Guild Wars 2

Robet Gee is the boss man who worked on Mesmer and Necromancer balance for the last huge balance patch.

If you think Robert Gee should be in charge of balance for all classes please give this thread a +1. Let Anet know we want all classes to receive the Robert Gee treatment.

So everyone is OP like mesmer which means no-body is OP and everyone dies in 2 seconds?

I don’t play mesmer, so can’t really say much other than they kill people near instantly out of stealth. Necromancer had a lot of interesting ideas added to the traits, and an effort to make traits within a line work together well. That was really good and I wish other professions go some of that treatment.

Mesmer has always had similar burst potential as they do now and I don’t think thats how Robert Gee would balance all classes. I really appreciate the time he took into making almost all traits on the two classes he worked on viable choices, I want this kind of diversity on all classes.

I agree his changes were simply creative and inspired and he opened up many new great builds for both of my main classes, even if he did ascend mesmers to godhood.

Compared to the dev who balanced ranger/engi, I feel like the difference is night and day. Who thought that releasing the engi explosives line in that miserable state was a good idea? Shrapnel is horrible, the aim-assissted rocket is stupid and that tier has no good traits for non-bombkit condi engis. Firearms is similarly pretty terrible, and tools has a GM trait that makes its first minor do absolutely nothing.

Ranger traits aren’t as bad (other than gutting spirits into oblivion) but terrible traits like Light on Your Feet are just terrible ideas for traits that need to be totally reworked now.

Actually it makes sense that the less people on balance team the clearer the direction of balance. If lots of minds try to make different ideas reality, nothing will be balanced right.

I don’t think Robert gee intended for mesmer to be the power house that it is but there is a lot of better utility now, the damage just needs to be nerfed. As well getting rid of instant cast stuns.

nearlight.3064:

I agree his changes were simply creative and inspired and he opened up many new great builds for both of my main classes, even if he did ascend mesmers to godhood.

This. Class balance is about so much more than simply making them all about the same powerlevel (but of course that’s a big point of it). Every class should have a LOT of different builds that actually offer different playstyles. Mesmers and Necros right now got a lot of new options and you see quite a lot of different builds from them (condi, power, cele, signets, wells, etc.).

Eles (and Guardians to an extent) are basically the only class that has used basically the exact same build since the start of the game, with only 1 or 2 traits getting changed. Playstyle basically never changed.

You can’t really go full bunker on ele because you lack the stability and raw team support of guardians, and you can’t go full zerker because you lack the innate active defense (and health) of other classes. You can’t go full condi either because most of your weapon skills do either power damage or power + condi. Also there’s no condition damage/toughness/vitality amulet which would be needed for ele full condi to have a chance.

So celestial it is, for basically all our builds. Scepter Fresh Air zerker does see play but overall simply loses out to cele d/d or d/f mostly by scepter having zero sustain or damage outside of it’s few burst moves. Also thieves and mesmers and even medi guards do the zerker job much better.

Eles have always gone from either dominating the meta to utter bullkitten with very few “shaving” changes. And I’d argue that what brought them back from almost extinction in pvp after a year was much more the celestial amulet stat buff than the few unnerfs on ele traits.

I was really hoping that Arenanet would do some much needed rework on eles – exactly like Mesmers and Necros got with the specialization patch. But alas, we got nothing basically. Still every ele will use 3 cantrips + healing signet and whatever elite you think is the least bad. And of course, water + arcane because you simply cannot survive without them, like it has always been.

As long as this is true and Anet only balances basically around that one spec eles will be either over- or under-powered. If a lot of different builds and playstyles are all about viable a class has a much wider range of viability range, rather than only having one option that than basically has to be extremely strong because there’s nothing else you could viably play if it didn’t perform (i.e. the year between dhumfire patch and cele amulet feature patch).

you want the dev that introduced extreme power creep to balance this game? no ty

Cynz.9437:

you want the dev that introduced extreme power creep to balance this game? no ty

I think Robert did very well.
Imho they failed as balance team as whole with their testing or rather lack of it.

