Guild Wars 2

Number 2 on the rework of mesmer skills; This time we discuss Counter Blade, Counterspell (& a little bit Illusionary Riposte & Illusionary Counter, the active effect of sword block #4 and Scepter #2).

As most people know, this skill (but also the weaponas off-hand) is (almost) never used. Most people use this weapon, especially as off-hand, in a power build. The reason to this is the single striking phantasm that doesn’t deal any conditions and the quite ‘’hard hitting’’ block of #4 sword. I got 3 issues with this skill:
1. The casting time to spawn a clone on block.
2. The casting time of Counter Blade.
3. The fact that Counter Blade is a projectile.
(4. Counter spell effect)

1. The casting time to spawn a clone on block.
Usually after a block you want to get away as fast possible, since more attacks will follow. The reason to use this skill is (obviously..) to block a skill, but most of all to apply the effect of the block. While this doesnt matter much at scepter, it however does with sword. This is due the fact that the scepter block is much stronger than the sword and also because scepter is often used in tanky-condition builds, whereas sword off-hand is used only in quite squishy-dps builds. I would suggest to:
1. Either reduce the time to create the effect of the block only on sword.
or
2. Reduce the the to create the effect of the block on both sword and scepter and reduce the amount of torment stacks of the scepter block from 5 to 4. This will make it much harder to dodge the skill and also makes it easier for the mesmer to dodge incomming skills after the block.

2. The casting time of Counter Blade
I don’t really understand something at this one… While counterspell (Active effect of scepter block) has a 0,5 seconds casting time, this skill is stuck with a 0,75 seconds casting time. This skill is a daze and you will have to sacrifice a block + damage to gain this daze. It pierces enemies and travels quite fast, but why the long casting time? The fact that this skill isn’t viable with interrupt/lockdown builds is cause it’s about 3 times longer than Magic Bullet. I suggest to lower the casting time to 0.25 seconds to match it’s use in PvP. Also, To match the phantasm range, this skill could get a buff to 1200 yards up from 900.

3. The fact that Counter Blade is a projectile.
This one bothers me a bit and has the same problem as with #2. You select a target… but then there’s 5 enemies in your pathing to your enemy. Sure you will (maybe) daze those who are in your path but you didnt want them to be dazed. You wanted the enemy you selected to be dazed.
My change on this would not go together with the rework on #2 so be aware of that.
Rework: Instead of making it a projectile, reduce the casting time to 0.5 seconds and make it a piercing beam like #1 greatsword.
Like this it still pierces enemies (tough the amount of enemies will get reduced from 5 to 3..) and you will always hit the enemy you selected.

4. The effect of Counterspell.
Something a bit off-topic; This effect is absolutely worthless. There’s no one who’s gonna sacrifice a block + 5 stacks torment to do a blind. I will sum up the problems with this skill from the points of above:
1. The velocity of projectile is way too slow. I’d increase this to the velocity of Counter Blade.
2. The ’’piercing’’ effect on this skill is not equal to Counter Blade as the radius of the projectile seems lower than that of counterblade. (Video)
3. Same problem as with counter blade, if it hits too many targets on your pathing, it will not hit the target you selected.

Rework on Counter Spell:
Shoot out a bolt that Chills foes in a line.
Chill: 2 s
Damage: 34 (0.100)?
Range: 900
( Increased velocity equal to Counter Blade)
( Increased radius on projectile equal to Counter Blade)
( 5 targets)

Or:
Shoot out a bolt which explodes on hitting a target, applying Chill on your selected target and surrounding enemies.
Chill: 2 s
Damage: 34 (0.100)?
Range: 900
Radius: 360
( Increased velocity equal to Counter Blade)
( 5 Targets)

Or:
Shoot out a ray that chills foes.
Chill: 2 s
Damage: 34 (0.100)?
Range: 1200
( The same as #1 greatword, it will always hit your target + 2 more targets on pathing.)

Discuss!

Eh, I was under the impression that the daze is a line-daze already? I’ll test it later, but I thought both Scepter and Sword blocks have a line-AE.

Another video showing it better that also Counterspell doesn’t hit target when there’s too many enemies on the pathing.

