Q:
Hey guys,
I wanted to put together a forum poll to determine the community’s feeling on adding Torment ( 75% bleed damage. Doubled if opponent moves) to the Scepter’s autoattack chain and clones. People are split about the decision, offering pros and cons.
I would like to respond to this specifically. This is mathematically incorrect. If you are using the scepter clones over the staff clones then you are suffering around a 25% damage reduction. Give or take. And that is in the most ideal situation you can get with the clones.
So I wanted to form a clear and concise poll to let the devs at Anet know exactly how we stand. Please respond if you’re YES or NO to the change and give an informative reasons as to why. Please no commenting just to rag on someone else’s comment.
(I am against this change, not because I feel it is a bad one but because of the fact that it will push PU Mesmer over the top. Unfortunately, I fear that almost any buff to condition Mesmer would do the same.)
YES: 69
NO: 69
…No, seriously! As of 9/3/14 (2:30 EST) it’s a perfectly even vote.
(edited by Chaos Archangel.5071)
No please. just no. don’t give mesmers a condimeta too. i’m fine with my shatter.
No..
Simply because I don’t think we need yet another AA applying conditions in the game.
Secondly, I was holding out the scepter would be the weapon that could replace DE. Let scepter just spit out clones like crazy. Speed up the cast time of the AA, BUT with caveat that it would not overwrite any existing illusions. Once you hit 3 illusions, the third attack would just do more damage. The reason for this is to keep the “on kill” traits in check. (Remember what was going to happen to DE.) Maybe that would open up some different builds and ease our reliance on DE?
Oh, and speed up #3 PLEASE!!!
Yes.
I am a PVE player who rarely if ever does pvp, so any boost to make scepter a more useable weapon is a good thing. As it stands now scepter has no clear use in pve. Confusion is a poor condition to use alone given the infrequency of enemy attacks, and the torment from #2 is so situational (easy to mess up, and given that once illusions are out they tend to take aggro more than you do) that it can’t really be considered a reliable way of applying torment. If the point of the scepter is to be a condi weapon then another condition is a necessity.
(edited by CrimsonDX.4821)
Yes, I’m in favor of the change. The AA gives us another clone which is useful for more than just shatter fodder or clone death spam.
Yes, you shouldn’t hold back an entire weapon set and with that condition builds in general, just because PU needs to be toned down. The issue is PU, not the changes to Scepter, which will remain at best an average 1h weapon, but the only viable choice a condie Mesmer has as a secondary/1h weapon set.
Would anyone really care if PU got a reasonable nerf to the durations or frequency of the buffs it applies? Wouldn’t be too surprised if it happened.
Both?
On one hand, Scepter needs love. On the other hand, this isn’t the right way. Not only is it basically Maim the Disillusioned with no investment on your auto attacks, but it doesn’t address the Scepters problems…
Yes, it pampers the dumb Mesmers, but I don’t think it’s going to break Mesmers and make us overpowered.
I think I’ll go with keep the change so that Anet can see how stupid Scepter is and re-work it. I’d rather they learn that Scepter is stupid the hard way than revert this and we have to wait another 6 months for a terrible change that’s just as bad.
Considering what I’ve said on the subject, I’m probably classified as a “Nay” vote.
I don’t doubt that Scepter needs some serious lovin’s, but I’ve stated the opinion that if we want a “damage” condi on the S.O.B., I would have preferred some more love for Confusion.
I mean, look at the profession forum’s icon. Purple swirly? Check. Bring back my Purple Mindkitten, please. /shrug
Hell, we could’ve been pretty stylish with the following:
(edited by Advent.6193)
No because people will misuse this and play stupidly OP specs instead of playing something creative yet sucky like the condition shatter builds which still won’t work. But they will be a bit better.
No because people will misuse this and play stupidly OP specs instead of playing something creative yet sucky like the condition shatter builds which still won’t work. But they will be a bit better.
