Guild Wars 2

To keep spam off the forum or at least try and so we can all discuss the changes they made. so lets all sit down and chat about the changes they made, i will start.

illusionist’s celerity
For me i think there so called ‘promote unique builds’ annoucement for when they amde these changes is completely false for mesmers, A: because a root point spend in traits was at least 5 illusions for the celerity, moving it was not a bad idea, but making it go form 5 to 25 was, the reason is because now any mesmer playing a build not shatter/condition focused gets a serious power drop due to the lose of this passive trait power while none condition dmg/shatter builds will have to struggle and fuss over which power slots to sacrifice for training powers to reduce only given weapon cooldowns at the cost of powers that might have been what they enjoyed most while mesmers who wish to continue using celerity won’t be able to play unique builds on account of the fact they are having to give up 25 points just to get celerity back, in my opinion they should have made celerity a 15 point illusion not 25 because its too favorable to the shatter builds who focus on condition dmg, 15 would have made it more costly yes but would have still given other builds a chance to still use it without overdrawn point payment that restricts the rest of their point spending.

blurred frency

Ok this is sort of annoying, they bump up the cd on it that was bleh, making it possible to take retal is not a big deal it just balanced it more but the increased cd hurt it worse.

Torment
Really? we got it like they said we would, but they stuck it on a bad skill on the worst weapon in our arsenal, staff beats scepter for condition dmg and that’s all the scepter is good at and torment being on a defensive skill means that we cannot apply it at will like others who have torment can, on top of that anyone who knows the mesmer is trying to be pure condition dmg won’t attack you if they catch sight of you putting up your guard which decreases the odds we will do torment to anyone in pvp.

illusionary retribution

Are you kidding me?! We lose celerity and get this? all shatter skills inflict confusion?!!! that should be grandmastered because its only good for condition builds that makes cry of frustration do 6 stacks instead of 3 why is that being made an easy access trait ability when its only good for shatter builds who of course are going to be condition dmg builds, making this the 5 point illusion power is like a booby prize because for players not running condition dmg/shatter builds this eliminates any reason to spend points in illusions.

to me these are some very bad changes they made that wont promote diversity in mesmer builds but repel it because things like celerity which allowed builds to be diverse and unique has been taken away and made only for specific builds dedicated to style of play.

I’m done with mesmer. Anyone else?

Vengeful Images: This trait now only applies retaliation for 5 seconds when they are created and does not persist after that.

Blurred Frenzy: This is now evasion instead of immunity. This means it will be affected by retaliation. Increased the cooldown to 12 seconds.

Signet of Illusions: Decreased the bonus hit points to clones and phantasms to 50%.

Illusionists Celerity: Moved to the Grandmaster Minor trait.

Originally aimed at celerity nerf:
It is a much larger loss than you think. With cooldowns of 12 seconds on your two weapon sets a phantasm mesmer would use this rotation:
phantasm #1
swap weapon
phantasm #2
wait 12 seconds… phantasm #2
swap weapon
phantasm #1
wait 12 seconds… phantasm #1
swap weapon
phantasm #2
over and over…
The result was 2 phantasms every 12 seconds.
Using the same weapon swap logic we now get 2 phantasms every 16 seconds, or a 33% nerf in phantasms per second.
Under the new logic you will be waiting for the 48 second mark in a fight to unleash your third salvo of phantasms, previously it took just 36 seconds. Make no mistake, this is a huge nerf to phantasm builds.

I once did a lot of maths to come to the conclusion that is is absolutely essential for a phantasm build to have both the weapon trait AND illusionist’s celerity in order to maximise phantasms per second. For this reason I only ever used 10/30/0/25/5 with sw/sw + sw/pi, or 0/20/20/25/5 with sw/sw and staff.

Shatter vs phantasm was an even tossup prior to this. Those extra 4-6 seconds on the phantasms make this a nobrainer for me, it’s back to shatter I go. If shatter is nerfed next patch to complete the nerfing of every single decent mesmer spec I’ll swap mains.

I would have preferred a damage nerf due to target swapping and the increased hp per second the enemy would have to chew through if they decided to kill the phantasms (which in turn gave more retaliation damage back to them).

Don’t forget you also lose the cooldown buff to things like staff #2, greatsword #2 and sword #3. Not to mention decoy.

