Guild Wars 2

IMO Shield being useless in PvE is fine. Defensive weapons tend to be in the current DPS-or-bust meta (and IMO this is what needs fixing, not professions). Might as well complain about the Staff and the Torch.

Embolism.8106:

IMO Shield being useless in PvE is fine. Defensive weapons tend to be in the current DPS-or-bust meta (and IMO this is what needs fixing, not professions). Might as well complain about the Staff and the Torch.

The difference is that shield is one of the basic hallmarks of the elite specialization. In its current form, Anet is basically saying ‘yeah, have this new weapon, but don’t use it in any of the new content we’re giving you with the expansion, because it sucks’. See the problem?

Fay.2357:

Embolism.8106:

IMO Shield being useless in PvE is fine. Defensive weapons tend to be in the current DPS-or-bust meta (and IMO this is what needs fixing, not professions). Might as well complain about the Staff and the Torch.

The difference is that shield is one of the basic hallmarks of the elite specialization. In its current form, Anet is basically saying ‘yeah, have this new weapon, but don’t use it in any of the new content we’re giving you with the expansion, because it sucks’. See the problem?

Shields in general don’t see much use in PvE. IMO what needs changing is how content works, not how professions work so they all cater to the mindless DPS meta.

Yes you can talk about boosting the Shield’s support, but there’s always a line to tread as the Shield is plenty good in PvP already.

(Of course another alternative is to split PvP and PvE but it seems Anet doesn’t want that anymore.)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tides_of_Time
Read it.
30 second CD isn’t generous. Catching it on it’s way back is an automatic 30 second CD. Using F5 can let you double cast it and catch two shields coming back for a 20 second CD. Alacrity would bring that further down. Also it negates projectiles which you didn’t mention in the prior calculations.

And again… this is about the freaking shield. I repeat: we’re talking about a shield here! Not the class as a whole compared to another class. A 2 second AOE stun that can hit ALL targets lined up instead of pistol 5 stunning 1 target for 2 seconds is potentially really strong compared to pistol 5. It’s capability for AOE damage vs ALL enemies in the area compared to a sword or pistol phantasm is really strong AOE for the mesmer. It may not be the best compared to other classes. But with upcoming raids, I see it as a promising utility weapon to sometimes be used. Also, spawning two duelists then swapping to shield for #5 is not going to be some crazy DPS loss compared to the current mesmer meta.

AOE distortion share also has it’s potential if you want to compare the mesmer to guardian. If a boss has a quick multi hit attack, aegis won’t do much. Unblockable attacks will still be negated by that distortion share: Mai trin’s lightning bolts for example.

Robert Gee is talking about tuning the utility not the DPS. So stop your whining about the DPS. My concern is where the alacrity is placed and how inconsistent phantasms are. Placing 2 seconds of alacrity on the shield would make it a very strong utility weapon. Trait for 50% longer duration. Get hit by it twice and it’s 6 seconds of alacrity in an AOE. Catching the shield reduces the base to 30 seconds. That would be…. ~11 second CD if you toss in a mind wrack. I would bring that to a raid group. Best part is, you only need 1 mesmer for this. Raid groups will need 2 of the rest (such as PSEA banners) for the rest of team buffs because those only affect 5 people.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tides_of_Time
Read it.
30 second CD isn’t generous. Catching it on it’s way back is an automatic 30 second CD. Using F5 can let you double cast it and catch two shields coming back for a 20 second CD. Alacrity would bring that further down. Also it negates projectiles which you didn’t mention in the prior calculations.

And again… this is about the freaking shield. I repeat: we’re talking about a shield here! Not the class as a whole compared to another class. A 2 second AOE stun that can hit ALL targets lined up instead of pistol 5 stunning 1 target for 2 seconds is potentially really strong compared to pistol 5. It’s capability for AOE damage vs ALL enemies in the area compared to a sword or pistol phantasm is really strong AOE for the mesmer. It may not be the best compared to other classes. But with upcoming raids, I see it as a promising utility weapon to sometimes be used. Also, spawning two duelists then swapping to shield for #5 is not going to be some crazy DPS loss compared to the current mesmer meta.

AOE distortion share also has it’s potential if you want to compare the mesmer to guardian. If a boss has a quick multi hit attack, aegis won’t do much. Unblockable attacks will still be negated by that distortion share: Mai trin’s lightning bolts for example.

Robert Gee is talking about tuning the utility not the DPS. So stop your whining about the DPS. My concern is where the alacrity is placed and how inconsistent phantasms are. Placing 2 seconds of alacrity on the shield would make it a very strong utility weapon. Trait for 50% longer duration. Get hit by it twice and it’s 6 seconds of alacrity in an AOE. Catching the shield reduces the base to 30 seconds. That would be…. ~11 second CD if you toss in a mind wrack. I would bring that to a raid group. Best part is, you only need 1 mesmer for this. Raid groups will need 2 of the rest (such as PSEA banners) for the rest of team buffs because those only affect 5 people.

Something’s wrong with your math skills.

• Improved Alacrity only affects alacrity you receive, so 2s alacrity on a shield hit wouldn’t be “6s of alacrity in an aoe”, you’d be the only one who could get that 6s (and any other chronomancer in the area).
• “Get hit by it twice” and “in an AOE” are mutually exclusive. Getting hit by the shield twice means it’s affecting a single target multiple times, not multiple targets multiple times.
• 100% alacrity is at most 40% cooldown reduction. That puts a 30s cooldown at 18s, not 11s, and you need 18s of alacrity to get that. Catching the shield twice via Continuum Split/Shift would get you down to 12s cooldown, only 6s less than just using it separately, plus it requires you to time your shield with your CS burst, which is not terribly realistic, if you’re trying to use the shield as projectile coverage and group support.
  For the record, even 12s of alacrity requires 4 4-illusion shatters in 12 seconds without Improved Alacrity, which is not all that easy to do even with IR unless you’re running a full well build.
• 3.5s of quickness does not define a great raid-wide bonus. “They only need one of you” assumes it’s good enough to actually bring one of you, and 3.5s of quickness is decent, not amazing.

