Guild Wars 2

It seems we have only have 1 build and all others must continue to suffer the wrath of the nerf bat nonetheless. /facepalm

However, this is not a QQ thread…

I just would like someone to try to clarify what all this means:

“Restorative Illusions: The healing contribution of this trait has been increased by 285% in PvP only. The base healing modifiers for this trait have been adjusted as follows:
0 Illusions shattered: Base healing modifier reduced by 62% in PvP only.
1 Illusion shattered: Base healing modifier reduced by 50% in PvP only.
2 Illusions shattered: Base healing modifier reduced by 42% in PvP only.
3 Illusions shattered: Base healing modifier reduced by 36% in PvP only.”

I am trying to calculate what this actually means to current RI performance. How much Healing would you need just to keep this from being a nerf?

I find this especially amusing since there is a fairly viable Condie/Healing Amulet, but the Power variant simply will not work without better Crit Damage.

Oh well, could someone enlighten me please?

I think sage amulet can make it even or slightly better healing compared to before nerf.

Slightly better than Sage + RI before the nerf? Or only slightly better than a no-healing Amulet + RI was pre-nerf?

It seems the idea was to make RI more powerful in combination with healing power, but somewhat weaker without it. (If done right then at least we could have an variant to current meta build using Sages.)

The latter is simply a very sleazy way to go about nerfing something. Mentioning a big percentage boost (285! ZOMG!) and it really meaning that the heretofore completely useless and unused Sage amulet stays pretty much the same as before…useless and unused. kkthxbye!

Once again a nerf completely misses the intended target. /golfclap (Power builds need more sustain, not less. And Menders won’t work, because Power Builds w/o Ferocity are bad.)

Ok so from the wiki this is current RI, the number in brackets is healing power modifier:

No-Illusion Heal: 872 (0.2)
One-Illusion Heal: 1,064 (0.2)
Two-Illusion Heal: 1,256 (0.2)
Three-Illusion Heal: 1,448 (0.2)

A healing contribution increase of 285% gives us a healing power of 0.57 so the new RI with lowered base healing should look like this:

No-Illusion Heal: 331.36 (0.57)
One-Illusion Heal: 532 (0.57)
Two-Illusion Heal: 728.4 (0.57)
Three-Illusion Heal: 926.72 (0.57)

So to get the same amount of healing you would need

0 clones about 949 healing power.
1 clone about 933 healing power.
2 clones about 926 Healing power.
3 clones about 915 healing power.

Yep was just about to post this – it coincides with what apharma posted:

A 285% increase in healing contribution takes the current .2 healing modifier on the trait up to .57. From there, 560 healing power from sage will get you an extra 319 to tack onto the new per illusion heal values. As for those …

current:
0 illusion heal = 872 with 62% decrease becomes 332
1 illusion heal = 1,064 with 50% decrease becomes 532
2 illusion heal = 1,256 with 42% decrease becomes 729
3 illusion heal = 1,448 with 36% decrease becomes 927

In essence, with sage amulet you get values still far lower than the current trait provides without any healing power. With mender amulet you will get slightly more than the current.

It will indeed be a heavy nerf to the trait.

Thank you for the calculation.
I was wrong as I was thinking sage has 1050 healing power back in my mind. It actually only has 560.

I feel ultimately they will nerf illusionary reversion or chronophantasm.
This is the only way to bring down our condition build to be on par with our power build.

But I hope that happens together with heavy nerfs to other classes. Or chronomaner will simply be unviable anymore.

Exciton.8942:

I feel ultimately they will nerf illusionary reversion or chronophantasm.
This is the only way to bring down our condition build to be on par with our power build.

That’s not true. The issue is condition application on every shatter which power Mesmers can’t do. It would be more reasonable to adjust Cry of Frustration (CD) and make Illusionary Retribution and/or Maim the Weak exclusive to F2 (just like Mental Anguish basically is exclusive to F1).

The risk with that is that conditions might be cleansed too easily. But otherwise nerfing IR or CP would mainly hurt power shatter. Not condition shatter. If the CD on F2 reduced there should be enough condition damage, though.

Same goes for Restorative Illusions btw. I don’t think it’s feasable to work on specific interctions with IR and CP. Just make it apply to one specific shatter – e.g. F3 or F4 – and buff the values accordingly. This would require more thoughtful play but that F1-2-3-4 smashing since HoT/pre HoT-patch is silly anyway.

