Guild Wars 2

Hello
I thought I’d ask the question, as I havent seen any threads explicitly concerning this.
Most posts about mesmer changes with HoT, that I’ve seen, have been discussing what we will gain/want with the new spec (although this topic does appear in those threads).

But what about our current skills?
Although not explicitly confirmed. The idea is that we will likely loose access to some of our current skills/mechanics (maybe even weapons?), when we swap specialization.

So what skills/builds/mechanics/weapons do you guys speculate we will loose in the expansion?
Will we not be able to summon phantasms, moving away from the illusion based mesmer? No lockdown, but CC through fields? No shatter? No GS?

What will be taken away, in order to encourage us to swap back to the core mesmer, after learning the spec?

Thoughts and speculations?

Edit: Some clarification

Well the current player-rumor is that we’ll replace the last trait line with a spec-specific one. This would obviously mean our class mechanic gets replaced.

That would in turn have quite far-reaching consequences. Plus with the loss of traits such as IP or MtD, we lose a lot of shatter builds, or even all of them.

Any suggestion that they’d remove the current Mesmer is moronic. The new specialization will be in addition to. We’ll lose nothing, but obviously if you specialize you’ll not have access to what is, essentially, core Mesmer.

With the shield I imagine it will be a more defensive playstyle that mesmers get.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Any suggestion that they’d remove the current Mesmer is moronic. The new specialization will be in addition to. We’ll lose nothing, but obviously if you specialize you’ll not have access to what is, essentially, core Mesmer.

This is what I ment.
Sorry for the lack of clarification, I’ll blame it on not being a native english speaker

I hope we sacrifice the dueling/deception aspect of our profession in order to boost the manipulation aspect.

Clones, stealth, and Distortion all fit the theme of a misdirecting duelist, not a battlefield manipulator. I’d be thrilled if we lost our ability to make clones and even phantasms. In exchange, I’d like some area spells which emphasize secondary effects- slows, cripples, conditions, or weakness.

Any way I look at it, I see a loss in damage.

I don’t see the “chronomancer” (assuming it is this) or whatever specialization being able to out damage shatter or Phantasm Mesmer. I think the traitline will have a higher emphasis on control. And if I’m looking at 4/4/0/0/6, its almost obvious that dueling has to stay, so I’m looking at 0/4/0/0/0/6 with 4 free points to throw around…

Unless, the traitline offers a new form of clone production.

I have been talking to A few people in OMFG about this, and it kinda makes me worried.

Having heard from PAX, I assume the specialization will change the class mechanic, (i.e. Shatters, clones or phantasms) I wish It wouldn’t

The specialization should retain the base class and limit the old traits but introduce new ones.

Heres an example from Ragnarok Online

Archer lvl 30 gives you a choice of Going Bard or Ranger

Going ranger nets you the pet, Going bard nets you the songs.

But the deal here is that I still retain my archer skills and The bow usage. I just have a different ARCHER specialization. But the same archer archetype with a different playstyle.

I wish we will have a chromancer playstyle but will retain the main strong points of a mesmer like Deception

I heard people saying that Druid can only use staff not rangers, which Kinda BS to me because why call it a specialization if it’s almost the same as a new class: New traits, New class mechanic, New Utilities. and most of all A Unique weapon set?

The idea that anet is going to implement something that actually removes prior options is patently absurd. They are adding specializations. All that you need to know is contained within the name itself.

When something specializes, what happens? It focuses more on one aspect of something to the exclusion of other aspects.

How does this relate to GW2? Well, taking the specialization will mean you won’t be able to take all the things you took previously. You only have so many trait points, so many utility slots, a heal, and an elite. If you fill up all those slots with stuff from your specialization, you obviously can’t take things that you took before. Anet isn’t removing the options, they’re simply adding new options that you may or may not choose to take.

Fay.2357:

The idea that anet is going to implement something that actually removes prior options is patently absurd. They are adding specializations. All that you need to know is contained within the name itself.

When something specializes, what happens? It focuses more on one aspect of something to the exclusion of other aspects.

How does this relate to GW2? Well, taking the specialization will mean you won’t be able to take all the things you took previously. You only have so many trait points, so many utility slots, a heal, and an elite. If you fill up all those slots with stuff from your specialization, you obviously can’t take things that you took before. Anet isn’t removing the options, they’re simply adding new options that you may or may not choose to take.

I really hope this is the case pyro, I really hope so, A chronomancer with CI or imbued diversion you know.

They have said that you can swap freely between core and spec outside of combat.

What I gather from this is that we should look at “mesmer” and “chronomancer” as two different specilizations, yet similar at the core “philosophy” (i.e. manipulative, deceptive). Both having something unique to offer in terms of skills/playstyle, therefore some skills would get locked to just the core mesmer spec.

Maybe Im just reading to much into the fact that we can swap, but I belive what they have in mind is something along that line.

I hope we will gain the ability to deal competitive damage without relying on phantasms. At the moment sustaining 3 fragile illusions against many boss encounters is simply not feasible. Since they cannot be buffed due to PvP, I am hoping that chronomancer will allow us to deal respectable damage (if below pure phantasm mesmer with 3 phantasms out) without relying on the said mechanic.

