Guild Wars 2

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time in GW1 learning to Mesmer in PvE there. We’re kind of an Me/Rt without the option of beneficial spirits.

Something that really stands out is that a number of skills interrupt ( and have secondary effects on interrupt. Some even knock down, the basis for a “nuker” build. ) There’s a really big difference though.

Skills Like [Wandering Eye] and [Clumisness] interrupt if the enemy attempts some specific action during the duration of the hex. They also damage foes around the affected one. This is something like the “modern” Mistrust trait.

Now, if our interrupt hex(es) had a window of say, 0.5 seconds or even a full second it would make interrupt a powerful and useful build. Staff 5 [Chaos Storm] works this way for a very short duration. It’s the only one that works this way.

ANET provided the framework for an interrupt build, but cut the heart out of it. If we had two or three skills that had an interrupt window…. Interrupt would suddenly be a thing. [Confusing Images] would be a good candidate. Shield might also be a logical choice.

What keeps interrupt from working in “modern” Tyria is the extreme timing required. The GW1 builds had no such constraint.

Comments?

Ithilwen.1529:

What keeps interrupt from working in “modern” Tyria is the extreme timing required. The GW1 builds had no such constraint.

Comments?

This summs up the difference between GW1 and GW2 in a nutshell. GW1 actually had casted skills, GW2 is focused on instant casts and very short duration casts to synergise with it’s mobility aspect. Combat is fundamentaly designed differently in both games. Confusion was supposed to take the place of interupts in GW2.

Providing short or instant duration interupts only partly addresses this problem. What we are missing is (which was part of GW1) are preloaded interupts (next spell cast is interupted condition for example).

Also I’m not so sure how well intertupts would work in a 5v5 enviroment. In 8v8 it had a place to shutdown key members to prevent some rotations. With only 5 players and our current heavy condition focus, not sure that would work. Interupts would either have to be very powerful making them borderline overpowered, or they would be to lackluster.

That’s my point. Skills like [Clumsiness] and [Wandering Eye] set up a situation where an action during there duration (several seconds) would cause the interrupt. It is a kind of trap. The interrupt also does damage. Note that adjacent foes are also affected, something like Distrust.

(In GW1 you’d cover it with [Wastrel’s Worry] but there’s not a usable equivalent in GW2.)

That sort of interrupt build would be very dangerous 1v1 and in team fights. You know the big burst skill is coming, so you set an interrupt trap and there burst goes on cooldown. It would work in PvE as well.

I’m suggesting that a shorter duration would be workable in GW2 something like; during the duration of [Confusing Images ] or a flat 1 second duration. The framework is already there in the traits, we just need workable interrupts. I think ANET intended Mesmer to be able to play as interrupt.

This would allow the Mesmer to take on a shutdown/interrupt role in GW2.

On a whole, hexes would bring us a lot closer to a more specialized class, a disabler and CCer.

Maybe we just need bigger reworks? Actually ripping out skills entirely? It’s time to bring a larger tool to class balance?

Illusions for example could be fun as a skill type, even though Illusion of Life is fairly weak. But the general idea is interesting, something like Illusion of Strength: Affected allies gain 25 Might and Fury and Swiftness, this stacks with existent effects (!), however after X seconds they gain an undispellable Cripple and Weakness for a few seconds.

I don’t trust big reworks. This would require only a small adjustment. In return we might get a whole new role.

The groundwork for an interrupt build is already there, it just needs the interrupts to work reliably.

I know you don’t like big reworks. But personally this sounds interesting, and I would love to see it implemented, yet I don’t think it will be given justice unless we do get that bigger rework to really make it mesh.

Still though, I love this idea. Would be something unique to mesmer builds.

Another difference between GW1 and GW2 is that your enemy had a skill activation progress bar (aka “skill monitor”). You could see what skill your target was activating and the progress of skill activation beyond watching their sprite for animations.

True. Still a “trap” style interrupt could be effective without that progress bar.

Stability spam is a “problem.”
Reflects preventing sword 4.2 and p5 is a “problem.”
Defiance bar ruining 1/3 of the traits viability is a “problem.”
The speed of gw2 or lack of cast bar is NOT a problem.

