Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

First I am going to apologize for my bad english.
Attrition fighting is my favourite kind of PvP style. I almost exclusively play such roles (apart from power necro, but we all know what happened to necros now so let’s roll our eyes). Mesmer is one of my favourite classes in the game and probably the most interesting in terms of condition application. I am talking about the famous Condi Shatter or MtD.

Although it was already a good build for mid tier PvP and managed to stand on its own vs terrifying enemies like thieves, it seems the new mesmer changes are coming to pump it to a whole new level. All this is from a PvP perspective.

The minors of Chaos traitline are all great and will greatly help with surviving, what dazzled me the most is the Chaotic Dampening Master trait. Chaos armor already has a chance to give 5 sec protection when struck by an attack, now it will automatically give 5 sec protection when you activate Chaos armor. In staff you have skill 4 and skill 5 with the leap from skill 2. That’s two of them. Both giving 5 sec of protection and plus extra protection if we get struck (each boon, currently three, have 1sec internal CD). That’s a lot of protection.

And then you have the new Prismatic Understanding. Which makes the whole concept even worse.

Am I understanding something wrong here? That looks like a ridiculous amount of protection plus other defensive boons which get even longer by Chaotic Persistence Minor in CHAOS)
Sounds great and all, but a bit, too much? Perhaps the lack of condi cleanse will even things out, but vs non-cond builds we will be extremely survivable.

And on top of that. here is the changes that affect (or can affect) this playstyle:

DUELIST LINE:
Master:
- 1.5 projectile refl on dodge (great synergy with the mandatory energy sigils the MtD uses and the Critical Infusion -5sec vigor on crit)
or:
- Blind everyone around you every time you shatter (great synergy with the newly reduced shatter cooldowns) And MtD uses pretty much all three aggressive shatters constantly.

and a minor that has a chance to add more conf on critical from you or your clones (most MtD use rabid anyway so also great)

THE OTHER MANDATORY LINE:

ILLUSIONS:
- MtD now benefits from Illusionary Persona which became baseline.
- Master of Misdirection minor, increased confusion duration and even more shatter cd reduction.
- Malicious Sorcery grandmaster: 20% cd reduction on scepter and it attacks 15% faster for better clone production.

BASELINE TRAITS OR OTHER GOODIES, WE ALSO RECEIVED:
- Mesmer skills which create bouncing projectiles now bounce 1 additional time. (staff 1 yuhuuu)
- Using any shatter skill now creates the shatter effect on you as well by default. (Illusionary Persona)
- Reduced recharge on Glamour skills by 20%. (for those who run Portal or Null Field or Veil)
- Pistol skills used by you and your illusions have had their range increased to 1200 (for those who like to use Pistols and the new Duelist’s Discipline trait on DUELING)
- Chaos Storm – Increased poison duration from 2 seconds to 4 seconds. (not much but its a buff)
- Confusing Images: Added one additional strike to this skill. Strikes from this skill now display an additive total rather than individual hits. This skill now activates 50% faster. (That’s a big one, 1.5 sec cast time instead of 3 to a skill we use constantly and rely on dealing a lot of damage. Great synergy with the new scepter trait on Illusions)
- Ether Clone (Scepter skill 1 chain 3): Adjusted the timing of this attack to flow better with the other attacks in the chain. The projectile is now launched sooner, but he attack has slightly longer aftercast. The number of clones generated per second by this chain is unchanged. (less clunky auto attacks on one of our main weapons)
- Mass Invisibility: This skill is now classified as a Manipulation. (If you go Chaos traitline you can take Master of Manipulation, which will reduce that and your Blink’s CD by 20% and will add a Projective reflection effect after you use a Manipulation skill. Those who used Arcane Thievery or Mimic will be very happy too. Desperate Decoy in Duelist traitline says that it benefits from the Master of Manipulation even though decoy is a clone skill, so I dunno what’s up here)
- Mirror (heal skill): This skill is now classified as a manipulation. (no one is using that but someone might be now)
- Polymorph Moa: This skill has been renamed to “Signet of Humility” and is now classified as a signet skill. Its passive effect reduces the duration of stun, daze, fear and taunt by 20%. Its active effect remains unchanged. (CC reduction is always great to a class that suffers from lack of stability) Other’s will probably use Mass Invisibility which is also a Manipulation now. lol
- Phantasmal Mage: Instead of inflicting confusion on foes an granting retaliation on allies, this phantasm now inflicts 1 stack of burning for 6 seconds on foes an grants 3 seconds of fury to allies. (long burning is better than conf imo which will add another condition to protect our strong ones like Torment. Fury synergizes better with our On Crit traits than retal)

Now that’s only two traitlines and a bunch of buffs to pretty much anything. We have a third line to choose. Some of you might go Chaos, others might choose Inspiration while others will try the new Chrono. Although I am very tempted by the extra clone production, the superspeed on clones while shattering, the alacrity and the incredible F5 of the chrono, I think I am leaning towards Chaos to take advantage of it’s defense benefits.

