Guild Wars 2

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Dat forum bug -_-

Which one?

At 49 posts you can’t read anything until someone posts again and it jumps to the next page.

• Domination: Interrupted skills will go on 10s cooldown instead of 5s NO ICD

I like it. Not so sure if the additional 5s justify giving up other traits in my current set up, though. I also don’t like it won’t affect Thieves. But I’ll give it a shot.

• Dueling: Get 3s of distortion after killing a foe. NO ICD

Extremly powerful in WvW when zerging or against Minion Masters and other Mesmers if pets count as foe. I mean… seriously… If an Illusion counted as foe…

I also wonder if Masterful Reflection works with this type of Distortion.

• Chaos: Grant boons on shatter activation (F1: 3s Retaliation, F2: 15s Might(x3), F3: 5s Fury, F4: 8s regeneration)

I personally don’t like it. We already get Retaliation through shatters. We already get Might through shatters. The Fury is okay I guess. Regeneration is useless. I can see this shine in a boon sharing shatter build with 0/0/30/10/30 using Vigorous Revelation and the Signet of Inspiration. But who is even going to consider this? Besides Chaos Archangel maybe.

Generally, this trait is extremly underwhelming for a grandmaster trait especially since it doesn’t really grant anything we can’t get anywhere else. It actually really upsets me. I mean… What is the thought process behind this trait? It feels like they where out of ideas and just added something which is supposed to fit the theme of ‘randomness’ (which it not even does) and the additional boon duration. It does not make any sense at all.

Chaos already lacks synergies when looking at the Major traits. I got the feeling that this new trait makes it even more obvious. It appears that the devs lack a real vision for this trait line. We also certainly didn’t need yet another shatter trait.

Just some quick random ideas I probably would have preferred.

Bountiful Disillusionment
Nearby allies gain 3s of Protection and another random boon if an Illusion is destroyed.
This complements Debilitating Dissipation, contains something random and also associates with the boon duration and the survivability theme of the trait line.

Prismatic Elements
Burning a foe now also chills him. Chilling a foe now also burns him.
Quite straight forward for low-stealth condition builds.
Synergizes with Chaotic Dampening, Staff and Torch.

Bountiful Manipulation
Your Manipulation skills now heal you and grant a random boon.
This trait could make Manipulation heavy builds more appealing.
Synergizes with Master of Manipulation.

• Inspiration: +1000 healing power after interrupt (4s)

Meh. Me sad. No Glamour trait.

I didn’t like it that much at first. But this might actually enable Mesmers to bunker in PvP. I thought about a x/30/x/30/x and mainly Mantras as utilities. With Furious Interruption you will be able to recharge Mantras without stealthing or wasting your stunbreakers. In combination with the iDefender, permanent high Regeneration, Retaliation on Block (Sc/Sw Blocks and Chaos Storm Aegis) and constantly using Restorative Mantras you could be a pain in the butterfly to get off of a cap point. Sprinkle some Protection runes on top, maybe add Heal or Chill sigils (which will become on hit with the patch) and you’d become even more durable. For example like this.

• Illusions: Torment on Shatter hits (no values confirmed)

Could be very interesting but heavily depends on stack size, duration and ICD.

MailMail.6534:

Illusions: Really cool! Shatters are inherently supposed to do a lot of condition dmg considering the trait line boost condition dmg soooo…about time?! I could see this wrecking faces in wvw.

maybe in roaming with some PU condition build, but for ZvZ is useless…

Xaylin.1860:

I didn’t like it that much at first. But this might actually enable Mesmers to bunker in PvP. I thought about a x/30/x/30/x and mainly Mantras as utilities. With Furious Interruption you will be able to recharge Mantras without stealthing or wasting your stunbreakers. In combination with the iDefender, permanent high Regeneration, Retaliation on Block (Sc/Sw Blocks and Chaos Storm Aegis) and constantly using Restorative Mantras you could be a pain in the butterfly to get off of a cap point. Sprinkle some Protection runes on top, maybe add Heal or Chill sigils (which will become on hit with the patch) and you’d become even more durable. For example like this.