Also, hoping that shield is just a spell effect and we’ll get a MH pistol. But not holding my breath. The strange mix of ranged power weapon that produces melee phantasms, and power melee weapon (no power ranged 1 hander) coupled with only ranged phantasm never made sense to me.

aspirine.6852:

With the shield I imagine it will be a more defensive playstyle that mesmers get.

I hope ANet make the shield skills as a whole to be a direct counter to thieves.

Rome.7124:

aspirine.6852:

With the shield I imagine it will be a more defensive playstyle that mesmers get.

I hope ANet make the shield skills as a whole to be a direct counter to thieves.

Because we don’t have enough ways to do it now?

Rome.7124:

aspirine.6852:

With the shield I imagine it will be a more defensive playstyle that mesmers get.

I hope ANet make the shield skills as a whole to be a direct counter to thieves.

Ever tried a non glass spec? Long fights usually lead to thief losing you know ,at least the glass ones.

When specced I’d not be surprised if we lose Spatial surge and gain a melee attack chain.

According to info out, class mechanics will change where it’s likely playable as a different profession. So, I’m going to throw my speculation out there based on the trailer and this info, that Mesmer has the option to play without clones/phantasms and be effective as a chronomancer in HoT. I would LOVE to see this. I want something really punishing with a lot of collateral damage like GW1 mesmer if possible at this point. I love my mesmer, but sometimes I PERSONALLY find it hard to compete with reaction times necessary to detonate clones and be useful.

My theory:

They said that there will be a new trait line. That gives two options:

1. they add a 6th traitline with stats x and y
2. they replace one of the existing traitlines

the second option is more likely because if they replace the class mechanic (eg. shatters) we would have no point in traiting into shatter cooldown (Illusions) which makes me think that they will replace this one.

then we get the 4 usual lines: Domination, Dueling, Chaos, Inspiration and the 5th (let’s just call it) Chronomancing.

we’d also get a new class mechanic so I think that if we are a Chronomancer we won’t be able to shatter anyways.

why do I think that we’d not just get a few skills/traits in addition? simple: they said that we’d be able to swap between core and spec! Why would they implement this if the spec would be just an addition to our class?

I really think that they will be taking the Illusions traitline and maybe even clones/phantasms to give us a whole different feeling of our class.

I DON’T think that they’ll take a weapon from any of the classes.

List of pros and cons for removing clones and/or phantasms.

Cons:

• they would have to design new skills in replacement for our weaponskills and our 4 summoning utilities (and one of them is decoy which i do not wanna lose!)
• they would have to balance the damageoutput of the Chronomancer to fit the other classes
• there are many traits in other traitlines too that would need to be replaced if they’d remove clones or phantasms
• …
• profit

Pros:

• If they replace shatters with a different class mechanic the clones would be useless and phantasms would loose mutch of their potential
• this would really change the playstyle and the feeling that you get while playing and that’s what they wanted wasn’kitten

that are the pros and cons i just came up with in a few minutes.
i think that we might lose shatters but that we won’t lose illusions… but i hope we would^^

Me Games Ma.8426:

My theory:

They said that there will be a new trait line. That gives two options:

1. they add a 6th traitline with stats x and y
2. they replace one of the existing traitlines

the second option is more likely because if they replace the class mechanic (eg. shatters) we would have no point in traiting into shatter cooldown (Illusions) which makes me think that they will replace this one.

then we get the 4 usual lines: Domination, Dueling, Chaos, Inspiration and the 5th (let’s just call it) Chronomancing.

we’d also get a new class mechanic so I think that if we are a Chronomancer we won’t be able to shatter anyways.

why do I think that we’d not just get a few skills/traits in addition? simple: they said that we’d be able to swap between core and spec! Why would they implement this if the spec would be just an addition to our class?

I really think that they will be taking the Illusions traitline and maybe even clones/phantasms to give us a whole different feeling of our class.

I DON’T think that they’ll take a weapon from any of the classes.

List of pros and cons for removing clones and/or phantasms.

Cons:

• they would have to design new skills in replacement for our weaponskills and our 4 summoning utilities (and one of them is decoy which i do not wanna lose!)
• they would have to balance the damageoutput of the Chronomancer to fit the other classes
• there are many traits in other traitlines too that would need to be replaced if they’d remove clones or phantasms
• …
• profit

Pros:

• If they replace shatters with a different class mechanic the clones would be useless and phantasms would loose mutch of their potential
• this would really change the playstyle and the feeling that you get while playing and that’s what they wanted wasn’kitten

that are the pros and cons i just came up with in a few minutes.
i think that we might lose shatters but that we won’t lose illusions… but i hope we would^^

Did they really say they were adding new traitlines?

either the stream or wooden potatoes did lemme look it up

3:20
“On your traits page, wich sounds like it’s gonna have heavy revamping for the release of Hears of Thorns, you will gain acces to at least it sounds like one new unique traitline perhaps more…”

He said that his information was posted by devs on the forum