Phantasm spec almost requires signet of illusions now, but shatter spec is free to take something more useful.

Finally, anet said they do not balance around 1v1.

Shatter > phantasm by far for all modes of gameplay if this change goes through, and I’ve been a phantasm fan almost my whole lvl 80 life whether it be roaming, zerging, spvping or pveing, even through the confusion era.

Mesmer:
Mind Spike: Reduced the base damage by 20%. This skill does an additional 50% damage to targets with no boons.
Mind Stab: Reduced the aftercast by .4 seconds.
Illusionary Counter: This skill damage has been reduced to 50% of what it was. It now applies 5 stacks of torment for 8 seconds.
Magic Bullet: Reduced the aftercast by .2 seconds.
Into the Void: This skill now has a 1-second recharge before it can be used after placing Temporal Curtain.
Signet of Illusions: Clones and phantasms will now gain the passive effect of this signet when they are created, rather than a few moments after creation.
Siren’s Call
Bleed duration for players: Reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second.
Bleed duration for clones: Reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second.
Feigned Surge: Increased the damage by 33%.
Ineptitude: Fixed an issue that allowed this skill to be cast at infinite range.
Illusionary Leap: Fixed an exploit that allowed for more clone generation than intended.
Signet of Midnight: Increased the blind duration to 5 seconds. Decreased the cooldown to 30 seconds.
Illusion of Life: Fixed an issue so that Far-Reaching Manipulations no longer reduces the cast time of this skill.
Blurred Frenzy: This is now evasion instead of immunity. This means it will be affected by retaliation. Increased the cooldown to 12 seconds.
Signet of Illusions: Decreased the bonus hit points to clones and phantasms to 50%.
Split the hit point values of clones and phantasms by game type:
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 55% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 270% in PvE.
Decreased the clone base hit points by 25% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the clone base hit points by 28% in PvE.
Polymorph Moa:
Claw: This skill now jumps towards the target as it hits, and the animation was amended.
Kick: This ability is now a ground-targeted leap skill that damages and cripples enemies for 3 seconds where the player lands. Decreased the recharge to 4 seconds.
Peck: This ability now moves towards the target between each attack. Increased the damage by 10%. Decreased the recharge to 4 seconds.
Screech: This ability now damages and weakens foes for 3 seconds in a 300 radius. Lowered the cast time to 1.5 seconds. Decreased the recharge to 4 seconds.
Flee: Smoothed the animation and reduced the aftercast.
Polymorph Tuna:
Chomp: This ability now cripples for 3 seconds.
Frenzy: Increased the damage by 10%.
Phantasmal Berserker: Fixed an issue that was causing the damage from this summoned phantasm to not display. Updated the berserker’s attack to make it more reliably hit a static target with all 4 of the attacks.
Chaos
Prismatic Understanding: This trait now pulses once every second while stealthed.
Bountiful Interruption: This trait has been moved to the Master tier. In addition to granting a random boon on interrupt, this trait will also grant 5 stacks of might.
Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been moved to the Grandmaster tier. This ability now immobilizes the player’s target and randomly applies blind, cripple, or chill.
Domination
Halting Strike: Damage dealt when interrupting enemies has been increased by 500%.
Dueling
Protected Mantras: This trait now grants up to 400 toughness while channeling (up from 250).
Furious Interruption: This trait now grants 3 seconds of quickness when interrupting a foe. This effect can only occur once every 15 seconds.
Vengeful Images: This trait now only applies retaliation for 5 seconds when they are created and does not persist after that.
Illusions
Imbued Diversion: This trait now allows Diversion to daze 5 targets (up from 3). In addition, the daze radius has been increased to 360 (up from 240).
Illusionary Retribution: Moved to the Adept Minor trait.
Shattered Strength: Moved to the Master Minor trait.
Illusionists Celerity: Moved to the Grandmaster Minor trait.
Inspiration
Malicious Sorcery: This trait grants up to 200 condition damage while wielding a scepter (based on level), up from 50.
Compounding Celerity: Movement speed per active illusion has been increased to 10%, allowing for 30% movement speed when three illusions are active.
Shattered Conditions: This trait now removes one condition from all allies around the mesmer.

i wonder by the time the pvp whiner are off crying about mesmers what skills and trait are left to us… mybe an autoattack?

