Guild Wars 2

Mesmer

In addition to being integrated into the new ammo system, mesmer mantras are seeing a comprehensive overhaul. When we took a look at the traits available to mantras, we found that harmonious mantras and restorative mantras had conflicting purposes. Restorative mantras are most effective when you are restocking your mantra charges, but harmonious mantras made it harder to do this. With new mantras in the upcoming firebrand specialization, we wanted to make sure that mesmer mantras had gameplay that was unique to them. Our decision was to focus mesmer mantras on combat casting, which meant removing harmonious mantras and adding additional bonuses to mesmer mantras when they are fully restocked. The removal of harmonious mantras also allowed us to make the active effects stronger since we no longer had to worry about the balance skewing that adding a third cast would create. Removing harmonious mantras also gave us space to build a new Dueling Grandmaster trait that favors Precision builds.

Profession:
-Cry of Frustration: Fixed the vigor skill fact that appears when Bountiful Disillusionment is present so that the correct 8-second vigor duration is indicated.
-Illusionary Warlock: Fixed a bug that caused this phantasm’s attack to not increase in damage against foes with certain conditions.
-Illusionary Berserker: The attack from this phantasm now has a consistent move distance and is unaffected by enhancements that change movement speed.
-Continuum Split: Fixed a bug that could cause this skill to go on a longer-than-expected recharge when traited with Master of Misdirection.

Weapon Skills:
-Phantasmal Berserker: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to not display legendary-weapon projectile effects.
-Spatial Surge: Slightly increased its beam width.
-Blurred Frenzy: This skill now goes on full cooldown if it is canceled.
-The Prestige: This skill now removes 1 condition when activated.

Utility Skills:
-Signet of the Ether: Increased the healing rate to once per second instead of once per 3 seconds. The healing per pulse has been reduced to preserve approximate healing per second.
-Mantras: Mantra skills will no longer display their number of charges in the enhancement bar and will instead use the ammo system. Reduced cast time by 0.5 seconds. Mantras no longer grant bonus Toughness while channeling. Ammo count has been set to 2. Recharges between casts have not changed.
-Mantra of Recovery: When fully charged, this skill now heals for a small amount.
Power Return: Count recharge has been set to 20 seconds. Lowered base healing by approximately 33%. Heal amount is increased while below 50% health.
-Mantra of Concentration: Reduced recharge to 15 seconds. Count recharge has been set to 30 seconds. When fully charged, grants a stack of stability and aegis for 5 seconds.
Power Break: Removed unnecessary range skill fact. Cleaned up ambiguous language about stun breaks.
-Mantra of Distraction: When fully charged, this skill reduces the recharge of Diversion by 15 seconds.
Power Lock: Count recharge has been set to 24 seconds. Updated skill description to reflect that this skill hits multiple targets.
-Mantra of Pain: When fully charged, gain 8 stacks of might for 5 seconds.
Power Spike: Count recharge has been set to 10 seconds. Inflicts 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds on foes not using skills. Updated the skill description to reflect that this skill his multiple targets.
-Mantra of Resolve: Reduced recharge to 12 seconds. When fully charged, gain resistance for 2 seconds.
-Power Cleanse: Count recharge has been set to 24 seconds. Increased the number of conditions removed from 2 to 3. Added an effect to indicate skill area.
-Arcane Thievery: This skill has been unsplit and now has a 25-second recharge in all game modes.
-Signet of Midnight: The signet’s active effect now grants stealth for 2 seconds but no longer applies vulnerability or cripple. The recharge has been increased from 25 seconds to 30 seconds.