Plus he’s propping up shield 5 by tying it to a 90 second cooldown shatter, as if the shield 5 skill will always have that benefit.

I don’t think I want to talk with someone who says “stop whining about DPS” as if the real issue with mesmer is not utility but its terrible DPS and our utter reliance on illusions, particularly phantasms, to do still less damage than the classes not reliant on paper thin AI that gets murdered by most bosses autoattack cleaves.

He may be happy with a buffbot class but I am not.

I think it might actually be time to start a new forum topic…

This thread is just identifying a symptom of a disease. The real problem is our reliance on phantasms to provide meaningful DPS. Swapping to a ‘utility’ offhand or phantasm shouldn’t completely gut our ability to do damage if that is what we’re geared to do.

I propose a reduction in phantasm dmg across the board…. something like 50%. Then they could move that DPS potential back on to the mesmer in the form of improved AAs and better skill coefficiants on our other skills (not including shatters, we dont need more burst). I believe that would promote better balance for the class across several game modes and builds.

1) More reliable DPS in high AoE situations (PvE boss fights… WvW ZvZ)
2) Lowers our passive phantasm pressure while in stealth… a component of what makes PU so strong.
3) Shatters are more rewarding to use.
4) Chronophantasma isnt as ‘scary’ to balance

etc… I’ll finish this post later, making dinner! I’m sure you guys can think of more, also.

Zenith, stop being dense and putting words in my mouth.
Buffing the shield DPS isn’t the way to go about things, especially when Robert Gee straight up tells you it’s not going to happen. So stop whining about it because that whining won’t do kitten here. If a dev says he might improve utility then lets focus on that. Try to be constructive and we might see some improvements.

@alpha
The shield goes out then comes back. It can hit multiple targets on its way out and on its way back it. Hence the AOE twice. Therefore, it can hit multiple targets multiple times.

Do to the nature of how it travels and hits anything it passes, this allows it to bypass the 3 or 5 target limit and hit everything. This means a raid of 10 ppl can all benefit from 1 mesmer. Whereas 2 PS-EA warriors are needed for everyone to feel the buffs.

Quickness is ok but I’ll mention my idea again. If shield 5 gives a decent chunk of alacrity, it would be a controlled burst of it during burn phases on a boss. A second mesmer would just increase the total alacrity uptime but that might be overkill depending on design encounter. Hence the potential need for only 1.

Moving alacrity from the phantasm to the shield would also make it much more controlled and not based off of the “paper thin AI that gets murdered by most bosses autoattack cleaves.”

Mikkel: that problem has been known for a long time. No post you make now is going to fix it. Myself and others have posted about it before. The best we can do is hope for improved utility when a dev says he might improve utility.

I was about to suggest the same thing Mikkel. Maybe the time is right to really question the DPS (as in sustained damage) aspect of the mesmer.

It would also probably have to come at some cost to a mesmers burst too, not a huge cost as Mesmer burst isn’t as high as people (thieves, one vocal thief in particular) would have you believe.

You would also have to define a role for the phantasms as well. If you’re taking most of their damage then a lot would need utility. It also has the issue of how many classes get very strong number 4/5 skills, sometimes damage wise that also provide utility. You can’t have the phantasm sitting around continuing to use said big attack otherwise it adds to dps which is the problem at the moment.

Do phantasms then become like spirits? Temporary buffing stations but can be shattered for burst?

Edit: Duck, now is exactly the right time to be having this discussion. We have devs paying attention to our thoughts and opinions, the classes are all in a state of flux at the moment and so are a few things until HoT is released.

It is also a great opportunity to really improve the class in areas it is very weak and tone down where it is very strong.

Mikkel.8427:

I think it might actually be time to start a new forum topic…

This thread is just identifying a symptom of a disease. The real problem is our reliance on phantasms to provide meaningful DPS. Swapping to a ‘utility’ offhand or phantasm shouldn’t completely gut our ability to do damage if that is what we’re geared to do.

I propose a reduction in phantasm dmg across the board…. something like 50%. Then they could move that DPS potential back on to the mesmer in the form of improved AAs and better skill coefficiants on our other skills (not including shatters, we dont need more burst). I believe that would promote better balance for the class across several game modes and builds.

1) More reliable DPS in high AoE situations (PvE boss fights… WvW ZvZ)
2) Lowers our passive phantasm pressure while in stealth… a component of what makes PU so strong.
3) Shatters are more rewarding to use.
4) Chronophantasma isnt as ‘scary’ to balance

etc… I’ll finish this post later, making dinner! I’m sure you guys can think of more, also.

I like the idea, with the caveat that once iduelist and iswordsman lose the damage, they must gain utility to compensate.

I always thought the damage should not be on the phantasms. Phantasms should be about utility. Move the damage from phantasms to the autoattacks and blurred frenzy/confusing images.

That way we can sustain damage, shatter without gimping our DPS, and not be completely neutered in fights with AoE such as large scale WvW and PvE in general.

We’ve asked for Phantasms to be more than just damage pets since pre-release. I doubt Anet’s going to change that, it’s essentially a redesign of the Mesmer.

Embolism.8106:

We’ve asked for Phantasms to be more than just damage pets since pre-release. I doubt Anet’s going to change that, it’s essentially a redesign of the Mesmer.

Unfortunately some ppl don’t realize that.
If it were to happen, it would have happened with the trait rework or on a new elite spec. The ship has sailed for chrono. Better to push forward new elite spec ideas that remove/change phantasms the way RS was a change for DS on necro.

The problem is the “utility” is kind of meh.

It’s cool you get 2 of them if you block twice, but 1 sec of alacrity is all your positioning is rewarded with. In addition 2 sec slow as mentioned is worthless, outside of PvP.. Which tbh is the biggest part that makes it appealing for me in PvP outside of AoE stun, which does nothing for your 1v1 pressure except give you a longer cool down to play around while roaming, and Focus is more reliable in team fights anyway imo.

