Guild Wars 2

OH how i Wished for this day to come..
The GOOD OLD Days When thief would eat us with no possible counter.
Oh…..how I missed does days..

I sense a lot of (annoying) negativity in this thread.
First, let’s wait for an actual list of changes before we complain.

Second, to all those “PvE is killed by whiners in PvP”, this is not true. PvP gets killed by PvE at least as much. The elite specs have destroyed PvP, mostly because of excessive CC. This excessive CC was added to the game to make sure everyone could destroy breakbars in PvE. Yes, devs actually take into account both modes in their balance, and this often hurts both modes.

For the case of mesmer, alacrity was too strong, this is a fact. And the best way to see it is PvE. With the amount of quickness and alacrity a chrono could provide to the group, he could be valuable even if he had strictly 0 DPS. Actually, he could be valuable even with negative DPS. Some napkins math show that a chrono boosts the DPS of each party member by about 40%. That means that a chrono with 0 DPS still provides about 160% of the DPS of other group members. The chrono DPS itself is not 0, let’s say (pessimistic) 40% of the DPS of the other classes, we now get that the chrono provides 200% of the DPS other classes provide.

Even if alacrity is reduced by half, a chrono would be necessary in a party.

Finally, I want to say that alacrity should NOT be the sole solution to chrono PvE viability. All classes should be able to have a DPS role, and not be forced into an exclusive support role. As people mentioned, our damage in PvE is too low, but guess what, in PvP too. A good balance would not only reduce our alacrity efficiency, but also increase our sustained damage. One easy way to do this in PvE would be to allow damage multipliers to affect phantasm DPS too. This would not break PvP where phantasms die in the first AOE anyway.

There are many ways to have good PvE and PvP balance without splitting the 2. A-net just needs to figure it out.

Silverkey.2078:

Even if alacrity is reduced by half, a chrono would be necessary in a party.

Strictly speaking, by your napkin math halving alacrity would make taking a chrono equivalent to taking another above-average dps party member, so taking a superior dps class (e.g. ele, sinister engi) would likely outperform.
So halving alacrity either in effect or in possible uptime would push chrono out of the meta, by your math.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Silverkey.2078:

Even if alacrity is reduced by half, a chrono would be necessary in a party.

Strictly speaking, by your napkin math halving alacrity would make taking a chrono equivalent to taking another above-average dps party member, so taking a superior dps class (e.g. ele, sinister engi) would likely outperform.
So halving alacrity either in effect or in possible uptime would push chrono out of the meta, by your math.

Actually not. Because the 40% increase DPS is counting quickness + alacrity, so halving only alacrity does not push the result to 20%. And even if it did, that would give us 80% (halved alacrity+quickness) + 40% (our own DPS) = 120%.

So still above average.

Silverkey.2078:

Finally, I want to say that alacrity should NOT be the sole solution to chrono PvE viability. All classes should be able to have a DPS role, and not be forced into an exclusive support role. As people mentioned, our damage in PvE is too low, but guess what, in PvP too. A good balance would not only reduce our alacrity efficiency, but also increase our sustained damage.

This is what I have the most concerns about. The blip on Mesmer balance doesn’t mention anything on actually bringing Mesmer dps in line with other professions to offset the hit to support.

Silverkey.2078:

Actually not. Because the 40% increase DPS is counting quickness + alacrity, so halving only alacrity does not push the result to 20%. And even if it did, that would give us 80% (halved alacrity+quickness) + 40% (our own DPS) = 120%.

So still above average.

This calculation is assuming we can maintain 100% alacrity still.

If alacrity’s effect is halved, then the cooldowns of said skills that provide alacrity are increased. Longer CDs = reduced up time.

The question is if “bringing alacrity in-line” means literally reducing alacrity’s effect or just reducing the ways in which we apply alacrity.

Myrias.8732:

Silverkey.2078:

Actually not. Because the 40% increase DPS is counting quickness + alacrity, so halving only alacrity does not push the result to 20%. And even if it did, that would give us 80% (halved alacrity+quickness) + 40% (our own DPS) = 120%.

So still above average.

This calculation is assuming we can maintain 100% alacrity still.

If alacrity’s effect is halved, then the cooldowns of said skills that provide alacrity are increased. Longer CDs = reduced up time.

The question is if “bringing alacrity in-line” means literally reducing alacrity’s effect or just reducing the ways in which we apply alacrity.