Sorta? You could just take something else and get more mileage out of it though. Interrupts are still unreliable to hit for most things, so you’re taking a trait that’s already unreliable. Then you remember that it’s only useful if you’re able to heal in that 4 second interval. So it’s useless if you had to heal before, or if there’s nobody to interrupt when you want to heal, etc. It’s just not good.

@Pyroatheist: The Duel trait could be useful for the Zergmower, if you could live without the last two traits in Chaos.

Korusef.3714:

@Pyroatheist: The Duel trait could be useful for the Zergmower, if you could live without the last two traits in Chaos.

Not really. Here’s the problem. The dueling trait only becomes effective in a zerg fight if the enemy group is starting to get demolished…at which point it becomes superfluous.

Maybe one could make a mesmer zerg that just needs to focus one person down and then goes wild with 100% uptime invul fullzerkerbuilds xD

wont work. mesmer vs war, war zerg will always win as we have nothing at all to compete in a zerg. all a mes zerg can do is chain veil atm…. the new trait wont change much….

Haven’t read all of the thread yet, so I’m not sure if anyone’s brought this up, but with Chaos, if it’s upon Shatter activation, wouldn’t that mean we might not actually need illusions to use it? For instance, just hit all the shatter skills at the beginning of the fight or when you actually want to shatter and gain all the boons at once. I thought that might be an interesting treat that ANet might have thrown in with the wording.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Sorta? You could just take something else and get more mileage out of it though.

And how exactly would you bunker more efficiently then?

Pyroathiest.4168:

Interrupts are still unreliable to hit for most things, so you’re taking a trait that’s already unreliable.

True. Nevertheless, interrupt builds have become quite popular. Why not try it for a defensive build? You should be fine as long as you do not face someone with excessive Stability. Even then you will have a rather high survivability and will probably outlast them by blocking and dodging them.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Then you remember that it’s only useful if you’re able to heal in that 4 second interval.

Not true. The 1000 healing power will result in 125 extra health per second from Regeneration which means a total of 408 hp/s for 5s. That’s actually quite nice since it’s basically guaranteed.

Using a heal within the time frame should be pretty easy. Either your Mantra of Recovery is charged (plus 400 health per charge) or you will be able to recast a random Mantra while under Quickness (plus 200 health from Restorative Mantras which totals into about 3k which also heals your Phantasms).

The only situation where the additional healing power is wasted is at 100% health.

Pyroathiest.4168:

So it’s useless if you had to heal before, or if there’s nobody to interrupt when you want to heal, etc. It’s just not good.

If there is nobody to interrupt I’m most likely not in the need for a heal.

Of course, it is not useful for emergency heals. But it offers survivability in the long run.

The dueling one might be rly strong in WvW / Zergs.
In PvP, I’d regard it as almost useless. Distortion when downing a player would be awesome (and probably OP). But when killing a player? For what?

At the Chaos one, I don’t get why you get retaliation from Mindwrack and Might from Cry of Frustration.
I mean, Mindwrack is the typical burst shatter, Might would be more appropriate. Not to mention, that there even is another trait giving you retaliation from Cry of Frustration. So why not continue this?

The Illusions one is just lol…
Not to mention that somehow it seems useless, but why the kitten is it even in the inspiration line?
The inspiration line also hkittentered condition. Both those traits are getting absolutly devalued by being in that line.

The illusions line one looks interesting, however I am no fan from torment in general.

^it has such a great name

If they let the Distortion from dueling trigger the reflection trait that could be fun. In wvw you might be able to pull mobs into fights to grab distortion in small scale combat.

That being said it will probably have a very small place in zerg builds.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

ONE. THOUSAND. HEALING POWER ON INTERRUPT!?!? No ICD!?

All I gotta say is… dat focus pull. Ima become the best support Mesmer on the planet. =D

For 4 seconds. I can guarantee you it doesn’t stack in either duration or power. So how is that going to help you? It’s nearly useless in PvE as always, and in PvP you can’t reliably apply aoe healing right after an interrupt like that, and healing power sucks anyway because everything except regen scales horridly with it.

