Guild Wars 2

I really don’t think there are that many things about condi mes that really need to be nerfed. This is the one thing however. Shield 4 is broken because of one simple fact. It creates TWO phantasms.

With a single shield 4, I can create two phantasms, that when shattered instantly come back and thanks to traits, a third clone is created. So out of a defensive ability that blocks all incoming attacks, I also can shatter 5 clones total from it, a DEFENSIVE ability.

All I’m suggesting is only have one phantasm created at the end of echo of memory and none with deja vu. While a seemingly simple change, it reduces the shatters you get out of this skill from 5 to 2. The skill just seems a bit too strong to be able to block all incoming attacks and create that much condi pressure from blocking.

What a great explaination of shield 4 and it’s gameplay. Yet it’s not your choice to call an ability “DEFENSIVE” or offensive, that’s purely ANets choice. In my opinion it’s even better if abilities can fulfill multiple roles via traits and playstyle.

Even tough; strong, yes – overpowered, it is not.

This may come as a shock to you but Hundred Blades can generate adrenaline 8 times + extra with traits

Warriors 2 stronk nerf plox

Shield 4 benefits more from all the phantasm/illusion traits than any other phantasm skill on any other weapon. There’s so many – Persistence of Memory, Illusionsists Celerity, Chronophantasma, Mental Defence, Alacrity (also generated by iAvengers…)…

The synergy with Shield 4 completely eclipses every other weapon – particularly every other offhand weapon, but also iWarlock/Zerker.

If those traits are nerfed, every other weapon will suffer badly.

The options are either reducing Shield down to the level of every other phantasm skill in the game – and I agree that removing the iAvenger from Deja Vu would be a good step – or improving all the other phantasm skills to be on the same level as Shield 4.

Personally I think every other phantasm skill needs to be brought up to the level of Shield 4 with an active effect) and then traits like Chronophantasma and Persistence of Memory and so on can be looked at.

But otherwise I agree that Shield 4 can be looked at, to encourage use of other weapons.

and here we have another proposal thread, huray

rebalancing moa
icd on illusionary reversion and chronphantasma
f5 not affecting elites
and now shield 4 is the target

stop trying to ruin the mesmer class. raids are more or less balanced, every class is useful. keep that in mind before you come with such threads.

my personnal solution on deja vu would be….only spawn the defender when you evade an attack, not block or evade. remove the block. then shield 4 + deja vu only spawn 1 each. and defender on dodge/sword 2

^What about offhand sword block or scepter block? I don’t think those two weapons should be negatively affected if Mental Defence was on evade only.

How the hell are you going to evade an attack when you’re in a channeled form?

Having it spawn a phantasm on a successful attack is what it should be doing. I can see Deja Vu not spawning another phantasm or at the very least, keeping it stunned/dazed for 1 second before you can shatter it.

Curunen.8729:

^What about offhand sword block or scepter block? I don’t think those two weapons should be negatively affected if Mental Defence was on evade only.

offhand sword block is the strongest counter currently in game, it’s good as it is. it also creates a clone on block.

scepter block, deals decent power damage and 5 torment stacks on a low cooldown, and allready creates a clone on block.

most of the complains atm are too much illusions/phantasms that “promote” shatter spam. so why not distribute them? sword 2 deals average damage, at best (it allready got nerfed ages ago) buffing it with an option to create a phantasmal defender (if traited) is a start imo

i’m not part of the balance team, i just try to keep things ok

phokus.8934:

How the hell are you going to evade an attack when you’re in a channeled form?

