Guild Wars 2

Heya!

Announcement says that alacrity shall be nerfed from 66% faster recharge to 33% faster recharge. This means instead of 1.66s per 1s it’s now 1.33s.

100% alacrity uptime now: -40% CDR
100% alacrity uptime soon: -25% CDR

I think it’s justified, but I’d like to hear your toughts

Greez!
- Madame Le Blanc

In my opinion they should change Flow of Time to AoE Alacrity on shatter now that it isn’t too strong anymore…

Is there anyway you can post the other changes to mesmer? I just got into guild chat at the end when they were talking about the thief. What did I miss

We’ll see how it plays out. I’m worried it will make alacrity feel like a boon that is just nice to have, rather than one that is spec’d for and actively used.

Xstein.2187:

Is there anyway you can post the other changes to mesmer? I just got into guild chat at the end when they were talking about the thief. What did I miss

This thread is just about alacrity and the changes to it. This is the other change:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Precognition-changes-into-wrong-direction/first#post5922278

Yeah, this is kind of crap. The only Alacrity I get is from Shatters.
The amount of alacrity per shatter is just silly. The amount given/shatter needs a small increase then. They mentioned Buffs for the Mesmer in addition to the scepter. Meh we’ll see.

Xstein.2187:

Is there anyway you can post the other changes to mesmer? I just got into guild chat at the end when they were talking about the thief. What did I miss

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/No-details-yet-but/page/2#post5922150

25% is still good. I actually expected it to be 20% so it was “more in line” with all of the weapon CD reduction traits. Chrono will still provide all the quickness in raids.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

25% is still good. I actually expected it to be 20% so it was “more in line” with all of the weapon CD reduction traits. Chrono will still provide all the quickness in raids.

Exactly. I think it was a good change. It was a nerf, no question it hit hard, but it’s a good one.

its a kittening joke!
mesmer got highest cooldowns, which are kind of balanced around having 100% alacrity.
partywise its ok, but for me as the player behind the mesmer its just a punch in the face. In fact by this, ALL SKILLS got their cooldown increased by ~33%.
All timings are gone again, you again need to wait way more time to change skills and adapt your build! Why are you destroying what makes playing fun on an post casual level?

why you hate your high level non-pvp-mesmer that much? I already feared sth like this would happen, but this is still rediculous. Its like you never ever played this class.
At least let the mesmer himself keep the “old” effectiveness!

If you have 100% alacrity now and 100% alacrity in future, it’s exactly 25% more CD. Ofc it’s a nerf, it’s supposed to be one. And it’s a good one. It hurts but just listen to it – 40% CDR on every skill? Please … we used to have 180s CD on TW, now we have 46s. I guess it’s ok to have 58s … Just an example ö.ö

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

25% is still good. I actually expected it to be 20% so it was “more in line” with all of the weapon CD reduction traits. Chrono will still provide all the quickness in raids.

You won’t hit 25%. With the lower effectiveness of it, you’re not going to be able to put anywhere close to 100% uptime on your allies, so it’s going to probably end up sub-20% when all is said and done.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

25% is still good. I actually expected it to be 20% so it was “more in line” with all of the weapon CD reduction traits. Chrono will still provide all the quickness in raids.

Your assessment is wrong.
20% CDR traits are simple and flat.
Alacrity is different:
1. You won’t get 100% uptime. You probably won’t even get 50% on most builds.
2. alacrity only works on skills that are on cooldown. If you don’t use skills when you have alacrity, it is essentially wasted.

If you do not manage 100% alacrity uptime for yourself in raids, you’re doing something essentialy wrong or you just got downed. You should have a permanent 25% CDR, wich can’t result into “wasted uptime”.

For other players, you can still keep up approximately 70% uptime for both groups. A 70% uptime still results into 17.5% CDR for everyone else. Still a great addition to our high quickness uptime. It actually makes it not so dramatic to have not max alacrity, wich is good, since it rather allows us to swap utilities with something like feedback, wich might become good again in another wing or smthng.

