Guild Wars 2

I haven’t seen anyone speak directly about this. Most of the focus has been on the upcoming change to Deceptive Evasion. Critical Infusion having a 10 sec cooldown attached to it is by far a bigger problem in my opinion. Critical Infusion gives 5 seconds of vigor each time you perform a critical attack.

I play as a pure melee, berserker mesmer. If the change goes into effect, I will have half as much uptime on vigor which means I can dodge only half as many times as I normally do. That’s a HUGE nerf to the survivability of every mesmer who relies on active defense, instead of passive defense by stacking armor and vitality.

I sacrifice all of my passive defense to stack precision, instead of toughness/vitality, so i can crit more and proc more vigor from Critical Infusion. I’m confident I have the skills to dodge big attacks that will one shot me if I try to soak it.

Relying on active defense such as dodging and well timed blocks takes a lot more concentration and skill than just stacking passive defense stats and soaking those big attacks. It’s a very rewarding playstyle.

If this change goes into effect, not only do already sacrifice passive defensive stats like toughness and vitality, but I will have to sacrifice some damage to stack boon duration to compensate for 50% reduction on vigor uptime. I feel as though I’m being punished for relying on a core feature of combat, dodging.

I want very much for this change to not go into effect. I like my melee zerker playstyle because it’s fun and exciting, and i don’t want to be forced to fall back to range because I can’t fill my endurance bar fast enough to stay in melee.

A major focus of the last balance pass was to limit how long vigor would stay up without having any boon duration across all the classes. After that pass mesmers still could maintain almost 100% uptime.

We were a tall nail, it was only a matter of time before we were hammered.

Current, CI is ridiculously OP. Post patch, it will merely be kinda-OP. You sound silly complaining about it.

Hot Boy.7138:

If the change goes into effect, I will have half as much uptime on vigor which means I can dodge only half as many times as I normally do.

Well, that is not correct. You still regenerate endurance without vigor, just slower.

If you have problems then you can use a sigil of energy to improve the rate at which you regenerate (It will maybe even be possible to use a sigil on each weapon set, the “patch notes” on dulfy’s are not completely clear about that).

This change is not a big thing at all.

Vortigern.1987:

Hot Boy.7138:

If the change goes into effect, I will have half as much uptime on vigor which means I can dodge only half as many times as I normally do.

Well, that is not correct. You still regenerate endurance without vigor, just slower.

If you have problems then you can use a sigil of energy to improve the rate at which you regenerate (It will maybe even be possible to use a sigil on each weapon set, the “patch notes” on dulfy’s are not completely clear about that).

This change is not a big thing at all.

Ever play without 100% vigor uptime?

Mesmers still have plenty of active defense mitigation since they still have Blurred Frenzy and Illusionary Riposte, among other things. Critical Infusion was overkill for most content, mesmers don’t even have to try with the way things currently are.

In the end you even could go for a vigor sigil since the mesmer can’t really make full use of other sigils except might stack.

However I don’t think it’s a big deal to have ~25% less dodges.

I think this will hit WvW groupfighting mesmers a lot. Not running a PU build in groupfights is hard to survive but tnx to the vigor and a sigil of energy it is possible if you dodge right and a lot (well you are there mostly for the support, nullfield, veil, feedback, portal).
Now mesmers will have to play even more passive in these groupfights and stay in the back more (becoming a more easy target since you are standing more alone) and become an even more of a veil/nullfield/potal bot.

But for the overall PVE and sPVP mesmers this shouldn’t be to hard to deal with imo. (I’m not an active fractal runner or sPVP player so I can’t be sure about it. But since other classes manage, mesmers should also be able)

And btw in a wvw groupfight using blurred frenzy can’t always be used for good defence. Because if they stack retalliation (used a lot in those fights) you can easy kill yourself with it.

You know that even after the nerf there is another way to get near 100% up-time on vigor, and more importantly vigor on demand.

MrSilver.5269:

You know that even after the nerf there is another way to get near 100% up-time on vigor, and more importantly vigor on demand.

