Guild Wars 2

Ok, posting this here as not sure where it should go as its not Mesmer specific but a general statement. Please move if needed.
Ok, ANET, can you please pick a direction? I mean no “holy trinity” or not. Currently it really sucks to be any class trying to raid I have found. Chrono, you tank or go home, period. DPS is so low that no one wants you for your buffs as its “better” to bring a different class. Druid, you better heal mate, or you do VG only as condi. Again, trinity anyone? Rev you are stuck spamming 1 maybe 2 skills if your keen, and then if cc fails god forbid its the Warriors fault.
Engi, nah, we want Reaper and Epi for life. Well guess what? I don’t run Epi enough to be good at it.
And that’s where my biggest issue is, and granted this is more me than the game I think, but I like to be really good at my class to be viable for raids and such. I HATE being carried, never have liked it and try to avoid even if its guildies. Just not my style, I would like to know my class well enough to be of use.
And typically one can get that good if you play it enough. As I mentioned elsewhere in these forums, I also want a toon that’s fun, and thus I can master. Mesmer seemed to fit that, was/is fun and very different from other MMO’s but don’t see the point if I am not going to tank. I have tried in this game and in spite of all my years as a tank in WOW,ESO,SWTOR it means jack when it comes to this game. Just so different a concept.
So, do I expect ANET to cater to me, of course not. Like I said, its a me thing and something I need to resolve as I really don’t want to go back to WOW, but its getting tempting due to the above.
I guess what I expect from this post is someone else’s insight into what I am experiencing. Have you had the same? How did you work it out or is there a fix or not? Just plug along in hopes something changes, say in Mesmer dps or something of the like?
Thanks for reading and sorry if it seems a rant. Sometimes good to ask the community that has been doing it longer for help instead of running around QQ’ing in game.
Cheers!

Strictly speaking, chronos do not need to tank to make it a successful run, nor does druid need to be the healer. The problem comes in from other playres who are barely good enough to raid and their skill level is not high enough with their class to adapt on the fly, so they require everyone else to be running meta builds so that they don’t have to think or adjust their practiced playstyle.

Also, the people who don’t care if you tank as a chrono or not are also more likely to be the more experienced raiders, which means your group is more likely to not fail in the first place. But yes I would like to see ANet buff our DPS so that more people can get out of this mindset that chrono is only good for tanking while providing quickness/alacrity

Joxer.6024:

DPS is so low that no one wants you for your buffs as its “better” to bring a different class.

I don’t want to be rude or disrespectful but I stopped reading after this sentence. :|

Xyonon.3987:

Joxer.6024:

DPS is so low that no one wants you for your buffs as its “better” to bring a different class.

I don’t want to be rude or disrespectful but I stopped reading after this sentence. :|

I’m guessing it’s those people that say 25 stacks of might is solo from a warrior and chrono isn’t worth it despite the fact that record runs still bring 1 or sometimes 2 chronos. Who to trust with that info… record setters or terrible grasp of team comps.

Joxer.6024:

Engi, nah, we want Reaper and Epi for life. Well guess what? I don’t run Epi enough to be good at it.

That’s exactly the issue. If you don’t run epi to be good enough with it. I don’t trust you to be good with any build on necro. On the other hand, if you tell me that you can run epi but there is a new uber strat that is even stronger than it and you can explain it to me well… I’ll give a new build on my team a shot. HOWEVER, the vast majority of players that claim they do “good dps” with their butterfly build have not done their due diligence to realize what good dps even is.

I’ve seen every class tank at one time or another in raids. Rev, mesmer (only heard Xyonon mention it), druid, tempest (water staff or fresh aura) can all heal although some are easier than others. Mesmer is unique in how terrible it’s selfish damage is but I’ve still seen a few condi chrono hybrid DPS/buffers before. In theory, other classes could also heal if they really wanted to. Even condi rev… the “worst” of the condi DPS classes has been used in a 5 man Matthias kill. It replaced the PS warrior! Crazy right?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4u1zsa/king_vs_matthias_5man_956/

TLDR: It doesn’t suck for any class is trying to raid (except condi engi since no one trusts a pug condi engi). The trinity you are claiming exists isn’t so set in stone.

Xyonon.3987:

Joxer.6024:

DPS is so low that no one wants you for your buffs as its “better” to bring a different class.

I don’t want to be rude or disrespectful but I stopped reading after this sentence. :|

Fair enough, no offence taken mate. Like I said, its what I have been hearing and yea, it gets old. But based on what some have said here its good to see that there actually is hope, I just need to get better at finding raid groups me thinks. That and pick a kitten toon and get good!

