Guild Wars 2

Just a list of the traits i think need changes to be good. This is from a pvp perspective, and only includes major traits as of now.

Rending Shatter
Okay trait, i think it will be underwhelming compared for to CS, though. Again, this is from a pvp perspective.

Greatsword Training
Might be stronger than it looks, but this will most probably be a bad trait to use for PvP.

Harmonious Mantras
Really cool trait, but i find it hard to believe it can compete with DE. Needs conclusive testing from Anet.

Illusionary Defense
Has never been a good trait. Clone death weakness was always better on any build.

Chaotic Transference
I see no reason to use it

Compounding Celerity
Too short swiftness duration and in general an underwhelming trait.

Temporal Enchanter
Not nearly strong enough to make a glamour build work. Not sure what to do, maybe make a pulsing super speed in glamours or just add another effect to it.

Persistance of Memory
2% seems awfully low. It might be a typo or just needs balancing. Otherwise interesting trait.

Phantasmal Haste
Not bad trait, but shouldn’t shatter traits be in the illusions traitline? There are no traits in illusions master tier that syngergize with shatter-based builds.

The Pledge
1,5% faster while in stealth? This must be a typo since it is incredibly low.

Edit:
Sword Trait (forgot name)
Terrible choice when you can go with reflect on dodge or blind on shatter. One idea would be to merge this with the mirror trait for something like this: (Gain precision while wielding a sword. 20% reduced sword cooldown. Reflect missiles while using blurred frenzy)
_________________________________________
I am all for build diversity and i have nothing against PvP-PvE separation if necessary.
Just tell new players that enter the mists that “Some traits work differently in PvP” or something.

Concerning minors, i think that all or almost all are “good” in the patch preview notes. Some might be too strong, however. This i am not sure about.

If you would like to see some trait removed or added to the list, feel free to comment!

Well, you pretty much nailed it. I’ll add:

Bountiful Disillusionment.
The stability is nice, everything else is garbage. 5s of retal on MW? Really?

Restorative Illusions.
Very low amount and doesn’t heal allies. It’s amazing this is in master tier and Mender’s Purity in adept tier.

Sorry but I disagree on BD and RI. They may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but to call them useless or garbage is not correct.

1) BD not only got the Stab, you may have noticed that the Boons are now AoE! This can synergize well with Boon-sharing builds based on Shattering. Your F2 Shatter when shared would give 6 stacks of Might to anyone within a 240 radius. Although I agree from a personal standpoint Retal is a little underwhelming on MW, in a group scenario this boon is not joke as Engineers & Rangers will gladly tell you. ;-) Same goes for Fury on F3. Really the only one I really dislike is the Boon on F4. For such a long CD to give such a lame Boon is very underwhelming. This should be ~3s of Protection or ~5s of Aegis.

2) RI works surprisingly well if you have IP, which we all will! This is not a bad trait at all if you’re looking to bunker yourself up. The only reason this trait hasn’t seen any play, IMHO, is because it requires IP and is GM itself, so you have to give up DE to get it. That of course is silly. Now that you get IP for free, and can get RI while also getting a reasonably strong GM trait like Shattered Conditions or Ill. Insp. for boon sharing, this trait will actually kinda rock. This trait will be almost primarily responsible for creating a true bunker Mesmer! A Chaos/Insp./XXX Mesmer will be almost unkillable 1v1 and maybe even 2v1 or worse odds, every shatter insta-heals and removes a Condition.

Also to OP, I think Anet probably thought Rending Shatter would be useful in combination with Fragility, but that is really not sound reasoning considering it has to compete with the excellent (former GM!) Confounding Suggestions or Empowered Illusions. If a P-Shatter Mesmer wants to use Fragility, it would most likely be for his MW. So in order to get AE Vuln up, he would have to fist F2 or F3 shatter with Rending Shatter, and then MW. The problem is, most P-Shatter builds will probably also pick up Master of Fragmentation, making the F3 shatter AoE, and thus providing AoE Vulnerability anyway! Naturally Phantasm Mesmers would choose EI over RS.

So on second thought I agree, Rending Shatter will not see much play over the other 2 choices. It needs something more to compete with the other 2 choices.

Chaotic Transference is not a bad trait really. It’s a “pick this if you don’t use Staff and hate MoA” option. For Rabbid Condition builds, PU Condi mainly, this trait was always very popular GM minor, as it adds a pretty nice amount of Condition damage. I’m not a fan of MoA at all due to the overly lengthy CD for a very short effect, and I’d take CT over that any day. (As long as I’m Condie of course.)

Persistance of Memory is a question mark. We’ll have to see how it works out, but most people are thinking the 2% is probably wrong.

