Guild Wars 2

Hi Anet,

I was wonder why would there be a nerf in mistform.

If u compare mistform to endure pain, during mistform after the recent patch, u cannot heal/atk just move away. Also when u get CCed like frost/cripple before mistform, you’ll still suffer from the movement CC and move alot slower in mistform in 3 seconds.

But in the case of Endure pain, first of all its 5seconds, the CC works similar to that of mistform, only thing is it works during the usage of the skill, you are free to attack/heal at the same time.

Could I get insights on to why the Nerf on mistform? When other similar utilities from other skills seems to be so much better then mistform

I’m not Anet, but here’s an objective analysis on Mist Form, with a comparison made to Endure Pain since you mentioned it.

Firstly, Endure Pain is a 90s CD stun breaker that lasts 4 seconds allows you to take no damage but conditions can still be applied to you throughout it’s effective duration. On the other hand, Mist Form is a 75s CD stun breaker that lasts 3 seconds that makes you invulnerable. Meaning other than not taking damage, new conditions cannot be applied to you nor do CC have any effect on you.

Granted, you can’t use skills in Mist form as opposed to Endure Pain, but you can still do element switching which I figured is a relatively good deal.

Plus you can still stomp with Mist Form and no one has any chance of stopping you. Unlike with Endure Pain, because it grants no stability, you are not excused from CC.

So all in all, with only a one second effect duration difference but a much lower default cool down while benefitting largely from being invulnerable, I don’t think other skills “seem to be much better than mist form” at all.

Escthiil.3210:

I’m not Anet, but here’s an objective analysis on Mist Form, with a comparison made to Endure Pain since you mentioned it.

Firstly, Endure Pain is a 90s CD stun breaker that lasts 4 seconds allows you to take no damage but conditions can still be applied to you throughout it’s effective duration. On the other hand, Mist Form is a 75s CD stun breaker that lasts 3 seconds that makes you invulnerable. Meaning other than not taking damage, new conditions cannot be applied to you nor do CC have any effect on you.

Granted, you can’t use skills in Mist form as opposed to Endure Pain, but you can still do element switching which I figured is a relatively good deal.

Plus you can still stomp with Mist Form and no one has any chance of stopping you. Unlike with Endure Pain, because it grants no stability, you are not excused from CC.

So all in all, with only a one second effect duration difference but a much lower default cool down while benefitting largely from being invulnerable, I don’t think other skills “seem to be much better than mist form” at all.

Very nice explanation

Great explanation. The only problem is your relating it to a warriors skill, a profession bound for the front lines. Whereas an elementalist dies fast (relatively). Get a better comparison, lol.

Maketso.5602:

Great explanation. The only problem is your relating it to a warriors skill, a profession bound for the front lines. Whereas an elementalist dies fast (relatively). Get a better comparison, lol.

I’m a little confused here since I’m not sure what’s your point other than to show that the design is pretty much justified, which is reinforcing what I’m trying to say here. :P

Just a little food for thought: The other 3 skills of similar purpose are Signet of Stone, Elixir S and Renewed Focus.

Signet of Stone is 6s but requires a grandmaster trait to work, which is Signet of the Beastmaster and is on a 80s CD. Plus suffer from the same problems as Endure Pain.

Elixir S is the only one that works closely similar to the Mist Form but it locks their toolkit in addition. But has a 60s CD. Looks perfectly justified to me.

Lastly, Renewed Focus is an Elite, requires channeling means you can’t do anything else during that period granted it refreshes virtues. It’s only 2s too, by the way. 90s CD.

If you ask me, in my humble opinion, Mist Form is in a perfectly good place at the moment because after all, the ability to heal while bring invulnerable pre-nerf was a tad overpowered whether you wish to admit it or not.

Escthiil.3210:

I’m not Anet, but here’s an objective analysis on Mist Form, with a comparison made to Endure Pain since you mentioned it.

Firstly, Endure Pain is a 90s CD stun breaker that lasts 4 seconds allows you to take no damage but conditions can still be applied to you throughout it’s effective duration. On the other hand, Mist Form is a 75s CD stun breaker that lasts 3 seconds that makes you invulnerable. Meaning other than not taking damage, new conditions cannot be applied to you nor do CC have any effect on you.

