Guild Wars 2

Confusion/Torment/Burning are the BIG Three right now with Condition Builds, and you know when something becomes uber-strong when the vast majority of people in WvW use it while roaming or in a group.

I get this feeling that the people defending Condi-Builds are under the impression that people can just trait and load up their utility skills for Condi cleanses, and move/dodge/evade Condi-Attacks. Which sure, you can move out of a Condi, or evade it, but then your stamina is gone, and you can’t dodge, and since your in combat, your slowed down, and while your skills/traits that have Condi-Cleanses on them are on their CD/ICD the player with the Condi-Build is just stacking those same Conditions right back on you.

Fighting against Power/Crit Builds was a lot more fun, because a lot of your weapons skills, had the ability to block/daze/stun/interrupt, and you could make good use of your dodges, and if you took a hit, things like your toughness would help, and yeah, conditions work off of a players vitality, but with 5-6k Burns, 12k Torments, and Confusion stacks, you have to do SO much more fighting them, than you do with Power/Crit builds…

Now if I see a Mesmer, I just run, I turn around, and run… Because 9/10 times it’s a Condi-PU Mesmer that’s going to rip me apart with their Condi DMG, all the while being invis…

“This is a prime example of an unreasonable blanket complaint. Conditions are fine as a whole. The issue in this case is with mesmers ability to stack them to high, too fast with certain combinations of food, runes, sigils, weapon set, and traits. It has nothing to do with conditions themselves, so to make that blanket complaint, serves to offer no real constructive talking point.”

that might be your opinion… i dont think conditions/cleansing are fine and neither think its a mesmer-only problem.

I’d like these “experts”, who “picked up Mesmer just to see how easy it is” and “face rolled” everything, I’d like to see them record themselves fighting warriors, necros, d/d celes etc without using stealth. If you really think it’s an unnecessary mechanic, then go ahead and play Mesmer without one. See how far you get.

msalakka.4653:

I’d like these “experts”, who “picked up Mesmer just to see how easy it is” and “face rolled” everything, I’d like to see them record themselves fighting warriors, necros, d/d celes etc without using stealth. If you really think it’s an unnecessary mechanic, then go ahead and play Mesmer without one. See how far you get.

See it’s not only the duration they can be in stealth, but what they can do upon entering/leaving it, and while still in it. The rate/speed of which they can apply and re-apply conditions to their target(s) and how many stacks of those conditions they can apply almost effortlessly is what needs to be addressed, not only on mesmers but on any Condi build, no build for that matter should have overwhelming Condition dmg, survivability, mobility, get out of jail free cards, ect. without having to sacrifice something.

As for video(s) go on YouTube and search for, “Condi PU Mesmer Outnumbered” and sort by date, there are several videos show casing a PU Mesmer being able to take on groups of people, and come out on top.

Nymph of Meliai.6739:

At the moment wvw from a mesmer point of view is balanced for the first time. There are builds in each profession that can beat me playing a PU mesmer. You just need to be more flexible in your build.

If someone has to play at the peak of their game using a perfect build to kill your build and sometimes wins when you screw up then that isn’t balance.

Chorazin.4107:

The main culprits are probably PU/Perplex condi mesmers, we all know them. The staff / scepter torch clone spamming like a boss builds that spend more time in stealth than out of it. You pretty much wont encounter anything else now roaming. And trapper condi thieves being the other amazingly enjoyable fight you may encounter whilst roaming.

This game however is not balanced around 1v1’s in WvW so you need to move on, are they OP in this situation, yes they are brokenly OP. Does it really impact WvW, a game mode where the metric for success is measured by PPT? No not really.

Sure mesmers are not broken in big fights but one problem is they ruin roaming. Literally every roamer these days is a PU mesmer because they all know its the most survivable, gank-friendly class. End result? No other classes bother roaming and even the typical cancerous 3-man PU teams just cycle around the map on opposite sides to one another, permanently invisible taking undefended camps. Yay?

As pointed out above, neither stealth nor conditions by themselves are too bad (eg power thieves and condi necros are both beatable and OK), its the ridiculous state of Have Everything Sacrifice Nothing that PU mesmers are in at the moment that’s crazy.

To be honest, they screwed stealth during design for GW2. It should have been a sacrifice (eg stealth slows you or makes you do 2/3 dmg when coming out of it etc etc) instead stealth classes spiral upwards in power during stealth creating alpha strike gank monsters. Should be one or the other, not both.

I only talk about small group compositions in my post. 1v1s, especially in WvW, are imbalanced by definition. It is a completely impractical “mode” (luckily it’s not even one). There are too many hard counters in Guild Wars 2. For reference, although it’s sPvP, have a look at the banned traits and amulets in 1v1 tournaments.

Back on topic. While I agree with the stealth, I completely disagree with the conditions. Playing power builds has never been so rewarding and easy (mind you I play one myself). In my tier most small groups (groups of 2-3 players) prefer high power damage burst builds that rely on stealth, immunities and mobility to score a kill before the enemy can even retaliate. Building on immunities and stealth with a power build is definitely not smarter than running a condition build. The often debilitating damage a power build can pump out while being impregnable to one or often several forms of damage is – to put it mildly – ludicrous.

That said, I certainly don’t defend Perplexity runes. They should have been nerfed (again) a really long time ago. But the main reason why Perplexity PU Mesmers are so obnoxious is not the condition damage but the disproportionate stealth upkeep. But both power builds and condition builds are equally guilty of abusing that flawed game mechanic.

Odokuro.5049:

and you know when something becomes uber-strong when the vast majority of people in WvW use it while roaming or in a group.

You know something really needs a buff if nearly noone runs a certain build in zerg vs zerg in WvW. Notice something? ^^ Better nerf well-nekros because they are often used in blobs.

I wouldn’t mind if Anet adjust stealth and condi spikes a bit, but then they need to adjust survivability outside of stealth as well.

It’s rediculous how people call out on class, with one build, one gearset and all buffs in a specific side-aspect of one gamemode and then call for “mesmers should have no stealth at all”….