In gw1, there were plenty of 1/4 second cast interrupts in the mesmer kitten nal. Good mesmers could interrupt a monks reversal of fortune(also 1/4 sec cast time) with a 1/4 second cast time interrupt because it was about predicting what an enemy would do. Those 1/4 sec cast interrupt builds were very much viable back then. No cast bar would help you predict a 1/4 second cast. Gw2 combat is extremely predictable in PvP. A thief is going to d2 after p5. A warrior is going to Headbutt, F2, F1. A druid going into CA is going to spam heals. Low health enemies are going to use a heal skill soon etc. The easist thing to predict of all is generic auto attacks which can be interrupted. Gw1 interrupts either interrupted only spells or only attacks. If you wiffed a gw1 interrupt it did nothing. GW2 interrupts are actually easy mode (aside from above stability problems)and are still 1 second dazes for the most part. What you are failing to mention about wandering eye, clumsiness etc is that they had 2 second cast times. You really want that in gw2? Chaos storm now takes 2 seconds to cast? Headshot ftw because those fastcast interrupts are viable in gw2.

Carighan.6758:

On a whole, hexes would bring us a lot closer to a more specialized class, a disabler and CCer.

Maybe we just need bigger reworks? Actually ripping out skills entirely? It’s time to bring a larger tool to class balance?

Go play gw1. I somehow doubt you want to play a game in which Mantra of distraction only interrupts auto attacks while F3 only interrupts utility skills and SoD only interrupts other signets. Of course we cant forget a utility that does nothing but counter warrior adrenaline. Making base mesmer a CC/hex focused class when raid bosses have defiance would be horrible. Do you really want to have to decide if you need to bring Hex removal with one of your utilities in PvP. GW2 exists because gw1 balance was problematic on so many levels.

To be clear, I’m not against more of a gw1 style interrupt mesmer. I’m all for it. The elite specs and reworks I’ve been proposing are heavily interrupt/gw1 inspired but hexes are not the way to go.

New mesmer heal skills. Small heal on cast. It’s also a 1/4 daze with bonus healing if you actually interrupt something. New main-hand with an interrupt on short CD but no defensive skills. To actually translate clumsiness to gw2, would be a skill that would have a flashy 2 second cast time that gave you a 4 second shocking aura once it was done casting. Not a hex.

I guess I assumed that cast times for interrupt would be reduced to be in line with cast times in GW2.

Hex removal would be condition removal.

The current issue I see with interrupts is that they are basically too hard to pull off. When I cast [Wandering Eye] or [Clumsiness] the next attack action by that target is interrupted AND any adjacent enemy is also interrupted and damaged. The Hex acts like a magical trap.

By contrast, in GW2 I have to hit during an actual cast ( and with one of my few useful interrupt attacks. Also, the target can’t have any of several invulnerabilities up.) This is very difficult to do reliably. That is the core reason interrupt really isn’t a thing.

I’m suggesting that GW2 is already set up for interrupt. The problem is that the interrupts do not work properly.

ANET could create an interrupt bonanza with very simple things like weapon skills. The “modern” [Chaos Storm] only interrupts in it’s first 1/4 second if memory serves.
If it and [Confusing Images] interrupted for 1/2 second or a full second that alone might make a niche for interrupt.

Shield 5 could make a hex for 1 second that interrupted the next utility skill.

Well… GW1 and GW2 are vastly different on a lot of points. For example, necromancers are not one mans armies and ranger’s spirit are not double-edges swords.

Curses have been melted into conditions for good or worse. As for mesmer’s hexes it seem that they have been melted into ritualist’s binding rituals. In the end, the futur of the interrupt mesmer may lie in a new fantasm that periodically interrupt/daze it’s foe like dissonance. (90% chance that something like that is nerfed to the ground)

I say this as a joke but we may see an elite specialization that limit the number of time our fantasms hit their foes but add to them greater effects.

I hear you. Still, the traits are there already for an interrupt build. I’d claim that means that interrupt builds were intended.

By making interrupts just a little bit more accessible, for example by adding them to [Chaos Storm](non random stun) and [Confusing Images], ANET would permit a whole new genre of Mesmer.

This is reasonable. Engi aoe stun is not random. Give an on-block stun to scepter and an aoe stun to staff 5 and you’d see interrupt Mesmers.

I’m in Ventari’s Haven taking a break as I type this. (just got done grinding my collector armor set) Enjoying my GW1 Mesmer very much.

I do think that the original idea, of a hex-like effect that interrupts the next attack that they try to cast within X seconds, is a really cool one, and an elite spec could be built around that for sure.