Greatsword Training is definitely not bad. It has 2 very strong GMs to compete with, but the CD reduction it offers can become extreme when 3 GS Clones are attacking along with you, and/or you’re attacking into a zergball hitting multiple people. The +100 Power is a bit weak. Seems I’ve seen other GMs give +150 stat points, and I think this would be more appropriate. (Or +200 even to better compete with the other 2 GMs.) It won’t be popular, but it’ll be used & liked by some for sure.

Many of these new CD reduction effects are going to need balancing with Chrono’s Alacrity I think. The combination could be extreme in some cases. (Staff, Torch, and GS traits.)

Windwalker.7421:

Sorry but I disagree on BD and RI. They may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but to call them useless or garbage is not correct.

1) BD not only got the Stab, you may have noticed that the Boons are now AoE! This can synergize well with Boon-sharing builds based on Shattering. Your F2 Shatter when shared would give 6 stacks of Might to anyone within a 240 radius. Although I agree from a personal standpoint Retal is a little underwhelming on MW, in a group scenario this boon is not joke as Engineers & Rangers will gladly tell you. ;-) Same goes for Fury on F3. Really the only one I really dislike is the Boon on F4. For such a long CD to give such a lame Boon is very underwhelming. This should be ~3s of Protection or ~5s of Aegis.

2) RI works surprisingly well if you have IP, which we all will! This is not a bad trait at all if you’re looking to bunker yourself up. The only reason this trait hasn’t seen any play, IMHO, is because it requires IP and is GM itself, so you have to give up DE to get it. That of course is silly. Now that you get IP for free, and can get RI while also getting a reasonably strong GM trait like Shattered Conditions or Ill. Insp. for boon sharing, this trait will actually kinda rock. This trait will be almost primarily responsible for creating a true bunker Mesmer! A Chaos/Insp./XXX Mesmer will be almost unkillable 1v1 and maybe even 2v1 or worse odds, every shatter insta-heals and removes a Condition.

Also to OP, I think Anet probably thought Rending Shatter would be useful in combination with Fragility, but that is really not sound reasoning considering it has to compete with the excellent (former GM!) Confounding Suggestions or Empowered Illusions. If a P-Shatter Mesmer wants to use Fragility, it would most likely be for his MW. So in order to get AE Vuln up, he would have to fist F2 or F3 shatter with Rending Shatter, and then MW. The problem is, most P-Shatter builds will probably also pick up Master of Fragmentation, making the F3 shatter AoE, and thus providing AoE Vulnerability anyway! Naturally Phantasm Mesmers would choose EI over RS.

So on second thought I agree, Rending Shatter will not see much play over the other 2 choices. It needs something more to compete with the other 2 choices.

Chaotic Transference is not a bad trait really. It’s a “pick this if you don’t use Staff and hate MoA” option. For Rabbid Condition builds, PU Condi mainly, this trait was always very popular GM minor, as it adds a pretty nice amount of Condition damage. I’m not a fan of MoA at all due to the overly lengthy CD for a very short effect, and I’d take CT over that any day. (As long as I’m Condie of course.)

Persistance of Memory is a question mark. We’ll have to see how it works out, but most people are thinking the 2% is probably wrong.

Greatsword Training is definitely not bad. It has 2 very strong GMs to compete with, but the CD reduction it offers can become extreme when 3 GS Clones are attacking along with you, and/or you’re attacking into a zergball hitting multiple people. The +100 Power is a bit weak. Seems I’ve seen other GMs give +150 stat points, and I think this would be more appropriate. (Or +200 even to better compete with the other 2 GMs.) It won’t be popular, but it’ll be used & liked by some for sure.

Many of these new CD reduction effects are going to need balancing with Chrono’s Alacrity I think. The combination could be extreme in some cases. (Staff, Torch, and GS traits.)

Chaotic transference is only for condition build, and condition builds use staff or they suck. The trait is bad.

Rending shatter might be really good tied with fragility. I suppose it comes down to player and timing of interrupts. I can see some people taking a flat 10 percent damage increase over the difficulty of landing rupts.

Windwalker.7421:

Sorry but I disagree on BD and RI. They may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but to call them useless or garbage is not correct.

1) BD not only got the Stab, you may have noticed that the Boons are now AoE! This can synergize well with Boon-sharing builds based on Shattering. Your F2 Shatter when shared would give 6 stacks of Might to anyone within a 240 radius. Although I agree from a personal standpoint Retal is a little underwhelming on MW, in a group scenario this boon is not joke as Engineers & Rangers will gladly tell you. ;-) Same goes for Fury on F3. Really the only one I really dislike is the Boon on F4. For such a long CD to give such a lame Boon is very underwhelming. This should be ~3s of Protection or ~5s of Aegis.

