealth..

If you think this is a hard thing to do in any way and requires any skill. not sure what to tell you.

Cynz.9437:

apharma.3741:

Caedmon.6798:

atlrising.5134:

Oh and plus why shouldn’t be able to stealth as a defensive measure…do you know how many times thieves do this….fight…stealth….fight…jump through ring to stealth… its crap you guys complained about PU so much but forgot about the bigger stealth picture as a defensive mechanic.

Does a thief have countless of blocks + invulns ontop of that stealth ? Thieves only defense mechanism IS stealth.

No they have countless blinds, teleports and evade frames instead.

2 builds in 1? nice

People seem to do that all the time for mesmer – except not only two, but several builds in one… (or the almighty 6/6/6/6/6 allocation).

pu usually runs blinds.. and blink and blurred frenzy as power or scepter 2 as condi for a block… how is that 2 builds in one. they kinda have similar options.

the main point is that they only had to use those defensive cooldowns during reveal. then they just go back into stealth and set up for the next burst.. stealth is pretty much the most powerful defensive ability in the game.

i understand you can always nit pick when they say countless but……

Thing is we can nitpick by saying S/P has teleport, cleanse, blind and evade all on one weapon set.

However it is more accurate to say DP has teleports on steal, shadow shot, shadowstep and shortbow 5. Blind on shadow shot and black powder and blinding powder. Evade on heal. Stun on elite and quasi stun on steal if it procs panic strike (stun =daze+immob).

All with a great random chance to refresh any type of utility cool down and a wide variety of bundles on steal which can give many things.

Power builds for mesmer has no blocks outside a random aegis. A 12s rooted evade, an invuln on F4, blind on shatter (generally a little less blind than thieves) and torch skill and stealth. 1 Teleport on utility and 1 tied to a glass clone that can (and usually does) be killed in the 1s it takes for the switch to become available.

if you think mesmer and thief are equal in any way before nerfs.. not sure what to tell you..

they only used to counter mesmers by hitting and resetting until the mesmer is out of cooldowns .. now the mesmer is never out of cooldowns…. and you cant force them to be out of cooldowns because they only have to burn one to enter stealth then just wait a heal or whatever defensive cooldown is needed for the next reveal.

it is litereally the lowest skill highest reward build in game to play a pu in its current state..

and i main mesmer.. its bad for mesmers and everyone else to keep it anywhere near its current state.

atlrising.5134:

Oh and plus why shouldn’t be able to stealth as a defensive measure…do you know how many times thieves do this….fight…stealth….fight…jump through ring to stealth… its crap you guys complained about PU so much but forgot about the bigger stealth picture as a defensive mechanic.

Man you have a bad attitude. If you purpose something in the future don’t be a immature kitten about it.

As for the thread, thief stealth doesn’t give you aegis and stuff. So I don’t really see your reasoning. As for the point you are arguing at the end, your stealth is still your defensive mechanic but now its not guaranteed to give you free things.

zaxon.6819:

the way pu mesmers fight at the moment is that they spike damage from stealth and count the seconds for reveal to go away until they can hit another stealth. that is not skilled gameplay.

the reason it is ok for theif is because they need to black powder atleast for thier combat stealth.. and that is easily interupted and then they are boned.

it took any skill out of a high skill profession and made it faceroll…

If a 0 skilled player played pu they can beat most other professions just through repeated resets.. if a good player plays pu they are pretty much unstoppable.

good thing most good mesmers got bored of pu and its skillless nature after 1 week and went back to a more fun burst.

By no means defending PU, but are you honestly saying, that it is hard to get away with stealthing as thief? That it takes skill? If you meet someone who does have have kind of interrupt, then a little planning of when and where to use it, is a bare minimum requirement – that doesn’t equal skill.

apharma.3741:

Caedmon.6798:

atlrising.5134:

Oh and plus why shouldn’t be able to stealth as a defensive measure…do you know how many times thieves do this….fight…stealth….fight…jump through ring to stealth… its crap you guys complained about PU so much but forgot about the bigger stealth picture as a defensive mechanic.

Does a thief have countless of blocks + invulns ontop of that stealth ? Thieves only defense mechanism IS stealth.