Even on blurred frenzy DDDDDD: ?

Vengeful Images? **** I didn’t see that!

I will still be playing however – still more fun than other classes.

Keep in mind that they lowered the % on Signet of Illusions, but they buffed Phantasms base HP.

That said I’m also seriously considering switching mains. I don’t want to be locked into shatter like this. So sad, because I love this class

Knowing myself I’ll probably stick it out, but this is just sad.

Even adding torment to scepter like that makes ZERO sense. Our only way to access it is completely unreliable and the Scepter still has an identity crisis as a weapon.

• Blurred Frenzy: This is now evasion instead of immunity. This means it will be affected by retaliation. Increased the cooldown to 12 seconds

Thank

F’n

God

IDK what I’ll do tbh. Sooooo many nerfs. Logic tells me to play my necro, but I don’t know if I like the game enough anymore to actually re-gear, yet again.

Redscope.6215:

• Blurred Frenzy: This is now evasion instead of immunity. This means it will be affected by retaliation. Increased the cooldown to 12 seconds

Thank

F’n

God

How exactly is this a good thing?

Joonks.7501:

Redscope.6215:

• Blurred Frenzy: This is now evasion instead of immunity. This means it will be affected by retaliation. Increased the cooldown to 12 seconds

Thank

F’n

God

How exactly is this a good thing?

It’s a good thing because he probably mains a thief.

Soooooo, we now officially have only one build ?
On the upside : iBerserker fix!

oh greeeeeeat the nerfed blurred frenzy too….oi…wow its offiial, anet hates mesmers……i havent seen anything useful…they add 1 condition that can barely be used and everything else is…well……erm….useless or a nerf..anet stop balancing around spvp. there is pve and wvw too, u might wann play your game once as a mesmer in wvw vs a giant zerg…..

I’m taking a break and let this all shake out. It seems really bad, but maybe some of the experts (I’m looking at you Pyro & Kylia) can figure this out.

I am not actually much bothered by these changes, because I run a condition damage focused mesmer with 15/25/0/0/30. Actually, I will get another condition for my scepter, so I’m quite happy.

O U C H. I was hoping I would only have to make a few tweaks and still be able to salvage my build but this really just dismantles it.

What was the Mind Spike change even for?

I’m going to need to give my build a total overhaul and see if I can’t still pull off a versatile Phant spec, because I don’t want to play shatter.

Increased the phantasm base hit points by 55% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 270% in PvE.

This patch… happened.

Well, at least the nerfs to every single mesmer build means that condition builds and interrupt builds are viable now, right?

…right?

Im leaving my mesmer and finally playing another character…

Hrm. I guess this finally provides the impetus to switch away from my norn mesmer to my asura guard and thief. Minimal increase in utility, reduced damage…but at least we run slightly faster when we have 3 clones up.

Holy whoa, Nerf Central…

Blurred Frenzy longer cool down and lost Invulnerability?

Illusionist’s Celerity moved up 20 points

Signet of Illusions – “Fixed” and then nerfed… ouch.

Temporal Curtain / Into the Void – That 1 second cooldown suuuucks.

Mind Spike (This is the third attack of the sword auto chain, right?) – “Extra” damage on targets with no boons, but reduced damage overall? Actually kinda interesting.

Fixed the iBerserker at least, but huge nerfs to Phantasm builds with Vengeful Images retaliation duration mega-nerf and Illusionist’s Celerity moving up.

I liked the big damage lllusionary Counter used to provide, despite how few people seem to use the Scepter. I hope that the Torment attached now is significant enough to compensate. Will be worth experimenting with, although even with the the increased Condition Damage on the Scepter Trait, I’ll be hard pressed to pick it over the Focus Trait or Restorative Mantras in Inspiration.

Looks like Illusions Trait Line and Interrupts for all / most!

Well ItV got it’s nerf as expected. Lots of whining lots of nerfing. Was great against thieves. Was this why there was a nerf? And Phantasms… lol just so ridiculous. I guess a buff to their health was a way to appease? Maybe now it will take me three 1 spam hits to kill them instead of 2.

Vengeful Images… Oh man, that’s a real kick in the nuts for Immortal Mesmers.