I disagree. I feel like his changes generally moved both classes in the direction that few players who played those classes actually wanted.

For Mesmer:

• Added Blinding Dissipation, a trait that is unavoidable and further blurs the line between Mesmer and Thief.

• Buffed PU, once again blurring the line between Mes and Thief. Mes used to be all about shorter duration stealths so that you can set up some of a spike, not camping in stealth so that you can set up a full spike before the enemy player even sees you.

• Made a once GM that could have been good as 100% stun on daze, did that, and then made it a ADEPT TRAIT! Now landing spikes are even easier than just beyond using stealth stacking.

• Builds in general just feel like slightly different flavors of the same thing when it comes to power.

For Necro:

• Rather than making it the attrition class that it was in GW1, it is now a class that doesn’t actually have good condi application unless the enemy has good application.

A passive that just transfers condis for you? How fun and engaging! /s

• MM is still basically about using your weapon skills while your braindead minions help you passively sustain yourself. Also, even while strong 1v1 to those who don’t know how to fight them, any class with decent AoE/cleave can just rush into them and group them together, kill them, then avoid the AoE they leave behind. Especially easy to do as a GS Warrior with double EP.

I have a guildy who uses it and they seem to only use it out of GW1 nostalgia.

• Few of the long standing issues the class has had where actually addressed. head over to the Necro forum where these issues can be discussed by players that main it.

So no, I don’t think Mr. Gee’s work on this update was that great. For Mesmer, there was some good ideas, but too many took the skill away from the class and instead just made it a better version of a Thief.

While I generally am on the side of buffs over nerfs, in GW2’s case bring everyone up to Mesmer level would make the game just about who has their burst off CD and can hit it faster.

BurrTheKing.8571:

For Necro:

• Rather than making it the attrition class that it was in GW1, it is now a class that doesn’t actually have good condi application unless the enemy has good application.

A passive that just transfers condis for you? How fun and engaging! /s

Whilst I agree with most of what you said, this in particular, you are totally wrong about.

You must be crazy, he basically made his favourite class (said so by himself) stupidly overpowered. For that only, he has 0 credibility besides introducing unneeded ridiculous power creep into the game.

All you see is stealth complaints. Let’s buff PU! All you see is lack of counterplays. Let’s introduce 5 sec ICD stun and give mantras background recharge, just for giggles! But, but… ALSO… let’s make all the core Illusions traits… baseline! becouse why not!!!

Nah, he didn’t see that coming. C’mon.

PS: Also celestial necro is nothing to scoff at. Basically immune to conditions, hardcounters all the boons, passively, no matter how effective it may be, kitten it, PROC WARS duh!

Khenzy.9348:

You must be crazy, he basically made his favourite class (said so by himself) stupidly overpowered. For that only, he has 0 credibility besides introducing unneeded ridiculous power creep into the game.

All you see is stealth complaints. Let’s buff PU! All you see is lack of counterplays. Let’s introduce kitten ICD stun and give mantras background recharge, just for giggles! But, but… ALSO… let’s make all the core Illusions traits… baseline! becouse why not!!!

Nah, he didn’t see that coming. C’mon.

PD: Also celestial necro is nothing to scoff at. Basically immune to conditions, hardcounters all the boons, passively, no matter how effective it may be, kitten it, PROC WARS duh!

But necro by design is a counter class even if some of it is passive..

Robert Gee is the person responsible for this putrid plague of a Mesmer balance? I will stoop down to this level to express my dissatisfaction.

-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1

I don’t like to get snotty but please find a new department, or at least have the courage to admit you people made numerous mistakes with that profession and address them before 2016.

for engi the live stream made the changes sound amazing but they just mucked up the traits and everything is the same or worse. its like they made the conscious decision to not make anything on the same power lvl as other classes as punishment.

then there was the mortar nerf which in hind sight now seems excessively cruel.

