Guild Wars 2

It is, he actually traited into might on shatters lol. The poor guy will be disappointed when he finds out how poorly his retal traits work.

He has virtually no protection and a single stun breaker. And he’s using a useless torch offhand, so he’s sacrificing about 9-10 stacks of bleeds from illusionary duelist and about 3k from the unload for some kittenty 3 stacks of confusion and 1 more from a long kitten cd prestige.

He has no stun outside a signet, which he would have with an offhand pistol to chase or stop heals or cc multiple opponents, and no effective way to fight sidestepping ranged opponents like a P/D thief. Staff and scepter projectiles are so slow, you can’t chase with them without a pistol offhand and it will take him forever to ramp up conditions.

Simonoly.4352:

That’s one counterproductive build you’ve got there. I hope I see lots of Mesmers using such random trait combinations. I do like me some free kills

But, but! It applies all conditions! And punishes you!
And it has 25 stacks of torment on the entire zone because of the Scepter buff! You’ll die in seconds!

(That spec is kinda funny, I suspect that’s how non-Mesmers think Mesmer damage output works.)

deda.8302:

Oh and don’t forget that scepter mesmer can hit highest cond.dmg stat in game i think if not highest then second best…

@Zenith.7301
“Pretty much also the reason condi ele hasn’t existed, because when condi application is cooldown based it can’t possibly keep up with the current state of cleanses and burst.”

Condi ele didnt exist cause Ele can apply 2 (two) damaging conditions burn and bleed and thats it,your reasoning fails here…

But you did pretty much hit the nail with that remark, scepter/torch will now be able to apply all conditions and in pretty high stacks with just one weapon set with right sigils,
and if u add retaliation which mesmers don’t have to look far to get even boons are working for condi memser just blocking and auto attacking,lol

here it took me 10 min to make this ,it will punish you for anything you do while i can apply ALL condition on you in few sec:)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlsnpBtlqxRNMrRiuhYqHnsVM0O8W5CA-TpRGwAAeAAG3foZZA0HCgAnAACHBAA

Hahahaha – wait – hahahahaha. Nope.

Try again, take more than 10 minutes and spend a couple of days on a mesmer to understand how the profession works.

You sir, are as clueless about mesmers as a baby in regards to rocket science.

Scepter Buff might! be too strong, but first I want to test it out.
I’d love to get another option to play mesmer successful, and don’t be forced to play berserker shatter since release.

Teutos.8620:

Scepter Buff might! be too strong, but first I want to test it out.
I’d love to get another option to play mesmer successful, and don’t be forced to play berserker shatter since release.

CI is just fine to play ,not powerful as gs/staff shatter but it’s far better than most condi mesmer builds in tpvp.

musu.9205:

CI is just fine to play ,not powerful as gs/staff shatter but it’s far better than most condi mesmer builds in tpvp.

On top level tpvp CI is fine, not as a condition spec, but as a a gs/staff shatter berserker build (4-4-6-0-0 instead of the normal 4-4-0-0-6 shatter), but it requires the mantra of distraction, which will lead to loosing out on another useful utility skill. Therefore only “fine” and not on par with the standard shatter, but still fun as hell.

Linnael.1069:

As far as game impact goes. A small amount of people (wvw roamers) will hate it, and nobody else will care because stealth camping is still useless in pvp/pve.

Do you have any numbers on this ‘small amount of people’?

This change is ridiculous.

Teutos.8620:

musu.9205:

CI is just fine to play ,not powerful as gs/staff shatter but it’s far better than most condi mesmer builds in tpvp.

On top level tpvp CI is fine, not as a condition spec, but as a a gs/staff shatter berserker build (4-4-6-0-0 instead of the normal 4-4-0-0-6 shatter), but it requires the mantra of distraction, which will lead to loosing out on another useful utility skill. Therefore only “fine” and not on par with the standard shatter, but still fun as hell.