Having it spawn a phantasm on a successful attack is what it should be doing. I can see Deja Vu not spawning another phantasm or at the very least, keeping it stunned/dazed for 1 second before you can shatter it.

uhm?
i don’t know, but if i use sword 2 it clearly says “evade” when i actually get hit
perhaps you did not really understand it, you could ask it, with some respect instead of going “how the hell”

i think you missed the obvious part where it says " remove the block" meaning, it will not work on block anymore..only on envade hence why both dodge roll and sword 2 are mentioned.

mental defence works pretty much like the old deceptive evasion, now it generates a phantasmal on dodge instead of clone. so why not keep it evade only and remove the on block aspect. and to counter that minor nerf, we give sword 2 evade some love

every block at the moment creates a clone allready. most complains are about mesmer clone/phantasm upkeep beeing too high. all the blocks we have allready generate 1 each.
since few still use deceptive evasion, we could make mental defence on dodge roll if you don’t take sword. or on dodge roll + sword 2 if you do take sword.
weapon choice is not affected by it, you can still get the defender up even if you have no weapons, but sword 2 has the advantage

Shield 4 is the only phantasm skill that your opponent can actively prevent by dodging.

If your opponent dodges toward the end of the Shield 4 animation, you (the mesmer) won’t summon the shield phantasm. Abusing this fact with a high-evade class (e.g. thief) makes fights against condimes way easier.

I think most players still haven’t learned how to counterplay Shield4, which makes it harder to gauge balance. This is especially true where a nerf to Shield4 would also affect other mesmer builds.

That said, if A.net ever gets around to nerfing all of the elite specs, a commensurate nerf to Shield4 would be in order.

You still don’t make any sense – the ability is a block, it’s channeled. It’s channeled the whole time it’s active. It doesn’t matter if you change it to an invuln or an evade, it’s still a channeled ability.

You’re not thinking big picture here with this ability. It’s labeled and designed as a block for good reason. There are two concurrent blocks that you can put up which provides an ample amount of time to negate damage.

With that said, it’s labeled as a block. GW2 has unblockable abilities. It’s not completely damage proof and has some counter play. Evade on the other hand… not so much.

phokus.8934:

You still don’t make any sense – the ability is a block, it’s channeled. It’s channeled the whole time it’s active. It doesn’t matter if you change it to an invuln or an evade, it’s still a channeled ability.

You’re not thinking big picture here with this ability. It’s labeled and designed as a block for good reason. There are two concurrent blocks that you can put up which provides an ample amount of time to negate damage.

With that said, it’s labeled as a block. GW2 has unblockable abilities. It’s not completely damage proof and has some counter play. Evade on the other hand… not so much.

sigh, and i only said it twice allready
well here comes strike 3.

i’m impressed by the fact that you keep comming with “it’s channeled” yes we all know that. it’s channeled, and it will NOT create the defender for reasons i allready listed, twice. block channel ends, u dodge, or use f2 THEN you create the defender.
how hard is this to understand?

the 2 biggest complains atm is f5 affecting elites (double moa) and shield 4 potentially generating 3 phantasms, combined with chronophantasma allowing 2 3-clone shatters.

remove the defender from shield 4 and every other block, by having it only trigger on evade
or
remove the avenger from deja vu

that are the 2 most logical “fixes” i rather have nothing changed as i like my mesmer as it is, but the amount of moaning is allways heard, and it has happened more then once, that such fixes occur

the phantasm generation atm is very high, with respawning of chronophantasma and the peristence of memory 6 seconds with 2 avengers + defender, shatter it get 4* alacrity from flow of time + 3 new phantasms than can again get shattered for another 6 seconds phantasm reduction + 4 more seconds of alacrity

the only reason why signet of illusions is meta, is because our clone/phantasm upkeep is so high, that we do not have enough shatters to use them.
also the reason why condi is the current meta f1-f4 all inflict conditions while on a power shatter (r.i.p) only f1 deals “good damage” and f2 “average” damage. how about f3 and f4, no love for power shatter yet condi inflicts 4 stacks of confusion and 4 stacks of torment at best

I read through it again to make sure I understood what you were saying as it was possible I didn’t. But you were not explicitly clear on what you were saying until now.

