Guild Wars 2

*The whole of PvE where we’re exclusively useful in world records. Funny enough balance is made regarding PvP, nonetheless.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Funny enough balance is made regarding PvP, nonetheless.

Yes, and that it’s based on the smallest scale format only is one of the key downsides of ANet’s development process. It messes with all kinds of things. A smarter balance would drop the weird notion (which never worked out for any MMO so far) that if you can balance it 1v1, or 3v3 or 5v5 or whatever your smallest format is, then the balance will linearly scale and 100v100 or 40vPvE will all be balanced because your smallscale PvE was balanced.

serenke.4806:

Ross Biddle.2367:

serenke.4806:

StickerHappy.8052:

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

No matter what anyone else says, no matter what positive spin people try to put on it, Thieves are getting even stronger and we will still have no way to deal with them. Short of receiving active stealth-canceling abilities, Mesmer is and will remain a “PvP-centric” profession that can’t PvP because we are effectively deleted from the game by another profession.

FYI, Thieves only hard counter Zerker Mesmers. NOT ALL.

And every non-zerker mesmer is a joke. I’ve had a nice 1v1 with some yesterday (several different mesmers in different matches) where i could just spam /shrug while they were trying to MtD me or danced around producing clones that did put “copious amounts of conditions” on me that i could cleanse away. Each time i just capped the point while they were pulling off their awesome combos…. Pretty impressive.

They could have killed a thief though. I’ll give them that.

Always depends on the matchup. You build to counter conditions, of course a condition build is going to be countered by you. This shouldnt need stating -_-u

Indeed, but what’s the point of having a thief-killer mesmer who cannot do anything but kill thieves? This shouldn’t need stating either.

And for Pyro, no i am not posturing or exaggerating, but a zerk mesmer (shatter or interrupt) would have been dangerous where these were funny at best.

MTD does fairly well vs most Mesmer specs, as most don’t take copious amounts of condi cleanse. 3x Mantra Mesmers would be difficult for any condition class.

serenke.4806:

And every non-zerker mesmer is a joke. I’ve had a nice 1v1 with some yesterday (several different mesmers in different matches) where i could just spam /shrug while they were trying to MtD me or danced around producing clones that did put “copious amounts of conditions” on me that i could cleanse away. Each time i just capped the point while they were pulling off their awesome combos…. Pretty impressive.

They could have killed a thief though. I’ll give them that.

I have a strong feeling that you will eat these words, and that he who laughs last, laughs the loudest. (Until the nerf of course! WAH! <— Preemptive post-nerf crying! )

What you face with MtD today will be but a bleak shadow of what you will be facing with it after HoT goes live. First of all, all shatter builds will be significantly more survivable (especially MtD though), secondly MtD’s DPS is vastly boosted (IP & MS), and lastly I don’t think there is enough cleansing on any class to so easily counter MtD anymore. (Say hello to Confusion on crit along with bleed on crit, not to mention the improved iDuelist.)

I agree that currently we lack enough cover conditions, and to some degree also lack reapplication of damaging conditions to overcome the cleansing of some of the meta classes. After this update though, you will see AoE Blind added to every shatter, much more Confusion (and much more effective Confusion) in general, and much broader set of weapons choice for Condi Mesmers. (GS Clones for bleed & confusion, and/or hugely improved iDuelist.)

And none of that even factors in what might be possible with Chronomancer abilities, or mixing in more interrupts with MtD to prevent/delay cleanses while also applying more Conditions.

regarding meta build upcoming

imo

power shatter got nice buff so will continue to be the first choise meta build

mtd shatter also got nice buff as mention above combine it with no more 25 stacks limit so i guess we will see some nerf to it (maybe 25 cap only in pvp) or if 2 condi class will work together like necro/mesmer with other mesmer it cab be devestating.

so mtd will become stronger compare to today but other classes and builds got nice add to condi cleasne abilityies . but as all the power builds out there got nice buff will the condi meta enter to power meta is soon to say

lockdown – as for today more ppl start using them but outside the meta pvp. with the nice buff to it will it become meta again hard to tell but i belive yes with the right group (with pug it will be harder)

condi pu – defenetly not

Well, as a mesmer you know that mesmers are masters of illusions…so, all this crying is just another illusion…they cry even if they like the changes with the secret hope of getting even better changes for their class.

