Guild Wars 2

Xaylin.1860:

Pyro already pointed out that you will lose a lot of efficiency as long as you are at max health when using the SoE. You are also assuming a pretty bad playstyle. Why would anyone use their heal if it would overheal? You are basically saying that every burstheal is useless because people are unable to properly time their heal.

Regen based heals directly counteract damage loss due to small hits or light condi damage as they top you off immediately. Burst heals also lose efficiency if you sit at less than full health, but still in the overheal zone for any meaningful time. In that zone the regen based heal will outperform at an even greater pace.

Ether feast is averaged out to 356 healing per second with perfect use (no healing power, 3 clones out, accounting for 1s cast time, immediately used when available). Every second you wait without healing you are losing 356 health. In that sense, an overheal can be potentially the better play if you think the fight will eventually overcome the heal loss from waiting rather than using it now.

This isn’t to argue one way or the other, just to illustrate that each heal has benefits and drawbacks depending on use.

So this skill will make PU mesmers nearly as tanky as rangers, but with less damage and less ability to hold a point.

I’m looking forward to trying it out in roaming and small group play in WvW.

I can see some cases where it will create interesting decisions about using the heal to get another phantasm out.

On the livestream, they mention that phantasms can get destroyed quickly in large battles. That’s true, but it would certainly be a pretty risky move to use this skill and have no healing of any kind for 35 seconds.

It did make me curious about trying out disenchanter again, and I found it quite helpful in a 1v1 with a necro as well as 4v4

I’m glad they have expanded the game with a skill that looks like it will add more decisions

Wait … is this heal only aviable for PvP ? Q_Q

No. But you have to unlock it with skillpoints. Even for PvP.

It’s a Signet :> We can trait it in Domination <3

I cant wait to try it dungeons. I really hope that would help to have 2/3 phantasm up all fight long.

All I see in this and the last update are more ways for enemies to distinguish us from our clones: signets and readied mantras. Signets and mantras penalize a core mechanic of the mesmer. A similar situation would be if a thief’s utilities caused him to be slightly more visible while stealthed, or reduced a warrior’s adrenaline gain rate. I maintain that mesmer needs a thorough re-imagining and I hope ArenaNet is already hard at work on this. Maybe they could hire Shawn Schuster (or some other long-time mesmer fanatic) to consult on the changes. :P

This actually allows us todo a phantasmspike :>

Imagine this:

1. Mirror Blade
2. iBerserker
3. Weapon Swap
4. iDuelist
5. Signet of Domination
6. Signet of the Ether
7. iDuelist
8. Magic Bullet
9. Blurred Frenzy
10. Mind Wrack

Me Games Ma.8426:

This actually allows us todo a phantasmspike :>

Imagine this:

1. Mirror Blade
2. iBerserker
3. Weapon Swap
4. iDuelist
5. Signet of Domination
6. Signet of the Ether
7. iDuelist
8. Magic Bullet
9. Blurred Frenzy
10. Mind Wrack

Now imagine if your enemy:

1. survives

Youd be stuck without any form of healing for 35 seconds :P

I don’t think the enemy won’t do anything during this rota. So you probably simply heal the full amount of the sigill wich won’t waste it.

I already considered that^^ I’m going to make a build with Restrorative Mantras for the gap between healing^^

You always have passive regen from phantasms as well, but that varies of course on how much healing power you have. The potential healing that could take place with this signet plus regen is huge though. In a bunker-ish build with decent healing power the hps is pretty crazy, assuming they will stack.

I won’t even bother using this heal skill. I’m using a zerker mesmer and have phantasms up all the time. but ether feast wins by a long shot. and the mantra has the best potential over all mesmer heal skills.

Coming from Ether Feast, the signet is a big mental shift. When I’m playing in WvW, what I trained myself to do (good or bad) with Ether Feast was to watch for a big health drop and then try to use it. I think in most fights against other players, it’s fairly common to get big drops in health.

My goal is not to use the active on the signet except for when I’m nearly gone – then I have a race to get more damage out (and I should have one or two phantasms readily available – depends on where weapon swap cooldown is). If I’m at deaths door in my typical 1v1 or small group fights, getting 5586 healing and two fresh phantasms is probably better than getting 6876 (ether feast with two illusions).

From a math perspective, I’m looking at this:

I expect signet to average around 220 hps. That’s based on an average of two clones or phantasms out when the tick happens. It’s tricky because illusions die, targets die, and sometimes I shatter.

