(edited by Alex Shatter.7956)
Mesmer PvE DPS over criticized?
With regards to #4: When people were getting so hung up the “66% DPS boost to the team” phrase, I was one of the people saying that the nerfed alacrity + quickness is still good and worth it; just requires different subsquad organization:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/47k73f/qt_6_man_no_updraft_gorseval/
6 people no updraft Gorsy kill with a mesmer being integral for both the DPS boosts and the distortion share. If anyone is running around saying that Chrono DPS boosts isn’t “mesmer dps” or that chrono isn’t worth a spot after alacrity nerf, they don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to raids because I highly doubt qT decided to handicap themselves with a chrono on such a tight DPS check that “requires 97k dps from the group to no updraft.” If alacrity/quickness chrono is still that good and worth it, I think it’s actually safe to say alacrity deserved a nerf. (Lack of PvP buffs was poor form from Devs.)
With regards to #1-3, chronomancers are “forced” to make that choice between support and DPS in raids because our support is too good and DPS too mediocre in comparison. Yes, with #2, 3, you are correct, it’s easy DPS and we can do other things at the same time in fotm and dungeons but with raids, bad tempests and reapers are not the balance standard. With that being said, I messed around with DPS mesmer briefly after the “scepter patch.” 22k out of a scepter 3 and sword phantasms hitting ~13k. It was a dom, duel, illusion base mesmer. I was using rune of chrono instead of scholar and a kittenty scepter since I was just messing around. Bring a iDisenchanter for boon removal instead of sword auto. Drop TW and SoI every once in awhile. People seriously overestimate how much DPS most classes do on ranged duty. So in this case, yes those 3 swordsman when VG is moving probably do more DPS than most other classes that keep running to green circles as VG steps out of their pulsing AOE. 22k scepter #3 is just icing. Will future raid wings potentially have use for this? Maybe, but that means forcing roles where you cannot focus on melee DPS and are required to do something else.
TLDR: You’re right for the most part in that we are still strong in PvE raids. Our DPS still isn’t that great given how most enemies are designed in a way that all classes can non-stop DPS them without being forced to focus on another task. Those DPS classes do upwards of twice the DPS mesmers can do. Change how enemies/encounters are designed and mesmer DPS becomes more viable for those roles.
2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.
In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.
What is pivoting?
Heya!
A full support Mesmer deals around 12k DpS to a heavy target. If you go max DpS, you’d get up to 18k on the same armor type. If you now even ignore any support aspects aswell and just focus on ego damage, even 20k might be achievable. If you go condi you may even get higher, yet I have not enough personal expirience to confirm this.
The reason why every single raid party brings a Mesmer, yet often even two of them is exactly what you mentioned – passive damage – the damage others deal more because there IS a Mesmer. A Mesmer boosts professions DpS by 33-50%, if they grant 100% quickness and alacrity. If you take the worst case, 33%, you could do some simple math, just to prove how mighty a Mesmer is:
Party 1 has 5 DDs:
25’000 DpS x5 = 125’000 DpS
Party 2 has 4 DDs and a Mesmer:
25’000 DpS x1.33 x4 = 133’000 DpS
12’000 DpS x1 = 12’000 DpS
= 145’000 DpS
So what does this passive damage mean? If you’d be fair, you’d say personal damage + passive damage = total damage. A warrior deals a HUGE amount of passive damage aswell – that’s why you take one with you, because of the banners and empower allies (+150 power aura) and definitly not because of the 15-18k DpS…
What I want to say here is – the Mesmer deals only 12k personal DpS, but in that case also 33k passive DpS. So the presence of a Mesmer increases the PARTY DpS by 45k. Yes – 45’000 damage.
Greez!
- Madame Le Blanc
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
Condie is gonna max out around 18k dps. You won’t be cracking 20k on any sort of mesmer build unless you’re getting insane amounts of lucky finishers from your duelists on fire fields. However, as I’ve gone over many times in the past, dps mesmer is awful for many other reasons.
Um don’t daredevils and revenants barely get any boost from alacrity and at that point another DPS class is better as it just straight up does more damage than the boost a Mesmer gives?
Also please stop calling it passive DPS, it is not passive. You are buffing party dps, there is exactly 0 passive play in the entire thing and you only make your arguments harder to follow by using made up phrases.
Oh and to the OP, my ele is usually in a party with a rev and PS warrior, there’s no fury I need to provide so I can use wash away the pain. It’s quite frankly an insane heal and helps a lot to sustain the party. Also depending on build (D/Wh FA) you can go water → 4 → 3 to generate a water field and blast in in about 1s and then you’re straight back into air rotation. Ele does give up a lot of potential support for DPS but they still have lots even in DPS.
Mesmer has fine dps. Yeah you click one more button to do it but quit kittening.
Mesmer has fine dps. Yeah you click one more button to do it but quit kittening.
[citation needed]
Um don’t daredevils and revenants barely get any boost from alacrity and at that point another DPS class is better as it just straight up does more damage than the boost a Mesmer gives?
Also please stop calling it passive DPS, it is not passive. You are buffing party dps, there is exactly 0 passive play in the entire thing and you only make your arguments harder to follow by using made up phrases.
Oh and to the OP, my ele is usually in a party with a rev and PS warrior, there’s no fury I need to provide so I can use wash away the pain. It’s quite frankly an insane heal and helps a lot to sustain the party. Also depending on build (D/Wh FA) you can go water -> 4 -> 3 to generate a water field and blast in in about 1s and then you’re straight back into air rotation. Ele does give up a lot of potential support for DPS but they still have lots even in DPS.
Daredevils get no boost from alacrity. Venomshare thieves get a normal boost from alacrity. Revenants now get a moderate boost from alacrity due to the buff to their sword 2 skill.
Heya!
A full support Mesmer deals around 12k DpS to a heavy target. If you go max DpS, you’d get up to 18k on the same armor type. If you now even ignore any support aspects aswell and just focus on ego damage, even 20k might be achievable. If you go condi you may even get higher, yet I have not enough personal expirience to confirm this.
The reason why every single raid party brings a Mesmer, yet often even two of them is exactly what you mentioned – passive damage – the damage others deal more because there IS a Mesmer. A Mesmer boosts professions DpS by 33-50%, if they grant 100% quickness and alacrity. If you take the worst case, 33%, you could do some simple math, just to prove how mighty a Mesmer is:
Party 1 has 5 DDs:
25’000 DpS x5 = 125’000 DpSParty 2 has 4 DDs and a Mesmer:
25’000 DpS x1.33 x4 = 133’000 DpS
12’000 DpS x1 = 12’000 DpS
= 145’000 DpSSo what does this passive damage mean? If you’d be fair, you’d say personal damage + passive damage = total damage. A warrior deals a HUGE amount of passive damage aswell – that’s why you take one with you, because of the banners and empower allies (+150 power aura) and definitly not because of the 15-18k DpS…
What I want to say here is – the Mesmer deals only 12k personal DpS, but in that case also 33k passive DpS. So the presence of a Mesmer increases the PARTY DpS by 45k. Yes – 45’000 damage.
Greez!
