Guild Wars 2

I don’t understand since when does my thread discussing the usefulness of the shield in PvE invite for discussion of its effectiveness in pvp, as if we didn’t have a wider option of weapons in pvp already (I mean, people use offhand torch and scepter in pvp already).

Standard “ZOMG NERF MESMER” derail. Sorry.

Fay.2357:

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

Hrm… that’s once per time split, right? 5 wells of 2s each + 3s directly from a specific well, and then… um… twice that, that’s 26 seconds. The phantasms I guess, 3×1s each every 6s I think, firing 5 times in those 26s, that’s a lot. But yeah, pretty much doing nothing but working on Alacrity plus the team has to stay in all the wells.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

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.

Yes, and?
Going out on a limb I’d say Chrono doesn’t do that, but, factor in the massive amounts of slow provided and it easily steps up there as being powerful.

Only: Not for attaining max DPS.

And as I said in the lengthy post above, “So what?”. I don’t want every one of my weapons to provide the same amount of DPS and needing sanded-off secondary effects (otherwise one would still be clearly superior). I very much like this mix of party buffing, enemy slowing and enemy interrupting shield. That’s awesome. I like my invisibility-centric Torch. I like my defense-centric Focus. Sword and Pistol are there to provide DPS, and they do that well.

Why double up on functionality for no practical reason? DPS doesn’t come in flavors, it’s a simple number. There’s no reason to have multiple weapons for it other than attack range (and that’s pointless as by nature of boon sharing and AE effects, melee is the only relevant range outside of gimmick bosses).

Carighan.6758:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

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.

Yes, and?
Going out on a limb I’d say Chrono doesn’t do that, but, factor in the massive amounts of slow provided and it easily steps up there as being powerful.

Only: Not for attaining max DPS.

And as I said in the lengthy post above, “So what?”. I don’t want every one of my weapons to provide the same amount of DPS and needing sanded-off secondary effects (otherwise one would still be clearly superior). I very much like this mix of party buffing, enemy slowing and enemy interrupting shield. That’s awesome. I like my invisibility-centric Torch. I like my defense-centric Focus. Sword and Pistol are there to provide DPS, and they do that well.

Why double up on functionality for no practical reason? DPS doesn’t come in flavors, it’s a simple number. There’s no reason to have multiple weapons for it other than attack range (and that’s pointless as by nature of boon sharing and AE effects, melee is the only relevant range outside of gimmick bosses).

I feel like you’ve missed the point of the thread.
Slow is terrible in PvE because of the breakbar, and that’s exactly the problem, which I went on to say in that same post. The iAvenger does not provide even close to enough/reliable enough alacrity to make up for the loss of dps from not being a dps phantasm.
Phantasmal Avenger, specifically, is not providing enough support to make up for the dps that is assumed to be part of phantasms in the basic Mesmer design. In short, something needs to change for the sake of PvE.
Now, that could be making slow worthwhile in breakbar fights, which is fine.
It could be changing the basic nature of iCap’s attacks to provide more/reliable alacrity.
It could be making the iAvenger summon a much better defensive ability, depending on just how dangerous HoT raids turn out to be.
Or it could be competitive damage on iCap, which Robert has said he doesn’t want to do, and you have said you don’t want them to, but it does solve the gap.

There are any number of things they might do, but do remember that since this thread is about the viability of Shield in pve, and iAvenger is terrible in pve, it’s not NOT an issue.

Carighan.6758:

Fay.2357:

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

Hrm… that’s once per time split, right? 5 wells of 2s each + 3s directly from a specific well, and then… um… twice that, that’s 26 seconds. The phantasms I guess, 3×1s each every 6s I think, firing 5 times in those 26s, that’s a lot. But yeah, pretty much doing nothing but working on Alacrity plus the team has to stay in all the wells.

Here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Swiftness-and-Boon-sharing-Herald-vs-Mesmer/first#post5464793

I would like to be able to end the shield effect on #4 early to more quickly summon the Phantasm – but otherwise I like it.

If anything the issue is that Mesmers have too many of the “Channeled Block – on block summon an illusion” effects. Three of our weapons (1 MH, 2 OH) have this. So 1/2 our mainhands and 2/5ths of our OHs. Changing up the functionality of those skills would go a long way torwards helping with our current weapon woes.

For example, alter Scepter #2 to a skill more akin to Guardian’s Focus #5. “Conjure illusionary images to block the next 3 attacks over 3s, inflicting Torment on each attack blocked. If barrier is not destroyed the images explode in a flash of light, blinding nearby enemies and summoning a Clone”.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

There are any number of things they might do, but do remember that since this thread is about the viability of Shield in pve, and iAvenger is terrible in pve, it’s not NOT an issue.

Yes and my point would be that shield not being optimal for most PvE purposes is simply not an issue. That’s because the game is a wee bit larger than just PvE, and there’s a lot of weapons each class can use. There’s no point to – and in fact it would be detrimental to – making each of them be equally viable in every situation.

Carighan.6758:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

There are any number of things they might do, but do remember that since this thread is about the viability of Shield in pve, and iAvenger is terrible in pve, it’s not NOT an issue.

Yes and my point would be that shield not being optimal for most PvE purposes is simply not an issue. That’s because the game is a wee bit larger than just PvE, and there’s a lot of weapons each class can use. There’s no point to – and in fact it would be detrimental to – making each of them be equally viable in every situation.

An entire segment of the game, which is in fact the number 1 selling point of the new expansion, is not a simple situation to be lightly brushed aside.
What you just said, in essence, is “screw people who play Heart of Thorns, they’re not important. The new weapon for the new elite mesmer specialization is a pvp-only weapon and should stay that way”.
How do you not realize that this is a completely boneheaded, elitist and selfish perspective? New weapons are a key selling point of the elite specs, they should ALL be viable in the new PvE content!

Its attitudes like this that have left mesmer so screwed in PvE in the first place.

And I already said, it’s massively selfish of pvp players to basically want another weapon exclusive to them.

Torch, scepter, and even to some extent staff are pvp exclusive weapons; they are incredibly weak and not used in PvE. Greatsword is not used much in PvE either, it’s essentially a weaker longbow ranger and the mirror blade bounce that was already mediocre in pve was nerfed further for pvp purposes.

So pvp mesmers use 4 more weapons than PvE mesmers can, yet somehow they should also gain exclusive rights to the shield as well?

To be fair, I think it’s just Carighan saying that. The rest of us are just pointing out that Shield is already pretty good in PvP, while making suggestions that would improve it in PvE without making it OP in PvP. (Which is why a straight damage increase is off the table, as it should be, because iAvenger out DPSing a pSwordsman would be ridiculous given its access to Slow and Alacrity.)

tobascodagama.2961:

To be fair, I think it’s just Carighan saying that. The rest of us are just pointing out that Shield is already pretty good in PvP, while making suggestions that would improve it in PvE without making it OP in PvP. (Which is why a straight damage increase is off the table, as it should be, because iAvenger out DPSing a pSwordsman would be ridiculous given its access to Slow and Alacrity.)

And yet something needs to be done about mesmer DPS in PvE, which is plain terrible and by far the lowest of all the classes.

And nothing is ever done due to fear of mesmer pvp spike damage. Just split the skills or fix mesmer burst mechanisms in pvp so the mesmer can stop being terrible sustained DPS in PvE.

Well it once again boils down to the way 3 phantasms make up about 50% of our dps and thus our mesmer attacks are about half (it’s more like they hit 33% harder) that of other professions.

