Guild Wars 2

Since nobody is likely going to be using this shield in PvE thus far because of its terrible damage and delayed phantasm cast:

1- Buff the damage to compete with iduelist/iswordsman. Make iswordsman cleave 3 targets on its attack (it’s been a long time coming, mesmer needs more cleaving phantasms than just iwarden or iberserker for PvE)

2- Make the phantasm spawn after 1 second of channeling the block. This would put it in line with the other 1 sec cast phantasm summons instead of laying around useless channeling a block hoping some mob hits you in PvE while you do no damage.

Voila, PvE mesmers will now use their shield instead of the usual sw/sw+sw/pistol that they will use if you don’t implement these changes.

You need to realize that the damage of mesmer autoattacks and blurred frenzy is so pitifully low, that we depend on 3x phantasms to sustain “competitive” DPS. Until you buff autoattacks/blurred frenzy damage coefficients, we cannot afford to use low damage phantasms.

I know you’re worried about chronomancer spike, but at some point you’re going to need to do something about the way mesmers do spike so that their terrible sustained damage can be buffed for PvE.

Being a buff/portal/veil bot with terrible damage in PvE just isn’t fun.

Alternatively, make it so that what the shield does right now has value in PvE.

Defiance bar bosses are immune to slow, making the phantasm totally worthless. If they weren’t immune to slow, it could potentially be a valuable way to extend burst windows and protect your team.

The bouncing attack is worthless for giving alacrity to your allies. If it instead pulsed aoe alacrity every time it attacked (5 target aoe ofc), it would instantly become a usable method of providing solid alacrity to your team.

While it’s easy to just say ‘oh, let’s make the shield phantasm hit like a swordsman so that it’s competitive dps-wise’, that’s really boring and just perpetuates the mindless stack-n-smack meta of PvE currently. If the utility purposes of the phantasm actually had meaning in PvE, we wouldn’t be so reliant on trying to keep up with the engies and eles on dps.

Ultimately, this is far more important than buffing the damage on it, because if the utility we bring isn’t meaningful, then there’s no reason to ever bring a Mesmer. We can’t even hope to compare to the damage output of warriors, revenants, guardians, and thieves, let alone Elementalists and engineers. What we offer to teams is utility, and until the whole range of that has actual value, we’ll always be nothing more than a troop transport with a bit of glitter spray.

Unfortunately, the Jury is still out on whether team alacrity can actually make up for the fact that your mesmer is not an elementalist.
Even 100% alacrity is “only” 40% cdr, which means you have to be able to positively say that giving 40% cdr to the team is more valuable than an extra elementalist, and I’m not sure we can say that.

Combo support is a part of that, we’re having that conversation elsewhere.
Mesmer dps is a huuuge part of that, eles just blow mesmer dps away. And any build that tries to put out lots of alacrity is going to lose major dps by default, especially if iCap is the means to do it, since iCap is a direct loss of dps for a very small alacrity gain.

But, because Pyro’s suggestion is so straightforward, we can math it as long as we know how often iCap attacks.
Suppose iCap attacks every 8s as suggested in the wiki. With Phantasmal Haste, that’s about a 6.4s cycle.
3 iCap attacking every 6.4s applying 1s alacrity per attack = 3s aoe alacrity per 6.4s = .469 uptime, assuming all iCaps survive (not a great assumption, as we well know).
.469 alacrity uptime = 23.8% cooldown reduction on team skills.
This also assumes, of course, that iCap alacrity prioritizes players over other iCaps.

So we have to ask, now: is 23.8% cooldown reduction worth giving up all meaningful dps from the mesmer? kitten ed if I know, but do we really think Anet is going to go to the trouble of finding out? Their assumption so far has been that even a little alacrity is a lot of power, but we don’t actually know that to be the case in the current meta.

Edit: It’s worth noting that since alacrity doesn’t affect weapon swap, it probably won’t affect Elementalist attunements either, which means alacrity is even less valuable in the current meta given that attunements are probably the biggest limiters on elementalist power, not specific cooldowns.

@Alpha:

Chill affects attunement swapping.

You also need to consider the other part of my suggestion, which is allowing slow to work on bosses. This would make it so that the iCaps potentially perform another powerful function in a fight. Extending dps windows can potentially be massive, and slowing bosses/mobs down allow your squishy teammates to dps happily without dying.

Fay.2357:

@Alpha:

Chill affects attunement swapping.

You also need to consider the other part of my suggestion, which is allowing slow to work on bosses. This would make it so that the iCaps potentially perform another powerful function in a fight. Extending dps windows can potentially be massive, and slowing bosses/mobs down allow your squishy teammates to dps happily without dying.

I’m all for the slow suggestion, and I do think it would change things.
I group it right with an overhaul of breakbar/defiance that allows cc skills to be more than just another form of damage against a different type of hp, which frankly does not solve the original problem the breakbar is trying to solve (that cc is booring, and classes balanced around more cc vs more damage are harmed in pve versus classes designed to deal more damage).

I’m extremely doubtful that they would do both, however, so I separated your suggestions and dealt with the one that I had concerns about.

What if they changed it so Slow vs Defiance Bar changed it so that Slow decreased the regeneration rate of the bar and gave you a larger window when the DefBar was broken without actually Slowing the boss? (Or maybe that and then slow the boss when Defbar is broked)

Okay, well, at least on paper there are some suggestive numbers.

