Guild Wars 2

I want to preface this post by saying I enjoy my mesmer for the most part. I’ve played it since the first BWE, and nothing will separate me from its magenta beams and butterflies. Nevertheless, I feel several parts of the class are not up to par on a PvE environment.

1-The iMage needs help. Offhand weapon options are wasted — you take the pistol for ranged phantasm uptime and CC, or you take offhand sword for phantasm damage and defense. The Warden is held back because it is stationary and spawns in such a way that only melee will really benefit from the reflection, while much of his damage is wasted because he will not move while channeling unlike real Rangers. I will go more into the iMage’s failings in the following point.

2- Confusion is too niche and build dependent. I find that Cry of Frustration is dead weight unless you trait for longer confusion duration and traits that upfront more stacks. At the rate mobs in PvE attack, I’m lucky if one tick of Confusion makes it in. Confusion simply lasts too little in PvE, and for a condition that’s meant to stack in intensity (implying ramp up), that’s a strange design.

The iMage from the torch and scepter are barely used outside niche builds for this very reason — Confusion is nowhere near as flexible as power and precision or bleed/burn damage staff builds. It requires too much jumping through hoops to shine. The iMage applies too few stacks to compete against other phantasms — its stack application should be closer to 5 stacks to get even close to matching the relative output of other phantasms. Confusing Images’s wind-up animation seems too long as well.

My Cry of Frustration confusion stacks tick once or twice for less than 1/5 the damage of each clone Mindwrack.

I really don’t understand why CoF and the scepter/torch need to be tied to such niche builds when all the other shatters and weapons function well on a variety of trait builds and stat allocations. The staff itself has a flexibility between power and cond damage builds, whereas the scepter needs to be held up by confusion related traits and condition damage to approach to being a competitive weapon. Its defensive properties don’t outrank those of the staff or sword particularly to justify its current status.

3- Minors: Domination suffers from poor minors, as does Inspiration’s first tier. Domination gives vulnerability on a very short duration from dazing/interrupting; Wastrel’s Punishment is not good. I think what most mesmers have realized is that our interruption/CC capability is wildly outclassed by engineers and warriors. We have a daze on a 45s cd shatter, one on the pistol offhand, and one on the sword offhand, so our effect uptimes for these traits are minimal. We have some utility options for dazing/interruption, but I will address what prevents their usage most of the time since we also suffer utility limitations. The Inspiration minor oddly places retaliation on phantasms, when it could be so much more useful if it functioned like regeneration and worked on teammates.

4- Utility limitations: We have a problem with stun breakers. They’re a mandatory utility slot in many situations, particularly dungeons. It was expressed earlier that we would have trait and utility options to choose from as anti-spike measures. That’s not the case right now.

Mirror of Anguish simply cannot compete with Decoy/Blink/Mirror Image because it has twice the cooldown and doesn’t actually break a CC, but rather reflects it. That reflection is only really useful somewhat in PvP, because in PvE many of the mobs that have lethal CC are resistant to CC themselves, so that reflection is wasted. A 90 second cooldown anti-spike measure simply isn’t sufficient at the frequency spike happens, and because MoA doesn’t actually break the CC, you’re still taking the full brunt of the spike most of the time even if one mob is CC’d with you.

We then have Signet of Midnight: The boon duration passive is only good if you couple it with signet of inspiration, and even then a 10% duration boost is minor considering the duration of boons given by signet of inspiration. Mesmers have a dearth of access to boons and more universal debuffs like Weakness and Blind. I think signet of midnight would be far more desirable if that boon duration passive were switched for a passive speed boost. It fits its defensive nature as well since it is a stun breaker, so you would be trading long term defensive capacity for immediate defense.