Traits:
-Harmonious Mantras: This trait has been removed from the game.
-Superiority Complex: This trait replaces Harmonious Mantras and increases critical-hit damage by 15%. This bonus is further increased to 25% against foes below 50% health or foes who become disabled by stun, daze, taunt, fear, knockdown, etc.
-Mistrust: This trait has been removed from the game.
-Ineptitude: This trait has been moved to the Grandmaster trait line in Dueling, to the slot previously taken by Mistrust, and its effects have changed. This trait now causes interrupts to inflict blind for 5 seconds, and applies blind to inflict 2 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds.
-Phantasmal Force: This trait replaces the slot left open by Ineptitude and has the following effect: Phantasms gain a 1% damage boost whenever might is applied to them, and a 4% damage boost whenever they attack (maximum bonus 25%). This bonus damage lasts until the phantasm is destroyed.
-Restorative Mantras: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to show incorrect values based on the player’s Healing-Power multiplier. Lowered base multiplier by 37%. Increased Healing-Power multiplier by 25%.
-Persistence of Memory: This trait has been reworked. It now causes shattered phantasms to transfer their boons to the mesmer.
-The Pledge: This trait now grants a flat 20% recharge reduction but no longer causes torch skills to remove conditions. Instead, it causes torch skills to apply an additional stack of burning. (Does not affect phantasm attacks.)
-Mender’s Purity: This trait now casts Lesser Power Cleanse, which removes 1 condition from you and nearby allies. Fixed a bug that could cause this trait to put Mantra of Resolve on recharge. This trait now shows an effect to indicate its radius.
-Chaotic Dampening: This trait now grants a flat 20% recharge reduction to staff and trident skills instead of scaling the recharge reduction with Chaos Armor. Fixed a bug that caused this trait to grant an unlisted 50 Toughness while wielding a staff or trident.
-Descent into Madness: The skill fired by this trait has been renamed to Lesser Chaos Storm. This trait now casts Lesser Chaos Storm when you use your healing skill in addition to when you take falling damage.

I was ready to cry about how I just got back and how I had to spend so much time getting used to all the changes like two days ago.. and now this.

… But then I tried out this swanky new Mantra of Distraction. All is forgiven, Anet.

Mantras are either bugged or still completely useless, as they don’t grant their “when fully charged” effect when they recharge…ONLY when you recast the skill from scratch – and the count recharges are also far too long anyway, usually significantly longer than actually just recasting the skill. So nothing about them has changed except they grant a paltry benefit on cast and are otherwise essentialy unchanged. After five years, they still can’t or won’t make this skill type worth a kitten .

But honestly, nothing in these changes will change how I trait or play Mesmer at all. Damage builds will never be viable as long as Phantasms can’t change targets; hilarious that they gave them a GM ramp-up trait when they will never exist long enough to ramp up, and don’t even maintain the bonus through Chronophantasma recycling.

Chronomancer alacrity-bot is and always will be our only use, even after Mirage comes out I suspect. Better luck in another two years.

The applying might to an illusionary swordsman on summon now has two traits that make that a real benefit. There was quite a bit of ridiculing of Anet when that was released.

I like how the staff and torch skills are now flat 20% reductions. That makes it a lot easier to understand the benefit.

Looking forward to trying out the changed mantras.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I was ready to cry about how I just got back and how I had to spend so much time getting used to all the changes like two days ago.. and now this.

… But then I tried out this swanky new Mantra of Distraction. All is forgiven, Anet.

!

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

Mantras are either bugged or still completely useless, as they don’t grant their “when fully charged” effect when they recharge…ONLY when you recast the skill from scratch – and the count recharges are also far too long anyway, usually significantly longer than actually just recasting the skill. So nothing about them has changed except they grant a paltry benefit on cast and are otherwise essentialy unchanged. After five years, they still can’t or won’t make this skill type worth a kitten .

But honestly, nothing in these changes will change how I trait or play Mesmer at all. Damage builds will never be viable as long as Phantasms can’t change targets; hilarious that they gave them a GM ramp-up trait when they will never exist long enough to ramp up, and don’t even maintain the bonus through Chronophantasma recycling.

Chronomancer alacrity-bot is and always will be our only use, even after Mirage comes out I suspect. Better luck in another two years.