Oh and this " (except condi engi since no one trusts a pug condi engi)." Is that just being funny or is there a truth to it? I ask as I have been said pugged Engi and from what I can tell I didn’t suck. Then again….. :P

I think I can hit two birds with one stone here for you. I’m the engi player who releases the skill priority lists after each big patch for engis, like this one:

http://i.imgur.com/cBxeWM4.png

There is a column called “Chrono boost” wich shows you how much the Chronomancer in your party actually boosts each of your skills. The list considers perma Alacrity though, so it’s less if you only have one Chronomancer except for skills without a cd, like auto attacks.

So each skill is between 33-50% with some exceptions and depending on what profession we are talking about, the presence of a Chronomancer equals to like +30-40% party dps. This means if you’d add the dps the others do more because of the Chronomancer to it’s own dps, the Chronomancer is by far the highest party dps profession in the entire game.

If a party deals 200k dps, ~50k are beacuse you got a Chronomancer.

About the “(except condi engi since no one trusts a pug condi engi)” – it heavily depends on your party or suqad leader mentality but it’s not entierly wrong. It’s not wether you truly suck or not, rather the possibility the others see when a random Engi joins them.

For example a good Engi is so much better than any Necromancer in many (not all!) situations, but pugs accept Necromancers as condis (for Vale Guardian for example) because noone expects to get a really good engi through pugs. Most good engi players earn their title in their enviorment – in their raid guild / team.

I personally often pug after our monday clear when I got time, just to help out and then I try to take as much responsibility as possible (tanking, healing, green fields, holding spirits, doing cannons, eating shrooms, mortars, wargs, and some other rather specific jobs).
In those cases I almost always play Chrono, Druid and most of all Engineer, because I know what I’m capable of with it and I will be able to fix mistakes and support my team better than with any other profession.

Wahoo!

“This means if you’d add the dps the others do more because of the Chronomancer to it’s own dps, the Chronomancer is by far the highest party dps profession in the entire game.”

Now that I like hearing!! thanks heaps for that Xyonon and yea, I know who you are, no need to explain!
Also thanks for the other info, you have lifted my spirits in terms of what to play as I had decided to focus on Engi and Chrono as they are a lot of fun aside from just raids. Cheers mate!

@Xyonon that might be true for Engies, but a tempest did a DPS test and they found that perma alacrity + quickness from a chrono was less of a boost to their damage than either Druid or Warrior buffs were.

OriOri.8724:

@Xyonon that might be true for Engies, but a tempest did a DPS test and they found that perma alacrity + quickness from a chrono was less of a boost to their damage than either Druid or Warrior buffs were.

That’s based on the mathematics of coefficients, cast times, and the likes, and how the party group is made and what skills are used. Quickness, for example, doesn’t affect the DPS on Meteor Shower.

I know it is based on a variety of factors, which is why Xyonon cannot outright say that a chronomancer buff is the single biggest factor in party DPS because we know that for the top DPS class in the game currently this just isn’t the case. Depending on how many tempests are in a party and how other classes break down like this, Alacrity is most likely not the most important buff anymore in party dps

What you describe is not a “holy trinity”, but yes, they do have intended roles for classes now, at least in a high-end context.

Which isn’t a bad thing. Plenty players asked for this, and it makes balance considerations much more simple and hence makes for better boss-development.

I disagree. Roles reduce diversity in the end since there will be optima and people will not only get forced into builds but into builds within roles and vice versa. Typically speaking, diversity is a big boon for any given game, and was a major selling feature of this one.

I think people are just satiated with the fact there’s something new to do for those who like to dungeon/raid in PvE. Given the launch population and demographic, I’d bet there would be more criticism about the move than praise, and I think a dungeon redesign/rework would have been seen in a more positive light than 10-man raids.

My own perceptions, though. I can’t speak for a majority since the nature of the subject is all subjective with next to no data supporting any claim’s merits.

DeceiverX.8361:

My own perceptions, though. I can’t speak for a majority since the nature of the subject is all subjective with next to no data supporting any claim’s merits.

Yea, I don’t do math. Sadly my only experiences/data is based on being told “Oh, your a condi druid, we want heals or Your a Chrono but don’t tank, bye bye”
Again as I stated, these are my experiences and hopefully don’t reflect on raids as a whole. From what I have read most have great luck with not only their class but raids as well.

DeceiverX.8361:

I disagree. Roles reduce diversity in the end since there will be optima and people will not only get forced into builds but into builds within roles and vice versa. Typically speaking, diversity is a big boon for any given game, and was a major selling feature of this one.