This is a huge nerf to base mesmers though who don’t have access to IR or chronophantasma. On top of already having had fewer illusions to shatter, the healing they get from it is gutted. I think this was the wrong way to tone down condi mesmer/chrono in pvP

It won’t tone down the meta condie shatter build at all. As usual, wrong target. It will at best change the build slightly.

Although Inspiration is still highly desirable for the only really good condie removal option we have, with IR literally gutted, I don’t think people will turn to Sage Amulet just to somewhat alleviate this ludicrous nerf. (And get the other drawbacks in the process.)

I think it’s more likely they will simply switch to Chaos, gain a ton of Protection and Stab, and bring MoR or some kind of other Condie Cleanse.

Even Dueling for AE Blinds on Shatter, Mistrust, or maybe 3x on Cleanse Mantra. (Or DE simply for more illusions to shatter) A bit more offensive option, especially with Mistrust. (Multiple AE interrupts are available after all.)

I actually wouldn’t mind the nerf if they made the healing contribution worthwhile to consider options like Sages Amulet, but they were clearly just out to gut IR, not balance it. Typical Anet knee jerk once again…sad, especially since now they can’t blame it on the PvE team. They are now able to balance much more fine-grained, but nooo, they just wield the old nerf-machete again chopping off 50% here, 50% there.

The bit of sustain current condi chrono has is still nothing in comparison to builds that don’t have to worry about on point pressure.

This also harms power shatter’s builds even more, while thief gets buffs.

Sounds fair….

Daishi.6027:

The bit of sustain current condi chrono has is still nothing in comparison to builds that don’t have to worry about on point pressure.

This also harms power shatter’s builds even more, while thief gets buffs.

Sounds fair….

Nerfing the sustain is fine as our job is not to sustain on point for ever. We rely on portal to find the weakness of enemy team’s rotation and strike there.

What will truly hurt us is what some other ppl suggesting there —- nerfing our damage. Without enough damage, the build will be utterly useless.

Exciton.8942:

Daishi.6027:

The bit of sustain current condi chrono has is still nothing in comparison to builds that don’t have to worry about on point pressure.

This also harms power shatter’s builds even more, while thief gets buffs.

Sounds fair….

Nerfing the sustain is fine as our job is not to sustain on point for ever. We rely on portal to find the weakness of enemy team’s rotation and strike there.

What will truly hurt us is what some other ppl suggesting there —- nerfing our damage. Without enough damage, the build will be utterly useless.

You are correct in our role, but our sustain really did not need a hit.

And yes our damage even less so.

Exciton.8942:

Daishi.6027:

The bit of sustain current condi chrono has is still nothing in comparison to builds that don’t have to worry about on point pressure.

This also harms power shatter’s builds even more, while thief gets buffs.

Sounds fair….

Nerfing the sustain is fine as our job is not to sustain on point for ever. We rely on portal to find the weakness of enemy team’s rotation and strike there.

What will truly hurt us is what some other ppl suggesting there —- nerfing our damage. Without enough damage, the build will be utterly useless.

Nerfing our sustain hurts both power and condi builds, when only condi builds were overperforming in PvP. Therefore nerfing sustain was not in any conceivable sense the right thing to do. Since condi build was overperforming, condi needed to be nerfed, not both condi and power builds.

And truthfully we had/still have too much condi pressure for how easy condi chrono is to play. Lots of things need changing, yes, but nerfing condi damage would have been a better change than nerfing our sustain further.

And furthermore our “role” is not set in stone, its fluid and can/does change as skills and traits are modified. Players arbitrarily decided what mesmers “role” is in PvP, and ANet may disagree with that. If they change the class to fit more with what they want it to be its in their right, and doesn’t automatically make it bad changes.

OriOri.8724:

Exciton.8942:

Daishi.6027:

The bit of sustain current condi chrono has is still nothing in comparison to builds that don’t have to worry about on point pressure.

This also harms power shatter’s builds even more, while thief gets buffs.

Sounds fair….

Nerfing the sustain is fine as our job is not to sustain on point for ever. We rely on portal to find the weakness of enemy team’s rotation and strike there.

