Guild Wars 2

Thank you for creating Guild Wars 2, a game I have spent many hours in, enjoying the world. Many of us have seen the game evolving for about one year and a half.

For the profession of the Mesmer, this evolving included some rather unpleasant adjustments, especially in the early days of balancing. But even now, looking into the not so distanced future, we have changes coming, that will again force players to change their playsyle.

I, for one, have bought GW2 to play PvE, not knowing that balancing around small group arena PvP is the main focus. But I also created a Norn for shapeshifting, well, everyone is a noob at one point. Some things are working, some things are not, that’s how you learn to get better with your profession and skills.

I also choose the Mesmer as my profession because of the idea of putting pressure on my enemy by confusing him with clones. That is porbably the reason, why I still like to play shatter, even though phantasm builds have surpassed shatter builds by a mile in PvE nowadays. I even switch to a clone-death build in PvE from time to time but it is so underpowered that I would not recommend it, unless you like experimental playstyles.

Unfortunately, there are some dark clouds on the horizon. What your Dev’s call “cheesing” is in fact a not so simple decision for shatter mesmers in PvE. You have to sacrifice a potential dodge for the chance to deal more damage, leaving you more vulnerable.
Now we all know how important dodge is in PvE, as it is the main source of mitigation. The simple concept also works for clone-death builds, just with the exception that those builds simply don’t work well in PvE.

“Mesmers are magical duelists who wield deception as a weapon. Using powerful illusions, clones, and phantasmal magic to confuse and distract their foes, mesmers make sure every fight is balanced in their favor and their opponents can’t believe their eyes.”

This is harldy true for PvE anymore right now, but if the latest changes go live, I think you might want to rewrite the profession’s description. You once said you want to strengthen build diversity, but I now realize this was meant for PvP.
In PvE, every patch pushes Mesmers more and more towards playing phantasm builds, as they are already the strongest setup and will be even stronger compared to other builds after this new balancing patch. What is confusing about phantasm though?

Shatter builds will loose vigor, one of the main resources for clone generation, clone positioning for a fast shatter with the DE change (sometimes you want a clone right where you are for a shatter and not wait for some seconds till the other ones have managed to run to their target if it is the right target at all) and with the berserker gear change, damage will be even worse than it is nowadays (educated guess). I have to kindly ask you if any of your playtesters has ever played a shatter mesmer to not see the consequences of your changes to this playstyle.

Any clone-death build for PvE will be as dead as the Tequatl event on my server. I don’t even need to explain why this is obvious.

The irony is, that you won’t change gear stats too much for PvP, just for PvE. Why won’t you be finally consequent and realize, that balancing around PvP won’t work for PvE. You cater to two different crowds, most people who play mainly arena PvP do not give a kitten about PvE. And most people focusing on PvE do not care too much about what is going on in high end tournaments.

Some of the Dev’s of the first Guild Wars game understood this simple concept. And they used this knowledge: They balanced PvP for PvP and PvE for PvE. Was it perfect? No. But what Arenanet is doing with GW2 is far far worse. You are breaking one part of the game for the sake of an other.

People will tell me to wait and see the changes first. Do so if you want. I won’t be around to see this changes go live. Someone made me an offer I can’t refuse.

I wish you the best with the progression of you game and hope (partly for personal interest) that you one day will manage to give us the build variety in PvE you were talking about.

Best regards

Kaiyanwan

I started playing as a tough staff condition mesmer as I wanted mobs to melt away from conditions and shatters. It felt more fun than standing next to a mob and hitting it with a sword, and that’s why I chose this profession. It also felt nice to know that you’re not running the only “true” GS build everyone’s talking about.

However it was so slow and so unrewarding in dynamic events that I had to respec into a GS power build, just like everyone else. And it’s not that interesting, but makes much more sense. So, build diversity in PvE? No, haven’t heard of it.

I’ve read your pve guide and learned lots of useful tips for my wvw gameplay.

Its not really to my liking but I will park my mesmer now and main a warr or guard for auto attacks sake.

i played the mes in wvw since 2 months after headstart and loved it. i was able to put heavy pressure on zergs with glamours and shatters, but then all the nerfs happened and we were duelists only. all out wvw and group play traits and skills have been nerfed to the ground so all we got left is veil,portal,tw.
im frustrated in wvw. it is horrible to be able to only tag and not even tag well and also not kill. on my necro i am a threat but on my mes after veil there is nothing left. everything got nerfed.
yes, i get the duelist part, but in every mmo and even the ones im beta testing atm, every class has the opportunity to spec for group fights and is not just stuck with a 1v1 class.
the way anet devs talked about mes today was very disrespectful and sounded more like bullies making fun of the people that chose mesmers to be honest.
every class should be viable in wvw or at least have a traitline that specializes in it. thieves, rangers and mes need such a traitline.
buffing mantras is not gonna help. the gw1 mes had it right, gw2 mes needs something like hexes back.

selan.8354:

i played the mes in wvw since 2 months after headstart and loved it. i was able to put heavy pressure on zergs with glamours and shatters, but then all the nerfs happened and we were duelists only. all out wvw and group play traits and skills have been nerfed to the ground so all we got left is veil,portal,tw.
im frustrated in wvw. it is horrible to be able to only tag and not even tag well and also not kill. on my necro i am a threat but on my mes after veil there is nothing left. everything got nerfed.
yes, i get the duelist part, but in every mmo and even the ones im beta testing atm, every class has the opportunity to spec for group fights and is not just stuck with a 1v1 class.
the way anet devs talked about mes today was very disrespectful and sounded more like bullies making fun of the people that chose mesmers to be honest.
every class should be viable in wvw or at least have a traitline that specializes in it. thieves, rangers and mes need such a traitline.
buffing mantras is not gonna help. the gw1 mes had it right, gw2 mes needs something like hexes back.

The absolute saddest part for me is that confounding suggestions + chaos storm was a step in the right direction. I actually felt I could do something other than veil + null field in WvW. But it was a mistake and it will be taken away.

I just don’t understand the decision not even pay cursory consideration to WvW balance. It’s not like GW2 has become a legitimate e-sport, so this absolute focus on sPvP is completely astounding.

yeah it makes me so mad that i cant do anythhing but veil and then hopefully tag 1 or 2 enemies for a few bags. we are not a threat at all we are jut the veilbots thats it. noone is scarred if a zerg has many mesmers. all we do is tw and veil anyways.
a light armor class stuck as a 1v1 duelist with no way out and no aoe and no real dps, no clear role just 2-3 utilities.
no wonder mesmer is the least played class in gw2. our bugs dont even get considered in any patch. these nerfs only happened because one of our mesmers looked at a warrior funny.
but hey even anet thinks we are a joke, why even expect them to look at wvw balance that is an absolute disaster since spvp and wvw got put together for balance