- Madame Le Blanc
alacrity is not a 33% dps increase. im pretty sure some1 mathed it out before on these forums for us all to see. this is a common misconception, yes you have faster cooldowns but only some of you dmg is from cooldown skill’s much of the damage is from auto attacks.
eg of formula
so to get the dps boost of it you need to
work out what skills are used in dps rotation and how many times they can be used in 120 secs and the damage they hit for average, then get the total of time spent casting skills.
work out the amount of AA’s that person can do in (120 – the time spent using skills) and the average dmg of AA)
Add the Total damage of skills over the set time + you max amount of AA in sed time and divide by 120 for you dps average.
to find out the boost from 100% alacrity uptime
Recalculate the total skills usable in the 120 secs with alacrity (every 3 secs your gain 1s off you cd’s obviously)
add the time spent casting those skills together to get you new time casting and remove it from 120 secs
work out the amount of AA’s that person can do in (120 – the new time spent using skills)
Add the Total damage of skills over the set time + you max amount of AA in sed time and divide by 120 for your alacrity dps average.
and in most cases i doubt its 33% increase, though im not a pve player and im sure this will vary class to class.
the main point that is overlooked is for eg, if you have a 1s AA that hits for 4k and you cast a “extra skill” with a 1s cast for lets say 7k, you dealt 3k more dmg in that one sec, you wouldn’t have deal an extra 7k
like i said im not a PvE player but the math is somewhere on these forums and its pretty solid.
also keep in mind some classes barely benefit from alacrity dps wise as it doesn’t increase there resource gain speed like thief for eg.
quickness sharing is more effective and can be worked out with he same process and if i remember correctly makes alacrity dps boost even less for the most part due the increased amount of AA up time you will get.
I’m not arguing mes is worthless, just that alacrity should be removed and just give us something else in place. maybe have it store up similar way to a druids and necros and then we can pop it for alacrity mode that does something mesmery full of butterfly’s
Greetings.
Um don’t daredevils and revenants barely get any boost from alacrity and at that point another DPS class is better as it just straight up does more damage than the boost a Mesmer gives?
Daredevils and Guardians get barely a dps boost from alacrity yes. This means they are aa-focused -> quickness boosts them. This makes the Mesmer even better since they get boosted by 50% instead of only 33%.
Also please stop calling it passive DPS, it is not passive. You are buffing party dps, there is exactly 0 passive play in the entire thing and you only make your arguments harder to follow by using made up phrases.
The term passive damage has nothing to do with passive play. It means that you do not deal the damage active by yourself. It’s the damage others deal more (the difference!) because of your presence, We called it passive damage since a very long time, it’s not something I made up and it ain’t gonna change.
alacrity is not a 33% dps increase. im pretty sure some1 mathed it out before on these forums for us all to see. this is a common misconception, yes you have faster cooldowns but only some of you dmg is from cooldown skill’s much of the damage is from auto attacks.
Alacrity alone isn’t – no. But that’s out of the question in the first place.
If you use only skills with CD’s, it’s a 33% dps increase, period.
If you use only auto attacks (like thief for example), it’s a 50% dps increase, period.
If you use a mix of those two, you’ll have at least 33% up to 50% increased dps while under the effect of quickness and alacrity. Simple math.
Check out this thread’s first post’s images attacked to it:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/All-Skills-Damage-for-Power-and-Condi-3/first#post6006236
It shows the damage of Engi skills aswell as the Chrono Boost wich means the damage increase of this skill because of quickness and alacrity. Every skill is above 33% and max 50%. The only exceptions are movement skills.
Greez!
- Xyonon
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
Xyonon, I’d like to see a screenshot or video of a support chrono (iAvengers) dealing 12k or a pure dps chrono (iSwordsmen) dealing 18k. I’ve never been able to break 5k on a support build. The best I’ve seen has been 16k on a condi build (iDuelists).
Also, I’d like to second that bit about quickness being our primary contribution to a raid. Alacrity doesn’t mean much except maybe to make things easier on the PS warrior and druid. The testing I’ve done on alacrity alone indicates that it’s only about a 15% dps increase on a d/w ele.
quickness does get the thumbs up, still think they should change alacrity into something else and bring mes dps more inline with other classes. i just think its a bad mechanic and it could be made into something more useful and easier for the dev team to balance. i can say in its current state i literally wouldn’t notice if alacrity just magically stopped working. pvp/wvw view on the “skill”.
Xyonon, I’d like to see a screenshot or video of a support chrono (iAvengers) dealing 12k or a pure dps chrono (iSwordsmen) dealing 18k. I’ve never been able to break 5k on a support build. The best I’ve seen has been 16k on a condi build (iDuelists).
Can do. 5k is extremly low tough :< your auto alone is 8k.
Also, I’d like to second that bit about quickness being our primary contribution to a raid. Alacrity doesn’t mean much except maybe to make things easier on the PS warrior and druid. The testing I’ve done on alacrity alone indicates that it’s only about a 15% dps increase on a d/w ele.
D/W ele is a quickness playstyle.
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
(edited by Xyonon.3987)
2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.
In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.
What is pivoting?
Getting from point A to point B without dying, wasting excess time trying to heal / defend, or aggro-ing environmental NPCs. In short, “pivot” = “reposition efficiently”.
My elementalist, for example, in all her glory and zoja gear, is terrible at this. if it’s mid boss, and someone on my team screws up, my elementalist is the first to die. she is slow, and is only efficient when she can stay in the same place for long periods at a time. if she needs to reposition or disengage to resurrect someone, or if it’s a fractal where there is AoE up the butt (Aetherblade), she becomes dead weight very fast. When she is in a tough spot, she basically has to check herself out of the mission for a good 10 seconds to spam Wash the Pain Away!, water overload, and other defensive skills until she can get to a spot where she can be effective again. This loss of efficiency in stressful situations makes her DPS a fraction of it’s maximum potential (28k or something, I think is a recent estimate).
my mesmer, however, can flexibly move around the battlefield and reposition when necessary. the clones, access to Staff 2 and blink, and insta-cast distortion make her much more efficient at disengaging and repositioning when something goes wrong or half the team dies and she needs to be on res-support. All the while she is moving around, her iWarlocks and iBerserkers/iSwordsmen are still doing decent damage to the main target. Ive noticed that in situations with lots of excess AoE or ambient npcs (Volcano), mesmers just tend to survive longer. I attribute this to their ability to move around efficiently unhindered, aka, pivoting. She can handle all of this with full zerker gear, chrono / dom / illusion, and not really suffer any DPS loss from her ideal, 10k (is this the most recent estimate for chrono?)
So my ele’s realistic DPS in stressful fractals hits somewhere at 15k, and my mesmer has no problem hitting her max of 10k per second. So the gap isn’t as dramatic as people make it in higher level situations. maybe i just suck as tempest, but i really don’t see many other tempests being able to sit there and spam fire staff in high level situations as much as would be optimal. it isn’t a realistic expectation when anet keeps throwing random obstacles into the mix like perm-protection, might stacks, and extra AoE to prevent stacking and keep players moving, which mesmer is just better at handling.
Mesmer’s ability to “pivot” has always been coveted in sPvP, but until recently, it hasn’t been as useful in PvE where for the most part, things just stand still and you hit them. Now that more challenging content is coming out, and mobility is more of an issue, I think that is slowly going to change.
(edited by Alex Shatter.7956)
2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.
In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.
What is pivoting?
Getting from point A to point B without dying, wasting excess time trying to heal / defend, or aggro-ing environmental NPCs. In short, “pivot” = “reposition efficiently”.
My elementalist, for example, in all her glory and zoja gear, is terrible at this. if it’s mid boss, and someone on my team screws up, my elementalist is the first to die. she is slow, and is only efficient when she can stay in the same place for long periods at a time. if she needs to reposition or disengage to resurrect someone, or if it’s a fractal where there is AoE up the butt (Aetherblade), she becomes dead weight very fast. When she is in a tough spot, she basically has to check herself out of the mission for a good 10 seconds to spam Wash the Pain Away!, water overload, and other defensive skills until she can get to a spot where she can be effective again. This loss of efficiency in stressful situations makes her DPS a fraction of it’s maximum potential (28k or something, I think is a recent estimate).
my mesmer, however, can flexibly move around the battlefield and reposition when necessary. the clones, access to Staff 2 and blink, and insta-cast distortion make her much more efficient at disengaging and repositioning when something goes wrong or half the team dies and she needs to be on res-support. All the while she is moving around, her iWarlocks and iBerserkers/iSwordsmen are still doing decent damage to the main target. Ive noticed that in situations with lots of excess AoE or ambient npcs (Volcano), mesmers just tend to survive longer. I attribute this to their ability to move around efficiently unhindered, aka, pivoting. She can handle all of this with full zerker gear, chrono / dom / illusion, and not really suffer any DPS loss from her ideal, 10k (is this the most recent estimate for chrono?)