Given the meta staff ele build, assuming:
25 might, 25 vuln, fury, ability to keep foe burning, 90% personal health, and a nighttime dungeon,
An elementalist that did nothing but spam lava font would go from 8,718 dps to 14,529 dps with 100% alacrity. That’s a 66.7% increase in dps of lava font.
If the enemy is below 50% health, dps goes up to 17,435.

What’s really funny about this, is if you compare 2 groups:
Group 1 has 5 Eles doing exactly what I cited above.
Group 2 has 3 Eles and 2 Chronos, between whom you have 100% alacrity and 100% quickness.

With no other actions taken by the groups than what I cited above:
The 5 eles in group 1 together deal 43588 dps with their lava fonts.
The 3 eles in group 2 deal 43588 dps with their lava fonts.

Obviously the 5 ele group isn’t going to sit there spamming lava fonts (probably not the 3 eles either), but the core number at least suggests that it’s theoretically possible that a 2-chrono, 3-ele group can out-dps a 5-ele group.

My problem with focusing us on utility is that we are already a heavy utility class. Portals, time warp, feedback, wells, mimic stealth.

Mesmers are heavy on utility, not on damage.

And the problem with that and basic raid design is that in any encounter that involves HP depletion, ultimately the most valuable utility is damage. Damage pushes phases, shortens encounter times so less time windows to commit errors on, and it also means less likelyhood of running out of defensive utilities as a boss retains his offensive power throughout the fight while our defensive capabilities diminish as the fight drags on and utilities/aegis go on cooldown.

What’s more, utility classes are essentially buffbots. A core concept with buff bots, if you watch WoW vanilla or FFXIV, is that you only bring as few as you need for the utility, and then stack the high damage classes. You are creating a ghetto for the mesmer if he cannot compete in damage output — a raid will bring maybe 2-3 chronomancers, and then stack the highest DPS classes.

I’m a firm believer that all classes should be able to put out similar DPS, as in within a 10% margin of each other. Otherwise you create niche classes while DPS classes always remain the most used.

And the fact will be, utility classes will be competing against each other for their spot. We know we need 2 PSEA warriors, 2 guardians (long group stability and protection/aegis uptime) , 1 thief, and several eles. Probably 2 revenants for the ferocity group buff and revenants deal close to ele dps right now.

We’re looking at around 6-8 spots filled, how much does that leave between ranger/mesmer/necro?

It’s not a good place to be in.

Déjà Vu is a feeling of Having Already experienced the present situation, so inflict confusion would be the MOST logical, inflict only slow with a little damage not help much, with confusion, Déjà Vu meet the phantasmal condition, creating confusion with the flow of time.

I suggest…

Echo of Memory: Block the next incoming attack. When this skill ends, summon a phantasm that slows and confuse enemies, and grants alacrity to allies. If an attack is blocked, Déjà Vu is usable for a short time.

Damage: 430
Alacrity 1s
Slow 2s
x4 Confusion 6s
Number of Bounces: 3
Duration: 10s
Range: 900

I wouldn’t say giving up all meaningful DPS. The mesmer can still reflect, ice bow 4 and double time warp.

For long sustained fights, 40% CDR on 2x staff eles is definitely worth it. A 2.4 second CD on lava font would add a lot of DPS. Especially in something like a 10 man raid if there is a backline 4 x DPS ele group 1x support mesmer. It would also affect the rest of your teammates that aren’t eles and they could do more damage as well.

Think about it another way, warriors (before PS) were brought for just banners or rangers brought for frost spirit/spotter… those aren’t that big of a buff compared to 40% CDR to an entire team. That isn’t even just DPS, it’s all the utility and defense as well.

The problem is more about the practicality of it. 1) The phantasms would probably die all over the place anyway. 2) Most ppl are very set in their rotation and CD. Messing with that would probably screw up their DPS rotation or they wouldn’t make use of it that well.

I would much prefer for alacrity to be buffed even more (80-90%) but be put on something that isn’t a phantasm. Keep the well with it. Make shield 5 have alacrity instead of quickness. Short burst of really strong alacrity could then be timed with when your team uses long CD abilities. Would be easier to balance this way as well.

Robert Gee.9246:

Even if you don’t consider the phantasm, the chronomancer’s shield 5 skill alone has higher damage output than the shield skills of any other profession. In general shields aren’t intended to be high DPS weapons. If the utility of the skills is lacking, that’s an area that can be tuned, but we don’t have any plans to really increase the damage that much.

In terms of utility i think the main problem is in phantasm. Bounce dependent attacks/buff applications will be a mess to control in a area with a lot of mobs/allies.
Concerning utility aspect wells also have room to improve. For example in combo field type. Seen very good sugestions in the other topic…

Yet we have a big dilema in here… Shield is a defensive weapon, but mesmer damage is “balanced” arround having phantasm out ( if its a good way or bad way to balance mesmer damage, specially pve, its another story), and the dilema is here… we only have phantasm in offhand weapons.

We loose too much ( dmg in this case ) for the negligible suport and utility this phantasm provides.
And seems common sense dmg isnt the way to fix.

Robert Gee.9246:

Even if you don’t consider the phantasm, the chronomancer’s shield 5 skill alone has higher damage output than the shield skills of any other profession. In general shields aren’t intended to be high DPS weapons. If the utility of the skills is lacking, that’s an area that can be tuned, but we don’t have any plans to really increase the damage that much.