Fay.2357:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

25% is still good. I actually expected it to be 20% so it was “more in line” with all of the weapon CD reduction traits. Chrono will still provide all the quickness in raids.

You won’t hit 25%. With the lower effectiveness of it, you’re not going to be able to put anywhere close to 100% uptime on your allies, so it’s going to probably end up sub-20% when all is said and done.

3 shield phantasms is 9 seconds of alacrity for the mesmer and 6 seconds of alacrity for allies every 7.5 seconds. If PH wasn’t bugged, that alone would be perma alacrity on 5 allies. Add chronophantasma for a bit more. Alls well that ends well is still going to be a thing and will synergize with rune of the chronomancer for more quickness. So yeah, the 25% can be hit. Will I want to though? Need to see the rest of the “buffs” that are supposedly coming.

Fay.2357:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

25% is still good. I actually expected it to be 20% so it was “more in line” with all of the weapon CD reduction traits. Chrono will still provide all the quickness in raids.

You won’t hit 25%. With the lower effectiveness of it, you’re not going to be able to put anywhere close to 100% uptime on your allies, so it’s going to probably end up sub-20% when all is said and done.

3 shield phantasms is 9 seconds of alacrity for the mesmer and 6 seconds of alacrity for allies every 7.5 seconds. If PH wasn’t bugged, that alone would be perma alacrity on 5 allies. Add chronophantasma for a bit more. Alls well that ends well is still going to be a thing and will synergize with rune of the chronomancer for more quickness. So yeah, the 25% can be hit. Will I want to though? Need to see the rest of the “buffs” that are supposedly coming.

Exciton.8942:

2. alacrity only works on skills that are on cooldown. If you don’t use skills when you have alacrity, it is essentially wasted.

No. It dynamically changes the CD as it’s applied.

Edit: Actually I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say? Either this is a problem for alacrity regardless of if it’s 66% or 33%. Or see my first response.

@ DuckDuckBOOM.4097

thumps up. (do you have long posting delays too? then you accidently double post? :<)

“We brought alacrity brought down from 66% to 33% so it is not useless.”

… Calculations in the above posts aside, it is completely useless for any build that isn’t designed around maximizing it.

Outside of CS what is the point of going chrono anymore? Core mes is still kitten, and now our only other method for not being kitten is just as kitten.

The traits alone barely even justify it.

Cooldowns are to high.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Fay.2357:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

25% is still good. I actually expected it to be 20% so it was “more in line” with all of the weapon CD reduction traits. Chrono will still provide all the quickness in raids.

You won’t hit 25%. With the lower effectiveness of it, you’re not going to be able to put anywhere close to 100% uptime on your allies, so it’s going to probably end up sub-20% when all is said and done.

3 shield phantasms is 9 seconds of alacrity for the mesmer and 6 seconds of alacrity for allies every 7.5 seconds. If PH wasn’t bugged, that alone would be perma alacrity on 5 allies. Add chronophantasma for a bit more. Alls well that ends well is still going to be a thing and will synergize with rune of the chronomancer for more quickness. So yeah, the 25% can be hit. Will I want to though? Need to see the rest of the “buffs” that are supposedly coming.

Okay, so when I am commenting, I am usually only having PvP and maybe a bit of WvW in mind. I hardly care about PvE and will just play the OP/meta build in that game mode. It is extremely unrealistic to get a lot of alacrity out on a shatter spec(the one most will play in next patch right?)

Regarding my second comment on alacrity only applying on skill on CD, the difference I am pointing out is as follows:
For normal CDR reduction trait, every time you use a skill, that skill has only its original 80% of CD.
For alacrity, you only get benefit if you have alacrity when your skill is on cooldown. This means, you have great limitation on how to use your skills if you want the benefit of the CDR.