This is true. To be fair, I hope they didn’t halve the effect, though I know a-net can be drastic sometimes. It was just to make a point. Their description is very vague “make it easier to balance” seem like they might have changed something fundamental on what alacrity is.

The wording is extremely vague for sure. Could mean…
– reduce alacrity effective-ness
– revamp which abilities give alacrity and how much
– revamping alacrity-based traits
– limiting/eliminating shared alacrity

If I was a betting man, I’d wager the last point is most likely. Removing shared alacrity definitely fits the “easier to balance” portion of their statement as you only have to consider the casting mesmer for balance.

Silverkey.2078:

Myrias.8732:

Silverkey.2078:

Actually not. Because the 40% increase DPS is counting quickness + alacrity, so halving only alacrity does not push the result to 20%. And even if it did, that would give us 80% (halved alacrity+quickness) + 40% (our own DPS) = 120%.

So still above average.

This calculation is assuming we can maintain 100% alacrity still.

If alacrity’s effect is halved, then the cooldowns of said skills that provide alacrity are increased. Longer CDs = reduced up time.

The question is if “bringing alacrity in-line” means literally reducing alacrity’s effect or just reducing the ways in which we apply alacrity.

This is true. To be fair, I hope they didn’t halve the effect, though I know a-net can be drastic sometimes. It was just to make a point. Their description is very vague “make it easier to balance” seem like they might have changed something fundamental on what alacrity is.

Also dont forget the math you made about pseudo-dps presumes optimal party members. IF their dps/rotations are not that optimal/perfect or even the classes are not the best/meta, all that will decrease even further.
Also remember they announced ele/druid/theif offensive buffs. Ele being dps god and druid also bringing some support….. i dont know.. lets wait and see.

Rome.7124:

Azukas.1426:

Fay.2357:

Azukas.1426:

Seriously everyone needs to stop thier kittening. Since June 23rd every big patch has made us top dog in this game.

Haha what?

Azukas.1426:

Think about the actual classes that are hurting (warrior/thief).

You mean the ones that are described as getting multiple substantial buffs in the preview?

I’m thinking your version of reality needs a second opinion.

No multiple substantial buffs were revealed. Stop with the drama. I mean someone stated that thieves will wreck us just by clicking on our names again….seriously they discussed buffing AAs….

The most alarming thing I saw was the buffing of necro/druid. Not feeling that but we’ll see.

So just cut it out and let’s see what happens.

Anet hasnt had good track record when it comes to Mesmers, you cant blame us for feeling negative. ANd I think you are underestimate how much “buffs” thieves will receive.

I’m calling it, Mesmers and Revenants will be nerfed out of meta.

Please name this track record that anet has.

As for thief the preview literally said auto attacks and acrobatics. Could there be more? Maybe but we don’t know.

Azukas.1426:

Please name this track record that anet has.

Maim the Disillusioned nerfed before it made it to live.
Duelists Discipline nerfed before it made it to live.
Confusing combatants removed before it made it to live.
Lost Time ICD added which killed its use most anywhere over Chronophantasma
Phantasmal Mage is still terrible
Scepter AA is still terrible

Most changes can be argued either way, so who am I to say which changes are inherently bad/good. I personally view the above as being the most pressing and recent changes made that are questionable.

Myrias.8732:

Azukas.1426:

Please name this track record that anet has.

Maim the Disillusioned nerfed before it made it to live.
Duelists Discipline nerfed before it made it to live.
Confusing combatants removed before it made it to live.
Lost Time ICD added which killed its use most anywhere over Chronophantasma
Phantasmal Mage is still terrible
Scepter AA is still terrible

Most changes can be argued either way, so who am I to say which changes are inherently bad/good. I personally view the above as being the most pressing and recent changes made that are questionable.

Really that’s your list of recent transgressions against mesmers?

You do know that 1/2 of it was never released and only 1 point is an actual nerf….meanwhile chrono kills the game (along with rev)

This can be nothing good for Mesmer. lol I’m not even excited about the Scepter changes…

Guys, guys, buffs to warrior, reworkings on berserker, there’s only good things to be happy about!