Well, in that case I’d go with Pyro(Fay)’s suggestion first.

Bouncing attacks really just wreak havoc on our ability to get a benefit out of that shield, and 1s of alacrity from a bouncing attack is…not very useful.

Add to that the general concern that slow vs defiance/breakbar is not in a good place (nor interrupts), though I’m assured you’re taking a look at that.

icap only has 3 bounces… all the calculations i’ve seen so far look like they’re assuming its hitting x5 party members. There is no way to control where those bounces are going (mobs.. illusions.. pets..). So we’ll actually be relying on wells for reliable AoE alacrity, BUT wells are going to interfere with blasting fire and water fields… I feel like we’re all going to find this whole mechanic to be lackluster in Dungeons/Raids.

We all already have experience with the bouncing mechanic on Phantasms…
How effective is the iDisenchanter at clearing a dungeon party’s conditions?
How effective is the iMage at stacking fury on a party?

Robert Gee.9246:

Even if you don’t consider the phantasm, the chronomancer’s shield 5 skill alone has higher damage output than the shield skills of any other profession. In general shields aren’t intended to be high DPS weapons. If the utility of the skills is lacking, that’s an area that can be tuned, but we don’t have any plans to really increase the damage that much.

What Fay said, essentially. I agree that just increasing damage isn’t the right lever for the Shield in PvE, but a bad targeting type (Bounce) and a condition that literally doesn’t do anything in boss encounters (Slow) really hamstring the usability of the Shield’s phantasm, even more than the summoning condition does.

Bit late to the party. It would be nice to have another dps weapon but having seen what has been put here I can see the other side.

Perhaps for iCaptain, pulse 1s alacrity to up to 5 players upon attack and it fires a bouncing projectile at enemies slowing them. That way we get the party benefits without having to deal with a clunky bounce type mechanic but we keep the awesome captain not America bouncing shield in the attacks.

apharma.3741:

Bit late to the party. It would be nice to have another dps weapon but having seen what has been put here I can see the other side.

Perhaps for iCaptain, pulse 1s alacrity to up to 5 players upon attack and it fires a bouncing projectile at enemies slowing them. That way we get the party benefits without having to deal with a clunky bounce type mechanic but we keep the awesome captain not America bouncing shield in the attacks.

With this, it’s important to note that Robert’s point cuts both ways. Making a shield phantasm more damaging may not be appropriate, but that means that the phantasm should be very good at what it does do. 1s of alacrity on a bouncing attack is much, much weaker than the extra damage you’d get from, say, iBerserker in terms of long-run effect.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

apharma.3741:

Bit late to the party. It would be nice to have another dps weapon but having seen what has been put here I can see the other side.

Perhaps for iCaptain, pulse 1s alacrity to up to 5 players upon attack and it fires a bouncing projectile at enemies slowing them. That way we get the party benefits without having to deal with a clunky bounce type mechanic but we keep the awesome captain not America bouncing shield in the attacks.

With this, it’s important to note that Robert’s point cuts both ways. Making a shield phantasm more damaging may not be appropriate, but that means that the phantasm should be very good at what it does do. 1s of alacrity on a bouncing attack is much, much weaker than the extra damage you’d get from, say, iBerserker in terms of long-run effect.

Mesmer has exceptionally weak AAs which makes our DPS heavily reliant on our phantasms. We’re sacrificing quite a bit for this “utility”.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

apharma.3741:

Bit late to the party. It would be nice to have another dps weapon but having seen what has been put here I can see the other side.

Perhaps for iCaptain, pulse 1s alacrity to up to 5 players upon attack and it fires a bouncing projectile at enemies slowing them. That way we get the party benefits without having to deal with a clunky bounce type mechanic but we keep the awesome captain not America bouncing shield in the attacks.

With this, it’s important to note that Robert’s point cuts both ways. Making a shield phantasm more damaging may not be appropriate, but that means that the phantasm should be very good at what it does do. 1s of alacrity on a bouncing attack is much, much weaker than the extra damage you’d get from, say, iBerserker in terms of long-run effect.

Pretty sure I made it clear the alacrity should pulse from the phantasm to nearby allies and be removed from the bounce attack. Keep the attack as is though but without the alacrity or targeting allies.

Essentially its separating the positive effects for you and the negative effects for the enemy and making the phantasm a lot better. The point of having iAvenger isn’t about giving yourself more damage its about reducing cool downs for you and your party, you give up damage but you gain immense reductions on CDs.

apharma.3741:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

apharma.3741:

Bit late to the party. It would be nice to have another dps weapon but having seen what has been put here I can see the other side.

Perhaps for iCaptain, pulse 1s alacrity to up to 5 players upon attack and it fires a bouncing projectile at enemies slowing them. That way we get the party benefits without having to deal with a clunky bounce type mechanic but we keep the awesome captain not America bouncing shield in the attacks.

With this, it’s important to note that Robert’s point cuts both ways. Making a shield phantasm more damaging may not be appropriate, but that means that the phantasm should be very good at what it does do. 1s of alacrity on a bouncing attack is much, much weaker than the extra damage you’d get from, say, iBerserker in terms of long-run effect.

Pretty sure I made it clear the alacrity should pulse from the phantasm to nearby allies and be removed from the bounce attack. Keep the attack as is though but without the alacrity or targeting allies.