But this is all every 8 seconds unless we share alacrity with our phantasms? That is wayyy to slow for something that applies such little pressure and not enough utility.

It is ok if you get out 2, but in PvE mob attack patterns are weird, and against big things that’s still only granting 2 sec of alacrity.

Fay.2357:

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 disagree. Used it often with success in pve during the betas. It’s a nice weapon. I’m sure you’re the type who thinks if people disagree with you they are playing wrong, but no amount of such statements can discount my actual experience.

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

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 disagree. Used it often with success in pve during the betas. It’s a nice weapon. I’m sure you’re the type who thinks if people disagree with you they are playing wrong, but no amount of such statements can discount my actual experience.

To success WHERE? Are you in a dungeon running guild or plan to do any raiding? What’s your higher level PvE experience?

Some people would say they run cleric staff guardians to success in PvE, doesn’t make them any less a hindrance to an optimized group.

I cleared all the world bosses with no off-hand! One-handed build is totally viable.

tobascodagama.2961:

I cleared all the world bosses with no off-hand! One-handed build is totally viable.

Pfft casual, I’ve speed cleared Teq with no weapons! 100% viable.

tobascodagama.2961:

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.

You know this for a fact, I presume?

To give an idea of this, remember how terrible Shamans were in TBC in WoW? Yet they were stacked to hell in raids, due to some weird interactions between Windfury Totem with 2H wielding damage dealers and the stackability of Bloodlust.

Zenith.7301:

To success WHERE? Are you in a dungeon running guild or plan to do any raiding? What’s your higher level PvE experience?

Some people would say they run cleric staff guardians to success in PvE, doesn’t make them any less a hindrance to an optimized group.

Do keep in mind, that point of self-optimization for the hell of it is pretty meaningless from a game design point of view.

If raids / HoT dungeons are designed to be completed by a group of 10 or 5 shield-mesmers damage-wise, then that’s the intended design. Means 10 max-DPS Elementalists can clear it in a third the time, but doesn’t change that the designed damage output of the raid is what mesmers with shields provide, and hence bosses are tuned for that.

That is to say, everyone is assuming raids are tuned for the maximum DPS possible. Which is, given everything else about GW2, PvE, Dungeons, even WvW, just not going to happen. It could be, but it’d be highly unfitting for the rest of the game.

What is “to success” for you? Winning? Because you can bet 10 cleric guardians can do that in HoT raids, otherwise it’d clash with the design doctrine of GW2. 10 cleric guardians do it in the best time ever run? Unlikely, as a result of their gear choice already, but also not the point, for every winner there’s dozens of losers, hence expecting to do top damage is pretty stupid in the end.

Next up is “but the balance needs to be tighter, the delta is too large!”. But even that is pretty meaningless when the designed difficulty assumes the worst possible performance. All it ultimately means is that:

• Players can speed up the run, if they want to. Most won’t, they do it X times then simply stop doing it, considering it “done”. Probably not going to be developed much against as a result of how much work is needed for how little return.
• Players of lower personal skill can use a specific setup to improve chances of not hindering their raid. That is to say, Donald would kill his raid with his lack of DPS on a Shield Mesmer, but he’d be ok on an Ele, even though ofc he still does barely the DPS anyone decent would do on a Shield Mesmer. This is a serious balance issue, but also trying to hack off heads from a hydra – this cannot truly be fixed. The issue is self-repeated as a result of perfect balance being impossible and the acceptable delta simply shrinking as balance becomes better (that is to say, complaints about this will be just as numerous whether the difference is 2% or 40% – WoW is proving this for >10 years now :P ).

Ultimately, I’d rather have a meaningful weapon for group CC and manipulation in the shield, instead of having every weapon be optimized against some player-imaginated “target DPS”. If there is one specific max-PvE-DPS weapon and those are balanced between the classes, fair enough. Do that.
But don’t lessen class design in the name of PvE numerical balance in a game all about everything being “enough” to do all the content. That last part is what makes it so pointless to balance this.

I found sword + shield really good in PvE. Along with traits focused on slowing and different effects on interrupts.

Zenith.7301:

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

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 disagree. Used it often with success in pve during the betas. It’s a nice weapon. I’m sure you’re the type who thinks if people disagree with you they are playing wrong, but no amount of such statements can discount my actual experience.

To success WHERE? Are you in a dungeon running guild or plan to do any raiding? What’s your higher level PvE experience?

Some people would say they run cleric staff guardians to success in PvE, doesn’t make them any less a hindrance to an optimized group.

I’ve been playing since the core games bwe1. I’ve done everything except craft a legendary. Multiple times.

And yes it was just fine. Sorry your experience differed, but that’s no call for condescension. Maybe try asking how mine differed without the implied insults would be better.

You know, 40% cooldown reduction means you will use 40% more skills and deal 40% more damage longterm, right? And Chronomancer doesnt even give this to himself but also partially to his group. Lets not talk about what quickness does to auto attacks…

Morfedel.4165:

Zenith.7301:

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

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 disagree. Used it often with success in pve during the betas. It’s a nice weapon. I’m sure you’re the type who thinks if people disagree with you they are playing wrong, but no amount of such statements can discount my actual experience.

To success WHERE? Are you in a dungeon running guild or plan to do any raiding? What’s your higher level PvE experience?

Some people would say they run cleric staff guardians to success in PvE, doesn’t make them any less a hindrance to an optimized group.

I’ve been playing since the core games bwe1. I’ve done everything except craft a legendary. Multiple times.

And yes it was just fine. Sorry your experience differed, but that’s no call for condescension. Maybe try asking how mine differed without the implied insults would be better.

For the nth time, successfully completing PvE content is in no way, shape, or form a proof of good play. Observe the similarity here:

Morfedel: I’ve successfully completed PvE content with a shield. This means the shield is good weapon to use.

Me: I’ve successfully completed most dungeons in the game with less than 5 people in my party. This means that doing dungeons with less than 5 people is a good way to play.