The mesmer also suffers from redundant utilities. Mimick simply cannot match Mirrored Feedback, Phantasmal Disenchanter brings all the problems of shatter-tied AI, making it not competitive with Null Field or Mantra of Resolve. Mantra of Concentration cannot compete with Decoy or Blink in a PvE scenario because Decoy provides an aggro drop and Blink repositions. Mantra of Pain is a straight dps loss and its spike is insufficient in PvE. There are too many utilities that do the same thing, and the problem with that is that some will emerge as better, and the other ones will simply not be used. Shadow Refuge is a much better version of Veil of Invisibility or Mass Invisibility — mesmer invisibility traits need more perks as they seem too niche and their cooldowns too long. It seems like the mesmer needs to trait heavily in order to be able to support his allies in more than just projectile reflection or condition removal. Portal, Null Field, and Mirrored Feedback stand as the better examples of mesmer utilities.

5- Some clones are better than others. Sword clones cripple. Staff clones debuff. Part of the reason why scepter clones and greatsword clones suffer is because they require trait support to offer any use to a team, be it greatsword clones with Sharpened Images or Scepter clones with on clone death traits. All clones should offer something baseline, though it’s fine that said something is not damage, but rather utility.

6- AoE needs some help. Yes, I can conjure on different targets and shatter, but Mindwrack’s AoE is more cumbersome and requires careful execution, while still coming short in AoE capability to other classes. If I need AoE, I need to trait for illusionary elasticity, use a staff and a greatsword and awkwardly try to keep up with elementalists and engineers and guardians and warriors.

7- Mantra channel times need to come down. They’re too long and create too much dead time in a PvE environment where fights are far more protracted than short encounters in PvP.

8- Diversion could go back to being AoE if clone count won’t affect Daze duration. The lack of difference in clone shatter yields for this shatter undervalues its usage.

This brings me to my last point: Skills will need to be split. I feel that too many PvE mesmers are being held back by PvP class resentment. We mesmers were told by the end of BWE3 that mesmers and necros were due attention and would be receiving changes. By release, we only got revamped weapon cooldown traits. Some weeks later, it has been a flurry of nerfs related to PvP balance. It’s a real bummer for mesmers trying to PvE to feel the collateral damage of PvP balancing.

Mantra of Pain is a straight dps loss and its spike is insufficient in PvE.

The spike is sufficient for solo PvE. It will help eradicate the first mob very quickly. Its cooldown also synergizes well for a restorative mantra build.

Mirror of Anguish simply cannot compete with Decoy/Blink/Mirror Image because it has twice the cooldown and doesn’t actually break a CC, but rather reflects it.

Why are you trying to comare a trait with a utility slot ability?

Mirror of Anguish is pretty nifty if your opponent is vulnerable to CC. If many champion-level mobs are immune to CC … ohwell? Many traits work better in PvE or better in PvP. That’s why you have many options for traits.

Sword clones cripple.

No, Sword clones apply vulnerability and may or may not strip a boon on the third hit. The cripple on iLeap is specific to the leap that the clone does when it spawns and leaps for a target. Not sure if the clone ever leaps again after the first time, though. Pretty sure it doesn’t but I could be wrong.

Also, there’s no reason for “all clones to offer something baseline”. They already offer baseline capabilities: distraction, meatshield, projectile absorber, and can be shattered for additional effects. Naturally, they can also be traited with any of a dozen traits for more effects.

There’s no reason for “more baseline” effects than already exist, because there’s no build where you’re going to sit there and avoid the billion ways you can augment them.

Alright, I’ll go through the list:
1. I can’t argue with you there about the iMage. it does nothing useful, but that doesn’t put torch in the useless category. prestige can throw many people off(esp. thiefs).

2/3. Yes, confusion is build dependent but i suggest you try 20 in domination and 20 in illusions. get 3 clones, then hit F3. if you interrupt, congratulations! 25 stacks of vulnerability, and 3 confusion. it’s worth it.

4. MIRROR IMAGES. i don’t know why not to use it, unless you go decoy, for some reason.

5. I think it’s fine the way it is.

6. I agree. it’s kind of ridiculous how we have a shatter and a few fields for aoe. definite problem

7. Mantras either A) need cast time reduction and/or to be reworked completely. the heal is weak, the dmg is ok, the stability is weak, and the daze is the only other one worth using, and it’s not that good.