What will truly hurt us is what some other ppl suggesting there —- nerfing our damage. Without enough damage, the build will be utterly useless.

Nerfing our sustain hurts both power and condi builds, when only condi builds were overperforming in PvP. Therefore nerfing sustain was not in any conceivable sense the right thing to do. Since condi build was overperforming, condi needed to be nerfed, not both condi and power builds.

And truthfully we had/still have too much condi pressure for how easy condi chrono is to play. Lots of things need changing, yes, but nerfing condi damage would have been a better change than nerfing our sustain further.

And furthermore our “role” is not set in stone, its fluid and can/does change as skills and traits are modified. Players arbitrarily decided what mesmers “role” is in PvP, and ANet may disagree with that. If they change the class to fit more with what they want it to be its in their right, and doesn’t automatically make it bad changes.

To be honest, I enjoy playing the meta condition chronomancer build. And I think it is still balanced in current meta. Reaper, druid, scrapper or tempest are still more mandatory than mesmer. But we do have the best carry potential together with pre-nerf revenant.

Compared to pre-HoT, this mesmer build is so much more versatile while pre HoT power mesmer relies much more on a competent thief teammate which is super rare.

The build also has a relatively high skill ceiling. Your ability to 1v1 enemy condition mesmers matters so much. If you are better, you will win 99 out of 100 times. This is unlike some other sustain bruisers.

Tbh the RI nerf won’t change the fact that Inspiration is overloaded with condi cleanse.

If we had some condi cleanse in other trait lines that would be more encouragement to use something different from Inspiration and help with variety.

as anet state ….delicate situation ….
so they bit nerf our sustain while trying to push back the burning guard and condi rev (p/d thief nice change but wont change the d/p 4 years meta)
so we might see bit less mesmer in team form but in top group play portal will be essential
so d/p thief still our main counter and now even more.
maybe we will see conde ranger now but still portal is the winner here….

wish they could buff power mesmer back again like they have done to scepter ele….

@Exciton – I agree with you, chrono and particularly the condi build, has a lot more versatility than base mesmer did before HoT, and the skill ceiling is really high. I actualyl really appreciate that, its very nice. I just don’t think that power chrono needed to be nerfed, which is why I am struggling to understand why the nerfs to mesmer were made in such a way that they hurt both the condi and the power builds

I know it’s easier to jump on the bandwagon but two important facts…

1) if you’re running power Mesmer, you’re running a generally underpowered spec.

&

2) if you’re a power Mesmer running inspiration, you’re really running an underpowered spec by gimping your power potential.

In conclusion, yes, this nerf hurts power mesmers, but are we really seeing any true power mesmers run inspiration in the first place? Honest question considering I’ve been on hiatus for quite a bit so excuse the ignorance if it applies.

As usual, need to keep the full picture in mind instead of just a single trait nerf.

Even Dueling for AE Blinds on Shatter, Mistrust, or maybe 3x on Cleanse Mantra. (Or DE simply for more illusions to shatter) A bit more offensive option, especially with Mistrust. (Multiple AE interrupts are available after all.)

This ^. Swap inspiration to Dueling. By dropping inspiration, will Signet of Illusions to refresh shatters be mandatory? No. Blink, portal and either bring null field or disenchanter instead. Don’t try to recover the healing by using a healing power amulet. Use the new amulet which has condi dmg, duration and crits for bleeds on crits in Dueling. Vitality for a bit of staying power. More importantly crit for vigor and learn to dodge. Regardless of which build, use Rune of nightmare/scavenger for more condi clear/sustain. Possibly sigil of generosity. WoE is of course still there.
2 variants:
1) Sword/Torch+Staff: DE to make up the loss of illusion spam. Since you only have 1 phantasm, swap PoM to the Pledge for condi clear on torch skills. Shield 4 not applying slow also means that confusion is going to proc more. Use blind on shatter. Blind from torch 4. Blind from rune of the nightmare (and condi clear). Swap to ineptitude for more confusion and blind. Torch 4, 5 are also just decent burns to diversify conditions damage a bit. Possibly mass invis to help with prestige CD and setting up spikes. Sigil of energy for even more DE.
2) Sword/Shield+Staff Mistrust: Shield 5 and mistrust go hand in hand. Keep MoF for aoe F3 for more mistrust. Well of Gravity for more mistrust. Keep PoM. Because PoM is kept, disenchanter is probably prefered over null field. Use Evasive Mirror or Blinding Dissipation or even trait for shorter sword CD for more defense.