Mesmers are never happy even if they have the most OP class ever..:)

StickerHappy.8052:

I mean seriously guys?

We get Nerfs:

• Mesmers are crying.

We Get Buffs:

• Mesmers are crying.

No New Stuff:

• No build diversity! Mesmers are crying.

New Stuff:

• No build diversity! Mesmers are crying.

News about changes without specific details:

• OP! Broken! Mesmers are crying.

It’s such a spectacle here in the mesmer forums. I main a mesmer myself but all I see is crying everywhere.

Why not put all that energy into positive stuff like theorycrafting?

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

No matter what anyone else says, no matter what positive spin people try to put on it, Thieves are getting even stronger and we will still have no way to deal with them. Short of receiving active stealth-canceling abilities, Mesmer is and will remain a “PvP-centric” profession that can’t PvP because we are effectively deleted from the game by another profession.

It’s way too early to make this kind of claim.

Everyone is getting stronger, we don’t know what our or any other 6th trait line will add. With these new trait changes we very we’ll may be able to deal with them, hell Mesmer may be able to spec more tanky now while still dealing damage (chaotic dampening).

There’s too much going on to tell.

Edit: as a smash bros player, I’ve developed an unhealthy hate for jigglypuff x.x

serenke.4806:

Ross Biddle.2367:

serenke.4806:

StickerHappy.8052:

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

No matter what anyone else says, no matter what positive spin people try to put on it, Thieves are getting even stronger and we will still have no way to deal with them. Short of receiving active stealth-canceling abilities, Mesmer is and will remain a “PvP-centric” profession that can’t PvP because we are effectively deleted from the game by another profession.

FYI, Thieves only hard counter Zerker Mesmers. NOT ALL.

And every non-zerker mesmer is a joke. I’ve had a nice 1v1 with some yesterday (several different mesmers in different matches) where i could just spam /shrug while they were trying to MtD me or danced around producing clones that did put “copious amounts of conditions” on me that i could cleanse away. Each time i just capped the point while they were pulling off their awesome combos…. Pretty impressive.

They could have killed a thief though. I’ll give them that.

Always depends on the matchup. You build to counter conditions, of course a condition build is going to be countered by you. This shouldnt need stating -_-u

Indeed, but what’s the point of having a thief-killer mesmer who cannot do anything but kill thieves? This shouldn’t need stating either.

And for Pyro, no i am not posturing or exaggerating, but a zerk mesmer (shatter or interrupt) would have been dangerous where these were funny at best.

Well, based on your experience with MtD, apparently it’s uber bad. My experience with it, however, has given me the impression that it can kill much more than thieves. As Pyro said, you either faced bad players or had a build dedicating much to cleansing or bunkering, given how your statement of “/shrug”ing them can be said of pretty much any bad mesmer running any build, or any bad player of any build[Maybe not turret engi, but you get the point].

I’m not sure if this is a good place but I’ve come up with a “Currently OP” traits list, I would expect some changes to…
Chaotic dampening: 13 second chaos storm, 9 second warlock, easy ~100% chaos armour and protection uptime
Prismatic understanding: 60-70% stealth uptime with veil, MI, prestige and decoy cooldowns reduced, that doesn’t seem very reasonable when you can cast illusions from stealth continually.
Confusing combatants: Clearly ridiculous, expect an ICD or something.
I guess the point is if they aren’t changed, they have a massive impact.