Actually I feel that we had only a nerf to Mantras…. mantra of recovery now is significantly weaker with its threshold debuff (lower heal if above 50%)… so yeah, my preferred healing skill just got nerfed and nothing better for mantras.

Sigh…. guess it is wait for the power creep on PoF

Edit: Wow, just now I noticed the “Our decision was to focus mesmer mantras on combat casting”… how can they say this with the absurd cast times and pathetic buffs the skills give once “fully cast”…. ugh….

Mantra’s charges also somewhat work with Continuum Split now. If you use only one charge during CS, you get it back when it ends.

Perma retal again … a certain immortal build of old got nerfed in large part due to that …
Not complaining though

Mantras got improved. They are pretty good now. But given that they still encourage you charge up by giving a special effect. I don’t see myself taking multiple mantras at a time.

All other changes are kinda bad though.

Ineptitude and mistrust are nerfed and combined into one okayish trait. The 2 new GM traits are boring as hell and I don’t see how they are useful in any situation.

Persistence of memory gets nerfed into oblivion. But I guess it is fair as the old one is too strong for an adept level trait

skcamow.3527:

Perma retal again … a certain immortal build of old got nerfed in large part due to that …
Not complaining though

We had perma retaliation for ages at the nerf, that’s not what made the build strong. The key was permanent retaliation on phantasms too, and that’s never been achievable in a realistic fashion since then. Plus, retal and confusion both got heavily nerfed, damage output has been drastically buffed, and sustain has been heavily buffed. It’s nice to reminisce about the immortal mesmer, but it wouldn’t hold up very well in today’s environment.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I was ready to cry about how I just got back and how I had to spend so much time getting used to all the changes like two days ago.. and now this.

… But then I tried out this swanky new Mantra of Distraction. All is forgiven, Anet.

dat necro

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

Damage builds will never be viable as long as Phantasms can’t change targets; hilarious that they gave them a GM ramp-up trait when they will never exist long enough to ramp up, and don’t even maintain the bonus through Chronophantasma recycling.

Chronomancer alacrity-bot is and always will be our only use, even after Mirage comes out I suspect. Better luck in another two years.

Axe skill 3 redirects your phantasms onto the target, if I read it correctly.

These changes are just so…… underwhelming. The cast time reduction on mantras is welcomed, but overall teh changes seem pointless to me. The count recharge times are fairly long in general. And the rest of the changes were mediocre at best.

Ineptitude and mistrust getting gutted was absurd as well. Yea, ineptitude would have been ridiculously overpowered with mirage cloak, but at the same time I don’t see why core mesmer should be nerfed to account for that. Fairly disappointed honestly, especially considering that in the same patch where mistrust is removed, Warrior’s “Merciless Hammer” trait gets an improved version of mistrust tacked onto additional effects (4 stacks for 8 seconds on interrupt, vs our 4 stacks for 6 seconds. Not to mention that merciless hammer also offers CD reduction on hammer skills AND improved damage from hammer skills against disabled foes).

Where the kitten is the logic in that? Clearly the effects of mistrust were not overpowered……. so why did we lose it when warrior got a better version of it?

If you.manage to get cced from hammer then i dunno.

OriOri.8724:

These changes are just so…… underwhelming. The cast time reduction on mantras is welcomed, but overall teh changes seem pointless to me. The count recharge times are fairly long in general. And the rest of the changes were mediocre at best.

Ineptitude and mistrust getting gutted was absurd as well. Yea, ineptitude would have been ridiculously overpowered with mirage cloak, but at the same time I don’t see why core mesmer should be nerfed to account for that. Fairly disappointed honestly, especially considering that in the same patch where mistrust is removed, Warrior’s “Merciless Hammer” trait gets an improved version of mistrust tacked onto additional effects (4 stacks for 8 seconds on interrupt, vs our 4 stacks for 6 seconds. Not to mention that merciless hammer also offers CD reduction on hammer skills AND improved damage from hammer skills against disabled foes).

Where the kitten is the logic in that? Clearly the effects of mistrust were not overpowered……. so why did we lose it when warrior got a better version of it?