Yes, I notice the boons are AoE. They’re still weak and don’t make much sense. We have good access to AoE interrupts and CI is in the same tier, so I don’t really see the point on taking this trait over it, unless you’re going only for the stability.

Windwalker.7421:

2) RI works surprisingly well if you have IP, which we all will! This is not a bad trait at all if you’re looking to bunker yourself up. The only reason this trait hasn’t seen any play, IMHO, is because it requires IP and is GM itself, so you have to give up DE to get it. That of course is silly. Now that you get IP for free, and can get RI while also getting a reasonably strong GM trait like Shattered Conditions or Ill. Insp. for boon sharing, this trait will actually kinda rock. This trait will be almost primarily responsible for creating a true bunker Mesmer! A Chaos/Insp./XXX Mesmer will be almost unkillable 1v1 and maybe even 2v1 or worse odds, every shatter insta-heals and removes a Condition.

It’s a bug that IP basically doubles the heal amount. I’m pretty sure they’ll fix it now that IP becomes baseline. If not, then I guess this’ll be good trait for bunker mesmer.

Quadox.7834:

Harmonious Mantras
Really cool trait, but i find it hard to believe it can compete with DE. Needs conclusive testing from Anet.

This is probably fine, actually, even if DE is going to be used in more builds. It has a clear niche, IMO.

Illusionary Defense
Has never been a good trait. Clone death weakness was always better on any build.

Yeah, the “get something while illusions are up” traits always seemed lacklustre to me. Even if they were hypothetically good, they’d still be really boring. I’d rather see this replaced with something that makes illusions survive longer, if anything.

Temporal Enchanter
Not nearly strong enough to make a glamour build work. Not sure what to do, maybe make a pulsing super speed in glamours or just add another effect to it.

I don’t really understand why Glamours are giving Super-Speed instead of Confusion or Blindness. Super-Speed encourages you to leave the Glamour zone, which only makes sense for Portal. For Feedback, Null Field, and Time Warp, you want your allies to stay in the Glamour zone.

So the Temporal Enchanter trait really ought to have some kind of effect that encourages allies to fight within the Glamour.

Sword Trait (forgot name)
Terrible choice when you can go with reflect on dodge or blind on shatter. One idea would be to merge this with the mirror trait for something like this: (Gain precision while wielding a sword. 20% reduced sword cooldown. Reflect missiles while using blurred frenzy)

Really, the only problem with this trait is that it’s in the same tier as Evasive Mirror. Which may be intentional, they might not want Blurred Frenzy to have both a reflect attached to it and a reduced cooldown. You end up needing to pick which is more important to you.

Still, it should have a more interesting recharge mechanic and a more interesting effect than flat increased Precision. Ditto for Greatsword and Power, really. Our other weapon traits all have much better design, in that they actually add something entirely new to the weapon rather than just incrementing a number.

Like, for instance:

Blade Training – After evading an attack with Blurred Frenzy, your next attack has 100% crit chance. Crits reduce your recharge on Sword skills.

I don’t have a really good idea for Greatsword Training, though, TBH. Should be something that adds raw damage in a way that isn’t tied to simply handing out Power. It’s a brut force weapon with a brute force trait, which doesn’t really give me much inspiration.

Quadox.7834:

Chaotic transference is only for condition build, and condition builds use staff or they suck. The trait is bad.

Staff is not mandatory now, and certainly won’t be lost patch because:
- You can use Sw/P + Sc/T or similar combinations, where chaotic transference will be a solid choice.
- With the confusing combatants rework, your crits will apply confusion (as well as illusions applying both confusion and bleeding) so non-native condition weapons like sword (and possible even greatsword) may see more use in condition builds.

Also regarding Blade Training and Evasive Mirror – the Master tier in duelling is probably the best balanced choice of traits out of all of the lines and tiers because each one is a solid choice and none of them should be able to be taken together.
I think if Blade Training needs a tweak it should be along the lines of what tobascodagama suggested – ie that you gain reduced recharge every time you or an illusion crits alongside a precision/ferocity bonus.
Evasive mirror should remain a separate trait.

Chaotic Transference is fine. It’s what makes PU rabid deadly.

Curunen.8729:

Also regarding Blade Training and Evasive Mirror – the Master tier in duelling is probably the best balanced choice of traits out of all of the lines and tiers because each one is a solid choice and none of them should be able to be taken together.
I think if Blade Training needs a tweak it should be along the lines of what tobascodagama suggested – ie that you gain reduced recharge every time you or an illusion crits alongside a precision/ferocity bonus.
Evasive mirror should remain a separate trait.

So you’re not even slightly bothered that the current set up of Duelling denies you any possible synergy between the Adept and Master tier?

Let’s look at some scenarios. Of course, this is slightly exaggereted. But it shows where I’m comming from and why I’m not very statisfied with the previewed trait distribution.