Of course it may not be a big issue for PVE where you just keep an optimal rotation and have super high alacrity uptime. However, as I said before, I mostly just kept PvP in mind.

So… one less well. If you guys at anet dont like the skill maybe remove it instead?

Alacrity gutted.

But dont worry guys, with half of proffesions getting power creep’ed even more we too get our incredible buff.

+5% speed attack on scepter. Assuming you trait it of course.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

I think bringing alclarity down to 50% would’ve been enough. Reducing it by half is just a bit too much. Couldn’t they also just make it a boon unique to the Mesmer?

Ok from a PvP side of things, I get you but I still think the change is for the better.

AWTEW is what I would consider a PvE trait at this point. Bunkers holding points could use it in PvP but if Bunker mesmer is truly gutted then a power or condi shatter mesmer is extremely unlikely to use most wells to benefit from AWTEW. WoE and Gravity are the two I would consider using. Otherwise, the standard blink, portal, X is coming back.

So power shatter:
Dom/Duel/X. First two are pretty set in stone with DE and boon removal. Illusions and Chronomancer are probably the easiest trait lines to compare as if both were “elite specs.”

So when it comes to CDs. Illusions is 20% on illusions and 15% on shatters. Chrono is 0-25% on ALL skills and F5 to reset a few. This seems like a decent trade off as long as the chrono can keep decent uptime on SELFISH alacrity. There are of course other traits but they are relatively comparable trait lines post changes. Shield 4 isn’t going to survive for long in a PvP environment. Glassy mesmers aren’t going to be surviving long while standing in the wells. So PvP chrono alacrity really needs to come from Flow of Time. Now that it’s 25% reduction instead of 40%, it’s actually much easier to balance/buff Flow of time to a good spot for PvP mesmers. If they make it 1 to 1.5 second per illusion, and give chronos easy ~80-100% uptime it’s no longer OP. It also won’t break balance because it doesn’t affect allies and it will be comparable to CD reduction in illusions.

Are there other problems with core mesmer? Yes. But for alacrity changes, we need to eat our medicine and deal with it.

Someone on reddit had a really good idea IMO. Since our DPS is already low and our role in PvE is to provide group support, and since our ability to provide alacrity and quickness is based on our receiving said cool down reduction, make it so we get 66% faster for ourselves, and everyone else gets 33%. Let’s us keep up our role, reduces overall DPS of the group and keeps us effective in the long run.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/414soi/skill_balance_preview_livestream_notes/cyzn5xq <— original idea here.

It was fun while it lasted, ladies and gents. Does anyone know of another game that has a similar class? I love caster swordsmen, which is what drew me to Mesmer.

I don’t think so. Chrono and alacrity should be fairly balanced between our base specs. It’s more important to buff base mesmer damage at this point. All damage modifiers just need to affect our illusions as well.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

It’s more important to buff base mesmer damage at this point. All damage modifiers just need to affect our illusions as well.

^this. It’s something I really expected to happen with HoT. It’s ok Phantasms, clones or inllusions in general got traits for their own damage. And it’s ok we have traits for our own damage. But the damage from sigils, runes, food, grace of the land, frost spirit should be transfered to them too. It’s just not fair we have always to know that anything we do to boost our dmg, just affects 50% of our outgoing damage. It’s – not – fair.

Omg… The nerf…. So Hurts..

Was expecting from 66% to 50%.
But then 66% to 33%. Too much .__.
Well some people said it’s not final… Yet….
Maybe i can put my hope… Maybe….

If 33% Alacrity changes it to 25% from 40% then I agree with the change, but I’d like far more uptime in exchange.

I said this on another thread:

What if alacrity affected rezzing or stomping to compensate for the nerfed duration? Idk Something like that to give it something unique that thief cannot do.I’m trying to justify right now what a chrono will do better than a thief, by doing that they could take vigi amulet so they have an average health pool, can supply boons, support but not be ungodly tanky.