To be fair, you get 3 AoE stacks of confusion from blinding dissipation if running illusions trait line, 4 AoE if casting cry of frustration. That’s no joke on a chrono with a fairly low cast time. Then you add the AoE sources of interrupts (such as shield 5), diversion traited with master of fragmentation and mantra of distraction working together, and you continue to compound confusion stacks. Meta worthy, absolutely not – just like the previous iteration of mistrust was – but is absolutely something that should be experimented with, for PvP anyway.

Clearly though, the new ineptitude works optimally if running at least dueling and illusions.

I’m having a love-hate relationship with the mantra changes… sadly it’s mostly hate…

Pros:
Mantras recover over time… I no longer feel forced to burn my last charge after combat ends to refill, I can leave it and let it recharge by the time I get to my next location.
Bonuses upon fully charging a Mantra… this is awesome, as it makes the cast time not feel wasted.

Cons:
Mantra of Recovery’s healing threshold is a pointless nerf… The threshold wouldn’t be bad if they had actually done what the patch notes claims “Heal amount is increased while below 50% health.” This implies that the base healing value is unaltered, and that we get a bonus under 50% health… the truth however is that the base value was reduced by ~47.5% and our old base value is only available under 50% health…
The removal of Harmonious Mantras really does more harm than good… I disagree completely with it having “conflicting purposes” with Restorative Mantras. 1 extra charge doesn’t negatively impact Restorative Mantras, in fact it made mantras more rewarding to use.
Full charge bonuses are NOT granted by recharging mantras.
Mantra recharging takes too long… the recharge should be only a little longer than the recharge plus cast time, not 2x the CD of the skill…
Cast time is honestly still too long… the 1/2s reduction in CD is negligible at best… there is functionally no difference between 2.75s and 2.25s cast time. At least now that cast time isn’t wasted…

A few suggested changes:
Mantra Recharge rate changes
- Mantra of Recovery should be a 15s (10s CD + 2.25s Cast + 2.75s extra) not 20s.
- Mantra of Pain should be 4s (1s CD + 2.25s Cast + 0.75s extra) not 8s.
- Distraction & Resolve 17s (12s CD + 2.25s Cast + 2.75s extra) instead of 24s.
- Concentration 20s (15s CD + 2.25s Cast + 2.75s extra) instead of 30s.
Mantra of Recovery threshold change
- restore the original base healing value
- heals for 50% more when under 50% health (exactly what the patch notes implied)
Fully recharging Mantras triggers their full charge bonus
Harmonious Mantras effect added to Restorative Mantras or made baseline
Reduce cast time to 2s flat (does not impact suggested recharge rates)

With the recent changes to food buff, what would happen to my zerk mesmer? Should I change stats? Sorry, not as well-versed in the game as you guys are.

antares.5916:

With the recent changes to food buff, what would happen to my zerk mesmer? Should I change stats? Sorry, not as well-versed in the game as you guys are.

Overall the food buff and stat changes should result in an effective buff to Power builds… Condi builds got a nerf by the standardization of Condi duration sources into Expertise… so you should be fine leaving your stats as is.

Azel.4786:

Actually I feel that we had only a nerf to Mantras…. mantra of recovery now is significantly weaker with its threshold debuff (lower heal if above 50%)… so yeah, my preferred healing skill just got nerfed and nothing better for mantras.

Meh, using Mantras was always “Hard Mode”. It’s something you do voluntarily because you want a tougher game experience.

Mender’s Purity: This trait now casts Lesser Power Cleanse, which removes 1 condition from you and nearby allies. Fixed a bug that could cause this trait to put Mantra of Resolve on recharge. This trait now shows an effect to indicate its radius.

This is where I am going to get very very salty. With the current condi meta they dare to do THIS to us?

zomgbuffalo.5276:

Mender’s Purity: This trait now casts Lesser Power Cleanse, which removes 1 condition from you and nearby allies. Fixed a bug that could cause this trait to put Mantra of Resolve on recharge. This trait now shows an effect to indicate its radius.

