Guild Wars 2

Hello all,
So I assume there’s no need to explain IC nerf, I guess everybody knows it by now.
So the thing is : the nerf may be justified for sPvP, I don’t know since I’m not a specialist of HL tournaments. Regarding WvW, maybe though I think it’s not.
But now the question : while it was announced that further pve/pvp split would happen, why wasn’t it applied here ?
Though this might help build diversity in PvP (I don’t know), one thing is sure : it absolutely does not help diversity, on the contrary.
Of course, there has been a nice buff on phantasm HP, as well as a slight one to that of clones.
However, the problem is that it did not only allow to summon clones/phantasms more often, it also allowed to have access more reliably to utility/CC/survival tools.
What is hit by this :
Phase Retreat (escape + leap combo)
Illusionary Leap (cripple/vulnerability + immobilize + leap)
Blade Mirror (might to allies and vulnerability to ennemies)
Illusionary Counter (I personally don’t use this weapon but it’s cool for the block effect)
Illusionary Riposte (block)
These are the worst. Then come the utility skills, though I think we could live without :
Decoy
Mirror Images

Finally, the phantasms, who are mainly for damage, with a few exceptions :
Phantasmal Defender (damage reduction)
Phantasmal Disenchanter (useless … sorry, I mean cure conditions/remove boons)
Phantasmal Warden (anti projectiles)
Mage (confusion/retaliation)
Berserker (damage only)
Duellist (damage only)
Warlock (damage only)
Swordsman (damage only)
Mariner (damage)
Whaler (damage)

So the thing is, there’s plenty of skills affected by this, while some should not have.
I would like to know if the aim was to nerf uptime of phantasms only, or if nerf to utility/survival/CC was intended as well.
If it’s the first case, a solution might be found :

1) Keep as is but reduce CD from anything spawning clones/utility and not necessarily phantasms (20% for clones, 0% for phantasms)
2) Same as above but with 20% clones, 10% phantasms, but would maybe make phantasms OP ?
3) Revert the change. Make IC only affect CD from clones and not phantasms.
4) Same as above + Add an effect while traiting for illusion to reduce CD of phantasms (from 0% to 20%)

Now, considering the intention was to nerf everything, keep PvE out of it :
5) Revert the change in PvE only (I assume it would be too hard and does not fit the “only numbers difference” policy towards the splitting PvE/PvP
6) Reduce base CD of either clones/utility and not phantasms. Fix a minimum CD to prevent stacking both traits to be used : phantasms stay “nerfed” but utilites are more usable and can be improved by only weapon traits or only IC , thus allowing more diversty
7) Same as above but apply on phantasms as well the CD reduction

That’s about it. Discuss
Would love to see Anet explaining this move but I’m not holding my breath …

118 views annd no answer. What’s wrong with my thread ? Is it too difficult to understand ? Not interesting for you ?
Would like some feedback, I know some of the ideas are pretty bad (but could be a baseline) but others can be good ..

pretty much everything u wrote up here has already been repeated and commented upon 50 times since the patch. It’s just… tiresome to reply the same thing to the same thread over and over again xD

To OP, you’ll get used to the increased CDs eventually like me since I never use IC in my build.

there are plenty reasons to revert the change for pve….

But the sad truth is that they NEVER cared for pve balance…

The pvp team just comes up with some sort of minimum split achievenig NOTHING (and who works for PvE knows that already) just to pretend they do something.

I don t remember any other pve mmorpg with such poor balance as this.

pretty much everything u wrote up here has already been repeated and commented upon 50 times since the patch. It’s just… tiresome to reply the same thing to the same thread over and over again xD

I read all threads in this mesmer forum. Haven’t seen a single thread dealing with it in a constructive way. Only saw some “this is BS, just revert” posts here and there …

To OP, you’ll get used to the increased CDs eventually like me since I never use IC in my build.

The problem is not only that. The problem is that it might be overnerf (if the aim was to only nerf phantasms’ CD) or that PvE is nerfed because of PvP … yet again, whereas they told they would be more pve/pvp split.