But I also see how it could be extremely overpowered in a PvP setting. Being able to automatically interrupt anyone on their next skill cast as long as they don’t have stab? That would be nerfed into the ground immediately unfortunately

well, domination mesmer in gw1 was probably the most enjoyable thing I played in the game. It litterally ruined me for any other profession on the late stage of nightfall. Sadly, at that moment the players in my guild were… humm… egoists jerks who didn’t allow me to play anything else than protect monk to support our flawed heal monk guildmaster. Ah those memories of not being allowed to play for fun and being forced to play protect…

As for GW2 at this point, the only light that exist for all professions is the futur e-spec. At the moment, you can interupt player with F3, GS#5, Staff#5, pistol#5 and focus#4. Traited with master of fragmentation you got an on demand instant aoe stun when hitting F3. The only thing that you don’t have in GW2 is the ability to put an “hex” that react by interrupting the foes when they use a skill.

I know that it doesn’t quite live to the gameplay that one can enjoy in gw1 but we can’t do anything about that. Let’s just hope that the futur have room for the different gameply that were enjoyable in gw1 and are still not represented in game.

@OriOri

But that would be the skill factor. You see that you are hexed, so you blow an unimportant skill. We do the same with dh traps, blow a shatter to wiff the trap.

On a side note;

If in fact there is another expac coming, I won’t buy it for several months. I’ll decide whether to buy after I see how hard the Mesmer nerfs are.

I bought deluxe HoT twice. I won’t do that again.

Its not as simple as just blowing an unimportant skill to be interrupted due to our on-interrupt traits.

Just by taking domination alone, you could easily inflict vuln, weakness, increase the CD of that useless skill, deal damage, and gain quickness. If you also take dueling, you can then also inflict AoE confusion on them, as well as recharge your pistol attacks if you are using a pistol.

So, even if they blow a “useless” skill to proc the interrupt, it can still be extremely punishing for them due to our on interrupt traits, which is why the ability to interrupt an attack they havent’ started yet will be inherently OP on mesmer unless a lot of flavor to our class is nerfed hard.

Yes, this would add an incredible amount of flavor to mesmers. Yes, this would give mesmers another unique role in true fight/enemy control. Yes, this would be a hell of a lot of fun to play with. But it would be a balancing nightmare, either it would be extremely overpowered, or it would be nerfed into the ground. And honestly neither option sounds fun, especially since with my experience with chrono, the nerfs will come to core mesmer even if this ability is added to an elite spec.

Add onto that that Mesmer can already punish you hard enough for using skills due to our high access to confusion, can you imagine the salt if we were able to punish you even more by not even having to time our interrupts?

So it’s too hard to interrupt in gw2 because it’s too fast paced (it’s not) but seeing a one second cast ability that hexes you in a team fight and then knowing for the next second you can’t use any ability, so you spam stow weapon. That’s your definition of fair game play? You don’t blow an unimportant skill in gw2 when you know that halting strike (and the new interrupt sigil that will be added to pvp etc) is going to proc. You have to wait that out.

I don’t blow a shatter on traps. A clone is an easy mine sweeper. Gw1 hexes affected a very specific subset of skills. Gw2 doesn’t have that distinction.

Just get good. Mesmers and thieves interrupt me in pvp plenty. I even land interrupts on necro by corrupting stability at the right time. It’s one thing to ask for a dedicated interrupt weapon which I’m all for but hexes should not be the solution to poor interrupting skills in gw2

I’m really presenting two parallel suggestions. One is the idea of a trap hex.

The other is to allow Staff 5 to consistently stun. Engineer has an aoe stun so it’s not considered OP. Also add an on-block stun to scepter and shield. This would make interrupt Mesmer practical.

@DuckDuckBoom To your comment of “just get good.” If it were as easy and practical as you portray, we would see interrupt Mesmers playing.

I realize that it’s fun to say “get good,” but in this case it’s not justified. Interrupt Mesmer is near unicorn status in PvP. The reason is that it’s too hard to play. The official wiki acknowledges this: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Interrupt See the comment under “Trivia.” Full Stop.

-edit- Oh btw.. I’m playing GW1 intensively atm. There are hexes for just about any subset of skills and some general purpose ones as well. What you said there was not accurate.

Chaos storm
Traited focus
Tides of time
Mirror
Feedback
Gravity well

Mirror of Anguish

Rune of surging
Rune of the earth
Rune of the Golemancer

Are sources of potential delayed/reactive interupts.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

So it’s too hard to interrupt in gw2 because it’s too fast paced (it’s not) but seeing a one second cast ability that hexes you in a team fight and then knowing for the next second you can’t use any ability, so you spam stow weapon. That’s your definition of fair game play? You don’t blow an unimportant skill in gw2 when you know that halting strike (and the new interrupt sigil that will be added to pvp etc) is going to proc. You have to wait that out.

snipped for brevity

Isn’t that in effect what thieves do with steal + basi venom? I don’t see the problem here.