Why Evasive Mirror? When it’s used correctly it’s basically perma reflect all the time. With Vigor and sword 2, you can proc it almost always. Why does perma reflect matter? The new rune and amulet are also going to be buffing various condi builds in general. Condi DD, engineer and ranger come to mind and all of those have projectiles. Even DD condi dodge is projectiles. Reflect warrior longbow (except F1) means they can’t condi pressure Mesmers from range. Reflect condi projectiles also means more condi pressure from the chrono. Power and condi guard use a lot of projectiles too. Power Rev Shiro heal and sword 2 are also reflectable. Power rev is also getting hit really hard on two of their strong bursts. DH no longer has an unblockable daze on Test of Faith because Piercing Light now slows instead of dazes. The infamous D/P DD that counters Mesmer has projectiles on p4 for PI procs which can be reflected to proc mistrust. Or just blind them with shatters when they stealth.

So do we really need to complain about sustain nerf from Inspiration with how much of a shift in the meta will happen? Maybe. Condi Rev is getting buffed as Mallyx gets a stun break and also isn’t projectile based. Shiro/Mallyx is slow but the new rune takes care of that. This is what I would be afraid of. No projectiles and cant blind because of high resistance uptime. However, I did recommend dropping SoI for Null field or Disenchanter. Will also make us better off when fighting Warriors by stripping resistance and stability. While we may counter the Condi rev, there is also another huge aspect going into this. Condi rev is really good at tearing through boons and doesn’t require a babysitter like Necro. S/D DD is getting buffed and can also counter boons. So countering the boon heavy builds out there is going to further shift the meta and there is going to be less sustain in general.

TLDR: Lots of changes to meta incoming. Especially the new rune and amulet are bringing a new meta. Dueling active defense and damage is going to be the way to go. Don’t fret about the inspiration nerf.

@DuckDuckBOOM – I like that analysis. Will be trying out duelling again and take a condi cleanse utility instead.

@MailMail any power build using Shield was also hit with a sustain nerf, albeit a smaller one than the change to RI trait due to the increased CD on Sh4.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

As usual, need to keep the full picture in mind instead of just a single trait nerf.
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-
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TLDR: Lots of changes to meta incoming. Especially the new rune and amulet are bringing a new meta. Dueling active defense and damage is going to be the way to go. Don’t fret about the inspiration nerf.

@DuckDuckBoom with an excellent analysis.

MailMail.6534:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

As usual, need to keep the full picture in mind instead of just a single trait nerf.
-
-
-
TLDR: Lots of changes to meta incoming. Especially the new rune and amulet are bringing a new meta. Dueling active defense and damage is going to be the way to go. Don’t fret about the inspiration nerf.

@DuckDuckBoom with an excellent analysis.

Good analysis.

I’m actually at a point where I’m considering going back to my old build (Domination, Duelling, Chaos). Just way too used to OH Shield, movement speed (although Runes could help here), Alacrity and F5 at this point, though.

Xaylin.1860:

MailMail.6534:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

As usual, need to keep the full picture in mind instead of just a single trait nerf.
-
-
-
TLDR: Lots of changes to meta incoming. Especially the new rune and amulet are bringing a new meta. Dueling active defense and damage is going to be the way to go. Don’t fret about the inspiration nerf.

@DuckDuckBoom with an excellent analysis.

Good analysis.

I’m actually at a point where I’m considering going back to my old build (Domination, Duelling, Chaos). Just way too used to OH Shield, movement speed (although Runes could help here), Alacrity and F5 at this point, though.

Losing shield and F5 is the only reason I haven’t swapped out the chrono line yet. They are just so good

^ Which admittedly is a reason to tone down Inspiration, as it also has become a nearly “must have” trait-line. Chrono definitely is, and for more than just F5 and Shield. Passive 25% speed for “free” and Chrono Phants are also invaluable for most builds, and IR plus speed 5 illusions are also pretty useful. (And last ofc is Alacrity, which is largely meh now, but still something you have to factor into any comparison to other lines.)