Wow déjà vu, I thought HoT beta had ended.

Essentially if phantasms and by extension our off hands only offered very small amounts of damage but we’re more utility focused we could see an increase in the damage of our skills. We would also see much more shatter play in PvE, however it would mean the death of phantasm damage duelling builds and would hurt iDuelist interrupt mesmers.

I dunno just in two minds about such a change, is the death of a certain play style what we want if it were to make mesmers on par with other classes in PvE?

It’s also pretty sad seeing my Blurred Frenzy hit for 5-7k in berserker gear while my revenant’s Unrelenting Assault is 2 seconds of evade, a gap closer (teleports you to the target), and does around the vicinity of 14-16k damage.

And the mesmer autoattacks do so much less damage than my revenant’s autoattack, the phantasms can’t even make up for this sustained damage difference.

Zenith.7301:

It’s also pretty sad seeing my Blurred Frenzy hit for 5-7k in berserker gear while my revenant’s Unrelenting Assault is 2 seconds of evade, a gap closer (teleports you to the target), and does around the vicinity of 14-16k damage.

And the mesmer autoattacks do so much less damage than my revenant’s autoattack, the phantasms can’t even make up for this sustained damage difference.

I just try not to think about Unrelenting Assault, honestly. I know Revenant probably still has some balancing ahead of it still, but it’s like someone sat down and thought, “What if we took Blurred Frenzy, took away all of the restrictions, added some utility, and pushed DPS right up through the roof?”

Zenith.7301:

And yet something needs to be done about mesmer DPS in PvE, which is plain terrible and by far the lowest of all the classes.

Of course. But is dumping a bunch of extra damage onto iAvenger or ToT the right way to address this?

Seems to me that the best starting point would be to reduce Phantasm damage by 10% and increase AA damage 30% across the board, then handle any outliers created by this change.

It’s two birds with one stone, frankly, since Phantasm attacks do contribute significantly to our burst potential in PvP as it is. Forcing us to weave an AA chain into our burst rotation wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

What you just said, in essence, is “screw people who play Heart of Thorns, they’re not important. The new weapon for the new elite mesmer specialization is a pvp-only weapon and should stay that way”.

No, that’s not what I said. Not really, it’s easy to misinterpret that way, though.

What I mean is, not every weapon should be balanced by damage output. For a variety of reasons, PvP-variety being in fact one of them, yes. One of them. The much bigger one is:

• Feel / identity. For me the most important aspect actually, coming from RPGs of old and still playing MMOs mostly for the social interaction and the feel of RPG, less for the numbers game and the PvP brawling. A shield shouldn’t feel similar to a pistol, part of that is not having them be equally viable in any given situation. Period. I should have a reason for carrying weapons around and swapping accordingly.

There’s also simplicity of PvE balance (easier if each class uses round about one, reliable, weapon set and the devs just have to balance those), simplicity of enemy design, lower complexity for newcomers (weapons clearly identify themselves, “me for CC”, “me for raw damage”, etc), and probably a fair few more.

Anyhow, the point is, I think a MMORPG feels lame if things are balanced by the books. Things need to be meaningfully imbalanced, although the term is difficult to explain.
By that I mean, if you have two weapons, instead of both having balanced damage and balanced boon output, have one be really good for damage and one be really all about spreading boons. In a situation where either is required, that weapon is clearly stronger, and the other clearly weaker, providing a character with meaningful upsides and downsides.

And those upsides (and downsides) are to me the core element of class identity. Now, lacking class roles, the next best thing is weapon choice and trait choice.

Carighan.6758:

No, that’s not what I said. Not really, it’s easy to misinterpret that way, though.

Que?

Here’s what you said:

Yes and my point would be that shield not being optimal for most PvE purposes is simply not an issue. That’s because the game is a wee bit larger than just PvE, and there’s a lot of weapons each class can use. There’s no point to – and in fact it would be detrimental to – making each of them be equally viable in every situation.

“Shield not being optimal for most PvE purposes is simply not an issue” = “Making shield useful for PvE is not important” = “screw people who like PvE”
And no, it wasn’t a form of your damage argument, because we had already dealt with that one, as I clearly affirmed that support is fine as an objective, so long as that support is valuable.
The rest of your statement just affirmed your point:
“the game is a wee bit larger than just PvE”
“There’s no point to making each of them be equally viable in every situation”
That last, of course, taken in context, is specifically saying there’s no point in making [shield] viable in [PvE].

You can try to revise history, but the record is there for all to see.

apharma.3741:

Well it once again boils down to the way 3 phantasms make up about 50% of our dps and thus our mesmer attacks are about half (it’s more like they hit 33% harder) that of other professions.

Wow déjà vu, I thought HoT beta had ended.

Essentially if phantasms and by extension our off hands only offered very small amounts of damage but we’re more utility focused we could see an increase in the damage of our skills. We would also see much more shatter play in PvE, however it would mean the death of phantasm damage duelling builds and would hurt iDuelist interrupt mesmers.

I dunno just in two minds about such a change, is the death of a certain play style what we want if it were to make mesmers on par with other classes in PvE?

Yes! 100x yes! That is exactly what we want!

The Devs have already made it abundantly clear shattering is our primary mechanic, they now need to finish converting us over. Do it, devs!

I’m all up for making shield usable in PvE, but what I hope it WILL NOT be the only weapon for mesmers to bring, along with wells, and making other weapons/utilities not as optimal.

Phloww.1048:

I’m all up for making shield usable in PvE, but what I hope it WILL NOT be the only weapon for mesmers to bring, along with wells, and making other weapons/utilities not as optimal.

Too late for wells. It’s not like we had particularly appealing weapons and utilities in PvE besides portal/Feedback/Time Warp, and used anything besides mainhand sword and pistol/focus/sword offhands.

So something needs to feel the void of 2 utility slots besides feedback (assuming feedback is needed), and that falls to wells because quite frankly mantras are useless/wimpy (maybe use distraction for defiance breaks, that’s about it).

And wells do precisely that. You either use glamours or wells, and MAYBE every once in a while mantra of distraction.

The utility phantasms are so niche to the point of being useless, especially since they kitten your DPS by competing for illusion slots with DPS phantasms. You’re not gonna use most mantras, or veil, or arcane thievery/most manipulations.

You’re not gonna use any signets besides inspiration either since all of them are pretty much crappy passives and even crappier actives.

Zenith.7301:

Too late for wells. It’s not like we had particularly appealing weapons and utilities in PvE besides portal/Feedback/Time Warp, and used anything besides mainhand sword and pistol/focus/sword offhands.

So something needs to feel the void of 2 utility slots besides feedback (assuming feedback is needed), and that falls to wells because quite frankly mantras are useless/wimpy (maybe use distraction for defiance breaks, that’s about it).

And wells do precisely that. You either use glamours or wells, and MAYBE every once in a while mantra of distraction.

The utility phantasms are so niche to the point of being useless, especially since they kitten your DPS by competing for illusion slots with DPS phantasms. You’re not gonna use most mantras, or veil, or arcane thievery/most manipulations.

You’re not gonna use any signets besides inspiration either since all of them are pretty much crappy passives and even crappier actives.

I know that not every utility/weapon is usable in PvE (well, other than certain situations to use specific ones). My concern is if the wells and shield will be the only things to bring from now on (making Feedback, Portal, Time Warp not as viable).