Right, but then Anet will see their mistake and overcompensate to fix it and then re-address the issue that Scepter sucks while re-evaluating it more seriously.
If they revert it, it will just go on a list of things Mesmers need fixed and not be taken seriously… just like the change that’s happening.
The real buff is that you can now apply 2 types of condi without have to stack precision for bleed. So condi Mesmers will hit just as hard if not harder than before and be free to pick a free stat to pump.
no torment
yes confusion (which is condition belong to the mesmer)
also the speed attack with the scepter is bit slow so any burst profession will able to down any pu mesmer using the scepter long enough . the power of the pu is by doing dmg from his clones while being stealth so to pull out scepter clones will be hard to the pu mesmer without taking risk
confusion stack should be able to done only in the second attack not the first one so not overpower it
No. please not. Chaos, you already mentioned the reasons.
NO
Here’s a (maybe OP/UP) example of some skills that have counter play:
Instead of mindlessly spamming 1 for conditions, spamming 3 for conditions and having 2 as a sudden block that also applies conditions.
Skill one now becomes more powerful if you successfully inflict conditions on foes.
Skill two is a (depending on how fast it casts) a more predictable move like skill 4 on GS for example
Skill three is now able to save you as a block, and able to punish reckless attackers that didn’t pay attention to the first block
I’m sorry if my balancing skills are way off, but this seems a lot more fun to play as/against.
(edited by Menzies The Heretic.3415)
Before I make my decision, I would like to explain how I came to my choice.
After reading through the forums and doing some test myself, I realized this could be a tad very powerful buff maybe too powerful that could led to cry for a nerf; but the buff to SP is very much needed.
The forums are going by the Theoretical implementation which sometimes could be wrong or/and can be very different from Practical/Actual implementation.
Maybe we should wait and test if out, that is if they haven’t changed it before go live.
Also if seen as too powerful to what the intended, hopefully, ANet can ton it down just enough for it to still be very viable.
Like others have suggested, remove from clone.
So to answer the poll question, am I for or against adding torment on SP AA, my answer is
YES.
Am all for it.
yes.. with how crappy clones are at targeting if you dodge roll them out.. the only clones that will most likely hit your target in a group situation are auto attack 3 clones.. it will only be an advantage in a 1v1 and even then any minion or pet will most likely get the target..
incase you dont understand.. clones target your closest enemy when you dodge roll.. not the person you are targeting..
so.. they will be putting 1 stack of torment on a random thing that is close to you.. ranger pet.. engi turret.. minion. any random person.
(edited by zaxon.6819)
No. Anet are slow at rolling OP things back, this is a terrifying genie we shouldn’t let out the bottle. The huge condi buff which torment and extra bounce bleed/burn represents will destroy our class – we’ll have facerolling on mesmer to win in any pvp scene. Clones auto attacking will be the most efficient way of ignoring condi removal and applying perma pressure with minimal effort from the mesmer player.
It will be bad for the game as a whole and our profession (I don’t want people to look at mesmers and think, “lol we thought warriors were braindead”). Condi mesmers even avoid using our class mechanic its just that stupid.
Glad this poll exists we need Anet to revise what they are doing BEFORE implementation.
Quick fix – remove the torment from the first bolt (this stops clones using it).
No. This will result in a perma 5+ torment on the enemy.
The scepter changes should have just sped up the AA and should have made #2 and #3 more reliable. At this point, a mesmer won’t even have a reason to use his other scepter skills because he can have more reliable condition dmg just using scepter AA.
No.
Should be confusion instead if anything. Should have focused on increasing bolt projectile speed.
i am against it
if i ever fight pyro again, its gonna be hell.
Sort of. It should not be on Ether Bolt, but Ether Blast wouldn’t hurt anything balance-wise by applying Torment in a 4-8 second duration.
For the poll, is that a yes or a no?