.. yeah gg. Mesmer without stealth would be like fighting a ranger pet. Slap a target over their head and burst them down.

No class should be able to consistently apply passive damage from stealth. Virtually every problem with stealth in this game comes from that combination.

“Back in the day” when D/D thieves were a pain, at least they had to touch a player to blow them up and to do so meant their build was brittle. Even stealthing required hitting an enemy and their damage went through toughness. Now we have PU Mesmers that remain stealthed most of a fight, have excellent combat mobility, fairly tanky, their damage completely ignores toughness and they passively apply significant condi damage.

Why the PU Mesmer went from being borderline too strong in roaming a year ago to crazy good now is a mystery to me especially since builds like the mediocre P/P thief got nuked. Devs must not roam because they are completely clueless to the OP nature of stealth and passive damage. They have been for far too long.

Has no one here fought the perma stealth trapper “ghost” thief?

Solori.6025:

Has no one here fought the perma stealth trapper “ghost” thief?

There was one by SM yesterday that stayed in stealth around my group. He literally stayed in stealth for about 15 mins straight. We could see him dropping traps and sheltering. Randomly applying conditions while never coming out of stealth. Ive never seen anything like it. Totally broken

Not my video, just gonna drop this off here:

adRocZ.2019:

Not my video, just gonna drop this off here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMSjRMya2CQ

The stealth duration is indeed ridiculous, but he didn’t have a single stunbreak.
Shadow Refuge, needle trap and caltrops.

Make use of that rampage next time and see the thief bite the dust.

I dont have a problem with the short duration stealths. Don’t even mind fighting a thief or mesmer not running mass invis or shadow refuge. Problem is they are all running these 2 broken skills. Shadow refuge got a nerf atleast and they have to stay in the circle for a short time to get the full 15 second stealth on a 1 min cd. So every minute they practically have a get out of jail free card. I can be halfway across any map in 15 seconds. Same with mass invis.

As for condi have to agree its just stupid silly when I play my pu mes. You cant move or u take tons of torment dmg. You cant use any skill or you take tons of confusion dmg oh and by the way i have op burning and a few other condis on you all the time while im stealthed lol. I think this is more of a problem with mesmer though. Its really the only class that gets access to huge amounts of the hands down best condis. The other classes dont get that. Guard for example can put out a bunch of burning but not confusion torment bleed and poison in good amounts all on short cd skills. Necro seemed to me like it would get a good amount of torment. The condi fits the necro theme especially reaper of dont run away from me. Yet it has little to no access to torment yet mes can dish out 5 stacks every 8 seconds.

Solori.6025:

Has no one here fought the perma stealth trapper “ghost” thief?

Yeah my initial post i talked about how much fun fighting this is. It’s not even solo roaming, this impacts small man as well. Ran a group the other day 3 mesmers(all PU ofc) and a trapper condi thief.

Played for hours, thief died once due to lag/LD, this is in T1 so it’s not like the map isnt busy either. 3 mass invis on the mesmers and SR on the thief means we can disengage anything we dont think we can handle and just gank everything else. We have 30 seconds uptime on stealth if we need it on a reasonable 90 second RUT, and that is without the thief SR.

There needs to be a lot more reveal on classes in this game.

Chuck Zitto.2367:

I dont have a problem with the short duration stealths. Don’t even mind fighting a thief or mesmer not running mass invis or shadow refuge. Problem is they are all running these 2 broken skills. Shadow refuge got a nerf atleast and they have to stay in the circle for a short time to get the full 15 second stealth on a 1 min cd. So every minute they practically have a get out of jail free card. I can be halfway across any map in 15 seconds. Same with mass invis.

As for condi have to agree its just stupid silly when I play my pu mes. You cant move or u take tons of torment dmg. You cant use any skill or you take tons of confusion dmg oh and by the way i have op burning and a few other condis on you all the time while im stealthed lol. I think this is more of a problem with mesmer though. Its really the only class that gets access to huge amounts of the hands down best condis. The other classes dont get that. Guard for example can put out a bunch of burning but not confusion torment bleed and poison in good amounts all on short cd skills. Necro seemed to me like it would get a good amount of torment. The condi fits the necro theme especially reaper of dont run away from me. Yet it has little to no access to torment yet mes can dish out 5 stacks every 8 seconds.

Shadow refuge is the least broken stealth skill. You see the circle, and you easily have time to step into it and use any number of skills to knock them out of it. Or drop heavy damage on it.

I feel the problem is all the traits that give benefits of condition removal and other benefits that occur during stealth, that you cannot counter, because you cannot see or target your enemy.

So if I run a condi mesmer and instead of pu I trait into inspiration is it still considered easy mode? Chances are most will say yes because its condi and mesmer that they do not like..

That’s what I been running to fight off all these so called OP pu mesmers/condi builds that so many complain about. I have no problem killing anything condi that comes my way because I have so much cleanse. PU condi mes.. Not a problem.. Condi thieves.. Not a problem.. Trapper rangers.. Not a problem.. Burn guardians.. Well semi problem but can take some of them. Burn is the OP condi.. The others you just have to use your brain and not kill yourself running or spamming skills.

Now I do feel those builds without a lot of cleanse but sigils of cleansing can be crafted and you will get a cleanse on weapon swap.. It’s annoying right now with so much condis running around but really I been playing builds I don’t usually play just to try to counter them and so far I’m ok.

briggah.7910:

So if I run a condi mesmer and instead of pu I trait into inspiration is it still considered easy mode? Chances are most will say yes because its condi and mesmer that they do not like..

That’s what I been running to fight off all these so called OP pu mesmers/condi builds that so many complain about. I have no problem killing anything condi that comes my way because I have so much cleanse. PU condi mes.. Not a problem.. Condi thieves.. Not a problem.. Trapper rangers.. Not a problem.. Burn guardians.. Well semi problem but can take some of them. Burn is the OP condi.. The others you just have to use your brain and not kill yourself running or spamming skills.

So Inspiration instead of Chaos so you have 4 cleanses on a 10second timer if you run mantra of recovery thanks to menders purity. And another 4 on a 20 second timer with Mantra of resolve.