Obviously the second statement is absurd, and it’s very clear that the first statement is ridiculous as well. Your use of shield has less than zero bearing on whether or not it’s a good weapon.

Additionally, you’ve only completed existing PvE content, all of which is brain dead easy. Raids are promised to be drastically more challenging, and challenging environments don’t always have room for absurdly ineffective builds like the ones you run.

Miroe.2054:

You know, 40% cooldown reduction means you will use 40% more skills and deal 40% more damage longterm, right?

Considering most damage comes from auto attacks (or auto attcks and phantasm attacks for Mesmer), no it doesn’t.

Miroe.2054:

You know, 40% cooldown reduction means you will use 40% more skills and deal 40% more damage longterm, right? And Chronomancer doesnt even give this to himself but also partially to his group. Lets not talk about what quickness does to auto attacks…

1. Completely irrelevant to the conversation. Balancing shield around the fact that chronos can get alacrity is bad design, because other offhand options are not balanced around that fact. You can dive into that logic deeper if needed, and find that the point of a positive mechanic (like alacrity) is to amplify potency, but lengthening cooldowns to compensate is weakening or even eliminating that positive effect, and in fact becomes a tax: in order to maintain the same potency as they would have without alacrity, they must work to maintain alacrity. That’s bad design.

2. Chronomancers give up a lot of damage to get that alacrity. Dom, Illusions and Dueling all have multiple damage-amplification traits, both for phantasms and for personal damage. Chronomancer has…Danger Time, which is only valuable for a specific build (slow builds) that suffers even more on dps than usual. So most chronos are losing damage in order to gain…alacrity, f5 and some shatter support (chronophantasma and IR). There’s plenty of back and forth on whether this is worth it, with the consensus being that as of last beta Chronomancer gained more than it gave up (not surprising, that’s what Elite specializations are supposed to do).

3. Maintaining 100% alacrity uptime is not easy outside specific builds/rotations.

4. 40% cooldown reduction =/= 40% damage increase. Channel times are a second barrier to entry on dps. If you ever spend time making Auto Attacks, cdr can reduce that time, but the time is still there. You need quickness to make channel times go faster. You can get that, but again you have to make sacrifices for it, on top of the ones you’re already making.

So you have to mix Alacrity and Quickness together to get a full dps increase…except that still isn’t quite a dps increase, because interruptions to your rotation lessen the value of alacrity, wait times or environment actions aren’t affected, weapon swaps aren’t affected, and as with my point 3, maintaining 100% alacrity on top of 100% quickness isn’t easy, and can be disrupted. All that equates to less than 40% dps increase on yourself. At some point you have to start comparing that dps increase to what you’d get from another spec line, like the 12.5% boost against vulnerable targets from domination, or 15/30% to shatters from dom, or 15% to illusion damage from dom, or 9% damage from compounding power, or…the list goes on.

Yes, you have other benefits as a chronomancer. No, you can’t use that to evaluate the balance of Shield.

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

Zenith.7301:

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

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 disagree. Used it often with success in pve during the betas. It’s a nice weapon. I’m sure you’re the type who thinks if people disagree with you they are playing wrong, but no amount of such statements can discount my actual experience.

To success WHERE? Are you in a dungeon running guild or plan to do any raiding? What’s your higher level PvE experience?

Some people would say they run cleric staff guardians to success in PvE, doesn’t make them any less a hindrance to an optimized group.

I’ve been playing since the core games bwe1. I’ve done everything except craft a legendary. Multiple times.

And yes it was just fine. Sorry your experience differed, but that’s no call for condescension. Maybe try asking how mine differed without the implied insults would be better.

For the nth time, successfully completing PvE content is in no way, shape, or form a proof of good play. Observe the similarity here:

Morfedel: I’ve successfully completed PvE content with a shield. This means the shield is good weapon to use.

Me: I’ve successfully completed most dungeons in the game with less than 5 people in my party. This means that doing dungeons with less than 5 people is a good way to play.

Obviously the second statement is absurd, and it’s very clear that the first statement is ridiculous as well. Your use of shield has less than zero bearing on whether or not it’s a good weapon.

Additionally, you’ve only completed existing PvE content, all of which is brain dead easy. Raids are promised to be drastically more challenging, and challenging environments don’t always have room for absurdly ineffective builds like the ones you run.

You know which builds I’m running? Go ahead and tell me then what they are.

Or shut your ignorant mouth. Going around calling my builds ridiculous and ineffective when you have no idea what I’m even running is not only absurd and insulting but moronic as well.

erm.. My intention was to say, the fact that shield gives alacrity and quickness to Allies makes it a powerful support tool that acts on an entirely different scale than might stacking. On the side, the ability to stun entire groups of enemies is borderline op.

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

Zenith.7301:

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

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 disagree. Used it often with success in pve during the betas. It’s a nice weapon. I’m sure you’re the type who thinks if people disagree with you they are playing wrong, but no amount of such statements can discount my actual experience.

To success WHERE? Are you in a dungeon running guild or plan to do any raiding? What’s your higher level PvE experience?

Some people would say they run cleric staff guardians to success in PvE, doesn’t make them any less a hindrance to an optimized group.

I’ve been playing since the core games bwe1. I’ve done everything except craft a legendary. Multiple times.

And yes it was just fine. Sorry your experience differed, but that’s no call for condescension. Maybe try asking how mine differed without the implied insults would be better.

For the nth time, successfully completing PvE content is in no way, shape, or form a proof of good play. Observe the similarity here:

Morfedel: I’ve successfully completed PvE content with a shield. This means the shield is good weapon to use.

Me: I’ve successfully completed most dungeons in the game with less than 5 people in my party. This means that doing dungeons with less than 5 people is a good way to play.

Obviously the second statement is absurd, and it’s very clear that the first statement is ridiculous as well. Your use of shield has less than zero bearing on whether or not it’s a good weapon.