This is where I am going to get very very salty. With the current condi meta they dare to do THIS to us?

Im not sure i understand what has happened to menders purity.

I cleans 1 condie, not 2 like before

So now unless you need boon rip there’s no point running dom it seems, EU so haven’t been able to see in game but that GM duelling trait is a beast for high crit builds.

apharma.3741:

So now unless you need boon rip there’s no point running dom it seems, EU so haven’t been able to see in game but that GM duelling trait is a beast for high crit builds.

Yup I am wondering which trait line to give up for dueling in my WvW roaming fun.

zomgbuffalo.5276:

apharma.3741:

So now unless you need boon rip there’s no point running dom it seems, EU so haven’t been able to see in game but that GM duelling trait is a beast for high crit builds.

Yup I am wondering which trait line to give up for dueling in my WvW roaming fun.

Pretty much gonna be running duelling, insp and probably chaos for the extra stealth duration and low cool down mirror heal to counter headshot. I am tempted to run illusions instead of chaos though now it’s a flat 20% on the pledge, I guess I’ll just play around a bit but I see no reason for domination line atm as the GM duelling on paper looks to be the better damage buff.

zomgbuffalo.5276:

This is where I am going to get very very salty. With the current condi meta they dare to do THIS to us?

Frankly this still isn’t a problem to be solved with excessive access to cleansing. Never was.

All skills are spammed like crazy. Everything barrages you 50 times a second. In a balanced world it wouldn’t matter much whether a 1000 damage direct attack hits you or a 1000 damage bleed. Both are 1k damage if you fail to dodge the attack. One gets reduced by toughness, the other can be cleansed and ofc has lower burst since it needs time to tick.

Excessive access to cleansing just means conditions have to be hellishly strong to compensate (see: current PvP/WvW gameplay).

Carighan.6758:

zomgbuffalo.5276:

This is where I am going to get very very salty. With the current condi meta they dare to do THIS to us?

Frankly this still isn’t a problem to be solved with excessive access to cleansing. Never was.

All skills are spammed like crazy. Everything barrages you 50 times a second. In a balanced world it wouldn’t matter much whether a 1000 damage direct attack hits you or a 1000 damage bleed. Both are 1k damage if you fail to dodge the attack. One gets reduced by toughness, the other can be cleansed and ofc has lower burst since it needs time to tick.

Excessive access to cleansing just means conditions have to be hellishly strong to compensate (see: current PvP/WvW gameplay).

Inspiration trait line is the only way to effectively clear condi cancer when running around as a power shatter. I dunno if that was necessary.

ArenaNet,

I hate having to choose between Phantasmal Force and Malicious Sorcery. Please move something so we can have both!

<3
~Wand users

Gwydeon.3580:

ArenaNet,

I hate having to choose between Phantasmal Force and Malicious Sorcery. Please move something so we can have both!

<3
~Wand users

How dare you devs provide actual choice in traits! Next we’ll have an actual reason for this system to insist as it isn’t just a big illusion of choice. What is the world getting to!

:P

Some of the trait changes are nice, particulary Skirmishing but the Phantasmal trait and Mirage shows that Anet really has no idea what the problems of Mesmer in PvE is.

Looks like we might have a 30k dps power build now for raids but with all the same problems that the condi build has, so that will be used to dimiss are claims of broken mechanics.

Mantras still look terrible.

Overall, the elite specs and patch just seems to be Anet telling me to play my Ranger more.

Levetty.1279:

Some of the trait changes are nice, particulary Skirmishing but the Phantasmal trait and Mirage shows that Anet really has no idea what the problems of Mesmer in PvE is.

Looks like we might have a 30k dps power build now for raids but with all the same problems that the condi build has, so that will be used to dimiss are claims of broken mechanics.

Mantras still look terrible.

Overall, the elite specs and patch just seems to be Anet telling me to play my Ranger more.