I cant go into much detail on my horribad cellphone, if it doesnt stack in any kinda way its garb, but if it does? Itll look like my entire team has healing signet. =P
Edit: The first thing that came to my mind was: “Focus pull 4 people = 4000 healing power!”

I read this trait as stacking in duration (not intensity). Meaning every interrupt gets you 4s, behaving much like the old furious interruption gave you fury for 4s. If it stacks like this, we have some interesting potential in support builds. If it doesn’t stack duration, it sux bad and needs to be ignored.

Obviously the net gain isn’t from restorative mantras, it’s from our phantasm’s regeneration and ether feast. Ether feast immediately gets 1,300 increased healing at max effect with 3 illusions. That’s not alarmingly huge, but it’s sure decent. And we get another 125 healing per second with regen, giving a berserker mesmer 300 healing/sec from regen. Yeah you gotta go 30 in inspiration but assuming the duration stacks, this just isn’t something to ignore IMO.

The concern of not reliably proc’ing the trait is valid, but for those who have played AoE rupt builds for a long time, you all know how often they proc, enough to make something like this deserve a look.

Oh, and another thing about the new traits. These were only high level announcements today, meaning there are lots of other weapons, skills, possibly even trait changes for all professions, as clarified by Allie Murdock here.

So, easy as it may be to dislike some of these new GM traits on the surface (I agree some don’t sound that great), we should really suspend full judgement until we see the big picture of what the patch will bring. I’m still hoping for some major changes/overhauls on many things we’ve been asking for. It could be that some of these other unknown changes will make more sense of the new GM’s.

I know Anet hasn’t provided many reasons to trust them of late, but hey, you never know.

I seriously cant believe no one has mentioned this yet. Imbued diversion+new dueling GM+masterful reflection. Basically, mesmers just became amazing in a zergs frontline and in havoc groups as well. With no ICD this could be almost permanent.

What if you get a 5+havoc group with full zerker just looking for massive zergs. Once you kill just one guy (easy with 5+ in full zerker) youd become this unstoppable, invulnerable, reflecting, massive dmg dealing ball of death. With only 5 people. (Hell, you could do it with one)

Carpboy.7145:

I seriously cant believe no one has mentioned this yet. Imbued diversion+new dueling GM+masterful reflection. Basically, mesmers just became amazing in a zergs frontline and in havoc groups as well. With no ICD this could be almost permanent.

What if you get a 5+havoc group with full zerker just looking for massive zergs. Once you kill just one guy (easy with 5+ in full zerker) youd become this unstoppable, invulnerable, reflecting, massive dmg dealing ball of death. With only 5 people. (Hell, you could do it with one)

Once you kill one guy…you’d have 3 seconds of distortion. That doesn’t last very long.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Carpboy.7145:

I seriously cant believe no one has mentioned this yet. Imbued diversion+new dueling GM+masterful reflection. Basically, mesmers just became amazing in a zergs frontline and in havoc groups as well. With no ICD this could be almost permanent.

What if you get a 5+havoc group with full zerker just looking for massive zergs. Once you kill just one guy (easy with 5+ in full zerker) youd become this unstoppable, invulnerable, reflecting, massive dmg dealing ball of death. With only 5 people. (Hell, you could do it with one)

Once you kill one guy…you’d have 3 seconds of distortion. That doesn’t last very long.

Yeah, but then another guy drops, then another, and it just keeps snowballing until theres a dead zerg

Carpboy.7145:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Carpboy.7145:

I seriously cant believe no one has mentioned this yet. Imbued diversion+new dueling GM+masterful reflection. Basically, mesmers just became amazing in a zergs frontline and in havoc groups as well. With no ICD this could be almost permanent.

What if you get a 5+havoc group with full zerker just looking for massive zergs. Once you kill just one guy (easy with 5+ in full zerker) youd become this unstoppable, invulnerable, reflecting, massive dmg dealing ball of death. With only 5 people. (Hell, you could do it with one)

Once you kill one guy…you’d have 3 seconds of distortion. That doesn’t last very long.