Phloww.1048:

I know that not every utility/weapon is usable in PvE (well, other than certain situations to use specific ones). My concern is if the wells and shield will be the only things to bring from now on (making Feedback, Portal, Time Warp not as viable).

Feedback will always be tossed on if reflects are needed.

Portal will always be tossed on if you need portal.

Time warp is still the default, gravity well isn’t particularly great in PvE.

Everything else is meh. Aside from wells being legitimately decent utilities, everything else is just bad.

Phloww.1048:

Zenith.7301:

Too late for wells. It’s not like we had particularly appealing weapons and utilities in PvE besides portal/Feedback/Time Warp, and used anything besides mainhand sword and pistol/focus/sword offhands.

So something needs to feel the void of 2 utility slots besides feedback (assuming feedback is needed), and that falls to wells because quite frankly mantras are useless/wimpy (maybe use distraction for defiance breaks, that’s about it).

And wells do precisely that. You either use glamours or wells, and MAYBE every once in a while mantra of distraction.

The utility phantasms are so niche to the point of being useless, especially since they kitten your DPS by competing for illusion slots with DPS phantasms. You’re not gonna use most mantras, or veil, or arcane thievery/most manipulations.

You’re not gonna use any signets besides inspiration either since all of them are pretty much crappy passives and even crappier actives.

I know that not every utility/weapon is usable in PvE (well, other than certain situations to use specific ones). My concern is if the wells and shield will be the only things to bring from now on (making Feedback, Portal, Time Warp not as viable).

Time Warp is mandatory, since the elite well is garbage in pve.

Feedback is mandatory when reflects are needed.

Portal will be used if it can create efficiency in the run.

None of those utilities are in danger.

edit: well kitten i just got ninja’d lol >:P

As long as chronomancer does not become the only thing that mesmers can bring, then that’s fine by me. (I.E. – LFG needs chronomancer, not mesmer)

As for the shield, well, I did enjoy using it during this past BWE. Just needs some improvement/tweaks/fixes that others have mentioned. I don’t think Tides of Time is suppose to bounce at a 45 degree angle (which sometimes it does); it definitely does need some tweaking and terrain fixing. I also feel that its movement speed needs to move a little bit slower. If they make it useful in PvE, maybe I’ll consider going for the Flameseeker Prophecies legendary weapon.

I should consider rejoining OMFG. I used to be a buildcrafter/tester, but took a 2-year hiatus.

How about- At the end of the Shield 4’s channel or successful block you grant 1.5 secs of alacrity in an AoE. Then change the bounce on the phantasm to enemy-only.

Edit: Then Torch 5 could become- Channel an ability that immediately Blasts the area blinding foes and granting fury to allies, then summons a phantasmal mage. Then remove the blind from torch 4, and the image can have an enemy-only bounce also. Would make the 30 recast on image justified too…

AlphatheWhite.9351:

“Shield not being optimal for most PvE purposes is simply not an issue” = “Making shield useful for PvE is not important” = “screw people who like PvE”

Ok, now you’re just being annoying. Sorry.

• The first does not connect to the second. There’s a big difference between most PvE purposes, as in, Shield works for everything ,regardless of context, is always optimal; and Shield is never ever useful in PvE, regardless of context. You do a typical False Dilemma in that you assume these are the only two situations, “Always optimal” vs “Never optimal”. Given how PvE has more than one enemy in one specific situation, and in fact has a lot of facets, this is not at all true.
• Will you be the one to post the same thread about Torch and Pistol and Sword and Focus once Shield is optimal for everything and there’s no point using anything else, btw? Just food for thought.)
• Even given the issues with arriving at the second part of your “equation” (in the loosest sense of the word, you used equal-signs and that’s all), how do you arrive at the third? Oh wait, I do kinda know, it’s a second false dilemma, people either support your call, or they hate you, right? :P

Really, is this the best argument people can muster on the internet? It’s no wonder devs never really listen if this type of reaction is all they see.

Food for thought:

Torch means the devs hate PvE, right? It’s clearly not optimal, has been unoptimal for a long time, and hey, that clearly means devs said screw PvEers, right. Do you see how silly that string of thought looks? It’s ignoring basically everything about weapon choices in GW2, no class has remotely all of their weapons optimal for most situations.

In fact, I’d say existent game only supports the opposite conclusion. Pick your target game mode. “PvE, dungeons, max-speed”. Then, from that, you know which weapons to pick. You don’t first pick your weapon then arbitrarily decide where you want to take it, what traits to shotgun-fire your points into and then expect to be optimal.

Carighan.6758:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

“Shield not being optimal for most PvE purposes is simply not an issue” = “Making shield useful for PvE is not important” = “screw people who like PvE”

• The first does not connect to the second. There’s a big difference between most PvE purposes, as in, Shield works for everything ,regardless of context, is always optimal; and Shield is never ever useful in PvE, regardless of context. You do a typical False Dilemma in that you assume these are the only two situations, “Always optimal” vs “Never optimal”. Given how PvE has more than one enemy in one specific situation, and in fact has a lot of facets, this is not at all true.

Your statement, and my simplification of it, are both suggesting that it is not important for Shield to be optimal for PvE generally (which is what “most PvE purposes” means. Having a torch for skips does not make torch optimal in PvE generally, just so, marginal value does not = general value). I’m making no false dilemma between your interpretation and mine because it is still your interpretation that is giving PvE players the bird!
Furthermore, as I said before and you conveniently ignored, the rest of your post puts the necessary context to your post, that you’re expressly discussing how unnecessary it is for Shield to be worthwhile in PvE because “the game is a wee bit larger than just PvE”. Taking your own words out of context can make it seem for a moment like you didn’t mean what you meant, but restoring the context makes the analysis easy.

Carighan.6758:

• Will you be the one to post the same thread about Torch and Pistol and Sword and Focus once Shield is optimal for everything and there’s no point using anything else, btw? Just food for thought.)

Considering I’ve already made clear in multiple places my opinion that torch needs to be improved (iMage specifically), Duelist’s Discipline needs to be fixed, sword block needs some retuning, and iWarden dies too easily, yes. I absolutely will, as I already have and will continue to do so. That said, shield is in a different position from any of those weapons, as I will explain below.
This is a weird point, as I see no reason why I wouldn’t. I personally think PvE is more important than PvP to the value of Guild Wars 2, but I recognize that it is more important to balance character power around PvP.

Carighan.6758:

• Even given the issues with arriving at the second part of your “equation” (in the loosest sense of the word, you used equal-signs and that’s all), how do you arrive at the third? Oh wait, I do kinda know, it’s a second false dilemma, people either support your call, or they hate you, right? :P

I refer you to Zenith’s (ignored) point about the selfishness of pvp players. One need not have nasty intentions or particular dislike to be telling someone to go hang. Nice racists are still racist (“I’m not racist, some of my best friends are black!”), horrifying things are committed by faceless bureaucrats who don’t personally care one way or another about the people they are hurting, and nice people inadvertently send bad messages because they said selfish things.
And your point that making shield valuable in PvE generally is unimportant is a big middle finger in the face of PvE players who want to have a use for the new weapon, regardless of how little you actually dislike them.

Carighan.6758:

Really, is this the best argument people can muster on the internet? It’s no wonder devs never really listen if this type of reaction is all they see.

Lulz. From the person who keeps trying to insist he didn’t say what he said, or at least that it doesn’t mean what it means, and yet your words stand as they were, and don’t mean what you’re trying to say they mean.
Either you misspoke, in which case okay, I can buy that, or you are currently misrepresenting your intentions in an effort to save face, which is rather silly, as no one who matters thinks less of you if you change your mind, as long as you own your decisions.
Given your points since then, and your continued effort to make the same point (that it’s not necessary for shield to be valuable in PvE), I suspect it’s the latter rather than the former.