A: Random build running Sword MH

Master trait

• Blade Training: Likely.
• Blinding Dissipation: If shatter focussed, maybe. Otherwise BF > occasional Blind.
• Evasive Mirror: Generic trait. Maybe.

Adept trait

• Duelists Discpline: Only for Pistol OH.
• Desperate Decoy: If you’re crazy? It will remain underused for good reasons.
• Phantasmal Fury. Last option. Extremly small synergy with Sword.

Currently, anyone going Duelling with Sword MH without Pistol OH gets shafted on the Adept level. Personally, I do feel that this is a rather significant issue.

B: Random build running Pistol OH

Master trait

• Blade Training: Maybe. If using MH Sword. Which condi builds might not.
• Blinding Disspation: Maybe. If not using MH Sword and utilizing shatters.
• Evasive Mirror: Maybe. If neither MH Sword or shatter focus or just for more reflects.

Adept trait

• Duelists Discpline: Yes, please!
• Desperate Decoy: If you’re crazy.
• Phantasmal Fury: Why would you? You get Bleeds for free from DD!

Trait choice on the Adept level is painfully obvious. On the Master level it is more like ‘Meh, whatever.’ The only reason why it isn’t as annoying as scenario A is because two out of three traits are generally useful.

The addition of Bleeds to DD makes it painfully obvious that Phantasmal Fury, Sharper Images and DD were supposed to synergize. The current trait placement makes this impossible which probably eventually lead to them to adding the Bleeds to DD. At this point I really got to ask myself why this was even considered? Sword will lack any efficient synergies with the Adept line while Pistol gets a bandaid. The only set up which benefits from the previewed change would be Sword/Focus.

Personally, I feel that a traitline within itself should have synergies among its traits. Of course, we should have to make decisions but if balancing the available options on a certain tier results in the removal of any relevant synergy among the traits within the traitline I really got to question if the right design decisions were made.

Xaylin.1860:

Curunen.8729:

<snip> (post too long)

So you’re not even slightly bothered that the current set up of Duelling denies you any possible synergy between the Adept and Master tier?

Let’s look at some scenarios. Of course, this is slightly exaggereted. But it shows where I’m comming from and why I’m not very statisfied with the previewed trait distribution.

---

A: Random build running Sword MH

Master trait

• Blade Training: Likely.
• Blinding Dissipation: If shatter focussed, maybe. Otherwise BF > occasional Blind.
• Evasive Mirror: Generic trait. Maybe.

Adept trait

• Duelists Discpline: Only for Pistol OH.
• Desperate Decoy: If you’re crazy? It will remain underused for good reasons.
• Phantasmal Fury. Last option. Extremly small synergy with Sword.

Currently, anyone going Duelling with Sword MH without Pistol OH gets shafted on the Adept level. Personally, I do feel that this is a rather significant issue.

---

B: Random build running Pistol OH

Master trait

• Blade Training: Maybe. If using MH Sword. Which condi builds might not.
• Blinding Disspation: Maybe. If not using MH Sword and utilizing shatters.
• Evasive Mirror: Maybe. If neither MH Sword or shatter focus or just for more reflects.

Adept trait

• Duelists Discpline: Yes, please!
• Desperate Decoy: If you’re crazy.
• Phantasmal Fury: Why would you? You get Bleeds for free from DD!

Trait choice on the Adept level is painfully obvious. On the Master level it is more like ‘Meh, whatever.’ The only reason why it isn’t as annoying as scenario A is because two out of three traits are generally useful.

---

The addition of Bleeds to DD makes it painfully obvious that Phantasmal Fury, Sharper Images and DD were supposed to synergize. The current trait placement makes this impossible which probably eventually lead to them to adding the Bleeds to DD. At this point I really got to ask myself why this was even considered? Sword will lack any efficient synergies with the Adept line while Pistol gets a bandaid. The only set up which benefits from the previewed change would be Sword/Focus.

Personally, I feel that a traitline within itself should have synergies among its traits. Of course, we should have to make decisions but if balancing the available options on a certain tier results in the removal of any relevant synergy among the traits within the traitline I really got to question if the right design decisions were made.

Where did I ever say anything about Adept or even Grandmaster tiers?

“Master tier in duelling is probably the best balanced choice of traits out of all of the lines and tiers because each one is a solid choice and none of them should be able to be taken together.”

I never said anything about synergy across the whole line – I spoke only about the Master tier, and those three choices of Blade Training, Blinding Dissipation and Evasive Mirror being excellent that you can only take one at a time.

Duelling Adept traits are not good in terms of choice, I agree – Desperate Decoy is kitten no matter how you look at it, Phantasmal Fury depends on which phantasms you’re using, and Pistol trait is only useful if you’re using offhand pistol.

