Guild Wars 2

Choppy.4183:

Curunen.8729:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

EvilSardine.9635:

Mesmers are broken as hell in my opinion and are the easiest class to play at the moment.

The massive burst they can pull off from stealth (pretty often too) is absurd. They can disengage a fight whenever they want as well.

There’s a certain setup I use which is straight up unkillable yet does massive damage. I gave this build to my wife who just leveled her mesmer to 80 and was just constantly winning any fight she got into.

I stopped running mesmer because it makes me a lazy player. It basically took the fun out of the game because there’s zero risk of dying.

I’ve also lost a lot of my reason to play mesmer atm due to how easy it is. It’s just too faceroll right now.

So why don’t the both of you play a version of the build without the stuff they added?

At least one poster put up a build that is functionally equivalent to pre-patch. You can go and have your no-faceroll mesmer, and it will still be a mesmer.

Why don’t you?

I agree – it’s still possible to handicap yourself to be “balanced” if preferred.

It’s impressive when people can include that in an argument that the class is balanced while maintaining a straight face, amirite?

I can’t recall if Alpha thinks the class is balanced, but I know the person who came up with the “pre-patch” build does, more or less.

I recall agreeing with you on mesmer changes in other threads, so I think you know where I stand (I’ve also restated it in this thread).

Regardless, I see no reason to “not play mesmer” because it is the focus of community hatred and OP builds are possible.

If a player enjoys a class for it’s theme (and not the relative challenge or combat efficiency), they will stick with it no matter what. It is just as much FotM to reroll to a “more difficult” class as it is to reroll to an “easier” class – meaning you value gameplay challenge over a class itself – nothing wrong with that at all, just pointing it out.

Personally I don’t use CS, PU, BD, MoD – and funnily enough it’s nothing to do with trying to handicap myself but purely because I don’t enjoy those traits.

For example you might find this funny but I don’t use BD because I don’t like its sound effect – and also I value the lower cooldown on mainhand sword. I don’t use PU because I find the duration TOO long – for example to combo prestige into chaos storm for aoe chaos armour and similar.

Choppy.4183:

It’s impressive when people can include that in an argument that the class is balanced while maintaining a straight face, amirite?

I can’t recall if Alpha thinks the class is balanced, but I know the person who came up with the “pre-patch” build does, more or less.

I’m amused to see you casting about trying to pin something on me, and failing to find anything.
I’m glad you admitted that, though.
Still, it’s silly to try to dismiss an argument through accusations of bias, while admitting immediately that you have no evidence of bias.

I was writing up a blurb explaining my actual position, but it got too long and I decided not to.

Lastly, your attempt to dismiss the point is ridiculous. This isn’t about some tacit admission that pre-patch was any more balanced than post-patch. This is about an unending chain of posers who keep making the rather stupid claim that because mesmer is now more effective for people of lower skill levels than it was, it’s no longer worth playing the class at all.
Not only does this smack of elitist idiocy, it’s not even a substantial complaint:
As I and other posters have noted repeatedly, you can play at the same level of “skill handicap” as mesmers were operating under before the patch. You can go even further than that, if you want to. You always have been able to.
The raised theoretical maximum power level has had no effect on the ability of a player to play a build that is at a lower power level. Indeed, we’ve seen a build that has nearly the same skill/reward structure as the maximum-power mesmer had pre-patch.

tl;dr: “mesmer is too easy now, imma roll another class” is moronic, because you can just roll the same kind of mesmer you had before. This has been said so many times and is so doable that I can only conclude the people saying it here are either morons, or they are posers just trying to get attention.
Actual balance is totally irrelevant to that particular claim.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Choppy.4183:

It’s impressive when people can include that in an argument that the class is balanced while maintaining a straight face, amirite?

I can’t recall if Alpha thinks the class is balanced, but I know the person who came up with the “pre-patch” build does, more or less.

I’m amused to see you casting about trying to pin something on me, and failing to find anything.
I’m glad you admitted that, though.
Still, it’s silly to try to dismiss an argument through accusations of bias, while admitting immediately that you have no evidence of bias.

I was writing up a blurb explaining my actual position, but it got too long and I decided not to.

