Guild Wars 2

Desperate Decoy replaced with Mind Crush

Mind crush: – Mind Wrack and Diversion are unblock-able

A few justifications:

Underused line (which is nice since we used to be almost locked to it)

Removal of Desperate decoy is obvious, an under powered, underused, and sometimes detrimental trait.

The restriction to Mind Wrack and Diversion alone give it viability in power builds without giving to much to condi specs, although still allowing some benefit for such builds.

As for the meta, it is clear that power shatter builds have been “meh” for a long time. A large part of that is due to the plethora of both the active and passive defenses with little play from the mesmers end. This is problematic in that there is a lengthy build up time before pressuring spike damage can be exerted compared to other classes, as well as a lengthy downtime and this allows a few more hits through without making blocking redundant.

For all game types this allows the utility to interrupt or pressure break bars against blocks, and gives more options to interrupt builds in pvp.
—-

Thoughts? The above may be a little OP out of context, but the state of power builds place in the PvP meta I don’t think this a terribly broken. Condi builds would have to give up chrono, or inspiration being locked to illusion line if they wanted to take advantage of this. This also makes running ‘domination + dueling’ over ‘insp + Dom’ or ‘Dueling + Insp’ more rewarding again, without indirectly nerfing the domination line, and makes dueling a much stronger pick. In line let’s not forget you also trade off guarantied phantasm crits for unblock-able.

PS. Har har “Dueling”, “Mind crush”.

Too mindless and simple, I’m not a fan. If you want to implement such a strong boost as going unblockable, make it conditional.

Upon landing an interrupt, shatters are unblockable for 2 seconds.

-or-

Successfully countering attack causes shatters to be unblockable for 2 seconds.

Things like that.

“Power Shatter” is actually a distinct build from a lockdown/interrupt one. Sure, they both have and utilize F1 but the subtleties are there from traits to weapon loadouts.

One thing “Power Shatter” needs is a reliable condition cleansing within the framework of it’s typical trailines. So if you wan’t to make “Power Shatter” viable, one way you might do that is alter The Pledge so that a condition is cleansed each time you enter stealth (better torch synergy, better decoy synergy which the build relies on, MI synergy, and also team synergy from thieves/Scrappers providing stealth).

Another way might be to add cleansing onto Imagined Burden (Forcing the player to choose between the increased damage of Mantal Anguish, or the debuffing power of Power Block) so that GS provides some form of cleansing (tied to GS skills, or crits with GS, maybe 1 condi cleansed for every enemy hit with iWave etc).

Providing unblockables “just so” your burst can hit kind of defeats that high risk, high reward part of playing the dive in, burst, and dive out of “Power Shatter”. If you wan’t to ‘negate’ the block, play lockdown, and stun/interrupt/lockdown the target BEFORE bursting. “Power Shatter” does its best bursts by surprise anyway. While Lockdown/rupt isnt so dependent on it (though can certainly benefit from the benefit of a stealth ambush).

Power Shatter is out right now. It’s not far off being back in. Though the things to get it there might be considered radical compared to it’s past history. Straight up unblockable on our two best offensive shatters though does seem a little to ‘simple’, as Pyro put it.

Ross Biddle.2367:

“Power Shatter” is actually a distinct build from a lockdown/interrupt one. Sure, they both have and utilize F1 but the subtleties are there from traits to weapon loadouts.

One thing “Power Shatter” needs is a reliable condition cleansing within the framework of it’s typical trailines. So if you wan’t to make “Power Shatter” viable, one way you might do that is alter The Pledge so that a condition is cleansed each time you enter stealth (better torch synergy, better decoy synergy which the build relies on, MI synergy, and also team synergy from thieves/Scrappers providing stealth).

Another way might be to add cleansing onto Imagined Burden (Forcing the player to choose between the increased damage of Mantal Anguish, or the debuffing power of Power Block) so that GS provides some form of cleansing (tied to GS skills, or crits with GS, maybe 1 condi cleansed for every enemy hit with iWave etc).

Providing unblockables “just so” your burst can hit kind of defeats that high risk, high reward part of playing the dive in, burst, and dive out of “Power Shatter”. If you wan’t to ‘negate’ the block, play lockdown, and stun/interrupt/lockdown the target BEFORE bursting. “Power Shatter” does its best bursts by surprise anyway. While Lockdown/rupt isnt so dependent on it (though can certainly benefit from the benefit of a stealth ambush).

Power Shatter is out right now. It’s not far off being back in. Though the things to get it there might be considered radical compared to it’s past history. Straight up unblockable on our two best offensive shatters though does seem a little to ‘simple’, as Pyro put it.

Every mesmer build without inspiration is out in competitive pvp. Sad but true.

StickerHappy.8052:

Ross Biddle.2367:

“Power Shatter” is actually a distinct build from a lockdown/interrupt one. Sure, they both have and utilize F1 but the subtleties are there from traits to weapon loadouts.