Essentially its separating the positive effects for you and the negative effects for the enemy and making the phantasm a lot better. The point of having iAvenger isn’t about giving yourself more damage its about reducing cool downs for you and your party, you give up damage but you gain immense reductions on CDs.

I was supporting your proposed buff with an explanation why Robert’s own argument supports it.

An increase in the alacrity provided by the phantasm along with a way to slow bosses would seem appropriate given the big damage trade you make in exchange for having it.

Robert Gee.9246:

Even if you don’t consider the phantasm, the chronomancer’s shield 5 skill alone has higher damage output than the shield skills of any other profession. In general shields aren’t intended to be high DPS weapons. If the utility of the skills is lacking, that’s an area that can be tuned, but we don’t have any plans to really increase the damage that much.

As a Killshot Mesmer who runs sword/warhorn (on my warrior if that’s not clear) I can understand and respect this concept of an OH being a piece of utility based equipment, and it providing enough of the right stuff to be functional within a build.

Robert Gee.9246:

Even if you don’t consider the phantasm, the chronomancer’s shield 5 skill alone has higher damage output than the shield skills of any other profession. In general shields aren’t intended to be high DPS weapons. If the utility of the skills is lacking, that’s an area that can be tuned, but we don’t have any plans to really increase the damage that much.

That’s really nice from a game design point of view and since it’s common knowledge that mesmer in PvE is a damage beast, quite reassuring to know that devs consider the strengths and weaknesses of classes.

Robert Gee.9246:

Even if you don’t consider the phantasm, the chronomancer’s shield 5 skill alone has higher damage output than the shield skills of any other profession. In general shields aren’t intended to be high DPS weapons. If the utility of the skills is lacking, that’s an area that can be tuned, but we don’t have any plans to really increase the damage that much.

Possible two blocks with two phantasms? Either or shattering or using their slow effect? Not to mention a double stun? I think that the shield is just fine.

Zenith.7301:

Since nobody is likely going to be using this shield in PvE thus far because of its terrible damage and delayed phantasm cast:

1- Buff the damage to compete with iduelist/iswordsman. Make iswordsman cleave 3 targets on its attack (it’s been a long time coming, mesmer needs more cleaving phantasms than just iwarden or iberserker for PvE)

2- Make the phantasm spawn after 1 second of channeling the block. This would put it in line with the other 1 sec cast phantasm summons instead of laying around useless channeling a block hoping some mob hits you in PvE while you do no damage.

Voila, PvE mesmers will now use their shield instead of the usual sw/sw+sw/pistol that they will use if you don’t implement these changes.

You need to realize that the damage of mesmer autoattacks and blurred frenzy is so pitifully low, that we depend on 3x phantasms to sustain “competitive” DPS. Until you buff autoattacks/blurred frenzy damage coefficients, we cannot afford to use low damage phantasms.

I know you’re worried about chronomancer spike, but at some point you’re going to need to do something about the way mesmers do spike so that their terrible sustained damage can be buffed for PvE.

Being a buff/portal/veil bot with terrible damage in PvE just isn’t fun.

I plan to use the shield a lot thank you very much. And yes, in PVE.

Robert Gee.9246:

Even if you don’t consider the phantasm, the chronomancer’s shield 5 skill alone has higher damage output than the shield skills of any other profession. In general shields aren’t intended to be high DPS weapons. If the utility of the skills is lacking, that’s an area that can be tuned, but we don’t have any plans to really increase the damage that much.

A sword+shield guardian does relatively the same DPS as a sword+torch or sword+focus guardian, because his sustained damage comes from a potent autoattack and his sword skill #3.

Similarly, an axe+shield warrior does roughly the same DPS as an axe+mace warrior. The competitive DPS is packaged in the autoattack.

A mesmer has miserable autoattack damage, and blurred frenzy is barely a DPS gain over that already low DPS autoattack, so the proportion of his damage that comes from a phantasm is much greater, making him dependent on certain phantasm types to do any DPS at all.

Sustained DPS (which the mesmer needs in PvE), not burst, which is something the mesmer does not need more of.

If you’re not looking to buff the shield phantasm, then you need to reconsider how reliant you’re going to make mesmer on phantasms to deal damage.

Because a phantasm with negligible damage and 1-2 seconds of alacrity bounce does in no way overcome a 7k+ iswordsman or iDuelist.

It doesn’t matter that the shield skill 5 does more damage than other shield skills. It’s a 40 second cooldown, this is hardly a boost to our DPS to make up for the loss of iswordsman/iduelist, let alone iwarden.

I hope we don’t come to realize this when nobody is using the shield in PvE much like nobody uses the torch because defensive offhands with low damage output are NOT desirable in PvE. The benefits do not outweigh the costs.

In fact the guardian shield is a perfect analogue to why this mesmer shield won’t be used. Relatively long cooldowns for effects that have limited impact in PvE and low damage output.

Morfedel.4165:

I plan to use the shield a lot thank you very much. And yes, in PVE.

Feel free, but the fact that you plan to use it doesn’t change the fact that its current form is really awful for PvE, and using it will be a mistake.

I thought the Shield was supposed to apply Stop and not Stun (the difference being Stop literally pauses the animation versus stun canceling it).

Although if that were the case, you’d have to be careful which stunbreaker to use or you might interrupt yourself after breaking the stop, lel.

Esplen.3940:

I thought the Shield was supposed to apply Stop and not Stun (the difference being Stop literally pauses the animation versus stun canceling it).