I’m really mainly peeved that they couldn’t even boost the Healing Power aspect for the nerfed RI enough to make it a viable alternative to run Sage’s/Mender’s variants that provide significant sustain in exchange for losses elsewhere.

Surely that was their intention by boosting the HP aspect at all, but the math simply doesn’t add up! I believe it will be far more efficient to simply go with a better Amulet and Chaos or -probably more likely- Dueling.

It really should give us the full current RI values at the 560 HP provided by Mender’s/Sage’s Amulets. Anything less will IMO leave both RI gutted and with that Insp. significantly weakened as a “sustain” oriented line (kinda have to lol there with RI trashed), and will leave Sage/Menders unused.

The intention of balancing changes should always be to not destroy builds and traits, but to tweak them slightly up/down to achieve more balance in an incremental fashion, rather than a sledge-hammer approach.

We wouldn’t even be having this conversation – or any of these waste-of-dev-time balance tweaks – if the dev team could own up and get around to fixing the baseline issue with the terrible stat-customization system our characters have.

Namely, that it exists.

At the level of balance the game is at, and considering this is 4 years in, we really should not have stats on gear. Seriously. We should have fixed damage/healing/duration values on skills, and certain abilities can modify these either by flat or percentage values. But no gear stats. Which in turn would remove a humongous amount of needless balance worries because there’s no separate scaling modifier.

And really, in theory I’d be welcoming an actual stat customization. But that is assuming that the game is balanced without the user-selectable stats, which this one isn’t. Stats actually just serve to narrow user choice, instead of adding another level on top of it. It boxes you in.

IMO, just remove it, and give yourself breathing room to balance skills more readily.

Windwalker.7421:

^ Which admittedly is a reason to tone down Inspiration, as it also has become a nearly “must have” trait-line. Chrono definitely is, and for more than just F5 and Shield. Passive 25% speed for “free” and Chrono Phants are also invaluable for most builds, and IR plus speed 5 illusions are also pretty useful. (And last ofc is Alacrity, which is largely meh now, but still something you have to factor into any comparison to other lines.)

I’m really mainly peeved that they couldn’t even boost the Healing Power aspect for the nerfed RI enough to make it a viable alternative to run Sage’s/Mender’s variants that provide significant sustain in exchange for losses elsewhere.

Surely that was their intention by boosting the HP aspect at all, but the math simply doesn’t add up! I believe it will be far more efficient to simply go with a better Amulet and Chaos or -probably more likely- Dueling.

It really should give us the full current RI values at the 560 HP provided by Mender’s/Sage’s Amulets. Anything less will IMO leave both RI gutted and with that Insp. significantly weakened as a “sustain” oriented line (kinda have to lol there with RI trashed), and will leave Sage/Menders unused.

The intention of balancing changes should always be to not destroy builds and traits, but to tweak them slightly up/down to achieve more balance in an incremental fashion, rather than a sledge-hammer approach.

I tend to agree. I think the reason that Inspirations was seen as a must have was because it made sustain easy to achieve. Other traitlines can give us decent sustain, but its more active and requires more work and awareness on our part. Inspiration made it easy. I really don’t have a problem with RI getting nerfed, but I do feel that the nerf was a bit too heavy and the HP contribution should have been boosted even higher than it was.

I agree with the general gist of everything in the few posts above. However, to use the term “gutted” with RI is a bit of an unfair exaggeration. My thoughts:

1) RI is mainly taken for the condition clear. It still remains our best condition clearing by FAR when you also consider the built in Menders Purity. As far as I’m concerned, the healing was a nice cheap addition tacked on that needed to be adjusted anyway.
2) The effort was there to make changes to incentivize healing stats. Unfortunately, the devs obviously miscalculated. How they did this, I don’t know, but we are on track and can lobby for them to make further adjustments.
3) Inspiration is still an extremely profitable trait line and worth investing in. It will remain competitive due simply to the condition clearing. That being said, general stats have to be looked at with a critical eye. There’s no reason to take healing amulets in PvP which is a shame, and it appears this nerf only marginally addressed the issue.

MailMail.6534:

…
2) The effort was there to make changes to incentivize healing stats. Unfortunately, the devs obviously miscalculated. How they did this, I don’t know, but we are on track and can lobby for them to make further adjustments. …

I don’t think they miscalculated. They probably are satisfied with the amount of tankiness we can achieve and only wanted to turn down the benefit of IR on glassier builds. That being said, yes, IR is still pretty useful.