Please, please, please stop arguing against this change on the basis that it will lead to future nerfs. That is circular reasoning:
Buff → playerbase screams OP → nerf → playerbase screams UP → Buff.
Would you ever be for a nerf because it is so harsh it will lead to a buff in the future? No. If you think this buff will give an unfair advantage to mesmers, just say it.
Also, everyone that is against this buff should take a look at the Illusionary Elasticity change. Most are chalking up to a “fix” but it is really going to make passive play on the staff absurd.
yes.
Scepter needs something to establish it as a condi weapon. We see alot of the theoretical numbers, but theory doesn’t equal practice. Remember, it’s hard to hit that last bolt for a clone, and no one sits in scepter for forever. If it’s OP, anet clearly has no qualms about nerfing us during LS patches (see ileap). I think this will be great for a shatter condi build. PU condi will be ridiculous after this patch, but 1 roaming build shouldn’t dictate how our buffs should be determined. We don’t balance around 1v1, we balance 5v5.
No.
Condition application for mesmers is already in a pretty good spot, whether or not the mesmer chooses to run scepter. Scepter already has two relatively strong applications of condition damage from skills 2 and 3, and I don’t believe this is needed to “establish itself as a condition weapon”. It will contribute to the trend of power creep that we’ve seen over the past 2 years due to ArenaNet’s balancing decisions. While I do see the staff clone IE fix as a good thing, people need to realize that this “fix” will improve mesmers that run staff by a ridiculous amount (never mind the fury and might stacking, the conditions that staff clones can apply is very strong). This buff, in addition to the staff fix, will push condition mesmers over the top.
(edited by Neschast.7196)
Partial yes/no.
I think ANet pushed torment way over the top.
Don’t let clones apply torment. Other than that, I am fine with Mesmer doing torment by themselves.
Yes- scepter needs more offense. If PU is the problem, then that should be addressed. But the scepter is currently an extremely weak weapon and needs a buff like this to be playable.
Yes because primary condition should come from selected weapon not traits,the scepter #2 has two downsides the visable block icon and foe evading right after block trigger,#3 is too slow and unreliable,last skill of AA chain is slower than the previous ones which are slow also,the scepter is UP without traits currently used for shatter,clone death,bleed on crit(their chains is slower than the scepter AA). Clone factory is a joke with the current velocity and it was intended as condition weapon.
Edit: forget clone factory it is impossible. DE and vigor on crit takes care of that so scepter is really far from it’s intended use. To anyone posting are you posting about scepter or PU+DE+DD? This about scepter not a build.
(edited by Sagat.3285)
No.
Like blackhat said: Promoting passive play is a terrible idea.
No. More braindead-ness in an already braindead spec is ridiculous.
YES. ill say that first as my stand point
I do however recognize that the aa is incredibly over powered. I know that in a few months it will lead to a heavy handed nerf and scepter will be worse off then before but I cant help but see rainbows ever since the skill bar. Honestly imo its not that much of a game breaking buff. In PvE its as useless since all condis are useless. Torment is worse then bleed since its all stack and kill. In PvP it may be really powerful 1 v 1 but PvP isn’t a 1 v 1 game. Its not much of a support skill and wont do anything for your team. That one auto attack isn’t going to make people want to have you on their team more then another class. In WvW it will make tons of people cry about 1 v 1s and 1 v 2s but, again, not a 1 v 1 mode. wont help you in a zerg.
If this change has to be removed I hope that at least we will get something to compensate. Besides the AoE mantra, buff to maim, and gs 3, this patch is for the most part nothing but bug fixes.
P.S. -I dropped PU back in april and having been playing maim since then.
Yes.
Without going heavily into it, it gives Mesmers with sufficient chase ability the power to punish/penalize runners. PU condi doesnt even begin to become a problem in this regard. In fact PU condi is already considered “OP” or “over the top” in those 1v1 dueling situations. Adding additional torment application actually changes nothing, and that is only if I’ll concede the hysterical worst-case-scenario scenarios people have been ranting with.