Sorry for my wrong words , I did mean shatter spec CI build (gs/staff is what exactly im running now).
With MOD buff (hope anet wont change cd plz) ,It might be closer to standard shatter .(i really hope anet could add a trait "remove 1 boon from enemy when you interrupt ")

musu.9205:

With MOD buff (hope anet wont change cd plz) ,It might be closer to standard shatter .(i really hope anet could add a trait "remove 1 boon from enemy when you interrupt ")

Do you think so? I was more thinking, that due to the Illusionary Elasticity buff the CI build is loosing more ground to the standard shatter.

Teutos.8620:

musu.9205:

With MOD buff (hope anet wont change cd plz) ,It might be closer to standard shatter .(i really hope anet could add a trait "remove 1 boon from enemy when you interrupt ")

Do you think so? I was more thinking, that due to the Illusionary Elasticity buff the CI build is loosing more ground to the standard shatter.

totally forgot IE buff , yep thats huge for standard shatter .
But one can only hope!

Lol please. Scepter AA applying torment is a bad idea.

From a pvp point of view:

No skill, passive playstyle, stupidly broken in 1v1. Mesmer could win 1v1 every single warrior before this buff (as a condi mesmer). Now it’ll be stupidly broken since people will need to dodge AA if they dont want to die. You dont even need to shatter (except distortion). You just need to spam 3 clones and the pressure from AA will be too much for every class.

Dont let this happen. This is a really BAD idea.

Scepter AA needs some love, but adding torment is a really bad idea.

Demon.2430:

passive playstyle

1. Push button.
2. Fire attack, apply Torment.
3. (some weird mental logic going on here)
4. “Passive playstyle”.

How is a skill, as in, a skill you got to use, as in, your character spends some time performing the skill, “passive” play? Does your char automatically acquire targets and attack them when you are in the kitchen making a coffee? Some GM would probably like to know more about that in that case.

(edit)
I do agree this is a bad idea, but mostly because I dislike pure-weapons (as in, pure power or pure conditions), because I think Torment should only be our secondary class condition after confusion, but most importantly it won’t actually help the scepter AA or make it powerful.

Scepter AA is not weak because of a lack of a condition or even damage on it. That’s really the least of its issues, the raw power damage is quite ok and actually scales quite well.

deda.8302:

Oh and don’t forget that scepter mesmer can hit highest cond.dmg stat in game i think if not highest then second best…

@Zenith.7301
“Pretty much also the reason condi ele hasn’t existed, because when condi application is cooldown based it can’t possibly keep up with the current state of cleanses and burst.”

Condi ele didnt exist cause Ele can apply 2 (two) damaging conditions burn and bleed and thats it,your reasoning fails here…

But you did pretty much hit the nail with that remark, scepter/torch will now be able to apply all conditions and in pretty high stacks with just one weapon set with right sigils,
and if u add retaliation which mesmers don’t have to look far to get even boons are working for condi memser just blocking and auto attacking,lol

here it took me 10 min to make this ,it will punish you for anything you do while i can apply ALL condition on you in few sec:)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlsnpBtlqxRNMrRiuhYqHnsVM0O8W5CA-TpRGwAAeAAG3foZZA0HCgAnAACHBAA

What the hell is that? Am I missing something? Why would you trait so deep into retal with 900 atk? I think you should have taken 10 minutes to build this..30 secs to say wtf am I thinking then another 10 minutes to build just about anything not resembling the first build

I will test this after the patch and tell you how it works:)
It was something made in 10 min, trying to prove that you can make a build which will throw at you all conditions in a mater of 5-7 sec,with very high base condition stat, and promotes self punishing play stile(move and get damaged ,use skill and wil get dmg)…
as for the utilities i didn’t even bother to think wht to put after signet of domination for adding condi dmg ,but yeah ill give it some thought and come with even higher condi stat than this…
And was a response on why condi ele hasnt existed…
So that was a point in this build, have a high condi dmg with a tons of conditions you can actually apply on your opponent….

deda.8302:

I will test this after the patch and tell you how it works:)
It was something made in 10 min, trying to prove that you can make a build which will throw at you all conditions in a mater of 5-7 sec,with very high base condition stat, and promotes self punishing play stile(move and get damaged ,use skill and wil get dmg)…
as for the utilities i didn’t even bother to think wht to put after signet of domination for adding condi dmg ,but yeah ill give it some thought and come with even higher condi stat than this…
And was a response on why condi ele hasnt existed…
So that was a point in this build, have a high condi dmg with a tons of conditions you can actually apply on your opponent….