So my ele’s realistic DPS in stressful fractals hits somewhere at 15k, and my mesmer has no problem hitting her max of 10k per second. So the gap isn’t as dramatic as people make it in higher level situations.
Mesmer’s ability to “pivot” has always been coveted in sPvP, but until recently, it hasn’t been as useful in PvE where for the most part, things just stand still and you hit them. Now that more challenging content is coming out, and mobility is more of an issue, I think that is slowly going to change.
Honestly, if your team is having those problems then you’re playing with objectively awful people. Granted, this happens sometimes, but those are the last people you want to compare yourself to.
2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.
In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.
What is pivoting?
Getting from point A to point B without dying, wasting excess time trying to heal / defend, or aggro-ing environmental NPCs. In short, “pivot” = “reposition efficiently”.
My elementalist, for example, in all her glory and zoja gear, is terrible at this. if it’s mid boss, and someone on my team screws up, my elementalist is the first to die. she is slow, and is only efficient when she can stay in the same place for long periods at a time. if she needs to reposition or disengage to resurrect someone, or if it’s a fractal where there is AoE up the butt (Aetherblade), she becomes dead weight very fast. When she is in a tough spot, she basically has to check herself out of the mission for a good 10 seconds to spam Wash the Pain Away!, water overload, and other defensive skills until she can get to a spot where she can be effective again. This loss of efficiency in stressful situations makes her DPS a fraction of it’s maximum potential (28k or something, I think is a recent estimate).
my mesmer, however, can flexibly move around the battlefield and reposition when necessary. the clones, access to Staff 2 and blink, and insta-cast distortion make her much more efficient at disengaging and repositioning when something goes wrong or half the team dies and she needs to be on res-support. All the while she is moving around, her iWarlocks and iBerserkers/iSwordsmen are still doing decent damage to the main target. Ive noticed that in situations with lots of excess AoE or ambient npcs (Volcano), mesmers just tend to survive longer. I attribute this to their ability to move around efficiently unhindered, aka, pivoting. She can handle all of this with full zerker gear, chrono / dom / illusion, and not really suffer any DPS loss from her ideal, 10k (is this the most recent estimate for chrono?)
So my ele’s realistic DPS in stressful fractals hits somewhere at 15k, and my mesmer has no problem hitting her max of 10k per second. So the gap isn’t as dramatic as people make it in higher level situations.
Mesmer’s ability to “pivot” has always been coveted in sPvP, but until recently, it hasn’t been as useful in PvE where for the most part, things just stand still and you hit them. Now that more challenging content is coming out, and mobility is more of an issue, I think that is slowly going to change.
Honestly, if your team is having those problems then you’re playing with objectively awful people. Granted, this happens sometimes, but those are the last people you want to compare yourself to.
It happens much more often than people assume on these forums, though. I think people designing “what is meta” and “what is highest DPS” are the tippy-top of the GW2 skill ladder, and for casual players, these DPS estimates for each class are unrealistic. For the average elementalist or engineer who has clocked a year in the class, they shouldn’t expect do be doing triple the damage as a mesmer in level 60+ fractals. Sure, they will do more damage than the mesmer, but few people on this game have the skill to actually tick 29k per second as any profession. I’m just saying for most realistic situations, mesmer DPS isn’t as bad as people give it.
Bad PUGs are a fact of life. One thing I’ve learned is that meta builds tend to do very badly in PUGs. Mesmer is a notable exception because our meta builds come with great defenses and we tend to play more of a support role anyways. I see the meta as more of a support stacking meta than an individual max-dps meta. Mesmers earn our spot in raids not by dealing superior dps ourselves but by enabling others to do so.
On the other hand, I usually do better pugging on my full glass zerker ele. They can switch roles very quickly with a few minor trait changes. The only thing is that you need to know the capabilities of your group beforehand. Blindly sticking to a meta rotation in a PUG on ele is a recipe for a quick death.
2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.
In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.
What is pivoting?
Getting from point A to point B without dying, wasting excess time trying to heal / defend, or aggro-ing environmental NPCs. In short, “pivot” = “reposition efficiently”.
My elementalist, for example, in all her glory and zoja gear, is terrible at this. if it’s mid boss, and someone on my team screws up, my elementalist is the first to die. she is slow, and is only efficient when she can stay in the same place for long periods at a time. if she needs to reposition or disengage to resurrect someone, or if it’s a fractal where there is AoE up the butt (Aetherblade), she becomes dead weight very fast. When she is in a tough spot, she basically has to check herself out of the mission for a good 10 seconds to spam Wash the Pain Away!, water overload, and other defensive skills until she can get to a spot where she can be effective again. This loss of efficiency in stressful situations makes her DPS a fraction of it’s maximum potential (28k or something, I think is a recent estimate).
my mesmer, however, can flexibly move around the battlefield and reposition when necessary. the clones, access to Staff 2 and blink, and insta-cast distortion make her much more efficient at disengaging and repositioning when something goes wrong or half the team dies and she needs to be on res-support. All the while she is moving around, her iWarlocks and iBerserkers/iSwordsmen are still doing decent damage to the main target. Ive noticed that in situations with lots of excess AoE or ambient npcs (Volcano), mesmers just tend to survive longer. I attribute this to their ability to move around efficiently unhindered, aka, pivoting. She can handle all of this with full zerker gear, chrono / dom / illusion, and not really suffer any DPS loss from her ideal, 10k (is this the most recent estimate for chrono?)
So my ele’s realistic DPS in stressful fractals hits somewhere at 15k, and my mesmer has no problem hitting her max of 10k per second. So the gap isn’t as dramatic as people make it in higher level situations.
Mesmer’s ability to “pivot” has always been coveted in sPvP, but until recently, it hasn’t been as useful in PvE where for the most part, things just stand still and you hit them. Now that more challenging content is coming out, and mobility is more of an issue, I think that is slowly going to change.
Honestly, if your team is having those problems then you’re playing with objectively awful people. Granted, this happens sometimes, but those are the last people you want to compare yourself to.
It happens much more often than people assume on these forums, though. I think people designing “what is meta” and “what is highest DPS” are the tippy-top of the GW2 skill ladder, and for casual players, these DPS estimates for each class are unrealistic. For the average elementalist or engineer who has clocked a year in the class, they shouldn’t expect do be doing triple the damage as a mesmer in level 60+ fractals. Sure, they will do more damage than the mesmer, but few people on this game have the skill to actually tick 29k per second as any profession. I’m just saying for most realistic situations, mesmer DPS isn’t as bad as people give it.
Again though, it doesn’t really matter how often you get awful players. The point is that if you’re comparing yourself to awful players, the comparison is meaningless.
“I do more damage than a guy that dies all the time.”
Ok. Do you want a medal? The PvP version of this comparison would be:
“I have a 100% winrate when playing against people that are way worse than me.”
Ok. I mean, it’s true…but it’s also totally meaningless.
2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.
In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.
What is pivoting?
Getting from point A to point B without dying, wasting excess time trying to heal / defend, or aggro-ing environmental NPCs. In short, “pivot” = “reposition efficiently”.