Justine.6351:

Chaos storm
Traited focus
Tides of time
Mirror
Feedback
Gravity well

Mirror of Anguish

Rune of surging
Rune of the earth
Rune of the Golemancer

Are sources of potential delayed/reactive interupts.

Feedback and Mirror would be pure rng. I don’t want to trust that. Focus is a good call except that you give up an awful lot for it.

Both focus and shield 5 require that they hit exactly within a casting time. That means about 1/4 second to react ( and in the case of shield, to have the wall move. )

This is the reasoning behind my request for a long interrupt on staff 5 , on-block interrupt or a hex style trap interrupt. A quarter second simply is not enough margin to consistently interrupt.. That is the primary reason that interrupt Mesmers are a non thing in GW2. Not even ESL level players will run it, despite the deadly potential.

Yes thieves do interrupt, but that’s an automatic traited thing.

~edit~

Rune of Earth requires being struck while below 20% health for a short duration RNG chance at interrupt.. not a good bet.

Rune of Surging is more interesting but requires the use of an elite and being close enough to the enemy to strike or be struck in melee… also quite short duration. This is also not a good bet.

Golemancer runes do not appear to be available in PvP.

Attitudes like this are the reason why we are mediocre at best, and always have been. A major rework has been needed for a long time to give us a real game changing impact. The last time we were any good was when HoT first released and gave us nice alacrity up-times to support entire teams, then they nerfed us back into the ground. We need something to change to put mesmer back into the meta fold for sure!

So, me being me, I took an interrupt build out for a spin. Unranked is wonky and not a really ideal testing ground. This was a very short trial balloon, but interesting results.

The resistance with glamour and boom stripping turned out to be a nasty surprise for some of my opponents. Use Focus 4 (part 2 ) just before focus 5 or shatter when not trying to hit an interrupt. When attacked by thieves use Focus 5 and stand right next to the phant. (The focus phantasm is too slow for most offense situations.) Time Warp with resistance and extra duration turned a couple of mid and bell fights.

I don’t actually know how to post my build on calculators. They say a picture’s worth 1000 words. The setup is to be played almost entirely with my right hand, using a Razer Naga Epic. Mouse 4 is weapon swap.

~edit~ oh and yeah that’s my crafted [The Legend]

Ithilwen.1529:

Justine.6351:

Chaos storm
Traited focus
Tides of time
Mirror
Feedback
Gravity well

Mirror of Anguish

Rune of surging
Rune of the earth
Rune of the Golemancer

Are sources of potential delayed/reactive interupts.

Feedback and Mirror would be pure rng. I don’t want to trust that. Focus is a good call except that you give up an awful lot for it.

Both focus and shield 5 require that they hit exactly within a casting time. That means about 1/4 second to react ( and in the case of shield, to have the wall move. )

This is the reasoning behind my request for a long interrupt on staff 5 , on-block interrupt or a hex style trap interrupt. A quarter second simply is not enough margin to consistently interrupt.. That is the primary reason that interrupt Mesmers are a non thing in GW2. Not even ESL level players will run it, despite the deadly potential.

Yes thieves do interrupt, but that’s an automatic traited thing.

~edit~

Rune of Earth requires being struck while below 20% health for a short duration RNG chance at interrupt.. not a good bet.

Rune of Surging is more interesting but requires the use of an elite and being close enough to the enemy to strike or be struck in melee… also quite short duration. This is also not a good bet.

Golemancer runes do not appear to be available in PvP.

Lol…
what are you even asking for? more aoe dot that cc? Ya that would be amazing improvement for the games pvp.

If you want a non-cast time interrupt use mantra of distraction.

I’m asking for a reliable interrupt. Thieves have a really nice one that auto attacks. With a reasonable interrupt, we’d see interrupt Mesmers playing.

I think that an on-block interrupt or adding interrupt to the full length of chaos storm would be two possible ways of getting there.

Ithilwen.1529:

-edit- Oh btw.. I’m playing GW1 intensively atm. There are hexes for just about any subset of skills and some general purpose ones as well. What you said there was not accurate.

Wandering eye, Clumsiness, Ineptitude were only attacks. Shame, Guilt and Mistrust was only spells. Diversion only affected skills but not attacks and didn’t actually interrupt. So no, there were no “trap hexes” that interrupted everything. What that meant for balance/counter play is you could still use a subset of your abilities when you got hit with a trap hex.