For mesmers the mind set was totally different…. eh it might be op but our customers will like it! these changes will make the class active and dynamic. a guildie wrote a mesmer survival guide on our forums with tricks and tips for mesmer defense. its four pages long! if I were to write one for engi it would be about 4 lines on how to gear block and blast your healing turret water fields.

theyre introducing all these new mechanics like resistance and quickness boons but its buried under layers of useless skills. engi has a 2s resistance boon in med kit, which is a poor choice in healing options, but then it requires press 6 to swap kit, press 5 and ground target to drop the potion, then walk over it to obtain the boon.

in contrast my warrior uses healing sig on 20s cd and gets 6s resistance with 5 might (traited). no matter what you think of the warrior meta thats still a good size portion of the new toys.

Dirame.8521:

BurrTheKing.8571:

For Necro:

• Rather than making it the attrition class that it was in GW1, it is now a class that doesn’t actually have good condi application unless the enemy has good application.

A passive that just transfers condis for you? How fun and engaging! /s

Whilst I agree with most of what you said, this in particular, you are totally wrong about.

In what way?

I rarely fear Necros condi application unless I have good condi application myself. I was playing a hybrid interrupt focused build with Distracting Strikes and the only reason I ever lost was because I chained together 3+ interrupts and then all that confusion came back to me without any real input from the Necro. Hitting a crit isn’t something you control generally, it just happens. It’s like any of the “do X on crit” traits, if your build has any sort of decent crit chance it’s going to happen eventually. Especially so when you have skills like Locust Storm hitting so often.

Skills like Putrid Mark require actually landing a specific attack with a tell and is generally avoidable. Plague Sending would require you to just avoid being hit at all while the Necro has 3+ condis. It’s basically as bad a counter as Diamond Skin to condi builds only it’s an Adept and actually sends those condis back. It’s the same issue as Incendiary Powder, it’s going to hit you eventually unless you can somehow never get hit by a single crit.

He (or whoever was responsible for the necro) did some good things for sure, but….

He totally went overboard with corruption skill self-condi affliction and has now made all those utilities practically wasted programming. He also did NOTHING to fix the Flesh Golem AI, which was the most broken and obvious thing that needed fixing since release.

As for Mesmer, the changes were a complete case of going WAY overboard. The risk/reward equation for Mesmers is FAR different for other dps classes. It’s not even close or debatable. In fact, not fixing it yet is even more indicting of the developer’s skills.

Everyone can understand making mistakes with the huge volume of changes made. However, still not fixing something so obvious to everyone else doesn’t evidence anything positive right now. Maybe a great fix will come, but it’s already cost the game lots of players.

I like Roy, personally. He’s working on the Revenant. Thing is, he REALLY listens to feedback, takes it to heart and reacts pretty quickly. Plus, judging by many of the skills and traits, he’s relatively modest. That’s what the game needs. If more traits in the game were on the level of Revenant, rather than the Revenant needing to be buffed to high heaven to work, they game would be in a much better state, imo.

Robert Gee does alright in the ideas department and he did okay in some aspects of balance, but he let Mesmer get out of hand.

And, of course in my opinion, kind of lost some class definition in the process. Mesmers shouldn’t be about a million blinds. Why be illusionists and use magical deception when you can just blind people forever… Just doesn’t make a lot of thematic sense to me. Of course, I feel like a lot of classes are being watered down and being given a lot of things they shouldn’t have access to. It’s a shame.

I like what he did to blood magic. It actually feels like you’re stealing health from your opponent and it’s rather sustainable now.
Death magic is also pretty nice.

However, plague sending is a bad design (and it was unnecessary, you already had putrid mark, signet of plague and even deathly swarm to transfer condition), and I rly don’t like the new spite line which is filled by “win more” traits.

I won’t comment on mesmer, instant stun and PU buff were really bad ideas and anyone who actually plays some pvp could have tell without the need to test it.