No they have countless blinds, teleports and evade frames instead.

um mesmer has all 3 of those things as well… lel

Mosharn.8357:

apharma.3741:

Caedmon.6798:

atlrising.5134:

Oh and plus why shouldn’t be able to stealth as a defensive measure…do you know how many times thieves do this….fight…stealth….fight…jump through ring to stealth… its crap you guys complained about PU so much but forgot about the bigger stealth picture as a defensive mechanic.

Does a thief have countless of blocks + invulns ontop of that stealth ? Thieves only defense mechanism IS stealth.

No they have countless blinds, teleports and evade frames instead.

um mesmer has all 3 of those things as well… lel

Yep yep .. on demand .. oh wait … .
But yeah, they do, but in an entirely different way.

apharma.3741:

Caedmon.6798:

atlrising.5134:

Oh and plus why shouldn’t be able to stealth as a defensive measure…do you know how many times thieves do this….fight…stealth….fight…jump through ring to stealth… its crap you guys complained about PU so much but forgot about the bigger stealth picture as a defensive mechanic.

Does a thief have countless of blocks + invulns ontop of that stealth ? Thieves only defense mechanism IS stealth.

No they have countless blinds, teleports and evade frames instead.

Technically, a D/P thief has no extra evade frames beside shortbow 3 that was nerfed years ago anyway. Mesmer has Sword 2 and Shatter 4.
Blind on shatter is probably just as powerful as black powder as far as blind goes, and while we have a lot of teleports, mesmers has 24sec CD Blink which is the best teleport CD in the game outside of thief.

black powder heartseeker is so easy to interupt also. once that happens theives are usually done for..

then they shadow refuge.. get knocked out of it.. again screwed.. their way to enter stealth isnt the same and is easily countered.

zaxon.6819:

black powder heartseeker is so easy to interupt also. once that happens theives are usually done for..

then they shadow refuge.. get knocked out of it.. again screwed.. their way to enter stealth isnt the same and is easily countered.

Yep, if you don’t do anything to counter anything, then strangely enough there are humans controlling the characters facing you, and they may actually take counter-measures. Surprise.

but the point is.. you cant counter decoy/torch invis. so you really have no point.

zaxon.6819:

black powder heartseeker is so easy to interupt also. once that happens theives are usually done for..

then they shadow refuge.. get knocked out of it.. again screwed.. their way to enter stealth isnt the same and is easily countered.

Which is why any decent player not being carried by a classes inherent trolliness either uses black powder to blind the aggressor or better yet uses LoS to stealth up. This being PvP there’s more than enough stuff to LoS around.

As for SR, very few good thieves will get pulled or knocked out as they know someone will try to do that and they dodge it. Generally I find the ones that get knocked out are very bad thieves. Before you say it, I’m not just talking about illusionary wave and mesmers, I’m talking about using gust on air 3 for staff ele.

Edit: You can’t counter blinding powder and steal, your point?

zaxon.6819:

but the point is.. you cant counter decoy/torch invis. so you really have no point.

So because, one class have some things with CD’s and another class having no CD’s are comparable, due to the fact, that the class with CD’s have no cast time?
Seriously! Get real.
It was a horrible comparison to begin with, just because they function so differently in the fist place, but that was all your doing.
I am not defending PU, I am however pointing out, that you are whining over nothing, when it comes to thieves utilities, and exaggerating the weakness of BP+HS.
Apart from that apharma.3741 said it pretty well in the post above me.
Again: Not a defence of PU in any way.

Quadox.7834:

The preview PU nerf was absolutely 100 percent justified. In my opinion it should actually have been removed/changed completely.

At the moment mesmers and thieves are WAY too similar. They both do decent damage. They both stealth alot. They both have team utility (stealth res and portal). Thief should have good burst damage, stealth, chase-down potential, like it has. Not mesmer, like it is now. Mesmer should be about amazing damage, great team utility, but with very low survivability as a trade-off.

The survivability from mesmer should stem from good positioning and confusion (not the condition), like it did in the past. At the moment, there is too little differentiation of thief and mesmer in the zerker role. This is mainly because mesmer doesn’t gain enough from the illusions traitline (about damage), and gains TOO much from the domination, duelling, chaos traitlines in combination.