Regarding F5 et cetera I’m at a point – although I do like most elite specs – where I wished they all were set up like Reaper. Meaning, you actually lose something. There has been a lot of talk about it and initially I wasn’t bothered that much. But after one year it’s quite obvious that ANet can’t manage balancing base classes otherwise.

Really curious how they’ll proceed with the new add on.

I don’t think those are bad changes, though they should have been together with buffs to sustained (power) damage.

Also, this healing power change is great in principle. Inspiration did not scale very well (mantras or IR) with HP, now it has improved. Also the scaling with the number of illusions have improved. The problem is that you usually want HP when you intend to OUTPUT healing, not just for your personal sustain. And except for essentially near perma regen, we don’t output healing. You could argue “mantras” but first this is clunky like hell and still does not scale with HP.

So it feels like half-baked changes.

Also on a separate note, I know I am a minority here, but I still do not like the idea of split balance. I believe many of the changes required for mesmer are similar for all game modes. I don’t mind a few minor exceptions, but here they seem to go full on. To a large extent, it leaves me with the feeling that the PvP team has now control over PvP balance, which allow them to shortcut an inefficient general balance team.

@Silverkey – In regards to this being a PvP only balance patch, this is a PvP focused released we are getting tomorrow so its no surprise. They did say that the balance team would be monitoring these changes and might ask the skills team to implement some of them game wide depending on how they are received.

And remember why people were asking for skill splits in the first place. People were tired of their PvE builds being nerfed, or even gutted into the ground, because they were overperforming in PvP despite being not being top tier in PvE. It was a justifiable reason to implement skill splits. However I also believe that if something is buffed in PvP it should be buffed in PvE as well… Hopefully all of the buffs that are coming tomorrow will eventually be implemented in PvE as well

This turned into surprisingly decent thread! ;-)

Thanks to everyone for their really level-headed responses.

I personally like the fact that with these splits the PvP team has a little more freedom to balance the way they see fit, without having to go through the process of including more people from different teams with totally different interests. This should have been done from day 1 IMO, but it’s nice to see they finally are embracing this. I also think it’s great that they’re limited to numeric tweaks more than anything else, I think that can go a long way to achieve better balance. (Especially if they use this flexibility to act quickly and do a lot of long overdue minor tweaks to underpowered and overpowered abilities. Lord knows there’s enough of’em, especially of the former category.)

Although I agree that Inspiration will continue to be a strong line for Condie clears, I also personally think that with sustain from RI hugely nerfed it will not be enough to keep it in the meta:
- the GM majors are all 3 pretty shoddy
- with RI significantly weakened, the Master majors aren’t looking any better really
- the Adept majors are also fairly meaningless outside of MF for fast ressing
- the Master minor is niche at best (Fay’s WvW build ;-) ), the GM minor is basically worthless (nerfed into worthlessness, and again has nearly zero synergy with HP), which mainly leaves the trait-line defining Adept Minor MP, which in combination with RI does amount to strong condition clearing.

I think it’s less that Inspiration will “inspire” people the way it has since it was overhauled and made really strong, but rather that all our other Condition clearing abilities are so poor that many will feel that they are forced to spec Inspiration to avoid being easy fodder for a pretty Condie-heavy meta. (Which might be getting a bit worse even.)

In fact with much of the original glitter and glitz of this line nerfed into the back-seat again, where btw it was for a long time post release, I think many people will try a lot harder to live with our other Condition cleansing options and go with a more well-rounded line like Dueling or Chaos.

Dunno. Might be a bit unrealistic due to the heavy condi pressure out there, but I just can not find anything sexy about the Inspiration line anymore.

@Windwalker – yeah I agree with you regarding Inspiration. There’s nothing “Inspiring” about it other than Pyro’s wvw build. It’ll simply be taken due to having our two best condition removal traits (Mender’s Purity and RI) so as a selfish personal condition management traitline, barely anything to do with supporting/inspiring allies…

I don’t particularly want to go back to using Mantra of Resolve or similar utility for condition removal so will probably still be pigeonholed into using Inspiration anyway.

Inspiration still is one of the mainstay traitline in raid (and now WvW) due to its high boon upkeep potential. The 2 GM trait, namely phantasm defender and glamour, needs more features to become build defining traits.