Carighan.6758:

Torch means the devs hate PvE, right? It’s clearly not optimal, has been unoptimal for a long time, and hey, that clearly means devs said screw PvEers, right. Do you see how silly that string of thought looks? It’s ignoring basically everything about weapon choices in GW2, no class has remotely all of their weapons optimal for most situations.

Accusing me of fallacies, then going ahead with a false equivalency of your own? For shame.
1. Yes, torch needs to be updated, and I’m so far from alone in that view I’m practically just a sheep in the herd.
2. There is so much qq about the pvp-bias of the devs that no, it doesn’t necessarily look silly at all. In fact, it’s pretty clear to most people who play mesmer in PvE that that devs really have effectively said “screw you” to the mesmer players who like PvE. I’m not surprised you’ve missed it, since you’re so far on that side yourself.
3. Shield is not torch. In point of fact, the shield occupies a special new place in the game that hasn’t even existed before: a key piece of the first elite specialization for mesmers. You unlock it through playing through the new content, it’s designed to be more potent than the other spec lines, it’s meant to be a selling point of the expansion itself. If this weapon were useless in PvE, I’d qq just as hard, because of all the weapons mesmer has, this one—perhaps even more than any other—needs to have broad usefulness.

Carighan.6758:

In fact, I’d say existent game only supports the opposite conclusion. Pick your target game mode. “PvE, dungeons, max-speed”. Then, from that, you know which weapons to pick. You don’t first pick your weapon then arbitrarily decide where you want to take it, what traits to shotgun-fire your points into and then expect to be optimal.

Given that:
1. Mesmer choices in PvE are actually rather pitiful as it is
2. Point #3 above
3. You’ve not given me or anyone else a good reason why it should be this way. What is wrong with a world in which the majority of weapons are equally viable in all major content? Since we’re just talking advocacy here, what precisely is it that makes your vision worth more valuable from a design perspective?

AlphatheWhite.9351:

You’ve not given me or anyone else a good reason why it should be this way. What is wrong with a world in which the majority of weapons are equally viable in all major content? Since we’re just talking advocacy here, what precisely is it that makes your vision worth more valuable from a design perspective?

That one is really the sticking point: Because it doesn’t work.

It’s not possible to do what you desire. It goes against basic elements of how games in general, CRPGs in particular and MMO players in general work. You cannot have “all balanced”, unless you sacrifice the distinction.

That is to say, yes, you can have two weapons which are both balanced in all given situations. Automatically at this point, all distinction between them has been eliminated and they are entirely the same weapon. Otherwise there will be a situation in which one weapon is demonstrably (sp?) superior to the other, and by nature of MMO gamership it is the “X-mode weapon” and the other is “rubbish in mode X”.

Now, you can balance that ofc, if you’re think that it could have a trade-off. You could make the other weapon between in mode Y. But then, you’re exactly where we are right now, with weapons being of different value in different situations.

So in short, the reason the current system is superior is because it allows for multiple weapons to exist (mechanically). Without it, it’d be effectively just skins and animations, as the need for balance eliminates the ability of weapons to be different from one another.

Now ofc, plenty players are going to prefer that. WoW is massively popular for a reason. But if you take it too far (it creeps into class design sooner than later, and would even faster in GW2 where weapon choice is an integral part of class identity), and you wash out the ability of players to do anything but what is required of them, making things feel robotic. You eliminate the ability to “mess up”, basically.

As for the other stuff, I think one problem is that english isn’t my mother tongue. I think the way I said “most PvE” means something else to me than it does to you, which could very well be.
I meant to indicate that I am fine with a weapon which excels, say, at group interruption for mass-enemy events and on-demand power so long as I have another choice which provides, say, single-target interruption on a lower CD and steady power. Every weapon needs their niche, and one not having one is a problem, but I want weapons to have that niche.
Because as I said above, eliminating it essentially removes the multiple weapon choices, beyond skins/animations. And while that can work, it doesn’t sound at all fun to me. :s

Carighan.6758:

As for the other stuff, I think one problem is that english isn’t my mother tongue. I think the way I said “most PvE” means something else to me than it does to you, which could very well be.
I meant to indicate that I am fine with a weapon which excels, say, at group interruption for mass-enemy events and on-demand power so long as I have another choice which provides, say, single-target interruption on a lower CD and steady power. Every weapon needs their niche, and one not having one is a problem, but I want weapons to have that niche.

I am more okay with that perspective. However, I think that choosing a pvp-only niche (or at least, a low-pve niche) for a weapon as important as Shield is a big design mistake. And frankly, it’s an unnecessary one.

In short, I think if they’ve given Shield a niche that excludes PvE value, they’ve made a mistake, one that can be rectified as there is easily room for a defensive weapon niche compatible with both PvE and PvP. In this particular case, tuning the iAvenger to provide better support is both thematic and valuable, and need not be overpowered in pvp.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Carighan.6758:

As for the other stuff, I think one problem is that english isn’t my mother tongue. I think the way I said “most PvE” means something else to me than it does to you, which could very well be.
I meant to indicate that I am fine with a weapon which excels, say, at group interruption for mass-enemy events and on-demand power so long as I have another choice which provides, say, single-target interruption on a lower CD and steady power. Every weapon needs their niche, and one not having one is a problem, but I want weapons to have that niche.

I am more okay with that perspective. However, I think that choosing a pvp-only niche (or at least, a low-pve niche) for a weapon as important as Shield is a big design mistake. And frankly, it’s an unnecessary one.

In short, I think if they’ve given Shield a niche that excludes PvE value, they’ve made a mistake, one that can be rectified as there is easily room for a defensive weapon niche compatible with both PvE and PvP. In this particular case, tuning the iAvenger to provide better support is both thematic and valuable, and need not be overpowered in pvp.

Being frustrated over speed clearing a dungeon is not the same as being frustrated over losing a fight in wvw, or a match in pvp. People in pve have the freedom to retry scenarios, it would make sense the developers would concentrate on situations where the stake are higher. Also we have only seen some of the new pve content, it would be assumptive to declare shield inferior without seeing all the new stuff in HoT, especially upcoming raids.

Daniel Handler.4816:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Carighan.6758:

As for the other stuff, I think one problem is that english isn’t my mother tongue. I think the way I said “most PvE” means something else to me than it does to you, which could very well be.
I meant to indicate that I am fine with a weapon which excels, say, at group interruption for mass-enemy events and on-demand power so long as I have another choice which provides, say, single-target interruption on a lower CD and steady power. Every weapon needs their niche, and one not having one is a problem, but I want weapons to have that niche.

I am more okay with that perspective. However, I think that choosing a pvp-only niche (or at least, a low-pve niche) for a weapon as important as Shield is a big design mistake. And frankly, it’s an unnecessary one.

In short, I think if they’ve given Shield a niche that excludes PvE value, they’ve made a mistake, one that can be rectified as there is easily room for a defensive weapon niche compatible with both PvE and PvP. In this particular case, tuning the iAvenger to provide better support is both thematic and valuable, and need not be overpowered in pvp.