Yeah, but then another guy drops, then another, and it just keeps snowballing until theres a dead zerg

Yeah…somehow I doubt it’ll work out quite like that. Remember, it’s distortion on kill not on down.

Carpboy.7145:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Carpboy.7145:

I seriously cant believe no one has mentioned this yet. Imbued diversion+new dueling GM+masterful reflection. Basically, mesmers just became amazing in a zergs frontline and in havoc groups as well. With no ICD this could be almost permanent.

What if you get a 5+havoc group with full zerker just looking for massive zergs. Once you kill just one guy (easy with 5+ in full zerker) youd become this unstoppable, invulnerable, reflecting, massive dmg dealing ball of death. With only 5 people. (Hell, you could do it with one)

Once you kill one guy…you’d have 3 seconds of distortion. That doesn’t last very long.

Yeah, but then another guy drops, then another, and it just keeps snowballing until theres a dead zerg

erm sooo and what if u are outnumbered? enemies wont drop like flies the moment your group attacks. if im not careful ill drop in 3 seconds because i got caught by immobilize or so.
this trait is useless at this time of the fight. maybe after, but if u get flanked this trait wont help u at all.

Thats true, but i still think if you coordinate well this could be really powerful. Since once you kill the first guy you can just use the distortion as a free stomp against any other dead players, which just increases the time of distortion, which lets you kill even more players.

And multiple mesmers with this? Who cares about a hammer train

Carpboy.7145:

Thats true, but i still think if you coordinate well this could be really powerful. Since once you kill the first guy you can just use the distortion as a free stomp against any other dead players, which just increases the time of distortion, which lets you kill even more players.

And multiple mesmers with this? Who cares about a hammer train

erm soo and hooow exactly do u get the people down with multiple mesmers if they run a hammer train? and then also finish them, cause there is always 1 or 2 rallybots….. im just saying its not a good thing that this trait triggers on death of a player u had to tag…its just not something i would use like this, i think though ill give the domination interrupt one a go with staff. that one sounds pretty good.

Carpboy.7145:

Thats true, but i still think if you coordinate well this could be really powerful. Since once you kill the first guy you can just use the distortion as a free stomp against any other dead players, which just increases the time of distortion, which lets you kill even more players.

And multiple mesmers with this? Who cares about a hammer train

If you try to confront a hammer train with glassy mesmer builds, you’ll never see this trait activate because you’ll all be dead.

You literally have to down 1 player and f4 for this to work. Sorry for being creative :/

Carpboy.7145:

I seriously cant believe no one has mentioned this yet. Imbued diversion+new dueling GM+masterful reflection. Basically, mesmers just became amazing in a zergs frontline and in havoc groups as well. With no ICD this could be almost permanent.

What if you get a 5+havoc group with full zerker just looking for massive zergs. Once you kill just one guy (easy with 5+ in full zerker) youd become this unstoppable, invulnerable, reflecting, massive dmg dealing ball of death. With only 5 people. (Hell, you could do it with one)

I did mention it :P and masterful reflection doesnt prot on any other distortion excluding f4 (hopefully they change this or just make it work for this trait).

Typical PvE mes will have Phantasmal Healing and that should grant permanent regeneration for your party. Full cleric mes (1.5k healing power) will regen for 318/sec and with extra 1000 healing power that’s 443/sec for those 4 seconds. So technically you can become a decent healing machine with help of Restorative Mantras. Other than that, you’ll be hitting softer than a wet sponge.

frifox.5283:

Typical PvE mes will have Phantasmal Healing and that should grant permanent regeneration for your party. Full cleric mes (1.5k healing power) will regen for 318/sec and with extra 1000 healing power that’s 443/sec for those 4 seconds. So technically you can become a decent healing machine with help of Restorative Mantras. Other than that, you’ll be hitting softer than a wet sponge.

use zerker gear +mantra heal better than crap healing mesmer, far better

Pyroathiest.4168:

I fail to see how. Shatter is horrible in PvE even in a full damage build, and if you’re 30 in chaos you won’t be doing much shatter damage. Basically, running that trait and 30 in chaos in PvE would make you contribute literally nothing to a party. No support, no damage, no nothing, just dead weight.