KratosAngel.7289:

pretty much everything u wrote up here has already been repeated and commented upon 50 times since the patch. It’s just… tiresome to reply the same thing to the same thread over and over again xD

I read all threads in this mesmer forum. Haven’t seen a single thread dealing with it in a constructive way. Only saw some “this is BS, just revert” posts here and there …

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/A-Formal-Complaint-Take-2/first

cheers~

IC has always been there since forever..
it helps early mesmer lvls. and we took it for granted.
many people than fear the power of the mesmer, and anet answer their calls
we got nerf over and over again.
some of those nerfs.. are the increase cooldown on all phantasm summons and some of em are increase cooldown in phantasm attacks.
we mesmer manage to get through each and every one of those nerfs..
because IC have always been a crutch to soften its pain. from nerfs after nerfs.
and the devs always nerfs us with IC in mind. and expect all builds take it by default.
now.. they taken IC from most builds. the IC that always been there for us. but they left the compilation of cooldown nerfs intact.
while i think that phantasm health increase gives us some edge, it wont cover the empty spot that IC has opened.
now.. we are forced to part with IC in most of other builds.

keenlam.4753:

To OP, you’ll get used to the increased CDs eventually like me since I never use IC in my build.

I didn’t have it in two of the three builds I played frequently pre-patch.
And honestly, with the increased HP I really really don’t mind it. Yes, faster can be better, but I would rather have them do a pass on Clone/Illusion CDs vs Shatter-usage (especially for non-shatter-specs!) as a whole.

Not some crutch -20% CD trait for all specs.

XRay.1920:

KratosAngel.7289:

pretty much everything u wrote up here has already been repeated and commented upon 50 times since the patch. It’s just… tiresome to reply the same thing to the same thread over and over again xD

I read all threads in this mesmer forum. Haven’t seen a single thread dealing with it in a constructive way. Only saw some “this is BS, just revert” posts here and there …

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/A-Formal-Complaint-Take-2/first

cheers~

I don’t see any suggestion here, only complaint, and not focused on this subject.

Would like to see this mentionned during the SotG.
If people have other suggestions/remarks

To be honest, the problem is in the general skill CDs and/or the staying power of our clones (not only the phantasms). Not in IC. IC being so mandatory is a symptom, not the issue behind it.

Yup, I kinda agree, that’s why I suggested especially a reduction on the initial CDs of the skills.
I guess best would even be to take it out and reduce CD accordingly and build a whole new trait, but won’t happen.

I’d really like if we’d lose the CD reductions on weapon skills, too. I’d rather have them baked in (maybe reduced to 15% or so, then), and have something weapon-unique on the weapon skills.

Not just -20% CD and +X stat. Something like other classes get with +range, +crit, or we could get more funky things like Scepter spawning 2 clones on Ether Clone.

KratosAngel.7289:

I don’t see any suggestion here, only complaint, and not focused on this subject.

because the only possible suggestion is the one asked since forever?

SPLIT PVE and PVP

And still is ignored.
That s why we can t do much more than complaining seeing how they destroy PvE when a simple easy solution is at hand

Carighan.6758:

Not just -20% CD and +X stat. Something like other classes get with +range, +crit, or we could get more funky things like Scepter spawning 2 clones on Ether Clone.

Like ranger’s longbow traits? Oh, wait, please no.

would ahve been enough to put it on 15point minor, or even change it with a weak 20point master, but 25minor just shows me tbh that they dont have a clue about the strength and weaknesses and the interaction of mesmertraits IN PRACTICE.

im sure 20point at least wouldve the same effect of “sacrificing something elsewhere” to get that trait. 15point wouldve been a more mild change for testing purposes, but hey
it must be 500% and 25point mastertrait…

LordByron.8369:

KratosAngel.7289:

I don’t see any suggestion here, only complaint, and not focused on this subject.

because the only possible suggestion is the one asked since forever?

SPLIT PVE and PVP

And still is ignored.
That s why we can t do much more than complaining seeing how they destroy PvE when a simple easy solution is at hand

Except they said the split would not give different functions. They said they wanted a slight difference, like only numbers (damage, CD etc …).
That’s why the solution to simply revert to what it was before in PvE does not correspond to that, and that’s why I suggested other ideas possible according to this.