To be honest all that is needed is for it to not be worse than other dps roles and/or to bring something useful as well. Emergency moa for breakbar or time warp is ok and some of the utilities like feedback or null field can be useful too.

If it does alright you might be able to run it on wing 2 and most of wing 4, trio will suck and wing 3 is pretty much a no go. It should be better than the condition build as the ramp up time will be lower and power naturally is more front loaded than conditions. We’ll see but I’m certainly going to use it on our wing 4 runs till I have to snooze at Deimos.

Ah finally the EU servers are back up and running – was a shame reading all this but not being able to log into the game or the forum!

Mender’s Purity, Mantra of Recovery and The Pledge changes are a little odd and I hope they don’t affect me too much – I don’t want to change to a different heal yet.

Signet of Midnight looks awesome.

Don’t worry. As soon as people start using Power Mesmer in PvP again, we’ll get nerfed back into the ground.

tobascodagama.2961:

Don’t worry. As soon as people start using Power Mesmer in PvP again, we’ll get nerfed back into the ground.

I’ve been using power mesmer for pvp. Not a big fan of condi mesmer. Condi is so simple to apply, only a looser would choose it. That’s what I think.

zomgbuffalo.5276:

tobascodagama.2961:

Don’t worry. As soon as people start using Power Mesmer in PvP again, we’ll get nerfed back into the ground.

I’ve been using power mesmer for pvp. Not a big fan of condi mesmer. Condi is so simple to apply, only a looser would choose it. That’s what I think.

Yup, absolutely. All the mesmers who play condition variant in tournaments are losers to win their games….

Wait, what am I talking about

Power mantra WvW roaming has been hit hard by this. Yes, the burst is incredible now and you can 1-shot anything without auto-invulns, but the cost has been very high.

Mantra of Recovery / Mender’s Purity is a noticable nerf.

The whole “heal more while below 50%” thing doesn’t make much sense for mantra as it is the kind of heal you want to keep topping yourself up with when you drop below 75% or so (assuming average health pool of ~18-20k). Mantra isn’t the sort of heal like Ether Feast where you let yourself drop low in order to make the most of the heal. It’s the more “spammable” heal where you want to keep topping yourself up and not let yourself drop too low if possible.

I strongly think the conditional under 50% normal healing and over 50% reduced healing should be reverted to a flat heal amount. Nevermind the nerf to Restorative Mantras which while it is good to be reliant on healing power, does reduce the effectiveness of heal on charge. And also nevermind the loss of extra toughness on charging mantras…

I am certainly feeling the reduced sustain in wvw.

Curunen.8729:

Mantra of Recovery / Mender’s Purity is a noticable nerf.

The whole “heal more while below 50%” thing doesn’t make much sense for mantra as it is the kind of heal you want to keep topping yourself up with when you drop below 75% or so (assuming average health pool of ~18-20k). Mantra isn’t the sort of heal like Ether Feast where you let yourself drop low in order to make the most of the heal. It’s the more “spammable” heal where you want to keep topping yourself up and not let yourself drop too low if possible.

I strongly think the conditional under 50% normal healing and over 50% reduced healing should be reverted to a flat heal amount. Nevermind the nerf to Restorative Mantras which while it is good to be reliant on healing power, does reduce the effectiveness of heal on charge. And also nevermind the loss of extra toughness on charging mantras…

I am certainly feeling the reduced sustain in wvw.

Completely agree that the 50% requirement for the heal needs to be removed. Sustain is now gone and in it’s place is huge damage. Oddly enough Chrono is less appealing now since it has no real sustain/condi removal traits. It’s burst or die.

Hackuuna.4085:

Curunen.8729:

Mantra of Recovery / Mender’s Purity is a noticable nerf.

The whole “heal more while below 50%” thing doesn’t make much sense for mantra as it is the kind of heal you want to keep topping yourself up with when you drop below 75% or so (assuming average health pool of ~18-20k). Mantra isn’t the sort of heal like Ether Feast where you let yourself drop low in order to make the most of the heal. It’s the more “spammable” heal where you want to keep topping yourself up and not let yourself drop too low if possible.