I run this on my hybrid mesmer(2100power, 1200 condi) and still have PU. I dont see why i would drop Chaos to pick up Illusions. In WvW the extra stealth PU provides gives me much more survivability for roaming than the Illusion lines extra condi pressure on target.

I might be tempted to take Illusion in a duel, but for roaming, especially where disengage is key when the fight can go from 1-2-3 v1 to 5 v1 very easily. Chaos(PU) every time for me.

But it is interesting saying that the only way to deal with them is to run something very similar, just drop your extra stealth for more condi clear and more condi pressure.

Ok guys, seems like someone is crying for a stealth counter. How about:
group up with/play an engineer (Lock On works wonder vs stealth)
group up with/play a ranger (revealed debuff available)
droping a anti stealth trap (ok you need some supplys for it)
or wait for HoT and
group up with/play a dragonhunter (revealed available on trap)
group up with/play a scrapper (reveal on elite)

or wait even more, dev’s already confirmed antistealth will be available to any class, engie was only the first who get it

PS: if this is not an option to you, how about playing a CC/condi havy build, most Condi-PU Mesmers have no access to stability and lack condition removal beside the torch trait. Know your oponent, and know how to exploit his weaknes is key in GW2

PPS: still not an option to you? treat him as a cele D/D ele, and call some friends to get rid of him. (The ones who know what they are doing, not the ones who faceroll to the floor)

The real problem with PU condi mesmers is that the people fighting and losing to them have either got very poor cleansing or do not actually understand the class they are fighting and thus do not know how to counter it, possibly both.

Here’s a simple “How to beat PU condi”

Shatters
Just like all mesmer builds you want to avoid these, cry of frustration is the strong one and on a 20s cool down. Kill clones, preferably at a bit of a range. If they all start running to you then cleave them out or dodge them.

Confusing images
This is the big purple beam. If you dodge as soon as you see the beam hit you you will only have 1 stack of confusion and dodge the rest.

Illusionary counter
This is when a Mesmer goes into a block animation and raises their sceptre up, do not hit them and just focus on killing illusions or just type /laugh.

Smart Cleansing
You can reduce the damage drastically by not using skills and limiting movement if you did get hit. PU condi Mesmer has poor cover conditions especially in dire stats. Cleanse when stacks are 3 or higher, preferably from both torment and confusion if duration is high. Also -36-40% food to counter their food is mandatory.

That’s pretty much it, the clones at most will put minor amounts of torment on you, which because you’re cleaving out will be very small amounts of damage. You may get small amounts of confusion from being blinded but again not spamming skills solves this. Don’t worry if you do get hit by a shatter, cleanse, kite, LoS and put some distance between you, heal up, engage or disengage.

apharma.3741:

Illusionary counter
This is when a Mesmer goes into a block animation and raises their sceptre up, do not hit them and just focus on killing illusions or just type /laugh.

Just as additional information:
If you accidentially hit into the block, you can still dodge the torment application.

TheBeesKnees.8391:

I read a lot of cr*p on this forum about people arguing that conditions aren’t too powerful and so on. And some of them do make some good points, i.e some players take next to no condi removal then moan, which is fair enough, but I’m not a player who has ever followed the meta, I craft my own builds, to do 3 of the following, removal conditions well, negate power damage if possible, and also deal enough damage to win fights. I currently play thief, so when I saw all these conditions like confusion and burning getting huge buffs, I knew I needed to compensate for that, so I did. My build can and does removal a lot of conditions, and against the none stealth condi classes, (engi, necro, sometimes ranger) as long as I play to my capabilities I can win the fight. But you put me against a class with stealth (mesmer and thief for example) there is literally nothing I can do to win, believe me, I’ve looked at in every single way of going about the fight, and it’s literally impossible to win.

I’m not a person to just shout out accusations toward a class without doing some research however, so I made myself a condition mesmer yesterday, and found someone who would be willing to fight me in OS… I found a Staff ele, it was a regular 1v1 but with a twist, I used my nose to press the skills on my keyboard, that’s right my nose. For the majority of the fight I did nothing but press 2 and 3, I think I pressed 4 once on scepter/torch and I won the fight; without even going below 50% health, I didn’t dodge once, I didn’t use my heal, nor any utilities and I still won.

Now I ask ANET, why is it you let a class have so much? Stealth, multiple blocks, invunerablity, mobility and a damage source that not only ticks while he sits inside stealth, a damage source so high that is hits like a full zerker thief, but is tankier than a full soldiers guardian… Confusion first of all, should be counterable, it shouldn’t do a like 5k base damage, sure keep that in pve by all means, but not in WvW. On a side bar, burning is also a huge problem at the moment.

Okay, on to condi thief, I haven’t touched condi thief, I’d feel too dirty switching my beautiful thief to condi, but I’ve played a lot against it, and it gets a lot of what condi mesmer does, other than the blocks and invuns, but they get damage negated through stealth, I was fighting a condi thief yesterday, and he literally put me from 100% to 25% within using two skills, which would be fair enough, I mean zerk thief can do the same, but the difference again is, he’s not even close to as squishy as a zerk thief. I’m starting to think you should make soldiers do zerk damage and just remove precision and ferocity entirely, because what’s the point when dire can do the damage of a zerk thief and be just as tanky and a guardian?

I’m sure there will be people on here who will turn around and question my skill, go ahead, but I’ve been playing this game for 2 and a half years and a lot of that time spent has been spent on me learning every class and how to counter and play against them to the best of my ability, I’m not one of those power meta nuts who doesn’t take countering condi into account, I do… with every single class I have.

In conclusion, I strong feel that burning and confusion need to be brought down to a fair state within WvW, also I believe that it would be in Anets best interests to nerf condi mesmer and thief, so they dont ruin the game any further. A way of doing this would be, for example; if say the conditions are ticking over 2-3k combined, if they then enter stealth they get revealed instantly. Sorta like how throw gunk works with thief.

Remember anet, WvWer are the ones who usually end up buying more gems, please take a day away from HoT to make WvW game mode more enjoyable for everyone.