Oh. It has a 5-target AE limitation. Does anyone know whether all line-attacks like Necro Staff AA and such have that? In that case it’d be consistent (meh as it is!), otherwise that needs a fix. :o

I think the bigger issue is out of combat speed. I’m practically married to my focus because that’s the only reliable speed boost mesmers have. Once we get any decent alternative, I can start looking at using the offhand sword and torch.

As for the subject matter, my biggest peeve about counterattack skills is that we’re vulnerable to multi-hit attacks during the counterattack animation and that’s counter-intuitive. The risk of using these blocks is that they may not be triggered, wasting attack time and opportunity. If they are triggered, we should be distorted or blurred until the animation is over so they properly serve the initial purpose of blocking.

Crossplay.2067:

I think the bigger issue is out of combat speed. I’m practically married to my focus because that’s the only reliable speed boost mesmers have. Once we get any decent alternative, I can start looking at using the offhand sword and torch.

As for the subject matter, my biggest peeve about counterattack skills is that we’re vulnerable to multi-hit attacks during the counterattack animation and that’s counter-intuitive. The risk of using these blocks is that they may not be triggered, wasting attack time and opportunity. If they are triggered, we should be distorted or blurred until the animation is over so they properly serve the initial purpose of blocking.

There’s a lot to boost your out of combat speed. I do see the issue, but I don’t see how it is affecting our class a lot. It has already been stated that mesmer isn’t gonna be super mobile, which in whatever case, is understandable. But even without it being ‘’super mobile’‘, I can still move across the wvw map good enough and escape problem. Mesmer’s problem is that it has no role, out of combat speed or not. I personally think it’s also a personal issue eventhough a lot would agree with you.
Anyway way too off topic.

What you requested would come out plain op. At the moment the block is already the strongest effect of the skill. Buffing it even more would only make the active effect, aka counter blade and counterspell, look worse. There’s no buff needed on the counter of scepter, though a balance would be appropriate. At the moment it’s everything or nothing. I prefer more reliable but less-hitting skills over unreliable-hard hitting skills.

As for sword, that would give you lots of distortion with dual sword. Perm evasion anyone?

There should be :

a) a trait option that allows blocks to continuously parry/riposte attacks for the duration of their channel time.
b) a trait option that allows you to extend the duration of a blocks channel time

People should be punished for continuously attacking a mesmer in a block. Further a mesmer should be able to change the tempo of a fight by going into these defensive stances.

I don’t use sword off-hand, so I can only comment on scepter. Also, I use scepter in a power build that focuses on staying at range,

Here’s what I suggest for scepter block:

>>> Counter Spell creates a small radius, short duration AoE blind – and is a blast finisher.

I think this matches the “tricksy” nature of the scepter and gives it a finisher – it has no finishers today. It creates more interesting decisions.

Here’s a little background. I’m pairing scepter with pistol to give a ranged set (with Greatsword as the other set). When I’m using scepter block it’s either when I’m at range or if I get in trouble in close and don’t have an escape. In a multi-person battle at range, sometimes it’s hard to guess if I’ll get targeted. Perhaps this is just poor play, but I end up putting up the scepter block sometimes with no incoming attack. When that happens today, I do send the Counter Spell and just go on with my rotation (and the projectile is slow, so it often misses). So this change would force me to think about closing enough distance to make the blindness blast worthwhile.

Note that scepter could get a blast finisher at the end of auto-attack chain and the block wouldn’t really need to change for me. But I’m trying to stick to the point of the thread.

One other note on scepter block. When it does trigger, there can be a strong jerking motion to the camera. I think it’s spinning you to face the opponent that triggered the block. I’m guessing that’s disorienting for new players – and this is the default weapon for new mesmers.

Thanks for starting these discussion threads BlackDevil. Hopefully, Karl stops by for another quick visit

Diego Vargas.3058:

There should be :

a) a trait option that allows blocks to continuously parry/riposte attacks for the duration of their channel time.
b) a trait option that allows you to extend the duration of a blocks channel time

People should be punished for continuously attacking a mesmer in a block. Further a mesmer should be able to change the tempo of a fight by going into these defensive stances.