Support builds buffed, Confusion builds.. tickled, Phantasms nerfed. Most other builds nerfed.

@Dat build diversity.

Yeah you flavour of the month guys won’t be missed. The real mesmers will carry on and work with whatever we have. Personally I’m going to enjoy trying out a condition damage build with the changes to scepter skills and traits.

You keep telling yourself that Eridani. You’ll join the rage train soon enough

Eridani.8317:

Yeah you flavour of the month guys won’t be missed. The real mesmers will carry on and work with whatever we have. Personally I’m going to enjoy trying out a condition damage build with the changes to scepter skills and traits.

I also plan on trying out a condition damage build, but looking at the changes I just can’t see it being that viable.

We’ll see I suppose.

I’m personally excited to try out Halting Strike, though I do feel bad for anyone not running Shatter or 30 Chaos (and of course, we all hate the Blurred Frenzy nerf ). Not sure they accomplished their “diversity” goal. Time will tell.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Increased the phantasm base hit points by 55% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 270% in PvE.

I feel like this needs the whole story.

Signet of Illusions: Decreased the bonus hit points to clones and phantasms to 50%.
(From 200%)
Split the hit point values of clones and phantasms by game type:
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 55% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 270% in PvE.
Decreased the clone base hit points by 25% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the clone base hit points by 28% in PvE.

If I remember correctly, Phantasms currently only have a base health of… around 2.5k or so? I know the iDefender has much more. They’re generally quite fragile though. kitten increase of “not a lot” doesn’t exactly make them immortal engines of destruction. (The PvE adjustment is pretty nice for dungeon-runners though)

Bummed about the Clone health reduction in PvP.

The huge retaliation nerf for phantasms pretty rough on them too:

Vengeful Images: This trait now only applies retaliation for 5 seconds when they are created and does not persist after that.

The retaliation was previously permanent. Blah.

First the Condition Damage builds and now the Phantasm builds. Will the Shatter builds be next? It seems all we have left.

If nothing else, the scepter looks more interesting. Hard pressed to see a Mesmer not running with a sword prior to this. Hooray for diversity!

Maybe you guys are right, but for now I’m still holding out hope they know what they’re doing. So yeah, we’ll see.

Sinaya.4201:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Increased the phantasm base hit points by 55% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 270% in PvE.

I feel like this needs the whole story.

Signet of Illusions: Decreased the bonus hit points to clones and phantasms to 50%.
(From 200%)
Split the hit point values of clones and phantasms by game type:
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 55% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the phantasm base hit points by 270% in PvE.
Decreased the clone base hit points by 25% in PvP and WvW.
Increased the clone base hit points by 28% in PvE.

If I remember correctly, Phantasms currently only have a base health of… around 2.5k or so? I know the iDefender has much more. They’re generally quite fragile though. kitten increase of “not a lot” doesn’t exactly make them immortal engines of destruction. (The PvE adjustment is pretty nice for dungeon-runners though)

Bummed about the Clone health reduction in PvP.

The huge retaliation nerf for phantasms pretty rough on them too:

Vengeful Images: This trait now only applies retaliation for 5 seconds when they are created and does not persist after that.

The retaliation was previously permanent. Blah.

clones already die extreemly fast in wvw. now they will pop and die at the same time. ANET separate the kitten spv from wvw already!!!!!!!it absolutely makes no sense what soever to balance them the same way.
spvp=less people, fast gameplay, no massive aoe, no massive conditions that are applied within 2 seconds, no siege = different builds

wvw=massive zergs, massive aoe, massive conditions, tons of siege, need aoe, needs conditions, needs to be able to interrupt multiple people. torment will hit 1 person and 1 only out of 20-50 man zergs!!!start balancing around massplayers aswell!

so…where are the fotm players heading to now? going back to thief?

ANet apparently subscribes to the Harrison Bergeron school of build equality.

#$% they nerfed bleeds! Kitten#$% kitten!

Eridani.8317:

Yeah you flavour of the month guys won’t be missed. The real mesmers will carry on and work with whatever we have. Personally I’m going to enjoy trying out a condition damage build with the changes to scepter skills and traits.

I don’t think anyone would accuse me of being a fotm Mesmer player, and I’m just as kitten ed off as anyone else. The only reason I haven’t written a large analysis of this he is because I’m on my phone, but it’ll show up within the next hour.