Granted, you can’t use skills in Mist form as opposed to Endure Pain, but you can still do element switching which I figured is a relatively good deal.

Plus you can still stomp with Mist Form and no one has any chance of stopping you. Unlike with Endure Pain, because it grants no stability, you are not excused from CC.

So all in all, with only a one second effect duration difference but a much lower default cool down while benefitting largely from being invulnerable, I don’t think other skills “seem to be much better than mist form” at all.

The problem with this kind of numbers view is that you aren’t really thinking about the uses.

You can use Endure Pain too:
+ Break a stun
+ Dodge 4 secs of damage (that means 3 full stuns if you were smart enough)
+ Combo with Frenzy to evade the extra 25% more damage you would take
+ Recover ( you can still heal / remove those awful conditions)
& Run
& Counter Attack
+ Deal Damage while for example “rooted” or when the 2nd stun goes out

You can use the new Mist Form too
+ Stomp people
+ Revive people
+/- Dodge 3 secs of damage (situational, read below)
+/- Recover a little by swapping to water (to make it “decent” it would require 3 traits)

Now, for stomping stability and blind sometimes can do the trick without using a 75 CD skill + in battle sometimes its just better to finish with damage. Still, I wont deny its use.

What is far more trickier is the “dodge 3 secs of damage”.
1) While it would appear that like EP you can escape 3 stuns, in fact being untargetable makes that you did escape only 1, the other 2 are waiting for you when you pop out from MF.
2) The real point is, can the 3 secs save you? You cant really escape while in MF, you cant damage you opponent either or now even heal substantially. So it comes to if you use it after or before the damage spike. The thing is -for me- we have more efficient cantrips to prevent damage. They may not work in some situation -lots of clones, ranger pets and bosses- but in most situations -again, for me- they are better.

Moving on with the comparison I must agree with other people that the new MF is FAR more related to the Engineers Elixir S. But something to take note is how Elixir S has 60 CD and not 75 CD. (and I still think both skills should be better unless Elixir S has some synergy I don’t know -only played engineer in the betas-)

They think, Mist form as invulneraiity skill should be par wtih other invul skills forgetting ele has low healt pool and cant be equalized other class invul skills.

High health pool + cant use heal or utility while invul
Low health pool + can use heal or utility

Seems pretty fair. But i dont know how Anet thinks when it comes to balance.

As ele most of the time i end up with with less health after using any heal skills in combat since i get more dmg then heal.

Escthiil.3210:

If you ask me, in my humble opinion, Mist Form is in a perfectly good place at the moment because after all, the ability to heal while bring invulnerable pre-nerf was a tad overpowered whether you wish to admit it or not.

Eh, the main use it seems to have now is avoiding ranged burst damage, so I’d rather take any other Cantrips for their greater versatility. Elixir S works a bit better for engis due to their larger health pools (for dealing with conditions) and the lack of other good damage-avoidance options.

Naurgalen.2374:

Moving on with the comparison I must agree with other people that the new MF is FAR more related to the Engineers Elixir S. But something to take note is how Elixir S has 60 CD and not 75 CD. (and I still think both skills should be better unless Elixir S has some synergy I don’t know -only played engineer in the betas-)

Also Engineers have a hell of a lot higher damage output compared to even the rare dps ele builds, plus heavier armour as standard.

rhodoc.2381:

Seems pretty fair. But i dont know how Anet thinks when it comes to balance.

As ele most of the time i end up with with less health after using any heal skills in combat since i get more dmg then heal.

Quite simple, they don`t.
One dev even said on a live stream that any time he logged his ele he died all of the time, so he preferred his main (warrior & guardian I think it was) so that he can just faceroll mobs etc.

Of course, that could be just because he is awful at the game

Naurgalen.2374:

Escthiil.3210:

I’m not Anet, but here’s an objective analysis on Mist Form, with a comparison made to Endure Pain since you mentioned it.