Oh right, Mesmer. Well, scepters so far out of fashion now, it needed redesign 2 years ago XD

Alacrity is cray cray,w e all know it. But let’s be fair, if you’re gonna complain because a nerf might knock you out of PvE viability…. come on, its’ PvE, what are you doing PvE’ing in this game. At its foundation it’s terrible. But ok, I suspect a nerf to either self applied alacrity, or group support alacrity. I suspect the former as that’ll help cull the latter, but overall Chrono will still provide team alacrity support which will keep everybody else happy. Ultimtly it’ll mean nothing for you pve raiders XD

As for self alacrity, you’ll have to take a more selfish setup to proc major uptime.

Mes res was utterly broken, and broke PvE. However Mes will still be a strong resser simply because he can still trait for feedback on res, and resistance on glamor. The quickness had to go and good riddance.

Chrono will still remain a strong bunker with great team utility and sound team support. We still also have our boonshare support options too. Hopefully nerfs to other classes will open up our diversity again. What happened to our power role? What about our well strengthened controll/interrupt? The op meta setup pushed these out, they need to be allowed back in.

But who cares! Mesmer got boring. The worlds gotta spin to bring back the excitment it used to hold, sadly.

Onward with Berserker then!

Just for Mr Napkin maths, if you increase everyone’s DPS by 40% in the party they don’t suddenly do 200% more DPS together, they do exactly 40% more.

Example:
5 people do 10k dps gives a party dps of 50k.

Replace 1 with a chrono and miraculously make the chrono do 10k dps.
Now you have 5 people doing 14k dps giving a party dps of 70k. Exactly 40% more. I know, quickness factors in etc but I’m just addressing how this guy got a party doing over 200% more damage because of a 40% boost.

At the topic in general, so long as alacrity isn’t nerfed too much it should be ok, still got a lot of quickness to help with long casts and extra autos. PvP looks bleak though….

Azukas.1426:

Myrias.8732:

Azukas.1426:

Please name this track record that anet has.

Maim the Disillusioned nerfed before it made it to live.
Duelists Discipline nerfed before it made it to live.
Confusing combatants removed before it made it to live.
Lost Time ICD added which killed its use most anywhere over Chronophantasma
Phantasmal Mage is still terrible
Scepter AA is still terrible

Most changes can be argued either way, so who am I to say which changes are inherently bad/good. I personally view the above as being the most pressing and recent changes made that are questionable.

Really that’s your list of recent transgressions against mesmers?

You do know that 1/2 of it was never released and only 1 point is an actual nerf….meanwhile chrono kills the game (along with rev)

Well, there’s also that one time they nearly made DE only create clones when there weren’t any other illusions out. We had to yell on all the forums with RIOT to avoid that.

On the topic of iMage, they changed it to burning instead of 4 stacks of Confusion, pre-condition change, then never changed it after DoT condi became stacking, thus it still sucking while before people could get some use out of the confusion.

While not a nerf, I’d like to point out that non-Chronos still have to rely on DE for shatter fodder while our ability to maintain phantasms and produce clones in other scenarios is still screwed. Since the beginning of the game. Yeah…

Hm, let’s see, I think I had one more… Well, how far back can we go here? I could point to Glam Bombing to say that ANet nerfed a combo which discouraged spamming, and then I could also point to the ridiculous CD on Cry of Frustration and say that they haven’t thought about it since the beginning. There was the Mimic from a little while back which just copied boons from a target. That’s fixed now, of course, but it happened.

Oh, and then for the longest time there was Swiftness on our Focus, which was unable to stack with any other source.

To name a few things.

There’s still plenty which we can say “This has been horrible since the beginning and was never fixed/buffed”, but then I feel the list would be too long.

apharma.3741:

Just for Mr Napkin maths, if you increase everyone’s DPS by 40% in the party they don’t suddenly do 200% more DPS together, they do exactly 40% more.

Example:
5 people do 10k dps gives a party dps of 50k.

Replace 1 with a chrono and miraculously make the chrono do 10k dps.
Now you have 5 people doing 14k dps giving a party dps of 70k. Exactly 40% more. I know, quickness factors in etc but I’m just addressing how this guy got a party doing over 200% more damage because of a 40% boost.

At the topic in general, so long as alacrity isn’t nerfed too much it should be ok, still got a lot of quickness to help with long casts and extra autos. PvP looks bleak though….

I never pretended you increase your party DPS by 200%. I said that your own “effective” DPS then corresponds to 200% of the average DPS of other members.

Taking your example, you are in a team which can do 10K per person. That is 40k DPS without you. But since you increase this by 40% and do 4k DPS yourself, with you the party DPS is 60k, meaning your effective DPS is 20k, which is indeed 200% of the DPS of the other players.