And this is different than from what we had before how exactly?
There have been optimal builds to run just the same, only now some of these optimal builds happen to heal more than others. That’s literally it.

Diversity in MMORPGs is mostly a marketing thing, anyhow. Yes at lower levels of play you can “play however you want”, but you can do so just the same in a role-based game (what is inherently different about having 15 healing specs vs 15 damage specs, btw, ignoring that the healer will still have access to some damage specs anyhow?).
At higher levels of play, there is “doing the proven best thing” vs “intentionally gimping yourself”.

Joxer.6024:

Yea, I don’t do math. Sadly my only experiences/data is based on being told “Oh, your a condi druid, we want heals or Your a Chrono but don’t tank, bye bye”
Again as I stated, these are my experiences and hopefully don’t reflect on raids as a whole. From what I have read most have great luck with not only their class but raids as well.

This is nothing new, btw. The very same existed since release and in every other MMO with player customization.
It just so happens that now your optimal spec is a healing spec, or a boon sharing spec, instead of always a damage-centric spec.

But even before that, if you bring inferior-damage-spec over optimal-damage-spec, well, you’re gimping yourself and by extension the party/raid.

Oh and another big change is that now we have content where it remotely matters whether you intentionally kitten yourself. Didn’t exist in the past so even if you played the worst possible damage setup (Condi PvE Mesmer comes to mind) then as you could still just AA everything down, overall few people would care. Now, bosses can wipe you, and HoT as a whole is more difficult as it is built around the idea that we’ve been here for 3+ years.
In turn, this means that now it might at times matter whether your setup fits the class you’re playing.

But, make no mistake, this “class role” and “optimal spec for class” existed just the same. Just there was nothing to measure it on, much.

Carighan.6758:

DeceiverX.8361:

I disagree. Roles reduce diversity in the end since there will be optima and people will not only get forced into builds but into builds within roles and vice versa. Typically speaking, diversity is a big boon for any given game, and was a major selling feature of this one.

And this is different than from what we had before how exactly?
There have been optimal builds to run just the same, only now some of these optimal builds happen to heal more than others. That’s literally it.

Diversity in MMORPGs is mostly a marketing thing, anyhow. Yes at lower levels of play you can “play however you want”, but you can do so just the same in a role-based game (what is inherently different about having 15 healing specs vs 15 damage specs, btw, ignoring that the healer will still have access to some damage specs anyhow?).
At higher levels of play, there is “doing the proven best thing” vs “intentionally gimping yourself”.

Joxer.6024:

Yea, I don’t do math. Sadly my only experiences/data is based on being told “Oh, your a condi druid, we want heals or Your a Chrono but don’t tank, bye bye”
Again as I stated, these are my experiences and hopefully don’t reflect on raids as a whole. From what I have read most have great luck with not only their class but raids as well.

This is nothing new, btw. The very same existed since release and in every other MMO with player customization.
It just so happens that now your optimal spec is a healing spec, or a boon sharing spec, instead of always a damage-centric spec.

But even before that, if you bring inferior-damage-spec over optimal-damage-spec, well, you’re gimping yourself and by extension the party/raid.

Oh and another big change is that now we have content where it remotely matters whether you intentionally kitten yourself. Didn’t exist in the past so even if you played the worst possible damage setup (Condi PvE Mesmer comes to mind) then as you could still just AA everything down, overall few people would care. Now, bosses can wipe you, and HoT as a whole is more difficult as it is built around the idea that we’ve been here for 3+ years.
In turn, this means that now it might at times matter whether your setup fits the class you’re playing.

But, make no mistake, this “class role” and “optimal spec for class” existed just the same. Just there was nothing to measure it on, much.

And ultimately the prospect of having all-damage and such is still a role. Whether or not it is enforced by the game is another story.

Reality is the requirements of having that damage or the environment in which as you said, it matters, ultimately reduces diversity more. Community-based ideological roles for the sole reason of speed clearing is a stark contrast to the requirements set on raiding groups.

While there’s always going to be optima, the better way to look into gameplay balance is to examine viability and ensure that everything is viable, and to study the mechanisms behind why something is optimal and try and combat the mechanism than blanket-nerf the culprit class or conversely blanket-buff everything else.

All adding roles does is constrain viability while doing nothing to affect the theoretical existence of optima. It is on this pretense I argue roles are a bad design feature; being barred from a party by playing out of the confines of the optima is not a flaw in game design associated with the roles or lack thereof but rather a flaw with the community likely caused by a flaw in another system elsewhere, such as what implicates the community to push for fast clear speeds (stale/unresponsive content, rewards scaling, etc.).