Also before anyone tries to point this out, no I don’t run a full zerk thief, i have about 3 pieces zerker now.

I agree plus some.

People can scream and be upset that one on ones are just ruined…

…but when you have 40+ enemy coming at you and you are one or up to five people, you can FERGET evern trying to run – stuns, stealth, locks, and the unlimited hits one can take but we can only “give” five with our best AoE, and Anet can’t see that there is a major and easily fixed inequity here?

Really?

Why can a zerg hit everyone?

Why can’t the fight be a bit more even by saying a player can’t be hit by any more than five?

Being hit by an insane amount of conditions before one can even allow fingers to turn and run, is bad enough but the thing is? It shouldn’t be this way in the first place – ergo the zerg.

Take away the unequal hitting – that only five hits per player, the rest are just throwing nothing and getting nothing for their efforts.

Also, release the cast times, when is a game ever going to allow real skill to show and allow us to use our natural reactions to cast rather than an arbitrary number when we are being hit by 40+ or just three when we are alone…

Give us a chance.

Come on, this is the most important part of GW2 and it is certainly the most neglected in so many ways.

Rikit Runk.5170:

Ok guys, seems like someone is crying for a stealth counter. How about:
group up with/play an engineer (Lock On works wonder vs stealth)
group up with/play a ranger (revealed debuff available)
droping a anti stealth trap (ok you need some supplys for it)
or wait for HoT and
group up with/play a dragonhunter (revealed available on trap)
group up with/play a scrapper (reveal on elite)

or wait even more, dev’s already confirmed antistealth will be available to any class, engie was only the first who get it

PS: if this is not an option to you, how about playing a CC/condi havy build, most Condi-PU Mesmers have no access to stability and lack condition removal beside the torch trait. Know your oponent, and know how to exploit his weaknes is key in GW2

PPS: still not an option to you? treat him as a cele D/D ele, and call some friends to get rid of him. (The ones who know what they are doing, not the ones who faceroll to the floor)

Wait, did you say “group up”?

You are talking to many who are forced by bad game design to roam alone much of the time.

Many servers don’t have many on at the same time – many are alone on maps.

So your “group up” strategy may work during busy times and on busy servers, but it won’t work on even a T1 server if no one is there.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

apharma.3741:

Illusionary counter
This is when a Mesmer goes into a block animation and raises their sceptre up, do not hit them and just focus on killing illusions or just type /laugh.

Just as additional information:
If you accidentially hit into the block, you can still dodge the torment application.

The illusionary counter block is hard to spot especially when its an asure mesmer. Dodging the torment is a good idea but since you cant tell weither you just hit the illusionary block or an aegis from prismatic understanding its not really an option. Making illusionary counter more visually noticeable would solve alot.

santenal.1054:

UmbraNoctis.1907:

apharma.3741:

Illusionary counter
This is when a Mesmer goes into a block animation and raises their sceptre up, do not hit them and just focus on killing illusions or just type /laugh.

Just as additional information:
If you accidentially hit into the block, you can still dodge the torment application.

The illusionary counter block is hard to spot especially when its an asure mesmer. Dodging the torment is a good idea but since you cant tell weither you just hit the illusionary block or an aegis from prismatic understanding its not really an option. Making illusionary counter more visually noticeable would solve alot.

To be fair this is not a mesmer specific issue. There are lots of people that exploit smallest asura models being hard to read. This is why we have standard models in PvP. I see a lot of smallest asura on engineers, mesmers and eles in general and certain forgiving builds on other classes as if they need every last bit of advantage they can get.

It also goes the other way, many exploit massive charrs with huge back skins to hide the small asuras and look like there’s more than there really are in larger scale fights.

To be clear I’m not meaning exploit in the way ANet would class it as an unintended effect but referring to what I consider underhanded tactics.

I don’t agree that stealth is the problem, and until recently condi’s seemed kinda w/e to me…mostly because I roam with mesmer or warrior so I avoid the hell out of condi guys I see (check food buffs) but I got my ranger to 80 the other day and geared up the Gladomer way w/ full Dire and hot kitten that stuff is OP. I see what people mean by doing as much dmg as zerk but with tank stats.

I was easily 1v1ing people the very first night I tried the build, and I even got some really clean 2v1s against lesser players. I think condi is just too good when you also have vit+toughness, with the WvW scaling the dmg you can put out from bleeds alone will kill people, throw some burns on their aswell and its good night for anyone without massive condi removal.

Zerk you at least need to stay on your toes the whole time, cause any +1s or random AoE can kill you pretty quickly, with this dire build I could shrug off incoming damage easily. Most condi classes at least seem to lack movement, in combat ranger has a bunch of evades and a leap but outside mobility is weak without travelers, so like I said before just move away if you see condi builds honestly. Especially mesmers, let them stealth forever, they do run out of cd eventually, use terrain and npcs to your advantage (if you stand next to a npc the mesmer might hit them with an AoE like prestige going off for reveal).

Condi is not so great in the big zerg fights with all the spam cleanse and aoe, so the only real place where it is too strong is 1v1 roaming fights where the enemy stays and fights.

Chorazin.4107:

But it is interesting saying that the only way to deal with them is to run something very similar, just drop your extra stealth for more condi clear and more condi pressure.

That’s just one way to counter them but like others have pointed out the meta has changed so you can adapt and try to counter this new meta or you can run your same builds and die to them.

I think its a bit silly that to counter this, you cannot move nor use skills. Then Anet in their infinite wisdom decided that wasnt enough and changed confusion so it also ticks passively regardless.

I roam alot, and just this morning alone out of every single roamer i saw, every single one was a mesmer. every. single. one. Ran into a few d/d’s trying to get to their zerg, but the roamers trying to flip camps, and, well, roam, were all pu mesmers with the exception of myself (was on my power ranger this morning).

I want variety. This is becoming extremely boring, and extremely stale. I wish Anet had a sense of humor. They should make some npc mobs PU mesmers with the same skill sets and the perplex rune just for kicks. Then the PVE folks would be screaming bloody murder when mobs can disengage/stealth for long periods and pile on condis while invis. Then maybe something can be done..