These are only napkin maths, but writing my maths on a napkin just makes them approximate, not stupid.

I’m thinking they nerf the .75 sec alacrity on shatter to .5, reduce some well alacrity, and some other things+stuff.

Stand The Wall.6987:

I’m thinking they nerf the .75 sec alacrity on shatter to .5, reduce some well alacrity, and some other things+stuff.

In other words, a total overreaction? Sounds like Anet.

It seems like they want to take away some of the power that bunker mesmers have, which I can understand, but I certainly hope that other builds become more viable, as it’s the only strong PvP role for the mesmer.

Power shatter can’t keep up with other DPS based classes, and condition shatter offers little utility for teammates.

The simplest ways to remove Chronobunker is to remove quickness Rez, check and to stop CS from allowing double Elite, that would normallize Chronobunker without destroying the class

One change that I want is to remove the Root from BF, if we could get that I would be slightly more happy.

I think nerfing alacrity from 66% recharge to 50% recharge is fine. Anything harsher than that will probably make it feel like a “meh, nice to have” boon that you don’t pay much attention to (or spec for), rather than one that is actively applied to yourself and allies.

Id like them to keep the amount of alacrity we can generate for a party as it is very very nice. Toning down the recharge seems sensible, course they might have to alter chill too but given it slows people to a crawl, massively increases recharge and is the source of much reaper QQ I think we will see both drop to 33-50% while remaining opposites.

@Silverkey, I see what you mean now. However there are already classes that do a hell of a lot more dps than a mesmer, all it takes is for alacrity to be nerfed too much and classes to get less effective benefit from quickness and Mesmer is completely gone.

Given that mesmer has had deep seated core problems only made slightly better over 3 years I don’t hold out much hope that mesmers will not be seen in any content except WvW roaming. You know unless this acro buff becomes SD on steroids for thieves in which case Mesmer won’t be viable anywhere.

After the way they completely screwed us over with the trait rework by nerfing everything to kitten after release, I wouldn’t hold my breath about any improvements.

639 days and Duelist’s Discipline is still broken.

Any new or improved skills will either
1) not work
or
2) be nerfed a few days after introduction.

msalakka.4653:

639 days and Duelist’s Discipline is still broken.

No, they fixed it. They nerfed it before they fixed it, but they fixed it :P

AlphatheWhite.9351:

msalakka.4653:

639 days and Duelist’s Discipline is still broken.

No, they fixed it. They nerfed it before they fixed it, but they fixed it :P

So it’s now broken in the other sense of the word, I guess. It works, but it’s trash.

It’s decent if like me you sometimes play condi with pistol (I prefer it to torch). It is mostly good for the skill recharge on interrupt, but it does also add some condi damage.

Silverkey.2078:

It’s decent if like me you sometimes play condi with pistol (I prefer it to torch). It is mostly good for the skill recharge on interrupt, but it does also add some condi damage.

Wasn’t it proven that phantasmal fury was strictly better than DD bleed-wise? The only thing DD offers is the CDR on interrupt.

Myrias.8732:

Silverkey.2078:

It’s decent if like me you sometimes play condi with pistol (I prefer it to torch). It is mostly good for the skill recharge on interrupt, but it does also add some condi damage.

Wasn’t it proven that phantasmal fury was strictly better than DD bleed-wise? The only thing DD offers is the CDR on interrupt.

Quite the opposite. DD is strictly better than PF, bleedwise.
It’s an easy exercise:

• PF = +20% crit chance
• Sharper Images = bleed on crit
• Ergo, PF = +20% bleed chance
• DD = +33% bleed chance
• The bleeds are the same duration, so DD gives a 1/3 bleed chance while PF gives a 1/5 bleed chance.

PF’s advantages: other phantasms are benefitted; iDuelist’s physical damage is also improved

DD’s advantages: more bleeds; pistol recharging; isn’t wasted if phantasms get fury from somewhere else

There’s a case to be made that a hybrid build would get more dps from PF in pve because of the improved physical damage. I haven’t done that math yet. That would be added to by the fact that you can’t get interrupts off breakbars, which would further weaken DD.

Azukas.1426:

Rome.7124:

Azukas.1426:

Fay.2357:

Azukas.1426:

Seriously everyone needs to stop thier kittening. Since June 23rd every big patch has made us top dog in this game.

Haha what?

Azukas.1426:

Think about the actual classes that are hurting (warrior/thief).