Additionally, you’ve only completed existing PvE content, all of which is brain dead easy. Raids are promised to be drastically more challenging, and challenging environments don’t always have room for absurdly ineffective builds like the ones you run.

You know which builds I’m running? Go ahead and tell me then what they are.

Or shut your ignorant mouth. Going around calling my builds ridiculous and ineffective when you have no idea what I’m even running is not only absurd and insulting but moronic as well.

Well, I have a fairly solid memory, and I remember quite a few times in the past where you attempted to defend running an obviously bad build with the ’I’ve completed dungeons, so it must be good’ defense. It’s not worth the effort to actually dig them up, but this encounter and interchange has happened before, multiple times.

Now, I could be wrong, and you could be running meta builds that are properly thought out these days, but the rather absurd aggressiveness of your response says somewhat otherwise.

Miroe.2054:

erm.. My intention was to say, the fact that shield gives alacrity and quickness to Allies makes it a powerful support tool that acts on an entirely different scale than might stacking. On the side, the ability to stun entire groups of enemies is borderline op.

It’s not enough alacrity to make a difference, especially so because the bouncing mechanic makes it unreliable.
Which is really the beef in the thread. Mesmer damage is balanced around the idea that phantasms are making up the difference, but the shield phantasm isn’t, particularly in pve, where Slow on bosses is meaningless and 1s of alacrity that might hit one or two allies just doesn’t make up for crappy auto-attack damage.

Shield 5 is pretty sweet though.

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

Zenith.7301:

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

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 disagree. Used it often with success in pve during the betas. It’s a nice weapon. I’m sure you’re the type who thinks if people disagree with you they are playing wrong, but no amount of such statements can discount my actual experience.

To success WHERE? Are you in a dungeon running guild or plan to do any raiding? What’s your higher level PvE experience?

Some people would say they run cleric staff guardians to success in PvE, doesn’t make them any less a hindrance to an optimized group.

I’ve been playing since the core games bwe1. I’ve done everything except craft a legendary. Multiple times.

And yes it was just fine. Sorry your experience differed, but that’s no call for condescension. Maybe try asking how mine differed without the implied insults would be better.

For the nth time, successfully completing PvE content is in no way, shape, or form a proof of good play. Observe the similarity here:

Morfedel: I’ve successfully completed PvE content with a shield. This means the shield is good weapon to use.

Me: I’ve successfully completed most dungeons in the game with less than 5 people in my party. This means that doing dungeons with less than 5 people is a good way to play.

Obviously the second statement is absurd, and it’s very clear that the first statement is ridiculous as well. Your use of shield has less than zero bearing on whether or not it’s a good weapon.

Additionally, you’ve only completed existing PvE content, all of which is brain dead easy. Raids are promised to be drastically more challenging, and challenging environments don’t always have room for absurdly ineffective builds like the ones you run.

You know which builds I’m running? Go ahead and tell me then what they are.

Or shut your ignorant mouth. Going around calling my builds ridiculous and ineffective when you have no idea what I’m even running is not only absurd and insulting but moronic as well.

Well, I have a fairly solid memory, and I remember quite a few times in the past where you attempted to defend running an obviously bad build with the ’I’ve completed dungeons, so it must be good’ defense. It’s not worth the effort to actually dig them up, but this encounter and interchange has happened before, multiple times.

Now, I could be wrong, and you could be running meta builds that are properly thought out these days, but the rather absurd aggressiveness of your response says somewhat otherwise.

That’s funny. I’m aggressive. And you’re an angel :-)

And you’ve reused the same arguments too. Welcome to the club. The difference being that I don’t go around telling people they suck because they disagree with me.

Not all of us are mindless kool-aid drinkers who can’t think outside the box. You go ahead and stay in your box if that’s all you can handle, but after starting and deleting a more hostile response, I decided to drop out of this pointless argument. It’s not worth the effort

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

Morfedel.4165:

Zenith.7301:

Morfedel.4165:

Fay.2357:

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 disagree. Used it often with success in pve during the betas. It’s a nice weapon. I’m sure you’re the type who thinks if people disagree with you they are playing wrong, but no amount of such statements can discount my actual experience.

To success WHERE? Are you in a dungeon running guild or plan to do any raiding? What’s your higher level PvE experience?

Some people would say they run cleric staff guardians to success in PvE, doesn’t make them any less a hindrance to an optimized group.

I’ve been playing since the core games bwe1. I’ve done everything except craft a legendary. Multiple times.

And yes it was just fine. Sorry your experience differed, but that’s no call for condescension. Maybe try asking how mine differed without the implied insults would be better.

For the nth time, successfully completing PvE content is in no way, shape, or form a proof of good play. Observe the similarity here:

Morfedel: I’ve successfully completed PvE content with a shield. This means the shield is good weapon to use.

Me: I’ve successfully completed most dungeons in the game with less than 5 people in my party. This means that doing dungeons with less than 5 people is a good way to play.

Obviously the second statement is absurd, and it’s very clear that the first statement is ridiculous as well. Your use of shield has less than zero bearing on whether or not it’s a good weapon.

Additionally, you’ve only completed existing PvE content, all of which is brain dead easy. Raids are promised to be drastically more challenging, and challenging environments don’t always have room for absurdly ineffective builds like the ones you run.

You know which builds I’m running? Go ahead and tell me then what they are.

Or shut your ignorant mouth. Going around calling my builds ridiculous and ineffective when you have no idea what I’m even running is not only absurd and insulting but moronic as well.

Well, I have a fairly solid memory, and I remember quite a few times in the past where you attempted to defend running an obviously bad build with the ’I’ve completed dungeons, so it must be good’ defense. It’s not worth the effort to actually dig them up, but this encounter and interchange has happened before, multiple times.

Now, I could be wrong, and you could be running meta builds that are properly thought out these days, but the rather absurd aggressiveness of your response says somewhat otherwise.

That’s funny. I’m aggressive. And you’re an angel :-)

And you’ve reused the same arguments too. Welcome to the club. The difference being that I don’t go around telling people they suck because they disagree with me.