Ah, I didn’t mean for dungeon runs or anything.

When I posted that, my logic was that it gives Blackwater specs better options to swap to when heading running through PvE.

I realized after posting that with the free always-best-spec system, that’s pointless.

(Which btw, I heavily dislike. Or rather I don’t think we should have traits if we can freely change them for each fight, I’d rather remove them and focus on skill/power balance, then. Less things to iron out. :S)

Carpboy.7145:

I seriously cant believe no one has mentioned this yet. Imbued diversion+new dueling GM+masterful reflection. Basically, mesmers just became amazing in a zergs frontline and in havoc groups as well. With no ICD this could be almost permanent.

Sadly, Masterful Reflection affects the skill Distortion, not the effect Distortion.

musu.9205:

use zerker gear +mantra heal better than crap healing mesmer, far better

No, cleric healing is always better than zerk healing no matter how poorly it scales.

Now, if you’re referring to overall usefulness then yes, zerk mesmer is much more useful than a cleric one because you’ll also be contributing DPS along with your mantra healing by having phantasm deal damage while you are charging the mantras.

skcamow.3527:

Oh, and another thing about the new traits. These were only high level announcements today, meaning there are lots of other weapons, skills, possibly even trait changes for all professions, as clarified by Allie Murdock here.

And some of them appear to be substantial considering how they hyped the Elementalist changes for PvP. Let’s hope Mesmer also got something – outside of bug fixes and maybe Mantra love ‘cough’ – because otherwise I’m not that excited.

On the other hand: Re-reading the changes which were already previewed was extremly dull. They could have made an effort and at least picked one meaningful trait change per profession to give us a little candy.

Yeah i think mantra’s have got all the love they are ever gonna get, which sucks cause im all for it to. On top of that I really hope that the new inspiration trait works out well and stacks. Looking forward to testing it out for possible applications

I think you guys are hating on the Inspiration trait kinda hard. If you’re playing a support build with mantra heals you’re going to be using a focus/staff which means you can easily get interrupts. I didn’t hear if there was an icd or if it gets raised with multiple interrupts but it sounds like it could be pretty good if timed correctly. Which sounds pretty rewarding to me anyways. I get that it’s pretty specific and doesn’t have any use in PVE, but I don’t think it’s all that bad. :/

As far as the others go, I don’t see the Chaos trait being used over CI or PU since it doesn’t offer as much as those 2 traits. It would have been better if this was a master trait or something. Idk just not very creative here although the boons do make sense. Also the dueling one seems only useful in WvW, but it might bring some interesting builds into PvP. Only time will tell.

I can already see uses for these GM traits in various builds.

I can’t wait to try them. I wish April 15th was here already!!!

Im really excited for the new Illusion trait! Will open up doors to condi mesmers, no longer will condis alwaYS be PU mesmers!

ALSO
if they keep their promises, Illusions will be a GREAT condi spec.

illusionary Elasticity fixed
And (i havent read the update much) Illusions offer CD Reduct. On shatters and + condi damage. Dont know if it will change tho.

Sorrt for typos lol see ny signature

Well the Dueling trait sounds interesting… Distortion is very restricted, and 3s is the same power level as a 3-clone 60s CD shatter effect. I’m certainly going to have some fun with that in PvE, but given that our AoE is kinda limited, I can’t really imagine being able to chain it to any meaningful degree in WvW.

frifox.5283:

musu.9205:

use zerker gear +mantra heal better than crap healing mesmer, far better

No, cleric healing is always better than zerk healing no matter how poorly it scales.

Now, if you’re referring to overall usefulness then yes, zerk mesmer is much more useful than a cleric one because you’ll also be contributing DPS along with your mantra healing by having phantasm deal damage while you are charging the mantras.