The fact is, it’s just not practical to have 3 scepter clones up, to AA constantly on a scepter, and expect to maintain that as a tactic. There’s also the added assumption that clone aa’s will land consistently, which they do not. In a non 1v1 situation, the mesmers clones (both dodge, AA, and scepter block) will also be targeting different opponents, eliminating the ability for the mesmer to target and focus down their target with torment. This is not staff with a low CD targeted clone spawn, this is the scepter. If you’ve played with it for as long as I have you’d know the neat and clean scenarios people have created just aren’t practical.
BTW, if you’re thinking about a condi torment shatter build expect to be eaten alive by half-decent thieves. Good luck with that.
Oh and just one last word on “passive play” and the “Helseth-Dilemma”. “Active play” or “Passive play” are relative, potentially arbitrary words that’re being brandied about in this scenario (and all over GW2) but need to be seen for what they are. What matters is winning, either the fight, or the match in its current game mode. In GW2 we have AI, we have condi’s, we have high power/crit. We can make bunkers, build compositions, we can do a lot of things. Trying to highlight this change, or other features of the game as “passive play” is sounding terribly like scrub talk and to be frank, its people views on competitive play that need to change, not instigating or perpetuating knee jerk reactions to changes people think or feel are “unfair” “unfun” or “unskillfull”.
It’s the same thinking that kitten d confusion, and its application for mesmers.
(edited by Ross Biddle.2367)
The scepter is supposed to be a condition weapon but I can’t see as viable since confusion’s nerf often makes the condition ignored in pvp settings and nearly useless in pve. It’s obvious to me that Anet will not undo that nerf but giving scepter a second condition gives it a chance to be a effective condition weapon in all game modes. That’s something it desperately needs.
To address one of the concerns of the naysayers, I do agree that Prismatic Understanding build needs a way to keep it in check but this isn’t the way. Holding the scepter back out of fear of it being misused is basically treating the symptom, not the disease. The problem with Prismatic Understanding is Prismatic Understanding. Even if the scepter is denied torment, Prismatic Understanding will continue to be a problem while the scepter would remain a subpar weapon. That fixes nothing.
I also agree that there shouldn’t be any “brain-dead” condition builds but I feel the root of that problem not with conditions. It’s how ineffective condition clears are. As I have stated elsewhere, we should be able to pop them preemptively to avoid all conditions for about 4 seconds. If done after we gain a condition, it should clear it as normal but prevent that same condition from affecting us for 8 seconds. This will make condi-bomb builds think harder about when to, “drop the bomb,” and that leads to more thoughtful and engaging combat.
So yes, keep torment on scepter and fix the real issues.
Yes
But only because it’s better than it is right now. The scepter aa needs a buff. Torment on AA isn’t op. Torment damage isn’t that extremly high. It’s weaker than bleed when a target doesn’t move and there are other bleed stacking aa’s who aren’t op. The problem are the clones. AI stacking is a bit silly but the staff already does it too – and much much better.
(edited by Xyonon.3987)
Think about it this way:
If Torment on Scepter clones is op, just imagine how stronk IE on Staff is.
All it does is create a Condition buffer with no other Conditions being applied.
Case in point about clone bolts missing, and the pressures of play forcing a mesmers clones to die, be shattered, or swapped out via rotations etc. Expect to see this happen A LOT. The time taken for a single dodge roll will even slow the mesmers AA’ing for application considerably.
Yes.
I understand the concerns of most with this weapon, but the problem is with buffed AI builds in general, not the weapons. Scepter has always been in need of a rework, and I welcome any pluses that comes with this change.