I strongly think the conditional under 50% normal healing and over 50% reduced healing should be reverted to a flat heal amount. Nevermind the nerf to Restorative Mantras which while it is good to be reliant on healing power, does reduce the effectiveness of heal on charge. And also nevermind the loss of extra toughness on charging mantras…

I am certainly feeling the reduced sustain in wvw.

Completely agree that the 50% requirement for the heal needs to be removed. Sustain is now gone and in it’s place is huge damage. Oddly enough Chrono is less appealing now since it has no real sustain/condi removal traits. It’s burst or die.

I suppose I should applaud the devs – certainly gives a strong incentive for switching to Mirage.

But I already bought pof anyway so nevermind. xD

I mean, Duelling would be good but the adept major traits are all still kitten (I mean Desperate Decoy seriously needs to be replaced with something better) and has no sustain.

Hackuuna.4085:

Curunen.8729:

Mantra of Recovery / Mender’s Purity is a noticable nerf.

The whole “heal more while below 50%” thing doesn’t make much sense for mantra as it is the kind of heal you want to keep topping yourself up with when you drop below 75% or so (assuming average health pool of ~18-20k). Mantra isn’t the sort of heal like Ether Feast where you let yourself drop low in order to make the most of the heal. It’s the more “spammable” heal where you want to keep topping yourself up and not let yourself drop too low if possible.

I strongly think the conditional under 50% normal healing and over 50% reduced healing should be reverted to a flat heal amount. Nevermind the nerf to Restorative Mantras which while it is good to be reliant on healing power, does reduce the effectiveness of heal on charge. And also nevermind the loss of extra toughness on charging mantras…

I am certainly feeling the reduced sustain in wvw.

Completely agree that the 50% requirement for the heal needs to be removed. Sustain is now gone and in it’s place is huge damage. Oddly enough Chrono is less appealing now since it has no real sustain/condi removal traits. It’s burst or die.

For WvW chrono still lets you get more healing out of restorative illusions though due to chronophantasma and by extension ether feast so chrono sustain hasn’t really been hit at all. Mantra mesmer has been absolutely gutted though for sustain but I guess we’re just supposed to burst and run now.

Wait, Wait, Wait? Have i read that right (patcher in background work faster) they nerved mantra of restoration …to the half? I mean 50% lesser healing? It was my only real good healing skill and now i am near to get the heal stat i wanted…and now you tell me that i need to seek wich heal i now can use beside the mantra??? OH my…i dont really wanna see all the changes…reading the patchnotes gives me a bad feeling that i dont wanna see, what they have done to my only char that has most maps and is lvl 80….oh pls let it be not so bad that i am now thinking….i mean with the normal matra i could live some time (sometimes near death) but i could live…and now you tell me that they nerved it…..do i really wanna see all the changes that they have done to my learned class…? (and sry for my english, it is not my main language…)…

Well, before patch Mantra of Recovery with Harmonious and Inspiration healed:

-2.6k x 3 preloaded (before a fight) = 7.8k, 3 seconds to use the 3 charges
-2.6k x 4 (mid fight cast) = 10.4k, 2.75 cast time + 3 seconds to use the 3 charges + 10s cooldown between

Now it’s:

-1.6k x 2 preloaded = 3.2k, 2 seconds to use 2 charges with 1k extra per charge heal if below 50% health, so at most 5.2k
-1.6k x 3 + 2.6k = 7.4k, 2.25 cast time + 2 seconds to use the 2 charges + 10s cooldown between, with at most 9.4k if heals were below 50%

The big difference is how much heal you can preload and how effective it is when high health, meaning you gain more when low health so you should delay using it, but then that lowers your effective heal rate since you are waiting to use a heal.

