Guild Wars 2

You shouldn’t look at the mirror reflect as an offensive thing.
I see it as an extra defense.
It may not reflect anything and in that case it does heal less than EF.
But when you really need that heal, chances are people are shooting at you, and reflect now protects you from it for 2 seconds (important, it is now longer than the 1.25 s cast time).
And it having a 15s cooldown makes it really fun if you have an on heal trait or rune/food bonus

Its also pretty fun to use against those pesky pistol thieves

Ironvos.9014:

You shouldn’t look at the mirror reflect as an offensive thing.
I see it as an extra defense.
It may not reflect anything and in that case it does heal less than EF.
But when you really need that heal, chances are people are shooting at you, and reflect now protects you from it for 2 seconds (important, it is now longer than the 1.25 s cast time).
And it having a 15s cooldown makes it really fun if you have an on heal trait or rune/food bonus

Its also pretty fun to use against those pesky pistol thieves

Oh I know. I was simply taking all aspects into consideration. Yes, it’s less efficient if you don’t reflect, but when you DO reflect you’ve gained additional effective healing AND damage which scales with content. I will definitely be giving Mirror a go during the Fire Shaman fractal.

Has anyone else noticed that clones don’t appear with your equipped weapons any longer when they spawn?

It’s a good job that some observant person in the QA team actually tested this patch while playing a mesmer. That’s what I might be thinking if this was self evident / seemed at all accurate.

As long as my air elemental tonic has legs (and a tail) though, that’s all that matters. Am I right?

Wait our clones don’t have ANY weapons anymore? I haven’t played yet please tell me this is a freaking joke.

Actually. I’ve just restarted the client / tried testing further.

In pve, clones appear to spawn with the weapons.
In WvW, this does not appear to be the case (clones missing weapons).
My motivation to play sPvP is minimal – so someone else could verify there.

(Whether or not the player race/gender affects this – My mesmer is a female sylvari)

I might guess that this was a delibrate change in terms of WvW graphics / culling ‘optimisation’ – but if so, it’s a very big omission from the patch notes in my opinion.

I think the prestige does need a bigger AOE (end) radius, 240 seems like a small amount when everyone is dodging around and you’re trying to jump on a target. Essentially, for the burn to go off you have to stay really close to your target. I like the new “non channeling” change, but I would like a bigger radius for the end finisher if possible : )

Remedy.8051:

Actually. I’ve just restarted the client / tried testing further.

In pve, clones appear to spawn with the weapons.
In WvW, this does not appear to be the case (clones missing weapons).
My motivation to play sPvP is minimal – so someone else could verify there.

(Whether or not the player race/gender affects this – My mesmer is a female sylvari)

I might guess that this was a delibrate change in terms of WvW graphics / culling ‘optimisation’ – but if so, it’s a very big omission from the patch notes in my opinion.

You have got to be kidding me….

Mirror looks good! Might be useful in some builds now.

Hmm. With Mirror, traited veil and warden, feedback and mimic, I guess you could troll ranged builds even harder now.

Aww I was really hoping that the scepter would be buffed. I’ve been sticking with it since the beginning because I like it aesthetically, but there’s no denying it’s a little underwhelming. Not really sure why they have yet to get around to fixing skill #1 so that it applies confusion on the third attack like it says in the tooltip.

I will actually use Torch now. The fact that you couldn’t do anything besides wait for the channel to go off if you actually wanted damage from The Prestige was the whole reason I didn’t like using it. Changing a weapon from “will not use” to “will definately rotate it in now and then” is a very good thing.

Never really saw a problem with Riposte or Counter, but thats probably because I’m almost always at mid to short range with those weapons anyway (because I run a status on clone death build + clone on dodge, so I need to be close so that my clones apply status when I go over 3 and blow one). Won’t have much of a direct impact on me, but fixes are good.

Portal change is good. Doesn’t make sense that you’d be able to interact with a portal behind an object, since interacting is supposed to simulate you entering the portal and its kind of hard to enter a portal through a wall.

Mind Stab hitting 3 targets is nice. Makes it a bit better as a cleave weapon.

Mirror buff is also nice. I would have buffed it a bit further maybe (3 seconds total) but this is definately a good improvement over the paltry 1 second it previously gave (which was so minor I never even considered using it). iI might actually consider using it now, which is good because having an option besides Ether Feast is nice.