No, if they want to buff condi spec’s make active skills spike the condis were they can be removed, rather than passively leave 4-5 stacks of torment at all times as the scepter clones can instantly reapply.
why are people saying that using your scepter to auto attack something is passive play.. is using your dagger to hit someone with a thief passive play? is scepter necro passive play? seems so wierd..
if you are talking about the clones also applying a 2 second torment.. you are still going to put out phantasms over scepter clones almost every time.. and you would still rather have staff clones then scepter clones..
A lot of people are forgetting or keep mentioning is Scepter buff does NOT JUST EQUATE TO PU.
My condition lockdown CI build will heavily benefit from the buff, so are you telling me that a build that requires a higher skill cap should also be exempted because of the whining?
I am just saying this because my build does not play the “passive play” mentality It’s offence and defence relies on the interrupts which in turn ( also true for interrupt builds) require skillful timing. Rylock could surely vouch on me about this.
Yes, torment is a strong condition but how people make of it the entirety of the scepter buff is what making me furious, I always read the lines passive play, condition spam, and pu. please for love of mesmers, do not generalize builds into justifying what should happen or not just because you haven’t fought a not passive played condition build.
A lot of things will change, the patch is not here yet, I would just wait for to come out and just start off from there.
(edited by StickerHappy.8052)
A lot of people are forgetting or keep mentioning is Scepter buff does NOT JUST EQUATE TO PU.
My condition lockdown CI build will heavily benefit from the buff, so are you telling me that a build that requires a higher skill cap should also be exempted because of the whining?
I am just saying this because my build does not play the “passive play” mentality It’s offence and defence relies on the interrupts which in turn ( also true for interrupt builds) require skillful timing. Rylock could surely vouch on me about this.
Yes, torment is a strong condition but how people make of it the entirety of the scepter buff is what making me furious, I always read the lines passive play, condition spam, and pu. please for love of mesmers, do not generalize builds into justifying what should happen or not just because you haven’t fought a not passive played condition build.
A lot of things will change, the patch is not here yet, I would just wait for to come out and just start off from there.
That’s a YES from Stickerhappy
I’m against anything which encourage brainless passive play. Also, I do not want Dhummfire 2.0, so no.
YES, because scepter is currently very weak and it needed some boost.
I don’t normally post on the mesmer forums. I’m usually concerned with the state of the necromancer, but I am a fan of the mesmer from both GW1 and 2 so I’ll offer my vote.
Totally yes! My favorite build in GW1 was a mesmer build of my own design. It used Fevered Dreams and fragility along with a few other skills dedicated to applying conditions or functioning on conditions to cause minor harm. The build on its own was pretty mediocre. But once you had a full team that could apply every single condition in the game along with a dervish tank who would remove conditions from foes in order to increase its own damage, you had a team that could lock down entire groups of enemies with a heavy amount of damage. It was so much fun!
I fell in love with condition builds from GW1 so when I came to GW2 and found that conditions are lacking in PvE I was sorely disappointed. And with all the mesmer’s short duration and random condition application GW2 has left me really wanting new builds
There is a mega tone of potential builds in GW2 that are just missing one or two pieces in order to make them viable. And that frustrates me to no end! Especially considering how much I loved experimenting with builds in GW1 and my deep forbidden love with magic the gathering.
I’m against anything which encourage brainless passive play. Also, I do not want Dhummfire 2.0, so no.
please read my post please.
regarding pu mesmer i dont think it will be make them more op from the point there are.
its just give them more ability to play with.
remember what you do when you fight pu mesmer? you walk away nice and clean
but this buff will give the shatter condition more room to play to apply more constant conditions
but i wish they would change it to confusion instead of torment
torment – does average dmg when not moving and good dmg when moving
confusion – does nice dmg when dodging and using skill
confusion is more mesmer play style oriented to stop enemy to use his skills
torment should be to the necromance or thief
so far my shatter condi mesmer does nice 5 stacks of torment and 10 stacks of confusion when shatter but it need more buff as i can push enemies to 50% hp but get easily cleanse
so if it was 5 stacks of torment and 15-20 stacks of confusion it will prevent my enemy to dodge and use skills more often give me more room to play against zerker builds
A solid no.