That, and you have lost a condi clear each charge, which means mantra now removes 2 condis after 2 charges instead of 6 condis after 3 charges. The condi clear nerf along with 50% requirement to get the most out of the 2 charges and the 1k reduction in mantra channel heal is why sustain has been reduced significantly.

Hackuuna.4085:

Power mantra WvW roaming has been hit hard by this. Yes, the burst is incredible now and you can 1-shot anything without auto-invulns, but the cost has been very high.

You mean you can one shot with dueling traited?

zomgbuffalo.5276:

Hackuuna.4085:

Power mantra WvW roaming has been hit hard by this. Yes, the burst is incredible now and you can 1-shot anything without auto-invulns, but the cost has been very high.

You mean you can one shot with dueling traited?

Dueling with Mantra of Pain I was consistently able to one-shot with a correctly timed wombo-combo prior to patch and now the damage is even higher (bonus to ALL critical damage, and can preload 8 additional might, and cause 5 to 10 extra vuln stacks). That’s for WvW though with food and bloodlust stacks.

Hackuuna.4085:

zomgbuffalo.5276:

Hackuuna.4085:

Power mantra WvW roaming has been hit hard by this. Yes, the burst is incredible now and you can 1-shot anything without auto-invulns, but the cost has been very high.

You mean you can one shot with dueling traited?

Dueling with Mantra of Pain I was consistently able to one-shot with a correctly timed wombo-combo prior to patch and now the damage is even higher (bonus to ALL critical damage, and can preload 8 additional might, and cause 5 to 10 extra vuln stacks). That’s for WvW though with food and bloodlust stacks.

So what build do you use? What trait lines?

I really hope they pump the heal back up a bit on Power Return. As someone who ran Harmonious and Restorative Mantras, this skill feels nearly entirely gutted. Nerfing Mender’s Purity even further nerfed my usage of this heal.

We’re also just looking at completely lackluster mantras compared to what Firebrand is looking at.

apharma.3741:

For WvW chrono still lets you get more healing out of restorative illusions though due to chronophantasma and by extension ether feast so chrono sustain hasn’t really been hit at all. Mantra mesmer has been absolutely gutted though for sustain but I guess we’re just supposed to burst and run now.

Very true. I’m just looking at it from the mantra perspective, and from that perspective Chrono is used more as a setup for back-to-back burst, lowered cooldowns on sustaining skills, and phantasms spikes. It’s not an effective means of sustain or condi removal due to the nature of mantras.

zomgbuffalo.5276:

So what build do you use? What trait lines?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8fl0nhy0YJawRNwtGLrGVZEUcBw5RkEPX9yGtTLA-TFCBABbcQAyT3ADHBAs2fU+dmSQAuAAB8AAqU9HSBonyI-w

That was the build prior to yesterdays changes. Now I’m having to find something else that works for me. Also I’m a fan of desperate decoy and it works well for me in both setting up bursts and disengaging.

Mantras are never going to be good if charging them is a mechanic their power is based on instead of just an optional way to refill them when empty. Losing the ability to dodge or attack for such a long time just isn’t worth it, especially if you’re bringing several.

Why not just have recharging a Mantra lock down your 6-10 skill usage (or maybe 7-10h) while a recharge animation plays? It gives the feeling that you’re focusing on charging it, allows for some counterplay, but allows you to still attack, dodge, and shatter.

Fay.2357:

skcamow.3527:

Perma retal again … a certain immortal build of old got nerfed in large part due to that …
Not complaining though

We had perma retaliation for ages at the nerf, that’s not what made the build strong. The key was permanent retaliation on phantasms too, and that’s never been achievable in a realistic fashion since then. Plus, retal and confusion both got heavily nerfed, damage output has been drastically buffed, and sustain has been heavily buffed. It’s nice to reminisce about the immortal mesmer, but it wouldn’t hold up very well in today’s environment.

Have you thought about Wanderer stats for Boon Duration + Chronophantasm? It’d mean you’d have to shatter after 10 seconds to reset your phantasms with their retal for another 10 seconds. Rinse and repeat.