Being frustrated over speed clearing a dungeon is not the same as being frustrated over losing a fight in wvw, or a match in pvp. People in pve have the freedom to retry scenarios, it would make sense the developers would concentrate on situations where the stake are higher. Also we have only seen some of the new pve content, it would be assumptive to declare shield inferior without seeing all the new stuff in HoT, especially upcoming raids.

What are the higher stakes in PvP? You’re dying to a set of pixels controlled by players instead? You die to enemy team, you respawn, and you go do another fight.

Don’t flatter yourself. It’s not like that pathetic army of PVT/Cleric 1 spam in WvW requires optimization.

And in spvp all you people do is cry about losing 1v1’s.

Daniel Handler.4816:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Carighan.6758:

As for the other stuff, I think one problem is that english isn’t my mother tongue. I think the way I said “most PvE” means something else to me than it does to you, which could very well be.
I meant to indicate that I am fine with a weapon which excels, say, at group interruption for mass-enemy events and on-demand power so long as I have another choice which provides, say, single-target interruption on a lower CD and steady power. Every weapon needs their niche, and one not having one is a problem, but I want weapons to have that niche.

I am more okay with that perspective. However, I think that choosing a pvp-only niche (or at least, a low-pve niche) for a weapon as important as Shield is a big design mistake. And frankly, it’s an unnecessary one.

In short, I think if they’ve given Shield a niche that excludes PvE value, they’ve made a mistake, one that can be rectified as there is easily room for a defensive weapon niche compatible with both PvE and PvP. In this particular case, tuning the iAvenger to provide better support is both thematic and valuable, and need not be overpowered in pvp.

Being frustrated over speed clearing a dungeon is not the same as being frustrated over losing a fight in wvw, or a match in pvp. People in pve have the freedom to retry scenarios, it would make sense the developers would concentrate on situations where the stake are higher. Also we have only seen some of the new pve content, it would be assumptive to declare shield inferior without seeing all the new stuff in HoT, especially upcoming raids.

Higher stakes? That’s a good one. Unless you’re actually in a tournament and potentially going to win real world cash, the stakes, as zenith said, are losing to a bunch of pixels.

Additionally, the PvP community is absolutely tiny. Maybe 50 people play competitively for real, across both regions. The vast, vast, vast majority of players in this game play PvE almost exclusively. If Anet wants to focus on their bottom line, that means focusing on PvE, not the barely played game mode of PvP.

I’m sure there are a greater number who log in just for PvP dailies, but that doesn’t really change the essential point.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Carighan.6758:

As for the other stuff, I think one problem is that english isn’t my mother tongue. I think the way I said “most PvE” means something else to me than it does to you, which could very well be.
I meant to indicate that I am fine with a weapon which excels, say, at group interruption for mass-enemy events and on-demand power so long as I have another choice which provides, say, single-target interruption on a lower CD and steady power. Every weapon needs their niche, and one not having one is a problem, but I want weapons to have that niche.

I am more okay with that perspective. However, I think that choosing a pvp-only niche (or at least, a low-pve niche) for a weapon as important as Shield is a big design mistake. And frankly, it’s an unnecessary one.

In short, I think if they’ve given Shield a niche that excludes PvE value, they’ve made a mistake, one that can be rectified as there is easily room for a defensive weapon niche compatible with both PvE and PvP. In this particular case, tuning the iAvenger to provide better support is both thematic and valuable, and need not be overpowered in pvp.

Being frustrated over speed clearing a dungeon is not the same as being frustrated over losing a fight in wvw, or a match in pvp. People in pve have the freedom to retry scenarios, it would make sense the developers would concentrate on situations where the stake are higher. Also we have only seen some of the new pve content, it would be assumptive to declare shield inferior without seeing all the new stuff in HoT, especially upcoming raids.

Higher stakes? That’s a good one. Unless you’re actually in a tournament and potentially going to win real world cash, the stakes, as zenith said, are losing to a bunch of pixels.

Additionally, the PvP community is absolutely tiny. Maybe 50 people play competitively for real, across both regions. The vast, vast, vast majority of players in this game play PvE almost exclusively. If Anet wants to focus on their bottom line, that means focusing on PvE, not the barely played game mode of PvP.

I am interested where you get your numbers. Because the public face of guild wars 2 is very much about the pvp side. The attempt to make this esports is very real. Look at the amount of publicity that goes into one mode or the other.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Carighan.6758:

As for the other stuff, I think one problem is that english isn’t my mother tongue. I think the way I said “most PvE” means something else to me than it does to you, which could very well be.
I meant to indicate that I am fine with a weapon which excels, say, at group interruption for mass-enemy events and on-demand power so long as I have another choice which provides, say, single-target interruption on a lower CD and steady power. Every weapon needs their niche, and one not having one is a problem, but I want weapons to have that niche.

I am more okay with that perspective. However, I think that choosing a pvp-only niche (or at least, a low-pve niche) for a weapon as important as Shield is a big design mistake. And frankly, it’s an unnecessary one.

In short, I think if they’ve given Shield a niche that excludes PvE value, they’ve made a mistake, one that can be rectified as there is easily room for a defensive weapon niche compatible with both PvE and PvP. In this particular case, tuning the iAvenger to provide better support is both thematic and valuable, and need not be overpowered in pvp.

Being frustrated over speed clearing a dungeon is not the same as being frustrated over losing a fight in wvw, or a match in pvp. People in pve have the freedom to retry scenarios, it would make sense the developers would concentrate on situations where the stake are higher. Also we have only seen some of the new pve content, it would be assumptive to declare shield inferior without seeing all the new stuff in HoT, especially upcoming raids.

Higher stakes? That’s a good one. Unless you’re actually in a tournament and potentially going to win real world cash, the stakes, as zenith said, are losing to a bunch of pixels.

Additionally, the PvP community is absolutely tiny. Maybe 50 people play competitively for real, across both regions. The vast, vast, vast majority of players in this game play PvE almost exclusively. If Anet wants to focus on their bottom line, that means focusing on PvE, not the barely played game mode of PvP.

I am interested where you get your numbers. Because the public face of guild wars 2 is very much about the pvp side. The attempt to make this esports is very real. Look at the amount of publicity that goes into one mode or the other.

Oh certainly, they’ve been throwing barrels of cash at #esports for years. Despite all the barrels, there’s still one single competitive team on NA, and like 3 on EU. Quite the healthy and thriving PvP scene, wouldn’t you say? Ultimately, you can’t throw barrels of cash at #esports and have it become #esports. The game has to be good enough to be worthy of that level of competitive play. GW2 is NOT worthy of esports level competition, and until it is, esports will never happen, no matter how much cash anet throws at it.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Carighan.6758:

As for the other stuff, I think one problem is that english isn’t my mother tongue. I think the way I said “most PvE” means something else to me than it does to you, which could very well be.
I meant to indicate that I am fine with a weapon which excels, say, at group interruption for mass-enemy events and on-demand power so long as I have another choice which provides, say, single-target interruption on a lower CD and steady power. Every weapon needs their niche, and one not having one is a problem, but I want weapons to have that niche.

I am more okay with that perspective. However, I think that choosing a pvp-only niche (or at least, a low-pve niche) for a weapon as important as Shield is a big design mistake. And frankly, it’s an unnecessary one.

In short, I think if they’ve given Shield a niche that excludes PvE value, they’ve made a mistake, one that can be rectified as there is easily room for a defensive weapon niche compatible with both PvE and PvP. In this particular case, tuning the iAvenger to provide better support is both thematic and valuable, and need not be overpowered in pvp.