If you have a build heavy on cleanse that can also dish out some damage (not many of those), yeah you probably won’t die to a decently played PU. However you probably won’t win either since you will probably be standing around trying to figure out which way they jumped after they stealthed. Even if you do guess right, you still have to cut through Dire and/or Rabid armor so hopefully your heavy cleanse build is also a condi build.

Small scale combat of this type is a matter of attrition and classes that don’t need to aim, have excellent combat maneuverability, can remain unseen while applying damage, retain a considerable amount of defense/control and apply above average damage simply have a massive advantage. They can be beaten but mistakes are not easily forgiven when fighting any decently played one.

Oh and if your version of a hard counter to something like a PU is to play this very specific build/class, that is NOT a hard counter.

mulzi.8273:

I think its a bit silly that to counter this, you cannot move nor use skills.

I think it is a bit silly that you think that is how you counter it. It simply punishes you more for those actions. You counter it by cleansing it, or blocking and dodging skills that apply it.

The real problem OP is, you did all this research instead of realizing that you can just go away from a stealth/condition combo class and do your own thing elsewhere. And if you really want that person dead, and you cannot deal with them, group up and blow them up.

Are they annoying to fight against? Sure. Just like every other roaming build is annoying to fight against.

Chorazin.4107:

Tongku.5326:

I can open up with 9 burn stacks on my engi, but that is extremely rare because of the set-up and require point-blank range for it.

I can burst for even more on my guard, not via opener, but via set-up + blocking during the fight. This again requires a huge set-up on my part.

As for mesmer, no, they are actually still in the last place, the only thing that makes them even viable is perplexity runes. Also, the other day I was getting hate whispers from a ranger that stood in my feedback and killed itself, quite literally did 80%ish of its healthbar in damage by standing in feedback while popping all its CDs and then started to proceed with condi hate tells while there was no condi damage applied to it. Don’t be such a ranger and half your problems will disappear.

I also replied to it and told it to come to these forums and make a QQ thread, which it probably did.

Cant tell if trolling or is serious.

Quite serious, especially about the ranger bit, happened multiple times now.

But I did mis-phrase myself on the mesmer part which might have led you to believe I am trolling. I’m not. The actual DPS numbers of off a golem test for confusion / torment mes are on the very low end among DPS builds in the game. Granted it surpasses bunker builds, utility builds etc. but as far as DPS builds go, the numbers are very low both on burst and sustained.

What makes the PU mes seem OP right now is the average amount of horribaddies running around in WVW that are either “such rangers” or their equivalents. For example in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdy9KZCjMtI This is not me, I do not record because my rig is not good enough for it to allow me to record at good quality without taking a performance hit, but it illustrates greatly about what not to do against these sort of builds.

Also granted that they are very strong in WvW roaming, that is also in part because WvW is the ideal environment for them. They are actually well balanced and the thief can be underpowered in SPVP simply because of tighter spaces there. The freedom of open space is what makes their “disengage” abilities OP here and that is due to amount of space available. In a confined duel vs one of these you do not need to cleanse all the time, just enough to outpressure for X seconds which happens often over there.

And just like here, if you go over to SPVP all the complaints come from very low end tiers, meaning, very low rated players whereas these builds are mostly sub-par vs higher ranks and meta with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions (map dependant). If there were such a ranking system in WvW, you would notice the same pattern, but they would be still much harder to take down by the good players due to the availability of wider open space as I stated above (translate = easier to get outta cleave and AOE).

Nobody uses cleansing gear in WvW…thats way theese kittens no good PvP build players are succesfull in WvW.

they shouldnt even be allowed to have stealth and the condition dmg should be reduced 50 % then WvW will be used and played as its supposed too,,,

Tongku.5326:

Chorazin.4107:

Tongku.5326:

I can open up with 9 burn stacks on my engi, but that is extremely rare because of the set-up and require point-blank range for it.

I can burst for even more on my guard, not via opener, but via set-up + blocking during the fight. This again requires a huge set-up on my part.

As for mesmer, no, they are actually still in the last place, the only thing that makes them even viable is perplexity runes. Also, the other day I was getting hate whispers from a ranger that stood in my feedback and killed itself, quite literally did 80%ish of its healthbar in damage by standing in feedback while popping all its CDs and then started to proceed with condi hate tells while there was no condi damage applied to it. Don’t be such a ranger and half your problems will disappear.

I also replied to it and told it to come to these forums and make a QQ thread, which it probably did.

Cant tell if trolling or is serious.

Quite serious, especially about the ranger bit, happened multiple times now.

But I did mis-phrase myself on the mesmer part which might have led you to believe I am trolling. I’m not. The actual DPS numbers of off a golem test for confusion / torment mes are on the very low end among DPS builds in the game. Granted it surpasses bunker builds, utility builds etc. but as far as DPS builds go, the numbers are very low both on burst and sustained.

What makes the PU mes seem OP right now is the average amount of horribaddies running around in WVW that are either “such rangers” or their equivalents. For example in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdy9KZCjMtI This is not me, I do not record because my rig is not good enough for it to allow me to record at good quality without taking a performance hit, but it illustrates greatly about what not to do against these sort of builds.

Also granted that they are very strong in WvW roaming, that is also in part because WvW is the ideal environment for them. They are actually well balanced and the thief can be underpowered in SPVP simply because of tighter spaces there. The freedom of open space is what makes their “disengage” abilities OP here and that is due to amount of space available. In a confined duel vs one of these you do not need to cleanse all the time, just enough to outpressure for X seconds which happens often over there.

And just like here, if you go over to SPVP all the complaints come from very low end tiers, meaning, very low rated players whereas these builds are mostly sub-par vs higher ranks and meta with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions (map dependant). If there were such a ranking system in WvW, you would notice the same pattern, but they would be still much harder to take down by the good players due to the availability of wider open space as I stated above (translate = easier to get outta cleave and AOE).

Im not sure why you are talking about PvP, this is the WvW forums? Yes in PvP, with no dire gear, no Perplexity, no food bonus duration to condis and an emphasis on capping points they fall away in usefulness.

