[WS] Mesmer Mag
Illusionary Reversion nerf?
Theres a common attitude amongst pvp players that anything that allows Mesmers to create illusions, thus make use of their worthwhile skills and traits is, OP.
This attitude is not shared with initiative, adrenaline or deathshroud.
It was just too much spam, I agree with nerfing it
A bit hard to judge the exact impact, but this is definitely pretty heavy nerf to condition mesmer.
Power mesmer gets some buff but well continue being unviable because of the sole existence of thief.
Yea, thief will still shut down power mesmer hard. They got their evade spam nerfed again in PvP, but put in decent buffs to thief’s ability to apply poison and to a weapon every thief is already always running (seriously, that’s a really strange weapon to buff on thief. I get that they wanted it to be used for more than mobility, but at the same time, its already so kitten good that every single build runs it, so why not do something else instead of buffing it).
Bright side is that potent poison now might compete with improvisation, which means thieves might only be able to use consume plasma once per steal.
Power mesmer gets some buff but well continue being unviable because of the sole existence of thief.
And the likely resurgence of condi rev, new masters of torment.
Kortham Raysplitter (Yak’s Bend)
Dunno if it was actually buffed or nerfed. Lets see:
Buffs to power:
-Mind Wrack: Increased damage of 2 illusion shatter by 3% per strike. Increased damage of 3 illusion shatter by 4% per strike.
-Cry of Frustration: Increased damage by 15%.
Overall nerfs:
-Tides of Time: The casting time of this skill has been increased from 0.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds.
- Continuum Split: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 90 seconds to 105 seconds in PvP only.
- Illusionary Reversion: Increased required illusions shattered to 3.
The power buffs are just to make it look like mesmer didn’t just get absolutely $h@t on this patch which we did. Power mesmer will never be viable this expansion, condi anything will $h@t all over it. Anet can say “hey we didn’t nerf mesmer completely!” but they are buffing a playstyle that won’t be competitive at all because it has no condi cleanse, and you sacrifice far too much as a power mesmer to go into inspiration, you might as well stay condi.
Illusionary Mesmer
[oof] Crystal Desert
[oof] Crystal Desert
(edited by Aitadis.8269)
Add to the nerfs list:
GS4 will reveal you
“random buff”
GS4 will add vulnerability xD
and OFC !!! Well of Precognition… cough cough casting time reduced to 0.5
can easily add more to the nerfs list by the way, things like less alacrity duration and less healing.
There are more options for shattering when playing a condition build versus power. Because of this, Illusionary Reversion impacts condition builds relatively more. Combined with the changes to core shatter traits, this levels the playing field between the two and more importantly (for Anet) opens up some wiggle room for the new elite specialization to compete.
Basically mesmer got dumped on in WvW roaming.
Wow this talent made chrono so fun and addressed the annoying clone consistency. This is a pretty big nerf for pve and pvp. Now many situations you need to weapon swap sooner, it totally changes your openers and rotation in many situation.
The nerf to Illusionary Reversion wasn’t needed. They could have just removed the second phantasm from Echo of Memory and then most of the “clone spam” would be immediately addressed without the need to drag other weapon sets through the gutter. This would also solve the issue with Chronophantasma as you would no longer have a single phantasm skill producing four illusions.
Gandara
As a gs, sw/t PU power roamer, this patch pooped all over me ;(
It’s the beginning of nerfs to prepare everyone to shift to Mirage and buy the next expansion.
I’m expecting Chrono to get some gutting sadly. :/
The nerf to Illusionary Reversion wasn’t needed. They could have just removed the second phantasm from Echo of Memory and then most of the “clone spam” would be immediately addressed without the need to drag other weapon sets through the gutter. This would also solve the issue with Chronophantasma as you would no longer have a single phantasm skill producing four illusions.
I agree, they could have reduced the shield recharge to be on par with other classes and removed the 2nd block to bring it in line while increasing the block duration.
It’s the beginning of nerfs to prepare everyone to shift to Mirage and buy the next expansion.
I’m expecting Chrono to get some gutting sadly. :/
I’d agree with you if every class was nerfed this patch. But they weren’t. Overperforming things were nerfed (IR, thief evade spam, warrior sustain uptime etc…), but a lot of things were still buffed across several classes. I honestly think ANet is just trying to normalize the capabilities of every class, and just missed the mark a bit on mesmer.