The italic part, is something I really agree with. I am not so sure about the rest. I still find, thieves and mesmers are very different, and I am not so locked in what their roles should be … I think. But the italicised part I really agree with.

apharma.3741:

T raw.4658:

PU was not nerfed enough. Needs to go back to +1 sec. If it remains 50% protection needs to be removed from the boons applied

lol, clearly a clueless mesmer hating thief. Fortunately someone already did the work so I can just point at this.

Vague Memory.2817:

Looking at individual stealth skills +50% stealth time isn’t a great improvement over what it was previously of +1 sec.

Veil

Veil untraited = 2 sec

Veil + old PU (+1 sec) = 3 sec

Veil + current PU (100%) = 4 sec

Veil +Proposed PU (50%) = 3 sec

Note the proposed change would now be the same as the old PU trait.

Decoy (and Prestige)

Decoy untraited = 3 sec

Decoy + old PU (+1 sec) = 4 sec

Decoy + current PU (100%) = 6 sec

Decoy +Proposed PU (50%) = 4.5 sec

Note only 0.5 sec difference between current and old PU. Same as with Prestige on torch.

Mass invis (MI)

MI untraited = 5 sec

MI+ old PU (+1 sec) = 6 sec

MI + current PU (100%) = 10 sec

MI +Proposed PU (50%) = 7.5 sec

Proposed PU is 1.5 sec longer than the old PU. Obviously MI has the highest increase over old PU because it has the longest stealth.

So overall for everything but Mass invis, the proposed PU of 50% is effectively the same as the old PU.

Personally I think the devs thought we have the current pledge trait and with the upcoming addition of alacrity with Chrono we can still keep fairly high stealth frequency if we want to build for it. But overall stealth duration will decrease.

I actually like the +100% PU, but I never traited it much with the pledge trait (stealth reduction), which seems to be the main problem for keeping high stealth uptime at the moment. If I had to choose, I would rather keep 100% PU than I would the stealth reduction component from the pledge trait.

But yeah, 0.5s more stealth than old PU (1s total on whole build), too stronk, must nerf moar.

You also failed to factor in that before the buff, PU gave you one boon per stealth, period, now you get boons every second you’re stealthed, and they’re not crap boons either.

There’s also the fact that mesmers are now able to kitten out condi cleanses on a bunker build capable of destroying someone due to the sheer amount of condi pressure it puts out, literally having next to no counter.

They can even overwhelm a signet necro with the amount of conditions they put out, and if you aren’t capable of doing that, then you’re a below average mesmer.

Right now mesmer has too much of everything and it needs toning down.

AS a ranger, I remember a day when I used to fear and feel helpless against invisible thieves. Now its I feel that way about mesmers, but worse

@JoshuaRAWR prismatic understanding was pulsing boons way before it was buffed to 100% stealth increase. The pulsing boons even got nerfed before the increase by adding a chance to get might or swiftness, which are next to worthless compared to the protection aegis and regeneration. Btw prismatic understanding is pulsing boons since June 2013 according to the wiki.

Silverkey.2078:

The PU build used to be taken by mesmers in WvW but not in PvP. And at this time, PU was 1s increased stealth, which is usually less than 50%.
So it won’t kill PU builds.

Thieves need stealth because all of their profession work around that. Mesmers don’t. Mesmers can live without PU and without stealth altogether. We have other defense mechanisms, we don’t rely on it for our damage…

It’s because like double Endure Pain for Warrior it’s a crutch. It allows you to make more mistakes and gives you a better chance to escape if you do.

It deserved a nerf and the people upset about it are the flavor of the month players that have just been playing Mesmer since it’s been OP, especially in WvW where 60% of all players you meet are a Mesmer now.

I’m going to start by saying I 100% agree that PU needed to be nerfed, and honestly wish they just removed the trait entirely at this point.

If you’ve followed the balance updates since the specialization patch, you’ll see mesmer has been hit with many nerfs, some of which have pushed abilities to below pre-patch levels. Mesmer has been getting the “Thief Treatment”, aka we’re getting balanced around our high stealth up-time. Its done nothing but negatively impacting build diversity because it makes many mesmers feel even more reliant on PU.

I dont want more stealth. I dont like playing thief, and I especially dont like pretending to be one while I’m on my mesmer.