This build still has no point.

It is like giving a guy a bunch of toy models of expensive cars and saying he is an owner of a lot of great cars.
Or giving a person tons of toy animals and claiming this person owns a zoo.

Your build and your argument are 100% invalid.

I love how some of pps here a capable of completely overlooking a point of my post ,and blindly following some1 else’s opinion and that when even not really looking in what i posted,and ignoring facts while focusing on some minor things that i stated i didn’t even take in to consideration while making this build .

With this "flaved build you ca easyly have 6-7 stacks of torment 6-7 stacks of consfusion ,almost perma retaliation which will not hit hard but will hit you never the less .
And you can have 2 sce block on 6 sec cd and if u take guardian runes some nice 700dmg tick of fire for just blocking,oh i forgot u get some 200tick of retaliation after you block so yeah…

And this was just a general idea,who says u cant take pistol offhand and get some nice stacks of bleed and all this is on very short cds .

But hey suite your self and think boxed thoughts im not gona force you out…

No deda, you missed the point.

In a condition heavy meta, mesmers have to play a glass cannon shatter build to be competative.

ANet tries to push the mesmer a bit towards the meta, so they can start playing with the big guys and on the forums, hell breaks loose.

So ANet tries to push an underused weapon and an underused specc for an underused profession. For every person with at least half a brain, this change sounds reasonable.

Let’s be honest, here. The only ones who will benefit in the long run from this change to Mesmer Scepter are the Necros.

Calling it now.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

No deda, you missed the point.

In a condition heavy meta, mesmers have to play a glass cannon shatter build to be competative.

ANet tries to push the mesmer a bit towards the meta, so they can start playing with the big guys and on the forums, hell breaks loose.

So ANet tries to push an underused weapon and an underused specc for an underused profession. For every person with at least half a brain, this change sounds reasonable.

Its not about which weapon deserves a buff…..

Players are complaining about the way it is implemented, as it promotes passive play. Which is:

• Boring to watch
• Boring to play
• Boring and annoying to play against
• Giving bad players LOW risk HIGH reward

Which is bad!

So to everyone saying scepter needs a buff: I agree completely.
But do not promote passive play, or Mesmer will become the new faceroll braindead class.

it is a colossal buff, and should not be underestimated,
getting the 5 stacks of torment from Scepter #2 MELTS your enemy.
and now you’ll be able to keep that up constantly with spikes of 10+ torment stacks.
the damage is gonna be ridiculous!

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Players are complaining about the way it is implemented, as it promotes passive play. Which is:

• Boring to watch
• Boring to play
• Boring and annoying to play against
• Giving bad players LOW risk HIGH reward

I’m not exactly sure how buffing a skill a player uses is promoting passive play, but sure, your definition might just be quite different from what the words you use mean.

If you meant to say that Mesmers can now deal significant damage with their autoattack, well then, good for them. Welcome to everybody-else-land. Still doesn’t make it any more or less passive. Same button presses, same number of skills used, same significance of each button pressed.

Liewec.2896:

it is a colossal buff, and should not be underestimated,
getting the 5 stacks of torment from Scepter #2 MELTS your enemy.
and now you’ll be able to keep that up constantly with spikes of 10+ torment stacks.
the damage is gonna be ridiculous!

I sure hope this was sarcasm. If the damage from the paltry AA proc and the clones is “ridiculous” to you, then you must be playing versus the least damaging enemies you can find, in the most boring possible setups. All-Nomad gear staged 1v1 Heal Guardian vs Heal Engi? Because yes, in that situation 2-3 stacks of torment could add some significant damage, you’re right. :P

This might just end up being Dhuumfire 2.0

I think will all the torment it will be a hard time for engis and thiefs against mesmer. warrior are alrady in trouble against mesmer now it will be hard for them as well.

Liewec.2896:

it is a colossal buff, and should not be underestimated,
getting the 5 stacks of torment from Scepter #2 MELTS your enemy.
and now you’ll be able to keep that up constantly with spikes of 10+ torment stacks.
the damage is gonna be ridiculous!