Although if that were the case, you’d have to be careful which stunbreaker to use or you might interrupt yourself after breaking the stop, lel.

Not sure where you heard that, but that’s never been the case as far as I understand. Stop is…not a thing. I’m pretty sure you made that up.

Fay.2357:

Esplen.3940:

I thought the Shield was supposed to apply Stop and not Stun (the difference being Stop literally pauses the animation versus stun canceling it).

Although if that were the case, you’d have to be careful which stunbreaker to use or you might interrupt yourself after breaking the stop, lel.

Not sure where you heard that, but that’s never been the case as far as I understand. Stop is…not a thing. I’m pretty sure you made that up.

O I misinterpreted this part

The very tiny stun and quickness duration on a 40 sec base cd just isn’t going to cut it as worthy utility in PvE.

Take confounding suggestions and mantra of distraction, for example. Nobody takes that, a 1 sec stun is not worth losing 15% extra illusion damage.

Mantra of distraction is not used for the daze or interrupts, it’s used to strip defiance for the ice bow.

We really need to start considering how much of the conceptual gimmicks that work in PvP just plain don’t work in PvE.

Either we fix the pvp burst issue with the mesmer so that we can finally start seeing needed PvE fixes for the class, or we simply stop delaying splitting PvP/PvE skill balance.

Now that raids have been announced and we’re presuming PvE will start being taken seriously, the mesmer cannot continue to be a hostage of pvp balancing with the recent nerfs to Harmonious Mantras as an example, which was already a weaker trait than berserker’s power on a class that does much less sustained DPS than a warrior.

And I hope, that despite not making any announcements, some changes are being made to cleave/aoe and mesmer illusions/ranger pets/necromancer minions/guardian spirit weapons. Because with more lethal aoe around, these classes will continue to be kitten.

I mean, they already have some form of pet protection in place with Subject Alpha in Crucible of Eternity. Why not expand it to all AoE in PvE? Protected Phantasms is a really bad band-aid fix and quite frankly a mesmer shouldn’t have to trait so that their phantasm doesn’t die immediately the moment it spawns on Archdiviner or Tequatl or Mossman melee swings that happen to cleave everything down. Illusions and ranger pets are class mechanics, classes should not be penalized by the content relative to others just because they got stuck with companion AI designs.

Robert Gee.9246:

Even if you don’t consider the phantasm, the chronomancer’s shield 5 skill alone has higher damage output than the shield skills of any other profession. In general shields aren’t intended to be high DPS weapons. If the utility of the skills is lacking, that’s an area that can be tuned, but we don’t have any plans to really increase the damage that much.

My thoughts exactly! Especially when you combine shield 5# with Power Block, you get quite a nice amount of direct damage, vuln stacks, stun, quickness and therefore also passive damage.

I really really like the design of the mesmer to deal passive damage instead of boosting his own numbers into the sky. Everything is fine with chrono so far, just don’t ruin it with senseless nerfs

Although we are talking about pve, I have to say that in the last BWE I found not using the shield made a much better build. This is for the reason the op pointed out, that there was too long a delay on phant casting, and also its attack speed. I just found the phant to be too much of a liability. Maybe these two factors can be adjusted to make shield more viable (phant cast time and attack speed – especially after the initial summoning).

Xyonon.3987:

My thoughts exactly! Especially when you combine shield 5# with Power Block, you get quite a nice amount of direct damage, vuln stacks, stun, quickness and therefore also passive damage.

And you’re going to proc Power Block how often in PvE?

kolompi.1287:

Robert Gee.9246:

Even if you don’t consider the phantasm, the chronomancer’s shield 5 skill alone has higher damage output than the shield skills of any other profession. In general shields aren’t intended to be high DPS weapons. If the utility of the skills is lacking, that’s an area that can be tuned, but we don’t have any plans to really increase the damage that much.

That’s really nice from a game design point of view and since it’s common knowledge that mesmer in PvE is a damage beast, quite reassuring to know that devs consider the strengths and weaknesses of classes.

What? Mesmer PvE damage is terrible, even if you can keep up the phantasms.

Levetty.1279:

kolompi.1287:

Robert Gee.9246:

Even if you don’t consider the phantasm, the chronomancer’s shield 5 skill alone has higher damage output than the shield skills of any other profession. In general shields aren’t intended to be high DPS weapons. If the utility of the skills is lacking, that’s an area that can be tuned, but we don’t have any plans to really increase the damage that much.

That’s really nice from a game design point of view and since it’s common knowledge that mesmer in PvE is a damage beast, quite reassuring to know that devs consider the strengths and weaknesses of classes.

What? Mesmer PvE damage is terrible, even if you can keep up the phantasms.

I think the frowny face is meant to indicate his sarcasm.

tobascodagama.2961:

Xyonon.3987:

My thoughts exactly! Especially when you combine shield 5# with Power Block, you get quite a nice amount of direct damage, vuln stacks, stun, quickness and therefore also passive damage.

And you’re going to proc Power Block how often in PvE?

I proc it fairly often when focus 4 and MoD vs trash mobs. The problem and solution is oddly the new break bar that’s coming. It prevents power block procs. HOWEVER, it also means that intensity of the stun matters. So a thief spamming head shot vs the old defiant is great but terrible vs the new break bar. A mesmer is going to be one of the better if not best class at reducing a break bar.