My elementalist, for example, in all her glory and zoja gear, is terrible at this. if it’s mid boss, and someone on my team screws up, my elementalist is the first to die. she is slow, and is only efficient when she can stay in the same place for long periods at a time. if she needs to reposition or disengage to resurrect someone, or if it’s a fractal where there is AoE up the butt (Aetherblade), she becomes dead weight very fast. When she is in a tough spot, she basically has to check herself out of the mission for a good 10 seconds to spam Wash the Pain Away!, water overload, and other defensive skills until she can get to a spot where she can be effective again. This loss of efficiency in stressful situations makes her DPS a fraction of it’s maximum potential (28k or something, I think is a recent estimate).
my mesmer, however, can flexibly move around the battlefield and reposition when necessary. the clones, access to Staff 2 and blink, and insta-cast distortion make her much more efficient at disengaging and repositioning when something goes wrong or half the team dies and she needs to be on res-support. All the while she is moving around, her iWarlocks and iBerserkers/iSwordsmen are still doing decent damage to the main target. Ive noticed that in situations with lots of excess AoE or ambient npcs (Volcano), mesmers just tend to survive longer. I attribute this to their ability to move around efficiently unhindered, aka, pivoting. She can handle all of this with full zerker gear, chrono / dom / illusion, and not really suffer any DPS loss from her ideal, 10k (is this the most recent estimate for chrono?)
So my ele’s realistic DPS in stressful fractals hits somewhere at 15k, and my mesmer has no problem hitting her max of 10k per second. So the gap isn’t as dramatic as people make it in higher level situations.
Mesmer’s ability to “pivot” has always been coveted in sPvP, but until recently, it hasn’t been as useful in PvE where for the most part, things just stand still and you hit them. Now that more challenging content is coming out, and mobility is more of an issue, I think that is slowly going to change.
Honestly, if your team is having those problems then you’re playing with objectively awful people. Granted, this happens sometimes, but those are the last people you want to compare yourself to.
It happens much more often than people assume on these forums, though. I think people designing “what is meta” and “what is highest DPS” are the tippy-top of the GW2 skill ladder, and for casual players, these DPS estimates for each class are unrealistic. For the average elementalist or engineer who has clocked a year in the class, they shouldn’t expect do be doing triple the damage as a mesmer in level 60+ fractals. Sure, they will do more damage than the mesmer, but few people on this game have the skill to actually tick 29k per second as any profession. I’m just saying for most realistic situations, mesmer DPS isn’t as bad as people give it.
Again though, it doesn’t really matter how often you get awful players. The point is that if you’re comparing yourself to awful players, the comparison is meaningless.
“I do more damage than a guy that dies all the time.”
Ok. Do you want a medal? The PvP version of this comparison would be:
“I have a 100% winrate when playing against people that are way worse than me.”
Ok. I mean, it’s true…but it’s also totally meaningless.
kitten it. Stop bringing logic to the forums. This is a safe space! Our home even!
NO LOGIC ALLOWED, STOP OPPRESSING ME!
“Unused Development Initiative. We care so much
about your feedback, that we don’t even read it.” ~ Crystal Suzuki
about your feedback, that we don’t even read it.” ~ Crystal Suzuki
2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.
In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.
What is pivoting?
Getting from point A to point B without dying, wasting excess time trying to heal / defend, or aggro-ing environmental NPCs. In short, “pivot” = “reposition efficiently”.
My elementalist, for example, in all her glory and zoja gear, is terrible at this. if it’s mid boss, and someone on my team screws up, my elementalist is the first to die. she is slow, and is only efficient when she can stay in the same place for long periods at a time. if she needs to reposition or disengage to resurrect someone, or if it’s a fractal where there is AoE up the butt (Aetherblade), she becomes dead weight very fast. When she is in a tough spot, she basically has to check herself out of the mission for a good 10 seconds to spam Wash the Pain Away!, water overload, and other defensive skills until she can get to a spot where she can be effective again. This loss of efficiency in stressful situations makes her DPS a fraction of it’s maximum potential (28k or something, I think is a recent estimate).
my mesmer, however, can flexibly move around the battlefield and reposition when necessary. the clones, access to Staff 2 and blink, and insta-cast distortion make her much more efficient at disengaging and repositioning when something goes wrong or half the team dies and she needs to be on res-support. All the while she is moving around, her iWarlocks and iBerserkers/iSwordsmen are still doing decent damage to the main target. Ive noticed that in situations with lots of excess AoE or ambient npcs (Volcano), mesmers just tend to survive longer. I attribute this to their ability to move around efficiently unhindered, aka, pivoting. She can handle all of this with full zerker gear, chrono / dom / illusion, and not really suffer any DPS loss from her ideal, 10k (is this the most recent estimate for chrono?)
So my ele’s realistic DPS in stressful fractals hits somewhere at 15k, and my mesmer has no problem hitting her max of 10k per second. So the gap isn’t as dramatic as people make it in higher level situations.
Mesmer’s ability to “pivot” has always been coveted in sPvP, but until recently, it hasn’t been as useful in PvE where for the most part, things just stand still and you hit them. Now that more challenging content is coming out, and mobility is more of an issue, I think that is slowly going to change.
Honestly, if your team is having those problems then you’re playing with objectively awful people. Granted, this happens sometimes, but those are the last people you want to compare yourself to.
It happens much more often than people assume on these forums, though. I think people designing “what is meta” and “what is highest DPS” are the tippy-top of the GW2 skill ladder, and for casual players, these DPS estimates for each class are unrealistic. For the average elementalist or engineer who has clocked a year in the class, they shouldn’t expect do be doing triple the damage as a mesmer in level 60+ fractals. Sure, they will do more damage than the mesmer, but few people on this game have the skill to actually tick 29k per second as any profession. I’m just saying for most realistic situations, mesmer DPS isn’t as bad as people give it.
Again though, it doesn’t really matter how often you get awful players. The point is that if you’re comparing yourself to awful players, the comparison is meaningless.
“I do more damage than a guy that dies all the time.”
Ok. Do you want a medal? The PvP version of this comparison would be:
“I have a 100% winrate when playing against people that are way worse than me.”
Ok. I mean, it’s true…but it’s also totally meaningless.
It’s more of a “most mesmers do more DPS than professions that die all the time because mesmer was built on being able to avoid damage, and ele was built to do a lot of damage, but die a lot”
i think it’s reasonable to assume elementalists and revenants die more often than mesmers, at equal skill levels. Anet has taken very careful measures to ensure those classes are squishy, while scrappers, warriors and mesmers are less squishy. that is a fact. i just think mesmer’s ability to sustain should be taken into account. you provided the counter example that, “well no one should be dying at all on a good team!”, but i don’t think that’s a good sampling of what actually happens in 60+ fractals. even on good teams, revenants and eles get smashed when something goes wrong.
(edited by Alex Shatter.7956)
2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.
In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.
What is pivoting?
Getting from point A to point B without dying, wasting excess time trying to heal / defend, or aggro-ing environmental NPCs. In short, “pivot” = “reposition efficiently”.
My elementalist, for example, in all her glory and zoja gear, is terrible at this. if it’s mid boss, and someone on my team screws up, my elementalist is the first to die. she is slow, and is only efficient when she can stay in the same place for long periods at a time. if she needs to reposition or disengage to resurrect someone, or if it’s a fractal where there is AoE up the butt (Aetherblade), she becomes dead weight very fast. When she is in a tough spot, she basically has to check herself out of the mission for a good 10 seconds to spam Wash the Pain Away!, water overload, and other defensive skills until she can get to a spot where she can be effective again. This loss of efficiency in stressful situations makes her DPS a fraction of it’s maximum potential (28k or something, I think is a recent estimate).
my mesmer, however, can flexibly move around the battlefield and reposition when necessary. the clones, access to Staff 2 and blink, and insta-cast distortion make her much more efficient at disengaging and repositioning when something goes wrong or half the team dies and she needs to be on res-support. All the while she is moving around, her iWarlocks and iBerserkers/iSwordsmen are still doing decent damage to the main target. Ive noticed that in situations with lots of excess AoE or ambient npcs (Volcano), mesmers just tend to survive longer. I attribute this to their ability to move around efficiently unhindered, aka, pivoting. She can handle all of this with full zerker gear, chrono / dom / illusion, and not really suffer any DPS loss from her ideal, 10k (is this the most recent estimate for chrono?)