With that said, what you proposed is an overly complicated and clunky mechanism just to spawn a phantasm.

The only thing I’d agree with is not spawning another phantasm on Deja Vu.

phokus.8934:

I read through it again to make sure I understood what you were saying as it was possible I didn’t. But you were not explicitly clear on what you were saying until now.

With that said, what you proposed is an overly complicated and clunky mechanism just to spawn a phantasm.

The only thing I’d agree with is not spawning another phantasm on Deja Vu.

Not spawning another phantasm on Deja Vu is the only thing I even proposed. I don’t know where these other conversations are coming from.

melandru.3876:

and here we have another proposal thread, huray

Best part is that it’s the same 10-15 people, which just about fits the remaining sPvP crowd, who keep posting these.

Could just nerf sPvP, and that’d fix the entire problem, all in one fell swoop. Would be a meh move, but hey, much faster and more consistent results.

melandru.3876:

stop trying to ruin the mesmer class. raids are more or less balanced, every class is useful. keep that in mind before you come with such threads.

THIS.

I’m almost sure the people who create those “proposal threads” are trolls… that makes me miss the “Mesmer OP, nerf pls” threads. At least they had the courage to say what they really wanted (destroy Mesmer class).

yay, another post from some1 that doesn’t know how to fight a mesmer.

do us a favor, quit the bs qq on things you don’t understand, go play hello kitty online so when you QQ on the boards about something else you know nothing about it can at least be somewhat cute.

thankitten.6307:

I really don’t think there are that many things about condi mes that really need to be nerfed. This is the one thing however. Shield 4 is broken because of one simple fact. It creates TWO phantasms.

With a single shield 4, I can create two phantasms, that when shattered instantly come back and thanks to traits, a third clone is created. So out of a defensive ability that blocks all incoming attacks, I also can shatter 5 clones total from it, a DEFENSIVE ability.

All I’m suggesting is only have one phantasm created at the end of echo of memory and none with deja vu. While a seemingly simple change, it reduces the shatters you get out of this skill from 5 to 2. The skill just seems a bit too strong to be able to block all incoming attacks and create that much condi pressure from blocking.

you do know if you dont attack the mesmer when you see big purple around him only 1 will pop out and not 2 so staw weapon ….

Stow weapon/dodge are important points in learning to counter this ability. I manage on my glass ele (air overload and staff air5/earth4 help a lot too for massive aoe to cleave or unblockable cc) and condi reaper(transfer it back and WH#4) when fighting Chronos. I also think warriors are still going to be the class that counters mesmers with resistance and signet of might cc. With that said, look at how much it combos with all the other traits.

2 phantasms + a 3rd with mental defense. Shatter them and then shatter 3 phantasms again with chronophantasma. Spawn a clone after the 2nd round of shatters. That’s 7 illusion from 1 skill (and traits) but that’s way higher than anything else we got for illusion generation. 6 phantasm shatters is also 12 seconds CD reduction from PoM on a 24 second CD ability and this combo also gives 10 seconds of alacrity which results in a 9 second CD for a skill that lets you block for 3 seconds.

This is of course ideal situations with Chrono and without this combo (and it can be countered/disrupted as I mentioned above) Chrono/mesmer falls out of play very quickly in PvP. It saddens me that Anet gives Mesmers other ways to spawn illusions without using DE but still… you are deluding yourself if you don’t think that is an over the top combo for PvP. Reason I won’t say nerf it is because DE may have been enough before the power creep that was HoT but without this combo Mesmer doesn’t stand a chance in PvP.

Another too good in ideal situations, horrible in other situations that mesmers fall into all the time which makes it impossible to balance. Taking away that 2nd phantasm, would help bring the combo itself in line for PvP yet probably take Mesmer out of the meta for good and be an unnecessary nerf for PvE.