I appriciate your way of thinking, but you can’t make traits based around 1 or 2 skills. That would simpily not go in line with other traits. Also, fixing skills with traits is not something I would call ’’fixing’’. This would mean you will have to sacrifice a trait to increase your usage of the block slightly. Also the proposed things were not about counter blade or counterspell which is the biggest part of the main discussion.

@ eldenbri.1059
How exactly would that ‘’blind blast’’ work? Would it also work when you have no target? Or would it only occur when you hit a target? Cause if that’s the case then its not worth in organised groups, but rather just an ’’add’’ to the weapon. I understand your way of thinking a bit as we do lack blast finishers, but this would be another unreliable finisher then. If there’s something we need, as mentioned above, then its reliable skills.

Just gonna edit this in here as I still got 1800 seconds flood post:
@Raunchy
That would still leave you to a ‘’casting time’’ of 0.75 seconds on counterblade. The moment you interrupt someone with that is only because he was either:
1. Casting a very long casting time skill such as meteor shower
or
2. A random interrupt you didn’t think through.

Lockdown mesmer should be about fast, skillfull and short duration dazes. Not these spamming 1 sec CC. It also still leaves the problem that you can’t hit your target which you wanted to interrupt at first if there’s too many ppl ahead.
Also as you said, there are more options for lockdown builds than sword, whereas I personally wouldnt even take focus for that due it’s long activation time. Sword offhand doesnt really got any place in game right now…

I think the riposte animations are fine. They could be reduced by 1/4 of a second though to make them easier to land on skilled opponents.

Counter Blade is the best part about OH sword to me. I used to use it a lot in my lockdown builds, focus just has more aoe capabilities is all. The missile speed of it should be increased though, because at longer ranges it’s so easy to dodge since it’s a line aoe.

Counter Spell is useless. The trade off for using it is staggeringly uneven with the riposte effects and that needs to change. I like the chill idea. We don’t really have reliable access to it so I would really like that.

BlackDevil.9268:

There’s a lot to boost your out of combat speed. I do see the issue, but I don’t see how it is affecting our class a lot. It has already been stated that mesmer isn’t gonna be super mobile, which in whatever case, is understandable. But even without it being ‘’super mobile’‘, I can still move across the wvw map good enough and escape problem. Mesmer’s problem is that it has no role, out of combat speed or not. I personally think it’s also a personal issue eventhough a lot would agree with you.
Anyway way too off topic.

What you requested would come out plain op. At the moment the block is already the strongest effect of the skill. Buffing it even more would only make the active effect, aka counter blade and counterspell, look worse. There’s no buff needed on the counter of scepter, though a balance would be appropriate. At the moment it’s everything or nothing. I prefer more reliable but less-hitting skills over unreliable-hard hitting skills.

As for sword, that would give you lots of distortion with dual sword. Perm evasion anyone?

Perhaps I wasn’t being clear enough. I don’t count runes because that’s always a large part of any build I use. I shouldn’t have to build for speed first and theme second just to keep up with my party and hope I can contribute something when the time comes. That’s bad game design.

As for distortion, I’m talking about ONLY during the animations for counterspell and counterblade. That’s 1/2 and 3/4 of a second, respectively. I don’t see how that is overpowered. Also, if you can chain that together to acquire permanent evasion, I would love to see it.

Your party should provide speed for you. Like I said, mesmer isn’t supposed to be the most mobile profession and to be honest, we’re far from being the worst. I do agree builds shouldn’t be created around runes, but every profession has to sacrifice something to get mobility, whereas one class sacrifices a bit more than the other. We have to sacrifice runes, which isn’t doesn’t really deserve it’s beauty prize, but at least those runes still provide some good stats all round so it can be still used usefull. If you would go any other rune and strong with that, but still want mobility you would have to sacrifice weapons, but wait a second… doesn’t warrior also sacrifice his weapons to be mobile in WvW? We of course all know the lovely ‘’usain bolt’’ build from warrior. Too bad they can’t kill anything with that.

And yes, thief is just mobile because… well.. it’s a thief. A thief can’t do much in raids and such, so I guess its a bit unbalanced and something to whine about, but it is as it is.
Anyway I want to close this discussion as it has nothing to do about the whole thread. You may of course still post about the mobility, but don’t expect me to reply to it.