Yes that is why they are failing so HARD

1st they never split traits and CD……
2nd there is no reason for such a coherence.

PvP is not made of total noobs but of a very very very small Group of people that CAN ACTUALLY try whatever they want at 0 cost before fighting

They even have a testing environment and is a short duration game finished wich they can change whatever they want.

Try to think what whack a mole nerfs are doing instead to PvE players forcing them to get new armor, new weapons or even new professions because nerf took away the fun (some mechanics are what makes playing a profession fun, you can t adapt to a BORING gameplay).

That is infact to prevent to screw PvE/www players with PvP nerfs.

Do you think they should lose players in PvP due to that?
I don t but even that i wonder if they realize how many PVE WWW players lost due to that instead.

Nobody would complain of the lack of coherence (on the contrary would be more longevity with different mechanics) while we would have finally a BALANCE across the gamemodes.

We got nothing in this update.
Knowing that, though it was asked, this point was not mentionned during SotG, do you think we’ll be heard or will we be kittened ?

Until they say they will look at pve balance
as an ex elementalist player i just think you shouldn t even hope they will remotely care.

The issue with PvE balance is largely that a PvP-focused player won’t understand why PvE balance will be relevant.

On top of that, a WoW-style-raid-player won’t understand why 1-for-1 balance for PvE power isn’t a good idea unless you also got WoW’s raiding game.

its not about balance, its about build variety mainly designing around the obviously most relevant and interesting thing in gw2: movement and awareness.
i dont think theres any damageproblem in pve at all in gw2, with no class. if so, people dumped down class abilites to its lame wow-core (tank and spank, then compare dmg output…) and then complain about it.

its not a balance issue, its a variety/design issue.

Hrm, I’d argue that variety is a necessary end result of intra-system balance.

If I have two traits, one is substantially stronger and covers 90% of the situations of the other one, and I cannot fully control the situation, I won’t pick the weaker one, sorry.
Likewise if I have one trait I can get with an investment of 5 points and another I need 30 points for in a line which’s stats and other traits I don’t need, and both are of the same power to my setup, I will not pick the 30-point one.

To get “full” build diversity, we’d need perfect per-trait-situation-cost/benefit balance (this is not the same as all traits being of the same power, and that is an important difference!), and one of these two:

• All traitlines are about adding the concept of the trait line (say Support for Inspiration) onto abilities not already synergizing with the trait line. I.e.: the condition damage line Illusions adds condition damage effects to say, the Sword and Greatsword.
• All traitlines are fully self-contained, i.e.: all traits and weapon traits concerning condition damage in any way shape or form are in Illusions.

As Hardloop said, it has nothing to do with pve balance. Here, we’re talking about Pve (and WvW) nerfed because of PvP, which is pretty much unfair.
And it’s more about variety and maybe “quality of life” if one could say so. Standing with the weapon set stuck spamming #1 when you could use other skills before is frustrating.
Furthermore, what worsens it is the fact that weapons were designed to work with this trait, we got used to playing like this for around 1 whole year !!! And suddenly “ho we realised it was OP, go nerf”.
If it had been nerfed from the beginning, it would have been understandable but, since it was balanced with this trait picked in mind, it’s now drifted apart …

You gotta realize one thing: Ranger and warrior got the same treatment.

For ranger, there was simply no reason, not to go 5 points in beastmastery for that quickness boost, so it got moved to the top of the traitline(now a 30 point trait).

For Warrior, it was similar, the Bonusdamage and Bonuscrit on full adren was way too strong for being 10 points traits, especially in how these 10 point traits fundamentally changed the way, people used adrenaline(or rather didn’t use it at all). So they both got moved to be 30 point traits now. Warrior was the most needed change. 10 point traits should NEVER change the way, you play your class to such a degree. Impact on playstyle is reserved for the grandmaster traits.

Now there is Mesmer:
Same story as Ranger: A 5 point trait, which is so good, there is no reason, not to get it. Every single build had at least 5 points down the illusion line.

