Guild Wars 2

http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/guild-wars-2-are-thieves-and-mesmers-cause-meta#.VLUoBeUxwO0.reddit

I thought this was a great read. The author is theorizing that thieves/mesmers — the burst variety in particular — are the reason the current meta game exists.

However, about halfway through, he mentions that thief in particular is a bit stronger because of the on-demand stealth and because there’s no real way to pull them OUT of stealth.

I will say that I used to play World of Warcraft several years ago, and the Rogue class provided a similar stealth problem. There was a series of infamous videos called world of Roguecraft, continual re-stealthing means that the Rogue, and essentially, Thieves, are the ones who really control the battle.

I don’t really think that is the case at all.
Simple thing: celestial classes have much more room for error than bursty classes.
Why give more effort when you can achieve the same thing with less?
That’s about it in a nutshell, I’ve got other reasons why I don’t think cele is caused by mes and thief but cba to write and explain all here.
Celestial classes aren’t tanky by the way. The thing is if you look at the 3 celestial classes:
elementalist
engineer
warrior (Shout AOE healing)
Every one of those classes/builds has a lot of area healing. So 5 guys are healing eachother instead of everyone healing themselves. This makes it seem like it’s very tanky when in reality they just have a lot of heals.

Jurica mentions an interesting point. Even independent of the risk burst-setups run in that they can be preyed upon by stealthers (remember GW2 has sort of the least amount of stealth any PvP MMO including stealthers has, most feature perma-out-of-combat stealth, also known as perfect-moment-stealth, you fully control when and where you’ll prey upon your target), there is often little reason to expose yourself to excessive amounts of luck and initiative driven moments.

In other words, a certain degree of passive defenses is nearly always preferred. Whether this comes from a detail of your class (Soul Link Warlocks in WoW could share 30%-50% of their damage to the pet), whether this comes from your gear stats, whether it comes from an automated proc teleporting you away, it really doesn’t matter: You don’t want to risk dying needlessly because you looked the wrong direction for half a second.

But, another problem:
How is it really a problem that glassy setups die so easily? I mean, that’s sort of the point of “going glass”, isn’kitten You deal a ton of damage, but hey, if anything sneezes at you you’re dead.
The whole idea is that you really really need your team to protect you, so you’re free to deal your superior damage output.

That article was the topic of a thread in the pvp forum a week or so ago. It produced a ton of response. It also got slammed pretty hard and the author critiqued to hell. Many people pointed out that while Mesmer is mentioned in the opening, beyond that the author ends up only talking about thieves.

Anyway 2 years on and the author is only now discovering that Thief burst defines the meta? I figured that out in my first little wee while in WvW after launch. I knew that, out of everything that was out there, I had to build specifically with thieves in mind because of their effect on me (and others) on the BL’s.

That said, they’re hardly the worst thing in PvP matches right now.

It’s a problem systemic to stealth in general, btw. Most MMOs opt for comparatively similar realtime attack exchange systems. Stealth doesn’t fit in well with those systems. Stealth in theory is a wonderful solution to a host of combat issues in fantasy RPGs, but it needs to be integrated into the combat system.

But as Ross said, GW2 really has comparatively few issues with it (probably due to fleeting nature + short duration), there’s much bigger issues.

Well, he has an interesting point.

As a mesmer, against which professions do you have the most problems with? Would you include other beserker builds beside thiefs?

Aside from all the direct points made here, I find it difficult to take an article seriously that misuses a possessive apostrophe in the title.

Additionally, reading the article just shows so much odd stuff. They’re complaining about how it’s impossible to defend against a burst thief:

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The inevitable death of your opponent is prolonged only slightly if they happen to have their utility skills…This “instant gib” that’s near indefensible against a skilled Thief, I believe,

They’re complaining about the existence of stealth:

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I’ve always believed that it’s inherently unfair that any class can stealth

They’re claiming that thieves have almost permanent evasion (/sigh):

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I’m also well aware of the sheer frustration at being hounded for an entire match by a class that has near permanent evasion

They’re also complaining about the fact that if 2 glassy classes coordinate a targeted burst together, it will kill the target (/facepalm):

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it’s fair to say that burst damage against anything other than a Celestial or Cleric is too high especially when both classes are playing together.