I can really only speak for mesmers. Many of the mesmer skills need some tweaks, like confounding suggestions and blinding dissipation. This is easy to do. However, what Gee helped do was change the trait lines and make more builds viable. He also did this based on experience and knowledge of what the mesmers is all about and how the game works and has transformed. This is not easy. It is easy to nerf a class to the ground or buff it till it is op. However, how many classes have this many variety of builds available to them now? Not just talking about pvp, but all aspects of the game. This will be the case no matter what happens to the mesmer. Even if CS, blinding dissipation, etc. where not as good, many mesmers would still love some of the changes he made. Changing the trait lineup of a class is not just about “ohhh lets make this trait more powerful” and Gee understood this. And that is the point. Even if the mesmer wasn’t as powerful as it is now, the mesmer community would still love the changes he made. These changes allowed a larger variety of builds, synergy, and play variety that was never seen in the class before, and I think most classes would want the same thing. I’m sorry many did not have as dedicated of an individual investing so much time into their main class. With that said, I don’t think Gee should balance all classes. However, I think all classes needed someone as devoted as Gee working on them before the patch.

p.s. There was also many people working on the mesmer, not just Gee. These people also need credit for the great job they did as well.

I just wanna point out that Robert wasn’t the only person solely responsible for balancing both classes. The other devs had hands in balance changes too, so it wasn’t like he was the only person who touched up on Mesmer and Necro.

The PU/confounding buff could’ve been any dev.

He did state that he was responsible for the more extreme changes (using Mimic as an example) and I’d assume he touched up on Inspiration too.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I disagree. I feel like his changes generally moved both classes in the direction that few players who played those classes actually wanted.

For Mesmer:

• Added Blinding Dissipation, a trait that is unavoidable and further blurs the line between Mesmer and Thief.

• Buffed PU, once again blurring the line between Mes and Thief. Mes used to be all about shorter duration stealths so that you can set up some of a spike, not camping in stealth so that you can set up a full spike before the enemy player even sees you.

• Made a once GM that could have been good as 100% stun on daze, did that, and then made it a ADEPT TRAIT! Now landing spikes are even easier than just beyond using stealth stacking.

• Builds in general just feel like slightly different flavors of the same thing when it comes to power.

For Necro:

• Rather than making it the attrition class that it was in GW1, it is now a class that doesn’t actually have good condi application unless the enemy has good application.

A passive that just transfers condis for you? How fun and engaging! /s

• MM is still basically about using your weapon skills while your braindead minions help you passively sustain yourself. Also, even while strong 1v1 to those who don’t know how to fight them, any class with decent AoE/cleave can just rush into them and group them together, kill them, then avoid the AoE they leave behind. Especially easy to do as a GS Warrior with double EP.

I have a guildy who uses it and they seem to only use it out of GW1 nostalgia.

• Few of the long standing issues the class has had where actually addressed. head over to the Necro forum where these issues can be discussed by players that main it.

So no, I don’t think Mr. Gee’s work on this update was that great. For Mesmer, there was some good ideas, but too many took the skill away from the class and instead just made it a better version of a Thief.

While I generally am on the side of buffs over nerfs, in GW2’s case bring everyone up to Mesmer level would make the game just about who has their burst off CD and can hit it faster.

Necros have been crying for better siphoning traits because previously a regeneration boon was better than all our siphoning combined. Robert Gee was a God send for necros and mesmers I don’t know what you’re talking about.

You clearly do not play necro if you think he didn’t put necromancers in the right direction, and we don’t lack condi application. Using the scepter for condo is just obsolete because of how underwhelming it is now.

Jelzouki.4128:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I disagree. I feel like his changes generally moved both classes in the direction that few players who played those classes actually wanted.

For Mesmer:

• Added Blinding Dissipation, a trait that is unavoidable and further blurs the line between Mesmer and Thief.

• Buffed PU, once again blurring the line between Mes and Thief. Mes used to be all about shorter duration stealths so that you can set up some of a spike, not camping in stealth so that you can set up a full spike before the enemy player even sees you.

