Guild Wars 2

Hello, Mesmer players and hopefully Mes Dev team. I’d like to start by saying I’m a long time pvp Mesmer player and not simply a fair-weather here to shout more more more, we want more. This post is simply the opinion of a long time player with a great deal of experience.

So as the title suggest this post is only focusing on Harmonious Mantras which I feel is in the wrong trait line. Going off of Anets recent design philosophy comments while streaming, with the removal of stats players are able to choose how they want to trait for a build without losing stats that a dps/healing/utility/etc build would need. Which was a HUGE improvement; however while some traits were moved around to support this system it feels like developers did not understand the direction players would take the class/builds moving forward so some things were overlooked.

Without derailing, due to the removal of stats from traits, shatter players (the dominant power build) were given the ability to trait for much needed condi removal the class/build has lacked for years.

The inspiration line stacks this usefulness with mantras, so it’s understandable that it wouldn’t take long for players to attempt using the harmonious mantras trait in conjunction with inspiration shatter play.

While this is strong at condi removal and strong at assisting some shatter rotations due to the damage buff, the trait being taken over deceptive evasion puts a HUGE hurt on the playability of shatter. Deceptive evasion is used in so many different shatter rotations, it defines the build and basically the class to some extent.

It is my opinion that the more situational you make your damage the lower your dps output becomes. Forcing yourself into limited shatter rotations makes the damage easy to avoid.

In addition the inspiration line traits into mantras very well, while the GM trait Phantasmal defender doesn’t define any builds/rolls. It feels like it’s just there, you take it because why not. I suggest that harmonious mantras is placed into the inspiration GM line.

Perhaps the confusion on critical strikes that was a GM minor trait in Dueling could be reintroduced into the GM slot to give condition builds another choice.

I suppose if nothing else the long story short argument is this, shatter defines mesmer power, deceptive evasion defines shatter, the community has shown that we value condi removal in order to play shatter. Taking traited mantras should not have to be a choice over deceptive evasion. Inspiration trait line scales the best with mantras, a grandmaster trait regarding mantras makes sense.

Thoughts?

Now that IP is standardized, DE is no longer such a solid requirement.

I hated the idea of DE vs. HM when it was introduced but, having played it, I think it’s a good trade-off because both traits have serious value, just along different axes. That third MoD charge is srs bsns; you should have to give up something good for it.

Having both Deceptive Evasion and Harmonious Mantras would be obviously quite broken.

I mean the inspiration shatter build is already arguably the most meta mesmer build right now, and have extra clone generation to make up for its smaller mindwarcks would be WAY too strong.

I’ve been running HM over DE since november last year. With that perspective in mind, Mesmer shatters have come alive with the current setup even if you’re not running DE.

Just gotta play at it better.

DE is non-required now.

I feel HM is really strong in dueling situation, helps you win 1v1 consistently. However, DE does provide more utility in various situations.

So it looks quite balanced at the moment depending on what you are looking for.

I think HM and DE offer you different kinds of staying power. DE helps ensure that your second burst can be as big as your first. HM in the typical build helps sustain (it’s pretty much a given you’re using Mantra of Recovery with it) and keeps those interrupts going. I kinda like that trade-off factor.