Being frustrated over speed clearing a dungeon is not the same as being frustrated over losing a fight in wvw, or a match in pvp. People in pve have the freedom to retry scenarios, it would make sense the developers would concentrate on situations where the stake are higher. Also we have only seen some of the new pve content, it would be assumptive to declare shield inferior without seeing all the new stuff in HoT, especially upcoming raids.

Higher stakes? That’s a good one. Unless you’re actually in a tournament and potentially going to win real world cash, the stakes, as zenith said, are losing to a bunch of pixels.

Additionally, the PvP community is absolutely tiny. Maybe 50 people play competitively for real, across both regions. The vast, vast, vast majority of players in this game play PvE almost exclusively. If Anet wants to focus on their bottom line, that means focusing on PvE, not the barely played game mode of PvP.

I am interested where you get your numbers. Because the public face of guild wars 2 is very much about the pvp side. The attempt to make this esports is very real. Look at the amount of publicity that goes into one mode or the other.

Oh certainly, they’ve been throwing barrels of cash at #esports for years. Despite all the barrels, there’s still one single competitive team on NA, and like 3 on EU. Quite the healthy and thriving PvP scene, wouldn’t you say? Ultimately, you can’t throw barrels of cash at #esports and have it become #esports. The game has to be good enough to be worthy of that level of competitive play. GW2 is NOT worthy of esports level competition, and until it is, esports will never happen, no matter how much cash anet throws at it.

Those aren’t numbers. And their intent remains the same. When you reduce players to pixels you remove the concept of the mmorpg. They have and always will cater to the dynamic content of the game. The market, wvw, and pvp. Why do they care if the dungeon path doesn’t work. You are doing it for gold anyway, and there other dungeons to run, and other ways to farm gold. Don’t treat this game like it is skyrim over LAN. And don’t begrudge the people who don’t have the freedom to reset ad infinitium the content in this game until it stops being a mmorpg.

This trolling and derailing of my thread has gotten tiresome. You clearly have nothing to contribute to a PvE thread given your self-important notions of the format, so I’m going to start reporting posts to the mods if we don’t get back on topic soon.

Well, I might as well say this again. I think the problem with shields and all defensive skills in general is not in the skills (weapons) themselves but in the way PvE has so far been designed, i.e. where personal defence is almost completely meaningless. If Anet would (re)design content so the price of going full glass is a swift death, then defensive skills (weapons) will be fine.

Shield 4 would be fine if the Block itself actually has meaning, which is the case in PvP. It is not the case in PvE, hence it becomes useless. Make PvE content challenging in the sense that staying alive is a huge part of DPS (a.k.a. not dying), then Shield 4 would be fine with no changes.

That said, iAvenger itself is pretty useless except kittenter fodder. Anet did say they’re working on Slow in PvE so we’ll wait on that, but the Alacrity is still pretty weak. TGiven how much group Alacrity you can give out with AWTEW, perhaps iAvenger shouldn’t give Alacrity at all: change it to something else? I’d like to say Quickness but that might be a bit too much as well.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am interested where you get your numbers. Because the public face of guild wars 2 is very much about the pvp side. The attempt to make this esports is very real. Look at the amount of publicity that goes into one mode or the other.

The public face displayed by ANet frequently is, yes. Most of us are baffled as to why, because the publicity is very much on the PvE side. Any time other sites report on GW2 it’s for PvE stuff

Anyhow, going offtopic, back onto topic:

I somewhat agree that shield’s main issue is more in the current PvE encounter design. In that, I’d prefer to fix the root issue, not the symptoms. Many abilities are currently at best useless due to PvE enemies being little more than punching bags. I long for the mobs which used to run out of AEs, basically.

Actually, I’d suggest the problem with PvE design is in one of their core decisions: no trinity.

The inability of a tank to hold aggro, or of healers to outheal damage, means there’s no mechanism for a party to preserve its glass, so the encounter either has to end quickly (all-glass), or be all-tank. All-tank is slow, so as long as all-glass is possible, it will be the preference. But making encounters too dangerous for glass just moves the meta to all-tank, and doesn’t reward diversity at all.

When I first heard they were defying the trinity, I wondered how they were going to allow for group diversity. The answer? CC would be how you control bosses -_-.

Yes, almighty CC, because defiance and breakbars don’t eliminate that one immediately :rolleyes:

That’s the fundamental problem, though. Without means for tanky/healy characters to keep the squishy characters alive, there is no incentive to have a diverse party beyond “what ends the fight quickest”? Making dungeons harder will make them take longer, yes, but it will just replace one all-type meta with another (swap deeps for tanky deeps…shocker, ele still wins).

Embolism.8106:

Well, I might as well say this again. I think the problem with shields and all defensive skills in general is not in the skills (weapons) themselves but in the way PvE has so far been designed, i.e. where personal defence is almost completely meaningless. If Anet would (re)design content so the price of going full glass is a swift death, then defensive skills (weapons) will be fine.

Shield 4 would be fine if the Block itself actually has meaning, which is the case in PvP. It is not the case in PvE, hence it becomes useless. Make PvE content challenging in the sense that staying alive is a huge part of DPS (a.k.a. not dying), then Shield 4 would be fine with no changes.

That said, iAvenger itself is pretty useless except kittenter fodder. Anet did say they’re working on Slow in PvE so we’ll wait on that, but the Alacrity is still pretty weak. TGiven how much group Alacrity you can give out with AWTEW, perhaps iAvenger shouldn’t give Alacrity at all: change it to something else? I’d like to say Quickness but that might be a bit too much as well.

But this is not even true.

We already use defensive offhands in PvE, they’re called focus and offhand sword. The focus is a purely defensive offhand, used for projectile defense and crowd control (iwarden really does mediocre damage and is stationary).

Offhand sword has the same block shield does, on a way lower cooldown, and that block can be turned into a line wide ranged interrupt.

The shield has the same block as offhand sword, and it’s bad because it only blocks one hit. The warrior offhand sword covers all projectiles, as does the ranger block. The mesmer shield block gets popped by a single projectile and then you eat all the damage.

And what do you get in exchange for that 30 second cd block, a garbage phantasm that does no damage and applies 1 second of alacrity and 2 seconds of slow EVERY 8 SECONDS?

So you have a 30 second cooldown (basically double the cd of usual phantasms) on a crappy phantasms, that is delayed on a 2 second cast of doing nothing (DPS loss)?

The shield stands only by Tides of Time, which is inferior to focus on projectile defense and the focus achieves similar crowd control with a pull that interrupts and does a knockdown on mobs, so it’s not even the 1 second stun or projectile defense that makes the shield unique, it’s the 3 seconds of quickness on a 30 sec cd assuming people stay in the line of return otherwise it’s only 1.5 seconds of quickness.

The shield is truly a weak weapon. The novelty will fade for people, at least in PvE just like Daredevil Thieves realized that the staff lacked in the single target damage of the dagger and the aoe potential of Pistol Whip so if anything it’ll be purely a PvP weapon as well.

I also don’t think people truly realize how bad our reliance on phantasms and illusions to perform is going to be. In Verdant Brink DE’s alone, and this is not even challenging raid content, the illusions were getting cleaved down by aoe spam as soon as they spawned.

Zenith.7301:

This trolling and derailing of my thread has gotten tiresome. You clearly have nothing to contribute to a PvE thread given your self-important notions of the format, so I’m going to start reporting posts to the mods if we don’t get back on topic soon.

Or you could have politely said you disagree with my opinions on the devs priorities during balance of a defensive weapon. And then responded to the later half of the post which is without HoT out the true value of shield in PvE cannot be fully determined.