Lastly, your attempt to dismiss the point is ridiculous. This isn’t about some tacit admission that pre-patch was any more balanced than post-patch. This is about an unending chain of posers who keep making the rather stupid claim that because mesmer is now more effective for people of lower skill levels than it was, it’s no longer worth playing the class at all.
Not only does this smack of elitist idiocy, it’s not even a substantial complaint:
As I and other posters have noted repeatedly, you can play at the same level of “skill handicap” as mesmers were operating under before the patch. You can go even further than that, if you want to. You always have been able to.
The raised theoretical maximum power level has had no effect on the ability of a player to play a build that is at a lower power level. Indeed, we’ve seen a build that has nearly the same skill/reward structure as the maximum-power mesmer had pre-patch.

tl;dr: “mesmer is too easy now, imma roll another class” is moronic, because you can just roll the same kind of mesmer you had before. This has been said so many times and is so doable that I can only conclude the people saying it here are either morons, or they are posers just trying to get attention.
Actual balance is totally irrelevant to that particular claim.

So are you calling rytlock a moron or a poser trying to get attention? Do you not know who he is? He’s probably one of the best mesmers in the game and he doesn’t even want to play it anymore (mesmer main) because it’s too strong. When a mesmer main says that and is probably a top level mesmer…Chances are…The class is broken.

Are you trying to say that PU itself isn’t broken? Confounding suggestions is skillful (especially since you can set up your burst from stealth with it…), undodgeable blinds on shatter isn’t too strong? Oh let’s not forget the everlasting mantras that just keeps on repeating. Oh before you say you can interrupt it, it’s ALL GOOD. Players can cover their mantra cast with invuls/stealth, even more so with PU.

Lettuce.2945:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Choppy.4183:

It’s impressive when people can include that in an argument that the class is balanced while maintaining a straight face, amirite?

I can’t recall if Alpha thinks the class is balanced, but I know the person who came up with the “pre-patch” build does, more or less.

I’m amused to see you casting about trying to pin something on me, and failing to find anything.
I’m glad you admitted that, though.
Still, it’s silly to try to dismiss an argument through accusations of bias, while admitting immediately that you have no evidence of bias.

I was writing up a blurb explaining my actual position, but it got too long and I decided not to.

Lastly, your attempt to dismiss the point is ridiculous. This isn’t about some tacit admission that pre-patch was any more balanced than post-patch. This is about an unending chain of posers who keep making the rather stupid claim that because mesmer is now more effective for people of lower skill levels than it was, it’s no longer worth playing the class at all.
Not only does this smack of elitist idiocy, it’s not even a substantial complaint:
As I and other posters have noted repeatedly, you can play at the same level of “skill handicap” as mesmers were operating under before the patch. You can go even further than that, if you want to. You always have been able to.
The raised theoretical maximum power level has had no effect on the ability of a player to play a build that is at a lower power level. Indeed, we’ve seen a build that has nearly the same skill/reward structure as the maximum-power mesmer had pre-patch.

tl;dr: “mesmer is too easy now, imma roll another class” is moronic, because you can just roll the same kind of mesmer you had before. This has been said so many times and is so doable that I can only conclude the people saying it here are either morons, or they are posers just trying to get attention.
Actual balance is totally irrelevant to that particular claim.

So are you calling rytlock a moron or a poser trying to get attention? Do you not know who he is? He’s probably one of the best mesmers in the game and he doesn’t even want to play it anymore (mesmer main) because it’s too strong. When a mesmer main says that and is probably a top level mesmer…Chances are…The class is broken.

Are you trying to say that PU itself isn’t broken? Confounding suggestions is skillful (especially since you can set up your burst from stealth with it…), undodgeable blinds on shatter isn’t too strong? Oh let’s not forget the everlasting mantras that just keeps on repeating. Oh before you say you can interrupt it, it’s ALL GOOD. Players can cover their mantra cast with invuls/stealth, even more so with PU.

So if rylock is jumping of the bridge the rest of you lemmings can follow.

denis.9487:

So if rylock is jumping of the bridge the rest of you lemmings can follow.

i am sure you would if it was Helseth~

Cynz.9437:

denis.9487:

So if rylock is jumping of the bridge the rest of you lemmings can follow.

i am sure you would if it was Helseth~

As far as I’m concerned the entire mesmer playerbase can reroll and it won’t stop me from playing it – because mesmer is the only reason I play gw2.

I feel the same way. We cried to be buffed now we cry to nerf. We have entered the same playing field as the other classes. Some can do things better, some we do. But we have balance in so far as some representation in esl and many viable builds in wvw I don’t play much pve so not sure there.

