Guild Wars 2

This trait need serious buff, for GM tier is rather joke than option. Increasing Daze duration or lowering diversion cd may help, but for now IMHO this trait belongs Adept tier.

Isn’t this the AE-Diversion one? It’s actually really strong, the problem is the placement.

That is to say, Imbued Diversion is a very powerful trait which, if it were offered at GM in Domination, I’d readily pick over something like CS which is virtually never of any benefit.
But, it competes with IP. That is the problem, not ID in itself. You cannot compete with IP, it’s so powerful that there’s no reason to go 6/6 Illusions if you’re not picking up IP, it’s the whole point of going deep down that line.

I think if either IP was changed so it was no longer as necessary to make Shatter useful (more base Shatter power, less from IP), or if Imbued Diversion was moved to Domination, it’d be a very popular trait.

Carighan.6758:

Isn’t this the AE-Diversion one? It’s actually really strong, the problem is the placement.

That is to say, Imbued Diversion is a very powerful trait which, if it were offered at GM in Domination, I’d readily pick over something like CS which is virtually never of any benefit.
But, it competes with IP. That is the problem, not ID in itself. You cannot compete with IP, it’s so powerful that there’s no reason to go 6/6 Illusions if you’re not picking up IP, it’s the whole point of going deep down that line.

I think if either IP was changed so it was no longer as necessary to make Shatter useful (more base Shatter power, less from IP), or if Imbued Diversion was moved to Domination, it’d be a very popular trait.

Yes and no. It isn’t so much that it competes with IP, so much. While moving it to Domination might make it more popular and useful, the problem with its placement right now is the synergy with other traits, which there are none within the Illusions line. Domination, Dueling, and Chaos just have a lot of lockdown bonuses. If, let’s say, we were to add traits beside ID to Illusions in which it gave bonuses to shattering in general or specifically Diversion, we might go down that road.

Agreed, this trait struggles to find relevancy in it’s current spot. I think it’s strong only within the confines of coordination with a team. Therefore, you’ll never see this gain traction in soloq. Feels like a broken record at this point, but I’ve said many times that to make it relevant in soloq, adding a buff to lower the base recharge of diversion would really help. I believe people would start using it then, and that may be all it really needs to warrant GM tier.

Even still, I don’t believe it would crack consideration at the highest competitive levels. In order for that to happen, it probably needs to move down to Master. It then competes with popular traits such as Illusionary Elasticity and to a lesser extent, Illusionary Invigoration. Then you’d see serious consideration.

Bottom line, it needs the attention of Anet, much like MtD has recently received. I hope this happens soon.

Another clever – or sinister, in the current state – thing about it is that for maximum potential you need to paid ID with either BI+CI, or CS. Both of which are GM traits, so doing that prevents getting DE, which is the prerequisite for any serious shattering.

In a fully balanced world this would be an amazing balancing mechanic. Only in the current state it’s not because traits working with IP can be picked up without sacrificing DE.

Many might agree with me on this, but I think Imbued Diversion should be baseline for Diversion (maybe reduce the radius to 180 instead of 240, like the Daze Mantra).

I think when Diversion shatter was designed originally, its use was intended as to defend against or disrupt a single target enemy. But more than 2 years into the game, the meta has changed dramatically and Diversion is now being used for both defense and offense in many creative ways. The buff to Diversion would give the mesmer the unique role for aoe control, especially for people who enjoys lock-down playstyle. Also as Anet is trying to give mesmer some more aoe dmg option like recent buff to mantras, this would be another nice thing to add (Diversion + Halting Strike 2 trait pts vs Imbued Diversion + Halting Strike 8 trait pts)

Then the gm trait can be changed to : increase the radius to 240 and reduce 20% recharge time for Diversion.

keenlam.4753:

Many might agree with me on this, but I think Imbued Diversion should be baseline for Diversion (maybe reduce the radius to 180 instead of 240, like the Daze Mantra).

I think when Diversion shatter was designed originally, its use was intended as to defend against or disrupt a single target enemy. But more than 2 years into the game, the meta has changed dramatically and Diversion is now being used for both defense and offense in many creative ways. The buff to Diversion would give the mesmer the unique role for aoe control, especially for people who enjoys lock-down playstyle. Also as Anet is trying to give mesmer some more aoe dmg option like recent buff to mantras, this would be another nice thing to add (Diversion + Halting Strike 2 trait pts vs Imbued Diversion + Halting Strike 8 trait pts)

Then the gm trait can be changed to : increase the radius to 240 and reduce 20% recharge time for Diversion.

Yeah I think I could finally agree that this wouldn’t be too OP. I know it has been brought up before where I didn’t agree. In light of the recent changes to the mantra and other things you mentioned, it wouldn’t seem that far off. Then imbued diversion would lower the recharge and I think even get moved to master. It’d be in a great spot then.

Those are some pretty big changes though, so at the very least if they gave imbued diversion some love where it’s at, it’d be better than nothing.

I’m also in line with keenlam. Diversion shatter is very situational, and it doesn’t do that much for the CD it has.

AoE daze every 34s is by no means OP. I would design the skill so for every clone, daze time is increased by 0.5s, meaning with IP and 3 clones Diversion would apply 2s of daze in AoE around you.

Imbued Diversion could turn daze into stun, or increase daze time.

I’m still distracted by the fact that someone said “CS is virtually never of any benefit.”

MailMail.6534:

I’m still distracted by the fact that someone said “CS is virtually never of any benefit.”

Yes well, how often do you need to stop your target in addition to locking them, and that 1s of stop is what makes the crucial difference? Considering the placement of the skill and how bad it even plays with its own other half, you’re wasting points by going so high in Domination when you could be picking up CI instead (immobilizing the target and giving other conditions).

Sure, a Guardian might transmute the conditions. But that’s a specific situation happening every once in a while, compared to a much more reliable interrupt system the rest of the time.

You’re forgetting the increased daze duration especially in combination with Mesmer runes. If all CS did was give a 50% 1s on daze, it WOULD be worthless like you describe, but it doesn’t.

There are pros for stun vs immob. I don’t think we need to argue about that. Both CS and CI are valid lock down varieties. Remember, you don’t need to land an interrupt to lock someone down in a stun. That’s the key difference here. Also, stun breakers are less common than condi clear. That’s another difference.

I use CI way more than I use CS, but I don’t think it’s fair to call CS a garbage gm, because it’s actually QUITE strong.