You mean the ones that are described as getting multiple substantial buffs in the preview?

I’m thinking your version of reality needs a second opinion.

No multiple substantial buffs were revealed. Stop with the drama. I mean someone stated that thieves will wreck us just by clicking on our names again….seriously they discussed buffing AAs….

The most alarming thing I saw was the buffing of necro/druid. Not feeling that but we’ll see.

So just cut it out and let’s see what happens.

Anet hasnt had good track record when it comes to Mesmers, you cant blame us for feeling negative. ANd I think you are underestimate how much “buffs” thieves will receive.

I’m calling it, Mesmers and Revenants will be nerfed out of meta.

Please name this track record that anet has.

As for thief the preview literally said auto attacks and acrobatics. Could there be more? Maybe but we don’t know.

Considering autoattacks constitute the majority of DPS of many classes, including the revenant’s broken kitten DPS autoattack (which is getting nerfed thank god), I don’t see how you can wave off autoattack increases.

Classes whose majority of competitive DPS comes from auto:

1- Revenant
2- Ranger mainhand sword (their only viable and very flawed weapon)
3- Condi necro, dagger necro, Reaper before 50% health Gravedigger spam.
4- Guardian
5- Staff daredevil
6- Dagger ele with lightning whip

In fact, most of the DPS inbalance in PvE in this game comes from the vast disparity in autoattack potency across the classes.

One thing I’d like, though, is traits which modify or enhance boonstripping. We have a lot of it and I feel synergy in specializing in neutralization is in order.

Zenith.7301:

Azukas.1426:

Rome.7124:

Azukas.1426:

Fay.2357:

Azukas.1426:

Seriously everyone needs to stop thier kittening. Since June 23rd every big patch has made us top dog in this game.

Haha what?

Azukas.1426:

Think about the actual classes that are hurting (warrior/thief).

You mean the ones that are described as getting multiple substantial buffs in the preview?

I’m thinking your version of reality needs a second opinion.

No multiple substantial buffs were revealed. Stop with the drama. I mean someone stated that thieves will wreck us just by clicking on our names again….seriously they discussed buffing AAs….

The most alarming thing I saw was the buffing of necro/druid. Not feeling that but we’ll see.

So just cut it out and let’s see what happens.

Anet hasnt had good track record when it comes to Mesmers, you cant blame us for feeling negative. ANd I think you are underestimate how much “buffs” thieves will receive.

I’m calling it, Mesmers and Revenants will be nerfed out of meta.

Please name this track record that anet has.

As for thief the preview literally said auto attacks and acrobatics. Could there be more? Maybe but we don’t know.

Considering autoattacks constitute the majority of DPS of many classes, including the revenant’s broken kitten DPS autoattack (which is getting nerfed thank god), I don’t see how you can wave off autoattack increases.

Classes whose majority of competitive DPS comes from auto:

1- Revenant
2- Ranger mainhand sword (their only viable and very flawed weapon)
3- Condi necro, dagger necro, Reaper before 50% health Gravedigger spam.
4- Guardian
5- Staff daredevil
6- Dagger ele with lightning whip

In fact, most of the DPS inbalance in PvE in this game comes from the vast disparity in autoattack potency across the classes.

Easily because if they are auto attacking us they are standing in our wells playing to our strengths. If you can’t adjust your gameplay to account for a slight increase in thief auto attacks then you need to rethink your strat

Azukas.1426:

Easily because if they are auto attacking us they are standing in our wells playing to our strengths. If you can’t adjust your gameplay to account for a slight increase in thief auto attacks then you need to rethink your strat