Passive damage, as Xy mentioned, is also a big deal. Since Shield 5 is a wall, it gives quickness to EVERYONE. In a raid of 10 people, 9 people attacking 50% faster while a mesmer /dances in a corner is going to be worth it when a “burst” phase happens.

I stand by my biggest problem being the position of alacrity. If it’s so hard to balance, don’t put it on something so inconsistent as a phantasm. Replace quickness with alacrity and give us 1 big chunk on shield 5. This will be much easier to balance as well. Alacrity is even kind of built into the shield 5 (reduce CD when it catches itself). Let the phantasms do something else.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

tobascodagama.2961:

Xyonon.3987:

My thoughts exactly! Especially when you combine shield 5# with Power Block, you get quite a nice amount of direct damage, vuln stacks, stun, quickness and therefore also passive damage.

And you’re going to proc Power Block how often in PvE?

I proc it fairly often when focus 4 and MoD vs trash mobs. The problem and solution is oddly the new break bar that’s coming. It prevents power block procs. HOWEVER, it also means that intensity of the stun matters. So a thief spamming head shot vs the old defiant is great but terrible vs the new break bar. A mesmer is going to be one of the better if not best class at reducing a break bar.

Passive damage, as Xy mentioned, is also a big deal. Since Shield 5 is a wall, it gives quickness to EVERYONE. In a raid of 10 people, 9 people attacking 50% faster while a mesmer /dances in a corner is going to be worth it when a “burst” phase happens.

I stand by my biggest problem being the position of alacrity. If it’s so hard to balance, don’t put it on something so inconsistent as a phantasm. Replace quickness with alacrity and give us 1 big chunk on shield 5. This will be much easier to balance as well. Alacrity is even kind of built into the shield 5 (reduce CD when it catches itself). Let the phantasms do something else.

WoW, 4k damage power block on a 40s cd stun; that’s like 5% of a fractal 50 mob’s HP. That’s like, a weak autoattack crit. 3.5 seconds of quickness IF the wall goes through twice through allies, 1.75 seconds otherwise.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Levetty.1279:

kolompi.1287:

Robert Gee.9246:

Even if you don’t consider the phantasm, the chronomancer’s shield 5 skill alone has higher damage output than the shield skills of any other profession. In general shields aren’t intended to be high DPS weapons. If the utility of the skills is lacking, that’s an area that can be tuned, but we don’t have any plans to really increase the damage that much.

That’s really nice from a game design point of view and since it’s common knowledge that mesmer in PvE is a damage beast, quite reassuring to know that devs consider the strengths and weaknesses of classes.

What? Mesmer PvE damage is terrible, even if you can keep up the phantasms.

I think the frowny face is meant to indicate his sarcasm.

Well don’t I feel silly.

Zenith.7301:

WoW, 4k damage power block on a 40s cd stun; that’s like 5% of a fractal 50 mob’s HP. That’s like, a weak autoattack crit. 3.5 seconds of quickness IF the wall goes through twice through allies, 1.75 seconds otherwise.

Realistically, it’s going to be less than 40s due to Alacrity, and in PvE getting the double Quickness is a pretty safe bet.

Shield 5 is actually fairly respectable for PvE purposes. Not amazing, but it has uses, especially in fights with Breakbars. The Phantasm is the disappointing part of the Shield (in general, but particularly for PvE).

Shield 5 is a quite reasonable skill to be sitting in the 5 spot on the bar. It’s not like any of the other offhand non-phant skills do amazing dps. The issue is that our damage is so reliant on phantasms that having a phantasm deal no damage is an enormous setback.

I still feel that it shouldn’t do damage, but it really needs to lay the utility on thick to be worth it.

tobascodagama.2961:

Realistically, it’s going to be less than 40s due to Alacrity, and in PvE getting the double Quickness is a pretty safe bet.

Balancing around alacrity, though, makes alacrity a tax rather than a benefit.

“We only want players to be able to use this ability every 20 seconds. But, they have alacrity! So I guess we should raise the cooldown.”
Understand that the mindset in the above statement makes alacrity not a valuable mechanic, because it becomes a necessity instead of a benefit: you need alacrity for your abilities to be equivalent to what you would have without it.

By extension, if an ability has too long a cooldown without alacrity, and other abilities don’t, alacrity still places more value on the other abilities, as their cooldowns are even lower, and the long-cooldown ability is still lagging behind its competitors.
Other mesmer weapon cooldowns (except maybe torch, lol?) aren’t balanced around alacrity, but chronomancers can take them. So why would shield be?

Slows in PvE are essentially meaningless (which negates Mesmer effectiveness yet again), since Anet developers realized how lame confusion was because of slow NPC dps.

Instead of slow replace it with stun and maybe mesmers would be more effective.

Zenith.7301:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

tobascodagama.2961:

Xyonon.3987:

My thoughts exactly! Especially when you combine shield 5# with Power Block, you get quite a nice amount of direct damage, vuln stacks, stun, quickness and therefore also passive damage.

And you’re going to proc Power Block how often in PvE?

I proc it fairly often when focus 4 and MoD vs trash mobs. The problem and solution is oddly the new break bar that’s coming. It prevents power block procs. HOWEVER, it also means that intensity of the stun matters. So a thief spamming head shot vs the old defiant is great but terrible vs the new break bar. A mesmer is going to be one of the better if not best class at reducing a break bar.

Passive damage, as Xy mentioned, is also a big deal. Since Shield 5 is a wall, it gives quickness to EVERYONE. In a raid of 10 people, 9 people attacking 50% faster while a mesmer /dances in a corner is going to be worth it when a “burst” phase happens.