Last night pugging VG yet another example reared its ugly head. I accept invite and swap to Engi as condi was needed. We then spend almost 15 mins (well, the leader and folks) complaining that we don’t have Chrono buffs, How can we do this without Chrono buffs, etc.? I offer to come on my Chrono for said buffs, but not as tank as I have never tanked in this game. Reply…..“Oh no, we don’t want a Chrono if it cant tank”! Really? You just wasted almost 30 mins discussing how you will fail without said Chrono buffs but you only want them if they are wrapped up in a tank?
Just some odd thinking. The run also had a Condi Druid who kept saying that he cant do GC as condi and that his dps will suck, etc. Umm, same range as a Reaper last time I checked and they doing just fine.
Ah well, we got the kill so I guess that’s the main thing…lol.

DeceiverX.8361:

All adding roles does is constrain viability while doing nothing to affect the theoretical existence of optima. It is on this pretense I argue roles are a bad design feature; being barred from a party by playing out of the confines of the optima is not a flaw in game design associated with the roles or lack thereof but rather a flaw with the community likely caused by a flaw in another system elsewhere, such as what implicates the community to push for fast clear speeds (stale/unresponsive content, rewards scaling, etc.).

While I understand the underlying idea, it is IMO a bit utopian. It won’t really work out that way in any real game. Look through how many iterations WoW went, and every time they ended up reducing choices again to at least balance the 1 chosen spec per class.

It’s possible, but not very likely. Not if content is supposed to be non-trivial.

@Joxer unfortunately that is what happens when you run with people who don’t have enough skill on their classes to adapt. A good chrono who isn’t tanking is a much better asset to the raid squad than a chrono who is only mediocre at tanking will ever be. Just wish other players weren’t so stiff and would learn to adapt how they play a bit

OriOri.8724:

@Xyonon that might be true for Engies, but a tempest did a DPS test and they found that perma alacrity + quickness from a chrono was less of a boost to their damage than either Druid or Warrior buffs were.

I’ve seen that post and the math behind it was utterly wrong. Stuff like “the warrior alone is responsible for 25 stacks might”. Chrono is the biggest buffer there is, hands down.

Carighan.6758:

DeceiverX.8361:

All adding roles does is constrain viability while doing nothing to affect the theoretical existence of optima. It is on this pretense I argue roles are a bad design feature; being barred from a party by playing out of the confines of the optima is not a flaw in game design associated with the roles or lack thereof but rather a flaw with the community likely caused by a flaw in another system elsewhere, such as what implicates the community to push for fast clear speeds (stale/unresponsive content, rewards scaling, etc.).

While I understand the underlying idea, it is IMO a bit utopian. It won’t really work out that way in any real game. Look through how many iterations WoW went, and every time they ended up reducing choices again to at least balance the 1 chosen spec per class.

It’s possible, but not very likely. Not if content is supposed to be non-trivial.

Correct me if I’m wrong as I only played WoW for around two hours, but the fundamental structure of WoW already alluded to or included roles in its classes, though. Ultimately, making a perfectly-balanced game on this scale in terms of the number of variables in effect for online gaming at any give time is pretty much impossible. You’re always going to find optimizations somewhere in many respects. The real matter isn’t so much as perfecting that global balance on the permanent level but rather ensuring anything works. The only truly balanced game will have effectively no inter-player or match diversity. Obviously for the health of a given game outside of the intrigue of game theorists, and particularly in RPG’s, diversity takes precedence. There is such thing as balancing for numerical perfection and a meta and balancing for diversity.

Really, the way it’s done properly is balancing for diversity on the conceptual and major levels, and then doing small and regular tweaks to gameplay to persistently disrupt the meta from even really existing. You’ll see more successful games are often willing to make slight tweaks very frequently. Even in a tightly-balanced game, it’s not going to be perfect; theorycrafters will find the optima if the slight tweaks cause a dominant build to start being non-optimal (don’t confuse this with non-viable), a new and people will gravitate to play whatever is deemed “best” even if by extremely small margins. Then the numbers get tweaked again, and the process continues repeating until things get increasingly more and more refined, and if not, they get reworked due to impossibility of balance.

Nobody should care about the existence of a meta or organization in PvE. It’s going to happen, regardless of what ANet does. Berserker stacking or durable facetank, it’s arbitrary. All that really matters is that all styles are usable and in some respect play into achieving the goal of completing the content in a relatively similar amount of time.