But anyone who thinks they are remotely balanced in WvW roaming encounters with all the above boosts, plus the recent patch boost to condis and very long stealth uptime are looking at the mesmer with rose tinted glasses. This extends to the other amazingly fun WvW encounter condi trapper thieves, you may see him out of stealth for a couple of seconds during the whole fight. Again abusing the same stealth/condi mechanics.

There simply isnt enough available cleanses on some classes, or incidental cleanses to have any hope of keeping on top of the condi spam during these encounters with how fast the applications come in. Unless of course you are a mesmer and specced for it. 4 removals in 10 seconds with 2 uses of power return and another 4 in 20 seconds with 2 uses of power cleanse. Thats 12 condi clears over 20 seconds, an engineer would kill to have half that.

Having said that this game was never meant to be balanced around 1v1 roaming in WvW, a game mode where the metric for success is measured via PPT. Is a roaming mesmer really relevant when looking at the impact on this metric? Nope, so not really anything to see here.

We need more skills like the new scrapper will have 6 seconds anti stealth aoe.

And WvW is no 1vs1 or 2vs2 playground and it will never be fair.

Chorazin.4107:

Im not sure why you are talking about PvP, this is the WvW forums? Yes in PvP, with no dire gear, no Perplexity, no food bonus duration to condis and an emphasis on capping points they fall away in usefulness.

But anyone who thinks they are remotely balanced in WvW roaming encounters with all the above boosts, plus the recent patch boost to condis and very long stealth uptime are looking at the mesmer with rose tinted glasses. This extends to the other amazingly fun WvW encounter condi trapper thieves, you may see him out of stealth for a couple of seconds during the whole fight. Again abusing the same stealth/condi mechanics.

There simply isnt enough available cleanses on some classes, or incidental cleanses to have any hope of keeping on top of the condi spam during these encounters with how fast the applications come in. Unless of course you are a mesmer and specced for it. 4 removals in 10 seconds with 2 uses of power return and another 4 in 20 seconds with 2 uses of power cleanse. Thats 12 condi clears over 20 seconds, an engineer would kill to have half that.

Having said that this game was never meant to be balanced around 1v1 roaming in WvW, a game mode where the metric for success is measured via PPT. Is a roaming mesmer really relevant when looking at the impact on this metric? Nope, so not really anything to see here.

Mesmer mantras have a cool down but it doesn’t start till its last charge has been used, additionally they have a giant 2.75s interrupt me cast time. Mantra charges themselves have a 1s interval before reuse with the exception of distraction. So to cycle through all those cleanses assuming you’re just spamming them with no thought would take more like 27s.

However only an idiot would do that. It’s better to state the down time between the cleanses but with smart cleansing they shouldn’t be without a cleanse for longer than 12.75s.

A guardian running trooper runes and the shout trait can clear 17 conditions in the same time frame 27s, additionally it affects allies in a much larger radius.
Warrior running trained shouts and war horn and trooper runes 10 conditions in 20s and very fast charging on them and can trait to use shake it off automatically. That’s without mentioning cleansing ire which can be procced off clones.

As for your engineer, it’s a designed weakness of the class. You’re designed to be weak to conditions. This has been reduced a lot in the spec patch but you’re not going to have as good cleansing as many other classes without heavy investment.

As for the final paragraph, I kinda agree. Thing is this PU condition build doesn’t do very well when there’s more people around. I tend to try to beat them to the camps they’re going to and fight them there. Nothing better than seeing them have to pop all their stun breaks when the NPCs shield stun them. Additionally the NPCs will blind spam and kill the clones for you. There’s just no reason to fight this build in the open.

People seem to think that all people need to do is build their toons, and gear their toons for anti-conditions and it will all ok, I ask, if someone just pumps up their vitality, uses runes and sigils for condition duration decrease and transfer, and fills their bar with condition removal skills/spells, how are they then going to kill the other persons toon? I’ve built these “Tanky” “Anti-Condi” toons before, and I was able to do squat vs. people, I could heal/regen most of their damage, but I’de hit like a feather and would have to rely on others to come by and kill people for me.

Look Mesmers, we get it, you have your favorite class, and whenever someone brings up anything against you lose your mind, and defend the crap out of it, not seeing anything wrong with it, I’de be the same way if someone attacked my class, but I play them all, so, it doesn’t much matter.

People playing mesmers needs to move past the, “Ohh noez, don’t say my class/build is unbalanced and needs nerfs/fixes”. and see that the way things are going, are making things not enjoyable for those who also want to roam, and have a fun time doing so.

I still don’t understand why everyone has a problem with Mesmer. I’ve been playing static discharge engineer a setup that everyone tells me will get wrecked by a Mesmer and I win 90% of the time. Stealth is not a problem. Some of the skills that apply conditions need to be looked at but not conditions themselves. I view this as a casual player base that needs to LTP.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

I still don’t understand why everyone has a problem with Mesmer. I’ve been playing static discharge engineer a setup that everyone tells me will get wrecked by a Mesmer and I win 90% of the time. Stealth is not a problem. Some of the skills that apply conditions need to be looked at but not conditions themselves. I view this as a casual player base that needs to LTP.

If you have a specific build/class that works, that is NOT a hard counter to their play. I also know your build very well and any decently played PU will carve you up. Even if you are the second coming of players, you cannot kill one unless they overplay their hands. Then we get to the REALLY nasty side of their builds… they synergize with other mesmers incredibly well. Get two of them together and they can land 20+ stacks of confusion before you activate a skill.

and before more of the LTP crap starts flying, I have more time in WvW than 99% of players (5k hours almost all in WvW and all classes fully leveled/geared). I mostly roam and duel. I am not the best player out there but I can hold my own against most.

Chorazin.4107:

Tongku.5326:

Chorazin.4107:

Tongku.5326:

I can open up with 9 burn stacks on my engi, but that is extremely rare because of the set-up and require point-blank range for it.

I can burst for even more on my guard, not via opener, but via set-up + blocking during the fight. This again requires a huge set-up on my part.