The mesmer interrupts that affected all attacks, skills and spells were extremely rare/expensive (as in 3-4 elites out of the entire mesmer skill list rare) and were 1/4 second cast skill shots while the gw2 variant you are proposing would affect every ability because gw2 doesn’t have that kind of distinction in it’s skills.

Ithilwen.1529:

@DuckDuckBoom To your comment of “just get good.” If it were as easy and practical as you portray, we would see interrupt Mesmers playing.

I realize that it’s fun to say “get good,” but in this case it’s not justified. Interrupt Mesmer is near unicorn status in PvP. The reason is that it’s too hard to play. The official wiki acknowledges this: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Interrupt See the comment under “Trivia.” Full Stop.

Are you denying that interrupts work for D/P daredevil just because an old interview says so? PI, Steal and pistol 4 work really well. Again, I can land interrupts on my Necro. The corrupt skills have a 1 second cast time but I still manage to interrupt abilities through stability because those corrupts turn that stability into fear (my interrupter). War horn 4 as an unblockable interrupt also works really well to stop channeled blocks. So not full stop because the interview is wrong. Interrupts work in gw2.

You don’t see interrupt mesmer for multiple reasons but not because interrupts are too hard to time properly. Interrupt mesmer existed in gw2 before HOT. Halting strike was meta. Sustain just isn’t there for power mesmer which makes interrupt Domination mesmers weak for this meta. Stability is too common. Your “fix” doesn’t fix the stability problem. While thief can steal stability/daze at the same time on F1 and necro can turn the stability against an enemy, mesmers cant. Mesmers can strip boons but most boon strips aren’t on interrupts and the boon strips don’t consistently remove stability. That’s why interrupt Mesmer is rare. Not because interrupts are too hard to time it.

So in that sense, it is a get good situation as you are complaining that timing gw2 interrupts is too hard. It isn’t. I fully support buffs to Mesmer interrupt builds. Requires better sustain/stability counters not what you are suggesting.

Ithilwen.1529:

I’m asking for a reliable interrupt. Thieves have a really nice one that auto attacks. With a reasonable interrupt, we’d see interrupt Mesmers playing.

I think that an on-block interrupt or adding interrupt to the full length of chaos storm would be two possible ways of getting there.

So in a team fight where the enemy team (or enemy zerg in wvw) is bombing an area. You walk into the node with shield 4 channel and interrupt an entire team (or zerg) if they don’t have stability. For chaos storm, you are basically asking for gravity well on staff 5. That is not balanced.

OK granted, GW2 doesn’t differentiate skill types. DH traps do more damage than I am proposing and they continue damaging long enough to overcome most defenses such as sword 2. I’m talking about a trap that would do less damage and be totally avoidable. I don’t see the balance issue.

No, I’m pointing out that thief has a passive traited rng interrupt that works quite well.
It’s one reason dd is tough to fight. It’s as though our staff 1 also interrupted.

Yes you can f1 on thief, steal boons, interrupt and deliver a massive poison attack while your opponent is immobilized. It is a rare Mesmer who can do that.

Unblockable interrupts? wow, wouldn’t that be nice. I proposed such a thing at the beginning of this thread. Scepter 2 might be a good candidate.

I also proposed on-block interrupts. This is logical and requires skill, as opposed to passive rng thief style.

I’m not asking for gravity well on staff 5. That’s a gross overstatement. I’m asking for an envelope of interrupt time.

To your comment about “an entire enemy team…,” I run a venomshare thief in dungeons. ( I do teaching runs. So I run venomshare or well chrono to support newish people. ) My party regularly stealths up and delivers a basi venom attack, immobilizing the enemy for some time + poison. This would be a real kitten in pvp if you could get the team to cooperate. (then again, it would be nerfed into the ground so maybe it’s better most teams don’t listen )

In GW1 that was ( and still is ) known as a “Nuker” build. You use [Psychic Instability] to knock down the enemy team, giving your w/d/a several free hits.

This was allegedly the purpose of wells and gravity well in particular. Again, I don’t see the balance issue here. Other classes are capable of doing the same. A dh can cc and wipe an entire team on a node in seconds. A druid can also immobilize multiple targets I believe. Thief has this capability though it’s rarely used.

An unblockabe interrupt, perhaps via on-block, would be the kitten’s meow although the screams from wars would be audible all the way in Bellevue.

We are converging on this point, a way to get around the stability immunity. I may have misunderstood the reason my interrupts weren’t working. Stability might be the issue as opposed to timing.