That’s really where ANet failed in respects to the root of the cause of the PvE meta; there was no incentive or reason for people to feel like they contributed as anything other than DPS + stacking. Smaller adjustments to dungeons to reward durability and the likes would have gone a long way.

As far as such diversity in balance in a non-trivial system… that’s subjective. The entire basis for the previous dungeon meta was about time, not about making the content trivial. If trivial completion was the goal, we’d have seen a dire/magi meta. The purpose of a role-based system ends up actually trivializing content, since even the theories of optimal performance are predetermined for the most part, and are used as the basis for QA to ensure the content can be completed. One needs to really ask himself if content designed for roles is inherently really any less trivial than what it could be without them. I’d like to think there are many ways, both mathematical and design-level, which could be used to more strictly-enforce non-trivial encounters with non-role-based systems.

To respond to the main post…

While I notice that you voice concerns over your feelings that multiple classes maintain downsides, I may point out that this is a Mesmer forum, and as such I will only address the Mesmer-related aspects of your post.

The Chronomancer provides Gravity Well, the regular lineup of Mesmer skills, an innate 25% run buff for the Mesmer (which is sometimes the most important aspect to be honest), and access to a highly defensive offhand weapon.

Yes the DPS is low on a Mesmer/Chrono in many cases. They were not designed to one-shot people (as is claimed by many other classes). Bear in mind that the Mesmer embodies chaos and confusion, and the Mesmer has classically been a support class which implies the presence of other players providing their own set of abilities. The Mesmer commonly provides a niche role in parties ever since GW1 was released in 2005, and I do not personally feel that this should change.

Why should my words even be considered? Well I have played Mesmer since the initial release of GW1, I main Mesmer in both GW1 and GW2, and I have countless Mesmers on my accounts in both games. I read the lore, and I embrace the concepts of mind games and chaos. I also accept that sometimes the Mesmer may fail at a task, and other times she may exceed well beyond expectations. This is simply the nature of chaos. To deny it may suggest that you are missing the point of the Mesmer, and to embrace it can lead to a play style which is more comparable to the ocean. You cannot move the ocean. You may sometimes control some waves, and at times they control you, but in the end the ocean will do as it pleases. Accepting this will help you to accept the Mesmer for what she is: a catalyst, the eye of the storm, and the master of confusion.

Now I can sit here and nitpick the Mesmer/Chrono apart all day, but in the end I would just end up kittening about things which will not change because the changes most people want are to make their desired class overpowered. I know people say they don’t have that desire, but seeing their requests and their suggested changes will many times reveal their true intent, whether they are aware of it or not. I do not expect to win all the time, and I do not expect to always be the core of a team and the supreme champion of all things. What I do expect is that sometimes I may shine so bright that an entire zerg falls or a mission is quite easily mastered. On the other hand, I may be also unable to complete a task at all, and may not fit well in a party.

As we notice in parties with excessively high Mesmer count, the clone spam is quite silly, but in the end that’s really all it is. Mesmers work best in one’s and two’s as part of a much larger group. They are not part of the “holy trinity” nor would I ever wish them to be. They merely embody those aspects of chaos which can turn the tides both in your favour and against.

In the future, please refrain from posting heavily about classes which have nothing to do with this forum. There are many avenues of expression for your concerns and frustrations, but coming to the Mesmer forum to kitten about how weak a druid is really does not fit well. Or perhaps you are a Mesmer too, and only sometimes you follow the established and agreed upon rules.

They think that by being a wow copy they will make more sales that is why we have a holy trinity right now. Obviously it didn’t work because their initial boast was no holy trinity and every player they sold that to is leaving now. Besides they wanted to make mesmer a dps illusion mage and look what we have become. We are kitten condition mages with a defense rotation so thick that we can just spam a rotation to evade and block everything.

Actually, arguing about each class’s dps output is sort of unrealistic because a lot of stats are based upon an optimized test environment that just shows maximum potential output. In that regard the solo mesmer does not fair well relative to the partied mesmer in PvE.

I propose an interesting test on “effective” dps be done in the form of each class testing itself against Vet Karka. Why Vet Karka you ask? It’s the one NPC that has the most variety of attacks and self boon buffing of any non-boss NPC in the game at present? The only thing lacking for making a “real world” test with this NPC is the relatively new break-bar. It would be interesting to see how each class fairs with this kind of test stat-wise with measurements of stats like takedown time, peak dps, and average dps. I for one am curious to what the results for each class would be with this kind of test.