Firstly, Endure Pain is a 90s CD stun breaker that lasts 4 seconds allows you to take no damage but conditions can still be applied to you throughout it’s effective duration. On the other hand, Mist Form is a 75s CD stun breaker that lasts 3 seconds that makes you invulnerable. Meaning other than not taking damage, new conditions cannot be applied to you nor do CC have any effect on you.

Granted, you can’t use skills in Mist form as opposed to Endure Pain, but you can still do element switching which I figured is a relatively good deal.

Plus you can still stomp with Mist Form and no one has any chance of stopping you. Unlike with Endure Pain, because it grants no stability, you are not excused from CC.

So all in all, with only a one second effect duration difference but a much lower default cool down while benefitting largely from being invulnerable, I don’t think other skills “seem to be much better than mist form” at all.

The problem with this kind of numbers view is that you aren’t really thinking about the uses.

You can use Endure Pain too:
+ Break a stun
+ Dodge 4 secs of damage (that means 3 full stuns if you were smart enough)
+ Combo with Frenzy to evade the extra 25% more damage you would take
+ Recover ( you can still heal / remove those awful conditions)
& Run
& Counter Attack
+ Deal Damage while for example “rooted” or when the 2nd stun goes out

You can use the new Mist Form too
+ Stomp people
+ Revive people
+/- Dodge 3 secs of damage (situational, read below)
+/- Recover a little by swapping to water (to make it “decent” it would require 3 traits)

Now, for stomping stability and blind sometimes can do the trick without using a 75 CD skill + in battle sometimes its just better to finish with damage. Still, I wont deny its use.

What is far more trickier is the “dodge 3 secs of damage”.
1) While it would appear that like EP you can escape 3 stuns, in fact being untargetable makes that you did escape only 1, the other 2 are waiting for you when you pop out from MF.
2) The real point is, can the 3 secs save you? You cant really escape while in MF, you cant damage you opponent either or now even heal substantially. So it comes to if you use it after or before the damage spike. The thing is -for me- we have more efficient cantrips to prevent damage. They may not work in some situation -lots of clones, ranger pets and bosses- but in most situations -again, for me- they are better.

---

Moving on with the comparison I must agree with other people that the new MF is FAR more related to the Engineers Elixir S. But something to take note is how Elixir S has 60 CD and not 75 CD. (and I still think both skills should be better unless Elixir S has some synergy I don’t know -only played engineer in the betas-)

Actually, I did… :P

I mentioned both are stun breakers.

But you did mention something that proves that Mist Form is to a certain degree, superior to Endure Pain. Anytime during its effective duration, Endure Pain doesn’t make you insusceptible to further stunning. You break the first stun, someone else can stun you again, and also, immobilise. Mist Form does not suffer from that. People can spam CC on you throughout it’s duration and they will see “Invulnerable” pop up simply. Granted you can combo with Frenzy, but that’s using another utility and complicates the argument further if we look at it from the bigger picture point of view because that’s where the difference in numbers and effects come into place.

You also mentioned removing conditions but this is situational as well. Running from a group of people? They are gonna stack it on you while you are under EP. You have to make sure you have no cripple and immo before utilising Rush. It’s a lot easier with Mist Form to buy you the time you need if you time it well, using Water to heal and clear the previous conditions received, letting your attunements cool down, RTL the hell out of there and pop a lightning flash. Granted you need to be traited in water.

Also, I never mentioned anything about it being better than other cantrips. If something else works for you, goodie! I was just showing to the OP that the Nerf was not entirely unwarranted.

They really should givie up nerfing X skill to be par with Y skill. Instead buff Y skill to be par with X skill with considering all other class balances.

Escthiil.3210:

Maketso.5602:

Great explanation. The only problem is your relating it to a warriors skill, a profession bound for the front lines. Whereas an elementalist dies fast (relatively). Get a better comparison, lol.

I’m a little confused here since I’m not sure what’s your point other than to show that the design is pretty much justified, which is reinforcing what I’m trying to say here. :P

Just a little food for thought: The other 3 skills of similar purpose are Signet of Stone, Elixir S and Renewed Focus.