One thing “Power Shatter” needs is a reliable condition cleansing within the framework of it’s typical trailines. So if you wan’t to make “Power Shatter” viable, one way you might do that is alter The Pledge so that a condition is cleansed each time you enter stealth (better torch synergy, better decoy synergy which the build relies on, MI synergy, and also team synergy from thieves/Scrappers providing stealth).

Another way might be to add cleansing onto Imagined Burden (Forcing the player to choose between the increased damage of Mantal Anguish, or the debuffing power of Power Block) so that GS provides some form of cleansing (tied to GS skills, or crits with GS, maybe 1 condi cleansed for every enemy hit with iWave etc).

Providing unblockables “just so” your burst can hit kind of defeats that high risk, high reward part of playing the dive in, burst, and dive out of “Power Shatter”. If you wan’t to ‘negate’ the block, play lockdown, and stun/interrupt/lockdown the target BEFORE bursting. “Power Shatter” does its best bursts by surprise anyway. While Lockdown/rupt isnt so dependent on it (though can certainly benefit from the benefit of a stealth ambush).

Power Shatter is out right now. It’s not far off being back in. Though the things to get it there might be considered radical compared to it’s past history. Straight up unblockable on our two best offensive shatters though does seem a little to ‘simple’, as Pyro put it.

Every mesmer build without inspiration is out in competitive pvp. Sad but true.

Yes. #1 problem with “diversity” for Mesmer (if not other classes) moving into the future is the stupid reality that all meaningful condi cleanse is sitting in Inspiration.

What Anet needs to do is create alternate (albiet less potent) options elsewhere in other trait lines. Trait choices that force picks between things like condition cleansing vs power vs utility, etc.

We’ve actually been over this in the past. Mes was forced to take Dueling for clone production (deceptive evasion). This locked us into (and out of) build variety. Things just werent viable without the ability to produce clones. Same is true of condi cleanse.

Can you imagine how many power shatter variations we could have with just a little bit of viable cleansing sprinkled throughout different trait lines (and I don’t mean cleanse on signit use when signits have barely any room on the bar/in a build- though it’s atleast one bad example)? A trait that allowed the proccing of swiftness? So dumb. So, so dumb.

Many classes suffer from lack of diversity which is rather stupid. There is not, in my mind, any good reason for every class to have multiple working builds for high level play. But you encounter the problem of a certain company not being able to balance the game and a fairly large section of the community that adamantly refuses to adapt. If the build isn’t exactly like it is on metabattle down to the elite skill they won’t play it because it isn’t meta. But when they get beat by something it’s OP. Perfect example of this is Condi Warrior vs Condi Mesmer. I’ve recently seen a few Mesmer players say that condi warrior is so OP it needs nerfed etc. But they never thought about swapping out SoI for Null Field to have a boon strip because it isn’t meta. Blew their mind. Is warrior bugged at the moment? Absolutely. Is it Overpowered? No, because simply stripping the resistance forces them to play defense and from there it’s all downhill.

Now, that’s just a current issue. We’ve all seen how people react to Chromobunk, turret engi(I mean seriously just rotate), D/D Cele ele( doesn’t exist in PvP anymore because it was too OP. Never had a problem with it personally) hambow, list goes on. Oh and we can’t forget the outrage at the longbow buff ranger got a while back that had everyone QQ’ing about being one shot by rapid fire. I mean, you know makes perfect sense for you to eat a full rapid fire to the face and claim it’s OP right? Even today you still hear people complain about that but they’ve moved more towards pets now.

All those things have two things in common. First, people who wouldn’t L2P cried they loudest and hardest on the forums. D/D was over tuned no doubt about it but it didn’t deserve what happened to it. Nor did chronobunk. Second was the fact Anet went way overboard on nerfing the majority of those builds. I only see turrets in hot join when testing new amulets and trait combos and it’s still as predictable now as it was them. Don’t see any d/d ele’s.

So, at this point I don’t know what can/will be done. Personally, I feel like all the removed amulets and runes should be added back, a buff to the core specs, a fix to the long standing issues all classes have(Mesmer is up to how many pages of bugs?), reduce the AoE/CC spamfest that HoT brought with it and make something that actually requires a little thought. Who knows, you might have a ESL with two teams with two completely different team comps at that point. And since PvP is their focus( stupid I know) then at some point over game modes should benefit through the buffs for diversity

Fay.2357:

Upon landing an interrupt, shatters are unblockable for 2 seconds.

All of two seconds? Two whole ones? That might fit a whole shatter depending on where the illusions are right now. :P

Terrible idea, the amount of unblockable stuff in this game has already got way out of hand (just like everything else) and has devalued blocks significantly and as a mechanic unblockable is in itself is terrible in that it promotes low skilled mindless game play, in a game which already has more than enough of that.

I was thinking of it more as an equalizer against the passive and/or abundant defenses brought in by HoT (ofc forsaking any chance of re-balancing around core specs). I thought it was somewhat justified being in a line less often taken these days, and restricting it to two skills, but yeah it is pretty boring and can easily outclass the options in it’s slot.

