Guild Wars 2

hi guys , today i switched to play focus style instead of pistol . i cant pull people with 4th skill fast need to w8 some cooldown and this make pull nearly impsosible. focused nefed or something ?

Yep yup. It has a 1 second pause before you can activate the pull.

The nerf was intentionally done so that opponents would have a chance to react instead of being insta-pulled. You have to be a bit more tricky with it now; summon, wait for their predictable dodge and THEN activate the pull.

problem is not cathing him without dodge . problem is if some1 have a brain can run / jump / hide / go away from focus easy now

Really wish they would take the pause away when in PvE though. It pretty much can’t be used as an interrupt anymore in PvE except on rotation based attacking enemies where you know what is coming.

Outside of that it is just going to take some time to get used to the 1sec which at the moment feels like an eternity.

gives all classes endless run and nerf mesmer everyday . thx arenanet again thx much . problem solved because same thing happen when playing priest on Wow . rangers (hunters) cryed buffed , wariors cryed buffed , guardians (paladins) also ..if this happen before 8years i can be very angry but i can understand now money > all

I understand and agree with why they did this. It was to give PvP players a chance to react to the pull. IMO they should balance it out with reducing the cast animation time a little bit though…

Hexxen.7216:

Really wish they would take the pause away when in PvE though. It pretty much can’t be used as an interrupt anymore in PvE except on rotation based attacking enemies where you know what is coming.

Outside of that it is just going to take some time to get used to the 1sec which at the moment feels like an eternity.

I wouldn’t say it can’t be used in PvE as an interrupt, but like you said, it’s just going to take some getting used to. I’ve haven’t personally noticed the 1 second nerf yet in PvE, doing the typical Into the Void pull into Warden combo numerous times and still getting some nice interrupts. I’m sure I will at some point and will be irked by it but so far it seems fine.

I didn’t mean it cant be used as one but if you don’t have the curten down already you are going to have a near impossible time using as a split second interrupt I feel. I noticed the 1sec a LOT while doing the new AR dungeon these last few days.

Im a mesmer, Ive levelled 5 mesmers to 80. Mesmer is my fave class.

They did the right thing. Long range Aoe pull on a short coolodown. They did the right thing.

option 1 : u have some problems about social life
option 2: fan boi
option 3: died against mesmers 20000000 times and come here

Noticed the 1 sec nerf doing a JP tonight. Was quite annoying. :-)

Evo Sapien.5298:

Im a mesmer, Ive levelled 5 mesmers to 80. Mesmer is my fave class.

They did the right thing. Long range Aoe pull on a short coolodown. They did the right thing.

yeah i heard so many mobs complaining with devs about the pull ._.

And now pve players lost a reliable cc

They separate skills from pve and pvp, hell they even separated the phantasm hp increase between pve, pvp and wvw. You’d think that they’d do the same for other skills but noooooooooooooooooooooooo -.-

Focus pull was great against thieves using shadow refuge, now… well this cool down.
Also used the focus to pull ppl away from me in EMERGENCY, no more emergency.
Adding to that the fact that mesmer is a turtle in wvw without a focus, i don’t give a f… about the movement speed trait with 3 clones, this is a must have but now nerfed big time.

This and the sword cool down plus 25 points to catch the phantasm cd in a spec that has nothing to do with phantasms.

This focus nerf is the cherry on top.

im asking developers did u try to pull a thief with focus ? please try to pull thief when he spam ARROWS skill pls…and tell me how can this happen please teach to me

Were other pulls affected similarly? Other classes have pulls that you can’t react to, right?

Never ran focus in WvW except for swapping it in briefly to cast Temporal Curtain when moving with the zerg. Never had an issue without it.

If you think the Focus is a must have, you haven’t given the other offhands a proper chance yet.

JDC.7461:

Were other pulls affected similarly? Other classes have pulls that you can’t react to, right?

Not sure. As per http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pull , there is no other instant pull except the elite underwater transformation of Eles.
The fastest is Thief at 0,5s with Scorpion Wire, slowest seems Engineer with Magnet on Tool Kit at 1,25s (but 1200 range or so).

The cooldown has really stinted the flow of combat with the Focus. I can understand letting the enemy see the curtain before it can be collapsed but the 1second cd is a bit too long; half a second cd would improve the flow and still let people be able to dodge. Right now Curtain is just sluggish.

It’s really stupid. Focus pull gets 1 second nerf. I don’t see any thieves having 1 second cooldown when they come out of stealth before they can land a blow on their enemy.