So overall the patch made 1 weapon and 1 healing utility actual appeal to me. Pretty darn good, I must say.

“Mesmer Portals can no longer be interacted with when there is an obstruction between them and the player.”
*Sorry but the logic in that is kind of stupid, its a portal.. That means u should change not being able to use waypoints if there is an obstruction if you are adding this in..

So no one else is worried about the nerf to stealth? It no longer clears mob agro – so Duplicity is used for nothing other than an extra clone button now I guess? I mean, it was hard enough to get out of agro range before the short stealth wore off anyway, now you’ll always have to run off the leash – or at least, that’s my reading of the note. Anyone able to confirm (still at work here)?

Also, for anyone still confused about the Portal change, a dev post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Change-to-Portal

“The description of this update was pretty unclear, so let me clarify. The change to portal made it so that you can’t interact with a portal that is on the other side of a wall from you, but that a portal whose entrance and exit are on opposite sides of a wall will still function.”

JonPeters.5630:

On mind stab we are aware there are two skills with this name. We are renaming one of them for the March build but for now we did indeed buff the mainhand sword end of chain skill for slot #1 called mind stab from 1 target to 3 targets.

I hope you guys are aware at how bad GS’s mind Stab is .

Bugs :

Spear #1 miss (always)
The Prestige abuse if attacking right after casting (cancels cooldown)

I was hoping they would fix the pistol trait bug… ya know the one that increases the range and reduces the cd’s of all pistol skills by 20%…. but actually increases the cd of the iduelest, and make’s it do less damage. :’(
Maybe next month : /

Nicholaa.5472:

I was hoping they would fix the pistol trait bug… ya know the one that increases the range and reduces the cd’s of all pistol skills by 20%…. but actually increases the cd of the iduelest, and make’s it do less damage. :’(
Maybe next month : /

Quote from the patchnotes of january 28th:

“Duelist’s Discipline: This trait no longer reduces damage dealt by the Illusionary Duelist.”

Sounds like it was already fixed a month ago.

Thank you for finally “fixing” Prestige as it should never have been a channeled ability.

Now if you could only lower the CD on it. Torch CD reduction trait is just completely not viable for the current builds that actually utilize a Torch. Alternatively, extend the stealth time.

Nicholaa.5472:

I was hoping they would fix the pistol trait bug… ya know the one that increases the range and reduces the cd’s of all pistol skills by 20%…. but actually increases the cd of the iduelest, and make’s it do less damage. :’(
Maybe next month : /

They fixed that last month, didn’t they? I remember reading a patch note about it anyway. Or did the fix not work properly?

Volatility.6729:

Thank you for finally “fixing” Prestige as it should never have been a channeled ability.

Now if you could only lower the CD on it. Torch CD reduction trait is just completely not viable for the current builds that actually utilize a Torch. Alternatively, extend the stealth time.

Eh, I think the 30 sec CD is fine — the stealth was already good enough for people to take it in PvP/WvW before the buff. It would, in my opinion, border on OP if it was less.

Then again I believe that thief stealth is OP (specifically too much stealth, not anything else about the class; I think they’re fine for the most part).

P. Berserker & P. Warden no longer do whirl finishers. No more cond build for me.
sigh

True to form, Anet breaks kitten when they touch Mesmers.

:S I’ll wait on the patch.

morokris.8462:

P. Berserker & P. Warden no longer do whirl finishers. No more cond build for me.
sigh

Wait; are you serious? If that’s true, I hope it’s a mistake and they fix it ASAP.

Seriously, that would be so so so very bad… especially for the Warden, as it would be a huge nerf for it.

Saturn.6591:

morokris.8462:

P. Berserker & P. Warden no longer do whirl finishers. No more cond build for me.
sigh

Wait; are you serious? If that’s true, I hope it’s a mistake and they fix it ASAP.

Seriously, that would be so so so very bad… especially for the Warden, as it would be a huge nerf for it.

I hope it’s a bug because I still see confounding bolts on the combo field but I did not see confusion stacks on the enemy.

My mistake, Warden still does whirl finisher. Berserker, on the other hand, does not.

morokris.8462:

My mistake, Warden still does whirl finisher. Berserker, on the other hand, does not.