Not all of us are mindless kool-aid drinkers who can’t think outside the box. You go ahead and stay in your box if that’s all you can handle, but after starting and deleting a more hostile response, I decided to drop out of this pointless argument. It’s not worth the effort

Of course I use the same arguments! Mine are logically sound, while yours boil down to ‘I completed CoF p1, and this makes me inherently amazing at the game’.

Ultimately, evaluating builds and weapons with a critical eye for effectiveness is not something that everyone enjoys or is good at, and there’s no shame in that. Additionally, there’s really no inherent issue in using sub-optimal builds and weapons, as long as you’re aware of what you’re doing.

As always though, my problem is when people come to the forums and claim that their special snowflake way of playing is fantastic when it’s actually just not all that great. Doing that is tantamount to willfully misleading people that actually want advice on good and skilled play in the game, and needs to be challenged.

Particularly with the advent of potentially challenging raid content, knowing how to use builds effectively, and knowing what builds are effective is extremely important. When people come looking for that advice, they need to be able to safely receive it instead of getting spammed with ‘this build that’s totally so great I’m the only person that ever thought to use it’ builds.

PHIW people also keep saying the content can be done on any format, yet ignore the social aspect of a MMO. It being group content means you will be held to the expectations of the community, not just your own. And the community by and large, if LFG and the majority of its “read: zerker ELE/WARRIOR/GUARD/THIEF ONLY” is an indicator, expects efficiency.

I know for a fact bringing 2 PVT or a cleric staff guardian into my fractal 50 run will make the run harder, not easier. Gutting your damage output for some tiny heal increase or 4k extra HP will not overcome the 4-5k autoattacks from trash mobs let alone the 10k+ autoattacks from a boss, and you’re significantly lengthening the encounter with your crappy DPS which means you will be absorbing more of those attacks for a longer period of time the boss lasts.

That’s why support/tank specs are bad and unused, because they sacrifice too much DPS for a marginal increase in survival — mobs in PvE simply are not meant to be facetanked or healed through — they hit too hard to sustain their hits and no class outside blasting waterfields has enough heals to mitigate the damage. The damage must be avoided, and the whole appeal of offensive specs is that you eliminate the boss before the lack of active defenses becomes an issue.

Either way, I’m tired of this class being balanced solely on a PvP factor. It’s received mostly nerfs for the sake of 1v1 PvP (the harmonious mantras nerf was obscene from a PvE perspective, where it’s already a mediocre grandmaster with a clunky 8 second effect duration that requires you chain Mantra of Pain and do nothing else just to maintain 3-4 stacks of the buff) and no buffs whatsoever to help it with PvE DPS, and group engagements where illusions die immediately to cleave/aoe.

I think there is a strong divide here but over the wrong issue.

Is shield poor for personal DPS? Probably, but note that it provides quickness and our new toy to not just us but allies as well.

Is shield poor for Party Synergy? Probably not, i doubt anyone has been able to thoroughly test this for hours and hours with a team of people to find out.

Part of this argument seems to be all about “Me” and “My damage” when compared to “that other class” and “its damage”. Problem is Chrono doesn’t look like its built with raw uncomparable DPS in mind. Its a team player. Party buffs, Wells, and CC heavy.

The other issue is the Direction that Gw2 seems to be taking. There seems to be a push in several directions and they dont all Line up very well.. Some classes are pushed more towards support and team play while others are being pushed further into the Selfish DPS Might Stacking play style we have right now..

Still others are trying to fill out new roles, like the Reaper with its Chill damage or the guardian with its new sub class that seems to play like more of a Trap Ranger from Gw1 era..

I personally think the Shield will be just fine to use and bring into PvE, provided the bugs get worked out with everything, so long as you prove to valuable to your average group of players or friends. I also feel like this is a good first direction for a Mesmer Sub Class to take, as it begins to open up the field for Control finding its spot in the two larger areas of the game (PvE and PvP)

Ultimately I think that using the shield or not should and will come down to how you like to play the game. Murderous people who want Big red numbers and can only enjoy the game via Min/Max on their Time and efforts probably wont use the shield. Those who enjoy taking more of a back seat and helping others excel in a battle will Probably be taking it.

Personally, I will be taking the shield a sword and either a Staff or GS depending on what is needed.

One question i Have tho, mostly aimed at Chaos and the Devs..
Does F5 also cancel out any Internal CD’s on Traits? Provided that you trigger them while in continum and then pop back.

If it does, a Phant build to share boons could really shine.. Just a thought for this weekend.

Swish.2463:

I think there is a strong divide here but over the wrong issue.

Is shield poor for personal DPS? Probably, but note that it provides quickness and our new toy to not just us but allies as well.

Is shield poor for Party Synergy? Probably not, i doubt anyone has been able to thoroughly test this for hours and hours with a team of people to find out.

Part of this argument seems to be all about “Me” and “My damage” when compared to “that other class” and “its damage”. Problem is Chrono doesn’t look like its built with raw uncomparable DPS in mind. Its a team player. Party buffs, Wells, and CC heavy.

The other issue is the Direction that Gw2 seems to be taking. There seems to be a push in several directions and they dont all Line up very well.. Some classes are pushed more towards support and team play while others are being pushed further into the Selfish DPS Might Stacking play style we have right now..

Still others are trying to fill out new roles, like the Reaper with its Chill damage or the guardian with its new sub class that seems to play like more of a Trap Ranger from Gw1 era..

I personally think the Shield will be just fine to use and bring into PvE, provided the bugs get worked out with everything, so long as you prove to valuable to your average group of players or friends. I also feel like this is a good first direction for a Mesmer Sub Class to take, as it begins to open up the field for Control finding its spot in the two larger areas of the game (PvE and PvP)

Ultimately I think that using the shield or not should and will come down to how you like to play the game. Murderous people who want Big red numbers and can only enjoy the game via Min/Max on their Time and efforts probably wont use the shield. Those who enjoy taking more of a back seat and helping others excel in a battle will Probably be taking it.