I don’t really play that much mesmer, but yes, this nerf was completely uncalled for.
Tbh though, I wouldn’t be surprised, if the reasoning behind this was to make Scepter-builds (for Condi) and Dueling traitline (for Power) more desirable as well…After all a nerf to Chronomancer traits feels like a stealth-buff for other clone-generating skills to me.
Nerfing the Illusionary Reversion trait is really a reduction to sustain in PvP as mesmers use their shatters not only for damage, but also it’s their main form of condi cleanse and a secondary form of healing with Healing Prism and Restorative Illusion traits in the Inspiration line.
Shatter damage was buffed in part to make up for the loss of clone creation. Healing and condition removal was not.
From my experience so far after the patch, it’s not a minor nerf.
With all of the AoE, illusions don’t last very long. It’s much harder to trigger this trait now.
(edited by SaltAndLight.4652)
^^ Yup, unfortunately I just started playing mes two days ago, was really enjoying it until the patch, noticed the difference straight away. The sustain is just gone now like you said you’re relying on the upkeep of 3 clones now, which on sw/sc and staff you lose one clone on your first rotation and its gg. I like where the patch was heading with removing pulses to introduce new counter play but the nerf to the only viable mesmer build was just a bit OTT.
Correct me if I’m wrong but have they completely destroyed staff now? I really am unsure of what to play now as off hand sword seems like the only way to make up for sustain?
^^ ….
Correct me if I’m wrong but have they completely destroyed staff now? I really am unsure of what to play now as off hand sword seems like the only way to make up for sustain?
You can take sword off hand. sword has good illusion spam on much lower cd than shield ( at max 16 secs ) . But you have the bad side that shield skills are better … so another way is to trade , for example blink for something else … (phantasmal desenchanter or defender ..) So i see 3 different kind of nerf on this :
– lose shield for sword offhand ( heavy loss on defense and offense too …)
– lose stunbreak and mobility
– don’t change nothing and lose sustain and damage togegher …
The “good” side of taking sword offhand is that you can quite easily trade illusionary reversion with Improved alacrity and all the cd chagnes
Yea, thief will still shut down power mesmer hard. They got their evade spam nerfed again in PvP, but put in decent buffs to thief’s ability to apply poison and to a weapon every thief is already always running (seriously, that’s a really strange weapon to buff on thief. I get that they wanted it to be used for more than mobility, but at the same time, its already so kitten good that every single build runs it, so why not do something else instead of buffing it).
Bright side is that potent poison now might compete with improvisation, which means thieves might only be able to use consume plasma once per steal.
It wasn’t used because it was good, it was used solely for mobility, when a Weapon has one skill 90% being he only skill used besides the rare chance needing to cleave a down with poison , the weapon was so under performing, now it has a decent buff to it that can make it be useful besides just to run away.
I know why it was used, but that doesn’t change anything. It is still a weapon that was already used 100% of the time on thieves. Dev time would have been better spent making SB5 on thieves not so mandatory for them somehow (preferably by adding some of that mobility to other weapon sets somehow). As it stands though, that was a straight up buff to every thief, since every single one will still be running SB all the time
I know why it was used, but that doesn’t change anything. It is still a weapon that was already used 100% of the time on thieves. Dev time would have been better spent making SB5 on thieves not so mandatory for them somehow (preferably by adding some of that mobility to other weapon sets somehow). As it stands though, that was a straight up buff to every thief, since every single one will still be running SB all the time
I think their time would have been better spent removing shortbow 5 from the game entirely. Then figure out wtf they want shortbow to be, a condi or a power weapon and roll with that. Right now it’s some weird hybrid that doesn’t really do any of it well but makes up for it all with an insane gtfo button.
This nerf for power mesmer is like….go dueling or gtfo…..RIP.
I know why it was used, but that doesn’t change anything. It is still a weapon that was already used 100% of the time on thieves. Dev time would have been better spent making SB5 on thieves not so mandatory for them somehow (preferably by adding some of that mobility to other weapon sets somehow). As it stands though, that was a straight up buff to every thief, since every single one will still be running SB all the time
Oh no a weapon that had no uses besides gtfo or die and was never used for any of its other skills, I wonder what you would do if Mesmer had to take a second weaponset that didn’t have anything other than one Skill that was useful and was never actually used for combat. Again it was a buff to an underperforming weapon which is good, because now Thieves have an option for the weapon instead of being locked into a useless weapon for 9 seconds.