8. I think it’s fine as a trait point, only because everytime i hit diversion, I see 25 stacks of vuln.

Not sure if the clone ever leaps again after the first time, though. Pretty sure it doesn’t but I could be wrong.

This is what the cast time is there for. If you dodge right after the start of iLeap, the clone won’t launch. The clone spawns as soon as you press 3, but the launch is after the cast time.

I wasn’t even aware it was AoE before. Would you imagine AoE Diversion coupled with iPersona? There has to be reason that both are GM traits. Sure, Imbued Diversion is underwhelmed, but if you could have both, that’d be too much, imo. I’m fine with how it is atm.

@gymdawg: Diversion gives vulnerability?

Yeah there’s a Minor trait in Dom that adds that.

With a 20 Dom / 30 Illusion build, you press F3 and get 8 stacks of vuln. With Elasticity and GS, you throw a Mirror Blade for 9 stacks of vuln. With Vuln on Shatter (major trait in Dom), you will get more stacks of vuln when you F3.

So that’s around 25 stacks if you cycle a combo of Shatters on top of a Mirror Blade.

EasymodeX, I go the trait in Dom that gives 3 vuln per shatter. that’s 9. then dazes apply 3, another 9, and if it interrupts, another 3, so 21. w/o the 2nd skill. it’s amazing.

I will call you out on one count.

*1- Mage needs help yes, but iWarden is a fantastic weapon, it’s simply a matter of mastering it’s usage and coming up with working attack chains ie:

• Leap
• Temporal Curtain → Into the void
• Warden
• Swap
• Blurred frenzy

Warden (Focus in general) is fantastic for just about every PvE scenario since it allows you to reduce large groups of foes into a farmable ball and provides the AoE to follow it up.

But most of the thread is on point and very true. Of course we’ve been arguing this since beta til we’re blue in the face and anet just responds with nerfs rather than improvements so… they certainly like to let us know where we can stuff our suggestions.

Rending Shatter is 1 vuln per shatter http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rending_Shatter

Unless it’s working differently in-game. So a 4x Diversion (with IP) will stack:

4 (rending shatter) + 4 (minor trait for vuln on daze) = 8

Interrupt will happen a max of once, so 9 stacks. Elasticity MB will add 9 more stacks. If you rollface F1/F2/F4 you will get more stacks, particularly if you combo with Mirror Images or other illusion-generation abilities.

Oh yeah, I had forgot about Dazzling(Dom15).

Edit- With Rending Shatter, I got 25 vulnerability with 3 clones +iP. Me alone gives 6(7 interrupt). What the.
(Edit again) Make that 5(or 6 with interrupt), the 6th(or 7th with interrupt) was my weapon auto

Rending Shatter is 1. MW and CoF inflict 1 vulnerability. As for Diversion, Dazzling gives 4? If Dazzling would last a little bit longer, maybe I’d consider it over Mental Torment..

Ah, well if Rending is actually 2 per then that will be what, 12 off a a Diversion x4. Throw in the other stuff. Whee.

Sidenote: Not sure what you’re talking about “consider it over Mental Torment”. Dazzling is a Minor Trait.

EasymodeX.4062:

Ah, well if Rending is actually 2 per then that will be what, 12 off a a Diversion x4. Throw in the other stuff. Whee.

Sidenote: Not sure what you’re talking about “consider it over Mental Torment”. Dazzling is a Minor Trait.

Well, if it lasted longer than 3s, maybe I’d hop for vulnerability stacking, as it’s as much as 20% from MW, but for anything(and helps others, if the mob doesn’t have 25 already). As for Rending, my bad, kitten auto attack, I need to turn it off, it’s 1.

