Guild Wars 2

Theorycrafting and experimenting with new build ideas is my favorite part of the game. So at a really high level, I’m happy with a balance update if it:
- Creates opportunities for new skills, traits, and gear to be viable
- Includes some buffs along with whatever nerfs come
- Leaves me with at least one fun viable build (primarily for WvW roaming since that’s where I’m spending my time these days, but I’d love to have a build I feel good about for pvp too)

So that all probably sounds good to everyone. Here are a few specifics (which are clearly too late for anyone to act on for this update – but give some perspective).
- I’m clearly playing condi shatter (inspiration, illusions, chrono trait lines). I’ve come to like the way this plays, so I’d hate for this to get totally destroyed.
- I think it’s hard to play power mesmer, so making some way that domination is more appealing would be good (some way you can really get defense?)
- I have always wanted to make a hybrid power – condi damage build. The weapons will work, but the only way I can see it being viable is making Shattered Strength better (2 stacks, longer duration or both). That would be a nice tradeoff for Maim the Disillusioned which is just so much better. It would be nice to see Carrion ascended trinkets to support this kind of a build. This kind of change would mean a lot of new gear for me, but I think that’s fine – I like having goals to work toward.
- I mentioned in a prior post a few skills whose cooldowns feel too long (arcane thievery, mirror images, phantasmal mage(torch 5), chaos armor(staff 4))
- It would be cool to see some tweaks to runes and sigils that are never used today. I tried to do a build around burning, but it’s hard to justify with the sources we have. Tweaking Balthazar runes to do 2 stacks of burning instead of one (plus maybe making staff better) could be enough to push me over the edge.

Bottom line for me is that I have a build I really like right now, so I hope (and fear a little) that it doesn’t get nuked. But I think a few tweaks like the ones above will give me plenty of stuff to happily experiment with for another couple of months.

What would make you happy in the next balance update?

I would be really happy if mesmer could do something else besides beeing a quickness/alacrity bot in raids.

Nozome.7853:

I would be really happy if mesmer could do something else besides beeing a quickness/alacrity bot in raids.

Yup. They have finished working on a system that will make it easier for them to separate PvP and PvE skills. ANet has stated that wee will be seeing some changed between the two game modes, which should mean PvE mesmer can get a damage buff without being OP in PvP

I still wish our illusions / phantasms get affected by our runes and sigils bonuses. They are so fundamental for our dps, to not giving them those +5% or +7% crit stats is just depressing when you should pick a 2nd sigil in the first place.

About our roles, mainly playing PvE, I’m happy we are no longer portal bots only. Quickness and Alacrity is cool, but I’d like to see more support phantasms. For example I’d like to have an aoe on the torch, rather than a bounce. AoE Fury? Maybe will have some uses.

About our traits, there are plenty who need some help to make them more attractive. Chaos and Duelling both need buffs for PvE.

OriOri.8724:

Nozome.7853:

I would be really happy if mesmer could do something else besides beeing a quickness/alacrity bot in raids.

Yup. They have finished working on a system that will make it easier for them to separate PvP and PvE skills. ANet has stated that wee will be seeing some changed between the two game modes, which should mean PvE mesmer can get a damage buff without being OP in PvP

I wouldn’t hold your breath. Even if it was harder for them before they still found the time to make pointless differences like Warrior Axe 5 doing more damage in PvP while ignoring Mesmers.

They did say they’ll separate PvP with PvE in the next update, I’m just not sure if that means 2 teams working on 2 modes or single team working on small changes in each mode.

For PvP I’ll be happy if they actually make imagined burden 500 damage on boon strip, as discussed in some other thread

As for PvE…as much as I want to see mesmer thrive in other role, I can’t imagine anything less than a new expansion pack can save mesmer from quickness/alacrity bot.

I’ll be happy if condi removal gets spread out a little from Inspiration.

Like NiceNikeShoe said it probably won’t happen until we get the new elite spec, but even then it will have to offer something on par with alacrity to have people want to take that instead of chronos. Alacrity is just such a huge damage buff to the entire party that its gonna be hard for anything to replace it. But for right now I would love to see mesmer get more personal damage and rely less on phantasms.

For me the problem isn’t picking up domination in a power shatter build, it’s the fact I need inspiration or I die to 4 bleeds a necro randomly farted out ontop of the other 5 conditions s/he puts on me while requiring chrono or most likely chaos to survive in a mildly sustained fight in WvW.

Domination has everything you need for a power build in this meta, vuln stacking, MW damage mods, vuln enhancement and boon removal on shatter. Quite simply there’s almost no competition between Dom and duelling especially if you can get fury elsewhere and the GM traits aren’t particularity great in the current meta.

The best thing for power mesmer to make a comeback would be reducing the high levels of protection, sustain and damage added with HoT. Scrapers, druids, warriors, revs and dragon hunters can all out sustain mesmer right now in power builds while being able to negate burst and remove/gain benefit from clearing out our shatter resource. Thief takes a dump on mesmer especially that silly mantra build I keep seeing people playing in WvW. Ele can out sustain a mesmer, just about the only thing we can kill is necro with inspiration.