Theif barely got hit at all, all they lost was one dodge and a tiny bit of damage on PI. The sigils mean nothing because everyone lost them. Compare the nerf of mesmer and theif and they have completely wrecked mesmer. Thinking about it now, it makes absolutely no sense to nerf condition mesmer but buff the ridiculous sniper power build, that is not counter play whatsoever.
I’m pretty gutted to be honest I was really enjoying mesmer and thought I had found my new carry build.
I know why it was used, but that doesn’t change anything. It is still a weapon that was already used 100% of the time on thieves. Dev time would have been better spent making SB5 on thieves not so mandatory for them somehow (preferably by adding some of that mobility to other weapon sets somehow). As it stands though, that was a straight up buff to every thief, since every single one will still be running SB all the time
I think their time would have been better spent removing shortbow 5 from the game entirely. Then figure out wtf they want shortbow to be, a condi or a power weapon and roll with that. Right now it’s some weird hybrid that doesn’t really do any of it well but makes up for it all with an insane gtfo button.
I can get behind this as well.
Nerfing the Illusionary Reversion trait is really a reduction to sustain in PvP as mesmers use their shatters not only for damage, but also it’s their main form of condi cleanse and a secondary form of healing with Healing Prism and Restorative Illusion traits in the Inspiration line.
Shatter damage was buffed in part to make up for the loss of clone creation. Healing and condition removal was not.
From my experience so far after the patch, it’s not a minor nerf.
With all of the AoE, illusions don’t last very long. It’s much harder to trigger this trait now.
Exactly, getting off 2 illusions without a swap and having options, and building up that sustain. Now with how easily illusions can die, if one is destroyed early you have to wait or weapon swap right away. All the openers have changed, the WHOLE playstyle of chrono is different. Maintaining 3 instead of 2 is gigantic. On top of that, like you said, the cleanses, healing consistency all gone but for me the actual gameplay and consistence of clones which made me love this spec is gone. That whole trait was nearly carrying the whole spec. Sure it’s still fine, but the playstyle is just back to what it was like before chrono.
The cleanses haven’t been changed at all, its 1 cleanse per shatter, not per illusion.
The cleanses haven’t been changed at all, its 1 cleanse per shatter, not per illusion.
Yeah, it’s actually the healing you’re losing when you cant upkeep illusionary reversion. Now you just have to shatter without illusions to remove condi pressure.
They’ve basically slowed the build down drastically. In a 1v1 it’s not so bad because you can combo to keep 3 illusions up but now in team fights or 1vX the aoe’s just destroy your sustain so you’re forced to rotate.
If anything if they were going to nerf illusionary reversion they should have decreased the CD on CS instead of increasing it.
The nerf to shield 5 was just a little cherry on top to add to destroying the build.
The cleanses haven’t been changed at all, its 1 cleanse per shatter, not per illusion.
Yeah, it’s actually the healing you’re losing when you cant upkeep illusionary reversion. Now you just have to shatter without illusions to remove condi pressure.
They’ve basically slowed the build down drastically. In a 1v1 it’s not so bad because you can combo to keep 3 illusions up but now in team fights or 1vX the aoe’s just destroy your sustain so you’re forced to rotate.
If anything if they were going to nerf illusionary reversion they should have decreased the CD on CS instead of increasing it.
The nerf to shield 5 was just a little cherry on top to add to destroying the build.
It is hard nerf combined with shield 5 and continuum split nerf. But we don’t get destroyed as much as warrior/DH/druid.
The compensation we get through mind wrack damage, cry of frustration damage and mind wrack crit chance actually gives the build more power burst than before. So what happens now is we need to rethink the way we burst and play smarter.
DP thief is over the top now and we can’t compete against them. But compared to other dps specs, chrono is still strong and unique.
Lol at the “compensation” via “buffs” to MW and CoF
The cleanses haven’t been changed at all, its 1 cleanse per shatter, not per illusion.
Yeah, it’s actually the healing you’re losing when you cant upkeep illusionary reversion. Now you just have to shatter without illusions to remove condi pressure.