If you have problems with scepter #2 torment, then that’s a l2p issue. It is one of the best telegraphed and lowest abilities in game. Very easy to avoid, much easier than f.e. impale or even Eviscerate at close range.

With everyone crying about scepter, everyone seems to forget about the Illusionary Elasticity change.
In an ideal situation, you having 3 clones out, and being able to just spam AA the staff will have the higher dps.

Edit: Spikes for 10 torment stacks with the target moving will be ticking for (~1687 spike dps), which is equal to a tick from

• Burning (678) + 9 stacks bleeding (each for 112) OR
• Burning (678) + poison (194) + 7 stacks of bleeding

So basically a fire field (or Fan of Fire) with Pin Down and Sigil of Doom. OR Impale with some fire damage OR …

Here’s the key difference: there is meangingful counterplay to staff clones. Because they aren’t generated as quickly as Scepter clones, you can kill them to either stop or reduce the condition stacking and buy yourself significant time. You can also cleanse their conditions once they stack, preventing much more damage.

Against Scepter clones, those strategies are not options. Killing them is a waste because they are replaced rapidly. Cleansing the torment is a waste because the torment is short-duration, rapid application. You cleanse and literally within 2 seconds, you’re back under the full torment stacks from the clones. You just can’t get relief. that is the biggest problem with Torment on Ether Bolt. There is just nothing meaningful you can do about it.

Ether Blast getting torment is fine, and Scepter AA could use more of a buff than that. Conditions on Ether Bolt is not what it needs. All that this change will do is tick people off and not actually solve any problems for the Mesmer.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Here’s the key difference: there is meangingful counterplay to staff clones. Because they aren’t generated as quickly as Scepter clones

Assuming the Mesmer has Deceptive Evasion, the difference is minimal.
If the Mesmer does not have Deceptive Evasion, Scepter is ~2x faster iff the Mesmer can freely stand there and shoot. If she has to defend herself, Staff wins out by a very large margin.

So no, Scepter does not generate clones quickly. Or well, it does in PvE against a non-moving boss, yes.
Even then I doubt Scepter Clones will even do the damage Greatsword-clones (generated about as fast as Staff clones) will do with any sensible amounts of precision. The bleed procs will be too great (and if the Scepter-wielding Mesmer has 4 in Duelling all is vain because in the face of DE, per-weapon clones are very small in difference).

(edit)
I still think the change is bad, but for exactly the opposite reason:
Scepter is underpowered not because of a lack of damage! If you are in melee with a power setup, Scepter AA damage is actually pretty respectable. That’s really really not the issue here. Very slow firing speed, slow air speed, twitchy chain progression which resets as soon as you delay a shot by half a second and buggy influence of range on progression speed are all significant problems of the Scepter AA.

Somewhere down the line, the clones being rubbish is another one but if our class mechanic was more useful that’d be hardly a problem.

But again, Scepter needs a lot of help, and this change isn’t actually improving anything for it. So meh, whatever. People can cry about the torment, they’re forgetting Scepter AA will be rubbish either way. This isn’t going to help it, either.

Shortest but still sensible route of changing Scepter AA to be useful I would go for:

• Swap Shatter and Illusion-generation. Shatter is now an ability on weapons or on a utility skill, destroying an Illusion or Phantasm for a specific effect. F1-F4 generate clones 1-3 respectively a Phantasm depending on weapon wielded. Why? We’d now have a context-free class mechanic, instead of a context-sensitive one. Also removes a large source of weapon-imbalance.
• Improve Scepter AA airspeed by ~20%.
• Scepter firing speed stays the same (this is important for the next point!) but progression of the chain no longer waits for impact.
• Last hit in the chain still generates a clone, a completely unique effect now because no other weapon or utility skill still generates one. Clone has no special ability however.
• Scepter AA stays pure power damage with current values.
• Scepter 2 no longer generates a clone on block, instead its power damage is upgraded to pre-torment-change levels if you have a clone around (and the clone is destroyed in the process).