Though I doubt RI’s healing nerf will be terrible. To me healing was never really the strength in that trait, condi removal is. After all most people shatter to deal damage or cleanse high stack condi. It will make shatter less versatile, but won’t nullify that trait completely.

Don’t neglect that Inspiration with focus would still be a solid choice if there will be a lot of projectiles from the other team. And due to the SoI cast on phantasm summon it won’t be going away in raids for a while unless SoI is nerfed yet again. But I do appreciate that it doesn’t outclass other traitlines as much as it used to.

RiP inspiration no reason to go there eny way quess il play dom/illusion/cronomancer or dom/duel/cronomancer from now on

But probably il get on bandwagon enyway and play burn dragonhunter this season it will be crasy OP with new amulet and runes

baylock.1703:

RiP inspiration no reason to go there eny way quess il play dom/illusion/cronomancer or dom/duel/cronomancer from now on

But probably il get on bandwagon enyway and play burn dragonhunter this season it will be crasy OP with new amulet and runes

Burn DH is very strong already, been playing it most of the off season. To that very point, if we see more of that build being played, not having active access to condition cleanse is going to make a mesmer’s life very difficult. Necros also aren’t going anywhere and condi mes will still very much be a thing.

Make no mistake, the reason to spec inspiration is for the cleanse. If you’re magnifying the healing aspect of RI over the cleanse you’re looking at it wrong, IMO.

Hmm cind a true but I’m very dramatic xD

I’m definitely going to be slotting double generosity sigils from today (probably still keep Cleansing sigils in wvw)

Oh wow, those two nerfs to Chrono listed in the preview really were the only changes to come with this patch. It’s a pretty unexciting way to start a season.

Simonoly.4352:

Oh wow, those two nerfs to Chrono listed in the preview really were the only changes to come with this patch. It’s a pretty unexciting way to start a season.

Yeah it is a shame that every balance patch is such a small list of targeted changes when there are so many skills and traits on every class that could do with looking at.

skcamow.3527:

baylock.1703:

RiP inspiration no reason to go there eny way quess il play dom/illusion/cronomancer or dom/duel/cronomancer from now on

But probably il get on bandwagon enyway and play burn dragonhunter this season it will be crasy OP with new amulet and runes

Burn DH is very strong already, been playing it most of the off season. To that very point, if we see more of that build being played, not having active access to condition cleanse is going to make a mesmer’s life very difficult. Necros also aren’t going anywhere and condi mes will still very much be a thing.

Make no mistake, the reason to spec inspiration is for the cleanse. If you’re magnifying the healing aspect of RI over the cleanse you’re looking at it wrong, IMO.

You can get enough condi cleanse to deal with just about anyone other than a necro or condi chrono bomb through other traitlines, it just requires more work on your part than spamming shatters. I’m interested to see how it will play out throughout the season

Skam, I’ve been playing w/o Inspiration for a several weeks now in a glassy 16k HP Zerker Power build. Out of easily 40-50 matches I can count the number of times that I got wrecked by Conditions on one hand.

In 1v1 you simply disengage if it’s a hopeless matchup. You either kill them fast, or get out. In group fights it’s just very rare that Conditions play that big a part anymore, even in Pugs like I play. It’s not that Conditions aren’t doing their job, but with proper positioning and bumming some AE cleanses off your team you usually do quite alright.

Well gonna try out how bad the damage was… ;-)

New Deadshot amulet is actually killer with Sharper Images – the bleed stacks are pretty kitten good with 54% crit chance, and in addition to Blinding Dissipation, Ineptitude and Scavenging Runes provides a surprisingly powerful condi build.

Only kicker is having to take a condi cleanse utility like Mantra of Resolve… or take Portal if you have a team to cleanse for you.

Curunen.8729:

New Deadshot amulet is actually killer with Sharper Images – the bleed stacks are pretty kitten good with 54% crit chance, and in addition to Blinding Dissipation, Ineptitude and Scavenging Runes provides a surprisingly powerful condi build.

Only kicker is having to take a condi cleanse utility like Mantra of Resolve… or take Portal if you have a team to cleanse for you.