Only thing mesmers can do are to list more counters and help people learn to fight this combo.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unblockable

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Stow weapon/dodge are important points in learning to counter this ability. I manage on my glass ele (air overload and staff air5/earth4 help a lot too for massive aoe to cleave or unblockable cc) and condi reaper(transfer it back and WH#4) when fighting Chronos. I also think warriors are still going to be the class that counters mesmers with resistance and signet of might cc. With that said, look at how much it combos with all the other traits.

2 phantasms + a 3rd with mental defense. Shatter them and then shatter 3 phantasms again with chronophantasma. Spawn a clone after the 2nd round of shatters. That’s 7 illusion from 1 skill (and traits) but that’s way higher than anything else we got for illusion generation. 6 phantasm shatters is also 12 seconds CD reduction from PoM on a 24 second CD ability and this combo also gives 10 seconds of alacrity which results in a 9 second CD for a skill that lets you block for 3 seconds.

This is of course ideal situations with Chrono and without this combo (and it can be countered/disrupted as I mentioned above) Chrono/mesmer falls out of play very quickly in PvP. It saddens me that Anet gives Mesmers other ways to spawn illusions without using DE but still… you are deluding yourself if you don’t think that is an over the top combo for PvP. Reason I won’t say nerf it is because DE may have been enough before the power creep that was HoT but without this combo Mesmer doesn’t stand a chance in PvP.

Another too good in ideal situations, horrible in other situations that mesmers fall into all the time which makes it impossible to balance. Taking away that 2nd phantasm, would help bring the combo itself in line for PvP yet probably take Mesmer out of the meta for good and be an unnecessary nerf for PvE.

Only thing mesmers can do are to list more counters and help people learn to fight this combo.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unblockable

you ask the impossible now. if players want to learn, they would spar with friends/guildies or even make a mesmer of their own and see what classes that can defeat them and how. they chose not to. they chose to go to the forum and write their true feelings.

2 avengers + 1 defender in ideal situations, shatter them you get 2 avengers + defender in ideas situation (total reduction 12 seconds with pom) + around 8-9 seconds of alacrity (4*2.x depending on trait) if you shatter those 3 new phantasms again, you do not get an illusion. illusionary reversion does not work on phantasms. so you are looking at 6 phantasms max (which any half skilled player will deny you)

ResJudicator.7916:

Shield 4 is the only phantasm skill that your opponent can actively prevent by dodging.

Most mesmers, or just people that have played the game for a long time know/have been trained to think that you dodge the phantasm attacks, not the summon. I would have never thought to try that. Thank you for this info because this further proves to me the skill isn’t actually OP and I learned something new.

you ask the impossible now. if players want to learn, they would spar with friends/guildies or even make a mesmer of their own and see what classes that can defeat them and how. they chose not to. they chose to go to the forum and write their true feelings.

2 avengers + 1 defender in ideal situations, shatter them you get 2 avengers + defender in ideas situation (total reduction 12 seconds with pom) + around 8-9 seconds of alacrity (4*2.x depending on trait) if you shatter those 3 new phantasms again, you do not get an illusion. illusionary reversion does not work on phantasms. so you are looking at 6 phantasms max (which any half skilled player will deny you)

@Melandru, do you think the above tip is in any way intuitive? Some moves are easily and intuitively countered. Knowing the above tip, not well known. Knowing about unblockable attacks, not well known. If people don’t know about these, yeah they will complain. I won’t stop everyone from complaining but most smart people will read, learn to counter and less complaining will happen and more reasonable people will speak up against nerfs. I more so wish that we had more ways to pull of illusions like that because this combo is so OP within the mesmer class and we don’t have anything else really like it.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Reversion
Two illusions (phantasms and clones are both illusions) not two clones. CP phantasms take priority over the clones which is why you need to shatter 3 phantasms twice to get a clone afterwards. Shatter two phantasms —> two phantasms and a clone and then another clone after the 2nd shatter. 1 phantasm and 1 clone--> 1 phantasms and a clone with a bonus clone after.