As for mesmer, no, they are actually still in the last place, the only thing that makes them even viable is perplexity runes. Also, the other day I was getting hate whispers from a ranger that stood in my feedback and killed itself, quite literally did 80%ish of its healthbar in damage by standing in feedback while popping all its CDs and then started to proceed with condi hate tells while there was no condi damage applied to it. Don’t be such a ranger and half your problems will disappear.

I also replied to it and told it to come to these forums and make a QQ thread, which it probably did.

Cant tell if trolling or is serious.

Quite serious, especially about the ranger bit, happened multiple times now.

But I did mis-phrase myself on the mesmer part which might have led you to believe I am trolling. I’m not. The actual DPS numbers of off a golem test for confusion / torment mes are on the very low end among DPS builds in the game. Granted it surpasses bunker builds, utility builds etc. but as far as DPS builds go, the numbers are very low both on burst and sustained.

What makes the PU mes seem OP right now is the average amount of horribaddies running around in WVW that are either “such rangers” or their equivalents. For example in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdy9KZCjMtI This is not me, I do not record because my rig is not good enough for it to allow me to record at good quality without taking a performance hit, but it illustrates greatly about what not to do against these sort of builds.

Also granted that they are very strong in WvW roaming, that is also in part because WvW is the ideal environment for them. They are actually well balanced and the thief can be underpowered in SPVP simply because of tighter spaces there. The freedom of open space is what makes their “disengage” abilities OP here and that is due to amount of space available. In a confined duel vs one of these you do not need to cleanse all the time, just enough to outpressure for X seconds which happens often over there.

And just like here, if you go over to SPVP all the complaints come from very low end tiers, meaning, very low rated players whereas these builds are mostly sub-par vs higher ranks and meta with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions (map dependant). If there were such a ranking system in WvW, you would notice the same pattern, but they would be still much harder to take down by the good players due to the availability of wider open space as I stated above (translate = easier to get outta cleave and AOE).

Im not sure why you are talking about PvP, this is the WvW forums? Yes in PvP, with no dire gear, no Perplexity, no food bonus duration to condis and an emphasis on capping points they fall away in usefulness.

But anyone who thinks they are remotely balanced in WvW roaming encounters with all the above boosts, plus the recent patch boost to condis and very long stealth uptime are looking at the mesmer with rose tinted glasses. This extends to the other amazingly fun WvW encounter condi trapper thieves, you may see him out of stealth for a couple of seconds during the whole fight. Again abusing the same stealth/condi mechanics.

There simply isnt enough available cleanses on some classes, or incidental cleanses to have any hope of keeping on top of the condi spam during these encounters with how fast the applications come in. Unless of course you are a mesmer and specced for it. 4 removals in 10 seconds with 2 uses of power return and another 4 in 20 seconds with 2 uses of power cleanse. Thats 12 condi clears over 20 seconds, an engineer would kill to have half that.

Having said that this game was never meant to be balanced around 1v1 roaming in WvW, a game mode where the metric for success is measured via PPT. Is a roaming mesmer really relevant when looking at the impact on this metric? Nope, so not really anything to see here.

Its funny that you mentioned engi, because I was just playing mine last night in groups as well as during the day (since my day off) and came across quite a few mesmers and such thieves during the off-hours. My success vs the mesmers was about 50/50, my success against the thieves slightly better, and against rangers worst.

Again, you dont have to completely cleanse and keep cleansing, just cleanse 1-2 bursts and apply your own. In this case, I just used FT + slick shoes + elixir S + elixir X (switched mortar when I was in groups). Stealthed or not, AOE + DPS worked great. As I mentioned, about half of them came out of stealth in downed state. The ones that mostly got away or got me were the ones that went and stayed ranged, anything melee or close enough to it got downed or at least got a run for its money. Win or lose these were fast fights and mostly dependant on if I saw them 1st, even if they stealthed, once I saw them, I was ready. If they got the jump on me, well, then they did what they were designed to do. Also, It ddint matter if they were condi or not, I got downed by a pair of zerker thieves in about 2 secs flat, much faster then the condi ones when I didnt see them coming.

I could have taken it a few notches further as I was actually running around in my “mid” set (full sinister ascended with Balth runes armor, rest mix between mostly carrion with some dire), but I could have gone really all out on it and run melandru + lemongrass + generosity + purity in addition to everything else, but I wanted to see how I would do with my PVE runeset and it actually wasnt bad.

Just by switching food + armor, going melandru + lemongrass, with mechalegs traited not only am I very hard to CC but basically immune to cripple , chill and immobilize and have 3 less cover condis to remove. But I didn’t even need to do that this time, I just don’t have your particular issues on my engi.

Odokuro.5049:

People seem to think that all people need to do is build their toons, and gear their toons for anti-conditions and it will all ok, I ask, if someone just pumps up their vitality, uses runes and sigils for condition duration decrease and transfer, and fills their bar with condition removal skills/spells, how are they then going to kill the other persons toon? I’ve built these “Tanky” “Anti-Condi” toons before, and I was able to do squat vs. people, I could heal/regen most of their damage, but I’de hit like a feather and would have to rely on others to come by and kill people for me.

Unlike “anti-power-builds” “anti-condi-builds” don’t have to be tanky. To counter conditions you need less defensive stats and therefore have to sacrifice less dmg than against direct dmg (because you don’t need thoughness and even much vitality is not necessary if you have enough cleanse).
Thats one reason, why glassy condi builds (sinister/rampager) often don’t work as well as zerk/power builds. Both have the same defense (statwise). Now if you play a powerbuild and meet a bunker, who counters your dmg and can’t be killed, it is not a big problem for you, because he won’t be able to kill you too. But if you play (glass) condi, and your enemy an “anti-condi-build”, you would deal almost no dmg, your enemy would do though.

I don’t really think it’s a Condi problem but more of a stealth and mobility problem.

TheLastNobody.8319:

I don’t really think it’s a Condi problem but more of a stealth and mobility problem.

One without the other isn’t a problem. The problem with condi is that it doesn’t proc reveal on passive application so any class that does not directly apply condis can effectively stay invisible while damaging a player.