So my ele’s realistic DPS in stressful fractals hits somewhere at 15k, and my mesmer has no problem hitting her max of 10k per second. So the gap isn’t as dramatic as people make it in higher level situations.
Mesmer’s ability to “pivot” has always been coveted in sPvP, but until recently, it hasn’t been as useful in PvE where for the most part, things just stand still and you hit them. Now that more challenging content is coming out, and mobility is more of an issue, I think that is slowly going to change.
Honestly, if your team is having those problems then you’re playing with objectively awful people. Granted, this happens sometimes, but those are the last people you want to compare yourself to.
It happens much more often than people assume on these forums, though. I think people designing “what is meta” and “what is highest DPS” are the tippy-top of the GW2 skill ladder, and for casual players, these DPS estimates for each class are unrealistic. For the average elementalist or engineer who has clocked a year in the class, they shouldn’t expect do be doing triple the damage as a mesmer in level 60+ fractals. Sure, they will do more damage than the mesmer, but few people on this game have the skill to actually tick 29k per second as any profession. I’m just saying for most realistic situations, mesmer DPS isn’t as bad as people give it.
Again though, it doesn’t really matter how often you get awful players. The point is that if you’re comparing yourself to awful players, the comparison is meaningless.
“I do more damage than a guy that dies all the time.”
Ok. Do you want a medal? The PvP version of this comparison would be:
“I have a 100% winrate when playing against people that are way worse than me.”
Ok. I mean, it’s true…but it’s also totally meaningless.
It’s more of a “most mesmers do more DPS than professions that die all the time because mesmer was built on being able to avoid damage, and ele was built to do a lot of damage, but die a lot”
i think it’s reasonable to assume elementalists and revenants die more often than mesmers, at equal skill levels. Anet has taken very careful measures to ensure those classes are squishy, while scrappers, warriors and mesmers are less squishy. that is a fact. i just think mesmer’s ability to sustain should be taken into account. you provided the counter example that, “well no one should be dying at all on a good team!”, but i don’t think that’s a good sampling of what actually happens in 60+ fractals. even on good teams, revenants and eles get smashed when something goes wrong.
No, the assumption that eles and revs die more than mesmers at equal skill levels is absolute bull. Revs have just as much mitigation as mesmers do, possibly more. Eles have huge amounts of sustain if they just swap to water and back off for a minute. Mesmers hardly have a monopoly on survivability.
Ultimately, your statement still ends up as “I do more damage than people that are really bad at the game.” True….but pointless.
2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.
In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.
What is pivoting?
Getting from point A to point B without dying, wasting excess time trying to heal / defend, or aggro-ing environmental NPCs. In short, “pivot” = “reposition efficiently”.
My elementalist, for example, in all her glory and zoja gear, is terrible at this. if it’s mid boss, and someone on my team screws up, my elementalist is the first to die. she is slow, and is only efficient when she can stay in the same place for long periods at a time. if she needs to reposition or disengage to resurrect someone, or if it’s a fractal where there is AoE up the butt (Aetherblade), she becomes dead weight very fast. When she is in a tough spot, she basically has to check herself out of the mission for a good 10 seconds to spam Wash the Pain Away!, water overload, and other defensive skills until she can get to a spot where she can be effective again. This loss of efficiency in stressful situations makes her DPS a fraction of it’s maximum potential (28k or something, I think is a recent estimate).
my mesmer, however, can flexibly move around the battlefield and reposition when necessary. the clones, access to Staff 2 and blink, and insta-cast distortion make her much more efficient at disengaging and repositioning when something goes wrong or half the team dies and she needs to be on res-support. All the while she is moving around, her iWarlocks and iBerserkers/iSwordsmen are still doing decent damage to the main target. Ive noticed that in situations with lots of excess AoE or ambient npcs (Volcano), mesmers just tend to survive longer. I attribute this to their ability to move around efficiently unhindered, aka, pivoting. She can handle all of this with full zerker gear, chrono / dom / illusion, and not really suffer any DPS loss from her ideal, 10k (is this the most recent estimate for chrono?)
So my ele’s realistic DPS in stressful fractals hits somewhere at 15k, and my mesmer has no problem hitting her max of 10k per second. So the gap isn’t as dramatic as people make it in higher level situations.
Mesmer’s ability to “pivot” has always been coveted in sPvP, but until recently, it hasn’t been as useful in PvE where for the most part, things just stand still and you hit them. Now that more challenging content is coming out, and mobility is more of an issue, I think that is slowly going to change.
Honestly, if your team is having those problems then you’re playing with objectively awful people. Granted, this happens sometimes, but those are the last people you want to compare yourself to.
It happens much more often than people assume on these forums, though. I think people designing “what is meta” and “what is highest DPS” are the tippy-top of the GW2 skill ladder, and for casual players, these DPS estimates for each class are unrealistic. For the average elementalist or engineer who has clocked a year in the class, they shouldn’t expect do be doing triple the damage as a mesmer in level 60+ fractals. Sure, they will do more damage than the mesmer, but few people on this game have the skill to actually tick 29k per second as any profession. I’m just saying for most realistic situations, mesmer DPS isn’t as bad as people give it.
Again though, it doesn’t really matter how often you get awful players. The point is that if you’re comparing yourself to awful players, the comparison is meaningless.
“I do more damage than a guy that dies all the time.”
Ok. Do you want a medal? The PvP version of this comparison would be:
“I have a 100% winrate when playing against people that are way worse than me.”
Ok. I mean, it’s true…but it’s also totally meaningless.
It’s more of a “most mesmers do more DPS than professions that die all the time because mesmer was built on being able to avoid damage, and ele was built to do a lot of damage, but die a lot”
i think it’s reasonable to assume elementalists and revenants die more often than mesmers, at equal skill levels. Anet has taken very careful measures to ensure those classes are squishy, while scrappers, warriors and mesmers are less squishy. that is a fact. i just think mesmer’s ability to sustain should be taken into account. you provided the counter example that, “well no one should be dying at all on a good team!”, but i don’t think that’s a good sampling of what actually happens in 60+ fractals. even on good teams, revenants and eles get smashed when something goes wrong.
No, the assumption that eles and revs die more than mesmers at equal skill levels is absolute bull. Revs have just as much mitigation as mesmers do, possibly more. Eles have huge amounts of sustain if they just swap to water and back off for a minute. Mesmers hardly have a monopoly on survivability.
Ultimately, your statement still ends up as “I do more damage than people that are really bad at the game.” True….but pointless.
Ele and Rev have sustain, but they can’t sustain and max DPS at the same time. Earth and water attunement can mitigate a lot of damage from elementalist, but not while keeping up ele’s might stacks and overload fires pumping out. Rev has blocks, but they run into the same problem. also, ele is slower than rev and mes and has limited access to blocks.
Mesmer’s defense and damage mitigation do not put the mesmer on pause at all. they can multitask defending themselves and keeping their DPS optimal. [See: my original post, which you probably didn’t read]
Earth and water attunes are actually what lead to the generation of might on ele.
The DPS is over-criticized because so many people seem to not care about how significant alacrity and quickness is, screaming instead for more selfish DPS because apparently they don’t want defenses and don’t want support or reason to be taken in competitive environments.