How about a middle ground. Use keeper gear; Power, precision healing power. Is it ideal? No! But if you insist on being a healer, don’t nuke your damage. This will probably be the 2nd or 3rd best dps stat array in the game post patch. And don’t go staff. Still go sword + sword/pistol/focus. Those are much more controlled interrupts.
0/30/0/30/10 or something. Then there are those new sigils and stuff that increase outgoing heals. The regeneration could approach ~600 or more a second while still providing warden reflects which is the better choice than mantra heal. ~30% dps loss over full zerker.

I’m really curious about Maim trait. I wish ANet could tell us how many stacks of torment and for how long a shatter will apply. Let’s be crazy for a moment: 1 stack/active illusion. Coupled with scepter #2, it could become so devastating.

For the condi shatter build, keep in mind that IE is being buffed for staff clones.
I would go staff/gs 0/4/4/0/6 rabid gear. Staff will now do a lot more sustain condi dmg since double proc from clones on staff auto and sharper images. Swap to gs for a gs2/4 shatter spike for torment and confusion when someone runs. They are crippled but it’s painful to move and painful to cast. (And poisoned with a sigil) Staff could have bleed and torment sigils on it for sustain while the gs has battle and doom to really finish someone off. Condi duration sigils are getting buffed but IE + staff clones will be enough burning.

For the new chaos one, that’s kind of tricky. This build will have to choose DE or IP so 2/0/6/0/6 or 4/4/6/0/0. The new rune of strength is 45% more might duration and 7% dmg with might. 18 seconds of might on all shatters if IP is traited. 27 second of 3 stacks of might per clone on F2. These builds would potentially have bountiful interruption as well so that a F3/F2 combo can give fury, 9-25 stacks might, 8-18 vulnerability before F1 even kicks in. Bountiful interruption can do that alone but it requires 5 targets or a build up time. This would be near instant. Retal on F1 and regen on F4 are nice bonuses to a slightly tankier shatter build.

So the inspiration one is a bit weak since healing itself is sorta weak but I don’t think it’s actually bad. Domination looks good for PvP. Chaos and Illusions also look good for shatter builds in WvW or PvP. That is not to say they couldn’t use tweaks, but I like the vision that these have and I will try them out and be happy about it.

The Dueling one is the only one I don’t like because it seems fundamentally broken. It’s a snowball effect that doesn’t stack but is meant to be used against waves of enemies. What it needs to be is distortion while in combat; Lasts 1-3 seconds with a 15-30 sec ICD. Thematically, the mesmer is never caught flat-footed in any duels. This would be the defense that the dueling line needs and would actually work with reflect on distort. It’s a bit gimmicky and ppl would learn to never blow their load at the start of a fight but those few seconds will give the mesmer the “high ground” to spike first.

I like how they give the best grandmaster traits to the trait lines which already got the best current GM traits.

Mesmer in raid vs big blobs gonna be… ’’fun’’ lol. Just facetank everything with perm immunity.

BlackDevil.9268:

I like how they give the best grandmaster traits to the trait lines which already got the best current GM traits.

Mesmer in raid vs big blobs gonna be… ’’fun’’ lol. Just facetank everything with perm immunity.

Are…….are you trolling? I can’t tell…

I’ll chime in with my newby opinion!

Domination: Interrupted skills will go on 10s cooldown instead of 5s NO ICD
Seems great for small scale WvW, GvG, and PvP. Less exciting for me in large-scale WvW. Nice to have, though!

Dueling: Get 3s of distortion after killing a foe. NO ICD
This feels amazing on paper, but I will reserve judgment until I see it in practice. It may be good in large WvW battles, but I’m not convinced that it suddenly makes front-line wvw mesmers a thing.

Chaos: Grant boons on shatter activation (F1: 3s Retaliation, F2: 15s Might(x3), F3: 5s Fury, F4: 8s regeneration)
Kind of lame. Reminds me of the Inspiration GM traits for condi removal and healing. My opinion has always been that any shatter-oriented build requires 20 in Dueling for clone production. 20 dueling and 30 chaos leaves you with really slim options.