• Made a once GM that could have been good as 100% stun on daze, did that, and then made it a ADEPT TRAIT! Now landing spikes are even easier than just beyond using stealth stacking.

• Builds in general just feel like slightly different flavors of the same thing when it comes to power.

For Necro:

• Rather than making it the attrition class that it was in GW1, it is now a class that doesn’t actually have good condi application unless the enemy has good application.

A passive that just transfers condis for you? How fun and engaging! /s

• MM is still basically about using your weapon skills while your braindead minions help you passively sustain yourself. Also, even while strong 1v1 to those who don’t know how to fight them, any class with decent AoE/cleave can just rush into them and group them together, kill them, then avoid the AoE they leave behind. Especially easy to do as a GS Warrior with double EP.

I have a guildy who uses it and they seem to only use it out of GW1 nostalgia.

• Few of the long standing issues the class has had where actually addressed. head over to the Necro forum where these issues can be discussed by players that main it.

So no, I don’t think Mr. Gee’s work on this update was that great. For Mesmer, there was some good ideas, but too many took the skill away from the class and instead just made it a better version of a Thief.

While I generally am on the side of buffs over nerfs, in GW2’s case bring everyone up to Mesmer level would make the game just about who has their burst off CD and can hit it faster.

Necros have been crying for better siphoning traits because previously a regeneration boon was better than all our siphoning combined. Robert Gee was a God send for necros and mesmers I don’t know what you’re talking about.

You clearly do not play necro if you think he didn’t put necromancers in the right direction, and we don’t lack condi application. Using the scepter for condo is just obsolete because of how underwhelming it is now.

I didn’t say there wasn’t some good changes, but can you really say that traits like Plague Sending are really good for the class? Same with Chill of Death and Weakening Shroud, they’re all traits that just sort of happen on their own. I prefer traits like Patch of Corruption that requires landing a specific skill to get the effect.

We have similar traits on Warrior now like Heightened Focus. Seemed fun at first but now it’s just like “hey good job for reaching the halfway point, here have a free easy to land combo!” It also means that I actually rarely use Frenzy now because I don’t have to make the hard choice of whether I drop another Stance for it.

Let’s not forget double EP, many Wars hate it, but if you don’t bring it you have 0 sustain.

Sorry but they broke mesmers, I mean broke the balance they had with them to other classes to overpowered monsters. The PU buff was ridiculous, and if this is a dev that thinks stealth should have a bigger role in fights then please stay away from all the other classes. Lockdown build also went overboard. Necros certainly did not get the same overpowered treatment, but they were some better options, eg signet builds.

I use to play mesmer, I just can’t stand the cheese of the class anymore, I thought thieves were cheesy back in the day but geez.

I follow the train Who says he ruined the mesmer.

There is a huge difference in skill required to play Mesmer now and play mesmer before the patch.

Too many strong traits baseline and buff stupid traits.

It was a bad balance.

I don’t think Robert intended to send the mesmer class into overdrive, what I do appriciate though is the very diverse trait choices that can be made when playing that class. Same with necro, and although both classes he worked on could use some adjustments I still feel like he pushed trait choice for these two (When it comes to diversity) in the right direction.

I like Roberts ideas regarding necro, but…well I used to say the necro patch was 3 steps forward one step back but after all the recent patches and nerfs, it’s more like 3 steps forward 6 steps back, meanwhile everyone else has moved on to the next flight of stairs.

They did fix blood magic, spite is awesome, death magic could use some tweaks, and soul reaping is…better. For the most part. Curses though needs help, especially with the master tier, grandmaster needs help as well, and adept is just a joke. Aden has a falling trait, chilling darkness which just recently got gutted and thrown to the trash. Master tier has hardly any identity, you have terror, which is great for condition builds, Master of Corruption, which could be good, IF CORRUPTIONS WERE WORTH ANYTHING! And then dark path. Then in GM you have lingering curse, a must have for condition builds pretty much, and I’m guessing their justification for not undoing the dhuumfire nerfs. Parasitic contagion, which should go to adept and replace that lazy and stupid as hell falling trait, and weakening shroud. Which honestly, I do like! But I’m not taking it over lingering curse, and I’m probably not going down curses for a power build. In addition, they nerfed consume conditions and epidemic to compensate for that stupid as heck master of corruption trait. WHY?! and let’s not forget plague after the patch!