I’d love to see mesmer gaining selfish sustained damage builds for PvE rather than alacrity/quickness bot, not talking ele level dps but something like a guard would be right. Of course without the single target nature and huge ramp up too but ANet has had 3 years to deal with this problem…still waiting.

Thx for all the feedback.

I realize this is all too late for any kind of update that’s going to happen soon, but possibly it’s helpful for Anet to see what people are hoping for and do a bit of planning for the next release.

I agree with apharma that, right now, I just don’t see myself using a build that doesn’t have Inspiration. The condi removal is just too important.

And for WvW roaming, the Chrono line is key to me just for the run speed (but having the F5 shatter and additional clone and phantasm creation and gravity well would just be really hard to give up as well).

So that means it’s down to only one trait line left, and that ends up being Illusions. It’s not a problem because I really like the trait line, shattering and scepter. But it does mean that when I look at other choices, they just don’t compare.

If some of our condi cleanse was shifted to actual skills then inspiration wouldn’t be as required as it is now. But I doubt that will happen

Two things:

1) Power build not requiring shatter.
2) Inspiration not mandatory in everything.

Sadly, neither is likely to happen.

I usually run full power yolo chrono on wvw. Had a pretty rough time at the start with all this powercreep but i got used to it and its pretty succesfull…. Today i crafted a carrion set and roamed a bit…. Wtf braindead stuff, i killed 2 druids 2v1 with full condi cleanse by smashing my head on the keyboard…and they were actually playing good.

After that i switched back to yolo build so i can have some semblance of reward when i kill someone instead of feeling like i killed a mob in pve..

My only hope is that they buff power mesmer so the dmg is a bit more sufficient against all these classes with ridiculous sustain.

zoomborg.9462:

After that i switched back to yolo build so i can have some semblance of reward when i kill someone instead of feeling like i killed a mob in pve..

Same. I refuse to go condi as it’s just easy-mode and gets boring quickly as a result. They really should address the imbalance in effectiveness between Power and Condi, then I’ll be a happy camper.

Making illusion based mesmer viable that maintains his phantasms and clones without shattering them fast :-). Would be please to have dueling/Illusion traitlines competative and thus a diffrent playstyle from going through F1-F5 :-)

Tbh the best way to buff power shatter is to bring down the defences and sustain of other classes.

HoT delivered a lot more healing to some classes and way more damage mitigation to others. Some even got both (eyeballs scrapers) and you either surprise Instagib or go home. In the cases of the ones with passive procs coming out of their backsides just avoid.

Looking through build possibilities and assuming that sustain for other classes will remain high, I think one of the things that would give me the most options to try different things would be for the Chaos line to have some way to remove conditions.

Even just swapping the resistance boon on Bountiful Disillusionment to something like the F2 shatter would give Chaos some chance at handling condi’s. As it stands, nothing touches the Inspiration line in that respect

eldenbri.1059:

Looking through build possibilities and assuming that sustain for other classes will remain high, I think one of the things that would give me the most options to try different things would be for the Chaos line to have some way to remove conditions.

Even just swapping the resistance boon on Bountiful Disillusionment to something like the F2 shatter would give Chaos some chance at handling condi’s. As it stands, nothing touches the Inspiration line in that respect

I really think the biggest change we could get to allow us more freedom in choosing lines is to move about half of our condi cleanse in the inspiration line directly into skills. That would allow us to still take inspiration for extra cleanse, but it wouldn’t be mandatory anymore since we would at least have some condi cleanse without it.

otto.5684:

Two things:

1) Power build not requiring shatter.
2) Inspiration not mandatory in everything.

Sadly, neither is likely to happen.

NOOO never never never never ever ever ever again do I want to see power phantasm viable. That was the beginning of the downfall of the skill required to play this class. Started there then went into PU condi etc etc etc. NO

I personally believe like apharma. We need to have the sustain and ezmode defenses of the other classes nerfed for our power shatter to shine. The damage is there. The defenses and survivability is there as well. The problem is other classes far outclass us.

Now the question is as follows. If anet properly nerfs the other classes to make specs like power shatter viable would a proper nerfing to our current condi meta build be ok?

Personally I say bring it on!

Duelling line: Fury for phants or pistol bleed to T2. That’d be all I want

The Phantasmal Haste/iAvenger bug is going to be fixed according to a dev response on Reddit.

I agree with most other Mesmer players that other classes need to be brought down, to bring back some build diversity in all the classes. HoT’s powercreep is real.

I have small balance idea that would be help bring the current Condi-Chrono meta build down a notch. And forcing some more “options” in the Chrono line.

Unfortunately, it will also be a slight nerf to any Power Chronos, but Power Shatter needs more love than just this, so it wouldn’t be as big a hit.

Illusionary Reversion is returned to its original state of shattering 1 clone generates 1 clone. BUT its moved up to the GM slot alongside ChronoPhantasma.

So now the Mesmer is either feeding his shatters for burst or he’s maintaining his sustain/dps by keeping phantasms up.

Class diversity is the result of having OPTIONS. As it is now, there are no options in the Chronomancer line.

And yes, I’m totally off my rocker.