Hihi

I recommend to reduce the CD of Well of Recall from 40 to 30, to get in line with the other wells. Now that alacrity has been tuned down, at least give us easier options to maintain it properly.

Greez!
- Madame Le Blanc

I’d hope flow of time is increased back to 1s per illusion to compensate for personal alacrity.

Xyonon.3987:

Heya!

Announcement says that alacrity shall be nerfed from 66% faster recharge to 33% faster recharge. This means instead of 1.66s per 1s it’s now 1.33s.

100% alacrity uptime now: -40% CDR
100% alacrity uptime soon: -25% CDR

I think it’s justified, but I’d like to hear your toughts

Greez!
- Madame Le Blanc

Right now 100% alacrity uptime isnt possible on a raid (10 men) enviroment.

After nerf the alacrity effect nerf will impact on alacrity uptime on a raid enviroment with a 30-35% reduction(elementary school math)

The 30% reduction of alacrity uptime on a raid enviroment added to the alacrity effect nerf bring the nerf to move CDR from -40% to a -16,5% CDR.

In a raid enviroment it’s a 60% nerf of alacrity and not a 40% nerf as you stated.

You are totally ignoring the cascade effect on your tought, this nerf is a 30% stronger of what you stated

aelfwe.4239:

Xyonon.3987:

Heya!

Announcement says that alacrity shall be nerfed from 66% faster recharge to 33% faster recharge. This means instead of 1.66s per 1s it’s now 1.33s.

100% alacrity uptime now: -40% CDR
100% alacrity uptime soon: -25% CDR

I think it’s justified, but I’d like to hear your toughts

Greez!
- Madame Le Blanc

Right now 100% alacrity uptime isnt possible on a raid (10 men) enviroment.

After nerf the alacrity effect nerf will impact on alacrity uptime on a raid enviroment with a 30-35% reduction(elementary school math)

The 30% reduction of alacrity uptime on a raid enviroment added to the alacrity effect nerf bring the nerf to move CDR from -40% to a -16,5% CDR.

In a raid enviroment it’s a 60% nerf of alacrity and not a 40% nerf as you stated.

You are totally ignoring the cascade effect on your tought, this nerf is a 30% stronger of what you stated

The question then remains, is it worth even bothering with a chrono when you can bring something that will do more DPS and/or get quickness elsewhere?

apharma.3741:

aelfwe.4239:

Xyonon.3987:

Heya!

Announcement says that alacrity shall be nerfed from 66% faster recharge to 33% faster recharge. This means instead of 1.66s per 1s it’s now 1.33s.

100% alacrity uptime now: -40% CDR
100% alacrity uptime soon: -25% CDR

I think it’s justified, but I’d like to hear your toughts

Greez!
- Madame Le Blanc

Right now 100% alacrity uptime isnt possible on a raid (10 men) enviroment.

After nerf the alacrity effect nerf will impact on alacrity uptime on a raid enviroment with a 30-35% reduction(elementary school math)

The 30% reduction of alacrity uptime on a raid enviroment added to the alacrity effect nerf bring the nerf to move CDR from -40% to a -16,5% CDR.

In a raid enviroment it’s a 60% nerf of alacrity and not a 40% nerf as you stated.

You are totally ignoring the cascade effect on your tought, this nerf is a 30% stronger of what you stated

The question then remains, is it worth even bothering with a chrono when you can bring something that will do more DPS and/or get quickness elsewhere?

Because you can’t get quickness elsewhere. All other sources are bad.

Wow both Alacrity and Precog totally overnerfed. WTG Anet!

Face palm moment, I’m at a loss what to say.

I hope that all of the actual OPd professions that are already dominating the meta, and Mesmers in particular, will also suffer a >50% gutting.

I mean Precog from 3s of invuln to 3x Aegis? Really? I don’t think I can even calculate the size of that nerf; probably on the order of 90% less damage avoidance in team fights. It better do AoE damage on the level of DH traps to compensate.