The problem with mez is that too much of its damage is tied to shatters.

That may have been a good idea when they had little survivability and needed the burst but with the revision to traits it just makes them a bit over the top.

What they should do is lower the damage on shatter by a good 25-30% but up the consistent damage on weapon skills to compensate.

This would bring them to a more balanced state given their increased survivability since the patch and give people a bit more of a chance to react to them instead of being insta nuked.

How can you even entertain that when damage is high across the board for all classes. Imo that’s the first step.

Lettuce.2945:

So are you calling rytlock a moron or a poser trying to get attention? Do you not know who he is? He’s probably one of the best mesmers in the game and he doesn’t even want to play it anymore (mesmer main) because it’s too strong. When a mesmer main says that and is probably a top level mesmer…Chances are…The class is broken.

Probably being less of a moron and more of a poser.
That said, professional players are playing at a level that handicapping themselves would result in a change to their perceived skill level. If Helseth, for example, suddenly started losing more than normal on mesmer, people would start to say he’s lost his touch, etc, before they bothered to check if he’s switched to a weaker build for competitive purposes. It’s possible that rytlock wants more of a challenge, but wishes to avoid the damage to his reputation that might accompany playing a nerfed build. That’s still not a great rationale though, as rerolling Ranger or guardian or whatever class he perceives as weaker is functionally the same as rolling a weakened mesmer build. All he needs to do is ensure that people know that’s what he’s doing, and his public reputation doesn’t change at all. And if he can’t keep up a decent win/loss ratio with his nerfed mesmer, maybe he was wrong about mesmer in the first place.

tl;dr: being “pro” doesn’t stop you from being a poser. Just look at any pro sports league to be disabused of that notion really fast.

Lettuce.2945:

Are you trying to say that PU itself isn’t broken? Confounding suggestions is skillful (especially since you can set up your burst from stealth with it…), undodgeable blinds on shatter isn’t too strong? Oh let’s not forget the everlasting mantras that just keeps on repeating. Oh before you say you can interrupt it, it’s ALL GOOD. Players can cover their mantra cast with invuls/stealth, even more so with PU.

Wherever did you get the idea I was saying anything at all about mesmer balance?

I realize it’s easier to dismiss the arguments of others by classifying them in a group you disagree with, but that doesn’t mean squat relative to how right or wrong they are. My point about the posers stands, and your only argument is to suggest that the “pro” rytlock can’t possibly be a poser because he’s pro.

Oh, and to imply that the mesmer being OP or not has anything whatsoever to do with the flawed attention-seeking argument that I’ve been ridiculing.

Both responses are wrong.

You’re in denial if you don’t think CS + MoD + mantras recharging in the background is too strong. An instant 1200 range stun every 5s for 20s or 30s traited is simply too kittening strong, without even taking power block into account. It needs changes, soon.

Lettuce, Helseth says mesmer is now on par with other classes except maybe CS. Do we now have to get Rylock and Helseth in an arena to have a fight or can we go back to making up our own minds about stuff?

Personally we got stuff added and removed. I feel the survivability increases we got (PU, BD, Inspiration line rework) mostly offset what we lost (weakness + cripple on clone death, distortion on kill) so it’s about balanced.

CS needs a little tweak.
BD shouldn’t go through invuln or dodge states even if it’s by chance they were.
MoD probably could do with a halving of CD and daze duration to really kill that FotM build.
Our vuln application needs looking at, it’s giving us a sizeable increase in burst with fragility which is a fine trait.
Torch trait needs reworking, promotes stealth camping, generally useless outside of PU.

EremiteAngel.9765:

I am fighting them more and more and my verdict is no…they are not really OP.

Strong yes.
Very Strong yes.
OP? not really…

Ok they’re not OP or anything, but they’re certainly stronger than any other class at the moment. And yes, the mesmer population did skyrocket because of that very fact. And yes people exploit such things ever since competitive games existed, it’s nothing new but it needs to be fixed soon because people are leaving pvp. Some have a frustration tresholds higher than others, but they will soon get sick of it all, too ^^

As long as I know their weakness my frustration levels are fine. What I’m not fine with is EVERYONE and their mother playing mesmer. Joe shmoe who I could easily turn into mush if i decided to turn on THE REAL interrupt mesmer comes at me with 5 of his other friends playing the same class… that’s annoying and painful to endure.