The mesmer has a spot, like the ranger, in competitive PvE because the DPS it contributes party-wide is worth more than the gap between it and that of the top DPS class, and the class can also be a very functional tank in the meantime while cutting losses. Only when the personal DPS is bigger than the collective value of all of the damage gained from support or is the best in the game will a DPS-based setup be usable in competitive PvE, or since this influences normal PvE, pretty much any PvE.
The chronomancer lets the mesmer get better burst and lots of support. Maybe the next elite spec will feature DPS increases at the cost of clones, we don’t know. but that’s the objective of the spec and how it needs to be balanced around.
Formal Thief Elite Spec proposal:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/ES-Suggestion-The-Deadeye-FORMAL/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/ES-Suggestion-The-Deadeye-FORMAL/
Earth and water attunes are actually what lead to the generation of might on ele.
I’ve played ele for a really long time and I’ve never used earth or water to pulse might. Overload fire and fire fields are the only efficient sources of might that I know of
Earth and water attunes are actually what lead to the generation of might on ele.
I’ve played ele for a really long time and I’ve never used earth or water to pulse might. Overload fire and fire fields are the only efficient sources of might that I know of
Sorry.
I’ve never been an ele fan.
BUT
Aren’t most of eles blasts on earth and water?
“Unused Development Initiative. We care so much
about your feedback, that we don’t even read it.” ~ Crystal Suzuki
about your feedback, that we don’t even read it.” ~ Crystal Suzuki
Earth and water attunes are actually what lead to the generation of might on ele.
I’ve played ele for a really long time and I’ve never used earth or water to pulse might. Overload fire and fire fields are the only efficient sources of might that I know of
Sorry.
I’ve never been an ele fan.
BUT
Aren’t most of eles blasts on earth and water?
Earth has a lot of blast finishers, but in order to use them to gain might, you would have to swap from fire to earth, blast the field… And then you’re locked out of fire attunement for 10 seconds. That rotation might work out for a fresh air variant… But that would be really annoying to keep up and less party wide might. Overload fire gives you and everyone around you like 15 stacks so most people just use that, or dagger 3 to blast a fire field in fire.
Generally speaking, water and earth attunements are the DPS equivalent of a “potty break”. It is advised to avoid them, which gets tougher and tougher at higher level scenarios. Mesmer doesnt run into these decisions and blah blah blah see OP
(edited by Alex Shatter.7956)
Earth and water attunes are actually what lead to the generation of might on ele.
I’ve played ele for a really long time and I’ve never used earth or water to pulse might. Overload fire and fire fields are the only efficient sources of might that I know of
Sorry.
I’ve never been an ele fan.
BUT
Aren’t most of eles blasts on earth and water?Earth has a lot of blast finishers, but in order to use them to gain might, you would have to swap from fire to earth, blast the field… And then you’re locked out of fire attunement for 10 seconds. That rotation might work out for a fresh air variant… But that would be really annoying to keep up and less party wide might. Overload fire gives you and everyone around you like 15 stacks so most people just use that, or dagger 3 to blast a fire field in fire.
Generally speaking, water and earth attunements are the DPS equivalent of a “potty break”. It is advised to avoid them, which gets tougher and tougher at higher level scenarios. Mesmer doesnt run into these decisions and blah blah blah see OP
Well the fun thing about the OP, is that I’m not sure whether what I have to say is “agreeing” with it, or “disagreeing” with it.
Such as #1.
Mesmer isn’t forced to choose between off-support and DPS.
I mean, you’re forced to choose 1 role. Which is support.
Now, I could use off hand sword/pistols to get damage phantasms up.
Or I could get nothing except iAvengers up and give everyone as much alacrity as possible.
As a mesmer, you’re forced into a singular role. It’s full support.
I don’t see anyone on this thread disagreeing with that assessment either. Outside of a couple who are like “Mesmer can get 20k DPS with hybrid!”.
Which is great, for things that won’t reset your phantasms.
You’re essentially saying “My ele can fill 2 roles, so sometimes I’m forced to compromise my build to do a little of both!”.
Ele World Problems?
My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals
Maybe I’m a terrible player, but I go down a lot as mesmer in high level fractals.
Often it feels like I’m always 1 hit away from going down.
Running 3 phantasms allows my mesmer to do things like ressurect and support without losing as much DPS. high multitasking ability
Oh… wow. I can do 2 things at the same time! GOD, THAT MULTITASKING IS AMAZING!
I’m so amazing that my personal DPS is SO LOW, THAT IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER IF I ATTACK OR NOT!
Ele world problems.
The DPS gained from alacrity and TW in high level situations should be incorporated to mesmer’s group DPS.
It is being incorporated.
The problem is, that that is again, the only thing we bring.
You either bring subpar selfish DPS THAT MOSTLY DOESN’T BENEFIT FROM ALACRITY OR TW, or you bring alacrity and TW.
“Unused Development Initiative. We care so much
about your feedback, that we don’t even read it.” ~ Crystal Suzuki
about your feedback, that we don’t even read it.” ~ Crystal Suzuki
About the “don’t compare yourself to bad players” think from before, I wish people wouldn’t do that. As appropriate, you need to exactly look at the average.
Consider this:
Say 2% of the game are top-end, and you roll a random 4 group mates.
Chances of having only decent people? Negligible. Hence any spec / setup / plan / tactic should be based on the suboptimal plan B, not on how you’d act in an ideal but utopian clean room scenario.
This is akin to raidleading while assuming raiders won’t make mistakes: they will. If they no longer do, they also no longer need you (meaning the raidleader). Raidleading assumes that you need to lead someone, which again assumes they need this leadership, which is evidently necessary.
Yes, there are situations where looking only at the theoretical top makes sense. In most scenarios, that is not the case. You won’t ever have those situations, you might as well look at the average case.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
About the “don’t compare yourself to bad players” think from before, I wish people wouldn’t do that. As appropriate, you need to exactly look at the average.
Consider this:
Say 2% of the game are top-end, and you roll a random 4 group mates.Chances of having only decent people? Negligible. Hence any spec / setup / plan / tactic should be based on the suboptimal plan B, not on how you’d act in an ideal but utopian clean room scenario.
This is akin to raidleading while assuming raiders won’t make mistakes: they will. If they no longer do, they also no longer need you (meaning the raidleader). Raidleading assumes that you need to lead someone, which again assumes they need this leadership, which is evidently necessary.
Yes, there are situations where looking only at the theoretical top makes sense. In most scenarios, that is not the case. You won’t ever have those situations, you might as well look at the average case.
The problem is, how do you calculate for the average?
Unless ANet releases data they’ve recorded on average DPS, then the average is an unknown.
What isn’t unknown is the theoretical maximum. With a bit of math, and some testing, the maximums are provable.
The average, really isn’t.
“Unused Development Initiative. We care so much
about your feedback, that we don’t even read it.” ~ Crystal Suzuki
about your feedback, that we don’t even read it.” ~ Crystal Suzuki
About the “don’t compare yourself to bad players” think from before, I wish people wouldn’t do that. As appropriate, you need to exactly look at the average.
Consider this:
Say 2% of the game are top-end, and you roll a random 4 group mates.Chances of having only decent people? Negligible. Hence any spec / setup / plan / tactic should be based on the suboptimal plan B, not on how you’d act in an ideal but utopian clean room scenario.
This is akin to raidleading while assuming raiders won’t make mistakes: they will. If they no longer do, they also no longer need you (meaning the raidleader). Raidleading assumes that you need to lead someone, which again assumes they need this leadership, which is evidently necessary.
Yes, there are situations where looking only at the theoretical top makes sense. In most scenarios, that is not the case. You won’t ever have those situations, you might as well look at the average case.
I see what you are saying but… My problem is there seems to be an overabundance of people that play the game and have a such a major Learn to Play issue that bringing it down to their level will make everything the equivalent of an smart phone game. Honestly, dodging is not hard, learning the basic mechanics of each class is not hard, figuring out how your class works is not hard. There is nothing really hard about GW2.