The choice between Phantasmal Fury and Duelist’s Discipline is akin to the choice between Sum of All Fears and Malicious Sorcery, and I believe this is a good choice – if you’re using Pistol or Scepter you can take those traits, if not you’ve got a decent alternative. The problem is the third trait being pretty bad – Desperate Decoy in the case of duelling adept and Phantasmal Haste (illusions master) in a line strongly geared towards frequent shatters such that you likely won’t keep phantasms alive long enough to get more than two attacks off anyway. And secondly both Sum of all Fears and Phantasmal Fury could do with sometihng to make them more appealing – for the former reduce the number of confusion stacks per torment to 3 (to make it more attractive for a condition build not using the scepter), for the latter I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

Edit: kitten it, I keep trying to edit something in here – having typed 3 times now and the forum keeps swallowing it up. I’ll try typing again hopefully it saves this time.

I believe there should be sacrifices at each tier such that there is no “best” route through any traitline, but only different flavours – and all hopefully similarly effective just in different ways. Regarding phantasmal fury – perhaps it could include something like “inflict bleeding when you interrupt a foe” to make it more of a direct alternative to DD similar to how SoaF is to MS in illusions.

Curunen.8729:

The choice between Phantasmal Fury and Duelist’s Discipline is akin to the choice between Sum of All Fears and Malicious Sorcery, and I believe this is a good choice – if you’re using Pistol or Scepter you can take those traits, if not you’ve got a decent alternative. The problem is the third trait being pretty bad – Desperate Decoy in the case of duelling adept and Phantasmal Haste (illusions master) in a line strongly geared towards frequent shatters such that you likely won’t keep phantasms alive long enough to get more than two attacks off anyway. And secondly both Sum of all Fears and Phantasmal Fury could do with sometihng to make them more appealing – for the former reduce the number of confusion stacks per torment to 3 (to make it more attractive for a condition build not using the scepter), for the latter I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

Yes, agreed. This is the real problem with Dueling Adept. Desperate Decoy is basically a trap trait. It only helps you if you’re losing, it doesn’t do anything that we can’t already do with the Decoy skill, etc., etc. ANet really needs to trash it and put something else there.

Curunen.8729:

I never said anything about synergy across the whole line – I spoke only about the Master tier, and those three choices of Blade Training, Blinding Dissipation and Evasive Mirror being excellent that you can only take one at a time.

That’s why I said:

Personally, I feel that a traitline within itself should have synergies among its traits. Of course, we should have to make decisions but if balancing the available options on a certain tier results in the removal of any relevant synergy among the traits within the traitline I really got to question if the right design decisions were made.

Only considering the balance between traits among one tier misses the bigger picture. All of them being considered ‘good’ is a weird justification for them being in a tier. Especially since Duelists Discipline is pretty good as well.

Curunen.8729:

The choice between Phantasmal Fury and Duelist’s Discipline is akin to the choice between Sum of All Fears and Malicious Sorcery, and I believe this is a good choice – if you’re using Pistol or Scepter you can take those traits, if not you’ve got a decent alternative. The problem is the third trait being pretty bad – Desperate Decoy in the case of duelling adept and Phantasmal Haste (illusions master) in a line strongly geared towards frequent shatters such that you likely won’t keep phantasms alive long enough to get more than two attacks off anyway. And secondly both Sum of all Fears and Phantasmal Fury could do with sometihng to make them more appealing – for the former reduce the number of confusion stacks per torment to 3 (to make it more attractive for a condition build not using the scepter), for the latter I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

I’d argue differently. The difference between Illusions and Duelling is that Torch doesn’t get screwed over by the trait placement in favour for the other weapon associated with the traitline. Torch can benefit from both Phantasmal Haste and Sum of All Fears. Sword can’t really benefit from neither Desperate Decoy nor Phantasmal Fury. It’s more of a ‘pick your poison’ choice.

The placement of Phantasmal Haste is a different topic but I think most of us agree that it either has to be moved or a non-shatter GM trait has to be introduced to Illusions.

Then that’s the issue of Desperate Decoy and Phantasmal Fury – the rest of the traits are fine.

Something like “x chance to grant fury on critical hits” added to phantasmal fury and you could get fury on yourself using sword.

Desperate Decoy needs to just be deleted and replaced with something entirely new – and this could be the trait that synergises with sword.

(On the note of DD – it’s only going to be magic bullet and the Duelist that get this bleeding bonus so I don’t see it as being an amazing trait, and totally useless without using offhand pistol)

Curunen.8729:

Then that’s the issue of Desperate Decoy and Phantasmal Fury – the rest of the traits are fine.

Assuming that you agree that Duelists Discipline and Blade Training are equally powerful: Would you be against switching places of Duelists Discipline and Blade Training?

If so, why?