Personally, I will be taking the shield a sword and either a Staff or GS depending on what is needed.

One question i Have tho, mostly aimed at Chaos and the Devs..
Does F5 also cancel out any Internal CD’s on Traits? Provided that you trigger them while in continum and then pop back.

If it does, a Phant build to share boons could really shine.. Just a thought for this weekend.

Unfortunately, the issue you’ve missed is that support is only valuable insofar as it can feasibly replace dps. In short, support is great if it provides more group dps than it loses by not being a dps build.

But, and here’s the kicker, there are multiple support builds in the game already that provide siginificant support while still providing strong dps.

The problem with mesmer support is an extension of the problem with mesmers in pve generally: our dps has been sacrificed to the gods of pvp and “support”. Why bring a mesmer for support when a guardian can do the same or better support while also providing significantly more personal dps?

The complaints that spawned this thread are about exactly that: why neuter our dps “because phantasms”, then give us phantasms that don’t do dps?
The response from those who agree with Robert has been “well, it’ll just have to provide good support!”

But it doesn’t, quite.
I don’t mean to say the quickness on shield5 isn’t great.
I mean that the phantasm itself, the Phantasmal Avenger, is not providing the support you are talking up. Yes, support can be enough. No, Phantasmal Avenger as presently constituted does not make up for the dps we are losing on our Auto Attacks “because phantasms”.

In short, it could be worth it, but it’s not, and the culprit is not shield as a whole, but Phantasmal Avenger specifically.

Robert Gee please listen to this man.

Edit: Or woman.. Or strangely-computer-literate amoeba.

Alpha, I actually do agree with Robert Gee in regards to his view on mesmer shield and how it’s a shield, it’s not really for “teh deeps”. However what I would like to see is a rebalancing of the way mesmers do their damage.

If damage was moved off phantasms and more onto the weapon skills with us getting auto attacks comparable to other professions we’d be in a much better place PvE wise. We would also be able to shatter in PvE.

Having said that PvP wise being able to summon phantasms (duelist, warlock) on the side of a point and let them whittle opponents down while you’re distracting them would disappear. This could be made up some ways if the phantasms provide a good enough function.

Additionally you’d need to find a function for those phantasms, iZerker, avenger and warden have their functions but the rest would need a complete rework no doubt.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Edit: Or woman.. Or strangely-computer-literate amoeba.

I’m male. My wife would probably be kittened to find an amoeba sharing her bed.

apharma.3741:

Alpha, I actually do agree with Robert Gee in regards to his view on mesmer shield and how it’s a shield, it’s not really for “teh deeps”. However what I would like to see is a rebalancing of the way mesmers do their damage.

I don’t disagree, but I think the point of contention is still a valid one.
The options going forward are three:
1. Give damage to Phantasmal Avenger to bring it in line with mesmer design.
2. Dramatically (!) improve Phantasmal Avenger’s support utility. Some good suggestions have been given to get started.
3. Redesign mesmer damage to be more viable.

2 and 3 or 1 and 3 aren’t necessarily exclusive.

apharma.3741:

If damage was moved off phantasms and more onto the weapon skills with us getting auto attacks comparable to other professions we’d be in a much better place PvE wise. We would also be able to shatter in PvE.

Having said that PvP wise being able to summon phantasms (duelist, warlock) on the side of a point and let them whittle opponents down while you’re distracting them would disappear. This could be made up some ways if the phantasms provide a good enough function.

Additionally you’d need to find a function for those phantasms, iZerker, avenger and warden have their functions but the rest would need a complete rework no doubt.

I think letting mesmers shatter more often isn’t a bad solution to the sustained damage part. Mesmer shatters are powerful, but they happen on such long cooldowns (relatively) that they can’t make up for the loss in sustained damage.

I agree decreasing phantasm damage has to come with an increase in phantasm utility. I like the concept that Pyro has forwarded that bouncing phantasm attacks be replaced with a 2-part effect: the offensive attack, and the ally-specific effect. I would suggest that this concept be expanded to include all or most phantasms. If a phantasm’s utility is offensive (like pistol removing a boon on the first shot or something), then it stays as it is. If a phantasm’s utility is supportive, it can work as an aoe or even just a second attack that targets an ally (or allies).

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Swish.2463:

…
Part of this argument seems to be all about “Me” and “My damage” when compared to “that other class” and “its damage”. Problem is Chrono doesn’t look like its built with raw uncomparable DPS in mind. Its a team player. Party buffs, Wells, and CC heavy.

Unfortunately, the issue you’ve missed is that support is only valuable insofar as it can feasibly replace dps. In short, support is great if it provides more group dps than it loses by not being a dps build.

But, and here’s the kicker, there are multiple support builds in the game already that provide siginificant support while still providing strong dps.

I think fundamentally this is where we are not seeing eye to eye. In theory, RAIDS/challenging group content isn’t going to be the same as current content. The best support for old content isn’t necessarily going to be the best for new content.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/designing-challenging-content/
An example:
“Other encounters will offer tasks that rely on the expertise of a few select players. This could be a specific creature that needs to be kited away from the rest of the group, otherwise exploding and dealing massive damage.”

What if that damage is unblockable? If aggro is random, then some groups might have a DPS ele or someone else forced to kite. Distortion share mesmer though would let anyone in the group tank it without having to stop channeling a big hitter.

Speaking of unblockable, what if an enemy puts up a shield every once in a while and stops people from being able to DPS during a burn phase? You might be able to wait it out but chronomancers have Well of Precog that would give extra time on the burn phase.

Burn phases: if you’ve played the story stuff you know that most bosses will be invulnerable for set amounts of time. % uptime on quickness might not be so important compared to the duration of it at a specific moment.

The mordrem assassin wolves used to shout retaliation on each other. I expect this to return in the raids. What happens to that Icebow4 meta when 5 enemies all have retal? Dead eles all over the place… unless you get a necro/mesmer to remove it all.