I think this just about confirms it, the gw2 development team all roll thieves.

Carighan.6758:

JDC.7461:

Were other pulls affected similarly? Other classes have pulls that you can’t react to, right?

Not sure. As per http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pull , there is no other instant pull except the elite underwater transformation of Eles.
The fastest is Thief at 0,5s with Scorpion Wire, slowest seems Engineer with Magnet on Tool Kit at 1,25s (but 1200 range or so).

My concern is more about the visual cue that other pulls have. If the goal is to give victims a chance to react, I want to know if other pulls were similarly considered for this change. I don’t remember having the opportunity to react to the Thief pull as a victim. I can’t remember much about the Engineer pull — maybe someone could shed some light on that. Even if the Thief pull has a telltale animation, I feel it’s still harder to see and avoid than Curtain. Is that intended to be so?

And what about knockbacks in general? Now I just rely on Greatsword #5 to knock a Thief out of Refuge. Should the Thief have the chance to react to that too? I guess I need to know what Anet is thinking here.

This is really simple, general age average people who play ( this is known information from other online games) wariors rangers paladins(guardians) are lower than other classes or proffesions
and all qq bc of mesmers.
Second thing is guardians wariors rangers necros epecially who crys more bc of mesmer player numbers 20x more than mesmers
Now think u can make happy tons of players with some nerfs about mesmers and make children happy and still continue playing or

can be good company / corporation dont sell soul for money and after 2 years u can go bankrupt or return to back make iphone games…. i prefer nerf kittening mesmers and also they are doin this. This is real life mate money > all , no need good reason for this nerfs , just make kids happy , make them buy more items from black lion AH thats it

Engineer is really easy to tell. The Engi holds out a magnet in front of her for 1,25, while going “GYAAAAAAAA…”.

Compared to that, the new ItV is basically invisible and unnoticable. :P

Carighan.6758:

Engineer is really easy to tell. The Engi holds out a magnet in front of her for 1,25, while going “GYAAAAAAAA…”.

Compared to that, the new ItV is basically invisible and unnoticable. :P

How about the Thief pull?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Yep yup. It has a 1 second pause before you can activate the pull.

The nerf was intentionally done so that opponents would have a chance to react instead of being insta-pulled. You have to be a bit more tricky with it now; summon, wait for their predictable dodge and THEN activate the pull.

Lets be real here, it was to help the lesser skilled players nothing more.
If Anet wants to stick with to give ppl a chance to react then about half the skills in the game need this treatment.

Are they sure it’s only 1 second? – it feels much much longer, makes it incredibly clunky to make precise pulls in PvE, frequently enemies pass over or through the AoE before it can be triggered .

I understand the need for a telegraph in PvP, but do we really need it in PvE too?

Think of the dredge?

even this nerf is extremely deadly they will keep nerf us. they will stop when all kids be happy .
Conclusion :they will lost about 5k player (maybeeee) will gain much more and long years. Welcome to Online Games Strategies

so let me get this straight you’re complaining because you can’t just insta gib people off a cliff and go trololol noob, so now people have a pre warning so they can’t just be trolled by a mesmer.

not to mention the curtain still causes cripple and swiftness, the only other pulls are theives scorpion wire which is very finicky and need a los, you cant put it on the side of a cliff or wall and pull everybody off. and the eng which ive honestly never seen.

unless you’re crying about it in a combat use for not trolling which its the same as an knockback or knockdown.

i cant fight with you guys ur 20x more than us yes im trolling if talk with your languages

This 1 second cd on into the void is totally unjustified from the pvp sense of view.

1 second is a whole life in pvp and the difference between life and death is half than that. Time to react? Well, you see me casting the temporal curtain so here’s your time to react. With such a big nerf this skill is now used just for run, to reflect something (a lot of opponent ranged attacks are not reflected yet) or to catch a bad player… Try pull someone running away from you…almost impossible now, try pull someone skilled to your warden or away from you with this added second…almost impossible now. Temporal curtain when used for combat was a rather complex ability, you needed to play with time and spatial location, you had to read the combat field and your opponents movements. Now with this 1 more second, the ability is totally crushed as you need to guess future actions and also, given the known courtesy of mesmers all over the world, gift the opponent with one second of advantage when I have already lost some seconds to prepare the curtain and position myself in the field to obtain tactical advantage of the skill.

Add to all this the sword nerf and the phantasms cd nerf and what is left. Ppl trying to build interrupts in a game not designed to interrupt anything intentionally or making builds around scepter, which are all useless.