I’d argue it’s not all about Desperate Decoy and Phantasmal Fury. It’s about the synergy between the available traits, especially when looking at the Sword. As explained earlier, I can see how people with other weapons don’t care. But it’s pretty bad for Sword.

Curunen.8729:

Something like “x chance to grant fury on critical hits” added to phantasmal fury and you could get fury on yourself using sword.

Now this would make it less crappy for Sword. But it’s also obviously redundant since we already get Precision from Blade Training. If you go down that route, you could just combine those traits. Of course, Focus wouldn’t be too pleased.

Curunen.8729:

Desperate Decoy needs to just be deleted and replaced with something entirely new – and this could be the trait that synergises with sword.

Yes, I agree. As others said: It’s a unreliable trait which borders on a death trap.

Curunen.8729:

(On the note of DD – it’s only going to be magic bullet and the Duelist that get this bleeding bonus so I don’t see it as being an amazing trait, and totally useless without using offhand pistol)

This basically is a built-in additional Phantasmal Fury + Sharper Images for the iDuelist. How is that not amazing? Of course, it primarily caters Pistol. But it’s a Pistol trait after all.

Every other weapon which benefits from Illusion on-crit-effects (GS and Focus) can still pick Phantasmal Fury. But they could easily do so if it wasn’t in the same tier with Duelists Discpline. I therefore fail to see how this is an argument for those traits being placed in the way they currently are.

Sword Trait in master is bad and not fun whatsoever. I would advice against using it. It could be moved to adept since the adept traits in duelling don’t synergize well and the stealth trait sucks.

Also, chaotic transference is NOT a good trait whatsoever. Seriously, read on the staff trait and compare- the difference is obvious and you will see that chaotic transference is bad and passive.

Quadox.7834:

Sword Trait in master is bad and not fun whatsoever. I would advice against using it. It could be moved to adept since the adept traits in duelling don’t synergize well and the stealth trait sucks.

Also, chaotic transference is NOT a good trait whatsoever. Seriously, read on the staff trait and compare- the difference is obvious and you will see that chaotic transference is bad and passive.

And what about these players who are not using a staff?

The thing is I strongly believe you should not be able to take Blade Training AND Evasive Mirror together – it should be one or the other, either lower cooldown on BF, ileap, iRiposte and Swordsman, or have a reflect available on your BF (as well as dodging). That is why they should stay in the same tree.

Blinding Dissipation is also looking to be a very strong trait, and as such I think it should not be able to be paired with Evasive Mirror. So that’s why I prefer them all to stay mutually exclusive in the same tier.

Don’t forget offhand sword when it comes to synergy – having phantasmal fury on that can make a difference, so Blade Training is a solid trait affecting 5 skills, unlike the pistol trait.

As for Phantasmal Fury + Duelist’s Discipline -> I believe it should be a choice between " other phantasms crit more often proccing sharper images and confusing combatants" and “pistol phantasm (and magic bullet) delivers more conditions but with a lower crit rate”. I honestly think it’s good to have to choose between them.

I think:
1) Keep the precision bonus on sword but change the trait to grant reduced cooldown for every attack you evade or block (either from dodging or BF or iRiposte), and
2) Delete Desperate Decoy and replace it with a skill that inflicts bleeding when you interrupt a foe or something (specifically for any player not using a pistol).
3) Change Phantasmal Fury to pulse AoE Fury to allies (like regen does in Inspiration), or instead maybe summoning a phantasms gives you 5s of fury.

If Phantasmal Fury can be moved, then I think it is best to swap with one of the minor traits in duelling (though I don’t know which one), so then you can take it with the pistol.

Curunen.8729:

The thing is I strongly believe you should not be able to take Blade Training AND Evasive Mirror together – it should be one or the other, either lower cooldown on BF, ileap, iRiposte and Swordsman, or have a reflect available on your BF (as well as dodging). That is why they should stay in the same tree.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Evasive Mirror looks promising but the devs stated they are still working on cooldowns and the duration of the effect. Things might change but let’s assume it stays at it is.

What would Sword gain over non-Sword users? Reflect on BF every 10s. It it cool? Yes, it’s pretty awesome. Does it increase the offensive power of Sword? Yes, it does, since I can reflect projectiles. Does it increase the survivablity of Sword? No, it doesn’t since projectiles are already evaded anyway. It might actually be bad because the reflected projectiles can trigger Retaliation.

I simply disagree with your assessment of how powerful the synergy could be. Maybe even more importantly it doesn’t make the other traits unappealing. If Blade Training was on the Adept level, Duelists Discpline and Blinding Dissipation might be equally appealing as Evasive Mirror depending on your overall build.

Curunen.8729:

Don’t forget offhand sword when it comes to synergy – having phantasmal fury on that can make a difference, so Blade Training is a solid trait affecting 5 skills, unlike the pistol trait.