I don’t know whether pushing it up this far was really necessary. Maybe as a 15 point trait, it might have been enough.
On the other hand, this change might actually make some room for an overall cooldown improvement on skills such as decoy, because the corresponding cooldown trait is not omnipresent anymore.

Your comparison with Warrior does not make sense. As you said yourself, these traits for warriors were insanely OP in the first place and have always been there. Furthermore, this “nerf” was balanced with buffs to the burst abilities (F1), which actually helped create a lot of diversity.
Since warriors were OP in PvE, they did not really get hurt and in PvP … not very much either, especially since they earned new survivability tools.

Now let’s take the ranger. Sure it was a good trait, it affected your pet and you for a few seconds with a CD. It provided an overall increase without condition.
However, the case of mesmer IC is different. It basically nerfed the CD of phantasms (probably intended provided the buff to HP), but also a nerf to CD of clones (which already got a nerf on HP except in PvE) and, above all, a nerf to utilites/CC/survival associated with clone/phantasm creation.
Now THAT hurts so much harder. It’s basically a whole gameplay that is affected by the update, especially that of ALL the weapons.
When you take all this into account, the things are totally different.
And, once again, we’re not talking about sPvP here, but about PvE so ….

Alright,
Sorry to bump this old thread but it’s still relevant today.
We’ve seen through weeks/months that this nerf was not only damaging for mesmer in PvE but also in PvP : mesmer is now pretty lagging behind in the current meta.
Since the next update, coming on 20th, will probably include some balancing, what do you guys expect ?
Do you hope some of these suggestions will be applied ?
Knowing that the problem right now is conditions, a few things that could be done :
- nerfing other classes (especially conditions) : ok-ish, but still screws us
- buffing anti condition from the mesmer : I could see this happening, but probably failing as it would probably only be linked to shatter spec (shattered conditions for instance) … failing even more to bring diversity, since we apparently have to play shatter spec
- buffing damage/CC to be allowed to counter those bursts : I can’t see this coming
- buff pretty useless traits/skills : probably what will come … like the Signet of Domination buff that did not change anything, but at least it’s a buff

KratosAngel.7289:

Finally, the phantasms, who are mainly for damage, with a few exceptions :
Phantasmal Defender (damage reduction)
Phantasmal Disenchanter (useless … sorry, I mean cure conditions/remove boons)
Phantasmal Warden (anti projectiles)
Mage (confusion/retaliation)
Berserker (damage only)
Duellist (damage only)
Warlock (damage only)
Swordsman (damage only)
Mariner (damage)
Whaler (damage)

Phantasmal Defender (damage reduction)- for everyone
Phantasmal Disenchanter (useless … sorry, I mean cure conditions/remove boons)- amazing for boon ripping especially not useless just situational
Phantasmal Warden (anti projectiles)- pretty good damage if on a stationary target as well
Mage (confusion/retaliation)- removes conditions on bounce if traited
Berserker (damage only) and cripple which is amazing.
Duellist (damage only)- this ones correct
Warlock (damage only) – this one too
Swordsman (damage only) – leap finisher for itself. ^^ I mean its something.
Mariner (damage)- true
Whaler (damage) – confusion on hits.

I would love my IC back where it as for PvE though ^^

Honestly, I don’t miss the trait at all. It is too strong for a 5-pointer.

Do we need lower illusion CDs? Yes, especially on clones. Yet at the same time, we also need a change to DE then, because otherwise shatter-play would again become too strong.
In other words, move clone-generation power from DE to baseline. This also buffs Shatter slightly for non-shatter builds.

Knowing that mesmer was balanced around having this trait, I fail to see how it was too strong for 5 points …
I see what you mean, but what I mean is, as you say and as suggested in OP, this change needs rework, the trait of some phantasms and especially of clones needs to be lowered according to the nerf …

I don’t think we were consciously balanced around having it. Neither did it feel like we were. I mean I can say that I feel too weak trying to play a non-DE Shatter spec without it, but that’s generally not useful input.

I feel adequate playing a Phantasm-spec without it, same goes for a non-pure-Shatter-spec when having DE.