Signet of Stone is 6s but requires a grandmaster trait to work, which is Signet of the Beastmaster and is on a 80s CD. Plus suffer from the same problems as Endure Pain.

Elixir S is the only one that works closely similar to the Mist Form but it locks their toolkit in addition. But has a 60s CD. Looks perfectly justified to me.

Lastly, Renewed Focus is an Elite, requires channeling means you can’t do anything else during that period granted it refreshes virtues. It’s only 2s too, by the way. 90s CD.

If you ask me, in my humble opinion, Mist Form is in a perfectly good place at the moment because after all, the ability to heal while bring invulnerable pre-nerf was a tad overpowered whether you wish to admit it or not.

Well, you do have correct interpretations and I know what your point is. Mine, however, is simply that Guardians are WAY tankier than an Elementalist. Their invulnerability does not need to be more than a 2-3s elite skill. If it was ANY more it would be stupid, for arguably the tankiest class. Second thing you forgot is Engineers trait giving them elixir S at 25% health which in turn can give them TWO full Elixir S. Although thats not really bad because the escape abilities of an Engineer are lackluster. ( Mine is my main, I know this XD) Running away on an Engineer is a lost kitten cause. I hardly play him due to the many issues with it in WvW. Anyways, as for Signet of Stone I have no experience with it.

Sure the change wasent completely awful, Im just saying the developers are screwing the class over little by little. Its stupid – A low health pool, light armour class getting nerfs to survive skills is……unorthodox (or stupid).

Elixer S formerly functioned like mist form, you could heal while using it. It locked toolbelt skills, but it also has a lower base cooldown and can be traited for even shorter cooldown as well as traited to cure condition. All in all, very similar to a cantrip. Using toolbelt skills isn’t really comparable to attunement swapping, in case anyone was going to make that argument.

I’d be willing to bet that this thread won’t get an official answer. Our forum hasn’t seen a developer in so long I can’t even remember.

Thrashbarg.9820:

Our forum hasn’t seen a developer in so long I can’t even remember.

Yikes, you might wanna get your memory checked out, because we had a dev comment on the Cleansing Water change within the last week.

A very, very mundane topic, but they posted.

Basically they don’t want completely uninterrupted healing, unless you’re using a focus.

Maketso.5602:

Escthiil.3210:

Maketso.5602:

Great explanation. The only problem is your relating it to a warriors skill, a profession bound for the front lines. Whereas an elementalist dies fast (relatively). Get a better comparison, lol.

I’m a little confused here since I’m not sure what’s your point other than to show that the design is pretty much justified, which is reinforcing what I’m trying to say here. :P

Just a little food for thought: The other 3 skills of similar purpose are Signet of Stone, Elixir S and Renewed Focus.

Signet of Stone is 6s but requires a grandmaster trait to work, which is Signet of the Beastmaster and is on a 80s CD. Plus suffer from the same problems as Endure Pain.

Elixir S is the only one that works closely similar to the Mist Form but it locks their toolkit in addition. But has a 60s CD. Looks perfectly justified to me.

Lastly, Renewed Focus is an Elite, requires channeling means you can’t do anything else during that period granted it refreshes virtues. It’s only 2s too, by the way. 90s CD.

If you ask me, in my humble opinion, Mist Form is in a perfectly good place at the moment because after all, the ability to heal while bring invulnerable pre-nerf was a tad overpowered whether you wish to admit it or not.

Well, you do have correct interpretations and I know what your point is. Mine, however, is simply that Guardians are WAY tankier than an Elementalist. Their invulnerability does not need to be more than a 2-3s elite skill. If it was ANY more it would be stupid, for arguably the tankiest class. Second thing you forgot is Engineers trait giving them elixir S at 25% health which in turn can give them TWO full Elixir S. Although thats not really bad because the escape abilities of an Engineer are lackluster. ( Mine is my main, I know this XD) Running away on an Engineer is a lost kitten cause. I hardly play him due to the many issues with it in WvW. Anyways, as for Signet of Stone I have no experience with it.