Lol. Yeah well, it pretty much depends whether your build is focused on Mind Wrack versus being focused on spamming all the Shatters (I used a particular sPvP build that did that; at 2 stacks of Vuln, Rending sounds useful there).

I want to guide this thread I created to balance considerations being those of high end PvE, that is, dungeons. I don’t care that MoP helps kill one regular mob in solo PvE — solo PvE isn’t hard and you can easily do without it.

As per the comment on trait vs. utility slot, obviously you haven’t been here since early development. Jon Peters had discussed that they wanted to let people make decisions whether they would gain anti spike or condition removal measures via traits, or utility slots. It’s a customization choice. If you have an issue with that, then argue the position with the developer.

It still doesn’t detract that when a utility slot has to become reserved, playstyle variety and build variety is dampened. You have lesser opportunity to bring other utilities because bringing a condition removal and a stun breaker utility to dungeons isn’t optional. So instead of customizing your playstyle based on 3 utilities, you only truly have one free utility slot, and of those utilities available, many of them crowd the same function.

Guardian, Elementalist, and Ranger utilities offer an example of variety in function, where you don’t get so many utilities doing exactly the same thing (remove conditions, reflect a projectile).

EasymodeX.4062:

Rending Shatter is 1 vuln per shatter http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rending_Shatter

Unless it’s working differently in-game. So a 4x Diversion (with IP) will stack:

4 (rending shatter) + 4 (minor trait for vuln on daze) = 8

Interrupt will happen a max of once, so 9 stacks. Elasticity MB will add 9 more stacks. If you rollface F1/F2/F4 you will get more stacks, particularly if you combo with Mirror Images or other illusion-generation abilities.

If that’s the case, it is most likely broken. I consistently get 25 stacks in PvP. maybe the vuln. on interrupt is like 3 per daze? im not sure.

As per the comment on trait vs. utility slot, obviously you haven’t been here since early development. Jon Peters had discussed that they wanted to let people make decisions whether they would gain anti spike or condition removal measures via traits, or utility slots. It’s a customization choice. If you have an issue with that, then argue the position with the developer.

It still doesn’t detract that when a utility slot has to become reserved, playstyle variety and build variety is dampened. You have lesser opportunity to bring other utilities because bringing a condition removal and a stun breaker utility to dungeons isn’t optional. So instead of customizing your playstyle based on 3 utilities, you only truly have one free utility slot, and of those utilities available, many of them crowd the same function.

1. Your comparison is absurd. First, any particular ability or trait in the game will not be equally valuable between different game formats. Hence the ability to customize.

2. Mirror of Anguish is not “condition removal”. Hence it has no direct relevance to your cited “developer statements in early development” (which also, for what it’s worth, have little relevance to GW2 circa October 2012).

3. Mesmers have several condition removal options via traits or utility slots, further removing your example from anything the developer specifically cited.

4. If we are, in fact, talking about Effect immunity/removal/cancelling (e.g. countering Stun/Daze/Knockdown), you’d probably want to consider the following:

- Other classes have very thin trait-based Effect counters.

- Mirroring the effect on the user is great for anything save Immune mobs in PvE (e.g. very few mob types). For champs that have the buffer, Mirror of Anguish should reduce that buffer. In PvP, the ability basically works as intended, although you could find issue with the long internal cooldown.

- Mesmers have the unique capability to use Distortion and gain invulnerability WHILE affected by an Effect. This is different than most classes (although some other classes have other useful defensive capabilities while affected by a CC), and give Mesmers an inherent advantage. Mesmers can even spec for Illusory Persona to make this more accessible / more potent.

Just because Blink and Decoy are Too Good™, doesn’t mean that the Mesmer is forced into them simply for countering Effects.

Who said Mirror of Anguish was condition removal? When developers referred to anti-spike traits, they were compared to stun breakers. Whether other classes have sufficient traits is besides the point — just because other classes fail to meet a development goal does not mean that development goal should cease to exist.