I literally won a match against 3 mesmers by 1 point. The match went to timer and we won by 1 point. If the match was one second longer, they would’ve won because I was literally on the verge of being stomped whilst holding the point that gave us the win.

I loved PU before all these condi patches and buffs. It was my way of having fun. Not too strong, but not terribly weak. I still run my old PU build with slight changes, and it is still fun. There are way stronger professions than condition PU mesmer. But three things Anet should not have done;

- Giving full power builds a chance to use PU traits, especially stealth.
-Giving every build a buff at shatter skills.
-Giving too many blind options for every build.

These are the same thematic problems that DD ele has. Before, there were 2.2 trait lines. Now there are 3. So some builds are not balanced. For me, it is the same. I still play my old build.

But again Anet is trying to force everybody to find new builds and new armor sets. If you are stuck with old builds and gears too much, It will not help. Also condi cleanse is a must. I still see many players going out with condi cleanse. Maybe that hurts too.

This Rylock?
http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/3839316

Lets be honest, if you have to ask, generally speaking… The answer is yes… No one got significantly better due to the patch, but Mesmers as a whole are sure doing tricks off peoples’ faces.

Mesmer wasn’t bad pre-patch, it was just checked by Thief. Now that that issue has been handled, people are just realizing more what Mesmer is capable of (and more, as they were actually buffed).

The idea of burst classes with lots of stealth, blind, invulnerablities etc just makes other burst oriented builds pointless. Mesmers burst just as good (if not better in some cases), it’s instant, and can be done from stealth, which generally makes it a safer choice for your burst team mate.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that it’s good. TTK is too low right now (people die too fast), so blinds, evades and stealth are significantly increased in general value, that’s just how it works. As fights get faster “burst protection” becomes more valuable, and mesmers are swimming in it, without even sacrificing DPS because burst protection mechanics don’t require stats to work.

Also, Mesmers ARE used competitively, just more in EU than NA. Probably because people are still adjusting to them, but many top-tier thieves have already started learning Mesmer. That should tell you something.

i have been playing mesmer for over a year now and yes it is my main, first i dont think mesmer are really that OP as everyone is exaggerating and saying it is but they are strong and definitely stronger than some others profession and the same applies to eles , guards
example i find burn guardian way stronger(IMHO), but even though mesmers are not OP and are just strong some traits really needs some changes to make the overall gameplay better
1st: CS : i think this trait should stun on interrupts only and they remove the icd that way it will be rewarding to your skill and not just spamming MoD or they can just remove the trait and combine it with power block
2nd : BD : i think its ok and nothing wrong with it as its purpose is to save the mesmer if he failed his burst so making not apply on dodge makes it pretty much useless but it should be blockable with block skills or invulnerability skills but not with dodges
3rd: PU: i never really tried this trait in pvp i only use it to skip mobs in Arah but yes i belive 100% duration increase a bit over the top and makes the mesmer more of a thief which should not happen as mesmer have their clones
4th: some says the shatter is too strong which is not the game dmg is over the top at the moment and not just the mesmer every other class is the same ( i have no idea about rangers though) so this is not the mesmers problem its the game problem and the same problem applies to every other profession so mesmers dmg should not be nerfed
5th: plz dont ask to nerf the mesmer to what it was before the patch anyone who asks for that is either stupid (sorry for that) or never really mained a mesmer as they were the most unrewarding profession no matter how skilled you are an average player on another profession will put up a good fight against you especially thiefs, thief are only angry now cuz they cant spam 2 on us and win easily (PS: i could kill most thiefs pre-patch but after nearly 7 months of mesmer playing).
sorry for the long reply

Ugh. Competitive-level players say stupid kitten all the time. Especially when they’re making their money off streams rather than winning tourneys. It’s in their best interest to mouth off and promote their brand, because that’s what brings in viewers.

“Mesmer is too easy, I’m bored with it” is exactly the kind of stupid thing I’d expect a showboating streamer to say.

of course all the mesmer people are going to defend their mesmer in a mesmer topic, talking about how op they are because they know mesmer is op now.

i have always had a hard time with mesmers tbh but thats not what bothers me. what bothers me is that their stealth now seems too long, they can easily escape and reset while being able to spam the whole field and do it all over again. sounds familiar?

for all i care is just the stealth duration. i dont think mesmers should have long duration of stealth or as much access to gain duration to stealth, especially since clones are their thing. that alone already makes it hard, having to stop and focus or clicking on most of the clones.