Then looking at the reaper now, and all the changes they’ve made, well….reaper went from making me hyped as hell to, “well least revenant looks cool.”

As far as the mesmer stuff goes, after fighting them, it does need toned down, but really, it’s not much different than fighting a thief to me. And least I know they will eventually run out of tricks. Fix PU I think, then go from there.

Overall, I will say Robert has done some good work for necros, but the mistakes he made, as well as the nerfs, and the fact mesmers are a bit wild right now, really hurt my faith in him and the balance team.

Btw the real issue is not to try different things and a different approach, main problem is the huge time required to fix bugs and imbalanced skills.

@BurrTheKing &To the people saying Robert broke/ruined/made bad changes to Mesmer, a little context…

• Mesmer got 30+ traits redone and reworked.

• Majority of those traits are fantastic.

• 2 traits are overtuned. (Confounding and PU) 1 is bugged (Blinding Dissipation)

Balance is difficult guys, he knocked it out the park with almost all of our traits and we don’t even know if the PU/Confounding change was his decision.

Fun fact: Confounding Suggestions as a trait isn’t overpowered on it’s own nor is it grandmaster-worthy. Without Mantra of Distraction, Confounding wouldn’t even be mentioned here. It’s the combination of both that is too much.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@BurrTheKing &To the people saying Robert broke/ruined/made bad changes to Mesmer, a little context…

• Mesmer got 30+ traits redone and reworked.

• Majority of those traits are fantastic.

• 2 traits are overtuned. (Confounding and PU) 1 is bugged (Blinding Dissipation)

Balance is difficult guys, he knocked it out the park with almost all of our traits and we don’t even know if the PU/Confounding change was his decision.

---

Fun fact: Confounding Suggestions as a trait isn’t overpowered on it’s own nor is it grandmaster-worthy. Without Mantra of Distraction, Confounding wouldn’t even be mentioned here. It’s the combination of both that is too much.

So just credit him for all of the positive and none of the negative. K makes sense.

Wow way to take what I said completely out of context. Lets try again…

20+ great traits. 2-3 unbalanced/bugged traits. That doesn’t equal “ruining” a class.

Sweetbread.4701:

So just credit him for all of the positive and none of the negative. K makes sense.

So just crucify him for all of the negative and none of the positve. K makes even more sense.

The problem is not that they made mistakes, the problem is that they are extremely slow at fixing them. It has been more then a month since the patch came out and they have not fixed the majority of the bugs even, let alone obvious balance issues.

Chokolata.1870:

The problem is not that they made mistakes, the problem is that they are extremely slow at fixing them. It has been more then a month since the patch came out and they have not fixed the majority of the bugs even, let alone obvious balance issues.

I agree. Mesmers should’ve been fixed within few days…

Reminds me day when one guy threw during ESL:
guy: “amazing balance Anet, again no Rangers”
Grouch: “there are no Rangers because even if Rangers are good people won’t reroll week after patch”
^While each single team had freshy rerolled Mesmer…

rchu.8945:

Sweetbread.4701:

So just credit him for all of the positive and none of the negative. K makes sense.

So just crucify him for all of the negative and none of the positve. K makes even more sense.

Or you know not just Mesmer fanboy out about it. I acknowledge that while he fixed a lot of useless stuff, the build diversity came from doing obviously broken kitten like essentially giving mesmers their entire illusion tree for free and then buffing already good traits into the stratosphere. Of course there’s build diversity when you get a whole trait line for free, but that isn’t actual balance.