Either way, you have quite a history of being the resident forum contrarian, so I’ll leave you to your witch hunts as I don’t care for having my thread hijacked by a never-ending argument with you.

No problem.

As long as other readers of this forum realize Mesmers have F4 and most classes don’t (e.g. Mesmers are in a better position to counter spike without resorting to utilities like Decoy/Blink), that’s good enough.

Oh, and phase retreat.

And like I said, citing ancient developer comments for GW2 balance today is silly in the first place … but it is good for a laugh.

1. I can’t argue with you there about the iMage. it does nothing useful, but that doesn’t put torch in the useless category. prestige can throw many people off(esp. thiefs).

Nope. Prestige doesn’t untarget you, so if they had you targeted when you used it, they can still see and attack you in stealth.

gymdawg.6347:

2/3. Yes, confusion is build dependent but i suggest you try 20 in domination and 20 in illusions. get 3 clones, then hit F3. if you interrupt, congratulations! 25 stacks of vulnerability, and 3 confusion. it’s worth it.

How are you getting 25 stacks? There’s three from Rending Images, one from Illusion of Vulnerability, and three from Dazzling. That’s seven, not 25.

4. MIRROR IMAGES. i don’t know why not to use it, unless you go decoy, for some reason.

Decoy sacrifices a single clone but gives you an aggro drop in exchange. Unless you’re banking on Mirror Images as spike damage in a shatter build, you should always go Decoy instead.

8. I think it’s fine as a trait point, only because everytime i hit diversion, I see 25 stacks of vuln.

If so then that’s a bug because it shouldn’t be anywhere near that strong from the tooltip descriptions.

I’m sure it’s a bug, but i think the bug is coming from the stacking vuln on interrupt, the max it should do is around 12, but i think if you interrupt, it adds another 9 to it, making it 21. so the extra 4 is a mystery.

And the fact that prestige doesn’t drop aggro is ridiculous. that needs to be fixed.

gymdawg.6347:

I’m sure it’s a bug, but i think the bug is coming from the stacking vuln on interrupt, the max it should do is around 12, but i think if you interrupt, it adds another 9 to it, making it 21. so the extra 4 is a mystery.

And the fact that prestige doesn’t drop aggro is ridiculous. that needs to be fixed.

Where are you getting 12 from!? Please explain to me how 3 + 3= 12.

I’d argue that even given PvP, Confusion needs to last substantially longer (+200% ~ +300%), in return for doing less damage.

I want Confusion to be something which the enemy either has to clear, or worry about hot using skills at the most rapid pace. In PvE, I want it to be a semi-reliable sort of reactive damage, not higher in raw damage than Burning or Bleeding, but lasting much longer to make up for the enemy having to attack.

I’d do the following:

sPvP

• Reduce damage dealt by 20%
• Increase duration by 150%.

WvW

• Reduce damage dealt by ~50%
• Increase duration by 200%

PvE

• Reduce damage dealt by ~35% – 40%
• Increase duration by 300%+

Considering how much uptime I can maintain on pretty high stacks of Confusion, I don’t think the extremity of those numbers are anywhere near necessary.

What is “much uptime”? Are we talking 25% uptime on 10 stacks? Because I consider that too spikey. I’d prefer 50% uptime on 5 stacks then.

The thing is that the minor trait in Dom adds confusion for every shatter you do, so if you have IP and fast clone generation, you can cycle pretty loaded shatters F1 through F4.

I had an sPvP build where I actually went for condition damage with that approach and I was able to maintain pretty much 100% uptime on ~3-7 stacks, with spikes up to 10-15 stacks depending on circumstances. I mean, 5 stacks was really trivial — you just have to shatter once every 5 seconds, and in that build I shattered every ~3s until I ran out of cooldowns.

Then again I wasn’t really focusing on confusion exclusively, so I didn’t really eyeball how many stacks for how long. The build also didn’t use Glamours or the Confusion on Blind, which it probably should have — the build was a bit experimental.