Basically, this article is just a case of an unskilled player thinking they’re skilled enough to making broad generalizations on the state of PvP based on poor information, poor decisions, and poor judgement.

I had a reply.. But Pyros reply just totally emasculated it.

But yeah, I don’t think a class specifically has a grand impact on the meta more than any other class. This ‘cele meta’ isn’t a response to Mesmer and Thief.

I already posted on this in the pvp forums but i’ll just copy paste it. I think the article is garbage and it also misses the actual underlying issues and questions.

“Rather than asking why these two are killing glass options ask why do they have to fill this role of glassy dps.

How many balanced or bunker options do these two classes have access to?

Thief and Mesmer are two prime examples of outliers in a game more centered on self encapsulated and sustained builds. Most of the other classes have a lot of passive sustain and aid while these two are purely active with no back end. They also lack balanced options which require a min max stance to gain effectiveness…

Mesmer and thief are the high burst roamers because they cannot take any other roles.

Is this unbalanced? In contemporary or historical terms no, having classes be specialized is a healthy thing. In the context of gw2 it’s terribly unbalanced as many other classes do not or cannot specialise and have the options to fill so many other roles or multiple roles at the same time."

Tl;DR yes Mesmer and Thief are unbalanced, but in the wrong direction that the article would imply. Gw2 is built and balanced Around being able to do all the things and do them all really well.. these two classes are some of the few that can only do 1 very well or two things decently… all things awfully

What Swish says it’s true. And the reason is that “cele” professions benefit from all attributes (power, crit, crit damage, toughness, vitality, healing) almost equally, whereas mesmers and thieves cannot (healing comes to mind). It is in fact pointless for those two professions to invest resources in healing and thus celestial attributes become less attractive. On the contrary, “cele” classes fill multiple roles at the same time.

This reflects on builds diversity and roles the two professions can cover.

It is not a coincidence that the meta turned out to be what it is nowadays after celestial gear was buffed during the April patch:

“Celestial Gear
Increased the stats provided from the celestial stat combination by 6.5% to compensate for the new ferocity changes.
Increased the PvP celestial stat selection so that it will use the proper stat ratios. Previously this stat combination in PvP was providing much lower stats than intended.”

It was clearly a poor decision (for us) and a good one for others (included warriors which have seen only buffs to a profession that didn’t really need them)

The celestial meta came to be because those builds can do everything. To some extent it was a response to thieves, but even without thieves, people would have discovered the cele + might stacking potential.

However thieves make every other berserker spec unviable. Burst specs rely heavily on positioning, which is impossible because the thieves have so many (often LoS ignoring) gapclosers, and if they are losing the duel they can just go into stealth/port away almost anytime, reset themselves and land a burst from stealth.

Mesmer is not that much of a problem – stealth makes it a bit better than other zerkers, this is why it’s still around. It’s still hardcountered by thieves, but at least the mesmer can buy some time with stealth.

witcher.3197:

To some extent it was a response to thieves, but even without thieves, people would have discovered the cele + might stacking potential.

Would have they discover it if cele amulet wasn’t buffed and new runes introduced? I don’t think so.

In April they nerfed crit damage, which I agree with. But they also buffed celestial attributes. And introduced the might stacking with new runes bonuses.

Wasn’t one or the other enough to balance the game? Why did they have to apply all changes at once? This is something I do not agree with.

“Mesmer is not that much of a problem – stealth makes it a bit better than other zerkers, this is why it’s still around. It’s still hardcountered by thieves, but at least the mesmer can buy some time with stealth.”
I disagree with this. Every class can buy some time against thieves by kiting. Ele has obsidian flesh for example, warrior is tanky as it is and has endure pain to buy the time.
Surviving against thieves for x time isn’t really the reason.
I think the main reason is that mesmer has better mobility and brings insane, unique stuff to the teamthrough boon rip (can rip more than any other class), a lot of stomp/rez negation through boon rip and dazes/knockback + portal allows you to do some insane stuff. Moa is insta death on enemy, no matter which class.Time Warp is also awesome and very underestimated.