In other words, Scepter is a clone-centric weapon still, but with the swapped shatter/generation it feels very very unique even with it’s comparatively low clone output.

Carighan.6758:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Here’s the key difference: there is meangingful counterplay to staff clones. Because they aren’t generated as quickly as Scepter clones

Assuming the Mesmer has Deceptive Evasion, the difference is minimal.
If the Mesmer does not have Deceptive Evasion, Scepter is ~2x faster iff the Mesmer can freely stand there and shoot. If she has to defend herself, Staff wins out by a very large margin.

You…do realize the Scepter has a Block that generates clones on the same weapon, right? With as short a cooldown as the only clone generation skill on staff? And Deceptive Evasion is available with every weapon with equal efficacy?

No, if she has to defend herself, the Scepter still generates clones just as fast or faster as the staff.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Here’s the key difference: there is meangingful counterplay to staff clones. Because they aren’t generated as quickly as Scepter clones, you can kill them to either stop or reduce the condition stacking and buy yourself significant time. You can also cleanse their conditions once they stack, preventing much more damage. Against Scepter clones, that’s not an option.
Killing them is a waste because they are replaced rapidly. Cleansing the torment is a waste because the torment is short-duration, rapid application. You cleanse and literally within 2 seconds, you’re back under the full torment stacks from the clones. You just can’t get relief. that is the biggest problem with Torment on Ether Bolt. There is just nothing meaningful you can do about it.

Wait… you are saying, that cleaning multiple different conditions from the staff is easier than cleaning torment from scepter?

There is much more influencing the whole combat.
F.e.

• The scepter clones are generated at the melee range of the target, therefore going to die quickly. So a clone would be worth the same as he is now -> max the proc from traits like “Debilitating Dissipation”
• Then you have to have the time to cast the full scepter chain at the target.
• Phase retreat is instant, so you are not loosing out on your own damage, while during casting “Ether Clone” you do.
• Scepter block can be counter played. It is well telegraphed.

In the end, it is no staff vs scepter, but more of a condition mesmer with staff+scepter/? vs a gs/staff shatter mesmer.
Maybe the scepter and ‘Maim the Disillusioned’ buff will lead even to a condition shatter mesmer.

If it is too strong, ofc I don’t want it in the game, but first I’d prefer to test it out.

Look at how many condition clears in the game clear only one condition. It’s really not many at all and most of those will clear a single condition AoE.

Now, look at how many condition clears have a cooldown of 2 seconds. Having a tough time?

Clones being generated in melee range is not a drawback. Either your opponent kills them and procs clone-death traits or he ignores them because you’re sitting out of melee range and you are still his primary target. Very few skills let you kill the clones in melee range and still hurt the mesmer sitting at 500+ range away.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Look at how many condition clears in the game clear only one condition. It’s really not many at all and most of those will clear a single condition AoE.

Now, look at how many condition clears have a cooldown of 2 seconds. Having a tough time?

Clones being generated in melee range is not a drawback. Either your opponent kills them and procs clone-death traits or he ignores them because you’re sitting out of melee range and you are still his primary target. Very few skills let you kill the clones in melee range and still hurt the mesmer sitting at 500+ range away.

Is this your twink account you are posting? With that account it seems you have never been in the Top 1000 even once.

Clone-death traits require points, you could have elsewhere. Compared to a standard shatter build f.e. you’ll loose out on ‘Shattered Concentration’. Don’t underestimate this trait.
For a melee it must be very hard to spam 1 while running towards you.

Try to play f.e. a grenade engi with the Grenadier and Shrapnel and Sharpshooter trait, sigil of earth and max crit chance, maybe rifle with Blunderbuss and see how long the bleeding will stay on the target, and now compare it to the full chain of conditions (burning proc from Incendiary Powder, Confusion from Static Shot, Poison, Freeze and Blind from the grenades)… test it out, and you’ll see, that a high range of conditions is way more effective.

And yes, I can name you a lot of condi remove options, which will crew up your single torment → f.e. a ranger standing in Healing Spring.
How about absorbing or even reflecting the incoming projectiles? To reduce the damage further.
What about using Hoelbrak or Melandru Runes? Should the mesmer now get +20/25% Condition Duration to keep the 2 seconds torment and not end up with 1 second due to how condition damage duration is calculated?