The appeal to authority fallacies in this thread are real and intellectually disturbing.

Velimere.7685:

The appeal to authority fallacies in this thread are real and intellectually disturbing.

I was so totally thinking the same…

@Cebrus
Well, mesmers are hitting harder post patch than pre patch, it’s anything from about 1.5k to at least 3-4k due to our increased vulnerability application via daze, interrupt and fragility. We’re also seeing more crits due to master fence giving high fury uptime.

I worked out the max burst for pre patch traits with new amulets and post patch traits with new amulets, it’s significantly more but also pre patch you’d be sitting on about 50% crit chance but now you’re likely to be on 80% so that plays its part too.

@rest of people
What if frostball and subcutie have different opinions on mesmers to Helseth and Rylock? Will your universe implode?

Nah, I am asking whom Helseth talking about in this video before he fights thief?

Mak.2657:

Nah, I am asking whom Helseth talking about in this video before he fights thief?

Yes it is rylock was a thread on that about 3 months ago.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Bounty-Warlord-of-Chaos-Bounty-Raised

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

EvilSardine.9635:

Mesmers are broken as hell in my opinion and are the easiest class to play at the moment.

The massive burst they can pull off from stealth (pretty often too) is absurd. They can disengage a fight whenever they want as well.

There’s a certain setup I use which is straight up unkillable yet does massive damage. I gave this build to my wife who just leveled her mesmer to 80 and was just constantly winning any fight she got into.

I stopped running mesmer because it makes me a lazy player. It basically took the fun out of the game because there’s zero risk of dying.

I’ve also lost a lot of my reason to play mesmer atm due to how easy it is. It’s just too faceroll right now.

So why don’t the both of you play a version of the build without the stuff they added?

At least one poster put up a build that is functionally equivalent to pre-patch. You can go and have your no-faceroll mesmer, and it will still be a mesmer.

Why don’t you?

LOL. You’re kidding yourself if you think changing a thing here and there makes it more difficult to use. It’s a class that destroys in pretty much any aspect of WvW.

Massive damage with the ability to escape anything you want . Blink, distortion, blurred frenzy, dodges, blocks, and some of the most absurd stealth ever. You can troll a huge amount of people using stealth and portals. Just do all your stealth trolling in a keep and when you finally exhaust your options you drop a portal and exit the keep and run far away….when you have everything back up then you portal back in and start over. Then port in your zerg whenever you want. It’s comedy and it’s even funnier when you have two mesmers working together to do that.

It’s a class with big rewards and zero risk. I duel, roam, and 5v5 with it all the time and not once do I think it takes any skill to play.

When I want a challenge I’ll roll a warrior or engineer but when I want to relax and win all day I run my mesmer.

Frankly, I wonder if people are just playing against bad players or against superior mesmers. I’ve never encountered these one-shot builds or any of the problems that people are describing here and I pvp (unranked) every day with multiple classes.

It just seems that people are blaming their losses on mesmers or their bad builds (I see a lot of these) on mesmers. While I agree the mesmer needs some minor tweaking, it’s no where near as kittenome people are claiming it to be.

DaShi.1368:

Frankly, I wonder if people are just playing against bad players or against superior mesmers. I’ve never encountered these one-shot builds or any of the problems that people are describing here and I pvp (unranked) every day with multiple classes.

It just seems that people are blaming their losses on mesmers or their bad builds (I see a lot of these) on mesmers. While I agree the mesmer needs some minor tweaking, it’s no where near as kittenome people are claiming it to be.

If play in PvP and you do not experience those you mentioned, you are either super good or its the MMR you have.

I disagree with your assessment.

DaShi.1368:

I disagree with your assessment.

It’s the MMR.

StickerHappy.8052:

DaShi.1368:

I disagree with your assessment.

It’s the MMR.

There’s no need to make a personal attack just because you didn’t make a convincing argument.

DaShi.1368:

StickerHappy.8052:

DaShi.1368:

I disagree with your assessment.

It’s the MMR.

There’s no need to make a personal attack just because you didn’t make a convincing argument.

How is that an attack? You have been wondering why you don’t encounter those you mentioned, I gave you a reason, so how is that an attack?

Too much sensitivity.,

I told you that I disagreed so you basically called me a bad player because of that. It was a clear personal attack as is your last post. If you can’t discuss this civilly with me, I suggest you move on.