Also, traits that might look different, keep an eye out:
Persistence of memory: 2% is clearly useless, might mean 2s.
Protected phantsms: Cooldown might be leftover from triumphant distortion.
Illusionary Inspiration: Unknown, kitten cooldown could be remnant of signet skill.
Mental torment: In the livestream they mentioned 50% seemed a bit too much in their tests.
Harmonious mantras: Ferocity bonus is not shown. I think it needs to be ~90 per stack to balance out the old trait.

The rest seem reasonably stable.

Its becoming increasingly clear some people here only want a hugbox with no disenting thought.

@OP:
Not everyone is crying. You just have some very loud people “crying”.

Thankfully, there are still plenty of people trying to have actual discussions. Some of the PvE concerns are very good points. Others are being overly dramatic <_<

That being said, +1 for the cupcake on the toolbar.

@Levetty
It’s not whether or not you’re right/wrong … it’s how you come across … some have tried to explain that to you.

Sometimes you make very good points. I like these posts.

Other times you don’t. I’m not a fan of these posts because …

Practically every time you post you’re antagonistic. That is the issue.

Regarding thieves, sure they will still counter us, but we have chaos storm/armor with the new chaotic dampening. Also, we have weakness on interrupt. Interrupt D/P heartseeker (or anything), GG. S/D thief won’t be a thing anymore, and this is actually a good thing for mesmer.

Yeah, I could even see some sort of non-zerk phantasm/interrupt build able to scare away thieves.

I don’t think CC is going to be the answer against any Thief with Acrobatics … 30 ICD on their trait that stunbreaks the CC and refills their Endurance. So unless you think you can CC them twice very quickly and/or quite often, you’re going to simply refill their endurance which will be a pain in your butt … especially given that that same Acrobatics Thief is going to have Vigor that is 20% more effective than anyone else’s in the game.

Quadox.7834:

Regarding thieves -snip-

Regarding thieves, they simply need to tone down thief, NOT buff Mesmer. We are mostly balanced against other classes. Dps guard counters us (and a few other builds by some professions), but it does not hard-counter us which is an entirely different thing.

S/D is most certainly not gone, but a lot of them will trait into deadly arts due to how powerful it becomes. But feline grace nerf can really tone down how much dodges acrobatic thieves have, regardless of 20% extra effectiveness on vigor. Good point on hard to catch though.

You can’t balance instant teleports (thief s/d); Its just not possible – there’s no way to react to it except preemptively. S/D and D/P will be extremely strong still. I’m just extremely happy with the shatter changes

i think thief and mesmer are at the same spot
still thief can counter us mainly due to teleport skills but we can blind them now and with chaos armor put some pressure while being with protection.
the main thing with thief now they have more access to immobilize and endurance but does it mean they will have to abandon the deadly art tree?!

Toeofdoom.6152:

I’m not sure if this is a good place but I’ve come up with a “Currently OP” traits list, I would expect some changes to…

The thing is that we will have no way of knowing what if anything will be OP as every profession in the game is getting significant trait reworks. It can be fun to theory craft builds that seem optimal given the changes, but we have very little context for judging whether a given build will be OP or UP once HoT goes live.

D/P doesnt have instant ports except for steal. This is of course excepting shadow step util since mesmer also has an instant port utility.

And i am 99% sure there will be More dp thieves post patch. We will habdle them ok, but panic strike + executioner in combo with shadow arts/acro is painful

@Quadox:
I believe they were referencing the instant teleport (w/ dmg and immob) that is Infiltrator’s Strike from Thief Sword. That puppy doesn’t even need line of sight … which works well (for the thief) with its associated Infiltrator’s Return.

Feaduin.7603:

The thing is that we will have no way of knowing what if anything will be OP as every profession in the game is getting significant trait reworks. It can be fun to theory craft builds that seem optimal given the changes, but we have very little context for judging whether a given build will be OP or UP once HoT goes live.

In the sense of entire builds being affected it is very difficult but single traits can be out of hand. In that sense PU shouldn’t be on my list, but the others are well justified.