Condition damage ticks are calculated off the timing of the first damaging condition applied, so strictly speaking, the Mesmer doesn’t need condition duration to get much of the torment to tick twice (roughly half).

What’s funny about your engineer example is that, while you could stack bleeds high, cleansing still removes the stack. Sure, you can keep someone perma-bleeding, but the cleanse still bought them relief because your stacks didn’t stay at full power. The reason there isn’t real counterplay to Ether Bolt clones is that it never does stack high, but it’s reapplied virtually immedietly. Condition and boon removals are simply not effective against short duration-rapid application effects. Tried stripping off a Guardian’s retaliation while he’s standing in a Symbol of Wrath? It’s the same exercise in futility.

Alternatively, cleanse the bleeds applied by a necro in Plague form (rare, but the option does exist for Plague to bleed). Now imagine said necro is still able to use all of his other skills and the pulses aren’t bound to a 180 second cooldown.

Debilitating Dissipation is going to be a valid choice for any condition build anyway. It means you choose between that, Malicious Sorcery (most handy for the 6 second cooldown on the block, but overall the easiest to drop), and Maim the Disillusioned, since it’s pretty well assumed you have Deceptive Evasion.

Of course PU mesmers can cap and even hold points in s/tPvP, It’s some stupid mindset people have that it’s impossible for them to survive outside of stealth. While yes of course PU is a trait literally FOR stealthing it doesn’t mean that you can’t force your opponent off point unless he wants to aoe down your clones and eat that clone on death condi, not even to mention just how insanely tanky you are as condi mesmer.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

What’s funny about your engineer example is that, while you could stack bleeds high, cleansing still removes the stack. Sure, you can keep someone perma-bleeding, but the cleanse still bought them relief because your stacks didn’t stay at full power. The reason there isn’t real counterplay to Ether Bolt clones is that it never does stack high, but it’s reapplied virtually immedietly.

You didn’t understand my example. It is not about how high you can stack bleeding, it is about how long the bleeding will last on the target, and how often it will simply get removed within a second.

And even if you have 4 stacks of torment, and due to the target moving it ticks twice prior removing, you are just on the same level as a burning tick.

It has a lot of counter play options, don’t forget, that Ether Bolt is a projectile, and can therefore be reflected and blocked.

How about a ranger with Axe/Axe killing you and all your ranged clones with auto attack, reflecting your attacks with Whirling Defense (5 seconds duration and 20/25 seconds cd) and removing every condition applied to him with Healing Spring (duration 10 seconds and 30 seconds cd). And the remaining stacks are going to get removed by Signet of Renewal, Empathic Bond, maybe even further with sigils.
Yes, there is still time remaining for dealing damage, but not think about the whole damage prevented or removed, and how that would not have happend, if you would have played a direct damage build.

Not saying it won’t be op, just saying I want to test it out for a few days, and check it out myself. There are way too many thing influencing the combat.

Yes, but your engineer example is still a flawed comparison because the engineer can’t immedietly restack the bleeds that just got removed.

And great, there’s a build that won’t see any difficulty with an auto-attacking Mesmer (condi necros won’t have an issue either). Good to know.

Of course, the ideal setup is 1 scepter clone, 2 staff clones, since the one scepter clone will cause perma-torment anyway as well as give that extra condition to cleanse.

Hey guys its not just offensive capability we need to take into consideration its the defensive ones and effort required to play the build. Mesmer condition builds don’t have the highest dps pressure but they have among the highest survivability. They are also quite easy to play summoning clones and phantasm then stealthing allowing AI to stacking condition its not to difficult.

It would be better if it was a trait(maybe in inspiration?) and mesmer would have to make a choice between pu, de or torment AA. Though just putting torment on AA and allowing clones to apply it as the regular scepter auto is just wrong.

Teutos.8620:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

What’s funny about your engineer example is that, while you could stack bleeds high, cleansing still removes the stack. Sure, you can keep someone perma-bleeding, but the cleanse still bought them relief because your stacks didn’t stay at full power. The reason there isn’t real counterplay to Ether Bolt clones is that it never does stack high, but it’s reapplied virtually immedietly.