I stand by my biggest problem being the position of alacrity. If it’s so hard to balance, don’t put it on something so inconsistent as a phantasm. Replace quickness with alacrity and give us 1 big chunk on shield 5. This will be much easier to balance as well. Alacrity is even kind of built into the shield 5 (reduce CD when it catches itself). Let the phantasms do something else.

WoW, 4k damage power block on a 40s cd stun; that’s like 5% of a fractal 50 mob’s HP. That’s like, a weak autoattack crit. 3.5 seconds of quickness IF the wall goes through twice through allies, 1.75 seconds otherwise.

Why do people keep saying 40 sec CD? It can be cast twice with F5 and catching it reduces the CD by 10 seconds. So sometimes a 20 second CD before alacrity kicks in to reduce it further.

Weak auto attack crit for other classes but better than any other auto attack for mesmer by quite a bit. Then add the base shield 5 damage. Then factor in that it can hit twice and interrupt twice. It can be roughly 5-6 times stronger than an auto attack for mesmer. That was a minor point though.

While it’s always nice to optimize for personal damage, mesmers are about group utility in organized groups. Read about the new raids and general breakbar changes. Someone is going to have the spike the break bar hard. If it’s only a 1-2 second window, what do you think is better? All the DPS eles swap to air and use air 3 for a major DPS loss? or 1 low DPS utility slot can go ham on that breakbar while buffing their allies for the burst phase that follows?

The only problem I have is the inconsistency of alacrity because it’s tied to a phantasm

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Zenith.7301:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

tobascodagama.2961:

Xyonon.3987:

My thoughts exactly! Especially when you combine shield 5# with Power Block, you get quite a nice amount of direct damage, vuln stacks, stun, quickness and therefore also passive damage.

And you’re going to proc Power Block how often in PvE?

I proc it fairly often when focus 4 and MoD vs trash mobs. The problem and solution is oddly the new break bar that’s coming. It prevents power block procs. HOWEVER, it also means that intensity of the stun matters. So a thief spamming head shot vs the old defiant is great but terrible vs the new break bar. A mesmer is going to be one of the better if not best class at reducing a break bar.

Passive damage, as Xy mentioned, is also a big deal. Since Shield 5 is a wall, it gives quickness to EVERYONE. In a raid of 10 people, 9 people attacking 50% faster while a mesmer /dances in a corner is going to be worth it when a “burst” phase happens.

I stand by my biggest problem being the position of alacrity. If it’s so hard to balance, don’t put it on something so inconsistent as a phantasm. Replace quickness with alacrity and give us 1 big chunk on shield 5. This will be much easier to balance as well. Alacrity is even kind of built into the shield 5 (reduce CD when it catches itself). Let the phantasms do something else.

WoW, 4k damage power block on a 40s cd stun; that’s like 5% of a fractal 50 mob’s HP. That’s like, a weak autoattack crit. 3.5 seconds of quickness IF the wall goes through twice through allies, 1.75 seconds otherwise.

Why do people keep saying 40 sec CD? It can be cast twice with F5 and catching it reduces the CD by 10 seconds. So sometimes a 20 second CD before alacrity kicks in to reduce it further.

Weak auto attack crit for other classes but better than any other auto attack for mesmer by quite a bit. Then add the base shield 5 damage. Then factor in that it can hit twice and interrupt twice. It can be roughly 5-6 times stronger than an auto attack for mesmer. That was a minor point though.

While it’s always nice to optimize for personal damage, mesmers are about group utility in organized groups. Read about the new raids and general breakbar changes. Someone is going to have the spike the break bar hard. If it’s only a 1-2 second window, what do you think is better? All the DPS eles swap to air and use air 3 for a major DPS loss? or 1 low DPS utility slot can go ham on that breakbar while buffing their allies for the burst phase that follows?

The only problem I have is the inconsistency of alacrity because it’s tied to a phantasm

Or the thief, with no cooldowns of his own uses basilisk venom with venomshare aura which conveniently lies in their Shadow Arts tree for his coveted stealth utility in groups, in addition to his easy access to headshot and now his physical daredevil utility which is a DPS increase instead of a loss and stuns as well on top of Distracting Daggers.

The mesmer has always been about utility since it’s all he can do. The PvE damage is garbage.

Guess which other classes are about utility. Elementalists with perma fury from persisting flames, ice bow freeze, earth elemental, glyph of storms blinds and fire/water fields.

PSEA Warrior, permanent 25 might stacks for the group with 170 of all stats in banners for the group+ 150 power from Empower Alliers and the best group rez in the game (War Banner elite).

Guardian with stability, greater and more practical reflects/projectile absorptions, more frequent access to group quickness on a 24 second cooldown, aegis, and protection.

You’re acting as if the mesmer is the only utility class when the other classes bring just as powerful utility but can actually pull far more DPS. Only the mesmer is told " well, we bring you for the portal/veil/alacrity, but since your burst is a problem in PvP we’re going to leave your miserable sustained damage capabilities as is in PvE".

Zenith.7301:

You’re acting as if the mesmer is the only utility class when the other classes bring just as powerful utility but can actually pull far more DPS.

Which is exactly the problem with GW2’s PvE balance in general. The top DPS classes are also the top utility classes. Thieves and Mesmers only have a slot at all in dungeon groups because of stealth skips. If HoT raids don’t have skippable sections, then we won’t have a place at all.