I also think the planned PU mesmer would be far beyond what is reasonable in wvw, but that’s a combination of the duration and massive damage boosts available, not the trait alone.

Toeofdoom.6152:

not the trait alone.

Paired with torch trait, and with the actual numbers, it will be like this:
Prestige = 6s.
Decoy = 6s.
MI = 10s. Prestige is available (22 + 22*0.015*30 = 33s).
Prestige = 6s.
Veil = 8s. We need 2s more so Decoy will be available (6+10+6+8 = 30s).
Decoy = 6s. Prestige is available again (22 + 20*0.015*30 = 31s)
Prestige = 6s.

Total = 36s +12s of stealth with just 2s in the middle.

^ No doubt that is a lot, but of course MI can be interrupted easily, and Veil kinda requires your enemy to be stupid to get 8s without getting mauled in the process. ;-)

I think Anet mentioned though that the percentage on PU is definitely not set in stone and is subject to more testing.

In fact a lot of stuff is, and I’m sure we’ll all be seeing a lot of drama on this board for all the CD changes and the like that we’re obviously going to see before all of these changes go live. ;-)

Ansau.7326:

Toeofdoom.6152:

not the trait alone.

Paired with torch trait, and with the actual numbers, it will be like this:
Prestige = 6s.
Decoy = 6s.
MI = 10s. Prestige is available (22 + 22*0.015*30 = 33s).
Prestige = 6s.
Veil = 8s. We need 2s more so Decoy will be available (6+10+6+8 = 30s).
Decoy = 6s. Prestige is available again (22 + 20*0.015*30 = 31s)
Prestige = 6s.

Total = 36s +12s of stealth with just 2s in the middle.

Yeah, I’ve done the calculations too. The point was perma-stealth builds already exist, but aren’t really a problem unless they can do something after spending several utilities, traits and a weapon choice on it. Of course with IP inbuilt, DE and a damage grandmaster… yeah, it can do quite a lot.

I’d probably prefer it if the torch trait worked in reverse – lowered cooldown for not being in stealth so it’s interesting outside PU builds.

I’d also consider splitting the stealth duration bonus into an adept or master trait – say:
Like Glass: Increases stealth duration by 100%, but stealth weakens you over time (Periodically applies weakness, vulnerability, slow). Then it would overlap with other important traits forcing a choice and add a downside. Could improve PUs buffs as a result.

Oh and re-reading chaotic dampening, it’s probably fine if it only applies protection on the chaos armor cast – I was assuming it did on combos as well. In that case 4-5% reduction per tick is powerful but no longer in the “obviously OP” group.

While I get where you’re coming from the thing to remember is that EVERY class is getting changes and a lot of these number are just place holders. They admitted that themselves. So let’s not get the OP train started so soon please.
Plus they’re finally doing something positive to Mesmers instead of nerfing everything in sight because it’s op(really though it’s because people are to lazy to roll a Mesmer and l2p) So let’s see what happens with the changes they’re proposing then ask for changes.
Like making phantasm vs AoE a more favorable matchup. That’s something to write about.

Honestly, when I’m listing something there… I don’t expect (or even want) them to end up in the final version anyway. These are traits that allow 60% stealth uptime, 100% protection uptime (or so I thought – see previous note) and about 15 stacks of confusion – each at very low cost.

We may have different goals here, but the way I see it… this is how we’ve had DE as a “required trait” since launch! It will be far more interesting if that situation doesn’t repeat itself.

The reason it’s in this thread is that analysis of the meta relies on how you consider those specific traits and whether you assume they’ll be toned down… and how. That said I’ll probably move change ideas elsewhere, and they won’t just be for things that are “too powerful”

Holy fuq, new patch isn’t even out, and people want to judge it by some notes that haven’t even made it into the game yet.

Change can be good, get off ur high horse and wait and see what’s install.