Inspiration: +1000 healing power after interrupt (4s)
If the other traits in the line get buffed so inspiration is actually good at boons/healing/cleansing, this might work. Focus is great for reflects and interrupts as well. I feel like we need more skills/combos that heal, however. Unleashing an interrupt followed by 3-4 AoE heals for your group would be great. An interrupt with only one mantra cast is a bit weak.

Illusions: Torment on Shatter hits (no values confirmed)
I am SO excited to see some condi shatter builds emerge! Torment is a strong condition, and 0/20/20/0/30 is a really cool build. I’m definitely going to try this! Shatters giving 6 stacks of confusion and 3 of torment… that’s hot.

Domination: sounds amazing, and exactly what weve been suggesting.

Duelling: useless in spvp, it probably won’t proc on player summoned AI. Ok in zerging, you could go fire a few arrow cart shots before diving in, and chaib distortion if you get lucky. Useless in pve, because we all know all you need is damage.

Chaos: theyre putting more shatter traits in non-shatter lines? I was actually hoping theyd put them in illusions. It could be usefull in a full boon support spec… But I doubt going full support is a good idea nowadays.

Inspiration: maybe if it stacked duration it would be ‘usefull’ in wvw zerging.

Illusions: My guess is that it’s about 2 stacks per clone or something. Maybe it can make “condi shatter” viable again (even though, back then. I really couldn’t see why eople liked it.).

Alissah.9281:

Illusions: My guess is that it’s about 2 stacks per clone or something. Maybe it can make “condi shatter” viable again (even though, back then. I really couldn’t see why eople liked it.).

I’m not so sure about that. I already got suspicious during the stream. Because they did not mention how many stacks it will apply and how long they will last. Maybe they are not sure yet.

You got to keep in mind that Cry of Frustration could apply 6 stacks of Torment and 6 stacks of Confusion at the time. That feels a bit too much even for a GM trait. On the other hand, only one stack per Illusion would be extremly underhwelming. Phew.

^ actually hitting w shatters isnt rly easy especially in eotm map

reason: terrain

another : experienced players mostly use smth to prevent getting hit by shatters , if someone gets them w leap they either block during immob, cleansee and dodge, using some kind invulnerablity, or they dodge into running clones to prevent dmg taken

Alissah.9281:

Domination: sounds amazing, and exactly what weve been suggesting.

Duelling: useless in spvp, it probably won’t proc on player summoned AI. Ok in zerging, you could go fire a few arrow cart shots before diving in, and chaib distortion if you get lucky. Useless in pve, because we all know all you need is damage.

Chaos: theyre putting more shatter traits in non-shatter lines? I was actually hoping theyd put them in illusions. It could be usefull in a full boon support spec… But I doubt going full support is a good idea nowadays.

Inspiration: maybe if it stacked duration it would be ‘usefull’ in wvw zerging.

Illusions: My guess is that it’s about 2 stacks per clone or something. Maybe it can make “condi shatter” viable again (even though, back then. I really couldn’t see why eople liked it.).

I’d love for condi shatter to be viable again! I enjoyed it a lot back in the day. Mostly because confusion was SO strong and had so many sources. It’s a nice alternative to power builds and could really excel against spammer builds.

I’m hoping this helps fill the gap that was created when confusion’s damage got cut in half

Sorry this is long.

After reading most of the comment, I thought I should also add my thoughts on both the new Domination and Duelling traits. I cannot talk about the other three cause, I have never really played shatter or healing build.

Another thing I will also like to point out is that I spend most of my game time in PVP so have more to say there, but I will try to cover the other game type (PVE/WVW) as best as I can.

These are my initial thought but could change once released tested in all three game types.

Domination: Interrupted skills will go on 10s cooldown instead of 5s NO ICD
PVP
Sounds good for a full lock down build. But like most people have said, there are better skills one can take (Mantra) that I also believe is better than this. I currently play a 20/30/20/0/0 or 20/20/20/10/0 lock down build that works for me. If I have to go 30 in Domination to get the new Grandmaster trait, it means I lose survivability (toughness from Chaos line.
This also means I have to play a more glassy/power build play style if just looking at traits, which am not too found of.