Xstein.2187:

I can really only speak for mesmers. Many of the mesmer skills need some tweaks, like confounding suggestions and blinding dissipation. This is easy to do. However, what Gee helped do was change the trait lines and make more builds viable. He also did this based on experience and knowledge of what the mesmers is all about and how the game works and has transformed. This is not easy. It is easy to nerf a class to the ground or buff it till it is op. However, how many classes have this many variety of builds available to them now? Not just talking about pvp, but all aspects of the game. This will be the case no matter what happens to the mesmer. Even if CS, blinding dissipation, etc. where not as good, many mesmers would still love some of the changes he made. Changing the trait lineup of a class is not just about “ohhh lets make this trait more powerful” and Gee understood this. And that is the point. Even if the mesmer wasn’t as powerful as it is now, the mesmer community would still love the changes he made. These changes allowed a larger variety of builds, synergy, and play variety that was never seen in the class before, and I think most classes would want the same thing. I’m sorry many did not have as dedicated of an individual investing so much time into their main class. With that said, I don’t think Gee should balance all classes. However, I think all classes needed someone as devoted as Gee working on them before the patch.

p.s. There was also many people working on the mesmer, not just Gee. These people also need credit for the great job they did as well.

Well said.

Robert helped forge an identity with the mesmer class (e.g., masters of time). When I look at the upcoming Revenant traits, it feels uninspired, lacking in direction, and I am uncertain as to what “identity” the designer is trying to promote for the class. (At the moment, it seems like a bunch of random traits for the sake of having traits without a clear purpose or build in mind.)

I play Ranger and unfortunately, it did not receive the same treatment that mesmer received this patch. I don’t want mesmer to be nerfed, rather I would want Ranger and other classes to be beefed up with several viable and distinct builds.

Mesmer right now has several very distinct builds (PU, max shatter/burst, CC builds, boonshare, condi) which seem to be viable.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@BurrTheKing &To the people saying Robert broke/ruined/made bad changes to Mesmer, a little context…

• Mesmer got 30+ traits redone and reworked.

• Majority of those traits are fantastic.

• 2 traits are overtuned. (Confounding and PU) 1 is bugged (Blinding Dissipation)

Balance is difficult guys, he knocked it out the park with almost all of our traits and we don’t even know if the PU/Confounding change was his decision.

---

Fun fact: Confounding Suggestions as a trait isn’t overpowered on it’s own nor is it grandmaster-worthy. Without Mantra of Distraction, Confounding wouldn’t even be mentioned here. It’s the combination of both that is too much.

I understand that, but the second I saw the CS changes first suggested I instantly went “that seems too good with Mantra of Distraction.” Then, I saw PU and said “how is this good in ANY way!” If something can be combined in an OP way, the thing that pushes the formerly balanced thing over the top is OP imo.

I don’t think Mesmer NEEDED blind. Seriously, use one of the other 2 traits in that spot, you’ll still feel strong, but less cheap. That trait also blurs the line between Mes and Thief which imo is not OK.

+1 I would love Robet Gee to help improve the warrior class. Right now, the warrior has only one gimmick: Go Rampage or get killed.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@BurrTheKing &To the people saying Robert broke/ruined/made bad changes to Mesmer, a little context…

• Mesmer got 30+ traits redone and reworked.

• Majority of those traits are fantastic.

• 2 traits are overtuned. (Confounding and PU) 1 is bugged (Blinding Dissipation)

Balance is difficult guys, he knocked it out the park with almost all of our traits and we don’t even know if the PU/Confounding change was his decision.

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Fun fact: Confounding Suggestions as a trait isn’t overpowered on it’s own nor is it grandmaster-worthy. Without Mantra of Distraction, Confounding wouldn’t even be mentioned here. It’s the combination of both that is too much.

And that’s what I like that he balance every class. It’s not that 2 traits maybe a little bit over the top, but mesmers have so much useful stuff. You can choose between different weapons, traits and traitlines.

Other classes only have these choices if they wanna play subpar.