Yeah, I just had to go to the mists and tested Warden. Well, I’m really glad it didn’t change. The tooltip doesn’t mention that it’s a finisher, though. No idea if that already was the case before. Hmmmhmm. Berserker doesn’t really need the finisher, but for the Warden it’s one of its main uses. So glad it’s still there. ^^

Electro.4173:

Nicholaa.5472:

I was hoping they would fix the pistol trait bug… ya know the one that increases the range and reduces the cd’s of all pistol skills by 20%…. but actually increases the cd of the iduelest, and make’s it do less damage. :’(
Maybe next month : /

They fixed that last month, didn’t they? I remember reading a patch note about it anyway. Or did the fix not work properly?

I can test and run some comparisons =) Kinda hard without a combat log parser, guess i can use the good ol’ excel sheet.

Mesmer stackable traits isn’t work. It’s bug or nerf?
Early 9 major traits in Dueling “Reduces the recharge of pistol skills by 20%” stackable with 5 point in Illusions (Illusionists Celerity) “Illusion-summoning skills recharge 20% faster.”
It make time respawn Phantasmal Duelist recharge skill for gun less than 13s.
Now 16s respawn Phantasmal Duelist regardless of 9 major traits in Dueling.

Mirror change is awesome for my build. Food that gives 1 con remove per heal along with Centaur runes = 12 sec of swift, 1 con remove and 2 sec reflection on a 15 sec heal. Healing early and part of a rotation and being protected from range spam. Love it.

illusionary leap doesn’t hit nor apply the cripple anymore (at least in PvE)

I for one am actually very happy with The Prestige buff.

morokris.8462:

My mistake, Warden still does whirl finisher. Berserker, on the other hand, does not.

Zerker actually hasn’t had a whirl finish since at least the last patch (Taken off the tooltip as well). I had just noticed it a few days ago and had been looking through update threads to see when it was changed. It’s not listed…

I no longer can use my illusionary leap thrugh a curtain to get chaos armor..
Or was this changed long time ago?

curtain was never a ethereal field, its a light field.

You guys totally missed the nerf to Decoy…

It has been rendered useless in PvE now. Stealth no longer dumps aggro.
I am really trying to figure out the rationale behind this change.

Harbinger.9645:

While you’re at it, add cripple to the great sword when you rename it. Fits pretty well as it could hamstring anyone from below. The benefit of this spell is overshadowed by the self root and small target radius.

GS already has an AE Cripple on a semi-low CD (and potentially high uptime).
If they were to add it to #3, they’re probably remove it from the iZerker. Do not want!

Faide.6492:

It has been rendered useless in PvE now. Stealth no longer dumps aggro.
I am really trying to figure out the rationale behind this change.

The rationale was probably that a stray smoke field could reset a bossfight accidentally in a dungeon.

What would your solution have been? The easiest to me is to not make enemies reset their combat state. You still drop threat. But not combat state.

Carighan.6758:

What would your solution have been? The easiest to me is to not make enemies reset their combat state. You still drop threat. But not combat state.

You don’t drop threat though. It’s only temporary in stealth. After you drop stealth you get all your threat back.

I’m fine with it not breaking combat state but it should wipe threat.

Minder.4786:

You don’t drop threat though. It’s only temporary in stealth. After you drop stealth you get all your threat back.

I’m fine with it not breaking combat state but it should wipe threat.

Oh yeah I meant that, you drop threat but you don’t lose it permanently.

Problem with the old function for me is that AFAIK this was the only ability-type which could modify your # of threat on the mob’s aggro table.

Considering there is no taunt ability, why have a detaunt? We’re supposed to be able to defend ourselves, not avoid having to do it.

Carighan.6758:

Minder.4786:

You don’t drop threat though. It’s only temporary in stealth. After you drop stealth you get all your threat back.

I’m fine with it not breaking combat state but it should wipe threat.

Oh yeah I meant that, you drop threat but you don’t lose it permanently.

Problem with the old function for me is that AFAIK this was the only ability-type which could modify your # of threat on the mob’s aggro table.

Considering there is no taunt ability, why have a detaunt? We’re supposed to be able to defend ourselves, not avoid having to do it.

Whats the point of having stealth as a defense if it doesn’t do anything defensive like dropping threat? I thought that was the point.

Minder.4786:

Whats the point of having stealth as a defense if it doesn’t do anything defensive like dropping threat? I thought that was the point.