Sure Raids arent exactly casual friendly but hey if that is your cup of tea find a few friends in game that have the same schedule you do and play with them.
Same with PvP, the basic mechanics are not hard to learn either. Yet you have so many people came to these forums and complain about so and so not rotating and matching making needs fixed or if someone is on block list not to let said person on their team. Even beyond that you have these same people complaining that something is OverPowered. If you want to complain about anything, complain about the over use of “OP”. Its used so much that I do not think people actually know what it means anymore.
A few things that people consider OP- Condi mesmer, Turret Engi(prenerf), D/D ele(pre cele nerf), Bunker mesmer(prenerf), Mesmer in general(Its a curse I think), Trap Dragon Hunter, Druid(both pre and post nerf), etc.
Everything listed above, except d/d ele, had ways to work around it or are so easy to defeat when you learn how they work that there is not really anything “OP” about them. We literally could still have 66% alacrity if people realized that simply the removal of quickness rez(which is rather silly to me in the first place since its been around for idk.. 3 years? Its only a problem when mesmer is doing it. Pattern? I think not.) and the removal of cele amulet. That alone would have made some teams drop bunker mesmer in my opinion.
But, since the average player complained, loudly, about all of those build and amulets even, they got nerfed. Some so hard they don’t exist anymore.
So essentially I believe its more important to base your buffs and nerfs not off the average player, but the above average player. That small group of players that isn’t here to complain everything is too hard and they cant do it because they are a casual. The ones that get on and maybe they’ve made it to ESL’s tournies but never won, the ones that do Raids every day and just cant finish it because they are trying to work with what they have but dont give up and say this is to hard, or the poor deprived people in WvW that actually want to have a good experience while there. Those are the people balance should be made around. The average player in GW2 cant dodge, doesnt know that the longest stealth available to a mesmer is 5 seconds long and on a 90 second untraited CD. Or that if you stand in a hundred blades you probably will die. Or Red Circles are bad. When you say average and refer to GW2 in the same sentence thats what comes to my mind.
Sachyi Asuna. A [KING]’s Mesmer Unified Kingdom
the average player xD that guys that dodges twice to scepter auto’kittens into scepter 2 eats 2 full shatters while you use shield block hits scepter 2 again then runs in a circle spamming 1 with all that torment and confusion.
then crys op with a 10 message all caps montage in whisper chat telling you to l2p and the games unbalanced.
you cant balance games on the average because that’s not balance, balance is set off when played perfectly X is equal to Y in most scenarios. and if that means its “too hard” for a “casual” then there not suited to competitive games and should stick to the content in gw that is designed for casual play such as world bosses and dungeons where no1 really cares what you use because people are just doing it. people who play once in awhile, or don’t spend time to improve there skills have no right to turn up to pvp/wvw/raids and cry and ball on forums/PM’s about balance. if things work like that im going to start sending angry letter to the violin makers with some QQ about how my violin just makes screeches compared to the guy on youtube’s violin and they should buff it so it screeches less even though i know i just suck at it. you gotta practice to be good hence why balance needs to be set off those who get good.
But, since the average player complained, loudly, about all of those build and amulets even, they got nerfed. Some so hard they don’t exist anymore.
So essentially I believe its more important to base your buffs and nerfs not off the average player, but the above average player.
It wasn’t just below average players complaining about the bunker meta. Top PvP players hated it too. The over nerfs seem to be Anets form of completely stomping out a playstyle and trying to create a meta shift. Whether or not Anet failed (success in changing meta, failure to properly shave), that’s another discussion to be had.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w
Decent series to watch for insight into game balance and just game dev in general. Again, whether or not Anet succeeded is another discussion BUT balance needs to be done at multiple skill levels of the game. It’s not a black and white that everyone is making it out to be with balance being done at one level.
http://imgur.com/JUh19RP
This was me casually throwing together a DPS mesmer after the “scepter buff patch.” Exotic Scepter+Accuracy. Ascended sword with strength because as you can see, my might still wasn’t capped in the ranged group. Rune of chrono because I didn’t bother swapping armor. Forgot to actually equip the scepter trait too >.<. Anyhow, average of about 13k per swordsman attack. Every 3.2 seconds x 3 = 11k DPS from just the phantasms. Before people say “BUT setup time and phases!” I have a weapon swap and the boss goes invulnerable for several second each swap. 9 conditions on the boss would have made staff fine. I prefer getting 3 swordsman up when possible as they don’t get blocked by the red circles. They also keep the ferocity bonus at about 6 stacks. So 1 offhand phantasm, sword/6/sword then another swordsman when ready.
Melee wise, hammer guard, thief and D/WH ele will do more than a DPS mesmer. For people saying Mesmer DPS is poor, have most of you actually run a DPS meter on the ranged team? Like do you actually know how much meta builds do when they are constantly moving the green circles? And when VG is constantly stepping out of your AOEs. The guildies I run with that use a DPS meter usually average out 11k by the end of the fight on ranged condi engineers if not worst. Personally, I hit about 16-18k on condi necro in phase 1 then I drop down to 12k by the end of the fight on the DPS meter. If 3 swordsman/staff phantasms = 11k DPS and only have a build up of 4 seconds, base power mesmer competes with other ranged DPS classes. That 22k Scepter #3 is just a bonus!
Most of us typing here have been playing for 3+ years and while the idea of an easily pivoting mesmer or bad pugs is a distant/forgotten memory to us, doesn’t mean these players don’t exist in fotm/dungeons. We also have very little of an idea as for what the new raid wing(s) will look like. If slothazar or the other bosses are more like VG which requires constant movement of both the boss and a ranged team, base mesmer DPS will be a thing because most above average skill players on meta builds will not reach anywhere near the theoretical maximum of said build. If there aren’t more body blocking red orbs, staff/MoP spam could be a thing. If there are environmental/conjure weapons happening in raids, only the mesmer can maintain 11k DPS WHILE holding an environmental weapon or just not attacking at all. Even with 1 chrono providing quickness, another base mesmers using TW & SoI to share quickness and other boons around means that the chrono doesn’t have to go ham on the quickness/boon duration. Could we use a buff to base mesmer DPS still? Yes, phantasms could inherit more of our damage modifiers. We could use a huge buff to sword auto attacks in both PvE and PvP. Regardless of needed buffs to be equal to pure melee meta builds, DPS Mesmer may still have it’s uses in future raid wings. Chrono team buffs will still be a thing too.
When we say “the average” player, what we really mean is the median.
(___x___)(____________ y __________________)(_ z_ )
x = new players for which DPS and stat discussions are irrelevant
y = the majority of players, who do 60+ fractals occasionally and like to raid with their guild / pugs. Prefer to play their favorite professions and are probably trying to craft their 1st, 2nd legendary as we speak. What I would refer to as “the average player” who makes “mistakes” in fractals/raids
z = the professionals and zealots for whom the theoretical “max DPS” is relevant. They are supposedly immune to human error
(edited by Alex Shatter.7956)
x = new players for which DPS and stat discussions are irrelevant
y = the majority of players, who do 60+ fractals occasionally and like to raid with their guild / pugs. Prefer to play their favorite professions and are probably trying to craft their 1st, 2nd legendary as we speak. What I would refer to as “the average player” who makes “mistakes” in fractals/raids
TIL I am a new player :P
(Personal Fractal level 42 despite playing since day and logging in every day :P )
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
@DuckDuckBoom:
VG is basically the best case scenario for mesmer dps. He’s highly mobile, half the group has to be out of melee range for a significant portion of the fight, and no aoe dps is required. If you change any of those 3 qualifiers, Mesmer dps instantly becomes far worse. Needing aoe basically bricks our entire toolset. A stationary boss means persistent aoe stuff from tempests does unreal damage. Allowing everybody to be melee range means we lose any advantage of having phantasms attack instead of us.