Stealth with direct damage, not a problem. Condi without stealth, annoying but workable. Combine the two along with a blocks, jumps, pulls, etc and you end up with 4-5 guys running around playing find the mesmer.

If there wasn’t a problem with PU Mesmers, being imbalanced, you wouldn’t see SO many of them in WvW.

One of the things that I enjoy most out of play Guild Wars 2, is taking part in WvW activities, such as roaming or small group play. But as of late, it’s gotten more tiresome and boring than enjoyable, and refuse to join in on the zerg, and spam my 1 key…

I just wish that the Developers would look at these Condi-spam Stealth/Invis Bots and see that they need to be toned down so that other builds have a chance to go toe to toe with them, as it is now, it’s either join em and make a PU mesmer, ect. or run, and I know the 1%‘ers will come in and say, " I’m able to win just fine…" or the delusional “Pro” Mesmer who believes the class is, “Perfectly balanced” and “Fine as is”. Will come in gloating about their superior skill, and tell us all to L2P….

Odokuro.5049:

…
I just wish that the Developers would look at these Condi-spam Stealth/Invis Bots and see that they need to be toned down so that other builds have a chance to go toe to toe with them, as it is now, it’s either join em and make a PU mesmer, ect. or run, and I know the 1%‘ers will come in and say, " I’m able to win just fine…" or the delusional “Pro” Mesmer who believes the class is, “Perfectly balanced” and “Fine as is”. Will come in gloating about their superior skill, and tell us all to L2P….

People should be used to this by now considering thieves were doing it for almost 3 years.

Straegen.2938:

TheLastNobody.8319:

I don’t really think it’s a Condi problem but more of a stealth and mobility problem.

One without the other isn’t a problem. The problem with condi is that it doesn’t proc reveal on passive application so any class that does not directly apply condis can effectively stay invisible while damaging a player.

Stealth with direct damage, not a problem. Condi without stealth, annoying but workable. Combine the two along with a blocks, jumps, pulls, etc and you end up with 4-5 guys running around playing find the mesmer.

Yeah you’re right I’m not really sure why I thought that. -_- I just hate heavy stealth in general as it’s so one sided.

Clownmug.8357:

People should be used to this by now considering thieves were doing it for almost 3 years.

No they weren’t. Thieves were either super glassy and required melee attacks/reveals to do their damage or they went D/P which was high stealth but wet noodle damage and those were also fairly glassy. The condi variants were somewhat dangerous but they simply couldn’t apply sustained condi damage without a reveal. With the exception of the trapper build in the thief class, they have to be seen to apply their damage. Their burst also came with the condition they ran zerk or equivalent.

Now we have condi as strong as it has ever been attached to builds that do most of their damage passively. No thief build worth playing in the past has ever been as dangerous, tanky and stealthy as the current crop of stealth/condi builds. An old school D/D would get nuked by a decent PU today as would a D/P.

Straegen.2938:

Clownmug.8357:

People should be used to this by now considering thieves were doing it for almost 3 years.

No they weren’t. Thieves were either super glassy and required melee attacks/reveals to do their damage or they went D/P which was high stealth but wet noodle damage and those were also fairly glassy. The condi variants were somewhat dangerous but they simply couldn’t apply sustained condi damage without a reveal. With the exception of the trapper build in the thief class, they have to be seen to apply their damage. Their burst also came with the condition they ran zerk or equivalent.

Now we have condi as strong as it has ever been attached to builds that do most of their damage passively. No thief build worth playing in the past has ever been as dangerous, tanky and stealthy as the current crop of stealth/condi builds. An old school D/D would get nuked by a decent PU today as would a D/P.

I was referring to the gloating and telling people to L2P, not playing a condi build.

Stealth, while difficult to deal with, pales in comparison to the strength of conditions. Anyone who roams or 1v1s in WvW knows that you’re simply dead if you’re running a power build and encounter a condition build.

Power builds require 3 main stats for damage: Power, Precision, and Ferocity. Conditions require 2: Condition Damage and Condition Duration. Power builds have to sacrifice and balance their power, precision, ferocity, vitality, and toughness in their gear. Condition builds do not require this balance. Condition duration is limited to only weapons and nourishments, so condition builds only need to focus on Condition Damage in their gear. This allows condition builds to run full Dire (Condition Damage, Vitality, and Toughness) with Giver (Condition Duration, Precision, and Vitality) weapons. This results in condition builds acquiring both incredible survivability and damage output from their cookie cutter gear sets. Condition builds can then make double or more mistakes versus power builds, while power builds have to make even less mistakes than they do versus condition builds than they would versus other power builds. The only sacrifice condition builds have in comparison to power builds is the reduction to conditions applied to them which most power builds run. This is hardly a sacrifice at all, and actually encourages that condition builds be used to counter other condition builds. What this ultimately becomes is that condition builds have become the best versus both power builds and other condition builds. This is incredibly unfair and unbalanced for power builds.

Tone down condition damage using one or more of the following methods:

1 – Lower the strength of condition damage and/or duration, especially on certain conditions like Burning and Confusion.

2 – Require condition damage to incorporate precision, ferocity, or both to force condition builds to balance their survivability similar to how power builds do.

3 – Alter the stats of Dire. Dire is currently so overpowered. Imagine the power equivalent of Dire which would be gear with Power, Precision, Ferocity, Vitality, and Toughness with no reduction to their stat values, because Dire gives both maximum damage and survivability unlike any gear set in the entire game.

4 – Buff condition removal and/or reduction across the board. All traits, gear, utilities, and weapon skills that remove or reduce conditions can be near doubled in effectiveness and condition builds would still do very well.

There is no arguing that condition builds are overpowered compared to power builds. Something needs to be done, or power build roamers will fade and either switch to condition builds or quit playing.

This assessment that you need more stats for direct damage then condition builds do is false. I have plenty of builds that do as much damage in soldiers gear that most condition builds do in dire gear.

The problem is very specific trait combinations + specific weapons skills + specific utilities on specific professions. So let’s not degenerate the conversation to making blanket statements about damage types as a whole, with no actual mathematical truth to thier damage output.