You didn’t understand my example. It is not about how high you can stack bleeding, it is about how long the bleeding will last on the target, and how often it will simply get removed within a second.

And even if you have 4 stacks of torment, and due to the target moving it ticks twice prior removing, you are just on the same level as a burning tick.

It has a lot of counter play options, don’t forget, that Ether Bolt is a projectile, and can therefore be reflected and blocked.

How about a ranger with Axe/Axe killing you and all your ranged clones with auto attack, reflecting your attacks with Whirling Defense (5 seconds duration and 20/25 seconds cd) and removing every condition applied to him with Healing Spring (duration 10 seconds and 30 seconds cd). And the remaining stacks are going to get removed by Signet of Renewal, Empathic Bond, maybe even further with sigils.
Yes, there is still time remaining for dealing damage, but not think about the whole damage prevented or removed, and how that would not have happend, if you would have played a direct damage build.

Not saying it won’t be op, just saying I want to test it out for a few days, and check it out myself. There are way too many thing influencing the combat.

Your example is incredibly flawed, because Axe/Axe will proabably never be used on any strong meta build over axe/dagger or axe/torch. Offhand axe, is mostly used with sword for niche moment of clarity gank builds..

So while your example may reliably counter a torment spam PU mesmer, its not a realistic example. A 0/0/2/6/6 celestial D/F ele is a far more realistic example of somethhing with enough use and projectile hate to stop PU, and you can even swap EA for diamond skin if you want to prove a point, but that goes back into the realm of being unrealistic with the meta.

nearlight.3064:

Your example is incredibly flawed, because Axe/Axe will proabably never be used on any strong meta build over axe/dagger or axe/torch. Offhand axe, is mostly used with sword for niche moment of clarity gank builds..

You might think so, but wait till the feature patch axe buffs are through

So while your example may reliably counter a torment spam PU mesmer, its not a realistic example. A 0/0/2/6/6 celestial D/F ele is a far more realistic example of somethhing with enough use and projectile hate to stop PU, and you can even swap EA for diamond skin if you want to prove a point, but that goes back into the realm of being unrealistic with the meta.

It was just an example… If the condition scepter mesmer will appear in the TPvP meta, people will learn how to counter it, since their are multiple answers to it.

What’s with all the “Passive play” arguments? My celestial axe warrior does about 1-3 autoattacks in PvP, and that can’t be cleansed. Is that “passive play”? A thief stealing from my necro gets 3s of fear and about 1.5k damage without me having to do anything, is that “passive play”? How about my engi throwing chill grenades and applying chill, bleed, vulnerability and burning with 1 skill?

So mesmer GS doing about 1.5k damage from 1200 range instantly with no reflection is fine, but 2secs of torment is not?

Clones, dude. Once they’re up, they’re as passive as you can get.

Staff clones already do that, from 1200 range, while giving you boons. How is this worse?

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Clones, dude. Once they’re up, they’re as passive as you can get.

And they magically pop into existence, not related to the worst AA-chain in the game at all?

Carighan.6758:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Clones, dude. Once they’re up, they’re as passive as you can get.

And they magically pop into existence, not related to the worst AA-chain in the game at all?

Why yes, they do magically pop up into existence in quite a number of unrelated ways! For example, the Mesmer could decide to do a somersault and walaa! A clone that wants to repeat the feat, but doesn’t have that kind of coordination, so it swings a stick and throws purple light instead.

Or the Mesmer could block an attack, as another clone pops into existence, wanting to show its progenitor that it can be just as awesome, but doesn’t really know what made that move so cool in the first place, so it just swings a stick to shoot purple light at whoever the Mesmer was fighting .

Or perhaps the Mesmer could be in trouble in a fight and sheds his image into a new clone as a last-ditch effort to distract his foe. Too bad his image doesn’t have a brain and just pretends to be a Hogwarts student, so it’s not the most convincing.

On a more serious note (though the last one is indeed 100% passive), my comment was to the clones themselves. Once they’re up, they’re quite passive. I have no issues with clone behavior in the slightest, but to say that they are actually an active component of the class is stretching it. The active part is shatters and manging your resource, not the illusions themselves.