A-net needs to push the Mesmer towards more high-risk-high-reward specs such as interruption and boon removal focused roles as a start. (I would like a trait that rewards us for the removal of boons, just a side thought here).
Promote active gameplay rather than passive.
A solid no.
A-net needs to push the Mesmer towards more high-risk-high-reward specs such as interruption and boon removal focused roles as a start. (I would like a trait that rewards us for the removal of boons, just a side thought here).
Promote active gameplay rather than passive.
lol i use a CI condition lockdown build, the thing is people are just to easy to judge when they see conditions, it means PU for them, passive play, and all that kitten.
Scepter buff is a universal buff to all condi builds, not just PU even if it means PU becomes even OP, the problem lies with PU itself, not scepter.
In fact, I would go further and say the root of the problem is the stealth mechanic in this game. But lets not forget stealth is getting more counter next patch.
I welcome this change to scepter. Until we can see the actual implementation, theoretical numbers can’t be used to judge whether its over the top or not.
A solid no.
A-net needs to push the Mesmer towards more high-risk-high-reward specs such as interruption and boon removal focused roles as a start. (I would like a trait that rewards us for the removal of boons, just a side thought here).
Promote active gameplay rather than passive.
lol i use a CI condition lockdown build, the thing is people are just to easy to judge when they see conditions, it means PU for them, passive play, and all that kitten.
I never once mentioned Prismatic Understanding, but read what you will I suppose?
But really, are the conditions applied by CI more at benefit by condition damage or condition duration? And if this is the case, are you really running CI without an invaluable trait like Shattered Concentration?
Then ask yourself, are you really able to lock down effectively and often enough without the massive boon removal supplied by said trait?
Because honestly I don’t think the small amount of toughness converted to condition damage by Chaotic Transference is worth gimping yourself and running a condition based CI build with incredibly limited ways to handle stability (hybrid rather, and I used to run one myself for a while, albeit it was celestial).
Regardless this isn’t even on topic. It’s still a solid no from myself.
(edited by kylwilson.9137)
A solid no.
A-net needs to push the Mesmer towards more high-risk-high-reward specs such as interruption and boon removal focused roles as a start. (I would like a trait that rewards us for the removal of boons, just a side thought here).
Promote active gameplay rather than passive.
lol i use a CI condition lockdown build, the thing is people are just to easy to judge when they see conditions, it means PU for them, passive play, and all that kitten.
I never once mentioned Prismatic Understanding, but read what you will I suppose?
But really, are the conditions applied by CI more at benefit by condition damage or condition duration? And if this is the case, are you really running CI without an invaluable trait like Shattered Concentration?
Then ask yourself, are you really able to lock down effectively and often enough without the massive boon removal supplied by said trait?
Because honestly I don’t think the small amount of toughness converted to condition damage by Chaotic Transference is worth gimping yourself and running a condition based CI build with incredibly limited ways to handle stability (hybrid rather, and I used to run one myself for a while, albeit it was celestial).
Regardless this isn’t even on topic. It’s still a solid no from myself.
ah, but i dont see stability as nusiance, I don’t interrupt them, i kill them with conditions, no stability, i overload them with conditions and CI proc them. I know some people would still have doubts with a condition CI based build, but it really works really well. to be honest, i never had problems with foes with a lot of boons. Ah, but I don’t wanna sound too boastful, but yeah condition CI does work.
PS: I didn’t say it was you who said PU. I just used the term “people” from the posts I read. I am just generalizing that a lot of posts in Prof balance and other scepter related buffs mention passive play and PU. No offense bro.
Not affiliated with ArenaNet or NCSOFT. No support is provided.
All assets, page layout, visual style belong to ArenaNet and are used solely to replicate the original design and preserve the original look and feel.
Contact /u/e-scrape-artist on reddit if you encounter a bug.