Stop saying that the utility of a guard for example is better + better DPS if you haven’t seen the new content. Given how they want to make raids challenging, I wouldn’t be surprised if Anet purposely tries to screw over the meta every way possible. They did it with Mallyx in gw1 and I hope they do it now with raids.

I really want to love the shield. Animations are great, utility seems like it could be good. And I can entirely get behind it being a low-DPS high-Utility offhand. (Frankly, I think I’ve just accepted that as the wages of being a Mesmer main.) And I really want to like it in PvE, but…

I think the first issue that needs to be addressed is the one Pyro (Fay) initially brought up. We’re given a utility-heavy weapon, and one of those utilities is Slow. Slow doesn’t affect NPCs with breakbars. That makes it useless against bosses, which is bad; it also makes it useless against the numerous random open-world NPCs that have breakbars.

Basically, we’re given a utility weapon, and then are told that a good third of its utility will be almost-entirely useless in PvE. Open world, instanced content, all of 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.

Answers like this are the main reason I still haven’t purchased HoT.
Thanks for not making me waste my money.

Revenant’s Unrelenting Assault is a blurred frenzy on steroids.

It does around 15-20k damage in a buffed group setting, has its evade frames, and doesn’t root you.

I don’t understand how blurred frenzy can be essentially a crappy version of pistol whip/unrelenting assault with far less damage.

In general playing Reaper/Revenant/Daredevil it becomes obvious now how far behind in DPS chronomancer is. All of that gets drowned out in the pvp posts about chronomancer burst though so rest assured mesmer will never be buffed in DPS for PvE.

Enjoy your buffbot status in PvE. PvP will always get in the way of them fixing our phantasms, illusions dying immediately to the litany of AoE that happens in PvE/WvW, and the silly amount of ramp up required to do DPS as a mesmer due to relying on 3 phantasms.

My Herald is maintaining 10 stacks of might and permafury passively but somehow shattered strength had to be nerfed so you get a pitiful 3 stacks of might per 3 clone shatter, and the mesmer himself has limited access to fury…

P.S. On the topic of slow, it’s the same for Reaper’s chill. Chill and slow don’t work at all, period, on mobs with the defiance bar. What they do is they slightly decrease the bar upon application. It’s bad.

I wonder why would someone get an idea to center two classes around conditions that won’t even work in a PvE format.

Zenith.7301:

P.S. On the topic of slow, it’s the same for Reaper’s chill. Chill and slow don’t work at all, period, on mobs with the defiance bar. What they do is they slightly decrease the bar upon application. It’s bad.

I wonder why would someone get an idea to center two classes around conditions that won’t even work in a PvE format.

Basically this. If slow is given some useful application in PvE, and the phantasm is summoned at the start of the block instead of the end, I would be perfectly thrilled with the shield as a PvE offhand. Even with the somewhat-crappy “bounce” method of boon application.

You know,

You could give phantasms whatever arbitrary damage and effects you like if you gave all classes ice bow, thus balancing all classes in pve content across the board in a single stroke!

I remember when they said they were going to nerf ice bow and instead included a 25% buff to another skill on ice bow on the subsequent patch.

Shield is op in PVP, and will have uses in PvE, like Mai in Fract, you want these free -2deviance every 15s? also blcok helps aloot there. There are plenty other palces when Shield is good, like AC trash mobs, Pull mobs with Focus, then stun them twice. Also its great for getting free 2×3 sahtters if pulled right.

The only change i rly want to see, is Slow working trough bar, and better apply of Alcarity.

Other way i think Shield is in fine spot compared to others professions.

Michal.4513:

The only change i rly want to see, is … and better apply of Alcarity.

chuckles

You’re probably using the wrong build then. Mesmer can keep alacrity up on their entire team for 35s in the right build.

I’ve only found the shield useful for two things so far.

1) PvP bunker builds- Not my usual style of play, but its a really nice addition for those mesmers that always wanted to pretend they’re cele eles (minus the burning)

2) Trolling Zergs in WvW- Stealth up → run headlong into the front of a zerg → pop shield 5 → blink through to the back→ rofl → stealth away!

The shield is way more than just a bunker weapon in PvP. Echo of Memory and Deja Vu are awesome illusion generation tools with Persistence of Memory, not to mention great mitigation; and you can really control your enemies with the Slow and Tides of Time.

My only complaint is EoM and DV are extremely obvious and smart players simply won’t attack you when you have it up, although in that case it’s as good as a block for the entire duration so that’s not bad either: and it’s good to have powerful skills being well-telegraphed.

After playing with shield more in PvP, I found that not equipping it makes a far more effective build. It is more of a support off-hand, but not a very effective one. There are far better off-hands for chronomancer from the existing stock. What would be far more useful is if the block was continuous, or if kept as it is provides the block to near by allies too. But as it stands I can’t see myself equipping it in any of the game modes I play. Pity As I had a nice skin for shield.

Vague Memory.2817:

After playing with shield more in PvP, I found that not equipping it makes a far more effective build. It is more of a support off-hand, but not a very effective one. There are far better off-hands for chronomancer from the existing stock. What would be far more useful is if the block was continuous, or if kept as it is provides the block to near by allies too. But as it stands I can’t see myself equipping it in any of the game modes I play. Pity As I had a nice skin for shield.

I think it’s something you need to build for, i.e. Persistence of Memory + Chronophantasma. With those two traits, the double conjure means you get a LOT of CD reduction when Shattering them, which means more Phantasms AND more Blocking. It’s great.

Embolism.8106:

The shield is way more than just a bunker weapon in PvP. Echo of Memory and Deja Vu are awesome illusion generation tools with Persistence of Memory, not to mention great mitigation; and you can really control your enemies with the Slow and Tides of Time.

It’s really an incredible all-around teamfight weapon. Landing ToT on a clump of enemies can secure multiple downs if your teammates are on the ball enough. Not to mention prevent or secure stomps. The phantasm admittedly isn’t too incredible in PvP (Slow is useful, but the targeting is meh), but the back-to-back blocks aren’t shabby.