If I only had two illusions out when I cast Ether Feast, it would heal for 6876.

So when a spike in damage comes, I need to be able to hold out without taking any more damage for about 31 seconds at my 220 hps to get back to the same place that Ether Feast would have put me with the 6876 heal. So I think the problem is that playing with the signet will mean I find myself dropping lower on health more often and feeling like I have to use the signet.

I need to test it a lot more to find out if I’m happy with this. It’s certainly going to feel more stressful at first. I’m working on finding ways to blunt the bursts because that’s the real issue here for me. When the fights don’t have big bursts of damage (like most of the fights I have in PVE), the signet seems great

eldenbri.1059:

Coming from Ether Feast, the signet is a big mental shift. When I’m playing in WvW, what I trained myself to do (good or bad) with Ether Feast was to watch for a big health drop and then try to use it. I think in most fights against other players, it’s fairly common to get big drops in health.

My goal is not to use the active on the signet except for when I’m nearly gone – then I have a race to get more damage out (and I should have one or two phantasms readily available – depends on where weapon swap cooldown is). If I’m at deaths door in my typical 1v1 or small group fights, getting 5586 healing and two fresh phantasms is probably better than getting 6876 (ether feast with two illusions).

From a math perspective, I’m looking at this:

I expect signet to average around 220 hps. That’s based on an average of two clones or phantasms out when the tick happens. It’s tricky because illusions die, targets die, and sometimes I shatter.

If I only had two illusions out when I cast Ether Feast, it would heal for 6876.

So when a spike in damage comes, I need to be able to hold out without taking any more damage for about 31 seconds at my 220 hps to get back to the same place that Ether Feast would have put me with the 6876 heal. So I think the problem is that playing with the signet will mean I find myself dropping lower on health more often and feeling like I have to use the signet.

I need to test it a lot more to find out if I’m happy with this. It’s certainly going to feel more stressful at first. I’m working on finding ways to blunt the bursts because that’s the real issue here for me. When the fights don’t have big bursts of damage (like most of the fights I have in PVE), the signet seems great

Be warned though. there is a 35 second interval after the activation of the signet where you have no healing whatsoever. You can trait it to 28 seconds (what you WILL need to do) but that still is a period in witch you can not rely on the passive effect.

But If your build allows you to not use heal for a longer period of time. then maybe it will work.

I cant see how this signet wont be viable in a PU build, at the very least. Dom VI, Chaos IV , iDefender, Sigil of Leeching and ready access to stealth and its defensive boons looks pretty tanky to me.

Viable, sure. But what’s the heal really bringing to the table compared to Ether Feast in PU build?

IME at least PU builds are still subject to condition and burst pressure, and the signet heal is quite weak in both areas compared to other options.

I,m not so sure its as weak as you might think nor can its active be so easily dismissed. Condition and burst pressure are a 2 way street and i,d rather not be starting a fight with 2 duelists blasting away at me.

Except they aren’t that hard to kill, and then the mes is a sitting duck for half a minute.

So, high-risk, high-reward I suppose. But frankly I’d rather just summon two different phantasms and still be able to heal.

Yeah, the trouble is signet is best at keeping you ‘topped up’ over time while you wear the enemy down. If you start the fight by using the active, sure you get extra burst but all the passive regen you would be benefiting from is lost. By the time it comes back, you’d likely have lost enough HP to chip damage that you’d just need to activate it again.

I feel like I’d be better off starting by keeping the passive, and saving the active heal for panic moments. Imagine being near death, then suddenly healing up, and being able to drop an iDefender + two damage phantasms immediately, regardless of cd. That should be a tide-turner, and hopefully enough to win you the fight. (If not, you’re boned. :p)

I feel like the cooldown is far too high though. Warrior healing signet has a 20 second untraited cd (16 with trait!), and passively heals for more than ours does with 3 illusions up (which is really very hard to maintain!) … even 25 seconds (20 traited) would be acceptable, 35 is just way too much.

Yes i agree. My comment about facing 2 duelists at the start of a fight was made more for effect than as a preferred method to use the signet. I do think the signet offers enough, when traited and complimented with other passive damage reduction/regen sources, to see it used in some builds.
The next few weeks should be interesting as ppl try to nut out its potential or just simply dismiss it out of hand.