In any case, the point was that I think the notion of extending the duration and reducing the potency may have merit, but those are very extreme adjustments.

Maybe increasing the base duration by 25-33% and reducing the damage by 20% or something.

Carighan.6758:

I’d argue that even given PvP, Confusion needs to last substantially longer (+200% ~ +300%), in return for doing less damage.

I want Confusion to be something which the enemy either has to clear, or worry about hot using skills at the most rapid pace. In PvE, I want it to be a semi-reliable sort of reactive damage, not higher in raw damage than Burning or Bleeding, but lasting much longer to make up for the enemy having to attack.

I’d do the following:

sPvP

• Reduce damage dealt by 20%
• Increase duration by 150%.

WvW

• Reduce damage dealt by ~50%
• Increase duration by 200%

PvE

• Reduce damage dealt by ~35% – 40%
• Increase duration by 300%+

I pointed out the problem with confusion because its duration means the condition is currently underpowered in most builds.

The condition as a whole is problematic, because if we adopt your suggestion, what is the difference between it and Bleeding? At the moment Confusion feels superfluous in PvE and replacing it with Bleed would see no much symbolic loss while giving better returns.

Confusion needs identity. Mobs in PvE don’t make a decision whether to attack or not based on the Confusion stack.

Yeah, that issue was brought up in beta. We wondered whether mobs would stop attacking at certain levels of confusion, but Anet simply replied they attack and take damage like good little mobs. Yeah, like bleed.

I say keep the duration short, but increase damage in PVE so it acts like a little spike if you time large stacks right, but it’s just a little pressure damage if you only maintain a few stacks.

The damage in PvE is already increased over sPvP.

It would be differentiated from Bleeding because it does more damage – in return for actually having the target be attacking to do any damage at all.

Gaiawolf.8261:

Yeah, that issue was brought up in beta. We wondered whether mobs would stop attacking at certain levels of confusion, but Anet simply replied they attack and take damage like good little mobs. Yeah, like bleed.

I say keep the duration short, but increase damage in PVE so it acts like a little spike if you time large stacks right, but it’s just a little pressure damage if you only maintain a few stacks.

It’s sort of a catch-22, because Confusion either function likes a bleed as pressure damage, or it steps on Burning’s toes if we decide it’s better off as a spikey condition with duration instead.

It feels like a redundant condition when it should be different from the others — they repurposed Poison for this very reason.

What if Confusion had effectively unlimited duration (generally speaking, talking 30s+ here), but each time it dealt damage, it lost a stack? Or maybe even by health, if target is below X% health after taking damage, all stacks are discarded?

Zenith.7301:

Gaiawolf.8261:

Yeah, that issue was brought up in beta. We wondered whether mobs would stop attacking at certain levels of confusion, but Anet simply replied they attack and take damage like good little mobs. Yeah, like bleed.

I say keep the duration short, but increase damage in PVE so it acts like a little spike if you time large stacks right, but it’s just a little pressure damage if you only maintain a few stacks.

It’s sort of a catch-22, because Confusion either function likes a bleed as pressure damage, or it steps on Burning’s toes if we decide it’s better off as a spikey condition with duration instead.

It feels like a redundant condition when it should be different from the others — they repurposed Poison for this very reason.

There’s some strategy involved with short duration confusion that burning does not require, so the reward should be worth it. Burning is just straight DOT. I’d like to see confusion do even more damage than burning since it has a chance to not hit at all if your enemy does not use a skill. There was a reason why Backfire and Empathy did so much more damage than burning in GW; it was avoidable. That didn’t translate effectively to GW2.

My only complaint with Confusion is how buggy it is with stacking… I’ve seen my 10 stacks disappear even though I am applying it…

Each stack of stacking buffs or debuffs has a separate timer. Sounds like you inflicted all 10 stacks at the same time, so they disappeared at the same time.

Edit: That or it got removed if we’re talking PvP. I think there’s a rare PvE mob somewhere that has condition removals as well.