So to conclude. Mesmer is a fantastic class, all games have mages, warriors, paladins… but mesmers where invented by you guys in gw1. You created difference and now you dont love us anymore? Why? What do I have to do now with my legendary so kittening kitten gs? Change it for scepter because we were OP?, come on! we are mesmers! of course we are OP!, you created us this way! We kill without getting dirty, we move like faeries and we always have a smile in our faces even in the worst situation. You don’t have anyone in your developer’s team rolling a mesmer? Unbeliebable.

I will give you time to redirect this mess Anet, you deserve it.

According to the most recent State of the Game, the nerf was introduced as an opportunity for “counterplay.” What counterplay is there for the Thief’s Scorpion Wire?

JDC.7461:

According to the most recent State of the Game, the nerf was introduced as an opportunity for “counterplay.” What counterplay is there for the Thief’s Scorpion Wire?

moving…that thing misses more than it hits, just like the thief shortbow.

Regarding the nerf overall, yes it sucks, but you guys may have missed the buff they gave it, you know the one where with the right trait, a good focus pull gives you (and your group – if you run signet of inspiration) 25 stacks of might and a few other boons.

There were actually some nice buffs scattered around this latest patch, and if you look closely, you’ll find that although certain builds may feel a bit nerfed, new variations are now possible that are as/more powerful.

I play mesmer focus. In wvw I swear 75% of my gameplay was throwing people around with this skill. Rarely did someone dodge it. I don’t like the Nerf but really its still an amazing ability. Just gotta be even more intelligent with it ;-)

Anuxdei.2175:

even this nerf is extremely deadly they will keep nerf us. they will stop when all kids be happy .
Conclusion :they will lost about 5k player (maybeeee) will gain much more and long years. Welcome to Online Games Strategies

actually no

What they didnt understand is they lose 20.000 PVE players 50 PvP players and gain maybe 75 pvp players in years …..

They think PvE is easy and pve players don t care of nerfs…its not so…..they hindered some pve professions so much to push many players away from the game.

Mostly because they render useless months of equipment without thinking twice….and obviously PvE players would never expect nerfs to things that would never deserve it pve Wyse.

They never thougt for a second that if 2 players are angry with lack of coeherence between pvp and pve, thousands are tired of nerfs without any purpose….

in short they should make a 100% split of pvp-pve-www
They should almost be different game…coherence is hurting more the game than helping it.

Wannabe esport game , so this kitten will go on to the end of time .
They could have made the changes to curtain just for pvp but meh why would they bother about pve, or must be the mobs that complained about it.
But they had time for phantasm pve hp buff and guess what , they still die in 1 hit, how could they not , we the players can die in 1 hit what do u expect from a clone.

tAzz.8497:

Wannabe esport game , so this kitten will go on to the end of time .

Exact same issue arena brought to WoW.
All of a sudden good character and world design went out of the window, because we need that esports zomg! Sadly, the esports people never realize that one of the core aspects of RPG’s gameplay is that classes should feel substantially different from each other.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying that smallscale class balance is diametrically opposed to a balance (!) RPG class setup. It assumes comparability between classes, which is pretty much exactly what you don’t want in the RPG who’s systems you’re designing.
If a Thief is stealthing, then a Warrior should have nothing she can do about that. That’s what a Thief does, he stealthes. If that element isn’t crazy overpowered, how can it feel cool to play the character? However in return, when that Warrior comes barrelling down at her foes at full speed, there should be no way for people to get out of the way and avoid the hurts. That’s what the Warrior does, charge in and overpower things.
(intentional exaggerations in that part, used to illustrate)

They said they assigned additional people to the balancing team, so they can screw up even quicker now. Yay!

squallaus.8321:

It’s really stupid. Focus pull gets 1 second nerf. I don’t see any thieves having 1 second cooldown when they come out of stealth before they can land a blow on their enemy.

I think this just about confirms it, the gw2 development team all roll thieves.

Well… If they attack out of stealth they get a debuff for 4 seconds not allowing them to restealth which can ruin clutch survival plays considering if you have the debuff all stealth skills are still usable, just will have no effect. (I don’t even play a thief and can see how that’s worse). Mesmers seem so spoiled.

assuming focus is balanced

Any thief attack from stealth should be delayed by 1 second accordingly.