On the opposite, I think we were.
When you look at it, balancing was always made without touching it. Mesmer was still very powerful yeah, but not OP (only talking about shatter spec of course).
After that big update, some classes were offered new gameplays, especially warriors who became interesting (the nerf to Berserker Power and the other were waaay acceptable due to tons of buffs everywhere to survivability).
But when you look at it, instead of providing more diversity, it reduced it even more : only shatter spec is truly viable now, even more than before, since it was the only spec unnerfed (except Blurred Frenzy), all other specs were hit hard by the nerf bat.
Now, as you can see, mesmer has not truly its place in PvP. Maybe not entirely because of IC nerf, because of the condition meta, but IC nerf plays a part in it anyway.
The thing is, the buffs mesmer received were absolutely not enough to make up for the IC nerf outside of shatter spec.
Without mentionning that tons of clones/phantasm summons did not deserve a nerf on CD.
I can obviously see the nerf needed to Duellist, maybe to Berserker, but that’s it …

Now that GW2 is officially moving to Esport, this really has to be adressed.

Honestly, it’s now a month since that change, and I haven’t noticed an adverse effect. Interrupt-specs, Shatter-specs, Phantasms-builds, Buff Bots, Tanky specs, non-shatter condition specs, they’re all here, and they’re all going strong.

I don’t see where it reduced diversity at all. Frankly, I think it worked, no more forced-5-in-Illusions. It opened up a lot more experimentation with setups such as 20/20/30 or 20/0/30/20, or 10/30 combinations.

Carighan.6758:

Honestly, it’s now a month since that change, and I haven’t noticed an adverse effect. Interrupt-specs, Shatter-specs, Phantasms-builds, Buff Bots, Tanky specs, non-shatter condition specs, they’re all here, and they’re all going strong.

Where? Heard pax had no mesmers at all, I’m getting banned outta my guild tourney party because mesmers are not meta enough and most hotjoin heroes are running prismatic or phantasm trollspecs.

Oooh, sPvP/tPvP. Sorry, was thinking GW2. Also, thread title. :P

Interrupt, buff bots, tanky specs, non-shatter condition specs… in… pve?

Are you serious?

Actually, title says “revert in PvE” or “rework” so it does include PvP as well depending on the need.
However, this was intended to more PvE oriented yeah.
And I fail to see how removing 5 points from a place to put them elsewhere change everything in matter of diversity …. If it were a 15/20/25 trait, yeah absolutely but that was just to screw mesmers, especially in PvE (hello phantasm … AOE ! bye phantasm, see you much later now due to IC nerf ..)

I bet they don’t even think about consequences in pve, just like with blurred frenzy that now can be interrupted mid-cast.

Winds.3087:

Interrupt, buff bots, tanky specs, non-shatter condition specs… in… pve?

Have you seen the recent threads about used specs? I was surprised by it too, but diversity is going up, not down.
Same seems mirrored ingame, I see a lot more interrupt or condition players run around. Sure, maybe it’s a WvW focused build but they’re happily running instances with them so it seems they found their spec of choice.

It may not be optimal, but if I wanted optimal I’d need to ask arena to give me 150 trait points in the first place, anything else would be suboptimal by default.

Net result is, players are speccing more different specs. This makes sense, as before even the most non-caring of players would have realized that 5 in Illusions was something you couldn’t argue. Not in any way. Now, at 25 points, it becomes much easier to argue that you lose too much of your spec to go for it.

And hence, more players do different specs. That’s the thing, we lost power, but we freed up points in the process. The thought process to argue the lost points is based on the idea that a) you want to keep the trait and b) you definitely want to keep the trait.
In min/max-ing scenarios, this might be true. At least for mixed situations.
However, few players min/max, and I somehow doubt that the top 5% of Mesmer players all speccing one way was enough statistical divergence for ANet to step in and move the trait in the first place.

Can’t think of any situation in pve where such builds will be doing their job better than full berserker phantasm or shatter.

So we agree, then?

What, about diversity going up? Our build diversity was fake since release.

And each patch we saw lessened it piece by piece.