Guild Wars 2

Long story short, the specialisation update has been out for awhile now and there was a special on my beer of choice today, so I’m just drunk enough to try and be constructive on the forums.
Which is quite drunk mind you, the title of this thread is a dirty lie.

So to get into the actual meat of this trainwreck, I’m gonna lay out some proposed changes to the Domination line, namely everything that isn’t Grandmaster tier, then explain my reasoning afterwards.

Minors

• Illusion of Vulnerability
  Inflict vulnerability when you interrupt a foe (Unchanged)
• Dazzling
  Disabling a foe also applies vulnerability (Changed from dazes only)
• Fragility
  Use harsher words while discussing things with vulnerable foes, vulnerability you inflict lasts 33% longer (Unchanged damage modifier, with a duration buff thrown in)

The reasoning behind Dazzling is pretty simple, Domination is a line practically dedicated to vulnerability and despite being able to spike it, Mesmers aren’t particularly great at maintaining stacks of vulnerability which really devalues the line when you compare this to Steel-Packed Powder, a single minor trait that allows engies to stack far better than a mesmer could ever hope to, in aoe, and maintain it quite easily.

To top this off, you have Confounding Suggestions directly devaluing Dazzling if you take it.
As far as I know, that’s basically the only case of a trait devaluing something in its own line, which is all kinds of silly.
EDIT: Don’t drink and drive kids.

So basically, this and the duration buff thrown into Fragility aim to boost Mesmers ability to lay on vulnerability and to re-enforce the overall theme of the line via its minors.

Adept

• Furious Interruption
  Gain quickness when you interrupt a foe (Moved from Master)
• Empowered Illusions
  Illusions deal mo DEEPS (Unchanged)
• Expeditious Façade (Or whatever speed+illusion combo you find on a thesorous that tickles your fancy)
  Clones attack faster and stack vulnerability. (New Trait, attacking faster refers to either removing, or reducing the delay between attacks clones perform)

Furious interruption is moved here for a few reasons, partially due to movement of Confounding suggestions, but also due to the traits general weakness.
3 seconds of quickness with a 5 second icd on paper seems quite powerful, but in practical application, its really not as strong as it lets on.
That’s not to say the trait is not good under the right circumstances, the problem however is that being entirely interrupt based, this isn’t a trait that’s going to proc all that often, I’m even tempted to say the icd should be removed entirely, but at the very least, its not powerful enough a trait to be competing for a spot with shattered concentration and moving down to adept makes the most sense, given the other changes.

Now the new trait basically exists because of the changes to master creating a spot here.
The aim of this trait is basically to give a vulnerability stacking option to non shatter centric builds, and to offer a little something for more condition oriented setups.

Master

• Rending Shatter
  Shatter skills cause vulnerability and remove a boon on hit. (Merged with Shattered Concentration)
• Blurred Inscriptions
  Signets remove 99.99% of germs (Actually unchanged)
• Confounding Suggestions
  Stuns and dazes last for literal days, every -5 seconds, dazing a foe outright kills them instead. (Moved over from adept, but otherwise unchanged.)

Rending Shatter and Shattered Concentration being merged is a thing for the reasons I cited in the Minor section, and due to the fact that the current incarnation of Rending Shatter is just a little underused. (May or may not be an understatement)
As far as directly improving Rending Shatter, merging Shattered Concentration with it was really the only thing that seemed natural to me.

Now, there is allot of hallo about Confounding Suggestions being too strong floating around, and its movement here is basically a nerf without nerfing.
Namely, by making it compete with the primary method that mesmers have of dealing with stability.

Hopefully, moving it up with other more powerful traits will make choosing it slightly more meaningful to your build without devaluing it to much.

As far as the Gradmasters go, Id say they are, for the most part fairly well rounded and work well enough. (but more realistically, I cant really think of something to do with imagined burden right now)

Annnnd that’s about all I’ve got.

Feel free to let me know Im a lousy drunk who shouldn’t be up at unmeowly times in the morning writing walls of text like this.

Not bad – I like it better than the current setup. Nice one.

Pretty sure Confounding Suggestions does, in fact, proc the daze stacks. Both it and Dazzling pop their effect on daze at the same time.

ASP.8093:

Pretty sure Confounding Suggestions does, in fact, proc the daze stacks. Both it and Dazzling pop their effect on daze at the same time.

I just double checked it, and sure enough you are right.
Thanks for the heads up.

I liked the descriptions, and the switch of CS and furious interruption is quite a neat idea if CS needs to be toned down.

Not sure about the fragility/dazzling/shattered concentration buffs being needed – why not just add the vuln duration or on-clone-attack thing to rending shatter?

Toeofdoom.6152:

Not sure about the fragility/dazzling/shattered concentration buffs being needed – why not just add the vuln duration or on-clone-attack thing to rending shatter?

As far as CC goes, you basically have one skill on each weapon set, diversion and MoD, Dazzling going from daze only to general cc wouldn’t really do much, its really more of a QoL buff to things like the focus and underwater weapons, still, out of all the changes it would be the first I would concede.

The problem I see with throwing duration on to vanilla rending shatter is that it still gives very little to a non shatter build, whilst its good that much of the trait pool encourages the use of the class mechanic, there still ought to be non shatter options.

Even then, taking it would mean you have 2 minor traits and a major adept to have situational methods of stacking which are still inferior to what engies can get with a single minor which is why I think duration should be thrown into one of the minors at the very least.

Which brings us back to the problem of what to do with Rending Shatter.
The effect itself is rather weak, which for the reasons above, honestly feels like it needs to be merged into something else since on its own its pretty worthless and it makes since enough thematically for shattered concentration to be the lucky winner.

Hm… I actually like those changes. Having to choose between CS and SC/RS (the merged trait) is interesting and indeed can be build defining. Right now every Mesmer and their mothers most likely will chose SC. If changes are implemented the proposed way, lock down Mesmers will have to make a significant choice. Either you go for the boon removal, which in turn gives you control over stability and over all increases your damage or you go for the hardest lockdown possible, but it has more counter play and the damage will be lower (aka protection cannot be removed as easily).

EDIT:
However, this would be a serious boost to shatter builds. For they can either go for the ultimate vulnerability stacking 24/7 or take the increased phantasm damage and still maintain high vuln stacking. Hell, I could even imagine FI being of use to a shatter build.