METAShift.2913:

What’s with all the “Passive play” arguments? My celestial axe warrior does about 1-3 autoattacks in PvP, and that can’t be cleansed. Is that “passive play”? A thief stealing from my necro gets 3s of fear and about 1.5k damage without me having to do anything, is that “passive play”? How about my engi throwing chill grenades and applying chill, bleed, vulnerability and burning with 1 skill?

So mesmer GS doing about 1.5k damage from 1200 range instantly with no reflection is fine, but 2secs of torment is not?

Seriously. very good points. Just a heads up, when people say passive play on a mesmer they are mostly referring to PU and you know, the AI.

They obviously did it so that you can’t just walk away… Now it hurts more to do that XD

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

On a more serious note (though the last one is indeed 100% passive), my comment was to the clones themselves. Once they’re up, they’re quite passive. I have no issues with clone behavior in the slightest, but to say that they are actually an active component of the class is stretching it. The active part is shatters and manging your resource, not the illusions themselves.

Yes but right now we just don’t use Scepter clones and instead use the other clones which already have secondary effects.
And, unless I’m entirely mistaken, even pre-buff Staff clones should be stronger than post-buff Scepter clones. And assuming any Blackwater or Power setup, GS clones do more damage than post-buff Scepter clones, too.

Really, I fail to see the significance of that part. Scepter clones are ok-iiiiiish after the buff. They are – I think – the worst land-based option still (after FP2!), although in damage they at least outdo sword clones (who cleave and apply vulnerability and rip boons!).

Is it so bad that a weapon with a terrible AA is getting a still-terrible-but-slightly-less-so AA?
In fact, that’s pretty much my one issue with the patch, it doesn’t do anything about solving scepter’s actual AA-issues. The clone buff should happen either way, because right now scepter clones are really really bad.

Scepter Clones are bad in strength, but good in quantity. That’s their unique strength.

Yes, the scepter AA needs a buff, but its clones don’t. Unless it’s a buff to how fast you can make clones, I can totally get behind that.

Yes exactly. The chain needs more speed (the animations are awfully slow and one of the most-telegraphic attacks in the game, for being a paltry AA chain) and most importantly a change to the buggy and range-dependent advancement.

With higher speed (assuming it is significant) the weapon would already gain a lot of use for clone death and shatter specs, without compromising its hybrid usability as both a power- and a condi-weapon.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Clones, dude. Once they’re up, they’re as passive as you can get.

cyyrix.6105:

It’s crazy that people are so concerned about the scepter buff…look at the base damage numbers:

• Per strike, the scepter AA buff will provide between 64-96 extra damage, depending on if the target is moving
• Per strike, the Illusionary Elasticity buff will provide (on average) an extra 209 damage plus 1.67s of vulnerability.

That is to say, the IE buff to Winds of Chaos will do 118% – 227% MORE damage than the scepter buff, depending on if the target is moving.

Yes, IE is a master trait, but many builds with staff are already spec’d into it, so there’s really no cost in picking up either buff.

(Math for Winds of Chaos: 0.33*328 (1s burn) + 0.33*298 (7s bleed) = 209 + 5s/3 vuln = 1.67s vuln)

Scepter buff is fine.

Staff clones still win out

staff ie buff is just as passive and just as strong.. but sheep hear helseth say something and they parrot it over and over again.

for some reason IE game play isnt passive and its a good buff because helseth uses it in 2h shatter..

and scepter buff is passive and op because helseth dosent use it in his spec.

Ok must admit that my posted build isn’t the best, but with few tweaks it can work,played few Spvp games and even with out AA torment it can do significant dmg.
(I will not post tweaked version, for this discussion was not abut my build)

If they fix the pathing for phantasmal mages then ,mage will stack 6 stacks of confusion on two targets with IE.

And Even with out IE buff, gs 2 was one of the most damaging skills considering that in only 5 sec you can have 12 stacks of might if close enough and same stacks of vulnerability on enemy .

So soon after a patch you can expect a lot of QQ and ppl demanding for mesmer nerf