Guild Wars 2

So over the past month or two I’ve been getting more into sPvP where skills, traits and builds are pretty different than my PvE build.

After the last patch I decided to try out our new Shattered Strength since this forum was buzzing about it.

I have to say, it’s nice, BUT I don’t feel like I’ve gotten such a huge boost in over all power, as some people on the sPvP forum would have you believe. I just started reading threads in sPvP so I don’t know if people were crying OP before about mesmers. I want to hear the opinions of my fellow mesmers. Comment if you play a mesmer regularly. I didn’t start this thread to hear whining from other classes about how much stronger they think we are now. I would like to hear what the mesmers have noticed about their buff.

A few people are like OMG 25 stacks of might all the time. I don’t know about you guys but getting a huge might stack like that takes a ton of individual skills and actions. If I do get up to 24/25, 6 or so of those are from weapon swaps and half of the stacks have a few seconds left before they run out. Maybe enough time to get off one or two skills.

After that stack’s gone I’m sitting there naked (I feel pretty exposed without clones confusing people), with a ton of skills on CD.

Generally I’m running around with about 9 stacks all the time. I won most duels before, and I don’t think I win them that much faster now.

So what do you guys think? Has that improved trait pushed us over the edge? I certainly don’t think so.

JonathanSharp.7094:
@ Mesmer: We’ll be addressing the current Mesmer build that’s spiking for insane damage. Sorry that change got through – it is something we’ll be fixing.
@ Macros: Macros are against the user agreement. You can be banned for using them, so use them at your own risk. I would also advise against using them, because in live tournaments, you won’t be able to use macros. So it makes little sense to learn “bad habbits” you’ll just have to retrain later.
We adhere to the same “one keystroke = one action on one character/account”, which is used by a lot of MMO publishers when defining botting/macros.
Just wanted to clear that up – be careful w/ those macros, they can get you banned.

Copied from the pvp forums a while back. Doesn’t matter what we think. It’s getting the nerf stick.

Just remember: the one who wins is the one to stomp first, not the one to stack 25 might first.

PS. I wager the upcoming nerf will be a terrible debacle. A month ago when we said phantasms shouldn’t have been nerfed and shatter is good as it is Mr. Sharp thought he knew better. The moment I read about the Shattered Strength change I was convinced ANet will backpedal in days. And now, expect the nerf to be handled in the worst possible fashion. Of course, other ways of playing the Mesmer won’t get buffed so it may as well put our class out of balance for months.

It really is as powerful as the others make it out to be, it really needs to be nerfed. Dont get me wrong, I enjoy the stacks of might but its obvious that it is too much and was never meant to be 3 stacks per illusion shattered but 3 stacks in total.

Hardly noticed a difference using it or against it. Apparently, there is an exploit with it, but I don’t know anything about that.

DaShi.1368:

Hardly noticed a difference using it or against it. Apparently, there is an exploit with it, but I don’t know anything about that.

It’s the exploit that was kitten people off.

The exploit always existed though. It was how scaling worked with clones and mind wrack, they never put a cap on how many clones it could scale with. The issue was magnified by shattered strength though and became ridiculous. The top end of the scaling if people were glass cannon and stacking might had the clones exploding upwards of 4.6k each.

As much as I liked the extra damage and don’t want them to wreck the scaling there’s no way they can allow that sort of bursting to take place on a mesmer. They’ll leave that level of bursting to Ele’s and Thieves. Besides mesmer will eventually be very strong in a year or so once they’ve attended to the majority of the bugs.

I don’t know the issue or the bug.

Since we have a cap of 3 illusions do you mean the scaling issue has to do with what happens when you spawn clones at the same time as a shatter? Does this somehow give you more clones to scale up their damage for an instant?

Playing mesmer in a nutshell: http://i.imgur.com/1gzBF.jpg

The bug is that if you generate extra clones while the shattered clones are still en route to their target and then Mind Wrack the new clones when your clones finally connect you’ll have some very ridiculous numbers in addition to getting all your stacks of Might. The might isn’t the issue, it’s the Mind Wrack for 16 to 20k that’s people are upset about, they just blame the might because they don’t know about the bug. This is a known bug (at least among the community) but it hasn’t been fixed yet and has been around for as long as I can remember.

The major difference here however is that where it used to be only a few Mesmers doing it, now everyone is. I don’t play a Shatter build anymore because I can’t keep myself from doing it on accident and it really feels unfair to win a fight because of a glitch to me.

To the OP,

No. Might stacks haven’t broken the game at all. It’s a minor boost if anything, hardly worth the initial tears I saw. You’re right about the 25 stacks thing too. Initially I tried working stack building in to the shatter build, but all it did was mess up the meta play of combat. Eventually I shifted to taking what I could get, and maybe figuring out a momentary burst if it was advantageous.

Mishka.9623:

Playing mesmer in a nutshell: http://i.imgur.com/1gzBF.jpg

Baahhahahahha pure awesome.

As a mesmer who plays a low damage, tank/utility mesmer, the buff has given me a reason to get max condition damage from my traits, and… well, that’s about it. The might stacks give me only a tiny boost because shattering gets rid of my main damage sources. So while it’s given me a bit of build flexibility and a more dangerous cry of frustration (confusion hitting harder is always nice), I don’t generally kill things much faster. I’m certainly no more of a threat than I already was, that’s for sure.

9 Stacks mighty = about 10% more dmg which isn´t that much but the main prob is that dazzling got buffed with the duration of the vulnerability were u allways have about 10-20 stacks up so thats another 10-20% more dmg.

So adding the 10% from might and the vulnerability % makes the shatters do so much more dmg.

befor patch 2.7k max now it hits for 3.5k

I regulary have 4-6k shatters in wvwvw and I dont use the exploit. Best I had is 6,4k x 3 but thats with 2 clones up not 3. But same time yesterday My sword nr 2 got my first ingame 10k hit on a thief.

/Osicat

Does empowered Illusions (Illusions inflict 15% more damage) effect our clone shatter?

Also this bug you mention – you refer to simply shattering for might stacks while the other shatter bomb clones are en route? if so that does not really seem like a bug- or am i missing something?

Ellis.8562:

Does empowered Illusions (Illusions inflict 15% more damage) effect our clone shatter?

Also this bug you mention – you refer to simply shattering for might stacks while the other shatter bomb clones are en route? if so that does not really seem like a bug- or am i missing something?

Pretty sure Empowered Illusions only refers to the damage the illusion does with its attacks, so shatters aren’t affected.

And the bug is done like this- create 3 illusions at distance, shatter them. Now quickly generate more illusions before they explode. The game will apparently check the number of illusions at the time of damage dealt, not the activation of the shatter, giving you more than the normal maximum of 4 illusions shattered (illusionary persona!). So instead of getting damage for 4 illusions shattered on your mind wrack, you can get the damage that 6 illusions would have hit for.