It very much gets the enemy off you for the duration of the stealth, allowing you to:

• Move to a better position.
• Run out of tether range or at least far enough away so the enemy will no longer catch you (obviously this doesn’t always apply to bosses, which would probably be the point of the change, again).
• Let your Endurance regen a few seconds without having to actively dodge the boss.
• Let your cooldowns cycle.
• In our case, if you go 30 Chaos you can gain defensive buffs from it, including regenerating some health.

This doesn’t seem like a small thing to me. Ofc, it hardly justifies MI, but then nothing ever does compared to TW if you’re more than one person nearby.

Is stealth worth it for PvE? Outdoors yes IMO, in dungeons no. But then, it wasn’t worth it in dungeons outside of artificially resetting fights (either to grief or to cheat past encounters) either.
I suspect wanting to fix the resetting of fights was the primary motivator for this change. I honestly mean it though when I say that I don’t see an issue with not losing threat permanently. As someone already said, my illusions don’t disperse when their target stealthes, either. They wait for it to reappear. Same with Ranger pets. Same with players, we don’t magically forget about the enemy entirely.

no more clone weopens in wvw? :O no more troll enemy? :O wtf its bug or epic dev idea?

You are also forgetting that while you are in stealth you are no longer accruing threat, but any nearby allies (including clones) still are. It’s very likely that the mob will switch to a different target and not immediately reacquire you because he’s busy with others now.

I did this several times last night in HOTW. I got better positioning, was able to group heal w/o interrupt (MoR), and setup bursts/support with ease all because the boss/mobs were busy elsewhere when I came out of stealth.

Darnis.4056:

SWORD / TORCH for a week for me:

Not sure if I want to use Mirror :/

Reflect projectiles and heal yourself.
Healing: 3,915
Duration: 2 s

Heal yourself. Gain additional health for each active illusion.
Healing: 5,560
Healing per illusion: 640

2 seconds of reflection vs 3k heal ? :/ Not sure if want.

Maybe if the meta becomes Longbow/rifle warriors and Rangers and short bow spam thieves..

2 second reflection from Mirror is not too short. I don’t hear people complaining about only 2 second blur from Blurred Frenzy. Here’s a trick (bug?) that you could do. You can activate Mirror then cancel it before the channel is finished, and still gain the reflection. It’s been like this for a while, not new to this patch.

In WvW when you have 3-4+ people shooting projectiles at you, 2 seconds is plenty of time, and could easily compensate for the loss of 3k healing.

Carighan.6758:

GS already has an AE Cripple on a semi-low CD (and potentially high uptime).
If they were to add it to #3, they’re probably remove it from the iZerker. Do not want!

Or you know they could just give us both…so quit yer belly aching.

Does iZerker seem like it’s doing less damage to anyone else?
Also clones not holding any weapons in WvW is…well…just really dumb.

So to be clear: the Portal change is that you can’t enter a portal w/o line of sight, not that you can’t place an exit portal that doesn’t have LoS with the entry portal right?

Dastion.3106:

JonPeters.5630:

On mind stab we are aware there are two skills with this name. We are renaming one of them for the March build but for now we did indeed buff the mainhand sword end of chain skill for slot #1 called mind stab from 1 target to 3 targets.

I vote on renaming the GS version since it doesn’t fit the weapon’s theme.

I always pictured it more as a spatial attack, stabbing your greatsword through a portal to strike at enemies from below.

Thanks for popping in.

Since the sword pops out of the ground under the target, maybe rename from Mindstab to As…. um nevermind…

Faide.6492:

You guys totally missed the nerf to Decoy…

It has been rendered useless in PvE now. Stealth no longer dumps aggro.
I am really trying to figure out the rationale behind this change.

It reset the mob. Your illusions should still hold the threat while you no longer are the target. But to completely send an elite/champion back to it’s originating point and fully healing and having to start the fight over…meh

Edit: My mistake I was thinking of my thiefs stealth :-/

As usual in a patch ppl seem to stick on bad things. Overall mesmers got a rather big buff (unless you a condition mesmer, that felt sad). The 2 sec heal reflectionhas biggest impact and rather fantastic effective when running from ppl who try to throw cripples, stuns etc on you.

Also for al who use rune of air its good for higher uptime of swiftness and with the 2 sec reflect its worth to use.

The range on block is a fantastic fix, alot of times it misses due to range it now hit ppl.

Mind stab boon strip and highest of the sword 1 hits now is aoe, another great buff for us sword users.

/Osicat