I hope they remember to take down the CDs on all this junk to the levels many of the other Elite’s are enjoying for skills that are far more powerful than the new Precog will be.

Very disappointed. I hate to side with the tin-foil hats, but it is hard to not believe that someone at Anet doesn’t like Mesmers. I just don’t see us dominating the meta to deserve this kinda gutting.

They better have a lot planned to compensate for these losses…and Scepter better be godly! lol!

What I found most curious is the justification. For Alacrity to be boosting a groups DPS by 66% seems to be assuming that autoattacks don’t exist and that all damage is coming from skills with a cooldown. This simply isn’t the case – for some weaponsets the best DPS comes from autoattacking, and for the rest autoattack is still a significant component. (Figuring out just what it is with and without Alacrity for any given build will require a fair bit of maths, but it’s at least a significant contributor.)

If you throw in increased uptime for boons and Vulnerability, that will increase the multiplier. Quickness is the most obvious, but best case scenario is that Alacrity increases Quickness from 60% uptime to 100% uptime. That’s roughly a 1.2 multiplier for the team’s damage output. You could do similar maths for Might, Fury, etc and come up with a team damage multiplier from the effect of Alacrity on these boons, but I’m pretty sure the net effect will be less than 66%, and this is still a highest-impact scenario: in typical high-end PvE you can probably assume that Might, Vulnerability, and Fury are at 100% or very close to it anyway.

The maths are very much not as simple as “66% faster cooldowns = 66% more damage”, and the fact that their explanation appears to be based on the assumption that the maths are that simple makes me think this can only be an overnerf.

draxynnic.3719:

What I found most curious is the justification.

Really? I didn’t find that curious at all. I found it as simply one more affirmation that the balance team is completely clueless. They’re both unable to do math properly, and unable to analyze a simple situation correctly.

What’s the point anymore… Why not just get rid of alacrity all together. Get rid of quickness too… Evades, blurr, active defenses… Toss all that in the garbage. To heck with it. Let’s just stick with flat % damage modifiers and auto attacks all day. It’s easier to balance.

A lot of people seem to be confused by percentages. Wording is very important. Although because of the nature of how you gain alacrity the reduction of its effect is compounded so the actual loss of overall CDR is higher.

Alacrity: 33% skill recharge rate
VS
Chill: -66% skill recharge rate AND -66% movement speed.

Nerf alacrity, nerf chill too.

So if I understand it correctly first they made us dependant from this new stuff in chrono to the point when core mesmers are kicked outta groups and treated like noobs in general simply because they didn’t spent cash on amazing circus of 66% alacrity and quickness galore, and now, when we finally tasted our purple mist poison and found it delicious, they take it away with giggles. Large part of mesmer community is under withdrawal atm
I feel for your pain guys
I was there when that monster of a man snapped ice bow
pls endure

Daniel Handler.4816:

apharma.3741:

aelfwe.4239:

Xyonon.3987:

Heya!

Announcement says that alacrity shall be nerfed from 66% faster recharge to 33% faster recharge. This means instead of 1.66s per 1s it’s now 1.33s.

100% alacrity uptime now: -40% CDR
100% alacrity uptime soon: -25% CDR

I think it’s justified, but I’d like to hear your toughts

Greez!
- Madame Le Blanc

Right now 100% alacrity uptime isnt possible on a raid (10 men) enviroment.

After nerf the alacrity effect nerf will impact on alacrity uptime on a raid enviroment with a 30-35% reduction(elementary school math)

The 30% reduction of alacrity uptime on a raid enviroment added to the alacrity effect nerf bring the nerf to move CDR from -40% to a -16,5% CDR.

In a raid enviroment it’s a 60% nerf of alacrity and not a 40% nerf as you stated.