They’ve basically slowed the build down drastically. In a 1v1 it’s not so bad because you can combo to keep 3 illusions up but now in team fights or 1vX the aoe’s just destroy your sustain so you’re forced to rotate.
If anything if they were going to nerf illusionary reversion they should have decreased the CD on CS instead of increasing it.
The nerf to shield 5 was just a little cherry on top to add to destroying the build.
It is hard nerf combined with shield 5 and continuum split nerf. But we don’t get destroyed as much as warrior/DH/druid.
The compensation we get through mind wrack damage, cry of frustration damage and mind wrack crit chance actually gives the build more power burst than before. So what happens now is we need to rethink the way we burst and play smarter.
DP thief is over the top now and we can’t compete against them. But compared to other dps specs, chrono is still strong and unique.
Yeah warrior got hit hard too. But considering warrior was in a fairly good place I saw this coming, although the amount of hits it took was unfair I will say. Pulsing stability is one thing, but everything is, well, everything.
DH barely got hit. True shot is a gimmick IMO. If you’re running symbolic might stacker with sc/sh sw/fc then the patch barely makes a difference as your counter classes have all been nerfed. You can still run strength runes and battle and stack up loads of might. Overall DH is probably in a better place now, especially considering its condi cleanse.
I agree that DP is now OTT though, the fact that you could easily kill warriors and druids before with skillfull play just shows how stupid the patch is, now you can PI and remove stability from warrior in zerk mode stopping him ressing and stomping AND he he does less damage to you. Ridiculous.
What Anette has really done is made theif an unstoppable mobile sniper by destroying every other class in the process….
It’s the beginning of nerfs to prepare everyone to shift to Mirage and buy the next expansion.
I’m expecting Chrono to get some gutting sadly. :/
I’d agree with you if every class was nerfed this patch. But they weren’t. Overperforming things were nerfed (IR, thief evade spam, warrior sustain uptime etc…), but a lot of things were still buffed across several classes. I honestly think ANet is just trying to normalize the capabilities of every class, and just missed the mark a bit on mesmer.
I wish I could believe that. History tends to suggest otherwise.
This is why I’ll be waiting a few months to buy any expansion. My prediction is that the new Mesmer elite will be great until the first buying flurry ends. Then it will suffer a series of nerfs.
Mesmerising Girl
(edited by Ithilwen.1529)
I don’t blame you for thinking that.
Also remember that I didn’t start playing until HoT dropped. I didn’t experience the round of class nerfs that came before HoT, so I’m not quite as jaded as some of you are. But, considering that they moved to an expansion based model, and considering how poorly received the insane powercreep was with HoT, I’d be surprised if Anet did the same thing again.
Will the next round of elite specs be more powerful? In all likelihood, yes. Will they be as broken as HoT specs were at launch? I highly doubt it. Which means the resulting nerfs shouldn’t be nearly as harsh as they were with these first elite specs.
Plus, remember that Anet took a lot more time to design these next elite specs. They won’t be half-baked ideas (I honestly believe that to be one of the reason they were so broken at release. To help cover up that their designs weren’t completely finished).
I think Anet clearly knows that many people in the population don’t want power creep. There were a lot of complaints about the elite specs not being balanced with the core specs. I believe it is most likely that the new elite specs will be balanced closely with the old ones-only having different specialties or play styles. Now, of course there will still be nerfs and balance issues when they first come out, but that is just because they would be nearly impossible to balance perfectly without seeing them in action first.
Lägertha Lothbrök: PvE Mesmer
Schrödingers Clone: PvP Mesmer
Schrödingers Clone: PvP Mesmer
The cleanses haven’t been changed at all, its 1 cleanse per shatter, not per illusion.
Good point. I stand corrected.
This is definitely an “intended nerf” to Condition Mesmer. That being said, I haven’t found it to be that devastating overall. I’m currently using Improved Alacrity instead which has given me quicker use of my non-clone skills/utilities. Overall net 0 in terms of Condi Mesmer imo. I’m actually using Dueling with Deceptive Evasion and loving the change.
For Dps Mesmers, I think this was a net negative in terms of nerfs/buffs… There were other buffs that for DPS Mesmer that can be discussed in another thread.
https://www.twitch.tv/thatcho
“The jealous are troublesome to others, but certainly a torment to themselves.”