Yes, Mesmer damage is competitive on a spreadsheet, but it requires are very specific set of circumstances to be realistically competitive. Right now, only VG comes close to meeting those requirements, every other encounter is far worse. The only other possible example is the thaumanova anomaly, but since most people would rather tear their hair out than do that fight, I think we can safely neglect it.
@Pyro
Did you not read my whole post? I explicitly say that the Mesmer DPS doesn’t compare to melee classes on stationary targets and we need a sword buff to be competitive to other melee DPS. And no, raw mesmer DPS is not competitive on a spreadsheet. It’s the exact opposite. It’s only competitive as more factors that mess with melee DPS from (below) average players are tossed into the scenario. While the OP may be wrong in comparing himself to only bad players, there is merit to the idea that Mesmers “pivot” really well. It also means we swap targets/aoe very poorly. Our damage also isn’t affected much by quickness and alacrity which is both a boon and curse depending on the situation.
Again:
Most of us typing here have been playing for 3+ years and while the idea of an easily pivoting mesmer or bad pugs is a distant/forgotten memory to us, doesn’t mean these players don’t exist in fotm/dungeons. We also have very little of an idea as for what the new raid wing(s) will look like.
New raid wings is sort of like starting over again. As people are learning brand new mechanics for fights, I would much rather have a bunch of Sc/Sw mesmers or Sc/P condi mesmers than average players trying new squishy meta builds that are focusing too much on rotations/ positioning of their build rather than mechanics/ positioning of the fight. Unless a fight has environmental weapons built into the mechanics, at current balance, stacking Mesmers won’t be a thing for records. That doesn’t mean that it won’t have it’s moments for more raid wings as a “noob” friendly build / ranged team DPS. Despite the fact that hammer DH is “3rd highest DPS,” most pugs still don’t accept them because people have been foolishly bashing on them for so long in raids. I’m not asking you to over sell the Mesmer to everyone but do it justice for what it can do. It’s pretty decent at either pivoting or team buffing. If the new raid wing has no fights where mobility is important, I will be surprised/sad with the Raid team’s lack of “creativity” going forward.
Greetings.
Um don’t daredevils and revenants barely get any boost from alacrity and at that point another DPS class is better as it just straight up does more damage than the boost a Mesmer gives?
Daredevils and Guardians get barely a dps boost from alacrity yes. This means they are aa-focused -> quickness boosts them. This makes the Mesmer even better since they get boosted by 50% instead of only 33%.
Also please stop calling it passive DPS, it is not passive. You are buffing party dps, there is exactly 0 passive play in the entire thing and you only make your arguments harder to follow by using made up phrases.
The term passive damage has nothing to do with passive play. It means that you do not deal the damage active by yourself. It’s the damage others deal more (the difference!) because of your presence, We called it passive damage since a very long time, it’s not something I made up and it ain’t gonna change.
Ok firstly quickness does not equal a 50% boost, you even thinking that shows you have no understanding of the game.
Secondly please find me a reference of anyone other than yourself referring to party buffing as passive damage. I have not seen anyone refer to it other than you, no-one from DnT, rT or any of the guides I have read, not even a Google search brings up your warped definition of “passive damage”.
Ok firstly quickness does not equal a 50% boost, you even thinking that shows you have no understanding of the game.
Oh? Mind elaborating this one? And don’t forget we talked about this:
Um don’t daredevils and revenants barely get any boost from alacrity and at that point another DPS class is better as it just straight up does more damage than the boost a Mesmer gives?
Daredevils and Guardians get barely a dps boost from alacrity yes. This means they are aa-focused -> quickness boosts them. This makes the Mesmer even better since they get boosted by 50% instead of only 33%.
I’m all ears.
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
@Pyro
Did you not read my whole post? I explicitly say that the Mesmer DPS doesn’t compare to melee classes on stationary targets and we need a sword buff to be competitive to other melee DPS. And no, raw mesmer DPS is not competitive on a spreadsheet. It’s the exact opposite. It’s only competitive as more factors that mess with melee DPS from (below) average players are tossed into the scenario.
No, this isn’t really quite right. Mesmer dps is actually quite competitive on a spreadsheet. 18k-20k dps in a condie build is very solid in the current dps environment, so raw spreadsheet dps isn’t the issue. The issue is that there are tons of very common things that make that spreadsheet dps drop drastically or become meaningless in other ways.
So, in order for our dps to be relevant, we need the perfect storm of avoiding the factors that make our dps bad while combining factors that make other class’ dps bad. VG is very close to that perfect storm.
New raid wings is sort of like starting over again. As people are learning brand new mechanics for fights, I would much rather have a bunch of Sc/Sw mesmers or Sc/P condi mesmers than average players trying new squishy meta builds that are focusing too much on rotations/ positioning of their build rather than mechanics/ positioning of the fight. Unless a fight has environmental weapons built into the mechanics, at current balance, stacking Mesmers won’t be a thing for records.
I think you are drastically overestimating the difficulty of dpsing on non mesmer classes.
Daredevil rotation: 1111
Guardian rotation: 1111
Rev rotation: 121212
Staff ele: 521521521
The other classes excepting FA ele and engineer aren’t much more difficult. It doesn’t take a genius to play those correctly. The only situation in where even mediocre players would be better off on mesmer than those classes would an aggressively mobile and melee-hostile fight. I sorta doubt we’re gonna see one.
Ok firstly quickness does not equal a 50% boost, you even thinking that shows you have no understanding of the game.
Oh? Mind elaborating this one? And don’t forget we talked about this:
Um don’t daredevils and revenants barely get any boost from alacrity and at that point another DPS class is better as it just straight up does more damage than the boost a Mesmer gives?
Daredevils and Guardians get barely a dps boost from alacrity yes. This means they are aa-focused -> quickness boosts them. This makes the Mesmer even better since they get boosted by 50% instead of only 33%.
I’m all ears.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/The-actual-effect-of-quickness-and-alacrity
So the alacrity nerf from 66% to 33% changes this 50%-66% boost to a 33%-50% boost.
boost to a 33%-50% boost.
-50% boost
Think, before you talk.
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
So the alacrity nerf from 66% to 33% changes this 50%-66% boost to a 33%-50% boost.
boost to a 33%-50% boost.
-50% boost
Think, before you talk.
First some basic facts:
- Skills have a cast time, an aftercast time and a cooldown.
- Cooldown starts expiring AFTER aftercast has finished.
- Using another skill or doing an action may interrupt the aftercast (going to take a better look at this tomorrow).
- Quickness increases casting speed by 50%. This reduces cast times by 33%.
- Alacrity increases recharge speed by 66%. This reduces cooldowns by 40%.
Read and think before you mindlessly quote things. You were saying quickness is a 50% boost, it is not.
Wethospu is talking about the effects of both alacrity and quickness and the things I raised was on daredevil and revenant where alacrity is not a factor.
But then again this is what we expect from the guy that criticised the guide by Sandy without actually reading it.
Edit: Just read the whole thing and you’ll see that saying someone has quickness (and/or alacrity) isn’t as simple as going BAM 50%-66% more damage.
(edited by apharma.3741)
Let’s repeat again:
Daredevils and Guardians get barely a dps boost from alacrity. Both have only 1 or a few utility skills wich are dps increases, so we can (almost) ignore them.
They are aa-focused professions. Auto attacks, as you might know, have no CD.
The cast time of auto attacks gets reduced by 33%, aka you can do 50% more auto attacks in the same time. Or in other words: they get boosted by 50% instead of only 33% like for example an Engineer who’s aresenal consists of almost only CD skills.
Are we good?
Oh and it’s 33%-50% now.
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”