You are totally ignoring the cascade effect on your tought, this nerf is a 30% stronger of what you stated

The question then remains, is it worth even bothering with a chrono when you can bring something that will do more DPS and/or get quickness elsewhere?

Because you can’t get quickness elsewhere. All other sources are bad.

In some ways yes but all it takes is to switch out the low dps of mesmer for a guard with feel my wrath with boon nature facet, duration food and stones for 9s quickness on kitten CD. 2 of them and you’re getting a decent amount of bang for your buck as well as the utility they provide.

Sure at the moment in the current raid wing chrono makes everything go faster but if we end up needing reflects, projectile destruction, stab etc I can see guard looking a lot more tasty than chrono.

Heh, it’s like we’ve gone back in time!

Edit: @winds ele still is one of the few gods of dps even without ice bow. This is in no way comparable to the icebow nerf.

If your really must keep the mes nerf train rolling just change alacrity to a boon…. that way it’s “more in line” with everything else and can be stripped. This will also make players seek an increase boon duration if they want more alacrity upkeep.

If chill increases CD by 66% alacrity should reduce it by 66%. So keep it at 66% or lower chill to 33%.

So decrease every alacrity source by 50% duration and make it a boon? Interesting idea, really. But it would make it very useless without any investment in boon duration wich on the other hand kills build diversity so much that it’s a rather bad idea :/

I agree on chill nerf tough.

I also think they should reduce recall CD to 30 “to get in line” with other wells

apharma.3741:

Edit: @winds ele still is one of the few gods of dps even without ice bow. This is in no way comparable to the icebow nerf.

Awww and here I was with my compassion, you know that you just mind spiked my heart dearie? Underdogs should stick together :c

What i will do now do, is go back and play Domi/duel/illusions shatter. For fun.

Oops, nevermind, i haven’t played the game a single time during the last 2 months and won’t now either.

Xyonon.3987:

So decrease every alacrity source by 50% duration and make it a boon? Interesting idea, really. But it would make it very useless without any investment in boon duration wich on the other hand kills build diversity so much that it’s a rather bad idea :/

I agree on chill nerf tough.

I also think they should reduce recall CD to 30 “to get in line” with other wells

I didn’t say reduce every source by 50%… infact modifying anything by 50% in a balance patch is a super quick way to flip the table so OP goes to UP instantly…. something anet does regularly. Reduce the source by idk 5-10% that way you only need to spec a little boon duration at the cost of something else to maintain the alacrity upkeep.

I think that we’re (and the devs, too) being a bit too focused on DPS. The contribution of Alacrity to DPS is relatively minor, and can be seen more as a reduction in auto attack time as a portion of DPS rotations. The biggest benefit of alacrity is… everything else. All the utility.

*Heal skill recharges 40% faster, giving 40% more personal healing
*Block and evade skills recharge 40% faster, giving 40% more invulnerability.
*40% more reflect time for utility skills
*40% more condition cleanses
*40% more buffs
*40% cooldown on blinks, teleports, and movement skills
*40% more hard CC

Its not chronoburst that are OP in PVP. It’s chronobunkers.

bunker in pvp isn’t really an argument at the time since they change it fundamentally with trinket changes.

but i agree that there is more than damage to alacrity – therefore i’m totally fine with 33%.

Xyonon.3987:

bunker in pvp isn’t really an argument at the time since they change it fundamentally with trinket changes.

but i agree that there is more than damage to alacrity – therefore i’m totally fine with 33%.

Glad everyone is fine with essentially more auto attacks… I mean I get it, the whole argument about utility. But this nerf is going to cause everything but auto attacks to recharge slower, right? That means more time spent auto attacking.

Does anyone else see the trend yet? Look at the change to revenant sword. Yes they nerfed autos, but they also nerfed #3. So either they just keep autoing with less dps… or they switch to staff or something and keep autoing (because its all about waiting for energyyyyy…….). Thief gets a buff to autos… more autoing. #AutoAttackMeta?