We’re comparing basic attacking versus a single spell for mesmers, and they’re complaining they no longer have the most OP unpredictable cc in the game (that is also Aoe) but because of a needed nerf everyone else should have a 1 sec cd after everything they do? Curtain is still fast casted, it has other benefits, and they didnt even take your instant cast trigger away, mAybe it’d be better if it was .5 cd instead but kitten . Way to prove how spoiled Mesmers are… Hands down everyone BUT Mesmers agree tha they are the best designed class in the game and because one ability is nerfed to not be a 1/4 cast Aoe pull cc opening for easy shatter wins other classes need ridiculous drawbacks.

And if its all about the interrupt in pve use a pistol… It does that.

LordByron.8369:

Anuxdei.2175:

even this nerf is extremely deadly they will keep nerf us. they will stop when all kids be happy .
Conclusion :they will lost about 5k player (maybeeee) will gain much more and long years. Welcome to Online Games Strategies

actually no

What they didnt understand is they lose 20.000 PVE players 50 PvP players and gain maybe 75 pvp players in years …..

They think PvE is easy and pve players don t care of nerfs…its not so…..they hindered some pve professions so much to push many players away from the game.

Mostly because they render useless months of equipment without thinking twice….and obviously PvE players would never expect nerfs to things that would never deserve it pve Wyse.

They never thougt for a second that if 2 players are angry with lack of coeherence between pvp and pve, thousands are tired of nerfs without any purpose….

in short they should make a 100% split of pvp-pve-www
They should almost be different game…coherence is hurting more the game than helping it.

I play mesmer in both wvw and pve and I have to say, overall they got a nice buff. Yes focus pull was nerfed, but it got a MAJOR buff. You can now give your entire team 25 stacks of might with a focus pull and do lots of damage with it from interrupts and immobilize. It has seriously gotten like 10 times better, except for the speed. Really not something to be complaining about, especially from the pve side, where there is no counterplay to worry about.

Where focus is worse is as an untraited throwaway weapon in a build that otherwise doesn’t really call for it. What’s wrong with that? If that’s your build, maybe give the off-hand sword a try?

LordByron.8369:

assuming focus is balanced

Any thief attack from stealth should be delayed by 1 second accordingly.

You’re comparing Apples to Bolts.

bobross.5034:

JDC.7461:

According to the most recent State of the Game, the nerf was introduced as an opportunity for “counterplay.” What counterplay is there for the Thief’s Scorpion Wire?

moving…that thing misses more than it hits, just like the thief shortbow.

Regarding the nerf overall, yes it sucks, but you guys may have missed the buff they gave it, you know the one where with the right trait, a good focus pull gives you (and your group – if you run signet of inspiration) 25 stacks of might and a few other boons.

There were actually some nice buffs scattered around this latest patch, and if you look closely, you’ll find that although certain builds may feel a bit nerfed, new variations are now possible that are as/more powerful.

I’m all for changes so long as they’re consistent. If all long range pulls have counterplay, then fine — if it’s the ridiculously sad case that Scorpion Wire can be countered by … moving … then fine, I guess. Does it fail so often because it’s inherently buggy? Or is it because targets are haphazardly dodging at just the right time? If it’s the latter, that still happens with Focus pre- and post-patch and shouldn’t be the justification for consistency.

Chasing down people is always a challenge, and Focus moderately alleviated this problem in tandem with Blink and Illusionary Leap (which itself is not reliable). With the nerf, a max distance target gets more time to get just out of pull range. Scorpion Wire would fail, as you say, because the target is moving; but the Thief has other, more effective means of closing the gap.

I am aware of the other changes. The trait gives only 5 stacks, not 25, however. I also wouldn’t focus on it unless I’m centering my actions around interrupts.

Edit: I see now where the 25 stacks could come from. That doesn’t solve my chasing problem or lead me to believe all long range pulls are consistent, though.

Carighan.6758:

tAzz.8497:

Wannabe esport game , so this kitten will go on to the end of time .

In fact, I’d go as far as saying that smallscale class balance is diametrically opposed to a balance (!) RPG class setup. It assumes comparability between classes, which is pretty much exactly what you don’t want in the RPG who’s systems you’re designing.
If a Thief is stealthing, then a Warrior should have nothing she can do about that. That’s what a Thief does, he stealthes. If that element isn’t crazy overpowered, how can it feel cool to play the character? However in return, when that Warrior comes barrelling down at her foes at full speed, there should be no way for people to get out of the way and avoid the hurts. That’s what the Warrior does, charge in and overpower things.
(intentional exaggerations in that part, used to illustrate)

ZOMG! This is one of the most intelligent things I have ever heard. Seriously, if this was the thought process of people (and it should be) we would have a lot better games out there. This constant and frustrating need to balance everything around… EVERYTHING is really silly. It’s like saying every class should be able to beat every other class in the same circumstances. Sometimes, that just shouldn’t happen.
Uh, oh! I found a warrior with full adrenaline, this is gonna be bad for me… unless I’m a Thief or a Mesmer, except he has friends so after I kill him from stealth, I’ma gonna die while my stealth is worn off and my stuff is on cool down.
It’s give and take based on MANY factors, not just based on whether or not every class has the same ability to take on every other class in every situation.

