Guild Wars 2

I’m actually asking, here: is the change to the sword talent, which previously gave a stacking damage buff and now gives a stacking ferocity buff, an overall nerf? It feels that way, since you could rapidly stack it up to a +10% straight damage boost.

I’m curious as to why it was changed at all, to be honest. It felt like it was a good “tuning knob” for sword damage, and it’s not exactly like Mesmers are blowing up the DPS charts.

When did it give a stacking damage buff? The wiki has it listed as a stacking ferocity buff.

Fay.2357:

When did it give a stacking damage buff? The wiki has it listed as a stacking ferocity buff.

I’m not sure. I haven’t played my Mesmer in a little while now, and before that I was using a condition damage build. I heard that Sword was a good weapon for a support Chronomancer build so I examined the Dueling line and noticed what I believe to be a change.

I last remember it as a 2% buff per hit with a cap of 5 stacks for a straight 10% damage boost. I could be remembering it incorrectly, but I’m struggling to find a way to get to a 100% boon duration boost while maintaining a near-100% effective critical strike rate. to make the most of the talent.

Tiresias.6473:

I last remember it as a 2% buff per hit with a cap of 5 stacks for a straight 10% damage boost. I could be remembering it incorrectly, but I’m struggling to find a way to get to a 100% boon duration boost while maintaining a near-100% effective critical strike rate. to make the most of the talent.

I think you’re confusing Fencer’s Finesse with Harmonious Mantras.

You are very accurately describing the revenant sword trait: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vicious_Lacerations
Generally, 10% damage would be significantly better than 10% critical damage, but this the mesmer trait includes 20% cooldown reduction & affects phantasms so the mesmer trait isn’t completely outclassed.

Takashiro.8701:

Tiresias.6473:

I last remember it as a 2% buff per hit with a cap of 5 stacks for a straight 10% damage boost. I could be remembering it incorrectly, but I’m struggling to find a way to get to a 100% boon duration boost while maintaining a near-100% effective critical strike rate. to make the most of the talent.

I think you’re confusing Fencer’s Finesse with Harmonious Mantras.

I just looked it up and yes, this is the talent that I was thinking about. I guess I’ve been away from my Mesmer for too long.

Does anyone still play with Mantras? I remember them as being a powerful way to support large groups in open-world content, but they seem outclassed by what Chronomancers can do.

Maybe Mantras would see more play if they would synergize with continuum split (restore used charges when shifting back), but sadly they don’t.

I think the only time Mantras have ever seen serious play was for the short time that a “bug” made Mantras recharge passively in the background. It was a bit OPd for sure, but sadly Anet didn’t take notes to come up with a more balanced version of that to get Mantras some long long overdue improvements to mechanics/QoL.

Yes, Chrono does indeed make it hard to run Dueling at all, and with that Mantras. The only way to enjoy Mantras is with HM, and then HM has great synergies with Inspiration…but a Dueling/Insp/Chrono build just doesn’t really work. However, any build w/o Chrono also tends to have major drawbacks to meta builds with it.

Side Note: What I’m talking about is when you use HM with Ispiration and the Mantra heal, then every time you discharge that Heal Mantra, you get 2 stacks of HM. So it’s easy to get the max 15% damage boost.

Unfortunately, the age old 2.75 second channeling time that wasn’t even viable 5 years ago, is today so ludicrously outdated with the pace of PvP, that neither even free “+600 Toughness” during channeling nor the 2600 point heal from Inspiration at the end of the channel, makes up for it! That is the sad truth about Mantras. The traits are fine and even the Mantras themselves are “OK”, but the core mechanic has always been broken.

Simple Fix:
- 3x charges becomes baseline (no HM needed, at 2 charges they’re simply not worth it!)
- HM instead reduces channeling time of Mantras by ~33%

This would IMO bring Mantras back into play without making them OPd, and should give us some viable Dueling/Mantra build(s).

P.S. Oh and a Mantra Elite would be nice too. :P

Windwalker.7421:

Unfortunately, the age old 2.75 second channeling time that wasn’t even viable 5 years ago, is today so ludicrously outdated with today’s the pace of PvP, that neither even free “+600 Toughness” during channeling nor the 2600 point heal from Inspiration at the end of the channel, makes up for it! That is the sad truth about Mantras. The traits are fine and even the Mantras themselves are “OK”, but the core mechanic has always been broken.

This exactly. If you try to channel it, you’re most likely to either just be zerked down or interrupted.

What if Harmonious Mantras or Restorative Mantras would also give you 1 stack stability for 2-3 when you start channeling a mantra? Give it an 10-20 sec ICD so people can’t abuse it by canceling the channel and it should be fine.

@Windwalker – That’s a good start, we definitely need to have 3 charges baseline for mantras. And I also think that the base channel should be 2.5 seconds. I also think HM should be updated. The channel time reduction would be nice, but I want to see the damage buff be updated. Instead of 3% per stack to 5 stacks, make it 5% dmg/condition damage per stack, to 3 stacks. That way you could reach max stacks with only a single mantra on your bar, no need to have multiple mantras just to be ale to fully use one of the few dmg modifiers that mesmer has access to.