PVE
This can be good in a solo situation or maybe some dungeon games. Against Vets/Champs and even Elites, to be able to reduce there skills time means you/group have more time to burn the mob down fast. Combine that with our elite skill (Time Warp), you could see dungeons speed runs even faster..

WVW
This is totally useless. Yes you might lock one player down but you are in a zerg and in most cases, you cant even see who or what you are hitting.

Duelling: Get 3s of distortion after killing a foe. NO ICD
PVP
Almost useful. When I say almost I mean, this is a very high skill set game style. If it was stated that it active both on downed or killed player, then I can see this useful.

Just imagine taking on two players, you manage to down on while you are been focused on by the other. Because your clones are on the down player you can now turn your attention to the other player. 3s distortion, during that time you can plan you next move. Mind you, in this situation, you will have to keep change target to make sure the down player doesn’t get back up.

The same scenario can still be used but this time know target changing.

Like I said, almost useful with a very high skill set.

PVE
This is almost likely a tanking skill provided you have more than one mob on you. If you combine this with reflection you can be a front line player. A simple situation

Deal damage, Reflect damage, mob 1 dies, distort to mob 2 for damage dealing and no damage taking, deals more damage to mob 2, reflect, mob 2 dies, distort to mob 3 and so on.

WVW
Everyone keep saying you will be a front line zerg fighter, I personal don’t think so. Ok maybe.
For direct damage, yes you can avoid damages only when someone you tag dies, but we all know WVW is all condition game play. Also cause it a zerg game there are too many AoE and splash damages coming you way. You might not even get the chance when it does yo miss you target if trying to deal damages or after your 3 s of immunity you are back in the hot sit all the conditions flying around.

If you do eventually play a condition removal play style, then you might kitten your personal damage but play more a support roll.

Speaking about TPVP point of view (i dont mind of spvp\wvw\dueling\2vs2\pve):

Domination:

are we sure that new gm trait is so good for real?

Taking it means not taking Counfunding suggestion.

Basically we trade chance to chain daze for 5 sec with 50% stun with a 5 sec increase cd over interrupted skill.

I’m not sure that’s a good trade.

Also on tpvp our big deal are trickery s\p or d\p thieves that basically aren’t touched from new gm trait cause many of their skill\heal are istant…

So we are losing a 5sec daze chain for nothing vs our 1st opponent

What do you think about that?

Illusion:

Taking new gm trait on a shatter cond build means not taking illusionary persona.

Illusionary persona grant from 1 to 2 confusion stack on shatter if you are melee.

So if we suppose new illusion’s gm trait gives 1 stack of torment for illusion over shatter we are basically trading 1 stack of confusion for 1 stack of torment.

Ofc new trait works ranged while to stack confusion with ip you need to be melee but taking off ip we gonna also lose a free immunity and free interrupt…

Again, what do you think about that?

I won’t speak of other gm traits cause they are just garbage tpvp side

Dueling: sounds pretty interesting, and I can’t wait to try it. It does look like one of those things where it sounds better in theory then it actually pans out, Either way I am expecting a ICD to be slapped on it pretty fast making it near useless. Still going to need more reliable AoE and better mobility to truly be part of the zerg.

Chaos: Putting shatter grandmaster traits in lines that aren’t Dom or illusion just isn’t going to work. You need 30 in illusion for the cooldown reductions and 20 in Dom for DE.

Inspiration: lol

Illusion: Could be interesting. I like Torment and wanted more sources of it on Mesmer, hopefully it is a decent amount. Still need something to be done about Confusion though before we can get a decent condi build again.

Hopefully there is more balance changes then the ones they listed because Mesmer still needs help getting around these maps.

Will our existing traits remain the same after the patch? Hopefully Anet reworks most of them coz if they’re just adding those I feel like they’re a bit underwhelming.