That’s the most ridiculous thing ever. Thieves, Mesmers, any class has a spot in raids. Unless you’re doing speed clears, your class is irrelevant in current dungeons and most likely in raids but we’ll find out more when they’re ready.

Raids will have Enrage timers on bosses if they aren’t killed quickly enough. So, there will definitely not be a place for Mesmers in raids after all.

@Zenith
What do you expect to accomplish with that rant? Make the shield OP and suddenly make us viable with only chronomancer? Do you really want the shield to bring the mandatory DPS phantasm that all mesmers need to bring?

I am not denying that other classes have utility nor am I denying that mesmers have low DPS. Dungeons are on farm mode, being abandoned, aren’t changing and easy enough to solo on any class. I’m thinking about the direction that anet is claiming they are going to take the game with raids and how new roles might be required.

As I just mentioned, headshot is probably going to be crap vs the new break bar. The new dancing daggers are also 1/4 second stuns. Have you played the beta? Some of those breakbars required ~2 seconds worth of stun in 1 second. They were also happening more often and on multiple targets more than once every 32 seconds for venom share to work. It’s probably going to be even harder to deal with in 10 man content.

With new content that requires a lot of mobility, how does guardian bring better reflects? SoA is mentally handicapped AI. Wall of reflect doesn’t move. Between shield 5, mimiced feedback and focus 4 (I know it’s crap at times) mesmers can provide better short bursts of reflect/negation than guardians on the move.

Quickness: 1 guardian elite = 5 players for 5 seconds. 1 mesmer shield 5 = all allies in ranger for 3.5 seconds. Of course there is also F5—> TWx2 as well.

As I mentioned several times, I think alacrity has some real potential. Being shackled on the phantasm rather than the shield 5 is what will make it crap in the long run. Shield 5 does good damage for a mesmer. Don’t look to it as your savior. Create a new thread about buffing mesmer auto attacks and rant there.

I don’t want the shield to be OP. I want a reason TO USE IT IN PVE. And 3.5 secs of quickness and a minimal stun are not going to override losing either offhand sword or pistol.

You say you don’t want people to feel forced into chronomancy, but chronomancy will already be forced through alacrity and chronophantasma alone (because chronophantasma is the only trait that allows mesmers to shatter in PvE without massive DPS loss, go figure needing a trait so that your class mechanic doesn’t screw you in PvE).

And in any situation where we might be forced to go ranged in the new raids, shield will never be used as it can neither compete with iwarden for utility let alone damage or iduelist/iswordsman for DPS.

Guardian brings better projectile protection that is not reliant on a terribly squishy warden for reflect uptime. Wall of Reflection has nearly the same uptime as two back to back Feedback bubbles from mimic and is GROUND TARGETED, meaning it can be placed on top of your allies to protect yourself from spread ranged mobs whereas feedback is target reliant and would only protect you from whoever gets trapped inside the bubble.

A guardian rotating wall of reflection and shield of the avenger can achieve permanent projectile defense. A mesmer relies on melee range iwardens that have a delay in cast time and can be killed the very moment they spawn on the mob from casual cleave.

The shield has better AI than the terrible wardens, and it does not despawn upon mob death unlike all mesmer phantasms (except for Kasmeer, because Kasmeer has phantasms that function how they should in PvE, instead of crippling the mesmer with huge ramp up and losing key DPS/utility on mob death).

You talk about quickness with shield+ 2x Time Warp. What you fail to mention is the opportunity cost. The guardian does not gut his damage output to bring quickness, and his quickness can be used more frequently and is RADIAL as a shout, compared to the linear mesmer wall.

Guardian quickness is 5 seconds every 24 seconds, for 21% uptime of quickness.

Mesmer with Continuum is 24 (traited, since you’d be crazy not to take Inspiration but also will lose damage from either dueling or domination when you take chronomancer) seconds every 180 seconds.

24/180 seconds is 13.3% uptime. Shield #5 adds 11.6% (granting a generous cd of 30 seconds since alacrity is not up 100%) uptime of quickness at a large DPS cost.

So the mesmer brings 24.9% quickness uptime with 2 skills at a large DPS and the utility cost of losing the other offhand utilities. A guardian only brings one skill for only 3% less. That’s a totally disproportionate amount of quickness uptime per utility skill.

What’s more, Time Warp is stationary, the guardian shout is mobile should the boss cover the area and the group needs to move, and there’s always the practical value in Feel My Wrath because it can be used more frequently in between fights within the raid.

And this is on top of all the utility guardians bring passively with their weapons. They don’t pay a DPS fee to use their pull — binding blades is on their highest DPS weapon unlike Temporal Curtain which is on the focus with the inferior DPS phantasm. Their aegis is a class mechanic, and their blinds and protection come from weapons as well as one shout.

By comparison shatters are an entirely selfish class mechanic, they completely kitten you in PvE DPS if you don’t take chronophantasm trait, and you’ll only be using Continuum Shift or Mind Wrack with clones as Cry of Frustration is garbage through and through (has been since release), Diversion doesn’t stack daze per clones so you’re killing 3 phantasms for a non-stacking delayed by travel time daze, and Distortion can be used without clones with Illusionary Persona for whenever you need to avoid a big hit. That we need to take an elite specialization trait to allow us to shatter only once without gimping ourselves is a problem