I’m actually very much fond of pyro’s second suggestion, as it would add more viability to offhand sword (and scepter I guess) and is a more fair trade off to guaranteed phant crits. I think 3 seconds might be a better option, just to give you a bit more time if you wanted to take the risk of your opponent reading the situation to summon another illusion. – But that would be up to A-net to “properly” test and balance.

I would love to see more condi clear through dueling, domination, or illusions. However I worry about giving illusions to much at the risk of making condi to strong.

zinkz.7045:

in that it promotes low skilled mindless game play

Which block totally does not, right right? Pro leet APM skeelz with manually countering each and every enemy attack as they rain in.

Oh what’s that? You just press a button and automatically block everything for a duration? Oh, in that case, nm.

Seriously, while there’s plenty to say against more unblockable attacks, blocking in itself is exactly as stupidly done in GW2 as unblockable attacks. In fact, arms race: If block wasn’t so braindead, unblockable effects wouldn’t need to exist.

Carighan.6758:

Oh what’s that? You just press a button and automatically block everything for a duration? Oh, in that case, nm.

Well that is more an issue with the entire game being on the low skill end of things, after all nearly everything is just press a button, because nearly everything is auto-targeted and what isn’t largely requires no meaningful aim, there is very little resource management and what there is, is not really meaningful, mechanically the game is not particularly demanding and so on.

Carighan.6758:

Seriously, while there’s plenty to say against more unblockable attacks, blocking in itself is exactly as stupidly done in GW2 as unblockable attacks.

The only issue with blocks in this game is frequency, not specifically of say block skills in themselves, but in combination with damage reduction skills, dodges, evades, invurns, aegis, protection uptime, etc, but then that is what happens when you have powercreep defense increases as well as attack, but as a concept block is fine, if player is decent a player reacts to high value skill uses with their block, bad players spam block randomly thus waste or make inefficient use of their block.

Unblockable on the other hand is basically an aid for bad players who don’t check aegis is up, don’t keep track of cooldowns like block, invurn, etc, there is also a general lack of coutnerplay to unblockable, made worse by things like stealth than can hide what little info the opponent has, so it becomes rather random as to whether a block is wasted or not, rather than down to any sort of skill.

@Jace
D/D ele was brokenly OP. The single most broken build in GW2 history relative to its time, and for the longest standing period of time.

Please, argue your way out of this fact. I’d love to see it XD

Ross Biddle.2367:

@Jace
D/D ele was brokenly OP. The single most broken build in GW2 history relative to its time, and for the longest standing period of time.

Please, argue your way out of this fact. I’d love to see it XD

Before or after the June patch? Prior to the June patch I would agree with you. However, after the June patch with all the nerfs(reduction in burn/blind application,etc) that happened to D/D it wasn’t as broken. Could it still be extremely strong? Of course, but it wasn’t stupid broken. However, this is my opinion. And as we all know opinions are like kittens. Everyone has one.

Jace al Thor.6745:

Ross Biddle.2367:

@Jace
D/D ele was brokenly OP. The single most broken build in GW2 history relative to its time, and for the longest standing period of time.

Please, argue your way out of this fact. I’d love to see it XD

Before or after the June patch? Prior to the June patch I would agree with you. However, after the June patch with all the nerfs(reduction in burn/blind application,etc) that happened to D/D it wasn’t as broken. Could it still be extremely strong? Of course, but it wasn’t stupid broken. However, this is my opinion. And as we all know opinions are like kittens. Everyone has one.

Obviously before the build got nerfed, it was OP. That was the purpose of the nerfs XD.

That’s also why we went from seeing a 5 d/d ele team comp to zero XD

After the June patch it was still a viable build. You went from seeing 5 to none when Anet decided it was wise to remove Celestial from PvP really.

I agree that the two things that need to be spread more evenly across trait lines are:
- Illusion generation
- Condition cleanse

The second applies to all classes, not just mesmer, and would help builds not be pigeonholed into lines like Inspiration. They don’t need to be as powerful given there is a tradeoff between more offensive traits and the full sustain of Inspiration, but simple things like transfer a condition on crit (ie in Duelling, like sigil of generosity) or transmute incoming condition into a boon (ie in Chaos) or siphon a condition to a nearby clone (in Illusions)…

It’s just as bad as when we were glued to Duelling for DE, except now we’re glued to Inspiration for cleanse/sustain and Chrono for illusion generation. That leaves only one free trait line and it’s more accessible to go condi with Illusions in a single line than play anything else which would require more than one other line (ie Domination and Duelling). It’s silly.

I would love it if the the pledge cleansed 2 conditions and blurred inscriptions cleansed 2 conditions. This alone I feel like would add a little more build diversity back to mesmer!

Asherah.7651:

I would love it if the the pledge cleansed 2 conditions and blurred inscriptions cleansed 2 conditions. This alone I feel like would add a little more build diversity back to mesmer!

Right. A cleanse utility is straight up cleanse at the cost of a utility spot. When you add cleansing to non cleanse utils you make seemingly underpowered trait options more appealing, and allow underused utility skills slottable. So I could easily run 3-4 signits (from healing to elite) in a build if traiting became worth it. Otherwise it’s to little for the investment.