Like sigils of energy and stamina? While other classes will stack damage sigils to compensate for the zerg nerf because they don’t rely on vigor?

Or runes? Oh wait, we’re already using speed runes, which we have to use to achieve what other classes can, again, do naturally.

Or food, doubloons, forced traiting and a signet which have to replace all other skills and features?

Oh please. As an S/D thief, I can confidently say that you people have no idea what you’re talking about. First of all, I’d hardly classify evasion as “active defense”- pressing a single button to evade a huge number of attacks really isn’t that active. Secondly, you people have access to active defense in many, many more ways than you seem to be stating. Sword #2, Distortion, various combinations of traits and clone play- all of those give you an entire kitten nal to choose from.

For example, on my S/F + GS Lockdown mesmer, I can interrupt via Wave or Curtain, I can reflect via Curtain or iWarden, I can create a miniature bunker by using iWarden and then getting Protection and Regeneration from Phantasmal Healing + Illusionary Membrane, I can evade a large number of attacks by using Sword #2, I can hop out of an area using Portal, I can give myself Stability and an instant stunbreak on-demand, I can temporarily negate my opponent’s abilities with Moa, and I can get all sorts of boons while locking down my opponent with Bountiful Interruption and Chaotic Interruption. On the other hand, with my 10/0/0/30/30 thief, I can try to spam 3 on S/D (with an interval between each FS) or on SB (while doing virtually no damage and typically going in the direction I don’t want to go), I can flee using IR or IArrow, I can evade some more with Withdraw and RfInitiative, I can hop out using Shadowstep, I can very occasionally stealth, I can get a small amount of healing from Assassin’s Reward, and I can just try to evade as much as possible. There’s a very significant difference between these two. Mesmers get many more ways to defend, whereas almost all of my thief’s defense relies on evasion, and most of the remainder of my defense relies on mobility (which has very large connections to evasion anyways). I’m not saying that Mesmers are OP or anything, but seriously, stop QQ’ing.

As it is right now, Mesmers can get almost constant vigor uptime with an almost nonexistent, 5-point investment into a trait line they were probably going to go already. The only real argument against this nerf is the fact that Deceptive Evasion is one of the most significant sources of clone generation, but you can still get a huge number of clones without evading all of the time. Anyways, 10 points into Inspiration can buy you vigor on-demand for both yourself and your teammates anyways, so it’s really not like you can’t maintain permanent vigor uptime after this nerf.

It’s not my problem or anybody else’s problem if you’re going full-damage and are able to survive easily with permanent vigor uptime, and thus your vigor is getting nerfed. If you’re able to survive consistently while dealing insane amounts of damage because of a minor 5-point investment, then you’re hardly any better than the warriors that can do the same but with base stats and a high amount of healing instead.

Lishtenbird.2814:

forced traiting

I’m not happy about the nerf, but swapping out a single adept trait in a line that I am already 30 points deep into is not the end of the world to be able to get 100% vigor uptime.

Other classes have to invest WAY more to get it.

For example:

An engineer has to invest 30 points for a grandmaster trait to achieve 100% vigor uptime, or two adept traits in two different lines to achieve 50% vigor uptime, or 6/6 rune of the centaur and a single adept trait to get 50% vigor uptime. Elixir R was already nerfed beyond usefulness so take that out of the equation.

Elementalist needs to invest into both a master trait in one line, and an adept trait in another, as well as sacrificing all three utility slots for cantrips.

Thief 15 points into a non-damage line to effectively lower the cost of dodging to 35% endurance, and a crappy adept trait that grants vigor on heal, which nobody takes.

Necro: No access to vigor.

So here is the bottom line, the mesmer had easy access to near 100% vigor uptime with a 10 point investment into a line that many are already speced deep into, and post nerf we can still get 100% vigor uptime with a small adept trait investment.

And no, I am not happy about the nerf, but this nerf is a hell of a lot easier to swallow than the nerf to the crit damage on my full ascended celestial ele, because there is a work around. There is no work around to the destruction of celestial ascended gear, which is why I am now playing my mesmer as my main.