DaShi.1368:

I told you that I disagreed so you basically called me a bad player because of that. It was a clear personal attack as is your last post.

Where did I mention that you are a bad player? /smh /facepalm

So MMR is an offensive word now?

I’m not sure who you are trying to convince at this point.

DaShi.1368:

I’m not sure who you are trying to convince at this point.

I tried to give you reasons, Ask anyone what other reasons they can give you, All those pro mesmers here. Cmon try asking.

I didnt know you were such a hyperbolic person.

I dare you try asking them.

My post is there for anyone to consider and agree or disagree with. I, however, am not the topic of discussion and shouldn’t be. As I said, there’s no need to respond to me, if you can’t be civil.

A few (2) traits need to be re-balanced (I use this word over “nerf” or else my fellow Mesmers will apparently lynch me). Mesmer is not god-tier. Damage is OP across all professions.

/thread

DaShi.1368, don’t take to heart. MMR is just MMR. It is not an insult in this context. Probably my MMR is low (not doing pvp consistently). But even at low mmr matches, at hj, at angz I meet decent players (as I can estimate). Neither good mesmers 1shots me (reflectory use of save skill), neither me 1shots full hp good players. Not using dom line though.
MB there some need for fix/nerf. Idk. Though haven’t met those 1,5 hours with class faceroll OP mesmers. Ofc if you are spamming or channeling not covered skills, don’t pay attention to environment , not positioning and los well, etc you would have problems.

Thanks Mak. It’s not about the MMR. It’s about the context of his posts.

But, on topic, I agree that mesmers could use some fix/nerfs, but there’s a lot of exaggerating going on.

EvilSardine.9635:

LOL. You’re kidding yourself if you think changing a thing here and there makes it more difficult to use. It’s a class that destroys in pretty much any aspect of WvW.

Massive damage with the ability to escape anything you want . Blink, distortion, blurred frenzy, dodges, blocks, and some of the most absurd stealth ever. You can troll a huge amount of people using stealth and portals. Just do all your stealth trolling in a keep and when you finally exhaust your options you drop a portal and exit the keep and run far away….when you have everything back up then you portal back in and start over. Then port in your zerg whenever you want. It’s comedy and it’s even funnier when you have two mesmers working together to do that.

It’s a class with big rewards and zero risk. I duel, roam, and 5v5 with it all the time and not once do I think it takes any skill to play.

When I want a challenge I’ll roll a warrior or engineer but when I want to relax and win all day I run my mesmer.

Oh hey, another person running off their mouth before they stop to think about what I said!
Let’s think about this one more carefully, mk?
“Massive damage with the ability to escape anything you want . Blink, distortion, blurred frenzy, dodges, blocks, and some of the most absurd stealth ever.”
-> blink existed before the patch, it’s not relevant. blurred frenzy existed before the patch, it’s not relevant. Dodges existed before the patch, they’re not relevant. All the mesmer’s blocks existed before the patch, they’re not relevant.
Without PU and The Pledge, the stealth isn’t any better than it was before the patch. So…don’t take PU or The Pledge.

You rather stupidly tried to insist that making suboptimal build choices can’t make the mesmer any weaker than it is, as though Mesmers are faceroll no matter what choices they make. If this were true, Mesmers would have been faceroll before the patch too, as the changes that have made mesmers stronger than pre-patch were all trait changes. And you can easily find a suboptimal trait set.

But then you had to add to it by citing a bunch of examples that are either:
A. Not relevant, because they are the same as before the patch
B. Completely avoidable by just not taking those traits.

See what happens when you don’t actually read what people are saying?
Everyone starts thinking you took too many stupid pills this morning. I know better, though. I know you’re just a decently intelligent person who didn’t think before he posted.

Fix the pledge torch trait and sardines problems go away. They will have a big down time on stealth.

“Oh but they’ll just have 2 or 3 working together!” Well, this is why you sweep keeps and use stealth disrupters. It was there pre patch with thieves steal thing groups of 5 for long periods so wise up and start using the tools at your disposal.

Honestly, I have quite mixed feelings about this.

For one, I feel traits should be really strong. Otherwise the choice between 3 traits is a non-choice as there’s either a clear winner (all traits are weak but one aligns with your build) or it doesn’t matter as no trait really does anything.
If all traits are very strong, then even if you are a shatter-spec player and the choice is between two shatter traits and a phantasm trait, depending on traits this’ll still be a tough choice. After all, even that phantasm trait is going to add a lot of power to you (say, for 3 seconds after spawning Phantasms do +100% damage/effectduration, even if that damage is a shatter skill).