I don’t think anyone here thinks increasing thief’s auto attack is going to hurt bunker mesmer. What they are afraid of is that they are going to nerf bunker mesmer until its not meta or useful. They are already taking away its rez power. Additionally, I have seen people complaining on this forum that they need 2 people to take down a bunker mes. I don’t understand how anyone is surprised by this. This is the way its suppose to be. If you are playing bunker mes and can’t hold against 2, then you are hurting your team. You don’t even have close to the dps of other classes like scrappers. This means you can’t capture points. Basically, if they follow the advice of other people in this forum and nerf mes until it can’t hold long agains 2 people, then scrapper and ele will easily take its place because they would then be able to do what the bunker mes could do, only they would be more useful (heals for ele and dps for scrapper (In addition to other buffs these classes may get after the patch)). However, to be honest, I personally don’t care if the nerf bunker mes until ints not meta or useful. In my opinion, its a boring build to play and others don’t like playing against it either. It slows down the game. However, if you take away bunker mes, what build are mesmers going to fall back on? Probably either condition or burst shatter. This is where the problem is. Nerfing alacrity, and perhaps anything else they decide to nerf, will probably not only hurt bunker mesmer, but these builds as well. At the same time, they are going to buff the thief so that it can easily take down zerky/glassy mesmer builds (just like the way they used to in the past), which essentially takes them out of the meta. If they make it so you can’t use elites in continuum split, boooom, all of these builds are dead. This is what I am afraid of at least, that they are not only going to kill bunker mes, but all mes builds. At the same time, conditions are still flying around all over the place. However, the only condi removal traits are in the inspiration line (at least theif has dodge to remove condis). I think both dom/duel/chrono and chaos/illusions/chrono could be very good builds for burst shatter and condi builds. However, I’m not sure they will make it to meta with no condi removal. Based on this, and for the sake of build diversity in other classes), I think it would be nice if they added a sigil that had a little more ummf to condi removal. Just an idea. However, if bunker mes dies, I think future meta mesmer build “X” might need it.

As far as WvW : Chronomancer team-wide alacrity (All’s Well That Ends Well in particular , in combination with the Illusionary Avenger), should have half effectiveness on siege or something : right now it is so ridiculously strong when a WvW team is using close range catapults that I refuse to play my necro / ele when hitting keeps.

If they decrease the potency of alacrity from 66% to say 50% or even 25%, they ought to change the alacrity duration from shattering illusions to be slightly longer (as in removal of the +50% duration Improved Alacrity trait for something else). An alternative is for the shatters themselves to not be affected by alacrity. Mind Wrack is a culprit with its 12 base cooldown.

For PvP, Arenanet likely needs to look at inspiration’s Restorative Illusions , due to how often you can shatter with Mind Wrack. If you wanted to nerf bunker chrono you’d up the recharge on Inspiring Distortion to 15 + seconds & nerf the heal on Restorative Illusions (particularly the 0 illusion heal). Without Restorative Illusions you’re just relying on regeneration / block /evade (distortion) / protection on staff chaos armor if traited (Chaos Storm and every single Well except Gravity well can give you Chaos armor if you use Phase Retreat). In its current iteration, with an alacrity reduced recharge on Mind Wrack , you’re getting 800+ heals / condi cleanse on minimal cooldown. There was the foresight to add 15 cooldown to Illusionary Membrane but there’s no recharge on Restorative Illusions.

the restorative illusions is not an issues in most cases, couple with the nerfs to alacrity depending what they are and the need to Quickness Rez/Stomps that would be a heavy handed need and would drop Mesmer from being Viable in any role. Since with the vagueness of all of the “Goals” some classes will not receive nerfs. Once the alacrity is fixed the RI would most likely be kept in check, and for RI with 0 illusions is healing on the assumption of one illusion up constantly due to the Baseline.

I apologize if this is a little incoherent phone is screwing with me.

Infusion.7149:

As far as WvW : Chronomancer team-wide alacrity (All’s Well That Ends Well in particular , in combination with the Illusionary Avenger), should have half effectiveness on siege or something : right now it is so ridiculously strong when a WvW team is using close range catapults that I refuse to play my necro / ele when hitting keeps.

If they decrease the potency of alacrity from 66% to say 50% or even 25%, they ought to change the alacrity duration from shattering illusions to be slightly longer (as in removal of the +50% duration Improved Alacrity trait for something else). An alternative is for the shatters themselves to not be affected by alacrity. Mind Wrack is a culprit with its 12 base cooldown.

For PvP, Arenanet likely needs to look at inspiration’s Restorative Illusions , due to how often you can shatter with Mind Wrack. If you wanted to nerf bunker chrono you’d up the recharge on Inspiring Distortion to 15 + seconds & nerf the heal on Restorative Illusions (particularly the 0 illusion heal). Without Restorative Illusions you’re just relying on regeneration / block /evade (distortion) / protection on staff chaos armor if traited (Chaos Storm and every single Well except Gravity well can give you Chaos armor if you use Phase Retreat). In its current iteration, with an alacrity reduced recharge on Mind Wrack , you’re getting 800+ heals / condi cleanse on minimal cooldown. There was the foresight to add 15 cooldown to Illusionary Membrane but there’s no recharge on Restorative Illusions.