I didn’t. But not everyone runs Sw/Sw. That’s also somewhat like saying that 2-handed weapon traits should generall be weaker than others. Additionally, so far the secondary bonus on Blade Training doesn’t contribute a significant benefit to most of the skills since they are single hit abilities.

Curunen.8729:

1) Keep the precision bonus on sword but change the trait to grant reduced cooldown for every attack you evade or block (either from dodging or BF or iRiposte), and
2) Delete Desperate Decoy and replace it with a skill that inflicts bleeding when you interrupt a foe or something (specifically for any player not using a pistol).

The bolt part could be OP as hell. Perma-BF says ‘Heeeey!’.

Xaylin.1860:

Curunen.8729:

The thing is I strongly believe you should not be able to take Blade Training AND Evasive Mirror together – it should be one or the other, either lower cooldown on BF, ileap, iRiposte and Swordsman, or have a reflect available on your BF (as well as dodging). That is why they should stay in the same tree.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Evasive Mirror looks promising but the devs stated they are still working on cooldowns and the duration of the effect. Things might change but let’s assume it stays at it is.

What would Sword gain over non-Sword users? Reflect on BF every 10s. It it cool? Yes, it’s pretty awesome. Does it increase the offensive power of Sword? Yes, it does, since I can reflect projectiles. Does it increase the survivablity of Sword? No, it doesn’t since projectiles are already evaded anyway. It might actually be bad because the reflected projectiles can trigger Retaliation.

Ok this I can accept – I may be overestimating the synergy. My reasoning is I do not want there to be an “obvious path” through any traitline as soon as you choose a particular weapon, but each path should be equally valid.

Xaylin.1860:

I simply disagree with your assessment of how powerful the synergy could be. Maybe even more importantly it doesn’t make the other traits unappealing. If Blade Training was on the Adept level, Duelists Discpline and Blinding Dissipation might be equally appealing as Evasive Mirror depending on your overall build.

Likewise I don’t consider Duelists Discipline to be as strong as you believe – it should be a solid trait but evasive mirror and blinding dissipation should be much better (providing no annoying ICDs).

Xaylin.1860:

Curunen.8729:

Don’t forget offhand sword when it comes to synergy – having phantasmal fury on that can make a difference, so Blade Training is a solid trait affecting 5 skills, unlike the pistol trait.

I didn’t. But not everyone runs Sw/Sw. That’s also somewhat like saying that 2-handed weapon traits should generall be weaker than others. Additionally, so far the secondary bonus on Blade Training doesn’t contribute a significant benefit to most of the skills since they are single hit abilities.

But the precision does contribute to overall crit chance when running any kind of shatter build speccing into duelling (power or condition), or even to any other weapon skills paired with either sword main or off hand (for example confusing images with sword offhand).

Xaylin.1860:

Curunen.8729:

1) Keep the precision bonus on sword but change the trait to grant reduced cooldown for every attack you evade or block (either from dodging or BF or iRiposte), and
2) Delete Desperate Decoy and replace it with a skill that inflicts bleeding when you interrupt a foe or something (specifically for any player not using a pistol).

The bolt part could be OP as hell. Perma-BF says ‘Heeeey!’.

Talking tiny percentages – given two dodges and BF and an average number of evades per fight. The block effect could be set to trigger only on iRiposte and not on any random aegis or anything else.

The time it would become powerful is in 1vX where you evade half a dozen attacks in one dodge or BF – but the solution here would be to cap the max recharge reduction.

To be honest I can think of one solution but I don’t think many people will like it:
- Move Phantasmal Fury to the master minor slot and swap it with Sharper Images which would become an adept major – reason being I don’t think any traitline should lean towards a particular method of dealing damage and at the moment I think it’s not right that both confusing combatants and sharper images are both minor traits – given confusion should be one of our trademark conditions, I believe it should remain as the grandmaster minor trait – but instead, Sharper Images should be a choice and not automatically gained.

I find it silly that power builds speccing into duelling automatically get illusions bleeding and confusing on crit, as well as confusing themselves on crit, all for free – doesn’t make sense to me.

All traits don’t need to be reworked just because they aren’t effective in pvp. As apvp purist, I’m extremely happy that they’ve given us a lot of attention in terms of traits, but it’s no denying that Mesmer has been pushed out of PvE even more than before based on speculation.