“The jealous are troublesome to others, but certainly a torment to themselves.”
I wonder what you would do if Mesmer had to take a second weaponset that didn’t have anything other than one Skill that was useful and was never actually used for combat.
You mean Staff?
I wonder what you would do if Mesmer had to take a second weaponset that didn’t have anything other than one Skill that was useful and was never actually used for combat.
You mean Staff?
You mean the weapon that actually has more useful things than Shortbow on Thief?
This is the mesmer forum. Who cares about thief?
1 skill isn’t a bigger number then 1 skill
I wonder what you would do if Mesmer had to take a second weaponset that didn’t have anything other than one Skill that was useful and was never actually used for combat.
You mean Staff?
You mean the weapon that actually has more useful things than Shortbow on Thief?
Yeah, how can we forget about that 30s CD chaos armour and iWarlock who can’t hit the broadside of a barn!
Make no mistake, phase retreat and chaos storm are pretty much the only reasons you take staff on mesmer just as much as infiltrators arrow and choking gas to slow revives while providing some ranged cleave is why you have SB on thief.
This is the mesmer forum. Who cares about thief?
Thieves have been coming here for the past 5 years to complain about how OP Mesmer is in every mode and how abused and underloved thief is.
I’ve traded my staff for Scepter/Sword and taken Improved Alacrity instead of Illusionary Reversion.
2 blocks, 1 hard hitting phantasm, confusion beam, and clone generation.
I’ve traded my staff for Scepter/Sword and taken Improved Alacrity instead of Illusionary Reversion.
2 blocks, 1 hard hitting phantasm, confusion beam, and clone generation.
Without staff you lose phase retreat that for me it is a must have. Try meta with sword sword … same build … it is strong as hell.
Even with the buffs to sword 4 and scepter 2 and huge damage of scepter 3 and fast illusion generation… I still prefer staff because it plays a lot “smoother”.
Phase retreat is such a powerful mobility skill that even though the rest of the weapon is mediocre it’s still beneficial to use.
I don’t blame you for thinking that.
Also remember that I didn’t start playing until HoT dropped. I didn’t experience the round of class nerfs that came before HoT, so I’m not quite as jaded as some of you are. But, considering that they moved to an expansion based model, and considering how poorly received the insane powercreep was with HoT, I’d be surprised if Anet did the same thing again.
Will the next round of elite specs be more powerful? In all likelihood, yes. Will they be as broken as HoT specs were at launch? I highly doubt it. Which means the resulting nerfs shouldn’t be nearly as harsh as they were with these first elite specs.
Plus, remember that Anet took a lot more time to design these next elite specs. They won’t be half-baked ideas (I honestly believe that to be one of the reason they were so broken at release. To help cover up that their designs weren’t completely finished).
I do a agree that they would have learnt from HoT and hopefully the new elite specs shouldn’t be as broken as HoT specs were on release of that.
I still think the best period of balance was between the June 23 specialisation patch and HoT launch as it was also in general the first time Mesmer had got positive changes after in general continual nerfs and neglect since release.
Right now gameplay is kind of monotonous with chrono – I don’t find it fun anymore since they forced everyone into shatterspam or one trick burst damage boosted by alacrity. I really do hope Mirage takes a completely fresh approach with how to play Mesmer and provides some variety in effective and interesting builds we should be able to create.
Even with the buffs to sword 4 and scepter 2 and huge damage of scepter 3 and fast illusion generation… I still prefer staff because it plays a lot “smoother”.
Phase retreat is such a powerful mobility skill that even though the rest of the weapon is mediocre it’s still beneficial to use.
Staff is mandatory indeed but with illusionary reversion nerf, in my opinion , the way to go is staff / sword sword ….. or if someone like it , staff/scepter torch. The reason is that with staff 3 , sword 5 or torch 5 you create 2 illusions and with a clone ( for example sword 3 or scepter autoattach you can have 2 shatters of 3 illusions in a row ….Sword offhand has also low cd with meta so you have phantasmal spawn, block and regen ( from shatter ) quite easily . I know that shield skills are better but , in this situation of trait, i find sword offhand more rewarding ( i literally hate the look of double swords … )