You are making huge assumptions. Thus the let’s wait for notes statement fits so well here.

Azukas.1426:

Zenith.7301:

Azukas.1426:

Rome.7124:

Azukas.1426:

Fay.2357:

Azukas.1426:

Seriously everyone needs to stop thier kittening. Since June 23rd every big patch has made us top dog in this game.

Haha what?

Azukas.1426:

Think about the actual classes that are hurting (warrior/thief).

You mean the ones that are described as getting multiple substantial buffs in the preview?

I’m thinking your version of reality needs a second opinion.

No multiple substantial buffs were revealed. Stop with the drama. I mean someone stated that thieves will wreck us just by clicking on our names again….seriously they discussed buffing AAs….

The most alarming thing I saw was the buffing of necro/druid. Not feeling that but we’ll see.

So just cut it out and let’s see what happens.

Anet hasnt had good track record when it comes to Mesmers, you cant blame us for feeling negative. ANd I think you are underestimate how much “buffs” thieves will receive.

I’m calling it, Mesmers and Revenants will be nerfed out of meta.

Please name this track record that anet has.

As for thief the preview literally said auto attacks and acrobatics. Could there be more? Maybe but we don’t know.

Considering autoattacks constitute the majority of DPS of many classes, including the revenant’s broken kitten DPS autoattack (which is getting nerfed thank god), I don’t see how you can wave off autoattack increases.

Classes whose majority of competitive DPS comes from auto:

1- Revenant
2- Ranger mainhand sword (their only viable and very flawed weapon)
3- Condi necro, dagger necro, Reaper before 50% health Gravedigger spam.
4- Guardian
5- Staff daredevil
6- Dagger ele with lightning whip

In fact, most of the DPS inbalance in PvE in this game comes from the vast disparity in autoattack potency across the classes.

Easily because if they are auto attacking us they are standing in our wells playing to our strengths. If you can’t adjust your gameplay to account for a slight increase in thief auto attacks then you need to rethink your strat

Um, I’m not talking about PvP balance, I’m talking about PvE. I’m talking about the fact that thieves have so much more autoattack DPS than mesmers and yet it’s their autoattack that’s getting buffed while we got a miserable 10% increase a few months ago. It’s a farce.

Besides, you could make the same argument that revenants with their broken autoattack are also standing in your wells since autoattack and sword 2 is their main source of damage, yet revenants do pretty well against mesmers regardless and a while ago thieves did as well.

I mean, if you’ve played a thief you know the autoattacks are filler in between revealed debuff timers, so it’s free damage they’re getting and a thief isn’t just gonna stand there off your wells doing nothing while you pelt him from a distance with phantasms until Revealed debuff wears off and they can blackpowder heartseeker combo into a backstab.

I thinks it’s pretty obvious the intent is to nerf Chronomancers out of the game. ANET hates it when Mesmers are successful.

Ithilwen.1529:

I thinks it’s pretty obvious the intent is to nerf Chronomancers out of the game. ANET hates it when Mesmers are successful.

It’s not ANET.

ANET just responds to PvP crybabies, and PvE players are held hostage as a result since they refuse to split PvE/PvP balance.

PvP will never be balanced in people’s eyes so long as developers don’t grow the balls to tell the players they don’t balance for 1v1’s but rather team fights so their bruised dueler egos can rest easy knowing their QQ is dismissed.

Class balance is easy to achieve in PvE, you just adjust for DPS. In PvP it’s impossible since people compete on different skill levels and compositions so the perception of OP varies wildly. It’s virtually impossible to balance with just some numbers tweak.

I don’t care about Scepter, and whether or not it gets buffed. The auto stinks. The block is buggy as all crude and doesn’t work in most pve scenerios- plus that delay on the block- for the clone summoning is laughable, considering it’s instant on our shield block- Oh and scepter 3- Which i am assuming is what they would be buffing- Since this is a pvp balance after all- Dosen’t really affect me as i just pve.

In regards to the alacrity nerf- As a pve player- where does this leave me? Exactly where i was before. A utility class offering less utility than the strongest dps classes, while pushing out the lowest dps in game. Awesome.

Dahmerkitten.1385:

I don’t care about Scepter, and whether or not it gets buffed. The auto stinks. The block is buggy as all crude and doesn’t work in most pve scenerios- plus that delay on the block- for the clone summoning is laughable, considering it’s instant on our shield block- Oh and scepter 3- Which i am assuming is what they would be buffing- Since this is a pvp balance after all- Dosen’t really affect me as i just pve.