Question for others. Because shield has no aftercast before deja vu it seemed like you could chain the blocks, am I correct in assuming that this is not sufficient because people want a block that scales better with attackers?

Either way with mental defense, chronophantasma, and phantasmal persistence one can block two times every fifteen seconds and maintain 50% damage reduction. Plus you are performing two 4 person shatters every 15 as a result. You can toss in scepter and make it 4 blocks every 15. The issue with this is with the damage tied so heavily to phantasm, your shatters are not doing damage that great for meta PvE.

Second question. How would you create a balanced defensive weapon for all three game modes given that the devs want to not drastically increase mesmer active defenses? (unlikely to make a block comparable to distortion in length)

Daniel Handler.4816:

Or you could have politely said you disagree with my opinions on the devs priorities during balance of a defensive weapon. And then responded to the later half of the post which is without HoT out the true value of shield in PvE cannot be fully determined.

Intentional or not, you’ve been falling into a common mode with your posts, taking a PvE focused thread about what Mesmer’s need in PvE, and arguing that “no they don’t, because PvP.”

And while you may be right that there’s some HOT content that will magically change how the game works (I kind of doubt it), the fact remains that from everything we’ve seen of HOT, and everything in the base game over the past three years, the Mesmer Shield will be lackluster in PvE at best, and basically unusable at worst.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Question for others. Because shield has no aftercast before deja vu it seemed like you could chain the blocks, am I correct in assuming that this is not sufficient because people want a block that scales better with attackers?

Either way with mental defense, chronophantasma, and phantasmal persistence one can block two times every fifteen seconds and maintain 50% damage reduction. Plus you are performing two 4 person shatters every 15 as a result. You can toss in scepter and make it 4 blocks every 15. The issue with this is with the damage tied so heavily to phantasm, your shatters are not doing damage that great for meta PvE.

The fact remains that blocks are often-useless in PvE, and single blocks even moreso. The fact that we can have two single blocks in a row is barely better, especially since it’s predicated on the idea of being a Mesmer intentionally standing in front of an enemy’s attack. That’s just not how our class should work; I know that, because they took away most of our Retal traits for that exact reason. 4 blocks, still not that useful. And even if the blocks were at all useful in PvE, we’re accomplishing little or no DPS while they’re happening. A couple phantasm shatters… Well, it circles right back to the DPS issues for Mesmer as a whole, and with this weapon in particular.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Second question. How would you create a balanced defensive weapon for all three game modes given that the devs want to not drastically increase mesmer active defenses? (unlikely to make a block comparable to distortion in length)

Easy: like Robert Gee indicated, it’s not just a defensive weapon. It’s a utility weapon. So make its utility useful in PvE, instead of a hindrance.

Change how alacrity is applied into an AoE around the phantasm and/or make slow even moderately useful in PvE and/or change the Phantasm summon to the beginning of the block, instead of the end and/or reconsider giving us an extremely-low DPS phantasm, when our class DPS is balanced around necessarily having high-DPS phantasms summoned.

I don’t expect the last one, I don’t even know it would be the right choice. But any combo of the first few would make it, maybe not Meta, but certainly viable as a PvE weapon, in the same vein as Focus.

Plus even with an aura, 1 second of alacrity every 8 (the approximate attack rate of the phantasm as documented by the wiki) seconds per phantasm without phantasmal haste is atrocious for how little damage the phantasm does.

It rivals the torch’s iMage for worst phantasm of the bunch.

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Or you could have politely said you disagree with my opinions on the devs priorities during balance of a defensive weapon. And then responded to the later half of the post which is without HoT out the true value of shield in PvE cannot be fully determined.

Intentional or not, you’ve been falling into a common mode with your posts, taking a PvE focused thread about what Mesmer’s need in PvE, and arguing that “no they don’t, because PvP.”

And while you may be right that there’s some HOT content that will magically change how the game works (I kind of doubt it), the fact remains that from everything we’ve seen of HOT, and everything in the base game over the past three years, the Mesmer Shield will be lackluster in PvE at best, and basically unusable at worst.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Question for others. Because shield has no aftercast before deja vu it seemed like you could chain the blocks, am I correct in assuming that this is not sufficient because people want a block that scales better with attackers?

Either way with mental defense, chronophantasma, and phantasmal persistence one can block two times every fifteen seconds and maintain 50% damage reduction. Plus you are performing two 4 person shatters every 15 as a result. You can toss in scepter and make it 4 blocks every 15. The issue with this is with the damage tied so heavily to phantasm, your shatters are not doing damage that great for meta PvE.

The fact remains that blocks are often-useless in PvE, and single blocks even moreso. The fact that we can have two single blocks in a row is barely better, especially since it’s predicated on the idea of being a Mesmer intentionally standing in front of an enemy’s attack. That’s just not how our class should work; I know that, because they took away most of our Retal traits for that exact reason. 4 blocks, still not that useful. And even if the blocks were at all useful in PvE, we’re accomplishing little or no DPS while they’re happening. A couple phantasm shatters… Well, it circles right back to the DPS issues for Mesmer as a whole, and with this weapon in particular.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Second question. How would you create a balanced defensive weapon for all three game modes given that the devs want to not drastically increase mesmer active defenses? (unlikely to make a block comparable to distortion in length)

Easy: like Robert Gee indicated, it’s not just a defensive weapon. It’s a utility weapon. So make its utility useful in PvE, instead of a hindrance.

Change how alacrity is applied into an AoE around the phantasm and/or make slow even moderately useful in PvE and/or change the Phantasm summon to the beginning of the block, instead of the end and/or reconsider giving us an extremely-low DPS phantasm, when our class DPS is balanced around necessarily having high-DPS phantasms summoned.

I don’t expect the last one, I don’t even know it would be the right choice. But any combo of the first few would make it, maybe not Meta, but certainly viable as a PvE weapon, in the same vein as Focus.

I think you are reading too much into the phrase he used. He said if the “utility of the weapon.” He did not say it was a utility weapon.

I am confused about your comment about the mesmer shield being lackluster when in that other post Pyro’s alacrity sharing thing used the shield. It was heavily implied that mesmer would be the new meta.

It was also implied in the things they posted on raids that builds not entirely devoted to dps would be necessary.

Do you have any ideas on how to fix Mesmer dps?

EDIT:

PS. I don’t like that you make comments that from what you’ve seen in beta shield is borderline unusuable when you make comments in other threads like

You should try fractal 50 or the Verdant Brink beta mordrem. Casual AoE spam from mobs splashing everywhere for 6k+ hits a piece and unlike pvp these mobs don’t fold over/run away at the 15-20k hp damage line.
The Mordem snipers at Verdant Brink on a full reaper shroud necromancer take off the entire shroud and then some more HP in one charged shot.

Things that are perfect for blocking with either 4 or 5 on shield.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I think you are reading too much into the phrase he used. He said if the “utility of the weapon.” He did not say it was a utility weapon.

Shield 5 stuns and gives allies quickness. The only defensive value it provides is some buggy projectile blocking.
Shield 4 is a block, but the phantasm gives quickness and slow. The block is the only defensive value.
So Robert is either a kitten-awful designer who doesn’t understand his own design, or it’s a utility weapon first and a defensive weapon second. Which do you think it is, Daniel?

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am confused about your comment about the mesmer shield being lackluster when in that other post Pyro’s alacrity sharing thing used the shield. It was heavily implied that mesmer would be the new meta.