Sure the change wasent completely awful, Im just saying the developers are screwing the class over little by little. Its stupid – A low health pool, light armour class getting nerfs to survive skills is……unorthodox (or stupid).

To be fair, I think calling the Elementalist a low health and light armor class is a little generalising here because we all know a large majority of the players play a tanky D/D ele and of course, I disagree that trying to nerf one build should bring the whole class down together but like I said, the survivability it adds for being able to heal while invulnerable was over the top and it was not like the closest thing to mist form, Elixir S, was spared the rod.

I`m guessing that the main reason why loads of Ele` play tanky though, is because you`re of no use when dead or constantly in downed state & everyone else has to stop the fight just to res` you over & over. Also there is only so long you can stomach wp/running back over & over until you get sick of it all (or can`t afford to repair ;p(which I heard you can`t even do that in pve now)).

I`ve ran into loads of Ele` (in WvWs as I don`t touch PvE) that I could splatter in no time at all (Staff all too easily & other D/D less so) because they go for damage but against other tanky builds or full tanks it is a drawn out yawn fest, but at least you don`t get 1-2 shot by anything (& yes, I`m pointing my clawws at the scum of Tyria, Thieves…)

P.S. Whilst I have an almost tanky build & only last month changed to pvt gear, I still don`t bother with tanky runes, gems etc.

rhodoc.2381:

They really should givie up nerfing X skill to be par with Y skill. Instead buff Y skill to be par with X skill with considering all other class balances.

Yeah.. um no. If this were the only approached used for balancing then Power Creep would destroy the game in a very short amount of time. I do agree that players would enjoy feeling stronger for a bit though.
Anyway about the topic at hand: I think that the “nerf” (I quote it because I’m not convinced that it wasn’t a bug-fix) was 100% justified. I mean, really do you need to be able to be invulnerable, cast an un-interrupt-able heal, throw down another cantrip, and move to better positioning every 75 seconds? Nevermind the fact that Mist Form might just be the best downed state ability next to the Ranger’s pet-come-rez-me-now power.

Chaosky.5276:

Thrashbarg.9820:

Our forum hasn’t seen a developer in so long I can’t even remember.

Yikes, you might wanna get your memory checked out, because we had a dev comment on the Cleansing Water change within the last week.

A very, very mundane topic, but they posted.

Technically, yes, okay, there was that. Explaining the functions of a mechanic.

If you quote only one sentence from a post it’s easy to take it out of context. The sentence before that indicated my doubt that a developer would comment on this topic, which is asking for reasoning behind a change, not simply a mechanical definition of a skill function.

Perhaps that sentence was slight hyperbole, but one very simple comment in a week defining a technical change is hardly regular interaction. I respect the hard work the developers do and realize they can’t come to the forums all the time, but it seems like they are severely limited in what they are allowed to even discuss with the public.

Thrashbarg.9820:

Technically, yes, okay, there was that. Explaining the functions of a mechanic.

If you quote only one sentence from a post it’s easy to take it out of context. The sentence before that indicated my doubt that a developer would comment on this topic, which is asking for reasoning behind a change, not simply a mechanical definition of a skill function.

Perhaps that sentence was slight hyperbole, but one very simple comment in a week defining a technical change is hardly regular interaction. I respect the hard work the developers do and realize they can’t come to the forums all the time, but it seems like they are severely limited in what they are allowed to even discuss with the public.

You’re taking my post entirely too seriously.

You can read without commenting you know.

Chaosky.5276:

Thrashbarg.9820:

Technically, yes, okay, there was that. Explaining the functions of a mechanic.

If you quote only one sentence from a post it’s easy to take it out of context. The sentence before that indicated my doubt that a developer would comment on this topic, which is asking for reasoning behind a change, not simply a mechanical definition of a skill function.

Perhaps that sentence was slight hyperbole, but one very simple comment in a week defining a technical change is hardly regular interaction. I respect the hard work the developers do and realize they can’t come to the forums all the time, but it seems like they are severely limited in what they are allowed to even discuss with the public.

You’re taking my post entirely too seriously.

Haha, sorry about that. So much for my nonsense detector, need to re-calibrate that blasted thing.