To be fair, the preview reads like the actually reworked the Scepter or at least related traits quite significantly. So this patch might be pretty good for Scepter and make it more relevant.

That said, that looks to be about it.They would have mentioned things which actually mattered for the class as a whole otherwise. I listed several issues earlier which probably should have higher priority than Scepter (e.g. systematic issues with stuff like break bars or our aweful DPS – hello, Thieves…) or are easier to fix (e.g. adjusting the effectiveness of vanilla OH-weapons). And then, of course, there is stuff like our underperforming traits and utilities which apparently haven’t been their focus.

But let’s see what information they will provide in the next stream.

They balance PvE for party contribution, attributing supportive bonuses as bonus damage dealt by the supportive class.

Balancing DPS to all be similar is a notion that makes no sense. Rangers historically (only now not true because of the incoming damage to pets changes) had lower AA DPS than even mesmers. What makes classes used in PvE is their ability to provide the entire party with more damage than it had before. It’s why ranger/druid is good. It’s why mesmer is now very useful. It’s why PS is used on warrior, and why boons play such a critical role as to allow other players to just keep dealing damage.

Details incoming:

• alacrity recharge 66% → 33% ( meaning the cooldowns will be reduced by 25% max)
• precog applies aegis every pulse instead of invuln
• malicious sorcery: increase attack speed further
• chaos armor: blind replaced by weakness, swiftness increased

“We are looking into scepter to buff it”.

Malicious Sorcery – This trait applies attack speed while wielding scepter. Increased from 15% to 20%.

Thats like raising a salary by 100 bucks… a year.

That combined with the complete nerf of the chaos armor/alacrity is going to remove mesmers from pro league pvp. Only the brave shatterers will stay ~ Not sure, but I kinda like it.

They gutted Chaos Armor… I can’t even freakin believe this…

This cuts down both the offensive and defensive potential of by killing blind which means it can no longer proc confusion with traits…

THIS on top of the ICD Chaos Armor already has…. It’s completely useless now…

Don’t forget the superior sigil of energy nerf to shatter mesmers on top of bunker mesmers.

“Sigil of Energy: the functionality of this Sigil is changing slightly. Instead of granting 50 endurance on weapon swap, Sigil of Energy will instead grant 5 seconds of vigor to the player with the usual 9 second ICD. This change only applies to PvP.”

Is that it? Will there be more on patch day or is this the complete list? The changes for all clsses seem pretty lack luster. Sure some nice buffs to some of classes, except Mesmer of course which got gutted, but it didn’t even live up to my small expectations based on the blog post.

Malicious Sorcery – This trait applies attack speed while wielding scepter. Increased from 15% to 20%.

This is a nerf. Well I guess this is more a bug fix then a nerf but it sure as hell doesn’t actually do anything to help the Scepter.

I have no idea why 66% alacrity was introduced the first place if it’s now considered to be that overpowered. I mean, it’s pretty clear what it does. It’s not like a creative use of the buff has let to unintended consequences. Why did they not see this?

Poor mesmers had the same thing with Time Warp not long after launch!

DeceiverX.8361:

They balance PvE for party contribution, attributing supportive bonuses as bonus damage dealt by the supportive class.

Balancing DPS to all be similar is a notion that makes no sense. Rangers historically (only now not true because of the incoming damage to pets changes) had lower AA DPS than even mesmers. What makes classes used in PvE is their ability to provide the entire party with more damage than it had before. It’s why ranger/druid is good. It’s why mesmer is now very useful. It’s why PS is used on warrior, and why boons play such a critical role as to allow other players to just keep dealing damage.

Of course, you got to see it within in a respective context. But how is this even an argument for your point here? Mesmer DPS has been crappy for ages. The only thing keeping Mesmers in a meta have been gimmicks. Portal. Veil. Time Warp. Currently it’s Alacrity and to some degree Quickness. Just as you said: You got to consider the additional support a class brings. However, now this thing making Mesmers at least slightly relevant is getting nerfed. Go figure why people ask for better sustained damage. It’s not rocket science. Otherwise the costs of opportunity to bring a Mesmer are too high.

Regarding the Ranger example, please don’t even go there. Mesmers had and have the same pet related issues Rangers have. Ranger Sword have been on par or even outdamaging Mesmer Sword for ages now.