I would like to say that I have been a Mesmer since this game started. I see many buffs to other classes. Yet the only class that really seems to get nerfed is the mesmer. The nerfs went from nearly killing the usefulness of a portal in WvW. Making it nearly impossible to go over 12 stacks of might (from our own skills). You did not stop there! You decided to make it that we cant cast our Phantasms unless the attack ultimately hits IE: if someone dodges or gets los’d by a stick in the ground, even stealthing makes it fail. Yet that wasn’t good enough you had to “Phantasmal Mage: This skill’s confusion has been increased to 3 stacks for 3 seconds from 1 stack for 9 seconds. The recharge on Phantasmal Mage’s skill has been increased to 6 seconds from 5 seconds.” Yes I can handle all of that.. Then you attacked our time warp (yes many classes have quickness) but the Nerf was directed at mesmers. Yes you may nerf time warp but at least make the cooldown not 210 secs for half of the damage it used to do or in the least increase the amount of targets that can work on or the ability to stack with other time warps. Yes, I’m ok with all of those nerfs.
What I am not ok with nerfing is Confusion. Confusion is the ONLY condition that the player themselves can control. Confusion is a condition that does not stack duration yet stacks intensity instead. I have 1500 condition with 66% condition duration the only attacks I use are confusion attacks that also apply blindness. 1 Swing or attack with 1 confusion yields about 1kittenage. when that 1 confusion hits the counter begins. With 66% duration its about 8 sec’s. you put on a 2nd condition the counter does not restart it is still counting down instead of taking 1kittenage you are now taking about 320 damage. 320 damage is still tolerable. Now for the WvW aspect Anet claimed many times that they hate zerg fighting yet they take one of the only tools (its not even the most OP does anyone really not complain about necro wells?) to break a zerg up. I see a zerg coming at me I throw down all of my glamour (feedback, null field, and viel) for every enemy that enters the field gains 2 stacks of confusion. For every person that leaves it they gain 2 stacks of confusion (to each glamour field). IF everything is perfect Most of the group has 6 stacks of confusion, some may have more depending if they went back in my fields and came back out. with the 6 stacks people hit themselves for around 900 damage per swing. Notice I said if they swing If they don’t swing or rip off the condition I will do NO damage. Anyone can take off their auto attack (ctrl+mouse2(right click)) Keep in mind when I “drop the glamour bomb” we are useless for about 45 Secs (thats an average of cooldowns feedback-31secs null field-35 secs viel-71 secs). During these 45 sec’s I do nearly nothing besides single target damage, which is very weak. <- group battles.
Now for the 1v1- it doesn’t work well the glamour build has little to no survive-ability IF we are lucky we may be able to get a thief or ranger to kill himself.
My conclusion is this. If you are Bad you will get killed by confusion. If your not you will survive like nothing happened.
Confusion reduced to PvP level in WvW (50%?) (Link covering Con/Ret)
Retaliation reduced to PvP levels in WvW? (Retaliation will be made more obvious)
Signet improvements – Now add 20 base, + 2 per level (Link covering Signets)
Clones no longer aggro enemies you haven’t already aggro’d (Link covering Clones)
Distortion no longer allows you to hold capture point (Link for rest)
Moa cast on the move
Moa nr 5 skill, reduced distance
Mantra cast reduced to 2.75 (YES!)
Illusion of Life cast time increase