Jurica.1742:

“Mesmer is not that much of a problem – stealth makes it a bit better than other zerkers, this is why it’s still around. It’s still hardcountered by thieves, but at least the mesmer can buy some time with stealth.”
I disagree with this. Every class can buy some time against thieves by kiting. Ele has obsidian flesh for example, warrior is tanky as it is and has endure pain to buy the time.
Surviving against thieves for x time isn’t really the reason.
I think the main reason is that mesmer has better mobility and brings insane, unique stuff to the teamthrough boon rip (can rip more than any other class), a lot of stomp/rez negation through boon rip and dazes/knockback + portal allows you to do some insane stuff. Moa is insta death on enemy, no matter which class.Time Warp is also awesome and very underestimated.

Mesmer definitely brings some great utility to the group, I agree but this discussion is about hardcounters. Most mesmers don’t use TW anyways, some of them are abandoning portal even on higher levels, and moa is so easy to avoid (plus even when youre turned into a Moa you can usually kite away perfectly).

If the ele uses Obsidian Flesh or the warrior uses Endure Pain, the thief can just port away / wait in stealth and the second the duration’s gone the thief’s back on the target (steal, infiltrator’s signet, infiltrator’s strike, shadow shot, they have plenty of ways to do it). With stealth you can escape a lot better as the thief will actually lose track of you, which lets you reposition yourself a lot better with the additon of phase retreat / blink (without stealth the thief could still follow you doesn’t matter what kind of teleport you’re using).

Reason why people (= Helseth) are dropping portal is not because it’s become bad. It’s still the best thing you can take. I’ve talked to Helseth about why he wasn’t using portal lately and it’s simply experimentation to see how other utilities work with the build. (a bit more than that but not important for the discussion)
Time Warp will be used a lot more now that it’s CD will get reduced heavily.

If mesmer stealths, thief can also just port back and wait for the mesmer to unstealth, then port to him. Because realistically, wherever you port to, the thief will be able to port right to you, all he needs to do is target you so that argument is invalid. You also have only a few seconds of stealth, presuming you instantly start climbing to a spot like the beam on mine or the overhangs on henge where people can’t port to you, the thief won’t have a hard time getting to you either it’ll take him the same amount of time it took you, possibly less which means in a few seconds time, you’ll have to move again. Stealth isn’t the thing that makes mesmer viable, it can’t be kiting either because every class can do that, so it must be the team utility, mobility aside the insane burst potential.

Moa isn’t so easily avoided, out of all the moas that I use, 1 in like 5+ are avoided. Mostly a random dodge (because I often use it from stealth, you really can’t dodge it purposely). It isn’t always easy to kite away. You have the #5 evade but then what? Mes + thief can catch up to you whenever and you’re dead meat. If it’s thrown down in a team fight, it’ll get called out, you will get immobilized and people will wait until your #5 is done then collapse on you and even if you manage to kite away your team is -1 in that fight for 10+ seconds.

That’s all I’ll write as I’ve gotta get out of the house but I’ve got more arguments to support my case.

I’ve never said portal’ll be abandoned. I just wanted to point out that mesmer’s still a threat to the enemy even without the utilitiy it brings. I know Helseth was experimenting, but I wan’t only talking about him. Supcutie and other mesmers have switched portal for some condi cleansing during some matches too.

Don’t get me wrong, I acknowledge the utility mesmer brings to the team. But don’t act like other zerker specs don’t have any utility. What about S/F eles? They have insane burst and Swirling Winds for utility, which hurts Engies / Rangers a lot. S/D eles got even more burst, mobility, and AoE healing. They can block, blind and teleport away too, yet you don’t see them around because thieves demolish them in teamfights.

After you use stealth as a mesmer and manage to get out of LoS the thief will lose track which allows you to reposition yourself for a bit (or allows you to counterburst). This is easy on Khylo, Temple and Forest. Just try playing without any stealth on mes vs a team with a good thief and tell me if you feel just as viable as before the change.