That being said, here’s the traits I think are underwhelming:

• Compounding Celerity - This makes no sense. Swiftness isn’t as effective during battle as it is while… traveling from point A to point B. Having swiftness tied to clones is simply bad mechanics due to this fact.
• Illusionary Inspiration IF the CD is as large as kitten …
• Mirror of Anguish - has always been overshadowed for me. I would like it better if the CD was a bit lessoned, and it included mirroring conditions every so often as well.
• Chaotic Transference - I could only see this being used if Staff isn’t being used in a condition build. And that’s somewhat unlikely. Sword/pistol scepter/torch? idk But most condi builds use Staff and most condi builds using staff will take the staff CD. I think either up the % to 15 or change it completely to add synergy to another build.

MailMail.6534:

All traits don’t need to be reworked just because they aren’t effective in pvp. As apvp purist, I’m extremely happy that they’ve given us a lot of attention in terms of traits, but it’s no denying that Mesmer has been pushed out of PvE even more than before based on speculation.

That being said, here’s the traits I think are underwhelming:

• Compounding Celerity - This makes no sense. Swiftness isn’t as effective during battle as it is while… traveling from point A to point B. Having swiftness tied to clones is simply bad mechanics due to this fact.
• Illusionary Inspiration IF the CD is as large as kitten …
• Mirror of Anguish - has always been overshadowed for me. I would like it better if the CD was a bit lessoned, and it included mirroring conditions every so often as well.
• Chaotic Transference - I could only see this being used if Staff isn’t being used in a condition build. And that’s somewhat unlikely. Sword/pistol scepter/torch? idk But most condi builds use Staff and most condi builds using staff will take the staff CD. I think either up the % to 15 or change it completely to add synergy to another build.

I know, that’s why i stated that this post is from a pvp perspective. I support separation if necessary, by the way ^^.

I think mirrored anguish would perhaps have to be a “send cc” instead of “mirror cc”
to be great, but i still think that makes for a boring and a passive trait that should be reworked in my opinion.

Curunen.8729:

Xaylin.1860:

I simply disagree with your assessment of how powerful the synergy could be. Maybe even more importantly it doesn’t make the other traits unappealing. If Blade Training was on the Adept level, Duelists Discpline and Blinding Dissipation might be equally appealing as Evasive Mirror depending on your overall build.

Likewise I don’t consider Duelists Discipline to be as strong as you believe – it should be a solid trait but evasive mirror and blinding dissipation should be much better (providing no annoying ICDs).

I’m surprised that you don’t think DD is that strong. The ability to reduce the CD by half when you successfully interrupt seems really freaking strong. There is a chance that magic bullet can instantly refresh itself and p.Duelist. As of now, it doesn’t even require the interrupt to be from magic bullet so F3/MoD could also easily refresh all pistol skills. While I think DD is really strong and look forward to it, I still think it’s better in to have it compete with phantasmal fury. Being able to “spam” interrupts and a power house phantasm that is also buffed with fury seems too strong.

Curunen.8729:

1) Keep the precision bonus on sword but change the trait to grant reduced cooldown for every attack you evade or block (either from dodging or BF or iRiposte), and

The CD on Blurred Frenzy doesn’t start until after it’s done channeling. This wouldn’t work as well as you’d hope. I think keeping the 20% CD is fine while upping the precision bonus to 100-200. This would also help it with the condi cleave from the minor. Being able to crit & confuse with BF more would be great. Personally looking forward to a sword/pistol condi or power build and I would like to be able to get blade training and DD.

I agree with the general idea of being able to blurred frenzy more often vs reflecting with blurred frenzy (and other dodges) should be a “hard” choice to make as being able to take both would be too strong. Blind on shatter is also another strong offensive-defense choice. Collectively it’s choosing which of 3 offensive defense traits to bring and that seems fine.

I can accept the sword trait i guess, but i think the other ones are just better. There are however more obviously underwhelming traits to change.

Honestly, the more often anyone brings up DE, and how it’s pointless for Phantasm specs but virtually required for Shatter specs…

Can we please already have clone/phantasm generation moved onto the F-bar and Shatter moved off it?
We need a context-free class mechanic, and clones/phantasms need a reliable power base. The two issues seem like a match made for something you could fix with a single, if sweeping, class change.

Implementation something like this:

• F1 summons a single clone wielding your current weapon. Short CD.
• F2 summons 3 clones, wielding a variety of weapons. Longer CD.
• F3 summons a stream of clones over a short amount of time, something like 8 clones over 15 seconds. Excess clones will explode if not used.
• F4 summons a phantasm to attack the enemy, type depends on current weapon.
• Clones no longer cause per-weapon effects, have more health, do no damage at all, but attacking them causes confusion to the attacker, on death their shards inflict some AE damage around them.
• Shatter skills are now mostly weapon skills, causing various effects according to weapon. They shatter one clone each time they’re used, CD is comparatively short. Will shatter phantasms only if nothing else is around.
• The utility phantasms are now shatter skills equipped as utility skills, causing the shattered clone or phantasm to do something before it expires (i.e.: absorb damage).