That would still come down to buffing the block and leaving what should be buffed the active effect. This post is all about the active effect so, again, I don’t see any reason to buff the block as it is already strong enough. What needs a buff is the effect that gonna make you start thinking if you either would go for the block or if you would use the active effect of it. At the moment its 99% block and 1% active. That should at least be pushed to 75-25.

P.s. That would be 2.5 sec distortion every 12 sec on BF and 1 block + 0.5 sec distortion every 8.5-10.5 seconds depending on the speed of the block proceed. Add another 2-3 dodges to that and you will have around 50% evade upkeep.

Blackdevil, I’m rather convinced that the singular thing you do in this game is WvW zerging, because that’s the singular part of this game where offhand sword is never used.

Offhand sword is a very strong choice in roaming phantasm builds, as well as in shatter builds for wvw. It’s likewise a good choice in PvP phantasm and shatter builds as well. On top of that, offhand sword is used somewhere between 100% and 100% of the time in PvE builds.

I honestly think you’re missing your mark massively here. Your time would be better spent making threads about skills that actually need it. Mind stab was a good one, the scepter auto or iMage would also be good. Offhand sword…not so much.

You think mesmers should rely on their party members to keep up with their party members? To me, that sounds as stupid as saying Sony needs to rely on Microsoft to stay competitive with Microsoft. The reference to Usain Bolt also makes it obvious that you’re missing the point so, again, I feel like I need to be absolutely clear. I’m not looking to push the mesmer class into being the fastest. I just want us to be able to keep up. I can do that on a guardian with one weapon skill and one utility skill. I can do that on a necromancer with a utility skill. I can do that on an elementalist with only combos. For mesmers, all I reliably have is one weapon skill and even that one skill has situations where it won’t apply swiftness. For a game were so much relies on reflex and mobility, that has to change.

As for your argument about my ideas of distortion animations being too much, I’m not even going to get into how perfect the situation has to be to reach that theoretical 50% evade upkeep. Even when taking it at face value, your detailed analysis still falls short of the perma-evade that you claimed it would turn into. So, again, how is a .5 second and .75 second of additional distortion over-powered?

@Pyroathiest
Actually no, I havent done maybe 2-3 raids in 2months on my mesmer because its pretty boring.

As seeing your post I’m pretty sure you’re only thinking about the block part. As said many times earlier it’s not about the block but about the active effect of it. In all the things you listed above ^ I can tell from any of those that none of them uses the active effect. What do we call a good signet with bad active effects again? Right, cheesy. Same goes for this skill, though this skill still requires some activation to land and isn’t incredibly strong.

WvW I can tell that in phantasm builds you always want to go pistol instead of sword. I have explained either you or chaos this with the questions about my hybrid build.

I havent used a shatter build with sword off hand yet and can already tell you its not the meta. As for tPvP, its clearly staff-greatsword and for wvw you will need survivability so either torch or again pistol. Pistol is much better with shatter due that you have a stun with pistol and you don’t with sword. It makes it much easier to land your shatters that way.

The only point I would agree on is the usage in PvE, but this is only because of the hard hitting i-swordman *and illusionary reposte, not counter blade.

‘’This post is all about the active effect so, again, I don’t see any reason to buff the block as it is already strong enough. What needs a buff is the effect that gonna make you start thinking if you either would go for the block or if you would use the active effect of it. At the moment its 99% block and 1% active. That should at least be pushed to 75-25.’’

@ Crossplay
You spam the skills and you spam your dodge. How is that a ‘’perfect situation’‘? Yes you would need to put 15 points in illusions and 10 in dueling for that, big deal? No not really. A perfect situation would be where you would be gaining perm vigor so you can dodge even more in 12.5 seconds.
This is excluding distortion, stealths and w/e you can imagine to ’’evade’’ damage.

This discussion is gonna lead to nothing as you gonna keep saying no and I keep saying yes.

Just for clarity on my suggestion, I wasn’t thinking you would need a target.

The active effect for cancelling the scepter block would be an AoE blind of 1 second duration with a 120 radius and a max of 5 targets.

If your goal was to use it as a blast finisher, you would just invoke the active ability immediately. Seems like it would be more reliable than prestige.