1. It’s the Wells and Time Warp that do the bulk of the heavy lifting in that build. Further, the build is designed to take advantage of any source of quickness, including speccing a decent amount into boon duration. Shield5 gives quickness, and no other mesmer weapon does. Any build that does not spec into it get less value from it.
2. Furthermore, your point is an old and tired one, I’ve made the point multiple times that it’s not Shield5 that’s the problem, it’s shield4. Mesmers aren’t balanced around 30-second cd boosts, they are balanced around phantasms. That’s why our AAs suck, because phants are supposed to be making up the difference. Saying shield is okay in pve because of Shield 5 is saying that it’s okay that all our damage sucks, because boy howdy, every 30s we get a double-stun and some party quickness!

Daniel Handler.4816:

It was also implied in the things they posted on raids that builds not entirely devoted to dps would be necessary.

You’re like a broken record. We’ve already covered this, and no one is actively arguing that the pAvenger needs extra damage, we’re simply saying that the loss of damage either needs to be compensated by increased support or it needs to be restored.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Do you have any ideas on how to fix Mesmer dps?

See every thread ever made on the subject.
My personal favorites are apharma’s suggestions about nerfing phantasm dps by 30%, increasing AAs by 50%, and giving every phantasm a useful utility bonus.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I think you are reading too much into the phrase he used. He said if the “utility of the weapon.” He did not say it was a utility weapon.

Whereas he didn’t mention it being a defensive weapon at all; how am I the one reading too far into what the weapon is “supposed” to be, especially since it was introduced to us with the idea that Mesmers take weapons (like shield, GS) and turn them to unusual ends?

Clearly, it’s supposed to be a weapon with access to some Utility, and some Defense. Which is fine, if more than a third (at best) of that utility actually works in PvE. And if the defense aspect is helpful, rather than either buggy or useless, in PvE.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am confused about your comment about the mesmer shield being lackluster when in that other post Pyro’s alacrity sharing thing used the shield. It was heavily implied that mesmer would be the new meta.

Not unlike your “quote” below, I have no idea what you’re referring to here. If it was something I said, you’ll have to be a bit more specific.

Daniel Handler.4816:

It was also implied in the things they posted on raids that builds not entirely devoted to dps would be necessary.

Edit: I defer to Alpha’s response.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Do you have any ideas on how to fix Mesmer dps?

People more knowledgable than me have spent lots of time discussing how Mesmer dps could be fixed; I’ll let you find those (rather recent) threads and comments in this thread, instead of doing a poor job of trying to restate them for you.

Daniel Handler.4816:

EDIT:

PS. I don’t like that you make comments that from what you’ve seen in beta shield is borderline unusuable when you make comments in other threads like

You should try fractal 50 or the Verdant Brink beta mordrem. Casual AoE spam from mobs splashing everywhere for 6k+ hits a piece and unlike pvp these mobs don’t fold over/run away at the 15-20k hp damage line.
The Mordem snipers at Verdant Brink on a full reaper shroud necromancer take off the entire shroud and then some more HP in one charged shot.

Things that are perfect for blocking with either 4 or 5 on shield.

I don’t know where you’re pulling that from, but I’ve literally never said that. I even went and checked my own comments, to make sure I wasn’t having some kind of stroke. That’s definitely not my quote.

Also, yes, blocks could be helpful there. So are evades, and Aegis, and other mechanics that don’t entail the major DPS and utility loss that Mesmer shield currently does.

Zenith.7301:

Plus even with an aura, 1 second of alacrity every 8 (the approximate attack rate of the phantasm as documented by the wiki) seconds per phantasm without phantasmal haste is atrocious for how little damage the phantasm does.

It rivals the torch’s iMage for worst phantasm of the bunch.

Agreed and I’ve said as much. The Shield #4 and IMO Shield in general is not a PvE or PvP issue, it’s clearly a Shield issue. The Phantasm is terrible in both play modes. Period. The block is also terrible in both play modes, as having to press a button to block a single attack is only very rarely worthwhile the time it took to press the button. Having to do this twice in a row to block just 2 attacks is plain asinine! (And let’s face it, it’s a terrible summoning mechanic. Slow and/or unreliable. Bad!)

Bounce attacks are the third nail in the coffin that is the iCapt! Here again, bad in both PvE and PvP, and hugely hated by Mesmers everywhere for it’s SLOW, unreliable/buggy, and RNG driven nature! The 8s attack rate is simply an insult to a gaping chest wound! Clearly this brilliant design choice was made due to Alacrity…which comes on an unreliable, slow, bounce attack for a pitiful 1s duration whenever it happens to find a friendly target. It thus draws on a feedback loop of suckage!

There is just little more to say! The Shield will be a largely unused OH for both PvP and PvE when the dust settles, if things stay as they are. (The novelty took only 1 BWE for me to weak off! I stopped using Shield for 99% of BWE2, despite the fact that I really wanted to like shield! I think it could be a fantastic OH, but currently it simply isn’t.)

Yeah Shield #5 is pretty good, but that is the only thing that Shield currently has going for it and it has a rather long CD. Considering we already kinda got screwed on only getting an OH weapon with 2 new skills, I personally feel ANet owes it to Mesmers that both of those skills are worthwhile! (In all game modes!)

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I think you are reading too much into the phrase he used. He said if the “utility of the weapon.” He did not say it was a utility weapon.

Whereas he didn’t mention it being a defensive weapon at all; how am I the one reading too far into what the weapon is “supposed” to be, especially since it was introduced to us with the idea that Mesmers take weapons (like shield, GS) and turn them to unusual ends?

Clearly, it’s supposed to be a weapon with access to some Utility, and some Defense. Which is fine, if more than a third (at best) of that utility actually works in PvE. And if the defense aspect is helpful, rather than either buggy or useless, in PvE.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am confused about your comment about the mesmer shield being lackluster when in that other post Pyro’s alacrity sharing thing used the shield. It was heavily implied that mesmer would be the new meta.

Not unlike your “quote” below, I have no idea what you’re referring to here. If it was something I said, you’ll have to be a bit more specific.

Daniel Handler.4816:

It was also implied in the things they posted on raids that builds not entirely devoted to dps would be necessary.

Edit: I defer to Alpha’s response.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Do you have any ideas on how to fix Mesmer dps?

People more knowledgable than me have spent lots of time discussing how Mesmer dps could be fixed; I’ll let you find those (rather recent) threads and comments in this thread, instead of doing a poor job of trying to restate them for you.

Daniel Handler.4816:

EDIT:

PS. I don’t like that you make comments that from what you’ve seen in beta shield is borderline unusuable when you make comments in other threads like

You should try fractal 50 or the Verdant Brink beta mordrem. Casual AoE spam from mobs splashing everywhere for 6k+ hits a piece and unlike pvp these mobs don’t fold over/run away at the 15-20k hp damage line.
The Mordem snipers at Verdant Brink on a full reaper shroud necromancer take off the entire shroud and then some more HP in one charged shot.

Things that are perfect for blocking with either 4 or 5 on shield.

I don’t know where you’re pulling that from, but I’ve literally never said that. I even went and checked my own comments, to make sure I wasn’t having some kind of stroke. That’s definitely not my quote.

Also, yes, blocks could be helpful there. So are evades, and Aegis, and other mechanics that don’t entail the major DPS and utility loss that Mesmer shield currently does.

Sorry you responded to a post that was not quoting you. I assumed the person I responded to was responding.