Apparently, writing the number equivalent of “fifty five percent” after the letter “A” gets turned into kittens by the language filter. -.-

Anet developers – do tell us what, if anything useful you actually gave us Mesmers – you completely screwed my build. Where is the balance if you are forcing a trait line in terms of condition play.

Vengeful Images nerf is a huge blow to the damage output of phantasm build (especially pDefender+retaliation trick).
5 seconds of retaliation is too few considering that Illusionists Celerity is moved to Grandmaster trait and thus resummoning time is increased. Also the HP buff to phantasms should prolong their lives (by a second or so…). 8-10 seconds of retaliation would be a better compromise for me.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Eridani.8317:

Yeah you flavour of the month guys won’t be missed. The real mesmers will carry on and work with whatever we have. Personally I’m going to enjoy trying out a condition damage build with the changes to scepter skills and traits.

I don’t think anyone would accuse me of being a fotm Mesmer player, and I’m just as kitten ed off as anyone else. The only reason I haven’t written a large analysis of this he is because I’m on my phone, but it’ll show up within the next hour.

Looking forward to this haha

In the meantime I’ll be in the corner theorycrafting my condition damage build. I’m thinking 0/15/30/0/25 Scepter/Torch and Staff…

Vengeful Images change isnt working apparently

Only thing I think is abit harsh:
Illusionists Celerity: Moved to the Grandmaster Minor trait.
Without this Mirror Images and Decoy CDs start looking quite long for fast paced pvp imo, for my current build that is way too far in trait line.

Honestly, what this patch did was make popular builds/weapons more difficult and less popular ones… well.. slightly more noticeable. But these changes are so radical, I feel like I’m playing a beta more than a real game. I mean.. just last month they fixed the tooltip to show that Signet of Illusions gives 200% HP, now they nerf it?

This change, besides celerity, doesn’t hurt my build.. but its a strange mix of a kick in the nuts & pat on the head.

Whats frustrating though, is that it seems Anet isn’t balancing this game anymore; disgruntled PvPers are.

The nerf to Blurred Frenzy and SoI are reasonable. I would’ve handled IC differently but it definitely needed something done. Vengeful Images is a bit uncalled for but possibly is required with the Phantasm HP buff.

this means quit on mesmer good job arenanet game has now 1 destroyed class

I…. I don’t know what to say.

Thank you QQers for destroying Mesmers into oblivion.

NOT ONLY WAS IC NERFED
-so was Blurred Frenzy (Seriously 12 kitten seconds? WTF)
-Clones are now literal balloons (as if they weren’t glass before, now just a tiny little needle can pop them)
-Your expected “Signet of Illusions buff” has now turned into a horrific side effect nerf
-Why are you nerfing Moa Morph even more? It was already a horrific skill to begin with

BUT DON’T WORRY GUYS! we got crap interrupts and Torment ohhhh!!!! And on the scepter #2 (with of course, a 50% reduced damage)!!

I can see it now!!
NERF MANTRAS
NERF SCEPTER
NERF GREATSWORD
NERF iMAGE
NERF MASS INVISIBILITY

That’s what they want. Too many mesmers in PvP.

and way too few thieves.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Honestly, what this patch did was make popular builds/weapons more difficult and less popular ones… well.. slightly more noticeable. But these changes are so radical, I feel like I’m playing a beta more than a real game. I mean.. just last month they fixed the tooltip to show that Signet of Illusions gives 200% HP, now they nerf it?

This change, besides celerity, doesn’t hurt my build.. but its a strange mix of a kick in the nuts & pat on the head.

Whats frustrating though, is that it seems Anet isn’t balancing this game anymore; disgruntled PvPers are.

yeah..how could I forget the fact that the top pvpers in this game all play mesmer or thief? Without any doubt people who complain about mesmer must be people who have never played a MMO before…true story

Well, at least happened before me sinking a Bolt to my Mes. (few charged and T6 and runestones away)

LumAnth.5124:

I…. I don’t know what to say.
…

NERF iMAGE

No, not iMAGE!!

Sinaya.4201:

Apparently, writing the number equivalent of “fifty five percent” after the letter “A” gets turned into kittens by the language filter. -.-

A 5 can be read as an S. Get it?