That’s what happens when you try to do balancing without considering rock-paper-scissors principles. If every class has to be able to counter and compete with every class, you’ll end up without any diversity.

Honestly the biggest advantages of using Curtain to yank people off the walls are:

1. The AOE doesn’t even register cause it goes on the side of the wall so the people up top are clueless of what’s about to happen.

2. It’s an AOE pull.

Both of these are still true, the only difference is you won’t guaranteed catch someone who’s running around along a wall like a jackrabbit anymore.

I would say that arena net failed if their attempt was to give the player hint of when the pull was to happen due to the fact that it is still unpredictable. Even more infact.

Of course this nerf was called for. Although I would say that 1 sec delay is slightly to harsh. I think that it should be reduced to .75 to .50 delay.

Also when considering the fair ness of the weapon consider the whole weapon. Phantasm warden is underpowered by a horrendous amount .

Focus is still viable. However I would say a buff to phantasm warden is a necessity, as well as maybe a longer duration to the curtain. By 1 second would be fair

Also the effect besides the pull of temporal curtain is kinda useless. Swiftness and cripple are not very handy in combat unless you are trying to get away.

In truth the focus would be useless without its reflect trait.
So all in all phantasm sucks without trait, curtain sucks without trait, but the pull is(was) amazing.
So if you are going to nerf the weapons only strong point traits aside. You best add some counter measures such as buffing what is weak about the weapon so it has more then a single use.

Such as buffing the phantams’s damage, improving the curtains other attributes besides the pull such as adding weekness and fury along with the cripple and swiftness to give it useful battle uses.

Really in comparison to the other off hand weapons the mesmer has the focus is not viable without the pull. So if you want o balance it then give it viabilities besides the pull (and reflects when traited)

I can understand why they did it, but 1 second is too long.

Focus #4 was a tool to interrupt stuff, but you cannot interrupt anything anymore with the 1 sec delay. Not in a game where cast times are usually way below 1 second. (if you actually interrupt something then it’s their next cast after the one you originally wanted to interrupt…)

Same with thieves hideout. Can’t pull them out anymore, unless you get extremely lucky with your timing. And if they are stupid enough not to dodge within their hideout. I don’t even try it anymore, because the success rate is abysmal low.

You could pull ppl back when they tried to run away. You could pull ppl away from you when they were charging you. Both is no longer possible, because after 1 second everyone is out of “Into the Void” range. They don’t even have to react or dodge, they just keep running and that’s it.

So, aside of the pulling ability (which is mostly worthless right now), what is left?
- Runspeed from Focus #4
- immobile Phantasm from Focus #5
Both have very limited usages.

Focus is no longer worth it, unless you absolutely need the speed, and/or you trait it for reflection.

Something needs to happen.

Examples:

- reduce the cooldown from 1 to 0.5 seconds (still gives them a chance to react, but gives you chance to actually interrupt or pull something)

- longer duration on Temporal Curtain (so you could lay it down on the ground and wait for them to cast something, then instantly interrupt it with Into the Void)

- longer duration on speedbuff (if you really wanna destroy the interrupt/pull thing and leave it that way, then give us at least REAL speed, e.g. a speed boon with equal duration to the cooldown of the skill. Other classes have skills like that, they just use one skill over and over and get 100% speed uptime from it. Mesmers get only 50% from Temporal Curtain, for no obvious reason.)

- shorter cooldown on Temporal Curtain (the result would be similar to making speed boon duration longer, allowing us to reach almost 100% speed uptime)

One of these changes would be enough to make the Mesmer players happy again.

I have zero problems with how Temporal Curtain works right now when I play on my Mesmer. For chasing players, it’s a ranged crippled (when they pass through it and the pull range is a 600 radius – plenty distance even with a 1 second activation timer.

But that doesn’t go without saying that 1 second is “too long” and would rather see a .75 second activation timer.

I’m with Hexxen. The 1 second delay would have been for pvp modes. I can no longer use the focus to interrupt enemies in pve because that one second is almost always too slow.