Whether it is “Too much” will be decided by playtesting it the next few weaks. Remember there was a correction to torch so the phantasm bounces do not cleanse conditions. This means that if we take your version.

dueling, illusions, inspirations has no access to protection
dueling, illusions, chaos, has no access to meaningful condi removal without adding in a utility or sigil or rune.
dueling, illusions, chronomancy has no meaningful access to the previous two and must rely on utilities.

there is always a sacrifice.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Whether it is “Too much” will be decided by playtesting it the next few weaks. Remember there was a correction to torch so the phantasm bounces do not cleanse conditions. This means that if we take your version.

dueling, illusions, inspirations has no access to protection
dueling, illusions, chaos, has no access to meaningful condi removal without adding in a utility or sigil or rune.
dueling, illusions, chronomancy has no meaningful access to the previous two and must rely on utilities.

there is always a sacrifice.

your correct here, but MtD certainly becomes much more powerful after the patch.

Yup. I already love MtD more than power shatter. (coz I love confusion & torment and kitten those thieves who think ur easy to kill & then kill themselves with torment & confusion.)

But these changes really seem to buff condi and especially MtD mesmers quite a lot.

The buffs are not specific to build or class, they are to the viability of conditions in general. In the coming weeks we will see how stable things are. But the meta in pvp will shift. Hopefully we can get an equal mix of condition and power builds.

Very important, semi scary thing: resistance

One thing I forgot to mention is dueling, illusions, domination. This is the only build that can apply decent vulnerability and boon removal, but it is glass canon by nature. Bad access to condition removal, to defensive traits/protection, to enhanced utility.

No boon removal means no resistance removal which means sad time.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The buffs are not specific to build or class, they are to the viability of conditions in general. In the coming weeks we will see how stable things are. But the meta in pvp will shift. Hopefully we can get an equal mix of condition and power builds.

Very important, semi scary thing: resistance

One thing I forgot to mention is dueling, illusions, domination. This is the only build that can apply decent vulnerability and boon removal, but it is glass canon by nature. Bad access to condition removal, to defensive traits/protection, to enhanced utility.

No boon removal means no resistance removal which means sad time.

There are specific buffs to memser traits and indirectly MtD

resistance is the biggest reason to take arcane thievery

All of which and more we will need to stay even in the bad place Mesmers are currently in vs. the new and vastly improved Thieves, thanks to the devs in their infinite wisdom giving us no reveal tech, giving it instead to Engineers(?!) with Lock On.

Remember that most current condie based builds already counters most power based builds.
The reason that condie builds are not usually played at high level is because the meta features warrior, ele and guards who all bring a tremendous amount of condie cleanse. I don’t see the condie builds easily turn the table around.

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

All of which and more we will need to stay even in the bad place Mesmers are currently in vs. the new and vastly improved Thieves, thanks to the devs in their infinite wisdom giving us no reveal tech, giving it instead to Engineers(?!) with Lock On.

And giving us superior access to Stealth instead, allowing us to out stealth Thieves in many cases, while still maintaining a very tanky Power/Condie Shatter build.

Not only can you pummel him with Phantasms while Stealthed, but every time you come out of Stealth you will very likely have either Aegis or Protection or both up. Every time you shatter you will Blind him. You will have a lot more Protection+Regeneration then you have now, provided you go with Staff, and as an MtD you also now have IP for the instant Daze/Invuln to counter bursts with.

It will be a completely different story then the current situation. The worst case scenario is that Thieves still are a very strong counter to Mesmers, but the fight will last easily 2-3 times longer then now; which clearly is a bad thing for Thieves in organized PvP.

Exciton.8942:

Remember that most current condie based builds already counters most power based builds.
The reason that condie builds are not usually played at high level is because the meta features warrior, ele and guards who all bring a tremendous amount of condie cleanse. I don’t see the condie builds easily turn the table around.

Very true now, but will this stay that way with the new trait system…especially once Elite specializations are in?

If you want the new shinies you have to give something up. If you do not, maybe for a good reason to better support your team, but then you may face the other team with say a Guardian that drops a 25% Vulnerability AoE trap on your team. Lotta good your massive AE condie clearing will do there. ;-)

I think the choices in general will become tougher and more impactful, and I think Condition builds will benefit to some degree. There are also more Conditions to go around now that have to be cleared. (And higher stack counts on top of generally higher damage, which means that even in short durations before being cleansed, they can have much more impact.)

anet buff condi apllication all over the classes but also buff the ability to cleanse and have resistance
also the ability to stack them higher which now 2 mtd mesmer can work together to apply much higher pressure or even 2 condi class necro and mesmer or engi

which mean team will have to adapt how to play together to support each other

The changes to condi Mesmer will have little impact on sPvP due to the rampant cleansing of on-node fights with the addition of an anti-condi boon. In small scale WvW though, it’s going to be murderous. MtD builds will be of a similar degree of danger, but condi interrupt and PU condi are going to cause some rage, especially with the new duelling specialisation.