Second though, I don’t like characters growing from zero to hero via traits. I want the baseline to be balanced.
Yes I am aware that contradicts what I said above. Like I said, mixed feelings.

What I’d do is maybe the following:

• Reduce character base power. We are weaker without the traits.
• Give traits earlier, this is a necessity of my changes.
• Buff all GM traits to be on the power level of PU or so. They ought to both add serious amount of oomph and be quite game-changing.
• Buff Master traits to be just slightly weaker. Master traits should not be as game-changing. Yet they should add enough power that picking one is difficult, because you desire all three – after all, base character power was seriously nerfed beforehand.
• Adept traits would be the area where the “weak” traits reside, but they ought to be thematically aligned. For example Chaos could let you pick 3 ways to spawn an additional chaos storm, Domination could have 3 ways to cause Vulnerability, etc.
• Shuffle traits so that each set of 3, like the adept examples above, tries to give you something similar in different ways. This is necessary as a result of increasing relative contribution of traits as an enemy figuring out you are Dom / Duel / Illusions should have some reliability on what trait effects you have.

Mesmer did not go from zero to hero. It went from bottom of the classes to on par with the classes. That simple. I understand the angst over not being on the bottom but in all fairness ele burst is the same with great sustain. Guardian burn burst builds. Warriors are still wearing sneakers instead of plate armor in wvw the list goes on and on. We are balanced and relevant to any other class now. Forgot condition thief those hurt!!

denis.9487:

Mesmer did not go from zero to hero. It went from bottom of the classes to on par with the classes. That simple.

That’s not what I said though. What I meant is that individual traits are kinda meh if they constitute such a large portion of a character’s power, the power should be moved into the base char then, and then balance should be re-evaluated. Although if you read the whole post, my idea would sort of do the opposite because it’d fit GW2 better.

denis.9487:

Mesmer did not go from zero to hero. It went from bottom of the classes to on par with the classes. That simple. I understand the angst over not being on the bottom but in all fairness ele burst is the same with great sustain. Guardian burn burst builds. Warriors are still wearing sneakers instead of plate armor in wvw the list goes on and on. We are balanced and relevant to any other class now. Forgot condition thief those hurt!!

give all the mesmer stealth skills a cast time (just like thief) to make it counterable
take away/rework pledge
decrease PU to about 50%

THEN mesmer is on par with every other class

DHawk.2687:

denis.9487:

Mesmer did not go from zero to hero. It went from bottom of the classes to on par with the classes. That simple. I understand the angst over not being on the bottom but in all fairness ele burst is the same with great sustain. Guardian burn burst builds. Warriors are still wearing sneakers instead of plate armor in wvw the list goes on and on. We are balanced and relevant to any other class now. Forgot condition thief those hurt!!

give all the mesmer stealth skills a cast time (just like thief) to make it counterable
take away/rework pledge
decrease PU to about 50%

THEN mesmer is on par with every other class

Some stealth issues id agree pledge needs rework asap. Then imo leave pu see what happens. Can always go farther. I’m found of baby steps not gutting.

DHawk.2687:

give all the mesmer stealth skills a cast time (just like thief) to make it counterable

While in general I am always for more cast-time skills (on all classes) and less instant skills – something instant should be a really really rare thing and the core component of that ability in return for being much weaker – Thieves do have instant stealth skills. And lots of them once you include combos since they can trigger them easily.

DHawk, if we give blinding powder a cast time too then feel free to give decoy a cast time.

As for the rest of it, no, change the torch trait first, then we can make an accurate analysis of PU, currently the pledge is simply too strong with PU and borderline useless without it. The majority of the QQ we get is from mesmers with high stealth uptime, that trait is the cause.

The prestige is similar to C&D however C&D has only initiative cost and no actual cool down, for that it pays with a 1/2s cast.

SR is about equal to MI, MI has a very long and obvious channel you can interrupt, SR has the circle to bombard. Though it is worth pointing out the -25% damage in stealth thieves get.

All things being said, fix the pledge to not be stealth camping orientated and promote active combat (not burst) and I would say thieves and mesmers are about equal for stealth with thieves having more on demand stealth.