Yep I’ve played a wanderer build for awhile in PvP now and this amulet is exactly the same, just trading the toughness for vitality. If you’re running staff, try going old school (when all we wanted was illusionary elasticity fixed) with mirror images + phase retreat for some staff clone condi fun.

Windwalker.7421:

Skam, I’ve been playing w/o Inspiration for a several weeks now in a glassy 16k HP Zerker Power build. Out of easily 40-50 matches I can count the number of times that I got wrecked by Conditions on one hand.

In 1v1 you simply disengage if it’s a hopeless matchup. You either kill them fast, or get out. In group fights it’s just very rare that Conditions play that big a part anymore, even in Pugs like I play. It’s not that Conditions aren’t doing their job, but with proper positioning and bumming some AE cleanses off your team you usually do quite alright.

Well gonna try out how bad the damage was… ;-)

I don’t doubt it’s possible, I’ve played many builds in the off season w/out inspiration, experimenting and such.

I was more talking to the point of claiming inspiration isn’t worth running anymore because the healing got nerfed so much. I don’t think mesmers should be seriously considering moving away from inspiration because of that nerf, especially when you can at least play sage amulet and get some of that lost healing back.

I find it hard to believe that most mesmers who were taking inspiration before were doing so more for the healing aspect of RI (which seems to be the spirit of much of this thread).

I will also say that, while everyone can play what they want, the most optimal build is with inspiration. The higher the tier of play, this becomes much more magnified regardless of how well one can kite/avoid damage.

Just my 2 cents as usual …

skcamow.3527:

Curunen.8729:

New Deadshot amulet is actually killer with Sharper Images – the bleed stacks are pretty kitten good with 54% crit chance, and in addition to Blinding Dissipation, Ineptitude and Scavenging Runes provides a surprisingly powerful condi build.

Only kicker is having to take a condi cleanse utility like Mantra of Resolve… or take Portal if you have a team to cleanse for you.

Yep I’ve played a wanderer build for awhile in PvP now and this amulet is exactly the same, just trading the toughness for vitality. If you’re running staff, try going old school (when all we wanted was illusionary elasticity fixed) with mirror images + phase retreat for some staff clone condi fun.

Yeah sadly the problem is losing condi cleanse from Inspiration is forcing me to use mantra of Resolve, and I always use Blink and nearly always use Decoy (unless playing fractals). I so wish I could swap Mass Invis for Mirror Images because that would be the best thing ever, but I can’t.

I do miss the instantaneous burst of F5+Mirror Images shatter combos but the sheer clone production from DE and IR gives full shatters pretty much all the time.

Well that was pretty fun!

It wasn’t as bad as I expected. Sages actually has a solid impact on RI now and also does pretty well on Mirror. With 660 HP I was getting ~1500 health back on a 3x shatter, and about 900 on a no illusion shatter. That’s a lot better than what people were saying, that you’d need 900 HP to equal the old RI. (4800+ on Mirror)

So Sages is actually working out pretty well, and I imagine the standard meta build is still doing fine as well.

Windwalker.7421:

Well that was pretty fun!

It wasn’t as bad as I expected. Sages actually has a solid impact on RI now and also does pretty well on Mirror. With 660 HP I was getting ~1500 health back on a 3x shatter, and about 900 on a no illusion shatter. That’s a lot better than what people were saying, that you’d need 900 HP to equal the old RI. (4800+ on Mirror)

So Sages is actually working out pretty well, and I imagine the standard meta build is still doing fine as well.

Well… inspiration does give you 100 healing power per clone you have. So 600+300 is going to be the 900 breaking point ish. And as you mentioned, the extra healing power does benefit all the other healing skills your build brings.

skcamow.3527:

I will also say that, while everyone can play what they want, the most optimal build is with inspiration. The higher the tier of play, this becomes much more magnified regardless of how well one can kite/avoid damage.

Just my 2 cents as usual …

As someone that also plays DD build that brings PI on interrupt instead of condi clear on evade and Bound instead of the unhindered dodge, I can’t inherently agree to the idea that inspiration is required at the highest tier. I"m not saying I played it at the highest tier but I found it much better than the DD that played it safe because the damage was enough to win fights fast. Condi clear was from runes, a sigil and utilities. Inspiration was optimal for a bunker meta. If this new meta is glassier in general, preventing damage and doing more damage is going to be better than repairing the damage.